by M. G. Meaney
"When I asked our authorities to break this stranglehold, they did what they felt they had to, and that was all. I was the chief instrument of Theodore Hopfner's execution. Society says, after all, that a clergyman holds a higher place in the community than a troubled young man from a foreign country, so the clergyman must be right, must see things as they are, must be believed. But I was led astray by appearance, disastrously so, fatally so. So, I took up the investigation myself, hoping the Lord's desire to achieve justice would compensate for my rudimentary skills. I had help from some of you" — eyes glanced toward Abigail in the back. She drummed nervously on her open prayerbook as she awaited Haviland's decision. Would he continue? Would he drop the matter but stay on? Or would he resign here and now? She drummed faster and louder until her mother placed her hand over Abigail's to silence her.
"Then, I apparently started making progress," Haviland was saying, "and I learned that a murder investigation, even that of a peddler, consists of prying open locked doors and reappraising even the most seemingly ordinary incidents. Secrets are revealed without discrimination, without regard for whether one is the murderer or merely a witness or bystander. When one starts dredging the muck, it covers everyone sooner or later. This is what I was not prepared for. This is what you were not prepared for. This is what the murderer fears most. The village became like a person convulsed with a fever. There is little you can do. The body must fight off the fever to grow well again.
"You tried to frighten me off, you good people of Paulding, some of you no doubt appalled at the sickness that had seized your village, some of you incited to it, unknowingly, by the killer, one of you the killer himself." Eyebrows arched, some faces lowered at this direct address. Others continued to stare stonily.
"I was shot at, shunned, embarrassed. I was not deterred. Then, however, you threatened a person whose well-being has grown more and more important to me. This made me furious. But it gave me pause."
He glanced in Abigail's general direction, but only for a moment. She looked at him, but did not alter her expression. A half-dozen people in the back pews glanced toward her, including Amelia Theall, two pews up, who punctuated the rector's comment with the rustling of her dress, creaking of her pew and the thump-bang of her neighbor's falling prayerbook as she turned toward Abigail to show off her knowledge to all.
After the congregation resettled itself, Haviland continued.
"I have unintentionally brought harm to good people and no doubt would inconvenience others if I continued. What would be lost if I stopped now? Everything would return to normal. The peddler would soon be forgotten. I would return, perhaps, to amity with you again, which would please me.
"But remember that the Savior was a troublemaker. He sought justice for the poor, the outcasts. His Sermon on the Mount was addressed to these, not to the comfortable. Blessed are ye poor,' he said, 'and ye who hunger and thirst for justice' and 'ye who grieve and need consolation.' If he saw the widow of Zife Jenks sewing day and night just to buy food and clothing for her four children, her four fatherless children, what would he tell her? 'It matters not who killed your husband or why — he was, after all, an outsider there, an intruder, a foreigner?' And what would he tell the mother of Theodore Hopfner? "Put it from your mind? Console yourself that he did not kill the peddler, that his good name has been restored, albeit too late, but restored nonetheless? What more can a newcomer to this land and an outsider to this village expect?'
"Yet, if I desisted, in the consciences of every right-thinking man and woman here, and in the frightened hearts of all but one of us here, the question would repose still: Who is the killer? You could not look at each other in the same way ever again. You could not trust your neighbor in the same way ever again. You could not trust your authorities in the same way ever again. You could not walk at night alone in the same way ever again.
"And so, you see I cannot but finish what I started. I shall proceed with my inquiries in the hope of concluding them quickly. I will not let a killer make fools of me — and all of you."
Abigail looked down, but smiled.
The others glared, pew upon pew keening and groaning as the congregants adjusted themselves now that the answer was out.
"I invite your help in rooting out the evil that has gripped our village. The evildoer will be rooted out. We shall not fail." Looming out over the pulpit, he scanned the church slowly from left to right, meeting as many people's eyes as he could. Finally, he moved back and turned to descend.
Six men stood in the first and second pews.
