The Salem Witch Society

by K. N. Shields

  Lean’s memory was that the boy had hardly ever acknowledged their old cat when it was alive, but he nodded and said, “You should listen to Mommy.”

  “Do you love God?”

  “Yes,” Lean said with a smile.

  “How do you? What do you do?”

  Lean considered this for a moment, how to most simply explain the concept. “You try to live like God would want you to. Try to help people. Doing right by your family and others. Doing right, period.”

  “That’s it?”

  Lean bent his shoulders forward, bringing himself down closer to his son’s face. “No, I suppose there’s more to it. I’d say loving God means trusting him. Opening your heart to him, so you can be saved. It means you let his love into your heart.”

  “Inside you?” Owen giggled with delight and clutched at his shirt like he was having himself a friendly little heart attack. “Can you feel God’s love when it’s inside you?”

  Lean smiled and nodded.

  “What’s it feel like?”

  “I guess it feels like hope.” Lean reach over and pulled Owen close. The boy giggled again and tried to squirm away, but Lean held on. “Hope that everyone else loves him too. No matter what your eyes tell you.”

  A sharp knock at the door announced Grey’s arrival. Emma took his hat and walking stick before trying to excuse herself from the room with Owen, a process delayed by the boy’s interest in, and obvious disapproval of, the visitor. Grey seated himself at the table, placed his bag on the table, and revealed a satisfied smile.

  “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming. That we’d hit a dead end,” Lean said.

  “Sorry. I had a few other matters to check on at the Argus.”

  “So? You found something.”

  “Indeed.” Grey set out a handwritten page. “I took the liberty of copying the original.”

  Lean read it aloud, careful to not let his voice carry. “‘Agnes Blanchard, formerly Millner, devoted wife and mother, went home to the Lord after a brief illness. She was buried in Evergreen Cemetery on August seventh.’” He looked up. “That’s the day before Old Stitch was burned out.”

  “Read on,” said Grey.

  “‘The daughter of Clement and Adele Millner, she was married on June twenty-third, 1857, to Ambrose Blanchard.’” Lean stared at the page for a moment. “The colonel?”

  “Our very own war hero, crusader for temperance, and secret correspondent with rum smuggler McGrath on subjects related to the death of Maggie Keene.”

  “This isn’t good.”

  “On the contrary,” Grey said, “it’s excellent news. Finally we see a connection. Colonel Blanchard is our first solid link in this muddled picture of murder and witchery.” There was a sound from the parlor, and Grey lowered his voice. “The colonel’s wife dies. Reportedly of some concoction made by this Old Stitch, or Black Lucy, or whatever nom de guerre she was employing at the time.” Grey slid the paper back into his bag. “Two days later, Old Stitch’s family was attacked, one son killed, and their home burned to the ground in apparent retribution for the death of Mrs. Blanchard. Twenty years later, Stitch, who is a reputed witch, is dead and Maggie Keene’s pinned to the earth. A gruesome death that her killer thought uniquely suited to a witch.”

  As Grey paused to draw a breath, Lean picked up the thread. “And McGrath was taking payments to protect Boxcar Annie because she knew something about the murder of Maggie Keene. Whose death is linked in a chain with those of Hannah Easler of Scituate and Lizzie Madson.”

  Grey smiled. “The colonel and his temperance union have just assumed primary importance in our investigation of all three murders. How Old Stitch’s own death, in February, fits into this equation remains unclear.”

  49

  The next day, while the two detectives waited for Helen, Grey fixed himself a cup of tea. Lean wandered across the consulting room to Grey’s desk. There were various pages and books on Salem and on temperance movements. A small, yellowed article, set aside from the others, caught Lean’s eye. The headline read DROWNED MAN PULLED FROM RIVER. The story related that Joseph Poulin, an Indian, was found by searchers combing the riverbank. He had been missing for a day, and it was supposed that he accidentally fell into the waters. Lean glanced at the date: April 22, 1867. He recalled Grey’s mentioning his father by name when they visited with Chief White Eagle after the brawl at Camp Ellis. Embarrassed to be snooping into Grey’s personal affairs, Lean moved away.

