The Salem Witch Society Read online

  “Is it blood at all?” asked Lean.

  “A spectrometer test of some scrapings would tell us,” said Dr. Steig.

  “It looks more like ink,” Grey said. “Red ink.”

  Lean glanced down into the opened chest cavity of Maggie Keene. His stomach nearly revolted. He was in desperate need of sleep, food, coffee, and fresh air, and so he announced he would need to get back to the Portland Company.

  “I still have the internal organs to go, but my report should be ready tomorrow,” Dr. Steig said.

  “I recommend just the clear medical facts,” Grey said. “Let’s leave our more speculative comments out of the official record for now. Do you agree, Lean?”

  “Of course,” Lean said with a nod. He stood there in the fetid air of the underground morgue alongside a dead prostitute, the body mutilated by a meticulously scheming, pitchfork-wielding lunatic who liked to quote the Bible one minute and suckle at witches’ tits the next. He glanced up at the windows where, a world away, daylight existed.

  6

  Lean tromped up the stairs to his family’s second-floor apartment on Hanover Street. He had stopped along the way at a police call box and learned that several drunks and vagrants had been rounded up but there were no good suspects among them.

  After reaching the landing, Lean let his head rest against the doorframe for a moment. Inside was the unmistakable sound of Owen’s feet thudding across the apartment’s wooden floors, and he heard his wife call out for the boy to stop running. Lean turned the knob and lurched into the entryway. The smell of frying rashers washed over him, and he also detected the scent of coffee hovering in the air. His stomach growled in anticipation. He deposited his coat and hat on the rack and took several steps into the main room.

  He needed sleep, but first he’d sit down for a minute with a book. Something to set his mind straight again. He paused at the bookcase, perusing the titles. He considered the Whitman he’d purchased just after the poet’s death three months earlier. But at this moment he wasn’t up for the challenge. He needed something with recognizable patterns, something that adhered to the rules of classic poetic measures. He opted for a more sympathetic volume of Longfellow. Book in hand, Lean slumped into his favorite chair. He bent forward to untie his shoelaces, but before he could reach that far, he was met by the full-bore charge of his five-year-old boy.

  “Daddy’s home!”

  “Hello, boy.”

  Owen catapulted into his father’s midsection, knocking him back into the chair. Within seconds the boy had scrambled down to the floor and was off again, pounding away across the room.

  Lean could feel his eyelids sagging. He fought against it and was rewarded with the sight of Emma walking toward him, still in her morning robe, her long, dark curls not yet put up for the day. She was smiling, but even in Lean’s exhausted state he could recognize the thinly veiled mixture of relief and frustration in her deep brown eyes.

  “Daddy’s home,” she repeated at a mere fraction of the volume of her son’s prior announcement.

  Lean smiled, and his hand moved to her belly, where his widespread fingers pressed gently against her dress, feeling the taut, bulging skin beneath the fabric.

  “How’s the wee one this morning?”

  “Good,” Emma said. “Quiet, though. She was wondering where her father was.”

  “She?”

  “Just a thought.”

  “It’s a good thought.”

  Lean heard a scraping on the floor as his wife used her foot to slide a stool in front of him. With a herculean effort, Lean raised his feet enough to slip them onto the stool. He peeked out from under a drooping eyelid and contemplated his scuffed shoes.

  “Have we any polish?”

  “They are a bit rough, aren’t they? I’m sorry. I’ll get to them before tomorrow.”

  “Oh, don’t worry over it.”

  “Asks for polish, the first time in his life he’s ever mentioned shoe polish, then he says not to mind it. You’re a right piece of mischief, Archie Lean. And you’ve been smoking again. I smell that stink on you.”

  At the mention of the offending odor, Lean’s hand drifted up to his shirt pocket. He felt the little nub of the killer’s cigarette butt. “You’d forgive me if you only knew.” His voice was faltering, giving in to sleep.

  “I forgive you anyway.” Emma ran her fingertips across his forehead, brushing his thick, straw-colored hair to one side. “I’ll get you some eggs, and there’s rashers still warm.”

