SARAH KNEW SHE HAD NO REASON TO FEEL APPREHENSIVE. It was the middle of the day. No one would know she was here. At least Lars Otto wouldn’t know, unless his wife chose to tell him. Since it seemed unlikely Agnes would do so, no harm would be done. And she did need to see Agnes and the baby, to make sure they were still doing well. It was her duty.
All that rationalization didn’t remove the butterflies from her stomach, though. The building was quiet as she made her way up the dark stairway. All the children were outside, playing in the street on this summer afternoon. She could hear the faint echoes of their cries and laughter, but only dimly. She’d been practicing what she would say all the way over here so she could adequately feign surprise at just happening to see Agnes on her way someplace else, but when she reached the landing, the Ottos’ door was closed tightly.
Sarah found this strange, since it was so hot today, but perhaps Agnes was out. As she’d planned, she went up the stairs to the third floor, where another of her patients lived. Mrs. Gertz was genuinely happy to see her. Her time was drawing near, and since this was her first baby, she had a lot of questions. Sarah answered them patiently, then allowed Mrs. Gertz to serve her some cookies. As she nibbled politely, she managed to turn the subject to where she wanted it to be.
“How are Agnes Otto and her baby doing?”
Mrs. Gertz frowned. She was a plump woman made bigger still by her pregnancy. Her yellow braids had been wound around her head so tightly, Sarah wondered that her features weren’t distorted. Everything about her was spotlessly clean and relentlessly tidy. “Ach, you should look in on her, Mrs. Brandt. She hardly comes out of her flat anymore. I hear the baby cry sometimes, but mostly I hear yelling.”
“Yelling? From whom?”
“From Mr. Otto. He is not happy with anything she does. The baby cries too much, the food is not to his liking, he thinks the floors are dirty. Things like that. I know she still misses her sister, too, but he will not even let her say the girl’s name. That part she told me. I would like to help her, but I do not know how.”
Sarah wasn’t sure she did either, but she was certainly going to try. “I was going to say hello to her just now, but her door was closed. Is she out, do you know?”
“Oh, she keeps her door closed all the time, even in the heat. We never see her anymore. She does not even let her children come down and play with the others.”
“They must be stifling in there,” Sarah said, horrified.
“Ja, I am sure they are. But she will not listen to reason. We have tried to talk to her, but it does not help. She is afraid.”
“Of her husband?”
Mrs. Gertz looked away, perhaps worried she had gone too far, but after a moment she said, “Ja. And she is right to be.”
That was all Sarah needed to hear. If Lars Otto was mistreating his wife, as Sarah had suspected, she would do whatever she could to put a stop to it. Mrs. Gertz didn’t even make a token protest when Sarah said she had to leave. She merely nodded.
Sarah hurried down the steps and stopped outside the Ottos’ door, listening for any sounds from within. She thought perhaps she heard weeping, but she couldn’t be sure. She knocked. The sound she thought was weeping ceased abruptly. Someone was inside, but no one answered her knock.
She knocked again, more loudly this time. Still no response.
This time she pounded, so there could be no mistake. “Mrs. Otto, it’s Mrs. Brandt. I know you’re in there, and if you don’t open the door, I’ll have to get a policeman.”
There, knowing how frightened Agnes was of the police, that should do the trick, although she had no idea what she would do if it didn’t. Malloy seemed hardly likely to come over here and force his way into this poor woman’s home, and she certainly didn’t know any other policemen who would do such a thing, either.
After a long silence, she heard a slight scuffling sound that might have been footsteps. Then the sound of a bolt being drawn, and the door opened a crack. “Go away, Mrs. Brandt,” a disembodied and very frightened voice said. “Lars will be angry if he knows you come here.”
“He won’t know unless you tell him. I just want to make sure you’re all right,” Sarah said. “Your neighbors are worried about you.”
“I am fine,” she insisted, although she had yet to show herself.
“What about the baby?” Sarah asked. “How is she? This heat can’t be good for her.”
