Words Spoken True: A Novel

by Ann H. Gabhart

  “You’re mad.” Adriane’s voice was barely above a whisper.

  “There are many who would agree with you on that point, my dearest. Of course, unfortunately most of them are no longer alive to agree with anything.” Again Stanley laughed, the sound belonging to the darkness surrounding him.

  “You?” Adriane couldn’t give voice to the thought rising in her. It could not be. Even with Stanley facing her in the dark, even with his crazed laughter echoing in her ears, she could not believe the man she had danced with, the man she had allowed to kiss her, the man she had once thought she could marry was the river slasher.

  “Did you never wonder where I went when I disappeared at those parties, my dearest?”

  “No.” The word was more a denial of the truth he was pushing through the darkness toward her than an answer to the question he asked.

  He went on as though she hadn’t spoken. “Perhaps if you had not been so cold toward me, I would not have found it necessary to seek warmer bodies.”

  Adriane wanted to shut her eyes and put her hands over her ears, but that would not make this monster in front of her disappear. “But you killed them,” she whispered at last.

  “It somehow seemed to be necessary, my dearest. They might have talked, you know.”

  “How could you?” Adriane said.

  “Actually it was very easy. Family love is so touching, don’t you think? The first girls were desperate for the bit of extra money I promised them. Their families needed it, you see. And then with your young Irish friend’s sister, I only had to mention that the boy had been hurt in the riot and she was ready to follow me anywhere.” He paused a moment. “When I decide to do something, no one can stop me.”

  “Someone will,” Adriane said.

  “Perhaps you think your knight in shining armor will come to your rescue.” Stanley breathed out an exaggerated sigh. “But alas, I regret to tell you that is not to be. There are men waiting at the dock for him. He might have found it more advantageous if he had tried a bit harder to accept my father’s politics. And considerably safer too. There are those in the party who don’t appreciate their candidate, now their new state senator, maligned so forcefully. I personally couldn’t care less what your Mr. Garrett writes about my dear father, but one must use whatever resources one has. And what will one more beating, perhaps even killing, matter in the light of what’s happened the last few days?”

  “The truth will come out.” She pushed out her voice stronger.

  “Spoken like a true newspaperman. I can practically hear your father’s voice echoing your words from the world beyond. But unfortunately, my dearest, you are beyond his help. I fear beyond anyone’s help now.” His voice was matter-of-fact, almost pleasant.

  Adriane whirled and made a mad dash for her father’s office. Her hand was on the doorknob when Stanley caught her.

  He yanked her away from the door and shoved her against the wall. When he spoke, his face was so close to hers that she could feel the breath of his words. “You can’t escape me, my dearest Adriane. You were a fool to ever think you could, and now the time has come to pay for your foolishness.”

  Adriane stopped struggling against him and tried to quell her panic by taking small controlled breaths. It might help if he thought she was helpless with no fight left. Her hand tightened on the handle of the small paring knife hidden in her skirts as she said, “What do you want from me, Stanley?”

  “Everything, my dearest. Only everything.” He raised his hand up, and let the long, broad blade of the knife he carried catch a glimmer of light. “It’s my due. A promise made, a promise taken.”

  He softly slid the knife blade flat against the bodice of her dress and began slicing off the buttons. Adriane tried to shrink away from him, but there was no escape. No door to this darkness. Her knees went so weak she thought she might fall.

  Stanley lifted up the knife and held the point against the skin under her chin. “I’d much prefer you did not faint, my dearest. Play your part and I will make the ending easy for you. Quick. Merciful. I am not the brute you’re perhaps imagining me to be.”

  He kept the knife under her chin as he ripped open her bodice with his other hand. At the downward tug on her dress, the point of the knife pricked her skin, and she flinched her head up and away.

  Stanley’s eyes came back to her face. “Oh, what a shame. I seem to have nicked you.” He turned the knife to the side and ran the back of his hand down her cheek to the cut on her chin. “Will you ever be able to forgive me, my dearest?”

