“Certainly not.”
“But why not? If it would help…”
“Most likely they’d think you were some sort of crackpot. Or worse—a fame-seeker trying to get her name in the papers. Terrence and I have been friends for some time. I know how the police think.”
“But if I could read something else from the murders, something belonging to Tommy Duffy, for instance…”
“Absolutely not,” Will commanded. “I don’t think you should touch anything having to do with these murders.” Will sprang up from his chair and paced the length of the parlor. Midway, he stopped to tap his ash into a tall silver ashtray beside a navy-striped wingback chair that looked as if it had never been sat in. It was as if Will’s coiled energy didn’t allow him to sit long enough to make an impression on the cushion. “We are going to catch our killer with good old-fashioned detective work, even if we have to go through every occult book in the museum’s library.”
“So… I can stay?” Evie asked.
“Yes. You can stay. For now. But there will be new rules. There will be no further cavorting in speakeasies. And you will be expected to help out around the museum.”
“Of course.” It was better than a train back to Ohio. And once she proved to Will how indispensable she was, he’d have to keep her on for the long run. “Thank you, Unc.” Evie threw her arms around Will, who stiffened and waited for her to withdraw.
In the doorway, Jericho cleared his throat and waited to be recognized. He dropped the late-edition paper on Will’s desk. “You might want to read this.”
“ ‘Exclusive to the New York Daily News, by T. S. Woodhouse. Museum Makes a Pentacle Killing,’ ” Will read aloud. He frowned and waved the paper about. “What’s this?”
Evie snatched the paper away and kept reading. “ ‘New York City, that bustling metropolis, is no stranger to violence. Bugsy Siegel, Meyer Lansky, and the rest of the Brownsville Boys of Murder, Inc., have kept the bodies piling up faster than the cops can take bribes to look the other way. But the Pentacle Murders have given even hardened New Yorkers the heebie-jeebies. Mothers won’t let their children play stickball on the streets after dark. Shopgirls spend their hard-earned dough on taxis straight home to their cold-water flats in Murray Hill and Orchard Street. The Sultan of Swing, Mr. Babe Ruth himself, has promised a five-hundred-dollar reward for information leading to the capture of the foul fiend. But in the midst of this Manhattan murder mania, there is one joint that’s raking it in—the Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult. That’s the Museum of the Creepy Crawlies to you folks in the know.’ Unc, the museum made the papers!”
Evie continued. “ ‘Their business is anything spooky, and anything spooky is good for business. On a recent Friday, this reporter witnessed a mob scene parked outside the doors of the old Cornelius T. Rathbone mansion near Central Park. That’s because the curator of the museum, Professor William Fitzgerald’—oh, Unc! That’s you!” Evie exclaimed. “ ‘… is helping the New York boys in blue figure out what makes this diabolical killer tick in the hope of finding him before he strikes again. He’s aided in his work by his niece, Miss Evie O’Neill, late of Zenith, Ohio, a comely seventeen-year-old Sheba who knows her onions about everything from witches’ coifs to the bones of Chinese conjurers. But when this reporter tried to get the goods on the hunt for a killer, the dame played coy. “I’m afraid I can’t comment on that,” she said and batted those baby blues. Fellas, start lining up. There’s more than one killer in this town.’ ”
Evie tried to keep the grin from her face. T. S. Woodhouse had come through after all.
“Evangeline, did you speak to this Woodhouse fellow?” Will demanded.
Evie’s eyes went wide. “Unc, I had no idea he was a reporter! He was a paying customer. I gave him the tour. When he started asking questions, I stonewalled him. He played me for a chump, that cad!”
“You have to be more careful. Develop a New Yorker’s skin.” Will tapped a second cigarette against the table, packing down the tobacco before lighting it. “Whatever happened to objective, truthful reporting?”
“Haven’t you heard? It doesn’t sell papers,” Jericho said.
“You’re so right, Unc. That Woodhouse is a rat. But he did mention the museum, at least,” Evie said. “Do you know what this means?”
Will blew twin streams of smoke from his nostrils. “Trouble,” he said.
The phone rang, startling them all. Will took the call, his expression hardening. “We’ll meet you there.”
“What is it?” Evie asked.
“The Pentacle Killer has struck again.”
THE BOGEYMAN
Will and Evie were met at the front door of the Grand Masonic Lodge by a small man with a thin mustache whose round black spectacles magnified his eyes into two large, blinking blue orbs that made Evie think of an owl.
“This way,” the man said nervously. “The police are already here, of course.” He led them through a wood-paneled hallway to a plain door. A brass plaque designated it the Gothic Room. The small man opened the door into a stuffy antechamber before opening a second door into a large room like a church’s sanctuary. The smell hit Evie right away—a terrible, cloying odor of smoke and cooked flesh that sat at the back of her throat.
Evie’s eyes focused first on the grandeur of the room: the high, wood-beamed ceilings and large chandeliers. At one end was a pipe organ; at the other was the letter G placed inside a sun. In the center of the room, a phalanx of cops and a coroner surrounded a small altar. They moved aside and Evie gasped. On the altar was the badly burned body of the Pentacle Killer’s latest victim.
“One of our Brotherhood found the body this morning around ten o’clock,” the blinking man said. He stumbled over the word body and his mustache crinkled in distaste. “The Most Worshipful Grand Master has been notified by cable. He is away with his family.”
e doorway, Jericho cleared his throat and waited to be recognized. He dropped the late-edition paper on Will’s desk. “You might want to read this.”
“ ‘Exclusive to the New York Daily News, by T. S. Woodhouse. Museum Makes a Pentacle Killing,’ ” Will read aloud. He frowned and waved the paper about. “What’s this?”
Evie snatched the paper away and kept reading. “ ‘New York City, that bustling metropolis, is no stranger to violence. Bugsy Siegel, Meyer Lansky, and the rest of the Brownsville Boys of Murder, Inc., have kept the bodies piling up faster than the cops can take bribes to look the other way. But the Pentacle Murders have given even hardened New Yorkers the heebie-jeebies. Mothers won’t let their children play stickball on the streets after dark. Shopgirls spend their hard-earned dough on taxis straight home to their cold-water flats in Murray Hill and Orchard Street. The Sultan of Swing, Mr. Babe Ruth himself, has promised a five-hundred-dollar reward for information leading to the capture of the foul fiend. But in the midst of this Manhattan murder mania, there is one joint that’s raking it in—the Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult. That’s the Museum of the Creepy Crawlies to you folks in the know.’ Unc, the museum made the papers!”