A Death of No Importance--A Novel

by Mariah Fredericks

  I headed first toward Block’s Pharmacy on Second Avenue. I had always gone there for tonics and remedies my uncle’s charges needed. Aspirin and bicarbonate of soda for hangover, cocaine drops for toothache, sometimes more stringent treatments for ailments I need not discuss here. When I got there, I bought a bottle of Pep Pills and was about to ask the questions I had rehearsed on the ride down. But then I reconsidered. The pharmacists at Block’s knew me. They might have heard from my uncle who I was now working for. I could not ask them my question without possibly drawing attention to the Benchleys.

  Thwarted, I wandered aimlessly until I found myself on the streets where many of the store signs were in English and Hebrew. One had a sign illustrated with the age-old apothecary image of a mortar and pestle. Looking in the window, I saw that the store was empty. Which was ideal for my purposes. And no one would know me here anyway.

  The store was not nearly as palatial as many pharmacies. There were only two counters lining the sides, and one in back. A few cracked and dusty stools stood empty by the counter on the left. Only one man seemed to be working, and he stood with his back to me, arranging bottles in the far cabinet.

  “Excuse me,” I said, hoping he spoke English.

  He turned. “Yes?” He was very tall and thin, with a long face and outsized ears. His dark hair was cropped close to his head, and he wore small spectacles over large, light gray eyes. He reminded me of a ball of dough rubbed between the hands until it becomes a long wobbly strand. But if his looks were odd, his expression was intelligent. And his white coat was spotless.

  I approached. “My employer has been told by her friend that she should try Dr. Forsythe’s Pep Pills. But she’s elderly, and I’m concerned they may not be suitable for someone in her condition. Do you know if they can cause any harm to the heart?”

  “Forsythe’s Pep Pills?” He had a slight accent, but I couldn’t place it.

  I put the bottle on the counter. He reached for them, then hesitated with his fingers above the cap. “May I?”

  “Yes, please.”

  He unscrewed the cap and tipped one of the capsules onto a clean white slab. Taking a scalpel, he neatly sliced it in two so that the powder spilled onto the surface. Touching his pinky to his tongue, then to the powder, he tasted it.

  “Gelatine,” he pronounced after a moment. “Sugar. A very small trace of cocaine. But not enough to do anyone any harm.” He picked up the bottle. “What does Dr. Forsythe charge for these?”

  I told him the price. He raised his eyebrows in disbelief. Handing me the bottle, he said, “Well, I don’t think they’ll do your employer any harm, but I don’t think they’ll do her much good either. If you tell me a little about her, I might be able to recommend something.”

  “She is very set on these pills,” I lied. “My concern is she may get confused and take too many. Or combine them with something she shouldn’t. Would that have an ill effect?”

  “Too much of anything can have an ill effect,” he said. “So can a poor combination. But to be frank, the good Dr. Forsythe has put so little of anything substantial in these capsules, the worst your employer might risk is diabetes.” He peered at me. “And you will make sure she does not overdose?”

  “Oh, yes, of course. I was only worried because I thought maybe a mistake might be made at the factory; who knows what gets into food and medicines?”

  “It is against the law,” he said gravely, “to tamper with or misbrand food and drugs.” Then, in a friendlier voice, he added, “But it’s a recent law and honored more in the breach than the observance.”

  I had no way of knowing if it had been honored on the night of Norrie’s murder. But it was sounding unlikely that Pep Pills were involved in his death.

  Putting the bottle back in my bag, I said, “Thank you very much, Mr.—or is it Dr.?”

  “Almost doctor in Lodz.” He said it as Wudge, and I must have blinked. “A city in Poland. But it’s Mr. here. Mr. Rosenfeld.” He bowed very slightly as if we had been introduced in a parlor. “And you are?”

  “Miss Jane Prescott.”

  “Miss Jane Prescott. Not from Lodz.”

  “No.” I smiled. “Thank you again.”

  As I walked toward the door, I heard Mr. Rosenfeld call, “Perhaps you are concerned because the pills are connected to the recent Newsome murder.”

