The Unquiet Grave: A Novel

by Sharyn McCrumb

  “Mr. Shue asked my son—the one who just left outta here—to go over to his house and gather some eggs that morning, and then to see did Miz Shue need any errands run. Anderson left the house in the early afternoon, when we had done eating dinner, and went on over to their house, but before I could even get started on the washing up, he came tearing back in the house, hollering that Miz Shue was laid out dead in the front hall. So I thought I better get on over there, and see what was the matter. I sent my boy to tell Mr. Shue he better get on home. Then I took my apron off, put my coat on, and hurried over there myself. I got there the same time as he did.”

  “Can you tell us what you saw inside the house?”

  Martha Jones glanced at the defense table and looked away again. “That poor lady was dead, just like Anderson had told me. Mr. Shue, he pushed on in past me and stood over her body, and he says, Oh, no! Oh, no! My poor wife has fallen down the stairs.”

  “Did he sound distraught about it—in your opinion?”

  She shook her head. “He came out with it real quick—like he had already planned what he was going to say. And he sounded like somebody in a Christmas play, reciting a piece they had off by heart.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “Me? I didn’t say nothin’, but I didn’t think she had pitched down those stairs, neither.”

  Mr. Gilmer affected a look of surprise and faced the jury for a moment before he resumed his questioning. “Despite the fact that the body was lying lifeless on the floor of the downstairs hall, you did not believe that Mrs. Shue had fallen down the stairs?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Whyever not?”

  “I’ve seen a fair number of dead folks, and I’ve never yet seen one die posed like a statue.”

  “Please tell us what you mean.”

  Martha Jones thought for a moment. “She looked like dead folks look when they’ve already been laid out for the funeral by one of the neighbor women. I have done it myself for folks, so I know. People die every which way. Eyes open sometimes, mouth agape, arms and legs all twisted, clothing askew from the death throes now and again. Mrs. Shue, though, looked so perfect that they could have had the funeral right that minute. Her eyes were closed; her dress was smooth and in place all the way around; her feet were together. But it was her hands that struck me as the queerest part of it all.”

  “The position of her hands? How so?”

  “Well, one of them was stretched out neatly at her side—just like you’d arrange it if you laid her out for burial—and the other hand was placed just below her heart. There only needed to be a lily curled in her fingers to make her look like a Sunday school picture of the dearly departed. People look like that when they’re set in their coffins at the funeral, sir, but they don’t die like that.”

  “So you think it likely that someone placed her in that position after her demise?”

  Before she answered, Martha Jones glanced again at Edward Shue and then back at Mr. Gilmer. “Do I think someone had laid her out that way on purpose? Yes, sir, I surely do.”

  This time when the defense was invited to cross-examine, Dr. Rucker heaved his bulk out of his chair and lumbered toward the witness stand, mopping his brow with a flowing white handkerchief. “Now then, you have said that you have a seen a fair few deceased persons, and a good many of their grieving relations in consequence of that. Is that correct?”

  Martha Jones eyed him warily. His manner was mild enough, but it lacked the cordiality of Mr. Gilmer’s questioning. After a moment’s pause, she said, “Yes, sir, I reckon that’s so.”

  “Well, then, is it your observation that all grieving relatives mourn in exactly the same way? Do they all give way to floods of tears and shouted lamentations?”

  “No, sir, they don’t.”

  “What sorts of reactions to grief have you seen in your experience?”

  “Well, like you just said, some people give way entirely, crying like little babies, and others get mad as hornets, looking for somebody they can blame for their sorrow. And some people don’t show their hurt at all. They look like they’re sleepwalking, some of ’em.”

  Dr. Rucker nodded. “So when you say that Mr. Edward Shue did not seem to be upset by the death of his wife, is it not possible that he was one of the last sort of mourners? The ones who make no great display of their feelings?”

  Mrs. Jones took on a mulish expression, and her eyes flashed, but if she had considered making a sharp retort to this question, she thought better of it. “It could be,” she said, in a tone of voice that proclaimed her disbelief of such a notion.

