The Salem Witch Society

by K. N. Shields

  “One moment.” Grey was studying the ground. “There’s something missing here.”

  Our entire case, thought Lean. He said nothing, not wanting to advertise his sense of failure at their trip. Perhaps a nice drop of whiskey or two would be just the thing to grease the wheels and set his mind back on track. It was a good enough excuse for a strong drink, anyway.

  25

  “It’ll be the same mess of trees, leaves, and dirt, Grey.” McCutcheon’s jaws eagerly worked over his after-breakfast cigar. “Just what do you expect to see that you couldn’t last night?”

  “You never know what may appear when you observe matters in a new light,” Grey replied.

  They were standing in the narrow street behind the Gannett House. Lean glanced up at the pale blue sky. It was going to be a fine morning, but he couldn’t wholeheartedly agree with Perceval Grey. His mood was no better than when he’d gone to sleep the night before. With no body to examine and no one willing to speak, their trip had proved to be in vain.

  There was nothing else to do but wait and see if this devil was going to strike again in Portland, here in Scituate, or somewhere entirely new.

  His eyes settled on a plain-faced woman in her early twenties who had just stepped out of a house nearby. She was a bit stocky, with a bulging belly. Her dress was nothing fancy, a simple cambric jersey wrapper; she was probably a farmer’s wife, or maybe a grocery clerk. She spoke a few quiet words to a matronly-looking woman who patted the younger lady on the arm, then closed the door.

  Lean felt an elbow nudge him in the ribs, followed by McCutcheon’s voice, in an enthusiastic whisper. “She could keep a calf well enough, eh?”

  The younger woman glanced over and saw the two men staring in her direction. She looked surprised to be the subject of their attention, and her pale face blushed before she quickly turned away.

  “Coming?” Grey had already set off along the street in the direction of the path through the woods where young Hannah Easler had met her horrid fate.

  Lean followed after the others, kicking at the ground as he went. This was the same route taken by the Easler girl. McCutcheon had mentioned the night before that the girl’s parents lived a mile south from the far end of the path. That’s where she was going. But where was she coming from? Her parents hadn’t known where to look for her that night. That meant she’d likely been somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be.

  Lean stopped in his tracks. “Hold up a moment!” The others stared at him. He looked back the way they’d come. “There’s something I want to check into. You can manage without me, I assume.”

  “By all means. We’ll meet you back at the hotel,” Grey said.

  “Just a … strange thought that’s occurred to me.”

  Grey gave him an understanding nod, and they parted company. Lean strode back toward the hotel. The image of the thin, pale-faced woman he’d seen in the street minutes earlier now flooded back into his mind. McCutcheon’s observation about keeping a calf aside, it had not been the woman’s bosom that had caught Lean’s eye. The young woman at the house was pregnant. His mind flashed back to their supper at the hotel last evening. From his seat by the window, he’d seen another woman pass by who was with child. She too had exited a nearby building. Was it the same house? He ran the images through his mind. It very well could have been. Those two young women he’d noticed had been drawn there for a reason. Any number of other young women could come from all around town if they had that same reason. A reason that would be a joy for most but, for someone like unmarried Hannah Easler, one that would have been kept secret.

  He rapped on the door, a bit more loudly than he had intended. The stout, matronly woman answered. The friendly glint in her eye vanished the moment she saw him.

  “Yes? Can I help you?”

  “Sorry to bother you, but please, can you tell me … are you a midwife, ma’am?”

  “I am.” She was regarding him with even closer scrutiny.

  “I’m Deputy Lean, and I have to ask you a few questions.”

  “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I do not do that kind of work. Good day to you!” She slammed the door closed.

  Lean rapped on the door again; he could hear her thudding away inside the house. “I’ve come about Hannah Easler.” He heard her feet stop. “I need your help. She needs your help.”

  The door creaked open a few inches. “What’s this about?”

  “Hannah had been to see you, hadn’t she?”

