by Alan Finn
“When did Miss Grimes become Mrs. Pastor?”
Stokely took another long sip of iced tea and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You sure do ask a lot of questions.”
“I know,” I said, well aware that I had already posed an absurd number of them. I blamed that on being a momentarily silenced journalist. “But your answers have me very curious. Now, about Mr. and Mrs. Pastor’s marriage—”
“They got married about nine years ago or so,” Stokely said with a sigh. “Mister Pastor came callin’ in 1860. Spring, it was. Don’t recall when they wed, but I think it was a month or so after that.”
“Was Mrs. Pastor a medium back then?”
Stokely shrugged in response, his broad shoulders rising and falling. “I s’pose she was. Folks just knew she had the gift, so some came by on occasion. It didn’t grow to nothin’ till Mister Pastor came ’round and married her. Not too long after that, Missus Pastor was famous.”
“So it was her husband who pushed Mrs. Pastor to become a full-fledged medium?”
I got another shrug from Stokely. “I guess. I s’pose he thought Missus Pastor could make good money talkin’ to the dead like she could. But Missus Pastor refused to charge folks. Said it was wrong to make folks pay for somethin’ God gave her for free.”
“And what did Mr. Pastor think of this?”
“I suspect he wanted God’s gift to start payin’ the bills.”
“To your knowledge, did Mr. and Mrs. Pastor often talk about finances? Did you ever overhear any arguments, for instance?”
Stokely raised an eyebrow. “You mean, was I eavesdroppin’?”
“Not necessarily,” I said. “I was simply wondering if they ever discussed it in front of you.”
“All the time Mister Pastor was askin’ the missus to change her mind. He thought she was born to money, which is the truth. Her daddy’s the one who done built that waterworks in the park ’cross the way. Made a lot of money in the process. And when he died, Missus Pastor inherited it all. But she loved her charity work. Went and gave it all away. That plain livin’ again, see. Finally, though, she told Mister Pastor she’d be willin’ to take money if it went to her charities.”
“What made her change her mind?”
“I reckon she got sick and tired of hearin’ Mister Pastor harp about it so much,” Stokely said. “Also, she had a lot of rich folks come sit with her. Some so rich, they could buy the whole city. I s’pose Missus Pastor thought if they was givin’, she’d be takin’ and helpin’ others in the process.”
It crossed my mind that Robert Pastor was just another of those unscrupulous rascals who found wealthy old maids to marry them. When I asked what Mr. Pastor did for work before he was married, Stokely said, “He was a salesman. That’s how he and Missus Pastor met. He came ’round wantin’ to sell her supplies.”
“What kind of salesman and what kind of supplies?”
“Medical supplies. On account of her daddy bein’ ill. His sickbed was upstairs instead of the hospital. That’s also the Quaker way. They don’t like no hospitals, see. But as soon as they was married, Mister Pastor stopped his sellin’.”
The more Stokely talked, the more the puzzle pieces fell into place. I pictured a desperate Robert Pastor arriving in town, acquiring the only job he could find. He probably had contact with some of the city’s doctors, finding out where he could sell his wares. It was easy to assume that a physician who knew Mr. Grimes was ill would also know that they—he and his unmarried daughter—were wealthy. Perhaps he was even informed about her gifts as a medium. This, of course, didn’t mean Robert Pastor was the one who killed his wife. If he had, then he surely wouldn’t have requested an examination of her corpse.
“I have a favor to ask you,” I told Stokely. “A sizable one.”
“Bigger than that harp?” Stokely asked, cracking a white-toothed smile for the first time that afternoon.
“Much bigger,” I said.
“What is it?”
“I need to speak to Mr. Pastor. Alone. Without the presence of the police.”
Stokely opened his mouth to protest, but I kept talking. “Someone killed Mrs. Pastor during that séance, and it certainly wasn’t me, I swear to you. I believe the person who killed her did so for a specific purpose. They felt wronged by Mrs. Pastor somehow, or were angry enough to do her harm. It is also my belief that Mr. Pastor knew about this threat to her safety.”
