Murder on St. Mark's Place

by Victoria Thompson

  “Now tell me, Sarah, why on earth have you gone to all this trouble to encounter me again?” he asked in a whisper, his eyes twinkling with mischief. He held the photograph up for her to see, as if it were the true subject of their conversation.

  “Why, Dirk,” she replied, unable to resist, “isn’t it obvious ? I developed an instant passion for you, and I couldn’t wait to see you again.”

  He gave her a look of feigned shock. “Does Mr. Malloy know about this?”

  “He wouldn’t be likely to care if he did,” she replied. It was the first word of truth she’d spoken in this conversation.

  “Don’t be too sure about that. I’m quite certain Mr. Malloy wouldn’t approve of your consorting with me.”

  “Fortunately, I don’t need his approval.”

  “What do you need, then?” Dirk asked. His face was still handsome, Sarah noticed, although the signs of dissipation were starting to show. The flesh beneath his attractive blue eyes was pouched from too many late-night drinking parties, and his skin was sallow and unhealthy. He was even developing a slight thickening around the waist that would turn to fat in a few years if he wasn’t careful.

  “I need to go back to Coney Island with someone who is familiar with the place.”

  He seemed surprised. Fortunately, he was also intrigued. “What on earth for?”

  “Because I’m looking for a murderer.”

  Dirk looked even more shocked than she would have expected. His face actually paled, and he stared at her for a long moment, as if looking for the answer to some question he dared not ask aloud. Most likely, he had never heard a well-bred woman even utter the word “murderer,” which would more than account for his reaction.

  Thus far, their whispered conversation had the attention of everyone in the room, and clearly, they would need more privacy to continue. Dirk visibly collected himself. “It’s awfully warm in here,” he said so everyone could hear, setting the photograph back on the sideboard. “Perhaps you’ll stroll with me in the garden for a bit, Sarah.”

  “That sounds lovely,” Sarah agreed. “If you’ll excuse us,” she added to her mother, who nodded her consent. She looked so pleased that Dirk was performing to her expectations that Sarah actually felt guilty for deceiving her.

  Dirk offered his arm, and they stepped out through the French doors leading to the fenced enclosure that passed for a “garden” in the city. It was much larger than Sarah’s small backyard, and the flowers had been professionally tended. The shade was cool, and the scents fragrant, but most important, no one could overhear them.

  They’d walked a ways from the house before Dirk spoke. “Surely, I misunderstood you, Sarah. You could not possibly have said you were looking for a murderer.”

  “But I did. I know it’s hard for you to understand how I could be involved in such a thing, but a young girl I know was murdered recently. Her family has asked me to help in the investigation,” she explained, stretching the truth a bit.

  “Why would they ask you to do such a thing?” He looked horrified, or at least that’s how Sarah read his expression. He certainly seemed upset, although he was using all his formal training to conceal any unseemly emotions.

  “As you know, I have a friend who is a police detective.”

  “Ah, yes, the charming Mr. Malloy. Surely, he doesn’t need your help finding criminals, though. Why, the police hardly bother doing that themselves!”

  Sarah ignored the insulting remark. It was, unfortunately, too true. “I have been of some use to him in that respect in the past,” she admitted with a trace of pride.

  Plainly, Dirk didn’t believe that for a moment. “Sarah, I’m afraid you haven’t learned much of the world, for all your independence from your family, if you believe for one moment this Malloy fellow has any interest in you aside from seduction.”

  Sarah was hard-pressed not to laugh out loud at such a ridiculous notion. If Malloy wanted to seduce her, he was certainly adept at concealing his intentions. He was also the world’s most patient—and inept!-seducer. “Is it so difficult to believe a woman could help solve a crime?”

  “Quite frankly, yes,” Dirk said, his smile condescending.

  Sarah wanted to wipe that smile off his face. She wanted to tell him she had helped solve a murder only a few short months ago. She had been of so much help that Malloy had told her she would have made a good detective, if the police hired women, which they didn’t. But she really wasn’t at liberty to reveal the details of the case, and besides, she doubted Dirk would believe her anyway.

