Jed Rubenfeld - The Interpretation of Murder

'Why would he do it if he was the murderer?' I asked.

'Why would he do it if he wasn't?'

'This is a fruitful conversation,' I remarked.

'Okay, I don't know why.' The detective lit a cigarette. 'You know, there's a lot about this case I don't get. For a while I thought the killer was Harry Thaw.'

'The Harry Thaw?'

'Yup. I was all set for the biggest score any detective ever made. Then it turns out Thaw is locked up on a funny farm upstate.'

'I wouldn't call him locked up, exactly.' I explained what I knew from Jelliffe: that Thaw's conditions of confinement were lax at best. Littlemore wanted to know the source of my information. I told him that Jelliffe was one of Thaw's principal psychiatric consultants and that, from what I could tell, the Thaw family seemed to be paying off the entire hospital staff.

The detective stared. 'That name — Jelliffe. I know it from somewhere. He doesn't live in the Balmoral, by any chance?'

'He does. I dined at his home two nights ago.'

'Son of a bitch,' said Littlemore.

'I think that's the first time I've ever heard you swear, Detective.'

'I think that's the first time I ever did. So long, Doc.' Moving as quickly as he was able, he limped back into the building, thanking me again over his shoulder as he disappeared.

I realized I had no money. My wallet was in a pair of trousers hanging on a clothesline outside Littlemore's kitchen window. I found a nickel in the detective's pocket. It was a good thing I woke up when my train pulled into the Grand Central subway station; I don't know where I might have ended up otherwise.

At a two-story house on Fortieth Street, just off Broadway, Detective Littlemore banged the gaudy knocker furiously. In a moment the door was opened by a girl the detective had never seen before. 'Where's Susie?' he demanded.

The girl, through a cigarette that never left her mouth, would say only that Mrs Merrill was out. Hearing female voices down the hall, Littlemore made his way to the parlor. There were half a dozen girls in the richly mirrored room, in various states of undress, black and scarlet being the favored hues of such clothing as they had on. In the center was the one Littlemore was looking for. 'Hello, Greta,' he said.

She blinked at him, otherwise making no reply. She looked decidedly less dreamy than she had the other day.

'He was here last weekend, wasn't he?' the detective demanded.

Greta still made no answer.

'You know who I'm talking about,' said Littlemore. 'Harry.'

'We know a lot of Harrys,' said one. 'Harry Thaw,' said the detective.

Greta sniffed. Only then did Littlemore realize she had been crying. She was trying to hold it in, but she broke down and hid her face in a handkerchief. The other girls gathered around her at once, uttering words of sympathy. 'You're the one, aren't you, Greta?' said Littlemore. 'You're the one he whipped. Did he do it again last Sunday?' He put the question to all the girls: 'Did Thaw hurt her? Is that what happened?'

'Oh, leave her alone,' said the girl with the cigarette in her mouth.

In addition to the handkerchief, Greta was clutching a pink cloth with little pink strings dangling from one end. It was a bib. The detective realized that the noise of an infant's crying, so piercing on his last visit, was absent today. 'What happened to the baby?' he asked.

Greta froze.

Littlemore took a chance. 'What happened to your baby, Greta?'

'Why couldn't I keep her?' Greta burst out, directing her words to no one in particular. She recommenced sobbing. The others did their best to comfort her, but she was inconsolable. 'She never hurt anybody.'

'Someone took her baby away?' asked Littlemore.

Greta buried her face again. One of the other girls spoke up: 'Susie did it. Real mean, I call it. She got a family in Hell's Kitchen to take her. She won't even tell Greta who they are.'

'She's docking Greta for it too,' added another. 'Three dollars a week. It ain't fair.'

'And I'll bet you Susie's only paying them a dollar fifty,' commented the smoker shrewdly.

'I don't care about the money,' said Greta. 'I just want Fannie. I want her back.'

'Maybe I could get her back,' said Littlemore.

'You could?' said Greta hopefully.

'I could try.'

'I'll do anything you want,' said Greta imploringly. 'Anything.'

Littlemore considered the prospect of prying information from a woman whose baby had just been taken from her. 'No charge,' he said, putting his hat on. 'Tell Susie I'll be back.'

He got as far as the front door when he heard Greta's voice behind him. 'He was here,' she said. 'He came in around one in the morning.'

'Thaw?' said Littlemore. 'Last Sunday?'

Greta nodded. 'You can ask all the girls. He looked kind of crazy. He asked for me. I always was his favorite. I told Susie I didn't want to, but she didn't care. She starts in on him for all the money he owes her for us keeping quiet, but he just laughs out loud and — '

'What money for keeping quiet?'

'The money so the rest of us wouldn't testify at the trial and tell them about all the things he did to us. Susie got hundreds. She told him it was for us, but she kept it all. We never saw a penny. But his mother stopped paying after he got sent away. That's why Susie was so mad. She told him he would have to pay double and up front before he could have me. She made him promise to be nice. But he wasn't.' The faraway look came back to Greta, as if she were describing events that happened to someone else. 'After he gets me undressed, he pulls the sheets off the bed and says he's going to tie me up, like he used to. I told him to get away or else. He says, "Or else what?" and he's laughing like crazy. Then he says, "Don't you know I'm insane? I can do anything I want. What are they going to do, lock me up?" That's when Susie comes in. She was listening the whole time, I guess.'

'No, she wasn't,' piped up one of the other girls, the group having assembled in the hall. ' I was listening. I told Susie what he was up to. So Susie marches right in. He was always scared to death of her. Course she wouldn't of done nothing if Thaw had paid up front, like she wanted him to. But you should of seen him run out of there, the little rat.'

'He came into my room,' said another girl, 'wailing and waving his arms like a little boy. Then Susie comes in and chases him out again.'

The girl with the cigarette had the end of the story: 'She chased him all over the house. You know where she caught him? Behind the icebox. Chewing his fingernails off. Susie pulls him up by the ear, drags him down the hall, and throws him out on the street, like the sack of garbage he is. That's why she went to jail, you know. Becker came around a couple of days later.'

'Becker?' asked Littlemore.

'Yeah, Becker' was the reply. 'Nothing happens without Becker gets his fingers in it.'

'Will you testify that Thaw was here last Sunday?' Littlemore asked.

None of them answered until Greta said, 'I will, if you find my Fannie.'

Again Littlemore was about to leave, when the smoker asked, 'Want to know where he went after he left?'

'How would you know?' returned the detective.

'I heard his friend tell the driver. From the upstairs window.'

'What friend?'

'The one he come in with.'

'I thought he was alone,' said Littlemore.

'Huh-uh,' she replied. 'Fat man. Thought he was the Lord's gift. Ready enough with his money, though, I'll give him that. Dr Smith, he called himself.'

'Dr Smith,' repeated the detective, feeling that he had heard that name recently. 'Where'd they go?'

'Gramercy Park. I heard him tell the driver loud and clear.'

'Son of a bitch,' said Littlemore.

It was past ten when I arrived at the hotel. Handing over my key, the clerk looked down his nose at Littlemore's threadbare jacket, which left a conspicuous gap between the ends of its sleeves and the beginnings of my hands. There had been a letter for me, I was told, but Dr Brill received it on my behalf. The clerk gestured toward a corner of the lobby; there was Brill, sitting with Rose and Ferenczi.