The Transcendental Murder hk-1

by Jane Langton

  *16*

  Crisis is a Hair

  Toward which forces creep

  Past which forces retrograde —Emily Dickinson

  One of the tourists from Texas had longer legs than Patrolman Vine. He brushed past him and bounded down the path. "I'm a doctor," he hollered over his shoulder. Ralph Chope was the representative of a floor machinery company in Houston, but he had been a medical corpsman in the Korean War, and if there was one thing he knew how to do in the medical line, it was tell if a poor devil was dead or not. By the time Patrolman Vine came pounding up, Chope had administered his tests on the body, and had rolled it over and was groping with his fingers in the wound.

  "Is he dead?"

  "He sure is. Jeez, look at that. The ball went all the way through him and out the other side, almost." The Texan held up something between two fingers. "Looky here. That's a regular old-fashioned musket ball. Say, this sure is some show you're puttin' on here."

  Patrolman Vine didn't think that was funny. He took the musket ball and looked at it, then wrapped it up in a clean handkerchief and put it in his pocket. He stared at the corpse, then wheeled and looked sharply at a growing audience of Texas tourists, the bus driver and the woman with the baby carriage. "Okay," he said loudly. "Get back, now. Don't anybody touch anything."

  *17*

  The village appeared to me a great news room ... These are the coarsest mills, in which all gossip is first rudely digested or cracked up before it is emptied into finer and more delicate hoppers... —Henry Thoreau

  Letitia Jellicoe, acting as a substitute guide for the holiday in the Old Manse, had arrived with a young couple at the upstairs room which both Emerson and Hawthorne had used as a study. She pointed to the window that looked down toward the bridge and started her spiel. "You will see written on the glass with Mrs. Hawthorne's diamond the words 'Man's accidents are GOD'S purposes.' " The young couple drifted toward the window, but Mrs. Jellicoe, suddenly sharpening and lengthening her focus, pounced at the window and got there first. Wasn't that a policeman running down toward the bridge? Was he chasing that man? "Thief, thief!" twittered Mrs. Jellicoe, and abandoning her charges she ran downstairs and across the field, crying, "Stop, thief!" at the top of her lungs. Broadcasting exotic and shocking pieces of information was meat and potatoes to Mrs. Jellicoe. Coming up against a crowd of people she elbowed her way to the front, and sucked in the whole frightful scene.

  "That's Ernest Goss, isn't it?" she said sharply. "Did somebody...?"

  Arthur Furry spoke up then, with the information that was trembling on his lips. "It was Paul Revere. I mean, you know, not Paul Revere but that other one, that rides up in the parade. I heard a shot as I was coming up back there behind the Minuteman, and this man on a horse with a costume on, you know, and a wig, he rode almost on top of me, jumping over the fence..."

  Everybody stared at Arthur. "And he-he said 'musket,' I heard him myself..."

  "Who?" said Patrolman Vine. "Who said 'musket'?"

  Arthur pointed to the dead man. "Him. He did."

  Patrolman Vine squinted at Arthur. Then he put his big hand on Arthur's arm and pulled him forward. Arthur, staring up at him respectfully, began to be aware for the first time of the glory that was to be his. But then the policeman looked away from Arthur and spoke to Mrs. Jellicoe. "You've got a phone in there at the Old Manse? Would you get the station on the line and ask them to send some more men down here and the District Medical Examiner? Tell them there's been an accident, it looks like someone's been shot. You know the number? Okay."

  Mrs. Jellicoe was off like a hare. She ran all the way back to the house and breathlessly did as she was told. Then she hung up the phone and rolled her codfish eyes up at the ceiling. The officer hadn't told her she was not to telephone anybody else. Why shouldn't she notify poor Mrs. Goss? After all, someone should tell the poor woman, and she, Letitia Jellicoe, might as well have the painful task. Mrs. Jellicoe stared at the telephone. She loved its rubbery black feel. In her grasp it was an instrument of steel. Quickly she called up Elizabeth Goss, informed her tactfully that her son had murdered her husband with a musket ball at the North Bridge, reduced her to hysterics, and hung up gently, clicking her tongue sympathetically against the top of her dentures. Now, should she run back to see what was happening? Or perhaps she should take the time to make one or two more calls. She mustn't be selfish, after all...

