The Salem Witch Society

by K. N. Shields

  “For someone who doesn’t practice it, you know a lot about black magic,” Lean said.

  “The way to beat an enemy is to define him clearly, analyze and comprehend him. Once an idea is intelligently grasped, it ceases to threaten the mind. Wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Grey?”

  Grey nodded, as if put out with even having to answer such an obvious question.

  “We’ve gotten rather far afield from Mrs. Darton’s story,” Lean said, “that an unconscious woman was taken from here and disappeared.”

  “I’m not aware of any disappearing woman. Stage magic is not my area of expertise. Probably a student, or some acquaintance, had too much to drink and a kind gentleman saw to it that she arrived home safely. Mrs. Darton’s imagination has gotten the best of her.”

  “A perfectly reasonable explanation,” Lean said.

  “Of course it is, when you consider the facts. But people are mostly immune to the facts.” Dr. Marsh lit a cigarette. “They prefer ideas that inflame the imagination, no matter how preposterous.”

  “Of course, Doctor. Well, it seems we’ve come on a fool’s errand. Thank you ever so much for enlightening us. We can show ourselves out.” Grey stood and started for the door, then paused. “Oh, yes, Dr. Marsh, if I can trouble you with one more question. Did Lizzie have any particular”—he paused, making a show of choosing the correct word—“gentleman friend?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t help you. But as I said, she wasn’t connected with the order very deeply, or for very long.”

  41

  Minutes later, standing outside on Winter Street, Lean looked over the neighborhood of well-kept two- and three-story brick town houses.

  Grey approached the waiting carriage they had once more borrowed from Dr. Steig. “Rasmus, the neighbor woman mentioned seeing a brougham with red trim about the doors and wheels. Pulled by a sorrel with a distinctive white patch on its rump.”

  The driver’s head bobbed up and down. “Sounds like Noddy Oakes’s rig.”

  “Any idea where to find him?” Grey asked.

  “He works the hospital and Western Prom loop. We’ll see what we can see.”

  Two loops around the Promenade and half a dozen inquiries of other drivers eventually led Rasmus Hansen down and around the base of Bramhall Hill. There, on St. John Street, he spotted Noddy Oakes parked outside Union Station. Completed fours years earlier, the long stone rail station, topped with a series of second-story dormers and fronted with two short circular towers, was by far the grandest of Portland’s rail depots. Noddy’s cab was sitting in the shadow of Union Station’s five-story-tall clock tower, a structure that lent an ecclesiastical air to the depot.

  Lean and Grey listened as Rasmus quickly explained the situation to the other driver.

  “Sure, I remember it,” said Noddy Oakes, “on account of that woman they loaded in here. She was in sorry-looking shape.”

  “Can you describe her?”

  “Couldn’t see her face. Had a big-brimmed hat and a dark shawl wrapped about her shoulders. One of the fellows was bringing her along but having a bit of a time with it. Another guy comes running out. You know I don’t go poking into others’ business, but this second fellow’s crying, ‘I got it! I got it!’ Course, with all the hullabaloo, I look and see him holding up a key. A big one—on a ring, like the kind you’d see a guard locking up a prisoner with or some such.”

  “So where’d you take them?” Grey asked.

  “Over to Spring Street.”

  “Do you remember the number?”

  “I remember only ’cause I asked, but they didn’t give me none. Just told me Spring Street, on toward the end.”

  “We’d like to see the spot.”

  Noddy protested; he was waiting for a fare. Grey handed him several dollars, and the cabbie gave a tip of his battered hat before leading the way back up Bramhall Hill to the city’s fashionable West End. “Dropped ’em here. They paid well and didn’t say another word.”

  “What of the woman? Was she moving about yet?” Lean asked.

  “Nah. The whole ride here, she was about as still as a cemetery in winter.”

  “Then you proceeded on ahead,” Grey said.

  “Nope. Turned about right here in the street.”

  “Because …” Grey raised a sharp eyebrow at Noddy.

