The building at 3205 Carnegie, where Flo Polillo had resided, was the same color, the same shape, and the same condition as the one Rose had lived in, but two girls sat on the stoop playing with their dolls, making the place seem a little less ominous, even though the building sat right on the edge of the Roaring Third, a part of town known for its depravity and despair. The girls were clean and cared for, though their clothes were plain and a little too small.
When they rang the bell and knocked on the door, nobody responded.
“Excuse me,” Dani asked the girls, “do you live here?”
“Mother went upstairs,” the older girl said. “Mrs. Brewster’s having a baby. We’re listening for the cry.” She pointed up at the open window just right of the entrance.
Malone turned around and headed back down the stairs, not wanting any part of that, but Dani hung back.
“What’s your doll’s name?” he heard her say.
“Louisa.” The little girl said it with a lisp, making it Lew-ee-tha.
“That’s a very nice name. And what a beautiful dress that is,” Dani said.
“My dolly’s name is Genevieve,” the older girl inserted. “I don’t like it much. But I didn’t name her.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Can I hold them?” Dani asked. Malone checked his pocket watch. If they hurried, he might still be able to swing by Hart Manufacturing. It was late in the day, but if Steve Jeziorski was working a swing, he might catch him. He turned back to the front steps where Dani had taken a seat by the girls. She was holding the dolls and straightening their clothes, her head bowed. He groaned.
“Genevieve is a special name,” she said, and her voice sounded pained.
“Why?” the older girl asked.
“Because it was Miss Polillo’s middle name.”
“You knew Mith Polillo?” the little girl with the lisp asked, dumbfounded.
Dani nodded, but Malone wasn’t sure she’d heard. Her hands had stilled.
“Dani?” he called, unnerved.
“It is one of a collection,” she said slowly.
“Mith Polillo had loth of dollth,” the little girl said.
“Mother let us have them,” the older girl said, a note of fear in her voice, like she thought Dani might be there to claim them.
“That’s good,” Dani said. “She would have wanted you to have them.” She handed the dolls back to the two girls, who stared at her, wide-eyed. Dani dug in her pockets and pulled out a few pennies and set them on the stairs.
“Thank you for letting me hold them for a minute,” she said. She descended the stairs briskly and moved past him, her heels clicking and her hands fisted. She climbed into the car without a word. Malone followed, slid behind the wheel, and pulled away from Carnegie before darting a look at her face. He sighed. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, though she was trying desperately to control them.
“Ah, Dani.”
“Louisa was an old d-doll. She was like a friend that never complained and was up for anything. That’s what Flo thought.”
“How did you know they were hers?”
“When I touched her coat, I saw her dolls. Remember? She hoped they would be taken care of. She knew she was going to die, and she thought of her dolls.”
He’d been under the impression she’d been talking about sex when Flo Polillo “hoped he’d be quick.” She’d been talking about death.
“Well, damn.”
He took out his hanky and blotted at her cheeks, trying to drive at the same time. He didn’t want to hand the handkerchief to Dani. It would give him away the moment she pressed it to her palms, so he wiped her tears for her.
“She loved them. I can see them all, the way she saw them. She brushed their hair and made them clothes. She gave them names, Michael.”
“Ah, Dani,” he said again. “You sat through three hours of bloody evidence last Friday, the toughest bird I’ve ever seen. But you’re crying over dolls?” he asked, shoving his hanky back into his chest pocket. He thought maybe Hart Manufacturing would have to wait for another day.
She swiped at her cheeks and kept her gaze straight ahead.
“You need to hold on to something?”
“Yes, please.”
With his left hand on the wheel, he reached across her with his right, hooked her around the hips, and bodily slid her over until she was pressed up against him on the seat. Then she wrapped her arms around his bicep, turned her face into his shoulder, and cried her heart out.
Later that night, when Malone had girded himself up and Dani had long since dried her eyes, they went through the rest of the box.
“You catching a whiff of anything?” Malone asked after she’d held Rose Wallace’s scarf every which way and gotten nothing.
“You say that like I’m a bloodhound.” She looked up from the scarf and gave him a small smile. He relaxed a little, grateful there would be no tears. His chest had hurt all evening.
“You were the one who described it that way,” he reminded her, voice mild. “Not me. I told you to stop touching things. You wouldn’t listen.”
“The whole box smells like mildew and mothballs, but there’s something beneath it.”
Malone couldn’t smell anything.
“It’s hair tonic. Something Rose used on her curls. And a particular brand of cigarettes.”
Malone sighed. None of this was going to tell them anything.
“Do you think it was Willie who killed her?” she asked.
“No.”
“Rose felt his meanness as keenly as his . . . care,” she said. “Care” wasn’t a great substitute for “lovemaking skills,” but Malone didn’t need it spelled out.
“Willie’s mean is different from the Butcher’s mean. Not to mention most of the murders would have taken two arms, unlike lovemaking.”
“Maybe Willie just killed Rose,” she said softly. “She was small.”
“I’ve thought about that. What better way to get away with murder? Just cut ’em up, toss ’em in a feed bag, and throw them in the water. Everyone will blame it on the Butcher.”
Dani nodded like she’d thought of that too.
“It’s just . . . not that easy to cut someone up, Dani.”