  The crowd beside the grave of the British soldiers was increasing. Patrolman Vine had all he could do to keep them from pressing forward and trampling the ground around the body. Arthur Furry, standing patiently to one side, looked modestly at the ground. He, Arthur Furry, had practically witnessed a murder, a real murder. There would be pictures and headlines. BOY SCOUT DICSOVERS BODY! Arthur's eyes widened. Whatever happened, he mustn't forget to do his very best at all times. He mustn't forget that he would be representing Troop 296 of Acton, in fact the whole entire Boy Scout movement. It sure was lucky he'd been so late. It was funny, but yesterday when he was supposed to be cleaning up his room, it was almost like something had told him he shouldn't do it, he should watch TV instead. It was almost like a voice. Arthur glanced gratefully at the body of the man he had seen in the agony of death. But that was uncomfortable. His eyes slid up to the inscription set into the wall above the body. The inscription lamented with condescending sympathy the two British redcoats who had fallen at the bridge.

  THEY CAME THREE THOUSAND MILES, AND DIED,

  TO KEEP THE PAST UPON ITS THRONE;

  UNHEARD, BEYOND THE OCEAN TIDE,

  THEIR ENGLISH MOTHER MADE HER MOAN.

  *18*

  Baptismal waters from the Head above

  These babes I foster daily are to me;

  I dip my pitcher in these living springs

  And draw, from depths below, sincerity. —Bronson Alcott

  Freddy was looking for something that would be nice to play with, like a tractor engine or a big greasy battery. There was nothing in the barn where his father and John were tooling up the corn planter. Freddy had just learned to walk, so he toddled out the door and wandered down behind it toward the red-painted shed where the cider press was, sitting down occasionally with a plop and getting up again. The door of the shed was around on the other side, facing the river. Freddy, his balloon wobbling on the end of the string on his wrist, started around the shed. Then he stopped.

  "Horsie," he said. There was a man sitting high up in the sky on a horse. A funny man. A funny lady? The top of the man was like a lady, a funny lady. The lady looked back at Freddy. Then the lady turned up the sides of her mouth, and beckoned with one finger. Freddy trotted forward. The lady reached out and snapped the string of Freddy's balloon. The balloon started to sail up into the sky. The rest of the string fell down over Freddy's arm to the ground. Freddy looked at the string, unbelieving. Then he looked up into the sky at his disappearing balloon. He reached up for it and started to cry.

  Gwen, going out of the house with a basket of wet wash, saw a big red bird in the wrangle of elm branches below the barn. No, it was too big for a bird, and it was floating up out of the tree now into the sky. It was Freddy's balloon. Poor Freddy. She put the basket down, hearing the telephone ring, and ran across the road. Freddy wasn't hard to find. He had gotten away from Tom and was standing beside the door of the cider shed, hollering his heart out, pointing up into the sky at the little red dot that had been his balloon. The long string dangled from his wrist to the ground. Gwen picked him up. There was a good three feet of string left. How had Freddy managed to break the balloon off at the top? Perhaps he had caught it on the edge of the shed roof, or on a nail or something. He was bellowing about a horsie and a funny lady. Gwen tried to comfort him, but he was inconsolable. When Gwen got back to the house, Grandmaw met her at the door, her face strange.

  "Ernest Gross is dead," she said. "He was shot."

  "Who?" said Gwen idiotically. "I mean, who shot him?"

  "Someone on a horse, they thin
k, dressed like Sam Prescott."

  "Funny lady," roared Freddy. "Horsie!"

  Gwen looked at Freddy, her lips tight. Not Charley? Then she looked grimly at Grandmaw. "I'm not going to have him bothered. I don't care who..."

  Freddy was sucking his thumb, his cranky head on his mother's shoulder. He would be asleep in a minute. "No, of course not," said Grandmaw.

  *19*

  Here lies an honest man,

  Rear-Admiral Van.

