Murder on Pleasant Avenue

by Victoria Thompson

  “Well, no. She didn’t actually say, but she had bragged about a diamond her husband had given her, so I guessed it was a ring.”

  “She killed him, then,” Jane said with certainty. “She was jealous and she couldn’t bear to think he had another woman.”

  Which was exactly why they’d considered Mrs. Esposito a suspect in the first place. No one had anything to add to Jane’s theory.

  “How do you know all this?” Mrs. Prince asked after a long silence.

  “I spoke with Mrs. Esposito.”

  “You’re a busy bee, aren’t you?” Jane said acidly.

  “Jane, don’t be rude,” Lisa chided. “Mrs. Malloy is trying to help.”

  “I don’t feel that she has helped. She has just upset me.”

  “I’m sorry for that,” Sarah said, still trying to make sense of Jane’s reactions. “I hope Mrs. Prince will be able to sympathize with you now that she understands what happened, though.”

  “Oh yes,” Lisa said. “I’m afraid I haven’t been very sympathetic, Jane. I had no idea. I thought you’d just been offended by the poor manners of the people at the settlement or something. I can’t believe what you’ve been through.”

  “No one can,” Jane said bitterly.

  Sarah hated to upset Jane any more, but she couldn’t leave without at least trying to verify whether she had been the woman in the flat with Esposito. If she wasn’t, then they needed to find that woman. “I’ve been wondering, Jane, if you remembered anything else about the place where you were held when you were kidnapped,” Sarah said. “It could help us locate the kidnappers and stop them.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I told you. It was in a tenement, but I have no idea where it was.”

  “And have you remembered anything that might help us identify your kidnappers?”

  “No. I’m going back to my room now. I’m very tired.” She got up and left without another word.

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Malloy,” Mrs. Prince said. “I wouldn’t ordinarily try to excuse such rudeness, but I think under the circumstances . . .”

  “Yes of course. I’m not offended. I don’t think we can ever understand what she’s been through.” And perhaps they would never really know.

  “At least I know what happened now. I suppose I can understand why she didn’t want to go home to her parents. They would have been even more upset than Jane, and I can imagine them berating her for going to the city in the first place. No one wants to hear that when they’re already upset and hurt.”

  “No, they don’t. She’ll have to go home eventually, though, and I’m sure she knows it. Perhaps in a few days, you can suggest that, and between the two of you, figure out something to tell her parents that would explain Jane’s eagerness to leave the settlement without actually revealing the truth.”

  “Oh, I see. Yes, that’s probably a good idea. They can’t lecture her if they don’t know how much danger she was really in.”

  “No, and I think she can just say that she wasn’t suited to life in the settlement. Not many people are, I’m sure.”

  “I know I wouldn’t be. Thank you for coming, Mrs. Malloy. I’m not happy to have learned what happened to Jane, but I think it’s for the best that I did. At least now I won’t be irritated with her for being so reclusive.”

  “I’m sure she will appreciate your support, and feel free to call on me again if you think I can be of help.”

  After leaving Lisa Prince, Sarah started walking in the direction of Catherine’s school. She mentally replayed her conversation with Jane Harding, trying once again to figure out what emotions lay behind her words and reactions. Naturally, she’d be angry about being kidnapped and traumatized from being assaulted, if that had indeed happened, but Jane’s pain had seemed different than Sarah had expected. But people did react differently to these things, and she probably shouldn’t judge.

  * * *

  * * *

  Kate Westrop proved just as friendly as Teo had promised. As soon as they were alone, Kate said, “So you and Jane were friends at school.”

  Maeve heard the unmistakable hint of disapproval in Kate’s voice. She was not an admirer of Jane Harding. “Well, I may have exaggerated that a bit. I knew her, but we weren’t really friends. I heard she was going to marry the head resident here, so I thought if I reminded her that we’d been at school together . . .” Maeve shrugged helplessly.

  “It’s just as well she’s not here, then, because I doubt if she’d help you out. Jane is very much concerned about herself and no one else. I’m not at all surprised that she left the settlement.”

  “Do you think she’s gone for good?”

  Kate made a face. “I hope so. She made poor Mr. McWilliam so miserable.”

  “But I thought they were in love.”

  “He was in love, although I’ll never know what he saw in her.”

  “She’s very pretty,” Maeve said as innocently as she could. “For some men, that’s enough.”

  Kate gave a little snort. “Beauty is as beauty does, as my grandmother used to say. Come on, I’ll show you around.”

  Kate led Maeve back inside, and they toured some of the classrooms, observing a few minutes of each of the lessons being taught. Maeve was impressed in spite of herself. The earnest expressions of the students, who were all adults, as they struggled with a new language or new ideas told her how important it was to them to become Americans.

  Kate eventually took her to the large kitchen, where residents conducted cooking classes but also where they prepared their own meals. A few residents were gathered there, chatting, and Kate introduced her as a visitor. Finally, Kate took her into the last town house in the row, which housed the female residents.

  “The male residents live at the other end, for the sake of propriety. I’ll show you my room so you can see how we live. This is the parlor that we all share. We don’t have very much free time, but when we do, we like to gather here.”

