Murder on St. Mark's Place

by Victoria Thompson

  “Why would you want to take up with a stranger?”

  “To have some fun. The young men here are different and interesting, and they have money to spend. The girls’ lives would be horribly dull without a diversion like this.”

  Frank was still of the opinion that the girls would be far better off with dull lives than with exciting deaths, but he didn’t bother to mention that to Mrs. Brandt. She probably agreed anyway.

  “Oh, look, the carousel. Let’s ride it!” she said.

  Frank would have protested, but she looked so excited, he didn’t have the heart to refuse her. Feeling like a consummate fool, he helped her up onto the platform and lifted her onto one of the gaily painted horses. She was a well-made woman, soft and round in all the right places, and Frank found himself oddly breathless after he’d settled her on her horse. Probably from the exertion, he told himself. She wasn’t exactly skinny.

  “Oh, Malloy, at least try to have fun, won’t you?” she chided him.

  He climbed up onto the horse beside her before anyone else could claim it and tried not to look unhappy. It was the best he could do.

  The music was too loud, and Frank wasn’t fond of going around and around in a circle, but at least Mrs. Brandt didn’t encourage him to exert himself to catch the brass ring. That honor went to a young man in a derby hat whose accomplishment earned him the adoration of his female companion, a girl with a grating laugh who found everything hilarious.

  When the ride stopped, Mrs. Brandt slid down from her horse herself without waiting for help, which suited Frank just fine. He had already decided he shouldn’t touch her again. He’d been alone for far too long, and he obviously couldn’t be trusted.

  “Did riding the carousel help you figure out who killed Gerda Reinhard?” he couldn’t resist asking as they walked away.

  “I didn’t expect to find the killer today,” she told him, not the least bit repentant. “But we need to understand what Gerda’s life was like those last days. That will help us figure out who might have killed her. Once we can narrow down the list of suspects, we’ll have a better chance of finding the killer.”

  That was so reasonable, he almost said so. Fortunately, good sense prevailed. He couldn’t start complimenting Sarah Brandt. She was already way too confident as it was. Instead he said, “What do you mean by ‘we’? Has your friend Teddy appointed you to the police force?”

  She didn’t like being reminded that Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt was a family friend. Or maybe she just didn’t like being reminded that women couldn’t be police officers. “No,” she admitted, “but maybe I could ask him to order Detective Sergeant Broughan to continue the investigation into Gerda’s death.”

  “That’s not likely to help. All of Broughan’s attention would practically guarantee the killer is never found. You’re better off letting him ignore it and working on it yourself.

  She widened her eyes at him in surprise, and he had to admit he’d surprised himself. What was he thinking to advise her to solve the case herself? On the other hand, she was going to try to do it anyway. He felt an obligation at least to prepare her, however.

  “Look, Mrs. Brandt, solving a murder isn’t always as easy as it was with the VanDamm girl,” he said, referring to the case they’d worked on together last spring.

  Now she just looked shocked. “You think solving that case was easy?”

  “It got solved, didn’t it? A lot of them don’t. Oh, sometimes we know who the killer is five minutes after we find the body. Those are the easy ones. The killer’s standing over the body with a bloody knife still in his hand, all eager to tell you how he didn’t mean to do it. But the ones like this girl—”

  “And the other girls,” she interjected.

  “And the other girls,” he allowed grudgingly, “the killer’s been real careful to cover his tracks. Maybe he never even met the girls before that night. These girls go with strangers all the time, and even if they did know the man before, he’s only one of dozens they knew. The girls are no better than they should be, and if we arrested all the men who take advantage of girls like that and might be the killer, we’d have half the men in the city locked up.”

  She didn’t look impressed. In fact, she’d set her chin at an angle he didn’t like at all. “I told you, Malloy, we can find out which men all the dead girls knew in common. That’s got to narrow down the suspects considerably.”

  “If they even knew the men’s right names—or any name, for that matter.”

