

LIFTERS

By Roger Neale

Roger Neale is a published author, playwright and blogger. He has climbed Mt. Rainier, which looms large over Seattle and in this story, and worked in the outdoors industry. Discover moreabout the author on his blog.

# Text Copyright 2012 Roger Neale

Smashwords Edition

# All rights reserved

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART ONE - SHOPLIFTERS

PART TWO – THE SILENT BOY

PART THREE – A FAMILY

PART FOUR – A FATHER

PART FIVE - SHOPLIFTING

PART SIX – THE FIGHT

PART SEVEN - VIK

PART EIGHT – THE TRIAL

PART NINE - ROBERT

PART TEN – THE MOUNTAIN

EPILOGUE

# Part One

# SHOPLIFTERS

_Shoplifting was a crime unknown in America until the rise of the department stores in the early 1900s._

# Chapter One

Shoplifting for beginners.

"I don't get it," Emma said to her brother once. "If you were going to steal something, wouldn't you spend a little time looking around at how people shop?"

"Nah," said her brother. "If nobody was watching I'd grab it and get out."

The girl with the freckles on the bridge of her nose studied a kidskin glove at Redelsheimers' glove counter. Emma watched her run a pensive finger along the row of buttons on the wrist.

The girl's brown skirt was faded from sun and wear. The cuffs of her shirtwaist were frayed from too much time in the bleach basin. She didn't try the gloves on. She inhaled and blew out a breath through puffed cheeks. Three, maybe four pairs of soft, creamy gloves disappeared inside her coat. She turned and walked toward the escalator.

It is unlikely she would have noticed Emma following her even if she had turned to look. If she had, she would have seen a woman, a little taller than the average, the young wife of lawyer or accountant dressed in a blue skirt and subdued grey jacket, studying the scarves on the counter, oblivious to the people around her.

It was eleven o'clock. In an hour the shopgirls and typists would flock into Redelsheimers on their lunch break. They would flitter through the aisles like sparrows in a cherry tree, chattering and stroking soft leather shoes and silk jabots displayed on countertops. But now, at eleven, it was the ladies from the Queen Anne mansions who passed through the aisles. The new escalator carried them gracefully from one floor to the next. Some drew from a sleeve or reticule pages cut from the current issue of Colliers or McCall's showing the season's fashions from Paris, the narrow columnar Empire look from the houses of Paquin and Doucet. For spring the hemline had risen from floor to ankle, making elegant footwear imperative. Mannequins displayed expensive dresses in the stylish new paler colors for 1908, eau d'Nile and Ashes of Roses.

The inviting aisles offered any woman the freedom to caress the textures of silk, voile and brocade, and let the sensuous feel of the fabric arouse seductive images of a luxurious and romantic life.

The freedom to wander among the aisles that aroused fantasies for some meant opportunity for others. And that was why Emma Prothero strolled inconspicuously among the shoppers at Redelsheimers. Emma was employed by the Cody Detective Agency and Mercantile Patrol.

Emma sometimes wondered why beginners didn't allow themselves a risk-free apprenticeship of observation. If a thief-in-training was smart she would see that trying to be as inconspicuous as possible was not the best way to avoid the store detective's attention. The professional detective, who observed shoppers the whole day, was better than the novice thief at avoiding notice.

Once the detective identified a possible shoplifter, a moment of improvised theater began. Thief and detective both played the role of the innocent shopper. The shoplifter moved deceptively, handling merchandise, then concealing it. The detective moved with a matching deceptiveness, trying to close with her prey and observe the concealment without being noticed.

To maintain a good rate of apprehension, Emma couldn't waste time observing customers who had no intention of stealing. Half the skill was deciding whom to watch. There were signs she looked for. Shoplifters tended to handle merchandise. All shoppers picked up a few items and examine them, but the thief was constantly touching, handling, moving things around. Emma studied what a shopper wore. A long, loose-fitting coat, a raincoat on a warm dry day. Or a full-bodied dress with pleats and folds into which a supply of lingerie could disappear. In the winter, a bulky fur muff.

There was also the matter of eye contact. Shoplifters tended to avoid looking directly at other customers, though they kept track of people near them at the counter with quick sideways glances. The shoplifter focused her attention on the item she was handling until the moment she was ready to conceal it. She raised her head and scanned the room for possible observers. That was the moment Emma waited for. The instant before the shoplifter caught her looking, Emma's eyes flicked straight ahead. The shoplifter didn't detect a movement of the head. Emma was just another shopper.

Peculiar, Emma thought as she watched the freckled girl. A novice, certainly, desperate even. But the desperate ones usually stole things they needed. She'll never wear those gloves. Emma gave the floorwalker, Mr. Simmons, a sign. She liked working with Simmons. He looked at her more frequently than some of them did, and usually caught her first nod or finger movement.

In a modern department store the floorwalker's job was to welcome and assist the ladies with their shopping. And he was there to help the detectives. A neatly dressed, tidy figure with reddish hair and skin and a lively step, he smiled and bowed and spoke ingratiatingly to his customers, nodding continuous agreement with their remarks. But he always knew where his detective was.

Emma walked quickly in the next aisle, then crossed just behind the girl with the gloves and pointed with her chin. Mr. Simmons excused himself from the customer he was chatting with, stepped across the room and tapped the girl on the shoulder before she reached the escalator. He put a firm hand on her elbow and said a few words to her. The freckles on her nose disappeared in a flush of red. She covered her face with her hands and began sobbing.

Emma watched the floorwalker lead the girl away. She was puzzled. The girl's behavior didn't follow the pattern of the common shoplifter. Emma could read the mental states a shoplifter passed through from the movement of the hands. Strokes of desire, hesitation, the decisive move. She did not read this pattern in the girl's hands. The hands hadn't expressed desire, they expressed resignation. The girl took the gloves because she had to.

Had to take the gloves? The hair on the back of her neck tingled. There was someone else at work.

Did I give myself away? was Emma's first thought. Her signal to the floorwalker had been inconspicuous when she walked past the girl. She didn't think she had exposed herself.

Emma drew in a single long breath, let a wave of relaxation descend from her neck through her body, centered her weight on the balls of her feet, and became as light as a fox. None of these internal actions would have been visible to an observer. In her nostrils was the gingery tang of the hunt.

She needed less than a minute. There he was, a small, nattily-dressed man in his forties wearing a straw boater and crimson bowtie in the lingerie department making quick movements with his hands.

When Emma spotted a shoplifter at work, time slowed to the point that she absorbed and processed everything she saw. Was the hand of a practiced shoplifter quicker than the eye? At the critical instant Emma's opal-blue eye was quicker than any hand. If she reflected on such things she might have realized that the moment she discerned a thief's hands at work was like the moment she planted her alpenstock and found a secure placement for her boot in the snowpack of a dangerously steep mountainside in the Cascades. Concentration enriched each second. Her entire being was focused on what was happening.

The boater-hatted thief was confident and skilled. Emma guessed he had recruited the freckle-nosed girl and told her he would give her money for whatever she could steal. His true purpose was to use her as a decoy who was likely to be caught. Her apprehension would divert the detective's attention and become the cover for his own thieving.

When Emma began working for the Cody Detective Agency and Mercantile Patrol three years earlier most of the shoplifters were women. Some stole on an unplanned impulse, others were regulars. But they all worked alone. In the past months she had begun to suspect that a team of thieves was working the stores. Was it several independent gangs at work, or was a single organization directing the thievery citywide? An individual thief could make a precarious but adequate living in the department stores. An organization with an efficient way to move stolen merchandise could be another matter entirely. She was sure orchestrated shoplifting could be a very profitable game.

The floor-walker had taken the sobbing girl off the floor and was not available to help Emma. She followed the small man at a discreet distance until he glanced at his watch and walked toward the exit. Emma made a decision. She would let the thief walk away. She had never done this before. What would Mr. Redelsheimer say if he learned she had let a thief leave the store with merchandise? Maybe he would understand her desire to learn more about this thief. But maybe he would have her fired for allowing merchandise to be stolen. She couldn't hesitate. She walked out the exit.

As the thief turned at the corner of the building, he glanced over his shoulder to see if he was being followed. Emma anticipated his backward glance and became an inconspicuous woman going somewhere. He blended into a crowd waiting at a streetcar stop, and she joined him.

Second Avenue. When the breeze came out of the south, it carried the salty, kelpy smells of the tideflats. When it came from the north you could feel an occasional cool spritz of overspray from the hydraulic nozzles chewing away at the hillsides of the regrade. Gulls cried and carved trajectories between the buildings. Flocks of pigeons rose and settled in sudden bursts. The sounds of streetcars rolling on steel rails and horsehooves clopping on the asphalt blended with the whistles of ships along the waterfront entering the traffic on Elliott Bay. The best time was early. If Emma arrived for work before the stores opened she could see the parade of Frederick & Nelson's twenty-eight delivery wagons, their bright black lacquer polished every night, moving in tight formation from the up-town stables down Second Avenue to the store. The teams of big dapple-grays, hooves drumming, heads bobbing, gave the street a brisk but relaxed rhythm. The rhythm was changing, though. It seemed only a year or two ago Emma had read in the papers the count of automobiles in Seattle had reached forty. Now they were everywhere. The sound of their motors was blatty and harsh. The acrid vapors of exhaust and gasoline irritated the nostrils and teared up the eyes. The herky-jerky movement of the autos and the unpredictable routes of motorcycles veering this way and that were unnerving, and demanded a pedestrian's attention. The streets were changing. Though the day may come, she thought, when you didn't have to dodge the horsecrap when you stepped into the street.

The streetcar arrived, and everyone boarded.

When the man exited several minutes later in the harbor area, she made a calculation. She remained on board to the next stop. Emma was a strong runner. She had the ability to move along a sidewalk with short, quick strides that didn't cause her skirt to swirl and billow, keeping her upper body almost motionless. Someone giving her a casual look wouldn't notice how swiftly she was moving. She liked the freedom of the spring's higher hem. But she avoided the Empire skirts so narrow the newspapers called them hobble-skirts. She liked the look, but knew they would impede her movements.

When she reached the previous stop she expelled a sharp breath of relief. The man was visible ahead of her, not hurrying. She followed until he entered a building a block from the waterfront in a row of old one and two-story warehouses with faded signs probably no longer connected with current tenants. Green paint pealed from the window frames. These were wood buildings that might have survived the great fire twenty years ago. Two or three wagons were tethered to posts along the block. Someone came out of a shop of a Chinese herb merchant across the street from the warehouse. She waited, containing her impatience. She was expected to be on the floor at Redelsheimers working. Ten minutes later the man in the boater strode briskly out of the building. She now ignored him, having the information she wanted. Somewhere in the harbor district warehouse with no sign over the doorway was the fence who received a skilled shoplifter's goods. There was a gang at work here, and she was going to get them.

# Part Two

# THE SILENT BOY

Pyschiatrists – or alienists as they were then called – were just beginning to be recognized as experts in the unknown terrain of the mind.

# CHAPTER TWO

At the shores of Lake Washington the water is still warm enough in September for bathing and boating and for strolling in the parks in shirtsleeves. Enough of the August heat lingers to make the evenings on Capitol Hill and Queen Anne pleasant, though it is no longer light until ten. But on an occasional day the wind picks up, carrying a whiff of autumn. The vivid green of summer begins to fade out of the foliage of the maple trees.

Soon the leaves will turn brittle and yellow, and float down to collect on the grass or be crushed on the roads under the wheels of wagons and automobiles. In October damp winds sometimes blow off the Duwamish flats, pressing into the faces of pedestrians walking south on First and Second. In November, the fog settles along the waterfront and fills in the low-lying areas between the city's hills.On November 11, 1907, the Number 6 streetcar collided with a crossing streetcar at the fogbound intersection of Nineteenth and Union on Seattle's Capitol Hill. Two weeks later John C. Higgins, senior member of the law firm of Higgins, Hall & Halverstadt, appeared in the offices of the Seattle Electric Company and announced that the firm was seeking $8,000 in damages for pain and suffering caused to a fifteen-year-old messenger boy named Carl Windell, injured in the collision.

Higgins met the stony stares of the Electric Company executives and declared that the boy was in a catatonic state. He was able to walk and do simple physical tasks, but had lost his voice and ability to react to people.

The executives told Mr. Higgins that he would hear from them. Later that day the claims agent for the Electric Company hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency to determine whether the boy was shamming.

When the Times learned about the case, the city editor assigned the story to Oliver Casebolt. A tall, angular man who didn't see things in the distance clearly without glasses, Casebolt was known for his ability to give life and color, what the editor called "punch," to local stories. His fellow reporters sometimes asked him to help by dipping into his rich store of adjectives. A flop of brown hair across his brow gave him a boyish look. His voice was soft and unemphatic. Whether his manner was natural or artful, he put people at ease and could get almost anyone to talk to him.

After taking notes in the attorneys' office Casebolt took a streetcar south across the mudflats to Youngstown to learn what he could from the Windell family. Youngstown was an industrial area along the Duwamish River that had just been annexed by Seattle. The reporter found himself among plain houses of whitewashed clapboard jammed together on the hillsides rising above the steel mills that employed most of the men in the town. No one paid much attention to yards and lawn. A mungey odor of garbage not removed on a regular basis hung in the air.

What Casebolt knew was that Carl Windell was the oldest of eight children. The father had abandoned the family the year before. The Swedish Aid Society gave his mother, Albertina, an old house to live in. Her next-door neighbor, Mary Vinette, persuaded Albertina to move into the second floor of the Vinette house and put the house they'd been given up for rent. The rent, and Carl's income as a messenger boy, allowed the mother to keep food on the table. Upper floor, four rooms in a ramshackle building, not much more than a two-story shed divided into rooms with nailed-up plywood walls, nine people finding space. Casebolt tried to keep from wrinkling his nose at the odor. He found a chaos of clothes and bedding strewn about, children fussing out of control, a stink of diapers, mildew, mouse droppings, sour milk, and garbage. The mother, trying to calm the squalling eight-month-old on her hip, was too flustered to answer his questions. Talk to Mrs. Vinette, she said.

Downstairs, Mrs. Vinette, small, black-haired, dark-eyed, a sharp-featured but attractive woman in her late twenties, darting in her movements, listened to Casebolt with undisguised suspicion. Carl Windell sat near her. His mouth hung open. His eyes were watery and without visible lashes. Blond hair rose in an unmanageable cowlick from his forehead. He remained expressionless and silent, gazing at the floor, as Casebolt tried to engage him in a conversation. Once or twice the boy glanced at Mrs. Vinette. The Electric Company claims agent had warned Casebolt Mrs. Vinette seemed to have a hypnotic influence over the boy. It was the agent's theory that she was the instigator of a plot to extort money from the Electric Company.

"So tell me about that streetcar," said Casebolt. "What happened when you got hit?"

"He can't talk," said Mrs. Vinette. "Just leave him alone."

Casebolt's affability wasn't working on either Carl Windell or Mrs. Vinette. He realized he wasn't going to get any useful information. It might be true that Mary had some kind of hold on Carl. Maybe she was a mother substitute for him, maybe she knew something that could get him in trouble, maybe he had a crush on her. There was an interesting story here, he decided. What was needed was a younger female who could gain the confidence of the Windell girls he had seen in the house.

He returned to the Times and asked the city editor for approval to hire a younger female detective. The editor tapped his nose skeptically a few times, but decided this was a potential front-page story and approved the request.

The Times has recently done a story on John Cody's international tour of European police departments, with a flattering photo portrait of Cody that couldn't conceal the short, thick neck and bullet head, but presented a benign-but-no-nonsense expression that inspired confidence. His views of the efficient organization of the Prussian police in Berlin were presented as authoritative and knowledgeable. Cody was said to be quietly campaigning to replace Charles Wappenstein and his corrupt administration as chief of Seattle's police. Cody would be friendly to the Times.

"Got somebody would be just the ticket," said Cody when Casebolt described what he wanted. "She's working in the department stores today. I'll have her here tomorrow morning."

At the detective's office the next day Cody introduced him to a tallish woman in her early twenties. Her eyebrows arched up toward her temples as though she had just asked a question and was waiting for an answer. Broad jaw. Well-defined creases that Casebolt found attractive formed around her mouth when she smiled at him. His first impression was that she was confident and observant. Probably make a good reporter.

"This is Emma Prothero," said Cody. "A capable operative. So tell us exactly what the Times would like her to do."

"Nice to meet you," said Casebolt. "I want to find out if this boy Carl Windell really hit his head in the streetcar accident, or if he's faking a mental injury. House is full of females. See if you can go in there and win 'em over. My guess is the older sisters will know better than anyone if the boy's faking. Is he acting or not? But they might not admit it."

Emma Prothero nodded to Casebolt. "I should be able to do that. How do I get access?"

# CHAPTER THREE

When Cody told Emma that morning he had an assignment for her, she objected."I'm on to something," she said. "There's a shoplifter gang out there, maybe a big one. I think I found the fence."

"It can wait," said Cody. "You're the operative I need for this newspaper fellow. Take a couple of days and see what you can learn."

Emma pressed her lips together, but kept her frustration to herself. Cody was right, a few days wouldn't matter.

When Cody introduced Oliver Casebolt to her, she saw he was not like the cocky, quick-talking reporters who had questioned her about cases she had worked on in the past. His smile and soft voice were disarming. She should be able to work with him.

"The house they live in is Mary Vinette's, over in Youngstown," Casebolt said. "The Swedish Aid Society gave the boy's mother the house next door. They rent it out and live on Vinette's second floor. Maybe the Aid Society could get you an in."

Emma found the Society's address. She introduced herself to the secretary as a newspaper reporter doing background on a story about women's groups organizing charitable work in the city.

"Our work isn't usually news," said the secretary.

"We're going to have the vote," said Emma. "Women's work will be news."

The secretary smiled. "Use my name if you think it would help."

Emma had a twinge of guilt, knowing there would be no story about the Aid Society. But these small ruses were part of her job.

When she found the right streetcar and located the address, Emma climbed the rickety outside stairway to the second floor.

Mrs. Windell, the boy's mother, sweeping the kitchen with a slow, rocking motion that didn't seem to be making any progress, shook her head as if she didn't understand the questions Emma asked her. The girl working in the dank, clammy Vinette laundry space was the tallest of the children she could find. Emma rolled up her sleeves and joined the girl rinsing and running garments through the wringer. The girl didn't ask why she was there. Emma worked through a whole basket of washed clothes before introducing herself.

"I'm Emma," she said. "What's your name?"

"Clara," said the girl, who was perhaps fourteen, the adult shape of her nose and cheekbones just beginning to emerge from the soft roundness of her girlhood face.

"I have a brother. He's a messenger boy like Carl."

Clara made no response. After wringing out another garment Emma said, "I heard about your brother. You think he's going to be all right?"

Clara nodded.

"I don't see him. Is he here?"

"Yesterday they took him to the hospital," she said.

"I didn't know that. Does he look at you when you talk?"

"Right now he can't talk."

Did the girl know more than that? Emma thought she was pretty good at knowing when someone was acting. But a fourteen-year-old can be difficult to judge. Everything you say at that age is acting at being older than you are.

"I hope he'll be okay," Emma said. "I hope it didn't make him insane."

The girl looked up at Emma. "How does somebody act when they're insane?"

Was this a sly question? Was Clara checking to make sure her brother was acting the way insane people do? Or was she worried he really was insane?

"Insane people have feelings there's no reason for," she said. "They can't tell you what they feel. Is somebody taking care of Carl?"

"Mary's taking care of Carl."

"Mrs. Vinette?"

The girl nodded. "At the hospital."

Clara didn't appear to think her brother was faking his catatonic state. Emma passed another ten minutes wringing clothes to make sure she had secured the girl's confidence.

After a series of streetcar rides she came to the county hospital, recently built in an open space south of the city. White canvas tents to house the consumption patients had been set up on the grounds. She could hear feeble coughing as she passed near. A Sister of Providence nodded a greeting as Emma walked up the steps to the hospital entrance. At the desk she asked if she could see the patient Carl Windell. She was directed to a second floor ward. She recognized Carl and the small, black-haired woman sitting next to the bed from Casebolt's description. The boy leaned against a pillow with his hands limp in his lap staring at the foot of his bed. He paid no attention as she approached.

"Hello Carl," she said.

"Who are you?" asked Mrs. Vinette. She glared with the look of a schoolmistress interrupted during a lesson.

"Carl's scheduled to be in court tomorrow," said Emma. "I wanted to see if he's ready. Who are you?"

"The family landlord. Everybody's trying to bother him. There's lawyers, detectives, people just come to stare. Leave him alone."

"I was sent to help, see how he's doing."

"He'll do fine if you let him alone. What do you mean you were sent? Who sent you?"

"The Swedish Aid Society."

"You can tell them he's hurt and somebody's going to pay."

"How are you, Carl?" Emma said to the boy. "Are they taking care of you here okay? Is the food okay?"

The boy made no sign that he heard. Mrs. Vinette looked at him, then stood and took a step toward Emma. "He can't understand you. The accident hurt his brain. You're like everybody else, trying to get him to talk. Just leave him alone."

"Are you spending the whole day here?" Emma asked her.

Blue veins in Mary Vinette's temples became visible and her upper lip drew back, exposing teeth so white they almost glittered in the low light of the ward.

"You go out in the hall there, you can see a Pinkerton detective hanging around. He keeps sticking his nose in here pretending he's a doctor. Somebody has to keep people from picking at him all the time."

Mary was probably right about the detective spying on Carl. Maybe she really was just trying to protect a neighbor boy whose mother couldn't help him.

"Well, I hope you get better, Carl," Emma said to the boy, and turned to leave the ward. She saw she would get no response from Carl under Mary's hawklike eye. After several steps she turned quickly and looked over her shoulder. Carl was looking at Mary Vinette. His watery blue eyes were wide open. What was in his expression? Ardent longing? A hunger for approval? She didn't have enough time to judge.

At dinner Emma asked her brother Robert if a boy named Carl Windell worked at his messenger service.

"Carl? Sure, he's one of the guys," Robert nodded.

"You know happened to him?" she asked.

"Some kind of accident, I heard. He hasn't been around."

"You don't know anything about hitting his head and being in kind of a trance?"

"Wow," said Robert. "Is that what happened?"

"It's in the papers. They had a picture of him. You know him very well?"

"Sure I do."

"I saw him at the hospital. He wasn't able to talk."

"Wow," said Robert again. "I'll ask if anybody heard anything."

# CHAPTER FOUR

At the Windell hearing Emma sat with Casebolt on a hard bench in the reporters' section of Judge Morris's courtroom. The boy had appeared once before in Morris's court. Hammond and the trolley company lawyers demanded to have him tested. Dr. Loughery had been invited to conduct the tests. Loughery was regarded as the city's foremost alienist.

Emma couldn't help drawing a sharp breath when she recognized him. Three years earlier Emma's older sister Julia had fallen into a catatonic state. Loughery had come to Emma's home with Julia's physician. After an examination that lasted five minutes he told Emma in words still resonating in Emma's memory that Julia should be committed to the state asylum at Steilacoom.

Carl Windell was escorted through a side entrance into the courtroom by two deputies, each gripping Carl's upper arm as if he might break away. But the boy, slightly built and limp, walked where they led him. The deputies lowered him onto a chair placed in front of the bench. A bailiff with a bible began administering the witness's oath, but the judge waved him back. "If the young man doesn't understand, what's the point," he said.

Judge Morris invited Dr. Loughery to begin his examination of the messenger boy Carl Windell. Dr. Loughery, bent slightly at the waist with one hand grasping the other behind his back and the other tapping a runny nose with a handkerchief, stepped forward and asked Carl his name. Sunlight streaming in through the tall courtroom windows forced spectators opposite the windows to shade their eyes to see what was happening. Carl, dressed in a tie and jacket for the occasion, his cowlick glistening with pomade but still splaying in all directions, stared at the floor. In a soothing, conversational tone the doctor asked Carl how old he was, where he went to school, whether he remembered anything that happened on the Number 6 streetcar on November 11. When it was apparent to everyone in the courtroom he wasn't going to get a response, Loughery took a chair from the attorneys' table, placed it in front of the boy and sat leaning forward with his head a few feet from Carl's. He spoke to the boy, but loud enough that everyone in the room could hear.

"Carl, it's possible you're in some kind of trance and can't hear me. It is possible you hear and understand but can't respond. It's also possible you're shamming in hopes of winning a settlement. That's what we have to decide here."

Loughery cleared his throat. There was not a sound in the courtroom apart from his voice.

"You and I have met before, haven't we, Carl? We didn't learn anything conclusive from that meeting. Today I'm going to administer some tests. Now these tests are going to hurt. That's their purpose. The important thing for you to understand is that we'll stop the instant you tell us to. That's all you need to do, tell us to stop, and that's the end of it."

Loughery walked to the table and picked up a needle from a cloth wrap one of the attorneys had unfolded. He picked up the boy's hand and began pressing the needle under a fingernail. He pressed lightly at first, gazing into the boy's face. Gradually he pressed harder. Emma thought she saw a bright spot of blood appear, and heard gasps in the courtroom as others noticed. Probably everyone in the courtroom was experiencing the imagined sensation of a needle driven beneath a fingernail.

But the boy's face remained expressionless. She tried to see if his eyes were blinking or tearing, but he was facing the judge, away from the spectators. Loughery gently laid the boy's hand back in his lap and studied his face. Then he stood and gestured to a bailiff to approach. They talked a moment. Together they raised the boy from the chair to a standing position, being conspicuously gentle. Then the bailiff twisted the boy's arm behind his back in a wrestling hammerlock. Dr. Loughery nodded, the bailiff grunted and hoisted the boy off his feet. Emma couldn't help wincing. The boy hung limply in the hammerlock. What can he be feeling, Emma wondered. His pale blue eyes had a vacant expression, as if the excruciating twist of his shoulder joint was happening somewhere far away.

Loughery said something to the bailiff, who released the hold. The bailiff gestured, and two men brought a gymnasium mat into the courtroom. They unfolded it methodically in the middle of the floor. The spectators murmured like a theater audience watching stage hands change a scene. The bailiff maneuvered the boy, who did not resist, to a position lying on his stomach on the mat. The bailiff then kneeled so that one knee lay across the back of the boy's knee. He grasped the boy's foot by the instep and pressed the boy's lower leg over his knee. When there was no reaction, he leaned forward and pressed the weight of his chest down on the boy's foot. There was a gasp of expelled air, but that was all.

"That's Gotch's toehold," Casebolt exclaimed to Emma. "Good God, they'll wreck the kid's knee doing that."

The sound of Casebolt's voice in her ear snapped Emma out of a momentary trance. The courtroom was so quiet that if Loughery's needle had rolled off the table and fallen to the floor the sound would have been audible.

Perhaps the movement of Casebolt's head in Emma's direction brought the judge out of his own trance. Judge Morris jerked upright, as if he'd just become aware his courtroom was being turned into an Inquisition torture chamber. His brows pinched together with indignation.

"Dr. Loughery!" he called out from the bench. "How much more of this do we need?"

"Your Honor," said the doctor with a snuffle, "We need more testing. But this is enough for today. I will tell you my tentative opinion is that this is a genuine case of hysteria."

With visible relief the judge ordered Carl Windell returned to the county hospital for continued evaluation. A sigh passed through the courtroom. Most of the spectators must have been holding their breath. The electric company attorneys leaned their heads together and conferred.

"Isn't that Dr. Roller?" Emma asked, looking at a tall wide-shouldered man sitting beside Loughery.

"That's him," said Casebolt. "You know him?"

"I see him sometimes. His office is down the hall from us."

"He's on the Lunacy Commission," said Casebolt. "He's here to decide if the kid gets committed."

"I wonder what he thinks about what just happened," said Emma.

"We could ask him."

"Do you know him?" she asked Casebolt.

Casebolt smiled at her. "We were at school together at DePauw. I do the stories about him for the paper. Come on."

Casebolt led her through the men crowding around the attorneys' tables and after a moment was able to catch the doctor's attention.

"Doc, let me introduce somebody to you. This is Emma Prothero. She's a detective on the case and wanted to meet you."

"Miss Prothero," said Roller, nodding.

"Doctor Roller," she said, and for a brief moment couldn't say anything more. She was unexpectedly intimidated. He was a powerfully built man, six feet, broad at the shoulders and lean at the waist, handsome with straight dark hair, high Asiatic cheekbones and dark eyes. He was the gynecologist who examined the wives and daughters of the city's wealthiest families. He had recently announced in the newspapers he would compete for the world heavyweight wrestling title held by Frank Gotch.

"I'm employed by the Cody Agency, down the hall from you," said Emma. "I was hired to learn the truth about the boy's condition."

Roller nodded and asked in a soft but resonant voice what she thought about what she had just witnessed.

"If he's acting I don't see how he endured those wrestling holds. But did you notice the small woman with black hair in the front row of spectators?"

Roller shook his head.

"Her name's Mary Vinette. She's the family's landlord. I think she has a lot of influence on him. Maybe hypnotic. She's the one who took the mother to the Higgins office to see if they'd take the case."

"You think he's faking?"

"I'm not sure. How could any normal person have a needle pushed under a fingernail without cringing? But that woman is managing him."

Roller looked at her appraisingly. "What tests would you do?" he asked.

His face was neutral, the expression not easy to read. She was fixed by the dark eyes. A wide-shouldered Sherlock Holmes would have questioned her like this. She took a breath.

"Get him away from Mary Vinette. What if someone took him to the asylum at Steilacoom? If he's acting, he hasn't thought about what happens if he's declared insane. Take him to the wing where patients are kept in separate cells and aren't allowed to associate with others in a ward. Let him think about spending fifty years in a locked white room."

Roller looked at her more sharply. "Are you familiar with the place?"

Emma looked away and drew in a breath before answering. "My sister's there."

"The director has advanced ideas. They don't just lock people away."

"I know," said Emma. "She could be in a worse place."

"That's not a bad idea. He might react." The doctor looked at her a moment in thought. "I'll talk with Morris."

As Roller stepped to the bench, the attorneys talking to the judge moved aside. The doctor spoke briefly with the judge. Morris stared at the far wall with raised eyebrows as he listened, then looked at Roller and nodded.

"He's not an alienist," said Emma to Casebolt in a low voice. "Why's he on the Lunacy Commission?"

"They need his prestige. Last year the judges pleaded with him to serve."

Doctor Roller returned to where Casebolt and Emma waited.

"He's willing to let us try," said Roller. "I'll make arrangements with the director there."

"Would I be able to go?" Emma asked.

"It's your idea. I don't see why you shouldn't come along. Are you covering the story, Oliver?"

"I am," said Casebolt. "This is front page stuff."

As she walked out of the courtroom with Casebolt she remarked that he appeared to be on familiar terms with Dr. Roller.

"The truth is he's why I came to Seattle. I don't think there's ever been anything like the Doc. When he was at DePauw he was so good at football and track they made him the captain, then hired him as the coach. He was still a student."

"They say he's a very good doctor."

"He's worth writing a book about," said Casebolt.

# CHAPTER FIVE

The next morning Emma met Doctor Roller, a deputy and Carl Windell at the Union Station on First and boarded the interurban train to Tacoma. The deputy, a thick-chested man with the drooping walrus mustache favored by policemen, wanted to handcuff the boy, but Roller said he wasn't a prisoner and hadn't given any trouble. Carl didn't respond to commands, but was easily led by a hand on his arm. The swift electric train carried the group to the Steilacoom trolley in an hour.

The asylum at Steilacoom loomed silent in the damp coastal forest south of Tacoma. Emma had walked many times along the wooded path from the trolley stop to the melancholy building. She tried to make the trip here at least once a month with Robert to visit Julia.

The asylum director met them at reception and led the way through the central yard to the male wing, a building Emma had never been in. She steeled herself for the sounds she expected to hear as the group climbed to the second floor. During her visits to her sister she would hear muffled cries of rage and pain as she approached Julia's ward. In this building, the hallway was quiet. She glanced at Carl, who walked where he was led with the blank look of someone unconscious of what was happening to him.

Emma fell in beside Roller a few steps behind Carl and the deputy.

"He's going to show us three patients," Roller said.

The director stopped in front of a heavy white door, slid back the cover of a small window and peered in. Then he unlocked the door and gestured for the others to enter.

The room was half-dark, the only light coming from a north-facing barred window high in the wall. A man sat on the narrow bed with his back leaning against the wall. His age was hard to judge. His upper body was encased in a gray canvas wrap secured with buckles that held his arms across his chest. His mouth hung open; a web of spittle connected his lips. He stared at the group that had disturbed his day.

"All you," he said. "What's happening? Am I leaving?" The voice was thick and crackly, not much louder than a whisper, a voice that had lost the custom of speech. "Is somebody going to tell me why I'm here? What'd I do wrong?"

Roller took Carl's arm and moved him forward to face the man.

"You're not in jail, Gordon," said the director. "You're here to keep you safe." He turned to Roller and Emma. "Gordon's been with us seven years. Usually he's calm and rational like this. We have to keep him restrained, though. He has violent rages. We can't predict them."

"Please," whispered Gordon. "It's tight."

The director pushed a finger down between the canvas jacket and the man's chest. "They may have snugged you up too tight today," he said. "I'll have someone come in and adjust the jacket." He turned and motioned the group out of the room, then pulled the door shut softly behind him and turned the key in the lock.

"I didn't want to stay too long with Gordon. The only person he usually sees is the nurse who takes him to the toilet. New faces upset him."

After continuing down the hall the director unlocked the door of the next room he had selected after checking through the viewing slot. The man in the room sat on the floor with his legs splayed sideways. His hair was a wild gray tangle, and a scraggly beard reached his chest. He looked up as they entered but made no other reaction.

"This is Samuel," said the director. "We like to keep the patients groomed, but Samuel becomes angry when he's touched. For several years we strapped him down so he could be shaved and have his hair cut. Since he is quiet at other times, we decided the grooming wasn't necessary. We would like to put him in a ward with others. Social contact is generally beneficial. But somebody might touch him. He's been here nearly twenty years."

"He's been in this room since before you were born," Roller said to Carl.

The room smelled strongly of disinfectant, but the disinfectant couldn't mask another smell, stale and sour, that reminded Emma of her high school locker room when damp towels had been piled all day on a concrete floor.

As they left the room Emma thought of her sister Julia. Like Samuel, repelled by any touch except when Emma brushed her hair. Would she be here at Steilacoom, in the women's wing, when her hair was as gray as the old man's?

Roller and the director exchanged glances at the last door at the end of the hall. Inside a youth sat on the bed with his knees drawn up against his chest. He turned his head with his mouth open, as if confused and mystified that anyone would enter the room. His blond hair sprouted in all directions, and a wispy mustache was forming under his nose. He was a year or two older than Carl, and looked something like him. Except for the twist of his head when the group came into the room, he didn't move.

"This boy was one of my first cases as a lunacy commissioner," said Roller. "He wouldn't speak to us. Maybe he couldn't. We had to declare him insane. Unless some day he can talk to us he'll probably spend the rest of his life in this room."

After contemplating the boy a moment the director turned to leave. Roller held up a hand, and the group remained in the room another minute, a silent tableau of people staring. Roller took a few steps toward the boy and crouched so his face and the boy's were on the same level a foot apart. Roller cupped his chin in his hand and looked intently into the boy's eyes.

"This boy here with us," he said to the uncomprehending youth, gesturing towards Carl. "His name's Carl. He's like you. He isn't talking. He might end up in the next room." He shook his head. "Some day you'll both be old men here."

On the way out Roller waved to the director and the deputy to walk on ahead.

"You don't want to live here, Carl," he said. "It's been very hard for you to act insane."

"Mary wouldn't come down here very often," said Emma. "After a while she wouldn't come any more."

"She'd come," said Carl.

Emma and Doctor Roller looked at one another. "It's a big relief to end it," said Roller.

The boy began sobbing. His shoulders seemed to collapse.

"You go ahead and cry," said Emma. "It'll feel better."

"She'll hate me now," he sobbed. He twisted the knuckles of a hand in his eye to get rid of the tears running down his cheeks.

"She'll still love you," she said.

"No she won't." He shook his head from side to side. "She said if I told she wouldn't love me."

"Maybe we can talk to her about that."

As they left the building Carl walked with his head hanging down and his arms limp.

"Ho!" Emma exclaimed. "Just like that."

"He could see himself in the other boy," said Roller.

"It's amazing," said Emma. "She really had him hypnotized. Is hypnotism that powerful? To make him not feel pain?"

"Hypnotism, maybe," Roller answered. "Maybe it was his passion for the woman."

Emma looked at Roller and suddenly blushed. Roller spoke in measured, slightly formal terms, as if picking his words carefully. Hearing him speak of a passion for a woman caught her off-guard. She didn't think of herself as a blusher, but she could feel the blood in her cheeks. She bit her lip in irritation with herself. Why was she so sensitive in this man's presence?

The next day Carl was returned to Judge Morris's courtroom. Emma sat down at Casebolt's desk at the Times and related what had happened at the asylum. Casebolt, smiling and nodding in the way he had that encouraged people to talk, took unobtrusive notes as she spoke. Carl's story was given a headline and the front page.

When his wracked and tortured mind and body joined in a cry of intense relief from the strain of shamming insanity in order to extort money from the Seattle Electric Company, Carl Windell, 15 years old, yesterday afternoon in the Superior Court confessed to being the principal in one of the most ingenious plots to get money in all the annals of crime. Had Windell been able to bear up a little longer under the magic of the hypnotic eye of Mrs. Mary Vinette, the arch-conspirator, he would perhaps by now be undergoing the horror of being locked up in a ward with raving maniacs in the Steilacoom Asylum.

# Part 3

# A FAMILY

_Western Washington State Hospital, first built as Fort Steilacoom to protect settlers, became a state mental hospital in 1869_.

# CHAPTER SIX

Emma watched her brother dozing in the seat across from her on the train. He had begun sleeping more heavily than he used to. Some mornings she had to call him repeatedly to wake him in time for school. But this was Saturday. After the visit with Carl and Dr. Roller earlier in the week she felt a need to return and see her sister.

The train sped through the farmlands and forests between Renton and Kent at nearly sixty miles an hour. From the train's window the rows of green leaves where Italian and Japanese farmers bent over their hoes looked satisfyingly tight and straight. The dark soil of the Kent Valley was said to be the richest anywhere. The clacking of the wheels smoothed into a steady, soothing purr. She liked riding the train. She could settle into a comfortable passivity and let her thoughts drift. Robert was getting his growth. Nearly a year ago she noticed a second shaving mug and razor alongside their father's on the bathroom shelf. She had felt a welling of affection for her brother when she saw a trace of white shaving cream in his ear one morning missed when he washed his face.

Emma saw Robert growing, and she saw him becoming more reserved with her. One evening she asked him what he thought of Conan Doyle's famous detective, Sherlock Holmes. Robert said he hadn't read any of the stories. She took up a volume she had brought from the library and began reading "The Speckled Band" aloud to him. Halfway through the story she closed the book.

Robert popped upright in his chair. "Hey," he said, "what are you stopping for?"

"It's getting late."

"But what happens?"

Emma smiled to herself. "All right, let's see what happens to Mr. Holmes in the dark room," she said and finished the story. A half hour of Holmes at nine o'clock became their weekday routine. Robert would lie on his stomach on his bed, resting his chin on his fists as she read.

She continued reading through Holmes' adventures until a few months ago, when Robert began coming home later in the evening. Twice he dozed off in the middle of a story. She realized how much she was enjoying reading the stories aloud. When Robert listened he interrupted with questions about the villains and the circumstances of London life. Emma herself was fascinated by the character of Holmes. He was a fictional creation, she was clear enough about that. But she was perplexed by his personality. Nothing could match Holmes when he was on the track of a criminal. In one story Watson suggests that Holmes' indomitable intelligence would have made him a master criminal had he been so inclined. In the tale one of the police inspectors, uncertain of Holmes' demeanor, asks the detective which side he is on. Holmes laughs and says he is with the hounds, not the wolves.

She was disturbed by that image of the hound. On the scent a hound is relentless and inexhaustible. But when the prey has been caught and the hunt is done, the hound falls into a state of listlessness, and becomes irritable if disturbed. When she was a girl her father offered to take his daughters along on a mountain lion hunt with some friends in the logging country around Darrington. Julia wasn't interested, but Emma seized the chance. She liked dogs, and played with the soft floppy ears of the hounds before the hunt began. In the forest her heart beat with excitement when the dogs picked up the scent and howled off in pursuit of their prey with the hunters shouting encouragement. But once the cougar had been treed, shot, and lashed to a pole for carrying, the men cursed and kicked at the balky dogs to get them to move with the horse caravan. That is the picture of Holmes that emerges from the tales: a man unsmiling except in moments of febrile laughter, moody, listless, and worse than that, addicted to narcotics. From the time she had begun working as a detective she thought of herself as a female Sherlock Holmes. But she made her life deliberately unlike his. Holmes was the example of the risks of being idle.

No Holmesian lethargy for her. What she liked best was to close a case just at the time the Mountaineers Club had an outing scheduled. She could collect her gear, join her climbing friends for a trainride into the Cascades, or a boat trip across the Sound and a wagon bouncing over a rough trail to a campground in the Olympics. At sunup, or earlier, while it was still dark and the snowpack was firm, she would lace her climbing boots, take her place in the line, rope up, get a secure grip on her alpenstock, and push herself to the top of whatever mountain peak rose above the climbers. Tired legs produced a calm mind. The crisp, biting mountain air and the unfolding views were all the narcotic she needed.

A late-morning fog hung over the buildings of the asylum, muting the color of the red bricks and white trim. Flower gardens, neatly trimmed rows of bright-colored roses and dahlias, failed to soften the grim austerity of buildings originally constructed as an army fort during the Indian wars of the last century. A group of inmates weeded around the bases of flowers with the slow-moving patience of those with no deadline to meet. The woman at the registration desk nodded without smiling and pushed the visitor's check-in log toward Emma.

She and Robert climbed the stairs and passed through an oppressively familiar corridor to the ward where her sister was kept. Large carefully manicured potted plants and paintings on the walls of serene and summery rural scenes couldn't disguise the purpose of the heavy locked doors. When Emma had been here with Dr. Roller she had been able to keep the awareness that Julia was nearby from interfering with her attention to Carl and the patients they visited. Now, in the women's unit, she had no more that a brief recollection of the straitjacketed man and the dazed blond boy. She was a moment away from being with her sister.

Outside the ward Emma hesitated. The sound from within drove against the door like steam pressure in a boiler leaking around the edges. She resisted the urge to turn away and opened the door. An unending low moaning underlay high-pitched rapid chatter, an occasional outburst of filthy cursing from an innocent-looking face, gasps of pain, and rips of shrill laughter. The misery in the ward had many forms and sounds.

A single white-clad attendant moved slowly around the room, pulling wilted flowers from the vases, fluffing up cushions in the unused chairs, and watching. The director, Emma had been told, didn't allow the staff to treat the patients like livestock. She looked at the attendant, a big man whose beefy hands seemed out of place plucking flowers. His face revealed a vacant expression. She knew he'd been selected for the strength that could subdue anyone who became agitated, not for compassion or sensitivity. Perhaps the patients to him were little more than domestic animals who would misbehave if not watched.

She nodded to a visitor, a nicely dressed older man who sat and spoke quietly to an unresponsive woman, likely his wife. He was on the same visiting schedule as she and Robert were. Or perhaps he was here every day. Did his wife lose her mind gradually with age, she wondered, or did something build up and explode to ruin her connection with reality, as happened to Julia? She had no experience of what happened to old people.

Emma and Robert found Julia sitting quietly near a wall. Her limp hair, darker than Emma's, had been pulled back and tied with a simple ribbon. Her lips were colorless and cracked, shiny from an ointment someone had rubbed on them. She was dressed in the shapeless gown she always wore.

Julia responded to Emma's greeting by turning slowly to face her, then dropping her eyes to Emma's feet. Emma could not be sure how much recognition was in the look. Robert's custom was to sit with his knees next to Julia's and talk about the messenger business. Robert worked after school for a service run by a young man named George Casey. The messengers took letters and documents from one city office to another, but were being employed more and more by the department stores to deliver purchases. Robert told Julia how the fifteen bicycle messenger boys employed by the post office had all been let go because the post office decided it was immoral to send boys into the restricted district south of Yesler Way.

"It's stupid," he said. "Anybody wants to know what goes on in the District just goes there."

Emma guessed that if Robert had told this story to her instead of to Julia, he would have had an ironic tone in his voice. But Robert's voice was always gentle when he was talking to Julia. He held his face close to hers so she could hear over the noise in the room. The police had begun cracking down, he said, on boys cycling down the Cherry Street hill at breakneck speed.

"They got motorcycles now for the stopwatch patrol," he said. "They can catch you."

"I hope you don't go too fast," said Emma. "I don't want you killing yourself."

"Don't worry, I'm careful," said Robert.

She wanted to say more, but didn't. If she lectured Robert he would stop talking about his activities. The two or three minutes of his animated account of his week on their Saturday visits gave her more insight into his life than whatever laconic conversation they had at home. While Robert talked, Emma untied the ribbon, and brushed Julia's soft hair, the form of contact she allowed Emma.

When their mother began complaining of pain in her abdomen and lying quietly in her room with the help of an opiate, Julia gave up her job as a shorthand instructor at the Kinman Business School and took over the cooking and household chores. The income their father provided came in surges. He would be on the road two or three weeks at a time. Sometimes when he returned he was silent and preoccupied. Other times he would arrive from the train station in a horse cab, his face ruddy and glowing from celebration, and hand their mother an envelope fat with cash. He would tell her to buy any hat she wanted, or buy things for the kids. Later he would tell her to make it last. He was gentle but sometimes moody during the periods he was home.

One afternoon when she was fourteen her father took her across Capitol Hill to Leschi Park on the shore of Lake Washington. As they strolled through the park's amusements a group of men called out an enthusiastic greeting to her father. She recognized the exuberant behavior of men who had been drinking, though it was nothing like the raucous laughter and slurred obscenities she had heard coming from the saloons. The men were talking about sports, arguing in a loud but friendly manner which baseball team or fighter could beat another. They asked her father for his opinion about an upcoming fight, and listened attentively as he gave it. They seemed to put a high value on his views. At one point her father put his hand on her shoulder and introduced her to the gathering.

"This is my girl Emma. She's a whiz at school. Got the best grades in English in her class. Must have got that from her mother, she sure didn't get it from me."

