The Salem Witch Society (25 page)

“Bah! Herrick has a most annoying habit of scouring
the Boston papers. I sit for breakfast and there they are, folded out to one gruesome business or another with your name tucked away in there. I’ll never understand it. All this fascination with murder and crime. Such a morbid disposition.”

“We don’t need to dig up this subject again. It is my profession. There’s no point holding out hope that I’ll suddenly turn to medicine or the law.”

“You could have, very easily.” Cyrus’s age-dulled gaze bored into Grey, as if he were actually trying to see into his grandson’s soul. “I provided every advantage for you. You’d have a more-than-respectable practice by now, in spite of everything.”

“Everything?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I always have,” Grey said.

The old man turned away, fumbled briefly with the crystal decanter, then tipped a bit more brandy into his glass. “I can’t believe you find it so much better, what you have. A life spent among thieves and killers and policemen.” His tone revealed no more leniency toward the latter than the rest of the disreputable classes.

“It has its interesting moments.”

“Throwing away your life for the sake of interesting moments. That’s a poison in the blood you get from your mother.”

“Unlike speaking in the bluntest of terms. Which apparently skipped a generation.” Grey took a step toward the door. “I really should be off. There are matters to attend to.”

“Of course.” The old man followed toward the hall. “You could stay for dinner?”

“I have things to see to.” Grey collected his hat from a side table.

“Just one more of my dwindling hours won’t ruin you. We can talk of other things. Things that aren’t at all interesting, and you can pretend to enjoy yourself.”

Grey smirked and set his hat down again.

“
Now
who’s guilty of stirring up old memories?”

T
here was a tangle of early-morning
delivery wagons ahead on Commercial Street, so the driver pulled up short of the Maine Central Rail Road depot, leaving plenty of room to wheel about and head back into the heart of the city. Lean handed over his coins, then walked ahead and cut through the empty station.

On the other side, he entered into a sort of wasteland, several acres of open space crisscrossed by rails leading to the depot, the rail houses, and other branch lines heading off toward the waterfront. Much of the view of the actual water was blocked by the row of buildings comprising the International Steamship Company as well as the Portland, Bangor and Machias Steamship Company. Still, Lean took some comfort in the sight of the tall masts just to the left of the steamship buildings. Portland’s deepwater wharves began there. More than two dozen of them, some close to a thousand feet long, jutted out in a series spanning more than a mile to the east. He was glad to taste the salt on the air; it helped clear his head for what he knew was awaiting him.

He stepped across the tracks and wandered over the dirt and gravel, past sporadic outgrowths of knee-high weeds, kicking aside bits of trash as he went. It was past sunrise, but the sky held a thick cover of gray clouds, rendering the scene even bleaker. A patrolman was approaching, coming from the raised wooden trestle that connected the base of Clark Street to the bridge leading to Cape Elizabeth. They met a hundred yards shy of the overpass.

“She’s down close to the trestle. There’s a few empty rail cars there.” The patrolman pointed back in the direction he’d come.

“How’s it look?”

He shrugged. “Nothing like that last one up to the Portland Company.”

“Stabbed?” Lean asked.

“Nope. Deputy LeGage
says strangled.”

Lean could tell that the patrolman was at the end of his shift and eager to be going, so he nodded and continued on. As he drew closer, Lean saw the shapes of rail cars in the shadows of the trestle with a few people milling about. Directly beyond was the gasworks, dark smoke rising from its stacks. Behind that, even greater amounts of sooty filth were spewing forth from the Portland Star Match Company and the towering stacks rising up above the five-story behemoth of the Forest City Sugar Refinery. He walked on, the last traces of sea salt drifting away from him, overpowered by the combined might of oil, phosphorous, and burned sugar.

At the first of the rail cars, he saw two patrolmen with an old sheet they would use to wrap the body and toss it into the waiting wagon. Deputy LeGage stood nearby and greeted Lean with a thin, tobacco-stained smile.

“What’s the matter, Lean, afraid you won’t get your name in the papers on this one?”

Lean moved toward the open rail car, not sparing a glance at LeGage. Four weeks had passed since Maggie Keene’s murder. Lean still had no suspect, nor any idea of where to find the man. He was beginning to fear he never would, but he mentioned none of this. He smiled and said, “Just thought I’d take a look before you got around to ignoring the last of the evidence.”

The woman was at the edge of the open rail car, her right arm dangling out from the door. A trickle of dried blood stained the corner of her mouth. Lean bent forward and saw she had bitten her own tongue. There were clear bruises on either side of her neck. Two hands, with thumbs overlapping, had crushed the windpipe. Lean studied the face, noting the differences that death produced: the waxy look of her skin and the drooping of the flesh around her jawbone. The jaundiced eyes still held a look of dull indifference, but now the fierceness had dissipated. It wasn’t that she looked peaceful, far from it. It was only that the fight had so completely and horribly gone out of Boxcar Annie’s eyes.

Lean
stood in Grey’s study, glancing about at the clutter of papers, books, and stacks of newspapers that dominated every available work surface.

“Strangled. No sign of any mutilation of the body, so I don’t think it’s our man. Course, it can’t just be a coincidence, either. What I can’t figure is, if she was concerned for her safety and McGrath’s being paid to protect her, how does she end up by the waterfront to begin with?”

Grey considered the question. “And as is often the case, the same facts contained in a puzzling question will, when inverted, reveal the likely answer. You misstated one vital element. McGrath wasn’t actually being paid to protect her, but rather to protect what she knew about the murder of Maggie Keene. She’d be alive now if McGrath were still being paid to ensure that. Which leads me to suspect that he was finally paid off to achieve the opposite result.” Grey motioned Lean to come closer and held up a document from his desk.

