The Truth of All Things (12 page)

As she approached, she felt a twinge of remorse upon noting the wide scar that was visible around his eye despite the dark glasses. “Is there something I can help you with?”

The man looked at her and offered a thin, humorless smile. He was middle-aged, with short blond hair and a hard face. She couldn’t see his eyes, but the rest of his expression betrayed no real trace of interest in her. “No.”

It was a plain dismissal, and Helen was speechless for a moment. Her irritation at the man’s callousness returned even more forcefully for having been held in check.

“The library does actually close at eight o’clock on Mondays. Of course, you’re more than welcome to stay for the lecture.”

“Thank you, no.” He took a thin brown volume from the shelf. “Tell me, is this your full collection on the subject of occult matters?”

“No. Were you looking for something in particular?”

“Yes. An older book. Quite a bit older than these, I think.”

“What’s the title?” Helen asked.

“I’m afraid I can’t recall.”

“The author?”

The man shook his head.

“Well, I really don’t think I can help you tonight.”

“But you do have additional books? Older ones?”

Helen nodded. “In our special-collections room upstairs.”

The man looked toward the staircase, his body leaning enough to make Helen think he might actually walk off in that direction.

“The head librarian will be available around ten in the morning to help you.” Helen motioned toward the front door. “Now, I really should be getting back to our speaker.”

“This book here”—the man motioned toward a shelf—“there’s a slip noting it’s on loan from a private library. But the owner’s name is missing.”

“Some patrons with extensive collections have loaned volumes to support our lectures on the Salem witch trials.”

“Personal collections? I’d like to see the names of those people.”

“Oh, I’m afraid I can’t do that. Several have contributed on the condition of anonymity.” Helen felt the weight of the man’s gaze on her, although more than once his head turned slightly as he glanced away from her. Helen listened, hoping someone was approaching, but in her gut she knew that the opposite was true. The man was looking to make certain there was no one else.

“I assure you, if I could locate what I’m looking for in a private library, the owner would be very interested in speaking with me. Of course, someone who could provide assistance in contacting those parties would be compensated as well.”

Helen shifted on her feet and then cleared her throat, wanting to be sure she could address the man in a firm tone. “I’m really very sorry, Mr.… I didn’t catch your name.”

“It’s not important.”

The man’s tepid smile sent a chill through Helen. She felt he was looking at her with no more regard than he had shown for the book he’d discarded on the floor earlier.

“As I said, the library is closed. So I must insist.” Helen again gestured toward the exit.

The man ignored the motion. “I’m very sorry to have kept you.”

Helen’s chest was tight with a swelling fear that she couldn’t trace to the man’s words or even his tone of voice. His apology was a blatant lie, and, more important, she knew he meant that to be obvious. Helen nodded and returned to her seat in the reading room.

Meserve rambled on, oblivious to Helen’s confrontation. “The connection between the witches and the threat of Indian attacks was made even clearer by the testimony offered by the likes of Mary Toothaker. She confessed to the charges, blaming her great fear of the Indians. She reported that the devil had appeared to her as a tawny man and promised to save her from the Indians and that she should have further happy days with her son, who had been wounded in the war. She admitted that her fear led her to sign the devil’s book, stating he had given her a piece of birch bark on which she made a mark.

“Other testimony from afflicted women also underscored the satanic connection to the northern Indians. A maidservant, Mercy Short, who had previously been taken captive by the Abenakis in 1690 and held for half a year, was at the Boston jail one day and had an argument with the imprisoned witch Sarah Good. Afterward Mercy Short began to have the same fits as the afflicted Salem girls. In later months Mercy would describe the devil as a short and black man, not like a Negro but rather of a tawny Indian complexion. The book he wanted her to sign held covenants and signatures of those who served the devil, all written in red. During her fits she was described by Cotton Mather as being in captivity to the witches’ specters. Mercy reported visions of Frenchmen and Indian chiefs among the specters who tormented her. They would torture her with burnings, as if she were being roasted at the stake.

“This sort of imagery—visions of witches roasting victims on spits—was common among the descriptions provided by the afflicted
girls. This was a torture sometimes inflicted by the Indians and reported home by colonists who had been redeemed from captivity. The Salem accusers would also report witches threatening to ‘knock them on the head’ if they would not sign the devil’s book. That was recognized as a common phrase used by Indians. Another threat by the witches is that they would tear the afflicted girls to pieces if they did not sign. Apart from the common fate of having one’s scalp ripped from his head, other stories of Indian tortures, such as victims’ fingers being severed one by one and chunks of flesh carved from their bodies, into which wounds the Abenakis would stick burning pine-tar brands, were often repeated among the colonists.”

Helen glanced at the lobby once more. Her brow creased as she tried to remember if, after returning to her seat, she had heard the soft bang of the front door closing.

L
ean arrived at Dr. Steig’s shortly before nine and was shown to the consulting room.

“Deputy Lean, good of you to come.” Dr. Steig rose from behind his desk. “Truth be told, I wasn’t sure you’d make it.”

“That is,” Grey said from where he stood looking out the window, “according to today’s editions, the police have assured us they’re already pursuing leads to locate the crazed Indian who killed Maggie Keene.”

“Well, those reports may have been a bit off track. New information having come to light and all. Though I still suspect he’s a lunatic.” Lean withdrew a small box from his coat pocket and set it on Dr. Steig’s desk. “Maggie Keene’s tongue. Sorry, Doctor, I didn’t know what else to do with it.”

“I assume your presence here means that His Honor had a strong reaction to the message.” Grey glanced at Lean.

“Earlier he’d ordered me to end your involvement in this case.”

