The Salem Witch Society (35 page)

“And here is where the story leads us: that trip down to Salem. After the arrest, the constables led him through the woods, and a terrible storm blew up. Lightning smashed right down on the treetops, casting an eerie glow with electricity dancing all around them. The constables felt their horses lifted up by the swirling winds so that their hooves no longer touched the ground. Yet the horses never bolted, just kept on at their same old trot, carried along in the very air. The jailers feared for their lives, but Burroughs never flinched. Upon reaching Salem, the constables reported that the wizard’s spell had called the fiends of the air to his aid and they had an army of devils at their backs the entire way. The hill where the storm occurred is still known today as Witchtrot Hill.”

Lean considered
this for a moment. “So what does that give us? We already knew our man is obsessed with Salem witch-trial victims. The male ones anyway. First he’s using their names as aliases, now he’s placed a body at a site named after Burroughs. It’s almost like he’s paying some manner of tribute to them all.”

“Scituate and Witchtrot Hill are both connected with Burroughs,” Grey said. “He’s the focal point.”

“It makes sense, as far as a Salem connection,” Helen said. “He was in some ways the central character in the accusations. He was the alleged ringleader of the witches. The one who supposedly turned all the others into witches in the first place. The afflicted girls get the attention, and we always think of the witches as women, but to the Puritans’ narrow-minded view of the world there had to be a man behind it all. The danger was so great, the damage to the community so severe, it made sense to them that the corruption had to have been on a grand scale. And what betrayal could be worse? The devil had turned one of their own ministers against them.”

Grey nodded. “Mrs. Prescott, would you be so kind as to bring my copy of Cram’s 1890 Atlas. It’s there on the table by you.”

Lean joined Grey by the desk and glanced down to see that he was studying a map entitled “Plan of Falmouth Neck, Now Portland, 1690.” The image on the desk showed a much thinner version of Portland Neck, heavily wooded and spotted with several areas of marsh and wetlands. Three dozen houses were marked, along with various numbered reference points, including two garrisons, Fort Loyal, the burying ground that was now the Eastern Cemetery, and George Bramhall’s farm below the Western Promenade.

“What do you see?”

“Nothing yet,” Grey said, “but I hope to see the Reverend George Burroughs.”

“I don’t think the map is quite to that scale,” Lean said with a smirk. “Out with it, Grey.”

“Your comment just now. The body on Witchtrot Hill as a ‘tribute’ to Burroughs. What if each murder was some sort of tribute?”

“What makes you think—”

“Consider. Hannah
Easler murdered in Scituate. The birthplace of George Burroughs.”

“I have seen other references saying he was born in London,” Helen said.

Grey waved the argument away. “We are dealing with a man willing to kill for some reason connected to the two-hundred-year-old trials of witches. What matters to him is what he believes in that twisted mind of his. And he’s read that Burroughs was born in Scituate.”

“Fair enough,” Lean said.

“Now, we know murder victim three was subsequently moved to Marsh’s house and then the family tomb. But it appears she was actually killed at a site made notorious by Burroughs’s presence.”

“Fair enough again,” said Lean. “But Maggie Keene? The Portland Company wasn’t there two hundred years ago.”

“Which brings us full circle to one of the original questions posed in this case. Why did the killer remove the floorboards, setting the body directly upon the earth beneath? He was never interested in killing her inside the Portland Company. It was always the ground underneath that was important.”

“Here you are.” Helen handed over the atlas and set it on the desk. Grey flipped ahead until he located the city of Portland, Maine. He set his right index finger on the 1890 map in a blank space at the East End below Fore Street, where the Portland Company now stood. Then he pointed with his left index finger to the 1690 map.

“The early settlement was concentrated here, at the waterfront near the East End. Notice the only four streets in the town are clustered there. A very short Queen Street, which is now Congress, forms the upper boundary. Broad, now India Street, joins this to the waterfront. Running along the shore, we have Fore Street until it crosses Broad and becomes Thames. That continues east and ends at …” Grey ran his finger an inch along the map to where Thames Street ended.

Lean’s eyes darted back and forth between the identical locations. On the 1890 map, it was the Portland Company. The same site on the 1690 map
was marked with the number “2.” He glanced down to the reference key at the lower left corner of the 1690 map.

“Number 2. The Meeting House.” He looked at Helen, then met Grey’s eyes. “The town minister.”

