They were the closest thing she had to something sturdy, though, so she didn’t have much choice. Mary wasn’t a woman to let something like shoes get in the way of what she set her mind to.
About two thirds of the way up, the hike went from a steep walk to a rocky climb. Mike ranged ahead with Busher. He and Chauncey went up from rock to rock, matching each other. Busher wasn’t about to let his forty-five pound pack make him give up the lead. At a call from Tom, who hung back with Mary and Rebecca, Busher and Mike halted. They’d gotten so far ahead they could hardly be seen between the trees. Rebecca was complaining and almost in tears.
“I’m thiirrrsty,” she moaned. “My feet huuurt!”
Chauncey fished out a canteen of water for her once he’d shrugged off the pack.
“When are we going to get there?” and “I want to go hooome,” tumbled out of her between gulps at the canteen. Like stones in her pockets, her complaints dragged at her. As they finally got going again, her little feet shuffled and stumbled. Mike couldn’t blame her. It was a hard climb for a little girl. He had no doubt she could do it though. She just didn’t know it yet. As if reading his thoughts, Busher said.
“Your sister’s got spunk. She’ll make it sure enough.”
A short while later as Mary and Rebecca started to fall behind again, Mike watched as Tom helped Mary up a particularly rough section, then handed Rebecca up to her. Something about the way Tom did that reminded Mike of his father. I was only six years before that his da had been murdered. Looking at Tom, he realized he could hardly remember his father’s face. It was almost as if he could not tell where his real father ended and Tom began. It was as if they had blended over the years, becoming one person.
That person was mostly Tom now. It was only now and again that Mike found his da creeping back to his waking thoughts. Mike saw the way Tom picked Rebecca up, how he steadied her. Though she was their own flesh and blood, Mike knew that Tom and Mary had shown him no less love than they had her. He’d always known that, though there’d been times when it had been hard to remember. It was odd that here, on the side of a mountain, he’d feel it more than he had in years.
As he followed Busher, Mike returned in his mind to the grove of pines by Eagle Lake. He thought of Lettie. Thought was too weak a word. He felt her, and as he climbed a warm flood of feelings washed over him, some emotional, but mostly physical. She was an ache between his legs and a longing in his heart. She was the rock he didn’t see in front of him as he went sprawling into the dirt. Busher looked over his shoulder, hardly slowing.
“You break anything, boy?” he asked with an amused frown. Busher didn’t like getting any of his clients hurt, but most of all he didn’t want to lug Mike down the mountain, a thing he’d be obliged to do as the guide. Mike picked himself up, dusting the black Adirondack earth from his pants and hands.
“I’m okay,” he said. Lettie and the ache of her was replaced by a brighter pain in his knee. Busher stopped and waited. Rebecca scrambled up behind Mike and he held out a hand to help her over a boulder.
“You made it ’Becca,” he said, encouraging her with a pat on the head. “See, it’s not so bad, right? Mister Busher says we’re almost to the top.”
“That’s right, little missy. Just a spit and a holler left,” Busher said. “We’ll just catch our wind here, then it’s straight on to the top.” He looked at Rebecca, who was alternately huffing and moaning. “Here, sit right down on that rock and I’ll recite a little ditty I know. Ought a get yer mind off this hill while you rest up.” Busher straightened up, putting his hands behind his back and throwing his chest out.
“Once a company of beavers, in their engineering fury,” he began in a tone he seemed to think appropriate to poetry:
Took a notion that their mission was to damn the big Missouri.
Under consecrated leaders they assembled in convention
For the instant prosecution of their notable intention.
They were able hardwood biters, they were noble timber topplers.
They beavered down the willows and felled the heavy poplars.
They laid them on the riffle. They were very, very clever.
They were brilliant, but the river paid them no regard whatever.”
Rebecca, who had been hanging her head in tired self-pity, started to perk up, a small smile creeping across her lips. Busher didn’t stop.