  As Emma went into the kitchen, Lean withdrew the killer’s cigarette and held it to his face once more. He wrinkled his nose. It was a strange herbal mixture that he didn’t recognize. Was that it—was that the look he’d seen flashing across Grey’s face when he sniffed the tobacco? The surprise of recognition?

  “What the devil’s he hiding?” Lean let the cigarette drop back into his pocket. He reached over to the side table and laid a hand on his volume of Longfellow, but he couldn’t muster the energy to pick it up.

  “I thought you’d be back sooner,” Emma said from the kitchen.

  “I will be,” he said.

  “Be what?” Emma wandered over to the doorway.

  “Back soon. Promise.”

  “Fair enough, love.” She chuckled, then called for Owen in a low voice.

  As he drifted off, Archie Lean felt a rough tugging at his foot and then heard a loud thud. He peeked with one eye to see his son sprawled out on the floor, an unpolished brown oxford-tie shoe clutched triumphantly in the boy’s stubby fingers.

  It was midafternoon when Lean hopped down from the carriage. A crowd had assembled outside the police station, on the Myrtle Street side of the City Hall building. As he weaved and pushed his way through to the steps, he saw two reporters smoking by the doors.

  “Hey, Archie,” called out Dizzy Bragdon, a short, wiry man with glasses that didn’t hide a lazy eye, “how about some details on the murder? Is it true he slashed her throat?”

  “No, it was—” Lean had to stop himself short, wary of revealing any details that might panic or inflame the public. “I got nothing for you right now.”

  “So it was an Indian, right? He tomahawk her?” said the second reporter.

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “We all saw the writing down there with Marshal Swett this morning. Fellow from the Advertiser recognized it as Indian.”

  “Is it true she was scalped?” Dizzy asked.

  “What? No—that’s ridiculous. Don’t print that.”

  “Hey, come on, Arch, give us something. One of Farrell’s girls, right? Killer take care of business before he done her?”

  Lean walked on. Inside was a bit quieter, though there was still a buzz of conversation. He noticed an unusual number of uniformed patrolmen and double the regular number of complainants and unsavory types being questioned or escorted in or out of the building. Lean stopped at the front desk. “Anything promising?”

  “They’re coming out of the woodwork. Swearing up and down about every crazy rumor out there,” said Officer Bushey, a stocky veteran whose mustache covered most of his lower face. “Mayor’s been asking for you.”

  Lean made his way upstairs to Ingraham’s office. Behind his polished mahogany desk, the mayor glanced up from his morning paper.

  “You’re a right mess.” He motioned toward Lean’s face and tossed him a handkerchief.

  Lean had been rattled awake forty-five minutes earlier and was still wearing the same, now crumpled, four-button brown-check cutaway suit from last night. As he’d fumbled about for his shoes and hat, his wife had managed to stuff a handkerchief with a hard-boiled egg and a handful of warmed-over rashers into his coat pocket. Lean had devoured the offering in just a few bites on the ride to Myrtle Street.

  “This whole mess is about to spill over. Tell me you’ve got something.” The mayor’s eyebrows shot up, and his bulbous head wobbled in anticipation. Lean sat down and rattled off every bit of evidence that he a
nd Grey had uncovered.

  “That bit about a first murder seems something of a leap.”

  Lean nodded. “Grey’s a sharp man. Very sharp. But I’m not convinced about that either.”

  “Sounds a bit of a distraction to me. An attempt to divert our attention. I knew involving that bloody half-breed was a mistake. The killer’s an Indian, and that doesn’t suit him very well, now, does it?”

  “I think he may know something more than he’s letting on,” Lean said.

  “He’s protecting his own. To be expected, of course.”

  “They’re going to need more protection than that. Once the afternoon extras hit the stands and word gets out that an Indian killed a white woman, even if she was a whore, the streets won’t be safe for any of them.”

  The mayor grimaced. “The last thing we need is angry mobs roaming the streets. We need to find this lunatic quickly. He’s Indian—what else do we know?”

