Murder on Trinity Place

by Victoria Thompson

  “How nice to see you, Mr. Pritchard,” Sarah said. “Is your family here as well?”

  Pritchard peered up at them, still frowning uncertainly as if trying to bring them into focus. “Malloy, is it?” he finally said. “Theda’s neighbors.”

  “That’s right.” Sarah glanced around. “I don’t see Mrs. Pritchard. Is she with you?”

  “No. Stayed home. I have to do this by myself. It’s important.”

  “I’m sure it is,” she said, “but it’s getting late. The bells will start ringing pretty soon. Why don’t you climb up and sit with us?”

  Frank had to bite his tongue to keep from rescinding the invitation. The last thing he wanted to do on New Year’s Eve was play nursemaid to a drunken man he didn’t even like, but Sarah was right to want to help him. The crowds would get even more unruly when the bells had finished their toll, and Pritchard probably wouldn’t get off with just a shove the next time he offended someone. “Yes, climb up, or you can sit in the front, if you prefer. We’ve got an extra lap robe, too.”

  “Can’t. I’ve got work to do. There’s not much time left.” Without another word, he turned and stalked off, back into the crowd.

  “Do you think I should go after him?” Frank asked her.

  “I don’t think he’ll come back with you, but we should at least try. He looks almost ill.”

  He did, too. Drunk or sick, he shouldn’t be wandering around alone, annoying strangers. “I hate to leave you here alone.”

  “Look, Gino and Maeve are coming back.”

  And they were, talking and laughing like nothing was wrong. “I’ll go after Pritchard, then. Make sure Gino stays with you and Maeve, though.”

  But by the time Frank had climbed down from the tonneau, Pritchard had disappeared into the darkness, swallowed up by the throngs. The streetlamps didn’t really help, because if someone wasn’t directly under the light, they were in the deep shadows and even harder to see. Pritchard’s height should have made him stand out, but either the city was full of tall men tonight or Pritchard had vanished. Frank could see little beyond the people jostling one another around him.

  After what seemed an eternity of fruitless searching, the Trinity bells struck the hour and the crowd erupted into celebration. Tin horns bleated and hundreds of people beat on anything that would make noise, creating a deafening din. When the twelfth chime had died away, the bells began to play “Auld Lang Syne,” and the crowd joined in, singing the familiar words with much enthusiasm and little harmony. When it was finished, the crowd began to shift and shiver, like a pot of water beginning to boil. Everyone, it seemed, had someplace to go. Many were probably heading to saloons to get even drunker than they already were, while others were heading to parties or other celebrations. The Trinity bells began another song, although Frank didn’t listen closely enough to identify it.

  Left with little choice, he allowed the surge of the crowd to carry him back to Broadway, where he found the motorcar again. Maeve had climbed into the back with Sarah, where they were huddled under the fur lap robe.

  “No luck?” Sarah called when he was close enough to hear her.

  He shook his head.

  The bells continued to ring. Now it was a hymn, he thought. The Episcopalians had different hymns than the Catholics, and Frank hadn’t been in a church since his first wife had died, so he couldn’t be positive, but it sounded like a hymn. He climbed into the empty front seat beside Gino. “Maybe we’ll see him go by.”

  But of course they didn’t. A good portion of the crowd waited until the bells finished their concert, and Frank and his crew waited until even they were gone, and still no sign of Pritchard. Gino finally got out and turned the crank to start the engine. They were back at home before Frank realized what his fruitless search had cost him.

  “I didn’t get a kiss at midnight,” he informed his wife, who was only too happy to rectify the omission.

  “I didn’t get a kiss either,” Gino tried.

  But Maeve said, “I’m sure Mrs. Frank will be happy to kiss you, too.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Frank and Sarah had invited her parents for New Year’s Day dinner, and they’d had a lovely day. Mr. and Mrs. Decker thoroughly enjoyed the Malloy children, even though neither child was related to them by blood. Sarah had adopted Frank’s son, Brian, and they had both adopted Catherine, the child Sarah had rescued. Such legalities hardly mattered anymore, though. They were a family now.

