The Salem Witch Society (54 page)

He tried to force the killer back, to gain equal footing. The two stood that way for several seconds, each pushing at the other, both with every bit of strength they possessed. Grey was struggling to draw enough breath through his clenched teeth. At some point he bit his tongue, and blood-specked spittle flew from his mouth with each fierce exhalation.

Grey stared into the man’s eyes. There was a crazed glee there, a dark, bottomless rapture. Each man continued to choke the other, but the length of rope around the killer’s neck was interfering, keeping Grey from getting a solid grip.

Where the hell was Lean? Grey glanced through the glass, into the observation room. He saw Helen there on the floor, kicking with both legs, trying to snap or dislodge the solid wooden staff that was jamming the trapdoor shut. He saw her look out toward them. By the flickering candlelight, Grey caught Helen’s stare: equal parts fierce determination and terror.

He turned away, looking back into the face of Jack Whitten. Lack of oxygen was making dark spots appear before his eyes. He would be done soon. Beaten. Dead. Fear began to well up inside Grey, quickly boiling over into a fury, a burning, consuming anger toward the inhuman murderer who, with every second, was strangling the life out of him. Grey tried to focus. His eyes locked onto the length of rope that was angled toward them, dangling from the hook inside the observatory.

In an instant, Grey shifted his hands, from trying to clasp the man’s throat to instead clutching Whitten’s robe. He twisted his ankle free from around the baluster and jerked up and backward, yanking the killer toward him. The sudden, unexpected reversal in weight completely surprised Jack Whitten; he had no time to react. With their combined effort pushing back against the rail, the momentum was too strong.

Grey’s feet left the deck, and he teetered on the rail, then toppled backward, yanking on Whitten as he went. The killer’s body came with him
over the side. As they fell, Grey released the robe and grabbed the man’s body in a bear hug, tighter than he had ever clasped anything in his life. They fell clean through the air for another second before the rope around Whitten’s neck snapped them back. There was the clear sound—a sickening crack—and then the momentum slammed them into the outward-sloping side of the building.

Grey struck against the observatory sideways, his left shoulder taking the force of the blow. That arm went dead, and he slipped down, with only the grip of his right hand on the killer’s belt to support him. He took several deep gasps of air, then pulled himself up enough so that he could wrap his own legs around those of the dead man to whom he clung. Finally he glanced down—there was nothing but hard ground five stories below. Looking up, he saw Lean at the railing, fiddling with the rope.

“Hurry!” called Grey.

Grey’s strength was fading, and he couldn’t hold on much longer. Within seconds another length of rope came cascading down the side of the building.

“Take hold of this one,” Lean called out to him.

Grey flexed his leg muscles, tightening the grip on Whitten’s body. Then his right hand shot out to grab the new length of rope, and he wrapped it around his forearm several times. He reached out with one leg, then the other, snaking each around the dangling rope. Grey began to rise, and at the same time Whitten’s body sank toward the ground. He realized that they were both suspended by separate ends of the same rope. The deadweight of Whitten’s body, along with Lean’s pulling, was hoisting Grey back up toward the observation deck. He gave another look down and watched Whitten’s dark form dropping in jerky motions toward the earth.

A few more pulls and Lean was able to tie off the rope, then reach over the rail to grab hold of Grey. Once he was safely onto the deck, Lean slipped back into the observation platform to loosen Helen’s gag.

“Where’s Delia?” she pleaded as Lean cut away the ropes from her wrists.

“Home. Tom Doran’s there with her.”

“Oh,
thank heaven!” Helen clasped Lean in a hug, then started shaking her arms, trying to regain circulation. She breathed deeply several times as she fought to control the wild pendulum of emotions she had endured that night. Then she caught sight of Grey standing in the doorway. She struggled to her feet, with Lean’s assistance.

“Are you out of your mind! How could you—What were you thinking? Were you trying to kill yourself? And before … that whole time … just ignored me.… Why were you … blathering on and provoking him … ? Lucky he didn’t kill us both.”

Grey was in visible pain from his left shoulder, but a smirk appeared as he listened to Helen’s rant.

“This is not funny. I watched you throw yourself over the edge. I thought you were dead! Do you understand—How could you? You are so …” Helen stepped forward with her hand raised, about to slap Grey cross the face. “So absolutely maddening.” Instead of striking, Helen reached out, grabbed Grey’s lapels, yanked him down to her, and kissed him full on the lips.

