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

More rasping. “Please. You must believe me: I don’t know where these impulses come from. I fought them off last night in the Stock Exhibit, after ...”

After you realized it was me, Neva finished silently. I forgive you; I know what it is to suffer the insect’s venom. Even now, I feel its heat.

“After what?” pressed Copeland.

“After I comprehended what I was about to do. Except I couldn’t bring myself to leave the Fair. And this morning the compulsion was so strong. I tried, but ...”

“But now we’re dredging the Lagoon.”

“This isn’t me! Lord knows I haven’t cherished my wife as I should. But not this. Not ... Not butchery and cannibalism, for God’s sake!”

It was Copeland’s turn to pause; a shuffle of papers suggested he was looking over his notes. “Just a few more questions. Are you Jack the Ripper?”

This provoked another dark laugh. “No ... At least, not that I remember.”

“How are you controlling the insects?”

“What insects?”

“The pests you’ve incited to mark your targets. Is it a pheromone? We consulted a naturalist who suggested you might have applied it to your victims in advance.”

“I’m sorry. I would tell you if I knew what you were talking about, but I truly don’t.”

Neva chewed her lip. Why wouldn’t Mr. DeBell admit he’d been bitten? Did he think no one would believe him?

“I see,” Copeland said again, with the same skepticism. “Perhaps we’ll revisit that another time. Are you working alone?”

“God, I hope so.”

“The White Chapel Club isn’t involved?”

“What? No. I haven’t seen those fools in a year, and that was just the once.”

“What about the porter?”

“What porter?”

“The porter on the Pier. The one who incited a panic by dismembering a crippled Civil War veteran—the sixth victim—before dying rather spectacularly in the Cold Storage fire. You said you remember the veteran; ‘old fellow,’ you termed him. ‘Lamed.’ But you didn’t kill him. The porter did. There are scores of witnesses. How do you explain that?”

“I ... I remember him, I think. I must have seen him somewhere—maybe on the Pier with the veteran? But he wasn’t a ... partner. I don’t remember that.”

“You don’t seem to remember much.”

“What else could you need?”

Another shuffling of papers. “Last question: where are your sons now?”

Nothing.

“And by sons, I mean your bastards. Where are your bastards?”

Mr. DeBell continued to stall, for which Neva was glad. The more he said about Augie, the more likely it was Copeland would trace him back to the Algerian and Tunisian Village and make the connection to her (if the Pinkerton hadn’t done so already). It shouldn’t matter ... Unless Copeland could place her at Gaffney’s Saloon, brawling with that little man who’d died soon after. Failing that, the Pinkerton would probably bring her in for another round of questioning. It would be uncomfortable but not unmanageable. As long as Mr. DeBell didn’t—

Whistle.

Oh God, how could she have forgotten the whistling? It had been Mr. DeBell last night, and he’d been whistling. Had he always been able to do it? Was that why he was such a good salesman? Had he used it to convince Lucretia to take in his bastard children? Or had the ability been brought forth by the insects’ bites, their venom acting as a murderous muse?

Regardless, she was once more helpless against his somber tune.

She wasn’t the only one this time—she nearly fell inward as the door opened behind her. But the wiry guard steadied her, pushed her forward, and stepped out. Copeland followed a second later, a jumble of papers in his hands and a bemused look on his face.

“Leave my family alone,” Mr. DeBell somehow said through his whistling, the words as haunting as they were windy. “Do your justice to me but leave my family alone.”

Neva tried to cry out that his family stood before him if he’d only look. But she couldn’t do anything other than what his melody bade her. She took four steps forward, swiveled, and took four steps back—the door was still open. Mr. DeBell’s song ordered her to close it.

Her hand complied by gripping the knob, but her eyes rebelled by seeking his. They held no recognition, only misery. Misery, and self-hate, and bewilderment.

Neva empathized with it all. She ached to go to him, to unbend her disguise and tell him she understood. But all she could do was slam the door.

Chapter Twenty-Three

FEW PEOPLE WERE IN the Court of Honor to witness Neva, the Pinkerton, and the wiry guard march out of the Administration Building. Which was just as well because their movements were sharp and stiff, their feet finding no rhythm in the strange music that compelled them to spasm off in different directions like a disbanded trio of marionettes.

Mercifully, the whistling faltered once Neva goosestepped within arm’s length of the Terminal Station. As the tune waned in her blood, she sagged against an empty ticketing counter, forcing herself to breathe slowly until she’d calmed enough to consider what had just happened.

Mr. DeBell was so convinced of his guilt that he’d turned himself in and resisted the temptation to whistle his way free ... If he could even control the whistling. So what were the chances he’d let her rescue him? Poor, most likely. Exceedingly poor. He’d always been hard to sway once set on a course of action. But if she went to him as herself, without the guise of Arthur Johnson—could she convince him? What if she brought Derek? Was there was even time for that?

Someone called her name. Neva looked in the voice’s direction and saw a Columbian Guard coming toward her, his face partially shadowed—most of the Fair’s electric lights had been shut off for the night. For a moment, she thought it was the wiry guard. But then she realized he didn’t know her true identity, and that she’d unbent her disguise somewhere between the drunk tank and the Terminal Station; her bone structure was her own again.

“Neva!” the