The desk sergeant gave him a knowing grin, obviously remembering the to-do about Maeve’s phone message the day before. “So, when’s the wedding?”
“Nothing so drastic,” Gino said, grinning back. “She just missed me.”
“Is she that girl what works for Mrs. Brandt?”
Everyone at Headquarters knew Mrs. Brandt. “She’s Mrs. Malloy now,” Gino reminded him. “And yes, Miss Smith works for her.”
“Ah yes, Mrs. Malloy,” the sergeant mused. “That lucky bastard Malloy.”
Gino wasn’t sure if the sergeant thought Malloy was lucky because of his sudden wealth or his marriage to Mrs. Brandt, but he said, “I don’t know about luck. After what happened to that Pollock fellow yesterday, marriage isn’t looking too good to me.”
From his high desk the sergeant nodded at Gino. “You’re right. Poor fellow. Although who’s to say he didn’t deserve it, eh?”
“Yeah, a woman doesn’t usually bash her husband on the head for no reason. Did you hear anything about him?”
The sergeant shrugged. “Nothing special, but he’s a bouncer. All them fellas is shady, you ask me.”
“So he had money, did he?” Bouncer was a derogatory term for the newly rich who hadn’t yet earned a place in society.
“He lived in one of them new houses up in Harlem. They don’t come cheap, although why anybody’d want to live way out in the country like that, I don’t know.”
“It’s pretty far, but it’s not farmland anymore.”
“I guess not, if bouncers are building houses there,” the sergeant agreed.
“Did you hear what Pollock did for a living?”
The sergeant frowned down at Gino. “You’re awful interested in this fellow.”
Gino tried a shrug. “Just curious, I guess.”
But the old sergeant wasn’t fooled. “You ain’t a detective, boy. Don’t forget that. Nobody’ll thank you for interfering in what ain’t your business, and Malloy ain’t here no more to cover for you.”
“That’s good advice,” Gino said, giving the old sergeant a mock salute.
He was walking away, already trying to figure out how to be more subtle in his inquiries the next time, when the sergeant called, “But if you want to find out more about Pollock, ask Broghan. His cousin walks the beat up there, and he was the first one in the house.”
“Broghan, huh? I think he might still be mad at me about that case with the missing women.”
The sergeant gave a bark of laughter. “Oh yeah, that was clever, but it’s Malloy he’s mad at. Besides, he’s an Irishman. If you’ll listen to him, he’ll talk to you, mad or not.”
“Thanks, Sarge.”
Gino was whistling as he went to report for duty. Broghan wouldn’t be in this early, but he’d be able to catch him later at his favorite bar.
* * *
Maeve was sitting on the bench in the foyer, just where they’d left her and looking completely innocent, when Mrs. O’Neill and Mrs. Decker came back downstairs. The maid trailed behind them carrying a cheap suitcase that they’d apparently found upstairs. Thank heaven they hadn’t needed the carpetbag, which sat at her feet.
“I hope you weren’t bored waiting for us,” Mrs. Decker said with a questioning look in her eye.
“Oh no, not at all. Did you get everything you needed for Mrs. Pollock?”
“Yes, and we also decided that we’ll have my maid come back tomorrow and pack up all of Mrs. Pollock’s things and take them to her mother’s house. Under the circumstances, Mrs. Pollock will want to close up the house, I’m sure.”
She didn’t have to mention that with Pollock dead and Una in jail, there’d be no one to pay the servants and the other expenses of running a household.
“Oh, you might want to wait a week or two before doing that,” Maeve said. “Mrs. Pollock will probably be released, and she’ll want to come home.”
“She’ll want to come home to me, I’m sure,” her mother said. “She won’t want to come back here, after what happened.”
“But what’ll become of us?” the maid asked. “There’s nobody to write us a reference.” Maeve had learned a lot about servants from Mrs. Decker, and she knew they changed employers frequently. The Pollocks’ servants wouldn’t have been with them long, so they’d certainly feel no loyalty to Una.
“I’ll write all of you a reference, if it comes to that,” Mrs. Decker said. “But don’t go running off just yet. We’ll see you’re taken care of. And let me know if you need anything.” She gave the girl her calling card. “Are we ready to go?”
Maeve said they were, so they filed out to the sidewalk, where the Decker carriage still waited at the curb. The driver hurried to assist the ladies inside, taking the carpetbag from Maeve and setting it by her feet at her instruction. He strapped the other suitcase to the back and then scrambled up to his perch after receiving instructions to deliver Mrs. O’Neill to the city jail first.
As soon as they were safely away from the house, Mrs. Decker said, “I assume your search was successful, Maeve.”
“Yes, it was,” she said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a wad of bills. “Mrs. O’Neill, this should be enough to hire the attorney whose name I gave you and also to pay your daughter’s bail, if he can arrange it.”
Mrs. O’Neill stared at the money as if afraid it would bite her. “How much is there?”
“Five hundred dollars.”
Mrs. O’Neill made a strangled sound. She’d certainly never seen so much money all at once, which would be more than a year’s salary for an average person. “But I can’t—”
“Of course you can,” Maeve said. “It’s your daughter’s money, after all. You should use it to help her.”
