Victoria Thompson - Murder on St. Mark’s place

Only then did Sarah realize that in her terror she had thrown her arms around Malloy and that she was still clinging to him desperately.

“Oh!” she cried, mortified, and released him at once, except she couldn’t exactly release him because he was clinging to her, too, in equal desperation.

But his reaction was only an instant later than hers, and they sprang guiltily apart, or at least as far apart as they could get in the crowded boat. For a moment their gazes locked and they shared their mutual embarrassment, but a moment was all they could stand. They looked away, up or down or anywhere but at each other.

Good heavens, what had come over her? Sarah wasn’t clingy or helpless or at all the kind of woman to clutch at a man for anything. Or at least she wasn’t in the normal course of her life. The normal course of her life had not, until now, involved a terrifying plummet down a water-filled chute to what felt like certain and imminent death, however. That, apparently, changed her into a quivering mass of feminine weakness.

And it had turned Malloy into a quivering mass of male weakness, too, it seemed. He was the first one out of the boat when the attendant had secured it to the wooden wharf, and he let the attendant help her out, too. Which suited Sarah fine. She didn’t feel quite ready to have Malloy’s hands on her again.

She immediately changed her mind, however, when she discovered that her knees were trembling as she made her way toward the exit. She could have used a steady arm to support her, but one look at Malloy’s expression told her not even to consider it.

“That was certainly an experience, wasn’t it?” she managed, hoping her voice didn’t sound as breathless as she was afraid it did.

Malloy didn’t bother to respond.

Luckily, there was a vacant bench nearby, and Sarah and Malloy both plopped down on it. For a few moments they just sat there, staring at the people walking by. Sarah was waiting for her heart rate to return to normal, and she supposed Malloy was doing the same.

Finally, he said, “I hope you know who the killer is now, because I don’t think I can survive any more of this investigation.”

Sarah looked at him in amazement, but then she saw the glint of amusement in his dark eyes and realized he was teasing her. Malloy was teasing her! She knew it wasn’t funny, but she had an irresistible urge to laugh, and before she could stop herself she was laughing, and then Malloy was laughing, too. Or chuckling at least. And shaking his head and chuckling some more. She had never seen him laugh. It was so amazing, she laughed even harder, until she had to wipe the tears from her eyes and take some deep breaths to compose herself.

“Oh, Malloy, I’m sorry I put you through that,” she said when she could speak again. “I had no idea it would be so frightening. Everybody looked like they were having such a good time!”

“You thought they were screaming because it was so much fun?” he asked skeptically.

He had a point, but she didn’t give it to him. “And I’m sorry I behaved so… so foolishly. Clinging to you the way I did,” she added with chagrin when his look grew puzzled.

He nodded in understanding, then turned his head away, seemingly studying the passing throng for several moments. “I didn’t mind,” he said quite casually.

This time Sarah was dumbfounded. “Malloy, are you flirting with me?” she demanded, not at all displeased.

When he turned back to her, his expression was bland. “I thought you were flirting with me.”

Had she been? She thought back to her behavior throughout the day and realized she hadn’t been acting at all like herself, at least not the way she usually acted with Malloy. And he hadn’t been acting at all like himself, either, if the truth were told. They’d both been almost playful and slightly adventurous and much more informal than they had ever been in each other’s company.

“It’s this place, isn’t it?” she realized. “Here a person can break all the rules of propriety and not suffer any consequences!”

Malloy frowned, but she was too busy thinking aloud to notice.

“In the city, strangers don’t speak to each other, but here they offer advice as if they were dear friends. In the city, a man wouldn’t dare even tip his hat to a woman he didn’t know, but here he can introduce himself to a girl he’s never seen before, treat her to rides and buy her food and even kiss her in the darkness of the tunnels.”

Malloy was still frowning, but not in disapproval. He was thinking, too. “You’re right. People don’t act like themselves here,” he said. “No one knows them, so they don’t have to worry about what anyone else will think of them.”

“Which is why young people come here, so they can meet new people and have fun and their families won’t know what they’re doing. A girl can be forward and flirt and do things she wouldn’t dream of doing in her neighborhood where anyone might see her and ruin her reputation. Even going to the dance halls, a girl has to be a little careful because word might get back to her family, but not about what happens on Coney Island.”

“And men like your friend Dirk come out here to prey on those girls,” Malloy reminded her.

“Men of all kinds prey on them,” Sarah corrected him. She looked at the crowd passing down the midway before them, hundreds of people of every size and shape and age and status in life. Any one of them might have met Gerda Reinhard and treated her and tempted her and lured her to a dark corner and beaten the life out of her. “It’s hopeless, isn’t it?” she asked in despair.

“Finding the killer, you mean?”

She nodded glumly.

He sighed and watched the crowd with unseeing eyes while he considered. “If it was just one girl, then yes, it would be impossible.”

“But it wasn’t just one girl, was it?” How could she have forgotten? “There were three others! I found out their names from Gerda’s friends. I was going to tell you today, but in all the excitement, I forgot!”

He didn’t look at her. “They were Eva Bower, Luisa Isenberg, and Fredrika Lutz.”

“That’s right!” Sarah’s surprise quickly became anger. “You knew all along! You were just playing with me!”

“Don’t be a fool. I would’ve told you if I did.”

She supposed this was true, although she really had no way of knowing for sure. “Well, then, if you didn’t know their names before, how do you know them now?”

“I know Eva’s name because I worked on her case. She was the first one, as near as I can figure, which is why nobody thought it was anything out of the ordinary. Just another girl who took up with the wrong man and got beaten to death for her mistake.”

“You didn’t investigate?” Sarah was outraged.

Malloy just gave her one of his long-suffering looks. “She was just like this Gerda. She’d known dozens of men, and the ones we could find all had alibis. Nobody saw it, nobody knew anything, nobody cared.”

“But what about the others! Why didn’t you start questioning their friends to find out what men they all knew in common?”

“I didn’t know about the others until you told me the other day, remember?”

“But you know their names now!”

“Only because you told me other girls had been killed. I started asking around, and that’s when I found out about the other two cases. Two different detectives had them, and they didn’t know about any of the others, either.”

“How could this happen? Don’t policemen talk to each other?” Sarah was incredulous.

Malloy rubbed the bridge of his nose, as if he were getting a headache. “We talk to each other about important cases.”