  “I don’t know you from Adam. She told me the father was a sailor.”

  “I’m not him, I assure you. In fact, I’d never even met Miss Easler. But I’ve come a long way to find out what happened to her.”

  “I told the sheriff what I know. Why don’t you ask him?”

  “Because he’s not talking. And I need to know the truth of what happened to her.”

  The woman’s gaze dropped to the floor. Her hands were clenched. “Some things should never happen to no one, and when they do, they should never be spoken of.”

  “What happened to her—I think it’s happened again, to another girl. And if I can’t find the man who did this …”

  “Oh, dear God.” The woman’s eyes welled up as she took several slow steps back into the parlor.

  The midwife began to recite everything she knew about the small, lonely life of Hannah Easler. She rambled on until her telling drew near to the girl’s last day.

  “Did she mention anything unusual that evening?” Lean asked. “Talk about anyone she had met or seen? Anything that had made her nervous or scared?”

  “No, nothing. In fact, she was a bit happier than usual. She lived in fear of her parents finding out about it all. But she said that her fellow was coming back in a few weeks. They planned to run off and get married. He had prospects in New York, an uncle in Albany who had work for him. She just had to make it a little while longer without her folks knowing.”

  “Did her parents say anything to you after? About her being in a family way and all?”

  “No. Of course, I’m not sure they ever did find out.”

  Lean gave her a puzzled look.

  “Well,” she explained, “the sheriff swore he never told them or anyone else that she’d been here to see me that night.”

  Lean nodded. “But they took her body. You said she was four months along. And from what I understand, she was cut open.” He motioned with his hand from his pelvis up to his rib cage. “Wouldn’t they have seen the evidence of how she was?”

  “You said this same thing happened to another girl.” Now it was her turn to give Lean a puzzled look. “The same … so I thought you meant. That is, I thought you knew.”

  “Knew what? What are you saying?”

  “He took it.” Tears leaked out of her eyes, and then she began to sob. “He cut the baby out of her, and he took it.”

  Minutes later Lean stepped outside the midwife’s house and began pacing as he came to grips with the revelations about Hannah Easler’s death. He fought the urge to run madly out to the woods to tell Grey the news. Instead he went back to the hotel, where the landlord only denied his prenoon request for a bottle of whiskey once. Reclaiming the window seat from last night’s dinner, he glanced out at the midwife’s door before staring in the other direction, toward the path where young Hannah Easler had met her vicious end. When Grey and McCutcheon returned, the midwife’s news spilled out of him.

  Grey stared through the window toward the midwife’s house. “And you discovered this connection upon seeing the pregnant woman this morning?”

  “Putting that together with the other woman who came by the window last night.”

  “Very perceptive. I didn’t notice a thing.”

  “Why would you notice ’em?” asked McCutcheon. “They’re all got up already. No use looking for a ticket to a sold-out show.”

  “Suppose I only noticed on account of my own wife, being ‘all got up’ herself. When you have it on your mind, you’d be a bi
t surprised how often you notice pregnant women.”

  Grey peered out the window again, studying the midwife’s house. “It seems we occupy a uniquely good vantage point. That is, for a visitor in town who had it in mind to watch for a pregnant woman.”

  Later, after hasty travel arrangements and a quick farewell to McCutcheon at the rail station, Lean and Grey retreated to a private compartment, where Lean again repeated the midwife’s entire story.

  “Something else?” Grey asked.

  “Hmm? No. It’s only … I’ve been so excited about the discovery of this new evidence that I almost forgot just what it is we’ve discovered. That poor girl. So afraid. So hopeful of a very different life.” Lean closed his eyes. “‘For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, and the anguish as of her that bringeth forth her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, that bewaileth herself, that spreadeth her hands, saying, Woe is me now! For my soul is wearied because of murderers.’”

  “Longfellow?” asked Grey.

