Sara Paretsky - Sisters on the Case

When he began snoring Mabel tiptoed to the entry to hang up his jacket and looked around, but didn’t see me as she turned down the lamps.

It was not a night for rest. Jake snored, Mabel sobbed, and in my head Aunt Mollie was whispering to me that Mabel was not strong enough; I should take my bracelet and skedaddle and never see Mabel or Jake again. But hang it, I could also hear the piteous groans of the men Bonfield had shot at McCormick’s and at Haymarket, and the cries of panic afterward that Bonfield and Schaack and Jake had created and thrived on, and especially the idealistic voice of August of the welkin eye, hanged because the police didn’t want to admit they’d shot each other. So I told Aunt Mollie to hush up, crept out to empty Jake’s Smith and Wesson, then returned to hide behind the settee and doze off with my Colt in my hand.

I woke to morning light and the sound of an oath from their room. I hurried silently to stand by the hinge side of their closed door. ‘‘Where’s my watch? Stupid woman!’’

‘‘Jakey, it’s in your jacket.’’ Mabel, in her wrapper, emerged to fetch his coat from the entry hall. She didn’t see me because I was behind the door she’d just opened. Through the gap between the hinges I could see Jakey stumbling to his feet, fumbling in the pocket of the jacket she brought back.

‘‘Pour the water!’’

‘‘Yes, Jakey.’’ She poured water into the basin for him and handed him a towel. Apparently seeing him at his ablutions inspired tender feelings, for she added, ‘‘Dear Jakey, it’s not too late, if you would only love me as you once did.’’

‘‘Stupid woman!’’ He elbowed her away to wash his neck.

Just then the boy knocked and called, ‘‘Do you want pastries today?’’

‘‘Yes, please!’’ Mabel hurried to the door and gave the lad some coins, then returned to the bedroom and said, ‘‘Jakey, do you love another? Tell me!’’

‘‘I’m tired of your jealous nonsense, Mabel! Stop it or we’ll have to split up!’’

She cried, ‘‘But I’ve kept quiet! I’ve only sold what you told me to! I’ve been a good wife!’’

‘‘Shut up!’’ He grabbed his Smith and Wesson from his jacket and waved it about.

Well, I was pleased, though Mabel wasn’t. ‘‘Jakey, no! I’m a good wife!’’

Just then I got the perfect angle through the gap between the hinges. Jake was in profile, and I could have hit him square in the temple, but instead, as a favor to Mabel, I aimed a bit forward and took off his left eyebrow.

I know, I know, proper ladies are not good marksmen, but growing up in St. Louis I’d learned to hit a squirrel in the eye from thirty paces, and some days it’s hard to give up the old ways. Jake was much nearer and much slower than a squirrel. And how can a poor girl resist when fate provides her with one of the finest Colts in the nation, once the favored gun of Jesse James?

Jake bellowed and fired twice, and I shot him in the hand because if he kept firing he might realize that someone had emptied his Smith and Wesson. Blood streamed down his face, blinding him, and his cries grew weaker. Mabel was still whimpering, ‘‘Jakey, no!’’ when he fainted and fell on her.

I rushed out and down the stairs, clutching the valise, passing the old Scandinavian neighbor on his way up. ‘‘Help! They need a doctor!’’ I gasped.

He began to shout, ‘‘Doctor, come quick!’’ while I ran down the front steps and melted into the morning crowds.

My first stop was at the lawyer Kern’s office on LaSalle Street. When I sent in word that my business had to do with Lingg’s missing brooch, he consented to see me. He was intrigued by the brooch and the papers and the keys to three boxes of further evidence. When I explained that Mabel would need a good defense lawyer because his fellow policemen would try to claim that she was trying to kill Jakey instead of the other way around, he agreed to take her case if she requested his help, and meanwhile he would deposit the evidence into the vault at Merchant’s Bank.

Next I found Mabel’s sister and told her that Mabel was in trouble and would have to move out, and to be sure to take the three locked boxes under the bed along with her gowns and clothing, and that a lawyer named Kern was prepared to defend her for a reasonable fee.

But the police moved fast too. Mabel was in jail almost as soon as Jakey was in the hospital. Captain Schaack wouldn’t let family or friends see her, and I knew he was trying to get her to agree to his story. But as Jakey recovered he and Schaack must have realized that Mabel held all that evidence and they became more respectful. I decided it was safe to go on to St. Louis, especially since the actress with the sprained ankle was recovering and wanted her role back.

Mr. Kern did well by Mabel and got Jakey to withdraw the charges; but I grew impatient for action against those who had hanged dear August so unjustly. Marshall Field’s pet Tribune was hopeless as usual because it favored the police version, but when I returned to Chicago after the holidays I left an unsigned note for Archie at the rival Chicago Times, telling him to talk to Kern and keep a close eye on the Loewenstein shooting case.

Within days the Times had published Mabel’s side. ‘‘Her home was turned into a warehouse for stolen goods!’’ ‘‘Captain Schaack and ‘Jake’ Loewenstein were in the game!’’ ‘‘Other and higher members of the force said to be implicated!’’ Schaack and Bonfield sued the Times for libel, but the editors had seen the proof and didn’t back down. Heaps of newspapers were sold to a public eager to read about Lingg’s brooch, Mrs. Hill’s dress, and manufactured evidence in trials. A month later Mayor Roche suspended all three officers.

They never caught the Haymarket bomb-thrower. A few years later in Colorado I happened across a traveling carnival that featured a tall blond lady juggler called Anna the Anarchist. I watched a moment, until sensible Aunt Mollie began to whisper in my head that it might be best not to recognize Johanna, so I slipped out the side way; but not before I’d seen that the gray balls she was juggling had been fitted out with burning fuses to look like the bomb she’d stolen from the box under Mabel’s bed, the one that had landed with such precision on the faithless Officer Degan.

Others were also chipping away at the police story, and in 1893 Governor Altgeld looked at the trial record and fully pardoned the three anarchists who were still alive, with scathing words for police and court alike. But, hang it, life is not as neat as melodramas. Governor Altgeld was not reelected, and a new mayor reappointed Schaack and Bonfield to the force, and rich businessmen erected a statue in Haymarket Square to the police, the ‘‘heroes of Haymarket.’’ Yes indeed.

Although Belinda believed that everything would turn out for the best (it always did), she couldn’t help feeling anxious. In part it was the exhaustion, which she hoped would diminish as her body adjusted to the new schedule.

When the baby was finally asleep, she took a quick shower and wrapped herself in the one-size-fits-all, gray and navy striped velour robe that she’d bought in the men’s department at Macy’s. Bracing herself for the chill of the January morning, she opened the door to take in the Times .

The phone rang. She had turned off the ringer in the bedroom, but she hurried to the kitchen extension, taut with apprehension that twisted inside her stomach and eased only a little when she saw the caller’s name in the receiver’s window. Her mother.

Belinda didn’t want to talk to her mother, not today. ‘‘Doing anything special, Linnie?’’ her mother would ask in the carefully cheerful tone Belinda hated, as if Belinda were about to break into tiny pieces, like the cup she’d thrown against the wall-only one time, but no one would let her forget it. Her mother would want to come over (‘‘I haven’t seen you in weeks, Linnie. Is everything okay?’’), and Belinda would have to invent another reason for turning her down. And what if the baby started crying?