The Angel Of Darkness

CHAPTER 40

Mr. Moore arrived that night, looking bedraggled and persecuted, and rightfully so: he’d had a pretty devilish week in the city, and had barely gotten back out with all of his organs and limbs intact. And even when he and Marcus hadn’t been in situations where their lives were in immediate danger-like when they’d gone to interview the Reverend Clayton Parker-violence had been a topic of conversation: apparently the reverend had been set on about six months earlier by several men who we could reasonably assume to’ve been Hudson Dusters, and’d had both of his knee caps shattered with baseball bats, along with one of his ears cut off. Even as he retold the story to us, Mr. Moore got so jittery that he needed a couple of stiff belts of Mr. Picton’s best whiskey to calm his nerves. But the news that we were ready to face the grand jury the next morning cheered him up considerably, as did the leftovers from our dinner, with which he stuffed himself ’til fairly late in Mr. Picton’s kitchen. By the time he retired, he’d taken in enough encouraging intelligence-along with enough whiskey-to be able to sleep as soundly as the rest of us.

Before I could let him go to the rest he so richly deserved, though, I had to find out whether he’d actually been in touch with Kat and, if he had, what the outcome’d been. As he was unsteadily scrubbing his teeth in his bathroom after pouring half a tin of Sozodont powder over his brush and into the sink, I snuck on in and put the questions. His mouth foaming like a mad dog’s, Mr. Moore told me that yes, he’d met up with Kat outside Duster territory and informed her about our predicament, then asked if she’d be willing to keep a watchful eye on Ana Linares. Kat’d demanded money for her services, making it seem certain to me that all we’d given her, and probably the train ticket too, had gone to Ding Dong; but Mr. Moore said that such wasn’t the case, that Kat’d shown him the ticket and told him that she was just waiting for word from her aunt before setting out for California. When I asked Mr. Moore if he thought Kat was still blowing the burny, he answered that he hadn’t been able to tell, in a nervous way what made it plain he was lying; but I decided that all I had time or energy to do was take heart from the fact that Kat still had the train ticket and was still willing to work for us. The rest I’d have to cope with when we got back to New York.

Mr. Picton had prepared us for the possibility that some of the townsfolk of Ballston Spa would take an interest in the activities of the deliberative body what was slated to convene on Friday morning at eleven in the smaller wing chamber of the county court house; but we weren’t at all ready (and I don’t think he was, either) for the sight that greeted us when we rolled up to the building in the surrey. There must’ve been a hundred people of every age, size, and description on the steps and lawn of the place, milling around like so many hungry chickens. The guard Henry was at the top of the steps barring the entrance, being as the activities of grand juries are not open to the public (a fact what many of those would-be spectators were obviously unaware of). But the big, horse-faced Henry seemed to be talking sympathetically with the crowd as much as holding them at bay. And the closer we got, the clearer it became that the general mood among all of them-Henry included-was not a happy one.

“Oh, good,” Mr. Picton said, as he reined his horse to a halt. Then he huffed in an irritated manner, causing his pipe to shoot sparks upward. “I was so hoping that my fellow citizens would take an interest in the proceedings-nothing like the public getting involved in the affairs of government, especially when they’re too ignorant to know at what point they’re not allowed to be involved!” He brought the surrey to a halt and, picking up one of the several big stacks of books and files what were sitting on the floor under the driver’s bench, jumped down to the street. “I’d advise you not to fetch Clara alone, Dr. Kreizler,” he said, as the Doctor moved up from the back to the front seat. “God knows how many more of these people have come out to offer their opinions in other parts of town.”

“Cyrus and Stevie will accompany me,” the Doctor answered with a nod as I moved on up to take the reins.

“And El Niño, too!” the aborigine said, swinging around toward us from his perch on the outside of the rig. “If you have El Niño to guard you, there will be no trouble for the Señor Doctor!” He flashed a grin, one that the Doctor, even in that uncertain situation, couldn’t help but return.

“Very well, El Niño,” he said. “You shall come along, too. But don’t be too quick to reach for the tools of your trade.” The Doctor glanced at the crowd in front of the court house. “People such as these are to be feared more for their ignorance than for their daring.”

“Yes, Señor Doctor!” El Niño said, jumping onto the back seat beside Cyrus as Mr. Moore vacated the spot. “Is true!”

“You don’t want me to come along, too, Laszlo?” Mr. Moore said, still looking sleepy after his first decent night’s rest in five days.

