Hours later, I sat cross-legged on my sofa in the front parlor of my house on Strivers’ Row. A cup of steaming, hot tea sat within easy reach on a lamp table. A platter by the Creole Jazz Band played on the Victrola. My old notes and newspaper reports on the Todd case were in two piles on the coffee table. The first stack contained my articles; the second comprised work by others.
The collection of reports was less than comprehensive. I’d stopped accumulating them in late January of ‘24, right after receiving word of my mother’s illness. The articles I did have were well written, but they were less detailed than a real police report. So my file was limited, but it was a beginning, the only record of the case I had.
I’d decided to spend the evening culling the articles for the names of police officers, neighbors, anyone who’d known Esther or been familiar with the case and been quoted. Although it wasn’t likely their memories had improved in the years since her disappearance, there was always the chance they might recall something that hadn’t been quoted or they’d considered too insignificant to mention.
I took up the earliest of the clippings and the memories came rushing back.
I met Ruth Todd and Beth Johnson for the first time about two hours after Esther’s disappearance. At the time I was a police reporter for the Harlem Age. In the early hours of Friday, December 15, someone rang my doorbell, waking me from a sound sleep. I glanced out my bedroom window to see Sleepy Willy standing on my doorstep. He was a janitor at the Harlem Police Station on West 135th Street, and one of my favorite tipsters.
“Esther Todd’s sister and a friend of hers, they down at the station raising a ruckus,” he said when I got downstairs. “Something about Esther having gotten herself into trouble.”
My first reaction was puzzlement. “What kind of trouble would Esther Todd get into? Far as I know, she’s a church-going woman.”
“Dunno. Just know that something’s gone wrong. That sister of hers is about to raise the roof.”
“All right. I’ll get down there and check it out.”
Sleepy Willy got his two bits for the info. I ran upstairs, got dressed and threw some cold water on my face, recalling what I knew about Esther.
She was twenty-four years old and a pianist. She was enjoying—some would say enduring—the strong-arm patronage of Mrs. Katherine Goodfellowe, an immensely wealthy widow. Mrs. G, as Esther called her when speaking to friends, demanded parlor performances every two weeks at her Fifth Avenue salon. The lady always wanted to see progress and enjoyed putting Esther’s talents on display before her society friends.
Esther was already a minor celebrity in Harlem. If Mrs. Goodfellowe had her way, then Esther would be famous beyond it. Mrs. Goodfellowe was doing everything she could to get Esther’s name out there, to make her a known commodity throughout New York City. She’d already gotten Carl Van Vechten, a popular socialite and influential columnist, to write one piece on Esther and she was pushing him to write more.
Esther was also a single mother. She not only had to practice piano every day, but also take care of her seven-year-old son, Job. And despite Mrs. G’s patronage, Esther needed the income from a job, so she worked long hours as a laundrywoman.
I’d seen Esther and her son perform at a neighborhood church only the prior Sunday. They were good, real good. I hated to think of anything happening to either one of them.
I dried my face, shimmied into some warm clothes and hurried out. The snow had stopped falling and the temperature had dropped. The city was a ghost town—cold, gray and empty. What kind of trouble, I’d asked. On a night like this, there was a lot to choose from.
No other reporters were at the station when I got there. Ruth and Beth were just leaving. I introduced myself and asked what had happened. Beth, who I learned was one of Mrs. Goodfellowe’s maids, appeared to be in shock. Ruth was frightened and angry. Esther, she said, had disappeared. No doubt kidnapped. But the cops weren’t taking it seriously. They didn’t care and wouldn’t let her file a report.
“They think she done run off by herself. Esther wouldn’t do that.”
“Maybe you’d better start from the beginning.”
She told me how the evening had started as a night on the town and ended in sickness at Harlem Hospital.
“Did you actually see anybody in the car with her?”
Ruth thought about it. “No. But that don’t mean there weren’t nobody in there. He could’ve been hiding in the back seat. She was getting bad letters, you know. It must’ve been him who took her.”
“Bad letters?”
“Yeah, the mean kind.”
“From who?”
“Some man.”
She explained that about two weeks earlier Esther said she’d received an unsigned threatening note in her mailbox. A few days earlier, Esther had mentioned another note.
“I never saw the notes—Esther threw ‘em away—but she said the guy who wrote ‘em knew all her business. Just everything. It was like he was looking over her shoulder, from the time she went out for groceries to when she went to pick up Job.”
“Did she say who wrote them?”
“She said the handwriting was familiar, but she couldn’t place it.”
I scribbled all this down in my notepad, and then gestured toward the sergeant, sitting behind his desk. “Did you mention this to—?”
