Poison to Purge Melancholy (20 page)

“Last weekend at my place, you mentioned that you still had your collection.” Rich seemed embarrassed by his gift. “Though you probably already have this one.”

“I do, but mine’s faded and chewed up around the edges. This one’s in mint condition.” Horse, beaming his pleasure, held up his prize at last so we could all see it—a gold-on-black Pittsburgh Pirates patch, pirate in the center with the name of the team, the words “My Favorite Team” above, and “Bazooka—BLONY” below. “I collected 1950s
Bazooka Blony
patches in high school,” Horse explained to those of us not in the loop. “Man, this is the
best
present. Thanks, Rich.” He returned the patch into its bag, then slipped it into his sweatshirt’s pouch pocket.

Rich reddened further and sought refuge in his journal, but Glad said, “You visited your brother last weekend, Lighthorse? Why didn’t you stop by?”

The mood in the room turned awkward as Horse glanced around at his siblings for help. “I wasn’t in town, Ma. We were at the shore house. So were Acey and Foot.”

“We got together”—Foot had lost his humor and was all business—“to discuss your selling the house and moving here. We think—” A sound like a cat purring came from his torso. He reached inside his jacket and brought forth a small cell phone. “Probably Irene,” he mumbled as he flipped it open. “Dr. Lee speaking . . .” His face turned grave. “Just a moment.” He went out into the hall.

Glad took advantage of the interruption and stood. “I need to get to the kitchen or we’ll never eat today.” She bustled out and Evelyn followed.

“Guess that leaves us to clean up,” Horse said, seeming relieved that the confrontation had been avoided. He began balling up the used wrapping paper around his chair.

“Don’t, Uncle Horse,” Beth Ann cried. “That can be sorted and recycled.” An environmentalist after my own heart.

“Okay,” Horse replied, smoothing out the paper. “Go ask your grandma for some bags.”

Beth Ann glanced at me, then down to where our legs were touching, and didn’t move.

“You heard your uncle,” Hugh said to his daughter. “Go on.”

“I’ll go,” Miss Maggie cut in. “I need to stretch my legs anyway or my arthritis’ll freeze ’em right up.” She handed me the pile of gifts on her lap, slowly rose to her feet—her joints were already stiff—and shuffled out.

Hugh scowled at Beth Ann and was about to reprimand her when Foot came back into the room looking, I thought, pale.

“Irene’s not coming?” Acey asked, trying to shift attention away from her niece. “What’s her excuse this time?”

“That wasn’t Irene.” Foot returned his phone to his jacket pocket. “It was the hospital. They found an antidepressant in Dr. Weisel’s stomach contents. A tricyclic.”

“Explains his symptoms,” Rich said. “He should’ve known better than to drink alcohol when he was taking—”

“Why’d they call you and not me?” Acey broke in.

Foot shrugged. “I gave them my number as a backup.”

Acey pulled her phone from the pocket of her caftan. “It’s still on. And no messages.”

“What kind of tricyclic?” Rich asked impatiently.

“Protriptyline.” Foot sat down in the chair Glad had vacated and when he spoke again, there was compassion in his tone. “It can cause delayed cardiac complications, Acey, so they’ve changed his condition back to guarded. He’s half-conscious, but delusional.”

I remembered the glob on Weisel’s nose. “Is protrip—whatever—is it a white liquid?”

I got two condescending doctor-sneers (from Rich and Foot) that said laypersons shouldn’t butt into medical discussions. Horse’s grin wasn’t condescending, but conveyed the same message.

Only Acey knew what I meant. “The stuff on Kevin’s nose last night? I’ve never prescribed protriptyline, but I think it comes in pill form. Foot, you’re the shrink. What about it?”

“No, it’s not a liquid,” he replied grudgingly. “I have two patients on it. Five or ten milligram tablets. I remember because I just had to cut a dosage two weeks ago—one patient started having delusions that his ex was stealing his pills.”

