“What do we do now?” she asked again, not even certain this time to what she referred.
“About Gerda’s killer, you mean?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, glad to have that settled.
When she met his gaze, she thought she saw her own relief mirrored in his dark eyes.
“I told you, there’s not much we can do,” he said.
But Sarah wasn’t going to give up quite so easily. There was still one more thing she could do, and if that didn’t work, well, then maybe, just maybe, she’d give up.
14
SARAH KNEW SHE HAD NO REASON TO FEEL APPREHENSIVE. It was the middle of the day. No one would know she was here. At least Lars Otto wouldn’t know, unless his wife chose to tell him. Since it seemed unlikely Agnes would do so, no harm would be done. And she did need to see Agnes and the baby, to make sure they were still doing well. It was her duty.
All that rationalization didn’t remove the butterflies from her stomach, though. The building was quiet as she made her way up the dark stairway. All the children were outside, playing in the street on this summer afternoon. She could hear the faint echoes of their cries and laughter, but only dimly. She’d been practicing what she would say all the way over here so she could adequately feign surprise at just happening to see Agnes on her way someplace else, but when she reached the landing, the Ottos’ door was closed tightly.
Sarah found this strange, since it was so hot today, but perhaps Agnes was out. As she’d planned, she went up the stairs to the third floor, where another of her patients lived. Mrs. Gertz was genuinely happy to see her. Her time was drawing near, and since this was her first baby, she had a lot of questions. Sarah answered them patiently, then allowed Mrs. Gertz to serve her some cookies. As she nibbled politely, she managed to turn the subject to where she wanted it to be.
“How are Agnes Otto and her baby doing?”
Mrs. Gertz frowned. She was a plump woman made bigger still by her pregnancy. Her yellow braids had been wound around her head so tightly, Sarah wondered that her features weren’t distorted. Everything about her was spotlessly clean and relentlessly tidy. “Ach, you should look in on her, Mrs. Brandt. She hardly comes out of her flat anymore. I hear the baby cry sometimes, but mostly I hear yelling.”
“Yelling? From whom?”
“From Mr. Otto. He is not happy with anything she does. The baby cries too much, the food is not to his liking, he thinks the floors are dirty. Things like that. I know she still misses her sister, too, but he will not even let her say the girl’s name. That part she told me. I would like to help her, but I do not know how.”
Sarah wasn’t sure she did either, but she was certainly going to try. “I was going to say hello to her just now, but her door was closed. Is she out, do you know?”
“Oh, she keeps her door closed all the time, even in the heat. We never see her anymore. She does not even let her children come down and play with the others.”
“They must be stifling in there,” Sarah said, horrified.
“Ja, I am sure they are. But she will not listen to reason. We have tried to talk to her, but it does not help. She is afraid.”
“Of her husband?”
Mrs. Gertz looked away, perhaps worried she had gone too far, but after a moment she said, “Ja. And she is right to be.”
That was all Sarah needed to hear. If Lars Otto was mistreating his wife, as Sarah had suspected, she would do whatever she could to put a stop to it. Mrs. Gertz didn’t even make a token protest when Sarah said she had to leave. She merely nodded.
Sarah hurried down the steps and stopped outside the Ottos’ door, listening for any sounds from within. She thought perhaps she heard weeping, but she couldn’t be sure. She knocked. The sound she thought was weeping ceased abruptly. Someone was inside, but no one answered her knock.
She knocked again, more loudly this time. Still no response.
This time she pounded, so there could be no mistake. “Mrs. Otto, it’s Mrs. Brandt. I know you’re in there, and if you don’t open the door, I’ll have to get a policeman.”
There, knowing how frightened Agnes was of the police, that should do the trick, although she had no idea what she would do if it didn’t. Malloy seemed hardly likely to come over here and force his way into this poor woman’s home, and she certainly didn’t know any other policemen who would do such a thing, either.
