A Deadly Affection (35 page)

I was trying hard to remain objective, although by now, I felt as if I were floating several feet above the ground. “Of course, she is only thirty-five,” I cautioned, releasing his arm as we reached the intersection. “I suppose it's possible that she could start showing symptoms later on.”

He turned to face me. “It's highly unlikely that she'd be completely symptom free at this point if she had the disease. Especially if her father is the suspected carrier, as you've mentioned. Three generations of my family have administered to these afflicted souls, Doctor, and our combined case records have yielded some very interesting statistics. One curious thing I've discovered is that when the disease is passed by the father, the offspring show the symptoms at an earlier age than when they receive it on the maternal side. I was inclined to dismiss this as coincidence at first, but recently, other researchers—Hoffman and Curschman, to name just two—have remarked on it as well. Now, the more I look for it, the more I see it. Not only does the disease appear earlier with paternal transmission, but it also progresses more rapidly and with more severe symptoms. Hoffman noticed something else, which my own records support: if the disease is passed by males in successive generations, the onset will occur progressively earlier.”

“You mean the victims will be younger and younger in each generation?”

“Precisely.”

“Why should that be?”

He shook his head. “I wish I knew. Like so many other things about this disease, it leaves me baffled.”

“But based on your understanding, if Eliza had inherited the disease from her father, she would definitely be showing symptoms by now?”

“That is my considered opinion, yes.”

If only Dr. Hauptfuhrer had waited to hear these same words! Instead, he had panicked and run to Lucille with his worst fears, costing him and his daughter their lives. “I never really believed that she had it,” I gushed, riding a fresh wave of relief. “It was just that Olivia seemed so clumsy at the ball, and then there was that story about her falling, and it was all just so odd and unexplained that I started to think it must be related in some way…”

“I'm sorry; I don't remember you mentioning anyone named Olivia.”

I realized that if he'd never communicated with Dr. Hauptfuhrer, he couldn't know about Eliza's daughter. “She's Mrs. Miner's illegitimate daughter, although I'll have to ask you to keep that in confidence, as it isn't generally known. Dr. Hauptfuhrer attended Olivia's birth and arranged for her to be adopted. I think he came to believe that the daughter had inherited Huntington's chorea and intended to warn her once you'd confirmed that her mother was ill.”

“I see,” the doctor said. “And how old is the child now?”

“She just turned twenty.”

“And you say she's been acting clumsily?”

I told him what I'd personally witnessed on the night of the ball, along with what Bartie had related. “But of course, she's far too young to be manifesting the signs of chorea. And her movements are stiff rather than rolling or writhing. Stiff and slow. Almost forced.”

“You say her hand seemed to jerk toward the glass when she knocked it over,” he repeated, stroking his goatee.

“Yes, I saw it quite clearly.”

“What about her speech? Do the vowels seem to fall short?”

“Well, I didn't speak to her at any length. I do remember thinking she sounded a little…flat, but I assumed she was just feeling a bit downcast because of her situation. She's being courted by a titled foreigner, you see, and everyone around her has been holding their breath, waiting for him to propose.”

“Curious. I'd love to have a look at her sometime if I could.”

“But she can't be affected,” I said in surprise. “You said yourself, the disease never skips a generation.”

“It never has, to my knowledge. I'd be interested in taking a look, all the same.”

“I'm afraid that would be difficult to arrange. She doesn't have any idea of Dr. Hauptfuhrer's suspicions. Although I suppose if you wanted to observe her from afar, you could go by the lake in Central Park tomorrow evening. Olivia will be attending a skating party there; I believe it starts at six o'clock. You could watch her from the bank, and no one would be the wiser.”

“Perhaps I will, if I'm not otherwise engaged.” He smiled ruefully. “That's one of the privileges of getting older: having the time and freedom to satisfy one's idle curiosity.”

He looked tired as he said this despite his smile, and I took it as my cue to say good-bye. “Thank you again for coming, so very, very much,” I said, shaking his hand. “You may very well have saved Mrs. Miner's life.”

“It's always a pleasure to deliver good news.”

