Murder in the Bowery

by Victoria Thompson

  Tiny’s face hardened. “You mean because I didn’t care nothing about the girl, and I did care about Freddie?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean.”

  “Sorry, no. I still didn’t see nothing or hear nothing. Freddie wasn’t a bad kid, but those boys are like rats, running around the alleys all the time. Some of ’em live and some of ’em die, and it’s no business of mine.”

  Frank managed not to sigh. “Did you tell the bartender I’m working for Robinson now?”

  “Of course.”

  Frank went to the bar. The bartender was a burly fellow whose bald head was freckled and fringed with faded red hair. His bushy sideburns and lush mustache made up for his lack on top. He turned pale gray eyes to size Frank up.

  “You the one working for the boss now?”

  “That’s right.” Frank introduced himself and passed the man one of his cards. He eyed it suspiciously. Frank reminded him of the day Estelle had died and asked him the same questions he’d asked Tiny.

  “Funny you should ask. Mr. Robinson, he only wanted to know if I’d seen his lady friend or if she’d left a message. Nobody ever mentioned nothing about noises.”

  “You heard something, then?”

  “Yeah, later, though. A while after he left.”

  “What did you hear?”

  “I don’t know. Thumping or stomping.” He pointed to the ceiling above the bar, which would have been the floor of the bedroom upstairs. “Somebody made a joke about Black Jack and the girl really going at it.”

  “Did the customers know about her?” Frank asked in surprise.

  “Everybody knew. There’s no secrets in the Bowery. You see a woman like that down here, everybody remembers. They talk, too.”

  Of course they did. Frank should’ve known. “But you didn’t see her that night?”

  “No. I’d only seen her a couple times. When she’d come, she’d pass by the door, I guess. Tiny would say something and we’d all look. She’d come in the daytime. Not many people around then, but we could see her clear.”

  “Do you remember what time it was when you heard the thumping?”

  “No. I know it was after Mr. Robinson left, but how much longer, I couldn’t say for sure. Nobody watches the time here.”

  “Did you see any strangers around that night?”

  “I see strangers every night, mister. This is the Bowery. Everybody who comes to New York wants to drink in the Bowery.”

  And even if he had seen someone, it had been over a week. One night must seem much like another here. “What about the boy, Freddie? Did you see him around that time?”

  “I don’t allow kids in here. I know people like to send their kids for beer and such, but we don’t let them in here. Mr. Robinson’s orders.”

  “And yet he slept outside.”

  “He slept upstairs, too. Mr. Robinson didn’t like leaving the place empty. You never know when some drunk will move in and mess the place up. Might even die in there. It’s bad enough when we find them in the alley. But Freddie didn’t come in here.”

  Frank thanked the bartender, nodded to Tiny, who ignored him, and made his way out into the summer evening. He hadn’t learned much, but the few scraps of information he’d managed to glean seemed to confirm his theory about when Estelle had died and what had happened to her afterward. Now all he had to do was figure out who had followed Estelle to the Bowery and strangled her to death.

  And why.

  * * *

  When Malloy arrived home, it was almost time for supper, and the children demanded his attention. Sarah knew he’d told Gino not to stop by this evening. Tomorrow would be early enough for him to learn what they’d discovered today. Besides, as Malloy had whispered to her shortly after his arrival, he needed to consult with her in private before bringing Gino up to date.

  Maeve looked a little disgruntled to be left out when Sarah and Malloy retired to their private sitting room after supper, but Sarah would placate her later.

  “This is very mysterious,” Sarah said when they were settled on the love seat in what had originally been the husband’s bedroom of the master suite. Malloy had felt they didn’t need separate bedrooms, and Sarah had wholeheartedly agreed, so they’d created this sanctuary for themselves where they could be alone for just such occasions as this.

  “I didn’t mean to be mysterious, but I needed to get your opinion on something I learned about Estelle Longacre. It’s about sex.”

  “Good heavens!” Sarah said, unable to hide her amusement.

  “So of course I couldn’t ask you in front of Maeve and Gino.”

  “Were you afraid they’d be embarrassed?”

  “No, I was afraid I’d be embarrassed.”

  Sarah managed not to laugh, although it was a struggle. “I’m sorry. I know there’s nothing funny about this.”

  He gave her one of his stern looks, but that just made her want to laugh more. When she felt that she could control herself, she said, “All right. What is it?”

  He sighed long-sufferingly. “Will Arburn was not impressed with Estelle.”

  “In what way . . . ? Oh, you mean sex.”

  “Exactly. Apparently, she gave the impression that she was very . . . That she would be an enthusiastic partner.”

  “And she wasn’t?”

  “According to Arburn, she’d just lay there and not even look at him.”

  Sarah frowned. “That’s an odd thing for a man to reveal, but perhaps men talk about these things all the time, and I just don’t know.”

  “I thought it was an odd thing for him to reveal to me, but he did. He was trying to convince me he wasn’t angry when Estelle left him for Robinson. I think it was important for him to convince me he didn’t care about losing her.”

  “Ah, pride.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Male pride.”