  “Well, then,” she tried, “perhaps you will indulge me in my delusions. I would dearly love to return to Coney Island and learn more about it, but Mr. Malloy refuses to accompany me.”

  “More fool he,” Dirk said, his grin flirtatious. Sarah wondered who might be watching them from the house. She hoped it looked as if they were having a romantic tête-à-tête. Her mother would be pleased.

  “Since you obviously know a lot about the area, I was hoping I could convince you to escort me and show me some things I might have missed on my first visit there.”

  His smile was mocking. “Do you think I can point out potential killers to you?”

  Sarah gritted her teeth at his tone, but she managed to maintain her facade of congeniality. “I am hoping you can help me understand the place. The dead girl met her killer there, you see.”

  This instantly wiped the smirk off his face. “How do you know that?”

  “He bought her a gift there right before she died. At least we suspect the man who bought the gift was her killer.”

  “And what, exactly, was the gift in question?”

  Sarah felt silly saying it aloud. “A pair of red shoes.”

  Something flickered deep in his eyes, something Sarah couldn’t decipher, but then he was smiling. It was a dazzling smile, a delighted smile. “Oh, Sarah, what could be more pleasant than helping you discover who killed a young lady of such abominable taste?”

  He didn’t have to respect her, she reminded herself. He didn’t have to take her seriously or even believe her. He only had to go with her and show her around. “Are you free this Sunday?” she asked, and they set the date for the day after tomorrow.

  NOBODY KNEW ANYTHING more about the mysterious man named Will than the ones Sarah Brandt had spoken with. Frank had questioned all the girls who knew the four victims well enough to tell him anything. After days of tracking the girls down and interrogating them again, he knew no more than he’d known the first day.

  The fellow had been careful not to reveal his last name or to give any indication of where he lived. Uptown was Frank’s guess. By all accounts, he always had a lot of money to spend. Even those who had never seen him knew that much. His reputation was excellent among those who judged a man’s worthiness by how many times he treated a young lady to a beer or an amusement-park ride. He couldn’t have been an average workingman, not if the girls Frank had spoken with were accurate in their estimates of the amount of money he spent on the girls he found attractive. His clothes and his manners, by all accounts, had also indicated he was upper class.

  A few of the girls had been more than treated by him, too, if Frank was any judge. They didn’t admit it, of course. Why should they? Even if this Will had murdered their friends, they were still alive and had to live here. Destroying their reputations wouldn’t bring their friends back, would it? And if he hadn’t killed them when he had the chance, he wasn’t likely to do it now, was he?

  Frank was beginning to wonder why Sarah Brandt was so desperate to avenge the deaths of these girls. He was so annoyed with them, he was beginning to sympathize with the killer.

  Frank was bone weary when he climbed the steps to his flat that evening. He hadn’t been home in two days, and when he opened the door, he found his mother knitting in her rocker by the front window. Brian was playing on the floor, carefully building a tower of wooden blocks so he could knock it over and build it again.

  When h
e caught sight of Frank, however, he scrambled to his knees, smashing the tower in his haste as he crawled over to greet his father. His mother said something by way of greeting, but Frank hardly heard and didn’t even acknowledge her. He was, he realized, really seeing the boy for the first time.

  For three years Frank had been torn by the existence of his son. The boy’s birth had killed Kathleen, the only good thing that had ever come into Frank’s life. If Kathleen had lived, Frank could have borne any disappointment in the child because she would have made it right. She would have loved the boy no matter what was wrong with him, and she would have made Frank love him, too.

  But Kathleen had died, taking with her Frank’s one source of happiness in the world. That alone would have been enough to embitter him, but the boy had also remained, a painful and broken reminder of what he had lost. Not only had he taken his mother’s life, he had left Frank with a burden so enormous, at times he felt it might crush him.