After a long silence, she heard a slight scuffling sound that might have been footsteps. Then the sound of a bolt being drawn, and the door opened a crack. “Go away, Mrs. Brandt,” a disembodied and very frightened voice said. “Lars will be angry if he knows you come here.”
“He won’t know unless you tell him. I just want to make sure you’re all right,” Sarah said. “Your neighbors are worried about you.”
“I am fine,” she insisted, although she had yet to show herself.
“What about the baby?” Sarah asked. “How is she? This heat can’t be good for her.”
“She is .. ”The voice broke, and Sarah felt the hairs on her arms rise as every nerve in her body sparked to attention. “She will be all right,” Agnes insisted after a moment.
“If she’s sick, you should let me see her. I can help.” In the city, bringing children safely into the world was only the first of many battles that must be won in order to raise a child to maturity.
Sarah let her think this over, but when Agnes didn’t respond, she tried another tactic. “If you won’t let me in, I’ll have to got to the settlement house for the visiting nurse. She might take your baby away if she thinks you aren’t taking good care of her.” It was a stretch of the truth, but Sarah was desperate enough to try anything.
Just as she’d hoped, the door flew open, and Agnes cried, “You cannot take my baby away!”
Sarah would have reassured her, but what she saw shocked the breath from her body. Agnes’s fragile face was swollen and discolored. Both eyes were black, and her jaw was puffed out on the left side and mottled black-and-blue. The instant she saw Sarah’s horror, she tried to close the door again, frantic to hide herself, but Sarah threw up her arm and pushed her way inside.
“Agnes, what happened?” Sarah demanded, closing the door behind her now that she was safely inside. No use airing Agnes’s problems for the entire building to hear.
“Nothing, nothing,” Agnes insisted frantically, holding up her hands to shield her face backing away from Sarah as if afraid she might strike her, too. “I am very clumsy. I fall down the stairs and—”
“You didn’t get those bruises from falling down the stairs,” Sarah said. “Someone hit you. Was it your husband?”
“No, no one hits me!” she insisted even more frantically, then clutched at her side and nearly doubled over from the pain.
Sarah rushed over and helped her to one of the kitchen chairs. “Is it your ribs? Show me where it hurts,” she asked as she seated Agnes.
Agnes might have denied the pain if she’d been able to get her breath, but Sarah had no more patience with such denials. Gently moving Agnes’s hand away, she felt along her midriff until she located the source of the pain.
“I think you may have a cracked rib. I don’t think it’s broken, because if it was, you wouldn’t be able to move around the way you were. I can bind it for you so it won’t hurt so much, though.”
“No!” Agnes gasped. “He will know you came here.”
“You can tell him you bound it yourself, because it was hurting so much,” Sarah suggested.
But Agnes shook her head. “He will know!”
Sarah signed in frustration. “Where else are you hurt?”
But Agnes only shook her head again. She didn’t want Sarah’s help. She was too afraid of what it would cost her.
“Agnes, let me at least make sure you aren’t more seriously hurt. If you die, who will take care of your children?” Sarah tried.
Sarah would have thought the other woman couldn’t be more terrified, but she would have been mist
aken. Every last vestige of color drained from Agnes’s face, leaving the bruises standing out in stark relief. “My children,” she whispered.
“You must think of them. Where are they now?” Sarah asked, almost afraid to find out.
Agnes pointed an unsteady finger at the bedroom door. Sarah hurried over and opened it. She found the two older children huddled on the bed, staring at her with wide, terrified eyes. The baby was lying in a cradle in the comer. Her eyes were open, but she wasn’t making a sound. She wore only a diaper, and her little body was covered with a rash. Sarah hoped it was only prickly heat. The room was like an oven, without a breath of air, but the children didn’t seem to be sweating. Most likely they were dehydrated, even the baby. How long had they been cooped up like this? Sarah didn’t even want to think about that.
The next hour passed in a blur as Sarah got the children to drink large amounts of water and bathed them to help them cool off and dusted them with cornstarch and examined Agnes to make sure she had no more serious injuries than the ones she already knew about.
