Chapter Three
Janesville, 1905
Midnight
“What kind of fool do you take me for?” asks Officer Holt.
“I beg your pardon?”
“No, you don’t. I suspect you don’t beg anything.”
She looks up at him, all wounded and meek. That face of hers, it’s too nimble. He reminds himself what she does for a living. Day in, day out, she fools people. He can’t let her do it to him.
He says, “This story of yours. It isn’t real. It isn’t true.”
“It is.”
“Jeansville? You expect me to believe that?”
She stammers, “Officer, sir, truly, I don’t understand what you mean.”
“What’s the name of the town we’re in now, ma’am?”
She looks down at her lap. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember. The last few weeks have been…trying. So I’m not entirely clear in my mind.”
Of course she understands. She’s just pretending not to. It infuriates him. “I’ll help you. It’s Janesville.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Janesville,” he says, “and you expect me to believe you were raised in a town called Jeansville, that the two just happen to have similar names, and that you didn’t just make up the name of a town like you’re making up this story?”
“Believe it or don’t,” she says with a little fire. “It’s the truth.”
“I don’t want to hear this anyway. I want to hear about the murder. Tell me that part.”
“I will. When I get there.”
“Talk about the murder or don’t talk at all,” he says, disgusted. He wanted to hear her out, to let her explain her innocence, but he thought it would be the matter of a few minutes. That doesn’t seem to be what she has in mind. He needs to rethink everything.
He eyes her ankles, still free. Maybe he should cuff them too. They look small enough. Onstage, her dress was long enough to reach the floor. Now that she’s sitting down, he can see everything below the knees. Her fancy little silk boots are smudged and caked with dirt. Those boots probably cost more than he earns in half a year, but that’s not why he’s staring. He’s trying to see if any of the smudges are dark enough to be blood.
He turns up the lamp, but the circle of light doesn’t reach far. As small as the room is, more than half remains in shadow.
“Officer!”
He looks her in the face. “Didn’t I tell you to be quiet?”
“As I live and breathe,” she says, gazing up at him, examining. “You really are rather handsome. Wasted on a town like this, I suspect. Are you married, officer?”
She keeps looking up at him as if she genuinely expects an answer. He should blindfold her. He shouldn’t look her in the face. Heaven only knows what powers that eye has. If she bewitches him, all those handcuffs might as well be hair ribbons.
He crosses the room in four long strides and grabs for the telephone.
“Wait,” she says. “What are you doing?”
“Calling the sheriff in Waterloo. Turning you in.”
She bucks against her restraints, eyes wild. “No!”
He lifts the receiver and places his finger on the lower grip slowly and deliberately, making a show of it, making sure she sees. Ready to signal for the operator. Ready to change the game.
“I lift my finger, and she’ll come on the line. All I have to say is your name. It’ll be too late to turn back then. Now are you going to tell me about the murder, or…”
“Please don’t,” she says. Fear is written on her face, in great large letters. “I’ll tell you everything. I will. I promise.”
Satisfied, he hangs the receiver on the hook switch and sets the telephone back on the desk. Relief floods him at the successful bluff. He’ll be damned if he hands her over to Mose without knowing what she’s done. The glory should be his. Everything depends on it.
“So tell me,” he says, folding his arms. “Why did you kill him? Your own husband?”
“I swear, I didn’t know there was a murder until you told me I was arrested for it. Honestly.”
“Honestly?” he scoffs.
“Yes. I still don’t even know…” She trails off.
“Know what?”
“Anything! Where was he found? Who found him? What happened?”
Her desperation—wide eyes, rapid breath—seems genuine. How is he supposed to tell the fake from the real with her?
He wants to let her stew, so he opens the top drawer of the desk and rummages around, extending the silence. The only thing in the drawer is an apple. The acid in his stomach rises in anticipation, but he doesn’t let himself eat it. He has a better idea. If there’s an advantage to be gained from feeding her, he’ll gladly stay hungry.
He stands up, polishing the apple on his sleeve, his mind zooming forward, figuring out a plan. “You’re hungry, aren’t you?”
“Yes, very.”
He holds the apple toward her, from a distance. “Would you like this?”
“Of course,” she says, with an edge of anger. He needs to tread carefully.
“If you’ll answer my questions, it’s yours,” he says.
Gently he brings the apple close to her mouth, and she leans as far forward as the cuffs will allow. She takes a great large bite, and he feels the sensation travel all the way up his arm, an invisible vibration.
“You’re toying with me,” he says in a neutral voice.
She chews and swallows. He can see the knot of it in her pale throat.
He offers her another bite, and she takes it, sinking her teeth in, tearing off a sizable chunk.
“You can take smaller bites,” he says. “I’m going to let you eat the whole thing.”
She makes a noncommittal grunt and keeps chewing with gusto.
Holt brings the chair from the desk and turns it to face away from her. He slings his leg over the seat and sits down in it backward, folding one arm across the top, extending the other toward her, with the apple in his hand.
Trying to sound gentle but confident, he says to her, “You’re not telling me what you did.”
She mumbles around a mouthful of fruit. “I’m telling you who I am.”