Bell Weather

by Dennis Mahoney

  “I want to see him,” Bess said.

  “I can’t allow that now.”

  “Why not?”

  “I haven’t questioned him yet,” Pitt said.

  “Then what are you doing here? Ask him! Go and ask him!” Bess said, and pushed him on the chest. “It might have been Tom, it might have been anyone. I’m the one with reason, but you haven’t even asked me if I killed my own father.”

  “Did you?” Pitt croaked, scared to hear the answer.

  Bess punched him on the shoulder—twice—very hard.

  “No!” she said. “I didn’t! But instead of asking me or asking Tom or finding Molly, you’ve been here doing nothing! I want to talk to Tom. I need to know, I need to ask him.”

  Yet she didn’t leave the bedroom and march up the hall, but rather threw herself backward on the bed and closed her eyes. She looked too dramatic, like a child playing dead, except she had the special wildness that often comes with grief and made him think, once again, of throwing punches at a tree. But he couldn’t let emotion weaken his advantage. He had doubts enough already, holes he couldn’t fill, an opportunity at last to set things right.

  * * *

  “It wasn’t Tom! I don’t believe it! Not until he says it!”

  Tom could hear his cousin clearly as he sat inside the holding room, but desperate as he was to call back and reassure her, shouting would be fruitless. He had no self-defense; insistence wouldn’t help. If even a sliver of Bess believed he was guilty, the sliver would infect her, and the same went for Pitt and everyone else in town.

  Each time he peeked out the window through the bars, another group of neighbors had appeared just below, defying the cold to gossip in the dirty silver daylight. He felt the news spreading through the town like a spill, impossible to stop and freezing into shapes. He knew that first impressions would be difficult to shake. Once it crossed people’s minds that he might have killed his uncle, they would always think him capable of murdering his kin.

  He himself wasn’t certain of his innocence or guilt.

  He had woken in a stupor, only listening at first, unable to open his eyes when Pitt and two men—he couldn’t tell who—appeared in his room and jostled him in bed. He couldn’t understand the depth of his paralysis. “Murder” and “arrest,” he heard. “Lemuel” and “fire.” When they hauled him out of bed, his head dangled back and there were fists holding lanterns, smeary in his vision. He couldn’t walk or speak and everything was fogged. They lugged him into the holding room and locked him in alone, and there he moaned in his confusion, in the darkness and the daze until the dawn light came, roseate and thin, and he discovered his bloodied hands and smelled the acrid smoke. They had searched him, he remembered. He had bruises on his ribs.

  Eventually his mind cleared well enough to think and he could hear Pitt interrogating Ichabod and Nabby. His uncle had been murdered and the tannery had burned. He had planned on visiting Lem today to threaten him and break him, only how could he have killed his own uncle and forgotten? God knew he had wished it—never proudly, no, but vividly—but still it seemed impossible, in spite of all his bruises, and he hugged himself and wondered what had actually happened.

  His mother felt near. He thought of her watching him and grieving for the family and the home. On the day they buried his father, she had pampered him and dressed him, having entered his room and found him out of his shift, thin and naked. His brother was already dressed. Win was older, Win was strong, and yet it wasn’t until their mother appeared, beautiful and sere and wearing a plain black gown, that Tom felt childish and utterly exposed. With his overlarge feet and small, shriveled penis, he could not keep tears from springing to his eyes—tears that only intensified his mother’s ministrations as she helped him into his stockings, and his breeches, and his shoes. When he finally pushed her off, she looked at him and cried. He was sorry to have hurt her but he never did apologize.

  His father used to say, “Rely upon yourself. Ask for help, you ask for stronger men to come and take advantage.” Mr. Pitt had asked for help and lost the family tavern. After his father had been shot and Mr. Pitt was set to hang, Tom had wondered: Who was right? Which of the men was really stronger? He reflected on it now, the man that he’d become, one who rarely asked for help but often tried to give it. He might have called it wisdom if he weren’t locked up, fearing he had done no better than his father.

  He felt a tiny itch just above his ankle. Such a minuscule thing and yet it overrode his thoughts, and when he scratched his calf he found something hidden in his stocking. He rolled it down, peeled a scrap of paper off his leg, and blinked until his eyesight cleared enough to read.