  Kate led her upstairs and showed her the spartan room where she slept. No wonder Jane Harding had been unhappy here, if she liked nice things.

  “Did Jane stay here, too?” Maeve asked in a tone that said she didn’t believe it for a minute.

  “Yes, that’s her room. Or it was.” She indicated the room across the hall from hers. The door was open and Maeve wandered over to look. The room had an abandoned air to it and the bed had been stripped.

  “It doesn’t look as if she’s coming back,” Maeve said.

  “I hope not. She was . . . Well, she just wasn’t like the rest of us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean she didn’t like the people who come here and didn’t want to talk to them. She also didn’t like working. She just wasn’t a nice person. But maybe you already know that.”

  Maeve wrinkled her nose in distaste. “I do.”

  “She liked to pretend she was better than the rest of us, too. She was always bringing things back with her when she went out, like a bunch of flowers or some trinket she’d picked up from a peddler.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “We don’t get a salary, so I think she was trying to make everyone think she had more money than the rest of us. Like I said, she just didn’t fit in.”

  “Still, she’s only been here a few weeks. I can’t believe she’d just walk out like that.”

  “She didn’t just walk out. In fact, it was the strangest thing.” Kate looked around as if to make sure they were alone, although they were the only two people in this building at the moment. “At first she just disappeared for a couple days.”

  “What do you mean, disappeared?”

  “I mean she left to visit some new people or something and never came back. All her things were still here, but she wasn’t. Mr. McWilliam told us she’d gone home. Some family emergency, he said. But he wasn’t
fooling anyone. She would have at least packed a bag if she’d really done that. And then she just turns up again one morning. She waltzes in and locks herself in her room and won’t let anyone in.”

  “Where had she been?”

  “No one knew, or if they did, they weren’t saying. Mr. McWilliam said she wasn’t feeling well and would be staying in her room for a few days. I had to get her meals and bring them to her. She didn’t even thank me, not once.” Plainly, Kate was still bitter about this.

  “And then she really left?”

  “Yes. The next day. It was quite a to-do. This woman shows up in a big fancy carriage. She was Jane’s cousin, she said. Jane wasn’t happy to see her, I can tell you. She was all upset because she hadn’t had a chance to pack her things, although why she’d be upset about that, I have no idea. But she couldn’t find her bag and she took mine and I’ll probably never see it again. I was glad to see the back of her, I can tell you, even if she never does return my bag.”

  “Did you say she locked herself in her room after she got back?”

  “Yes. She only opened the door when I brought her meals. Sometimes she didn’t even open it at all and I had to leave the tray on the floor outside her door.”

  “And she never left the building again, at least not until her cousin came for her?”

  “Not that I . . . Say, why are you so interested in Jane? I thought you didn’t like her?”

  “I don’t, and it’s such a fascinating story. Where do you think she was when she went missing? The other residents must have had some theories.”

  “I shouldn’t gossip about another resident,” Kate said without the slightest conviction.

  “But Jane isn’t a resident anymore.”

  “You’re right, she isn’t. And she never really was, if you want to know the truth. She never cared about this place or the work we do, like I said. The only thing she was interested in was who in the neighborhood had money.”

  “What?”

  “I know. It seems strange, doesn’t it? But I took her around the neighborhood when she first arrived, to show her where everything was, and she was very interested in who lived in the nicest houses.”

  “Who does live in them?”

  “The businessmen who’ve been here awhile and done well for themselves. If they’re immigrants, they build their houses here because nobody wants them on Fifth Avenue.”

  “I’m sure they don’t. Was she interested in anybody in particular?”

  Kate giggled and covered her mouth, as if she’d just remembered a delicious secret. “She was very interested in one of the men. He’s got the biggest house in the neighborhood.”

  “Who was it?”

  “It doesn’t matter now. He was murdered a few days ago.”

  X

  They had to wait until the children were in bed that evening before they could discuss what they had learned that day. Frank was still marveling over Sarah’s success at questioning Jane Harding when he’d been certain they’d never have another chance to do so.

  “So I didn’t really learn very much from her,” Sarah demurred when she’d finished her tale. They were all gathered in the parlor with Frank’s mother knitting in her corner. She really enjoyed the electric lights that made it possible for her to see well even after the sun set. Frank had to admit he enjoyed them, too.

  “You found out Jane still won’t tell you anything helpful about where she was when she was supposedly kidnapped,” Maeve said. “That’s very strange if she really was kidnapped.”

  “And not strange at all if she wasn’t being held against her will,” Gino added.

  “And it’s quite possible that she wasn’t,” Maeve said.

  “I don’t know about that, but why do you think so?” Sarah asked.

  “Because Kate Westrop told me that when she was first showing Jane around the neighborhood, the thing she was most interested in was who lived in the big fancy houses, and the person who lived in the biggest of them all was Nunzio Esposito.”

  “Maybe she’s just nosey,” Frank’s mother said, reminding them all that she was there.

