Maplecroft

by Cherie Priest

  “It might be. Look—is this the place?”

  “Yes,” I said, and I absolutely would not have described myself as “giddy.” But I was indeed glad we’d arrived. I didn’t want to talk about faith, because I don’t have any. That having been said, I did not detect any judgment from the inspector, only curiosity. You never know. If I’d let the chatter run its course, I might have discovered a kindred spirit.

  “Shall we, then?”

  “After you.”

  I stood aside and he climbed the stairs first, and stepped inside before me—but held the door that I might join him.

  The interior was a sadly familiar place. My own wife had been buried through that same establishment, as had a number of other friends and patients through the years. In a town so small, everyone is a friend, or a cousin, or a neighbor at the very least. When one person dies, it’s likely that half of Fall River will turn out to pay respects—or watch others do so.

  In the reception area we stood uncertainly. It was a warm place, without anywhere significant to sit; it was a place for exchanging condolences and news, and to ready oneself for the service as needed. The floors were covered in pretty, detailed rugs, and the windows were set with colored glass reminiscent of a church, in the area we all called the chapel.

  A small white-haired woman poked her head around the corner, and I recognized her as Martha Wann, wife of the elder brother.

  She recognized me in turn. “Doctor Seabury, hello. The sheriff said you’d be here this morning.” She joined us in the foyer, and performed a little bow. To Wolf she said, “You must be the fellow from Boston.”

  “Inspector Wolf, yes.” He returned her little bow. “A pleasure to meet you, though it’s a pity the circumstances are so unfortunate. Please, could you take us to the Hamiltons?”

  Solemnly she nodded. “Certainly, gentlemen. This way.”

  She led us back into the chapel, past the rows of simple wood chairs and through a door, beyond which we found a set of stairs. “The real work happens below, you understand,” she delicately explained. “But the good doctor here, he knew that already.”

  “You’ve assisted with such things before?” Wolf asked me.

  “A handful of times, when there’s been uncertainty.”

  “About the cause of death?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But sometimes, I attempt to help identify an unknown body. They wash up from time to time, over at the rocks. Sailors and the like.”

  “And we return to the unknown, once again. That kind of identification must be tricky.”

  “Always. As often as not, all I can do is describe teeth, tattoos, and scars, or any bones that have broken and healed, in the case of a skeleton. Sometimes these things help a man’s mortal remains find their way home, to the people who’ve missed him.”

  “But not always?”

  I shook my head. “No, not always.”

  Mrs. Wann opened another door and held it for us, ushering us inside. “In here you’ll find what you’re looking for, but as a matter of kindness, I must warn you—it’s not a pretty sight. Whatever became of them . . . I . . . I can’t say. I’ve never seen its like. You really should prepare yourselves.”

  The inspector beat me to a response, though our sentiments were more or less the same. He said, “Mrs. Wann, I’ve seen all sorts, all kinds, in my line of work. Thank you for the warning, but we’ll be well enough.”

  She nodded gently, not quite believing us—but her profession left her too ready to demur. “Very well, gentlemen. If I can be of any service to you, please let me know. I’ll be right upstairs in the office.”

  Privately, I was thinking of Abigail Borden, and how her body had looked lying on this same table beside her husband. They’d been hacked so badly, but still there was a swelling and, now that I considered it, a peculiar smell.

  Not quite the same as the one from the shop. Not quite different from it.

  • • •

  We thanked Mrs. Wann, and when she discreetly closed the door behind herself, I drew Wolf toward a large table tilted at an angle, and covered with tin sheeting. (The genteel description of such a table is a “drying table.”) Upon it rested two long shapes, covered in canvas cloths that were less like sheets, and more like the kind of drapes a painter might use. I think these cloths might have been waxed, to protect them somewhat against the damp of the dead . . . though ordinarily, the embalmers did not bother with such things in the privacy of their own laboratory.

  It did not bode well that even the funereal folks couldn’t bring themselves to look.