Emma grinned with embarrassed satisfaction as her father boasted about her grades. The men gave her a rousing greeting. One particularly handsome man with a smile filled with fine white teeth and a rich, melodious voice told her she was a swell kid and when she was older he'd like to show her the town. Another said she'd have to be pretty sharp to be as sharp as her father. They were jovial, self-assured, well-dressed men, and when she and her father left the park to catch the streetcar home, she basked in the pride that her father was held in high regard by such men. She asked him who the man with the melodious voice was.

Her father laughed. "That's Black Jack Bouchee. He could sell the city hall building to a banker. Sharp as they come. The ladies need to be careful around him. Were you just a little taken with him there?"

Emma blushed and made a face. Her father was an affectionate man who liked to tease her, but always gently. He often put an arm around the shoulders of the person he was talking to, and sometimes put a comfortable arm around Emma's shoulder. He liked to say, "Give us a peck," and give Emma a smack on the lips. Once the kiss lasted longer than a peck. Emma grinned and pushed his chest away. "Come on, Pop, don't be getting all mushy," she laughed.

One afternoon when her father was traveling her mother invited the minister from the Methodist church to dinner. After the dishes had been cleared she said, "Julia, it's a nice evening. Why don't you go outside with Robert a while so Reverend Coolbaugh and I can have a talk with Emma."

Julia gave her sister a meaningful glance as she rose from the table. Oh oh, thought Emma, I'm going to get The Talk.

The minister's ears were so large it was hard for Emma not to stare at them. Tall and stiff-gaited, he hiked the pants of his glossy black suit high enough to show his thin ankles before dropping into the sofa. He leaned forward and smiled at her.

"Well, Emma, I see you've been attending our Sunday school classes for a while."

"Yessir."

"Have you been learning a lot?"

"I like the stories."

The minister nodded vigorously. "That's good. The Bible has many lessons for us. Your mother tells me you are doing well in school. I can see you're certainly becoming a young woman. You know what I think? I think you might be ready to be promoted to the adult congregation. What would you say to that?"

He raised his prominent eyebrows in expectation of an answer, but Emma looked at him without saying anything. The eyebrows dropped and pinched together and his fingertips touched to form a pointed shape in front of his chest, announcing an adult-to-adult conversation.

"Do you pray?"

Emma hesitated to tell the minister she didn't.

"She has always been an obedient and upright child," said her mother. "I have taught her topray for forgiveness for wayward thoughts."

"I'm glad to hear that," intoned the minister. "Emma, can you tell me what kind of relationship you have with God?"

Emma wished she could give the minister the answer he wanted to hear. She could tell him the God she'd learned about in Sunday School was powerful and merciful. From her mother she'd learned that He was above all things judgmental. But she didn't know what a personal relationship with Him meant. "I'm not sure," she said.

The minister nodded over the tower of fingers that had risen almost to his nose. "Well. You are ripe for instruction. You are at a very dangerous age, you know. You will soon experience temptation, if you haven't already. Has that happened to you? Have you experienced temptation?"

"Sir?" she said uneasily. "Temptation?" She wasn't sure what he meant but didn't want to admit it. She was afraid of sounding sassy if she asked questions. She knew from an occasional sharp word from a teacher that she could sound sassy to adults. The long fingers with curling black hairs, which had begun flexing in and out as the minister spoke, distracted her. She couldn't think clearly. Julia had told her last year about her talk with the Reverend and his questions about a relationship with God. She hadn't said anything about a discussion of temptation.

"As a young woman's body goes through difficult changes," he continued. "She is surrounded boys, for one thing. A pretty girl is a powerful temptation for boys. They begin to behave in ways they shouldn't. They are driven to do harmful things. Unmentionable things. Do you have a boyfriend?"

So that's what he's talking about, she thought to herself. Some of her friends had become boy-crazy. They talked with horrified fascination about what boys wanted to do, how they wanted to put their hands on a girl's breasts. She herself was not boy-crazy. Boys were all right. Some of them had begun acting silly about the time their voices started to crack, but she admired the athletes among them who were good at sports.

"No," she said. "I don't have a boyfriend."

"Good for you," said the minister. He looked up at Emma's mother, then back at her. "Now Emma, I want you to consider what I'm suggesting. I hope you feel ready for confirmation. You mother is a fine Christian and an upright woman. I encourage you to ask her questions about her relationship with God. I enjoyed our talk. Let's have another when you've had a chance to think about things."

"Thank you, sir," said Emma.

When the minister had gone Emma's mother stood in the middle of the room.

"My belief in God has been a great comfort to me," she said. "Your sister shares my belief."

Emma winced. She understood her mother's message. Her mother had spoken to her repeatedly about the need to submit to God's will. Her response to her mother's urgings had been passive, and at the conclusion of the lectures her mother would look at her sternly, once even shaking her head. Emma knew she disappointed her mother. Julia had set an example of saying what their mother wanted to hear, but Emma suspected Julia did this to more to avoid unpleasantness than out of a heartfelt belief.

"You pay heed to Reverend Coolbaugh's warning. He didn't want to embarrass you by saying too much. But this is something a girl in this house has to know. About men. Men are creatures who can't control themselves. Some do, like the Reverend, but I believe it is a struggle for any of them. There is a beast in a man that can't always be kept leashed." Repugnance pinched her face as she spoke. "Never forget this. If you let the vile beast in men have its way, you will be lost."

Her mother's face had become flushed. The look frightened Emma. She could see a tracing of blue veins standing out in her mother's temples where the gray hair had been drawn tightly back. Her mother's hair had been gray for as long as she could remember.

"But Pop," said Emma. "There're men like Pop, aren't there, who aren't bad?"

Emma was shocked by her mother's reaction. A partly stifled sob rose as if forcing its way from her breast, and she dropped her face into her hands.

"You be careful around your father. When he drinks especially. You watch out for him. Promise me!"

Emma's mouth fell open in dismay at her mother's vehemence.

"I promise," she responded, not knowing what else to say.

Her mother inhaled deeply to recover control of herself. She turned and looked directly at Emma for the first time in their conversation.

"Turn to God. You can find comfort in God." Mother and daughter gazed at one another. Emma had never seen her mother in the grip of such powerful feelings. When her mother left the room Emma sat where she was, drained and shaken. She had never thought much about the intimate relationship of her parents. Her mother was tenser and more active when their father was home than when he was away on his trips, but Emma always thought that was because she had more to do. Was it possible she was afraid of her own husband? What was it about her father her mother wasn't telling her?

# CHAPTER SEVEN

With the onset of their mother's illness Emma began coming home immediately after school to do the shopping and help Julia with the chores. They shared an assumption that the adjustments to their lives were temporary.

But their mother didn't get better. After a month she was taken to the hospital. Their father, working in town for the present, was usually home for dinner, but often went out after eating, and was not back when Emma went to bed. Occasionally he would ask her and Robert about their classes at school. A few days later he would ask the same questions and nod the same way, not remembering what they had told him earlier. She was hurt by his inattention, but realized his conversation was an attempt to make their family life seem normal.

When their mother died, Emma fell into a state of numbed detachment. She hadn't been as close to their mother as Julia was, but her mother had been the stability in their lives. Robert began talking to Emma about their mother. "Remember the time she...," he would begin, and tell seemingly insignificant stories in a rapid, nervous voice. Emma understood that he was trying to solidify his memories of his mother in a form he would be able to retain.

In the weeks following their mother's death grief took the form of solicitousness of the siblings for one another. Julia and Emma were quick to help the other if any housekeeping task required much effort. Robert offered to help carry out garbage and mow the lawn, things he'd done when their mother was alive, but only when asked.

One afternoon Julia knocked her mother's portrait of Jesus off the wall as she dusted. The glass in the frame shattered. Julia burst into tears. Emma heard and hurried to her"It's just an accident," she said, putting her arms around Julia. "It doesn't mean anything."

Nothing that belonged to their mother had been moved since her death. The possessions they knew she valued, her Bible and religious tracts, her good china, the picture of Jesus on her bedroom wall, the dresses in her wardrobe, had become sacred objects that represented the perpetuation of their family. The breaking of the portrait frame shocked both sisters. After that the dusting of their mother's things became a kind of slow and infinitely careful ritual.

Julia attended to their father and Emma to Robert, as if an unspoken arrangement had been made. Emma had always been willing to help Robert with homework. Now she almost pleaded with him to let her help with his English and geography assignments. She was thankful math came easily to him, since she wouldn't have been able to help him much with that. Julia sat with their father when he was home, watching him and listening carefully for anything he might need. He often returned home flushed with drink and needing to talk. Julia would sit with him in the kitchen and respond or at least nod attentively during his wandering conversations.

"Get tired of all the train riding," Emma overheard him say to Julia. "Wish I could just stay here with you sometimes."

"Couldn't you do something different?" Julia asked.

"I'm too old to start over," he said.

Julia had gone back to work at Kinman. When Emma graduated from high school and took a job with the Cody agency, she persuaded Julia to leave the business school and become a full-time homemaker until Robert was old enough to set out on his own. Her pay, once she had proved her worth to Cody, was more than Julia made teaching shorthand. "They're going to want me to work late sometimes," she told Julia. "You can be here every day when he gets home from school."

The three settled into a routine that varied only according to whether their father was at home or traveling. But after several months something changed. Julia's quiet grief gave way to a growing agitation. Her hands fluttered nervously as she did the housework. She became obsessed with cleanliness, mopping, dusting, and pushing the carpet sweeper relentlessly. She made a quick, perfunctory job of the ironing, but attacked the laundry with ferocity. She bent over the washboard and thrust her weight at the clothes in a pounding rhythm, panting breathlessly until she was close to exhaustion.

Late one afternoon of a week their father was somewhere in the Midwest Robert rushed up to Emma as she patrolled the floor of the Bon Marche and grasped her arm. He was panting from the effort of a hard bike ride.

"It's Julia," he gasped. "Something's happened to her."

Emma told the floorwalker she had to leave and hurried to the streetcar stop. At home she found her sister huddled on the kitchen floor with her knees drawn up to her chest.

"Julia!" Emma cried. When she pressed the back of her hand to Julia's cheek to see if she was feverish, Julia jerked her head away as if contact was painful. Her eyes were open, but she wasn't looking at anything.

Emma called a doctor to come to the house. He shook his head after his visit and said he would have Dr. Loughery, the alienist, come to see her.

"An alienist?" said Emma.

"Nothing wrong with her medically," said the doctor. "She's had a breakdown."

The doctor returned the following day with Loughery. With Emma and the doctor's help he moved Julia from her bed to a chair. He sat in front of her, very close, and asked questions, waiting after each question for a response that didn't come. At one point he raised a hand to her cheek and gently pushed her head to the side, watching her eyes. He raised one of her hands and watched it fall back to her lap. Finally he rose from his chair and told Emma her sister's unresponsive state was a form of catatonic hysteria. He said he would fill out the county papers to have her committed to the asylum at Steilacoom.

# CHAPTER EIGHT

In the ward with Julia there was a girl with a plain, inoffensive face always wearing the same dress of institutional gray cotton who usually sat in a corner with a bible in her lap. This day, as Emma and Robert rose to leave Julia, Emma must have noticed the girl looking at her, and she held the girl's gaze for a moment. The girl gestured to Emma. Emma asked Robert to wait and crossed the ward to where the girl sat.

"I know she doesn't speak to you," the girl said. "But I'm sure she's happy when you visit."

"How can you tell? Does she say anything to you?"

"No. But I can tell."

"Thank you for saying that." Emma looked more closely at the young woman. "How can you tell?"

"I don't talk with people here, but you learn to know them."

"You're always here when we come, aren't you? Do you get visitors yourself?"

"No."

"I'm sorry."

"It's all right. There's no one to visit. I'm here because I shot my brother."

"Oh," was all Emma could say. "I'm sorry."

"It's all right."

"What's your name?"

"Esther Mitchell."

"Ah," said Emma. Two years ago the front pages of the newspapers had been filled with the sensational murders involving the notorious sect known as the Holy Rollers. A photo of Esther Mitchell had covered half the front page. Emma remembered studying the photo, trying to match the act of killing her brother with the expression on the young woman's face. "You're the Holy Roller. I read about you."

The girl nodded. "I'm sure there were newspaper stories."

"It was the biggest story in town. Would you mind if I talked to you a little when I come? You can let me know if you see any changes in my sister."

"She hasn't changed much since I came here."

"You can still tell me how you think she's doing."

"I'll be here."

Five years earlier stories from Corvallis in central Oregon about the Holy Rollers began to appear in the Seattle papers. A German immigrant, Franz Creffield, described as an earnest worker in the Salvation Army, abandoned his place as a captain in that organization and led away a group of followers to create his own church. Farmers and factory hands complained that their wives and daughters were being enticed to follow a fanatic who preached eliminating material goods and severing ties with nonbelieving family and friends. A huge fire had been set in the yard of one of Creffield's followers. Witnesses said worldly goods of all kinds, quantities of clothing, furniture, knickknacks, household decorations, were thrown into the blaze. There were sinister stories of pet dogs and cats burned in the flames.

Anger in the community rose to the level that a tar and feather party was first threatened, then carried out. Tar was plentiful; a housewife in Corvallis sacrificed two pillows to provide the feathers.

Later a charge of adultery was brought against Creffield. Unlike the lurid but unconfirmed claims of orgies taking place during services, the crime was acknowledged by both parties. In Oregon, adultery was punishable by two years in prison. Officers of the law hunted diligently for Creffield but couldn't find him. He was finally caught when a boy overheard his sister talking to someone while sitting in the corner of an empty room in their home. The floorboards were pulled up, and Creffield was discovered, emaciated, naked, covered with filth, in a hole in the dirt six feet by two feet by eighteen inches deep, with two milk bottles of water near his head. Apparently he had been in the hole for weeks. He was quickly tried and sent to the Oregon State Penitentiary to serve the two-year sentence. Creffield was a slightly built man, five feet three inches tall and weighing 135 pounds. A prison guard told a reporter he possessed a male organ of unusual size.

When he was released he traveled on foot with some of his followers to the Oregon coast, a sixty mile walk undertaken because Creffield was afraid he would be harmed if he used public transportation. From there the group traveled north to Seattle. During his flight he was followed and attacked by the brother of one of the women in his flock. The man shot at Creffield from a few feet away, but the pistol misfired. The man had purchased cartridges of the wrong caliber. Creffield said his escape was God's will. At other times, though, he was reported to say that the outrage aroused by his preaching would probably lead to his death.

Esther Mitchell had followed Creffield since she was fifteen. She had been abandoned to the care of George and another brother by a father who had no interest in raising her. At one point she was shipped to the Oregon Boys and Girls home in Portland, a facility for wayward and criminal youths. As at similar institutions elsewhere, the home was managed by Christian idealists, but the attendants sometimes couldn't resist the temptation their power gave them to abuse the children. She escaped and returned to Creffield's group. Protesting that the preacher had led his sister into a life of iniquity, George Mitchell swore to hunt Creffield down and kill him. Mitchell found Creffield walking on a downtown Seattle street with his wife, approached him and shot him in the head with a .32 revolver. He had made no mistake in selecting ammunition.

A shooting on the Seattle streets, at least the streets north of the restricted district, would usually be reported in the newspapers. The shooting of the notorious Franz Creffield, fanatic preacher credited with a hypnotic power to unclothe and seduce the wives and daughters of decent families, moved all other news off the front pages. Once the bare fact of the killing had been reported in every imaginable detail, the focus of the newspaper stories shifted to the upcoming trial of the killer. The story remained in the headlines and was reinforced by the fieriest rhetoric newspaper writers could bring to bear on the sensational event. Some editorials asked whether, in a country as free and great as the United States, vigilante actions had any place. From the Seattle Times for July 7, 1906-

It may not be technically correct to take the life of such a scoundrel—but if there were more men like George Mitchell there would be fewer human beasts and still fewer broken, ruined women in insane asylums and on the streets.

Physicians and alienists were called to testify. George Mitchell was found innocent of the crime of murder on the grounds of temporary insanity.

A few days after the verdict Mitchell was waiting with his suitcase in the Union Station for the train, intending to return to Portland. His sister Esther walked up behind him and shot him in the head with a revolver.

The photo portrait of Esther that filled the entire lower half of the Seattle Times front page showed a clear-eyed woman appearing somewhat older than her twenty years, neither attractive nor homely, looking directly into the camera. Her expression revealed no defiance, no wide-eyed fanaticism, no remorse. It is possible to read both a resoluteness to accept what lay ahead in the slightly lifted eyebrows, and uncertainty what that future would be.

Esther was brought to trial, and, in a verdict that could be interpreted as community exhaustion with the moral dilemmas presented by her brother's trial, was judged to be insane and sent to the state hospital at Steilacoom.

"How long will you be here?" Emma asked Esther, thinking she might be serving a sentence.

"Until they decide to let me leave."

"How will they decide that? Are you getting some kind of treatment?"

"They leave me alone. They aren't cruel to me. They tried the ice baths, but they don't do that any more. They'll let me leave when they're ready."

"Do you have a place to go?"

Esther shook her head. "Do you ever pray?" she asked Emma.

Not since she was a girl, Emma told her, thinking of her stubborn resistance to pretending to pray with her mother.

"I keep trying to," said Esther. "With Joshua and the group I could pray. Then my brother took Joshua's life."

"I'm so sorry," said Emma, unable to find any other words for the girl.

On the train back to Seattle Emma couldn't get Esther's words out of her mind. She had seen nothing she thought of as signs of madness in Esther's behavior. She had been sad and resigned but clear-headed. She'd been committed because the asylum was a better place than prison, and they didn't know what else to do with her. What an unutterably horrible situation to be in, to feel that killing your brother was something you had to do. She looked at Robert sitting beside her and knew it was unimaginable. Conceivably it was different with an older brother. An older brother could be brutal and cruel to a younger sister. That at least she could imagine. But a younger brother you had nurtured, who looked to you for guidance, was there any conceivable situation? She gazed at the massive white contours of the mountain to the east and asked herself if events could happen in a person's life that would lead you for the sake of someone you loved to take the life of someone else you loved.
CHAPTER NINE

Some days Emma slipped into a state of despondent lethargy on the trolley ride home from work. Her mood didn't seem connected to anything that had happened that particular day in the stores. Something, her ability to concentrate intensely perhaps, made her good at her work but exacted a price. She needed to manage her feelings, which could swing from flights of elation to troughs of depression. When she began working for the agency she was confused by her periods of lethargy. Self-understanding came to her when she remembered the Sherlock Holmes stories she used to read to her brother. Holmes' intensity when he was hunting a criminal alternated with bouts of lethargy, a lethargy like her own that turned the great detective to heavy shag tobacco and injections of cocaine. She was not about to become a smoker or drug user. Thanks to Cousin Annie, she had already found her form of escape when the times came that she needed it.

Cousin Annie was a mountain-climbing professor who taught Greek literature at a university in the East. For as long as Emma could remember her father had bragged about his cousin. When Emma was sixteen, her father announced that Cousin Annie was coming to Seattle on a lecture tour, and would be staying with the family. Annie was raising money for an expedition to South America, and was touring the country delivering lectures on climbing the Matterhorn, the archeology of Athens, and Greek tragedy.

"Where are we going to put her?" Emma's mother asked.

"Can't she can stay in Robert's room?" asked her father. "He can sleep on the sofa."

Her mother shook her head and said, "I don't see why she can't put up in a hotel."

"She's trying to finance her trip. She needs to cut all the expenses she can. It's an honor to have her here."

"You tell that to Robert," said her mother.

Her mother was a restless evaluator of other women, and rarely smiled in the process. She and the women in her church group, her only friends, would sip their tea, the furrows of their brows deepening in unison as they discussed the behavior of less churchly acquaintances. She didn't conceal her skepticism about a fifty-year-old woman who had never been married, had more education than a woman needed, and was trying to make a name for herself by conquering unclimbed peaks, an activity more suitable for men. When Annie arrived and vigorously shook hands with each of the family members, Emma was won over.

After the dinner on the evening Annie arrived they all sat down in the living room. Emma was filled with anticipation; what would Cousin Annie have to say for herself? Cousin Annie began by asking her father about his work. He told her he helped promote sports events, and talked about a boxing match that was coming up.

"It is a good thing for a girl to learn to box," she said, with a nod to Emma and Julia. "You know why I think that? Because poise, grace, and buoyancy of movement result from this exercise."

Emma saw her mother purse her lips, and knew what she was thinking. She was thinking that this woman has imposed herself on us, and instead of being humble and appreciative was talking for effect.

"Girls could get hurt boxing," her father objected.

"Are you aware that the Madison Academy in New York City teaches young women to box and wrestle? I have visited the place several times, and I can tell you there is a girl there who can hit a harder blow than the average young man. Every blow comes straight from the shoulder, with the weight of the body behind it."

"Well, that would be the right way to do it," said her father. He appeared a little overwhelmed by his cousin, but Emma heard the admiration in his voice.

Annie gave Emma and Julia complimentary tickets to a lecture. "You can come and hear me talk about Sophocles if you like, but I think you'll find the mountaineering lecture more interesting. How would you two like to go climbing while I'm here?"

Julia, two years older than Emma, had inherited their mother's narrow face and prominent lower lip. She was hesitant in her movements, lacking Emma's robust strength. She sometimes looked at the person she was speaking to as if she feared what they would say next. Her smile was wide and attractive, Emma thought, but always took a few seconds to evolve from an initial expression of uncertainty. She shook her head at the invitation. Emma said she would love to go climbing.

"Come on, Jul," Emma urged. "It'll be exciting."

"You go," said Julia. "You like that kind of thing."

Annie had brought a ream of flyers advertising her lectures, and recruited Emma and Robert to post them on walls and windows in the city. The posters showed Annie wearing a long wool sweater, knickers, and a hat that looked like a shrunken cowboy Stetson perched high on her head. Her expression was relaxed and confident, just the way she was in life, Emma thought.

On returning from the first lecture Cousin Annie reported that she was disappointed with the size of the audience, but thought more would show up for the mountaineering lecture. "I guess a widespread interest in the classical drama is too much to expect here," she said. "But I know there are mountaineering enthusiasts in Seattle who should be interested in hearing from this year's official delegate to the International Congress of Alpinists."

"Is there really a congress for mountain climbers?" Emma asked.

"Certainly. You might be surprised how popular climbing is among the educated classes in Europe."

Cousin Annie was right. The second night the rented hall was filled. Cousin Annie began by talking about the reasons people climb mountains. "Some climb a lofty peak for the sake of saying they have been there," she said. "The true climber goes to the mountain for two reasons. First is the joy of a perfect form of exercise. The second is the challenge. A true climber would climb a difficult summit even if there were no one in the world to whom he could recount the tale."

Was that true, Emma wondered. Did people really undertake difficult adventures for reasons other than recognition and fame?

Annie's voice was assured and clear, and carried through the hall. When she turned to costume, she argued for the merits of wool, warm even when it was wet. Then she discussed knickerbockers. "Women will declare that a skirt is no hindrance to their locomotion. This is obviously absurd. Suitably made knickerbockers are not only more comfortable but more becoming." Emma smiled to herself. Annie was a formidable woman. She was not afraid to cause eyebrows to rise.

When she had finished her lectures Annie declared her visit to Seattle moderately profitable.

"If you want to try that climb, we'd better have a look at your wardrobe," she said to Emma. After sorting through Emma's outerwear Annie took her shopping for a sturdy pair of boots.

As they sat on the boat ferrying them across the Puget Sound to the Olympic Peninsula Annie told Emma stories of the unsatisfactory performance of male guides she had employed in the Alps, who seemed to lack both resolution and competence. She talked with a fierce energy about her plans to conquer Sorata in Bolivia.

Emma looked at the sharp outline of the Olympic peaks with apprehension and excitement. Ashore, Annie handed Emma a smaller backpack, hoisted her own packed with camping gear onto her back, and set out on the path that led away from the dock at a pace that pressed Emma to keep up. They soon left behind the handful of hikers who had accompanied them on the boat.

"This must be the greenest place in North America," Annie called out to her. "We're lucky to be here when it's not raining."

When they stopped to eat the biscuits Annie had packed for lunch, Emma was kept busy by the horseflies trying to land on the back of her neck. "Don't worry," said Annie. "Higher up they'll be gone."

By the time the sun began to set and Annie said it was time to make camp, the flies were gone and Emma's calves were tight as bowstrings.

Tired out by the miles of steady hiking, Emma fell asleep at once despite lying on hard ground. They had a quick cold breakfast and set out early in the morning. Annie pushed through the brush and thickets where the path was overgrown with a sure instinct for guessing the easiest route. Then the trees thinned, and they were above the timberline.

Annie's spirit, and the ascent of a seven thousand foot peak in the Olympics, its upper reaches lambent in a covering of midsummer snow, had been a revelation for Emma. She climbed, one step at a time, breathing deeply in the thinning air, until her thighs and lungs burned. The view of the world below her expanded every time she turned to look back. The blue sky filled more and more of the space around her as they approached the summit. She had to squint her eyes to filter the brightness. Now there was nothing around them but snow, ice, and air. They followed a ridge that curved left and then right to the summit. Annie stepped along the ridge four feet to the right of its wind-sculpted edge. On the left side of the ridge the mountain fell away steeply.

"How are you doing?" called Annie, turning to look back at her.

"It's beautiful. You could slide a long ways, though," said Emma with some apprehension.

"Concentrate on my steps," said Annie. "Concentration is safety."

Concentrate, Emma said to herself, and she did. She was steadied by Annie's confidence. And the white curve of the ridge was indeed beautiful. Nothing had ever given Emma such a satisfaction, gazing down at forests and ocean inlets that stretched until lost in the hazy line of the horizon. Few people would ever have such a view. Later she would reflect that her goals in life seemed obscure and blurred at the edges when she tried to articulate them to herself. On a mountain the goal was as clear as the air. Seek the best route, do the work, get to the summit.

"Well done!" Annie cried out. Her voice seemed to carry down the mountain. Emma didn't repress the grin that stretched her cheeks wide. She had never realized that being exhausted could feel so good.
CHAPTER TEN

Running was Emma's release of the energy stored up during her days of surveillance. She would pull on her gym suit of loose-fitting dark blue cotton snug at the wrists and ankles, lace up her flat-soled leather running shoes, and slip out the door sometimes just as the sun was coming up. She enjoyed the feeling of floating with an easy effort across the meadows between the lots where houses were being built. People out for a morning walk would stare at her, unused to seeing a woman training like a marathoner. But the sight of a woman running wasn't as unusual as it had been when she first began exploring the trails north of the built-up sections of the city. The fashion pages now sang the praises of the flat-front line extending from chin to toe. It was the new look. The Bon Marche had just acquired a set of mannequins with flatter chests to display the current style. The full-bosomed mannequins had been sent to storage. Everywhere in the city women cycled, skated, ran and exercised at the YWCA to achieve a trim figure.

Emma was usually back from her run in time to cook up oatmeal and eggs for herself and Robert. She would strip off her running outfit, step into the tub and wash off the sweat with a washrag, eat, and hurry out the door to catch the streetcar downtown.

When Casebolt told her Roller sometimes ran in the mornings on the trails leading away from the university, she altered her route eastwards, and after a week of exploring the paths around the university she thought she saw him loping along ahead of her. She couldn't be sure. The runner had a towel wrapped around his head like a hood, but ran the way Emma expected Roller would run, long easy strides, almost no movement of the upper body. She picked up her pace and fell in a hundred feet behind him.

When he came to a point where the trail became a suburban street, he stopped, dropped lightly onto his hands and toes, and did a series of rapid pushups. He had just risen when Emma ran up to him.

"Hello," she said.

He recognized her from the journey to Steilacoom with Carl Windell and greeted her in the slightly formal tone of a doctor with a patient.

"Are these trails where you usually run?" she asked.

"I like the trails out here. Are you a regular runner?"

"I get out in the mornings when I can. I like to go mountaineering. I need to be in shape to enjoy the climbs."

"Everybody should do some running," he said.

Emma smiled and nodded. Doctor Roller had become the physical culture coach for the entire city. The newspapers came to him for advice to the public about anything sporting or athletic. Casebolt was probably the author of many of those articles. She had just read Roller's warning for canoeists in the Times. Several people had drowned in Lake Washington during the past two summers in canoeing accidents. "I am a strong swimmer," he had been quoted in the article as saying, "but I would never take a woman in a canoe very far from the shore. Most canoeists have little idea how easy it is to tip a canoe over, and how difficult it is to right a canoe. No one should get into a canoe without being aware of the danger."

Anyone else would have sounded arrogant claiming to be a strong swimmer. But the Times knew people would take Roller's advice when they wouldn't listen to anyone else. If the Doc said canoeing was dangerous, it was dangerous.

Emma said she needed to get home and ready for work, and jogged off down the street. But she began directing her morning runs towards the university, and a few days later she saw him again and caught up to him.

"You mind company?" she asked.

"Come on along."

Emma ran side by side with Roller except for the narrow points in the trail where she fell back a few paces to let him lead. She didn't initiate any conversation. Some runners, she knew, preferred to run in solitude. Normally she did herself. He didn't say anything until they came to the turnaround point where she would leave him. "I'm doing a speed workout tomorrow," he said. "Six o'clock at the university track."

"Thanks," she said. "I'll see if I can make it."

At the track the next morning she saw him run in a different manner. Chukchukchukchuk his shoes hitting the cinder surface, arms pumping like a boxer making short swift jabs, mouth puckered as if whistling, chin pulled back into the corded neck, banking into the turns like a motorcycle. How does a man that size move so fast, she thought. He ran two hard laps, one easy, two more hard. She tried to duplicate what he was doing, two hard laps, then two more. At the end of the last lap she bent over, gasping for breath. She would have to do more of this. When it came to running fast she wasn't as fit as she thought.

At the end of his run Roller jogged an easy lap to cool down and sat beside her on the bottom level of the bleachers. "How did you do?" he asked.

"I'm not used to going that hard," she said.

"You need to mix in some speed work. Not too often, two or three times a month. Be sure you stretch first. You can injure yourself running like that."

"I've read about you getting ready to fight Frank Gotch."

He looked at her. "That's right."

"They say he's really good."

Roller rested on the bleachers with elbows on knees. "I wrestled him here a year ago at an exhibition. He's very strong, and he knows how to wrestle. He told me to get some more fights under my belt and he'd come back and give me a match. If I can beat him, I've beat the best."

Four men from the university track team were finishing their stretches. They stripped down to shorts and singlets and threw their warmup clothes and towels on the grass. When they saw Roller they called out and waved. Until he resigned to practice medicine full time, he had been the director of physical hygiene, the university's exercise and health department.

More than a year earlier, before his ambition to win the wrestling champion of the world became public knowledge, Emma had been given an opportunity to observe Dr. Roller. Watching Roller hadn't been her job. She was being paid to observe someone else. The event was a formal ball with a guest list of prominent people. The doctor was there, and he drew attention as if he was the guest of honor. She was aware of his presence, and guessed that everyone else was also.

The man employing the agency had married a vivacious woman twenty years younger than himself. He was proud of his wife, who had been educated at the university. But someone had recently suggested that she was paying more attention than she ought to a former literature professor. The man refused to do anything as vulgar as having his wife followed. But he wanted to check in an unobtrusive way. He and his wife had been invited to a ball to which the professor had also been invited. He himself would be taking an unavoidable business trip and not able to attend. He wondered if Cody had a female operative familiar enough with the behavior of people at high-society events to observe his wife and the professor and see if there was what he called "anything" between them.

Cody said he had such an operative. "I'll just need photographs and an invitation."

While employed by a legislator to dig for dirt on other lawmakers in Olympia Emma had attended three or four fancy social events. She enjoyed being a spy in the world of the wealthy and powerful. Cody had paid to have a nice dress made for her, a simple creamy-white taffeta that could be trimmed to follow the shifts of fashion.

There were always women at these events who were present because of their husband's position and who didn't know anyone. They either clung desperately to the husband's arm, or moved about in the room with nervous, timid smiles, hoping to find someone who would talk to them. Emma would pick these women out, smile back and make some compliment about dress or hair. The women responded eagerly, relief at not being snubbed visible in their faces. Emma had no discomfort being in a place where she didn't know anyone. She had developed the art of smiling at someone and looking over the person's shoulder at the same time, carrying on a pleasant but superficial conversation she could break off quickly if she needed to move closer to her target.

Once she had located both the wife and the professor at the ball, she placed herself where she could watch the wife. The woman was obviously acquainted with several of the other women in the ballroom, and moved with animated enthusiasm from one conversation to the next. Emma decided it would be more useful to observe the behavior of the professor. She recognized him from the photo in the Tyee, the university yearbook Cody had shown her. He was a portly man with a sporty salt-and-pepper goatee who rubbed his hands together as he spoke. She did not detect any glances in the direction of the wife. After half an hour she saw that he was spending most of his time chatting with husbands introduced to him by younger women. His former students at the university, she guessed.

Eventually the wife she was tracking approached the professor. Emma moved close enough to overhear the conversation. The wife greeted the professor fulsomely and asked him if he had read the Joseph Conrad novel that was just now appearing in the book stores. He said he hadn't, but would include it in his summer reading list. She asked for his opinion of Conrad, and listened with a rapt smile as he told her he envied the author's familiarity with the distant outposts of the world. He then said he was glad she was looking well, and would talk with her about the novel the next occasion they met. He smiled and turned to others who had just approached. The wife lingered a moment, the smile still on her face, then backed away and stood a moment by herself before looking up and engaging with another group.

A vivacious woman with an enthusiasm for literature still clinging to a schoolgirl infatuation with her English professor, Emma decided. When she moved away from him the professor became immediately engrossed in a conversation about electric utility stocks and the cost per mile of road construction. He had smiled and discussed Conrad with the gratified vanity of a man talking to an attractive woman who is hanging on his every word. But he had dismissed her from his mind five seconds after turning away from her. She would consider reporting that there was a one-sided interest with possible romantic coloring. What she would report with confidence was that there was no affair in progress.

In the course of her observations of the professor she had been aware of Dr. Roller. People seemed to gravitate to him. With the business of the wife and the professor settled, curiosity moved her in his direction. He stood in the middle of a circle, listening more than talking, not smiling much, looking at the person talking to him with dark, deepset eyes. His manner was reserved, but it was the reservation of self-assurance, not of shyness.

She overheard the conversation of two young women near her. They were pretty girls, wearing pearls that glowed and diamonds that caught and concentrated the ballroom light in brilliant points. These were the daughters of bankers, timber barons, railroad magnates, department store owners, the unabashedly rich thriving in the new century in Seattle.

"Do you see him?" one of them asked.

The other smiled and nodded. "How about you?"

"No," said the first. "My mother sees him. That would be too strange, seeing the same gynecologist as my mother."

The other girl laughed, almost a giggle. "I'm glad my mother doesn't."

"You don't mind going?"

The girl pushed at her friend's arm. "Of course not. He's very good, you know. For heaven sakes, the nurse is always right there."

As the two young women moved away, Emma gazed at Roller. A dark, imposing, handsome man reputed to be a nearly superhuman athlete. What would lead such a man to become a gynecologist? What led a man beginning the study of medicine to choose a particular specialization? A gynecologist was also an obstetrician. Perhaps a man with a certain outlook took satisfaction in bringing babies safely into the world. Emma could also imagine a certain kind of man who was simply more comfortable practicing medicine with women than with males.

None of these reflections answered the question why Doctor Roller had selected the medical specialty he had. She had read an article in Colliers about the theories of the Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud, who thought that our behavior was shaped by things that happened to us when we were very young and didn't remember when we were older. This seemed basically true to her. Some event in his childhood, or even his infancy, might have directed him to select the female anatomy and its ailments as his specialty. How many people really understood where their ambitions came from or where their path in life got its start? Did she really know what had led her to the profession of detective? Opportunity, yes, but there might have been some event from before her conscious memories formed that led her to seize the opportunity Cody had offered. She'd probably never know.

# CHAPTER ELEVEN

"Steilacoom was a brilliant idea," said Casebolt. He sat across from Emma at the Fredericks & Nelson tea room. "Great work. I wanted to buy you lunch, say thank you."

"You didn't have to," she said. "I was just doing my job."

"Just doing your job. All right, I have another motive. What made you become a detective?"

"Another motive," said Emma. "What does that mean?"

Casebolt gave her a sheepish smile. "I'm a reporter. I see a story."

"A female detective."

"Exactly. You willing to talk about how you become a detective?"

"Cody recruited me. He said I might have an aptitude."

"An aptitude? How would he know that?"

"He saw me act in a high school play."

An easy grin came to Casebolt's face as he leaned back from the table. The slightly lopsided smile that half-concealed a piercing look reminded her of a boy named Danny she had liked in grade school. "All right," he said, "I'm seeing a story here. He sees you act and he decides to recruit you...." He held out a hand to her, encouraging her to continue.

"In my last year of high school I tried out for the school play. I got the role of a clever servant who shows her widowed society mistress that the dashing fellow who is courting her is a bounder. The rehearsals were fun, but I didn't know what it'd be like with an audience. When the lights came on and the curtain rose, I was transformed. I was that servant girl. I'll bet I glowed like a light bulb. When the curtain fell and we all went out to take a bow, I didn't want to give up my stage role for my student actress role. My friend Ruthie Cody played the widow. Mr. Cody's daughter. After we took our bows Ruthie introduced me to her father. He said Ruthie warned him I'd steal the show. He said he thought I'd be just as good playing the role of a servant in high society in real life.

"He asked what I planned to do when I graduated. I said I'd find some kind of work and save so I could go to the university, maybe teach English.

"'No plans for an acting career?' he asked.

"I shook my head. Sure, I thought about it. Ruthie wanted to be an actress more than anything in the world. I knew what attracted her was the glamour of the life more than the acting. Ruthie wanted to be Sarah Bernhardt or Lillian Russell. Me, I loved playing the role of someone who was not me. When he asked me what kind of work I had in mind, I said I hadn't thought much about it.

"'How would you like to work for me?' he asked. I asked him what I would do.

"He said he needed a good female operative. Someone who is observant and also a good actress. He can be very flattering. So I said, "'Something like a female Sherlock Holmes?'"

"I remember he raised one eyebrow at that. 'I don't want to mislead you about the work,' he said. 'Eighty percent of detective work is either watching for shoplifters or spying on labor organizations for the factory owners. Half the rest of it is following a husband or wife to see if they're meeting someone they shouldn't.'

"I told him I wasn't sure I wanted to spy on laborers. He nodded and said he left that kind of work to the Pinkertons. But there's a great demand for good store detectives, he told me. He said he'd seen I have one quality of a detective, I was an actress. But he said there's something else I would need. A good detective has to be patient. He has to concentrate and not let his mind wander. There are long periods of time when nothing happens. He asked if I was patient. So I told him about my cousin. She's a famous mountain climber. She took me climbing once. We climbed this long steep snow slope. Step after step, very tiring, for two hours. If you lost your concentration for just a moment you could slip and fall a long way. I never slipped."

"He got a bit of a smile on his face when I told him the climbing story.

''So you're an actress and a mountain climber,'" he said. 'I think you'd be a very good detective.' So when I graduated I took his offer.

"But you do more than look for shoplifters," said Casebolt.

"For a while it was just mercantile patrol. Then he gave me an assignment like the role he saw me play on stage. I was employed as a servant in the mansion of a society woman. My task was to spy on the woman and look for dirt. The woman who hired us was a rival of the woman I was spying on. It floored me how much of that kind of spying goes on. Talk about giving herself airs. That woman was big-boned as any farm girl. But she saw herself as a statuesque society queen. When she went out to an affair her hair looked like a corsair floating on a sea of expensively crimped waves. She loomed over the housemaids and reeked of well-tailored charm. Pfoooa!"

Casebolt laughed and shook his head at her. "That's good, I couldn't do a more colorful description. But our society editor would spike it."

Emma pressed her lips together, embarrassed at letting herself get carried away. "I'll just say if I was one of those grand matrons I'd never hire a servant without checking references. Mostly, though, I'm a store detective. It's harder work than you'd think. You're on your feet all day, and you have to concentrate. Cody was right, you have to be patient and observant even when nothing's happening. I've worked with store detectives who let their minds wander. They miss thievery happening right under their noses. And you have to be a good psychologist. Shoplifting's become a profession that attracts people with nerve and dexterity. Hunting them down is a fine game if you have the ability to concentrate.

"You see hunting shoplifters as a sport?"

Emma hesitated and looked perplexed. "I don't think that's what I meant." She glanced down at the salad she hadn't touched and then back at Casebolt. "Holy cow," she said. "You treat me to lunch and I talk instead of eat."

Casebolt chuckled. "I see a good story here. I'll call it 'Confessions of a Female Detective.'"

"You can't say anything that would identify me," Emma exclaimed.

"I'll keep you anonymous."

Emma pressed a hand against her cheek, flattered that Casebolt had found her story interesting, but unsettled by his talent for getting her to talk so much.

# Part Four

# Father

" _Ropers" were the salesmen of the sports-wagering confidence games or scams of the early 20_ th _century._

# CHAPTER TWELVE

"Mark my word, my friend," said Floyd Shandly to the man sitting next to him in the lounge car of the Great Northern traveling from Minneapolis to Seattle. "Jack Johnson is going to beat Tommy Burns."

"I don't care how good he is, he's a nigra," the man responded. "He ain't going to get a championship fight."

"But if he does, he can whip Burns."

"He won't get the fight."

"I hear he goes around to Burns' fights and buys tickets on the front row. Challenges him with everybody hearing. He's going to shame Burns into giving him a fight."

"I think he's overrated."

"Listen, I saw the Johnson/Fitzsimmons fight last summer. That Johnson is a smart fighter. People think a nigger can't be smart, but he is. I saw it. Johnson just backed off, let Fitzsimmons fire away. Halfway though the second round you can see Fitz's hands getting heavy. In comes Johnson and knocks him down. Two damned rounds is all."

"Ain't Fitz in his forties now?"

"He still hits like a train."

The older man set his glass on the table between them, signaled the bartender for his bill, and bid the younger man a good visit to Seattle. "Don't bet on that Johnson getting a shot at the title."

Floyd laughed. "My friend, if I knew we'd meet again in a year, I'd go even money with you right now."

A man who had been drinking across the aisle from the two rose and took the seat just vacated next to the young man. He had a broad, pleasant face and a quick, ingratiating smile.

"I couldn't help listening in. I think you're right. Johnson's going to get that shot."

"Damn right. Floyd Shandly, Indianapolis." He extended his hand to the stranger.

"Jay Prothero. Pleased to meet you. Sounds to me like you're a student of the sweet science."

"I follow it pretty close," said Floyd.

"Ever put a wager on a fight?" said Jay with the appraising look his daughter Emma had inherited from him.

"I have in fact."

"I'd venture you might have taken a little cash off a greenhorn or two. Am I mistaken?"

Floyd hiked his eyebrows and nodded. "Happened once or twice."

"Well, you sound like you follow the game pretty close. Line of business you in?"

"Automobiles, my friend. The old man's the biggest Franklin dealer in Indiana. I'm headed for the coast to meet a few of the Franklin dealers. Finest car on the market."

"Heard good things about them. So tell me, Floyd, you follow wrestling at all?"

"Well, sure. Seen Farmer Burns and Beall. They say Gotch is the man, though. Like to see him fight."

"You see that man sitting over there?" Jay pointed to a man a dozen seats away reading a newspaper. "Recognize him?"

The man appeared to be of average height, maybe forty. His hands, visible holding the paper, gnarled and sinewy. His neck above his collar was not thick, but corded with cables of muscle.

"Can't say I do."

"That's Joe Carroll."

"You're kidding. That's Joe Carroll? Say, let's go introduce ourselves."

"You can, but I don't want him to know me."

"What do you mean?"

"Kind of a long story."

"Hold on," said Floyd. "You got my attention."

"Look, Floyd, you sound like you're all right. But I'd be taking a risk talking to you about why I'm on this train."

"No, I can keep my mouth shut."

Jay puffed out his cheeks and appeared to be making a decision. "I need you to promise me that."

Floyd impulsively reached out his hand to Jay. "I sold a lot of Franklins on a handshake and never went back on my word."

"All right. Here's the thing. I'm making this trip for my brother-in-law. He's the secretary for some Philadelphia millionaires who are sports. They'll be in Seattle for the Carroll fight."

"Who's fighting Carroll?" Floyd wanted to know.

"Doc Roller. Big-time doctor in Seattle, decided he wants to be the world heavyweight champion. And he can do it."

"You think he can beat Carroll?"

"In a shoot, yes."

"You're saying this is not a square fight?"

Jay leaned forward and peered narrowly at Floyd. "You have any idea how much money promoters make from a big match?"

"They must do all right," said Floyd.

"They do way more than all right. Big fights are money machines. But there's something you got to understand. Promoters are smart. They don't think in terms of single matches. What they do is tell stories. The Doc, see, is the coming man. They love him in Seattle. But he's going to lose."

Floyd's mouth opened to form an O. "You're saying the match is a work?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying. Now you want to know why? There's going to be a rematch. And that will be the big fight. Doc's revenge."

"Son of a bitch! So I should bet on Joe Carroll."

"Keep it down for God's sake." Jay looked around again to make sure no one was paying attention to their conversation.

"You're betting on Carroll?"

"My brother-in-law has worked for these guys for years. He gets them information on the fights. He deserves a cut of the action, and they don't give it to him. So this time he's holding back. He's betting against them. But he can't be seen in it. I'm coming out to Seattle to find a sporting gentleman who's well enough heeled to convince the millionaires he's betting on his own. But he's going to be betting our money.

"You know somebody in Seattle who'll do it?"

"I don't and that's the problem. I'm a pretty good judge of character but I don't have much time."

"Hell, I could be at that fight. Any reason I couldn't do that for you?"

Jay leaned back in his chair and looked around the car once again to be sure no one was nearby. Then he moved forward on his chair so his face was a foot from Floyd's.

"You seem like a decent guy. But I don't know you at all. You could be a con artist. You found out I'm connected to the fight game, and you've been working me to get the inside dope on a fight. You can't kid me, you're no dummy."

Floyd was both flattered and a little hurt. He reached across the table to lay a hand on Jay's arm.

"What do I do to show you my credit's good?"

Jay pondered. "You're saying you're willing to be the one laying the bet?"

"I might just be your man."

"Well let me think about this. Here's the way it would work. You get some money into a negotiable security, so I can get it if anything goes wrong. We're going to give the man laying our bets about six grand."

"I can come up with six grand for security if that's what you mean."

After a second Jay nodded. "I'm pretty sure you're all right, kid. When I see your money, I'll know. But you got to keep your trap shut. I've told you enough you could fuck it up for me."

