by James Walker
That was a stunner. “Someone picking us up?”
“No, we’ll be taking the Helena.”
Now, that didn’t make sense! If I remembered correctly from our top floor telescopic scan of the town—it seemed like it was a month ago since Catty guided that tour—the church was a good mile from the docks. What if it was a long procession to the graveyard? Not to mention if there was a reception back at the house.
In any case, I wasn’t going to argue with him on such a somber day. “Well, I guess we’d better get going then. We have to get over and dock then hoof it up to the Church, if we want to get there before the service begins.”
“Finish your coffee, Frohman. We will not be attending the service.”
“We’re not?”
“No. I told Catherine that we would meet them at the graveside. There is something we must attend to first.”
He went back to his coffee, facing the window he greeted a warm spring day outside. His eyes closed and he fell into one of his deep thought trances and I knew I would get no more out of him for now.
I took the last drag off a cigarette and tossed the butt into the water. I had to pull the collar of my coat up over my ears to keep them warm out here on the river. At least Uncle Will, who insisted on driving the Helena, kept it at a quarter throttle. There was enough of a breeze to make the river a bit choppy and, going any faster we’d be soaked in spray before we got to the other side.
“So, tell me again Uncle Will, where are we going and why is it so important that we need to skip Marquis’ funeral?”
He gave me a sideways look. “You should have figured out our destination by now. I would not have attended his service in any case.”
“I thought you liked him?”
He shrugged. “I did, until he showed his real character in these last few days. He had a black heart and, though I may say a prayer for his soul, I will not honor him in a house of the Lord!”
“Jeepers, Uncle Will, you weren’t that hard on him last night. You practically told Catty that he was just misguided!”
He stared at me with flint in his eyes. “I lied. I would spare that girl all this grief and pain if only she had let me. She has been through so much.” He added, flicking another look at me.
I was afraid I was going to get another lecture about Catty, however William suddenly cut the throttle back, and I looked up to see us approaching a dock that stuck out from a private home. It took me a minute to recognize the place from this angle.
“Why are we stopping here?
He expertly cut the engines and the Helena slowly glided sideways to the dock.
“To finish this… Once and for all. Would you mind getting the bow line and tying us off?”
William tied off the stern then walked up the dock towards the house. I quickened my step to catch up as we crossed the lawn to the front steps. I was still confused as to why we were here, of all places.
“Is now the time to confront her about the diving suit? Even if she did know Marquis had it, do you think she was an accomplice?”
Uncle Will stopped dead in his tracks and looked down at me, with that infuriating smirk and said, “You really have not thought this out yet, have you. My word, Frohman! Your mind is like a bog. Every fact you take in is tossed into the muck to sink out of sight.”
“So, exactly what should I do with them, the facts?” I asked. I knew I was being petulant, and I really hated being talked down to.
He smiled and answered, “You use them to build a bridge over the mire.” He clapped me once on the upper arm and went up the steps to the front door.
Once there, he struck a regal pose, one hand behind his back and one holding his cane planted on the porch floor. In the back of my head, I wondered if this cane had any special features – or if we would need one!
When he was set just right, he looked to me and jutted his chin at the front door. Feeling like a valet, I stepped up and knocked on the door. We heard the distinct scrape of a chair on the wooden floor, but no one acknowledged the knock. After a moment, William boomed out in his stage voice,
“Susan Wallace! Open this door. We must speak.” When nothing happened, he indicated I should knock again. This time, I used my fist sideways and rapped as hard as I could. The door frame shook with the blows. The door flew open and I jumped back at the sight that greeted us. Susan had gone quite downhill since we had last seen her. Before, she was a handsome woman for her age, but now she looked the hag. She looked as if she hadn’t bathed or changed her clothes in a week. Her sallow face was deeply etched, and her mouth quivered like a dog before it barked.
But it was her eyes that scared me the most. Red-rimmed and blood shot, they never seemed to stop moving, flickering back and forth. Something -- or someone -- had pushed this poor woman over the edge.
A few paces into her home, she turned and snarled at us. Well, William really, she didn’t seem to even notice me. As they stared each other down, I took a look around.
The place had become a mess since we had last been here. There were smears of dirt all over the floor and even some on the furniture. The greatest amount was in front of the fireplace and it had that rotting odor of low tide. It looked as if she was burning rags in the hearth, instead of wood or coal. The knick-knacks that had lined the mantle were knocked over, with many strewn about the floor. Even the harpoon hanging above the lintel looked the worse for wear. The polished wooden haft was splintered on the end and had a great crack that split it up to the metal cap, though the shaft and barb gleamed in the sunlight that came in.
Wild eyed and disheveled, she slowly stepped backwards until her back bumped into the back of a rocker in front of the fireplace. Uncle Will matched her step for step until he was just a few feet away from her.
“Git! Get back on your boat and be gone, Gillette! I don’t want to hear anything you have to say.”
William looked down at her sternly. “No, you do not. Yet, better you tell me everything than try and explain yourself to the Chief Inspector.”
