Victoria Thompson - Murder On Astor Place

Before he could stop her, Sarah hurried on, knowing she wouldn’t have another chance like this one to state her case. “I don’t know how capable this Detective Malloy is, but I’m sure he won’t bother to find Alicia’s killer unless he is compensated in some way. Even if he is, there’s no guarantee he has the resources to succeed, either, so you might want to consider hiring a private investigator of your own to make sure the case is solved.”

There. Mina might think finding Alicia’s killer was a waste of time, but she didn’t make the decisions here. Cornelius VanDamm was the master of this house, and now he understood just what he had to do to ensure his daughter’s killer was brought to justice.

Sarah would have felt better if he wasn’t staring at her as if she’d just grown a second head. Most likely no female had ever presumed to advise him on anything, most certainly not on the handling of criminal investigations. She was awfully glad she hadn’t mentioned that Alicia was pregnant. VanDamm probably would have had her thrown bodily from the house for being so shameless. Well, he’d find out soon enough, probably from Mina, but certainly from the authorities. If even they would dare reveal it to him. Or if he didn’t already know.

“Thank you for the information, Sarah,” VanDamm said. He had withdrawn completely, shutting off any indication of his true emotions, a trick she’d seen her father use when he no longer wanted to discuss something particularly painful. Like Maggie. “And thank you for stopping by. I’m sure Mina appreciated it.”

Sarah could have contradicted him, but she decided to leave instead. Being in this house with these people was bringing back too many unpleasant memories. After murmuring the appropriate condolences, she made her escape out into the street.

What had ever made her think she could do any good in that house? If Cornelius VanDamm wanted his daughter’s murder solved, it would be solved, even if that meant the police superintendent himself had to handle the case. And if he didn’t want it solved… Well, there was nothing Sarah Brandt or anyone else could do about it. She’d already done all she could. Now she would just have to wait and see.

“BABY KILLER! BABY killer!”

The cry from the small boys in the street told Frank that the woman he sought must be approaching. He’d been sitting on the stoop of the comfortable house on Gramercy Park for almost an hour, using the time to mull over the facts in the case of Alicia VanDamm’s murder. He hadn’t reached any enlightening conclusions, but perhaps the woman for whom he was waiting would be able to help.

Emma Petrovka was a middle-aged woman of substantial girth who made her way laboriously down the street using a silver-headed cane for support. Such canes had come into fashion when Queen Victoria started using one in her old age, but Frank suspected Mrs. Petrovka didn’t use one because it was stylish. More likely, her knees had given out under the strain of supporting her enormous weight, and she needed the extra support.

At first Frank thought her hearing must have gone, too, because she seemed oblivious to the chanting of the hoard of street Arabs who descended upon her. They were the filthy, ragged, barefoot urchins who sold newspapers or shoe shines to earn their daily bread and who slept in culverts and alleys because their own families had turned them out to fend for themselves.

“Baby killer! Baby killer!” they cried.

They had, it seemed, found someone lower than themselves whom they were free to torment. Because in spite of her rich gown, which she held up in the typically feminine “skirt clutch” with her free hand to protect it from the dirt of the street, and her luxurious home, Emma Petrovka was socially no better than these homeless waifs.

But if Frank thought she couldn’t hear the taunts, he was wrong. She was simply ignoring them. As she reached the house, she stopped, patiently opened her purse and withdrew something in her clenched fist. For an instant, Frank thought she meant to harm her tormentors, although what she could have thrown at them to hurt them, he couldn’t imagine. But when she cocked her arm and threw, she released a shower of pennies that clattered musically onto the cobblestones.

In an instant the guttersnipes were scrambling and pushing and shoving, trying to snatch up as many coins as they could before their fellows got to them. Forgotten, Emma Petrovka turned and started up her front steps.

Only then did she notice Frank, who rose to meet her.

“That only encourages them to taunt you again,” he pointed out mildly.

“No, it prevents them from doing even worse,” she said, heaving her weight up first one step and then another. “Who are you and what do you want? I don’t talk to no newspaper reporters, so if that’s who you are-”

“I’m with the police,” Frank said, showing her his badge. “I’m Detective Sergeant Malloy.”

If she was afraid-as well she might have been, since her profession was patently illegal-she gave no indication. Instead she sniffed in derision. “I pay my protection money every month. You ask the captain. He will tell you not to bother me.”

“I’m not here to bother you. I want to ask you some questions. About a girl you may have seen.”

“I have seen many girls, Mr. Detective Sergeant. That is the nature of my profession.” She had reached the front door, her sheer bulk forcing Malloy to step aside, and she was fitting a key into the lock.

“This girl was murdered.”

Emma Petrovka looked up at him. Her eyes were the color of mud, peering out like two dull marbles from the folds of fat that made up her face. She had a large mole on her cheek with several long hairs growing out of it, and her small mouth was pursed into a frown. “If a girl dies after one of my procedures, that is not murder,” she informed him, and returned to the task of unlocking her front door.

“That’s not how she died. Someone strangled her. But we know she was going to have a baby and an abortionist visited her the night she was killed.”

Emma Petrovka pushed open her front door, then gave Frank a pitying look. “Do you think I killed this girl?”

Plainly, such a thing was impossible, so Frank didn’t even consider replying. “I think whoever sent you there killed her. Her name was Alicia VanDamm.”

She raised her bushy, black eyebrows but gave no other indication that she recognized the name. “I do not know this person, Mr. Detective Sergeant. I cannot help you.”

Before Frank could pose another question, Emma Petrovka had passed through the doorway, and now she slammed the door shut in his face. For an instant he stood staring at the lace curtains swinging on the other side of the glass and considered forcing his way inside. Except he wasn’t really that interested in talking to her anymore. She was an ugly, unpleasant old woman. If he wanted to talk to an ugly, unpleasant old woman, he’d go home.

Sighing wearily, he turned and sauntered down her steps. The boys who had been tormenting her were gone now, scattered after cleaning the coins from the street to find other sources of amusement. Frank reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the list of names he had culled from various sources. The list was surprisingly short. He would have thought a city the size of New York could provide work for hundreds of abortionists, and he would have thought they’d all be willing to cooperate with the police on any matter. He would’ve been wrong on both counts. The half dozen women he had visited today had all been as tight-lipped as Emma Petrovka.

He was wasting his time, of course. No one was going to admit having attempted an illegal procedure on a girl who was later murdered. But as thin as this thread was, it was the only one he had. Checking the next address on the list, he headed off downtown.