Murder in Greenwich Village

by Liz Freeland

  Callie paled. “Those are my clothes.”

  The detectives’ brows raised at that, and they steered us back out to our little parlor room, giving the men left in the bedroom a specific directive to keep an eye out for a wad of money. And what is to keep one of the men from taking the money for themselves? Such things weren’t unheard of. The papers were full of stories of flagrant police corruption.

  When we were all seated again, they verified Ethel’s particulars: thirty-five, unmarried, not employed, visiting from upstate. Robinson was very gentle with Callie, who began to relax a little and even smiled once at Muldoon, for all the good it did her. The man looked as if his heart, if he had one, was carved from granite.

  Then again, maybe a stone heart was an asset for a man whose job was untangling grisly murders. How did they stand it? This was my first encounter with violent death, and a quivering queasiness gripped me. I couldn’t imagine my life ever being the same again. Yet the detectives saw horrors like this all the time. Did they go home to their families, kiss their wives, and eat dinner just like normal people? Knowing the worst of the world, how did they carry on?

  She might have been crumbling inside, too, but Callie remained surprisingly collected as she talked about Ethel and gave the detectives the rundown of the evening. She told them we’d met at my office and gone to Aunt Irene’s, stayed a few hours, and then came home on the train.

  I frowned.

  “Miss Faulk?”

  Startled, I found myself in the beam of Muldoon’s dark gaze. “I’m sorry,” I piped up quickly. “I just—this is all so—” I was gibbering incoherently, which was not like me at all. Why had Callie said we’d met at my office? I hadn’t seen her until she arrived at Aunt Irene’s, late.

  “We understand,” Robinson said. “On top of everything else, you young ladies are probably very tired.”

  “Yes,” I agreed, although I wasn’t tired so much as numb. I couldn’t imagine how I would ever sleep this night, or ever again. Certainly not in this apartment.

  “Do you often gad about so late?” Muldoon asked.

  Gad about? The implied criticism in that statement focused me again. “We were visiting my aunt, and we arrived home over an hour ago,” I said.

  “You both have jobs, am I right?” Two lines dug in between his dark brows. “Are you in the habit of staying out until eleven on Thursday nights?”

  “It wasn’t ten when we left my aunt’s, and we were home by ten thirty. But yes, we go out most weeks. Aunt Irene has an at-home on Thursday nights.”

  Robinson’s face creased in puzzlement. “A what?”

  “A kind of house party,” Muldoon translated. “So this was a regular occurrence, leaving Miss Gail alone in the apartment on Thursday nights?”

  “Yes.” I shifted in my seat. I had only ever invited Ethel to my aunt’s house perfunctorily, and had unfailingly felt relieved when she declined, usually claiming fatigue. Ethel was always complaining of ailments like tiredness or tummy upset. The real reason she didn’t go with us, I suspected, was that Callie and I framed our nights at Aunt Irene’s in terms of having agreed to help out—as if we weren’t actually guests ourselves. The implication was always that it would be awkward for Ethel to tag along, and we, of course, were happy that she didn’t.

  My smallness of spirit toward her shamed me now. If I’d been a little more generous and made her feel welcome to join us, maybe none of this would have happened tonight, and Ethel would still be alive.

  My gaze strayed to the bedroom door. Just a few hours ago, Callie and I had been talking about getting rid of her. Anything short of murder, I’d joked.

  “Had you noticed anything peculiar in Miss Gail’s behavior lately?” Robinson asked. “Anything that might explain where that money might have come from, or gone?”

  “No,” we both answered at once.

  “The money could have been her life savings, for all I know.” Callie frowned. “Her parents died when she was still in her teens. Perhaps it was her legacy from them.”

  “A bank would have been a safer place than a boot to keep a large amount of cash,” Robinson said.

  There was no arguing with that. Callie and I didn’t try.

  “Miss Gail never begged off engagements because she hoped someone might drop by?” Muldoon asked. “Perhaps a man? A sweetheart?”

  I just stopped myself from sputtering, and Callie’s “Of course not” carried a whiff of amazement that the word sweetheart would ever be used in conjunction with her cousin.

