The Salem Witch Society (15 page)

“Helen!” Dr. Steig blurted out. “That man at the library was looking for some old volume on witchcraft. That’s our man.”

Grey shook
his head. “She reported the man as blond; our killer has black hair. But I agree there appears to be some connection between the two events. Unfortunately, unless Mrs. Prescott can identify the man, there’s little chance of progress along that avenue. I suggest we focus our attention on the role witchcraft plays in the death of Maggie Keene. Did our man truly believe her to be a witch?”

“Not necessarily,” Dr. Steig said, trying to regain his composure. “He could simply be delusional and applying the term ‘witch’ loosely to mean a sinful woman.”

“So he is on a religious crusade of some sort,” Lean said.

Grey rolled his eyes. “You’re like a dog with a meat bone.”

“Perhaps, like this fellow in the book, he thought himself bewitched by her.” Dr. Steig waved his pipe about like a magic wand. “Of course, not in the sense of poisoned cattle and all that. But in his own unbalanced view of the world, he’s tormented by her, having shameful desires, such as the suckling. Unable to control these feelings, he blames his own weakness on her conduct. She has caused his problems—bewitched him. He must rid himself of her.”

In the silence that followed, Lean contemplated the doctor’s theory. It had the distinct advantage of being much more fleshed out than his own simple explanation of religious fervor. “Well, Grey? You haven’t said what you make of it.”

“We can safely assume that, in our man’s mind, Maggie Keene deserved a witch’s death. As to why … mere speculation. We need more facts. There must be some link, something about the victim that marked her for death in this manner. We need to know more about the unfortunate Maggie Keene.”

T
wo mornings later, Lean passed the
intersection of Gorham’s Corner with Dr. Steig beside him. This was the most densely populated, and the most Irish, section of town. A few blocks on and they turned down a thin alleyway littered with trash and puddles of what Lean optimistically thought of as muddied rainwater. Ahead of them some street kids quit whatever they were doing, took stock of the approaching men, and scattered. Lean and the doctor moved farther down the alley of grime-covered brick walls streaked chalky white by old water stains. Overhead, staggered rows of dingy laundry hung out to languish in the fusty air. There was the occasional flapping sound from linens so thin from long use that they barely offered any resistance to the puffs of wind.

They turned down a staircase and headed into the dark confines of the underground barroom. It took a moment for Lean’s eyes and nose to adjust. There was little light, except for two candles on a couple of the slanted, poorly cobbled tables. The atmosphere inside was thick and stifling, as if the rank air from the entire space of the alleyway outside had somehow been condensed into the small barroom and held captive for weeks on end.

The bartender reached below, grabbing hold of something hidden from view. Lean slipped his left hand into his pants pocket, the motion causing the lapel of his suit coat to shift aside and reveal his badge. The man tensed behind the bar, returning the unseen weapon to its resting place.

It wasn’t hard to spot Boxcar Annie. There were only two women in the room, one so old they might have raised the building around her. Boxcar Annie was sitting alone at a table. Lean had never arrested her before but thought he recognized her face. Although she’d earned her moniker for her habit of working, when need be, near or in empty rail cars, this was one of
those arguably fortuitous occasions when the title fit the person’s actions as perfectly as it fit her appearance. Her flat face was set into a square head that was itself hunkered down on her shoulders like a stone gargoyle squatting atop a condemned building

There were a half dozen men scattered about, but it was early enough that they weren’t yet bothering her, each man instead focusing his attention on his mug. They all looked up at the newcomers with varying degrees of concern. Most merely spared a glance before returning to the pressing business of dulling the world. One man took on a nervous air, drained his cup, and left without making eye contact. On the other end of the spectrum was a grizzled old soaker who was propped up at a table in the shady corner past Boxcar Annie. He barely moved his head from where it hovered just inches over his mug.

“Annie Gordon,” Lean said.

She had cheeks of a dull scarlet tint and a rum-blossom nose to match. When she turned her head with the least amount of effort needed to take them in, Lean noticed how the red of her face highlighted the sickly yellow of her eyes. The woman didn’t respond. Lean could tell she was still guessing at what they wanted.

“Boxcar Annie?”

