Before he had time even to form a theory, she was back. She handed him a cheap cardboard cover, the kind photographers used. He opened it to the strangest picture he’d ever seen. “Is this some kind of a boat?”

“It’s a ride at Sea Lion Park.”

“Sea Lion what?”

“Sea Lion Park. It’s an amusement park at Coney Island. Surely, you must have heard about it.”

Frank grunted noncommittally.

“I think this is a picture of the Shoot-the-Chutes ride, from what Gerda’s sister described. I read about it in the paper when the park opened. They have these boats that travel in water-filled chutes, and they pull them up to the top of a steep incline and let them slide all the way to the bottom. They make quite a splash when they hit the pool below.”

Frank looked at the photograph again, trying to picture what she was describing. “And this is the boat?”

“From what I understand, this is a duplicate of the boat. A photographer poses people as if they’re on the ride. See how they’re pretending to be frightened? Then they buy the photograph as a souvenir.”

“And you think this fellow with her bought her the shoes?”

“It’s certainly possible. According to her sister, she got them at Coney Island that day.”

Frank looked at the photograph more closely. “Well, even if this fellow did buy her the shoes, that doesn’t prove he killed her, does it?”

She frowned. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

Frank gave her a look that told her that was why she wasn’t a professional detective, and she didn’t like it one bit. “If she’d been killed the day she got the shoes, you might have something here. If,” he added, “you could even identify this fellow from the photograph. It’s not a very clear picture of his face. The shadow of his hat brim is covering half of it.”

She took the photograph out of his hands and looked at it again, very closely. “I’m sure if you knew this fellow, you’d recognize him.”

“But I don’t know him,” Frank pointed out. “Do you?”

“Gerda’s friends will.” She sounded awfully certain, which made Frank think she wasn’t certain at all.

“If they do, are you just going to go find him and ask him if he killed this girl?”

His sarcasm was wasted on her. “I think it would be a better idea to find out if the other girls who were murdered knew him, too.”

“What other girls?”

“I don’t know their names, but three other girls from that neighborhood have been murdered the same way Gerda was.”

“Beaten, you mean?” Frank was getting an uneasy feeling.

“Yes, and their murders are unsolved, too. I think there’s a good chance the same man killed all of them. I’m sure if you questioned their friends, you could find out which men all the girls knew in common and-”

Frank wasn’t listening anymore. He was remembering a case he’d investigated last winter. The girl was from the same German neighborhood near Tompkins Park, and she’d been beaten until her face was practically smashed in. They’d identified her from her clothes and a birthmark on her back. No one had cared much about her death, except her family of course, but they were working folks with no money to spare. She’d been one of those girls who went out dancing all the time, and Frank had soon realized that finding the one man who’d killed her would be nearly impossible. He’d gotten busy with other things, and now he couldn’t even remember the girl’s name.

Why had no one told him there were others?

“When were these girls killed?”

“I don’t know. I guess I should have found out, but I thought you’d know all about it.”

“I’m not the only detective sergeant on the New York City police force,” he reminded her more sharply than she deserved. “There’s no reason for me to know about cases I don’t work on.”

She didn’t take offense. She was too amazed. “Then there’s no way for anyone to realize these four girls’ deaths might be connected somehow?”

“You don’t know that they are,” he pointed out.

This time she gave him a condescending look. “Are you asking me to believe that four different men beat four different young women from the same neighborhood to death in exactly the same way during the past few months?”

“It could’ve happened,” he said, but he didn’t sound convincing, even to himself.

She smiled sweetly. “If you’re that naive, I guess I’ll have to make sure you don’t play any games of chance when we go to Coney Island tomorrow, then.”

“What?” Frank was certain he’d misunderstood her.

“I think we should go to Coney Island, don’t you?” she asked. “We can look around and ask questions and get an idea of what happens out there. Maybe we can figure out how Gerda met this fellow. We might even find someone who recognizes him from the photograph. We should at least be able to find out where she got the shoes. Someone might remember who bought them for her.”

“This isn’t my case,” he reminded her, although his conscience was pricking him. The nameless girl who had died last winter had been his case. If he’d solved that one, this Gerda might still be alive.

“It’s my case,” she said, “and you’d be helping me. As a friend,” she added, taking a sip of her lemonade.

When he didn’t reply, she said, “Did I tell you I left a message for Dr. Broadstreet? He’s the surgeon I told you about, the one I thought might be able to help Brian.”

The lemonade that had been so refreshing a moment ago now felt like acid in his stomach. He hated being in debt to anyone, and Sarah Brandt was dragging him deeper and deeper into her debt every time he saw her.

“Mrs. Brandt, your talents are wasted. You should have been a criminal.”

“A criminal!” she asked in surprise, although she seemed more pleased than insulted. “Whatever do you mean?”

“I mean you’re awful good at blackmail and making people do what you want them to.”

“It’s just my female powers of persuasion, Malloy. Since women don’t have any real power in the worldly sense, we have to compensate by using the powers we do have.”

Frank didn’t think he agreed with that. Women might not be able to vote or own property or go into business, but they certainly managed to do whatever else they wanted. “Find out the names of the other girls who were killed,” he said. “I’ll see if there’s any connection between them.”

She sat back in her chair, looking smug. “I’ll have that information for you on Sunday when we go to Coney Island.”

FRANK COULDN’T BELIEVE he was going to Coney Island. He’d never been to the beach in his life, and he had no desire to go now. At least he wouldn’t be expected to bathe in the ocean. He’d done some research on Coney Island and learned that the main attraction nowadays was the amusements and rides that had been built near the beach. You didn’t have to go in the water unless you wanted to, and Frank had no intention of putting on one of those ridiculous bathing outfits and jumping in the ocean. If God had intended for men to go in the water, they’d have fins.

Coney Island had always been a place where people from the city went to escape the summer heat, but the place had eventually been overrun by gamblers, roughnecks, confidence men, pickpockets, and prostitutes, so that decent folks had stopped going. Fires in ‘93 and ’95 had destroyed the worst sections of West Brighton, however, and then a fellow calling himself Captain Paul Boyton built an enclosed park where people of modest means could pay an admission price of ten cents and enjoy themselves all day without being bothered by the riffraff that used to prowl the streets of the island.

From what he’d learned, the park was like a carnival, only larger and far more elaborate. The games of chance and the freak shows were there, but this Captain Boyton had added rides designed to thrill and frighten people. Frank saw plenty of things in his everyday life that thrilled and frightened him. He didn’t need to pay ten cents to have the life scared out of him in a phony boat.