  I turned, surprised. “Oh—are they?” I said, then corrected myself. “They are?”

  “Oh, yes. A bottle was found near the body. ‘Its contents spilled upon the floor in the flickering firelight that also illuminated the dead man’s face.’” He waved his fingers in comic dramatic effect.

  “But”—I tried to echo his joking tone—“you don’t believe the pills had anything to do with his death.”

  “No.” Then added, “Of course, they might have been left by the murderer. I hope the police bother to look for fingerprints. But they seem settled on their anarchist story.”

  Fingerprints. I had not thought of fingerprints. But everyone that night had worn gloves. Except Louise, of course.

  “The papers said it was a very large party,” I said. “Anyone could have dropped them.”

  “And not picked them up? Such ‘valuable’ medicine?”

  “Are you a follower of yellow journalism?”

  “Of crime,” he said. “Which is often the subject of yellow journalism, so yes, in a way, I am.”

  “What aspect of crime?” I asked, drawing closer to the counter.

  “The science of it.”

  “The science?” Crime seemed a brutal, unthinking thing, far removed from the intellectual processes of science.

  “Oh, yes. Don’t you read Sherlock Holmes?”

  “Those are just boys’ detective stories.”

  “Not anymore. Fingerprinting, chemical tests to establish the presence of bloodstains, or certain chemicals in the bloodstream, analysis of bullets that can tell you what sort of gun they were fired from. In France, they have created the very first crime laboratory. And in England, an American doctor was just executed for the murder of his wife. He poisoned her, cut off her head, and buried her in the cellar. Do you know how they caught him?”

  Caught up in his gruesome story, I shook my head slightly.

  “He had covered the torso in lime, I assume to hide the smell, but the lime preserved the tissue—as well as the traces of the poison. When the police found her, they were able to take a sample from her liver and extract the alkaloid. They placed a few drops on a cat’s eye, and when the eye dilated, they knew it was a certain type of alkaloid that indicated the poison hyoscine. And”—he finished happily—“they were able to identify the body as his wife’s because of a scar on her abdomen.”

  “I would have thought a headless body in your basement and a missing wife was incriminating enough.”

  “Enough to catch, not enough to prove guilt.” He smiled. “What is your interest in the Newsome case, Miss Prescott?”

  “Oh, idle gossip, I suppose.”

  He nodded. But I knew I hadn’t been entirely convincing.

  Then he stuck out his hand like a twelve-year-old boy who’s been told it’s the proper thing to do. “Well. It is unlikely, but I hope we meet again.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Good day, Mr. Rosenfeld. Thank you.”

  * * *

  So Pep Pills had played no role in Norrie’s death. That eased my mind on the subject of Charlotte’s guilt. But there was still Anna to worry about.

  As I walked to her uncle’s restaurant, I told myself I was wasting my time. Anna wouldn’t be there. She would be busy with work. But I wanted to hear from her uncle that was all she was busy with. That she was not failing to return my calls because Inspector Blackburn had taken her in for questioning.

  I was so convinced she would not be there that it was a shock to walk through the door of Morelli’s and see Anna sitting at a table with a group of two other women and three men. One of them I recognized as Mr. Pawlicec. Her uncle stood
at the back of the room. Seeing me, he looked away, and I knew he had given my messages to Anna.

  Mr. Pawlicec rose to his feet with a smile and extended hand. “Miss Prescott, good to see.” But Anna stayed seated, said nothing.

  Blundering into her silence, I said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. I only wanted to see that you were…”

  Safe. Not in jail. Or in danger. Or dangerous.

  “Clearly you are,” I said. I turned and left.

  I was halfway down the block before I heard, “Jane Prescott!”

  I stopped.

  Catching up to me, Anna said, “I’m sorry I did not answer your calls.” Her voice was mechanical, not in the least sorry.

  “I was worried,” I told her.

  “I know.”

  “Have the police talked to you?”

  “About?”

