Murder on Amsterdam Avenue

by Victoria Thompson

  “Sick like Sister Rose and Isabel,” Mary repeated desperately. “She told me she’s been throwing up and having the runs all morning. Please, will you come?”

  “Of course,” Sarah said, hurrying to fetch her medical bag from Isabel’s room.

  She almost collided with the Reverend Nicely, who had obviously heard Mary’s plea and was coming out of his daughter’s room. “Sister Mary, what’s this about Letty?”

  “I went to tell some of the ladies that Isabel woke up. Then I stopped by my place to tell Letty, and she’s been taken real bad, Reverend Nicely.”

  “Mrs. Brandt will help her. I’ll be praying for her.”

  Sarah had fetched her bag, and she emerged from Isabel’s bedroom. Mary was already out the door. Sarah had to rush to keep up.

  Mary was almost running now, elbowing people aside as she made her way down the crowded sidewalks. Sarah was having a difficult time keeping her in sight, even though the people on the sidewalk made way for her, a white woman in a colored neighborhood. She wondered if they were being polite or if they just wanted to get a better look at her.

  Only moments after Sarah realized she’d lost Mary in the crowd, the woman came stumbling back, having realized that she had left Sarah too far behind. “Please hurry,” Mary begged her. “I’m so sorry I was mean to you. You won’t hold that against my girl, will you?”

  “Of course not. Tell me, did your daughter say anything about not feeling well before you left her this morning?”

  “No, she was fine. She’s a good girl, Mrs. Brandt. She don’t deserve nothing bad to happen to her.”

  Sarah figured Isabel was a good girl, too, but she didn’t say that. Instead she tried to figure out how on earth Mary’s daughter could have been poisoned. Of course, they hadn’t heard back from Dr. Wesley yet. Maybe Rose and Daisy hadn’t been poisoned either. Maybe this was some malady that was just beginning to strike the city, hitting the poorest and most vulnerable people first. That would be even worse than if someone had poisoned them, because there would be no end to it.

  Mary lived on the third floor of a dilapidated tenement building two blocks away. Even though the landlord obviously hadn’t done any work on the building in years, the hallway and stairs were immaculate, swept clean by the residents. Sarah rarely saw that in other neighborhoods. Mary’s tiny flat was sparsely furnished, but she’d made every effort she could to make it beautiful. She’d hung curtains over the open shelves in the kitchen where she stored her dishes and made a skirt for the kitchen sink. Back in the windowless bedroom, the bed had been covered by a colorful quilt that had been pushed to the foot in a tangle. A picture of a lovely garden hung on the wall. It looked as if it had been torn from a magazine and carefully framed.

  On the bed lay a girl who looked about ten years old. She was curled into a fetal position, and she gazed up at Sarah in absolute terror. A basin full of vomit sat on the floor, and the chamber pot in the corner was overflowing. The stench was overpowering in the small space.

  “This here’s Mrs. Brandt, Letty,” Mary said. “She’s one of them nurses. She’s come to help you.”

  The girl shuddered, and Sarah couldn’t tell if it was the sickness or fear of her.

  “Maybe you could empty these,” Sarah suggested to Mary, indicating the basin and the chamber pot.

  Mary hastened to do just that, while Sarah pulled out her stethoscope. The girl cringed when Sarah sat down on the edge of the bed.

  “I’m not going to hurt you, Letty. Like your mama said, I’m a nurse. Can you tell me when you first felt sick?”

  “Answer her,” Mary called from the kitchen when the girl did not reply.

  “I . . . This morning.”

  “After your mother left?”

  She nodded.

  “What did you have for breakfast?”

  The girl’s eyes widened in renewed terror. “Bread.”

  “Did you have anything on it? Butter or jam?”

  The girl shook her head. Of course not. Butter and jam would be a luxury here. “What did you drink?”

  “Water.”

  “And that’s all you had to eat?”

  Mary brought the empty basin back, and Sarah saw the anxious glance the girl gave her mother before she said, “Yes, ma’am.”

