Murder on Sisters' Row

by Victoria Thompson

  “I suppose we could ask her,” Mrs. Van Orner said with a sigh.

  “She’d lie about that just like she lies about everything else,” Miss Yingling said, reminding Sarah of what Frank Malloy had told her about prostitutes. Plainly, Amy had lied about many things. The problem was figuring out which ones.

  “Mrs. Brandt,” Mrs. Spratt-Williams said. “When Amy asked you to help her, did she know Mrs. Van Orner’s name or did she just ask you to find someone who does this sort of work?”

  “She knew Mrs. Van Orner’s name,” Sarah said. “In fact . . .” She closed her eyes, replaying that desperate conversation in her mind. What had Amy said exactly? “She told me to contact Mrs. Gregory Van Orner.”

  Mrs. Van Orner made a tiny sound, as if she’d felt a sudden, sharp pain, but Mrs. Spratt-Williams said, “There you are, she knew Gregory’s name. She was trying to shock you and frighten you. She wants money, that’s all.”

  “Or maybe . . .” Miss Yingling said, drawing everyone’s attention. When they were all looking at her, she said, “Or maybe the baby’s father really is named Gregory.”

  ALL THE WAY HOME, SARAH KEPT TRYING TO MAKE SENSE of it all. Miss Yingling had quickly explained that she meant the baby’s father could be some other man named Gregory, not Mr. Van Orner at all. What an innocent explanation that would be.

  Why had they only pretended to believe it?

  Oh, they had all insisted that they did, but Sarah could see that they didn’t. They all thought Amy had some sinister reason for choosing Mr. Van Orner’s name for her child, even if none of them had said so aloud. Sarah was already beginning to regret helping the girl, although how she could have refused, she didn’t know.

  Sarah felt unutterably weary when she finally arrived at her house. She let herself in the front door and called out to tell Maeve and Catherine she was home. As always, Catherine came running to meet her, emerging from the kitchen and racing through the front room, which served as Sarah’s office, and straight into her arms. Sarah hugged her tightly, inhaling her sweet scent and silently vowing never to let anything bad happen to this precious little girl.

  When Catherine had given and received the proper number of hugs and kisses, she leaned away so she could see Sarah’s face and said, “We have company.”

  “We do?” Sarah asked, playing along. “Is Mrs. Ellsworth here?” Sarah’s elderly neighbor spent most of her free time with the girls.

  Catherine shook her head, smiling smugly. “Guess again.”

  Sarah scrunched up her face, pretending to think very hard. “Mrs. Decker?” she asked. Sarah’s mother also enjoyed visiting the girls.

  Catherine shook her head vigorously, grinning broadly now.

  “Oh, dear, I don’t know,” Sarah said. “Can you give me a hint?”

  Catherine pursed her lips as she considered. After a moment, she said, “He’s mad at you.”

  “He’s very mad at you,” a familiar voice said.

  Sarah looked up to see Frank Malloy standing in the kitchen doorway. He obviously knew what she’d been up to this morning, although how he could have heard about it already, she had no idea. He must be ready to throttle her, but even still, she found herself embarrassingly happy to see him.

  “Malloy,” she said by way of greeting.

  He didn’t return her smile. He really was angry.

  Maeve was hovering behind him, plainly at a loss as to how to act. “Girls, could you go upstairs while Mr. Malloy and I talk?”

  “I told him he shouldn’t be mad at you,” Catherine informed her importantly.

  “Then I’m sure he won’t be for very long,” Sarah said, setting the girl down on her feet.

  Maeve came over and took her hand. “Come on, we’ll play with your dollhouse.”

  They started for the stairs, but Catherine stopped and looked back over her shoulder. “You’ll call us when he’s not mad anymore?”

  “Oh, yes,” Sarah promised, not daring to look at Malloy for confirmation.

  She waited until the girls were out of sight, then took her time removing her hat and gloves. When she looked up again, he hadn’t moved, and he was still glaring at her. She tried another smile. “At least no one’s dead,” she pointed out.

  “Not yet,” he replied grimly.