“She is… ”The voice broke, and Sarah felt the hairs on her arms rise as every nerve in her body sparked to attention. “She will be all right,” Agnes insisted after a moment.
“If she’s sick, you should let me see her. I can help.” In the city, bringing children safely into the world was only the first of many battles that must be won in order to raise a child to maturity.
Sarah let her think this over, but when Agnes didn’t respond, she tried another tactic. “If you won’t let me in, I’ll have to got to the settlement house for the visiting nurse. She might take your baby away if she thinks you aren’t taking good care of her.” It was a stretch of the truth, but Sarah was desperate enough to try anything.
Just as she’d hoped, the door flew open, and Agnes cried, “You cannot take my baby away!”
Sarah would have reassured her, but what she saw shocked the breath from her body. Agnes’s fragile face was swollen and discolored. Both eyes were black, and her jaw was puffed out on the left side and mottled black-and-blue. The instant she saw Sarah’s horror, she tried to close the door again, frantic to hide herself, but Sarah threw up her arm and pushed her way inside.
“Agnes, what happened?” Sarah demanded, closing the door behind her now that she was safely inside. No use airing Agnes’s problems for the entire building to hear.
“Nothing, nothing,” Agnes insisted frantically, holding up her hands to shield her face backing away from Sarah as if afraid she might strike her, too. “I am very clumsy. I fall down the stairs and-”
“You didn’t get those bruises from falling down the stairs,” Sarah said. “Someone hit you. Was it your husband?”
“No, no one hits me!” she insisted even more frantically, then clutched at her side and nearly doubled over from the pain.
Sarah rushed over and helped her to one of the kitchen chairs. “Is it your ribs? Show me where it hurts,” she asked as she seated Agnes.
Agnes might have denied the pain if she’d been able to get her breath, but Sarah had no more patience with such denials. Gently moving Agnes’s hand away, she felt along her midriff until she located the source of the pain.
“I think you may have a cracked rib. I don’t think it’s broken, because if it was, you wouldn’t be able to move around the way you were. I can bind it for you so it won’t hurt so much, though.”
“No!” Agnes gasped. “He will know you came here.”
“You can tell him you bound it yourself, because it was hurting so much,” Sarah suggested.
But Agnes shook her head. “He will know!”
Sarah signed in frustration. “Where else are you hurt?”
But Agnes only shook her head again. She didn’t want Sarah’s help. She was too afraid of what it would cost her.
“Agnes, let me at least make sure you aren’t more seriously hurt. If you die, who will take care of your children?” Sarah tried.
Sarah would have thought the other woman couldn’t be more terrified, but she would have been mistaken. Every last vestige of color drained from Agnes’s face, leaving the bruises standing out in stark relief. “My children,” she whispered.
“You must think of them. Where are they now?” Sarah asked, almost afraid to find out.
Agnes pointed an unsteady finger at the bedroom door. Sarah hurried over and opened it. She found the two older children huddled on the bed, staring at her with wide, terrified eyes. The baby was lying in a cradle in the comer. Her eyes were open, but she wasn’t making a sound. She wore only a diaper, and her little body was covered with a rash. Sarah hoped it was only prickly heat. The room was like an oven, without a breath of air, but the children didn’t seem to be sweating. Most likely they were dehydrated, even the baby. How long had they been cooped up like this? Sarah didn’t even want to think about that.
The next hour passed in a blur as Sarah got the children to drink large amounts of water and bathed them to help them cool off and dusted them with cornstarch and examined Agnes to make sure she had no more serious injuries than the ones she already knew about.
When she was satisfied that everyone was physically as comfortable as possible, she turned her attention to the rest of it.
“Agnes, you can’t go on like this. You’re going to have to do something to protect yourself and your children.”
“I do,” Agnes insisted. “I work very hard. I try to have Lars’s supper on the table when he comes home, and I keep the children as quiet as I can, and I clean until my hands are raw. But I am not a good enough wife. Lars is so nervous. He must have peace and quiet in his home. I try, but I cannot do things the way he likes them. But I will try harder. I promise!”
