Sarah heard the rumble of a familiar voice and quickly removed her apron and smoothed her hair before hurrying out to the front room. Maeve and Catherine were making Frank Malloy feel welcome.
“We have some stew left from supper,” Maeve was saying. “We can heat it up for you.”
“No, thanks, I can’t stay.” He looked up at Sarah when she came into the room, but he didn’t smile. “I just need to tell Mrs. Brandt something, and then I have to go.”
“Girls, would you leave us alone for a minute?” Sarah asked.
Maeve took a reluctant Catherine by the hand and led her back into the kitchen.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Sarah asked, alarm prickling over her.
“It’s your friend, the one you did the rescue with.”
“Amy? Has something happened to her?”
“Amy? Who’s that?”
“She’s the girl we took from the brothel. What’s happened to her?”
“Nothing that I know of. It’s the woman, the one who does the rescues.”
“Mrs. Van Orner?” Sarah asked in surprise.
“Yeah, Mrs. Van Orner. She’s dead.”
6
“DEAD?” SARAH ECHOED INCREDULOUSLY. “ARE YOU sure?”
“As sure as I can be.”
“How on earth did it happen?”
“We don’t know who did it yet, but it looks like she was murdered.”
“Good heavens.” Sarah could hardly take it in. “How awful.” Then she thought of something else. “Are you investigating?”
“I was put on the case when they figured out this Mrs. Van Orner was the one who kidnapped that whore from Mrs. Walker’s place.” His expression told her exactly how unhappy that made him. “I think the chief has it in for me now.”
“I’m so sorry, but it shouldn’t be too difficult to figure out who killed her. I’m sure a woman like Mrs. Van Orner didn’t have a lot of enemies.”
“No, not a lot,” Malloy agreed. “Just every madam in New York City.”
“Mrs. Walker, at least,” Sarah said, trying to be helpful. “Or that man Jake who works for Mrs. Walker.”
“If somebody had cracked her skull, I’d suspect Jake, but it’s more likely she was poisoned. Poison is a woman’s way of killing someone. Women don’t like making a mess.”
She didn’t miss the sarcasm in his voice, but she ignored it. “Can I help you somehow?”
“No,” he said sharply, his dark eyes flashing. “That’s why I came to tell you. I want you to stay out of this, Sarah. We’re dealing with dangerous people, people who don’t think twice about killing the wife of a very powerful man. People like that wouldn’t think twice about killing a midwife either.”
“Nobody wants to kill me, Malloy,” she scoffed.
“I think Mrs. Walker, for one, would be very happy to see you dead. I haven’t seen you in more than a week, so by now you could’ve made a dozen new enemies I don’t even know about yet.”
“I haven’t made any enemies at all, thank you very much. I’ve been working very hard delivering babies.”
“Good, keep doing that, and stay out of the Tenderloin.”
Sarah was going to promise to do just that but then she remembered her last encounter with Mrs. Walker. “Oh, no!”
“What?” Malloy asked. He looked like he was bracing himself.
“Mrs. Walker came to see me last week.”
“What do you mean, came to see you?”
“She came here to the house, to talk to me.”
Malloy muttered something that might’ve been a curse. “What did she want?”
“She was trying to convince me to tell her where Amy was so she could get her back.”
Malloy closed his eyes as if praying for strength and drew a fortifying breath. “And what did you tell her?”
“I told her what you said I should tell her, that I didn’t know where they were keeping Amy. But I also mentioned Mrs. Van Orner’s name. Oh, my heavens, I betrayed her to that woman! I’m responsible for her death!”
“We don’t know who killed Mrs. Van Orner yet. It could have been her maid for all we know.”
“I doubt it was her maid. She’d be out of a job if she killed her mistress.”
“Which probably explains why more rich women aren’t murdered by their maids. I’m serious, Sarah. You weren’t responsible and you should forget you ever met any of these people. And if anybody bothers you again, let me know.”
“You said she was poisoned. Where did it happen?”
“In her carriage.”
“Her carriage? How does someone get poisoned in a carriage?”
“She drank something from a flask she had in her purse while she was going from the house where she keeps the rescued whores to her own house.”
This made no sense to Sarah. Why would she be drinking anything at all from a flask? Unless . . .
“Could she have committed suicide?”
“Anything’s possible. I’m guessing that would be too easy a solution, though.”
“What does her husband say?”
Malloy frowned. “You’re much too interested in this. I told you to forget about it, and I mean it. I have to go now.”
Sarah should have felt guilty for keeping him from his very important work, but she just felt frustrated. She wanted to know what had happened to Mrs. Van Orner. She couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to kill her, not even the madams of New York City. Mrs. Van Orner had said herself that she rarely had the opportunity to rescue a woman from a brothel. Usually, she rescued the common streetwalkers. The men who pimped for those women would hardly have had an opportunity to poison Mrs. Van Orner.
Malloy was walking toward the door. Sarah followed him. “The girls will be disappointed. I’ll tell them you had to go back to work.”
“Thanks. Tell Catherine I’ll bring Brian over to see her soon,” he said, referring to his son.
“She’ll like that.”
Malloy settled his hat on his head and opened the door. He stopped, turned back, and for a moment she thought he was going to say something else, probably something about being careful. Then he appeared to think better of it, and he left without another word. Sarah sighed and closed the door behind him. She knew she should forget all about Mrs. Van Orner. She would, too. Just as soon as she’d visited her mother tomorrow to see what she knew from her high society friends.
MALLOY SIGHED AS HE WALKED DOWN SARAH’S FRONT steps. He hoped he’d impressed her with how dangerous it would be to get involved in this murder. He’d known her long enough to realize that her own natural sense of self-preservation wouldn’t be enough to keep her away. He only hoped her concern for Catherine would keep her away.
If only he believed it.
He strode quickly down Bank Street, heading for the Ninth Avenue Elevated Train Station at Little West Twelfth Street. The train whose track ran on pillars two stories above the street would take him quickly uptown to the Van Orner house, where he would try to find out what Mr. Van Orner knew about his wife’s murder. And if he even wanted the police to find out anything about his wife’s murder. Frank hadn’t told Sarah that his only knowledge of the crime came from the report of the beat cop, who had come running when Mrs. Van Orner’s driver had opened the carriage door to find her lying in a heap on the floor of her carriage, her body already growing cold. Would Van Orner have even notified the police if he’d found her dead in her bed or slumped over at her dressing table? He would never know.
An hour later, Malloy stood on the front stoop of the Van Orner home. Dusk was falling, and the hour was much too late for callers. A wide-eyed maid took his card and left him waiting in the small, uncomfortable room just off the front entrance hall where they put visitors the maid suspected the family didn’t want to see.