Death of a Dyer (12 page)

“I’m surprised Nate could keep up with such wealthy company,” Rees said. Although still shocked, he reminded himself he wasn’t Potter’s mother.

“Nate usually won,” Potter said dryly. “Besides, you must have already realized that he did very well for himself. All that property, a new and expansive farm…”

“Yes. He did so well, I find it curious. How did the son of a poor farmer become so wealthy?” Potter shrugged. And Rees, who thought he did not entirely trust his old friend anymore, did not pursue that topic. “I apologize for interrupting your breakfast. I left home early, as I have several errands in town.”

“I’m glad we cleared the air,” Potter said, stretching out his hand.

Rees hesitated and then shook and departed, smiling genially. But his smile dropped away as he climbed into his wagon. Cards and gambling? Disgusting. He urged Bessie into a rapid trot, northwest, to the Carleton farm. The changes in the people he once knew continued to surprise and shock him.

Even as a boy, Rees had not visited Carleton Hall more than two or three times, and then always in the company of his father. Pausing at the end of the long drive leading up to the house, Rees recalled his final visit. His father intended to remonstrate with King Carleton for ordering his servants to beat his son. They’d walked up the drive together, his father smelling powerfully of whiskey and tobacco, and his fingers black with ink. No amount of scrubbing could wash that ingrained ink away. Rees, who knew even at eleven that he disappointed his father in choosing weaving instead of printing as a profession, could feel him trembling. Carleton allowed them in, but before the elder Rees spoke more than a few words, King went after him with his cane. White hair flying, he whaled about him with the oak stick, and Rees and his father fled. Rees sighed, only now understanding the depth of his father’s humiliation.

He urged Bessie forward. The trees appeared thicker and denser than he remembered, and the leafy branches woven together overhead completely occluded the sky. A lone figure on horseback trotted toward Rees. James Carleton. Seated astride a beautiful chestnut gelding with a white stocking upon the left hind leg, James wore a tall black hat and a bright yellow coat. His riding boots, polished to a mirror shine, reflected the sun in bright flashes. Rees pulled Bessie to a stop and waited, his heart beginning to thunder in his chest.

“Well, if it isn’t Will Rees,” James sneered. “When I saw you at the Bull, I wondered how long it would take you to visit me.”

Rees inspected his boyhood nemesis. The boy he remembered was still recognizable in the man, although his plumpness had become a portly gravitas. His full lips, fleshy and sensual in his father, looked feminine and weak on James and softened the heavy jaw. The arrogance Rees recalled now presented as bluster. Or a mask for something else. Fear, maybe?

“Still a model of sartorial elegance,” Carleton mocked. Under his canary-colored jacket, he wore nankeen breeches tucked into those astonishing glossy boots.

“And you are a fashion plate,” Rees said, eyeing the pale blue waistcoat with its thickly embroidered fantastical birds and flowers. He himself cared little for clothes, as long as they were clean and mended. His breeches were old and comfortable, and his homespun jacket and stockings recently laundered. Lydia had even pressed his linen shirt. “I prefer more important pursuits.”

James smiled. “Ah, the same old Will. I’m glad to see that some people remain exactly as one remembers them.”

“You were not so witty as a boy,” Rees said, surprised by the adroit insult.

“I assume you are calling upon me to discuss Nate’s death. And what a tragedy that was.” Carleton’s face crumpled. “I’ll miss him. I could talk to him.”

“Talk to him? About what?” Rees asked. Nate had spent his boyhood chasing James and calling him names.

“We enjoyed our time together in London,” James said with a smirk.

“I know you gambled together,” Rees said.

“And I had every reason for wanting him alive.” James sighed.

Carleton’s subdued passion surprised Rees. He could almost believe James cared about Nate.

“But, as you can see, I’m on my way into town and don’t have time to meet with you. Permit me to save you some time. I didn’t kill him. Why would I? I had no reason to. We were good friends. And I can’t imagine who might have killed him, except I’m certain Richard is not the guilty party.” He clucked to his mount, but Rees held up his hand.

“Wait. You truly don’t believe the boy is guilty?”

“I’d lay my life on his innocence,” Carleton said. “They were devoted to one another.”

“You knew them well, then?” Rees could hardly credit this friendship.

