Page 44
The doctor nodded, tossing the auger aside. “Ned, if you would hand me the reed?”
It slid into the hole easily, and Mrs. Jacobs’s soft mewling eased as she began to understand. Thornhollow rose from his knees beside the grave, went to the carriage, and returned with a canteen.
“Madam,” he said solemnly to Mrs. Jacobs. “I believe your daughter is thirsty.”
The older woman disentangled herself from Grace, took the canteen from Dr. Thornhollow, and crawled to the gravestone. Thornhollow offered Grace his hand, and she rose, watching as Mrs. Jacobs whispered something into the reed, her words disappearing into the coffin below, followed by a long, cool drink of water.
Her sobs followed, long and heavy. “I can’t hear her no more, Doctor,” she said. “That’s all she needed. A drink, and her mother to give it to her.”
Ned removed his hat and leaned on the auger, his voice surprising them all as it rang out low and strong, mixing with the moan of the wind as the storm rolled in.
O say can you see by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
Thornhollow let go of Grace’s arm and covered his heart with his hand, his baritone joining with Ned’s thrumming bass.
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
Grace’s throat itched to join them, but it was not only subterfuge that kept her mouth firmly shut. Emotions had welled close to the surface, and she thought her heart had never felt so full as it did standing next to the defiled grave of a whore while lunatics sang the national anthem.
Four sets of muddy footprints crisscrossed the black-and-white floor of the atrium, the doctor having convinced Ned to come inside for tea upon their return. The rain had unleashed on them, though Mrs. Jacobs had remained unperturbed, even when the closest of lightning strikes set Grace’s arm hairs on end. Ned was soaked through, and though he normally wouldn’t leave the stables, the doctor’s offer of a warm drink had brought him inside long enough to slug it down, then venture back out into the night. Thornhollow rested near the fireplace in his office, face dejectedly in his hands though he himself had proclaimed the night a success.
“It was a good thing you did tonight,” Grace said, once they were alone.
He waved off her praise. “It was no miracle. All I did was listen to the woman and give her what she was asking for.”
“When no one else would.”
“Mmmmm,” was the only response Grace got, and she saw that his eyes had wandered to the blackboard again.
“Not still in a foul mood about our killer, are you?”
“I’m in a foul mood about our lack of a killer,” he said. “You’ve listened to me lecture long enough to know that a person who attacks with a method as specific as this doesn’t stop. It will happen again, and me too dense to see to the heart of it and stop him in time.”
Grace eyed the board. “It’s as if something inside of him has been unleashed; he won’t restrain willingly. But, I’m curious—why start in the first place?”
“A lethal mixture of any number of things. Judging by his attitude toward women, he deals with an overbearing mother. Add his failures with wom—”
“No, Doctor,” Grace interrupted. “I mean, why start now? If he is a medical man, he will have had schooling, so he can’t be terribly young. Yet the sloppiness from Anka Baran’s murder indicates she was his first victim.”
Intrigued, Thornhollow leaned forward. “Yes, and most killers tend to seek out victims within their own age range. I’d say the Polish girl—”
“Anka,” Grace said her name.
“—was in her late twenties at least. From seeing Mrs. Jacobs’s daughter when she visited here I’d say she was a comparable age, though her lifestyle may have added a few years to her face.”
Thornhollow tapped his fingers on his knees, eyes roaming the board as if trying to find a place to fit their new puzzle piece though he didn’t even know the shape of it yet. “A good question, Grace. Why now? The answer may shed light on the portrait of our man.”
