“I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE EVENING.”
Sarah Brandt turned toward her companion, even though he was merely a shadow in the dark coach beside her. “It was lovely. I can’t remember when I was last at the opera.”
Indeed, she felt more than a little like Cinderella. Dressed this afternoon in finery borrowed from her mother. Dinner at Delmonico’s. Then the theater, with its glittering performers singing soul-shattering music and the magnificently garbed patrons who were more interested in being seen than watching the performance. Now she was riding home in a carriage that was going to deliver her, if not back to her place among the cinders, at least back to ordinariness again.
“There’s no reason you couldn’t go out like this frequently,” Richard Dennis said, amusement in his voice.
They both knew her present life on Bank Street, working as a midwife, usually allowed little opportunity for an evening like this one. “Ah, I see it all now. My mother bribed you to tempt me back into the world of the idle rich, didn’t she?”
He sighed theatrically. “I thought I was being so discreet. How did you guess?”
“Because she tries it with everyone,” Sarah assured him without rancor. Her mother only wanted what she thought was best for her child, and Sarah’s birthright entitled her to a life of leisure. The kind of life Richard enjoyed. “What did she offer you as a reward for rescuing me?”
“Why, your hand in marriage, of course. Nothing less could have satisfied me.”
Sarah smiled in the darkness. “Then you should be grateful that I am proof against your charms. My last suitor came to a very bad end.”
“I’d be faint-hearted indeed if I allowed that to deter me,” he insisted. “Most men would only consider it a challenge to be overcome.”
“I hope you’re more sensible than most men, then,” she said.
“No one has ever accused me of that,” he replied with mock outrage, making her laugh. “And how about you, Sarah Brandt? Are you more sensible than most women?”
Her amusement faded. “I’m afraid I am. Too sensible to marry again, at least.”
Although she couldn’t see his expression in the darkness, she sensed the change in him. As the coach continued bouncing gently over the cobbled streets, they sat in silence for a few moments while they both remembered their lost mates. The three years that Tom Brandt had been gone seemed like only as many days. Her companion’s wife had been gone longer, but she was just as sorely missed.
“How do you bear the loneliness?” he asked finally.
“I don’t. I just try to fill my days so I’m too busy to think of it.”
This time his sigh was weary. “But we still have the nights, don’t we?”
Yes, they did still have the nights. The darkness that sometimes seemed endless when you had no one to hold you. Sarah wanted to reach out to him, to tell him she understood, but that would be a mistake. Lonely people could make terrible mistakes if they weren’t careful. She’d been careful for too long to risk it now.
“Richard,” she said, calling him by his given name in spite of their brief acquaintance, “you don’t need to be lonely. You must know you’re attractive, and you’re certainly eligible. You could have your pick of women in this city.”
“And what about you, Sarah?” he asked, taking the liberty of using her first name as well. “You could have your pick, too, starting with that policeman. What’s his name?”
“Malloy?” she asked in astonishment.
“Oh, well done!” he teased. “Anyone would think you had no idea how he feels about you.”
Sarah had no intention of discussing Malloy’s feelings for her. “I’m happy with the life I’ve chosen, Richard, even though I am lonely sometimes. But you don’t seem happy at all, which is why I don’t understand why you haven’t found someone else.”
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he tried, but she wasn’t fooled. She could hear the wistfulness in his voice.
“Your wife would want you to be happy, Richard.”
“Is that what you tell yourself, Sarah? Do you really think your husband would want you to be with another man?”
She almost said it was different for men, but she caught herself. She had no idea if it was or not. “I never knew your wife. What was she like?” she asked instead.
“Was she jealous, do you mean?”
“I’m not sure what I mean,” Sarah confessed. “You were obviously devoted to her, so you must have loved her very much.”
“Is that what you think? That I was devoted to her?”
She couldn’t quite read the expression in his voice. “You still miss her,” she reasoned. “And you haven’t been able to find anyone who could take her place in your life.”
