In the meantime, she had a grim job to do.
SARAH EASILY FOUND the address that Agnes had given her, but Hetty wasn’t at home. The woman who answered the door, whom Sarah guessed was Hetty’s mother, looked Sarah up and down suspiciously before giving her that information.
“I’m Sarah Brandt,” she said, as if that would impress the woman somehow. “I just heard about Hetty’s friend being killed, and I wanted to express my condolences. Do you know where-?”
“She’ll be with Bertha. The two of them was carrying on so loud, I made them leave. Don’t know where they went.”
“Could they have gone to Bertha’s?”
The woman shrugged a shoulder, indicating she had no idea and cared less. Sarah was able to convince her to give her the address, however. A few minutes later she was walking down Avenue A and found Hetty and Bertha sitting on the front stoop of one of the tenement buildings. They were no longer “carrying on,” but they were slumped against each other, their young faces ravaged by tears. They were the very picture of despair.
“Hello,” she greeted them gently.
Bertha looked up and her red-rimmed eyes widened in surprise. “It’s Mrs. Brandt,” she said, poking Hetty in the ribs.
The other girl looked up without much interest, then slowly her expression hardened into anger. “You did this to her. You killed Lisle!”
“What?” Sarah asked in surprise.
“You made her lead that policeman to George, and now he’s done for her just like he did for Gerda!”
“George didn’t do this,” Sarah told them. “Mr. Malloy questioned him first thing. He was with a group of his friends all night. He’s not the killer.”
Hetty snorted derisively. “So you say. How do we know his friends ain’t in on it, too! Maybe there’s a bunch of them that goes around killing girls!”
“If there was, we’d have found them out by now. They’d be bragging and fighting among themselves. It’s impossible to keep a secret like that when more than one person knows it.”
Hetty didn’t want to be wrong. She wanted this to be Sarah’s fault so she could put the blame somewhere. She couldn’t think of a valid argument, so she simply glared at Sarah.
“Could I buy you girls something to drink?” Sarah suggested. “You look like you could use something.”
“You just want to ask us more questions,” Hetty said bitterly.
“I want to find out who killed your friends,” Sarah agreed. “Maybe you know something that will help.”
Bertha was crying again. “I want to find out who it is,” she told Hetty, scrubbing at her cheeks with her sleeve. “I’m going to help her.” She pushed herself unsteadily to her feet.
“I don’t know nothing, and neither do you!” Hetty insisted, her chin jutting rebelliously even though her lower lip quivered suspiciously.
“Then you won’t be able to help. But my offer is still good. There’s a beer garden just around the comer, isn’t there?”
Grudgingly, Hetty rose from the stoop and followed as Sarah and Bertha started down the street. In a few minutes the girls each had a stein of beer-which Sarah felt they needed for medicinal purposes-and Sarah had a lemonade.
They sat in silence for a few minutes. Sarah was loath to intrude upon their grief, but finally she said, “Can you tell me what happened last night?”
“Nothing happened,” Hetty said, her anger still fierce.
“She means nothing bad,” Bertha explained. “We went to Harmony Hall, just like we usually do. There was a dance, but we none of us met anybody we liked, so we left together. We walked home, and Lisle went off by herself, just like she always does, when we got to her street. That’s the last we know.”
“Then she wasn’t with any particular fellow? Nobody she would have willingly gone with?”
“We ain’t done that since Gerda died,” Hetty informed her haughtily. “We ain’t stupid!”
“Then someone must have followed her or seen her alone and accosted her.”
“She would’ve screamed,” Bertha insisted. “There’s lots of people out on the streets and sleeping on the roofs and porches. Somebody would’ve heard if she screamed.”
“Maybe she couldn’t scream,” Sarah suggested, thinking out loud. “Maybe he grabbed her too quickly.”
“Or maybe it was somebody she knew,” Hetty said with surprising insight. “Maybe she wasn’t even afraid at first.”
Sarah hadn’t thought of that. “Somebody she wasn’t afraid of, so she went with him willingly.”
“Maybe,” Hetty said. not quite convinced. The idea didn’t appeal to Sarah, either. Since the girls didn’t know who the killer was, how could any man have been considered safe?
Sarah tried a different tack. “Did either of you ever hear Lisle speak of a man named Will?”
The girls exchanged a glance. “Was he the one who…?” Bertha began.
Hetty nodded. “Lisle met him a while back. In the spring, I think. He took her to Coney Island and bought her a pair of ear bobs. He seemed like the perfect beau, and then…”
“He hit her,” Bertha said baldly.
“What do you mean?”
“They was…” Bertha caught herself, glancing at Hetty, whose frown held a warning.
“I know you don’t want to speak badly of your friend, but we can’t let that stand in the way of finding out who killed her,” Sarah reminded them.
“Lisle didn’t never want anybody to know, especially you,” Bertha told her.
Sarah was touched. Lisle had wanted her good opinion. “I thought Lisle was a fine, brave girl,” she said, her voice unsteady as she tried to hold back her tears. “Nothing you tell me now will change my mind. And no one else will ever know.”
Hetty still wasn’t convinced, but Bertha needed to unburden herself. “A lot of the girls do it, Mrs. Brandt. It’s the only way we can get pretty things.”
“I understand,” she assured them. “I like pretty things, too.”
“Lisle liked this fellow, and he treated her real good,” Hetty said, her tone daring Sarah to contradict her. “She never would’ve done it otherwise.”
“Of course not,” Sarah agreed.
“She went with him one night,” Bertha said. “Not to a room or anything. Just someplace private. She let him, you know, and after he was done, he slapped her. Called her a whore.”
“He had no call to do that! He knew she weren’t no whore,” Hetty said.
“She was scared, but she’s been beat by her stepfather, so she wasn’t going to take it from him,” Bertha said.
“He must’ve been surprised. Maybe he thought ’cause she’s so little, she wouldn’t put up a fight,” Hetty said.
“But she did,” Bertha reported. “Kicked him and bit him, and she got away before he could hit her again.”
“She was mad,” Hetty remembered. “Couldn’t hardly tell us about it without spitting and hissing. Wanted to scratch his eyes out, only he never came around again.”
Sarah was trying to put it all together, but the puzzle pieces didn’t quite fit yet. “Did Gerda know about this?”
“Sure she did,” Bertha confirmed. “Lisle told all of us right after it happened.”
“Do you think Gerda might’ve gone with him, even knowing he’d hit Lisle?”
The two girls exchanged another glance. Plainly, they weren’t sure about this.
“It’s not that Gerda was so brave,” Hetty began, feeling her way.