I watched him cross Third Avenue, feeling the weight on my shoulders lighten by half. He was clearly a man of integrity, and I was hopeful that he'd be able to make Maloney accept the truth, no matter how little the detective wanted to hear it. I would go see Maloney myself after they had met and see if he was ready to consider another suspect. With Lucille planning to leave the city on Saturday and Eliza's grand jury trial apt to be called at any moment, I couldn't afford to wait any longer. It was time to lay everything I had learned—along with Hagan's pen and ink jar—on the table.

The Twenty-Third Precinct station house on East Eighty-Eighth Street was a plain brick building with bars across the lower windows and a mixed fleet of bicycles, motorcycles, and patrol wagons parked out front. I followed the doorman through the bustling booking area, nervous as a hen in a fox's den, keenly aware that the information I was about to divulge could be used against Eliza if the detective saw fit. I could only hope that his earlier meeting with Dr. Huntington had cracked his mind open to new possibilities.

The doorman led me into a room in the back, where half a dozen clerks were clacking away on typewriters. The wall behind them was covered end to end with photographs of what I assumed were wanted and convicted felons. Through the open doors in the hallway on my right, I could see uniformed men hunched over piles of files and official-looking forms. The doorman led me in the opposite direction, past a row of washrooms and a janitorial closet, around the corner into a truncated hall. The doorman rapped on the only door in the hallway. “You've got a visitor,” he announced, before retreating the way we'd come, leaving me standing at the door.

Detective Maloney sat at a child-size desk under an unshaded electric light, in what looked like a converted supply room.

“Well, well, look who's here,” he said, sitting back in his chair.

“Good afternoon, Detective.” I glanced around the cramped space. The desk, two chairs, and some hard-used file drawers were the only furnishings. There were no framed clippings on the walls commemorating promotions or notable arrests, no plaques honoring years of service or involvement in charitable activities. The only item on the walls at all, aside from a calendar advertising Pope Military Bicycles, was a faded photograph of a man in an old-fashioned, double-breasted police uniform. The subject was an older, fleshier version of Maloney, with the same humorless mouth, and eyes that seemed to be challenging the camera. I guessed he was Maloney's father, the man Simon suggested had been murdered by his own peers because of his refusal to participate in graft.

“If you're here to gloat, you can just turn right around,” the detective said.

“I'm not here to gloat,” I said, crossing the few feet to his desk. “I'm here to give you evidence.”

Surprise flared in his sunken eyes.

“That's what you wanted from me, wasn't it?” I asked, settling onto the chair across from him. “Evidence to help you convict the murderer? Well, I'm here to give it to you.” There were stacks of file folders, arrest reports, and Bertillon cards piled on both sides of the desk. Taking Dr. Hauptfuhrer's list from my bag, I laid it in the narrow space between them and slid it toward him. “Starting with this.”

He picked it up, frowning at me with suspicion, and flipped through the pages. “This don't look like psychological records to me.”

“It's not. It's a list of babies that Dr. Hauptfuhrer delivered in secret over a period of twenty-three years.”

He cocked a rust-colored eyebrow. “Hauptfuhrer delivered babies?”

“In secret,” I said again. “Apparently, he took them from mothers who didn't want them or were told they couldn't keep them and sold them to barren women of means.”

He flipped back to the beginning and scanned the pages more slowly. “Where'd you get this?”

“From the doctor's filing cabinet. I went back to his office after the murder.”

His head snapped up. “You're telling me you stole this from the crime scene?”

I shrugged. “Somebody had to try to find out the truth,” I replied, with more nonchalance than I was feeling.

“Do you realize I can have you thrown in jail for—”

“Yes, yes, I know, Detective,” I broke in with a sigh, “but why don't you at least let me tell you what I've discovered before you throw another innocent person into jail?”

He scowled at me, tossing the list onto the desktop. “All right, let's hear it. But this better be good.”

I explained first how the list worked, leaning across the desk to point to the various columns. Next, I told him about the birth announcements I'd located in the newspapers, identifying some of the prominent families who were on it.

“So what about it?” he asked when I was done. “Are you saying this had something to do with the doctor's murder?”

