“I know he is dead.”
“Your daughters don’t know. The Army doesn’t know. How do you know?”
“I found his body.”
The tall detective, who was leaning close to interrogate the handcuffed criminal, rocked back on his heels. He stared, eyes cold, mind racing. He paced a tight circle, cast an eye on the still-unconscious Rivers, gazed across the pond, and down at Matters. The man was as skilled a liar as Bell had ever encountered. And yet . . .
“If Billy was dead, why would Edna and Nellie tell me that he ran away from home and joined the Army?”
“That was my story. I told them that. It was better to let the girls think he died a soldier.”
“How did he die?”
“He drowned in that pond.”
“Here? In your backyard? But you never reported his death.”
“I buried him myself.”
“Why?”
“To protect the girls.”
“From what?”
“He committed suicide. The poor kid tied a rope around his neck. He tied the other end to a concrete block. Then he picked up the block and waded into the pond until the mud got him and the block dragged his head under. I saw his foot. His trouser leg had trapped air and it floated. Don’t you understand, Bell? The girls loved him. The idea that he was so unhappy that he would commit suicide would destroy them. I know, because I still ask myself every day what did I do wrong? What could I have done better?”
“Spike said you were never the same after that.”
“Spike was right.”
“Why did you have Spike shot?”
“Spike wasn’t as dumb as I thought. Or as ‘honorable.’ He figured out what I was up to, and when the Standard started breathing down his neck in Kansas, he threatened to tell Rockefeller that I was out to destroy him. He thought I could help him, that I could stop the Standard from busting up his business . . . Before you start blaming some other innocent, I repeat, I didn’t ‘have Spike shot.’ I shot him myself.”
“No you didn’t,” said Bell. “You were a thousand miles away at Constable Hook at your regularly scheduled meeting with Averell Comstock.”
“I was not at Constable Hook. I was in Kansas.”
“Van Dorn detectives read it in Comstock’s diary,” said Bell. “You were not in Kansas the day Spike was shot. And before you cook up a new lie, Comstock’s secretary confirmed that indeed you did show up for that meeting, on time, as always . . .”
Matters tugged at the handcuffs. In a bitter voice he asked, “When did you start checking up on me?”
“We checked up on all the new men who were in a position to attack Standard Oil from within the company. After you tried to kill Mr. Rockefeller, we naturally focused full attention on you. Where did you bury Billy?”
“Right here.” Matters pointed at the headstone. “Shakespeare’s grave.”
Bell peered at the stone, imagining the sequence of events. The boy was dead. The headstone was already there. Matters dug a hole. The stone marked an unmarked grave.
Matters said, “Funny thing is, he never wanted to come to the theater. Hated it. Poor kid never could fit in. Fidgeted the whole play.”
“You buried him right here when he drowned himself?”
“Like I just told you. You can dig up the poor kid’s bones if you don’t believe me.”
“I believe that you buried him. But I don’t believe that he drowned himself.”
“He drowned,” Matters repeated doggedly.
“Drowning was the least likely method Billy would have chosen to kill himself. If he drowned, he was not a suicide.”
“He drowned.”
“Then someone murdered him.”
“I would never hurt him.”
“I believe you. But you found his body.”
“I told you.”
“Did the girls mention that I knew Billy slightly at college?”
“They told me you stood up for him.”
“As bullies will, they found his worst fear and used it against him. Do you remember what that was?”
“What do you mean?” Matters asked warily.
“The crew boys were throwing him in the river. Billy was rigid with fear. Absolutely petrified—he looked like his skull was popping through his skin—screaming he couldn’t swim. They’d have pulled him out in a second, but he was so terrified of water, he couldn’t see it was just college hijinks. There is no way on God’s earth that boy would have killed himself by drowning . . .”
But even as he spoke, Bell remembered Billy’s courageous attempt to conquer his fear by asking the crew to let him train to be coxswain. Could he have tried again and triumphed in a final deranged act?
Isaac Bell found himself staring intently at the Shakespeare gravestone.
“Did you say that Billy didn’t like the theater?”
“Hated it.”
—
Bell could hear old Brigadier Mills thundering in his mind. Ticket stubs from an opera house . . . Shakespeare shows . . . We traced them to Oil City, Pennsylvania. The thunder shaped a bolt of lightning. Why would the boy keep ticket stubs to plays he hated?
“I asked why you didn’t report Billy’s death.”
“I told you. To protect the girls.”
“Which one?”
Which one?” Bill Matters echoed Isaac Bell.
“You’re protecting one of your daughters. Which one?”
“What do you mean, which one?”
“Edna? Or Nellie? The one who killed Billy.”
“Killed him? You’re insane.”
Not insane, thought Bell. Not even surprised, looking back. He himself had remarked on the New York Limited, Strange how the three of us keep turning up together where crimes have occurred. And when he engineered Edna’s job covering Baku for the Evening Sun and the editor asked Mind me asking which sister you’re sweet on? some sixth or seventh sense had already made him a sharper detective than he knew: Let’s just say that with this arrangement, I can keep my eye on both of them.
Not insane. Not surprised. Only sad. Deeply, deeply sad.
Bill Matters was shouting, “They loved him. Why would one of them kill Billy?”
“Because she’s a ‘natural,’ to use your word.”
“Natural what?”
“Assassin.”
—
“She snapped,” Matters said quietly. “That was the first thought in my mind when I saw them. She snapped.”
“Who?” Isaac Bell asked. “Was it Nellie? Or Edna?”
Matters shifted his eyes from Bell’s burning gaze and stared at the pond.
“Who?” Bell asked, again. “Nellie? Or Edna?”
Matters shook his head.
“Who did you see?”
“She was out there. In the water. I thought she was floating on a log. ’Til I saw his leg. I leaped in, grabbed her, tore her off him. Pulled him out, dragged him onto the grass. He was incredibly heavy. Such a little guy. Deadweight.”
“Dead?”
“I held him in my arms. She climbed out and stood behind me. I kept asking her why. Why did you do it? She didn’t deny it.”
“She admitted that she drowned him?”
“She said it was Billy’s fault. He was a coward. Wasted his opportunity.”
“What opportunity?”
“Of being a man. Men are allowed to do anything.”
Bell realized he did not fully believe Matters. Or didn’t want to. “No one saw? No one in those houses?”
“Night.”
“You saw them.”
“Full moon. Lunatic moon.”
“Who? Was it Nellie? Or Edna?”
Matters shook his head.
“Which of your girls is innocent?” Isaac Bell demanded.
“Both,” Matters said sullenly.