Witch in the White City: A Dark Historical Fantasy/Mystery (Neva Freeman Book 1)

by Nick Wisseman

  “You have to,” Neva cut in, thinking fast. “I left an envelope with a friend. He’ll see it’s delivered if I don’t check in regularly.”

  This gave the others pause.

  “You see that?” asked Roland after a moment. “Blackmail, from a black bitch.”

  She grit her teeth but made no other visible reaction. “I’d just like to take a step back and talk about the larger goals here,” she began, only to be interrupted by an urgent rapping on the door.

  Brin let Wiley in and closed the door again, shutting off the worst of the Machinery Hall’s pounding and clanking.

  “Neva,” he said. “You need to come with me.” He seemed completely oblivious to the tension in the room ... and alarmingly sympathetic.

  “Why? What’s happened?”

  He put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Neva ...”

  She was the opposite of reassured. “Just tell me.”

  “Edward’s alive.”

  She reached up to clasp Wiley’s hand, but as she made contact, he pulled away—why wasn’t this good news?

  “He turned himself in at the Guard Station an hour ago.”

  “What?”

  Wiley cast around the room as if seeking help, but Pieter, Quill, and Roland looked befuddled, and Brin merely nodded for him to get on with it. “He confessed,” Wiley said at last.

  Why was he dragging this out? “To what, Wiley? What did he confess to?”

  The Boer threw his arms up helplessly. “I’m sorry, Neva. Edward confessed to being Leather Apron.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  IN A LESS TERRIBLE context, the Administration Building might have looked like a parody of a dance hall. Uniformed men—Columbian Guards, Pinkertons, and a few Chicago Police—were shuffling and sidestepping around each other in their haste to get in and out of every door. But nothing about the scene struck Neva as particularly funny, even when a policeman and a Pinkerton collided, lost their balance, and collapsed in a heap.

  “I need to speak to Mr. DeBell,” she insisted again as Wiley returned to her. He’d gone back inside to obtain further updates; she’d waited impatiently with Brin by the Columbian Fountain.

  Wiley shook his head. “Copeland’s questioning him, and then Bonfield and Commandant Rice want their turns. After that, he’s likely to be transferred to a proper jail—although it sounds like the police are in a bit of a pissing match with Bonfield over when and where that’s to happen.”

  “Can you get a message to him at least? Tell him I’m here?”

  “I’ll ask, but the more I mention your name, the more likely Copeland is to call you in for questioning next.”

  “I don’t care. I need to speak with Mr. DeBell. One way or another.”

  “Right ... I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thank you.”

  Brin squeezed Neva’s arm as Wiley waded back into the river of uniforms. “How can I help?”

  She studied the Administration Building for a moment, trying to guess where Mr. DeBell was being held. “Think he’s in the drunk tank?”

  “Likely.”

  “Can you get me in?”

  Brin wrinkled her nose and gave Administration an examination of her own. “If it were built of metal, I could mold you an opening. But I expect it’s mostly staff plastered onto wood, like the rest of the Fair.”

  “If I cut an opening, I could stay in the walls—bend around the laths until I found a safe exit point.”

  “Hard to say where you’d end up, though, and who’d be there to watch you wriggle through ... What if you just walked in?”

  “I’d love to, but why wouldn’t they just throw me out?”

  “They won’t if you look the part.” Brin jerked her thumb at the Machinery Hall. “Wiley snagged a few extra Guardsman uniforms when we were planning something for the 4th of July. Never came to anything, but we’ve still got the duds. Right now, I’d say you’d fill them out in all the wrong places. But you being you ...”

  Neva nodded. “I’ll make it work.” She wouldn’t be able to hide her skin tone. Yet if she compressed her hips and pulled in her ribs to conceal the swell of her breasts, maybe the dim lighting would help her pass for Arthur Johnson, the only colored Columbian Guard. Hopefully he was off tonight.

  Brin grinned. “Let’s make you a lad, then.”

