Girl Waits with Gun

by Amy Stewart

  “But the boy is here?”

  For the first time, a smile worked around the corners of her lips. “If this is the boy—and I’m not saying it is—we definitely do still have him. There are so many infants that come to us, and those are adopted first. Even a child of one or two years is hard to place.”

  “Mrs. Griggs, you’ve done a little boy and his mother a great deal of good today,” I said, jumping out of my chair. “The sheriff must be told immediately. Could you place a telephone call to his office?”

  She looked down at the brass phone on her desk and drummed her fingers. “I shouldn’t make the call,” she said. “But our director can.”

  She ran upstairs and, after another interminable wait, returned with an expression I couldn’t read. “As I suspected, you’ll have to go to a judge before a claim can be made. But first the child must be identified by its mother. Sheriff Heath said he would fetch the girl and be right over. He said you would know where to find her.”

  I gave her Lucy Blake’s address, and she disappeared again up the wide staircase, her fingers trailing along a banister into which a row of laurel leaves had been carved. I waited the better part of an hour, with Mrs. Griggs running downstairs to tell me that Sheriff Heath was on his way, and then rushing back up to tell the nurses to get the boy ready. From her excited air I gathered that they felt quite sure that one of their charges was going home with its mother. I hope they hadn’t given the boy that impression. I couldn’t stand to see Lucy shake her head and tell the boy that he did not belong to her.

  I paced the lobby and tried to picture Marion Garfinkel carrying a baby in. I couldn’t see her without also seeing the chain of errors and misfortune that brought her here. There was Henry Kaufman’s father, putting him in charge of a factory he had no ability to run. There was Henry Kaufman himself, forcing his way into Lucy’s room with his own disgraceful intentions. And then Lucy, hoping—naively, perhaps stupidly—that he would face up to his obligations.

  Finally, there was Marion, the expedient one, the efficient one. She saw a problem and, just as quickly, she saw its solution. It was not difficult to understand how Marion got the idea. If I were to stop a hundred women on the sidewalk in Paterson and ask them what an unmarried factory girl should do if she got herself into trouble, they would all give the same answer.

  It was the answer I’d come to myself, seventeen years ago. It was the only sensible solution, and Marion Garfinkel was, I had to admit, eminently sensible.

  I stopped pacing and had just sat down across from Mrs. Griggs’s desk again when Sheriff Heath pushed the door open and led a trembling and tearful Lucy Blake into the halls of the Paterson Orphan Asylum Hospital.

  She hadn’t even taken off her apron. When she saw me, she ran across the lobby to me. “I don’t know what I’ll do if it isn’t him,” she said.

  “It’s all right,” I said, although I wasn’t sure if it was. “Be a brave girl and try not to upset the child.”

  Mrs. Griggs called a nurse who led us up the stairs, through a locked door, and into a short, windowless corridor. At the end of it was a door with a brass plate marked “BOYS.”

  She unlocked the door and pushed it open. We stepped into an enormous room with high windows and rows of iron beds on either side. Shoes and jackets and children’s blocks were scattered about the room.

  And in the middle of it stood one little boy.

  Lucy ran for him before any of us had a moment to think. He was in her arms and smothered against her shoulder so fast that I didn’t get a good look at his face. As she spun around, all I could see was black hair like his father’s, wetted and combed along a neat part, and the back of the smallest blue suit I’d ever seen.

  The nurse smiled and stepped back into the doorway to motion for her colleagues, who must have gathered just outside when they heard us come upstairs. Sheriff Heath bowed his head and stepped away to make room for them.

  Lucy didn’t stop spinning and I began to wonder if she was ever going to let the boy come up for air. They formed their own planet in the middle of the room, rotating around a sun that only they could see.

  54

  LUCY LOOSENED HER GRIP ON THE BOY. She sat down on the edge of a bed and held him in her lap. He had Mr. Kaufman’s hair and round forehead, but he’d inherited Lucy’s eyes and her fine Irish profile.

