CHAPTER 46
Late on a Monday afternoon, Officer Pulgrum knocked at the door. Analee answered and showed him into the backyard, where the adults were watching the girls at play.
At the sight of him, Constance felt light in her head. Her pulse raced, and her breath seemed to break in her chest. One hand clutched the hand Analee extended to her; the other clasped the collar of her shirtwaist.
He has come for me at last. Constance perceived, but only barely, the firm grip of Analee’s hand on hers. She attempted to rise but found her legs too weak beneath her. She felt Alice’s hand on her shoulder, pressing her gently down. She collapsed back into the chair, unable to speak. But her breath had returned of its own accord.
“Afternoon, Pulgrum. Beautiful day.” Martin Birdsong was taking control of the situation for her. “Mrs. Halstead is just recovering from a serious bout with typhus. Still doesn’t have much strength, I’m afraid. Can we be of assistance here?”
“Afternoon, Doctor. Typhus? Haven’t heard much about such of late. Have I missed news of an outbreak somehow?” Pulgrum doffed his cap and scratched his lank brown hair.
“No, Pulgrum. No outbreak.” Martin reached out to shake hands. “Our patient here seems to have contracted the only case I am aware of at the moment. Such random instances are hardly rare.”
Constance felt, more than saw, the sweep of the doctor’s hand away from her toward the wharves and the port. A chill swept through her. She took a ragged breath, as if she were trying to stop weeping. She turned her head, searching for her children. Alice had gone to them to distract their attention. Constance took in the scene. They must not witness their mother being arrested. They must not see this. She was acutely aware of the two men’s eyes on her now.
“Constance? You’re not having chills again?”
Martin was instantly at her side, the back of his hand against her cheek. She was aware enough to know that her mind had gone empty. She glanced up at Martin in helplessness.
“Perhaps we’ve had you out too long.”
She heard his words as if from a distance and felt him lifting her to standing.
“Pulgrum, will you excuse us, please?”
Martin guided her toward the back door. She could feel his bracing support. She was utterly dependent on it. Without it, she would collapse. She could hear Alice and Analee urging the children to pick up the hobbyhorse and the ball and come inside.
“I have something important to speak to Mrs. Halstead about, Doctor.”
Constance’s head was thrumming; her pulse pounding against her temples.
“As you can see, Pulgrum. Mrs. Halstead is hardly in good health at the moment.”
Constance heard, rather than saw, the latch on the opening door, the clack of Martin’s shoe against it to hold it as he guided her inside. The children’s chattering voices reached her from a distance.
“It’s of the most crucial importance, Doctor.” Pulgrum’s dogged steps followed them onto the porch. His voice sounded as if it had come from somewhere far away, and echoed in her ears. “I beg pardon, Doctor.” Pulgrum was not backing off. “This is of the utmost importance. Perhaps if you assist Mrs. Halstead to a seat and stabilize her for a few minutes, I can deliver this news regarding her husband’s death.”
“Is this really the time?” Martin turned on Pulgrum in a flare of anger.
“I can wait.” Pulgrum took a step back.
Constance could feel an opening of the space around her as he did so. She wanted to weep. Would he have mercy on her, after all?
Alice and Analee passed by with the children, who had gone quiet now. Constance heard their footsteps going up the stairs, heard the two women’s muffled instructions about dolls and toys, and the closing of a door, the quiet steps of the women’s return.
Martin guided Constance into the drawing room. When she was safely seated, she felt his hand again on her forehead, then firmly encircling her wrist to count her pulse. She could feel it pumping hard against his fingers. And in her ribs, her head, her neck. Her fear had taken hold of every cell. She opened her mouth. With everything that was in her, she wanted to scream. But that would terrify her girls. She would not leave them in an even greater panic than her simple surrender, her walking handcuffed out the door, would induce. She had a sense her body might suddenly explode.
“I’ll see if I can’t get rid of that man,” Martin said as he touched the crocheted afghan Alice had tucked around her. “Whatever he wants can wait.”
“I assure you, Doctor, unless Mrs. Halstead is still truly ill, my errand here is not one to wait.”
Constance startled. She had not been aware that Pulgrum had followed them in from the porch. Martin stood up straight and made himself an obstacle between his patient and the police officer. Alice and Analee backed away but stood firmly behind her, each with a hand on her shoulder.
Pulgrum sidestepped Martin and extended his hand toward Constance, something small and flat in his fingers. A photograph. “We have the evidence we have been seeking to confirm Mr. Halstead’s murder.” He came closer, waving the photograph for her to take.
Martin was behind him and grabbed the extended photograph.
Constance, now still and numb inside herself, held out her hand. “Let me have it, Martin.” Her voice had gone quiet, resigned.
She could see the reluctance with which he relinquished it to her. She examined the faces of the two men before her, one stoic, one afraid. Why should Martin be afraid? Did he suspect the truth? Had the words of her delirium reached his ears as well as Analee’s? She felt Analee’s grip on her shoulder. Analee knew.
