“I believe I have, but it would have been early in my career. He’s almost eighty. He retired from the bench some time ago. Let me think about it.…” He paused, frowning. At the end of our quiet little street, I heard the bells of a fire truck as it left the Jefferson Market fire station. In the city, there was a constant reminder that danger was never far away.
Daniel shook his head as he reached to turn down the gaslight. “I do remember a couple of trials, but neither one resulted in the death penalty. And I also remember that this particular judge was known to be soft. A kind-hearted old man who would avoid sentencing someone to death if he could.”
We both lay back against the pillows.
“We don’t seem to be getting anywhere, do we?” Daniel said. “And there is still the threat of his last note—he still wants to kill one more time.” He turned to me and kissed me gently. “But it’s not your worry, Molly. Go to sleep, and sweet dreams.”
But I didn’t have sweet dreams. Instead I was in that dark, confined space again, lying there unable to move, listening to the drip of water and a strange rumbling. And I knew I had to get out before it was too late.
Fifteen
The next morning I awoke with a headache. Daniel’s mother appeared at my door with a cup of tea.
“Daniel said you had a bad night, moaning in your sleep,” she said. “He told me to tell you to stay home and rest. You could be suffering from delayed concussion after your accident, you know. And shock. One can’t be too careful with these things.”
She insisted I have breakfast in bed. I sat up, eating my boiled egg and looking out of the window at the deserted street. Doing nothing did not come easily to me, especially when there were so many questions to be answered. I was itching to find out whether anyone could have had a motive to kill Mabel’s parents, and how easy it would have been to gain access to their house. But I told myself I could wait until the bodies were exhumed and an autopsy was performed. If it was confirmed that they died as a result of the fire, then there was no more to be done. It could never be proved that Mabel started that fire deliberately and then got out.
I lay back in bed and thought about the dream that had been troubling me. The dark, confined space. The drip of water. The strange rumbling. And the awful feeling of doom. Were they taking me back to that train crash, when I was trapped in the car, or did they mean something more? In the dream, I definitely felt trapped. I knew I had to escape before something terrible happened. In Ireland we’d take such a dream as a warning, a portent of something bad about to happen. At home we believed very strongly in psychic powers and the sixth sense. I’d often thought that I had it myself, until it let me down and didn’t warn me of the worst thing that had happened in my life. But Gus would say that the symbols in my dream represented deep-seated fears from my own life. The fear of being trapped? Of no escape? I shook my head. But I didn’t feel trapped. I loved my life and my husband and child. Was the dream maybe a flashback to a time when I had been trapped somewhere? I tried to go over my many adventures as a detective. Yes, there were times I had been in danger, but they no longer haunted me. I’d have to ask Gus and see what she could tell me.
I lay back and tried to sleep, but sleep wouldn’t come and my head throbbed. So I got up and held a hot washcloth to my temples. I actually felt better when I was up and moving around, so I dressed and went downstairs to find Bridie and Liam rolling a ball to each other down the length of the hallway. “Ba!” Liam said excitedly. “Ba!”
It seems he was learning new words almost every day now, and I beamed at him with pride.
“Yes, it’s a ball, isn’t it? You like playing with Bridie, don’t you?”
“Ba!” Liam said again, impatient for her to roll the ball back to him.
How nice it would be to be a child again, I thought. Not a care in the world except playing, eating, and sleeping. Then I remembered that Mabel was little more than a child, and she carried a terrible burden around with her. I wondered if she would ever be free of it.
Mrs. Sullivan looked up from the kitchen, her hands and apron white with flour. “I thought I’d make a stew and dumplings today. It was always one of Daniel’s favorites.” Then a frown crossed her face. “But what are you doing out of bed? Daniel said you were supposed to rest and do nothing until you recovered from the accident.”
“I feel better when I’m up than when I was lying down,” I said. “Can I help?”
“No, you cannot. You go through to the parlor and put your feet up. All that rushing around and excitement yesterday was clearly too much for you. Fires and murder, indeed. I never let my husband bring his work home with him. If he ever tried to mention a case he was working on, he got a black look from me, and he hushed up again quickly.”