by Liz Freeland
“Thank you.” Taking it, I vowed to make it through the meal without more awkward eye contact. I even considered not looking at him at all, but that proved impossible. I was too curious not to observe him now. This was his habitat. I felt as if I’d stumbled into one of the dioramas in the Museum of Natural History. A Muldoon feeding in his natural surroundings, the informative marker would read. Note how intently he chews and avoids the gaze of the female intruder.
“You’re smiling, Louise,” Anna said. “Penny for your thoughts.”
Not for a million dollars would I speak those thoughts aloud. “I was challenging myself to find something to talk about that doesn’t involve war.” Out of thin air, I pulled the first thing that came to mind. “I heard the stock exchange is opening again, finally.”
Muldoon lifted his napkin to his mouth. “They wouldn’t have closed it except for the war in Europe, so that still qualifies as war talk.”
Foiled. “What about the arts? That must be safe. Did you know Ethel Barrymore is making films now?”
During the meal, I talked too much. Every time I tried to make myself stop, though, a gaping void opened up. Muldoon still seemed too taken aback at finding me at his dinner table to speak easily. And Anna, who was especially interested in what I could tell her about Callie and her film career, egged me on. Though bright-eyed and attentive, she added little more than the occasional question, agreement, or interjection, or to ask if I wanted the salt. Quite a contrast with the chatterbox she’d been before her brother came home.
As the meal drew to a close, my nerves began to frazzle. Muldoon wasn’t going to be pleased when I explained exactly why I was there. His common sense was what I was seeking, but now his dark countenance reminded me that his common sense often came in the form of a stern lecture. Desiring to put that off, I asked Anna to let me help with the dishes.
She drew back as if I’d scalded her pride. “You’re a guest.”
“An uninvited one,” I reminded her.
“I won’t hear of it,” she insisted. “Besides, you and Frank probably have to talk, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”
Muldoon and I returned to the parlor.
“How did you find me?” He lit a pipe, something I’d never seen him do.
A Muldoon at leisure in his den.
“I’m a good investigator.”
“You don’t have to tell me.” He eyed me steadily. “This delicate matter you mentioned. Is it something about Cain?”
Leonard Cain was a nightclub-owning crime lord who had his hand in all the vice this city could offer. I’d helped put him away in Sing Sing last year, and once he’d gotten wind of that he’d vowed to make me pay. The only way he could have heard of my involvement in his downfall would have been if someone in the department had told him. I’d been unable to completely trust my colleagues at the precinct ever since.
Cain’s promised vengeance hadn’t come, though, even though nearly a year had passed since he’d been sentenced last December twentieth.
“Why I’m here has to do with a suicide case. A prostitute.” I told Muldoon about the grisly scene on Tenth Avenue, the dismissive way the detectives had seemed to handle Ruthie’s and her baby’s deaths, and my desire to find Eddie Jones’s remaining kin. So far so good. Then I explained about Walter and I taking the things from Ruthie’s apartment, and Callie finding the passports. By the time I produced them from my satchel, Muldoon’s face had become the stern mask of doom I was familiar with from previous instances when he’d thought I’d acted unwisely, or rashly, or both. Usually both.
“You should have let your precinct captain or at least Sergeant Donnelly know what you were up to.”
“But Detective King dismissed the idea of looking further into Ruthie’s death.”
“You didn’t need to tell them that you were suspicious about the death. Just that you were going to look for items that might help you trace the child’s kin.”
“And Sergeant Donnelly would have told me that I needed to leave that work to the foundling hospital.”
“He would have been right. The sisters at New York Foundling are good at finding homes for children. Some of the children even end up out West.”
For decades, New York City had been dealing with its overpopulation of orphans by sending them by the trainload to other parts of America. Some childless couples adopted the children to fill a void in their lives, but many people who took the orphans were people on farms for whom another pair of hands was sorely needed.
“You can’t tell me that all of those families want a child and not free labor.”
