Wishful Seeing

by Janet Kellough

  Massive logs marched in a line toward Tic Island, the jumping-off point for the long stretch of bridge that would cross open water, and another huge timber was being pulled out of the lake and slowly inched to a vertical position as he watched. As soon as it was in place, the steam pile driver pounded it in, bark flying with every blow. The noise made at each hammer stroke shattered the lakeshore’s serenity and drowned out any sound made by the wind or the water.

  Hundreds of these wooden stilts would be needed to form a framework for the trestles, and as substantial as the timbers were, Thaddeus failed to see how they would ever hold up something as heavy as a locomotive, or how they could ever resist the heave and pull of ice and current. Not to mention the inherent dangers of human failure, which had been amply demonstrated just a few months previously when forty-eight people had been killed in Connecticut.

  The newspapers had been full of the details of the accident. A train travelling at the reckless rate of fifty miles an hour had plunged into Norwalk Harbor from a swing bridge opened to allow the passage of a ship. The driver of the locomotive ignored the signal to stop and noticed the open stretch of water only a few hundred feet before he reached it. He activated the brakes and slammed the train into reverse, but it was not enough to stop the forward momentum of the train. The engine flew across the gap and slammed into the opposite abutment, then sank in twelve feet of water, the cars behind it falling down, one after the other, to crush the ones before them in turn, until, finally, one of them broke in two, leaving the front half hanging over the near abutment while the rear half remained on the track. The loss of life had been terrible, and many questions were being asked about the qualifications of the drivers, the adequacy of the signalling system, and the safety of rail travel in general.

  There was a comparable section of swing bridge included in the design for this project. A similar accident could happen just as easily here, but no one ever seemed to mention this. Thaddeus was fairly certain that no one would ever be able to coax him aboard the train that would cross this bridge, no matter how big the timbers were.

  Enough gawking, he finally said to himself. You’re no better than the idlers on the lake. He kicked his horse into a sedate trot, a gait that should get him to his meeting on time but that was still slow enough that he could drink in the lovely view along the shore. Rice Lake was dotted with islands — Tic Island across from Sully, where the rail line would run; a little farther from shore, Spook Island; to the west, Sugar, Sheep, and Black Islands; and in the distance, Cow Island and the bluff of land where long-forgotten tribes had buried their dead under mounds of earth. It was almost a shame, he thought, to spoil so pretty a scene with piles and trestles.

  He had not travelled far along the lakeside trail when he noticed a skiff heading toward the shore. It would reach land west of the village, he judged. He would have assumed that it was one of the spectators tired of watching, or a fisherman who had caught enough for one day, and not thought anything further about it, except for a flash of blue that caught his eye. Blue made him think of Ellen Howell. He attempted once again to shove any thought of her aside. Just because he saw someone dressed in blue didn’t mean that it had anything to do with the Howell woman. This was obviously someone else, someone who had a dock or a landing farther down the shore and who had merely been out for a ride on the lake on a spectacularly lovely September afternoon.

  Still, he took careful note when he passed the section of shore where he was sure the boat must have landed, but he could see nothing through the trees and bushes that clustered along the bank.

  VI

  Thaddeus was well over on the western border of his circuit, at a women’s meeting in Wesleyville, when he heard about the murder on Spook Island.

  “A murder? Really?” he asked the local lay preacher.

  “There’s no mistaking it for an accident,” the man said. “The dead man has a gash in his head and a bullet in his chest. No one seems to know who he is. They couldn’t find any papers on him.”

  The men at the evening meeting were buzzing with speculation about it, too, and Thaddeus had no small task to settle them down sufficiently to focus on interpreting the Bible verses he had chosen.

  By the time he returned to Cobourg, details of the murder had reached the newspapers. Martha had been expecting him home that evening, and had a stew simmering on the stove, the table set, and the week’s newspapers stacked beside his plate.

  “Sit down,” she said. “I’ll have your supper in two minutes.”

  In spite of the fact that he was curious to see what the papers had to say, he was also very hungry and pleased that Martha had a meal ready for him. He had to stop himself from bolting it down as soon as she set it in front of him. The best compliment for the cook, he knew, was to take the time to savour each mouthful, and after the first few bites, he found this no hardship. Whatever flavourings Martha had used imparted a rich, redolent tang to the dish. It was some recipe learned from her stepmother, he was sure.

  “What did you put in it?” he asked. “This is delicious.”

  She smiled. “Not telling. Cook’s secret.”

  “If you’d just fill me in, I could pass the information on to some of my congregation. They don’t stint on the servings, but they seldom add much of anything besides salt to their dishes.”

  “If you did, my reputation as a good cook would be destroyed. Anyone could do as well in the kitchen. My position as your housekeeper might be in peril.”

  “Oh, I doubt that,” he said, grabbing a piece of the crusty loaf Martha placed on the table. “I’d still need somebody to wash my socks.”

  “If you’re not careful, I’ll send your socks to Mrs. Small to be boiled along with the sheets,” she retorted. “See how long you last then.”

