No Mortal Reason (9 page)

“That’s the second time this morning someone’s mentioned Liberty Falls to me. Is it far from here?”

The postmaster, who introduced himself as Osmer Nicholls, produced from behind the counter a large book bound in dark green. The words “Sullivan County Atlas” were lettered on the front.

“This here’s a map of the town of Liberty,” Nicholls said.

It included a number of villages, among them Liberty, Liberty Falls, and Lenape Springs. Ben saw at once that numerous roads connected them. A boy on a bike who knew his way could indeed make excellent time.

“There’s Gil Tanner’s place. That’s Scorcher’s pa.” The postmaster jabbed a finger at the name. Like many such local atlases, the detailed maps included the names of property owners.

“And the telegraph office?” Ben asked.

Nicholls turned the page to a larger map that showed just the village of Liberty. The railroad depot, freight house, and Wales Coal Yard were clearly marked, allowing Ben to orient himself.

“Telegraph office is here,” Nicholls said, tapping the spot with his index finger. “It’s not Western Union. It’ll cost you an extra ten cents a message if it has to be send along their lines.”

Ben mumbled something appropriate in reply, but his attention had been diverted. Near the center of town, on a side street, he’d spotted the name “I. Torrence,” inscribed beside a small square meant to represent a house.

Curious, Ben turned to the back pages of the atlas, where businesses were listed. Under “Town of Liberty” he found the villages of Liberty, Liberty Falls, Parksville—actually Parksvllie, due to a typographical error—Glen Cove, Stevensville, Lenape Springs, and Robertsonville. It did not take him long to read through all the names in Liberty village. There were no Torrences, although he could not help but notice in passing that a Mrs. Phebe Low, M.D. was listed. Her entry read: “Chronic diseases a specialty.”

“This atlas is almost twenty years old,” Nicholls said, sliding the book away from him and closing it. “Anyone in particular you’re looking for?”

Ben hesitated. If he pursued the matter of Diana’s father’s family, they’d have to delay leaving the area. He hadn’t mentioned them to her last night—a deliberate oversight on his part—but now a guilty conscience pricked him. Should he try to find out more about them before they left? On the other hand, he had no reason to think the Torrences would be any more forgiving than the Grants. Everything Ben had ever heard about Diana’s father indicated he’d been even more intractable than her mother.

He took his leave of the post office without making further inquiries.

Ben’s second stop was the combination blacksmith shop and livery stable across the road from the church. He recognized the blacksmith instantly. He’d seen him first as the disapproving father of the young man who’d tried to comfort Mercy Grant the day before and later as a juror at the coroner’s inquest. His name, Ben recalled, was Erastus Castine.

His agitated friend, the one Ben hadn’t allowed to climb down into the hole with the remains, had also been on the coroner’s jury. George Prinney had turned out to be the owner of the local mill.

“I’d like to rent that surrey Mr. Saugus had out yesterday,” Ben announced. If he could persuade Diana to leave this afternoon, he didn’t want to be dependent upon Floyd Lyseth to drive them to the depot.

Wiping his hands on a leather apron, Castine pasted a smile on his face. “Dr. Northcote. Happy to oblige. That is, I am if you promise to do a better job of returning it than Mr. Saugus did. Old Jessie had to bring the surrey back on her own the last time I leased it out.”

Ben belatedly remembered that Saugus had abandoned the rig in front of the hotel when word had come of the discovery of Elly Lyseth’s bones. “Good thing the horse knows its way.”

“Last time I’ll do business with Norman Saugus,” Castine vowed as he got out the paperwork for the rental. “I don’t hold with neglecting animals and I should have remembered he wasn’t reliable.”

“Sounds like you’ve known him awhile.” In spite of his desire to leave Lenape Springs as soon as possible, Ben found he was curious about Saugus. The quarrel he and Diana had overheard the previous evening suggested that the entrepreneur, at least, thought Elly Lyseth had been murdered.

“He was the one who talked Myron Grant into trying to enlarge the spring,” Castine said. “That was the
last
time he got big ideas about that hotel. Wanted to increase the flow. Ended up losing the source.”

“Obviously he located it again.” Ben read over the agreement Castine handed him and signed on the bottom line.