  He busied himself with studying the titles on the bookshelves lining the wall. Lean noticed a volume of collected essays by the English scientist Francis Galton. Recognizing the name from their meeting with Colonel Blanchard, he flipped through the pages.

  Then he glanced at the clock. “She’s late.”

  “The cemetery will wait for us,” answered Grey as he returned to his desk. “The people we’re looking for there certainly aren’t going anywhere. Besides, Mrs. Prescott’s message indicated some urgency. I think her ongoing research has finally revealed something.”

  Lean returned his attention to an essay titled “Hereditary Character and Talent” and smiled. “I think Colonel Blanchard may have been onto something with all his talk about Galton’s theories on Indians.”

  That was enough to grab Grey’s attention.

  Lean cleared his throat. “On Indians he writes, ‘The men, and in a less degree the women, are naturally cold, melancholic, patient, and taciturn. … The American Indians are eminently non-gregarious. They nourish a sullen reserve. …’” Lean paused and looked directly at Grey, then slowly repeated the words: “‘A sullen reserve.’”

  He tried to keep a straight face as he read on. “‘… and show little sympathy with each other, even when in great distress. … They are strangely taciturn. When not engaged in action they will sit whole days in one posture without opening their lips, and wrapped up in their narrow thoughts.’

  “Ah, but don’t despair, Grey, here’s a good bit.” Lean grinned and raised a finger. “‘On the other hand, their patriotism and local attachments are strong, and they have an astonishing sense of personal dignity.’ Unfortunately, it’s not enough to save you. Mr. Galton advises that ‘the nature of the American Indians appears to contain the minimum of affectionate and social qualities compatible with the continuance of their race.’” He slammed the cover closed.

  Grey regarded him, expressionless, for a moment. “The character of an entire continent of people capable of summary in a single paragraph. Further proof of Galton’s myopic views. Utter nonsense.” He shook his head and tried, unsuccessfully, to return his attention to his papers before adding, “A man will always be defined by his choices; that will always be the final truth of the matter, regardless of his ancestry.”

  Lean opened his mouth but heard the sound of the front door closing downstairs before he could speak. He shelved Galton and hurried across the room to open the door just as Helen came rushing in, carrying a bag overstuffed with papers.

  “Welcome, Helen; good to see you again.” Lean said. “And now that we’re all here, I can call to order this first official meeting of the Salem Witch Society.”

  Helen placed her hat on the rack by the door. “Oh, I like that. A nice ring to it.”

  “Yes, and very timely as well.” Grey craned his neck and contemplated the ceiling. “Only just this morning I was despairing of our investigative prospects and our inability to adequately title our collective effort to find this homicidal madman. But now that you’ve provided the clever sobriquet that we have been so sorely lacking, we might actually be able to solve this matter. Thank you, Deputy.”

  “Please, think nothing of it,” Lean said, clearly pleased to have annoyed Grey.

  “Mrs. Prescott, I pray you at least have something that might actually contribute to our inquiry.”

  “Your question about Witchtrot Hill. The answer is the Reverend George Burroughs.” She brushed past Lean with a distracted smile and set her bag on the table.
>
  “Reverend?” Lean said.

  “Yes. Shocking, isn’t it? That they would go and hang a minister. One of their own, actually; he preached in Salem Village for a short while, back before the witchcraft trials.”

  “And all of that?” Grey pointed at the stacks of paper that Helen had settled into piles on the table.

  “Everything there is to know about George Burroughs. Every mention made of him from every available source in the library. It’s really a most fascinating story.”

  Lean stared at the assortment of pages; Helen had obviously put a great deal of work into the matter of George Burroughs. “Before we’re forced to wade through that whole pile, you’re certain that this Burroughs warrants all that effort?”