“No, Agnes, I’m sure you already try as hard as you can. I’ve seen men like Lars before. No matter how hard you try to please him, you’ll never be able to. He’ll always find a reason to beat you. There’s nothing you can do to stop him.”
“Yes, there is!” she insisted. “I will be a better wife. That is what he says he wants. I will work harder and take better care of the children. Then he will be happy, and he will not have to hit me anymore.”
Sarah wanted to scream. She knew all the logical arguments, but rarely did they work on women like Agnes. Not only did their husbands injure their bodies, they also injured their minds, twisting them until they actually believed they deserved the beatings they received. This time, however, Sarah had an argument she’d never been able to use before.
“Agnes, do you want to end up like Gerda?”
Her eyes grew wide with renewed terror. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, do you want to end up beaten to death?”
Agnes reached out and grabbed Sarah’s arm, squeezing with surprising strength for one so frail. “What do you know? Tell me the truth? Do you know who killed my Gerda?”
Sarah couldn’t identify the emotions burning in Agnes’s bloodshot eyes, but they frightened her. “No, we haven’t found her killer yet,” she admitted reluctantly.
“But you told me… You promised! You said you would soon know!” Agnes reminded her brokenly.
Sarah swallowed down the lump that rose in her throat. “You know that other girls were killed the same way as Gerda, don’t you?” Agnes nodded. “Well, we found out who murdered them, but… but he didn’t kill Gerda. He couldn’t have. He was somewhere else that night. So we still don’t know who killed Gerda.”
Sarah watched Agnes’s eyes fill with tears that spilled over and ran down her battered cheeks, but still she didn’t release Sarah’s arm or her gaze. She wanted to tell Sarah something. Sarah was sure of it, although she couldn’t imagine what it might be. So she waited, willing Agnes to unburden herself as she prayed for the wisdom to know how to reach her.
After what seemed an eternity, Agnes said, “He did not hurt her.”
“I know,” Sarah assured her. “I told you, that man wasn’t the one who hurt Gerda.”
Agnes shook her head. “No, not that. Lars. Lars did not hurt Gerda.”
Once again every nerve in Sarah’s body leaped to attention, but she willed herself to calmness. “What do you mean?”
“Gerda was a wicked girl,” Agnes said, almost as if she were trying to convince herself. “She stayed out late and went with strange men. She was always flaunting herself in front of Lars. She made him so angry, but he did not hurt her!”
“No, of course, he didn’t,” Sarah said, her mind racing with possibilities. “Why would anyone think he did?”
She swallowed, as if trying to get some moisture in her mouth. “He… he was so angry because she did not come home that night. He went out to look for her. We know where she goes because she tells us. He came home very late. He was very nervous. He said he did not find her, but… but his hands are… are… like my face.”
“Bruised?” Sarah guessed.
“Yes, bruised,” Agnes confirmed. “And cut. He is bleeding. I try to take care of him, but he will not let me. He said some men tried to rob him, and he had to fight them. That is how he got hurt.”
Sarah remembered noticing Lars’s hands when she saw him at Gerda’s funeral. She had thought he’d injured himself at work.
“But you didn’t believe him?” Sarah asked.
Agnes’s eyes widened with renewed terror. “Yes, I believe him! He would not hurt Gerda. He is not that kind of man.”
Sarah was looking at living proof that Lars Otto was exactly that kind of man, but she didn’t say so. “But you said Gerda made him very angry,” she reminded her gently.
“He told her she was disgracing us. He told her she would come to no good, but still she goes out every night. She would not listen to anyone. I knew something bad would happen to her, but she would not listen!”
“Agnes, is it possible that Lars did find her that night and-”
“No! He would not hurt her! But if the police know he was out that night, they might think he did! The police, sometimes they punish the wrong man. I know this is true. If a man is poor, they will put him in the jail even if he is not guilty. You must tell them Lars did not do it. Please, Mrs. Brandt, you must tell them! If they take Lars away to the jail, what will become of us? We will starve!”