“So you assume I’m still grieving for her.”
“Aren’t you?” she asked, although she was no longer certain she wanted to know the answer.
“Grief isn’t the only emotion that keeps people in mourning.”
Something Sarah knew only too well. She thought of her parents, who still mourned the death of her sister Maggie, although they rarely spoke her name. Their guilt would never allow them to forgive themselves enough to truly let her go. “You can’t think you were responsible for your wife’s death,” she said. “She died of a fever, and even the doctors couldn’t do anything for her. You told me that yourself.”
The glow from a passing streetlight briefly illuminated his face, and Sarah saw the kind of pain felt only by those suffering the torment of the damned. He must have seen her reaction, because he turned away quickly.
“I have no right to burden you with my sins. I never should have…”
“You never should have what?” she prodded when he hesitated.
He didn’t reply, but she was afraid she already knew. “You didn’t invite me out just because you wanted the pleasure of my company, did you?”
“You are very pleasant company, Sarah,” he insisted. “I consider myself extremely fortunate to have met such a charming lady as yourself, and – ”
“Stop that nonsense,” she snapped. “I know exactly what I am, and charming isn’t exactly the word I would use to describe myself. Something else drew you to me, and if you don’t tell me what it is, I shall never speak to you again.”
“How heartless you are, Mrs. Brandt,” he tried in a feeble attempt at levity.
“I have many other undesirable qualities, too, and if you wish to see them, then by all means continue lying to me.”
“I’ve never lied to you,” he protested.
“There are lies of omission,” she reminded him sternly.
“You are a hard woman,” he said. “I wonder if even a policeman could tame you.”
“Richard,” she warned.
“All right.” He lifted his white-gloved hand in mock surrender. “I was hoping that… that you could help me understand.”
“Understand what?”
“Hazel. My wife. She… Oh, God.” His voice broke, and Sarah was instantly contrite.
“I’m sorry, Richard! I can be so stupid sometimes. I warned you that I have bad qualities. Please forgive me. I didn’t mean to – ”
“No, stop,” he said, clearing the emotion out of his voice. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine. Just like it’s my fault that Hazel is dead.”
Sarah wasn’t sure she’d understood him. “Do you feel responsible for your wife’s death?”
“Of course I do.”
Now Sarah understood. “We always feel responsible when a loved one dies,” she assured him. “We blame ourselves for not loving them enough when they were with us, and we feel guilty for being the one still alive and – ”
“But do you feel responsible for your husband’s death, Sarah?” he challenged.
“I’ve wished a thousand times I’d stopped him from going out that night,” she admitted.
“But are you responsible for his death?” he insisted desperately. “Do you blame yourself for killing him?”
Sarah felt herself grow cold beneath the many layers of her fancy dress clothing. “Did you… Did you cause your wife’s death, Richard?”
“As surely as if I’d plunged a knife into her heart!”
Sarah gasped, instinctively recoiling from him. Over the past few months, she’d heard several confessions of murder, but she’d never expected to hear one riding in a luxurious carriage while returning from the opera.
He muttered something that might have been a curse and slapped his thigh in anger, making her jump. “That’s not how I meant to tell you,” he said. “Why does nothing ever go the way I plan?”
Now Sarah was sliding her gloved hand over the side wall of the carriage, trying to find the door handle. Even if she found it, would she be able to get the door open and escape, hampered as she was by her borrowed finery? Once on the street, where could she go? Would the carriage driver help her or be loyal to his master? And where were they? She might actually be in more danger outside the carriage than inside with a confessed killer, depending on the neighborhood.
“Sarah?”
She started, instantly alert and ready to scream bloody murder, if necessary. She waited, holding her breath beneath her tightly laced corset.
“Oh, God, I’ve frightened you,” he said in despair. “I didn’t mean… Please forgive me. I just… Sometimes I get so angry when I remember…”
He lifted a hand to his forehead, and his whole body seemed to sag in the shadowed darkness of the carriage.
