They shook their heads, and Nellie said, “No. We honestly don’t know.”
“Has he been here?”
“We don’t think so,” said Nellie.
“What do you mean?”
“There’s nothing of his in the car. We searched every closet and cabinet. Nothing.”
“How do you happen to be here?”
“We’re using Father’s car for headquarters,” said Nellie.
“Headquarters?”
“For the New Woman’s Flyover. Don’t you remember? I chartered a locomotive to move us to North Tarrytown in the morning.” And suddenly she was talking a mile a minute. The balloons, she said, were arriving from near and far. They were gathering in a hayfield she had rented from the owner of the Sleepy Hollow Roadhouse.
“For a dollar, Isaac, can you believe it?”
“I’ve met him,” said Bell. “I can believe it.”
She barely heard him. “Right next to Pocantico Hills! He hates Rockefeller. And he loves the idea of us soaring over his estate. He even persuaded the new village trustees to pipe gas out to the site—so we don’t have to generate our own, which is wonderful, it’s so much faster to inflate from mains—and he’s invited the women to pitch tents, and he’s opened the roadhouse baths to all of us. It’s a delightfully civilized campground. Except for this infernal heat. But we’ll rise above the heat, won’t we?”
It was understandable, thought Bell, and a good thing, that she was hurling herself into the Flyover scheme to escape from facing her father’s grim future. “How about you, Edna? Are you ballooning, too?”
Nellie answered for her. “Edna got a job reporting on the Flyover for the Sun. The editor was thrilled by her Baku story.”
“How did you happen to find the car?”
“Easy as pie,” Nellie said. “This siding is one of Father’s favorites. It’s very pretty in the daylight and quiet. There’s never much traffic on the Putnam Division. He calls it his cottage in the country.”
“And you found no sign at all of your father?”
“None. Poke around, if you like. But look what we did find.”
Edna asked, “Do you remember when we were talking about my brother joining the Army?”
“Of course.”
“Look what we found,” said Nellie.
Edna said, “I was flabbergasted when Nellie showed me.”
She took a leather pouch from a drawer and laid it on the desk.
“May I?” Bell asked.
“Go on, pick it up.”
Bell held it to his nostrils. “Does your father smoke Cuban cigars?”
“No,” said Edna, and Nellie said, “He prefers a two-cent stogie. Open it, Isaac. Look what’s inside.”
It contained a medal, a fifty-dollar bill, and a sheet of fine linen-based stationery folded in quarters to fit the pouch. The medal was an extraordinarily heavy disk of gold engraved like a target, which hung by a red ribbon from a gold pin labeled “Rifle Sharpshooter.” The fifty was a treasury note.
“Turn it over,” said Nellie. “Look at the back.”
Bell saw that President Roosevelt had signed the back above the treasurer’s printed signature.
“Read the letter.”
Bell unfolded it carefully, as the paper appeared weakened by being opened many times. The letterhead jumped off the page:
THE WHITE HOUSE
Washington
Bell’s eye shot to the recipient’s address on the bottom left of the page.
Private Billy Jones
Newark Seventh Regiment
New Jersey
He read:
My dear Private Billy Jones,
I have just been informed that you have won the President’s Match for the military championship of the United States of America. I wish to congratulate you in person . . .
The president had closed:
Faithfully yours,
And signed in a bold hand:
Theodore Roosevelt
Nellie said, “He has to be our brother, don’t you think? Still alive in ’02.”
“How did this end up in your father’s car?”
“Billy may have hidden in the car when he first deserted. He knew the various places Father would park it.”
“He might have turned to Father for help,” said Edna.
“Would your father have ‘shielded’ him?” asked Bell, deliberately repeating the word that Brigadier Mills had used to speculate about Bill Matters and the deserter.
“Of course,” said Edna, and Nellie nodded vigorously.
“Would your father have tried to talk him into going back?”
Nellie said, “Father would have done whatever he thought was best for Billy’s future.”
“Where do you suppose Billy is now?” Bell asked.
Edna said, “I suspect he enlisted, again, under a different name. But if he did, maybe the reason we’ve heard nothing since is he died fighting the Filipino guerrillas.”
“I doubt he died in the Philippines,” said Bell. It looked to him that Brigadier Mills had read his man wrong . . . “Could I ask you something?”
“Which one of us?” asked Nellie.
“Both. If this marksman Billy Jones is your brother, Billy Hock, could you imagine him turning his skill to murder?”
“Are you asking is our brother the assassin?”
“I am asking do you imagine he could be?”
“We haven’t seen him in years,” said Edna. “Who knows who he’s become?”
“Could the boy you remember become a murderer?”
“No,” said Edna.
“Yes,” said Nellie.
“Why do you say yes, Nellie?”
“I knew him better than Edna. Isn’t that true, Edna?”
Edna said, “Yes, you two grew very close.” To Bell she added, “So close that I was jealous sometimes.”
Bell asked again, “Nellie, why do you say yes?”
“He was afraid. He was always afraid. So when you ask can I imagine him turning his skill to murder, I have to imagine him lashing out—first out of fear, then because lashing out banished fear, and finally . . .”
“Finally what?” asked Bell.
Edna echoed, “Finally what, Nellie? How do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I’m just speculating.”
“But you just said you knew him well,” Bell pressed, convinced she was onto something.
Nellie shrugged. “What if finally lashing out banished fear? Then maybe lashing out could become . . . what? Pleasurable? Enjoyable? Something to aspire to.”
“We’re talking about murder,” said Edna.
“We were talking about our brother,” Nellie said sharply.
“But who could find murder enjoyable?”
“A madman,” said Isaac Bell.
“We were talking about our brother,” Nellie repeated. “We’re speculating about murder . . .” When she resumed speaking, she made an effort to lighten her tone, as if asking with a hopeful smile could eliminate the worst possibility. “What do you think, Isaac? You’re the detective. Is our brother the assassin?”
“I can’t sugarcoat it for