The use of her professional name caused her face to relax. “Not often I get two such fine gents as yourselves come around. All the same, I can’t accommodate you right now.”

“We need a few minutes of your time.”

“Only a few minutes? Well, at least you’re honest, but I’m not working that way right now. Why don’t you go down to Haskell’s and ask for Big Kate. She’s enough for the two of ya. Or is it just you alone, and yer da likes to watch?”

Her words were slurred; Lean thought at first that it was just the drink. Then he noticed that even when she wasn’t talking, her jaw was slack, hanging open a touch to reveal a semitoothless set of gums. He remembered hearing that Boxcar Annie had been in and out of work at the Portland Star Match Company over the past fifteen years, often during the winters, when her usual work on the streets became even less accommodating. She had
phossy jaw. He’d seen even worse cases of it among the Irishwomen who started young and then spent too many years bunching and bundling up the phosphorus-tipped matches, the dust from it eventually eating away at their teeth and jawbones.

“This is about Maggie Keene.” Lean showed his badge.

“I don’t ’afta talk to you.” There seemed a touch of authority in her answer, a sureness that exceeded the regular obstinacy that veteran prostitutes often displayed when dealing with police.

“Says who?”

Boxcar Annie didn’t answer, but for a second, Lean thought she might, that somebody had actually told her not to talk to the police.

She gave a defiant glance toward Dr. Steig. “He don’t look like no cop.”

Lean thought about it and decided she might respond best to an honest approach. “That’s Dr. Steig. He examined the body.”

Boxcar Annie pondered this for a moment, then took another swig. “Before or after she was buried?”

“Before,” interjected Dr. Steig with a curtness that betrayed sensitivity to allegations of that type of corpse procurement that had lent the medical profession something of a ghoulish reputation in recent decades.

“Wouldn’t be the first time I heard of the other. ’Specially for one of us girls. Dug up and landing up on some doctor’s platter even after she’s had prayers over her grave. Like they ain’t been poked and prodded right enough while they was living! Downright sinful.”

“He performed the postmortem on Maggie as part of the investigation into her murder.”

“You mean he’s the one what cut her up more after she was dead already.”

Lean nodded.

“He’s not much better’n that other gent that did her first.”

“I know this isn’t pleasant—that Maggie was a good friend of yours.” Lean watched her lower her cup an inch, a touch less hostility in her eyes. “But we still need to get a few answers to help with the investigation.”

She laughed in
harsh snorts, then wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Investigation? You mean where you pick some witless stiff and beat a confession out of him.”

Lean ignored the woman’s bitterness. “We need a few details about what Maggie was doing in the week or two before she was killed. Who she was seeing. If any fellows were coming around more often, looking for her in particular. If anyone was acting strange.”

“Ha! A man’s looking for a bit of the old trip up the alley and acting strange, is he?” She waved about at the assortment of men in the room. “Show me one of these dirty stiffs what ain’t acting strange.”

“Fair enough. Anyone acting worse than usual. A man that stood out, did or said anything that worried her,” Lean said.

“Didn’t mention any stiffs bothering her more than usual, OK? Now, I ain’t got nothing more to say about Maggie. Except she didn’t deserve what he did to her.”

“Of course not, and that’s why we need your help, Annie. To see that this fellow swings for what he’s done. To make sure he’ll never do this to another girl who doesn’t deserve it any more than Maggie did.”

Boxcar Annie drained the last of her drink just as Lean finished talking.

“There ain’t no other girl deserved it less than Maggie—what that gent did to her. All the same, I know damn well he won’t ever meet the noose for it. They never do. You gents will never let him.” Her cheeks turned a more violent shade of red, her voice rising to a hoarse shout.

Lean could tell they weren’t going to get much from her in this state, and the other bar patrons were growing agitated as well. There was no use in pressing on. “All right, Annie. We’ll be going, so calm yourself. But we may need to speak to you again about all this.”

“Don’t bother coming back. I got nothing more to say to the likes of you!”

As they left, Lean could feel Annie’s red-hot stare burning into him. Back on the street, he paused
for a moment to collect his thoughts. In his head he ran over his questions to Boxcar Annie once again, thinking hard about her responses. Something about what she’d said nagged at him, and for a moment he was reluctant to walk on.

