brush, when Sarah turned it over, had a silver back, and the comb was tortoiseshell.
Something was very wrong here. Very wrong indeed. Forgetting Detective Malloy, who still watched her from the bedroom doorway, Sarah pushed the top drawer shut and opened the next one. It was empty.
“All the others are empty, too,” Malloy said.
Sarah didn’t even acknowledge him. She was too busy trying to make sense of something. She went to the clothespress and pulled the doors open. Only a few garments hung inside. “Was she in her nightclothes when she died?” Sarah asked.
“No. She was still completely dressed. Even had her shoes on.”
Only two spare shirtwaists and a jacket in the clothespress, and just enough underclothes to fill one drawer. Those details told her something, although she wasn’t yet sure what. The waists were simply made, but Sarah instantly recognized the work of a skilled seamstress in the delicate tucks across the bodice of one. She reached for the jacket, trying not to think of the girl who had so recently worn it. Sarah could still catch what must have been the girl’s scent in the folds of the finely woven wool, and for a moment her head swam. She fought off the momentary weakness and examined the jacket. Mother-of-pearl buttons and intricate braiding down the front. She turned the garment in her hands, knowing what she would find or at least what she should find, unless the girl had been clever enough to remove it. But she hadn’t, and there it was, embroidered into the lining by the seamstress who had custom made it, the name of the person for whom it had been designed.
Alicia VanDamm.
With a cry, she dropped the jacket as if it had burned her.
“What is it? What’s the matter?” Malloy demanded, crossing the room with long strides.
Sarah hardly heard him. She was too lost in memories, visions of a tiny girl with long, golden curls and enormous blue eyes. A girl of delicate beauty who always seemed much older than her years and who hardly ever smiled. Mina’s baby sister.
“Sit down,” Malloy was saying, and he put his big, workman’s hands on her and forced her down into the chair. “Don’t go fainting on me now. Put your head down.”
Before she could stop him, he’d forced her head down almost to her knees.
“Let go of me!” she cried with as much dignity as she could muster with her face practically in her lap. She had to twist her head from side to side to dislodge his grip, losing her hat in the process, but finally he released her.
Sputtering in outrage, she sat upright and glared at him again. If she’d been a man, she would’ve punched him, policeman or not. As if guessing her thoughts, he backed up a step and put up his hands as if to ward her off. Or maybe he was just letting her know he was finished manhandling her.
“Good, you’ve got your color back,” he said. “For a minute there, I thought you was gonna go all vaporish on me.”
“I don’t get the vapors, Detective,” she informed him.
“If you say so,” he replied, unconvinced. He picked up the jacket from where she’d dropped it. “What did you see on this?”
Sarah swallowed against the dryness in her throat. “Inside, in the lining.”
He turned the jacket and found the embroidery. “This her name?”
Sarah nodded.
“You know her? Is that why…? But you said you didn’t know her,” he recalled.
“I said I thought she looked like an old friend. The old friend is Mina VanDamm. Alicia is her baby sister. Or was.”
“Unless the girl stole the jacket.”
Sarah only wished that were true. She shook her head. “No, I’m sure it was she. I haven’t seen her since she was a child, but she looks…
“What would she have been doing here all by herself, then?” he asked, staring at the jacket as if it would give him the answer. “Did the father die? The family break up? Lose all their money?”
“Not that I know of.” Indeed, she was certain Cornelius VanDamm was very much alive and well and still a millionaire. Suddenly, Sarah had to get out of that room. She rose to her feet. Where was her hat?
She saw where it had rolled over beside the bed. She went for it in the same instant Detective Sergeant Malloy guessed her purpose and went for it as well. He beat her there, and in his haste, brushed against the shawl that lay at the foot of the bed. It slid to the floor and something metal tumbled from its folds, clanging to the uncarpeted floor between them.
“What’s this?” he asked of no one in particular. Since he still held the jacket in one hand and had picked up her hat with the other, he shoved the hat at her and bent to pick up the long, slender object. When he rose, he held it up to examine it.
Sarah couldn’t contain her surprise.
“Do you know what it is?” he asked.
Sarah was very much afraid she did. “It’s a curette.”
“A what?”
“A medical instrument.” She had a set of them, although she had no use for them now. They had belonged to Tom.
“Why would the girl have had it?”
“I don’t think she did.” Everything was making sense now, or at least a little bit of sense. Sarah remembered her impressions of the girl in those brief moments when their paths had crossed yesterday, and the realization she’d had this morning on her way over here. “I think someone must have brought it here.”
“Why?” His eyes were dark, almost black, and he suddenly seemed very large and dangerous again. She didn’t want him to know this about Alicia, but she had no other choice. He would find out soon enough anyway.
“Because… It’s an instrument that… Well, it can be used for other things, but it’s what an abortionist uses.”
He didn’t say a word, but his very silence was a force, compelling her to continue.
“I thought when I saw her yesterday… it was just an impression, but sometimes you can tell just by looking at a woman. Something in the eyes… And that would explain why she was here, why she’d left her family. I think… I think you’ll find that Alicia was with child.”
2
FRANK COULDN’T BELIEVE THIS. HE’D LOOKED AT the girl’s body long and hard, and he hadn’t seen anything to indicate she was in a family way. If she was, this Sarah Brandt must be a witch to have divined it. Still, if this really was a tool used by an abortionist…
“You seem pretty sure of yourself. Maybe you do a little of that on the side yourself,” he tried. Performing abortions was illegal, although the authorities hardly ever prosecuted anyone for carrying out what many believed was a service to humanity. And maybe it was, if it was a service to prevent children who would grow up poor and hungry from ever being born.
But if Frank had hoped to rattle Sarah Brandt, he failed. She simply stared right back at him, her blue-gray eyes as cold and still as glass. “I’m not trained to perform abortions.”
“Then how do you know what this is?” he challenged, holding the instrument up to her face.
She didn’t flinch. “My husband was a physician. I… sometimes assisted him in certain procedures. When a pregnancy goes wrong…” She hesitated, probably seeing what Frank was feeling reflected on his face. “But perhaps you’d rather not hear the details.”
She was right about that. She probably thought he was squeamish or maybe that he was embarrassed by this frank discussion of female problems. Let her think that. He’d humble himself a lot before he’d reveal the true reason for his discomfort with the subject of pregnancies gone wrong.
“So you think an abortionist came here to her room. Someone she hired to get her out of a tough spot,” he said, trying out the theory to see how it sounded.