“Come now, Detective, you're an intelligent man,” I said, sitting back. “Surely you can figure it out.”

“Why don't you spell it out for me?” he drawled.

“Every person on that list had a secret that Dr. Hauptfuhrer could have revealed, which means that every one of them had a potential motive to kill him. Now that you know Eliza doesn't have Huntington's chorea, you have no grounds to assert that she killed the doctor in some sort of irrational fit. That being the case, I respectfully suggest you consider the possibility that someone else committed the crime.”

He looked down at the list, tapping his pencil against the desktop. “And you're suggesting I question everybody on this list?”

I sat up straighter, sensing a breach in his resistance. “That won't be necessary. I've already narrowed down the field for you.” Taking a deep breath, I told him everything.

He listened without interruption, his chin propped on one fist, his eyes darting over his knuckles with each new revelation. “You realize you just gave Mrs. Miner a reason to kill the doctor,” he said when I was done. “If he took her baby, she would have had it in for him.”

“I gave you a lot more than that,” I retorted. “Even if you could explain why Eliza would kill the only person who could help her locate her daughter—not to mention why she'd wait twenty years to do it—she had no reason to kill Miss Hauptfuhrer or to try to kill me by throwing me in the meat cooler. Lucille, on the other hand, would need to silence all three of us to ensure that her secret remained safe.”

He mulled this over, his pencil tapping more rapidly on the desktop.

“There's more,” I said. I extracted the bundle from my purse and placed it before him, unfolding the handkerchief corners to reveal the pen and inkwell inside. “I took these from Hagan's desk.”

He bent for a closer look. The light from the overhead fixture threw his eye sockets into shadow, accentuating the gauntness of his face. For the first time, I noticed the lines of fatigue that ran down the sides of his nose, and the hair that straggled over his ears, badly in need of a cut. Detective Maloney, it struck me, did not lead an easy life. As he reached for the handkerchief I saw that his nails were bitten to the quick, and that he wore no wedding ring. Seeing him in this barren little cubicle, set apart from his fellow officers with nothing but piles of files to keep him company, I had a sudden, visceral understanding of the lonely life he'd carved out for himself after his father's death.

He pulled the items toward him by a corner of the handkerchief. “Did you touch them?”

I shook my head.

He contemplated the nest of potential evidence, rubbing his chin. “Why would Hauptfuhrer tell Mrs. Fiske her daughter was sick if he never got confirmation?”

“I expect he thought a wedding announcement was imminent. He was probably hoping she'd postpone it until a definite diagnosis could be made. He understood that the disease was hereditary and no doubt felt that if Olivia was afflicted, the Earl should be informed.”

I waited while he mulled this over.

“The Fiskes are leaving town on Saturday,” I prompted when several more moments had passed. “If you're going to question them, you'll need to do it soon.”

He looked from the list to the evidence and back again, still frowning and rubbing his chin. I felt a fresh wave of anxiety. He
had
to agree to investigate the Fiskes. There was no other way to prove Eliza's innocence. Catching a glimpse of the photograph over his shoulder, I had a sudden inspiration. “I understood the Maloneys were men of honor,” I said.

He looked up sharply, as if suspecting a hidden taunt.

I nodded toward the picture on the wall. “It's what he'd tell you to do, isn't it? Make sure that no stone is left unturned?”

He swiveled toward the picture, then back toward me, surprise and acknowledgment written clearly on his face.

I could tell I'd hit a bull's-eye. “If I'm right,” I went on, “and you don't investigate, an innocent woman could go to the electric chair.”

He sat back slowly in his chair, lips pressed into a hard, thin line.

I held his gaze, willing him to concede, knowing that if this didn't work, I had nothing left in my bag of tricks.

“All right,” he said finally. “I'll have them dusted for prints.”

Relief sapped my limbs. “Can you do it today?”

He flipped open his watch. “I suppose I could get them there in time.”

“What about comparing the prints to the ones on the sword?” I pressed. “Can that be done today as well?”

He grimaced. “We got a little thing called procedure for evidence in custody,” he said sourly. “But I should probably have an answer by late tomorrow.”

