The Northbury Papers

by Joanne Dobson

“Why are you whispering?” Greg asked in a normal tone. “There’s no one for miles around.” He pushed the door. It opened with a loud creak, and he switched on his big lantern. An eerie glow illuminated the cluttered kitchen in front of us.

  “No reason,” I muttered. “I just think we’ve got to keep as quiet as possible. You never know.…”

  “Do ghosts have ears?” Greg intoned in Twilight Zone cadences.

  “Get serious.” I elbowed him in the ribs. “Now, turn that lantern way down, give me the flashlight, and keep guard outside. I plan on going through this place room by room. Let me know if you hear anyone coming.”

  “What am I supposed to do? Hoot like an owl?”

  “You’ll think of something.”

  An hour and a half into the search, wheezing from decades of undisturbed dust, I’d reached a tiny unused bedroom on the second floor. Piles of Saturday Evening Posts from the 1940’s and 50’s were stacked three feet high on the bed, covering the faded pink chenille spread from top to bottom with the optimistic faces of Norman Rockwell’s American working class. I’d already checked out the shoebox of household receipts from the Depression years that I’d found on the dresser, and the oatmeal sack of turn-of-the-century Farmer’s Almanacs from under the bed. I sneezed. My eyes were itching from the dust, and I didn’t know how much longer the flashlight batteries would hold out. This sortie was turning into a bust. Not only had I not uncovered anything relevant to Serena Northbury’s life, I hadn’t come across a hint of anything even remotely related to the midnineteenth-century years she’d lived at Meadowbrook. Evidently the pack-rat strain in the Novak family hadn’t begun until the early twentieth century. I might as well give up. Greg had been faithfully standing guard for close to two hours, and it had been a good fifteen minutes since his last complaint; it was time to give him a break and get out of here.

  Sweeping my light around the room one last time, I caught sight of an elaborately decorated candy box tucked into a niche between a china chamberpot and three chimneyless kerosene lamps perched on top of a foot-pedaled Singer sewing machine in the far corner. Climbing over an oak commode, I secured the candy box, untied the maroon ribbon that bound it, removed the cover, and shone my light down on the contents. A vaguely familiar face stared soberly up at me: an infant, swathed in Victorian ruffles, with Edith Hart’s locket hung on a fine chain around her chubby neck. I gasped and dropped the box as if it were on fire. Stooping to recover the old photograph, I heard a heavy masculine step in the hallway. Just outside the window an owl hooted forlornly.

  “Greg,” I hissed, as I rose with my prize. “You’ll never guess what I just found!” A dull thud behind me caused me to swivel sharply. The bright beam of my flashlight chose that precise second to dim, then fail, but not until it had swept across the stern face of the tall uniformed trooper who had just that second cracked his head on the low doorway of the room.

  Twenty-seven

  “Trespass. Breaking and entering.” Sergeant Schultz gleefully ticked off my crimes on her stubby fingers. “Attempted burglary. Withholding evidence. Impeding a police investigation.” Her short, reddish hair stuck straight out on one side, as if she’d rolled from bed right into her baggy gray sweats without bothering to look in a mirror. And she probably had; it was after midnight.

  Schultz sat across from me at a square table in the Greenfield barracks interview room. She had left Greg in the reception area under the attentive gaze of the on-duty trooper. The sergeant didn’t give a hoot about Greg; it was my blood she was after. Elbow on the table, rounded chin resting on her thumb, index finger straight up next to her small freckled nose, she mimicked a favorite pose of her lieutenant’s. Then she favored me with a scaled-down version of his most intimidating slit-eyed look.

  I sighed. “I want to talk to Piotrowski. Where is he?”

  “Home in bed, where he belongs. I’m in charge now. You’ll talk to me, and you’ll talk good and fast.”

  The thought of having to deal with this hard-assed little martinette without Piotrowski’s intervention chilled me. With a grim smile, Schultz noted my shudder. “Now, tell me again, Dr. Pelletier, what you were doing at the Novak house at eleven-thirty at night?”

  “Research.” Single words seemed like my best option. How much trouble can you get into with just one word?

  “Research?”

  “Research.”

