The Salem Witch Society Read online

  “Helen!” Dr. Steig blurted out. “That man at the library was looking for some old volume on witchcraft. That’s our man.”

  Grey shook his head. “She reported the man as blond; our killer has black hair. But I agree there appears to be some connection between the two events. Unfortunately, unless Mrs. Prescott can identify the man, there’s little chance of progress along that avenue. I suggest we focus our attention on the role witchcraft plays in the death of Maggie Keene. Did our man truly believe her to be a witch?”

  “Not necessarily,” Dr. Steig said, trying to regain his composure. “He could simply be delusional and applying the term ‘witch’ loosely to mean a sinful woman.”

  “So he is on a religious crusade of some sort,” Lean said.

  Grey rolled his eyes. “You’re like a dog with a meat bone.”

  “Perhaps, like this fellow in the book, he thought himself bewitched by her.” Dr. Steig waved his pipe about like a magic wand. “Of course, not in the sense of poisoned cattle and all that. But in his own unbalanced view of the world, he’s tormented by her, having shameful desires, such as the suckling. Unable to control these feelings, he blames his own weakness on her conduct. She has caused his problems—bewitched him. He must rid himself of her.”

  In the silence that followed, Lean contemplated the doctor’s theory. It had the distinct advantage of being much more fleshed out than his own simple explanation of religious fervor. “Well, Grey? You haven’t said what you make of it.”

  “We can safely assume that, in our man’s mind, Maggie Keene deserved a witch’s death. As to why … mere speculation. We need more facts. There must be some link, something about the victim that marked her for death in this manner. We need to know more about the unfortunate Maggie Keene.”

  22

  Two mornings later, Lean passed the intersection of Gorham’s Corner with Dr. Steig beside him. This was the most densely populated, and the most Irish, section of town. A few blocks on and they turned down a thin alleyway littered with trash and puddles of what Lean optimistically thought of as muddied rainwater. Ahead of them some street kids quit whatever they were doing, took stock of the approaching men, and scattered. Lean and the doctor moved farther down the alley of grime-covered brick walls streaked chalky white by old water stains. Overhead, staggered rows of dingy laundry hung out to languish in the fusty air. There was the occasional flapping sound from linens so thin from long use that they barely offered any resistance to the puffs of wind.

  They turned down a staircase and headed into the dark confines of the underground barroom. It took a moment for Lean’s eyes and nose to adjust. There was little light, except for two candles on a couple of the slanted, poorly cobbled tables. The atmosphere inside was thick and stifling, as if the rank air from the entire space of the alleyway outside had somehow been condensed into the small barroom and held captive for weeks on end.

  The bartender reached below, grabbing hold of something hidden from view. Lean slipped his left hand into his pants pocket, the motion causing the lapel of his suit coat to shift aside and reveal his badge. The man tensed behind the bar, returning the unseen weapon to its resting place.

  It wasn’t hard to spot Boxcar Annie. There were only two women in the room, one so old they might have raised the building around her. Boxcar Annie was sitting alone at a table. Lean had never arrested her before but thought he recognized her face. Although she’d earned her moniker for her habit of working, when need be, near or in empty rail cars, this was one of those arguably fortuitous occasions when the title fit the person’s actions as perfectly as it fit her appearance. Her flat face was set into a square head that was itself hunkered down on her shoulders like a stone gargoyle squatting atop a condemned building

  There were a half dozen men scattered about, but it was early enough that they weren’t yet bothering her, each man instead focusing his attention on his mug. They all looked up at the newcomers with varying degrees of concern. Most merely spared a glance before returning to the pressing business of dulling the world. One man took on a nervous air, drained his cup, and left without making eye contact. On the other end of the spectrum was a grizzled old soaker who was propped up at a table in the shady corner past Boxcar Annie. He barely moved his head from where it hovered just inches over his mug.

  “Annie Gordon,” Lean said.

  She had cheeks of a dull scarlet tint and a rum-blossom nose to match. When she turned her head with the least amount of effort needed to take them in, Lean noticed how the red of her face highlighted the sickly yellow of her eyes. The woman didn’t respond. Lean could tell she was still guessing at what they wanted.

