by M. G. Meaney
He hid his arm hastily behind him, out of her sight. "It's, er, too ugly to look at," he muttered.
Abigail continued, sarcastically: "Shame that you had to miss the game because of it. It seems to me that when the men of Paulding get themselves into 'accidents,' shall we say, such as yours, the village surely will come up a loser every time."
CHAPTER 13
Dusk found Haviland and Pulpit breaking into Daniel White's shed. Actually, there was no lock on the dark green, 15-by-20, 9-foot-tall wooden storehouse, just a stick through a latch, so they entered easily. Haviland shut the door behind him, lit an oil lamp he had brought — there were just two very small windows — and looked around, he was not sure for what. Pulpit, confused, sniffed at his master's legs at first, then caught on and began sniffing around the shed himself.
Shelves lined the right side as they entered. Three rusting milking pails sat one inside the other on one shelf, along with some stiff, frayed paintbrushes, tins of various sizes and on another shelf tools — hammers, cutters, trowel, an awl.
At the other side of the shed the dairy farmer had piled fieldstones for repairing breaks in the stone wall, along with a wheelbarrow, a sickle and a sledgehammer. Four empty wood crates sat overturned in front of Haviland, like schoolhouse desks.
Haviland combed the shed for anything unrelated to farming, but beyond that he had no idea. He took up each tin can, read its label, shook it to confirm it contained a liquid. One rattled. He pried off the lid — nails and bolts. He lifted each of the fieldstones and restacked them. Nothing hidden among them. He found no writing or other markings on the crates. He looked under the tools on the shelf, behind and beneath the wheelbarrow, along the handle of the sledgehammer. Pulpit sniffed at each in turn. Nothing.
Haviland turned then to the building itself. He felt along the splintery beams of the sloped roof, prodded the walls and scrutinized the floor. There, in the corner, behind the fieldstones, the floor was clean. There was none of the dust that covered the rest of the shed. He set down the lamp, away from the wall, knelt and pushed at the slats. Some give in the third one from the wall. He shoved his fingers into the crevices at either side, but could not nudge them in far enough to grip. To the tool shelf. He selected the awl. He plunged it into the crevice on the right side, then pulled up. It budged. He angled the awl deeper and finally forced up a 2-foot-long section. Loose dirt underneath. The trowel. He scraped away at the narrow length of it. It came away easily. He dug the trowel in at the top end and scoured. Three hay-colored objects tumbled up from the soil. Pulpit bounced onto the scene, panting and sniffing excitedly.
"Away," Haviland ordered, shoving the springer spaniel aside. Each figure was about the length of a cigar. He picked up the first. Very light. Made of straw and wires. Four legs, tail, a face. A fox. A figure of a fox.
A crow screeched by outside. Pulpit barked. A shiver cascaded down the rector's back. He glanced toward the door, framed by a rectangle of dusky gray. He picked up the second figure. It was much like the first, but this was a dog. The third was burned black and had a beak and folded wings. A crow, or perhaps a raven.
But why?
The strange figures evoked the disquieting face of the fox's head staring from the tree, and that in turn called up the even more disturbing face of Zife Jenks, killed not far from here.
A bullet rang out. It ripped through the roof two feet above his head. A second followed a moment later, four inches lower.
"Trouble," Haviland said. Pulpit cringed.
The minister tripped over Pulpit onto the pile of fieldstones and knocked over the oil lamp. He ripped his jacket in three places and smashed his elbow on the edge of one stone. He lay face-down. Pulpit stood beside the pile.
Regaining his balance, Haviland heard a crackling, like kindling in a fireplace. He turned. His mouth dropped. His heart raced. His throat clicked.
The floor was igniting.
"Infernal Robert E. Lee," he croaked.