  5

  “DID THE GIRLS FEED YOU?” SHE ASKED, WALKING TOWARD him.

  “They made me a sandwich.”

  “Is there anything left? I’m starving.”

  He stood aside and let her precede him into the kitchen. She saw the loaf of bread still on the cutting board. She sliced herself two pieces and found the cheese in the icebox and cut some. Malloy had found a cup and poured her some coffee from the pot on the stove and refilled his own cup. He waited until she was seated and halfway through her sandwich before he started in on her.

  “I warned you not to get involved with that madam.”

  Sarah sighed with resignation. “I told you, I couldn’t refuse to help that girl. Besides, all I did was take the baby, and the madam had already given me her permission to do that.”

  “You also made sure the bouncer wasn’t there when those rich do-gooders got there to take the girl away.”

  Sarah tried not to show him how surprised she was. “How did you know that?”

  “Mrs. Walker told me.”

  Sarah gaped at him, giving up all semblance of dignity. “When did you see Mrs. Walker?”

  “When she came to Police Headquarters to complain to the chief of detectives that someone had kidnapped one of her girls.”

  “Oh, dear!”

  “Yes, oh, dear. She made sure to complain about you by name, so of course O’Brien sent for me right off.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  He gave her a look that said she shouldn’t lie to him, so she took another bite of her sandwich.

  “She told me what happened. Whose idea was it to get the bouncer away?”

  “Theirs,” Sarah said when she’d swallowed. “Mrs. Van Orner and her friends at Rahab’s Daughters.”

  “Whose daughters?”

  “Rahab’s. You remember the Bible story about Joshua and Jericho and how they sent in the spies and she was a harlot and—”

  Malloy was waving his hand. “Never mind. So you went to this Mrs. Van-what’s-her-name—”

  “Van Orner.”

  “Van Orner,” he repeated patiently. “And she and her friends came up with this plan?”

  “Yes, they told me exactly what to do. They knew Mrs. Walker would have a man there to keep order when necessary, and if they could just get him away from the house, they thought they could get Amy out without too much trouble.”

  “Mrs. Walker has accused you of kidnapping one of her girls.”

  “I wasn’t even there.”

  “You organized it.”

  “No, I didn’t. I told Mrs. Van Orner that a young woman needed help, and she did the rest. All I did was take the baby, and Mrs. Walker had told me I could.”

  Malloy looked around meaningfully. “If you took the baby, where is it?”

  “He’s with his mother.”

  “And where is that?”

  Sarah opened her mouth to reply and caught herself just in time. “Why do you want to know?”

  Malloy sighed. “Because the chief of detectives has ordered me to find her and take her back to Mrs. Walker.”

  “You can’t be serious!” Sarah cried, nearly choking on the last bite of her sandwich.

  “I’m perfectly serious. The girl is Mrs. Walker’s property, and she wants her back.”

  “The girl isn’t anyone’s property,” Sarah insisted. “We abolished slavery in the United States thirty years ago!”

  “That’s the rumor,” Malloy said blandly.

  “And I can’t believe the police are helping a madam force a young woman back into prostitution!”

  “Mrs. Walker pays a lot of money to make sure the police do whatever she wants, and they usually oblige her.”
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  “Well, I have no intention of telling you where she is.”

  “I know you don’t.”

  “You do?”

  “Of course I do,” he said with some exasperation.

  “Then why are you here?”

  “Because if I didn’t come and ask you, I’d lose my job. I’ve got a mother and a son and a very expensive school to support, if you’ll recall, so I need my job.”

  Malloy’s son Brian was deaf and attended a special school. Sarah tried not to feel guilty. “I don’t want you to lose your job, but I can’t let you take Amy back to that place.”

  “Where is she now?” Malloy held up his hand when she would have protested. “You don’t have to tell me the address. I just need to know if she’s someplace safe. Good God, she’s not here, is she?” He looked around in alarm.

  “No, of course not! I wouldn’t put Catherine and Maeve in jeopardy.”

  “Thank God you thought of that. So where is she?”