  “He’s dark-haired. Short—five foot two, give or take, yet unusually strong. He’s familiar with the area near the Portland Company. Probably had a room nearby for the past week at least, based on his knowledge of the night watchman’s schedule.”

  Mayor Ingraham pulled open a desk drawer and withdrew a tumbler and a bottle of whiskey. Lean watched him pour a hefty dram and drain it.

  “Some short, dark mystery man with a room on Munjoy Hill.” The mayor poured himself another drink, but his agitation prevented his hand from closing the gap with his spittle-flecked lips. “Not exactly promising. You need to find an Indian with blood on his clothes. And fast.”

  “We don’t think the killer would have had much on him, actually. Given she was lying down and the angle of the cuts. Though he likely had some blood on his face from where he was …” Lean trailed off when he caught sight of the mayor’s horrified face staring back at him. It took Lean a moment to realize that his own mouth was gaping open in duplication of the killer’s activities.

  “Enough with all these gruesome details and Grey’s theories,” said the mayor. “Horseshit. This dead whore and an Indian killer is all one great steaming pile. It’ll stink worse if it gets out we asked an Indian for help. Grey knows more than he’s saying? So find out what it is. Then he’s through with this business. Understood?”

  Lean nodded and headed for the door.

  7

  Grey sat in a stuffed chair in his dark study. He had never bothered to open the shades after returning from the postmortem that morning. Feeble sunlight crept in around the edges of the tall windows. He held the killer’s fourth cigarette, only half smoked, in a pair of pincers close to his face. Grey turned the hand-rolled bit of evidence, examining it from every angle. Two sets of sharp indentations were set at the base of the cigarette—teeth marks. The killer had clenched the cigarette with his teeth, perhaps while he hurried around the building toward the timekeeper’s shack. An inch farther up were two almost imperceptible impressions, one on each side of the stick, where the man had squeezed it between his knuckles.

  Grey went to the corner worktable where his microscope and racks of test tubes sat. He put the cigarette underneath an electric lamp. Next he placed a small pan over a standing gas jet on the table. He struck a match and lit the gas, turning the flame down to almost nothing. He held the first of the killer’s cigarette butts collected earlier that morning and set it in the pan. He pulled up a tall chair and sat before the burner. After fifteen seconds the paper began to brown and thin wisps of smoke curled upward. Grey closed his eyes and leaned forward, his hands gripping the edge of the table. The bitter odor was familiar, though he hadn’t smelled it in decades. He inhaled deeply and released a short bark of a cough. His eyes flickered, then closed again. He continued to draw slow, full breaths as the memories came.

  He feels the cold, but only in that distant way that doesn’t matter to a child at play. He’s kneeling in the snow, before a blanketed slope, with several other Indian boys. Each one holds a flat wooden board to be aimed down the thin, cleared tracks on the hillside in the game of snakes.

  The air is crisp, and his father’s voice carries clear across the snow, calling him home. His father is still alive, and coming closer in his old wool coat and hat. He makes a run for it, and the pleasant thrill of escape consumes him until a careless step sends him tail over head into the snow. His father’s arms raise him up, and they trudge along through a world of gray skies and white earth punctuated with dark tree trunks.

  “I have to be a hawk with you.” His father is speaking English, though he knows that was not the truth, not when they were alone. “You’re a clever boy. But you must always look ahead, always think what is next. The ground can shift under your very feet. You must always know where your next step will be. Your next three steps.” He cocks his head to see his father’s face. There’s a smile in the man’s eyes, no anger, and so he buries his face in the solid shoulder for warmth and draws in that unpleasant smell: wet wool with old tobacco lingering underneath.

  Back inside the winter cabin, he is wrapped in an old woolen blanket. The fire roars, lighting the dark walls of wood planks, where dried mud and hay fill the gaps. A film of gray-blue smoke hovers close to the low ceiling. The skin of his legs tingles, itching from his body’s sudden shift back toward a living warmth.

  His mother, fair-skinned and beautiful, reads from an English book, her words musical, rising and falling with the story. There are knights and ladies and great beasts. He gazes up past her pale eyes, aglow in the firelight, to the drifts that rise from his father’s pipe. The smoke curls into hints of shapes, and he imagines the breath of a fiery dragon. He puffs out his chest, drawing in the smoky breath and making it part of him, tasting the bitter, almost medicinal smell of his father’s tobacco. He smiles.

