Widow's Tears (20 page)

I half-turned away, feeling the tears coming suddenly to my eyes. Bonnie was the bright spot of my almost daily visits to the bank. Ruby and I
jokingly called her “Loose-Lips Roth.” She was a reliable source of local gossip, which she cheerfully dished out as she handed you the money or took yours away from you, depending on the nature of the transaction. She was always funny, never malicious or hurtful, and sometimes she gave you some really useful information—like the time she handed me an important hint about what Sally (McQuaid's ex-wife) was up to. Bonnie's husband, Al, worked in the hardware store; Briana, her daughter, was in Brian's class and would graduate high school in a few weeks and had already been accepted to UT-San Antonio. Their lives would be changed by this horror, changed completely, changed forever.

“I hope you get him,” I said between gritted teeth.

“Them,” Rita said. “One did the stickup, wearing a hoodie and a mask. From the build, it could've been either a man or a woman. Somebody else was behind the wheel. A security guard got a quick shot off as the truck drove off—drilled a hole through the cab's back window. May have struck one of them.”

“Description of the truck?”

“Ford Ranger, mid-'90s model, maybe gray, maybe green, with a
Protected by AK-47
sticker in the rear window of the cab. A surveillance camera picked up the license number. But Chico just told me that when they ran the plate, it turned out to be registered to a Mazda in San Antonio.” She shook her head disgustedly. “You'd think if they were smart enough to put on a stolen license plate, they'd be smart enough to take that sticker off the window, wouldn't you?”

“Bonnie Roth,” I muttered numbly. Sweet, funny Bonnie, who always found something nice to say about everybody, even when she was dishing the dirt. “I can't believe it.”

“Now, remember what I said,” Rita cautioned, frowning. “Keep this to yourself. The chief will hold a press conference in an hour or so. And I
think I saw Mr. Hibler here someplace.” She glanced around. “I'm sure the story will make the next issue of the
Enterprise.
”

No doubt. There have been a few bank robberies in the area, mostly small-town banks without heavy security, but it's been a while since Pecan Springs was hit. This would be big news. I glanced at my watch, then at the drive-up window. “I guess it's too late to make my deposit.”

Rita nodded. “The bank closed right after Ms. Roth was shot.”

Well, it wouldn't be a problem if the deposit didn't go in until tomorrow. I thanked Rita and got back in the car, thinking again, sadly, about Bonnie. How many times had I driven up to that drive-through window, looking forward to seeing her and laughing at her jokes? Suddenly, I was swept by a deep, deep sadness for Al and Briana, who had got up that morning believing it would be an ordinary day, that the three of them would be together for supper this evening. But they wouldn't. They would have to face life without mother, wife, lover, and best friend.

But my sadness was laced with a savage anger at the person who had pulled the trigger. I knew Rita was right. The cops would catch him—95 percent of bank robbers are male—and he'd be charged with capital murder, intentional murder in the commission of a felony offense, which would likely get him the death penalty here in Texas. I'm not in favor of that: too many innocent people have been executed in this state. But when he was convicted and sentenced, I'd bet that the whole town of Pecan Springs would stand up and cheer.

I put the Toyota in gear and drove east on Navarro, heading for the I-35 on-ramp. Far to the southeast, against the horizon, I could see a rising tier of cumulous clouds, and I wondered if they were a portent of some kind—a metaphor, maybe, of the stormy night ahead if it turned out that Ruby was as serious about selling out as Ramona claimed. I also thought of Hark's warning about the tropical storm. But there was nothing to worry
about on that score. However powerful Amanda turned out to be, once inland, she would likely follow Allison's path, re-curve sharply to the north, and hightail it for East Texas. Houston would probably see some rain—welcome rain, actually. It's been a dry spring.

Had I but known…

Galveston
Early evening, September 8, 1900

Isaac Cline, whose house stood on Q Avenue very near to the Blackwood mansion, was deeply puzzled by the flat surface of ocean that stretched from his front gallery as far as he could see through the sheeting rain. He could not know the reason for this strange calm: that the hurricane-powered waves had pushed up a massive levee of debris dozens of yards wide and nearly three stories high, stretching for miles along the beach. This temporary barrier was constructed of the walls and roofs
of buildings, barrels, bathing machines, banisters, buggies, benches, bales of cotton, boxes and crates, broken boards, empty boats, and bodies, uncounted, countless drowned creatures: cows, pigs, horses, chickens, dogs, cats—and humans. The gigantic wedge, fronted by long sections of wrecked streetcar trestle, was being shoved by the waves toward the north and west, a giant bulldozer obliterating everything in its path.

But as Cline stood in the open door, marveling at the eerie calm before him, part of the barrier suddenly gave way and the ocean poured through the gap. He was nearly lifted off his feet by a sudden rise in the level of the water, which in the space of four seconds rose an incredible four feet. He was up to his waist in salt water before he could pull in a deep breath. It was not a lashing wave but a gigantic swell, like some maddened Leviathan rushing toward the city: the “storm wave,” it was called then—the
storm surge
, meteorologists call it now, to distinguish it from the wind-driven hurricane waves. Calculating its height against the interior walls of his house, he saw that the water was now an unbelievable 15.2 feet deep on Q Avenue and still rising.

As he ran up the stairs to the second floor of his house, he must have remembered that just nine years before, he had ridiculed hurricane fears as “an absurd delusion.” With a supremely arrogant hubris, he had written, “It would be impossible for any cyclone to create a storm wave which could materially injure the city.”

