The Unquiet Grave

by Sharyn McCrumb

  “I have just been reading about your latest achievements in the Independent, Mr. Preston. Quite an unusual case, I should say.”

  “Achievements?” Several of the ladies at the table—apparently not local newspaper readers—looked puzzled.

  “Mr. Preston is Greenbrier County’s prosecuting attorney, and he has just emerged victorious from a sensational murder trial.”

  Preston took a sip of sherry as he marshaled his thoughts. He had a brief respite while the soup plates were whisked away, and the fish course—West Virginia brook trout à la meunière—was set before them, but the polite murmurs of interest all around the table indicated that the conversation had only begun.

  “A murderer?” echoed a fashionable young woman, regarding him with interest. He thought he detected a trace of an English accent, but she might still be American. Many of the upper class these days divided their time between America and Britain, and the British accent was fashionable. “Do tell us about it, Mr. Preston.”

  He smiled. After all, he supposed, it was better than having to refight the war with maudlin old veterans over the brandy. “Well, it wasn’t much of a case. All quite straightforward. The fellow was a blacksmith, newly settled in the county. In January his bride of two months was found dead in the front hall of their house, and an autopsy eventually showed that the poor woman had been strangled.”

  “And the husband confessed?” asked another guest.

  After some hesitation, Preston gave his dinner companions a more detailed account of the incident. When he finished his account of the case, eschewing the most unsavory details, an interval of silence fell on the dinner party as the guests contemplated this grim story. But before anyone could introduce a more pleasant topic, the man with the newspaper spoke up again. “Mr. Preston is being too modest, I think. Too reticent, anyhow. There was indeed a sensational element to the case, was there not? Testimony from the murdered woman herself?”

  Amid the murmurs and exclamations around the table, Preston took another sip of wine. He had been afraid of this.

  Across the table, Lillie spoke up. “Oh, do tell them about it, John. Don’t worry about shocking us. In Lewisburg, the ladies have been talking of nothing else for days.”

  Preston managed a tight smile. “Well, make of it what you will. The mother of the murdered woman came to me several weeks after the funeral, claiming that her dead daughter had appeared to her during the night—not in a dream, but in the flesh. The mother—a Mrs. Heaster—insisted that the apparition, Mrs. Zona Shue, told her that the husband had murdered her. The mother had no proof, of course, but some rumors of suspicion had already come to my attention. Apparently, some of the neighbors at Livesay’s Mill felt that the husband was not sufficiently bereaved. They also remembered his odd behavior in not allowing anyone to come near the body of his wife. I thought we might as well make sure, so I consulted the attending physician, and we arranged for an autopsy. Fortunately, the winter weather had preserved the remains sufficiently for a determination to be made as to the cause of death.”

  “And she had been murdered?”

  “Oh, yes. I’m afraid this isn’t a seemly topic for the dinner table, but if you are all sure . . . ?” He looked at each of his dinner companions, but they were all nodding, some solemnly and some with avid interest. The woman with the English accent had a secretive smile.

  “Yes? Well, then: the poor woman’s neck was broken, and fingerprints were still visible on her throat.”

  A stout older woman, her forkful of pigeon pie poised midway to her mouth, was still thinking about the extraordinary circumstances of Mr. Preston’s case. “So the ghost came back to seek justice. Such feelings can prevent people from moving on to the next plane, you know.”

  “The next plane?” said Preston, in what he hoped was a neutral voice.

  The woman fixed him with an icy stare. “A great many prominent people are believers in spiritualism, Mr. Preston. In England Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is a leader in the movement. And I have heard that in New York, Commodore Vanderbilt once consulted mediums, did he not? How else can you explain the dead woman’s mother knowing the circumstances of her murder?”

  Preston sighed, hoping the dinner conversation would not devolve into a discussion of spiritualism. “I like to think that a grieving mother’s intuition led her to imagine the supernatural visitation, confirming what she already suspected to be true.”

  One of the gentleman guests chuckled. “Do you think the mother made up the story out of whole cloth?”

