The Angel Of Darkness

CHAPTER 36

All we ever saw of that dark little house on the south edge of Stillwater was the front hall and the sitting room; but the memory of those spaces is burned so deep in my brain that I could probably re-create them right down to the thousand tiny cracks that were spread out through the walls like so many dying blood vessels. For the purposes of this story, though, it’ll be enough to say that we were let into the place, after knocking, by an old Negro woman, who looked us over with an expression what said that they didn’t get many callers in that house, and that such a state of affairs suited them just fine.

“Hello,” Miss Howard said to the woman, as we stepped inside the door. “I know it’s late, but I was wondering if either Mr. or Mrs. Muhlenberg might be home?”

The old black lady gave my companion a hard, slightly shocked look. “Who are you?” she asked. But before Miss Howard could answer the question, she took care of it herself: “Must be strangers hereabouts-there ain’t no Mr. Muhlenberg. Hasn’t been these ten years or more.”

Miss Howard took in that information with a slightly embarrassed look, then said, “My name is Sara Howard, and this is”-pointing to me, she tried to find an explanation what would wash in the situation-“my driver. I’m working for the Saratoga County district attorney’s office, investigating a case that involves a woman who once lived in this town. Her name then was Libby Fraser. We were told that the Muhlenbergs had some contact with her-”

The old woman’s eyes went wide and she held up an arm, trying to herd us back outside. “No,” she said quickly, shaking her head. “Unh-unh! Are you crazy? Comin’ around here, askin’ questions about-you just get out!”

But before she could shoo us back into the night, a voice drifted out from the sitting room. “Who is it, Emmeline?” a woman asked, her voice cracking roughly. “I thought I heard someone say… Emmeline! Who is it?”

“Nothin’ but some lady askin’ questions, ma’am,” the old woman answered. “I’m sendin’ her away, though, don’t worry!”

“What kind of questions?” the voice answered-and as it did, I took note of what the Doctor would’ve called a paradoxical quality in the thing: the sound itself indicated someone of about the black woman’s age, but the tone and pacing of the words were very sharp, and seemed to come from someone much younger.

The woman at the door filled up with dread as she sighed and called out, “About Libby Fraser, ma’am.”

There was a long silence, and then the voice from the living room spoke much more quietly: “Yes. That’s what I thought I heard… Did she say she’s from the district attorney’s office?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Then show her in, Emmeline. Show her in.” Reluctantly, the black woman stepped aside to let me and Miss Howard wander down the cavelike hall and into the sitting room.

You couldn’t have put a color to the cracked walls in that chamber, or to the patches of ancient paper what still clung to a few small spots on them. The furniture what was clustered around the heavy table that held the lamp was also in a state of decrepitude. The dim yellow light of the lamp’s small, smoky flame spread toward but not into the corners of the room; and it was in one of those corners that our “hostess” sat on a ratty old divan, a handmade comforter covering her legs and most of her body. She was holding an old fan in front of her face, slowly moving it to cool herself; at least, that was what I thought she was doing. And so far as it was possible to tell, there wasn’t another soul in the house.

“Mrs. Muhlenberg?” Miss Howard asked quietly, looking into the dark corner.

“I didn’t know,” the scratchy voice answered, that the district attorney had taken to employing women. Who are you?”

“My name is Sara Howard.”

The head behind the fan nodded. “And the boy?”

“My driver” Miss Howard said, smiling to me. “And my bodyguard.” She turned back to Mrs. Muhlenberg. “It seems I need one, in this town.”

The shadowy head just kept nodding. “You’re asking about Libby Fraser. She’s a dangerous subject…” In a sudden rush, Mrs. Muhlenberg took in a big gulp of air with a moan what would’ve raised the hackles on a dead man. “Please,” she went on after a few seconds, “sit…”

We found two straight-backed chairs that looked a little sturdier than the other items in the room, and tried to settle in.

“Mrs. Muhlenberg,” Miss Howard said. I confess that I’m a little puzzled. We-I-certainly didn’t come here looking for trouble. Or with the intention of offending anyone. But it seems that the mere mention of Libby Fraser’s name-”

“You saw what’s left of the house next door? Mrs. Muhlenberg cut in. “That used to be my house. My husband’s, actually. We lived there with our son. The people of this town don’t want to see their own places reduced to charred brick and ashes.”

Miss Howard absorbed that for a few seconds. “You mean-she did that? Libby Fraser?”

