Death of a Dyer (6 page)

“I didn’t see any vomit in the kitchen,” Rees said.

“He’d tried to wipe it up. I finished the job and picked up the cloth in a towel.… Then I realized his eyes were open and all filmy and he was dead and I screamed and dropped the tray and ran out screaming.” She inhaled a deep gulping breath.

“And where is the cloth now?” Rees asked. Nate couldn’t have wiped up after himself if he had been beaten to death.

“I don’t know.” Mary Martha’s face contorted as she struggled to remember. “I didn’t take it.” She shuddered.

Someone must have been in the cottage after Richard, Rees thought. But who? Filing that question away for the moment, he asked, “And what happened then?”

“Rachel said we should wait for Marsh to come home, so I did my usual work until my brother came for me.”

“You did your usual work? I would have thought … Wasn’t it very distressing for you?”

“Yes.” She nodded her head at him. “I was crying. But I couldn’t just sit.…”

“So, you worked until your brother arrived?”

“Yes. Rachel told him what happened.” She paused, her smooth forehead wrinkling. “I wasn’t sure they would let me return, they were that anxious.”

Rees eyed the girl with her red curls and round blue eyes and the sheen of innocence upon her like dew upon a rose and nodded. “I would be as concerned,” he said.

“But Mr. Bowditch pays—paid well.” She looked up at Rees, her freckles standing out against her sudden pallor like scars.

“He paid well,” Rees repeated, nodding at her in encouragement.

“He had to. Many families won’t allow their daughters to work under the supervision of a colored person, but my parents are Quakers and they say everyone is a person under God. Anyway,” she added artlessly, “we need the money.”

Rees nodded sadly. Even here in Maine, people he knew, good Christian people, hesitated to work alongside black people. They certainly refused to accept instruction from persons of color. And Marsh did enjoy an unusual level of authority.

“Do you know Richard?” Rees asked.

Scarlet flooded her cheeks. “He would never hurt his father,” she cried, her voice trembling with conviction. A flock of chickadees rose squawking into the sky, and Rachel came to the door. “Well, he wouldn’t,” Mary Martha said more softly, but no less passionately.

“You must know Richard well to be so sure,” Rees said.

She shook her head, the pink in her cheeks spreading to her neck. “We talked sometimes,” she admitted, “but that was all.”

“How old are you?” Rees asked suddenly.

“Fourteen.”

“And Richard is seventeen,” Rees said, instantly understanding the relationship. Richard probably did not recognize the girl’s existence. “And what did you and Richard speak about?”

“Oh, things,” she replied. “He complained about his father.” Leaning forward, she confided, “They fought all the time.”

“I see. And do you know where Richard might be now?”

“No,” she said with a shake of her fiery curls. She straightened her cap. “But I don’t blame him for running. Why, the constable accused him of killing his father. It was terrible.” Her voice rose. Rees did not speak. “But I must go back to work,” she said. “Rachel will be looking for me. She depends upon me.”

“I’m sure,” Rees agreed in the bright manner adults use with young children. Then, already knowing the answer, he asked his final question. “Do you know the names of the young men Richard might consider friends? From school, perhaps.”

“No,” she admitted. “I left school a few years ago. I was needed at home. And Richard left before that, for a gentleman’s school, I think.”

“Do you know the name?” Rees asked without hope. She shook her head.

“Mary Martha!” Marsh came out of the kitchen door. From a distance of several feet, so he would not intrude, he summoned the girl. “Constable Caldwell wishes to speak with you now.”

Mary Martha rose reluctantly from her stone seat. “Why don’t you ask Augie?” she suggested over her shoulder.

Rees nodded grimly. “I will.”

“And Mr. Rees,” Marsh said as the girl hurried toward him. “The constable also wants to speak with you. He asks you not to wander away.”

“I want to speak to him as well.” Rees followed them across the kitchen yard and into the house. But he paused just inside the stifling kitchen, his back to the door, and waited while they went up the stairs. Rachel bent over the dishpan, scrubbing the dishes with ferocious attention. Rees was not fooled.

“Tell me about Augie,” he said.

“He doesn’t live here anymore,” she said, ducking her head.

“Turn around and face me,” Rees said. “Please.” She turned as bidden but kept her eyes lowered. “Where does he live, Rachel?”

“He lives in Dugard now,” she said.

“But he lived here once,” Rees said.

She nodded reluctantly. “He grew up here.”

“So he knows Richard well?” Rees persisted. She nodded. “Is he free as you and Marsh are?”

