September Sky (American Journey Book 1) (37 page)

"What about Levi?" Justin asked. "He still blames Wyatt for his wife's suicide. What better way to pay him back than to kill his fiancée and put him on death row at the same time? As the prosecutor in this case, he's in a perfect position to get revenge."

"That doesn't mean he's a killer."

"So you're defending Levi too?"

"No. I just don't think he did it," Emily said. "Levi may be a philanderer and a liar and a very bad kisser, but he's not a murderer. He's too much of a coward."

"He wasn't a coward when he tried to put your father in jail. That took brass."

"Can we talk about something else?" Emily asked.

"OK. We can," Justin said. "I'm sorry for getting you worked up. I'm just feeling pretty bad about failing Rose. I want to see Wyatt cleared before we have to leave."

"That's the other thing. Why do you have to leave next month? Why can't you stay through the fall and help Wyatt as best you can? Why can't you stay a little longer and be with
me
?"

Justin sighed and looked away.

"It's not an option, Emily."

"
Why
is it not an option? You're keeping things from me again."

"I'm not," Justin said. "I'll tell you exactly why we have to leave next month. There are two reasons."

Emily folded her arms and stared at the end of the bed.

"What's the first?"

"The first is that our ticket back to 2016 will expire soon."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that a gypsum crystal we used to travel though time loses its power in less than a month," Justin said. "If we don't take it back to that tunnel in Los Angeles by September 18, then we'll be stuck here forever."

"How tragic," Emily said with obvious sarcasm.

"Please try to understand my position."

Emily frowned.

"I'm sorry. My 'petulant side' is back."

Justin kissed her on the cheek.

"That's the side I love the most."

Emily forced a smile.

"What's the other reason you have to leave so soon?"

Justin took a breath and looked away. He knew he would have to mention the storm at some point, but he had hoped it would be later rather than sooner. He didn't look forward to telling Emily that her town and perhaps many of the people she knew and loved would soon be obliterated.

"The other reason is that we don't want to be here when a hurricane hits."

Emily looked at Justin with concern in her eyes.

"Please continue."

"A hurricane is going to hit Galveston, Emily, and it's going to hit soon. It'll strike this town with the force of a hundred tornadoes and turn even brick buildings into rubble."

Justin felt Emily slacken in his arms.

"What about the people here?" Emily asked in a tentative voice.

Justin sat up and leaned forward. He wanted to see her face when he told her what she didn't want to hear.

"Six thousand people are going to die," Justin said. "Most won't be identified. Many will be buried where they lie – or burned. The carnage will be worse than you can possibly imagine."

"What about my family?"

Justin tightened his hold on her when he heard her voice crack.

"I don't know. I don't remember the names of the victims in the newspaper articles I read. I can't get the names either. The articles were stolen too."

Justin sighed.

"All I know is that the part of Galveston that faces the sea will be wiped clean. That means the Midway and the bathhouses and the hotels will all be destroyed. So will some schools and an orphanage and hundreds of homes."

Justin kissed Emily on the side of the head.

"I won't have a place to stay in two weeks, Emily – and neither will you."

CHAPTER 63: CHUCK

Thursday, August 30, 1900

Chuck sipped his chicory-laced coffee, gazed at the nearly empty dining room in the nearly empty house, and tried to remember how it had looked not so long ago.

At the last library-staff breakfast, the room had been a noisy gathering place for happy people who were doing things and going places. Two weeks later, it was a quiet shell of its former self – a chamber filled with sadness, memories, and regret.

Chuck looked at a dusty china cabinet, a crooked picture on a wall, and then at a grandfather clock that hadn't chimed in days. Rose O'Malley hadn't been around to wind the clock, as she had done every Monday for months, and Charlotte Townsend hadn't had the heart to do it in her absence. She hadn't had the heart to do a lot of things since her friend, colleague, and confidante had been lowered into the ground.

"Are you going to be OK?" Chuck asked.

