In the Shadow of Gotham

IN THE SHADOW
of
GOTHAM

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

IN THE SHADOW OF GOTHAM
. Copyright © 2009 by Stefanie Pintoff. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.minotaurbooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Pintoff, Stefanie.

In the shadow of Gotham / Stefanie Pintoff.—1st ed.

      p. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-0-312-54490-4

ISBN-10: 0-312-54490-1

  1. Police—New York (State)—Fiction.  2. Murder—Investigation— Fiction.  3. Criminologists—Fiction.  4. New York (State)—History— 20th century—Fiction.  5. Westchester County (N.Y.)—Fiction.  I. Title.

PS3616.I58I5 2009

813'.6—dc22

2008045676

First Edition: May 2009

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For Craig and Maddie

No book, especially a first one, comes about without the support of many people. First and foremost, thank you to everyone at Minotaur Books and Mystery Writers of America for giving me what is truly a unique opportunity.

Special thanks go to Kelley Ragland, who has been a wonderful collaborator and terrific advocate, and to those at St. Martin’s Press who helped to bring this book to publication.

Thanks to David Hale Smith for excellent advice and guidance.

This novel was tremendously improved by those who read portions of it as a work in progress: Marianne Donley, Gita Trelease, Karen Odden, Barbara Fischer, and especially Natalie
Kapetanios Meir, whose ready encouragement and keen insight were invaluable.

Thanks to all my family—but to no one more than Craig, who always believed this day would come. He is a tireless and dedicated creative partner, without whom this book would not have been possible.

Finally, in grateful memory of Elaine Flinn, who first discovered me. No one could have been more generous and encouraging.

 

 

 

 

 

 

While nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer;
nothing is more difficult than to understand him.

 

—attributed to Fyodor Dostoevsky

IN THE SHADOW
of
GOTHAM

Dobson, New York

Tuesday, November 7, 1905

The scream that pierced the dull yellow November sky was preternaturally high-pitched. Its sound carried effortlessly, echoing through a neighborhood of Queen Anne Victorians into the barren woods beyond, fading only as it descended toward the Hudson River. Those who heard the sound mistook it for that of an animal—perhaps the call of a screech owl, maybe the shrill cry of a loon. No one believed it to be human.

I did not hear it myself. I can only describe it as others did, after the fact.

But memory can be an odd thing. The report of that inhuman sound, relayed countless times, took root in my mind. It played upon my imagination, creating an impression so vivid it came to seem authentic. I know all too well that memory sometimes
refuses to let die what we most want to forget. But now, I also know that memory can create something that never really existed. That is why this particular scream haunts me as surely as though I had been present, then and there, to hear it with my own ears. And I cannot mistake its origin: I know it is Sarah Wingate’s dying cry, sounded just before her brutal murder.

News of her death came as the oversized grandfather clock in our office chimed five o’clock. My boss, Joe Healy, never one to stay a minute late, was putting on his coat, ready to leave for the day.

“You’ll lock up when you’re done?” Joe tucked his scarf around his neck.

I was at my desk finishing the paperwork for an arrest I’d made that morning. Thomas Jones had shown up for work at the Conduit and Cable factory with a hot temper and liquor in his belly, an unhappy combination that led him to sucker punch his foreman.

“Of course,” I said, turning over the final page in the file. “Only Tuesday and our third assault this week.” I blotted my pen before I signed and dated the report. “At this rate, the local paper will proclaim it an epidemic and we’ll have the women’s temperance union on our doorstep. Though I’d say it was lucky the assailant in each case was drunk. Men who can’t see straight rarely land a solid punch.”

We were interrupted by the sound of footsteps clattering up the short flight of stairs that led to our office at 27 Main Street. I stiffened with a flash of foreboding, for no one ever rushed toward our headquarters. After all, the sort of serious crime that might lead anyone to need a police officer in a hurry tended to circumvent the sleepy village of Dobson, New York, at the turn of the century.

Charlie Muncie, the young man who served as village secretary and had taken charge of the building’s sole telephone downstairs, brought a terse message from Dr. Cyrus Fields. He needed our immediate assistance at the Wingate home.

“Mrs. Wingate’s home on Summit Lane?” Joe asked, frowning in puzzlement.

There was only one Wingate family in town but I understood why Joe was perplexed. The Wingate home was in the estate section of town, and Dr. Fields was not the preferred doctor of Dobson’s wealthier residents. One of several local physicians who served in rotation at the county morgue, he also treated the blue-collar factory workers in neighborhoods along the waterfront. He partnered closely with us on calls involving domestic disputes or drunken brawls since, if the altercation were in progress, we could intervene more effectively than the portly but diminutive doctor. The affluent classes of Dobson preferred Dr. Adam Whittier, who catered to their whims with absolute discretion. While rumor had it their homes were not immune to violent disputes, they tended to handle such matters behind a wall of secrecy. The police, certainly, were never involved.

“Did Cyrus say what’s happened?” Joe asked. A stout man in his early sixties with bushy white hair and a normally pleasant, ruddy face, today he glared at the young man as though it were his fault Joe’s dinner would get cold.

“He says there’s been murder done.” Charlie whispered the words as though he were frightened to utter them.

In an instant, I recalled the reason why. His mother had worked for Mrs. Wingate as a house keeper for years. He would have practically grown up in the Wingate house hold. In fact, the one time I had met the elderly Mrs. Wingate, she had come
by the village offices to vouch for Charlie’s character and recommend him for the secretarial job he now held.

“Who’s been murdered?” Joe’s voice thundered more loudly than he must have intended.

“The doctor said it was a young lady. A visiting relative. But he gave no details.” Charlie’s face blanched. For a moment, I worried he might faint.

“He told you nothing more because your mother is fine. Not to worry.” I patted his shoulder and tried to smile reassuringly. I knew Charlie was eighteen already, but right now, he seemed little more than a boy. “And not a word to anyone, okay? Not yet.”

He nodded in agreement as I grabbed my coat and worn leather satchel. Joe and I then sprinted to the corner of Main and Broadway, where we hailed one of the waiting calashes that hovered near the trolley stop. It was not far to the Wingate house. However, it was situated at the top of a steep hill—and we were in a hurry.

Once we were seated, I glanced over at Joe, the “chief” of our two-man force. Tight lines framed his mouth as he drew his oversized black wool coat closer to him in a futile attempt to ward off the icy gusts of wind from the Hudson River that buffeted the carriage.

“When did you last see a murder case in Dobson?” I asked. My voice was quiet so the driver would not hear.

“Why? You’re worried I’m not up to it?” He bristled and gave me a withering look that I did not take personally. My hiring five months ago had been the mayor’s doing, part of his plan to modernize Dobson’s police resources by adding a younger man with newer methods. I was thirty years old and a seasoned veteran of the New York City Police Department’s Bureau of
Detectives, specifically the Seventh Precinct. But Joe had been Dobson’s sole police officer ever since the police department was first created. After twenty-seven years on his own, he did not welcome the addition of a new partner, believing I was the replacement who would force him into retirement. His dark suspicions often strained our relationship.

It was several minutes before he spoke again, and when he did, his answer was grudging.

“In the winter of ’93, a farmer was shot dead,” he said. “We never solved it.” He shrugged. “But we also had no more trouble of that sort. Always figured the culprit was someone from the man’s past with a personal score to settle.”