Matters said, “Funny thing is, he never wanted to come to the theater. Hated it. Poor kid never could fit in. Fidgeted the whole play.”
“You buried him right here when he drowned himself?”
“Like I just told you. You can dig up the poor kid’s bones if you don’t believe me.”
“I believe that you buried him. But I don’t believe that he drowned himself.”
“He drowned,” Matters repeated doggedly.
“Drowning was the least likely method Billy would have chosen to kill himself. If he drowned, he was not a suicide.”
“He drowned.”
“Then someone murdered him.”
“I would never hurt him.”
“I believe you. But you found his body.”
“I told you.”
“Did the girls mention that I knew Billy slightly at college?”
“They told me you stood up for him.”
“As bullies will, they found his worst fear and used it against him. Do you remember what that was?”
“What do you mean?” Matters asked warily.
“The crew boys were throwing him in the river. Billy was rigid with fear. Absolutely petrified—he looked like his skull was popping through his skin—screaming he couldn’t swim. They’d have pulled him out in a second, but he was so terrified of water, he couldn’t see it was just college hijinks. There is no way on God’s earth that boy would have killed himself by drowning . . .”
But even as he spoke, Bell remembered Billy’s courageous attempt to conquer his fear by asking the crew to let him train to be coxswain. Could he have tried again and triumphed in a final deranged act?
Isaac Bell found himself staring intently at the Shakespeare gravestone.
“Did you say that Billy didn’t like the theater?”
“Hated it.”
—
Bell could hear old Brigadier Mills thundering in his mind. Ticket stubs from an opera house . . . Shakespeare shows . . . We traced them to Oil City, Pennsylvania. The thunder shaped a bolt of lightning. Why would the boy keep ticket stubs to plays he hated?
“I asked why you didn’t report Billy’s death.”
“I told you. To protect the girls.”
“Which one?”
39
Which one?” Bill Matters echoed Isaac Bell.
“You’re protecting one of your daughters. Which one?”
“What do you mean, which one?”
“Edna? Or Nellie? The one who killed Billy.”
“Killed him? You’re insane.”
Not insane, thought Bell. Not even surprised, looking back. He himself had remarked on the New York Limited, Strange how the three of us keep turning up together where crimes have occurred. And when he engineered Edna’s job covering Baku for the Evening Sun and the editor asked Mind me asking which sister you’re sweet on? some sixth or seventh sense had already made him a sharper detective than he knew: Let’s just say that with this arrangement, I can keep my eye on both of them.
Not insane. Not surprised. Only sad. Deeply, deeply sad.
Bill Matters was shouting, “They loved him. Why would one of them kill Billy?”
“Because she’s a ‘natural,’ to use your word.”
“Natural what?”
“Assassin.”
—
“She snapped,” Matters said quietly. “That was the first thought in my mind when I saw them. She snapped.”
“Who?” Isaac Bell asked. “Was it Nellie? Or Edna?”
Matters shifted his eyes from Bell’s burning gaze and stared at the pond.
“Who?” Bell asked, again. “Nellie? Or Edna?”
Matters shook his head.
“Who did you see?”
“She was out there. In the water. I thought she was floating on a log. ’Til I saw his leg. I leaped in, grabbed her, tore her off him. Pulled him out, dragged him onto the grass. He was incredibly heavy. Such a little guy. Deadweight.”
“Dead?”
“I held him in my arms. She climbed out and stood behind me. I kept asking her why. Why did you do it? She didn’t deny it.”
“She admitted that she drowned him?”
“She said it was Billy’s fault. He was a coward. Wasted his opportunity.”
“What opportunity?”
“Of being a man. Men are allowed to do anything.”
Bell realized he did not fully believe Matters. Or didn’t want to. “No one saw? No one in those houses?”
“Night.”
“You saw them.”
“Full moon. Lunatic moon.”
“Who? Was it Nellie? Or Edna?”
Matters shook his head.
“Which of your girls is innocent?” Isaac Bell demanded.
“Both,” Matters said sullenly.
“One is guilty. Is it Nellie, your blood daughter? Or Edna, your stepdaughter?”
“I love them equally, with all my heart.”
“I don’t doubt that you do. Which is the assassin?”
“I can only say neither,” said Matters. “Even if they hang me.”
“Oh, they will hang you, I promise,” said Bell.
“Your question will hang with me.”
Isaac Bell realized that if somehow the assassin were to stop killing and commit no more crimes, then he could spend the rest of his life wondering and never truly knowing which of them was the woman she seemed to be and which had been a murderer. But why would she ever stop? How many more would die before he caught her?
He was struck suddenly by a terrible insight. He saw a way, a way as cruel as it would be effective, to force Bill Matters to confess.
“There is no question you will hang, Bill.”
“I don’t care.”
“The only question is, will the girl who hangs beside you be the right one?”
“What do you mean?” asked Matters. But Bell saw that he knew exactly what he meant. The blood had drained from his face. His jaw was rigid. His hands were shaking so hard, they rattled the cuffs.
“The only truth you’ve ever told is that you love both your daughters.”
“I do. I do.”
“Your assassin covered her tracks so cleverly that she could be either of them. Either Edna. Or Nellie. But justice must be done.”
“Hanging the wrong one won’t be justice.”
“Sadly, justice makes mistakes. In this case, the better liar—the natural—will go free.”
40
Grim-faced Van Dorns in dark coats and derbies flanked Isaac Bell as he strode the grassy field across the road from the Sleepy Hollow Roadhouse. The ancient tavern was still surrounded by mud. The hayfield was a verdant, boot-pounded carpet under a multicolored fleet of gas balloons in various stages of inflation.
Nellie Matters’ yellow balloon was the tallest, its bulbous top rising higher than the trees