  For a time he had hated the child, blaming him for killing Kathleen. But that had passed, leaving only a profound sadness and pity and a bitterness so deep, Frank doubted he would ever find the bottom of it. And, of course, the guilt. Because if the boy had killed Kathleen, Frank had been the one who put the child inside of her in the first place. If he hated the boy, he would have to hate himself as well.

  So the guilt drove him to do right by the child, no matter what his true feelings might be. It drove him to take the bribes that had enabled him to move up in the police force so he could ensure the boy would always be provided for. It compelled him to tolerate his mother because she was willing to take care of the boy.

  Now he looked at his son, this imperfect remembrance, all he had left of the woman he had loved more than life itself. She would have expected Frank to love the boy simply because he was their flesh and blood. She would have done anything, made any sacrifice for him. Frank had been willing to make every sacrifice except one. He hadn’t been able to love him.

  He gazed into the face that was so much like Kathleen’s, it caused him physical pain to behold it. The boy was looking up at him through Kathleen’s lovely eyes, pleading with him for something he couldn’t say but understood instinctively.

  The small, spindly arms were reaching up even as he held himself back, braced for the rejection he almost always received. For so long, Frank had believed the boy an idiot, too damaged even to feel normal human emotions. He’d shielded himself with that belief, telling himself his indifference didn’t matter to the child because he couldn’t understand such things. Now he looked down into the boy’s face and knew it had all been a lie.

  If Frank was guilty of causing Kathleen’s death, then there was only one thing in the world he could do to earn absolution. He reached down and caught the boy up into his arms. Small arms and legs wrapped around him, as if the boy felt he had to hold on with every ounce of his strength for fear of being thrust aside. From the comer of his eye, he saw his mother had risen to her feet, her eyes wide with surprise. She crossed herself and pressed a fist to her lips.

  He wrapped his arms around the boy’s small body, amazed at how slight he was, hardly there at all. He buried his face into the cloud of silken red-gold curls and inhaled the clean, fresh scent of him.

  Frank felt a stabbing pain in his chest as years of bitterness cracked and fell away. He’d wronged the boy terribly, but it wasn’t too late. He still had a chance to really do right by him.

  “Ma,” he said, “there’s some people I want Brian to meet. They’re deaf.”

  SARAH HAD BEGUN to regret her decision to ask Dirk to accompany her to Coney Island before their trolley had even left the city. He seemed highly amused by the entire escapade, and he felt compelled to share his mirth with everyone they encountered. Sarah found it exhausting, and by the time they reached Coney Island, she was wishing she had come alone.

  “Have you seen the Elephant yet, Sarah?” he asked cheerfully as they strolled from the trolley station toward the park.

  She looked to where he was pointing and saw the Elephant Hotel, a enormous hotel actually built in the shape of an elephant. It was one of the landmarks of Coney Island. “Seeing the Elephant” had come to mean making a trek out of town to see something extraordinary.

  “I saw the elephant the last time I was here,” she reminded him.

  “I don’t think you did,” Dirk said meaningfully. “I doubt Mr. Malloy is adventurous enough to allow such a thing. Fortunately, I am.”

  Yes, fortunately, Sarah thought cynically.

  “I’m surprised Mr. Malloy didn’t take you bathing, Sarah. I imagine the sight of you in a bathing costume would be quite pleasant. Have you ever bathed in the ocean?”

  “Have you?” Sarah countered, trying unsuccessfully to imagine herself wearing one of those skimpy bathing costumes with the skirts that only reached to the knees.

  “Certainly! I find the sand a bit annoying. It does tend to creep in where one least desires it to, but the water is quite refreshing. Healthful, too, I’m told.”

  “I thought warm springs were good for the health, not the frigid ocean.”

  “It’s not frigid this time of year,” he chided her.

  “No, only very cold.”

  He conceded defeat graciously. “Where would you like to go first? The Flip-Flap Railroad?” he suggested with a glint in his eye. Malloy had been afraid to go on it.

