Confronting Jerome was her only option. She had to return to that stifling laundry room. If she kept her distance, he couldn’t hurt her, at least not before she could get off a good scream. She crept back along the dark corridor to the door propped open by a rusty iron. The stooped man was still there. He didn’t notice her. She was only half-certain it was Jerome. His once-white undervest was wet with perspiration and stained from several soakings. He was thinner than she remembered. Brown trousers, rolled at the top, sagged from his waist. Barefoot and bent over as he was, she couldn’t gauge his height. This man could be anyone—anyone with reason to cower in a backstage oven.
She had no choice. She gripped her handbag, metal clasp facing out, preparing to swing it with all her strength if he came at her. A dozen people were close enough to hear her scream. “Jerome?”
The man turned. His eyes were veined with pink, and his stubbled cheeks seemed to sink into his face. He backed away, scrabbling across the table for something. One hand braced against the bricks behind him; in the other he wielded a dull pencil stub like a knife. “What the hell?”
His voice was ragged, harsh and then cracking, as if he’d just woken from a deep sleep.
But it was Jerome’s voice: low and wary.
Julia edged into the doorway. The room was hot, the air congested and thick. “I’m Julia Kydd. Eva’s friend.”
“Back off.” He waved the pencil stub. A colony of pimples swarmed across his neck and chest, beneath the filthy cotton vest plastered to his skin. When had he last bathed? This poet, this promising scholar with a letter from Eliot? Two weeks ago he’d carried his future high on confident shoulders, shoes shone to glass. If this squalor was now his shelter, how much more noxious was the place where Eva—the greater quarry—hid?
“Where is she? Just tell me, and I’ll go.”
“Leave us alone.”
“Tell me where she is.”
“Get the hell out of here.”
“I saw her in the police station,” Julia said. “I know she didn’t kill anyone. I want to help.”
At police he dipped into a crouch. He regripped the blunt thumb of the pencil. It was short and dull but still a weapon. With enough force, it could do plenty of damage. Julia took a quick step back, raising her handbag and bracing her heel should she need to turn and run. Her voice rattled. “Please, where is she?”
He swallowed. His jaw creaked, but no words came out.
She tried again. “If you care about Eva, tell me where she is.”
He shook his head. Did that mean he didn’t know, or he would never tell? Perhaps he felt he was protecting her. Regardless, he seemed adamant.
“I just want to talk to her,” Julia said. “Find some way to prove she’s innocent.”
He paced toward the back of the cave-like room, shaking his head like a bear tormented by flies. “You live on another planet. If Timson’s dogs don’t get her, the cops will. Either way, it’s just one more New York lynching. She’s good as dead.”
Scraping sounds rose from his lungs, the empty husks of tears. Julia could hardly bear it. Eva was right. This man did love her. He might be persuaded to help her in some other way.
“You can still help her get out of this alive,” Julia said.
His head came up, eyes narrowed. “How?”
“Give yourself up. You can’t hide forever.”
His forehead pleated in disbelief.
She pressed the point. “Confess, Jerome. At least save her.”
With a guttural moan he took a step closer. She raised her handbag like a shield, flashing its sharp clasp. He stared at it, then at the remnant of pencil in his fist. He barked a hoarse laugh and dropped it onto the table. “Really?” he croaked. “You’re afraid of me? Filthy and rank, I know, but frightening?”
His unshaven face convulsed in disbelief. Another wrenching sound came from his lungs. “You can’t think I shot Timson.”
Couldn’t she? An hour ago she’d been certain of it. Now that certainty was melting fast. A fugitive killer with nothing more to lose would never make that anguished sound. A murderer would never accept a slow descent into this backstage hell. No killer would wonder at her fear.
Julia regripped the handbag at her waist, as if to ward off the terrible sound. She had come prepared for anger, even violence, but not this. Not such tormented grief.
“Do you know where she is?”
Another gust of despair. “I don’t know one damn thing. Not one!”
Julia’s heart lurched. This man was broken. Grief leaked out of every pore. She wanted to flee his misery but couldn’t. She had to stay, try to learn anything she could. But when she asked what he knew about that night, his jaw sagged in scorn.
“Why the hell would I tell you anything? You?”
“Eva trusts me.”
His eyes narrowed. He didn’t believe her, or he didn’t care.
“I’m her friend,” Julia pleaded.
He swayed, thighs bumping against the table edge. “It’s too late.”
“Not as long as she’s still hiding. Tell me, Jerome.”
He bent toward her. Their noses six inches apart, his dark, hard eyes bored into hers. She blinked at the noxious smell of uncleaned teeth and endless cigarettes.
“You think you can just waltz in anywhere—her life, my life, this hellhole?” He gave a ragged sweep of his arm. “I may be a pathetic wretch, but you can snap your fingers all you want, and I still don’t have to jump. Not for you. You don’t get to tell me what to do.” He lifted his chin. Dirt lined the creases in his neck.
Sweet Jesus.
Julia! What a dunderhead she was. He was right. She’d done exactly what Logan had warned her against. She’d sailed into his hiding place like a meddling Miss Anne, one of those righteous white women determined to rescue Negroes from their woes. She’d mistrusted Jerome from the start,
