A Mischief in the Snow (11 page)

“I don't think so. Last night, before we left, I had a feeling…”

He knew her well enough to stop at this, and wait for more.

“… a feeling of something not right, here in these trees. Orpheus, too.”

“Animals
are
able to smell death at some distance.”

“Richard, if he wished to hide his crime, wouldn't he have come back after we all went home, to take the body somewhere we might never find it? That, he did not do.”

Longfellow considered this while he tied the sharp and bloody hatchet in the square of cloth, knotting its ends twice together to form a loop.

“He could have felt it unlikely we'd think to connect him with the deed. That, I'm glad to say, suggests someone other than Lem Wainwright—simply because there is much to make him seem guilty.”

“That may convince some, though I suspect not all.”

Longfellow looked up into the sighing branches. “Godwin, I believe, lived with someone as a boarder.”

“With Frances Bowers, Hiram's sister.”

“I will talk to her. But it would be better—safer—if you were to leave the rest of this to me.”

“If Lem is still in danger—”

“I will see to his interests.”

“Haven't you a larger concern? To satisfy the village?”

“My greatest concern will be finding the truth.”

“But how will you find it? What do we know so far?” His expression, she saw, had hardened.

“First things first,” he told her abruptly. He handed her the hatchet, then bent to pick up Alex Godwin, almost as if he were a sleeping child. He realized at once that instead, the body was little different from a heavy, fresh-cut log.

He took hold of the shoulders of the old coat and pulled backward, slowly parting the boughs. Charlotte waited until they'd snapped back safely. Then she picked up the hat that had been left behind, smoothed its few proud feathers thoughtfully, and followed.

R
ICHARD LONGFELLOW PULLED
his sled and its covered burden over the compacted snow. They reached the main road, and the village grew larger before them, while the wind continued to rise in cold, biting gusts. It was with intense relief that they came to the trees that marked the beginning of the small, close houses, and then the graveyard.

They turned off the road and wound through several stone markers; moments later, the little party reached the cellar where Alexander might be left alone. They opened its slanting doors, setting them down on either side. Though her companion claimed he needed no assistance, Charlotte helped by lifting the front of the sled, while Longfellow took up the rear. Working in tandem, they prevented the boy's body from bumping down the steps as they lowered it into the ground.

The earthen room and the timbers with which it was lined gave off an aroma of cedar, earth, and mold. In dim light, they set the sled onto a pair of saw horses, but there
seemed no need to remove the tarpaulin, nor to light the candle left in a cracked saucer on the dirt floor. Yet feeling that decency required something, they stood a little longer in the quiet gloom. “Shall you come with me to see Rowe?” Longfellow eventually asked. Her eyes, he saw, defied any objection. And so he helped her to climb the first of several steps; once the doors were shut they proceeded past the meeting house to the minister's stone manse, over which hung a web of withered ivy.

Though village women came to help with the upkeep of the house, Christian Rowe was usually alone when one called. But this time, moments after they knocked, they saw the door opened by another.

“Good morning!” Moses Reed cried, immediately extending a hand as if to pull them in out of the harsh weather. Charlotte and Longfellow returned his greeting.

“Is Mr. Rowe here?” Longfellow asked, unwinding his long woolen scarf.

“He's in the kitchen, finishing his breakfast. I'd already moved on, so I leaped up to see who it was. Anything that keeps the blood moving!” the lawyer added with a grin that spread his beard. “But go in to the study fire. I'll see if I can find you some tea. I'll let our host know you're here,” were his last words, as he left them.

They soon found chairs, and sat to stare at one another. Each then tried to imagine exactly what Rowe should be told—and how he might take the solemn news.

“Longfellow?” came a query. “And Mrs. Willett! How glad I am to see
you
here, as well. Now, I can thank you again for the sweets you were kind enough to offer me yesterday. A successful day, I think?” the minister asked Longfellow. He received a nod, but nothing more to alter his cheerful mood.

“Do you come on some other business?” Rowe craned
his neck toward Longfellow's bundle of cloth, now resting on the hearth. “Have you brought me something?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Longfellow admitted. Then, again, he fell silent.

