“We know you talked about Louise Turner in the restaurant!” Detective Devlin shouted, slamming the table with his fist. He’d abandoned all pretense of friendly harmlessness.
“Stefan said she was a good friend,” I answered, focusing on a groove in the wooden table that wasn’t there the last time they questioned me. Keep your head, I told myself. Keep your head.
“A friend?” His boyish face stretched into a sneer. “She used to be much more, everyone at Henderson’s knew about their affair. She was jealous of you – that’s why he killed her. To get her out of the way, so she couldn’t spoil things for him.”
“That’s simply not the way it was,” I said. “Spoil what? We planned to see each other in two weeks’ time. Stefan hasn’t taken money from me, not a penny.”
Devlin and the second police officer rolled their eyes at each other.
I said slowly, putting emphasis into each phrase, “Are you honestly saying that you believe Stefan took Louise to Hell Gate before dawn, murdered her, weighted her down and hid her in the water in Hell Gate – a place where a body is certain to be found before too long – and then met me for a stroll in Central Park?”
“Yes,” said Detective Devlin. “That’s what we’re saying. And you’d better be telling us all you know, Miss Batternberg, or you’re gonna be charged as an accomplice. Yes, you’re gonna be fried to a crisp right alongside your anarchist boyfriend. I’ll be waving bye-bye to you through the glass, right before they hit the switch on the electric chair.”
The vicious threat dissolved my control of my temper. “No, Detective Devlin, I’m going to be waving at you after you’ve been thrown off the police force. Because when my family’s lawyers are through with you, you’ll be selling pencils on the street.”
The second police officer, standing by the side of his table, stared at me with astonishment. But the man himself, Detective Sean Devlin, turned brick red. It was obvious that no woman had ever spoken to him, or perhaps to any police officer, in such a way within these walls.
His teeth bared like a terrier’s, Detective Devlin said, “How about we trot your family in here, show the Batternbergs what a fine young lady you are?”
I knew this would come up, sooner or later. I was prepared. “Do so. Send for Benjamin Batternberg, Room 505 in the Manhattan Beach Hotel. In fact, I won’t say another word until he’s here.” With that, I turned away from Devlin in my chair, refusing to look at him.
In the time it took for Ben to arrive, I had ample opportunity in which to contemplate how bad this was likely to get. The answer was: very bad. For getting mixed up in such a crime case, I’d be chastised, condemned, perhaps shunned forever. I honestly didn’t care about that. What I must hold onto was that neither I nor Stefan had done anything wrong. It was in the family’s interests to help Stefan along with me. Once a roomful of Batternberg-retained Manhattan lawyers had descended on Coney Island, the charges against Stefan would surely be dropped.
When the door to my interrogation room finally opened, my heart leaped at the sight of Ben but sank at the next person to be escorted in by Lieutenant Pellegrino: Uncle David.
“Thank God she’s alive and safe,” my uncle said. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, she’s been bubbling with gratitude ever since,” said Lieutenant Pellegrino dryly.
“Uncle David, I was never in any danger,” I said. “This is all a terrible mistake. Stefan hasn’t committed any crimes, certainly not murder.”
Uncle David shook his head, looking upset.
“I’m sorry – but I did warn you it would be like this,” said the Lieutenant. “I’ve seen a lot of con men in my day. Coney Island is famous for them. Chalakoski has got them all beat. She has deep, deep loyalty to him. I don’t know how he did it. I have to say, it’s a miracle he brought her back to Coney Island alive and” – he hesitated – “unviolated.”
“Oh, please,” I muttered. I peered at Ben, who had not said a word. If anything, he looked preoccupied. The Ben Batternberg brain was clicking away.
“Peggy, this is a terrible situation for you, but it’s not what I’d call ideal for the rest of the family,” Uncle David said. “We are doing everything in our power to keep your name out of the newspapers. There are reporters standing outside the precinct now.”
