Authors: Eleanor Kuhns
“I’m sorry,” Rees said.
“Might as well get an early start,” David said. “The cows will be demanding my attention in an hour anyway.”
They descended the stairs to the kitchen in the dark. The fire had been banked; David stirred it up and by its reddish light Rees lit a candle and went to answer the door. He did not recognize the man outside.
“Caldwell says come now,” the man said, his voice hoarse. Now Rees realized this was one of the tavern rats from the Bull. “The jail is on fire.”
“What?”
“Hurry.” As the deputy turned back to his nag, Rees closed the door and ran into the kitchen.
“I’ve got to go,” he said. “Now. The jail is on fire.” He raced upstairs and finished dressing. By the time he returned to the kitchen, coffee perked over the fire and David was gone. Rees gobbled down a heel of stale bread and drank a cup of weak coffee before running outside. David was just finishing harnessing Bessie to the wagon. Grateful, Rees hugged his son, surprising both of them with this unusual physical demonstration, and jumped up into the damp seat.
He’d barely reached the outskirts of town when he smelled the stink of wet ashes. He drove as rapidly as he dared through the dark streets to the jail. Despite the early hour, people and vehicles clogged the street around the burning structure. The roof was already gone.
“Dear God,” Rees muttered in a shocked whisper, staring at the charred timbers and soot-darkened stone walls.
“They say the man inside burned to death,” said the man standing next to him.
Rees felt an icy chill crawl down his spine. If he had hesitated only one day … In a daze, he pushed through the crowd of gawkers to the space in front of the jail. Caldwell turned, ready to shout, but when he saw Rees he dropped his sooty hand. Black coated his face, and the acrid stink of burning completely submerged his body odor.
“When did it start?”
“Close around midnight, I think. I was at the Bull. I went over about ten. Didn’t want to change my routine, you know. By the time I came back for bed, the blaze had already taken hold.” He turned to look at Rees. “It would have been far worse if not for the mist.”
“This is attempted murder,” Rees said in a low voice. “Someone wanted to make sure Augustus didn’t survive his time in jail.”
“It is murder. That drifter? He was still inside.” Caldwell gestured to a dirty sheet shrouding a still form behind him. A boot, with the sole completely worn through, protruded from the linen. “A man innocent of everything but drinking too much.” Caldwell’s voice caught. “The smoke got him. I couldn’t get to the cells.”
Rees growled inarticulately. “Even a guilty man doesn’t deserve this kind of death.” Caldwell nodded in agreement. Rees cast one more glance at the smoking pile of blackened stones and charred timbers and turned away in disgust. “Did anyone see anything?”
“A woman, up with her new baby. She said she saw a boy hanging around here. A few minutes later, she smelled smoke.”
Rees cast Caldwell a questioning look. “Richard, do you think?” he asked.
Caldwell nodded. “Who else? The only other boy I thought it might be is that young slave catcher. Frustrated maybe since they couldn’t get to Augustus. But that seemed far-fetched.”
Rees nodded in agreement. “Does Potter know?”
“Probably,” Caldwell said. “If he’s awake, that is. No one is talking about anything else.”
Rees looked at the western sky. The first pale gray lit the horizon, diffused by fog. “I’ll wager he’s awake now,” he said. “I’m certain one visitor after another has been knocking on his door.” He began walking toward his wagon and after a brief hesitation the constable fell into step with him. They did not speak as he drove to the center of town and Potter’s office. Rees was grappling with the wickedness behind the arson and accompanying murder. No doubt Caldwell was doing the same.
Despite the early hour, the streets of Dugard were busy. The fire had awakened many townspeople who had elected not to return to their beds. The congestion forced Rees to park in the alley behind the lawyer’s establishment. When he and Caldwell climbed down from the wagon, Potter, dressed only in shirt and breeches, appeared at the top of the back stairs. “Why would anyone want to hurt that boy?” he said in distress.
“He wasn’t in the jail,” Rees said. “I moved him out a day or two ago.”
Potter’s mouth rounded in surprise. “You both better come upstairs,” he said. “I’ll see about some breakfast.”
As Rees and Caldwell went down the hall to the stairs and up, Potter disappeared into the kitchen. A few minutes later, he joined his visitors in his office, casually dressed in his waistcoat but not his jacket. “Start at the beginning,” he said.
“You know about the slave catchers,” Caldwell said. “Slippery bastards. I knew they were still in town, but I could never find them. And they showed much too much interest in that boy Augustus.”