  Adriane desperately clamped down her panic again so she could think. There had to be a way. She couldn’t stand there and give herself over to him without a struggle. He had a knife, but then so did she. Nothing to compare with the one he held, but a weapon in any case. She needed to plan her move carefully, for she might have only one chance to free herself from his grasp. She forced her voice out as calmly and firmly as possible. “Turn loose of me this instant, Stanley.”

  “That was always the trouble between us, wasn’t it, Adriane? You thinking you were the stronger of the two of us. But now you will finally understand my true strength.” He laughed a little, as though the thought amused him as he lowered his eyes to her torn bodice. “I do hope you haven’t allowed your Mr. Garrett any of the pleasures of your body. I did so want to be first with you.”

  “He is my husband.” Adriane inched her hand out from behind her skirt.

  “That is a shame.” Stanley lifted his eyes back to her face a moment. “But perhaps it will make it easier in the final moments. I do think it’s almost a service to the community to rid it of fallen women who tempt the innocent to fall from grace as well, don’t you?”

  Across the room there was the sudden clatter of another stool hitting the floor, and the hope that Beck might still be alive sent a surge of strength through Adriane. When Stanley jerked his head around toward the noise, she threw up her forearm to shove aside Stanley’s knife. The tip sliced into her chin. She hardly noticed the hot pain as she jabbed her own knife into his side. The point was too dull to penetrate very far through his jacket, but the surprise and force of her thrust knocked him backward. Before she could move out of his reach, he slammed his arm down on her wrist and knocked the knife out of her hand. He reached for her, but Adriane twisted away from him and melted into the shadow of the press.

  “Well, well,” Stanley said with another laugh. “You always were a woman of surprises, weren’t you, my dearest? A knife of your own, but it does appear you do lack some skill in its use.”

  Adriane slid closer to the bulk of the press and clamped her lips together to keep her panting breath from giving her away. Slowly she began to ease around the press toward the composing table. She had to believe Beck’s gun was there. It was her only chance. She could see Stanley standing perfectly still in the middle of the room, no doubt listening for her faintest move.

  Then he came straight toward the press as if he could see her there in the shadows. “You can’t hide from me for long, my dearest. I will find you.”

  Even if the gun was there, she’d never reach the table before he caught her. She ran her hands along the press for anything loose she could use for a weapon. There was nothing. She was almost ready to give up hope when her foot bumped into a tray of type on the floor next to the press. In spite of how the rattle of the type gave her away, she blessed whichever one of the hands had neglected to return it to its proper place.

  As Stanley rushed toward her, she grabbed up the tray and heaved it at him. The tray crashed harmlessly to the floor in front of him. Adriane thought all was lost as he kept coming, but then his feet were scooting on the spilled type. He went down hard. Adriane raced across the room. Her heart lifted when she saw the gun on the table. She grabbed it and turned toward Stanley, but he was gone. He must have gotten to his feet and stepped back into the shadow of the press.

  “You won’t shoot me, Adriane.” He sounded amused.

  Adriane move
d the gun toward the sound of his voice without saying a word. She held her breath and listened for his first movement toward her.

  “What a picture you are there in the light of the window.” His voice changed until he sounded almost admiring as he stepped out of the shadows and held his knife out toward her before letting it clatter to the floor. “You have won. I surrender to you.”

  “Don’t come any closer.” Adriane leveled the gun toward the middle of his chest. The gun wobbled slightly in her hands.

  Stanley moved two steps nearer to her. “I promise not to harm you in any way. You have my word as a gentleman.”

  “You’re hardly a gentleman.” Adriane managed to hold the gun steadier in spite of the way her heart was pounding. She tightened her finger on the trigger. “And if you move one step closer, I will shoot you.”

  “No, you won’t,” he said, but he stayed where he was. “It’s a fearsome thing killing someone. Much better if you let the police handle it.”