  “Jeremiah.” Unsure of whether he was being mocked, Lean threw a questioning glance at his traveling companion.

  Grey shrugged. “American?”

  “Israelite.”

  “Hmm. Not familiar with his work.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me, actually,” Lean said.

  A quick smirk slid across Grey’s face.

  “So there it is.” Lean dug out a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and read over the short list that Grey had obtained from the hotel landlord. It held the names of men who had stayed alone at the Gannett House in the nights just prior to the murder. “J. Trefethan, Arthur Cummings, Hollis Lancy, John Proctor, or Peter Flaherty. One of these is our man.”

  “One of those is, at least, the name our man used while in Scituate,” Grey said.

  “We’re sure of that, right? That this is the work of the same man.”

  Grey slipped a hand into his coat pocket and retrieved a small lump of dull, waxy material. “In my excitement over your discovery, I nearly forgot my own. It was there at the murder site.” He handed it to Lean, who pondered the object for a moment, then lifted it up for a closer look. The faint scent of bayberry reached his nostrils.

  “A single candle. The first. It matches the two he left at the Portland Company.”

  26

  “Who are you with again?” Boxcar Annie asked. “The Women’s Civil League,” Helen said. “Ain’t heard of them. That like some temperance lot?”

  From the way the woman was slurring her words, Helen guessed nothing would draw Annie’s ire quicker than any mention of a temperance union.

  “Heavens no. Quite the contrary. We’re not interested in telling women what they can’t do. Rather, we want to show what women can do, if given the chance. Equal treatment and protection for women under the law.”

  Boxcar Annie’s face still showed a fair share of skepticism. Helen turned away for a moment, taking in the scenery. It was insanity for her to be here among the dark walls, crooked tables, and stools where men slouched like sacks of potatoes dropped on the sidewalk by a passing delivery cart. Nervous energy began to well up in Helen, threatening to overwhelm her senses. She took a breath and continued.

  “After all, you shouldn’t have to be a wealthy man, or married to one, to be treated fairly. It’s practically the twentieth century, time society stopped treating women like we lived in the Dark Ages.”

  “And what’s this got to do with Maggie?”

  “Everything,” Helen said. “You know as well as any that she wasn’t given much chance in this life. Never had anything handed to her. Not like some people.”

  “Aye, that’s true enough. No more than most of us.”

  “Exactly. I’m not saying that the world owes us much of anything. But we do have the right to live our lives as best we can. It’s not like she was hurting anybody.”

  “That’s true too. She was a kind girl,” said Boxcar Annie.

  “Certainly deserved better than she got.”

  “A lot better. He should swing for it.” Boxcar Annie took a full swig of beer and slammed her mug down.

  Helen stared into the drunken face opposite her. “But will the man who did that to her pay for his crimes?”

  Boxcar Annie threw glances to each side. “What are you on about?”

  “Why haven’t the police haven’t found her killer yet? If a rich girl had been killed, I bet they’d have found him already.” Helen saw she had Annie’s attention and pressed on. “We’ve been making inquiries. More than the police have bothered to do. And we have reason to believe that Maggie’s killer wasn’t some drunk or some savage Indian. He may have been a respectable gent. Someone she’d met recently. Maybe a man with dark hair. Rather short.”

  “The devil’s breath.” Boxcar Annie crossed herself. “How do you know all that?”

  “We’ve heard some talk. But it’s not enough. We can’t afford to be wrong if we’re going to bring pressure to bear on the police.”

  “I’m not s’posed to tell anyone anything ’bout this.”

  “You wouldn’t be telling me. We’ve already heard. You’d just let me know that we’re right in pushing ahead, demanding justice for Maggie Keene. We owe her that much.”

  “You’re going to the police, though.”

  “Not with names. Just with as much of the truth as we can get.”

  Annie finished her drink. Helen slid her own, still untouched, across the table.

  “All right, then, for Maggie’s sake. I’ll tell you what I know, the truth about it. That’s what she said too, you know—the truth. This gent was going to show her the truth of all things. That’s a new one.”