  Sheriff Heath knelt down in front of them and held out his hand to the boy, who didn’t know to shake it but gripped his fingers. He was a fine, plump boy, old enough to walk on his own, but too young to understand what was happening.

  “It’s nice to meet you, son,” was all that Sheriff Heath could say.

  I stood in the doorway and talked in a low voice with the nurses. They were willing to fix up a room so that Lucy could stay the night.

  “It’s better that way,” one of them whispered to me. “If we make her go home without him, she could make such a fuss that the other children would hear it. We’d never get them to bed after a scene like that.”

  Lucy overheard us and rose from the edge of the bed, carrying the boy on her hip as if she’d been doing it every day since he was born. “The sheriff already told me he’d have to stay here tonight,” she said. “It’s all right. I work for two shut-ins who are expecting their supper. They’ve been very gracious, but I should go back to them.”

  “I’ll get a judge to see us tomorrow, and I’ll take statements from the nurses tonight so we’ll be ready for his questions,” Sheriff Heath said, and he and I walked downstairs and left Lucy to say her goodbyes. The news had already reached Mrs. Griggs, who was waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs.

  She smiled broadly. “This doesn’t happen often enough around here. The nurses are terribly pleased.”

  “In my years as a sheriff, I’ve never returned a lost child to its parents. And I didn’t do it this time, either. We have Miss Kopp to thank for this one.”

  She nodded at me, still smiling. Then she turned back to the sheriff and said, “I suppose the story will come out before the judge tomorrow and may be in the papers.”

  “We hope to keep it out of the papers,” he said quickly.

  “Yes. I gather that the boy’s father is not . . .”

  “No. The father won’t have anything to do with the child. But the girl is in a comfortable situation as a domestic servant for two spinsters who are willing to take in the boy. I spoke to them this afternoon, and they have agreed to sign a letter for the judge. My stenographer will get it written tonight.”

  “Well,” she said. “If the judge is satisfied, we will be, too.”

  At last Lucy appeared at the top of the stairs, along with a nurse who had no doubt been sent along in case of hysterics. But Lucy’s head was high and she seemed to have a firm grip on herself. She walked slowly but deliberately, and smiled bravely when she said, “I told him I had to go and make a bed for him. He’s grown too much for the one I had.”

  The next morning, Sheriff Heath and I were waiting in front of the factory when Marion Garfinkel arrived. “If it’s about the trial, you’ll have to speak to Henry,” she said when she saw us. “I want nothing to do with it. I told him I would pay Mr. Ward’s bills, but I’m not paying another attorney. He’s on his own now.”

  She opened the side entrance just enough to let herself in and tried to close it behind her. Sheriff Heath caught the door before she did. “We can speak here, or I can bring you to the courthouse,” he said quietly.

  Marion shrugged without looking back at him. “We can talk all day if you want. I’m not responsible for my brother anymore. I haven’t even seen him in weeks.”

  We followed her across the empty factory floor. “I’ve taken over Henry’s desk,” she said, leading us into his office, which had been thoroughly cleaned and transformed from a clubhouse back into a room where business could take place.

  Sheriff Heath closed the door behind him. “This concerns Lucy Blake.”

  She dropped into her chair and gave an
elaborate shrug. “I haven’t seen her either. Maybe the two of them ran off together.” She picked up a letter opener and slid an envelope open.

  That indifferent gesture—the flick of a knife through paper—enraged me. How could this woman sit so casually after what she had done? The sheriff had warned me to stay quiet, but I couldn’t.

  “We found him,” I said. “Right here in Paterson, where you left him.”

  The letter opener dropped to her desk. She kept her eyes down. The sheriff cleared his throat and leaned forward. “A boy was left at the Paterson Orphan Asylum last year. Lucy Blake has identified the child as hers. One of the nurses at the asylum remembers when you brought in the baby. She described you perfectly last night. And your handwriting is in the file. It isn’t your name, but it happens that we brought in an expert on the study of handwriting. He’s helping us with the case against your brother.”

