Only in New England : the story of a gaslight crime (18 page)

Earnest poured on the whip, and they careened down the road heading northward.

From our simulated Coroner's record:

Q. Now, Senator, how long did it take you to get to your mother's house that morning?

A. We got there lickety split.

Q. Five minutes by the road? Ten?

A. Ten at most. We'd have got there faster, except I missed the turn in the fog, and had to turn around and come back.

Q. It was a little after seven when you reached the house?

A. Yes, a little after seven.

Bursting into the kitchen, Earnest made straight for the cellar door. It was standing ajar as Cudworth had left it. Earnest glared down the cellarway. Then he rushed to the kitchen door and shouted to Cudworth: "Go fetch Doc Hatfield! Quick!"

Q. You say you sent the hired man off for the doctor before you went down cellar?

A. I sent him at once.

Q. Before you looked to see if your mother needed medical help?

A. Certainly. Why wouldn't I?

Q. She may have merely fainted down there. How did you know she hadn't just fainted?

A. My mother, sir, did not fall in faints. I had never known her to swoon. Besides, I could see she was badly hurt.

Q. Go on, Senator.

A. Then I went down to look at my mother.

He almost fell down the steep flight of steps. The third step down was coated with a fruity sirup, and there was a scatter of broken glass. He noticed blood on the sidewall, and he got blood on his hand lower down when he caught the bannister.

He tried to move his mother, but he couldn't do it without stepping over her body, and he was afraid he would slip and fall on her. He dabbed at her bleeding forehead with a handkerchief. Then he mounted the steps to the kitchen, and ran for help.

Q. You left the house, and your mother down there?

A. There was nothing I could do. I couldn't get her up that steep flight of steps alone.

Q. Where did you go for help?

A. I went down the road to a neighbor's. To Asa Goodbody's.

Q. How far was that.

A. About three minutes down the road. I ran all the way. Or most of it.

Earnest Bridewell broke through the front gate at Goodbody's, sprinted up to the porch and yanked the bell-pull. After a moment the door opened a crack, giving view to Mrs. Goodbody in nightcap and wrapper. She told Earnest that Asa was "out back."

Earnest hurried around to the barnyard. He found Asa sitting on a bench mending a fishnet. Beside Asa on the bench sat a bottle of Duffy's Malt. Asa suffered from arthritis. Duffy's Pure Malt Whiskey, advertised as "a beverage and medicine combined," was guaranteed to relieve that complaint and almost anything else that

ailed one, including a sudden emergency. Accepting an offer, Earnest downed a gulp of the 100-proof restorative. This may have been the source of a subsequent rumor that he was somewhat "in liquor" that morning.

Asa accompanied Earnest back to the Bridewell house. Their progress on the road was slowed to a walk by Asa's arthritic condition. The fog cleared away as they walked. Bands of early sunlight were slanting through the trees by the time they reached the Bridewell gate. It must have been about a quarter to eight.

They found Doc Hatfield's buggy standing in the dooryard. Down the yard, Cudworth was frantically pumping a bucket of water. Walter Jones stood on the kitchen porch, looking scared. Earnest told the boy to wait on the porch. The Senator and Asa entered the kitchen.

Cornelia Ord sat at the kitchen table, her features stony. Her nose was red, and she blew it violently as the men entered. But the blow was not lachrymose. Cornelia was not the crying kind. In fact, it was remarked afterward that there wasn't a wet eye among the members of the Bridewell family.

The remark was made by Mrs. Bertha Smeizer, who was standing at the stove as supervisor of the kettle. She was the wife of "Smudge" Smeizer, a lobsterman. She looked a little like George Washington might have looked if he had been a woman. Unfortunately she lacked Washington's alleged reputation for veracity. Or it might be more charitable to say, as some of the "Pointers" did, that she was as honest as the next person.

Mrs. Smeizer had seen the doctor's buggy from her window. The Smeizer dwelling occupied a slope overlooking the Bridewell grounds. She had covered the distance in no time, motivated by the usual blend of kindliness and curiosity. Emphasis on the curiosity.

Ignoring Mrs. Smeizer, Earnest Bridewell demanded of Cornelia, "How did you get here?" The explanation was simple enough. Her voluptuousness had returned during the night. About six A.M. (her normal rising time) she had decided to try some pepsin. Since the drugstore would not open until eight, she had

driven over to see the doctor. She had just hitched her team to the Hatfield hitching post when Cudworth drove up with the news about Abby Bridewell. So she had come with Dr. Hatfield.