“Nate freed Augustus when he was a boy. I’m not free.”

Rees stared. As a boy, Nate had hated, in his words, the “pernicious institution” of slavery. Now he owned slaves?

“He didn’t free you?”

“He wished to,” Rachel admitted. “I refused. Nate was very good to me.”

Nate? Not “Master”? Or “Mr. Bowditch”? Rees now understood everything. Rachel was uncommonly beautiful, and Nate only a man.

“But surely you could remain here as a servant,” Rees said.

She shook her head, her gaze involuntarily turning upstairs.

“I see,” he said. She was afraid of Molly, who might, and probably would, turn her out. But only Nate could sell her. Would that now be Richard, as the eldest son and heir? “So, Richard and Augustus grew up together and thought of one another as brothers?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Isn’t it possible Richard fled to his boyhood friend for protection?” She didn’t speak, her reply in the scarlet of her cheeks. “Does Caldwell know?”

“No.” The single word exploded from her lips like a shot. She raised her eyes, staring at Rees beseechingly.

He sighed. “Where in Dugard does your son live?”

“I don’t know. Nate apprenticed him to the blacksmith behind Wheeler’s Livery.”

“Amos Isaacs?” Rees asked.

She nodded. “Yes. I believe he works there still.”

“But you don’t know,” Rees murmured, staring at her.

“No. I never visit town and he doesn’t come here.” A solitary tear made its glistening trail down her cheek.

“Mr. Rees,” Marsh said, pausing at the foot of the stairs. “The constable wants to see you now.”

Rees glanced quickly at Rachel and followed Marsh from the kitchen.

Chapter Four

The floor above was much cooler. Fresh air blew through the windows, and Rees paused for a moment, enjoying the crisp relief. Marsh looked back over his shoulder, his expression one of impatience, and Rees fell into step behind him, heading, as he expected, for Nate’s office. The man waiting there turned from the window, and the two men regarded each other with interest. Much shorter than Rees, Caldwell wore a rusty black coat and breeches, dirty stockings, and a linen shirt stained by food. His thinning salt-and-pepper hair was scraped back into a queue from a pockmarked face shining with sweat. But what Rees noticed first and most powerfully was the odor eddying out from the constable: a stink composed of old sweat and new whiskey. Rees circled around, trying to move upwind of the man. Caldwell matched Rees’s movements to keep the distance between them. Removing a toothpick from his pocket, he began worrying at a morsel of food, displaying his stained and rotting teeth.

“Mrs. Bowditch said you was a friend of the family,” he said, eyeing Rees from tired black-circled eyes.

“I grew up with Nate Bowditch,” Rees said.

“She hired you to look into her husband’s death?”

“She did. I have experience investigating murders,” Rees said, “beginning with my first case while a soldier in the Continental Army.”

“And you believe that fits you for this now,” Caldwell sneered.

Rees shrugged. “I’m here, looking into Nate’s murder, whether you like it or not,” he said. This was not the first time, nor would it be the last, that the local constable opposed him. At that moment, Marsh entered with a tray: homemade doughnuts and cold tea garnished with fresh mint.

“Don’t you have anything stronger?” Caldwell demanded disdainfully.

“Whiskey?” Marsh said, glancing at Rees.

“Not for me.” He picked up a glass of tea and drank. “It’s good,” he said in surprise. “Sweet.” Caldwell grunted. Ignoring the tongs, he helped himself to a doughnut with a grimy paw. Rees stared at the filthy hand, the nails rimmed in black, and refused the plate. Caldwell would never make a weaver; any cloth he wove would quickly be too grubby to sell.

“What have you learned so far?” Caldwell demanded.

Rees, temper flaring at the constable’s tone, said, “What makes you think I learned anything?”

“You were born and raised here. You know everyone. Don’t you?”

“No,” said Rees. “I don’t know you.”

“My family moved here after the War. You know Mr. and Mrs. Bowditch. Yes?”

“I knew Nate,” Rees said. “But I hadn’t seen him for almost twenty years.”

“You must know more than I do. Nobody will tell me anything. Or they lie.”

Rees nodded in reluctant sympathy. “I know. They lie to me, too.”

“I find that hard to believe. Mrs. Bowditch hired you to clear her son’s name, not find the killer.”

“Maybe. But I will find the murderer, her son or no.”

Caldwell caught the determination in Rees’s voice, and after a long steady scrutiny of the weaver’s expression, he nodded. “Then I see she has mistaken her man,” he said.

