by Jo Robertson
His expression brooked no argument. "We should have answers in a few hours. I must ask you to be patient until then." He hesitated and looked away from their bleak faces. "I'm sorry for your loss," he added, just remembering those were the correct words of condolence.
As soon as he decently could, Gage left the Carvers to their private grief and returned to the police station to write his report. He relieved Sergeant Henderson, the officer on duty, and dispatched him to neighboring towns to begin the task of assembling a coroner's jury.
Although Nell's body was now secured in the Carver's outbuilding, most of the day would involve summoning the men who would determine how she'd died. If, indeed, they could.
Henderson and six other officers besides Pruitt made up the whole of the Tuscarora City police force. Eight men – nine, counting Gage. Would this small group be sufficient to investigate Nell's death if they determined it was a crime?
He thought briefly of informing Bailey of her friend's death, but decided against it. Meghan could be like a bulldog in her persistence and intensity and he wanted to determine the cause of Nell's death first.
Still, there'd be hell to pay. Fiercely loyal, Meghan loved her friend and would be royally pissed that he hadn't rushed to inform her they'd found Nell's body.
Chapter 2
Meghan Bailey fancied herself an amateur sleuth.
She'd read the entire volumes of Arthur Conan Doyle's brilliant detective and was quite certain she had as quick a mind as Dr. Watson at the very least. Whatever Meghan lacked in experience and skill, she made up for in self-confidence.
And she did not believe for one minute that her friend Ellen Carver drowned.
The moment she released her students from Albemarle Elementary School, Meghan stacked up the tablets and books, arranged papers on her desk, and wiped down the chalk board. She knew these were delays to put off the inevitable confrontation with Tucker Gage.
Since he'd returned from the Army, the easy friendship they'd once enjoyed had turned to awkwardness. She couldn't say why except that he'd become a stranger compared to the light-hearted boy who'd eagerly trotted off to West Point over ten years ago.
And of course she'd become a woman, not at all the little girl he'd once teased about her skinny legs and dark hair, forever tangling on her. She sighed, leaned her chin on her fist, and looked out the window at the bare trees and muddy sidewalks lining the street.
Before Tucker had gone West with the Army, he'd been so beautiful he made her heart hurt. Now his eyes no longer laughed and deep lines surrounded his perfect mouth. When she looked at his ruggedly handsome face, a skittering started in her chest, but a deep sadness accompanied it.
Damn! She shook herself out of her reverie. She wasn't that same giddy girl who'd worshipped the younger Tucker, but an accomplished, intelligent woman. And right now her primary concern was that the coroner would hastily conclude that Nell's death was an accidental drowning.
She must quickly abolish that silly notion.
With renewed determination, she summoned Mr. Johnson and asked him to lock up the two-room school after he finished the cleaning. As there were no sessions for the next several days, she intended to learn everything she could about what really happened to her friend. As uncomfortable as facing Tucker Gage was, that was the practical place to start.
And Meghan was nothing if not practical.
As she walked the five blocks to the Police Station House on Clinton Avenue, the swishing of her skirt kept determined rhythm with the clicking of her heels. She climbed a narrow stairwell to the second story landing of the square brick building that also contained City Hall and the Fire Department on the ground floor.
Marshal Tucker Gage stood at military attention behind a long oak barrier, his lean form impeccably covered in a waistcoat and shirt, morning coat, and neck tie. The Stetson he'd taken to wearing since he returned from the Army lay on the counter. The tight flaps of his collar looked stiff and forbidding, and even though her pulse jumped at the sight of him, Meghan wasn't deterred.
"They're saying Nell drowned," she challenged without preamble. "That's absolutely impossible."
#
Gage should've been accustomed to Meghan Bailey's blunt manner by now. She possessed strong opinions about almost everything, and as the local school teacher, involved herself in the lives of most community members through the children she taught. Gripping her over-sized handbag tightly in front of her meager bosom, she flashed those green eyes in confrontation, and her lips thinned to a determined line.