Earnest said "Humph!" or something to that effect. Went to the table. Pulled an envelope from his pocket. Found a pencil in another pocket. And hurriedly scribbled a note. Slamming out to the porch, he handed the envelope to young Walter.

"Run that down to the Center fast as you can go. Telegraph Office. It goes to Lionel Bridewell, Lookout Hill."

The message read: Come at once. Mas hurt bad.

A decided understatement.

As Earnest Bridewell reentered the kitchen, Doc Hatfield emerged from the cellarway. The doctor was in his shirtsleeves, with the cuffs turned back. A stethoscope dangled around his neck. He was wiping his hands on a towel.

The doctor was a leisurely man. He wiped his hands thoroughly. He hung the towel on the latch of the cellar door. He fished a packet of Bull Durham from his vest pocket, rolled a cigarette, put it between tobacco-stained teeth. He wore rimless, expressionless glasses pinched to the bridge of a Roman nose that was etched with a fine tracery of red pen-lines. He said as he lit the cigarette, "She's gone."

Earnest Bridewell stood glaring at the doctor.

A few days later he would stand glaring at the County Coroner. And that official would question him along the following curtain line:

Q. Senator, would you care at this hearing to tell us where you were on the night of Tuesday, April 11? Between the supper hour, say, and six o'clock the next morning?

A. I would prefer to enter a full and formal deposition and have it notarized. But I can safely say for your record that I did not see my mother, nor was I anywhere near her house, on the night of Tuesday, April 11. Between the supper hour and six the next morning, I was with my wife at our place on the south side. I was there the entire time. This inquest can put that in its pipe and smoke it.

Statement of Asa P. Goodbody, retired cooper, fisherman:

I'm Asa Goodbody. Friends call me Ace. Live down the road a piece from the Bridewell place. Used to be a cooper. Quit it to take up fishing. No money in coopering any more. Not much in fishing, neither.

Didn't go out on the boat, morning of Wednesday, April 12. Misery in the joints. Was mending a net right after breakfast when the Senator—that's Earnest Bridewell—pops into the barnyard. He looks right peaked. Pale as the belly side of a flounder.

Earnest waves at me like an accident, would I come? I said accident to who? He grabs a drink—some spirits I had there—and then hustles me by the arm out to the road. We start for the Bridewell place, me on a cane. Out on the road, he says to me, "Ace," he says, "I'm in trouble and need your help."

Yessir, that was the first thing Earnest says to me. That he was in trouble, and would I help him. I went with him to his mother's house. Didn't know what trouble he meant at the time. Soon as I seen the doctor's buggy at the door, I guessed. Later he told me that he wanted me to say, if anybody asked, that he was always kind to his mother.

Statement of Bertha Smeizer, wife of Harold "Smudge" Smeizer:

My name is Bertha Smeizer, born Ross. On the morning of Wednesday, April 12, my husband got up early and went lobster-ing. I was up at six. About six-thirty I'm on the front porch feeding chickens. Porch looks down toward the Bridewell place, other side of the road.

It's a quiet morning. Misty. I hear the Bridewell kitchen door slam. I can always hear it slam when it's slammed, and I once complained about it. Then a minute later, the Bridewell hired man breaks out of the fog, and I see him go loping up the road. He cuts off to a path through the orchard below our place, and disappears running.

Half hour or so later, I hear a carriage coming hell bent. It's the

Senator's buggy. Earnest larruping the horse, and Cudworth with him. They go like crazy into the Bridewell drive, and slam into the house.

Then Cudworth comes out and drives away, hell bent. I hear Earnest shout after him Doc Hatfield's name. Couple of minutes later, Earnest runs from their yard and goes top speed down the road toward the Goodbodys'. I know something's happened when I see Doc Hatfield's buggy racing up a few minutes after that, Cornelia Ord in it, too. So I went down and across to see if I could help.

Walter Jones, the orphan, came out of the house as I got there. Said he just woke up, didn't know what had happened. Cornelia Ord told me straight off I saw her: It was Abby. The doctor had gone down cellar. When I looked down, he told me to please get away from the door, he needed the light, would I get more hot water.

