Murder on St. Mark's Place

by Victoria Thompson

  “Lisle, I’m not going to judge you,” Sarah assured her. “I’m just trying to find out who could have killed Gerda before he kills someone else, and the more I know about her, the easier that will be.”

  Lisle didn’t say anything for another block. They were getting close to St. Mark’s Place. Sarah didn’t have much time left before Lisle would be home. She gambled. “Lisle, you know this is a dangerous way to live. You could become pregnant. You could get a disease.”

  “You think I don’t know that? But how else can we get nice things? Do you know how much I earn at Faircloths? Six dollars a week, that’s how much! And my family’d take it all if I’d let them! As it is, they only let me keep a dollar or two for myself. I’ve got to make do on that, and I have to skip lunch or walk instead of taking the trolley so I can afford to go to a dance.”

  Sarah was calculating in her head. The last suit she’d bought for herself cost seven dollars and fifty cents. How many lunches and trolley rides would girls like Lisle and Gerda have to skip and how long would they have to save before they could afford a new outfit? Even a few dollars for a hat or a shirtwaist would require great sacrifice.

  Now Sarah understood another truth about the dance she’d just attended. The men were obviously there for sexual favors, and Sarah had assumed the girls gave them for attention. She’d never dreamed there was more at stake.

  Both Gerda and Lisle had probably exchanged sex for a hat from the man named George. “What kind of a man is he? This George, I mean.”

  Lisle shrugged one shoulder. “He’s all right, I guess. Likes to have fun. Never minds dropping a few dollars to show a girl a good time.”

  “Does he have a temper?”

  Lisle looked at her with disdain. “All men got a temper if a woman says no. Don’t you know nothing at all?”

  Sarah decided not to mention that her husband, Tom, had been at least one exception to that rule. Lisle probably wouldn’t believe her anyway.

  “But do you think this George would be violent? Is he the kind of man who—?”

  “Who would’ve killed Gerda?” Lisle asked grimly. “I don’t have no idea. Who knows what a man’ll do if a woman pushes him far enough?”

  “Would Gerda have pushed him?”

  “Gerda liked to make them mad,” Lisle admitted after a moment. “She liked to make them beg her. Lot of men, they don’t like that.”

  “Wouldn’t that be dangerous?” Sarah asked, instantly realizing how foolish the question was. Of course it was dangerous. Gerda was dead. “I mean, is that what you do? Is that why Billy was angry?”

  Lisle didn’t like talking about this. “I ain’t like Gerda. I don’t like a fuss. I ... I just like pretty things.”

  They had reached St. Mark’s Place, and they turned toward Tompkins Park. The streets weren’t as deserted as they should have been this time of night. Many people were sleeping on the fire escapes and stoops because of the heat. Others were leaning out of windows or sitting wherever they could find a spot, trying to catch whatever breeze might be stirring.

  Lisle lived down a few blocks, in one of the tenements. Sarah remembered how little she knew about the girl.

  “Do you live with your family, Lisle?”

  “My mother and stepfather.”

  “You don’t like him very much,” Sarah guessed from the tone of her voice.

  “I hate him,” Lisle said with surprisingly little rancor. It was just another fact of her life.

  “I don’t suppose he approves of you going to dances.”

  “He don’t have nothing to say about it. I told him if he made any trouble, I’d leave. I’ve got some friends I could stay with. Then he wouldn’t get my money anymore. He didn’t say anything after that.”

  “Could you really do that? Live on your own, I mean?”

  Lisle made a disgusted sound. “Not likely. Not on six dollars a week, even with three of us to a room. He don’t know it, though, so he leaves me alone.”

  The bleakness of Lisle’s existence weighed on Sarah, especially when she thought of Gerda and the other dead girls. Their lives had been equally as bleak and hopeless. “What are your plans, Lisle? What are you going to do with your life?”

  Lisle looked up in surprise, as if no one had ever asked her such a question before. “I don’t know,” she said after a moment. “I’ll get me a steady fellow, I guess, and we’ll get married.”

  Then the babies would come, too many, too quickly, and fragile Lisle would be old before her time. Maybe she wouldn’t even survive. Life was hard for girls like this, and they had few options. Survival was all they could hope for. Happiness wasn’t even something they dreamed about.