  “The girls weren’t prostitutes, Malloy. They wouldn’t go with a complete stranger, no matter what you think. They have to pretend there’s a little romance involved and that the gifts are tokens of esteem, not payment for services rendered. They knew their killer, and he’d been wooing them for a while before they agreed to go with him that last time. I don’t think for a moment that it will be easy to find him, but I think it’s possible. Your friend Broughan might believe it’s too much trouble, but I’m willing to give some effort to the cause.”

  “And you’re willing to bribe me into helping you,” he said, thinking of her interest in Brian. “I guess that makes me no better than the Charity Girls.”

  “It’s not like that, Malloy,” she said, stopping in the middle of the midway and forcing people to go around them. “Helping your son is something I’d do whether you helped me in return or not.”

  Frank didn’t want to believe her, since he certainly wouldn’t be helping her unless he felt he owed her something. He was afraid she was telling the truth, however, so he didn’t press her. Better to leave some doubt in his mind so he could keep a little self-respect.

  He touched her arm to indicate they should start walking again. People were becoming annoyed at the way they were blocking the way. “It doesn’t look to me like these girls are very particular who they go with, but if you’re right about them wanting to know the man a little first, then maybe there is a chance we can figure out who the killer is,” he admitted reluctantly.

  She smiled at that, recognizing a victory. At least she was gracious enough not to gloat.

  Frank refused her entreaties to ride the Flip-Flap Railway, which looked like a very dangerous proposition indeed. A car went sliding down a steep incline, building up speed, until it was going fast enough to propel it around a vertical loop. No matter how many times they watched it go around and saw no one fall out, Frank wouldn’t be convinced it was safe.

  They watched the performing sea lions who had been the original attraction of the park and saw the newest addition to the park, an alligator just arrived from Florida. They ate Vienna sausages on rolls, called Red Hots, at one of the sidewalk cafés under a striped umbrella and were allowed to buy beer in spite of the Sunday closing laws Theodore Roosevelt was now vigorously enforcing, because they were eating, too.

  Sarah couldn’t help noticing, however, that at many tables the only food was a dried-up-looking sandwich that no one touched.

  “That’s to obey the letter of the law,” Malloy explained when she pointed it out to him. “So long as they serve some kind of food, they can also serve liquor. The law doesn’t say what kind of food it has to be or that anybody has to actually eat it.” The same sandwich was apparently served over and over again all day.

  After their meal, they allowed themselves to be lured into one of the freak shows to see a bearded lady and a man who could make his eyes bulge nearly out of their sockets. Frank had seen more frightening things on Fifth Avenue.

  “Are you a good shot, Malloy?” Mrs. Brandt asked when they passed a shooting gallery. Young men were using the rifles to shoot at moving targets in hopes of winning their companions one of the cheap trinkets on display. “Have you passed the police-department shooting test?”

  She was referring to the regulation that her friend Commissioner Teddy had made last December, after a police shooting mishap, that every man on the force must be trained to use a .32-caliber, double-action Colt revolver. It was the first type of f
ormal training ever required of a police officer, and resentment ran high. Tammany Hall had complained because the men were required to buy their own guns, accusing the department of charging them ten dollars for a gun worth only four. Roosevelt countered that the gun actually cost fifteen dollars, and suddenly the controversy had ended.

  “I knew how to shoot before your friend made it a rule,” Malloy assured her.

  “Prove it, then,” she challenged, gesturing toward the shooting booth. “Win me a prize.”

  “Do you need a set of glass beads that bad?” he teased.

  “Are you afraid you won’t win?” she teased back.

  He couldn’t allow her to think he was, especially when he wasn’t. He stepped up to the counter, plunked down his nickel, and picked up a rifle. He kept shooting for a while, until a small crowd had gathered and the barker was trying to draw an even larger one.

  “Step right up, folks, see how easy it is! This gentleman’s already won himself whatever he wants from our vast array of prizes. Just point the rifle and shoot, that’s how easy it is! Take home a treasure for your sweetheart! Step right up!”

