A bucket of ashes (21 page)

“Um... it’s something like that,” Nell said. No wonder Father Donnelly had been so reticent when Nell had asked him to bury Jamie in the churchyard. It wasn’t Jamie’s criminal activity that gave him pause; it was the suicide.

“I thought he’d understand,” Claire said. “I thought he’d bury Jim in the churchyard ‘cause he’d repented, but he said he couldn’t, and then I knew I should of never told him how Jim died, but by then it was too late. So then, I didn’t know what to do. St. Cat’s is the only Catholic church around, so there wasn’t no other priest I could go to. Jim was layin’ there, and I couldn’t let him be buried at South Street. I thought on it and thought on it, and finally, after a couple more days, I figured out what to do.”

Will said, “You decided to burn the shed down so as to erase Jamie’s true cause of death. That way, he wouldn’t be regarded as a suicide, and could therefore be buried in consecrated ground.”

“But Father Donnelly already knew that Jamie had taken his own life,” Nell said.

“Yeah, but I figured since I told him that in confession, there’d be nothin’ he could do about it. So I went back to the shed and took that knife and threw it in Mill Pond where nobody would ever find it. And that night, I said I was gonna go fix up the cranberry shed, but on the way there, I fetched one of them lamps from the barn that Ma don’t want in the house ‘cause they cause fires. I figured I’d open it up and pour the fluid on some of the crates and pallets, then light it on fire. But when I got in the shed, I wanted to take one last look at Jim.”

Nell winced reflexively, knowing what her brother must have looked like at that point, given decomposition and the larvae. Will met her gaze gravely.

“I pulled the blanket off his face,” Claire said, “and... God, it was... He was...”

“Yes,” Will said. “We know.”

“I think I screamed. I kind of stumbled back, into the cranberry sorter. It’s metal, and when the lamp hit it, it cracked, I guess.”

“And exploded as soon as the flame touched the camphene,” Will said.

“All of a sudden, there was fire everywhere,” Claire said.

“I take it the rest was as you told us before,” Nell asked. “Your skirt catching fire, and the bushel boxes in front of the door? Smashing the window to get out and running for help because you’d supposedly heard a man screaming?”

“I wanted the fire put out fast so there’d be... you know. Enough of Jim left to bury.”

Will said, “What did your mother think when she came home and found out he’d been in the shed when it burned?”

“I told her I lied when I said he’d left, but not that I started the fire. Still, she was mad as a wet hen, let me tell you. She started wailin’ on me somethin’ fierce. But then she got real quiet and serious and said we had to tell the same story so I wouldn’t come out lookin’ like a... you know. A certain kind of girl. We had to both say we didn’t know Jim had been hiding out in the cranberry house, that I saw it was on fire and heard a man scream, just like I told the boarders, and that Jim must of died in the fire.”

“But when you tried again to get Father Gannon to bury him in the churchyard, he was still balky,” Nell said.

“He said it didn’t matter that he knew about the suicide from confession, he
knew
about it, and he couldn’t give Jim a Christian burial no matter if I’d made it look like an accident or not. It wasn’t till you went and talked to him that he gave in.”

It was a testament to Father Gannon’s humanity—and possibly his affection for Nell, whom he’d known since she was a baby—that he’d eventually agreed to bury Jamie in the churchyard with his family.

Claire said, “You know, I been thinkin’ about it, and I think Jim knew all along what he was aimin’ to do. Or he come to it early on, ‘cause that first night, when I told him I’d bring him some things from the house—you know, the food and quilt and that—he asked me for a knife. He said he wanted it for whittling, ‘cause he was bored. I said didn’t he have a pocket knife? And he said yeah, but he liked a big knife for whittling, and would I make sure it was nice and sharp. So I brung him the knife, but I never knew him to whittle anything. I think he was just waitin’—you know—for the right time.”