“Of course. We met often, Nate and I. Like I said, we were friends. I’ve known Richard since he was born.”

“I understand you have a daughter Richard’s age?” Rees said, trying to wrest control of this interview from James.

“I have three daughters. My eldest is a year or two younger than Richard. But what does she have to do with this? She barely knows the boy. She’s been away at school for several years.”

“A connection between the two largest landowners…,” Rees suggested.
James doesn’t know,
he thought.
How can he not know?

Carleton smiled. “I would not object. But it is my wife’s fondest wish that Elizabeth—in fact, all of my daughters—experience a season in London. I fear no local sprig could compete with that.” James chuckled. “Well, it was a pleasure meeting you again, Will. Please stop by again.” With a flick of the reins, James steered his chestnut around Rees and his wagon. But before he galloped away, he turned back and shouted over his shoulder, “Ask your brother-in-law! Sam had a good reason for wishing Nate dead.” And then he was off, disappearing in a cloud of dust.

“Sam Prentiss,” Rees said in astonishment. Well, he knew Sam’s temper from the past, but a close connection between the two men surprised him. And the prospect of questioning Sam, especially now, sent a nervous shock of dismay through Rees.

He planned to stop at the Bowditch farm and so headed due south on a smaller and less traveled lane. It bisected acres of lush Carleton fields. Occasionally, in the distance, Rees spotted an abandoned house, evidence of King Carleton’s land grab. Rees wondered what had happened to the families who’d been forced out of those houses. He’d known some of the children in school; were they still around, married with farms and families of their own, or had the parents taken them west to the frontier?

Abruptly the fields went from planted to fallow, meadows thick with daisies and goldenrod. Left untilled for a few years, these parcels were no longer fields and, if the number of saplings were any indication, would soon revert to forest. Now, why had Carleton abandoned these plots?

And that question brought Rees full circle, back to his old enemy. He replayed his earlier meeting with James, the first in almost twenty years. Carleton had been more than rude and unmannerly, surprisingly so. He hadn’t asked Rees any questions about his return to Dugard or even attempted polite small talk. In fact, his demeanor and eagerness to escape solidified Rees’s initial impression: Carleton was afraid. But of what? Rees? Some secret that pertained to Nate’s death?

James Carleton clearly demanded more attention.

*   *   *

About twenty minutes later, Rees reached Nate’s property; he knew it by the worked fields full of laborers harvesting the crops. Several minutes more and he approached the crossroad that ran east to Dugard. Straight ahead he saw the front of Nate’s fine brick house. Rees did not turn into the main drive but continued to the back entrance. He felt more comfortable parking his wagon here. He tied up Bessie to the rail and went in search of Fred Salley, the hand who had witnessed Richard’s flight from the cottage.

He asked the first laborer he saw for Mr. Salley. The man jerked his thumb at the barns and continued walking. Rees asked twice more before he found the man in the tack room. Although Rees had pictured a young man, little more than a boy, with red hair and freckles, the man he met was a laborer, a grizzled old veteran of a lifetime spent wandering on the roads. He now walked with the awkward jerky gait of a rheumatism sufferer, and Rees understood how he had fetched up on the shores of Nate’s farm.

“Mr. Salley?” Rees asked. The man looked up. “I spoke with the constable. He told me you saw Richard Bowditch leaving the cottage the night before Nate’s body was discovered.”

“You ain’t telling me you’re helping Caldwell,” the man replied skeptically.

“I am,” Rees said. “Did you see the lad?”

“It ain’t no secret. He come out, runnin’ like the Devil himself was after him.…” He stopped.

“I already have a witness to that,” Rees said. “And to the … the stains upon his shirt.”

Salley stared at him. “You heard about the blood? The mistress didn’t want me talking about it.”

“You’re sure it was blood?”

“Course I’m sure. He passed within two feet of me. And I know blood when I sees it.”

Rees nodded slowly. “Describe exactly what you saw, if you please.”

“The blood was sprayed down his right arm. Little bit on his chest. And a stain on his belly, like he took his father’s head in his lap.”

Rees stared over Salley’s head, thinking. For the first time, he considered the bruising around Nate’s nose. Had Richard held his father’s nose closed and smothered him to make sure of his death? “What were you doing in front of the cottage?” Rees asked after a brief silence.

