Esther kept her hands clasped in her lap, gripping a linen hankie. Her skin was not calloused or chapped like Martha’s had been, though her knuckles were whitened with nervousness. There was nothing visibly infirm about Esther Goodwin, as Leo had presumed there would be when she heard she resided in a rest home.
“I’m afraid I do have sad news,” Leo said, then, taking a deep breath, divulged Martha Seabright’s fate.
She kept back the more gruesome details of the murder. Just the same, Esther hung her head and cupped her cheek as Leo spoke.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Goodwin. I know this can’t be easy to hear.” She’d said the phrase countless times in the past, when family and friends of the deceased would arrive at the morgue, full of hope that they’d been given incorrect news.
With her chin still tucked, Esther dabbed the hankie under her eyes. She sniffled and shook her head. “It isn’t easy. I think what is worse is that I hadn’t spoken to Martha in, oh, seven years? Maybe eight. I’ve lost track of time.”
She straightened up, lifting her head and pushing back her shoulders while drawing in another deep breath. She then settled her composed gaze on Leo. “You say this happened at a benefit dinner?”
“Yes, for the Metropolitan and City Police Orphanage.”
Esther blinked and looked away, her brow furrowed. “I was sent an invitation for that dinner.”
“You declined, I’m told,” Leo said.
She shifted on the cushion. “I did. In fact, I was quite stunned that the governors on the Board planned to celebrate Martha lastevening. I don’t think they would have if they’d known the truth about her.”
The comment sparked interest, and Leo leaned forward. “How do you mean?”
Esther waved a hand, her hankie fluttering. “I shouldn’t speak of it, not now. Please, forget I said anything.”
That would be impossible, of course. Whatever Esther had been referring to could have been the very sort of thing that might aid Jasper’s inquiry.
“Mrs. Goodwin, I should tell you,” Leo began, worrying her bottom lip a moment as she considered how much to reveal. “The detectives working on this case suspect your sister may have been targeted. They are looking to understand why.”
Esther’s dark brown eyes sharpened. In a breathy voice, she asked, “Targeted? How do you mean?”
Leo hesitated to reveal anything more detailed. Instead, she applied a tactic she’d witnessed Jasper employ numerous times: She danced around the question with another one of her own.
“Can you tell me why the two of you fell out?” At the flash of affront on the other woman’s face, Leo continued, “I understand it is an intrusive question, but it could help the detectives determine why anyone might wish to harm her.”
After a shrewd narrowing of her eyes, Esther asked, “What do you do for the police, Miss Spencer? Are you employed by them?”
The tricky question wasn’t one she could evade.
“I…consult, from time to time, on inquiries.” Then, before Esther could ask another question, she added, “For this inquiry, I’ve offered to help gather some information about Mrs. Seabright’s family. You said you hadn’t spoken to her in about seven years?”
Esther blinked, taking in Leo’s answer and considering the tacked-on question. “Yes. We saw each other briefly seven yearsago, but it was by chance. Before that, we hadn’t been in contact for several more years.”
Leo waited in silence, hoping the woman would continue speaking. Being patient worked.
“When we were girls, my sister and I were close. She was different then. Oh, she certainly had a deviousness about her that would infuriate me. Always taking my things and hiding them away in places I never thought to look. I remember her as selfish, but I thought—hoped—she would grow out of it.” Esther shook her head as she fiddled with her hankie.
“I couldn’t countenance it,” she went on. “Handing over her children to an orphanage. What kind of mother would do such a thing?”
“Her husband had been killed,” Leo said. “Perhaps she couldn’t care for them alone.”
Esther scoffed at the suggestion. “Martha would have had plenty of help from others, myself included. My husband and I would have taken the children in, done anything, anything at all to support her. But she would not be swayed. No, my sister wanted to be rid of them, and the orphanage was the answer to her prayers.”
She gave a small moan and pressed the square of linen to her nose, obscuring her quivering chin. An uncomfortable moment of quiet stretched on as Leo sorted through what Esther had just revealed. In the scant amount of time she had been in Martha’s presence—while she’d been alive, at least—Leo had observed a hardness to her. But to give her children, including an infant, to an orphanage with the eagerness Esther was describing put a cramp in Leo’s chest.
“How long were you and your sister close?” she asked.
Esther’s flare of temper had cooled, and she nodded morosely. “Until she married. Dan—that was her husband—changed her.”
“In what way?”
