Murphy’s Law

by Rhys Bowen

  And what did I know? I knew that someone on Ellis Island killed O’Malley and that person was someone who spent the night on the island and had no method of leaving until the government boat early next morning. So that meant it was either an employee on night shift or a fellow immigrant.

  The only fact that I knew for sure was that a guard had appeared from the men’s dormitory and the only guard who resembled him claimed he had not been on duty that night. Surely that was an important point. Either the man was lying, or someone had been impersonating a guard to gain access to the men’s dormitory. Maybe the guards on duty hung up their jackets and caps during the long night shift and it wasn’t too hard to borrow one for a while.

  So the first thing to look into would be the guard Boyle’s alibi. Did he really leave the island on the last boat of the evening? Was he at home that night? I’d go down to the docks first thing tomorrow and question the boatman myself.

  I felt charged with energy and excitement. I would do this, and when I had found the truth, I would take great delight in turning the facts over to that self-satisfied Daniel Sullivan!

  Of course, there was one small point I had overlooked. I paused at the edge of a busy street, then jumped back as a cab clattered past me, spattering slushy mud in my direction. The point I had overlooked was whether or not Michael was truly innocent. He’s a sweet, gentle boy, I reminded myself. Look how good he was with the children, how kind he was to me. And he planned that clever scheme with the money while we were heading for the island. Surely he wouldn’t have been carefree enough to do that if his mind was full of murder. But something was nagging at the back of my own mind. It was that conversation we had as we waited to enter Ellis Island. “If he bothers you again, I’ll kill him,” Michael had said. “I could, you know. I’m not as innocent as I look.”

  I hurried across the busy street, dodging traffic and feeling the icy slush engulfing my feet. I had to trust him. He was trusting me. Not that I would have blamed him for killing O’Malley. Hadn’t I wanted to kill the man myself? I just couldn’t see young Michael Larkin sneaking to the kitchens, taking a butcher knife, and calmly slitting a man’s throat. That would require a different personality altogether.

  The wind off the East River was like a knife cutting through me. I leaned into it and ducked my face into my shawl. Another small point I had overlooked . . . Daniel Sullivan had obviously asked for background details on both Michael and myself. Any good policeman would do that, wouldn’t he? And when the details came back about Kathleen O’Connor and her brother Liam then he might smell a rat. What if they sent a description, or worse still, a picture? If he found out I wasn’t Kathleen O’Connor, then it would only be a matter of time before he found out who I really was. I had been so intent on saving Michael that I hadn’t realized that I might still be in mortal danger myself.

  It was a pity that Daniel Sullivan and I had to be enemies, I thought. In other circumstances I might have enjoyed flirting with him, instead of having to match wits with him to save my own skin.

  The dismal buildings of Cherry Street loomed up out of the snow. I climbed the dark stairway without treading on any babies and knocked at the door on the fourth floor. Nuala opened it and stood staring at me, hands on hips.

  “Well, would you look at that? Turning up like a bad penny! We never expected to see you again.”

  “See, I told you she hadn’t gone away, Bridie,” young Seamus said as the little girl ran to hug my knees. “She was fretting for you all day, Molly. She thought you’d gone away without saying good-bye.”

  “I’d never do that, Bridie darling.” I picked her up and she snuggled to my cold cheek.

  “Didn’t Mrs. O’Keefe see her being shoved into a paddy wagon with her own two eyes?” Nuala demanded, looking for affirmation to Finbar who sat slouched at the table, a large mug of tea in his hands. “Shoved into a paddy wagon, that’s what she said. I had a feeling from the very first time I set eyes on her. That one’s no better than she should be. I said it to you last night, didn’t I, Fin?”

  I’m better than you, I wanted to say. But I really couldn’t risk being thrown out into the snow on a night like this. I’d freeze before morning.

  “If you really want to know,” I said, “the police needed my help. A man was killed on Ellis Island and I was the only one who saw the man who might have done it.”