  Grey stared at the plate in front of him. The cigarette was only cold ashes, and all visible signs of the smoke had dissipated. The scent lingered in his memory as he looked toward the windows. The light around the curtain was different now. He stood up, steadied himself against the edge of the worktable for a moment, then strode across the room. Grey snatched his hat from the rack and slipped on his lightweight frock coat before heading out the door. He made no effort to soften his descent as he thudded down the stairs, welcoming the feel of the unyielding wooden treads and the almost palpable sound of his own footsteps in the narrow stairway.

  Lean entered Delavino’s smoke shop near the corner of Middle and Exchange. A large sign in the window advertised the fashionable new brand of Turkish Treasures cigarettes. He moved past displays of colorfully illustrated cigar boxes, chewing tobacco, patent medicines, and spruce gum. Posters lined the walls, calling out for him to enjoy the delights of Duke’s Preferred Stock and White Rolls. There was even a small display of Cameos, though Lean couldn’t recall ever having seen a woman inside this shop in all his years of coming to Delavino’s.

  At the counter, Lean was greeted by the sweaty pate and smiling eyes of the proprietor.

  “Deputy, good to see you. How many today?” He turned away and reached toward the stacks of cigarette boxes on the shelves behind the counter. The man’s thick fingers tripped along the rows of Allen & Ginter products until they reached the Richmond Straight Cuts.

  “Just one pack ought to do it, Tino.” Lean’s eyes roamed over the shop as he dug in his pocket for change. Under a banner declaring her famous phrase “Ta-ra-ra-Boom-de-ay” was Lottie Collins, the toast of the English music halls, her right leg kicking high to reveal her stocking and garter, tempting all who passed to try Phillips Guinea Gold cigarettes.

  “There is something else you can help me with.” Lean drew the killer’s cigarette butt from his pocket. “What can you tell me about this? It’s not regular tobacco—got a funny scent to it.”

  “Well, it’s hand-rolled, eh. So it could be all sorts.” He took a whiff, then another. “Oh, this is Indian tobacco. It’s native, a wild-growing herb.”

  “You sell it?”

  Tino gave a dismissive sh
ake of his head. “Of course, for you I can get some if you like. Not the kind of thing people here are willing to pay for. But then”—Tino rolled the butt between his fingers—“it’s perfectly fine rolling paper. Not cheap. For whatever that’s worth to you.”

  “Thanks. Very helpful.” Lean took the butt back and pocketed it.

  “If you’re interested in the Indians, there’s a new series of Duke cards, famous Indian chiefs. Your boy might like them.”

  “Maybe next time.” Lean moved to the door.

  “Yes, always next time.” The proprietor took up his newspaper and rattled it loudly after Lean. “If I’m still in business, I can sell you just the one pack again.”

  The landlady, Mrs. Philbrick, blocked the doorway at the two-story brick house on High Street, chin out and arms folded across her chest. “Mr. Grey hasn’t been accepting visitors. Has strict instructions that he’s not to be disturbed.”

  Lean showed his badge, but the revelation that he was a police deputy did little more than earn a raised eyebrow. “In any event he’s not in at the moment. You missed him by five minutes.”

  “Do you know where he’s gone?”

  “Mentioned something about the B&M.”

  Within minutes Lean reached his destination on Commercial Street, where he paid the cab fare and headed toward the Boston & Maine depot. Ahead, by the station doors, a fair-skinned twelve-year-old boy dressed in a fringed buckskin shirt and a feathered headdress too large for him was handing out flyers to passengers entering the station.

  “Mohegan Indian Medicine Show. Camp Ellis every night this week.” The boy waved a flyer toward Lean’s face. “Need a night of amusement? Free shows, trick-shooting displays, authentic dances, medicine demonstrations. Everything’s first class, all the way. Hear Chief White Eagle lecture on the historic customs of his tribe.”