Only three weeks now until THE FAMILY WAY, my 12th Molly Murphy mystery, is published. If you haven't yet pre-ordered your copy yet, it's showing up on Amazon today at a greatly reduced price, so I recommend snapping it up before the price rises again.
And if you have already read THE FACE IN THE MIRROR, the Molly short story on Amazon, and would like your appetite whetted even more, here's a sneak preview at The Family Way:
“I must say she gave a most
favorable…” I started to say. The rest of my sentence was cut off by a terrible
shriek. “My baby! Someone has taken my baby!”
We spun around to see a young woman, fair-haired and attired
in the usual white shirt waist and cotton skirt of the Lower East Side, looking
around desperately, her light eyes wide with terror.
“My baby!”
She screamed again. “She was here. In her carriage. I left her for a second
while I went into the butcher’s and now she’s gone.”
Instantly
there was chaos as the crowd closed in around her. We were caught up in them
and swept across the street to the young woman.. She was gesturing to a
battered baby carriage that was now empty, apart from a crudely made cloth
rabbit and one knitted bootie.
Older women
had already come to her side to calm her screams. One of the nuns we had seen was
first to reach her, patting her shoulder with a comforting meaty hand. “Don’t
fret, my dear,” she said in a strong Irish accent. “Perhaps someone from your
family picked the baby up. Perhaps she was crying and one of your other
children is carrying her around.”
“I don’t
have other children. She’s my only child.” Her eyes continued to dart up and
down the street. “Who can have done this? Where have they taken her? My baby.
Somebody find my baby for me.”
I felt a
wave of terror, of almost physical sickness, come over me and as if in response
my own baby gave an almighty kick. I clutched at a lamp post to steady myself.
Sarah had gone ahead of me, pushing through to the center of the little group.
“Somebody go and find the constable,” she said, “And you children—spread out.
Go and look on the adjoining streets and see if you can spot anyone carrying a
baby in their arms. They can’t have gone too far with her.”
“Does
anyone have smelling salts?” The nun demanded. “This poor woman is about to
pass out.”
Sarah
rummaged in her delicate little purse and produced hers. The nun proceeded to
wave them under the woman’s nose. For once I could almost have used them
myself. But I got a grip on myself and stepped forward. “Did anybody see a
person near the baby carriage? Did anyone see someone carrying a baby away?”
Heads were
shaken.
“You see people
carrying babies all the time,” a small girl answered. She spoke with a trace of
Italian accent and had the black hair and big dark eyes that betrayed her
ancestry and the fact that this quarter was known as Little Italy. She looked
no older than seven or eight but she herself had a squirming toddler on her hip.
“We have to take the babies out and look after them so mother can clean up the
apartment. Stop it, Guido,” she added as
the toddler wriggled even harder. “You’re not getting down.”
The woman
was no longer screaming but sobbing, her thin body shaking with great gulps.
“It’s
another of those kidnappings they’re talking about,” a woman next to me
muttered.
I turned to
ask her what she meant when the crowd parted and two constables pushed their
way toward the distraught woman.
“Stand
aside please,” one of them bellowed. “Move back now. Go on, about your
business, all of you.” The crowd backed up a little as his billy club was
brought out. He reached the woman. “Now what’s happened here?”
Fifty
people tried to talk at once, shouting in various accents with much hand
waving. If the circumstances hadn’t been so terrible, it would have been a
comical scene. The constable held up his hands. “Ladies. Quiet. One at a time.”
I glanced
at Sarah, then decided it was about time I helped. I stepped forward. “This
woman’s baby has been stolen from the baby carriage,” I said.
He looked
at me, determining immediately from the way I was dressed that I was not a
resident here. “Did you witness it, ma’am?” he asked.
“No. I had
just come out of the building across the street when I heard her screams. We
have asked, but it seems that nobody actually witnessed it.”
He nodded.
“It’s easy enough to lift a baby from a buggy around here without anyone seeing,”
he said. He looked across at his fellow
constable. “You’d better let them know at HQ. We might be looking at another
one.“
The younger
policeman nodded, fought his way back through the crowd then disappeared down
the street at a great rate. The constable turned back to the young woman, who
was visibly shaking, hugging her arms to herself as if she was cold. “Now then,
what’s your name, my dear?”
“It’s Martha, sir. Martha Wagner.”
“So tell me exactly what happened, Mrs.
Wagner,” he said.
The young
woman fought to control her sobs. “I was shopping for my man’s dinner, the way
I always do. I went into the butcher’s for sausages and I left the baby outside
because there’s no room for a buggy in the shop. I was only in there a moment.
Not more than a minute or two and when I came out…” she paused and gulped. “She
was gone!” Her voice rose in a hysterical scream again.
“You were
alone? No other kids to guard the buggy?”
“She’s my
first. We’ve only been married a year,” the woman said. “We just moved here
from Pennsylvania. My man has just found a job on a river steamer.”
The nun was
patting her arm again. “We’ll pray for you, my dear, and for your dear child
that the dear Lord watch over her and deliver her safely back to you.”
The young
woman shook her head furiously. “I want her back now,” she said.
“We’ll do
what we can,” the constable said, “and these things usually turn out well. So
give us a description of the child.”
“They say
she talks after me,” she said. “She’s three months old, real dainty like a
little china doll with big blue eyes. Just a tiny amount of light hair like
mine. Everyone says she’s like a little angel. Her name is Florrie. Florence
after my mother who passed away last year.”
The
constable duly wrote this down. He shifted uncomfortably as unsure what to do
next.
“I heard
that there have been other kidnappings,” I said. “Does this fit the pattern?”
He looked
at me as if I was speaking a strange tongue. “That’s not my job, ma’am,” he
said. “I couldn’t say.”
“But surely
the police must have some ideas? Haven’t you been asked to be extra vigilant?”
Sarah
tugged at my sleeve. “Molly, we shouldn’t get involved in this. I need the help
of these men. I don’t want to antagonize them. I’m sure they’re doing all they
can.”
“They don’t
seem to be,” I said angrily. “He doesn’t seem overly concerned. If it were my
baby…” I stopped short as that awful vision flashed through my mind. My baby.If
somebody stole my baby.
“The good
sisters here will keep an eye open for your child,” the constable said, nodding
to the nuns.
“We will indeed. And we can alert
the sisters at the Foundlings Hospital to be on the lookout as well.” She
looked at her fellow nun for confirmation.
“But who can have taken her? Why
would anyone do this?” The words came out as gulping sobs.
“I’m sure the baby will turn up
again safe and sound,” the constable said. “Now why don’t you give us your
address and…”
“Here we
are, sir.” The young constable had reappeared, red faced from running. “Another
kidnapping, so they are saying.” He forced
his way through the crowd. “Stand aside ladies and let the captain through.”
And to my horror Daniel materialized
between the heads of the crowd.