After a few seconds, Lean forced an awkward cough. Helen released her hold on Grey.

“Forgive me,” she said. “I don’t know what came over me. It’s just—”

“No need to apologize.” Grey gave her an appreciative smile. “It’s been a most trying night. But if we stay here much longer, we’re going to have to answer a lot of difficult questions.”

“What do we do with his body? We could call it a suicide,” Lean said.

Grey shook his head. “We’ll need a carriage or wagon.”

“I spotted one around the side,” Lean said. “I think it’s the one he used to bring Helen here.”

“Excellent. Help me get him loaded, then get Miss Prescott home. I’ll see to the body.”

L
ean
eyed the pair of gravediggers. They were a matched set: stout workmen with caps slanted to keep the sun off their faces and cigarettes dangling from the corners of slack jaws. Their frock coats would be set aside as soon as the last of the crowd dispersed, revealing soil-encrusted work clothes. Lean could see they were restless, eager to begin filling the hole before the late-August heat worsened. It was only eleven o’clock, but the sky was already developing a haze. It was the kind of day that begged for something other than a black suit, regardless of the occasion. While many of the mourners had shed genuine tears, Lean had noticed more than one who dabbed their eyes as an excuse to continuously wipe beads of sweat from their brows.

The last few tearful hugs were bestowed on Helen by some more distant relatives of Dr. Steig. The preacher had finished several minutes earlier, and most of the large crowd had already dissipated, moving up the slope toward the main gate of the Western Cemetery. A row of carriages, many lined with black crepe, waited there like so many hovering crows.

Emma turned to Lean. “Are you ready?”

“I’ll be right along.”

She gave his hand an encouraging squeeze. Emma led Owen to where Helen and Delia stood, not far from the double plot where Dr. Steig, after more than a dozen years, would join his late wife. Emma exchanged hugs and quiet words with Helen. Her departure left a small company of five: those whose lives had been threatened by Jack Whitten and his unknown female devotee the night before last. Lean supposed that it was the shared horror, as well as the confused manner in which that night had ended, that now left them clustered beside Dr. Steig’s grave.

After
Whitten’s death they had located that man’s cab and deposited the former owner’s body inside. Grey had taken the reins and disappeared into the night. Lean had managed to hail another cab and get Helen back to her house. Not much had been said on that ride, other than repeated assurances that Delia was fine and the ordeal was truly over. Upon arrival, they found Doran inside, standing guard over the girl. There hadn’t been much opportunity or need for further discussion after the reunion of mother and daughter.

Now Lean, Tom Doran, and Grey, with his left arm in a sling, stood a few steps removed and waited for Helen to ready herself. With her daughter by her side, Helen gave the men a wide smile, tears welling up in her eyes once more. “Gentlemen. Thank you for coming. Thank you for everything.” She reached out her hand. “I’m so grateful to you, Mr. Grey. And, Archie, thank you ever so much.”

“I only wish …” Lean glanced at the grave, where the diggers were getting ready.

“I know. But still, for my daughter. And for letting me keep a promise to her.”

Lean clasped her hand and gave her a smile, not needing to know exactly what she’d meant. Helen then took Doran’s massive hand in her own and looked up into the man’s eyes. He was clearly uncomfortable with the entire scene.

“Tom, I can’t thank you enough. If anything had ever happened to Delia …” Helen’s voice began to crack, and she stepped back.

Doran’s ruddy complexion darkened a shade or two as he stammered out some muddled acceptance of thanks while also trying to ask if she was all right and then throwing in his own expression of gratitude, just in case one was warranted. Doran was then mercifully rescued from his own verbal efforts by Delia Prescott, who bolted forward to bear-hug the man.

“Thank you, Mr. Dor—Can I call you Uncle Tom?”

“Hmm? Err, well, sure, I s’pose. I mean …”

Delia had already moved on to Lean. “Thank you, too. Can I call you Uncle Archie?”

“Course you can, dear.”

She
gave Lean a wide grin, then turned to face Perceval Grey, who regarded the girl with an expression that landed somewhere between embarrassment and the surprise of seeing a knife pulled from a hidden pocket.

“And thank you as well … Mr. Grey.” She did a little curtsy.