Sarah’s heart was beating so loudly, she wondered Agnes couldn’t hear it. Could Lars Otto have been the killer all along? That would explain so much, such as why he had ordered Sarah not to see his wife anymore and why he’d forbidden Agnes to mourn her sister’s death. Of course, she could be wrong again. Malloy would most certainly remind her that she had no proof. Perhaps Otto really had gotten his bruised knuckles from a street fight, as he’d said. Perhaps he was simply ashamed of his sister-in-law and didn’t want to hear her name mentioned again.
Or perhaps he had been so ashamed that he had sought her out on a dark street comer and beaten the life out of her before she could bring even more disgrace to his family. Fortunately, it wasn’t Sarah’s job to find out. Malloy could do that. And if he had to use force to get Otto to tell the truth, for once Sarah wouldn’t criticize his methods. Looking at Agnes’s battered face, she couldn’t think of a more fitting punishment for Otto, killer or not.
Meanwhile, however, Sarah had more pressing issues to be worried about. “Agnes, your husband is probably worried about the same things you are. He’s probably afraid the police will blame him for Gerda’s death. That’s probably why he has been so nervous lately.”
“Yes,” Agnes agreed eagerly. “I am sure that is why. He is very frightened.”
Sarah sent up a silent prayer for wisdom. “That is also probably why he’s been so… so violent with you. He might be afraid you’ll tell someone he was out that night.”
“I would never do such a thing!” she cried, then covered her mouth in horror, realizing she had just done so.
“Even if he only suspects, he’ll be very angry,” Sarah suggested reasonably. “Agnes, I think your life is in danger.”
She was horrified. “Oh, no, Lars would never hurt me!” she insisted.
Sarah stared at her in astonishment. “Agnes, he’s already hurt you terribly!”
“He did not mean it! I just made him so angry. He is very sorry. He will not hit me again. He promised!”
“I’m sure he means that promise, too, but I’m also sure he’s made the promise before. Sooner or later you’ll make him angry again, and he’ll forget it. One night, he might start beating you and not be able to stop himself. You’ll be dead, and who will take care of your children? You must get away from him before it’s too late.”
Once again, terror twisted her face. “I have no place to go! No one will take a woman with three children, and I cannot work. How will I live? My children will starve!”
“I can take you to the settlement house.”
“They will take away my children!” she wailed, and Sarah silently cursed herself for using that threat.
“No, they won’t. They’ll help you there. They’ll give you a place to live and food, and your children won’t have to hide anymore, and neither will you.”
“Lars will find us! He will be so angry!”
“We won’t tell him where you are.” Sarah didn’t add that Lars might well be in jail and unable to find anyone. “You’ll be safe, I promise you. Agnes, if you stay here, you might die. If you don’t care about yourself, think of your children! They need their mother.”
But Sarah could see she was fighting a losing battle. How many times had she made this argument to women like Agnes? Even in the few cases when she’d succeed in getting a woman to seek safe shelter, she had eventually returned to her husband. Life for a woman alone, especially if she had children, was simply too terrifying and uncertain. The settlement house would keep such women only for a short while, and then they would have to make their own way. The choice between destitution and an occasional beating-especially when the woman probably believed her husband had every right to beat her if she didn’t please him-was no choice at all.
“Mrs. Brandt, you should go,” Agnes said, her fear plain. “Lars does not want you here.”
“There’s no reason for him to know I was,” Sarah reminded her. “I certainly won’t tell anyone. Just please, promise me you’ll take the children outside for some fresh air every day and make sure they get plenty of water to drink. Otherwise, the heat can make them sick.”
Agnes nodded absently, glancing at the door to her flat. She was probably worried that her husband might be coming soon. If he found Sarah there… But he wouldn’t. She was leaving. She gathered her things. Before she let herself out, however, she said, “If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to send for me, Agnes. And if you’re ever afraid, you can come to me. I’ll make sure you’re safe.”
Agnes wouldn’t even look at her.
As Sarah made her way down the stairs to the front door of the building, she knew her only hope was to find Malloy and send him after Lars Otto. If he really was the one who’d killed Gerda, then Agnes and her children would be safe. Safe from Lars Otto, that is. Sarah would have to figure out how to keep them safe after that as well.