“Maybe some do, but would the children be better off here, in the streets?”
“They’d be better off in loving homes. Which is why it’s preferable to find Ruthie’s family. Eddie’s not going to be like other children, the ones who get sent to farm families. A regular boy in that situation can at least stand up for himself. Eddie’s not going to have a voice.”
Muldoon looked thoughtful, but when he spoke again, it was to return to my dilemma, not Eddie’s. “All right. With the best of intentions, you went back to the apartment, and now you have these passports. Turn them in.”
“What if one of the passport men was Ruthie’s murderer? Someone went through the apartment looking for something—why not passports? Her drawers were gone through and her mattress was slashed. There was all sorts of evidence that someone had been in that flat, but the detectives on the case didn’t even care. The second they saw signs of a prostitute who’d committed suicide, they were ready to pack up and go home.”
Muldoon shook his head. “If you took the subway all the way to Brooklyn to convince me to try to investigate Ruthie Jones’s death, you’ve wasted a nickel. I can’t second-guess another detective’s work.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not my precinct.”
“So?”
“Louise, you know that’s not how we work.”
“And you know someone at my precinct is corrupt. Maybe several someones. Can I trust them to treat the passports as evidence?”
“Those passports might only be evidence of Ruthie Jones being a thief. Maybe she stole money along with them, then didn’t know what to do with the documents.”
“Burning them or tossing them in the trash would have been much easier than sewing them into her clothes,” I said. “Anyway, I don’t think she was a thief. Prostitutes can’t steal from customers and expect to stay alive for long.”
“And Ruthie didn’t.” The moment the words came out of his mouth, he frowned at the trap he’d just talked himself into.
I folded my arms. “You see? The passports could be evidence that Ruthie’s death wasn’t a suicide.”
He leaned back in his chair. “I knew my life had seemed too calm lately.”
“I just want your advice.”
“Then you should heed it. Hand in the passports and tell your sergeant as close to a version of the truth as you can manage. At least give the detectives a chance to link them to the investigation—or not. You might get a reprimand for going back to a crime scene to look for information to help track down the baby’s family. The brass won’t be happy to have this question mark added to a case they considered open-and-shut, but no one will fire you for being overzealous for helping out the sisters at the foundling hospital.”
As frustrating as it was for me to admit, he was right. At least as far as precinct politics went. “I should have figured that out on my own.”
“You would have.”
“But you saw it in minutes.”
He gave me one of his rare smiles. “Because I’ve been there before. Do you think you’re the only police officer who’s ever been in a bind?”
A rustle sounded in the doorway. Anna was eyeing us with satisfaction. “This is cozy, isn’t it?” She crossed to a phonograph cabinet in the corner. “I hope you two aren’t going to talk about work all night. Would you like to hear a record, Louise? Frank bought the phonograph
for me last year, to entertain me. Wasn’t that generous?”
Muldoon shifted in his seat. “It wasn’t entirely unselfish. I like music, too.”
“I got a new record last Saturday.” Anna pulled a record out of the cabinet shelf and put it on the felt turntable. The opening strains of “You Made Me Love You” by Al Jolson began.
Of course it would be Al Jolson. Not only were his records selling like hotcakes, Muldoon had seen Jolson hamming it up at one of my aunt’s parties last year. No doubt Muldoon had told Anna all about it. And now I remembered that day, and how kind he had been to me. I’d felt a real closeness with him then.
“Wouldn’t you two like to dance?” Anna asked.
“No,” we said in unison.
Our eyes met in mutual surprise and dismay at the other’s vehemence.
We sat in silence as Jolson tortured every drop of emotion out of the remainder of the song. The minutes crawled. As soon as the record was over, I hopped to my feet.
Muldoon rose, too. “I’ll walk you to the subway station?”
“That’s not necessary.”
“Nonsense.” Anna sent me a significant look. “Frank would be delighted to do it. Right, Frank?”
