Mister Slaughter (58 page)

Matthew realized what Berry had already figured out.

The fish that Zed drew were the ones that had gotten away.

And in his mind, that was freedom.

Zed understood. Matthew saw it dawn in his eyes: a spark, like a distant candle on the darkest night.

He looked at them all in turn—Berry, Matthew and McCaggers—and then brought his gaze back to the girl. She smiled and nodded once more—the universal language of
yes
—and he nodded also but it was hard for a man in an alien world to smile.

He dropped the pad and crayon. He turned away from them, and he began to walk along the nearest pier out toward the water. As he went, he removed his shirt. Fishermen stepped aside, for he was a mighty force in motion. He kicked off one shoe, then the other, and now he was running, and anyone who had stood between him and his destination would have gone down as if hit by a moving wall.

"Zed!" Berry cried out.

He dove off the end of the pier, into the cold river water where the sun sparkled in bright ribbons. But even as big as he was, he hardly made a splash.

They shifted their positions to see past a boat and caught sight of his head surfacing, followed by the broad shining shoulders and back. Zed began to swim with powerful, deliberate strokes, following the river's current as it flowed to the Atlantic. He kept going, past the point where Matthew thought he must surely stop and turn back. He kept going.

"He'll come back," McCaggers said, the reflection of sun and water in his spectacles.

But Zed did not pause in his forward motion. Through the chill water, he swam on.

"He won't go too very far," McCaggers said.

What was
too very far
? Matthew wondered if on all those nights Zed had studied the stars he'd calculated the way home, and now he was bound to get there if only in his last dream as he swam downward into the blue, away from the hooks and the nets.

"Zed!" McCaggers shouted. In his voice was a hint of panic. Matthew realized that McCaggers had likely considered Zed not a slave but a companion. One of a very few he could claim, for who wished to be friends with a man who spent so much time with the dead?

Zed kept swimming, further and further out, toward the wide expanse of the sea.

McCaggers said firmly, "He'll come back. I know he will."

A little waterbug of a boat moved majestically between them and Zed, its patched sails flying. When the boat passed, there was no more sign of the man.

They stood there for several more minutes, keeping watch.

At last McCaggers bent down and picked up the pad and crayon, and he gave them to Berry.

"He's a good swimmer," Berry said. "We just may not be able to see him from here."

"Yes," McCaggers agreed. "The sun's bright on the water. We may not be able to see."

Matthew felt he ought to add something, but he could only think that one attribute of being truly free was choosing how one wished to depart from life. Still . . . was it a triumph or a tragedy?

McCaggers walked out onto the pier. He took his spectacles off, wiped the lenses with his handkerchief and put them back on. He stood there for awhile staring in the direction Zed had gone. When he came back, he said to Berry with a note of relief, "I think I saw him. I believe he's all right."

Matthew said nothing; he'd already seen what looked to him like a treetrunk with twisted branches being carried out toward Oyster Island.

The work of gutting fish had begun. McCaggers turned his face away from the sea, caught sight of a bucket full of fish heads and entrails, and focused on Berry. "Will you accompany me," he said, "for a cup of coffee?" He had a yellowish pallor. "On Crown Street?"

"I will," she answered. "Matthew, would you go with us?"

Matthew was about to say yes when he saw two people standing a distance away. One was a tall, lean man with features part angel and part devil. He wore an elegant gray suit, waistcoat and cloak, and on his head was a gray tricorn. The other was a slimly-built woman, nearly as tall as her husband, with long thick tresses of black hair curling about her shoulders. She wore a gown of deep blue velvet, with a short jacket the same material and color. She was standing beneath a blue parasol, its hue a few shades lighter than the velvet.

Matthew felt sure he'd seen that parasol before. At the Chapel estate, possibly. In midsummer.

The Mallorys seemed to be talking quietly, admiring the work of the blades as the glistening fish were carved. Did the woman cast a sidelong glance at him? He wouldn't be surprised. They'd been shadowing him ever since he'd left the doctor's care. A day hadn't gone by when he wasn't aware of them, hovering somewhere nearby.