MERCIFULLY. MRS. ELSWORTH was nowhere in sight when Sarah finally made her way home that evening. Unutterably weary after leaving Agnes’s flat, she’d had to walk over to Fifth Avenue to find a cab. Then she’d had to go to police headquarters on Mulberry Street to leave word for Malloy, and since no cab would wait for her in that neighborhood, she’d had another long walk ahead of her. Now, at last, she was home.
Too tired to cook, Sarah made herself a sandwich with some cheese and drank what was left of the elderberry wine. She’d earned the indulgence. Only when she felt the warmth of the alcohol seeping into her blood did she begin to question her actions that day.
What right did she have to try to convince Agnes to leave her home? Many would condemn her actions. She had, after all, tried to break up a marriage. Not many people would consider the fact that Lars had beaten his wife savagely as grounds for such a desertion. Many men beat their wives, and they considered it their right. The law, in most cases, supported them, too. A man might go to jail for beating up a total stranger, but if he did the same thing to his wife, the law would turn a blind eye, even if she died from her injuries. Just one more injustice to feel outrage about in an unjust world. Sarah would go mad if she allowed herself to feel outrage for all of them, so she had to focus on righting the ones she could. If she was able to put Lars Otto in jail for murder, she would have won another battle.
She wished Malloy were here. She’d just discovered that this was the answer to his question about how she coped with losing patients: she coped by saving the ones she could.
Unutterably weary, she decided to go to bed, even though it wasn’t very late. She’d taken down her hair and begun to brush it when she heard someone pounding on the front door. It was the unmistakable sound of a panicked man whose wife had just gone into labor. Suddenly her weariness vanished. She always had the energy to bring a new life into the world.
She was almost to the front door when she realized that the pounding wasn’t quite right. Usually, they stopped after a while to give her a chance to answer the door, but this pounding hadn’t stopped. In fact, it seemed to be getting even more frantic. Her instincts had just warned her not to open the door when it burst open on its own, the wood splintering around the lock as Lars Otto stumbled in.
“You!” he cried, pointing at her. “You tried to take my family away!”
“You’re crazy!” she tried. “Get out of my house this instant before I call the police!” Sarah only wished she didn’t sound quite so frightened. He’d startled her, bursting in that way, and now he glared at her with utter contempt.
“I know what you tried to do! You tried to make Agnes run away with my children! You were going to hide them from me!”
“I was worried about Agnes’s safety,” she tried. “You hurt her very badly.”
“She will not listen!” he roared. “She makes me hit her. I cannot help myself.”
“You can help yourself now,” Sarah said, fighting to keep her voice steady. “Get out of here before the police come and arrest you.”
His face contorted with hatred. “Why would the police arrest me?”
Sarah wanted to accuse him of murder but decided that would be foolish. “For breaking into my house.”
“When they find out what you have done, they will praise me! A man must protect his home.”
“And you protect yours by beating your wife?” Sarah asked before she could stop herself.
“What happens in my home is none of your business, you meddling bitch!”
Sarah had been mentally plotting her escape, and when he lunged for her, she bolted, heading for the kitchen and the back door. Once outside, he wouldn’t dare harm her, and if he tried, neighbors would come running.
She dodged around the kitchen table, but her foot caught on the leg of a chair, throwing her off balance. She grabbed the edge of the sink and righted herself, but before she could take another step, Otto grabbed her by the hair that was hanging loose down her back.
Sarah screamed with both terror and pain as he yanked savagely on the fall of her hair, dragging her backward to the ground. She reached up, instinctively trying to grab his hands, but he wrapped her long hair around his fist and dragged her across the floor. She was screaming in pain now, fighting and clawing and trying to get at him, but the worst damage she could do was a few scratches to his hands. He hardly seemed to feel them.
“You cannot steal a man’s family away! I will get the law after you!” he was saying.
“The law is on their way right now!” Sarah cried. “I sent for Detective Sergeant Malloy! He knows what you did!”
