“A natural?”
“As natural as breathing.”
“And lashing out to banish fear?”
“I’m never afraid,” said Nellie. “By the way, I see you gathering your legs to jump . . . Don’t!”
Bell made a show of relaxing his legs. “Is that your rifle in the bag?”
“I’m at my absolute best with the rifle.”
“Loaded with explosive bullets?”
“Stop showing off, Isaac. Everyone knows you’re a crack detective.”
“Who’s it for?”
“Who do you think it’s for?”
“Rockefeller.”
“For what he has done to my father, John D. Rockefeller will pay with much, much more than his life.”
“What could be more than life, Nellie?”
“What Rockefeller loves most. Do you have any other questions, Isaac?”
He had to keep her talking. “A young soldier was commended by the President of the United States for winning the highest shooting metal in the nation. Why would he desert the Army?”
“She saw no future in the Army.”
“There is a long, brave history of women serving their country disguised as men.”
Suddenly she was bitter, her cheeks taut, her voice harsh. “I had no choice. How else could a girl win the President’s Medal? I knew I was the best shot, better than any man. How else could I prove it?”
“But how hard it must have been fooling men in their barracks. How did you do it, Nellie?”
She was all too ready to boast and the bitterness dissolved. But she never took her eyes from him. Nor did her derringer waver as she demonstrated planting her legs apart, lowering her voice to mock him and the people she fooled: “Manly tones; theater tricks like skullcap and wig, trousers, boots. A detective must know that men believe what they assume is true.”
“But why did this young sharpshooter desert?”
“She won the medal. Why stay? It was time to move on. I always move on.”
“Or was she afraid they would find her out? Just as she feared she would be found out when her brother was murdered and she joined the Army disguised as a boy?”
“She was never afraid.”
“After she learned that her father loved her so much, he would forgive her of anything . . . ?”
“Or refuse to believe his worst fear,” Nellie replied coldly. “Even when he saw it with his own eyes, all he could say was how much he loved my mother.”
The derringer remained rock-steady as she hiked herself up to sit on the rounded edge of the wicker basket while clutching her carpetbag under her arm. “Billy was only Father’s stepson.”
“And your half brother, your own mother’s child.”
“I never knew my ‘own mother.’ She died when I was a baby.”
“But why did you kill Billy?”