She glared at Malloy, although it didn’t seem to faze him, then turned to Will with a smile. “Thank you for coming, Will. And tell Dolly I’ll check on her and the baby in a day or two.”
“You didn’t tell me about no coppers,” he repeated plaintively, giving Malloy one last desperate look before bolting for the door.
When he was gone, Sarah turned to Malloy in disgust. “Is that how you treat all your informants? It’s a wonder you ever solve any crimes at all!”
“I lack your charm, Mrs. Brandt. I have to use the tools I’ve got.”
“Well, remind me never to commit a murder in New York. I would hate to see your ‘tools’ firsthand.”
Sarah brushed past him and returned to the kitchen where she refilled her cup. When she saw he had followed her back, she filled his, too. He took that as an invitation to sit again, which he did. Sarah wanted to be angry with him, but she had to admit, she wasn’t. Not really. He was only doing his job, or what would have been his job if someone hadn’t taken him off the case. Since she was trying to do the same thing, she shouldn’t fault him for using different methods than she would have chosen.
“Now, tell me where this Brass Lantern is so I can find Ham Fisher,” she said, taking the seat opposite him.
He smiled again, that odd little grin that looked as if he seldom used it. Obviously, she had startled it out of him. “You’re not going to the Brass Lantern.”
“Then who will?”
“I’ll go. Nobody will question what I’m doing there,” he added when she would have protested. “I can always say I’m working on another case. I find a lot of suspects at places like the Brass Lantern.”
“I can imagine.”
He sipped his coffee, watching her over the rim of his cup with what looked like admiration, but perhaps she was mistaken. Maybe he was just laughing at her again.
“Then I’ll find Mrs. Petrovka and see if she’ll tell me who took her to see Alicia that night, and you’ll go to the Brass Lantern to talk to Fisher. One of us is bound to find out who the killer is, and then what will we do?”
Malloy took another sip of his coffee. “Then we go see Roosevelt.”
SARAH HAD NO trouble finding Emma Petrovka’s address. The woman advertised openly in the newspapers, even though her profession was patently illegal. No one ever prosecuted abortionists. There was too much real crime in the city for the police to have time to bother with such trifles, especially when no one was likely to pay a reward for apprehending them. Unless Petrovka killed too many patients, and even then no one would care unless one of them was someone of importance.
Sarah was going over a speech in her head when she left her house that morning, trying to figure out what to say that would sound like a plausible reason for having sought out an abortionist. Mrs. Elsworth’s cheery greeting interrupted her thoughts. The woman was sweeping her immaculate porch. If she came out to sweep every time someone she wanted to talk to walked down the street-and Sarah was fairly certain she did-it must get swept a dozen times a day.
“Looks like it’s going to be another warm one, today, Mrs. Brandt. Off to deliver a baby this morning, are you?” she asked.
“No, I’ve got an appointment,” Sarah said. It wasn’t quite a lie. She had an appointment even if Mrs. Petrovka didn’t.
“Be careful then. I baked some bread this morning, and the top of the loaf split. I’ve been worried sick ever since. You know what that means, don’t you? There’s going to be a funeral soon.”
“It won’t be mine,” Sarah assured her, wondering with amusement if anything ever happened to Mrs. Elsworth that didn’t have some sinister interpretation. “But I’ll be careful.”
“See that you are. And watch out for those infernal bicyclists. Did you see the story in the Times this morning? Some fellow ran his cycle into a wagon and very nearly killed himself and everyone else involved!”
Sarah promised again to be careful and managed to escape without hearing about any other superstitions.
By the time she reached Gramercy Park, she had settled on an excuse for her visit to Mrs. Petrovka. She would say she was consulting her because one of her patients had requested the services of someone like Petrovka, but Sarah wasn’t certain the procedure could still be performed so late in the pregnancy. This, she thought, would be a natural opening for mentioning Alicia’s case. Not that she expected Petrovka to bring it up, but Sarah certainly intended to.
Petrovka’s house was small but meticulously kept. The steps were swept clean, and the windows sparkled. Behind them, Sarah could see lace curtains, and the door fittings were solid brass. Emma Petrovka had made a very comfortable life for herself out of the misfortunes of others.
Steeling herself for a confrontation with a woman she despised, Sarah lifted the knocker and let it fall. She waited a reasonable time before knocking again, louder and more insistently this time. Apparently, no one was home. Disappointed, Sarah had decided she would have to come back later, but as she was turning away she noticed something about the front curtain she hadn’t seen before. One edge was pulled away from the window, as if someone was peering out, except when she looked more closely, no one was there. The curtain seemed to be caught at an odd angle on a piece of furniture. Curious now, Sarah leaned over the porch railing for a better view, and what she saw made her gasp.
Galvanized now, she tried the door, something she would never have dreamed of doing before, and to her surprise, it opened under her hand. Later she would realize she should have been afraid, but at the moment, all she could think of was trying to help.
The door opened into a center hallway. Stairs went up to the second floor and the parlor opened off to the right. The pocket doors stood open, and now Sarah could see clearly what she had only glimpsed through the window. Emma Petrovka lay sprawled on the parlor floor, and for all her intentions of coming to the woman’s aid, Sarah saw instantly that her help was no longer needed.
FRANK COULDN’T BELIEVE this. He gazed down at the mound of Emma Petrovka’s body and frowned. The bruises on her throat were just like those on Alicia VanDamm’s. Which only meant that they’d both been strangled in the same way, not necessarily that they’d been strangled by the same person.
Frank could imagine that the woman hadn’t had a friend in the world, but he also couldn’t imagine anyone hating her enough to kill her in such a personal way. Except, of course, Alicia’s killer. If Petrovka really had known who the killer was, it was only natural he’d want her dead, and he could want her dead so badly, he might have surrendered to the impulse to murder a second time. What Frank couldn’t figure out was why he’d waited until now to get rid of her. Obviously, it wasn’t because he knew Sarah and Frank knew about her, because no one had known that but the two of them.
He found Sarah Brandt sitting in the dining room. She was alone at the large mahogany table, her hands folded primly, her expression grim.
He was a little annoyed at her for asking for him by name. Actually, she’d insisted that the officers send for him, making such a fuss that the whole department would probably be talking about it. They would want to know why she’d insisted that he come instead of another detective, but he supposed he could explain it away. Nobody but them needed to know Petrovka’s death was connected to the VanDamm killing, so they could just say she asked for him because she knew him from the other case. Or maybe Frank could make them believe she was sweet on him. At least it would give them something else to talk about.
“You still think it’s safe to go looking for a killer in the daylight?” he asked her softly so none of the other officers would overhear.
She gave him a mutinous look. “You don’t know she was killed in the daytime,” she whispered back.