The Diviners (The Diviners 1)
“Because, old girl,” he’d said, wiping her tears away, “you’ve got to stand up for what’s right. You can’t let the bullies win.”
Evie took three deep breaths, closed her eyes, and clamped her hand firmly around the partially melted ring and the Mason’s crumbling flesh. She was vaguely aware of grinding her teeth as the images came down across her closed eyelids like a spotty rain getting heavier:
Eugene Meriwether polishing the ring with a cloth. His pride in it. A day at the beach with a friend. Sun glinting on sand. A lemonade—Evie could feel its refreshment. But none of these memories would catch a killer. Evie pressed harder, willing the ring to give up more, but the images remained faint and flickering, photographs shown too quickly for the viewer to hold on to anything meaningful in them.
Breathe, Evie told herself. Slow down. See everything. But she was distracted both by the horrible condition of the body and by her own nerves. She lost the connection and had to fight to get it back. And then she heard it: whistling. It was the same tune she’d heard when she’d touched Ruta Badowski’s shoe buckle. Evie was conscious of her heart rate picking up. In her dreamlike state, she was suddenly with Eugene Meriwether as he made his way down the darkened corridor toward the golden light spilling out from the Gothic Room. His hand reaching. The shining brass of the knob. The door opening…
“What are you doing?” One of the officers took firm hold of Evie’s hand, breaking the connection. He stared at her in disgust.
“I… I…” Evie whispered. “I was praying,” she managed to say. She’d been so close—one more moment and she might have seen the face of the killer. Tears of frustration streamed down her cheeks, and the cop softened.
He patted her shoulder. “Come away from there, now, sweetheart.”
She let herself be led. She’d definitely heard something. Was it important? Had the whistling come from the killer, or from somewhere else? Was it the same tune? It was. She was certain of it.
A crew of cleaning ladies in starched aprons arrived with mops and pails of soapy water. “Don’t touch anything!” Malloy and Will yelled at the same time. The owlish man shooed them away with a flick of his soft fingers and they retreated into the gray of the antechamber to await further instruction.
“We got ourselves a bad one, Will,” Malloy said.
They came out blinking into the hazy light of Twenty-third Street and were rushed by a wave of reporters shouting over one another. A flashlamp went off and Evie blinked away the bright dots dancing in the air.
“Vultures!” Malloy grumbled. “Get away from here!”
T. S. Woodhouse ran forward, notebook and pencil in hand. His unruly brown hair had clearly been oiled back that morning, but now a long chunk of it hung over his left eye like a veil. Evie hoped he wouldn’t blow her cover.
“Excuse me! Gentlemen, T. S. Woodhouse, with the Daily News. I hear you’ve got another stiff in there. And this one isn’t some marathon dancer from Brooklyn or a kid from the West Side.”
“Get lost, Woody,” Malloy growled.
The insult didn’t seem to make a dent in Mr. Woodhouse. He glanced at Evie, then turned to Will. “What’s your bead on this, Professor? Must be pretty bad for them to pull in a civilian. Is it a gangland war? A mob beef? Anarchists? Reds? The Wobblies?” Woodhouse smiled. “The bogeyman?”
“It might be a reporter!” Malloy taunted. “Why don’t ya write that down, Woody. Give us a reason to ship you boys out to Russia.”
“Freedom of the press, Detective.”
“Freedom of the jackals, more like. The way you boys play fast and loose with the facts, we’ll all be reading stories that are as reliable as my grandfather’s fish tales.”
“Anarchists mean to abolish the state,” Will said, as if still taking part in the previous conversation. “They want to cause the most chaos, to upend order. This is methodical. Planned out.”
The reporter’s pencil scratched across the page. “So the bogeyman, then?”
“Pal, aren’t you a little young to be on this beat?” Malloy again.
“Time to get rid of some of these old windbags writing careful little stories, Detective. Bring in the new blood, I say. It’s a modern world. People need some excitement in their news. A little zip. Wouldn’t you agree, Miss O’Neill?”
Evie didn’t answer.
“Best of luck,” Malloy said.
“I don’t believe in luck. I believe in opportunity. You and me, Professor, we could work together on this one. Put the killer on the ropes. Whaddya say?”
Uncle Will squared his hat and marched toward Sixth Avenue. T.S. sidled up to Evie and tipped his hat. “That must’ve been some awful scene in there. You poor thing, you’re trembling. Let me help you. Excuse me, excuse me, folks, coming through.”
T. S. Woodhouse led Evie to a spot behind a police wagon. He opened his jacket to reveal a flask. “You, ah, need a little liquid courage?”
Evie took a swig, and then chased it with a second. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. What you can mention is what the scene was like in there.”