Charlotte lowered her coffee cup and stared at Rose's empty chair before turning her attention to the man seated at her side. She looked at her husband like a dispirited child might look at a comforting parent.

"I'll be all right," Charlotte said. She took a deep breath. "I just need another day or two to adjust to the way things are."

Chuck placed his hand on hers.

"Take all the time you need, Charlotte. There's no need to rush through your grief."

Charlotte smiled sadly.

"I appreciate your patience, Charles, but I think we both know that's not true."

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is that we need to focus on other things," Charlotte said. "We need to focus on saving the lives of the people we love before we go through this again."

Chuck didn't bother to offer even a feeble objection. He knew she was right. In the time that remained to them in 1900, they would have to do what they could to free an innocent man from jail and warn others of a storm that would change the city forever.

"You're right."

"Have you made any progress on Wyatt's case?" Charlotte asked.

"No," Chuck said. "Neither have the police. At my insistence, they checked the whereabouts of Max, Levi, Thomas Mack, and even Silas. All four have solid alibis. Mack and Silas weren't even in Galveston. Mack was in Corpus Christi visiting his brother. Silas was in Austin meeting with legislators. All of this makes me wonder whether I've been wrong all along."

"I don't follow."

"How well do we really know our friend, Charlotte? How do we know that the police don't have their man and that justice is not in the process of being served?"

"You don't believe Wyatt killed Rose any more than I do."

"I didn't yesterday," Chuck said. "Today I'm not so sure."

Charlotte stared at him.

"Wyatt didn't do it," Charlotte said with the kind of conviction Chuck hadn't heard in days. "He may be a man with peculiar tastes and unorthodox ways, but he is
not
a killer. I watched him fall in love with Rose. I watched him change from a self-absorbed cad to a selfless gentleman who talked about marriage and children. He could no more have killed Rose than he could have killed his own mother. He loved her as purely and completely as I believe you love me."

Chuck smiled weakly.

"That settles it then. If Wyatt loved Rose as much as I love you, then there's no way he could have killed her," Chuck said. He squeezed Charlotte's hand. "I don't really think he killed her, but what I think is not important. What I can prove is. If I do nothing else in the next few days, I must at least convince the police that someone else could have committed the crime."

Charlotte looked at him thoughtfully.

"Is there anything you could have overlooked? You've seen the police report, Charles. Surely there is something that stood out, something you can use to dig a little deeper."

Chuck took a moment to recall what he had read. He couldn't remember anything in the report that raised any flags, but he did remember thinking that the statement by Beatrice May, the sixteen-year-old maid who had found Rose dead in her bed, seemed incomplete. The police had apparently not asked the girl some questions that he would have asked, including what she had witnessed
before
she had seen Wyatt leave the scene of the crime.

"Maybe there is," Chuck said.

"What is it?"

"I'm not sure exactly. I just know that I need to pay another visit to the Stratford. I think it's time I had a chat with the person who may be able to clear up this whole mess."

Chuck lifted Charlotte's hand and kissed it.

"Get your purse, Mrs. Townsend. We have a cleaning girl to see."

CHAPTER 64: CHUCK

The sitting room in the Stratford was not as fancy as those in the major hotels, but it was comfortable and quiet. That made it more than sufficient as a venue to interview a frightened witness who seemed to have little interest in revisiting a morning that had shaken her to the core.

"How are you doing?" Chuck asked.

Beatrice May glanced nervously at Charlotte and then at Chuck. All three sat at a small table in a corner of the otherwise unoccupied room.

"I'm doing all right, I guess."

"I assume the manager told you who we are and why we wanted to talk to you."

"He did," Beatrice said.

"I won't take up much of your time, Miss May. I know that you've spoken to the police and to reporters and are probably tired of answering questions about the crime, but I have to ask you to do it again. I'll need your full cooperation if I hope to prove that Mr. Fitzpatrick is innocent."

"I understand. I'll do my best."

