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"I'd rather not" Epstein replaced the target and they began walking back to the shooting line

"What about Essex?" asked Pitt

"What can I tell you that you don't already know?"

"How he died, for starters"

"A train wreck," answered Epstein "Bridge collapsed over the Hudson River A hundred dead Essex was one of them"

Pitt thought a moment "Somewhere, buried in old records in the county where the accident occurred, therethe effects found on the body"

"Not likely"

"Why do you say that?"

"Noe've touched on an intriguing parallel between Essex and Shields" He paused and looked at Pitt "Both hth, nineteen fourteen, and neither of their bodies were ever recovered"

"Great," Pitt sighed "It never rainsbut then I didn't expect it to be cut-and-dried"

"Investigations into the past never are"

"The coincidence between the deaths of Essex and Shields seems unreal Could there have been a conspiracy?"

Epstein shook his head "I doubt it Stranger things happen Besides, why sink a ship and murder a thousand souls when Shields could have simply been tossed over the side somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic?"

"You're right, of course"

"Youme what this is all about?"