The Salem Witch Society (16 page)

“McGrath’s house,” Lean said.

Grey smiled. “And ten minutes later that same boy reappeared and ran over to 53 Temple.”

“What’s there?”

“The headquarters of Colonel Blanchard’s Maine Temperance Union.”

Dr. Steig stopped in the middle of lighting a cigarette. “You don’t honestly believe that anyone of Colonel Blanchard’s associates have something to do with Maggie Keene’s murder?”

“‘Believe’ is a dangerous word. So no, I do not yet believe that Colonel Blanchard or any person in his employ is actively involved in the murder of Maggie Keene. But the facts do allow us to at least begin to craft a working theory.” Grey rose and started to pace as his explanation continued.

“My observations of Boxcar Annie reveal she is a rather typical example of her peers. She displays less-than-average intellect, perception, or ambition. Like the vast majority of mankind, these women tend to act primarily for one of two reasons: personal gain or self-preservation. In light of the fact that her good friend has just been murdered, one would assume that her sudden departure from Munjoy Hill and reappearance at Gorham’s Corner was prompted solely by an interest in her own safety. But her revelation that she was not currently plying her trade, coupled with
the fact that she obviously had coins enough to pay for several drinks, shows that she has seen a significant improvement in her financial situation.

“I suspect that the new asset she has to her name is information concerning the identity of Maggie Keene’s murderer. She has found shelter with McGrath, who is offering her protection and money so long as her information remains valuable.”

Lean rapped his knuckles on Dr. Steig’s desk. “And when questions start getting asked, especially by the police, the price of him continuing to protect Boxcar Annie’s silence goes up for whoever stands to lose if it became public knowledge,” Lean said.

Dr. Steig pointed his pipe at Grey. “Really, though, to think that someone in the hierarchy of the temperance union has any involvement in such a heinous murder …”

Lean exhaled deeply, then pursed his lips while he let all this information seep into his mind. Finally he announced with a hint of reluctance, “We’re going to have to arrange a meeting with Colonel Blanchard.”

“Agreed.” Grey held up a finger in warning. “But not until we strengthen our hand. It will take some careful doing, but I’ll make inquiries into whether the colonel and McGrath have had any recent financial dealings. Also, we need to speak to that woman once more to find out exactly what she knows about the killer.”

“Perhaps not too soon,” suggested Dr. Steig. “Assuming she remembers us in the morning, I think it’s safe to say she may need to cool her head before she sees us again.”

“Very well. We can let her be for a few days; we have another piece of pressing business to attend to in the meanwhile.” Grey drew a telegram from his pocket. “I assume you’ve heard nothing from your inquiries to other police departments regarding our missing first murder.”

Lean shook his head. “One stabbing in Bath. But it was between sailors.”

Grey set his telegram down. “I’ve received an interesting response to our inquiry from an old colleague in Boston.”

Dr. Steig pulled his desk chair
closer, while Lean stepped forward to read over the doctor’s shoulder.

“Man with a wooden leg?” Lean glanced up at Grey with a dubious grin.

“The inquiry was for wounds to the throat or abdomen and severed body parts. Apparently I should have been more specific as to the age of the wounds.”

Lean perused the options once more. “Maybe this Scituate one.”

“I thought the same and sent another query.” Grey pulled a second telegram from his pocket and read aloud. “‘Scituate—Hannah Easler young woman not prostitute—good family churchgoers. Found in woods. No weapon at scene. Great violence to the body but nothing missing. Police mum just rumors. Spurned man? No known suitors. No arrest or suspects. Rail not far—possible vagrant. Walt.’”

Lean read the telegram a second time, again pausing over the words that sent the message veering off on a new course. “Scituate’s a small town. They’d know if she had a fellow at all. So what makes them think a spurned lover?”

“Too soon to say. But if her character and background don’t suggest some manner of sexual speculation …” Grey let the inference hang in the air.

“The nature of the killing must. Still, no pitchfork
mentioned. No missing body parts.”