The rector knew he had bare seconds to contain the fire. He leaped over the rock pile and stomped on the burning wick. It went out, but the oily floor still burned beneath his shoe. It was beyond stomping out. He looked around the shed, now almost black except for the ghastly light of the fledgling fire. No water, just paint thinners and such to help the flames. Pulpit, quiet, looked at him inquisitively, head tilted. Haviland lined two fieldstones against the corner walls to gain time. He stomped at the flames. They darted around his shoes.
Heat from the fire seared the rector's boyish face. He turned away to find ghoulish shadows taunting him from the walls. He turned back. The flames were crouching, poised to slip under the fieldstones and ignite the walls and destroy Dan White's shed. Desperate, he yanked out the removable slat, seized the trowel and started to toss soil on the 1-foot-by-1-foot square of fire. The narrow trench yielded only handfuls, meager handfuls, practically useless. Still, he clawed at the dirt and flung it onto the flames, concentrating it near the walls, as if building a fire wall to contain a forest fire.
The rector gave up on the soil. He lowered his head in exhaustion. He blew desperately at the fire. Like a bellows, each breath swelled the flames. How to suffocate the fire? He needed some blanket or something like that to cover it with, but the shed contained only hard metals and woods, and stones. He tossed another stone onto the flames. They danced around it. The walls began to crackle. His eyes teared from the oven-like heat. He coughed in the acrid smoke. If he opened the door, the flames would feed on the oxygen. And was the shooter still out there? He looked back at the flames. An idea had been lucking in his mind, but he had feared to coax it forth. He did so now. He flinched. He coughed. His eyes shut. He wiped the smoke and perspiration away. Pulpit shivered with fear. He would do it. He had no choice.
"Stay," he told the dog.
He raised himself on his arms, pushed forward to the wall. Then he rolled over into the fire. Searing pain in his back, flames singing his neck. He rolled back and forth frenziedly, screaming "Lee. Infernal Lee, damn you" in anguish. He wrapped himself in his arms and pulled up his legs into fetal position. Back and forth, constantly moving to escape the old needles of pain and bring on the new. His jacket sizzled. Tongues of flame spit out from the neck, then from the right elbow, then the left pocket. He felt them or saw them. Hastily he pounded the flames into the ground. His curly hair caught fire. He patted at it gingerly with his right hand. No good. His hand burned. He crooked his arm across his head. That worked.
Back and forth, back and forth. He was sheathed in smoke. A good sign. He rolled back over onto the rock pile. A few embers remained. The fire was out.
Time passed. No more bullets.
He waited, the proper village rector, coat blackened by fire, stomach ripped by fieldstones, hair singed, hiding in a farmer's shed like a common criminal.
He inched up to a window. In the dusk, a figure was receding into the distance, back to him. He was heading for the woods across the field. In the dusk Haviland could not tell who he was. Only one thing could he make out for certain: he wore a black cape.
CHAPTER 14
"The most important question, Reverend, I think, is what were you doing in Dan White's shed?" said Constable Charles Stillwell. He and Mayor Robert Van Amringe sat in the rector's green-walled parlor. Haviland had stumbled out to the road and was picked up by farmer Elijah Carpenter and his wife, Mary. They took him back to the rectory, and promptly spread the news of his disturbing adventure. Stillwell and the mayor arrived the next morning.
"I told you, I was looking for evidence in the Zife Jenks case, which you are too busy to investigate. Are you convinced now that there's a killer on the loose in Paulding?"
"I'm convinced only that someone likes to take potshots at Dan White's shed, and perhaps to scare some people who are where they have no business being," Stillwell said.
Haviland stared in disbelief. Bandages and ointments swathed his back, calf and arm. His brown hair was
singed at the neck and temples. His face was the raw red of a rare steak.
"All right," the 5-foot-6 constable said. "What evidence did you find?"
Buoyed, Haviland set the straw fox, dog and raven at the edge of his desk for the constable and mayor seated there to see.
The mayor peered, twirled his robust brown mustache, ran a hand through his well-pomaded hair, raised an eyebrow then settled back. Stillwell took up each figure, examined it and put it down. He smirked.