The head started to nod again. “Not that I could ever have proved it. Any more than I could’ve proved that she killed my child. She’s much too clever…”

The mention of another dead kid, coming in a town and a house like that, had me ready to dive through the sitting room window, get onto the buckboard, and whip our little Morgan until we were all the way back to New York. But Miss Howard never flinched.

“I see,” she said, in a low but firm tone. “I think you ought to know, Mrs. Muhlenberg, that Assistant District Attorney Picton is preparing an indictment against the woman you knew as Libby Fraser for murder-the murder of her own children.”

That brought another one of those pitiable gasps from behind the fan, and one foot at the end of the divan began to shake noticeably. “Her own-” The foot suddenly grew still. “When? Where?”

“Three years ago-in Ballston Spa.”

Still another gasp floated our way. “Not the shooting-the one they said was a Negro?”

“Yes,” Miss Howard answered. “You know about it?”

“We heard rumors,” Mrs. Muhlenberg said. “And a party of men searched the town. Those were Libby’s children?”

“They were. And we believe she killed them. Along with several others in New York City.”

A different sort of sound now came from behind the fan; and after a few seconds I made it out as hoarse sobbing. “But why should I be shocked?” Mrs. Muhlenberg finally said quietly. “If any woman could do such a thing, it would be Libby.”

Leaning forward, Miss Howard put all the sympathy she was capable of-which was a very great deal, especially when she was dealing with a member of her own _sex-into her next question: “Can you tell me what happened here, Mrs. Muhlenberg? It may help us in our effort to prosecute her.”

There was another pause, and then the soft sobbing stopped; but the foot started twitching again. “Will she be executed?”

Miss Howard nodded. “It’s very possible.”

Mrs. Muhlenberg’s voice now filled with a kind of relief, maybe even excitement. “If she can die-if you can bring that about-then yes, Miss Howard. I’ll tell you what happened.”

Very quietly and carefully, Miss Howard produced a pad and a pencil, ready to take notes. As Mrs. Muhlenberg launched into her tale, the old black woman left the room shaking her head, as if listening to the story was more than she could stand.

“It was a long time ago,” Mrs. Muhlenberg began. “Or maybe it wasn’t, to most people’s way of thinking. The late summer-1886. That’s when she came to us. My husband’s family owned one of the mills here in town. We moved into the house next door right after our marriage. It had been his grandmother’s. Oh, it was a beautiful place, with wonderful gardens leading down to the river… The caretaker of the estate lived in this house then. That summer our first child was born. Our only child. I was unable to nurse him, and we advertised for a wet nurse. Libby Fraser was the first applicant, and we both found her charming.” The small gasp of a dead laugh punctuated the statement. “Charming… I always thought, to tell you the truth, that my husband found her a little too charming. But she was desperate for the work, desperate to please-desperate in every way. And I sympathized with that. I sympathized…”

After a long pause, Miss Howard gambled a question: “And how soon did your son begin to have problems with his health?”

Mrs. Muhlenberg nodded her head again, slowly. “So. You do know about Libby… Yes, he got sick. Colicky, we all thought at first, nothing more than that. I could calm him, and did, as much as possible-but I couldn’t feed him, and being with Libby always seemed to make him worse. Hour after hour of crying, for days on end… But we didn’t want to let the girl go-she really had been so desperate for the work, and she was trying so hard. But before long there was no choice. Michael-my son-just didn’t respond to her care. We decided that we had to find someone else.”

“How did Libby take the news?” Miss Howard asked.

“If only she had taken the news!” Mrs. Muhlenberg answered, her voice still soft, but passionate and heartbroken, too. “If only we’d made her take it, and forced her to go… But she was so crushed when we told her, and begged so earnestly for one more chance, that we couldn’t help giving it to her. And things did change, after that. Things did change… Michael’s health took a turn-for the better, we thought at first. His fits of crying and colic calmed, and it seemed as if he was accepting Libby’s care. But it was an evil calm-a sign of illness, not happiness. A slow, wasting illness. He lost color and weight, and Libby’s milk passed through him like water. But it wasn’t water. It wasn’t water…”

Things were quiet for so long that I thought that maybe Mrs. Muhlenberg had fallen asleep. Finally, Miss Howard glanced at me with a question in her face, but all I could do was shrug, in a way what I hoped showed her how much I wanted to get the hell out of that house. Miss Howard was after something, though, and I knew we weren’t going anywhere ’til she got it.