  Her silence must have given him confidence, because he began slowly moving toward her again. “Besides, no one will believe I am the slasher unless I’m alive to confess. If you shoot me, you’ll be sure to hang.”

  He had moved into the light of the window now and she could see his face. Amused by her threat. Arrogantly confident of her inability to pull the trigger.

  “Then may God forgive me, I’ll hang.” She steadied her hand as she pointed the gun barrel at the center of Stanley’s chest.

  But he was right. In spite of, or perhaps because of, how the confident look on his face fled, she hesitated a blink of a second too long. He was on her before she could pull the trigger back.

  He pushed her against the wall, the gun trapped between them. She held on grimly as he tried to wrest it away from her.

  “Turn loose, Adriane, or you might end up shooting yourself in the chin and marring your beauty.” His face was inches from hers, his body trapping her, his hand taking control of the gun.

  She didn’t turn loose, but it was obvious she was no match for him. She was going to die. Blake’s face flashed in her thoughts and regret swept through her that she would never see him again. Even if he did manage to escape Stanley’s trap, she would not. At the thought she sagged back against the wall, her hands still gripping the gun but with no hope of pulling it back to point at Stanley again. She was going to die. A prayer rose inside her that she could face that death with courage. And with hope for eternity.

  Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Thou art with me. The verse filled her mind, and she suddenly didn’t feel as alone. Dear Lord, forgive my sins and welcome this child home.

  She surrendered as he mashed the gun against her chest. The end of the gun barrel raked over her cut chin and hot pain sliced through her.

  “That’s right, my dearest. Accept your fate. The darkness awaits. You’ll be glad to enter in.” He laughed softly as he relaxed his hold enough to touch her hair with one hand while still gripping the gun with his other hand.

  “There will be no darkness. The light shineth in the darkness.” Her words were so calm she wondered if somebody else was speaking them.

  “Scripture. From you, dear Adriane. I am surprised. Do you think you can convict me of my sins at this last moment?” He laughed. “But alas, I fear your verse is nothing but empty words. The darkness always overwhelms the light. Darkness is all that awaits any of us.”

  “No, you are wrong. There is light.” The end of the verse came into her head then. “And the darkness comprehended it not.”

  “I know what. Why don’t I let you go first to see? But you can trust me on this.” He began to wrench the gun out of her hand. “Nothing but darkness awaits you.”

  His words infuriated her. She refused to let him destroy her hope for light. She would not go easy into the darkness—his darkness. The sure knowledge welled up inside her that it was not now her appointed time to die any more than it had been her father’s time. Stanley was trying to steal her life. Steal her light.

  “No!” she screamed. She hooked a foot behind his legs, turned loose of the gun, and shoved hard with both hands against his chest.

  As he fell backward, he grabbed her torn dress to pull her down with him. With her feet tangled up with his, she couldn’t catch her balance and jerk free. The gun went off as they fell. The sound was deafening.

  32

  Blake was nearly a block away from the Tribune building when he heard the shot. With a strangled cry almost as if he felt the bullet slamming into his own body, he began running faster, even though he’d been running for what seemed like hours ever since the name Stanley Jimson had been knocked out of one of his attackers down on the dock.

  None of the half-dozen men with hats pulled low to shadow their faces had planned to do any talking at all as they surrounded Blake. They’d been so sure he’d be alone, they hadn’t bothered to check the shadows where Duff was watching, ready to run for help.

  Blake yanked his gun out of his coat, but before he could get it pointed at any of the men, one of them knocked it out of his hand. If Joe hadn’t appeared from nowhere to push through the men to stand beside him, Blake might not have been able to stay on his feet until Duff brought help from a nearby tavern. As it was, he and Joe took some hard blows, and Joe’s arm looked to be broken.

  Bad as that was, it wasn’t until he recognized his newest hand, Herb, among the attackers that the terrible uneasiness had begun to rise inside him. Blake grabbed the man by the collar and demanded, “What’s going on here, Herb?”

