The Salem Witch Society Read online

  “Mother?” Delia’s head turned, but her eyes remained shut.

  “Shhh. Go back to sleep.” Helen set the picture down and slid under the covers. She wrapped her arm around Delia and held her close. She felt the girl’s gentle breathing, close enough that Helen could let her own heart slow, falling into rhythm with that of the dreaming child.

  18

  Tom Doran stared straight ahead, his eyes focusing on the ragged rectangle carved into the earth. Nearby, someone in the cluster of Farrell’s girls was crying. Next to the mound of dark earth, the priest was reading a psalm. Doran recognized it, but the words simply swirled around him, then moved on unhindered.

  “‘Why standest thou afar off, O Lord? Why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble? The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor.’”

  The box that held Maggie was nothing fancy. It hadn’t cost much, and Doran felt a twinge of guilt over that, but then again, it was no worse than the coffin for his own wife two decades earlier. Besides which, Maggie was in a better place, and she wouldn’t begrudge him that pine box. The other girls might complain, but Doran knew the loud grief coming from that group would dwindle and die over the next couple of weeks. After that, Maggie Keene might get remembered in a drunken toast on some night when the girls got together for a cup of cheer after a good bit of business. And that would be the whole of it.

  The priest’s voice rattled on. “‘His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud: under his tongue is mischief and vanity. He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages: in the secret places does he murder the innocent; his eyes are privily set against the poor. He lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den.’”

  Doran’s gaze wavered and fell upon the box itself. She was in there, lifeless and still. Whatever made her who she was had gone out of the face he’d seen in the morgue. Doran closed his eyes and tried to picture her as she’d looked while alive. The image soon blurred and twisted until he was instead seeing his own Mary, staring back at him with soft eyes.

  “‘Thou hast seen it; for thou beholdest mischief and spite, to requite it with thy hand: the poor committeth himself unto thee; thou art the helper of the fatherless. Break thou the arm of the wicked and the evil man: seek out his wickedness till thou find none.’”

  Tom Doran clenched his fists hard enough that his ragged fingernails dug into his palms. When that didn’t work, he raised his left hand to his mouth and bit into a knuckle. Soon the pain and the faint taste of blood were enough to banish the thoughts.

  “You don’t think she’s in any further danger?” Dr. Steig asked.

  “Well, I told them they should have more than a lone woman locking up the place at night,” Lean said, recalling that morning’s meeting with the doctor’s rattled niece and the head librarian. “But from this same fellow? I don’t think so. He wasn’t a regular visitor, unfamiliar with the library. Strikes me as an isolated occurrence. Troubling, but not likely to be repeated.”

  “Thank you again, Lean. After all this, the idea of a madman on the loose, then my own niece being threatened. You don’t suppose there’s any chance?”

  “The thought struck me, but her man was of average height and blond.”

  “In the lobby, yes, but she never saw the face of the one who chased her,” said the doctor.

  “Probably the same man.” Lean shifted his feet on the grass, not yet wanting to interrupt the scene below even though the ceremony was clearly finished. “Ready?”

  “Let’s give him a minute,” Dr. Steig said.

  Lean glanced over his shoulder at the doctor’s hansom cab, which had brought them across the river to the Catholic cemetery in Cape Elizabeth. Through the window he could make out Grey, sitting in the shade with his telescope in hand, perusing the scenery with his back to the cemetery.

  “Doran’s this way,” noted Lean.

  “You think Doran’s our man, then?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Good,” Grey said, “then it’s agreed we shouldn’t both be wasting our time staring at him.”

  “Oh, and you think the killer is lurking about behind some tree, come to see his girl off.” Lean rolled his eyes.

  The doctor gave a shrug. “He obviously attached a great degree of significance to her death and to her body after death. Not implausible to think he still feels some perverse sense of union with her.”

  “Fine.” Lean turned back to Grey. “Any luck, then?”

  Grey held his telescope aimed along the tree-lined sidewalk, looking toward where Vaughan’s Bridge led back across the Fore River to the West End of Portland. “Not unless our man is successfully disguised as an old woman walking a constipated mutt.”

