Murder on St. Nicholas Avenue

by Victoria Thompson

  They probably hadn’t asked them any questions either. They’d decided Mrs. Pollock had killed her husband, and she hadn’t denied it, so they’d bundled her off to the Tombs and closed the case. If he’d never met Frank Malloy, he might’ve done the same thing. “I guess they took the weapon.”

  “What weapon?” Hattie asked.

  “Whatever the killer used to bash his head in.”

  “Oh yes. It disappeared, so I reckon they took it.”

  “What was it?”

  “It was a frog.”

  6

  Gino was sure he hadn’t heard her right. “A frog?”

  “Wasn’t no frog at all,” Velvet said.

  “That’s what it looked like to me, and I’m the one dusted it every day.”

  “You dusted a frog?” Gino asked.

  The two women frowned at him.

  “Not a real frog,” Velvet said.

  “It was a statue,” Hattie said.

  Oh, this was making more sense. “A statue of a frog?”

  “It weren’t no frog,” Velvet insisted. “More like a lizard, and it had a lady’s face.”

  This must have been a very ugly statue. “How big was it?”

  “About so big,” Hattie said, holding her hands about six inches apart. “But heavy.”

  “What was it made of?”

  “Some kind of stone, looked like,” she said. “All carved up to look like a frog.”

  “It was a lizard,” Velvet said.

  “I never seen no lizard.”

  “Well, if you did, you’d know it was a lizard. Some heathen foreign thing,” Velvet added in disgust.

  “And you’re sure that’s what the killer used on Pollock?”

  “Oh yes,” Hattie said. “It had blood all over it, and it was laying on the floor right near him.”

  “It used to sit on that table over there.” Velvet pointed to a small table sitting beside an upholstered chair just beyond where Hattie indicated the body had been found.

  So the murder weapon was conveniently to hand for anyone who might have had a sudden urge to bash Pollock’s head in. That didn’t help Una, but it did mean just about anyone else could’ve killed him just as easily. And now he was very curious to see this “statue” of a frog or lizard or whatever it was.

  “Did Mr. Pollock have a visitor named Yorke recently?” Gino asked as he escorted Hattie out of the parlor and turned off the lights.

  Hattie frowned. “Yes, sir. He come the day Mr. Pollock died.”

  Gooseflesh rose on Gino’s arms. “How long before Pollock died was he here?”

  “I don’t rightly know, not exactly, because I don’t know just when Mr. Pollock died, you see. It was maybe two hours before I found them in the parlor, though.”

  That might mean he was long gone when Pollock was killed, but the fact that he was here at all would help Una’s case. “Was Mr. Pollock happy to see him?”

  “I wouldn’t say happy,” Hattie said. “But he wasn’t mad neither.”

  “Did he ever get mad when he had other visitors?”

  She shrugged. “Sometimes he wasn’t too happy to see Mr. Truett.”

  “Who’s Truett?” Gino knew, but he wanted to see what they’d say.

  “Just a friend of Mr. Pollock’s.”

  “He wasn’t no friend. He never once stayed for dinner, did he?” Velvet said.

  “But he and Mr. Pollock always visited a good long time whenever he’d come,” Hattie said.

  “He visited pretty often then, I guess,” Gino said.

  “Yes, at least once most every week,” Hattie said. “They had a lot of business to talk over, or at least that’s what Mr. Pollock would always say.”

  “That’s what he would say to Truett?” Gino asked.

  “Yes, he’d say something like, ‘We have a lot to talk about,’ or ‘A lot has happened since you were here.’ Things like that.”

  Which sounded to Gino like Truett was working with Pollock on the railroad swindle. “Do you know where this Truett lives?”

  They just stared blankly back at him. Of course they wouldn’t know that.

  “Do you know his first name, by any chance?”

  “Mr. Truett is all I ever knew,” Hattie said. “But I could ask him next time he comes.”

  “Has he been around since Pollock died?”

  “No, sir, but sometimes I didn’t know when he came unless I saw him leaving. Sometimes Mr. Pollock would let him in, you see.”