  “A real dedicated scholar, huh?” When I didn’t respond, she persisted. “And what did you say you found in this—er—research? A picture of a baby?” The sarcasm in her tone would have scoured the brown stains off the coffeemaker on its stand in the corner of the room.

  I nodded. It was late; I was beat; I was stressed; I was even a little frightened. If Piotrowski had been present, he would have listened to reason. But this minimacho storm trooper had it in for me, and there was no telling what she was capable of. I’d probably end up spending the night in jail. I could envision the headline: COPS THROW BOOK AT ENGLISH PROF.

  “So, Doctor, you do research into babies? Well, this one is cute.” She lifted the top off the pasteboard candy box and peered inside, careful not to allow me a glance at the contents.

  I sighed again. “I’m not talking to you anymore, Sergeant.” I sat back and crossed my arms. “I’m not saying another word. I can’t deal with your type. I taught a few like you when I was a grad assistant at BU, kids from Southie with chips on their shoulders the size of full-grown Douglas firs. And you—you’re the worst kind: You’ve got a couple of stripes on your shoulder and a gun in your pocket, and you think that puts you in the big leagues. Like I said before, Sergeant, you’ve got a serious attitude problem.”

  Schultz went bone white; the freckles on her pug nose stood out, three-dimensional against her bloodless skin. Even her lips were pale. “Not all of us were born with a silver spoon in our mouth, Doc-tor Pell-lah-tee-AY.” The French pronunciation sounded ludicrous given the flat Boston vowels.

  I laughed. Even under the circumstances, it was amusing to be mistaken for a blue blood. “That’s PELL-uh-teer, Sergeant, as you well know. And, face it, you don’t know shit about my life.”

  As it turned out, Schultz had to let us go home at three A.M.; Edith Hart’s estate, in the person of her lawyer/executor, sagely refused to press breaking and entering charges against a legatee of Edith’s will. At noon the next day, just as I was sitting down with a tuna and red onion on rye and the CNN Headline News, a suspiciously conciliatory Lieutenant Piotrowski called. “So. Doctor. How are you?”

  “What do you want, Lieutenant?” I stuck the phone between my ear and neck, settled back in the recliner and chomped down on my sandwich; it was lunchtime and I was ravenous. Not even the state police would come between me and food.

  “You sound mad, Doctor.”

  “Mad? Mad? Damn right I’m mad. Dragged into police headquarters at midnight and snarled at like a common criminal by a woman who’s got a grudge against me so deep you could plant potatoes in it—”

  “I am sorry about that, Doctor. You know if I’d been on duty …” He let the statement die. If he’d been on duty he would have done the same thing, minus the snarling. Well, maybe minus the snarling.

  “What do you want, Lieutenant?” I popped a corn chip in my mouth. “Let’s not play games for once. Just tell me what you want.”

  A pause. “This candy box? The one you found last night?”

  “Yes?” I was instantly alert. “What about it?”

  “Schultz says you said the picture of the baby in the box is the same as the one you found in that old book of Mrs. Northbury’s?”

  “Yes?”

  “And I see here in my notes that you said there was a name written on the back of that photo—”

  “Yes?”

  “Was the name Carrie?”

  “Yes!” Corn chips slid off my plate onto battered leather as I slammed the recliner into its upright position. “What did you find, Piotrowski? Your trooper wouldn’t let me look
at the picture. Did it have Carrie written on it?”

  “No. No name.” His voice was flat.

  “Oh …”

  “But we did find that name on a birth certificate—”

  “A birth certificate!”

  “Yep. Carrie Serena Johnson. Born the twenty-second of January, 1861, in Philly. Mother: Mrs. Serena Pinkworth Northbury. No father listed.”

  “Oh, my God! Piotrowski—by 1861, Serena Northbury and her husband were no longer … ah … no longer—”

  “Enjoying marital relations?”

  “Right. He’d been disabled for years, and their three daughters were well into their teens by then.” I paused, considering the ramifications. “I don’t know what to think.”

  “Well, I do.” Piotrowski’s words conveyed just a hint of laughter.

  “Of course I know she must have taken a lover, Lieutenant! I just don’t have any idea who it would have been.”

