Antonio.”
Frank raised his eyebrows. If he’d been talking to a man, he would’ve observed that young Antonio hadn’t wasted any time playing dip the wick with the girl, but he refrained.
“Let me guess, the baby wasn’t early.”
“No.” She walked toward the stove and for a second he couldn’t figure out where she was going, but then he saw the cradle sitting beside it. “See for yourself.”
She gently drew back the blanket, and he could see a baby sleeping peacefully. He didn’t know much about infants, but this one was big and fat. Nothing sickly about him. Even Frank could see he’d been born on time, maybe even a little past time.
“I guess young Antonio was a little surprised,” he said.
“He probably wouldn’t have known the difference, but of course his mother did. She’d known the baby was conceived before they were married, but no one guessed the girl was much further along than she claimed. Not until the baby was born, that is.”
“I can imagine Mrs. Ruocco was pretty mad.”
“Everyone was. Nainsi’s mother—the lady outside who is claiming they’d killed her daughter—tried to defend her, but Nainsi didn’t even try to deny the truth. I guess she was depending on the Catholic Church to prevent Antonio from divorcing her or something. She didn’t even seem concerned.”
“When did she turn up dead?”
“I got here early this morning to check on her and the baby, and when I arrived, someone started screaming upstairs. Valentina—she’s the youngest in the family—had gone in to see why the baby kept crying, and she found Nainsi dead. Her body was cold and starting to stiffen, so she’d been dead a couple hours by then, at least.”
“And what makes you think somebody killed her?”
“I said I wasn’t sure, but she has a broken fingernail, like she’d been struggling with someone, and then I found a pillowcase with a smear of blood on it.”
“There’s a lot of blood when a baby is born,” Frank remembered all too vividly.
“I’d changed the bedclothes.”
“But you might’ve missed some.”
“Malloy, I don’t want her to have been murdered,” she said in exasperation. “If I could think of another explanation, I’d have given it to Nainsi’s mother and the Ruoccos and gone home. She didn’t die from any of the usual things that women die of in childbirth. I know the signs of all of them.”
“And you’re an expert in murder, too, I guess.”
She glared at him, but it was a pale imitation of Mrs.
Ruocco’s withering stare. She couldn’t begin to compete.
The baby made a whimpering sound and distracted her.
“He’s waking up. I’d better get Maria. She’s looking after the baby,” she explained. “Then you can go upstairs and look at the girl’s body yourself, since you are an expert in murder,” she added tartly.
He sighed again as he followed her out of the kitchen, this time in exasperation.
As soon as he reentered the dining room, Joe Ruocco approached him. He looked like he’d been on a three- day bender. His eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, his complexion a trifle green. He hadn’t shaved or bathed yet this morning. Frank could still smell the liquor and the sweat on him.
“Mr. Malloy, this is all a mistake,” he said. “Nobody killed nobody here. The girl, she had a baby. Women die from that. This is what happened to her. There is no need for the police.”
From the corner of his eye, Frank saw Sarah speak to one of the women, who then hurried off to the kitchen. “If that’s what happened, you’ve got nothing to worry about, Joe,”
Frank assured him. “What do you know about this girl?
From before she met Antonio, I mean.”
Joe glanced uneasily at his mother, who was watching the exchange through narrowed eyes. “She’s a wild girl. She tricked Antonio. She already had a baby in her, and she tells him it was his. He’s a stupid boy, so he marries her.” Joe tried to give his brother a meaningful glance, but the boy was slumped over one of the tables, head on his arms, probably passed out. “They go to her priest, an Irish priest, in secret, so Mama doesn’t know until it’s done. We are surprised, and Mama is angry, but we took the girl in. What else could we do?”
“Antonio must’ve been pretty mad when he found out he’d been tricked,” Frank observed, watching to see if the boy stirred. He didn’t move.
Joe knew immediately what he was implying. “Oh, no, he was only sad. He feels like a fool, to be tricked by a stupid girl. I took him out last night, and we got drunk so he wouldn’t have to think about what he will do with her and the baby.”
Frank couldn’t help noting that Joe had conveniently given his baby brother an alibi for the night, just in case his wife really had been murdered.
The front door opened, and to Frank’s relief he saw Gino Donatelli come through it. Everyone in the room looked up in surprise, but Donatelli looked straight at Frank. “Detective Sergeant,” he said respectfully, removing his hat and nervously smoothing the jacket of his crisply pressed police uniform.
Frank hadn’t been too happy when Teddy Roosevelt opened the ranks of the New York City Police Department to Italians, and even Jews, but today he was ready to see the wisdom of it. “Officer Donatelli,” he replied, going to him and shaking his hand.
Donatelli was naturally surprised, but Frank had done it to elevate Donatelli in the Ruocco’s estimation. Italians would never trust an Irishman. They’d only trust another Italian, and then not completely unless he was a blood rela-tion. Frank’s only hope for this case was to use Donatelli to convince the Ruoccos they were being treated fairly.
He turned to Mrs. Ruocco. “Officer Donatelli is going to help me investigate your daughter-in-law’s death.”
“Murder, you mean!” Mrs. O’Hara insisted.
Donatelli looked at her in alarm, but Patrizia Ruocco distracted him. “You are Italian,” she said. It wasn’t a question. Donatelli had coal-black hair and an olive complexion, along with a classic Roman nose. He stood taller than any of the Ruocco men, and he was even more handsome.
“Yes, Mrs. Ruocco. My father is Angelo Donatelli, who owns the shoe repair shop on Spring Street.”
“He has five sons, yes?”
“Six. I’m the third one.”
He’d adequately established his pedigree. Mrs. Ruocco nodded in silent approval.
“We’re going up to see the body now,” Frank said.
“That’s not decent,” Mrs. O’Hara cried. “The poor girl just lying there like that with two strange men looking at her!”
“I’ll go with them, Mrs. O’Hara,” Sarah Brandt offered.
Frank couldn’t help the prickle of annoyance he felt, even though he’d intended to take her with them anyway. She was the one who thought it was a murder, after all.
Joe stood up from the table where he’d been sitting with his brothers. “Should one of us go, too?”
Frank didn’t think Joe would even make it up the stairs in his current condition, and he certainly didn’t want any of the Ruoccos to hear what Sarah thought. “No, just stay here until we’ve had a chance to look things over.”
Frank gestured for Sarah to precede them, and they trooped up the narrow stairs in silence. As soon as they reached the upstairs hallway, Frank closed the stairway door behind them.
Donatelli cleared his throat. “Detective Sergeant, what’s going on here?” Plainly, he meant more than just the facts of the crime. He must have been wondering why Frank had sent for him in the first place.
“Antonio Ruocco married himself an Irish girl who already had a bun in the oven by another man,” he said, figuring he didn’t need to spare Sarah’s sensibilities. He was pretty sure she didn’t have any where babies and their cre-ation were concerned. “He didn’t know that, of course, and yesterday, the baby was born. That’s when everybody figured it out that the baby couldn’t be Antonio’s. This morning the girl was found dead.” He glanced at Sarah. “Mrs.
Brandt here was the midwife. She thinks the girl might’ve been killed.”
Donatelli nodded politely. “Pleased to meet you, Mrs.