Haviland turned back and looked down at the group.
"What is this?" he demanded.
Farmer Dan White reached into the left pocket of his green and brown check jacket and pulled out two letters. He unfolded one slowly.
"Reverend Haviland," he read haltingly, "the elders of St. Paul's Church voted yesterday to terminate your service as rector, effective after this service. Reverend Hyatt of All Saints Episcopal Church in Harrison will conduct the Sunday service on an interim basis commencing next Sunday."
Haviland blanched. He started to tell them he would continue his inquiries anyway, would not accept this dismissal, when the White resumed.
"We do not want to see you without livelihood or congregation, Reverend, so we got you an interim rector job."
Dumbfounded, all Haviland could utter was, "Where?"
"At St. Peter's Church in Delhi, New York."
Haviland's mind whirred. Delhi? Delhi? "Delhi," he said angrily at last. "That must be a hundred fifty miles from here." Far beyond range for carriage rides back to his investigation — and Abigail.
White and the other committee members nodded. "It's a prosperous farming town, very peaceful. Very little crime," White said.
"I won't go," Haviland said.
"But Reverend, you have to," White told him. "We promised them you'll be there — on Thursday, in fact. Choir practice."
CHAPTER 21
The Unity Brass Band's 20 members, in their toy-soldier uniforms of sky blue, with red suspenders and white peaked caps, were already blaring the overture from Gilbert and Sullivan's "HMS Pinafore" when Margaret Hains limped onto the village green clutching as many of her seven children as circumstances permitted. Margaret in the middle, little boys and girls all around her, they undulated through the crowd like a ripple through syrup, alighting at last on two brown blankets to the left of the gazebo. Soon, the 35-year-old slender red-haired, ruddy-faced widow granted some of her attention to the band at the summer Sunday afternoon concert. Her children drifted away to playmates nearby, but never out of her periodic accounting.
By the time the band had moved on to the obligatory "Glory, Glory, Hallelujah" and other Civil War-era standards, Abigail Carhart and Reverend Haviland had inquired if they might join her, gained her flustered assent — she had been too busy with her children to pay much attention to the shunning of Haviland — and had settled in, the rector on her right and Abigail on her left. By the time the band had moved on to the currently popular "There's a Tavern in the Town" and the like they had her talking about Thaddeus Acker, in a low voice so as not to disturb nearby concertgoers. Margaret Hains was Acker's secretary.
"It was so nice of Mr. Acker to keep me on after the accident, actually after all the accidents, well, you know, Abigail. We must be accident-prone is all I can think." She spoke in gusts of words, nervous torrents of words. Then, abruptly, she would stop, in the midst of a sentence even, raise herself and peer this way, then that, after her children, like a mother hen. "First, Tom on the pier" — her husband too had worked for the nut and bolt factory and had died three years earlier, crushed between the pier and a schooner while helping to move boxes of bolts to the ship — "then that conveyor belt crushed my leg and I didn't know what would I do, I couldn't help run it anymore, but Mr. Acker, such a nice man, he took me on as his secretary when Lillian died, for a lower salary, but of course that would be expected. An
d now aren't three of my boys working there as well, though James has been having trouble making a fist since he caught his hand in the bolt header, but he'll be all right, I'm sure. Mr. Acker is such a nice man. He paid him for the full day even though he left a half-hour early to see Doctor Hyland." She surveyed the green in a series of darting glances, picked out her seven children, and turned her tired face back to the rector and Abigail.
"Margaret, what do you remember the day the peddler was killed?" Abigail asked.
"Oh, the snow. We were wondering if Mr. Acker would close the plant early. It was really piling up outside, but he just laughed and said we were there already there so why not work 'til 6 as always. He's like that, so sensible."
"What about after lunch, between 12 and 2:30, say? Did you see Mr. Acker or Mr. Merritt during that time?"