“Of course.”
On Henry Street, I turned to him. “I’m sorry if my coming out here causes trouble for you.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Your sister is very . . . fanciful.”
“Anna?” His brows drew together. “I don’t know about that. She reads a lot of books. She sneaks out to the pictures, too.”
“Why should she sneak? Surely you don’t care?”
“Of course not. I want her to enjoy herself, although I don’t see much joy in sitting in the dark watching a screen.” His expression was serious, and a little worried. “Anna’s had a hard time of it, living alone with just me since our mother died. For a while it seemed she was getting involved in helping at the church, but I think she perhaps got over involved. Some of the ladies who’d been there longer didn’t seem to appreciate her help. She stopped going.”
I had a few guesses why that would be. “She seems to like to take charge. Once I arrived at your door, she wouldn’t hear of my leaving.”
“Maybe she doesn’t get enough company. She’s been dedicated to her housekeeping.”
Not so dedicated that she wouldn’t run off to torrid Ceylon with the first man who asked her. It wasn’t my place to get into an argument with Muldoon about his domestic arrangements, however.
We reached the entrance to the subway station. “Thank you for your help,” I said.
“Just remember that you don’t have to take everything on your shoulders. Let the detectives do their work.”
“Wise advice,” I said, waving goodbye to him. And it was advice I had every intention of following. To a degree.
CHAPTER 5
Sergeant Donnelly wasn’t at his desk the next morning when I arrived at the station. In his place stood his second-in-command, Officer Jenks. His long face cracked into an unconvincing smile as he saw me approach.
“I need to speak to Donnelly,” I said.
“He’s not here.”
“Is Lieutenant King on duty now? I’ve come across something relating to the Ruthie Jones case.”
The officer tilted his head, his brow a complicated map of lines. “What case? She committed suicide.”
“Is King here?”
He leaned forward. “What did you find?”
I hesitated, but finally told him about the three passports, giving my rehearsed explanation of coming across them in a blanket I’d taken from the apartment for Eddie the night we’d found Ruthie. Naturally I left out all mention of disguises and my suspicions.
“Nothing better to do with your time, eh? You should get yourself a steady fellow.” He held out his hand. “I’ll pass ’em along to the detectives for you.”
“I want to make sure they go to the right people.”
His expression darkened to a glower. “I told you I’ll pass them along. But if you don’t trust me to do that, I’ll tell Donnelly that he’ll need to talk to you. And that maybe he ought to question you a little more on that story of yours. A little bird told me a ragman and his son carted away a lot of stuff from there yesterday. Know anything about that?”
“Of course not.” But he knew I was lying. Reluctantly, I handed over the passports.
Jenks opened a desk drawer to his right, dropped them in, and slammed it shut. “There. Safe and sound.”
“Thanks.” I imbued my voice with as little gratefulness as I could get away with.
Downstairs, I made a quick roll call of all the lady prisoners in my cells. There were quite a few, and they had the usual complaints, requests, and insults for me. After a year, the taunts were water off a duck’s back. Besides, I was preoccupied. I found the city directory and thumbed through it, looking for a business called the Silver Swan. I found nothing.
Maybe Ruthie really had just written down a song title she’d liked. Or maybe the owner of the Dutch passport had. I still didn’t know if that was Ruthie’s handwriting on the scrap of paper. I needed to concentrate my efforts on what I did know.
I sat down on my bench and removed a paper from my jacket pocket. The night before, I’d copied down all the information from the three passports. I studied the names and the vital statistics of the three men and decided to focus on the hardest first: the Swede. Lars Holmgren, his name was. His passport was the one that had been stamped most recently, and the most often.
Muldoon had counseled me to let the detectives do their jobs, and I agreed with that advice. In theory. But if the detectives weren’t inclined to do their jobs, and Jenks’s dismissive behavior seemed more confirmation that they weren’t, I was going to do a little detecting myself.