  “She’s never mentioned a man’s name to us,” I said. “Ever.”

  When I’d last seen Ethel, that morning before work, she’d been sitting in the chair Muldoon was leaning over the back of now. She said she intended to spend the evening reading. I informed the detectives of this. “Why she felt the need to dress up in Callie’s clothes to read a book is what puzzles me,” I added.

  “She never borrowed your clothes before?” Robinson asked.

  “Never,” Callie said. “Louise borrows my things, but never Ethel.”

  “What about as you were coming home?” Robinson asked. “Did you see or meet anyone near the building?”

  I waited for Callie’s no before chiming in with my own. I barely knew Ford, and there also was no reason to drag Sawyer Attinger, a married man, into this mess. The detectives were suspicious enough of our morals already.

  I couldn’t get Sawyer’s words out of my head, though. I’ve just been to your apartment. Had he come inside the apartment? It hadn’t been locked. We rarely locked the door if someone was at home, except right before we went to bed. And when we met him down the street, Sawyer had been stirred up, tense.

  But what about the envelope Wally saw in the man’s hands? Sawyer hadn’t been carrying anything when we saw him. Nor had I noticed any blood. The man who’d stabbed Ethel would surely have come away with blood on his hands.

  The most likely reason Ethel would have been killed was if someone had mistaken her for Callie. But Sawyer wasn’t demented—he wouldn’t have mistaken Ethel for the woman he claimed to love. Anyway, why would he have wanted to kill Callie?

  Why had Othello killed Desdemona?

  “You’re very quiet, Miss Faulk,” Muldoon said. “If you have any information that could help us, please speak up.”

  I shook my head. “It’s all so confusing. And poor Ethel . . .”

  Callie looked at me through a haze of tears. “Poor Ethel. I’ll need to let Dora know what’s happened.”

  Robinson, softening, suggested, “Perhaps it will be best to wait until morning. We can all speak again tomorrow.”

  “Yes.” I jumped at the suggestion. It would be a relief to have everyone gone so I could talk to Callie, and think. Much as my heart wanted to convict Sawyer, my mind kept returning to the manila envelope Wally had seen. Ford Fitzsimmons probably had several of those in his apartment.

  Muldoon’s forehead creased, and I guessed he wanted to argue with his partner. But he didn’t. Robinson leaned forward and gave Callie a paternal pat on the shoulder. “There now, Miss Gail, what you need is some rest.”

  She looked about her with shining eyes. The apartment was still crowded, and there was the matter of the bedroom with all that blood in it. Neither of us would find rest anywhere near it. “How?”

  Muldoon straightened. “The lady upstairs, Mrs. Freeman, has offered you girls a bed for the night.”

  Max and Lucia had three children and two bedrooms. Where would we fit?

  But Callie and I took in all the men still lingering, and Ethel’s bedroom, and without further discussion we decided to go upstairs.

  After we’d gathered a few things to take with us for our night at Max and Lucia’s, the coroner’s men came through from the bedroom with a stretcher. A white sheet covered Ethel, whose frame seemed smaller now than it ever had in life. All flesh is grass, that slight figure beneath the sheet seemed to announce. Ethel’s final homily.

  My last glimpse o
f the stretcher was a piece of ivory satin hanging out below the sheet. Splattered with red, the thin material fluttered as the bearers maneuvered through the doorway.

  Callie gulped. “Where will they take her?”

  “Bellevue,” Robinson said. “The coroner will want to look at the body.”

  “An autopsy?” It sounded so ghoulish. A final insult to Ethel.

  The two detectives looked at each other.

  “I doubt a full autopsy will be necessary. There’s little doubt that the knife caused the fatal wound, but perhaps there were other”—Robinson coughed—“depredations that weren’t immediately visible to us.”

  Muldoon glowered at the word depredations. They meant Ethel might have been raped. Bile rose in my throat, and for a moment I thought I was going to embarrass myself.

  Callie and I edged past several shouting reporters on the landing as we made our way upstairs clutching towels, toothbrushes, and nightgowns, seeking sanctuary from all this horror.

  But there was little peace at Max and Lucia’s. There was no Max, either.