  Sarah knew she couldn’t change Lisle’s destiny, but she felt compelled to warn her anyway. “Be careful, Lisle. There are good men out there. Don’t settle for less.”

  Lisle gave her an unfathomable look, and Sarah didn’t know how much she’d appreciated the advice. Probably not at all, but at least Sarah had tried.

  Lisle’s step slowed, indicating they had reached her building. Some children were sleeping on a blanket on the sidewalk out front, and an old woman crouched on the stoop, staring vacantly out into the darkness. Lisle looked up, apparently checking her family’s apartment windows.

  “Looks like it’s safe to go in. No lights. They must be asleep.” Her smile was wan in the glow of the gaslight.

  “Thank you for taking me with you tonight,” Sarah said. “I hope I didn’t ruin your evening.”

  “There’s always tomorrow,” she said philosophically.

  “Gerda thought that, too,” Sarah reminded her gently. “Don’t take any foolish chances.”

  Lisle smiled slightly and shook her head, as if unable believe Sarah was real. “Good night, Mrs. Brandt.”

  Sarah waited until she had disappeared into the building. She glanced at the old woman, but she hadn’t moved, and Sarah realized she was asleep. Sitting straight up but fast asleep. Probably she was guarding the children.

  Leaving them to their rest, Sarah made her way back down St. Mark’s and back toward her own home in Greenwich Village.

  SARAH DIDN’T KNOW exactly what she could say to Agnes Otto. The new mother was still in bed, just as Sarah had recommended, and Sarah suspected she was suffering just as much from grief as she was from the exertions of childbirth. Her eyes were red-rimmed, as if she’d been crying, when Sarah arrived the next day.

  “Mrs. Brandt, do you know anything about my Gerda? Did the police tell you anything?” she asked eagerly.

  “I spoke with my friend, but he hasn’t told me anything yet. The police are probably still investigating,” she added, knowing it was most likely a lie, but not wanting to hurt Agnes any more than was necessary. “How are you feeling?”

  Agnes’s head rolled on the pillow, and she closed her eyes against fresh tears. “I cry all the time. I cannot stop,” she said.

  The baby was sleeping beside her on the bed, swaddled in spite of the heat, and Sarah carefully unwrapped her. The baby’s arms and legs were still spindly, and when she pinched the baby’s skin, it didn’t spring back the way it should have.

  “How often do you feed the baby?” she asked.

  Agnes waved her hand vaguely. “When she cries.”

  “She’s not thriving. She should have put on more weight than this, and she’s dehydrated ... not getting enough to eat,” Sarah explained when she saw the alarm in Agnes’s eyes. “She might just be a good baby who doesn’t wake up often enough. You’ll have to feed her even when she doesn’t cry. Every two or three hours. Listen for the clock to chime and feed her.” The Ottos wouldn’t have a clock of their own, but the city was full of public clocks by which people regulated their lives. “Wake her up if you have to.”

  She could see Agnes’s despair. Sarah was making demands of her, and she didn’t think she could cope. “Maybe one of your neighbors would help you remember,” Sarah suggested.

  “They already do enough,” Agn
es said. “They take care of my children and bring us supper every night. I cannot ask more.”

  Maybe she couldn’t, but Sarah wasn’t afraid to, not if it might save this baby’s life.

  Sarah finished checking Agnes and the baby, and as she stepped away from the bed, she nearly tripped over a small wooden box sitting on the floor.

  “Oh, that is Gerda’s things,” Agnes said, new tears welling in her eyes. “All that is left of her.”

  The lid had come loose, and Sarah used that as an excuse to kneel down and peek inside. A thought occurred to her. “Did Gerda keep a diary?”

  That was how she and Malloy had finally solved the first murder they’d investigated together. The victim’s own words written in her diary had led them to the killer.

  “A what?” Agnes didn’t recognize the word.

  “A ... a journal?” Sarah tried. “A book she wrote things in, private things?”

  Agnes found the very idea ridiculous. “Nein. Why would she do such a thing?”

