She wondered why his photograph had been taken so late in the war, when most soldiers had theirs taken upon enlistment. Perhaps, given his humble roots, he hadn’t been willing to pay for it until later. He was likely the type who sent home every dollar he could. She slid the photograph back into the novel and closed the book, setting it aside.
“Tell us about where you grew up,” Sylvie suggested, thinking to move away from the subject of war.
Stuck in Meg’s pose for him, Jasper replied without turning to address her. “It was no place you’ve heard of, I’m sure. It was a hardworking community, though, where neighbors helped in time of need, and family was more important than anything. Kids worked alongside their parents as soon as they were old enough to begin learning.”
“Was your family musical? Did you sing while you worked, or when you went to bed at night?” Sylvie prompted. “What about this one? ‘I’m just a poor wayfaring stranger,’” she sang to the tune he’d sung when he was sick. “‘A traveler through this world of woe—’”
Jasper stood, upsetting his teacup and spilling it all over the floor as he spun to face her. “What are you doing?” His eyes pierced hers. “Why are you singing that song?”
Sylvie’s heart plummeted to her stomach, aware she had done something wrong but not sure what. She reached for Oliver, wedged beside her, and buried her fingers in his fur.
“Tell me,” he demanded.
“It—it’s the song you asked me to sing to you when you were sick,” she told him, refusing to be afraid of his mercurial mood. “You taught it to me, or tried to. The first verse and chorus, I think. I thought you liked it.”
Making no move to clean up the spill, Meg’s gaze swiveled between Sylvie and Jasper.
“When I was sick? With the water illness?” He blinked rapidly. “You were there?”
“Just one night. I’d recovered, and you were so ill. Helene had fallen asleep at Meg’s bedside, and Kirstin was still recovering herself. You needed help, and I gladly gave it.” She was furious at the emotion thickening her voice.
“And I sang that song?”
Sylvie nodded. “Yes.”
“I don’t remember that. I don’t remember you being there at all.”
Disappointment splashed over her. “But you—” She recovered before making an even bigger fool of herself. When he’d kissed her fingertips, he’d thought her someone else. His mother, perhaps. Or a lost love he’d never forgotten. Tears bit the backs of her eyes. “You needed help.”
“What else did I say that night?” He approached her.
Meg hastened to his side, clearly at a loss for what to do or say. “Does it matter, Jasper? We were all so ill.”
“It matters to me. What else?” He knelt before Sylvie.
She could barely think with him so near, staring at her that way. There was no love or compassion in his eyes. Instead she saw fear, hurt, and anger.
“I let you live in my house, Sylvie, for four weeks. The least you can do is answer a question when I ask it.”
“You said you were cold!” she spat. “You said you were cold, and I piled blankets on top of you and stoked the fire through the night to keep you warm.” If he was this agitated already, she knew better than to mention that she’d seen that he was missing toes as well.
“Nothing else?”
“You don’t remember. Why should I? And why are you so angry with me?” Inwardly, she chided herself for sounding so childish.
Jasper bowed his head, and his curls brushed her knee. “I’m sorry. Forgive me, Sylvie. Meg.” He rose. “I think that’s enough for one day. Shall we try again tomorrow?” He stalked out without waiting for an answer.
Meg lowered her voice. “I didn’t know you tended Jasper when I was still sick.”
“It didn’t seem important to tell you.”
“Well. You certainly touched a raw nerve. I’d love to know why and how, but I suppose it’s none of our business.” After a brief squeeze to Sylvie’s shoulder, Meg went to mop up the spilled tea.
Composing herself, Sylvie picked up the china and took it down to the kitchen.
But when they left the house that afternoon, she took the book. And the cat.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1871
“Come on, Gruber. You’re new, but not that new.” Nate handed the wrong file folder back to the police station clerk and asked again for the correct one. The stale-smelling lobby behind him was thick with bodies and complaints, as usual. Nate loosened his tie while he waited.