Grey nodded at Lean. “The Reverend George Burroughs. Our man is committing murders in a pattern derived from the life of George Burroughs.”

T
he carriage, borrowed once again from Dr. Steig, rolled downhill on Green Street, past the smokestacks of the Casco Tanning Company, where the wide expanse of Deering Oaks Park came into view. Grey seemed lost in thought, and Lean’s eye was drawn to the park. Midday strollers dotted the carriage paths winding among the tall trees. In the large duck pond, couples in swan-shaped paddleboats steered around the spray of the fountain. Grassy fingertips of land along the pond were crowded with picnickers. A sudden regret gripped Lean as doubt over this seemingly endless investigation came creeping along the edges of his mind. He wished he were in the park now, watching Owen throw bits of bread over the heads of the greedy duck vanguard, to the hungry stragglers. Instead, he was on his way to a cemetery, looking to the dead for a clue, some thin thread connected to the live phantom they were chasing.

As they passed the border of the park, marking the city line where Green Street in Portland became the town of Deering’s Forest Avenue, Grey finally spoke.

“You understand that there is no one else.”

Lean stared back at him, unwilling to admit he had no inkling of the man’s meaning.

“To the rest of the city, the tale of this crime begins and ends with Maggie Keene’s murder. They can even forgive that it remains unsolved. In time, those who remember the murder will even revel in that
fact. There’s something very appealing to the common man about an unsolved mystery. And even if someone else had been willing to take up this inquiry, they wouldn’t have gotten as far as we have.”

He knew that Grey was trying to encourage him, but Lean felt cold pincers gripping deep inside his chest. “As far as we have.” When Lean repeated the words, they carried more of a sting of bitterness than he’d intended.

The cab hurried along, running parallel to the Portland & Rochester line. Grey returned to some private train of thought, and Lean was grateful for the renewed silence. Another mile and they passed into the sprawling suburban neighborhood of Woodford’s Corner, traveling over the unpaved road and bumping across multiple sets of rails. Dr. Steig’s driver steered them past the raucous cheers emanating from the half-mile racing track of the Presumpscot Trotting Park. The cab proceeded along unpaved Stevens Plains Avenue, past the grand residences of newly moneyed merchants and professionals escaping from the city.

Massive granite posts and a trolley waiting room marked the entrance to Evergreen Cemetery. Broad canopied elms, maples, and arborvitae hedges lined the main avenue, reminding visitors that this was a different space from the two older cemeteries on the eastern and western edges of the Neck. Unlike those constricted fields of granite headstones, bookends bounding in the life of the city, Evergreen was a sweeping, parklike cemetery. It was the last day of July, a Sunday, so the cemetery was alive with parasol-wielding couples on parade and groups lolling on blankets under shade trees. A half mile in from Stevens Plains Avenue, the grounds became slightly hilly. The carriage passed by wide, grassy plots dedicated to single families who sat atop a series of hillocks.

“This will do, Rasmus,” Grey called out.

They climbed down and surveyed the scene. Lean moved forward and stood up on a short, two-foot-wide granite border that surrounded a small, houselike burial vault, while Grey consulted his notebook, then peered about the manicured landscape.

“Over
there.” Grey pointed to the right and led Lean across the short, plush grass. He wandered up and down rows of grave markers. “We’re looking for Mrs. Blanchard, I take it,” Lean said.

“We are indeed.”

“And to what end?”

“After meeting her charming husband, I’m curious to see if she has improved the company she keeps. Ah, here we are.”

Lean stepped forward to see the resting place of Agnes Blanchard. Cut flowers, now dead, were set upon the ground just below the headstone. It was a simple inscription on a plain-faced rectangle of granite:
BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER. NOVEMBER 29, 1836 AUGUST
5 1871.

“The anniversary of her death is next week,” noted Lean. He looked up to see Grey examining the nearby markers. “Find someone interesting?”

“On the contrary. I don’t see a single name of interest.”

“The son?”

“Notable by his absence. There are plenty of burial lots free and others nearby buried in recent years,” Grey said.

“He might simply be buried elsewhere.”

“Or nowhere at all.”

“Why would the colonel lie about such a thing?” Lean asked.

“The same reason he lied about everything else. To protect himself and his movement. So the interesting question becomes, does this missing son have any bearing on our inquiry? I suppose we shall have to ask the colonel’s daughter on Friday.”

