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“Shhh,” Theta cautioned.
Roy put a hand over his heart. “You see, she was tempted by the bright lights of Manhattan. She ran away from our happy home. From me. My search took me all the way to the stage of the Ziegfeld Follies. I met Mr. Ziegfeld, by the way. A fine man. Yes, sir, a fine man. And that’s where I found my wife—singing and dancing in the Follies. You might know her better as Theta Knight.”
An excited murmur rippled through the two hundred thousand people. The heat of gossip. The promise of more to come.
“But to me, she’s just good old Betty Sue Stoughton of Topeka, Kansas. Back then, she was my wife. There wasn’t any of this running around with flimflam artists and Negro healers. I miss her, and so does her mama. Her mama’s not well, you see. This has near broken her heart, she misses her little girl so.”
The only thing Theta’s adoptive stage mother missed was the money Theta had made for her on the Orpheum Circuit, singing and dancing from the time Theta was three years old till she ran away with Roy at fourteen. The woman had never shown Theta a day’s kindness. She was as phony as Roy’s story.
Roy had worked a few manly tears into his voice for the crowd. “So if you see her, if you see my Betty Sue, all I ask is that you please, please bring her back to me. Bring her home. I just wanna take her home to Kansas, that’s all. Betty Sue—if you’re out there, just know th
at I won’t rest until I find you, darlin’. I won’t rest a single day.”
There it was—the threat in the velvet glove. Roy’s specialty. He wanted her to know she was marked. He’d have everybody hunting for her. And the worst part was, the folks in the crowd bought it. They were applauding him like he was a hero. He’d put himself in charge of the story—hers as well as his—and nobody doubted it. Roy took a seat next to Harriet Henderson, who patted his back as if he were a wounded little boy in need of mothering. Theta could feel the acid in her throat and the heat building inside, seeking a way out.
Jake Marlowe took to the microphone again. “Now, I promise: We’re going to dedicate this new church to the memory of Sarah. But before we do, there’s something I need to say. These Diviners with their strange powers—it’s not natural, I tell you. Can their powers truly be trusted?”
A murmur of doubt moved among the assembled.
“They brought the ghosts on us!” a man shouted.
“Amen! They did, indeed!” Billy Sunday shouted back. “Sorry, Mr. Marlowe.”
“Quite all right. Now, I’m a man of industry. Of business,” Marlowe continued. “I never went for ghost stories. But people have seen them. They’ve seen them on the streets. In their very homes. And just last night, in Central Park. Sarah knew there were ghosts,” Marlowe continued. “Why, she warned me about them!”
“That isn’t true,” Evie whispered to Theta. “She didn’t believe in them at all.”
“I thought this was supposed to be a memorial. Where’s he going with this?” Henry said, keeping his voice low.
The air was suddenly electric, a storm building. The klieg lights cast their starry shine upon Jake Marlowe as his voice shook with emotion. “Last night, this city was under attack. It’s the Diviners who brought this plague upon us! They are fundamentally un-American. And now, thanks to the tireless efforts of Detective Terrence Malloy, we have proof—proof!—that these so-called Diviners, with their unnatural powers, have aligned themselves with the terrorist bombers who killed innocent people, including my dear Sarah. Last night, tireless federal agents have arrested Margaret Walker, Mr. Fitzgerald’s former associate, for his murder and for sedition.”
“What’s he talking about Sister Walker, Theta?” Isaiah asked as the crowd grew agitated.
“I don’t know,” Theta said.
“These Diviners—Memphis and Isaiah Campbell, Sam Lubovitch Lloyd, Ling Chan, Evie O’Neill, Theta Knight, Jericho Jones, and their friends…”
“I didn’t even make the bill?” Henry muttered.
“…are wanted as accomplices in the bombing of the Future of America Exhibition, in the murder of Dr. William Fitzgerald, and on suspicion of a plot against the United States of America. They were supposed to be here tonight as my guests, but I see that they are not here.” Marlowe gestured to the area where the Diviners were to have stood. Evie was grateful for Bill’s advice earlier. “I see that, like the cowards they are, they wouldn’t dare show their faces at a memorial for a true patriot, Sarah Snow,” Marlowe continued.
More boos came from the crowd.
“Evil, we oughta scram,” Theta said.
“But we have to talk to Marlowe.…”
“Evil, don’t you see? He’s not gonna talk to us. It’s a trap. We gotta go now.”
But Marlowe was still talking. “And that is why I am offering a five-thousand-dollar reward for each one of them captured alive.”
Excited gasps rippled through the crowd: Five thousand dollars—a fortune! And there were at least seven of them to be found!
Detective Malloy stepped up to the microphone. “Anyone harboring these enemies of the state will be charged with treason under the 1918 Sedition Act. Due to their powers, these Diviners are considered highly dangerous. Therefore, we ask that if you do see them, you call the New York City Police Department or the Bureau of Investigation.”
“Evil…” Theta said, frightened. Marlowe had betrayed them, put a shiny price tag on their heads. The Diviners had all just become Public Enemy #1. And if anyone recognized them in the crowd, they were done for.
The heat that had been building in Theta’s palms could no longer be contained. “Evie, we gotta ankle,” she said, wide-eyed. “I-I’m gonna blow.”
