The Last Hanging: A Will Haviland-Abigail Carhart Mystery

by M. G. Meaney

  "I knew you would come," she said with bitter resignation after rousing herself to greet her guest. "I'll close the doors. We'll sit by the tea table. Everything's ready." Her voice and manner, usually so solicitous and bright, when she wasn't being imperious, seemed dead. Even her sweet, rose-scented perfume smelled sour when she trudged past to secure the doors, as if the roses had been steeped in pickle brine.

  Abigail had planned it this way. She had waited five hours before visiting Mrs. Van Amringe, five hours during which word spread throughout Paulding that Sam Merritt was the murderer of the peddler, and, incidentally, that Abigail and Reverend Haviland had found him out. Little Johnny Peck, a clever youngster, had pieced it all together after his chat with them, then told people in the factory, who told the shopkeepers along Main Street during lunch — no fewer than five had visited Abigail's shop to discuss it. The shopkeepers knew a good piece of gossip and shared it along with their loaves of bread, barrels of milk, medicines, sales pitches for houses and farms, and pints of ale. So, when in mid-afternoon Sam Merritt strolled down Main Street for a box of tea and some sugar, he endured a gauntlet of whispers, pointed fingers, hesitant manners and averted eyes. He soon enough found out the reason for the odd behavior and erupted in a screaming, cursing, leather-apron-tossing fit right in the middle of Main Street that sent buggies careening to avoid him. It was not that the citizenry necessarily condemned him. In fact, a good many agreed that even if he did kill the peddler there was probably a good reason and, even if not, Merritt was one of their own, probably had his temper get the better of him, and that was not enough to disown him for the sake of a funny-talking little foreigner who was nothing to them.

  It was not condemnation that goaded Merritt. It was being the universal subject of the gossips, and the effect of this on Mary Van Amringe.

  "You were with Sam that afternoon, weren't you?" Abigail asked as kindly as the intrusive question would permit.

  "Yes," came the muted response. "That's why he insisted he was in the shop, even though he wasn't."

  Mary nodded her head and lowered her eyes. Her hands were folded in the lap of her high-collared, dull rust floral print dress. She ignored the steeping tea she had poured by habit. She had set out the tea and biscuits for her guest, by custom.

  "Tell me about it," Abigail urged softly, proceeding with the interrogation while trying to beat back a gnawing, massing recognition of the pain she had been inflicting. The case had been a game to her, an extension of her teasing and tilting at her fellow villagers. The men had been gruff and the hurt, panicked moments in their eyes easy to ignore. But Mary, eyes dead, collapsed in her chair, caressing with despair a cameo pendant of a man and woman like a barren talisman. Mary she could not ignore. Abigail's stomach now plunged and her eyes blurred with the fearful shame of committing an act or uttering a remark so hurtful, so devastating, that no apology, no ocean of remorse, could wash away the harm.

  But it was indeed too late and the case too far in progress to draw back now. Mary was speaking.

  "We had agreed to meet at the skating rink," she was confessing in a near-whisper. "That was before the snow, but I went anyway. I took the surrey, hitched at the train station and walked over behind the shops, then past the gazebo and along the riverbank to the rink.

  "Sam" — she said the name hesitantly — "came a few minutes later. It was a little after 1, the time we had set."

  Abigail sat slightly forward in the green and gold upholstered chair, which contrasted with the rust Mary wore, and struggled to concentrate.

  "We'd been seeing each other three months," Mary said, feeling some background was necessary. Now she was twisting her gold wedding band as she spoke. "Twenty-five years of marriage, five children. Life gets too staid. The same faces, the same conversations, him away at the shop or at some function. You need something — someone — novel, fresh, some adventure to renew you. Can you understand what I mean, Abigail, can you?"

  Abigail could indeed, and she nodded.

  "Sam is not new. We've both known him our whole lives. Everyone has. But he's different from ..." Again she failed to mention her husband's name. "He has strong opinions, don't we know, but courage too. You can't hold strong feelings in a little village without courage, especially if they go against the general feeling. To not compromise, to tell people to either follow you or get out of your way, that was new to me." Her husband was known as one of the great compromisers, hence his success in politics. He tried to please everyone.

