“Donato?” Frank called, hoping for some direction to the proper flat.

She looked up in surprise.

“Do you know where the Donatos live?” he asked, hoping she spoke some English.

“What you want?” she asked suspiciously.

“I want to see them. Which flat is theirs?”

“We no do nothing wrong,” the woman said, the fear thick in her voice.

“Are you Mrs. Donato?” he asked, coming closer.

She cringed away. “We no do nothing wrong,” she insisted.

“I need to talk to you, about your daughter Emilia.”

“Emilia!” she echoed scornfully. “I have no daughter. Go away.”

She certainly didn’t have a daughter any longer, but Frank didn’t want to break the news to her in the hallway, no matter how angry she might be with the girl.

“Is your husband at home?” Frank asked.

Now that his eyes were used to the darkness, he could make out her features more clearly. She wasn’t as old as her plodding gait had suggested, but the years hadn’t been kind to her. “He no here,” she claimed almost desperately. “Come back later.”

“Maybe I’ll just wait here for him,” Frank suggested. “Or go get the landlord to help me find him.”

This put the fear of God into her. Landlords didn’t like tenants who brought the police snooping around. “What you want?”

“I told you, I want to talk to you about your daughter Emilia,” he said patiently. His experience had been that most of the Italians avoided trouble whenever possible and were terrified of dealing with the police. Apparently, law enforcement in their native country was even more corrupt than it was in New York City. “I won’t keep you very long, but it’s not something I want to talk about here,” he added meaningfully.

She hated him. He could see it in her eyes, along with the fear. But she said, “Come,” and started up the stairs again. She was a short woman, but not small. Her breasts and hips were full and round. They were sagging now, but she’d probably had an appealing figure as a young girl, before the years and childbirth had taken their toll.

Fortunately, the Donato flat was only on the third floor in this five-floor walk-up. Frank found it difficult to question someone when he was completely winded.

The Donato flat was exactly like a million others in the city. A few pieces of furniture might have been carried from the old country, but the rest had been purchased here, as cheaply as possible, or scrounged from the trash heaps. Brightly colored curtains hung from the front window, and scarves were draped here and there to brighten up the place, but nothing could help the back rooms where sunlight never reached.

The door opened into the kitchen of the flat, and Mrs. Donato set her basket on the table, which was no more than planks laid over some wooden crates. Frank saw that tonight’s dinner would be some dried-up potatoes and turnips. What appeared to be dead weeds would probably become a salad. Beneath the recently purchased food, he could see a few paper flowers, and the kitchen table held the makings for more. Probably the woman made and sold them for extra money, as many wives in the tenements did.

“Tell me quick, before Antonio come home,” she advised him. “He want to help if she in trouble, so I no tell. We no help her. I have no daughter.”

Frank was beginning to wonder if that could be true. He could see now that her hair beneath the scarf was black, only slightly tinged with gray, and her complexion was the dark olive he would have expected. He wondered if Mr. Donato was blond. Sarah had said that Emilia must be from Northern Italy because of her blond hair, but her mother certainly wasn’t. “Your daughter was found dead this morning,” he said baldly, since she’d already informed him she didn’t care about the girl.

“Dead?” she repeated as if she wasn’t sure what the word meant. “Guasto?”

“Yeah, guasto,” he replied, nodding so she’d understand.

“Emilia?” Was she trying to deny it, as most mothers would, or was she just trying to make sure?

“She had yellow hair,” Frank said. “She’d been living at the mission. She had a lover named Ugo.”

“Sì, Emilia,” she confirmed with a sigh, sinking down into one of the mismatched chairs. She set her elbow on the table and rested her forehead on her clenched fist.

“I’m sorry,” Frank said, interpreting the gesture as grief.

But when she looked up, her dark eyes were blazing with fury. “She trouble, all a time, trouble. Is good she dead. No more trouble.”

Frank had seen reactions like this before, but usually it was because the deceased was a son who’d gone bad. Rarely did a mother react this way to the death of a daughter. Of course, he’d never had to inform a prostitute’s mother that she was dead. With women like that, nobody even knew who their mothers were.

Frank heard the sound of footsteps climbing the stairs. It could have been anyone, but Mrs. Donato must have recognized them. She jumped to her feet. “You go now,” she said urgently. “I have no daughter. You go.”

But Frank hadn’t quite finished his business here. He wanted to get a look at Emilia’s father, just to satisfy his curiosity. He stepped out onto the landing and waited. Mrs. Donato hovered anxiously in the doorway. Frank figured her husband might not be as glad as she was that the girl was dead. He wondered why.

The man who emerged from the gloom of the stairway was a little shorter than average height, his body stocky and muscular from heavy labor. His swarthy face had been darkened even further by the sun, and beneath his workman’s cap, his hair was as black as his wife’s. He stopped in alarm when he saw Frank standing there and glanced at his wife with a silent question.

“Polizia, ” she said as a warning. “È venuta dirci che Emilia fosse guasto.”

Frank wasn’t certain exactly what she’d said but recognized enough words to know she’d warned him Frank was from the police and Emilia was dead. The man showed the shock his wife had not.

“Emilia?” He didn’t want to believe it, and he looked to Frank for confirmation.

“Someone stabbed her to death this morning in City Hall Park,” he said.

“No,” he said desperately. “No true!”

“I’m afraid it is. Someone who knows her already identified the body.”

“Who?” he challenged.

Sarah’s name would mean nothing to them. “A lady who met her at the mission.”

“Mission,” Mrs. Donato repeated and spat on the floor to show her contempt. Donato’s shoulders sank in defeat, and he looked as if he might pass out.

This wasn’t going the way Frank had expected. The man of the house was shocked senseless and his wife was spitting on the floor. “Sit down, Mr. Donato,” he tried, guiding the man into the flat and pulling out a chair for him. He sank down as his wife had, but he was suffering from grief, or something very like it. Frank still wasn’t sure.

Donato rubbed a calloused hand over his face. When he looked up, Frank saw strong emotions but none he could identify. “You say she stab?”

“Probably with a stiletto,” Frank said, watching for a reaction.

Donato frowned, and his wife started muttering invectives in Italian.

“Do you know anyone who might have wanted to kill Emilia?” Frank asked.

“We no see her, long time,” Mrs. Donato said firmly.

“What about her brother? Has he seen her?”

“No,” Mrs. Donato said firmly. Her husband said nothing.

“Maybe I should ask him myself. When will he be home?”

She crossed her arms beneath her heavy breasts and just glared at him.

“What about Ugo?” Frank asked casually. “You wouldn’t mind if he went to jail, would you?”

Frank expected Mrs. Donato to spit on the floor again, but she just continued to glare at him furiously. He looked down at Donato and gave the leg of his chair a slight nudge.

Donato made a squeak of surprise and looked up, terrified.