Matthew Corbett 02 - The Queen of Bedlam mc-2

by Robert R. McCammon

  “Good for you.” Greathouse sounded indifferent. “Of course it would be a pity if the Masker murdered you before you could be of value to the agency.”

  “I just wanted you and Mrs. Herrald to know. Actually I could put the money to good use.”

  “Who couldn’t? Well, the only problem I could see is if some official contacted the agency to do the same job. Then we’d have a little conflict of interests, wouldn’t we?”

  “I seriously doubt if anyone representing the town will ask for help. High Constable Lillehorne wouldn’t stand for it.”

  Greathouse shrugged and poured himself the last of the water. “Go on about your little investigation, then. I doubt you’re up to that task yet, but at least you’ll get some experience.”

  The way Greathouse had expressed that rankled Matthew to the marrow of his bones. I doubt you’re up to that task yet. This man was becoming insufferable! Your little investigation. He prided himself on his investigative skills, on his ability to ferret out answers to the difficult questions, and this lout sitting here was nearly mocking him. His ear wound was still hurting, he was tired, and his last clean shirt was a sweat-rag. And here this man sat before him all but sneering at him.

  Matthew pushed down his anger and said off-handedly, “I’ve also gleaned a new item of interest from Mr. McCaggers.”

  Greathouse leaned his head back so the sun could shine into his face through the oak branches. He closed his eyes and appeared to be about to catch a nap.

  “The murder of Eben Ausley was not the third here lately. It was the fourth. A body was found in the Hudson River a few days before Dr. Godwin was killed. It washed up on a farm two or three miles north of here, as a matter of fact.”

  There was no response from Greathouse. Matthew expected to hear him start snoring at any minute.

  “It was an unidentified young man,” Matthew went on, “who seems to have been murdered by a mob. Mr. McCaggers counted eight stab wounds, all from blades of different shapes and widths. Also, the man had no eyes.”

  With the mention of that last word, Greathouse opened his own eyes and squinted up at the sun.

  “The body was in poor condition, having been in the water for at least five days, so Lillehorne ordered Zed to bury it where it was found. One other interesting-and disturbing-fact is that the wrists were bound behind him with cords.” Matthew waited for some further response, but there was none. “I’m the only other person to know about this. So you see, I do have a little value as a-”

  Greathouse suddenly stood up. He stared out upon the river. “Whose farm?”

  “Sir?”

  “The farm where the body washed up. Whose farm?”

  “John Ormond. It’s about-”

  “I know Ormond’s farm,” Greathouse interrupted. “We’ve bought some produce from him. How long in the water, did you say?” Now Greathouse shifted his gaze to Matthew and there was nothing left of naptime. “Five days?”

  “Five days is what Mr. McCaggers presumed.” This line of interest was making Matthew more than a bit nervous. He’d meant this just as an example of how he could both obtain and retain information, and now it was taking on a life of its own.

  “Found how many days before the doctor’s murder?”

  “Four.”

  “And that was more than two weeks ago?” Greathouse made a face that looked as if he’d bitten a lemon. “It won’t be a pretty sight, that’s for sure.”

  “Sir?”

  “Stand up,” Greathouse commanded. “We can let the afternoon’s lesson go. Right now we have an errand.”

  Matthew stood up, but slowly and with the greatest of trepidation. Greathouse was already striding toward the carriage-house. “What errand?” Matthew asked.

  “We’re going to dig up the body,” Greathouse replied over his shoulder, and Matthew felt his guts go all twisty-quisty. “Come on, let’s get the shovels.”

  Twenty-One

  Up until the moment Hudson Greathouse went into the barn and began to saddle a second horse for Matthew, this one a lean gray stallion far more spirited than the placid Suvie, the young clerk had thought this so-called errand was another of Greathouse’s rather irritating jokes. But as Matthew soon came to realize, the joke was on him; with shovels bound up and tied to the saddle of Greathouse’s own horse, they were on their way to exhume a corpse.

  The sun was warm, the air still, the summer birds singing, and the insects awhirr in the gilded shafts of light spilling through the boughs. Matthew struggled to keep his horse in control. The beast was much stronger than Suvie, headstrong as well, and kept wanting to veer off the road. “What’s this creature’s name?” Matthew asked toward Greathouse’s back.