  “Well, Mr. Pollock isn’t going to be letting him in anymore, so when he comes, tell him Mr. Decker would like to speak with him and find out where he lives, if he’ll tell you.”

  From the way Hattie was scowling, she didn’t like that assignment at all. Servants weren’t in the habit of interrogating visitors or giving them instructions. Then Gino thought of something to sweeten the pot, at least for Truett. “He and Mr. Pollock were business partners, and Truett is going to be looking for his share of their profits.”

  “You mean he has money coming?” Velvet asked.

  “He probably thinks so, yes.”

  “But that burglar got all Mr. Pollock’s money out of his safe.”

  “Truett won’t know that, though, and we . . . we think we know who has it.” Which was the God’s truth. “If we’re right, we can get it back. That’s why Mr. Decker wants to talk to him, to explain it.”

  They still looked uncertain, but he felt more confident that they would at least send Truett to Decker.

  After Gino had checked the lock on the front door and found it suitable, the women took him upstairs. He was disconcerted to discover that they had put him in the master bedroom. When Hattie took him to the rest of the rooms on that floor, however, he understood why. None of the other rooms were furnished.

  “Mr. Pollock said there was no sense wasting money on furniture for this part of the house,” Hattie explained while Gino checked the window locks. “Nobody but us and the family ever comes up here.”

  “I hope the servants’ rooms have furniture,” he said.

  “Oh yes, sir. We got everything we need. Mr. Pollock, he saw to that, at least. When do you think we might leave here? For good, I mean. We’re awful scared now to be here by ourselves.”

  “I don’t think you’ve got anything to be afraid of, and I’ll be here every night until you’re gone. Just remember, you don’t have to let anybody into the house. Just tell them to go see Mr. Decker.”

  That seemed to reassure her a little, and she didn’t offer any more complaints while he finished checking that floor.

  “Do you want me to check upstairs?”

  “No need for that. Nobody could get in up there. We put clean sheets on your bed and everything,” Hattie said. “And you just tell me if you need anything.”

  Gino wished her good night, and gratefully made his way to his quarters. The room was comfortably furnished and the bathroom just outside in the hallway was far more luxurious—and a whole lot cleaner—than the shared facilities at the tenement where he lived with his parents. He could get used to living like this.

  The furniture, like all the furniture in the house, was new. The four-poster bed was plain, not like the ones he’d seen in houses where the people were really rich, with carvings on the headboard and on the posters. The wood was poor quality, too, like the furniture people in the tenements had. He checked the twin wardrobes. The one was empty, probably because Maeve had packed up all of Una Pollock’s clothing. The other one still held Pollock’s things, and Gino started going through them methodically, the way Frank Malloy had taught him.

  Pollock had several suits, all tailor-made and good quality. His shoes were expensive, too, and polished to a gleaming shine. He even had a suit of evening clothes and a silk top hat. Somehow, Gino couldn’t picture Pollock taking a
girl like Una out to the opera or wherever men wore suits like that. He searched all the pockets of every article of clothing and found nothing but a few ticket stubs and flakes of tobacco. The bureau drawers held piles of silk underdrawers and blindingly white shirts. On the top lay silver-backed brushes and a glass dish holding pearl shirt studs and gold cuff links engraved with Pollock’s initials.

  Two small drawers flanked the top of the bureau, too tiny to hold clothing or much of anything else, but when Gino pulled the first one open, he found exactly what he’d been looking for: a small black address book. Inside were the same names they’d just copied from the ledger, along with addresses. Truett was in there, too. Gordon Truett.

  When he’d finished searching the room, finding nothing else of interest, he pulled out the pencil he always carried and carefully copied all the addresses over to the list of names he’d made at Malloy’s house. Then he put the address book back where he’d found it. If the police had to come back looking for new evidence because he and his cohorts had cleared Una Pollock of a murder charge, they’d find it waiting for them.

  At last, Gino washed up and turned out the lights. He lay down, still wearing his uniform pants just in case some intruder knocked over the booby trap he’d set downstairs and he had to go running.

