A Study in Revenge: A Novel

by Kieran Shields

  “A distinct and unrelated inquiry into a private family matter.”

  “I see. An interesting woman, that Phebe Webster. She reminds me of someone. Can’t shake the feeling.” Lean took a long drag on his cigarette while he pondered the matter. “Intelligent, forthright. Not unlike Helen Prescott.”

  Grey paused, took in the sky, then the stones under their feet, before addressing his colleague. “That reminds me. We likely have a decent amount of ground left to cover in this inquiry.”

  “Probably so, but what’s that got to do with Helen?”

  “Nothing at all, which is exactly my point. And it’s strikingly early in the course of this investigation for you to have already become so repetitive and tiresome in your comments.” Grey reached a decision and turned left on Middle Street.

  “Hmm.” Lean was silent as he contemplated the point, then smiled and shook his head. “No. No, I don’t think so,” he called out after Grey. “Seems about the right time to me.”

  [ Chapter 28 ]

  THE TAILOR SHOP OF EZRA AND LOUISA GROSSTACK WAS now behind Lean. It was his last bit of work for the evening, checking in to make sure no further curious incidents had occurred below the store. The Grosstacks had seen to that by having a mason come around in short order and brick up the tunnel entrance to their basement. Lean wandered east along Fore Street as the sunlight faded. He removed his derby and ran his fingers through his sandy hair. The breeze coming up from the harbor cooled him. The business of the city’s day was winding down, but the streets were still active as people took advantage of the fine summer evening. Gulls circled overhead, adding their shrill, repetitive calls to those of a newsboy hawking the late edition.

  Lean strolled on, unsure of why he was heading this way instead of making for home. Within a minute he approached Silver Street and glanced at Darragh’s boardinghouse, where Chester Sears had stayed during his trip up from Boston, apparently to assist his old partner Cosgrove in the theft of the Webster family’s thunderstone.

  As the daylight faded, Lean’s mind meandered along its own winding path of dark streets and alleyways, trying to make sense of the two dead thieves and their connection to the thunderstone with its strange symbols.

  Lean realized he’d reached Vine Street. Then a new thought came to him, another image: the horned, demonic face drawn in ashes on the wall near the burned, desecrated body of Frank Cosgrove. He turned up the unevenly cobbled street and made his way to the short alley that led to the house. It was a sorry sight, with its sagging roof beam and dark, vacant windows. The decrepit hulk looked like it wouldn’t last more than a couple years at this rate. Lean approached the door. As he reached for the knob, two high, sharp notes came whistling out from behind him. He took it as an attempt to get attention poorly disguised as a birdcall.

  Twenty paces away, another narrow alley sank into deep shadow between two wooden buildings. Lean peered toward the source of the sound, thinking he could make out a dark form there and a slight movement. A hushed, urgent whisper slipped out of the black space, and Lean took a half step forward. He was about to call out when he heard the violent creak of the house’s door being yanked open behind him. Even as he whirled about, bringing one defensive fist up before his face, a body slammed into him. Already off balance, Lean went sprawling on the unpaved ground before the doorstep.

  He leaped to his feet and caught sight of a slender figure fleeing toward the alleyway.

  “Stop! Police!” Lean called as he launched into pursuit.

  The answer, from the original source inside the dark alley, was a panicked “Run!”

  Lean charged into the alley at full speed, hands raised to brace himself and push off against the wall. Rushing through the litter-strewn passage, he emerged onto Deer Street and darted left. Ahead of him a few pedestrians stood aside as two men raced past. Lean sprinted after them. The figure in front turned left upon reaching the corner, while the man who’d bolted out of the house cut diagonally right, dodging a two-wheeler cab as he crossed Middle Street. Lean followed the second man across the street, also sidestepping traffic and giving one horse a fright. Although he’d been making up some ground in the pursuit, he felt his lungs starting to labor as he rounded one corner, then another, before bolting across Newbury Street. The green space of Lincoln Park opened up before them, with the stone structures of the First Baptist and Second Parish churches looming across Congress Street on the far side of the park.

