Oh Danny Boy (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #5)

“They have news about Rosa?” she asked, her face bright with hope.

“Not yet,” Mrs. Goodwin said. “We think her disappearance may be linked to that of some other girls. We hear that your sister received a note from a boy while you were all at Coney Island.”

“Oh that?” Lucia shook her head. “It was just a bit of nonsense that goes on in places like that. Boys come there alone and tease girls. That’s what boys do. Anyway, I made Rosa throw the note away.”

“So you don’t think she could have gone back later to meet him alone?”

“How could she? I crumpled the note myself. I threw it into the bin. It was gone.”

“She could have memorized the important parts of the message first?” Mrs. Goodwin suggested.

“I don’t think so.” Lucia looked perplexed. “That is—I don’t know how long she’d been reading it before she showed it to us.” Then she shook her head violently. “But she wouldn’t do a thing like that. She knows what Papa would say. She wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t.”

But I got the feeling that Lucia was not sure of this at all. Rosa, the fun-loving, naughty daughter, might very well have disobeyed Papa.





THIRTY-FIVE




The whole family escorted us to the front door. Papa shook our hands earnestly. “We thank you for all you do to find our dear daughter,” he said. “If you bring her back to us, we will be your servants forever.”

We tried to smile as we went back to Bert, standing guard beside his auto.

“At least we’ve established that she received a note on Coney Island,” I said as he got the automobile started again and then we edged our way, with much horn honking, past the inquisitive children and back onto Flushing Avenue. “We now know that two girls received notes from a boy saying that he liked them. It’s a pity we don’t know whether Rosa’s note suggested a time and place they could meet again. Or where that place was.”

“That’s true.” Sabella Goodwin nodded. “Maybe the other family will be able to show us the note their girl received.”

The day had heated up rapidly and the sun beat down on the front seat, sparing me in the back, where there was a rudimentary canopy that looked as if it came from an old carriage.

“I wished we’d thought of bringing a parasol,” Mrs. Goodwin said. She looked hot and uncomfortable, and I guessed that her side was hurting her. But she refused my suggestion to stop for a cool drink or an ice cream.

“Let’s get it over with,” she said. I realized it was not her own discomfort she wanted to end, it was the difficult meeting with another family, for whom the ultimate news could only be even worse.

We headed north along Fifty-eighth Street into Queens. The Lindquist family had an apartment over a baker’s shop and the delicious smell of baking lingered in the warm air. We went up the stairs beside the shop, and the door was opened by a round-faced young woman with light blue eyes and light hair.

“Are you, by any chance, Krissy Lindquist?” Mrs. Goodwin asked.

“Ya.” The girl looked worried.

“You wrote me a letter about your sister.”

“You have news for me?”

“Not yet. I wanted to ask you some questions about your sister,” Mrs. Goodwin said. “I wondered if we could talk.”

The girl glanced nervously into the interior of her apartment, then closed the door quietly. “Downstairs. On the street. Maybe safer,” she said, and led us down.

We stood under the awning outside the baker’s shop.

“Now, Krissy,” Mrs. Goodwin began. “You said your sister received a note from a boy. Did she show it to you?”

“No,” Krissy said. “I think she maybe made it up. She don’t always speak quite truthful.” Her accent was foreign with definite overtones of someone who has learned English on the streets of New York.

“And did she tell you anything about this boy she was going to meet?”

“No. Nothing. I ask her lots of questions, but she acts all mysterious. Very pleased with herself because I never had a boy want to meet me, and I’m older than her.”

“Had you been to Coney Island with her before she got the note?”

“No. She went. Not me. I was supposed to go too, but I got sick right before it. She said it was wonderful, like a dreamland. I was annoyed because I couldn’t go, so I didn’t ask her too much about it.”

“But you think she met the boy there?”

Krissy shook her head. “I don’t know. She could have met him anywhere, but Coney Island would be a safe place to arrange a secret meeting, wouldn’t it, because there are so many people. It’s like you’re invisible. Nobody to report home to my pa.”

“Do you have a picture of Denise?”

She glanced up the stairs. “Wait here. I bring you one.”