Grey tipped his hat in appreciation of the girl’s choice to restrain her youthful enthusiasm.

Before heading up the slope to where Rasmus Hansen had already climbed back atop the doctor’s old carriage, Helen invited them all over to Dr. Steig’s house for refreshments with the family. Lean accepted, while Grey merely gave a vague nod and Doran begged off, muttering something about staying behind to make sure the grave men did their piece right.

After Helen took her leave, Lean and Grey strolled casually toward the gate. Grey seemed particularly hesitant to leave the cemetery, his eyes constantly searching along Vaughan Street, both sides of the entrance.

“You expecting someone?” Lean asked.

“Yes, actually.” Grey walked on, offering no further details.

“Speaking of missing people, we haven’t really talked. You never told me of the final resting place of Jack Whitten.”

“Here we are!” Grey’s eyes were fixed on a hackney that had just parked by the cemetery’s front gate.

Two men emerged and entered the cemetery. As they approached, Lean recognized them as Dr. Jotham Marsh and his lackey Jerome, the one who had visited this cemetery to deposit the body of Whitten’s third victim in the Marsh family tomb.

“Why, if it isn’t my favorite pair of bloodhounds: Lean and Grey. What a surprise to find you here,” said Marsh.

“I take it you haven’t come to pay final respects to Dr. Steig.”

“What? Oh, no. Unfortunate bit of news, that. No, I didn’t personally know the man. I understand he did some good work with troubled veterans and whatnot. But our professional interests didn’t overlap.”

“Oh, I’m sure you could have found some topic of shared interest,” Grey
said. “After all, you study the arts of controlling those evil spirits that rage around us in the air unseen. Dr. Steig practiced in how to subdue those evil forces that rage inside us. In a sense, you were both fighting the same battle, only on different fields.”

“Well stated, Mr. Grey.” Marsh regarded Grey with a thin smile and a slight arch of one eyebrow. “Perhaps I’ve underestimated the depth of your understanding as to my work.”

Grey nodded, gave a smile rife with mock civility, and answered, “It’s certainly my pleasure to disabuse you of any misconceptions about the depths of my understanding.”

There was a moment of certain recognition between the two men, which Lean interrupted by asking, “If you didn’t come for Dr. Steig’s funeral, then what brings you down here?”

“Unfortunately, I received word from the groundskeeper that there’s been some attempted mischief at my family’s tomb. Someone tampering at the lock—vandals, robbers, kids on a dare. It happens every so often.”

Marsh started to turn and go on his way, but Grey called his attention back. “Dr. Marsh, do you know a man by the name of Whitten? An acquaintance of Lizzie Madson, I believe.”

“Whitten? Yes, I do recall the man, vaguely. Not a particularly memorable fellow.”

“He studied with you?” Grey said.

“Briefly. Why, is he in some sort of trouble?”

Grey gave a shrug. “According to some theories.”

Marsh’s face curled up in a crooked smile. He tipped his hat to both of them and said, “Gentlemen. Always a pleasure, but I do have business to attend to. Good luck with that Whitten character.”

“I’m sure he’ll turn up,” called Grey as Marsh walked away.

“Some type of vandalism at his tomb.” Lean looked at Grey with an eyebrow arched. “You kept the tomb key.”

“Yes, but I had to make it obvious. Simply unlocking the door would not have gotten Dr. Marsh’s attention. He might never have received the message I left for him.”

“Which
is what?” Lean imagined the body of Jack Whitten lying in the tomb. He wondered if the rope was still tangled about the man’s neck. “Besides the obvious, I mean.”

“That I’ve taken an interest in his activities.”

They passed out under the stone archway of the cemetery. “How much of a role do you think Jotham Marsh actually had in all this?”

“Based on what Whitten said at the observatory, I think Marsh played a part. He dirtied his hands in setting this dark ritual into motion. He doesn’t deserve to walk away entirely clean of all the tragic consequences.” Grey raised his arm to signal an approaching hackney cab.

“I’m not sure,” Lean said. “Granted, he’s a bit odd with all that occult gibberish, but to hear him tell it, he seems to mean well. Love and spiritual understanding and such.”

“What was it the old Puritan, Cotton Mather, said? Something about the devil’s never being more dangerous than when he transforms himself into an angel of light. Marsh’s ongoing activities bear watching.”