  “So. Doctor? … Can I … ah … entice you to come down here and look over the rest of this stuff—”

  I slapped the half-eaten sandwich back on its plate. “I’m leaving right this second, Lieutenant.”

  The gloomy green evidence room was beginning to feel like home. Spread in a semicircle in front of me on the battered table were the contents of the candy box: the photograph, the birth certificate, a gold-clasped bracelet woven of intertwined strands of jet black and honey-blond hair, and a packet of letters tied together with a faded red ribbon. I reached immediately for the letters. There were six of them. The first was addressed to Serena Northbury at her Manhattan address.

  Montreal

  4 May 1858

  Mrs. Northbury, My Friend,

  Another journey finished, and a few more souls of my alien race breathe free air at last in this country of the North Star. The annals of History may never note your goodness in harboring weary fugitives, but in the Heavenly tomes your name is surely etched in gold. I must lie low now a while, the hunters penetrate even here; we are not so far from the border that abduction is unheard of. But it is my prayer that I may be spared for yet another venture into the land of my Birth—not of my Citizenry! That we may meet again is my fervent wish.

  Au Revoir,

  Joseph Monroe Johnson

  “Jesus,” I breathed.

  “What?” Piotrowski demanded. We were alone in the room. Sergeant Schultz, thank God, had made no appearance since my arrival at BCI. Maybe she’d gone home to bed; I’d given her a hard night.

  “Shhh.” I waved a hand at him. “Let me read.” The second letter was again addressed to Mrs. Northbury, this time at Meadowbrook, in the same bold, blocky handwriting.

  Montreal

  12 September 1858

  Mrs. Northbury—Serena,

  I scarce know what to make of your last epistle! We have met but twice, my Friend, and, although thrown together under such circumstances, we cannot be said to know one another with heart-knowledge! But, yes, my Friend, I, too, am—[Here a few words were heavily scored out.] I, too, have felt the stirrings of which you speak, although I must be vague in this response, not knowing what eyes—Need I say more? Is it within your power to secure a safe postbox? Should you so inform me, I would write at further length.

  Your Fugitive

  This letter was unsigned, but obviously had been composed by the author of the first. “Holy Mary, Mother of God,” I exclaimed, reverting in my astonishment to a long-forgotten Catholic childhood. An absolutely astounding possibility was beginning to shape itself in the miasma of my incredulous brain.

  “What!”

  I waggled my fingers at Piotrowski again. “Shhh!” I reached for the third letter; his strong hand clamped my wrist.

  “Before you read any further, Doctor, you tell me what’s going on.” The lieutenant’s words were slow and patient, as if he were speaking to someone who was mentally handicapped—or deeply disturbed. “I read them all, but couldn’t make head nor tail of them. But you look like someone just walked over your grave!”

  I shook my head to clear it and sank back in my chair. His gruff voice finally tore through my immersion in the long-ago and far away of these precious letters. Piotrowski was still holding my wrist, and I tugged away from his grip.

  “Joseph. Monroe. Johnson.” Each word was its own sentence. “Who would have thought it!” Glancing at the lieutenant for permission, I picked up the old birth certificate with its brown foxed marking, and read the name aloud: Carrie Serena Johnson. Then I studied the photograph closely: Yes, this child, although quite light-skinned, definitely had African-American ancestry; you could see it in the cloud of kinky blond hair, in the beautifully molded lips, in the round dark eyes. “Holy Mary—”

  “‘Mother of God,’ I know!” Impatiently, Piotrowski finished my exclamation. “Tell me what’s going on!”

  Glancing over at the third envelope, I noted that it too was addressed in the abolitionist’s bold hand, but this time the letter was directed to Mrs. Kate MacMahon, Meadowbrook Cottage, Eastbrook, Massachusetts. According to Piotrowski, the MacMahons had been Mrs. Northbury’s Meadowbrook staff. This had been sent to Serena Northbury’s “safe” postbox!

  “I’ll tell you what I think happened in the 1860’s, Lieutenant. But God knows what it has to do with murder in the 1990’s!”

  “Just tell me. I’ll determine if it has any relevance to our investigation.”