  “Lisa Prince did say that Jane was very jealous of all the rich people who spent the summers in Saratoga Springs,” Sarah recalled. “She also seemed to think that Jane really had no intention of marrying Mr. McWilliam. She thought the only reason Jane had come to the settlement house was to get herself to New York.”

  “Why would she want to do that?” Frank’s mother asked.

  “Perhaps to meet a rich man like her cousin did,” Maeve said.

  “But Lisa met Joe Prince in Saratoga Springs,” Gino said.

  “Then why didn’t she stay there?” Maeve countered.

  “Because she has no chance whatsoever of meeting a rich man there,” Sarah said.

  “Now I’m very confused,” Maeve said. “Lots of rich men go there, and if her cousin met one, then why . . . ?”

  “It’s very simple to understand, if you’re a member of society. You see, one way the people in society keep out climbers—”

  “What’s a climber?” Gino asked.

  “I know that,” Frank said with a grin, “because I am one. A social climber is somebody who is the first person in his family to ever get rich—people already in society have had money for generations—and he doesn’t know any other rich people yet, so he tries to get invited to their parties and be accepted into society.”

  “But the people already in society absolutely refuse to know climbers,” Sarah added. “So they don’t invite them to their parties and their children never meet the climbers’ children and society remains exclusive.”

  “But Lisa met Joe Prince,” Maeve said.

  “By accident, apparently. Even though Lisa’s family was well off and part of the Saratoga Springs society, they weren’t considered top drawer enough for the New Yorkers. One of the girls invited her to a party, though, which is one thing society hostesses guard against, because if you allow your sons to see these lovely, interesting girls, sooner or later they’ll want to marry one.”

  “And that’s what happened with Joe and Lisa Prince,” Maeve said, obviously delighted by such a romantic tale.

  “But it would never happen for Jane Harding, because her family wasn’t well off at all, from what Lisa told me, and she’d never be invited under any circumstances.”

  “So she had to come to the city and find her own rich man,” Gino concluded with a frown. “Do you think she could have chosen Nunzio Esposito?”

  For a long moment they all considered that disturbing possibility.

  “But why choose Esposito?” Maeve said finally. “He’s old and he’s married.”

  “And she’s hardly likely to settle for being someone’s mistress, no matter how rich he is,” Sarah said. “She also didn’t seem to know anything about the missing diamond ring, which probably means she didn’t receive it as a gift.”

  “Oh dear,” Maeve said in mock dismay. “That’s the reason he’d supposedly taken it from his wife, to give it to his paramour.”

  “So if she didn’t even know about it, that means she wasn’t his paramour,” Gino confirmed, adding a mocking emphasis to the final word.

  “I think you’re right,” Sarah said. “If she really was the woman in Esposito’s flat, she wasn’t there willingly.”

  “Then why won’t she admit it?” Gino asked.

  “Because,” Maeve said grimly, “being kidnapped is scandalous enough. If people knew she’d been locked away alone with Esposito for days . . .”

  “Oh.” They all pretended not to notice Gino was blushing.

  “But it looks like she was,” Maeve added.

  “Yes, it does,” Sarah said. “That poor girl.”

  “I did make sure to ask Kate Westrop if Jane ever left the settlement after she came back, and Kate didn’t thi
nk she had,” Maeve said. “She made quite a lot of work for Kate, who had to bring her meals to her because she wouldn’t even leave her room.”

  “She did come out at least once, to speak to McWilliam, but that was long before Esposito was killed, so I guess we can cross Jane Harding off our list. I don’t think Balducci killed Esposito either,” Frank said.

  “How can you be sure?” Gino scoffed.

  “I can’t of course, but he made a pretty good case for himself.” Frank went through the logic of it for them, just as Balducci had done.

  “My goodness, who would have guessed that being a gangster was so complicated?” Sarah marveled.

  “He also said he and his men aren’t interested in taking revenge on Gino. They know he didn’t kill Esposito, and they know they didn’t either, so they don’t need to blame him.”

  “Did you believe him?” Maeve asked with a frown.

  “No.”

  “Because that’s exactly what he’d say if he wanted me to come out of hiding so they could kill me,” Gino said sourly.

  “So you’re going to stay here until we do figure out who killed Esposito,” Sarah said.

  “And if we never do?” Gino asked just as sourly.

  “We’ll find out,” Frank said.

  * * *

  * * *

  The next morning, no one could think of a single thing they could do to find Esposito’s killer. Even Maeve had to admit that going back to the settlement house in search of gossip was probably a waste of time. She took Catherine to school, as usual, and Frank headed for the office. Sarah decided to visit the maternity clinic, and Gino reconciled himself to a day spent tinkering with the motorcar.

  Maeve arrived at the office just in time to greet a potential client, a man whose business partner had absconded with all their profits. He didn’t want to report the theft to the police because if word of the crime became public, his clients would flee and take with them any hope of rebuilding the business. Frank listened with as much enthusiasm as he could muster under the circumstances. At least this was a case he had confidence he could solve. It was also a case Gino would have enjoyed, although Frank doubted the middle-aged Italian man Gino was now pretending to be would have much success.