The Hand on the Wall(53)

Edward, or Eddie, came from a similar background. He was a rich kid who had burned his way through schools and tutors. Eddie wanted to be a poet. His fate was known. After Ellingham, he went to college, then dropped out and went to Paris to be a poet. On the day the Nazis took over the city, he got drunk on champagne and leaped off the top of a building and onto a Nazi vehicle, a fall that killed him.

In these photos, they were alive again, and wild. Stevie turned the pages carefully, first examining the clippings. Many were from newspapers—stories of John Dillinger, Ma Barker, Pretty Boy Floyd. All bank robbers. Outlaws. There were other things too—pages torn out of science textbooks. Formulas.

“These mean anything to you?” Stevie said to Janelle.

“Only that most of these things are explosive,” Janelle replied.

In the margin of one of the pages was a note: Fingerprints: H2SO4 NaOH

“What’s this?” Stevie asked.

“Sulfuric acid and sodium hydroxide. Common acids. I don’t know what the fingerprints means.”

“I think it means burning off fingerprints,” Stevie said. “Gangsters and bank robbers did that. Burned them off with acid.”

The next few pages were full of hand-drawn maps, very detailed and finely done in pencil, hearkening from a time before Google, when you had to find physical copies to plan your route. Whoever had drawn this was competent at sketching, with a steady, precise hand. There were more pages, both handwritten and torn out of other sources, about guns and ammunition.

“This is some scary stuff,” Janelle said. “Like someone preparing for a school shooting.”

“I don’t think that’s it,” Stevie replied. “I think this is a self-written guidebook. This is about becoming a gangster or a bank robber. There was no internet, so she made herself a textbook.”

A ribbon divided the book in two. Stevie opened to this dividing point. Here, it was less clippings and more handwriting. These were diary entries. Stevie scanned the first few: 9/12/35

Everything was supposed to be different here, but it looks to me to be a lot of the same crummy stuff that happens at home. I have to look at Gertrude van Coevorden every day, and sometimes I think if she says one more inane thing I will have to set her hair on fire. She’s an unbelievable snob. She’s really mean to Dottie, who seems to be the only one around here with any brains at all. It’s a shame she’s so miserably poor.

9/20/35

A bright spark. His name is Eddie, and he’s a very interesting boy. If he’s the same Eddie I’m thinking of, the stories about him are something else. They say he fathered a baby once and the girl had to be sent away somewhere outside of Boston to give birth in private. He looks capable of it. I intend to find out more.

9/21/35

I asked Eddie about the baby. He smiled and asked me if I’d like to find out about it, that he’d be willing to show me. I told him if he said anything like that to me again I’d put out a cigarette in his eye. We’re going to meet tonight after dark.

9/22/35

Eddie gave me some lessons. This place will not be so bad after all.

9/25/35

Quite intensive studying with my new professor. Oh, Daddy. Oh, Mother. If you only knew. Bless you and your devotion to your friends. Thank you for sending me here.

“Get yours, girl,” Janelle said.

Stevie flipped around, scanning the entries. As the book went on, there were some poems.

OUR TREASURE

All that I care about starts at nine

Dance twelve hundred steps on the northern line To the left bank three hundred times

E+A

Line flag Tiptoe

This one stumped Stevie a bit more. E suggested Eddie, but who was A?

Then she got to the page that almost stopped her heart. Here, in black and white, was the draft of Truly Devious. Stevie could see them working out the wording.

Riddle, riddle time for fun

Should we use a rope or gun?

Matches burn, scissors slash

Knives slice, matches burn

Knives cut

Knives are sharp

And gleam so pretty

Bombs are

Poison’s bitter

Poison’s slow

There were three pages of this before they got to the final version.

Stevie had to walk around the room several times.

“You know what this is?” Stevie said.

“Proof,” Janelle replied.

“More proof. Of something. At least that Truly Devious is—”

Then the power went out.





17


“FUN FACT,” STEVIE SAID, TRYING TO LIGHTEN THE MOOD IN THE VAST, gloomy space. “This fireplace? Henry the Eighth had one just like it, in Hampton Court. Albert Ellingham had an exact copy made.”

“Fun fact,” Nate replied, “Henry the Eighth killed two of his wives. Who wants a murderer’s fireplace?”

“I’m not sure, but that’s the name of my new game show.”

Nate and Stevie were the first to make it over to the Great House, which was where all the residents of Minerva were to be moved after the loss of power; the Great House had its own generator. The distance from Minerva to the Great House was only a few hundred yards, but conditions outside had become too dangerous for walking. Mark Parsons drove over in the snowcat, which he had parked under the portico in preparation for the storm. The cab of the snowcat could hold only two of them at a time, along with Mark. There was a lot of confusion while everyone worked out who would go with who, and in what order. Janelle and Vi edged around each other uncertainly. Hunter looked deeply uncomfortable with everything that had happened in this confusing universe he had just landed in. David was giving dark, baffling looks.