FORTY-TWO

 

DAY 10. FRIDAY, 9/29—1 P.M.

Alan, Maribeth, and the Pinkertons were waiting when Noah managed to ungracefully steer the launch to the slip. The owner of the yacht had refused to help, promising instead to call the police as soon as he reached land. Noah didn’t bother to mention that the police wouldn’t come within miles of this affair. Nor would anyone else.

One of the Pinkertons tied up the launch, and Noah stepped tentatively to the pier. He was spent and not only because of the physical exertion.

Maribeth came to him first, Alan waiting a pace behind. “We’re both terribly sorry about Miss Herzberg,” she said. “I know I’ve teased you, but I’m genuinely sorry never to have known her.”

Noah nodded thanks. There was nothing to say.

Alan stepped up and handed Noah a flask. “I was saving this for when I saw Dewey, but I think you can use it more.”

Noah took a long swig of the brandy. The burn felt good on his throat.

Neither Maribeth nor Alan pressed him but instead waited silently on the pier. Noah gazed out at Dewey’s fleet making its way up the Hudson surrounded by countless private boats, each displaying an American flag. The sound of a military band drifted across the river, but he couldn’t pinpoint the source. Downriver, the Olympia herself was coming into view. A moving steel city, a monument to America’s foray into bullying might. Whatever attention the episode with the police launch had created had long dissipated, no one else willing to tear themselves away from the pageantry to investigate why one man stood by while another drowned. Noah wondered if there would even be an attempt to retrieve McCluskey’s body or if the authorities would simply wait to see if it eventually washed up somewhere to the south. It was as if by mutual consent, the deaths of Turner McKee, Miriam Herzberg, and her father, Sasha, McCluskey, and the others were deemed never to have happened. Just as the police had rendered invisible the shooting of Pug Anschutz. And poor Willard—his death would now be invisible as well. Arnold Frias was beyond Noah’s reach.

There was nothing to do now but close this book and try to decide how to move forward.

“How did the detectives get in so quietly?” Noah eventually asked Alan. “Radovic was standing guard in the first room.”

“Believe it or not, he was asleep . . . sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall.” Alan hesitated. “Apparently they’d been up most of the night. In any event, by the time he woke up, there was a pistol against the side of his head.”

“What happened to him?”

“He’s dead . . . although he was alive when I left him. One of the Pinkertons said he tried to pull a derringer when the coppers came to take him away, but the Pinkertons had searched him before. I suspect the derringer was a fantasy, that the coppers preferred a silent Radovic to a talkative one.”

“Yes, that they would.” Noah turned to Maribeth. “I owe you my life.”

“Not me,” Maribeth replied. “My father. He hired the detectives.” In response to Noah’s incredulity, Maribeth added, “My father is no more two endpoints with no middle than yours. At first he thought he was saving Alan, but even when he knew it was Miss Herzberg—and you—he had them go ahead. After I told him how much I admired Miss Herzberg, he said anyone who could evoke those feelings from me was worth rescuing, even if he abhorred what she stood for. He also told me that since it was apparent that I was in love with you, he intended to protect you as if you were his own son.”

“Your father said that?”

“And even more unfathomable, my mother agreed.”

“She didn’t look like someone who agreed.”

“It was grudging, I admit. But she doesn’t have to like you, Noah. Only respect you. And I’ve made certain that she will.”

“Take it, Noah,” Alan added. “Grudging acquiescence is the best you’re going to get from Lady Macbeth. As I think you’ve noticed, you’re not alone in that.”

Noah wanted to ask Alan, but he didn’t. That part of the story would remain a piece of an unspoken bond between them. Alan would be happy with that, and Noah realized he would as well.

“Jamie, I take it, was unaware of any of this,” Noah asked instead.

“Jamie needs to be told that the sun has risen,” Alan replied. “He doesn’t notice anything that isn’t green and made of paper.”

Suddenly, Noah’s legs seemed profoundly heavy. His body seemed to throb as fatigue overtook him. “I think I’ll go home now,” he said.

“I’m coming along,” Maribeth said instantly. “Alan can wait for my parents at the pier.”

“Yes, I suppose I can do that. I’ll finish the brandy.”

“Thank you,” Noah said softly. “Thank you both.”

The hansom they engaged clopped along on streets that appeared as they might after a holocaust. Instead of the hundreds who would be scurrying about on De Kalb Avenue, there were less than a dozen. Noah wondered how many of them had avoided the waterfront for political reasons. Had all of inland Brooklyn been left to the Reds?

Finally, on Clinton Street, he spotted a familiar face. No need to wonder why she had avoided the parade. Noah casually watched her move up the street. Another life that had changed in the past week, although hers likely less than most. The girl turned and entered a shop.

Then Noah knew.

“Stop!” he commanded to the driver. “Stop, I say! I’m getting out. Wait for me here.”

“What is it, Noah?” Maribeth asked.

Noah didn’t reply. He leapt from the coach, hurried into the shop, and then to the counter. He arrived in time to see the apothecary hand the girl a small package.

She sensed eyes on her and spun about.

“Dr. Whitestone,” she stammered, “I . . . I . . .”

“Don’t try to lie to me,” Noah said. “I know the truth. You know it, too. You’ve known it all along. You’ve been trying to tell me but you were too afraid.”