  “If he was telling the truth, I suppose it’s easy to understand her behavior. She may well have been a virgin and—”

  “She was already with child when she took up with Arburn, don’t forget.”

  “That’s right, but we don’t know how that happened. Maybe she was forced.”

  Malloy considered this possibility for a moment. “If she was forced, wouldn’t she try to avoid any contact with men? Instead, she seems to have sought it out. Arburn said it was her idea to go off with him after one of the tours.”

  “Of course he’d say that. Male pride.”

  “All right, maybe he lied about whose idea it was, but she didn’t have to go with him, did she? She didn’t have to go on those tours at all, but according to Norman Tufts, that was her idea, too. And as for her being a virgin, well, Kathleen was a virgin when we got married, and she was pretty enthusiastic.”

  Malloy hardly ever spoke of his first wife, who had died when Brian was born, so Sarah needed a moment to register her surprise. “That’s nice,” she managed.

  “I bet you were, too, with your first husband.”

  Sarah wished she were better at acting demure because she couldn’t help her grin. “Because I’m so enthusiastic now?”

  “Yes, and I thank God every day. So were you?”

  “Enthusiastic with Tom? Well, I was a nurse so I already knew basically what to expect, but of course no one tells you how much fun it is.”

  “So you were?”

  “I’d say I was more eager than enthusiastic, at least at first.”

  He rolled his eyes. “So just being inexperienced doesn’t explain why Estelle would be so anxious to start up an affair and then so . . . so . . .” He gestured helplessly.

  “So uninterested?”

  “So uninterested in actually having the affair.”

  “I don’t suppose you discussed this with Robinson.”

  “As a matter of fact, he mentioned it, too.”

/>   “How amazing! Or do men just naturally discuss these things with each other?”

  “Not normally, no.”

  “I’m relieved to hear it.”

  Malloy sighed again. “Yes, well, he was remarking on how fragile Estelle was, which is not the way anybody else described her. He wanted to protect her. He didn’t even seem to care that she’d already been with Arburn either. Or that she was pregnant by somebody else entirely, and he confirmed that neither he nor Arburn could have fathered her child three months ago. In spite of all that, he still considered her innocent because she didn’t seem to know much.”

  This was even more amazing. “What exactly did he say?”

  Malloy cleared his throat and shifted his gaze to the ceiling. “He said she didn’t know she could enjoy it and that nobody had ever made love to her before.”

  Sarah pretended not to notice he was blushing. “Oh dear. But maybe he was just . . . bragging.”

  This brought Malloy’s gaze back to her again. “I did think of that, but you were the one who told me he was in love with the girl, and I think you’re right. And there’s even more to it than that. He owns a house on Lexington Avenue that one of his customers gave him to pay off some gambling debts. It looks like your parents’ house, with expensive furniture and old family portraits on the walls.”

  “Black Jack Robinson has ancestor portraits?” she asked in wonder.

  “Of course not. They came with the house. But he’s set himself up there because he wants to be accepted into society.”

  “What?”

  “He’s got the house, and he thought all he needed now was the right wife, and Estelle Longacre seemed to be the woman he’d been looking for. She was young and pretty and she came from the right background, and she would probably marry him.”

  “How . . . sad.”

  “I’m sure he would’ve been furious when he found out nobody in society would have anything to do with him, no matter who he married, but that’s no concern of ours. All that does explain is why he’s so angry to have lost Estelle, though, and why he wants to find her killer.”

  “And probably why he was willing to forgive her past indiscretions.”

  “Which brings us back to my original question. Why would a woman who obviously didn’t enjoy it be so willing to go with Arburn and then Robinson? Because as soon as she met Robinson, she switched her attentions to him.”

  “So Arburn didn’t procure her for him?”

  “Absolutely not. Arburn was using Robinson’s flat to meet her, and one day Robinson found her there, waiting for Arburn. According to Robinson, she sent Arburn packing when he finally showed up.”

  “It’s so hard to understand why she did the things she did. If someone raped her, I’d expect her to be terrified of men and avoid any situation where she’d be alone with one, but I know that isn’t always how a woman reacts.”

  “You mean you’ve known other women who behaved like Estelle?”

  “Not exactly, but . . . Well, most of my experience with women who have been raped is with the ones who became pregnant, and I don’t always know everything about them, but sometimes, being raped kills something inside of them. I don’t know what to call it. Self-respect, maybe. They start to think the only thing about them that has value is their bodies, so they become promiscuous, as strange as that sounds. Perhaps they also felt helpless when they were raped, so by choosing to give themselves, they aren’t helpless anymore. I don’t know. That’s just a guess, and of course Estelle isn’t here to tell us what happened to her or why she did the things she did.”

  “Maybe her family can tell us something,” Malloy said grimly.

  “Do you really think her father would speak about these things?”

  “I’m not even sure he’d know that much about her. He seemed awfully selfish and not at all concerned about her, even though she’d been missing for days.”

  “Maybe he already knew she was dead.”

  “All the more reason to go back and question him again.”

  “What about the aunt and the cousin? What was his name?”

  “Norman Tufts. I’m definitely going to question him again, too.”