"Well, as for Mr. Merritt I couldn't say, but of course I saw Mr. Acker. He had gone home for lunch about 11:15 as usual. He returned about 12:30. I remember it because he looked the very image of old St. Nick, his face red and frosted with snow and he already having the beard.
I remarked on it to him myself, I remember." Another accounting of the children followed.
Haviland took over the questioning. "Mrs. Hains, where did he put his coat when he came in, and his overshoes?"
"Oh, in his office. He has a grand brass coat tree there."
"Wouldn't his overshoes wet the floor of your office?"
"He did not have much time to leave water about, for he merely nodded at my remark about St. Nick — a snowstorm is not the best time to make a joke, you know, Abigail? Then, he rushed into his office, I guess to put off his wet things, for he likes the place to make a nice appearance. A good impression can be good for business, he likes to say. A day or two he has even sent me home to change if I wore something inappropriate, as he put it. You can see why he is such a fine businessman, attending to such details."
"And when did you see him next?" Haviland asked.
"In a couple of minutes he came out, gave me several bills to write up — you would be surprised how long some people take to pay and we already having sent them their order — and some papers to file. He said he would be in the machine shop for the next couple of hours and did not wish to be disturbed."
"Did he do this frequently?" Haviland asked.
"Go into the machine shop? Oh, my, yes." A survey of the scene for the children. "He says making better machines is the secret to success. He says lots of things like that, but he does spend a lot of time tinkering back there. People, some of them, consider him a kind of genius, but sometimes I feel that I am the one running the factory when he tends to his gadgets. You know how I feel, Abigail?"
She nodded.
Haviland resumed. "When did you see him after that? Do you remember the time?"
"Let me see? Oh, that would be hard to say, but the snow had gotten much deeper, maybe a couple of hours. I was worried that if there was a fire the doors might be stuck closed because the snow was so high, but that's silly, of course. He came out, asked if I had finished the work.
I told him I had except for an item on one of the bills I could not make out — whether they were number 56 bolts or number 58. They were number 58, it turned out, stove bolts. There had been no visitors, of course, I told him. He smiled at that, you can be sure. I asked him how his work had gone. Treacherous,' he said, shaking his head but smiling like you do when you make a joke."
"Treacherous?" Haviland asked.
"I don't remember exactly, but something like that."
"And then?"
"He asked if I might post the bills, but I suggested the post office probably had closed, and, if truth be told, I was a little concerned on account of my leg and the snow. He noticed. looked out at the snow and said I could do it first thing the next day, for which I was grateful."
What happened then? Haviland asked.
"Mr. Acker asked me to call in Fred Betts. Molly Betts is active with your temperance group, Reverend. She sat up on her knees and counted off her children; the band was playing "The Blue Danube." "I went onto the floor — there's a door from the reception area — and got him. They met in Mr. Acker's office, maybe they were discussing the snow. I was nervous about it, certainly. The climb up Westchester Avenue is hard enough on a sunny day like this, never mind in a blizzard and the snow approaching your waist."
"What time was this?"
"Oh, that would be hard. The days are alike, so many of them, not that I don't like the work. It's fine, but it all runs together somehow. If it weren't for the snowstorm and the killing of the peddler, I'd never recall even this much."
"Do try, Margaret," Abigail urged. "It's important."
"If you say so, though I can't see why myself. Let me think then. Oh, yes, it would have been about a quarter to two, because of the ink wells."
"The ink wells?" Abigail said.
"Yes, you see I check the ink wells each day about a quarter to two, so there will be enough for the rest of the day. I refill my own and the three in the packing room. Mr. Acker is so clever.
Most factories would have just one ink well, but Mr. Acker says the women would waste time coming over to use them, while if they had them at hand they could work on.
I check the pencils too, to make sure there are enough."
"Does Mr. Acker have an ink well?" Haviland asked.
"Oh my, yes, but I'm not to enter his office unless invited."
The rector and the dress shop owner looked shocked.
"Oh, but it is for my own good — he is so considerate. He might be working on a gadget that, clumsy me, I might run into and hurt myself, he says."