  Of course she wouldn’t, Sarah thought. That would have made finding her killer so much easier. Assuming she’d even known her killer before that night, that is.

  Sarah pretended to repack the items in the box more carefully while she was really examining them for any clues. She found little of interest, however. Only a few strings of glass beads, a handkerchief with ragged lace, and there, in the very bottom, a photograph. Sarah opened the cardboard frame, expecting to see a picture of the dead girl. Instead she found what appeared to be a picture of people in a boat, and they all appeared to be screaming.

  Puzzled, she looked up at Agnes for an explanation.

  “It is Gerda. There in the front row,” she said, pointing.

  Sarah looked again and recognized Gerda Reinhard. She was sitting with a young man in a bowler hat. He had his arm around her, and they were obviously only pretending to be frightened. “Where was it taken?”

  “At that place, what do they call it? It is on an island ...”

  “Coney Island?” Sarah asked, looking at the photograph again.

  “Ja, Gerda said they have this boat ride. The boat goes down a... a hill and makes a big splash.”

  “And they take a photograph of it?” Sarah knew that couldn’t be true. Photography required that the subjects sit very still. Taking a picture of an amusement-park ride would be impossible.

  “Yes,” Agnes said, “but not when it is going.” She searched for the proper words to explain. “They have a special boat. That one,” she added, pointing to the picture. “You sit in it, and they make a photograph. The people in the boat are just pretending to be riding down the hill.”

  “Oh, I see, so they have a souvenir of their adventure,” Sarah said, looking more closely at the picture. “Do you know the man sitting with Gerda?”

  “No, we do not, and that made Lars very angry. He say Gerda should not be making photographs with men he does not know.”

  Sarah only wished Gerda had only been posing for photographs with such men. That was the least of her transgressions.

  “At least you have her picture,” Sarah pointed out. “To remember her by.”

  “But such a picture,” Agnes lamented, closing her eyes again.

  Sarah discreetly finished examining the contents of the box, carefully replaced the lid, and set it back where she had found it. Maybe she could ask Lisle and the other girls if they knew the man in the photograph, although the chance that he was Gerda’s killer was probably remote.

  “That was the day when she got the red shoes,” Agnes murmured, her eyes still closed so that Sarah wasn’t sure if she’d been addressing her or not.

  “Gerda got the red shoes when she went to Coney Island ?” Sarah asked.

  Agnes nodded, her face a mask of pain. “Just before she...”

  “Agnes, would you mind if I borrowed this photograph for a few days? I’d like to see if I can find out who this man with Gerda is.”

  Agnes’s eyes flew open, and her pain instantly turned to horror. “Do you think he is the one?”

  “That’s something we can let the police find out,” she demurred.

  Malloy would be proud of her restraint. She’d have to make sure he heard about it very soon.

  4

  MALLOY CALLED ON HER IN THE MIDDLE OF THE afternoon. He figured this would be the best time. She wouldn’t try to feed him, so he wouldn’t have to stay very long. He just needed to repay the debt he owed by telling her what he knew about the German girl’s death, and then he’d be free of her for good.

  It was a good plan. Why did he have such a sickening feeling it wouldn’t be quite that simple?

  The moment she opened the door to him, he knew he should have let her know he was coming. Because of the heat, she was wearing hardly any clothes at all. Well, she did have a dress on, but her arms were bare, and the dress was so light, it left little of her figure to the imagination. He wondered she considered it decent. He certainly didn’t.

  “Malloy,” she said, the way she always did, and smiled. The way a cat smiles when it’s been in the cream. “Come in. I was visiting with my neighbor, Mrs. Elsworth, but I’m sure she’ll excuse us. Like your mother, she thinks there’s something more between us than a mutual interest in a murder case, and she’ll be only too happy to leave us alone.”

  Plainly, she found this amusing. Malloy did not.

  She left him no choice but to follow her out to her backyard. The old woman from next door was sitting there, fanning herself with the most elaborate fan Frank had ever seen. Her wrinkled face lit with happiness when she saw him.

  “Detective Sergeant Malloy, Mrs. Brandt didn’t tell me you were expected. I’ll take myself off so you two can discuss... uh ... whatever it is you need to discuss,” she said with a sly grin.