  “On account of the boneyard being right there.” The driver jerked a thumb toward the end of Spring Street and the Western Cemetery. “These wheels on the cobblestones—loud enough to wake the dead.”

  “So you sat here a bit longer.” Lean motioned to the closest residence. “And did you happen to see whether they went into this house?”

  “I did take a gander, on account of the woman didn’t seem well at all. But they weren’t moving neither. Just watching me. Sort of like they were waiting for me to go. I suppose they were embarrassed by the state she was in, trying to get her home on the quiet and all.”

  “And you let it go at that. Not curious enough for another look back?”

  The cabbie smiled. “Maybe one last peek.”

  “And?”

  “They were walking down yonder.” Noddy stretched out his hand; a block away, Spring Street ended where it met Vaughan. Visible directly across the intersection were the iron fence and stone archway at the entrance to the Western Cemetery.

  A minute later, Noddy was on his way while Lean and Grey stood just inside the cemetery. Looking in from the gates, they could see the fifteen-acre grounds sloped gently toward the back and to the left. A short distance in front of them was the small receiving house. It wasn’t used much anymore, since there were only occasional new burials, those being limited to persons who already had family members in the grounds and in plots with enough space to allow for additional interments. The area just past the receiving house was a wide-open circle that held no gravestones. It provided a peaceful space for quiet contemplation or picnicking.

  Trees dotted the perimeter of the cemetery. Beyond the edge of the grounds, there was a drop of about five feet to where the Western Promenade ran past. Another row of trees on the far side of the Prom helped envelop the cemetery, providing only partial scenic views of the Fore River and Cape Elizabeth. The effect was one of pleasant isolation, being above and separated from the outside world. The detectives moved forward, drifting away from each other as they went. The tombstones were generally from the 1830s through the 1870s, mostly small with rounded tops, not particularly ornate. A few pedestals were spread among the grounds, as were some stones decorated with urns or with weeping-willow leaves etched into polished areas above the names.

  Lean looked up to see that Grey was in front of him, facing back the way they had come.

  “The men in question had a key. The kind you might use to a prison cell—or a tomb.” Grey motioned to the left of the front gate.

  Eighty paces to the side of the gate was a row of eleven short, brick-walled tombs set into a short, brush-covered hill. The two men walked past the first in the row. It was smaller and set apart from the rest, which were all spaced at more regular intervals. The main series of tombs were each nearly identical in appearance, arched and slanted upward to a short peak. The brick structures were narrow, and the faces were only seven feet at the height of the gables. Above the family names, most of the tombs were dated in the mid-1850s. The metal doors were only about five feet in height. The keyholes on the massive locks were large, and Lean imagined that a prison-size key would fit perfectly.

  Several doors down, Grey stopped. “The Longfellow tomb.”

  “You think they may have hidden the body here?”

  “No, I just thought you might feel the urge to recite some more poetry.”

  Lean held up a finger and cocked his head, trying to recall some lines. Grey turned his back and moved on. Undeterred, Lean recited, “‘Life is real! Life is earnest! / And the grave is not its goal; / Dust thou art, to dust returnest, / Was not spoken of the soul.’”

  Grey pretended not to
hear and looked up at the next tomb’s inscription. “Ingraham.”

  “The mayor’s family, I suppose.”

  “If it is,” Grey said, “they’re going to need a wider door.”

  At the third-to-last tomb, Grey stopped again. Lean joined him and glanced at the name engraved in the granite slab above the door. “Well, what do you know?”

  “I don’t suppose we can simply go ask Dr. Jotham Marsh if we can borrow the key to the family tomb.”

  42

  “Are you serious?” Mayor Ingraham’s face recoiled, setting his multiple chins atremble. “You want the city’s master keys for the Western Cemetery tombs. My approval to invade the final resting place of Portland’s most prominent families. My own family’s buried there, for God’s sake.”

  “Only one tomb.”

  “Do you have any idea of the public outcry that would result from the desecration of even one tomb? I’m the first Democrat to win this office since the Civil War. I let you do this, and it will be another thirty years before we’re allowed back in.”