  The man stared at the ground. “You should be more careful what you print in your paper, boss. The Know Nothings ain’t happy with you.”

  “Who’s paying you, Herb?” Blake demanded.

  The man screwed his mouth up tight and tried to jerk free. Blake tightened his grip and twisted Herb’s shirt collar until the man was gasping for breath.

  “Give him to us, Mr. Garrett,” one of Blake’s rescuers said. “We’ll make him sing whatever tune you want him to.”

  “I don’t want anything but the truth.” Blake kept his eyes on Herb as he loosened his hold to let the man breathe. “This was a trap, wasn’t it? Who sent you down here?”

  When Herb kept his eyes downcast without answering, Blake made a sound of disgust and pushed the man toward the men from the tavern. It didn’t take much to shake loose the man’s tongue and get him to admit working for the Jimsons.

  “It was you that set the fire,” Joe shouted and aimed a kick at the man, who huddled on the ground, trying to shield his head from the blows.

  Blake pulled Joe back before the kick found its mark. “Easy, Joe. He could’ve let you burn with the building.”

  “I wouldn’t kill nobody for money,” Herb mumbled as he straightened up and finally looked at Blake.

  “How about tonight?” Blake asked.

  “We were just gonna knock you about a bit. Jimson wanted us to keep you busy for a while.”

  “Why would Coleman Jimson want you to do that?”

  “Never had no dealing with the old man. It was the young dandy what give me my orders.”

  “Stanley?” Blake couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice even as Adriane’s warnings about Stanley echoed in his head.

  “That’s right. He’s a strange one, that one. He finds out I talked . . .” Herb let his voice trail off, visibly trembling now. Then he wrapped his arms tight around his chest as he looked at the men surrounding him and then back at Blake. “I’d done decided I’d do this last job for him and be on my way downriver before I found him slipping a knife between my ribs.”

  That’s when Blake had turned and started running. And sending up desperate prayers that he wouldn’t be too late. Dear Lord, he couldn’t be too late.

  Now with the echo of the shot still searing through his brain, the building was in front of him at last. The front windows were dark, and when he saw the front door ajar, his courage almost failed hi
m, not sure he could bear the sight of whatever awaited him in the dark room beyond.

  He leaned against the doorjamb and tried to stop panting so he could listen. It would do Adriane little good for him to rush in and get shot straight away. He didn’t even have a gun. He’d lost it at the riverfront.

  A carriage rattled by out in the street as the normal noises of the night went on undisturbed by whatever had happened inside. Blake heard nothing at all from inside the pressroom. Nothing. Out back the old dog howled, a sound so full of despair that Blake imagined the dog somehow knew Blake was too late.

  He pushed on the pressroom door, but it was blocked by something. Ramming his shoulder against it, he shoved it open a few inches. A groan stopped him. Blake reached through the opening and touched a shoulder. Beck. He ran his hand down along the old man’s side until he felt something warm and wet soaking his printer’s apron. Blood.

  “Adriane!” Blake shouted, all caution forgotten as he pushed Beck back from the door as gently as possible in his panic. “Adriane, answer me.”

  He was squeezing through the door, stepping over Beck’s body when she spoke in a strange, flat voice. “He’s dead.”

  The relief that rushed through Blake took his breath as a prayer of gratitude filled his heart. She was alive. He could hear her and see her sitting on the floor scrunched up against the composing table. He barely glanced at the body sprawled at her feet as he covered the space between them in three steps. He touched her shoulder, but she flinched away from him.

  In the light from the window, he saw the white of her chemise under the torn bodice of her dress, and for a moment his hand turned to stone. What had Jimson done to her? What had Blake let happen? He should have listened to her and not allowed himself to be tricked. He should have been there to protect her. He didn’t realize how despair and rage must be warring on his face until she inched farther away from his hand back against the table. She fumbled with the tattered remains of her bodice to pull it together.