  Mrs. Malloy and Maeve had just taken the yawning children up to bed when the doorbell rang. Their maid, Hattie, answered it and announced that Mrs. Ellsworth had come to call. But when she appeared in the parlor doorway, she plainly hadn’t come to call at all. She’d obviously just thrown her coat on without bothering to button it, and she wasn’t even wearing a hat. Her expression could be described only as frantic.

  “Oh, Mrs. Frank, I’m so sorry to interrupt, but we’ve just had the most awful news. Mr. Pritchard’s been murdered.”

  II

  Murdered?” everyone echoed.

  The next few minutes were a blur as Sarah got Mrs. Ellsworth to sit down, and Malloy poured her a splash of brandy, and Sarah’s mother went to fetch Mrs. Malloy from the nursery because she and Mrs. Ellsworth were such good friends.

  When Mrs. Ellsworth had sipped the brandy and Mrs. Malloy had joined her on the sofa to offer moral support, Frank said, “Now, tell us what happened.”

  “Nobody knows what happened, not really. All we do know is Mr. Pritchard went out last night by himself.”

  “Yes, he was at Trinity Church for the bell ringing,” Sarah said. “We saw him there.”

  “You did? What was he doing when you saw him?”

  Malloy and Sarah exchanged a glance, not wanting to hurt Mrs. Ellsworth any more than necessary.

  “Don’t spare my feelings,” Mrs. Ellsworth said quickly. “He was probably trying to spread the word about the new century. His wife tried to stop him from going out, because she knew he was very upset that no one was interested, but . . .”

  “That’s what he was doing when we saw him,” Malloy said.

  “He didn’t look well either, so we asked him to come and sit with us in the motorcar,” Sarah added, “but he refused.”

  “Of course he did,” Mrs. Ellsworth said sadly. “He had a mission.”

  “Malloy went after him,” Sarah said, “but lost him in the crowd. We even waited until nearly everyone had gone after the bell concert was over, but we never saw him again.”

  “It seems he didn’t come home at all last night,” Mrs. Ellsworth said. “Mrs. Pritchard had gone to bed, and Harvey was out celebrating, of course, so neither of them realized he hadn’t come in until this morning. Even then, they weren’t too worried. He might have overindulged and decided to stay with a friend, but . . .” Her voice caught, and Mrs. Malloy encouraged her to take another sip of the brandy.

  “How did they find out he was . . . dead?” Sarah asked as gently as she could.

  “The police came to tell them. Someone found his body this morning on the church grounds. The staff must have been cleaning up. He had some of his calling cards in his pocket, I think. Anyway, it took them most of the day to get someone out to their house, and by then Mrs. Pritchard and Harvey weren’t home because they had already come to our house for dinner. They still weren’t really worried about him, just annoyed because he was missing a family gathering. Then their maid came to tell them, and Harvey went down to the morgue to identify the . . . the . . . him.”

  “Poor boy,” Sarah’s mother said. She’d never met Harvey.

  “Is Mrs. Pritchard still at your house?” Sarah asked.

  “Yes, and I should go back. I just wanted you to know so you didn’t have to read about it in the newspapers. Mrs. Pritchard is bearing up very well, but poor Theda is terribly upset. Nels
on has his hands full with her, I’m sure.”

  “Then I’ll go back with you, Edna,” Mother Malloy said.

  Sarah glanced at her mother, who instantly understood her dilemma.

  “Sarah, I’m sure the family could use your support as well. Your father and I can see ourselves out.”

  “Of course we can,” her father said.

  “Oh, I couldn’t ask you to—” Mrs. Ellsworth began but Sarah cut her off.

  “Nonsense. That’s what friends are for. How many times have you come to us in our hour of need?”

  Mrs. Ellsworth was still protesting when Mother Malloy and Sarah escorted her out the door and across the street. Malloy had whispered that he’d explain everything to Maeve and be along as soon as Sarah’s parents were gone. Mrs. Ellsworth hadn’t locked the door behind her, so they walked right into her house. They could hear Theda sobbing in the parlor, and Mrs. Ellsworth went straight to her.

