Defending the Dead (Relatively Dead Mysteries Book 3) (26 page)

Leslie turned back to Ned and Abby. “This isn’t going to work.”

26

“What isn’t?” Ned asked.

“All this lying and pretending and making nicey-nice in front of Ellie. No, don’t interrupt. I made a promise to myself when Ellie was born that I would never lie to her. I expect honesty from her, but I don’t feel I can ask for that if I’m not honest with her. Okay, maybe that’s simplistic, and obviously there are things I can’t and won’t say to her, at her age, but I try to stick to that rule. And then I found out she’d been sneaking out to local cemeteries and talking to dead people.”

“Hold on, Leslie,” Abby said. “Did she lie about that?”

“No, not once I asked her. But what normal person asks their kid, hey, do you have any dead friends? It never came up.”

Her look challenged Ned and Abby. But then she added, reluctantly, “But I have to say I’m feeling kind of guilty now that I didn’t notice that she’d disappear for an hour or two at a time, at least in nice weather. I’d ask her where she’d been, and she’d say, playing with my friends. I didn’t want to hover, so I didn’t ask for the particulars about which friends and where. Maybe that makes me a lousy mother. And Ellie never lied about it—she just didn’t tell the whole truth. She’s kind of smart that way.”

“This whole seeing ghosts thing scares you, doesn’t it, Leslie?” Abby asked gently. “I know it terrified me when I first discovered it. I’m still trying to learn to live with it. But you can’t use that against Ellie. You can’t make her feel there’s something wrong with her.”

“Don’t you try to tell me how to raise my daughter!” Leslie said loudly, just a shade short of shouting. An uncomfortable silence fell, broken only when Sarah came in with a tray laden with coffee and plates.

Sarah scoped out the scene quickly. “Not a good moment, I’m guessing. Please, sit down and maybe we can talk like reasonable adults. Have a cup of coffee.”

Leslie, still fuming, sat, and Sarah filled a mug for her. Abby and Ned exchanged glances, which seemed to signal the same thought:
let Sarah handle this
.

Nobody spoke until Leslie had added sugar to her coffee and sipped it. It seemed to calm her. “How long have you known about this thing, Sarah?” she asked in a quieter voice.

“Longer than I care to admit. I wasn’t expecting it, and I didn’t know what to do with it. For a long time I just figured I was more empathetic than most people, and I had an overactive imagination. But since I was in denial, I wasn’t much help to Ned. It never occurred to me that we might share this thing—I just thought I was weird.”

Abby could sense Leslie swallowing a sarcastic comment at that.

“We got along well, didn’t we?” Leslie finally asked.

“You and I? Yes. I liked you—I still do. I wasn’t sure you were the right person for Ned, but I kept my mouth shut. Didn’t I, Ned?” Sarah turned to her son.

“Yes,” Ned agreed. “You didn’t say much, but I think I knew what you were thinking. Damn, that phrase takes on a whole new meaning, doesn’t it?” He looked at Leslie. “As I remember it, we both kind of decided at the same time that things just weren’t working between us. Do I have that right?”

Leslie nodded. “Yes, more or less. It was mutual, and obviously we stayed friends. And then I came to you for Ellie, and Peter, so I can’t be holding a grudge, now, can I?”

“I never thought you did,” Ned said. “And if I’d had any inkling about this thing, and that it could be passed on, I would have told you up front.”

“I know. You’re a ridiculously honest guy, when you’re not busy ignoring what’s right under your nose.”

“Leslie,” Abby began, “what is it you’re asking now? Why are you here?”

Leslie took another sip of coffee while she marshaled her thoughts. “Ellie had a good time with you Wednesday, Abby. She didn’t mention anything about any people who aren’t really there, and I didn’t ask any questions about that. I just listened to her. But that made me realize that this charade isn’t going to work in the long run. We need to be able to talk about it, all of us together. I need to know if the same thing’s going to happen with Petey, and I’m even less prepared to understand it when it comes to boys. So either we stop this right now, and I never bring it up again, and I hope Ellie will simply forget and will outgrow this thing, which doesn’t seem to be working, or we’re going to have to figure out a way that you can be part of our lives.”