"Now what am I supposed to make of these?"
Haviland told him about the fox's head in the woods.
"No dogs or birds?" the constable asked.
"No," Haviland conceded, "but there has to be a connection."
"Why? And what has this to do with the peddler?"
The rector had to admit he did not know, other than the proximity.
Stillwell stood, seeing his opening. He paced to the window and back and placed his hands on the back of the chair. He looked hard at the seated rector.
"You say you do not know, Reverend? You have been turning this village upside down for the past week with your questions, your snooping, your downright accusations against good citizens, and you say you do not know. I'll tell you why you do not know: because you are sticking your nose in where it does not belong. You are not an officer of the law. You are not trained in investigating crimes, questioning suspects, analyzing evidence. You have been here only a few months. You do not know this village. You do not know its citizens. My advice to you, Reverend, is to stick to your pulpit. You can do far more good there than you can trying to do my job."
Haviland shrunk gingerly back into his chair, stung by the recounting of his failures in the case so far. But in a moment he sat erect, pulled up his chair and glared at the constable.
"If I have yet to find Zife Jenks' killer, at least I know he is out there. I know that; he may have shot at me last night. Despite all the evidence, you refuse to even look. Your eyes are perhaps too accustomed to Paulding and its citizens to see that one of them is a murderer — and to admit that you were wrong about Theodore Hopfner. It is time, Constable Stillwell, to take on this investigation yourself. I will happily hand it over, but I will not sit idly by and watch murder, even the murder of a peddler and an outsider, be ignored by the authorities of a supposedly civilized community."
A small voice in his mind piped, "Tatus! Tatus!"
Stillwell glanced at the mayor, as if uncertain about his response.
"I am not ignoring this case," the constable insisted.
"I questioned the Leatherman as soon as you brought in the order book, and I have questioned him again since."
"He is not the killer. You know that as well as I. Someone from Paulding took that back road and killed Zife Jenks. Jenks was distracted and fearful all the way up Westchester Avenue that morning, probably from something that happened downtown. I know he had run-ins with Ellwood Dusenberry, Sam Merritt and Thaddeus Acker, at least. And later with your son and his friends, Mr. Mayor. I am not accusing anyone, but there is evidence to be had and you, Constable, are making no effort to obtain it."
The mayor, who had continued to peer at the animal figures, at last roused himself and stood. He rubbed his hands together in a characteristic gesture before speechmaking, ran them through his hair, tugged at his long mustache, and turned to the Reverend.
"Order is what we strive for in our community, Reverend. Without order, there can be no commerce, no education, no peace of mind. It seems to me that the citizens of our beloved village have, through the village board, placed their trust in Constable Stillwell to maintain that order. And they are well-satisfied with the job he is doing, I must tell you. In an industrial society such as ours, Reverend, there must be a division of labor. Otherwise, all the tasks needed for the village to function could not be done. Your entry into the role of police officer has caused confusion and consternation. It has implied blame on our hardworking police force when I see grounds for none. More than that, it has people talking about their neighbors in a manner that is unheard of and destructive. Some are calling others murderers. Upstanding citizens and leaders have been interrogated as if they were common criminals."
His tone hardened. "My own son was harassed, badgered and all but accused of killing the peddler. My own son. Reverend. This must stop. For the good of all of us, and your own as well, this must stop. I promise you that the constable will review everything you have learned and will undertake any further inquiries he deems necessary, but you must stay out of it. Can I count on you? Can we all count on you?"
The mayor and the constable looked at him hopefully. His back ached. His face burned. His stomach jittered.
"This is all I hoped for," the rector said at last and stood. "I will cooperate in every way I can to catch Zife Jenks' killer. For that is the only way to restore true order to Paulding."
They shook hands, exchanged pleasantries about how attractive the church was looking, and Haviland escorted them to the door.