Twisting in a vain attempt to free herself, Sarah caught sight of the poker she kept beside her kitchen stove. If she could reach it…
But Otto jerked her head back and put his face right against hers so that she could feel the spittle when he shouted, “What did I do, you whore? Tell me what I did!”
“You killed Gerda!” she shouted right back.
She shocked him so much that he reared back, loosening his hold on her just enough that she could lunge for the poker. Her fingers closed around the cool metal just as he dragged her back again, wrenching a scream from her throat.
But she had the poker now and the element of surprise. She swung it, aiming for his knee, the most vulnerable part of the leg. The angle was poor, but she felt the satisfying thump of solid metal hitting solid flesh and heard his answering grunt of pain.
He swore as she lunged for freedom, but she hadn’t hurt him badly enough or else his fingers were too tightly woven into her hair, because he pulled her back with a howl of triumph. She swung the poker again, unable to aim, just hoping for a good, solid hit, but this time he grabbed the end of it with his free hand.
Although she clung with both hands, he was stronger than she, in spite of his lanky frame, and he wrenched it from her fingers and flung it away. Lars Otto didn’t need a weapon to hurt a mere woman.
When she looked up, she saw his eyes blazing with a hatred she could only imagine. He drew back his fist, and Sarah covered her head with both arms.
“If you hurt me, they’ll know who did it! I left word at the police station that you’re Gerda’s killer!”
“You’re lying!” he cried, but at least he didn’t hit her.
“Agnes told me you killed Gerda! She said you came back that night with your hands all bruised and bloody. She said you were nervous, and you’ve been angry ever since Gerda died.”
“She was a whore! I saw her that night. She was in an alley with a man. She lifted her skirts for him like it was nothing! She had no shame!”
“And she wouldn’t lift her skirts for you, would she?” Sarah guessed. “Is that why you killed her? Because she wouldn’t give you what she gave others so freely?”
“You do not know what it was like. You do not know how she fomented me. Showing herself like a harlot, telling me the things she did with other men! She wanted me to lust after her. She was not happy unless every man lusted after her.”
“And so you started hitting her, just the way you hit your wife, but you couldn’t stop yourself, could you?” Sarah said. “You kept hitting her and hitting her until she was dead.”
“She deserved to die!”
“And what about Agnes? Does she deserve to die, too?” Sarah tried, trying to break through his blood lust. “Are you going to kill her next?”
Sarah watched in horror as his expression changed from fury to evil satisfaction. “No,” he said, suddenly very calm. “I am going to kill you next.”
Sarah screamed as loudly as she could as she watched his doubled fist draw back to strike her, and she lashed out herself, aiming a punch at the vulnerable area between his legs.
He howled with pain and released his grip on her hair enough that she was able to scramble to her knees. Still his fingers tangled in her hair too tightly for complete escape, but ignoring the tearing in her scalp, she made a lunge for the poker, now lying in the comer where he had flung it.
This time she caught it with both hands and swung wildly, hoping for any kind of contact that would allow her a precious second to escape. But once again, he caught the other end of the poker, and for what seemed an etemity, they struggled for it, Sarah grasping the pointed end with both hands while he grasped the handle with one and tried to tear out her hair with the other.
Her eyes streaming with tears from the pain, Sarah hung on for dear life, until, from out of nowhere, his boot struck her in the ribs. The pain knocked the breath from her body, and he easily wrested the poker from her now nerveless hands.
The expression on his face was chilling, eyes gleaming with pleasure, teeth bared in a feral grin. Holding her fast by the hair of her head, he raised the poker over his head while she struggled helplessly, fighting for the breath for one last scream. In the second before the poker came slamming down into her head, her last thought was that at least Malloy would know who’d killed her, and she threw up her hands in a futile effort to ward off the blow.
The sound was like nothing she could have imagined, a dull thud and oddly far away. She waited for the searing pain and instead felt nothing at all. Then something very large and very heavy came toppling over on top of her.
“Mrs. Brandt, Mrs. Brandt, are you all right?”
