On the Rocks: A Willa Cather and Edith Lewis Mystery (11 page)

War’s aftermath had given Willa new urgency. Edith felt it, too. More than ever, it seemed, men wanted to forget, to abandon the past, and that is exactly what Willa counseled against. Men especially, Willa would insist, needed to connect with what they had lost—with other men, with women, with children, with the human family, with animals, with the earth around them, with the universe, and with God. Reconnect, interconnect, hold together, all ways, always.

That no one saw or talked about the feminine principle in Willa’s work was not surprising. Men talked about men. It’s a man’s world, everyone said. Men were always at the most important place, the center, the head. Women stood behind or at the side, out of sight and out of mind.

Unless, Edith smiled to herself, they were not all the time stuck in a man’s world. One never got out altogether, of course, but there were respites. Smith College had been Edith’s first respite. Now she had her life with Willa and the women’s editorial division at J. Walter Thompson. And Whale Cove, of course. Winifred, Margaret, Cobus, Felix, Katherine, Manning, Eloise, the Jordan sisters, Helen Master, Lucy Crissy. Librarians, social workers, teachers, writers. All of them well educated, well traveled, highly articulate, and thoroughly accustomed to living in the world and thinking for themselves. And they were interested in absolutely everything. Literature, art, music, history, philosophy, spirituality, religion, sports, sociology, psychology, politics, business, work, finance, philanthropy, humanitarianism, and world affairs. Dinner at Whale Cove was better than a college seminar, Margaret often said. Busman’s holiday, Winifred would chuckle.

Still it was a man’s world, Edith couldn’t deny that. But sometimes in a place like this, Edith picked up her dessert fork to try the apple pie, one forgot to notice. Women held the important place here, the center, the head. Men were off to the side, out of sight. And the women at Whale Cove meant to keep it that way. Only female rusticators allowed, Jacobus had drawn the line. Their bathing facilities, she explained when necessary, were limited to the small pool they dammed up in the brook and to an outdoor shower they called the Bower.

Rustic, private quarters. A woman’s world. Their world for the moment. For as long as chivalry could keep men at bay. Edith’s fork slid down through inches of apples, slicing off a large chunk of the pie. No one at Whale Cove ever expressed a desire for electricity or modern plumbing. Outhouses, wood stoves, kerosene lamps. Small discomforts.

The pie crust was warm and crisp. Could it be, as Winifred suggested, that Mr. Brown had threatened to interfere with the same sort of tranquility at the other end of the island and that was why he died? Certainly not. Edith savored the hint of nutmeg blended into the tart sweetness of the apples.

C
ONSTABLE
D
AGGETT
would have to wait until morning to have any kind of extended conversation about yesterday’s passengers on the S. S. Grand Manan. The young agent was clearly annoyed. He had just pulled the office door shut and inserted the key when Daggett strode up.

It was late, Daggett realized, and his own dinner long overdue. The young man’s too, he surmised.

“Agent Feeney’s the man you want to see. He’ll be here first thing in the morning. Always opens early.”

Feeney. Daggett hadn’t heard that name in a while, though he guessed he knew Feeney had come back after the war and trained as an agent. Daggett just hadn’t run into him, despite their proximity. Feeney. Robert Feeney. The fellows called him Rob. When they were being kind, Daggett remembered. Otherwise it was Feeney. Freaky Feeney, Wienie Feeney. Daggett had seen little of him since they finished school together. Feeney’s father had coached most of the men on the island in soccer. They had all at one time or another had Jagger Feeney for a coach. He was the only one who ever called his son Robert. Always in that odd, authoritarian voice of his that placed heavy emphasis on the ends of everything.
Ert
, Daggett remembered someone starting to call Robert, until he had flattened the fellow’s nose. Rob had had to fight often and hard to save his name. Daggett supposed he still did but hopefully without fists, almost middle aged, as he was, and unmarried.

Daggett thanked the young agent, Dobbs he said his name was, and headed for his own office. It would help his state of mind if he took a moment to sort through and file his notes. Then he could take another moment to slip by the house for his evening meal. Elizabeth would be waiting for him.

“Excuse me.”

Daggett started, “Yes?”