“Now what makes you think that?”
“He asked the police to perform an autopsy,” I said. “You do know what that is, right?”
Stokely nodded. “Cuttin’ open a body to see what done killed it.”
“Exactly. I think he immediately suspected that Mrs. Pastor was murdered. I would like to know why.”
“He ain’t goin’ to want to talk to you,” Stokely said.
“I know that. This is where you come in. You could convince him to speak with me by telling him that you know I’m innocent.”
“But I don’t know you’re innocent.”
Still, from the way he lifted his chin slightly, I could tell Stokely was giving my request some thought. I studied his face, noticing how well the darkness of his skin hid the deep-set wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. Other than patches of gray at his temples, there was no immediate indication as to how old he really was. Someone seeing him for the first time could have pegged him as forty or eighty. My assumption was that his true age was somewhere in between.
“And you think talkin’ to him could help you shed light on who killed Missus Pastor?” he asked.
“Possibly, yes.”
“Let me stew it over,” Stokely said. “I don’t risk my neck for strangers, and you’re a stranger, Mister Clark.”
“Then do it for Mrs. Pastor,” I told him. “Please.”
We heard the sound of footsteps in the hallway. Light and quick, they echoed into the kitchen. A voice soon accompanied them.
“Edward? Where are you?”
It was Lucy, of course. I’d heard enough of her voice by that point to recognize its singularly determined tone.
“We’re in the kitchen,” I called back.
A moment later, Lucy appeared, practically dragging the poor servant girl behind her.
“Edward,” she said. “We have a bit of a problem.”
III
The problem, as far as I could tell, was that Claudia refused to speak. Sitting at the kitchen table, the thick braid of her hair thrown over one shoulder, she gazed at Lucy and me with a wide-eyed mixture of innocence and fear. But she didn’t make a sound.
“She’s not talking,” Lucy said. “I’ve asked a dozen different questions, but she refused to answer a single one.”
Stokely, standing behind her, grumbled, “I warned you she ain’t gonna tell you nothin’. Claudia can’t talk.”
“She’s mute?” I asked, looking first to Stokely, then the girl, then back to Stokely again.
“Yes’sir. I ain’t never heard her say one word since she got here.”
“How long has she been here?” Lucy asked.
Although the question had been posed to Stokely, Claudia answered it by holding up an index finger.
“One year,” Stokely said, clarifying.
“How does she communicate?” I asked him.
Stokely gave me yet another one of his shrugs. “She don’t. We just tell her what needs done and she does it. Sometimes she nods, but not much.”
“Well, this is wretched,” Lucy said. “How can we possibly get her to answer any questions when all she can do is nod?”
Hanging on the wall directly behind her was the slate listing household needs. A piece of chalk, tied in a loop of twine, dangled from a corner of the frame. Hanging from the other corner was a small felt eraser. Quickly, I wiped away the reminder to buy potatoes, flour, and tea. Then I lifted the slate from the wall, pushed it into Claudia’s hands and said, “Do you know how to write?”
The maid grabbed the chalk and scr
awled three letters onto the slate’s surface.
yes
“Very good,” I said. “Do you think you’ll be able to answer a few questions for us today?”
Claudia, unaccustomed to being the center of attention, appeared unsure of how to respond. It took an encouraging word from Stokely to get her to answer. When she did, it was by pointing to the word already on the slate.
yes
“How old are you, Claudia?”
She cleared the slate and wrote down 18.
“Did you work for anyone else before coming into Mrs. Pastor’s employ?”
Instead of using the slate, she shook her head.
“How did you come to work for Mrs. Pastor?”
