by Caleb Carr
She nodded once, her golden eyes filling with tears; then she stamped a foot suddenly and angrily. “If you believe that, then why have you been hounding me like this?”
“Listen to me, Elspeth,” the Doctor went on. “If you surrender yourself, there may be a way to help you—”
Libby’s voice grew cold and mean: “Of course—in the electrical chair, you lying bastard!”
“No,” the Doctor insisted, still quietly. “I can help you. I can try to make the authorities understand why you’ve done these things—”
“But I’ve done nothing!” Libby hollered, full of new desperation. “Can’t you see that?” She paused, studying the Doctor’s face. “No. No, of course you can’t. You’re a man. What man could understand what my life has been like—why I’ve had to make the choices I have? Do you think I wanted any of this? It wasn’t my fault that it happened!”
I figured the only way I was going to be able to make a move for the Colt was to try to get the woman even more upset and off balance than she already was: so, though I knew the Doctor wouldn’t have approved, I began to taunt her. “Yeah? What about the kid you buried with the dog? Whose fault was that?”
“You be quiet!” she seethed, turning to me. “You’re not even a man—just a boy! All you understand are your own damned needs, your own damned wants! A woman probably worked herself raw raising you, and how did you ever repay her, except by spitting in her face? By disobeying, by whining, by—” Tightening her grip on her pistol, Libby glared at me hotter than ever with those gold eyes. “You want to know about the boy in the grave, do you? I didn’t ask for him, and I didn’t want him. I had a beau—a respectable boy, from a family that had a place in our world—the kind of boy I could have brought home to my mother, to show that I could—that I could—” Her voice starting to wander, Libby glanced down at the tarred roof for an instant. “He would’ve done anything for me. And I did do anything for him—but then his family found out, and they wouldn’t…” Quickly, she looked back up. “And I was left with his lying, dirty seed in me! It wasn’t wrong, to prevent the disgrace! What could it have been but a bastard—something else, something more, that I’d done wrong? So I did what was right—but I couldn’t even tell anyone!”
Seeing that my plan was having the desired effect, I kept pressing: “And when you shot Matthew and Thomas and Clara? I suppose you didn’t want to do that, either—your finger slipped on the trigger, or they asked you to shoot them—”
The Doctor was by now staring at me, perplexed and alarmed. “Stevie, what are you—”
I ignored him. “What about that?” I went on harshly. “How did you do the right thing there?”
Her breath now coming in quick heaves, Libby shouted, “It was better for them! Do you think I wanted to shoot them? It was better for them, to be finished with this world—”
“Yeah!” I shouted back at her. “Better so’s you could take their money and go off with your boyfriend the preacher!”
“Be quiet! Goddamn you children, can’t any of you ever just be quiet?” Swallowing hard, Libby tried without much success to get a firmer grip on herself. “You know what this leads to! I’ve warned you, and now I have to show you!”
Looking at me all of a sudden the way she must, I figured, have looked at all the children she’d killed just before the act, she raised her pistol into the air and brought it down on the Doctor’s head, causing him to tumble to the ground, still conscious but bleeding from a cut above his temple. Brutal as the deed was, it gave me all the time I needed: when Libby yanked the Doctor back up by his collar, she turned again to find me holding Miss Howard’s Colt with both hands and training its barrel on her.
“Okay,” I said, my own heart racing. “Now, you want to start killing people, you go ahead. But I promise—you’ll be the second one to go.”
CHAPTER 56
She was looking at me with the same expression what’d been on her face when Mr. Picton had revealed that we knew about the grave behind her family’s barn: surprise and shock. Again I got the feeling that she hadn’t been in such positions many times in her life; and that fact, I knew, might lead her to do some unpredictable things. But I had my own little dose of unpredictability up my sleeve, one what I was getting set to administer.
Her eyes dancing in fear and anger, Libby’s mouth first tightened up, then cracked open long enough for her to say, “I’ll kill him! I swear I will!”
I nodded to her. “I know,” I said. “Question is, do you wanna go, too?”
