15 Minutes of Flame

by Christin Brecher

  “Mr. Bellows,” said Andy, “although I appreciate that you’ve made time to visit, I will ask that you respect—”

  “It’s really OK,” said Leigh, “we’re happy that the island’s community is interested in our work. Please feel free to observe us.”

  “But perhaps later,” said Solder, as much to Leigh as to Bellows. “We’ll have to sell tickets at this rate. Right now, the goal is to discover as much as we can, as quickly as we can. Since the bones have been unearthed, it’s important to examine them thoroughly lest the exterior environment contaminate them over time.”

  I was fascinated to see who would win. Solder bit his bottom lip and looked as if he was going to hold his ground, but Leigh gave him an equally stubborn stare. She had transformed from a dreamy groupie to a frustrated colleague in the blink of an eye, and I realized she must wear a couple of hats in their relationship. I found I was rooting for her and was happy when Solder took a step aside. As he did, he lowered a pair of glasses with magnifiers for lenses, and flipped on a flashlight attached to them. With his eyes looking four times their size, I once again found myself trying to figure out how we could use him at Halloween Haunts.

  “Please don’t assume this is going to be an ongoing partnership, Mr. Bellows,” he said. “This is no more than professional courtesy.”

  Leigh raised her chin but graciously said nothing more.

  In the four or five steps it took the historian to head victoriously to the hearth, he pulled out a small case from his breast pocket. He unzipped it and removed a pair of glasses with a magnifying glass and light attached to them, similar to Solder’s own glasses, and took a place beside Solder at the hearth.

  “I can already see,” said Bellows after only a moment’s silence, “that the weave of cloth of the woman’s dress places her in an early-nineteenth-century time period.”

  The two men, with their four collective eyes magnified by their glasses, looked up and gave each other a good, long stare.

  “Obviously,” said Solder, not breaking eye contact.

  “Obviously,” said Bellows with equal intensity.

  The two men turned and faced the hearth again with the precision of synchronized swimmers. Without speaking to each other, Bellows took the bottom of the skeleton, and Solder took the top. I noticed Leigh shaking her head as she opened a cardboard box at the table.

  “The teeth are worn at the incisor,” said Solder, perhaps to Bellows, perhaps to himself. “I believe she sewed a lot.”

  I stepped toward the area of the room where the investigators were examining the skeleton, fascinated by the suggestion that she was a seamstress. I supposed all women sewed back then, but I was reminded that the Cooper Thieves had stolen from Petticoat Row women, many of whom were seamstresses.

  After about a minute, the two gentlemen switched places and continued their scan of the body. I felt like we were watching paint dry, but finally there was some action up front. Bellows reached into the woman’s dress sleeve. Solder reached out to stop him, but Bellows had already extracted what looked like a small piece of linen.

  “What is it?” I said.

  Without a word, Bellows walked to the table with Solder right behind him. Andy and I craned our necks to see, but Leigh was there as well and we couldn’t make out much over their shoulders.

  “I’d say eighteen thirties or forties, from the embroidery,” said Leigh.

  “The color choice of the thread is in keeping with that time,” said Bellows with a condescending air.

  Solder nodded, focused on the linen. While Bellows looked pleased with himself for having had the opportunity to display his knowledge, Solder was in his zone, finding clues from an old piece of cloth. I knew how he must feel. There was a puzzle to be solved, and he had found a solid clue. I’m like that when I’m designing new candles.

  “It’s in good condition. Aside from the blood,” said Solder.

  “Did you find many wounds on the body? Other fractures anywhere?” I asked, thinking of Peter’s idea that Patience Cooper had been attacked by thieves and had died from her wounds, leaving Jedediah free to leave with the money she’d protected with her life.

  Solder shook his head.

  “Only the wound to her rib cage,” he said.

  The seamstress connection had led me to think that the body might actually be Agnes’s relative, but the discrepancy in the wounds left me stumped.

  Solder took what looked like a pen from his pocket, clicked it, and then began to speak into it.