The young agent stood above Daggett on the steps, his brow furrowed. “The man who died. What do you think he was doing on a hiking trail in a pin-striped suit?”

S
ALLIE
J
ACOBUS
sometimes arranged special activities after dinner, but the women of Whale Cove enjoyed nothing more than an evening’s conversation over a crackling fire in the sitting room of the main house. White with dark beams overhead, its walls lined with bookcases that rose to the mullioned windows and covered the whole of the wall leading into the dining room, the sitting room held several tables with straight-backed chairs so that small groups might pair off for playing bridge or quiet reading. But six or more of the women usually settled into the Queen Anne chairs and overstuffed couch surrounding the low coffee table in front of the fireplace. The hearth was large, with a pair of cranes on the left that had been used, when the house was built almost a century before, to suspend pots for cooking. Jacobus kept a fire throughout the season. Paired with the books, the chairs, and the bay window, with its small, leaded, diamond-shaped panes, the hearth created a luxuriant sense of warmth and well-being.

Their evening discussions often carried over several days. Recently, except for the disruptions brought by Mr. Brown’s death, they had been concentrating on the economy, which seemed to be thundering out of control. Money, money, money, headlines in
The New York Times
continued to roar. People everywhere gossiped about flappers and speakeasies and talked about grabbing the brass ring, jazzing it up, and living high on the hog. Loose women, loose liquor, and too much loose change, Willa observed during dinner, proposing a toast to loose women. Never in favor of temperance, Willa and Edith maintained a well-stocked wine cellar in New York, for which their summers in Canada proved useful. Pesky Prohibition, Willa called it. But Margaret insisted that the Twenties’ roar had grown dangerous, deadening everyone’s ears to sharp cries from the working class.

Willa and Edith were hopeful about Hoover. His handling of the food crisis after the war had been brilliant, Willa pointed out. But they all knew Hoover would never tackle the most pressing social issues, or end the suppression of labor unions, or reverse the trend to devalue women and their work. Even his Law Enforcement Commission sidestepped central issues surrounding poverty and crime and the free-wheeling use of federal firearms once bootlegging became a felony.

Margaret was more interested in the cooperative efforts of the Women’s Trade Union League. Co-ops were both practical and highly effective, places where individuals could help themselves and each other at the same time. And Governor Roosevelt, she said, was doing interesting things in New York. His wife Eleanor, Willa pointed out, was doing even more interesting things, going into partnership with Marion Dickerman and Nancy Cook to run a school and start a furniture factory at Val-Kill. Now
there
was innovation.

“B
UTTON
,
BUTTON
,
WHO
’
S
got the button,” Jacobus sang out, leading Constable Daggett into the sitting room to interrupt the evening’s conversation.

“I do,” Edith pulled the tiny crimson object from its hiding place in her jacket pocket and placed it exactly in the center of Daggett’s calloused palm.

Daggett studied the button carefully, then slipped it into the inner pocket of his wallet.

“Well,” he pulled out his tobacco pouch and settled into the chair closest to the fireplace, “tell me where you found this.”

The circle of expectant faces turned toward Willa, who recounted her discovery and recited the reasons she and Edith settled on the site they had determined as the scene of the crime.

Daggett himself was the next focus of inquisitive stares. He returned their looks. Jacobus, Coney, and Felix he already knew, and now Miss Cather and Miss Lewis, but he still needed introductions to several of them, Winifred Bromhall, Margaret Byington, Ethelwyn Manning, and Alice and Mary Jordan. They had been absent during his earlier visit. He recognized the Jordan name, “The two of you have a cottage near the road to The Whistle, I believe?”

“We have one of the cottages on the hill above Miss Cather and Miss Lewis, yes,” Alice Jordan volunteered.

“Did you happen to see Mr. Brown or anyone else pass by yesterday afternoon?”

“Not a soul, except Mr. Sharkey and young James. They were heading toward North Head sometime before noon, I believe. And later Miss Briggs, but you know about her.”

Winifred Bromhall looked up expectantly, but no one said anything further about Miss Briggs or the rumors in the village. Daggett crossed one knee over the other.