  I looked at her.

  “Oh, that,” she said tiredly. “The Newsome murder. So funny that they call it that. One hundred and twenty-nine people die at Shickshinny, it’s a mine disaster. One rich man dies—now it’s a murder.”

  “I saw the body,” I said. “It was murder.”

  “You saw the body?” I nodded. “I’m sorry. I’m sure it was terrible.”

  “It was.”

  She hesitated. “You want to tell me about it?”

  “Do you want to hear?”

  “No,” she said. “If you ask me to be honest, I don’t. That’s why I didn’t answer your calls. Because I knew you would want to talk about it—as if it matters. And it doesn’t.” Then, as if to be kind, she added, “Not to me.”

  Thinking of the daily headlines about anarchists, I said, “I don’t see how you can say that.”

  She misunderstood my meaning. Throwing up her hands, she said, “One. Boy. One stupid, worthless, rich boy. One boy like this dies and oh, the screaming, the crying, the why, God, why? I don’t have to ask why. I don’t care.”

  I wanted to ask, You don’t care or you know why?

  “The family did get death threats…”

  “Did they?” she said sarcastically. “Have you seen these threats?”

  “Of course not.”

  “But you’re certain they exist.”

  “They were in the newspapers,” I said and felt foolish.

  “Enough. I am sure this death matters very much to your Benchleys. And so of course, it matters to you. It’s what you want to talk about. Or if we don’t talk about it, it’s what you’ll be thinking about, even as you smile and ask pleasant questions. I won’t be talking to Jane, I’ll be talking to…”

  She drew her hand in front of her face.

  Then she put that hand on my arm and said, “Look, when this is over, and you don’t worry about it, and your Benchleys are back to … whatever it is they do with their days, then we have dinner. And we really talk. I don’t want you to pretend. And I don’t want to pretend either. Okay?”

  She kept her eyes on mine as she said it, and I felt there was nothing … untrue in what she said. But words were missing, things unsaid.

  I asked, “Did I interrupt some kind of meeting?”

  “Yes.”

  “What was it about?”

  “Do you want me to tell you?”

  I must not have, because I didn’t answer. Anna nodded and turned back to the restaurant. When she was almost at the door, she turned and said, “I am sorry you saw the body. I would not have wanted that. But—believe me. You should be happy he’s dead.”

  Then she went her way and I went mine.

  * * *

  When I got back to the house, Bernadette said, “You had a phone call while you were gone. A man.” She raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t sound like a relative.”

  She handed me a piece of paper with a number written on it. I didn’t recognize the number. When I was connected, I heard, “Michael Behan.”

  I exhaled angrily.

  “Jane Prescott?” he guessed. “Don’t hang up.”

  My hand stopped above the phone.

  “You remember anything yet?”

  “Yes. I remembered I like having a job. Good-bye, Mr. Behan.”

  This time, I nearly managed it. But just before I cut the connection, I heard “There’s more.” I put the phone back to my ear. “I’ve got more.”

  “What?” I knew it had been too long since Charlotte’s name was in the papers.

  “You can either talk to me or read about it on the front page.”

  Blackmailed, I thought. I was actually being blackmailed.

  Behan said, “I can tell you’ve got doubts about the anarchist story.”

  Remembering Anna’s words—You should be happy he’s dead—I thought, Fewer than I had before.

  “It’s not a ‘story.’ The notes made it very clear—”

  “The notes made it very clear that someone hates Robert Newsome’s guts and that he’s a lousy boss. But Robert Newsome wasn’t the one who got killed.”

  “They said they’d go after his children.”

  “Okay, sure. That’s one story. Then there’s my story. Which one makes more sense to you?”

  “Neither. She didn’t do it.” As I said it, I realized I wasn’t sure which she I was referring to.

  “Then help me prove it. Tell me what you remember.”

  I tried to reassemble the image in my head, but all that came back was a feeling, a throb of not right that was oddly disconnected from the death.

  Frustrated, I said, “I don’t remember what I remember.”

