Murder in the Marsh

by Sara Whitford

  “Well, you ain’t heard all of it yet,” said Adam. “Remember how I was saying that we came back early from Harlowe Creek?”

  Will and Laney both nodded.

  “The reason we came back was we found a corpse out there. A man. He’d been stabbed, too.”

  Laney wrinkled her brow in concern. Will sighed.

  After a moment Will said, “I hate to ask, but did it look like he’d been there long?”

  Adam gave him a look to indicate that it would be best not to elaborate, then said, “I think a few days at least.”

  “Hmph.”

  Will didn’t ask for more information, although Adam knew he probably would have, had Laney not been present.

  “The reason I came out here was just to let y’all know,” said Adam. “Y’all need to keep an eye out. Keep your doors locked. And none of y’all should be traveling alone or on unknown roads.”

  “Tell me something,” said Will. “Was there anything about the body y’all found yesterday that gave any indication of who he was?”

  Adam nodded. “We think so, maybe. There was a wooden canteen near his body that had some initials on it, and on his person there was a silver pocket mirror.”

  “What were the initials?” Will asked.

  “I think it said RJ, but we aren’t even sure if the canteen belonged to the man, or if it belonged to the killer, or who.”

  “And you said there was a mirror,” said Will.

  “Yes, it was in his pocket. It was pretty, but I reckon it was awfully feminine for a man to be carrying it.”

  “True enough,” said Will. “You wouldn’t catch me carrying such a thing.”

  “Did it have any initials?” said Laney. “I know my pocket mirror is engraved with AM. It was my mother’s. Her name was Alice.”

  Adam shook his head. “No, I don’t remember seeing any initials on that. But it was engraved with a hyacinth blossom.”

  “A hyacinth?” Will asked. “Are you sure?”

  Adam nodded.

  “That’s very interesting,” said Will. He looked as if he was suddenly in deep thought about what Adam had just said.

  “What is it?” Laney asked.

  Adam was wondering the same thing.

  “The woman who was robbed south of the Trent—didn’t I tell you what her name is?”

  Adam and Laney both shook their heads.

  “I don’t think you ever mentioned their names,” said Adam.

  “So then you don’t know her first name?” said Will. “Oh, no I don’t suppose you would know. Their names weren’t in the papers at all. They have been keeping it secret as a safeguard for the poor woman.”

  “What was her name?” said Laney.

  “Her name was Hyacinth—Hyacinth Dudley,” said Will. He turned his attention towards Adam. “And I’d say that mirror you all found on that corpse might well have been hers.”

  Adam wrinkled his brow. “Her name really was Hyacinth? I never met anyone with that name before.”

  Will nodded. “I know. Neither had I, but that’s her name.”

  “But hyacinth is such a pretty flower. It might just be a coincidence that one was on the mirror,” said Laney. “I would think it’d be lovely to have a mirror engraved with hyacinth blossoms. They smell like perfume.”

  “They are lovely,” Adam agreed, “but your brother is right. That’s awfully curious how there’d be a dead man in the marsh along Harlowe Creek who’d been stabbed, and who had on his person a silver mirror with a hyacinth blossom engraved into it, and some miles to the north a woman and her husband were robbed and the husband was murdered, and the woman’s name was Hyacinth. What if she uses the flower like you use your initial?”

  “There’s only one way to know for sure,” said Will. “We need to talk to somebody up in Craven County who would know.”

  “Who would that be?” said Adam.

  “I know her family’s attorney,” said Will. “I could find out from him, but it would take a few days to go there and get back, and I really don’t want to leave these ladies alone with a killer on the loose.”

  “I understand,” said Adam. “How about if I go? I can get your cousin to come with me.”

  Laney looked worried. “I don’t know that I like the idea of you traveling that distance right now with a killer on the loose.”

  Adam tilted his head to the side and flashed his dark eyes as he smiled at her.