  Moving briskly, they went back into the Machinery Hall, which would remain open for another few minutes. Fairgoers still teemed around the exhibits, but the storage room was empty—Quill, Roland, and Pieter had apparently decided to finish their plotting elsewhere.

  Brin motioned to the rear. “The uniforms are in a crate marked ‘Stray bolts.’ I’ll watch the door. You go bend yourself into a bloke.’”

  Neva had to cast around a bit before she located the correct box. The smallest coat was big on her, and the slimmest pants several inches too long. She folded them where she could, stretching as much as she was able without tearing her skin or collapsing from pain. Squaring her jaw hurt even worse—almost as bad as expanding her nose—yet both alterations would make her look more masculine. The overall effect probably wouldn’t have been believable in the daytime. But if she pulled her cap low, avoided the Court of Honor’s roving colored spotlights, and kept to the shadows, she might just make it inside the Administration Building.

  “Impressive,” Brin judged when Neva emerged. “If a bit ugly.”

  “Ugly’s fine—I’ve never done this before.” Pain aside, the process had been surprisingly easy. No visualizing a supple bamboo shoot, or an elastic spiderweb, or some other overwrought metaphor. She’d simply pictured Arthur.

  But it was the uniform that made the impersonation possible.

  “Thank you for this,” Neva said quietly. “Truly.”

  “Sure.”

  “There’s no envelope, you know.” Reaching down, she shortened her pant cuffs another few inches, folding them on the inside so the adjustment wouldn’t be as obvious. “What I said to Roland ...”

  “I know why you said it, and I don’t fault you for it.” Brin crossed her arms. “Roland’s an arse. Good in a fight, but Wiley and I have been thinking on cutting him loose for a while now.”

  “I wish you already had.” Neva straightened. “What he said about Wiley, though, about him loving a Zulu girl before—is that true?”

  “As far as I know. But you’d do better to ask him about it.”

  “Fair.”

  Brin looked at her a moment longer before squeezing her arm. “Keep your fever in check.”

  “I’ll try.”

  They parted after exiting into the Court of Honor, Brin heading back to the Columbian Fountain and Neva circling around to approach Administration from the west. Just before she lost sight of Brin, Neva saw Wiley striding up to the Irishwoman, his handsome face already scowling as he realized she was alone.

  Brin would cover for her, though. Right now, she had to focus on weaving through a mess of agitated, twitchy men while passing as one of them. So that she could speak with her father. Who’d been imprisoned for murder—and might well be guilty of it.

  Jesus.

  Gritting her teeth, Neva threaded her way through the crowd and into Administration. No one paid her a second glance. The Columbian Guards seemed at a loss as to how to respond to a situation they clearly hadn’t been trained for; the Pinkertons and Chicago Policemen were only compounding the confusion by shouting orders and trying to supersede each other’s authority. The commotion had already drawn one reporter, and even as he was bodily thrown out into the Court of Honor, another two appeared with notebooks in hand.

  It was a useful mess, though—aside from providing cover, the multiple arguments revealed more information than Neva had been able to glean from Wiley:

  “DeBell’s mind is all a fog,” a swarthy Pinkerton noted to his colleague. “Or at least, he’s pretending it to be.”

  “He confessed to the killings, didn’t he?” the other noted.

  “Some of t
hem, with details we didn’t make public. But he says he can’t remember the rest. Why give yourself up if you’re not willing to tell all?”

  “Maybe he’s gone mad. Or mad-der, more like.”

  “No, he’s playing at something. Just you wait.”

  Such speculation was rampant throughout most of Administration. But the conversations faded to whispers as Neva drew closer to the drunk tank—the men in the adjoining hallway seemed to be straining to hear as much as they could through the closed door. She was beginning to debate the best method for getting nearer when a wiry Columbian Guard opened the door the minimum amount necessary to step through, slipped into the hallway, and shut the door behind him.

  “For God’s sake,” the guard said as he took in the press of bodies. “If you weren’t in uniform, I’d swear you were a bunch of perverts eavesdropping on their parents’ rutting. Show some professionalism.”

