A Wicked Way to Burn (36 page)

That’s why certain pious people really should be more careful, thought Cicero, of what they wish for, even to themselves, after a few toddies on a cold night at the taproom of a village inn. Especially when they’re standing near a corner nook that hides an old man with excellent ears. Cicero’s smile grew until it nearly connected those two prominent features, and he raised his kindly face as if exalting in the Word. If some of the ladies present only knew!

Two pews away, but in another world, young Lem sat among his large family, remembering the novel things he’d seen and done at Harvard College. If he worked hard, Dr. Warren had told him, he might become a student, although an extremely low ranking one to start. Still, with sponsorship—and if he learned his Greek and Latin—Warren had also said he might earn a degree with the best. Odder things had happened. In fact, it seemed to Lem that odd things lately made up the bulk of his limited experience.

Nathan Browne, the inn’s smith, sat in the middle of the room, thinking how curious it was that both Jonathan and Lydia Pratt sat next to him in church today, as though nothing had happened. Well, no one
could
say, for sure … and given another chance, Lydia might change her spots, he supposed, but it was not a thing he’d be willing to wager on. Still, in the last two days she had spoken surprisingly kind words to them all. At the same time, Mary was in such a nervous state that those around her had begun to fear for her health. One moment the girl would be flushed; another she was as pale as a snow bank. Something else had happened to make Nathan hide whatever feelings he’d once had for her. So far he’d told no one, and wondered if Mary knew herself. The way things were, it might be dangerous to say too much … but he’d made new plans ….

Toward the back of the meetinghouse, others filled less polished pews. Phineas Wise sat with glazed eyes, next to Jack and Esther Pennywort, who actually appeared to be listening. Across the aisle, the four remaining Dudleys, their eyes cast down, privately mourned one of their own, speaking through their hearts to their Creator. On a corner bench, Hannah Sloan, her husband, sons, and daughters had begun to imagine their afternoon meal together, while in front of them Constable Bowers and his large fidgeting family held onto their prayer books and each other, and prayed that Mr. Bowers would not be the next one murdered for his official part in the ongoing investigations.

And then, abruptly, Christian Rowe ended his reading on the woeful ways of man, to the relief of the entire congregation. No doubt he’d worked up a thirst. He may also have sensed that after three hours he’d lost most of his listeners. At any rate, the preacher released his flock for their dinner, prior to a second service in an hour and a half. Some noisily bustled out on their way home. More made their way to common pastures to wait—heading for the Bracebridge Inn, and the tavern at the crossroads.

“I KNOW IT’S
cruel to keep him out,” declared Esther Pennywort, who sat in her faded cloak, sipping a cup of warm cider by the Blue Boar’s fire. “Though what’s a woman to do but treat a husband like a child, when he acts that way? Not that I’d keep a child of mine out in the cold,” she corrected herself, “if it had no place else to go. But Jack always has his ways, and he can shift for himself if need be.”

Charlotte raised a glass of sherry that Phineas had brought her against the new season’s chill, quite glad to be out of the drafts of the meetinghouse. Earlier, she had excused herself from Longfellow and Diana, saying she needed to have a brief word with a friend. Now, at her suggestion, she and Esther Pennywort cast their minds back to the evening of the old man’s burning.

“Do you know just where he weathered the night?” Charlotte asked with a certain amount of hope. She watched as the small, fussy woman’s eyes narrowed in thought, while worn hands rubbed one another.

“Well, when Jack’s had enough, he usually goes to sleep in a barn or a shed, next to wherever he’s found whatever it is he’s been drinking. If he’s been here at the Blue Boar, I’m told he goes across to the mill to sleep under some flour sacks. I know drunkenness is common enough in country and town alike, but I won’t put up with it in my house! So when he came home carrying that strange tale, and with the fumes of a whiskey barrel about him, it made my blood boil! We have little for what we need, with the children growing. And for him to spend it on drink is too much!”

“It is hard,” Charlotte sympathized. “But did he tell you where he went on that
particular
night?”

Again, Esther paused to think, her upper lip puckered into soft, vertical waves.

“Now, that’s funny. He didn’t say, but I thought he might not have gone to bed at all—he was so tired when
he came in next morning. He slept for most of the next day and night, and after that he was up and gone again early.”

“The morning Sam Dudley died.”

“Yes,” Esther replied hesitantly, “that would be the day. My Jack isn’t a bad man, when he’s sober,” she insisted, worried more than a little at what Mrs. Willett might be thinking. “Although most believe him to be dim-witted. Oh, I know they do. Still, he’s good enough for me.”

“Times haven’t gotten any easier for you lately, have they? No extra money has come in to make a difference?”

“Extra money! No, I’m afraid not. But as you mention it, lately he
has
taken to carrying on just like he’s ‘somebody’—even carrying snuff about. Imagine! A habit for his betters, if indeed it’s for anyone at all! Quite nasty, I call it, sniffing tobacco up your nose, even if a lord cares to do it—even if it’s soaked with something sweet.”