  “That’s awfully sweet that you’re concerned, but I’m much more concerned about y’all being here without your brother—especially given your sister-in-law’s condition.”

  Laney sighed, then gave him a weak smile and a nod. “I suppose you’re right,” she said.

  Adam did have one question for Will. “Do you think that attorney friend of yours would be willing to talk to me? He doesn’t know me.”

  “He will,” said Will as he stood from where he was sitting and crossed the room to sit at the writing desk. He pulled a sheet of paper from the drawer, along with a quill pen and drying powder. The jar of ink was already on the desk. “I’ll write a letter to send with you. I’ll explain the situation and instruct him to provide any pertinent information in return correspondence, unless he prefers to send a messenger. The most important thing is that we make this information available to him and the sheriff in Craven County.”

  As Adam waited for Will to write the letter, he noticed that Laney seemed very concerned. He moved from his chair to sit next to her on the settee.

  “Don’t worry about me,” he whispered to her. “I can take care of myself.”

  She nodded and gave a tense smile, but Adam could tell that it wasn’t sincere, that she was just putting on a brave face, because she looked sad in spite of the turned-up corners of her mouth. Her eyes looked a little watery, almost like she was on the edge of tears.

  Adam reached over and gave her hand a gentle squeeze, and after a second she squeezed his back. She appeared to be comforted and demurely lowered her eyes.

  Adam smiled at her and then stood and crossed the room to stand near her brother at the desk.

  No candle was lit in the room, so Will took the candlestick that was kept on the desk and he lit it over in the fireplace along the same wall. He brought it back over to the desk and then used it to heat his sealing wax to seal the letter.

  “Take this,” he said, handing the letter to Adam. “You’ll find him at the address I’ve written here.” He pointed to some writing on the outside of the folded letter. “It’s only a few blocks from my own house, and you’re welcome to stay at my house while you’re in town. Just tell Charles Jr. what I’ve sent you for.”

  “And check on Aunt Celie for me,” Laney said. “Tell her I miss her terribly. That we’re about to starve on account of my sorry cooking.”

  Adam looked back at her and laughed. “I don’t know if I ought to tell her all that.”

  “If she wants to come back,” said Will, “and I doubt she will, but if she wants to, it’s fine with me if you bring her back here. I know she worries about Laney, and when she hears about all that’s happened here she might very well want to return.”

  Adam nodded. “Understood.”

  “How will y’all go there?” Laney asked.

  Adam gave a little sigh. “I reckon we’ll go in Emmanuel’s periauger again. Seems like the safest thing to do, especially now. If it came right down to it, I’d rather deal with half-drunk pirates than murderous highwaymen any day.”

  Laney looked concerned that Adam would make light of the situation by saying something like that, but Will just chuckled.

  “I agree with Adam. At least we know a thing or two about pirates, don’t we, Fletcher?”

  Adam crossed the room back over to where Laney had stood near the settee.

  “Don’t worry about us. Just pray that we’ll have safe travels,” Adam told her. “And we’ll be back before you know it.”

  At that
he gave her a wink and a smile. He then took the letter that Will had given him and returned to the warehouse.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “I RECKON YOU NEED TO go on home and pack your things,” Adam said to Martin as he strode back into the living quarters at the warehouse.

  “Huh?” Martin looked up from the table where he was sitting and talking with Boaz. “What are you talking about?”

  “We need to go to New Bern. I’ve got a letter from your cousin that he’s asked me to take to the attorney for that Dudley woman.”

  “Dudley woman? What Dudley woman?” asked Martin.

  “She’s the woman who was robbed, whose husband was killed,” Adam answered.

  “How’d you learn her name?” asked Boaz. “Even Lawson hadn’t been told who she was.”

  “Will learned who she was from a colleague. Those who know her have wanted to keep her name out of the papers, though, for the woman’s safety, since those highwaymen still haven’t been caught.”

  “So what’s this letter about that Will wants us to deliver?” asked Martin.