“I tried to. I talked to a detective. I tried to tell him about the notes, but he cut me off.”
I glanced at Beth to see if she had something to add, but she averted her gaze. She was pale and obviously ill. I asked Ruth where Esther parked. The corner she described was just three blocks down and two blocks east of the hospital: It didn’t sound far, but the blocks over there were long and dim.
“May I contact you later?” I asked Ruth.
She agreed, so I took down her address and got Beth’s information, too. Then I helped them into a taxi and returned to the station to find the lawman they’d spoken to. Detective John Reed, a thin, pale man with a superior air and bored expression, confirmed what Ruth had said. He was very disinclined to do anything.
I took a taxi over to where Ruth said they’d parked the car. I could understand Ruth finding it impossible to accept the idea that Esther might’ve run away. I found it difficult, too, especially after what I’d seen during that church performance. Esther didn’t strike me as the kind of woman to run off in the middle of the night and leave her family, especially her son, without warning or explanation, knowing they’d be worried sick about her, no matter what kind of troubles she had.
As we pulled up to the corner, I asked the cabbie, “You got a flashlight I could borrow?”
His gaze met mine in the rearview mirror. “Just what’re you planning on doing out there?”
“Nothing you want to know about.”
He gave me a suspicious look and cast a nervous glance up and down the deserted street. Maybe he thought I was setting him up. He was a fat man in his mid-fifties; he was soft and had a gut. He’d be no match for a young hustler.
“Don’t worry. I’m not gonna take a powder and I’m not stalling so somebody can jump your back. I’ll be right back.”
Still uneasy, he gave a reluctant nod. “All right.” He reached under his seat and came up with a flashlight. “But don’t take too long. It’s a bitch out here.”
“Won’t be a minute.”
A black Model T stood in the parking space Ruth had described. It was easy to envision the Packard in its place and the laughing young women who’d set out in it only hours earlier.
What about the snow? Had it caught something—footprints, traces of a struggle—anything that would bear testimony to what had happened to Esther? But, no. Whatever traces there might’ve been were gone.
What was the likelihood that someone had been out there earlier and seen something? It was a frosty night, the kind that drives people indoors. The street was empty as far as the eye could see. The windows of the tenement buildings were dark. Hmmm. Yes … dark now, but they would’ve been lit earlier. Would an attacker have risked assaulting Esther on the street?
Less than three feet away was an alley. Esther would’ve passed it on her way to the car. Shadowy doorways, supply entrances to the apartment buildings and businesses lined the alley on either side. The doorways would’ve offered a kidnapper a choice of perfect covers. All he had to do was step out and confront her. If he’d forced her back into the alley and stood in front of her, he would have both blocked her way of escape and cut her off from view.
Had her kidnapping been a crime of impulse? Was she a random victim, simply in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or was she chosen, her disappearance planned?
I ran the circle of light up and down the sides and along the ground in between. The alley was lined with metal garbage cars. It was neat, as alleys go. None of the cans were knocked over, as might happen in a struggle. The blanket of snow covering the ground was smooth and undisturbed.
Out in the street, the cabbie honked his horn.
I moved the light over the snow, checking every doorway. But there was nothing interesting—nothing I could discern, anyway. I went back out to the street to take another look at where Esther had parked.
“Hey, what’re you doing?” the cabbie called. He stuck his head out the window. “I’m freezing my butt off. C’mon!”
He started his taxi and pulled out into the street. He drew up alongside and a little ahead of the Ford. I took one more glance around, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. With a sigh, I turned off the flashlight and walked around the front of the car to get to the taxi. Something caught my eye, something that twinkled. I paused.
“What is it now?” the cabbie whined.
Caught under the curve of the Model T’s left front wheel was an item, small, delicate and metallic. I picked it up and stepped back onto the curb to stand under a street lamp. It was an earring with fake diamonds, inexpensive, but pretty. The little wire loop that would pierce the ear was touched with dark red, and something else: dried blood, maybe, and human tissue.
The cabbie honked. I palmed the earring, holding it lightly, and climbed into the taxi.
“Where to now?”
I gave him the address of the newsroom. While he drove, I wrapped the earring in a clean handkerchief.
When you cover death and tragedy for a living, you have a tendency to wall in your emotions, to distance yourself from the victims and their loved ones. It’s self-preservation. I had often done it, but in Esther’s case I couldn’t. I didn’t want to. Something about her story gripped me from the beginning. Perhaps, it was the image of a woman walking off into the darkness alone. Or, maybe, just maybe, it was the memory of that concert she’d given.
At one point Esther had done a piano solo. It was incredible. To merely say she was talented would be to insult both her gift and the Lord who gave it to her.