“Records from the Maine Savings Bank show a transfer of two thousand dollars in the week after Maggie Keene’s murder, from the temperance union to the personal account of Simon Gould.”

“The colonel’s right hand,” Lean said, recalling the man’s scarred visage. “The one with the—”

“The very unfortunate face, yes. As well as an avid interest in library books on witchcraft. Gould withdraws three hundred. One week later three hundred again. Two days ago another cash withdrawal. This time it’s one thousand. Within twenty-four hours, Boxcar Annie is roaming free and is murdered.”

Lean studied the paper. “Gould was paying McGrath off to keep Boxcar Annie quiet. But then they figured it was cheaper to take care of the problem once and for all.”

“McGrath probably knew he couldn’t control the woman much longer. She’s not the type to stay in one place for any length of time, or to keep quiet, especially when she’s drinking. If whatever she knew got out, she wouldn’t be worth a dime.”

“He cashed in while he could,” Lean said. “Took the thousand and put her
out on the street. Gould or some other of the colonel’s old soldiers was waiting.”

“It’s the most plausible theory,” Grey said. “But we still don’t know why the colonel’s people were so interested in Boxcar Annie. What did she know about Maggie Keene and her killer that was such a threat to the temperance union?”

While Lean pondered this, his eyes fell on Grey’s mantelpiece, which held the long-stemmed pipe he had recovered from his grandfather’s attic. “I didn’t think you were so interested in your Indian heritage.”

“It belonged to my father,” Grey said.

Lean nodded. He recalled the mention at the Indian fairgrounds of Grey’s father’s death and was prepared to let the subject drop.

“It may be of interest to our inquiry, actually.” Grey approached and picked up the pipe, cupping the bowl with his fingers. “Would you mind having a cigarette?”

Lean smiled. “If you insist.” He drew one and lit it.

“I noticed something while you were enjoying a smoke with the Abenakis at Camp Ellis. Compare our grips,” Grey said.

Lean held his cigarette between the top joints of his index and middle fingers. “You hold a pipe different from a cigarette. What of it?”

“I observed that some of the Abenakis held their cigarettes like so.” He took the cigarette from Lean and held it with his thumb and index finger more toward the middle than usual, and the top of his hand facing out. “It must be force of habit, but they would actually hold the cigarettes in the same manner as a pipe.”

Lean gave him a puzzled look.

“Remember the cigarette butts I recovered outside at the Portland Company? It was damp that night, so the paper held impressions from the killer’s fingers. He held the first sample the way you do. Like a white man. The last cigarette, the one he didn’t have time to finish, showed imprints from being held in the old-fashioned Indian manner.”

“Which
means what, exactly?” Lean smirked at Grey. “He’s only half Indian?”

“If he had Indian blood, Maggie Keene would have mentioned it, and you can be certain Boxcar Annie would have been screaming about it. No, he’s a white man. But he displays some connection to Indians. The tobacco in the cigarettes, the mangled quote from the Lord’s Prayer, the contemptuous references to Indians in his letter to the mayor. It’s an odd mixture of incorporating Indian elements while also professing his disdain for them.”

Lean snapped his fingers. “That sounds just like the witches. Gives Maggie Keene a witch’s death yet calls himself by names of falsely accused witches, but then he goes and suckles at that witch’s tit on her side. As if he doesn’t know what side of the fence he’s on.” He threw his dwindling cigarette into the fireplace. “Witches and sinners I understand. But what’s his obsession with Indians?”

“When we catch this man, we may find that he has spent time among the Indians. He learned some rudimentary speech and writing, adopted some habits, but maybe the experience was unpleasant and left him with contempt for them.” Grey replaced the pipe on the mantelpiece.

Lean’s eyes lingered on the pipe. “Indians have a strong reputation for drunkenness. Among white people, anyway.”

“Hence the liquor-agent ordinance.”

Lean knew the reference. The Portland city ordinance, premised on state law, prohibited anyone from providing liquor, even medicinally, to classes of people to whom it would be dangerous: children, drunkards, others requiring guardianship, and Indians. “Deserved or not, the reputation exists. So I wonder if Colonel Blanchard has ever spent time among them, preaching sobriety and seeking converts. We need to speak with him.”

“I
’m sorry,
gentlemen,” Simon Gould said, “but the colonel’s schedule is quite full. Perhaps you could call again in a few weeks.”

“If that’s how the colonel sees it, then that’s how it is.” Lean shrugged. “Well, we’ve got some time now. Could head right over to the
Argus
and see Dizzy Bragdon, drop him the story of how the temperance union is in business with McGrath. I mean, since the colonel doesn’t have the time to meet with us.”

Gould’s lips pursed. His jaw seized up, and the right side of his face, marred by burn marks suffered in the war, trembled. Gould had one of the servant girls bring Lean and Grey to the colonel’s study while he went to find the man. The room was an unabashed testament to a view of life as man’s contest against all creatures. Sheathed sabers and crossed rifles adorned the walls. A black bear’s head, teeth bared, was mounted above the stone fireplace. The only painting on the wall depicted St. George slaying the dragon. Other hangings took the form of framed temperance broadsides and annotated maps detailing the actions and troop movements at Gettysburg, Antietam, and Petersburg. There was a wide expanse of windows across the room from the colonel’s desk. Nearby, a slender bookcase held texts on military history and a few small framed photographs. Grey studied the contents of the shelves. He picked up one of the framed pictures and peered at it. Lean glanced in that direction long enough to see what appeared to be an old family portrait: the colonel, his wife, a son and daughter. Grey set the frame down as soon as Colonel Blanchard entered the room.

He was not a large man, but he had a commanding presence. His stern, angular face held deep fissures rather than mere wrinkles. The colonel’s thick
white hair was parted to one side, his coif angling upward like the windswept cap of a snow-covered mountain. His voice matched his face in every way.