Victoria Thompson - Murder On Mulberry Bend

“Thank you, Mrs. Brandt,” she said, preparing to rise. Sarah knew this was a signal their visit was over, but Sarah hadn’t yet told her why she’d really come.

“Mrs. Wells, I was wondering if you would allow me and Mr. Dennis to hold a party to raise money on behalf of the mission.”

Mrs. Wells stared at her with that intense gaze she had noticed on her previous visit, as if she were trying to look into Sarah’s soul and read what was written there. “That would be very kind of you,” she said, her voice carefully neutral. She wouldn’t want to appear too eager, of course. That would make her look greedy.

“My parents would actually host the party, at their home. My father is Felix Decker,” she added, knowing this would overcome Mrs. Wells’s wariness.

As self-contained as she usually was, Mrs. Wells could not conceal her surprise. She had obviously underestimated Sarah Brandt. “Mrs. Brandt, I… We would be honored.”

“Mr. Dennis suggested that perhaps you would like to attend the party yourself and speak about the work you are doing here. He thought it might also help if you brought a few of the girls with you, to actually show the success you’re having.”

“I’m sure we can do whatever you think would be most appropriate. We never have enough of anything here at the mission. Raising funds is a constant struggle.”

“I was certain that was true,” Sarah said. “Which is why I want to help. I’d like to think that Emilia’s death can bring some good.”

Mrs. Wells smiled sadly. “I’d like to think that, too, Mrs. Brandt.”

When Emilia Donato left home, she hadn’t gone too far, Frank observed. Her parents lived only a few blocks from the mission, where Mulberry Street made a sharp turn between Park and Bayard Streets. Known as the Bend, the area had long been the location of the most notorious slums in the city. A couple decades earlier, it had been the juncture of five streets. The Five Points area had been so dangerous that even the police never went there except in large groups. Five Points crime had been cleaned up, but the poverty and squalor remained.

Thousands of Jewish and Italian immigrants were now crammed into crumbling tenements and rotting houses left over from the original Dutch settlers. The city had recently decided to tear down the worst of them and build a park on the west side of Mulberry Street, but the work was just beginning. The people who lived here now were still trapped in their poverty and misery, and in addition to the criminals that plagued the entire city, they were also terrorized by the more subtle members of the Black Hand.

Frank had waited until evening to call on the Donato family, figuring the father and brother were more likely to be home at that time of day. Frank was assuming, of course, that they had jobs. From the way Mrs. Wells had spoken of them, he would not have been surprised to find them lying in a drunken stupor in their flat at nine o’clock in the morning.

This part of the Bend was inhabited primarily by Italian immigrants, most of them recent arrivals. The people were dressed in bright colors, and everyone spoke in Italian. Except for the buildings surrounding it, the street might have been in any village in Italy. Peddlers’ carts lined both curbs, and even at this hour, transactions were taking place with much shouting and gesturing as housewives negotiated for the ingredients of their evening meals. Even the doorways of the buildings had been commandeered for commerce. Boards were stretched across the openings and merchandise displayed upon them. Each merchant stood inside the tiny lobby of the building, as if it were his shop, and conducted his business on this makeshift counter. Tenants of the buildings had broken holes in the back walls of the lobbies, and they used those improvised entrances so as not to disturb the transactions taking place in the official doorways.

Everyone on the streets looked suspiciously at an Irish policeman. Conversation died as Frank approached each group and picked up again noisily as soon as he was past. Their fear and distrust were like a miasma through which he walked until he reached the alley that led to the Donatos’ tenement.

Most of the windows in the surrounding buildings were open, even though the day was cool and getting colder, and the residents who weren’t outside were hanging out of the windows, conversing with those below. The Italians liked the outdoors, even if that meant city streets without a tree or a blade of grass for miles. They’d appreciate the park, when it was finally built… if they managed to find cheap lodging nearby after these buildings were torn down.

Frank passed an old hag selling stale bread from a sack made of filthy bed ticking and found his way into one of the many twisting alleys in the neighborhood to the rear tenement where Mrs. Wells had said the Donato family lived.

A woman had just begun climbing the stairs in the pitch-dark hallway when Frank entered. A red bandanna covered her hair, and the darkness shadowed her face, but her weary step and hunched shoulders told of years of suffering. She carried a market basket over one arm.

“Donato?” Frank called, hoping for some direction to the proper flat.

She looked up in surprise.

“Do you know where the Donatos live?” he asked, hoping she spoke some English.

“What you want?” she asked suspiciously.

“I want to see them. Which flat is theirs?”

“We no do nothing wrong,” the woman said, the fear thick in her voice.

“Are you Mrs. Donato?” he asked, coming closer.

She cringed away. “We no do nothing wrong,” she insisted.

“I need to talk to you, about your daughter Emilia.”

“Emilia!” she echoed scornfully. “I have no daughter. Go away.”

She certainly didn’t have a daughter any longer, but Frank didn’t want to break the news to her in the hallway, no matter how angry she might be with the girl.

“Is your husband at home?” Frank asked.

Now that his eyes were used to the darkness, he could make out her features more clearly. She wasn’t as old as her plodding gait had suggested, but the years hadn’t been kind to her. “He no here,” she claimed almost desperately. “Come back later.”

“Maybe I’ll just wait here for him,” Frank suggested. “Or go get the landlord to help me find him.”

This put the fear of God into her. Landlords didn’t like tenants who brought the police snooping around. “What you want?”

“I told you, I want to talk to you about your daughter Emilia,” he said patiently. His experience had been that most of the Italians avoided trouble whenever possible and were terrified of dealing with the police. Apparently, law enforcement in their native country was even more corrupt than it was in New York City. “I won’t keep you very long, but it’s not something I want to talk about here,” he added meaningfully.

She hated him. He could see it in her eyes, along with the fear. But she said, “Come,” and started up the stairs again. She was a short woman, but not small. Her breasts and hips were full and round. They were sagging now, but she’d probably had an appealing figure as a young girl, before the years and childbirth had taken their toll.

Fortunately, the Donato flat was only on the third floor in this five-floor walk-up. Frank found it difficult to question someone when he was completely winded.

The Donato flat was exactly like a million others in the city. A few pieces of furniture might have been carried from the old country, but the rest had been purchased here, as cheaply as possible, or scrounged from the trash heaps. Brightly colored curtains hung from the front window, and scarves were draped here and there to brighten up the place, but nothing could help the back rooms where sunlight never reached.