  I took a deep breath to steel myself. I’d done this sort of thing before, yes—but this was different. I knew it was different, and I needed to see how it was different. And given the circumstances, I might need to prove how different this case truly was, in order to keep Ebenezer Hamilton a free man.

  “The smell’s not so bad in here,” the inspector observed. “Bad, yes. But more ordinary bad than the shop itself, if that makes any sense.”

  There was that word again, “ordinary.” As if we were trying to reassure ourselves.

  I wasn’t sure why the inspector needed any reassuring. He couldn’t possibly know the truth, about either Ebenezer’s experience, or the Bordens’. With regard to the latter, he would only know what he’d seen in the papers—and half of that was wrong.

  “No, I believe you’re right,” I said of the odor. “Worse by far at the shop.”

  He mumbled, “Tell me, is there another light in here . . . ? Oh, wait, I see the switch.”

  At the touch of his hand, a very bright lamp sparked to life, illuminating the chilly place without adding any warmth.

  I looked around the cool, utilitarian embalming room, and eyed the cabinets, jars, bottles, and needles in their stacks and baskets. I looked over the heaps of towels, the folded sheets, and the dirty cement floor beneath our feet, with its telltale drain.

  “Shall we, Doctor?”

  “I suppose there’s no delaying it further.”

  Quickly, before I could make some excuse, I went to the nearest corner of the drape, and lifted it. I tossed it aside in one quick snap of my wrist—revealing the bodies of Felicity and Matthew Hamilton.

  Inspector Wolf choked.

  I almost did the same. I saved myself by turning quickly away, staring at the floor, and giving my mind a moment to adjust, and my stomach a moment to return to its usual position.

  Mere gunshot wounds were bad enough, but the two people on that table had not died from anything half so normal.

  Or . . . no.

  That was not quite true, not exactly, because when I gathered the strength to look again at the table, I saw that yes, technically Matthew had expired due to an excess of buckshot from a fowler’s gun. His torso was speckled and smashed with dozens of holes, and surely they would’ve killed him or anyone else at such close range. A chunk of his side had been blown free, leaving him with ribs exposed and shattered. He was missing most of one kidney.

  I focused on these details because they were the ones I could write down in a report, and no one would question my sanity or my professional qualifications.

  Inspector Wolf tamed his retching instinct, and once again having retrieved his handkerchief, he said what I was thinking (and wondering how to suggest it). “It’s as if they were filled with water, until they burst.”

  “That’s . . . not an unfair or inaccurate observation.”

  “If a disgusting one,” he added, the words muffled by the scrap of fabric he was using to hide his mouth. “I mean, the lad there . . . shot, with two barrels of buck, at a very near distance. But the woman . . . ?”

  “Mrs. Hamilton. Yes, she’s . . . bloated,” I said, finding the word I meant.

  “Not a small woman in life, I shouldn’t think.”

  “No, never the delicate sort. But she’s taken on . . . what must be, I mean . . . I have to assume . . . a significant amount of water. And that does correspond with Ebenezer’s repo
rt.” I then realized with a fast jerk of guilt—that I didn’t know what he’d ultimately told the police . . . or whatever higher authority in Boston the inspector represented. I knew I should watch my words more closely.

  Wolf filled in a small bit of information. “About how Matthew tried to drown her?”

  Ah. So that’s what he’d heard. It was a reasonable thing for Ebenezer to say, when he did not wish to seem mad or unreasonable. What he’d shared with me, he’d shared in confidence. It would not do for me to betray it.

  “Something like that,” I said without confirming or denying anything.

  Once again the Bordens leaped to the forefront of my mind.

  Their daughter’s trial flashed through my brain, and yes, I reminded myself with terrific firmness: yes, I must be very careful with regard to what I said about Ebenezer’s confession or behavior. Any little thing could be used, construed, or bent to whatever ends the authorities settled on when the time for formal inquiry came around.