  * * *

  Mrs. Malloy and Brian hadn’t even left for school when someone started ringing the doorbell the next morning. Brian couldn’t hear the doorbell, of course, but he was always willing to go running after Catherine, who raced to the front door. She knew better than to open it herself, though, so Maeve had to shoo them out of the way so she could do so. She found Mrs. O’Neill standing on the stoop, much as she had a few days ago when she’d come the first time to beg for help.

  She looked a little less frazzled this morning, but still a bit desperate. “Oh, Miss Smith, I’m that sorry to bother you again, but I don’t know what to do. That lawyer you told me to hire, he’s taking Una to court. He sent me word, but I’ve never been to court and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

  “Don’t leave her standing in the cold,” Mrs. Malloy said, having followed the rest of them to see who the visitor was. As usual, her wrinkled face was pinched into a disapproving frown, but Maeve noticed she seemed a little more disapproving than usual today.

  Maeve obediently invited Mrs. O’Neill inside.

  “Oh, Alma, it’s good to see you. How have you been keeping?” Mrs. O’Neill asked.

  “Not too bad,” Mrs. Malloy said. “The boy keeps me busy.”

  “He’s growing like a weed,” she said, smiling fondly at Brian. “Looks more like his father every day.”

  “Yes, poor thing,” Mrs. Malloy said. Maeve bit back a smile.

  “I guess you heard about my troubles,” Mrs. O’Neill said.

  “Maeve told me. Such a tragedy.”

  Mrs. O’Neill’s eyes filled with tears. “I thought I had my girl all settled.”

  “Why don’t you come into the kitchen and have a cup of coffee to warm you up,” Maeve said quickly, knowing Mrs. Malloy’s store of sympathy for other people’s misfortunes was rather small. “Don’t you have to take Brian to school?” she added to Mrs. Malloy.

  “Indeed I do,” she said without a hint of regret to be leaving her old friend. “Please give Una my condolences on the loss of her husband.”

  “That I will,” Mrs. O’Neill said. “Such a fine man. I can’t imagine why anyone would harm him.” She was dabbing at her teary eyes, so she didn’t see Mrs. Malloy rolling hers.

  The children had already lost interest in their visitor and wandered off. “I’ve got to get Brian ready. Maeve will take good care of you.” With that, Mrs. Malloy slipped away, leaving Maeve to escort Mrs. O’Neill to the kitchen.

  “Women with sons don’t know what it’s like,” Mrs. O’Neill said as they walked. “You try to do what’s best and you pray every night that your daughter finds a good husband, because otherwise, what’s to become of her?”

  She was right, Maeve knew, although she hated every word of it. Opportunities for women in this world were few, and most of them weren’t worth contemplating.

  When Mrs. O’Neill was seated at the table, Maeve poured her what was left of the breakfast coffee. “What did Mr. Nicholson’s message say?”

  “He said to come to the courthouse and to bring some money for bail and I could take Una home.”

  “Did he say how much money?”

  “No. Do you know?”

  “No, I don’t. How much do you have left?”

  “Four hundred dollars. He only asked me for a hundred dollars, but what if I need all of the rest of it for bail money? He said he’d need more money for his fees if Una went on trial, but if I need it all for bail, how will I pay him?”

  “Don’t worry about that. I don’t think Una is going to trial. Just take what you have, and if you need more, send me word. We’ll figure something out.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t take money from you, Miss Smith. How would I ever pay you back?”

  “I said not to worry. Just let me know. We don’t want Una sitting in that horrible jail, now do we? They’re practically tearing it down around the prisoners’ ears!”

  “Oh, and those women who are in there with her, well, they looked like they would cut your throat for a nickel.”

  Maeve thought she was probably right, but she didn’t want to scare Mrs. O’Neill any more than she already was. “Do you know where the court is? In that building across the street from the Tombs?”

  “Which one? There’s so many of them, and I’m too afraid to ask anyone where to go. Everyone down there is so rude and mean.”

  Maeve sighed. “Would you like for me to go with you?”