  She lifted her eyebrows and her lips moved, but no words came out.

  “Your attorney remembers Henry asking about adopting a baby,” I said. “Was it Henry’s idea?”

  Still Marion said nothing.

  “You can make your statement here, or we will take it at the courthouse,” the sheriff said.

  “I have no statement to make.”

  “A forthright confession will help you avoid the scandal of a trial. Ask your attorney if you don’t believe me. Although he tells me he isn’t taking any more criminal cases.”

  She took in a long, trembling breath and smoothed the papers on her desk. “It might have been Henry’s idea, but he wasn’t involved. I couldn’t trust him to keep it quiet.”

  I caught myself nodding in agreement. Marion was shrewd. Of the two, she made the better criminal.

  “I thought it was best for the child,” she continued, so quietly that I had to lean in to hear. “That girl couldn’t have raised him on her own. She would have kept coming back for money. She would have dragged us through the courts eventually.” She looked up at us defiantly. “I’m expected to clean up after my brother, so I did. And surely you agree that I did that baby a favor.”

  I wasn’t surprised to hear her say that. But I couldn’t picture her sneaking into a building and grabbing the child.

  “You had help,” I said. “Someone created a commotion inside that building and scared off the unionists. They ran off in the middle of the night, and they never reported the baby missing. You couldn’t have frightened them like that yourself.”

  She tilted her head to one side, and then the other, as if she was weighing her options. Finally she said, “My brother has some rather unsavory friends. But useful.”

  Mrs. Garfinkel walked out of the office slowly, shakily, with me on one side and Sheriff Heath on the other. She murmured a few words to one of the secretaries who was just walking in. There were two automobiles waiting outside: one to take her to jail, and another to take us to pick up Lucy Blake.

  THE ARREST OF MRS. GARFINKEL mattered little to Lucy, who urged us not to press charges at all but to just return her child to her and let her get as far away from the Kaufman family as she could.

  “Kidnapping is not a crime we can overlook, Miss Blake,” the sheriff said. “But we expect Mrs. Garfinkel to make a full confession and avoid a trial. We should be able to keep it out of the papers. I can’t guarantee that Kaufman will leave you alone, but he doesn’t know where you live and we’ll make sure he doesn’t find out.”

  The hearing was conducted later that morning exactly as Sheriff Heath said it would be. A judge greeted us in closed chambers and heard testimony from Lucy and Sheriff Heath. (I was introduced only as a friend of Lucy’s and had no objection to that.) The letter from Lucy’s employer was read aloud and found suitable. Prosecutor Wright stepped in long enough to say that charges had been read against Marion Garfinkel and that she would be detained until arrangements could be made about her bail. The judge heard it all and signed the order before him authorizing the orphanage to release the child to his mother.

  Lucy chatted happily as we drove back to the orphanage, describing the sitting room the sisters had agreed to turn into a nursery where little Bobby could spend his days while she worked. She said that they had made substantial donations to their church’s building fund years ago and had already written to the minister’s wife to ask for help in securing clothing and shoes for the child. Sheriff Heath said he thought his wife might have a few things she could send over, and I offered to have Fleurette sew anything else the boy might need.

  We were in high spirits when we arrived. Sheriff Heath and I stood in the lobby while Lucy ran upstairs to collect her boy.

  The sheriff held his hat and ran his fingers around the brim. “I owe you an apology, Miss Kopp,” he said.

  “I don’t think you do,” I said.

  “No, you did this all on your own. You went to New York and found that photographer. I missed John Ward’s name on the pictures, but you remembered. And whatever made you think of going around to the orphanages—well, you put it all together very quickly. You make a good detective.”

  I laughed. “It appears that you and Norma agree on something. If there are any positions for lady detectives, please be sure to tell me,” I said.

  “What’s that?” he said.

  “The Kopp sisters need to find jobs or husbands, and soon,” I said.

  “Who says so?”

