A Death in Utopia (4 page)

"It's a good thing you're back," he said, speaking to the girls. "We know who killed Winslow Hopewell. Mr. Platt figured it out. The sheriff is on his way now."

CHAPTER FIVE

Charlotte Searches for Answers

October 10, 1842

Charlotte gasped. This was what she had been afraid of. She didn't want to hear the words. She had been half-hoping it would turn out that somehow Reverend Hopewell had fallen and hit his head. She just couldn't believe—didn't want to believe—that anyone had deliberately done something so horrible. Brook Farm had been her haven from the tumult of life in England. Here she felt safe among friends. Now it had become a dangerous spot where bad things could happen. Was anyplace ever safe?

Daniel Gallagher jumped down from the wagon and stood in front of Fred, "How did Mr. Platt figure it out? How can he be sure? Who was it? What's his name? And why did he do it?" Daniel was half a head shorter than Fred and quite a bit thinner even though he must have been at least five years older. His black hair flopped across his pale forehead and his blue eyes peered intently at Fred.

"Who are you?" asked Fred, scowling a bit. "What are you doing here?" He stared at Daniel suspiciously, taking in his dark city suit, thin blue cravat, and the pencil poking out of his jacket pocket. Be
fore Daniel could answer, Mr. Ripley came out of the Hive and walked over to the wagon.

"Are you a reporter, young man?" he asked Daniel. "We have no reason to speak to the newspapers about this. We don't want any scandal being spread. We'll take care of it ourselves. The sheriff is on his way."

"Sure the newspapers will find out, sir," protested Daniel. His brogue gave away his background, but his voice was respectful and polite. "If you tell me the details, I'll give them the straight story. You won't want wild rumors flying around."

Mr. Ripley looked at him seriously for a minute and then said, "Perhaps you are right, young man. Come with me. We can talk in my office." The two of them walked across the grass and into the building.

"You tell us about it, Fred," commanded Ellen. "Why does Mr. Platt think he knows what happened to Reverend Hopewell?" She and Charlotte headed toward the kitchen with Fred while Jonas Gerritson drove the wagon toward the barn. The grass was wet and squishy and the girls had to lift their skirts as high as they decently could to keep from getting muddy.

"Mr. Platt said he saw someone sneaking past his barn early this morning. Looked like he was just a tramp who'd slept there. Platt yelled after him and started to chase him, but the cows were hollering, so he figured he'd better do the milking. He just forgot about the man. It wasn't until he heard about poor Mr. Hopewell that he put two and two together. Who else would it be?"

"But there's no way to know for sure," Ellen broke in. "Mr. Platt didn't see what happened, did he?"

"He doesn't have to see it," Fred insisted. "It just makes sense. Don't you think so, Charlotte?"

Charlotte didn't know what to think. She had seen lots of tramps walking the roads in England and everyone was quick to accuse them whenever anything bad happened. Trouble was, anyone who was down on his luck could look like a tramp. One time her father picked up some apples that had fallen over a farmer's hedge and onto the road. Next thing he knew, the farmer was yelling and accusing him of stealing fruit from his orchard. Lucky for him the landlord was driving by and set things straight or else he might have had the sheriff after him.

By this time they were in the kitchen sitting at the large wooden table. Mrs. Ripley poked her head in from the laundry room "Charlotte, where have you been all this time? You had better gather up your primary class. Fanny has been tending them all morning. Everything is upset. Some of the children are crying. We need to get them back on their regular schedule. And Fred and Ellen, aren't you supposed to be in class? Mr. Dana's German class? I hope he hasn't forgotten. Where have you been? Nothing is going right. We want to keep everything as normal as possible."

Mrs. Ripley was wringing her hands and looking harried, not at all like her usual serene self. She didn't wait for an answer. Charlotte hurried off to take her charges to the school room and started listening to them recite their lesson for the day.

In the hallway she saw Daniel Gallagher coming out of Mr. Ripley's office. "Are you going to write all of this up for your newspaper?" she asked rather more sharply than she meant to.

"I'm going to try to find out the truth," he answered, frowning. "The man Mr. Platt saw must have been the fellow I met in Boston—
Rory O'Connor his name was. He didn't look or talk like a killer. He's poor and ignorant. They may lock him up before he knows what's happening to him. I'm going to track him down and see what he has to say."