  She was lying, but she wasn’t going to admit it, at least not in front of her mother.

  “I’ll be right back,” Mary said. “I got to go empty the pot.”

  Sarah pretended to examine the girl, looking in her throat and listening to her heart until she heard the door close behind Mary and enough time had passed for her to be well out of earshot.

  “What did you eat that made you sick, Letty?”

  The girl shook her head frantically in denial.

  “Letty, somebody poisoned Mrs. Nicely and Isabel. That’s what made them sick.”

  “Poison?”

  “Yes, somebody put arsenic in something they ate. It’s the poison people use to kill rats.”

  “Sister Honeywell?”

  “Who?”

  “Miss Daisy Honeywell. Is she the one who done it?”

  “No, she was poisoned, too. We think she brought something with her that had the poison in it. I need to know if you ate some of it, too.”

  Tears flooded her dark eyes. “I didn’t mean to steal it!”

  “What was it, Letty? What did you take?”

  “I’m going to die now and go to hell!”

  “People don’t go to hell for stealing one thing,” Sarah assured her.

  “Reverend Nicely, he say they do!”

  “But you can ask forgiveness. Tell me what you took, and I’ll forgive you, and God will, too. What was it, Letty?”

  “I didn’t mean to take it, but it was so pretty.”

  “What was?”

  “The box. I never saw a box so pretty.”

  “Where was it?”

  “On the floor. It got knocked off the table, I guess. Nobody noticed it. They was all looking after Mrs. Nicely and Isabel and Miss Honeywell.”

  “So nobody saw you take it.”

  “God saw me.” The tears were coursing down her face now. “Oh, miss, I’m so sorry! I never meant to do it. I would’ve give it back, but then Mrs. Nicely, she died, and I didn’t know who to give it back to.”

  “Where is it?” Sarah asked, looking around frantically.

  Before she could speak, Letty started to retch, and Sarah got her the basin just in time. When she was finished, she was too exhausted to speak. Sarah realized she needed to irrigate the girl’s stomach immediately if she had any hope at all of helping her. It was probably already too late, but she would do whatever she could.

  When Mary returned, she helped, and when they were done, they let Letty sleep. At least Sarah hoped she was only sleeping and not slipping into a coma.

  “Do you have any milk?” Sarah asked Mary, knowing it was a silly question.

  “No.”

  Sarah pulled a few coins out of her pocket. “Would you get me some, please?”

  Mary didn’t reach for the money. Sarah was sure she couldn’t afford to buy it herself, but she wasn’t going to take charity either.

  “Please,” Sarah said. “It’s for Letty. It might save her life.”

  Mary took the coins and hurried out.

  While she was gone, Sarah made a quick search of the flat. She found the box wrapped carefully in a shift at the bottom of the wooden crate that held Letty’s meager wardrobe. It was heart shaped, no more than six inches across, and decorated with rows of lace and ribbon surrounding a small, perfect artificial rose in the very center. Just the right size to have fit easily into Daisy’s carpetbag, too. It had probably been a Valentine’s gift to someone, months earlier. It was empty now, but it had once held candy, chocolates probably.


  Chocolates someone had undoubtedly laced with arsenic.

  Daisy must have been so delighted to receive it from her killer. She’d probably never owned anything half as beautiful, nor would she have ever received a gift of chocolate candy either. She’d wanted to share her good fortune with people who had shown her kindness and befriended her in this unfriendly city. The tragedy of it all broke Sarah’s heart, but it also infuriated her. Whoever had committed this horrible crime must be punished.

  Sarah stuck the box in her medical bag so Mary wouldn’t see it. Letty would probably rather die than have her mother know she was a thief. Sarah might not be able to save her life, but she could keep her secret.

  Now they’d need to find out who had owned this box, who had received it as a gift, or who had found it discarded someplace and ultimately given it to Daisy. Sarah was sure of at least one thing, however. That person lived in Charles Oakes’s house.

