JUDITH GREENE: The Old Port Chronicles, Part 1

by James C. Burke

  The antebellum theatre was ornate, with seats for about eight hundred people. There were two balconies, the top, accessed by a narrow hidden staircase that led to the street, was for black patrons. Whites climbed two flights of broad sandstone steps from the street and entered the magnificent foyer, an outsized parlor complete with intricately carved woodwork and French wallpaper. The “house” was equally grand, with an ornately framed proscenium and a massive chandelier that could be raised and lowered. Backstage was different. The wings resembled a workshop, and flights of crude wooden stairs led to the dressing rooms and high above, the fly-loft. Several windlasses, bolted to the floor of the fly-loft allowed drops and other scenic pieces to be raised and lowered. From the stage floor or “deck,” massive wooden travelers allowed the opening and closing of curtains. Some scenic pieces were dead hung from a long pin rail. Like the great sailing ships that lent its mechanical technology, the stage is never a place to become complacent. However, familiarity inclines the mind to ignore the hazards.

  As with all her drops, Judith would spread the sized canvas, about twenty by thirty-two feet, flat on the deck. A large oil lamp with a reflector lit her work. It was mounted on a heavy iron rod, with an even heavier round iron base. She had to place a thick square of felt under the base of the lamp to prevent it from damaging her work. There were several types of brushes: some with long sticks for painting from a standing position, and others for working close on her knees. She wore a long bit apron and sleeve that went to her elbow to protect her dress, and a cotton night cap to keep paint out of her hair. The final element of her painting attire was a set of soft slippers to keep shoe prints from marring the drop. She would sing while she painted. Her lovely voice echoed through the empty hall, and sometime the gentlemen from the offices would slip in to listen. It was a hauntingly beautiful sound.

  With so much dangerous material hanging above her head, her assassin had an abundance of choices to deliver the fatal blow. The means of delivering death, however, needed to be subtle and not too noisy. Creeping into the theatre before Judith’s arrival, the assassin selected two heavy wooden blocks used for the rigging, and climbed beyond the fly deck to the catwalk above. The blocks were about twenty inches long and eight inches thick. Made of oak, and containing two iron wheels and a heavy wrought hook, they weighed at least twenty pounds. At a height of at least forty feet, a well-placed drop would kill her. She had to be directly under the catwalk for a certain strike. The unseen figure could see her moving about below in the patch of light cast by the lamp. She placed a cushion on the drop, knelt down on it, and bent over the area she was working on. To her side was a wooden box, like a tea tray, with several few small cups of paint. It took a while before she was directly under the catwalk. Leaning over the railing, holding the block steady, and aiming slightly above her shoulder blades, the assassin dropped the block.

  The block hit Judith’s paint box with a terrific crash, smashing it to pieces, and throwing paint on her face and clothing. She stumbled back, tripped up by her skirt, and then recovered her footing before scrambling to the safety of the proscenium arch. All was silent from above. The thought that had the block fallen one foot closer, smashing her head, mortified her. Momentarily, four men from the town hall offices burst into the theatre and rushed to her aid. No-one, including her, could imagine there was evil intent behind this “accident.” She assured them she had not been harmed.

  The gentlemen all young clerks, were eager to investigate. They spent the next few minutes bumbling about in the wings looking for a lantern. The assassin escaped by the catwalk. Passing above the ceiling of the house, he exited through a door leading to the second balcony. Then he took the stairs to the street using the passage for black patrons, making a clean escape. The culprit was a block away before the gentlemen climbed half way up the fly-loft.

  High above the stage, they found a second block hanging precariously from the catwalk railing by its hook; and down below, they could see where the first struck. It was blatant negligence, they proclaimed! Taking the block with them, they descended the stairs down to the stage. Nearly everybody working in the town hall that day met them, and a few more, attended to Judith. She regained her composure, and assured the gallant assembly with a characteristic flippant address. She had come through the battle without a scratch, but pointing down to the ruined backdrop, she sighed. They helped her clean up the mess, and the mayor graciously saw her home.

  CHAPTER THREE

  It is the morning of Saturday, January 21, 1882. Doctor Everett had one important job in the morgue: make the medical examiner’s reports look good. Considering the task needed more than basic medical knowledge, Lovejoy could not rely on an amateur. However, the increasing demands on Doctor Everett at the hospital left Doctor Lovejoy shorthanded. Often unorganized and sometimes messy, the notes and drawings for his work needed special attention. The relentless routine of preparing reports for the court – the work that Everett did – now overtaxed him. This was half the problem. Lovejoy was a scientist of the highest order that thought everybody understood what he committed to paper. He never failed to be chagrined when the readers of his reports claimed the opposite.

  Miss Myrtle Klieneburger was an amateur, but an enthusiastic and scholarly one. Granddaughter of Helmut Klieneburger, brewery owner and former owner of a hotel with a celebrated beer garden. She was heir to the family business and a large fortune. With a controlling interest in Klieneburger Lager and Ale Company, Inc., she had the leisure to study abroad, crossing disciplines as her ever-changing appetite for knowledge led her.

