Murder on Amsterdam Avenue (20 page)

“Is this your daughter?” she asked, setting her bag down on the floor.

He nodded. He still held her hand.

Sarah could see the girl's chest rising and falling, however slightly. “May I examine her? I might be able to help.”

“Help?”

“I'm a nurse,” she reminded him. “I think I know what made her sick. Please.”

With obvious reluctance, he released the girl's hand and rose from his chair, stepping back to make room.

Sarah picked up her bag and set it on the now-empty chair. Rummaging through it, she pulled out the stethoscope and listened to the girl's heart and lungs, then checked her pulse and looked in her eyes and mouth. The symptoms of arsenic poisoning were difficult to distinguish from many other ailments, and they could be completely wrong about what had afflicted these women, but the similarities of their illness with Charles Oakes's was simply too much of a coincidence.

“Reverend Nicely, are you ill, too?”

The poor man was so haggard, he might well be. “Me? No, not at all.”

“Can you tell me how your wife and daughter and Daisy first became ill, then?”

“Not really, no. Everyone was fine after the church service. Rose, my wife, she had made Sunday dinner, and we invited Sister Daisy to join us. We hadn't seen much of her since she moved uptown, and she was mourning the death of a young man she'd grown very fond of.”

“Charles Oakes.”

He seemed surprised she knew his name. “Yes, that's right.”

“So you all had dinner together. Did you eat the same things everyone else did?”

“Yes, of course. My wife is a very good cook . . . I mean, she was . . .” His eyes filled with tears.

Sarah had to keep him on track. “Are you sure? You ate everything that was served?”

“Yes, I told you.”

“And how long after you ate did they become ill?”

“I . . . I don't know. One of my parishioners is dying, and her family sent for me. They thought the end was very near, and she was asking for me.”

“How long were you gone?”

“Several hours, I think. I don't know. I didn't pay any attention, but when I got home, they were all three very sick. I gathered that Sister Daisy was the first to fall ill, but I didn't . . . I couldn't ask them many questions by then. I asked one of the neighbor ladies to help, and when the word spread, several of our parishioners came. They did all they could, but . . .” His voice broke and he began to sob.

Sarah put her arm around him and led him back to the front room. An overstuffed chair held a place of honor by the front window, and she took him to it and sat him down. Zeller and the woman were gone. Sarah hoped they were getting her some milk, for what little good that might do for poor Isabel Nicely. “I'll do what I can for Isabel,” she said.

“I'll pray for her,” he said, pulling out a well-used handkerchief to wipe his face.

“Pray for me, too,” she said.

•   •   •

M
rs. Burgun had a key to the house, so they didn't have to wait for someone to answer their knock. The house seemed very quiet as she led Frank upstairs to the bedrooms.

“This is his room,” she told him when they stopped outside one of the doors. “I'll check on Miss Adderly.”

Frank knocked and a strange man opened the door. “Are you the doctor?”

“Yes, and you must be Mr. Malloy. Mr. Adderly's been asking for you.”

Frank stepped into the room and wrinkled his nose at the stale odor of vomit. The well-furnished room appeared to
have been the master's, full of heavy mahogany pieces and papered in a dark maroon. Obviously, Adderly had chosen the best room in the house for himself. He lay in the imposing four-poster bed, looking awful.

“You're still alive,” Frank observed.

“Just barely. Thank God Dr. Younger came when he did.”

Frank turned to the doctor. “Did he tell you he'd been poisoned with arsenic?”

“Yes. He claimed his cousin put it in his whiskey. I understand she's not entirely herself.”

“She's not entirely anything,” Frank said, “although Adderly here went to great pains to get her declared sane so she'd be released from the Asylum.”

“It's a hospital,” Adderly said weakly.

Frank ignored him. “What have you done for him?”

“There's not much you can do for arsenic once it takes hold. I pumped his stomach and gave him a purgative, in hopes of ridding his body of as much of it as possible.”

Frank saw an empty glass on the bedside table with white residue at the bottom. “What's that?”

“Milk.”