“We’re not charging her; you can take her to the hotel,” said Lieutenant Pellegrino. “We have another way out, through a connecting tunnel to the courthouse and then beyond that. It’s the jurors’ tunnel, for when they are scared about a ‘guilty’ verdict and need protection. I can have it opened for you and—”
I interrupted, “The most important thing is for you to listen to me, Uncle David.” I turned to my cousin. “And you, Ben. Stefan didn’t kill anyone. And he is not a con man. He didn’t lure me out of the hotel. I met him that first night in Coney Island – and I’ve seen him on two occasions since then. He is not trying to get money or anything except… my company. He’s an honorable person. He needs our family’s help.”
My uncle collapsed into the chair where Detective Devlin had sat, took out a handkerchief, and mopped his face. “I didn’t control her,” he said, plaintively. “I’m going to be blamed for this because I didn’t pay enough attention.”
Ben put a consoling hand on his father’s quaking shoulder. I could tell what they were most worried about now was the opinion of Bernard and the other Batternberg brothers.
“This is ridiculous!” I cried. “Why won’t you believe a word I say? Stefan is not a criminal. Why, I even offered to pay for a room for the two of us, so we could be alone for an afternoon, and he said no. What kind of a nefarious kidnapper is that?”
The room fell into an appalled silence, broken by Ben, smiling as he said, “My, what a wicked, wicked girl.”
Lieutenant Pellegrino said, “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes to lead you to that tunnel.”
He closed the door quietly behind him. The silence ground on while my uncle sat in the chair, but before my eyes, he transformed. He put away his handkerchief. He pulled himself out of his slouch, rolling his shoulders, cracking his neck, as if preparing for battle. Only then did he turn on me. “We’ll be leaving this police precinct shortly, Margaret. Once we are back in the hotel, you will say nothing to your mother or brother about this. Not a word. Not a syllable. How much does your sister know?”
I shrugged, unwilling to drag in Lydia.
“How much does she know?” he roared.
I had never heard such a voice come out of my uncle.
I said, “She knew I met someone, but I told her it was a journalist with no money. I didn’t tell her the truth about Stefan.”
My uncle said, “There isn’t going to be any further explanation. I don’t want to hear that man’s name from your lips, not to her, to me, to Ben, anyone. You’re going back to the hotel, and you will behave as if this sordid disaster never took place while our lawyers work around the clock to conceal your existence from the public record.”
With all the courage I could summon, I said, “And if I don’t?”
He spat out the words. “I will have a doctor here within the hour. The doctor will attest to your unsoundness of mind. You’ll be taken by automobile straight to a private hospital in upstate New York, where you can rave all you like about anarchist Serb lovers, and no one will listen, no one at all.”
My hands, sitting in my lap, began to shake. Because of the instability that stalked the women of my mother’s family, I had a special fear of sanitariums.
“You can’t do that,” I said. “I won’t let anyone take me away. I’ll – I’ll scream to those reporters when you take me outside.”
“You won’t be screaming if you’re unconscious. The doctor could give you an injection here in this very room while I hold you down, and then we will carry you out through the tunnel and put you into the motor car.”
“Ben,” I cried, horrified. “You won’t let him do that, will you? Ben?”
My co
usin looked away. Ben wouldn’t go against his father for me. I was alone and powerless, within this room, this city, this world.
I walked like a ventriloquist’s dummy, a creature with no mind of its own, Uncle David’s hand gripping my arm through the dim, dank, cobweb-lined tunnel leading out of the police precinct. When we emerged onto the street, an engine sputtered to life. It was my uncle’s Franklin Model D Phaeton. The last time his driver opened the door for me it was at Moonrise Bookstore, when Uncle David whisked me to the dinner where my family pressured me to go to Coney Island. Tears wobbled in my eyes – I dashed them away. I sat silently between my uncle and cousin during the brief drive to the Oriental Hotel, and I hated them both.
It looked to be midnight when we returned; there were two buggy drivers still idling in the lot, hoping to be hired. A couple stood on the edge of the veranda, looking at the moon. In the seconds it took for his driver to come around and open the door, my uncle said, “You are your father’s daughter.”