When she was satisfied that everyone was physically as comfortable as possible, she turned her attention to the rest of it.
“Agnes, you can’t go on like this. You’re going to have to do something to protect yourself and your children.”
“I do,” Agnes insisted. “I work very hard. I try to have Lars’s supper on the table when he comes home, and I keep the children as quiet as I can, and I clean until my hands are raw. But I am not a good enough wife. Lars is so nervous. He must have peace and quiet in his home. I try, but I cannot do things the way he likes them. But I will try harder. I promise!”
“No, Agnes, I’m sure you already try as hard as you can. I’ve seen men like Lars before. No matter how hard you try to please him, you’ll never be able to. He’ll always find a reason to beat you. There’s nothing you can do to stop him.”
“Yes, there is!” she insisted. “I will be a better wife. That is what he says he wants. I will work harder and take better care of the children. Then he will be happy, and he will not have to hit me anymore.”
Sarah wanted to scream. She knew all the logical arguments, but rarely did they work on women like Agnes. Not only did their husbands injure their bodies, they also injured their minds, twisting them until they actually believed they deserved the beatings they received. This time, however, Sarah had an argument she’d never been able to use before.
“Agnes, do you want to end up like Gerda?”
Her eyes grew wide with renewed terror. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, do you want to end up beaten to death?”
Agnes reached out and grabbed Sarah’s arm, squeezing with surprising strength for one so frail. “What do you know? Tell me the truth? Do you know who killed my Gerda?”
Sarah couldn’t identify the emotions burning in Agnes’s bloodshot eyes, but they frightened her. “No, we haven’t found her killer yet,” she admitted reluctantly.
“But you told me ... You promised! You said you would soon know!” Agnes reminded her brokenly.
Sarah swallowed down the lump that rose in her throat. “You know that other girls were killed the same way as Gerda, don’t you?” Agnes nodded. “Well, we found out who murdered them, but ... but he didn’t kill Gerda. He couldn’t have. He was somewhere else that night. So we still don’t know who killed Gerda.”
Sarah watched Agnes’s eyes fill with tears that spilled over and ran down her battered cheeks, but still she didn’t release Sarah’s arm or her gaze. She wanted to tell Sarah something. Sarah was sure of it, although she couldn’t imagine what it might be. So she waited, willing Agnes to unburden herself as she prayed for the wisdom to know how to reach her.
After what seemed an eternity, Agnes said, “He did not hurt her.”
“I know,” Sarah assured her. “I told you, that man wasn’t the one who hurt Gerda.”
Agnes shook her head. “No, not that. Lars. Lars did not hurt Gerda.”
Once again every nerve in Sarah’s body leaped to attention, but she willed herself to calmness. “What do you mean?”
“Gerda was a wicked girl,” Agnes said, almost as if she were trying to convince herself. “She stayed out late and went with strange men. She was always flaunting herself in front of Lars. She made him so angry, but he did not hurt her!”
“No, of course, he didn’t,” Sarah said, her mind racing with possibilities. “Why would anyone think he did?”
She swallowed, as if trying to get some moisture in her mouth. “He ... he was so angry because she did not come home that night. He went out to look for her. We know where she goes because she tells us. He came home very late. He was very nervous. He said he did not find her, but ... but his hands are ... are ... like my face.”
“Bruised?” Sarah guessed.
“Yes, bruised,” Agnes confirmed. “And cut. He is bleeding. I try to take care of him, but he will not let me. He said some men tried to rob him, and he had to fight them. That is how he got hurt.”
Sarah remembered noticing Lars’s hands when she saw him at Gerda’s funeral. She had thought he’d injured himself at work.
“But you didn’t believe him?” Sarah asked.
Agnes’s eyes widened with renewed terror. “Yes, I believe him! He would not hurt Gerda. He is not that kind of man.”