Lean stared at Grey. “You’ve already located that daughter and scheduled an appointment with her for next Friday?”

“Not that she’s aware of. But she should be here”—Grey motioned to the week-old flowers resting by Mrs. Blanchard’s headstone—“with a fresh bouquet on the anniversary of her mother’s death.”

L
ean and
Grey stood in Helen’s parlor, awaiting her return from upstairs. There was a tall bookcase along one wall, and Lean perused the titles. One of the lower shelves held Delia’s primers and stories. Grey approached, bent down toward the young girl’s shelf, and retrieved a small, pewter-framed photograph. Lean glanced at it and saw a younger Helen Prescott with a handsome man beside her.

“Dr. Steig mentioned he died not long after Delia was born,” Lean said.

Grey, still holding the picture, moved along the perimeter of the room, taking in a few paintings and a couple of other photographs of Helen and Delia. Lean heard Helen coming down the stairs, and a moment later she entered from the kitchen.

“She’s all tucked in. Now, gentlemen. What a pleasant surprise. If I’d known you were coming, I could have fixed something to eat.”

“No need, Mrs. Prescott.”

“We’re sorry to impose on you unannounced, Helen,” Lean added. Helen saw what Grey was holding. She stepped forward and took it from his hand.

“Sorry. It’s just that Delia is very attached to this picture of her father.” Helen strode to the bookcase and set the picture back in its spot.

“It must be trying for a girl to not have her father around. Difficult to explain, I imagine. Questions that need to be answered and such.”

“Yes, it is difficult. Very much so.” Helen’s face was flushed, her hands clasped before her. “I don’t think you can imagine, Mr. Grey. But I’ve done all that I can to shelter Delia from the unpleasantness of his death. And I think I’ve done as well as could be expected in the circumstances.”

“Yes, I
would say you’ve done a commendable job.” He offered a quick smile, some veiled sort of truce offering.

Lean glanced back and forth between the two of them, trying to pick up the thread of the conversation that he had somehow missed.

Helen gave a little nod and walked around her visitors. “Have you made some discovery? I was just getting ready to have another look at that page you sent.”

“Any luck so far?” Lean asked.

She led them over to a rolltop desk, where three pages lay side by side. Lean recognized the page salvaged from the woodstove in Lizzie Madson’s rooms.

“I have a thought about the first line, but after that it has me utterly confounded,” Helen said.

The men stood looking over her shoulder as she read, “‘For every dark spirit summoned, every spirit commanded, a dark soul offered.’ He’s killing women he views as sinners—dark souls that he is sacrificing for some diabolical reason.”

Lean nodded. “I thought the same. He’s not a religious fanatic after all. He’s pursuing some type of black-magic ritual.”

“It explains the puzzle of why he killed Maggie Keene as a witch, then suckled at her molelike protuberance,” Grey said.

“Like a witch’s familiar,” Helen said. “Drawing power from her, serving as some link between the witch and the devil.”

Lean shook his head. “He’s really seeking some connection with the devil?”

“‘For every dark spirit summoned,’” she said. “It’s essentially the same crime George Burroughs was accused of in Salem. He was the one charged with originally converting the others to witches. He’d have them sign their names in blood or red ink in his devil’s book.”

Lean snapped to attention. “Maggie Keene’s postmortem—the red ink that stained the inside of her right glove. Our man actually had her sign his devil’s book or some such.” He looked to Grey, whose head was bent in deep concentration. “What do you think, Grey?”

Grey ignored the question and addressed himself to Helen instead. “There’s another
book mentioned in the trial material you provided to us on the Reverend Burroughs. A book mentioned by one of the afflicted girls. She’d been a servant in his household here in Maine.”

“Mercy Lewis,” Helen said as she started to search through her research files. Soon she pulled out a sheet of paper and held it up in triumph. Grey motioned her on and she read the page aloud. “The deposition of Mercy Lewis, who testifies that: ‘At evening I saw the apparition of Mr. George Burroughs whom I very well knew which did grievously torture me and urged me to write in his book and then he brought to me a new fashion book which he did not use to bring and told me I might write in that book: for that was a book that was in his study when I lived with them. But I told him I did not believe him for I had been often in his study, but I never saw that book there. But he told me that he had several books in his study which I never saw in his study and he could raise the devil.’”