Stokely answered for her, saying, “Same way as me, almost. I done found her beggin’ outside last winter. Coldest, stormiest, snowiest day of the year. I brought her inside to get her warm. Missus Pastor told me to take her upstairs and give her a place to sleep for the night. The next mornin’, I woke up and saw Claudia in the kitchen, cookin’ and cleanin’ away.”
The more I learned about Lenora Grimes Pastor, the more I was convinced of her innate goodness. Only the most kindhearted of Christians would take in two complete strangers and give them employment.
“Why were you out begging in the middle of a storm?” I asked Claudia.
hungry
“Do you have any family?”
no
“Where were you living at the time?”
orphanage
“Where was this orphanage?”
On the slate, Claudia wiped away the identity of her home and replaced it with an equally expected location. fishtown. One of the poorest parts of the city.
This continued for the next several minutes, with me posing questions and Claudia writing her responses on the slate. For the most part, she gave one-word answers, such as writing loved when I asked how she felt about Mrs. Pastor. Other times, her responses were more expansive. After I asked what she thought about Robert Pastor, she took a while to write down did not trust him.
“Why not?” I asked. “Was he a mean man?”
no greedy
“Did you approve of the séances that took place here?”
Claudia erased half of the slate, leaving only the word no.
“Why not?”
scared
“You were scared of the séances?” I asked.
“She don’t like the noise,” Stokely said. “All types of noise came from the sittin’ room. Voices and music. I got used to it, but Claudia here never did.”
“Stokely told me the other people here Saturday night had been here before,” I said to Claudia. “Did you know them, too?”
The girl added a yes to the slate.
“Did you like any of them?”
mrs dutton. Claudia then erased the first word and replaced it with mr.
“So you like both of them?” I said, getting a nod in reply. “What about Mrs. Mueller?”
no
“You don’t like her?”
Claudia tapped the slate twice and underlined the word for emphasis.
“Why not? Was she unkind to you?”
Claudia wiped away the answer and spent a few minutes with the slate held close to her chest, scribbling at length something the rest of us couldn’t see. When she finally turned the slate around to show us, I saw she had written a full paragraph. The words, running together without punctuation, filled the entire surface of the slate.
she is a mean woman i heard her say mean things just cause i cant speak dont mean i cant hear
Lucy turned to Stokely. “Do you know what this is about?”
“Yep, I reckon I do,” he said. “Missus Mueller came by one day last week to talk to Missus Pastor in private, see. Claudia here done served them some refreshments. I s’pose she heard Missus Mueller carryin’ on ’bout somethin’. That woman ain’t right, if you ask me.”
“How so?”
“Touched in the head,” Stokely said, tapping his own skull. “Flightier than a bird, that woman is.”
“Can you write down some of what you heard?” I asked Claudia.
It took a moment for her to erase the epic response she had given earlier, all those words being wiped away slowly but steadily. By the time the slate was cleared, her hands had turned white with chalk dust. She seemed not to notice as she filled it again with new ones.
she asked mrs pastor why her husband never spoke said she paid good money to talk to him said she suspectin mrs pastor of stealin
“What day last week was this visit?”
“Thursday,” Stokely said.
The household, it would seem, had been very busy in the days before Mrs. Pastor’s death. Mrs. Mueller stopped by on Thursday, followed by Mrs. Dutton on Friday. Mr. Dutton, presumably, was there Saturday morning.
“Did anyone else visit Mrs. Pastor recently?”
While Stokely shrugged one last time, Claudia cleared her slate and wrote down yes a woman.
“When did she visit?”
saturday morning
“Was Mr. Dutton here at the time?”
Claudia looked to Stokely, seeking guidance. He replied with, “You can go on an’ tell them if you saw him here.”
Soon after, the word yes appeared on the slate.
“Do you know the identity of this woman?”
Claudia nodded. Then, quite unexpectedly, she pointed right at Mrs. Lucy Collins.
