The Salem Witch Society

by K. N. Shields

  He stepped across the tracks and wandered over the dirt and gravel, past sporadic outgrowths of knee-high weeds, kicking aside bits of trash as he went. It was past sunrise, but the sky held a thick cover of gray clouds, rendering the scene even bleaker. A patrolman was approaching, coming from the raised wooden trestle that connected the base of Clark Street to the bridge leading to Cape Elizabeth. They met a hundred yards shy of the overpass.

  “She’s down close to the trestle. There’s a few empty rail cars there.” The patrolman pointed back in the direction he’d come.

  “How’s it look?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing like that last one up to the Portland Company.”

  “Stabbed?” Lean asked.

  “Nope. Deputy LeGage says strangled.”

  Lean could tell that the patrolman was at the end of his shift and eager to be going, so he nodded and continued on. As he drew closer, Lean saw the shapes of rail cars in the shadows of the trestle with a few people milling about. Directly beyond was the gasworks, dark smoke rising from its stacks. Behind that, even greater amounts of sooty filth were spewing forth from the Portland Star Match Company and the towering stacks rising up above the five-story behemoth of the Forest City Sugar Refinery. He walked on, the last traces of sea salt drifting away from him, overpowered by the combined might of oil, phosphorous, and burned sugar.

  At the first of the rail cars, he saw two patrolmen with an old sheet they would use to wrap the body and toss it into the waiting wagon. Deputy LeGage stood nearby and greeted Lean with a thin, tobacco-stained smile.

  “What’s the matter, Lean, afraid you won’t get your name in the papers on this one?”

  Lean moved toward the open rail car, not sparing a glance at LeGage. Four weeks had passed since Maggie Keene’s murder. Lean still had no suspect, nor any idea of where to find the man. He was beginning to fear he never would, but he mentioned none of this. He smiled and said, “Just thought I’d take a look before you got around to ignoring the last of the evidence.”

  The woman was at the edge of the open rail car, her right arm dangling out from the door. A trickle of dried blood stained the corner of her mouth. Lean bent forward and saw she had bitten her own tongue. There were clear bruises on either side of her neck. Two hands, with thumbs overlapping, had crushed the windpipe. Lean studied the face, noting the differences that death produced: the waxy look of her skin and the drooping of the flesh around her jawbone. The jaundiced eyes still held a look of dull indifference, but now the fierceness had dissipated. It wasn’t that she looked peaceful, far from it. It was only that the fight had so completely and horribly gone out of Boxcar Annie’s eyes.

  Lean stood in Grey’s study, glancing about at the clutter of papers, books, and stacks of newspapers that dominated every available work surface.

  “Strangled. No sign of any mutilation of the body, so I don’t think it’s our man. Course, it can’t just be a coincidence, either. What I can’t figure is, if she was concerned for her safety and McGrath’s being paid to protect her, how does she end up by the waterfront to begin with?”

  Grey considered the question. “And as is often the case, the same facts contained in a puzzling question will, when inverted, reveal the likely answer. You misstated one vital element. McGrath wasn’t actually being paid to protect her, but rather to protect what she knew about the murder of Maggie Keene. She’d be alive now if McGrath were still being paid to ensure that. Which leads me to suspect that he was finally paid off to achieve the opposite result.” Grey motioned Lean to come closer and held up a document from his desk.

  “Records from the Maine Savings Bank show a transfer of two thousand dollars in the week after Maggie Keene’s murder, from the temperance union to the personal account of Simon Gould.”

  “The colonel’s right hand,” Lean said, recalling the man’s scarred visage. “The one with the—”

  “The very unfortunate face, yes. As well as an avid interest in library books on witchcraft. Gould withdraws three hundred. One week later three hundred again. Two days ago another cash withdrawal. This time it’s one thousand. Within twenty-four hours, Boxcar Annie is roaming free and is murdered.”

  Lean studied the paper. “Gould was paying McGrath off to keep Boxcar Annie quiet. But then they figured it was cheaper to take care of the problem once and for all.”

