Oh Danny Boy (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #5)

“He was put in charge of the case. He was too good. I saw him out here at Coney Island, and I knew he must be onto something.”


He was looking into a doped racehorse, I thought. All this was for nothing. I realized something else, too. “Nobody has found out,” he said. He didn’t plan for me to leave this room alive.

“Mrs. Goodwin is just down the street,” I said. “If I don’t get back to her soon, she’ll come looking for me. She’ll fetch Captain Paxton.”

Quigley smiled. “And I’ll run back in distress, telling them that you slipped down an alleyway, and I lost you. I’ve been hunting everywhere.”

“They’ll find me.”

“Too late, of course. Your body won’t show up on a city street, like the others. I rather think we’ll take you out to sea.”

“I get her first, Carter,” Tree man said. “You’ve brought her here for me.”

“Of course, Jimmy. She’s all yours. And I’ll go back to impart the distressing news to my colleagues.”

I looked around the room. It was a dingy little place, lit by one kerosene lamp. There were no windows, but a ladder went up through a hole in the ceiling. Jimmy’s hidey hole, where I was about to be taken and where nobody would find me. It was now or never, it seemed. As the tree man came toward me with a monstrous leer on his face, I reached out and yanked at the tablecloth. The lamp went flying and smashed onto the floor. A sheet of flame rushed across the room. The tree man let out a yell of pain and jumped back. I didn’t wait to see what damage I had done. I grabbed that doorknob and fled into the dark passage behind.

The passage was in total darkness, lit only by the flickering glow of the flames I had created. I heard Quigley’s shout and footsteps behind me, but I raced blindly, like a mad thing. The passage turned a corner and I bumped hard into a wall, bouncing off it like an India rubber ball. Somehow I managed to keep my feet and kept running. There was a door at the end of the passage. I pushed on it. It flew open, and I was out into the night.

I saw instantly that I was not back on the Bowery, as I had hoped, but in one of the narrow alleyways. I wasn’t sure whether to run left or right. To my left the alley seemed to be blocked by garbage cans. I turned to my right and ran for all I was worth, just as I heard someone burst out of the door behind me. I kept looking for a pathway to my right, to enable me to double back to the Bowery, to Mrs. Goodwin, and to safety. But there was none. Behind the fence to my right was the amusement park, with the ghostly shapes of merry-go-rounds and scenic railways now shut down for the night. Then the pathway went up a flight of steps. I stumbled up them, stepping on my hem and almost pitching myself onto my face. Somehow I scrambled to my feet and lurched forward as I heard feet on the stairs behind me.

I was on the boardwalk. I could see couples strolling, but none of them close enough to be any use to me. I dashed across the boardwalk and made for the pier. If Harry the Horse was still there, he’d remember me. He might help me. But as I approached the little bar where he had been sitting, I saw that it was closed and shuttered. I glanced back. Quigley was right behind me. There was no sign of Jimmy the tree man, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t following, too.

I had no other option but to continue onto the pier. I realized this was stupid, as soon as I’d passed through the gateway. Now I’d be well and truly trapped. Instead of running straight ahead, I ducked to one side and melted into the shadows, hoping he’d run past me and I could double back. But he stayed there, at the pier entrance, his eyes scanning the darkness. He was in no hurry now, of course. I had nowhere to go, except—to my right was another entrance, this one to the bathing pavilion, down below. It was now closed down for the night and in darkness, of course, but then I noticed what looked like an iron ladder, disappearing down the side of the pier. Maybe it was there for people to climb up after they had dived into the water. I didn’t stop to think any longer, but scrambled over the railing and started to climb down. I was close to the bottom when I heard feet scrabbling on iron above me. He was coming after me. I glanced down at black water below me, sized up how high I was above it, then let go.