"Why do you want to get mixed up in our troubles?" Charlotte was a little suspicious of how quickly Daniel Gallagher had taken on the job for himself.

"This is my chance," Daniel explained eagerly. "No one will ever give me a newspaper job unless I prove I can find a spectacular story and write it up faster than anyone else." He looked defiant as he added, "These rich Harvard boys think they're the only ones who can be newspapermen, but I'll show them. Besides, I don't like the way they decided Rory was guilty before they even talked to him."

Charlotte thought about her father and how quick people were to make accusations about people who looked shabby. Was that what Mr. Platt was doing? He didn't approve of Brook Farmers and all their radical ideas. He probably didn't approve of immigrants either, or anyone who looked like a tramp. She made up her mind to try to find the truth.

"Well, I'm going to look around here and ask some questions too." she said impulsively and then wondered whether she should get involved with this young reporter. But it was too late to change her mind. "Maybe between us we can figure out what happened."

Daniel looked at her uncertainly, but then he gave her quick, shy smile and said, "Perhaps we can work together. Stranger things have happened. At least we can try."

Later, as she listened to the primary children recite their letters, she wondered what she could do to find out more about what happened to Winslow Hopewell. When Timothy Pretlove, who was
looking rather pale and sad, came to her desk to show a misshapen bird's nest he had found, she pushed it away.

"Don't put that dirty thing on my desk, Timothy," she scolded him, and then was sorry she had said it when he looked at her wonderingly.

"But look, the nest has two nests—one on top of the other." He carefully pulled aside some of the nesting material and showed her another nest below with some broken shells in it.

"So it has. I've never seen one like that. How did you discover that?"

"The nest fell down in the rain this morning. I took it into the barn and I just looked and looked until I found out why it was so funny looking. I've never seen a nest like this."

Charlotte put the nest on a windowsill where the other children could see Timothy's unusual find. He'd given her an idea. Maybe she could discover something if she looked hard enough at the place Winslow Hopewell had been found. Wasn't that what Auguste Dupin did when he wanted to figure out how the two women in Mr. Poe's story were killed? No one had searched the blueberry patch looking for clues. Maybe there was something that would tell her Mr. Platt was wrong about the tramp.

As soon as the lesson was over, she hurried back to her room to grab a shawl, and went over to the blueberry patch. As she got close to the spot where the body had been found, the ground was churned up with dozens of footprints overlapping one another. They went in all directions and covered the area except for an oblong of crushed grass where the body had been. No matter how hard she stared at the ground, Charlotte couldn't see anything that would tell her what
had happened. How did Winslow Hopewell fall? Was anyone with him?

The late afternoon sun lit up the leaves of the maple trees, which were already red-tipped as autumn approached. The grove was very quiet, even the birds must have been asleep. From the road she heard the rattle of Mr. Platt's wagon coming back from his corn fields. That would be the road where the Irish tramp walked when he left the barn. If he turned from it to walk toward the grove, he must have left footprints in the mud. Were there any footprints coming in that direction?

Slowly Charlotte walked toward the road, trying to find footprints along the edges of the grassy patches. The mud was drying now, preserving the prints until the next rain. Finally she saw footprints, a man's large shoes, definitely coming from the direction of the road. But they didn't go all the way up to where the body was found. About halfway there the prints stopped behind a big chokeberry bush.

Charlotte walked carefully toward the bush. She must be careful not to make new footprints. There were plenty of prints behind the bush all mashed together, then another set heading back to the road. That would fit in with what Daniel had said earlier—that the man had seen people around a body and skedaddled. There was no way to know whether these prints were his, but maybe the sheriff could figure that out. Would he come out from the city again to take a look at the footprints?

While Charlotte searched for clues, Mrs. Ripley and some of the other women laid out Winslow Hopewell's body in the parlor. Charles Dana and John Dwight had volunteered to build a coffin. Charlotte could hear their hammers and smell the newly cut lumber
as she walked back to the house. When it was finished, Reverend Hopewell's father would come and take his son's body into Boston.