“I . . . What should I do with it?”
“Put it in your purse,” Mrs. Decker suggested, but Mrs. O’Neill’s horrified reaction clearly showed how dangerous she considered that idea.
“Put a couple hundred in your purse to pay the attorney,” Maeve said.
“He’ll want that much?” she squeaked.
“No, but you want him to see you’ve got more than what he asks for so he’ll be willing to take the case. You can put the rest of it down in your corset, so you won’t have to worry about losing it. I’ll show you.”
By the time Maeve had helped her hide the rest of the money, Mrs. O’Neill looked a little less terrified.
“What a good idea,” Mrs. Decker said in wonder, having watched the whole thing with admiration. “Where did you learn that?”
Maeve didn’t even consider answering truthfully. “I thought of it just now. It’s clever, isn’t it?” She turned back to Mrs. O’Neill. “The attorney’s office is across the street from the jail, so go straight there after you take Una her things.”
“She still wouldn’t talk to me this morning. I tried everything I knew, but she wouldn’t speak. I think whoever killed Mr. Pollock may have injured her, too, but how would we know, when she won’t say anything?”
Maeve had no reply for that, but Mrs. Decker said, “Maybe she’ll speak with her attorney. Sometimes it’s easier to talk to a stranger about something so serious.”
Mrs. O’Neill looked doubtful, but she wasn’t going to disagree with someone like Mrs. Decker.
They rode the rest of the way in uneasy silence, in spite of Mrs. Decker’s efforts to make small talk.
When they’d dropped Mrs. O’Neill at the jail, Mrs. Decker turned to Maeve expectantly. “All right, you obviously found some money, but what else did you find?”
“What makes you think I found anything else?” Maeve asked with a grin.
Mrs. Decker pointed at the carpetbag sitting on the floor of the carriage. “That bag is full of something, and you wanted to keep it close.”
“I was so glad you didn’t need it for Una’s clothes.” Maeve
leaned over and opened it to reveal the contents.
Mrs. Decker clapped a hand to her heart. “Good heavens! How much is there?”
Maeve glanced at the stacks of cash. “I didn’t take the time to count it, but it’s thousands of dollars.”
“That’s why you said we didn’t need to close up the house. Mrs. O’Neill thought Pollock was rich, but I’m not sure I really believed it before.”
“I don’t believe it now.”
Mrs. Decker looked meaningfully at the carpetbag. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, Pollock had a lot of money, but rich people keep their money in banks.”
“Maybe Pollock didn’t trust banks.”
“I guess that’s possible, but thieves don’t trust banks either.”
“You think Pollock was a thief?”
“I have no idea, but he was a young man, from what Mrs. O’Neill told me, and she didn’t seem to know exactly what he did for a living, and he’s got thousands of dollars in a safe in his house. And”—she rummaged in the carpetbag and pulled out a book—“I also found this.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a ledger of some kind.” Maeve opened it and showed her. “See, there’s names and amounts of money.”
“What does it mean?”
“I’m guessing it means these people gave him money, and he’s keeping track of it in this ledger.”
“Why would they have given him money?”
Maeve managed not to sigh. Mrs. Decker was hopelessly naïve, and Maeve didn’t want her to know how much she knew about cheating people. “Probably some business thing, but we don’t know enough right now to even make a guess.”
“Maybe Mr. Decker could figure it out if he saw the ledger.”
“Mr. Decker?” Maeve echoed in alarm. The last thing she wanted was to face him if he found out she’d involved his wife in all this.
“He’s really not as terrifying as you seem to think, my dear,” Mrs. Decker assured her. “We can’t let him know that I helped you today, of course. You know how he worries about me. But you can just bring the ledger over to our house this evening and ask him for his advice. You can tell him everything that’s happened except that I went with you to the Pollock house.”
Maeve had to agree that this sounded like a good plan. “Should I bring the money, too?”
“Heavens, no. Doesn’t Mr. Malloy have a safe?”
“Yes, he does.”
“I thought Sarah told me he did. Do you know the combination?”
“Of course. Mr. Malloy left money for us to spend while they’re on their honeymoon.”
“Then put this money in the safe, too. Count it first, though. Mr. Decker will want to know how much you found. Was there anything else in the safe?”
“No, just the ledger and the money. I searched Pollock’s desk, but I didn’t find anything important in it except the combination to the safe.”
“How odd that he would keep it so close.”
“Lots of people write down the combination and keep it in a safe place in case they forget it.”
“It doesn’t sound like his desk was a very safe place if you found it so easily.”
“Lots of people aren’t very smart.”
“So it seems,” Mrs. Decker agreed with a grin.
Maeve was glad Mrs. Decker didn’t think to ask her how she knew all this.
When they arrived at the Malloy house, Mrs. Decker came in for a short visit with Catherine, who had been visiting Mrs. Ellsworth again for a few hours while Maeve did her detective work. She couldn’t stay long, though, because she had to be home when Mr. Decker arrived. She didn’t want to have to lie about where she’d been this afternoon.