“
Dosage
.” Rich pounced on the word. “That’s what’s important. Did Weisel’s normal dose react with the ale he drank, or did he deliberately try to OD?”

“Hugh didn’t find any medication in his bag,” Foot pointed out. “If he was on protriptyline, he’d have to take it at least three times a day. He would have packed enough to last him the weekend. Excuse me.” He left the room and I heard him climb the stairs.

“So”—Rich placed his fingertips together—“if he brought only a single dose with him, an attempted suicide is indicated. Is that likely, Acey?”

“I don’t know,” she said, dazed, but then her jawline stiffened and her sarcasm returned. “Obviously, he didn’t tell me everything.” Her gaze fell on the phone in her hand and her devil-smile appeared. “Seems a shame his wife has to spend Christmas day at the hospital. I think I’ll ask Ma if she can come to dinner.” Acey jumped to her feet and ran out of the parlor before her brothers could object.

“She’s up to something,” Rich said.

“As always,” Hugh mumbled.

“Do not let your Children and Servants run
too much abroad at Nights.”

—December page of Nathaniel Whittemore’s 1719 Almanac

December 24, 1783—The Streets of Williamsburg

Young Tom and I
retrieved the handbarrow and brought it to Mr. Prentis’s yard without further delay. In our absence, the others had settled upon a plan of action.

“Alex and I will dispose of the costumes,” Sam said as he removed his black breeches, “and we’ll hide the firearms and powder in the Carson tin shop, where all will be at hand for our customary Christmas volley at dawn. Then we shall carry our guns inside with no one the wiser.”

The tin shop was a small wooden building standing at the edge of the Carson yard. During the war a storm had changed the course of a neighboring creek and the shop now sat on the brink of marshland, and so had remained vacant. The stain of spring floods marked its walls.

“The rest of you,” Sam concluded, “will follow our original scheme and proceed to Mrs. Vobe’s tavern, where we shall join you as soon as we may.”

I agreed, though I yearned to bring Tom home straightway. Still, ’twas better that the boy be prepared to answer his mother’s queries about his first taste of rum punch. Also, if I did not return to the Eagle, no doubt the lads we’d met earlier would spread rumor of a liaison between myself and the Widow Carson. I wished to avoid that, if only to prevent such rumors from reaching Elizabeth’s ear, along with reports of false errands to retrieve piecework.

Sam and Alex made a quick job of their part—precisely the time it took me to instruct Tom how to sip at his half-gill of punch, to nip thrice at my own gill, and to play five repeats of “Successful Campaign.” Their work was perhaps too quick, for when they entered the crowded oaken room of the Eagle, Sam’s shoes, stockings, and the knees of his breeches were wet through and caked with mud.

“Gentlemen,” he announced with his usual bravado, “I must claim a place by the fire. As you see, I’ve had a dispute with a puddle.”

“Puddle?” said Mr. Draper, his eyes glinting in the firelight. “The James River, more like.” To which the assembly added such comments as “Bit cold for a swim,” and “A woman’s to blame, I’ll warrant.”

Only Mr. Hockaday gave serious thought to the matter, saying, “’Tis dangerous to cut across the marshes these dark nights. The water’s high, with all the rain this last month.” But Mr. Hockaday, to my relief, was ignored in favor of jest.

They made room for Sam at the hearth, and were encouraging him to remove his stockings lest he court a chill, when who should come into the room, and straight to my side, but Lynch.

Sam took the situation in hand. “Sergeant Lynch! Good of the captain to let you come tonight and toast the Yule with us. Call for the boy, lads. More punch is needed.”

“I’m on the captain’s business.” Lynch drew himself up a half inch taller and raised his voice. “Helping the constable search for some nightwalkers what done murder in front of Captain Underwood’s house.”

The room fell silent.

“Murder!” Sam exclaimed, sounding as shocked as anyone present. “Come, Sergeant, tell us this news.”