Frank thought of Charles and the milk he'd drunk the night he died. “What does the milk do?”

“We think it binds the arsenic, and it does soothe the throat and stomach.”

“Do you think it was really arsenic?”

The doctor shrugged. “It could be that or gastric fever or any number of other things.”

“And if it really was arsenic?”

“I don't have a lot of experience with arsenic. Not many people get poisoned, at least not that I've seen.”

Frank had to agree. Most people avoided eating arsenic.
It was the sensible thing to do. “I guess it's promising that he's still alive.”

“Malloy,” Adderly said, “you have to do something about Ella.”

“What would you like me to do?”

“I . . . She tried to kill me.”

“Are you sure? Because I thought she put the arsenic in the whiskey to kill Charles Oakes.”

“Who is Charles Oakes?” the doctor asked.

“A fellow who died from arsenic poisoning the other day,” Frank said.

“Oh my.”

“Yes, well, he'd just visited Ella and drank some of Adderly's whiskey, and Ella was mad at him.”

“Angry,” Adderly said.

“Oh yes, sorry. She was angry. She doesn't like to use the word
mad
because that also means
crazy
.”

“I see,” said the doctor, although he didn't seem to.

“So we suspected she might have put arsenic in the whiskey that Charles Oakes drank.”

“And then Mr. Adderly drank some of the whiskey, too,” Dr. Younger guessed.

“Yes, he did,” Frank said.

“You have to do something, Malloy,” Adderly said.

Frank wasn't too sure about that. “What do you want me to do? Take Ella back to the Asylum?”

“No!” Adderly cried, confirming Frank's suspicions.

“But what if she really tried to kill you?” Frank asked as innocently as he could manage. “She's dangerous. She might go after Mrs. Burgun or one of the servants next.”

“I'm sure it was an accident that I drank the whiskey. She's not violent,” Adderly insisted. “She's just . . .”

“Dangerous,” Frank repeated. “Is there some reason you don't want to take her back to the . . . uh . . . hospital?”

“I can't put her back in that horrible place,” Adderly said.

“But she'd be safe there,” Frank said. “
You'd
be safe, too.”

Adderly moaned.

“I think my patient needs to rest now,” Dr. Younger said.

“I had the whiskey tested,” Frank told the doctor. “I'll be waiting downstairs for the results, if you need me.”

Frank wandered around the house until he located a maid who showed him to the front parlor. Then he sent her in search of Mrs. Burgun.

She arrived a few minutes later with the doctor in tow.

“How is Miss Adderly doing?” Frank asked her.

“She's quiet, but she usually is this time of day. I didn't tell her Mr. Adderly is sick.”

“Didn't she already know?”

“She forgets things.”

“So, Doc, what do you think?” Frank asked.

“What do I think about what?”

“Do you think Adderly will live? Do you think he was really poisoned?”

“Like I said, there's really no way to tell for sure unless Miss Adderly admits she put arsenic in his whiskey. Did she actually say that?”

Frank glanced at Mrs. Burgun, who shook her head. “I guess not. I know a fellow who can test the stomach of a dead person to find out.”

“I can't imagine Mr. Adderly would allow you to do that test on him,” Dr. Younger said with some amusement.

“I think you're probably right.”

“Do you suppose we could have something to eat?” the doctor asked Mrs. Burgun. “I never had any breakfast.”

“Of course,” she said. “I'll go speak to the cook.”

“And in the meantime,” Dr. Younger said to Frank, “you can tell me about this fellow Charles who got himself poisoned.”

•   •   •

I
sabel Nicely was barely conscious, so Sarah could only get a few drops of milk into her at a time. It certainly wouldn't do to try to pour it down her throat and end up drowning her instead. She had, at least, stopped vomiting. Her poor body was exhausted, though, and Sarah didn't know if she was resting and on her way to recovery or simply in the last stages of a coma before death. All she could do was keep trying to get her to swallow some milk, so that's what she did.

Isabel looked to be about sixteen, with perfect skin the color of coffee with cream. Under other circumstances, she was probably lovely. She had her whole life ahead of her, and Sarah was furious at whoever or whatever had tried to cut that life short.

