“She went to the White House,” Fletcher said.
Fletcher was the short, dumb one, a sniveling whiner, always making excuses. “Are you telling me she got a presidential pardon?”
“She might,” Lester said. He was taller and not so dumb, at least. “She got herself arrested with the suffragettes.”
“What?”
“She got there just as the cops were throwing them all in paddy wagons.”
Fletcher nodded vigorously, as if his opinion mattered. “Jumped right in with ’em, like she belonged or something.”
Thornton managed not to sigh. “Why didn’t you follow her and pick her up when they let her go?” He held up the newspaper he’d been reading and stabbed at the headline: “Suffragettes Released.”
Lester looked offended. “We did, but the judge didn’t let them go this time. He sentenced them to three months.”
“Three months? Are you sure?” Those damn women usually didn’t get sentenced at all, and if they did, it was only for a few days.
“That’s what the clerk told us. I had to slip him a fin. They wouldn’t let us in to see, but afterward they put the women back in the paddy wagons and took ’em off to the jail.”
Thornton swore eloquently. “What about that bastard Jake? What’d you do with him?”
They exchanged another glance, and Thornton bit back another curse.
“Don’t tell me he got away, too.”
“He was done for, Mr. Thornton,” Fletcher said. “We had to leave him when you told us to go after the girl, but there’s no way he could’ve . . .” He looked to Lester for help.
“He wasn’t in the alley when we went back for him, but he couldn’t’ve walked away by himself. I’d swear to that.”
“So you think some Good Samaritan took him to a hospital?”
“The morgue more likely,” Lester said with more confidence than he had any right to feel. “You won’t see him again.”
“You’re right I won’t, because you’re going to find him and make sure of it this time. And then you’re going to find Mr. Coleman.”
Fletcher winced and Lester started studying his shoes.
Thornton thought he might explode from fury. “Well?”
Lester didn’t look up. “Coleman already checked out.”
Of course he had. Thornton had frightened him off when he got rough with that Jake character. The thought of never finding the man made him ill. Coleman was the only one who could help him get his money back. Next time he wouldn’t be stupid enough to use a worthless check, and then there’d be no trouble collecting his profits. In one or two plays he’d make it all back and more, and he wouldn’t have to worry about Jake and Betty Perkins ruining the deal.
Meanwhile, all he had left was revenge. “Go bail her out.”
Lester blinked. “What?”
“They must’ve given her a fine. She can pay it or go to jail, so if it’s paid, they’ll let her go. Get her out of jail and bring her back here. That should be easy enough, even for you.”
“Yes, sir.”
They practically tripped over each other in their rush to escape. When the door slammed behind them, Thornton crushed the newspaper into a ball and threw it across the room. Not as satisfying as throwing it into the fire would have been, but the fireplace had been converted into a gas grate. He looked around the luxuriously furnished room for something to smash, and snatched an oriental vase off the mantel.
Testing its weight, he considered the satisfactory way it would shatter against the marble hearth, and then he thought of poor dead Marjorie and how horrified she would be at its destruction. His wife had been gone for almost six months, but he could still savor the pleasure he’d taken in terrifying her when she was alive.
And now he was looking forward to seeing that same fear in the eyes of that little chippie Betty Perkins. This time he savored the rage boiling up inside him. No female was going to get the best of him, no matter how pretty she might be. Not Marjorie and all her stuck-up friends, and not Betty Perkins with her idiot brother. Once he got finished with her, she’d be thinking about him for the rest of her short, miserable life. In one fluid motion he lifted the vase over his head and smashed it against the hearth.
• • •
By the time the train reached Virginia, the women had lapsed into weary silence. Anna had actually fallen asleep leaning on Elizabeth’s shoulder, and she woke with a start when the train rumbled to a stop. Elizabeth’s stomach growled, making her think how unappealing hunger strikes were. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and she didn’t expect dinner at the Occoquan Workhouse would be very satisfying.
“Where are we?” Anna asked.
“End of the line,” Elizabeth said. The women started gathering their things.
Someone said it was half past seven when they started herding the women off the train and into the winter darkness. A line of wagons waited to transport them to the workhouse, and Elizabeth obediently climbed aboard one of them like the rest of the women. Once away from the station, Elizabeth could see little except the bit of road ahead illuminated by the lanterns on the wagons.
Ordinarily, Elizabeth didn’t like having somebody hanging on her, but tonight she tolerated Anna’s clinging for the warmth of her body. Winter-stripped trees loomed over them in the empty country darkness, reminding her of how alone she was. After a while, she caught sight of an American flag, of all things, visible in the light coming from the workhouse windows. The massive structure took shape as they neared it, sprawling away in every direction, its massive wings disappearing into the night.
The wagons stopped, and Elizabeth climbed out with the rest of the women and allowed herself to be herded with them into a large room that looked like some kind of office. A couple of battered desks sat at one end, the only furniture. A hatchet-faced woman in a gray dress introduced herself as Mrs. Herndon, the matron. Elizabeth knew the type. She would enjoy making their lives miserable.
“Line up and give me your names.”
“We demand to see Superintendent Whittaker,” one of the women said.
“You can see him tomorrow. Now line up and—”
“We are political prisoners, and we demand to see Mr. Whittaker.”
“You’ll wait here all night, then,” Mrs. Herndon said with a smirk and turned her back on them. About a half dozen bruisers in guard uniforms stood around the room, ready to do her bidding, but she just sat down behind one of the desks and proceeded to ignore them.
Nobody was going to give an inch, so Elizabeth staked out a spot near the wall and sat down.