“I think we’re an impressive enough little escort, John,” the Doctor said, eyeing those of us what were still in the surrey. “And someone’s got to get Mr. Picton through that crowd. Someone, that is”-the Doctor gave Miss Howard a quick smile-“who won’t reach immediately for a firearm.”

“Oh, my hands will be full,” Miss Howard answered, smiling as she picked up another pile of books and files. “Fortunately for these people.”

“It’s all very well to joke,” Lucius said, wiping his forehead, which was shining bright in the hot morning sun. “But you will be careful, Doctor? The girl is the key to our case, after all.”

“Yes, Detective Sergeant,” the Doctor answered. “And a good deal more than that. No harm will come to her or to anyone else, I pledge you that.”

“And so does El Niño!” declared the aborigine, at which I smiled to the detective sergeant.

“And so does El Niño,” I said, clicking my tongue at Mr. Picton’s horse and starting us slowly on our way.

As we drove, we turned to keep an eye on the other four as they made their way through the crowd in front of the court house, Mr. Picton’s pipe still blazing like the smokestack of a forge as he greeted faces he recognized with a cheeriness what couldn’t have been more phony. “Ah, Mr. Grose, I am relieved to see a representative of our Weekly Journal-and the editor himself! This is truly gratifying! A man in my line of work rarely experiences such an exhibition of support!”

We began to drift out of earshot just as an irritated voice replied to Mr. Picton, “The Ballston Weekly Journal most definitely does not intend to support you, sir, if you are truly seeking an indictment against the unfortunate Mrs. Hatch!”

The last piece of this conversation we heard was Mr. Picton’s reply: “Ah! What a pity! Sheriff Dunning, you will remind these people-including friend Grose, here-that these proceedings are closed to the public, won’t you? Good man…”

A heavy sigh came out of the Doctor, and I turned to him. “Bloody hell,” he whispered, turning away from the scene in front of the court house and then rubbing his bad arm with his right hand. “It begins already…”

When we reached the Westons’ farm, we found the whole family out in front of the house and gathered around their carriage, a simple but dignified rig what bore a shiny new coat of black paint. They looked like they were ready for church, scrubbed and dressed in the kind of somber, formal clothing what they most likely only brought out for Sundays, weddings, and funerals. The Doctor boarded the carriage with them, sitting next to Clara on one seat while Mr. and Mrs. Weston took the other and Kate climbed onto the driver’s bench with Peter, who had the reins.

Clara was a picture of nervousness and confusion, of course, her golden eyes as round and skittish as a spooked Thoroughbred’s. Almost as soon as the Doctor was in the carriage, he got her to open her sketch pad and start working with her pencils: the best way, he obviously figured, to keep her mind off where she was going and why. As Peter started down the drive, I pulled the surrey in behind him, and all the way back to town Cyrus, El Niño, and I kept a careful lookout for any curious or hostile faces what might appear by the road.

We didn’t catch sight of any ’til we were back on the edge of Ballston Spa; but the cold stares we started to receive at that point indicated that word about what was going on at the court house had spread all through the village. The general reaction seemed to be the same as the one exhibited by those brave souls who’d marched up to the court house steps in a pack. It wasn’t exactly a mob mentality-I’d seen mobs at work, and this was something different. The citizens of Ballston Spa seemed mostly bewildered: their faces were disturbed and furrowed and plainly displayed the wish that we would disappear back to the evil city what had disgorged us.

“It is strange, Señorito Stevie,” El Niño remarked at one point. “These people-they do not wish for baby Ana to be found?”

“They don’t really get the connection,” I answered, as we rolled by the Eagle Hotel and netted a whole slew of new glares. “And we can’t tell them, because the señor says so. It’s a secret, if you get my meaning.”

“So,” El Niño answered with a nod, “that is why they look this way. If they know the story of baby Ana, they feel different. Sure.”

I hoped like hell that the aborigine was right.

Back up at the court house the scene hadn’t changed much; and as our two rigs moved along High Street, one heavyset man with a thick gray mustache, wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat and a badge on the lapel of his jacket, approached us.

“Josiah,” he said in a polite but serious tone of voice, signaling to Mr. Weston.

“Sheriff Dunning,” Mr. Weston answered with a nod, his voice betraying no emotion. “A few folks here.”