Molly burst into tears. Noah gave her his handkerchief and waited until she had calmed herself. “I didn’t want you to take the blame, truly I didn’t, but I couldn’t get myself to speak.”

“Tell me now.” She started to protest, but Noah spoke over her. “I want to hear it right from the beginning. From the day Dr. Frias first treated Willard for his illness.”

Molly gulped once or twice, trying to begin. Once the first words were out, the remainder came in a torrent. When she was done, she begged Noah not to say anything, that she was terrified of losing her job. Noah was tempted to reply that because of her he had almost lost his livelihood, his freedom, and his life. But what was the point? He simply retrieved his handkerchief and left the store.

Back in the carriage, he found himself growing more and more furious, but not with Molly. “What an idiot I was. So obvious. How could I have missed it? Even if I didn’t think of it at first, the girl fairly screamed it out at me every time I went to the house.”

“Screamed what?” Maribeth asked.

“That was Molly, the Anschutz’s maid. She was the one who gave Willard the morphiates that killed him, not Mildred Anschutz. She was blameless. So was Frias, at least in this. Willard didn’t die from an overdose of Heroin. He died from a patent medicine, Paton’s Vegetable Tonic. The same concoction that killed Anya Krakowiak. I told you, it’s 10 percent opium. Willard drank a good bit of the bottle. He’d already taken the laudanum. The combination overpowered his system.”

“But why would she give him such a concoction at all?”

“She’d been doing it ever since Willard had taken the Heroin tablets. Among her many other duties, it seems, Molly was responsible to keep Willard in line. No mean feat in the best of circumstances. Unbeknownst to Mrs. Anschutz, Willard became agitated whenever the tablets wore off. Molly felt certain that if his mother continued to encounter him in that state, she would be held to blame. Molly’s older sister also cares for children and gives them Paton’s to keep them quiet. So Molly began to give Willard small doses of the stuff between the prescribed intervals. But after three days, the tablets ran out and Willard became impossibly unruly and Molly was forced to increase the dose.

“Once again, all seemed well. Every time Willard took Paton’s, his demeanor improved. Whenever the morphia began to wear off, he became overactive, but Molly dosed him before he could become too boisterous. He was such an energetic little boy, no one noticed the irregularity . . . that this activity was not the same as his usual behavior.

“The longer Willard used Paton’s, of course, the more dependent on it he became. More frequent doses became necessary to maintain his equilibrium. After a week, Molly realized that she had made a grievous error, but was too panic-stricken to own up to it to Mrs. Anschutz. And to make it worse, Colonel Anschutz was coming home and she had seen the way he treated his own wife and children. What might he do to a mere maid? She became so terrified of leaving Willard alone that she canceled her day off the week preceding the one in which I treated the boy. As Molly’s fear escalated, her own doses of Paton’s increased . . . she had been taking it along with the boy. Mrs. Anschutz had two patent-medicine dope fiends under her roof.

“The day I treated Willard was Molly’s regular day off. She had meant to cancel it once more, but she received an urgent call from her mother who had been taken ill. Molly had no choice. She went to tend her mother, praying that Willard could get through one day without Paton’s. She rushed back as quickly as she could, but it was too late. Willard’s symptoms had already set in, and I was present. Willard had begged his mother for medicine, but Mrs. Anschutz, ignorant of the true nature of Willard’s illness, had merely given him Bismosal.

“When Molly returned, I suggested that she tend to Willard whilst I visited my other patients. Not the best choice in retrospect. When Mrs. Anschutz realized I was committed to leaving, she grudgingly agreed. Willard’s tolerance for morphiates was by then such that he awakened within thirty minutes of my departure. Molly knew the state he would be in, so she fetched the bottle of Paton’s and gave him two spoonfuls. He awakened again just before I returned. Molly again fetched the Paton’s and was about to give Willard another dose. Before she could, Mrs. Anschutz called to her from the hall to ask if Willard was still asleep. Molly ran to the door and replied that Willard was resting comfortably. But she had left the open bottle on the table next to Willard’s bed. When she returned to his bedside, Willard had drunk most of the bottle. You can surmise the rest. Molly hid the bottle, and Willard slipped into respiratory distress. When I encountered Molly, I saw how upset she was, but I merely assumed that the pressure of working in the Anschutz home was responsible.”

“So what will you do?”

“About Molly? Nothing.”

“But then Mrs. Anschutz will continue to employ a woman who killed her son.”

“Molly can have no effect on the other children. And if I do say something, she will be arrested and sent to prison. A maid. A poor ignorant maid. That would be as unjust as if I had been. Molly was no more responsible for Willard’s death than the privates in the army are responsible for the Philippine war. Whoever sells Paton’s Vegetable Tonic is responsible, and they will remain unsullied no matter what I do. So I choose not to throw Molly to the wolves.”

“I don’t know . . .” Maribeth mused. “She did cause the death of a child.”

“Yes, I know. But she was merely a coincidental instrument. I’m sorry, Maribeth, but that’s how I see it.”

“And Frias? What about him?”

“That is the question, isn’t it? What can you do about the man who is proved innocent of a specific charge but is guilty of bigger crimes? In Molly’s case, I choose to do nothing; in Frias’s, I can do nothing.”

Maribeth considered that for a moment. Then she placed her hand on his. “Not in the immediate term perhaps.”

Noah placed his fingertips against Maribeth’s cheek. Then he smiled. “I sense that I am not wholly about to return to the tranquility of private practice.”