  When she and Sarah had hung their coats, Mother Malloy went to the kitchen to brew some tea, and Sarah went to see what she could do in the parlor.

  Both Nelson and Mrs. Ellsworth were trying to comfort Theda on the sofa, but Mrs. Pritchard was sitting off by herself beside the fireplace, staring blankly at the fire. Sarah went to her.

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Pritchard. Is there something I can do for you?”

  She looked up in surprise, as if she hadn’t even noticed Sarah’s arrival. “What? Oh no, dear. I’m fine.”

  She looked far from fine, although she certainly didn’t look grief stricken. People reacted in many different ways to shock and loss, however, so Sarah didn’t find that odd. Also, the Pritchards hadn’t seemed to be a particularly devoted couple, and Mr. Pritchard appeared to be a difficult man, so perhaps Mrs. Pritchard was actually feeling relief and the guilt that would go with such an unseemly reaction.

  “Mrs. Ellsworth said that your son has gone to the morgue.”

  “Yes, he . . . They needed someone to identify the body. I would have gone, but he said it was no job for a female. Nelson wanted to go with him, but Harvey wouldn’t hear of it. I hope . . . He isn’t brave, you know. Harvey, that is. He pretends to be, but he’s still a boy in so many ways.”

  “Most men are, I fear,” Sarah said, taking a seat beside her. “We saw Mr. Pritchard at the church last night.”

  That seemed to alarm Mrs. Pritchard. “You did?”

  “Yes. He was . . .” No sense in describing what he’d been doing. “We saw him in the crowd. We were in our motorcar, which is rather high off the ground, so we had a good view of everything.”

  “Did he see you?” That seemed an odd question, but Mrs. Pritchard could be excused for asking an odd question.

  “Yes, we waved and he came over to speak to us. We thought he looked . . . Well, he didn’t seem quite himself, as if he might not be feeling well. We invited him to join us, but he declined.”

  “When was this?”

  Another odd question she’d expect the police to ask but not the widow. “I’m not exactly sure, but sometime between eleven thirty and midnight.”

  She nodded as if that somehow satisfied her. “Was he . . . talking about the turn of the century?”

  “He may have mentioned it.”

  Mrs. Pritchard smiled sadly. “Of course he did. He must have been trying to convince everyone there that they were witnessing a momentous event and not properly acknowledging it.”

  And had he annoyed the wrong person who had been too drunk or too angry and had used too much force in silencing him?

  “Did you say Father didn’t look well, Mrs. Malloy?” Theda asked. Nelson and Mrs. Ellsworth had managed to calm her, but she still looked devastated.

  “Yes, he . . . I mean . . .” She didn’t want to say he looked drunk.

  “The police said he was murdered! But perhaps they horrified us for nothing. Who would murder Father, after all? Perhaps he was simply ill and . . . and . . .” The thought of her ill father dying alone was, after all, almost as horrifying as the possibility of his murder, and Theda dissolved into tears again.

  Eventually, Mrs. Malloy brought them all tea, and Mrs. Ellsworth and Sarah managed to put Theda to bed, but they had to wait for Harvey’s return so he could take Mrs. Pritchard home. Malloy had also arrived after seeing Sarah’s parents off. He and Nelson were conferring when Sarah and Mrs. Ellsworth came back downstairs. Nelson would be filling Malloy in on what little they knew so far, and Malloy was probably asking him a lot of questions he wouldn’t have any answers for.

  Mrs. Malloy went home once Theda was settled, so Sarah and Mrs. Ellsworth did their duty to comfort Mrs. Pritchard until Harvey returned. She was, as Mrs. Ellsworth had said earlier, bearing up very well. As far as Sarah could tell, she had yet to shed a tear.

  “They said he was murdered,” she said when Sarah sat down beside her again. “I know Theda doesn’t want to hear it, but that was the message from the police. I don’t suppose they’d say such a thing if it wasn’t true.”

  “It’s hard to believe something like that could happen with so many people around,” Sarah said. “Maybe they were mistaken.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  Sarah couldn’t tell if she welcomed the idea or not.

  “They must have seen some evidence of murder,” Malloy said. “They wouldn’t have said that if there was any chance it was natural causes.”