  “I told you, it was in the papers this morning,” Finbar said, showing, what was for him, considerable enthusiasm. “A man called O’Malley. His throat was slit from ear to ear.”

  “Holy Angels protect us,” Nuala said, crossing her vast bosom. “Do they not have watchmen on duty at that place anymore?”

  I didn’t think it wise to inform her that it might have been one of the watchmen.

  “Why would anyone want to do a terrible thing like that?” Nuala demanded.

  “To stop him from getting into America, I would have thought,” Finbar muttered.

  This was an angle that had never struck me before. Of course, it made sense. O’Malley had made it as far as Ellis Island. Somebody had to make sure he didn’t go any farther. Why? I had no way of finding that out, until the police uncovered O’Malley’s true identity. I didn’t suppose that Captain Sullivan would be willing to share details with me. But it was worth suggesting to him. For one thing, it might show him that neither Michael nor I were his prime suspects. I had a lot of work to do tomorrow.

  “And I suppose your grand helping out at the police station meant that you had no time at all to be finding a job for yourself?” Nuala demanded. “If you’re going to be here any longer, you’ll be expected to pay your share of the upkeep of this place.”

  “My share? There’s no way I could possibly earn enough to—,” I blurted out, in my usual way. I was about to say “to pay for the fleet of maids it would take to clean up this pigsty,” but little Bridie was clinging to me as if I was a lifeline. I swallowed back the rest of the sentence at the last moment. “To repay you for taking me in,” I finished lamely, hating myself.

  Nuala smirked. I wasn’t sure whether she was easily flattered or sensed my insincerity.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be out looking for a job first thing in the morning,” I said.

  “They’re in need of fish gutters at the market,” Nuala stated. “It’s not the most pleasant work in the world but it’s money, and beggars can’t be choosers.”

  I tried not to shudder as I imagined standing out in the cold, gutting raw fish until my hands were as raw as the fish themselves. “Thank you for the suggestion,” I said. “But I do have an education. I’m hoping for something better.”

  “Hoping for something better!” Nuala sniffed. “Hark at Miss High and Mighty!” She turned to Fin. “Maybe she’s thinking of applying to be mayor of the city? Or a professor at the university? I expect she’ll move up to Fifth Avenue next to the Vanderbilts when she leaves us.”

  Finbar chuckled as he slurped his tea.

  “Lord, get me out of this place in a hurry,” I prayed.

  I passed another uneasy night curled awkwardly in the armchair. Bridie insisted on sleeping beside me again, which made it even more cramped. I was wound up like a watch spring and sleep wouldn’t come. So many things to plan. I had to find a job, but I also had to find enough facts to save Michael before the federal marshals insisted on having him shipped back to Ireland, or Daniel Sullivan sent him for trial here. The more I considered it, the surer I was that Michael didn’t do it. I remembered his face that morning after the murder. He had looked white and shaken when he told me how he had discovered the body. And I still couldn’t picture him slitting a throat. An ordinary person, not a trained assassin, would take a knife and plunge it desperately into a body, hoping that the stroke had killed. It took skill and know-how to slit a throat. Someone who was trained to kill then. That’s who I was looking for.

  I’d start with the boatman and see if he could back up Boyle’s alibi, then I’d work from there. It should
n’t be too hard to trace down a fellow Irishman. It seemed everyone knew everyone else in this community. And if his alibi was true, what then?

  As I lay there, listening to the snores coming from the next room—hard to tell if they were Nuala’s, Finbar’s, or Seamus’s, although my bet was on Nuala—I went through the whole journey on the Majestic, trying to remember everything I could about O’Malley—who had talked to him, laughed with him, or argued with him. He’d gotten into some heated arguments, but they were only after the men had been drinking and were soon forgotten. The only people with a real bone to pick were myself and Michael. Unless there was someone else who was following O’Malley, biding his time and waiting for the perfect moment to strike. When I saw Daniel Sullivan again, I’d ask to see the passenger list. It was possible that some other names were linked in some way to the case of the Plumbridge Nine. Of course, Daniel Sullivan would probably have checked that already, but it was worth a try.