  There was silence on the other end. Having got myself in this far, I said, “There was something … strange. About the scene.”

  “Aside from the dead Newsome on the floor.”

  “I remember thinking, How did that happen? But I don’t remember what I was looking at.”

  “If you saw it again, do you think you’d remember?”

  “What, the room?”

  “I can do better than that, Miss Prescott. You remember my pal at the morgue?”

  “Yes.”

  “If he shows you something and it helps you remember, will you tell me?”

  “What on earth would he show me?”

  “Will you? In return, I tell you the other thing I’ve got on your girl.”

  I considered. “And you tell me who your source is.”

  “No. Not worth it.”

  I very much wanted to clear the Tylers of complicity in the story. “If I give you a name, can you tell me if it’s not them?”

  “One name,” he said. “We have a deal?”

  I wasn’t sure. Behan had said he would show me something to make me remember. The other night, I had dreamed of Norrie Newsome walking toward me, that stiff hand outstretched, his face a mass of broken flesh and feeding maggots. The eyes, red sightless wells …

  I swallowed. “We have a deal.”

  13

  And so it was that I met with Michael Behan a second time—this time, at night. Our destination was Chrystie Street and Rivington. It was an area I knew and avoided. Some of the women at the refuge had walked these streets, and they had told me if you wanted someone’s neck broken or their ear chewed off, you could find someone here to do it for you, provided you had the money. There had been sporadic gun battles between rival gangs such as the Eastmans, Five Pointers, and Yakey Yakes. At one point, as many as a hundred gangsters had gathered to shoot at one another, sending any policeman who attempted to stop them running. And we were not far from where the murder of Bow Kum, a young woman once owned by the Hip Sing Tong, had reignited the bloody war between rival gangs in Chinatown.

  As we walked down the block, I asked Behan, “Couldn’t we have done this during the day?”

  “My friend has the night off. And you work during the day.”

  The streets were mostly quiet, but I felt increasingly anxious as Behan stopped in front of one tenement building and rang. As we waited in the close vestibule, I tried an old game from childhood, easing nerves by touching first th
e white floor tile, then the black. From behind the door, I could hear a baby crying, someone shouting, then the heavy tread of footsteps on the stairs. I looked up and saw an enormous man—it seemed as if his stomach were a separate person, moving slowly and deliberately before him—coming down the stairs. He looked about forty, with a graying fringe around his red, sweating face. His swollen hand gripped the rickety banister tight. His shoelaces were untied, and his shirt unbuttoned to reveal a grimy undershirt. When he opened the door, I caught the combined smell of stewed cabbage and underarm.

  Mr. Behan held one hand toward me, the other toward the gentleman. “Mr. Clops Connolly, this is Miss Jane Prescott.”

  I tried to smile. “Mr. Connolly.” I got a sour smile and a nod in return.

  He led us up two flights. The stairway was dimly lit; one floor was in total darkness. As I stepped, I could feel there was refuse on the floor and tried to put down as little of my shoe as possible. At one point, my foot settled on something soft and movable; I heard a cry. Looking hard in the gloom, I saw I had stepped on a child’s bare foot. It—he?—she? The hair was long, and I decided she. She stood in a stained dress, eyes bright in a dirty little face, sucking on the sleeve of her gown. I looked, but saw no parents. The child seemed completely alone.

  Behan pulled on my arm, and I resisted, saying, “We should…”

  Then I realized I had no idea how to finish that sentence and let myself be led upstairs. I glanced back as I went up the stairs, saw the child was following me with her eyes. She didn’t seem surprised to be left.

  On the next floor, most of the doors were open to extend the apartments into the hall, and several people stopped their conversations to take our measure. I nodded politely. Behan touched his hat. Mr. Connolly said nothing. Finally we reached his door, which he opened with a meaty twist of the doorknob.

  There were only two small rooms, a kitchen and another room off to the side that seemed to serve as a bedroom. The kitchen was crowded with a scarred wooden table and two chairs. But we did not move from it.