As they left, they did not ask to take the straw animals. Disturbed by this, Haviland lingered in the doorway and left the door open a bit.
"No more trouble from that quarter," he heard Stillwell tell Van Amringe.
"No more trouble," the mayor seconded.
CHAPTER 15
"So, who shot at you?" Abigail asked. She had arrived shortly after the departure of the constable and the mayor to inquire after Haviland's health.
"The constable wasn't interested enough to ask that question."
"He wasn't?"
Haviland shook his head slowly. He slumped in one of the armchairs facing the desk. She sat in the other, a plain straw hat perched on her knees, her hands balanced on a light green parasol that matched her summer dress and her sunny, keep-up-the invalid's-spirits attitude
"The key to this case," he said with some effort after a few moments, "is watching the questions people do not ask." Then, he held out his bandaged hand and raised his burned face. "But maybe I have asked too many questions already. The constable was right about one thing: I'm no detective. If I were, I would have sifted the evidence already and found the killer. It is probably staring me in the face, but I am too much a dolt to see it. And there is the danger that if I persist I may hurt people through my clumsiness." He said this so wearily that he seemed to be looking for Abigail to agree he should drop the matter.
"Nonsense," she asserted briskly. "We're just in the middle of things. Of course it has not become clear yet, but we have suspects, motives, maybe even a frantic murderer himself, frantic enough to shoot at you."
She made it seem a lucky break. He did like the way she used "we," though.
She leaned toward him, her black hair straying from its coils, her large green eyes growing serious as they caught and held his.
"And you promised Elena Jenks, and Thomas. And what about the Hopfners? You cannot break that promise just because of a few scrapes and singes."
He raised himself in the chair. "It is not that I am worried about," he said defensively. He had braved worse in the war, after all. "I am worried about the effect on the village."
"I worry about having a murderer walking down the street behind me at night," she said. "Besides, we opened this Pandora's box. We must harness the evil spirits. Now, who was it that shot at you?"
That was it. Debate over.
"John Van Amringe is the most likely," he said, his body still achy but his mind refocused on the investigation.
"The mayor's son? Shot at you? How interesting," she remarked.
"He had told me about being in the shed the day Jenks was killed. He could have guessed I would search it, or he could have followed me. I went there from the game. Or Sam Merritt could have followed me. He was the last one I spoke with after the game."
"Or Dan White himself. It's his shed you broke into, after all," Abigail suggested. "He gets crotchety now and then about one thing or another. He's not all jest.
Milks his cows by color: the black and whites at 7 a.m., the browns at 10. No exceptions. Says those are the best times. Gets less milk if he changes it. Natural selection and adaptation, he calls it. He must have heard something once about Darwin."
Haviland held out the straw figures.
"What do you make of these? They were buried beneath the floor of the shed."
She looked them over. "I don't know. What do you think?"
"If they are connected with the head I saw in the forest, they must mean something quite sinister."
"A secret society? A cult?"
"Anything is possible until we find something else."
"Do you think they are connected to Jenks' murder?"
"Hard to say. The fox was nearby, though months later of course. Almost certainly they belong to John Van Amringe or his friends. How many people after all could use this one shed?"
"You did," she teased.
"Yes, but I won't again. Dan White would have no reason to hide them. They seem not to be valuable, and he could keep them at home, unless he is part of whatever group is involved."
"What about the attacks on the immigrants?"
"Whoever shot at me was wearing a cape. That much I could make out but nothing else."
"No one else heard the shots?"
"The nearest house is a quarter-mile away, and hunters are always about, especially for deer at dusk. The cattle were in the north field. Oh, one other thing. I don't think he was trying to kill me."
"Really? You'd never know it."
"The shots came through the roof, above my head, as if he were trying to force me to the ground to take cover, which of course I did."
"So, he was trying to scare you, you think?"
"Yes."
"But he didn't."
He hesitated a moment, then asserted, "No."
"What now?"
"Continue reconstructing the day of Zife Jenks' death."