  The fleeing man made a slight detour to one of the rectangular park’s corner entrances, marked by two massive granite posts. The runner easily slipped through the series of short bollards that blocked carriages from entering onto the park’s gently curving concrete walks. Seeing the wide-open space of the maple-lined park, Lean knew that this was his best chance to catch the man. He didn’t make for the corner entrance, instead rushing forward to the pointed wrought-iron fencing that circled the park. His momentum carried him up so that he could find a foothold between the narrow spikes and launch himself over the rail to land on the soft grass.

  Lean made a beeline for the man, who finally seemed to be slowing as the chase wore on. The deputy forced himself onward, summoning every last bit of energy for a final desperate sprint. As the gap closed to a mere few feet, Lean’s quarry made several halfhearted feints at veering right, then left, but he stuck to the concrete path. They raced into the park’s shaded, bench-lined center, where the walkway encircled a large fountain.

  Lean reached out and snagged the man’s dark jacket, causing him to stumble forward. The runner landed in a heap just short of the wide, water-filled basin from which rose a pedestal ringed with stone cherubs supporting a three-tiered fountain.

  “Police,” Lean gasped as he clamped down on the suspect’s arm and turned him over to get a look at him.

  In the faint light beneath the maples that surrounded the central area, Lean could still make out a youthful face.

  “What’s your name?” Lean asked.

  “Kiss my ass!”

  A couple, who’d been enjoying a romantic moment on one of the nearby benches, now rose at the commotion and hurried away. Lean raised two fingers, giving a tip of his hat in their direction.

  “Let me repeat myself. Police. Now tell me what you were doing inside that house on Vine Street.”

  “Let go of me, you prick eater!”

  Lean cuffed the young man on the side of the head. “How old are you?”

  “Sixteen, what’s it to you?”

  “Old enough to know better.”

  Lean dragged the young man closer to the basin, lifted him by the scruff of the neck, and shoved his face into the shallow water. Several seconds of splashing startled the pigeons from their perch atop the now-dormant fountain.

  When Lean released him, the young man gasped for air and sputtered, “Christ! Birds shit in this water, you know!”

  “Yeah, they do, don’t they?” Lean agreed. “Ready to have another go-round with this, then?”

  It took another dunking and the threat of a night in jail for the young man to come clean. He’d been in the house on a dare. Ever since Cosgrove’s burned corpse had turned up there, everyone had been avoiding the place like the plague. But then people began hearing things, strange noises, thuds and clanking coming from the house in the dead of night. So the young man’s friend had bet him a half-dollar he wouldn’t set foot in the house and remain inside for five minutes.

  “I take it you didn’t see anything inside that would be making such a racket?” Lean asked.

  “There’s nothing in there, upstairs or down, except a few rats. Nothing to hear.”

  Sure that the young man’s story was true, Lean released his grip and told him to get lost.

  The youth scurried away, making it to a corner exit before he looked back at Lean and unleashed a roar: “Prick!”

  Lean raised a hand as if to wave off an old friend. He stumbled over to a bench, where he continued to catch his breath. After wiping his brow, he began
to think hard about what the young man had said. People heard noises coming from inside the house, but there was no sign of anything that would make loud noises. Not upstairs or down.

  The answer was like a slap across the face, and Lean smacked his hands together, half in excitement over the realization that had just come to him and half in annoyance at himself for not thinking of it sooner: the basement. He hadn’t seen a cellar door in the house on Vine Street, but it only made sense that there’d be one somewhere. Most of the old houses in the city had at least a dirt-floored root cellar built at some point.