  "And Sam, he was lost without Mildred. We all saw that. I was trying to help him, really, at first, as you would anyone. A dinner, help with the curtains, little things. Then ..." She shrugged.

  Abigail nodded understanding but not much enthusiasm. She had lost her appetite for gossip. So, Mary returned to the afternoon of the murder.

  "Sam closed the shop and left the back way. He came along the river so no one would see him. That was not much of a problem that day, because of all the snow. He said nobody saw him. We were ... inside the rink. We stayed about an hour, then he left. I left a few minutes later. He walked. He didn't take Burnside. So, you see, all these horrible things they're saying about Sam are not true. He couldn't have killed the peddler. He was with me at the time."

  She slumped back into her chair, her difficult confession completed.

  Abigail considered asking for proof of her assertions. Haviland would have. But she knew Mary, and surely she would not be willing to sacrifice her reputation, possibly even her marriage, to save a killer. And Abigail had heard the rumors about their affair. No, Mary was telling the truth. But she did want to confirm one fact.

  "Mary, are you absolutely sure about the time? It couldn't have been 12, or 2?"

  "No, 1 was our usual meeting time," she said. Abigail wondered if the "was" signified anything.

  "Did Sam burn down Adolphus Bronk's?" Abigail asked abruptly, switching cases.

  Mary looked startled. "Yes, but how did you know?"

  "His speech on the green. Did he shoot at Reverend Haviland?"

  "That I don't know. He never mentioned it — that at least. He certainly mentioned the Reverend from time to time. I'm sorry for you, Abigail, that he's leaving, but for his intrusions, we'll be glad to see the last of him. What will become of you?"

  Did she mean Abigail and Will, or just Abigail without Will? Abigail could not tell.

  "We've a day left, Mary. We're going to solve the peddler's murder, then we'll worry about the rest."

  "Are you that close then?" Abigail thought it over.

  "Well, Mary, I suppose we are, thank the Lord."

  CHAPTER 24

  Hannah Hopfner was finishing a wash as Haviland rode up on horseback to the gatehouse in which they lived on the Heathcote estate in Rye Harbor, about three miles down the Boston Post Road. She could not help but notice such a tall horseman trotting toward the house, and she could not help but recognize him, although he winced with each step of the horse, unlike the day of the hanging, when he seemed to be preening.

  He had rested, eaten and packed a few things after the accident. While Adolphus Bronk repaired his carriage, he took Preacher for his visit to the Hopfners.

  Haviland had to knock three times before Hannah Hopfner opened the door.

  "Have you brought back my son?" she demanded while drying off her hands on the white apron she wore over her dress. Her husband had apparently not told her of his visit to the parsonage and he was not around.

  Taken aback, Haviland could but fluster.

  "Go away, then, Reverend. You have nothing to say."

  "May I come in, Mrs. Hopfner. You may be able to help me."

  "Help you!"

  "Completely clear Theodore's name. I am very close to knowing who killed Zife Jenks and let Theodore die as well. But your son was walking along that road in a blizzard. He never said why, but you must know why."

  She stood stolid in the doorway, an immovable force. "I kn
ow nothing," she said, and moved back to close the door. Haviland stepped into the doorway, blocking it open.

  "Was Theodore meeting the peddler for some reason? Had he ordered clothes from him, or perhaps something else?"

  "I make, made, all Theodore's clothes," Hannah Hopfner shot back. "He never said a word to him before."

  "Then he had seen him before?"

  "Please get out of my house."

  "He knew Zife Jenks?"

  "That's not what I said. You will mix this up and hang someone else, someone innocent like my Theodore."

  "How did Theodore know him, then?"

  "He knew him like you knew him — he was around, selling things."

  "Theodore was on his way to meet someone then?" Hannah Hopfner just stared at him, but she did not deny it.

  Haviland gambled. "John Van Amringe, is that whom he was going to see?"

