The Angel Of Darkness

CHAPTER 35

We couldn’t have asked for the rest of our plan to play out any closer to its design. When we got back to Mr. Picton’s house, Mr. Moore carefully inserted the bullet into an empty gap in the planking we’d taken from the Hatches’ wagon, and the following morning we were all woken by the sound of Lucius’s wild shouting. He’d gotten up early to have a go at the examination himself, thinking that maybe the rest of us had missed something-which it now looked like we had. Poking around in the small hole with one of the medical probes, Lucius announced that he’d found an object inside what was definitely made out of some kind of soft metal; and while the rest of us got dressed and had breakfast, he and Marcus went about freeing the thing from the wood. It was an anxious time for the two brothers, and for Mr. Picton, too; and the rest of us tried to make it appear that we were also on edge. But to this day I don’t know how convincing we were.

Cheers went up from all sides when the last chips of wood gave way to the detective sergeants’ patient knife work, and revealed a large, almost intact, and very recognizable bullet. Marcus took the slug inside to the card table and set it down on the green felt surface for the rest of us to look at. I’d seen more than a few such missiles in my time, but I hadn’t ever taken the time to really study one as closely as I now did through one of the magnifying lenses. I was trying to get a glimpse of the identifying marks what Marcus and Lucius had told us about the day before; and they were there, all right, plain enough for anybody to see, or at least the grooves and lands were. As for any defects produced by the Peacemaker’s barrel, we’d have to judge that from a comparison bullet-which it was now time to obtain by heading into the backyard and putting the cotton bales to the test.

With the moves of an expert, Lucius fired the three bullets what he’d found in the pistol (and had slightly refurbished) into the cotton from across the yard. Only one of the cartridges showed the effects of time by failing to go off; the others ignited admirably, after which it was up to the rest of us to scour the cotton for the slugs, which we located inside of twenty minutes. Marcus and Lucius assured us that they were both in very good shape, so it was now time for the comparison work; but that, they warned, could take many hours. We all went back inside the house, where Marcus had set up the double-barreled microscope on the card table. Going on the assumption that we would eventually get a match on the bullets, we began to plan what other moves we’d need to make over the coming days in order to get a grand jury indictment.

Ordinarily, said indictment would’ve been a sure bet, grand juries generally being the stooges of district attorneys; but, as we all knew only too well, we had some special circumstances working against us in this case, and they demanded that we do more than just the usual homework. For Mr. Picton, that meant more long days in his office, continuing to go back over all the information on the case and putting together as many precedents as he could, along with determining what witnesses (expert, eye-, and otherwise) should be called to testify. For Marcus and Mr. Moore, meanwhile, it meant going back down to New York to perform a whole batch of crucial jobs. First, they’d have to officially notify Libby Hatch that she was going to be the subject of a grand jury investigation, just in case she wanted to appear at the proceedings and testify, as was her right. (Mr. Picton figured to make Marcus a special officer of the court, temporarily, so’s he could handle the notification.) Second, the pair had to try to find the Reverend Clayton Parker, a potentially crucial witness whose last known address in New York Mr. Moore would try to discover by heading over to the Presbyterian church that afternoon. Finally, if Libby Hatch decided not to have anything to do with the grand jury (as we figured would likely be the case), Marcus and Mr. Moore would have to stay in the city and try to watch her movements without getting their skulls broken by the Hudson Dusters.

For their part, Lucius and Cyrus were teamed up for the job of going back to the old Hatch place on Monday and turning the house upside down in a search for any additional clues. Miss Howard and I drew the assignment of trying to learn everything we could about the facts of Libby Hatch’s mysterious past, a journey what would begin with another visit to Mrs. Louisa Wright, move on to the little town of Stillwater (where we knew Libby’d lived for a time), and then take us God-only-knew where. As for the Doctor, he would, of course, continue to work with Clara Hatch: we couldn’t hope for an indictment, Mr. Picton repeated, unless the girl could be made to answer at least simple yes-or-no questions before the grand jury.

The Doctor and Cyrus left for the Westons’ farm that afternoon just after lunch, while Mr. Moore walked down to the Presbyterian church and Mr. Picton returned to his office. They’d all returned, though, before there was any sign of progress from the card table in the parlor. Hour after dreary hour ticked by with no indication of success; but then, at about six-thirty, Lucius finally shot out of his chair and started to scream like a madman, a move what the rest of us decided to take as a hopeful sign.