  “From a cursory observational examination, I believe the body to be female, from the mid-nineteenth century,” said Solder. “Rib number five on the right side is shattered, indicating death by blunt force. The size and rotational fracture suggest a rounded object, inflicted at close range. Handkerchief—contaminated by modern handling—has minute blood splatter in upper left corner. Initials PC embroidered into linen. Tooth erosion suggests a trade in sewing.”

  “Did you say PC?” I said, almost shouting.

  Solder clicked off his recording device and raised the handkerchief gently, holding it by tweezers, for us to view. Embroidered neatly in the corner of the simple linen were two initials: PC.

  There was now no doubt in my mind. The skeleton I’d found of a young woman who had once been a candle maker was Agnes’s relative, Patience Cooper. And given the discrepancy between Agnes’s story that Patience had skipped town and the cold hard truth that she was lying here with a single stab wound as her cause of death, something very foul indeed had happened to the woman.

  “If I may, I believe the body is Patience Cooper,” said Bellows with great authority. “Married to Jedediah Cooper in eighteen forty-seven.”

  Andy, Solder, and even Leigh looked impressed. Me? I held my tongue, knowing that the only way Bellows had this information was because he’d listened in on my conversation with Agnes. He was certainly trying hard to establish his authority. Luckily for him, I was still too stunned to quibble.

  “Your theory is an interesting one, but our focus is on scientific facts, Mr. Bellows,” said Solder. “The linen is illuminating, but we may only ever be able to theorize, not prove, that this is someone named Patience Cooper. That’s an important distinction.”

  “Excuse me?” said a voice from behind us.

  We turned, startled, to find Agnes.

  “I’m related to the Coopers. I came to see if you have found Patience.”

  “Agnes? How’d you know to come here? And what made you think we’d find Patience Cooper?” Andy asked. Then he looked at me. “Never mind.”

  Agnes stopped and stared at the skeleton like a deer caught in headlights. Before she could faint, Andy walked briskly to the door, grabbing a folding chair while he did. Reaching her, he opened the chair and led her to it.

  “What are you doing here, Agnes?” he said.

  “I’m fine,” she said, taking a deep breath and composing herself. “I’ve never seen anything like that before. And to think she could be family.”

  I joined them and rubbed her back.

  “You shouldn’t have come,” I said.

  “But I wanted to help,” Agnes said, and looked at me.

  Agnes absently touched the glasses that were perched on top of her head as she took a breath.

  “I remembered something more about the story of Patience Cooper,” she said.

  Chapter 5

  For a few moments, there was some confusion about Agnes’s pronouncement and its relative value to the work at hand. Bellows took the liberty of filling in Andy, Solder, and Leigh about Patience and Jedediah Cooper and the robbery of the Petticoat Row ladies’ money. I was happy for him to take the lead. I knew the police and anthropologists would be more receptive to the story if it came from a historian rather than from Agnes or me.

  I also didn’t mind taking a back seat because, while Bellows spoke, no one was paying much attention to me. Capitalizing on their distraction, I crossed the room. My pretense was to lower the sh
eet hanging over the skeleton, since it continued to spook Agnes, but I also wanted to glance at the grave itself, which I hadn’t done earlier.

  “What did you remember about Patience’s story?” Andy said to Agnes when Bellows had finished.

  “It’s something about Nancy Holland, Patience’s best friend.”

  My eye had just caught sight of a stone that was at a funny angle, but I paused to listen to Agnes. Having my own very best friend on the island, Emily Gardner, I know that best friends are a vault of secrets and that they can answer a lot of important questions. For example, if Emily’s husband came to me before birthdays and holidays, he’d save himself a lot of hassle when buying gifts.

  Agnes shifted in her seat, now that so many eyes were on her. She looked in my direction. I nodded toward her to continue.

  “The story has always been that Nancy was racked with guilt about the Petticoat Row ladies’ lost funds, and she was devastated by the betrayal of her best friend,” Agnes said. “Shortly after Patience and Jedediah left, she killed herself by jumping down the well behind her house out in Monomoy.”