“I think you’re probably right,” Nell said, remembering what Claire had told them the last time they’d spoken.
He said I’d best know up front he was gonna be leavin’ soon as the time was right, and that would be the end of us. I asked him was he gonna say goodbye or would I just come out there one night and find him gone. He said he was sick of goodbyes. He’d had a whole lifetime of goodbyes.

“We’re here, Nell,” Will said softly.

Nell opened her eyes to find herself nestled against Will in the buggy, which he’d pulled up to the front of his parents’ house. “I fell asleep
again
?”

“You’ve had a trying day.”

“I thought you two would never get home.” It was Viola’s voice, coming from the front porch, where she and her husband were sipping the glasses of sherry they enjoyed every evening before dinner, she reading a book and her husband a newspaper.

Nell groaned softly as she realized Mr. Hewitt had seen her sleeping against Will’s shoulder.

“We had to make an unplanned stop,” said Will as he jumped down from the buggy and came around to Nell’s side.

As he was handing her down, his mother asked him to join them for supper, as she did every afternoon—despite the fact that Will declined the invitation every time, so as not to have to share a dining table with Mr. Hewitt.

Will circled the buggy in silence. As he was climbing up into the driver’s seat, he said, “Thank you, Mother. I believe I’d enjoy that.”

He drove off to the carriage house with Nell, Viola, and Mr. Hewitt all staring after him. Viola met Nell’s gaze with a look of surprised pleasure as her dour husband turned a page of his newspaper.

“Where is Gracie?” Nell asked as she climbed the porch steps.

“Eileen is getting her into her bathing dress for a little late afternoon dip with the Palmer twins from down the road—Patty and... Polly?”

“Pammy,” Nell corrected.

Viola said, “My dear, I wonder if you wouldn’t be so kind as to take a look at the sketch I did this afternoon and tell me what you think of it. It’s on my worktable in the greenhouse.” She always called it “the greenhouse,” although it hadn’t been used for that purpose in many years.

“Of course,” Nell said. “I’ll do it as soon as I’ve washed off the dust of the road and dressed for dinner.”

“You might want to look at the sketch first,” said Viola with a meaningful glance at her husband, sitting with his head bent over the paper, his spectacles low on his nose. “I think you’ll find it speaks to you.”

*   *   *

On Viola’s worktable, amid the chaos of jars and brushes and paints, sat a large, thick envelope addressed to Mrs. August Hewitt, with no return address. Nell reached inside the envelope, which had already been slit open, and withdrew a sheaf of papers pinned to a letter engraved
Silas Archibald Mead, Attorney at Law
. A smaller envelope slipped out and landed facedown on the floor. She bent to pick it up, freezing when she saw the address imprinted on the back:
Massachusetts State Prison.

Duncan.

Mrs. Cornelia Sweeney
was written on the front in Duncan’s painstaking if untutored handwriting. Just her name, no address.

She turned her attention first to Mr. Mead’s letter, which was written on thick, ivory laid paper.

Boston, August 19th, 1870

Miss Cornelia Sweeney, Waquoit, Massachusetts

Dear Miss Sweeney,—I beg to inform you that your petition for divorce from Mr. Duncan Sweeney has been granted by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as of today’s date. Enclosed please find the pertinent documents. Please be advised that I am in receipt of remuneration in full from Mrs. Hewitt for my legal services, which will explain the absence herewith of a request for payment.

After some initial reluctance on the part of Mr. Sweeney, of which you are already aware, he wrote to me earlier this week, advising me that he would not contest the divorce after all. I can only surmise that this change of heart was prompted by the letter you wrote to him, which I left with him when we spoke August 8th. I must admit that Mr. Sweeney’s comportment during that meeting gave me little hope that he could be persuaded to cooperate. His having done so enabled the petition to proceed a good deal more speedily and efficaciously than otherwise would have been possible. Included with this correspondence is the enclosed letter, which he asked that I forward to you.

