Read Online Secret of the White Rose by Stefanie Pintoff - Free Book Online

their lives a living misery till the men we seek turn themselves in.”
    The tall deputy beside him looked troubled. “General, with due respect—I’m not sure I’d put it quite like that.”
    “Balderdash,” the General replied. “You forget that I am the law in this town. I don’t mean anything beyond what the law allows. But we can put them under surveillance. They won’t make a move without our watching them. We’ll be outside the businesses they run, making note of their customers,” He grinned. “That’ll hit them where it hurts. They’ll see how many patrons want to shop when they’re watched so closely.” His eyes narrowed. “Then if they know where our wanted men are, they’ll give them up.”
    “You mentioned you had names, sir?” Savino asked quietly. “Men you want us to follow?”
    “Not follow,” the General blustered. “I want you to hunt them down like the animals they are. Boy, write the names on the board and tell us about them.”
    “I—I can’t,” Oliver stammered.
    “I forgot. You’re illiterate. But you’re street-smart, not like the fat and stupid boy I hired last time.”
    Oliver flushed a deep red, as Bill Hodges grabbed the chalk and addressed us. “We called you four detectives here because of your connections to our prime suspects.”
    The hackles on the back on my neck were immediately raised. “Connections, sir?” The question burst from me before I was aware of it.
    “That’s right, Detective … Ziele, I believe? Each one of you has some connection to the men we seek today.” The General turned toward me with a penetrating stare. “I won’t deny that I was annoyed when the widow first insisted you join my case. I don’t care who her family is, I don’t like people interfering with how I do my job.”
    “No one does, sir,” I replied evenly, still on my guard.
    He smiled. “Well, sometimes Providence has a strange way of looking out for us, Detective. I discovered you’re actually the perfect man for this case. A necessary Fourth Musketeer, so to speak. Oliver will explain.”
    I said nothing more but looked warily at Oliver as he began to talk. I noticed the three detectives who had joined me seemed equally ill at ease. Now it was clear to me why the top brass had so readily agreed to Mrs. Jackson’s request to involve me in the case: my background—a childhood spent living in the tenements of the Lower East Side, the breeding ground of criminals and anarchists alike—had suited their purposes. Apparently, one of my boyhood associates had grown into a man now suspected of this crime. I realized with a pang of disappointment that it wasn’t quite the opportunity that Mulvaney had thought. Still, perhaps that was for the best. Too much personal interaction with the General himself was not necessarily something I desired.
    “I’ve been going to meetin’s at Philipp Roo’s since August,” Oliver said haltingly. “I told everyone there ’bout how my mother died of overwork in a factory, and that I wanted to do my bit to improve working conditions. Now I hear ’bout all the latest news, including when and where meetin’s are planned and who’s leadin’ them.”
    He fell silent, uncomfortable with being the center of attention.
    “Go on,” Hodges encouraged him.
    “The radicals who meet at Roo’s talk a lot about revolution, not to mention women’s rights and free love,” he continued, flushing with embarrassment. “They all worship Emma Goldman and want to write for her new magazine, Mother Earth .”
    “Magazine?” Hodges scoffed. “You can’t be serious. By God, we’re talking about murder here—”
    “And we all know how Emma Goldman’s words have led men to act,” the General cut him off. “After all, she inspired her lover to try assassinating one of the world’s richest business tycoons.”
    I knew that he meant Alexander Berkman, who had served fourteen years for attempting to murder Henry Clay Frick. Berkman had