  “I retract my request. I’ll pester you no more about what delicious things you put in my dinner.”

  Soft, dry socks were one of the few comforts he had always insisted on. His outer clothing was frequently wet through from rain or sleet or snow; he could make one shirt do for a week or two, except in the summer when it became soaked in sweat; and his boots were generally caked with mud or covered in dust. These things he could put up with. But not socks that had been boiled with lye soap and dried to a rock-hard finish. His wife, Betsy, had always washed his in rainwater and vinegar and had taught Martha to do the same. She knew how fussy he was about it, and apparently had no compunction about using the threat of boiled socks as a way to score conversational points. He loved the fact that she could banter with him this way.

  He finished his stew with a satisfied sigh, then carried the papers through to the parlour, where he discovered that the most comfortable chair had been moved next to the butler’s desk, itself now positioned on the opposite wall from where it had previously stood. It made sense to have the chair next to the desk, he supposed. The lamp could be placed on its top, high enough to cast a circle of good light for reading.

  He sat down and opened the Cobourg Star, which had much the same information about the murder as he had gleaned from the excited chatter at the meeting. A body with a bullet in it had been discovered on Spook Island by a local fisherman. There was a delay in reporting the discovery, apparently, as the fisherman was concerned that he might be considered a suspect in the case.

  However, the fisherman’s father persuaded him to contact the local constable and report the death. The coroner called the usual inquest, but at the time the paper went to print there were no results from this. Nor had the deceased been identified, as he carried no papers in his pockets.

  “You’re reading about the murder?” Martha asked as she joined him in the parlour, book in hand. “There’s not much information in the paper, but then I suppose they have to wait until everything is confirmed, don’t they? Not like the gossips at the market.”

  “What are they saying at the market?”

  “That it
was all just silly. There was no trouble finding people to serve on the jury. Everyone was clamouring to be picked. The problem was getting them all over to the island.”

  Regulations stipulated that when an inquest was called, the jury must view the body in the circumstances in which it was found, so that they could take careful note of details like how it was lying, what it had in its possession, and any extraneous details that might prove to be important evidence. Although any sensible person might think that it would be wise to limit the number of people who had access to a murder scene, there were frequently a large number of spectators at these investigations, and jurors were instructed to watch them with great attention, “in case the murderer is in attendance and gives himself away by word or action.” In Thaddeus’s opinion, it was far more likely that enthusiastic gawkers would simply trample evidence into the ground.

  “Apparently, no one wanted to give up their boats,” Martha went on, “because they all wanted them themselves — so they could go and stare. The coroner had to offer twice over the going rate to rent them.”

  Thaddeus snorted. He could well imagine the scene, boat owners torn between seeing the spectacle for themselves and making an opportunistic penny.

  “Well, they got them all over there eventually, but on the way back some of the people had to share a boat with the corpse. They weren’t so cheerful then.”

  “What did they find on the island?” Thaddeus wanted to know. “Anything that might provide a clue?”

  Martha gave him an odd look. “You’re not thinking of getting involved in this, are you? You nearly died yourself the first two times you went off chasing a murderer.”

  That was true enough. Thaddeus had been close to drowning when he fell through the ice between Kingston and Wolfe Island while pursuing the Isaac Simms case, and had suffered a severe blow to the head and a broken arm in the course of chasing down the truth of the Elliott affair. His role in these cases was common knowledge, and Martha had grown up hearing the stories of his exploits. Thaddeus judged that now was not the time to fill her in on the other two crimes he had helped to solve, the details of which he had told no one.

  “Of course not,” he said. “I have no reason to be concerned with it at all. It’s just that everyone seems all atwitter about it and it’s hard not to be at least a little curious.”

  “Uh-huh.” Martha looked skeptical. She let the silence drag on for a few moments until finally she said, “Do you want to hear what else they’re saying in the town?”

  “Well, of course I do.”

  She smiled a little sideways cat smile. “Well, there was little question about the cause of death, other than speculation as to whether it was the blow to the head or the bullet in the chest that did him in. They’ve sent him for an autopsy anyway, and that seems to be the thing that people are grumbling about most.”

  The number of inquests and autopsies called by coroners had been a sore point for years. They were a great source of income for unscrupulous people who had been appointed to the post, and the costs incurred were borne by the district in which the death occurred. Local governments balked at paying for post-mortems in routine cases, and they were well within their rights to complain; still, Thaddeus figured that a body with a bullet in it was definitely something that needed to be investigated. But then again, he supposed that a gunshot wound was a pretty definitive finding, in which case the autopsy was a little superfluous.

  “I expect everyone has a theory about what happened,” he said. “In these cases they usually do.”

  “I’ve heard everything from robbery to self-inflicted wound,” Martha said.

  “What? He picked up a gun and shot himself and then just to make sure bashed his own head with a rock?”

  “I’m only telling you what I heard.”