"You got my word," said Floyd.

Floyd's father had successfully converted his carriage-building business to an automobile dealership. He told his sons he wanted to retire before it was too late to enjoy life. Floyd's younger brother was good with tools. After a few months working alongside a knowledgeable mechanic he could rebuild most of a Franklin's mechanisms. He was also quick with numbers. Floyd had tried, but he couldn't grasp how an ignition system worked. He could snug up the mounting bolts when a coil shook itself loose, but he didn't really understand what a coil did. But he was a popular boy who knew how to make other people feel important, and he could sell cars.

Floyd was gnawed by a fear that his father would end up leaving the business to the brother, and that his own role would never be more than head salesman. He wanted to show his father he was sharp. It was his idea to make a trip to the West Coast and visit the Franklin dealers there.

As they stepped down from the train in Seattle Floyd gave Jay a hearty handshake and promised to meet him in a few days for dinner. He spent two days with the new Franklin dealer on Capitol Hill. He ordered funds to be transferred to a local bank so he could purchase the security he would need to help Jay place his bet. He was excited by the chance to be a significant player in a sporting event. The weather was fine during his stay in Seattle, not too hot and less humid than Indianapolis. The only thing that disturbed his visit was an article in one of the local papers, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, declaring that for perseverance and guile the automobile agent had the life insurance solicitor or old-time bible seller backed into the hermit class. This seemed blatantly unfair. There might be occasions when he disparaged the product of a competitor, but he was justified by the fact that the Franklin with its air-cooled engine was the superior automobile.

A few days before the Roller/Carroll fight Floyd met Jay for the dinner Floyd had promised. Floyd was exuberant. The people at the Capitol Hill dealership had listened with interest to his stories of selling Franklins in the midwest. He was looking forward to assisting his new friend with an interesting wager, and maybe laying a side bet himself. He was a little disconcerted to see Jay looking paler and more lethargic than when they talked on the train. Jay complained about stomach cramps and didn't show much appetite for the nicely sizzling steak laid before him.

"The cops going to be interested in the fight?" Floyd asked.

"Wappy's boys won't be a problem," said Jay. He gave Floyd a ticket and directions.

On the night of the fight Floyd found himself in a group of men walking between buildings towards the Lake Union docks. Because the crowd would not be large, the ring had been set up at floor level. A temporary bar at one end of the building did a lively business. Smoke from the cigarettes and cigars roiled in the heat beneath the square of lights that had been hung from the ceiling over the center of the ring. Young men, office clerks, hardware store salesmen, steam fitters, postal workers, shingle weavers, called loudly to one another, acting like swells in polished shoes and their best shirts. The well-heeled stood more quietly with their cigars and conferred. Floyd saw diamond stickpins and rings glittering in the overhead light. The millionaires from Philadelphia must be among them.

Jay had said to look for him but not to talk to him, so no one would notice they were working together. He spotted Jay standing near a wall. Jay made a gesture toward a man standing near him. The man looked at Floyd and nodded to him. It was all happening as Jay said it would. He had just been introduced to the banker.

# CHAPTER THIRTEEN

There were no preliminary fights this night to warm up the crowd. All the attention was on wagering. The swells called out to the betmakers, arms waved, two and a half to one on Roller was the cry flowing through the crowd. Floyd's heart rate rose with the energy of the voices. Patience, patience, he told himself. He saw the excitement of the younger men, and knew he was like that himself three or four years ago, eager to make big bets as if he were a wealthier man, wanting everyone to know he had the nerve to back his judgment of horses and fighters with cash. If you didn't have the nerve you didn't belong here.

He was more knowledgeable now. He waited to see how the enthusiasm for Roller would move the odds as the start of the match approached. Ten minutes to fight time, and he heard what he was waiting for: three to one on Roller. He glanced at Jay, who worked his way through the milling crowd to a bookmaker writing slips as fast as he could. Floyd threaded his way to the bookmaker and took the man's ticket for the three thousand he laid on Carroll. A single finger sign meant he was to put out half of Jay's stake and wait with the other half in case there was a further movement of the odds. Secret hand signals, being in a conspiracy invisible to others, it was heady stuff. Floyd pressed his lips together to make sure his elation didn't show on his face.

Many of the players had been waiting, and now the real action began. Floyd saw the millionaires making gestures to representatives in the surging crowd. Then he heard it: three and a half to one on Roller. He looked again at Jay. Jay had not taken his eyes off him. Jay held up two fingers. Floyd pressed toward the man who took his first bet, now writing betting slips as fast as he could. Floyd handed him the remaining three thousand, then put a thousand of his own money on another slip. No more than five minutes to go. Then he heard something he hadn't expected: someone is calling out four to one on Roller! Floyd was both swept up in the excitement and observant of it for what it was, the madness of crowds. It was the moment the rush of voices and feet carry a man along, and excitement gets the better of judgment. Floyd recognized the feeling; it happened to him at fights and horse races. But he'd learned, and knew better.

Sensing the fighters were about to appear, he suddenly pressed through the crowd to Jay.

"Let me have the paper," he said. "It's safe, the money is out." Jay looked narrowly at Floyd, then took the note he was holding for security and gave it to him. Floyd elbowed his way through men who were beginning to move towards the ring and found the bookmaker. "Six thousand on Carroll and four to one," he shouted, and eagerly grasped the slip.

Sound echoed off the bare upper walls of the warehouse as if invisible balconies under the ceiling were filled with roaring fight fans. Floyd saw a group of men around a figure in a purple robe moving toward the ring. The ropes were held apart, and Joe Carroll entered the ring.

A moment later another swell of sound, and a powerfully built man in a navy blue robe strode with his entourage through the building and stepped into the ring at the opposite corner.

So this was the city's great hope. When Dr. Roller's cornermen lifted the robe off his shoulders, Floyd saw a physique that fit exactly his idea of what a heavyweight world champion should look like. Powerful muscles, but not so heavy he wouldn't be as quick as lightning. During his brief stay in Seattle Floyd has learned a lot about Roller. The doctor's desire to become the wrestling champion of the world probably first appeared in the sports pages, but by now was front page news. The Franklin dealer told him Roller had become the preeminent gynecologist in Seattle. He was on his way to a lucrative medical career.

How could you not admire a man willing to give up a fine career to pursue the world wrestling championship?

Carroll was lean and hard-looking, dark-haired, cool. He rolled his shoulders to loosen them and looked out at the crowd. His expression was calm, a man who knew his capabilities and had done this many times before. He had a reputation for being quick and clever and familiar with all the tricks. It was said he'd wrestled Frank Gotch, now the heavyweight champion, in a series of bouts in Dawson in the gold rush days and on a good day had been a match for Gotch, who had the strength of Hercules but was still learning the ropes. Carroll had been the middleweight champion.

Roller was the larger man at six feet and two hundred pounds. His face was tenser than Carroll's. They said he was quick as a cat in spite of his size. The one thing he lacked was professional experience. He stared down at the mat grim-faced and drew in a series of deep breaths.

Floyd watched as if hypnotised. He had never been at a fight he knew was a work. It was all different, knowing that the fighters were acting. Everything changed when the outcome was set and the effort would go not into winning but into putting on a convincing show.

Floyd wondered how a work was done. Had the two wrestlers already met and discussed the sequence of moves and holds they would use? Were there signs they gave one another so they both knew what the next move would be? Roller did not look comfortable. Was he thinking ahead a half an hour, when he would have lost the match and most of the men in the building would look at him with disappointment and disillusionment, angry about the money they had lost?

The bell rang. The combatants stepped forward and immediately clasped one another, one hand around the neck and the other on the opponent's arm. This Floyd recognized as the feeling-out period, testing one another's strength and quickness without exposing themselves. The fighters moved back and forth across the ring in this embrace as shouts from the crowd urged them to engage. To Floyd's eye Carroll's footwork appeared precise and economical. Roller, the younger man, danced. They broke apart and began to feint at one another. Carroll made the first real attack, diving at Roller's legs and tackling him to the mat. Roller was on his stomach, whipping and shifting his legs to avoid the leg hold Carroll was trying to obtain.

After a few minutes of this neat matwork, Roller escaped and leaped to his feet. The two stood, seeming to assess one another, and came together again.

Floyd knew this was a worked fight, yet he watched as if what was happening was real. Maybe the way they did it was to actually wrestle and break off only when one got an advantage and was about to pin the other. He wondered if some of the matches he had seen in the past were works and he hadn't known it. He lost money on some of those matches. Well, he knew what he was watching now. Excitement flushed through him as he realized he was about to gain as much as he'd lost on all those matches put together.

Roller now had Carroll on the mat and was trying to lever Carroll's arm to a position that would pin his shoulders. Carroll escaped and reversed, clasping Roller from behind around the waist and trying to throw him off balance. Both fighters have terrific balance, Floyd decided, and moved together as if performing a powerfully muscled ballet. The spectators cried out for Roller to stomp Carroll, kick his ass, whup him, murder him. With catlike quickness Roller seized Carroll, raised him over his head, and threw him onto the mat. He was about to dive on Carroll for the pin, but froze. Carroll's arms and legs began shuddering violently. Suddenly a welter of blood spewed out of Carroll's mouth. The shuddering increased until there was a great convulsive snap of Carroll's arching back. The wrestler dropped flat on the canvas, mouth open, blood pouring down his cheeks.

Corner men rushed into the ring. "Jesus!" someone cries. Then they gestured and called out to Roller, now in his capacity of doctor, to look at the prone figure. Someone yelled for a stretcher. The Doc bent over Carroll a moment, then rose and repeated in an urgent voice the call for a stretcher.

"He's dead," someone cried.

Then there were more shouts from the back of the hall.

"Police! Get out!"

There was a single long second of silence and uncertainty. Then panic. Everyone around Floyd was scrambling for exits. "Which way are they coming?" someone cried. Floyd tried to head towards Jay and the bookmakers, but couldn't see them through the flailing elbows and lurching bodies of the crowd. Men with their legs churning bounced off him, nearly knocking him over. The alley through which he thought he'd come was dark and full of running men. He had no choice but to follow them until they reached the lighted street. Men were running or walking away swiftly in all directions. None of the bookmakers were visible. What was happening about the money? It dawned on him as he hurried down the street that he didn't know how to find Jay or the bookmaker. Could he have possibly just lost seven thousand dollars? There would be a conversation with his father he didn't dare think about.

He hadn't noticed in his rush for the doors that Jay Prothero had collapsed and lay clutching his stomach on the floor of the emptying arena.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN

At the hospital Emma saw her father's eyes twitch. She leaned over the bed so he could see her.

"Pop, what happened to you?" His hair, usually combed neatly back, lay in damp strands across his forehead. His eyes fluttered, but he made no sign that he recognized her voice.

"Strychnine poisoning," the doctor had told her when she located him in the hospital. "That's usually rat poison. You need to make sure the rat poison isn't stored near the food."

"There isn't any rat poison," said Emma. "Is he going to be all right?"

"It depends on how his heart holds up. If he survives through the day he has a chance."

When she saw her father wasn't conscious enough to recognize her Emma drew a chair beside the bed and sat. Her father must be about fifty, she didn't know exactly. Except for colds and the flu, which could leave him sitting around the house needing to be taken care of, he was never seriously sick.

Emma gazed at her father's face. His skin was smooth, though wrinkles were visible under his eyes and vertical creases she'd never noticed divided his mouth from his cheeks. She hadn't studied his face for years. Her father's role in her life had been defined by his absences. No, that wasn't true. The pain knotted in her chest told her otherwise. She had grown up in the warmth of his fondness and admiration. No matter what happened he had a supportive word for her, though sometimes he was distracted and didn't give her his full attention. He drank, of course, but she never thought of him as a drunk. The ruddy face, the moist eyes and the wistful smile he gave her if she was still up when he came home at night were signs he had been out for a professional evening.

Her father said little about his work. He discussed the personalities of local politicians, but didn't have strong opinions except to complain that it was hypocritical of the city government not to support an open town. He asked Emma about her work in the department stores. He never asked about her personal life. Every so often, in the period after Julia had been moved to Steilacoom, he would look at Emma and Robert as if he wanted to say something. Emma would raise her eyebrows in encouragement, but he would shake his head and not speak. He treated Emma as someone who didn't need fatherly advice. He trusted her to manage the household.

In spite of their shared understanding Emma sensed a growing awkwardness between herself and Julia. In the period immediately after their mother's funeral the two sisters conversed in brief, comfortable words, confident they knew what the other was thinking. But that changed. Robert became silent, and at times she saw him look at Julia with an observant anxiety. Then came Julia's nervous breakdown. Mrs. Wood, the neighbor woman Emma paid to straighten up and sometimes cook dinners, was gregarious by nature and tried to ease the tension with cheerful banter, but soon gave up and did her tasks with a minimum of talking and an occasional questioning look at Emma. Emma began to feel that she was on stage when she was home with Robert and her father. The two males seemed to be working from a script unknown to her that called for self-conscious silences instead of spoken lines.

At the hospital Emma was comforted by the sight of the sheet over her father's chest rising and falling in a slow rhythm. After an hour she found a nurse and made sure the hospital had her telephone number. She wanted to stay with her father, but she also wanted to be home when Robert came in.

At the house she waited restlessly until she heard Robert locking up his bike in the shed. She ran outside.

"Something happened to Dad," she cried out to him. "He's in the hospital. Somebody tried to poison him."

"The hospital?" he said in the scratchy deeper voice he was acquiring.

"Yes, the hospital, for God's sake. You have to help me figure this out. Did he ever talk to you about somebody who was mad at him?"

Robert turned and stared at his sister's feet. "I never heard anything."

"How could it happen? It must have been in his food. You know anything about where he eats? Is there some regular place he has lunch?"

Emma caught herself. The words came tumbling out so fast, no wonder he was staring at her as if he didn't understand what she was saying.

"I don't know where he eats except here," said Robert.

"No, of course you wouldn't. I'm not thinking clear. They don't know if he's going to make it."

Robert looked at her, waiting for her to say more.

She told him to come in the house and have the dinner Mrs. Wood left for them.

"Maybe he's going to die," Robert said as they sat at the table.

Emma recoiled at her brother's cold statement. "No! He's going to make it. They said if his heart holds up tonight, he has a good chance."

Robert must be in a state of shock, she thought. His mother, and now his dad may be dying. He's hardly reacting. She waited for more questions, but he sat at the table and began eating without another word. He didn't ask about their father, but he no longer asked her questions about anything. She wanted him to talk to her in the easy way they once discussed the Sherlock Holmes stories. The messenger boys were becoming the center of his life, that could explain a loss of interest in his family. Just when Emma was more responsible than ever for her brother, she was losing the ability to communicate with him. The less he said, the more she felt her attempts at conversation were clumsy and strained, the efforts of an incompetent actress. She gave up and began eating in a desperate silence.

# CHAPTER FIFTEEN

During her first year working for Cody Emma had apprehended a young man trying to steal a fancy silk shirt from the Bon Marche. While she and the thief waited for the police van she chatted with him in a friendly manner. She told him stealing was a bad idea but she understood the need to take things when you didn't have any money.

"I hurt my back," he told her. "I can't keep a job because it hurts too much to bend over."

Emma nodded. "I know what that's like," she said. "If you tweak your back the wrong way you just can't do anything."

"I didn't even need to take that shirt. I had the money."

"I guess I don't know why you stole it then."

He shook his head and smiled a shy and embarrassed smile and said, "I don't either."

"How do you have money if you can't keep a job?"

"From the bank."

"The bank just gave you money?"

"I robbed it."

"Which bank did you rob? You mean the one last week, on Third?"

"That was me," he nodded. "It was in the papers."

When the paddy wagon arrived she didn't say anything to the officers about the bank robbery. After the wagon left she called Cody.

"Smart girl," he said. "You telephone the station and find out if Tennant is there. Go down and talk to him. Not to anybody else. I know they're looking hard for this fellow. This will get you on Tennant's good side."

Charles Tennant was a sturdy New Zealander with a massive jaw and bristly hair brushed straight up. He was Chief of Detectives in the Seattle Police Department. As Cody predicted, he was pleased to learn that the bank robber was now in custody.

"We should get the reporters in here," he said. "You can tell them how you got him to confess."

"All my boss cares about is I caught another shoplifter," Emma replied. "If it's okay, I'll go back to work and you can tell them whatever you want."

Since that arrest Emma had contacted Tennant once to inquire whether a suspect had an arrest record. She had been careful not to take advantage of the credit she had earned with the chief detective. But now the time had come. She was able to reach him through a police telephone operator. She told him about the poisoning and asked if he knew anything about it.

"I did hear something about that," he said. "I didn't know it was your father. I'll see what I can find out."

Late the next day the detective left a message at Cody's office for her to call him.

"I did learn a few things," he told her. "I heard there's somebody asking questions about your dad. You know Carnahan's, saloon on Second?"

"I can find it," she said. "What kind of questions?"

"My man said the fellow was pretty slick. When he found out Jack, that's our man, knew Jay, he bought him a drink and said he was sure Jay was somebody he met in St. Louis. Started asking questions about whether Jay was in town this date or that date. We could bring him in and ask why all the questions."

"Could I meet him and ask some questions myself?"

"Fine with me," said Tennant. "You know much about what your dad does for a living?"

"I know he works with the promoters like Jack Curley on boxing and wrestling matches. He helps with publicity."

"Yeah, he does that. Arranges some of the betting. He finds big bettors. You hear about this fight where he got sick?"

"It was Doc Roller and somebody."

"That's right, Roller. Maybe you heard there was some funny business about that fight. Personally I didn't think the Doc would get involved in something like that. Anyway, there was a lot of money lost on that fight. There could be people not happy with your old man."

"You mean there are people he works with who could want him dead?"

"When people lose a lot of money? This man came to Seattle to find your dad. He might be somebody who lost money and is looking to get even."

"Do people who lose money like that ever go to the police to report what happened?" Emma asked.

"Usually not." She heard the ironic note in the detective's voice. "In some cities I could name the police have been fixed. These sports have been outsmarted, but they chose to make the bet. A lot of them thought they had inside information, and tried to cheat the cheaters. Can't expect the police to protect a fool from his own greed."

"How can I meet this man?"

"You know Detective Gross?"

Emma said she did. Jack Gross was one of the plain-clothes fly cops who sometimes picked up the shoplifters Emma apprehended.

"If this fellow is at Carnahans again tonight, I'll have Gross meet you there and point him out."

At eight sharp Emma was outside Carnahan's on Second. Detective Gross, a boyish-faced man with quick, precise movements who wouldn't be identified as a policeman until he wanted to be, was waiting for her.

"I appreciate you taking the time," said Emma.

"He's here," said Gross. "We'll just step inside the door.'"

Carnahan's was a large and noisy place doing a good trade. Long mirrors framed in heavy mahogany reflected faces and burnished brass fittings lit by traditional gas lamps. A saloon-painter's rendition of Manet's Olympia was probably too obscured by smoke and dim lighting for patrons to catch the reference. The sound of dozens of animated saloon debates punctuated by bursts of laughter filled the high-ceilinged space. But Carnahan's was north of the restricted district. The patrons here wore shoes, not boots. A seaman or lumberjack finding himself inside the doors would know he was in the wrong place and head south down Second until he crossed "below the line" atYesler and entered the city's carnival of vice. There were no women to be seen.

"Far end of the bar, maybe half a dozen men from the wall. Light, short hair, moustache, a little taller than the men on either side."

Emma stood on her toes and looked where Gross was directing her. "Pointing his glass at somebody just now?" she asked.

"That's him. I could bring him out if you want."

"He wouldn't talk to me here. I'll wait for him, see if I can find where he's staying and catch him in the morning."

"Might take awhile," said Gross. "Good luck."

Emma thanked Gross again and found an inconspicuous place to watch the entrance. It was late for a woman who wasn't a prostitute to be out on the streets, so she selected a vantage point nearly invisible to anyone on the sidewalk. Watching patiently without being noticed—her craft. About ten the fair-haired man stepped outside the saloon laughing with his arm around the shoulders of another man. She hoped they weren't headed for another saloon. She could have a long night. Watching for shoplifters was hard and unpleasant work when you were groggy from not enough sleep. But the men shook hands and parted. She followed the fair-haired man through the thinning evening crowd to his hotel on Third Avenue. She considered having a talk with the desk clerk. But at this hour she knew an unattached woman would get sarcastic looks and not many answers. She took the streetcar home.

The next morning Emma skipped her run and took an early trolley downtown. She was in time; the fair-haired man walked out of the hotel to a restaurant across the street. She followed him in and took a seat across from him at his table. She would use surprise and learn what she could from his first reaction.

"If Jay Prothero dies from strychnine poisoning, you will probably hang."

The man stared at her. "Strychnine poisoning? What are you talking about? Who the hell are you?"

"I'm a detective operative with the Cody Detective Agency. Someone tried to poison Mr. Prothero. Right now the person with the most interest in him is you."

"You're a detective? You have some kind of identification?"

She did, a letterhead with a photo stapled to it Cody had provided to his operatives to verify their employment with him. But she didn't want the man to see her name, so she did not produce the letter.

"The Cody Detective Agency is on the fourth floor of the Arcade Building on Third. My name is Emma. You can go there and ask about me."

"You say someone's trying to poison him. That doesn't entirely surprise me."

"What do you mean?"

"What's your agency's interest in Prothero anyway?"

Twenty seconds into the conversation and he had taken the lead in the questioning. He's used to asking questions, she thought.

"We want to learn who is trying to kill him."

"He hired the agency?

"No. His family is worried. He doesn't know we've been employed."

"They have any idea why someone would want to do that?"

"They know he gets involved in sporting events, on the wagering side. They think maybe someone is holding him responsible for losing a lot of money."

"I would say that's possible."

"Did you lose money because of him?"

The man rubbed his chin, deciding something.

"No."

"Would you mind telling me what your interest in Mr. Prothero is?"

"I'm employed by an organization that wants to know about the promotion of sporting events in Seattle and some other places. I'm interested in Mr. Prothero and several other people."

"Who's your employer?"

"Ma'am, if you're a professional detective like you say you are, you know I wouldn't be able to tell you that."

"It's gambling, that's what you're here about."

"That's fair to say."

"Do you know of anybody motivated to harm him?"

"I know of a few who think he had a hand in cheating them out of some money. But I doubt any of those people are in Seattle. I don't think I can help you."

Emma rose. She had expected to make the man flustered enough to admit to knowing something about the attempt on her father's life. She hadn't been prepared for someone with as many questions as she had herself. Hiding her confusion, she thanked him for talking with her.

At the hospital she found a nurse and learned her father's heart rate and blood pressure were stable. She stood for a while in his room watching him sleep. Just let time pass, she thought, he's going to survive.

She checked in at the agency office to learn what her assignment for the day would be. She was surprised to find the man from Carnahan's sitting in Cody's office. Cody pointed to a chair.

"This is Inspector Ferris with the Post Office. I guess you know him."

"Postal inspector?"

"Department of Mail Depredations. I'm curious how you found me, Miss Prothero. Mr. Cody says you're good at your job. I guess you didn't want to tell me Mr. Prothero is your father."

She looked at Cody for guidance. The only thing she could read in his neutral expression was curiosity.

"I thought that would just complicate it," she said.

"Well, you complicated it for me. You'll be telling your father I'm here asking questions. He'll stop what he's doing, and I'm going to have a hard time making a case."

"What do you mean, a case?"

"How much do you know about what your father does?"

"He promotes sporting events. He travels to fights and does publicity work. He works mostly for Jack Curley."

"That's right, he does do those things. But that's not the main thing he does. You know what a roper is?"

"I'm not sure."

"A steerer, that's another name for it. A roper works for a gang. His job is to travel around and find marks with money. He steers the mark into a game and makes him think the game is fixed. The game's fixed, all right, but the other way. Ropers try to find marks who aren't local. Bet your dad spends a lot of time traveling, am I right? Your dad and Joe Carroll ran a few suckers into town for a fight just last week, right here in Seattle."

"That wasn't a fixed fight. That wrestler, Carroll, was badly injured."

Ferris lowered his brow until his eyes were just visible and pursed his lips.

"You're pretty naïve for a detective, Miss Prothero. Joe Carroll bit a balloon filled with chicken blood. Ever heard of Ole Marsh? Fight a few months ago in New Orleans. Marsh bit the balloon there too, took a mark for thirty-seven thousand." He shook his head. "Thirty-seven thousand. You wouldn't think people would be that stupid, but they are. Probably the all-time record. They used the mail to get the mark to New Orleans. That's how I got involved. Ole Marsh is one of names Carroll uses. Your dad was there for that one. I'll bet your old man was pretty flush with cash about that time."

Emma turned red. Three months earlier her father had returned from a trip with a bounce in his step she hadn't seen since her mother died and had given her enough money for household expenses for half a year.

"You ever heard of the John Maybray gang?"

"No."

"Work out of Council Bluffs. Biggest con going in the United States of America. They work marks for half a million a year suckering them to bet on fixed fights that are fixed the other way. Your dad and Joe Carroll are part of it."

"You're saying my father works for some criminal in Iowa?"

"You stepped into my case and messed it up. Now what's this poison business?"

"Somebody poisoned him. They took him to the hospital the night of that fight with Doc Roller."

"Good God! He going to be all right?"

"Yesterday they said his heart is holding up."

"Well, for your sake I hope he makes it. I tell you what. I'll be around a while. If he gets better, I'll go see him. Might work out after all. Maybe your dad will do a trade. He tells me what I want to know about Joe Carroll, I don't have him arrested and prosecuted. Carroll is the fish I'm after."

Emma looked at Cody.

"It sounds right to me," said Cody. "I've heard about this Maybray operation. Hundreds of players. With all the betting in this city, I'm not surprised they're here."

Emma took a streetcar to the hospital during her lunch break and found her father conscious, lying with his eyes open. She exhaled a long breath of relief.

"It's me," she said. "How are you feeling?"

He formed a word with his mouth as if he was about to speak, but nothing came out. He cleared his throat with a gravelly hack and licked his lips. "Not so good," he said.

"You made it. Thank God. You scared the devil out of me."

He nodded and reached toward the hand she rested on his shoulder.

"Pop, do you know what happened to you?"

"Saying I was poisoned."

"The doctor said strychnine. You must have eaten contaminated food somewhere."

He looked away from her to the ceiling and didn't say anything.

"Any idea at all? If there's some café we have to let people know."

He began slowly shaking his head. "No café."

"Pop," said Emma. "You think this was something somebody did on purpose?"

"What I do gets some people upset."

"Who do you mean?"

Her father lay quiet a moment before answering.

"There's a lot of money in the fights. Sometimes people who lose want to blame somebody."

"Pop, are you a roper?" Emma asked.

"Who told you that?"

"There's a postal inspector in town. He's asking questions about you."

Her father's eyebrows pinched together. "How do you know?"

"I talked to him. He said he's building a case. He sounded like you've done something he can send you to jail for. Is that right, Pop? Could you be sent to jail?"

"Ah, Christ. The goddamn postal laws. Sorry, don't mean to swear. Regulations are tricky. They try to trap you."

"You really could go to jail?"

He turned his head to look at Emma. "You know what was important to me? I always wanted to make sure you kids had a home. God, they should be more interested in some of the people I have to work with. I'm a small fry."

"Maybe you should try to find something else to do, Pop."

"You're right, sweetheart. Look at me here. They poisoned me. Somebody tried to kill me."

She sat a moment trying to absorb what her father was saying. What Ferris said must be for the most part true.

"I made a kind of deal with the postal inspector," she said. "I told him if you got better you could meet him. Maybe he won't press charges against you. Would you talk to him? Should I send him here to meet you?"

Jay pulled his head off the pillow and looked around the ward.

"Not here. You can tell him when I'm out we'll talk."

A wave of guilt came over Emma. She was exhausting her father with her questions. But she was discovering her father was someone she didn't know.

"Just rest, Pop. I'm making you worry. Just get better, okay?"

# CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The ferry from the Seattle docks to Luna Park was packed with Friday night revelers. Emma was lucky to find a place to sit for the fifteen-minute ride.

A few days earlier her anxiety about Robert led her to enter his bedroom when he was out and search through his closet and chest of drawers. She had instructed Mrs. Wood to leave the cleaning of Robert's room to her. Every week she swept the room and left a stack of laundry on his bed, but Robert was not messy, and she sensed his privacy was important to him. Her worry about Robert's behavior overcame her scruples about searching through his things. In the bottom of a drawer Emma found a glassine pharmacist's envelope containing a grey powder. Some medication she didn't know about? That was unlikely. Robert was using some kind of drug. Was that why he was withdrawing from her, because he was becoming a secret hophead? Her throat constricted, her heartbeat quickened. If he had started drinking she was sure she would have known. But opium or cocaine, was this one of those narcotics she had read about? What would she be able to do that wouldn't simply drive her brother out of the house. She tried to remember what she'd heard about how such drugs affected a person's behavior.

She took the envelope to a pharmacist for help identifying the substance. When she returned the following day for the results, he told her the envelope contained a half-ounce of strychnine.

Emma walked home from the pharmacist's barely conscious of her route. She struggled to understand. It wasn't a vindictive bettor who had lost money on a bad tip from her father, it was his own son who had tried to poison him. What had happened? Boys Robert's age rebel against parents, she'd seen plenty of that in high school. But Robert was neither violent nor vindictive. What had driven him to the point of trying to murder his father?

In her anger her first thought was to find Robert, show him the packet and demand an explanation. Or she would use the technique she used with shoplifters, show the evidence and wait in silence until the suspect reacted. She didn't really know what she would do.

Her father had come home from the hospital the day before. She had hired a taxi cart at the hospital and held his arm to help him into the cart. The slow ride home took nearly an hour. Her father hunched over in his seat next to her, withdrawn and uncommunicative, wincing when the cart ran over potholes and trolley tracks. At the house she and the driver tried to help him out of the cart, but he waved them away and stubbornly, stumbling once but catching himself, climbed the porch steps.

Later, she brought him dinner on a tray. He pulled himself into a sitting position in the bed and picked without much appetite at the food.

"You feel any stronger?"

"Never want to go through this again."

After dinner she removed the tray and closed the bedroom door so he wouldn't be disturbed. She paced the floor, unable to concentrate on anything. She was waiting for Robert to come home.

A little after seven Robert came into the house. She braced herself to confront him with the packet. But Robert spoke before she could begin. He said he needed to borrow twenty dollars.

He had never asked for money before. When he took the job as a messenger boy she told him as long as he stayed in school he didn't have to contribute to household expenses. She thought he probably had more than he needed to entertain himself. She never asked where he spent the money.

"What do you need twenty dollars for?"

"Just loan me twenty. I'll pay it back."

"That's almost a week's pay. If I'm going to give it to you I should at least know what you're going to do with it," she said.

"I said I'll pay it back." He glared balefully at his sister. "All right, don't give it to me. I don't know why I even keep coming back here."

Emma blanched. Panic threatened to overwhelm her ability to think. She had just heard the words she had dreaded.

When she was twelve, her best friend was a neighborhood boy named Danny. Danny was tall for his age, lean and agile. He had prominent ears, a wide lopsided smile, and squinting blue eyes that looked intently into Emma's face for a few seconds before flicking away. They rode bikes together, and egged one another on trying risky games. Once after a long hot July ride he treated her to an ice cream soda at a soda shop. She sucked the soda through a straw and thought nothing in her life had ever tasted so good. She had a crush on Danny, though she would have blushed and taken a swing at anyone who called him her boyfriend. She knew Danny considered her a buddy rather than a girlfriend. He liked her company because she was the only girl around who could keep up with him on a bike and was willing to accept dares like riding no hands and climbing things. Danny took some boards from a construction site and built a ramp at the edge of a deep sewer ditch. The ditch was at least eight feet across. Danny said if you were pedaling fast when you hit the ramp you would sail over the ditch, but if you lost your nerve and slowed you'd crash. He pedaled hard along the road, yanked up on the handlebars as he hit the ramp, and sailed over.

"Don't try it unless you're sure."

If he could do it, she could do it. She rode fast toward the ramp. Just before the leap she felt a surge of hot panic and froze, but something in her, pride or stubbornness, shut off the fear. She spun the pedals as hard as she could to make up for slowing and flew over the ditch.

"Figured you could do it," Danny said with his quick grin.

Once they rode to the base of the Fremont streetcar trestle. Danny challenged her to climb the trestle behind him. The trestle was like a big ladder with heavy creosoted timbers for steps. She pulled herself lightly up the first fifteen feet of trestle, but at twenty feet she hesitated and looked below her. She realized she would break a leg if she fell, and clung to the crossbeam, frozen.

"Come on," Danny called down to her when he saw she wasn't moving. "It's all just as easy as the first part."

She managed to grin up at him. She whistled a few beats of a ragtime melody to calm herself and reached for the next timber. When she pulled herself onto the tracks at the top he didn't say anything except that they should get going before a train came, but his nod was all the approval she needed.

Danny lived with an older sister who was a friend of Julia's. He never said anything about his parents, but Emma heard in the neighborhood that his father had large investments in the Great Northern Railway and the National Cordage Company, and lost everything in the panic of '93. He had committed some kind of crime, embezzlement or robbery, and was serving a long prison sentence. The mother, accustomed to servants and luxury, found herself incapable of working for a boss, told her daughter she couldn't take it any more, and disappeared. The daughter moved to a modest home in Emma's neighborhood and found a job operating a linotype machine for the newspaper. She did her best to bring up her brother.

The cycling adventures came to an end when school began again in the fall. Emma and Danny said hi when they met in the school hallway, but Emma didn't see him around the neighborhood after school. She heard from Julia that Danny had begun hanging out in the restricted district, running errands for gamblers.

One afternoon the sister, whose name was Nora, invited Julia and Emma to have dinner with her. Nora was nervous and preoccupied. Emma asked Danny a few questions about how things were going. His answers were friendly but brief. She realized something had changed since the summer.

"Your brother, Robert," said Nora to Julia. "He's pretty good about going to school."

"He likes school okay," said Julia. "He gets good grades in math."

"Danny's started missing school," Nora said to Julia. Emma and Julia looked at Danny.

"You have to stay in school," his sister said. "How come you stopped going?" She spoke with a tremor in her voice. Emma saw that she had worked herself up to say what she was saying, and had asked Emma and Robert to be there so she didn't have to confront him alone.

Danny looked at the three of them as if they were ganging up on him. Emma looked down at her plate. I'm not part of this, she thought. I'd never tell you what to do.

"You can't quit school," Nora said. "From now on I want you home at ten on school nights."

"Or what?" said Danny.

Nora bit her lip and Emma saw her looking at her brother with desperation. "This is where you live" Nora pleaded. "When you're eighteen you can do what you want. But right now you're to be home by ten, you understand me?"

Danny cocked his head slightly to one side, his lips frozen in the beginning of a pucker, and stared at his sister in silence. Emma never forgot his expression. Without saying anything more he rose from the table and went to his room.

In the morning he was gone. A year later Emma was shocked to read that Danny was accused of robbing a bank in Olympia. She anxiously read the newspaper every day, following the story. When the police tried to arrest him, he shot and killed a deputy. She read the accounts of the trial, which was brief. He was found guilty and sent to the prison at Walla Walla. Several weeks later he was hanged.

There was, of course, no news photo of the hanging, just a blunt notice in the paper. But Emma's imagination created a picture of her friend with the lopsided grin and loose-limbed daring agility suspended with his head twisted to one side above a thick noose. It was the mystery of her life, how the friend she admired was transformed to a killer executed by the law. The only thing she could think of was that his adventurousness made him impatient with the routines of school and working for a weekly paycheck. Or perhaps his choices were a reaction to his father's life, contempt for the father's dull and trivial days as a businessman mixed with admiration for his father for having the nerve to step outside the confines of accepted behavior and take what he wanted.

Robert didn't look much like Danny, but when her brother looked at her and told her he didn't know why he kept coming home she saw the defiant, quizzical expression she had seen years before when Danny stared at his sister for the last time.

Shaken, Emma went to her room and returned with the money without taking the envelope from her pocket. Robert muttered a thank-you, grabbed two slices of bread from the dinner table, and left the house.

She stood where she was in the middle of the kitchen, at a loss to know what to do.

No, there was always one thing she could do. She snatched up a hat and slipped out the door. Robert walked ahead of her toward the Green Lake streetcar stop. She followed. Two of his friends were waiting for him. The downtown streetcar came, but they let it pass. When the brightly painted Luna Park streetcar arrived, they jumped up onto the car.

Emma didn't know how long she would have to wait for another Luna Park car. The boys hadn't waited long; they appeared to know the schedule. She got on the next trolley to the waterfront. As the trolley rattled along the tracks she tried to guess what she might discover. What was the twenty dollars for? Alcohol? Narcotics? Gambling? Girls? She hastened with a leaden stomach from the trolley stop through the downtown streets to the Luna Park ferry dock.

The park had been constructed the year before on a pier that stretched far out into the bay across from Seattle. At night the lights of the roller coaster and Great Whirl danced a slow, tantalizing dance, and if it was calm the calliope could be heard calling across the water like a siren to city dwellers. At the terminal near Luna Park the crowd leaving the ferry hurried with the cheerful energy of people looking forward to having fun. She guessed Robert wouldn't be among the casual first-time visitors wandering wide-eyed through the park gazing at the rides, the enclosed swimming pool called a natatorium with its water slide, the tossing and shooting games along the arcade, and hearing the barkers inviting the public to see the only Filipino midget west of the Mississippi and Don Carlo's Trained Monkey and Dog Circus. She was sure Robert had some purpose here that was more than throwing baseballs at metal milk bottles. The Canals of Venice, the Mystic Maze, he wouldn't be wasting his time with things like that. It took her fifteen minutes to walk slowly around the perimeter of the midway. The park was crowded, but she thought there was a good chance she would have spotted him if he'd been there. Scanning a crowd on a street looking for a particular person was one of her detective skills.

Her first idea was the dance pavilion. Robert with a girl? That was hard to imagine. But she remembered well enough how boys acted during her first years of high school. They talked to one another as though females were foolish and contemptible, but they trailed after groups of girls as if drawn by a scent they couldn't resist. Robert was the same age as his messenger friend Carl, and Carl had been seized with a passion strong enough to numb his nervous system. She wondered once again, as she had at the time of the Electric Company lawsuit, whether Mary Vinette had only fluttered her long-lashed eyes at him and told him she liked him, or had found a time and a place in that loud chaotic household to guide his hands to her flesh and seduce him.

The lighting in the pavilion was kept low to create a romantic atmosphere. The music of the calliope had a bouncy rhythm, and yet seemed melancholy to Emma, the sound of being alone in a crowd. She circulated inconspicuously though the revelers. Couples swayed in time with the band in a slow clockwise drift around the area. Girls laughed and danced together. Clusters of boys acted as if they weren't paying attention. Emma looked closely, but Robert wasn't among them.

That left the buildings off the midway offering specialized entertainment. She could tell from the noisy behavior of adults and teenagers alike that beer and liquor were being sold somewhere, probably several places, though there were no signs. Was that what Robert came here for, to get drunk? She was familiar enough with the smells associated with drinking, and with the related scents of the cloves, mints, and other pungent chewing material used to disguise the smell. She had never observed the signs of drinking she had learned to discern in her father's appearance when Robert came in at night.

She peered into the doorways of the side passages between buildings where the light was not as bright as along the midway. Some were padlocked; inside one a man lifting cases of bottles looked at her with suspicion. She saw two men go through an unmarked door and followed. Inside, a large man let the two pass but stopped her.

"Where you think you're going, missy?" he growled.

She stopped and took a reflexive step back. But she had to look into all the places that might be Robert's destination.

"A woman's money is no good here?" she asked the big man.

He didn't try to stop her as she edged past him. She waited a moment to let her eyes adjust. The room was full of people. The only lighting in the room was at a table in the center. A sound of groans and cheers seemed to pass back through the crowd from the table, like the ring of waves flowing from a swimmer sliding down the chute into the pool of the park's natatorium. The crowd pressed forward in a circle around the table to watch the action, leaving her free to move along the edge of the room. She found a spot where, standing on her tiptoes, she could see between shoulders to the table.

Two men sat at the table. Some kind of card game was in progress. She made out a green cloth with large cards spread across it in neat rows. Not cards, she saw, but painted images. Chips were stacked on several of the card images. The dealer had a box in front of him. He talked a continuous, melodious patter to the eight or ten bettors across the table from him. He drew a card from the box, and another exclamation of shouts and groans rolled through the tightly packed crowd. She recognized the game. Her father had described a faro bank to her. The second man moved a disk on an abacus placed next to the dealing box each time a card was shown.

She shifted to where she could see the table from another angle. Robert stood at the table with Carl Windell at his side. Carl yelled with the crowd with each draw, but Robert stood silent and intent, moving his eyes between the dealing box and the abacus device, oblivious to the noisy scuffling around the table. She had never seen a faro game before, but there was something familiar about the rhythmic patter of the dealer that rose and fell like a form of music. A woman circulating through the room selling beer and cigarettes from a box supported by a loop around her neck brushed against Emma's back. The box and loop framed her full bust. Most of the crowd were adults, but she realized that half the players making bets were boys Robert's age. Some of them laughed with the loud, exaggerated laughter of drunkenness.

She took a step forward but stopped herself. Making a scene and shaming Robert would drive him away. After watching for several minutes she slipped out of the tent and fell in with the crowd in the midway, needing to move and think. So that was why Robert needed money. At least he wasn't spending it on beer and whiskey. Their father was a skillful cardplayer. When they were children he played card games with them and showed off his dexterity at shuffling and dealing. She hadn't thought of it at the time, but they were the skills of a card sharper. Maybe it was that childhood cardplaying that had infected Robert with a taste for games of chance.

She heard a sudden shouting and commotion, and looked back toward the tent she had come from. A dozen boys scattered from the passage and sprinted for the park exit. She was sure Robert was among them. Two policemen emerged from the passage, each gripping a boy by the arm. One of the boys yelled "Lemme go!" and flailed like a fish yanked out of the water. The other came without resisting, head down. She recognized Carl Windell's cowlicked blond hair. Emma hurried toward the policemen, knowing not to run and give the officers the idea she was going to cause trouble. She fell in step with them.

"Officer, can you tell me what's happened here?"

"Stand off, lady."

"I know one of the boys. Maybe I can help."

"We don't want any interference here."

"I'm a detective with Cody's service. You remember the boy in the papers, the one who faked insanity? That's him."

"This one here?"

"The blond. What's happened here?"

"Place there sells liquor to kids," the policeman said. "The bastards are too slippery. We're gonna start taking the kids to jail."

"I worked on this boy's case. If you turn him over to my custody I can see he doesn't come back here again."

"The kid's under arrest," said the policeman. "Do the little shit some good to spend a night in jail."

"I think I can get him to stop. His name is Carl Windell. You tell Chief Detective Tennant you arrested Carl Windell and gave him into the custody of Emma Prothero. I can show you my papers."

The second policeman, more impressed than the first by Emma's reference to the Chief of Detectives, said, "Go ahead, let her take him. Maybe she can straighten him out."

The first policeman said, "You got some kind of identification?"

Emma showed him her Cody letter. He grunted, stared at Carl and said, "Listen, kid, I know what you look like. I'll be looking for your skinny ass."

She gripped Carl firmly by the arm and walked with him toward the exit.

"Are you drunk?" she asked.

Carl turned his face away sheepishly.

"Tell me. Are you?"

"No."

"But you've been drinking some."

"I guess."

"Here, sit down over here. How long have you boys been coming to that place?"

He wouldn't look at her.

"I just want to know. I helped you get away from that cop."

"We heard about it a couple weeks ago."

"You and Robert?"

"Yeah. Me and Robert. Some other guys."

"What's happened with Mary Vinette?"

"She's never there any more."

"At home you mean?"

He stuck out his lower lip and slowly shook his head.

"You still love her."

"She don't care about me now."

"Listen, didn't I just get you away from that cop?"

He twisted his head around for the first time to look at her. "So what'd you do it for?"

"Because I need your help. You know Robert's my brother?"

"You Robert's sis?"

"I didn't see him drinking in there. Does he drink? It's okay, I'm not going to get mad at you."

Carl stared at his shoes. "He don't like booze that much. He comes for the game."

That's what he wanted the money for. Oh no, she thought, has he got into debt?

"Carl, you have to tell me. Does he owe any of those people money?"

"Can't bet without money. Robert figured out the game. When the cards are right, he wants to lay down a big bet."

"So no one's after him or anything?'"

"Not that I know, ma'am."

"You know what a capper is?"

"No."

"They work for gambling joints. They hang out where high school kids are and tell them they can teach them tricks to beat the card games. The tricks don't really work. The kids gamble, and they keep losing. Is there anybody like that, somebody giving Robert advice?"

"Naw, he figured it out himself."

"If somebody was cheating him I'd fix them."

"You could, couldn't you," Carl said.

Emma had gained a little of Carl's confidence, maybe enough that he would answer a personal question about Robert.

"Robert's angry at his dad. He's really angry and I don't know why. He ever talk about his dad?"

Carl looked away. He knew something, she saw. She sat down on the bench next to him. It would be easier for him to talk if she didn't face him. They sat shoulder to shoulder looking at colored lights of the Ferris wheel circling slowly in the night sky. Sitting side by side, that was a way to win the confidence of someone she had arrested for shoplifting.

"I'm going to let you go home. I hope you don't just come back here and buy more booze. But you don't need a lecture. Just tell me about Robert."

A pained and confused look came to Carl's face. "He never said exactly. But yeah, he's mad at his dad."

"Tell me why."

Carl didn't say anything. Emma let the question hang there without pressing any further.

"There was this night," Carl began after a silence. "You can't ever say it was me told you about this, okay?"

"I won't say anything. You got my word."

"George, that's the boss. He said he could show us something."

# CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

"Any you guys want to see something interesting, meet up with me tonight," said George, grinning at his pals, a half-dozen of the boys he paid to do deliveries for him. "Wear crap clothes," he told them, "'cause it's dirty." He instructed them to meet him after dark on Yesler, in the restricted district. When they had all gathered in the alleyway he'd named, he led them toward the waterfront. After hiding their bikes they climbed down under a wooden sidewalk propped up on supports buried in the mud. George dropped to his hands and knees and slipped into the crawlspace under a building on the slope of the waterfront. The waterside of the structure was supported by short pilings.

"Come on, don't be chickenshit," George called over his shoulder when no one immediately followed him. "You gonna just sit up there?"

One of the boys said "This better be good," and dropped into the crawlspace. The rest, Carl and Robert among them, followed.

