These Honored Dead (13 page)

“I think I won’t let you pretend any longer you’re not smitten with her,” he said. When I started to protest, he held up his hand and turned serious.

“I think she’s probably innocent. But it’s beyond dispute she’s not telling us everything she knows. And she’s playing with fire if she truly knows who the villain is. It’s obvious she’s used to keeping her own counsel, but that habit is going to put her in grave trouble before long, if it hasn’t already.”

“By the way,” I said, making ready to depart myself, “I should have known this before I asked you to intercede. What’s your record with murder cases?”

“Haven’t lost one yet,” he said.

Reassured, I was halfway out the door when I realized his true meaning. I turned back to him and said, “Why do I think that’s the same thing the novice surgeon says to his first-ever patient?”

“But no less the truer,” Lincoln said with a small smile. “No less the truer.”

T
he following day was a Friday, the first day of September. When Herndon arrived to take his afternoon shift behind the counter, I set off to interview Gustorf again. This time, I came armed with a new stratagem for gaining admittance to the Prussian’s sickroom: my sister Martha.

Sure enough, the Pattersons’ hired girl led us into the doctor’s parlor at once. Herr Gustorf was still on the couch, now in a half-sitting position with several pillows lodged behind him. There was an enormous plaster log resting where his shattered leg used to be.

“What is that damned thing?” I exclaimed as we entered.

“Ah, Miss Speed,” Gustorf said, flashing a gleaming smile at my sister. “As soon as the girl said it was you, I knew you were just the tonic my spirits needed.” Martha’s face colored. Turning to me, he added, “Patterson calls it a ‘cast.’”

“Is it supposed to work instead of your leg?”

“It’s supposed to
cure
my leg, believe it or not. At least that’s what the doctor says. Myself, I don’t particularly believe it, but I seem to have been unconscious when he imprisoned me in it, so I have little choice but to see if he proves right. If he does—well, that’ll be quite a nice story for my book. Perhaps it will be even if he doesn’t.”

“So your leg’s somewhere inside there? The doctor didn’t amputate?”

“So I’m told.” The Prussian turned back to Martha. “But I’m terribly bored with my cast. And with the small slice of sky I can see.” He gestured toward the window above his resting place. “Tell me something interesting from the outside world, Miss Speed.”

Martha obliged him and I let her chatter on. Gustorf’s flirtations seemed harmless as long as he was weighed down by the heavy cast. In fact, when the hired girl looked in, I took the liberty of asking her to bring us two glasses of the doctor’s liquor and some well water for Martha so we could toast to the Prussian’s renewed health. Neither the doctor nor his daughter was in evidence and I did not inquire about them, figuring they would merely serve as obstacles to my design.

Instead, I listened patiently as Gustorf spun stories about his encounters with self-important students at Eastern universities and foul-mouthed alligator men on Mississippi riverboats. He had downed his third glass and just finished relating a story of questionable taste having to do with his half-sister disarming an enraged colonel in Vienna when I decided it was time to proceed.

“Say, Gustorf,” I began, “I was thinking about your touring itinerary. We talked about it on the afternoon of your accident. When you passed through Menard—”

“Which village, now?”

“This is the little outpost north of here, with a smithy I suggested you visit.”

“If you say so.”

“There’s also an interesting general store in the same settlement. Harriman & Co. Provisioners. Did you happen to go in there?”

“I don’t think so. Where is that girl?” he added, looking around the room with frustration. “The last glass she poured was a miserly one.”

“I’m sure she’ll return soon,” I said. “Do you remember encountering a young woman in Menard, close to my sister’s age?”

The Prussian shook his head. “If I had seen another young woman with even half your sister’s charms, I would remember her, I assure you.” Martha smiled broadly.

At that moment, the girl appeared and Gustorf began negotiating for an additional glass or three.

“Mind yourself,” I whispered into Martha’s ear. “Remember why we’re here.”

“He’s a cad, not a murderer,” she whispered back. “I
can
tell the difference.”

“We’ll see.”

Gustorf’s charm seemed to work on the hired girl as well, as she soon returned with a fresh bottle of the doctor’s spirits, which she balanced next to the Prussian on his couch. As soon as he’d helped himself to a new glass, I continued.

