The Last Hanging: A Will Haviland-Abigail Carhart Mystery

by M. G. Meaney

  "It was all in good fun. We meant nothing by it."

  "What about calling him a ragman and telling him to go back to Poland, and to go to the devil?" Haviland asked, he hoped in a tone of curiosity, not interrogation.

  Van Amringe looked at him sternly, his thin features pursed suspiciously.

  "Who told you that?"

  Haviland, reluctant to disclose his source, said nothing.

  A moment passed.

  The rector finally said, "Well, is it true?"

  Van Amringe glanced away, then back. He smiled.

  "Oh, it was just talk, teasing. Nothing in it," he said jocularly.

  "What happened after you moved up Indian Hill Road?"

  "Nothing." He paused. "Well, nothing that involved us, anyway," he said more seriously.

  "How long did you ..."

  "Toss snowballs at the peddler? Oh, maybe a couple hundred feet: up to Dan White's field, around there."

  "And what did he do?"

  "He just walked along, ignoring us as best he could. We couldn't get a rise out of him."

  The crowd interrupted with a cheer for a leaping catch by the Schooners' second baseman, made just before Pulpit lunged at the same ball after racing onto the field.

  "Pulpit!" Haviland snapped, and the black and white springer spaniel loped back.

  "What was the last you saw of Zife Jenks?" Haviland asked quickly, keeping the young man focused on the murder.

  He thought a moment. "Just that I told you: walking along in the snow by the White field."

  "What side of the road was he on?"

  "What side? Um, the right looking up the road, east I guess it would be, the east side, but he was walking in the road, just on the right of it."

  "What did you do then?"

  "We cut across old Dan White's and stayed in his shed for a while when the snow started piling up — to get warm."

  "Really?" Haviland inquired, he hoped not too skeptically. It couldn't have been too warm. "How long were you there?"

  "Maybe a half-hour, maybe more. I don't know."

  "What were you doing there?"

  "Why are you so interested in what we were doing? Are you saying we killed him? Is that what you're saying? I'll not stand for any of that, I must say. I'll have my father ..."

  "No, no. Of course I'm not saying that. I hope I have learned from tragic circumstances to be careful in making accusations. But I am trying to check thoroughly on the details of that day. You could have seen something."

  Van Amringe, not convinced and again being distracted by the game, said, "We were talking, telling stories, passing the time." He was looking at the game now, not at the rector.

  "And with you were?"

  The young man looked over suspiciously. "You tell me, " he said. "I'm sure now it was Amelia Theall blabbed."

  "Tom Wetmore, Edward Adee and Jordan Denham," the rector said, passing his right hand through his curly hair.

  "Yep."

  "Anyone else?"

  "Nope." He snapped his blue suspenders with his right thumb as if for emphasis.

  "What about Theodore Hopfner?"

  "What about him?" Van Amringe said with the harshness of a hammer slamming hot metal in a smith's shop, which is where the mayor's son worked.

  "Did you see him? Did you know him?"

  A firm "No" was followed after a pause by a softer, mumbled "No."

  "You knew him but not well," the rector's smooth baritone coaxed.

  A hesitation.

  "Yep, that's it," the young man said dismissively.

  "So, you did know him a little. You must have been surprised at his arrest, then."

  "I didn't know him that well," he said, still looking out at the players framing the pasture and Pulpit dropping a stick at the feet of the right fielder, whom he had charmed into a game of toss. Then, after a pause, Van Amringe said, "I guess it was a shock, especially now you think he didn't do it."

  "I know he didn't do it," the rector said, inching over toward him on the hill. "But you know he was stubborn. He never would say what he was doing there, just vague remarks about walking into Paulding to look up some friends. He never said whom."

  Haviland let the comment linger there like the haze of dust over the infield and scrutinized the profile before him, sturdy, lean, muscular, cocky but untested, in contrast to his own generation at this age. Van Amringe was still a boy while Haviland had been stripped of the carelessness of youth by the horrors of the great conflict.

  Van Amringe just shrugged.