I stood up, hardly able to contain my excitement. “Could you let me know as soon as you find out? You can telephone me at my home.” I wrote the number on a scrap of paper and handed it to him. He pocketed it without a word.

Impulsively, I held out my hand. “Thank you.”

He didn't take it. “Don't get me wrong. My money's still on Mrs. Miner.”

I let my arm drop. “Don't worry, Detective. I wasn't about to accuse you of having a heart.”

• • •

I retraced my steps down the maze of corridors and out of the building, feeling as though I had just moved a mountain. With the lab checking the fingerprints and the police investigating the Fiskes' activities, Eliza's vindication might only be a few days away. Now that I finally had some cause for celebration, I was eager to share my news.

And not just with anyone, I admitted to myself as I drew up at the end of the block. I wanted to share it with Simon. I looked down the avenue toward his saloon. I was ashamed that I'd ever suspected him of pushing me into the meat cooler. He had gone out on a limb to help Eliza, and I wanted to tell him about her clean bill of health so he'd know we'd been right to believe in her.

As if of their own accord, my feet turned south toward the Isle of Plenty. I owed it to him to keep him informed, after all. While I was at it, I could find out why he'd been asking for me on the morning of my captivity and put that little mystery to rest.

To my great disappointment, he was not at the saloon when I arrived. A man eating fried potatoes at the counter informed me between mouthfuls that he was over on Eighty-Ninth Street, at a “relo” near the river. I left the saloon and turned in the direction the man had indicated, unsure of my precise destination. As it turned out, I needn't have worried; I saw Simon the moment I stepped onto the block in question, sitting atop a heap of furniture and bric-a-brac stacked in the middle of the sidewalk.

I stopped, transfixed by the sight. He was leaning back over a faded carpet that had been thrown on top of the haphazard pile, his knees bent over a battered bureau underneath, popping peanuts into his mouth as he chatted with a man in a woolen cap who was standing on the sidewalk beside him. A stout woman in a red head kerchief sat on an overturned bucket at the man's feet, clutching a small box to her chest as she watched three little boys pitch pennies against the nearby stoop.

A
relocation
. That's what the man in the saloon had meant. These people were being evicted. One saw it every now and then: a family turned out onto the street with all their possessions, regardless of the season or time of day. I was wondering if I should wait to speak with Simon another time when he looked up and saw me. Straightening my hat, I continued to the foot of the pile.

“What are you doing here?” he asked when I was within earshot.

It was hardly the warm welcome I'd been secretly hoping for. I smiled up at him uncertainly. “I heard you were looking for me.”

“Who told you that?”

“Your man, Donald Kearney. He said you came looking for me at Eliza's yesterday morning.”

There was no mistaking the surprise that flashed across his eyes. He hesitated for a full two beats before saying, “You must have misunderstood him. I did stop by, but only to ask if he'd seen anyone go in or out during the night.”

He was lying; I was sure of it. I stared at him in dismay, not wanting to believe what my eyes and ears were telling me. I'd been convinced, after my last chat with Lucille, that it was she who'd arranged my ordeal in the meat cooler. But if that were true, why wouldn't Simon want me to know that he'd been asking for me at the shop? The only reason I could think of was that he'd gone there to determine whether I'd escaped from my imprisonment during the night. “Do you make a habit of stopping by the Brauns' shop at the crack of dawn?”

He must have heard the edge in my question, because his own tone was curt as he replied, “A woman had her head chopped off a few days ago, and the possible perpetrator is out of prison because of me. It seems to me the least I can do is check on her whereabouts every now and then.”

How I wanted to believe him. If he'd just admitted that he'd been asking for me and given some plausible explanation, I would happily have done so. But Kearney had no reason to lie to me, while Simon… I bit my lip, trying to see past the boy I'd known, into the mind of the man before me.

“All right,” he said gruffly, glancing across the street. “I told you I haven't been looking for you, so you can be on your way.”

I wasn't going anywhere, I decided. Not until I knew what he was playing at. “We need to talk.”

“Now's not a good time,” he said, looking back across the street. “I'm busy.”