Chapter Five
Janesville, 1905
One o’clock in the morning
She pauses, taking in a deep breath and sighing it out. He finds himself waiting, with a quickened pulse, for her to start speaking again, to tell him what happened next. But he shouldn’t get drawn in, he tells himself. He shouldn’t care. It’s just a story. Most likely not true in any case. Most likely calculated to tease out the exact feelings he’s having right now: equal parts sympathy and dread.
He tells himself that he has a good reason to let her talk, though. She’s exhausted. She’s anxious. If she is lying, the longer she talks, the more likely it is she’ll slip up. Give her enough rope, as the saying goes, and she’ll hang herself. An apt phrase. They hanged that woman two years ago in the Oklahoma territory for what she’d done to a child in her care. Iris had cried for a full week about it, the story was so appalling. He wonders what she’d think of this story. Will it be a tragedy? Or something else, by the end?
“So let’s say,” he says, “that this whole story is true, and I can trust everything you say, and you’re innocent. You didn’t kill your husband. Who did?”
“If someone killed the husband of a famous magician,” she says, tilting her head as if the problem were theoretical, “there are some obvious suspects.”
“Like the magician.”
“Besides the magician. Maybe someone who hated the magician and wanted to punish her. One of her enemies.”
“You have enemies?”
With a grim smile, she says, “Some days I think I have nothing but.”
“You think it was someone out for revenge?”
“Or the victim could have enemies of his own. It could have nothing to do with her—with me—at all.”
“True. What kind of man was he?”
“I can’t even begin to tell you,” she says, her voice oddly unsteady for a moment. “Honestly.”
“Stop using that word. The more you say it, the less I believe it.”
She doesn’t respond.
He circles behind her, his footsteps heavy and echoing against the bare wood floor. He begins to undo a set of cuffs, examining her as he does so. One wrist has been recently cut deeply. There’s a perfectly straight three-inch-long slash, dark with old blood, against the pale skin. Unfortunately it’s already healing and too old to be evidence of a struggle tonight, when the murder was committed. Still, it interests him.
“How did you injure yourself? This cut on your wrist?” he asks casually.
“Things happen on the road,” she says. “Heavy equipment shifts at the wrong moment. The illusions have so many moving parts. I don’t know half the time what happens.”
“And the bruise on your throat?”
She makes a noncommittal noise, a verbal shrug, but he sees her shoulders tighten. There is enormous tension in the back of her neck. Of course she can’t relax in the situation he’s placed her in, but he saw the change come over her when he asked about the bruise, not before. He’ll ask again later. For now, he has another plan. He has two pairs of the new adjustable Lovell cuffs, which should be just enough.
He hangs the first pair of Lovell cuffs from his belt and begins work on the second. Once the second pair of cuffs is likewise free, he circles around in front of her. He toys with the dangling cuff, opening and closing it. The metal clicks each time he pushes the teeth down against the pivot bar and then thumbs the release button to pop it open again. Like his footfalls, the clicks are loud and sharp in the enclosed space. There are still three pairs of cuffs on her wrists. They both know where things stand.
“Now,” he tells her, “I’m going to finish taking your boots off. I’m asking you to let me. Will you?”
“What if I say no?” she asks.
“I’m asking as a courtesy, ma’am.”
She sits up straight with a bright false smile and thrusts her right foot out at him, the mostly unlaced boot hanging.
“Here you are then,” she says.
He lowers himself slowly to his knees in front of her, then takes the foot in both hands. Then he adjusts his knee to pin the free foot back against the chair. If he’s kneeling on her foot, she can’t kick him with it. A mere moment of cooperation on her part doesn’t mean he’ll let his guard down completely. He’s tired, not stupid.
The lamplight flickers, and he works on the unlacing in silence. It’s so quiet in the room that he can hear the leather and string rasp against each other. When the boot is unlaced, he pulls it off and tosses it away. He does the same with the other boot. She’s quiet but not still. When he’s done, he can feel the warmth of her foot. It squirms in his hand like an animal. The dead silence of the night outside hangs heavy. He can hear his own breath but not hers.
In the quiet, he remembers how tired he is, and that isn’t good. Cuffs or no, she needs to be watched and guarded. Sound will help keep his eyes open and his mind clear. He should get her talking again. Her story will be something to hold onto when the exhaustion threatens to drag him into unconsciousness.
“You aren’t telling me what I want to hear,” he says. “I asked about the murder. You’re telling me this other story instead.”
“They’re all the same story.”
“Which couldn’t start a little closer to the end?” He takes one free pair of handcuffs and latches it first around the leg of the chair. He opens the other half of the cuff and draws it forward, circling it around her ankle, pushing the clasp until it clicks shut.
She says, “Where does yours start, officer? Did you play cops and robbers as a boy and find yourself always on the angels’ side? Or is this just a job to you, a way to line your pockets? Is it the first thing you ever wanted to do or the last?”
He was right; the Lovell fits, on the largest setting. In a pinch, it seems, a woman’s slim ankles can stand in for a man’s thick wrists. He repeats the motion with the other pair of cuffs, linking her other ankle to the leg of the chair, so both ankles are trapped. “What difference does that make?”
“It makes your story different,” she says. “How you came to be who you are. And if I wanted to know your story, I’d want to know it from the beginning.”
“You don’t want to know my story.”
“I do, actually. Very much. But I’m not the one in charge here, am I?”
“No.” He’s glad to hear her acknowledge it. “Well, it isn’t a long story. I was born here, grew up here, plan to live here my whole life.”
“I bet you were one of those charmed boys. You have the air. Always the best at everything.”
“Second best,” he says before he can stop himself.
“Who was the best then?”
“No point in telling you, is there? If you don’t know him?” Despite her visit to Waterloo, Mose Huber’s name wouldn’t mean anything to her, even if he were inclined to share it.
“I’m interested,” she says.
Her eyes are shadowed from this angle, and he can’t even tell the half-brown eye from the blue one. He wishes he had a real jail to put her in. She is too close this way. He thinks again of what she did onstage, how rapt he was, and he realizes he has to ask.
“What I’m interested in,” he says, “is the Halved Man. How does it work?”
“It’s fake,” she says flatly. “Fake blade, fake blood, trap door. That’s all.”
“No, explain it to me. What’s the secret of the trick?”
“What kind of magician gives away her secrets?”
“One who’ll be hanged if she doesn’t.”
Quietly, leaning in, she says, “Is that what you think they’ll do? You think they’ll hang me?”
“Without a moment’s hesitation,” he says.
She stares at him with her lips shut tight.