  Leave Root and Molly dies. Send others, Molly dies.

  Stay put and keep quiet, Molly lives.

  You are watched.

  Whatever lift had briefly fluttered from discovering his innocence immediately plunged. He read the note again. No wonder he had not heard Molly in the hall. It was the first dawn in months she hadn’t made a ruckus with an accident or laugh. He hadn’t even noticed.

  Think, think, think. There was spindrift floating at the edges of his vision and his head felt stuffed, ear to ear, with swollen wool. He rubbed his knuckles in distraction, hard enough to peel the jellied scabs and make them bleed again.

  Unger Bolt the blacksmith was stationed in the hall. Pitt had pressed him into service—Tom had recognized their voices—and in spite of Unger’s faltering reluctance to assist, he had finally agreed to guard the room. Tom had known Unger since the two of them were boys and now he went to the door, determined to exonerate himself and speak to Pitt. Then he hesitated. What if Unger did let him out?

  His insides ached but not from the bruises. The ache was deeper, in the tension that was holding him together. He hid the message in his stocking again, crossed the room, and stood at the window, unafraid to meet the gazes of the gathering crowd below. He gripped the bars and tried to concentrate the vigor in his arms. He couldn’t dwell on Molly and succumb to his fear, so he focused on the cold, black iron in his hands and tried to understand how his uncle had been murdered.

  There was someone on the stairs: sharp steps, coming up. Tom left the bars and listened at the door, knowing from the sound it wasn’t Ichabod or Nabby. Unger moved his feet like a giant in the hall.

  “No one is to see him, Mrs. Knox,” Unger stated. “Sheriff Pitt said—”

  “The need is gravely urgent,” she replied. “Stand aside and open the door. You cannot think I’ve come to aid in his escape.”

  “Be that as it may”—Unger’s voice was thick and plodding—“he is not to speak with anyone. My job is to deny—”

  “Let me in or I will tell Mrs. Bolt about the time…”

  Abigail whispered too low for Tom to hear. The door abruptly opened.

  Unger faced Tom with evident distress and said to Abigail, “You won’t tell Mary?”

  “Not today.”

  She looked at Tom, giving him a lightning-bolt assessment—hot, many-branched, bright without a sound—and then retreated to the stairs, where someone else was coming up. Tom backed away to lessen Unger’s worry; he would not get the poor man in trouble by escaping. The hidden piece of paper shifted in his stocking, but before he could ensure that it was properly concealed, Abigail returned, stepped inside the room, and waited for Ichabod to guide her wounded husband from the hall.

  Benjamin hung upon his arm until they made it through the door. “Many thanks,” he said to Ichabod, and stood without support.

  Ichabod looked toward Tom—I’m your man—then exited the room and walked downstairs.

  “Lock us in now, Unger,” Abigail said.

  The frowning blacksmith complied, seeming unsure if he was worsening or improving his predicament by doing so.

  Benjamin’s feebleness and slushy white complexion were alarming, but his eyes were bright as ever—bayonet sharp—and for the first time in all their many seasons of acquaintance, Tom felt weaker, much
weaker than his friend.

  “Benjamin,” he said, stricken with remorse.

  “I need to examine you,” he rasped. Benjamin raised his stump to straighten the glasses on his face, still favoring the arm out of lifelong habit—and noted his mistake with studious attention, like a scientist compiling observations for a treatise. “Extend your hands, palms down. Nearer to the window, please—we should have brought a light. Fist them … and relax. Curl your fingers. And again. I’m told you have contusions on your abdomen, as well? Bruises, Tom, bruises. Lift your shirt so I may see them.”

  Benjamin poked and palpated each of Tom’s wounds, and then he slumped and wiped his neck and offered no opinion. He had begun to sweat profusely; the beads were thick as milk. He leaned against the wall, giving Abigail the floor. It was her turn now to scrutinize the prisoner—a woman hard to lie to, who seemed to know the answers. Tom dropped his shirt to cover up his stomach, feeling in the pause as if he’d also dropped his breeches.

  Then they all heard Pitt confronting Unger in the hall.

