Murder on Astor Place Read Free Page A

murmured their assent.
    Sarah couldn’t have agreed more. People died every day in the city, often by violent means, but hardly ever did someone in this neighborhood die by another’s hand, and certainly not someone as young and innocent as this girl had been. And if Sarah was upset, imagine how Mrs. Higgins must be affected. “I’ve got to check on Mrs. Higgins. All this trouble can’t be good for her or the baby.”
    “They ain’t letting anybody inside,” Bertha warned her, but Sarah was already climbing the front steps to where a portly police officer stood guard at the door.

    C AN WE TAKE her out now?” the fellow from the medical examiner’s office wanted to know.
    Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy took one last look at the crumpled body of the girl and nodded wearily. This wasn’t the way he had planned on spending his morning, not today or any other day. Finding out who murdered this slip of a girl wasn’t going to accomplish anything, and it certainly wouldn’t help advance Frank Malloy in the world one little bit.
    He’d seen hundreds of girls just like this, new in town, trying in vain to find honest work that would support them until their money ran out and then being forced onto the streets—or into a bawdy house if they were lucky. This one would’ve been lucky. She was pretty enough to go into one of the better houses on Fifth Avenue. She might even have caught the eye of some rich man looking for a mistress, someone who would’ve set her up in style. Maybe she would’ve been smart and saved her money and eventually opened a house of her own. That was the mark of success for a woman of pleasure, although few whores ever achieved it. Most of them ended up dead in a gutter somewhere, the victim of disease or a dissatisfied customer.
    Instead, this one had ended up dead on a boardinghouse floor. And a respectable boardinghouse, too, not one simply calling itself that but functioning as a brothel in reality. And this girl never would’ve become the successful whore of Frank’s fantasy. She wasn’t smart enough. He knew because she’d apparently just begun to engage in the flesh trade and no sooner had she started than she’d chosen the wrong man and gotten herself killed.
    It was a pity, a pretty girl like that, but Frank couldn’t afford the luxury of pity. He had a job to do. And responsibilities. He needed to make Captain, and he was carefully saving his money to bribe his way up to that exalted position—the only method of advancement that had ever been possible in the New York City police force until the recent wave of reform had swept the city. Of course, Frank figured the wave would pass, just like every other attempt to change the system that had been in place for centuries. He’d continued to save in the meantime so he’d be ready when the reformers gave up and went back to their gentlemen’s clubs. No one was going to give him a little extra under the table for solving this girl’s murder, though, and solving it would take up valuable time that could better be spent serving people who were willing to show their appreciation in a practical manner.
    “There’s a lady on the stoop trying to get in. Says she has to see Mrs. Higgins,” the officer he’d left guarding the front door reported as Frank made his way down the stairs into the front hall. This wasn’t unusual. There was always at least one old biddy in the neighborhood who felt compelled to get some firsthand knowledge when a crime had been committed.
    “Who is she?”
    “A Mrs. Brandt.”
    “Does she know anything about the dead girl?”
    “I didn’t ask her.”
    Frank sighed. He’d reached the bottom of the steps. “Let her in. I’ll talk to her in the parlor.” The old biddies also usually knew all the gossip. Whatever he could learn might help get this case over with sooner.
    The officer nodded and opened the front door. Frank was surprised at the woman who entered. He wasn’t sure what he’d been