At another time, Gage might've given her a proper set down, but a picture of the cold, pale body of Nell Carver and the possibility of murder so close at hand unsettled him. Instead, he sighed and lifted his eyes from the papers lying on the counter.
"Bailey." He heard a trace of the soft drawl he thought he'd eliminated creep into his voice. "How pleasant to see you. In my Station House. Yet again." He didn't bother to keep the irony from his voice. Bailey seldom grasped the subtle nuances of wry humor.
"Don't call me Bailey," she muttered in half-hearted protest, clearly distracted.
Gage peered into her white face. Her brows knitted together across her forehead, their dark hue sharp arches against her pale flesh. He unconsciously stiffened. Good God, was she going to faint? "Are you all right?"
She roused herself with an impatient shake of her head. "Don't be silly. Of course, I'm not all right. Nell was my closest friend – " She faltered and blinked her eyes rapidly several times. Huge and richly dark like the grass in spring, they dominated her otherwise unremarkable face.
Though he knew she wouldn't appreciate the effort, he took her elbow and led her to a ladder-backed wooden chair on the other side of the oak divider. He settled her onto the hard seat and poured water from a pewter pitcher on a table in his office.
After shoving the glass into her hand, he leaned against the counter, eyeing her carefully, his arms crossed. Bailey didn't need words. In fact, she'd be thoroughly annoyed if he offered trite condolences, so he waited, watching the play of emotions that raced across her face.
After a few moments of silent staring, Gage eased a look at his pocket watch. "Now, what did you want to speak to me about?"
He recognized the mutinous tightening of her lips. Bailey was about to unleash that famous black Irish temper of hers. Jesus, such fiery emotion for such a small woman.
Her flat tone allowed no argument. "Nell didn't drown."
"So you said." Gage resisted the impulse to rake his fingers through his short-cut hair. He had an investigation to attend to and was in no mood to put up with Bailey's antics.
"Dr. Williams' inquest committee has yet to examine her, however, and there's no conclusion of drowning yet."
She blanched, her eyes wide, her lips twisted in horror. "They're cutting Nell open? Good God, why –-"
He raised a hand to silence her, surprised that the gesture stopped her short. "We have to be certain how she died. We must issue a report for the solicitor and the judge."
She paused, swallowing hard. "Of course." After a few moments she repeated quietly, but firmly, "Nell did not drown."
"If she has water in her lungs – " he began.
"I don't care," she exclaimed, a sharp edge to her voice. "Drowned? And Nell raised all her life on the Pasquotank? How does a strong woman like Nell come to drown? When she swims – " She choked and went on, "When she swam like a fish?"
Gage bit off a harsh retort, reminding himself that Bailey grieved for her best friend. "I can't ignore the coroner's findings."
She stood up, her boots clattering on the bare planks. "I know my friend, Tucker Gage. She was a sensible woman."
Gage lifted one brow. No one could accuse Ellen Carver of being sensible.
"All right," she conceded, "perhaps Nell was ... tumultuous in her personal relationships, but she never would've gone to the river alone at this time of the year." A line deepened between her brows. "She knew the dangers
of the Pasquotank."
Gage suddenly felt sorry for the woman standing in front of him, her small fists tightly clenched at her handbag, her hat slightly askew and God-awful in its hideous purples and pinks. Did no one try to teach her how to dress properly with all that tangle of hair? But then he remembered that her mother had died when she was four and was ashamed of the thought.
He looked down at her from his great height, but she didn't flinch or look away. "I know you were Nell's friend." He cleared his throat, unaccustomed to being gentle. "When Williams finishes with the autopsy, I'll tell you what he says. You have my word on it."
Her lips thinned. "Don't try to hide the information," she warned, "like you did with the letter."
What the hell? "How did you find out about that?" he barked, and to her credit, she stepped back quickly. Good, she ought to be afraid of meddling.