Her eyes narrowed to thin slits, but still, she didn’t reply.
“Very well, Mrs. Wallace.” William said in a reasonable tone, “I will make this quick and easy for you.” He reached into the pockets of his overcoat and pulled out his fists with two wads of cloth in each hand. Her eyes were glued to his fists as he raised them slightly above his shoulders.
“Explain these and I shall leave you in peace.” He opened his hand and twin squares of linen dropped like the curtains on a stage. Both were white with fancy lace and I recognized them at once.
The one in his left hand was the cloth she had wrapped around his leg, when we were here last. The one in his right was wrapped around the dead baby found on Uncle Will’s property…
35
The evil grimace dropped from her face and her features softened as she reached up and took the cloth from William’s hand and clutched it to her face. After a moment, she lowered her hands and clutched the cloth to her chest. “My Kara.” She murmured as the tears rolled down her face. She turned and walked to the front of the rocker and slowly sank into it, her back to us now.
“The child was yours and the father was … Marquis.” William said gently.
There was a long pause, where I wished I had brought a flask, and then she finally spoke in a voice that sounded from the grave.
“Aye. He was. What can I say in my defense? That I was lonely? That he was handsome and charming, so eager to be sure I had everything I needed? All of that is true. I was weak. He plied me with attention and…I welcomed it. He sweet talked me, then, despite my marriage vows and my sensibilities…I let him seduce me.”
She fell silent and William prompted her. “So, when you became pregnant, you left the doctor’s practice before your condition became apparent. Why did you not seek the doctor’s assistance?”
“That was Marquis again. He convinced me that we could have the child on our own. After all, I was a trained nurse and he promised to sta
y by my side. He told me that it was proof of our love and we shouldn’t let the town judge us. I…I wanted to believe him. I am a married woman and I didn’t want to show the world my letter ‘A’, that was swelling more in my belly every month! Never-the-less, I was filled with joy on January second, when my time came, and Marquis and I delivered my sweet Kara into this world. We cherished our child.”
“Not enough to keep her safe and alive!” I hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but the words exploded out of my mouth. She whirled around in her seat and snarled at me with a look that made me wish I had brought my pistol instead of the flask!
“I had nothing to do with that, you heartless twit!” She screamed. Then she turned back to the cold hearth and choked back another sob. Marquis told me that he had an Aunt, who was childless and would be overjoyed to have a baby. He said we could have the best of both worlds. Kara would be loved and cherished and raised in a good home and we would still be able to see here from time to time. He convinced me that someday I might even befriend her and be able to tell her that I was her mother…
So, when she was just a few weeks old, one morning I dressed her warmly and bundled her up for travel…and I gave her to that monster.”
Her shoulders shook as the grief overwhelmed her again. After a minute, she spoke. “Then I learned the truth from you.”
William took a long deep breath. “Then, when Marquis came to you for help the other day, instead you took that harpoon from its place and ran him through with it. Somehow, you both ended up in the shallows, where you held him under, like a speared fish, until he drowned.
“But after he was dead, you realized that you could not pull the harpoon from his body because of the design. So, you took a rock from the river bottom and pounded the shaft until the tip completely went through him. Then you unscrewed the head and pulled the shaft out of him.
“It was simple enough then to push him out into the current and let him drift away.”
She didn’t say anything at first, still sobbing quietly, but she regained some of her composure and answered. “My, my, William Gillette. You are as clever as they say.
“When I saw Marquis backing up to the dock, I had a…revelation. I grabbed the harpoon and went out the door. As soon as I was outside, Marquis was calling for me to come and help him. He said he was hurt badly but he had no idea.
“When I reached the dock, he saw the purpose in my stride, and the harpoon in my hands and he tried to escape his due. He pushed the throttle forward, but I was quicker. With a great leap, I landed on his deck and plunged my spear into his side.
The momentum carried us both over the gunnel and we ended up in the shallow water and deep mud of low tide. Still, he tried to escape me, but I held on with both hands, tugging and twisting the shaft with all my might. He finally pitched forward into the water and I held him down with my weight on the shaft. The rest… the rest was as you said. When I saw the wounds I had inflicted on his body, I figured if he were ever found, fools would blame it on that creature everyone was going on about!”
“And his boat?” William asked the back of her head.
“I didn’t think about it. It just kept going out into the river and the current turned it downstream. It was still running when I lost sight of it.”
William stared at her back for a long moment. He looked like he was done with the whole scenario. Finally, he spoke, gently, but firmly.
“Susan, what Marquis did was inexcusable -- in the eyes of God and man -- but that did not give you the right to take the life of another human being.”
Susan didn’t answer and I had had enough by this point. I wanted nothing more but to go and get the Chief Inspector and wash my hands of this whole affair. Poor Catty lost a brother and a niece she never knew she had. I was about to tell my Uncle that it was time to go, when Susan drew a great breath and suddenly screamed, causing both of us to jump back.
“It was the will of God!” she shrieked.
