Murder on Amsterdam Avenue (21 page)

Tired of discussing it, Frank decided to change the subject. “Doc, what do you know about insanity?”

“About as much as anyone knows, I guess.”

“Do you see a lot of it?”

“More than I'd like. Melancholia mostly.”

“What's that?”

“The patient falls into a depressive state and is unable to bring himself out of it. He takes no pleasure in anything, even things that would normally bring him pleasure. He often will take to his bed and be unable to eat or even rise and dress himself. I say ‘him,' but it's mostly females who are prone to this malady, I'm afraid. It seems more prevalent among the poor, too, although they often have good reason to be depressed.”

“And when you have a patient like this, what do you do with them?”

“There's not much I can do. In particularly severe cases, people sometimes take their own lives, but usually, if they are able to rest and have someone to look after them, they eventually come out of it.”

“I guess poor people don't have the chance to rest, though.”

“Not usually, no.”

“Do you ever send someone to the Asylum?”

“I thought it was a hospital,” Dr. Younger said with a small smile.

“I guess they changed the name of it, didn't they? Hospital sounds much nicer.”

“Yes, it does. I've only sent someone there a time or two,
when I felt they were a danger to others or they had no one to care for them.”

“Are you the one who sent Miss Adderly there?”

He frowned. “I'm afraid I had to. After her parents died, she suffered a complete breakdown, and she had no one here to look after her.”

“I guess you were glad to hear she was released, then.”

“Yes, I was, but . . .”

“But what?”

“Mr. Malloy, you're a man of the world, so I know it won't shock you when I say that I don't believe Miss Adderly should ever have been released.”

Before Frank could respond, the parlor door opened, startling them both. Mrs. Burgun came in. “That young man is here,” she told Frank.

The young man in question hadn't waited to be announced. Gino followed her in and brought Titus Wesley with him. Frank introduced them to Dr. Younger.

“Are you the one who can find out if someone was poisoned by looking in their stomach?” Younger asked.

“Yes, I am. I can also tell if somebody put poison in your whiskey.”

“And did they?” Frank asked.

“No,” Wesley said with a satisfied smile. “There wasn't a speck of arsenic in any of the whiskey you brought me.”

“S
isters?” Sarah echoed. “What do you mean, they were sisters?”

Nicely snatched his hand away from his wife's body and stared back at Sarah guiltily. “I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry.”

“Were Daisy and Jenny Oakes sisters?” she asked again, turning to Zeller to see his reaction. Oddly enough, he also looked guilty, and not a bit surprised. “You knew, too, didn't you?”

“It doesn't matter now,” Zeller said.

Sarah returned to the front room where Zeller stood. Nicely followed her.

“You have to understand,” Nicely said. “Things in the South were different when they had slavery. The women had no choice.”

Sarah had heard stories, of course, and everyone knew why
some Negroes had lighter skin than others. She hadn't met Daisy, but maybe if she had, she might have guessed the truth herself.

“Daisy's mother was a house servant,” Zeller said. “Apparently, it was quite common for the master to have his way with the servant girls.”

And that would explain why Jenny and Daisy were together when they fled the plantation, and why Daisy had sought Jenny out after so many years, certain Jenny would take her in. “Then Charles was her nephew.”

“Mr. Charles didn't know, of course,” Zeller said. “Daisy would never tell him such a thing, but she said he reminded her so much of her own son who died.”

“Then she really cared for him?” Sarah asked.

“Oh yes. She blamed herself when he died, too. Thought she should've done more, although I guess there was nothing anybody could've done.”

But she also might have harbored a grudge against Jenny for all those thirty years while Jenny lived in luxury after leaving her poor sister behind to fend for herself. But if so, and if she'd killed Charles in revenge, who had killed her?

Someone who wanted revenge of her own, of course.

Sarah didn't have time to think about it now, though. “I should check on Isabel.”

She found the girl much the same, although Sarah thought her breathing might be a bit easier. Sarah sent up a silent prayer for her. Not only did she want the girl to live for her own sake but because she was the only one who might give them a clue as to who had caused all this death and destruction.

•   •   •

“Y
ou didn't find any poison at all?” Frank asked Wesley.

“Not a bit. And if you don't mind, I'll keep what's left of the whiskey. It's fine stuff. There was bourbon and Scotch and—”

“Then what's wrong with Adderly?” Frank asked the doctor.

“I told you, it could be anything. It could even be . . .”

“What?”

The doctor shrugged apologetically. “It could even be that he made himself sick just thinking he'd been poisoned.”

“Is that possible?” Gino asked.

“It sure is,” Titus Wesley said with a grin.

“How would we know?” Frank asked.

