bother with a divorce, either. He simply forgot about her and married you.”
If Letitia was shocked, she gave no sign of it. “That’s preposterous! No one would have believed a boy like that! No one would have even listened to him about such a thing. His name wasn’t even the same as Edmund’s!”
She seemed very sure of that for someone who had pretended not even to remember Calvin’s name.
“Are you saying you knew nothing about Calvin Brown and Dr. Blackwell’s other wife?” Sarah asked.
“I certainly am!” Letitia said with an air of triumph.
“That’s a pity,” Sarah said. “Because if you’d known, you would most certainly have been delighted to discover yourself a legally free woman. You and Mr. Dudley could have been married, and you would have been able to keep your child without fear of interference from Blackwell. Instead, you believed you were legally bound in a marriage with no escape unless your husband died.”
“Letitia, please, you must sit down,” Dudley said, hurrying to her and taking her arm solicitously. Indeed, she did look as if she really might faint this time. They both looked rather ill, in fact. She allowed him to lead her back to the sofa and seat her again.
“You have no right to upset her like this,” he said to Sarah. “You should be ashamed of yourself. A nurse should have more respect for her condition.”
“This gives me no pleasure, Mr. Dudley, I assure you. But the fact remains that someone killed Dr. Blackwell and his son. You and Mrs. Blackwell have more reason than anyone else to have wanted Dr. Blackwell dead.”
“But we had no reason at all to want his son dead,” Dudley reminded her.
Sarah bit her tongue. No one was to know that Calvin’s killer had tried to implicate him in Blackwell’s death. This was something only the real killer could know, and Malloy was using the information in hopes of tricking that person into betraying himself.
“I’m sorry our visit has been so uncomfortable to you,” Sarah said, “but I thought you might want to know this information. I’ll understand if you no longer want me treating the baby.”
Letitia Blackwell didn’t even look at her. She was staring off into space, her face creased into a frown of concentration. “Peter, do you know what this means?”
“No, my dear, I don’st,” he said, still worried. Perhaps he was afraid the shocks of the past few minutes had unhinged her mind.
“If my marriage to Edmund wasn’t legal, then my child is illegitimate. My father should have no objections if I marry quickly to give my child a name.”
“Letitia, dear,” he began, his face reflecting his serious reservations, but she paid him no heed.
“I’ll send for him at once. He can’t stop us this time. I’m of age, and he doesn’t control my life any longer. Besides, I have to think of my child’s reputation. And my own,” she added, still thinking out loud.
Dudley looked terrified. Most likely, he saw the flaws in this plan and realized that Symington could, and most certainly would, have many objections to it.
Sarah could have given them both some advice on how to handle the situation, but she doubted they would welcome it. Or that Letitia would even allow her to speak. She would have given a lot to witness the scene between father and daughter with the daughter’s feckless lover cringing in a corner. Too bad she’d have to miss it.
“I’ll be going now,” she said, but neither of the lovers even glanced at her.
Dudley was too busy trying to get Letitia to pay attention to him and listen to reason, but she was having none of it. For the first time Sarah saw the side of Letitia Blackwell that had led her to risk her father’s wrath and elope with a penniless schoolmaster. Stubborn to a fault, she was. Well, she wasn’t Sarah’s problem.
Without bothering to bid them farewell, Sarah let herself out. She certainly hoped Malloy planned to visit her tonight. She had a lot to tell him.
AT THE END of the day, Frank made his way to Sarah Brandt’s house on Bank Street without even bothering to question himself. He could pretend he was going there to finish examining Tom Brandt’s files in an effort to find someone who might have had a motive for killing him. He’d come to realize they were both pretending that now. Frank had long since realized he would find nothing in the files, and he suspected she knew it, too. It was just an excuse for him to go over there.
Really, he just needed to see her to talk about the Blackwell case.
The evenings were growing cooler. Winter was coming, lurking just out of sight. Soon the winds would start to prowl between the city’s buildings, taking men’s hats and catching ladies’ skirts. Frank imagined a winter’s evening sitting in Sarah Brandt’s comfortable kitchen. Good thing the case would be solved long before then, and he’d have no more reason to meet with her. He could get very used to such comfort if he wasn’t careful.
Mrs. Ellsworth came out onto the porch with her broom in hand, even though the light was far too dim now even to see to sweep. She just wanted a word with Frank, and he was growing more patient with her. He’d learned that nosy neighbors could be quite helpful now and then.
“Good evening, Mrs. Ellsworth,” he called. “You’re out late.”
“It’s not so very late,” she said. “I just wanted to see if the moon was up yet. If there’s a halo around it, that means it will rain tomorrow. I was hoping to go shopping, but not if I’m going to get wet.”
Frank looked around, but he couldn’t see the moon. The tightly packed buildings permitted only a limited view of the sky, and that was more or less straight up. “The paper said it would be fair tomorrow, but if you’re determined to find the moon, you’re better off to look from an upstairs window,” he advised. “Or even the roof.”
“You’re probably right,” she said. “How was your day, Mr. Malloy?”
“Like all the rest of them,” Frank said noncommittally.
“I imagine all your days are very interesting,” she said with a smile that rearranged her wrinkles.
“Probably not as interesting as you think,” Frank said, thinking of the drunks and derelicts and thieves and killers he usually dealt with. “Police work can be pretty boring.”
“Oh, pshaw, Mr. Malloy. It’s not nice to tease an old lady. But you get along now. Mrs. Brandt has a lovely chicken roasting, and I’m sure there’s more than enough for you, if you haven’t eaten yet.”
A man didn’t need police training to understand Mrs. Ellsworth’s intentions. “I’ll be sure to get my share of it,” he said with a smile. “Good evening, and good luck with your weather predictions.”
Sarah Brandt was waiting at the door when he arrived at her porch. Her knowing grin told him she’d witnessed the exchange with Mrs. Ellsworth.
“Is the chicken ready?” he asked as he mounted the front steps.
“It’s started to get a little dried out. You’re later than usual. I was afraid you weren’t coming at all.”
He felt a funny little spasm in his chest that might have been his heart, even though he knew perfectly well she was just teasing him. She had that cat-in-the-cream grin on her face, the way she always did when she was trying to get the best of him. “If I’d known you had a roast chicken for me, I would’ve been here earlier,” he teased her right back.
“I’m going to have to speak to Mrs. Ellsworth about being more discreet,” she said, closing the door after him. “She obviously led you to believe I got that chicken just for you.”
“Didn’t you?” he asked innocently, hanging his hat on the rack by the door.
“Of course. I needed a way to keep you occupied so you wouldn’t interrupt me when I tell you all the things I learned this afternoon.”
He didn’t know how she always managed to best him in these little verbal matches they played. Probably because he liked the way she grinned when she won.
The chicken wasn’t dry at all, and she’d fried potatoes just the way he liked them. She’d even gotten some beer from her neighbor for him.
“What have you been up to, Mrs. Brandt?” he asked suspiciously as she smiled smugly at his reaction to the meal.
“I visited Mrs. Blackwell today,” she said.
“Do you go there
“Just about. I have to look after the baby, you know,” she added when he would have scolded her. “Do you know she hasn’t named him yet? He’s more than a week old and doesn’t even have a name.”
“I’m sure she’s had other things to worry about,” he said to annoy her. “So you visited Mrs. Blackwell. What happened?”
“She had another visitor already when I arrived.”