  “Boxcar Annie?”

  The use of her professional name caused her face to relax. “Not often I get two such fine gents as yourselves come around. All the same, I can’t accommodate you right now.”

  “We need a few minutes of your time.”

  “Only a few minutes? Well, at least you’re honest, but I’m not working that way right now. Why don’t you go down to Haskell’s and ask for Big Kate. She’s enough for the two of ya. Or is it just you alone, and yer da likes to watch?”

  Her words were slurred; Lean thought at first that it was just the drink. Then he noticed that even when she wasn’t talking, her jaw was slack, hanging open a touch to reveal a semitoothless set of gums. He remembered hearing that Boxcar Annie had been in and out of work at the Portland Star Match Company over the past fifteen years, often during the winters, when her usual work on the streets became even less accommodating. She had phossy jaw. He’d seen even worse cases of it among the Irishwomen who started young and then spent too many years bunching and bundling up the phosphorus-tipped matches, the dust from it eventually eating away at their teeth and jawbones.

  “This is about Maggie Keene.” Lean showed his badge.

  “I don’t ’afta talk to you.” There seemed a touch of authority in her answer, a sureness that exceeded the regular obstinacy that veteran prostitutes often displayed when dealing with police.

  “Says who?”

  Boxcar Annie didn’t answer, but for a second, Lean thought she might, that somebody had actually told her not to talk to the police.

  She gave a defiant glance toward Dr. Steig. “He don’t look like no cop.”

  Lean thought about it and decided she might respond best to an honest approach. “That’s Dr. Steig. He examined the body.”

  Boxcar Annie pondered this for a moment, then took another swig. “Before or after she was buried?”

  “Before,” interjected Dr. Steig with a curtness that betrayed sensitivity to allegations of that type of corpse procurement that had lent the medical profession something of a ghoulish reputation in recent decades.

  “Wouldn’t be the first time I heard of the other. ’Specially for one of us girls. Dug up and landing up on some doctor’s platter even after she’s had prayers over her grave. Like they ain’t been poked and prodded right enough while they was living! Downright sinful.”

  “He performed the postmortem on Maggie as part of the investigation into her murder.”

  “You mean he’s the one what cut her up more after she was dead already.”

  Lean nodded.

  “He’s not much better’n that other gent that did her first.”

  “I know this isn’t pleasant—that Maggie was a good friend of yours.” Lean watched her lower her cup an inch, a touch less hostility in her eyes. “But we still need to get a few answers to help with the investigation.”

  She laughed in harsh snorts, then wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Investigation? You mean where you pick some witless stiff and beat a confession out of him.”

  Lean ignored the woman’s bitterness. “We need a few details about what Maggie was doing in the week or two before she was killed. Who she was seeing. If any fellows were coming around more often, looking for her in particular. If anyone was acting strange.”

  “Ha! A man’s looking for a bit of the old
trip up the alley and acting strange, is he?” She waved about at the assortment of men in the room. “Show me one of these dirty stiffs what ain’t acting strange.”

  “Fair enough. Anyone acting worse than usual. A man that stood out, did or said anything that worried her,” Lean said.

  “Didn’t mention any stiffs bothering her more than usual, OK? Now, I ain’t got nothing more to say about Maggie. Except she didn’t deserve what he did to her.”

  “Of course not, and that’s why we need your help, Annie. To see that this fellow swings for what he’s done. To make sure he’ll never do this to another girl who doesn’t deserve it any more than Maggie did.”

  Boxcar Annie drained the last of her drink just as Lean finished talking.

  “There ain’t no other girl deserved it less than Maggie—what that gent did to her. All the same, I know damn well he won’t ever meet the noose for it. They never do. You gents will never let him.” Her cheeks turned a more violent shade of red, her voice rising to a hoarse shout.

  Lean could tell they weren’t going to get much from her in this state, and the other bar patrons were growing agitated as well. There was no use in pressing on. “All right, Annie. We’ll be going, so calm yourself. But we may need to speak to you again about all this.”

