yourself? I heard you were seriously burned.”
“It’s nothing compared to what others suffered. And you? We saw you at dinner. Were you hurt?”
“Not a scratch, not a singe.”
“You were fortunate.”
“Yes, and your husband, he’s one of the heroes of the fire. He always seems to rise to the occasion.”
“He saved my father’s life. And my mother’s. And that poor woman from New York.”
“You helped save that woman, too. You needn’t be modest.”
“I did what Edward told me to do,” Katrina said.
“Anything I can do for you? The slug, as always, is at your service. You only have to ask.”
“I can think of nothing to ask. Please don’t write anything about me.”
“It wouldn’t embarrass you, I assure you.”
“Any story would embarrass me. Please don’t. This is what I ask you.”
“All right, Mrs. Daugherty,” Maginn said, and with a smile added, “Now you owe me one.”
At dusk this day the workers found the first body. Until then the chief discovery had been the safe owned by Ozzie Parker, who ran the cigar stand in the lobby. The safe had protected
Parker’s ledgers, gold and silver coins, and seven boxes of cigars, still unlit. The found body was a legless torso, head and one arm attached, sitting erect. It was Mrs. Hill, the
housekeeper, identified by her protruding teeth; and under her arm an album of tintypes, all defaced by the heat, no one recognizable.
As the light of day faded, a dozen lanterns surrounded the dig with ceremonial light, and families of the dead moved closer to the ruins, Katrina in the vanguard. One worker with a spade brought
up a blue worsted vest. When he held it up to the light of two lanterns, a man came out of the crowd and said, “That’s Simon Myers’s vest.”
“How might you know that?” the foreman asked him.
“I gave it to him,” the man said. “He’s my son.”
“I’m sorry for that, Mr. Myers, but we won’t be digging him up tonight.”
“Why not, in heaven’s name?”
“Just too dark. These men been here eleven hours, and I hate to say this, but the smell up from there is tough to work in. We’ll let the grave here air out and get back at it in the
mornin’.”
Most workers were smoking pipes to mask the odor of the malignant vapor that rose from the ruins. To Katrina the odor had been an onset of reality, a proof that death was more than an
assumption. Workers put the lanterns in a circle around the open grave and the coroner ordered police to guard the dig. Twice during the night they chased away a bulldog.
On the next morning at half after midnight, the seventh day after the fire, Adelaide died in the hospital. Katrina and Geraldine were with her. Jacob, on the floor above, was
unaware she’d been readmitted, for Dr. Fitzroy cautioned against shocking him. He would sedate Jacob when it came time to tell him his daughter died of a ruptured spleen, suffered in her leap
from the window. Edward brought the carriage to take Katrina and her mother home. Katrina put her mother to bed and told Edward she would stay the night at Elk Street.
She lay on the canopy bed in Adelaide’s old room, a room of memory now: her old hobbyhorse, and the dozen and a half dolls of all nations, a new one every Christmas, and the Phrygian cap
of liberty that was a gift from the French Ambassador when he came to the Taylor home for a dinner in his honor (the cap was supposed to be Katrina’s but was handed to Adelaide by mistake),
and the Cleveland for President poster, and the toy sailboat, differing only in color from Katrina’s, that the sisters had sailed together on Washington Park Lake.
Katrina, incapable of sleep, imagined how she might have diverted the course of life from the dreadful conclusion it had come to this night: by not letting Adelaide run away from them at the
fire, by not siding with her parents against Edward, by not yielding to Edward’s plan to win back their goodwill with his dinner and gifts. By
“It’s nothing compared to what others suffered. And you? We saw you at dinner. Were you hurt?”
“Not a scratch, not a singe.”
“You were fortunate.”
“Yes, and your husband, he’s one of the heroes of the fire. He always seems to rise to the occasion.”
“He saved my father’s life. And my mother’s. And that poor woman from New York.”
“You helped save that woman, too. You needn’t be modest.”
“I did what Edward told me to do,” Katrina said.
“Anything I can do for you? The slug, as always, is at your service. You only have to ask.”
“I can think of nothing to ask. Please don’t write anything about me.”
“It wouldn’t embarrass you, I assure you.”
“Any story would embarrass me. Please don’t. This is what I ask you.”
“All right, Mrs. Daugherty,” Maginn said, and with a smile added, “Now you owe me one.”
At dusk this day the workers found the first body. Until then the chief discovery had been the safe owned by Ozzie Parker, who ran the cigar stand in the lobby. The safe had protected
Parker’s ledgers, gold and silver coins, and seven boxes of cigars, still unlit. The found body was a legless torso, head and one arm attached, sitting erect. It was Mrs. Hill, the
housekeeper, identified by her protruding teeth; and under her arm an album of tintypes, all defaced by the heat, no one recognizable.
As the light of day faded, a dozen lanterns surrounded the dig with ceremonial light, and families of the dead moved closer to the ruins, Katrina in the vanguard. One worker with a spade brought
up a blue worsted vest. When he held it up to the light of two lanterns, a man came out of the crowd and said, “That’s Simon Myers’s vest.”
“How might you know that?” the foreman asked him.
“I gave it to him,” the man said. “He’s my son.”
“I’m sorry for that, Mr. Myers, but we won’t be digging him up tonight.”
“Why not, in heaven’s name?”
“Just too dark. These men been here eleven hours, and I hate to say this, but the smell up from there is tough to work in. We’ll let the grave here air out and get back at it in the
mornin’.”
Most workers were smoking pipes to mask the odor of the malignant vapor that rose from the ruins. To Katrina the odor had been an onset of reality, a proof that death was more than an
assumption. Workers put the lanterns in a circle around the open grave and the coroner ordered police to guard the dig. Twice during the night they chased away a bulldog.
On the next morning at half after midnight, the seventh day after the fire, Adelaide died in the hospital. Katrina and Geraldine were with her. Jacob, on the floor above, was
unaware she’d been readmitted, for Dr. Fitzroy cautioned against shocking him. He would sedate Jacob when it came time to tell him his daughter died of a ruptured spleen, suffered in her leap
from the window. Edward brought the carriage to take Katrina and her mother home. Katrina put her mother to bed and told Edward she would stay the night at Elk Street.
She lay on the canopy bed in Adelaide’s old room, a room of memory now: her old hobbyhorse, and the dozen and a half dolls of all nations, a new one every Christmas, and the Phrygian cap
of liberty that was a gift from the French Ambassador when he came to the Taylor home for a dinner in his honor (the cap was supposed to be Katrina’s but was handed to Adelaide by mistake),
and the Cleveland for President poster, and the toy sailboat, differing only in color from Katrina’s, that the sisters had sailed together on Washington Park Lake.
Katrina, incapable of sleep, imagined how she might have diverted the course of life from the dreadful conclusion it had come to this night: by not letting Adelaide run away from them at the
fire, by not siding with her parents against Edward, by not yielding to Edward’s plan to win back their goodwill with his dinner and gifts. By
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