Murder On Mulberry Bend

His lips tightened. “I told you, you didn’t have to come. I didn’t really expect you’d come at all.”

She suspected that wasn’t true, but she said, “Then you must be mad because I did come.”

He sighed. “I’m not mad about anything.”

She wanted to ask if he was jealous, but she decided that would be a waste of time. He’d deny it, and she’d look silly. She decided on another tactic. “Then are you going to explain why you were so rude to me?”

He gave her one of the looks he reserved for uncooperative criminals. “I wasn’t being rude, Mrs. Brandt. I was just stating a fact.”

His look didn’t bother her one bit. “Then I won’t expect an apology,” she retorted pleasantly.

She thought he might be grinding his teeth. “Do you want me to go with you to the morgue or not?” he asked finally.

She wasn’t going to fall into that trap. “You’ll need to know if I recognize the dead woman, so you might as well go with me,” she said, trumping him. “I’ll need to change my clothes first. I won’t be long.”

Sarah took her time changing and redoing her hair. Perversely, she wanted to look her best for this awful task. She distracted herself from thinking about what lay ahead by thinking about the way Malloy had embraced her when he came into the house. The act in itself was shocking. Even more shocking was the fact that he hadn’t apologized for taking such a liberty. She wasn’t sure what that meant, but she wasn’t going to ask him about it. The mood he was in, she couldn’t imagine what he’d have to say on the matter, and she thought perhaps they were both better off pretending it hadn’t happened.

Until she was ready to mention it again, of course.

One thing was certain, however: he’d been very happy to find her alive and well, happier than he felt he had a right to be.

The question was, did Sarah think he had a right to be? She remembered how he’d kissed her that night last week when he’d thought she wouldn’t remember. She remembered how she’d felt in his arms a short while ago. She remembered how her parents had warned her about Malloy. And she remembered how Malloy had warned her about Malloy. Too many things to remember, she decided as she slid her foot-long hat pin carefully into her new hat. The sturdy pin would hold it in place through the force of a hurricane.

Sarah thought she looked very attractive in the stylish suit her mother had insisted she couldn’t possibly wear again because it was a year old. Malloy didn’t look impressed, however. His eyes narrowed, and she realized he was staring at her hat.

“Don’t tell me you think this hat is ugly, too,” she challenged.

“I remember now. You were wearing this one yesterday.”

Which meant the dead woman had been wearing the old one. Sarah didn’t want to think about that. “Let’s go,” she said.

They walked over to Sixth Avenue in silence, and Malloy hailed a Hansom cab to take them to the morgue.

Malloy’s bulk made for close quarters in the cab. Sarah should have felt awkward, but the enforced intimacy came naturally to her now. In the months she’d known Malloy, they’d been through a lot together. A few recent, awkward moments couldn’t make him an unfamiliar or uncomfortable presence.

“How is Brian doing?” she asked to break the silence. Traffic was moving slowly, as usual, so they’d have a lot of time to fill before they reached their destination.

He carefully didn’t look at her. “He’s driving my mother crazy. All he wants to do is walk on his new foot. He even tries to get out every time somebody opens the door to the flat.”

“It’s cruel to keep him inside,” she pointed out.

“He doesn’t have shoes yet,” Malloy reminded her. “Ma won’t let him out without shoes.”

“What did she say when she saw he could walk?”

Malloy did look at her then. “She crossed herself and said a Hail Mary.”

Sarah could easily imagine Mrs. Malloy doing just that. She wouldn’t dare express joy, for fear of attracting bad fortune to her loved ones.

When he offered nothing else, she let a few minutes pass before she said, “What do you know about the Prodigal Son Mission?”

“I know they don’t allow any prodigal sons in.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s for prodigal daughters only. I thought you said you visited them. You didn’t see any boys around, did you?”

“There were boys playing in the yard,” she said.

“The old woman lets them in the yard, but no further.”

“But that’s good,” Sarah argued. “The girls she takes in probably need to be protected from men.”

“Then she should call the mission something else,” Malloy argued back.

He still hadn’t answered her question. “Do you know Mrs. Wells, the lady who runs it?”

“Not very well. Everybody knew her husband. He preached on street comers for years.”

“What was he like?”

“A fanatic, like all of them.”

“Like all of who?” she challenged. “Protestants?”

He gave her another of his looks. “Evangelists,” he corrected her. “At least the kind who think they’re called to save the poor.”

“Don’t you think that’s a worthy calling?”

“Depends on what you’re saving them from.”

“I imagine they’re trying to save them from hell,” she said.

“There are lots of kinds of hell,” he reminded her. “And you can find all of them on the Lower East Side.”

“Mrs. Wells is saving girls from that, too,” Sarah pointed out. “Emilia, the girl I was telling you about, was a prostitute when Mrs. Wells took her in.”

“You didn’t ask me what I thought of Mrs. Wells. You asked me what I thought of her husband.”

That was true. “And you haven’t really told me.”

Malloy gave her a put-upon look. “He was enthusiastic but… weak,” he said, finally settling on a word.

“Weak in what way?” Sarah thought he might mean physically, since she knew Mr. Wells had died young.

“I’m not sure weak is the right word, but he just never accomplished anything important. He preached for years, and he still never had a congregation or many followers. He tried to help people, but he never had much success.”

“How did he get the mission?”

“Some rich woman gave him the money, or at least that’s what I heard. He bought the house, and then he got sick and died.”

“And his wife took over his ministry,” Sarah said. “She seems to have been stronger than he was.”

“She’s more successful, at least.”

“But you don’t seem to think much of her, either.”

“She doesn’t have any use for Papists, Mrs. Brandt.”

Sarah recalled that Mrs. Wells had been pleased that Emilia had renounced her Catholic faith. “Does she force people to convert?”

“I’m not sure you’d call it forcing. She just doesn’t help anyone who doesn’t.”

“Oh,” was all Sarah could think to say. She tried to imagine turning away someone in need because she didn’t agree with the way they worshipped God. Mrs. Wells seemed too kind to do something like that, but she was deeply religious and convinced her faith was the only correct one.

As if tired of the subject, Malloy asked if she’d seen Webster Prescott, the newspaper reporter who had been injured during their last investigation. Sarah informed him of Prescott’s improving condition, and they discussed the young man’s situation for the rest of the trip.

When the cab reached the morgue, Sarah began to regret her decision to come. The building seemed to loom over her, casting a shadow across the sun of this pleasant day. Malloy paid the cab driver, then offered her a hand down. A small part of her wanted to tell him she’d changed her mind, but pride controlled the larger part of her. She took his hand and stepped out of the cab.

His fingers were strong, but he released her as soon as she was safely on the pavement and stepped back, as if anxious to keep a safe distance between them now that they were out of the confines of the cab.