“Why don't we tell him there wasn't any poison in his whiskey and see what happens?” Wesley said.

Frank thought that was a brilliant idea, so he and Dr. Younger went upstairs and did just that.

“Then what made me sick?” Adderly demanded when he'd heard them out.

“It could've been anything,” Dr. Younger said. “Sometimes people get sick like that just because they're frightened.”

Adderly laid a hand on his abdomen. “I've always had a nervous stomach.”

“How do you feel now?” Younger asked.

“I . . . Better, I think. It's like the sickness just suddenly went away. A pain I had right here”—he pointed to the center of his chest—“is gone.”

The doctor gave Frank a knowing smile.

“What do you want me to do with Miss Adderly?” Frank asked.

“Why, nothing,” Adderly said cheerfully. “If she didn't poison me, she probably didn't poison Charles Oakes either. I should've known that.”

“I guess you should've. And I guess you'll let me know if I can be of any more service to you,” Frank said.

“Yes, of course, although I can't imagine what that might be. I owe you a debt, though, Malloy, so if there's anything I can ever do for you, just let me know.”

Frank couldn't imagine ever needing help from the likes of Adderly either. Besides, when he was finished dealing with him, Frank doubted Adderly would be quite as anxious to assist him.

•   •   •

S
arah had begun to wonder if she should send Zeller to find Malloy. He needed to know where she was and what had happened to Daisy. Maybe he could help her figure out what had happened here, too. Then she heard a familiar voice outside. She went to the still-open front door and looked down to see Malloy and Gino Donatelli standing in the street and looking around.

Gino saw her first. “Mrs. Brandt!” he called. “There she is.”

Malloy turned and saw her, then came bounding up the steps.

“How did you find me?” she asked when he reached the top.

“When we got home, Mrs. Ellsworth came over to tell me where you'd gone. It took us a while to find the church, and we had to stop on the way to get Wesley.”

“Who?”

“The undertaker who was testing Adderly's whiskey. Too bad we didn't know we'd need him again so soon. We'd just dropped him off at his shop on our way back from Adderly's and had to go back and get him again.” Malloy stepped inside and stopped when he saw the Reverend Nicely.

Sarah introduced them. “And you already know Mr. Zeller. Reverend Nicely's wife and Daisy have both passed away.”

“I'm sorry,” Malloy said. “This is a terrible thing. Your family shouldn't've been harmed by it.”

Nicely nodded, but his expression was still wary. He'd been through so much, and now this strange white man had barged into his house.

“You weren't poisoned, too?” Malloy asked him.

“No,” Sarah said, saving him from having to explain. “He wasn't here, but his daughter Isabel was also poisoned. I've been doing what I can for her, but I haven't been able to wake her up yet.”

“Maybe Wesley can do something,” Malloy said. “He's a doctor,” he added to Nicely. “I'll get him.”

Malloy went back down the stairs, and a few minutes later a tall, thin young man appeared in the doorway. His long face was suitably solemn, but his suit was a bit the worse for wear, and he carried no medical bag.

Sarah introduced herself and the others. “Mr. Malloy thought you might be able to help Miss Nicely.”

“I don't know that I can do much,” he said, speaking to the Reverend Nicely. “By now the arsenic will have taken hold. Sometimes people recover and sometimes they don't, and even if she survives, your daughter may have lingering effects from the damage the arsenic does to the body.”

The Reverend Nicely winced, but he said, “Anything you can do.”

Wesley nodded, and Sarah took him back to the room where the girl still lay, motionless. Using Sarah's stethoscope, he listened to her chest and checked her pulse, eyes, and throat, as Sarah had done.

“We don't really know why arsenic kills,” he said. “If we did, maybe we could figure out how to treat it. It's funny how it works. If people are exposed to it over a long period of time, at less than a fatal dose, they can develop a tolerance for it. I had a patient once, his wife had been giving him arsenic for months in his morning coffee. He'd been really
sick the whole time, too, but it wasn't until I finally noticed his fingernails . . .”

“Fingernails?”

“Yes, long-term exposure to arsenic can cause white lines in the fingernails. As soon as I saw that, I knew what it was. He figured out it was his wife who was trying to kill him and had her arrested. When he wasn't being poisoned anymore, he made a complete recovery. But another time, a young woman tried to kill herself, so she took a lot, all at once. Her family found her almost immediately, so I irrigated her stomach and even though she got really sick, she didn't die. But she was never the same. Her hands and feet lost all feeling, and her heart was damaged. She only lived a few years after that.”

“So if Isabel survives, she might be damaged.”

“I'm afraid so, although that's no reason to let her die.”

“Is there anything else I can do for her?”

“Arsenic causes dehydration, so keep trying to get her to swallow some liquids.”