  “Here he comes,” said Dr. Steig.

  Lean turned to see a massive, rusty-haired man trudging toward them. Grey secured his telescope inside the carriage, then climbed down to join the others.

  “There’s something I can help you with, Doc?” Doran asked, tipping his hat.

  “Perhaps, Tom. We need some information about Margaret Keene.”

  Doran’s eyes narrowed, and he glanced at Lean, then Grey.

  “It’s all right, Tom. You can talk freely in front of my colleagues,” Dr. Steig said.

  “I’m not in the habit of talking to the police.”

  “Just a few questions,” Lean said.

  Doran glanced back and forth among their faces. “Right. What do you need to know?”

  “You picked her up from the morgue. So she was one of Farrell’s girls?” Lean said.

  Doran nodded.

  “Farrell paid the morgue fees?”

  “I did.”

  “Why?” Lean asked. “Were you friendly with her?”

  Anger flashed in Doran’s eyes but subsided after Dr. Steig cleared his throat.

  “Not like that. Just because she deserved better. She was a good kid. Could get a little mean when she’d had a few drinks. But mostly she was a nice girl. Just wanted to have things a little better. Always talked about getting off of Munjoy Hill. Said she’d wind up with a big place looking over the river.”

  “She was half right,” Grey said.

  “So you have any thoughts on who might have done this?” Lean asked.

  Doran shook his head. “If it ain’t some madman like the papers say, then I don’t know.”

  “Gotten herself up a bit fancy. New hat, gloves. She have something special working?”

  “Nothing much. Just some guy passing through. Big talker, I heard, promising her a better life and all. Nothing new. She was a dreamer, though. Mighta fallen for that whole bit.”

  “Hear anything about him being rough with her?” Lean asked.

  “If I’d heard any such, the man would’ve been in the ground himself, afore he could do this to Maggie.” Doran nodded back toward where the gravediggers were shoveling in the dirt.

  “Those other girls that were here. They know any more about this new guy?”

  “Don’t think those girls really know much,” Doran said.

  “‘Those’ girls?” Grey said. “There’s someone else who might?”

  “She had a friend. Called her cousin, but I think she was just a gal from the next town over back home. Families knew each other kind of thing.”

  “Where can we find this … ?” Lean left the question of a name hanging.

  “Boxcar Annie. Something of a loose bird. She used to be around a lot up on the hill. I went looking for her myself yesterday, but she’s cleared out. Heard she’s taken up with some of McGrath’s crew. Down off Pleasant Street.”

  “Tom,” Dr. Steig said, “do you know anyone, maybe a customer coming around a lot, who carries a kind of blade with a good curve to it?”

  “Curve? What, like the tip of a bowie knife?”

  “No. A good section of the blade would have something of a curve to it.” Dr. Steig cupped his hand like the thin edge of a waning moon. “So you could cut with it, but really more useful for slashing down or hacking awa
y at something.”

  A look of recognition flickered in Doran’s eyes along with the slightest hint of a smile. “Like an old billhook, you mean.”

  “A what?” Grey’s voice held an unexpected sharpness.

  “A billhook.”

  “You know anyone who carries something like that?” asked Lean.

  “Not in the city.”

  “Where, then?” asked Grey.

  “Just about any farm in the state. For cutting hedges or stripping down saplings and such.”

  Grey looked on as if expecting some further explanation.

  “Tom here was a farmer years ago,” explained the doctor.

  “It was a fair piece back. Didn’t agree with me.”

  “Hear the livestock didn’t much care for it either,” added Lean.

  A tired sigh escaped Doran’s throat. He offered nothing more and glanced at his shoes.

  “All that’s a lifetime ago, eh, Tom?” said Steig.

  Doran just nodded toward the doctor.

  “Gentlemen?” Dr. Steig raised his eyebrows. Grey was deep in thought, so Lean answered for the two of them, nodding his assent. The doctor reached out and shook Doran’s hand. “Thank you, Tom. Very helpful.”