  Helen’s eyes lit up. “Let’s see what you think.” She pulled a page from the top of her stack. “This is my copy of the deposition of Ann Putnam, testifying on May fifth, 1692, against George Burroughs:

  “‘I saw the apparition of Mr. George Burroughs, who grievously tortured me and urged me to write in his book, which I refused, and he told me that he was above a witch, for he was a conjurer. Then he told me that his two first wives would appear and tell me a great many lies but I should not believe them. Then immediately appeared the forms of two women in winding-sheets, and napkins about their heads, at which I was greatly affrighted. They turned their faces towards Mr. Burroughs and looked very red and angry and told him that he had been a cruel man to them, and that their blood did cry for vengeance against him, and also told him that they should be clothed with white robes in Heaven when he should be cast into Hell. And immediately he vanished away. The two pale women told me that they were Mr. Burroughs’ two first wives and that he had murdered them. One told me that he stabbed her under the left arm and put a piece of sealing-wax on the wound. And she pulled aside the winding-sheet and showed me the place.’”

  “My God … Lizzie Madson,” Lean said.

  “I know we’ll have to read the whole lot, but perhaps you could give us a quick overview,” Grey said to Helen.

  Helen sighed and retrieved a page of notes. “Graduated from Harvard in 1670. He lived and preached in Maine both before and after his time in Salem, though he was never actually ordained as a minister.”

  “Was he from here?” Lean asked.

  Helen shook her head. “Upham reports him as born in Scituate.”

  “Scituate? Really?” Lean threw a surprised glance in Grey’s direction. “What are the chances?”

  “He was preaching here in 1676 and seems to have been highly regarded. It was still called Casco, just a frontier outpost, when the entire settlement was overrun by an Indian assault. Thirty-two inhabitants were killed or carried into captivity. Mr. Burroughs led a party that escaped to one of the islands.”

  Grey went to a bookcase and began examining the contents. Helen paused, but Lean shrugged and motioned for her to continue.

  “In 1680, Burroughs preached at Salem Village, where he inherited a contentious parish quarrel. Just two years later, discord and financial issues caused him to give up on his position there and return to Maine. Seems he preferred the Indians at Casco Bay to the litigious people in Salem.”

  “Smart man,” Grey said without bothering to look up from the book he’d selected.

  “Burroughs remained here at Casco until 1690. Apart from surviving the first destruction in 1676, he also had the foresight to leave Portland again just before the town was overrun by the Indians and French in 1690. Hundreds of other residents later surrendered after being promised safe passage, only to be massacred outside the fort walls by the Abenakis. Burroughs’s ability to continually escape the Indians unharmed was viewed with great suspicion, especially by those, like Mercy Lewis, whose own families suffered repeated losses.

  “He relocated to Wells, where he preached until his accusation by the afflicted girls at Salem led to his arrest. On May fourth, 1692, unaware of any allegations of wrongdoing, he was seized from his family’s dinner table and hurried down to Salem Village to face the charges against him.” Helen flipped ahead through the papers.

  “And here is where the story leads us: that trip down to Salem. After the arrest, the constables led him through the woods, and a terrible storm blew up. Lightning smashed right down on the treetops, casting an eerie glow with electricity dancing all around them. The constables felt their horses lifted up by the swirling winds so that their hooves no longer touched the ground. Yet the horses never bolted, just kept on at their same old trot, carried along in the very air. The jailers feared for their lives, but Burroughs never flinched. Upon reaching Salem, the constables reported that the wizard’s spell had called the fiends of the air to his aid and they had an army of devils at their backs the entire way. The hill where the storm occurred is still known today as Witchtrot Hill.”

  Lean considered this for a moment. “So what does that give us? We already knew our man is obsessed with Salem witch-trial victims. The male ones anyway. First he’s using their names as aliases, now he’s placed a body at a site named after Burroughs. It’s almost like he’s paying some manner of tribute to them all.”

  “Scituate and Witchtrot Hill are both connected with Burroughs,” Grey said. “He’s the focal point.”

  “It makes sense, as far as a Salem connection,” Helen said. “He was in some ways the central character in the accusations. He was the alleged ringleader of the witches. The one who supposedly turned all the others into witches in the first place. The afflicted girls get the attention, and we always think of the witches as women, but to the Puritans’ narrow-minded view of the world there had to be a man behind it all. The danger was so great, the damage to the community so severe, it made sense to them that the corruption had to have been on a grand scale. And what betrayal could be worse? The devil had turned one of their own ministers against them.”

