Patrick slipped on the blood. He couldn’t meet his end in a grubby tenement. Not when his mother still needed him. Fear mingled with panic as he scrambled upright. He focused all his power into his right arm, driving his fist into the nose of the man before him. The man went down and didn’t move.
Liam’s attacker had him pinned to the floor, and Patrick hauled him off and threw him aside, then kicked him in the gut to keep him down. The knife skittered across the floor, and Janet grabbed it.
Two men were down, and the redheaded man looked at them in panic before staggering out the front door and escaping into the night.
There was no time to waste. Liam lay in a pool of blood, and he wasn’t moving anymore.
“Go get help!” Patrick ordered Janet. She ran out into the street, her scream echoing off the row houses. People were already heading their way, and Patrick balled up a handkerchief and pressed it to the gut wound. Liam’s yell of pain was deafening, and soon there were half a dozen people in the room.
“A doctor,” Patrick managed to stammer. “Is there a doctor?”
“Milly is calling for one now,” someone said. “The police too. They’ll be here soon.”
Patrick nodded, his head still throbbing. He’d been in dozens of ugly boxing matches but never feared for his life before, and it wasn’t over yet. Warm blood pulsed from Liam’s abdomen, soaking through the handkerchief.
“Move aside,” a man said. He stuffed one of Janet’s hand-crocheted pillows against Liam’s gut, pressing it tight and causing another anguished yell.
Patrick stood and stepped away as a wave of exhaustion overcame him. The man who’d brought the sledgehammer was trying to twist away from a pair of brawny neighbors who held him pinned down, but the third man, whom Patrick had knocked out, lay motionless on the floor.
“Better watch that one,” he warned one of the neighbors. “He’s strong and fast.”
“No need,” the neighbor said. “He’s stone dead.”
A horse-drawn ambulance arrived to take Liam to the nearest hospital, and Janet went with them. She’d been sobbing like a banshee but stopped when the hospital orderly said she couldn’t ride in the ambulance unless she controlled herself.
Patrick stayed at the scene, wondering who had a motive to kill Liam Malone. If Liam was the missing heir, it would thrill some of the Blackstones, but others might have a tremendous financial interest in keeping him away.
The house swarmed with neighbors and police officers. The invader who’d wielded the sledgehammer was arrested on the spot, but the dead man still lay on the floor where he’d fallen almost an hour ago. Patrick knew exactly what had happened. A direct blow could break a nose, sending a sliver of bone up into the brain and killing a man.
Patrick cradled his right hand against his sternum as he paced. A couple of his fingers felt broken, but he wasn’t dead like the man on the floor. A photographer from the police department finally arrived to take pictures of the dead man and the rest of the crime scene. The police said Patrick couldn’t leave yet, which meant he had to remain in the same room as the dead man until someone from the morgue arrived to take the body away.
He wished he had a rosary. Saying the rote prayers would help focus his scattered thoughts, because he was too agitated to pray right now. He’d killed a man. He hadn’t meant to, and he’d do it again if necessary, but he was sick over it. That man had a mother. Maybe he had a wife and even children. With a single punch, Patrick had changed their world forever.
He had punched hard. Fear had driven him to pull his fist back and shoot it forward with all his might. Life would never be quite the same after tonight, because a man was dead and it was his doing.
Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. He had already forgiven the dead man, but he worried about the mother and wife and children who didn’t yet know the man they loved was dead.
A pair of police officers finally approached him. The younger one spoke first. “You’re the man who punched that guy to kingdom come?”
Patrick winced. “It was me,” he said, no pride in his voice.
“Let’s go somewhere we can talk,” the older officer said in a thick German accent. What was it about a German accent that made people sound so angry? His badge identified him as Sergeant Dittmer, and Patrick followed him through the front door and into the night.
Clusters of neighbors still loitered in the street, gaping through the open doorway at the bloody scene inside.
“What happened?” Sergeant Dittmer asked once they were a few yards from the onlookers. The younger policeman took out a notepad, pencil at the ready.
Patrick’s legal instincts kicked in. What happened tonight was a straightforward case of self-defense, but it was possible the Blackstones had played a role in it, and they might try to twist this.
“I was with Liam and his mother all evening. We were minding our own business when someone came pounding on the door. Liam answered and got stabbed about two seconds later. Two others barged in to finish the job, and I stopped them. I’ve never seen them before.”
“And Liam? Did he know them?”
Patrick shrugged. “You’ll have to ask him that.”
“Does Liam Malone have any enemies?” Sergeant Dittmer asked.
Any leader of a labor union had plenty of enemies, but Patrick doubted this had anything to do with the union. He nodded to the dozens of neighbors loitering in the street. “They could probably answer that better than me. I only met him a few weeks ago.” Had it only been three weeks? It seemed forever now.
“And what is your relationship with Mr. Malone?”
He thought carefully before answering. He had offered Liam a little legal advice, but he wasn’t officially his lawyer. If he identified himself as such, it would get back to the Blackstones, and something warned Patrick against that.
“Just a friend,” he said.
“You must come to the station to file a formal report of what happened here tonight,” Sergeant Dittmer ordered.
The brusque tone worried Patrick. “Am I a suspect?”
“No, but we need a formal statement,” Sergeant Dittmer said.
Patrick glanced pointedly at the officer with the notepad. “I just gave you one. I’m heading to the hospital to check on my friend. His mother may need help.”
He walked around the officer taking notes and headed toward the house. The blanket-covered corpse was being carried out on a stretcher, and Patrick instinctively paused to cross himself. He hated what he’d done tonight, but if he hadn’t been here, Liam would be dead.
“Do you have someone on the force who can stand guard at the hospital?” he asked Sergeant Dittmer. “Whoever ordered this attack on Liam might try again.”
Sergeant Dittmer scoffed. “We don’t have spare men to serve as a private police force.”
That wasn’t a surprise, but Liam was still in danger. If he survived tonight’s attack, he would be frail and defenseless for weeks.
Patrick scanned the bystanders loitering in the street. He recognized some of them as people who’d come to New York for the hearing. They were strong men from the steel mills and factories. They would be his private police force.
He stepped forward. “I could use some people to help stand guard at the hospital.”