  Haviland continued to sift the features. No change, just seeming interest in the game, though less lively than before. Haviland's remarks had distracted him. Now, the rector blurted out:

  "I found a fox's head on a tree in the woods near where the murder was."

  The young man's shoulders hunched involuntarily, his eyes darted a glance at Haviland then looked away, his hands gripped into fists in his lap, but all for just a moment, then he relaxed again.

  He turned casually to the rector.

  "Really? What were you doing in the woods?"

  "Looking for the killer's escape route."

  "And did you find it?"

  "Naturally not. Months had passed, and I left after finding the fox."

  "You would, for sure, Reverend. Any clue as to who put it there?"

  Not until now, Haviland wanted to tell him. But he said, "I must confess I am baffled by it."

  "Yes, I'd bet." Abruptly, he stood. "Ah, our last at-bat. I have to root them on. Good-bye, Reverend."

  And he was treading over toward the Schooners, cradling his wrapped right hand.

  Haviland glanced around the crowd and picked out Sam Merritt standing near the edge of the field bidding good-bye to Dan White. Dan White, who owned the pasture beside which the peddler was killed.

  "Reverend Haviland, well met," White greeted him, snatching his hand and throttling it in a handshake. "Shall I confess now to the peddler's murder, or would you rather beat me with a Bible first?" he teased, patting the reverend on the arm with his callused farmer's hand and laughing his convulsive, hyena laugh.

  "The rector detective, eh, Sam? We'll have to make up a sign for the parsonage. Or maybe the rector-inspector? Yes, better, I like it better. That's what we'll do." The hyena laugh burst through his yellowed crooked teeth and the square hole where one was missing — lost to a mule's kick. "Of course, you know I was at the Gazette office at the time, as always, helping to bundle the papers. I'd have gladly been a suspect though, just to be dissected by the rector-detective. Good day to you — and good luck, right Sam?"

  And the tall gray-haired farmer strode off laughing, his old black morning coat tails flapping behind. Nothing upset him, except poachers in the woods near his pastures.

  "Mr. Merritt," Haviland began, "I fear we parted unpleasantly at our last meeting and I am most sorry for that. Two men who have been hurt in the great war have far more in common than any small disagreements on other topics could outweigh."

  After some small talk about the war, the game and the weather — Haviland avoided the harassment of the immigrants for the moment — the rector worked his way back to the Zife Jenks killing, as Merritt produced a rumpled packet of Old Judge cigarettes from his white shirt pocket and lit one, conceding he would be here awhile.

  "I have been trying to trace his movements the day he was killed. He started out downtown and worked his way up Westchester Avenue, with forays to a couple of side roads. Did you by any chance see him that day? Did he stop at your shop?"

  Merritt put his hands on his hips and spread his legs as if for a Wild West shootout. "Back in the same mud hole are you, Reverend?" he mumbled, the cigarette at the edge of his mouth etching jagged lines in the air. "Will you not be content until you send me up to the gallows? I did not kill your man. Let that be an end of it."

  "Fine, fine. I never meant to imply anything of the sort, and that
is where you misunderstand me. What I mean to do is find out who did kill him, and even you cannot quarrel with ridding the village of a murderer, can you?"

  "If it means upsetting the whole place like a tornado and dragging down people's reputations for the sake of a Polish peddler" — he spat out the two words in an acrid sphere of smoke — "then yes I can quarrel with you."

  Haviland slid over to prevent him from walking away.

  "Other shopkeepers have told me that he called on them that day. All I want to know is did he call on you, or stop anyone outside your shop? Did you see him downtown?"

  The small Merritt glanced this way then that for a route past the imposing reverend. One could not push past the rector of the village's second largest church with impunity, no matter how foolish the fellow was being. Some people may actually respect him — God's representative and all that. Merritt fussed. He fumed. He flushed like a thermometer on a hot day, the red rising. He spewed a gray spice of smoke. He hacked a cough. Finally, he threw up his hands and snarled: "The bastard came into the shop, 10:30 or sometime, tried to sell me a shirt and some socks. When I told him to get out, he went after old Edwin Armbruster — he was in checking on an extra-large rig for his Pepper, that giant of a colt. That really ended it. I shoved the nuisance right out the door."