  Lean looked around and thought he really should be getting home But he was not yet willing to reject the urge to conduct an immediate search of the house, even though the setting sun now made that idea difficult. Half a minute later, the solution to his dilemma presented itself in the guise of a uniformed patrolman carrying a bull’s-eye lamp. No doubt alerted to trouble in the park by the displaced lovebirds, the patrolman was relieved to find Lean sitting on the bench. The two men marched over to Vine Street, where Lean inspected every inch of the floorboards until he arrived at the door to the small closet in the back room. There was no visible trapdoor in the floor, so Lean got down on his hands and knees to inspect the boards all along the edge of the walls.

  “Hah! I think the whole damn floor in here is actually a door,” he said.

  He borrowed a non-standard-issue knife that the patrolman carried and wedged it into a gap along the baseboard. Though the area within the closet was cramped, Lean and the officer managed to pry up the trapdoor enough to get their fingers under the edge, then tilt it up. Cold, dank air came wafting up from belowground. The two men maneuvered the trapdoor out of the closet space and set it aside. Lean took the lamp and held it down into the cellar space. The floor was only about six feet below them. A collection of old scraps of wood below the trapdoor showed that some form of steps had once existed but had rotted away.

  The earthen floor was dug up in four different areas to reveal a wide rock ledge just inches below the dirt. The remainder of the floor was dotted with uniformly spaced holes, identical to the ones he’d seen in the cellar beneath the tailor shop.

  “Someone’s been digging down there. What in the hell for?” asked the patrolman, who was craning his neck to see past Lean.

  “Whatever they were digging for, they didn’t find it here. Nothing but solid ledge the whole space through.”

  [ Chapter 29 ]

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING LEAN WATCHED PERCEVAL GREY crouch down close to the dirt floor in the basement beneath the house on Vine Street. He’d assured Grey that no one had entered the space since the pattern of auger holes was discovered. This was followed by a lengthy and detailed study of the footprints left in the cool, damp earth. Grey replaced his tape measure into the dark leather case that he wore strapped over one shoulder and across his chest. He jotted down several notes into a small pad, then retrieved a magnifying glass. With a lantern close by, he began inspecting several different samples of footprints.

  Lean had been through this process before and knew enough to simply stand by and wait should Grey have a question. Another minute crept by before Grey motioned Lean over.

  “This is the best section of earth for detailed samples of the men’s footprints,” Grey said. “The slight slope in the ground funnels moisture here.”

  “Men? I’d have said a solitary man was involved. The prints all look identical.”

  “At first glance,” Grey said. “Which is why I’d recommend you develop a habit of always taking more than a single glance. No, the men wore the same size work boots. Identical pairs, in fact. Likely purchased together and recently.”

  “What gives you that idea?”

  “It’s not an idea. Look closely at the imprint. The edges on both sets of prints are very sharp. The boots haven’t been worn long enough to even begin to wear down or develop identifying nicks or marks in the soles.”

  Lean bent for a closer look in the lamplight and saw that Grey was correct. He glanced at Grey’s footwear, fine black leather shoes that were splattered with fresh grass clippings. The cuffs of his pants were likewise sullied.

  “Looks like you’d have been better off with a pair of work boots yourself. What have you been up to so early this morning?”

  Grey followed Lean’s stare down to his shoes, then waved off the question, a touch of annoyance in his voice. “A foolish errand. Not worth talking about.”

  Lean didn’t press the issue, returning to the matter at hand. “So then what makes you so sure these prints are two different pairs?”

  “Compare where the men set their feet while each manned his auger. This fellow set his squarely, shoulder width apart.” Grey took several steps away and motioned to the ground again. “Whereas this fellow planted his right foot forward, closer to the auger, while keeping his left back half a step for greater leverage. He likely possesses less physical strength than the first man. He also smokes cigarettes—traces of ash accompany his prints on several occasions.”

  “Seems odd to think they might have bought new boots, specifically to hide their number or identity.”

  “Very odd, given that the entrance to the basement was so well hidden and none of the neighbors dare to even set foot in the building anymore. It’s likely their footprints could have remained undiscovered for a long, long time.” Grey began to pace, making quick turns in the confined area.