  “Buck,” came the reply. “He’s a fine animal. Just let him have his head, he’ll do all right.”

  “He wants to leave the road!”

  “No, he wants to pick up his pace. You’re holding him back like an old woman.” Greathouse suddenly urged his mount into a canter and said, “Come on, I want to get there before tomorrow!”

  Matthew just had to press Buck’s sides with his knees to cause the horse to nearly leap forward, an action for which Matthew was totally unprepared and almost unseated into a tangle of green briars. He hung on, resisted the urge to pull the horse back to a more comfortable speed-and somewhat doubted Buck would heed him, anyway-and soon he was travelling neck-to-neck with Greathouse’s horse instead of nose to tail.

  They followed the road through a wilderness of thick-trunked trees that Matthew thought could never be felled by a hundred axemen working a hundred days. Redbirds fluttered in the high branches and a fox skittered across the road as the horses approached. After a while, Greathouse settled his horse back into an easy trot and Matthew did the same with Buck. A stone wall soon appeared along the left side of the road, and knowing the Ormond farm must be within a mile or so, Matthew said, “What’s this about? We’re not really going to dig up a grave, are we?”

  “We didn’t bring shovels to knock apples out of the trees.”

  “But why? What’s so urgent about this particular corpse?” He got no answer, so he tried another tack. “I told you everything Mr. McCaggers told me. There’s nothing more to see. Anyway, I don’t think it’s proper to disturb the dead.”

  “I won’t tell if you won’t. There’s the turn ahead.”

  Greathouse took the next road to the left and Matthew kept up with him, or rather had no choice as he had begun to suspect Buck had been trained to follow Greathouse no matter who thought they guided the reins. “Listen,” Matthew persisted, “I’m not used to this kind of thing. I mean…what’s the point of it?”

  Greathouse abruptly drew his horse up, causing Buck to stop almost immediately as well. “All right,” Greathouse rumbled, with a nod. “I’ll tell you why. The way you described the murder set me to remembering something. I can’t tell you what that is. Not yet. And I’m going to insist that you not mention anything of this to Mrs. Herrald, either. Just help me dig, that’s all I’m asking.”

  Matthew caught a note in the man’s voice that he’d not heard before. It was not exactly fear, though there was indeed an element of that, as it was more abhorrence. Of what? Matthew wondered. The corpse? Surely not just that, for it was likely Greathouse had seen-and created-his share of them. No, this was something else entirely. Something that went deep, and was yet to be revealed.

  Greathouse continued on, and so Buck followed with Matthew along for the ride. In another few minutes a more narrow track turned off again to the left and this was the route they took to the Ormond farm.

  It was a well-worked plot consisting mostly of apple and pear trees, along with plantings of corn, turnips, beans, and a few rows of tobacco. As the two riders approached a farmhouse of brown stones that sat beside a barn and animal corral, chickens squawked and fluttered for shelter and a half-dozen hogs looked up inquisitively from their pen. From the barn appeared a burly man wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat, a brown sh
irt, and gray trousers with patches on the knees. Accompanied by a barking cinnamon-colored dog, he came out to meet his visitors as a wide-hipped woman opened the farmhouse’s door and two small children peered around her skirts.

  “Mr. Ormond!” Greathouse called as he reined his horse. “It’s Hudson Greathouse.”

  “Yes sir, I recall ye.” The farmer had a long dark beard and eyebrows as thick as wooly caterpillars. He eyed the shovels. “Plannin’ to dig up your own turnips?”

  “Not exactly. This is my associate Matthew Corbett. May we step down?”

  “Come ahead.”

  That civility done, Greathouse waited until the dog had calmed down and was content to lope around sniffing at everyone’s shoes before he continued. “It’s been brought to my attention,” he said, “that a body was discovered on your property.”

  Ormond regarded the ground and pressed a stone with the toe of his boot. He said in a slow, thick voice, “True enough.”

  “And it was buried beside the river?”

  “Where it come up.” He lifted his gaze and took stock of the shovels again. “Oh, Mr. Greathouse! I wouldn’t want to be doin’ what you’ve got a’ mind.”

