The Edge of Dreams (2 page)

Our bedroom at the front of the house had a fine new bed in it, and a wardrobe, and a chest of drawers. Liam’s nursery had not been furnished yet; neither had the back bedroom.

Daniel shrugged. “I couldn’t quite remember what babies need,” he said, “and besides, he’s grown so much recently. We can bring that borrowed crib down from the apartment but I’m thinking that maybe he’ll be able to go into a proper bed.”

“He needs something he can’t climb out of,” I said. “Or the Lord knows what he’d get into. He’s turned into an escape artist, Daniel. He’ll be outdoing Houdini any day now.”

Daniel smiled. “He’s certainly become an active little tyke.”

“We can’t wait to see him again, Molly,” Gus said as we made our way downstairs again. “He must have grown in three months.”

“He certainly has, and learned to make his needs known very strongly,” I replied, sharing a smile with Daniel. “His current vocabulary is Mama, Dada, and no.”

Sid and Gus laughed. Daniel opened the front door and we stepped out into warm September sunshine.

“Do you have time to come over to our house for a cup of coffee and a snack before you get back to Liam?” Sid asked.

I was dying for a chat with my dearest friends, but I hesitated, glancing at Daniel. Much as I wanted to hear all their news, I knew Daniel had been working day and night on a particularly complicated case recently. He never confided much to me about his work, but he had let slip that he was having a tough time with this one. A murder case, I gathered, and more than one murder involved.

“Thank you, but I think we should be getting back now,” Daniel answered, before I could say anything. “I’m sure Molly will take you up on your offer to look after our boy so that she can finish equipping the house as she wants it.”

“Molly dear, you can always borrow supplies from us to get you started. It would be too overwhelming to try to shop for everything you need at once,” Gus said. “We have more dishes and pans than we need, don’t we, Sid.”

“Absolutely,” Sid said. “And spare bedclothes and pillows. Come on over and help yourself.”

“You’re very kind, as always.” I turned to smile at them. “And I’m so looking forward to hearing all about Vienna.”

“Gus is becoming quite an alienist in her own right.” Sid beamed at her proudly. “Some of the other doctors working with Professor Freud were really impressed with her theories. Maybe we should have stayed, and Gus could have become an eminent scientist, a second Madame Curie…”

“No, we shouldn’t have.” Gus shook her head. “I’m not even a qualified doctor. Officially I’m not allowed to treat patients. Besides, you didn’t like Austrian food—too much cream and dumplings.”

“We must be going, Molly.” Daniel touched my arm to lead me away. “I should be back at work.”

“But you said yourself it’s the first day off you’ve had in ages.” I looked back with longing at Sid and Gus’s front door. “Surely they can’t begrudge you one day off.”

“It’s not a question of begrudging,” he said. “It’s a question of what is more important—my enjoyment or stopping a murderer before he kills again. I rather think the latter.”

“You’re chasing a murderer, Captain Sullivan?” Sid sounded excited. “You should enlist the help of your wife. She seems to have a knack for solving crimes. You should have seen her in Paris…”

“Oh, that was nothing,” I cut in, giving her a warning frown. I had decided not to tell Daniel about that harrowing business in Paris. At the time he had had enough on his plate to worry about, and when I returned I chose not to think about what I had been through.

“What are we talking about?” I sensed that Daniel was instantly alert. “Some business in Paris?”

“Oh, an Impressionist painter was murdered by a Jewish rebel while I was there,” I said in what I hoped was a breezy manner. “It was in all the newspapers.”

“And Molly figured it out before the police,” Gus said proudly.

“Well done.” I saw Daniel exhale in relief that this crime hadn’t personally affected me. “Yes, I don’t doubt Molly’s skills as a detective, but I’d rather she kept a good distance from my police work in New York. I don’t want to put her or our son at risk, as I’m sure you understand.”

“I’ll bring Liam to see you tomorrow,” I said as I took my leave of my friends. “You can tell me everything about Vienna.”

“Sid has learned to make a mean
apfelstrudel,
” Gus said. “She can make one to go with our coffee and—” She broke off as a man came running toward us. It was a police constable and he came to a halt, panting, in front of Daniel.

“Captain Sullivan, sir. I’m so glad I’ve found you.”

“What is it, Byrne?”

“There’s been another one.” The young constable was still trying to catch his breath.

“Another murder?” Daniel snapped out the words.