  “Yes, it could. Now let us proceed to another statement you made. You said that when you and Edward Shue entered the house, you saw the body of Mrs. Shue positioned in a formal way, did you not?”

  “She was laid out, same as an undertaker would do it.”

  “And because she would not have fallen to her death and ended up in such a composed position, you believe that someone had rearranged the body?”

  She nodded. “They had to.”

  “But you said that you and Mr. Edward Shue arrived at the house at the same time, did you not? Did you see him arrange his wife’s body?”

  “He didn’t do it—not right then. She was already like that when we opened the front door.”

  “I see. And had anyone else set foot in the house that day?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t there. I just went over when . . .”

  “When what, Mrs. Jones? Please finish your statement.”

  “. . . when my son came and told me that Mrs. Shue was dead.”

  “And how did he know?”

  “He saw her.”

  “So your son Anderson Jones entered the house sometime before you and Mr. Shue arrived?”

  “Only because Mr. Shue asked him to.”

  “Yes, of course. But is it not possible that Anderson, upon finding the poor lady dead and in disarray . . . Is it possible that your son Anderson rearranged the body to a more seemly state, out of respect and pity for Mrs. Shue? There is no crime in that, after all, Mrs. Jones. It would be an act of charity, surely. Might your helpful lad have done that, as a final favor for his neighbor?”

  “No, sir.” A stone-faced Mrs. Jones had folded her arms, and although she replied to the question, she would not look at the attorney, fixing her gaze instead on a blank wall in the back of the courtroom. “No, sir.”

  Ignoring the hostile expression of the witness, Dr. Rucker spoke to her softly, in a tone of sympathy and sweet reason. “Perhaps he would be embarrassed or afraid to admit such a thing later, but surely in the shock of the moment, a charitable impulse might have moved him to set the remains of the deceased to rights?”

  She gave him a blistering glance and looked away again. “Don’t you try to trap me with big words, sir. My Anderson never touched the lady. He wouldn’t touch a dead body for a hatful of nickels. Anderson said she was like that when he went inside and caught sight of her. He saw her dead on the floor, and he lit right out of there, and no one can make him or me say different. My boy is simple, sir. Too simple to think up any lies.”

  Dr. Rucker paused for a moment, and then, more in sorrow than in anger, he said, “A man’s life is at stake here, you know. A poor grieving widower risks being hanged on mere circumstantial evidence, in part because you contend that no one but he could have rearranged the body. Are you so sure of what you are saying that you would swear a man’s life away on the strength of it?”

  If the defense attorney had expected Martha Jones to falter at the grave consequences of her testimony, he had mistaken his witness. She turned to look for the last time at Edward Erasmus Shue, seated next to James Gardner at the defense table. He met her eyes, and for once the jaunty, cocksure look in them faded, and he seemed to be silently pleading with her to relent and let there be a shadow of doubt about the events of that day. When the moment passed, Martha Jones turned back to the attorney. “No, sir. I am not mistaken.”
/>   Dr. George Knapp took the stand with the slightly exasperated air of a man who has better things to do. Since most of the officers of the court were members of his social circle, he was not fazed by appearing before them, and no testimony or interrogation that took place there would affect those friendships in any way. A day in court for him was little more than an annoying distraction from the more pressing business of tending to the sick of Greenbrier County. He wore a coat and tie, as he invariably did, but his attire was not his Sunday best, and he had taken no pains to impress the court with his appearance.

  He took the oath midstride, and heaved himself into the witness chair with a brief nod to Judge McWhorter, who wished him good morning.

  Preston was in charge of questioning the doctor, and although they had known each other since childhood, he went through the necessary formality of establishing the physician’s name and profession before he got down to the business of discussing the case of Zona Heaster Shue.

  “Was the deceased a patient of yours, Doctor?”

  “Briefly. She moved to Livesay’s Mill upon the occasion of her marriage last fall, and shortly thereafter she became a patient of mine.”

  “What was the nature of her illness?”

