“Just a little dizzy.”
The color was returning to her face. “So now you can tell me where you’re going,” he gently prodded.
Jem swallowed. “Ch-Chicago,” she said slowly.
Jasper narrowed his eyes. “So Ray summoned you too?”
Jem shook her head. “No. Of course not. He… Wait. Did Ray ring for you?”
Jasper nodded. “He’s found a… Well, it’s something attached to a case I’m working on in the city.”
“The anarchist bombs and Jonathan?” Jem’s eyes were saucers.
“Something like that. Jem, it’s dangerous. He wouldn’t want you to be following him unescorted into a strange city and… ”
“Oh, I’m not alone,” Jem said easily. “Benny Citrone and Merinda are waiting for me in the dining car.”
Jasper Forth held a small plastic bag up to the light of the train window. What was inside the translucent cover was tiny, like string.
“What is that?” Benny asked.
Jasper slid the object across the table. “A bit of wire from the explosion yesterday. We’ve found similar bits at every one of these bomb sites. Our engineers say no such wire is used in the making of the cars.”
“This is a wire from a bomb,” Benny said. He motioned for Jasper to lean in and pointed out the delicate craftsmanship of the evidence. “That’s a Turk’s knot.” Benny used his index finger to point, and Jasper squinted in concentration. “Every member of the Force uses a Turk’s knot to tie the lanyard at the neck of his uniform. It’s regulation.”
“So this is Jonathan’s knot?”
“It seems very unlikely it would be anyone else’s,” said Benny.
“So the streetcar bombings and the bomb that killed Jones are definitely the work of Jonathan Arnasson,” Merinda said.
Benny groaned. “I keep thinking I’ll wake up and all of this will be a horrible dream, but that seems impossible now.”
The server poured coffee in three ceramic mugs and left the carafe. Merinda sipped, burned her tongue, wrinkled her nose, and took a few mental steps back. “What are you doing here, Jasper? Now that Benny’s identified your silly knot, you can tell us.”
Jasper swallowed his mouthful of coffee. “Ray called me. He wants my help getting his sister out of trouble, but mostly I think he really wants my help in uncovering… ”?
“Ray called you?” Merinda cut him off, eyebrows shooting up to her hairline.
Jasper shrugged. “He’s my friend, and he senses trouble, and he trusts me.”
“Well, if DeLuca’s in trouble, that means we’re all involved,” Merinda said resolutely. “So now we just have to find Benny’s cousin, stop whatever bombs Ross and his men have in their grand plan, infiltrate whatever group of troublemakers is blowing up streetcars, and check on DeLuca.” She exhaled.
“You missed the part of the sentence where Ray summoned me, Merinda, not you and Jem.”
“Cracker jacks, Jasper! By calling you, of course he meant us.”
“I assure you,” Jasper said, “at no point did he say, ‘Oh, and make sure to bring my wife and her nosey friend.’ ”
Merinda mumbled something neither of the men could understand.
Benny turned from the window. “You said something about Ray DeLuca’s brother-in-law?”
“Tony. Ray thinks the fellow’s up to his ears in all manner of crime.” Jasper stared ruefully into his coffee cup, wondering whether or not to tell Benny what he had the right to know, that Ray had found Jonathan’s knot on another corpse, and the evidence now pointed to outright murder on top of destruction on a larger scale. He took a deep breath. “Looks like Ray stumbled into some crime of his own too. He was unloading a few barges for this fellow named Hedgehog to make a quick buck, and he found a corpse stuffed inside a long crate. And a jar with the Spenser’s logo emblazoned on it.”
Moments later, having finished her coffee and avoiding Jasper’s insistence that they speak about their row concerning the Hog article, Merinda made her way back to her cabin, where Jem was waiting.
She took one look at Jem, seeing that she was white as a sheet, with dark circles under her eyes, and felt every hope for her future drain away. “Oh, no!” She slapped her palm to her forehead. She wasn’t sure why clarity hit her at precisely that moment, but it did so with the weight of an anvil. The dizziness, the long naps, the constant yawning. The general air of peakishness and the complete inability to string together a logical sentence. “No. No. No. No, Jem! It can’t be.”
“Merinda, desist your prattling,” Jem said from under the arm flung across her face. “The train is jerking and… ”
“Jemima! My beautiful detective business! Our beautiful detective business. No.” Merinda sank on her bed.