“Where do you suppose he came by it? Perhaps someone gave it to him?”

Mrs. Pennywort looked around her, then lowered her voice. “I doubt that. I’m afraid to say it, but Jack has been known, occasionally, to be a bit—well, light-fingered. It’s not all his fault, and I’m not sure but it’s fair play, really. You see, his
friends
, as he calls them—these friends of his think he’s simple, and encourage him to drink for the joy of watching his antics. It’s never been all because of drink, either. It’s his medicine, you know. For his teeth.”

“Ah,” said Charlotte, letting her breath escape in a sigh of enlightenment.

“They’re none too good, nor are most of ours at this age, I suppose. But his are something dreadful, what’s left of them in back especially. And he’s too afraid to have
them pulled! But he went to Boston one day, and in a tavern by the docks, he met a fellow—”

“Who gave him something for the pain?”

“That’s right!” smiled Mrs. Pennywort. “They use it in eastern lands, he told Jack. Little seeds he was to chew on. Something like clove—he used to put a clove on a tooth for the pain, like most of us do. Well, these did him far more good, but they do make him quite queer. Sometimes, he can’t tell what’s what after he chews them. Still, they help him over the worst. He got a dreadful rash at first, but he’s over that now. They call it henbane—funny name, isn’t it? Anyway, that’s why so many think of him as childlike. So do I, sometimes, I’ll admit. But it isn’t good for grown men to be teased and laughed at, or treated like children, is it? Nor for women, either, although men treat us the same as Jack often enough, and for less reason. It’s a shame, really.”

Charlotte sat very still, while Esther Pennywort sighed at the world’s folly, took another sip of cider, and sat back with a small frown. Then she began to examine the company around them, unaware of the great secret she’d just betrayed.

So Jack Pennywort had left her henbane, thought Charlotte with a tiny smile … probably for fear of what she might suspect about his dealings with the miller. She’d already guessed that Jack knew more than he’d told. Had he feared, after their interview, that she might soon guess more?

She had given him tea on Thursday; that might have planted the idea in his mind. And perhaps he had only tried to discredit her, by causing her to act as he often did himself. After that, in the same way that others had always laughed at him, they would laugh at her, whatever she told them. Surely, her death hadn’t been part of his plan. After all, he chewed the seeds himself. And she believed for Jack Pennywort that one murder
would have been enough. As for Peter Lynch—how easy it would have been for Jack to offer his powerful “friend” one pinch of tainted snuff … then, another. And in a while, if the miller had begun to worry, or if he had rushed toward the smaller man, threatening—

She thought it likely Jack had only resorted to murder after he’d witnessed the miller commit one of his own. Poor young Sam must have seen the miller getting rid of the evidence of “Duncan Middleton” in his pond on Tuesday night; the boy had probably agreed to meet Lynch at a later time, when things had calmed down. If Jack had already gone to rest in the dark mill on Tuesday night, and overheard Sam talking with Lynch—and if he had followed later, to see the miller choke the life out of the boy—he might well have thought his own life was in danger. As it probably had been.

It all fit. So did the many reports of “the Devil’s work” heard during the week. No doubt Jack had enjoyed offering others some of his own medicine in an innocent pinch of snuff. After all, he had been chosen to tell a shocking story to an admiring world, only to discover that it had all been a hoax. The whole thing, his whole life, had been a peculiar sort of amusement for others. Perhaps, thought Charlotte, there were more than a few people in Bracebridge to blame for Jack’s recent sins.

She drew her mind back to the buzzing room full of farmers. The smells of ripe stew, lunch baskets, tobacco and wood smoke, wet linen and wool, and the pungency of several infants all swirled together over the subtler fumes from mugs and glasses.

Right now, Jack would be out behind the tavern with a few other men, enjoying tall stories and the cheap comfort of jug liquor, out of view of their women and children who preferred the crowded warmth inside. If he
should enter now, what would be his reaction at seeing her sitting beside his wife?

And what about the man who had started the whole thing by coming to Bracebridge with the red cloak and the gold coins belonging to a dead man—an impostor whose own location no one, as yet, seemed to know? Had the stranger truly been responsible for the real Duncan Middleton’s murder, with perhaps some help from Peter Lynch? Whoever he was, he was probably far away. Or then again, it was possible that he could be about to walk in through the tavern door at any moment.

Thinking it all over, Charlotte came to one final conclusion. She had very little idea of what would happen next.

O
DDLY ENOUGH, THE
next person to actually sweep through the front door of the tavern turned out to be Diana Longfellow, who had never been known to visit the Blue Boar, but who seemed to find it worth a brief look now.

“You’ll wonder,” she said to Charlotte Willett with feigned ennui, “what draws me here, and all alone. It’s a question with two answers, really. First, Richard and Cicero are quite busy on the bridge, debating whether the flow of water would be increased if the millpond were reduced, and whether that would alter the pleasures of some kind of fish. For my part, I wanted to tell you I’ve found my dragon vial. It was just where I’d left it, I’m afraid. But why don’t we all go for our dinner now, if you’re through with your business?”