“So I moved him out,” Rees said. “But no one but us knew that, so I think we can safely assume the fire was set to kill him.”
“The fire was set on that side of the jail,” Caldwell said, nodding his head in agreement. “The roof is gone, but the walls on the office side are barely touched.”
Potter shook his head in distress. “And the blaze, how did it start?” he asked.
“I don’t know exactly,” Caldwell said. “My first guess? Someone set a fire against the wall outside and tossed a burning tallow-soaked rag up to the roof.”
Potter looked ill. “Why Augie?” he asked. “Did he know something?”
“What? He never went home,” Rees said.
“Wait,” Caldwell argued, his thought running in a different track. “Maybe he did. And there are only two people Augustus will lie for: his mother and his brother.”
“Not true,” Rees said. “He’s fond of Marsh, too.”
“Marsh?” Caldwell said, nodding in excitement.
“I would hate to think Marsh murdered Nate,” Potter said. “Nate trusted him like a brother.”
“And I can’t see him threatening Augustus,” Rees said. “He treats that boy, and Richard and Grace, like his own.” He knew by the look Caldwell shot him that he did not accept that argument. “Besides, no one saw him in town, even assuming he could leave the farm unnoticed.”
Caldwell nodded slowly, in reluctant agreement. “That’s true. He would be difficult to miss.”
“So, are we back to Richard?” Potter asked with a sigh. Rees and Caldwell exchanged a glance of unhappy concord. “But why would he kill Augustus?”
“It could be someone else,” Rees said, trying to imagine another possibility. “Someone’s convinced he’s guilty and decided to take justice in his own hands.”
Potter nodded. “Not everyone is willing to believe him innocent and his white brother guilty.”
“Scapegoat,” Caldwell agreed. “Dead, he can’t refute the claim he’s guilty.”
“I suggest we keep Augustus’s whereabouts secret for now,” Rees said. “Let everyone believe he burned to death in the jail. It’s the only way to keep him safe.” Looking at the other men, he added firmly, “I believe we should also keep in mind the women involved and include both Rachel and Molly Bowditch as possible killers.”
Caldwell shook his head in immediate refusal. “I can’t see a woman battering Nat to death. He was a big man, almost as big as you,” he said nodding at Rees, “and both women are small and delicate.”
“Molly?” Potter cried at the same moment. “Of course, she’s not a murderer. She hired you to find the truth, remember?”
“She hired me to free her son,” Rees corrected him. “And once she felt I’d succeeded, she had no more need of me. Indeed, my suggestion that Augustus might be innocent brought on a fit of temper. And Rachel also has a son at risk.” Recalling the scene at the Bowditch farm, he added in a low voice, “She, too, will do almost anything to protect her child.”
“Mr. Rees is correct.” A light female voice came from the door. Mrs. Potter, struggling with a heavy tray, tried to nudge the door wider with her foot. Both Caldwell and Rees leaped to their feet. Caldwell, the closer man to the door, quickly thrust it back. Rees lifted the heavy tray from Mrs. Potter’s hands and carried it to her husband’s desk.
“Really,” Potter said, glaring at his wife, “I don’t think women’s chatter should be any part of this discussion.”
Rees, who frequently found women’s gossip a source of important information, shook his head at the other man. “What’s your opinion, Mrs. Potter?” he asked her courteously.
“Molly’s always been a little too fond of other people’s husbands,” Mrs. Potter said, shooting a sour look at her husband. “But she won’t share anything she sees as her own. She’s always been like that, even as a little girl. She resents Augustus and his place as her husband’s bastard son. Would she throw him to the lions to save Richard? Without a moment’s thought.”
“But she is but a weak woman,” her husband objected. “Too weak to bludgeon a man to death.”
Mrs. Potter cast him a scornful glance. “We are all of us stronger than we let on, George. To protect my children, I would strangle a wolf bare-handed.”
With a final nod, she withdrew. Potter, flushed with embarrassment, turned to his two guests. “You must forgive her. She’s never liked Molly—”
“No forgiveness necessary,” Rees said. “And I think she’s entirely correct. I’ll leave both Molly Bowditch and Rachel on my list of possible murderers. After all,” he added with a flash of dark humor, “who has more reason to hate and kill a husband than his wife? Or a mistress?”
“That’s why I am not married,” Caldwell said, baring his rotting teeth in a grin.