Collecting around the card table, we soon learned that our hopes were well grounded. Not only did the spacing of the bullets’ grooves and lands (there were seven of each, spiraling to the left) match the barrel of the Colt perfectly, but at the same spot on each of the slugs there was another mark, so small that it’d taken hours to identify. It turned out to’ve been left there, said Marcus, by a tiny nick in the steel of the pistol’s barrel, just inside the muzzle. This mark would make the ballistic testimony what the detective sergeants (or anybody else) gave carry that not-conclusive-but-still-million-to-one weight we’d been looking for: even if you accepted the idea that another Colt.45-caliber Single Action Army model might have the exact same pattern of grooves and lands as ours did, the notion that it would also have exactly the same defect in the barrel was pretty hard to swallow. So it looked like a very big corner had been turned, and the jaws of our complicated trap were starting to close tighter.

Mr. Picton was so confident, in fact, that he announced that he intended to schedule the grand jury hearing for the following Friday; only five days away. As we discovered the next morning, however, our host’s boss, District Attorney Pearson, didn’t share his assistant’s confidence: when Mr. Picton told him about his plan, Mr. Pearson declared that he now intended to move his vacation, which he’d been planning to take in two weeks anyway, up a week-and that he wouldn’t be back until the whole “unnatural” business of the Hatch case was over. Mr. Picton, for his part, didn’t seem at all concerned about this: he merrily said good-bye to Mr. Moore and Marcus (who were set to leave for New York at noon) and then withdrew into his office, at which point the rest of us split off to pursue our separate tasks.

For Miss Howard and myself, the first order of business was a visit to Mrs. Louisa Wright’s house over on Beach Street. It was an odd place, located so near the Schafer greenhouses that it existed in a sort of continuous daylight, being as there wasn’t an hour of the night when some part of the giant floral plant wasn’t artificially lit up. Because of this Mrs. Wright-a pleasant-looking but tough-talking lady in her fifties whose husband had died during the Civil War, when she was still young-had her windows covered with particularly heavy curtains and drapes, what made the house as quiet as the grave. A clock on her parlor mantel was the main source of noise, its steady ticking seeming to cry out that life was slipping by. The many pictures of Louisa Wright’s young husband what decorated the house completed the funeral home feel of the joint.

Mrs. Wright served us tea and sandwiches in the parlor, very content, it seemed to me, to get even further involved in our pursuit of Libby Hatch-and when she heard that she was going to be called as a witness before a grand jury investigating the matter, her contentment seemed to grow into positive satisfaction. As will (with any luck) become clear soon enough, what the old girl had to say about Libby Hatch, Reverend Parker, the Hatch kids, and the death of old Daniel was very revealing, and reinforced all the things she’d originally told Miss Howard about the case. Because of this, when Miss Howard and I left the house at about three to head over to the livery stable and hire a rig for our trip to Stillwater, we were in very optimistic spirits.

We engaged the same buckboard-pulled by the same little Morgan stallion-what had brought us back from the old Hatch place on Friday, and the first part of our ride east and south, while not exactly luxurious, was made quick and easy by the steady-spirited horse. Unfortunately, the rig itself proved a lot less reliable: just after we turned onto the road what ran alongside the Hudson, we threw a rear wheel with a jarring, nasty crash, and while the collapse didn’t damage either the wheel or the rig, it did mean that we were stuck on the side of the road for a couple of hours, until a passing farmer who was carrying some heavy rope offered to give us a hand raising the buckboard and getting the wheel back on. This process took another couple of hours, and then we had to slowly follow our Good Samaritan back to his farm, where he had the tools to make sure that the wheel stayed in place. Miss Howard gave the amiable if not very talkative man five dollars for his help, and then we decided that, being as we were slightly closer to Stillwater than we were to Ballston Spa (though we were a good distance from both places), we’d keep heading south and try to at least begin our second assignment of the day.

By the time we pulled into Stillwater, the sun was setting on the small town, which didn’t consist of a whole lot more than a couple of industrial works on the river and several blocks of houses running inland from the waterfront. The town was considerably more depressing than most of the places we’d seen in the area: it was tough to say just what those factories produced, but there was a general feel of dirtiness and degradation all over the village, of the variety what was usually associated with bigger cities. Even the Hudson, usually clear and inviting this far north, seemed to bear a film of filth in this stretch of its run. The fact that nobody was out on the streets didn’t do much to improve the cold, forbidding air of the town; and as the sun began to set much faster very soon after our arrival, both Miss Howard and I began to wonder out loud if we’d made the right decision about which way to turn after getting our wheel fixed. Of course, the fact that we knew Libby Hatch had once lived in this dismal little backwater didn’t improve our impression of it any, either.

I drew the buckboard to a halt in a spot what looked like it might be the center of town (though there was still not a soul to be seen), and then we got down and started to wander about, figuring that eventually we’d bump into someone who could tell us something about the place. Finally, after failing to spot any activity for some ten minutes, we heard a door open across the street from one of the riverfront factories, and saw a man come out of one of the small, shacklike houses what lined the block. Miss Howard called, “Excuse me?” to this character, at which all of his heavy, six-foot frame seemed to jump about a foot into the air. We walked quickly over to where he was standing, and as we got nearer he looked around anxiously and straightened himself up a bit, like maybe he thought we were either the law or religious types.

