by Sara Donati
Jack considered. A rich woman might take her maid with her when she left her husband. In fact, it didn’t seem unlikely.
“But the maid left last week, the housekeeper said.”
Oscar inclined his head. “Good way to put us off the scent if this was planned, but I’m leaning toward believing her mother on that point. No help for it, now. We’ll have to start at the beginning.”
That meant duplicating all the work the Pinkerton agents had put in, interviewing everyone she had come in contact with for a week before she disappeared, inquiring with police departments in major cities up and down the East Coast and as far west as Chicago. It meant notices in newspapers, interviewing clerks at ticket offices, looking more closely into the family bookkeeping and spending habits, and days of tracking down every living relative and friend. None of that was likely to bear fruit—the multipara investigation had been an excellent example of just how futile such an approach usually was—but when all else failed, you went back over familiar ground looking for what you had missed. Because there was always something.
* * *
• • •
ANNA WAS STILL up when he got home, sitting in the parlor with a medical journal in her lap and so engrossed in what she was reading that she didn’t hear the door, nor did she hear the sharp, single bark from Mrs. Cabot’s room at the rear of the house. Skidder knew he was home, but Anna didn’t.
He came up behind her and, leaning down, kissed the line of her jaw. Her hand came up automatically to cup his cheek, but her gaze was fixed as she traced the words line by line. It was clear when she came to the end of a paragraph because she let out a sigh and put the journal aside. Now she looked at him and saw him.
“Long day?”
He came around the sofa and collapsed next to her. “Too long.”
“I’ve been thinking about Nicola Visser. She’s on my mind quite a lot.”
Jack picked up her hand and began to massage the palm. “I don’t think forgetting her is a possibility. Even if we made an arrest and sent somebody to prison, she’d stay with me.”
She nodded. “There are cases like that for me, too. Nothing new about her?”
“No. Oscar had a talk with his contacts in the neighborhood, but nothing.”
“I don’t even know exactly where she was found. Was it inside or outside the Northern Dispensary?”
He slid down so that he could put his nose to her scalp and get her scent.
“They just left her at the Grove Street door. We talked to everyone there, nobody saw anything.”
“You talked to Davvy?”
Jack had to smile, but then Davvy was one of those people everybody knew and liked. A tiny old man shaped like a barrel with sturdy, too-short arms and legs, a flowing beard, and mild blue eyes, he was often dismissed at first sight as feeble. But Davvy’s mind was sharp. Oscar had known him all his life and watched over him.
“Oscar talked to him. But then he talks to Davvy every day.” Because, Jack thought, if Oscar skips a day, Davvy comes looking for him.
Anna said, “When we were little, we were sure Davvy had to be a gnome. He wore that funny peaked hat to cover his pate, no matter how hot the weather, and he was always digging in the earth, mostly in Amelie’s garden. I haven’t been by to see him in an age but I like to think of him there, working and humming to himself in the secret garden behind the mossy brick wall.”
Jack turned toward her. “You still think of it as Amelie’s garden?”
“Of course, because it is hers. She never sold the property, she just hired Davvy to be caretaker. Does that surprise you?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t know her when she lived in the neighborhood, so I suppose I thought of the cottage and garden as Davvy’s. I’ve never been inside.”
Anna wiggled a little, a sure sign that she was recalling something pleasant from her childhood. “It’s a wonderful garden, very private. You could imagine yourself anywhere. We should take a walk over there sometime.”
Jack stifled a yawn, and she laughed. “Bored?”
“Relaxed. You have that effect on me, even after a day like this one.”
She pushed at him, but gently, uncomfortable as ever with compliments. Now she would change the subject, he was sure of it.
“No sign yet of Neill Graham?”
Jack resisted the inclination to smile. “None.”
“Then who else has wandered away? A new case?”
“A banker’s wife, disappeared into thin air.”
Anna shifted toward him and he put his arm around her shoulders.
“Would I recognize the name?”
“Louden. Charlotte Louden.”
“No,” she said. “I don’t know her. You’re thinking foul play.”
“I fear so,” Jack said. When he had finished telling her what there was to know, she sat up briskly.
“I can’t solve your case for you, but I may be able to provide some distraction. A letter from Lia.”
This time he couldn’t help yawning, which was odd, as Lia Russo was the least restful and relaxing child he had ever come across. “Not Rosa?”
“No, from Lia most definitely, but written out for her by Carmela. She has an answer to your latest riddle.”
Anna took the sheet of paper from where she had placed it in the medical journal, cleared her throat, and read aloud.
Dear Auntie and Uncle,
How are you? I am very well thank you. We are all very well except Uncle Leo hit his thumb with a hammer and then yelled really loud, louder even than I yelled when the wasps stung me last summer and louder than the time Marco yelled when Nonno held him down and pulled slivers out of his arm. But it is still attached so don’t worry.
You should understand that I write to you myself. Not Rosa, me. Except I’m only six so Auntie Carmela is helping. I say the words and she writes them. Here is the important thing: Rosa doesn’t know I am writing. We would argue if I told her because what she wants me to write is not what I want to write, and this is my letter and it’s important because by myself I have figured the answer to Uncle Jack’s last riddle.