“I've offered my home to a visitor, as you see. An act of charity, to benefit an old resident.” Rowe rubbed his hands together, thinking, Longfellow imagined, of his pockets.

“Business of a sort has brought us. Bad business, I'm afraid, which will benefit no one. An old business with us, too, unfortunately.” The selectman stopped, sensing that the preacher had already begun to fear the worst.

“No!” Christian Rowe cried abruptly. “Not again! Not—murder?”

Longfellow gave no reply, but watched Rowe stagger back, his arms reaching until he found a sturdy chair to cling to. “What name, sir?” he demanded.

“Alexander Godwin. He was found this morning, at the edge of my ice pond.”

“Your ice pond?
Was he really?…” This information suddenly seemed to restore the preacher. “Was he, indeed?” Absently, he allowed a finger to explore an ear, while he considered further. “Not a member of our church, if he did sometimes attend—but wasn't he the youth who fought only yesterday with young Wainwright?” With something solid to ponder, Rowe pulled a chair next to Mrs. Willett's, and sat.

“Yes,” Longfellow admitted.

“Yes, we spoke of it ourselves, didn't we? And I suggested further guidance… although you seemed to disregard my concerns.”

“Their argument was a brief one,” Charlotte assured him. Rowe took her hand in his, and held it.

“I'm very glad
you
were not upset by their behavior,”
he told her. “But I have already discovered the cause of the altercation. It seems it was due to a young woman.”

“Is that what you were told?” Charlotte asked.

“By Jemima Hurd, who accused Martha Sloan of being somewhat wanton in her affections. She is a handsome girl, perhaps more suitable for our Lem, after all, than for—” Rowe came to a halt. He realized that the suggestion was no longer worth making, with Alexander Godwin lying dead.

Longfellow answered the minister's next question before it was asked. “We've left him in your cellar, out in the graveyard. I've also sent someone for John Dudley.”

Talk of a corpse in his own backyard caused Rowe to consider more carefully the likely impact of the matter. “But murder—you are
absolutely sure?
How, exactly, have you drawn your conclusion?”

“By looking at a hole in the back of his neck, about the size of a shilling. We're certain it was made by a tool found beside him.”

“A tool? To me, that would imply an accident, perhaps suffered while he worked on the ice yesterday. Though with so many about—”

“This was no accident. He must have been attacked from behind, struck by an ice hatchet Lem took from Mrs. Willett's barn. The killer left the body in a small wood where it was unlikely to be found for hours, or even days.”

Rowe removed his hand from Charlotte's. Had he finally begun to pull the pieces together? She wondered all the more when it seemed his eyes made of new point of avoiding her own. Instead, they went to the cloth bundle on the hearth.

Just as he took a breath to speak once more, Rowe was interrupted by a voice from the doorway.

“Thus,” Moses Reed said quietly, “we have a weapon, witnesses to an earlier altercation involving the victim, and a possible motive. But these things are rarely what they seem. Tell me, who found the body?” The lawyer entered, and set the tea service he carried onto a table.

“Lem Wainwright, I'm sorry to say,” Longfellow replied.

“Another point for the prosecution.” Reed stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Some might say that a man who has committed murder will go back to the scene of his crime… but that sort of thing is hardly proof. What was the boy doing when he found the body?”

“Looking for the hatchet he'd lost earlier,” Longfellow explained. He mentioned seeing the missing canvas bag himself—and, that it had long rested at the feet of several men at the bonfire, including the village constable.

“Now
that
may take us forward a step. Has the affection reported between Lem and Martha Sloan been put into the form of an engagement?”

“Not yet,” Charlotte answered.

“Then I doubt he would go as far as murder to protect his name, or hers. At least a jury may not care to think so. And the scuffle could have been caused by something else entirely. I'll know more when I've talked with the boy—if you wish it,” he added, giving Lem's acknowledged sponsors a chance to refuse.

“It could be a good idea,” said Charlotte. “Do you think he's in enough danger to need an attorney?”

“At the moment, that's difficult to say.”

“If so, would you be able to help him, Mr. Reed?”

