The Edge of Dreams (7 page)

Six

Gus put her head around my door. “The lord and master has departed, so it seems. I heard the front door slam. I take it he was not pleased that we had sneaked you away from your hospital bed. At least that’s what we guessed from the way he came barging in and stormed up the stairs.”

I gave an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry for my husband’s rudeness, but in his defense he was more frightened than angry. He had not received the message I sent him and arrived to find my hospital bed empty and a vague rumor about my having been taken off to a private clinic. He deals with some pretty ruthless characters, as you know, and was terrified I’d been kidnapped.”

“Oh, I see. Then we’ll forgive him this time. I was about to ask him to stay for dinner.”

“I suggested you’d be able to rustle up a bite to eat for him, but he was in no mood to be sociable. He has a lot to contend with right now, Gus. A difficult case and the commissioner of police on his back.”

“He mentioned it, remember, when you came to see your house. And we volunteered your services.”

“Not much chance of anyone in the New York police inviting me to help,” I said guardedly. “Besides, in my current condition I’m not much use for anything. I was so looking forward to moving back in across the street, but now I don’t know when I’ll be able to go shopping for all the things I need to make the house habitable.”

“Don’t think about that for now. As I said, we can supply you with linens and dishes enough to keep you going. Then you can choose your own at leisure.”

“You’re always so kind,” I said.

“Nonsense. You and Liam are the closest thing we have to family these days.” She plumped up the pillow on my bed, not wanting to betray emotion. “Do you want anything more to eat, or maybe a glass of milk to help you sleep?”

“Nothing, thank you. I always sleep so well in your house.”

“Sid has some wonderful sleeping powders if you need one,” Gus said. “You might find the pain in your ribs wakes you up during the night. Why don’t you take one tonight, just to be sure?”

“I want to hear Liam if he cries,” I said. “He’s been through the same traumatic event as I have. He might well have nightmares about it.”

“We’ll listen for Liam,” she said. “And we’ll come and wake you if he’s inconsolable. I’ll bring you the sleeping draft, all right?”

“All right,” I agreed.

She soon returned with the promised cocktail. “Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite,” Gus whispered as I drained the glass. I lowered myself onto the pillows as Gus turned out the electric light.

*   *   *

The next thing I knew I heard Liam crying and woke with a start to find birds chirping outside my window and the sky streaked with early-dawn light. I had slept a dreamless night and felt clearheaded and ready for anything, although I still experienced twinges of pain as I tried to sit up, and more pain as I lifted Liam from his bed, indicating that I wasn’t ready to be on my own yet. When I went to change him I realized, of course, that his clothes were all back at the apartment, and I didn’t want to ask either Sid or Gus to make the journey to the Upper West Side. Maybe Daniel would have time to fetch what we needed later in the day.

I need not have worried. Sid sat beside me, as I fed Liam a boiled egg, with a notebook and pencil in her hand. “Now,” she said. “List of what you need. Your clothes. Liam’s clothes and the door key.”

“I can’t ask you to do that,” I said. “Daniel can…”

“Daniel’s involved in a tricky case. We know that,” Sid said. “How much trouble is it to collect a few clothes?”

“But the El won’t be operating, after yesterday’s crash.”

“So I’ll take a cab. More pleasant anyway.”

“But expensive.”

“Don’t be silly.” Sid patted my hand as if I was a child. “Where do I find the key?”

I directed her to my purse. An alarm was sounding inside my head. If someone was watching my apartment building he might be able to follow Sid to this house. Then I told myself I was worrying too much. She’d be in a cab. He wouldn’t be able to follow. And besides, why would he be watching our building? He’d think I was still in the hospital. And if he found out I’d left, he’d think I was in an undisclosed private clinic.

Sid departed. I played with Liam and kept an ear open for Daniel. He didn’t come all morning, but then I’d learned that I could never count on his appearing when he said he would. Sid returned with bags of clothing, and I had just gone upstairs to change my clothes when Daniel arrived.

“She’s just getting dressed,” I heard Sid say. “I’ve been to your apartment to bring clothes for her and Liam.”