  “I’m getting to that,” said Adam. He crossed over and pulled up a chair at the table to sit down with them. “Guess what the woman’s first name is.”

  Boaz shrugged and shook his head. “No idea.”

  “Just tell us,” said Martin, increasingly irritated.

  “Hyacinth. Her name is Hyacinth.”

  Boaz’s eyes grew large. “Oh really?”

  Adam nodded. “Yep.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” said Martin.

  “Don’t you remember?” said Adam. “The silver mirror that corpse had in his pocket—it had a hyacinth blossom on it.”

  Martin’s eyes also grew large and he slapped his leg. “I’ll be damned! You’re right!”

  “Well, you know more than me,” said Boaz. “I talked to Lawson, and he’s going up to Harlowe Creek tomorrow with a couple of men to see that corpse for himself, but I was going to ask you to go with him. I reckon if you need to go to New Bern, though, I can just send Jones with him.”

  Martin rolled his eyes, then looked at Adam and chuckled. “Oh, Jones’ll just love that.”

  “I don’t care if he loves it or not,” said Boaz. “Only three of y’all who went out there yesterday are still in town. That Ben fella has taken off, and somebody needs to show Lawson and his men where that body is.”

  “Did he have any ideas about Ed Willis?” Adam asked.

  Boaz shook his head. “Unfortunately, no, but he did say that he’d probably be able to guess at how long that body’s been in the creek when he sees it. He also said that depending on how damaged the body is, even though he won’t be able to tell for sure, he ought to at least be able to rule in or rule out whether or not the knife that killed that man up at Harlowe Creek could be the same kind that killed Ed Willis.”

  “How in the world is he gonna do that?” asked Martin.

  Boaz shrugged. “Don’t know exactly. He said somehow they’d be able to look at the size of the wound and that would tell them whether they were at least made by similar-type weapons.”

  “Does he think it’s likely that both men were killed by the same person?” Adam asked.

  “He thinks they were,” said Boaz, “but not because of any evidence he has—says it’s just a feeling in his gut. It ain’t like we’re livin in some big city where there’s a bunch of crime. You get two stabbins and they happen ten miles apart—first stabbins we’ve even seen around these parts in I don’t know how many years—what are the chances that they’re unrelated?”

  “That’s true,” said Martin.

  “Mm-hmm. Makes sense to me, too,” Adam agreed.

  “And I gotta tell y’all somethin else,” said Boaz. “It’s real interestin about that woman up in Craven County bein named Hyacinth Dudley and that flower on the mirror was a hyacinth. Lawson said he has a feelin that the corpse up in the marsh was either robbed by those same bandits, or he might even be one of those bandits. Said it would make sense to him.”

  “Interesting,” said Adam. “It wouldn’t surprise me, but what made him say that?”

  “The way Lawson figures it, that woman and her husband were attacked a couple of weeks ago. If those men were headed south rather than north, then they’d have passed right through here. That Dudley man got killed while they were robbin him and his wife. So it sounds like they started out as thieves, not killers. Looks like Ed Willis was also killed for money. Y’all said that corpse had nothing on him except the mirror you found and the canteen nearby. It don’t make sense that someone would be just wandering through the swamp with empty pockets and nothin on him. Now they might’ve come across another traveler and robbed him blind and killed him—and that could be who you found—or they coulda got into a fight somewhere along the way and one of ’em killed the other one.”

  “Why do you figure whoever killed that man in the swamp didn’t take the mirror, too, then?” asked Adam.

  “Don’t ask me,” said Boaz. “Mighta just been a careless mistake.”

  “So when do you want to leave for New Bern?” Martin asked Adam.

  “First thing in the morning, I reckon.”

  “It’s gonna be damned cold out on the water, you know that,” Martin said.

  Adam nodded. “Yes, it will, but would you rather deal with cold weather or cold-blooded murderers?”