  When Mary returned with the milk, Sarah roused Letty so she could drink some. She managed quite a bit, and when her mother left the room for a moment, Sarah whispered, “How many candies did you eat?”

  The girl’s eyes widened in shock.

  “I found the box. It had candy in it, didn’t it?”

  Letty nodded.

  “How many of them were left? How many did you eat?”

  She held up one finger.

  Sarah sighed with relief. She could imagine the scene around the Nicelys’ kitchen table. Daisy so happy to share the treat with them and urging them to eat as many as they liked. But they’d saved the last one for the Reverend Nicely. So if two or three was a fatal dose, then perhaps only one would not be for Letty.

  • • •

  “Where are we going now?” Gino asked, matching Frank stride for stride as he hurried away from Percy Littleton’s house.

  “Back to the Oakes house.”

  “To find that flask?”

  “Right.”

  Frank decided they would get there faster if they walked. Traffic clogging the city streets could grind to a standstill for hours.

  “It explains everything, doesn’t it?” Gino asked after they’d dodged a carriage to cross the street.

  “Mostly. We’ve been trying to figure out how he could’ve gotten poisoned when he was away from the house and inside it both. If the killer put arsenic in his flask, then he probably drank it for the first time sometime on Saturday.”

  “According to Wesley, it takes a while for the arsenic to start working, so he wouldn’t have realized it was the liquor in the flask that made him sick.”

  “And he was at his club, drinking other liquor when he started feeling bad,” Frank said.

  “Why did he get better on Sunday, though?”

  “Maybe he didn’t drink anything that day. He’d been sick the day before, so maybe he was being careful.”

  “Did you ever know a drunk to be careful?”

  “We don’t know he was a drunk.”

  Gino gave him a look.

  “We know he drank a lot, especially lately,” Frank conceded. “So maybe he did drink that day, but he wouldn’t need his flask if he was at home. He’d drink his father’s liquor.”

  “And the killer would have the chance to refill his flask with more poison.”

  “He felt better by Monday, so he went out again.”

  “With his refilled flask,” Gino said.

  “And he poisoned himself all over again.”

  “But how did he get the final dose that evening? If he wanted a drink, he could’ve used his father’s liquor like he did the day before.”

  Frank considered. “It’s still possible Daisy poisoned him. If she was the one, she could’ve put it in the milk the way she put it in his flask.”

  “But who killed her?”

  “Someone who wanted revenge on her for killing Charles.”

  “But why not just have her arrested?”

  “Mrs. Brandt thinks Jenny Oakes might not want it to come out that Daisy was her sister.”

  “How could they be sisters? Jenny’s white and Daisy is colored. I mean, she had light skin, but . . .”

  Frank explained it.

  “Oh. I guess things aren’t so different in the North, are they? I mean, rich men get their maids with child sometimes, too.”

  “Yes, and neither the Northerners or the Southerners have to claim the children.”

  “So Mrs. Oakes and Daisy were sisters, and Daisy might’ve killed Charles to make her suffer, and Mrs. Oakes might’ve killed Daisy to get revenge. Who else could’ve done it?”

  “Anybody in the house could’ve put arsenic in the flask. Let’s not forget his wife wasn’t too happy about being married to him, and maybe somebody else we haven’t thought of wanted him dead. The question is, who could’ve given it to him the night he died?” Frank asked.

  They walked for a while in silence while they considered.

  At last Gino said, “Maybe Daisy or the other maid were lying about who carried the milk up to him. Daisy was lying about something, I’m sure.”

  “We know Charles was probably too sick to get up and get anything for himself, so somebody had to bring it to him.”

  “Where were his clothes?” Gino asked, startling Frank.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean he’d come home wearing the clothes he’d worn all day with the flask in the pocket. We’re pretty sure he drank out of it that day because he’d gotten sick again, so he must’ve been carrying it with him.”

  “And they took him to one of the spare bedrooms when he got sick, not his own room.”

  “They probably undressed him, and the flask was in his pocket.”

