She maneuvered the slippery steps and entered the house, but she wouldn’t sit and wait as instructed in the parlor. She had no time for that. Dropping her valise with a thud in the foyer, she collected the front of her skirt and bounded up the stairs. When she reached the door to the Blue Room, she paused and caught her breath.
The room was the same as her last day there seven months ago, the blue walls, the lithograph of New York City above the fireplace, the two beds, the long pine table, the oil lamps, and Mamma’s rocking chair, but the room was dead silent and cold.
She began to survey the way things were left, murky water in the basin, the armoire open and empty. Clara and Euphora’s bed was unmade, a white and blue dot dress in a heap on top. A few strands of long red hair clung to a pillow. She picked it up and embraced it as though it were Euphora herself. A wave of anxiety shot through her, making her chest tight. She tossed the pillow back onto the bed, then brushed her hands together to shake off the lingering feeling of nervousness. Her poor dear sisters. Where were they?
There was a shuffling sound, a clunk.
“
Who is it?”
No one answered. Then she remembered a deputy was searching the house. Another clunk. It sounded like he was down the hall in Mrs. Purcell’s room.
The girls had packed up their clothing so their exit had been premeditated, she decided. But did it have anything to do with Papa’s departure? His bedchamber door was ajar. What had he been up to these months she’d been gone? She should never have left. He had driven Billy away and done something cruel to the girls. Why hadn’t she kept her promise to come back for the children? How could she have given in to Mac all these months?
She shoved Papa’s door open. Papa’s things were everywhere about the room, his razor, hairbrush, a pomade tin on the washstand and a quarter-full whiskey bottle and a glass near his bed. His armoire still had his clothing in it, a few shirts, a pair of summer trousers, a summer coat, and his spare suspenders. Her legs felt wobbly again. He hadn’t packed up as the girls had.
“
I asked you to wait downstairs, Mrs. MacAdams.”
She spun toward Sheriff Swift’s voice and stepped back into the Blue Room to meet him.
His unlit cigar and hat in one hand, he was nearly as tall as Mac, but much broader, and his features were exaggerated. He was a picture that a child would draw of a man.
“
Will you sit at the table there with me, Mrs. MacAdams?”
“
It looks as though the girls left with some thought. They took their things but my father didn’t.” She gestured toward the bare armoire.
“
Your neighbor Rose saw the two girls go with satchels at dawn yesterday. Emma was waving at them from the porch. He also thought he heard your father having a row with Emma about two in the morning this past night.” He looked at her a moment as if sizing her up in some way. “Please come and sit down with me in the other room. You must be worn out from your trip and disturbed to find your family gone. Is your husband here with you?”
She shook her head, then went to the long pine table. He sat straight across from her, his bulky hands folded neatly on the table. She shivered with cold. There hadn’t been a fire anywhere in the house at all today. Mrs. Purcell’s place had always hummed like an engine, fires upstairs, fire downstairs, and constant cooking in the kitchen making sweet and savory smells.
Arms crossed, she listened as his questions came. Did she know anything about Papa’s canal contracts, where he did his banking, and who his business partners were. The more he questioned her, the more Izzie wondered what the
Hell-fire
he was getting at, and the more she felt the precious minutes that she could be searching for Clara and Euphora slipping away.
“
All I want to know, Sheriff Swift, is where my sisters are. I don’t know anything about my father’s businesses. He never told us anything. Do you think they are with him?”
“
I’d say not. If Emma was out there waving them off at dawn, she’d be the one to know their whereabouts, but she’s gone to us. So far no one else knows a thing.”
Gone to us. Izzie’s saddened at the memory of Emma Purcell’s kind figure in the small parlor discussing books with her.
“
Well, I must find them right away.” Izzie stood up. “Has your deputy discovered anything that could assist me?”
“
We’re more interested in your father now.” Swift unclasped his hands, shoved back his chair noisily, rose and walked to the fireplace mantle where he picked up a box of matches and lit his cigar. As he sucked on the stub and puffed up a swirl of foul-smelling smoke, he glanced around the room. Then he took the cigar from his mouth and studied its ember. “I think he killed Emma. Could have been an accident, but I think he might have caused it. On top of that, I think he was in cahoots with some bank note counterfeiting a few months ago. I never could get the right evidence to haul him in on it.
Izzie slumped back into her chair. The counterfeiting was entirely possible. He was suspected of insurance fraud back in Ohio before he ran off. But killing Emma. That seemed too much for Papa. He wouldn’t have a reason to harm her. After all, she was helping him raise his children in her way and Clara had written that she let them stay when they were behind with room and board.
“
No, sir, I can’t believe my father would kill anyone.”
“
Can you believe it if he was so drunk that something snapped in him? I’ve seen it a hundred times, these fellas beating their wives, their kids. We see it all the time.”
Izzie stared at Swift a moment. Hearing him lump Papa in with other men who became violent with their families was horrible, but there was no way to deny it. Papa had harmed Billy on many occasions and maybe even the girls after she’d left. Whatever had happened, she could have stopped it if she had been there.
“
I suppose that might be possible,” she said.
Sheriff Swift continued with his interrogation and by the time he finished, she realized that he had very little interest in finding her two sisters, but overwhelming interest in finding Papa. After all, he thought Papa might have caused Mrs. Purcell’s death as well as been involved in some kind of counterfeiting. The girls had left on their own. They had gone somewhere without Papa and that was that.
“
There’s not much I can do about those girls,” he said, “especially if they’ve gone out of the area. If they were slave girls, and you were a rich plantation owner, you could hire a tracker and dogs.” He smiled at her, but she did not smile back. “No, Mrs. MacAdams, you are going to have to look for them on your own. My experience is the sooner you start, the better chance you have of finding them. Talk to Mrs. Purcell’s friends. They may know something. In all likelihood the girls are on their way to your home in Rochester right now. We’ve got to find your father, but we will ask around about your sisters and notify other sheriffs in the area. If I come across anything, I’ll let you know. Leave your address with me.”
