“I couldn’t,” Mrs. Giddings protested, but Sarah said, “Thank you,” and went to take the tray. They had put some crackers and a bowl of soup on the tray, too.
“The lady is very sad,” the girl said. “But she will get used to it here. We will take care of her. She does not have to be afraid.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Sarah said, and suddenly she realized to whom she was speaking. “Are you Maria Barberi?”
“My name is Barbella,” the girl corrected, and Sarah remembered Malloy telling her the newspapers had gotten it wrong. This was the woman who had cut her lover’s throat out of despair when he refused to marry her. She had been tried for murder and sentenced to death, but she’d recently been granted a new trial.
“I thought your trial was supposed to start last week,” Sarah remembered, realizing she hadn’t seen any mention of it in the newspapers.
“It was, but now they say next month. So I wait.” She looked at Mrs. Giddings. “Do not cry. You will get used to it.”
As Sarah watched Maria go, she was conscious of the irony. Maria Barbella’s first trial had sold millions of newspapers for months. If her new trial, which had been scheduled to begin two days before Anna Blake was killed, had begun then, it’s possible that Anna’s death wouldn’t have gotten any notice at all. Instead, it had served to replace this postponed scandal and sell newspapers in the meantime.
“I suppose you can get used to anything,” Mrs. Giddings murmured.
“Let’s hope you don’t have to,” Sarah said briskly, setting the tray down on the bunk. “Now you must eat something to keep up your strength. You need to stay strong for your son.”
By the time she left The Tombs, Sarah’s own stomach was growling. She’d been in such a hurry to get to the jail and see Mrs. Giddings, she had neglected to eat herself. She bought a sausage sandwich from a street vendor and wolfed it down in a very unladylike manner. Then she headed back uptown to keep the promise she’d made to Mrs. Giddings to make sure Harold Giddings was all right.
Keeping that promise gave her an excuse to ask the boy some questions of her own. She wanted to clarify in her mind exactly what had happened the night Anna Blake died and who had been at the boarding house with her. Then, she was sure, she would know who the killer was.
16
SARAH FOUND THE GIDDINGS HOUSE EASILY ENOUGH from the directions Mrs. Giddings had given her. When she saw the neighborhood and how the family had once lived, she realized just how much damage Anna Blake had done to them. Mrs. Giddings had told her they’d sold nearly everything they owned to repay her husband’s law partners. Her husband’s career was ruined, he could no longer work in his profession, and her son had found what work he could just to keep food on the table. In the same situation, Sarah thought she might well have considered murdering Anna Blake herself.
No one answered her knock at the Giddings house for so long that Sarah was afraid she wasn’t going to have her opportunity to question Harold Giddings. But the door opened at last, and the boy himself stood there. She knew it must be he from his bloodshot eyes and his tormented expression.
“Who are you?” he asked, unknowingly echoing his mother’s suspicion.
“I’m Sarah Brandt,” she said, smiling reassuringly. “Your mother asked me to check on you and make sure you were all right.”
“My mother?” he cried almost desperately. “How is she? She told me not to visit her, but I can’t stand not knowing what’s happening to her!”
Sarah had been worried he wouldn’t believe her, but he must be even more trusting than she’d hoped. “If you’ll invite me in, I’ll be glad to tell you everything I know,” Sarah said gently.
Instantly flustered, the boy stepped back to admit her. “I’m sorry I was rude,” he said. “I didn’t know who you were.”
“That’s all right.” Sarah said, stepping into the foyer. She looked around. Every room she could see stood empty of furniture. “Is there someplace we could sit down?” she asked.
“Oh, yes,” the boy said, eager to please now. “We’ve still got… I mean, the back parlor. Just… follow me.”
He led her down the hallway and into a room that still held some of its original furnishings. Sarah could imagine the family gathered here in the evening during happier times, before Gilbert Giddings had betrayed them and destroyed their lives.
“Is your father here?” she asked.
“No,” the boy said, his anger at his father painfully obvious. “He hasn’t been here in a couple days. I hope he never comes back. I hope he’s dead in some gutter.”
Sarah didn’t chasten the boy. He had a right to his feelings, and she could certainly sympathize with them. “Your mother is concerned that you’re remembering to eat and get enough sleep,” she began.
“I’m not very hungry,” he said. “All I can think about is…”
“I know, but your mother is doing fine. The jail isn’t so very bad, and the women aren’t locked up all day. They can socialize and sew if they wish.”
“I don’t want her to socialize with criminals,” the boy objected.
Sarah didn’t point out that his mother was herself a confessed murderer. “And I would like to see her released, since she really didn’t kill Anna Blake.”
“She didn’t?” the boy asked incredulously. “She swore she did it! I couldn’t believe it, but she kept saying it, over and over. That policeman believed her, too. I begged him not to take her away, but she told me not to argue with him, that he didn’t have any choice.”
“She lied because she thought the detective was going to arrest you for the crime,” Sarah explained.
“Me? Why would he arrest me?” he asked in genuine bewilderment.
Now Sarah could understand how Malloy had known he was innocent. “Some policemen don’t particularly care if they arrest the right person, so long as they arrest someone.”
The boy frowned. “How could they do that? They’d never be able to prove an innocent person did it.”
“They have methods of persuasion,” Sarah said. “They usually manage to obtain confessions, even from innocent people.”
Harold paled. “Is that what they did to my mother?”
“Oh, no. She’d already confessed willingly,” Sarah reminded him. “She’s being well treated, and you don’t have to be afraid for her. But I’m sure you don’t want your mother in jail, especially if she didn’t kill anyone, and neither do I. I’d much rather have the real killer locked up.”
“Who is the real killer?” he asked anxiously.
“I don’t know yet, but I was hoping you’d be able to help me find him.”
“How could I do that?”
“By telling me everything that happened the night you went to see Anna Blake.”
“I already told that policeman everything, and he arrested my mother,” he reminded her.
“I know, but I’m hoping there was some detail that you’d forgotten or didn’t think to mention to him.”
The boy frowned. “How can that help?”
“I won’t know until I hear what happened. Now tell me everything. Start at the beginning.”
His young face screwed up with concentration. “My father didn’t come home that night. My mother pretended it didn’t matter, but she hated the thought that he was with that woman. I’d followed him once, to see where he went. We knew about her after… Well, after he had to pay back the money he stole from his law firm. He had to tell my mother everything then. I just wanted to see her. I wanted to know why he did this to us.”
“Of course you did,” Sarah said to encourage him. “So you knew where she lived.”
“I thought he might be with her that night, so when I got to the house, I made them let me inside. I don’t know what I would’ve done if he was there, but he wasn’t. I didn’t ask about him, of course. I just told them I wanted to see her. The man didn’t want to let me in, but-”
“Man?” Sarah echoed in surprise. “What man?”