Sarah was the first to speak. “I hate to ask a stupid question, but when do kids start learning about the birds and the bees these days? Back in my day Mom didn’t say anything to me until it was inescapable, but things have changed.”

Leslie sighed. “What you’re not saying is, when do I think Ellie is going to figure out that Ned’s her father? Or more than just some guy we know? I’m still wrestling with that, and I need to include George in any decisions we make, because Ellie believes he’s her father—which he is, in every way except biological. Heck, you probably know as well as I do that some girls are entering puberty by the age of ten, thanks to all those hormones in the hamburgers and such. And like I said, I won’t lie to Ellie, especially not about something this important. But can I wait just a little bit longer? We can phase you into our lives gradually, and let things evolve. And I guess that includes you, Sarah—I suppose you have some rights in this, if there is such a thing.”

Sarah reached out a hand and laid it on Leslie’s arm. “Thank you, Leslie. I’ll respect your boundaries, but I really would like to get to know my granddaughter.”

Leslie looked a lot less stressed than when she had arrived. “So, we all agree? Details to be determined? You’re still on for Wednesday, Abby?”

“Of course. And I’m taking it slow with Ellie. Not so different from the way you’re handling it, I guess. I’ll answer her questions, but in terms she can understand as a seven-year-old.”

“Fair enough.” Leslie stood up briskly. “Well, that’s all I came to say.”

“Wait—do you have to be home right away?” Abby asked.

“I guess not—George is watching the kids. Why?”

“Because we’re in the middle of solving the riddle of the Salem witch trials, and you might be interested.”

Leslie looked confused for a moment, and then the light dawned. “You mean this thing you’ve got actually helps you understand what happened?”

“I think so.”

“Don’t tell me—you had ancestors who were witches,” she said.

Abby grinned at her. “Yup. And the politically correct term is
accused
witches.”

Leslie sat down again. “This I’ve got to hear.”

“Great. Let me bring you up to speed.” Abby gave her an abbreviated version of what she had told Ned and Sarah, and Leslie nodded impatiently. Not surprising, in that Leslie managed a history museum not far from Salem, and would know more about the topic than most people. When she was done, Abby said, “Since I’ve set aside the physical causes as the primary trigger for this series of events, I want to touch on another couple of factors. Let’s start with religion. Samuel Parris called himself a minister, and was accepted as such by the village, but in those days that was kind of all it took. There’s some question whether he was ever officially ordained. He’d been a plantation owner in Barbados and a merchant in Boston earlier in his life, and he gave up the ministry after he left Salem, so it doesn’t look like it was a lifetime calling. But that’s not the same as saying that people did not believe in God or the Devil—although they seemed to worry a lot more about the Devil. God was a distant figure, but they were prepared to believe that the Devil appeared among them, and held face-to-face conversations with people they knew. I know, it’s hard to imagine these days, at least for most of us.”

Leslie looked like she was sincerely interested. “So you’re saying there wasn’t a religious element to this?”

“I think religion was a convenient hook to hang this on, but that’s not what started things. I’m getting to it. Let’s take another detour to the socioeconomic side of things. One author I read thought there was a strong resentment of older women who held substantial property, and that accusing them of witchcraft was a convenient way to get them out of the way and free up their land. Although there was a substantial age range among the accused, so that might not make sense in a general way. Other recent studies have looked at the social makeup of Salem Village, where there were two basic factions, which very broadly can be broken down into the haves and the have-nots. The town committee, which managed municipal matters, kept shifting in their membership and their allegiances. And the town was pretty split between the pro-Parris faction and the anti-Parris people—so much so that they circulated and signed petitions for each position. Men and women alike. You can see the records, and even scanned images of the original documents online—it was that important to people then. Whatever else you say, Parris provoked strong feelings both ways. You could argue that that was about religion, but it was really more about local politics—the standing of Salem Village versus the town of Salem, and what rights and privileges the members of Salem Village had. As I told Ned and Sarah, this was a group that liked to fight, and they left a surprisingly good public record of it.”

“Wow, you really have done your homework, Abby,” Leslie said with admiration. “I know something about the history, but I’ve never gone into this kind of detail. I didn’t even know most of this information was easily available.”