  “Don’t bother coming back. I got nothing more to say to the likes of you!”

  As they left, Lean could feel Annie’s red-hot stare burning into him. Back on the street, he paused for a moment to collect his thoughts. In his head he ran over his questions to Boxcar Annie once again, thinking hard about her responses. Something about what she’d said nagged at him, and for a moment he was reluctant to walk on.

  “She knows something more.”

  “Maybe we’d have better luck earlier in the day,” grumbled Dr. Steig. “Before she’s had the chance to climb so far into her bottle.”

  They walked down the alley. Lean didn’t look back, so he didn’t see the boy who slipped out the door to McGrath’s place and dashed off in the opposite direction. Nor did Lean see the old drunkard emerge and follow after the boy at a pace quicker than a man of his age and condition should have been able to manage.

  Two hours later Lean brushed aside the curtain and peered out into the dusky street from Dr. Steig’s front parlor at the Soldiers’ Home. “Where the blazes is Grey?”

  “Patience,” said the doctor. “I’m sure there’s a reason for keeping us waiting.”

  He handed Lean a healthy pour of whiskey. For half a second, Lean contemplated objecting, citing his duty to enforce, or at least pay a nominal amount of respect to, the Maine Liquor Law.

  “I have a license, of course,” said the doctor. “If it’ll make you feel better, I can formally prescribe it for your nerves.”

  Lean smiled and downed half his tumbler. Just then there came a soft rapping at the front door. He didn’t bother waiting for the doctor’s servant. Instead, he rushed into the hall and whipped the door open himself. He stepped back in surprise when he saw the old soaker from McGrath’s place standing on the front step. His right hand instinctively curled into a fist at the sight of the surprise visitor.

  The man flashed a smile at Lean, then said, in a voice much firmer than expected, “Come now, Lean, threatening the downtrodden.”

  Recognizing the voice, Lean stepped back and released his fist. The ragged man shuffled into the hall, closed the door, and stood up to his full height, slightly taller than Lean. Then he doffed his tattered gray cap, revealing black hair.

  “Grey? What the devil?” His voice drifted off as he watched Perceval Grey tug off his white eyebrows and rub his face with a handkerchief, erasing two decades of apparent age.

  “I assume that your disguise has accomplished something even more useful than causing our good deputy’s mouth to drop.” Dr. Steig had appeared in the hallway and beckoned both the younger men back into his private study.

  “I have indeed turned up a rather puzzling connection, which certainly bears closer consideration. And I will explain myself in due course, but first let me hear your impressions from speaking with our dear Lady of the Rail Cars.”

  “I believe she may have seen our man,” Lean said.

  “What makes you suspect that?” Grey asked.

  “The way she spoke about him. Never ‘that man’ or ‘the killer’ or even ‘that bastard.’ Nothing broad, like she was talking about just anyone. Always ‘he’ or ‘him,’ someone in particular.”

  “The papers have painted quite a graphic portrait of an insane, bloodthirsty Indian,” Dr. Steig said. “Perhaps she has some phantom image specifically in mind.”

  Grey shrugged. “Your point is quite perceptive, Lean, but there’s something else about her description of the killer. Think back to the specific phrases she used. Several times she referred to the pair of you as ‘gents.’ Other men, her regular customers or those in Farrell’s club, were always ‘stiffs.’ But not the killer; he too was always a gent. Even if she didn’t mean it in a kind way. If she was only speaking of the killer as described in the papers, such a creature would surely be classified with the stiffs. She would never call him a gent.”

  Lean shot a glance at Dr. Steig, who nodded.

  “Now that I hear you say it, I do believe that’s true. I mean about her choice of words.” The doctor ruminated on the observation for a few moments, then gave a soft chuckle. “Fascinating.”

  “For now we’ll take it as only a theory,” Grey said, “that our man is not some street tough or outwardly deranged drifter, but rather a man of means. Someone that a woman of Boxcar Annie’s ilk would consider respectable. This may well make my other discovery more meaningful.”

