Murder on Washington Square

other boys his age would have. Of course, other boys his age would have run, not crawled, to greet their fathers, but soon that should change as well.

“How’s he doing?” he asked his mother as he carried Brian over to the sofa and sat down, setting the boy on his lap. He inspected the cast, which was growing dirtier every day.

“He don’t cry so much or try to get it off,” she reported, disapproval thick in her voice just the same. “I don’t think it hurts him much anymore. Or maybe he’s just used to it.”

“How’ll you keep up when Brian starts running around the place?” Frank asked, only half in jest. “It won’t be long now.”

She crossed herself, as if to ward off a curse. “It ain’t good to wish for too much,” she reminded him. “You’ll just be disappointed.”

Brian was showing Frank the cast, trying with gestures to convince him to take it off. “In good time, son,” he said, even though Brian couldn’t hear him. “Then you’ll be able to walk.”

His mother made a rude noise. “I’ll get your supper.”

“Are you going with me when I take Brian to get the cast off?” Frank asked.

She just gave him one of her looks and retreated into the kitchen.

The next morning Frank decided to begin his day with a visit to the morgue. It was Saturday, but he was sure to find someone around, and he wanted to learn all he could about how Anna Blake had died. Chances were slim he’d discover anything that would help him identify her killer, but it was worth a chance. Besides, he now had two men who could possibly have been the father of her child. Maybe if the coroner could tell him how far along she was, he could figure out which one really was. He wasn’t sure what that would tell him, but the more information he had, the better off he’d be.

The entire morgue smelled of death, even the offices, and Frank steeled himself against the grimness of the place. The gray walls and barren corridors seemed to stretch for miles and echo with the sound of his footsteps. He found the coroner in his shabby little office, writing a report. Dr. Haynes looked up, his eyes weary behind his glasses.

“Which one is yours?” he asked, not bothering with a greeting. In a place like this, social amenities were meaningless.

“Anna Blake, stabbed in Washington Square,” he added, in case the name meant nothing.

Dr. Haynes shuffled through some papers on his desk and found the one he was looking for. He peered closely at it for a moment. “I thought that one was Brougham’s.”

“I’m helping him,” Frank said without blinking.

Haynes stared at him in amazement but made no comment on this astonishing bit of news. “What do you want to know, besides that somebody stabbed her and she’s dead?”

“Do you know what she was stabbed with?”

“A knife,” Haynes said just to be aggravating.

“You’re better than that,” Frank chided, trying to stir what might remain of the man’s pride. “Big, small, butcher knife, stiletto, or what?”

“Bigger than a stiletto. She wasn’t killed by the Black Hand,” he said, referring to the Italian secret society famous for using the thin-bladed knife. “Smaller than a butcher knife. The blade was no longer than six inches. Probably just an ordinary kitchen knife, in fact. They didn’t find it, whatever it was.”

“If it was lying around, someone would’ve taken it. That’s a pretty desperate bunch in the Square after dark. What else can you tell me about her?”

Haynes studied the report another moment, his forehead wrinkled in thought. Frank imagined him picturing the dead woman in his mind, trying to recall what she looked like. But maybe he was just being fanciful.

“She didn’t get stabbed where she was found,” he said after a moment.

“What makes you think that?” No one had even suggested such a thing until now.

“The way she bled. She’d bunched up her shawl and held it against the wound for a while, to keep it from bleeding, I guess. You could see where it was wrinkled and the one end was soaked with blood. But blood seeped down the whole front of her skirt anyway. That means she was on her feet for a while before she got too weak. I don’t think somebody who got stabbed would just stand still in the middle of the Square on a dark night if they could stand at all, so she was probably trying to get herself some help.”

“Why didn’t she just call out?” Frank wondered aloud.

“Who there would help her?” Haynes replied.

“You’re right. She’d be a fool to let that bunch know she was wounded. They’d fall on her like vultures, taking whatever she had and leaving her to die. She must’ve been trying to get back home, where she’s be safe.”

“Did she live close by?”

“Just a couple blocks from the Square. How far could she have gone with a wound like that?”

“Not far. You could check for blood stains on the ground. She probably left some along the way.”

Frank shook his head. “It rained that morning. Even still, after three days, I doubt there’d be any trace left. The Square is a busy place.”

Haynes nodded. “But if she was walking, maybe somebody saw her.”

“In the dark? And if they did, how will I find them?” Frank replied in disgust. “Decent people would’ve been locked in their houses, and the others wouldn’t tell a cop anything.” He sighed. “What else can you tell me about her?”

“What else do you need to know?”

“How far along was she?”

“How far along?” Haynes echoed in confusion.

“She was expecting a child. How far along was she?”

“She wasn’t expecting a child.”

Frank stared at him in amazement. “Are you sure?”

“Sure as I can be. I saw her insides, you know. Not only that, she was using a sponge.”

“Where would she be wearing a sponge?” he asked in confusion.

Haynes grinned and shook his head. “I forget you Catholic boys don’t believe in those things.”

“What things?”

“Things that keep a woman from getting pregnant.”

“How would a sponge do that?”

Haynes’s grinned widened. “A woman puts it up inside of her. Keeps the man’s… uh, seed from getting in to make a baby. From what I saw, this one had seen some recent use, too.”

Frank sank down in the dingy metal chair in front of Haynes’s desk. This was very interesting information. “Can I see that report for myself, Doc?”

“Help yourself, if you can read my chicken scratching.” Haynes handed the paper to him.

This changed everything, Frank realized as he painstakingly deciphered the crabbed handwriting. Anna Blake wasn’t what she’d seemed at all, and Frank had a good idea he’d uncover some even more unsavory facts now that he knew the truth about her. He also had a feeling he might find a lot more people who wanted her dead besides poor Nelson.

But the biggest problem he had now was how he was going to tell Sarah Brandt about the sponge.

Sarah looked up at the imposing building on Park Row that housed the World. Mr. Joseph Pulitzer had spared no expense in making his building the most ostentatious on the street where all the major newspapers in the city had their offices. Standing twenty-six stories, it had been the tallest building in the world when it was built a few short years ago, and it still towered over most of the city. The title of tallest building hadn’t stood very long before someone built a taller one in Chicago, but the building’s dome was covered with copper that glittered like gold in the morning sunlight. Surely that would distinguish it for a longer time. Outside on the sidewalk, a lighted globe, seventeen feet in diameter, showed the points of the compass. People loved a spectacle, and Pulitzer gave it to them with his building and with his newspapers.

Sarah had to thread her way through the jumble of pushcart vendors displaying their fruits and vegetables to the hoards of people walking across the Brooklyn Bridge in both directions. The entrance to the bridge was nearby, and between the crowds of workers coming and going on the bridge and those employed in the newspaper offices,