Unholy Fire (19 page)

“This man and his son found her while they were out searching for firewood,” said Val. The Negro looked straight ahead, his face expressionless. One of the soldiers guarding him began to shake his head in disgust. I thought he was about to say something, but instead he just spat in the snow.

“We're ready, Colonel,” someone called out. I turned to see that the soldiers near the girl's body had finished nailing together four crude wooden frames, and were lashing them together in a rough rectangle around her. They then stretched canvas across the frame, completely covering the sides.

As soon as they had finished, Val pulled one edge of it aside for us to enter. Once inside the enclosure, he carefully placed the eight lanterns around the edge of the blanket. Kneeling down, he uncovered the body.

The girl was lying on her back in the snow, and she was as naked as the moment she had entered the world. The truth be told, she was the first naked woman I had ever seen. It was a moment that I had often dreamed about, and I imagined that it would be both exciting and profoundly erotic. That was hardly the case. Her face was childlike, almost angelic. If the body had not been that of a mature woman, I would have thought she was no more than fourteen.

Her bewildered eyes were wide open, and they stared up at the universe far above us. The pitiless sleet had kept them filled to overflowing, giving the impression that she was still silently weeping at what had been done to her. In the glare of the lanterns, her body seemed more like a marble statue than a person who had lived and breathed. The color of her skin was ethereally white.

“The word of her discovery must have spread quickly through the regimental camp just south of here,” said Val. “They all came to have a look at the dead snow angel.”

Unless one of the soldiers had shifted her body, it appeared that whoever had left her there had arranged the corpse in a respectful, almost ritualistic way. Both hands were folded over her chest, not quite covering the tips of the woman's conical breasts. Her long golden hair had been carefully arranged around the head like a regal crown.

I could now hear a growing tumult in the ranks of the soldiers who remained at the edge of the perimeter near the Negro man and his son. There were several inarticulate shouts, followed by a low keening rumble of angry voices.

“Keep order there!” Val yelled out to the provost's guards, and the voices subsided.

“I fear that things could get out of hand if the soldiers conclude that the contraband and his son were responsible for this.”

Val removed the layer of hair covering the girl's shoulders and brought one of the lanterns closer. I could now see an inch-wide band of ugly bruises around her neck.

“Thanks to the natural curiosity of the soldiers, any important information about the murderer or his vehicle has been trampled out of existence,” he said.

Removing a small magnifying glass from his coat pocket, he gently pried her mouth open and peered inside the oral cavity. Then he proceeded to study virtually every inch of her body. For several minutes he inspected her toes and the soles of her feet. I turned away when he began to make a close examination of her genital area.

“She was murdered elsewhere, of course,” he said, “but the fact that the snow melted and then refroze directly beneath her suggests that she was still warm when placed here. Whoever left the body obviously wanted to leave no trace of her identity. The only thing I can state with any certainty is that she is of foreign origin, probably German, and made her living as a prostitute. From the traces of chronic inflammation around the pelvis, I would also be willing to wager that she was in the early stages of a serious venereal disease, possibly syphilis. An autopsy should confirm it.”

He asked for my help in turning the body over, and we did so together, carefully placing her on an army blanket adjacent to the place she had been lying. I saw then that the area between her narrow shoulder blades was covered with a pattern of livid weals. Val used his glass to examine them more closely. Then he conducted a thorough examination of the back of her head, legs, and feet.

That was when I happened to look over at the frozen outline in the snow where her body had lain. My eyes were immediately drawn to an object that was glistening brightly in the reflected glare of the lanterns. Crouching down next to the spot, I could see a shiny black object protruding from the snow where her head had lain. I cracked the thin film of ice that surrounded it with my fingers.

The object was no sooner in my hands than the words were forming on my lips.

“I know who she is, Val,” I said.

“You knew her?” he asked, incredulous at the prospect.

“I didn't know her, but I saw her. She was one of the guests at General Hooker's party last night.”

I held the lacquered black object up to the light. It was six inches long and emblazoned with tiny gold dragons.

“The girl was wearing this barrette in her hair when I first saw her. She was talking with another girl. I thought they were probably the daughters of officers.”

“This one was no vestal virgin. She played in the sacred fire,” he said, covering her body with another blanket. “And I'm sorry to add that she was probably pregnant.”

He gently closed her eyes with two fingers.

“At least we know why she was in Falmouth. The far more difficult question is who brought her down here for the assignation.”

At that moment I heard angry shouts from outside the enclosure.

Regaining his feet, Val stepped outside and ordered that a wagon be immediately brought to us. Perhaps, a hundred soldiers were now clustered around the Negro man and his young son. The soldiers were being held back at the point of bayonets by the men Val had assigned to stand guard.

Someone in the mob yelled, “Did these two niggers kill her, Colonel?”

“There is no reason to believe they are responsible!” Val shouted back as he strode toward them. He didn't stop until he reached the Negro contraband, whose arms were still wrapped protectively around his son.

“For your own protection, sir, I am having you and your son taken into custody,” he said quietly. “I will see you in the morning and arrange for your release.”

There was a hint of fear in the Negro's eyes as he stared silently back at us. I wondered then if it was because he had something to hide or was understandably worried about the safety of himself and the boy. He nodded once, and we moved off.

A raw gray dawn was breaking when we finally left that desolate place and headed back to Falmouth. The sleet had stopped and even the blustery wind had died down by the time we deposited the young woman's body in the icehouse of the estate where General Hathaway's office was located. Val ordered that a guard be kept at the door to the icehouse until further notice.

C
HAPTER
E
LEVEN

“Who are you, sir?” I asked.

