Thoreau in Phantom Bog

by Oak, B. B.

  “Were you present when Mr. Pelletier was murdered, Mr. Thoreau?” Phyfe asked him in a cold voice. They had locked horns over court procedures before.

  “I was not.”

  “Then sit down.”

  “I will not.”

  “I can damn well make him sit,” Beers offered.

  “No profanity in court, Constable,” Phyfe chastised. “Very well, Mr. Thoreau. Have your say and be done with it. But pray remember this is not the time nor the place for one of your lyceum lectures.”

  “I have only two statements to make. Firstly, Jacques Pelletier was a slave trader and was having an illegal ship built and equipped in the Boston shipyards to transport captured Africans across the Atlantic to be sold.”

  That stirred up loud murmurs in the beehive, and to his credit, Justice Phyfe looked both shocked and outraged. But then he banged his gavel and spoke. “Are you saying, Mr. Thoreau, that because Pelletier was a slaver he deserved to be murdered by Dr. Walker?”

  “No! I am saying that Dr. Walker had no motive to kill him, for Dr. Walker knew that Pelletier was soon to be arrested for his crime. In fact, I arrived in Plumford this morning with a Boston police officer who intended to do just that.”

  Phyfe thought upon this for a moment. “Perhaps Dr. Walker did not want to lose the opportunity to kill Mrs. Pelletier’s husband before he was incarcerated.”

  “Such a supposition as that demonstrates your prejudice against Dr. Walker,” Henry said.

  “I have no prejudice against Plumford’s only doctor. Indeed, it pains me to order him imprisoned on suspicion of murder. But what choice do I have when both the town constable and our respected publican saw him standing over Pelletier’s body with the murder weapon in hand, still dripping blood?”

  “Pelletier was dead long before I saw him,” Adam said. “Rigor mortis was at an advanced stage.”

  “Unfortunately, there is no one to back up your statement,” Phyfe said. “Under normal circumstances in such an investigation I would call for a doctor’s opinion concerning the state of the deceased, but since the doctor I would call is in fact the accused murderer, I cannot very well trust his testimony.”

  Henry groaned. “I have never heard such specious reasoning.”

  “Silence, Thoreau!” Phyfe said. “Or I will have you arrested for contempt.”

  “If it is a crime to have contempt for pompous town officials who ask all the wrong questions, then I plead guilty.”

  Phyfe chose to ignore Henry this time and looked straight at Adam with a grim, implacable expression. “Dr. Walker, I order you to remain in custody at the Sun Tavern until arrangements are made to transfer you to the Concord jail tomorrow.”

  “I request to be released on my own recognizance so that I may be at liberty to care for my patients,” Adam said.

  “Request denied,” Phyfe replied with a bang of his gavel. “Murder is too serious a crime to give you, the one and only suspect, such freedom as that. Take your prisoner back to his cell, Constable.”

  As I watched Adam being marched out of the Meetinghouse, I noticed the hair on the crown of his head was clotted with blood. Yet he held his head high, and his stride was strong. Battered and bruised though he was, he remained unbowed. And I resolved that I would remain so, too. For his sake and our child’s.

  ADAM

  Tuesday, May 23

  Beers must have delighted in strutting the length of the Green with me in tow as his prisoner. His beefy paw gripped my arm like a vise, but at least I was spared the humiliation of wearing manacles. Shrewd politician that he is, Justice Phyfe must have instructed Beers not to shackle me. That would not have gone down well with the townspeople we passed on our march from the Meetinghouse to the Sun Tavern. Most of them regarded me with sympathy rather than censure. I had been to their homes to minister to the sick, to stitch and plaster, to splint broken limbs, to help bring their babies into this world, to relieve the pain of the dying, and to grieve with the bereaved. And Beers, who wanted to be reelected to the lucrative office of Town Constable, kept his hatred for me tightly corked whilst we were in public. No smirks, no snickers, no unnecessary bashing upon my head with a cane. Indeed, his conduct was beyond reproach.

  Once we went down to the Sun cellar, however, his demeanor changed from peacemaker to bully. He shoved me into my cell so hard I almost fell to my knees, but I kept my balance and my temper. Trouncing the town’s one and only law enforcer would only make matters worse for me. If indeed that were possible.