Sarah forced herself to take a fortifying breath. “How did you kill her, Richard?” she asked softly, wary of angering him again.
“What?”
“If it was an accident, no one will blame – ”
He groaned, causing her to recoil again, but this time she had no farther to go because the carriage wall was against her back.
“How did I manage to make such a hash of this?” he asked of no one in particular. “Maybe I should let you think I killed her and turn myself in to your policeman. I’ve often thought I should be punished for what I did to her. Would your Mr. Malloy punish me, Sarah?”
“Richard, I don’t think – ”
“Enough of this,” he said, interrupting her. “I can’t allow you to be frightened anymore. I’m not a killer, Sarah. Not the way you think. But even still, I’m responsible for Hazel’s death.”
Sarah felt the knot in her stomach loosen just enough that she could breathe without conscious thought. “What do you mean?” she asked, glad that her voice sounded perfectly reasonable.
He sighed, and she heard the anguish that came straight from his soul. “I didn’t mean to make you think I’d taken her life,” he explained. “She did die of a fever. The doctors came, but they could do nothing for her. It was a fever she’d caught from those people.”
“What people?”
“The people she went to help. At the mission. You know what they’re like. Filthy and diseased, little more than vermin. All she wanted to do was help them, and they took her life instead.”
Sarah didn’t know how to reply. There was some truth to what he said. “How did she get involved with this place – what was it called?” she asked in hopes of finding a way to help him.
“It’s called the Prodigal Son Mission. A friend of hers had been approached for a donation. She and Hazel went down to see what kind of work they were doing. The next thing I know, she’s going down there every week to help.”
“I take it you didn’t approve.”
She expected an explosion of frustrated anger, caused by his guilt at having allowed his wife to do something of which he didn’t approve, but he made no response at all for a long moment.
“It’s worse than that,” he said at last. “I… I didn’t care.”
Now Sarah was thoroughly confused. “If you didn’t mind that she went, then you can’t blame yourself for what happened.”
He sighed in the darkness. “No, you don’t understand. It’s not that I didn’t mind. I didn’t care. I didn’t care what she did or how she spent her time, just so long as she didn’t bother me.”
Sarah recoiled instinctively, this time out of aversion instead of fear.
“You see,” he accused. “You hate me from just hearing about my behavior. I’m despicable.”
“Oh, no!” she tried. “I don’t hate you.”
“Don’t try to spare my feelings. You can’t hate me more than I hate myself. I was a selfish cad. I didn’t know how fortunate I was to have the love of such a wonderful, selfless woman. I would have bought her anything she wanted, but all she wanted was a family – the one thing my money couldn’t buy. When the children she wanted didn’t come, she tried to find other things to fill her life.”
“That’s only natural,” Sarah assured him. “I know many people think women should be content with managing their households and visiting their friends, but that’s not enough for some of us.”
“It wasn’t enough for Hazel. She was too restless, too…”
“Intelligent?” Sarah supplied when he hesitated.
She could feel his sharp glance. Few men acknowledged that females could be intelligent.
“Yes,” he admitted after a moment. “I think that may have been it. She was bored with the things women usually do. After she… was gone, I remembered things she’d said. She’d tried to explain it to me, but I was too busy to listen. Too busy to care. And then it was too late.”
“Are you sure it’s too late?” Sarah asked softly.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you admitted that you sought me out because you wanted me to help you understand her. That is what you were saying, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is,” he said wearily. “I had this insane notion that if I could figure out what drew her to that place, I might be able to understand…”
“Understand why she died?” Sarah guessed.
“I know it sounds foolish.”
“It doesn’t sound foolish at all.” Sarah had experienced the same need after Tom died. If only she’d known what he’d been doing the night he was killed, and who he’d seen, and who had killed him and why… It was foolish. Knowing all that wouldn’t bring Tom back. It might, however, bring her some measure of peace. “How can I help you?”
“I don’t think you can,” he said sadly. “I’m sorry I burdened you with all of this. Please forget we ever had this conversation, and forgive me if you can.”