  Haviland's interested but non-committal look confused him. Merritt realized that some might disapprove of tossing a peddler out of your shop during his final hours. Of course, the reverend himself had all but throttled him the day before, but he made no mention of that, did he?

  Haviland waited.

  Merritt floundered, then rasped: "I weren't the only one. Thad Acker did the very same thing."

  Haviland's mouth dropped.

  "He did? When?"

  Merritt noticed the reaction and stopped, wondering if he had said something he shouldn't have.

  "It could be important, Mr. Merritt, Sam, or it could be nothing. This happened after Zife Jenks left your place?"

  Merritt nodded tersely. He tossed the cigarette and ground it into the grass.

  "Mr. Jenks went into the factory? He did this often, then?"

  "Not inside," Merritt said, feeling obliged to correct the misinformation. "A few of them had come out to carry in some small packages for Thad, pieces for another of them contraptions he invents. The peddler landed on them like a bee on a cider spill at a picnic. He was pulling out those rags he sells and pushing them in their faces while they were battling with them boxes.

  "They tried to ignore him but he stuck to them. Joe Mason nearly dropped his box, some fancy glass thing. Oh, Thad would have flustered over that. They pushed past him, but didn't he follow them right inside. Well, it wasn't long before I heard the rumbling of old Thad himself. 'Pszczoły i trzmiele. Take yourself out of my establishment this instant, sir.' That's what he told him. That first bit sounds like ShTOLeh ee shmee-ELL-ah. It's Polish for 'bees and bumblebees.' Tad goes into Polish sometimes when he gets angry. I hear the voice, then I see the peddler high-stepping it out the door, fumbling with his rags, shoving them back into this pocket and that compartment. And who's right behind him but Thad. Followed him right out the door and down the street. Stopped right in front of my door. 'You are never to approach my business again or my workers, never. Do you understand?' That's what he told him, jowl to jowl."

  "What did Mr. Jenks do then?"

  "Nodded yes, yes, yes, like some scared schoolboy and turned and scampered off, his tail between his legs."

  "Did he do anything else?"

  "Let me see.

  Yes, when he got to Hanford Abendroth's place, four doors down, he turned around. He looked at Thad, kind of curious like. Then he turned round and started down the street again, just walking now. I think it was to show that he wasn't scared. Hah!"

  "And what is the last you remember seeing him?"

  "That's it, just walking down the street like that, if you must know."

  "What did you say to Mr. Acker?"

  "Oh, something like, 'That's the way to treat them! Something like that."

  "And what did he say?"

  "'Indeed.' That was all. And he stood there rubbing his beard, then went back to supervising his precious packages. Are you satisfied now, Reverend?"

  "Immensely. You have been immensely helpful, Mr. Merritt. Now, he went to the factory right after your place, around 10:30 or so? I just want to make sure I have it correct."

  "Yes, yes. Isn't that what I said?"

  A woman's voice interrupted. "Ah Sam, Will, are you gentlemen solving the deficiencies of our unfortunate nine? I think if we could persuade Pulpit to stay with the spectators it would be a start. Poor Purdy missed that ball while entertaining him."

  It was Abigail. She had arrived after Haviland, and he had not noticed her because of his interest in the mayor's son. Now, she had stopped by on her way out. The game had ended in a 10-7 loss for the Schooners. The men separated to admit her.

  "We'll best them next time," Merritt said gruffly.

  "The refrain of losers everywhere and always," she mocked, balancing herself on a yellow parasol, which matched the shade of her pillbox hat and her gloves.

  Merritt smiled.

  "By the way, Sam, will you be burning out any foreigners tonight? I'd like to make my purchases before then if you'd be so kind."

  Haviland looked at her agape.

  "Make your jokes," Merritt groused, pulled his cap on his head, nodded to her and Haviland. "Nice day," he said and stepped past the rector and into the departing crowd.

  She had called him Will. Haviland had just realized it.