When we try to curb the surges of unchanging human nature,
Or quench a conflagration with an act of legislature,
Or stem a revolution by the words of quiet thinkers,
Or hold religion static with a martingale and blinkers,
Or stop the steady current of continuous creation,
Or cork the effervescence of a rising generation,
Or stop our zealous doctors from inventing new diseases,
Or keep a wife from doing just exactly what she pleases,
We are every bit as crazy, as I’ll prove to any jury,
As those enterprising beavers when they dammed the big Missouri.
Rebecca, who had stopped huffing and moaning altogether, clapped as Busher finished, they all did.
“Say it again, Mister Busher. Say it again. I like the part about the timber topplers,” she said. “That was my favorite.”
Busher beamed at her, then glanced up at the sky. A cloud had veiled the sun.
“All righty,” he said, picking up and shouldering his pack once more, “but we best be on the move now. I’ll tell it again on the way.”
It was cool at the top of Blue. Busher had been right to tell them to bring extra clothes. Still, it was a beautiful day and nobody complained. The sun was playing hide-and-seek with the clouds by the time they got there. Looking to the west Busher said, “Guess Owens was right. Got some weather comin’.”
The clouds that way were a dull gray sea, but they were still many miles off. The world from the top of Blue rolled away on all sides, covered by an unbroken blanket of green. Deep, blue lakes dotted the landscape, reflecting the sun when it raced between the clouds. The mountains marched away in solid ranks into the blue distance until they finally lost all color, looking like the great, gray, humped backs of whales swimming the forest seas.
They ate a picnic lunch sitting on stumps or on the lichen-covered rocks.
“Colvin cleared this out back about ten, twelve years ago,” Busher said, “so’s he could have a sight line for his surveyin’ ’quipment.”
“Hell of a job surveying all this,” Tom said, standing atop a stump for a better view. “Wouldn’t know where to begin.”
“Ain’t a thing I’d be likely to know neither,” Busher said. “Colvin’s got that kinda schoolin’ though. Still, he needs a guide when he goes inter the woods, even though there’s some says he’s seen more o’ these hills than any man livin’. There’s knowin’ the woods and then there’s knowin’ the woods, if you take my meaning.”
The tide of cloud rolled in as they clambered down the flanks of Blue an hour later. The woods grew damp with a clinging mist that condensed into a gentle drizzle by the time they were down to the final half-mile. No one complained, not even Rebecca. A carriage was waiting for them when they got to the trailhead. They rode back to the Prospect House as the rain began in earnest.
Tom paid Busher on the way back, $2.50 for his day, 75 cents for the carriage, and a $1 tip. He followed Mike, Mary, and Rebecca into the hotel, shaking the water from his hair when he got under the cover of the piazza. He was walking through the lobby when a voice called from the front desk.
“Mister Braddock? Mister Braddock! Sir, may I have a moment of your time?”
Tom pulled up short, turning toward the clerk who’d called to him. The man came out from behind the front desk, walking with a quick, determined step.
“We’ve been looking for you, sir.”
“We?” Tom asked. “Who would we be, and what is it I can do for all of you?”
“I’m sorry, Mister Braddock, b
ut it’s a matter of some urgency. Will you come with me?” The clerk put a hand on Tom’s arm. The grip was insistent.
“Mary,” Tom called. When she looked back, Tom said “There’s something I need to attend to. I’ll be just a minute.”
Mary, who was completely played out, just waved, though she did it with a puzzled frown. Tom turned back to the clerk. He looked down at the hand that clung to his bicep, then up at the clerk.
“I’ll thank you to let go of my arm,” Tom said when the man didn’t take the hint.
“Sorry, sir,” the clerk said. “If you’ll come with me, Doctor Whelen and Mister Durant would like a word.” The clerk wouldn’t say more. He just led him out the back of the hotel into the rain. They passed the blackened pile that had been the barn. It was clear that work had already begun on clearing the debris. Even in the rain, Tom could smell the burnt wood. He was lead to what appeared to be an icehouse or root cellar, a low roof projected out from the hillside, flanked by thick stone walls. A heavy door was set three feet back into the stone. The clerk hammered on it with a closed fist. The sound seemed to rumble deep within the hillside, hinting at hidden depths.