Chuck looked at the fidgety black girl and sighed. He didn't doubt her willingness to do the right thing by telling the truth, but he wondered how helpful anyone could be when asked to provide information that might run counter to a narrative that the police, the press, and her image-conscious employer had taken as gospel.

"I'm sure you will," Chuck said. "Let's get started then. The first thing I want to ask you is how you began your shift that day. I understand you came to work around seven."

Beatrice nodded.

"I came to work at seven, just like I always do."

"What did you do between seven and eight?"

"I swept and mopped. I swept and mopped the lobby floor. That's all any of us are allowed to do before eight. Mr. Miller, the manager, won't allow us to even knock on the doors until then."

"I see," Chuck said. "When you were sweeping and mopping, did you see anything unusual? Did you see or hear anything you don't normally see or hear between seven and eight?"

"No, sir. I just saw what I always see."

"What about when you went up to the second floor to start cleaning the rooms? Did you see anything out of the ordinary up there?"

"No, sir. I saw the same old things."

"How does the process work?"

"How does what work?" Beatrice asked.

"When you go up to the second floor to clean, how do you know which rooms to enter and which to leave alone? Are there procedures or rules you have to follow?"

"Oh, we have rules. We have lots of rules."

"Tell me about them," Chuck said. "Can you just walk into a room?"

"No, sir. We can't do that. We have to knock first."

"What if no one answers?"

"Then we knock again and say, 'Maid service.'"

"What if they still don't answer?"

"Then we try to open the door," Beatrice said. "If it's locked, we get our key. If it's unlocked, we open it. Mr. Fitzpatrick's room was unlocked."

Chuck nodded.

"Did you see any other guests enter or leave their rooms?"

"No. Everybody was sleeping, I guess. Only one other room was open. That was the room next to Mr. Fitzpatrick's room. That's the only one I cleaned before I …"

Chuck gave the girl a moment to collect herself when he saw her eyes moisten. He could only imagine how she felt when she saw a dead naked woman tied to four bedposts.

"It's all right, Beatrice. I know this is hard."

Chuck glanced at Charlotte and sighed when he saw a soft, supportive smile form on her face. It did his heart good to know that his wife was slowly but surely emerging from her crippling grief. He returned the smile and then looked again at the witness.

"The police say you saw Mr. Fitzpatrick leave his room about ten after eight. Is that right?"

"That's right," Beatrice said. "I saw him just before I made the bed in the other room."

"How did he appear when he left his room? Did he look nervous? Angry? Happy?"

"He looked happy, sir. He looked real happy."

Chuck made a mental note of the maid's observation, which had not appeared in the official police report. Wyatt Fitzpatrick was either a self-satisfied murderer or a man in love. Chuck didn't have any difficulty figuring out which of the two was true.

"Did he say anything to you?" Chuck asked.

"Yes, sir. He said, 'Good morning.' Then he tipped his hat and walked away."

Chuck smiled at Beatrice. She was giving him clear answers, but she wasn't giving him much he could work with. He began to think this was just another fruitless pursuit of the truth when something came to him – something he should have thought of days ago.

"I want to go back to something you said earlier."

"All right," Beatrice said.

"You said a few minutes ago that you didn't see anything out of the ordinary that morning, at least until you entered Mr. Fitzpatrick's room. Is that correct?"

"That's correct."

"Did you see anyone in the hotel who looked like they didn't belong there?"

"No, sir."

"So you saw only your coworkers and some hotel guests?" Chuck asked.

"No, sir. I didn't say that."

Chuck leaned forward.

"Then what
did
you say, Beatrice?"

"I saw someone else too. I saw the flower lady."

Chuck felt his sturdy stomach lurch the second he heard the word "flower."

"Who is this 'flower lady'?"

"I don't know her name. I just know she brings flowers every Saturday morning."

"Can you tell me what she looks like?" Chuck asked.

"I sure can. She's a pretty lady with blond hair. I'd say she's about twenty-five or thirty."

Chuck glanced again at Charlotte and saw that her smile had vanished. She had no doubt drawn the same conclusion about the identity of the flower lady.