Murder on Mulberry Bend by Victoria Thompson Page B

runs it?”
    “Not very well. Everybody knew her husband. He preached on street comers for years.”
    “What was he like?”
    “A fanatic, like all of them.”
    “Like all of who?” she challenged. “Protestants?”
    He gave her another of his looks. “Evangelists,” he corrected her. “At least the kind who think they’re called to save the poor.”
    “Don’t you think that’s a worthy calling?”
    “Depends on what you’re saving them from.”
    “I imagine they’re trying to save them from hell,” she said.
    “There are lots of kinds of hell,” he reminded her. “And you can find all of them on the Lower East Side.”
    “Mrs. Wells is saving girls from that, too,” Sarah pointed out. “Emilia, the girl I was telling you about, was a prostitute when Mrs. Wells took her in.”
    “You didn’t ask me what I thought of Mrs. Wells. You asked me what I thought of her husband.”
    That was true. “And you haven’t really told me.”
    Malloy gave her a put-upon look. “He was enthusiastic but... weak,” he said, finally settling on a word.
    “Weak in what way?” Sarah thought he might mean physically, since she knew Mr. Wells had died young.
    “I’m not sure weak is the right word, but he just never accomplished anything important. He preached for years, and he still never had a congregation or many followers. He tried to help people, but he never had much success.”
    “How did he get the mission?”
    “Some rich woman gave him the money, or at least that’s what I heard. He bought the house, and then he got sick and died.”
    “And his wife took over his ministry,” Sarah said. “She seems to have been stronger than he was.”
    “She’s more successful, at least.”
    “But you don’t seem to think much of her, either.”
    “She doesn’t have any use for Papists, Mrs. Brandt.”
    Sarah recalled that Mrs. Wells had been pleased that Emilia had renounced her Catholic faith. “Does she force people to convert?”
    “I’m not sure you’d call it forcing. She just doesn’t help anyone who doesn’t.”
    “Oh,” was all Sarah could think to say. She tried to imagine turning away someone in need because she didn’t agree with the way they worshipped God. Mrs. Wells seemed too kind to do something like that, but she was deeply religious and convinced her faith was the only correct one.
    As if tired of the subject, Malloy asked if she’d seen Webster Prescott, the newspaper reporter who had been injured during their last investigation. Sarah informed him of Prescott’s improving condition, and they discussed the young man’s situation for the rest of the trip.
    When the cab reached the morgue, Sarah began to regret her decision to come. The building seemed to loom over her, casting a shadow across the sun of this pleasant day. Malloy paid the cab driver, then offered her a hand down. A small part of her wanted to tell him she’d changed her mind, but pride controlled the larger part of her. She took his hand and stepped out of the cab.
    His fingers were strong, but he released her as soon as she was safely on the pavement and stepped back, as if anxious to keep a safe distance between them now that they were out of the confines of the cab.
    “You don’t have to do this,” he reminded her, as if sensing her doubts.
    “Yes, I do,” she said. He shook his head, but he led her inside.
    For some reason, she had expected more ceremony around the viewing of a body. The unidentified dead were kept in a basement room, their bodies lying on tables and covered with sheets. The place reeked of chemicals and death. She fought an urge to put her handkerchief over her nose. She didn’t want to betray any weakness before Malloy.
    The attendant was a scrawny young man with a pockmarked face who acted annoyed at being disturbed.
    “This is the one,” he said, leading them to one of the tables after consulting his list. “Came in this morning.” Sarah followed him and stood beside the table