  When Frank figured he’d proven his point, he laid the rifle down and turned to Mrs. Brandt with a satisfied smile. She was smiling back, well aware of why he had continued to shoot long after he’d won her the glass beads. “What would you like?” he asked, indicating the “vast array of prizes.”

  “That fire wagon, I think,” she said, pointing to the toy at the bottom of the display. It was obviously worth only a few cents and totally unsuitable for a lady. “For Brian,” she added at his surprised look.

  Of course. She knew his weakness. He wouldn’t be able to refuse her anything now that she did.

  With the toy bulging in his pocket, they continued down the midway until they heard the shouts and screams and thundering splash that told them they’d finally reached the place where Gerda Reinhard may have met her killer.

  “It’s the Shoot-the-Chutes,” she said unnecessarily. Frank had already recognized the boats from the photograph.

  They watched as one of the boats crested the top of the final incline and went shooting down the water-filled trough into the lagoon below. The angle of descent caused the boat to strike the surface of the water with a bone-jarring crash that sent water splashing in all directions. The passengers screamed with either terror or delight, Frank wasn’t certain which, but from the way they were laughing as they climbed out of the boat, they seemed none the worse for their experience.

  “That’s the place where they take the photographs,” she said, drawing his attention to a replica of the boats used on the ride. This one was propped up on a wooden stand, and the photographer was assembling a group of people in it for a photograph.

  Frank looked back as another boat went crashing down the chute. “I hope you don’t think you have to ride that thing to find out who the killer is,” he said, but when he looked at Mrs. Brandt, ready for her smart reply, she wasn’t even paying attention. Instead she was staring intently at the people posing in the boat.

  “What is it?” he asked, looking, too, but seeing nothing noteworthy.

  “That man in the third row. I think I know him.”

  5

  “WHICH ONE?”

  Sarah looked again. The man was turned away now, speaking to his companion, a young girl who couldn’t seem to stop giggling. Sarah couldn’t be certain, but he looked like one of the Schyler boys. Then he turned to pose for the photographer who had commanded them all to look suitably frightened for the picture, and she was sure.

  “Dirk Schyler,” she told Malloy. “His family and mine have known each other forever.”

  “Knickerbockers,” Malloy said with disapproval, referring to the nickname for the wealthy old Dutch families who had been the original settlers of New York City.

  “Don’t say it like it’s an insult, Malloy,” she chided him. “Some people are proud of being a Knickerbocker family.”

  He knew she wasn’t, of course, so he just gave her one of his looks, which she ignored.

  They watched as the people in the boat posed, trying to look frightened, and the photographer snapped the picture.

  “What do you suppose the son of a Knickerbocker family is doing at Coney Island with a shop girl?” Malloy mused aloud.

  Sarah had been wondering the same thing. Dirk was helping the girl out of the boat now, and they could see the cheapness of her outfit and the tawdriness of her accessories. She didn’t appear to be more than sixteen, either. Dirk himself was dressed the part of a Coney Island swain in a plaid suit and a straw boater, which was amazing in itself. Someone of Dirk’s station in life would never be seen in such a costume, or so Sarah would have thought.

  All this actually made Sarah doubt her own judgment for a moment, but she waited until the couple was within earshot, and she called, “Dirk!”

  Sure enough, his head jerked around in surprise. When he saw Sarah staring back at him, he didn’t seem to recognize her at first. His surprise slid into confusion and then, just for a moment, alarm, as recognition dawned. She hadn’t seen him in years, but they had been children together, sharing the agonies of dancing classes and tea parties. He knew her now and for just that second had been horrified to know she had seen him here, like this.

  She understood it all in the second before his expression twisted itself into the semblance of delighted surprise, the kind he would have genuinely felt to have encountered her while dining at Delmonico’s in the city, for example. He leaned down and spoke to his companion, who shot a look in Sarah’s direction, plainly ready to object to his leaving her, even for an instant. But then she saw Sarah and recognized that someone of Sarah’s advanced years could not be a threat to her, and besides, Sarah already had Malloy for an escort. Reluctantly, she released the arm to which she had been clinging possessively and allowed him to make his way over to Sarah and Malloy.

