“Peter was a beautiful young man, and I think he truly loved my sister in return. He must have, because he stayed with her even after… But I’m getting ahead of myself. Maggie and Peter fell in love, and they wanted to marry, but of course my father refused to allow it. His daughter would never be allowed to marry a penniless clerk. She was to be the bride of some millionaire’s son or perhaps even of an English Lord. My father had great hopes. He simply failed to realize that Maggie could be as stubborn as he.

“She refused to stop seeing Peter, so my father fired him, turned him out without a reference and blackened his name everywhere, so the only work he could find was as a common laborer. He thought this would be the last he’d hear of Peter, but Maggie had conceived a child. She thought when she told our father about the baby, he would relent and allow her to marry, but instead, he tried to send her off to Europe. In fact, we thought she did go to France, but she’d manage to escape from the ship before it sailed, and she found Peter. They were married, and by the time we discovered what had happened, she’d vanished.

“I begged my father to find her and at least help Peter find a decent job, but he said she’d made her choice, and she could live with it. I think he expected that once Maggie had a taste of poverty, she would come crawling back to him and beg forgiveness, but of course, she didn’t. The next we heard was one night when Peter sent us word to come to her because she was dying. My parents were out for the evening, but I went. They were living in a rear tenement on the Lower East Side. On the fifth floar.”

Frank winced. This would be about the cheapest lodging available. The rear tenements were built in the court-yards behind the regular tenements, cut off even from what little light and air were available in the crowded streets of the city.

“I found her in a back bedroom, a room with no windows, hardly bigger than a closet. She was lying on a straw mattress on the floor, and she was bleeding to death.”

For a moment, Frank thought he was going to be sick, but he swallowed down the bitter bile and forced himself to listen to the rest of Mrs. Brandt’s story without betraying his weakness.

“The baby had come, but they were too poor for a doctor or even a midwife. Most of the time Peter couldn’t find work, so they were surviving by renting out the other room of their tiny flat to lodgers who slept in rows on the floor. Five of them. They were all there that night, snoring in the front room while Maggie died in the back. I don’t know how she stood it, the filth and the grinding poverty and the lack of privacy. Nothing in her life had prepared her for that, but she bore it all somehow. Perhaps it was her pride that kept her going.

“But even her pride couldn’t protect her anymore. I was just a girl then, only seventeen, so I didn’t know how to help her or what to do. Nothing would have helped by then, though. She was so weak, she could hardly speak, but she begged me to take care of her baby. I promised I would, even though her baby was already dead. And then she was gone, too.”

Frank didn’t like the way her eyes shone. If she started crying, he wasn’t exactly sure what he should do. Fortunately, she blinked several times and regained her composure.

“Detective, Malloy, my sister died because my father didn’t want to be embarrassed. He thought more of his good name than her happiness, and when he couldn’t force her to his will, he abandoned her. I don’t think he planned to lose her forever, or at least I hope that’s true, but that’s what happened nevertheless.”

“And was his good name ruined when word of her death got out?”

Mrs. Brandt gave him a pitying look. “Don’t you understand yet? Word didn’t get out. He made up a story about her catching a fever in France. He said she died over there and was buried there, too. Oh, some people knew. There was gossip, but because my family told them a story they could pretend to believe, no hint of scandal ever touched us. My father didn’t even put her in the family plot. She and the baby are buried in an unmarked grave in a cemetery on Long Island. And Peter, too. He hanged himself the day after she died.”

“Good God.” Why had Frank assumed that having money would encourage finer feelings in people? Felix Decker was one of the wealthiest men in the city, and yet he had treated his daughter as cruelly as the drunken immigrant who sends his daughters out to prostitute themselves so he won’t have to work.

“So you see, Detective, the VanDamms might decide they don’t want the killer found. It won’t bring their daughter back and will only cause them harm.”

“If they don’t want the killer caught, why should you care? You said yourself, you hardly even knew the girl.”

She thought this over for a few seconds. “I want to see justice done, Detective. I want someone punished for snuffing out Alicia’s life and the life of her child. I don’t want to watch another young woman vanish into a web of secrets and lies.”

Frank’s head was throbbing now. “But if her own family doesn’t want her murder solved…”

“The police force is changing Mr. Malloy. I know what’s going on, how men are finally being promoted on merit rather than on how big a bribe they can afford. If you bring this killer to justice, you’ll be noticed. Noticed for something good. Don’t you want to be Superintendent someday?”

“I’m not that ambitious, Mrs. Brandt,” he assured her sourly. “Captain is all I’m aiming for.”

“I have friends in government, Mr. Malloy. I’ll make sure they notice you.”

Frank wished he believed this. “The reformers won’t last long. Don’t you read the papers? Roosevelt’s stupid plan to enforce the law and keep the saloons closed on Sunday is already making all the wrong people mad. He won’t last, and when he’s gone, things will be the way they’ve always been.”

“Then I’ll pay you a reward,” she said, startling him yet again. “I have some money of my own, and I, can’t think of a better way to use it.”

The thought of taking Sarah Brandt’s money was unsettling, and Frank didn’t like the feeling one bit. Since when had he gotten so particular? Money was money, and that’s what he needed if he ever wanted to make Captain, Teddy Roosevelt and his reforms be damned. And he had to make Captain, because he had a story of his own, a story just as awful as Sarah Brandt’s, but one that he had no intention of ever telling her or anyone else.

“If the VanDamms don’t cooperate, I won’t get very far, no matter how big the reward is or who pays it. Nobody else is likely to tell me anything useful or even know anything useful,” he pointed out.

“The servants will know. The servants know more than anyone. And if you need to bribe them, I’ll be happy to provide the funds for that, too.”

Frank was pretty sure he would’ve thought of the servants eventually. He was just groggy from not enough sleep. And maybe that was why he said, “Keep your money, Mrs. Brandt. I won’t be needing it.” He couldn’t think of any other reason why he would say something so foolish.

“But you will try to find Alicia’s killer, won’t you?”

Frank knew he shouldn’t make the promise, but he said, “I’ll find him.”

And he wasn’t sure if he was terrified or grateful when he saw that Sarah Brandt believed him.

CORNELIUS VANDAMM DID offer a reward for his daughter’s jewelry. When Frank explained that stolen goods could often be recovered this way, VanDamm was only too happy to oblige. The sapphire necklace had belonged to his mother, he said. Frank hadn’t mentioned that the trail of the pawned jewelry might also lead to Alicia’s killer. He didn’t want to ruin the deal, especially when VanDamm hadn’t mentioned anything about a reward for the killer yet and Frank wasn’t yet sure he even wanted the killer found.