  *

  Faith, then ye have

  Two in one grave,

  For in his favor,

  Here too lies the Engraver. —Henry Thoreau

  In 1846 when Henry Thoreau spent the night in jail as the guest of Sam Staples, the Concord Town Jail was a modest boxlike affair standing on ground now occupied by a parking lot behind Vanderhoof's Hardware Store on Main Street. By the nineteen-sixties the police department had grown to a force of twenty men, with a new headquarters on Walden Street shared by the Fire Department. The police occupied the right half of the brick building, with their own laboratory, dark room, firing range, parking meter repair facility, three radio-equipped automobiles and one walking mobile unit. Both Fire and Police Departments shared the use of the short-wave radio antenna. It was a good group of men, displaying the discreet and iron virtue of the best class of blue-coated law enforcers in the land. All of them were great broad-chested men except their Chief, James Flower. Jimmy was nine inches under the required minimum height, and he had worked his way into the Force and up to his present position through personality, competence and a special dispensation of the Legislature.

  Thirty seconds after Sergeant Luther Ordway had hung up on Mrs. Jellicoe, a small parade of cars was turning out onto Walden Street, with Jimmy Flower already ticking off on his fingers a list of things to do. At the bridge he took calm and swift control. Patrolman Harold Vine passed on to him Arthur Furry's information and described the examination of the body by Mr. Ralph Chope of Houston, Texas. Chief Flower asked a few questions of Arthur Furry and Ralph Chope. He looked at Arthur's bright eye and flabby, pale face and directed that he be sent home in a patrol car. Then, after examining the body of Ernest Goss, he walked along the shore, looking at the ground. He peered across the bridge to inspect the place where the horseman had jumped the fence. He climbed over the fence in another place and walked gingerly around the area where the footprints of several hundred Boy Scouts were overprinted with the marks of a horse's hooves. Then he came back again the same way and did a number of things very quickly. He gave directions to the photographers, he organized a search of the immediate area for the weapon or for anything else of interest, and he dispatched Sergeant Silverson with two men to drive around by way of Liberty Street and attempt to pick up the trail at the point where Arthur had indicated the rider had left the field. He directed Sergeant Ordway to take charge of the on-the-spot investigation. Then he took the arm of Sergeant Bernard Shrubsole. "Let's go up to Charley's," he said. "We'd better round up Philip, too. There was some sort of hanky-panky with the Battery cannon this morning." On the way to the car they passed District Medical Examiner Walter Allen, hurrying up with his bag. Dr. Allen nodded without speaking.

  It was quarter of two as they drove up Barrett's Mill Road past the Hand place and turned into the long drive that curved around in front of the Goss house. "Look, there he is," said Sergeant Shrubsole. Charley Goss was walking up from the barn with a hurried, distorted, limping gait. He came hobbling to the car, looking distraught, and leaned down to the window.

  "I know what you've come for," he said. "I'll come with you. My mother isn't well. I don't want her to see you."

  "All right, Charley," said Chief Rower, his voice gruff "Climb in. But some of my boys will be along shortly to look around. "Where's your brother?"

  Charley climbed in the back seat and sat down by Bernard Shrubsole. He was wearing khaki trousers and a white shirt and a pair of dirty tennis shoes. He was shivering. "Philip? Oh, I suppose he's s-still at the Rod and Gun Club with the Battery, having lunch."

  "Well, I'll get out there, Bernie, and you can go on and take Charley to the station. One of the boys will bring me back." He looked back at Charley. "Look, go in and get your coat."

  "No," said Charley, "I'm all right."

  "Now, Charley," said Jimmy Flower, "you know what your rights are, don't you? To an attorney, I mean. I just want to be sure you..."

  "An attorney?" said Charley. He was shivering uncontrollably. "Why should I need an attorney? I'm perfectly willing to admit that I shot my f-f-father myself."

  *20*

  The station of the parties

  Forbids publicity,

  But Justice is sublimer

  Than arms, or pedigree. —Emily Dickinson

  At the Rod and Gun Club on Strawberry Hill Road the pie a la mode had just been placed on the table, and the members of the Concord Independent Battery were attempting to launch it into a sea of whiskey in which fragments of spaghetti and meatballs and green salad were already bobbing uneasily around. Police Chief Jimmy Flower's sobriety was taken as a profound tragedy and a personal insult. Jimmy was well known as a good fellow and a worthy citizen—why the heck did he look so grim? Surely he was badly in need of a little refreshment. Refreshment was thrust upon him. Chief Flower refused refreshment. Then Harvey Finn, looking him over critically, took querulous exception to Chief Flower's rubbers. He had never, he said, seen a more teetotalling, puritanical pair of rubbers in his life. "Take 'em off," he commanded, weaving imperiously across the floor.

