A Study in Revenge (29 page)

“And you think recovering this thunderstone is somehow going to make you whole once more. That this is really an ancient Indian artifact that will make a true Abenaki of you.”

“When I first saw that stone, it hit me like a flash of lightning. I knew what it was. I felt its spirit calling to me. So yes, I do believe I was meant to take the stone back. And when I do, maybe in some small way that will help the rest of our people, be a small reminder of the people they truly are in their hearts.”

Chief Jefferson stopped along the sidewalk, opposite from where the city’s grandest thoroughfare, Congress Street, reached its eastern terminus. A tall granite pillar stood on that spot, along the seaward side of the Promenade. The Cleeves and Tucker Memorial honored the first two English settlers to stake a permanent claim on the area of Portland Neck in the year 1632. Above the square base, each of the four sides was engraved with one of the names the city had held in its history.

“Portland,” recited Chief Jefferson as he began a slow walk about the pedestal. “Before that they called it Falmouth. Earlier still, the English ears heard an Abenaki word describing the place as Casco.” The chief stopped in front of the last panel. “And the original Abenaki name:
Machigonne, ‘the Great Neck.’ Call it what you like. This was all the land of the Abenaki: The Dawnland.”

The chief’s arms fanned out wide. “The white men came and ripped it from them. It was here in Machigonne, or Casco, that Thomas Webster uncovered the Stone of Pamola. He was a wealthy man. Over time he’d bought property all over the Neck. And at one of these sites, his workers dug up the stone. Of course it’s an Abenaki artifact. What other possible explanation is there under the sky or, more precisely, under the earth?”

“The most logical explanation, especially when you’re considering the words and actions of someone you obviously think of as such a devious white man: He lied. He didn’t dig it up at all. It’s a hoax. The stone is too perfectly shaped to be natural,” Grey said.

“Natural. You mistake nature for only what you can see and understand with your eyes. But that is not all there is in the world. There are forces and spirits beyond what man can see.”

“Old Thomas Webster made that stone,” Grey said.

“Why? Tell me where your logical explanation goes from there.” Chief Jefferson started to become flustered by his own urgency to make his point. “Why would a man commit a hoax only to never let anyone know about it? If it was fake, why hide it from public view all his life? Why bind his heirs from ever showing off the fruit of his grand jest?”

“I could ask the same of you, if what you say is true. Why would a white man hide away an Indian artifact?”

“For the same reason the family is still dead set against it coming into my hands. Because a man like me would know what it truly is.”

“Please, enlighten me.” Grey let the sarcasm show on his face, challenging the chief to reveal whatever he knew of the true origin of the thunderstone.

“Because even a hundred years ago, Thomas Webster was smart enough to recognize that this is the Stone of Pamola, that it holds a sacred power. Pamola is the Abenaki god of thunder. The Websters acknowledge that themselves—that’s why they call it the thunderstone.”

“An idea not unique to the Indians. Other cultures, even European ones, have placed superstitious value in the idea of formed stones that
appear from lightning bolts or fall from the sky. Gifts from the gods, or weather spirits, or whatever nonsense rules the day in that particular time and place.”

Chief Jefferson’s eyes were set as hard as rocks, and Grey momentarily relented before the full brunt of the man’s stubborn insistence on the impossible.

“Fine, let’s have it, then,” Grey said. “What awesome power does this Stone of Pamola hold? In your hands it will call to life some Great Spirit who will swoop down and drive the white men back into the sea?”

“I’m not fool enough to think that we’ll ever have our country back. That war has already been lost. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t battles yet to be won. And maybe, at first, the only victories to take are symbolic ones. But there’s power in that, even—the power of a full heart. That’s what I want—to do what I’m meant to do and to feel the Great Spirit in me. And maybe by doing that I’ll help our people remember who they truly are.”