  “We’d be very discreet, of course,” Lean said. “Before dawn or after sunset if need be. We could disguise it as routine maintenance. Masonry work, perhaps.”

  “Have you completely lost your mind?”

  “When that tongue arrived on your doorstep, you wanted me to do whatever it took to catch this killer.”

  “Yes. And in the shock of the moment, I meant it. But a month has passed, and I, for one, have regained my senses. Clearly you have not. First I hear that you’re harassing Colonel Blanchard, looking into his private financial affairs. And now this: You want to disinter some of our most prestigious citizens. The very thought is positively ghoulish. And why? Because of some daft old lady’s story and some hack driver who saw a drunken woman being helped down the street near the cemetery. This is what your investigation has come to—it’s insanity.”

  “Grey and I believe that this could be the key to our investigation.”

  “This was your investigation alone, Deputy Lean. And it has been an utter failure. You’ve failed me and the good people of this city. You are obviously not up to the task of solving the murder of Maggie Keene. I’ll speak to the marshal this afternoon; you’ll no longer be associated with this matter.”

  “Sooner or later there will be another victim,” Lean said.

  “Despite the theories of your insufferable Indian cohort, there has never been any conclusive proof that Maggie Keene’s death was anything more than an isolated incident. If there is another murder, Deputy LeGage will handle that investigation. In the meantime, street patrols will increase.”

  “That won’t stop him.”

  ‘There is nothing more to be done, Deputy. Certainly not by you. If I learn that you’ve acted otherwise, you will be removed from your post.”

  Congress Street was the backbone of Portland Neck, running along the ridge between the high points of Bramhall Hill to the west and Munjoy Hill at the east. It served as a divide, not only topographically but also in a commercial and social sense. Pearl Street, which ran perpendicular, exemplified this. To the south of Congress Street, Pearl was home to the full gamut of commercial enterprises as it ran down toward where the Fore River met Portland Harbor. To the north of Congress, Pearl became residential, and increasingly squalid as it descended to the perpetually rancid tidal mudflats of Back Cove.

  A day after their discovery in the Western Cemetery, Lean and Grey stood beside a set of tall front steps on a still-respectable block of Pearl Street.

  “What’s so important that I had to rush my dinner?” Lean asked.

  “In the next few minutes, we will be gaining access to the Marsh tomb.”

  Lean glanced about. “Of course. Why didn’t I see it sooner?”

  “All we need do is wait.”

  “For what?”

  “It’s who,” Grey said. “Stackpole’s his name. Portland’s superintendent of burials lives at number 67. He should be arriving home shortly. An ideal time: end of the workday, senses dulled, within steps of his own front door. His guard will be down. Everything is in place.” Grey nodded his head across the street. Lean peered in that direction and caught sight of a petty thief named Sam Guen standing in a shaded doorway a block down the street.

  “How do you know Guen?” Lean asked.

  “I get my supplies at his uncle’s Chinese tea shop on Congress. Top quality. On my first visit, Sam tried to pick my pocket on the way out. I paid him to teach me how he operates. Also top quality.”

  Sam Guen raised his left hand and tipped his hat. Lean noticed that the man’s right arm was at his side, the bottom half of his coat sleeve folded up and pinned to the upper arm to give the appearance of one who has lost a limb.

  “There’s our man. Don’t follow me too close,” whispered Grey as he started off at a casual stride across the street. He fell in ten paces behind Stackpole. Lean followed farther back. He was surprised to hear Grey call out to the man they were trailing.

  “I say, good fellow, here now, that won’t do at all.”

  Stackpole glanced back and saw that Grey was motioning toward him. He stopped in his tracks and took an unsure step backward as Grey closed the distance to him.

  “I fear you’ve stepped in a bit of filth. All them trolley-car horses about and such. That won’t do at all if you’re heading to meet with anyone. I’ve been behind you for two blocks and smelled the offending matter the whole way.”