Rees sat down, relaxing for the first time since entering this room, and the two men regarded each other more warmly. “Did you learn anything from Richard?” Rees asked at last.

Caldwell dropped into a chair opposite. “He didn’t like his father. But I knew that. Their arguments were the stuff of gossip throughout Dugard. And he certainly didn’t help his case when he bolted.”

“He’s frightened,” Rees said.

“With good reason,” Caldwell said. “One of the hands, a Mr. Fred Salley, saw Richard leaving the weaver’s cottage. He was covered with blood.”

Rees stared. He remembered Molly alluding to Mr. Salley, but not as though he had anything important to say.

Smirking at Rees’s startled expression, Caldwell helped himself to another doughnut. “I daresay Mrs. Caldwell forgot to mention that little fact. I suspected so.” Rees did not mistake the gloating expression that flashed across Caldwell’s face. “Talk to Mr. Salley; he’ll tell you. What’s more, I’m sure other people saw Richard but are keeping their mouths shut. The Bowditch family is important hereabouts.” He added in a low voice, “And I admit I hope Richard is innocent as well. I’ll have the devil of a time making anything stick against him.”

Furious, and trying not to reveal it to the constable, Rees said, “I’ll speak to Mrs. Bowditch again. As soon as possible.”

“You might want to speak to the nursemaid, too,” Caldwell added, grinning.

“Kate? Why? Surely you don’t believe she’s the killer,” Rees said.

“You’ll understand when you see her.” Caldwell grunted in frustration. “I haven’t managed to speak to her at all; she runs from me. But maybe you, as a friend of the family, can persuade her to talk. Perhaps she knows where he’s hiding.”

Rees, resenting Caldwell’s sneer, elected not to mention Augustus’s connection to the family. It was possible the constable already knew—Dugard was not that large a town, and God knows, people talked. But he gave no sign that he did, and Rees knew Rachel hadn’t told him.

“I’ll speak to her,” Rees said. Caldwell nodded and, snagging another doughnut, went out whistling.

Rees sat for several minutes longer, trying to control his anger. He couldn’t wait to speak to Molly Bowditch, and when he deemed himself calm enough he stomped determinedly out of Nate’s office. But, although he peered into every room he passed, he saw neither Mrs. Bowditch nor Marsh. Finally he ran down the stairs into the kitchen. The hot air floated up to envelop him with the sweet aroma of roasting beef.

“We need more help,” Mary Martha was saying as Rees approached the women. Rachel looked at him almost accusingly, but it was Mary Martha who spoke. “We don’t have time to speak to you now, Mr. Rees. Not with dinner barely an hour away.”

Gasping in the stifling heat, Rees nodded and fled through the open door into the kitchen yard. Even the warmth of a September day felt cool after the hellish temperature inside. Cows lowed in the distance, and somewhere nearby he heard the shrill treble of a child.

He stood for several minutes in the kitchen yard, growing angrier by the minute. No wonder Caldwell whistled. Whatever threat he imagined Rees represented had now been effectively dismissed. Rees knew he’d come off as a fool, a fool played by Molly Bowditch. He was so angry, he almost considered handing the widow back her money. But he’d already promised, and besides, Nate, his boyhood boon companion, was the victim. Rees would not allow Nate’s killer to go free.

“Not even if it was Richard,” Rees said aloud.

He pondered the tasks demanding his attention. Although speaking to Mrs. Bowditch might be most important, he was momentarily confounded in that. But he intended to speak to Fred Salley and the nursemaid and examine the cottage once again. He hesitated, irresolute, and then set off up the slope toward the child’s voice. He suspected the high treble belonged to Ben, so could Kate be far away? As he climbed the hill, he wondered why a nursemaid was even necessary. Certainly Mrs. Bowditch did not have a large family to care for and she employed help for all other responsibilities. She seemed to aspire to living as a lily of the field, a lazy life at odds with a busy farm.

“Me no want horsie!” The statement ended on a scream that pierced the quiet like a knife. Rees changed course and soon saw Kate and Grace sitting with Ben under a large maple. The more Grace galloped the wooden steed in front of the little boy, the more fiercely he pushed it away.

“Me run,” he declared. “Chase me.” He set off across the field. Grace jumped to her feet and then, recognizing Rees, stopped short. She looked startled, but Kate stared at Rees in frozen terror. His six-foot-plus frame, broad shoulders, and fiery hair intimidated many. Smiling, Rees slouched and tried to look less frightening.