  “I couldn’t say, sir. I did not bring the matter up in court. I felt that the circumstantial evidence against the man was sufficient to secure a conviction. He had a prison record, and another young wife of his had died approximately one year before, which seemed entirely too coincidental for my liking. And I feel we did convict him on that evidence, but the defense attorney, attempting to make mischief, brought the ghost matter up in cross-examination. He tried to make sport of the grieving mother, inviting her to concede that her preoccupation with her daughter’s death had given her nightmares, which she mistook for actual events. I will say this for her, though: she never flinched from his questioning, and she never gave an inch. I don’t know if the jury believed her supernatural tale or not, but they were impressed by her courage and her steadfastness.”

  The man with the newspaper steepled his fingers together and smiled. “A ghost in Greenbrier testifying at the trial of her killer. I never heard the like!”

  “Oh, but I have!” The young Englishwoman’s smile was wider now, and she inclined her head, tilting her wineglass toward him in a mock toast. “Most of Britain knows that story, I should think, or one like enough to it to be its twin.”

  Her companion stared at her for a moment. “Jennie, are you talking about that play? What was it called?”

  “The Murder in the Red Barn.” She gave her table partner a satisfied smile. “I thought someone else here would know it. It’s a dreadful old melodrama, but it’s been staged more or less continuously in Britain for half a century, at least. It’s based on a true story, of course. Have none of you ever heard of Maria Marten? No?”

  “I should be glad to hear of it,” said Preston quietly.

  Jennie’s eyes sparkled in the candlelight. “Maria Marten was a mole catcher’s daughter in Suffolk in the 1820s—and no better than she should be, I might add, though I believe the play does not elaborate on that point. She had two children by two different men by the time she was in her twenties. Well, those men wanted nothing more to do with her, but the brother of one of them, William Corder, took up with Maria Marten. He was already known to be a wrong’un, dallying with various women in the community and engaging in sharp practice with business dealings. I believe he stole a pig once, and he had forged a check as well.”

  “A wrong’un. That certainly sounds like your fellow, Preston,” said the man with the newspaper.

  “So it does. Our Mr. Shue was convicted of stealing horses, though. Do go on, ma’am. What happened next?”

  The lady sighed. “Oh, the usual old-as-the-hills story, I’m afraid. Maria Marten fell for the ne’er-do-well William Corder, and she believed him when he told her they were going to elope. At the appointed time, she met him in the red barn, and then she vanished. Corder left the area, and even went so far as to send the Martens letters claiming that Maria was with him and in good health, but then . . .” Here she paused and looked around the table for effect. “Then Maria Marten’s stepmother had a dream. In the dream, Maria said that William Corder had shot her and buried her body in a storage bin for grain in the red barn. After that, the family and their neighbors searched the barn, and sure enough, Maria’s body was found in a sack, just where she said it would be.”

  The man with the newspaper was aghast. “You astound me, young lady. Why, it’s nearly the same story that’s reported about the trial of Edward Shue here in the Independent.”

  Another gentleman nodded. “Mighty like, inde
ed. Mr. Preston, do you suppose your witness could have heard this story?”

  “I don’t see how.”

  The Englishwoman shrugged. “It was made into a play, remember. Dreadful rot—pure melodrama—but my stars, it was popular! There’s hardly anybody in England who hasn’t at least heard of it, if they haven’t seen it on stage. I expect you could find a dozen people in this hotel who are familiar with the story.”

  John Alfred Preston smiled. “In this hotel perhaps we could, but Mrs. Heaster is a farmer’s wife, living all the way over in the mountainous part of the county, near Little Sewell. She has lived there the whole of her life. I cannot imagine her ever frequenting this hotel, and she lives much too far away to have ever worked here or to know anyone who has.”

  Lillie Preston spoke up. “But, John, Mary Jane Heaster was a Miss Robinson before her marriage. I was talking to her only a few weeks ago, outside your office, before the trial, and she happened to mention that her father, John Robinson, was from England.”