“He could have taken the fork with him,” Grey said. “We don’t know for certain that our man meant to leave it stuck in Maggie Keene. He was startled away by the watchman.”

“If there was serious damage to the body, it’s possible that slim, piercing wounds from a pitchfork could have been missed on examination,” noted Dr. Steig.

“So, Lean?” Grey was peering at him like a hawk. “The first train for Boston leaves at half past five in the morning.”

Lean bobbed his head slightly from side to side as if he were actually weighing scales in his mind. “I can ask my wife’s sister to come help her out for a day.” He nodded, trying to rally himself to the cause. “Yeah, fair enough. Scituate it is.”

T
he next morning, Helen took a detour on her way to the historical society and made an unannounced visit to her uncle’s house. She sipped her tea and looked across the table in the sunlit dining room of his home. Dr. Steig was finishing off his breakfast of eggs and sausage. He made some comment about plans later that summer for them to take Delia farther up the coast for a vacation, but he seemed distracted. Helen just smiled and said the idea sounded nice. Her thoughts were elsewhere as well.

On the ride to her uncle’s that morning, she had once again studied the telegraph paper she’d taken while tailing Perceval Grey a week earlier. A pencil back-and-forth across the page revealed a partial impression of the note Grey had sent to a man named McCutcheon at the Boston office of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. No matter how intently she had stared at the page, she could make out only a few of the words: “months … cases in Mass. … death … mutilation … stab or pierce … neck. Urgent.” She didn’t know what to make of the gruesome message, and her efforts
to learn more about its author had been equally frustrating.

“Has Deputy Lean said anything further to you about his investigation?”

Dr. Steig looked at her in surprise.

“The strange man at the library,” she explained.

“Oh.” Dr. Steig’s face relaxed. “No, nothing further, I’m afraid.”

“Deputy Lean, he was in the paper last week for that murder at the Portland Company.”

“Yes. A horrible business.”

Helen noticed that her uncle’s eating had ceased. She took another sip of tea and asked, as casually as she could, “And who’s Perceval Grey? Haven’t I heard you mention him before? Some sort of detective, isn’t he?”

Dr. Steig looked at her for a long moment, and she knew he was trying to guess her intent.

“A former student of mine, yes. Why do you ask?”

“He came to the library last week. I think he’s investigating our intruder with Deputy Lean. I passed the two of them talking on the street.”

Helen saw her uncle smile; he looked relieved. That meant he did know what Deputy Lean and Perceval Grey were investigating, and she had guessed wrong. It was something much more serious than the man at the library. Her thoughts returned to the words in Grey’s telegram. They certainly could be related to the recent murder of Maggie Keene.

“Grey is a detective, actually, but I don’t think he’d have any interest in your mysterious library man. Probably just a coincidence. They must have been discussing some other matter.”

“Something like that murder at the Portland Company,” Helen suggested.

Dr. Steig wiped his lips and set his napkin on the table. “Perhaps.” He stood and walked over to collect his jacket.

“I wonder what in the world that murder has to do with witchcraft.”

Her uncle turned toward her, his expression
like stone. “What are you getting at?”

“I want you to tell me what’s going on. Why are the police consulting with Grey, and what does it have to do with that man who chased me? Why were he and this Grey fellow both looking for books on witchcraft? I think I have the right to know what this is all about.”

“It’s not about anything. It has nothing to do with you. There’s no need for you to worry about any other incidents at the library.”

“I don’t need to worry? That man could have killed me.”

Dr. Steig came over and put a hand on her shoulder. “Deputy Lean assures me you are not in any danger. So I must insist that you put all this aside. No good can come of your being foolish and sticking your nose in where it ought not to be. Leave the detectives to their work. You have a daughter to worry about. You can’t be rushing off, leaping into things. That’s how you get into trouble.”

She stared at him for a moment, her mouth slightly open as she struggled for a response.

“That’s what you really think, isn’t it? That I’m some foolish woman who can’t take care of herself. That Delia is just some trouble that I got into.”

