“Billy Sykes! Come on down here and Bring Mrs. Greene with you while you’re at it!”
A tall, muscular youth named Sergeant Billy Sykes rushed to the bank of the river with Mrs. Greene. Grundy looked down from his horse at the two and said,
“Billy! You’re going to swim across the river with Mrs. Greene, and this is how you will do it. Now if you start here, the current will want to take you downstream a piece – don’t try to swim against it! Cut through the current at an angle… take Mrs. Greene down to the water. I know you can still swim Mrs. Greene?” She replied
“I don’t think you forget after you learn how Captain, but I’ve not had a chance to brush up since the war started.”
She turned to Billy Sykes and greeted him warmly and said
“That’s Reverend Sykes’ boy, I thought I recognized you!” Grundy warned Judith.
“Mrs. Greene you know your skirts will pull you down. So, go on down there and strip down to your pantaloons and put your skirts and so forth in a bundle. Billy – without gawking at her! – Tie a rope around her waist so you don’t lose her going across. You had better not lose her after all the trouble we’ve gone through! And don’t forget to take her bundle across with you. Can you do that, Billy?”
The dumbfounded young man only nodded. Colonel Wyche called out to the men of the rescue party standing on the bank of the river,
“There will be no gawking at Mrs. Greene in her undressed state! And there will be no gabbing about it later! Understand me boys?”
The men responded “Yes, sir, Colonel” in unison. Judith took hold of the Colonel’s hand and said
“Thank you, Colonel.”
The rescue party made it to the north side of the river, splashing away for dear life! When they made it into the pines, the Yankees rifles proved ineffective. But the rescue party was without horses or dry cartridges; and they could now see smoke rising above the treetops. The bridge was on fire! They desperately struggled through the pines back to Northeast Depot hoping the train had not left.
When Mr. Johnston was ready to pull out of Northeast Depot, the rescue party came racing out of the woods. The atmosphere around the depot was permeated with dense acrid smoke. Fumes from the burning bridge mixed with the stench of spent gunpowder. The Yankee battery bombarded the depot from the opposite side. Within a minute, Mrs. Greene and her soaked, ragged rescuers were safely on board the train and on their way to Oak Crossroads. Inside Colonel Wyche’s private car, the only on the train the resembled a passenger car, Mrs. Greene had fallen exhausted into a richly upholstered chair. Her cotton skirt was in tatters, soiled with river mud. Her hair was matted and dripping. The strange smell of the brown tinged river water scented her skin.
Colonel Wyche, like all the men with him, was soaked head to toe. Like the rest, had sacrificed his coat, hat, and pocket watch to the cause of saving Mrs. Greene. Their horses were left behind for the Yankees. Not having a supply of ladies’ clothing in his car, he had no recourse other than offer her the pick of his own clothing, all much too big for her. Her resulting appearance was most amusing. The Colonel stepped out on the platform, refusing to change into dry clothing while a lady occupied his car. His assistant Mr. McAdams, with Captain Grundy, dried themselves by the heat of the firebox in the cab of the locomotive. By sunset, the train had reached the depot at Oak Crossroads.
CHAPTER TWO
January 16, 1882. Dr. Gilbert Lovejoy the county coroner and his part-time assistant Dr. John Bell Everett were preparing to visit the site of an unlawful burial under the Fourth Avenue Bridge near the railroad depot in Old Port. Lovejoy was hitching up the horse to his “ambulance” when Doctor Everett arrived that morning. The police delivered a message before seven, stating that a body was uncovered by railroad workers under the Fourth Avenue Bridge, likely buried a few days earlier. The two doctors set off from the office in the government section of the town and headed north towards the railroad. While in transit, Dr. Lovejoy commenced his persuasive politicking on the topic of his niece Myrtle.
“A young man of your intelligence and breeding can go far in this world with the help of a like-minded lady companion, particularly one from a family with substantial means. I have taken it upon myself to act on your behalf in this matter since you hardly have the time or the resources to expend on courting. My niece Myrtle would be an excellent match for you – and I know about such things better than you – though you might have other ideas. Believe me son, you have to work with what you have, and you don’t have anything yet. By the time you have made a name for yourself, you’ll be too set in your ways to care much about the ladies, and they’ll sure as hell will not care much about you.”
“If I’m not mistaken it sounds like you have been making plans for me. What makes you think that I don’t have plans of my own?”
“You don’t have any plans. Now listen to me. My niece Myrtle is a smart girl – educated at those fancy schools in England and the likes – and she is not put off by the work we do. She is very interested in all of it. Imagine that, my boy! A lady friend that will listen to all the good stuff – not like the rest of the respectable folk. That aside, she is Willie Klieneburger’s girl – he led the Volunteers during the war – and that means you’ll be associating with the best sort from the Southside. Doctor Everett shook his head in disbelief and said,
“I hear she is modern and, some say, rather willful and independent.”
“You heard right, my boy, but she is healthy and vigorous. She can ride, jump fences shoot and does sword play. She is tall too! A handsome face and figure – not sweetie pie pretty, but like one of those outdoor Greek goddesses.” Everett mumbled,
“Nothing wrong with that. Sounds like Mrs. Judith, Doctor Greene’s wife.”
