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Everyone was lying, everyone was hiding something.

If she couldn’t trust Caty, who could she trust?

The only person who could tell them the truth was Elma, and Elma wasn’t here.

“I saw the corpse of the deceased twice. I had but a superficial view of it, however, as it lay in the coffin, exposed to the view of thousands. I examined such parts as were come-at-able—such as her head, neck, and breast.”

The dentist was still on the stand, speaking about Elma as though she were nothing but a collection of limbs. So many contusions to be noted, a bruise here, a scrape there, just limp flesh, the abandoned casing of the soul.

“I discovered several bruises and scratches, particularly a bruise upon the forehead and chin and upon the left breast or near it. The spots on the neck were reddish, black spots which might have passed unnoticed by a common observer.”

More doctors were called, all fighting over the evidence of Elma’s body. Her neck was broken—or it wasn’t. The spots around her neck were caused by strangulation—or immersion in water. The bruise upon her breast was the mark of violence—or of tumbling into the well.

No one seemed to know. Only Elma.

Hope wanted to shake her and demand, What happened to you? Why did you go out that night? Who did you meet?

Was it Levi, waiting in a sleigh? Or someone else?

“Was the compression that you spoke of around her neck such as might have been made by a hand?”

“My impression then was and now is that it was.”

Hope’s brother-in-law sat on the other side of Caty, his legs spread so that he took up more than his fair share of the bench, cramming Caty into Hope and Hope nearly off the edge. His hands rested on his thighs.

If he’d closed those hands around Elma’s neck, he could have easily choked the life out of her, especially if she was tilting her head up at him, laughing, expecting a kiss and not a lethal blow.

Foolish creature, Elias had called Elma, that night she had threatened to drink the laudanum. A creature, not a person. An inconvenience to be got out of the way.

But Elias had been home that night. Or so Caty said.

One of the men who had found Elma’s body took the stand. “On the second of January last, I together with Mr. Page had some business to do in breaking a horse and we went up to Andrew Blanck’s and we dined there. While we were dining, two persons, Mr. Watkins and Mr. Elias Ring, came there to get hook and poles to sound the Manhattan Well for the body of a young woman who was supposed to be drowned.”

Would Caty lie for Elias? Yes, Hope decided. Yes, if it meant protecting the children. Even if the weight of her conscience crushed her for it after.

“We got the poles and nails and went all together to the well, which we uncovered. I took the pole and hooked the nail in her clothes and drew her carefully to the top of the water. As soon as Mr. Ring saw her calico gown, he said it was she. He knew the gown.”

Elias had claimed Elma had killed herself in a love fit. He’d had them sound the waters around Rhinelander’s battery, in the opposite direction from the Manhattan Well. Hope wasn’t sure if that was proof of innocence or guilt. She wasn’t sure of anything.

Why had Elias brought Joseph Watkins with him to find Elma’s body? Was it so there would be someone else there?

“Her hat was off, her gown torn open just above the waist, her shawl was off, and her handkerchief and shoes were gone. Her hair hung over her head.”

The man’s voice was rough with emotion. He had to stop and clear his throat before he went on.

“She had a white dimity petticoat on. Her stockings were torn at the toe. Her right foot was bare and somewhat scratched. The scratches were on the upper part of the foot as if she had been dragged on the ground.”

Hope knew those stockings. She could picture Elma sitting there, on her bed in her room in the third floor, stretching out her leg in her woolen stocking, pointing her toes, asking how Hope thought she would look in clocked silk. After Sunday, she’d said, she’d have silks and brocades. She’d have a grand house—a house made to Levi’s designs, perhaps, she’d added archly. Nothing like this ramshackle boardinghouse with a rope bed and pegs in the wall for her two suits of clothes.

Hope had deliberately avoided Elma’s confidences. Now she wished she’d asked more, had pressed her about her plans.

Could Elma have believed that Elias would provide such things? He certainly hadn’t for Caty. It was true, he bragged of what their lives would be when his waterwheel was bought by the city, but his waterwheel hadn’t been bought by the city. They all knew his schemes to be so much bluster.

Unless Elma hadn’t.

Someone to take care of her, she’d said. She must have seen that it was Caty who did everything for Elias and not the other way around. Unless she believed that for her, it would be different. Caty and Elma never had appreciated each other; it had always been Hope who had had to play intermediary.

But no, it was all ridiculous. Elma couldn’t have meant to run off with Elias.