  “Mr. Corbett and I are not what you might call constables, in the strictest sense,” Greathouse explained, “but we are representatives of the law. I feel it’s my duty-our duty-to examine the corpse.”

  Speak for yourself, Matthew thought. The sun seemed terribly warm, and more brutal than bright.

  “Not much left,” said Ormond.

  “We’d still like to look.”

  Ormond drew in a long breath and let it slowly leak out between his teeth. “I’d best put the dog in the house. Come on, Nero! Come on, boy!”

  Greathouse unbound the shovels from his saddle and gave one to Matthew, who took it as if it were a venomous reptile. When the dog was put away and the wife and children also behind the closed door, Greathouse and Matthew walked with Ormond along a wagon track that led across the orchard.

  “Nero found him,” Ormond said. “Heard the dog barkin’ up a fury, thought he’d treed a bobcat. Thank the Lord my children didn’t go runnin’ down there. I went to town that very afternoon, walked right into City Hall and asked for the biggest constable they’ve got.”

  Matthew might have made an inner comment about this statement, but he was too fixated on the river he’d begun to see beyond the trees.

  “They said they couldn’t handle him. Gettin’ him from here to town, I mean,” Ormond went on. “So I said just bury him. The coroner wrapped him up with a bedsheet and that big slave put him under. He’s over this way here.”

  They came out from the orchard and there was the shimmering blue expanse of the river winding between the forested banks. Ormond led them about forty yards farther to a mound of dirt with a headstone of three ash-colored rocks. “Washed up there, he was.” Ormond stood on a flat boulder and pointed down the hillside to a dead tree that had uprooted and fallen into the water. “Hung in those branches.”

  “Who has the next property upriver?” Greathouse was already at work moving aside the rocks.

  “Farmer by the name of Gustenkirk. Good enough fella, keeps to himself. Wife and family, four children. Got a wooden leg.”

  “And the next property after that?”

  “Another farm. Fella’s name is Van Hullig. I spoke to him once, on the road to town. Older man, in his sixties. He can hardly speak anythin’ but Dutch. After that, I guess there are some more farms ’til you get to the ferry crossin’ and you’re almost to the end of the island.”

  “The body might have been carried across the river,” Matthew said as Greathouse got his shovel ready for the first blow against earth. He looked out upon what seemed a vast unbroken wilderness on the Jersey shore. “Mr. McCaggers said the young man died from a fall. Shattered his skull and broke his neck. That would suggest a more severe cliff than a sloping hillside.”

  “We’ll see.” Greathouse struck hard with the shovel and removed the first scoop of dirt. He worked so methodically, his head lowered to the task and his eyes fixed on the grave, that Matthew felt shamed at just standing there. Matthew realized the body was coming up whether he liked it or not, so he stepped forward, clenched his teeth, and started digging.

  “Gents,” said Ormond uneasily, after a moment or two, “I’ve had my say over this fella, whoever he was, and I wish him God rest. You toss a care if I go back to work?”

  “Go ahead. We’ll put him back down when we’re done.” Greathouse had spoken without a pause in his shoveling.

  “Thank you kindly.” Ormond hesitated. A whiff of decay had soured the air. “You want to wash afterward, I’ll get you some soap and a bucket of water,” he said, and then he turned and walked quickly back toward the orchard.

  Within another few thrusts of the shovel, Matthew wished he’d brought a handkerchief and a bottle of vinegar. The smell of corruption was rising from the earth. Matthew had to walk away and breathe fresh air if there was any to be found. He felt sickened and in fear of showing his lunch, but damned if he’d do that in front of Greathouse. He realized he was made stronger by his determination not to appear weak before the man.

  Matthew heard the noise of Greathouse’s shovel sliding into something soft. He grimaced and tried mightily to steel his insides. If anything flooded up, he’d be ruined for corn soup and ham for a long time to come.

  “You can stay there if you like,” Greathouse said, not unkindly. “I can finish it alone.”

  And I’ll never hear the end of it if I stand here, Matthew thought. He said, “No, sir,” and he walked back to the hole and what lay within.