He asked us: Two mothers and two daughters are sitting at the table. On the table is a bowl with four apples. Everyone eats one apple, but there is one apple left. How is this possible? And here is my answer: Sitting at the table are only three people. A grandmother, her daughter, and her granddaughter.
Am I not right? Rosa will be very cross with me that I figured it out before her. When you come to visit with Auntie Sophie you can tell her because then she will have to pretend to be happy that I am so smart and figured it out first.
Love Lia.
“Now you’ll have to write with a new riddle,” Anna said when he had stopped laughing.
“Maybe I should ask her to solve the mystery of the missing society lady,” Jack said. “She might just surprise us all.”
* * *
• • •
THE NEW YORK EVENING SUN
CRIMES AGAINST NATURE
MRS. ANNIE SHERIDAN ARRESTED
This morning police raided a nondescript building on Thirty-seventh-str. and arrested Mrs. Annie Sheridan for running a disorderly house on one floor and on the floor above it, a clinic where illegal operations were routine.
Mrs. Sheridan’s records were found, neatly filed, in her office. On that basis police will charge her with twenty-eight operations performed in the last calendar year alone. In her own defense Mrs. Sheridan pointed out that she had not lost a single mother to shoddy or unclean technique, nor did she charge the unreasonably high fees demanded by more established physicians.
Her arguments are not expected to win over the court.
18
ANNA WAS SITTING down with Mrs. Lee and Aunt Quinlan for a cup of tea in the late afternoon when there was a knock at the door
. From her seat in the parlor Anna could see the caller. Very tall, sturdy, his posture slightly tipped forward. Someone in pain. He held a young boy by the hand, and an even younger girl was perched on his other arm. Both of them were pale and had the look of children recently traumatized: confused, frightened, and inward-turned.
Trouble, of one sort or the other.
Mrs. Lee came back to announce the visitor.
“Mr. Jürgen Visser,” she said. “He stopped next door looking for Jack, and Mrs. Cabot told him to check here. It’s a police matter.”
“Visser?” Aunt Quinlan asked. “You know the name, by the look on your face, Anna.”
“Yes,” Anna said. “The post-mortem at Bellevue, just after Sophie came home. This is the husband.”
“That sad business,” Mrs. Lee muttered. “But what does the man mean, bringing two little children with him?”
“They lost their mother,” Anna said. “I doubt they are willing to let him out of their sight.”
“Talk to Mr. Visser in my study,” Aunt Quinlan said. “We’ll take the children into the kitchen.”
“And feed them,” Mrs. Lee added. As if there were any doubt.
* * *
• • •
ANNA OFFERED THE Widower Visser a chair and he sat almost reluctantly, stiffly, his hands cramped on the hat he held in his lap.
“I am very sorry to be disturbing you. I was hoping to talk to your husband, the detective sergeant.”
“You aren’t disturbing me, Mr. Visser,” Anna said. “May I say how sorry I am about your wife. It’s a terrible loss you’ve suffered.”
A little of the tension went out of him when he realized he would not be rebuffed.
“It hurts me,” he said, “to think what they did to her, to this good soul. I am knowing her all my life. We were neighbors as children. Nicola made everybody smile. People were drawn to her. Our house—” He shook his head as he broke off. “Our home was always full of friends. How can I help my children understand what I don’t understand myself?”
Anna had no simple answers for him, but she could listen to him and hope that giving vent to his anger and distress would bring him a small measure of relief.
He was saying, “She was so pleased to be in the family way again.”
Anna blinked in surprise. “You knew she was with child?”
He pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his eyes. “Ja, naturally. We wanted many children. She was the youngest of ten herself, and I am the oldest of seven. She was very close to her brothers and sisters and mine, too.”
His throat worked as he swallowed. “My brothers-in-law were angry with me when I had to write to say what happened, when she disappeared. And again when—”
“People often lash out when they’re in pain,” Anna said when his voice failed him. “You must try not to take the things they say to heart.”
He looked truly surprised at this suggestion. “But they are right in this. It is my fault. I shouldn’t have let her come to the city by herself.” His gaze fixed on her more closely. “Missus, do you know about my wife’s case? Because I would like to ask a question, and maybe you can answer.”
“I do,” she said. “I am a doctor, and I was consulted.”
His relief was almost palpable. “This is good,” he said. “This is very good; because you are a doctor this question will be easier for you.” He paused as if to gather his courage.
“Do you think that maybe the baby is alive, somewhere? Maybe somebody has the baby? I have seen advertisements.” He drew a few small pieces of newspaper out of a pocket and handed them to her. “Do you see why I’m asking?”
There were four advertisements, of a type familiar to Anna.
Wanted—Baby—A Lady who has just lost her new-born baby wishes one for adoption. Must be from healthy stock. Full surrender. Liberal terms. Inquire of Dr. Morgan, Charter Bank Building.
For adoption—pretty new-born baby boy. Blond with bright blue eyes. Full Surrender. Inquire of Mrs. Metzler, midwife, German Dispensary.