“Mrs. Muhlenberg?” she said quietly.

“Mmm? Yes?” the woman answered.

“You were saying…”

“I was saying?”

“You were saying that it wasn’t water-Libby’s milk.”

“No. Not water.” We heard another sigh. “Poison …”

I shifted in my chair nervously at the word, but Miss Howard just kept pressing: “Poison?”

The dark head rocked up and down. “We had the doctor in many times, but he couldn’t explain what was happening. Michael was ill-terribly ill. And then Libby’s health began to suffer, too. That made the doctor think it must’ve been a fever, some kind of infectious illness that my son had passed on to her. How could we have guessed…” Her foot started to move nervously again. “I was suspicious. Call it a mother’s instinct, but I couldn’t believe that my son was infecting Libby. No-I was convinced that she was doing something to him. My husband said that I was so careworn I was becoming unbalanced. He said that Libby was exposing herself to danger to help Michael. He made her sound heroic, and the doctor did, too. But I grew more convinced every day. I didn’t know how she was doing it. I didn’t know why. But I began to sit with them when she fed him, and soon I refused to leave him alone with her-ever. But he never got any stronger. The illness grew worse. He was wasting away, and she was getting weaker, too…

“Finally, I went into her room one day when she was out taking the air. I found two packets in her dresser. The first contained a white powder, the second a black one. I didn’t know what they might be, but I took them to my husband. He didn’t know what the black powder was, but he had no doubts about the other.” Mrs. Muhlenberg seemed scared to go on, but finally she got the word out: “Arsenic.”

Miss Howard seemed to guess that I was ready to bolt, and she put a hand to my arm to hold me where I was.

“Arsenic?” she said. “Was she feeding it to your son?”

“If you know about Libby,” Mrs. Muhlenberg said with a small hiss, “you know that she’s too smart to’ve done anything so bold as give it to him directly. And I was watching her whenever she was with him. Whenever she was with him-but not when she was alone. And that was my mistake… My husband asked Libby why she had the arsenic. She said that she’d been woken one night by a rat in her room. As if we ever had rats… But we couldn’t think of any other explanation.” Trying to hold down more sobs, Mrs. Muhlenberg gasped out, “Michael died soon after that. Libby played at being grief-stricken very well, and for days. It was only when we were burying my son that the truth came to me. Libby was standing there weeping, and I realized that her own health was returning. Suddenly, I saw everything clearly-so clearly… She had poisoned him-she’d eaten the arsenic herself, and it had passed to him through her milk. Not enough to kill a grown woman, but enough to kill a baby. Satan himself couldn’t have been more clever.”

That was about it for me. “Miss Howard-” I whispered.

But she just tightened her grip on my arm, her eyes never leaving the dark corner across the room. “Did you confront her?” she asked.

“Of course,” Mrs. Muhlenberg answered. “I couldn’t prove anything, I knew that. But I wanted her to know that I knew she’d done it. And I wanted to know why. Why kill my son? What had he done to her?” The tears started to come again. “What could a baby boy do to a grown woman to make her want to kill him?”

I thought for a minute that Miss Howard might try to explain the theory of Libby Hatch’s mind what we’d worked out over the last few weeks, but she didn’t; wisely, I figured, being as even if Mrs. Muhlenberg could’ve grasped the ideas, she was in no emotional shape to bear them.

“She denied it all, of course,” Mrs. Muhlenberg went on. “But that very night…” One of her hands went up, pointing in the direction of the ruins next door. “The fire… my husband was killed. I barely survived. And Libby was gone…”

Another pause followed, and I prayed that the story was over. It turned out that it was, but Miss Howard wasn’t ready to let matters go at that. “Mrs. Muhlenberg,” she said, “would you be prepared to go before a jury and talk about your experiences with Libby? It might help.”

That awful, piteous moan floated across the room again. “No-no! Why? You can tell them-someone else can tell them! I can’t prove anything-you don’t need me-”

“I could tell them,” Miss Howard said, “but it won’t carry any weight. If they hear it from you, and see your face-”

At that the moan became another hoarse, terrible laugh. “But that’s what’s impossible, Miss Howard: they can’t see my face. Even I can’t see my face.” There was a terribly still pause, and with a sudden chill I realized what the fan was for: “I have no face. It was lost in the fire. Along with my husband-and my life…” The shadow of her head began to shake. “I won’t parade this mass of scars in a courtroom. I won’t give Libby Fraser that last satisfaction. I hope that my story can help you, Miss Howard. But I won’t-I can’t…”

Miss Howard took a deep breath. “I understand,” she said. “But perhaps you can help in another way. We’ve been unable to determine just where Libby came from. Did she ever mention her home to you?”