  “You’d seen her recently?”

  “The day before. She looked worn to a shadow. Been fussing over stomach pains for about a week. Having trouble keeping food down.”

  “This new man. What was he like?” Helen asked.

  “Paid well enough. A right big talker—when he could talk, that is. Something wrong with him, had trouble getting his words out. Anyway, I think she might have believed him some. She took part of that money he’d paid her and spent it trying to look a little better for him. Bought a new hat the day before she died. Had enough money left over to buy a pair of shoes, good enough to get her through a night on the old cobblestones. The fellow was going to bring her some medicine for the pains. He had a room over on St. Lawrence. She’d spent a few nights there with him before she died.”

  “She mention his name?” Helen asked.

  “Just John. He wouldn’t say his last name no matter how much she asked. She was such a believing fool sometimes. Said he was here for only a few weeks on business.” Boxcar Annie treated her hoarse voice with another gulp of beer.

  “I told her how he sounded all froth and frizz. Mind, I weren’t mean about it, but she didn’t always have the most sense in her head. She was an all-right-looking girl, but even a few years at this work is enough to take the shine off ya. If he was being straight with her, I mean, why would such a man, as wealthy as he claimed to be, take a fancy to her? He hadn’t even yet bothered to have his money’s worth.”

  “But he’d been seeing her several nights that week?” Helen said.

  “Do you believe that? Had her strip bare on the first two nights and groped at her all over.” Annie gestured to the side of her rib cage. “She had a little bump there, always shy of it. Anyway, he flat-out bit her there. Let loose a shriek, didn’t she? That made him mad, though, all worried that someone around had heard. He never regained his enthusiasm that night. Sails at half mast and the winds all still. The second night more of the same, though she were ready for it. Bit her own knuckle to keep off from yelping.”

  “He sounds like a peculiar one. And that was all?”

  Annie nodded and took a swig. “Always kept his own shirt and trousers on. She offered herself up a number of times, reminding him he’d paid good money for her company. But nothing doing. Course, that happens, though u
sually with them that’s had too much, or older gents.” She grinned at some private memory. “This one, though, was only interested in talking. Going on about all the beautiful things he could show her. Every night he’s whispering a string of grand promises in her ear.” Boxcar Annie’s voice was trembling, and her eyes threatened to overflow. “Such a fool she could be.”

  Helen dug in her handbag and found a handkerchief.

  Helen exited McGrath’s place, and even though the few steps up brought her back into the dingy, litter-strewn alley, she filled her lungs as if she had emerged onto a pristine mountaintop. It was later than she had planned, and she needed to hurry home to pick up Delia from her neighbor. But she paused to take more deep breaths, her eyes closed, trying to acclimate herself back to the outside world, so very far from the miserable existence on the far side of the barroom door.

  “That’s her!”

  Fifty yards away, at the mouth of the alley, Helen saw a grubby-looking boy and two men in dark coats and hats. They started to move toward her.

  Helen thought for a second about retreating into McGrath’s but immediately realized she’d be trapped down there with little hope for assistance from that lot. She looked in the other direction. It was almost a hundred yards to the next street. She could hear the men behind her, running now. Immediately to her right was another alley. It was dark, but she could see several doorways close by. Maybe one would be open.

  A few quick steps brought her to the first recessed doorway. It wasn’t until she turned into it that she saw the huge, dark figure standing there. Helen let out a small shriek. The man grabbed her arm and yanked her into the shadows. Before she could scream again, he clamped a massive, callused hand over her mouth.

  She thought about biting, but then she heard his low voice.

  “Keep quiet and don’t let them see you. Understand?” His tone was urgent, bordering on furious, but Helen sensed that the threat in his voice was not directed at her. When she finally took in the giant man’s features, she recognized something. So she simply nodded her head silently, her lips pursed to keep herself from screaming.