  A minute later, as the carriage hurried down Spring Street, past the broad, tree-lined yards of the West End and into the more densely packed city blocks, Lean called up to the driver to head for City Hall.

  “I think perhaps we pay this Boxcar Annie a visit tomorrow.” He waited for a response, but there was only the rattling of the cab. “Well, Grey, do you agree about seeing her?”

  “Hmm? Yes, of course. This prostitute friend. I’ll leave that to you, Deputy.” Grey turned to the doctor. “What was that piece about livestock?”

  “Livestock? Oh, Doran. He used to be a tenant farmer, but he was a slave to the bottle,” answered Dr. Steig. “Not an uncommon affliction among his countrymen, especially for one who’s had the troubles he’s had.”

  “So one morning after a real hard night at it,” added Lean with a hint of a smirk, “some poor old heifer comes wandering in too close to Doran’s window, bursting to be milked and mooing like mad over him leaving it for so long. Well, Big Tom stirs out of his drunk in such a foul mood that he storms right out into the yard, hauls off bare-handed, and slugs that old milk bag right across the skull. Dropped her down dead on the spot.” Lean chuckled at the thought of it, then noticed that neither of his companions was smiling.

  “Not quite so amusing when you know the whole of it,” grumbled Dr. Steig.

  Lean shrugged his shoulders at Grey, who had gone strangely quiet, peering off into some distant, solitary space. “Something about Doran bothering you?”

  “No,” answered Grey as the cab came to a stop. He leaped to the cobblestones. There was a sudden vigor in his voice as his long strides carried him down the sidewalk. “Something about a billhook!”

  19

  Helen Prescott pushed the rattling book cart from the circulation desk toward the stacks on the first floor of the Portland Public Library. Although she was officially employed as an assistant researcher in the historical society on the third floor, when her duties were light she would come downstairs to lend a hand. The library was not crowded, typical for lunchtime on Friday, but she still imagined a dozen pairs of eyes tracing her noisy path across the room. There had been little sleep when she got home on Wednesday night. The sound of heavy steps halting for a moment somewhere on the street outside at two in the morning had been enough to stir her from a fitful dream and cause her to peek from the bedroom window for any signs of the intruder lurking outside her home. She had gone to work the next morning just long enough to report the incident and await the arrival of Deputy Lean, the police detective her uncle had contacted. Although she had seen not a trace of the intruder since two nights earlier, she could still not shake the feeling that he was nearby, watching her.

  Helen was finishing her reshelving when she heard the clang of the front door, followed by purposeful footsteps moving toward the front desk. She stooped down to peer through the narrow gap above a row of books. A tallish man in a charcoal suit appeared at the circulation desk. She studied him and decided he didn’t match the outline of the man she’d seen two nights before. Helen felt a wave of relief as the man removed his dark felt hat to reveal his jet-black hair. He was studying the displayed program for the library’s lecture series with a focus on Charles W. Upham’s 1867 work Salem Witchcraft: With an Account of Salem Village & a History of Opinions on Witchcraft and Kindred Subjects. Helen strode back to the desk, studying the man as she approached. He was tall and thin, with a very tan complexion. She thought he had a deeply honest face, but not in a simple, straightforward way. Even as he stood there, just waiting, he seemed to be intently focused on some faraway thought. All in all, she thought him rather handsome, and she even managed a tentative smile as she asked the man if there was anything she could help him find.

  “Yes, I’m in need of some information regarding, coincidentally enough,” he said with a motion toward the displayed program, “witches. Particularly the superstitions and folklore surrounding witchcraft.”

  Although the man’s expression was pleasant, his dark eyes bored into her. Helen felt he was reading her as plainly as the program. Her smile faded, and she threw a glance down at the desk, her frantic eyes finding the letter opener she’d placed within easy reach when she came in that morning. “Any particular time period? We have some rare, older texts published in the sixteenth century that might interest you.” Her hand slid unseen across the desktop, toward the letter opener.

