There were some quiet expressions of sadness in the room (though none of surprise), along with the scratching sound of Lucius taking notes. Then the Doctor asked, “Was the little girl shot in the head?”
Mr. Picton looked very happy with the question. “No, Doctor, she was not. The bullet entered the upper chest and traveled at an upward angle, passing out through the neck.”
“But-that doesn’t make sense,” Lucius said softly.
“Nor do a great many other things, Detective,” Mr. Picton answered. “Our next chapter”-he handed the Doctor another file-“is Dr. Lawrence’s report. By the time he arrived, Mrs. Hatch and her housekeeper had moved the children inside. Mrs. Hatch was in a state of hysterical distraction, alternately trying to revive the boys and racing through the house-through every room in the house, including her dead husband’s-screaming incoherently. Lawrence quickly determined that Thomas and Matthew were dead and that Clara was in a desperate state. He informed Mrs. Hatch of all this, sending her off into an even greater fit. She told Dr. Lawrence-and I’d like the detectives to note this, particularly-that her husband had kept a revolver under his pillow all his life, and that she had never removed it after his death. But now, she said, she was afraid that she might seize the gun and do herself harm, so great was her grief and guilt at allowing her children to be attacked. Lawrence immediately administered laudanum to get the woman under some kind of control, and told the housekeeper-Mrs. Louisa Wright, a widow woman who’d taken on the housekeeping chores after Libby and Daniel Hatch were married-to retrieve the gun from Mr. Hatch’s room and dispose of it. He then did what he could for Clara and sent to Saratoga for a surgical specialist.”
“And did he make a report on the particulars of the wounds themselves?” Lucius asked, still scribbling away.
“He did,” Mr. Picton answered, handing over another file. “Each child had been shot in the chest. The boys’ bullets had struck their hearts, while Clara’s, again, had passed at an angle through the upper chest and neck, grazing the spine as it exited.”
“And the range,” Marcus said. “Did he hazard a guess at that?”
“Yes,” Mr. Picton answered, again pleased that the right questions were being asked. “Point-blank. There were powder burns on both the clothing and the skin.”
“And where exactly were the children when the attack occurred?” Miss Howard said.
“That, Lawrence did not bother to ask,” Mr. Picton replied, picking up another file. “Nor did Sheriff Jones. They were, you see, accepting the story completely at face value. But Jones had telephoned me at home, and asked me to come out-thoroughly expecting that I, too, would buy into Mrs. Hatch’s tale.”
“And you did not?” the Doctor asked.
“No, no,” Mr. Picton said. “You see, I had-encountered Libby Hatch several times since my return to Ballston Spa. That’s the Presbyterian Church you can see across Bath Street, there”-he pointed to his window, and we all looked out to get a glimpse of a fair-sized, steepled structure, older and less luxurious than the other churches along High Street-“where she and Hatch were married and attended services. I would sometimes go walking on Sunday morning when church let out, and eventually we were introduced by mutual acquaintances.” Mr. Picton paused, looking to the men in the room. “I don’t have to tell you what meeting Libby is like.”
“No, you do not,” Mr. Moore answered, a shiver running through his body. “But what could she have wanted from you, Rupert?”
“I shall ignore the insult implied in that question, John,” Mr. Picton answered, “and say only that I was baffled by her flirtatious, seductive manner myself. But looking back, I realize that she was hoping to buy herself some safety when the inevitable crisis came.”
“Crisis?” Marcus asked.
“Hatch’s death. She was planning, I think, even then to kill him, and she was covering her bets-trying to cultivate a friendly ear in the district attorney’s office, aware that we would have to at least look into the death, when it happened. And her method was, I’m bound to say, well conceived-at least objectively. She divided her conversation with me between inquiries about affairs in the district attorney’s office and those coy, seductive remarks with which she attempted to charm you gentlemen.” Mr. Picton paused, staring out his window and down at the church. “But she’d miscalculated, in my case…”
“Had she?” the Doctor asked, sensing that he was about to get a useful little nugget of information concerning Mr. Picton. “And why is that?”
“Well, Doctor,” Mr. Picton said, turning back to us, “I’m quite beyond such things, you see. Quite beyond them.” For just an instant, his attention seemed to wander. “Seen a lot of such behavior…” He shook himself hard. “As has anyone who’s ever worked in the New York City office. Yes, I’m afraid that I was in a position to detect Libby Hatch’s true nature from the beginning!”
I could see that the Doctor believed this last statement, but I could also see that he wasn’t buying that it was a complete explanation of Mr. Picton’s suspicions. But Mr. Picton didn’t know the Doctor well enough yet to recognize such things himself, so he just went on with his story.
“I’d had my doubts about Daniel Hatch’s death, when it finally had occurred, but there really hadn’t been any way to pursue them. Dr. Lawrence had cited some sort of unexplained heart disease as the cause, despite the old man’s lack of any history of such a disorder. And that, so far as the district attorney was concerned, was that. But when the children were attacked-well. I wanted to be particularly careful that we got all the facts. So I went out to the Hatch place myself, to make inquiries. It was an ugly scene, I can tell you-blood everywhere, and poor little Clara-but Libby’d been calmed by the laudanum, so I decided to get a few details. According to her, the children had been riding in the bed of the wagon with the gardening supplies. Their backs had been to the driver’s seat and front wall of the bed, and Clara’d been holding little Thomas. Libby claimed that she’d told them to stay where they were when the attacker appeared, and that they’d obeyed.”
“Which means,” Marcus announced, “that the ‘attacker’ had to’ve had some mighty long arms.”
“Yes,” Mr. Picton agreed. “Either she was mistaken, or she was lying. No one could reach all the way around from the driver’s seat of such a wagon and fire point-blank into the chests of three children who were below him in the bed and whose bodies were facing in the opposite direction. And even if he had managed the angle, surely one of the other children would have moved after the first shot, preventing point-blank execution of all three. Then there was the question of why the man hadn’t shot Libby, too-she was, after all, the one who’d seen his face clearly. Her explanation was that he must’ve been crazy, and that there’s no accounting for what crazy people do-not the kind of reply that inspires a great deal of confidence. Most disturbing of all, though, was her attitude toward Clara. She seemed to have no trouble mourning over the bodies of the boys, embracing them, kissing them-but she could barely approach her daughter, and her constant questions to Dr. Lawrence about whether or not the girl would regain consciousness seemed to stem out of a variety of emotions. Grief wasn’t necessarily the strongest of them, to my way of thinking. Guilt was very evident, too, though that could perhaps be laid to her failure to protect her children. But there was fear, it seemed to me, as well.”
“Did the sheriff organize a search?” Mr. Moore asked.
“Immediately. Volunteers were easy to raise, and the area was combed with dogs throughout the night and the following days. Inquiries were made in all the surrounding towns, and men who knew the hills well-men who ordinarily would’ve been reluctant to get involved in such matters-were persuaded to check any and all hiding places in the high ground. The case aroused that much emotion. But no trace of the man, as I’ve told you, was ever found.”