  Plumford had no jail, and my cell was just a damp corner of the cellar that Ruggles had walled off with rough boards. He used the space to store his kegs of cider, barrels of beer, and boxes of bottled spirits, and thanks to a padlock on the crooked door, it was just secure enough to keep out a thirsty inebriate. Or to keep in a supposedly murderous doctor, at least temporarily.

  “You will soon be wearing a hempen cravat, Walker,” Beers said with his familiar but hardly endearing sneer. “And when they hang you, I will be right there to watch you dance a hornpipe in the air.” With that last witticism he slammed shut the door and padlocked it. I confess I was not sorry to see him go.

  I sat myself upon the narrow rope bed Ruggles had brought down last night for me. Dim light leaked through one small cellar window, and mice squeaked in the fieldstone foundation. From the huge timbers that supported the floor above there issued the smell of punky wood and dry rot. My head still ached from Beers’s cane battering, and my heart ached for Julia. How long would we have to endure being separated? It seemed likely that she would have to go through her pregnancy and bear our child without me there to support her. And she would have to raise the child without me too if I were hanged for Pelletier’s murder.

  With that dire possibility in mind, I began plotting my escape. It would have to be tonight, for tomorrow I would be removed to the Concord jail, a solid stone structure said to be as secure as a fortress. Not so this makeshift cell. The horizontal wall boards were spaced a few inches apart, and I slid my hands beneath one of them and gave it a tug to test how difficult it would be to dislodge. I felt it give enough to make me conclude that I could manage it. Once out, I would go to my office and take what money and valuables I had there. Would then ride Coburn’s horse back to Boston and get on the first ship leaving on the next tide. Destination wouldn’t matter. From wherever I landed I would contact Julia to join me. A vague plan, yes. But a damn sight better one than waiting around to be hanged.

  I heard footsteps coming down the stairs and looked through a gap between the boards to see Julia and Henry approaching. I had not been given the opportunity to talk to either of them before the Hearing. Julia threw back her veil, and I pushed my hands through the gap to gently touch her face, so beautiful despite the injuries to it. To give us privacy, Henry moved to the area of the cellar where he was constructing the dumbwaiter and pretended to examine his work.

  “You are not allowed visitors,” she said, “but Mr. Ruggles kindly looked the other way when Henry escorted me past him.” She brought my hand to her lips and kissed it. “I cannot bear to see you locked up like this, my darling.”

  “I intend to escape from here tonight,” I told her sotto voce. “I will get word to you as soon as I can.”

  “No, no, no,” she protested in a rasping whisper, golden eyes wide with alarm. “They will hunt you down, Adam. You might be shot dead. Don’t put your life in jeopardy!”

  “My life is already in jeopardy. You heard the testimony from Ruggles and Beers. That was enough to convince Justice Phyfe I killed Pelletier, and it will be enough to convince a jury I should hang for it.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  “No, Julia. But the only doctor who can attest to my innocence with medical evidence is myself. And who would believe me?”

  “Julia and I will believe you,” Henry said, coming forward. I had forgotten he could hear like an owl. “Tell us what this evidence is, Adam.”

  “As I attempted to
explain to Justice Phyfe, Pelletier was dead hours before I came upon his body, for rigor mortis had set in,” I said. “And what’s more, I think he was dead before the knife was plunged into his chest. When a beating heart is stabbed, it pumps out a great quantity of blood, internally and externally. There was no blood whatever to be seen; only the few drops on his shirt where I drew out the blade.”

  “But why would someone stab a dead man?” Henry said.

  “Perhaps as some sort of ritual,” Julia said and took in a sharp breath. “Did Mawuli kill Pelletier?”

  “If he knew about the slave ship, he certainly had motive enough,” I said.

  “But no opportunity,” Henry countered. “I’ve already questioned Ruggles and a few others who were at the tavern last evening. They observed Mawuli and Pelletier in conversation on the porch around nine o’clock. Then Pelletier went up to his rooms. Mawuli did not follow him upstairs. Instead, he left the tavern and walked toward Julia’s house.”