  Most of the hangers-on looked appropriately chagrined. But that didn’t stop a policeman near the back from asking, “What’s he saying in there?”

  “None of your damn business,” the wiry guard responded curtly. “Except for this.” He turned to a third man. “Carter, get this lot in order and take them—every last one—to the Lagoon. You’re to drag it for a body. Discreetly.” The ensuing gasps and whistles earned another glare from the wiry guard. “Stow your jabber,” he snapped.

  “Man or woman?” asked Carter.

  “Woman, young and blonde. Take everyone; this isn’t a damn exhibit.” Disdainfully, the wiry guard glanced around the hall again until his eyes lighted on Neva.

  She flinched inwardly, bracing herself to be called out as an impostor.

  But her disguise held. “Everyone except Johnson,” the wiry guard said. “He stays on the door.”

  “The Negro?” someone asked, none too quietly.

  The wiry guard fixed the speaker with a withering glare. “Yes, the Negro: he takes direction and knows his place. Unlike the rest of you.” He turned back to Carter. “The Lagoon—discreetly.”

  “Yes, sir.” Without further hesitation, Carter chivvied the other men away from the door. Several of them jostled Neva as they passed, but she didn’t respond—she couldn’t bend her voice like Augie, and pushing back would have been the worst of stupidities. Arthur always carried himself with stoic calm anyway; she wasn’t acting out of character by taking the high road.

  Once they were alone, the wiry guard wagged his finger at her. “Mind that no one comes in without my leave. And knock first before you ask for it.”

  Neva nodded.

  He grunted and reopened the door—wider this time, enough that she caught a glimpse inside. Copeland’s back was to her, mostly obscuring the rest of the room. But she could see bars to either side. And just before the wiry guard shut the door, Neva heard a creak of wood and saw Mr. DeBell’s face appear below Copeland’s elbow, as if her father—yes, her father—had slumped in his seat.

  “I told you,” his voice drifted out to her, “I don’t remember.”

  The thud of the door closing muffled Copeland’s reply. But when Neva pressed against the door (facing out, to maintain appearances), she found she could hear most of what was said.

  “No,” Mr. DeBell replied to what must have been a question from Copeland. “I don’t recall anything about a ‘little man’ in the Levee.”

  “But you remember a girl there? A Kesiah Nelkin?”

  “Just glimmers. Not her name, but her face ... Yes, that’s her.”

  “Was her. She’s dead now, Edward. You killed her.”

  Silence for a moment. Then, “I suppose I did.”

  “You suppose?”

  “I told you, I don’t remember.”

  “Not all of it, but some of it, you said.”

  Another pause. “Bits and pieces. Enough.”

  “Take me through it one more time. From the last thing you recollect clearly until now. You were arguing with your—what did you call him?”

  The longest pause yet. “My son. Please leave him out of this.”

  “I believe you called him your bastard.”

  Neva went even stiller.

  “Augustine was my son,” Mr. DeBell said at last. “Negro or not, he was my son.”

  “And you were quarreling about his parentage?”

  A lengthy sigh. “He’d found a letter. From James Bailey to Sol Bloom. James had written Sol to ask about Augie’s performance at the Fair and made some throwaway comment about how ‘the boy’s father’ would be interested to know; James is usually more circumspect. But Augie found the letter on Sol’s desk, made the connection, and confronted me with it.”

  “You confessed.”

  “It was past time. But he didn’t take it well.”

  Neva nearly sighed herself—so that was why Bat Wiggins had seen Augie and Mr. DeBell arguing at the Stockyards. Yet Augie had never said anything to her, never acted the slightest bit out of sorts. Surely he’d meant to tell her. Had he just been waiting for the right time? She hoped Copeland would pursue this line of inquiry.

  He had other ends in mind, though. “What then?” he prompted.

  “I went home, drafted a letter to my son Derek—”

  “Your acknowledged bastard.”

  “Yes ... It was time he knew the truth as well.”

  And what about me? thought Neva.

  “But you weren’t willing to tell him directly?” asked Copeland.