Then the Senator came in with Mr. Goodbody. I noticed scratches or cuts on his chin, but I didn't think anything of it. Still don't. I noticed Earnest limped a trifle like he had a sore leg. Didn't think anything of that, either. He had a breath. But I don't think he was much in liquor. Not that morning, anyway.

Well, he had taken to drinking some that spring, although I don't imagine a great deal. When he was in liquor his voice was pretty loud. Well, I could hear it on nice days when the windows were open. Like the Sunday afternoon previous to April 11. Then late in the afternoon of Tuesday, April 11—say about five-thirty.

He drove up to the house at that time Tuesday, yes. He had a bottle on him. I saw him stop the buggy just before he turned in, and take a drink. He went in the back. But I could hear him shouting in the parlor where the windows were open. He was swearing at his mother. Something about three thousand dollars.

They'd had the same argument Sunday afternoon when Lionel was there. I heard something about three thousand dollars. Both of them could sound pretty violent. I guess drink made Earnest violent sometimes, like last winter when he struck his mother and knocked her down. I wasn't there, but I heard about it. Think Cudworth may have told me. I don't remember.

Yes, I saw Earnest come out of the house Tuesday, before sup-pertime. I'd say quarter to six. He drove away. Whipping the horse. Then after supper Lizzie Robinson went in. When she came out, Cornelia Ord was going in. No, I didn't notice for an hour or two after that. In my kitchen doing dishes.

Couldn't see much after that. It was dark. I would say about a little after nine P.M., Tuesday evening, I did see the front door open and close. Saw the light. Later I heard the kitchen door slam. Don't know the time. Saw a figure on the Bridewell side porch. In the dark. I couldn't say if it was a man's or a woman's. It seemed tallish, though. I remember wondering if Earnest Bridewell had gone back to the house to see his mother.

When I saw him there next morning, I meant to ask him. Then I told myself it was none of my business. Besides he seemed awful distracted. I shouldn't blame him with his poor mother lying down there dead.

No, I never had trouble with the Senator as a neighbor. I always liked Earnest, even if I never voted for him. He could be mean at times, but what man isn't? If the family was stingy, I'd say they got it from the mother. Or perhaps poor Abby Bridewell was just thrifty. She probably had her reasons.

I felt real sorry when the doctor came up from the cellar and told us she was dead. I recall thinking maybe if she hadn't hung onto her money so hard, she might be still alive. I was going to say as much to Cornelia: What's the good of money if you're liable to get killed for it? There aren't any pockets in a shroud.

But I didn't. There were too many people in the room, and besides Doctor Hatfield did not say at the time that she had been murdered.

Earnest Bridewell demanded, "What happened?"

Dr. Hatfield said flatly, "Looks like a fractured skull. Her neck

seems broken. There's some contusions on her knees, and a bad cut on her right cheek. I expect she died from shock." From the subsequent Coroner's record (simulated):

Q. Did she die while you were tending her, Doctor?

A. She was dead when I got there.

Q. What time would you say you got there?

A. Fast as I could. Mrs. Ord was just coming to my place. This hired man, Cudworth or whoever, was with her. I had the buggy already hitched. Was going over to see Delia Bryce about her goiter. Mrs. Ord told me to come at once. Cudworth said there'd been an accident. It's only a quarter mile up the road to the Bridewell's.

Q. Mrs. Abby Bridewell was dead on arrival?

A. I'd say she'd been dead for some time.

Q. Approximately how long?

A. I couldn't rightly say.

Q. Had rigor mortis set in?

A. As you gentlemen must be aware, there's a lot of horse— excuse me, I mean controversy—in the profession about rigor mortis. It's like the weather. May set in earlier or later. All depends. Physical condition of the subject. Fat or lean. One hour? Two hours? Room temperature? You know.

Q. Doctor, we are not conducting a class in morbid anatomy. You could make a guess on how long she had been dead.

A. I did. It looked to me like she'd been dead maybe hours. At least eight or nine.

The spare-boned doctor had been unable to hoist the body up the steps. That office was finally performed by Earnest and Cudworth, with advice from Mrs. Smeizer. They carried Abby Bridewell into the sewing room at the side. Cornelia hurried upstairs to fetch a cover. The body was placed on a wicker settee. A candle-wick bedspread was draped over the body. Earnest and Cornelia followed the doctor out to his buggy. The doctor halted, put down his little black bag, and carefully made another cigarette.