“Now that is an astute observation son! She is the most loved lady in this town without question, but when she was a young girl you could not keep up with her. We grew up together and that includes all the boys. They couldn’t keep up with her. Not a one! “Chief tomboy of the town” they called her. Heart of gold that girl and we were all in love with her, but she snatched up Doctor Greene – he and Colonel Wyche were the most dashing gents in town back then – and some say she used roundabout methods to get him to propose.” Everett was amused.
“I can’t see anybody pulling the wool over Doctor Greene’s eyes.” Doctor Lovejoy laughed heartily and slapped Doctor Everett on the back and said,
“Yes indeed! Just go on believing that, my boy. I have lived long enough to know better.”
Doctor Lovejoy acquired an impressive cache of practical knowledge as a field surgeon during the war. However a particular interest in death and decay channeled the course of his career. Known for his knowledge of chemistry and anatomy, the medical community soon realized he could expose the cause of suspicious death; and the legal community depended on the flawless precision of his reports. Eagerly read in circles beyond the two, he published articles regularly. That is, after he struggled through his messy notes to write them.
As a physician, however, he did not enjoy the same respect as his colleagues – even the country doctors. They joked that the only living bodies that he ever examined were almost dead. John Bell Everett, considering the baggage he was carrying from birth, did not want such notoriety permanently attached to his name. Obviously the only society that Doctor Lovejoy enjoyed beyond police and law clerks was his German in-laws. They were the few that displayed no reservation about shaking his hand. Ironically, he was the most sanitary man in town.
His wife, a long-suffering woman for whom many unjust jokes were told, would not let him in his house until he had scrubbed down with soap from head to toe. He soaked his arms in disinfectant up to the elbow. Then he dressed in fresh clothing before crossing the threshold of the back door. His work clothes were kept apart from the household wash, and picked up by a man from the public laundry. This aside, they enjoyed a happy marriage. The peculiarities of one matched the opposite but equal peculiariti
es of the other.
Doctor John Bell Everett was born on October 30, 1860, and his name was inspired by the candidates of the short-lived Constitutional Union Party, John Bell and Edward Everett. His father, having no Wyche to part with the South nor take up arms against it, liquidated his assets and removed to England before the fall of Fort Sumter. There, he sacrificed his principles, but made a fortune investing in the London market. Strategically placing his bets for and against the combatants in his own country, and always expecting a change in the tide of the war, he quietly placed his family’s future in jeopardy. In one investment he reaped a large profit in a brief experiment with the high risk cotton-backed Erlanger Bonds. Living modestly he continued his residence in England until 1873. John embarked on his medical education in the North while his parents ran a dry goods store in a small Southern town. The millions in an English bank were a well-kept secret, even to John. Young Doctor Everett lived in the cheap and noisy Railroad Hotel in much the same way as Doctor Lowe, director of the hospital had before him. By day he worked in the office of Doctor Gilbert Lovejoy, the county coroner and every other night he was the physician on duty at the County Hospital.
As Lovejoy and Everett continued in the “ambulance” north on Fourth Avenue they noticed several people briskly walking in the same direction. About a block from the bridge they saw a crowd forming on both sides. Word had traveled about the body. At the bridge, a constable met the doctors. He guided them along a path that led down the steep embankment of the railroad cut. His story went thusly: a crew clearing the ditch that ran alongside the tracks came across a child’s coffin. The person who tried to bury the coffin was obviously working in the dark. The hole was not deep enough, so the lid protruded above ground a quarter-inch. Before the men disturbed the grave dirt covered most the coffin, the rest nearly exposed. Doctor Lovejoy approached the constable asking,
“What do we have here?” The Constable replied,
“Damned if I know, sir. The fellows here were clearing out the undergrowth when they found it. One was scared out of his wits and took off up the cut. He’s back now. That looks like one of fanciest coffins I’ve ever seen.” Lovejoy asked,
“Did anybody try to open it?”
“No, sir! They don’t want to see anything like that.”
“Good,” said Lovejoy, “We’ll keep it that way until we can get it back to the morgue. The grave, however is fresh. See the dirt is darker from moisture than the grey sand under the bridge. It was recently dug up. Everett come on down here and give us a hand!”
Doctor Everett carefully removed the dirt from around the box while Doctor Lovejoy spoke with the captain of the police. He asked, “How many older houses in the neighborhood had attics?” The captain mentioned two: the home of the reclusive widow McDowell and another, two blocks up the cut occupied by a family from the north. Doctor Lovejoy asked nothing more. For the balance of the morning his work continued rather scientifically. He had Doctor Everett haul down a large camera to take photographs of the grave and made a detailed grid map to document the site. Carefully, they removed the coffin, and respectfully carried it to his ambulance. The crowd gathered at the bridge tried to ask him questions, but the police discouraged their attempts. As they pulled away from the bridge Doctor Everett could see a man from the newspaper talking to the police captain.