  I remembered O’Malley teasing Michael well enough. Michael had turned red and walked away. He hadn’t said a word back. Did that mean he was keeping his anger bottled up inside? My thoughts moved on to my encounters with O’Malley. In a way I was lucky that the killer had chosen that method to dispatch O’Malley. If it had been poison or any more feminine method, I’d have been locked up in the Tombs by now for sure. Half the ship had seen me slap his face and tell him to stay away from me. I remembered how kind Michael had been, how he’d come up to me that first time with Seamus after the lad had gotten into a fight and . . . Wait! I sat up, making Bridie stir and moan in her sleep. That was when he got the blood on his jacket and his handkerchief! Why hadn’t I thought of it before? The child’s nose had been pouring blood. He had loaned the boy his handkerchief and then shoved it back in his pocket. Obviously he had forgotten to wash it out. I’d go to Daniel Sullivan first thing in the morning. Or maybe I’d do some snooping first and then go to him with an impressive bag full of information that would prove Michael (and me) innocent.

  I lay back, closed my eyes, and soon fell into an uneasy asleep.

  In the morning when I heard Nuala bustling around, clanking pots and pans, I got up right away. I accepted a cup of tea and a slice of bread, then washed at the sink on the landing, put on my clean blouse, and tidied my hair ready to go out. “I’m off to find a job, then,” I said.

  She nodded approvingly. “If it’s the fish market you’re heading for, ask for old Kilty. He’s the one that will set you right.”

  It would be a cold day in hell before I’d be asking for old Kilty, I thought grimly. After making Seamus promise that he’d look after his little sister until I came back, I kissed Bridie and told her that I’d return before it got dark. Then I made my way cautiously down those stairs and out into the chill of morning. No snow today but what had fallen yesterday had turned to sheets of ice, making walking treacherous. I was beginning to get an idea of the layout of the town by now. Luckily the city seemed to be built on a thin strip of land, with water on both sides, so that if you walked long enough in any direction, you’d come to the shoreline. That was a comforting thought when it came to getting lost.

  Of course at that time I was so naive that I didn’t realize there were parts of the city where a woman just didn’t go alone. As I cut inland and walked through the neighborhood back-streets, workers were hurrying to early-morning shifts. I saw a group of young girls, arm in arm, dancing down the street and into a square brick building. They were laughing and joking with each other—they obviously worked somewhere that didn’t fill them with dread, I decided and ran to catch up with them.

  “Excuse me.” I tapped the nearest girl on the shoulder.

  They turned around in surprise. They had darker skins than mine, impressive amounts of dark hair piled high under their hats and scarves and liquid brown eyes.

  “Are you going to work?”

  Most of them looked at me blankly, but one nodded. “Sí. Work.”

  “What kind of work do you do?”

  She indicated the brick building ahead of us. “Shirt—we make shirt.” Then she mimed working at a sewing machine. I had never used one, but I picked things up quickly and I might be able to bluff my way through for a while. And it would certainly beat gutting fish. “Do you think there are any jobs going? Could I come with you to meet your manager?”

  She didn’t quite understand this, but pointed up the stairs. I went up ahead of them. A large balding man with his shirt-sleeves rolled up and a pencil stuck behind his ear was coming out of a glass cubicle at the top of the stairs. He looked at me in surprise.

  “Hello,” I said. “I was wondering if you needed any more workers? I’m hardworking and honest.”

  He was still staring at me in surprise. “You no Italiano,” he said. “This Italiano place. Se non parla Italiano . . . ,” And he spread his hands expressively. “Italiano girl work ‘ere,” he finished as the girls arrived at the top of the stairs and walked past me, giving me curious stares.

  “You’re saying you only take Italian girls?”

  He nodded. “Italiano girl make shirt ‘ere.”

  “So what do the Irish make, then?” I demanded, feeling annoyed that I wasn’t even going to be given a chance.

  “Trouble,” he countered.