  It appeared to be simply a dirty wrapping of bedsheets, without human form. About five feet, five inches in length, Matthew figured. Death and the river would have stolen the young man’s height as well as weight. It came to him that the smell of rot was not unlike that of ancient mud at the river’s bottom, a heavy dark layer of accumulated matter that had settled year after year, covering all secrets with slime. He cursed the day he’d walked up those stairs to McCaggers’ realm.

  “All right.” Greathouse put his shovel aside. “Wasn’t buried very deeply, but I suppose he didn’t care. You ready?”

  “I am.” Not, Matthew thought.

  Greathouse took the knife from its sheath at his back, bent down and began cutting the cloth away from where he thought the head must be. Matthew bent down as well, though his face felt burned by the reek of decay. Shadows passed over him and when he looked up he saw crows circling.

  As Greathouse worked with his knife, Matthew noticed something odd about the winding-sheet. In it were perhaps a dozen or more small holes, ragged around the edges as if musket balls had gone through.

  One layer was cut away, and then another. At this depth the sheet took on a yellowish-green stain. River stain, Matthew thought. That’s what it was, of course.

  Greathouse kept cutting, and then he took hold of the sheet and gave a slow but steady pull. A section of mottled cloth ripped and fell away, and there exposed to the sun was the dead man’s face.

  “Ah,” Greathouse said quietly, more of a gasp, or a sickened statement on the cruelty of men.

  Matthew’s throat seemed to close up and his heart stuttered, but he forced himself to look and not turn away.

  There was no possibility of ascertaining what this man’s features had been in life. Gray flesh still clung to the bone of chin and cheeks, yes, but it was not enough to form a face. The forehead was smashed inward, the nose caved, the eyes pale sockets with some kind of dried yellow matter in their depths. On the scalp was a thatch of light brown hair. As a final mockery of the life that had been, a cowlick stuck up stiff and dry at the back of the head. The mouth was open, showing broken teeth and the interior flesh and tongue that was a bloodless and terrible waxy white, and it was this sight, this last gasp that had pulled in river and mud and the secretive slime, that made Matthew go cold beneath the burning sun and turn hi
s face toward the wilderness.

  “I’m going to cut some more of the sheet away,” said Greathouse, his voice strained. He began to work with the knife again, his hand careful and reverent to the deceased.

  When the sheet had been cut open and pulled aside, the shriveled victim lay in all the horror of murder, his knees pulled up in a frozen attitude of prayer and his thin arms crossed upon the chest, a gesture of Christian burial that Matthew presumed Zed had done after the cords were cut. The body was dressed in a shirt that might have been white at one time, but was now a miasmic hue of gray, green, and splattered black. The shirt was unbuttoned, probably by McCaggers for inspection, and both Matthew and Greathouse could clearly see four of the stab wounds-three in the chest and one at the base of the neck-which were vivid purple against the spoiled-milk color of the flesh. The body wore breeches whose color and fabric had turned to something nearly like mud, and on the feet were brown boots.

  Matthew had to put his hand up to his mouth and nose, for the smell of this was horrendous. He saw movement in a nearby tree; a few of the crows had landed and were waiting.

  “There’s part of the cord.” Greathouse carefully pulled at it, finding too late that it was sealed by decomposition to the chest when a long piece of skin peeled off like soft cheese. It was a thin but tough little piece of rope, frayed on both ends. “You see the marks around the wrists where he was bound?”

  “Yes,” Matthew said, though he didn’t bend over to look too closely. One thing he did note, however. “The left hand. The thumb’s missing.”

  “First joint only. Looks like an old injury because the bone’s grown smooth.” Greathouse dared to touch it, and then his hand went toward one of the stab wounds. At first Matthew thought the man was going to probe one of those purple fissures with his fingers, which would have been the last straw on this hayload, but Greathouse’s hand made a circle in the air. “I see four wounds, but I’m not going to turn him over to find out if your Mr. McCaggers was accurate in his count.” He pulled his hand back and looked up at Matthew. His eyes were red-rimmed, as if hazed by thick and pungent smoke. “I want to tell you,” he said, “that I’ve seen something like this before. I can’t be for certain, and I ought not to speculate, but-”