“My name is Thomas Beecham,” the black man replied in a low voice. “This is my son, Daniel.”

It was almost nine on that same morning. Val and I were sitting in the kitchen of a large, two-story brick building that had once served as the overseer's house on the country estate where General Hathaway had established his headquarters. It was located about a mile from the mansion house at the end of a shallow valley. Sam had promised to notify us as soon as his men had captured Major Duval.

Opposite us were our only witnesses in the murder of the young prostitute. In the light of day, the man looked much older to me than the night before. Of course, he might very well have thought the same thing about me. I had gotten barely two hours' sleep, and even less the previous night aboard the
Phalarope.
That combined with the whiskey I had stupidly drunk at General Hooker's party had left me completely jaded. Fortunately, one of the provost's guards had brought us a small pot of coffee.

Although he had been up all night, Val seemed immune to exhaustion.

“Don't you ever get tired?” I asked him as we arrived at the overseer's house.

“Fatigue is almost entirely mental,” he said, striding through the door. “You should learn to control it.”

I thought that twelve hours' sleep would be a better way to control it, but didn't bother to tell him so. He sat down at the kitchen table and began writing case notes into the small, leather-bound notebook that he always carried in his coat. Mr. Beecham and his son were brought in a few minutes later.

While waiting for him to finish his notes, I attempted to employ one of his investigative methods, which was to closely observe every important detail about a witness who might have a bearing on the case.

I started with Mr. Beecham, observing that although his skin color was of the blackest ebony, he also had a thin, sharply pointed nose that suggested mixed blood. Daniel Beecham was much lighter skinned than his father. He was also of slighter build, but he had the same intelligent black eyes.

Mr. Beecham's suit and matching waistcoat were made of fine wool, but the style was very much out of date. The material was worn to shininess at the elbows and knees, although the numerous tears in it had been carefully mended. The boy's clothes looked like castoffs, but they had been brushed clean.

Beyond that, I could discern nothing of import or interest.

Val finished writing in his notebook and put down the pen. Looking up, his eyes focused for a moment on the boy and then his father.

“I'm surprised that a trained medical practitioner would have been subjected to such extensive physical abuse,” he said.

A look of astonishment transformed Mr. Beecham's impassive face.

“I am at a loss to know how …”

“Forgive me,” said Val, as if he had simply indulged in a cheap parlor trick. “After observing the tincture of mercury stains on your thumbs and the corked scalpel blade in the breast pocket of your waistcoat, I concluded that you were obviously versed in the medical arts. Then I happened to notice the scars you still bear from the iron betsy.”

As he spoke, my eyes were drawn to the collar of the man's white linen shirt. Just above the neckline, I could see the upper edge of a band of livid pink tissue.

“The betsy was riveted around my neck until the day we escaped,” he said, glancing at his son. “I was also hobbled with leg manacles.”

“It seems incongruous that a man of letters would be subjected to the collar and chain.”

“The answer is this, Colonel,” he said. “My first master was a cultivated man, an English-trained doctor who maintained a large farm in Calvert County, Maryland. That is where I grew up and was fortunate to be granted an education, including his teaching me the rudiments of medicine. After my training, I became responsible for the care of all his slaves. When he died many years later, I, along with my wife and children, was sold to a tobacco planter named Gisbourne in Port Royal, Virginia.… He was not a cultivated man.”

“When was that?” asked Val.

“In 1859.”

Through the window I could see that a small crowd of soldiers had gathered alongside the road that ran past the front of the overseer's cottage. There were no more than twenty of them, but their angry voices carried into the room where we were sitting.

“And then?” said Val.

“Two years ago, my wife and daughter were sold to a planter in Mississippi,” he said. “It was then that I … I attempted to go after them. I was overtaken by slave catchers a week later in the Carolinas and have worn the collar and manacles ever since. That is, until a week ago,” he said.

I wondered how he had effected his most recent escape, but Val did not pursue it.

“Where is your wife now?” he asked instead.

“I do not know,” he replied, his black eyes expressionless.

“How long have you been at the contraband camp?”

“We arrived there late last night. After warming ourselves near one of the fires, I saw the stand of coniferous trees just off to the west of the camp. Daniel and I went there to cut boughs for a temporary shelter.”

“Tell me how you discovered the body of the young woman,” said Val.

“She was brought to that spot in a carriage while we were gathering boughs inside the wood stand,” he replied.

“Did you see who left her there?”

He paused for a second and then nodded.

“How many of them were there?”

“Just one. He was driving a coach. The lamps were unlit. It made no noise in the snow.”

“You have excellent powers of observation,” said Val, at which the boy looked up at his father with obvious pride.

“How many horses?” I asked.

“Two,” he said. “After coming to that place, the man stepped down from the box and removed the young woman from the coach … although I did not then know it was a woman. She was wrapped in a blanket. He put the blanket down on the ground and unfolded it. Then he lifted her in his arms and laid her on her back in the snow.”

Mr. Beecham stopped for a moment and shook his head.

“It was very strange,” he went on. “That man stood for almost a minute looking down at the body. Then he knelt down next to her, pressing his palms together as if in prayer. After a few moments, he stood up again, went back to the coach, and drove away.”

“How far away from him were you?” I asked.

“About twenty yards,” he said. “Close enough to see that he was wearing the uniform of a Union soldier.”

Val nodded approvingly.

“An officer or an enlisted man?” I said.

“I could not tell.”

“What did you do after he left?” asked Val.

“I did not know then whether the woman was still alive. I went to her. She was dead.”

“And then you sought help,” said Val. “Leaving the cut fir boughs at the edge of the lane.”

“Yes. Daniel and I walked all the way to the sentry post at the military encampment down the road.”