There would be a grand funeral in a couple of days and no doubt Mr. Ripley and many of the other Brook Farmers would go into the city for that. Meanwhile everyone tried to carry on as though they were pretending nothing terrible had happened. Mr. Ripley said an extra prayer at grace before supper. During the meal voices were hushed; even the students talked in whispers. Abigail had put away her white dress and was wearing a black one. Her face was pale and strained.

Daniel Gallagher showed up again the next morning. He was in the kitchen when Ellen and Charlotte went down to help prepare breakfast.

"Did you find that Rory O'Connor?" Charlotte asked him.

"Find him I did. He was working at the dock, unloading molasses from a West Indies ship. I had scarcely had a chance to talk to him when along comes some farmer and the sheriff."

"That must have been Mr. Platt," Charlotte interrupted.

"Indeed it was. He was yelling 'There he is! That's the man I saw!' Rory was getting ready to run away, but he had the good sense not to do that. The sheriff asked him where he'd been in the morning and pretty soon the story came out—the same one he had told me. Mr. Platt was scowling and saying how no one could trust an Irish tramp."

"And I suppose the sheriff agreed with him," added Ellen.

"The sheriff didn't say much. He kinda grunted and said he'd take Rory down to the jail and ask him some more questions. That was the last I saw of him, but at least I know where he is."

"What will you do now?" Charlotte wanted to know. "You don't believe Rory killed Mr. Hopewell, do you? Wait until after breakfast, I have something to show you."

Just then Fanny Gray came into the kitchen. "You don't have the tables set yet," she scolded "Everyone will be down to breakfast soon. Then turning to Daniel, she added, "What are you doing here young man? We can't feed everyone who wanders in for a visit. We're very strict about the rules here."

"Sure, I had my breakfast hours ago in Boston," Daniel answered her with a smile. "I wouldn't interfere with meals, ma'am. I'll just wait outside until I have a chance to talk with Mr. Ripley."

Breakfast was another quiet meal. Charlotte finished her porridge quickly and took a piece of brown bread outside to share with Daniel Gallagher. She suspected he hadn't had any breakfast at all, no matter what he said. He must have left Boston at sunrise.

"I found Rory's footprints," she told him. "It's just like he said—he stood behind a bush and then went back to the road. If you come quickly I'll show you before I start my class."

Daniel followed her out to the spot where the body was found. She showed him the footprints coming up from the road and stopping behind the chokecherry bush. He whistled when he saw them.

"You're a clever one to notice these. We'll have to draw a picture right now so we can see whether it matches Rory's shoes." He pulled sheets of paper out of his pocket and crouched down beside the print. Using a piece of string, he measured the exact length and width of the print. His hands moved quickly but carefully getting the measurement exactly right. Then he started drawing. He frowned with concentration and his hair fell over his forehead as he worked; he pushed it back impatiently. His fingers were very long and white
and his drawing was good; Charlotte wondered whether he'd had drawing lessons in Ireland.

When they got back to the house, they stopped in the parlor to pay their respects to Winslow Hopewell. Mrs. Ripley and Abigail Pretlove were sitting watch. All the women took their turns at that sharing responsibility for the body until Winslow's father took him back to Boston. Charlotte couldn't help looking at the deep gash on his forehead. Something had cut deeply all across his forehead. What would leave a mark like that?

Later that morning, as she listened to the children's lessons, the picture of Winslow Hopewell's battered face kept coming back to her. Why would anyone strike at a man like him? She knew that face would haunt her for weeks. That gash...suddenly she realized what could have caused such a deep, wide cut. It was the size of the hoes used for cultivating the crops at the Farm. Could Winslow Hopewell have been attacked with a hoe from their own barn? It was just a wild guess. But maybe it was possible. The thought made her shudder.

CHAPTER SIX

Charlotte Talks to the Sheriff

October 11, 1842

Shortly before noon, the men came from the barn carrying the new coffin. At almost the same time, a large closed carriage arrived from Boston. The Reverend Thomas Hopewell was a thin gray-haired man, his face pinched with sorrow. George Ripley helped him step down from the coach and greeted him warmly. The two men walked slowly into the parlor while Charlotte and the other women clustered around the door to offer their sympathy. The Reverend Hopewell accepted their words with a thin smile.