“Yessir,” Sheriff Dunning answered, looking a little uneasily at the crowd. “Nothing serious-but you’ll want to take your rig around back, maybe. Come in through the ground floor. Be easier on everybody.” He glanced once at Clara. “Hello, there, little miss,” he said with a smile. “Come to visit the court house, have you?” As an answer Clara hid herself behind the Doctor’s arm, at which point the sheriff turned his gaze up to meet the Doctor’s. The man’s smile vanished in the process. “Anyway, Josiah,” Sheriff Dunning said. “I just figure that’ll be the easier way to go about it.”

Mr. Weston nodded, then turned his rig onto Bath Street and rolled down the hill toward the back entrance to the court house. I made a move to follow with the surrey, but Cyrus reached up to grab my arm.

“No, Stevie,” he said. “The front door. Let’s make sure those folks don’t follow them down.”

I knew what he meant: between Cyrus and El Niño the focus of the crowd’s attention was likely to stay on our carriage, wherever it went; and if we just pulled up in front of the court house and brassed it out by heading in at the main entrance, we were likely to make certain that Clara and the Westons would get inside without any trouble.

So I slapped Mr. Picton’s horse into a nice high step and made as much of a deal as I could out of the half block that we had left to cover. True to Cyrus’s reasoning, every eye in the crowd turned on us as we got down off the surrey and made our way toward the steps. There were a few laughs, but more clicks of the tongue and mild curses; and of course, the occasional mumbling of “damned niggers” and the like were heard, all of them designed to get some kind of a reaction out of Cyrus and El Niño. But those bright souls what gave voice to the slurs didn’t know who they were dealing with; for El Niño, if he heard them, didn’t register any awareness of what they meant, while Cyrus had long since learned to hold his emotions down when such labels were flung at him.

At the front door we came face to face with the guard Henry, who, seeming to care quite a bit about what the crowd would think of his next move, took to biting at the nails of one hand.

“What’s this, Henry?” said one pompous-looking man in a suit, whose voice I recognized as belonging to the editor of the Ballston Weekly Journal, Mr. Grose. “Are respected citizens of this community and members of the press to be denied entry to these proceedings, while children and-well”-Mr. Grose’s eyes went from Cyrus to El Niño-“savages are to be allowed in?”

Plainly not knowing what to do, Henry obeyed the instincts of the true follower: he crossed his arms, widened his stance, and then looked Cyrus in the eye. “Sorry,” he said, “the grand jury’s de-the de-”

“ ‘Deliberations,’ ” Cyrus supplied with a straight face.

The guard’s eyes filled with resentment. “The deliberations are closed to the public.”

“Sir,” Cyrus answered quietly. “You know that we’re investigators in the employ of Assistant District Attorney Picton. And we know you know it. So you can either let us through now-or you can play up to this crowd and explain your decision to Mr. Picton later. He’s your superior.” Cyrus nodded toward the general area behind him. “These people aren’t.”

Somebody behind me mumbled “Smart-ass nigger,” and then I saw a hand appear from out of the closing swarm of bodies to grab Cyrus’s shoulder. The arm connected to the hand tried to pull my friend backward, and the face on the owner of the arm was filled with a resentment obviously fortified by a few morning drinks. But whoever the fellow was, he’d let liquor lead him to a bad decision: Cyrus just grabbed the fingers what were fixed on his shoulder in his own hand, and then held them up an inch or so. Keeping his eyes fixed on the guard Henry’s face, Cyrus began to squeeze-and as beads of sweat appeared on Henry’s face, Cyrus started to squeeze very hard.

Now, Cyrus has always had a grip that’s got a lot in common with your average steel vise; and after about twenty seconds or so you could hear the man who’d grabbed him starting to whimper. Then came the sound of bones crunching, at which the man started to plain howl.

“All right, all right!” Henry said, stepping away from the door. “Get inside, the three of you-but I’m telling Mr. Picton about this!”

Cyrus assured Henry that he’d also be letting Mr. Picton know exactly what had happened. Then we slipped through the door, slamming it closed as the crowd outside started to make louder and angrier noises.

Inside the main hall we saw Mr. Moore, Miss Howard, and Lucius anxiously pacing outside the doorway to the small hearing room, which was over on the left-hand side of the space.

“What the hell was all that about?” Mr. Moore said, as we moved quickly over to them.

“Seems like tempers are getting pretty hot already,” I answered. “One of those mugs tried to start something with Cyrus.”

“Are you all right?” Miss Howard said, looking up at Cyrus’s barely rattled features.