  Technically speaking, she was a dilettante, but far from being a mere dabbler. Wilhelm, her father, encouraged his daughter to strive for excellence, and to be physically fit. With the most vigorous determination, she conquered mathematics, theology, anatomy, Greek, botany, geology, fencing, equestrianism, and music in that order. Returning to Old Port in triumph, she lived up to her father’s expectations: the hybrid of Southern and Teutonic ideals incarnate. In her South side community of Germans, most having come to the town in the 1850s, they admired her spirit. The elite descendants of the founders of the town known as “The Family” politely shunned her. The wealthy Yankee newcomers considered her unpleasantly rigid. But she did not make her case for acceptance into their society easy with an appearance that advertised her disposition.

  She wore straight, form-fitting, black dresses devoid of bows and ribbons. A column of silver buttons in the center underlined her height and athletic physique. The collar of her dress was broad, white, open, and usually she pinned a rose below the top button. Always pulled back in a bun, and topped with a broad plain black hat of unknown origin, she hid her blond hair. Some assumed, mistakenly she wore a man’s hat. With riding gloves, and carrying a walking stick with a silver knob, Miss Klieneburger projected severity. The young men of her community had no Wyche to court her, though they were always polite. She was too serious.

  The common connection between Doctor Lovejoy and Myrtle was his wife Mina, who belonged to the Klieneburger family. She was fond of Myrtle, and enjoyed her rather somber company. The two were alike. While far from being outcasts since they were too well-off and conservative, they did not fit into Old Port society. Lovejoy was a misfit too. He did not even try to belong. Well-liked, jovial, energetic, and built like a Viking, he came, made a loud noise, and left. Before anybody got the chance to know him, he disappeared. His display of intellect was as natural for him as breathing, but some misinterpreted it as a deliberate act to make others feel uneducated. So, it was refreshing for him to have Myrtle over for a visit. This is how she became his assistant, on the sly.

  Doctor Everett enthusiastically supported the idea for two reasons: he was exhausted by trying to work day and night, and as her uncle suspected, he liked Myrtle from the first time he met her. Both approached her to help with the reports. Doctor Lovejoy hired her on as a “copyist” because the county officials would not tolerate a lady assistant to th
e medical examiner. Having her do the work did not cost the county that much. So, with the meagre pay of a copyist, and instructions to keep clear of the office, she accepted the position. It did not matter how many postmortem “adventures” she had in those European medical schools, “people would talk, and it could ruin her name.” The arrangement by which Myrtle received material to review was interesting to say the least. Doctor Everett, and nobody else, had to hand-deliver it because of its sensitive content. Throughout January and February, this was all he did for the office of the medical examiner. Visits to Wilhelm “Willie” Klieneburger’s house were not complete without the obligatory respite of sausages and beer. John Bell Everett’s prospects were looking better every day.

  The plucky Myrtle Klieneburger decided she would do some investigation of her own after her uncle finished his inquiry. Where was the coffin hidden all these years? Why bury it under the Fourth Avenue Bridge? She wanted to take a stroll through the neighborhood, and retrace the criminal’s steps. Knowing young Doctor Everett would likely enjoy accompanying her on the adventure, she told him the afternoon before her planned expedition.

  Myrtle arrived in her carriage on Hospital Hill shortly after eight o’clock in the morning. Her driver asked her why she wanted to go so early. She responded with a smile, and said,

  “Eight o’clock is not early.”

  Doctor Everett had finished his shift when he came out to meet her. He was drowsy but the thought of spending the morning with the unique Miss Klieneburger provided him with a second wind. She invited him to sit with her in her carriage and have some lukewarm coffee and a slice of cheese on black bread brought from home as refreshment. She handed him a walking stick.

  “This is for you. A gentleman should have a walking stick.”

  It was the same style as her own. Then they began the walk down Rose Street. The chill in the air that morning was invigorating. As they walked Myrtle explained her hypothesis or hypotheses about the casket under the bridge.

  “First, we must question why the coffin was buried under the bridge and not taken out, let us say in the woods beyond the Old Mill Creek.” Everett interjected,

  “If the location was close to where the coffin was hidden, and if the person burying it had selected a time late at night when few trains were running, the embankment under the bridge might have worked.”

  She stopped for a moment, and took hold of her walking stick with both hands and said,

  “The embankment under the bridge is also below street level by say twenty-five feet or so; and nobody from this side, even from their highest window, would have seen anything. The neighbors would hear nothing for the same reason. The problem is getting down there in the dark, and seeing what you are doing.”

  “I agree,” said Everett. “Doctor Lovejoy was inclined to think that the coffin was kept in an attic. Let’s keep an eye out for houses that appear to have large attics.”

  They noted two, including the McAdams House, on the blocks fronting Eighth through Fifth on Rose Street. Reaching the intersection of Fourth and Rose, they started towards the bridge. No better way existed to cross the cut with a wagon. The railroad cut divided the north side of town into two wards. Old white families populated the well-off neighborhoods on the south side. Railroad workers and black citizens occupied the neighborhoods on the north side of the cut. Jewish merchants had shops on Fourth Avenue for the residents of this ward, but the residents of the other side of the cut would rather shop elsewhere than visit what they termed New Village.