  "No sense of humor, that man. Wouldn't you agree, Reverend?"

  "Oh, er, I wouldn't exactly say that ... Mrs. Carhart." His mouth had opened to form the A for Abigail, but something had contorted his lips into M for Mrs. Carhart.

  She continued chatting about the game, the weather and other topics, reacting not at all to his formality. But why had she called him Will in front of Sam Merritt? Was she teasing him? Hoping to start gossip? And that she would if Sam ever realized what she had said.

  Finally, she worked her way around to the murder.

  "Have you solved it yet? Should we summon the hangman?"

  "No, not just yet, but I have come across some items of interest."

  "So have I. Did you know that the peddler was tossed out of the nut and bolt factory?"

  "Yes."

  "And Sam Merritt's? Of course you know that."

  "Yes."

  "And that he had a row with old Ellwood Dusenberry that same morning?"

  "No, really? I had not come across that."

  "Perhaps I should unearth the facts and you should run the dress shop. We would progress much faster then, I think."

  "I have made some progress," Haviland stammered, feeling the pupil to Abigail's teacher.

  "Oh, really?" she teased.

  "The row happened at the train station. The peddler had taken the 7:09 from Grand Central. It arrived here at 8:10. Old Ellwood was passing by, coming up from the dock. He had picked up some feed from the packet boat from New York. Anyway, he spotted the peddler and nearly ran him over with his cart. Then he stopped, shouted in front of everyone that he was a thief and ranted about some tools in a shed. And here's the important thing: he said that if he caught him near his shed ever again he'd brain him."

  "Brain him?"

  "That's what Emily Draper remembered, and she remembers everything — 'brain him.'"

  "What happened then?"

  "Ellwood shook his fist at Jenks, then rode off, muttering to himself. That's not unusual."

  "And how did Mr. Jenks react?"

  "Emily said he scampered out of the way of the cart, then looked blankly at Ellwood, as if he didn't know what he was ranting about. Then as he drove off Jenks spat after him — a habit of his, it seems — and made a tossing motion with his arm, as if to dismiss him. Then he headed downt
own."

  "So he didn't appear frightened or perturbed?"

  "No, not a bit. He picked Ellwood out for the old coot he is."

  "And he wasn't distracted or fearful on his early stops on Main Street, that we know," Haviland said.

  "But after the run-in with Thad he may have been."

  "The run-ins with both Mr. Acker and Mr. Merritt. They occurred one after the other. But there was nothing in either case to cause his being more fearful than after any other run-in, such as the one with you or me or Mr. Dusenberry, for instance."

  "Maybe all of them added up made him feel unsafe here?" Abigail suggested.

  "I do not think so. By Amelia Theall's he was looking behind him for someone, some specific person or persons."

  "Maybe he had spotted young Van Amringe and his friends?"

  "Maybe so, and that young man knows more than he is admitting," Haviland said.

  "Why so?"

  He recounted the young man's reaction to the fox head story.

  "Beyond that, he never asked me the most basic questions one would expect, such as when exactly I found it and where and its color."

  "And whether you found the rest of the fox," Abigail added, eliciting a flinch from the rector. She constantly found ways to surprise him with her bluntness.

  The teams were beginning to leave the field. Pulpit returned after playfully knocking down several small children, blithely unnoticed by Haviland. They would soon be the only ones left.

  "So what will we do now?" Abigail asked as they began to slowly walk off. "Tad never mentioned that first confrontation with Jenks. That was obviously intentional. He didn't want you to know about it. And I'd be surprised if old Sam hadn't tossed in a couple of 'Go back to Poland' snipes at the peddler while ejecting him."

  "He mentioned nothing like that," Haviland said.

  "Which means he may be hiding something too. And as for young Mr. Van Amringe, why here you are now."

  The young man was passing by, well within earshot.

  "And how is your poor hand?" Abigail inquired sweetly. "How did you hurt it? Putting away a bottle? How odd. Good you weren't out burning down the Bronk place. With your luck there's no telling what might have happened to you. May I have a look at the wound?"