For adoption—a fine, healthy pretty fair-haired girl of four weeks. Full surrender. American parents. Inquire of Mrs. Joyce, of Charles-str.
For adoption—an uncommon beautiful and healthy girl two weeks old, blond, blue eyes, of native stock. The mother has disappeared and so I will give her up for $100 to cover my expenses. Inquire Mrs. Muller. No. 246 Eldridge-str.
Mr. Visser smoothed his hand over the bits of newspaper. “If the people who took my Nicola wanted the baby, it is not likely that they hoped to sell it? Our two children were very beautiful as infants, just like Nicola herself. Maybe if the baby survived, somebody paid for it. Do you think this is a possibility?”
Anna hated to be in this position, but the man deserved the truth. She said, “Mr. Visser, your wife’s condition was so poor and her injuries so severe, I consider it a near certainty that her child—your child—did not survive.”
His shoulders slumped. “Ja, this is what I am fearing. But I thought I must ask. Would you be so kind to show your husband these clippings, and ask what he thinks?”
It was the least Anna could offer.
* * *
• • •
SHE TOOK HIM into the kitchen where the two children sat at the table on booster seats. In front of them were wedges of buttered toast dripping preserves. Both of them held mugs of cocoa, with chocolate ringing their mouths.
“Your children are both beautiful and polite,” Aunt Quinlan told Mr. Visser. “But I’m not sure if they are too shy to speak to us, or if they don’t speak English.”
He managed a half smile. “Both, I fear. But we will bother you no longer.”
“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Lee. “You have a long trip back to Long Island ahead of you. Sit down, sir, and eat something yourself. But first introduce us to these two. I’d like to know their names.”
The children were looking up at him, their mouths sticky but no longer down-turned.
“Very kind of you.” His own smile was tender. “This is Gunnar, my boy. And the little one is Reenste.”
“Gunnar and Reenste,” Mrs. Lee echoed. “Now, I know you live far away on Long Island, but I want you to promise me that when you come to the city you’ll visit us on Waverly Place. I’ve got plenty of that cocoa they are so fond of, and we like children. Mr. Visser, will you tell your children that in your language?”
He did as she asked, but something passed over his face, a spasm that might have been dread or panic. Anna understood what he would not say: he had no intention of ever setting foot on the island of Manhattan again. And he would die before he let his children come back to this place that had robbed them of their mother.
* * *
• • •
ANNA WAS IMPATIENT for Jack because, she told herself, she wanted to tell him about Mr. Visser’s visit. Just as she counted on Sophie to listen about a difficult surgery or patient who had slipped away against all expectation, she turned to Jack when other kinds of sorrow were overwhelming. Nicola Visser’s horrible death and the inability to offer her family any answers dredged up the darkest kind of feelings and memories she hesitated to share even with Aunt Quinlan. Or especially with Aunt Quinlan.
Then he came in, moving more slowly than was usual, and there were dark circles under his eyes and the creases that bracketed his mouth when he had gone without sleep for too long were in evidence. She could wait until tomorrow, she told herself as they got ready for bed.
There was a breeze from the windows, and a mosquito that circled busily, looking for a meal.
“We need screens like Amelie’s.” She sat on the edge of the bed inside the cocoon of the mosquito netting, braiding her hair.
Stripped to the skin, Jack walked to the window and looked out onto the street. After a moment he pulled the curtains closed, leaving the window open f
or the breeze. The light fabric came to life, puffing up, fluttering, and falling again.
He yawned as he slipped under the covers and then took the minute he always needed to adjust his pillow to his liking. Stretched out on his side facing her, he studied her face.
“Are you as tired as I am?”
She nodded, because she was suddenly too tired to keep her eyes open. Crossing over into sleep, Anna had a sense of Jack slipping away but still close enough to touch.
Sometime later—an hour or three, she had no sense of time—she woke, sweat-drenched and shaking, to find that Jack was sitting up and had drawn her into his arms.
“Nightmare,” he said, his voice low and easy. “Breathe deep. Water?”
“Please.” Her voice was a croak, and she realized that her cheeks were wet with tears. When he brought the water she drank a few sips and gave him the glass to set aside.
She wondered if this time he would ask about the nightmare. In his place she would want to know what terrified him so. As if she had said this out loud, he brushed a curl away from her temple and cleared his throat, as he did when he was uncertain about what he wanted to say.
“If you want to tell me, I’m listening.”
And she wanted to tell him. Finally, it seemed, she needed to tell him. “It’s the dream I have sometimes about my brother.”
There was enough light in the room to make out Jack’s shape. One shoulder jutted up like the prow of a ship. The curve of one ear, the line of his jaw. He waited, his breath deep and even.
“What are you thinking?”
He pushed out a sigh. “Just now I was thinking, I hope she starts at the beginning.”
“The beginning. That would be the summer I turned three, when my parents died. My mother in late July and my father a month later to the day. Three is very young, but I have a few hazy memories. Or maybe I just think I remember. It doesn’t matter, I suppose.