  But Wolf pressed on. “Something like a drowning? What do you mean?”

  Still, I was cautious. “He was quite distraught. He talked in circles, and not all of it made sense.”

  The inspector eyed me warily, a moment longer than was comfortable. Then again, he might’ve only been trying to stare at something other than the corpses before us. My extensive experience with the dead had done precious little to ready me for the sight of these two, so I could hardly blame him if that was the reason. But surely a man who investigated murders would have experience comparable to mine in war, or some experience anyway. Unless he typically investigated something else. Really, I had no idea—and his evasive answers thus far suggested he wouldn’t be too forthcoming, were I to ask.

  I forced myself to look at the corpses again. No, even in war there was nothing to compare this to. War was only brutal. This was unnatural.

  Beside the table was a shelf, with the implements of embalming ready at hand. How the Wann family planned to prepare the Hamiltons, I could scarcely imagine. The boy was in pieces, and his mother was . . .

  Not herself.

  I picked up a long metal probe and gingerly, with as much respect (and as little disgust) as I could muster, I prodded at Matthew’s flesh. It oozed fluid—water? Some unusual decomposition?—and the probe left virtually no impression in the flesh. The texture reminded me of nothing half so much as a sea-jelly.

  “What are you doing?” Wolf asked.

  “Nothing useful. I’m at a loss. They’ve been dead two days or less, and they almost look like they washed up on the rocks after a week in the ocean. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  He cleared his throat and reached into his pocket for a set of vials. “So might it be said, Doctor Seabury, that I have your permission to take some samples?”

  “My permission? You don’t need it. You’d be better served to ask the Wanns, but honestly, there’s little they can do for these two. Other than close the casket.”

  He agreed, and selected a small scalpel from the table with the probes, tubes, and jars of foul-smelling fluids.

  I averted my eyes while he worked, though I loathed myself for it, just a little. I ought to be stronger, better, more of a man—and a professional—than this. If I were to treat myself more kindly, I might’ve made the excuse that my specialty was the living body, and not the dead.

  But in fact, I was a coward.

  That night, I dreamed of the drying table, and the tubes, and the probes. But beneath the sheet lay Abigail and Andrew Borden, bloated and swollen. Waterlogged and yet living, their eyes watching me as I walked horrified around them, unable to leave the room. Unable to understand. Unable to look away.

  Emma Borden was right. I needed a word with her sister.

  A DWELLING PLACE OF JACKALS, THE DESOLATION FOREVER

  Emma L. Borden

  APRIL 18, 1894

  The Hamiltons have been murdered. Two of them, at least—the wife and son. Nephew? Godson? I can’t recall the particulars, but I believe he wasn’t theirs by birth. Regardless, he’s dead now: shot by his father, or whatever the man of the house was, in relation to him.

  Ebenezer Hamilton has been taken into custody, and Fall River whispers so loudly that even such shut-ins as my sister and I have heard a number of details. The newspaper told us little that the gardener or the milkman hadn’t; we gleaned only one new tidbit from the official report, which was very brief, likely due to the suddenness of it all.

  Apparently the boy had been ill for some weeks. He’d been kept indoors before the tragedy, out of fear that he might be a danger to himself or others. There are rumors that he’d been physically restrained, tied to a bed.

  None of these precautions were excessive, as it turns out. They were not even sufficient.

  When young Tim Haines came to collect our newspaper fee, he added the salacious detail that Matthew (that’s the boy’s name—I’d forgotten it until just now) had drowned Mrs. Hamilton in a washtub, and Ebenezer tried to save her. That’s where the gun came into it.

  I have a terrible suspicion about this, and I know that Lizzie does as well. I know this, because she can hardly be persuaded to speak of it. She’s hidden the papers from Nance, lest she be called upon to gossip about the situation, and it’s entirely too near to the heart.

  What an awful little place this town has come to be. Full of awful little people, and awful little creatures who make everything worse, exponentially. Daily.

  And Nance hardly improves matters.