“What choice do I have?” the woman shouted back. “Damn you, you’re just like the others—you don’t leave me any choice!”
“I’ll give you a choice,” I said. “You let the Doctor walk over here, then you run. We won’t follow.”
The Doctor, still reeling a little from the blow to the head he’d taken, looked as confused as Libby Hatch. “Stevie, what are you saying?”
Once again I paid him no mind. “Well?” I said, keeping my eyes on Libby.
She did a little dance in her head with the idea, looking tempted. Then I got some unexpected help when Mr. Roosevelt’s voice boomed up from down in the street:
“They’re retreating! Lieutenant Kimball! Detail some of your men—I want Knox taken into custody!”
I let myself have a little smile just then. “You hear that?” I said, nodding toward the front edge of the roof. “Your pal Goo Goo’s beating it out of here. So what’s it gonna be? You gonna play smart and go with him?”
“How do I know you won’t follow me?” Libby asked.
The next part of my performance had to be the best: I took a deep breath, kept my eyes on hers, then said, “You can take this gun. It’s the only one we got.”
The Doctor wasn’t so dazed as not to understand that. “No!” he said. “Stevie, do not—”
But Libby cut him off: “You slide it over here first.”
I shook my head. “You let go. Let him take two steps clear. Then I will.”
“Stevie,” the Doctor insisted, “you can’t trust—”
He stopped as Libby jammed the barrel of her pistol hard against his head. “Oh, yes, that’s right, isn’t it, Doctor? You can’t trust Libby—you can’t trust the woman. She’ll break her word. She’ll shoot you in the back. After all, she killed her own children, didn’t she? And all those others, too. How can you possibly trust someone who could do all that? Well, let me tell you, Dr. Kreizler …” Moving the barrel of the gun a couple of inches away from the Doctor’s skull, Libby swayed a bit, like things were really starting to get to her. “Let me tell you,” she said again, her voice getting softer and what you might call detached. “I did everything for those children. My own, I went through the agony of bearing. The others, I went through the long, sleepless, endless hours of caring for. Feeding, cleaning, changing… and for what? For what, Doctor? They never stopped crying. They never stopped getting sick. They never stopped needing.” With her free hand Libby clutched at her hair, as her face and voice filled with truly desperate anger and sorrow. “Needing—always needing. It never stopped. I did everything I could, everything, but it never stopped! It should have been enough. It was all I could do—it should have been enough! But it never was … it never was. And so—can’t you see? They were better off after I—” Suddenly she glanced down at the roof and mumbled, “They didn’t need anything, then…” Shaking herself hard, Libby looked back up, the gold light of the clever killer suddenly back in her eyes. “All right, boy. He takes two steps, then you slide the gun over.” I nodded. “That’s the deal.”
The Doctor tried one more time to stop me: “Stevie, do not do this—”
“Go on, Doctor,” Libby almost chuckled in her most frightening voice. “Take your two steps …”
As the Doctor started to move, Libby kept her gun trained squarely on his head. When he’d gotten what I figured was far enough from her, I leaned down and placed Miss Howard’s revolver on the tar.
“Stevie—”
the Doctor tried again; but I just looked up at him, hoping that he could read the message in my eyes. It took him a second or two, but he did eventually get it. Then he closed his mouth and nodded.
“All right,” Libby said. “Slide it over.”
I did as I was told. The Colt came to a stop just at Libby’s feet, and she quickly leaned over to pick it up. Then she stood again, without either turning to run or lowering her own weapon.
“Actually, Doctor,” she said, with one of her most cunning, seductive little smiles, “you were quite right.” Her revolver clicked loudly as she pulled back the hammer. “I’ve no intention of allowing any of you—”
She never finished the sentence. A small hissing sound cut through the night air, and I jumped over to grab the Doctor’s legs and pull him down to the roof. A shot went off, but it struck only an iron furnace chimney on the house next door with a loud clang. Then both the Doctor and I looked up.
