Miss Lewis said she thought James should be released. Where else would James go, she wanted to know. He wasn’t likely to run off the island. Not now. Miss Cather said that if Daggett was reluctant, they would pay his bail. Daggett assured them he would release James without bail. Miss Cather had grinned broadly and Miss Lewis said she thought a celebration was in order. They would talk to Miss Jacobus.
That’s why James thought Miss Cather and Miss Lewis should be part of the celebration. He wanted to make a speech. He wanted everyone to know the full story, to know what these women did. He wanted to give public thanks. Miss Cather and Miss Lewis would refuse him, he was certain of that, but they wouldn’t refuse his mother. They could say no to him, but no one had ever said no to his mother.
Mary Daniels, however, was less keen about insisting the ladies come. She thought they should be able to preserve their privacy if that’s what they wanted. Jenny Dawson took her side.
“Miss Cather already said it, James. What matters is not what they did but that you are free,” Jenny squeezed his hand. They had already reached the bottom of the orchard. The cottage wasn’t far beyond.
“You are free, the danger is past, the mystery is solved,” Mary Daniels sighed her relief. “That’s all that really matters.”
“Right,” Jenny dodged a low-hanging branch. “And besides, those women really didn’t have much to do with that, James. You did,” she patted his arm, “you and the constable.”
“You’re wrong there, Jenny,” James chided. “Those women, the constable, and your brother Eric. That’s who did it. Don’t forget your brother in all this. Not only did he collect the body, he helped Daggett bring in the motor launch.” James began to chuckle, “I just wish I could have been there.”
“Puffins,” Mary Daniels flung out her arms, “thousands of puffins … millions of puffins … and four people in a dingy,” she began to giggle.
“Not my idea of desperate desperadoes,” Jenny caught the joke and laughed at her own and James’ seriousness, “or a dangerous situation.”
“But Eric and the constable didn’t know that,” James felt he must defend their honor. “They couldn’t know that until they got to Machias and saw the motor launch moored and Dickie Dalhouse rowing toward land. Even so,” James ventured, “Johnson could still have been planning to force Dickie to take them to Eastport … or Lubec … or … well, anywhere,” James flung his arms in the air. “He said he wasn’t, of course. Daggett said he thought Johnson was enjoying the cat-and-mouse game so much, he just didn’t want to call it off.”
“Daggett doesn’t take Johnson very seriously, does he? As a criminal, I mean,” Jenny brushed away a low-hanging bough.
“Arrogant, that’s what Mark Daggett called him, and I guess I agree,” James paused to flick a mosquito from his forehead.
“Men like that never think about getting caught,” his mother nodded, “and when they do, they think the law is just something for people like you and me.”
“I never thought of it like that,” Jenny glanced at her future mother-in-law.
The cottage lay just ahead, shadows stretching across the lawn.
“Anyway,” James began to aim their conversation toward its conclusion, “I didn’t do much to catch anyone. Eric did. I just told Daggett what happened to me. And I might not have done that if Miss Cather and Miss Lewis hadn’t forced me … hadn’t figured it all out and listened and taken me directly to Daggett. Miss Cather had figured it out ahead, you know. My part anyway. But she thought I should have a chance to confess.”
“Wise women, waiting for you to come to them.”
“Yes, I guess so,” James glanced at his mother. “Miss Cather said she knew I would, knew my character. Miss Lewis said she knew I would, too. It had just never occurred to her I had so much to tell. They hadn’t talked it through yet, the two of them together, and Matthew Johnson was a total mystery to them.”
“Some sleuths,” Jenny giggled. “But you were the piece that didn’t fit. That’s what Constable Daggett called you, the piece that didn’t fit.”
“He had only one part of the puzzle,” James responded seriously, “they had the other.”
“A darned silly puzzle, if you ask me,” Mary Daniels blurted out and pointed to the view ahead. Deep purple touched the horizon, spiked with lavender and pink. “All that fuss about liquor.”
Without sunlight, a haze would soon settle down over Seven Days Work. James increased the pace.
XXIV
“BOOTLEGGING ON GRAND MANAN,” Margaret Byington bellowed and wiped the table clean, “can you beat that. Just when we’re beginning to enjoy the taste of champagne again, that could have caused a lot of trouble,” she picked up a tray stacked with soiled tableware and carried it into the kitchen.