  “Yes,” Julia said. “Mawuli came to my house to see if I was all right. He was with me all evening. He was still there when Adam came back from Boston.”

  “And what time was that?” Henry said.

  “Two in the morning,” I said. “When I saw the injuries Pelletier had inflicted on Julia, I went directly to the Sun to confront him. I admit that I was enraged enough to have killed him, but instead I found him already dead.”

  “For how long do you estimate?” Henry said.

  “At least five hours. His jaw and limbs had stiffened.”

  “But at the Hearing,” Henry said, “Mrs. Ruggles testified that Pelletier was alive at midnight when she brought up his beefsteak. Why did she lie?”

  “To protect her husband!” Julia cried and then looked toward the stairway to see if Ruggles was lurking in the shadows. “He killed Pelletier.”

  “What motive would Ruggles have had for killing Pelletier?” Henry said. “Had they known each other before?”

  “It does not seem likely,” Julia said. “But anything is possible.”

  “I cannot see Ruggles as a murderer,” I said.

  “He was quick enough to see you as one, though,” Henry said. “Perhaps he needed a scapegoat. It would have been easy enough for Ruggles to poison Pelletier.”

  “The steak I saw on the table in Pelletier’s suite was uneaten,” I said. “There was also a full carafe of wine and a clean glass.”

  “The carafe could have been refilled, and the glass rinsed,” Julia said.

  “Or replaced,” Henry said.

  “If Pelletier had indeed ingested a poison,” I said, “I would find traces of it in his stomach. Unfortunately, I am not free to perform an autopsy.”

  “Another doctor must perform one as soon as possible,” Henry said. “Whom do you want me to contact, Adam?”

  “Dr. Holmes at Massachusetts General Hospital,” I said. “I expect he will come as soon as he learns I’m in trouble. I was one of his favorite medical students, and he always predicted I would make a name for myself. Alas, not as a murderer.”

  We all stopped talking when we heard a heavy tread upon the stairs. It was Ruggles, carrying a bowl of soup. “I am sorry, Mrs. Pelletier, but you must leave now. If Beers catches you down here, we’ll all be in trouble. Henry can remain, though, since he has the excuse of doing work down here.”

  Julia gave me one last look, kissed my hand again, and left without a word of protest. That was so unlike her that I knew she must be up to something.

  Ruggles asked Henry to hold the bowl for him whilst he dug a key chain out of his apron pocket. It held many keys, including the one to the padlock. He opened the door, took the bowl from Henry, stepped into the cell, and set it on a cider keg, along with a spoon and a starched white linen napkin. “Edda cooked up some oxtail soup special for you, Adam.”

  “Did she cook up that lie at the Hearing special for me too?” I could not help but ask.

  Ruggles stared at me. He looked genuinely stunned. And then exceedingly angry. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

  Before I could reply, there was another tramp of footsteps down the stairs. I thought for sure it was Beers, but it turned out to be Rusty the daguerreotypist.

  “You are not allowed down here!” Ruggles shouted at him. He quickly closed and padlocked the door to my cell.

  “I just want to shake the hand of the man who killed a slave trader,” Rusty said, smiling back at me as I looked at him between the boards.

  “As much as I disdained Pelletier for his trade,” I told him, “I did not kill him.”

  “Of course you didn’t.” Rusty’s smile broadened. “But I congratulate you all the same.”

  I was not about to put out my hand for Rusty to shake. “I did not kill the man,” I repeated wearily.

  Ruggles gave me a woeful look and shook his great globe of a head. “I understand why you must lie to save your own skin, Adam, but do not accuse others of lying to save it.”

  I looked him in the eye and said, “Sam, we both know what the truth is, don’t we? And so does your wife.”

  “Enough!” he roared back at me. “I will not play along with this game of yours, especially in front of others.” He turned to Rusty. “Let’s go, young man. You have no business down here.”

  Rusty made a show of saluting me before he departed with Ruggles.

  “Your incarceration is most ill-timed, my friend,” Henry said after they left. “Why did you get yourself arrested for one murder whilst we were in the middle of investigating two others? It further complicates an already complicated situation.”

