door.”
“We are all fine,” Lorenzo reported, coming up beside him, still holding his chair leg. So he’d been the one who rushed to help. Frank had expected Joe.
Behind them they could hear Patrizia Ruocco shouting in rapid Italian. Her tone spoke of outrage over the attack on her property and her family. Joe was trying to calm her without much success.
Gino went back to helping his fellow officers clear the streets by throwing every rioter too injured to run into a wagon for transport back to the station. In a surprisingly short time, the Black Marias rumbled away, leaving only the discarded clubs and broken beer bottles as evidence of what had transpired. The sergeant had come over to get Frank’s version of what happened. When he was finished, the last of the police officers drifted away, leaving only Frank and Gino Donatelli.
“Lorenzo,” Mrs. Ruocco snapped. “Help Giuseppe fix door.” She was carrying a broom and a dust pan and had begun sweeping up the broken glass around her doorstep.
“I should go get Maria and let her know it’s safe to come home,” Lorenzo said.
“I send Antonio already,” his mother said.
Lorenzo headed back into the restaurant.
“Mrs. Ruocco, if you like, I can get some police officers to guard your house tonight,” Frank offered.
She made a disparaging sound. “Police no good. We take care ourselves. You, go home. Leave us alone.”
Frank was only too happy to oblige.
“Should I stay?” Gino asked in a whisper.
“If you want to, but I doubt anybody will bother them again tonight. Those fellows will be nursing sore heads for a day or two. They might want to come back when they feel better, but not real soon.”
“Gino,” Mrs. Ruocco called. “Go home to you mama. We no need you help.”
“Come on, Gino,” Frank said, slapping the young fellow on the back. “It’s been a long day.”
The next morning Sarah woke to the sound of someone banging on her back door. Only her neighbors used the back door, so Sarah hurried to answer it, hoping no one was sick. She saw Mrs. Ellsworth’s silhouette on the glass and threw the door open.
“Have you seen the newspapers?” Mrs. Ellsworth demanded, holding one up. “Oh, I don’t suppose you have,”
she added, noticing Sarah was in her nightclothes. “I’m so sorry to wake you, but when I saw this article —”
“Come in, come in,” Sarah urged, closing the door behind her. “What is it?”
“Another riot at the Ruoccos’ restaurant last night,”
she said, holding up the paper again. “I heard the newsboy shouting about it when I was on my way to the market.
I bought it and came right here to show you. It’s bad luck to go back, you know, but since I wasn’t going to my own house, I don’t think that counts, does it?”
Sarah had no idea. She took the newspaper Mrs. Ellsworth handed her and scanned the story.
Supposedly, the Irish lads who had been arrested claimed they were only trying to rescue the baby the Italians had kidnapped. According to the report, none of the Ruoccos were injured, although Sarah knew that newspaper reports were notoriously inaccurate. Did she dare go down to Little Italy to check on the family? She knew what Malloy would say, but she really was worried about Maria and the rest of them, too. Maria was already under a strain with Nainsi’s murder and caring for the baby. Now she must be terrified as well, knowing a mob had wanted to take the boy from her.
“I should go down there,” Sarah said. “Make sure everyone is all right.”
“Oh, dear, I don’t think that’s wise,” Mrs. Ellsworth said with a frown. “Who knows who might be lurking around.
Besides, the family might not appreciate visitors right now, after what they went through last night.”
“I guess you’re right,” Sarah said, knowing she was. “I suppose if they need me, they’ll send for me.”
“Of course they will, dear. And if you simply can’t stay away, you might consider a visit to the mission a little later on. Surely, someone there can tell you everything you’d want to know,” she added with a wink.
Frank wasn’t surprised at the summons to Roosevelt’s office when he arrived at Headquarters the next morning. Old Teeth and Spectacles was in early this morning, and Frank had a feeling he probably hadn’t gotten much sleep last night. When he saw him, he was sure of it.
“Mr. Malloy, we can’t have the Irish and the Italians rioting in the street,” he said before Frank had even closed the door behind him.
“No, sir, we can’t.”
“Have you made any progress on the Irish girl’s murder yet?”
“No, sir. I was at the Ruoccos’ last night, questioning the family, when the riot started.”
“Do you still think one of them is the murderer?”
“That’s the most logical solution, but it’s hard to figure out why they would kill her. The boy she was married to had the best reason, but I’m almost certain he didn’t do it.
By all accounts, he was passed out drunk that night anyway, and I don’t think he’d even realized yet what all this meant for him.”
Roosevelt removed his spectacles and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I had a visit from Tammany Hall last night,” he said grimly. “And Commissioner Parker.” Tammany Hall was where the Democratic politicians held court. He meant that someone in power there had accompanied Parker.
Although Roosevelt liked people to think he was in charge of the department, he was only one of four police commissioners. Parker was another of the four, and as a loyal Tammany soldier, he was the bane of Roosevelt’s existence.
“They came to my home,” Roosevelt added with quiet outrage. “They want this matter settled, and they want the girl’s mother—what’s her name?”
“Mrs. O’Hara.”
“Mrs. O’Hara. They want Mrs. O’Hara to have the child.”
Frank managed not to wince. “But the law says—”
“I know what the law says. I also know that this O’Hara woman has been raising Cain down at Tammany Hall, and the penny press has got everybody in an uproar. When we questioned the rioters we arrested last night, we found out they’d been organized by the Ward Heelers!” The Heelers were the political hacks assigned to organizing voters and making sure they made it to the polls to vote for the proper—that is, Democratic—candidates, as well as per-forming whatever other duties might be required of them.
Frank hadn’t realized that starting riots was one of those duties.
“Are you saying Tammany Hall is behind all the trouble?
Why would they care about one baby?”
“I think they want to demonstrate to their constituency that they have the power to control even me,” Roosevelt admitted. Frank could see how much this infuriated him.
“The trouble is, I can see the justice in this woman’s claim.
If someone in that house killed the baby’s mother, then they’ve got no right to the child.”
Frank had to agree with that, too. “We don’t know if one of the Ruoccos killed her, though.”
“Do you have other suspects?”
“Not any good ones.” Frank thought of the foreman at the sweatshop where Nainsi had worked.
“I don’t know how long Tammany will wait before they organize another riot, and the next time the Ruoccos might not be so lucky. Would it be possible to convince them to give the child to Mrs. O’Hara?”
Frank remembered Maria Ruocco holding the baby in her arms. She wouldn’t give the boy up willingly, but she wasn’t the power in that household. “Maybe,” Frank said,
“but they wouldn’t listen to me.”
“What about Officer Donatelli?”
“They don’t trust the police, even when the cop is Italian.
They don’t trust anybody else with authority, either. According to Donatelli, they only trust their own blood relatives.”
