I told her why I’d come to Bright Hope, of all places, and gave her a quick tour of the town, such as it was. We relished the illusion of normalcy for a while, chatting merrily like other women must, with little urgency. It was a luxury I wasn’t sure we had ever enjoyed before.
We sat at the table in the town’s only restaurant for hours, downing more steins of ale than ladies strictly should, making it clear to all around us that we were not ladies. The German brewer a few blocks down who supplied the Golden Goose did excellent work: his ale was strong, with a pleasant, bitter tang. There was intense interest in us—I credited Hattie, as I was a fixture already—but we made it clear we did not want further company, huddling our heads together, walling ourselves off.
As we pushed away our empty plates, Hattie sighed with contentment. At last, I spoke up on the topic I had avoided. “I know you didn’t find me yourself.”
She caught my meaning immediately and took it in stride. “No, I did not.”
“His idea?”
“No, my idea, but he made it possible. I only had to ask him three times a day for eight days before he said yes.”
I couldn’t blame Pinkerton for giving in to her; though I had told him my conditions, he would know I would enjoy seeing Hattie again, seeing for myself that she was all right. “And what was your idea?”
“I needed to see you. To talk about what happened. Because I don’t think either of us knows how to get past it otherwise.”
I thought of her with Tim, just the two of them against the world in Richmond. They had played husband and wife, just as he and I had. I hadn’t thought about how she had lost him too, and I wondered if we missed him in the same way. I said, “Did you… Did the two of you…”
“No,” she said, but there was no surprise or shock that I would ask her. We were professionals; wild conjecture was merely our business. She smiled fondly, remembering. “He talked about you all the time. My Lord. He kept saying, When this is over, when this is over. He couldn’t wait to hop the twig. You must have been so in love.”
“For all the good it does me now,” I said and raised the glass to my lips again, only to find it empty. I signaled for the next round.
She sat in silence, and I felt the need to reach out and pat her hand. It had been a lifetime since Chicago, since we’d rescued Carlotta Caruso, since we’d begun to understand each other. Before the war, a war that still raged but seemed so far away from this place.
“Hattie, we knew what we were getting into, didn’t we? Being spies? Maybe I never should have hired you. Maybe you’d be better off if I hadn’t. Probably married with a bevy of babies by now.”
“I wouldn’t want that. This is better. I only regret…”
“Regret what?”
She began crying then, in earnest, and the men around us began to stare—some openly, some with more tact. I shot a withering glare at the worst offenders, but there was little else I could do. I wouldn’t tell Hattie to be quiet; I wanted her to be as loud as she could be, for both of us.
“I blame myself,” said Hattie.
“For what?”
“If I’d talked to Mortenson, maybe he would have withdrawn his testimony about Tim, found a way to help get him free. Taken it back.”
It broke my heart that Hattie thought she could have done something to change that monster’s actions. He was the one who’d been responsible for Tim’s death. Him and only him. I was done blaming anyone else. I knew Pinkerton felt himself partly responsible, but even his part, I had forgiven.
“Hattie, you couldn’t. There was no way. You didn’t even know he was in Richmond.”
“Still,” she said, her voice thin and weak, “if I’d asked the right questions, if I’d been face-to-face with him… I could have offered him something he wanted.” She smoothed her plaid skirt over and over again. “I would have done anything.”
“I know the feeling.”
We rose from the table and embraced, holding on for a long time, sharing our lasting pain. I didn’t feel better afterward, exactly, but at least I didn’t feel worse.
? ? ?
Two weeks after Hattie left, I received my first and last telegram in Bright Hope.
THE CASE BEGINS
Frugal as ever, he had not signed his name, knowing I would intuit all that was necessary.
It was a matter of minutes to pack my suitcase and settle my bill with the hotel and not much more than that to bid farewell to Mrs. Borowski. It was a short walk to the station. I wasted no time. The train to Chicago only came past Bright Hope once a day, and I was on it.
Upon arrival in Chicago, I went to the office, letting myself feel like a stranger. It was too hard to think of myself when I was last there, so innocent despite all the deception that had been my life for years. I did not look at the faces of the operatives to see whether they were the same men or new ones. I drew no comparisons. The costume closet, no longer Tim’s, I could not even acknowledge.
Seated across from Pinkerton at his big, oaken desk, as I’d been so many times, I prepared myself for a wholly new undertaking.
He began, “A bank teller’s been murdered in Cincinnati.”
“Poor man.” But there was a tension under my sympathy; he knew the life I cared most about, and if the two didn’t intersect, our conversation would be short indeed. I had come too great a distance, in all ways, for just another bank job.
“In the commission of a robbery. Successful.”
“How much was taken?”
“One hundred thirty thousand.”
I let out a low whistle. It was the largest sum I’d ever heard gone in a single stroke.
“So he had the vault open, and someone murdered him, then just emptied it all out?”
“Precisely. Struck with a hammer, back of the head.”
“Poor man,” I said again.
“Any suspects?”
“One. And I’d like you to go after him.”
“You know I’m only willing to—”
“It’s him, Warne.”
With no hesitation, I said, “I’m on the job.”
“He’ll be hard to find,” said Pinkerton. “He knows our ways. He knows how not to leave evidence. And now he has money.”
“Most criminals slip up eventually. Weren’t you the one who taught me that?”