Death in Salem (37 page)

“It's this investigation,” he said. He yawned. Last night's poor sleep had left him feeling light headed. “I've got some of it. But not all. And I don't understand the whys.”

“Start at the beginning,” Lydia suggested. She returned to Annie and started brushing the other side. “That's helped you in the past.”

“I'm not sure what the beginning is,” Rees said. “That's the problem.” For a moment no one spoke. Rees splashed cool water from the basin over his cheeks. Lydia quickly plaited Annie's hair into a braid and tied a ribbon tightly around the end. “Let's go to breakfast,” she said. “We can talk about it there.”

He did not speak as they started down the stairs. Instead, he thought about Lydia's advice and his facile answer. Maybe, as so often had been the case, Lydia had identified the very strategy he needed to employ.

Rees walked to the Moon and Stars without speaking and ate his steak in silence while Lydia and Annie talked about the Shakers and Zion. He considered Jacob Boothe. Frequently, when he began investigating an important man like Boothe, Rees discovered a whited sepulcher with feet of clay. But not in this case. Rees had found nothing to contradict Jacob Boothe as the good and honest man everyone described.

But still, someone had killed him in a particularly brutal manner.

Murder for gain? That might explain the murder of a good man. But, although the youngest three children would inherit something, only William as the eldest would truly benefit from his death. Was William the murderer? Try as he might, Rees couldn't believe it. Both Betsy and Peggy had generous dowries already, and Betsy would wed a man equally as wealthy as her father. Peggy, well, she'd left her dowry behind, apparently without a second thought. That left Matthew, a young man clearly living beyond his means. Rees thought of Ruby's sapphire hairpin. Matthew had not been concerned enough to halt his freehanded generosity. Up until his death, Jacob had paid his son's bills. But now? Matthew must have found another source of income. Was Matthew involved in smuggling after all? Or perhaps he knew of Peggy's secret life and blackmailed her. Yet none of those explanations explained the carefully planned murder of Jacob Boothe.

Then there was Isabella Porter. Perhaps that was a crime of passion? Rees tried to imagine either Georgianne Foster or Isabella Porter inciting a violent passion in a man's breast. He couldn't. And anyway, a woman was identified as Isabella's last visitor.

And finally, Rees pondered the sailor, murdered in the exact same way as Jacob Boothe.

Lydia suddenly put her hand over his. “Will,” she said. He looked down. He had finished his breakfast without conscious awareness and, in the fury of his cogitation, was clenching his napkin so tightly the linen was now a crumpled ball. “Are you all right, Will?”

“Just thinking,” he said.

“I've spoken to you several times.” She turned her eyes toward Annie. “You were frightening her.”

“Sorry,” Rees said. He smiled at Annie. “I lose all awareness of my surroundings sometimes when I'm thinking.” He looked at Lydia. “I'd like to take a walk along the docks.” Maybe that would help shake some inspiration loose.

Lydia turned to Annie and a silent communication passed between them. “I'll walk with you,” Lydia said. “Annie will go back to Mrs. Baldwin's.”

Rees nodded although he wasn't best pleased. Lydia would slow him down. But he couldn't refuse her.

They headed due east, cutting through the lanes and crossing the larger more important streets like Essex, straight to the harbor. As they passed near Georgianne Foster's home, Rees and Lydia paused to stare down the street at it. The front door gaped open and the path was unswept.

“It looks abandoned,” Lydia remarked. Turning to her husband, she added, “We must ask Mrs. Baldwin to communicate with Mrs. Foster. She'll want to hear your resolution of the puzzle this afternoon.”

Rees nodded without speaking. He wasn't sure he had a resolution yet. He would never have agreed to William's demand for a solution this afternoon if there had been any other way of escaping the jail.

They headed south, finally passing through the alley that ran by the Black Cat. He looked up at the windows, almost expecting to see Annie, abandoning her cleaning to stare longingly over the street below.

When they arrived on the docks, Rees turned directly toward the Boothe wharf. No ships were tied up there this morning. He stood by the water, picturing his conversation with the crew on the
India Princess.
Rees did not recall the tattoos on the African. And anyway, he was not the victim.