“Nonsense. Your wife sounds like someone I would have liked to know, and now I’m curious about this mission myself. They must do wonderful work there, or she never would have continued to support it. Perhaps they need our help. We owe it to her memory to find out.”
“You don’t need to involve yourself in this, Sarah. I’m perfectly capable of making the necessary inquiries myself. It will be my sackcloth and ashes.”
“You forget that I owe you a favor, Richard,” she said, reminding him of what he had done for her neighbor, Nelson Ellsworth. He hadn’t been entirely willing to perform this favor, but he still could have refused outright and ruined an innocent man. Sarah felt he should be encouraged to continue on the proper path. “I will consider it my duty to help you learn everything you can about the Prodigal Son Mission.”
Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy grumbled as he pulled his coat collar up against the early morning chill. Any sane man would be home in bed, enjoying his Sabbath rest. Trouble was, on certain subjects Frank Malloy wasn’t exactly sane. He’d been forced to acknowledge that recently. That was why he’d left his warm blankets and trudged out into the deserted city streets this morning. He knew the early daylight hours of a Sunday were the best time to catch miscreants unawares – not only with their pants down but completely off as they slept away their Saturday night revelries.
He walked down the filthy alley behind a row of tenement buildings. He’d been here twice before and found no one in residence, although the place was clearly occupied on a regular basis. He’d received a tip from a drunken prisoner that he would find the answer to an old mystery here. The drunk had been interested in being released from jail in exchange for this information. Frank had been happy to oblige him, figuring Ol’ Finnegan would get picked up again within the week anyway. The favor he had granted was little enough, even if the information proved worthless. And if it wasn’t worthless…
Frank stopped and looked around for any signs of life. Even in daylight the alley was dark, shadowed by the five- and six-story buildings looming over it. The sun’s rays would reach it for only a brief period during high noon before moving on to warm other, more deserving parts of the city.
Above him stretched a cat’s cradle of clotheslines, strung between the two buildings that backed to either side of the alley. Most of the laundry had been removed in honor of the Sabbath, but here and there a lonely pair of drawers or a tattered sheet hung limply. The porches that stretched along the backs of each building on every floor were cluttered with bundles of belongings and stray pieces of furniture that wouldn’t fit into the cramped flats or had been removed for the night to make room for sleeping. More clothes hung over a railing here and there, forgotten.
The alley itself was littered with the debris of many people living tightly packed together. Garbage was piled next to a crudely constructed children’s “fort.” A reeking outhouse stood beside wooden washtubs. The cobbled ground was stained with decades of discarded waste, human and otherwise. A mangy dog lay in the shelter of an overturned crate, but Frank’s arrival hadn’t disturbed him. Either he didn’t care or he was dead.
Nestled in the midst of the alley was a compact dwelling of sorts, made of an odd assortment of materials obviously scavenged from many different locations over an extended period of time. Some tin here, some brick there, and many sizes, shapes, and colors of wood everywhere. The window holes were shuttered from within with what appeared to be crudely constructed wooden planks. The door had been scavenged from an old building and seemed as solid as it was scarred. A bent and battered stovepipe extended above the ramshackle roof, but no smoke drifted from it. If anyone was inside at this early hour, he wasn’t stirring yet.
After taking one last look around for lurking danger, Frank strode up to the worn door and pounded on it. “Open up, Danny!” he shouted.
He knew this would draw as many of the neighbors as could raise their aching heads out onto the surrounding balconies to see what was going on. Entertainment was at a premium in this section of town, and free entertainment was always a draw.
Without waiting for a response, he tried the door, putting his shoulder to it when it didn’t open immediately. To his surprise, it wasn’t a lock that prevented the door from opening but a sack of rags lying on the floor in front of it. One good push sent it rolling away, allowing the door to swing wide.