  “Fair enough,” said Martin.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ADAM AND MARTIN ULTIMATELY AGREED to leave at dawn. In fact, Martin and Jones both came and stayed in the living quarters at the warehouse the night before so they’d all be ready to go at first light.

  Emmanuel was so happy to have them all there and safe in his warehouse that he got out of bed to visit with them all. Boaz and Adam informed him of everything they had learned while he had been out of commission. He was relieved to know that investigations were underway and that there may be helpful clues overlapping between the cases.

  He also was happy to have all of “his boys” there so they could spend a bit of time together remembering their friend Ed Willis. It was only too bad that Elliot and Joe weren’t around as well.

  “Another thing’s sure,” said Emmanuel. “You all will be quite safe here together. I dare any madman to try and do violence against this sturdy crew.”

  After a night of reminiscing about Ed Willis and formulating ideas about how the perpetrators might be apprehended, they turned in early so those who would be traveling could get an early start. Martin and Jones slept on quilt pallets in the sitting room, while Emmanuel, Boaz, and Adam all slept in their own rooms.

  The next morning, when Emmanuel gave the wake-up call, Adam wasted no time climbing out of bed and getting ready to make the trip to New Bern with Martin.

  Boaz had made a pot of coffee and fried up a mess of bacon and eggs in the big dutch oven—enough for everybody to have a good breakfast before going their separate ways.

  Jones took off to meet the constable down near the magistrate’s office, which was very near the Topsail Tavern.

  Adam and Martin had a much longer trip ahead of them, so after getting their provisions ready to go, they put on wool hats, gloves, and several layers of clothing. Just before they left, Emmanuel pulled Adam aside and gave him a hand-stitched men’s pocketbook that featured a colorful design of a ship at sea. It was shaped like an envelope and had two pockets inside—an empty one for special papers, and another in which Emmanuel had put several dollars for Adam to use to fund the journey. “E. Rogers” was embroidered on the flap.

  “Be careful with this. Your grandmother made it for me when we were very young,” he said.

  Adam looked at the gift in amazement. “Thank you. I certainly will.”

  After that he and Martin were soon making their way north via the frigid waters of Taylor Creek.

  Oh, this was so much easier when we traveled a couple of weeks ago, t
hought Adam. We’ll be blocks of ice by the time we get to New Bern.

  Neither of them said much until they were nearing Core Banks. They would be sailing via the same route they had taken before.

  AS THEY NEARED CEDAR ISLAND, which was just a little ways across the water from Portsmouth Island, they couldn’t help but think about Ed Willis’s family and wonder out loud about how they had taken the news of his murder. He didn’t have much family living—just his father and stepmother and some much younger half siblings, whom he barely knew. Adam remembered Ed telling him that he had left home when he was very young because his mother had died and his father was a terrible drunk. And as was always the case in Emmanuel’s company, Ed had a family connection to someone Emmanuel knew from his time sailing with Blackbeard. In this case, Ed’s mother was the sister of one of Emmanuel’s old friends in the notorious pirate’s crew.

  Adam always wondered what it was about that period of his grandfather’s life that made Emmanuel feel such a kinship with all of the men he knew then. Granted, most of them had been from Bath Town, and they had certainly shared harrowing experiences. Then again, thinking about it that way, maybe Adam understood more than he realized. After all that had happened to him since he began his apprenticeship, he certainly felt a kinship with the men in Rogers’s Shipping Company. He couldn’t imagine a time in his life when he wouldn’t see them all as one big family.

  And that was actually starting to worry him about Martin. Other than the few words they’d exchanged near Harker’s Island and their brief conversation about Ed Willis’s family, Martin had barely spoken. His behavior was getting stranger and stranger—first being so short-tempered, then engaging in increasingly risky and reckless behaviors, and now seeming so completely withdrawn. No doubt about it—Martin was hiding some kind of secret, and Adam had no idea what it was.

  “I wonder how Aunt Celie and Annabelle are getting along,” Adam said, attempting to make conversation.