  "Take 'em off, take 'em off, ree-move 'em," sang Jerry Toplady.

  Chief Flower ignored Harvey Finn. He crossed the room in his rubbers and sat down at the table beside Philip Goss. He put his chin in his small hand and looked at Philip. Philip's face was highly colored. He leaned back in his chair unsteadily, and looked back at Chief Flower.

  "Where is your father, Philip?" said Chief Flower.

  "My father?" said Philip, seeming to think it over. He turned his head around jerkily. "He wazh here a while 'go."

  "He went out, that's right, a while ago, 'n 'e didn' even come back, I guess." Jerry Toplady nodded and nodded. "See? He didn't even eat his dinner."

  "What time did he go out?"

  "Jeez," said Jerry proudly. "I couldn' even see the clock. I was unner the table half 'n hour awready."

  Chief Flower turned back to Philip. "Your father is dead, Philip. He was killed by someone with a musket ball at the North Bridge a little while ago. A witness saw a man dressed like Sam Prescott riding away on horseback immediately after the shot was fired."

  Philip Goss lost all his high color abruptly. He stood up suddenly and stooped over and started to run his hand over his mouth. Chief Flower started up out of his chair, then sat down again. Philip was going to the bathroom to be sick. After a while he came back and leaned weakly against the wall, looking very white indeed. The members of the Battery looked at one another in shocked silence.

  "I don't know what you want with me," said Philip coldly. "I know nothing about it. Nor will I answer any questions until I can discuss the matter with George."

  "George?" said Jimmy. "George who?"

  "George Jarvis. My law partner."

  *21*

  When everything that ticked—has stopped— And Space stares all around— —Emily Dickinson

  A bird in the lilac bushes beside the Gosses' front door creaked like a guilty bedspring. Mary hesitated, then rang the bell. She had to find out what was going on. She wasn't prying, was she? She wanted desperately to help.

  Edith came to the door, her hair wild. She put out her hand and grasped Mary's arm. "Come in. I thought you were the doctor for mother. She's in such a dreadful state. Nobody can make anything of it. She doesn't make sense. Oh, isn't it dreadful? How could Charley? Poor Daddy! They're questioning us, Chief Flower and Homer Kelly. Rowena and Mother are in there now. It's my turn next. But I don't know anything. I don't know anything at all. I was
out walking around Annursnac Hill, at the time."

  "It must be awful for all of you. I'm sorry. Did you say Kelly, Homer Kelly?"

  "Yes, you know he's a Lieutenant-Detective for Middlesex County from the District Attorney's office. Didn't you know? Writing books on Emerson is just his hobby, or something."

  Mary didn't know. She was thunderstruck. "Where's Charley?"

  "They're holding him for questioning at the Police Station. Do you think they'll put him in jail? They've got Philip there, too. But they say it was Charley that did it. Oh, isn't it dreadful? How could he have been so foolish? Always so much wilder than Philip. Oh, dear."

  Mary looked at Edith, feeling a little dizzy. She had the odd suspicion that Edith was enjoying herself. Her eyes were big and woeful, her voice almost gleeful. Like those people who read headlines aloud with gloating melancholy: FATHER KILLS SELF, FIVE CHILDREN.

  The door opened and Rowena came out. Homer Kelly held the door open, his hand on the knob. He saw Mary.

  She blurted it out. "I-I didn't know you were a policeman."

  Homer looked tired. He turned away and looked at nothing. "Even Apollo had to plow for King Admetus," he said. His voice was dry.

  He meant, like Bronson Alcott. Jimmy Flower came out, rubbing his hand across his bald head. Invisible inside the room beyond, there was a woman laughing. It was a peculiar, babbling laugh. Rowena looked up at Homer. "Is there anything else I can do to help?" She was wearing black already. No lipstick. Just mascara. Lovely and tragic. Her father was dead, her brother under suspicion, her mother collapsed or something—but Rowena the actress was playing a part, just as Edith was in her clumsier way. Mary asked after Charley.