Twice George lit a match so he could see where he was.

"What are we doing?" somebody asked.

"Just shut up and stay behind me," said George. There was less and less space between the damp ground and the flooring over their heads as they crawled after their leader. Carl had to splay his knees and elbows sideways to pull himself along between the floor joists. He felt the pressure of claustrophobia squeezing his bowels. All he could see was a trace of light visible under the wooden sidewalk and the movement of the soles of the shoes ahead of him. The dank mold of the muddy soil filled Carl's nostrils. He would willingly have turned back, but someone else was crawling behind him. There really wasn't anyplace to turn around.

"Shit," said Carl. He wasn't far from panic. He felt a shove on his shoe.

"Move it, goddammit," the boy behind him said.

A crease of light became visible ahead.

"Now shut up for God sakes and watch," George hissed as the boys pulled themselves up alongside him. They were in a tight space between two buildings. A seam ran between the wall planks about a foot above the floor level. When they pressed their faces against the crack they see and hear what transpired in the room.

"Is something going on in there?" one of the boys whispered.

"Just wait," George grunted back.

After about ten minutes a woman led a man into the room. The woman drew a curtain across the doorway. Then she turned to the man with a coy smile and pulled her dress over her head. Carl heard a sharp intake of breath from the boy next to him. The woman rubbed a hand along the man's thigh. Quickly and clumsily he took his boots and pants off, pulled the woman to the bed, and got on top of her. He began moving, making rhythmic growling and grunting noises. The woman cooed encouragingly.

Carl gazed through the crack, mesmerized. Emotions flushed through his guts like a hot fluid. He was vaguely aware that George and another boy had begun grunting softly, echoing the man on the bed though not so loud.

After a minute the girl began thrusting herself more vigorously, saying "come on, big boy." The man pulled out of her, leaned back on his knees, and said in a hoarse growl, "Roll over you bitch, I want your ass." She didn't do that, she said. He slapped her face. The sound rang in the small room. "I paid my money, bitch. Stick your ass up here."

"Asshole, you hit me," she yelled. "Get out." The boys saw her reach for a cord with a pull at the end and begin yanking at it. The man, enraged, struck out and hit her in the face with his fist. Her head snapped back and blood spurted from her nose and mouth.

"Shit!" the man cried out and stood to find his pants and pull them on. Before he could work his suspenders over his shoulders another man pushed through the curtain. "Jesus!" the man cried when he saw the bloody girl on the bed and leaned back out the doorway. "Sam!" he called out. Then he tackled the man in the room.

The man who hit the girl was big and sinewy, and tried to claw at the bouncer's face and knee him in the balls. The bouncer threw his arms around the man and hugged him, not trying to defeat him but just protect himself and hang on. A few seconds later a second bouncer burst through the curtain and jumped on the man. The two of them forced him to the floor. Other faces appeared as the curtain was pushed aside. "Somebody get the cops," a voice said. "Hang on to him, Bill." The girl on the bed didn't move. She was unconscious, possibly dead.

The two bouncers lay on the man. From where they watched the boys could see the man's cheek being ground against the rough floorboard. His eyes flared wide with rage. He snarled and spit through clenched teeth. The boy next to Carl jerked back from the crack in fear, but he was transfixed by the scene and pressed his face back against the crack. The man on the floor glared in their direction from six feet away. His hot raging eyes seemed to be burning into Carl's brain.

Men and women squeezed into the small room and unfolded a blanket. Calling loud, confused instructions to one another they managed to move the inert figure of the woman onto the blanket and carry her around the pile of grunting bodies in the middle of the room. When they were gone the scene became quiet except for the panting of the three men. The bouncers shifted to find positions that let them keep the man from struggling. The scene became strangely static; everyone was waiting. Carl thought the police would arrive and arrest the man: that's what everyone was waiting for. Though he heard the police didn't have regular patrols this far into the district. The cops mostly left control of the customers to the establishments and their staffs of bouncers. But someone had said to get them.

After a long time, maybe fifteen minutes, there were footsteps in the hall, and two men came into the room. If they were policemen, they weren't wearing any kind of uniform. The first man's wavy blond hair curled over the tops of his flat ears. He was followed by a huge man in a black suit with a high collar biting into his neck and a glossy derby hat. "Thank you, gentlemen," said the big man in a voice softer and higher pitched than a person would expect from someone his size. The house employees released their holds, rose, nodded almost formally to the man, and backed out of the room.

The man on the floor wiped a hand across his face and pulled himself into a sitting position.

"You hurt the girl," the big man said. "We can't have fellas doing that."

"I paid," he gasped. "I paid and she woun't do it." His voice had the slow emphatic enunciation of a drunk man trying to sober himself in a hurry. "She ain't dead. Is she?"

"Get up," said the big man.

The man on the floor, instead of struggling, seemed reluctant to move. The big man leaned forward, put a hand under the man's armpit, and pulled him effortlessly to a standing position.

"Can't have fellas hurting the girls. Word gets around when things like that happen."

He bent over and wrapped an arm around the man's head, then straightened, bringing the man's feet off the floor. The heads of the two men were almost touching. The big man continued speaking, almost crooning in his soft voice. "Shouldn't a done that. Fellas like you need to control yourself. Better if you never a come here."

A few strained squeaks, like a rodent gripped in a cat's jaws, were all the noise the dangling man was able to make. Then the boys heard an awful sound, a loud, grinding crack. The dangling man's legs kicked out once, then hung limp. The blond man grasped the man's legs. The two of them carried the inert body out of the room.

The boys continued staring into the now empty and silent room. As if at a signal they pushed away from the crack and crawled on their bellies as fast as they could to get out from under the building. Carl banged his head and elbows against the joists but didn't care. He just wanted out of the tight dark space, back in the open air.

"Holy shit!" said George when they were all back in the alley wiping the mud out of their eyes and off their arms and faces. "You see what he did to that guy?" One of the boys sat on the edge of the wood sidewalk hugging his trembling arms around his knees. "They musta killed him," he said to no one in particular. "They musta killed him."

George was wound up, pacing along the street, talking without stop. "You see what he did? That's the biggest guy I ever seen. Picked him up just like that. Jesus! Guy couldn't fight or anything. You ever seen anything like that?"

He had intended to lead his followers to a scene of sexual arousal, adolescent fantasy come to life, but no one was prepared for an intimate view of violence, and the murderous strength of the huge man. Carl walked back to his bike and picked it up in meditative silence. One of the boys was talking about the things men and women got naked and did. Mary had touched him once in a way that flooded him with a feeling of love for her. He remembered very clearly wanting her to keep holding him the way she did. What he had witnessed through the crack in the wall wasn't what he had imagined, though. It was scary and vicious. From the things he'd heard older boys say, he thought a man and woman rubbing together would like each other. He was frightened and confused by the violence he had witnessed.

Carl heard Robert muttering "son of a bitch" over and over. Robert looked at Carl with his mouth twisted in rage. "I'll get that son of a bitch."

"What son of a bitch?" Carl asked.

Robert's anger gave way to sobbing. He sat down on the edge of the sidewalk and covered his face with his hands.

Carl touched Robert's shoulder. "That man is dead," he said, thinking that the sight of the man in the room having his neck broken was what upset Robert.

"Not him. My old man. The son of a bitch."

"What do you mean, what happened?"

Carl had never seen Robert crying and raging in this way.

"I'm going to get that son of a bitch."

"Why was he calling his dad a son of a bitch?" Emma asked Carl.

"That's what he kept saying," Carl repeated.

"He ever say anything else about his dad?"

"I never heard him talk like that."

Emma looked uncertainly at Carl. "Just go home," she said.

# CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Emma slept poorly and woke with a headache. Robert wolfed down the eggs and toast she cooked without looking up from his plate, as if vigorous chewing would keep him from having to talk. She said nothing about trailing him out of the house the night before. He would learn soon enough from Carl that she had been to the gambling den. Maybe Robert would ask her why she had gone to Luna Park, maybe he would wait for her to speak. She felt paralyzed, unable to talk about anything outside their routine.

"Working today?" she asked.

"Yup," he said. He took his cap and left without saying anything else.

Later her father shuffled to the table in his slippers, bending forward as if he had a stomach cramp.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

"Weak."

"Were you able to see Ferris?"

"Yeah, I met with him."

"What's going to happen?"

Her father poured a cup of coffee and sat holding it between his hands without drinking. "Nothing's going to happen. He mostly asked about the dates of some fights. Some business activities. Seemed to be happy with what I told him."

"That's good," Emma said. "Eat, ,Pop, you need to get some food down."

"When I was a kid I met some people. They hired me to do what I do. Never had a chance to try anything else. It was hard on your mother I traveled so much."

Emma listened with attention. Her father had never spoken about his youth.

"Maybe I should have sold real estate," he said. "I could have done that." He made a sweeping gesture at the breakfast on his plate.

"I'm in a business that gets some people upset. Somebody poisoned me."

Emma went to her room and came back with the glassine envelope. "I found this in Robert's room."

Her father brushed his hand through his hair. "Oh Jesus. What is it? You found some kind of drug. What is it, opium? Cocaine? Is that why he's been acting strange?"

"I took it to a pharmacist. You know what it is, Pop? It's strychnine."

He stared at her, then at the envelope. "What are you telling me?"

"It was Robert."

"That's the poison, isn't it? Are you telling me my son?"

Emma nodded.

"Are you sure that's what that is?"

"The pharmacist recognized it."

"Christ Almighty. He did this to me."

"Yes."

"Robert. My own kid. How can he be so angry with me?"

"You must know,Pop. Why's he so angry?"

"I can't believe it. What's he told you?"

"I didn't tell him I found it."

"You didn't ask him why?"

"I'm going to," she said. "But what's going on?"

Her father shook his head. "Jesus. Robert. I should beat the hell out of him."

But there was no threat in his voice.

"How did things get so bad between you?" Emma asked.

"For Christ sakes, how should I know? He's going through a stage, he must be having crazy ideas. His age, there were times I hated my old man. He was a brute. I didn't want to be like my old man. I never hit Robert once."

"Pop, your work, you travel a lot. Could you do it from somewhere else?"

"What do you mean, somewhere else?"

"You and Robert need to be away from each other. What if he tries to hurt you again?"

"You think I should leave. Yeah, I should think about that." Her father took a deep breath and exhaled. "I don't know what's going to happen with Ferris. That bastard. I told him too much. But there's a big fight coming up, I have to be here for that."

"You mean Gotch and Doctor Roller?"

"You know about that? Biggest fight Seattle's ever seen. I can make enough on that to leave you some money and take a long vacation. You're right. I should get away. You can take care of Robert okay."

"So maybe you can get away for a while?"

"I have to be in Seattle to work on this fight. After that, we'll see. Jesus, my own son."

# Part Five

# Shoplifting

As shoplifting spread, department stores struck back by hiring private detective agencies to police their tempting aisles

# CHAPTER NINETEEN

"Just relax," Cody said to Emma. "You made a mistake. I'm surprised it doesn't happen more."

Emma sat across from Cody at his desk. Her fists were clenched. The veins in her temples stood out visibly.

"It was a setup," she asserted. "They must have identified me."

"That's possible."

"That woman, she's the one in the Windell case, Vinette. She knows me from that. She can't get away with this."

"You're going to stay cool right now. You take some time off."

"I don't want time off. This was something they planned."

"The manager at the Bon doesn't want to see you, at least for now. Look, Emma, one mistake doesn't mean you're not doing your job. If I had something else I'd assign it to you. But right now merchandise patrol is the only work we're doing. Isn't this your mountaineering season? Go climb one of those mountains."

Emma had been working the floor of the Bon Marche the day before. The behavior of a female shopper triggered her attention. Casual manner and deliberateness not quite in harmony. The occasional measured glance along the counters. There was a difference between the way someone looked around to find another department in the store, and the way a person looked to take quick note of what each of the people at nearby counters was doing. When Emma maneuvered to get a clearer look at the woman's face, she recognized Mary Vinette, the landlady who had induced Carl Windell's mother to sue the electric company. Emma didn't like the woman. She had manipulated Carl. If she was in fact stealing merchandise, Emma was going to find some satisfaction in arresting her.

As Emma watched, Mrs. Vinette examined a satin blouse, holding it against her breast as if visualizing how it would look on her, then raising another and a third. None of the blouses were replaced on the counter. After a few minutes of further shopping, Mrs. Vinette began walking toward an exit. Moving swiftly, Emma signaled the floorwalker and pointed to Mrs. Vinette. The floorwalker intercepted her at the exit. After a brief, high-pitched conversation Mrs. Vinette suddenly became silent. Her angry, animated expression went blank. Emma thought she detected a trace of a smile. The woman allowed herself to be guided off the floor to the room used for holding shoplifters.

After several minutes the floorwalker stepped out of the room and gestured to Emma.

"You better get Mrs. Rhodes and the manager," he said. He was not smiling.

Mrs. Rhodes was a bookkeeper, a sturdy no-nonsense woman who was sometimes used to search female shoplifting suspects. Emma found her and the manager and told them they were wanted.

After fifteen minutes the manager left the holding room with a frown. Shortly after that Mrs. Vinette marched out of the room looking straight ahead and left the store.

"Nothing," said the floorwalker. "Nothing on her. She's talking about getting a lawyer."

"Three blouses," said Emma. "She concealed them, I know she did."

"Mrs. Rhodes checked. She didn't have anything."

Emma went to the spot where the floorwalker had stopped Mrs. Vinette, and began retracing the woman's route through the aisles. At a point where the aisle turned around a counter Emma saw the blouses tucked under a stack of hosiery.

Hah! Emma thought. I was watching her. How could she have gotten rid of those so smoothly, without me seeing? Then she asked herself why Mrs. Vinette would have done that. She had observed it often enough, an amateur thief having second thoughts and disposing of goods she had concealed instead of trying for the exit. But everything Mrs. Vinette had done was deliberate. In fact she had planned to hide the blouses exactly where she did. The corner of the counter where she had dropped the blouses was the perfect place to get rid of concealed merchandise without being seen. But Emma didn't remember that she had slowed or made any quick movement as she passed through that point. Getting rid of the blouses was a skillful move, almost sleight of hand. More skillful that the initial concealing of the blouses that Emma had watched. Mrs. Vinette had wanted to be spotted by a detective. She was going to sue the Bon for false arrest. That was her game, threatening lawsuits. Emma was sure the Bon would settle out of court and pay her off. Mary Vinette was a skilful professional shoplifter, and she had used Emma.

***

The just-opened Baillargeon's was a palace of mahogany, marble and incandescent lights to rival any of the department stores in the city. Emma wandered among the jostling customers who crowded around the counters and displays. Baillergeon's didn't employ Cody for patrol services. Cody had offered his services, but the managers told him they would use their own staff. A head detective and six operatives, they said. Emma knew the man who had been selected as the head detective. He would hire a few men and women for surveillance work. They would not be paid much. He would find women, girls more likely, too dull to be bored to death by the job. They would not be selected for their intelligence or experience. His only requirement was that they would catch a shoplifter from time to time so he could show the managers results.

Emma nodded her professional approval of the mirrors installed behind the counters. When a salesclerk turned away from the customer at the counter to take something from the drawers she could observe the customer in the mirror. Brooches and jewelry all inside glass cases. The store was luxurious but designed with the risks of a coming epidemic of shoplifting in mind.

Emma was not shopping. She was here because she was at home in the crowds of shoppers and could think. Mary Vinette had successfully deceived her. Cody hadn't fired her, but had sent her home without a job for the present. She had gone home and put on her running clothes. In motion and breathing hard she could cope better with the anger, frustration, and humiliation she was feeling. Irrational plots to take revenge on Vinette stewed in her head. Stop it! she told herself, and ran harder.

In the morning she was calmer. A simple first step was to regain her confidence in her skill at detecting thieves. She took the trolley to Baillargeons for a workout.

Emma scanned the area to see if she could pick out a detective. If she spotted one, and then found a shoplifter at work, she might just say a word to the detective, identifying herself and pointing out the thief. Give them a sample of the kind of work a more skillful detective could do.

At the neckties counter a well-dressed woman with a pearlescent ostrich feather on her hat told the clerk she didn't like any of the items the clerk had presented. The clerk turned away to take more ties from the shelves behind the counter. No, those won't really do, either, the woman said, and the clerk, concealing her exasperation behind an expressionless face, turned again to the shelves. The woman glanced furtively at the people near her.

A man brushed past Emma and strolled up to the counter next to the ties. He appeared to study the lotions and shaving kits in the display, but stood so that when he glanced up he could see the woman at the tie counter. This was the head detective employed by Baillergeons.

The woman continued to handle the ties she was offered in a nervous, hesitant manner. Emma thought she saw an instant of eye contact between the woman and the detective. Suddenly Emma turned from the pas de deux in front of her and began moving through the milling shoppers. If she was right there should be someone not too far away inconspicuously monitoring what was happening at the tie counter. She tilted her head so that her hat concealed a portion of her face. It took a few minutes, but she found what she was looking for. A man stood at the men's accessories counter holding a small, expensive suitcase.

There was nothing about his manner to call attention to him, but she recognized him. Three weeks earlier Emma had detained him at the exit of Redelsheimers, removed a variety of lingerie from pockets inside his coat, and called for a paddywagon to take him to jail. She moved to a place where she could watch him. At first she wasn't sure what she was seeing. Kidskin gloves were disappearing from the countertop, but his hands never went to his clothes. The only movement was an occasional shuffle of the suitcase. Then she had it. The suitcase had some kind of false bottom. It was a device constructed for shoplifting. When the clerk's attention was elsewhere, the case was shifted onto the assortment of gloves, and some of them disappeared.

The woman at the tie counter had been obvious. She had drawn the detective's attention, freeing her confederate with the suitcase to busy himself concealing merchandise. The woman was acting like a thief but would steal nothing. She had diverted an unimaginative detective. Using decoys had become the standard procedure for the gang Emma was after. The man with the suitcase shook his head, smiled and thanked the clerk for her attention. Keeping her distance and blending carefully into the flow of shoppers, since she knew he could recognize her, Emma followed the man to the exit.

Half a block away he stopped, set the case down and did something with the latches. He spoke to a man standing next to him, then picked up the case and walked away. The men's legs partly concealed the case, so she almost missed what happened. The second man picked up a case and walked the other way. Two cases, one inside the other. A store detective hurrying out of the store and accosting the thief would have demanded the case be opened, and would have found a peculiar bottom to the case but nothing inside. It was the cleverest device for concealment she had seen.

She thought. The suitcase was probably useless until the inner case was back in place. The two men would meet somewhere if they were to continue their work for the day. Emma had no interest in apprehending them. If Baillargeons thought their own detective staff could protect the store's merchandise, good luck to them. Two things she wanted to know: were these men part of the ring she was trying to break, and why was the man she had apprehended three weeks ago—Wilson was the name he had given—not in jail? She hurried to where a horsecart for hire waited, and told the driver to take her to the waterfront warehouse. The cartride was an expense, but the dance of thievery she had just witnessed had waked her from her funk. Something about the second man might have been familiar—the posture, the angle of the head, the quick flash of a toothy smile—but Wilson was her target.

Emma had the driver drop her a half block from the warehouse. She walked into a tiny Chinese store with open crates of roots and dried plant stems arrayed on the floor. A single sign in English said "Chinese Herbs Good for All Kinds of Chronic Disease, $1.00 for a Packet." A Chinaman took a step toward her and asked "You want?" She smiled, shook her head, and turned to the dusty window. The Chinaman retreated to where he had been sitting. She could see the entrance to the warehouse. A few carts stood at the curb, horses working at feedbags. A minute, two minutes, she took her watch from a pocket and checked. If this was where the men were coming they should be arriving about now. Soon enough she would know if it was all one gang of thieves or if she going in circles.

Wilson, the man she had detained, came around the corner carrying the handsome leather suitcase and went into the warehouse.

Emma's eyes locked on the warehouse entry. Not a muscle in her body moved. She was a birddog on the point. She didn't know what she would do, she didn't know why Wilson was back in the stores stealing merchandise. But Emma knew she had them.

Two minutes later the second man carrying the inner suitcase appeared from around the corner and followed the first into the building. His hat was pulled too low for her to get a clear look at his face, but there was something about him....

She turned to the Chinaman and made a movement with her head between a nod and a bow. "Thank you for letting me stand here," she said, smiling, knowing he probably didn't understand her. He smiled back and matched her nod.

A few minutes later the two men came out of the building together. The first carried the case, presumably now reassembled. They were off to continue their shopping. Emma let them go. She walked out of the root shop with a firm step. She was Holmes again, on the trail again, after a period of self-doubt. Gloves. She had been forming a plan, and gloves would be the key. She needed to be sure kidskin gloves were on the list of merchandise targeted by the gang, and now she was certain. Emma took a deep breath of summer air, felt tall and lean, and tasted her own relentlessness.

# CHAPTER TWENTY

Emma let fifteen minutes pass. Then she crossed the street and entered the warehouse. The time had come to learn what she could about this place.

There was no formal directory in the narrow lobby, but signs for several businesses were attached to the wall. Most were in Chinese or Japanese. She couldn't read the writing, but images showed that one tenant was apparently an eye doctor and another dealt in dried fish. Of the three signs with names in English, one appeared to offer some kind of marine engineering services, the other two were generic—the Pacific American Co. and the North Pole Co.

She stepped back out of the building and walked around to the alley in the back. She found a small loading dock with no signs and a slat-sided wagon that had seen some hard miles backed up to the dock.

Emma thought about what might be happening here. If as many stolen goods were brought to the building as she suspected, they weren't being redistributed locally. Too big a chance city merchants would recognize their own merchandise in another Seattle store. She guessed the stolen goods were being boxed up in crates and shipped out. Could it be one of the Japanese companies? Could the goods be shipped marked as dried fish? She had never apprehended a Japanese shoplifter. Apparently there were Japanese gangs, but she didn't know much about their activities. A man named Tanaka had recently been arrested for ordering the killing of a man who had not paid for the Japanese bride the gang had smuggled into Seattle. According to the newspaper accounts, Tanaka's trial became something of a farce. The witnesses who had given detectives information about the murder failed to appear and testify. Tanaka had smiled what the papers described as an inscrutable Asiatic smile from his seat in the courtroom and heard the charges dismissed. But Emma was not aware of Japanese being arrested for property crime.

"Any of your friends might want to work for me a day or two?" she asked Robert at dinner. "I need some help."

He said he had a friend who might be interested.

Cody had given her the leeway to hire boys to assist her, and would reimburse her at a dollar a day as long as she could justify the expense in her report. When Emma read The Sign of Four to him Robert had been struck by Holmes' employment of a group of street Arabs Watson called the Baker Street Irregulars. Robert said he didn't understand why there were Arab boys in London. She explained they weren't really Arabs, that was just a British expression for boys who could be found on the streets without any obvious employment.

"Hooligans, you mean," he said.

"Maybe," Emma responded. "Those boys in the story are smart. They know their way around London." She had used Robert's friends once before to help in a surveillance situation. She knew that a couple of boys loitering in the streets were even less noticeable than she was.

Since there was plenty of light after dinner, they rode their bicycles toward Ballard and knocked on the door of Robert's friend.

She explained to the boy what she wanted, and made sure he had streetcar fare and a pencil.

The third evening the boy appeared at Emma's home. He said the first day one cart had come into the alley and been loaded with crates marked with Japanese writing. They smelled like fish. The second day nothing happened. This morning a horse had been harnessed to the wagon at the loading dock while two men loaded cartons. Emma asked him what the men doing the loading looked like. An older Japanese man and another with light wavy hair, he said. The boy followed the wagon into the street. The cartons were stacked high enough that he could jump on the back of the wagon without being spotted by the driver. All the cartons he could see had the same address. The wagon had taken its load to the freight depot at the Union station. He returned to the alley near the waterfront, but there was no more shipping activity for the rest of the day.

The boy handed Emma a piece of paper on which he'd written the address on the boxes. Hagan Brothers in Cincinnati, Ohio. The other marking on the cartons had said North Pole Co. He grinned when she counted out three dollar bills into his hand and offered to continue watching the loading dock.

"I think you found out what I wanted to know," she said. "You did a good job."

When she first realized that a shoplifting gang was operating out of the warehouse, Emma wondered if thieves were bringing just any merchandise they could shoplift, or if only certain things were stolen. If it was as big an operation as she suspected, they would want large quantities of a few select items. Handkerchiefs, scarves, blouses, table linens and gloves were the most common items taken by thieves she thought were professionals. Kidskin gloves, cream, gray, birds-egg blue, something every woman wanted. Kid gloves would be her choice for the experiment she would try. She went to a stationary store that sold rubber ink stamps made to order and gave the clerk a sketch of what she wanted. When the stamp was ready she began visiting the department stores, shopping for gloves, and using her ability to conceal what she was doing to press an inconspicuous ink image into the cuff of as many gloves as she could.

Then Emma sat down in Cody's office and told him what she had done with the rubber stamp and the kid glove inventory in the stores.

"I want to use the time off and make a trip to Cincinnati," she said. "If I'm right and I can track where this gang is sending the stolen goods, would you pay for the trip?"

"Whoa," said Cody. "You're getting ahead of yourself here." He rubbed his blunt chin. "What do you think your odds are really? Even if these gloves do get shipped off to Cincinnati like you think, they could sit in a warehouse for weeks."

"I know it's a long shot," she said. "But I know how those stores work. The profit would be so good on stolen goods they'd turn it quick. It'd go on the counters first thing."

"Look, I see what you're trying to do. You want to get your credit back with the store managers. It's your time. If you really want to, go ahead and go. But it's nothing I'm going to pay for."

Emma hoped for more support from Cody, but she had made up her mind. She made arrangements with Mrs. Wood for meals for Robert, packed a bag and purchased a ticket.

Emma had never been in a Pullman sleeper car. She had never traveled beyond the Cascade Mountains in a train. She was surprised to see sagebrush and tumbleweeds as the jagged snowy contours of the mountain ridges receded behind her and the train rolled into the flat desert of central Washington. On the coast you had to be high on a mountainside to see a flat horizon stretch so far in the distance. Clusters of gnarled pine trees and vertical columns of rusty gray basaltic rock that looked like the solidified remains of ancient volcanoes began to appear as the train passed through Spokane. Then across Idaho and into the Rockies, massive forested mountains, but lacking the sharply cut ice-streaked crags of the Cascades, and not as appealing to a mountaineer.

It was very possible she was mistaken and would find nothing in Cincinnati. Cody was skeptical. The journey could turn out to be a costly and fruitless experiment. But here she was. The image in her mind of turning back the cuff of a glove and finding her mark was powerful enough to carry her across the country.

The sense of traveling a great distance, and the gentle movement of the car, brought Emma to a state of calm detachment. She wondered if her father experienced the same detachment when he traveled. She thought not. After making the trip enough times, watching the scenery pass might be nothing more than a tedious chore. If what Ferris, the postal inspector, had said was true, her father spent a part of his journeys roaming through the cars looking to strike up conversations with sporting gentlemen. Trains were his sales territory. In the afternoon she took a walk through the train looking at the passengers and trying to guess which ones her father might have selected. Groups of two and three men, whisky glasses in hand, talking and gesturing emphatically, these were the ones he would probably join. She had no desire to talk to anybody. The solitude was part of what calmed her.

At night the porter made up her sleeping platform. She lay on her back with her hands folded under her head and felt the movement of the train carry her pleasantly toward sleep. In the middle of the night, though, she woke and stared into the space above her. At two in the morning the chances of succeeding at what she was trying did not seem good. This was a costly trip, almost three week's wages and she wasn't drawing a paycheck. There would be hotel expenses, maybe for several days. She had taken the money from the savings account she hoped to use for a mountaineering trip with Cousin Annie. In the dark berth the decision to travel to Ohio seemed rash and unrealistic. The desire to make a point to Cody might have skewed her judgment. She was gambling against the odds, and she was not a gambler. Emma did not like to be dependent on luck. Gamblers, in her observation, almost never made an accurate assessment of odds. She knew from conversations among her father's friends that sports bettors could be carried beyond sound judgment by the enthusiasm of others. Their estimate of a horse's speed or an athlete's performance was based on gut intuition they trusted despite past failures.

And Robert, what did he think about his own gambling? Maybe he gambled simply because for boys his age, eager to become men, the gambler was a figure to emulate, cool, suave, masterful. Like that faro dealer at Luna Park, the one whose voice had a familiar lilt. But maybe Robert found some kind of joy in the contest. And maybe he thought he could win. Hadn't Carl said something about Robert figuring out the system? Robert did get good grades in his arithmetic classes. Or he could be one of those gamblers who believed destiny had linked him into a system of causes and effects that could be discerned only by a sensitive antenna somewhere in the body's core, not by rational analysis. But destiny had been on her mind, and maybe she needed to reconsider. A month earlier she received a letter from Cousin Annie inviting her to raise what money she could and take shipping to South America at the end of the summer. "I have failed four times," Annie wrote.

I have hired natives who promise to do something, then prove cowardly and unwilling to work once we are high on the mountain. I have invited Americans, full of confidence, who lose their motivation once the work becomes hard and dangerous. I employed a strong and active man whom I was told was mad. He was useful for a while, but it was true, he was a madman. Why would I try a fifth time, you quite reasonably ask. The odds are very much against me reaching the summit of Huascaran.

I will try once again because I can. I will take all the reasonable steps of preparation the budget will allow, then I will abandon myself to the adventure and let Destiny take me where it will. You think of me as a rational person, and I am. Yet to succeed in a great adventure, the point comes when you must give yourself up to Chance.

Emma wondered if Robert thought about his destiny. She hoped Carl had been right, that there wasn't a capper at Luna Park conning Robert with some trumped-up system that teased him with a few winnings before cleaning him out. Robert could be susceptible to the influence of an older man. If only he had an older brother, or a father he could respect.

She began to turn restlessly in the confines of the Pullman bed, remembering bits of words exchanged between Robert and her father, expressions on their faces, and she felt a nausea growing in the pit of her stomach. She had a suspicion. She had probably had it for a while, but not wanted to recognize it. Something bad had happened with Julia and her father. Julia's collapse, her father's distracted behavior, Robert's murderous anger. The nausea grew till she could taste bile in her throat. The journey had given her too much time to think. She couldn't hide from her midnight lucidity. She understood why she couldn't sit Robert down and demand to know why he tried to poison their father. She'd been afraid of what he would tell her. Under the whorehouse he had heard the sounds of a man having sex, and he had recognized them. She knew why she had thrown herself into her work and why she was traveling, fleeing really, to Cincinnati. She didn't want to know, but she knew. She curled up on the sleeping platform and made herself breathe steadily to keep from throwing up.

Her first morning in Cincinnati she had no appetite, but drank a cup of tea and tried to focus on her task. She had taken on a job and she would see it through. Even at nine in the morning Cincinnati was hot and muggy. If she did much walking she would want to change her shirtwaist by midday. She wondered why the air in Seattle was dryer and more refreshing even though the city was on the ocean.

Hagan Bros. was a three story building taking up a full half block north of the center of Cincinnati. A big Negro doorman touched his cap and opened the door for Emma. She was conscious of how many things needed to have happened exactly as she hoped if she was to find her marked gloves on the counter. She experienced a momentary reluctance to make her way to the women's accessories department and discover whether she had wasted several days and a cross-country train ticket on a wild goose chase. She imagined an unpleasant train journey back to Seattle and a meeting with Cody at which she would acknowledge that her scheme had been too dodgy to succeed. Is this what a gambler felt, what her brother had felt, the instant before the card was revealed in the dealing box? Did the gambler want to see the card immediately, or was it possible he wanted to prolong the instant, to feel pointedly alive in the brief second of uncertainty . Maybe the gambler, but not her. She was going for a high card, and wanted to see it now.

She located the countertop display of ladies' dress gloves, found the dove-gray kidskin, and began folding back the cuffs. The first pair, nothing but a manufacturer's mark. The second pair, the third, no marks. A queasy sensation began to gather in her stomach. But when she peered at the inside cuff of the fifth pair, there it was: a stamped image a little more than half an inch across of a deerstalker cap with the letter "E," her initial, on the ear flap. She barely stifled a cry of exhilaration and relief. Emma the hound had not been at fault. She continued turning back cuffs and found several more pairs with the deerstalker image stamped inside.

Emma experienced a moment of disbelief at what she was seeing. The lottery ticket buyer must feel the same disbelief, reading the final digit of the winning number and scanning the number a second time, convinced he must have transposed numbers or somehow misread the ticket. But she wasn't hallucinating the image of the Holmesian deerstalker cap. A glove with her stamp was there in her hand.

She took the elevator to the offices on the top floor. At the entrance to the office suite she asked the secretary if she could speak with Mr. Hagan. When the secretary inquired if she had an appointment, Emma said she was a detective with a merchant patrol service and had information about theft at the store. The secretary stepped back to the office furthest along the hall, then returned and asked Emma to follow her.

Hagan was a sturdy-looking man with a thick, assertive moustache and ruddy cheeks. "You say you're a detective," he said. "I don't recognize you. Who do you work for?"

"The Cody Agency. We're in Seattle."

"Seattle? I understood you had information about theft in the store here."

"We are trying to learn about a gang of shoplifters working in Seattle. Their thievery is on a large scale, so we wanted to find out how they disposed of their stolen merchandise. We found a significant amount of those stolen goods are being shipped to Cincinnati. To Hagan Brothers in particular."

"What?" Hagan exclaimed.

"We marked some products for identification."

"I'm afraid you're mistaken," said Hagan. "I hope you haven't come all the way to Ohio with an idea about stolen goods. Our suppliers are all reputable sources."

"One of them isn't. We knew the only way to prove beyond a doubt that stolen goods were being transferred here was to mark them." She took a small box from her pocket, opened it, and removed a rubber stamp. She held out the stamp across Hagan's broad mahogany desk so he could see the image. Then she passed a pair of gloves to him with the cuff folded back so the stamped image was visible.

"I didn't examine every pair on the counter, but about a third of the gloves there were stolen in Seattle."

Hagan stood up. "I know a con when I see one," he said. "This is a new one, I give you that. Marked gloves? What'd you do, stamp some of those gloves down stairs and bring one up? I'm not buying it, young lady. The next thing you're going to tell me is how you plan to extort money from me. Go ahead, let's hear it. How much are you expecting to get?"

Emma rose to face Hagan. "Cody's is a reputable agency. Send a telegram to Seattle and ask. I'm not here for extortion. All I want is to know who sends you the gloves."

"I think you've wasted enough of my time. I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"Before I came here this morning to look at the gloves I talked to a reporter and a police detective. I told them if I found what I was looking for I would go back and talk with them."

"You're threatening me. I do not like being threatened. Save yourself a lot of trouble and go back where you came from."

Emma glared at the man. She had expected him to break and admit to stocking his shelves with stolen goods, or at least admit to being unsure about the source. Hagan was angry. Blue veins contrasting with the red cheeks stood out in his temples. But he was tough. He hadn't lost his composure. She wouldn't gain anything arguing here in his office. She turned away and walked out.

Emma had told the truth about talking with a Cincinnati detective before she had come into the store. But she hadn't aroused much interest. The detective had made no effort to hide a sarcastic smile. A female, an out-of-towner, stepping into police business. She wasn't surprised. But Casebolt had given her the name of a reporter he'd gone to school with at DePauw who at one time worked at a Cincinnati paper and might still be there. After leaving the store she located the office of the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette. A receptionist told her the reporter did work there, and at the moment was in the building. When she introduced herself as a friend of Oliver Casebolt he invited her to sit down in the chair next to his desk in the noisy newsroom.

"How's Oliver?" he asked. "He and I swapped information a few times."

"He's fine," she said. "He's writing stories about a Seattle doctor named Roller who's going to have a match with Frank Gotch."

"Oh, I know Roller," he said. "Oliver, Roller and I were at school together at DePauw. Roller talked about fighting for the world championship back then. Oliver was his biggest fan. So it's actually going to happen. You know that's why he went out to Seattle, to follow Roller's career?"

"Oliver did say something like that."

"I wondered if Roller would ever put wrestling ahead of his medical work."

"They say he has a good practice. But Oliver said he doesn't see many patients now, only a day or two a week so he can train."

"What brings you to Cincinnati?"

Emma told the reporter about the shoplifting ring she was pursuing and how she had tracked the marked gloves here.

"I knew it was a long shot," she said, "but they were there, on the counter at Hagan's."

"That sounds like real detective work. You talk to anybody there?"

"I confronted Hagan, but he's a brazen man. He denied it and threatened to have me removed."

"Hagan is an interesting fellow. Say, how long are you here?"

"I can stay in town as long as there's anything to learn."

"I seem to remember some connection between Hagan and Seattle. I'm busy this morning. Let me dig up some files when we've got the paper to bed. Come back tomorrow morning and I'll see what I can find."

The next morning the reporter, a short and cheery man, took Emma by the arm and steered her out of the building to a café across the street.

"I knew I remembered something," the reporter said. "Wappenstein, he's still the chief of police in Seattle, isn't he?"

Emma said he was.

"Did you know he was the chief of detectives in Cincinnati a few years back?"

She shook her head.

"There was a scandal, and he got fired. I think he went out to Portland and worked as a railway detective. Hagan worked for him in Cincinnati as a cop. A couple of men here were killed by the police. Had their necks broken. Police said they were criminals resisting arrest, but the families raised a stink. Turned out the two guys were businessmen who didn't want to pay Wappy off. So he sent his boys after them. He had two guys doing his dirty work. Hagan and another cop, huge guy. Wappy spread some money around, and nothing ever came of it."

"He went from being a cop to department store owner?"

The reporter chuckled. "There was a very profitable stint in the Yukon in between."

"What do people here think of him? Is he a pillar of the community, or do they wonder about him?"

The reporter gave a snort. "Both. He contributes to the right politicos. There are people here who knew Hagan from the Yukon. We had a reporter, not with us any more, work on a story. Hagan met the cop he worked with, man named Vik, while they were gold mining. The story is most of the miners went into Dawson for the cold part of the winter. This Vik was a Norwegian who didn't mind the cold. Hagan thought a claim upstream from his might be a good one. He had Vik hang around and check it out over winter. In the spring Hagan strongarmed the owner to give up his claim for a cheap price. The claim was a big winner. That's how Hagan got his stake. He came back and bought into the store. Vik came with him, worked for Wappy for a while, then worked in Hagan's store as the head detective. The thing I remembered last night is somebody told me once this Vik went off to Seattle. I'm wondering if he got back with Wappenstein."

"What did they think about the story here?"

The reporter gave a louder snort. "We never ran the story. Now you're not hearing me pass any judgments on our publisher. Let's say that by the time the story was written Hagan was an influential man. The story was killed and the reporter is gone. You know much about Cincinnati?"

"Not really."

"A lot of corruption. If you want to keep working here in the newspapers, you learn to be careful. What you see isn't always what you write."

"I appreciate your telling me this," said Emma.

The reporter shrugged. "You realize I can't use your glove story without more to support it. Not that I don't believe it. Pretty interesting, actually."

"Vik, the man you think might have gone to Seattle, he worked as store detective?"

"Looks like he was moonlighting for Wappy, but yes, he was in charge of the mercantile patrol for a while."

Emma ran a finger up and down her nose, thinking. "He would know exactly how things work in a department store. He could be an expert thief."

The reporter looked at her. "You probably could too."

"I'm with the hounds, not the wolves," she said.

# CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

"There," said Emma. She set the glove with the cuff turned back to make the inkstamp visible and a receipt for the glove from Hagan's department store on Cody's desk.

"You marked the glove in Seattle," said Cody. "You say it was shoplifted, shipped from a building near the waterfront to this store in Ohio owned by a man named Hagan."

"Exactly," said Emma.

"What'd you do when you found the gloves?"

"I confronted the owner with the evidence."

"And what did he do?"

"He denied it. He threatened to throw me out."

"Did you see the police there?"

"I talked to a detective."

"I can see from your face what you're going to tell me. He wasn't much interested."

Emma wrinkled her nose. She had wanted to keep an objective tone when she reported to Cody. She was letting her feelings show. Give Cody credit. For a man with such a blunt demeanor, he was good at reading people.

"No. I talked to a reporter. He said Hagan and the police were pretty thick. Did you know Wappenstein used to work there?"

"That's right, Cincinnati. Chief of Detectives. I'd forgotten that. Talking to a reporter back there, that's good. All right. Tell you what. I'll pay your wages for the trip."

"Thank you. But we need to get the police and raid the place."

"Based on the fact that you tracked two different shoplifters there, and traced a shipment out of the building to Cincinnati that might or might not be stolen goods."

"If we go in there I know we'll find stolen merchandise," Emma said. "I know we will. They can't ship it out without packing it up."

"We might find stolen merchandise. Some things you better consider, though. This Wilson fellow you arrested and wanted me to find out why he's back in business? They let him go for lack of evidence."

"Lack of evidence?" Emma exclaimed. "That's ridiculous. He had the goods concealed. Why didn't they ask me to testify?"

"You realize this shoplifting operation might have Wappy's blessing. Probably gets a cut. You ever hear about his whorehouse plans?"

"I did hear about that. You think it's true?"

"He's got money coming in from all kinds of places. If your operation is as big as you think, they could be paying the chief for protection."

Emma tapped a fist with her other hand. "The reporter said that Hagan and Wappenstein worked together on the force before Hagan bought the store."

"So there we are. For now though we keep this under our hat."

"But I thought you wanted to get Wappy. I heard you talking about wanting his job."

"Young lady, if you heard me say anything like that, you keep quiet about it. I know you're upset because I don't want to move on that warehouse. I'll just tell you there's something else going on. I've been talking to our great reformer, the Reverend Mark Matthews. He and the uplifter ladies with the Law and Order League are worked up about police corruption. He has the idea to set up a card game and see if Wappy's people try to collect protection money. I'm telling you this, and you better not say a peep to anybody. If we make that work, we'll use the shoplifting operation as further proof."

"So we don't go to the warehouse."

"Not now."

"But Hagan must have let them know about me. They know we're on to them. They'll move somewhere else."

"That is possible," said Cody. "You're going to have to be patient. Look, you're getting a little obsessed with this glove business. Nice piece of detective work, I'm not saying it isn't."

"Those people at the Bon are so worried I detained a good customer. I can show them Mary Vinette is a con artist, not the fine customer they think she is."

"Just let it go. Another few weeks and they'll be glad to have you back. For right now I've got another job for you, all right?"

"What's that?" she asked, surprised.

"The head detective at Frederick's isn't too happy with his staff. One of them detained the wife of a prominent citizen. He needs someone who can detect the professionals at work. Those amateur detectives only know how to catch the amateur thieves, and the managers don't want good customers harassed."

"He knows about the Bon?"

"He knows. I told him it was probably a setup. He knows you're good. He wants you in particular. Okay, it's not full time. You'll be covering days off for them."

Emma knew it may or may not be true that the Fredericks managers asked for her in particular. Cody was probably saying this to help keep her spirits up. But it didn't matter. She would go through hell or high water for her bullet-headed boss.

"Thank you," she said. "For having some faith in me."

Cody waved a hand dismissively. "Go catch some shoplifters."

So nothing was going to happen. Emma was on the verge of solving a major case, the most organized shoplifting ring the city had ever seen, and Cody was telling her to be patient. Much as she admired Cody, she was uncomfortable with his caution. This is what politics does, she decided. He is being very circumspect about going after Wappy because he wants his job. He apparently had a plan to let the crusading preacher lead the fight. Wappy must have more power than she realized.

And in the meanwhile the thieves could be gone. Whoever it was had several days to react if Hagan had telephoned or telegraphed the news of her appearance at his store.

Emma walked along Fourth Avenue. The street was crowded with wagons and automobiles. You had to watch yourself at the intersections. She remembered Robert talking about the stopwatch patrol, officers with motorcycles timing and catching autos exceeding the twelve mile an hour limit. She wandered without paying much attention to where she was going. When she looked up she found herself in the harbor district, opposite the warehouse.

"The heck with it," she said to herself and crossed the street. In the entry hall the North Pole Company sign was still in place. She climbed the narrow stairs and opened the door with "North Pole" lettered on the opaque glass.

The office was minimally furnished. Two desks, a large table with boxes and cartons piled on it. A closed, unmarked door led to an interior room. She turned the handle; the door was locked. She gave a brisk knock.

"Yes?" came a male voice.

"We need to talk," she said.

The door opened six inches. A face peered at her.

She smiled widely and pushed the door further open. "I know you have questions you want to ask me. Like how I found Hagan." She had given no thought to what she would say. Anything that would hold whoever was in the room long enough for her to see who was there and what was happening.

The man who had let her push through the door was broad-shouldered and blond. She thought she might have seen him somewhere, but couldn't place him. An older man, Chinese or Japanese, was moving cartons to a freight elevator with a hand truck. A woman packed clothing into a carton. When the woman turned Emma saw that she was Mary Vinette.

Mary stared at her. "That's the detective," she said. "Get her out of here."

The blond man gripped Emma by the arm. His grip was powerful. He began pushing her toward the door.

"Don't you want to ask me why I went to see Hagan?" she said.

"You have no business here," he said, and walked her forcefully through the outer office to the door. He was too strong. She didn't try to resist.

"You have to talk to me," she yelled after him as he shut the door. But she wasn't thinking about the man. Mary Vinette was part of the gang. Emma's heart and her thoughts were both racing. Ideas of a conspiracy more complex than she had guessed were taking shape in her mind.

# CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

"No, no, you're not interrupting," said Casebolt, waving to the chair next to his desk. "Just wrapped up a story. How's everything?"

"I'm working on a good case," said Emma. But maybe you can help me with some questions."

"Shoot," said Casebolt.

"How much do you know about Wappenstein and the police department?"

"What do you want to know?"

"I think there's a big shoplifting ring operating in this city. I've caught a lot of lifters. The police come and take them away, and then they're back on the street. I think they're being protected."

Casebolt looked at her narrowly. "It's very possible. Wappy gets a cut of a lot of things."

"You know a lot about him."

Casebolt leaned forward. "Somebody I know smuggled some drawings out of the Chief's office long enough for me to have a look. A palatial building, fluted columns opening on a marble-floored lobby, promenade of arching palms leading to this grand staircase. Splendid as any of your department stores. But it's a, uh, house of ill repute. Sorry, maybe this isn't what you want to hear."

"No, this is helpful."

"Anyway, five hundred rooms, I heard, basic studio with a bed, chair and washbowl, to luxury suites with sunken baths. Marble statues along the driveway. Car park next to it. I can see the chauffeurs passing the time polishing nickel trim and arguing about whose auto is fastest."