  “That’s kind of you, ma’am,” Frank said, wishing he didn’t feel embarrassed. He had nothing to feel embarrassed about. This meeting was strictly business.

  The old woman rolled her eyes as she gathered her things to leave. “I guess I should’ve expected Mr. Malloy. I broke a needle today, you know. And yesterday I saw three crows together.”

  Mrs. Brandt smiled patiently.. “Does that mean a visitor is coming?” she asked.

  “Oh, no,” Mrs. Elsworth said smugly. “Both those things mean a wedding. I’ll be off now. You two enjoy your afternoon.”

  As soon as the old woman had disappeared through the gate connecting the two yards, Mrs. Brandt said, “Don’t look so terrified. Her omens hardly ever come true.”

  “I’m not—” he began, then caught himself. He wasn’t going to get into a conversation about that. He cleared his throat. “I talked to the detective who’s investigating the girl’s death,” he said instead, figuring that would distract her.

  It did. “Sit down and tell me everything,” she said eagerly. “I’ve found out some things, too.” She took the other chair and began to pour some lemonade from a pitcher. “Take your jacket off. You must be sweltering.”

  Frank briefly considered doing so. He was sweltering, but he didn’t want to start getting comfortable with Sarah Brandt. He wasn’t going to know her that much longer. Besides, his shirt was probably badly wrinkled.

  He did sit down, though, and he did drink the lemonade she offered him. Then he took out his handkerchief and mopped his brow and for just a moment allowed himself to enjoy the cool shade of her yard and the sweet scent of her flowers. But only for a moment.

  “Bill Broughan is investigating the case,” he began.

  She nodded. “I remember him. I tried to get him to tell me where you lived, but he wouldn’t do it. He said it would be worth his life, if I recall correctly.”

  “He’s the one,” Frank confirmed.

  “Is he any good? As a detective, I mean?”

  “When he’s sober.”

  “Which isn’t very often, I’d guess.”

  She was right about that. No need to tell her, either. “He said the girl was out dancing every
night. Went with a lot of men. Didn’t have a steady fellow, so there’s no telling who she was with that night.”

  “Even her friends don’t know, the ones who were with her at Harmony Hall,” she confirmed.

  He looked at her in surprise. “Harmony Hall?”

  “It’s a dance hall on Fourteenth Street, over a saloon. That’s where she went dancing the night she died.”

  “If you knew all this, why do you need me?” He was feeling annoyed, although he knew that was irrational.

  “Because I didn’t know it when I saw you last. I met Gerda’s friends at her funeral, and they told me all this. I feel sure the police have uncovered a lot more about her, though. What else did you find out?”

  “Nothing,” Malloy admitted reluctantly. “You might as well forget finding who killed her. Nobody is going to bother to investigate.”

  “They’re giving up already?” she asked, outraged.

  “I told you, there’s no way to find out who killed her. There’s just too many possibilities.”

  “What if I could help you narrow it down to a few?” she asked slyly.

  Frank didn’t like that expression one bit. “How?”

  “Someone gave Gerda a hat shortly before she died. His name is George, he spends a lot of time at dances, and he sells ladies’ furnishing. Someone else gave her red shoes, someone who was with her at Coney Island, and I have a photograph of him. Wait right here. I’ll get it.”

  Frank felt like he’d been poleaxed. The woman was a caution. How on God’s earth did she get a photograph of the killer?

  Before he had time even to form a theory, she was back. She handed him a cheap cardboard cover, the kind photographers used. He opened it to the strangest picture he’d ever seen. “Is this some kind of a boat?”

  “It’s a ride at Sea Lion Park.”

  “Sea Lion what?”

  “Sea Lion Park. It’s an amusement park at Coney Island. Surely, you must have heard about it.”

  Frank grunted noncommittally.

  “I think this is a picture of the Shoot-the-Chutes ride, from what Gerda’s sister described. I read about it in the paper when the park opened. They have these boats that travel in water-filled chutes, and they pull them up to the top of a steep incline and let them slide all the way to the bottom. They make quite a splash when they hit the pool below.”