In the Shadow of Gotham - By Stefanie Pintoff Page 0,84
the young officer said.
She put the bag down, and we all moved over to the pile indicated. I first noticed a small handkerchief, a black leather notebook, and a silver hand mirror.
“S.W.,” Isabella whispered. The initials on the handkerchief, presumably, stood for Sarah Wingate. It was our first obvious link between the items and her murder.
“Look. This address book has had all its pages ripped out,” Isabella said, thumbing through a derelict paper booklet with a worn black leather cover.
“What else is there?” I asked Isabella, who was going through the rest of the items.
Isabella frowned. “A small change purse, empty.”
I thought of Will Porter and could not help but wonder if the change purse had been empty before he found it. But I pushed the thought out of my head; the money did not matter to our investigation, and Sarah no longer needed it.
“That’s all?” I was incredulous. Apart from what money may have been there, it seemed hardly enough to have warranted carrying a handbag at all, much less stealing it. “Why did he bother even taking these things from her?” I asked in frustration. “It makes no sense.”
“Fromley liked souvenirs to fuel his fantasies. Maybe the real killer decided to take some random items to make it look more like Fromley,” Alistair said. “This handbag could have been lying about in Sarah’s room. If so, it would have been easy to take.”
“But then why discard everything?” Isabella asked.
“Why risk keeping everything?” I countered.
Alistair shook his head and held up the fur hat. “And how could he have worn this for any part of his journey from Dobson to Grand Central without attracting someone’s attention?”
I shrugged. “Plenty of people in this city dress strangely but attract no attention. And the hat would partially disguise his head and facial features.”
We each regarded the fur hat. On closer examination, despite its dark brown color, we could identify sticky markings of blood. It was likely the man had discarded it as soon as he no longer needed it, putting it in the bag where it had rubbed against the bloodstained clothing.
“The woman’s petticoat looks as though it were used to wipe something clean. Maybe even this lead pipe,” I said.
“The weapon responsible for her head injuries?” Alistair asked.
“Very likely. Dr. Fields believed they were made by some kind of metal object.”
“What about any other clothing?” Isabella asked. “If his shirtwaist and trousers”—she held up two garments mottled with blood—“are so stained, then presumably everything else he wore would be bloodstained, as well. What about his coat? His boots?”
“He may have removed his coat,” Alistair said.
“And also,” I said, “I suspect this carpetbag only attracted Will Porter’s attention because it was stuffed to capacity, and he hoped to find something of value in it. If the murderer split up the items he wished to dispose of, then other items may have gone unnoticed.” I turned to the young officer. “Will you ask that all other garbage bags that may have been deposited here in the last week be examined before they are incinerated?”
As the man agreed, Alistair began combing through each pocket, using a pair of white cotton gloves we had brought for the purpose. He wordlessly handed another pair to Isabella, and she quickly pitched in to help.
Meanwhile I examined the return ticket stub already found in one of the pockets. Under the name New York Central and Hudson River Railroad, it was stamped November 7. On the back, the conductor had punched a hole next to Dobson to indicate fare paid. While we could question the conductors and ticket takers who had worked Tuesday afternoon, it was doubtful any would remember, given the thousands of passengers who passed through the terminal each day—and this had now been four days ago. Assuming this clothing proved to belong to Sarah’s murderer, I was struck by the oddity—really, the brazenness—of his choice to travel by train, immediately following the murder, to the most crowded train station in the country, counting on no one noticing anything amiss with his clothes, his hair, or even his behavior. There was anonymity in numbers, people said. I supposed that was true.
“And what do we make of this? Is there a particular place that sells them?” Alistair picked up the fur hat and looked at it quizzically.
I shrugged. “Not that it would be of help to us. He could have bought it at any of a dozen places here in the city. Any neighborhood with a large Russian