The baby’s tiny face screwed up, and he began to wail.
Maria started bouncing him absently as she continued her rant. “Mama, you cannot let that woman have him. You cannot let him die!”
To Frank’s surprise, Lorenzo went to her and took the baby out of her arms. “Stop it, Maria,” he said gently, as he awkwardly shifted the crying infant into the crook of his own arm. “We will not let him die.” As if he understood the words, the baby stopped crying and gazed up at Lorenzo in wide-eyed wonder.
“But what can we do?” Joe asked, his voice an annoying whine. “Even Uncle Ugo’s men can’t protect us! Last night they broke in here. Who knows what they will do tonight or tomorrow night?”
“Then I will take the baby away someplace,” Maria said, her voice quivering with anguish. “He will be safe, and they will forget about all of you when he’s gone, and then you’ll be safe,” she added with a touch of contempt to her husband.
“I have a better idea,” Sarah said, startling everyone, especially Frank.
He looked at her with apprehension, trying to read the serene expression on her lovely face. She hadn’t told him about any other ideas, and he certainly hadn’t given her permission to have any.
“Mrs. Brandt, we should go now,” he tried, but she ignored him completely.
“The reason the newspapers got everyone so angry in the first place is because Nainsi was murdered in your house,”
she reminded them. “They’re saying you don’t have a right to her baby because you kidnapped and killed her to get it.”
“That is lie!” Mrs. Ruocco cried.
“Of course it is, but people believe it because they don’t know the truth.”
“What truth?” Lorenzo asked skeptically.
“They don’t know who really killed Nainsi,” she said, making Frank wince. “When her killer is caught and punished, everyone will understand you had nothing to do with it.”
They all stared at her, dumbfounded. Frank felt pretty dumbfounded himself. Her logic was so reasonable— and so wrong! They still didn’t know for sure who had killed Nainsi. If one of the family members had done it, all hell would break loose. Didn’t she realize that? No, she didn’t, he remembered, because she thought one of Ugo’s men had killed Nainsi.
Frank watched their faces as they began to comprehend her argument. Joe and Lorenzo didn’t quite know what to think. Maria’s face seemed to glow with a desperate hope.
But Mrs. Ruocco . . . She understood. She knew someone in her family must have killed the girl, and the truth would destroy them.
“Get out my house!” she said furiously, pointing one gnarled finger at the door. “Get out now!”
“But Mama,” Maria pleaded. Mrs. Ruocco silenced her with a gesture.
Before she could protest, Frank grabbed Sarah’s arm and hauled her to the door. She almost stumbled, but he didn’t loosen his grip or slow his pace. He had to throw back the bolt one-handed, but he got them both outside.
“What are you doing?” she demanded, outraged. “We have to convince them to cooperate, or you’ll never find Nainsi’s killer!”
He just kept walking, dragging her along with him until they’d crossed the street into the next block. Then she finally dug in her heels and forced him to stop.
“What are you doing? Don’t you want to solve this case?” she asked breathlessly, her cheeks scarlet with fury.
“Of course I do, but that’s not the way to do it!”
“You won’t find the killer without their help,” she insisted.
“And they won’t help if the killer is one of them.”
“But one of Ugo Ruocco’s men killed her,” she argued.
“Maybe, but we don’t know anything for sure. Did you see Mrs. Ruocco’s face? She isn’t sure either. She knows as well as I do that it might’ve been one of her children and she’d cut off her arm before she’d help us find out.”
“But if it wasn’t one of her children—”
“She’s not going to take that chance,” Frank said. “She’ll protect them the way Maria is protecting that baby. If she knows who did it . . . if any of them know . . . it’s a secret they’ll take to their graves.”
So much for Roosevelt’s plan to have Sarah reason with them.
“ You should’ve taken me with you,” Gino Donatelli said later, after Frank had escorted a chastened Sarah back home and returned to Headquarters. “I might’ve been able to convince them.”
“First of all, you didn’t see Maria Ruocco with that baby.
She isn’t giving him up, no matter who wants her to,” Frank said. “Second, none of them are going to help us find the killer because they’re all afraid it’s somebody in the family.
Third, that’s true in any language, so you couldn’t have helped.”
“But I know how they think,” he argued.
“So do I,” Frank replied acidly. “They think we want to put one of them in jail, and they’re right.”
Gino ran a hand over his face in exasperation. “Maybe Mrs. Brandt was the wrong person to deliver the message,” he said.
“I think we agree on that,” Frank said sarcastically. “Who else would you suggest? Maybe Commissioner Roosevelt would go down and talk to them.”
“They’d never listen to him, either,” Gino said as if Frank had made a serious suggestion. “They’d listen to Ugo, though.”
“Mrs. Brandt said he already told them to give the baby up, but they refused.”
“Things weren’t so bad then. The stakes are higher now.
He doesn’t want his men fighting the Irish in the streets any more than we do, and he must know he can’t beat Tammany Hall.”
“He’s not going to turn in one of his own family members, and his men won’t follow him anymore if he turns in one of them,” Frank pointed out.
“No, but he might force Maria to give up the baby to make peace, and then . . .”
“And then what?”
Gino grinned smugly. “And then she’ll hate all of them so much, she’ll help us find the killer.”
Sarah walked far enough to make Malloy believe she was going home, but as soon as she was out of sight, she cut over to Broadway and turned south again. She didn’t know exactly where she was going, but she knew that on a pleasant day like this, plenty of people would be out in the street, and someone would be able to give her directions.
Howard Street teemed with life. Teamsters guided their wagons through the narrow passage, shouting and swearing.
Homeless urchins darted in and out of the traffic, dodging wheels and horses’ hooves. Women argued with street vendors over prices and gossiped on porch steps.
Sarah only had to make three inquiries before she found the right tenement. As she made her way up the dark stairs, stepping carefully to avoid tripping over refuse and heaven knew what else, she could easily imagine how a young girl would grasp at any chance to escape such a dreary place. The Ruoccos weren’t really rich, unless you compared them to this.
The door to the flat stood open to catch the breeze, and Sarah saw a woman sitting at the kitchen table with her back to the door. The room held only the rickety table and chairs and a battered stove, which was cold on this spring day. Crates nailed to the walls held a few kitchen utensils and dishes. The walls were an indeterminate color beneath years of grime.
“Mrs. O’Hara?” she called, tapping lightly on the door frame.
Nainsi’s mother turned in her chair to see who was calling. “Mrs. Brandt,” she said in surprise, pushing herself to her feet. “Is something wrong?”
“Nothing new,” Sarah said with a smile. “I just thought I’d stop by and see how you’re doing.”
“Is the baby all right? Have you seen him?” she asked anxiously. “They won’t let me near him, them damned murdering dagos.”