Even though the alley was deeply shadowed, he still needed a moment for his eyes to become accustomed to the darker darkness within. For an instant, he had the impression of having disturbed a rat’s nest. The floor seemed to come alive. Piles of rags – including the one that had blocked the door – and dirty blankets trembled and rose up, becoming children of varying sizes, shapes, and genders. They were groaning and cursing, and a dozen pairs of eyes glared at him murderously in the morning haze.
“Danny’s the one I want,” Frank bellowed, using the voice that turned hardened criminals to jelly.
A girl screamed, drawing Frank’s attention to the far corner. A young fellow, a few years older and much larger than those sleeping on floor, had pushed himself up to a half-sitting position from where he’d lain on a thin, straw mattress. The girl who had screamed was one of two sharing the makeshift bed with him. Neither of the girls wore much in the way of clothes, and Danny didn’t seem to be wearing any at all. From what Frank could see of the girls, which was quite a bit, he knew they couldn’t be more than twelve, if that.
“Danny, it’s the cops!” one of the other children yelled.
“I don’t want any of you guttersnipes,” Frank shouted. “Get out of here before I run you in!”
He didn’t have to warn them twice. As quickly as little hands could snatch up belongings, they were out the door and gone, off to find a doorway or a drain pipe or a stairwell in which to hide. The two girls sharing Danny’s bed were a little slower because they had to throw on enough clothing to make their dash for freedom somewhat decent, but in another blink of the eye, they were gone, too.
“Good business you’ve got here,” Frank remarked as the young man rose, cursing, from his stinking mattress and looked around blearily for his clothes. “How many kids you got working for you?”
Not bothering with drawers – perhaps he didn’t own any – Danny stepped into a pair of trousers that were clean enough to indicate they’d been recently stolen off someone’s clothesline. Buttoning his fly, he glared balefully at Frank. “I pay my protection money to the captain regular, so don’t try to shake me down for more. I got friends.”
“I’m sure you do.” They both knew even honest businessmen paid a fee to the police for the privilege of being allowed to operate unmolested. Danny would have to pay a hefty percentage of his income. “I’m not here to give you any trouble.”
“Then get the hell out.” He stepped forward belligerently, and Frank had to resist an urge to laugh at his feeble attempt at intimidation. The boy was probably no more than sixteen. His hairless chin and bony chest were those of a child. His eyes, however, were older than hell itself. Cleaned up, he’d be a handsome lad. His hair, beneath the dirt and grease, was fair and curly. His eyes were blue as a cloudless sky. His nose gave evidence of having been broken, but it lent character to an otherwise merely pretty face. He twisted his full lips into a snarl, revealing that he’d lost a few teeth along the way. The look he was giving Frank probably terrified the urchins who stole for him in exchange for the protection of living in his shack. Frank merely returned it tenfold.
To his credit, the boy hardly flinched. “I ain’t afraid of you. I’ve taken beatings before.”
“I really don’t want to get blood on my suit,” Frank said reasonably. “So if you’ll tell me what I want to know, you can go back to sleep none the worse for wear.”
The boy rubbed his head, which was probably aching. Frank reached into his pocket and pulled out a flask.
“Here, this should help.”
He looked at the flask suspiciously for a moment before snatching it unceremoniously from Frank’s outstretched hand. Still watching Frank, he pulled the cork and took a swig. He gasped as the liquor burned its way down his throat. “Mother of God, b’hoyo,” he said hoarsely. “You shoulda warned me it was the good stuff! Are you trying to poison me?”
This time when he showed his missing teeth, he was grinning with delight.
Frank grinned back, although it wasn’t from delight. “Now, tell me what you know about Dr. Tom Brandt.”
“Who?”
Frank knew he wasn’t being coy. It had, after all, been three years since Dr. Brandt had died. “Tom Brandt,” Frank repeated. “He was a doctor. Used to treat people in the neighborhood. Didn’t mind if you couldn’t pay.”