****
The medical examiner’s “dead house” as locals called it, was a windowless one-story stone building that contained several vaults for corpses, a laboratory, and a marble autopsy table. In the center of the block, the surrounding buildings kept all hidden from the public. When occupied, ice cooled the vaults. A raised tank outside fed several sinks and hoses in the morgue. Drains in the concrete floor carried away dripping fluids. This was where Doctor Lovejoy made his remarkable and morbid discoveries. Doctor Everett, as expected, tolerated the place, but prefer the more “lively” atmosphere of the office – a place with windows and a barely breathing elderly clerk named Roscoe. On the day they found the infant’s coffin, however, his inquisitiveness over powered his distaste.
“It is Wednesday night my boy and as I recall you do not have to work tonight at the hospital. Am I correct? You are going to come over and have dinner. Myrtle is coming too, just to meet you Does that agree with you?”
“Yes, sir. After hearing you talk about her all day long I can’t wait he answered. Have you ever seen such a fancy little casket as this? This is rubbed walnut isn’t it? Just look at that hardware – all brass!”
“Yes, quite fine,” Lovejoy replied. “It used to have six coffin screws; but as you can see, they were never put back in place before it was reburied. The locks at the head and foot are some type of cabinet lock.”
Doctor Lovejoy rotated the coffin so that the light from the gas lamps shone on the lock at the foot of the coffin. He then looked closely at the lock with a magnifying glass.
“See the scratches on the inside of the keyhole? Somebody opened this lock with an instrument other than a key. There is a little piece inside a lock this fancy called a “ward” that prevents just any old key from opening the lock. If we were to take this lock apart, I’ll wager you a silver dollar that the ward is all scratched up. The person that tried to open the coffin did not have the keys.”
“… Now what do you see there around the handles on the left side?”
Doctor Everett took the magnifying glass and looked carefully at the handles and said,
“I see little scratches – parallel scratches. They seem deeper, higher up and beneath the handles.”
“Like somebody was wearing rings? Yes, rings with large stones. The stems holding the stones in place made those scratches. So the person was dragging the coffin by the handles on the ground, bending over… and occasionally making those scratches. We are going to take some cloth and lift off this lid very carefully. Don’t put any more scratches on it.”
Drs. Lovejoy and Everett took several square patches of cloth and gently lifted the lid of the coffin. They placed the lid on a large piece of cotton cloth spread out on the table.
“Now, what do we have here?”
“Newspapers and rags?” Everett was somewhat disappointed. Lovejoy, however, was fascinated.
“Look… You know when a body is sealed up like this – here, there was a cord gasket in this groove? Long gone, I suppose. The remains would decayed with venting. The interior of this coffin is clean as new. From the looks of it, there was never a body.”
“So, it was merely rubbish. Why not sell it or give it away?”
Lovejoy answered, “There is more to it than that… Do you see that inscription stamped on that small brass plaque tacked inside near the foot? It says, “Edward B. Hogg, Raleigh, and Opus 421.” An opus number? So this coffin maker fancied himself something of an artist. Don’t you think that is rather odd? But maybe we can find this Edward B. Hogg and he might tell us who bought it. That is if he is still in business. What else can you see?”
“The wood on the outside of the coffin looks like it was exposed to moisture.”
“That’s right,” said Lovejoy. “It has been in a dark, damp place for a long time. See the warp on the lid. It was cut out of a single slab of wood, so the moisture infiltrating the grain from the outside caused the warp to one side. You can see it had a rubbed finish, but it looks cloudy now. There is cupping here, and these cracks… my guess is that it also spent a long time drying out.”
“Very strange,” puzzled Everett. “It sounds like it was in a crypt – without a body – and years later somebody broke into the crypt and stole the casket. They kept it in an attic, or some room with an atmosphere like an attic, for years. Those newspapers date back to August of 1864. Why do you suppose they were in there?”
“I don’t know… I think there is some sort of crime involved with this curious artifact. The best we have to work with at the moment is the coffin maker, Mr. Hogg. I think I’ll take a little trip to Raleigh in the morning. Maybe Myrtle would
like to come along. If you were not working at the hospital tomorrow night, I would suggest that you join us on the adventure.”
“I am burning the candles at both ends, sir,” a disappointed Everett told him. With an air of profundity Lovejoy pronounced,
“That is the way the world works when you are young. After you make your reputation, it is hard to experiment with doing new things. Since I became coroner, people forget that I am a regular physician. I would appreciate the opportunity from time to time to have a living patient.” In jest, Everett said,
“Maybe you and Doctor Greene could trade places for a day?”
Lovejoy rejoined with amusement, “The hospital cannot spare Doctor Greene for a moment, nor can they spare you for that matter. If the county could find the funds to hire you on regular I would say, let your work here go. You have my blessing. Now let’s close up for the day and get a good dinner. What do you say to that? It would not surprise me if Mina and Miss Myrtle are there right now waiting on us.”
“If I may ask, what do you talk about at the dinner table after working here all day?”
“John, outside of the fact that everything that goes on here needs to remain unsaid, don’t mention anything out of place. It makes the best meal seem unappetizing”.
JUDITH GREENE: The Old Port Chronicles, Part 1 Page 4