  The stare continued, unperturbed.

  "Tom Wetmore? Edward Adee? Jordan Denham?"

  Nothing.

  "He was going to see someone but you don't know who, isn't that it, Mrs. Hopfner? He was joining a club. Is that what he told you?"

  She pushed on the door again. Haviland stood his ground. The stare grew agitated. She looked down, she looked out past the rector. She glanced inside at her wash.

  "Yes, all right, that's what he said. Will you leave now?"

  "What did he say?" Haviland wanted it in her words in hopes of gleaning more details.

  "Some club he was joining. He was going to see some boys in Paulding. That was it. That was all."

  "Did he take anything with him?"

  "No, nothing I saw."

  "Did he say what kind of club?"

  "A socializing club, with other boys, that is all he said. Now will you go?" She pushed on the door again, harder. Haviland, caught off balance, moved back a step.

  "Did he have any figures like this?" He produced the straw figures he had found under the storage shed, the fox and the dog.

  "No," she said, and pushed him another step back. She showed no sign of familiarity with them.

  "Did he say what the club was called, or how many members it had, or where it met?"

  "No, no, no." Tears appeared in her eyes.

  "Thank you, Mrs. Hopfner. You've been very helpful. We'll find out soon who let your son die. We really will. I promise."

  She was a stocky woman with the sandpapery hands, permanently aching back and worried, weary mien that had imprinted itself in crow's feet at the edges of her eyes, purplish, bruised-looking bags beneath them and furrows in her forehead. She looked up at the smooth-faced, soft-handed rector, with his air of well-intentioned interest and sympathy.

  "Why do you tear at this again and again? Are you a vulture that picks at the carrion?" Her face shined now, he could see, shined with tears puddling then advancing over each wrinkle, each line of the cheeks. "You stab us again with the bad memories. Too soon to think about my Theodore again without crying. If you will not bring back my son, leave also the memories. Leave also the sadness. Leave them alone, please. Please ..." Mustering her strength, she shoved him out of the doorway and hurled the door shut.

  Gathering himself on the doorstep, he could just catch the sound of the sobbing within.

  * * *

  Riding back to Paulding, Haviland reassured himself that he was doing the right thing, that all the troubles he was causing would be justified when the murderer was found out. But this intellectual supposition was eroded by a fear that the forces he had set loose were whirling out of control, like the demonically possessed pigs in the Bible story, and about to hurl themselves off a cliff onto the rocks, taking him — and much of Paulding — with them. At times the fear grew to a panic. His hands trembled, his heart raced, his legs convulsed, his throat clicked. Waves of heat emanated from the top of his head and coursed downward, blurring his vision and making him faint. He shook it off after a time. Breathing deeply in and out to calm himself, he reasserted his reason, but soon another wave of fear and doubt wrung through him. This time the source of the fear emerged: Abigail. Something might happen to Abigail. Because of him. No, no. She was of Paulding. Yes, there had been the threatening note, but nothing since. She could have been riding in the carriage when the harness broke. But she wasn't. No, they — he — wouldn't harm Abigail.

  And what would become of him and her after tomorrow? They had been so preoccupied with solving the murder since the announcement of his departure that they had not discussed it. No, they had been afraid to discuss it. Would she give up her life and leave with him? He was afraid to ask. She probably had not decided, or she would have raised it. Too many things happening at once.

  As he returned to the village he spotted John Van Amringe outside Van Amringe's poultry shop. He helped his uncle there sometimes.

  "Theodore Hopfner was going to meet you the day Zife Jenks was murdered, wasn't he?" Haviland demanded.

  "Who told you that?" the lanky young man inquired. His tone was one of polite curiosity, not defensiveness.

  "His mother," Haviland lied. "He was joining your club."

  "So she says," Van Amringe said, wiping chicken blood onto his full white apron. "She's wrong. Is she the only one said that?"

  "What does this club do?" Haviland asked, ignoring the question.

  "What does any club do? What its members want, have fun," he said curtly. He edged toward the shop door.