  “So if they left his clothes in the room, his flask would’ve been handy if he wanted a drink,” Frank concluded.

  “From what we’ve heard, he always wanted a drink, too. So Daisy might’ve used the poisoned whiskey in the flask and mixed it into the milk. But why wouldn’t she say so when I asked if he’d had anything besides the milk?”

  “Maybe because she put the arsenic in the flask in the first place,” Frank said. “Or if she wasn’t the killer, maybe because she didn’t want us to think he was a drunk or something.”

  “Or maybe she’d figured out the poison was in the flask, and she thought she’d be blamed for killing him even though she didn’t. But if she didn’t poison him, the killer would be afraid that sooner or later she’d tell someone about the flask, and maybe it would come back to him.”

  “Or her,” Frank said. “Poison is a woman’s weapon, and there aren’t a lot of men living in that house.”

  “And then we’re back to why would somebody kill him? It looks like Daisy is the only one who had a reason.”

  “A reason that we know of. First we need to find the flask and have Wesley test it to see if it had arsenic in it.”

  “We could also find out if anybody knows what he was sad about and if it was more than just his marriage.”

  Frank didn’t think Wesley had a test for that.

  Gerald Oakes had them brought up to the library. “Have you found out anything?” he asked by way of a greeting as soon as the maid closed the door behind them.

  “We found out a lot of things, but nothing that makes much sense yet. Did Charles have a flask?”

  “A flask? Of course he did. Every man has a flask.”

  Frank didn’t bother to mention that he didn’t have one. “Do you know where it is?”

  “I have no idea. Why do you want to know?”

  “Because we think that’s where the killer put the poison.”

  “Dear God. I’ll get Zeller in here. He’ll know.”

  He rang for the maid, and she went to fetch Zeller.

  “What makes you think the poison was in his flask?” Oakes asked.

&n
bsp; Frank told him their theory.

  “That explains a lot, I guess, but who would’ve done it?”

  “And who would’ve wanted to kill Daisy?” Frank asked.

  “You can’t think the two are connected.”

  “Why wouldn’t they be?” Frank asked.

  Oakes had no answer for that. A knock on the door announced Zeller’s arrival. He came in, moving very slowly. His face was drawn, and he looked as if he hadn’t slept much lately. “You sent for me, sir?”

  “Yes, Mr. Malloy has some questions for you,” Oakes told him.

  “Are you feeling all right, Zeller?” Frank asked.

  “I’m a little peaked today, sir.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since sometime in the night. I’ll be all right.”

  Frank had a horrifying thought. “Did you drink out of Charles’s flask, by any chance?”

  Zeller’s face lost whatever little color it had. “Of course not.”

  “We think the killer put the arsenic that killed him in the flask,” Frank told him, watching him closely. “Maybe you found the flask when you were going through his things and thought a little nip would do you good.”

  “I . . . I wouldn’t . . .” he tried.

  “Zeller, tell them the truth,” Oakes said. “Don’t die because you’re embarrassed!”

  “There was only a swallow left,” he said, his desperate gaze darting between Oakes and Frank. “Am I poisoned?”

  “We should get a doctor here to look at you,” Frank said. “Gino—”

  “I’ll get Wesley,” Gino said, already heading for the door.

  “Who’s Wesley?” Gerald asked.

  “He’s . . . an expert on arsenic poisoning,” Frank hedged, not wanting to frighten them with the word coroner. “You might want to send for your own doctor in case Wesley isn’t around,” Frank told Oakes. “Zeller, where is the flask now?”

  “I put it away, in Mr. Charles’s dressing room with the rest of his things.”

  “Please tell me you didn’t wash it out.”

  “No, I—”

  “Good. Take me there.”

  Zeller hesitated. “Mrs. Charles is in her room,” he said to Oakes.

  “She’ll just have to go out for a few minutes while Mr. Malloy does his work.” Oakes turned to Frank. “Hannah is packing. When she heard that Daisy had died, she . . . Well, it frightened her, I guess. She’s moving back to her parents’ house.”