  Sarah frowned at his bluntness, but he only shrugged in reply. He probably thought it was cruel to give her false hope, and he was probably right.

  “I’m just sorry for Theda,” Mrs. Pritchard was saying, apparently not giving in to hope, false or otherwise. “She and her father were very close.”

  As women have done for centuries, Sarah and Mrs. Ellsworth managed to fill the silence with small talk and keep Mrs. Pritchard distracted for nearly another hour before Harvey finally returned.

  His face was ashen and he smelled of liquor. Plainly, he had not come straight back. He stopped dead when he came into the parlor and saw everyone staring at him expectantly.

  Malloy said, “You identified him?”

  “Yes, it was him, all right. He’d been strangled,” he blurted.

  Mrs. Ellsworth gave the horrified cry that should have come from the widow, but Mrs. Pritchard only sighed with what sounded oddly like relief.

  “They said he wasn’t robbed, but his money and his watch were both gone,” Harvey reported in outrage.

  “Then, that’s what happened,” Mrs. Pritchard said. “Someone tried to rob him, and he put up a fight.”

  Sarah glanced at Malloy, who shook his head, silently telling her this wasn’t the right time to explain how these things went. Ladies like Mrs. Pritchard couldn’t be expected to know that pickpockets didn’t murder their victims, and police officers routinely helped themselves to whatever valuables they could find on dead bodies. If they said Pritchard hadn’t been robbed, that meant a patrolman had relieved him of his watch and money. Sarah certainly hadn’t known those things a few years ago, before she met Frank Malloy and started solving murders.

  “We should go, Harvey,” Mrs. Pritchard said, rising. “We’ve imposed on these good people long enough.”

  “You are welcome to stay here tonight,” Mrs. Ellsworth said. “It’s so late . . .”

  “I’ve got a cab waiting,” Harvey said, and that decided the matter.

  When they were gone, Frank and Sarah took their leave as well, reminding Mrs. Ellsworth and Nelson they were happy to help in any way. As they put on their coats, Mrs. Ellsworth said softly, so Nelson didn’t hear, “Mrs. Pritchard took the news very well.”

  “She was probably in shock,” Sarah said.

  “She wasn’t the least bit upset when he didn’t come home this morning, and I got the feeling she didn’t mind at all that they had to come here without him. Theda was fre
tting the whole time, wondering what could have become of him, but neither Ilsa nor Harvey was at all concerned.”

  Which told Sarah more than she really wanted to know about the Pritchard family.

  * * *

  • • •

  Frank went out the next morning to find what newspapers he could, and he was glad to see most of them hadn’t seemed too interested in Clarence Pritchard’s death. Those who covered the story gave it only a paragraph or two, and some of them didn’t even mention his name, just that a body had been found near Trinity Church on New Year’s morning.

  Frank and Sarah were in the parlor, poring over the stories, when Gino Donatelli arrived with newspapers of his own. “Did you know Mr. Pritchard was murdered after you saw him the other night?”

  “Happy New Year to you, too,” Frank said, “and yes, we knew.” He told Gino briefly how they had learned about Pritchard’s murder the previous evening.

  “I knew I should have come here for dinner yesterday,” Gino lamented.

  “I’m sure your family appreciated having you home for the holiday,” Sarah said. “Did you have breakfast? Can I get you some coffee?”

  “Do you think my mother would let me leave the house without eating? But coffee would be nice . . . Where’s Maeve?” Gino asked when Sarah left to fetch the coffee.

  “She’s not back from taking Catherine to school. What newspapers have you got there?”

  By the time Maeve returned, they’d sorted them out, and Frank had found a few he’d missed in his own search this morning.

  “Do they have any idea who killed him?” Gino asked when they’d finished reading all the accounts.

  “They didn’t last night,” Sarah said. “According to Harvey, he was strangled.”

  “Do they think he was robbed?”

  Frank shook his head. “The police say not.”

  “Then it was probably somebody who got sick of arguing about the turn of the century,” Gino said.

  “Would somebody really kill him over that?” Sarah asked skeptically.