A Mischief in the Snow (10 page)

A
T FIRST, THEY'LL
think the worst,” said Charlotte, once she'd made her way to Longfellow's warm kitchen.

“I wouldn't be surprised,” her neighbor agreed.

“Lem will be suspected, unless—”

Lem sat and watched; he had nothing more to say, now that he'd told Mrs. Willett, too, about the body he'd discovered in the trees, but it seemed to him that things had taken a decidedly unpleasant turn.

“—unless we find a witness who saw someone else pick up the seed bag,” Longfellow finished for her. “Or the hatchet alone, though I would guess both were taken together. If not, the bag and scarf would have been found by now.”

“Someone could have found them abandoned at the end of the day, and might have taken them home for safe keeping.”

“Long after the hatchet had been slipped out? Well, perhaps so.”

“Lem told me you saw it where he left it, Richard. Can you swear to that?”

“Only to seeing some kind of wooden handle, some time before noon.”

Her disappointment unspoken, Charlotte watched Cicero shake a long-handled pan over the coals. An intoxicating perfume continued to rise, as dark beans browned further.

“The longer the bag sat there, the more time there would have been for someone else to disturb it,” she decided.

“This altercation between Lem and Alex Godwin— that's something you saw, I think.”

“So did Sarah Proctor and Jemima Hurd,” she replied unhappily.

“Do they know its cause?”

“They must have assumed, as I did, that the two fought over Martha Sloan.” Charlotte turned to the young man beside her. Lem seemed uncomfortable, but betrayed nothing more. “Was there something else?” she asked.

“It wasn't just me, you know,” Lem answered. “No one liked him! All we did was trade a few words, and a punch or two, I'll admit—but how could I have harmed him, or him me, while we had our coats on? I only meant to show him I
would
fight, if he wanted.”

“Some time later?” asked Longfellow. “When you could meet away from the crowd?”

“Exactly.”

That was something neither of his questioners had wanted to hear, Lem soon realized. He ducked his head in further embarrassment.

“Did you see him again? Alive?” Longfellow's tone was unchanged, yet he watched the boy more intently, waiting for an answer.

“No. I walked Mattie home so she could finish her chores, and she gave me something to eat—”

“Her sisters were there?”

“A couple of them came in, before I left—”

“What time was that?”

“Around two. Then I went back to the pond, looking for Ned to ask him something… but when I didn't see him I decided I'd better go and do my own chores. I walked up and went straight to the barn, and saw to the eggs before milking.”

“You didn't go into the house?”

“Hannah was there. And I knew Mrs. Willett was still out—I saw her at the pond before I left.”

“You didn't want to be alone with Hannah?”

“After what happened earlier, sir, with Alex, I thought I'd rather not. In case anyone else came up from the ice.”

“What about you, Carlotta? Did you see Lem or Alex on the ice during the afternoon?”

“I'm afraid not. I spoke with you and Diana, and Jonathan, and Reverend Rowe—and Rachel Dudley— and then we walked home.” She recalled the peculiar feeling she'd had the night before, gazing at the patch of dark firs. With a new shiver she wondered if something had forewarned her. Orpheus, too, had been uneasy. In all likelihood, Alexander Godwin already lay there. Might the boy's death have been prevented, if they'd gone then to investigate? From what she'd heard from Lem, she decided the answer must be no. But she knew she needed to see for herself.

She looked back to Longfellow, hoping he'd suggest they go together to learn whatever more they could.

Cicero took the pan from the fire, and slid the beans onto a pewter plate on the kitchen table.

“But now,” asked Longfellow, “what will we do with Lem?”

“What do you mean?” the boy asked, raising frightened eyes.

“I mean that when the village hears of the nature of Godwin's wound, and whose hatchet was found next to him,
and
that the two of you had words yesterday, some might decide they've heard enough. Which is why you will not go back to Mrs. Willett's. If, instead, you are under a selectman's watchful eye, she may find her neighbors less inclined to pay her an unwanted visit.”

Charlotte recalled an autumn afternoon three years past, when a part of the village had bustled her up from the mill pond to her farmhouse, looking for someone else they believed she'd taken in to hide—someone they were sure had committed murder, and might do so again. Could they now have the same horrible thought about Lem? Suddenly, she remembered others who would be affected by Alexander Godwin's death.

About to speak, she paused when a grinding noise came from a box on the kitchen table. Cicero took only moments to reduce the beans to a rough powder. “I agree with your point,” Charlotte then said, “but first, Richard, might we send Lem off on an errand?”

“An errand?” he asked. “Where would you have him go?”

“To Boar Island. All signs point to a storm, as you predicted. And because it's January, it could be a long one. I don't know if Mrs. Knowles keeps many provisions on hand—”

“An ounce of prevention? Yes, perhaps so. While I haven't met these ladies, I've heard something of their strange situation. But are
you
acquainted with them?”

“I've seen them, on occasion.”

“You
are
full of surprises,” he answered oddly, causing her to wonder if the suspicion he'd lately shown had been renewed. “Well, if Lem goes off quietly, as you did the other day, I doubt he'll come to any harm.”

“If I stay away from thin ice,” said Lem, looking to Charlotte.

“I'll give you directions before you go,” she assured him.

“It is now, what—?” Longfellow consulted the mantel clock. “Nine-thirty. What would you guess it will take, Mrs. Willett, on skates? An hour each way? Fill their wood box, then, and take care of whatever else they need, Lem. Tell them we'll soon arrange for more regular assistance.”

