Nellie’s eyes bored into Bell’s. “Lots of reasons, Isaac. He was such a coward. I was trying to get rid of his silly drowning fear. I made the mistake of confiding in him. I told him I was running away to join the Army . . . I loved him, Isaac. I loved him very much. But he would have ruined everything if he told. And I couldn’t stand him being afraid.”
“How did you kill him?” Bell kept waiting for her to look away, but her eyes were fixed on his.
Suddenly the women in the nearest balloon called, “Nellie! We’re almost ready.”
She waved to them, the gun tucked to her side, neither turning her head nor taking her eyes from Bell.
“How could a girl drown a boy as big as she? Didn’t he fight back?”
“He was groggy.”
“You poisoned him.”
“I didn’t poison him,” Nellie said indignantly, “I gave him a little chloral hydrate.”
“Chloral hydrate? That’s knockout drops.”
“Just to calm him down. Not poison.”
“Calm him to kill him?”
“I was helping him beat his fear. I knew if he swam once, he could swim forever. But it didn’t work. He was a hopeless coward.”
“Did he pass out? Is that how he drowned?”
“Aren’t you listening, Isaac? He was groggy. He didn’t pass out.”
“You drowned him.”
“He was a hopeless coward.”
“You drowned him.”
“Let’s just say the chloral hydrate created an opportunity.”
“Was that how you drugged the old man who fell from the Washington Monument? Slipped him knockout drops?”
“Chloroform.”
“What did you feed Comstock?”
“Arsenic.”
“Where did you learn—?”
“I worked as a pharmacist once. I’ve done lots of things, Isaac. I love different things. I was an actress for a bit. Every time I ran away, I found a fascinating job. I went back to the circus and became an ac
robat. For a while. I was a medical student, one of the first girls at Johns Hopkins. I didn’t stay long.”
“Long enough to know your poisons.”
“And anatomy,” she smiled, reaching to touch the back of her neck.
Bell’s hat flew from his head. Before it touched his shoulder his derringer filled his right hand, the barrel aimed at her face. He saw shock in Nellie’s eyes but no fear even though she knew he would fire before she could. Still, she was lightning fast.
—
There was a part of Isaac Bell, the part that beat deepest in his soul, that held innocents sacred. Until this moment, that part could never have imagined triggering a gun at a woman. He knew full well that Nellie Matters was no innocent but a cold-blooded murderer trying to kill him. He pulled the trigger. He was not entirely surprised when his bullet missed her head by a full inch and broke a control wire that parted with a musical twang.