Playful shrieks wafted up the hill, carried on a pleasant afternoon sea breeze. Grey let his eyes drift down to the shore. He expected to witness women in long, light dresses and straw hats sitting or strolling about, paying some mind to the boys and girls in full-length bathing outfits who splashed away in the shallow surf. Instead the land made a short, final dip. The East End Beach’s bathing house and the brief stretch of rock-strewn sand were hidden by thin birches and a scattering of other scraggly hardwoods.

“Look here.” Chief Jefferson drew a folded paper from inside his coat. “This is the news article—the photograph of the so-called thunderstone taken at Maine’s statehood anniversary. It’s grainy, but look at the stone.” He produced a small magnifying glass and offered it to Grey.

“I’ve seen this photograph before.”

“Then you have no doubt seen the symbol there.” Chief Jefferson pointed to the circle topped with a small arc.

“What do you say this proves?”

“Are you familiar with Pamola?” the chief asked.

“Not intimately, no.”

“Pamola was the thunder god who lived atop the great mountain,
Katahdin. Though he had the body of a man, he had the talons and wings of an eagle and the head of a moose. This symbol, the circle with horns on top: It’s the head of Pamola.”

“The human mind wants to recognize what it sees. It wants the world to hold a unique and personal meaning,” Grey said. “And so you see what you wish to see, much the same as other men have.”

“That’s what I’m counting on. The Stone of Pamola is, after all, a symbol. It’s a symbol I believe in. One for our people to see again, to remember.” Chief Jefferson folded up his picture.

“And bringing this stone back to its home will make of you what you’ve always believed yourself to be?” Grey asked.

“Returning the stone is what I’ve been called upon to do. It’s a sacred duty. Something I feel in my heart. Maybe you’re not familiar with that feeling, can’t understand what it is I’m saying. I know you aren’t yet convinced, Grey. But later, when you’ve had time to think on this, you may yet see.”

Chief Jefferson looked Grey over once more and extended his hand.

Grey shook the man’s hand and said, “You’ve certainly given me some thoughts to consider, but as for my coming around to your way of seeing this symbol—I doubt that very much.”

A
ND THAT IS HOW
U
LYSSES ESCAPED THE
C
YCLOPS,
” L
EAN
said as he closed the tattered copy of Bulfinch’s
The Age of Fable
.

He saw the disappointment in Owen’s eyes as the boy looked up from his pillow. Before any pleas for another chapter could start, Lean announced, “That’s enough for tonight. Tomorrow we’ll do his adventure among the Laestrygonians.” He had to flip the book open again to make sure he’d gotten that last name right.

“The who?”

“A tribe of giant cannibals,” Lean said. “We’ll just call them the giants.”

Owen nodded at the wisdom of that decision. Lean stood up from the edge of the bed and extinguished the light.

They said good night, and Lean made it almost to the door before the boy’s voice caught up to him.

“I don’t think Ulysses should have told the Cyclops his real name. He was smart to trick him before and say he was Noman. Now that the Cyclops knows it’s him, he might try to find him again.”

“He doesn’t. But the Cyclops’s father, Neptune—or Poseidon—does take revenge on Ulysses.”

“I knew he shouldn’t have told him. I wouldn’t have told him my name.”

“Usually it’s best to own up to your actions. But once in a while I suppose it’s better to be Noman,” Lean said as he eased toward the hallway. “Like when you took that extra cookie from the tin and Mom asked who stole the last cookie. Maybe you should have said Noman did it.”

A quiet giggling emerged from the darkness as Lean said a final good night.

He made his way downstairs and out the back of the house. He drew
in a long, slow breath through his nostrils, savoring the smell of their little backyard garden like a parting kiss before striking a match. He lit a cigarette, drank in the smoke, and sighed. The tiny flame mesmerized him, that briefest spark, so alive yet so doomed. The match burned down toward his fingertips, and he dropped it. The flame evaporated into smoke even before it reached the bare patch of earth between his feet, leaving nothing but a charred, broken remnant.

He heard the screen door to the kitchen close behind him and Emma’s soft steps across the creaky back porch. He kept meaning to grab a few long nails and hammer down those loose boards, but once again that thought passed from him the moment after he had it.

