“Here, it’s here somewhere,” he mumbled.
The old man rummaged among the giant pile of documents, books, and what-not littering the large walnut desk in his study. Several minutes later, and after the search through dozens of loose papers, he saw the faded red book lying beneath a tottering pile. He pulled at it, sending the rest of the stack falling like so much unwanted garbage.
The good doctor, but a shadow of his once- robust self, flipped the pages. He stared at the offending journal entry before setting the book aside with a heartrending sob.
Chapter One
“I saw the form of Mr. Borden lying on the lounge at the left of the sitting-room door. His face was very badly cut, apparently with a sharp instrument; his face was covered with blood.”
—Testimony of Dr. Seabury W. Bowen,
Trial of Lizzie Borden, June 8, 1893
T
he man reached toward him with long, lean fingers. Dr. Seabury Bowen blinked and tried to make out the features of the unknown figure standing in the corner. The unexpected visitor had a broad, dark face and what looked like a band across his forehead. Bowen stretched out his arm in turn and jumped when their fingers touched, the jolt surging through him like the electricity he knew would soon replace all the gas lights.
“Seabury, dear, are you all right?” His wife, Phoebe, sounded concerned. “What’s wrong?”
Bowen breathed hard. He bolted upright and held a hand on his chest, trying to catch his breath. Still stunned, he gazed about the room, disturbed at the odd shapes until he recognized familiar things… the bureau, the armoire, the paintings on his bedroom walls. He swallowed and nodded.
“Ye-yes. I-I’m fine. A bad dream, that’s all it was. Just a dream.”
“A bad dream? Dear, you’re breathing so hard, your heart must be pounding like a drum in Mr. Sousa’s band! Are you sure you’re fine?”
The doctor took his wife’s hand and kissed it, relieved to feel his heartbeat return to normal. He had to admit his reaction worried him for a minute, too. “I’m fine now, Phoebe. Really, it’s all right. Go back to sleep. I’m too wrought up to rest. I think I’ll go downstairs and read awhile.”
He gave her a loving smile before he rose and slipped on his robe, his thoughts in a whirl. To tell the truth, these dreams, or hallucinations, or whatever they were, appeared to be getting stronger and more frequent. Not that he’d tell her, of course. It made Bowen wonder if he was losing touch with his faculties, something he’d never dare mention. Nor did he want to even entertain the thought, but he did. Am I going mad? Am I?
The doctor mulled over the idea as he tiptoed down the stairs. A cup of coffee sounded good. If he were truthful, he’d admit that these strange visions or hallucinations had begun that ghastly morning two years ago.
After his neighbor Miss Lizzie’s frantic call at his back door, he’d grabbed his worn leather medical bag and rushed with her to the adjacent Borden home, not sure what he would find. Despite the horrors he encountered, by instinct he’d switched to professional mode, making sure the Borden sisters weren’t harmed. Of course, nothing could, or would, help the horribly butchered Mr. Borden. Then they discovered Mrs. Borden’s body, and all hell broke loose.
He put the iron coffee pot on the burner and turned the flame on high. While the coffee warmed, he pondered how many lives had changed that day, his included. He’d tended to many terrible accidents and injuries over the course of his nearly thirty years serving the medical needs of the families of Fall River, but this had affected him the most.
Maybe it was the proximity of his own home, and the underlying fears he naturally had about the safety of his wife and daughter. No matter what, it was enough to make him decide to retire sooner than he’d planned. It made him try to forget those other strange incidents, too. Not that he could.
“How can I ever forget?” he wondered. “How?”
Indeed, the odd occurrence was etched on his mind as much as anything else that fateful morning. He recalled how he’d glanced up a moment after checking Mr. Borden’s body. In that instant, he’d caught what looked like a dark shadow lingering near the door of the sitting room. He’d stopped and almost cried out in alarm when the odd thumping sounds started. He remembered his panic, and the questions he’d had: Was the killer there? Was someone trying to break in?
A quick glance around told him no one else seemed to hear it. But he did. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. He listened, hand on his chest, and realized the thumping wasn’t his heart, though it was pounding hard. No, it was inside the house, and sounded like…a drum?
* * *
Bowen shook himself out of the memory, taking care as he poured the coffee with trembling hands before making his way to the study. Setting the cup down, he turned the jet on the gas lights and burrowed among the haphazard piles of journals and papers covering most every inch of the worn, walnut desk in search of a certain book. He spotted the faded red leather cover in the pile, picked it up, and flipped it open to the first page. It was dated the year 1892.