  “Damn it, what did I tell you? Is your brain a bloody anvil?” This was followed by the rumbling drone of Unger’s explanation. “Give me the key,” Pitt said. “I ought to lock you up, too.”

  He swung the door inward, hiding Abigail from view. The shadow-eyed sleepiness that lurked below his zeal made him seem less official, more dangerously common. Abigail emerged and shut the door behind him. Pitt spasmed in surprise, spun around, and raised his fists.

  “For pity’s sake,” Abigail said. “You look like a bear cub learning how to box.”

  Pitt dropped his hands but kept his shoulders in a bunch. “You aren’t supposed to be here. That dunderhead Bolt was ordered not to let—Benjamin, go home. You ought to be in bed. This doesn’t concern you. I have everything in hand.” Pitt winced, seeming stricken by his poor choice of words.

  “Have you already questioned Tom?” Abigail asked.

  “I had to talk to Bess. She’s understandably distraught about—”

  Abigail stepped in front of Pitt and said to Tom, “Yesterday morning, you argued with the sheriff about Lem and walked upstairs. What happened after that?”

  Tom recounted what he remembered: having a rum, going to bed, waking up to his arrest. “I didn’t drink enough to sleep as long as I did.”

  “You sound like every drunk I ever met,” Pitt scoffed. “Explain your knuckles and your ribs.”

  “Somebody must have done it while I slept,” Tom said.

  Pitt looked to Abigail and Benjamin and laughed, only to be dumbstruck by finding them attentive. “Hell and death, he wasn’t tickled! Have you seen his cuts and bruises? I’m expected to believe he wasn’t awake when he received them?”

  Benjamin reached for Abigail, requiring her support, but neither made a show of his deteriorating strength. He coughed and said to Tom, “Describe the stupor when you woke.”

  Tom’s grogginess had faded, making it hard to recollect, the way a half-lit dream is soon forgotten in the sun. “More than tired,” Tom said. “More than waking up thick. My limbs didn’t answer. Everything was smeared, like a room looks blurry through a grease-paper window. They dragged me in here before I thought to say a word and then I couldn’t, not at first.”

  “Was there any taste or odor?” Benjamin inquired.

  Tom had noticed it for hours, scarcely giving it a thought. “Cherry.”

  “Sweet or sour?”

  “Salty,” Tom said.

  Benjamin’s eyes flickered wider and his pupils grew sharp. He was holding on to Abigail’s arm to keep his balance but he yanked it down hard with sudden, vital force.

  “There is a singular native berry called the blood drop,” he said, “frequently mistaken for the drupe of common holly. It is similar in size but distinguishably redder. I learned of it from Hook Feet, the Elkinaki boy whose ankles I corrected. It is known as a relaxant, given to children suffering nightmares. In minor amounts, the berry’s effects are negligible, and yet the juice, boiled to a concentrate and carefully fermented, is said to possess soporific qualities, inducing in its user a profound weight of sleep. A characteristic, I am told, is the flavor you described.”

  “You think a natural did this?” Pitt said.

  Benjamin closed his eyes as if inanity had stung them. “Any individual can utilize a potion.”

  “Humbug and nonsense. He got himself drunk.”

  “Furthermore,” Benjamin said, “the abrasions on Tom’s knuckles are inconsistent with the oft-seen injuries of fisticuffs, unless perhaps he fought against a rough piece of granite. I believe”—here he coughed again, brandishing his stump—“Tom was physicked with a sedative and wounded in his bed.”

  “What on earth for?”

  “To make him look guilty,” Abigail said, as if the sheriff might have sipped a little blood drop himself. “Do you not find it strange that no one saw Tom leaving or returning? That Lemuel’s body was halfway out the door of his house, his head wound plainly visible, as if the fire’s only purpose was to draw the town’s attention? Someone wanted Tom arrested right away.”

  “Who?” Pitt said.

  Abigail turned, speaking pointedly to Tom. “Someone who came for Molly and perceived you as a threat. She hasn’t been seen since yesterday evening.”

  “I know,” Tom said, then remembered no one had told him. “I heard people talking outside below the window.”