"Sounds like a fantasy," said Emma.

"It is. For someone like Wappy, you'd think the ideal bordello would be a well-managed warehouse of cubicles. But I saw those plans."

"Is it really going to be built?"

"Depends on getting the capital."

"You think he has it?"

"Do you know the chief collects ten dollars a month for every prostitute working in the city?"

Emma raised her eyebrows. "Good Lord. How many is that, do you think?"

"Varies, five to six hundred. He's divided the restricted district into revenue units. Got teams of vice officers and accountants to keep an accurate census. It's generally known, any pink-cuffed gentleman trying to work girls off the census rolls is going to find himself floating in the bay."

Emma shook her head. "That's a lot of money."

"There's more. You know how the government can't make up its mind whether sports events are legal. Boxing events, horse races, marathons, wrestling matches, in Seattle all that depends on Wappy's okay. Promoters like Jack Curley give him a cut. The really big sports money comes from betting, though. You know what a work is? Sometimes matches are rigged. The insiders know who's going to win. From what I hear, promoters share that information with Wappy's people. Some of those bets are big. Hey, are you all right?"

Emma caught herself. She was thinking about her father and what she had learned about his business. Her discomfort must have been visible in her face.

"Sure," she said, recovering her smile. "I've heard about rigged fights. Are you working on a story about any of this, Oliver?"

Casebolt blew out a breath. "There's another source of capital for Wappy's palace, and that's investment by the capitalists. There's lawyers, doctors, very respectable folks. I guess there's something appealing about owning a piece of a fancy bordello. And people believe in Wappy. They could all make a lot of money. I don't know this for sure, but I think our publisher, the Colonel, is one of them. There's not going to be any story about this in the Times."

"I see what you mean. This match coming up between Doctor Roller and Frank Gotch. D'you know, is that a work?"

It was Casebolt's turn to look uncomfortable. "I'm not sure," he said. "Colonel Blethen's had me doing stories about the Doc's training regimen. We talk about his training, but the Doc hasn't said much about the match itself."

"I don't want it to be," said Emma, surprising herself by the force of her opinion. "I'd like to see Doctor Roller prove he's the best wrestler in the world!"

"He might be that," said Casebolt ruefully, "and we might never know for sure. But Gotch, you know, some are saying he's the best ever."

Emma and Casebolt sat in silence for a moment, Casebolt looking at Emma, Emma absorbing what she had learned.

"If the leader of this shoplifting ring is paying off Wappenstein, I'm going to find out, and I'm going to stop him."

"Emma, you need to be careful. This man has people killed who get in his way. People who've interfered with the Wappenstein money machine have disappeared."

"You know that for a fact?"

He nodded. "But I can't write about it."

"If I get this gang leader and I find he's paying off the police, I'll give you something you can write about."

"I admire your spirit, Emma, you know that" he said. "Just be careful about what you're taking on."

At the end of a one-day fill-in assignment at Frederick's, moving among shoppers hurrying to complete their purchases and leave for dinner, Emma saw a tall, wide-shouldered figure in a well-tailored black coat looking at women's kidskin gloves. She took a quick involuntary breath. She had seen Roller in a ballroom, in a courtroom, and dressed in workout clothes running on the trails around the university, but never in her own world, the aisles of a department store. Her reaction made her aware with some consternation how powerfully she was attracted to Roller.

Sometimes Emma encountered people she was acquainted with while she was on duty. It was the nature of her work that she almost always saw them before they saw her. How she reacted depended on the person. A few, some of her climbing friends, knew what she did, and if she came up to them in the store they would greet her and chat a moment as if she were another customer. But with most people she knew she would withdraw and not be seen.

She took a step towards Roller. She would have liked to talk, and he would have the instinct not to give her away. But she stopped. The gloves. The fine kidskin gloves that would caress a woman's wrists and, if they were a gift, would make her feel she was admired. Who was he buying them for? What was this she was feeling? A pang of disappointment? She waited at a distance until he had paid for the gloves and left the store.

Emma knew from something Casebolt had said, or perhaps from a newspaper account of the details of his life, that Roller had an apartment attached to his office in the Arcade building and a home at Eagle Harbor on Bainbridge Island. The big man's effortless stride as he left the building and walked away had a hypnotic effect on Emma. For no purpose other than to watch him a little longer she followed a distance behind him.

If Roller had continued in the direction of the waterfront and the Bainbridge ferry she would have shaken her head at herself and taken the streetcar home. That morning, as Robert slipped the bag he used for deliveries over his shoulder, he said, "I want to ask you about something."

"Sure," she said. "Have to run now or I'll be late. We'll talk tonight, okay?"

He had looked directly at her as he spoke, something he didn't usually do. "Okay," he said. This could be the conversation about their father, or about his plans for his future. But she had to go.

But Roller hesitated. Emma saw his face turn and his chin rise, as if he was deciding something. Then he walked past the Shafer Brothers haberdashery to the stop for a streetcar headed south. The street was crowded with people vacating the office buildings and making their way home. She knew she could stay close to Roller without being noticed. He boarded the streetcar, traveled a few stops before getting off and began walking east toward Chinatown.

Her thoughts as she walked behind Roller: the people she has followed in the past have been either thieves or possible thieves. Some of those she followed turned out to be innocent shoppers, but she had no sense of doing anything improper. She was investigating. Investigation in pursuit of the truth was a high calling that required intelligence, ingenuity, resourcefulness, self-discipline, and at times courage. These were the qualities she most admired in others, qualities she hoped she possessed herself. Following was both skill and an art, requiring an acute sensitivity to what others were seeing. People weren't aware of everything that was in their field of vision. What people saw was what they noticed. If they didn't notice you, they didn't see you. Emma had learned how to avoid being noticed.

Once before she had employed her art for a personal reason, the evening she hurried out of the house to see where her brother was going after borrowing twenty dollars from her. She had no thought of justifying her actions to herself. She had to learn whether Robert was in some kind of trouble.

The steps she took now, though, were propelled by, what word could she use? Curiosity, curiosity without a worthwhile purpose. Curiosity to know more about this man who drew her like a polar explorer is drawn to the pole.

She passed Chinese women engaged in rapid high-pitched discussions over bins of unfamiliar vegetables. Pungent odors emanated from the tiny densely packed shops opening onto the street. There was an occasional English word embedded in the indecipherable figures on the signs. Chinese and Japanese immigrants had created a separate world on the slope of First Hill. The only Asian women she saw in the department stores were, as far as she could judge, servants purchasing household goods for an employer. They never tried on clothes. She had never seen any of them steal.

She stayed a hundred feet behind Roller, two aliens moving in tandem through a strange place. Roller turned into a side street, pushed open a door in the middle of the block, and disappeared. She continued past the entrance. There was no sign or marking on the door. At the far end of the street she stood in an inconspicuous place and waited.

A half an hour later she stood wondering why she was still there, but couldn't bring herself to leave. Roller emerged from the doorway and returned through the alley the way he had come. She fell into place further back from him than when they had come because there were fewer people on the street. He walked at a swift athletic pace all the way to the waterfront, where she saw him buy a ticket for the boat to Bainbridge Island.

What had happened in Chinatown? Could he have a patient there he visited? Friends? She should go home; it was getting late. Robert wanted to talk about something. Instead she boarded an eastbound trolley and retraced her steps back to the darkened place at the end of the narrow street where she had waited for Roller.

A man turned into the street and stopped to look around as if he didn't want anyone to see him before opening the same door Roller had entered. Why would he do that, she wondered. Emma speculated about what could bring the Doc to this place at a time when his training schedule, if what Casebolt was writing in the papers was accurate, must demand all his time away from his medical practice. Two men emerged from the doorway. One laughed and raised his arms over his head as if celebrating. His companion slapped him on the shoulder and stumbled, barely able to recover his balance. They were obviously drunk. As they turned on the street leading downhill to the city center Emma fell in close enough behind them to hear their broken conversation.

"What I like is they're clean," said one.

"You see that Mariko? Oh, tha's a sweet ass on her. Love getting' my hands on that."

"Damn right. Personally? Got no use for District women. They're all dirty. Know what I'm sayin'?"

"You get Mariko next time. Won't be sorry."

"Women downtown, they smell. They're pigs."

"Mariko, I'm telling you. She's a doll. She's clean."

Emma fell back, having learned all she needed. She had heard talk about Japanese prostitutes. Some men, like the one walking off with his friend, were said to prefer them for their smooth unblemished skin and clean habits. It was said there wasn't the same sense of shame about prostitution among the Japanese. Women were in the profession because impoverished parents sold them to procurers when they were girls.

Was Dr. Roller one of those men? Maybe he had come here in his physician's role, caring for the hygiene of women from all walks of life. But she would be fooling herself to believe that. Roller the gynecologist, studying the bodies of female patients, seeing the wens and blemishes in a bright and merciless medical light. Awareness of her own physical imperfections flowed across Emma's skin like a warm and embarrassing flush of fluid. Struggling with a confusion of feelings, she took a late streetcar home.

When she entered the house Robert's door was closed. She was temped to knock, but it was very late. Emma tossed herself on the bed and fell asleep. She didn't wake the next morning until the sun lit up the wall opposite her bed. She took her watch from the stand and saw there would be no run this morning. She would just make it to Fredericks in time for the opening. Robert's plate was in the sink. He had eaten his breakfast and gone. She had missed the conversation he wanted to have the night before.

That day Emma made sure that nothing kept her from arriving home in time for dinner. Once Mrs. Wood had served the meal and departed, she asked Robert what he wanted to talk to her about.

He shook his head. "Nothing."

"I'm really sorry," she said. "I know you wanted to talk but I couldn't get away." "Don't worry about it."

"No, I do want to know what it was."

He looked up from his plate, and she saw the heat of resentment in his eyes.

"Nothing, okay?"

"Okay," she said.

Robert went out shortly after dinner without saying a word. She tried to read, then gave it up. Had she forgotten Robert had wanted to talk to her when she decided to track Roller through the city? She knew the answer was no. She was afraid of what her brother would tell her. She was ashamed of herself, and knew it was time to face whatever she had to face. "Please, Robert," she prayed to herself, "ask me again."

# Part Six

# THE FIGHT

During the Frank Gotch era wrestling was evolving from an atheltic competion to a form of show business.

# CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

Anticipation of an event the magnitude of the Gotch-Roller match shapes the life of a city for weeks. The most visible form was the coating of posters pasted on every vertical surface a man with a stepladder and pot of glue could reach. There were posters on the walls of buildings, in the windows of tobacco shops and drug stores, on the sides of delivery wagons. In the newspapers, stories and photos of Roller's preparation moved from the sports section to the front page. At the publisher's urging the Times reporters copied Casebolt's colorful style and became publicists. Each day brought fresh stories detailing the weight of Roller's barbells and the hours of his running regimen. Everyone had an opinion about whether high reps with a lighter weight or fewer reps with maximum weight was better. What did a championship-caliber wrestler need more of, strength or endurance? Reporters interviewed wrestling experts who compared the technique of the Doc with that of other top fighters. Anywhere men who weren't acquainted met one another—in the next seat on the streetcar, waiting in the barbershop, at the bar of the saloon, even the Chinese laundry where the conversation of the man behind the counter was usually limited to cleaning transactions could ask a customer if he thought the Doc was ready to meet the champ—the fight replaced for a time the weather as the common currency all can draw upon to start a conversation.

Casebolt was at the YMCA almost every morning to watch the Doc train and to work up stories about his preparation. For the past three weeks the routine was the same. Roller gave himself one day a week for rest and recovery. Every second day he was running on the roads and paths around the university, then driven to the Y to work with weights and gym apparatus and do some sparring. "He may be pushing himself too hard," Joe Carroll, now serving as Roller's manager, was quoted as saying. "He doesn't know how to hold back."

A reliable man was sent into the restricted district to scout out sparring partners for the Doc. He would make the rounds of the saloons, looking for big loggers and stevedores fueled by cheap liquor who were eager to start a brawl and ready to take on two and three opponents at once. Allowing time for the red rage in the fighter's eyes to burn down so he wouldn't catch a sudden smashing fist in the face himself, the recruiter would offer some flattering remarks about the fighting, then ask the man if he thought he could handle five minutes in the ring with a professional fighter the next morning. He'd be paid five dollars. "Dollar a minute," he told them. "Think you can do it?"

In the morning most had forgotten the offer, but usually one or two had sobered enough to recall a conversation about five dollars for fighting and find their way to the YMCA gym.

The regulars in black training tights working out at the Y would begin to gather around the boxing ring. The men who came to collect the fiver were usually big men, fit from heavy labor and frequent fights, but no match for Roller. Once they stepped into the ring most would begin with bull-like rushes at the Doc. For a while Roller would just dodge and evade like a matador. After several minutes of this the brawler would stop to catch his breath and glare at Roller

"Thought you wanted to fight you son of a bitch," the man would growl and rush one more time. Then there would be a sudden movement, so quick and economical you would miss it if you weren't watching closely, like the flick of a snake's head as it strikes. Doc would be behind the man, grasping him around the waist. The man from the saloons would thrash and flail his elbows, trying to escape the unyielding grip around his middle. The Doc danced behind his opponent like a ballroom dancer following the moves of the lead. Roller held his opponent until the flailing weakened and the man began gasping for breath. Then Roller would pick him up almost as an afterthought, throw him to the floor, and fall on him for the pin. He didn't seem to be interested in practicing holds or technique. A few times one of the fighters lost control of himself and in a rage of frustration began swinging his fists at Roller's face. The doctor was always quicker than the big men and would bend away until handlers and trainers climbed through the ropes to restrain the man. He didn't want to risk damaging his hands by hitting someone. Once, though, a violent and powerful young Swede managed to land an open-handed blow that left a hand-shaped red blotch on Roller's cheek. Half a dozen men swarmed onto the Swede and pulled him away. Roller looked at the Swede a moment, then nodded to someone outside the ring.

One man slid a stool into the ring corner so Roller could sit while two others wrapped his hands in white tape. When the taping was finished they laced a pair of gloves on his hands. The Swede was offered gloves, but waved them away. The men in the Swede's corner looked questioningly at Roller, not sure he would want to fight a bare-fisted opponent. Roller gave a single nod. He stood, the stool disappeared, the men in the opposite corner turned the Swede loose. The big man charged across the ring with a bellow of rage and a great overhand blow that would have felled an ox.

The blow whistled harmlessly through the air. A second later it was followed by a hail of fists. The beefy calloused hands hit nothing. There was a second of silence, then a sound like the pounding of a high-speed steam hammer breaking up a slab of concrete. The Swede stared at Roller in perplexity and disbelief, then pitched forward onto his face. A group of men climbed into the ring and carried the unconscious Swede to a table. Roller let the trainers remove the gloves and wrapping from his hands, then climbed out of the ring, asked for his medical bag, and attended to the fighter's damaged face.

One evening a week before the match Emma's telephone rang. It was Casebolt, apologizing for the late call.

"I know you work tomorrow," he said, "but is there any way you can start late? If you can be downtown at nine there's something you should see."

"I'm off tomorrow," she said. She hadn't found the occasion to tell him about her suspension from her regular job. "What's happening?"

"Gotch is here for the fight. He asked Roller if he wanted to do a little sparring."

"Is that something worth watching?" she asked.

"I know you're a fan of the Doc's. You'll want to be there."

The gym at the YMCA was crowded with men in street and workout clothes. No more brawlers from the saloons were being recruited. The match was only a few days away. The sound of padded fists thwacking into a heavy bag could be heard from one corner, and a few men hoisted dumbbells in rhythmic movements, but most of the crowd milled around the boxing ring, waiting. She found Casebolt, who pointed to Roller. Dressed in tights and a hooded sweatshirt the doctor skipped across a jump-rope that spun easily in his hands. A murmur of voices signaled Gotch's appearance from the locker rooms. Emma recognized him immediately from the newspaper photos. Dark hair low on his brow, a jaw as solid as the prow of a tugboat, the calmly expressionless face of a man who had stepped into a ring many times, arms and back so heavily muscled the arms swung in a slight outward arc to clear his torso as he walked.

Roller stripped off the sweatshirt and climbed through the ropes into the ring to greet Gotch. They shook hands and talked briefly, like acquaintances who hadn't seen one another in a while. Which was what they were. A year earlier Joe Carroll had arranged an exhibition when Gotch had been in Seattle, the event Roller had referred to in his conversation with Emma on the trail. The form of the exhibition, which had drawn a good crowd, was that Gotch would put Roller in a hold, and Roller would attempt to escape from the hold in a set time. The doctor succeeded in escaping twice. Gotch later admitted to friends he hadn't been prepared for someone of Roller's ability. The newspapers at the time quoted Gotch as saying "Get some more experience and I'll come back and fight you."

"A bit of a workout," spectators at ringside heard Gotch say as they separated. The two men could have simply begun wrestling in the middle of the ring, but respect for the formal traditions of the sport made them walk to opposite corners. Roller turned and looked out from the ring with his head tilted and took a few deep breaths. Gotch stood in his corner watching Roller.

Perhaps an inch shorter than Roller's six feet, but more heavily muscled, Frank Gotch looked as if he had been sculpted from a block of pale marble. Except that his dark hair waved away to the sides of his head from the part in the center of his scalp instead of curling over the forehead, he was the living form of the statue of Hercules Emma had admired in a photo book of Greek and Roman statuary.

The wrestlers came together cautiously. Each grasped the left shoulder and right elbow of the other. They pushed or pulled with what looked like ponderous force. Then a quick, flashing reach for a leg and an instant leap back in response. Emma glanced at the men surrounding the ring. The spectators watched as if hypnotized. Murmurs of sound from the men around the ring could be heard with each darting move, but there was no cheering, no conversation or calling out to the wrestlers. Now the wrestlers were on the mat. From the swell and twist of muscles across their shoulders and backs she could see that great strength was being applied, but was producing only small adjustments in their positions. A line of sweat appeared on Gotch's forehead. The lightning-quick reaches continued, but never with a full commitment.

As a girl she had watched a wrestling exhibition at Leschi Park with her father. A rope-enclosed platform had been set up on the grass. The purpose of the exhibition, her father told her, was to promote an upcoming fight. What she was seeing here was nothing like that exhibition, where wrestlers had lifted opponents off the platform and thrown them down, or leaped across the ring to grasp the other man from behind and apply a variety of swiftly shifting holds. The exhibition, by comparison with what she was watching, was a spectacle, and the crowd around the ring had responded to every shift of advantage with lusty cries of encouragement. Here there was no throwing, no acrobatics. This was silent, intense, sweating labor. As she watched she could see that the struggle was about balance. The object was to maintain one's balance while applying force and causing the opponent to lose his own balance.

After what might have been ten minutes—Emma couldn't have told how much time had passed—Gotch attacked Roller at an instant of imbalance with a movement of furious precision. He pinned Roller's shoulders to the mat. There was no referee for the workout, but someone from the Y staff counted tentatively to three. Gotch rolled off his opponent and crouched beside him on his hands and knees, drawing great draughts of air to regain his breath. Roller lay on his back. His chest heaved from the exertion. Men with towels came into the ring and began wiping down the two wrestlers, who stayed where they were for a long moment before allowing themselves to be helped to their feet.

Emma drew in a breath. She was damp with perspiration, surprised at how much energy she had just spent. She felt exhilaration, anguish, pity, admiration. She recognized her emotional reaction when she looked at Casebolt and saw her own feelings mirrored in his face. She wondered if he would go to the ring and talk to Roller, but he turned and guided her to the gym exit. She waited to hear what he had to say, but he didn't speak until they stepped onto the sidewalk in the morning sunshine.

"That was something," was all he said.

In the days following the workout she had witnessed at the Y Emma woke herself at sunrise, dressed in her running clothes and was out the door before anything but the milk wagons were in the streets. She ran along the trails where she had encountered Roller. Casebolt had told her that though he would cut back the distance, he would continue running until the fight. But she didn't see him again until only two days remained before the match. She came up behind him. He was running at a slower pace than the first time she had encountered him on the trail. She thought he would be tapering off his effort, storing up his energy. But as she ran behind him she noticed that it wasn't just his pace that had slowed. His running form was heavy, wooden, without the fluid movement that seemed to eat up the miles with such little effort.

Here she was, following him again. A man with physical and mental powers beyond the normal range of human ability. She wanted him to be a clean-living paragon of morality as well. But that was the fantasy of an adolescent girl. There was a powerful drive in this man, she was sure, toward whatever he sought, and it had its costs. She pulled even with him where the trail widened.

"I was at your workout at the Y with Gotch," she said. "Oliver invited me to watch."

Roller continued running without turning to her.

"Oliver said you were a professional football star. You wrote part of a medical textbook."

A moment later, as they ran step for step down a slight grade he turned to her.

"You're an unusual woman," he said. "What do you want to do with your life?"

"I want to climb a big mountain in South America," she said between breaths. "I'm after a shoplifting gang. I'm going to break it up."

"Good," he said. "Big goals. Not many men could keep up with you."

She was elated by the compliment, glad they were running hard enough he couldn't see the flush of her cheeks and her effort to clamp down on a smile.

"People with abilities, like you, can choose their goals," he said, taking a breath between sentences. "It can be hard to pick the right one. Hard sometimes to decide what's important."

Something in his tone prevented her from responding. They ran the length of an open field before she spoke again.

"I've got a ticket to the fight" she said. "I'm going to bet on you."

The change was palpable. It was as if there had been no conversation during the run. He looked straight ahead, not turning toward her, and increased his pace. She thought she saw something in his face harden. "Don't bet on anything," he said. She stayed with him a distance, she could tell he no longer wanted to talk. Confused by his reaction, she fell back.

At the dinner table Robert ate without looking at Emma, his jaw working like a piston chewing his food. He was done in a minute. It seemed to Emma an age ago that he had talked over dinner about things that interested him, the rumored sighting of a flying machine over the Puget Sound, or the Navy's inability to locate the Japanese fleet. Now he muttered a yes or no to her cautious questions about his day at school or with the messenger crew. He snatched up his cap and left as soon as he was done.

Her father didn't appear from his room until Robert was gone. He stared at his plate and picked without interest at his food. Emma watched him, telling him he needed to eat, but otherwise didn't talk to him. When she excused herself from the table, her father put out his hand for her to wait.

"You said you run in the mornings with Doc Roller. You're friends with him."

"I've got to know him a little."

"What's he said about the fight?"

"He says he's ready."

"Oh, he's a hard trainer," said her father. "What I mean is, has he given you any hint how it's going to come out?"

"Do you mean does he think he can win?"

"I mean is he going to win." Her father shook his head. "I need to be sure. I have to be sure how it's going to come out."

She saw the desperation in her father's expression. He knew, she realized. The Gotch-Roller match would be a work, and her father knew it. That was why Roller had turned away from her on the trail. He was going to do something he didn't want to talk about.

She heard the same anxiety in her father's voice she'd heard when she told him about the postal inspector. She now understood that her father earned a living by finding naïve bettors and persuading them to wager on fixed fights. The post office inspector had come to build his case against the betting operation, and her father had saved himself from a jail sentence by giving the inspector information about Joe Carroll. The fights where her father was involved in the wagering were worked fights in which one of the fighters would take a dive, and some of the men placing bets knew who would win.

Her father would be placing bets for someone. It wasn't hard for her to guess what had happened. The word had gotten out that he had turned on his colleagues to save himself. His usual sources of information weren't letting him know who would win the fight.

As she gazed at the pleading expression on her father's face, she remembered Carl Windell's spare and reluctant narration of Robert's reaction to what he had seen and heard under the whorehouse. She imagined Robert coming home early one afternoon when his father expected him to be in school and hearing sounds from the bedroom he didn't recognize until the night he had watched through the crack in the whorehouse wall. Her brother was trying to murder their father. If Robert succeeded, he would spend the rest of his life in prison. Or locked away like Esther Mitchell in a ward at Steilacoom. It would be unbearable to have both her siblings in the madhouse. She would not let that happen. She would make sure Robert would never be punished for killing his father.

She raised her eyes to her father's and gave him a clear, cold look. "Roller expects to win," she said.

****

Casebolt had procured a ticket for Emma eight rows from ringside. Though most of the crowd was male, she saw women dressed as if they were going to the theater with their escorts in seats even closer to the stage than hers. Much publicity had been given to Roller's announcement that smoking would not be allowed inside the Coliseum. The Doc told the newspapers that women should be able to attend a major sporting event in comfort. The promoters, trying to make the most of Roller's fame and stature, presented the match as a civic event suitable for respectable women. One result of the smoking ban was a dense cloud of tobacco smoke that nearly choked Emma just outside the entrance to the Coliseum, where men standing in clusters puffed vigorously at cigars and cigarettes before entering the building and finding their seats.

The Coliseum, the most capacious theater west of Chicago, was filled with the shouts of men calling greetings to one another, making bets, loudly speculating about the condition of the fighters. Emma found herself surrounded by vociferous debates about whether the previous matches of the two wrestlers with common opponents proved or didn't prove anything, whether strength or quickness was the key. She heard someone boasting of having seen Gotch fight in Dawson City in the Yukon gold days. Emma surrendered herself to the energy and excitement of the noise. If the fight fans had been an army marching to battle and a likely death she would have marched along with them, not caring that she didn't know the reason for being there.

Fifteen minutes after she had settled in her seat a higher pitched wave of sound began at the back of the building and surged through the Coliseum. Emma turned and recognized the head and shoulders of Gotch, surrounded by associates moving down an aisle to the ring. She could no longer distinguish individual words. A thunderous roar, and Roller came into the light, shaking his arms to stay loose as he walked with his handlers toward the ring. Everyone in the building was standing. The floor and the suspended lights vibrated. The light itself blurred. The entire hall seemed to levitate.

Somewhere near the ring the timer struck the bell again and again, and gradually the sound diminished until the announcer was able to bellow out introductions. The act of sitting down seemed to silence everyone. There was a roar for Gotch, the world champion, who had followers here, but a greater roar when the doctor from Seattle, by now a legend in the city, was introduced. The ringside bell began clanging again. Eventually the crowd reacted to the body language of the referee, who stood with his head bowed, waiting for silence so he could make himself heard with instructions for the wrestlers. Emma had been in a revival tent once with her mother and watched the preacher control the swells of noise in the tent with his silences. The sound lessened, then suddenly died away except for a few lingering coughs as if a switch had been shut.

The ritual meeting took place at the center of the ring. The wrestlers stared impassively at one another as the instructions were given. The referee waved his hand, and the two moved to their corners where seconds took their robes. Fans gazed intently at the fighters, looking for signs of confidence or weakness. Then a single clang of the bell. The two fighters strode to the center.

The contest began with quick, darting movements, one man grasping the other in a hold, the other escaping before the hold could be secured. For big, powerful men they were agile, even graceful. The workout at the Y had been cautious and ponderous in comparison. She wondered at the difference. After ten minutes the fighters were inhaling deeply, but not with the hard, heaving breathing of the earlier meeting.

The men around her yelled and waved their fists, rooting ferociously for the Doc. Emma knew she was watching two strong athletes in back tights wrestling, but the spectacle had little in common with what she had witnessed at the Y. The fighters had wrestled in concentrated silence at the gym, where the only sounds had been the deep breathing and the scuffing of wrestling shoes on the mat. It might have been the distance of her seat from the wrestlers, the brilliant lighting that made it impossible to look away from the action, or the shell of sound encasing the ring in the Coliseum that was the difference.

But Emma was caught up in the drama. The raucous energy of the men around her lifted her half out of her seat. Oh! she thought when Roller caught one of Gotch's legs and fell on him. Oh no! when Gotch twisted away and leaped to his feet. Then Gotch seized Roller and lifted him into the air. As Roller crashed to the mat she felt an anguish, as if she had absorbed a reverberation of the blow herself, and had to look away.

After the first fall, Emma sank back in her chair. Voices around her expressed all the things she was feeling: anger, grief, confusion, hope. The fight resumed. After a period of attacks and escapes, Gotch, a fighter of immense strength, picked Roller up again and threw him down. Roller lay on his stomach as if stunned. The wrestler from Iowa stood for a moment with his arms at his sides as if contemplating his handiwork, then dropped to a squat across the back of Roller's knee, grasped the instep and bent Roller's leg across his own knee.

"My God," someone near Emma howled, "the toe hold, it's all over!" And it was. Roller's arm extended in anguish and surrender. The referee pulled Gotch off the doctor and raised his arm in victory.

The hall resounded, but the anticipatory roar at the beginning of the fight had changed to a hum, as if the sound from inside a beehive was amplified a thousand times. Then the crowd broke apart into dozens of noisy clusters. Men stood shaking their heads and making open-handed gestures of incomprehension at one another. Emma looked to see what was happening in the ring, but the men surrounding her were taller than she was. She caught a glimpse of Gotch's robe. In contrast with the dramatic entry of the two wrestlers, Gotch and Roller seemed swallowed up in the crowd surrounding the ring. The men around her punched the air for emphasis as they analyzed the fight. Gotch was too strong, Roller had been overconfident, Gotch had oiled his body so Roller couldn't get a grip, no one understood the science of leverage like Gotch, the toe hold should be outlawed. For a long while there was no movement toward the exits, but a loud and incoherent stirring, as if the spectators were reluctant to separate from the crowd and be alone with their thoughts.

When she was finally able to step out of the Coliseum into the evening air, Emma took a deep breath. What had happened? She had known Roller would not win. She was aware of a discomfort in her throat. She counted to three aloud and heard her own voice rasp out in a hoarse and unfamiliar sound. Not realizing she had so much as opened her mouth, she had been yelling her head off.

Another insight came to her. What she had just experienced was a seductive and successful theatrical event. The announced purpose was to determine the Heavyweight Championship of the World. The true purpose was to entertain people, to make money, and to make sure more money would be made in the future. The announced purpose of the event Casebolt had invited her to witness at the Y was a training workout. She now understood that what she had watched together with a handful of silent men at the Y was the two finest heavyweight wrestlers in the world settling for themselves the question of which of them was better.

She grieved for Roller. If only she had the confidence a week ago to return the question he had asked her. What did a man with his extraordinary talents want to achieve with his life? She cared more than she had been aware. She felt the Doc had lost more than a wrestling match this night.

# CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

Jack Curley, the fight promoter, put a foot on the rail next to Jay Prothero at the bar of a grungy saloon on a Georgetown sidestreet.

"How you doing?" he asked Jay.

"I'm all right."

"What is this place anyway?"

"I was getting a little tired of the old joints."

Curley ordered a whiskey, took a sip, grimaced into the glass and shook his head. "I've had better. So I hear you're leaving town."

"Thanks for showing up. You're about the only friend I can count on."

"Always been your friend, am I right? You need something, money?"

"No, no, I'm okay. But I want to tell you where I'm going. In case you need to get word to me. But keep it to yourself."

"You think somebody is going to give you a hard time?"

"There's things going on, family too. My daughter thinks I should leave town for a while."

Curley slapped a hand on Jay's shoulder.

"You can trust me. You don't look so good, you know."

"I've been sick."

"A little rest'll do you good."

"There's a table in the back. I'd be more comfortable talking back there."

The two men took their drinks to a table in the back of the saloon.

"I'm off in the morning. Chicago, then Oak Park. I know somebody there. You can send anything to General Delivery."

"Not Council Bluffs?"

"No, no, I'm done with those people for now. Jack, how come you didn't let me know?"

"Yeah, I heard you backed the wrong horse. They were talking about making it a shoot. We wanted to set it up, but they wanted to fight it out. I'm real sorry, Jay. They didn't agree on anything until about five minutes before they went into the ring."

"You telling me you couldn't manage it?"

"Those two, they're a handful."

"All you have to worry about is the gate," said Jay bitterly. "You probably did fine."

"You saw the house. I heard there were gents offering forty bucks for a pasteboard. Cleared fifteen thousand."

"And you'll fill the house again with the rematch."

"You know, it's funny about that. Not going to be as easy as you think. Roller's being a little difficult right now. He didn't want to talk to me. He really wanted a shoot. Makes you wonder if he could actually beat Gotch. He's leaving town, not saying where he's going. Even Gotch's being real vague about what's next. We got a good story set up here, but won't do any good if they won't do the goddamned rematch. How come you called it for Roller?"

"I thought I had good information."

"What did they tell you? Who are you talking about anyway?"

"Doesn't matter, it's done."

"Why aren't you going to Council Bluffs? I thought you were in tight with Maybray and those people."

Jay looked away from Curley. "Like I said, I'm done with that."

"Now that you mention it I heard something about that too. Heard Carroll wasn't too happy." Curley gave Jay an appraising look. "Well, so this is farewell for the time being." He waved at the bar until he got someone's attention and signaled for another round.

Jay put a hand on Curley's sleeve. "You're the only one I can count on," he said, and drank off what was left of his whiskey.

"You can count on me."

"My kids, you remember Emma. I'll write and let her know where I am. So she won't worry."

"You haven't told them you're leaving?"

"The boy's gotten funny. I don't know what's wrong with him. You got a son? I guess I should have been around more. He's got it in for me."

"Well, that's a shame, about the boy," said Curley. "Don't most kids get pissed at the old man at some point? He'll get over it."

"Maybe," said Jay.

Curley looked over Jay's shoulder and in the dim gloomy light of the saloon made out the shapes of two men coming in through the doors and looking around. One was a huge man who blocked nearly all the light from the street as he passed through the doorway.

"Well," said Curley, standing. "I have to go look after some things. You take care of yourself. Don't worry, give it a little time and everything'll work out. Sure you don't need a little cash?"

Jay seized Curley's hand to shake it. He held the hand in a tight, trembling grip.

"You're a true friend, Jack. Only one I can depend on. Only one."

"Just don't worry about things," said Curley as he removed his hand from Jay's grasp. "Things work out. Let it blow over, all right? You'll be back in town, you'll see." After an encouraging slap on Jay's shoulder he turned and slipped past the two men who were approaching the table where Jay remained sitting.

"Jay Prothero," said the big man in a voice pitched high for a man his size. "Hello there. Fancy running into you here."

"Hello," said Jay. "You have to remind me...."

"We might have met, or maybe we haven't actually. Heard about you though from mutual friends."

Jay looked apprehensively from one to the other, then nodded. "Mutual friends?"

"You ever see anything like that Gotch?" said the second man, curling blond hair visible in the smoky dark. "Never thought he could toss the Doc around like that."

"Yeah, we expected a better performance from the Doc. I remember how he whipped Fred Beall. After seeing that I thought he could handle anybody. Very disappointing."

"I heard you were backing the Doc to win," said the blond man. "Well, that's the fight game. You lose anything on the fight?" he asked his companion.

"Not a betting man myself. But I did have fifty on the Doc. I was sure he'd do better."

"How about you, Jay? You have anything on the fight? They say you're a fellow who knows what's what. You bet on Gotch, that's what I'm thinking."

"I don't bet the fights," said Jay.

"No, that's probably smart," said the big man. "Not betting yourself. Might be hard even if you wanted to. What bookie would take your slip?"

"Sorry you lost the fifty," said Jay.

"Not a big deal," said the big man. "Some other people I know lost a lot more. Thought they had some good dope on the match."

"How much?"

"Hard to say. Someone said the chief himself had a lot of bets out. Much as ten thousand if you believe what you hear. Very upset. You know what I mean?"

"That's a hell of a lot to bet on one fight," said the blond man to his companion.

"It is, isn't it," said the big man. "Maybe they're exaggerating. You'd have to have pretty good dope to lay out that much. Jay, we hear you're going to be traveling. I'd like to buy you a drink."

"Not here," said the blond man. "This place is a dump. I know a better place. Come on, we're buying."

Jay shook his head. "Thanks, appreciate it. Think I'm pretty well set right here."

"Come on, let's go uptown. Why you want to hang around a dump?"

"It's not so bad. You go ahead."

"Na, na, come on, Jay, we want to get acquainted." The blond man stood and took Jay easily by the upper arm. "I know where we can get some fine Scotch whiskey. We got a car. You gonna disappoint us?"

"No, it's okay," said Jay. "You fellas run ahead. I'm okay here."

"Excellent Scotch, best you can buy. I know you're not going to say no to an offer like that. Come on, Jay. Come on."

The big man took Jay's other arm. Jay rose from his chair and walked between them, light on his feet because he was being half-carried. The big man smiled and nodded to the patrons at the bar as the three walked past.

From the darkened doorway of a barbershop across the street Robert watched the men walk his father to an auto. Over his shoulder Robert wore the canvas bag he used for delivering letters and packages on his bike, but he had reversed the bag so the pouch was in front, on his chest, instead of across his back. Within the bag his shaking hand clutched the worn wood grips of an old Colt revolver with two cartridges in the cylinder. When the car drove away he stood trembling in the dark doorway for a long time before shifting the bag around to his back and walking toward a streetcar stop.

# CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

The gangly adolescent at the oars maintained a slow but steady stroke to hold the dinghy against the outflow of the tide. The man in the stern, the boy's father, peered intently into the dim dawn light just beginning to filter through the seams in the dockwork over their heads. His hand moved continuously in gestures to the boy at the oars, guiding the boat through the labyrinth of pilings near the shoreline.

The hand froze in a gesture to stop. The man began pointing, and the boy pulled the boat toward a dark cluster of pilings. The man grunted in satisfaction.

A shape bobbed against the inner side of the pilings, held from drifting out to the open water of the bay. From fifteen feet away the man could make out a rough texture of matted hair. A large dog, maybe a goat, swollen and floating on its side.

"Shit," he muttered, and signaled the boy to move on. The dinghy moved slowly, apparently aimlessly, but a patient observer would see the pattern. Some time later a second hand signal, this time more urgent. Another shape bobbing gently among the shadows. The shape took form as the dinghy glided closer. A human body floating on its face. The back of a head, shoulders, though it was impossible to see in the dim light and murky water whether the arms floated just beneath the surface or pointed down into the depths. The man reached over the side, looped a rope noose around the feet and drew the noose tight. As the body pulled free of the pilings and bumped against the side of the dinghy, the man dipped his arms to the elbow into the water and began a search of the pockets. He felt more carefully than if the body had been clad in the denim of a working man. He drew a wallet from a pocket and counted the money,

"Twenty two," he said. The boy grinned.

The boy now had to pull harder at the oars as the dinghy continued nosing among the pilings. Half an hour later the man gestured, and the boat emerged from under the docking and headed north in the open water. A second dinghy appeared, rowed strongly to cut them off.

"Good eyes," someone called from the approaching boat. "You see like a fuckin' cat in the dark."

"You keep your ass clear," called the man in the first dinghy in a sharp voice.

"Just seein' how you're doing," called the man in the second boat.

"We're doing fine. You find another one in there, you're welcome to it."

"Well I appreciate that," came the sarcastic response. "I expect you looked pretty good." The second boat fell away toward the docks.

Several minutes later the dinghy snugged up to the bumpers of a moored boat with "Police" stenciled in white letters on the side. A blue-uniformed figure stepped out of the cabin and secured the line tossed up to him. The man in the dinghy maneuvered the body so that it bobbed against the low stern of the police boat.

The policeman looked down at the corpse. Some bodies were nearly submerged. Others floated high in the water. Most people would guess that fat people floated higher than bony people, but he had observed that flotation didn't seem to correspond to body type. The officer decided it had more to do with age. The young ones, fat or skinny, rode higher in the water, the old ones floated as if something was tugging them down into the depths. This one, middle aged, he guessed. The heels were beneath the surface, but you could see where the hair was trimmed at the neck. The boatman climbed onto the police boat, and with the boy helping from the dinghy the two men hauled the body out of the water.

"Try not to damage it," said the policeman as they levered the body over the stern of the police boat.

"He had a wallet," said the man.

The policeman took the wallet and looked through the contents. The ink had run on the papers, but there was a printed card for a Chicago athletic association. "Jared 'Jay' Prothero," he read aloud. The name matched the initials embossed on the wallet.

"Think I've heard the name," said the policeman. Didn't he have something to do with the Gotch fight? I don't guess there was any money in that wallet."

"No," said the man.

"They're all poor by the time they get here," the policeman said with a wry look at the man and the boy. He handed the man three dollars, the fee the department paid for body retrieval, and had him sign and date a receipt book. More mornings than not the boatmen who worked the waterfront in the dawn hours found floaters. Usually they were men dressed in coveralls or canvas work pants. A decade earlier, when miners with pouches filled with gold began flooding into Seattle from the Yukon, so many bodies could be found in the water under the docks along the waterfront the police decided to privatize their retrieval. Later in the morning the policeman would call the morgue wagon to pick up the body.

"One thing," he said. "In case they investigate. Just an opinion's all I'm asking. Would it be your guess robbery was the reason this man here was killed?"

"I doubt it," said the boatman.

"Obliged," said the policeman, touching his hat as the boatman stepped down into his dinghy.

The policeman leaned down and pushed the head gently first to one side, then the other. No gashes or black swollen spots. It was usually the blow from something handy, length of pipe, maybe a big wrench, that did it. Sometimes a knife thrust from behind into the kidneys, but not that often. The knife in the back could make a mess and didn't kill a man right away. This one, something about him didn't look right. The position of the head. The neck looked like it had grown out of one of the shoulders rather than straight up on the spine. Someone or something had been strong enough to pull the neck apart.

There had been a time when the policeman would laugh with calloused humor talking with the morgue wagon driver about the bodies collected in the morning, but lately the laughter had drained out of his conversation. He once felt the detachment policemen develop with the handling of the dead. That changed the day he clutched to his chest the warm body of his fifteen-year-old son, thrown from a spooked horse.

He found himself becoming angry at the men delivered to him from under the docks. Not so much this one, Jared "Jay" Prothero, lying inert at his feet. The boatman had found money on him. Something other than robbery with this one. But the others. Most of them had a mother and father who had put their hearts into bringing them safely through the vulnerable early years of their lives.

The goddamned fools, he thought. What made them think they could go into a saloon with a wad of money, flash it around, buy people drinks and listen to a lot of bullshit flattery while they boasted about how they got the big bonanza? They think they're going to be left to wander safely home in the middle of the night? They walk out of the saloon surrounded by newfound friends with arms around their shoulders, cheery, sociable gents telling them what fine fellows they are, encouraging them to tell the story one more time about how they were smart enough to triangulate from the gold traces in their pan and hit the paystreak. The friends guide them away from the main streets toward the darkened waterfront. The wolves were everywhere in the restricted district. Waste of time to police it closely. The ones found beaten and stripped in an alley probably curse their bad fortune when they wake up in a county hospital bed. Maybe later they figure out they are the lucky ones.

# CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

The tall firs at the northern boundary of the Queen Anne Hill cemetery gave no relief from the July sun to the group of people standing around the casket. Sweat trickled down Emma's ribs, forming damp spots on the black dress. Robert stood at her side, his cap clutched in his fist. The small group around the grave included Mrs. Wood and a few neighbors, and eight or ten men.

The minister completed his prayer and nodded to a cemetery attendant, who offered a shovel to Robert. Robert shook his head. The man turned to Emma. She dipped the shovel into the dirt pile and shook the shovel over the grave. She heard the soft rustle as dry dirt fell onto the coffin.

Her father began leaving the house after Emma was gone in the morning, and returning late in the evening, when she was asleep. One morning she didn't see his hat or any sign of his presence, and quietly opened the door of his bedroom. No one was there. She didn't know what his absence meant. She didn't think he would take another train trip without telling her. A relapse, she thought, maybe he had a relapse and someone took him to the county hospital. She took the familiar trolley ride to the hospital, but no one matching his description had been admitted.

In the evening she received a call from Chief of Detectives Tennant. He told Emma he had bad news, that her father had been found that morning in Elliott Bay. She found the words to thank him for the call and sat for a long time in the grip of feelings she wouldn't have been able to express. In the morning a man from the funeral parlor knocked at the door, explaining that the police had asked him to come, and asked her in his deferential manner what she wanted done. She couldn't think clearly, and looked at the man blankly. He wanted to know where they should hold the service. She realized she would have immediate things to deal with. She asked him to find a church near the cemetery. The only thing she was sure about was that she didn't want the Reverend Coolbaugh to conduct the service. She had no idea what her mother might have told him about her father. She feared the Reverend might ask her personal questions.

When the minister asked Emma the day before the funeral service what he should say about a man who wasn't a churchgoer, Emma looked at him unable to speak.

"Maybe there's some event, some moment you remember that characterized him?"

She felt something within her move, as if boulders had been shaken and shifted their positions. Her father. A man who always had a smile for his friends, who could tell a good story and was popular in his circle of acquaintances. He wasn't wasteful, and had always provided for his family. She could say that. But what characterized him, she realized, was what he had done to Julia. He had ruined her. Her face flushed, she gasped and swallowed several times to control herself. The minister's simple question had broken through whatever barrier she had erected to avoid thinking about the brute reality of what had happened. She had never been so angry in her life.

"I know how stressful this is," said the minister, reaching out and touching her shoulder. "Take all the time you want."

She made herself remember what had been good. The times he had played catch in the back yard and shot marbles side by side with Robert when Robert was a boy. Maybe it was the sound of her brother's boyish laughter rather than her father's actions that crystallized those images in her memory. Emma couldn't bring herself to talk about those earlier times.

"He was devoted to our mother," she said finally. "He was heartbroken when she died."

The minister thanked her when he realized that was everything she was going to say.

During the service she feared the minister's professional enthusiasm would lead him to make false claims for her father's virtues, but he kept to the simple information she had given him. A man who made friends, was devoted to his wife and provided for his family. This would be her final gift to her father, whom she had loved when she was young, a funeral service for the handful of people who attended that told the good part of the truth, not the bad.

At dinner Mrs. Wood kept shaking her head and saying how awful it was. The newspaper reports said the mister had been found in the water under the docks, and that police detectives suspected foul play. A neighbor had invited Emma and Robert to have dinner with her family after the funeral, but Emma declined as politely as she could. She wanted to be alone.

Robert took his meals in silence as if nothing had happened. When they took the train to Steilacoom at the end of the week Emma couldn't get him to say a word to her. "What do you feel now he's gone?" she wanted to ask. But she didn't. He was as silent as Carl Windell had been.

Emma was aware of her heart beating audibly in her chest as she climbed the stairs of the women's wing to the ward where Julia was housed. If their father's acts had triggered Julia's breakdown, the news that he was gone might penetrate Julia's awareness and become the first stage of her recovery. Just how Emma broke the news could be critical. She tried to decide whether being blunt or presenting the news more gradually would have the better chance of success.

Julia looked up at them when they approached, then looked away in her usual manner. Emma took the brush out of her bag and began brushing her sister's hair. Robert sat with his knees almost touching Julia's, but didn't say anything about his messenger adventures of the past few weeks.