Lynch needed no goading, though in his story, the marauders held their guns to his head to gain entry to the house, and when “poor Mr. Brennan” interrupted their play, all four with weapons turned and shot him.

“All four, you say?” Sam slipped his feet from his shoes and held his toes nearer the flames. “Mr. Brennan took four balls?”

Lynch scowled. “No, only one in the breast. The others missed.”

“Or had no ordinance in their weapons, perhaps?”

“Still,” Lynch insisted, “one of the villains done murder. He’ll hang for it, as will the others, for helping him. And anyone else who hides him.”

“What did they look like?” Mr. Hockaday asked.

Lynch gave a fair description of our costumes and to my dismay, ended with, “The one in the hunting frock played the fiddle, quite well, in truth.” And his gaze settled upon the instrument in my hands.

“Half of Williamsburg can fiddle,” Sam stated, “and half of those are fairly skilled. A shame none played the glass ’armonica. That would narrow the field.” Which brought a laugh from the company.

“I might have seen your nightwalkers,” Mr. Draper cut in. “Early in the evening. Perhaps two hours ago—perhaps more. I was coming ’round the capitol on my way to the Eagle. They were prancing up the Main Street ahead of me. ’Twas too dark to make out their dress, but one was a fiddler, quite good, though not as masterful as, say, our Mr. Dunbar.”

I was thankful now for the difficulties in playing while walking and with cold fingers.

“Interesting, that,” Lynch said. “One of the captain’s houseguests—a Mr. Tyler of Norfolk—claimed he’d heard only one man better on the fiddle and that was a Norfolk music master, now deceased, name of Edward Dunbar.”

“Your father, Ben. What a coincidence.” Sam’s voice was light, but he eyed me, wondering, as I did, if this man from Norfolk knew me. I recalled no Mr. Tyler among Mr. Ivey’s associates. Indeed, all those men, like Mr. Ivey, had removed themselves to England early in the war, rather than be imprisoned as Tories. I strove to remember the faces gathered around Underwood’s table, yet with the limited vision of my mask, and the fact that some diners had their backs to us, I could take no comfort from my memory.

“We’ll join in your search, Sergeant Lynch,” Will said, downing the rest of his punch. “If all us lads have a hand, we’ll make short work of it.” Those of the company not already sluggish with drink, agreed. In truth, rum made them so bold that Lynch could not refuse them.

I reached for my violin case. “I shall see Master Tom home.”

“I, too,” said Sam, more for Lynch’s benefit. “I shall fetch dry stockings and, at any rate, we should inform Mrs. Carson of her tenant’s death. Mr. Parker, your croup is worse. Come home, sir, and place a poultice upon your chest.”

Jim’s cough was, on the whole, much improved, though he yet carried a dull, damning trace of stale perfume about him.

When Will and Alex had led Lynch and much of the assembly away, Sam said, “Go on. I shall follow as soon as my feet regain some warmth. Perhaps a bit of your punch might spur the process from the inside.” He nodded at my half-drunk gill.

“Take it,” I said, wondering what he meant to do after we left, for I could always tell when Sam spoke less than truth.

Jim, Tom, and I took our leave then, the boy nearly dozing as he walked. We passed bands of revelers along the Main Street—some masked, some not—greeting those we knew, touching our hats in courtesy to those we did not.

But when we’d rounded the corner of Nassau, and no one was near, Jim said, “You both must have seen who shot Brennan.”

“No,” I said, and Tom echoed with, “Nor I. You drew all eyes to yourself at that moment, Mr. Parker, with your antics.”

“Then you know I’m without blame. You saw me put only powder in my pistol, Ben, and precious little of it.”

I nodded, all the while wondering if a wad and ball might have been left in the weapon, overlooked as Jim primed it.

But surely Sam would have cleaned the pistols?

I said nothing of my musings, resolving to question Sam on the morrow.

Miss Maggie returned with
a handful of grocery bags. “Here, Hugh, you sort the paper. I need to take Pat and Beth Ann back to the kitchen.”

