Victoria Thompson: Murder On Astor Place

Frank’s opinion of the rich dropped a notch or two as he looked around the front parlor (which meant they probably had a back parlor, too; what in God’s name did they need two parlors for?). Frank decided he’d been in classier whorehouses. This place was a disaster of ostentation, with red velvet everywhere, draped in enormous folds over the windows and covering all the plush furniture. The walls were covered with dark paper in a hideous design. A palm tree in the corner and potted plants on every flat surface. Tables adorned with lace doilies and cluttered with figurines of every description. And they were all ugly.

He found himself wondering what Kathleen would have said. Too much stuff to dust, probably. Kathleen had always been practical.

When the parlor doors opened twenty minutes later, Frank was examining the covers someone had put on the piano’s legs. He’d heard about people who were so modest that they never uttered the word “leg” and even clothed the legs of their furniture. He’d never expected to actually see such a thing, however.

The man who entered the room was obviously the master of the house. He was dressed for the street, in an impeccably tailored suit of the finest wool and a shirt so white it could blind a man. Frank noticed his tie was slightly askew, however, telling him VanDamm had made himself presentable in a hell of a hurry.

“Detective, I’m Cornelius VanDamm,” he said, in case there could be any doubt. Frank noticed he didn’t offer his hand. Probably he didn’t shake hands with messenger boys, either. “I understand you have something to tell me about my daughter.”

VanDamm was a man trained never to show a trace of weakness. Men who moved in the circles he did, where millions were made or lost on a man’s word, couldn’t afford to reveal any vulnerability without risking attack. VanDamm would be very good at hiding his true feelings, but Frank figured he was about to put him to the ultimate test.

“Is your wife available?” he asked. “I told your man I had to see you both.” He wanted to tell them together-so he would be sure of seeing their initial reactions, which would reveal a lot about a lot of things. How they felt about their daughter and about each other and about her death. And whether they knew more than they intended to tell him, information he might have to get from other sources.

“I’m afraid my wife is indisposed at the moment,” VanDamm said without the slightest trace of apology. “What is it you’ve come to tell us? I know it can’t be good news, Detective, so out with it.”

Frank hadn’t yet decided whether to obey or not when the doors opened again and a woman appeared. She was a fragile, birdlike creature dressed in a filmy gown with flowers printed all over it that swirled around her and made her seem almost ethereal. She must have been a beauty in her day, but that beauty had faded with the years, along with her once-golden hair which was now almost entirely gray. Her pale cheeks were sunken, her eyes hollow, and her skin had turned crepey, even though she probably wasn’t even as old as her husband, who was still a fine figure of a man.

“Cornelius, what’s going on? Bridgett said the police were here, something about Alicia.” Her eyes seemed slightly unfocused, and at first Frank wasn’t sure she even noticed he was in the room. Then he realized she was simply not acknowledging him. She looked at her husband, waiting for him to explain.

“Alicia? Don’t be ridiculous, Francisca, go back to your room. I’ll take care of this,” he told her sternly, as if speaking to a recalcitrant child.

“I think this is something you should both hear,” Frank contradicted him, watching as Mrs. VanDamm finally looked directly at him. Even her eyes were faded, to a washed-out blue, and they watered slightly as she blinked at him curiously. Maybe she was just short-sighted, he couldn’t help thinking.

She turned back to her husband. “What could he have to tell us about Alicia? She’s at Greentree. If anything had happened, Mrs. Hightower would have sent word.”

Her husband spared her only a bored glance. “Of course she would. This isn’t about Alicia at all, and don’t say I didn’t warn you, Francisca. All right,” he said to Frank. “What have you come to tell us?”

Now Frank was the one who was confused. Obviously, VanDamm was expecting bad news, but not about Alicia. If she’d been away at this Greentree place, maybe he didn’t even know she was missing, although that seemed difficult to believe. And if he was expecting bad news about his other daughter, he didn’t seem too upset about it. Ordinarily, a parent in this situation would be bracing himself for something horrible, but VanDamm didn’t seem to require bracing.

The woman knew nothing, of that Frank was certain.

“Maybe you better sit down, Mrs. VanDamm.”

The vagueness in her eyes turned to confusion. “I do feel a little strange,” she admitted. “It’s that weakness I was telling you about, Cornelius. It comes on me at the oddest times, I never know when. And then sometimes I can’t get my breath-”

“Sit down, Francisca,” VanDamm said firmly, this time the way you’d would speak to a slow-witted child. Frank understood about that only too well.

“Well, if you think it’s best,” she murmured as she moved like a wraith to the nearest of the several ornately carved sofas in the room and perched on it, back ramrod straight the way a proper lady was taught to sit. Her hands fluttered restlessly in her lap, though, as if she thought she should be doing something but couldn’t remember exactly what.

VanDamm simply stood where he was, arms down to his sides, hands relaxed, showing Frank no more than common courtesy. The way he would if Frank had come to sell him tickets to the policeman’s ball. Or the way he would if Frank’s news wasn’t going to be a surprise. But whatever VanDamm was expecting to hear, Frank was pretty sure it wasn’t what he’d come to tell them.

“Mr. and Mrs. VanDamm,” he began, looking at each of them in turn. “It is my sad duty to inform you that your daughter Alicia has been the victim of a crime. I’m sorry to tell you that she has been murdered.”

VanDamm’s face went chalk white, but he never so much as flinched. “Murdered?” He repeated the word as if he’d never heard it before. He may have been expecting something, but Frank was pretty sure this wasn’t it. “Alicia? Are you certain?”

“I’m afraid so. We found her name embroidered in her jacket, and someone identified her. An old family friend.”

“What on earth is he talking about, Cornelius?” Mrs. VanDamm asked plaintively.

VanDamm continued to ignore her. Frank figured he probably usually did. “Where? What happened to her?” he demanded.

“We found her in a rooming house in Greenwich Village. She’d been living there for several weeks.”

“That’s impossible,” Mrs. VanDamm insisted. “Alicia is at Greentree. Tell the man there’s been some mistake, Cornelius.”

When Cornelius said nothing, his face as blank and stiff as if it had been carved from stone, she turned to Frank with a weary sigh.

“Our daughter is at our country home in Mamoraneck, Officer,” she explained patiently. “She’s been there for over a month, and if anything had happened to her, our housekeeper would have sent us word immediately. We have a telephone for just such emergencies, so you see, the girl you found couldn’t possibly be Alicia. You’ve wasted a trip and bothered us for nothing, and I must say, I plan to complain to Teddy about this. That’s Police Commissioner Roosevelt to you. His mother is a dear friend of mine, and I used to dandle him on my knee when he was a boy. He’ll be most interested in the way you have inconvenienced us, I’m sure. Imagine, coming into a person’s house and telling such outrageous-”