“Is Harold here?” he asked.

She seemed surprised. “I thought you were here for Gilbert. What do you want with Harold?”

“I want to ask him some questions,” Frank replied.

Her anger evaporated into fear. “About what?”

“That’s something I’ll discuss with Harold. Now is he here or not?”

“I don’t think-” she began, but her son cut her off.

“Who was it, Mother?” he called from the back of the house.

Now she looked frantic. “He’s just a boy!” she cried.

Unmoved, Frank headed for the back of the house.

“Wait, I’ll get him!” she tried, hurrying after him, but Frank didn’t want to take a chance that she’d send him out the back door.

He found Harold seated at the kitchen table, eating his supper. He half rose from his chair at the sight of Frank, but Frank pushed him back down again, none too gently.

The boy’s eyes filled with fear, too, and he looked to his mother for an explanation.

“Please,” was all she said, and she said it to Frank.

“I hate interrupting your supper,” Frank said sarcastically, “but there’s a few questions I need to ask you, Harold.”

“Is it about my father?” he asked, glancing at his mother again.

“No, it’s about you.”

“Me?” What color was left in his young face drained away. “What do you need to know about me?”

“I need to know why you went to see Anna Blake the night she died,” Frank said, pulling out another of the kitchen chairs and seating himself.

“He was here that night, with me,” his mother said quickly. “I already told you that!”

Frank turned to her with mild interest. “With you and your husband?” he asked.

“Yes, yes, we were all here,” she insisted. “Just like I said!”

“Except I found out your husband was in jail that night,” he said. “So if you were trying to give him an alibi, you were wasting your time. He’s already got a good one.” Frank turned back to the boy. “Don’t you bother lying. You were there at Anna Blake’s house. The other women saw you, and they can identify you. Now tell me why you went there and what happened.”

Harold looked at his mother again, but not for help. This time his expression betrayed guilt. “I wanted to… I thought if I talked to her, told her what we were going through…” His gaze kept straying toward his mother. He didn’t want her to hear this.

“What?” Frank prodded sharply, drawing his attention back.

The boy swallowed. “I thought I could get her to give the money back,” he said. His mother made a strangled sound in her throat, and Harold winced. “I know now that was stupid, but…”

“What did she say?” Frank asked.

Humiliation mottled the boy’s face. “She laughed at me. She said she’d earned that money, and she was going to keep it. She said”-another glance at his mother-“she said some ugly things about my father. That’s when I got mad.”

“Did you hit her?” Frank asked.

“Harold!” his mother cried in anguish.

But the boy half rose from his chair again, outraged. “I didn’t lay a hand on that little tart!”

“But you did threaten to kill her if she didn’t give the money back,” Frank said mildly.

“No!” Mrs. Giddings screamed.

At the same moment, Harold shouted, “No, I didn’t! I never!” He was completely out of his chair now, on his feet and ready to fight.

“Then what did you say?” Frank asked softly, not rising to the bait.

He drew a calming breath and forced himself to sit down again. “I said…” He took a moment to remember, his young face screwing up with the effort. “I think I said something like, she’d be sorry if she didn’t.”

“What did you mean that she’d be sorry? That you’d kill her?” Frank prodded.

“No!” He was horrified. “I mean… I don’t know what I meant. I couldn’t make her give the money back, could I? And she was laughing at me. I wanted to scare her, that’s all. I wanted her to be afraid of me so she’d give back the money.”

“And was she afraid of you when you met her later at the Square?” Frank asked.

Harold’s eyes grew wide. “I didn’t meet her at the Square. I never saw her again. I swear it!”

“She left the house right after you did,” Frank said. “And you were still outside, trying to decide what to do next. You followed her, didn’t you? You wanted to scare her, so you threatened her with a knife, and when she wasn’t afraid, you got mad and you-”

“No!” Both mother and son cried out together.

Mrs. Giddings rushed at Frank, nearly hysterical in her need to protect her child. She raised her fists as if to strike him, but he grabbed them and easily wrestled her down onto a chair. He held her there until her resistance collapsed, and she covered her face with both hands and began to sob.

Harold rushed to her, overturning his own chair in his haste. “Mother, please, don’t cry. It’s all right. I didn’t do anything to that woman. Don’t cry, please don’t!”

Mrs. Giddings’s sobs were raw, as if they’d been torn from her soul. She wasn’t a woman who cried easily, but she’d reached the end of her strength. She’d been holding herself together for the boy’s sake for a long time, but seeing him threatened had pushed her too far. She had no reserves left.

The boy was crying, too, tears streaming unheeded down his face as he helplessly tried to comfort her. He also kept swearing to her that he’d never touched Anna Blake, so she had nothing to fear. Frank had questioned enough people in his long career that he knew innocence when it was right in front of him.

He’d misjudged. He’d been so sure the boy had done it in an insane effort to avenge his family’s honor or some other misplaced loyalty. Harold had certainly had a good reason to want Anna Blake dead, and he’d been nearby when she’d been killed. He was also young and foolish enough to have done something incredibly stupid like accidentally stabbing a woman to death when he’d only meant to frighten her. But he hadn’t. Frank would have bet a year’s pay on the boy’s innocence.

“Hush, now,” Mrs. Giddings said brokenly after a few minutes. She swiped at her ravaged face with the hem of her apron and patted Harold’s arm reassuringly. “I’m all right. Don’t make such a fuss.” Then she lifted her gaze to Frank. Her eyes were red and filled with pain. “He didn’t kill that woman,” she said. “I did.”

14

“MOTHER!” THE BOY CRIED IN HORROR.

If Frank had entertained any lingering doubts about the boy’s innocence, they died in that moment. Obviously, Harold would have done anything to protect his mother from more unpleasantness. In a while, he’d probably realize he could confess to the crime to save her, and then he might even try it, but his first instinct had been to believe her. This meant he had no reason to doubt her word.

“Harold,” Frank said kindly, “Leave me alone with your mother.”

“No!” the boy said, putting his arm around her defiantly. “I won’t let you bully her!”

“I don’t need to bully her,” he pointed out. “She’s already confessed. I just need to ask her a few more questions, and I don’t think she wants you to hear the answers.”

“It’s all right, Harold,” his mother said softly, stroking his cheek. “I’m not afraid.”

Harold was, though. Frank could see it in his eyes. She was all he had left in the world, and Frank was going to take her away from him. He took her hand in both of his, his grip desperate. “Don’t tell him anything!” he urged her. “Don’t say another word!”

“I can’t live with this any longer,” she said, speaking gently to him, as if he were a small child. “I have to clear my conscience. Please, Harold, leave us alone. He’s right, I don’t want you to hear what I did.”

The boy’s face crumpled in despair. “Mother, how could you?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” she told him.

Instantly, his despair twisted into anger. “You did it for him, didn’t you? Because you wanted him to come back to us!”