“Me?” Beth Ann asked with her usual what-am-I-being-volunteered-for-now misgivings.

Hugh got to his feet. “This time you’re going if I have to carry you.”

“She’ll come.” I grabbed Beth Ann’s hand as I stood, gently squeezing it. She got the message—I needed her to get out of the old part of the house. Hugh might have paused to wonder why his daughter didn’t give me a hard time as I towed her from the room, but he merely smiled paternally at both of us. Poor naïve man.

Miss Maggie led us back through the dining room, where Acey swept past us, cell phone to her ear, saying “W-E-I-S-E-L. Better yet, give me his nurses’ station . . .”

Beth Ann squirmed out of my grip as soon as we crossed the kitchen threshold and hung back, alert for a chance to escape, but Miss Maggie said to her, “Stick around. This may interest you.”

The breakfast things had been cleared away and now half the room’s horizontal surfaces were covered with bowls, plastic food containers, and bags. Evelyn was placing two flat roasting pans inside the oven. Glad was nowhere in sight, but as I opened my mouth to ask what was going on, she came back into the room via the spiral stair, carrying a large scrapbook.

“Here you are,” she said when she saw us. “Magnolia thought you’d like to see my copies of the house documentation, Pat.”

Beth Ann let out a quiet groan, but Miss Maggie caught her by the elbow, saying, “’Bout time you got to know your ancestors, missy. Besides, I don’t have my reading glasses, so you’ll have to read for me.”

Beth Ann, I could tell, was all set to ask why I couldn’t read instead, so she could go off and sulk as she pleased. The glint in Miss Maggie’s green eyes stopped her. We were hot on the trail of our ghosts, her expression said. Beth Ann sucked in her breath, “Is Polly Carson in that book?”

“No,” Glad replied. “Her records, and her husband’s, are in the next volume, which begins in 1795 after her mother’s death. This one covers 1750 through 1783. I’ll go fetch the other—”

“Don’t bother yet,” Miss Maggie said. “We can start with this one. We’ll sit at one end of this table, if that’s all right, Gladys? I’m sure we’ll have questions for you.”

“Oh, well . . .” Glad looked torn, wanting her dinner to be a complete surprise, yet wanting to talk about Elizabeth. Her pet topic won out. Glad set the scrapbook at the far end of the table, saying, “Yes, let’s sit here. I’ll get the beets.”

While we gathered around the scrapbook, Glad fetched a plate, knife, and blue bowl, then joined us. From the bowl she took a cooked, peeled beet and sliced it down the middle.

“I could do that for you,” I volunteered. Like I said, I can’t watch someone else cook.

Miss Maggie agreed. “Let Pat give you a hand, Gladys. That way you can get on with dinner. You can answer our questions as easily from the stove or sink, or wherever you need to be.”

Glad hesitated. “Most of today’s dishes are already prepared, and only need to be warmed up at the proper time. Except for the meat, of course, and well, I suppose I
could
mix the spoonbread while you slice the beets?”

I assured her that beet-slicing was a specialty of mine.

She eyed me dubiously. “But you see, they must be sliced longways, a third of an inch thick, and in the shape of a fish—a sole, actually.”

I was intrigued. “Sure. I can do that.” I went over to the sink to wash my hands.

“Ev,” Glad said, “maybe you should bring the rest of the food up from the cellar?”

Evelyn turned from the window by the stove. “Oh, yes. Yes, of course.” Seeming flustered, he went out through the dining room.

Drying my hands on a paper towel, I returned to the table where Beth Ann was already browsing through the scrapbook with fascination. I glanced over her shoulder before sitting down. The book had plastic sleeve pages and the photocopies inside seemed to be lists of things like furniture and cooking utensils.

“Household inventory,” Miss Maggie explained. “Done by Thomas Carson when his father died in 1766.”

