14
FRANK SUPPOSED HE WAS GOING TO BE ANGRY every minute for the rest of his natural life. He didn’t see any other possibility as long as he continued his acquaintance with Sarah Brandt. The worst part was that the thing he was angriest about was something he didn’t have any right to even feel. That thing was, of course, jealousy of Richard Dennis.
Why should he be surprised to find Dennis at her house on a Sunday afternoon? He was exactly the kind of man she deserved – a man with money and social position and good manners. Frank supposed he should be grateful for the good manners. In Dennis’s place, Frank would’ve thrown a scruffy police detective out into the street for speaking to Sarah the way Frank had spoken to her today. Not that she didn’t deserve it, of course, but still, he’d been pretty rude.
On the other hand, Frank would have preferred being beaten senseless to hearing Sarah accept Dennis’s dinner invitation. The man might be well bred, but he knew how to inflict exquisite pain just the same. Frank would carry the bitter memory of her “delighted” acceptance for a long time to come. His mother would tell him he’d gotten no more than he deserved for trying to get above himself. Even worse, she’d be right.
Fortunately, Frank had the trip from Bank Street down to Mulberry Bend to get himself back under control again. He even managed to give some thought as to how he would approach Mrs. Donato. Remembering how dangerous the Italians could be with their knives – and their hat pins – Frank picked up a couple patrolmen at Headquarters to accompany him. He left one downstairs at the front door, and the other he instructed to wait in the hallway outside their flat.
When they had reached the top of the stairs, however, Frank saw that he needn’t have worried. The door stood open, and Frank could see Mrs. Donato sitting alone at her kitchen table. The remains of the family’s Sunday dinner still sat, untouched, and she was simply staring at nothing, oblivious even to her visitor.
“Mrs. Donato?” Frank said, startling her.
She looked up, not recognizing him at first. “We pay rent,” she said, hardly able to work up any indignation.
“I’m Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy from the police,” he said. Her eyes widened in alarm, but he hurried on, “I want to ask you some more questions about your daughter.”
She seemed to shrink into herself at the mention of Emilia. “I know nothing. No can help you.”
Frank went into the flat and pulled out a chair. He turned it and straddled it, resting his arms on the back and leaning in close to Mrs. Donato. He could see her eyes were bloodshot, as if she hadn’t been sleeping, and her face was gray. She had been suffering the torment of the damned, but Frank was going to give her an opportunity to bare her blackened soul.
“You didn’t like your daughter much, did you, Mrs. Donato?” he began.
She stiffened. True or not, such a thing would be difficult to admit. “She bad, all a time bad. No listen. No good.”
“Maybe she just wanted her mother to love her,” he suggested.
The woman drew back, eyeing him warily. He was dangerous. She could see that now. “She be good, I love then,” she tried.
“She could never be good enough to make you forget the sailors, though, could she?” he prodded.
Even the gray drained out of her face, leaving her white. “How you know?” she demanded in an agonized whisper.
“You hated Emilia because of the sailors, because of what they did to you,” he said ruthlessly. “You thought one of them was her father, because she had yellow hair.”
She was staring at him as if he were a poisonous snake ready to strike. She couldn’t stop him, so she simply braced herself for the pain.
“Poor Emilia, she never did anything wrong,” Frank lamented. “She didn’t know why you hated her, but you hated her from the minute she was born, didn’t you?” He didn’t wait for an answer. The woman was too terrified to speak. “Now that’s the sad part. That’s
“Antonio know nothing!” she insisted.
“He knows Emilia isn’t your baby,” Frank said.
Her face wrinkled in confusion. “Emilia my baby.”
Frank shook his head sadly. “Your baby died.”
She shook her head frantically. She knew this couldn’t be true.
“Your baby died,” Frank repeated relentlessly. “But the midwife had another baby, a baby nobody wanted. She was going to take her to an orphanage, but Antonio took it instead.”
She was shaking her head harder now. She didn’t want it to be true.
“Antonio didn’t want you to be sad because your baby died. He didn’t know about the sailors. He didn’t know you
“You know it’s the truth. That’s what Antonio would do, isn’t it? He’d do anything to make you happy, even take a bastard child nobody wanted. Did he ever ask you why Emilia had yellow hair? Did he ever wonder? Did he ever suspect you had betrayed him?”
She was moaning and still shaking her head, but he could see the horror in her eyes. She knew it was true, and now she had to face what she had done to that poor child.
“You hated her for no reason. She was innocent, and all she wanted was her mother’s love, but you hated her instead. You drove her out, and when she tried to come back, you killed her!”
She threw her arms over her head and screamed, slumping to the floor.
Behind him, Frank heard doors opening and feet running. He turned to see several women rushing to rescue their neighbor.
“Police,” he announced loudly, stopping them instantly. They eyed him cautiously, torn between fear of him and a desire to help their friend.
Mrs. Donato was writhing on the floor, babbling in Italian.
“What’s she saying?” he demanded, wondering if any of them spoke English.
They hesitated, afraid of him but afraid not to answer him, too.
“Something about Emilia,” the youngest of them finally said. Then she looked at Frank in amazement. “She says she killed Emilia!”
Sarah couldn’t believe she was back at The Tombs again so soon. Less than three weeks ago, she’d visited another woman here. Another woman who had confessed to murder. She still wasn’t sure why she’d come today. When she received Malloy’s message this morning that Mrs. Donato had confessed yesterday, she should have felt relieved. Emilia’s murder was solved, and justice would be done. If Malloy was satisfied, she should be, too.
Except she wasn’t. For some reason, she had to see the woman herself, just to make sure. Maybe she simply couldn’t accept the idea of a woman killing her child. Even if Emilia wasn’t really her flesh and blood, Mrs. Donato hadn’t known it then. No matter how painful their relationship had been, murder was a drastic solution. Sarah supposed she needed to know exactly what had happened that morning to compel the woman to take her daughter’s life.
Or maybe she was simply nosy. Too nosy for her own good, Malloy would have said.
The City Jail had been designed to look like an Egyptian tomb, hence its nickname. The interior was kept immaculate, although the stench from the sewers permeated the building no matter how clean it was. The women’s section was just as she remembered. The female prisoners were free to leave their cells during the day, and they sat around the central courtyard area, visiting and doing needlework or knitting. A few enjoyed visits from family or friends, and others just sat and stared, perhaps contemplating their fates.
Sarah told the matron she was looking for Mrs. Donato, and the woman frowned.
“There’s a priest with her right now,” she said.