At last Gruber returned with the police reports Nate was after for his current assignment. He was covering the influx of men from out east, all allegedly looking for construction jobs, and the effect the extra population was having on public safety when the police were already overtaxed. The story was all but finished, but Nate needed to double-check the statistics he’d used from the police reports. One wrong digit would paint a completely different picture.
“Thanks.” Satisfied, Nate slid the folder of reports back across the counter while Gruber brushed a crumb from his chin. He was ready to file the story and move on to something new.
Turning, he threaded between officers and citizens waiting in the lobby until a familiar voice stopped him.
He frowned. “Jasper?” Adjusting his satchel’s strap on his shoulder, Nate approached him.
“Nate!” Jasper paused his conversation with an officer to shake his hand. “What brings you here?”
Nate told him and asked him the same question.
“I came as soon as O’Hara arrived at my house to tell me the good news. They’ve apprehended Otto Schneider. I had to come down and see him for myself before I could believe it.”
Nate’s eyebrows vaulted as he swung his gaze to Officer O’Hara. From what Meg had told him, this was one of the policemen who’d arrested Stephen. “Really? Where did you find him?”
O’Hara rocked back on his heels. “Hiding out in one of the barracks in the North Division. Well, no. At the time of the arrest, he wasn’t hiding. He was drunk and disturbing the peace outside a German beer hall. Gave himself away by causing such a commotion, he did.”
“So he’s in holding now,” Nate prompted. “Here?”
“Not only that,” Jasper answered. “They found the silver candlesticks and my uncle’s gold cuff links under his bunk. He’s given a full confession. At least he had the sense to recognize it was futile to do anything else.” His last words were all but lost to the clamor of a train on the nearby tracks.
Nate leaned in to be heard. “When you say a full confession, are you referring to the break-in of your house and the theft? Or . . .”
Jasper clapped him on the back. “To everything. To murder. He signed a confession saying that he murdered Uncle Hiram after he was released from jail the night of the fire.”
Breath stalled in Nate’s lungs as he took this in. “Which means you can now exonerate Stephen Townsend.” He turned a sharp gaze on O’Hara.
Shrugging, the officer took a sip from a mug, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “The murder charge will be thrown out, sure. But this doesn’t mean he’s exonerated from insanity.”
Running a finger along the inside of his collar, Nate chafed at the implication that mental instability was a crime one could be found guilty of, like any willful wrongdoing. Or perhaps the discomfort came from the truth behind O’Hara’s statement. One didn’t have to be a murderer to be held at the asylum.
Still, congratulations for Jasper were in order.
“I know it doesn’t bring your uncle back, but it must feel good to have some closure on the matter,” Nate told him quietly, now that the train had passed.
“I’ll feel better once Schneider’s in prison and not just in holding, but yes. It’s a major victory.” Jasper glanced at the clock on the wall. “I’d best be off. Meg is coming to the house at two. Glad to see you, Nate. Take care of yourself.” He tipped his hat and left, allowing a cold draft to sweep into the station.
Nate watched his retreating form, wishing he was the one meeting Meg in half an hour. He’d gone back to her shanty house with sandpaper, as he’d said he would, but other than grinding off the splinters and rough edges of the furniture, he hadn’t known how to behave. Had he gone too far when he’d kissed her hands? She’d blushed scarlet to her hairline. Perhaps he’d broken a boundary she’d never meant for him to cross. But the way she looked at him was not like a woman who’d been offended.
“You’re blocking the way. Do you mind?”
Stepping toward the wall, Nate set thoughts of Meg aside to revisit the conversation he’d had with Jasper. Full confession. A full confession. Schneider signed a confession to everything.
That hadn’t taken long.
He looked around. O’Hara had gone while Nate was woolgathering, but another officer stood at the counter, filling out a form. Nate recognized him.
“McNab,” he called. “You done with your paperwork yet?”