Alice Jordan’s brown eyes, slightly magnified behind glasses, matched the warm tones of her hair, parted in the middle and swept back into a bun. People might think her stern, but he guessed she was shy. Too much humor and warmth came through those glasses, despite her reserve. Quite right for a woman who headed up the Children’s Room at the Boston Public Library.

Daggett glanced around. So many of these women were librarians or school teachers like the other Miss Jordan, and all of them seemed competent and somehow comfortable, shy or not. No wonder Jennifer had been so taken with the Cottage Girls and
Jane Eyre.
He smiled vaguely and turned back to Alice Jordan.

“Well, there was that young man from Swallowtail,” Mary Jordan interrupted looking at her sister.

“Oh, that’s right. He knocked at the door and asked Mary for directions to Whale Cove.”

“And young Herbert Gordon,” Mary Jordan brightened. “I don’t believe Alice saw him. Mr. Gordon passed by sometime after four. He was riding his bicycle.”

“And later Mr. Winslow went by in his wagon,” Mary added after a moment and, having finished, cleared her throat and refolded her hands in her lap.

Mary Jordan conveyed even more Yankee taciturnity than her sister, Daggett thought. She sat entirely upright and took up very little room on the couch. Rather severe. A classic New England spinster school teacher. That may be her profession, Daggett understood, but he expected that this had been a fairly long speech for Mary Jordan. He had no doubt, however, that she had also learned the name of the young man from Swallowtail.

“Matthew Johnson,” she responded promptly, “yes, Johnson with an
h
.”

Daggett jotted his notes, then glanced up. Alice Jordan was squinting a bit in his direction. He waited for her to speak.

“I remember him, too,” Alice finally said. “Natty dresser, in tennis togs, but not the others Mary saw. I was inside most of the afternoon reading.” She looked Daggett squarely in the eyes.

Daggett watched as Alice Jordan refolded her hands in her lap also.

“You’ve been very helpful, both of you. Quite observant,” Daggett turned again to his notebook. “Roy Sharkey, James Daniels, Sabra Jane Briggs, Herbert Gordon, Jr., Little John Winslow, Matthew Johnson.” He rubbed his forehead as he read the names aloud.

“With an
h
, yes.”

Daggett glanced at Mary Jordan, “I had understood Mr. Johnson was bird watching at Castalia with the rest of his party.” Daggett looked around the circle and then back at Mary Jordan again, “Did he happen to say what he was doing up this way?”

As Daggett expected, that was beyond the scope of the Jordan sisters’ conversation with Matthew Johnson.

Daggett took time to tamp and relight his pipe. He returned the tin of matches to his jacket pocket. They sat silent for a moment while he puffed.

“Can you tell me,” Daggett finally lifted his notebook from his knee and turned back to the Jordans, “what they were wearing?”

“Roy Sharkey and his partner wore jackets and work pants.” Typical gear, Daggett entered next to their names in his notebook.

“Miss Briggs was in her red shirt and jodhpurs. Somewhat deeper than the hue in your jacket,” Daggett felt Mary Jordan’s eyes inspecting his uniform, coming to rest at the rumples about his waist. The back of his neck stiffened, and he seemed somehow to be sitting both deeper and taller in his chair. Daggett loosened his grip on the pen. Herb Gordon had on his usual slicker and fishing gear. Little John also wore a jacket, the same one he was wearing when he arrived at Whale Cove after Mr. Brown’s death. Buttoned all the way to the neck, Daggett remembered, though the afternoon had turned warm.

Daggett paused to run his eye back down the list. He had already talked to Roy Sharkey and Miss Briggs. Young James was out on Sam Jackson’s boat. Herb, Jr. had probably been on his way to The Whistle to check his father’s nets. The Gordons kept a boat there for that purpose. Daggett would talk to young Herb in the morning and ask what he was doing and whether he saw anyone at The Whistle. It occurred to Daggett that he had never asked Little John what he was doing at Whale Cove that afternoon. He put a check mark next to Little John’s name. And Mr. Johnson, Daggett made the final entry, who wore tennis togs and carried a backpack. Daggett underscored
backpack
and placed a question mark next to it, then he reached over and tapped his pipe out in the fireplace.