"By God, Bailey, if you interfere with a police investigation ... " He left the threat dangling, for in truth he didn't know what he'd do.
"Who told you?" he demanded. Someone in his department or a member of the Carver family, he guessed.
The letter had arrived at the Station House several weeks after Nell disappeared and claimed that the police could "find the body of Ellen Carver at the south end of the Pasquotank River." A hand-drawn map with a large X marked the spot where her body supposedly lay. They'd searched immediately, of course, but found no evidence that Nell had been there.
He'd concluded the letter was a cruel hoax.
"If you stick your pert little nose where it doesn't belong, I'll – I'll toss you in jail," Gage warned when she remained silent. "This isn't one of your adventures or games."
Her brilliant eyes flashed with something that might've been hurt, and he remembered the pirate games he'd played with her as a child when she was bored and he'd felt sorry for her.
"I know that." She gritted out the words and huffed from the room without another word. And, of course, with no promise at all to leave the police business to him.
How the hell was he to carry out a proper investigation with such interference?
#
The man's father took him on his first righteous hunt when he was thirteen. In the black night, the pure, hot flames of the blaze fascinated him as its orange and white ghost-fingers licked the sky. They started as kindles, torches tossed on a wooden shack, but when the flickers caught, the fire was a brilliant, hallowed conflagration.
The boy he'd been stood there, mouth agape as the fire burgeoned, the smoke thick and suffocating on the hot summer air. So lovely in its fiery destruction.
When the coons stumbled from the burning hut – the male with a young one, the female clutching a bundle in her arms and wailing a god-awful sound like a cow being butchered – his pa and the other men were waiting. The boy hovered at the periphery, watching, but desperate to join in.
The four animals went down with the first round of rifle fire, the female still gripping the bundle hard to her chest although several rounds had caught her in the hips and legs and back.
After a moment she ceased struggling and one of the men jabbed her with the hard toe of his boot. Nothing. But the bundle at her side squirmed and started to bawl, the thin thready cry of a newborn calf, but not nearly so valuable.
The man picked it up with one giant paw and tossed it back into the flames.
A righteous hunt, his father had called it, satisfaction lining his weathered face.
A sacred mission.
The one thing the boy knew for sure was the hard gratification in his groin. The pleasure he'd gotten from the whole night. The urgency to do it again.
Chapter 3
A small crowd had gathered at the open doors of the kitchen outbuilding at Pine Grove by the time Gage returned. Officer Pruitt held open the wide doors to allow the waning light in. The box-shaped main room was steamy with the ovens' heat, and the air was redolent with the odor of grease and herbs.
Gage elbowed his way through the group of men gawking at the wet body of Nell Carver. Town statutes required an inquest committee to determine the cause of death.
Another Pasquotank County physician had arrived from Elizabeth City to assist Williams. Along with the local veterinarian and barber and other prominent community members, they made up the eight-member inquest committee.
However private Gage might've preferred the autopsy be conducted, he had no choice in the matter.
Nell lay on a makeshift table with her feet pointing toward the wide entrance. An empty basin and another of water, along with cleaning cloths and several rows of instruments, lay behind her head.
Gage ordered Pruitt to push the crowd back, not liking so many men gathered luridly around Nell's body, but before he could act, the coroner's men quickly stripped Nell of all her clothing. A communal gasp rose from the men staring from the doorway. Had none of them ever gazed upon the naked bodies of their own wives? Gage wondered, indignant on Nell's behalf.
He used his large body to block the view as much as possible. "Go on home, now," he ordered, his voice quiet but commanding. "Let the coroner's jury do their duty. You'll hear the news soon enough."
When no one moved, he glowered at them and raised his voice to a shout, wishing he'd thought to bring along another patrolman. "Get on, now. Show some respect for the dead."
Reluctantly, one by one, the crowd dispersed.