“Oh, it was you. Thank God,” he said. “I went to the apartment myself and was told by the caretaker that someone had just been there. You had me worried.”

“Worried that someone might have broken into your apartment?” Sid asked. “You’re not still afraid that the Italian gang is out to destroy you, are you? I thought that matter was all settled.”

“No, nothing like that,” I heard him say as he came up the stairs. “I thought Molly might have been foolish enough to have attempted the journey herself.”

“No, she’s been resting like a good girl,” Sid said. She tapped on my door. “Molly, dear, are you decent? I’ve a young man to see you.”

Daniel came in, saw me sitting at the vanity putting pins into my hair, and nodded with satisfaction. “Well, you’re certainly looking much better,” he said. “Well rested?”

“Perfectly, thank you. And it feels good to be in clean clothes. Did Sid tell you she was kind enough to go and retrieve some of our things?” I wasn’t going to let him know I had overheard the whole conversation and the worry in his voice.

“Yes, she did. Mrs. Heffernan gave me a shock when she said someone had been up to our place. I thought for a moment…” He broke off, then managed a smile as he came across the room to me.

“You thought that the killer had come looking for me?” I had lowered my voice in case Sid or Gus was still within earshot. “Aren’t we reading too much into this, Daniel? Do you have any reason to believe that he was responsible for yesterday’s crash, or that I was a target?”

He sighed and sank onto the small upright chair by the window. “We are none the wiser, as usual. The signalman has been questioned and swears that he saw the disk on the front of the locomotive indicating a Sixth Avenue train, and the engineer swears that the train bore the correct disk, that he put it on himself.”

“He’s right. The train definitely said Ninth Avenue when it came into my station. No question about it. What disk is on the engine now?”

“None,” he said. “That’s the interesting part. There is no disk to be seen. And the locomotive didn’t come off the track.”

“So that adds fuel to your belief that your killer orchestrated this. Somehow he changed the disk while the train was in the station and then removed the disk before there could be any investigation.”

“It does seem that way.”

“And was there any person of note on board that we know of?”

“Persons of note rarely travel in crowded El carriages,” he said.

“And speaking of ‘of note’—no more notes have arrived, I take it?”

“Not as far as I know. But then I wouldn’t expect one.” He held out a large envelope. “I’ve had one of our men write out a list of the various victims for you. This is for your eyes only, remember. Your friends should not be privy to this.” I noticed that he tried to avoid calling Sid and Gus by their nicknames, as if they were too shocking to be spoken out loud. It was another small way of displaying his disapproval of their unacceptable lifestyle.

I opened the clasp on the envelope and took out several sheets of typewritten paper.

“They are in chronological order,” Daniel said.

I was already reading the first sheet. “‘May 10
:
Dolly Willis. 285 Flushing Avenue, Brooklyn. (Feebleminded woman of sixty-two. Lived with her sister. Pushed into the path of a speeding trolley.)

“‘Note said: “Trolley and Dolly rhyme. A fitting end this time.”’”

I looked up. “‘This time’? Does that mean there might have been other times before that you don’t know about?”

Daniel frowned. “Now, that’s an interesting thought. There are always unsolved homicides in the city, and in cases like this one, deaths that might never have been ruled a homicide. If we hadn’t received the note it might never have been established that she had been pushed under a trolley.”

“You mean that she was a feebleminded woman and could have stepped into the path of a trolley without assistance?”

“Quite possible. And people were intent on waiting to cross the street themselves so no one would have noticed the well-timed push. It was hard to come up with witnesses a few days later, and only one person said that the old woman seemed to have suddenly gone pitching forward.”

I paused, digesting this. “So this man may have been perfecting his methods for ages before the first death we know about?”

Daniel sighed. “It’s possible. Yes. But we’d have no way of knowing if the deaths were ruled accidents, or if he didn’t manage to kill the first times.”

I read on down the page: “‘May 31: Simon Grossman. Age twenty. Lived with parents, Dr. and Mrs. Grossman, 258 Fifth Avenue. Student at New York University. Drank a cup of coffee laced with cyanide in Fritz’s, a crowded coffee shop frequented by students on MacDougal Street.