Emma inhaled. "Julia," she said, "There's news. It's father. Something's happened. You have to be ready for a shock. Something happened, Julia. Father's dead. He's gone."

She waited, continuing the brushstrokes. She waited for Julia to catch her breath, possibly turn with a look of comprehension, speak. But Julia gave no sign she had heard.

"We were at the funeral. He's buried next to Mom. Julia, Dad's dead." She couldn't see Julia's face, but she knew there was no reaction. "Whatever he did to you, it wasn't your fault. It's only us now, you and me and Robert. That's all our family is, Julia. It wasn't your fault."

Emma's stomach began to tighten. She didn't know how much she had hoped Julia would hear her words and respond. She had always hoped that even though her sister showed no reaction, Julia could hear her. The death of their father could be the shock that roused Julia from her mental sleep. But Emma might as well have been speaking another language. Julia didn't hear. She was gone somewhere and couldn't come back.

Emma raised her sister's tresses to her face. The hair was damp; her own tears were wetting the fine hair. She forced herself not to sob aloud and inadvertently pull her sister's hair. She felt a hopelessness she had never before experienced in her visits to Steilacoom.

When they said goodbye to their sister and rose to leave, Emma told Robert to wait in the hallway. She found Esther Mitchell in a corner of the ward and sat beside her.

"It makes a difference, you know," Esther said. "You coming here."

"You're just saying that. She doesn't hear anything I say."

"No, it's true. I can tell she waits for you."

"I just told her our father died."

"That's why you're crying?"

"I'm crying because she didn't understand what I said."

On an impulse Emma reached out and took Esther's hand.

"I did what you did," Emma said.

Esther looked at her and waited.

"My father. I killed him."

"With your own hand?"

"No."

"You mean you did something careless."

"I made it happen."

Esther raised her other hand to her mouth. "Why?"

"For him." Emma gestured with her head toward the door Robert had just passed through. "My brother already tried to kill him. I couldn't let him."

"Your father did something bad."

"He hurt Julia."

Emma bit hard into her lip but the tears continued to come. She hadn't cried when she received the call from Chief of Detectives Tennant. She hadn't cried when she had gone at Tennant's request to the morgue to confirm that the man with the head twisted dreadfully to one side was her father. She hadn't cried at the funeral, and assumed her grief was held in check by her anger. But now, gripping the hand of a girl who had shot her own brother, the sobbing came.

"D'you ever wish you could change what happened?" she asked Esther when she could speak again.

"How can you change things? Frank, my brother Frank, did something terrible. I did too."

"Did something tell you to do what you did?"

"You think I hear voices? My brother took away the man who showed me the way to God. I avenged him. Is that a reason for killing someone? Some people are here because they hear voices. I wish I could hear a voice. I can't judge any more."

"You're a religious person," said Emma. "Do you think God forgives people like you?"

Esther looked down. "How would I know that?" she asked.

# CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

Dearest Cousin Annie,

I write today with a heavy heart. You may find it presumptuous of me to write this letter, who met you but once when I was a girl. But I am encouraged by your recent letter urging me to pursue my interest in mountaineering and some day accompany you as you challenge the great peaks of the world. I have the greatest regard for your character and your resolve, and even at this distance I turn to you because in truth I have nowhere else to turn.

My father, your cousin, is dead. The circumstances of his death are tragic.

I believed my father's work was promoting sporting events. I now know his job was to recruit gamblers. Large sums were wagered on his advice. He was murdered for giving the wrong advice on a recent fight.

It is strange to me to read what I have just written. It is a harsh judgment of my father. But I should say it all. I fear there is worse. My brother, who is now sixteen, was angry enough at our father that he tried to harm him. My sister Julia had a breakdown and is in an institution. She doesn't know any of us. How can such things happen to a family? Things I said to my father may have caused his death. My dear cousin, I wish you could fully understand my situation and tell me what to do.

I hope you will reach the summit of your mountain, and I hope you will write and tell me about your great adventure.

Sincerely Yours,

Your Cousin Emma in Seattle

"I don't want to take up your time," said Emma as she entered Cody's office.

"I've got time," said Cody. "Go ahead, have a seat. I saw the notice about your father. I'm really sorry."

Emma acknowledged his words by bowing her head. "It wasn't robbery. It had to be Wappenstein."

"You think it had to do with the fight."

"The betting."

"Yeah, I hear there was some big money on the Doc. You might be right."

"Can't we go after the lifters? Even if they have police protection, can't we stop them?"

"You want me to be Don Quixote and go tilting after windmills. Look, what the store owners want is for us to catch shoplifters. I don't think they pay that much attention to conviction rates and sentence lengths. We're doing what they're paying us to do."

"But..."

"Okay, I know," said Cody, holding up a hand. Emma had half-risen from her chair. "Wappy's entrenched here. To get him will take work from a lot of angles. I told you about the Reverend Matthews' card-game plan. You can get that reporter friend of yours digging around. But you better know the owner there, Blethen, is in the Chief's pocket."

Emma nodded her acceptance of the compromising she was hearing. She hadn't come here to argue with Cody. She had come because no-one else would understand her anguish at not going after the criminal gang she had identified. Cody knew she was good at what she did in spite of being caught out by Mary Vinette. He continued to slip her in to the stores like a substitute teacher filling in for absent regulars.

As she left Cody's office she saw a workman pulling a handtruck stacked with boxes through the doorway of Roller's office.

"Is the doctor moving out?" she asked.

"Clearing out," the man said.

"Is he here?" she said.

"Down with the wagon."

Emma hurried to the elevator and went out to the street. She found Roller overseeing the loading of a wagon.

"You're leaving," she said.

"Yes."

"Where are you going?"

"I haven't decided."

"Maybe there could be a rematch sometime."

Roller lifted a carton onto the wagon. "He'll be retiring. He wants to try acting."

"I was at the Y. I saw you and him."

Roller turned now and studied her. After a brief moment he nodded.

"He'll be in the history books."

"If he retires, you could be champion."

"Maybe so," said the doctor. "Maybe so."

"But it wouldn't mean as much, would it?" she blurted out. She hadn't thought she would say that. The way he looked at her...she couldn't stop herself from saying what she felt.

"You said you had a ticket for the fight."

"I was there," she said.

"You know what you saw."

"I think so. You told me not to bet."

"You're an athletic young woman. Have you ever been canoeing?"

"No."

"You interested in learning?"

She almost gasped. "Well, sure," she said. "I'd like that."

"Can you find Rossinger's Boathouse on Lake Union?"

"I think I've seen it."

"You free this evening?"

"Uh, yes."

"Why don't you meet me there at six."

Emma was waiting at Rossinger's when he appeared. She was elated. In spite of the difficulties in her life there was room for an hour of enjoyment. And she was flattered. He had the confidence in her to take her out in a canoe, something, if she accurately remembered the article that quoted him about canoeing, he would not have been willing to do with many women.

Once Roller had arranged for the hire of a canoe, he handed her a paddle. He stepped behind her and reached around, placing his hands over hers on the paddle. Emma felt a warm power flowing from his large hands into hers.

"You have to flare out the paddle at the end of the stroke," he said. "That keeps the boat going straight."

Emma helped him put the boat in the water. She settled on her knees in the bow and he pushed them away from the shore. It was the hour when the lights in the buildings were becoming visible though it wasn't yet dark. After several minutes of paying attention to what she was doing and absorbing a few words of coaching from the man behind her she could slip the paddle in and out of the water without making a splash. A half dozen rowboats and canoes were visible gliding along the Lake Union shoreline. At one point, for no apparent reason, the canoe surged ahead. Emma could feel Roller's strength.

"It's very pleasant," she said over her shoulder.

Halfway around the lake he leaned forward and handed her a canteen. "Any kind of exercise, you should keep drinking," he said. She took a long draught, knowing he was watching.

The canoe passed docks, moored boats, low buildings and mud flats. As darkness settled, the background noise of a city at work quieted to the low rumble of a motor launch somewhere on the lake. In the twilight she saw they had circled the lake and were returning to the Rossinger Boathouse. She didn't want the voyage to end. But Roller steered the canoe to the water's edge at the boathouse. She helped him pull the canoe onto the shore.

"You can enjoy something like canoeing without talking," he said. "That's more unusual than you think."

She saw him smile as he spoke. In the time they had spent together, at Steilacoom and on the trails, she couldn't remember seeing him smile.

"I really enjoyed that," she said.

He led her to a bench near the boathouse.

"I read Oliver's story about the female detective. Not hard to see it was you. You're an actress. That's a good skill for a detective. Still, how many actresses want to be detectives?"

She smiled and shook her head. "Probably not a lot."

"You're a hunter, aren't you? Were you always?"

The question stopped Emma. She thought for a moment.

"About ten years ago, I was maybe fourteen, I was riding the trolley with my kid brother. It was our big adventure. Back then the real estate developers were building trolley lines as fast as they could. Pop left a bowl of nickels so we could travel the lines and see where they went. Do you want to hear this?"

Roller smiled and gestured for her to go on.

"We were riding to Ballard when a masked bandit jumped on. He was waving a big pistol and demanding everybody's wallets. We heard about the bandit, how he got on the trolley when it bogged down between stops because of how far the electricity had to travel from downtown.

"I remember squeezing Robert's arm to keep him quiet. I watched the bandit from the corner of my eye. When he dropped off one side of the trolley with a satchel full of wallets, I grabbed my brother and jumped off the other side. I said, 'Don't look at him' while we walked along the track. The bandit cut off into the trees toward the Ballard streets. He looked behind him once, but didn't notice two kids walking on the tracks.

"So I followed him. When he pulled the bandanna off his face I saw he was just a pimply-faced teenager. He sat down between buildings on a pile of cedar shingle scrap and dumped the wallets out of the satchel. I told Robert to go and tell someone to get the police. I said tell them it's the trolley bandit, that'll get them to pay attention to you. I was afraid they'd ignore a seven-year-old kid.

"I watched the bandit stuff the money from the wallets into his pocket. I followed him along the street. He went into a bakery and came out chewing a roll. He must have been hungry. Then I saw a policeman and some other men along running towards me. Robert was with them. I pointed at the bandit. The policeman threw him to the ground. One of the men looked at me and said 'Good work.'"

Her distant gaze returned to Roller's attentive face. She shook her head as she recalled the event.

"I found myself feeling sorry for him. He hadn't hurt anybody. He probably got a hard education in jail, probably's done worse things since than holding up streetcars. I felt like a hound that'd treed a raccoon. Life has rules, you know. You play by them. That bandit tried to get away with something. I never liked seeing people get away with things."

They walked from the boathouse to the Eastlake trolley stop. Standing beside him in a comfortable silence was the most soothing moment she had experienced in a long time. When the trolley arrived he took her by the arm, pulled her gently toward him, and kissed her.

"Maybe someday." He released her arm. "Good night," he said, and boarded the trolley.

"Oh God," she said under her breath, "Don't go now."

# Part Seven

# VIK

_The first decade of the 20_ th _century was the golden age of polar exploration, with Americans and citizens around the world hotly debating who got there first._

# CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

Emma was halfway through a story in the Times about a former Yukon goldminer preparing to lead an expedition to the North Pole before the name of the miner registered. Andreas Vik. She looked at the photo accompanying the story. With a shock she realized Vik, the man the Cincinnati reporter had told her about, was the man she had seen with Mary Vinette in the warehouse.

Stories in the papers about the race for the North Pole had always seized Emma's imagination. When the explorer Roald Amundsen came to Seattle and spoke at the Moore Theater in March, an evening surveillance assignment kept her from attending. A year ago reports came down from Alaska that Dr. Frederick Cook, mountaineer and polar explorer, had conquered Mt. McKinley. McKinley was the highest, most difficult and forbidding mountain in North America, considered by many to be unclimbable. When Cook stepped off the Alaska steamer onto a Seattle dock he found a large and noisy crowd waiting to give him a hero's welcome. Cook was a veteran polar explorer who had traveled with Peary and was credited with saving the older explorer's life.

A reception was given in Cook's honor. More than five hundred people crowded the large hall of the Alaska Club for the reception, Emma among them. She sat as close to the podium as she could to be sure she could hear everything Cook said. Dr. Cook, described by the Post-Intelligencer as a man with a deep chest, wide shoulders, and powerful lungs, talked in a firm and confident voice about the difficulties of just getting to the base of the mountain. Emma listened, eyes wide with fascination, as the naturalist who had accompanied Cook described ten-foot-tall bears, mosquitoes the size of hummingbirds, and the unnerving presence of wolves, invisible but close by and watching the climbers in the night.

Dr. Cook immediately became her favorite in the race for the North Pole. Amundson was, well, a foreigner. He was reported to be training four polar bear cubs in Germany to pull sleds. The idea seemed outlandish to Emma. Peary had the support of rich capitalists, President Roosevelt, and the Geographic Society. She didn't like the idea that the one with the most money had the best chance. Though one had to admire the persistence of Peary, going back again and again to the northern ice, now with the slow and clumsy gait of a man whose toes had been frozen off.

As Cook described the McKinley climb at the Alaska Club, Emma noticed a man with curling blond hair near one side of the podium, standing close to the explorer rather than taking a chair. He listened intently to Cook's account of the climb, and to his remarks about preparation for an expedition to the Pole. Perhaps she noticed him because he stood absolutely motionless. No shifting of weight, no movement of limbs or expression. Maybe he hadn't even blinked.

She was halfway through a story in the Times about a former Yukon gold miner preparing to lead an expedition to the North Pole before the miner's name registered. Andreas Vik. She studied the photo accompanying the story. There was no question, this was the man who had gripped her arm at the office door of the warehouse in the harbor district. She knew now why he had seemed familiar. He was the intent figure who had stood near Cook a year earlier at the Alaska Club reception.

The face in the photo was flat and unsmiling. The neck was strong, like Roller's. Light wavy hair curled over the tops of ears formed tight against the head. The Cincinnati reporter told her Vik had spent time in the Yukon. The name of the business in the waterfront warehouse, the North Pole Company. The article announced that Vik would appear, as Amundsen had done, at the Moore Theater later in the week to talk about polar travel and to raise money for the expedition.

In the morning she hurried to the office of the Times and found Casebolt at his typewriter. She asked if he knew anything about the article. Casebolt said he certainly did, he had written the story. Vik, he told her, had come to the Times office a few weeks earlier asking to meet with the reporter who had written the Roller stories.

"He was impressed by the publicity we worked up for Roller. He was pretty straightforward about it, said he needed publicity to raise money. He offered to pay for every story we got in the paper this month."

"Do you do that?" Emma asked. "Get paid for stories?"

"It's done," said Casebolt. "You want to be a purist, you can call it puffery. But Vik got the Colonel's attention. Blethen is making a big donation to the expedition."

"You really think he has a chance?"

"You read in the story how he studied cold-weather travel while he was in the Yukon. Everybody's saying this is the year somebody's going to win the race to the Pole. If Vik's first, the Times gets the scoop, and I mean nationwide."

"Oliver, I think this man is the leader of the biggest shoplifting gang in the city."

"The shoplifting gang you're giving me the exclusive on? Adreas Vik? We can't be talking about the same man."

"What I know about him is he spent time in the Yukon mining with a man who owns a Cincinnati department store. He's got some kind of connection with Wappenstein. Wappy was chief of detectives in Cincinnati." Emma caught herself. She was talking too fast, getting too excited. "But you can't say anything about any of this yet. I need to know where I can find him."

"Wish I could help you. He contacts me. He's come to the paper a couple of times, met the Colonel. How sure are you about this shoplifting business? Sure you don't have him confused with somebody else?"

"No, that's him in the photo."

"You actually caught him stealing?"

"Not actually stealing, no. He's the fence, the organizer. There's a whole gang of thieves who bring him what they steal."

"But why? The man is totally intent on preparing for this expedition."

"He needs a lot of money. A trip like that must cost a fortune."

"You're right about that. That's why he's spending time with Blethen."

"Is he really going to get up in front of a theater audience and speak?" Emma asked. "He can do that?"

"That's what he's going to do, all right. I'm going to be master of ceremonies. I might have to carry him."

"You?"

"Hey, I was in the drama club at DePauw. You're not the only actor here, you know."

"Sorry," she said. "I didn't mean it like that. I just wasn't expecting to see the man in public."

"You remember Amundsen was here in March and did a presentation at the theater? He sold a lot of tickets. Vik asked me how much I thought Amundsen raised. I don't know that, but I made a guess, and he decided to do it. And what do you think of this? I'm going to climb Mt. Rainier with him."

"Mt. Rainier? When is that happening?"

"We're going in ten days."

"That's a major climb. Have you ever been mountaineering? "

"I'll go as far as he can take me. That's his deal with Colonel Blethen. We get a nice story called 'Polar Explorer Guides Reporter to Top of Rainier.' I worked it out with a car dealer to loan us a car to drive up that new road at the mountain. We'll get a climbing story and an auto story. How'd you ever connect him with a shoplifting ring?"

"I set something up and figured out he was doing the fencing."

"What do you mean you set something up?"

"I ran my own con. I got his people to steal some marked gloves. That's why I went to Cincinnati. Your reporter friend was helpful. I tracked the gloves to a store owned by one of Vik's Yukon pals."

"I don't know what to think about this, Emma. You should come to the Moore. Get a good look at him."

Emma imagined Oliver, who did nothing she was aware of to keep fit, struggling in the thin air high on Rainier.

"That's a big, dangerous mountain," she said. "You don't have the experience."

"I know, I know. But even if I only get partway up, it's a great story."

"You could probably write a good description of a climb," she nodded. She looked him fully in the face. "Oliver, do you know where he went? The Doc, I mean. Is he ever coming back?"

"I know who you mean. I don't know the answer. He admires you, did you know that?"

Emma blushed. "What makes you think that?" she blurted before she could catch herself.

"He told me you run with him sometimes. He appreciates athletic women. I gave him a copy of my story about you."

"Well," she said, reaching for something to say to cover her feelings. "I certainly admire him. I just wish the fight hadn't happened that way. I wish he'd stayed." She looked up at Casebolt. "And I wish you'd think about that climb. It's going to be harder than you think. I'm afraid you're going to be miserable."

"You know one reason I agreed? You. I want to try something you enjoy so much. Experience for myself whatever it is you get out of it."

"I'll take you on a climb sometime. Something more sensible for a beginner."

He gave her a warm smile. "Thanks. But it's all arranged."

In the evening Emma paced through the house, filled with restless energy. Robert was still at the dinner table. He was looking at the newspaper she had left there open to the page with the story about Vik.

"What is it?" she asked.

Robert continued to stare at the newspaper page.

"You see something interesting?" She looked over shoulder to see what he was looking at. It had to be the photo of Vik.

"That man? I'm going to the Moore to hear him speak. The polar explorer."

She saw with surprise his intent look, the steady-eyed concentration she'd seen at the Luna Park faro table.

"I can see you're interested in the man. Want to go with me to hear him?"

He looked up from the paper. "Yeah," he said. "I'll go."

She raised her eyebrows in further surprise. A few days earlier Robert had paid her back the twenty dollars he had borrowed for his night at Luna Park. He had not said anything about her following him. Whether from embarrassment or some other reason Carl Windell must not have told Robert about her being at Luna Park and saving him from being hauled downtown to the jail. She had never asked Robert when he was going to repay her.

"Did you have a hard time getting that much together?" she asked when he counted out the money.

"I saved it," he said. "Sometimes we get tips."

Emma had never hesitated to confront a thief when the situation called for confrontation. For weeks she had intended to tell Robert she knew about his gambling and about his attempt to poison their father. But the moment never seemed to come. Robert had never defied her. She had never provoked more than a jutting lower lip, a stare in another direction, and silence. She envisioned one of two things happening if she asked why he had tried to poison his father. He would yell at her, then break into tears and confess feelings he had kept bottled up for months. Or he would tell her to go to hell, gather up his things, and follow Danny's path out of the house and away to a life she dreaded to imagine.

Robert was too young to live on his own. The messenger boys, following the lead of an energetic entrepreneur not much older than his employees, apparently had more money than most youths their age, and walked an uncertain line between gainful employment in a grownup world and a slide into delinquency.

She loved her brother. She wanted to tell him so. But he would only squirm in embarrassment if she spoke. Their family had fallen apart around the two of them. Death, madness, criminal activity. She wanted to clasp him to her breast. But more and more of his life was happening away from their home. When they were together for dinner she sought with something like desperation for things to talk about that would engage him, his old interests.

They had talked a few times about Peary and Amundsen. Apparently the polar explorers were something, like automobiles, the heavyweight championship, and the girls who stayed at the YWCA, that the messenger boys talked about.

Vik, a name unfamiliar to polar exploration enthusiasts, wouldn't fill the Moore Theater. But several hundred people made their way into the building the night of the presentation. Emma recognized acquaintances from the Mountaineers Club in the audience. Professor Meany, the club's founding father, moved through the aisles shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries. The mayor was there. Vik had been smart to define himself in the newspapers as a Seattle citizen. Apparently he had been successful in arousing civic pride in support of his expedition. Or perhaps that was Casebolt's work. She and Robert found seats as close to the stage as they could get.

Once everyone had settled in their seats the lights dimmed and two men stepped out onto the stage. Vik and Oliver Casebolt. Vik appeared to be moving into the audience's view through an act of will. Casebolt strode to the center of the stage, in front of the theater's curtain of shimmering Coburg velvet. He began speaking. His voice was clear and vigorous, and projected to the distant rows of seats. Emma smiled in appreciation. Usually Casebolt was quiet-voiced and diffident. He had not exaggerated. Like herself, he was an actor. In his role as newspaper reporter his unassuming manner and soft voice were perfect tools for encouraging the person he was interviewing to speak out. At the end of his first interview with her about her work as a detective she had shaken her head at how much he had led her to say. He had the ability to make his listeners, whether just one person, a handful of people, or a hall filled with an audience, feel that he was speaking particularly to them.

"The days of the great explorers are nearly passed" he began. "Men have penetrated the snake-infested jungles of darkest Africa, the towering forests of the Amazon, and the windswept reaches of the Gobi Desert. The final frontier remains. The Polar regions. We have entered the Golden Age of Polar exploration."

Emma looked closely at Vik, who stood with his head slightly bowed at Casebolt's side.

"For twenty years Peary has mounted attempts to reach the North Pole. He announced that this year he will achieve his life's ambition. He has the support of the National Geographic Society, and of President Roosevelt himself. He has raised the money to support a large expedition. The great Norwegian explorer Amundson is known to be preparing another polar expedition. But Dr. Cook, the conquerer of Mt. McKinley, believes he can get there first."

"Now a new contender has stepped forward and thrown his hat into the ring. It is my pleasure to introduce you to a Seattle man who intends to beat Cook, Amundson and Peary to the Pole. You may not have heard of him, but you will. Please welcome Andreas Vik."

Vik bowed. People began to rise from their seats, and in a moment everyone was standing, applauding and cheering.

Nicely gauging the fall of the applause, Casebolt continued. "Vik's experience as a guide in the Yukon Territory has prepared him to travel fast and light in conditions of extreme cold. He is familiar with the use of dogsleds. He believes dogsleds and the assistance of native Esquimos are the keys to reaching the Pole. Let me read a few striking words that Andreas Vik has written that describe his desire to reach the North Pole."

Osbert took a card from a pocket. "I know that many of you here tonight are enthusiasts of mountaineering," he said before reading from the card. "Many are members of the mountaineering club established in Seattle just last year. You know what it is like to push yourselves physically, sometimes in harsh and dangerous conditions, to reach a summit. You will be able to understand what Mr. Vik calls the most challenging goal of them all. Here are his words."

Casebolt began reading. "Imagine standing on the spot where the first step you take in any direction is south." Casebolt, more a showman than Emma had expected, stopped and looked up from the card and out at the audience as he finished each sentence. "Imagine standing on one of the two spots on earth where there is no time. The other of course is the South Pole. It is never one AM or ten AM or five PM, it is all those at once. It is only summer and light, or winter and dark. Standing in that place without time will be greater than standing on the top of Mt. Everest. It is standing literally on the top of the world."

Emma wondered whether the words were Vik's or Casebolt's. The audience rose again and cheered as Casebolt paused.

"Humans have a desire to excel. To be first. That's what makes us different from the animals. Some see this desire as selfish and destructive. Others believe it is the noblest part of man's nature. The fact that you are here tonight tells me you understand why I am going. For two hundred years men have tried to reach the pole. All of us feel awe and admiration at the great effort and great courage that have been spent. The results so far have been failure and tragedy. Brave men have lost their lives. But I will make a prediction. In this year, 1908, a man will stand on the North Pole."

Casebolt put the card back in his pocket, and hearty applause filled the hall.

"Andreas Vik hasn't come here to the Moore Theater tonight to deliver a prepared speech. His purpose is to answer your questions about his attempt. Those of you with questions for Mr. Vik should raise your hand and I will call on you. Please speak up so everyone can hear."

Immediately several hands shot up. The first person asked when Vik planned to leave for the north. Vik cleared his throat and answered that he would be leaving soon, in order to be in position when the weather made travel across the ice floes possible. His voice, after the hesitant first sentence, was firm, though it didn't carry as well as Casebolt's. Casebolt repeated the question and the essence of the answer as if he was a translator. Another asked how he would know he had reached the pole. Vik said he had learned from ocean navigators how to use stars and the horizon to determine his position.

Emma had wondered this herself, and once asked Robert if he understood the science of taking bearings at sea. Robert was good at math, but he didn't know. Emma was confused by the answer. If it was daylight for twenty four hours at midsummer at the Pole, how did you see the stars? If it was dark for twenty-four hours, how did you see the horizon to take a bearing?

Another person asked whether Vik had any mountaineering experience. Vik said he did, and that it was very valuable preparation for a polar explorer. In fact in a few days, before his departure for the east coast, he would be taking the reporter Oliver Casebolt on a climb of Mount Rainier to demonstrate mountaineering techniques that will make swift travel in the Arctic possible.

After Vik had answered half a dozen more questions, Emma raised her hand. Casebolt pointed to her. She stood.

"An expedition like yours must cost a lot of money," she said, speaking loud enough that the audience behind her could hear her question. "How do you raise that much money?"

"You're right, you can't do this without funds. Mostly I've tried to meet men of means who were interested in the race for the Pole. Some of them have been willing to help. This meeting tonight is to help raise money. Thank you for supporting me by buying tickets. There will be a collection box in the lobby if you would like to contribute more. I hope the citizens of Seattle will take pride in having a Seattle man be the first to the Pole. Especially the mountaineering enthusiasts."

"Do you do anything else to raise money?" she asked.

Heads turned to look at her. A murmur of voices could be heard in the moment of silence before he looked directly at her and answered. There was no smile on his face.

"It's hard work raising money," he said. "I depend on people's generosity." Vik turned to Casebolt to signal he should call on the next person with a question, then looked back at Emma. He recognized her, she was sure.

Vik became visibly more comfortable in front of the audience as the hour passed. Obviously many of the people in the audience were familiar with recent writing about polar exploration and asked about which food was lightest in relation to its nourishment, or which dog breeds had the most endurance. Emma had to acknowledge that he had thoughtful and convincing answers. He had done the necessary research. If she didn't know about the shoplifting gang she would have admired him. When Vik had answered the final question he bowed and thanked everyone for coming. He bowed again to a standing ovation.

Emma led Robert through the crowd into the lobby, hoping to make her way to Casebolt, and if possible to speak to Vik face to face. A room crowded with people trying to get Vik's attention wouldn't be the best place to confront him, but there would not be many opportunities. In the press of a crowd he would not be able to push her away. When she found Casebolt he was surrounded by people, and it took her a moment to shoulder her way next to him. He told her Vik had left the theater.

While Emma and her brother stood on the curb outside waiting for the streetcar. Robert said, "That guy, he's the one Pop went with."

"What?" she said. She was thinking ahead to the climb of Rainier that Vik and Casebolt were about to undertake.

"That explorer."

"What do you mean? Went with Pop when?"

"The night, you know...when Pop didn't come back."

"The explorer was with Pop?"

"Yeah, that's the guy."

"Robert, what are you telling me? How do you know Pop went with him? Went where?"

"I followed him. They got in a car."

"You were following Pop? Why were you doing that?"

"He was leaving. You said he'd probably be gone a long time."

"So you were following him?"

Robert sucked in his upper lip and didn't say anything.

"You could have talked to him at home. Robert, what happened?"

Robert looked away from his sister. He was undecided about what he would say to her. Emma knew not to press him. She waited, then said, "What?"

"I saw him another time," said Robert.

"You mean Vik?"

Robert nodded.

"I thought you recognized him from the paper. Well, tell me where."

"You'll just get ticked at me."

"No I won't. I want to know."

"You'd just get mad."

"Come on, Robert. I'll listen to anything."

"I was in the District once. With the guys. All right?"

"You were in the District. Something happened. It's all right, just tell me about it."

"We went under this building. One of the guys had been there before. I guess just to spy. We saw a man do something to this woman. He hurt her. Some people came into the room and held the guy down. The man, the one on the stage, he came in."

"Vik."

"There was another guy with him. Biggest guy I ever saw. They picked the fellow up off the floor and did something to him. I think they broke his neck. I think they killed him."

"Crawling under that building, I heard about that. A whorehouse."

Robert frowned. "What'd you mean, you heard about it?"

Emma pressed her lips together. "You know what I did about the business with Carl Windell and Mrs. Vinette. You knew about that?"

"I heard."

"There was another time I helped Carl. I got him out of some trouble. I asked him about you and Pop. He said after you got out from under that building you were very angry. He asked you what made you so mad. You told him it was Pop. What happened in there, Robert? What made you hate Pop like you did?"

Robert's mouth trembled. He glared at his sister. "I heard it," he said. "I heard what it sounded like when that man was doing things to the woman. I heard it before. Pop was with Julia."

"Oh Jesus," said Emma. She closed her eyes. "I knew it was something like that. That's why you tried to poison Pop."

Robert looked at Emma with grief and defiance.

"Yes, I know about that. I found the strychnine in your room."

"You goddamn detective! You searched my room."

"You're goddamned right I did," she blurted. "Anybody tries to kill another person deserves to have his room searched."

"I was going to shoot the son of a bitch."

"Thank God you didn't. Your life would be ruined."

"I don't fucking care," Robert said. "The bastard, he hurt Julia."

Emma's heart was racing. She made herself take two deep breaths without speaking. She couldn't let herself yell at Robert as though she was a sixteen-year-old herself. She inhaled and blew out hard with puffed cheeks, as if she was taking hard, steep upward steps at high altitude. She had to keep this a rational conversation.

"He's dead now," she said. "Doesn't matter how mad you are, it's over with. Were you going to do something, is that why you were following him?"

"I borrowed a gun. I was going to get him alone."

"Oh Robert." She put an arm around her brother's shoulder. "Come on, get on the trolley."

While they were sitting on the streetcar Emma said, "It was the blond man who took Pop somewhere. You're sure of that?"

"Him and the big guy, same two I saw before. Why did they take Pop?"

Emma pinched the bridge of her nose. "Wappenstein. He knows Wappenstein." She was talking to herself now more than to her brother. "It's what Oliver said. Wappenstein must have lost a lot of money on the fight. Vik and the big man you saw, I know they work for Wappenstein. They do his dirty work."

She turned to Robert. "You don't know about Pop's job. He advised people about betting. He was wrong this time. People lost money. Wappenstein. Pop was going to leave but they hunted him down."

She swallowed hard and shook her head. "Why didn't I see they'd do that."

"What?"

But she could only shake her head. The enormity of the words she'd spoken to her father was settling on her shoulders. There was nothing more she would be able to explain to Robert.

The sign for the North Pole Company was still there on the wall when she went to the warehouse the next morning, but the door to the office was locked. Emma walked through the narrow hallways of the building until she found an open door. She asked the Chinese man at the desk inside if he knew anything about the business up the hall. The man looked at her a moment, then rose and went into a back room. A younger Chinese came out and asked her what she wanted.

"I'm trying to find the people with the North Pole Company at the other end of the hall. The door's locked. Do you know, are they still there?"

"They left," he said. "Two days ago."

"Can you tell me who the landlord is here? Maybe they left a forwarding address."

"I am landlord. No address. Rent paid, but they go."

In the lower level of the Vinette house in Youngstown no one was home. Emma climbed the stairs to the rooms where the Windell family lived. She rapped on the door, then pushed it open. The mother was nowhere in sight. Clara looked up from cleaning the deal table after a messy meal with four or five of the children. Lethargic after eating, none of them was squalling or demanding attention.

"Hi," said Emma. "You remember me? Emma?"

The girl nodded and continued wiping with the rag, not friendly but not rude.

"I'll bet you're glad Carl is back," said Emma.

"He's fine now," said Clara.

"I helped him, you know. I went with him and a doctor to an insane asylum. That helped cure him. Otherwise they might have locked him up."

Clara continued wiping the table, either too shy or too mistrusting to respond.

"That was a hard time for him. I'm glad it's over. Does he still spend much time with Mrs. Vinette?"

"I don't know."

"I wanted to talk to her. I didn't see her downstairs. I guess she's out right now?"

"She's been gone a few days," said Clara.

"Oh. Is nobody there?"

"Mr. Vinette. He'll be there later on."

"But she hasn't been home for several days?"

"No."

"You're doing okay?"

"I'm fine."

Emma looked at the girl, who seemed intelligent enough, but would be stuck in this crude smelly place with the thankless responsibility of siblings for years to come. Emma tried to feel what it would be like to have that responsibility. She went to the door, but turned before she stepped out onto the stair landing.

"Did he tell you anything about me?" she asked. "Maybe how I helped him out?"

Clara shook her head.

"Well. I guess he wouldn't. He's here at night?"

She nodded.

Emma frowned at her failure to win Clara's confidence. She wanted to press the girl, learn more about Mary Vinette's routine and where she might be. But the idea of maneuvering any further around the girl's innocence was repugnant to her. She thanked Clara for talking with her and descended the flimsy stairs.

Emma passed the evening pacing the living room, trying to think how she could run Vik to ground before he departed for his expedition. Her investigative imagination had deserted her. Cody had his reasons for not helping her, and the police would probably stall, or even interfere with any investigation. She felt helpless.

Robert had not returned when she went to bed. When she opened his bedroom door in the morning to wake him, he wasn't there. The bed hadn't been slept in. Except for a few times he had let her know he was staying over with a friend he was always there for breakfast. She decided to spend the day in the places she would feel at home and be able to think. She took the trolley downtown to First Avenue and the department stores.

# CHAPTER THIRTY

The girl with the freckles on the bridge of her nose lifted a kidskin glove from the display and slipped her hand into it. She arched her hand gracefully, drawing the soft kidskin snug around the fingers, then passed the gloved hand lightly across her lips, as if smelling or tasting the material. The language of her hands had changed since the day Emma apprehended her in Redelsheimers. She peeled the glove off, pulled the fingers right side out, and lay the glove thoughtfully on the display. A moment later the pair of gloves, and another, melted into the garments she was wearing.

Emma watched. She almost always recognized lifters she had apprehended in the past. The girl was better dressed now. The cuffs of her shirtwaist were bright white and crisply pressed. Emma followed her out of the store and opened her umbrella. It was raining heavily, not the normal Seattle drizzle, but big drops that pattered loudly on the streets and sidewalks and could soak a person in half a minute. Most of the store customers carried an umbrella over an arm as they shopped.

"Gloves," she said as she overtook the girl with the freckles. "It's the same thing you were stealing the first time I caught you."

"So you caught me again," said the girl.

"So what are we going to do?" Emma asked.

"I expect you're going to arrest me."

"I don't work in that store."

The girl's manner was not what Emma expected. She had become a seasoned thief. No tears, no wrapping herself in surliness. She showed no surprise or distress at being caught. She seemed to be waiting for Emma's lead.

"What d'you want me to do?"

"You want to tell me where you're taking the stuff?"

"Not where I used to," said the girl.

"No," said Emma. "I see they moved out of that place."

"If I show you where we go now, will you let me go?"

"Isn't there a risk they'll do something to you if they find out you did that?"

The girl slowed her walk as she spoke.

"He keeps a bottle of prussic acid in his desk. We've all seen it. They say if somebody snitches he'll hold 'em down and cut their mouth with a razor. Then pour acid in the cuts."

Emma shuddered at the image. "My God, that's awful. Has he ever really done it?"

"I don't think he had to. But I don't know. Anybody it happened to, they wouldn't be here any more."

"Then you shouldn't take me there. It's not worth it."

The girl frowned and chewed her lip, as if momentarily confused. Then she said, "You have to promise not to tell them it was me."

"Of course," said Emma. "I've got no reason to say anything."

Strange, Emma thought. She's not much afraid of being arrested. Something in the girl's manner seemed off-key. She wasn't pleading, she was offering a deal. She was more frightened of the razor and acid than of being taken to jail. Yet she was willing to show Emma the new stolen goods depot.

"Okay," said Emma. "Show me where you take the stuff, and you can go."

Without any expression Emma could read, the girl walked to a trolley stop as the rain continued beating down on their umbrellas. She showed no sign of wanting to break and run as they waited. They got on a trolley that took them south through the timber shipping area. The girl stepped off and led Emma a half dozen blocks along a wide unpaved street, past a collection of shacks, a few seedy storefronts that appeared unoccupied, and one-storey warehouses backed up against a steep hillside. The street was muddy, and the ground between the street and the buildings was as soggy as quicksand, as Emma found when she tried to cut a corner. She had a fleeting image, Holmes slipping into the liquid peat on the Grimpen Mire. There were few signs of current habitation anywhere in the neighborhood. No one was out in the rain. Nothing had been painted in years. The buildings must have been constructed on speculation that the wetland could be drained, like other areas south of the downtown. But the ground here remained a muddy swamp. An eerie place, with no sound but the hard splatter of rain on the ground and the muffled drumming on their umbrellas. The girl stopped in front of the largest building on the road.

"Through here," she said.

Emma followed her through a door she expected to be locked but wasn't, and closed her umbrella. The building was an open space, with no interior rooms or divisions. Filthy windows blocked most of the daylight. The place was completely empty. Their steps echoed off the walls as the girl led Emma to a narrow door at the back of the building. Emma looked for mud tracks on the floor, but couldn't see any in the dim light. At the far end of the building the girl lifted a thick board out of the heavy brackets on either side of the door that locked the door from the inside. They stepped back out into the rain.

The area behind the building was a steepsided canyon of muddy embankment. The back corners of the building had been cut into the embankment. A smaller building, run down to the point of being in danger of collapsing, was the only structure in the enclosed space except for the railroad trestle which crossed the space fifty feet overhead.

"What is this place?" said Emma.

The girl gestured toward the building. "That's where they are. No one except us ever comes here."

Emma's discomfort grew. The place didn't feel right. It made sense, it was a good hiding place. But this was a long journey from the department stores, and there was no sign of wagons or a loading area for shipping goods out. No signs of any activity at all. She took a step back towards the doorway.

"You wanted to know," said the girl. "That's where they are." Emma heard the tension in her voice.

"Who is it?" Emma asked.

"Don't you know?" the girl asked.

I've come this far, Emma said to herself and began walking across the mud toward the dilapidated building. She turned to see the girl draw back into the building they had passed through. She heard the door shut. Then she heard the board drop into the brackets.

Emma drew in a deep breath. She had walked into the waterfront warehouse without a plan. She had no plan now. Cousin Annie would have said, it's part of your destiny, go forward.

She pushed at the door. It wasn't locked. She pushed further. The door swung open, then stopped when it was two thirds of the way open. She stepped across the threshold. The building was as dark and empty as the first.

"Hello," she called out. The room was empty, so there shouldn't be anything behind the door. She listened, as sensitive as a cat. The rain would have covered small sounds.

She knew she had been led into a trap. She knew the girl's behavior hadn't been natural. The girl was following some kind of plan. Emma hadn't stumbled on to her by chance. For the second time Emma had witnessed an act of shoplifting that was a performance with her as the intended audience.

She backed a step to the threshold. "You want to talk?" she asked the empty room.

The man was suddenly around the door, reaching for her. She jabbed the umbrella at his hand and jumped backwards, barely keeping her balance. She ran halfway to the larger building. But there was no place to go.

When she turned the man was looking at her. He was huge. She recognized him. Some civic ceremony a few years earlier, a Fourth of July celebration or election event. The Times publisher, Colonel Blethen, was there behind a flag-draped podium as a speaker. The big man, wearing a police uniform, had loomed behind Blethen, obviously serving as his bodyguard in case anyone in the crowd had thoughts of accosting the outspoken publisher. She knew this was the man Carl had seen at the whorehouse. This was the man Robert had described who had taken their father from the saloon and killed him.

There was no place to go. No way she could scramble up the muddy embankment. For the first time in her life Emma felt the burn of raw fear. Once or twice in school her sass had got her slapped and pushed around by older girls, but she had never faced anyone like a soldier in combat would have to, an enemy whose purpose was to kill him. She was stunned. Casebolt had warned her that Wappenstein had people killed who interfered in his business. Blustering into the warehouse office and confronting Vik and Vinette was a serious act. She should have realized that her pursuit of the lifters was more than a sporting contest. Now she stood facing a man whose job was killing. On this soaking morning his job was to come after her and break her neck.

"We can talk, dear," he called from the doorway. His voice was a high-pitched trill for a man of such size. Rain spilled off the brim of his derby. He appeared indifferent to the water soaking the shoulders of his black suit.

She would be quicker than he was, though his reach for her had been so fast only her instinct that something was behind the door and her reflexes saved her. She could run around the building, and he would come after her. She could keep running longer than most people. But he didn't have to run, and he could cut the angles. Inevitably, she foresaw, she would tire and slip in the mud, and he would be on her. He began walking toward her. She waited until he was ten feet away, then pulled up her skirt and sprinted to the side and around the building, behind the trestle support. He came after her, moving steadily, not hurrying.

"You don't have to do this," she called out. "You can let me leave."

"You made trouble, dear," he said. "Too late now."

"It's all right, just let me go."

"Come here and let's talk."

"No! Leave me alone." Emma ran again, like a panicked animal in a corral. She gasped for air, crying and laughing at the same time at the idiocy of being chased like a child's game around a building.

"Come on now, dear," he called to her, "No point in all the running."

He stopped at the side of the building. She watched him studying what was there. Then he began picking up pallets and railway ties stacked against the wall, lifting them as if they weighed nothing, and piling them to build a barricade between the wall and the embankment. In another minute she could see she would be trapped. She ran once more to the back of the building, near the trestle footings.

The trestle. She looked up. The structure was familier, vertical beams dark with creosote and angled support timbers. She jumped into the first vee of timbers and with an adrenaline-fired grunt pulled herself up onto the first horizontal beam.

The creosote smell was familiar from the day she climbed the Fremont trestle with Danny. The structure repeated its geometry all the way up. If you could climb the first section without much risk of falling, you could climb all the sections to the top. That's what Danny had called down to her with his wry laugh. She pulled herself to the second section.

The big man came to the trestle base and raised himself onto the first crossbeam with a grunt. His height made the reach much easier for him.

"You think I can't do this?" he called up.

She looked down with dismay. He was coming slowly, but he was very strong and could hoist his weight from one beam to the next.

Emma forced herself not to think about him. If she made each move carefully she would reach the tracks above. No more looking down, at the man or the height above the ground. The creosoted wood was slick, that was the hardest part. Her hands hunted over her head for places with enough grip. She put weight on each foot gingerly, to be sure she wasn't on a slippery section. She imagined his hand clamping around her ankle. He'd fling her off the trestle like a child in a tantrum tossing a doll across a room.

Then her fingers slipped off the greasy timber and she fell back. She cried out and threw her arms around an angled support, clasping herself to it until her foot found something solid. Gasping with the effort she pulled herself upward again onto the next crossbeam. She looked down.

The big man was looking up at her. Then he looked down, then back at her. But he stayed where he was. Afraid of heights, she thought. He's afraid of heights. Very deliberately she worked her way to the next crossbeam, her awareness not in her head but in her fingertips and the balls of her feet. She emerged from between the rails and stood on the ties, her chest heaving. She began walking, carefully, staring at the wet crossties where she was about to put her foot, until she was off the trestle and on the ground. She gathered up her skirt and began running beside the tracks. She ran and ran, her lungs burning, until the tracks emerged into the railyard and the cries of men jockeying logs onto railcars made her feel safe for the moment.

# CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

On the trolley ride home she was barely aware of the riders staring at her soaked and muddy skirt. She filled the tub, stripped off her clothes, and sank into the embrace of the hot water.

What had happened? She had worked in an expanding universe populated by an immense array of merchandise and a never-ending parade of customers. But the department stores of First and Second Avenue were a more limited space than she had grasped. Someone whose skills of observation were a match for her own had hunted her down in half a day. The girl with the freckles had developed from a tearful novice thief to an actress, not perfect in her role but good enough to lead Emma where she wanted.

What would happen now? Would they come after her again? Was she safe anywhere? Vik would soon be departing on his expedition. The gang was likely to disband, the lifters would seek out other fences. There would be no more revenue flowing to Wappenstein from the operation, and she would no longer be a threat to him. She had to hope this was the case. Policemen like Chief of Detectives Tennant and Detective Gross had been friendly to her in the way of professional courtesy, but they would not protect her. If she reported what had happened, they would show her sympathy and maybe offer to investigate, but they all owed their jobs to Wappenstein. They would stall and finally report they hadn't found anything. Cody would be angry at the attempt to hurt her, but he couldn't help. Some of his anger would probably be turned on her for ignoring his warning and pursuing a reckless free-lance investigation.

As the hot water calmed her, her awareness grew that what she wanted above all was to confront Vik and force him to answer her questions about his organization.

At dinnertime there was no sign of Robert. Her fears that something might have happened grew as she ate her evening meal alone at the table. If he didn't appear tonight she would go to the messenger office and find out if he'd been there for work. Maybe try to find Carl or the friend of Robert's she'd hired to watch at the warehouse. Her fear for Robert grew to match her anxiety about her own safety. She brought her boots and climbing equipment to the kitchen table and began oiling the boots and the wood shafts of the ice axe and climbing staff. Handling the equipment had the effect of soothing her when she was upset.

When the phone rang, she jumped up from the table. But it wasn't Robert. She heard Casebolt's voice, pitched high with excitement.

"Emma," he said. "Listen to this. At the Moore? Vik said he thought he recognized you. I told him about your climbing, and what do you think? He wants you to do the climb with us."