“Milk? I read that binds the arsenic.”

“Nobody knows if that's true or not, but it does soothe the throat and stomach, at least.”

“I'm going to stay with her, at least until I know if she's going to survive. Besides, she's the only one who could tell us what happened and how they got poisoned in the first place.”

“You don't know?”

“No, Reverend Nicely wasn't here when the women ate or drank whatever it was in, and we haven't found anything that it could have been. I guess we're really just assuming it was arsenic, since we can't even know that for sure.”

“Well, then, I wish you luck.”

Malloy was waiting in the front room when they came out.

“Mrs. Brandt is doing all the right things,” Wesley told
the Reverend Nicely. “But there really isn't much we can do now except wait.”

“And pray,” the Reverend Nicely said.

“That's probably the best thing you can do,” Wesley said.

“Dr. Wesley is also a coroner,” Malloy said to Zeller. “He has a wagon downstairs, and he can take Daisy's body.”

“She's colored,” Zeller said, obviously well aware that not all coroners were willing to bury Negroes.

“That's all right,” Wesley said. He turned to the Reverend Nicely. “I can take your wife as well, Reverend Nicely, or if you've got someone you'd rather send her to, I can take her there.”

Nicely shook his head. “Thank you, sir, but I don't know when I'd be able to pay you.”

“Don't worry about that,” Malloy said. “The Oakes family will take care of it.”

Sarah doubted the truth of that. More likely, Malloy would take care of it, but she didn't say a word.

Wesley gave the Reverend Nicely his card and told him to let him know when he wanted to have the funeral.

Gino helped Wesley with the grim task of carrying the two women's bodies down the narrow stairs. When they were finished, Malloy told Zeller to return home. Now that Daisy's body was gone, he had nothing else to keep him there, so he gratefully accepted the suggestion. Then Malloy sent Gino back to Bank Street.

“Let Maeve and my mother know that we'll be staying here, at least for a while.”

“What should I do then?”

“Go back to Amsterdam Avenue and start visiting all the druggists to see if anybody from the Oakes house bought any arsenic in the past month or so.”

“Will they remember something like that?”

“No, but when you buy a poison, you have to sign a book. Just check the books for familiar names. Start with the shops closest to the house and work your way out.”

“How far should I go?”

“Until you run out of time or you find something. If it was a servant or one of the women, they probably walked. A servant would have to, and the family wouldn't want anyone else to know where they'd gone, so I'm thinking they didn't go far.”

“And what about tomorrow?”

“Come to my house in the morning, and if I'm back by then, we'll figure out what to do next. If I'm not back, come here to find me.”

When Gino and Zeller were gone, Malloy turned to Nicely. “Sir, why don't you try to get some rest. Mrs. Brandt will look after your daughter, and I'll be here if she needs anything. You won't be any good to your daughter if you get sick yourself.”

He argued a bit, but he was too exhausted to put up much of a fight. Sarah was sorry she had to send him to the bed where his wife had died, but if that thought occurred to him, he didn't mention it. After she'd spent a few minutes with Isabel, trying with some success to get her to swallow some more milk, she came back out into the front room, leaving the door ajar in case Isabel stirred.

Malloy met her halfway across the room and enfolded her in his arms. She hugged him back, savoring the feel of his strength surrounding her. She'd seen too much death today.

“How are you doing?” he asked into her hair, not letting her go.

“I'm fine now. I just needed this.”

He kissed her and then led her over to the table where he'd set out a cup for her. Then he poured the fresh coffee that he'd made.

When he'd taken a seat, she asked, “What were you doing today?”

“Virgil Adderly sent me word that he'd been sick all night, just like Charles. I sent Gino to find out if Wesley had checked the whiskey for arsenic yet, and I went to the Adderly house to see what was going on.”

“Had he really been poisoned?”

“No.”

Sarah almost laughed out loud. “But you said he was sick.”

“Apparently, he got so scared when he thought Ella had poisoned him that he made himself sick. As soon as Wesley told him there was nothing in the whiskey, he made a complete recovery.”

“Does this mean that Ella Adderly didn't poison Charles either?”

“It's seeming much less likely. She still could have, of course, if she only put it in the glass he drank out of that day, but there's still no explanation for how she could've poisoned him a second and third time.”

“That really does seem impossible, so we still don't know who poisoned Charles, and now we have the question of who poisoned Daisy and the Nicely women.”

“How did it happen?”

Sarah told him what she knew.

Malloy sipped his coffee and considered what she'd told him. “They ate or drank something that Daisy had brought with her then.”

“They must have. There's no other explanation. It must have been something the killer had given her, probably intending that she'd be the only one who ate or drank it. At least I'd like to think so.”