Quiet Dell: A Novel (21 page)

“Eric, we have formed an alliance for a common purpose. You must tell me, always, what you think.”

“I think you might not know how dangerous it is, Emily, how wearing, to deny one’s deepest impulses, one’s birthright, to live with the constant threat of exposure and calamity. Not murder, necessarily, though yes, that too, in certain quarters, but loss of home, family, respect, work, the ability to make a living—the difficulty in forming any lasting intimacy, ever, with another human being.”

“Understand me, Eric. His letter, only his letter, will be published. I will not refer to him, publicly or privately, in any other light. Nor will I discuss him with anyone but you. This we promise, between us. Lives depend on these secrets. Yes?”

Eric nodded. “Yes.” Rain misted around the car. “Lapsed Catholic,” he said quietly, “always worst. Mother’s son. Never married. Travels frequently. Vital, repressed. Angry at himself. Covert. Tries to stop, can’t. And so takes enormous risks with strangers. I’ve known so many men like him. I can recognize them across a room.”

“So you knew immediately?”

“The moment he looked at me, over your head. It’s a look others literally don’t see. I was watching you, as well, to see when you’d realize.”

“It wasn’t the first thing that occurred to me.”

“And when did you know?”

“When you lit the cigarette.”

“I was making sure you knew. Just as between us, earlier today, I let you realize, when I might have deflected you. You were thrilled
with your powers of deduction, but I decided I liked you, could trust you, wanted to work with you, and I walked you in. I’m a faultless judge of these things—survival instinct.”

“The thing with the cigarette,” Emily said. “You did it beautifully, like a kiss. I thought you were comforting him.”

“Perhaps I was. It was just after the drop moment, wasn’t it. But I would never have made that gesture in mixed company.”

Emily looked into the dark, which parted quickly before them, pierced by the headlamps. The drop moment. She’d not heard the expression. But yes, O’Boyle had just said,
The monster has killed them,
acknowledging what he feared. She went on, testing her thoughts. “Still, he proposed to her, Eric, and feels desperately guilty that he didn’t know about Pierson, didn’t save them. O’Boyle loved her, and the children.”

“Yes, I think he did.” Eric turned to her. “I could love you. It wouldn’t change who I am. He believed he could ignore what he needed, and they were a way out for him. He might have saved them; they might have been his life. But she knew better.”

“Oh, no, not better.”

“I mean that she recognized the truth between them. Perhaps they were even open with one another. And he’s right. She was, for reasons of her own, cruelly deluded by this Pierson, who may seem entirely commonplace, but will prove to be very skillful. But also deluded, for he’s gotten caught. We don’t know yet what he did, but we will soon be much occupied with it.”

“And what of Charles O’Boyle? Why can’t he be more like you, Eric?”

“Because he’s not like me. He lives bereft of any community. Not having a double life, he has almost no life, except in dark forays that he knows to be dangerous.”

“It seemed you were moved by him.”

“As were you. We are, I’m sure, the only people in whom he’s confided, and we are now sworn to a pact, to protect his experience and his guilt.”

“But I can’t help him. Could you?”

“Christ, Emily, I don’t know.”

“But didn’t someone help you, at some point? Show you how to manage—well, a life inside a life?”

“Is that what it is? No, it’s my life, all of it.”

ROOMER WAS SUSPICIOUS

OF STRANGER

O’BOYLE CALLED POLICE

WHEN ACTIONS OF MULTIPLE SLAYER

CAUSED HIM ALARM

O’BOYLE, IN HIS AMAZING LETTER, GIVES DETAILS OF THE STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE PARK RIDGE WIDOW AND HER CHILDREN; OF THE INVESTIGATION HE PERSONALLY MADE THAT LED TO THE ARREST OF POWERS BY THE PARK RIDGE POLICE; AND OF THE RELEASE OF THE MASS SLAYER BY THE POLICE IN THE ILLINOIS CITY. IT IS TOUCHING AND PATHETIC IN ITS DETAILS.

—Special to
The Clarksburg Telegram,
September 5, 1931

A Chicago man . . . has volunteered to supply the state of West Virginia with a rope with which to hang Harry F. Powers (alias Cornelius Pierson), mass slayer. He is Charles O’Boyle, former roomer in the Eicher home. . . . He writes:
“Herewith is my statement of my connection with the ‘Bluebeard’ Powers case . . .

“Five or six years ago I came to Park Ridge as a foreman for the J. H. Dunnegan Company . . . I had difficulty in locating a place to room. . . . My own home having been broken up by the death of my mother, Mrs. Eicher consented to provide me board and room. . . . She had three young children, Grethe, Hart, and Annabel, and on account of their being such well-bred children, I became greatly attached to them.

“On June 29th, 1931, I called Mrs. Eicher’s home from Chicago to . . . learn that Mrs. Eicher had gone to Clarksburg, W.Va., on business, with a Mr. Pierson. It was so extremely unusual for Mrs. Eicher to leave her children that I was very greatly surprised. . . . Neighbors said they could throw no light on her whereabouts. . . . I felt that something was wrong. . . .

“On or about July 15th . . . Mrs. Eicher’s neighbor informed me by telephone that Pierson was on Mrs. Eicher’s property and I left at once for Park Ridge. . . . I found that he had entered the garage, locking the door behind him. . . . I noticed a car with a West Virginia license, a Chevrolet coupe. . . . Mrs. Eicher’s radio was lashed on to the back of this car with a half-inch rope about sixty feet long, which I had intended to use to make a swing for the children. . . .

“I knew that Mrs. Eicher would not give anyone authority to open my tool box and Pierson or Powers had to enter my luggage to procure this rope. . . . I locked the garage from the outside and proceeded to the police station. . . . I had promised the police that Pierson or Powers was locked in the garage and we were greatly surprised not to find him. . . . Events prove he was probably there all the time. . . . We returned to the station and a detail of police officers was sent to keep watch. . . .

“I had been gone five minutes when Pierson appeared and was arrested. . . . I arrived at the Park Ridge police station the next day and was very greatly disappointed to find that Pierson or Powers had been released. . . . I went to the Eicher home and after reading a bundle of letters which he had dropped in his haste I urged the Chief of Police to get in touch with the West Virginia authorities. . . .

“The rope, which belonged to me and which he [Powers] took with him, I will make a present to the state of West Virginia for hanging purposes, if he is convicted, which no doubt he will be. Am enclosing snaps of the family. If you need me wire.”