  At our light tap, Lucia threw open the door and jerked us inside. Then, as soon as the door had closed behind us, the woman collapsed like a punctured tire and wailed at us in Italian. In moments when Lucia reverted to her native tongue, Max’s interpreting skills were essential. Callie and I could only stare at her, uncomprehending, as we cast the occasional inquisitive glance around the flat. The parlor had been divided by a bed sheet to create a semi-private space next to the high front windows for Max’s makeshift painting studio. The curtain was drawn, leaving just enough room for a long, narrow table and chairs—the family dining room. Paint, turpentine, and garlic mingled in the air.

  “Where is Max?” I asked, attempting to hoist Lucia up from the rug.

  “He go!” she cried, still on her knees. “I say to policeman he has the night work, but is no true. He just go!”

  “Isn’t he coming back?” Callie asked.

  “Non lo so! Non lo so!”

  That sounded like a negative to me. As quickly as we could, Callie and I extricated ourselves from Lucia and shut ourselves up in the bedroom she offered us—hers and Max’s. Lucia indicated she would sleep with the bambini, but even with the door closed, we could hear her wailing through the thin wall. I doubted any of us would really sleep this night.

  Callie and I changed and climbed into bed; then we lay on our backs, staring at the ceiling and trying to ignore the basso continuo of despair coming from the next room. The pillow slip beneath my head smelled of Max’s clove-scented hair tonic. I flipped the pillow over, punched it down, and tried to relax. But when I shut my eyes, the scene of that bloody bed flickered across my closed lids.

  “Thanks for not saying anything about Sawyer,” Callie whispered.

  I didn’t mention that I was shielding Ford, too. At least until I had time to think this through. Then I remembered Muldoon’s mistrustful gaze. “Maybe we should have.”

  “No,” she said. “Sawyer wouldn’t harm a fly. And why would he kill Ethel?”

  “Why would anyone?” I asked. “Unless he thought she was you.”

  “He wasn’t that drunk.”

  I hadn’t even realized he was drunk at all. Perhaps that accounted for the feverish look in his eyes. I nearly clucked my tongue like Ethel. Men and their liquor. Sometimes I almost believed the crazy prohibitionists had a point.

  “Why did you tell the detectives that we met at my office?” I whispered into the dark.

  “I didn’t want them going to Mr. Sanderson, the producer, and questioning him.” As she spoke, her voice took on an edge. “This could be my big break—a murder could muddle it all up. You understand that, don’t you?”

  I was trying to, although lying seemed to be putting self-interest ahead of finding Ethel’s murderer. Yet wasn’t I doing that, too, by not telling Robinson and Muldoon about Ford Fitzsimmons? Omitting information was little better than a lie.

  “What happened to Ethel’s money?” I wondered aloud.

  “Beats me. Who could have known she had it?”

  That stumped me. Callie and I were the only ones who’d been aware of it, and that was only by accident. Who else could have gone looking through Ethel’s boots?

  Callie lifted onto her elbows and looked down at me. “You don’t think I did it, do you?”

  “What—stole Ethel’s money?” I asked, surprised.

  “Or killed her. Because I didn’t do either, I swear.”

  As if I or anyone else could imagine Callie stabbing a person. “No, of course not.”

  She blew out a long breath and lay flat again. “It’s all so awful. Why was she wearing my nightgown?”

  I had no answer for that, either. Ethel had nightgowns of her own—high-necked, long-sleeved, and made from flannel so sturdy we’d once joked that her nightclothes could double as armor. All of our guffawing behind her back saddened me now.

  “What will I tell Dora and Abel?” Callie whispered. “If I can’t get them on the phone tomorrow morning, I’ll have to send a telegram. Imagine getting news like this in a telegram. It’s too horrible.”

  No more horrible than walking into your apartment and finding your cousin murdered. Except that Dora, no matter what kind of argument they’d had earlier this month, probably loved Ethel. You’d have to love your sister a little after living with her all that time. It comforted me somewhat to think Ethel would truly be properly mourned by someone. We certainly weren’t doing a good job of it.

  Through the wall came the sound of Lucia blowing her nose.

