The Angel of Darkness - Caleb Carr [164]
“Very much so,” the Doctor answered. “Detective Sergeant?”
Lucius already had his small pad out. “Yes, sir. I’m on it.”
“Oh. And Mr. Picton”—the Doctor paused to take a sip of his wine—“is there a store in town where we might purchase a chalkboard?”
“A chalkboard?” Mr. Picton repeated. “How large?”
“As large as possible. And as soon as possible.”
Mr. Picton thought the matter over. “No … I can’t think …” Then his face brightened. “Wait a minute. Mrs. Hastings!” The housekeeper appeared almost immediately. “Mrs. Hastings, would you mind telephoning over to the high school? Tell Mr. Quinn that I’d like to borrow one of his largest chalkboards.”
“A chalkboard?” Mrs. Hastings repeated, moving around the table to refill the wineglasses. “What in heaven’s name would your honor want with a chalkboard? And where would we put such a thing?”
“Mrs. Hastings, please, the matter is very urgent,” Mr. Picton said. “And I don’t know how many times I have to tell you, I’m an assistant district attorney at home, not a judge in a courtroom—you really don’t need to address me as ‘your honor.’”
“Hmm!” Mrs. Hastings grunted, turning and making for the kitchen again. “As if that fool jury would’ve convicted those boys without your driving them to it!” She pounded her way back through the swinging door.
Our host smiled in his nervous, quick way, tugging at his beard and then his hair. “I think we can find something that will suit your needs, Doctor…. And so! We return to the facts of Libby Hatch’s background. Or at least, to what bits and pieces I eventually assembled. Libby Fraser, as I say, was her name when she arrived here. She tried to get all sorts of employment in town, but nothing worked out—she was too headstrong to follow the rules of conduct at the telephone exchange, expressed too many opinions about customers’ tastes to hold a sales position in the ladies’ clothing department of Mosher’s store, and had no real education of any kind, which narrowed her remaining choices down to various domestic positions. Yet she seemed to find that work more objectionable than anything else—she took and lost three positions as a maid in as many months.”
“And yet Vanderbilt had only high praise for her,” Mr. Moore said.
“Yes, I noted that in your last telegram, John,” Mr. Picton replied. “It’s curious. She may have been putting on an act, or she may simply have let the less aggressive side of her nature take over, for a time. After all, most people who knew the woman in her early Ballston days didn’t think she was a wicked person, really—just entirely too determined to do and have things her own way. Everyone expected that those qualities would be knocked out of her, though, when she accepted a post as housekeeper to old Daniel Hatch. He was the local miser—most of these villages have a character like him. Lived in a big, ramshackle house outside town, alone, except for his servants. Dressed in rags, never bathed—and was rumored to have cash stuffed and sewn into every wall and cushion in his place. As mean as a snake, too, and went through housekeepers as if he were keeping score. But Libby took him on—and the shocks just kept coming, for the next several years.”
“Shocks?” the Doctor asked.
“Indeed, Dr. Kreizler. Shocks! Within a few months the old miser and his housekeeper were engaged to be married. The wedding followed a few weeks later. That in itself should not, perhaps, have come as such a surprise—even though she had just turned thirty, Libby Fraser was a youthful, handsome