“Excuse me,” Miss Howard said again as we reached the man, “but we’re looking for some information about someone who used to live here. Is there anyone we could talk to? I know it’s late, but-”

“They’ll be down to the tavern,” the man answered quickly, taking a couple of steps back from us. “Anyone who ain’t home, that is. They’ll all be down there.” He nodded at the general area near the riverfront some three or four blocks behind us.

“Oh.” Miss Howard turned to try to locate the tavern the man was talking about, then nodded. “I see…” She turned back round again. “I don’t suppose you could help us, by any chance? It was a long time ago, so-”

“I been here my whole life, ma’am,” the man said. “If it was someone who lived in this town, I’ll know better than those dagos and micks who’ve come up to work the mills.”

Miss Howard paused, studying the man and then smiling just a bit. “I see. Well, then-we’re looking for information about a woman. When she lived here, her name was Libby Fraser, although since then-”

“Libby Fraser?”The man’s face did an odd little dance: in quick, panicky ripples it went from shock to fear and finally to hatred. “What the hell d’you wanna know about her for?”

“Well, you see, we’re involved in an investigation-”

“Ain’t nobody that’s going to want to talk to you about Libby Fraser. Not in this town. Ain’t nobody that’s got nothing to say.” The man’s eyes stared out from his dirty face like he was getting more scared and angry by the second. “Understand? Nobody. She went away from here a long time ago. You want to ask questions about Libby Fraser, you find out where she went after she left and go there.” He spat into the dusty street. “That’d be the smart thing to do.” Tucking his shirt into his pants more tightly as if to make it clear that he was serious, the man turned-and walked straight back into the house he’d just come out of.

Both Miss Howard and I watched him go with what you might call blank faces. “Well,” Miss Howard finally said, “you’ve got to hand it to the woman, she inspires strong reactions wherever she goes.”

Looking back down the street, I saw a sign hanging outside one of the buildings on the riverside, past the factory works. I couldn’t read just what it said in the near darkness, but it was pretty obvious what the general message was. “You figure we ought to try that tavern?” I asked, pointing.

“I suppose we have to,” Miss Howard answered. “We’ve come this far.”

We didn’t bother to get back into the buckboard, but walked the three blocks or so to the building with the sign, which did in fact reveal that an establishment what could get away with calling itself a “tavern” in that town (but that in New York wouldn’t have amounted to more than a cheap dive) was located inside. I wasn’t at all sure how smart it was for a woman and a kid to head into a place like that alone, and I think Miss Howard could read the worry in my face: she pulled out her pearl-handled revolver and let me get a glimpse of it.

“Ready?” was all she said, as she slipped the gun back amongst the folds of her dress.

I nodded to her, though I was still plenty nervous. “Okay,” I said, and then I pulled open the screen door of the old clapboarded building.

The room inside reeked of all the usual stenches-beer, booze, smoke, urine-but, being as it also sat on top of a nice dead part of the Hudson, rotten river water got into the mixture, too. There was a long bar and a pocket billiard table, and the joint was lit (or something like it) by a half-dozen kerosene lamps. About twenty men were scattered around, only a few of them talking or doing anything at all, other than staring at the walls and out the windows with the dead eyes of hardworking characters engaging in the only recreation they’d ever known or were ever likely to know: sitting and nursing a stiff drink. As’ll happen in such places in such towns, they all turned toward the door at the same time when we entered; and it was a bit of a surprise for us to see, standing at the corner of the bar, the same man we’d been talking to not three minutes earlier. Whatever Libby Fraser’d done and been in that town, it was powerful enough to make a big, tired man run a long, roundabout route at what must’ve been a flat-out pace so’s to be able to warn his pals that there were strangers in town asking questions about her.

Miss Howard nodded in the man’s direction. “Hello,” she said quietly; but the man just turned back to the bar like he’d never seen us before. Not sure of her next move, Miss Howard looked to me.

I waited for the low mumbling in the room to start up again before I said, “The bartender,” very quietly. We found an empty space at the far end of the bar, then waited for the thin, sour-faced man behind it to come our way. He didn’t say anything, just looked at Miss Howard coldly.

“Good evening,” she said, trying the common pleasantries again. But they didn’t work any better this time around: the man just kept staring at her. “We’re trying to find out some information-”

“Don’t sell it,” the bartender answered. “Got drinks. That’s all.”

“Ah.” Miss Howard considered that for a second, then said, “Well, in that case, I’ll have a whiskey. And a root beer for my friend.”