  Pitt squinted at the lie, piercing through the gloom with sharper intuition than he typically displayed. Then he bungled it and said, “Who’s to say she didn’t play a part in Lem’s murder?”

  “There’s something else,” Abigail said. “I spoke to a young man here at the tavern yesterday morning. The two of you had just returned with the Maimers. So many people were inquiring after Benjamin, I was relieved when the young man asked about Molly. He didn’t identify himself but he was charming, I was heady from a third glass of wine, and I confess to answering a good many questions, very uncharitably,” she said with a noble blush, “about Molly’s provenance and place here in Root. In retrospect, his interest was peculiarly direct.”

  “What did he look like?” Pitt said.

  “Delicate, of slight build and milk-white complexion. He had black hair tinged with gray. One of his upper teeth was prominently chipped.”

  Benjamin turned to Tom, luminously keen, and said to Abigail and Pitt, “Molly’s locket held a tooth.”

  Abigail regarded him with evident surprise, seeming piqued that she hadn’t learned the information sooner. “When did you discover this?”

  But Benjamin waved her off, using the stump as if to call upon her patience and her sympathy. She stiffened and relented; her expression stayed tart.

  Tom looked down to gather his composure and the paper felt all the more abrasive in his stocking. Was it possible that Molly hadn’t shot her brother? Had she lied, or only missed? Either way, he’d survived. The fact was like a bullet in his own bruised chest, and Tom was desperate to contain his worry and amazement.

  “Did you send Molly a letter?” Pitt said to Abigail.

  “No,” she replied, frowning at the question.

  “Bess said Molly had a letter in the taproom. She recognized the hand and said it came from you.”

  “What did it say?”

  “Bess didn’t know. I suppose you have a simple explanation for it all,” Pitt said to Tom.

  Tom shook his head. They seemed to grow aware that he was hesitant to speak—indifferent to the evidence that pointed to his innocence.

  “Ichabod told us one of the Maimers’ horses has been stolen,” Abigail said. “Something in the letter must have scared her off.”

  “Where would she have gone?” Benjamin asked Tom.

  “Her husband lives in Grayport,” Pitt declared. “His name is Jacob Smith. I’m told that he’s a man of influence and means.”

  He wouldn’t have looked more victorious if Molly had appeared, summoned by his words, in a great pl
ume of smoke. His statement left the Knoxes visibly astonished.

  “The man I followed was a banker named Alexander Bole. He clammed up tight on learning I was sheriff—he’s a man of crooked business, unquestionably crooked. I threatened to investigate his dealings and he talked. Her name is Molly Smith. Her husband,” Pitt said, giving the word extra relish and directing it at Tom, “is a translator, arbitrator, man of private counsel—quite the jack of all trades. A fishy character, I think.”

  “Then of course it must be him,” Abigail said. “He comes to Root and finds his wife living here with Tom. You might have told us sooner!”

  Pitt’s smirk disappeared. He seemed to recognize he’d given Tom a plausible defense, one that he himself was starting to believe. Benjamin, however, knew his friend too well and scrutinized Tom, sensing there was more—hidden facts that left the rest of them in ignorance and doubt.

  “We have to find Molly,” Abigail decided. “Send a rider in each direction on the road and bring her back.”

  “No,” Tom said, so emphatically that Abigail’s mouth snapped shut.

  The blood-drop flavor had returned to his tongue, fainter than before but more perceptibly a poison. His body felt depleted and his heart felt cold, but the haze had burned away and left his mind clear as air.

  “I need to talk to you alone,” Tom said to Pitt.

  He looked at Abigail hard, willing her to go and putting so much significance and firmness in his gaze, he overcame her poise and made her nervous, almost fearful. Benjamin nodded to his wife and turned around to leave, having come as a physician in possession of his strength but now succumbing to the weakness of a patient out of bed. With a sniff of disapproval and a quick, sharp sigh, Abigail knocked and Unger opened the door.

  “Thank you,” Tom said, “for coming here to help. Get yourselves home or wait downstairs. Unger—you, too. Empty out the hall and let us talk in private.”

  Abigail hardened at the implication of eavesdropping, but after a final look at Tom she led her husband down the stairs.