“Thomas Senior kept very detailed accounts,” Glad said as she popped the lid loose on a plastic bowl and carried it to the microwave. “Wrote down every sale of his tinwork and every expense for his house and family. Most of that book is his records.”

Miss Maggie nodded. “But I seem to remember seeing ledgers that Elizabeth wrote, too, after her husband went to war.”

Glad beamed at our interest in her favorite subject and, setting the bowl in the microwave, came over to Beth Ann. “Toward the back of the book.” She flipped the pages. “Here you go. August of 1777. That’s when Thomas purchased a lieutenant’s commission and mustered in.”

“Purchased?” I echoed, taking my seat and pulling the beets closer.

“Not unusual,” Miss Maggie commented. “One of the earlier verses of ‘Yankee Doodle’ goes,” and she sang out,

“‘There is a man in our town;

I’ll tell you his condition,

He sold his oxen and a cow

To buy him a commission.’”

Glad, ignoring the recital, returned to her job. “Thomas no doubt heard of the British sailing up the Chesapeake that summer. The war came much closer to home, you see—”

Beth Ann broke in, tapping the first ledger page. “These numbers don’t add up.”

“Yes, well,” Glad hit the nuke button, “Elizabeth had little schooling, but her math did improve with practice.”

“Her detail suffers, though,” Miss Maggie observed, turning the pages, leaning back to bring them into focus. “The first two months she copied Thomas’s format, then she starts using more and more abbreviations and, as the years go on, she makes entries less and less often.”

Something in the ledger caught Beth Ann’s eye—she stopped Miss Maggie’s hand. I tried to get a look, but the handwriting was too difficult to decipher at a distance. Miss Maggie couldn’t make it out either and told Beth Ann to read it aloud.

The girl wrinkled her nose in concentration. “Looks like ‘
J-dot-B-R-E-N-dot, room and—mealf?
’ Then a word spelled ‘
y-s
’ and ‘
week
’ and the entry is ‘
6s
-comma-
3p
’.”

“‘J. Bren., room and meals this week,’“ Miss Maggie translated. “‘6 shillings, 3 pence.’ Gladys, did you ever find out who Elizabeth’s lodgers were?”

“Not all, and nothing conclusive.” Glad, bottle of white wine in one hand and butter dish atop of a carton of eggs in the other, closed the fridge door with her foot. “The entry you just read—made in January of 1778—was Elizabeth’s first lodger.” She set her load on the worktable by the stove. “In December of 1777, the
Virginia Gazette
carried an advertisement for ‘fine snuff and other genteel accoutrements’ sold by a John Brennan, ‘late of Norfolk and now situated at Mrs. Vobe’s’—the King’s Arms Tavern, he meant.” The microwave beeped and Glad removed the bowl as she talked. “If ‘J. Bren.’ is the same man, perhaps he moved to this house the next month because it was more private. You see, as Elizabeth took in more lodgers, this ‘J. Bren.’ paid more, probably to retain a single room.”

“Or at least a single bed,” Miss Maggie said. “Beds were expensive, so lodgers had to share—sometimes three grown men to a twin-sized frame. If you wanted personal space, you either paid more or slept on the floor.” She tapped the plastic page and mused, “So, John Brennan was a traveling salesman.”

“Not in the way we think of them, of course,” Glad said.

Miss Maggie agreed, explaining to me and Beth Ann, “A young tradesman would go from town to town, selling his wares from his room, testing the waters, so to speak. Once he found a promising clientele, he’d settle down and open his own shop, or at least arrange to share space with an established merchant. Did John Brennan stay in Williamsburg?”

Glad put a half stick of butter in her bowl. “There’s no other mention of Brennan in the
Gazette
, but ‘J. Bren.’ paid Elizabeth room and board through October 1781. Must have been a hard time for her. Her Thomas died about that time, and with the capitol no longer in town, she didn’t have many other boarders.”

“When was Polly born?” Beth Ann blurted out of the blue.