Sarah was looking at living proof that Lars Otto was exactly that kind of man, but she didn’t say so. “But you said Gerda made him very angry,” she reminded her gently.
“He told her she was disgracing us. He told her she would come to no good, but still she goes out every night. She would not listen to anyone. I knew something bad would happen to her, but she would not listen!”
“Agnes, is it possible that Lars did find her that night and—”
“No! He would not hurt her! But if the police know he was out that night, they might think he did! The police, sometimes they punish the wrong man. I know this is true. If a man is poor, they will put him in the jail even if he is not guilty. You must tell them Lars did not do it. Please, Mrs. Brandt, you must tell them! If they take Lars away to the jail, what will become of us? We will starve!”
Sarah’s heart was beating so loudly, she wondered Agnes couldn’t hear it. Could Lars Otto have been the killer all along? That would explain so much, such as why he had ordered Sarah not to see his wife anymore and why he’d forbidden Agnes to mourn her sister’s death. Of course, she could be wrong again. Malloy would most certainly remind her that she had no proof. Perhaps Otto really had gotten his bruised knuckles from a street fight, as he’d said. Perhaps he was simply ashamed of his sister-in-law and didn’t want to hear her name mentioned again.
Or perhaps he had been so ashamed that he had sought her out on a dark street comer and beaten the life out of her before she could bring even more disgrace to his family. Fortunately, it wasn’t Sarah’s job to find out. Malloy could do that. And if he had to use force to get Otto to tell the truth, for once Sarah wouldn’t criticize his methods. Looking at Agnes’s battered face, she couldn’t think of a more fitting punishment for Otto, killer or not.
Meanwhile, however, Sarah had more pressing issues to be worried about. “Agnes, your husband is probably worried about the same things you are. He’s probably afraid the police will blame him for Gerda’s death. That’s probably why he has been so nervous lately.”
“Yes,” Agnes agreed eagerly. “I am sure that is why. He is very frightened.”
Sarah sent up a silent prayer for wisdom. “That is also probably why he’s been so ... so violent with you. He might be afraid you’ll tell someone he was out that night.”
“I would never do such a thing!” she cried, then covered her mouth in horror, realizing she had just done so.
“Even if he only suspects, he’ll be very angry,” Sarah suggested reasonably. “Agnes, I think your life is in danger.”
She was horrified. “Oh, no, Lars would never hurt me!” she insisted.
; Sarah stared at her in astonishment. “Agnes, he’s already hurt you terribly!”
“He did not mean it! I just made him so angry. He is very sorry. He will not hit me again. He promised!”
“I’m sure he means that promise, too, but I’m also sure he’s made the promise before. Sooner or later you’ll make him angry again, and he’ll forget it. One night, he might start beating you and not be able to stop himself. You’ll be dead, and who will take care of your children? You must get away from him before it’s too late.”
Once again, terror twisted her face. “I have no place to go! No one will take a woman with three children, and I cannot work. How will I live? My children will starve!”
“I can take you to the settlement house.”
“They will take away my children!” she wailed, and Sarah silently cursed herself for using that threat.
“No, they won’t. They’ll help you there. They’ll give you a place to live and food, and your children won’t have to hide anymore, and neither will you.”
“Lars will find us! He will be so angry!”
“We won’t tell him where you are.” Sarah didn’t add that Lars might well be in jail and unable to find anyone. “You’ll be safe, I promise you. Agnes, if you stay here, you might die. If you don’t care about yourself, think of your children! They need their mother.”
But Sarah could see she was fighting a losing battle. How many times had she made this argument to women like Agnes? Even in the few cases when she’d succeed in getting a woman to seek safe shelter, she had eventually returned to her husband. Life for a woman alone, especially if she had children, was simply too terrifying and uncertain. The settlement house would keep such women only for a short while, and then they would have to make their own way. The choice between destitution and an occasional beating--especially when the woman probably believed her husband had every right to beat her if she didn’t please him-was no choice at all.
Murder on St. Mark's Place Page 26