Also of considerable benefit, even more so than Mrs. Hewitt’s acquaintanceships in high places, was your having been the instrument of Charles Skinner’s expulsion from the Boston Police Department, which noble deed appears to have endeared you in no small measure to many an influential gentlemen of this city. Would that I enjoyed such approbation myself. I daresay it would facilitate my professional endeavors to a very great degree.

As to Mr. Skinner, I enclose as well an article from the August 17th edition of the Boston Advertiser, which I trust you will find of considerable interest.

Should you require future services of a legal nature, I would consider it an honor to serve in that capacity. Until then I remain,

Your obedient and faithful servant,

S. A. Mead

Nell lifted the letter to find a newspaper clipping pinned beneath it.

HOMICIDE IN A NORTH END DEN.

A FORMER CONSTABLE GOES ON A RAMPAGE

IN A HOUSE OF ILL-FAME—HE IS STABBED

TO DEATH BY ONE OF HIS VICTIMS.

About 11 o’clock last night CHARLES SKINNER, a former Constable of the Boston Police Department assigned to Division Eight in the North End, entered the bar-room of 103 Clark Street, a shabby frame building that is one of the lowest and most wretched brothels in that disreputable locality. There SKINNER, who was well known as a ruffian and a drunkard, made the acquaintance of Maggie O’Shea, a prostitute, whom he accompanied to a curtained alcove on the second floor. Scarcely had Miss O’SHEA drawn the curtain than Skinner, who was in his usual state of inebriation, began abusing her in a most vicious manner. Upon hearing the assault, three females of similar stripe, MOIRA KELLY, BRIDGET DONOVAN, and KATHLEEN BRENNAN, flocked to her aid. SKINNER drew a large dirk-knife and ran a Muck in the confined space, threatening to kill them and wounding Miss BRENNAN and Miss O’SHEA. Being fearful of her life, one of the women struck Skinner in the neck with a pocket knife, whereupon he fell to the floor, and in five minutes was dead.

The Police were summoned and took possession of the premises, but were unable to identify which woman wielded the blade, as all four denied having done so, just as they denied having witnessed the fatal stabbing. Inasmuch as the killing is deemed to have been a matter of self-defense, it is unlikely that any arrests will be forthcoming.

By all accounts, the deceased was in the habit of frequenting such establishments for the sole purpose of creating a disturbance and terrorizing the female inmates. His death has been greeted with jubilation in the North End.

“He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword,” Nell murmured as she set the sheaf of papers aside and opened the envelope from Duncan, using a pointed palette knife.

Aug. 15th 1870, Charlestown State Prison

My Darling Wife,

Now don’t be getting het up on account of me calling you that, it is the last time I will have the chance. Which I reckon is my own falt, who else’s can it be? It sure is not yours. Father Daly says I brung it on myself and he is right. He is a Catholic preist Father Daly, not a Piscopal one like Father Beals may he burn in hell. It is about time they got a Catholic chaplan here even if he just got out of the seminery. He is not young though maybe 35, he was a prize-fighter before he took his vows and looks it.

Last week after that Mead was here I read your letter over and over, most of all the part where you say you forgive me which I never thought you would. You said it was a
wait
weight off your shoulders, well it is a weight off mine to. I couldn’t think what to do so I gave the letter to Father Daly in confesion which I hope you don’t mind, he can’t tattel about what he learns in confesion and he wouldn’t, he is a good man. He asked me how did I make you lose the baby and I told him, and I swear I thought he would punch me preist or no preist. He said it must of been hard for you to forgive me and I said I reckoned it was. He said did I think it was right to let you be ruined after you shown such grace and I said no but the church don’t allow divorce. And he said it is an offence on you’re part not on mine because you are the one doing the divorce and I am the one it is being done to, and God will understand I didn’t want it. I said if it is wrong don’t God want me to fight it. He read you’re letter again and he was quiet for a spell and then he said let it go. He said it is no sin so long as I don’t marry again because that would be adultery. I told him you are the only wife I will ever want and I wish I could keep you but he said some times you got to take you’re lumps.