  “Our bank balance says so.” Lucy’s feet appeared at the top of the stairs and I ran toward her. “Just don’t send any suitors my way,” I called back to the sheriff. “I’m trying the other route first.” Lucy descended to the landing with her little boy in her arms, and they both fell against me at once, all light and laughter.

  55

  “YOU’RE NOT TAKING A JOB IN NEW YORK!” Fleurette said, dropping the roll she’d been buttering.

  “Not yet,” I said. “I just wrote to them and asked about the position.”

  “And what did they say?”

  “They sent an immediate reply and said they were quite desperate for extra help this spring and wondered if I’d like to come for an interview right away. I’m going tomorrow.”

  Fleurette stared at Norma in horror. We had decided not to tell Fleurette of our financial difficulties or of Francis’s pressure to sell the farm. We didn’t want her to be angry with him.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked. “Wrap presents behind the counter?”

  “Oh, not at all,” I said. “They’re hiring store detectives.”

  WHEN MR. WANAMAKER first opened his store in New York, he made much of the fact that shoppers could wander freely through the sales floor and handle the goods themselves, an idea that was still quite novel back in 1896. His was a glittering bazaar of velvet gloves and leather shoes and miles of ribbon and lace and tailored suits for men and every other convenience a city-dweller might want, straddling two blocks on Broadway and employing a few thousand clerks and stock boys.

  He believed that prices should be written on paper tags and affixed directly to the merchandise so that his customers could see for themselves what each item cost. “If everyone is equal before God,” he liked to tell his managers, “then everyone should be equal before price.”

  Unfortunately for Mr. Wanamaker and his Christian principles, the openness of his store invited thievery. To combat this problem, some of his clerks had become detectives, strolling around the sales floor in ordinary dress, posing as shoppers but keeping their eyes on the slim fingers and gaping pocketbooks of a new breed of genteel downtown thief. Even women stole from Wanamaker’s, which meant that women had to be employed as detectives to monitor the gloves and lace and undergarments. The job was simply to walk the sales floor, as unobtrusively as possible, wearing one’s own clothes, looking like an ordinary shopper. I saw no reason why I couldn’t get hired to do a simple thing like that.

  I WAS FIFTEEN MINUTES EARLY for my interview with Mrs. Langdon, the ladies’ sales manager at Wanamaker’s. I wore a wool dress of dark green tha
t Fleurette had just finished for me. It seemed like a smart dress for a store detective—nicely tailored but comfortable, of an ordinary fabric and color that would not call attention it itself. Fleurette had declared it to be a dress for a woman who had important things to do.

  I approached a girl selling scarves at a counter near the entrance and asked her where I might find Mrs. Langdon.

  “Oh!” she said. “Is Annie all right?”

  “Annie?”

  “One of the girls. She’s been missing and Mrs. Langdon said that her mother was coming in to talk to her. I thought you might have been Annie’s mother.”

  I looked down at my suit and my high leather shoes. I did look matronly.

  “I’m here to interview for a position,” I said.

  “You are?” The girl looked up at me, puzzled. She wore smooth ringlets of brown hair around a perfectly round face that seemed to wear a perpetual expression of surprise. She couldn’t have been more than eighteen.

  “Won’t your husband mind?” she said.

  I hadn’t time to explain myself. “Perhaps I’ll ask at the perfume counter.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” the girl said quickly. “Her office is upstairs and straight to the back. Through the white door without a sign on it.”

  I made my way past the scarves and the perfume, past the last of the winter gloves and a collection of lace for spring, past a table of sewing notions stocked with pearl buttons and a shelf of leather-bound books sold by the set. At last I reached the white door upstairs, and behind that door was Mrs. Langdon, seated at her desk.

  Here, at last, was someone who wasn’t eighteen. She wore a neat bun of perfectly white hair, and a crisply starched white cotton blouse to match. Everything in her office, in fact, was white: the walls, the rug, and even her furniture, all painted the color of flawless new snow.

  She raised a tiny hand as I walked in to indicate that I should not interrupt her writing. I waited while she scratched her paper and blotted it, and then she turned to face me.