"When you learned of the murder, when all of you learned of it, how did he react?" Haviland asked.
"Oh, how would anyone act? A poor man struck down, with a family to support. He was shocked, I suppose you'd say, like all of us. 'A shame,' he said when I mentioned it to him. 'Good they caught the one that killed him, though.' And he shook his head, you know, Abigail, the way people do when they learn something distressing but they can't do anything about it."
Abigail nodded. Margaret checked the children.
Haviland asked, "How did Mr. Acker travel that day?"
"He rode in on his cutter, because of the early snow, I remember that. He drives his carriage when it is not snowing. But he must have realized how deep the snow would be, for when he returned from lunch he was riding Bolter alone. A brilliant and practical man is Mr. Acker."
"And he hitched Bolter outside his office," Haviland said.
"Yes, as his usual custom. He and Mr. Merritt hitch their horses there. It's off the end of the building, out of harm's way I suppose you'd say."
"You cannot see the stabling area from the street, and the only ways to get there is to walk past your office door, or from Mr. Acker's office?" Haviland asked.
"Sometimes Mr. Merritt will slip out by his back door and alongside our building on the river side, when he hasn't the job ready, for instance, and the customer calls. He thinks it a great joke."
Abigail spoke up: "Why would Mr. Acker come in the front door then?"
"That was odd, yes, except that the floors and carpets in his own office are plush indeed, isn't that so, Abigail, and he could get to his coat rack directly from my office."
"Yes, I see. By the way, did you hear Thad's door open at all during this time?"
"No, not that I remember, but the wind was all we heard that day."
At this point, two of her boys bounced by. Abigail stopped them.
"Tom, William, you're just the young men we need."
They knelt down next to her on one knee, showing clearly that their stay would be temporary.
Abigail drew them back to the day of the murder and asked if either had seen Acker on the factory floor in early afternoon.
Neither could recall seeing him, though they were not that sure. Nor did they remember anyone leaving to join him
in his inventing room. Abigail thanked and dismissed them. They ran off.
Haviland turned back to Mrs. Hains.
"What do you remember of Sam Merritt that day?"
Her enthusiasm was waning, especially since she had been distracted from the music from virtually the beginning. But she was resigned to putting others' needs before hers.
"I remember nothing special. I heard his horse whinny as the snow began to pile up, so he was there then, and he came by about 4 to check on him. He stopped in to offer me a ride home, and I assure you I accepted."
"Did he seem perturbed at all?" Haviland asked.
"No," she said distractedly, turning away from them and directing her body toward the band, now playing a selection of marches.
Haviland and Abigail, having asked what they wanted to ask, left her to enjoy the final composition before the intermission.
CHAPTER 22
Bowlers, top hats, straw boaters, caps. Silk neckties and bow ties. Vests, jackets in blue serge, brown tweed and black cotton, trousers to match, overcoats in the basic shades of black, gray and brown, canes, umbrellas, collars and cuffs, crisp and white. These and more Abigail appraised by habit as she and Haviland waited for David M. Seaman, "clothier, hatter and gents outfitter," to finish measuring George Fremd, Paulding's undertaker, for a green plaid jacket.
"We cannot be dressed solemnly all the time, don't you agree?" Fremd explained, speaking for undertakers everywhere.
The rector and Abigail agreed, particularly after he emphasized that the jacket would be for off-hours use only.
Abigail meandered through the displays, fingering a necktie here, a pair of trousers there. Far better to sell clothes to women, she concluded for the millionth time. The colors of men's clothes were so limited and drab — black, gray, brown, occasionally blue and dark green — the fit so baggy, as if they were fashioned out of sacks, the styles never-changing. The suits Seaman displayed today looked the same as those he sold after the war, and the ones he would offer at the turn of the century would in all likelihood look little different. He did maintain high standards — good quality materials, fine tailoring — he was a master, not a stitch out of line — and solicitous.