  “Sarah, is that you?” he asked, his features now schooled into the proper combination of amazement and pleasure.

  “It certainly is. How have you been, Dirk?” she asked, taking the hand he offered.

  He clasped hers in both of his, holding it fast while they exchanged pleasantries about the health of their respective families. Sarah thought she was going to have to pull it free by force until she realized she could simply introduce him to her companion instead.

  “Are you enjoying the sights?” Dirk was asking politely, plainly expecting her to deny it. His eyes were dancing with the assumption of a shared contempt for the amusements found here.

  “Very much,” Sarah said truthfully. “I was just trying to convince Mr. Malloy to take me on the Shoot-the-Chutes.”

  “Malloy?” Dirk said with some amazement, as if the name were some foreign language he didn’t quite recognize. His tone told her he was shocked at the idea of her consorting with an Irishman, but at least he released her hand at last to shake hands with Malloy.

  “Frank Malloy, Dirk Schyler,” Sarah said, offering Dirk no more information about Malloy, even though his curiosity was obvious.

  “Do you come here a lot, Schyler?” Malloy asked him with all the subtlety of a police interrogator.

  Dirk was taken aback by his bluntness, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to refuse to answer. That would have been beyond rude, and Dirk had been bred to obey the rules of etiquette as if they held the force of law. “I ... now and again,” was all he would admit. “I find it ... amusing.”

  Malloy glanced meaningfully at the girl, who was waiting with increasing impatience for his return. “Yes, she looks ... amusing.”

  Sarah wanted to smack him. Certainly, Dirk’s ill-disguised contempt for Malloy was annoying, but insulting him back wouldn’t get them anywhere.

  The girl saw them looking at her, and she called, “Will you come on?” to Dirk, who replied with a placating wave, indicating he’d join her in a moment.

  “We were just wondering if this ride is dangerous,” Sarah aske
d, drawing his attention back to her. “I couldn’t get Mr. Malloy to take me on the Flip-Flap Railway. He was afraid we’d fall out.” She smiled sweetly, knowing Malloy would probably like to choke her for saying such a thing.

  “Oh, there’s no need to worry, old man,” Dirk assured him generously, plainly delighted to gain an advantage over Malloy. “Everything here is perfectly safe. The Flip-Flap relies on centrifugal force to keep people in their seats. Works just like gravity, don’t you know?”

  Malloy didn’t know any such thing, but he wasn’t going to show weakness in front of Dirk. “That’s what I heard,” he lied.

  “And the boat ride here”—Dirk gestured toward the Shoot-the-Chutes—“is quite a thrill, but not dangerous at all. And you’ll like the beginning of the ride even better than the ending. It’s a very different kind of thrill, especially with a companion like our lovely Sarah.”

  Malloy didn’t like the suggestive tone of Dirk’s voice. Sarah could tell by the way his neck got red. But for once in his life he held his tongue, thank heaven.

  “I’m afraid you might have the wrong idea, Dirk,” she hastened to explain. “Mr. Malloy and I are here on Coney Island for business.”

  “Business?” He looked at Malloy again, as if trying to imagine what kind of business he might be in. “Police business, by any chance?”

  Sarah was surprised he’d guessed so quickly, but Malloy wasn’t. The two men understood each other perfectly.

  “Not all Irishmen are coppers,” Malloy reminded him.

  “And not all coppers are Irishmen anymore, are they?” Dirk countered. “I heard my old friend Teddy has even hired some Jews to police our fair city. But no one would mistake you for one of them, Officer Malloy.”

  “Detective Sergeant Malloy,” Malloy corrected him.

  Dirk’s eyebrows rose, and Sarah thought he might have paled a bit, but perhaps she only imagined it. In any case, they were all distracted by the sudden appearance of the young lady Dirk had left standing nearby while he conversed with them.