  “Juicy,” said Leigh.

  I had to agree. I’d always thought of the old-time ladies on the island as straight shooters and hard workers, but there was a lot of drama going on as well.

  “The Hollands lived in what is now Old Holly’s house,” said Agnes. “You know the one. I guess Holly is Nancy’s great-great-grand-whatever nephew.”

  Old Holly is the affectionate name given to Gil Holland, who lives out by a quiet area called Monomoy. He is a short-tempered fellow, now a retired widower, who had made his living as a mechanic. I knew his family had been on the island forever, but I didn’t know him well outside of serving him a Thanksgiving dinner at the Rotary Club once. I remembered him because their stuffing is out of this world and he’d complained that it was too dry. It’s the opposite of dry.

  “I found an article about Nancy’s suicide that disturbed me,” said Agnes.

  She opened her tote bag and retrieved a photocopy of an article she’d likely found at the library. I was proud of Agnes for bringing evidence with her since there was a circle of curious professionals around her. Since I didn’t need Agnes to prove anything to me with a piece of paper, however, I shifted my attention back to the hearth.

  “See?” said Agnes. “Nancy jumped down the well behind Old Holly’s house. She left a note that said she could not live, having lost her friend and the Petticoat Row money. Aside from the letter, however, all that was found was her cloak, hanging from the well.”

  “Hello,” I said to a small object I pried from behind the rock, at a spot that would have been beside Patience’s clavicle. “Check it out.”

  I held up a small metal tool to the group.

  “What is it?” said Andy.

  “It’s a tong,” I said, bringing it over to the still small but growing team. “Used to remove pots of melted wax from heat before pouring it into molds.”

  “It’s from the right period,” said Bellows, admiring the piece. “Mid-eighteen hundreds.”

  Solder took the tool from me and walked back to the skeleton. He removed the sheet that covered Patience and then moved aside her blouse. He held the tong over the exposed rib cage.

  “One mystery solved,” he said. “The injury and the tool match. Combined with the blood spatter on the metal, I believe she died from a wound inflicted by this tong.”

  “The handkerchief’s initials suggest that the body is Patience Cooper, and the hidden blood-spattered tongs suggest someone used them to kill her,” I said. “Given that there are no signs of a brutal attack from robbers, I think there’s more to the Cooper legend than anyone ever knew.”

  “It’s just as I feared,” said Agnes. “You know, I was at Old Holly’s house once. Years ago, before his wife died. We were making jams for the cranberry festival. Holly’s wife said that when he inherited the house there was a stipulation that the well remain untouched, as it had been for decades, because Nancy was down there. She thought it was creepy that the body of a dead woman was in her backyard, but she said no matter how much she complained, Holly would never go near the well.”

  “There are many fascinating tales of inheritance restrictions,” said Bellows with an air of self-importance that fell flat. He seemed to realize it too and stopped his monologue.

  “I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner,” Agnes said. “I can’t find my glasses, but sometimes I’ll remember something out of nowhere.”

  “They’re on your head, dear,” said Leigh, bringing Agnes a cup of water.

  “Thank you,” said Agnes.

  “Nancy Holland reportedly went down the well, but her body was never recovered,” I said, catching on to Agnes’s line of thinking. “Jedediah left the island with a woman, who was clearly not Patience. Agnes, you told me that Nancy and Jedediah had had a thing before he’d married Patience.”

  “Do you think that Nancy staged her own death after she and Jedediah killed Patience, and then they left the island together?” said Andy.

  “It seems possible,” I said. “Nancy Holland and Jedediah could have killed Patience Cooper and made up the story about the attack.”

  “Meanwhile, my poor family has had a black stain on it for generations, while the Hollands were the real criminals,” said Agnes.

  “It would explain why people thought they saw Jedediah leave the island with a woman,” said Bellows. “And it would explain why the Holland family didn’t want to disinter Nancy’s body after she allegedly went down the well. Better that the Coopers be the bad guys.”

