Capacity for Murder (Professor Bradshaw Mysteries) (25 page)

Bradshaw said, “I have a favor to ask.”

They made arrangements to meet in the afternoon when the tide would be outgoing. By then, the fog had risen to form a low ceiling. Pant legs rolled up to his knees, Bradshaw waded barefoot in the surf to the cedar longboat manned by two young native men. He carried the white ceramic urn he’d brought from home. He set it gently in the boat, then grasped the edge to climb in. His awkward boarding brought smiles to the faces of the two young natives, but he didn’t take a dunking. Old Cedar sat with dignity in the bow as the younger men paddled out to sea.

Once past the breaker zone, Old Cedar signaled. The natives shipped their paddles. Bradshaw cleared his throat. He’d planned to say a few words, a prayer, but now that the time had come words escaped him and his throat was too tight to speak. He held the cool urn and felt his palms warm the ceramic.

His eyes welled.

He’d been the only one who attended the young man’s hanging other than those officiating. It had been done in semi-secrecy to avoid any ugliness or any public celebration. Bradshaw had inherited all of the young man’s possessions. His family had wanted none of them. Amongst the things now stored in a trunk in Bradshaw’s basement were textbooks, poetry, assignments, and childhood toys. And a diary. The pages within revealed a short life, from troubled innocence to ingenious assassin. The pages held the key to the design of a revolutionary device now at the bottom of Elliott Bay. The pages were filled with sadness, fear, yearning, and madness.

As he held the jar and the longboat rocked gently, Bradshaw thought of madness and the fragility of the human mind, and the inner forces driving one’s actions. Why was one young man a brave soldier and another a condemned assassin? Why did one woman who thrived on applause and attention become a celebrated actress, like Ann Darlyrope, and another woman who craved attention and sympathy, like his late wife, stage a fatal play?

We are dealt a hand at our birth, he thought, consisting of strengths and weaknesses, talents and handicaps, physical and mental. When our time is done, when choices have been irrevocably made, then what? For those who were dealt a weak hand, did they spend the rest of eternity being punished for their behavior? Was the Almighty, who’d created all and thus created the flaws, that unforgiving? Did evil reside in the soul or in the chemical makeup of the body and brain? Was there a chance, at the end of human life, for peace?

He hoped so. He prayed so.

He removed the lid from the jar and tipped the ashy contents into the sea.

Old Cedar began to chant in his ancient language, his voice a low rumble more of nature than man.

Words then came to Bradshaw, and under the music of Old Cedar’s chant, he spoke them for the young man whose ashes he set free, and he spoke them for his late wife, forgiving her at last. “Peace be with you.”

The jar was empty. He let go.

Chapter Thirty-two

Bradshaw spent the remainder of the day in the Healing Sands barn drying out and firing up the Stanley, a plan developing.

With the early tide the next morning, he packed a small bag into the Stanley, told Doctor Hornsby he planned to return that evening, or the next morning if he missed the tides, and headed north. The weather remained gray and misty, the clouds low; but the wind was mercifully absent, leaving only the movement of the steamer to buffet him with mist.

The white-crested, steely ocean spread endlessly on his left, and virgin forest loomed from the cliffs and bluffs to his right. Seabirds swooped and cried, razor clams spit from thousands of tiny holes in the wet sand, a seal hauled himself into the water with a throaty honk. A bald eagle, curious perhaps about the new red hissing creature, dove down with a screech, its wings spread eight feet tip to tip.

At first, Bradshaw was alone with nature at the edge of the continent, but upon reaching Joe’s Creek, human activity intruded. As Mrs. Hornsby had explained, here was the newly named and freshly platted town of Pacific Beach where the Northern Pacific depot was under construction. Preparations had begun for the railroad to travel along the beach northward to Moclips. Trees had been cleared, a service road plowed, and freshly milled lumber awaited the hammer.