  “McGrath probably knew he couldn’t control the woman much longer. She’s not the type to stay in one place for any length of time, or to keep quiet, especially when she’s drinking. If whatever she knew got out, she wouldn’t be worth a dime.”

  “He cashed in while he could,” Lean said. “Took the thousand and put her out on the street. Gould or some other of the colonel’s old soldiers was waiting.”

  “It’s the most plausible theory,” Grey said. “But we still don’t know why the colonel’s people were so interested in Boxcar Annie. What did she know about Maggie Keene and her killer that was such a threat to the temperance union?”

  While Lean pondered this, his eyes fell on Grey’s mantelpiece, which held the long-stemmed pipe he had recovered from his grandfather’s attic. “I didn’t think you were so interested in your Indian heritage.”

  “It belonged to my father,” Grey said.

  Lean nodded. He recalled the mention at the Indian fairgrounds of Grey’s father’s death and was prepared to let the subject drop.

  “It may be of interest to our inquiry, actually.” Grey approached and picked up the pipe, cupping the bowl with his fingers. “Would you mind having a cigarette?”

  Lean smiled. “If you insist.” He drew one and lit it.

  “I noticed something while you were enjoying a smoke with the Abenakis at Camp Ellis. Compare our grips,” Grey said.

  Lean held his cigarette between the top joints of his index and middle fingers. “You hold a pipe different from a cigarette. What of it?”

  “I observed that some of the Abenakis held their cigarettes like so.” He took the cigarette from Lean and held it with his thumb and index finger more toward the middle than usual, and the top of his hand facing out. “It must be force of habit, but they would actually hold the cigarettes in the same manner as a pipe.”

  Lean gave him a puzzled look.

  “Remember the cigarette butts I recovered outside at the Portland Company? It was damp that night, so the paper held impressions from the killer’s fingers. He held the first sample the way you do. Like a white man. The last cigarette, the one he didn’t have time to finish, showed imprints from being held in the old-fashioned Indian manner.”

  “Which means what, exactly?” Lean smirked at Grey. “He’s only half Indian?”

  “If he had Indian blood, Maggie Keene would have mentioned it, and you can be certain Boxcar Annie would have been screaming about it. No, he’s a white man. But he displays some connection to Indians. The tobacco in the cigarettes, the mangled quote from the Lord’s Prayer, the contemptuous references to Indians in his letter to the mayor. It’s an odd mixture of incorporating Indian elements while also professing his disdain for them.”

  Lean snapped his fingers. “That sounds just like the witches. Gives Maggie Keene a witch’s death yet calls himself by names of falsely accused witches, but then he goes and suckles at that witch’s tit on her side. As if he doesn’t know what side of the fence he’s on.” He threw his dwindling cigarette into the fireplace. “Witches and sinners I understand. But what’s his obsession with Indians?”

  “When we catch this man, we may find that he has spent time among the Indians. He learned some rudimentary speech and writing, adopted some habits, but maybe the experience was unpleasant and left him with contempt for them.” Grey replaced the pipe on the mantelpiece.

  Lean’s eyes lingered on the pipe. “Indians have a strong reputation for drunkenness. Among white people, anyway.”

  “Hence the liquor-agent ordinance.”

  Lean knew the reference. The Portland city ordinance, premised on state law, pro
hibited anyone from providing liquor, even medicinally, to classes of people to whom it would be dangerous: children, drunkards, others requiring guardianship, and Indians. “Deserved or not, the reputation exists. So I wonder if Colonel Blanchard has ever spent time among them, preaching sobriety and seeking converts. We need to speak with him.”

  36

  “I’m sorry, gentlemen,” Simon Gould said, “but the colonel’s schedule is quite full. Perhaps you could call again in a few weeks.”

  “If that’s how the colonel sees it, then that’s how it is.” Lean shrugged. “Well, we’ve got some time now. Could head right over to the Argus and see Dizzy Bragdon, drop him the story of how the temperance union is in business with McGrath. I mean, since the colonel doesn’t have the time to meet with us.”

