He stopped as Libby jammed the barrel of her pistol hard against his head. “Oh, yes, that’s right, isn’t it, Doctor? You can’t trust Libby-you can’t trust the woman. She’ll break her word. She’ll shoot you in the back. After all, she killed her own children, didn’t she? And all those others, too. How can you possibly trust someone who could do all that? Well, let me tell you, Dr. Kreizler…” Moving the barrel of the gun a couple of inches away from the Doctor’s skull, Libby swayed a bit, like things were really starting to get to her. “Let me tell you,” she said again, her voice getting softer and what you might call detached. “I did everything for those children. My own, I went through the agony of bearing. The others, I went through the long, sleepless, endless hours of caring for. Feeding, cleaning, changing… and for what? For what, Doctor? They never stopped crying. They never stopped getting sick. They never stopped needing.” With her free hand Libby clutched at her hair, as her face and voice filled with truly desperate anger and sorrow. “Needing-always needing. It never stopped. I did everything I could, everything, but it never stopped! It should have been enough. It was all I could do-it should have been enough! But it never was… it never was. And so-can’t you see? They were better off after I-” Suddenly she glanced down at the roof and mumbled, “They didn’t need anything, then…” Shaking herself hard, Libby looked back up, the gold light of the clever killer suddenly back in her eyes. “All right, boy. He takes two steps, then you slide the gun over.”
I nodded. “That’s the deal.”
The Doctor tried one more time to stop me: “Stevie, do not do this-”
“Go on, Doctor,” Libby almost chuckled in her most frightening voice. “Take your two steps…”
As the Doctor started to move, Libby kept her gun trained squarely on his head. When he’d gotten what I figured was far enough from her, I leaned down and placed Miss Howard’s revolver on the tar.
“Stevie-” the Doctor tried again; but I just looked up at him, hoping that he could read the message in my eyes. It took him a second or two, but he did eventually get it. Then he closed his mouth and nodded.
“All right,” Libby said. “Slide it over.”
I did as I was told. The Colt came to a stop just at Libby’s feet, and she quickly leaned over to pick it up. Then she stood again, without either turning to run or lowering her own weapon.
“Actually, Doctor,” she said, with one of her most cunning, seductive little smiles, “you were quite right.” Her revolver clicked loudly as she pulled back the hammer. “I’ve no intention of allowing any of you-”
She never finished the sentence. A small hissing sound cut through the night air, and I jumped over to grab the Doctor’s legs and pull him down to the roof. A shot went off, but it struck only an iron furnace chimney on the house next door with a loud clang. Then both the Doctor and I looked up.
Libby’s smile was gone now, but her eyes were still open and she was still clutching her smoking gun. The better part of a small, crude arrow was sticking out of the side of her neck, and I knew that, though she was still on her feet, there was a good chance that she was already dead: the strychnine could’ve killed her before the muscles of her legs had a chance to give way. After another second or two she did collapse, first to her knees and then, after another pause, over onto her side.
The Doctor and I ran over to her immediately, myself taking care to quickly pry the pistol from her hand. For his part, the Doctor lifted her head and examined her eyes, then felt her neck for a pulse. He must’ve sensed something, being as he said, “Elspeth? Elspeth Franklin?”
As the last air left her lungs, Libby managed to form the words “always needing.”Then she was gone, and the Doctor reached out to close the golden eyes for the last time.
I don’t know how long the pair of us crouched there looking at her, but I do know that what finally brought us around was the sound of knocking on the underside of the hatchway cover.
“Sara?” It was Mr. Moore’s voice, shouting up from below the closed entry way. “Stevie, Kreizler-what the hell happened, are you all right?”
Both the hatchway cover and Miss Howard’s body jumped a bit as Mr. Moore tried to get up onto the roof; and with the bumping movement Miss Howard began to come around, first groaning and then, as her eyes opened, rolling over and falling onto the roof with a small grunt.
“Sara,” the Doctor said urgently. He lay Libby Hatch out on the roof quickly, then ran over to where Miss Howard lay just as Mr. Moore leapt up and out of the hatchway.
“Good Christ,” he said, taking in the scene. “What the hell happened here?”
Ignoring the question, the Doctor pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and lifted Miss Howard’s shoulders up onto his knee. Then he began to wipe at and examine the spot on her head where she’d been hit, soon satisfying himself that it wasn’t a serious wound. Gently rubbing and patting her cheeks with his hand, he finally got her to focus on him.
“Doctor,” she breathed. Looking around, she tried dizzily to make a move. “What happened-where-”
The Doctor held her still. “Be calm, Sara,” he said with a smile, brushing her hair out of her face as Mr. Moore and I gathered round. “It’s over. At least, this part of it is.” Then he turned her so that, without moving her head much, she could see Libby Hatch’s body.
“She’s-dead?” Miss Howard said; and in spite of the fact that she was still a little groggy, I could hear a faint touch of sadness in her voice.
“Yes,” the Doctor answered gently, sensing, I think, how she felt.
Miss Howard watched the body for a few more seconds; then, in a quick sort of spasm, she made a noise what seemed like a combination of a gasp and a lone, deep sob. She turned her head back toward us, and I could see a tear on her cheek. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, wiping the tear away as fast as she was able. “I know I shouldn’t-”
The Doctor quieted her with a little shushing sound, and rubbed her cheek softly again. “Don’t apologize. Someone should shed a tear at this moment.” He paused, then looked over at Libby Hatch. “But I confess that I cannot. I cannot…”
Miss Howard suddenly looked puzzled. “But-” she said, trying to sit up, “who-”
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Mr. Moore said, glancing at the Doctor and me.
“Take a look at her neck,” I told him.
Making his way carefully across the roof, as if Libby might still jump up and have at him, Mr. Moore carefully examined the body, then nodded. “Oh… so it was the aborigine, after all.” He retrieved Miss Howard’s Colt, then glanced at the rooftops around us. “Where is he?” he asked.
“Don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “Pretty far, by now, and still moving. I hope.”
“Well, we’d better have that arrow,” Mr. Moore answered, cautiously reaching down to remove the thing from Libby’s neck. “I wouldn’t want to try to explain it to Roosevelt,” he added, tossing the missile over the edge of the roof into the backyard. “And I’m sure the wound will be mysterious enough to confound whatever fool coroner the police engage.” Walking back across the roof quickly, he gave me a questioning but approving look. “Did the two of you plan this, Stevie?”
“I wouldn’t exactly say we planned it,” I answered.
The Doctor looked up at me, uncertainty and pride showing together in a slight smile. “Your gambling instincts seem to be intractable, Stevie.”
“It wasn’t a gamble,” I said. “Not if you knew him like I did.”
Miss Howard, her head clearing, reached up to touch the side of the Doctor’s slightly bloodied face. “You’re hurt,” she said.