As he drove on, figures appeared that proved to be diggers. Not clam diggers catching the low tide, but gold diggers—treasure seekers—searching the dry sand and cliff bases and the wooded verge that dipped low to meet the sea.

He waved to the diggers. If they waved back, he drove out of the reach of the incoming tide to talk to them. If they ignored him or dispersed for trails up into the woods, he continued on. Captain Bell had spread word in the area by way of the mail carrier that volunteer diggers were welcome but must first check in with him or send him a letter of intent. The unfriendly diggers had likely ignored that request.

The coast, he knew, was sparsely populated. Yet he counted no less than a hundred diggers. Those who spoke with him said they’d come from the logging camps, the mills, the canneries, from Aberdeen, from Tacoma, even Seattle. Those who’d abandoned logging or railroad construction jobs had come through the forest following logging roads and railroad spurs as far as possible. Others had traveled on foot from Oyehut after catching the steamer from Hoquiam. He’d not seen them pass Healing Sands on their way north, but last night as the tide began to drop, they must have been silently marching past his cabin as he slept.

He arrived at Moclips—a cluster of shacks and modest new buildings—just as the tide threatened to force him off the beach. He drove the Stanley up out of reach of the waves, prepared to eat the meager supplies he’d brought. But his arrival was hailed by a friendly housewife of Mrs. Prouty’s proportions and years who invited him to share a hot meal with her husband—a man as small as she was large—who’d just come in from fishing on the river.

Inside a tidy clapboard house named “West End,” he was served what he considered the first real meal since his arrival on the coast. Roast duck, clam chowder, fresh garden vegetables, fresh white bread, and a home-brewed ale the same amber as Missouri’s eyes. He was profuse with his praise.

The pair had spoken to Captain Bell the previous day, they said, and they had no information to share for they’d not seen the Thompsons when they made their daytrip up to Moclips. They knew the Hornsbys, had often made use of David Hollister’s washhouse, and wondered if it would be impolite to ask about resuming monthly washings. Bradshaw doubted they’d be allowed until Captain Bell completed his investigation.

He thanked the couple for the fine meal and made his leave, spending the next few hours retracing Captain Bell’s footsteps and getting the same results. The Thompsons had not been seen in Moclips.

Bradshaw returned to the Stanley to await the tide. His thoughts wandered as he stared at the ocean. To the north, seastacks, vertical formations of rock formed by the forces of erosion, rose near shore. He wondered what about their jagged shapes gave them such an eerie, alluring quality. He wondered what it was about Missouri Fremont that so possessed him. He dug into his supplies, found paper and his pencil, and wrote a letter to Missouri that he didn’t intend to mail. And then he wrote out, for himself, every word he could recall of what she’d said to him on the beach. He studied her words, especially the part where she said,
“I thought maybe you’d have some sense now, or at least be willing to discuss the very real differences between us to see if we can find a way past them.”

What were those real differences?

She was young, he was not. He was a man of habit, she was spontaneous. He felt at peace with organized routine and she lived each day anew. He was a man who found solace and stability in attending Mass. She considered nature God’s cathedral.

He set down his pencil and stared, unseeing, at the ocean. The wind gusted, fluttering the paper beneath his hand.

Why had it not occurred to him before? He was Catholic. Was she? He’d never asked. Henry, while not a man of regular church habits, was Catholic, and he’d assumed Missouri, being his niece, was too, although lapsed. She was of a spiritual nature but felt no compulsion to follow the organized prescriptions of any church. He’d supposed she was, like many young people, exploring religious and spiritual ideas on a voyage of self-discovery that would eventually lead her back to the church. But what if her voyage took her elsewhere? Was she Catholic? Would she be Catholic—for him?

The very real differences between us.

She must have been referring at least in part to this.

His chest tightened. She was right. Of course, she was right. While he dragged his feet, ignoring his feelings for her, it kept him from seeing this very real difference. This obstacle.

But if it were an insurmountable obstacle, would she have declared her feelings, told him she was done waiting, chastised him for wasting so much time rather than figuring it out?