“Not exactly,” Mrs. Muhlenberg answered. “She talked many times about towns across the river, in Washington County. It was always my impression that she came from there. But I can’t be sure.”

Miss Howard nodded and, finally letting go of my arm, stood up. “I see. Well-thank you, Mrs. Muhlenberg.”

The old black woman had reappeared at the doorway to show us out. As we started toward the front hall, Mrs. Muhlenberg said, “Miss Howard?” We both turned. “Look at your boy’s face. Do you see the terror in his eyes? You may think it’s just his imagination. But you’re wrong-what was once my face is worse than anything his mind is conjuring up. Do you know what it’s like to terrify people that way? I’m sorry I can’t do more-and I hope you truly do understand…”

Miss Howard just nodded once, and then we moved on back outside, the Negro woman closing the door on us silently.

I moved for the buckboard as fast as I could, and was surprised when Miss Howard didn’t do the same. She was staring in the direction of the river and puzzling with something.

“Didn’t we pass a ferry station on our way into town?” she asked quietly, wandering toward the rig.

“Oh, no,” I answered quickly, fear making me a bit uppity. “I ain’t crossing that river tonight, Miss Howard-no, ma’am.” Then I remembered myself as I fumbled for my packet of cigarettes: “I’m sorry, but there just ain’t no way-”

Suddenly, I heard a very disturbing sound: footsteps, plenty of them, shuffling through the dry dust of the road. Both Miss Howard and I stepped away from the rig and stared into the darkness to the north, which soon belched out about ten of the men from the tavern. They were moving our way-and they did not, to put it mildly, look like they were interested in talking.

“Aw, shit,” I said (my general reaction to such situations); then I glanced around quickly, trying to figure out what to do. “We can still get away to the south,” I decided, not seeing anything in that direction what would indicate trouble. “If we move fast enough-”

The sound of a spinning revolver cylinder caused me to jerk my head back around. Miss Howard had her Colt out, and was checking the chambers with a look what said she meant business. “Don’t worry, Stevie,” she said quietly, as she hid the gun behind her back. “I have no intention of letting people like that push us around.”

I looked at the approaching band of drunken, sullen men, then at Miss Howard again, and realized I was on the verge of watching something truly ugly take place. “Miss Howard,” I said, “there ain’t no reason for this-”

But it was too late: the locals had reached us, and fanned out in a line across the road. The man we’d spoken to when we first hit town stepped out front.

“We figured maybe you didn’t get our point,” he said, stepping closer to Miss Howard.

“What’s there to get?” Miss Howard answered. “You’re a mob of grown men, afraid of a single woman.”

“You’re not just dealing with us, lady,” the man answered. “When it comes to Libby Fraser, you’re dealing with this whole town. She’s done enough damage here. Nobody wants to have anything to do with her, nor with nobody that’s got any interest in her. And if that ain’t clear enough…”

The whole bunch of them took a few steps closer. I don’t know what it was that they intended to do to us, but they didn’t get the chance: Miss Howard produced her revolver, and leveled it at the lead man.

“You just back up, mister,” she said, her teeth clenched. “I warn you, I will have absolutely no difficulty putting a bullet in your leg-or something more vital, if you force me to.”

For the first time, the man smiled. “Oh, you’re gonna shoot me, are you?” He turned to his friends. “She’s gonna shoot me, boys!” he said, getting the usual variety of stupid laughs from his pals. Then he looked at Miss Howard again. “You ever shot anybody before, missy?”

Miss Howard just stared at him hard for a few seconds, then said, very quietly, “Yes. I have.” As if to punctuate the statement, she pulled the hammer of her Colt back quickly.

The sincerity of the words and the cocking of the gun were enough to wipe the smile off the man’s face, and I think he was about to turn around and call the whole confrontation off. But then a small, hissing sound cut through the stillness, and the man cried out, clutching at his leg. Yanking something out of his hamstring, he looked back up at Miss Howard, then slowly crumpled to his knees. His eyes rolled up into his head, and he keeled over onto one side, his hand out in front of him.

In it was a plain, ten-inch stick, what was sharpened at one end.