  “Mrs. Van Orner has a house where she takes the girls. They stay there until they can make their own way in the world.”

  “If they could make their own way in the world, they wouldn’t have ended up in a brothel in the first place.”

  “Mrs. Van Orner did say that many of the women end up back on the streets. It’s very difficult for them to find honest work.”

  “Honest work that will keep them from starving.”

  They both knew how little women got paid in factories and sweatshops.

  “Yes, a woman needs a husband to support her, but as Mrs. Van Orner pointed out, few men are willing to marry a woman who has been a prostitute.”

  “Sounds like this Mrs. Van Orner has chosen a pretty thankless job.”

  “Yes, she has. I wonder why she hasn’t given it up by now. I don’t think I could do it myself.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  “Malloy, I know you didn’t want me to get involved, but how could I have refused to help that poor girl?”

  “You didn’t have to get the baby out yourself.”

  “I had to make sure he didn’t get sold or shipped out West or something.”

  “No, you didn’t, but that’s an argument for another day. Today, I have to figure out what I’m going to tell O’Brien and Mrs. Walker.”

  “Tell them the truth. I’m not going to betray Mrs. Van Orner.”

  “Who is this Mrs. Van Orner?”

  “Her husband is Gregory Van Orner. I don’t know much about them except that they’re very wealthy. I could ask my mother—”

  “No!” he nearly shouted. “Don’t ask your mother anything. I don’t need her involved in this, too.”

  Sarah bit back a smile. Mrs. Decker had occasionally assisted in investigations, but without her husband’s knowledge. Obviously, Malloy didn’t want to risk him ever finding out.

  “Then you’ll have to be satisfied with what I know,” Sarah said. “She has an office for Rahab’s Daughters in the United Charities Building on Twenty-second Street, and she has a group of people who work with her and help her rescue prostitutes.”

  “Who are these other people?”

  “A Mrs. Spratt-Williams, Mr. Porter, Mr. Quimby, and a Miss Yingling, who serves as her secretary. I don’t know anything about any of them either, except that they’ve done this before.”

  “They’ve broken into a brothel and kidnapped a prostitute before?” he asked in amazement.

  “Yes, but not often. It’s dangerous, I’m told.”

  Malloy didn’t appreciate her attempt at humor. “I’m told the same thing. If they don’t break into brothels very often, how do they do all this rescuing?”

  “They find girls on the street and take them to the house I told you about, where they’ll be safe.”

  Malloy sipped his coffee and considered what she had told him.

  “What are you going to do now?” she asked after a moment.

  “I’m going to tell O’Brien that Mrs. Van Orner is married to a rich and important man, so we can’t touch her either.”

  “Either?” Sarah echoed. “Who else can’t you touch?”

  “You.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, O’Brien wanted me to drag you down to Headquarters to be questioned. I told him who your father is, though, and he changed his mind.”

  “So he sent you here instead. I’m truly sorry, Malloy.”

  “Yeah, well, so am I, but there’s nothing we can do about it. I’ll tell O’Brien what you told me about Mrs. Van Orner and her friends. If O’Brien wants to take on the Van Orner woman and her husband, he’s welcome to it.”

  “I’m not going to tell anyone where that house is,” Sarah warned.

  “Nobody’s going to ask you. I’ll tell them you don’t know, that you turned the baby over to Mrs. Van Orner and she took it to the mother. If anybody asks you, you should say the same thing.”

  “Can this Mrs. Walker really take Amy back to her house?”

  “If she can find her, she can try.” Malloy ran a hand over his face. “Please don’t have anything else to do with this, Sarah. People like Mrs. Walker are dangerous, and I can’t protect you from her, not when she’s got my boss on her payroll.”

  “I understand.” Sarah reached across the table and laid a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry you got involved in all of this.”

  His gaze met hers and held for a long moment, but before either of them could say anything, the clatter of small, running feet alerted them to the fact that Catherine was about to join them. Sarah withdrew her hand just as Catherine burst into the kitchen.

  “Are you still mad?” she asked Malloy.

  “No,” he said, taking her up into his lap.