“I’ve been looking into the death of that boy, the one whose body was found in your carriage.”

“Have you?” he returned with genuine interest. “So shopkeepers in your country also investigate crimes? What an unusual arrangement. I shall certainly have to make a note of
that
in my book.”

“I’ve an interest in the boy,” I pressed on. “He was . . . a distant relation of a sort. And he was a friendly, harmless lad. Are you sure you hadn’t seen him alive at some point during that day?”

“Quite sure,” replied Gustorf, sober for a moment.

“Before the stables began to fire, did you know that he was missing and a search was on for him?”

“Before, during, and after the fire, I was reclined in my chair inside the tavern. I was quite comfortable, as the wine was flowing and it seemed apparent others had a greater interest in the fire than did I.”

“But what would you have done if the fire had spread to the tavern itself?” asked Martha.

“Not worrying about things that haven’t happened yet gives one much more time to enjoy the things that are already happening,” Gustorf said with a smile. He swallowed the remains of his glass and poured himself a new one.

“Have you been to the public room of a place called Torrey’s?” I asked. “Torrey’s Temperance Hotel?”

“Alas not,” he said. “I’ve been told by more than a few people in town I’d like it. But I never made it through the door, and then my horses got into that brush with the hog and I find myself imprisoned here. I never thought I’d be so unhappy about a
brush
,” he added, winking at Martha.

She giggled. I decided it was time to go. I had only one last question: “If you knew nothing about the boy, why did the killer put his body in your carriage as a hiding place?”

“I’d think he was planning to drive away later in the evening, to dispose of the body somewhere, when the fire interrupted those plans. Or perhaps the search did.”

“But why your carriage? The other carriage at the shed that night would have provided an equally good hiding place.”

“I heard the other carriage was your father’s—is that the case?” Gustorf said. “‘Speed’ was painted on the rear panel?”

“My father’s very proud of his coach.”

“There’s your answer, I wager.”

I didn’t follow. “Are you suggesting someone wanted to incriminate you?”

“That’s unlikely,” he said. “I’m a foreigner, just arrived in town. I didn’t know a soul here at the time. I mean the opposite—the person who did it wanted to avoid incriminating you.”

As I thought about this logic, Gustorf turned his attention back to Martha. “How did it ever happen, my dear, that such a delightful young woman was saddled with such a tedious older brother?”

“I ask myself that question practically every day,” Martha replied.

I took her firmly by the arm. “It’s time to be going, Sister,” I said. “We don’t want to tire out Herr Gustorf. And look, it’s getting late.” As indeed it was. It had turned dusky outside and the windows above the Prussian’s couch reflected the dancing lights of the doctor’s miasma candles.

Martha and I let ourselves out and headed through the darkening streets toward her temporary residence at the sheriff’s house.

“He’s very clever, isn’t he?” Martha said after a few minutes.

“He’s thoroughly unsuit—”

“
Joshua!
You can’t possibly think I have an interest in him. A girl likes to be flirted with, but that’s all it was.”

“Very well,” I said with relief. “Still, it appears he had nothing to do with the murders. He didn’t react like he’s trying to hide something. And I suppose he seems an honest man, though he’s quite a rogue.”

“I think he’s a very good liar,” said Martha with a laugh. “But I can’t imagine he’s a murderer.”

We had reached the Hutchason house and Martha went up to the front door. But it proved locked, and no one responded when she knocked loudly.

“Maybe Molly’s around back with a prisoner,” suggested Martha. She led the way as we went through the gate of the white picket fence surrounding the Hutchasons’ large rear yard.

Sheriff Hutchason kept the town’s inmates in a rectangular shed adjacent to his barn. The jail was roughly twelve feet deep and six feet across. It had a steeply pitched wooden roof and the long sides featured wooden planks fastened on the outside of an iron skeleton. But the short sides consisted of iron latticework, open to the elements, which allowed rain and wind and—during the long wintertime months—snow easy access to the unfortunate men confined inside. The early morning racket made by Hutchason’s two cocks in the neighboring barn tended not to improve the prisoners’ overall humor either.

The area around the jail cell was lit by the gibbous moon. Molly Hutchason was standing in front of the cell’s grill, and
she turned as she heard us coming. I tried to avoid staring at her heavy belly, which was closer to bursting than ever. Can’t be long now, I thought.