"Climb Rainier?" she said. "Why would he want me to come?"

"The publicity. Polar explorer leads reporter and woman mountain climber to the summit of Mt. Rainier. He's right, it'll be a great story. A final fundraising campaign before he goes. Say, are you all right? You seem quiet."

"I had a hard day, Oliver. I'm okay. I'm just trying to think why he wants me to come. But that's what I want. A chance to talk to him. When do we go?"

"We're leaving the thirteenth. Hey, I'm really glad you're coming."

"That's in a week. I should be able to make it. There's a trial I've been subpoenaed for, but it should only last a couple of days."

"What trial is that?" Casebolt asked.

Emma was too tired to explain. "I'll tell you about it when it's over," she said.

# Part Eight

# The Trial

_In the early 20_ th _century, women brought to trial faced the judgment of an all-male jury. Women simply were not allowed to serve_.

# CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

"They are trying for $4,000," Cody told her. "You need to go talk to the store attorney."

Simon Lefforts, the attorney handling the lawsuit for the Bon Marche, a lean middle-aged man with a brusque New York assurance in his voice, waved for her to sit. He stroked his thick mustache with a thumb and asked her to tell him in detail what she remembered.

"I watched her conceal three blouses," Emma told him. "She was pretty obvious about it. I signaled for her to be stopped. When she didn't have the blouses with her, I knew something unusual was happening. I was following her the whole way and missed seeing her get rid of the blouses. I backtracked her route. The blouses were stashed on a countertop. It was the one place I couldn't see her for a few seconds. She had to be quick and skilful to do that. That woman is a professional."

"And you're saying she set you up to make a false arrest."

"That's the only explanation for what she did."

"But what if she simply had second thoughts, or suspected someone had observed her?"

"She wasn't nervous at all. She was obvious when she took the blouses. I don't mean she was clumsy or amateurish. She just wasn't trying to hide what she was doing. She never looked around for a detective. She was completely self-assured the whole time."

The attorney took a moment to make notes.

"Sir, the woman is part of an organized gang of shoplifters I've been investigating," said Emma. "I found the building where they bring the stolen goods. I went in to confront them and found the gang leader. I saw her there, she was with him. She's part of the gang, maybe one of the leaders."

"Has this gang leader been arrested and charged? Is there a police record of any of this?"

"No."

Lefferts looked at her a moment and resumed thumbing his moustache. "Do the police at least know about this gang? Are there detectives who could connect Mrs. Vinette and the gang leader?"

Emma bit her lip. There would be no testimony from Wappenstein's police force against Vik's people.

"I told Mr. Cody about the gang, but there's no police report."

"I don't think there's anything there we can use. Now, they're claiming you know this woman from before the shoplifting incident."

"From the suit against the Electric Company earlier this year. The boy who claimed to be hit by a streetcar. She's the one who put him up to it."

"We looked into the case. They're going to claim you have a grudge against the woman because she tried to protect the boy from your interrogations."

"She was protecting him all right," said Emma. "She tried to keep anyone from talking to him. The court decided she had some kind of hypnotic power over him. That's why he could numb himself to all that pain they put him through. She...seduced him. He was completely infatuated with her."

"You know for a fact that she literally seduced him?"

"No, I don't know that."

"Your brother and the boy in that case...." Lefferts scanned his notes... "Carl Windell, are friends. You were upset that your brother's friend underwent those painful tests, is that fair to say?"

Emma frowned. "How do they know about my brother?"

"For that much money they're going to find out a lot about you. We need to be ready for that."

"Who's presiding?" she asked.

"We'll be in Judge Morris's courtroom." Lefferts must have noticed something in her expression. "What's wrong? Is Judge Morris a problem?"

"No, no problem."

But the truth was that the last place on the earth she wanted the trial to take place was the courtroom of Judge George Morris.

A year earlier Emma had been called to the witness stand in Judge Morris's courtroom. It was the judge's courtroom, but Judge Morris was not presiding. He had recused himself for the obvious reason that he would be called to testify. The judge's wife was being tried for shoplifting.

Emma did not like testifying in courtrooms. Every public appearance in her role as a detective reduced her anonymity. For her day on the stand she wore an elaborate flowered hat with a low brim and veil that she would never have chosen as suiting her, but the headgear blurred her profile.

Emma had been working on the floor at Redelsheimers. Her scan of the shoppers in the furnishings department registered two women shopping and dismissed them. They were dressed in well-made clothes, and deported themselves with the assurance of women from a background of wealth. Emma was learning to distinguish women whose assurance was natural from the practiced thieves who deliberately carried themselves as if they were wealthy. The challenge, of course, was that some of the newly wealthy played the role as clumsily as an incompetent thief.

Something disrupted the harmony of the department. A furtive movement, a too-deliberate look up and down the aisle. The women had separated. Emma drifted closer, and saw one of them, narrow-brimmed hat and gabardine jacket tastefully matched, conceal a pink silk scarf in her jacket. A moment later the woman rejoined her companion. As the two exited the store, Emma signaled the nearest floorwalker and stepped out onto the sidewalk.

"Pardon me," she said. "I'll have to ask you to come back to the store."

"What on earth for?" asked the companion. "Who are you?"

"We'll need to talk about the pink silk scarf. You probably intended to pay for it, but perhaps you forgot."

"What are you talking about?" said the companion. Emma looked the first woman in the eye. The woman flushed and dropped her glance.

"Oh dear," she exclaimed. "You're right. I did forget to pay for it. Of course, let's go in and I'll pay for the scarf. I'm very sorry for the mistake."

In the store the floorwalker approached the three women. "She has a pink silk scarf in her pocket," said Emma. "Take her to the holding room and call the police."

"But I'm paying for it," said the woman. "I just forgot. For heaven's sake, I'm Judge Morris's wife, you don't think I'd deliberately steal something?"

The floorwalker hesitated and looked at Emma.

"She concealed the scarf so it couldn't be seen. Take her into the back room."

Before the trial Emma knew there would be difficulties. She learned that the woman she had arrested was indeed Judge Morris's wife, and she knew good attorneys would be hired to defend her. Mr. Redelsheimer himself would be asked to testify. She hoped he would back her.

When she was called to the witness stand, Emma was prepared to have her story picked apart by Mrs. Morris's attorneys. But that wasn't what happened. The prosecutor asked her to state what she had observed and what she had done. When the judge presiding in Morris's place asked the defense attorneys if they wanted to question the witness, they said they had no questions. Surprised, Emma took a seat in the audience.

The defense opened its case by acknowledging the theft. Their first witness was Judge Morris. The sitting judge began by apologizing to Morris for asking him to testify in his own courtroom. He stated that, as the judge very well knew, he was not required to testify against his wife. Judge Morris's long upper lip amplified the expression of his mouth. He sat with half-closed eyes, but no-one mistook this for inattentiveness. He sat probably for the first time in his own witness stand. He made a dismissive gesture and said he waived the husband's exemption from testifying. The judge was known for having the common touch. He smiled cordially at the judge sitting in his place.

The attorney asked Judge Morris if the actions of his wife were a surprise to him.

"I was astonished when I heard what happened," he said.

"Can you imagine a reason why she might have done this?"

"None whatsoever. We have an understanding that she is perfectly free to purchase any apparel she likes. I like seeing my wife well dressed. She could have bought twenty scarves if she wanted them."

The next witness was Dr. Loughery. He had been asked as an expert in mental states to meet with Mrs. Morris and question her. He was asked now for his opinion.

"In my view," he said, "it is clearly a case of kleptomania. None of the normal reasons for stealing apply here. Mrs. Morris told me she was overcome by a desire to take the scarf, and wasn't fully aware of what she was doing. When the detective stopped her, it was as if she suddenly remembered what she had done. Something she doesn't understand took temporary control of her."

What she was describing, said the doctor, were the classic symptoms of kleptomania, a disease of the mind that was only just beginning to be understood by the medical profession.

The next person to be called to testify was the owner of the department store.

"Mr. Redelsheimer, is it not true that everything in your store, particularly the women's apparel, is arranged to make it as appealing as possible to the customer?"

Julius Redelsheimer, hair receding and cheeks unhealthily hollow, was known not to be fond of appearing in public. He ran his store through his managers and was rarely seen on the sale floor. Looking around uncomfortably, he said yes, it was. The attorney led him through a series of questions about nuances of lighting on displays and the placement of mannequins. Emma had learned early in her career that nothing on the sales floor was random or unplanned.

"Mr. Redelsheimer," the attorney concluded, "apart from what has happened here, do you consider Mrs. Morris a good customer?"

"A very good customer."

"Would you want to have her back in your store shopping?"

"Of course we'd like to have her as a customer."

Emma sat on the courtroom bench and seethed. She saw where this was going. No one, defense or prosecution, had ever referred to Mrs. Morris as "the defendant," as they would in the case of an ordinary shoplifter. Just like that moving picture, "The Kleptomaniac," which probably everyone in the courtroom had seen but apparently forgotten. It was always a respectful "Mrs. Morris." The judge's wife was going to be found not guilty by reason of temporary insanity. Dr. Loughery would be called back to the stand to testify further about the nature of kleptomania. He would describe the affliction as a form of hysteria, to which all females were susceptible. The men in the room would pat themselves on the back and feel comfortably superior about their tolerant liberality in excusing Mrs. Morris for her female weakness. Mrs. Morris would play into their interpretation by accepting the dismissal of charges with a mixture of confusion and humble contrition.

Emma knew exactly what had been going on in that woman's mind in the store. She was no more temporarily mad than Emma was. Mrs. Morris had freed herself from her companion for a few moments with some calculated excuse. She stole for the pleasant flush of excitement that came when you took a dare and got away with something. Why was everybody so ready to explain impulsive behavior as insanity? People did what they did because they wanted to. She looked at Mrs. Morris with a contempt that must have been visible, for when she shifted her gaze to her husband, now sitting on the spectators' side of the railing, he was looking directly at her. His expression was flat and cold, but his anger was exposed in the glare of his eyes.

***

Morris's courtroom was not crowded for Vinette v. The Bon Marche. Mary Vinette's attorney, Tolliver, a pink-cheeked man who would have looked like Santa Claus if he let his curly beard grow, called his client to the witness stand. Dressed in conservative grey and looking down as she stepped forward, Mary Vinette appeared neat and modest. Tolliver asked her to describe her arrest.

"I was shopping for clothes," she said. "I looked at some things at Baillergeons but didn't see anything I liked. At the Bon I looked at some voile blouses I liked, but decided to see what they had at Redelsheimers. When I was leaving a man stopped me and said I had to with him. I asked why, but he didn't say. He got pushy. He took me to a room and accused me of stealing. When I said he was wrong, a woman came in the room and searched me."

"What did you feel when this was happening?" asked the attorney.

"Humiliated. I was made to feel ashamed though I hadn't done anything to be ashamed of. They treated me like a low, thieving person. And I was scared. I was afraid they'd arrest me on a false charge. I was afraid they'd tell some lie to the police."

"What did you do?"

"I told them over and over they were wrong. I asked the man what he thought I was trying to steal. The woman searching me wouldn't even answer. She touched me. Can you think how humiliating that is?"

The attorney nodded in sympathy. "What happened then?"

"I guess they realized they were wrong. They told me I could leave."

"They told you you could leave. That's all?"

"The man did apologize. He said they made a mistake and were sorry for the inconvenience."

"The inconvenience. How long did this 'inconvenience' last?"

"I was so scared and humiliated I didn't have a good sense of time. It was twenty minutes or a half hour, something like that."

Tolliver shook his head as if in disbelief. With the art of an experienced performer he let his benign and fatherly expression suggest sympathy for the witness and indignation at what he was hearing.

"What did you think about after this happened?"

"It's hard to recover from the shock of something like that," said Vinette. "But when I had time to think about it, I realized I recognized a person there when I was leaving. I found out she was the detective who accused me."

"How did you know this detective"

"Last year my tenant's son was in a streetcar accident. He had a mental breakdown. I helped his mother sue for damages. She doesn't speak much English, that's why I helped her. The detective, Miss Prothero, she was trying to prove Carl didn't really have a breakdown. She tried to get him alone so she could put pressure on him. I tried to protect Carl from her harassment. She spoke sharply to me. I know she was angry at me. I was arrested because Miss Prothero was trying to get even."

"Objection," Lefferts, the Bon attorney, called out. "Nothing but speculation."

Judge Morris hesitated long enough for the woman's words to make their impression before sustaining the objection.

When Tolliver had finished his questioning of Vinette, Lefferts rose from his chair.

"Mrs. Vinette, I'd like to know a little more about this lawsuit against the Electric Company that you pursued. The suit was on behalf of the young man, Carl Windell, and his mother, but it was you who initiated the suit, wasn't it?"

"No it wasn't. Like I said, Albertina, that's Carl's mother, only knows a little English. I went with her to see a lawyer and help explain what happened to Carl."

"The ruling of the court, in this very courtroom in fact, was that Carl was faking insanity. Isn't it true that you used a powerful influence over Carl to make him appear to be insane?"

Mary Vinette didn't take her eyes away from Lefferts' furrowed accusatory brow. "That's what the attorneys for the Electric Company wanted everyone to think," she said. "I'm thankful Carl's insanity didn't last. He and his family, they should get compensated for the suffering he went through."

As the questioning proceeded in the courtroom Emma waited outside in the hallway for her turn on the witness stand. The oak bench was hard and uncomfortable. Cody sat beside her. Lefferts had told them Cody would probably be called first. While they waited Emma told Cody she was sorry he had to be here.

"It's part of the job," he said. "I'm in court more than you think."

"What's going to happen?" she asked.

"I'm going to tell them you have a good record as a mercantile patrol detective. In three years of work there's never been a false arrest claim against you. Did you know you've caught more than seventy shoplifters in that time? They're going to work on this business of you knowing Vinette. I'm going to make it clear you weren't with the Electric Company against her. You were with the newspaper, just trying to get the truth."

"I saw her acting suspiciously before I ever recognized her," said Emma.

"I know. Don't give them any reason to think you were trying to get back at her."

"I don't understand this," Emma exclaimed. "Can't they see she tried to con the streetcar company only a few months ago and now she's trying another con?"

"If I was her lawyer I'd try to show she was only helping Mrs. Windell. There's no proof she was going to get any of that money. I'll tell you what I'm worried about. The Bon attorney could try to prove the store isn't responsible, for the arrest, we are."

"But we work for them."

"They could argue they instructed us to be careful never to make a false arrest."

"That's betraying the agency."

"To dodge a $4,000 suit, yeah, they could do that. Our contract says we are to exercise care not to disturb legitimate customers. You and me, our stories better match. Got that?"

"Yes, sir. But we're just telling the truth, aren't we?"

"In this case, yes."

The bailiff stepped into the hall and ushered Cody into the courtroom.

He came out ten minutes later with his jaw clenched.

"They're going to ask questions about your character," he said. "You be careful in there."

"Did the Bon people do what you thought?" Emma asked. "They try to shift the responsibility to the agency?"

"Yeah they did," he said.

Without further words Cody marched down the hall to the stairway.

My character, thought Emma. What do they think they're going to find? That woman is a con artist. She conned Carl with those flashing black eyes, and she's doing the same thing to the judge and the jurymen in there. Emma couldn't sit still. She stood and paced the floor, trying to calm herself. The bailiff opened the courtroom door and called her name.

When she had been seated and sworn, she looked at the people in the room. She had been in the witness stand on several occasions, in this very witness stand surrounded by its walnut rails polished by the grasp of many hands. But she could see at once in the looks people gave her that this time would be different. In her past appearances, she had always been a corroborating witness, supporting the case of the prosecutors. A defense attorney had occasionally pressed for more details. But no one had ever doubted her. Today the men in the room looked at her appraisingly, skeptically. This was how she'd seen them look at a person accused of a crime.

Lefferts asked her to describe the arrest of Mrs. Vinette. When he had asked her the same question in his office, he had nodded approval as she related what had happened.

"Tell it just like that," he had said. "You want to appear calm and objective, but taking the questions seriously."

Keeping Lefferts' advice in mind, she described the arrest of Mary Vinette. When she was done he asked her about her record as a detective. He summarized what Cody must have told the court about her record, and asked if that was an accurate account, no false arrests, over seventy apprehensions and thirty convictions. She didn't keep a count, she said, but that sounded about right.

"Miss Prothero, Mrs. Vinette is claiming that you know her. Is that correct? Are you acquainted with her?"

"I wouldn't say acquainted, but I know who she is and I've talked to her. I had a conversation with her during the case of Carl Windell. As part of my investigation I wanted to talk with Carl in the county hospital. She was with him and wouldn't allow me to talk with him."

"Mrs. Vinette has told the court that she wanted to protect the young man from the questioning of several investigators, including yourself. Did it anger or upset you that she didn't want you to talk to him?"

"I wasn't angry, no. I did wonder why she wouldn't let anyone talk to him. I thought it was possible she was influencing him to act as if he was insane."

"So let me ask a question that I'm sure Mr. Tolliver will also want to have answered. Did you resent her interference?"

Emma chose her words. "I was more curious than resentful. I did feel that Mrs. Vinette was making it harder for me to learn the truth about Carl's condition."

"So you were resentful at having to do more work to get to that truth."

"Resentful, no, I was exasperated more than anything. She made it harder to do my job."

"All right. Now I want to ask you an important question. Please think carefully before you answer. Did you recognize Mrs. Vinette immediately when you saw her at the blouse counter of the Bon Marche?"

Lefferts had told her at the pre-trial meeting he would emphasize this question.

"No. I saw a woman from behind in the act of concealing merchandise. I was struck that she was not taking the care a shoplifter usually does to avoid being seen. It wasn't until I followed her and had a look at her from the front I recognized her as Mrs. Vinette."

"You had only seen Mrs. Vinette for a few minutes at the hospital, when she was looking directly at you, is that correct?"

"I also saw her in the courtroom when Carl Windell was being tested by Dr. Loughery."

"Ah, yes, so you've seen her twice. You were sure the woman you were following in the Bon was Mrs. Vinette?"

"Yes. In my work you have to be able to remember faces."

Lefferts completed his questions and thanked her for her testimony. She understood he was asking questions in a sympathetic way so the Vinette lawyer couldn't ask them in a hostile way. She was thankful he hadn't pursued the line he had apparently taken with Cody. He wasn't trying to present her to the jury as a rogue detective going beyond the instructions of the store in trying to build up a record of arrests.

"Miss Prothero," said Tolliver, eyeing her a moment and stroking his curly beard before speaking, "tell us if you would about the state of your health."

Emma blanched. Her health? She understood almost immediately. They were going to attack her credibility. Not her record as a detective. Her personally.

"My health is fine," she said.

"A physical examination about two years ago, I believe?"

"Yes, about two years ago."

"No complaints or problems at that time?"

"No."

"I'm glad to hear it. Now, let me ask, are you a moody person sometimes?"

"No. I'd say I'm pretty stable as far as moodiness."

"It's not unusual for young women your age to experience moodiness." The calm reasonableness of Tolliver's voice cut into her like a blade. "It's widely regarded as part of female nature. You say you don't share in that kind of natural moodiness?"

She had to match his calm reasonableness. "No, I'd say I'm steadier that a lot of women my age."

"I see. Miss Prothero, where is your sister at this moment?"

The bastard.

"She is being treated at the state hospital at Steilacoom."

"At the insane asylum at Steilacoom," he said, weighting the words. "She has been there for four years, I understand. Diagnosed as insane. Is that correct?"

"I never heard that word from the doctors. She had a breakdown and needs treatment."

"She needs treatment, and needs to be confined. Not a danger to anyone, thankfully, but the report from the doctors there is that she has made no progress towards a recovery. It's possible she will remain in the madhouse for the rest of her life."

"It's not a madhouse, she's...."

"It's the hospital for the insane at Steilacoom. Thank you for reminding us we are more enlightened than our forefathers about confining the mentally ill. Now, we'd like to know a little more about your family background."

"Objection," Lefferts called out. "Miss Prothero's family is not relevant to the case. This line of questioning is not a good use of the court's time."

"Her family's circumstances have a bearing on Miss Prothero's state of mind," said Tolliver."

Judge Morris had not looked directly at Emma during her questioning. Now he did. In that moment she saw the judge's recognition that she was the detective who had caught his wife shoplifting and testified against her in his courtroom.

"I'll allow the questions," he said.

"Thank you," said Tolliver. "I know your father passed away quite recently. I hope you'll accept the court's condolences. Nevertheless we have to inquire about his character. Please tell the court, Miss Prothero, how your father earned a living."

"He worked in the promotion of sports events," she said. "He did publicity work for boxing and wrestling matches."

"Publicity work, that would be one way of describing it. Isn't it true that your father was what's known as a roper, someone working in a con game whose job is to find easy marks and rope or steer them into making a large bet on a fixed match? Isn't it true that your father in fact worked for the Maybray gang in Council Bluffs, Iowa, probably the largest sports racket in the country?"

"I don't believe...."

"Isn't it true that a postal inspector traveled to Seattle specifically to investigate your father? And isn't it true your father made a deal with the postal inspector to provide information about the gang in order to stay out of prison himself? And finally, and please forgive me for asking such questions, Miss Prothero, but the situation demands it. Your father's death wasn't accidental. He was the victim of a homicide. Isn't it likely that your father was murdered in retaliation for large losses suffered in the wagering on a recent sporting event? Is any of this not true?"

"I don't know if it's true or not." Emma had risen from her seat. She trembled with anger as she spoke. "You're taking the worst rumors about my father without any investigation..."

"Sit down, Miss Prothero!" demanded Judge Morris. "Control yourself or you'll be found in contempt of court."

"We now need to ask you some questions about your brother Robert," Tolliver continued. "We know that an attempt on your father's life was made several weeks before he died. Your father was given a dose of strychnine that nearly killed him. There was no police investigation of the matter, because neither you nor your father made any complaint. But we needed to know more about what happened. What we learned was that two weeks before the attempted poisoning Robert purchased a quantity of strychnine from a pharmacy on Greenwood Avenue. A few days after the attempt you took a quantity of strychnine to the same pharmacy for analysis. The pharmacist recalls that you appeared to be dumbfounded when he told you what the substance was. If you hadn't both used the same pharmacy we may never have learned any of this."

"Does counsel have a question here?" Lefferts called out. "We are listening to a series of irrelevant claims."

"What is your question, Mr. Tolliver?" asked the judge.

"The question for Miss Prothero is, is anything I've just said untrue, to your knowledge? It's all true, isn't it, Miss Prothero?"

"You have no right to question Robert," she exclaimed. "If he's having a hard time it's got nothing to do with this shoplifting case. Who talked to him? Don't just stare at me, who talked to him?"

Tolliver gazed at her with a benign, cherubic expression. He let her yell at him instead of cutting her off and demanding she answer the question. He had tried to get a reaction from her, and he had succeeded. She forced herself to loosen her shoulders and hide the anger she knew was visible in her face with an expression of calm attentiveness.

"I haven't talked to Robert about the strychnine," she said, speaking slowly so she could manage her tone. "It's possible he tried to poison our father."

"Why would he have wanted to kill his father?"

Emma looked from Tolliver to Mary Vinette. The dark-eyed woman sat watching Emma with a placid expression, not moving or doing anything to call attention to herself. Good little actress, she knows how to portray injured innocence. Emma became aware of another face immediately behind Mary in the first row of seats. Detective Still with the Pinkerton Agency. The Pinkertons were now employed on Mary Vinette's behalf. Operative Still had no reason to play at innocence as Mary did. He gazed at Emma with a knowing smirk. It must have been him who dug up the information about Robert. He probably enjoyed digging for dirt in the life of a rival operative. But how would he have known there was anything to look for? Carl. It had to be Carl. Mary Vinette could extract anything she wanted from the infatuated youth.

"Miss Prothero, if you would answer the question, please."

Emma closed her eyes and with a discipline earned through hours of running tried to manage the pace of her breathing. If she could control her breathing she could control the trembling in her legs. She was horrified by the public exposure of her private anguish. She hadn't been prepared for this. She fought against an urge to let go and collapse in tears. Deep breath in, controlled exhale. Focus on Mary Vinette. She cannot let Mary win.

"Miss Prothero?"

Emma knew that people lied under oath when it served their purpose. Though there had been times she kept information to herself when she had been questioned on the witness stand, she had never said No when the truthful answer was Yes. But she had never been as angry when being questioned as she was now.

"My brother had no reason I know of to harm our father. I am sure there is another explanation for the strychnine I found."

"I would like to remind the witness she is under an oath to tell the truth. Is it not true that your brother Robert had an experience related to a house of prostitution that led him to believe there had been an improper sexual connection between your father and the sister now being treated in an asylum?"

The blood drained from Emma's face. She had not imagined that Mary Vinette could have learned so much about her private life. She had to remember how much Carl could have learned about her family from Robert.

"You are trying to prove I was mistaken in arresting Mrs. Vinette for shoplifting. Your attack on my family has nothing whatever to do with that arrest. Shame on you for your personal attack...."

"I am reluctant to call your brother to testify, Miss Prothero," said Tolliver, talking over her response in a ringing courtroom voice, "but if you are not willing to answer the question I'm going to ask Robert these same questions."

"Witness will answer the question," said the judge.

"I do not know that Robert had any such experience," she said.

"I believe it was reported to you by someone who was present that Robert fell into a rage against his father after witnessing an encounter at a place of prostitution. Is that not correct?"

"Some such story was told me by the boy who faked insanity in this courtroom under the influence of Mrs. Vinette."

"And you greatly resent Mrs. Vinette for what you interpret as her influence over Carl Windell, don't you? You do not need to answer that question. To the issue of what you heard from the boy. You're right, much of what we hear is hearsay. But you must have thought there was at least a possibility that what you heard about Robert's anger might be true."

"No," she said.

"No?"

"No."

Emma looked from the attorney to Mary Vinette. She sat quietly at the table next to Tolliver, but there was nothing placid now in her expression. She stared at Emma like a cat measuring a leap at its prey.

"I have no further questions for the witness at this time."

"The witness is dismissed," said Morris.

Morris declared the trial in recess until the next morning, when counsel would be invited to make their closing statements.

Emma waited until Lefferts had put away his papers and was leaving the courtroom.

"What's going to happen?" she asked.

Lefferts looked at her and raised an eyebrow. "Here is what it's going to come to. They'll mistrust you because they think you're trying to get even. They'll mistrust Vinette because she already tried to con the courts. They'll look for a compromise where neither of you wins."

God or her own ambition, something was trying to teach her a lesson. Investigation was the path to the truth through discovery of information. She, the investigator, had been investigated. Information had been uncovered, but not enough to reveal the truth. Were there cases of her own where she should have asked whether the information her investigation had exposed was adequate? Or was investigation nothing more than a means of supporting some case a lawyer was trying to make? There had probably been a police-beat reporter in the courtroom taking notes that could be turned into a sensational and sordid tale. She left the courthouse with the dazed steps of someone who had lost her faith.

# CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

Mrs. Wood knocked on the back door, tried the latch and found it unlocked.

"It's me, dear," she called as she entered and set a bag with dinner on the table. "Did he ever come back?"

Not hearing an answer, she went into the living room. Emma sat in the sofa. She didn't raise her eyes to meet Mrs. Wood's inquiring look.

"He's gone," she said.

Mrs. Wood crossed to the doorway to Robert's room. Though she didn't clean the room, she had looked in often enough. The first thing she saw was that the big posters, one an airship, the other advertising the auto races at the Meadows, had been removed.

"He took his clothes," said Emma. Her voice was gravelly and despairing.

The poor girl, thought Mrs. Wood. She tried so hard to make the boy comfortable. Ever since that awful thing happened to the mister, she's clung to him. She has backbone, I knew that from the day she hired me. The girl had never encouraged intimacy, though she was always friendly. But this was worse than when the father had been murdered. Her instinct guided her to sit by Emma on the sofa and put her arms around her. Emma collapsed against her and began crying.

"He's a smart boy," said Mrs. Wood. "He stayed with school and got a steady job. He can take care of himself. My Davey was hardly any older when he went off to drive a wagon for that store in Mount Vernon. He had a shock with his pa. He's a good boy, and you been raising him good. Just needs some time to sort himself out." She continued with similar words, repeating herself, knowing what she was saying was probably less important that the human sound of a sympathetic voice.

Emma came to the end of her cry, gave Mrs. Wood a squeeze, and went to find a handkerchief to blow her nose. Mrs. Wood rose from the sofa and went into the kitchen to heat up the casserole she had prepared. She hoped the young woman would have the appetite to eat. She had more energy than any woman Mrs. Wood ever knew, always ate a good meal but never put on an extra ounce. An athlete she was with all the running and the mountain climbing. Devoted to her work, detective work the boy had said, though she herself never spoke about what she did. If any woman could do detective work, it was her. Always paid her to have a breakfast and a dinner there three days a week, even if no one showed up to eat. It was a little frustrating to cook a nice dinner and find it dry and shriveled in the oven the next morning. Family didn't keep regular hours, but she'd been told that from the start. The gentleman had liked his drink, and had his morose days even though he was usually cheery. Never got mean, though. The boy, what could you tell about a sixteen-year-old boy's life anyway? Something between him and the dad. The young woman always kept too much in, she'd seen that. It was good she'd been able to have a cry.

The mother, she knew, had died not long before she was hired. The sister in an asylum, the father meets a violent death. This boy, the brother, meant a lot to her. She wasn't surprised, really, to see he was off to find his own way. She felt sadness herself. Something about the family, the young woman being considerate even when she was busy, the father a handsome, regal man with the gift of charm, the boy reminding her of her own Davey, had motivated her to cook her best even when some of her meals would never be eaten. She'd adjusted her life to the extra income, and knew she would soon have to look for another family to cook for. She could only hope her next employer would be as nice.

# CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

When Mrs. Wood had cleaned up after the meal and gone, Emma looked at the picture over the sofa, a reproduction of a painting of Mt. Rainier. Across from the sofa the good china was displayed in a glass-fronted cabinet that hadn't been opened since her death. The china represented a social life, events like tea with women from her mother's church and crochet parties to make caps for orphan babies. There were no visitors now. No one came to sit on the sofa, pour tea and gossip about the failings of acquaintances. The past winter the parlor had seemed dark and chilly.

The bookcase contained the books she had alphabetized last year, Conan Doyle at the left top, the two Wharton novels on the bottom right. It was a comfortable room, a décor of unplanned accumulation as a family of children grew up. A chintz sofa that had been there forever, a mahogany dining room table and a set of Queen Anne chairs purchased after her father's return from a profitable cross-country trip.

Robert's departure transformed the room. It was now a scrapbook of memories, a nest that had been abandoned by its tenants. There had been a time they were all comfortable in the nest. But their security had been false from the beginning. The home had been built on the precarious income from a hustle that would sooner or later collapse, a loveless marriage, an unthinkable period of incest. She wondered how much her mother had known about what their father did.

Emma didn't want to be in the house any more. She dressed in her cotton sweatsuit and track shoes and set out on the street heading north. When she reached the paths through the pastureland she began running, feeling her heart pound in her chest. When she ran hard life became simpler. The sensation of legs driving, lungs aching, feet striking the soil, arms pumping, eyes on the path ahead, drove thoughts into the background. She kept going until sweat burned in her eyes and the light began to fade.

In the morning her instinct led her to an inconspicuous place in the back of the courtroom. But after a moment, Emma rose and moved to a more visible place toward the front of the spectator seating. Lefferts began his summary. He spent most of his time talking about the Windell hearing. He argued that Mrs. Vinette was behind the lawsuit and would have gained a lucrative settlement if Dr. Roller hadn't broken down the Windell boy's sham insanity. He asserted that the current lawsuit was another attempt to win a bonanza from a wealthy business. There was at least some reason to believe that plaintiff's actions in the Bon were a ruse to cause a false arrest. The arrest had been made by an experienced detective with a fine record.

When Lefferts was finished Tolliver stepped up to the jury box. "You are being asked to believe a cunning plot to deliberately bring about a false arrest has been discovered here," he began. "Let's look at a much more likely cause for what happened. What we have here is a female detective with a family history of insanity and criminal behavior cracking under terrific strain. I feel great sympathy for Miss Prothero, and can easily forgive her for a mistake made in a state of female hysteria. Her sister has been diagnosed as insane and is confined in the state insane asylum. Her father admitted to postal authorities that he was a con man working for a gang. This father also appears to have had sexual congress with his older daughter. When the brother discovered this horror he made an attempt on the father's life. And finally, just at the time of this false arrest, the father was murdered. I ask the jurymen to imagine themselves as a young woman, well-intentioned but nervous and high-strung, trying to bear such a burden. It is completely understandable that she would lash out at someone she perceived as an enemy. But our sympathy for her and our understanding of her plight does not lessen the humiliation Mary Vinette was forced to endure. If you have wives or daughters, try to imagine how they would feel if something like this happened to them. Imagine them being handled as if they were common criminals. She is entitled to our compassion and to compensation. The Bon Marche is responsible for Miss Prothero's actions. We ask you to find the Bon Marche liable for the damages requested."

As Emma listened to the attorney's speech her first impulse was to stand up and shout "No!" at Tolliver's claims and phony sympathy. But she saw that several of the jurymen were glancing at her as he spoke. She felt herself filled with the energy of their attention. She took a deep slow breath and let that energy transform her from a hurt young woman into a practiced Holmesean actress. The forward seat she had taken would be her stage.

She understood what these men would do. They were in the process of making a judgment about two women. Lefferts was probably right about how she and Mary Vinette were perceived. The reasoning and arguments of the lawyers wouldn't make much difference. Both attorneys made good arguments. That was what attorneys did. The jurymen would decide based on their gut feel for the honesty of herself and Mary Vinette.

Vinette had done well. The jurymen had never seen the look of hate burning into Emma's face from across the room. Emma knew she had damaged the image of professionalism she had tried to sustain when Tolliver induced her to lose her composure. Now was the time to gain her credibility back, and she chose her role.

As if she were carrying out surveillance on the floor at Redelsheimers she appeared to be looking at the attorney while she actually watched the jurymen. Her posture, leaning slightly forward with her hands folded on her lap, was modestly self-assured. The right balance of confidence and humility was critical. At the climax of his speech, when Tolliver was accusing her of hysterical behavior, she knew that nearly all of the jurymen were looking at her. She selected her moment, and made one small shake of her head with her lips pressed together, as if she were sorry for the attorney for not seeing the truth. When Tolliver spoke of the humiliation of Mary Vinette, she felt the jury's attention shift to the woman at the table. When she was aware of the glances shifting from Mary back to herself, she gazed at the woman with a look expressing sorrow and perhaps even pity.

The jury deliberated for half an hour. The foreman cleared his throat and at the judge's request told the court the jury determined to award the plaintiff one dollar in damages. Emma rose and left the courtroom without looking at Mary Vinette or waiting to talk with Lefferts. She walked through the downtown from the courthouse to the Arcade and Cody's office. Cody was reading reports at his desk. She told him the verdict. He was about to congratulate her, but saw her unsmiling face and only said, "Big relief."

# Part Nine

# ROBERT

A legitimate game of faro offered gamblers the best odds against the house. But many of the traveling fairs and circuses brought fixed games to town

# CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

# The shabby second-floor Windell household was filled with children. Mrs. Windell, sitting at the kitchen table folding clothes, looked up at Emma without interest, drained of energy already at ten o'clock. Emma found Carl at the kitchen counter peeling turnips with a paring knife.

"Did you know Robert hasn't been home? I'm really worried. Carl, where is he?"

Carl pushed his tongue into his cheek.

"Come on, tell me. Haven't I been your friend?"

"Yeah."

"Well, come on."

"Everett," he said.

"Everett? What's he doing there?"

"Working."

"Carl, for Gods sake, I've been worried sick about him. What kind of a job? Why didn't he tell me?"

"Working at the fair up there."

"But why didn't he let me know?"

Carl stared at the floor. "He didn't think you'd like what he's doing."

"Well, what is he doing at a fair? Is he working in some kind of gambling game?"

Carl shrugged. "I guess."

"Is he working in a faro game? Is it that dealer from Luna Park?"

Carl looked up quickly at her. "You mean Black Jack Bouchee."

Black Jack Bouchee. Why did she know that name? Then Emma remembered. The smiling handsome man the afternoon she had met her father's friends at Leschi. That's why he looked familiar when she had watched Robert at the Luna Park faro game.

"I know who he is," she said. "I met him once, a long time ago. What exactly is Robert doing?"

"He works the card counter at Black Jack's faro table. He's making good money."

"How do you know all this? Have you seen him?"

"I went up there."

"You like that Black Jack Bouchee."

"He's sharp," said Carl. She could hear the admiration in his voice. "He's showing Robert a lot of stuff."

"Teaching him how to be a professional gambler," said Emma. "That man's a thief. I've seen him at work."

"Robert says the game's straight," said Carl.

"How could he not know I'd be worried? Help me, Carl. You know how long this fair runs?"

"The end of the month I think."

She closed her eyes in relief that at least she knew where to find him. "Thank you," she said, "for talking to me."

# CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

The Everett fair was no Luna Park. Hastily constructed one-story buildings faced a row of amateurishly painted canvas arcade game booths. The ground was covered with a thick layer of sawdust that seemed to have drifted down out of the sky. The sawdust muffled footsteps like early-winter snow. Shrieking gulls carved trajectories overhead. In the late afternoon there were few visitors in sight. The booth operators sat talking with one another, reading the paper, or dozing. A woman led a small boy along the midway by the hand, but there was no excitement in his eyes. There were no rides, no barkers, no exotic animals, nothing here to fire a child's imagination.

On the train to Everett a tool salesman had tried to strike up a conversation with Emma. Usually she was politely curt with such men. In spite of the cool temperature in the train her neck and forehead were damp with perspiration. She let herself escape into a conversation with the salesman.

He told her that Everett had become a boomtown. Two years earlier the fire in San Francisco had destroyed the California cedar shingle mills. Now most of the world's shingles came from Everett. New mills were springing up every week, and skilled shingle weavers could earn five dollars a day. But it was a desperate prosperity, the salesman said. Rumors of a new composition shingle cheaper and more durable than cedar had mill operators hedging their purchases of lumber.

At six o'clock the mill whistles began blowing, and within minutes men from the saw and shingle mills began to emerge from the streets around the fairgrounds. Some of the younger workmen collected along the arcade, laughing together and tossing darts at balloons or having their weight guessed. But most headed for the buildings across from the arcade. Emma followed a group into the first building. Bartenders working fast behind a long L-shaped bar drew steins of beer from a row of tapped barrels and poured whiskey for the hands reaching across the pine bar. The second building was another saloon. Through the third door she found what she was looking for. A man with cash in his pocket and confidence in his luck could choose from poker games, dice tossed into long boxes, and, at a table under an electric bulb wrapped in a paper shell to diffuse the glare, the green painted cloth of Black Jack Bouchee's faro bank. Men jostled to take up the available chairs around the table, more crowded against the chairs to watch and bet.

Robert sat at Bouchee's side, operating an abacus-like device with an expression of concentration.

She could wait until Bouchee closed his bank, approach him, and demand he let Robert go. For Robert's sake he probably wouldn't be rude or threatening to her. He might even be courteous. He would tell her it was up to her brother whether Robert wanted to stay in Everett or leave with her, and he would be right. It was Robert she had to convince. The impulsive confrontations that had probably too often been her means of solving problems would not work with her brother. She had to accept that he was now making his own decisions. If she could guide him from this point in his life it would be as a sports coach, not a boss.

What would Sherlock Holmes do in the circumstances? She was not about to admit to anyone she asked herself the question, but she knew that guessing how the fictional detective would react helped her think about a problem with a measure of detachment. In Everett, Holmes would fall back on his two most dependable resources: observation and disguise. She would have to be patient. Robert believed the faro game was straight, but she was sure Black Jack had an angle, and she would find it.

Emma had known there would be no women among the mill hands in the gambling hall. She'd prepared herself by dressing in a laborer's denim pants and smock, thick-soled shoes several sizes too large for her feet, and a mustache she had purchased at the costume store in Seattle where her high school drama class acquired its costumes and makeup. Her hair was tied up and covered with a floppy cloth cap that drooped down almost covering her ears and fitting low across her brow. While she waited for the six o'clock whistle she had watched the few men in sight saunter along the midway and practiced walking like them, with a heavier step and a slight swing to her shoulders. No one had looked at her. She had never disguised herself as a man before. Once she was in the gambling hall she expected she might have to use her skill at being inconspicuous, but there was no need. Men in a crowd ignored one another in a way they did not ignore a woman in their presence.

Emma found a spot in a shadowy part of the low-ceilinged gambling hall close enough to follow the action at the faro table. She hoped the big shoes wouldn't be too uncomfortable. She might be standing a long time.

She had a rough idea how faro was played. Now her knowledge became more exact. The game moved swiftly, paced by the banker's chatter. The wagering had to do with whether the next card drawn out of a box was higher or lower than the previous card. Robert's job was to keep a card count for the bettors. Robert watched the cards and slid the markers along their wires without expression. He moved like an automaton, detached from the men around the table, which was probably how Black Jack had coached him to behave.

Black Jack had a fine-featured face of smooth planes. His nose, chin, and cheeks appeared to have been carved with a sharp blade. His wide white-toothed smile and riveting eyes didn't give the person he was talking to a chance to look away. His patter moved easily back and forth between laughing encouragement and teasing scorn. He knew how to arouse a crowd of men to a state of frenzied excitement and hold them there. She recognized the melodious voice from the faro table at Luna Park, and, she was sure, from the seductive words of the smiling man who had flattered her as the pretty girl who got good grades her years ago in the park. The voice had remained in her memory with surprising clarity.

One player, a nervously active man who gave a short whistle as each card was turned, was placing large bets and winning. Emma studied him. He was concentrating on the cards, but she could tell he was conscious he was being watched by the crowd. Was gambling like mountain climbing? There were surely ways to gamble in private, but how much of the satisfaction of winning was being seen as a winner? A man among men.

A big thick-necked man who was losing most of his bets rose to his feet and stared hard at Bouchee. "Game's rigged," he said. "Box is gaffed." With a deliberate gesture he pulled his jacket open to reveal a revolver in his belt. "I'll take my money back."

Black Jack's smile widened even further. "Gentleman here says the game's rigged. Some of you know me, know I run a straight game." He let his glance slide across his audience, engaging everyone. "What do the rest of you think? Ask this fellow here." Bouchee pointed to the man who had been winning. "Think he'd be winning like he is if the game's rigged?" He turned from the crowd of gamblers he'd been addressing to gaze back at the man standing in front of him. "Or maybe you think I'm in cahoots with this fellow who's winning. Maybe you think he's going to give me back the money he's won after we close up? That what you think? Go ahead, ask the man. You going to give me back what you won tonight, friend? Tell the gentleman with the pistol here, he thinks you're working with me."

"Hell no I ain't," the winning gambler laughed. "Keepin' every cent of it."

Bouchee raised his eyebrows and gestured with an open hand to the crowd. Several men began grumbling at the man standing with his gun showing. "You lost fair and square," someone said. "It's a fair game," said someone else. "Some nights you win, some nights you lose." The man snarled like a guard dog at Bouchee, then turned his back and strode away from the table, knocking a couple of men out of his way with his heavy shoulders. "You assholes are suckers!"

Black Jack drew back one cheek and shook his head, as if to say "some people." Then he resumed the game as if nothing had happened. He's good, Emma thought. Deflected a confrontation, got the crowd on his side. He knows what he's doing.

After riding his streak of luck for a time the winning gambler gave a loud whooo and made signs he was done playing for the night. Black Jack reached out his hand toward the man.

"Sir, the gods of fortune are smiling on you tonight. Are you sure you want to quit?"

The man laughed. "It's been my night all right. But you gotta know when to quit."

"Well, you came close enough to breaking the bank. Don't take it personal, but if I see you again I hope your luck goes the other way. But no hard feelings. Here now, do me the honor to drink with me to your success."

The dealer reached beneath the table and produced two small glasses and a bottle. He ceremoniously poured two drinks, handed one to the lucky gambler, and raised his own glass.

"To your luck and skill, sir," Black Jack called out.

"Well thank you too," said the gambler.

As the man turned to make his way from the table, Black Jack did something that struck Emma as odd. Before putting away the bottle and glasses, he rose to his feet and tapped his left breast three times, then sat again and resumed taking bets and drawing cards from the box.

The winning gambler, nodding to himself with satisfaction, worked his way through the crowd to the door with the deliberation of someone drunk enough to need some effort to keep his balance. Motivated by a desire to move around and restore the circulation in her legs as much as by an instinct to pay attention to the money, she followed the gambler out of the building. As the gambler approached a crowd near the arcade two men from the crowded hall, one larger, one much smaller, hurried past her. In the thick of the crowd the larger man bumped into the gambler and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Pardon me, I wasn't paying attention," said the man.

"Easy does it there," said the gambler.

Thirty seconds later the gambler stopped in mid-stride and reached for his breast pocket.

"Goddammit!" he cried. "I've been robbed."

He turned and stared in the direction he had come.

"Did anybody see that?" he yelled out. "The fellow who bumped me, anyone see where he went?"

Several men near him turned and looked in the direction the gambler was staring, shaking their heads in gestures of futile assistance.

Emma knew what was happening the moment the man bumped into the gambler. She had apprehended pickpockets in the department stores. They usually worked in pairs, one jostling the victim, the other lifting the victim's wallet. The smaller figure, the pickpocket, disappeared in the crowd immediately. Emma followed the larger man, who was easier to see in the crowd as he crossed the midway toward the street. She hurried forward and crossed ahead of him, seeing enough of his blunt, clean-shaven face that she would recognize him if she saw him again. She returned to her station in the hall and continued to observe the faro game.

At ten o'clock Black Jack Bouchee closed up the faro bank. Emma was relieved. She was afraid she might have to wait and watch late into the night. But the fair closed early. These were not Luna Park revelers with the whole night to entertain themselves. They were laborers who knew what could happen to a man working next to one of the shrieking five-foot steel sawblades if he wasn't well rested.

When Black Jack and Robert left the building with their equipment packed up in a leather case and walked across the fairgrounds she followed. She trailed them without difficulty into the center of town and to a late-night café next to a large hotel. Emma hurried to her own hotel, peeled off her moustache and got out of her coveralls as quickly as she could. She was back at the café before Black Jack and her brother finished their supper and sat down next to Robert in their booth.

"You should have told me you were coming here," said Emma.

"Sis?" said Robert, fork frozen above his plate. "What are you doing here?"{

"I want you to come back with me."

"Why? I'm not doing anything wrong."