  Grey nodded. “Mrs. Prescott, would you be so kind as to bring my copy of Cram’s 1890 Atlas. It’s there on the table by you.”

  Lean joined Grey by the desk and glanced down to see that he was studying a map entitled “Plan of Falmouth Neck, Now Portland, 1690.” The image on the desk showed a much thinner version of Portland Neck, heavily wooded and spotted with several areas of marsh and wetlands. Three dozen houses were marked, along with various numbered reference points, including two garrisons, Fort Loyal, the burying ground that was now the Eastern Cemetery, and George Bramhall’s farm below the Western Promenade.

  “What do you see?”

  “Nothing yet,” Grey said, “but I hope to see the Reverend George Burroughs.”

  “I don’t think the map is quite to that scale,” Lean said with a smirk. “Out with it, Grey.”

  “Your comment just now. The body on Witchtrot Hill as a ‘tribute’ to Burroughs. What if each murder was some sort of tribute?”

  “What makes you think—”

  “Consider. Hannah Easler murdered in Scituate. The birthplace of George Burroughs.”

  “I have seen other references saying he was born in London,” Helen said.

  Grey waved the argument away. “We are dealing with a man willing to kill for some reason connected to the two-hundred-year-old trials of witches. What matters to him is what he believes in that twisted mind of his. And he’s read that Burroughs was born in Scituate.”

  “Fair enough,” Lean said.

  “Now, we know murder victim three was subsequently moved to Marsh’s house and then the family tomb. But it appears she was actually killed at a site made notorious by Burroughs’s presence.”

  “Fair enough again,” said Lean. “But Maggie Keene? The Portland Company wasn’t there two hundred years ago.”

  “Which brings us full circle to one of the original questions posed in this case. Why did the killer remove the floorboards, setting the body directly upon the earth beneath? He was never interested in killing her inside the Portland Company. It was always the ground underneath that was important.”

  “Here you are.�
� Helen handed over the atlas and set it on the desk. Grey flipped ahead until he located the city of Portland, Maine. He set his right index finger on the 1890 map in a blank space at the East End below Fore Street, where the Portland Company now stood. Then he pointed with his left index finger to the 1690 map.

  “The early settlement was concentrated here, at the waterfront near the East End. Notice the only four streets in the town are clustered there. A very short Queen Street, which is now Congress, forms the upper boundary. Broad, now India Street, joins this to the waterfront. Running along the shore, we have Fore Street until it crosses Broad and becomes Thames. That continues east and ends at …” Grey ran his finger an inch along the map to where Thames Street ended.

  Lean’s eyes darted back and forth between the identical locations. On the 1890 map, it was the Portland Company. The same site on the 1690 map was marked with the number “2.” He glanced down to the reference key at the lower left corner of the 1690 map.

  “Number 2. The Meeting House.” He looked at Helen, then met Grey’s eyes. “The town minister.”

  Grey nodded at Lean. “The Reverend George Burroughs. Our man is committing murders in a pattern derived from the life of George Burroughs.”

  50

  The carriage, borrowed once again from Dr. Steig, rolled downhill on Green Street, past the smokestacks of the Casco Tanning Company, where the wide expanse of Deering Oaks Park came into view. Grey seemed lost in thought, and Lean’s eye was drawn to the park. Midday strollers dotted the carriage paths winding among the tall trees. In the large duck pond, couples in swan-shaped paddleboats steered around the spray of the fountain. Grassy fingertips of land along the pond were crowded with picnickers. A sudden regret gripped Lean as doubt over this seemingly endless investigation came creeping along the edges of his mind. He wished he were in the park now, watching Owen throw bits of bread over the heads of the greedy duck vanguard, to the hungry stragglers. Instead, he was on his way to a cemetery, looking to the dead for a clue, some thin thread connected to the live phantom they were chasing.