  He turned his back on me and walked away down the passage.

  I walked around some more and tried several other factories and shops. It didn’t take long to realize one thing. New York was not an American city. It was a collection of small Italian, Jewish, German, and God knows what else villages, all slapped down next to each other. And Germans only hired other Germans, Jews other Jews. So the sensible thing would be to find out what the Irish did and get them to hire me. I already knew about the fish market, but the idea was not appealing. I passed the vaudeville theater with its banner proclaiming, “ ‘When Irish Eyes Are Smiling’—straight from their phenomenal success in the Old Country.” But the theater was shut tight at this hour of the morning and I couldn’t think of anything I could do there, anyway. I neither sang, danced, nor told jokes well enough to do so in public. There were saloons and eating houses around the theater, but they, too, were closed tight at this hour. So I’d do my investigating first and look into a job there later.

  I made my way, with more than one wrong turn and dead end and even a close call when a drunk lunged at me from a gutter, to the docks and the pier where we had landed from Ellis Island. I could see the island now, its redbrick towers floating improbably across the harbor, not too far from that other improbable sight, the Statue of Liberty. A group of longshoremen told me where the government launch departed from, along with some crude suggestions about how I could entertain myself and them until it arrived from the island. I told them what they could do with their suggestions, making them roar with laughter, and walked past, my nose in the air.

  A little while later the launch pulled into the dock. It was almost empty, apart from a couple of young men in neat uniforms—inspectors probably. No use in asking them if they knew anything about an island guard. I waited around until the crew came ashore—a surly-looking captain and a young boy whose cheeks were red from the bitter wind.

  They looked at me warily as I asked my question. Were they the crew on the night the man was murdered on the island?

  “What do you mean, were we the crew?” the older man almost spat at me. “We’re the only damned crew they’ve got. I’m the master of the ship.”

  “Wonderful.” I gave what I hoped was an impressed smile, although the ship was nothing to shout about—a small cabin behind the wheelhouse and a strip of open deck all around. “Then you might remember which of the guards you ferried across the night before. I’m asking about the guard called Boyle—a big man, lots of whiskers. Did he ride across with you either the night before or the first boat next morning?”

  “How in blazes do you think I know or care who rides across with me?” he snapped. “It’s hard enough work piloting my ship past all the traff
ic in this harbor. I don’t notice who gets on and who gets off.”

  “But you’d notice if someone wasn’t wearing his uniform?”

  He nodded. “The boy probably would. He’s the one who casts off.”

  I looked at the boy. “Do you know the guard called Boyle? Would you remember whether he took the last boat from Ellis Island the night before the man was murdered?”

  The boy stared at me blankly. “There’s a lot of people works on the island, ma’am. They comes and they goes. And when it’s cold weather like this, they makes straight for the cabin and stays there. So I couldn’t rightly say—”

  “And I couldn’t rightly care,” the old man finished for him. “We gets paid to sail this thing across to the island and back, not to remember who sails in it.” He dug the boy in the side. “Come on, young’un. Let’s go get some breakfast.”

  And they walked away from me without another word. So much for my first attempt at interrogation. My respect for Daniel Sullivan rose a little. He seemed to be able to get answers out of people. Of course, he could threaten them with the Tombs, which certainly helped. . . .

  I wasn’t sure what to do now. I hung around the dock area a while longer, wondering who else might have noticed whether Boyle did or did not take that last boat back to the city. All we knew was that he had signed out on the island. That didn’t mean he had left with the other members of his shift. So that would be the next thing to find out. I’d have to be back here when the last boat of the day docked and ask his fellow guards if they remembered. Of course, if Boyle was among them, it would make it not only difficult but dangerous. I had been regarding this as an academic exercise and it suddenly struck me—if Boyle was the killer and he found me poking my nose where it wasn’t wanted, I’d be in a lot of danger. So maybe I’d better start with a more subtle approach. I would need to find out where he lived. Daniel Sullivan would know, but I wasn’t about to go asking him.