  Knapp shrugged. “Nothing much, as far as I could tell. She felt seedy, suffered from headaches, and from nerves. I thought it might sort itself out by the end of the winter, but I gave her a tonic anyhow.”

  “And you did not feel that her illness was life-threatening?”

  “Certainly not. She wasn’t much past twenty, and a sturdy farmer’s daughter to boot. She could have outlived us all. But, of course, you never can tell with human beings. A person can outlive a catastrophic illness that ought to have carried them off, only to be felled by a trifle that no one would have thought twice about. After all the years I’ve been practicing medicine, nothing surprises me anymore.”

  “Now on Saturday, the twenty-third of January, you were summoned to the home of Mr. and Mrs. E. S. Shue, were you not?”

  “That’s right. I was told that Mrs. Shue had been found dead, and I went to their home as requested.”

  “And what did you find, sir?”

  “Mrs. Shue was indeed deceased. Since both her husband and Aunt Martha Jones were present when I arrived, I assumed that one of them had laid out the body, because it looked ready for the undertaker.”

  “Would you be more precise in your description, please?”

  “Well, the poor woman was stretched out as if she were already in a coffin, one arm at her side, one on her breast. And she was clad in a dress with a high stiff collar. I noticed her head lay a little to one side. When I checked for signs of life, I noticed some discolorations on the right side of her throat and cheek. I unfastened that high collar and looked at the front of the neck. I was about to examine the back of Mrs. Shue’s neck when her husband became distraught, and requested that I leave. He contended that he could not bear to have his wife’s remains touched, and that if I was satisfied that she was deceased and would sign a certificate to that effect, then my services were no longer required.” He took a deep breath and glared at the defendant. “So I left.”

  “Did you think Mrs. Shue had died of natural causes?”

  “I hardly had time to think anything. The woman was dead, and her husband appeared to be beside himself with shock or grief or both. I thought she might have come over faint and fallen down the stairs. Obviously the body had been arranged since the time of her demise, so I was unable to tell much from its position when I observed it.”

  “But you had no suspicions of anything untoward?”

  “Not at the time, no. One doesn’t expect to find murder in such mundane circumstances. A respectable newlywed in her own home? Hardly. Most violent deaths around here are straightforward and in no wise mysterious. A drunken shootout or a stabbing in the course of a quarrel. We don’t have to go looking for crimes, as a rule; not only is it as plain as day, half the time we could have seen it coming.”

  “Not at the time,” Preston repeated. “But later, had you cause to reconsider?”

  Dr. Knapp frowned. “I was encouraged to reconsider. A few weeks after Mrs. Shue was buried at Meadow Bluff, there was a lot of talk in the county. The husband’s attitude struck folks as peculiar, for one thing. So we thought it best to proceed with a postmortem . . .” Here he looked up sharply at Preston, who had, after all, ordered the autopsy, but the doctor forbore to point this out. “. . . just to make sure one way or the other.”

  “And you conducted the autopsy?”

  Here Dr. Knapp became formal and precise. “I was in charge of the proceedings, with the assistance of my fellow physicians Dr. Rupert and Dr. McClung.”

  “Would that be Dr. William McClung?” Preston had noticed that the recorder had paused in his note taking and looked in question at the prosecutor.

  “No, sir. Dr. Houston McClung.”

  The recorder nodded and went back to his notes.

  “The postmortem examination took place on Monday, February twenty-second, in the Nickells schoolhouse, near the Soule Chapel burying ground in Meadow Bluff. In addition to the two other doctors and myself, we had a number of witnesses, including the accused, Mr. Edward Shue, who was compelled by law to be there.”

  “And can you summarize your findings for the jury, please, Doctor?”

  “I can. The remains of Mrs. E. S. Shue were in an adequate state of preservation, owing to the seasonably cold temperatures we had experienced in the four weeks since the body was interred, and we were able to make a thorough examination—undeterred by any interference from the defendant.” His voice took on an edge of sarcasm, and he scowled at the defendant, but without further comment on the antics of obfuscating wife-killers, he continued, “When we removed the high collar from the neck of the deceased, we found that the neck was dislocated between the first and second cervical vertebrae. The ligaments thereabout were torn and ruptured. The deceased’s windpipe had been crushed at a point in the front of the throat.”