  Mr. DeBell laughed bitterly. “How is this relevant? As I said, I found I wasn’t strong enough. Not even close. So I sent the letter—”

  “Back at the Yards?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why go back to work to send it? There must be a collection box closer to home.”

  “Of course. But I prefer the Yards stationery for anything official.”

  “And this was official?”

  “I wanted it to be.”

  “I see.” Copeland sounded like he didn’t, but he moved on anyway. “So after you recopied your confession on the fanciest of stationeries, you went to the Levee too ...”

  “Shelter from the coming storm, I imagine.”

  “To take solace in a bit of debauchery, you mean.”

  “... If we’re being frank.”

  “Oh, I always aim to be. How did you come across the girl in the drawing?”

  “She was leaning out a window, arguing with another girl—who had red hair; I remember that. And then ... darkness.”

  “And blood. You said you remember ‘buckets of blood.’”

  A deep, shuddering breath. “Yes.”

  “Along with ‘glimmers’ of the other victims?”

  “Glimmers of most of them. But as I said, no recollection of the man you mistook for me—”

  “The man who somehow died in your clothes.”

  “—or the little fellow in the Levee.”

  Neva willed Copeland to ask Mr. DeBell if he’d been bitten by a swarm of insects, maddened to murderous amnesia by their venom. It would explain everything.

  But the Pinkerton continued to have his own agenda. “The young woman, the one we’re currently dredging the Lagoon for—you remember her clearly?”

  There was a rasping noise now: a dry sob? “Plain as day. My memories have been my own again since yesterday.”

  “When you woke—how did you put it—‘naked and disoriented’ outside the Fair?”

  “Yes.”

  “With no idea how you’d come to lose your clothing or your faculties?”

  “None at all.”

  “Yet in short order you acquired cloak and blade and were back to creating bloody images.”

  More rasping. “Please. You must believe me: I don’t know where these impulses come from. I fought them off last night in the Stock Exhibit, after ...”

  After you realized it was me, Neva finished silently. I forgive you; I know what it is to suffer the insect’s venom. Even now, I feel its heat.

  “After what?” pressed Copeland.r />
  “After I comprehended what I was about to do. Except I couldn’t bring myself to leave the Fair. And this morning the compulsion was so strong. I tried, but ...”

  “But now we’re dredging the Lagoon.”

  “This isn’t me! Lord knows I haven’t cherished my wife as I should. But not this. Not ... Not butchery and cannibalism, for God’s sake!”

  It was Copeland’s turn to pause; a shuffle of papers suggested he was looking over his notes. “Just a few more questions. Are you Jack the Ripper?”

  This provoked another dark laugh. “No ... At least, not that I remember.”

  “How are you controlling the insects?”

  “What insects?”

  “The pests you’ve incited to mark your targets. Is it a pheromone? We consulted a naturalist who suggested you might have applied it to your victims in advance.”

  “I’m sorry. I would tell you if I knew what you were talking about, but I truly don’t.”

  Neva chewed her lip. Why wouldn’t Mr. DeBell admit he’d been bitten? Did he think no one would believe him?

  “I see,” Copeland said again, with the same skepticism. “Perhaps we’ll revisit that another time. Are you working alone?”

  “God, I hope so.”

  “The White Chapel Club isn’t involved?”

  “What? No. I haven’t seen those fools in a year, and that was just the once.”

  “What about the porter?”

  “What porter?”

  “The porter on the Pier. The one who incited a panic by dismembering a crippled Civil War veteran—the sixth victim—before dying rather spectacularly in the Cold Storage fire. You said you remember the veteran; ‘old fellow,’ you termed him. ‘Lamed.’ But you didn’t kill him. The porter did. There are scores of witnesses. How do you explain that?”

  “I ... I remember him, I think. I must have seen him somewhere—maybe on the Pier with the veteran? But he wasn’t a ... partner. I don’t remember that.”

  “You don’t seem to remember much.”

  “What else could you need?”

  Another shuffling of papers. “Last question: where are your sons now?”

  Nothing.