Dr. Steig straightened up, looking embarrassed. “That is not at all what I said.” He cleared his throat. “I adore the child, and you know it. Not at all what I said.”

He walked toward the hall and picked up his hat from a side table. “I have to go; I’m already late for an appointment.”

After her uncle left, Helen finished her tea in silence, then sat thinking for several more minutes before making her way toward the front hall. One of the servants was there, holding her coat ready. She glanced at the closed door to her uncle’s study, then back at the servant. Helen smiled and mentioned how her uncle had meant to lend her a book. She was in rather a hurry, so surely he wouldn’t mind if she found it in his study, since he was out and she wouldn’t be disturbing his work.

Once alone in the study, Helen made straight for her uncle’s work desk. She knew he always kept his pressing
files in the top right-hand drawer, and within a minute she held a black leather writing journal that contained anatomical sketches of Maggie Keene in its front pages. The details of that poor woman’s demise turned her stomach, so Helen flipped through the pages until the notes moved to other matters. She stopped at the sight of the names of Perceval Grey and Deputy Archie Lean.

The notes were jumbled, but as she scanned over them, the picture began to emerge as to the theories of the manner, location, and motive related to Maggie Keene’s murder. Helen’s attention lingered on the final note addressing someone named Boxcar Annie. “Has vital knowledge of a recent male client—a person of great interest. Gorham’s Corner, basement at the rear of the Portland Fenian League. Reticent—suspicious of our motive. Belligerent when drinking. Need second interview: new approach required.”

Helen heard movement in the hallway. She tore a blank page from the end of the journal and scribbled a note, which she slipped into a fold in her dress. She returned the journal and closed the drawer. After pulling a random text from a bookshelf, she composed herself and left the room, striding to the front door. She made her way to Congress Street and waited for the next passing horse car. She got on and found a seat. Her heart raced as she retrieved the note. Her hand shook, and only partly due to the trolley’s bumpy ride. She stared at the page as she passed beneath the long shadow of the Portland Observatory and committed to memory the address where she could find Boxcar Annie.

L
ean stared out the small rail car window, watching the trees slip by. He squinted and let the scene melt into a pale green blur. Soon the woods gave way to scattered farmhouses and fields aglow in the morning light. He glanced at Grey, who sat across from him taking notes from some dusty old tome.

Lean tipped his hat down over
his eyes and tried to clear his mind so he could catch up on some sleep. It was useless, the same as the night before, when everything he knew about this case kept racing through his mind. He tried to organize the facts to see if there was any sense to all this. The whole thing seemed a maze with no beginning and no end, and him standing there playing Theseus but with no ball of thread. He didn’t know what to expect from this trip to Scituate; the report had been so vague. He decided that the odds of finding any proof, over a month after the fact, to conclusively tie their killer to Scituate weren’t good. The resulting uncertainty would be the worst possible scenario. They’d be forced to wait, dreading the news of another murder, maybe in another town where no one had the slightest inkling that a devil walked among them.

He tried to force his mind from the subject and focused instead on his pregnant wife, but even that image turned sour for him. He saw her standing in their cramped kitchen that morning, a doubtful look in her eye as Lean assured her that his travel expenses were being paid by the city. Furthermore, if he solved this case, it would go a long way toward ensuring his continued higher salary as a deputy marshal. Portland’s mayor made those appointments, and there was no guarantee that Ingraham, the only Democrat to hold the post since the Civil War, would win reelection next year. Even if he did, Lean couldn’t be sure his position was safe. After all, it was something of a mystery as to why Mayor Ingraham had appointed him as one of Portland’s three deputies in the first place.

Emma was growing more concerned about their situation with every passing week. Lean couldn’t believe that July was just two days away. She hadn’t yet reminded him of his promise that they would buy a house soon, a few months after the baby was born at the latest. Then they could get out of their small apartment and have a separate nursery and more room for the kids. Despite their best efforts, they had not saved as much as they’d hoped. He tipped his hat back and stared out the window as they passed through some small Massachusetts town he couldn’t name. His mind felt drained by his various worries, and soon his eyes began to flutter.