“You could also return Magdalene's cloak, and take some provisions with you, on the flat sled in the barn,” Charlotte suggested.

“I will.”

“Get Hannah to choose some things from the cellar. She'll know.”

“Aren't you going home?” There was a pause. Then he answered his own question. “Oh. Of course. The body.”

Longfellow wondered if young love, or several weeks in Boston, might be blamed for this lapse. Though he himself wished Charlotte safely at home, he had little hope that she would go there now.

Cicero had finished making the coffee. He poured it into four cups, near a bowl of crushed sugar. He brought a small pitcher of cream from the fireside, where he'd set it earlier to remove the pantry's chill. And while the others fortified themselves for the unpleasantness that surely lay ahead, he reminded them of something they'd forgotten.

“What,” he asked, “of Mrs. Montagu?”

Longfellow's first reply was a sigh. He added, “Keep her in, and others out.”

The old man nodded, and sipped the rich, sweet brew he'd made.

When he sat alone a few minutes later, Cicero tried to recall some good of the puffy lad he'd barely known but had disliked, he supposed, no less than others. It was not an easy task. Nor would his next be, he imagined, when a certain young lady arose and found her way downstairs, seeking something to distract her.

THE WALK TO
the pond was normally a brief one. Today, it seemed longer to Charlotte than ever before. Cold, raw, and duller than yesterday, this Wednesday appeared unkind to all the world.

She and Longfellow trudged side by side, dark figures against the land's lighter mantle of ice and snow, the taller of the two pulling a sled he'd stopped earlier to take from his stone barn. The sled carried a tarpaulin that would be needed later.

Though it was not the first time they had gone off together to view a body, this time it felt as if something new had come between them. Was it simply a continuing sense of distrust? Or was it the fact that Lem's safety, even his life, might be in jeopardy? As a selectman, it would be Richard's duty to find the truth, as best he could. But what would be the result of that?

Charlotte missed having Orpheus beside her. He'd not been keen to leave her hearth, and small wonder. Though she believed he possessed a curiosity to match her own, what he'd found that morning hadn't pleased
him, she was sure. A part of her wished she were seated beside him now, waiting for the storm in comfort while her stout walls, banked by bundled straw, kept out the cold.

As they approached the ice pond, they saw previous activity written all around. But there were no snorting horses, no shouting men, no laughing children, no couples enticing one another, no women offering this or that for the comfort of the rest. Instead there was an emptiness, marked by the wind in the conifers.

Where the day before they'd left open water, the pond was now a solid stretch of black ice. This they avoided, making their way instead to the circle of trees beside the stained snow. Had Alex Godwin gone there for the same reason as the others, during the long afternoon? If so, thought Charlotte, someone might very easily have come up behind him.

Leaving the sled, Longfellow led her into the firs. Once inside she was comforted by the calm, and the smell of resin. Bathed in soft light, the place gave her the impression of having entered a chapel. They'd even disturbed a choir, chickadees gleaning what they could from the scales among the branches. The little birds slid away, and she forced herself to focus on what she'd come for.

There, lying on his chest, was Alexander Godwin. Charlotte recognized the ornate piping on his old coat, and the grouse-feathered hat. His long hair, gathered by a ribbon, had fallen to one side, and at the base of his neck there was, indeed, a dark hole, rather like the gaping mouth of a small fish caught on a line. Nearly an inch wide, it seemed the width of the hatchet's point her father had often used to break the ice in their rain barrel, beneath the back eave.

As a countrywoman, she knew the anatomy of animals used to supply her kitchen—and, that life was quickly extinguished once a neck was wrung, or otherwise damaged. Among her neighbors, the knowledge necessary to kill swiftly and quietly was not uncommon. But who could have committed such a crime in cold blood?

“It hardly seems,” she said aloud, “to have been an act of rage.” She heard her voice half-swallowed by the soft boughs that surrounded them. Longfellow looked up from a closer examination of the wound to study his companion.

“No,” he agreed. With some difficulty, he turned the youth over. The face was white with frost. The frozen eyes remained open, staring horribly.

“I doubt that he put up any sort of fight,” Longfellow muttered after he'd examined the entire head, and then the fingers, for scratches and further blood. He tried to open the corpse's mouth, interested in the state of its tongue, but found the jaw frozen shut. He stood with a grimace, and took a step to retrieve the hatchet under a nearby bough. Its point, he saw, was stained to a depth of a few inches.

“Yours?” he asked. She nodded. Then she compared this to other corpses over which they'd stood. Here, at least, was no attempt at masquerade, no possibility of accident or disease.

“I assume it was done just outside,” said Longfellow. Then he pointed, and she leaned closer to see a small, sad detail. The buttons that secured the front of Alex's breeches were done up, but not quite correctly. At the top, the last had no place left to go; the first hole had been skipped. She supposed a young man careful of his appearance would hardly have done such a thing unless he'd been surprised,
and in a great hurry. Had someone come up behind him with a greeting? Someone he may have had reason to distrust, or even to fear?

“I would also say,” said Longfellow, “that he was carried here, so that no one would find him—at least until his assailant was elsewhere.” He took a square of cloth from his coat pocket as he continued. “Though I suppose it's barely possible this was done after we all went home…”