She leapt out of her chair and turned to face us. Her teeth were bared, and her eyes nearly rolled back in her head. Raising a fist in the air like a maniacal prohibitionist, she yelled at the top of her lungs, spittle flying from her lips. “When he came back to me, beaten and weak, God showed me what must be done!” She pointed to the harpoon above and behind her, “He gave me his spear and commanded me to smite that evil filth from this earth.”
We both stared at her, too stunned to move and she went on, in a milder tone. “God needs a sacrifice…like Abraham of old. He demanded my first born as a sign of obedience. A sacrifice to make room in me for his will….”
William didn’t flinch and looked down at her coldly. “Our Lord had nothing to do with this, Susan. There was no sacrifice…She was just a baby girl…Your daughter…Kara was her name.”
That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Susan’s eyes flew open wide and froth bubbled out from between her lips.
“MY BABY!” she screeched and collapsed on the floor at William’s feet. I thought she had a seizure and died, but she was still sobbing and saying her daughter’s name over and over.
William looked down at her and said, “We shall never speak of this again. I hope that God grants you peace someday.”
He looked at me and we turned and walked out the door. Inside, she began wailing again, that only slightly lowered in volume when I closed the door behind us. I could still hear the shrieks until we started up the Helena and pulled away from her dock.
36
I took the wheel on this leg of our trip. The wind had died off and the water was smoother, so I goosed the Helena and took us away from that wretched home as fast as I could. When the dock was well in our wake, I cut the power some so I could speak to my Uncle without shouting over the engines. I swiveled in the pilot’s seat to look back at him.
“Shall I take us over to the town dock?” I asked, assuming that was where we were heading.
William, who had stretched out on the bench seat along the side of the deck, looked at me from under half lidded eyes. “You are under the impression I wish to make a report to the Chief Inspector. I do not.”
“You don’t?”
He tilted his head and asked, “What good would it do? Marquis is beyond the reach of the law now, and Susan…well, I think it best we leave Susan to her demons I fear she shall suffer far more left alone than she would under arrest. Besides, had she not killed Marquis he would surely have hanged for the murder of the payroll guard.”
“Gee, Uncle, I never thought of you as an ‘eye for an eye’ kind of person.”
“I am not, Collin. Vengeance is the Lords and the Lord’s alone. Yet, I do believe in balance. I have often seen, throughout my life that most situations will even out in the end. Now, take us to the cemetery where Kara is buried. Marquis will be interned there, in his family’s plot.
“And, could we please continue on in silence? I need time to reflect.”
His tone was so somber and his face so long, I nodded and turned back to the wheel and steering the boat. For myself, I could applaud his form of justice, and I had no zeal to see that mad woman hanged. But I also knew it would challenge his morality. Evil either thrives or dies – goodness suffers perpetually.
Life was so unfair at times. Where everyone else involved was basking in glory and accolades—we were left with a sour taste of the ugly truth in our mouths…
Despite the peaceful beauty of the river, the rising sun warming the air enough for us to shed our overcoats, and the blooming foliage on both sides, the half hour trip to the cemetery was pure torture for me.
I was still jumping out of my skin with questions I wanted answered. It had been a whirlwind of a week and though I was witness to much of what happened, there were many points that I just couldn’t string together! I felt like I had gone to a play and fell asleep after the first act, and only awoke for the finale!
Yet, I had to respect my uncle’s wishes, so I kept my tongue behind my teeth. As we approached the dock, I
cut the power and spun the wheel, neatly setting the Helena on a slowing drift to the dock. I was happy to find uncle more like his usual self as he jumped up right before we kissed the pylons.
“That was excellent seamanship, Collin! You do your forebears proud!” He clapped me on the shoulders with a big smile and took up the stern line. In no time, we had the Helena secured and, after straightening our clothes and brushing ourselves off, headed off the dock and into the graveyard.
We only made it as far as the first row of stones when William stopped and pulled out his pocket watch. He grunted and put it away. Looking around, he pointed with his cane to a bench that was set at the edge of the lawn, close to the river. “We may as well have a seat. The procession won’t be here for a while yet.”
“That’s fine with me.” I answered. It was a good a time as any to pry some explanations out of him.
Seating ourselves, I was impressed by the beautiful vista that spread out before us. Across the river, the high hills were the perfect backdrop to the flowing blues of the water. One thing struck me as odd.
“Not that it’s not a nice view,” I commented, “But shouldn’t we be facing the graves rather than the river?”
Wiliam chuckled, “I suspect it was put this way for people like us—those that are here out of duty more than compassion or,” he paused and gave me a sly look, “love.”
I let that pass and didn’t reply as I stared out over the river. I let the silence stretch out while I tried to frame my next thought.
“You have questions, Frohman.”
I nearly laughed out loud at that understatement! Instead, I took out my flask and took a quick snort.
“One or two, I guess…maybe a hundred in all!”
He laughed like a loon, and then shook his head. “Frohman…you are so much like your father. You have seen all that I have seen and heard all that I have heard. You already know the answers to your questions.”