  Agnes nodded vehemently. I could see that my morning’s discovery and subsequent investigation had had a profound impact on her. What had started for me as an otherworldly connection to Nantucket’s candle-making past had led to a much deeper significance for Agnes. I admired her pride in her family, but also feared that without some closure, she might be haunted by the story in a very unhealthy way.

  “Why don’t we clear this up,” I said. “Couldn’t we find out if Nancy is down the well?”

  “Could we?” said Agnes, a tear springing to her eye. “If she’s not, you may find you have a cold case with poor Patience.”

  “As one of the island’s historians, I’d like to second the motion that we explore the well,” said Bellows. “I am humbled and thrilled to have arrived on Nantucket at a time when this discovery has been made. I will make it my mission to see it through.”

  “Mr. Bellows,” said Solder. “This is a scientific endeavor, not a storyteller’s indulgence.”

  “I beg your pardon,” said Bellows, his eyes practically dropping from their sockets.

  “I’m sure this could be a great scientific discovery for us, as well as a wonderful story for Mr. Bellows to add to the history books,” said Leigh. “We could get our equipment together by tomorrow and explore the well with no problem if Mr. Holland agrees.”

  “Old Holly is under no obligation to open up his well,” said Andy. “Especially for a rumor we’re starting.”

  “I’ll take care of that,” said Agnes.

  She whipped out her phone. She had dialed before anyone could argue.

  “Holly? It’s Agnes,” she said.

  I motioned for her to put the call on speaker.

  “What do you want?” said a gruff voice.

  “You lying, stinking cheat,” she said. “I just found out that Nancy Holland never killed herself. In fact, she had a hand in killing Patience Cooper, and then took off with her husband. I wouldn’t put it past you to have known all these years.”

  “What the hell are you talking about, you old bat?” he said.

  “I’m talking about the fact that I’m standing next to Patience Cooper’s skeleton.”

  “I don’t believe you,” he said. “And I couldn’t care less, even if you were standing next to the bones of your family’s good-for-nothing thief.”

  “I’m with a specialist in bones. We’re coming over
tomorrow morning to open up your well to confirm that it is empty.”

  “Like hell you are,” he said.

  “Wait!” I said, before Old Holly could hang up. “Hi! It’s Stella Wright. I’m here with Officer Southerland and someone from the Nantucket Historical Association too.”

  Old Holly cleared his throat.

  “Hello,” he said, more politely. “I appreciate your interest, but I am not opening my well.”

  “I can understand,” I said. “But you know how stories fly. If it turns out Nancy’s body is there, as you believe it is, then we can put Agnes’s suspicions to rest. However, if we let the story marinate, you’ll have all sorts of people showing up at your house, looking for access to the well, wanting to know about the story. It will never end, and you’ll never have a moment of peace.”

  “Goddamn, Agnes. What have you done?” said Old Holly. “I was planning to watch baseball tomorrow.”

  “Mr. Holland,” I said, thinking of something that might put him over the edge. “I can have my cousins out to your house today to clear the backyard for you, to create easy access to the well.”

  “I’ll ask the Historical Association to consider covering the costs,” Bellows said.

  “Not necessary,” said Solder.

  My cousins, Ted and Docker Wright, are the proud owners of Wright Brothers Carting Company. They recently bought an extra truck and had hopes for further expansion, so I knew they’d be happy for the extra income. Clearing yards isn’t part of their usual scope of work, but they were used to adding extra tasks to get the job done, especially while they were building their business. Hopefully, it would be a win-win opportunity for everyone.

  “Yard work?” said Old Holly.

  There was a pause. We all stared at Agnes’s phone.

  “Fine,” he said. “But don’t remove the body. I’m not allowed. Family rules.”

  “We’ll be there tomorrow morning for the excavation,” said Leigh. She looked at Solder with a pleased expression, but he had begun to measure Patience’s bones.