The Unquiet Grave: A Novel

by Sharyn McCrumb

  Besides the grand jury, the assorted spectators, and the church members who had dug up the grave, there was one other witness to the proceedings: Edward Shue, the husband of the deceased. He had been ordered to attend, perhaps on the logic that he must witness the proof, if any, against him. Shue had seemed indignant at being compelled to watch the autopsy, and missing a day’s work on account of it, but when the proceedings got under way, he appeared to be as indifferent to the sight of his wife’s remains as if the trio of doctors had been butchering a hog.

  Despite the cold, the churchmen had begun their work early. They had excavated down to the coffin itself by the time the procession arrived from the county seat. Everyone got out and circled round the grave to observe the exhumation. One of the diggers jumped down into the pit to slip the ropes around the coffin so that it could be hoisted up.

  “You’re not going to find anything. Can’t you leave her in peace?” The widower sounded more aggrieved than grieving, but in any case no one paid him any mind. The legal formalities had been set in motion, and no objection, sentimental or sinister, would be allowed to stop the process.

  When the coffin had cleared the pit, the churchmen—pallbearers in reverse—carried it to a wagon waiting to haul it a few yards up the road to the log schoolhouse where the autopsy would be performed.

  George Knapp led the procession, following the wagon on foot. It was only a short distance to the schoolhouse. “I hope there’s no one there to be expecting us,” he remarked to the group at large.

  Lualzo Rupert, whose territory this was, shook his head. “We had a word with the schoolteacher this morning when we got here. She agreed that letting the children have the day off was the best course. Some of the little devils begged to be allowed to stay and watch, of course, but we were firm, and they finally gave up and left.”

  “Someone ought to keep an eye on the window,” said Houston McClung. “I wouldn’t put it past some of those rascals to sneak back and try to watch. At their age, I might have.”

  Knapp watched his breath make clouds in the air as he spoke. “I hope they kept the fire going in the woodstove. Even a dead patient deserves a doctor with steady hands.”

  John Alfred Preston caught up with them. “Some of the jurors were asking how long this is likely to take, gentlemen.”

  Knapp looked at the portly lawyer, wrapped in a great coat, gloved and muffled with woolen scarves. “You’ll be thankful you wore all that before it’s over, I’ll warrant. I wish we could do our work wrapped up as you are. I suppose you can figure on two or three hours, wouldn’t you say, Dr. Rupert?”

  The younger man nodded. “About that, if we’re to be thorough.”

  “And we will be thorough, Mr. Preston. This may be your party, but make no mistake, I am running the show. And we will take as long as we have to until we are satisfied that we know how this poor woman met her death.”

  The churchmen slid the box off the back of the wagon and carried it into the schoolhouse, followed by doctors, lawmen, and jurors. Two of the jurors made sure that the woodstove was well stocked and burning properly while the medical men divested themselves of their overcoats and scarves and prepared for the task ahead.

  When they had pried open the coffin lid and slid it back to reveal the body, Judge McClung thanked the pallbearers for their efforts and hurriedly dismissed them, with a reminder that they should come back by late afternoon to reinter the body. The rest of the laymen remained, but kept at a safe distance from the autopsy table, with handkerchiefs at the ready, in case the smell of decay should become overpowering. George Knapp gave them a sardonic glare and turned back to the business at hand.

  Besides the woodstove, the one-room schoolhouse had a stack of firewood, a few lanterns to light the room, a chalkboard, and one north-facing window, under which a long worktable—now empty—had been placed. The students’ wooden desks were all pushed against a wall to make room for the observers. Even on a bright summer day the small window would not have afforded enough light for the purposes of an autopsy; on that overcast winter day, it barely cut the gloom. Anticipating this, Rupert, who was familiar with the school building, had brought three more kerosene lanterns, and he had set a pan of water atop the woodstove for the necessary ablutions. Despite the cold, the three physicians removed their suit coats and rolled up their shirtsleeves.