  “Do you want me to talk to the aunt?” Sarah asked. “She’s far more likely to know things about Estelle, being a woman.”

  “She struck me as pretty selfish, too, but if you think you can get anything out of her, by all means try.”

  “That just reminded me. Mrs. Ellsworth has an interesting theory about Penelope Longacre.”

  “Let me guess—it somehow involves finding a four-leaf clover or throwing salt over your shoulder.”

  Sarah smiled at that. Mrs. Ellsworth’s superstitions were legendary. “No, but she did suggest bad blood might explain Estelle’s immoral behavior.”

  “Bad blood? She sounds like my mother. She was always telling me not to be friends with certain kids in the neighborhood because their families had bad blood.”

  “I don’t make any judgments, but when I told her about Miss Longacre taking in an orphaned cousin, she suggested that perhaps Norman wasn’t a distant relative at all. She thought Norman might be Penelope’s own illegitimate child.”

  Malloy raised his eyebrows. “That would certainly explain her devotion to him, but what does it have to do with Estelle?”

  “I think Mrs. Ellsworth was insinuating that if the aunt were immoral enough to have an illegitimate child, then the niece might have inherited the same lack of moral fiber. I don’t agree with her, of course, but if Norman is Penelope’s son, then that’s two generations of females in the same family who became pregnant out of wedlock.”

  “That happens a lot, you know.”

  “Not in families like the Longacres, where unmarried girls are rigorously chaperoned practically from birth. And if it does happen, the girl is usually married off quickly to her paramour.”

  “So that means there’s something wrong in the Longacre family.”

  “Well, we don’t know for sure about Penelope, but we do know Estelle wasn’t chaperoned at all, or at least not adequately. So yes, something at least isn’t quite right.”

  “Do you think you can figure out what it is?”

  “I can try.”

  “And I can help. So that’s settled. Maybe Mrs. Ellsworth’s theory has some truth in it, unlike her superstitions.”

  Sarah smiled. “She had a lovely one today. I had bubbles in my coffee and she said that meant I was going to receive some money.”

  For some reason, this made him grin. “As a matter of fact . . .” Malloy reached into his pocket.

  “What’s this?” she asked when he handed her a check.

  “It’s my retainer from Robinson. I told him to make it out to you. It’s a donation for your maternity hospital.”

  * * *

  Fortunately, Sarah found Norman Tufts and Penelope Longacre in the City Directory, living at the same address, so she didn’t have to ask her mother to consult the Social Register. Probably, they weren’t listed there anyway. Miss Longacre didn’t give the impression she was a society matron, if an unmarried female could ever be considered a matron.

  The address on Fifth Avenue and 38th Street proved to be one of the apartment hotel buildings, so called because they provided many of the conveniences of living in a hotel. Also called bachelor hotels, they were designed for bachelors and young families who could not yet afford or did not wish to go to the trouble and expense of setting up a house. The apartments provided cleaning and laundry services and an in-house restaurant would supply meals, which meant residents could live comfortably without their own servants.

  Did someone who lived in one of these buildings observe the strict rules of society when visiting? Did someone no longer considered part of society observe those rules? Sarah decided they probably did not, since she was here much too early
for a morning visit and didn’t want to be turned away.

  The lobby was like a hotel, with a front desk and a lounge area with sofas and chairs, but unlike a hotel, no one sat in the lounge area, smoking cigars and reading newspapers. And unlike a hotel, no one was checking in or out. The desk clerk perked up noticeably when Sarah walked in.

  “May I help you?”

  “I’d like to see Miss Longacre if she’s at home.”

  “Is she expecting you?”

  “No, but I’m sure she’ll be happy to see me.” She gave him her calling card.

  He wrinkled his nose a little at the Irish name, but Sarah gave him her haughtiest glare when he looked up again, which convinced him to announce her. He went to the switchboard and telephoned and when he hung up, he said, “Miss Longacre asked if you would wait about fifteen minutes before coming up. If you’ll have a seat . . .”

  Sarah figured Penelope Longacre wanted a few minutes to make herself presentable and perhaps tidy up a bit, so she waited the allotted time and then allowed the elevator operator to take her to the seventh floor.

  Sarah tapped on the apartment door, and Miss Longacre opened it herself. Sarah hadn’t expected to be greeted warmly, but Miss Longacre was glaring, her face blotched with fury.

  “What have you done with Estelle?”

  9

  Gino just sat gaping after Frank finished telling him what he’d learned about Estelle Longacre. Fortunately, Frank hadn’t mentioned the part about how interested or not interested Estelle was in sex. Gino might’ve fainted dead away.

  “So she was expecting a baby, but it couldn’t have been Arburn or Robinson who fathered it?”

  “So it seems. Sarah is going to question Penelope Longacre to see what she can find out. Hopefully, she’ll have some idea who else Estelle might’ve been involved with.”

  “Because he might’ve also been jealous of Robinson and followed her to the Bowery to take his revenge. Could it be Norman Tufts, do you think?”

  Frank rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Robinson didn’t think so, and I can’t imagine Norman would even know what to do, but maybe I’m misjudging him. Anything is possible, I guess.”