Libby’s smile was gone now, but her eyes were still open and she was still clutching her smoking gun. The better part of a small, crude arrow was sticking out of the side of her neck, and I knew that, though she was still on her feet, there was a good chance that she was already dead: the strychnine could’ve killed her before the muscles of her legs had a chance to give way. After another second or two she did collapse, first to her knees and then, after another pause, over onto her side.
The Doctor and I ran over to her immediately, myself taking care to quickly pry the pistol from her hand. For his part, the Doctor lifted her head and examined her eyes, then felt her neck for a pulse. He must’ve sensed something, being as he said, “Elspeth? Elspeth Franklin?”
As the last air left her lungs, Libby managed to form the words “always needing.” Then she was gone, and the Doctor reached out to close the golden eyes for the last time.
I don’t know how long the pair of us crouched there looking at her, but I do know that what finally brought us around was the sound of knocking on the underside of the hatchway cover.
“Sara?” It was Mr. Moore’s voice, shouting up from below the closed entryway. “Stevie, Kreizler—what the hell happened, are you all right?”
Both the hatchway cover and Miss Howard’s body jumped a bit as Mr. Moore tried to get up onto the roof; and with the bumping movement Miss Howard began to come around, first groaning and then, as her eyes opened, rolling over and falling onto the roof with a small grunt.
“Sara,” the Doctor said urgently. He lay Libby Hatch out on the roof quickly, then ran over to where Miss Howard lay just as Mr. Moore leapt up and out of the hatchway.
“Good Christ,” he said, taking in the scene. “What the hell happened here?”
Ignoring the question, the Doctor pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and lifted Miss Howard’s shoulders up onto his knee. Then he began to wipe at and examine the spot on her head where she’d been hit, soon satisfying himself that it wasn’t a serious wound. Gently rubbing and patting her cheeks with his hand, he finally got her to focus on him.
“Doctor,” she breathed. Looking around, she tried dizzily to make a move. “What happened—where—”
The Doctor held her still. “Be calm, Sara,” he said with a smile, brushing her hair out of her face as Mr. Moore and I gathered round. “It’s over. At least, this part of it is.” Then he turned her so that, without moving her head much, she could see Libby Hatch’s body.
“She’s—dead?” Miss Howard said; and in spite of the fact that she was still a little groggy, I could hear a faint touch of sadness in her voice.
“Yes,” the Doctor answered gently, sensing, I think, how she felt.
Miss Howard watched the body for a few more seconds; then, in a quick sort of spasm, she made a noise what seemed like a combination of a gasp and a lone, deep sob. She turned her head back toward us, and I could see a tear on her cheek. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, wiping the tear away as fast as she was able. “I know I shouldn’t—”
The Doctor quieted her with a little shushing sound, and rubbed her cheek softly again. “Don’t apologize. Someone should shed a tear at this moment.” He paused, then looked over at Libby Hatch. “But I confess that I cannot. I cannot…”
Miss Howard suddenly looked puzzled. “But—” she said, trying to sit up, “who—”
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Mr. Moore said, glancing at the Doctor and me.
“Take a look at her neck,” I told him.
Making his way carefully across the roof, as if Libby might still jump up and have at him, Mr. Moore carefully examined the body, then nodded. “Oh … so it was the aborigine, after all.” He retrieved Miss Howard’s Colt, then glanced at the rooftops around us. “Where is he?” he asked.
“Don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “Pretty far, by now, and still moving. I hope.”
“Well, we’d better have that arrow,” Mr. Moore answered, cautiously reaching down to remove the thing from Libby’s neck. “I wouldn’t want to try to explain it to Roosevelt,” he added, tossing the missile over the edge of the roof into the backyard. “And I’m sure the wound will be mysterious enough to confound whatever fool coroner the police engage.” Walking back across the roof quickly, he gave me a questioning but approving look. “Did the two of you plan this, Stevie?”
“I wouldn’t exactly say we planned it,” I answered.
The Doctor looked up at me, uncertainty and pride showing together in a slight smile. “Your gambling instincts seem to be intractable, Stevie.”