“Let’s invite Hoover’s Crime Commission to come for a visit, what do you say. They’ll see how well behaved we are with liquor and how poorly off others are because of the ban,” Ethelwyn Manning planted herself next to the swinging doors. She filled a tray with clean plates. The crowd was still pouring in.
“Let’s, I say,” Alice Jordan chuckled dryly, passing the cups along, “then Willa and Edith can swap their stories with old friends from Lincoln.”
“That’s right, I remember now,” her sister nodded wisely, licking frosting from the back of her hand, “Dean Pound was a friend of theirs, wasn’t he?”
“The way I heard it, his sister is the one Willa knew best. A lovely tennis champion, I believe,” Manning added an elaborate wink.
“Is she the one who earned her doctorate in Germany?”
“She is,” Alice Jordan gave Byington a sharp glance. “A Nineties’ Modern Woman … socialite, scholar, and all-around athlete.”
“A Nineties’ example of Willa’s janefoolery, to hear Edith tell it,” Margaret Byington’s deep laughter filled the room.
“Willa, too,” Alice Jordan gave in and giggled behind her hand, “when she’s in a mood to confess.”
“So I understand,” Manning confirmed, “though I’ve never heard her say it.”
“There’s a lot they never say,” Margaret’s humor began to turn droll, “and inviting the Hoover Commission to visit is about the only way the Commission … or anyone … will ever find out what Willa and Edith have been up to just now.”
“Absolutely,” Mary Jordan began to pump fresh water into the largest tea kettle.
“We must never tell a soul,” Alice Jordan admonished.
“We never will,” Margaret Byington crossed her heart.
“MARY DANIELS is so proud of young James,” Edith yawned and brushed crumbs from her lap, “it’s a pleasure to see.”
Mattie took the opportunity of the empty dining room to sidle closer to Edith’s chair.
“It was absolutely the nicest thing in the world you could have done for Mary Daniels to have this celebration here tonight, Sallie Jacobus,” Mark Daggett raised his empty cup.
“It was absolutely the nicest thing in the world you could have done to make it possible for her son to be here, Mark Daggett,” Jacobus filled his cup with black coffee.
From across the table, Elizabeth Daggett smiled and added sugar to her cup.
“He still has to go through the hearing, of course,” Daggett used a spoon to cool his coffee.
“Oh, but he should be fine with that,” Edith sipped the last of her lemonade, “now that his secret’s out and he knows the response. Such applause. Such cheering,” she placed her glass exactly in front of her on the blue-checkered oilcloth, “and for Eric, too. Fine young men, both of them,” she glanced up, “Willa said so, too. The island has a right to be proud.”
“Of their constable, too,” Jacobus poured the last of the pot into her own cup and returned Elizabeth Daggett’s broad grin with one of her own.
The crowded dining room was empty at last, the main house and the grounds quiet. Only intermittent clattering came from the kitchen, one of the serving girls filling kettles in prepa
ration for the early morning rounds of hot water. In her mind’s eye, Edith could see young Kate who delivered their water each morning and hear Willa say, as she did without fail, I declare, that jug is bigger than the girl. Of course, the water wouldn’t have much time to heat this evening. It was already past midnight. Edith stifled a yawn. Just about everyone had gone, including Willa. Daggett had delivered James, his mother, and the Dawsons to their doors and come back for Elizabeth and Jennifer, whose deep, sleeping sighs reached them from the sofa in front of the fireplace where she had tucked up her feet.
The islanders had reveled through the night, raising cheer after cheer when Daggett brought word that Jack Watson was under lock and key in Calais and officials in Montreal were questioning Jackson Knoll. St. Stephen had taken Burt Isaacs in tow. Telegrams had also come in from New Bedford, where several dockworkers had explaining to do, and friends of John Thomas Bush were being sought in Boston and Detroit. Bush himself, the telegrams said, was hardly missed. Even fellow gangsters feared the man and his temper. His real name, Detroit suggested, may have been Buschetti, Johnny Buschetti, a bad seed from Chicago who came back from the Great War a seasoned con artist and killer who was deadly with women. He had ties to Capone. Daggett planned to check with Chicago.