They turned their backs to him, and arm-in-arm they walked away in the shadow of her parasol.

McCaggers hadn't noticed them. He was still anxiously searching the distance for a swimmer.

"Some other time," Matthew said to Berry's invitation. He didn't think he'd be very good company, with the Mallorys on his mind. "I'd best get back to the office."

McCaggers spoke up before the girl could respond. "Of course! Some other time, then."

"Ashton, I want to thank you again for saving my life," Matthew said. "And for letting me call you
friend
."

"I think Zed is the one who saved your life. When he comes back, we'll toast freedom and friendship. All right?"

"All right," Matthew agreed.

"You're sure you won't join us?" Berry asked imploringly.

"Let the man go about his business," said McCaggers, and he put his hand on Berry's elbow. "I mean . . . are you sure you won't join us, Matthew?"

"I'm sure."

"Zed will be back." McCaggers looked into Matthew's eyes, and no longer out to sea. "You saw what a good swimmer he is."

"Yes, I did."

"Good afternoon, then." The coroner attempted a smile. His somber face was ill-suited to the expression and it slipped away. "I trust no one will try to kill you anytime soon."

"I trust," Matthew said, but he'd realized that he was a killer himself, whether he'd wanted the title or not, and to survive in a land of carnivores he would have to grow the killer's eye in the back of his head.

"Later?" Berry asked.

"Later," Matthew replied.

McCaggers and Berry walked on together, with his hand at her elbow. She glanced back at him, just briefly, and he wondered if she hoped he'd changed his mind. McCaggers had taken three steps when the heel of his right boot broke off. Berry helped him steady himself. He picked up the heel, and with a shake of his head at the improbabilities that make up the chaos of life he limped along at her side.

Matthew started off, heading back to Stone Street.

Before he got a block away from the waterfront, he heard a woman's voice behind him say, "Mr. Corbett?"

He could keep going, he thought. Just keep going, and pretend not to hear.

"Mr. Corbett? One moment, please?"

He stopped, because he knew that whatever their game was, they were determined to play it out.

Rebecca Mallory was a fiercely beautiful woman. She had high cheekbones and full, red-rouged lips and intense eyes of deep sapphire that Matthew thought must have claimed the souls of many men. She held the blue parasol between them, as if offering to share its shadow. Matthew saw her husband standing behind her a few yards away, lounging against a wall.

Dr. Mallory's care of Matthew had been professional and successful, and when Matthew had gotten his clothes back he'd found the letter from Sirki to Sutch returned to him in a pocket. It was as if that discussion between night owls had never happened, but for the fact that they were watching him. What was he going to do? Show the letter to Greathouse and open up all that bloody mess? And what could he
prove
about the Mallorys, anyway? In fact, what did he
know
about them? Nothing. So . . . best to wait, and to let the game play out. For what choice was there?

"We have a mutual acquaintance." The woman's voice was calm, her gaze steady. She might have just said they liked the same kind of sausages.

"Do we?" Matthew asked, just as calmly.

"We believe he'd like to meet you," she said.

Matthew didn't answer. It suddenly seemed very lonely, on this street.

"When you're ready, in a week or two, we'd like you to come visit us. Will you do that?"

His lip felt the graze of a hook. He sensed the silent falling of a net. "What if I don't?"

"Oh," she said, with a tight smile, "let's not be unfriendly, Matthew. In a week or two. We'll set a table, and we'll be expecting you."

With that, she turned away and walked back to where her husband waited, and together the elegant, handsome Mallorys strolled along the street in the direction of the waterfront.

Matthew determined that before this day was over he was going to have to take a long drink or two at the Trot, surrounded by laughter and lively fiddle music and people he counted as friends. That was the true treasure of a man, it seemed to him. Greathouse, too, if he wanted to come. Matthew would even buy him a meal; after all, he had thirteen pounds and a few shillings left to his name. Enough for a fireplace, and then some. But without all those gold pieces stuffed in the straw of his bed, he slept so much better.

He also determined that his mouth was going to remain shut about this—to Greathouse, Berry, and everyone else he knew—until he found out more.