The man’s eyes slid away. “Well, I warn’t in front. More like going down the lane. Mr. Bowditch didn’t like me to take the shortcut to the road, but my legs ain’t so good anymore. I was just starting down the hill.…”

“And?”

“And nothing.” Salley looked at him in disgust. “He was arguing with someone,” he said. “Mr. Bowditch, I mean. Even before Richard went in. I heard the raised voices from the hill.”

“Who was it?”

“Don’t know. Then Richard went in from the road and there was more arguing. I figured I had a few minutes.” He paused. Rees nodded in encouragement. “I was just at the bottom of the hill when the boy ran out. I jumped to the side, into the weeds there and Richard ran right by me. You know?”

Rees turned Salley’s statement over in his mind. Someone had been in the cottage before Richard, and maybe after as well unless he fled through the back door. “Anything else?”

“I went on down. Didn’t see nothing else,” he said.

“Why didn’t you call Marsh or someone?”

“Well, it wasn’t my business, was it? And if Mr. Bowditch was inside, well, he’d turn me off for sure. I been warned before, you see. So I kept going, just as fast as these tired old legs could carry me.”

“And did Richard see you?” Rees asked.

Salley pondered a moment. “I’m not sure. I don’t think so. It was getting dark. He never looked my way. And I sure didn’t call out to him. Why would I do that?”

“Why indeed,” Rees agreed. “Thank you, Mr. Salley.” He started away but realized he still did not know why Salley had traveled past the cabin. “Why were you going past the cottage? Why take that route?”

The hand looked at him in surprise. “You go past the cottage and through the trees and you get to the main road. Cuts off a good mile or more. Easy,” the hand said.

Rees realized with a start that Nate had a private entrance to the cottage. He could have come and gone as he pleased. So could anyone, including the murderer.

“Did you see anyone else when you left, maybe riding down the road?”

Salley shook his head. “A couple of horses in the lay-by. Richard’s gelding, Marsh’s gray cob, and one other—nothing else.”

“Marsh’s horse? You’re sure?” Rees asked.

Salley nodded. “He tied the gray there when he was on his way out.”

Rees considered that. Marsh was supposed to be gone. Everyone told Rees Marsh had been gone. “Who owned the other horse? Do you know?”

Salley shook his head. “But that lay-by isn’t a secret. Sometimes the local farmers tie up their horses there.”

“Thank you,” Rees said. He would have to examine the lay-by to be certain, but he could already guess how easy it might be for someone to visit the cottage with no one in the house the wiser. Did Molly know of it and of the quartet of men who met to play cards at the cottage?

“I won’t be turned off, will I?” Salley asked, his wrinkled face anxious.

“Not on account of me.”

Abandoning the hand to his tack mending, Rees left the barn. He walked slowly back to the house. The number of men in Nate’s circle must be enormous: customers, servants, casual help. Usually, though, friends and family were the more likely culprits, and that brought Rees full circle back to family and help. What about Marsh? Although several people had told Rees Marsh was away visiting his sister, Salley had just identified Marsh’s horse. That meant that at the time of Nate’s murder, the servant was still present on the property. Could he be the man overheard arguing with Nate? Maybe Nate had just demanded too much and Marsh had snapped?

As Rees crossed the lane and approached the back of the house, Marsh himself popped out of the door. Rees looked at him speculatively. “The mistress wants to speak to you,” Marsh said. Sweaty and hot, he still wore his apron and carried a rag in his hand. He must have been watching for Rees, and Rees wondered if Molly—who of course could not be expected to call after him herself—had interrupted Marsh and compelled him to leave his own duties. Of course she had. Molly was too conscious of her own consequence to do otherwise.

Chapter Nine

The small sitting room at the front of the house was as different from Nate’s messy office as it could be. No expense had been spared in furnishing this, Molly’s boudoir. The graceful furniture had probably been imported from England; Rees did not know furniture. But he knew textiles and the silk covering the chairs and swathing the windows were imported from China. A delicate porcelain bowl brought back from the orient occupied pride of place on a marble-topped table. Molly was playing a musical instrument that resembled a harpsichord but sounded different, even to Rees’s untrained ear, and the tinkling sounds of some piece filled the air.