Murder on Marble Row (18 page)

“Police?”
he roared in outrage.

“I told you I could handle them!” Sarah cried, but it was too late. He'd already bolted, ducking down an alley into the rabbit warrens of the tenements.

“Who was
that
?” Malloy demanded as he closed on them.

“Katya's brother,” Sarah replied with a sigh. “He was going to convince her to tell us where to find Creighton.”

He glanced down the alley into which Petrov had disappeared. “Should I go after him?” he asked, his amazement obvious.

“Don't bother. I know where to find him.”

“You can't think he'll go back to that saloon,” her mother said.

“Of course he will,” Sarah said wearily. “But probably not until tomorrow. We'll have to come back then.”

Malloy turned to her with such fury, she thought for a moment he might explode.
“You are not coming back here,”
he said very slowly and very deliberately. “You are going to take your mother home, and you are going to stay there, and you are going to forget you ever even
heard
of the Van Dykes and all their anarchist friends!”

Sarah knew better than to argue. Neither one of them would give an inch, so it would be a waste of valuable time. “Very well,” she said, knowing this would confuse him long enough for her to speak her peace. “But before we go, I have some important things to tell you. Remember I said my mother would know why someone might want to kill Mr. Van Dyke?”

“Why would you say a thing like that, Sarah?” her mother asked, affronted.

“Because it's true,” Sarah replied without looking at her. She had to keep an eye on Malloy in case he really did explode. “And she told me some very interesting things that I think you should know.”

“Anarchists killed Van Dyke,” Malloy insisted.

“I don't think so,” Sarah said. “At least Mr. Petrov didn't know anything about it.”

“Did you expect him to confess to you?” Malloy asked, not even trying to sound polite.

“Of course not, but I can tell when someone is lying. He really didn't know anything about it. He ran away from the flat because he was afraid of being arrested, but he was only over at the First Street Saloon.”

“You went to the First Street Saloon?”
he croaked.

“It really isn't such a bad place,” Mrs. Decker offered.

Malloy just stared at her, speechless.

“We asked Mr. Petrov to talk to Katya,” Sarah went on, taking advantage of his momentary stupefaction. “We suspected she might know more than she was willing to tell us, and if she didn't really know where Creighton was, we thought the two of them together might be able to think of some places to look. But then you frightened him away.”

Malloy ran a hand over his face. “Mrs. Brandt,” he said very carefully, “and Mrs. Decker, you can't be wandering around the Lower East Side looking for anarchists. It isn't safe.”

“You're absolutely right, Malloy,” Sarah said, knowing this would shock him into silence again. “We don't really have any reason to stay now, anyway. But before we go back uptown, do you suppose we could get something to eat? All I had for breakfast was a piece of buttered bread, and I'm starving. How about you, Mother?”

“Well, I—” she began, but Sarah didn't wait for her answer.

“If we could find a restaurant, I could tell you everything I learned today, and then I'll take Mother home, just as you suggested.”

Malloy didn't trust her. She could see it in his eyes, but he also didn't want to jeopardize her apparent cooperation by challenging her. “I think there's a chop suey joint around the corner,” he said, with an uncertain glance at her mother.

“A
what
?” Mrs. Decker asked.

“It's Chinese, Mother,” Sarah explained. “Which way?” she asked Malloy.

He pointed, and Sarah started walking.

“Chinese?”
her mother echoed in horror, hurrying after her.

“It's delicious. You love foreign food, Mother,” Sarah reminded her.

“I love
French
food,” Mrs. Decker clarified.

Malloy coughed in a very suspicious manner. Sarah managed not to smile.

Sarah set a rapid pace so her mother wouldn't have the breath to argue anymore. They found the restaurant—one of dozens like it in the city run by Chinese immigrants who were pretty much limited in employment to restaurants or laundries—on the ground floor of one of the tenement buildings. The mouth-watering aroma of frying food wafted out into the street.

Sarah's stomach growled. She really was hungry.

