Capacity for Murder (Professor Bradshaw Mysteries)

by Bernadette Pajer

  He didn’t know how long he lay there before he could open his eyes. He saw a man’s boot, caked with dust, a feathery weed tangled in the lace.

  “Moss?” Bradshaw’s voice emerged gravelly and weak.

  He heard no reply. He thumped the boot with his fist and was rewarded with a grunt.

  “What the hell.” Moss’ voice was weak, too. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

  “Where is she?”

  “She didn’t do it, Professor. You lied to me. She didn’t do none of it. It was that Loomis who killed at Healing Sands, and she don’t know about the bodies in the cellar, she ain’t lived here in years, someone else put them there.”

  “Where is she?”

  “She’s gone, ain’t she? Gone! She don’t want nothing more to do with me after I told her the horrible things you said.”

  Bradshaw crawled to the wall and slowly eased himself into a sitting position.

  He guessed it to be about an hour from sunset, judging from the angle of filtered golden sunlight through the windows.

  He looked at Moss. Around the man’s head was a cloud of green. His mouth oozed phosphorus vapors.

  Oh, no. “What did you eat?”

  Chapter Forty

  Trying to catch a donkey was more difficult than Bradshaw imagined. It didn’t help that only his right hand had full strength because something in his left arm, or maybe his shoulder, was broken.

  The trick, he learned, was to give up, to lean against a splintered fence post gasping and wincing, and then the donkey will take pity on you, after laughing at you with a mocking heehaw bray, and step up to see if you really are holding an ear of corn. Mrs. Thompson must not have tried it, or she wouldn’t have left this beast behind.

  With the donkey happily munching the corn he’d found growing in the wild garden, Bradshaw took hold of the dangling reins and lead the beast to Moss, who lay sprawled on the ground where he’d crawled to get away from his puddle of vomit. It wasn’t food but whiskey that had contained the poison. Moss’ new bride had insisted he drink it, and he had, even though it tasted foul, even though it burned his throat worse than moonshine. He drank to show her he trusted her. Bradshaw had administered the only remedy he knew, turpentine.

  After finding no turpentine in the house, Bradshaw recalled that sometimes farmers used it to keep their fowl free of worms. He’d staggered to the dilapidated shed and found a rusted gallon can of Brown’s Worm Killer. The smell told him it was turpentine, and its age gave him hope it had absorbed enough oxygen to become resinified and effective, as Dr. Hornsby said, as an antidote. He’d gotten Moss to drink a couple doses of the oil floating in water he’d heated quickly over a crude fire on the kitchen stove, in fifteen minute intervals, before he vomited. Had it been in him long enough to bond with the phosphorus? Surely vomiting at this stage was good. Better the poison out, than in.

  “Up, Moss.” Using his good arm, Bradshaw hauled Moss up to his feet and draped him over the saddle. It took a few minutes of wrangling to get Moss securely seated, bent over, hugging the donkey’s neck and moaning.

  Bradshaw studied Moss’ crumpled map and took another few minutes to walk the perimeter of the yard with his compass. When he entered the forest, it wasn’t where Moss had staggered out of the garden, but where he found a worn deer trail. Fresh droppings revealed the other donkey had passed this way, too. Carrying Ingrid Thompson? Possibly, but he wasn’t following her.

  It would have been hours by bicycle and donkey to the doctor’s house by the way he and Henry had come. He doubted Moss could last that long. Moss told him it was about a half-hour hike through the woods to the railroad line, and the poles were set and strung with telegraph wire. He didn’t know if the donkey could make it all the way through the difficult terrain carrying Moss’ nearly dead weight, but it was his best hope.

  Moss needed medical care, now.

  He’d sacrificed five minutes to finding rope, two leather belts, a hammer and nails, which he stuffed in his tool bag and secured to the donkey, along with a lantern. And now they were ready. The forest rose before them like live ramparts of a giant castle. The deer trail allowed them to slip between the battlements of bark.