  “Joseph Monroe Johnson was Serena Northbury’s lover! This baby was their child!”

  “Oh, really?” Piotrowski said. “And who was he when he was at home?” I hadn’t heard that expression since my Canadian grandmother died.

  “I’m sorry, Lieutenant. I always assume … Well, anyhow, Joseph Monroe Johnson is a major historical figure: a fugitive slave, a noted abolitionist, a hero of the Underground Railway.”

  “Hmm. A slave, huh? So he must have been … er …”

  “African-American? Yes. Like so many slaves, Johnson was the child of an enslaved woman and her master. His father sold Joseph to a physician in Norfolk, Virginia, when he was twelve.”

  “Tut.” Piotrowski’s expression was appalled. “His own son! But, Doctor, how come if this Johnson was—what did you say? a major historical figure?—how come I never learned about him in History?”

  “We’re all only half educated about our nation’s past, Lieutenant. The history we all learned in school? It’s like … well, it’s like …” How could I explain it to him without going into a long diatribe about racism and sexism? “It’s like … well … a bungled investigation. You know, like that scene in Casablanca? The one where Claude Rains tells his men to ‘round up the usual suspects’? Until lately history’s been a bit like that—concentrating on white men, leaving out the white women and all the blacks and other minority ethnic groups. But as an abolitionist and as an African-American role model, Johnson made a great impact on the nation in his own day. Historians are finally beginning to realize that. But, as far as I know, no one suspected this relationship with Serena Northbury. This is big news! And a child! Wow!”

  “Hmm. And don’t forget that novel—Child of the North Star?—you said that was a biracial love story. She must’ve based it on her own life.”

  “Must have. My God, Lieutenant, I can’t believe it!” I’d picked up the intricate bracelet from the pile of Northbury artifacts and was playing half-consciously with its gold clasp. “Think of the courage of those two, to live out that love in those dangerous times. From the letters it sounds as if Meadowbrook was a stop on the Underground Railroad, and Northbury and Johnson met during one of his expeditions back to the slave states. Then they must have met at least one more time, when—” I gestured at the photo with the bracelet in my hand “—when little Carrie was conceived.”

  “What’s that you’ve got there, Doctor?”

  “This?” I looked at the bracelet—really looked at it—for the first time. “This is a keepsake bracelet.” I handed the gold-clasped band to the lieutenant, and he ra
n his finger over the glossy braid.

  “Pretty. What’s it made of?”

  “Hair.”

  “Hair?” He stared at the trinket in amazement. “What kind of hair?”

  “Northbury’s and Johnson’s hair, I assume.”

  “Ugh.” He dropped the bracelet, staring at it as if he expected it to slither across the table. “That’s sick!”

  I laughed.

  “What?” He glared at me, offended.

  “Lieutenant, you look horrified. And after all the dead bodies you must have seen in your life!”

  “Well—that’s different. Nobody makes jewelry out of corpses.”

  The remaining four letters confirmed my speculations about a love affair between the abolitionist and the novelist. Serena Northbury had traveled at least once to Montreal, spending the summer of 1859 at a hotel on Sherbrooke Street, and Joseph Monroe Johnson had passed through Eastbrook on his final foray into the slave states, the one where he was shot to death in 1860, in an attempt to liberate his sister’s family from a plantation deep in the Louisiana bayou country. I counted on my fingers. Johnson had died without ever seeing—maybe even without knowing about his child. Sad. The final letter was a brief note obviously dashed off in haste. I read it aloud to Piotrowski. Johnson informed Serena Northbury of his safe arrival in Philadelphia and of his impending departure with a “colored brother” for the deep South. My Love, he wrote, whatever the consequence of this mad venture, think of me as one whose Spirit is forever kindred to Thine, e’en though the flesh may no more meet. Adieu. Your Fugitive.

  When I had slipped the final letter back into its envelope and looked up at the lieutenant, he was mopping at his eyes with a tissue from one of his ubiquitous packets. “Allergies,” he mumbled, and blew his nose.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “A bad time of year. Lots of pollen.” I allowed a tear to slide down my cheek unchecked. Doomed love. I seemed to be specializing in it.