“Another note,” he said and handed Daniel an envelope, addressed in typewritten letters to him at
Mulberry Street Police Headquarters
. Daniel opened the envelope and took out a folded sheet of paper.

I could read the words as Daniel unfolded it. They were typed with a typewriting machine in the middle of an otherwise blank page. Just one sentence.

I’m saving the best for last.

Two

Daniel refolded the paper. “For last?” he said.

“At least that might mean he plans to stop this murderous spree, don’t you think, sir?” the constable said.

“But he plans to kill once more first,” Daniel said grimly. “He does this to taunt us, knowing we can’t stop him, damn his eyes.” He glanced across at us, realizing he had been swearing in the presence of ladies. He cleared his throat.

“We should go,” Gus said. “We look forward to seeing you tomorrow then, Molly.”

I nodded and went to follow Daniel.

“Byrne—please take Mrs. Sullivan and find her a cab,” Daniel said. “I’m sorry, Molly, but you must make your own way home. You have enough money with you?”

“Don’t worry about me, Daniel. I’m just fine,” I said. “You go and do what you have to. I can take the El. The station is quite close by. I don’t need a cab.”

“All right, then. I’ll see you when I can.” He put a hand on my shoulder and gave me a quick peck on the cheek. Then he hurried off with the constable, leaving me standing alone on a deserted Patchin Place.

I walked around the corner to Sixth Avenue and made my way to the Eighth Avenue station of the elevated railway. My insides were twisted into a knot, as they always were when Daniel was worried and possibly in danger. That note had sounded so innocent, but Daniel had obviously interpreted it as a threat to kill—another murder in what had been a growing number of them. Until now I hadn’t known whether he was on the trail of one murderer or more than one. This indicated it was just one man, one twisted individual, who had kept Daniel out until all hours. There had been nothing in the newspapers warning of a fiend such as this, so I presumed the police had managed to keep it hushed up for fear of alarming the public.

I boarded the train and was soon speeding northward. I looked with interest into the second-floor windows of the tenements that we passed, where I could see lives going on almost close enough to reach out and touch. In one window I glimpsed a small child, sitting on a potty, staring up at us as we passed. In another a woman was fixing her hair, her face a picture of concentration as she stuck hairpins into her bun. I had often wondered what it must be like to live with trains passing so close outside the window all the time. I supposed the occupants got used to it. One gets used to almost anything eventually if one has to. But would I ever have gotten used to that complete lack of privacy?

I alighted at the Fifty-ninth Street station to the more genteel world of Uptown New York, and walked up to the apartment building where we’d been staying on West Sixty-first Street. From the outside it appeared quite grand—almost as swank as those new buildings along the edge of Central Park, with its Moorish-style decoration and exotic archway over the entrance. But inside it didn’t quite live up to its promise. It was designed as a city residence for bachelors—each apartment a pied-à-terre with a small dark sitting room, narrow bedroom, and minute kitchen space with a gas ring. It had been hard to minister to the needs of a baby there, and to keep him from disturbing all those bachelors, so I was overjoyed at the prospect of moving back into my own home.

Mrs. Heffernan had an equally small caretaker’s apartment off the marble foyer. She greeted me with obvious relief.

“Oh, you’re back so soon, Mrs. Sullivan,” she said. “I was just thinking about fixing the young one some food for his midday meal.”

“Captain Sullivan was summoned back to work unexpectedly,” I said.

“That poor man. He’ll work himself into the grave if you’re not careful,” she said, leading me through to a cramped and overdecorated parlor. It felt uncomfortably warm and stuffy, and looked as if it hadn’t been dusted too frequently, and I felt a jolt of guilt about leaving Liam there.

Liam had heard my voice and was already standing and yelling “Mama!” as I came in. When he saw me he tried to run toward me, impeded by his petticoats. I swept him up into my arms.

“I hope you’ve been a good boy,” I said, showering him with kisses.

“No trouble at all, Mrs. Sullivan. Plenty of curiosity, I’ll say that for him, but not a malicious bone in him.”

I wondered what his plenty of curiosity had been trying to get into, noting the stuffed bird under a glass dome and the large aspidistra plant, but thought it wise not to ask as I thanked Mrs. Heffernan and carried Liam to the elevator. “First lunch and a nap for you, young man,” I said. “Then we’ll go out and get Dada a treat for his supper. I think we’ll throw caution to the winds and buy him a steak. We have to make sure he keeps up his strength.”