Constance raised the small bit of photographic paper, tilted it in the light. There she was. Not herself, but some bushy-faced young man, turned marginally away from the camera, one imprecise hand raised. There was Benton, off balance, blurred, unrecognizable, his distorted body akimbo, taking flight. And there was the man of her nightmares: the man who had threatened her children, who had tried to extort her money, the wiry, strangely mustached rogue of the Black Hand who had twisted her with fear for her children, for herself. The man who had darted across that train vestibule as Benton fell. There he was, arm extended, his hand against Benton’s chest, an expression akin to glee on that threateningly mustached face.
“We have him, Mrs. Halstead. We have your husband’s murderer. We apprehended him last night, or rather this morning. Well after midnight. Over in the Quarter. He is in the precinct jail and will remain there until we believe we have everything he has to give us.”
Constance sat in bewildered relief, her terror melting only slowly, her fear and guilt transforming little by little as the certainty that had eluded her solidified within her. She stared at the photo, the clear image of another’s hand shoving Benton from the train, a hand that had tortured her children. A hand that did not belong to her. Here, finally, it began to sink into her body, her heart, her spirit at last that she was not to blame. Yes, he had been shocked to recognize her eyes, but it had not been the surprise of her eyes that had caused him to lose his balance, to fall to a horrid death. I did not murder him, she thought. I did not kill him with the surprise of my just being there. I did not kill my husband.
“Where did you get this photograph, Officer? How?” Martin quizzed him.
Analee’s hand relaxed on Constance’s shoulder. Constance felt the steady warmth of it coursing through her and breathed. Things were slowly making sense to her.
“Well, quite a story there, Doctor. Quite a story. Young photographer came to the precinct last week to give it to us. Seems he was on that train with his family. Had one of those portable box cameras Kodak came up with. Man was letting his little boy experiment with it, taking photos to keep the child entertained. Boy got all excited and ran off to the vestibule door before the father managed to settle him down and give him a book to read.”
Pulgrum shifted his weight and twisted his cap in his now free hands. “Anyway, seems those box cameras . . . They really are just a box with some sort of lens . . . So the whole thing has to be shipped back to Kodak up in Rochester to be developed and reloaded. Takes a while. Father got it all back in the mail, flipped through the shots. Nothing but blur, for the most part, and he started to just toss the whole stack. But there was one of an old man with a walrus mustache, which the kids had thought was funny and wanted to keep. And at the bottom of the stash was this. He’d read about Mr. Halstead’s death in the papers. Blurred, for sure, but clear enough to see this man pushing him from the train. Clear enough for an arrest, though it’s taken us some time to find the devil. Clear enough for a conviction.”
Pulgrum reached out for the photo. Constance could not let go of it and stared at the blurred images frozen in space, unmoving, Benton still alive, not dead, looking at that young man he had not known to be her but then suddenly had. The last moments of life, here in black and white, before her. Here in her hand, his last inhalation. She saw the look in his eyes, not on this scrap of photo paper, but in her memory, her being, her deepest self. She saw how he saw her eyes.
Analee leaned over and gently pried the photo from her grasp, then handed it to Pulgrum with only a glance. This was not something she wished to see. Constance looked up then, looked around at all of them, these people around her, this room, this crocheted afghan beneath her other hand. She felt herself pulled out of memory into the moment and into this place from somewhere else, somewhere that did not exist except in that photo. When she became fully present, she took a deep breath, straightened herself in the chair, handed the afghan to Analee.
“What now, Officer Pulgrum?” Constance rose of her own accord.
“We are holding him, of course. He is charged with the murder of your husband. The evidence is clear. He has given his confession. We are trying to take advantage of his guilt to pry important information from him regarding the Black Hand. Bargaining with him in exchange for consideration of clemency.”
“Clemency? What clemency?” The idea elicited Constance’s clenched fury and her fear.
“A reduced sentence of some sort. A lengthy prison term instead of the death sentence. He knows, actually, that staying in prison would offer him some protection. If he ever escaped, he’s a dead man. The Black Hand would see to that. It would spare us an execution.”
“Will I be called upon to testify?” She imagined herself in the courtroom, face-to-face with that man, the courtroom filled with spectators, some of them women from the Mardi Gras krewe.
“Possibly. But I believe we can spare you that, ma’am. The evidence we have is clear, though if we could ever locate that young man in the photo, we would need his testimony. We haven’t any leads, however, and probably won’t spend a great deal of effort to find him, since the evidence we have in the photo is enough for a conviction.”
Constance stood very still, staring at Pulgrum in silence. He backed away and gave a curt bow.
“I’m sorry to see you’ve been so ill, Mrs. Halstead. And to have to leave you with that image of your husband. But it is my duty to deliver this news to you. Perhaps it will bring a bit of solace to your grief to know that murdering bast . . . uh, murderer, has been apprehended and will not only get his due reward but will also aid us in the apprehension of other Black Hand criminals. I do wish you continued recovery, Mrs. Halstead.”
Pulgrum donned his cap and nodded to the various occupants of the room. “Good day,” he said as he turned and made for the door.
As Pulgrum closed the front entry, the room seemed to empty of issues that had strained them all, even below their awareness. For Constance, it was empty of any further fear or threat that at the least expected moment she might be arrested, taken from her children, taken from her life. Those gathered remained still, then simply looked back and forth at one another.
“Alice, would you go and bring the children down?” said Constance. “Tell them to bring their dolls. We can all sit together to have a cup of tea. Do we have any sweets, Analee?”
“Yes, ma’am. Indeed, we do.”