Page 47 of Winterset

“This is perfect,” Anna assured him.

“You can look at them in here, if you’d like,” Dr. Felton told them, gesturing vaguely around his small office, which was almost entirely filled by his large desk and several cabinets. “Or you may take them home if you would rather….”

They agreed that it would be easier to look at them at Winterset, and Anna promised solemnly that they would return the materials as soon as possible. They went back to Winterset and sat down in the library with a pot of tea, then opened the journal between them on the table. They sat side by side at the table, leaning in to look at the book. Their arms touched—it was impossible not to—and even though Anna could feel only the material of his suit coat against her own skin, bared by her summer dress, the contact made her flesh tingle with awareness.

In her mind, she imagined covering his hand with hers, feeling his warm skin beneath hers. He might open his fingers slightly, allowing hers to slip between his…. Her skin warmed, and she shifted a little in her chair, so that their arms were separated by a fraction of an inch. But she could not escape the other ways his nearness affected her. There was still the faint scent of his skin in her nostrils; she could still feel the warmth of his body; she could still glance at his profile and see the curve of his jaw, the straight line of his nose, the curl of his impossibly long eyelashes, the dark shadow of beard that was already beginning to lurk beneath his skin, even though he had doubtless shaved only hours earlier.

Reed turned to glance at her, and their eyes caught and held. Anna’s breath was shallow in her throat; she could not turn from his silver gaze. Yearning for what she would never have pierced her. If she had married him, they would have sat often like this, but then she would have had the right to slide her hand through his, to lean her head against his shoulder. She would know every line and curve of his face, would have touched them many times, tracing a loving finger over his brows and nose and lips.

Reed’s gaze darkened as he looked at her, and for an instant Anna thought that he was about to kiss her. She waited, her heart pounding ferociously, not knowing what she would do if he did lean toward her. But then he broke the contact of their gazes and turned back to the journal in front of them, flipping through the pages until he reached the first of the murders.

“Here it is.”

Anna leaned in, looking at the doctor’s notes. There was a detailed drawing of the servant girl’s body, with lines leading to the places where she had been stabbed. The stabbed areas were then drawn in insets, enlarged, with the marks detailed. It was a gruesome drawing, even with the doctor’s dry, clinical remarks attached. On the next page, the doctor had jotted down such information as where she was found and when.

“Look. She was found on a farm, also,” Anna said. “Weller’s Point. That is on one of the Winterset tenant farms. Not the same one as where Estelle was found, but still…”

“A definite similarity,” Reed agreed. “It seems clear our killer is imitating the first.”

“Let’s look at the second drawing,” Anna suggested, reaching out to flip through a few more pages. She stopped, running her finger down the center of the book. “This—it feels as if a page has been torn out here.”

Reed nodded. “I noticed that earlier on.” He flipped back toward the front of the journal. “Pages are missing here, as well. And here.”

“Hmm. Why do you suppose that is?”

Reed shrugged. “I suppose there could have been mistakes, a drawing done wrong and ripped out.”

“Or something that he did not want anyone even to read,” Anna put in.

“Yes.” He glanced at her. “Are you suspecting the doctor of the earlier murders?”

“I don’t know. I don’t suppose he should be ruled out, though. What if the cuts were made with a scalpel, just spaced apart to look like claws?”

“Then why write in here that he thought they were too even to be an animal’s claws? If you go to the trouble to do that, trying to fool everyone, you aren’t likely to write down the truth in your journal.”

“I suppose that is true,” Anna conceded as she turned the page and found the drawing of the old farmer who had been killed next. She peered at the drawing. “I don’t think these marks look exactly like the ones on the Johnson boy. I mean, they aren’t in the same places.”

Reed nodded. “You’re right. And this old man’s throat was not as damaged as Frank Johnson’s. So the killer imitated the killings, but not in every point. Perhaps he had only heard that they looked like an animal attacking but had never seen these drawings showing exactly where they were.”

“Which would be almost anyone in the area,” Anna commented with a sigh.

“Yes, I am afraid it’s not a terribly useful supposition.”

“There must be some reason for the imitation, though. I mean, the killings are the same in so many particulars that he has to be copying the earlier murders.”

“I think you’re right,” Reed agreed. “I mean, unless you subscribe to the eternal man-beast theory. Then it would be the same, er, person.”

Anna grimaced at him. “I think we can safely discount that theory. Nor does it seem likely that it was the same person, even if he is not a supernatural being. He would be far too old now to be doing such things, wouldn’t you think?”

That also, Anna thought with inward relief, tended to exonerate her uncle. He had been only a boy at the time of the killings, no more than seven or eight. Of course, she reminded herself reasonably, perhaps talk of the killings had been so significant to him that he had incorporated them into his madness.

She flipped back and forth a few times between the drawings, studying them, then went back to the notes the doctor had written about the first victim. Suddenly, something toward the bottom of the page caught her eye.

“Look. He says here that she was a servant at Winterset.”

“What?” Reed leaned closer, his eyes going to the spot where her finger pointed. “‘Susan Emmett, a parlormaid at Winterset, was found beneath the large tree at Weller’s Point.’”

He looked at Anna. “Well, I suppose it makes sense. If she was a servant girl, she would in all likelihood have served either here or at Holcomb Manor. You say Weller’s Point was a de Winter tenant farm. How far away was it?”