I flinched; Ben made a strange noise on my other side, a groan mixed with a sigh.
My uncle stalked to the bar that was off the lobby; perhaps he needed a whiskey before descending on his mistress. Ben accompanied me to the elevator. I said nothing in the lobby, nor in the elevator, nor in the silent hallway leading to my room. But when we reached my door, I seized him and pulled him in with me. That muffled noise he’d made in the automobile gave me hope.
“Peggy, no, no,” he said, although he didn’t pull away. “Don’t say it.”
“I am begging you to help me, Ben. You’re the only one who can.”
“I am helping you,” he said with a ferocity reminiscent of his father’s. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. My God, how could I? I will look out for your interests, and I’ll intervene on your behalf.”
My heart leaped in joyful relief.
“As long as your interests don’t conflict with the family’s interests.”
I dropped his hands.
“Can’t you understand, Peggy? I’ve never thought you a fool. If this becomes a sensation in the newspapers, and it comes out you’re connected to a murder, you had an affair with a murderer, that could be damaging for all of us. Not just Lydia’s marriage, but to our business. The muckrakers will have us for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The Batternbergs could all be ruined.”
I wanted to throw something large and pointed at his head. Instead I tried, one last time, to make him understand. “Stefan’s not after the money,” I said. “He thought I was a shop girl when we met. He’s an artist, a true artist.” Seeing no change in Ben, I asked, “Is it that you can’t conceive that someone would love me for myself, that it could only be a fortune hunter or a criminal?”
Ben groaned, as frustrated with me as I was with him. “Oh, Peggy. You think this is love, what you have with him? A man like him?”
“Get out,” I said, turning away.
A moment later, the door quietly opened and shut.
Curled up in an armchair by the window, brimming with misery, I didn’t sleep that entire night. But when the first rays lightened the sky, my eyes felt so heavy, I shut them. The next thing I knew, there was a knock on the door. Alice had brought a morning tray.
“My sweet Lord in heaven, you look awful,” she exclaimed.
“I feel awful.”
“Did you sleep in your clothes and in the chair?” she said, aghast. This was the worst thing she could ever imagine happening to me.
After I declined to answer, she ran a bath and selected fresh clothes, frowning with puzzled disapproval. She brushed out my hair with her usual thoroughness. I sat there, limp and dazed. It began to seem that I was detached from yesterday’s crisis, from absolutely everything. It was a nightmare, the sort that Susannah Campion might be eager to analyze.
Fresh knocks at the door brought in my mother and my Uncle David. My mother was wringing her hands, and my nerves roared to life. My name must be in the newspaper; all New York City was reading lies about Stefan and me.
“Margaret, Henry’s mother wants to meet us, and it has to be soon,” she said.
I was relieved – and yet annoyed. “After waiting weeks, we’ve been given short notice to come running?” I asked.
“Cooperate, please,” Mother said. “We will be taken to her room in an hour. I know you haven’t been feeling your best, but I get the distinct impression this won’t take long.”
“Oh?”
“Margaret, I’m asking you – don’t be like this today,” my mother burst out shrilly. “It’s important to Lydia.”
This was the only possible argument that could work. I looked at my uncle for the first time, saw with bitter satisfaction that he looked tired and rather ill himself. But he wasn’t so worn out that he couldn’t glare warningly.
“I’ll be there,” I said shortly.
I ate no food but drank black coffee to prepare for the ordeal. Alice laid sliced cucumbers under my eyes, and then hurriedly whipped a light cream into my complexion before smearing my lips with an apricot-colored stick. It was to match the dress she picked for me, a palest apricot dress I hadn’t worn yet this summer. She tried to string a necklace around my throat, but I said, “Jewels before one o’clock? I can’t do it, not even for Mrs. Taul.”
“I must help Miss Lydia finish, you’re all right with your hair down, aren’t you?” Alice asked. She blinked with surprise. “Oh, my, look at you, Miss Peggy. That color suits brunettes. And you’re right, no jewels needed. Simplicity is best with you.”