  “You don’t think it was Max who killed her, do you?” Callie whispered.

  “No . . .” Max might not be a charmer, but he had never spoken an unkind word to me. In a building full of men, he was the most helpful of them all. And he was a family man, with everything to lose. Besides, if Max killed Ethel, who was Wally’s man on the stairs?

  On the other hand, Max had disappeared. Heaven knows he and Lucia were poor, and now Ethel’s money was gone. And if he had murdered Ethel, Lucia’s hysterics could be viewed in a whole different light. So could her offer of a place to sleep. Perhaps Max told her to extend the neighborly invitation in order to deflect suspicion.

  The night was warm, but a chill worked its way right into the marrow of my bones. I pulled the covers all the way up to my chin. From the Hudson came the deep lowing of a ship’s horn. Callie looked over at me in the dark, and I knew the same question held us both in its grip.

  Were we sleeping in a murderer’s bed?

  * * *

  The clopping of hooves on pavement from a delivery wagon jolted me out of a fitful sleep that had been an agony of disturbing dreams. There was no question of either Callie or me going to work that day. Our building had no telephone, so I dressed quickly in yesterday’s clothes and headed to the corner candy store, which allowed us to use theirs. At first I wondered if my boss would believe me when I told him what had happened. Then I passed the newsstand.

  Several papers announced the murder on their front pages, and a couple gave it so much prominence that Ethel even squeezed out General Pershing’s battles in the Philippines. The Battle of Bud Bagsak was yesterday’s news. What could the death of over three hundred soldiers on a faraway island be compared to a lurid local murder? One rag, The New York World Bulletin, featured the story above the fold along with a picture of our narrow four-story brick building, which appeared little more than a shadowy, sinister hulk in black and white. The headline screamed, BUTCHERY IN GREENWICH VILLAGE.

  I bought several papers, called Mr. McChesney at home—waking his entire household, probably—blurted out my tale in only slightly less sordid language than the newspapers to a half-awake servant, and hurried back home on quivering legs. I needed to get ahold of myself. I inhaled deeply. This was the only time of day in Manhattan when a deep breath really held any appeal—just after the street-cleaning wagons had cleared the bitumen and concrete of their usual film of soot and
dirt, and the traffic had yet to gin up to the point that the air was its usual choking brew of exhaust, dust, and manure. The June sky spread out overhead as clear and blue as a tropical sea.

  And a woman I’d lived with for the past month wasn’t alive to see it.

  I’d intended to carry the milk the deliveryman had left at our door up to Lucia’s, but when I reached the third-floor landing, the bottle was gone and the door stood wide open. I rushed inside, assuming Callie had come downstairs. Instead, I found myself face-to-face with Detective Muldoon.

  He stood in the hallway to Ethel’s room, hat tipped back, with our milk bottle in his hand. He was wearing the same suit from last night, and his bloodshot eyes spoke of an even more sleepless night than I’d had. Although at some point he’d taken the time for a shoeshine and shave.

  “Detective? What are you doing here?”

  He took me in without a smile. Doubtless I looked as rough as he did.

  “I came to find Miss Gail, and then to speak to Mr. and Mrs. Freeman. When I discovered this apartment empty, I decided to have another look at the murder room.”

  I could just glimpse the bloody bedclothes in the room beyond him. Why would anyone want to look at that again?

  “You’re up early, Miss Faulk,” he observed.

  I frowned, still trying to adjust to the fact that my apartment now appeared to be police property. “Last night you were concerned that I was out too late. You seem to have an unusual preoccupation with the hours I keep.”

  His answer was an assessing, level stare. It was effective.

  “I went to the corner store to telephone my employer,” I said. “Too late I realized that the whole world wasn’t up just because I was. I’m still rattled.”

  “Understandable.” He fell silent.

  “Is there some specific reason for your visit, Detective?”

  He hesitated, weighing his words so cautiously that I worried something bad had been discovered overnight.

  “I hope you’re not going to upset Callie,” I said before he could speak. “She had a difficult night.” Several times I had awakened, disoriented in the unfamiliar room, to the sound of her sobbing.