Sarah needed a second to realize that the large, heavy weight lying on top of her was Lars Otto’s now unconscious body, and the voice she was hearing was… no, it couldn’t be!
“Mrs. Brandt, did he hurt you? Can you help me get him off of you? He’s awfully heavy!”
“Mrs. Elsworth?” Sarah said, still not quite certain she wasn’t mistaken.
Suddenly her strength returned, and she was able to push herself free of Otto’s weight. His hand was still tangled in her hair, but Mrs. Elsworth’s nimble fingers quickly freed her, leaving an alarming number of broken strands still locked in his motionless fist.
Only when she was free could Sarah finally see that Lars Otto did, indeed, lie unconscious on her kitchen floor.
“How on earth…?” she started to ask, and then she saw that Mrs. Elsworth still clutched her cast-iron skillet in her other hand. “Did you hit him with that?”
“He was going to hit you with the poker!” Mrs. Elsworth replied defensively. “What else could I do?”
Sarah looked at the back of Otto’s head. His skull didn’t seem to be misshapen, so perhaps he was only unconscious and not even very seriously injured. Gingerly, as if touching a live snake, she placed her fingertips on the inside of his wrist and found a pulse.
“We’d better get him tied up before he wakes up,” Sarah said. “He won’t be in a very good mood when he does, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, my,” Mrs. Elsworth said. “Perhaps I should hit him again.”
Sarah felt an hysterical urge to laugh. “I’d much rather let the police take care of him. I’m sure they’ll be more thorough. Now, let me see, I think I have some clothes rope around here somewhere.”
MOTHER, REALLY. I think you should go home. All this excitement can’t be good for you,” Nelson Elsworth said for what Sarah guessed was the tenth time in as many minutes.
“Nonsense,” Mrs. Elsworth said to her son, also for the tenth time. “I’ve never felt better in my life. Besides, I have to tell Detective Sergeant Malloy what happened, don’t I?”
“He can come to our house to speak with you,” Nelson insisted. Nelson Elsworth was a tall, slender man approaching forty who wore wire-rimmed glasses and was trying to disguise the way his hair was thinning on top by growing the hair on the sides longer and combing it over the bald spot. He’d arrived home from his job at the bank a short while ago to find his neighbors gathered in the street in front of Sarah’s house and his mother inside enjoying the attentions of a red-faced police officer who didn’t quite know what to make of the entire situation.
“Officer O’Brien,” Nelson said to the policeman, “Can’t you tell my mother it’s all right if she goes to her own home? We only live next door.”
O’Brien shrugged. “I’d stay around if I was her. Malloy can be awful testy if he’s irritated, and it irritates him to have to go chasing down witnesses.” He’d used a call box to notify police headquarters of the incident, and they were trying to track down Frank Malloy to handle the investigation.
“I’m not a witness, young man!” Mrs. Elsworth reminded him indignantly. “I am the one who subdued this miscreant!”
“Yes, ma‘am,” O’Brien said, coughing to hide a chuckle.
Sarah was coughing, too. She knew she must be in shock. Why else would she be fighting the urge to laugh when a semiconscious killer was lying trussed like a Christmas turkey in her kitchen?
“You know,” Mrs. Elsworth was saying, “it’s the oddest thing. I didn’t see a single omen today, either. You’d think that with something this important, I would’ve seen something, wouldn’t you? But not a hint! However was I supposed to be prepared?”
Sarah could think of no reasonable answer to that. Luckily, Malloy chose that moment to arrive, so she didn’t have to. He, too, was red-faced, probably from rushing in this heat. Sarah and Mrs. Elsworth were sitting in chairs in Sarah’s front office, while O’Brien, the beat cop, and Nelson Elsworth stood around helplessly.
Frank took in the scene with one swift glance. His main concern was making sure that Sarah Brandt was all right, and she appeared to be, although her hair was loose and tangled, something he’d never expected to see. He found the sight more than a little disturbing.