When she had finally succeeded in getting the entire glass of milk into the girl, she stepped back out into the front room to see how the Reverend Nicely was doing. He still sat in the chair where she'd placed him. Zeller sat at the kitchen table, his head in his hands. Both men scrambled to their feet when they saw her.

“Isabel?” Nicely asked, fear and hope warring in his bloodshot eyes.

“She's resting.”

“There's some coffee if you'd like,” Zeller said.

“Thank you.” She glanced at the kitchen area of the room.

“I'll get it,” Zeller said, hurrying to serve her. He was probably grateful for something to do.

Sarah sat down at the table, and Nicely sank back down into his chair.

“I've been trying to think what they could've eaten to
make them sick,” he said, looking around the room. “But there's nothing here that hasn't been here all along.”

“And nobody's visited you recently?” Sarah asked.

“No one in the past few days except Sister Daisy.”

That was it, then. “She must have brought something with her.” It was the only explanation that made sense. If someone wanted to poison Daisy . . . But why would anyone want to do that? Revenge for Charles, if Daisy had indeed poisoned him? Or something else? And how had they done it? “Did she bring something for your dinner? Or a gift perhaps?”

“No . . . Oh, wait, a gift, yes! There was something! Now I remember. She said she had a treat for us.”

“What kind of treat?”

“She didn't say. She just said it was for later, after we ate.”

“And she didn't give it to you?”

“Not while I was here.”

But she must have given it to the women after he left. Sarah tried to think what it could have been. Mrs. Ellsworth was always bringing her something, usually a pie or a cake, which would be a traditional offering if one were invited to dinner. But Daisy didn't have access to the kitchen at the Oakes house. She couldn't have brought them something she'd made herself. Had she purchased something? But what? And where would she have gotten it? And how would she have carried it here without Mr. Nicely noticing? And who would have poisoned it? And when and how? Too many questions and not a single answer.

Zeller set a cup of coffee down in front of her. She thanked him. “What was Daisy carrying when she came?”

“I didn't pay any attention.”

Sarah glanced around. “Do you see anything that you don't recognize that might have been hers?”

The Reverend Nicely glanced around. He could easily see
every corner of the room from where he sat, and after a moment he said, “There, by the door.”

A worn carpetbag sat forgotten against the wall. Zeller snatched it up. “Yes, this was hers. Mrs. Gerald gave it to her.”

“What's in it?” Sarah asked. Zeller brought it to her and gently laid it on the table, making her remember that he had cared for Daisy. Sarah opened it with the same gentle care and rummaged through it, finding nothing but a few odds and ends, a bit of knitting, and a handkerchief. If she'd carried something with her that had brought death to her and her friend, no trace of it remained. “It must be here someplace, though,” Sarah said. “Reverend Nicely, can you help me look?”

They made short work of the front room. The kitchen area provided the only storage space, and they found nothing but the remains from the dinner Mrs. Nicely had cooked herself and the Reverend Nicely had obligingly eaten of without any ill effects. Mrs. Nicely's and Daisy's bodies were in the Nicelys' bedroom. They'd moved Daisy in there after Mrs. Nicely passed, he explained. They searched in silence out of respect for the dead, but found nothing.

Nicely stopped by his wife's body, which lay on the bed, wrapped in a sheet, and touched her head tenderly. “I guess I should call the undertaker,” he said after a moment. “I just hate to let her go.”

“Mrs. Gerald will take care of Daisy,” Zeller said from the doorway. “She told me specially to bring her home.” His voice broke on the last word, and he turned away.

“That's kind of her,” Nicely said. “But I suppose it's only right, since they were sisters.”

•   •   •

F
rank had long since finished telling Dr. Younger all he knew about Charles Oakes and his mysterious death,
but the good doctor was still trying to puzzle out what could have happened. They agreed Ella Adderly could have poisoned him the first time with her cousin's whiskey, but how could she have managed it the second time, and it was impossible for her to have given him a third dose that evening at his home.