  I honestly believe that Lizzie would throw that tall, noisy strumpet back onto the first train north for her own good, if she could—and it might yet come to that. I keep hoping there may be some catastrophic fight, instigated by my sister with the specific intent of sparing her beloved, even at the expense of the love itself.

  If she were braver, that’s what she’d do. Or if she were less lonely, I should say.

  At least she’s talked Nance out of a party. As always, that was the first thing the girl wanted upon her arrival, and the last thing we needed. So Lizzie is capable of putting her foot down on the big things, and thank God for that. I’d be happier about this development if I didn’t know all too well how it’s the little things that’ll catch us in the end. They check the details for devils, you see.

  Already, the poor girl has become fascinated with the cellar door, and we all know nothing good can come of it. Lizzie is almost out of excuses. And whatever’s calling from down there . . . whatever it is . . . will undoubtedly win out over locks and prohibitions.

  It’s only a matter of time, I fear.

  Hell, isn’t everything?

  Lizzie Andrew Borden

  APRIL 21, 1894

  Doctor Seabury came today, and I hardly know what to make of his visit.

  I am both invigorated and terrified, for he seems to be on the very edge of grasping how much there remains to be understood, and how far away is any mortal mind from understanding it. I hesitate to consider it, but we might well prove kindred spirits after all. My new optimism stems from the Hamilton murders, which occurred last week on the other side of town.

  (Oh dear. I really shouldn’t call it “optimism,” considering.)

  Regardless, my feelings are predominantly positive, tragedy aside. Some good may come of it yet, if the doctor and I can bring ourselves to trust one another enough. We came very close to naming a collaboration today, but not quite yet. We’re both very afraid.

  We have every right to be.

  • • •

  As for the Hamiltons, whose grisly end has brought us together . . . I never knew the family well, but I knew of them.

  Everyone did, like everyone in Fall River knows everyone else, on sight if not in person. The Hamiltons owned a store down by the pier, catering mostly to mariners and those who like to pretend to such things, by way of keeping the trappings about their homes. The family unit consisted of a husband and wife a few years older than Emma, and a boy in his teens—their gods
on, otherwise orphaned some years previously.

  It would seem that the boy attempted to drown his godmother, and Mr. Hamilton intervened—and this intervention required a gun. Mr. Hamilton has been taken to Boston, but I don’t think he’s been arrested. I suspect they’re evaluating him, considering whether or not to place him in an asylum.

  That’s the best ending he might expect, I’m afraid (assuming he’s told the truth). His other option is likely prison, in the event that he’s manufactured some cunning lie. And from what I recall of Mr. Hamilton, “cunning” wasn’t the first descriptor that sprang to mind.

  Kind, yes. Unlikely to go on a killing spree, certainly. But simple in his motives and actions.

  And, I believe, quite innocent of murder.

  • • •

  Doctor Seabury came by to attend to Emma, as has become his custom. On this particular visit, she hovered excitedly, trying to urge us to talk—but her fluttering made nothing easier, since both he and I knew that she’d spoken to him, and that we were now intended to have a difficult conversation.

  The whole thing was exquisitely awkward at the outset.

  Finally, when Emma had exhausted all her heavy-handed tactics, she excused herself. Any fool could’ve seen that it was a ruse, and I’m certain that Nance wondered what was going on when my sister asked for her assistance, rather than mine. She couched it in the guise of Nance’s height and strength, and hinted that I had some private matter to discuss with the physician.

  It was true, but it made the whole thing sound dirty and weird, and I’ve put off explaining myself to my houseguest thus far . . . but my protestations won’t work for much longer. I’ll need a good story by this evening, or I’m afraid that Nance might become dramatic.

  When the doctor and I were finally alone, we hemmed and hawed around the discomfort of our topic, until he surprised me by blurting out, “I saw the Hamiltons’ bodies.”

  I wouldn’t have been more stunned if he’d taken of his shirt and done a little dance.