  Unfortunately, Sarah was, too. “I think I’d rather just look around and talk to people. If the killer frequents Coney Island, and we have reason to believe he does, then someone may know him.”

  “Are you planning to just walk up to everyone you meet and ask if they know any killers?” he asked incredulously.

  “Certainly not.”

  “Then what will you ask?” Plainly, he thought her either a fool or an idiot.

  “I’ll ask them if they know a man named Will.”

  Dirk stopped in his tracks and looked at her in amazement. His eyes were darker than she remembered, and his expression was strained. He was so shocked that for a moment he couldn’t even speak. “You know his name?” he asked when he got his voice back. “If the police know his name, why on earth do they need a midwife to help them find him?”

  Sarah was beginning to enjoy knowing more about something than Dirk for a change. “Do you have any idea how many men are named Will? And we don’t know what he looks like or where he lives or really anything much at all. Just the name, and that might not even be his real one.”

  He studied her face for a long moment, his eyes unreadable. “And you think he killed this girl? The one who wore the red shoes. What was her name?”

  “Gerda Reinhard. I guess we don’t know for sure that he did, but...” She debated mentioning the other victims and decided not to. Dirk was already unbearable enough. If he knew all the facts in the case, he might begin to hinder her investigation. “We do know that she met a young man she liked very much here at Coney Island shortly before her death. He spent a lot of money on her and bought her the red shoes.”

  “That’s not very much to hang a man on, Sarah,” Dirk chided. “I daresay, most of the men here would have been executed if that was a punishable offense.”

  “Including you?” she countered.

  He grinned boyishly. When he was younger and not quite so jaded, it might have been an appealing expression, but now it just looked grotesque, at least to Sarah. “A gentleman never tells,” he said. He took her elbow and directed her toward the entrance to the park.

  Dirk took her to the Flip-Flap Railroad with its unbelievable loop, and they watched people going around, shrieking in terror, for a few minutes. “You see, no one ever falls out,” he said wisely. “It’s perfectly safe.”

  Sarah watched the people getting off at the end of the ride. Some of them were rubbing their necks. None of them looked particularly pleased with their experience. “I notice no one is going back for another ride,” she pointed out.

  Dirk shrugged. “I though
t you’d have more courage than that, Sarah. How about the Ferris wheel, then?”

  Sarah enjoyed the view of the ocean from the top of the wheel, and she didn’t even mind that Dirk put his arm across the back of the seat and sat closer than he needed to. He was only teasing her. Since his tastes ran to fifteen-year-old shop girls, she figured her virtue was safe. Besides, she had a hat pin handy if he got any ideas.

  They watched Captain Boyton perform his aquatic feats in the reflecting pool. The captain was the owner of the park. He’d had an interesting career that included trying to market inflatable suits for bathing in the ocean. This had led to founding a water park, in which trained seals performed. The seals hadn’t drawn enough customers by themselves, so the captain had added Shoot-the-Chutes and some other amusement-park attractions, and Sea Lion Park was born.

  They also watched the sea-lion show again, but the alligator was no longer on display. It had tried to attack a large Newfoundland dog, probably thinking it had found an excellent source of dinner, but the dog had won the battle.

  After the shows, they ate some Red Hots and rode Shoot-the-Chutes. Dirk put his arm across the back of Sarah’s seat again and moved closer when they went through the dark tunnel, but she managed to restrain herself from throwing her arms around him when the boat made its terrifying lunge into the lagoon. Malloy had been as appalled as she when they found themselves embracing at the end of the ride, but somehow she didn’t think Dirk would have quite the same reaction. She certainly didn’t want to find out for sure that she was right.

  As they came off the ride, Sarah saw the photographer waiting to pose people in the replica of the Shoot-the-Chutes boat to have their pictures made. Remembering that Gerda had had her photograph made that last day she was at Coney Island, Sarah wondered if the photographer would remember. If this Will person made a habit of finding his victims here, he might be a familiar character.