“He is all right-sure!” El Niño answered, staring up at Cyrus in awe. “He is el maestro-not all of those pigs outside can challenge Mr. Mont-rose!”

A little embarrassed, Cyrus just nodded to Miss Howard. “Nothing out of the ordinary, miss. Have they begun the proceedings?”

“I think so,” she answered. “They let the family go in with Clara, thank God-she was as pale as a sheet by the time she actually got up here.”

“Well,” I said, trying to sneak a peek through the crack between the sliding mahogany doors of the hearing room but unable to see anything. “Looks like it’s a waiting game for a while.” I held up my hands. “And yes, before anybody asks, I’ve got plenty of cigarettes…”

It was an anxious time, those next couple of hours, with nowhere to go (a walk outside being pretty effectively ruled out) and nothing to do but smoke and worry. Whoever’d built the doors in that court house had turned in some solid work, for along with being unable to spot anything through the cracks, we never heard any sound clearer than vague mumbling coming from inside-and precious little of that. Mr. Moore remarked that such was a good sign; but good or not, it was strange and not a little disturbing to be standing outside a courtroom without ever hearing the usual sounds of argument. We didn’t even get the occasional echo of a banging gavel, for a grand jury proceeding, like I’ve said, was and is the district attorney’s show (or, in this case, the assistant D.A.’s), and there was no judge inside that chamber to go messing with the way things were conducted. There was just Mr. Picton, his evidence and witnesses, and the jury itself. Given such an arrangement and the limited amount of noise what bled out through the door, there did seem to be good reason for us to believe that things were going pretty well; and as the time dragged on, each one of us tried harder and harder to accept that idea.

For once, our assumptions turned out to match the facts. At about one-thirty we heard the sounds of chairs and feet moving around inside the hearing room, and then the mahogany doors slid open, an officer of the court manning each slab. The Doctor and the Westons were the first ones out of the room, the Doctor speaking with some feeling to the still pale Clara; but as he passed by the rest of us, he managed a small, sure nod, saying in no uncertain terms that they’d gotten the indictment. There was a quick moment of mutual congratulation among the rest of us, but it was cut short by the sight of the Weston family coming out of the hearing room: old Josiah looked like he’d been through a battle, and his wife, Ruth, was very pale and wan-in fact, she would’ve collapsed to the floor, I think, if Peter and Kate hadn’t been holding her up by the arms. As they passed by, any joy we felt was doused by the cold realization both of what had just happened and what remained to be done-and of how much danger they all might be in once Libby Hatch was brought back to Ballston Spa.

The members of the grand jury stayed milling around inside the hearing room, as if they were afraid to come out; and when Mr. Picton eventually emerged with Sheriff Dunning, the lawman looked so rattled and confused that it was easy to tell that the town of Ballston Spa, which had spent the morning being so confused and hostile, was about to get a shake-up what would magnify those feelings many times over. Mr. Picton had his pipe out, and he was sticking it in the sheriff’s face like a pistol as he lectured him:

“… and I mean it, Dunning-whatever your personal opinions about this matter, due process has been served, and I expect you and every other officer of the court and the law in this county to respect and uphold the grand jury’s findings. That includes extending your protection to whatever persons my office may choose to work with, as well as anyone else I think may need it. District Attorney Pearson will be absent for the duration of this affair, so I’ll be in charge. I hope I’m not the only one who realizes that-and I hope I make myself clear.”

The sheriff held up a hand. “Mr. Picton, sir, you can spare the effort. I’ll admit, I wasn’t in favor of this investigation, nor of this hearing, before today-but after what I seen and heard in there…” The man’s sun-creased eyes wandered to Clara Hatch; and it seemed to me like maybe a tear or two might come out of them. “Well, sir,” he went on, stroking his big gray mustache, “I’m man enough to admit when I’ve been wrong. And I’ve been wrong about this one.” He turned the tough eyes to Mr. Picton again. “We’ll get the woman up here, sir, provided the New York cops give us a hand. And all I can say concerning what comes after that is”-Sheriff Dunning held out a hand-“I hope the Lord stays with you, Mr. Picton. Because you’re doing his work.”

Mr. Picton, who might’ve been expected to at least show some gratitude or emotion in response to this pretty earnest eating of crow, just shook the sheriff’s hand quickly and nodded, making it clear that praise and damnation from such people were all one and the same to him. “Well, the Lord’s work right now involves me talking to that crowd outside,” he said with a flick of his head. “So if you and your deputies will just clear me a spot on the steps…”

“Yes, sir,” the sheriff answered quickly. “Right away. Abe! Gully! Let’s go, boys!”