  “Yes, getting back to all that,” said Lean with an exaggerated wave toward Grey’s tattered costume. “I suppose there’s some reason we needed to be kept in the dark about your efforts.”

  “I couldn’t risk any unintentional show of recognition. I assumed, correctly, that Boxcar Annie’s sudden relocation to McGrath’s establishment, just after the murder of her dear friend, was more than coincidental. If there was something of value at stake with this woman, we wouldn’t be the only ones interested in what she has to say. My efforts were rewarded; immediately after you left, the bartender sent a boy to carry the news of your visit to Maple Street.”

  “McGrath’s house,” Lean said.

  Grey smiled. “And ten minutes later that same boy reappeared and ran over to 53 Temple.”

  “What’s there?”

  “The headquarters of Colonel Blanchard’s Maine Temperance Union.”

  Dr. Steig stopped in the middle of lighting a cigarette. “You don’t honestly believe that anyone of Colonel Blanchard’s associates have something to do with Maggie Keene’s murder?”

  “‘Believe’ is a dangerous word. So no, I do not yet believe that Colonel Blanchard or any person in his employ is actively involved in the murder of Maggie Keene. But the facts do allow us to at least begin to craft a working theory.” Grey rose and started to pace as his explanation continued.

  “My observations of Boxcar Annie reveal she is a rather typical example of her peers. She displays less-than-average intellect, perception, or ambition. Like the vast majority of mankind, these women tend to act primarily for one of two reasons: personal gain or self-preservation. In light of the fact that her good friend has just been murdered, one would assume that her sudden departure from Munjoy Hill and reappearance at Gorham’s Corner was prompted solely by an interest in her own safety. But her revelation that she was not currently plying her trade, coupled with the fact that she obviously had coins enough to pay for several drinks, shows that she has seen a significant improvement in her financial situation.

  “I suspect that the new asset she has to her name is information concerning the identity of Maggie Keene’s murderer. She has found shelter with McGrath, who is offering her protection and money so long as her information remains valuable.”

  Lean rapped his knuckles on Dr.
Steig’s desk. “And when questions start getting asked, especially by the police, the price of him continuing to protect Boxcar Annie’s silence goes up for whoever stands to lose if it became public knowledge,” Lean said.

  Dr. Steig pointed his pipe at Grey. “Really, though, to think that someone in the hierarchy of the temperance union has any involvement in such a heinous murder …”

  Lean exhaled deeply, then pursed his lips while he let all this information seep into his mind. Finally he announced with a hint of reluctance, “We’re going to have to arrange a meeting with Colonel Blanchard.”

  “Agreed.” Grey held up a finger in warning. “But not until we strengthen our hand. It will take some careful doing, but I’ll make inquiries into whether the colonel and McGrath have had any recent financial dealings. Also, we need to speak to that woman once more to find out exactly what she knows about the killer.”

  “Perhaps not too soon,” suggested Dr. Steig. “Assuming she remembers us in the morning, I think it’s safe to say she may need to cool her head before she sees us again.”

  “Very well. We can let her be for a few days; we have another piece of pressing business to attend to in the meanwhile.” Grey drew a telegram from his pocket. “I assume you’ve heard nothing from your inquiries to other police departments regarding our missing first murder.”

  Lean shook his head. “One stabbing in Bath. But it was between sailors.”

  Grey set his telegram down. “I’ve received an interesting response to our inquiry from an old colleague in Boston.”

  Dr. Steig pulled his desk chair closer, while Lean stepped forward to read over the doctor’s shoulder.

  Grey, glad to hear your break from this type of work is going so well. Asked around. Boston last week woman multiple stabs to chest and abdomen recovering in hospital. No arrest. Malden three weeks ago man with wooden leg shot. Prostitute arrested. Scituate month ago woman throat cut disemboweled. No arrest. Last month in Boston woman assaulted cuts to face neck. Gang of three awaiting trial. Lowell three months ago woman decapitated. Accident? Near rail lines.