“Got lemonade,” the man answered, turning the cold stare to me for a second.

“Okay, so lemonade,” I said, not wanting the mug to know he was making me nervous.

It took the bartender only a few seconds to fetch the drinks, and as Miss Howard laid down some money, she said, “We don’t expect the information to be free…”

But that just seemed to frost the bartender even more: his eyes got thin, and he leaned over the bar to her. “Now, you listen to me, missy-” All of a sudden every man in the place was staring at us again. “You already been told that there ain’t nobody in this town that’s going to talk to you about Libby Fraser. She ain’t the smartest person in the world for anybody to talk about-including strangers.”

Miss Howard glanced around the dark, dirty room quickly, then asked, “I don’t understand. What is it that you’re all so afraid of?”

A flutter of dread went through me: we weren’t in the kind of place where you wanted to go accusing men of being cowards. But oddly, the bartender didn’t leap straight down Miss Howard’s throat, nor did anybody else who’d heard the question. They just kept staring steadily, and finally the bartender, in a hushed voice, answered, “Fear’s nothing but common sense sometimes. So’s keeping your mouth shut. And after what happened to the Muhlenbergs-”

“The Muhlenbergs?” Miss Howard repeated; but the bartender caught himself, realizing he’d said too much.

“Just finish up your drinks and get out of here,” he said, walking down to the other end of the bar.

“Can’t you at least tell us where these people live?” Miss Howard asked, pushing our luck. “I don’t think you understand, we’re conducting an investigation that may result in the woman’s being brought up on serious criminal charges.”

Everybody in the room just stayed silent. Then one mug in a corner whose face we couldn’t see said, “They live in the old yellow house at the south end of town.”

“You shut the hell up, Joe!” the bartender growled.

“What for?” the man in the corner said. “If they’re gonna go after the bitch-”

“Yeah?” said the man we’d spoken to on the street. “And what if they don’t get her, and she finds out you were part of their trying?”

“Oh…” It wasn’t much more than a scared whisper; but it was the last we heard from the fellow in the shadows.

“I ain’t gonna tell you again,” the bartender said. “Finish your drinks and leave.”

The smart move seemed to be to follow the order, being as the atmosphere in the place was becoming very uncomfortable. Fear was having its usual effect on ignorant people, making them antsy and prone to violence; and I figured that we’d best be getting back outside, and maybe back out of town altogether. Miss Howard, unfortunately, saw things differently. When I tapped her shoulder and then started toward the door, she did follow; but as we reached the end of the bar, she paused one more time to look at the collection of faces in the room.

“Is every man in this town afraid of her?” she asked.

Knowing that she was now definitely going beyond what those boys would accept quietly, I fairly pushed Miss Howard out the door and then on toward the buck-board, though she wasn’t very happy about it: she wasn’t a woman to back down in the face of male bullying or threats, and the behavior of the men in the bar had only made her more determined to stick around Stillwater and find something out. Because of that, we didn’t end up moving north and out of town again when we got back on our rig, but kept going south, until we rolled up to an old, run-down house. The place might have been yellow at some point in time, but now it was just a mass of dead climbing plants and peeling paint. The faint light of a lantern could be seen through one window, and once or twice the silhouette of a person passed in front of it.

“We going in?” I asked, hoping that maybe there was still some way Miss Howard would change her mind.

“Of course we’re going in,” she answered quietly. “I want to know what the hell happened here.”

Nodding in what you might call resignation, I got down off the buckboard, then followed Miss Howard past the broken-down little fence what ran around the overgrown front yard. We got to the front door, and Miss Howard was about to knock; then I made out something in the darkness away to the side of the house.

“Miss,” I said, nudging her with my elbow and then pointing. “Maybe you want to look over there…”

Turning, Miss Howard followed my finger to take in the sight of some black ruins in the lot next door. They were obviously the remains of another house, being as two crumbling chimneys stood at either end; and even by the faint light of the moon we could see a couple of cast-iron stoves and some bathroom fixtures-a tub and a sink-lying in the rubble. There were young trees and shrubs growing in the midst of it all, indicating that the fire what had destroyed the place hadn’t occurred any time recently.

All in all, the scene called to mind the old Hatch place in Ballston Spa very quickly.

“So…” Miss Howard whispered, taking a couple of steps away from the door and studying the grim wreckage. It seemed to me like we were both thinking the same thing: maybe those boys in the tavern had been right to be so fearful.

“Wouldn’t want to’ve been in that house,” I said quietly. “Fire like that’d be pretty tough to survive.”

“Impossible, I’d think,” Miss Howard answered, nodding.

But as it turned out, she was wrong: something had survived that fire. Not just something but someone-and we were about to meet her.