But while Esther’s music was great, it was her boy who took my breath away. He was only seven, but his voice had a maturity that brought tears to your eyes. It certainly brought them to mine. Every now and then he’d throw his mother a glance and she’d return it with a smile. The memory of their silent communication, of him standing strong, singing confidently with the choir behind him and his mother playing alongside him, stayed with me for days afterward. The lyrics sung by his sweet voice echoed in my mind long after the words of Reverend Baldwin’s sermon faded from memory. So I thought of Esther’s son when I thought of Esther gone, and I couldn’t even pretend to be neutral.
Twenty-four hours passed and Esther failed to appear. Early on the morning of December 20, Ruth accepted my offer to return to the police station with her and file a formal report. We were sent to a gray room at the back of the station, a room full of desks pushed too close together, covered with too many forms and papers for the men behind them to keep track of.
Reed received us with barely concealed irritation. He asked Ruth for a description.
“She resembles you?”
“No, she’s pretty. Real pretty.” Ruth paused. “Except for the scar.”
“Scar?” He looked up from his note taking.
“It’s a bad one,” Ruth said. “Her ex-husband messed her up like that. Esther’s real sensitive about it.”
I remembered looking at the scar and feeling sickened. Whoever did it must’ve held her down and taken his time. The scar was vicious and curved, like a snake rippling under Esther’s skin. It went from the outer corner of her left eye, across her cheek, down to her chin. It was startling and unsettling, and, no doubt, it had indeed caused Esther not only physical but emotional pain.
After taking down the description, Reed asked a few questions, about Esther’s job, her friends, her habits, but he listened with only half an ear. It surprised me that he failed to ask about Esther’s husband, the one whose violence disfigured her. So I did.
“This ex-husband of hers … could he be behind it?”
Ruth shook her head. “No way. Not him.”
“What makes you so sure?” Reed asked.
“‘Cause he’s dead. Been dead half a year now. Got cut down by a train.”
Reed grimaced and made a note. “What about boyfriends? Your sister got any? Maybe she ran into one of them and went off with him.”
“One of them?” Ruth was indignant. “My sister’s not like that, and she never would’ve done nothing like that—run off and leave her boy.”
“Yeah, right.”
“No. Not her. She’s a church-going woman. She don’t drink, use drugs or commit no fornication.”
Reed was unconvinced, so Ruth brought up the letters, told him what she’d told me.
“Were the threats explicit or just hinted at?”
“Oh, they were clear, all right,” Ruth said. “Esther told me that in one note he threatened to skin her alive.”
“She was sure it was a man?”
“Of course, she was. Wouldn’t no woman write a letter like that.”
“She might, if Esther was stepping out with her man.”
Ruth drew herself up. Her face was tight. “I told you. My sister is a Christian, God-fearing woman. She don’t commit no fornication. And she sure don’t commit no adultery.”
“Well, Ruth, what do you think happened?” I asked, trying to ease the tension.
“If it wasn’t that man behind them notes, then it was a thief, somebody who saw her and that rich lady’s car. Daddy never did like it when Mrs. Goodfellowe lent Esther that car. He always said it would be the death of her and now I’m scared he’s right.”
It was Mrs. Goodfellowe who had bought the tickets. In one of the bold gestures of generosity that typified her, she’d also lent the young women her Packard for the evening.
Reed and I exchanged glances. You could see he was skeptical of the car idea. To be honest, I didn’t put much store by it, either. It didn’t feel right, not in light of those notes.
“Then I guess that’s all for now,” Reed said. He started to put down his pencil.
“Hold it.” I took out the handkerchief holding the earring and handed it to him.
“What’s this?”
“Open it up and you’ll see.”
He put down his pencil and unfolded the cloth, exposing the single earring. At the sight of it, Ruth put her hands to her mouth and stifled a sob. Reed set the handkerchief down on his desk, neatly spreading out the corners, and contemplated the earring.
“It was hers?” he asked Ruth.
Ruth opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She tried to swallow and managed a jerk of a nod.
“Where’d you find it?” he asked me.
I told him.
“Did you know it was hers when you saw it?”
“No—just picked it up on the off chance it might be.”
“How convenient.” His gaze returned to the earring. “I suppose you have a theory about how it got there?”
“I think her kidnapper came up behind her. She tried to fight him off and lost the earring in the struggle. Then he forced her into the driver’s seat and lay low.”
He rubbed his chin and tried to look thoughtful, but he couldn’t maintain the pretense. After a few seconds, he shrugged. “Maybe, you’re right, but I don’t think so.” He raised his right hand and lightly flicked his index finger to signal a patrolman.