She steered me toward the full-length mirror. There stood a tall woman with glowing skin and huge haunted eyes, the Batternberg black eyebrows making their emphatic statement, and coils of thick black hair tumbling down. It felt like a rank betrayal to dress up, primp, and put on a show, when Stefan was trapped in the Coney Island jail, among his tormentors.
I silently went to my mother’s room, where she nodded in approval, then turned her attention back to my sister. She had not chosen simplicity. Her white dress was a frenzy of ruffles and fine embroidery, her hair was massed into a burst of blonde ringlets interlaced with ribbons. But it was Lydia’s face that I focused on: violet shadows under her eyes, her mouth pinched. She’d had a terrible night too. I whispered, “What’s wrong?” when mother’s attention was diverted. “Not now,” she mouthed back.
Before I could puzzle it out, Henry Taul appeared to take us to his mother. I’d expected him to be as nervous as everyone else, but he appeared extraordinarily relaxed. He could almost be ready for bed, with eyes half open like this. They did flicker to life when he looked my way; then he turned his full attention on Lydia.
“You’re lovely, Sweetheart,” he said, with evident pride. “The most beautiful girl in New York.”
“Thank you, Henry.” Her voice was brittle, graceless. My mother was mystified by her tone, as was I.
Neither my Uncle David nor my brother or male cousins came along. This was to be for the women alone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Mrs. Taul resided in a top-floor suite at the diagonally opposite end of the Oriental Hotel, down the hall from her son. Henry pushed open his mother’s door without knocking, and we entered the largest room I’d seen yet on the premises. Vases of freshly cut lilies stood everywhere. Framed photographs of Henry at various ages crammed the tables and main fireplace mantle. Books of archaeology were strewn across the table; most had the word “Troy” on them. Perhaps they were Henry’s, or his mother shared his historical interests. The curtains parted wide to yield views of the emerald lawn leading to the sea in one direction and the vast gardens of the Manhattan Beach Hotel in the other. But the only human to be seen was a maid, dusting. She wore the same initials on her black-and-white uniform as the men who worked for Henry: HT.
Singing out, “Hello, Mama,” Henry led us through a doorway off the suite. Here, his mother ruled: obese, propped up in bed, wearing a pale blue robe. She wore a bizarre Turkish-style turban. Another maid hove
red by Mrs. Taul’s bed, standing over the tray pressed to the side of the vast bed. On it was a plate piled with cookies and pastries, open wrappers littering the tray.
“I’m so sorry I haven’t been able to receive you until now, my health hasn’t been good,” she said in a flat, deep voice. “Lydia, it’s delightful to see you again. Come near me, have a seat. I’m so very happy to have a daughter at last. Henry, make the other introductions.”
“Mama, this is Mrs. Jonathan Batternberg, my future mother-in-law,” he said, leading Mother forward by the hand.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance at last,” said Mrs. Taul, nodding. She gestured for my mother to have a seat next to Lydia, and then squinted to see the third female in the room. “Henry, this is the other one?”
“Yes,” I said dryly. “I’m the other one.” Without waiting for Henry to lead me, I walked to a place near the foot of her bed, between the bed posts.
“Her name is Peggy,” said Henry, standing behind me.
Mrs. Taul groped for something on her messy side table. “Where are my spectacles, Victoria? Where did you put them, you simpleton?”
The maid did not flinch at the insult. Mother took out her fan even though it wasn’t hot in this room and opened it.
The spectacles were found in less than a minute. Mrs. Taul took a long, hard look at me through thick lenses. “Well you’re a fine-looking girl,” she said, faintly surprised, as if she’d been informed otherwise. Her gaze swiveled to Lydia. “You’re so much more fragile than Peggy. You must eat more, take exercise. You’ve been chosen by my son, Lydia, and you’ll need to be strong enough to bear children. As it is, your sister looks like a better candidate for childbearing. You don’t want that, do you?”
“Mama, please,” said Henry. He didn’t sound angry, though God knows he should have been. It was more of a whine. As for Lydia and Mother, they were aghast.
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