When he opened his eyes, Elsie’s face moved in the candlelight, smiling at him. He got out his stub of pencil, found a blank sheet of paper, and began to write:

Elsie Annie Aronburg struggled against General Arnold Patsfry his hands clutched around her neck. The other girls watched in awestruck terror…

Hours later, the candle burned out. He looked up to see the slit of window above his desk tinged with gold. Hurriedly he bound up his manuscript, hid it and the votive candle back in the desk, darted to his bed, and slid beneath the blanket, still fully clothed. It seemed his eyes had only just closed when Sister Rose pounded on the door, clanging the handbell that woke the entire corridor at five each morning, so they could attend six o’clock Mass.

“Mr. Darger!!”

He waited until she moved down the hall before jumping from bed, and changed into a cleaner shirt. He ran his fingers through his hair, forcing thoughts of Elsie and the others from his mind. There would always be more dead girls. Time to go to work.

Chapter 58

Chapter 58

THE BODY HAD been discovered by a high-school boy who’d been sitting in the uppermost balcony with his friends. When the movie ended, they’d laid low in their seats, hoping to sneak into the next show, then began roughhousing, running back and forth between the rows. His shouts drew his friends, and then Sergeant Paterno, on security duty at the theater entrance.

“There wasn’t an usher there?” demanded Captain Hickey, who’d raced back to the station house from his home in Hyde Park. There’d been no time to change into his uniform, and his jacket and trousers didn’t match. Francis could smell roast beef gravy on his breath.

“It’s a passion pit,” said Paterno. “The usher admitted he didn’t clear the balcony between shows, or even poke his head in. Claims he’s a churchgoing man and he can’t stand to know what goes on in there.”

Hickey shook his head, disgusted. “He must have taken their tickets—could he describe the man who went in with her? What the hell was she doing there in the first place? It’s not a goddamned kids’ show.”

The three of them were back in Hickey’s office—Francis, Hickey, Paterno. Through the closed door, they could hear the girl’s mother screaming in the next room.

“Parents bring their kids sometimes. The high-school kids, they sneak in all the time.” Paterno glanced anxiously at the door. “Has someone called a doctor for her mother?”

“The coroner’s bringing a sedative,” Hickey said tersely.

The body of the child, Gilda Belascu, was laid out on a table at the back of Hickey’s office. Someone had covered it with a uniform jacket, and Hickey had closed the window blinds.