The Angel of Darkness - Caleb Carr [171]
“I’d had my doubts about Daniel Hatch’s death, when it finally had occurred, but there really hadn’t been any way to pursue them. Dr. Lawrence had cited some sort of unexplained heart disease as the cause, despite the old man’s lack of any history of such a disorder. And that, so far as the district attorney was concerned, was that. But when the children were attacked—well. I wanted to be particularly careful that we got all the facts. So I went out to the Hatch place myself, to make inquiries. It was an ugly scene, I can tell you—blood everywhere, and poor little Clara—but Libby’d been calmed by the laudanum, so I decided to get a few details. According to her, the children had been riding in the bed of the wagon with the gardening supplies. Their backs had been to the driver’s seat and front wall of the bed, and Clara’d been holding little Thomas. Libby claimed that she’d told them to stay where they were when the attacker appeared, and that they’d obeyed.”
“Which means,” Marcus announced, “that the ‘attacker’ had to’ve had some mighty long arms.”
“Yes,” Mr. Picton agreed. “Either she was mistaken, or she was lying. No one could reach all the way around from the driver’s seat of such a wagon and fire point-blank into the chests of three children who were below him in the bed and whose bodies were facing in the opposite direction. And even if he had managed the angle, surely one of the other children would have moved after the first shot, preventing point-blank execution of all three. Then there was the question of why the man hadn’t shot Libby, too—she was, after all, the one who’d seen his face clearly. Her explanation was that he must’ve been crazy, and that there’s no accounting for what crazy people do—not the kind of reply that inspires a great deal of confidence. Most disturbing of all, though, was her attitude toward Clara. She seemed to have no trouble mourning over the bodies of the boys, embracing them, kissing them—but she could barely approach her daughter, and her constant questions to Dr. Lawrence about whether or not the girl would regain consciousness seemed to stem out of a variety of emotions. Grief wasn’t necessarily the strongest of them, to my way of thinking. Guilt was very evident, too, though that could perhaps be laid to her failure to protect her children. But there was fear, it seemed to me, as well.”
“Did the sheriff organize a search?” Mr. Moore asked.
“Immediately. Volunteers were easy to raise, and the area was combed with dogs throughout the night and the following days. Inquiries were made in all the surrounding towns, and men who knew the hills well—men who ordinarily would’ve been reluctant to get involved in such matters—were persuaded to check any and all hiding places in the high ground. The case aroused that much emotion. But no trace of the man, as I’ve told you, was ever found.”
“What about the money?” Miss Howard said. “Surely someone other than you considered the fact that Mrs. Hatch stood to gain from her children’s deaths?”
“You would think so, Sara, wouldn’t you?” Mr. Picton answered. “But I’m afraid you’d be wrong. I brought the subject up exactly once, to the district attorney. He informed me that if I wanted to commit professional suicide by pursuing such a line of inquiry, I could go ahead—but I’d get no help from him or anyone else in the office! I did what I could in the months that followed—checked, as I’ve told you, the county records, wrote some letters…. But Libby left Ballston within a matter of weeks, to take the job with the Vanderbilts in New York. She had, after all, no real prospects here—none to suit a woman of her restless and ambitious nature, at any rate. Just a small stipend, a decrepit old house, and a daughter whose recovery would be a long and painful one, requiring constant