Most physicians who ministered to the poor insisted on being paid before even examining a sick person. Some people were forced to forgo food for treatment, and those who couldn’t pay at all were left to suffer. Consequently, doctors were universally mistrusted and despised by their patients in this part of the city. Dr. Tom had been different, however.
Frank watched Danny’s face as he forced his aching brain to work. It took a few moments, but the light of recognition finally brightened in his blue eyes. In the next instant he must have remembered what happened to Dr. Brandt, though, because the light vanished, replaced by wary fear. “Never heard of no Dr. Brandt,” he insisted. “Here, take your whiskey and be on your way.”
He tried to give the flask back to Frank, but he didn’t take it. “Have another drink. Maybe your memory will improve,” Frank suggested.
Danny shook his head violently, then instantly regretted the motion. He almost dropped the flask in his haste to grab his head and stop his brain from rattling around inside of it. Frank glanced around and saw one rickety chair leaning against the wall. He grabbed it and forced Danny to sit.
“I don’t know nothing,” the boy insisted, looking up at Frank beseechingly. “I was just a kid when it happened.”
“If you never heard of the good doctor, how do you know something happened to him?” Frank asked mildly.
Danny’s eyes darted wildly as he searched for some means of escape, but Frank stood between him and the only door.
“No one will ever know you told me,” Frank said.
That challenged his manhood. Danny stuck out his chin defiantly. “I ain’t scared of nobody! Not even you, lousy copper!”
Frank simultaneously took hold of the flask that Danny still held and hooked his foot around the front leg of the chair. When he jerked his foot, the chair fell over backward, slamming Danny into the floor along with it. Frank still held the flask safely in his hand.
As soon as he got his breath, Danny started cursing and howling with pain. The chair hadn’t survived the fall, so Frank kicked the pieces out of the way and gave Danny a slight nudge, too, just to get his attention.
“Ow! Whadda you want from me? I told you, I don’t know nothin’!” the boy protested.
“And I told you I didn’t want to get blood on my suit, so if you make me do it, you’re going to be real sorry. Now just start talking, and I’ll let you know when I’ve heard enough.”
Danny protested only once more, so Frank had to nudge him only once more before he started talking.
“I was a newsboy then,” he said through gritted teeth, resentment darkening his too-old eyes. “I had a real good corner, right by an El station.” Newsboys fought each other regularly for the best corners. Most of them were homeless, and having a good corner might mean the difference between eating regularly and not. A spot by a station of the Elevated Train would be prime. Having such a spot proved Danny had been a tough kid even then.
“Go on,” Frank said.
Danny sighed with resignation. “This swell comes along. He buys a paper from me. He asks me do I want to earn some extra money. I say sure.”
“What did he look like?”
“I don’t know. A swell. You know, fancy suit, silk hat, walking stick with a big silver handle.”
That could describe half the men in the city. “Was he old or young? Tall or short? Fat or thin?” Frank asked impatiently.
“I don’t remember. I wasn’t paying much attention!”
Frank had to give him another nudge of encouragement.
When he stopped howling, he said, “Old, I guess. Older than you.”
“What color was his hair?”
The boy screwed up his face in the effort to remember. “He had on a hat.” Frank drew back his foot again, but Danny quickly recalled, “He had some gray around here, I think,” he said, pointing to his temple.
“You’re doing better, Danny. That’s the kind of information I’m looking for. Tall or short?”
“A little taller’n you, maybe. Not fat, not thin.”
“How much did he pay you to kill Dr. Brandt?” Frank asked mildly.
“I didn’t kill nobody! I swear!” He was genuinely frightened now. Most cops wouldn’t hesitate to solve a case by arresting the most convenient suspect, and Danny was certainly convenient at the moment. “I told you, I was just a kid. All he wanted me to do was take a note to this Dr. Brandt.”
“What did the note say?”
“I don’t know. I can’t read!”
This, Frank knew, was probably true. “What was Dr. Brandt supposed to do when he got the note?”
“I told you, I couldn’t read the note. I don’t got no idea.”