The door opened on groaning hinges. The light within was bright, and a cold blast of air pebbled Tom’s skin.
“Christ!” Tom grumbled, looking around as he passed through the door. “It’s as cold as the grave in here.” He rubbed his arms, damp from the rain. “What the hell is all this about?” he demanded, his words falling flat, as if frozen by the walls of ice that lined the place.
“Mister Braddock! Come in sir. I’m glad you’ve come.” It was Doctor Whelen. He looked distracted. His eye would not meet Tom’s as he shifted from foot to foot.
The only other person in the icehouse was Frederick Durant. He stood in the center of the room. Lanterns set on big blocks of ice lit the place. The ice, stacked to the rafters, glistened under a blanket of hay.
There were blocks of ice separated from the rest, laid out in roughly a rectangular shape in the center of the room. A sheet covered them.
“Tom,” Frederick said, seeming to come to himself, “I’m glad you’ve come.”
“Well, now that everyone’s glad I’ve come, do you care to tell me what this is about?” Tom could guess well enough, but guessing was something he was in no mood for.
“I’m sorry, Mister Braddock. It’s just that we wanted to keep this quiet. I’m sure you’ll appreciate why,” the doctor said.
“That, and the fact that you are a captain of police,” Frederick added, “and have experience in these matters.”
Tom just frowned. He looked past Frederick and the doctor at the sheet-covered blocks of ice.
“Did you know Letitia Burman, Tom?” Frederick asked in a low voice.
“No. Should I?”
“No,” Frederick said. “She was a maid here at the hotel.”
“She was in the pharmacy when you came in with your son a few days ago,” the doctor added. A cold hand passed down Tom’s spine and it seemed as if each hair on his body stood straight out. His teeth clenched so hard that his jaws hurt, but he was determined to show nothing, not until he knew more. He nodded toward the sheet. “Is that her?”
They moved to the center of the room, the doctor at the left side of the ice-block pier, Tom and Frederick on the right.
Doctor Whelen pulled back the sheet, not looking at what lay beneath but at Tom. Tom said nothing and showed nothing. There was nothing to ease the horror of what the fire had done.
“We were able to identify her by this ring,” the doctor said, holding up a silvery ring with a small stone. “She was discovered missing once we were able to complete a count this morning.”
“My God,” Tom said, hardly realizing the words had escaped his mouth. He almost said more, almost thanked them for telling him first, letting him break the news to Mike. Tom waited. He knew there had to be more. The doctor and Durant shuffled, rubbing their hands in the cold. Tom hoped it was just the cold, but hope seemed a lifeless thing in that icy tomb.
After an uncomfortable silence, the doctor finally spoke up.
“There’s one more thing, Mister Braddock. And I wanted you to see this, get your professional opinion.” The doctor pointed at Letitia’s head. The hair was gone, burned away. The flesh hung in blackened flakes. The facial muscles were a deep, brittle red. The eyes, nose, lips and ears had all been consumed. Tom couldn’t imagine why he needed to look any more than he already had, but he looked where the doctor pointed.
“She was murdered, sir.”
Tom saw it just as the doctor spoke, saw the hole in the temple. Bending close to examine the wound, Tom stared at the hole. He could smell Lettie’s charred flesh. After a moment, he straightened and looked at the doctor.
“You’re jumping to conclusions, Doctor. That could have been caused by any number of objects commonly found in a barn, anything from a pitchfork to a protruding nail. You saw how that barn collapsed. This,” he said, pointing to Lettie’s head, “doesn’t necessarily prove anything.”
“That was my reaction as well, Tom,” Frederick said, though Tom could see he was holding back.
“But?” Tom asked.
Frederick shrugged. “Once we found the body, and particularly the damage to the skull, we thought the same thing. Checked very carefully near where she was found, very carefully, I assure you.”
“And you found nothing,” Tom said, finishing the sentence. “Still inconclusive. You realize she could have moved quite some distance, even with a wound like that.”