  “Was he?” murmured Preston. “I’m afraid I’ve never heard of the play, but perhaps he had. I wonder if he ever told that story to his daughter?”

  “Well, never mind about that,” said one of the older ladies. “What happened to William Corder—and to his Greenbrier counterpart, for that matter?”

  Preston was running his finger along the rim of his wineglass, lost in thought, but the lady beside him touched his arm and repeated the question.

  “Edward Shue? Oh, the jury found him guilty, of course. But they recommended life in prison instead of the death penalty. He will stay in the penitentiary at Moundsville for the rest of his days, where he can do no more harm to trusting but foolish young ladies.”

  “Mr. William Corder wasn’t so fortunate,” said Jennie. “They took him back to Suffolk for trial and promptly hanged him.”

  “And that was the end of that,” said the man with the newspaper.

  Jennie and the other woman who had remembered the story looked at each other and shrugged. “No, I’m afraid it wasn’t. On the gallows, he did confess to the crime, but after the execution, they cut him down, took his corpse back to the courtroom, and made an incision in the body—I don’t know why—and they allowed thousands of people to file past and view his remains.”

  “I expect they were medical students dissecting him,” said Preston. “I believe that was customary.”

  “It was, but the formal autopsy was done on the following day with students from Cambridge in attendance. One of my brothers is a surgeon, which is how I came to know the part about the execution and the aftermath.” She looked down at her unfinished dinner and sighed. “The story gets quite grisly after that.”

  “I for one should like to hear it,” said the man with the newspaper. “But if the ladies would prefer to be excused?”

  Apparently, the irony that it was one of the ladies who was telling the story was lost on him. In any case, no one left the table. Mr. Preston reflected that in his day well-bred young ladies were not so outspoken, and he suspected that if Jennie were not very rich indeed, she would do well to learn to be more circumspect before her beauty began to fade.

  “I suppose after they’d finished cutting him up, they didn’t think it worth the bother to reassemble all the bits again. In any case, they didn’t. William Corder’s skeleton went on display at the Royal College of Surgeons at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and they made several death masks, some of which are exhibited in various places. To me the most unsettling thing is that one of the surgeons tanned a bit of William Corder’s skin, and he used the . . . the human leather . . . to bind a written account of the murder.” She shivered. “I told you it was grisly.”

  “So it was,” said Lillie Preston, with a glance at her husband. “But it makes me glad that our legal system here is more merciful. I could never really pity Edward Shue, for we know he deserves his fate, but at least I know how fortunate he is, and how much worse it could have been.”

  John Alfred Preston, who knew a great deal about Moundsville and resolved that his wife never would, stared into the candle flame and said nothing.

  twenty-four

  LAKIN, WEST VIRGINIA

  1931

  “SO YOU LOST the case, did you?”

  The days were warmer now, and Dr. Boozer had left off wearing his suit jacket under his white coat. He had persuaded Mr. Gardner, who still felt the chill in his old bones, to take a walk with him around the grounds. The two men inspected the flower beds, where petunias and thrift bloomed purple and white. They began to walk to the higher ground away from the road, hoping for a glimpse of tall barges along the river, if not the river itself. An occasional gust of wind scattered last fall’s dead leaves in their path, and they crunched them underfoot, scarcely noticing.

  Savoring the afternoon sunshine, James Gardner considered the question. “Lose the case? I’ll grant you that the jury convicted Edward Shue of murder, but I think we got them to see that the evidence was purely circumstantial, and that may have made a difference.”

  “Do you think the mother’s testimony about her daughter’s ghost made the difference?”

  “Oh, I think there were enough nails in his coffin without her testimony. The abused first wife, the second wife dying in peculiar circumstances, his prison record—it all added up. I don’t think Clarence Darrow himself could have got the man acquitted, but we did spare him the death penalty. At least the legal one.”

  “The legal one?”

