herself and the boy in the painting called
April had begun by examining the history of the Horatio Street bridge. In 1875, one citizen had complained in the columns of the
April had uncovered the old local story of the ancient man with battered white wings discovered in a packing case on the riverbank by a band of children who had stoned him to death, mocking the creature's terrible, foreign cries as the stones struck him. I too had run across the story, but April had located old newspaper accounts of the legend and related the angel figure to the epidemic of influenza which had killed nearly a third of the Irish population that lived near the bridge. Nonetheless, she reported, an individual known only as M. Angel had been listed in police documents from 1911 as a death, from stoning and had subsequently been buried in the city's old potter's field (now vanished beneath a section of the east-west freeway).
The Green Woman Taproom, originally the ferryman's shanty, made frequent appearances in the police documents of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Apart from being the scene of the occasional brawls, stabbings, and shootings not uncommon in rough taverns of the period, the Green Woman had distinguished itself as the informal headquarters of the Illuminated Ones, the most vicious gang in the city's history. The leaders of the Illuminated Ones, said to be the same men who as children had killed the mysterious M. Angel, organized robberies and murders throughout Millhaven and were said to have controlled criminal activity in both Milwaukee and Chicago. In 1914, the taproom burned down in a suspicious fire, killing three of the five leaders of the Illuminated Ones. The remaining two appeared to divert themselves into legal activity, bought vast houses on Eastern Shore Drive, and became active in Millhaven politics.
It was from the steps of the rebuilt Green Woman Taproom that a discharged city clerk shot and wounded Theodore Roosevelt; and the psychotic city employee who shot at, but failed to hit, Dwight D. Eisenhower, stepped out from the shadows of the Green Woman when he raised his pistol.
The god who had issued from these strings, April Ransom implied, spoke most clearly through the life and death of William Damrosch, originally named Carlos Rosario. As an infant, he had been carried to the foot of the Horatio Street bridge by his mother, who had been summoned there by her murderer.
For weeks after the discovery of the living baby and the dead woman on the frozen riverbank beneath the Green Woman, wrote April, the old legend of the winged man resurfaced, changed now to account for the death of Carmen Rosario: this time the angel was robust and healthy instead of weakened by age, his golden hair flowed in the dark February wind, and he killed instead of being killed.
How did April know that the old legend had returned? On the second Sunday following the discovery of the infant, two churches in Millhaven, Matthias Avenue Methodist and Mt. Horeb Presbyterian, had advertised sermons entitled, respectively, 'The Angel of Death, A Scourge to the Sinful' and 'The Return of Uriel.' An editorial in the
Three weeks after the murder of his mother, the child was released into the first of the series of orphanages and foster homes that would lead him in five years to Heinz Stenmitz, a newly married young butcher who had recently opened a shop beside his house on Muffin Street in the section of Millhaven long known as Pigtown.
At this stage of his life, April wrote, Stenmitz was a striking figure who, with his long blond hair and handsome blond beard, bore a great resemblance to the conventional Christian portrait of Jesus; moreover, he conducted informal church services in his shop on Sundays. Long after, at his trial for child abuse, it was introduced as evidence of the preacher-butcher's good character that he had often sought his parishioners at the train and bus stations and had given special attention to those frightened and confused immigrants from Central and South American countries who were handicapped by an ignorance of English as well as poverty.
April Ransom was quietly making the case that Heinz Stenmitz had murdered William Damrosch's mother. She believed that, on a dark cold night in February, gullible and intoxicated witnesses had seen the butcher's flowing hair and remembered the old stories of the persecuted angel.
I looked up to see that Alan had returned from his nap. His hands were clasped at his waist, his chin was up, and his eyes were bright and curious. 'Do you think it's good?'
'It's extraordinary,' I said. 'I wish she had been able to finish it. I don't know how she ever managed to get even this much together.'
'Efficiency. And she was my daughter, after all. She knew how to do research.'
'I'd like to be able to read the whole thing,' I said.
'Keep it as long as you like,' Alan said. 'For some reason, I can't seem to make much headway on it.'
For a moment I was unable to keep from registering the shock of the understanding Alan had just given me. He could not read his daughter's manuscript, which meant that he could no longer read at all. I turned to the television to hide my dismay. The screen showed a long view of Illinois Avenue. People stood three and four deep along the sidewalks, yelling along with someone chanting through a bullhorn.
'Oh, my God,' I said, and looked at my watch. 'I have to meet John.' I stood up.
'I knew it'd be good,' Alan said.
PART TEN
In shirtsleeves, Ransom motioned me inside and went into the living room to turn off the television, which showed the same roped-off stretch of Illinois Avenue I had just seen on Alan's set. The books had been pushed to the side of the coffee table, and loose pages of the Blue Rose file lay over the rest of its surface. The green linen jacket was draped over the back of the couch. Just before John reached the television, a slightly breathless Isobel Archer appeared on its screen, holding a microphone and saying, 'The stage is set for an event unlike any which has occurred in this city since the early days of the civil rights movement, and which is sure to inspire controversy. As the tensions in Millhaven grow more and more intense, religious and civic leaders demand—'
John bent over to turn the set off. 'I thought you'd be back before this.' He noticed the thick folder in my hand. 'What's that, the other part of the file?'
I placed the folder beside the telephone. 'April's manuscript has been at Alan's house all this time.'
He lifted the green jacket off the couch and slipped it on. 'You must have taken a look at it, then.'
'Of course I did,' I said, opening the upside-down file to its last pages. I had looked through only something like the first quarter of
John came toward me from the living room, adjusting the linen jacket.