Emma settled in next to him on the step. “Something the matter? Is it work?”

Lean nodded. He knew she was silently waiting for him to spill his guts. He smiled to himself, fully aware that he would do exactly that, and that she knew the same. Sooner or later he’d have to vent the mental steam percolating in his mind over the investigation and what felt like a dismissal of his services by Grey. He decided to get it over with and to reward Emma’s patience by doing it as matter-of-factly as he could, sparing her the need to cut through any of his grumbling rants over the situation. He gave a brief summary of the case and his conversation with Grey after discovering the threat marked on the house on Vine Street.

“So he thinks you’ll each have more luck if you each take your own tack. Come at the problem separately. After all, your real concern is the murder. His is the robbery from the lawyer’s office?”

“He’s worried about harm coming to me. To us.”

“To us? Whatever for?”

“It’s all that business that happened last year. Dr. Steig. Helen Prescott and her daughter.” Lean stopped, instantly regretting having raised the subject and fearing that he’d cause Emma unnecessary worry.

“I see.” Emma paused and studied her husband’s profile. “And what do you think?”

“Well, I don’t think we ought to be letting killers into the house—or strange men of any type.”

“Oh, well, there’s a welcome bit of advice.”

Lean stared at the blackened, twisted matchstick lying between
his feet. “Strange women neither. Strangers, I mean. Your sister’s still welcome.”

Emma slapped his shoulder, then whispered, “You should hear what she says about you.”

Lean smiled and nodded.

“What do you think, then?” she asked.

Her voice was casual, but Lean heard the concern running beneath it. “I don’t see it happening again. Not like that.”

She laid her hand atop his. “But you’ve been having the nightmares again. About that woman, the burning.”

Lean gave her an embarrassed look that he tried to lighten with a smile. “The sight of another charred body didn’t help. And I can’t quit worrying some when Grey goes and resurrects the idea of danger striking home. But this isn’t the same. That was murderous insanity. This one, a man was killed all right, and someone’s trying to paint it all gruesome and scary, but at its heart it isn’t madness. This is more thought out. Colder.”

“You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, Archie, and a good heart, too. I trust it. If you don’t think we’re in danger, then I don’t think so either. We’ll just be extra careful, is all. Keep two eyes open instead of just the one.”

He held her hand. “I don’t believe we’re in danger. Like I said, someone’s thinking this through, and in his mind I suppose I’m just some run-of-the-mill policeman. It’s Perceval Grey they’ve singled out as a problem. He’s the one who needs to watch himself.”

“He’s your friend, Archie. If he’s in trouble, it’s you who needs be watching out for him.”

“He won’t let me.”

“Since when do you need permission to do what you think’s right?” Emma said.

“He’d spot me spying on him a mile away.” Lean dropped his cigarette butt and crushed it out underfoot.

“Then get some patrolmen to do it.”

“The marshal would hear of it before a day had passed. Try to explain that one: The men aren’t doing their rounds because I’ve got them spying on a man who hasn’t even committed a crime. I just want to know
what he’s up to, like I’m some schoolboy craning my neck to see what answers Grey’s got on his paper. On account of I can’t do my own job and I think he’ll get a better fix than me on who shot Frank Cosgrove and dug him up.”

He took out a second cigarette. Emma wrinkled her nose but stopped herself before chiding her husband about his smoking.

“Isn’t there anyone else who could help you?”

Lean struck another match, and his breath drew smoldering life into the cigarette. He watched the paper burn.

“Yeah, maybe so.”

F
ROM INSIDE
P
ORTLAND
’
S
Western Cemetery, Grey glanced up the gentle slope toward the arched stone gateway that led out to Vaughan Street. He watched an enclosed carriage slow and park across the street. He’d observed the same vehicle earlier in the neighboring town of Deering. His excursion into various sections of the much larger Evergreen Cemetery had consumed most of the day. Though the carriage seemed to be casually traversing that parklike cemetery’s winding pathways, Grey had noted its nearly constant presence on the periphery of his examinations.