  Mrs. O’Neill visibly sagged with relief. “Would you? I don’t want to inconvenience you, but I don’t know where else to turn.”

  “I’ll have to see if my neighbor can watch Catherine,” Maeve said. “Just wait here while I make arrangements.”

  Mrs. Malloy was buttoning Brian into his coat when Maeve reached the foyer. Catherine stood by, watching forlornly as she always did when her brother left for school.

  Seeing Maeve was alone, Mrs. Malloy said, “So you’re going with her to the court, are you?”

  “How did you know?” Maeve asked in surprise.

  “She’s a sly one,” Mrs. Malloy said. “Plays all helpless to get people to do what she wants.”

  Was that true? And if it was, why hadn’t Maeve recognized it at once? She was usually very good at getting people’s measure.

  “And that Una, she’s twice as bad,” Mrs. Malloy continued. “Pretty girls always are. Acts like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, but she always manages to get her way.”

  Except with Randolph Pollock, Maeve thought, remembering the bruises. “She’ll have to do more than that to get out of a murder charge.”

  “Will she?” Mrs. Malloy said. “We’ll see.”

  * * *

  “Hello, there, and who might you be?” a voice called as Gino reached the bottom of the Pollocks’ front steps. He looked up to see the beat cop approaching. The fellow was young and Irish, around Gino’s age with reddish blond hair, but his uniform wasn’t nearly as neat as Gino’s. He’d managed to grow a sparse mustache, although his cheeks still looked too smooth to need shaving. He didn’t seem pleased to see a copper he didn’t recognize on his beat.

  “Good morning to you,” Gino said, smiling as broadly as he could manage. “I’m Gino Donatelli. How are you this fine morning?”

  The fellow had reached him, and Gino noticed he had his nightstick in his hand. He glanced up suspiciously at the house and back at Gino. “What were you doing in there?”

  “I spent the night. Mrs. Pollock is worried about somebody breaking in, with only the servants there, so she asked me to guard the place.”

&nbs
p; The cop frowned. “I thought she was in jail.”

  “She is.”

  “And how would you be knowing Mrs. Pollock for her to ask you for help?”

  “My girl is a friend of hers,” Gino said, the lie coming easily to him. Maeve would spit nails if she heard him claim she was his girl.

  “Are you claiming Mrs. Pollock is friends with some Italian girl?” he scoffed. He pronounced it “Eye-talian.”

  “My girl’s Irish. Prettiest red hair you ever saw.” That part wasn’t a lie, at least. “Say, you wouldn’t be Broghan’s cousin, would you?”

  “And what if I am?” he asked, surprised.

  “Then I’d be pleased to meet you. He’s been bragging about how you solved this case even before the detectives got here.”

  This obviously placated the fellow, at least a little. He slipped his nightstick back in its loop at his belt. “It wasn’t hard. The wife was right there with blood all over her.”

  Gino nodded encouragingly. “The maid showed me where the body was, but she didn’t know much. What was it like?”

  Broghan shrugged like he found murdered men on his beat every day. “It was pretty gruesome.”

  “The maid said the wife killed him with a frog.”

  “A frog? Is that what it was? I never saw nothing like it. Somebody said it was Egyptian or some such.”

  “I’d like to buy you a beer and hear all about it, but it’s a little early.”

  “No, it’s not. I know a place,” Broghan said, finally returning Gino’s grin.

  * * *

  Elizabeth Decker was examining the latest batch of invitations she and Felix had received and trying to decide which events to attend and which to decline, when her maid tapped on the door.

  “There’s a man to see you, missus.”

  Elizabeth noted that she had not said a “gentleman” was here to see her. She took the calling card the girl had carried up. It said, GORDON TRUETT.

  Elizabeth’s heart gave a little lurch when she realized Randolph Pollock’s partner was downstairs, the very man they’d all decided they needed to find. She dearly wanted to see him, but when she thought of how angry Felix would be if she saw him alone and how disappointed Maeve and Gino would be if she somehow mishandled this meeting with him, she hesitated. She couldn’t send him away, though. He might never return.