Frank shook his head in disapproval. “You’re trying my patience, Danny. You were supposed to take him someplace, weren’t you?”
“Who told you that?” Danny demanded, the fear in his voice just a little stronger than his feigned outrage.
“Never mind who told me. Where were you supposed to take Dr. Brandt?”
A shadow darkened the doorway, and Frank looked up to see another boy about Danny’s age peering in.
“Are you pinched?” he demanded of the boy on the floor.
“Yes, he is,” Frank replied, “and you will be, too, if you don’t get the hell out of here.”
“You come here alone, copper?” the boy asked incredulously… He was bigger than Danny, stocky beneath his ragged clothes. “You should know better.”
With the light behind him, Frank couldn’t make out his features, but he saw the glint of the boy’s teeth as he grinned, and almost too late he saw the flash of the knife.
He threw up his arm to block the blow, and the blade slashed through his coat sleeve. Danny was scrambling to his feet, and Frank shoved the boy with the knife, sending him sprawling out into the alley. The knife clattered on the cobblestones, but before Frank could turn to deal with Danny, the boy barreled into him, knocking him to his knees. Frank made a grab for him, but the bare flesh of Danny’s skinny arm wrenched from his grasp as he darted out of the hovel.
By the time Frank pushed himself to his feet, both boys were disappearing down the alley in the direction of the street. Cursing his carelessness, Frank checked his coat sleeve and was furious to see blood already staining the fabric. It wasn’t bad enough that the coat was ruined, but he’d probably need stitches. He pulled out his handkerchief and awkwardly tied it around his arm as he made his way quickly back to the street. The creatures who occupied the tenements around him could sniff out weakness like a pack of jackals. He needed to get to a safer part of town as quickly as possible.
His mother would howl like a banshee when she saw the damaged coat, and now he was staining the handkerchief, too. The worse part, however, was that he’d let Danny get away. At least the old drunk hadn’t been lying. The boy did know something about Tom Brandt’s death. Something more than that he’d been beaten and left to die alone in an alley one dark night three years ago. Someone had hired him to lure Dr. Brandt to his death, which meant his murder hadn’t been a simple robbery as the police had determined at the time.
Frank had known the minute he read the account of Brandt’s death in the police files that robbery hadn’t been the motive. Brandt’s black doctor’s bag hadn’t been taken, nor had his wallet or watch. Even if a thief had been frightened off before being able to gather his loot, the poor of the city wouldn’t have hesitated to relieve a dead man of his valuables. He wouldn’t be needing them anymore, would he? Yet no one had touched Brandt’s body until the beat cop found him the next morning.
No one on the force had cared to investigate further, however. Sarah Brandt hadn’t understood then that she needed to offer a “reward” for finding her husband’s killer, and apparently her wealthy family hadn’t either. Without such a motivation, the detective on the case had simply concluded Brandt had been killed by an unknown assailant and closed the case. Many people got away with murder every day in the city. The chances of finding who had killed the good doctor after three years were worse than slim.
But miraculously, Frank had located someone who knew what had happened that night. True, he’d foolishly let the boy get away, but that was just a temporary setback. The boy would surface again. Danny knew no other life, so he wasn’t going to be leaving town. And just as someone had betrayed the boy once already, someone would again.
Frank cursed and hurried his steps. His arm was beginning to ache. He needed to see a doctor, and he didn’t want to waste his time with any of the saw-bones in this neighborhood, assuming he could even find a sober one.
Sarah Brandt was causing him a lot of trouble. If he had any sense, he’d forget what he’d heard today. She’d never know what had happened with Danny, so she’d never be disappointed in him for giving up the search for her husband’s killer.
Then he thought about his son. Brian was getting his cast off in a few days, and he might be able to walk for the first time in his life. The best surgeon in the city had operated on his club foot – because the surgeon was a friend of Sarah Brandt’s.
No, Frank wouldn’t forget what he’d learned today. Danny and he would meet again soon, and this time, he’d find out exactly what he needed to know.