“‘The note said: “Simon says good-bye, or would if he could speak.”’”

I looked up at Daniel. “A student at New York University. And I take it not in any way related to poor old Dolly?”

“Not in any way. He was the son of a well-respected doctor, and she lived with her sister who was a former housemaid.”

“And she had never been employed by the doctor, I take it?”

“She had not. She worked for a prominent banker, was given a little legacy when he died, and went home to take care of her mother and sister in Brooklyn. The mother passed away a few years ago, and the two sisters lived happily together until this.”

“How sad,” I said. “And how senseless. A feebleminded woman couldn’t have been a threat to anybody, could she? Why choose her, I wonder.”

Daniel shook his head. “I wish I could tell you.”

“I see what you mean when you say there’s no connection. A simpleminded old woman and a university student, and such different methods of murder. In your experience, does a poisoner normally resort to a more violent crime?”

He shook his head. “I’d say no. Poisoners are usually secretive, quiet, reserved types. If you poison, you don’t have to be present when the murder takes place.”

“So the only thing these murders have in common is that they were terribly risky,” I said. “Pushing someone under a trolley on a crowded street and putting cyanide in a coffee cup in a crowded café both come with a strong chance of being observed.”

“That’s true. He does like to take risks.”

“Maybe he gets a thrill out of taking risks,” I said. “Were the other murders equally risky and public?”

“Risky, yes. Public, no,” Daniel said. “Read on.”

I turned to the next page: “‘June 21: Maud Daughtery, age sixty-three. Widow. Lived with her only son, 485 10th Avenue. Chelsea.

“‘The note said: “Mother didn’t always know best.”’

“What did that mean?” I asked, looking up from the paper.

Daniel shrugged. “We took that to mean that she did not lock her bathroom door when taking a bath. There was a table lamp on the dresser beside the bath, and someone dropped it into the water, thus electrocuting her.”

“She lived with her presumably grown-up son,” I said.

“She did. Terrence, aged forty-two. A studious and reserved young man who is employed as a tutor to an Upper East Side family.”

“And might have had reason to hurl a lamp into his mother’s bathtub?” I asked.

Daniel smiled. “We looked into that, believe me. From what we learned of the mother, she was an overbearing and unpleasant woman who bossed everyone around and probably made her son’s life miserable. However, he was in a schoolroom with three children at the time his mother was killed, and he seemed genuinely distraught at her death.”

“And I also take it that this woman was in no way related to either simple Dolly or the university student?”

“That’s right. In no way related. Never lived in the same part of the city or moved in the same circles. And the same is true for the other victims.”

“This murder did take a good deal of nerve, as you say,” I commented. “To break into a house, wait until someone took a bath, and then electrocute her. That would take observation of the family’s habits and a good deal of planning. That is not the same kind of crime as pushing someone in front of a trolley.”

“And they become progressively more daring. Read on.”

I turned to the next sheet of paper. “‘July 12. Marie Ellingham. Age seventy. Address 352 East Fifty-second Street. Died of arsenic poisoning. Police not able to determine when and how it was administered.

“‘The note we received said, “Judge not that ye be not judged.”’

“What could that mean? Was she judgmental by nature?” I asked.

“Her husband was a retired judge.”

“And presumably you’ve checked into whether he might have had a motive for poisoning her?”

“We went through the whole household thoroughly. He was visibly upset by her death. Devastated, actually. It seems they were a devoted couple. There was no trace of arsenic to be found in the kitchen, on the utensils, anywhere. The cook and maid had been with them for years. The only thing of interest was that the bedroom window was at the rear of the house, facing a small garden, and it was open.”

“So someone could have climbed in, administered the poison, and departed again.”

“Exactly, except it was quite a climb to the window, and he would have risked being seen from the windows of the houses behind.”

“And no ties to the other three victims, I assume?”

“None.” He leaned closer. “And the interesting thing, Molly, is that this death would have been ruled as natural causes if we hadn’t received the note. Marie Ellingham was prone to gastric troubles, she had a delicate stomach, and her own physician was quite willing to say that the bout of vomiting had been too much for her heart at her age.”