Rees helped himself to a cup of coffee, so strong and so black, it looked like ink. Just the way he liked it. He dropped in two lumps of sugar and poured in cream until the color more closely resembled buckskin. While he prepared his coffee, Caldwell fell upon the cake like a starving man, liberally strewing crumbs over his grubby shirt and buff coat.
“Did anyone see anything?” Potter asked, but not as though he believed it possible.
Caldwell and Rees exchanged a glance. “I spoke to the neighbors. Not really.”
Rees nodded in agreement. The young mother had seen a boy, but Rees concurred with Caldwell’s decision to keep her report to themselves, at least for now.
Chapter Sixteen
It was midmorning, but still cool and foggy, by the time Rees and Caldwell left Potter’s office. As the constable started back to the jail, Rees walked the two blocks to the Contented Rooster. The morning rush must be over and he hoped to find time to talk to Jack and Susannah before dinnertime.
Although not packed, the establishment still hummed with activity. But the two proprietors sat comfortably at a table in the back, enjoying cake and coffee. “Do you mind if I join you?” Rees asked, looming up beside them.
“More questions?” Susannah asked.
Pulling up a chair, Rees sat down. “More like your opinions,” he said.
“Gossip,” Jack muttered disdainfully.
“Not exactly,” Rees said, putting out a hand to forestall the other man’s departure. “Did you hear about the jail?”
“Of course. No one’s talking about anything else,” Jack said.
Susannah leaned forward, her expression one of alarm. “Is it about Augustus? Did that poor boy burn to death?” Sorrow contorted her face.
“Augustus?” Jack repeated, aghast. “Was he—?”
“You don’t listen,” Susannah said in fond reproof.
“Well, he was in the jail,” Rees said, trying to decide how much to admit.
Susannah inspected Rees’s expression and then she relaxed, smiling. “Don’t worry, Will. Jack doesn’t listen and I will certainly keep any secret you decide to share.” Rees nodded but continued to hesitate. A secret shared by two was usually a secret no longer. Susannah put her hand over his. “Augustus was not in the jail, was he?”
“I took him home,” Rees admitted.
“Good. Of course, he had nothing to do with his father’s death,” she said. “He’s always been gentle.”
“He seems so. I’m not sure what to believe anymore.” He sighed. “The stories I hear of Nate don’t mesh with the lad I recall. I mean, friends with King Carleton? That man was as nasty as they come.” Susannah shrugged. “But why then would Nate refuse to bless a marriage between Richard and Elizabeth? “
“I wonder if that is due to the enmity between the two wives,” Susannah said. “Charlotte Carleton pays little attention to us lesser mortals. And Molly—” The easy atmosphere shifted subtly to one of tension. Susannah added acerbically, “I will only say that she prefers men and pays little attention to her fellow females.” She glanced at her husband. He shifted uncomfortably and would not meet his wife’s gaze.
Rees stared at both of them. “I see,” he said, not seeing at all. “She has a reputation, then?”
“Even James Carleton was rumored to be one of her conquests,” Susannah said with a nod. “I never believed it, though. They met only briefly when he returned home for a visit. Then he was off for England again and shortly after, Molly married Nate.”
“They met at the Carletons’ annual Christmas party,” Jack interjected abruptly. “That was when Mrs. Carleton still lived here, before she took her daughters to England to join her son. She threw open the big house for a party every year.”
“Even we were invited to those,” Susannah said. “But once Charlotte arrived here—well, I haven’t seen the inside of that house since and I believe the same is true of Molly.”
“How did Nate feel about this?” Rees asked. It was a bitter pill to realize he could not guess how his boyhood friend, closer than a brother, would feel.
Susannah and Jack glanced at each other. “I doubt he cared,” she said. “He maintained his business relationship with Henry Carleton, and then James after that.”
“Nate, well, he kept to himself,” Jack added. “Molly seemed to settle down and concentrate upon raising Richard. A few years later, Grace came along and then Ben, so I assume they were happy enough.”
“Any rumors?” Rees asked. Jack shook his head, but Susannah pushed out her lips in a self-conscious moue. “Suze?”
“Well, Dr. Wrothman spends a lot of time at the farm,” she said.
Jack frowned. “And that is sheer speculation,” he said, stirring restlessly. “For all we know, there is no truth at all to any of those scandalous whispers. And now I must return to my duties. It’s more work for us since our cook disappeared.…”