Without giving her mother a chance to object, Sarah headed up the steps and into the building. Malloy held the door for her mother and then followed the women inside.

Sarah had eaten at many such places on her trips to this part of the city. The single room was crowded, but she managed to claim one of the small round tables for them. Malloy made a show of pulling out her mother's chair, but since it was a four-legged stool, he couldn't actually seat her. Only when they were all settled at the table did Sarah hazard a glance at her mother.

Mrs. Decker's eyes were enormous as she took in the exotic surroundings. The restaurant was simply the front room of an ordinary flat, but the owners had transformed it into a slice of the Orient. Paper screens painted with brightly colored flowers and Chinese characters lined the walls. Paper lanterns hung from the ceiling and reed mats covered the floor. A small Chinese man dressed in baggy black pants and a black smock and wearing a small black cap on his head hurried over to greet them.

He smiled hugely and bowed rapidly several times. “Welcome, welcome,” he said in his singsong accent. “You want eat?”

“Three,” Malloy said, holding up three fingers.

“Yes, yes, chop, chop,” the man said, “Very good, you see.” He turned so quickly that the long pigtail that hung down his back swung out and almost hit Mrs. Decker.

She cried out in alarm, although not as loudly as she had when Mikail Petrov had spit on the floor. Sarah winced.

“That man has a
pigtail
,” she whispered, her eyes even wider than they'd been before.

“Chinese custom,” Malloy said with amazing kindness.

“His skin is . . .” She gestured helplessly.

“Yellow,” Sarah supplied. She felt certain her mother had never been so close to a Chinese man, if she had ever seen one at all.

“I knew they called them the Yellow Race,” Mrs. Decker explained, still whispering, “but I thought it was just an expression.” She looked around once more, taking in the strange décor. “What did you order three of Mr. Malloy?” she asked when her gaze returned to him.

“Chop suey. That's all they serve here.”

“What is it?”

Sarah could see the twinkle in his eye, but his expression remained grave. “No one knows.”

Mrs. Decker's jaw actually dropped open, something Sarah had never seen her mother do as long as she'd known her.

“Don't pay any attention to him, Mother. It's just meat and vegetables,” she said, and turned to Malloy. “Did you find Katya when you were in the building?”

The twinkle vanished from his eye. “Yeah, I found her. She's staying with that midwife woman.”

“That's right, Miss Goldman.”

“Miss Goldman lacks some of the finer social graces, but she seems genuinely concerned about that poor young woman,” Mrs. Decker offered.

“
Miss Goldman
may lack social graces because of the time she spent in prison,” Malloy said grimly.

“Prison?”
Mrs. Decker exclaimed in surprise.

“That's right. For inciting a riot a couple years ago, when she made an anarchist speech to a group of people, and they went crazy. But that's not the worst of it.”

He wasn't teasing this time. “What's the worst?” Sarah asked with a growing sense of dread.

“Miss Emma Goldman was the mistress of the anarchist who tried to assassinate Henry Clay Frick.”

8

E
LIZABETH DECKER GASPED IN HORROR, AND EVEN Sarah looked shocked. Frank had begun to think nothing could shock her anymore.

“Are you sure?” Sarah asked.

“Of course I'm sure. I remember when she was on trial. We heard she'd left the country when she got out of prison, but I guess she came back.”

“She said she'd studied midwifery in Vienna,” Sarah recalled.

“She hasn't been back long, then. The police would've gotten word. Don't you think it's strange that she comes back into the country and another rich man gets blown up?”

“Frick wasn't blown up,” Sarah reminded him. “He was shot, and he wasn't even killed.”

“The Fricks live here in the city now,” Mrs. Decker reminded them, her voice a little breathless from shock. “They should be warned.”

“I'll see to it,” Frank said, not wanting to be distracted from his main point. “Do you know what this means? Emma Goldman and her friends are probably the ones behind all this.”

“Then why haven't they gone into hiding? Sarah asked.

