“I see. Now tell me, Calvin, how you came to be in the city in the first place.”
The boy frowned. He wasn’t eager to share this story, but he knew he had no choice. “I told you, I come to see my father.”
“You came an awfully long way, and it’s my understanding he’d been gone a long time. How did you even know he was here?”
Calvin shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “I seen his picture. It was a drawing. On a poster for one of his lectures. Someone sent it to my ma.”
“Who?” Frank asked, perking up.
“Don’t know. Whoever sent it didn’t write no letter or anything. It was just the poster in an envelope addressed to my ma. We could see right off it was him. It was a good likeness, even though they said his name was Edmund Blackwell. Pa was named Edward Brown. Ma said it was like him to change his name to sound more uppity.”
“Or so his family couldn’t locate him,” Frank suggested.
The boy snorted. “Likely he could’ve still called himself Eddie Brown and we couldn’st’ve found him either. How could we? Last we heard he was in Boston. Boston’s a big place. He could hide there forever without us finding him.”
The boy was right. “You could have hired a detective to locate him,” Frank suggested.
“You mean you can pay coppers to find somebody for you?” Calvin asked in amazement.
Frank forgot the boy was from the country. “No, there’s private detectives you can hire to do things like this.”
Calvin looked at him like he was crazy. “And how could we pay somebody to do that? Pa used to send us some money from time to time, but he quit a couple years ago. Must’ve been about the time he come here. Even when he did send money, it was never enough, though. There’s three of us kids. I’ve got two little sisters. Ma had to take in washing to put food on the table. I worked at whatever I could, selling newspapers and chopping firewood and whatever I could find until I got big enough to get steady work. Sometimes we didn’t even have enough to eat, so how could we hire somebody to find Pa?”
“But you had enough money to come to New York from Virginia,” Frank pointed out. “Exactly where do you live there?”
“A place called Lynchburg. I… well, there was something else in the envelope besides the poster. No letter or nothing, like I said, but there was a train ticket.”
“Someone sent you a train ticket to New York?” Frank asked in amazement. This was growing more interesting by the moment.
“Yeah, and… and a little bit of money, too.”
Frank stared at the boy. He’d been lied to by thousands of people in the course of his work, and he liked to think he could spot a lie a mile away. This boy was either telling the truth or he was the best liar Frank had ever encountered. “Sounds like someone wanted you to come to New York and find your father.”
The boy shrugged. “I guess so. Ma, she thought someone was mad at Pa and wanted to get even or something.”
“They must have wanted to get even very badly to go to all that trouble,” Frank suggested. “How did you find your father when you got to the city?”
“I just went to the place where he was going to be, where it said on the poster he was going to be. There was lots of people there. I sat way in the back so he wouldn’t see me, and then he come out on the stage. It was him, all right. I ain’t seen him for almost five years, but I was eleven when he left, so I knew him right off.”
“Did you confront him that night?”
“No. I didn’t want to warn him off. And besides, there was this man who talked that night. He said Dr. Blackwell was married to his daughter. I didn’t think that could be right. He’s married to my ma! I was confused, and I needed to think about things some, so I waited around, after the lecture. I was gonna follow him home, but he got in one of them hansom cabs. I didn’t know they was called that then, but I do now. Anyways, I heard him telling the driver where to take him. Gramercy Park. It was easy to find out where that was. I just asked somebody at the place where I’m staying.”
“And so you called on your father. When was this?”
“I don’t know. About five days ago, I guess.”
“What was his reaction?”
Calvin frowned, his youthful face revealing every emotion. Plainly, he found the memory painful. “I don’t know what I expected, but for certain it wasn’t what happened. He pretended he was real happy to see me. Asked how everybody was doing and all. I thought he’d be mad or maybe act a little guilty, but he didn’t. It was like he’d just forgot all about us, and I’d reminded him. Said he knew he’d been neglecting us, and he wanted to set things right. I thought he meant he’d bring all of us up here to live with him. That’s what he should’ve done, and he’s got plenty of room in this house, don’t he? The reason he left was so he could do better and give us a better life. This was his chance.”
“But he wasn’t going to do that, was he?”
“He said the city wasn’t the right place for us because it was so dangerous. He said we’d be better off to stay in Lynchburg. He was making money now, for the first time, and he’d start supporting us again. He’d even come to visit. But he had to stay here because that’s where his business was.” Calvin’s tone clearly expressed his bitterness.
“What did you say?”
“I said I knew he had another wife now, and what would people think if they found out about us?”
“Did that scare him?”
“It made him real mad. He said if I did anything to hurt him, he wouldn’t be able to make a living anymore, and we’d never get anything from him again. If I kept quiet, he’d send me back with some money, and he’d start sending us money regular again, too.”
“Did you believe him?”
“I didn’t know, but he was real mean. He scared me, like he might do something worse than not support us if I made any trouble for him.”
“Did he threaten you?”
“Not right out, but he made it real clear he could make sure I didn’t never get back to Lynchburg if I made trouble.”
“So you didn’t make any trouble,” Frank guessed.
“I told him I wouldn’t. He said to come back in a few days, and he’d have the money for me. I thought maybe if I had some money, I could do something. I didn’t know what, but maybe Ma would know. At least it would make things easier for her if he started supporting us again. So I left.”
“And you didn’t come back again until day before yesterday.”
“Yes, sir. And like I said, nobody answered the door. I thought maybe he had to go out or he forgot I was coming or something, but shouldn’t somebody have answered the door anyway? That snooty fellow was here the other times I come and today. Seems like it’s his job to answer the door.”
“All the servants had the afternoon off that day,” Frank told him. “Apparently, he didn’t want anyone to know you were here or to see you again.”
“No, I guess he wouldn’st,” Calvin said after he thought about it.
“And someone shot him while he was here alone.”
Calvin’s smooth face creased into a puzzled frown. “Then he’s really dead? But why would somebody shoot him?”
Frank leaned back in his chair, ostensibly unconcerned. “Perhaps because he’d deserted his family and then refused to pay the promised sum of money to them.”
“But why-” he started, and then stopped when Frank’s meaning sank in. “You think I shot him? Why would I do a thing like that? He was my father!”
“The father who deserted you and caused your family great hardship while he was living in luxury. The father who took another wife and now refused to acknowledge you.”
Now Calvin was angry. “I might’ve hated him, but he was still my father! And besides, if he was dead, he couldn’t help us none, now could he? Killing him would be stupid!”
“But what if he’d decided not to give you the money he’d promised? What if he told you to go back home and forget about him or some harm would come to all of you? I know that would make me mad enough to shoot somebody.”