  “What? Oh, shit.” Stackpole staggered a bit as he picked up his right foot and glanced at the clean sole. He was lifting his left foot when Grey took hold of his elbow.

  “Steady, now,” Grey cautioned. “You were about to tumble over.”

  At that instant, Lean saw Guen brush up against Stackpole, breaking stride for the briefest of moments, and then he walked on toward where Lean had stopped to watch the whole proceeding. The superintendent of burials completed his check of his left sole, then proudly announced that he hadn’t stepped in anything after all.

  “Well then.” Grey released the man’s elbow and lifted his own sole, which was heavily soiled. “For heaven’s sake! There I was heaping it on you, when all along it was me who’d stepped in it. Please forgive my mistake.”

  Stackpole smirked, tipped his hat, and admonished Grey to watch his step, then turned and went on his way. Guen approached Lean, brushing past with a smile. Lean’s brow wrinkled. He slipped his hand into his own coat pocket and felt a metal key ring there.

  43

  Lean’s eyes settled on the high stone archway of the Western Cemetery gate. From there, his eyes shot left, then right, tracing the four-foot-high wrought-iron fence that ran along Vaughan Street. Cooler air had swept into the area during the day, prompting a dreary evening. While it hadn’t properly rained, a thick mist persisted, forming halos around the gas lamps that dotted the sidewalk. He could see no one moving along the street. Lean crossed over and walked along the fence.

  “Psst.” Grey stood up from his concealment near the bushes on the inside of the cemetery fence.

  Lean carried a shuttered bull’s-eye lamp, which he handed over to Grey. Then he stepped onto the lower crossbar of the iron fence, planted his hands between pairs of the ornate wrought-iron spikes, and heaved himself up and over. Grey caught him as he came down on the inside of the cemetery. The pair of them hurried along to the right, toward the tombs and away from the gaslights on Vaughan Street.

  “Any problem getting the tomb key?” Grey asked.

  It had been no problem at all, since one of the keys stolen from the superintendent of burials unlocked a drawer in the city clerk’s office just two floors up from the police headquarters. Like all the surrounding offices, that section of City Hall was empty by half past five. The drawer in question held a variety of labeled keys from the various city cemeteries. Lean had lifted the Marsh tomb key and placed Stackpole’s personal key ring under his desk, as if the man had dropped it there himself. Lean held up a large metal k
ey, and Grey gave the smallest of nods.

  “See anybody poking about tonight?” Lean asked.

  Grey shook his head. “It’s been four days since the last murder. If victim number three is still in there, they’re probably never planning to move her.”

  Lean threw several glances back toward the street, although there was no need. It would be almost impossible for any unsuspecting pedestrians to catch sight of the detectives as they passed through the dark grounds of the cemetery. They moved ahead with a thin layer of ground fog swirling about their shins. Before them, through the mist, a row of dark shapes appeared. Lean counted to himself as they passed by the tombs. When they reached the ninth structure, both men stopped. Out behind the tombs was a small rise of land that stretched along the northern side of the Western Cemetery. Further above this tangled mass of brush and trees was Bowdoin Street. The houses there announced their presence through a few distant flickers of their interior lights. Otherwise, the cemetery was black. Lean opened the shutter on his lamp for just a second to read the name of Marsh above the tomb’s door. He glanced back one last time in the direction of their approach. He could see the small receiving house silhouetted against the faint glow of Vaughan Street’s gas lamps.

  “Hear something?”

  Lean shook his head, and Grey motioned him forward to unlock the Marsh tomb. Lean struggled with the key in the darkness. Grey opened the lamp a sliver, angling the light toward Lean’s hands. The key slipped into the lock. There was some initial resistance, but Lean doubled his effort and the tumblers clicked. He glanced over and saw Grey searching for something in his kit.

  “Here goes.”

  “One moment, Lean. Open it just a touch—”

  Lean had already put his weight into it, and the door began to move, slowly at first until its own weight took over. It swung in on its rusty hinges, the loud screech reverberating inside the tomb.