They walked north along the quay, Rees stopping from time to time to close his eyes and rummage through his memories of the place. But no recollection of the dead Jack Tar surfaced. At least, not until he left the merchant wharves behind and approached the Coville jetty.
Anstiss's Dream
had sailed a few days ago, but as Rees walked the empty pier the memories of his visits to the whaler popped into his head, as bright and fresh as if the vessel was still before him. He remembered the two sailors. The harpooner had been stripped to the waist as he cleaned the lethal tools spread out before him. And on his bronzed upper arm and calf, there had been the same tattoos Rees had just seen on the body in Twig's shed.

“You've remembered something,” Lydia said, looking at Rees.

“The drowned sailor served on a whaling ship. On
Anstiss's Dream,
in fact.” Rees turned to stare down into Lydia's blue eyes. “And Philippe Benoit told me he served on a whaler before John Hull hired him as captain of the
India Princess.
What do you guess that Peggy Boothe met Benoit through her cousins? Met him as Peggy Boothe, and hired him on in her masculine disguise as John Hull. What's more, and I'll speak to Adam Coville to confirm this, I'll bet my very soul that Benoit served on
that
ship,
Anstiss's Dream.
”

“Benoit and the sailor you pulled out of the water would have known one another,” Lydia said in agreement.

“Yes. And,” Rees continued, his thoughts moving forward at lightning speed, “I wonder if they were partners. I was seen at the Witch's Cauldron. Peggy, as John Hull, set a little trap for me. I followed Benoit but there was another man I didn't see who came behind me. He was the one who hit me. And he must have been very strong. After all, they carried me away from the Boothe door to the tunnels nearer the Black Cat.”

Lydia did not respond immediately, but her mouth drooped into a downward curve. “Oh dear,” she said. “I think you may be right. Peggy's played a dominant part all the way through, from the very beginning, even though she had to do it disguised as a man.”

“I'm just having a hard time imagining her killing her father. And not just because she couldn't, physically. I don't see her as a killer.” He sighed. But with Philippe Benoit? Maybe. “And why Isabella Porter? Peggy never cared about her inheritance. I mean, she was always more interested in the shipping business, and that went to William.” When Lydia looked at him with her eyebrows raised, he added, “It doesn't feel right. The timeline is off, for one thing. Jacob was murdered first. And. No, I'm missing something.”

They walked in silence for a few minutes.

“I am beginning to tire,” Lydia said, casting a glance around the busy dock. “Is there anywhere to sit down?” Rees looked down into her pale face. Shadows stained the delicate skin under her eyes and she was panting, one hand pressed to her side. Quickly he grabbed a small cask and upended it. He helped her lower herself upon it. While she sat and caught her breath, Rees hurried to one of the vendors plying his trade upon the dock and bought Lydia an orange. As he carried it back to her, tossing it up into the air and catching it on the way down, he remembered buying the handful of oranges during one of his first days here in Salem. Rees hadn't known Annie then, although he'd pitied the child. And Billy—Mrs. Baldwin had been so afraid then that Billy would ship out.

Rees squeezed his orange in frustration. Much of what he had as a solution to the deaths was nothing more than guesses, flimsy ones at that. But he had run out of time.

 

Chapter Thirty-four

Rees spent the remainder of Thursday morning arranging matters for his presentation to William Boothe. Mrs. Baldwin was dispatched to invite Georgianne Foster. Rees invited both Billy and the street boy Al to his explanation and then made his way to the Boothe counting house where he informed William that several interested parties would join them. William did not look happy, but he grudgingly assented. Rees had left him little choice to do otherwise. Deputy Sheriff Swett would also be in attendance, and Rees looked forward to a certain amount of gloating.

A messenger was sent to the Coville family. Although Rees was not sure they would attend, because of their estrangement from the Boothes, he thought they might be interested. The Covilles were connected, after all, through Anstiss.