  Dr. Houston McClung draped a sheet over the wooden table, and Dr. Knapp and Dr. Rupert set the body down on it. The skin of the dead girl’s cheek, as pale and cold as ham in a winter smokehouse, gleamed in the lamplight.

  “Hard to believe that she has been a month in the ground. She is uncommonly well preserved,” Rupert observed.

  George Knapp grunted. “We have the bitter weather to thank for that. She might as well have been kept in an icehouse. I would wish that the cold would abate, but then there’d be the smell to contend with, I suppose.”

  Reaching into his bag, he took out a scalpel and bent over the still-recognizable remains of Zona Shue, but before proceeding he turned back to the little knot of spectators huddled against the opposite wall. “Speaking of smell, gentlemen, if any of you finds that the experience of witnessing an autopsy brings up unpleasant associations”—he smiled—“or if it brings up your breakfast, please have the courtesy to remove yourself from the premises, lest you inspire the others to similar transports of nausea. We have no time at present for ministering to the living. Thank you.”

  “I brung my wife’s smelling salts,” one juror called out, holding up a small cloth bag.

  “Good. Share it with those who need it.” He nodded to Dr. Rupert. “Let’s get that infernal high-necked dress off her. She seemed to have been partial to that style. She was wearing a similar garment when I was called to the scene at her death.”

  “Did you remove it then to examine her?” One of the jurors called out the question.

  Knapp paused again and turned to look at Edward Shue, who stood near the other spectators. No one seemed to want to stand next to him, and they carefully avoided looking directly at him. Shue seemed angry and apprehensive rather than sorrowful. “Did I remove her garment when I examined her at the time of her death? I tried, gentlemen. But her widower there”—he nodded toward Shue—“he was like a mother hen with one chick. Flew at anybody who tried to get near her. Said he didn’t want her disturbed.” He scowled. “Well, I reckon we’re disturbing her now. Go ahead, Dr. Rupert. Bare her throat.”

  “Will you tell us what you’re doing, Doctor?” asked the judge, edging forward for a better look. “The jury needs to understand the proceedings.”

  “Certainly, sir, if you wish it. As you know, my initial diagnosis—an everlasting faint, I termed it—was that the unfortunate lady lost consciousness at the top of the stairs and pitched forward, falling to her death. We will look for evidence of some disorder—a blood clot or a tumor, for example—within the young woman’s brain that might have caused such an occurrence. First, of course, we must examine the neck itself to determine the nature of the injury.”

  He turned back to the table, watching closely as Dr. Rupert unfastened the high-collared dress and eased it down to the shoulders of the deceased. Then, with gloved fingers, Lualzo Rupert began gently to probe the neck. When he lifted the torso an inch or two off the table, the head lolled as if it were barely attached to the rest of the body.

  Another of the jurors—a farmer—spoke up. “Looks like a chicken what’s had its neck wrung, boys.” Several of his companions nodded and murmured their assent.

  “Inelegantly put, but he is correct,” Knapp murmured.

  “The neck is broken all right, gentlemen.” Rupert looked up suddenly. “Here! Dr. McClung, bring one of those lanterns closer, please.”

  He waited while Houston McClung stepped closer to the table, holding the kerosene lantern aloft so that its light shined on the head and upper torso of the dead woman. The three doctors leaned forward to examine the white throat. “Do you see that?” asked Rupert
. He pointed to the neck just beneath the ear.

  McClung leaned closer, lowering the lantern and positioning the light so that it illuminated that part of the body. He nodded. “Plain as day.”

  Dr. Knapp turned to the knot of spectators, motioning for them to come forward. “Approach the table, please, gentlemen, if you’ve the stomach for it. We are by no means finished with the autopsy. Certain things must still be ruled out. But before we do any further disarrangement of the body, I should like you to look at the area on the side of the neck that Dr. Rupert is pointing to.”

  The officers of the court and the gaggle of jurors edged closer to the table, but the widower stayed back against the far wall, arms folded, staring at the floor. James Shawver, one of the deputies who had accompanied the party, glanced at the corpse and immediately took up a position within arm’s length of Edward Shue, his hand hovering over his holstered pistol.