By five o’clock I had a nice sirloin steak waiting to be cooked in the pan, after I’d boiled the potatoes and beans. I had no oven, and no way of keeping things warm, but I’d just have to make do somehow. At seven o’clock I fed Liam some mashed vegetables and put him to bed. At eight I had some mashed potato myself and a fried egg. Nine o’clock came, then ten, and still Daniel didn’t come home. There was no way I could go to bed and no room for me to pace. At home on Patchin Place I’d have looked out of the window, but my window here looked onto a faceless wall of brick. I tried to read in the harsh electric light. But I couldn’t concentrate.

A man who taunted the police with notes before he killed—he sounded like the epitome of evil. And he was sending those notes to my husband.

I undressed and climbed into bed, hugging my knees to myself as if it was a cold rather than balmy September evening. I was just nodding off when I heard the click of the door latch. I jumped up right away as Daniel came in.

“You should have gone to sleep, my dear,” he said. He looked worn-out, his hair was disheveled and he was hollow-eyed. “Not stayed awake for me.”

“I was worried about you,” I said. “Have you eaten anything? I bought you a steak as a treat.”

“A steak?” His eyes lit up briefly, then he shook his head. “I’m afraid I’m too tired to do justice to it tonight. I’ve just come from a long session with the commissioner in which I was lambasted for not doing my job.”

He sank into the armchair. “We don’t have any whiskey, do we? That’s what I feel I need right now.”

“I think there’s still a drop in that bottle you were hiding under the sink.” I smiled as I went to find it. I poured the remains into a glass and brought it back to him. He drained it in one gulp. “Thank you. That hit the spot.”

“You have to eat,” I urged. “Are you sure you won’t try the steak?”

“No, really, let’s save it for when I can enjoy it. Some bread and cheese will do. And did you pour the last of the whiskey?”

“Yes, I did, but just this once—I’m not having you turning into an Irish drunk, Daniel Sullivan.”

He gave me a tired smile. “Not much chance of that happening. But after today … well, anyone would have needed a shot of whiskey.”

“Really bad, was it? Your murder investigation? It’s not going well?” I paused in the kitchen doorway.

He was staring down at his empty whiskey glass. “To begin with it wasn’t at all clear that one person was committing these crimes, you see. Now we have to believe that we are dealing with one murderer who feels he can kill with impunity, when and where he likes.”

I went through to the kitchen, cut some bread, buttered it, and added a big hunk of cheddar, then came back and placed them on the table in front of him. “You received a note today,” I said. “From your conversation it sounded as if you’ve been getting these notes on a regular basis.”

He nodded and sighed. “The first ones were only sent after he had killed someone. Now he’s so confident that he sends one before and after a murder, taunting us in our inadequacy.”

“And you have no idea who it could be?”

“None at all,” he said. “We haven’t the least little thing to go on. Nothing to tie the murders together.”

“Were all of the victims killed in the same manner? In the same area?”

“Nothing,” he said sharply. “Some of the deaths would have gone unnoticed as murders if we hadn’t received a note boasting about them. And none of them have been in the same part of the city, the same strata of society—there’s nothing to link them at all.”

“Yes, there is,” I said as the thought occurred to me. “There is one thing. He is sending notes to you. You are the link.”

Daniel looked up sharply.

“The notes were all addressed to you, weren’t they?” I said.

“Yes, they were. But I took that to mean that I’m a rather prominent member of the police force. My name and picture have appeared in the newspapers.”

“So have the names of other police captains. And why not send messages to the commissioner himself, if he wants to go to the top?”

Daniel sighed again. “I don’t know, and I’m too tired to think right now.”

“Maybe I can help,” I said tentatively, as I came to perch on the arm of his chair. “Sometimes a woman’s point of view can be useful.”

He shook his head firmly. “Molly, you know I can’t involve you in my cases. It wouldn’t be ethical and I wouldn’t want to put you in any sort of danger. Besides, there’s nothing you could do that hasn’t already been done. I have a team of highly trained officers working with me. They have been through the circumstances of every murder with a fine-tooth comb. After at least six deaths we are none the wiser. Not one step closer to a solution.” He put the cheese on the bread and took a big bite. Then after he had swallowed he looked up at me again. “For all we know they are all random killings, committed by someone who just likes feeling powerful.”