“Mama!” she cried desperately. “He’s your grandson! I couldn’t let that woman have him!”
“What woman?” Mrs. Ruocco asked bitterly. “Nainsi?
Mrs. O’Hara?”
Maria clutched at the bedcovers with her good hand. “It was all Joe’s fault! He was unfaithful to me. He got that girl in trouble! He arranged for Antonio to meet her!”
“Giuseppe kill no one,” Mrs. Ruocco reminded her. She turned to Frank. “You will take her away?”
“No!” Maria screamed. “You can’t let them put me in jail!!”
“If the doctor says she can be moved, I’ll send for a matron and an ambulance right away,” Frank told the woman.
“Mama, don’t do this!” Maria begged. “I was only trying to protect the family!”
Mrs. Ruocco refused to even look at her. “I not you Mama,” she said and walked out of the room. Valentina and Antonio followed her, but Lorenzo stood there, still staring at Maria in disbelief.
“What will happen to her?” he asked Frank.
Frank didn’t want to mention Old Sparky, so he simply said, “That’ll be up to the judge.”
“What about the baby?” Lorenzo asked.
“The baby is mine!” Maria cried furiously. “Bring him to me! I have to take him with me!”
“You can’t take the baby to jail,” Sarah said with more kindness than Frank would have shown.
Maria gave a primal howl and started sobbing hysterically.
“Officer Donatelli, would you go and ask the doctor to come back up?” Sarah asked.
No sooner had he gone than Sarah heard the baby wailing upstairs. “Lorenzo, Joe is the baby’s father, so he’s really your nephew. Why don’t you go get him and take him to your mother, where he belongs?”
Lorenzo took one last look at the woman he’d come to love, the woman who had betrayed them all. Then he turned away.
15
Roosevelt looked very pleased with himself when Frank entered his office.
“Good work, Detective Sergeant,” he said. “Solving the Italian murder, I mean. Sad situation, of course, but at least no one can say we tried to hide the truth to protect anyone.”
“No, sir,” Frank agreed grimly.
“Even Tammany Hall seems satisfied. Of course, they’re always satisfied if they come out looking as if they really tried to help the working man—whether they really did or not.”
Frank had no reply to that, so he offered none. He wasn’t sure why Roosevelt had summoned him. Surely, he wanted more than to tell him he was pleased with the outcome of the Ruocco case. As he waited uneasily, he realized Roosevelt seemed a bit uneasy, too.
Finally, the Commissioner cleared his throat. “I . . . uh . . . I had a letter from Mrs. Brandt.”
Frank shouldn’t have been surprised. They’d agreed she would contact Roosevelt. “Did you?”
“Yes, and I understand from her that you have uncovered some new information about her husband’s death.” He made it sound like an accusation.
Frank resisted the instinctive urge to be defensive. “Yes, I found a witness and . . . and some other interesting facts that weren’t known when Dr. Brandt was killed.”
“After all this time?” Roosevelt asked skeptically. “It’s been three years, hasn’t it?”
“Almost four,” Frank admitted.
Roosevelt peered at him intently through his spectacles
“And this witness suddenly came forward after almost four years?”
“He heard I was asking around about the case,” Frank lied. He’d actually hunted the boy down after hearing about him from an informant. He wasn’t even sure if he could find him again.
“What about this new information? Where did it come from?”
Frank wanted to grind his teeth, but he forced himself to admit the truth. “Felix Decker gave it to me.”
“Are you saying he had information about who killed Dr.
Brandt and he didn’t use it at the time to find the killer?”
Roosevelt demanded in outrage.
“He didn’t think it had anything to do with Dr. Brandt’s murder. The officers who investigated believed Dr. Brandt had been killed by someone trying to rob him.”
“But you don’t?” Another accusation.
“Dr. Brandt wasn’t robbed,” Frank said as respectfully as he could manage. “And the witness heard him arguing with his killer. When I heard that and saw what Mr. Decker had found out, I started thinking Dr. Brandt had been killed by somebody he knew and not by some petty criminal.”
Roosevelt removed his spectacles and rubbed his eyes before carefully replacing the glasses. “Mrs. Brandt has asked me to reopen the case and assign you to work it,” he said without expression.
That was what Frank had asked her to do, of course. He’d been hoping for it, in fact. He couldn’t tell how Roosevelt felt about it, though, so he waited.
“I don’t have many men on the force that I can rely on, Detective Sergeant. You’ve proven yourself to be one of those few. I can’t spare you to spend all your time on a four-year-old case,” he said.
“I understand, sir,” Frank said, not bothering to hide his disappointment. He should have expected this.
“But,” Roosevelt added thoughtfully, “Mrs. Brandt is an old friend, and she deserves to know the truth, if that’s possible.”
Frank waited again, holding his breath.
“I’ll give you permission to investigate it so long as it doesn’t interfere with your regular work. I’ll inform Chief Conlin,” he added, naming the chief of police.
“Thank you, sir,” Frank said. He should have felt gratitude, but he didn’t really know whether to be grateful or not. What if he never found Tom Brandt’s killer? And what if he found out things about Brandt that would hurt Sarah?
“I think you’re on a fool’s errand, Mr. Malloy,” Roosevelt warned, “but I wish you luck, for Mrs. Brandt’s sake.”
Frank knew he’d need much more than luck.
*
*
*
Sarah was late. She’d had a delivery and hadn’t gotten Malloy’s message until she had gotten home. He’d sent a note, asking her to meet him at a coffee shop near her house.
Why hadn’t he simply come to her front door as he usually did?
Her concern had made her even more flustered about being late. What if he hadn’t waited for her? How would she find him? And how long would she have to wait to find out what was so sensitive that he didn’t want to discuss it at her house?
When she entered the shop, she didn’t see him at first.
He was back in a corner, reading a newspaper. She drew a calming breath and let it out in a sigh of relief. As if he’d sensed her presence, he looked up and caught her eye, but he didn’t smile.
With growing apprehension, she hurried over to his table. He laid the paper aside, rose, and held her chair for her.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded as he seated her.
“Nothing’s wrong,” he assured her and signaled the waitress to bring her some coffee before sitting back down himself.
“Then why did you want to meet me here instead of coming to my house?”
“Can’t I invite you out for coffee without you suspecting something’s wrong?” he asked with a smile that looked forced.
“Apparently not,” she replied tartly as the waitress brought her coffee.
When the girl was gone, she said, “Have you heard anything about what’s going to happen to Maria?”
He seemed relieved by the question. “She confessed, and she’s a female, so they probably won’t execute her.”
“I went to see her,” Sarah admitted.
He frowned in disapproval. “After she tried to kill you?”
“I was curious,” Sarah said, defending herself. “I needed to know why she did it.”