And yet, what was there to figure out? While a mixed-marriage between a Catholic and someone who practiced another form of Christianity was possible with a special dispensation, it was frowned upon and highly discouraged. Marriage to a person of any other faith, or non-faith, was forbidden.

When the tide had dropped enough to set out for Healing Sands, he did so, attempting to distract his thoughts by constructing physics lessons from the forces of nature—wind, temperature, granular matter, liquid, solids. He wondered if the emptiness and uncertainty he felt, and the ache in the pit of his stomach that threatened to reverse the direction of the digesting duct, were about his investigation. Or Missouri. He knew it was very possible he was avoiding returning home and facing her.

And yet he also knew this case was not over. Even Captain Bell had declared there were yet unknowns. Captain Bell could live with them, Bradshaw could not.

Chapter Thirty-three

The next morning, he was off again with the low tide, this time driving south with all his belongings in the Stanley.

He’d been welcomed back to Healing Sands by the Hornsbys like a long lost relative although he’d only been gone the day. As darkness pressed against the windows, they’d all gathered in the dining room, drinking chamomile tea, and telling him what had had happened in his absence.

Sheriff Graham had returned to Hoquiam, and Captain Bell had returned to Seattle, leaving a trusted man in charge of his crew to continue the search along the North Beach. Mr. Scott Mitchell, no longer a deputy, remained. He’d asked Hornsby if he could work for room and board, and his request had been granted. Being neither handy nor skilled, he was not being called the handyman, but his humble presence was appreciated by all. He was still visibly shaken by having killed a man. The depth of the family character was revealed in the fact that he was being treated with sympathy, not as a hero.

They had accepted Captain Bell’s pronouncement of Loomis’ guilt. Knowing who killed David gave them some measure of relief and was allowing them to begin to move forward. Bradshaw didn’t want to disturb that with uncertainty.

But he couldn’t pretend he was done searching for answers.

When he announced he was leaving the next day, Martha asked if he was going home.

“Not yet,” he said.

She understood what he was saying. The effect of his simple reply was reflected in her eyes. He’d reopened the wound that had only just begun to heal by putting her back into that horrible place of uncertainty. That hadn’t been his intention, yet he couldn’t bring himself to lie and say he was satisfied with Bell’s conclusions. Ingrid Thompson’s involvement in what had happened here obsessed him. He knew it. Just as he knew that while at first he’d been distracted by her resemblance to his late wife, now it was Mrs. Thompson herself that attracted his attention. He couldn’t rest until he learned what role she played.

He would be retracing her route from Healing Sands back to Seattle, and once there continue to delve until he found answers. There was one slender thread of information Martha had told him that he’d begun thinking about on the drive back from Moclips. David had thought he recognized Ingrid Thompson from his childhood. Her name then would have been Ingrid Colby. She had denied they knew each other. Had she told the truth? Or was that a small clue, which combined with her lying about her age, might point him somewhere?

He asked, “Can anyone draw a portrait?”

He now had that portrait tucked safely inside his jacket. Abigail, it turned out, was an artist, and she’d captured Mrs. Thompson’s likeness with remarkable skill.

He stopped at the modest hotel and health resort at Iron Springs. More diggers were there on the beach and searching the surrounding woods. He asked about the Thompson’s stay the previous year; their answers came easily for the staff had sorted their memories for Captain Bell the previous day. They didn’t know of an Ingrid Colby or any Colbys from Hoquiam. The answers were the same in Copalis, where he returned the Stanley Steamer to its owner and intercepted the mailman, who carried a letter from Henry.

Ben,

Met a guy who’s known Moss since boyhood. I bought him a drink and he sang me a tune. Says Moss was a quiet kid, not very bright. Could never get the hang of reading. Always been uglier than sin and denser than dirt, but not mean. Worked his parents’ farm until he headed up north. No wife, never had the prospect of one. Resigned bachelor.