Before he could ask her what had happened, she said, “Lars Otto killed Gerda. He’d gone out looking for her that night, and he saw her go into an alley with a man. That made him furious, so he apparently accosted her afterward and started beating her. He may not have intended to kill her, but he did. His wife saw that his hands were all bruised when he came home that night, but he told her some men had tried to rob him, and he’d fought with them. She wanted to believe him, so she did. Oh!” she added as a new and apparently very disturbing thought occurred to her. “He also beat his wife. We should send someone to make sure she and the children are all right. I went to see Agnes Otto this afternoon, and she told me what happened. He may have beaten her again, too!”
Malloy glanced at O‘Brien, who nodded his understanding. “What’s the address, ma’am?” he asked Sarah.
Sarah gave it to him, and he went out to use the call box again.
Frank walked over to the kitchen doorway and looked down at where Lars Otto lay, moaning softly. Blood was oozing from the back of his scalp, and he was tied hand and foot with what appeared to be about a mile of clothes rope. “Somebody want to tell me what happened here tonight?”
“I heard Mrs. Brandt screaming,” Mrs. Elsworth said rather proudly. Plainly, she couldn’t wait to tell him her story. “So I ran over to see what was the matter. Luckily,” she added with a twinkle, “I thought to take my cast-iron skillet with me, just in case.”
Frank glanced at where the skillet now sat on the kitchen table. “You hit him with that?” he asked incredulously.
“My mother isn’t a very strong woman,” Nelson Elsworth said, rushing to his mother’s defense. “I’m sure no permanent damage has been done to this gentleman.”
“I can’t say I’d mind if there was, if what Mrs. Brandt here says about him is true,” Frank allowed. “I’m just amazed that he held still for you to do it, Mrs. Elsworth.”
“Oh, he was rather busy trying to kill Mrs. Brandt with that poker at the time,” Mrs. Elsworth informed him cheerfully. “I don’t think he even knew I was there.”
Frank felt the impact of her words like a blow to his gut. He struggled to get his breath, but before he could, Sarah jumped in with her version.
“He broke in,” she told him somewhat defensively, pointing toward the smashed door lock. “He was quite angry that I’d tried to convince his wife to leave him for her own safety. I think he also must have realized that she’d told me enough to make me realize he’d killed Gerda. He must have thought if he killed me, no one would ever find out what he’d done.”
Somehow Frank managed to find enough breath to speak in a fairly normal voice. “He told you he killed the Reinhard girl?”
She nodded.
Frank looked down at Otto again and noticed something he’d missed the first time. He bent and retrieved a hank of long, golden hair that clung to the man’s trousers. It had been pulled out by the roots. Impotent rage twisted in his stomach at the thought of how Sarah’s hair had come to be clinging to Otto’s trousers.
“Mrs. Brandt put, up quite a struggle,” Mrs. Elsworth informed him. “He was dragging her around by her hair and trying to hit her with the poker when I came in.”
Sarah reached up and rubbed the back of her head. Frank swallowed hard on the gorge that rose in his throat. At the thought of Otto putting his hands on Sarah, he wanted to do murder himself, and it took every ounce of willpower he possessed not to kick the life out of the man lying bound on the floor. At least he would have the satisfaction of watching him pay the ultimate price for his crimes in New York’s new electric chair.
“Did he…” Frank had to clear his throat and start again. “Did he hurt you in any other way?”
She rubbed her side. “He kicked me, but I don’t think it’s more than a bad bruise.”
Frank was going to take great pleasure in seeing Otto fry. “We’ll get a doctor here to look you over.”
“Nelson,” Mrs. Elsworth said. “go fetch Dr. Pomeroy, will you? We want to make sure Mrs. Brandt is all right.”
“I can’t leave you alone with that killer!” Nelson protested.
But just then they heard the clatter of wagon wheels, and a Black Maria, one of the police wagons, pulled up outside. A moment later, two uniformed officers came in, and Frank directed them to collect Lars Otto and carry him off to the Tombs.
As he stood on the sidewalk, watching the wagon pull away, Frank suddenly realized he still held the lock of Sarah’s hair. He could have dropped it, but he stuffed it discreetly into his pocket before going back inside to send Nelson Elsworth after that damned doctor.