“So he says.
Says
he saw bubbles of gas rising in the stream that showed him where to find the source of the fountain in the underlying rocks, but some say that so-called spring ain’t worth a plugged nickel.”

“How so? I’ve seen it. And smelled it. The sulphur—”

Castine guffawed. “Salted. Leastways, that’s what some folks say. Grant salted it. Oh, there was a spring. Once. Didn’t smell that bad, though. Story is, he made a pond in the brook, put in four barrels of sulphur, and claimed he had a spring again. Payment in advance if you please.” He pointed to the sum written on the rental agreement.

Ben discounted the tale of the salted spring. Even four barrels of sulphur wouldn’t last long in running water. But he was unable to stop himself from asking, “What do folks say he means to do with this medicinal water of his?”

Castine shrugged. “
Some
say he means to sell baths to the city people for twenty-five cents a go.”

After that remarkable statement, Ben concluded his business at the livery stable in short order, but his hope of a quick escape was dashed by the blacksmith’s curiosity. 

“How come Coroner Buckley had you tell us about poor Elly’s remains instead of calling in the local sawbones?” Castine asked.

“I was on the spot,” Ben said. “I’m a guest at the hotel.”

“Not the first time you’ve done it.”

“No. I’m a city coroner back home.”

The blacksmith waited.

“Bangor, Maine.”

“You’re a long ways from there.”

Ben acknowledged that he was.

“You think she mighta been murdered?”

“As I said at the inquest, I don’t know what happened.”

“You must have a theory.”

“Do you?” Ben shot back.

“Well, there’s some say somebody musta done her in. Otherwise, we’d have found her ten years ago.”

“There was a fire at about the same time.”

“That was a couple of days after Elly . . . disappeared. What was she doing
under
the floor? That’s what I want to know. Not like she would have crawled under the building if she was just hurt from a fall. No, sir. She was hiding from whoever hit her, that’s what . . . some folks say.”

“I doubt we’ll ever know what really happened,” Ben said, striding purposefully toward the door. “That’s why your verdict was the only one possible. Good day to you, Mr. Castine.”

“Leaves a lot of unanswered questions,” Castine called after him.

So it did, Ben thought as he headed back to the hotel, but it was not his job to find the answers and he was glad of it. He had to admit to being intrigued by the case, and he agreed with Castine that Elly Lyseth probably
had
been murdered, but the last thing he wanted right now was to get involved in tracking down a killer.

* * * *

It was almost eleven in the morning before Diana finished her breakfast and began to wonder where Ben was. She found her cousin Mercy behind the check-in desk, perched on a stool and copying addresses out of the hotel register.

The young woman’s appearance presented a striking contrast to the way she had looked the previous day. Gone was the faded calico frock. In its place was a silk dress in a pretty leaf-brown shade. It had a moderate bustle and a high-collared black velvet jacket. Very suitable for meeting the public, Diana thought. In addition, her face looked freshly steamed and every brass hairpin was precisely in its place in her neat chignon, although she’d deliberately left a few curls loose at her nape to soften the line.

Diana was tempted to ask Cousin Mercy if she was expecting a visit from her young swain, but instead inquired whether she had seen Dr. Northcote recently. Diana could not quite bring herself to refer to him as “my husband,” and for once blessed society’s tendency toward formality. Calling him by his title spared her blushes.

“He went for a walk,” Mercy informed her. “Aunt Tressa said he left right after he had breakfast.”

Since her cousin seemed less hostile this morning, Diana abandoned her plan to go looking for Ben in favor of lingering in the lobby. She needed a neutral topic, something to ease them gradually into a more personal discussion. She was very curious about her long-lost relatives.

“Lenape Springs is a pretty little place,” she ventured. “Is the whole area like this? I’m afraid I don’t know very much about this part of the state.”

“Are you interested in the history or the geography?” Mercy seemed willing to put her pen aside. From the way she rubbed her wrist, Diana suspected she’d been at her task for some time.

“Both, I suppose, but your question suggests that the Grant family has been in these parts a long while. Is that so?”

“Ever since the first Dutch settlers came to what was then New Netherlands.” Pride filled Mercy’s voice.

Diana feigned puzzlement. “Is Grant a Dutch name?”

