When they noticed him, the room went silent. Even the mother stopped crying. Her bloodshot eyes looked to him pathetically. Some part of her probably hoped he’d come to tell her it was all a mistake. “Could I talk to you alone, Mrs. Lasher?” he asked.
“It’s Frankle,” one of the neighbors said helpfully. “She’s remarried.”
“Mrs. Frankle,” he corrected himself.
“My husband, he’ll be back soon,” she tried, moving her hands helplessly, desperate to be spared the ordeal of speaking of her dead child.
“Then I’ll talk to him when he gets here.” He looked at the other women in the room meaningfully. Without a word, they filed out. One of them patted Mrs. Frankle’s hand and whispered something to her before following the others out.
When they were gone, he closed the door in spite of the heat.
“There’s no mistake, then? It’s really Lisle?” she asked, her eyes still holding on to the hope.
“No mistake. I thought somebody had identified her.”
“My husband, but he said… He could’ve made a mistake. I wanted to go myself, but when they told me,… I couldn’t.”
“You made the right choice,” he assured her. “Remember her the way she was.”
He pulled out a chair and sat down across the kitchen table from her while she dabbed at her eyes with a damp handkerchief.
“Do you know where Lisle went last night?”
She shook her head. “She goes out almost every night, but I do not know the places. She does not tell us where she goes. Dancing, I think. Her friends would know.”
“Did she have any special men friends?”
“None that come here,” her mother said bitterly. “She does not tell us anything about what she does or who she knows. I tell her this is not good, that she will end up like the Reinhard girl, but does she listen? No, she never listens.”
She was working herself up to anger now. Malloy always learned more when they were angry. “Maybe she mentioned someone she was afraid of,” he suggested.
“No, never,” her mother insisted. “She does not tell us anything. Except…”
“Except what?” he asked when she hesitated.
She was thinking, remembering. “There was a photograph…”
Frank couldn’t believe he would be this lucky. “A photograph of what?”
“Of Lisle. And some other people. In a boat, I think. I do not know when she would have been in a boat. She tried to hide it, but nothing is private here. That is what she always says. The other children, they get into her things, so she cannot keep anything a secret. She cries to me about it, but what can I do?”
“It’s hard in a place so small,” Frank agreed. “And the other children found this photograph?”
“Yes. Her brothers teased her about it, but she said she did not care because she did not like the man anymore. She told them to burn the picture. I think she said it because she knew they would not hurt it if they thought she didn’t care. They kept it to tease her, though.”
“Do you know where it is now?” The chances that it would help him were very slim, but he was willing to take even the smallest clue.
“No, I-”
“It could be very important.”
“Do you think it could help find who did this?”
“It might.”
“I will try to find it.”
SARAH HEARD A baby squalling as she climbed the stairs. The cry was loud and strong, a good sign if it was coming from the Ottos’ flat. The door was open, and Agnes was moving around, preparing dinner while she bounced the wailing baby on her hip.
“She’s really growing,” Sarah said from the doorway.
Agnes turned around, obviously startled. Her eyes widened with what looked like alarm. “The baby, she is fine,” she said, offering her for Sarah’s inspection. “You do not need to worry about her anymore. There is no reason for you to come here.”
Indeed, the child was plump and much healthier looking than she’d been the last time Sarah was allowed to see her.
“Sounds like she’s hungry,” Sarah suggested.
“I will feed her as soon as I am done here. Lars wants his supper on the table when he comes home.”
Oh, yes, she had forgotten about the charming Mr. Otto. “I won’t keep you. I was just wondering… Perhaps you heard that another girl was murdered last night.”
Agnes’s eyes grew large, and she murmured something that sounded like a prayer in German. Then she noticed her other two children, who had come from the other room to see who their visitor was. She spoke to them sharply in German, and they retreated. Then she turned back to Sarah. “I did not know. Who was it?”
“Gerda’s friend Lisle.”
Agnes paled, and she sank down into one of the chairs. She was murmuring in German again. The baby was wailing louder now, and Agnes automatically unbuttoned her shirtwaist and offered her breast.
“It was the same? The same as Gerda?” she asked, not quite meeting Sarah’s eye.
Sarah hardly heard the question. She was too busy looking at the nasty bruise on Agnes’s chest, right above her breast.
Seeing Sarah staring, she quickly pulled her shirtwaist to cover it. “My skin makes the black spots so easy,” she said self-consciously. “Is that the reason why you come here? Just to tell me about Lisle?”
It made her sound so cold. “No, not exactly. I wanted to pay my condolences to Bertha and Hetty, but I don’t know where they live. I thought maybe you could help me.”
She seemed relieved and gave Sarah an address on Seventh Street. “That is where Hetty lives. I do not know about Bertha. Please, you must go now. Lars will be home soon, and he does not want you here.”
How well Sarah remembered. “I brought some gifts for the children,” she said. “Just some toys,” she added when Agnes would have objected.
“I cannot take them,” she said, her eyes frightened again. “Lars would want to know where they came from. He would be angry. Please, you must go now.” She sounded almost desperate.
Sarah was beginning to understand. How she could have been so dense, she had no idea. Agnes was afraid of her husband, and probably for good reason, if the bruise had come from his hand, as Sarah strongly suspected. Well, she certainly didn’t want to be the cause of another beating.
“I understand,” she said. “Thank you for the information. I’m glad to see the baby is doing so well.”
Agnes’s eyes begged her to be gone, so she turned to go, but just as she reached the door, Agnes called, “Do they know…? Do they know who the killer is yet?” She could hardly get the words out.
Sarah was only too happy to be able to ease her mind, if only a little bit. “We have a good idea. I think it won’t be long until he’s arrested.”
She’d expected Agnes to be relieved. Instead, she looked alarmed, almost frightened. “You know who it is?”
“Yes, or at least we’re fairly sure it’s a man named Will. Gerda and the other girls all met a man named Will just before they died.”
“Will?” She repeated the name carefully. “You are sure?”
“As sure as we can be without catching him in the act,” Sarah said, exaggerating slightly.
Agnes closed her eyes for a moment, as if offering a silent prayer. Perhaps she was giving thanks that Gerda’s killer would soon be caught. “Thank you,” she said when she opened her eyes again.
Sarah marveled at Agnes’s gratitude, but she also remembered that Lars would be home soon and wouldn’t be happy to find her there. “Send for me if you need me,” she said, and left. Moving more quickly than she ordinarily would have, she felt a strong sense of relief when she reached the street without encountering Lars Otto.
Good thing for him, too. She wasn’t certain she could have been civil to him just then. She could be wrong, of course, but if he was responsible for the bruise she’d seen on Agnes, he was despicable. And now she also remembered how Agnes had clutched at her side the last time Sarah was here. Could that have been another injury inflicted by her husband? She’d seen too many abused wives to be shocked, but she would never be complacent about that kind of violence. She always had an urge to go after men like that with a bullwhip, although she was well aware of the irony of her desire to punish violence with violence. Not that she would ever have the opportunity to punish anyone, but she could enjoy her fantasies all the same.