“Neither did I. Most people we know say, ‘Ah, yes, Salem,’ because they learned about it in school and they think they know what happened. Maybe I’ve been watching too many procedural shows or reading too many mysteries, but I keep finding myself saying, ‘Okay, we have all this information, but where’s the
why
?’ Why did a small village go berserk all of a sudden? And I’ve yet to see a single coherent argument that explains everything. Just a lot of interesting theories that explain one bit or another. So here we are three-plus centuries later, and people are still trying to understand it.”

“It was certainly a memorable event, whatever the cause,” Leslie said thoughtfully. “People remember the horror of it—that ordinary people could suddenly turn on their neighbors, and the neighbors were publicly disgraced and hanged. Maybe it’s a good thing that capital cases now take a long, long time to work their way through the system.”

“Exactly!” Abby said. “So that’s why I’ve been trying to look at this in terms of what we now consider evidence that wouldn’t have appeared to matter earlier.”

“What, DNA? Fiber analysis? That kind of forensic stuff?”

Abby smiled. “There’s not much physical evidence to look at now, unless someone digs up a trunk buried in a cellar hole in Danvers. Stranger things have happened. But what I’m thinking is that we need to look at events and timing based on a more modern understanding of psychology, and most important, motive. I think there are some people who had a strong motive to trigger something like this.”

“Wow,” Leslie said. “So you, Abigail Kimball, waltz in from out of state and solve a mystery that’s been bugging people for three centuries? Bravo!”

“Leslie,” Ned said sharply. “You don’t need to mock her. What’s wrong with that approach?”

“Ned, I can defend myself,” Abby said. “Leslie, I’m just laying out the evidence as I see it. I’m not about to call the
Boston Globe
and announce a major breakthrough—not that they’d listen to me anyway. But I do bring something new to the table, and you know what it is. I’ve
seen
part of what happened in Salem in 1692, because I had lineal ancestors who were there. I’ve looked some of these people in the eye, and I’ve watched how they interact. You may not want to believe it, and I can’t blame you for that, but to the best of my knowledge, no one else has ever had that perspective.”

Leslie looked silently at Abby for a long while, and Abby could almost see warring emotions battling inside her. It was a lot to dump on someone, and a year earlier she wouldn’t have believed it either. But she had seen it. Finally Leslie spoke. “Will Ellie be able to see this?”

“I’m not sure. I haven’t worked out where her genealogy fits, except where we overlap. This was much earlier than what I do know about us. Ned and Sarah have been there with me in Salem, and they didn’t see what I saw, so maybe Ellie won’t be affected.”

“But you can’t rule it out?”

“No, I can’t.”

Leslie looked at Ned, and he nodded his agreement without speaking. Then she turned back to Abby. “Part of me wants nothing more than to walk out now and declare all of this a load of crap. But if Ellie may be involved, I have a responsibility to hear you out. So tell me: What do
you
think happened at Salem?”

27

“I think this would be a good time to break for lunch,” Sarah said, standing up.

“Is it that late already?” Leslie said. “Time flies when you’re having fun. Oh, sorry, Abby—that came out wrong. Actually I am having fun, kind of. This is really interesting stuff. Anyone would think you’d been researching this for quite a while, not just—what, weeks?”

“More or less. I don’t think what I’ve put together would make it into a prestigious publication—I can’t imagine trying to explain where I got my information. ‘Oh, my ninth great-grandfather told me, while he was watching his wife’s aunt get hanged.’ Not going to fly.”

“Wait, what? Are you serious?”

“Leslie, I wouldn’t joke about it, not with you. Yes, my ten times great-grandmother was one of the infamous Towne sisters—the one who survived.”

“This just gets better and better,” Leslie said. “And you’re saying you were there, by proxy?”

“That’s about it.”

Leslie was shaking her head. “I feel like I’ve walked into la-la land. How can this be?”

“I can’t tell you, but it’s real. Let’s go see what’s happening in the kitchen.”

Ned and his mother were bantering cheerfully as they assembled sandwiches—apparently Ned had done some grocery shopping while she was immersed in the seventeenth century. Abby vowed to make it up to him, once she’d put the whole Salem mess to bed. He’d been carrying the load for a while now, not that he complained.