“I will try, madam. For your sake as well as for his. Although I've not been asked to stand in court on a case of murder, I've seen one or two tried. It's a challenge I'll gladly accept, should it come to that.”

Further speculation was interrupted by rapid knocking.

As he was closest to the front door, Reed went to answer. Moments later, there was a bustle in the entry hall. Then they saw a man with dun-colored hair and a strikingly bulbous nose make his way into the room. John Dudley went straight for the fire. Once he'd reached it he stood with his back nearly covering the hearth, his hands behind him, swaying slightly.

Charlotte could not help noticing, as she looked up, that the constable suffered from a large red carbuncle on his neck, with three or four yellow heads coming up around it. This seemed almost worthy of one of the sly friends of Sir John Falstaff—though which one, she could not recall.

“What's this about a murder?” the constable asked, after he'd sent a bleary eye to each of them.

“You heard already?” asked Longfellow.

“You think it's nothing at all to come walking down the road with a corpse under a sheet of canvas? Several saw you—by now, the news is all over the village. What do you expect
me
to do about it?”

Not known for an ability to converse politely, John Dudley seemed to have outdone himself in rudeness.

“Do, John?” Longfellow answered mildly. “Why, whatever you think best. At least until the selectmen meet to consider this. I presume it will be no earlier than tomorrow. With the look of the weather, it may take longer. Until we give you further instruction, it would seem you and I are of about equal rank here, with Mr. Rowe a close third. But to be sure you have the facts straight, let me say that Godwin was found early this morning, near where we worked on the ice, yesterday afternoon.”

Longfellow related the rest.

John Dudley took a long moment to digest the information. He was, it seemed, more than a little fearful of his new responsibility.

“You put him down there?” This was asked bluffly, with a jerk of a thumb toward an east window, and the graveyard.

“That's right.”

Dudley reached up in an attempt to scratch at his boil, and drew his hand away as though the area were on fire. With a malevolent eye, he looked to the one person in the room who remained a stranger. He now seemed to find the man familiar. “Who's this, then?” he asked.

“My name, sir, is Reed. I am an attorney, with an office in Boston.”

“Reed? The Reed who stole from my father years ago?
That
Reed went off to Boston, thinking himself far too good for the likes of us!”

“Yes, we were neighbors. And I did take some apples that were not mine, as I recall. I once had the ways of an impious and thoughtless boy, I admit. As so many do,” he added, considering. “As a matter of fact, Mr. Dudley— John—I seem to have heard that you, too…”

“That's enough! We want no lawyers here, dirtying our investigations!” Dudley spat into the fire, his features suddenly pinched by his anger.

“As you wish,” the lawyer replied with a tiny smile. “I will retire, then, to begin my own investigations.”

“This is not Suffolk County, with your m'lords’ pulling strings for you! No, you will have to deal with Middlesex County here, Reed. A good many in this village will have little to say to you!”

“Possibly.” The attorney left the room, and they soon heard the opening and closing of the front door.

“Nicely done, constable,” Longfellow said dryly.

John Dudley made a show of chuffing on his hands, which must have been warm already.

“What now?” asked the selectman.

“Well…”

Apparently, thought Longfellow, the investigation would need someone else to act as its engine.

“How about,” he suggested, “going to see Widow Bowers? It was she, I think, who provided a room for Godwin, and allowed him to share her table. She might tell us something of the young man's recent activities. We might also speak with young Martha Sloan, to lay another theory to rest. I'm sure she would have done little to encourage Alex, or any other lad, for I believe she's developed strong feelings for Lem Wainwright.”

“You don't suppose, as they're saying, that it was jealousy?” asked the constable.

“Nor do I believe for a moment that Lem is our culprit.”

“Where is the lad now?”

“Mrs. Willett sent him on an errand.”

“An errand!” The constable turned to Charlotte. “Before I could speak with him? You thought that
wise
, did you?”

“Who knew when you might be roused?” Longfellow countered, subduing his own anger. “Besides, we had to consider the welfare of others. That's why I agreed to sending him off to Boar Island, with instructions to return in a few hours’ time. When he does, you'll find him at my house. I'll see he's watched from then on, if you like, until this is cleared up.”