Oh Danny Boy (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #5)

My driving wish was to get away from Allen Street as quickly as possible, which wasn’t easy, given that my feet didn’t want to obey me. I turned left onto the first cross street and struck out in the direction of the Bowery. I’d gone a couple of blocks when it really hit me what I had just done.

“You’ve burned your bridges now, my girl,” I said to myself severely. “Letting your stupid heart rule your head again. Now what do you think you’re going to do?”

“Muddle through as always,” came the reply. I reached the Bowery and decided to keep on going to Broadway, where I could catch the trolley, if I was in any condition to climb aboard. As I approached the next intersection, I came upon a commotion. A crowd was gathered, half in the street, half on the sidewalk.

“Now move along, move along,” I heard a voice shouting and saw a policeman trying to disperse them.

An ambulance came galloping up, bell clanging, from the direction of Broadway.

“Did anyone see what happened?” a voice was shouting. I looked at the speaker and saw that it was Detective Quigley. Then I glanced up at the building on the corner and saw the street name. Elizabeth Street. It must be another victim. In spite of my unsteadiness, I wormed my way into the crowd. A woman’s body, dressed all in black, was lying huddled in the gutter, while water and debris from the storm sloshed around it.

“It came so fast, it was all over in a second,” a woman said. “I barely had a chance to pull my little girl out of the way.”

“What kind of vehicle was it?” Quigley asked.

“I just heard the racket as it came around the corner, and I saw those galloping hooves,” the woman said. “He was driving like a madman. The poor thing stood no chance. I believe it almost came up on the sidewalk.”

“Maybe it was a runaway horse,” someone else suggested.

“It was almost as if it was coming after her,” a man commented.

“I heard the scream and saw this big black shape disappearing into the night,” someone else ventured.

“No signs or anything on the wagon?” Quigley asked. “Nothing to give away what it was? A private carriage, do you think?”

“Could have been,” the first woman answered. “I tell you, I was more concerned about my little girl. It missed her by inches.”

“Make way, now,” a voice commanded, and the ambulance boys pushed through the crowd, carrying a collapsible stretcher.

“What happened?” one of them asked, squatting cautiously beside the body.

“She was run down by a wagon,” someone volunteered. “It came right at her and didn’t stop.”

“Is she still alive or is this another morgue job?”

“I felt a pulse,” Quigley said. “Get her to the hospital, as quick as you can, for God’s sake.”

“Easy now, Bert. She could have any number of broken bones,” the first ambulance man said. They bent to lift the frail form from the street. I didn’t want to see if her face was disfigured like the rest, but I couldn’t stop myself from looking. She was wearing a black bonnet and as they turned her around her arm flopped over like a rag doll’s. I gasped in horror. It was Mrs. Goodwin.

“Come along. Step back, please. Let them through. Go on. Go to your homes.” A constable forced the crowd back, his billy club in his hand.

The stretcher was put into the back of the ambulance. The doors closed and it galloped off into the night.





TWENTY-SIX




I must follow it, I thought, and broke into a shambling run. My legs refused to obey me. I tripped, fell, and the smell of dog and refuse came up to meet me. As I sat there, with the world swaying violently, I realized that I was in no state to go to any hospital. They certainly wouldn’t let me see Sabella Goodwin, and I ran the risk of being arrested for intoxication. I had no wish to spend a night in a Jefferson Market jail cell ever again. I just prayed she was still alive, and that someone was with her if she imparted a dying message. Because she must have discovered something that made the East Side Ripper scared enough to take the appalling risk of running her down on a city street, with other people as witnesses. At least now we knew that the theory about the large, dark vehicle had been correct. Maybe she had spotted such a vehicle earlier and gone to investigate. Perhaps she could now identify it.