  The others crowded around the table, peering at the still form of the dead woman. Finally one of them said, “There’s dark spots on the side of her neck.”

  “Finger marks?” asked another.

  “That is correct,” said Dr. Knapp, pausing to glare at Shue. “The marks show up better now than they would have at the time of death because the blood has pooled in the bruises. Although I don’t say that I wouldn’t have noticed them if I had been given half a chance.”

  “He wrung her neck!” muttered one of the witnesses.

  Dr. Knapp nodded. “That seems to be the case. Now, as I said, we will continue with the autopsy as planned so that we can rule out cerebral hemorrhages, tumors, and the like, but you may take that as mostly a formality. At this point I believe the cause of death is clear to all of us.”

  His words took a moment to sink in, and when they did, the observers turned as one man to stare at the defiant widower in horrified fascination. All three lawmen placed themselves within arm’s length of the widower, as if expecting him to make a run for it, but he sneered at them and stood his ground. When he saw that the stricken onlookers were all staring at him, Shue leaned back against the wall and scowled back at them. Narrowing his eyes, he set his jaw in a mulish pout. “You’ll never prove it.”

  One of the jurors muttered, “We’ll see about that.”

  Three hours later, when the rest of the body had been examined, and when, with the aid of a hacksaw, the dead woman’s brain had been removed and probed for signs of growths or hemorrhages—none found—the three physicians called for the pan of water to clean their hands and their instruments, put the body to rights again in its coffin, and sent one of the observers to summon the burial detail and fetch the wagon to transport the sad little corpse back to its final resting place.

  A quarter of an hour later, Dr. Rupert walked out into the pale winter sunshine, shivering a little as a gust of wind caught him broadside. He surveyed the crowd who had waited outside the schoolhouse, mostly local people whom he knew. They pressed closer, as if expecting him to announce the results, but he glanced back over his shoulder at the closed door of the schoolhouse, as if to indicate that it was not his place to declare the findings of the autopsy. Dr. George Knapp had been the man in charge. But as he turned to leave, he caught sight of Mary Jane Heaster, a little off to the side, dry-eyed but watchful. Their eyes met, and with no more than a flicker of an expression, he told her what she needed to know.

  The door opened again then, and the rest of the group filed out. They were solemn and silent, perhaps shaken by the grim ritual they had been duty-bound to witness. Edward Shue, handcuffed, accompanied by the three lawmen and flanked by scowling jurors, stumbled on the threshold, but quickly righted himself and met the crowd’s gaze with a defiant glare.

  The crowd’s satisfied murmur turned to a roar as they realized that their cold vigil had not been in vain. They had seen a killer unmasked and arrested, and they had a tale they could tell for the rest of their lives.

  Mary Jane Heaster stared at the prisoner as they led him toward a waiting wagon, and then she turned and walked away without a word to anybody.

  * * *

  The Greenbrier Independent newspaper, February 25, 1897, Lewisburg, West Virginia

  FOUL PLAY SUSPECTED

  Mrs. Zona (Heaster) Shue died in the Richlands of this county, on the 23rd of January, and her body was taken out to Little Sewell and buried. Since then rumors in the community caused the authorities to suspect that she may not have died from natural causes. In short, her husband, E. S., commonly known as “Trout,” Shue was suspected of having brought about her death by violence or in some way unknown to her friends. An inquest was accordingly ordered, and on Monday last before Justice Homer McClung and a jury of Inquest, assisted by Mr. Preston, the State’s Attorney for the county, Mrs. Shue’s body was exhumed, and a post mortem examination made, conducted by Drs. Knapp, Rupert, and Houston McClung, Shue being present and summoned as a witness. From one of the Doctors we learn that the examination clearly disclosed the fact the Mrs. Shue’s neck had been broken. We hear too that Shue’s conduct at the time of his wife’s death and when she lay a corpse in his house was very suspicious.

