meaningless phrase but having nothing else to offer.
Still in shock, Mrs. O’Hara continued to stare. “That bitch told me she was dead, but I thought she was lying. They’re devils, those dagos. They’ll say anything.” She drew a ragged breath. “I told Nainsi not to get mixed up with them, but she wouldn’t listen. She never listens.” Her voice broke on a sob, but she fought the tears, clinging to her anger. “What happened to her?” she demanded of Sarah. “She was fine last night!”
“I don’t know,” Sarah admitted.
“Was it the baby? My sister died in childbirth,” Mrs.
O’Hara remembered. “She wouldn’t stop bleeding.”
“That wasn’t it. She didn’t bleed any more than normal.
She didn’t seem to be sick, either.”
“So it wasn’t childbed fever?”
Sarah hesitated. She knew nothing for certain except that she couldn’t explain Nainsi’s death and she’d seen several things to make her suspicious. “Mrs. O’Hara, I don’t see anything that would have caused her death.”
The older woman’s face darkened with fury. “I knew it.
They killed her, didn’t they? How did they do it? And which one was it?”
“I told you, I don’t know how she died,” Sarah repeated.
They both looked up at the sound of footsteps in the hallway. Mrs. O’Hara rose to her feet as Patrizia Ruocco appeared in the doorway. Maria was right behind her. Like everyone else, Mrs. Ruocco stopped in the doorway to stare at the body.
“She is dead,” she said without a trace of emotion.
“And you killed her,” Mrs. O’Hara said.
Mrs. Ruocco looked at her as if she were a maniac. “I did not even know she was dead.”
“You and your brood! She was fine last night, and now she’s dead. Somebody here killed her.”
“Siete pazzeschi! She die from the baby. Women die from babies every day.”
“She says Nainsi didn’t die from the baby!” Mrs. O’Hara insisted, gesturing toward Sarah.
Mrs. Ruocco fixed her razor-sharp gaze on Sarah, silently daring her to repeat such a vile accusation to her face.
“I just said I don’t know why she died,” Sarah hastily explained. “It could have been from childbirth, but I’ve never had a patient die like this before.”
“This is crazy. You are all crazy!” Maria insisted, pushing her way past her mother-in-law into the room. “And why is she lying here like this? No respect!” She grabbed the edge of the covers Sarah had drawn back and jerked them over the dead girl, covering her face.
The violent action knocked several pillows to the floor, and Sarah mechanically bent to pick them up. As she did, she saw something that stopped her breath—a reddish smear on one of the pillowcases. Blood? It could have come from the birth, but Sarah was certain she’d changed all the linen on the bed last night.
As casually as she could, she turned the pillow over before placing it back on the bed, so the smear didn’t show.
She didn’t know what it meant, but if it was connected with Nainsi’s death and someone here had killed her, it might disappear.
“Mrs. Brandt,” Mrs. Ruocco said angrily, “this girl die from baby. What else could she die from?”
“It could be murder!” Mrs. O’Hara cried. “She was murdered, and one of you dagos killed her!”
“You are just upset,” Maria said in an attempt to soothe her. “Did you look at her? She has no marks on her, no bruises or blood. How could she have been murdered?”
This stopped Mrs. O’Hara for a moment, and she looked at Sarah helplessly. But Sarah had no answers, not yet anyway. She also didn’t want to incur Patrizia Ruocco’s wrath, because if she felt her family was in danger, she’d stop at nothing to protect them. Nainsi’s body might just disappear along with any chance of learning the truth.
“I’m sorry. I know this is upsetting to everyone, but if she died from something to do with the birth, something I’ve never seen before or a mistake I made, I need to know. A doctor could tell for sure how she died,” she said. “Just to ease Mrs. O’Hara’s mind and my conscience.”
“A doctor?” Mrs. Ruocco scoffed. “And who will pay for a doctor? Will you pay for him, you Irish pig?” she asked Mrs.
O’Hara.
“Yes, I will, you dago cow!” she replied. “And I’ll see all of you hanged for what you did to my girl!”
Mrs. Ruocco muttered something in Italian. “Get a doctor then. Just get this . . .” She gestured wildly toward the bed. “. . . this thing out of my house!”
Mrs. O’Hara made an outraged sound and started screaming profanity at Mrs. Ruocco, who haughtily turned her back and walked away. Mrs. O’Hara followed her, threatening to bring down every punishment under heaven upon her daughter’s killer.
When their voices died away as they descended the stairs, Sarah turned back to Maria, who looked absolutely terrified. “What will happen?” she asked in a whisper.
Sarah went to her, taking her icy hands. “Nothing, if Nainsi died in childbirth,” Sarah said, not wanting to upset Maria any more than necessary.
“I mean the baby,” Maria said, apparently not believing for a moment that Nainsi might have been murdered. “What will happen to the baby?”
Sarah had no answer for her.
“You must help me keep the baby,” Maria said desperately.
Sarah would have liked nothing more than to give Maria the child she’d longed for, but . . . “I’m not sure there’s anything I can do to help.”
“What will happen to him if I don’t keep him?” Maria asked. “I cannot give him to that woman!”
She had a legitimate concern. Mrs. O’Hara probably didn’t have the means to care for a child herself. Bottle- feeding required time and patience and diligence in addition to rigid cleanliness. “Maria, I’m not the one you need to convince. Have you even talked to your husband about this?”
Something flickered deep in her eyes, and her expression hardened. “He will do what I ask.”
“And what about Mrs. Ruocco?” Sarah asked, knowing full well she would have the final word.
Before Maria could reply, they both heard a commotion out in the street. They hurried over to the window and saw that in the street below, a small crowd was gathering around a screaming woman. The woman was Mrs. O’Hara. Maria jerked up the sash so they could hear what she was saying.
“Murder! Police!” she was screaming. “They murdered my daughter! Police! Get the police!”
Maria gave an outraged cry, turned, and ran from the room. Sarah took the time to close the window and give Nainsi’s covered body one last glance. On impulse, she took the bloodstained pillow and slipped it under the bed. Then she followed Maria, carefully closing the bedroom door behind her.
Down in the dining room, she found all the Ruoccos assembled. Antonio and Joe had finally made their appearance, and from the looks of them, they’d awakened to ex-cruciating hangovers. Only a drunken stupor would have allowed them to sleep through the morning’s excitement.
Lorenzo stood silently, his face expressionless as he observed the chaotic scene. Valentina was crying loudly, and Maria was pleading with her mother-in-law in rapid Italian, but Mrs. Ruocco ignored all of them. She was staring at the police officer banging on the front door, demanding admission.
For a long moment, no one moved, and then Lorenzo walked over to the door, unlocked and opened it. The policeman entered, followed by Mrs. O’Hara. Lorenzo managed to get the door closed before anyone else could force their way in, but the crowd outside pressed against the glass door and the front windows, peering inside.
“There they are,” Mrs. O’Hara said, pointing wildly.
“That’s all of them. They killed my girl.”
“This lady says a girl was murdered in here, Mrs. Ruocco,”
the officer said respectfully, because Patrizia Ruocco was a prominent figure in the community. Sarah recognized him, although she couldn’t remember his name. But he hadn’t seen her yet.
Mrs. Ruocco stepped forward, fairly radiating indigna-tion. “This woman is crazy. Her daughter marry my son, but she die in childbirth.”
“No, she didn’t,” Mrs. O’Hara exclaimed. “Ask the midwife. She’s right there!” She pointed directly this time,