  She smiled up at him beatifically. “I’m glad.”

  LATER THAT EVENING, LONG AFTER MALLOY HAD GONE, Sarah and the girls were cleaning up the supper dishes when someone rang her bell. Maeve and Catherine went to answer it while Sarah dried her hands and removed her apron. She was already mentally taking inventory of her medical bag in preparation for going out on a delivery when she heard what sounded like a disturbance in the front room. She was already hurrying out when she heard Maeve say, “You can’t come in here!”

  When Sarah reached the office, she saw that her visitors had already come in and were facing off with a defiant Maeve and a cowering Catherine, who clung to her skirts and gazed up at them in alarm.

  “Mrs. Walker, what are you doing here?” Sarah demanded, quickly stepping between the woman and Maeve. She was only too aware that Jake stood behind the woman, frowning menacingly.

  “I came to find Amy, and you’re the only one who knows where she is.”

  “But I don’t know where she is, and I can’t help you, so I must ask you to leave.”

  The woman jutted her chin out defiantly. “I ain’t going anyplace until you hear what I have to tell you.”

  “Then we will leave and go straight to the police,” Sarah said, motioning for Maeve and Catherine to move in the direction of the front door, which still stood open.

  “The police won’t help you none,” Mrs. Walker scoffed.

  Luckily, Sarah remembered her advantage over Mrs. Walker. “If you think they’ll take your side because of the bribes you pay them, let me assure you that my father’s influence reaches all the way to the mayor and beyond. Closing down one house of ill repute in the city won’t cause much concern to anyone, unless of course you happen to be the owner.”

  Jake made a threatening noise in his throat and took a step forward, but Mrs. Walker stopped him with an impatient gesture. Then she took a deep breath and lifted a hand to her head, as if she were suffering some sort of distress. “I . . . Mrs. Brandt, I didn’t come here to trade threats with you.”

  “Why did you come, then?”

  “To . . . I wanted to talk to you . . . about Amy.”

  “There’s nothing you can tell me about her that I don’t already know.”

  “That isn’t true. I think if you k
now the whole story, you’ll change your mind about helping her.”

  “I doubt that.”

  Mrs. Walker lifted her chin again. Her eyes were like chips of flint. “Then you shouldn’t be afraid to hear me out.”

  “And if I refuse, will you have your man here force me to listen?” She gave Jake a meaningful glare that he returned with narrowed eyes.

  “Jake, go out and wait in the carriage.”

  “But—”

  “Do as I say.”

  With obvious reluctance, he turned and made his way outside, leaving the front door wide open behind him.

  Sarah had no idea what Mrs. Walker intended to say to her, but she knew she didn’t want Catherine to hear it. “Maeve, would you take Catherine over to Mrs. Ellsworth’s for a little visit?”

  “I can’t leave you here alone with her!”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Are you sure?” Maeve asked doubtfully.

  Sarah turned to look at them. Catherine’s lower lip quivered. In another moment she was going to start crying. Sarah smiled reassuringly. “Wouldn’t you like to visit Mrs. Ellsworth? You haven’t seen her all day. Just for a few minutes. I’ll come and get you when our visitors leave. Go on, now.”

  Maeve was even more reluctant than Jake had been, but she picked Catherine up and headed for the kitchen. They could go out the back way and Jake wouldn’t see them. Sarah was glad she’d thought of that.

  Sarah turned back to her visitor expectantly. “What did you want to tell me?”

  Mrs. Walker glanced around, apparently noticing her surroundings for the first time. She saw the two easy chairs Sarah had placed by the front window. “Could we sit down? It’s been a horrible day.”

  Sarah didn’t want to encourage the woman to stay a moment longer than necessary, but a lifetime of training prevailed. “Of course,” she said, glad to hear that she sounded less than gracious, at least.

  When they were seated, Mrs. Walker took a moment to study Sarah, as if trying to judge her mood or read her thoughts in some way. Finally, she said, “I know what you think of me, but you’re wrong.”

  “Am I?” Sarah asked. “Are you telling me you don’t really own a brothel where you force young women to sell themselves?”