Glad, perhaps used to rapid changes of subject while giving tours, answered smoothly. “She was christened at Bruton Parish in September of 1769, and her father wrote that he paid a midwife five shillings on the last day of August—oh, Ev, let me give you a hand.”

Evelyn had returned with two heavy-looking grocery sacks dangling from one hand, and his other arm wrapped around a precarious stack of plastic containers and large Ziploc bags. He managed to control the load until he tried to set them down on the table where Glad was working. The stack toppled, three Ziploc bags hit the floor, but the seals held.

“No harm done,” said Evelyn. “I’ll get them.”

But Glad helped anyway and I saw the smiles they exchanged. Whatever Hugh and his siblings thought, I knew Glad hadn’t simply “latched onto” Evelyn to get into this house.

Glad straightened up. “They’ve been asking about Elizabeth’s lodgers, Ev. Tell them about Dr. Riddick.”

“Dr. Riddick!” Miss Maggie exclaimed, then to hide her excitement, she added, “I think I’ve heard of him.”

“Elizabeth’s ledger lists a ‘Dr. R.,’” Glad said.

“And Dr. Isaac Riddick was in Williamsburg for those months,” Evelyn concluded. “Dr. Galt wrote of him seeing patients at the apothecary.”

“When was this?” Miss Maggie asked.

“1783,” Evelyn said, “between June and December. Riddick left Williamsburg rather abruptly and Galt hints of some scandal, but doesn’t go into detail. The bigger mystery may be why Riddick came here in the first place. He’d only just finished his studies in Philadelphia, a city that offered favorable opportunities for him to set up a practice.”

“While Williamsburg,” Miss Maggie said, “turned into a sleepy country village after the capitol left in 1780.”

Evelyn nodded. “There were quite enough doctors in town to tend the people who remained here. Galt does make one brief mention of Riddick’s interest in mental illness—”

“He came to study at the Public Hospital?” Miss Maggie suggested, to which I asked, “The building across the street?”

“Yes,” Evelyn replied. “The Public Hospital of 1773 was the first hospital for the insane in North America.”

“Little more than a jail,” Miss Maggie put in, “but it represented the new theory that the mentally ill could possibly be cured.”

Evelyn crossed to the hutch beside the stove. “The hospital closed during the war for want of funding, and didn’t reopen until 1786. Riddick may have come to Williamsburg to meet Dr. John de Sequeyra, the hospital’s attending physician, but it’s odd that he stayed more than six months with the facility closed.” Evelyn opened the lower cabinet and took out a large stock pot.

“How are the beets coming, Pat?” Glad asked.

I’d been so absorbed in the discussion, I only had two sliced. I started hacking away and assured her they’d be ready in a minute.

Beth Ann, I noticed, had turned to the last page of the scrapbook, pointing and whispering as Evelyn poured water into the pot.

Miss Maggie asked aloud, “What about the other lodgers? For instance, this December 1783 entry lists ‘S.W.’ and ‘J.P.’”

“We don’t know for sure,” Glad said. “They both took rooms in late spring, right after the army had been sent home, so it’s likely they were soldiers rather than students.”

“And,” Evelyn said as he carried the pot to the stove, “they both stayed here at least seven months, so one would assume they had jobs. Among the employers who kept good records, nearly a dozen men with the initials ‘J.P.’ are listed.”

“But only two with the initials ‘S.W.’” Glad opened one plastic bag, lifted out something heavy wrapped in greasy white cloth, and put it in the stock pot, cloth and all. “Silas Wilson, who worked at the courthouse, and Samuel Walker, employed by John Greenhow.”

Miss Maggie’s eyebrows did their “pay dirt” dance. “You said they stayed ‘at least’ seven months. They moved out of the Carson house in 1784?”

“We don’t know that either,” Glad replied, heading for the sink to wash her hands. “That’s the last ledger we have of Elizabeth’s. The records for the years 1784 through 1795 are missing.”