Murphy's Law (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #1)

Fifteen

I stood alone outside the tenement where Bernard "Bully" Boyle lived. Jimmy had escorted me by way of back alleys, then left me to my own devices when we reached this broader, safer-looking street. "It doesn't do for me to be seen here," he said, after his sharp eyes picked up a policeman patrolling the block. "But you keep your eyes open from now on. You're lucky that Angelique took a shine to you or you'd be dead meat by now."

I did consider myself lucky. I had tried to keep a cool head all the time I was in Angelique's parlor, but now I found that I was shaking. It was only just hitting me how close I

had come to death or a fate worse than it. I was sorely tempted to give it all up and go back to the Lower East Side, where I felt safe. How could I possibly uncover any facts that the police hadn't already uncovered? And if Boyle was in some way involved in this murder, I was asking for trouble, showing up on his doorstep.

I pushed open the front door and started to climb the stairs. The stairway didn't smell a whole lot better than the one on Cherry Street. There was garbage piled in the first landing and something scurried as my footsteps approached. I had been told that Boyle lived on the second floor. How did that make sense? A man who seemed to be well known in the neighborhood, visited Angelique's parlor, who bought drinks for his friends in the local saloons yet lived in a place like this? Somehow he was earning more than an Ellis Island watchman's salary. I considered the nickname Bully. What had he done to earn it?

I had thought out what I was going to say before I knocked on the Boyle's front door. But when the door opened, and a sharp-faced woman demanded, "Yes? Whatda you want?" it all flew out of my head.

"Are you Mrs. Boyle?" I stammered.

"What if I am? Who wants to know?" She was scrawny and bony like a chicken and her chicken eyes darted around. She had her shawl pulled around her like armor.

"I'm sorry to trouble you. I wondered if your husband was home."

"So his fancy girls have taken to calling at the home now, have they?" she demanded. "One day that man's going to go too far and then you'll see. Just don't be surprised if you find his body floatin' in the Hudson River, that's all."

"I'm not a friend of Mr. Boyle's," I said. "I was calling because I need his help."

"Oh yes? If it's money you're after you can forget it."

"It's nothing like that." I laughed uneasily. "I'm trying to find out if he was on duty on Ellis Island the night that man was killed." I paused and waited for this to register. "You read about the murder on Ellis Island, didn't you? I'm sure I saw your husband on duty near the men's dormitory and--"

"You're trying to say that my man--"

"I just wondered if there was any chance he might have spotted the real killer." I finished hurriedly. "You see, the police think I had something to do with it, and I'm trying to prove my innocence."

"Boyle's on day shifts at the moment," she said flatly. "Gets home before seven, if he bothers to come home, that is."

"So you're sure he wasn't there three nights ago? He has been on day shift for a while, has he?"

"For the past year or so. But I wouldn't know where he was three nights ago. He didn't show up until morning."

"And when he did show up--" I tried to keep my voice calm--"how was he? Did he seem ... uh ... agitated, excited?"

"Drunk. Blind drunk as usual. How does he ever seem by the time he gets home here?"

I was dying to ask if she had noticed any blood on his uniform, but I wasn't about to do any more blundering, as Angelique had put it.

"So you've no idea where he spent that night?" I asked cautiously.

"Honey, I have no idea where he is most of the time. What do I care, drunken old fool. One day he'll cop it and the sooner the better as far as I'm concerned."

"Sorry to have troubled you," I said. "Yeah." The door shut in my face leaving me in the cold and dark on the landing. I stood there for a while, listening. I wanted to hear voices inside the Boyle apartment. It occurred to me that maybe he was home all the time and maybe his wife's hostility was just an act to get rid of unwanted strangers. I waited but heard nothing, then I walked back down the stairs.

There was a saloon on the corner of the block, doing good business by this hour. I plucked up courage and went inside. Almost identical to the one before--dark, lots of mahogany woodwork, long bar, smell of stale beer and smoke. Everyone, it seemed, knew Bully Boyle.

He stopped by almost every night--generous guy, bought drinks all around when he was flush. Was he flush often, I asked. It came and it went. He'd been in a couple of nights ago, though, acting like a Vanderbilt, treating everyone to whiskey chasers.

"And three nights ago," I asked. "Was he here then, can you remember?"

Puzzled frowns. Scratched heads.