“I’ll tell you what we realized,” the doctor said, pointing a finger at Tom. “We realized that your son has been seen with this poor girl on more than one occasion. The dear thing had even confided to others of her feelings for him. And from what we’ve learned, your son was the last person to see her alive. Apparently, they stole off yesterday afternoon. Were you aware of that?”
Tom glared at the doctor. “So, you put two and two together and came up with murder?” Tom said, not answering the question. “Brilliant!” Tom almost added, “you idiot,” but managed to keep it down.
“Two young people have a harmless summer romance and that somehow spells murder to you? Where’s your motive, doctor?” Tom laughed at him. There was no mirth in it, just glaring eyes and bared teeth. “I don’t presume to tell you how to treat patients. I suggest you do the same when it comes to police work. You’re wasting my time and insulting my intelligence. Good night!”
Tom turned his back on the doctor and Frederick. His hand was on the icy latch of the door when the doctor added, “Your son was with Letitia Burman yesterday, Captain.
“She did not return last night. I don’t need to be a detective to know your son must be a suspect! Telegrams have been sent to the authorities. I have friends in New York as well, Mister Braddock, powerful friends in the judiciary and in political circles. If there’s anything we should know about your son it would be better if you told us now,” the doctor said with a smug scowl. “There may be no motive, as you say, but certainly you must appreciate that this is a circumstance that must be investigated.”
“I’m sorry, Tom,” Frederick broke in, “but it’s something that we must follow through on. I’m sure it will turn out to be, ah—nothing of any—substance. I’m sure,” he said with a sideways glance at the doctor. “But surely you, of all people, must see the necessity of pursuing this.”
Tom stood looking from one to the other, wondering if they could somehow find out about Mike, discover his involvement in the fire at the warehouse. The fact that there was no official record couldn’t make the incident go away entirely, a fact that Tom hadn’t thought would ever haunt them until now. He knew he’d have done the same in their shoes, but, as Mike’s father, he knew more than they ever could. He knew Mike.
For a brief, sickening instant, though, the incident of six months before flashed before his eyes, the sight of the watchman lying in the hospital, the smoldering warehouse. He dismis
sed it. That had nothing to do with this.
“We need to talk to your son, Braddock,” the doctor added. Perhaps he took Tom’s hesitation as a sign of weakness. “We expect your cooperation. If that is not forthcoming, well—I don’t have to tell you how that would look.”
Tom smiled at the doctor. It was a sarcastic twist of the mouth that said even more than the words that followed. “I don’t give a fuck how it looks!” Tom growled. “You will not be speaking with my son!”
“You arrogant bastard!” the doctor roared, his neck flushing red above his stiff collar. He pointed a righteous finger at Tom. “Your son is a bloody murderer and you’re protecting him!”
Tom was surprised at the doctor’s reaction. Frederick was as well. He put a hand on the doctor’s arm.
“I will not be silenced, Mister Durant. I will speak the truth, as God gives me the vision to see it! This blackguard may imagine he can bully his way out of this, but…”
The icehouse door slammed behind Tom with a dull thud that echoed into the hillside.
Tom walked back to the hotel. He was drenched within minutes. He took no note of it. He felt nothing, saw nothing but the image of Letitia Burman’s charred body. It hung behind his eyes, refusing to be washed away. Tom wrestled with how he was to break the news to Mike. There was no way to make it easy.
He considered the situation. There was no physical evidence at this point linking Mike to the girl’s death, but that was little comfort. Tom refused to think of it as a murder. There was no proof, no weapon, no witnesses, no motive. Mike could still be arrested on suspicion though, and held for God knows how long. Tom didn’t want to entertain the notion of this ever coming to trial. He hesitated even thinking about it. It was a possibility that could not be ignored. This was not New York City, home to some of the finest detectives in the country. Tom could only imagine what kind of untrained, hick sheriff might show up tomorrow or the day after to take charge of the investigation. Mike could be railroaded. A bit of flamboyant rhetoric, a bucketful of trumped-up circumstantial evidence, tales of a similar crime in New York, a flow of tearful testimony, and Mike could find himself behind bars for a very long time, or worse.
The Empire of Shadows Page 16