  Gould’s lips pursed. His jaw seized up, and the right side of his face, marred by burn marks suffered in the war, trembled. Gould had one of the servant girls bring Lean and Grey to the colonel’s study while he went to find the man. The room was an unabashed testament to a view of life as man’s contest against all creatures. Sheathed sabers and crossed rifles adorned the walls. A black bear’s head, teeth bared, was mounted above the stone fireplace. The only painting on the wall depicted St. George slaying the dragon. Other hangings took the form of framed temperance broadsides and annotated maps detailing the actions and troop movements at Gettysburg, Antietam, and Petersburg. There was a wide expanse of windows across the room from the colonel’s desk. Nearby, a slender bookcase held texts on military history and a few small framed photographs. Grey studied the contents of the shelves. He picked up one of the framed pictures and peered at it. Lean glanced in that direction long enough to see what appeared to be an old family portrait: the colonel, his wife, a son and daughter. Grey set the frame down as soon as Colonel Blanchard entered the room.

  He was not a large man, but he had a commanding presence. His stern, angular face held deep fissures rather than mere wrinkles. The colonel’s thick white hair was parted to one side, his coif angling upward like the windswept cap of a snow-covered mountain. His voice matched his face in every way.

  “What’s all this rubbish about? Coming here, threatening me with lies and accusations. I should have you both bound and dragged. You ought to mind yourselves and be on your way.”

  Lean fought back the urge to smile. It was clear that Colonel Blanchard was used to being in command. “And good morning to you, Colonel. I’m afraid we can’t do that quite yet. You see, we’ve looked into some matters at the Maine Savings Bank. And there’s reason to believe that some parties associated with your union have provided funds for the benefit of a Mr. McGrath. He’s rumored to run some illegal drinking establishments.” Lean threw a look at Simon Gould. “Which, we can all agree, would be very perplexing to members of the public, especially those who provide financial support for your efforts.” Lean paused, offering the colonel the chance to bluster, but the man didn’t take it. He simply stood there staring at Lean with ice in his eyes.

  “Furthermore,” Lean said, “we have information which seems to indicate an interest being taken in the whereabouts of a woman commonly known as Boxcar Annie.” Lean thought he detected the briefest crack in the frozen gaze of the colonel. “She was a prostitute who had found her way into McGrath’s … care. That is, until she turned up dead.”

  “What do I care about a dead whore?”

  “You tell me.”

  The colonel’s hands balled into fists. “I could have your job, Deputy.”

  Grey cleared his throat. “Yes, but not before your supporters hear about all this. And by the way, I don’t work for the city. Someone here was paying McGrath to keep him informed about this woman and what she knew about the death of Maggie Keene. Perhaps you heard about that one. It was in all the papers.”

  “What’s your name again?” Simon Gould asked.

  “Perceval Grey.”

  “I’ve heard of you.” Gould’s milky right eye seemed to linger on Grey while his good one shot an unspoken warning toward the colonel. “That Keene woman was killed by a degenerate drunk. Two more victims of the demon alcohol.”

  “There was probably a nice rise in donations to the cause after that,” Lean said.

  “There are always casualties in war,” said the colonel. “Her death, though brutal, at least served to remind the public of just what’s at stake and why the tolerance of liquor must be abolished. Maybe in dying she lit the path to abstinence for a few other young women. If so, her death was probably the most honorable thing she ever accomplished. It teaches a lesson too valuable to be lost. That was my only interest in that matter.”

  “Which doesn’t explain the later interest in Boxcar Annie, or money heading from here to McGrath, a known whiskey smuggler.”

  “I do not associate with either of those types of individuals. No society can prosper in which the ignorant, the depraved, and the vicious associate on equal terms with the sober, the virtuous, and the learned. I associate strictly with a distinct class in society to which neither McGrath nor those women belong.”

  “All men are equal under the law, Colonel,” Grey said.

  “The laws of man are written by men beholden to the politics of the day. But there is a deeper truth, a law beyond any authored by man.”