  "Was Theodore Hopfner joining your club? Tell me."

  "I killed no peddler, Reverend, nor did any of us. Never set eyes on him after he walked off down the road. Never set eyes on Hopfner that day at all. Have a — what is it they say? — fruitful ministry in Delhi. Poor Abigail will miss you. I've three chickens draining. Have to scoot." And he was gone.

  CHAPTER 25

  Thaddeus Acker's huge hands clenched, his jaw tightened, his back stiffened and his eyes hardened when Haviland and Abigail approached the crowd of workers leaving his plant after their work day. "Pszczoły i trzmiele," he muttered to himself. Old men, young men, boys, and a few women streamed out the doors onto Main Street. Acker, per custom, had been standing by benevolently, chatting with this one about her sick mother or that one about his fishing or hunting, waving good-bye to all.

  "Good night, Mr. Acker. The U.S. of A is great, isn't it," one fellow declared.

  "Right you are, Tom," Acker agreed, smiling.

  Then, Abigail appeared amid the throng and all but shouted, "Someone took Sam Merritt's horse the day the peddler was killed. The rumors were wrong. Sam was working in the shop that afternoon. He was napping — he actually fell asleep — and didn't hear anyone knocking. Bit of a cold knocked him out. We found it all out." Her volume made it certain the large, receptive and talkative audience of plant workers found it all out as well. Haviland added his endorsement with a nod.

  "But, Thad, that means you were the only one who could have seen the horseman, since Burnside was hitched right outside your office. Strange you didn't see anything." They were upon him and the workers now, but Abigail spoke as loudly as an actress emoting in a large theater.

  The workers, perspiration soaking their white shirts in the humid heat, grime coating their serge pants, turned to Acker for an explanation.

  He looked at them, reflexively rubbed his beard, pulled out his gold watch from its fob — it was 6:02 p.m. — returned it and half turned to Abigail and Haviland.

  "I agree that it is most unfortunate," he said almost as loudly to all within hearing, "but as I have mentioned before I was working in the machine shop. Someone obviously sneaked behind our factory and stole — or, rather, borrowed — Burnside, if that is what really happened. Had I been in my office I could not have helped but notice it. I was not, however.

  "I am pleased to hear," he added, to the crowd, "that these most disturbing rumors about Sam have been dispelled. It shows that one should not jump to conclusions based on appearances, and, in fact, that gossip
in any form is to be discouraged by one and all. I'm sure you agree, Reverend."

  The reverend nodded.

  Acker resumed waving and bidding people good-bye to encourage the workers to leave. Used to reading their boss and benefactor, they soon dispersed.

  "Mr. Acker, do you believe that story about Mr. Merritt?" Haviland inquired after everyone had drifted away. His tone was sharp, like a teacher questioning a student who had not done his homework.

  Acker scrutinized Haviland, then adopted a genial expression.

  "Is there a reason I should not, Reverend?"

  "It sounds incredible, doesn't it?"

  "Truth can be incredible," Acker observed.

  "I'm learning that, Mr. Acker. I'm learning that indeed."

  "You will soon master the lesson, I trust," Acker said. He looked back toward the end of his factory, where a commotion was disturbing the woods.

  Constable Stillwell emerged, looking grim. He was followed by two deputies and a worried Mayor Van Amringe.

  "Reverend, we have need of your services. Please come with me," Stillwell said.

  "What has happened?" Abigail asked.

  "It's the Leatherman," Stillwell replied in a monotone.

  He and the deputies about-faced, and everyone trudged toward the forest.

  The Leatherman's body lay about a quarter-mile into the woods, 100 yards back from the stream bank. He lay on a mat of leaves, twigs and brittle pine cones. His wide, unseeing eyes stared toward the river. His legs were slightly apart, the left bent away from the right. His left arm was beneath him. The right grasped a revolver.

  In his right temple was a large hole, edged in brownish-red blood.

  "Oh my God," Abigail gasped. Haviland enfolded her with his right arm and pulled her to his side.