The three men moved toward the front door, what was still tightly closed, while the rest of us fell in behind them. A strange kind of thrill-exciting, but frightening and maybe a little sad, at the same time-was beginning to course through me, and I think that all the other members of our team felt the same way. As for the Weston family, the only parts of said emotion they shared were the fear and the sadness, that much was pretty obvious: they clustered around Clara like a human wall, as if they thought someone might try to snatch her right out of their midst. Given the mood outside the court house, such didn’t seem an unreasonable attitude, either.

As the door cracked open, the same angry mumbling what we’d left outside two and a half hours ago started up again, and Sheriff Dunning and his boys had to do a little coaxing-and finally some straight-out pushing and shoving-to clear a little place at the top of the steps for Mr. Picton. Stepping out and putting a match to his pipe, Mr. Picton looked out over the bobbing, grousing heads with an expression of what you might call extreme disdain. After he’d let them shout at him for two or three minutes, he held his hands up.

“All right, all right, get yourselves under some kind of control, now, if that’s possible!” he shouted. “Neither the sheriff nor I have any desire to declare this an illegal assembly, but I’ve got to ask that you listen to what I have to say very carefully!” The general level of noise died down, and then Mr. Picton scanned the faces in front of him more closely. “Is Mr. Grose still here?”

“I am!” came the voice of the newspaper editor in return. He moved up to the front of the crowd. “Though I’m not too happy about standing in the midday July sun for hours on end, sir, I will say!”

“Quite understandable,” Mr. Picton answered. “But the wages of rabble-rousing have never been just, have they, Mr. Grose? At any rate, I’d like you to get the following details straight, so I don’t have to repeat them endlessly during the coming weeks. The grand jury has met, and it has made its decision-and we all owe that decision our respect.”

“Indeed we do!” Mr. Grose said, looking around with a smile. “I hope you’re prepared to respect it, Mr. Picton!”

“Oh, I am, Mr. Grose,” Mr. Picton answered, delighted to discover that the editor was assuming that the state’d lost its bid. “I am. At this moment an indictment is being prepared against Mrs. Elspeth Hunter of New York City, formerly Mrs. Elspeth Hatch of Ballston Spa, formerly Miss Elspeth Fraser of Stillwater, New York. She is charged with the first-degree murder of Thomas Hatch and Matthew Hatch, as well as the attempted murder of Clara Hatch. All on the night of the thirty-first of May, 1894.”

I’ll admit that I’d thought the crowd might break out into a good old-fashioned riot at this news. So I was surprised-as was Mr. Picton, from the look of him-when the sounds what came out of those citizens were ones of hushed horror, as if some ghost had just wandered across their collective path.

“What-what are you saying?” Mr. Grose asked. Then he looked to Sheriff Dunning. “Phil, does he mean-?”

The sheriff just gave Mr. Grose a long and serious stare. “I’d let him finish, if I were you, Horace.”

As the crowd quieted, Mr. Picton-no longer quite so testy as he’d been-finished his statement: “We have physical evidence that will demonstrate the woman’s guilt, we have a powerful motive that will be supported by witnesses, and we have an eyewitness to the shooting. This office would not take action on a matter like this with anything less.”

Mr. Picton paused, still looking like he expected some kind of an outburst from the crowd; but all he got was a sudden cry of “Jesus H. Christ!” from one man at the back of the herd, who immediately turned and started running down toward the trolley station. As he went, I caught enough of a glimpse of his face to be able to identify him:

It was the waiter who’d taken care of us at Canfield’s Casino. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that he’d been sent by his boss to find out the latest developments in the case, so that odds on the trial could be posted at the Casino for those of Mr. Canfield’s clients who didn’t get enough satisfaction out of roulette, poker, and faro. But the man obviously hadn’t been ready for what he’d heard, and judging by how fast he beat it to the trolley station, I guessed that Saratoga’s true gamesmen were going to be able to get some very long odds on a conviction from Mr. Canfield starting that night.

As for the rest of the crowd, they just continued to stand and stare blankly at Mr. Picton, in the same sort of way that people all over town had stared at us when we’d brought Clara to the court house that morning: they were still resentful, all right, but added to the resentment now was the kind of confusion that an angry cow feels when it’s been smacked in the forehead with a shovel. It didn’t seem like most of them even knew what to do with themselves, until Sheriff Dunning stepped out in front of Mr. Picton.