Right now, though, he had nothing but a friendly invitation from a beautiful woman.

And God only knew where that might lead.

Matthew watched the blue parasol out of sight. Then he went back to Stone Street on a path as straight as an arrow.

I hope you've enjoyed your visit to the world of Matthew Corbett, and I hope you'll follow Matthew's story as it progresses. I intended this series to be a time machine of sorts, not only to tell an evolving tale of mystery and adventure but to show what life was like in the colonial era.

Having said that, I have to say also that the history depicted therein is not totally accurate, nor is it totally inaccurate. I suppose that's like saying there are many shades of gray, but then again . . . there
are
many shades of gray.

I'm not sure anyone can write a totally accurate depiction of any historical era, simply because we don't—and can't—live there. We go by what's already been researched and written, or we go by diaries or documents or maps, but the deal is that even with the most meticulous research and attention to detail we're still looking at the era through our modern-day lens. We can't help but do so. We know only what we've read and what researchers have surmised, and they too see the era through their own lens. So, in a way, the past must always remain a place that can never be fully and accurately reached, though we can surely visit it in our imaginations.

As a fiction writer, I have edited history to suit my story, and I'll give you some examples of how and why.

I am certainly no expert. I might read and study and research day and night, but I'm never going to get everything right because I just can't. Bear in mind also that there's an expert for everything under the sun, but there's no
one
expert for everything under the sun, which you have to kind of try to be when you're writing a book of historical fiction . . .
especially
when it's historical mystery fiction. I'm learning as I go along, but I'm never going to be perfect and my writing and research won't be perfect either.

Case in point: the money. In the colonial era there was a bewilderment of different types of money that even makes the experts' heads spin. Dutch money, Spanish coins, of course the English coinage, wampum and the barter system . . .
wow
. Put all those together, plus the fact that the value of money went up and down so rapidly over the span of the colonial era, and you have one big mess to clarify, if you're going to deal with money at all. I had to, so I've simplified the issue of coinage in order not to overwhelm. Again, not totally accurate, but not totally inaccurate, either.

Here's a small but interesting item: what do you call the three meals of the day? Breakfast, lunch, and dinner? Well, in the era I'm writing about these were called breakfast, dinner, and supper. In previous books in the series I used the more modern terms for meals, but I thought I might be more accurate here and use the colonial terms. Now, the problem comes about when a character asks another character to meet him for dinner at twelve noon. That's going to knock a reader out of the story. Dinner at
twelve noon
? Must be a typo. The reader may well say: heck, this darn book's full of typos! Dinner in the daytime? Supper at night?
Supper
? Isn't that something a hillbilly eats?

See where I'm going with this? Actually, I grew up in the south hearing the term
supper
used for the nighttime meal, but I'm not sure most people are familiar with that term, and certainly not
dinner
instead of lunch. So I'm working through this, and though in this book there are a couple of "dinners" used to describe the nighttime meal, I'm moving more toward
supper
. As for "dinner" used to describe the midday meal, I just say . . . midday meal.

Again, not totally accurate but not totally inaccurate, either.

One
big
thing that I'm dealing with is the actual years the series is set in, and let me explain this so you might get a handle on it.

When I wrote the first novel featuring Matthew Corbett,
Speaks the Nightbird
, I planned for a single book, set in 1699 at what was basically near the end of the belief in witchcraft in the colonies. The book involves a woman accused of being a witch, so 1699 is when it needed to be because after that date you really don't get any more reports of people believing in witchcraft in the old colony documents. So: 1699 it was.

Okay, so I retired or "went away" for a few years. Now one day I think, hm, y'know, I might like to do another book featuring Matthew Corbett. Well, now . . . where could I go with him? And I thought: I could combine the mystery and puzzles of Sherlock Holmes, the action of James Bond, the weird villains of Dick Tracy, the atmosphere of the Hammer costume-piece horror films of the '50s, and bring my interest in American history, detective fiction and whatever else I might conjure up to a
series
. This sounded like it would be fun to write,
and
it also sounded as if it would be fun to
read
, which is always my first reason to want to create anything.