“Because anarchists like to be martyrs. They want people to know they're responsible for these assassinations.”

“Then why haven't they come forward to take responsibility?”

Frank felt his hackles rising, but he remembered Mrs. Decker was witnessing this argument. She wouldn't understand if he said what he really wanted to say to Sarah. “Because they don't want to go to jail,” he said reasonably.

“Listen to yourself, Malloy,” she replied. “That doesn't make any sense. I always pay attention when you prove my theories are ridiculous, and now it's your turn. If the anarchists killed Mr. Van Dyke, they'd either want recognition for their crime, or they'd try to avoid being blamed. What they're really doing is hiding out and trying not to be falsely arrested and denying responsibility. Does that sound like they're guilty?”

“It doesn't to me,” Mrs. Decker said.

Frank gave her a look that should have frightened her into eternal silence, but she didn't even blink. She was as bad as her daughter. He opened his mouth to reply, but Sarah didn't give him a chance.

“I'm certain Creighton and Katya and her brother didn't know anything about a plot to kill Mr. Van Dyke. If Emma Goldman was involved, she certainly wouldn't have taken Katya in. That would lead the police right to her, and I can't imagine she wants to return to prison.”

Fortunately, the Chinaman returned at that moment with their food, saving Frank from making a hasty reply he probably would have regretted. Mrs. Decker stared in amazement at her plate of steaming chop suey, while Sarah started pouring tea from the pot he'd left into the small, handle-less cups.

This gave Frank a chance to collect his thoughts and his temper. “All right,” he said, proud that he didn't hear a trace of exasperation in his voice. “If the anarchists didn't plant the bomb, who did?”

Sarah glanced at her mother expectantly, but Mrs. Decker was trying to figure out what the chopsticks were for.

“Like this, Mother,” Sarah said, demonstrating and helping her mother get the first bite of the meal into her mouth.

“It's quite tasty,” she decided in surprise.

Sarah apparently decided not to rely on her to enlighten Frank. “Lilly Van Dyke was probably having an affair,” she said.

“How do you know that?” he challenged.

“Everyone knew it,” Mrs. Decker supplied between mouthfuls. “I'm surprised the Chinese race didn't starve to death centuries ago, if this is how they eat,” she added, struggling with the chopsticks.

“Who was her lover?” Frank asked.

Mrs. Decker looked at him with a small smirk.
“No one knows,”
she replied, mimicking him.

Sarah had the grace to cover her mouth so he wouldn't see her grin. Then she said, “Lilly was unhappy in her marriage. Mr. Van Dyke was stingy and boring, and Lilly was apparently forced to marry him in the first place. She behaved scandalously by flirting with every man she met.”

“That doesn't prove she killed her husband, or even that she wanted him dead,” Frank said.

“We think she may have influenced someone to do it,” Mrs. Decker explained, as if figuring out people's motives for murder was an ordinary task for her.

“How would she have done that?” he asked, not bothering to hide is skepticism.

“The usual way a woman influences a man, Malloy,” Sarah said smugly. “But we've decided it probably wasn't a man in her own social circle.”

“Heavens, no,” Mrs. Decker confirmed. “As I pointed out to Sarah, Lilly isn't interesting enough to inspire a rich or powerful man to murder. We think it must be someone inferior to her, a tradesman or a servant.”

“A tradesman or a servant who just happened to know how to make a bomb?” Frank asked sarcastically.

“I'm sure it's possible for anyone to learn how,” Sarah said, unfazed. “If the anarchists can do it, other people can, too. And of course, the bomb would immediately cast suspicion on Creighton and his friends.”

“Lilly did seem eager to blame Creighton,” Mrs. Decker recalled.

“So did Tad,” Malloy said without thinking.

Sarah's head snapped up, her eyes wide. “What did he say?”

Frank wanted to bite his tongue. He knew better than to give her information about a case. It only encouraged her. “He just agreed with this stepmother that his brother had good reason to want his father dead.”