  “In fact,” he continued, “it’s such an odd thought that we can comfortably dispense with it as the true motive for the recent purchase of these identical work boots. We can instead replace that idea with one that is far simpler and, therefore, much likelier to prove true: Upon determining that they’d need to be mucking about in dirt cellars, each man realized he didn’t own any serviceable footwear. In all likelihood this type of physical, dirty work is foreign to them and they have been pressed into service by sheer necessity.”

  “So our mysterious pair of burrowers will not to be found among Portland’s common laborers.” Lean gave his mustache a few strokes while he ruminated. “Yet it’s not exactly the type of thing you can look up in the city directory and hire out: ‘Clandestine hand-auger operators needed to sneak into basements around town to perform tedious wall-to-wall search for missing object. No questions asked.’ ” Lean chuckled at the thought while Grey stood by in silent contemplation.

  “I suppose it makes sense for there to be a pair of diggers,” Lean added. “After all, they left two augers at the end of the tunnel they used to get into the tailor’s basement. No tunnels into this place.”

  Grey nodded. “In that instance they left their tools belowground so as not to be noticed leaving the place. But here, with the overhead building abandoned, they could come and go under cover of darkness without having to worry about being seen.”

  “Only vagrants and neighborhood kids ever came here anyway, and not even them since Cosgrove’s ashy corpse was found above. Do you suppose that’s it? Putting the corpse here was a means to scare people off? So these fellows could go about their digging unseen?”

  Grey stared at the ground beneath his feet while he pondered this. “It stands as the only clear motive for selecting this particular location to dump Cosgrove’s disinterred corpse. But, more important, why this location? What is it that they’re looking for underground here, and at the tailor shop?”

  “There’s no connection to be seen between the two spots,” Lean said.

  “Precisely: none to be seen. Each of the two sites is hidden underground.” Grey started pacing again. Now that he’d gleaned what information the earth would reveal about the men who’d left the footprints, there was no need for the cautious placing of his own steps such as when he’d first entered the cellar.

  “What have you learned about the site of the tailor shop? The history of that property—what used to occupy that space?”

  Lean gritted his teeth and scratched at his forehead with a thumbnail.

  “You mean t
o say you haven’t pursued that glaringly obvious avenue?” Grey asked.

  Lean could tell that Grey was struggling to limit the amount of disdain that came through in his voice. The truth of it was that he knew he should look into that very question but just hadn’t gotten around to it yet.

  “I’ve been busy with matters other than the seemingly pointless break-in to a dirt basement, one that resulted in nothing actually being stolen. Cosgrove’s murder, for example. Besides, before seeing the digging repeated here, there was nothing to say that the tailor’s basement was particularly significant. Could have just been some bored kids with nothing better to do.” He regretted the last bit as soon as he said it.

  Grey’s face took on an incredulous look. “Kids with nothing better to do than systematically drill holes throughout a dark rat hole of a cellar? Just how bored do you think this pair of anonymous scamps is, Lean?”

  The deputy put on a straight face, as if seriously considering Grey’s barb. “Just so you know, the neighborhood boys and I would often pass a fine summer’s day, shovels in hand, crouched low in some root cellar, digging holes for no good reason. Great, wholesome fun, as I remember it.”

  A short chuckle escaped Grey before he regained his composure. “What I’d prefer you to remember is that the exact site of a crime, the ground upon which it is actually committed, can inform the motive for the crime. As you certainly know from personal experience.”

  “Just because that was true in one instance doesn’t mean I’m to assume it’ll be true in another case entirely.” Lean saw that Grey was about to say something further when a memory of one of Grey’s earlier, and slightly patronizing, lectures on criminal investigation flashed into Lean’s mind. The deputy raised a finger, punctuating the air.

  “After all,” Lean added, “aren’t you the man who once warned me not to allow myself to be ruled by preconceived notions? Careless comments or even memories of similar crimes can infiltrate the mind and plant seeds of what you expect the solution to be. They take hold and strangle out other, newer, better theories.”