Edith and Willa had watched the evening’s festivities from the edge of the orchard, where James made them comfortable. A compromise, Willa declared. They would see everything but talk to no one. And no one, James in particular, must say anything to or about them. And so, undisturbed, they had watched through the speeches and the fiddle playing and the dancing. Sabra Jane stopped by to talk. Daggett waved from a distance. No one else even seemed to be aware of their presence. Willa’s delight when Emma Parker grabbed Jesse Martin for a few turns among the dancers had almost given them away, Edith chuckled to herself. Emma’s gray curls bounced perfectly in time, but Jesse never quite got the step.
“Very likely no one will be tried for anything, you know,” Daggett broke the silence.
“Self-defense is no crime in Canada,” Elizabeth nodded.
“Neither is bootlegging,” Daggett swallowed his coffee. It was agreeably warm.
“Shouldn’t be elsewhere, either,” Jacobus pushed back in her chair. “Too many people like their glass of wine,” she waved her hand as though the dining room were still filled with her friends. “Most of us do. And none of this would have happened if it weren’t for Prohibition.”
“I wish that were entirely true,” Elizabeth traced a line through blue squares on the oilcloth with the edge of her spoon, “but violence does go with drunkenness.”
“It does,” Daggett nodded, settling back in his chair, “but Jacobus is right too. Bush or Buschetti’s kind of violence, whatever his name, well, that goes on with or without alcohol.”
“True,” Elizabeth conceded, “it’s like a disease.”
“Universal … endemic … epidemic,” Edith extended the simile.
“Yes,” Jacobus drew her own conclusion, “a plague upon men.”
Daggett chuckled, and Elizabeth smiled.
“It’s too bad about that young Mr. Johnson,” Edith shifted to consider the lure of fast money. Jacobus’ joke passed her by.
The three looked at her.
“Trying to catch up in that way with his wife’s wealth, I mean,” Edith tried to explain.
Jacobus cocked her head.
“It’s hard for a couple when the money’s not equal. Especially for men … for some men …”
“What’s hard is earning respect, not money,” Jacobus interjected, her voice acquiring an edge.
“Perhaps he has learned,” Elizabeth smiled. “Mark says Matthew Johnson was truly shocked when he found out that Bush murdered a young woman and tried to kill James.”
“He was, but he shouldn’t have been. A man like Bush may dress like money and talk like wealth, but he’s a man without breeding. Johnson would have known that if he’d had any real class himself,” Daggett nudged his cup around on the oilcloth before him. When it reached the spot from where it started, he let it rest.
“Be careful, Mark, you’ll sound like a snob and a eugenicist,” Elizabeth scolded.
Daggett grinned. Elizabeth surprised him sometimes. Like now. She seemed perfectly comfortable with Miss Lewis and Jacobus. Comfortable enough to tease him.
“Putting class and breeding quite aside,” Edith returned the conversation to the line of thinking she had been developing, “it’s clear that the only gain from the sort of pact Mr. Johnson was about to strike with Mr. Bush is a great deal of pain. It was a devil’s bargain. Mephistophelean.”
“Right,” Jacobus swung Edith’s thought around to fit her own, “and Prohibition is the devil’s tool box. Thou Shalt Not …”
“And thou shalt not means one has to try … whatever it is,” Elizabeth nodded a faint yes, “I see what you mean.”
“Fortunately for Johnson,” Daggett reached for his pipe, “he never hesitated when it came to turning over the slip of paper and passport he found on the beach,” Daggett paused to tap charred bits of tobacco into the ashtray before him, “never denied knowing John Thomas Bush … and never feigned ignorance when it came to explaining how he misled me.” With the pipe emptied, Daggett tamped fresh tobacco and retrieved the little can of matches from his breast pocket. “He did try to mislead me, you know,” he added between puffs as he relit the pipe.
“We certainly do,” Edith said with emphasis, “and so did these … what were their names … the fellows who searched the room at Swallowtail and the cliff at Seven Days Work?” She paused to rub her sore hand, “They were looking for the same slip of paper, right?”