The pages contained his records of house calls and patient interactions, his observations and actions scribbled in a somewhat legible, far from neat handwriting. The entries varied in length, some a paragraph or more, others only a short line or two.
His thumb caressed the page marked August 4. He wasn’t surprised when he turned the page to find no more than a couple words entered, the rest of the day’s events far too terrible to mention. Not that he needed to write anything down. It was still etched in his memory.
Or maybe he’d realized it best to not repeat anything else in writing, especially in light of the arrest of Miss Lizzie, and the unfolding farce of putting someone of her gender and social standing on trial for such horrific murders.
He’d been called to testify at the trial, of course, though he had nothing much to say beyond his professional observations.
But deep down inside he wondered yet again at his mental state when he reviewed what he’d written. Two words, only two, covered the page: darkness, drumming. That aspect of the day still made no logical sense to him.
He closed the journal, regret filling him. What he didn’t know about that day—the why and how— haunted him still. But what he did know, and had felt certain of when he looked at the agitated face of the youngest Borden daughter, Lizzie, and the sour, disapproving face of her elder sister, Emma, was this—neither of them had been at fault.
He stared at the book and rubbed his finger over the textured leather cover. Again, not for the first or last time, his thoughts returned to the day of the murders. Nothing had changed his mind about his initial impressions. Nothing.
A noise at the door pulled him out of the memory. He gazed at his wife standing in the doorway, her forehead creased with worry.
“Dear, are you sure you’re all right? I’m concerned about you.”
Bowen put the journal down, knowing he should ease her worry, and walked to the door. “Dearest, I’m fine.” He took her hands. “Since we’re both awake, let’s go have something to eat. I’ll make you some toast, how’s that?”
She chuckled and shook her head. “Now Seabury, you sit. How about I make us some eggs to go with that toast?”
In the kitchen, he got out the ingredients, glad to be doing something. But try as he might, he couldn’t get away from the one thing that still bothered him. He fought to stay silent, but had to ask: “Phoebe dear, do you think I’m being haunted?”
He speculated that maybe he’d gone too far in asking when she stopped in mid-beating of the eggs and turned her wide blue eyes on him. “Haunted? Seabury, whatever do you mean?”
Now I’ve done it, he thought, and wished he’d kept his mouth shut. “You know about the dream I had this morning and that moment at the cemetery, at the Borden funeral, remember?”
She looked at him, confused at first. “Oh, now I remember. You looked like you’d seen something, but you said everything was good.” She paused. “It wasn’t, was it?”
He shook his head. “No. I mean beyond the terrible situation, of course.”
A sad affair it had been, made even sadder once the Borden sisters learned there would be no burial, and their parents’ bodies would be held for evidence. Necessary he knew. Unthinkable just the same. Then he’d glanced at the gravestones across the way—and for the first time in his married life, he’d told his wife a lie.
“I couldn’t tell you,” he admitted. “I-I didn’t want to worry you. It was already upsetting enough with what was happening at the funeral.”
He felt emboldened at the encouraging smile she offered. She’d never been anything but understanding and supportive.
“I think I saw the man from my dream.” His voice was soft. “I first saw a shadow in the Borden house the morning of the murders. Then at the funeral I noticed a tall, dark-skinned man standing behind a tree out beyond the gravestones. You could hardly see him, he blended so well with the color of the tree trunk.”
“Who was he?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense. I still can’t figure it out. You touched me on the arm and asked what was wrong, remember?”
She nodded.
His smile wavered as he continued. “And when I looked back, whoever the man was, he was gone. He simply disappeared, if he had even been there.”
His answer made Phoebe shake her head as she resumed her breakfast preparations. “I think we were all a bit upset that day. Whoever it was, he left. I wouldn’t make much of it, dear.”
Maybe she was right. Leave it to his always practical wife to see the sense of things. Whoever it was, the man had gone without any notice, the same way he arrived. But it still seemed rather strange.
The conversation faded as the two of them had breakfast in companionable silence, Bowen trying to bury the memory in the back of his thoughts. Something still bothered him about it, though. Just what he wasn’t sure.
—Continued in The Haunting of Dr. Bowen
* Learn more at the author’s website,
www.cverstraete.com
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Message from the Author
The Real Life Crime
Sources
About the Author
Excerpt from,
Lizzie Borden, Zombie Hunter
Excerpt from,
The Haunting of Dr. Bowen
The Axe Will Fall Page 14