  Mr. Gardner smiled. “Edward Shue was sentenced to life in prison, but Moundsville is up that river over there, and a mighty long way from Greenbrier County. I don’t suppose he ever got to see the river, either. Anyhow, they had to get him from Lewisburg to Moundsville. Fortunately, the lawyer’s responsibility stops at the end of the trial, so I wasn’t a witness to what came next, but everybody knew the particulars.

  “As soon as the jury came back with that guilty verdict, Dr. Rucker stood up and requested a new trial, but he withdrew that motion the next morning.”

  “Why? If I had been convicted, I’d want a second chance with a different jury, if I could get one.”

  Mr. Gardner stopped looking up at the sky and regarded the doctor with raised eyebrows. “Would you?”

  “Well, I’d assume that I had nothing to lose.”

  “You would be mistaken then. Dr. Rucker had asked for a new trial without consulting the client, without even a second thought, apparently. I think it was just a natural impulse on his part. The man hated to lose. But later that afternoon, once the excitement of the courtroom had faded away, we had to consult with Edward Shue and to consider the matter with cold logic. Then we had three factors to take into account. One: Life in prison was not the worst verdict he could have received. If he were granted a new trial, a second jury might well give him the death penalty instead. Two: The man had no money, and we weren’t anxious to keep representing him pro bono when there was so little chance of accomplishing anything. Three: Awaiting a new trial would mean that Shue would remain in the county jail in Lewisburg, where his safety would be threatened by a populace who hated him and resented his escape from the gallows.”

  Boozer stuffed his hands into the pockets of his white coat and began to walk again. “Moundsville is a hellish place, isn’t it? I would have been in no hurry to get there.”

  “Well, he had been incarcerated there before, remember. Better the devil you know . . .” Mr. Gardner stood on tiptoe, peering out over the field and the treetops, searching for the glint of sunlight on water, but all he saw were the bare rock cliffs on the Ohio side of the river. “Anyhow, we persuaded Edward Shue not to risk his life on the uncertainty of a new trial, and Dr. Rucker withdrew the motion the following morning. Shue thanked us for our help, and we parted from him on cordial terms.

  “They kept him in the Lewisburg jail for another ten days, getting ready to transfer him by train to Moundsville, but because the jury had not sentenced him to death, the local feelings against
him were still strong—especially in the Meadow Bluff area, the home of the Heasters. People felt that Shue had deserved to be hanged, and there were rumors going around that if the state couldn’t dispense justice in a satisfactory manner, then the local citizens would have to see to it themselves.

  “On the Sunday after the trial ended, a group of vigilantes in Meadow Bluff decided that they were going to meet at a campground about eight miles west of town about ten o’clock that evening. From there they planned to converge on the county jail, seize Edward Shue, take him out, and lynch him.”

  “I wonder why they didn’t trust the jury. They were the ones who heard the evidence.”

  “Oh, what does evidence have to do with vigilante justice? Some men get mean when they’re liquored up, and they’re mighty glad to find some deserving soul to take it out on. Edward Shue was the perfect target—a stranger and a wife-killer. The evidence against him was all circumstantial, but that didn’t matter to them.”

  Boozer was silent for a moment. “Circumstantial doesn’t necessarily mean false. My belief that the sun will come up in the morning is purely circumstantial, but I believe it all the same. Don’t you believe that Shue was guilty?”

  “I expect he was, but he wasn’t getting off scot-free, you know. I wouldn’t wish Moundsville on anybody. I think I’d rather be dead than shut in that hellhole, knowing I’d spend the rest of my life in a cage.” He glanced back at the brick building looming behind them at the top of the rise. “On the other hand, maybe it’s quieter in Moundsville.”

  “Let’s come back to that in a little while, Mr. Gardner, because it is a talk we ought to have, but go ahead with your story about the lynch mob. So they were going to storm the jail and take care of Shue themselves?”

  “That was the plan, but another problem with liquored-up lynch mobs is that they talk too much. The sheriff at that time was S. Hill Nickell, and he lived out in Meadow Bluff. One of his neighbors, a fellow named Harrah, got wind of the mob’s intentions, and he rode over to the sheriff’s house and told him what they were planning.