“It wasn’t a gamble,” I said. “Not if you knew him like I did.”
Miss Howard, her head clearing, reached up to touch the side of the Doctor’s slightly bloodied face. “You’re hurt,” she said.
“That, too, is thanks to our young friend,” the Doctor replied, nodding my way. “But it’s not serious—all part of Stevie’s plan, it seems.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” I protested quickly. “I didn’t know she’d actually smack you—”
The Doctor already had a hand up. “It was well worth it—an appropriate punishment for ever doubting your judgment in such matters.” Then his black eyes gave me a more serious look. “I mean it, Stevie. It was a brilliant bit of work.”
As if to punctuate the remark, Mr. Moore gave my head a rub and Miss Howard smiled at me—all of which, of course, was just the sort of attention what’s always made my skin crawl. Fortunately, I quickly thought of a way to change the topic:
“What about Ana?” I asked, looking up at Mr. Moore.
His face suddenly went straight. “Oh, God,” he said, with what sounded like dread. “Yes, Ana.” He looked to the Doctor and Miss Howard. “Can you two make it downstairs?”
Miss Howard began to struggle to her feet. “I think so,” she said, finally standing. “Why, John? What is it?”
Mr. Moore, still looking what you might call inscrutable, just shook his head. “I could tell you,” he said. “But you’d never believe it.”
CHAPTER 57
By the time we got back down to the first floor of the building the action out on the street seemed to’ve calmed down quite a bit, and from the cheering sounds being made by our sailors, it seemed like they truly had come away from the encounter winners. As we passed by the front door, Marcus came in through it, confirming that the Dusters had fled the scene, a result what he, too, seemed to find very heartening. It was up to me to be the spoilsport, by informing everybody that if in fact the Dusters had disappeared for the moment, they’d likely be back: soon, in greater numbers (they’d probably call in more auxiliaries), and better armed, which meant guns.
“What makes you think that, Stevie?” Mr. Moore said, poking his head outside the door and looking around. “Those navy boys gave them one hell of a black eye—I wouldn’t think they’d be any too anxious to come back for more.”
“They have to,” I answered. “We took them on right in the middle of their own territory. They let this stand, and they’ll lose that territory, to every gang wha
t borders them. It’s a sign of weakness, and they can’t afford it.”
“Stevie’s logic, once again, is sound,” the Doctor said. “Let’s not forget that he knows this world far better than the rest of us. Marcus, I suggest you find Roosevelt. Tell him to forget about arresting Knox or anyone else, and simply detach a group of men to retrieve Libby Hatch’s body from the roof. Then we shall return to the boats.”
Nodding in agreement, Marcus turned to Mr. Moore. “Are you taking them down, John?” Mr. Moore just nodded back, and then Marcus turned to me. “It was the garden that gave me the tip, Stevie. Remember the way it seemed so untended? And how unused you said those tools downstairs looked?”
Puzzled, I furrowed my eyebrows at him. “Yeah?”
“Well,” the detective sergeant said, heading back out into the street, “there was a reason.”
Further bewildered by that last comment, the Doctor, Miss Howard, and I followed Mr. Moore to the basement door, then down into the dusty cave below.
The one electrical bulb was lit, showing things pretty well the way I’d left them the night I’d been there: in other words, there was no sign of any secret doorway having been forced open, a fact what surprised not only me, but the Doctor and Miss Howard, too.
“Moore,” the Doctor said, “I thought you intimated—”
Mr. Moore held up a hand. “We closed it again to give you the full effect,” he said, going past the rack of preserves to the collection of old, rusty garden tools. “We did everything we could to try to move this thing manually,” he said, indicating the rack. “And you might actually have moved it, Stevie, if you’d picked something other than that old hoe to try to wedge behind it.”
“What do you mean?” I said, not getting the hint.
Mr. Moore pointed at the two tallest of the tools—a shovel and an iron rake—what stood side by side. “Open,” he said, indicating the shovel, “and close,” at which point he touched the rake.