  “From these wounds, what would you conclude to be the cause of death?”

  “Oh, manual strangulation, most certainly.”

  “Not an accidental fall down a flight of stairs?”

  “No.”

  “And aside from the neck wounds, what were your findings upon autopsy?”

  “All other portions and organs of the body were apparently in a perfectly healthy state.”

  “When you were conducting your examination, Dr. Knapp, did the defendant make any comments that you were able to hear?”

  “I heard him say, You’ll never be able to prove it.”

  As soon as Preston walked away from the witness box, most of those in the courtroom turned to look at Dr. Rucker at the defense table. It was well-known in the community that, before he turned to the practice of law, Dr. Rucker had been a physician. He stared for a moment at Knapp on the witness stand, scribbled a note to his assistant, and leaned back in his chair, seemingly unconcerned with the proceedings.

  James P. D. Gardner read the note twice and then approached the witness. Dr. Knapp looked back impatiently, took out his watch, frowned at it, and slowly replaced it in the pocket of his suit.

  “I won’t keep you long, Dr. Knapp, sir,” said the defense attorney. “Just one or two questions. On the day of the death of Mrs. E. S. Shue, did you sign a death certificate for her?”

  “I did.”

  “And what did you list as the cause of death, sir?”

  “I believe I said she died from an everlasting faint.”

  With a trace of a smile, Mr. Gardner paused for a few seconds longer than usual to allow time for the court to realize that an everlasting faint was a fairly accurate description of death in general.

  Dr. Knapp added, “Later I amended that to complications from childbirth.”

  Gardner made sure the jury saw his wide-eyed look of surprise. “Mrs. Shue was with child, Doctor?”

  George Knapp scowled.
“I thought she might have been. Women sometimes come over faint when they are expecting. It was an educated guess on my part, though in the event, it seems I was mistaken.”

  “But at the time you were satisfied that Mrs. Shue had died a natural death?”

  “Upon a cursory examination, yes.” He glared at the defendant. “And a cursory examination was all I was allowed to make.”

  “But why did you decide to perform an autopsy nearly a month after the death of Mrs. Shue?”

  Still scowling, Dr. Knapp said, “People got to talking. Said the defendant was behaving oddly, and what with one thing and another, we thought we ought to make sure of the findings.”

  “And so you found broken . . . cervical vertebrae, I believe you said . . . and bruising, a month after death?”

  “That is correct.”

  “But in that time, the body could have been handled by any number of persons. Undertakers, those who transported the body to Meadow Bluff, the men who exhumed the body for autopsy. Is it not possible that the injuries you noted during the autopsy occurred after your original examination?”

  “The injuries were consistent with manual strangulation. I believe that woman was murdered.”

  Mr. Gardner raised his eyebrows and asked mildly, “Just as you originally believed in natural causes, Doctor?”

  twenty-three

  THE TRIAL CONTINUED through that week and into the next one with a procession of witnesses contributing to the picture of Edward Shue’s guilt like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle falling into place one by one. First came the details of the finding of the body, and the medical opinions on the cause of death. Then witnesses from Pocahontas County informed the court of Edward Shue’s mistreatment of his first wife, Allie Cutlip—now Mrs. Todd McMillion of Greenbrier County—and his subsequent imprisonment for stealing horses. Most tellingly, they testified that Shue’s second wife, Lucy Ann Tritt, aged twenty-five and a citizen of Greenbrier County, had died in 1895, less than a year after her marriage to Edward Shue, supposedly by hitting her head upon a rock.

  Doggedly, the defense attorneys attempted to counter each bit of damaging testimony, casting doubt here, offering alternative explanations there, but the mosaic being assembled with all these bits of information showed a callous, violent man who was attractive to women, but by no means kind to his conquests.