It took only a little persuasion on Nate’s part before McNab agreed to his request. It was straightforward, really, and hardly uncommon for a reporter. He simply wanted to talk to Schneider before they moved him anywhere else. He would get a quote from the accused, from the officers in charge, and write a story from there. Medill had told Nate not to spend time investigating a closed case, but now that Schneider had confessed, he might as well be the one to break the news. He was in the right place at the right time, after all.
The holding cell had no bars in this temporary location. It was simply a room on the other side of a locked door. A small window cut out of the door was insufficient for Nate’s purpose. “Let me in,” he told McNab.
The officer frowned. “You sure about that? He’s a confessed murderer.”
“Without a weapon or a reason to kill me. Put me in. I can’t talk to him through a door.”
Uncertainty slanted across the young officer’s features, but he unlocked the door. “Five minutes.”
Nate stepped through. The door clicked back into place behind him, echoing in the bare chamber. He waited until his eyes adjusted to the shadows. The room had but one small window to the outside, and it was streaked with grime.
A cot squeaked as Otto Schneider sat up. Whiskers stubbled his jawline. His thin shoulders failed to fill the breadth of his garment, but his rounded stomach strained the fabric. “Who are you?” His voice sounded garbled.
“Nathaniel Pierce, Chicago Tribune.” Nate plucked the pencil from behind his ear and pulled a pad of foolscap from his satchel. “I’m here to ask you a few questions.”
Schneider made no response. A bruise purpled one eye, but his gaze was dull, not defiant. It was the look of a broken man, one who had nothing left to lose.
Spying a three-legged stool in the corner, Nate pulled it closer to the cot and sat. The bedding—or the man upon it—smelled stale and unwashed. “I hear you signed a confession. Care to tell me what was in it?”
“Can’t you read it?” Schneider stared at the broken seam around his shoe where the leather peeled away from the sole.
“I’d much rather hear what happened from your own lips. Your own voice.”
A throaty chuckle gurgled within Schneider. “You think I have a voice? Not a chance.”
Nate’s pencil hovered over the pad. “You mean you haven’t seen a lawyer yet? You have a right to one. He’ll be your voice, if that’s what you mean.”
The slight curl of Schneider’s lips suggested it wasn’t. “Sure, that’s what I mean. You want to hear me talk? All right. I did it all. I killed the old man. I hid and waited for the house to not be guarded, then I broke into it and I stole what I could before the watchman scared me off. Oh, there was a man I knocked on the head too, wasn’t there? Yes, I beat a man unconscious so I could get to stealin’. After that I waited for things to cool down a bit, but I was planning to go back again. There’s a lot in Hiram’s house worth having, that’s for sure. There, now.” He cocked his head. “Happy?”
Odd. There was no justification, no veiled attempt to garner pity. “But why did you kill Hiram Sloane the night of the fire when you could have been running for your life?” Nate asked.
“Revenge. It was a golden opportunity.”
Nate waited to see if Schneider would elaborate. Seconds ticked by, and still he didn’t. “What did you steal, and what would you have taken if you’d gotten back inside?”
“Silver candlesticks, silverware, gold cuff links.” He recited these items as if he were reading from a market list. “You want to know what I would take if I went back? What kind of question is that? Have you not enough charges against me for the crimes I’ve actually committed?” He shook his head. “’Spose it doesn’t matter anyway. I’m going to be in prison for the rest of my days as it is. But then, that’s no big surprise. I’ve been in and out of jail for years.”
“For petty theft,” Nate remarked. “Vagrancy and public drunkenness.” Never before for violent crimes or murder.
“I did what I had to do for my family.” A fire lit behind Schneider’s eyes where only embers had been before. “You think it’s been easy for my wife and children? I lost everything in the bankruptcy. Couldn’t keep a steady job, had to slug it out at the docks in the morning to see if I could get hired on for a day at a time. That’s no way to raise a family. My wife and kids deserved more than that. More than me. And who did Hiram Sloane have to provide for, other than himself? No one. Not a single soul that I could tell.” The cords of his neck stood out.