“Well, fortunately for me, and for those members of the public who are opposed to being murdered and dismembered, I don’t answer to your superiors.”

Lean held up a conciliatory hand. “But after the tongue arrived at his doorstep, he was more open to considering some of your views on the case. For the record, he insists your involvement in this investigation remain unreported. As dangerous and mad as our killer is, the mayor still has his own reputation to consider.”

“Dangerous and mad.” Dr. Steig blew a thin plume of cigarette smoke toward the ceiling, then tipped his ashes into the tray. “According to the
Daily Advertiser
, the killer’s not only insane but a syphilitic degenerate. They’re guessing the condition was contracted from a prostitute, explaining his selection of victim and the savagery of his vengeful attack.” Dr. Steig’s face was turning a shade of red as he spoke, his tone growing more severe. “It’s the same old pigheaded biases. Branding all those who suffer psychological infirmities as a threat to society. They’re all criminals whose own sins have brought on their condition. A syphilitic degenerate—why, there have been more city councilors than murderers in this city over the past fifty years who fit that description.” Dr. Steig was about to continue, but the cigarette in his left hand burned down during his rant and singed his fingers. “Damn!”

Lean was not wholly surprised by the reaction. He’d been in the doctor’s study before and read the framed letter on the wall appointing Dr. Steig to run the Portland Soldiers’ Home. It was from the Civil War hero and former governor of Maine, Joshua Chamberlain. The two had been colleagues at Bowdoin College after the war. Chamberlain had served as president while Dr. Steig, his wounded arm limiting his surgical skills, had become a professor of anatomy and later neurology. The letter hanging in the study reflected the shared attitude of those two old soldiers: that those who’d suffered psychologically in the battles that had saved the Union deserved medical treatment as much as those who’d lost limbs. Confining these men to barren asylum cells was condemnation, not care. Unfortunately, that attitude was never widely shared by the taxpaying public. Lean sympathized with the doctor’s
position, but then again, he had seen the kinds of damage that could be done by those whom he considered to be mad.

“Be that as it may, Doctor, our killer’s message certainly points toward insanity.” He withdrew the note received with the tongue and read it aloud. “ ‘I am writing so you will know your errors. Of course I’m not an Indian! The Master is above all others. I stand with the Master, above them. The black man serves the Master. In the third month, the month of the Master’s power, you will see the truth and know I hold the Master’s power. You will know this in time.’ ”

Dr. Steig waved his hand about, thinking as he spoke. “There’s arrogance there. As if he’s lowering himself to even bother pointing out our ignorance. The note’s preoccupied with setting out a hierarchy of sorts. He indicates subservience to a master but then claims superiority over the Indians because the master rules over them and he, the killer, stands with the master. All rather confused.”

Grey nodded. “I agree. But what is clear, and most important in the note, is that he intends to keep killing. The next murder will likely be even more sensational—a display of his power.”

“So what do we do?” Dr. Steig’s tone hinted at a growing frustration.

“Unless we learn more about this man, I think it will be fruitless to try to decipher his message,” Grey said. “If we’re to stop him, we’re going to have to reconstruct this puzzle from the ground up. Now that the mayor is supporting our effort, at least privately, we’ll have the use of police resources in conducting a canvass of the boarding rooms in the vicinity of the Portland Company.”

Lean shrugged. “That was done already. No one in the area saw anything the night of the murder.”

“Not surprising. Our man would have taken every precaution not to be seen that night. But we have the advantage of knowing he was in the vicinity not solely on that night but for as long as a week prior. So the questions that need to be asked, of every landlady or family renting a room, of every grubby child in the streets playing at bases or jack stones, are these: Has a short, dark-haired man been renting a room thereabouts in the past week or two? And if so, was he the type who
kept strange hours? And did he pay in advance through at least Sunday, then disappear with no forwarding address?”

“There must be dozens of rooms to let in that area,” Dr. Steig said.

“A right piece of work,” Lean agreed.

“We mustn’t be daunted by the specter of difficult times ahead,” Grey said. “I expect this inquiry may prove severely taxing before its conclusion. It’s not to be undertaken with anything less than the utmost commitment.”

Lean held his tongue for a moment even as he bristled at the implication. “I’m sworn to protect this city, Grey. My commitment to catching this murderer is not in question.”

Grey nodded. “Accepted. And though my reasons are not so succinctly stated as your own, I can assure you likewise.”

“Then we’re agreed, gentlemen,” Dr. Steig said. “Now, where do we begin?”

“Where every criminal inquiry must begin,” Grey said, “with the facts. We’re mostly in the dark, but we do have some prospects. We already know some of his physical characteristics. I believe we have four additional fields of inquiry. First, the victim. Why was she selected, and has she left us any clues behind? Second, the location. Certainly a conscious choice, given the amount of preparation involved. But why was it selected? Third is the mechanism of death. We do not know the significance of the weapons used. And lastly, what can we learn of that prior killing which our man appears to acknowledge?”

Dr. Steig was scribbling in a notebook, his right forearm planted against the edge of his desk to steady his writing hand. “So first,” he said, “why Maggie Keene?”

“She’s a prostitute,” Lean said. “Perhaps the papers are right on this one. The man may simply have a grudge against whores.”

“The savagery of the killings certainly speaks to more than a mere grudge. There’s fervor of the type associated with a …” Dr. Steig pondered the correct classification.

“A religious fanatic,” Lean suggested. “It fits with the chalk message.
And the cuts in her chest, forming a cross. He was punishing her for her sins.”

Grey gave a hesitant shake of his head. “But why Maggie Keene in particular? Our man planned everything else in detail. It stands to reason that the choice of victim was also premeditated. And, if so, she may have been acquainted with him prior to her death.”