Now, Isaac Cline's city was being destroyed by the relentless, ruthless reality of his “absurd delusion,” at this moment making its mark on his dining room wall.

*   *   *

C
LINE'S
wasn't the only proud boast being annihilated by the storm. Galveston thought of itself as the New York City of the Gulf, the equal of
New Orleans, certainly, and perhaps even of San Francisco. It was the largest cotton port in the country and the third busiest of all.

But on this terrible day, the city's claims to fame were falling like ninepins. By mid-afternoon, the celebrated Pagoda Bath House, a Victorian frivolity, had been ripped apart by the waves, as had the Bath Avenue and Beach Street trestle that carried sightseers out over the surf. The three railroad bridges that linked the island and the mainland were underwater. And the longest two-lane wagon bridge in the United States was impassable. Galveston had been proud of its unique island location. Its vulnerability was now apparent to all.

There was more to come. In late afternoon, the brick smokestack that towered over the Brush Electric Company powerhouse came down with a roar across the roof, crushing it and killing the men inside. At about the same time, the Celtic cross perched on the spire of Saint Patrick's Church was blown down. (Saint Patrick's, like John Sealy Hospital, the Ursuline Academy, and many other grand buildings in Galveston, was the work of architect Nicholas J. Clayton, who loved to execute his fanciful Gothic structures in brick—not the best choice for a hurricane-prone city.) At two hundred feet, the spire, topped by a massive gilded cross, was the tallest structure in the city. According to church records, the electrically illuminated cross was designed to be “the first and last object visible to mariners or travelers approaching Galveston Island from the deep blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico.” The shriek of the wind was so great that it blotted out the noise of its collapse. Nobody heard it fall.

A half hour later, the Angelus rang out for the last time from the great bell at St. Mary's Cathedral, the first church to be named a cathedral in the new state of Texas. To the rector, Father James M. Kirwin, the Angelus was “not like a salutation of praise but a warning of death and destruction.” Moments later, the cathedral towers began to sway ominously. The two-ton
bell was ripped loose from its moorings and crashed to the floor. Gathered with the priests in the nave, the bishop of Galveston turned to the rector and said quietly, “Prepare these men for death.”

Just before six thirty, the Weather Bureau's anemometer atop the four-story Levy Building was blown away. Its last recorded wind speed: one hundred miles per hour. After that, there could be only estimates—120 miles per hour by contemporary reports; later estimates determined that the wind speeds must have reached Category Four on the Saffir-Simpson scale: 131-155 miles per hour. The first mate of the
Comino,
a British steamship tied up at Pier 14 on the west side of the island, noted that the barometric pressure had fallen to 28.30 inches and wrote in his log book. “Wind blowing terrific, and steamer bombarded with large pieces of timber, shells, and all manner of flying debris from the surrounding buildings.” A few moments later, a board four feet long and six inches wide was hurled like a huge javelin through the inch-thick iron plate of the
Comino
's hull. And at the corner of Twenty-second Street and the Strand (known to proud Galvestonians as the “Wall Street of the Southwest”), the wind tore off the entire fourth floor of the W. L. Moody Building, as neatly, some said, as if a butcher had sliced it off with his cleaver.

Nobody in Galveston could have told you how hard the wind blew that night. They just knew that no man could stand against it, and that the air was so thick with whirling debris and sword-sharp slates that to step outside was to face certain death.

*   *   *

A
T
the Blackwood house on Q Avenue, Rachel had given up all hope that Augustus would be able to make his way home before the storm ended. The howling wind was too fierce and the water, rushing up the street like a foam-flecked river in flood, too impossibly high. His absence was a hollow
in her heart, but she was too busy—and too frightened—to dwell on it. She could only thank Providence that Colleen O'Reilly, for whatever reason, had come back. Until Rachel had heard Matthew's shout and turned to see Colleen standing in the door, she had not known how desperate for help she was. It was only later that she would remember the sweet sympathy in the other woman's eyes and wonder whether she had heard of Augustus' death and could somehow see the terrible fate that waited for the rest of them.

But that was to come. Their first order of business was to finish Matthew's birthday party, with candles and a song and his present, a little army of painted tin soldiers, with extra-large pieces of chocolate cake for everyone. When they finished, Rachel proposed a new game. While they were waiting for their father to come home from the bank, they would have a parade up the stairs to the second floor. Each child could carry something important to the family—“just in case”—and when they had taken their precious burdens up the stairs, they could march down for something else. Mrs. O'Reilly volunteered to be “Parade Supervisor,” making sure that everyone had something to carry, and Patsy was sent upstairs to find safe places for all the items. Rachel, as “Music Master,” went to the Steinway to play some rousing Sousa marches—“The Stars and Stripes Forever,” “The Liberty Bell,” “The Washington Post”—while Angela sat in her little red rocking chair beside the piano, happily beating a spoon against a tin pan.

Matthew was given the honor of carrying his father's spare briefcase stuffed with papers. Ida carried the family's silver forks, done up in a tea towel; Peter carried the spoons, and Paul the knives. On their second trip, Matthew had his father's coin collection, Ida a piece of wedding crystal, and the twins brought the photograph albums. But while the children sang and shouted and marched and Rachel played as loudly as she could, their noise could not drown out the pounding of the rain and the rising shriek
of the wind, like a hundred banshees howling around the house and down the chimneys.