After Sheriff Swift left her, Izzie sat in Mamma’s rocker for a while gathering her thoughts. She caressed the chair’s smooth wooden arms.
“
What would your voices tell you now, Mamma? They told you to find Papa in Geneva when he ran away from us. What would they tell you about Clara and Euphora or Billy? Did the girls go after Billy?”
She could hear the deputy and Swift talking in low voices down the hall. The whole world. The girls could be anywhere in the whole world after two days of travel. Anywhere in the Northeast, anyway. Why hadn’t she come sooner? Why hadn’t she followed her instincts? This was her fault. She rocked the chair hard, then jammed her feet down.
The Spirit Room might tell her something. Mrs. Beattie might know something. Maybe even Sam Weston. She stood up so fast the rocker rolled hard and banged her legs. She ran downstairs, grabbed her valise without breaking her stride, and only slowed when she got to the icy front stairs. The neighbors were gone.
<><><>
WHEN IZZIE ARRIVED AT THE SPIRIT ROOM, she was out of breath. The secret floorboard where Papa had built the knocker was open and the furniture all pushed aside. Had they been repairing it? There was a beautiful red silk sofa not far from the door. How had they afforded that with all the problems with the séances Clara had written her about? Everything else was much the same, except the tray with bottles in the corner. Izzie walked over to it. Peach brandy, soda water, whiskey, two short glasses, two stem glasses. Two and two? The tray was Papa’s, of course, but if he was serving drinks to the seekers, why two of each kind, why not six or eight? She picked one of the stem glasses up and put her nose to it. It smelled of peaches. Suddenly feeling gloomy, she replaced the glass on the tray.
She shouldn’t spend more time here. The sheriff said the sooner she searched, the better the result. The sooner, the better. The sooner, the better. She paced around the room. Everything here felt despondent, forlorn.
She considered the opening in the floor and the rod running from foot pedal to knocker. Nothing seemed unusual about it. Then she glimpsed an open bandbox on the table. Hand trembling as she fingered through the many-colored snippets of ribbon, Izzie kept thinking she would find something buried under the ribbons that would tell her where Clara had gone, but there was nothing. She turned back toward the gap in the floor. Perhaps Clara hid something under there. Izzie knelt down and searched but found nothing.
The sooner, the better
she could hear the sheriff saying. She had to start asking around right away. She’d start with Mrs. Beattie downstairs.
When she got to the milliner’s shop, Izzie found Mrs. Beattie’s blond head just visible behind her cash register counter. The milliner looked up, saw Izzie, and rushed out to embrace her.
“
Oh, Isabelle. Sheriff Swift was just here asking me questions. He said Clara and Euphora were seen yesterday morning boarding the Watkins steamship. The girls have gone south. And one of his deputies told him that Mrs. Purcell and Clara tried to buy two train tickets to New York City the day before, but held off because of the ice.”
Izzie groaned. She should have come before. Long before. New York City. How on earth would she find them in New York City?
“
Did Clara speak to you at all about leaving?” Izzie asked.
“
No, but I know Emma had worries and was trying to think of a way to get all three of them away from your father. That was before Billy left. She was quite frustrated that she had no legal right to do anything.”
“
What worries?”
“
I didn’t know Billy or Euphora. I only knew Clara. I was concerned about some things I’d been observing.”
“
What things?”
“
I went to Emma because Clara had been having private séances with men alone in the Spirit Room. At least, it looked and sounded that way. There was that friend of your father’s, Mr. Weston. He came nearly every Friday evening. There was also another one, but I never managed to see him. I could only hear his voice if I was upstairs in my flat.” She averted her eyes toward her shelves of hats, then the floor, and crossed her arms. “I thought it improper. It didn’t seem right, Clara being only fourteen and those men alone with her.” Her eyes came back to Izzie’s. “I asked Emma if she knew about it. That’s when I found out about your father’s drinking habits and that he’d been so harsh with Billy.”
Izzie nodded. Besides worrying about the impropriety with the single men, the two women were probably afraid that if Papa could hit Billy, he could hit the girls too. Maybe he had already been hitting them. About to explode, Izzie paced several steps away from Mrs. Beattie, then came back.
“
My father wasn’t there when the men were with Clara? He used to always observe and assist us. Are you sure?”
Mrs. Beattie shook her head. “I don’t think so, even though Clara said he was. And Clara seemed rather in her own world lately, daydreaming, I supposed. I thought it was her age. You know how girls that age can be. But she was jittery too. Every little noise would make her jump.” Mrs. Beattie’s face became flat and hard. “And there’s something else, something I told Emma.”
“
What else could there be?”
“
I told Emma that sometimes on the Fridays, I heard Mr. Weston moaning, the kind of moaning sounds my husband used to make when we were…well, being marital.” Mrs. Beattie looked at the floor. “It disturbed me a great deal so I confided in Emma. I suppose it could have been something to do with the spirit antics.” Mrs. Beattie’s face came back up, eyes full of tears. She put her fingertips over her mouth and shook her head. “I’m sorry, Isabelle.”
“
You think there were conjugal relations between Mr. Weston and Clara?” Izzie felt a flood of seething anger pour into her.
Mrs. Beattie gave a faint nod.
“
How can I find Sam Weston?”
“
I don’t know where he lives, but he was in here just an hour ago asking after Clara. He’d heard the news and seemed quite distressed. He seemed much more concerned about Clara than about your father being gone. He doesn’t know anything.”