Mrs. Schyler wasn’t finished, but Sarah didn’t listen to the rest of what she was saying. Or rather, shrieking. She’d already heard enough. At least she had a better understanding now of what might have inspired Dirk to kill women. It was small comfort.
“OH, MY DEAR, what on earth is wrong?” Mrs. Elsworth exclaimed when she saw Sarah coming down the street that evening. “I dropped a pair of scissors today, and the point stuck in the floor. That always means bad news. It’s not another lost little one, I hope!”
“Oh, no, nothing like that,” Sarah assured her.
“Is it something to do with that fellow I saw you with this morning? I knew he was trouble the moment I set eyes on him! I warned you, didn’t I?”
Sarah only wished she could tell Mrs. Elsworth just how right she’d been. “Dirk won’t be any trouble to anyone ever again,” she said, knowing at least a small measure of relief at the thought of how many young women would be safe now that he was dead.
“Oh, my, that sounds serious,” she said, coming down the steps she’d been sweeping to meet Sarah in the street. “From the looks of you, it is, too!”
Sarah toyed with the idea of telling her the fable she’d invented to protect Dirk’s family, but she no longer had the stomach for it. “You were right, Mrs. Elsworth, he was an evil man. Today he was trying to frighten me on one of the rides at Coney Island, and he accidentally fell to his death.”
“Good heavens! You poor dear! You must be devastated!”
“Not exactly,” Sarah admitted, “but I am exhausted. If you’ll excuse me, I’d-”
“Let me take you inside and make you a cup of tea. I’ve got some lamb stew left from supper. I don’t suppose you’ve eaten, either. No matter, I’ll take care of you.”
“I’d really rather just go home and-”
“Of course, dear, go on. I’ll be over in a minute with something to eat.”
Sarah was too tired to argue. She let Mrs. Elsworth feed her and put her to bed, where she dreamed of the faceless man who had killed Gerda Reinhard.
THE NEXT DAY Sarah visited her mother, knowing she would soon hear of Dirk’s death and demand to know the details. Their visit was a trial for Sarah. Her mother assumed she had been romantically interested in him, and nothing she could say would convince her that she wasn’t grief-stricken at his loss. At least she had no trouble explaining why she wouldn’t be attending Dirk’s funeral. Sarah knew it was because she wouldn’t be welcome by his family, but she allowed her mother to believe it would be too difficult for her.
That evening, Sarah took advantage of the coolness of the evening to weed her garden. That’s where Malloy found her.
“Your neighbor told me where you were,” he explained when he came through the back gate.
Sarah rose from where she’d been kneeling and pulled off her work gloves. She felt a little self-conscious to be dressed in the shabby gown she used for cleaning, but she reminded herself she had no need to impress Malloy. “Have you found out anything?”
He didn’t look very pleased. “I found out that Schyler really was entertaining his friends the night Gerda Reinhard was killed. There’s no chance that he killed her.”
“Damn,” Sarah said, throwing her gloves down in disgust.
“Mrs. Brandt, I’m shocked,” he said, pretending to be.
“Shut up, Malloy. You’re as annoyed as I am about this!”
“You’re right, I am. I wanted him to be the killer, and it looks like he was, but not in this case.”
Sarah sighed. “Come and sit down. Mrs. Elsworth brought over a bottle of homemade elderberry wine last night. I think we deserve a glass, don’t you?”
“Homemade, did you say?” Malloy asked, following her to the back porch. “My opinion of the old bat just went up a notch.”
Sarah smiled in spite of herself. It was the first time she’d felt like smiling since Dirk had plunged to his death.
When they were seated at the table on her back porch with glasses of wine in front of them, Sarah said, “What do we do now?”
Malloy stared out at the garden for a long moment. “I’m not sure we can do anything at all. We’re right back to where we started-too many suspects to even hope to find the right one. And now so much time has passed that any chance we might have had of finding the killer are pretty much gone.”
He was right, of course. They were back to suspecting every man Gerda had known, and that was a lot of men. Even if Malloy had the time and resources to question all of them, there was no way of proving which one of them-if any of them!-had actually killed her unless he chose to confess, which seemed highly unlikely. She may have even been the victim of a total stranger, someone she didn’t know at all, which meant that all the investigation in the world probably wouldn’t find him.
“How do you deal with it?” she asked him. “With knowing that a killer is walking free and there’s nothing you can do, I mean?”
His dark gaze met hers. His eyes were unfathomable. Finally, he said, “How do you deal with it when one of your patients dies?”
There was, of course, no answer to his question. She simply went on, learning from past mistakes and doing the best she could in the future. Now she understood that he did, too.
They sat in silence for a while, sipping their wine. It was very good, and after a while Malloy poured himself a second glass without asking, then refilled her glass, too. Perhaps it was the wine that gave her courage.
“How did your wife die, Malloy?”
She felt the instant tension, but she waited, refusing to take back her question.
“I told you,” he finally said. “A midwife killed her.”
“What happened exactly?”
At first she thought he wouldn’t answer, but she waited, giving him time. Her patience was rewarded.
“It was a difficult birth. After three days, the baby still hadn’t come.”
Sarah couldn’t help the sound of protest that escaped her.
He glanced at her. “Would you have taken her to the hospital?”
“Probably,” Sarah said. “Although there are some things you can do to help the baby along. I would’ve tried those first, and then-”
“Kathleen wouldn’t go to the hospital. Her mother died in a hospital. She was terrified of them. Didn’t want a doctor either. Didn’t want a strange man to see her like that. In the end, I sent for one anyway, but it was too late by then.”
“Didn’t the midwife do anything?”
“Oh, yes, she did something all right. She used these… these instruments to pull the baby out.”
“Forceps,” Sarah guessed.
“Yes, that’s right.” The bitterness was thick in his voice.
“Do you know it’s illegal for a midwife to use them?” she asked him.
“I do now. And I guess I know why, too, don’t I? She got the baby out, but she tore something inside… inside Kathleen. She was bleeding and… I sent for the doctor, but by the time he came, she was gone.”
His efforts to conceal the depths of his anguish only made it more profound. Moved beyond tears, Sarah reached over and laid her hand on his arm. She understood the pain only too well, the agony of losing someone you dearly love in such a senseless way. “I’m sorry,” she said.
He looked down at where her hand rested on his arm, then up to meet her gaze. “It’s not your fault,” he reminded her. Or perhaps he was reminding himself. He’d hated her on sight because of what she was, but now he was saying he no longer held that against her. Or at least she hoped he was saying that.
As for herself, she’d long since forgiven him for being a policeman. Now that she understood his reasons, she could not condemn him for doing the only thing he could to make sure his son was well provided for.
Aware that they had reached a new level of understanding, she self-consciously withdrew her hand and placed it in her lap. The silence between them was no longer comfortable, but heavy with unspoken things. She cast about for some way to break it.