Without speaking, Gage found a discarded table cloth, folded it in half, and draped it over Nell's hips for modesty. He left her breasts exposed for the scalpel incision. He felt more shaken than he'd expected at the prurient interest of so many men in poor Nell's broken body.
Williams' round face flushed and he cleared his throat before continuing. "I'm looking for bruising or injuries on the outside of the body." He looked around the room, but the other men shook their heads.
Finally Alan Freeman, the local barber, spoke up. "Don't that look like some puffiness there on her temple?"
Williams poked a finger against the spot Freeman indicated. "Can't say for sure." He then pressed a finger into her left breast to compare. The tissue bounced back under the released pressure. "Looks the same to me."
Gage gritted his teeth and looked away. From the floor he picked up Nell's discarded clothing, the deep red of her discarded gown heavy and slick with the river's slime. The pockets were empty except for a lace-edged handkerchief and a bit of paper, a torn edge, he thought. No cloak, hat, or gloves, but otherwise all of her clothing was accounted for.
Had she left the house without a coat then? On such a cold night? He'd have to ask her parents if the missing items were hanging at Pine Grove.
He'd just picked up an undergarment when the doctor's grunt of satisfaction caused him to turn back to the examination table. "What is it?"
"There are bruises on her neck."
Strangulation, Gage thought.
"Pressure to both sides of her neck." Williams shrugged, peering at the area. "I can't say it caused her death though."
Gage leaned over to see the bruises. "It looks like a thumb print on one side and maybe three fingers on the other, like this." He demonstrated with his own neck.
"Perhaps," Williams said cautiously.
After removing the cloth, the doctor moved on to the genitals. "These marks on the torso could be from the water's battering," Williams speculated.
Gage stepped closer to the splayed body. He composed his face to show neither pity nor abhorrence for the once-lively woman. Small round bluish spots on one breast stood out against the white flesh. Grappling, he thought instantly, not the river's damage. Someone had squeezed or grabbed her breast.
After a moment Williams continued, "No clear signs of sexual assault, no bruising, no scratches in that area. No semen or blood, although the river would've washed the evidence away. No obvious sign of pregnancy."
That would, at the least, relieve her parents' minds.
"However, disruption of the hymen, swelling and enlargement of the canal indicat
e she engaged in intimate relations shortly before her death." William added, "Consensual."
The other men looked at him as if to say that jot of information was expected.
To Gage it represented motive.
Satisfied with the external examination, William performed the first incision from the breastbone to the pubic bone and then executed the horizontal cut. He desecrated the girl's beautiful breasts, laying the flaps of her chest cavity wide.
Using his scalpel, he cut the cartilages and with some effort removed the ribs and breastbone. He inspected the chest organs, excised them in a bundle, and examined them in the silver basin. All the while the other men leaned over to examine his methodical actions.
Next Williams dissected the lungs, revealing the surfaces of the large airways and the great arteries. "I'm looking for pulmonary edema," he explained, examining the lungs.
"Drowning then?" Gage asked, trying to keep the hopefulness out of his voice. He didn't mind the puzzle of solving a murder, but an accidental drowning would sit much easier on the family and the community.
"Ultimately, yes." Williams pointed to the lungs in the basin. "If someone drowns in seawater, those small pockets quickly fill with water as you see here. Nell was alive when she went into the river, but – "
"But someone knocked her unconscious and put her in the river to drown," Freeman finished.
"She could've fallen into the river," Oliver Nolan, the banker, contradicted.
"Completely by accident," agreed Seth Adams, who always looked for the easiest answer.
Gage looked at the men surrounding the table. Were they all so eager to certify Nell's death an accident? All except Alan Freeman, who seemed determined to look for murder?
Dr. Sparrow, the physician from Elizabeth City, had remained at the head of the table where he now pushed apart the tangled blonde curls. "See here." He exposed the pale bluish area at the left temple. "Particles of some kind."