Witch in the White City: A Dark Historical Fantasy/Mystery (Neva Freeman Book 1), Nick Wisseman [best novels for students .TXT] 📗

said as he took in the press of bodies. “If you weren’t in uniform, I’d swear you were a bunch of perverts eavesdropping on their parents’ rutting. Show some professionalism.”

Most of the hangers-on looked appropriately chagrined. But that didn’t stop a policeman near the back from asking, “What’s he saying in there?”

“None of your damn business,” the wiry guard responded curtly. “Except for this.” He turned to a third man. “Carter, get this lot in order and take them—every last one—to the Lagoon. You’re to drag it for a body. Discreetly.” The ensuing gasps and whistles earned another glare from the wiry guard. “Stow your jabber,” he snapped.

“Man or woman?” asked Carter.

“Woman, young and blonde. Take everyone; this isn’t a damn exhibit.” Disdainfully, the wiry guard glanced around the hall again until his eyes lighted on Neva.

She flinched inwardly, bracing herself to be called out as an impostor.

But her disguise held. “Everyone except Johnson,” the wiry guard said. “He stays on the door.”

“The Negro?” someone asked, none too quietly.

The wiry guard fixed the speaker with a withering glare. “Yes, the Negro: he takes direction and knows his place. Unlike the rest of you.” He turned back to Carter. “The Lagoon—discreetly.”

“Yes, sir.” Without further hesitation, Carter chivvied the other men away from the door. Several of them jostled Neva as they passed, but she didn’t respond—she couldn’t bend her voice like Augie, and pushing back would have been the worst of stupidities. Arthur always carried himself with stoic calm anyway; she wasn’t acting out of character by taking the high road.

Once they were alone, the wiry guard wagged his finger at her. “Mind that no one comes in without my leave. And knock first before you ask for it.”

Neva nodded.

He grunted and reopened the door—wider this time, enough that she caught a glimpse inside. Copeland’s back was to her, mostly obscuring the rest of the room. But she could see bars to either side. And just before the wiry guard shut the door, Neva heard a creak of wood and saw Mr. DeBell’s face appear below Copeland’s elbow, as if her father—yes, her father—had slumped in his seat.

“I told you,” his voice drifted out to her, “I don’t remember.”

The thud of the door closing muffled Copeland’s reply. But when Neva pressed against the door (facing out, to maintain appearances), she found she could hear most of what was said.

“No,” Mr. DeBell replied to what must have been a question from Copeland. “I don’t recall anything about a ‘little man’ in the Levee.”

“But you remember a girl there? A Kesiah Nelkin?”

“Just glimmers. Not her name, but her face ... Yes, that’s her.”

“Was her. She’s dead now, Edward. You killed her.”

Silence for a moment. Then, “I suppose I did.”

“You suppose?”

“I told you, I don’t remember.”

“Not all of it, but some of it, you said.”

Another pause. “Bits and pieces. Enough.”

“Take me through it one more time. From the last thing you recollect clearly until now. You were arguing with your—what did you call him?”

The longest pause yet. “My son. Please leave him out of this.”

“I believe you called him your bastard.”

Neva went even stiller.

“Augustine was my son,” Mr. DeBell said at last. “Negro or not, he was my son.”

“And you were quarreling about his parentage?”

A lengthy sigh. “He’d found a letter. From James Bailey to Sol Bloom. James had written Sol to ask about Augie’s performance at the Fair and made some throwaway comment about how ‘the boy’s father’ would be interested to know; James is usually more circumspect. But Augie found the letter on Sol’s desk, made the connection, and confronted me with it.”

“You confessed.”

“It was past time. But he didn’t take it well.”

Neva nearly sighed herself—so that was why Bat Wiggins had seen Augie and Mr. DeBell arguing at the Stockyards. Yet Augie had never said anything to her, never acted the slightest bit out of sorts. Surely he’d meant to tell her. Had he just been waiting for the right time? She hoped Copeland would pursue this line of inquiry.

He had other ends in mind, though. “What then?” he prompted.

“I went home, drafted a letter to my son Derek—”

“Your acknowledged bastard.”

“Yes ... It was time he knew the truth as well.”

And what about me? thought Neva.

“But you weren’t willing to tell him directly?” asked Copeland.

Mr. DeBell laughed bitterly. “How is this relevant? As I said, I found I wasn’t strong enough. Not even close. So I sent the letter—”

“Back at the Yards?”

“Yes.”

“Why go back to work to send it? There must be a collection box closer to home.”

“Of course. But I prefer the Yards stationery for anything official.”

“And this was official?”

“I wanted it to be.”

“I see.” Copeland sounded like he didn’t, but he moved on anyway. “So after you recopied your confession on the fanciest of stationeries, you went to the Levee too ...”

“Shelter from the coming storm, I imagine.”

“To take solace in a bit of debauchery, you mean.”

“... If we’re being frank.”

“Oh, I always aim to be. How did you come across the girl in the drawing?”

“She was leaning out a window, arguing with another girl—who had red hair; I remember that. And then ... darkness.”

“And blood. You said you remember ‘buckets of blood.’”

A deep, shuddering breath. “Yes.”

“Along with ‘glimmers’ of the other victims?”

“Glimmers of most of them. But as I said, no recollection of the man you mistook for me—”

“The man who somehow died in your clothes.”

“—or the little fellow in the Levee.”

Neva willed Copeland to ask Mr. DeBell if he’d been bitten by a swarm of insects, maddened to murderous amnesia by their venom. It would explain everything.

But the Pinkerton continued to have his own agenda. “The young woman, the one we’re currently dredging the Lagoon for—you remember her clearly?”

There was a rasping noise now: a dry sob? “Plain as day. My memories have been my own again since yesterday.”

“When you woke—how did you put it—‘naked and disoriented’ outside the Fair?”

“Yes.”

“With no idea how you’d come to lose your clothing or your faculties?”

“None at all.”

“Yet in short order