  Bradshaw moved slowly at first into the darkness, letting his eyes adjust. The beauty engrossed him. Even in pain, concerned for Moss, and dismayed at Ingrid Thompson’s escape, Bradshaw felt the power of the virgin forest. For a thousand years these trees had stood peacefully as human civilizations rose and fell, untouched by greed or insanity. Content merely to be. At this moment it seemed the perfect existence. He knew it was an illusion. Battles waged continually in the forest. Creatures ate creatures, older trees blocked life-giving sun from saplings. But as Missouri often said, nature understood cycles. One form died, giving up its nutrients so another might live. And when hunger was satiated, when the young were safe, the most vicious creatures left the weaker alone.

  Bradshaw sighed as he trudged ahead, knowing he shouldn’t let his thoughts turn philosophical or melancholy. But he was in Missouri’s favorite cathedral, and he felt a powerful presence. Evergreen needles carpeted the trail, and ferns formed leafy walls as high as his head. Rising behind the ferns, two hundred-foot cedar trees and Douglas firs towered, their canopies stealing most of the meager light. Bradshaw held the compass very close to see the direction of the needle.

  With each intake of breath, clean, cool, oxygen-rich air spiced heavily with cedar bolstered his strength. The trail dipped, then rose, following the contours of the land, skirting long-ago fallen trees with new giants growing up out of their decaying remains.

  He checked his pocket watch to keep track of the time, knowing if he traveled much longer than a half hour, he risked missing the new rail line. He was fairly sure he was having an easier time hiking the forest than Moss had. Moss hadn’t looked for a trail, he’d simply followed the map exactly, turning away from the railway bed and plowing through underbrush and over fallen logs, determined to veer not a foot from the direction of his compass. How had Moss survived Alaska? How had he not perished over that cliff, or tumbled into a river, or frozen in his tent? Against all odds, Moss had survived and struck gold. The only time in his life the man had luck, and it had brought him to this. Moss wasn’t smart, but he was kind-hearted and devoted, and he deserved a woman who’d appreciate him. If he lived.

  A tinkling sound startled Bradshaw. He halted the donkey and stood listening beneath a big leaf maple, a hand on Moss’ back to gently hush his moaning. He heard the crash of breaking glass and turned his head toward the sound, but the forest was too dense and the light too dim to see anything.

  He remained still for a full minute, listening to the forest. A squirrel scampered overhead, sending a maple leaf larger than Bradshaw’s hand floating to the path. A flicker somewhere distant drilled on a hollow log, and the rat-a-tat echoed intermittently. The longer he listened, the more he heard. Birds singing, leaves rustling. The enormous tree trunks creaking. The day creatures were saying good-night, and the night creatures were beginning to stir. Loudest of all was the sound of his own breathing, shallow and quick.

  Another tinkling crash was followed by the braying of a donkey, which set Bradshaw’s beast heehawing. He tried to shush the donkey, but it only brayed louder, so he tugged on the harness and got it moving again. The donkey quieted, but Bradshaw feared Mrs. Thompson was now intently listening for footsteps.

  She was breaking open the jars to get the gold. An assumption he trusted. In soft, heavy pockets, the gold would be easier to stuff into saddlebags. What had she thought when she heard his donkey? Did she think it had simply wandered into the woods on its own? Would she wonder if the men she’d left for dead had found the strength to flee, to follow? He tried to step quietly, tried to match the gait of the donkey, aware each time he snapped a twig or brushed the thick ferns where they reached into the trail. He gently halted the donkey again and listened. The absence of breaking glass worried him.

  He was in no shap
e to fight if she came after them. If he stayed still, she might return to her work and move on. But Moss couldn’t spare the time.

  Bradshaw tugged on the reins, looked down the dim path, and a small gasp escaped him.

  Ingrid Thompson stood on the path a few yards away, a dark but distinct figure. Her arrival had been silent and stealthy, but now she raced toward him, arm raised, a hatchet in her hand, issuing an animal growl.

  Bradshaw reacted instinctively. In one movement, he dropped the reins, bent at the waist, and charged at Ingrid Thompson leading with his good shoulder.

  He crashed into her with such force she dropped the hatchet and fell backwards onto the leafy trail. He landed on top of her, pinning her with his body, aware of searing pain in his head and shoulder beneath the pounding of his blood.