  It was only later, as Thaddeus was preparing for bed, that he considered that a discussion of dead bodies and autopsies and gunshot wounds might not have been the most appropriate conversation to have had with his fifteen-year-old granddaughter. But then he reminded himself she was an intelligent girl with a lively interest in the world around her. It would be impossible to keep the news from her anyway. Besides, he had thoroughly enjoyed having someone to talk it over with.

  Over the next few days, more details of the crime became public knowledge. A number of people had appeared as witnesses at the inquest, and apparently they had no qualms about repeating their testimony to whoever would listen. As he worked his way through the circuit, Thaddeus couldn’t help but overhear tidbits of information. He tried to discourage this gossip, but he wasn’t surprised that the imagination of the community had seized upon so thrilling an occurrence.

  The island had been scoured for clues, he heard at a prayer meeting in Precious Corners. A piece of paper had blown inland and caught on a bush. This proved to be a banknote in the amount of five dollars. No one seemed to know if it truly had anything to do with the dead man, but the general consensus was that he must have been robbed and that the lone note had blown from a bundle of many with which the culprit had escaped.

  A man at the service in Baltimore reported that several footprints had been found in a patch of mud by the shore. According to the chief constable, these indicated that at least three people had been present on the island, probably at the same time.

  “It only stands to reason,” he said to the group of men that were hanging on his every word. “The prints were all in the same spot, and although the outline had degraded somewhat, they had all degraded to much the same extent.”

  As to the size of these footprints, no one could be certain, except that one of them appeared to be quite large and one of them quite small. At other meetings, Thaddeus heard that the murdered man remained unknown; that the chief constable knew who he was, but was keeping it secret; that the murder was a complete mystery; and that everyone knew who had done it. But at no time did he hear any speculation as to what the man had been doing on the island in the first place.

  The closer Thaddeus drew to Rice Lake, the surer the informants became, until in Gores Landing he overheard one of the men who had been on the jury and was holding forth prior to the meeting. The man claimed he had all the details and was more than willing to share them.

  “It was Donald Dafoe found the body,” he said. “He was out fishing near the island, and pulled in such a lovely pickerel that he decided on the spot to go ashore and cook it for his supper. It was then that he discovered the body. He didn’t touch it or anything. He skedaddled home and told his father about it.”

  “Why didn’t he send for the coroner?” another man asked.

  “That’s what the coroner wanted to know,” the juror said, “but we both know the answer. He was afraid that he would be blamed for the death. His father pointed out to him that if he didn’t report it, and it came out later that he had been on the island that day, he would probably end up being blamed anyway, so he might just as well go tell somebody.”

  His father’s advice had been wise, as it turned out. After only a short deliberation, the jury agreed that the unidentified body had been the victim of foul play at the hands of a person or persons unknown, and the coroner directed the chief constable to make further investigations, as to both the identity of the victim and the possible culprits.

  But it wasn’t until Thaddeus rode in to Sully that he heard the most astonishing news, and he heard it from the Gordons.

  “They’ve arrested Ellen Howell.”

  Thaddeus was so flabbergasted, he was sure that his hearing had temporarily ceased to work properly.

  “How could Ellen Howell have had anything to do with this?” he blurted out. But then he stopped before he said anything more. He didn’t really know anything about the woman, and he knew from experience that murderers don’t wear their intentions for the world to see.

  “It’s both of them,” Leland Gordon said, “the Major and his wif
e. They’ve taken Mrs. Howell to the gaol in Cobourg.”

  “And the Major?”

  “Well, there’s the problem,” Mrs. Gordon said. “No one knows where he is.”

  “I don’t understand,” Thaddeus said. “Why do they think the Howells did it?”

  “So far it’s all pretty circumstantial,” Leland said, “but solid enough to warrant the arrest. Apparently witnesses saw the Howells in the right place at more or less the right time.”

  “It’s sickening, it is, to see how ready people are to believe it,” Mrs. Gordon said. “And all because of the railroad land. They’d like to see the Major get his comeuppance. But in the meantime, there’s poor Mrs. Howell in a gaol cell in a strange town.”

  Thaddeus didn’t like the notion of so fine a lady as Ellen Howell sitting in such a rough place, either. Gaols were full of drunks, and worse.

  “Do you think I should visit her there, when next I’m home?”

  Mrs. Gordon beamed, and Thaddeus realized that they had been hoping he would offer to do something of the sort.

  “If I give you a bit of money, could you take her something extra to eat? Something that’s a luxury. Something they wouldn’t serve her in gaol.” Mrs. Gordon’s face turned a little red then. “Not that I know what kind of food they serve in gaol, but you know what I mean. I just can’t imagine how awful this must be for her.”

  “Of course,” Thaddeus said. Mrs. Gordon’s kind offer was the perfect excuse to go to the gaol. Not that he really needed an excuse, he told himself. He was a minister. No one would question his attendance. But then again, it might seem odd as Mrs. Howell was not a Methodist. And then he wondered why he was going to such great lengths to rationalize his actions. He would go to the gaol because Mrs. Gordon had asked him to deliver some food, that was all.