Ruth’s gaze had been fixed on the earring, but at the annoyed disinterest in Reed’s tone, she looked up. “You will search for her, won’t you?”
“Of course, we will.” A patrolman appeared behind us. “This officer will show you out.”
“But—”
“We’ll be in touch. If we find out anything, we’ll let you know.”
That was it.
Ruth turned to me, bewildered and worried. I didn’t like the way Reed was treating us, either, but I didn’t see where we could help Esther by staying any longer. It was time to go.
Two days later, Reed summoned Ruth down to the station. He said he was “ninety-nine percent sure” of what had happened. Ruth called me at the newspaper and asked me to go with her. It wasn’t so much that she needed the emotional support, she said. She wanted a reporter there so the story would come out, and “come out right.”
Reed met us in the waiting room. His narrow face showed that he was unhappy to see me.
“We usually don’t allow the press in during an ongoing investigation.”
“Oh, is it ongoing? Well, that’s good to know. Where did I get the impression that you guys are ready to shut it down?”
“Miss Todd, do you actually want her here?”
“Yes, I do.”
He gave me another evil glance. “Let’s get this over with.”
He led us down a short hall to a room with a long table with four chairs in the center. He carried a thick folder, which he laid on the desk. He had us sit down, took a seat and opened the folder.
He said he could “assure” us that Esther had not been kidnapped. Speaking in the smooth, oily tones of a con man, he set out to convince Ruth that her sister had “merely” run away from home.
Before Ruth could open her mouth to protest, he explained that “several aspects” of the case pointed toward this conclusion. He ticked off the relevant “facts” on the tip of his long, skeletal fingers. First, she had reported seeing Esther alone in the car as it sped past. Second, no one could report hearing a woman’s screams, and, last but not least, they had found no proof that a stalker ever existed. There were no notes in evidence. There was only Ruth’s word that Esther had told her about them. In legal terms, that could be considered mere hearsay.
“But—”
“To be blunt, either you or your sister could have made this guy up.”
Ruth was taken aback. “Why would we do something like that?”
“Don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?” He eyeballed her, and when out of fear or confusion, she didn’t answer, he told her, “You know, it’s a crime to file a false report.”
Incredible.
“Are you threatening her?” I asked, my tone low, but my anger rising.
“Of course, not.” His eyebrows shot up in an attitude of hurt innocence. “I was just giving you the goods. That’s all.”
There was a panic in Ruth’s eyes and in the way she gripped her purse, her knuckles gleaming.
“What about the earring?” she asked.
“The earring?”
“Yes, the earring,” she pressed. “You can’t have forgotten. It proves she didn’t run off. Somebody got her. He ripped that earring out and—”
“I’m sorry, but it doesn’t prove a thing.”
Ruth was incredulous. “You mean you think she pulled that earring out herself?”
“I’m saying that one earring doesn’t make a kidnapping. Not when considered in balance with the other … well, lack of evidence.”
“So you’re giving up.” Ruth was bitter.
“There’s nothing to pursue. Your sister had her reasons for leaving. You’re more aware of them than I am.” Reed paused. “Listen, I don’t mean to be hard. But the facts speak for themselves. We’ve got too much going on in this city to spend time on a crime that didn’t happen. Adults do run away. And they do come home. When they want to—if they want to. If I were you, I’d simply be grateful for the knowledge that she’s all right.”
If he was trying to sound compassionate, he missed it by a long shot, so I put my two cents in.
“Detective, would you mind telling me who you talked to?”
“You wouldn’t understand our methods.”
“Try me.”
He gave an exasperated sigh. “All right.” Speaking in the tone of a man being put upon, he described how he’d spent a day searching for evidence and interviewing residents of the buildings and businesses near the alleged crime scene. He interviewed Esther’s parents and friends, the people who attended church services with her, her son’s teachers and her own co-workers at the laundry service. He interviewed Mrs. Goodfellowe and Beth, seeking clues as to the identity of the man who had sent the notes, the man who preferred to see Esther dead rather than lose her. But he found no witnesses who could describe Esther’s last walk back to her car, no one in the neighborhood who could recall hearing a woman’s cry and no clues as to the phantom writer’s identity.
“Last night, me and my superiors went over what we had—or, more to the point, didn’t have—and we reached the conclusion I just shared with you.”
“Interesting,” I said. “Admirable. You managed to interview so many people in so short a time, and all by yourself. You must’ve moved faster than lightning. I guess that’s why so few of them remember seeing you.”
Reed’s eyes grew colder.