“That’s my bet, anyway. And I’m guessing Jackson Knoll was the first one, Burt Isaacs the other. Knoll had easy access to Bush’s room, Isaacs to the torch,” Daggett paused to retamp his pipe and strike another match. “Odd sense of humor, that Isaacs,” he mused through puffs of smoke, “leaving his torch in my car.”
“Effective, though,” Elizabeth glanced at her husband. “He managed to frighten me half to death and throw you off track,” she turned to Edith, “to say nothing of what he did to you and Miss Cather.”
“Added excitement to your evening, that’s what he did,” Jacobus chuckled. Mattie stirred, and Jacobus reached down to scratch her behind the ears.
“Lucky it wasn’t Willa’s hand, that’s all I have to say,” Edith glanced at her own bandaged left hand. “Such pain,” Edith shook her head, “she’s had enough of such pain, and it keeps her from writing.”
“That’s true,” Jacobus agreed, “hard as this may be for Edith, the other’s worse. Willa has been experiencing terrible pains in her hand,” Jacobus explained to Elizabeth and Daggett. “Her thumb really.” When Edith nodded, Jacobus stiffened everything from her wrist to her fingertips. “Had to keep her hand and part of her arm in a brace.”
“Terrible, terrible pain and the dullness of immobility,” Edith nodded. “It truly has been awful. Mine,” she flexed her hand and grinned, “is nothing compared to that. And you’re right, Cobus, that experience certainly did add to the excitement of our evening … of our whole summer.”
“But if you’re right,” Jacobus turned to address Daggett, “Burt Isaacs and Jackson Knoll must have been as mystified as everyone else. They didn’t know who killed Bush, and they didn’t know who Johnson was or how to find him. They only knew each other.”
“Right,” Daggett leaned forward and put his elbows on the table, “and until Johnson got his hands on that slip of paper, he had no idea who Jackson Knoll and Burt Isaacs were. But by the time he found it, he was more interested in keeping his own name out of the whole mess than he was in making contact with them.”
“But then why …”
“Something he overheard Harvey Andrews say,” Daggett anticipated Elizabeth’s question, “made him think he might be able to find Knoll on Machias, so he decided it was worth a try. Imagine Johnson’s surprise,” Daggett
began to laugh, “when Johnson found that the Machias Dickie Dalhouse took him to was an island populated only by puffins.”
“Machias, Machias,” Elizabeth caught the joke, “he wanted the town in Maine, but Dickie took him to the island.”
“Exactly,” Daggett leaned forward, his face sober again. “My theory,” he pointed with the stem of his pipe to squares on the oilcloth, “is that only Bush knew all the players.” Daggett touched one square with the stem of his pipe, then circled through the surrounding squares, “Johnson, Knoll, Watson, Isaacs.” The pipe stem named off the squares, then stopped and backed up. “No, maybe Bush didn’t know Watson and Isaacs,” Daggett reconsidered, “maybe only Knoll knew them. Well,” the pipe stem hesitated, “that’s not entirely clear yet, but it doesn’t matter. It’s also not clear whether they intended to run liquor from Grand Manan,” the pipe stem touched the center square, “or just use the island for their rendezvous.”
The three women studied the squares in silence.
“In some ways a rendezvous makes sense,” Elizabeth finally volunteered.
“Mmmm,” Daggett thought it through, “we may never really know, but at any rate,” the stem returned to square one, “Bush’s job was to introduce Johnson and Knoll. Johnson was to put up the money, Knoll and Bush to arrange liquor and transportation. That takes a lot of money. Boats, trucks, guns, payoffs, ammunition, men, they all cost a lot. Knoll was to make arrangements in Canada, Bush in the United States. Knoll’s was the easy part. He had to be secretive but liquor’s legal in Canada, at least the production and transportation of it. Bush had all the rough stuff, and probably because of that, he couldn’t look the part,” Daggett chuckled. “Neither could, I suppose. Had to look classy, you know, Bush and Knoll, or they’d never have been able to hook a partner like Johnson,” the pipe stem moved through the squares and back again. “Knoll might have been a little swaggery, as Harvey Andrews said, but presentable enough for Johnson, I guess.”
On the Rocks: A Willa Cather and Edith Lewis Mystery Page 22