Maeve and Catherine started supper, and when Mrs. Malloy brought Brian home from school, they all ate together. Mrs. Decker had warned her that they ate supper late, so she shouldn’t come until around eight o’clock, which left a long time for Maeve to wait. Luckily, Gino Donatelli arrived shortly after they’d finished eating. He also had to spend a little time with the children before Maeve could steal him away. Luckily, Mrs. Malloy was there to get them ready for bed while Maeve took him to the kitchen for a piece of cake.
“Did you have any luck at Pollock’s house today?” he asked as she sliced the cake.
“You might say that. I was able to give Mrs. O’Neill five hundred dollars to hire a lawyer and pay Una’s bail, if the lawyer can get it set.”
He looked suitably impressed. “That’s a lot of money. Where did you find it?”
She set the cake down in front of him. “In his safe.”
“I was right about that, then.” Men just loved being right, and Gino was no exception.
“Yes, you were,” she said sweetly, more than happy to acknowledge it. She sat down at the table opposite him.
He started to take a bite, but stopped with the fork halfway to his mouth. “If it was in a safe, how did you get it out?”
She continued to smile sweetly.
He frowned. “You didn’t . . . You don’t know how to crack a safe, do you?”
How nice that he thought she might actually be able to do that. And how nice to see his various horrified reactions to that thought. “Of course not. He’d written the combination down, and I found it.”
“Where?”
“In his appointment diary. In his desk. Really, he wasn’t very good at this at all.”
“Good at what?”
“Never mind. So were you able to find out anything about Pollock?”
He hesitated, as if he wanted to ask her something else, but then he sighed and said, “Not a lot about Pollock, but I found out more about the murder. Broghan’s cousin was the first one in the house.”
“Broghan? Mr. Malloy’s friend?”
Gino grinned at that. “They aren’t exactly friends.”
“But he’s a police detective, too, same as Mr. Malloy was?”
“Yes, although he’s not the same as Mr. Malloy at all.”
“Oh, I remember. He drinks, doesn’t he?”
“All Irishmen drink. Broghan drinks a lot.”
“Then I hope you waited until he was drunk to talk to him,” Maeve said with a smile.
“He’s always drunk, so that wasn’t hard.”
“And what did you find out?”
“Well, there was some kind of argument in the house. The servants were in the kitchen, and they claim they don’t know who was there or what the argument was about. They just heard shouting, and they stayed where they were, trying to pretend they didn’t hear anything because it was none of their business.”
“Did the Pollocks fight a lot?”
“I didn’t talk to the servants myself, so I don’t know. And all this is secondhand, remember. Well, thirdhand, really.”
“I just think it’s funny the servants claim they don’t know who was shouting. Servants know everything that goes on in their house.”
“I know, which is why we need to question them ourselves. Anyway, after all the arguing, things got quiet for a while, and they thought it was safe to come out. That’s when they found the Pollocks, both of them, on the parlor floor. He was all bloody, and she’d sat down with him and put his head in her lap.”
Maeve tried to picture this in her mind. “Then what happened?”
“One of the maids ran out and found the beat cop, who is Broghan’s cousin. He saw Una and Pollock in the parlor, then he sent for the ward detective, who decided Una did it and arrested her.”
“That sure made it easy for him,” Maeve said. “How is she supposed to have killed him?”
“Just like Mrs. O’Neill said, somebody hit him over the head.”
“With what?”
“Broghan didn’t know.”
“That would make a lot of difference,�
� Maeve said. “If it was something in the house, she might’ve done it, but if it wasn’t . . .”
“I’m probably going to have to get Broghan’s cousin drunk to find out more.”
“Or maybe I can just ask the servants.”
Gino raised his eyebrows. He had very nice eyebrows, she noticed. “When would you do that?”
“Tomorrow, when I go back to pack up all of Una’s clothes. Mrs. Decker was going to send her maid to do it, but now I think I should.”
“Why—?”
“Because Mrs. Decker thought they should close the house and let the servants go, since there’s no one to pay them. That would mean selling everything except Una’s personal belongings. Mrs. O’Neill wanted them taken to her flat so they’d be safe.”
“That makes sense.”
“But then I found the money.”
“Five hundred dollars isn’t going to pay the servants for long, especially if she has to pay the lawyer and bail money and—”
“I found more than five hundred dollars.”
“How much did you find?” he asked with interest. He had nice eyes, too. She’d have to make a point of not noticing that.
“Thirty-seven thousand two hundred and seventy-six dollars.”
Gino blinked his very nice eyes several times. “Thirty-seven thousand dollars?”
“And two hundred and seventy-six, not including the five hundred I gave Mrs. O’Neill.”
“But what . . . ? Did you give it to Mrs. O’Neill?”
“Of course not. She almost fainted when I gave her five hundred. I didn’t even tell her about it, but Mrs. Decker knows. She went with us to the house and kept the maid busy while I looked around.”
“So Mrs. Decker took it?”
“No, I have it here, locked up in our safe. And I also found this.” She got up and fetched the ledger book from where she’d left it on top of the pie safe.
“What is it?” he asked as she handed it to him.
Murder on St. Nicholas Avenue Page 3