Jack observed her as the cab fought its way through traffic, jerking to a stop again and again, the cabby raising his voice to curse at a newsboy, a cart driver, another cabby who slowed him down. The woman he judged to be in her midtwenties—very young for the position she had held—stared out into the city with a blank expression.
The word that came to mind was comely: even features, fine skin, and she was perfectly groomed and dressed for her station, which was to say her clothing was of good fabric, expertly tailored, without ornament or lace. Not a speck of dust or a pulled thread to be seen.
He asked a few questions and she answered without hesitation or posturing so that by the time they walked into the detective squad room he knew the basics: Elizabeth Imhoff, called Lizzy; she was twenty-five years old, born in the servants’ quarters of the Winthrops’ Provincetown estate to a kitchen maid. A family by-blow, which meant, she told him with little emotion, that she had just been fired by her half brother. She had known him all her life, and he sent her off without a kind word or a reference.
Her future was dark. Unless she had a beau waiting, a man who was ready to marry her and keep her, or she knew someone who would hire her to clerk in a shop, her options were limited. Women of Mamie Winthrop’s standing could and usually did bring maids over from France or England, but instead she had agreed to taking on a family embarrassment. He didn’t know what to make of that, but he would have to find out.
? ? ?
OSCAR WAS WRITING down his notes on the interview with Richard Crown of Brooklyn, who had identified their Jane Doe as his wife, Catherine, and who had gone away to arrange for her burial looking himself close to the grave.
Now he sized up Lizzy Imhoff with a single glance, got up to greet her and shake her hand—she had a natural dignity, something Oscar appreciated—and showed her to a chair.
The squad room was noisy with overlapping conversations about the day’s biggest event: an especially stupid thief known to his colleagues as Half-Peck had tried to rob an opium den armed with a knife that wouldn’t cut butter. It hadn’t occurred to him that the owners might have weapons of their own, a lesson he had learned the hard way but would never need again from his slab in the city morgue.
“Let’s get a cup of coffee,” Oscar said, and set off without waiting for agreement. Jack brought up the rear, watching Elizabeth Imhoff walk, the way she held herself, the things she looked at. Her calm was unusual, almost off-putting, but he supposed she must still be in shock. Within a span of a few hours her life had been pulled out from under her.
Once they had settled into a booth at MacNeil’s, Jack saw that her hands shook a little. Not completely made of ice, then. It just remained to see how she responded to Oscar’s interrogation.
She listened to him ask the most general question possible—what had happened to Mrs. Winthrop—and returned with a question of her own.
“How far back do you want me to go?”
“Start by telling us a little about her,” Oscar said.
She gave a soft laugh. Shook her head in apology, and laughed again. “I’m sorry, the question just takes me by surprise. I thought everybody must know Mrs. Winthrop, given the way gossip moves. But I suppose that it’s a fairly small circle who would pay attention.”
“She had a reputation, then.”
“Yes,” said Miss Imhoff. “She had a reputation. The simplest description is probably all you need. She was spoiled, as most women of her class are. But she was also cruel.”
“To you?”
“To everybody. Her husband, her mother, her friends. If you can call them that. She was terrible to people on the street, to anyone who was less than beautiful, and to most beautiful people as well. And to the servants, all of us.” She paused. “I’m not sure how this is relevant to her death.”
“We’ll get to that. How did she treat you? Did you like working for her?”
“God, no.”
“Glad to be shut of her, then.”
“She’s dancing with the devil. The satisfaction I get from that idea will only last as long as my savings.”
Jack leaned back a little, twisted his head from side to side to relieve the start of a cramp, and waited.
After a full minute Oscar said, “You know, we can ask questions and drag it out of you bit by bit, or you can just tell us. Wait, have you had anything to eat today? You are looking peaked.” Without waiting for an answer he waved one of the MacNeil boys over.
“Scrambled eggs, toast, bacon. And keep the coffee coming.” Oscar tilted his head at Miss Imhoff, and she nodded.
? ? ?
WHEN SHE HAD some food in her stomach and her color had improved, she started talking. The story wasn’t all that unusual or surprising: Mrs. Winthrop had been free with her affections. Over the four years of her marriage there were five lovers that her lady’s maid knew about, simply because Mamie Winthrop took no pains to hide her indiscretions within the walls of her rooms.
“And the husband?” Oscar asked.
She gave a little half shrug. “They went for days without seeing each other at all. They didn’t argue, they just . . .” She paused. “They didn’t seem to enjoy each other’s company.”