At two, by Mrs. Baldwin's clock, Rees, Lydia, and Annie, who had refused to stay behind, left for the Boothe home. Rees had wondered if William Boothe would confine his unwelcome guests to the front hall where Jacob Boothe had held the averil for his wife. But no, the servant directed them to the morning room, where additional chairs had been brought in for the occasion. Betsy and Matthew already waited there. They had chosen to sit in the wooden seats set up before the fireplace. Matthew's expression shifted from a cocky grin to a frown of assumed seriousness when he saw Rees. Betsy's eyes were red-rimmed and she looked flushed and upset.

Rees's gaze went to the portrait of Anstiss on the wall by the fireplace and just above Betsy's head. How odd that Anstiss Boothe had been such a force in the lives of her husband and children and brothers, Rees reflected. A woman who had lived as an invalid for almost twenty years and whom he had never met had nonetheless been a presence in his investigation. Rees stared at the portrait for several seconds, trying to identify the nagging sense of familiarity. Of course, Anstiss had passed her blond beauty down to Betsy.

Rees just stopped himself from looking for Peggy. Her absence felt strange. He looked again at the portrait. Peggy had inherited her mother's coloring, but not the soft feminine chin or rounded cheeks. No, Peggy's sharp features were her father's contribution.

“She was such a lovely girl,” Mrs. Coville said from behind Rees. He turned. Mrs. Coville was dabbing at her cheeks with a lacy handkerchief.

“I can't stand to look at it,” Adam said gruffly, moisture shining in his eyes. He turned his chair so his back was to the portrait.

They hadn't brought Dickie, and for that Rees was very grateful. He'd been worrying about the boy's emotional reaction to the proceedings.

Xenobia and Twig sat together at the other side of the room, separated from the others. A young serving girl was handing round cups of tea for the ladies and whiskey for the men. She eyed Xenobia and Twig several times, uncertain of the proper behavior in this unusual circumstance. Xenobia was black, and a servant, possibly still a slave to the house. Twig took matters into his own hands. He stood up and took saucer and cup from the servant, and handed them to Xenobia. She stared at the floor, looking as though she longed to be anywhere but here. Twig glared around, daring the others to protest.

Rees refused the refreshments. His belly felt like it was on fire. He didn't think he had ever been so unprepared to discuss an investigation as he was now. He hoped that as he talked about the murders and began laying out the pieces of his solution, the reactions of the others invited to this gathering would fill the gaps and dispel any lingering uncertainties.

A light footstep outside the door and a faint gasp of hesitation heralded the arrival of Georgianne Foster. As she paused in the opening, Betsy jumped to her feet. “What is
she
doing here?” she demanded. “She has no right. She's nothing but my father's fancy woman.” Her lips twisted.

“I'm not … I never…” Georgianne reddened and then went white to the lips. “I'll go then.” Both Rees and his wife rose to their feet, Lydia several beats behind her husband.

“Stay,” said Rees.

“Of course, you must stay,” Lydia said, taking a few steps across the carpet to lay her hand upon Georgianne's wrist. Lydia turned a defiant and angry frown in Betsy's direction.

“She's here at my invitation,” Rees said.

“But this is my house,” Matthew proclaimed, jumping up to support his sister. “How dare you invite a woman like her into my house?”

“Like what?” Rees asked, his voice very quiet but so furious Matthew stepped back and fell into the chair. “You know nothing about her. I promise you, everything will become clear.”

William came through the door and cleared his throat. Matthew removed his offended gaze from Rees and shifted it to William. “He brought Father's mistress,” Matthew said, aggrieved.

“I agreed to allow Mr. Rees full authority in this matter,” William said, “so he was able to invite anyone he chose.” But he turned to look at Rees with his mouth pursed. With that expression, and dressed entirely in black, even to his waistcoat, he looked the very picture of a disapproving old Puritan.

“She was not your father's mistress,” Rees said. “She simply knew him.”

“Then she lived with my father's mistress,” Matthew shouted, his loud aggressive tone causing the others in the room to shift and look away from him uncomfortably.

Rees looked at William. “I'll explain everything.” He could only pray that was true.

“I look forward to witnessing that,” said Mr. Swett, appearing behind William's shoulder. The deputy's coat was of as fine a manufacture as William's but dyed a bright blue. His breeches were tightly fitted, and as Swett came further into the room, Rees noted the bright jonquil silk waistcoat and the silver buttons sparkling at his knees.