  “My apologies, Henry. I know how you like to keep things simple.”

  He nodded. “It is indeed my mantra.”

  “Perhaps Rusty can assist you,” I suggested. “He should be most eager to help you capture the man who assassinated his fellow Underground Railroad Conductors.”

  “Rusty already volunteered to help,” Henry said. “He suspects the Quaker as much as I do and keeps an eye on him when I cannot. But Rusty doesn’t seem to take the matter as seriously as he should, considering that he too is in danger.”

  “From what we’ve heard regarding the dashing daguerreotypist, he’s used to danger,” I said.

  “Yes, Rusty has certainly had his share of close calls,” Henry said. “I reckon that’s why he’s developed such a cavalier attitude about life.”

  “About death too,” I said. “Else why would he express admiration for someone he presumes to be a cold-blooded killer?”

  “Methinks Rusty was just trying to express what an avid abolitionist he is,” Henry said.

  “Nonetheless, it seems rather callous to want to shake my hand because he thinks it plunged a knife into another man’s heart.”

  “We will disprove that notion soon enough with an autopsy,” Henry said. “I will send a note to Dr. Holmes forthwith. But before I leave you, I want you to promise me that you will not attempt to escape from here tonight, Adam.”

  “So you overheard me tell Julia I plan to.”

  “I also heard her warning you not to do it. She’s right, Adam. You’d be putting your life in grave danger.”

  “Do not concern yourself,” I told him. “I will not take off now that I have hope that an autopsy will prove Pelletier was poisoned.”

  “Will you give me your hand and shake on that?”

  I stuck my arm out between the boards. “Your hand I will gladly shake, Henry.”

  JULIA

  Tuesday, May 23

  Determined to question Edda Ruggles about her false testimony at the Hearing, I went looking for her immediately upon leaving the tavern cellar. I did not find her in the kitchen or the taproom or the ladies’ parlor or the porch, so I went upstairs and knocked on the door to the Ruggleses’ private suite, calling her name. I received no response, but the door was ajar, and I took that as invitation enough to let myself in. There was no one in the sitting room. Yet the rocking chair was still rocking.

 
“Mrs. Ruggles!” I called. Silence. I imagined her cringing behind one of the closed doors. “Edda, pray come forth. We must talk.” I listened a moment, but heard not a sound. “I will not go away, I assure you, until you explain why you lied to Justice Phyfe. Either come out, or I will hunt you out.”

  She did not come out. Therefore, a-hunting I did go. The door I opened led to a bedchamber. Mr. Ruggles’s night shirt was neatly folded on a plump pillow of the high, wide bed, and Mrs. Ruggles’s diaphanous nightdress hung from the bedpost like a frilly flag. I had intruded into their private inner sanctum and did not care a whit. I wanted answers.

  “Mrs. Ruggles!” I called again. “Where are you?” As I considered looking under the bed I heard a rustle of movement in the massive mahogany wardrobe wedged in the far corner of the room. “I know you are hiding in the wardrobe, Edda. You are behaving like a child.”

  I waited a moment to give Mrs. Ruggles the chance to regain a portion of her dignity by coming out on her own. When she did not, there was nothing for it but to cross the room and throw open the double doors of the wardrobe. All hell let loose when I did. A raucous screech pierced my ears, and Edda’s parrot flew out of the dark space and into my face, knocking me down. The bird then began to attack me.

  I rolled over onto my stomach and covered my head with my arms as Roos dove at me again and again. Her claws and beak tore through the thin cloth of my frock but could not, thank God, pierce through my steel and baleen corset. I was getting scratched and bitten on my upper back and arms and hands, however, and could not very well just lie there like carrion. I pushed myself up on my knees, and, keeping my head down and shielded by my arms, I crawled toward the bed for protection. When I slid under it I found that I had company. Edda Ruggles. How I wished I had looked there for her before looking in the wardrobe!

  Edda and I stared at each other, our faces inches apart, as the parrot continued to flap around the room, screeching. “You frighten Roos,” Edda said to me. In an accusatory tone, no less! “The wardrobe is her secret nesting place.”