“There you are, Martha dear,” Molly said. “I wondered whether you were coming home for Friday night supper. Humble promised me he’d be home, for once, though I’ve no sight of him yet.”

“You should be inside at this hour,” said Martha.

Molly shook her head and said, with a weary sigh, “I’ve been too busy looking after Amos, in Humble’s absence. Or trying to, anyway.”

I saw there was a figure slumped on the wooden ledge about two feet off the ground that ran the length of the jail cell. Amos Anderson was one of Springfield’s most unrepentant drunkards and thus one of Hutchason’s more frequent guests.

At the sound of his name, Anderson groaned and rolled over, falling onto the dirt floor of the jail with a soft thud. “Come now, Amos,” Molly said, rattling a tin cup against the bars. “Have a drink of water. It’ll get you home quicker.” Anderson began snoring loudly in response.

“Fool,” Molly said with a sigh. She tipped the tin cup on its side and poured the water through the bars and onto the drunkard’s boots. He stirred briefly, rubbing his feet together as if scratching an itch, then relaxed again into a contented snore.

The rear door to the Hutchason house opened and the slave Phillis poked her head out. “Evening, Miss Martha,” she said. “I’ve been telling Miss Molly she’s spending too much effort on a man who don’t deserve it. And this night air isn’t good for her baby.”

Martha gave me a quick hug, took Molly by the arm, and led her into the house. Meanwhile, Phillis came out with two large earthenware jugs and started filling them with water from the wellhead that stood a few feet from the door. I was about to take my leave when I heard the sounds of approaching horses and
two men talking. One of the voices I recognized at once as the sheriff’s. I slid into the shadows cast by the jail shed.

“. . . wish we had another choice,” the sheriff was saying. The riders pulled up as they reached the barn on the other side of the shed, and I listened to the horses being tied up and a saddle being removed and hung.

“I’ve told you, we don’t,” returned the other voice. Prickett, I thought.

The men walked into the yard and stopped a few feet from Phillis at the wellhead, although neither said anything to her nor even seemed to notice her presence. The slave looked up briefly in my direction, though she took pains to avoid direct eye contact. I shook my head. She looked down and continued working the pump handle.

“I still have trouble believing she could commit such vile actions, and against her own kin,” the sheriff said to Prickett.

“The widow’s guilty for certain,” replied Prickett, whose stiff-necked white shirt peeked out from his frockcoat. “All the evidence points that way. And this letter I’ve intercepted leaves no room for doubt. It’s all there in black and white. The jury will have little trouble reaching that conclusion once I’m through laying out the evidence of her actions. And of her character.”

The sheriff made a noise of resigned acceptance. Meanwhile, I felt my heart pounding so loudly I worried the men might be able to hear it.

“So we’re agreed you’ll arrest her tomorrow?” Prickett said. “It’ll be convenient for you, at the least. The courthouse will be closed for the weekend, of course, but I’ll walk over to Judge Thomas’s house in the morning and tell him we’ve solved the two murders. He’ll want to proceed with the trial immediately on Monday morning, just as soon as the clerk can round up a jury.”

“Very well,” said the sheriff. “I’ll send word when I’ve returned with her.” With a curt nod toward Prickett, he headed
for his back door. Phillis had filled her jugs and, giving a fleeting final glance in my direction, she followed after him.

Prickett stood alone in the yard, the moon bathing the prosecutor in a soft light. I was silent and still, though my thoughts raced. To whom had Rebecca written? Had she foolishly put into writing something that called into question her sincerity? I had no answers.

After a long minute, Prickett clasped his hands together and shook them above his head—foreseeing victory, I thought—and went to retrieve his horse from the sheriff’s barn. I exhaled, then jumped when a soft moan issued next to me.

“Amos,” I whispered. The drunkard had turned over on the floor of the jail cell. He rubbed his cheek against the ground until he found a new resting place and resumed his contented snore. I listened as Prickett readied his horse and trotted away. As I leaned my flushed face against the cool iron bars of the jail shed, my mind aflame with dire possibilities, I found myself envying Amos Anderson and the simplicity of his drunken slumber.