IV
Ten minutes later, Lucy and I were in Fairmount Park, having retreated there for privacy’s sake. I had been too angry with her to speak coherently in the Pastors’ kitchen and didn’t wish to get into an argument in front of their servants. But there, in the open air of the park, I could speak freely.
“It would have been nice of you to tell me you paid Mrs. Pastor a visit on Saturday!” I all but shouted. “Or did the fact that you talked to her the morning of her murder simply slip your mind?”
“I knew this would make you angry,” Lucy said. “Which is why I didn’t tell you.”
“Oh, is that the reason? I assumed it was because you didn’t want to cast more suspicion on yourself.”
Lucy feigned shock, something she had tried before with me. For all her abundant skills, that one needed practice. “More suspicion? It’s not nearly as sinister as you’re making it out to be.”
“Then why the secrecy?”
“I wasn’t being secretive,” Lucy said. “I didn’t think it was relevant.”
“It is relevant!” I snapped at her.
We walked vigorously—some would even say angrily—down the path that led to the waterworks. To the right of the columned pump building was a wide promenade that jutted over the Schuylkill River. We crossed to the promenade’s edge, where I gripped the railing and looked out at the water.
It was a lovely afternoon, warm and bright, with the faintest kiss of a breeze. To my left, the sound of steam engines and rushing water emanated from deep within the waterworks’ marble walls. In front of me, the Schuylkill rushed over a small dam that stretched its width. The sun winked off the turbulent surface, as brilliant and clear as a crystal chandelier.
Yet despite all the lightness in the park, my mood was as dark as a winter’s night. Learning about Lucy’s earlier visit to the Pastor residence had left me feeling foolish and betrayed.
“Why did you go to see Mrs. Pastor?” I asked.
“It was simply a friendly visit, from one medium to another.”
“Was this before or after you came to my house?”
“After,” Lucy said. “I was in the process of choosing which medium to expose first.”
“You were sizing up your competition.”
“That’s exactly what I was doing,” Lucy said, adding the caveat: “In part.”
A honeybee landed on my arm and began to crawl up my sleeve. I smacked at it, the insect alighting briefly before landing on my other sleeve. It was like Mrs. Collins in that regard—always coming back t
o pester you once you thought it had gone. With this comparison firmly in my thoughts, I took great pleasure in removing my hat and swatting the insect away.
As soon as I returned the hat to my head, the bee decided to take refuge there. Rolling my eyes upward, I saw it march along the brim on bristled legs, its wings vibrating.
“What’s the other part?” I asked Lucy, swatting at the bee a third time.
“For heaven’s sake, stop that,” she snapped.
“Would you prefer that it sting me?”
“If it means the end of this inquisition, then yes.”
“This is far from over,” I said.
It took one final swat to make the bee leap off my hat. It buzzed around my head a few times before retreating in the direction of the waterworks.
“As I was saying—” Lucy began.
“Saying or avoiding?” I asked. “Because it seems to me you were doing the latter.”
Lucy, pretending not to hear me, continued. “I was there to make Mrs. Pastor an offer. My plan was to warn her about your newspaper’s quest to expose the city’s mediums in exchange for information from her.”
I had no doubt what sort of information Lucy wanted. After being so easily and thoroughly exposed by me the previous night, Lucy had been in search of more tricks of the trade. And who better to get them from than the city’s most famous medium?
“So Mrs. Pastor knew who you were and what you did for a living when we arrived at the séance,” I said. “I assume she didn’t agree to your plan.”
“She refused to even consider my offer,” Lucy said. “She answered the door herself and sent me away at once. That maid, Claudia, must have seen me out the window.”
“Is that the moment you decided Mrs. Pastor would be the first medium to go?”
“Of course,” Lucy said. “In my mind, she had it coming.”
Her words prompted a chill to rattle down my spine. I couldn’t tell if she meant that Lenora Grimes Pastor deserved exposure or death. Possibly, she intended both meanings. Either way, it served to remind me that no one had a greater motive for wanting Mrs. Pastor dead.