“The Grants came from Scotland to the Connecticut Colony, then moved west. The first Mercy Grant and her twin brother, Justice, had a wonderful adventure in the process. I’ll tell you about it some time if you like. You probably won’t believe it, of course. Unless you accept that it is possible to read another person’s thoughts.”

“The twins had some kind of telepathy?”

“That’s how the story goes.”

“And you’re descended from Justice Grant?”

“From both of them, in matter of fact. The first Justice’s great grandson married one of Mercy’s great granddaughters.”

  Fascinated, and perfectly willing to accept that such things were possible, Diana asked, “Did you inherit their ability to communicate without words?”

Mercy’s enthusiasm diminished visibly. “I wish I had. It would make getting through to certain thickheaded folk so much easier.”

“What about other members of this generation of your family?”

“Not that I know of. But then, none of them are twins. Perhaps that’s a necessary prerequisite. But you were wanting to know about the area. Do you plan to hike? Climb? Go birdwatching? If it’s the latter, you should talk to my father. He’s been studying the local birdlife for years and has painted most of the critters.” This morning Mercy seemed to have put her anger with her father behind her and mellowed toward the rest of the world as well.

“Is your father an artist?” Diana asked.

“A naturalist,” she corrected. The pride was back in her voice, but this time it was tinged with a trace of embarrassment.

“I don’t mean to pry,” Diana began, though of course she did, “but I can’t help but be curious about yesterday’s, er, discovery. Will there be any . . . repercussions?”

Mercy waved her concern aside. “It’s nothing to us. Just some girl who used to work here years ago. I barely remember her. I was only a child of eight at the time.”

Eight-year-olds noticed a good deal, in Diana’s experience, but she didn’t say so.

“I wasn’t even aware that my father had spoken more than a word in passing to Elly Lyseth. He doesn’t usually pay much attention to other people. Just birds. Probably took pity on her. Who wouldn’t when she had a father like Floyd Lyseth?”

Diana frowned, remembering Mercy’s outburst the previous day. Was she telling the truth? Or did she know more than she was saying about Elly Lyseth’s murder?

Diana tried to refrain from picking apart Mercy’s statements but could not quell her suspicions. In recent months she’d covered too many crime stories for the
Independent Intelligencer
, not to mention having two close personal encounters with murderers. Something did not seem quite right about her cousin’s reaction to the discovery of Elly Lyseth’s bones.

Diana knew she should mind her own business, but this matter involved her mother’s family. It
was
her business. It made no difference that they didn’t know she was kin. Diana knew.

“Is your mother still living?” she asked abruptly.

“She died when I was born. Pa and Uncle Myron raised me.”

That accounted for the deep affection Diana had sensed between Mercy and her father. It also meant that Howd had been a widower ten years ago, free to court Elly Lyseth if he chose. The heart shape of the locket he’d identified seemed to indicate a  romantic connection between them.

What did all that mean? Diana was trying to think of a subtle way to find out more when a gangly lad of fourteen or fifteen ambled into the lobby.

“Mornin’ Miss Grant.” he called out. “You got a Mrs. Spaulding staying here? She’s got a telegram.”

“Spaulding? You sure about that name, Scorcher?”

Diana hastily stepped forward to claim the message. “That’s for me. I’m sorry for the confusion.”

Heart pounding, she thought quickly, aware that how she phrased her next words could make the difference between keeping her reputation and being found out. She’d known pretending to be married to Ben was a bad idea, but men never gave a thought to the trouble a careless lie could cause!

“When I met Dr. Northcote I’d been a widow for some time,” she said, her words running together in her rush to get them out. “Many of my acquaintances are still unaware that I changed my mind about marrying again.”

“You’re a newlywed, then?” A dreamy look came into Mercy’s eyes.

Diana hoped her blush would suffice for an answer because she preferred not to lie outright. She opened the telegram, giving herself a small paper cut in her haste. In truth, only three people knew she was here—her mother in Colorado, Ben’s mother in Maine, and Diana’s editor in Manhattan.

The telegram had been sent by the latter. After one quick glance at its contents, Diana excused herself and went back to the tower suite. She was still clutching the telegram, trying to decide what to do, when Ben returned.