  The jury found, in accordance with the facts above stated, charged Shue with the crime of murder and yesterday afternoon he was brought here by James C. Shawver, John N. McClung, and Estill McClung and lodged in jail to await the action of the grand jury.

  thirteen

  LAKIN, WEST VIRGINIA

  1930

  DR. BOOZER BLEW ON HIS HANDS and moved his chair closer to the fire. “This cold is a miserable thing for the old folks in here. Makes their bones ache.”

  Mr. Gardner smiled. “It may not be good for live folks, Doctor, but it’s certainly useful for preserving dead ones.”

  Boozer looked up in surprise. “What put that into your mind?”

  “Oh, don’t worry. I wasn’t thinking of killing myself. It just brought back memories, that’s all.”

  “I’m relieved to hear it. Aside from this foul weather, how are you faring?”

  “Tolerably well, I suppose. I’ve been passing some of the time chatting with Miss Kathleen Davies in the parlor. We found common ground in the works of Mr. Shakespeare.”

  “I’m glad you found congenial company to pass the time, if not a clement temperature to do it in. Now, what were you saying about this weather? Something about preserving dead bodies?”

  “Oh, that. This cold snap reminds me of a murder case back in my salad days, in Greenbrier County. My part in it came during the trial in high summer, but the tale itself began in a week colder than this. In fact, if it hadn’t been so infernally cold, there might not have been a case at all. And the particulars of it would give anybody chills.”

  The dinner hour was over, and they had the dayroom to themselves, but there was no sunset to watch that evening. The pewter sky seemed to hover just above the treetops across the road, and it had been spitting rain all afternoon. Since their previous session three days earlier, the weather had turned cold, and Boozer had found Mr. Gardner huddled in the chair by the window, clasping his arms against his body in an effort to keep warm. When he saw the old man shivering in a moth-eaten cardigan over his cotton patient’s uniform, he retrieved a thin woolen blanket from the linen storage closet and draped it over the sweater. He even managed to sweet-talk one of the kitchen helpers into giving them a pot of coffee and a pair of white china mugs.

  Once he had wrapped the blanket securely over Mr. Gardner’s thin shoulders and placed the mug of coffee in his hands, he closed the curtains to shut out the darkness. “That’s more like it,” he said with forced cheerfulness.

  “Better anyhow,” the old man conceded. He stifled a cough. “Let me warm my throat a bit before you get me ruminating about the past.”

  “Take your time,” said Boozer, sipping his own coffee. “Quiet is at a premium in this place.”

  A few minutes passed in companionable silence before Boozer spoke again. “So you were about to tell me about a murder case?”<
br />
  “That’s right. I’ll never forget it. You don’t get too awful many murder cases as a country lawyer. This one happened back in Greenbrier in 1897.”

  “Early in your career, then?”

  “I was nearly thirty, but perhaps it took me longer to qualify for my profession than it took you.”

  “About the same, Mr. Gardner. I just turned thirty myself. But doctors have a lot of preparation to get through even after college, interning and all. But at least I had the peristalsis of medical school to push me along. But you didn’t go to law school, did you? No, of course not. People read law with an established attorney, didn’t they? You had to go it alone.”

  Gardner nodded. “Well, I was proud as Lucifer. I suppose that spurred me on.”

  “Pride and obstinance always help in an uphill battle, I think. So, it was 1897, and you were just becoming successful in your profession?”

  The lawyer shrugged. “I don’t say I was rolling in fields of clover at that point. I had not established my own law practice yet. I was still working under another attorney, for bread crumbs, but looking back now, I can see that I was well on my way. I had something to show for having attained my thirtieth year, by dint of hard work and prodigious self-discipline. I had a diploma from Storer College in Harper’s Ferry, and it was becoming apparent that I would manage to make something of myself. If you are not impressed by that, Dr. Boozer, with your medical degree and your fine New York manner, then you ought to be. You weren’t even born in 1897, were you?”

  James Boozer shook his head. “September of 1899. I’ve always wished I could have delayed my arrival by a few months, so I wouldn’t have been a remnant of the previous century before I was even out of diapers.”