  “Gentlemen, you must remember. Some of our soldiers for temperance are just that, soldiers.” Simon Gould’s one living eye flashed between the detectives’ faces. “They are not saints. So it is not outside the imagination to think that one of our men, in a moment of weakness, acting as soldiers do, might have shown some personal interest in this Annie woman. A soldier’s simple indiscretion. There may have been some action taken to keep the embarrassing episode quiet. Colonel Blanchard would know nothing about that, of course.”

  Lean looked at the colonel and watched the internal struggle play out for a few seconds. It was distasteful to admit such conduct by one of his men; it reflected directly on him as the commanding officer, a role he was unable to abdicate. Finally, however, Blanchard concluded that it was less damning than whatever the truth was, and he nodded his agreement.

  “If there was some type of indiscretion, I don’t see why it needs to be made public. I would find the man out myself and deal with him personally. A bit of military justice is much more efficient than that offered by the demands of a misinformed public.”

  “I must say it sounds as if you have taken a more militaristic tone than many of the temperance speakers I’ve heard,” Grey said.

  “Make no mistake, Mr. Grey, there is a war on, and the stakes are the greatest imaginable: the souls of our children and the fabric of our country.”

  “Your own son assists in your work, I take it,” Grey said.

  The colonel folded his arms across his chest, his chin pointing at Grey. “I have no son.”

  “Then who’s the young man in the photographs?” Grey picked up one of the framed pictures on the shelf in which the colonel and a boy displayed poles and hooked fish.

  “He is no longer with us.” Colonel Blanchard walked over to the shelves, took the picture, and set it facedown without looking at it.

  “I’m sorry to hear that. How did he die?” Lean asked.

  Simon Gould started to object, but the colonel silenced him with a raised finger. “My son suffered from a weakness of character. He was given to flights of fancy, unwilling to accept certain difficult realities. Let’s just say that this inability to bear up against the hard truths of life proved his undoing.”

  “With all due respect,” Grey said, “you display a less-than-sympathetic regard for the boy.”

  “It is the nature of things. I take it you are of a scientific bent, Mr. Grey.”

  Grey nodded.

  “Well then, you will be glad to hear that I share an appreciation for the theories of Mr. Darwin. Nature’s promulgation of those most worthy to carry on the species and all that. The weak are necessarily culled from the herd. This is a point where science and
faith need not argue; the theory applies to the slow of foot and also to the morally unfit. Unpleasant to hear, perhaps, but vital to the continuation of our race.” He looked at Grey with a smile. “By which I mean the civilized races of mankind, of course.”

  Grey returned the smile.

  “As a gangrenous foot must be taken to save a leg, so must degenerates be removed from society. And so it is true of the political body—the cancer of slavery, that moral blight that so tormented our nation’s very soul. There was no alternative to war if our country was to be saved. And thus it is now with liquor, the greatest threat our society has ever faced.”

  Grey selected a text from the shelf. “Then you agree with Mr. Darwin’s cousin as well. Galton’s ideas about the inherent deficiencies of certain peoples. Some have argued in favor of the forced sterilization of habitual drunkards, imbeciles, and the like. I’ve even heard the argument advanced in the case of certain races—say, American Indians.”

  “The developments out west over the past fifteen years lend credence to Mr. Galton’s theory on the ultimate fate of the Indian. Of course, that destiny need not apply to every individual. Take you, Mr. Grey. You obviously have been blessed to inherit the stronger traits of your white ancestry and would clearly fall within that class of Indians who are properly integrated into the civilized population.”

  “How kind of you to say.”

  “Colonel?” Simon Gould held his pocketwatch in his hand.

  “Yes, thank you, Gould.” Blanchard turned his attention back to the detectives. “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen. I have important matters to attend to. And an hour’s idleness is as bad as an hour’s drunkenness.”

  As they went downstairs to the exit, Lean asked, “What was all that about Indians?”

  Grey waved his walking stick in the air. “Just a sample of the unchecked idiocy common to parlor philosophers. Those who have trouble distinguishing between windows and mirrors.”