Mose says, “Steady there, Virgil,” and claps him on the back.
“Not sure why you thought this would help,” Holt tells him dryly.
“Take your mind off your troubles.”
“Kind of you to try.”
“If magic won’t distract you, I know what will,” Mose says and leads him down the street to a tavern, half-empty, friendly, dark.
They drink and talk of innocuous things: whether the lack of rain is stunting this year’s corn, how little Janesville has changed in twenty years, how the taste of lousy gin seems to get better the more of it you drink. They don’t talk about Mose’s promotion, or their rivalry, or Iris, or Holt’s bad news. Holt asks politely about Prudie and the baby but is relieved when Mose only says that they’re well. Talking about their wives could open doors Holt doesn’t want opened tonight.
They are still there three hours later when the door of the tavern bangs open and someone calls, “Sheriff Huber!” While Mose leaps up to answer, Holt remains on his stool. He sits by himself and drinks yet more gin he should leave alone. Unlikely he’ll ever be sheriff. His hand creeps toward the small of his back from habit. He forces it back down.
When Mose calls to him, it takes a few long moments for him to hear and stir himself from his reverie.
“Holt! Up and out,” says Mose.
“What?”
“It’s a police matter.” He points at Holt. “And you’re police.”
“Twenty miles down the road. Not here.”
“Doesn’t matter. You won’t be there in an official capacity. But you’re going to want to see this.”
Holt rises as best he can and follows.
***
A few hours’ time has transformed the theater and not for the better. The house lights have been turned all the way up, making visible the wear on the empty seat cushions, the stained and faded carpet. The voices of a small crowd near the stage carry all the way back as the two of them head up the center aisle.
Holt catches the metallic tang of blood on the air right away. The bile rises in his throat again, and he fights to keep it down. Pouring cheap gin on top of today’s news and tonight’s gore has hollowed him out like a rotten stump.
He keeps moving, forcing himself forward, even when he hears Mose frame the question, “All right, who found the body?”
“Stagehand,” says one of the men in uniform. There are several, standing in a tight circle in front of the stage, heads down, staring through an open trap door. Holt joins the circle and follows their gazes down. Underneath the stage, there are another half dozen officers, clustered around the remains of the Halved Man trick. Where there are more officers, there are more lamps, and the space under the stage is almost as bright as day. He can see clearly despite the distance and the drink.
The long, coffin-like box is split in half, nearly pulped in the center by the magician’s ax. The stains near the center are cherry-red, clearly fake stage blood, but the spreading pool of liquid around the base of the box is a darker red, somewhere between wine and rust. One half of the box is empty. A man’s dead body has been jammed into the other half. As he watches, two of the officers free the body from the box. When he sees what sorry shape the dead man is in, he stops watching.
Mose calls gruffly to one of the officers onstage. “And they’re sure who it is?”
“Confirmation from these two,” says the officer, indicating a pair of trembling girls off to the side. They clutch each other’s sleeves and wipe their eyes over and over again. “Tell them what you told me.” But the girls are unable to string a sentence together, and at last the officer says, “It’s her husband.”
“Whose husband?” asks Holt, thinking he means one of the girls.
“The magician’s.”
Mose says, “So where’s the magician?”
“Nobody knows.”
“Obviously, we’d like to talk to her.”
“Obviously.”
Her trick, her husband, almost certainly her doing. Of course she’s wanted for questioning. Holt pictures that ax falling again, the matter-of-fact way she brought it down, without hesitation. The image is so clear in his head that he thinks he feels the blade.
He should go home. He didn’t sleep last night, just lay in his bed in a panic, and it’s starting to catch up with him.
He taps his friend on the shoulder and says, “Listen, I’m going to get on the road.”
“Just let me—”
“No, you need to stay. Good luck, Sheriff Huber. I think you may need it.”
“Why don’t you stay the night?” Mose asks. “We’ve plenty of room.”
“No, thank you. Really need to get home. Iris’ll worry,” he says, all of which is true.