* * *
Locating a single Swede in a city of four and a half million was not quite the equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack. For one thing, needles didn’t have consulates, and the Swedes did.
It was on Sixth Avenue near Fourteenth Street, a quick hop down the El. My lunch break gave me just enough time to go there. The building was a simple brick edifice, narrow and modest, with just the blue-and-yellow flag giving away its tenants. It certainly wasn’t the busiest place in the city. As soon as I walked in, I was directed to speak to Mr. Berglund, who sat studying the contents of a folder with the intensity of an employee who was trying to look busy. He was slight-framed and older, with wire spectacles perched on his long nose.
He half stood as I approached him, and directed me to take the chair opposite him. “How may I be of help to you?” he asked in precise, accented English.
“I’m looking for a countryman of yours who lost his passport.” Before I’d even finished spinning a brief yarn of finding Lars Holmgren’s passport on a park bench, Berglund was extracting a cloth-bound book from a file drawer to his left.
“Where is the document?” he asked.
“I gave it to the police. Or, rather, they took it from me when I showed it to them.”
His eyes narrowed. “Then, Miss—”
“Frobisher,” I lied. “Idelle Frobisher.”
The real Idelle Frobisher, a tightly corseted dragon with a fondness for rapping small knuckles with rulers, had been my least favorite teacher in elementary school. I’d decided to use an alias just to be safe. If Ruthie’s death was in any way being covered up at my precinct, for whatever reason, I didn’t want my snooping about those passports to be traced back to me. Also, as Muldoon warned, it wasn’t politic to be seen second-guessing the work of my detective superiors. Though I was wearing my uniform, my long coat disguised all but the bottom of my blue skirt, which wasn’t giving much away.
Mr. Berglund, who until this point had been poised to take down all the information I could give him, put down his pen. “Miss Frobisher, it would seem to me that you’ve already done your duty by Mr. Holmgren.”
“If you trust the police, you mu
st be the only one in this city who does.” I gripped my satchel, sending up an apology to the patron saint of the NYPD. “No, I’d feel better if I could contact Mr. Holmgren myself and tell him who has his passport.”
“I wish you luck, but in this I cannot help you. Mr. Holmgren has not been to this office.”
“You think Mr. Holmgren would know to come here, then? I didn’t think to until after I went to the police.”
He considered this. “You said the passport had many stamps?”
I nodded. “Two from entering New York, and several more from the East—Hong Kong, Tokyo . . . lots of places.”
“He certainly sounds worldly enough to know to come to the consulate, but we would have a record if a man had come here to report a lost passport. We would have taken steps to get him a new travel document.”
“And how long would that take?”
He shrugged. “A matter of a week or so to give him a temporary traveling document.”
I believed him when he said he knew Holmgren hadn’t been here. All the action in the consulate seemed to take place at this desk, and he looked as if he hadn’t left his post for a few decades. It was possible he could help me in another way, however. I rummaged in my satchel for the notes I’d taken the night before. “Could you translate this word for me?” I pointed to some words I’d copied from the passport. “I think that means ‘eyes: blue.’ ”
“That is correct, yes.”
I moved my finger down a line. “And this word?”
He frowned. “Blond.”
“And these would be height measurements?”
“Mr. Holmgren is five feet ten inches and weighs one hundred and sixty pounds.”
“And he’s twenty-six years old.”
“Yes.”
Catching on to my intentions, Mr. Berglund bleated out a laugh. “You intend to go looking for this man on your own?”
I nodded.
“Please, Miss Frobisher, I am touched at your concern for my countryman, but you will waste your time. New York is a large city.”
“It is, but visitors to New York generally congregate in certain parts.” I knew the Swede had spent a little time in Hell’s Kitchen, but I couldn’t say that, or how I knew. “I’m fairly certain Mr. Holmgren is a sailor. The stamps on his passport were all ports of call where a sailor on a merchant ship might stop.”