  “Uncle Gilbert has hired me on as his copyist. He really wants me to assist him, but he thinks the county fathers would not look kindly on having a lady working in the dead house.” Everett laughed, and said,

  “Knowing your uncle, it is only a matter of time before he gets his way. The same goes for you.”

  Built before the war, the bridge was comprised of four wooden lattice trusses supported by three tall brick piers. Too rickety and narrow for the traffic it carried, the bridge lacked enough gaslights. Myrtle and John walked on the bridge over the railroad cut to view the paths on the south side leading down to the tracks. There were three paths. The first began at the abutment, and followed a steep zigzag down. The second ran halfway from street level to track level the full distance from the road at the old Union Depot to the ice house on Second Avenue. The third path gradually descended from Sixth Avenue, intersected the other path, and gradual ascended up to the Fourth Avenue Bridge. Several short bifurcations led to the back of lots ending at the railroad cut. One ended behind the McAdams House. They walked to the other end of the bridge for a different view. While walking across, Myrtle noticed the gaslights were still burning. Except one.

  At one-hundred and sixty feet in length, the bridge provided the only access over the deep cut between Front and Tenth. Residents had been agitating not only for a new bridge over Fourth Avenue, and bridges on every street that ended at the cut. The railroad and town agreed to share the cost of replacing the Fourth Avenue Bridge in a few years. They considered the north side of the cut too sparsely developed to warrant building more bridges. In private, both parties recognized that the railroad cut, formed a physical barrier between the predominately white old town, and the new, mostly black New Village. The railroad even put a high fence along the top of the cut on the north side. The south side had no fence. Both Myrtle and Doctor Everett noticed the fence obscured the view of the paths on the south embankment. A person must be on the bridge to see anybody down there in the cut. Myrtle point down into the cut, and said,

  “We need to walk those paths. The person who buried the coffin had to use one of them. It is a shame we don’t know when it was buried.”

  As Myrtle and Doctor Everett walked across the bridge Myrtle spotted a tall, neatly dressed, muscular man at a distance ahead of them, standing near the intersection of Fourth and Rose. Pointing to him she said,

  “Detective, I think. He has been following us. Act like we haven’t noticed him.”

  By the time they reached the end of the bridge, he had turned away and walked up Rose Street.

  “I suppose we will see him again by the by.”

  The first path the two explored was the most direct, the same path that Doctor Lovejoy used to get to the coffin days earlier.

  “How was your trip to Raleigh?” She replied,

  “The coffin maker died shortly after the end of the war, but the gentleman that sold his work is still in business. He is not a real undertaker. Caskets are merely another category of furniture he sells in his shop. Regardless of that, he maintains his account books scrupulously. My uncle didn’t share too many particulars about what he found.”

  As they carefully made their way down into the railroad cut, Myrtle asked,

  “What do you think uncle missed John? Nothing we have observed differs from his notes. You were with him that day. Was there anything that you noticed?”

  “Around the grave there were impressions in the dirt made by a lady’s shoe – one lady, from what I could tell. They began on the east side of the bridge to the grave, and continued back to the east. I could not trace them further. The thunderstorms we had a few weeks back must have washed those away, but the deck of the bridge protected the rest. The men who found the grave did a good job of ruining the impressions with their stomping about.”

  “When was the last thunderstorm?” He answered,

  “The last thunderstorm happened on the twelfth of January – four days before the coffin was found – but the heaviest were at the start of the month.”

  At the bottom of the embankment, they found the ditch that the railroad men had cleared of brambles.

  “See John, my skirt is made of loose, thick cotton, and the hem is about three inches higher than most ladies’ dresses. I can easily move about quickly run and perhaps, jump that ditch. Now, with all these brambles still up, a lady wearing her usual attire would pick up quite a few of those sticky little seeds and perhaps, leave a piece of lace from h
er sleeve… like this.” Everett surprised, turning to her asked,

  “Are you completely sure that it was a lady acting alone?”

  “Uncle Gilbert said that the coffin appeared to be dragged along the ground and scratches were on the wood near the handles, most likely made by rings.” Everett replied with slight irritation.

  “Your uncle told me not to tell anybody about the things we discover; then he turns around and tells you everything.”

  “I’m working for him John! And the county is paying me, so that makes it official”.

  “All right! It looks like a lady dragged the coffin down the path and buried it,” grumbled Everett. “What are you finding in the brambles?”

  She then pulled a small strip of lace from a pile of trimmed undergrowth and laughed.

  “Rings and lace, how impractical… All skirts should have pockets. However, ladies are supposed to stay at home, have children and behave themselves. If you think my notions modern or bold, you would be correct; but surely, I will prove infinitely more useful to you than any dead-weight you might have the misfortune to marry – certainly in this place.”

  “I’ve known you for half a week he said, and you have decided everything for the rest of my life?”

  What’s wrong with that! Now let’s see if you can envision what had happened that night.”

  Myrtle reached into the shallow hole where the coffin was buried. Closing his eyes, Everett thought intensely.