Victoria Thompson - Murder On Astor Place

“Good morning,” Frank said, trying out the manners he so seldom used. “I’m Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy of the New York City Police.”

If he’d thought to cow her, he failed miserably. She simply raised her chin another notch and looked down her hawklike nose at him. “Then what are you doing out here?” she demanded.

“I’m trying to find out who killed Miss Alicia VanDamm,” he replied, hoping to strike some nerve.

Her face tightened for an instant in what might have been a spasm of grief, but she gave no other sign of weakness. “You’d best go back to the city then, since that’s where she was killed. You won’t find no murderers here.”

Frank hadn’t expected to, of course. “I was hoping to get some information about her. Maybe that will help me find who killed her.”

“I’m sure nobody here will be gossiping about Miss Alicia, so if that’s what you’re hoping, you came a long way for nothing.”

Frank figured she’d make certain none of the servants told any tales about Alicia. “I don’t want gossip. I need to know when she left and who she left with.”

“We don’t know,” the housekeeper insisted, her broad, homely face reddening. “I already explained everything to Mr. VanDamm. We just woke up one morning, and she was gone. We don’t know nothing else. Leave us alone.”

“Mr. VanDamm said I could search her room and question all the servants, just in case,” Frank lied.

“I don’t believe you,” she said, her small eyes widening in alarm.

“Do you want me to go back to the city and tell him you wouldn’t cooperate with my investigation?”

He could see her inner struggle. She didn’t want to risk VanDamm’s disapproval, but she wasn’t certain which decision would bring it. Refusing Frank admittance seemed the sensible course, since VanDamm was most certainly not in the habit of having the police search his home and interrogate his servants. On the other hand, Alicia had been murdered, not a common state of affairs to be sure. Would this render all the usual rules null and void?

“I’d have to be sure Mr. VanDamm gave you permission,” she hedged.

Frank wasn’t about to let a little thing like that stop him. “I didn’t bring a letter of reference, if that’s what you’re after.”

She sniffed derisively at him. “I’ll telephone to find out.”

Damn. Frank had forgotten that they had a telephone here. “Go ahead,” he bluffed, “but be quick about it. I haven’t got all day.”

The chances that VanDamm would be at home in the middle of the morning were probably small, and somehow he couldn’t imagine the mighty man stooping to speak to a servant on the telephone in any case. Of course, there was that snooty butler, but would he take it upon himself to withhold permission for Frank to do his duty?

Left standing on the doorstep, Frank decided to make himself comfortable. Might as well let the old bat find him taking his ease like a regular guest, not holding his hat in his hand waiting anxiously for her return.

When she returned, he was lounging quite comfortably, sitting on the steps with his legs out in front of him, crossed at the ankles, and leaning back against one of the massive pillars, his hat tipped down over his eyes. As if he had all the time in the world and not a single worry that VanDamm was going to have him tossed out on his ear.

She glared at him again, but she said, “Mr. VanDamm was out.”

Frank managed not to betray the surge of relief he felt. “Are you going to keep me waiting here on the porch until he comes back in?” he inquired with all the annoyance he could muster.

For an uncomfortable moment, he thought she was, so he took the really big gamble and rose to his feet, dusted off his seat and reached into his pocket, pulling out his notebook and pencil. “What’s your name?” he demanded.

“Mrs. Hightower,” she replied, nonplussed.

Frank nodded ominously and wrote it down. “I’ll be sure to tell Mr. VanDamm it was you wouldn’t let me in.”

He was gratified to see a flash of fear in her close-set eyes. Fear always worked to his advantage.

“You’re not to touch anything in her room,” she said, as if it had been her decision all along to allow him inside. “You can look around, but you’re to leave everything just as it is. That was Mr. VanDamm’s orders. Nobody is to touch anything.”

“I’ll want to talk to the servants, too. All of them. Alone.” He didn’t want her intimidating them into lying to protect Alicia’s good name.

“They don’t know anything. None of us knows anything.”

“Then it’s my time that’s wasted, isn’t it?” Frank replied, tucking his notebook back into his pocket but giving it a little pat to remind her that he had her name if she thought about giving him any more trouble.

She sniffed again and started into the house, surging ahead like a schooner at full mast. Frank had to assume she expected him to follow, which he did, but the instant he reached the doorway, she turned abruptly and snapped, “Wipe your feet before you come in here!”

Cow, he thought, but he wiped his feet. Didn’t want her complaining to VanDamm about his manners. It would be bad enough when she complained about his visit.

The interior of the house was dim, since the windows were all heavily draped. The sun faded fabrics, as his mother had told him time and again, and the VanDamms had a lot of fabric to fade. It hung in lavish folds around each window and was upholstered onto numerous pieces of furniture. This Frank glimpsed through a series of doorways during his hasty trip through the entrance hall to the long staircase at its opposite end. The hallway was paneled in dark wainscoting and wallpaper so elaborately patterned it made him dizzy to stare at it. An amazingly large crystal chandelier hung down from the second story. He knew exactly what Kathleen would’ve said: How in heaven’s name do they clean it?

He followed the housekeeper up the stairs and remembered when he’d followed Sarah Brandt up a similar set of stairs. He’d been tempted to look at her ankles, but he wasn’t the least bit tempted to look at Mrs. Hightower’s.

Upstairs, the hallway branched to the left and right, seeming to go on forever in each direction. She turned right, still surging along like a ship at full sail, never even glancing back to make sure he was behind her. A thick carpet muffled their footsteps, and Frank was struck by how silent the house was. Silent and forlorn, as if it were mourning the loss of the girl who had lived here. Or maybe it was just the result of the place being uninhabited, Frank thought, because no one really lived here even when they were here.

A little astonished at such a profound thought, Frank almost didn’t realize the housekeeper had stopped in front of one of the closed doors. Her hand was on the knob, but she hesitated for a long moment. Frank thought she was just being obstinate, making him wait so she could show her power over him. But then he noticed she was blinking furiously as she stared resolutely at the panel of the door. Good God, she was trying not to weep. For all her coldness, she must have genuinely cared for the dead girl.

Maybe Frank could use this to his advantage.

After waiting respectfully for her to regain her composure, he remarked, “You must’ve known her a long time.”

“Since the day she was born, right here in this house.” Her voice was thick with unshed tears, tears she was probably too proud to let Frank see.

“Mr. VanDamm said she’d been here a little over a month. I guess she hadn’t been feeling too well.”

Mrs. Hightower, fully recovered now, glared at him. “It was nerves, is all. That girl was never sick a day in her life.”