  She spat in his face, and he jerked his head aside but resisted the urge to pull completely away. He sat hard on her abdomen, expelling the remaining wind from her lungs, and he leaned forward, pinning her arms down. She smelled sharp of sweat and sweet like roses. His left arm hadn’t much strength, and he knew she must feel the difference, yet she didn’t immediately take advantage. It was then he noticed that her right hand was bandaged, the white handkerchief wrapped around her palm reflected the meager light, a red spreading stain in the center. She was bleeding.

  She struggled beneath him, staring up at him with dark eyes that held no hatred or fury or fear, only an intense animal determination. She lifted her bandaged hand, easily overcoming his weak arm, then swung at his head. He lifted his good arm to meet it.

  He would never forget what happened next.

  He swung with all his might at her wounded hand, repulsed at the instinct to attack where it would cause the most pain. The collision of their hands echoed through the forest and sent them both reeling, but it wasn’t the pain that astonished him.

  It was the fire.

  Upon contact, her hand burst into flames. Blinding white flames tinged yellow, with a heat so intense, it knocked him over.

  He fell back, rolling away from her, as she screamed and writhed. White smoke billowed from her hand. Scrambling to his feet, he ripped away an armful of giant ferns fronds, and threw them and himself on Ingrid’s burning hand to douse the flames. She kicked at him, and struck him with her free hand, as if not understanding he was trying to help. She yanked her arm out from under him, tearing the scorched cloth away, then held up her hand, staring at it in shock. Even in the meager light, Bradshaw could see it was blackened and raw. The smell of burnt cloth, and burnt flesh, blended with a pungent, garlic-like odor.

  She began to scream again, a piercing cry, broken only by gasps for breath. Her screams became hysterical, possessed, and the donkey joined in, adding its brays to the cacophony. Bradshaw pulled the twine from his pocket, and she seemed not to notice him knot it tightly around her ankles, and she didn’t resist as he tied her undamaged hand to a thick exposed tree root. She held her charred, bleeding hand before her face and screamed.

  It took a great deal of coaxing, and eventually swatting, to motivate the donkey to move past the screaming woman, but at last the braying beast hurried forward, and quieted. Bradshaw moved as quickly as he could, Ingrid’s screams following him, fading, then silencing. His watch told him ten minutes had passed when a soft glow ahead, a touch of golden red at the end of the fern and evergreen tunnel, revealed he was nearing the cut swath of the new railway line. When he spotted the black silhouette of the telegraph pole against the dimming sky, he almost wept.

  He soon stepped into a wide corridor of destruction bisected by an elevated path of perfect geometric proportion. The gleaming new rails glided in both directions along the creosoted ties, with short telegraph poles aligned at regular intervals. Not a soul was in sight.

  As gently as possible he lowered Moss, who was not fully conscious, to a patch of fresh sawdust and tied the donkey to a stump. With his tool bag, he climbed the right-of-way embankment. Although prepared, he was still dismayed to find that the telegraph poles were of a height that put the lines out of reach from the ground. He would have to climb. The faint light of sunset was quickly fading, and with the cloud cover, darkness would be profound. He put his ear to the rail but heard and felt no vibrations. This line didn’t yet carry regular service, but it was used by the construction crews who lived and worked in these woods. The telegraph line would be set up for local communication only, and he hoped somebody was now listening.

  After taking a moment to light the lantern, he sat and removed his boots, unlacing them fully and opening them wide. His left arm had regained a bit of strength, but it was still awkward hammering the nails through the solid heels. He put on the improvised cleats, lacing them tightly, filled his pockets with the tools he’d need, and secured the lantern to his waist using his suspenders. He then buckled together the two belts he’d brought, making a pole strap.

  With a deep breath, he began to climb.

  One foot at time, he jammed his nailed boot into the pole, pushed upward, then slid the connected belts up to help hold his weight. After every step and every adjustment of the improvised strap, he was forced to stop to recover from the shooting pain across his shoulder and down his arm. It wasn’t a good sign, he knew, that he began to feel cold and clammy, and he feared the darkness pressing around him was not from the vanishing of the sun.

