“I need to go.” She looked down toward the picnic grounds. “He has a ticket for a train tonight at eleven-fifteen. We need to capture him now.”

“Can I keep the photograph?”

“No. We need that to show the police. They won’t believe us otherwise. If we have to kill him…”

“I killed someone before.”

“Was it—was it hard?”

He shrugged. “Not as hard as dying.”

The girl nodded. “Wait till I reach the bottom of the hill, then come after me. Don’t act crazy. And don’t take too long.”

Pin stared at him. Henry opened his mouth to tell her—him—to wait, they should go together, maybe they should tell the police. He had the photograph. They might believe them.

But it was too late. Pin was gone.

Chapter 94

Chapter 94

SHAME FILLED FRANCIS after he left Gina Maffucci. He’d said or done the wrong thing, misunderstood something crucial. Yet what had he failed to comprehend? What had he said that was so wrong?

Steady rolls of thunder rode on a wind that carried the bitter smell of smoke from the nearby brickyard. The Black Hand must be there, burning God knows what, or who. As if things weren’t terrible enough. As he drew near Hell Gate, he wished the sky would open and wash it all away to Lake Michigan.

“Francis!” Bennie Hecht pushed his way through the crowd toward him. “I’ve been looking for you all day, couldn’t find you.”

Francis felt a small spur of relief. He lifted his chin to indicate the shouting throng around them. “No? Are you surprised?”

“Nope. See any sign of him?”

“Not a thing. He could be twenty miles away. Or on a train to Wichita.”

“Do you think he is?”

“No.”

“Why not?” Bennie stared at him eagerly—not the way Riverview’s patrons did when asking for directions to the washroom, nor with Hickey’s impatience, or the other park sergeants’ veiled contempt for a man who’d been sent down from the city force. Bennie looked at him like he had back when Francis had been detective sergeant at Robey Street, and the two of them had met at Barney Grogan’s saloon to hash out the particulars of a fink’s murder, or the suspicious suicide of a man known to owe money to the Black Hand.

“I think he’s here, right now,” Francis confided as they passed the packed entrance to Hell Gate. “That Irish girl attacked him and escaped. He’ll be thinking of that—how he failed. He could have left Chicago after he killed the girl in Hell Gate, but he didn’t—he murdered another girl the next day. He’s like a trophy hunter, only he collects children.