“I talked to a lot of those people in the neighborhood,” I said. “Not as many as you did, of course. But I’ve been going door-to-door—and not a single one of them remember ever having seen you, much less spoken to you. Ruth and I, we spoke to Esther’s boss, her pastor and some of her co-workers, to ask them to cooperate when you stopped by. And just before coming here, I checked with her pastor and her boss. They both said you never showed up. Now how do you explain that?”
“I don’t have to.”
“I know you don’t have to. I’m wondering if you can.”
He slammed the folder shut and stood up, pushing his chair back. “Look ladies, as far as the department is concerned, this matter is settled. You,” he said to me, “are welcome to write what you want. I don’t give a damn.” He turned to Ruth. “As for you, my advice would be to keep this so-called ‘reporter’ at a distance. She’ll just make an embarrassing situation worse.”
He didn’t give us a chance to respond, simply picked up the folder and left.
Ruth turned to me. “Do you believe this? He must think we’re fools.”
“Don’t they all?” I stood. “Come on, Ruth, let’s go.”
The Todds lived in a seven-room apartment on 128th Street and Lenox Avenue. They couldn’t afford to pay the rent on their own. Ruth explained that her family used three rooms—she was in one bedroom, her parents in another, and Esther and Job shared a third. The Todds had rented out the two remaining bedrooms, as well as the dining room and tiny maid’s room behind the kitchen. All in all, they had five lodgers, all of them young women.
“They go to our church,” Ruth said. “They’re like family. We decided to take in women ‘cause they’re the ones need the help. Sometimes, you know, these guys’ll send ‘em tickets to come up here and the girls promise to work to pay for it. Then they get here, and find out that the guys ain’t nothing but pimps. Our church can get ‘em away from all that.”
She led me into the living room and introduced me to her parents, Diane and Joseph Todd. Mrs. Todd was a tiny woman. Esther had taken after her. Mr. Todd was big and broad-shouldered, but stooped. He’d lost a leg and walked with a cane. Both thanked me for my interest and help. Ruth told them what had happened. They discussed their options and agreed upon their next step.
Job entered the room, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “Is Mama back?”
For years afterward, I could see Ruth’s pain as she struggled to give him an adequate answer and his panic and bewilderment upon hearing it.
He searched the eyes of the adults and saw our helplessness. His gaze settled on me, maybe because Ruth had introduced me as “the newspaper paper lady who was trying to help.”
“You’ll bring her back?” he asked me.
“I’ll …” I hesitated. I wanted to comfort him, but not lie, not make promises I couldn’t keep.
“You’ll bring her home?” he insisted.
“I’ll try. I’ll do my best.”
“You promise?”
I smiled sadly. “You bet.”
That same day, Ruth went to see Katherine Goodfellowe and appealed for help. Mrs. Goodfellowe called Police Chief Dan Bermann and expressed her displeasure. He said he was surprised that she was “so excited ‘bout the disappearance of a mere Negro.” He did note, however, that when Esther vanished, the Packard vanished too, and he could understand her being upset about that. Best thing for her to do would be to file a report on stolen goods. The police would tend to it immediately. He could assure her of that. But Mrs. Goodfellowe refused to do it.
Of course, she wouldn’t. It would mean that she was accusing Esther of having stolen her car—and that was something Mrs. Goodfellowe wanted to avoid, not only because of the pain it would cause Esther’s family, but because of the personal embarrassment it would cause her.
The next day, Katherine Goodfellowe said she could give me five minutes, and that’s what she did. We spoke in the second-floor library, the only quiet room in the house. The mansion was in an uproar. Mrs. Goodfellowe was planning a charity auction for the following evening and it was being hailed as the social event of the Christmas season. She’d invited the oldest and snobbiest of New York’s millionaire dynasties to put their family jewels up for auction—not for sale, but for loan. Outsiders would bid for the privilege of wearing heirlooms, sometimes legendary jewels.
I hadn’t seen Beth since the night of Esther’s disappearance, so after interviewing Mrs. Goodfellowe, I made a quick run down to the kitchen. Beth agreed to talk with me, but said it would have to be the next evening. Once the auction was under way, she’d have time.
On the morning of December 23—a Sunday—the Reverend Charles Witherspoon of Christ, the Redeemer, Esther’s home church, led the congregation in an emotional prayer for her safe return. Afterward many of his parishioners canvassed 132nd Street, going door-to-door and asking residents if they’d seen or heard anything suspicious on the night of Esther’s disappearance. They started out with high hopes, but ended up disappointed. None of them learned anything useful.
That evening, I returned to Goodfellowe House for the interview with Beth, but I never got to conduct it. What happened at the house that night augured a radical change in how police viewed the disappearance of a “mere” Negro.