  “No, actually I’m looking for something more recent. From just the past ten years or so.”

  Helen gave him directions to the second floor and the small section there on folklore and mythology, as well as a nearby section featuring writings on spiritualism, a subject that had grown steadily over the past two decades.

  “If you can’t find what you’re looking for there, you can see Mr. Meserve on the third floor. In conjunction with our lecture series commemorating the bicentennial of the Salem Witch Trials, we have amassed a rather impressive selection of related works, many on loan from some of the city’s finest private collections.”

  The man showed no interest in that bit of information. He gave her an awkward smile and thanked her. Helen watched him move to the stairs and then out of sight. The similarity in this new request, coming so hard on the heels of the intruder’s request two nights before, left goose bumps on her arms. She glanced about and grabbed a small stack of items that needed to be reshelved. Once she reached the second floor, Helen maneuvered into an aisle opposite the main room, where she saw the man’s back. A stack of four or five texts was set on the table in front of him. She listened as he flipped the pages at quick, regular intervals. The pattern continued for a few minutes before the man started on a new book. The interruption broke the spell, and Helen forced herself to head back down to the circulation desk.

  A half hour later, she invented another task and returned to the second floor in search of a volume on Greek antiquities. This provided a closer vantage point to where the darkly dressed man had been reading. He was gone when she got there, his books abandoned on the table. She went by, glanced around to make sure the man was nowhere in sight, then examined the titles. All books involving European folklore and superstitions. One was even written in German.

  Grabbing two random books off a nearby shelf, Helen hurried toward the special-collections room. From there she heard the voice of the head librarian in the same area where she had seen the intruder two nights earlier. Helen strode across to the reference desk and glanced down at the registry. The last signature was that of Perceval Grey. She repeated the name twice under her breath as she sat down at the desk and waited.

  A short while later, Grey appeared and walked past with only the quickest glance at Helen. She collected her coat and bag from the third floor while giving a hasty, jumbled excuse to Mr.
Meserve. After hurrying back downstairs, she dashed out the front door and caught sight of Perceval Grey moving east. She followed behind as he entered the busy square where Free Street angled in to meet the juncture of High and Congress. Helen hurried in and out of shadows cast by the tall spires of Plymouth Congregational, First Universalist, and then the Free Street Baptist Church, all of which sat in a cluster, looming over the congested intersection.

  A bit farther on, Grey stopped for a moment and glanced about. Helen feigned interest in the sidewalk displays of the Congress Fish Market. After one of the Portland Railroad’s horse cars rumbled past, moving down the rails in the middle of the stone-paved street, Helen continued her pursuit. The powerful scent of the day’s catch gave way to the sweet smell of sugar from the massive Hudson’s candy works across the street.

  Grey turned in to a doorway just ahead. Helen slowed her pace as she passed the entrance. Gilded letters arching across the upper limits of the large plate-glass window announced the Western Union Telegraph Co. She did her best to glance casually into the branch office and watched Grey take a pad from the man at the first of three telegraph windows. Grey dashed out his message. After only two lines, he snapped the tip of the pencil, and the clerk handed him a new one.

  An idea sprang into Helen’s mind, and she felt a devious smile creeping across her face. She watched Grey hand the pad back to the man along with the payment. Helen took several steps back in the direction she’d come and made an earnest effort to study the pastries on display in the window of Calderwood Brothers bakery. Grey exited and continued along Congress Street. Helen took several steps after him, then stopped in her tracks, unsure of whether to abandon her plan for the telegraph office. To her great relief, Grey went only another block before crossing Monument Square and heading into the four-story Preble House, one of Portland’s finest hotels.

  Helen hurried into the telegraph office and approached the clerk who had served Grey, cutting off a man heading for that same window. She made a show of apologizing breathlessly before turning to the clerk. “I beg your pardon, but my employer was just here, Mr. Perceval Grey. He was in such a rush he thinks he may have accidentally sent his telegraph to the wrong party. Could you please check for me? Was it directed for a Mr. Charles Andrews?”