The Truth of All Things (48 page)

“And you never heard from him again.”

Father Coyne shook his head. “Just slipped away. For a while after, my guilty conscience would make me think I’d caught a glimpse of him here or there on the streets. Don’t know what ever became of him.”

“And the other boy,” Grey said, “do you recall his name?”

“I don’t think it’s my place to discredit the boy or his family now.”

“Just someone from the congregation. I see.”

“Actually, it was during a unified event. Groups from several churches coming together across the city, some gathering related to the liquor laws. A parade and speeches, lots of fanfare.”

Lean’s stomach did a quick somersault. Maybe eighteen or so years ago, a teenage Jack Whitten got into trouble with a boy from a well-to-do family during a temperance meeting. Colonel Blanchard’s son would be the right age. With young Blanchard acting out over the loss of his mother, the colonel would certainly be apt to cast blame for misbehavior elsewhere; lowly Jack Whitten would be an inviting scapegoat.

Father Coyne launched into another series of convulsing coughs. When the priest set his handkerchief down, Lean noticed that it was spotted with blood. “We should let you rest, Father.”

Grey drew a notebook from his pocket. “Father, if you wouldn’t mind just a few more questions.”

Lean didn’t think the priest looked enthused, but he nodded. “Of course, if I can help.”

“We have a bit of a riddle on our hands. It may sound odd, but your being a priest, and an expert on martyrs and the like, I was wondering if you might have some insight.”

“My eyes are not what they used to be.”

“Let me read for you.” Grey took out his notes and read the first paragraph from the riddle. Father Coyne could only shake his head and profess his ignorance.

Grey continued. “ ‘In the second month of my travels, I came to Constantinople, where the Master first took life and did there himself accept the Lord of the Air. There still clearly did I see the man who was nomine tenus the greatest among men. He bade me record my sins, and ask forgiveness. But I would not, and so the second offering was taken from him. On that very ground, the libation was poured to the Master.’ ”

“Nomine tenus,”
Father Coyne repeated. “Latin, meaning ‘to hold the name of the greatest among men.’ That name could be Maximus.”

“And is there a Catholic saint, a martyr, by that name?” Grey asked.

“Yes. What was the part about his sins?”

“ ‘He made me record my sins, and ask forgiveness.’ ”

“It could be St. Maximus of Constantinople.” Father Coyne struggled to clear his throat. “When he was martyred, his hand was cut off and his tongue removed so he could no longer write or speak. What a strange riddle. Wherever did you hear that?”

Lean caught Grey’s glance and knew he was thinking the same thing: Maggie Keene’s severed hand and her missing tongue. “Just some old book we’ve come across,” Grey said before reading the third paragraph. “ ‘In the third month of my travels, I came to Tridentum, where the Master’s powers were beheld, the skies were made to tremble, and the Master compelled the hosts of the air. There in the half-light did I see the child Zealot at the home of the Wanderers. He begged me to save him, but I would not. So the third offering was taken from him. There the Master put the cup to his lips.’ ”

“We took the reference to the Wanderers to mean the Jews, perhaps,” Lean said. “But I’ve never heard of Tridentum. And a child Zealot?”

“The Zealot is usually a reference to the disciple Simon,” said the priest, “but he obviously wasn’t a child. A child named Simon, at the home of the Jews?”

“Does that have meaning, Father?” Lean asked.

“Simon of Trent, perhaps. Trent could be some sort of derivation from Tridentum.”

“And how did Simon of Trent die?” Grey asked.

“It’s now known to be untrue, of course. But some ideas just refuse to die. Simon was supposedly murdered by the Jews in the Italian city of Trent.” Father Coyne paused and pressed his handkerchief to his mouth for a cough that didn’t come. “It was a persistent myth that the Jews used the blood of Christian children in their rituals. Utterly false, of course, but ignorance and prejudice can be very persistent.”

“So they drew his blood?” Lean asked.

“Drained it from his little body. As the story goes.”

Father Coyne suffered through another coughing spasm, and Lean grew uncomfortable with their prolonged questioning of the man. He tried to get Grey’s attention.

“Just one more, Father. ‘In the fourth month and the last of my travels, I came to Smyrna and the end of my journey, where on the day the Master died, his blood flowed. There, by the light of the firebrand, I could see the father who would not burn. He asked me would I quench the flames, and with blood I did. There the fourth, there the last offering taken. There was the cup finally emptied, and there was the vessel held ready for the Master once more.’ ”

Father Coyne nodded. “Smyrna’s famous martyr was St. Polycarp. In the first century, his tormentors tried to execute him by stabbing, but he would not die. So he was bound in the center of a pyre and set aflame. He died, but not before a dove issued from his wound along with a quantity of blood enough to quench the flames.”

“Odd,” Grey said. “I’d have thought having a live bird inside his body would have been enough to kill him.”

Father Coyne gave a puzzled look, then chuckled, and that devolved into another hacking cough. This time his manservant came close to blunt force as he ushered Lean and Grey through the kitchen and out the front door.

As they stepped onto the porch, Lean said, “Please tell Father Coyne we’re grateful—”

“Go shit in your hat!” Peter Chapman slammed the door shut.

“Damned fool,” Grey said.

“Yes, well, he seems very protective of Father Coyne.”

“Not that strange creature. Me! And you, for that matter. We’ve had the key to these murders right in our hands. This riddle is a map to exactly how he’s committing the murders. Read the very first paragraph in light of what we now know. The event is a birth, a woman who would not bleed—she’s pregnant. The fullness of her offering is a child in the womb that’s taken from her. It’s a description of the mutilation of Hannah Easler.”