“No one?”
“Well. Except the nephew.” Schneider gestured toward the door, then slapped his knee. “That’s not the same.”
“You’ve met him?”
A nod. “He wanted to meet me, same as you. Which is ironic, since my own son doesn’t care to be seen with me. The girls are more forgiving, but my boy says he’s known me too long for that. Can you believe that kind of talk coming from a kid of eleven years? But he’s got more sense than I do, and a heap more luck. There may be hope for him yet.”
“Did you write a threatening note to Hiram?” Nate asked, aware of the time slipping by.
“I wrote a lot of angry letters,” Otto scoffed. “He cheated me.”
Nate had figured as much. But then his thoughts followed a circuit back to Stephen’s arrest. “Mr. Schneider, there were two witnesses in this case. One said he saw Stephen Townsend shoot Hiram Sloane, and the other said he saw Townsend bury the weapon. He was framed. Does your confession explain how you did that?”
Schneider scratched his belly. “People will say just about anything for money,” he muttered.
But Schneider had just been released from jail the night of the murder. He couldn’t have had much to offer. “You paid them first?”
He shrugged. “Told them I’d make it worth their while.”
“So you didn’t pay them on the spot. They agreed to lie to the police based on your promise to find them and pay them later?”
“That’s what I said. Can I help it how desperate some folks are for easy money?”
Nate decided to try a different tack. “How were you acquainted with Stephen Townsend?” He’d been a perfect scapegoat for the murder. But how did Schneider know it? Even if he’d read Nate’s article about Stephen in the Tribune, he wouldn’t have known Stephen was friends with Hiram or how intense his paranoia could be.
“Time’s up!” McNab opened the door. “That’s it, Pierce, let’s go.”
Schneider glanced at the officer, then turned back to the wall as he lay down on the cot once more. Nate tucked his foolscap and pencil into the satchel and moved the stool back to its corner. As he left the room, Schneider mumbled to himself.
“I did what I had to do. For my family. Golden opportunity.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1871
Dear Father, we’re coming to get you.
The thought had echoed through Meg’s mind ever since Jasper had told her that Schne
ider confessed to Hiram’s murder. But there had been no point in writing to Stephen when she could just as quickly deliver the message herself. This time, when Meg prepared to visit the asylum, Sylvie was ready to go with her. So was Nate.
After climbing out of the cab they’d hired, Nate handed Sylvie down and then Meg, whose hand he tucked firmly into the crook of his arm. Then he asked the driver to wait.
“Thank you for coming with us,” Meg whispered as they approached the stone steps. Fog wreathed the brick fortress today.
Nate smiled. “I’d hate to think of you two coming here alone. As capable and intelligent as you are, you might not have a warm welcome. I’m happy to be your buffer.”
Hugging the package she’d wrapped for Stephen with one arm, Sylvie lifted her skirts above her ankles and climbed the steps beside them. “Is that what you are? A buffer?”
Meg looked into Nate’s blue eyes. “You’re more than that, Nate.”
His eyebrows lifted above the rims of his glasses. “Am I?” He winked and opened the massive wooden door, waiting for Meg and Sylvie to enter ahead of him.
Her heels clicking across the floor, Meg entered the reception room on the right and approached the counter.
Miss Dean looked over the top of her reading glasses and greeted Meg with a smile. Her mouse-brown hair was still bound in an ivory snood that matched her crocheted collar. “Miss Townsend. Mr. Pierce. I was wondering when I would see you again.”
Briefly introducing Sylvie, Meg unwound the muffler from her neck. “We’d like to see Dr. Franklin, or whoever is in charge of discharging the patients. But first, we’ve brought something for our father, Stephen Townsend.” In the likely scenario that their father would not come home today, they at least wanted him to have some things from home, including a copy of the Tribune with the story about Otto Schneider’s confession to Hiram’s murder. “Would you see that this gets to him?”
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