"You're Robert's sister, aren't you?" said Black Jack. "Jay Prothero's daughter."

"I'm Robert's sister, yes."

"I met you once, didn't I? I'm Jack Bouchee."

"I know who you are," she said. "We need to go back to Seattle," she said to Robert.

"Why don't you tell me what the problem is," said Black Jack. "You don't want him working for a gambler, is that it?"

"No, I don't. He has a good job with the messenger service. He's going to finish school."

"Of course he's going to finish school. The fair ends in a week."

"You're not a good influence on him."

"You don't like gambling. I understand that. Your father was a gambler in his day. You knew that, didn't you?"

He smiled as he talked, a vivid, friendly smile. There was no defiance or argumentativeness in his voice. He spoke as a reasonable man trying to make his view of things understood.

"I liked your father. I'm really sorry about what happened to him. I hope you'll accept my condolences."

She couldn't respond except to nod.

"Our faro bank here is a straight game. There's no cheating. Robert's not gambling, he's doing a job that takes some thinking. Not everyone has the intelligence to do it. He's being well paid."

"Robert, you can't make this your life."

Robert looked back and forth between her and Black Jack. She couldn't read his face. She had no idea what he was thinking.

"I don't want to interfere in a family," said Black Jack. "You're his sister, you can give him orders. But don't you think the time's come for him to choose what he's doing? He's not a child any more."

"Of course he's not a child," said Emma, her voice rising.

"You think it's the best thing to do, tell him what kind of work he should do?"

"No," said Emma. "He'll do whatever work he wants. You're a bad influence on him. I know what you do. I saw the double suitcase."

"You're a store detective, aren't you?" I hear you're good at your job. Robert, you can go back with your sister if you want. I sure could use you for the next week, but I won't try to stop you. Just be sure you're doing what you want."

"You didn't have to come, Sis," said Robert.

"Don't you know how I worry about you?"

"You worry about me because of what happened to Julia. You treat me like a kid."

"I don't, Robert. I know you're growing up. But after what happened with you and your dad, how can you blame me?"

She saw his eyes flash and realized she had said the wrong thing.

"You should let him choose what he wants to do," said Black Jack.

"You're recruiting him," said Emma. "You're leading him into a criminal life."

"It's not true to say running a faro bank is criminal."

"I know what you're doing," she said. She saw from Robert's tight-lipped expression that he wasn't going to say anything more. "I need you to come home," she said. Realizing she didn't know what more to say except to repeat herself, she stood, touched Robert on the shoulder, and left the café.

Pulling her nightgown over her head and lying down on the hard bed of he small hotel room, Emma tried to think what else she might have said. Bouchee had been courteous, reasonable, and unruffled. She saw how any young man could fall under his influence, observing his actions and modeling his behavior, consciously or not, on Black Jack's example, gaining confidence and learning how to manage people. She was afraid she had lost Robert. She had no other plan except to resume her disguise and look for a way to convince Robert Black Jack was not a man to model his life after. If she was going to climb Rainier with Andreas Vik, she had two days.

When Black Jack and Robert left the building with their equipment packed up in a leather case she restrained herself from running up and embracing her brother. Robert was in no immediate danger. If she was to join Casebolt and Vik for the Rainier climb, she had a few more days to find a way to get Robert away from Black Jack Bouchee.

Emma was back the next night with an extra pair of thick socks filling out her shoes. The faro table was crowded with bettors. She spotted the big man who had jostled the pickpocket's victim in the crowd. This night some of the players came out ahead, others left money with the bank, but no one had a run of luck. No one was offered a congratulatory drink from Black Jack's bottle. The game could indeed be straight. She wondered if Black Jack's strategy might be to lose spectacularly from time to time, as he had the previous night. The word going around the mills about someone winning big would be the best possible advertising for Bouchee's faro bank. Some of the players, she saw, were repeaters from the night before.

When Bouchee closed the faro bank she was tempted to follow Robert, but she resisted. She didn't know what she would do, but she learned the fair was running another week, so she at least had time to develop a plan. In the morning she took a long walk around the perimeter of the city. She wondered what Robert did during the daytime before the gambling hall opened. She guessed he would have found other boys his age. He wouldn't be playing baseball, but might have borrowed a bike. He enjoyed riding his bike even when he wasn't making deliveries.

She could discipline herself to patience when she worked on the floor in the stores, but her professional patience didn't carry over to simply waiting for time to pass. The day seemed interminable. She imagined the climb with Vik and Casebolt. She decided she would set out without saying anything to Vik about his shoplifting operation. Without being aware of what she was doing she scripted a drama, a confrontation with Vik, Casebolt as the witnessing chorus, an expanse of white glacier as the perfect stage.

If she was to get back to Seattle in time for the climb, she now had only a day or two to figure out how to get Robert away from Everett. She walked south of town into the countryside, watching dairy cows browsing in the lush flat pastureland, conscious of the sun crossing the sky toward the sound.

She was waiting at the edge of the fairgrounds at six when the crowds appeared. Once again she joined the crowd at the faro table. She was careful not to stare at Robert. If he looked up and caught her eye he might recognize her. But she was good at watching without staring.

Once again the evening of gambling passed with no-one either winning or losing large amounts of money. It was her impression at ten o'clock that Bouchee had come out slightly ahead, but she hadn't wasted time calculating. Once again she left before Black Jack and Robert had finished rolling up the felt table cover to make sure they wouldn't notice her. Anxiety woke her in the middle of the night. She sat on the edge of the bed with her head in her hands. She was almost out of time. For the first time in her life the thought of taking something to help her sleep tempted her.

At the faro bank the next evening a mill worker with what appeared to be two weeks' wages in a fat wallet began winning. He would squint his eyes narrowly at the card box, pass on most of the turns, then suddenly lay down a big bet. Whatever process he was using seemed to be working.

Around nine the mill worker placed a tip on the felt for the dealer and rose to leave. As he had done two nights earlier, Black Jack held out his hand to stop the man, offered his congratulations, and brought up the whiskey and glasses to toast the winner. Then he rose, tapped his right front pants pocket, and sat down again.

When she saw the gesture, Emma knew instantly what she was going to do. She moved quickly through the crowd to Robert's chair and bent to speak into his ear.

"It's me! Tell Bouchee you have to leave for a minute and come with me. Right now!"

Robert looked up and recognized his sister. His mouth fell open in surprise at the sight of her with a moustache on her lip.

"Come on. I have to show you something. But right now."

"I can't..." Robert started.

"Yes you can. Come on!" She shifted her look between Robert and the departing gambler. Luckily for Emma the man was in no hurry to leave the building. He stopped to boast about his winnings to some of his cronies.

"What's the problem here?" Black Jack asked, frowning at Emma.

Emma grasped Robert's arm and half-lifted him out of the chair.

"Uh, I'll be right back," Robert said to Black Jack and let Emma lead him through the crowd. He looked at her in her male disguise in disbelief.

"What're you doing here?"

"Black Jack has pickpockets working for him" she said. "He's a thief. You know how he stands when a winner is leaving?"

"He does that to stretch."

"No. He's showing the pickpocket where the winner put the money. This one, right front pants pocket. There, see him? You watch. He's going to have his wallet taken before he gets very far."

And a moment later, as Emma and Robert walked out of the gambling hall, the pickpocket team hurried past them towards the mill worker with the fat wallet.

Emma gripped Robert's arm and as she had done years earlier on a Ballard trolley track pulled him forward at a half-run.

"That's them, that's them. Black Jack's pickpockets. Just watch. The big one will bump him and the small one will take the wallet. Hurry!"

Emma knew the theft would happen when the worker with the thick wallet passed through a cluster of people. She closed in.

"There!" she cried with a muffled voice to Robert. "You see how they did it? Follow me."

This time Emma went after the pickpocket. The thief was small, smaller than herself, likely a boy. There was no more need for concealment. As the thief left the midway and entered the street she heard a commotion from the fairgrounds. The victim had discovered the theft and was raising an outcry. Emma broke into a run, moving as fast as she could in the clumsy shoes. She laid a hand on the thief's shoulder.

"Excuse me," Emma said. "I want to talk to you." Then she stared.

"Good Lord. It's you." And burst out in laughter.

Emma Prothero and Mary Vinette, each with a false mustache pasted to her upper lip and dressed in men's clothing, gazed at one another in the half-light at the edge of the fairgrounds. Robert ran to join them.

"Robert, do you know who this is? The woman who made Carl fall in love with her? Did you ever meet Mary Vinette?"

"She's the pickpocket?" Robert said.

"Indeed she is. So how do you work it, Mary? You split what you lift fifty-fifty with Black Jack?"

Mary Vinette stared over Emma's shoulder with a look of panic and calculation, as if she was about to run.

"No, no," said Emma. "You don't have to run off. I'm not going to do anything. You and I are done. You can have the man's money. I just wanted my brother to see how Black Jack earns a living."

Emma turned to Robert. "Mary here, Black Jack Bouchee, and that blond explorer who took Pop, they were part of a big shoplifting gang. I almost had them." She reached out and grasped Mary by the wrist, and gazed at her. For two seconds, the joy of the victor tasting the anguish of the defeated glowed in her eyes. Then she let it go and looked down at Mary's hand.

"You're very good. I'm a good detective, and you fooled me." She ran her thumb across Mary's hand almost affectionately. "That move with the blouses, and I was watching. That was good. Shoplifting, picking pockets, you have a talent. You know, I just thought of something." She let Mary's hand fall. "You ever thought about going on stage as a magician? Hook up with a carnival and find someone to show you the tricks of the business. You watch, it's going to be a woman's world. There's female detectives and mountain climbers. Why not a female magician?"

Mary Vinette tilted her small head to one side and peered at Emma.

"You're talking to me seriously, aren't you?"

"Yes," said Emma. "I am. I don't like what you did to Carl. But you're an actress, and you're skillful. You could do better than lawsuits and shoplifting. You could pull it off."

"I got to get back," said Robert. "Black Jack'll can me." Now it was Emma, leaving Mary Vinette to her future, hurrying to keep up with her brother as he jogged back to the gambling hall.

"It hurt you didn't let me know you were going."

"Sorry," he said, looking her in the face, something he hadn't done in months. "I thought you'd try to stop me."

"I'm leaving too," she said. She stopped and touched his arm before letting him hurry back into the hall.

"You think the faro game is straight. Maybe it is. And I know you're a good card counter. But Black Jack is a crook. I know about thievery he's involved in. He and Mary are shoplifters. I'm just afraid if you stay with him sooner or later he'll get you into the dirty part of his business."

"I need to get back to the table," said Robert. He looked at Emma a lingering moment, then hurried through the doorway. Emma stayed where she was, knowing better than to go after him. No lecture from her would be more effective than the demonstration Robert had just witnessed. There was nothing more she could do. She hoped it was enough.

# Part Ten

# THE MOUNTAIN

More than 90 climbers have died attempting to climb Mt. Rainier, a 14,411-foot peak 54 miles southeast of Seattle.

# CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

Emma's first reaction to the note in an envelope that had been pushed under her door was a groan of disappointment. Casebolt had written to say he hadn't been able to find her or call her to tell her the climb had to be rescheduled two days ahead of the planned departure.

If she missed the climb she would probably never see Vik again. She calculated. Two days meant the party had left Seattle the morning before. If she took the early train she would be a day behind them. Casebolt would be slow. She had a chance to catch them.

There was little time to plan. She placed a telephone call and was lucky to reach an experienced climber she knew who had succeeded in reaching the summit of Rainier. She took rapid notes as he described the possible routes. When she told him she would be meeting a party already climbing, he warned her no one should try to climb that mountain without being part of a group in case of trouble. In a state of excitement she set to work packing up her woolen clothing, recoiling her ropes, and rubbing a fresh coat of neatsfoot oil into her boots. In the morning she carried the gear to the Union Station and took the train to Tacoma.

When the weather was clear on the Saturday trainrides to Steilacoom Emma had admired the grandeur of the mountain that rose into the sky in the east. Like any mountaineer looking at a dramatic peak, she would speculate about the difficulty of an ascent. This morning the mountain was not scenery, it was her destination. She would soon learn how difficult it was.

In Tacoma she transferred to the small train with a single passenger car that carried her east to Ashford. As she traveled directly towards it she could see less of the mountain. The Ashford train strained upward along a channel carved through firs, cedars and hemlocks that rose like green walls on either side of the tracks. At Ashford Emma climbed down with her gear and sat on a station bench apart from the other visitors waiting for the wagon that would take them to Longmire. She didn't feel like making casual conversation. Her fellow passengers were cheerfully excited, visitors on holiday who had come to hike in the meadows at the base of mountain. They were not climbers. She saw no climbing gear, and none of the apprehensiveness she knew would have tempered the exuberance of a climbing party.

The wagon arrived and the driver loaded the passengers' luggage. The road to Longmire was smoother than she expected. Longmire was the highest settlement on the mountain, a hotel and a cluster of buildings for the work crews. Money had been spent on road construction in preparation for the day tourists would come here in automobiles to take a close look at the mountain. Only a few years earlier Mount Rainier had been declared a national park.

At Longmire Emma took a room for the night. After supper in the hotel dining room she sat on the porch with other guests, feeling a little more sociable than she had earlier, holding a cup of tea in her hands and gazing up at the mountain, trying to gauge the weather. A thin line of clouds drifted towards the east, high up on the white slopes. The clouds appeared to move at a leisurely rate, but she knew that if she could see the movement from here the winds would be driving forcefully once she was there on the snow.

"Magnificent, isn't it?" said the man sitting next to her.

"It is," she agreed.

"You seem to be studying it pretty close."

"I'd like to know what the weather's going to do."

"I bet it stays pretty nice here. Or do you mean up there? You're not planning to climb up there, are you?"

"If I can."

The man's wife leaned across him and said, "Are you a mountain climber?"

Emma said she had climbed to the summits of several peaks in the Cascades and the Olympics.

"You are a brave young woman," she exclaimed.

"Now what on earth would motivate you to want to go up there?" the man asked. His tone was both curious and patronizing.

"Let me ask you," she said. "What's the most difficult thing you ever wanted to do?"

"The most difficult thing?" the man said. "I can tell you right now what it was. Ten years ago I played football at the University." He leaned back in his chair, a man relishing the story someone had given him an excuse to tell. "We played two games against this team of Puyallup Indians. First game they whipped us eighteen to eleven. A cocky bunch, but some of those boys were pretty good. Indians can run. Second game I wanted to win more than anything I ever wanted. I was a halfback, and with about five minutes to go I made a sixty-yard touchdown run. I just wouldn't let 'em stop me. You have to remember this was before Teddy Roosevelt tamed the game down. We could do flying tackles then."

"The President tamed the game down because sixteen players were killed in one season," said his wife. "What a brutal sport."

"Neutral zone, have to have six men on the line, they took the starch out of the game."

"So you can understand, don't you think?" Emma asked him. "For me, that mountain is like your Indians. I'll find a route through the obstacles and get to the top."

The man, who had a wide face, and a broken nose she noticed when he said he'd been a collegiate football player, chuckled. "That's a good comparison." Then he raised an eyebrow. "I had a team though. You part of a group?"

"I'm trying to meet some people who already started," she said.

"Well, I think I know what you mean. Once you get a thing like that in your mind, you want to do it and nothing else matters."

"He has two daughters at home and he isn't going to take up any crazy notions," his wife said. "But good luck to you. I know you'll be careful. I'd hate to read about you in the papers."

She was the only traveler to continue up the mountain from Longmire with the horse packer. Just before noon the she and the packer passed an auto at the side of the trail. It had to be the car the dealership loaned to Casebolt and Vik.

"You think they broke down?" she asked the packer.

"Can't go any farther. Road crew's just ahead. This here's as far as the road went two days ago."

An explosion boomed and echoed, close enough for Emma to feel the concussion. She clucked at her horse as it shied from the sound. As the horses came around a turn she saw the road crew at work. It was a big crew, twenty men at least. They had just dynamited a stump and several men were chopping at the exposed roots. The crew moved aside to let the riders pass.

"How long ago did the people from the car go by?" she called to them.

"Yesterday, maybe middle of the afternoon," someone called back.

Near the edge of the snow above Paradise Valley, the packer asked Emma if she wanted him to return in two or three days to take her back. She said no, she would hike back to the Paradise camp.

"You sure? You're going to be really tired. There'll be campers here. You can come back with them."

"I'll be fine," she said. "I can pace myself."

The packer shook his head. "I think you could have some weather coming in."

"I'll catch up with the people who went up yesterday. I'll be careful."

"You better be. Nobody to pull you out of a crevasse if you go in."

She tied the ends of her two sleeping blankets together so she could carry them over a shoulder as a pack. Food, a canteen and a spirit lamp were wrapped in oilcloth and secured in the rolled blankets. She had climbed to the summit of rocky peaks with companions, but she had never tried to climb alone up a mountain big enough to be covered by snow and glaciers. She had never attempted anything like what she was now undertaking. Rainier, a few hundred feet short of being the highest peak in America, fourteen thousand feet.

Emma knew there was no need for her to climb the mountain. All she had to do was set up a camp here and wait. This was the route Vik and Casebolt would take on their return to the auto.

But she had formed her resolve as she pondered Casebolt's note. The image that had evolved as she wandered through the farmlands of Everett, a meeting with Vik on a white snowfield somewhere near the summit of the mountain, became more vivid and detailed. In his element, he would stand and face her. He would discover that it was her element as well. She was Sherlock Holmes going to face Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls.

The wind was mild as she began the ascent. The upper snowfields were clearly visible. Her guess was that with an inexperienced climber Vik would take the route the climber she'd called said had the best chance for success, up to the Muir camp and to Gibraltar Rock. She wondered why she hadn't seen the driver the Franklin dealer was providing. She expected to find him camping at Paradise Park. They must be taking him up the mountain.

She began slowly, moving diagonally across what looked like the route a climbing party would have taken. After several wide traverses she found their steps in the snow.

A half an hour she looked back to see how far she had climbed above the meadow at the edge of the snowline. She felt strong. She settled into the familiar and satisfying rhythm of moving higher at a deliberate, unrushed pace. She planted her alpenstock with each left step. While sorting through her equipment she decided to bring her long alpenstock rather than the ice axe, though without the axe she wouldn't be able to cut steps in the snow. Since she would be climbing solo until she found Vik's party, she wanted the greater safety the alpenstock provided.

The slope never leveled to give her a moment of easy walking. Emma smiled, remembering a statement from one of Cousin Annie's magazine articles that climbing was unremitting hard labor. You wouldn't have known that was her view when you climbed with her, though. Annie relished the effort demanded. "When I get going I think of myself as a locomotive," she had said, stopping and turning to grin at Emma, who gasped with each step to reach the spot where Annie waited. "Iron lungs, steel legs. Most men can't keep up."

Emma held herself back, knowing from experience how much energy she could expend and still have something left in reserve for the summit push. The summit, of course, was not her purpose. She was here to track down the climbers ahead. She pushed hard enough to expel each breath with an audible puff as she moved upward in the thinning air. Emma imagined she was Cousin Annie measuring the steps ahead. Though her anxiety about her brother never left her she was aware of the pleasure of the climb. And there was another sensation she experienced, familiar but until today not a part of her mountaineering adventures. She tasted the heady exhilaration of the chase.

Emma recognized the Muir camp from the description she'd been given of the flattened saddle. The sun had gone behind the mountain's mass. She had climbed with only brief rest stops more than half a day. The clouds begin to glow with orange and apricot coloring. A fine spectacle, the glowing colors, and a good sign. If the clouds were lower she would see only gray. Vik and Casebolt could not be far ahead. If she stopped here on the flat she would get a more comfortable night's sleep than the others would have on the exposed slope.

She selected a level, protected space. Once she had arranged her tarp and blankets she lit the spirit lamp and soon was sitting meditatively with a cup of tea warming her hands. She tried to slow her thoughts, but she had never learned the trick of doing it in a single day. She needed two nights in the mountains to slow her mental activity from city time to mountain time. City dwellers never had the chance to become aware of rush of thoughts through their heads. There was always the hurry of things to be doing, things to prepare for. In the mountains, once a place to rest had been found and a simple meal eaten, there was nothing to do but watch the light fade and wait for sleep.

That was when Emma would become aware, as she never was in the city, of the way thoughts tumbled one after the other through her mind. Memories came, following some obscure thread, Julia cautioning her about her exuberant bicycling, Cousin Annie's sure eye selecting a route up the snowy Olympic ridge, Black Jack Bouchee's confident management of his faro bank, her father.... Her thoughts, released from their urban moorings, expanded into the limitless spaces of the mountainside. She wondered if the experience of most boys growing to manhood was like Robert's. Maybe for farmboys it was different. Or were they all exposed to the same risks? Was there a Restricted District somewhere calling to each of them? She wondered if Wappenstein would retain his position after the mayoral election. Would the preachers and the Law and Order League, the indignant women of Seattle, be able to contest the power of the chief's accumulating wealth? When Vik had departed for his expedition would the big man still be looking for her?

She wondered, before sleep took her, what Vik would say to her.

Cold woke Emma in the middle of the night. She was overwhelmed with sadness. Tears damped her eyes. She would expose Vik's shoplifting operation, but outside her professional life she had failed. Her sister's life ruined, her father's life, his crime, his death.... Stop it! She snapped at herself half aloud. Maybe she hadn't lost Robert. It felt like she'd done the best she could in Everett.

Never in her climbing life had she spent a night in solitude on a mountain. In the dark, the cold and the loneliness amplified one another.

She was wakened again before the dawn light by a chill wind that penetrated her blankets. She was cold, but knew that as long as she didn't begin shaking uncontrollably she would be all right. She sat up, hugging herself into a ball with the blankets wrapped tightly around her, to await the sun. Climbing parties roped together and equipped with lanterns would have set out by now. But she was a solitary climber, and she had to wait for the light.

Anyone who does much mountaineering will have a night that is colder than he is prepared for. There is a point, when the extremities have become numb and useless and the rock or snow one is lying on begins sucking the warmth from the body, where nothing matters except trying to stop the precious heat from leaking away. There is no room for hopes or plans or thoughts of loved ones, only a voracious desire for warmth. That was why she had such admiration for the polar explorers. The arctic cold must be like that, absorbing heat from a tiny human source until keeping enough warmth in the bloodstream becomes uncertain. And yet they find the motivation to continue north, away from the sources of warmth and rest, hour after hour, day after day.

Emma wasn't experiencing that kind of cold. She was not comfortable, but she didn't feel the despair she had experienced hours earlier in the dark. As morning approached the cold left her feeling she belonged here. The mountain was charging a fee, but accepted her presence.

The sky lightened, but no orange line appeared on the eastern horizon to define the dawn. She knew now that weather was coming. Once there was enough light to see the route Emma tied up her blankets, shrugged her shoulders several times and rolled her head to loosen the knotted muscles, and set out. Morning tea would be delicious, but she passed up the pleasure of hugging a hot cup in her numb hands from a desire to be moving.

The wind came in surges. One moment it was a teakettle whistle from close by, rippling the bottom edge of her coat. The next moment the whistle was drowned by a deep rolling moan coming from far away, and the wind drove into her, forcing her to steady herself between steps with the alpenstock. The tracks she had been following began to disappear. In the quieter moments she heard muffled cracks and thunder. But it was not thunder. She was hearing the echo of boulders breaking loose and crashing down the mountain. She began a traverse. Here she had reason to be fearful. If the weather became a whiteout and she couldn't see ahead, she would have to stop in this exposed place and pray she was not in the path of one of the boulders careening down the mountain. But she guessed the others had stopped somewhere ahead. She pushed on.

At the end of the traverse Emma came to a fifty-foot rocky wall. She studied the wall and picked a route through the rocks. She lashed the alpenstock to her blanket pack so she could use both hands. It hurt to grip the rock with her left hand, the hand she had slashed in her desperate climb up the trestle. The wound hadn't had time to heal. At the top of the wall she paused to catch her breath. In her desire to impress and emulate Dr. Roller she had run harder the past month than she ever had, and benefited now from her conditioning. She emerged onto the glacier. The sky was gone. Visibility was reduced to a few hundred yards. Ahead, in the shelter of a rock formation, she could make out the shapes of three huddled figures.

They weren't aware of her until she had nearly reached them.

"Hullo, Oliver," she called out.

"Emma, is that you?" she heard. "You made it!"

"It's me. How are you doing?"

"We're stuck," he shouted.

The second figure she could see clearly now. This must be the driver from the Franklin dealership, huddled miserably and wishing he had stayed below.

Emma looked at the third figure. He had removed his blue-tinted snow glasses. Blonde hair curled from underneath his hat.

You're Vik," she said.

"You're Emma Prothero."

She stared. She thought she would be better prepared for the moment he stood talking to her.

"Oliver was right," she heard Vik say. "You're a climber."

"You should tell Oliver about your shoplifting gang."

"He told me what you think."

"You sent the big man to kill me."

"Something you imagined."

"No, you and the big man. I know what you do."

Vik gestured toward Oliver and the driver. "These two are exhausted. They can't go any higher. Come on. Let's go for the top. We can talk there."

He replaced his tinted glasses, turned, and took a step onto the glacier.

"What should we do?" Casebolt called out after him. "Vik, wait!"

Vik moved away from the rock shelter and began advancing up the glacier.

"What should we do?" Casebolt called out again. "Should we rope up, Emma?" There was worry and fear in his voice.

"He said you're tired," she answered. "It's safer to stay here in the rocks. Weather could get worse."

As Emma took a first step in Vik's tracks, Casebolt seized her arm.

"But what do we do?" he cried.

She pulled his hand away from her arm and grasped the mittened hand to reassure him.

"Just stay here. We'll be back. He'll talk to me up there."

Vik was a hundred yards ahead of her, just visible, climbing steadily. He would be strong and fit, she knew, and would move fast now that he wasn't dragging Casebolt and the driver with him.

But what was he trying to do? Just before his shape disappeared in the cloud, he turned and looked back at her. He stood with his legs apart, as if waiting to make sure she was following him. She read the message of his posture: you want to talk so much, come and we'll talk. Then he turned and continued up into the clouds.

Emma understood. She understood why he had wanted her to come on the climb with him. He was leading her out onto a glacier criss-crossed with crevasses in conditions of poor visibility. It was madness to go where he was going without being roped to other climbers. He must be counting on his knowledge of glacier travel to keep him safe. He'd continue leading her until she stepped onto a thin snowbridge hiding a crevasse and fell to her death.

This had been his purpose all along. When she accused him of thievery a moment ago in Casebolt's presence he had reacted as if it didn't matter what she accused him of. He reacted calmly, without anger or emotion. He had counted on her confidence, call it her arrogance, when he invited her to join the climb with the intent of creating exactly the situation she was in now, alone, unroped, driven to chase him until she fell and died in a crevasse. The tragedy of a woman climber's death would add a final fascination to the publicity for his expedition.

A headache jabbed at her temple like a needle of ice. She had come up too fast to adjust to the altitude. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment to relieve the pain. Then she resumed climbing. She could move only two or three steps before having to stop and take a deep breath. No matter how hard she breathed she couldn't get enough oxygen. They must be at twelve, thirteen thousand feet above the sea. How odd, she thought, he's leading me along the glacier. He wants me to fall into a crevasse and die. And yet he's going up, as if he is trying to climb the mountain.

Vik slipped in and out of her sight as the mist thickened, then dissipated, from moment to moment. Emma began to wonder if she was hallucinating. She probed the space ahead of her with the alpenstock before each step. The wind seemed to be lessening, but they were in the clouds. Her eyes strained. She had to study the snow two steps ahead, and she had to keep looking up to keep the moving shape in sight.

Another thought came to Emma. She was at the extreme edge of the natural world here. Like Holmes on the Grimpen Mire. The Grimpen Glacier. You would fall or be sucked down to your death if you stepped off the path, and the path was invisible. This was the essence of it. The game was afoot. She would not stop until he was cornered.

Emma recalled the wakeful moment in the middle of the night in the Pullman car traveling to Cincinnati. At the end of her cross-country journey she would learn whether a bet at longish odds had paid off. She had always seen herself as a rationalist, not a gambler like the men her father did business with. That was the night she wondered if she fully understood herself. Define the game differently than a contest between athletes, and she was indeed a gambler. Thorough preparation, yes, like Cousin Annie, she believed in that. But the critical moment comes when you yield yourself up to your destiny. A line from Hamlet that must have seeded itself in her memory in her high school acting class percolated up into her consciousness.

If it be now, 'tis not to come;  
If it be not now, yet it will come; the readiness is all.

Strange, strange, strange. The moment in her life when she most needed to focus and concentrate, Emma was remembering train rides and lines from a play she'd learned in high school. But that was how her mind was working. Intense concentration seemed to allow a free play of memory around the edges. Shakespeare had it right. Concentration and readiness were all. She knew what to look for. A gray shading in the snow across her path. A slight sag in the surface contour of the snow. She couldn't follow his footsteps; they were gone. Thank God she had chosen the alpenstock. It was a better tool for probing the snow than Vik's shorter ice axe. She peered at the snow two steps ahead, feeling the texture with the alpenstock. She kept looking up to see that Vik was still in sight. But she didn't think he would let her lose sight of him. He wanted her to follow to the inevitable end.

Then she heard something, a grunt penetrating the hard breath of the wind. She peered into the mist. The figure ahead had disappeared from her vision.

# CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

She could not let herself hurry. Jab, jab with the alpenstock, reading the solidity of the icy surface, not yet coming to a snowbridge where the alpenstock slid too easily through a thin layer hiding a hundred-foot chasm. When she reached the area where she thought she last saw Vik she found an opening in the snow. Vik had misjudged. He'd stepped onto a softened snowbridge he didn't recognize.

Thrusting with all her weight she drove her alpenstock into the glacier, tied the rope around herself and the alpenstock, and edged forward on her stomach to the lip of the hole.

The vertical walls of the crevasse were a translucent blue, like the sky on a bright day. The crevasse was three feet wide, an easy leap for Vik if he had seen it. She could make out the shape of the nailed soles of his boots forty feet below. He was wedged upside down, not moving. She called out. There was no response she could hear.

Emma pulled herself backwards to her buried alpenstock. She tied her yellow scarf to a route-marking rod from her kit and pushed it into the snow to mark the crevasse. She pulled at the alpenstock to remove it from the snow. When it didn't immediately loosen, she began yanking at it frantically. Pain like a hammerblow shot through her injured hand. No, no, she couldn't panic and exhaust herself. After standing quietly a moment to catch her breath she began again, pushing steadily back and forth, and loosened the alpenstock enough to pull it out of the snowpack. She began her descent back to where she had left Casebolt.

The lower reaches of the mountain were becoming more visible as the clouds rose, but she could not make out the men below. Her tracks were filled with windblown drift. She stepped carefully, carefully. She could not give in to the urge to hurry.

Eventually she could see two figures, and resisted the urge to plunge-step down the icy slope to join them.

"What's happened?" said Casebolt as she approached. "Where's Vik?"

"He's fallen in. You have to help."

"Good God," said Casebolt. "Is he hurt?"

"What are we going to do?" asked the driver.

"He's hurt. We have to go up there. You're going to lower me and we're going to pull him out."

"What if we fall?" the driver exclaimed.

"Come on," she yelled at him. "Let's go. Just step in my tracks and you'll be fine."

She tied them together with the rope, twenty feet apart. "Stay back so there isn't any slack," she instructed them. "It's lifting. It's getting easier to see."

Now and then the wind went calm for a moment, and she could hear Casebolt and the driver gasping in the thin air behind her as she retraced her steps back up to the crevasse. It seemed to take the best part of an hour, but there was no real measure of time here except the approach of darkness. The clouds continued to rise up the mountain. Her mental map was accurate enough; the yellow scarf fluttered above her.

Emma pushed the driver's alpenstock deep into the snowpack. Her own she buried crosswise at the lip of the crevasse to serve as a fulcrum. She retied one end of her rope to the buried alpenstock and the other end around herself .

"You lower me till I reach him. I'll tie the other rope to him and you can pull him out. Can you do that?"

"How far down is he?" said Casebolt.

"Less than the rope length. Come on, we can do this."

The driver, given a task he could understand, took the rope from her hands, dropped to a seated position, and dug his heels into the ice to brace himself. Casebolt sat behind him and clutched the rope.

Emma took a deep breath. "All right. I'm trusting you." Checking the knot at her waist, she backed over the edge of the crevasse. At first the two men clenched the rope, and she didn't move.

"You have to let me down."

She disappeared from their sight. Hand over hand they fed the rope out until they heard her call out to stop.

Emma had descended with her back sliding on the ice and her arms extended, the palms of her hands lightly dragging along the opposite wall. She reached the point where her hands were almost pressed into her chest. She couldn't drop any further. Her feet were at Vik's chest, her shoulders next to his boots.

"Are you hurt?" she said.

She thought she heard a soft grunt in the silence of the crevasse. The wind here was only a distant suss.

"Can you move?"

There was no response. She began twisting her legs and hips, trying to work her body lower. But she couldn't. She was almost wedged in herself.

"I'll tie a rope around your ankle," she said. "They'll pull you out."

Her arms were limited to sideways movements. Slowly and awkwardly she tied the second rope around his ankle.

"Now pull!" she cried out. "Pull!"

The rope went taut. The ankle straightened with the tension. Vik's inverted body didn't move.

"Harder, harder!" she cried to the men above.

She heard an ugly, grinding crunch.

There was a low, anguished moan from Vik.

Emma was shaken by a sob. She realized Vik's body, diving downward forty feet, had become so tightly wedged in the crevasse they would tear his foot away from his leg before his body would move. They would not be able to pull him out.

"Can't, do it" she gasped. "We can't do it. What should I do?" she pleaded. "Tell me what to do." She didn't know if he was conscious.

Her breathing became labored. The rope around her waist had slipped up her chest and was squeezing the breath out of her. She pressed one bootsole under her butt into the ice and wedged the other knee against the opposite wall of the crevasse to take weight off the rope.

Emma sucked in air and tried to think. There was no way she could get the rope around anything but the foot. There was nothing she could do.

"I wonder," she murmured to herself. "I wonder if you could have made it. First to the Pole. Are you a crackpot or the real thing?"

She shifted her weight on the wedged leg, seeking a less cramped position.

"You didn't know Jay Prothero was my father. The man you took to the docks and broke his neck."

She kept talking, louder now, aware at some level that breathing out words kept down the heartrate that was climbing towards panic in her helplessness.

"Did he know what was coming? Did it hurt, what the big man did?" She tried to see his face, but couldn't.

It was unlikely that Vik was conscious, but there would be no other chance to say these things. She was carrying on a conversation with an inverted figure clamped in a vise of ice. A conversation, really, with herself.

"Told my dad Roller would win. I knew he wouldn't."

She hadn't expected to admit these things to Vik.

"You know why I did it? My brother tried to kill him first. He was a good father to me. Not to my sister."

Then she heard Casebolt calling from above, asking her what was happening.

"I'm okay," she yelled. The foot wedged under her was numb from lack of circulation.

"I'm here," she said to Vik. "I'm here."

She turned her head away from his feet, looking along the crevasse and making a calculation. It was midday, there was still light here. The top of the crevasse was a slash of light above her. She slipped into a reverie. Deep below the surface of the Grimpen Glacier, two ice walls pressing in with just enough room that she could turn her head from one side to the other. The hound and the wolf, immobilized and silent. She wouldn't get answers from Vik. But she didn't need them. She knew the answers. Why he organized a shoplifting gang. Why he killed her father. Maybe she pursued him just to hear him acknowledge that she had caught him. The moment Emma had wanted, she saw, came when he turned from her and set out to ascend the glacier. But the gratification of victory was gone, like spindrift blown off the glacier, glittering a few seconds in the brilliant high-altitude sunlight, then lost in the thin air. She admired him for what he wanted to do. A splendid ambition, probably no greater challenge, to be the first to the Pole.

She stared at the knot around his ankle. The rope to the surface of the glacier was an umbilical cord. Severing it would be the final abandonment of the climber. But they would need the rope for a safe descent. She began untying it. There was no sound or movement from Vik. The knot finally loosened. She called out for Casebolt and the driver to pull her out of the crevasse.

When she was back on the glacier Emma leaned her head back and breathed deeply in the freedom of the open space, then gathered the ropes and dug the alpenstocks out of the snowpack.

"What are we going to do?" Casebolt asked.

"Go down," she said.

"Are we going to leave him?"

"What else can we do?"

The two men stared at her.

"Is he dead?" the driver asked in a tight, cracking voice.

"I couldn't tell," Emma said. "If he isn't he'll freeze tonight."

She ended the moment of helplessness by picking up her blanket pack. The others hesitated, then shouldered their own packs. After tying the three of them together on the rope, she took the first few steps down. Then she turned back to Casebolt and the driver.

"Something I read about the polar explorers. There's a code. If one of them can't keep up, he won't endanger the others by slowing them down. They expect to be left behind."

The young driver looked back and forth between Emma and the glacier. "Jesus," he said.

"Move!" she demanded angrily. "If we're here when it gets dark we won't make it."

Emma descended without a thought of anything beyond the next few steps she would take. Once they were off the snow she untied the rope and led the two exhausted men into the Paradise camp. A man and a boy were building a cooking fire in front of a large tent. The man said a group had come up and after waiting out the storm had gone hiking. He told the boy to take Emma's party down on the pack horses.

"Let's rest a minute," she said. She lifted blanket pack off her shoulders and sat with her head bowed next to Casebolt on a fallen tree. The driver sank to the ground and was asleep almost instantly.

"Thank God you came," said Casebolt. "He would have made us go on."

"We're lucky the storm lifted," said Emma.

"You're a brave woman."

She looked at him and saw the gratitude and admiration in his face. Unlike the other males in her life—Roller, Robert, Carl Windell, her father even—he made no effort to conceal what he felt. After a moment of fear and uncertainty on the mountain when she had left him to follow Vik onto the glacier he had trusted her guidance without questions and without complaint. Not since Robert reached adolescence had she experienced another person's absolute trust.

"You did everything you could," he said.

Emma shook her head. "I don't know."

"It wasn't humanly possible to get him out."

Casebolt was probably right. But she foresaw that she would never escape the descent into the crevasse. Already she was thinking about other ways she could have positioned herself, other places to get the rope around Vik. Some day she might work out a technique that would have levered Vik out of the ice, and from that day she would torment herself wondering why she hadn't thought of it when she needed to.

# EPILOGUE

On the Seattle docks stevedores moved crates onto the netting for transfer to the hold of the San Francisco-bound steamer. Emma stood next to her trunk, waiting for a porter to bring a hand truck and haul the trunk up the gangplank.

Weeks earlier Emma had written a letter addressed to Annie Smith Peck at the Hotel Albert in New York. Cousin Annie told her that mail would always be forwarded from the hotel to wherever she was in the world. In the letter Emma told Annie she had a great desire to talk face to face with her cousin and hear Annie's advice. Then she asked for a list of equipment she would need if she were to join Annie for the attempt to climb Huascaran, and for the destination in South America she should book passage for. Annie's reply came more quickly than Emma expected. Annie said she looked forward to a long talk during the arduous approach to Huascaran. She included an equipment list, and urged Emma to ship out for Lima immediately and send her the name of the ship so she could wait for its arrival. Emma telephoned Casebolt, whom she realized was probably the closest friend she had, and told him her plans.

"I don't know your cousin, but if she's anything like you, you'll make it to the top."

"I just hope I can keep up," said Emma. "She's really strong."

"You be careful," he said. "I looked it up. That mountain's a lot higher than Rainier. And you have to keep a journal, okay? I'm looking for a big story out of this."

Emma looked up from her daydreaming about the voyage ahead and saw Robert standing on the dock in front of her. She couldn't help herself; she yelped and threw her arms around him.

"Heard you were going to South America," he said.

"How did you learn that?" she asked, finding herself tongue-tied for the moment.

"I went to see Mr. Cody. I guess you told him what ship it was."

"Well, I'm glad I did tell him."

"You coming back?"

"Of course I'm coming back," she said. She was sure Robert was taller than the last time she had seen him. Maybe she hadn't paid attention to how he looked the way she did now. "Are you back in Seattle ?"

"I'm with Casey's guys again."

"That's good. I'm glad. I worry about you, you know. I had to rent out the house. Where...?"

"I'm staying with Carl."

She wiped a tear from her eye with the back of her sleeve and laughed. "That's a noisy place. You putting up with all those kids?"

"It's noisy all right," said Robert. "I help out Clara some."

"She's a nice girl," said Emma.

"Yeah she is," said Robert, and suddenly blushed. Emma laughed with relief and affection at her brother. Knowing she would embarrass him with too much of a display of feeling, she kissed his cheek, squeezed his arm.

"Well, they're waiting," she said. "See you in a month." Emma turned and hurried after the porter with her trunk up the gangplank of the steamer.

After seeing her trunk safely stowed she went to the deck to watch the ship move away from the dock and give Robert a final wave if he was still there. As she glanced along the rail to have a look at her fellow passengers, she was completely surprised to see the figure of Dr. Roller leaning on the rail gazing out at the city.

Benjamin Franklin Roller grew up on a farm in Illinois. He was the youngest of seven brothers. He built a powerful body throwing hay bales and pulling stumps. Obsessed with wrestling, he bribed his older brothers to wrestle him by offering to do their heavy chores. Sportswriters rated him the best football player in the Middle States. He represented the Chicago Athletic Club in a meet with the New York Athletic Club. He threw the discus 130 feet, the hammer 143 feet, and put the shot over 43 feet, all records. When the medical school he'd been invited to Seattle to establish was rejected by the local physicians, the regents put him in charge of physical training for the university. In 1906 he cut back his office hours and began training to fight for the wrestling championship of the world.

Sporting contests are ephemeral events. The winner is the hero of the moment, but the moment is brief. Public attention turns quickly to the next challenger. The victor has his day, then either prepares to compete once more or begins trading on his fame. If he is an outgoing man he finds financial backers and opens a restaurant or bar and draws customers hoping for an occasional word from the champ. Maybe he becomes a coach or trainer and maintains a place and authority in the sport, though the spotlight is now elsewhere. At worst he goes to other men's saloons and hopes to pay for his drinks with a much-weathered account of his moment in the lights.

A few events, though, embed themselves in the public memory and become a city's legacy. They live and grow in the retelling of those who were there to witness. Old men are introduced as witnesses present when Seabiscuit outran Man o War, or when Louis defeated Max Schmeling, or who saw Bobby Thompson's home run at Yankee Stadium, and they will be asked by boys or younger men what it was like to be there. In the rowdy boomtown of Seattle, the wrestling match between Frank Gotch and Benjamin Franklin Roller was the sporting event that became a legend.

Roller reemerged after the Gotch match in Chicago as a wrestler, manager and promoter. He joined the James Jeffries/Frank Gotch All-Star Athletic Show and traveled through the eastern United States. Some records indicate that he achieved his goal and was the world heavyweight champion for a period. He adopted Gotch's toe-hold as his favorite finishing move.

Gotch wrestled in a few minor bouts after the fight in Seattle, then gave up wrestling to become an actor. He starred in the role of a college athlete in a three-act comedy called "All About A Bout." "The theater opener was a corker," enthused an East Coast reviewer. "In this New York Vaudeville debut Mr. Gotch is the center of a brightly written comedy sketch, containing several laughable situations." The theatrical tour was scheduled to visit major cities for a thirty-eight week run.

The stage called to a number of athletes of the era. The former world heavyweight boxing champion Gentleman Jim Corbett acted in "The Burglar and the Lady" at the Moore Theater in Seattle in the spring of 1908, a few months before the Gotch/Roller match. Audiences loved seeing the athletes they admired, and if there were a few cynical spectators who thought that Gotch and Corbett had become parodies of themselves, no one ever said this to either man's face.

The day after the Gotch-Roller match a newborn baby was found in a shoebox on the Great Northern tracks in south Seattle. The employee who found the baby carried the shoebox to the railroad office. When police arrived they found the baby, a lusty-lunged boy, bright-eyed with good color in his skin, seeming none the worse for whatever amount of time he had been exposed to the elements in the rail yard. When a big uniformed policeman tickled the baby's toe, the tiny foot wrapped around the thick finger. "It's a toe hold!" cried out Mrs. Margaret de Han, a police matron who had arrived with the officers. The baby was christened Gotch on the spot. The shoe box was from the Santa Rosa Shoe Company in California. The matron allowed photographers to take pictures of the baby, and a photo appeared in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer the following day.

Jack Curley, born Jacques Armand Schuel, had tended bar, run a gym, and become the Chicago correspondent for The Police News. He promoted a Gotch vs. Fred Beall match in 1907. He would soon become the most powerful promoter of boxing and wrestling matches in the country. When asked directly whether wrestling matches were fixed, he would smile a bland, round-faced smile and say that he was merely a purveyor of entertainment. When he died in 1937 a reporter for the Detroit Free Press wrote the following:

Probably half the folk who attend the Curley carnivals are hep to them. The other 50 percent of the spectators—the foreign-born, the confirmed rassling addicts and such—are equally certain they are witnessing the genuine article. That has been the secret of Curley's success. He satisfies the scoffers and the believers, too. He has made rassling a state of mind.

Late in the summer of 1908, on her fifth attempt over a period of ten years, Annie Smith Peck reached the summit of the 22, 205 foot Mount Huascaran. The Government of Peru named the north peak of the mountain Cumbre Ana Peck in her honor.

On his return to the U.S. late in 1909 Admiral Richard Peary claimed to have reached the North Pole in April of that year. Frederick Cook claimed to have reached the pole a year earlier. There is no land mass at the North Pole. Someone standing on a drifting ice floe at the exact Pole would no longer be at the Pole fifteen minutes later. The controversy about whether either man's claim is valid continues to this day. It is likely that the first men to stand with certainty at the exact Pole were the crew of a Russian submarine in the 1960's.

In 1909 the superintendent of the Steilacoom asylum declared Esther Mitchell to be fully recovered. He stated that "we could find no symptoms of any danger of the return of her affliction." She moved to the Oregon coast and lived a quiet life there. In 1914 her parole was lifted, and shortly afterward she married a man named James Berry. Four months later she was found dead in her bed. On the nightstand next to the bed were a brief note giving directions for the disposition of her small property and an empty bottle that had contained sixty grains of strychnine. Like many teenaged girls before her and since, she was led to God through an attraction to a charismatic preacher. Her world provided no other anchor, and when the preacher was murdered by her brother, Esther Mitchell lost her way.

THE END

Read more about Roger Neale's upcoming work and other musings on his blog, http://rogerneale.blogspot.com/