Anger flared up in Lean at the image of that murder. He tried to funnel that emotion toward stopping this madman. “The final sacrifice. Where the master died and his blood flowed,” Lean said. “When do we leave for Salem?”

“Early tomorrow afternoon should give us enough time,” Grey said. “I’ll send word for McCutcheon to meet us.”

S
hortly after noon the following day, Lean slid, dodged, and pardoned himself down the narrow aisle, past a steady flow of train travelers surging forward in search of empty compartments with the zeal of overdue trout rushing upstream. He glanced back and caught sight of Perceval Grey’s dark hat jostling away in the opposite direction. Every passing man’s face became a target. He moved into the next car and was halfway through when the train whistle gave two long bursts. The conductor shouted out the final call for Portsmouth, continuing to Salem, Woburn, and Worcester. Ignoring the rest of the car’s inhabitants, Lean hurried forward to the next coupling. He grasped a hold bar and stuck his head out to get a good look at the platform and any last-second passengers hoping to slip aboard unnoticed. He was disappointed to see not a single soul dashing ahead through the steam as the train hissed and lurched, the wheels jerking to life with the first hints of forward motion.

A dozen people along the platform waved their last to passengers staring back through the small compartment windows. Lean’s eyes settled on a solitary form, his gaze arrested by the utter stillness of a man dressed in black propped against a support pole on the platform. The man carried a newspaper in one hand and, though his felt hat was pulled low, Lean met the man’s gaze for a brief moment. There was a flash of recognition before the man looked down, and his hands lifted the newspaper, obscuring his face.

The train began its slow rumble forward. Lean threw one last wild
sweeping gaze up and down the length of the platform before he returned to the man in the long black overcoat. The man never moved except to cast a brief glance after the departing train. Lean wasn’t sure, but he thought the man’s eyes had been directed at where he stood. After completing his survey of the back half of the train, Lean returned to their compartment to find Grey waiting.

“Nothing. You?” Grey asked.

Lean shook his head, then mentioned the possible exception of the man in the black coat.

“You can’t place him?” Grey asked.

“No, but I’m sure I’ve seen him somewhere.”

“It will come to you. Just don’t be too disappointed if it’s a name remembered from some other case. No shortage of men about these days anxious to avoid the gaze of a police detective. The mind can wreak havoc on a pair of eyes that are desperately searching for something.”

“That may well be,” said Lean, “but still … something about that fellow.”

“I suspect our man is in Salem already. And even if that
was
him back on the platform, take heart. We now have the advantage of his not having made it aboard. He’d be severely hard-pressed to get there and make whatever arrangements are necessary if he now has to wait and take the 3:40. So perhaps your brief encounter has thrown our man off track for the night and saved a life.” Grey shrugged noncommittally and glanced out the window, looking skyward. “Barely a cloud to be seen. A fine day for traveling.”

Lean disagreed but said nothing as he unfolded his newspaper, eager to distract his thoughts. Their destination was hours away, and the mid-August sun beating down on the train’s dark rooftop would soon make their compartment unbearably stuffy. The small window could be opened, but if he forgot to close it at any stop, he’d be swatting flies for thirty minutes after.

Lean tried to focus on local stories about doings at City Hall or efforts to repair damage just up the coast caused by a serious storm the
previous week. After a few minutes, his natural instincts took over and he turned to the front-page article entitled
INQUEST BEGINS. JUDGE BLAISDELL HEARS EVIDENCE GATHERED IN THE BORDEN MURDER CASE
.

Like seemingly everybody in the country with access to newspapers, Lean had been following the mystery of the Borden slayings with keen interest. In the immediate wake of the double homicide of a wealthy older couple in their home two weeks earlier, the brutal slayings had been assumed to be the work of a bloody madman. Now, as the facts slowly came out, the evidence seemed to be mounting against Lizzie, the thirty-two-year-old daughter of Mr. Borden.

“It certainly seems the daughter must be to blame for the murders,” Lean said, “but the sheer brutality of it … There were ill feelings between the daughters and the stepmother, but so many ax blows to the head … Then for a woman to wait another hour and repeat the deed, hacking away at her own father while he slept. It’s inconceivable.”

Grey glanced at the headline of Lean’s paper. “The alternatives are even more inconceivable. All the facts point solely at that daughter. Every aspect of her account of the events has been discredited or is on its face suspect. Yet I fear the shoddy police work and that same resistance you displayed to believing a woman capable of the act will serve to prevent a conviction. Practically the entire community had access to the scene after the murder, and the police wasted valuable time pursuing baseless rumors. If they had simply sealed the house that very morning and searched every room minutely, I’m sure they would have discovered the bloodstained clothes belonging to Lizzie. Instead she was witnessed days later burning a dress in the kitchen stove. She claimed she destroyed it because it was stained with paint. Why, it’s nothing short of a repeat of England’s infamous Road Hill murder, or a page from Wilkie Collins.”

“Oh, hell,” Lean grumbled, “if we’re going to talk about horrific murders, we may as well be speaking of Salem. Where exactly will we be looking for our man?”

“Courtesy of our indefatigable researcher, Mrs. Prescott.” Grey drew some folded pages from an inside coat packet and handed them
over. “Descriptions from Upham and the other usual sources as to the execution of the Reverend George Burroughs and the location of the site where the witches were hanged.”

Lean removed his hat and coat and settled in for the long ride, before taking up the pages.

Lean’s mind turned briefly to Emma’s worried face, her eyes welling up that morning as he explained nothing more than that it would all be over in the next twenty-four hours. Lean forced the image from his mind as he took up more of Helen’s research entries.