“That all, sir?” the sheriff asked.

“Yes, Dunning,” Mr. Picton answered. “You’d better break them up-there’s nothing more to say.”

“Nothing more to say?” It was Mr. Grose, his voice now very different than it had been before: the pompous arrogance was all gone. “Picton,” he went on quietly, “do you realize what you’ve already said?”

Mr. Picton nodded, very seriously. “Yes. I do, Horace. And I’d be grateful if you’d print it in full in tomorrow’s edition.” His silver eyes moved out over the crowd as he smoked. “This isn’t a matter for sidewalk debate, ladies and gentlemen. The town of Ballston Spa and the county of Saratoga will be forced to search their souls, in the days to come. Let’s hope we can live with what we find.”

With that Mr. Picton turned and came back inside, while Sheriff Dunning and his men gently started to break the crowd up. Closing the court house door slowly, Mr. Picton then approached the Doctor.

“Well,” he said, “as you suspected, Doctor, we’ll have no disturbances-yet.”

The Doctor nodded. “The sinister phenomena implied by this crime resonate far deeper in the human soul than anyone can immediately grasp. You’ve been struggling with them for years now, Mr. Picton-the rest of us, for weeks. And the townspeople? Simple anger wasn’t to be expected, at this point. Confusion will dominate for a time-perhaps a great deal of time. That will work to our advantage. For there is much to do before our antagonist arrives. And when she does, we may find that popular confusion will give way to something distinctly uglier…”

The Doctor led us over to join the Westons, and then we set out as a group-minus only Mr. Picton, who had a lot of paperwork to take care of-to make sure that the family got home safe.

On our drive back to town from the Westons’ farm, the Doctor told us about what had happened during the grand jury’s proceedings. Though an emotional tale, it wasn’t a particularly complicated one: Mr. Picton had carefully laid out most of the physical evidence we’d assembled, and then gone on to paint, with Mrs. Louisa Wright’s help, a picture of Libby Hatch as a fortune hunter and a libertine, a willful, wanton character who, if she hadn’t been directly responsible for her husband’s death, had certainly expected that she was going to profit by it. When it had become clear that her children stood in the way of that profit, Mr. Picton’d stated flatly, Libby had attempted to eliminate them. The Doctor told us that Mr. Picton’s language had been so persuasive-and, true to Mr. Moore’s prediction, so fast and overwhelming-that it’d seemed like many members of the jury were convinced of his argument even before Clara Hatch had been called to testify. And when the girl had taken the stand, Mr. Picton’d asked her only four questions:

“Were you in your family’s wagon with your mother and your brothers on the night of May thirty-first, 1894?” The answer had been a not-so-easy “Yes.”

“Did you see anyone else during your ride home?” Answer: a firm “No.”

“Then you were shot by someone in the wagon?” To this Clara’d just nodded.

“Clara, was that person your mother?” A good minute had gone by before the girl could cope with that one; but steady looks of reassurance from the Doctor, and of love and support from Josiah and Ruth Weston, had given her courage, and finally she’d whispered, “Yes.”

No one in the hearing room had made a sound as the girl stepped down. The members of the jury, the Doctor said, had looked just the same as the crowd outside the court house had when they’d gotten the news about the indictment: as if they’d all been hit with one enormous brick. Mr. Picton had wrapped up his business pretty quickly after that, and the jury’s assent to an indictment on two counts of first-degree murder and one of attempted murder had been very quick.

It wasn’t the kind of story what would make anybody overjoyed or triumphant; and to be sure, all of us in the surrey-having seen what the day had done to little Clara-felt a deep sense of regret and sadness as we clattered back to Mr. Picton’s house. But underneath said emotions of the moment, for all of us, was something what maybe went even deeper: what you might call an unspoken feeling that we were, as a group, finally on something what my dice-throwing pals downtown would’ve called “a roll.” Our investigation, it appeared, had been transformed into a sort of quiet locomotive-and that locomotive was bearing down unstoppably, it seemed, on the woman who’d been committing so much mayhem for so many years. Evidence and testimony-hard won by hard work-were the ropes we were using to strap the golden-eyed killer onto the tracks. True, our responsibilities to Clara, to the Westons, to little Ana, and to our own safety were considerable-but our responsibility to keeping our engine running was the most important of all. And on that Friday evening, we appeared to have a full head of steam, and the way ahead looked good and clear.

That was before Marcus came back from Chicago.