Maplecroft (The Borden Dispatches #1)(33)
Regardless, she doesn’t need to protect me—from herself, or anyone else. So I approached the door once again, though this time I didn’t hear the ocean-swell sound rising and falling behind it. I pressed the side of my face against it, and I closed my eyes, and I listened for all I was worth.
I heard nothing at all.
CUT THEM ON FRIDAY, YOU CUT THEM FOR SORROW
Owen Seabury, M.D.
APRIL 18, 1894
Shepherd Duffy rapped on my door before the sun came up—a hard, insistent knock of the kind I know all too well. Someone was in labor; someone was injured. Some surprise catastrophe had befallen somebody, someplace. I knew it as I gathered my wits and stumbled down the stairs; and I knew it was likely worse than I’d thought when I saw Shepherd’s hat through the glass pane in the door. He was dressed smartly, as always: in a crisp brown suit that identified him on sight more quickly than the badge upon his chest. Only a slight rumpling of his collar betrayed that he too had been roused from bed and thrust into action at such an inconvenient hour.
I opened the door and adjusted my spectacles.
Without preamble, and before I could ask how I could be of service, he said, “You’d better come down to the courthouse. Ebenezer Hamilton is asking for you.”
“I’ll get my bag.”
“You won’t need it. He isn’t hurt.”
“Oh dear . . .” Then the matter was grave indeed. “Has something happened to Matthew?”
“Yes, but it’s nothing you can fix. Please, come along. I have a cart waiting, if you would be so kind.”
“Give me one moment to grab my coat, and I’ll be right there.”
I didn’t mean to close him out of the house, but he was already on his way back to the cart anyway, and I needed another moment or two to collect myself. I was dressed decently, if not well—having pulled a pair of pants over my sleep shirt before I’d come downstairs; but the clock against the wall informed me that it was just before four in the morning. The world could forgive me a lack of presentability.
I more thoroughly tucked in my sleep shirt, tied my shoes, and threw on an overcoat. The spring evening (or morning, depending) was chilly enough that I could see my breath when I stepped onto the porch, though it’d likely be warm enough come midday that I’d regret the coat. But for that moment, that long, stiff-legged walk to the sheriff’s apparently borrowed transportation, I was glad for it. I was shivering, and it wasn’t entirely the weather.
I climbed up onto the seat beside Duffy, who apologized again, this time for the accommodations. “I would’ve ridden over in the official carriage, but it’s in use just now. This was all I could muster on short notice.” He snapped the reins and the big brown horse pulled us forward.
“Not to worry. This is better than walking, by far. I used to keep a horse for such occasions, but in my old age I find that riding disagrees with my bones.” He didn’t reply, and I felt a peculiar urgency about the silence, so I prattled on. “Besides, it won’t be long before we’re all rolling around in electrical carriages, if the periodicals can be believed. But won’t you tell me what this is about? Without my bag, I’m at a loss. Am I being called as some kind of witness? What’s become of Matthew?”
The sheriff cleared his throat. “He’s been shot dead.”
“By Ebenezer?” I guessed.
“He’s confessed to it, yes. Says it was a matter of self-defense.”
“And what of Felicity?” I asked after Mrs. Hamilton. “Is she all right?”
“No. Matthew has . . . done something to her,” he said vaguely. “Ebenezer tried to stop him, tried to . . . I’m sorry, it’s all a bit unclear right now. We’re still sorting out the facts. Ebenezer swears he’ll talk to you, and no one else . . . but I’m not so sure. The man’s so shaken he can scarcely breathe, much less explain himself, to you or anybody.”
“But Felicity . . . is she dead?”
“Very, yes.”
It was a strange answer, and I didn’t like it. I felt like it implied something more awful than it stated outright, and I was on the verge of demanding answers when we drew up to the courthouse. The sheriff told me he’d tend to the horse and cart, and meet me inside.
“Go to the consultation room on the first floor. They’re waiting for you there.”
The night was still and very, very dark—despite the gas lamps that burned softly on the town’s square. They cast shadows too sharp to be pretty, and if the moon was out, I couldn’t see it. The air was thick with frost and something else: a peculiar odor. I caught the barest whiff of something rotting. Something that came from the sea, and ought to have stayed there.
I stamped my feet and went up the steps, letting myself inside.
Inside the courthouse was warmer and brighter, but it bustled with young men in hastily donned uniforms, and a pair of narrow old men in cadaverous black suits. I recognized them as the brothers who own the funeral parlor—last name of Wann, which is so appropriate as to be almost inappropriate, or so I’ve always thought. They nodded at me, with their usual grim expressions of sorrow and fortitude. They are good men, and good professionals, but they always remind me of crows on a laundry line. Vultures atop a gate. It’s the job, and what their presence implies, that’s all. It can’t be helped, and my morbid fancies should not reflect upon them.