Sara Paretsky - Sisters on the Case

And then, lordy! A fearsome thunderclap. A flash as bright as noon. A blast of wind that blew me against the wall. Around me windows cracked.

For just an instant, silence quivered in the air. I looked for Peebles and he was standing there bedazzled, like the rest of us.

Then a woman shrieked, and a man groaned a spine-chilling groan, and others began screaming and swearing, and the terrified police began to fire, round after round after round.

I lit out of there quicker than a rabbit.

Oh, I know, I know, a proper lady would have stood there weeping prettily until rescued by a noble officer of the law. But hang it, I didn’t much like loud blasts, and I didn’t like wild shooting by frightened men, and frankly I hadn’t found Chicago policemen to be all that noble. Besides, Peebles was hightailing it away, so I followed.

The riot bell from the police station began to clang. As I chased Peebles past Zepf’s saloon I heard August call to someone, ‘‘It was a cannon, wasn’t it?’’

Well, I’m just a poor girl from Missouri, but my brother fought for the Union and he described a bomb to me, a bright flash and a thunderclap, and I wondered if these anarchists of noble sentiment knew what their audiences might do.

The firing stopped. It had lasted only three or four minutes. Around a corner I finally reached Peebles and put my hand on his arm. ‘‘Mr. Peebles, do you remember me?’’

‘‘What?’’ His sunken eyes rolled with terror.

‘‘Last week you carried my trunk in your barrow.’’

‘‘What?’’

The fellow was so stunned and terrified he could hardly think. I finally caught his attention by tapping his nose with a coin. ‘‘Peebles! We’re safe, the police have stopped shooting! Get hold of yourself and think. You carried my trunk from Madison and Clark up Wells Street.’’ I waved the coin. ‘‘If you can answer my questions there may be something for you.’’

‘‘Yes’m.’’ There was still a little hitch in his voice but he seemed to be listening now.

‘‘On that night, someone took my bracelet. Was it you?’’

‘‘No’m, of course not!’’

‘‘The truth, Peebles! What did you do with it?’’

‘‘I never took it, don’t lay it on me! You gave it away!’’

‘‘ I gave it away?’’

‘‘Yes’m, when that detective stopped you. Ladies allus give that detective something before he lets ’em go. Most times it’s money, but you already told me you didn’t have much, and I saw him looking at the bracelet and putting it in his pocket afterwards. So it warn’t me took it!’’

I remembered the locked box Mabel had shown us, the lace gloves and brooches-all extorted? Was my bracelet there now? Was the bomb? I asked Peebles, ‘‘Why didn’t you tell me?’’

‘‘I thought you gave it to ’im! All the ladies do!’’

I sighed. ‘‘Well, here’s something for telling me at last,’’ and gave him the coin.

I went back to Desplaines. No one was in the street now, but a block away I could see policemen helping wounded officers up the steps of the police station. I didn’t see Johanna or Peter, so I decided to go to the Flanagans’ home. As I turned back, the glimmer of the streetlight showed me a telegraph pole peppered with bullet holes. All of them were on the side that faced the police. I shivered, for I had passed that pole just moments before the frantic shooting.

On my way back, there were several drugstores filled with wounded people buying medicines. In the third I saw Johanna and hurried in to greet her. She was shaky and weeping and had a gash on her back, not very deep. I helped her get a sticking plaster onto it, and arrange her torn dress, then led her home.

‘‘You’re bleeding! What happened?’’ demanded her mother, and when we explained she asked, ‘‘Where’s Peter?’’ But we didn’t know. I left the two of them to wait up for him and went to sit on my bed and have a good think.

I wanted to get out of Chicago. In the week I’d been here I’d seen too much shooting, too much bleeding, and much too much bombing. But first I had to get my bracelet back from Detective Loewenstein. How? After what I’d just seen I didn’t want to cross a policeman anytime soon. I decided to lie low until things calmed down again, then check with Mabel to see if she could help me.

Things didn’t calm down. They got worse. Lordy, I’ve never seen anything like it!

Policemen had never before died and been wounded in such numbers. Maybe they’d never before been ordered to shoot when in such close formation. But of course they wouldn’t admit they’d shot each other. They blamed it all on the foreign anarchists, and worked Chicago into a frenzy of fear. I was glad my hosts were named Flanagan, because everyone turned on the Germans. Marshall Field’s favorite paper, the Tribune, suggested restricting immigration to keep out ‘‘foreign savages,’’ and even Archie’s paper, the Chicago Times, said the bombers were not Americans; they were ‘‘cutthroats of Beelzebub from the Rhine, the Danube, the Vistula and the Elbe.’’ The Knights of Labor ran for cover, saying they hoped the anarchists ‘‘would be blotted from the surface of the earth.’’ The whole nation agreed. A New York reporter said the mob ‘‘poured volley after volley into the midst of the officers.’’ I reckon he hadn’t seen the telegraph pole that proved the volleys came from the police, maybe because he lived in New York, maybe because the telegraph pole disappeared the next day. Jakey’s superior, Captain Schaack, explained that the telegraph company had removed it in the common course of business. Yes indeed.

The courts backed up the police, of course. The state attorney told the police, ‘‘Make the raids first and look up the law afterward.’’ They did. Hundreds of people were arrested. Fielden, the speaker who had obeyed the captain’s order and agreed to leave, was one.

Handsome August was another.

The mayor consulted with Marshall Field and other notable citizens and made a proclamation to forbid crowds from gathering in public places, but of course they could gather to spend money in big stores like Mr. Field’s, and luckily in theatres too, because we had other problems. Poor Johanna’s sore shoulder prevented her from performing, and when we learned that Officer Degan had been killed by the bomb she sank into a fever and could barely move. I learned a few juggling tricks from Peter so that I could pretend to be a Flaming Flanagan, though I balked at the blazing torches. I was glad for the extra few dollars, for I would soon have enough for a ticket to New York.

But hang it, I needed my bracelet.

As the week drew to a close, I risked calling on Mabel. I embraced her and she winced, but said, ‘‘Bridget! How good to see you!’’

‘‘Dearest Mabel, I have a favor to ask.’’

‘‘Of course! It’s so lonely these days-Jakey is very busy and out of sorts, trying to find that anarchist Lingg, and he has all these secret projects.’’

‘‘Yes, I don’t want to bother your husband, that’s why I came to you. It’s about the box you showed us, under the bed.’’

‘‘No! Please!’’ Mabel fell into a chair and burst into tears. ‘‘Don’t even mention that horrid box!’’

‘‘Oh, my-what happened?’’ I pulled a slipper chair to face her and dabbed at her wet cheeks with my handkerchief. When I brushed her arm she flinched.

‘‘I don’t know what happened!’’ she sobbed. ‘‘Jakey looked in the box, and the bomb was gone. I don’t know where! But he shouted I was only to sell what he gave me, and became furious!’’

Gently, I turned back the lace of her sleeve, where a yellowing bruise marred her pale skin. No wonder she’d been wincing. I said, ‘‘He struck you!’’