“She knows something more.”

“Maybe we’d have better luck earlier in the day,” grumbled Dr. Steig. “Before she’s had the chance to climb so far into her bottle.”

They walked down the alley. Lean didn’t look back, so he didn’t see the boy who slipped out the door to McGrath’s place and dashed off in the opposite direction. Nor did Lean see the old drunkard emerge and follow after the boy at a pace quicker than a man of his age and condition should have been able to manage.

Two hours later Lean brushed aside the curtain and peered out into the dusky street from Dr. Steig’s front parlor at the Soldiers’ Home. “Where the blazes is Grey?”

“Patience,” said the doctor. “I’m sure there’s a reason for keeping us waiting.”

He handed Lean a healthy pour of whiskey. For half a second, Lean contemplated objecting, citing his duty to enforce, or at least pay a nominal amount of respect to, the Maine Liquor Law.

“I have a license, of course,” said the doctor. “If it’ll make you feel better, I can formally prescribe it for your nerves.”

Lean smiled and downed half his tumbler. Just then there came a soft rapping at the front door. He didn’t bother waiting for the doctor’s servant. Instead, he rushed into the hall and whipped the door open himself. He stepped back in surprise when he saw the old soaker from McGrath’s place standing on the front step. His right hand instinctively curled into a fist at the sight of the surprise visitor.

The man flashed a smile at Lean, then said, in a voice much firmer than expected, “Come now, Lean, threatening the downtrodden.”

Recognizing the voice, Lean stepped back and released his fist. The ragged man shuffled into the hall, closed the door, and stood up to his full height, slightly taller than
Lean. Then he doffed his tattered gray cap, revealing black hair.

“Grey? What the devil?” His voice drifted off as he watched Perceval Grey tug off his white eyebrows and rub his face with a handkerchief, erasing two decades of apparent age.

“I assume that your disguise has accomplished something even more useful than causing our good deputy’s mouth to drop.” Dr. Steig had appeared in the hallway and beckoned both the younger men back into his private study.

“I have indeed turned up a rather puzzling connection, which certainly bears closer consideration. And I will explain myself in due course, but first let me hear your impressions from speaking with our dear Lady of the Rail Cars.”

“I believe she may have seen our man,” Lean said.

“What makes you suspect that?” Grey asked.

“The way she spoke about him. Never ‘that man’ or ‘the killer’ or even ‘that bastard.’ Nothing broad, like she was talking about just anyone. Always ‘he’ or ‘him,’ someone in particular.”

“The papers have painted quite a graphic portrait of an insane, bloodthirsty Indian,” Dr. Steig said. “Perhaps she has some phantom image specifically in mind.”

Grey shrugged. “Your point is quite perceptive, Lean, but there’s something else about her description of the killer. Think back to the specific phrases she used. Several times she referred to the pair of you as ‘gents.’ Other men, her regular customers or those in Farrell’s club, were always ‘stiffs.’ But not the killer; he too was always a gent. Even if she didn’t mean it in a kind way. If she was only speaking of the killer as described in the papers, such a creature would surely be classified with the stiffs. She would never call him a gent.”

Lean shot a glance at Dr. Steig, who nodded.

“Now that I hear you say it, I do believe that’s true. I mean about her choice of words.” The doctor ruminated on the observation for a few moments, then gave a soft chuckle. “Fascinating.”

“For now we’ll take it as only a theory,” Grey said, “that our man is not some street tough or outwardly
deranged drifter, but rather a man of means. Someone that a woman of Boxcar Annie’s ilk would consider respectable. This may well make my other discovery more meaningful.”

“Yes, getting back to all that,” said Lean with an exaggerated wave toward Grey’s tattered costume. “I suppose there’s some reason we needed to be kept in the dark about your efforts.”

“I couldn’t risk any unintentional show of recognition. I assumed, correctly, that Boxcar Annie’s sudden relocation to McGrath’s establishment, just after the murder of her dear friend, was more than coincidental. If there was something of value at stake with this woman, we wouldn’t be the only ones interested in what she has to say. My efforts were rewarded; immediately after you left, the bartender sent a boy to carry the news of your visit to Maple Street.”