  By the time he reached the wires he was in a cold sweat from both exertion and a violent nausea, breathing heavily through his mouth. He rested again before reaching into his pocket for his cutters. An intermittent static buzzed in the line. He tapped it with the back of his hand to test the voltage and found it bearable. After disconnecting the ground lightning wire from the pole in readiness, he secured the telegraph wire so it wouldn’t fall away, he cut it through. Grasping the cut ends, he tapped them together. Dot-dot-dot-dash-dash-dash-dot-dot-dot. S.O.S. He paused, then sent the signal again.

  It was all he could manage.

  Sagging against the pole, trusting the nails in his boots and the leather of the belts to hold him, he took hold of the ground wire and touched the back of his hand to one of the cut wires. He felt nothing. With his last ounce of strength, he licked the back of his hand and tried again, pressing it against the cut wire. This time he felt a slight tingle.

  Dot-dot-dot-dash-dot. Understood.

  Chapter Forty-one

  Help arrived within minutes. The message had been received and acknowledged a mile up the line at the construction camp. Two handcars pumped vigorously by able-bodied men came speeding down the line, an oil-burning searchlight focused on the telegraph line. Bradshaw was still on the pole when they braked. He hadn’t the strength to climb down on his own.

  For men who spent their days felling giant trees and moving small mountains, helping a professor from a pole was easy. With scrap lumber, and Bradshaw’s hammer and extra nails, they pounded steps into the pole and climbed up to fetch him. Bradshaw was able to stagger to a stump to rest while Moss was carried to one of the handcars, unmoving and unconscious, but still breathing.

  A young man, who looked like Bradshaw’s son all grown up, fair-haired, gentle-faced, hunkered down before him and introduced himself as Hans.

  “Thank you for coming so quickly, Hans.” Bradshaw explained who he was, and that Moss had been poisoned with phosphorus and needed immediate care. Hans quickly passed on the information to the others and gave orders for the handcar to set off for Hoquiam.

  “And you, Professor?” Hans returned to hunker before him.

  “Not yet. There’s a woman in the forest who’s been injured. A mad woman. A murderess. She’s tied but she’ll give you a fight.”

  “If we leave her until morning, that should take the fight out of her.”

  “No, son,” he said, for he suddenly felt ancient and Hans looked so young. “She is a monster. We are not. I’ll show you where she is.”

  “Do you want to ride?” Hans gestured toward the donkey.

  “No, thank y
ou, but bring it along. It might easier to carry the woman than get her to walk.”

  Hans called to the remaining men and held the oil lamp to light their way. Bradshaw led them through the dark forest, using his watch and compass to be sure they stayed to the trail and didn’t go too far.

  Ingrid Thompson was where he’d left her, propped against the tangled thick roots. Silent. Unmoving.

  Hans lifted the lantern to her face. Her eyes were open, staring vacantly, her mouth agape as if frozen mid-scream.

  “She’s dead, Professor.”

  Bradshaw had no words. He hadn’t expected to find her dead, but it came as no shock. No relief. He felt…empty. Hell was made for the likes of her. And yet…if no soul had existed within this shell of a human, what was there to punish in the hereafter?

  “We will take her into Hoquiam. We can’t leave her for the coyotes.”

  “Yes, sir,” Hans said, but he didn’t move, nor did the others. In the meager lantern light, Bradshaw felt more than saw the young men’s horror. They’d likely seen their share of hardship and accidents in these woods, but the silent scream upon Ingrid’s face and the blackened claw of her hand, propped up by a gnarled root, was something out of a nightmare.

  “Her name was Mrs. Ingrid Thompson. Her husband was the gold thief from the Federal Assay Office in Seattle.” He spoke in a matter-of-fact manner, pushing through his exhaustion to give them knowledge and guidance to lessen their fear. They would never forget the sight of her, but perhaps if they understood they wouldn’t be haunted.

  “No foolin’?” asked one of the men from the darkness. Footsteps crunched closer.

  “She poisoned Zeb Moss, the man your friends are now taking into town.”