Nobody's Secret (5 page)

Emily studied the scene for a long time. When the rever-end’s men had removed the body, they had left a swath of lily pads ripped from the roots. Because of the rain the day before, there were too many footprints on the muddy bank to tell her what happened.

She moved around the pond, ducking under the willow branches and pushing bushes aside. She noticed an area on the far side of the pond where the mud was particularly churned. She clambered up the bank, slipping in the slick dirt to where the road passed closest to the pond.

“I bet this is where he went in,” she murmured. “But it was chilly last night; I remember Vinnie fussing about the cats. He wouldn’t have gone swimming. Perhaps he fell in?

She cast her eye over the ground and spied a fresh trace of carriage wheels in the mud. She knelt down, heedless of the dirt on her gray skirt. Her nose almost to the ground, she examined the track. It was narrow, and within the groove of the right wheel she spied an odd square imprint, as though the wheel had been repaired with a thumb-sized block of wood.

She pulled a small notebook from its hiding place inside her corset. A length of stiff whalebone was supposed to go there to help flatten her stomach, but Emily had replaced it long ago with the handmade notebook. So far, her mother hadn’t found out. She pulled out a silver pencil on a chain around her neck and carefully drew the square imprint.

A trace of a wheel leaves a shadow in the mud.

“He didn’t walk here, he drove.” She corrected herself. “No, because someone drove the carriage away. He was driven.”

“Young lady, what are you doing down there?” A voice from above startled her, and she fell back into the mud.

“Now my back will be as filthy as my front,” she grumbled. “Mother will have a fit.” She looked up, shading her eyes to block out the afternoon sun. She recognized the portly figure of the constable who split his duties between Amherst and Northampton. “Hello, Constable Chapman.”

“Ah, it’s Miss Dickinson.” He held out a hand and helped her to her feet. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“No harm done,” she said. “Thank you.”

“What were you doing down there?” he repeated.

Without considering, she said, “I wanted to see how the body came into the pond.” His scandalized expression made her wince. When would she learn to think before speaking?

“Miss Dickinson, what would your mother say? Or worse, your father? You should be inside keeping yourself calm, not looking to upset yourself.”

She assumed a demure look. “Yes, Constable Chapman. You’re right. Are you coming to our house? I’ll walk with you.”

“I’ve already been,” he said.

Emily knew she had been away for only a few minutes. “Did you talk to Mother?” she asked, eyebrows lifted.

The constable leaned back on his heels and hitched his thumbs in his belt loops. “I could see that she wasn’t well, so I kept my questions brief.”

“What questions?” Emily pressed.

His brow furrowed, but he answered easily enough. “Did you hear anything last night? Did you notice anyone out of the ordinary yesterday? The usual questions I ask in such a situation.”

“But they won’t get you the answers you need,” Emily retorted. “We didn’t notice anything because he came into the water over here, out of sight from the house. See the carriage tracks? And then there are footprints going down the bank.”

With barely a glance at her evidence, the constable smiled condescendingly. “Then you have solved the mystery. He was probably a tramp who hitched a ride with someone. He got off, slipped down the bank, and then drowned. It’s a simple as that—and that’s what I’ll tell the coroner. There’s no need for an inquest.”

Emily stared at him. “But we don’t know anything yet!” she exclaimed. “We don’t even know his name!”

“We will. Someone is bound to know him. I’ll inform the town clerk that the death was accidental and I can go back to tracking Mrs. Elmtree’s stolen cow.” With a polite nod, the constable headed back toward the Common.

“But . . . ” Emily watched his retreating back with disgust. “We know nothing, and if you are in charge, we never will.” She looked back across the pond, glimpsing her house through the trees.

“I must get a closer look at that body,” she said.

Emily waited for what seemed like hours, watching a column of respectable townspeople climb the steps to enter the First Congregational Church of Amherst to view the body. Their puzzled conversations as they left told her that the body was still unidentified. As the time passed, she spared a thought for her mother. She would be livid with Emily for having stayed out so long. But that was nothing to what she would say if she knew where Emily was.

As twilight fell and the good citizens of Amherst retreated to their homes, Emily took her chance. Slipping through the double doors of the church, she went downstairs to the vestry, which was used by the church’s congregation and, when needed, by the town. Today it served both masters.

The room was empty except for the body, which lay on a table, covered with a woolen blanket. Several lanterns were placed about the still figure for light, and the smell of burning whale oil hung heavy in the air. As Emily drew closer, her steps grew slower. And slower. She stopped, suddenly reluctant to go any further.

Emily had helped her mother lay out her deceased elderly relatives, and had spent hours sitting with them while they lay in the parlor. Usually she found dead bodies restful; because they had departed this life, they gave her space to think. But those were people she knew, with names and histories. There was no mystery to those bodies. Everything about this corpse was a question. She forced herself to approach.

The dead man’s soles faced her. She lifted the blanket just a bit to reveal inexpensive canvas boots. Emily reached out and ran her fingertips over the soles. They were barely scuffed.

“New,” she said to herself.

His pants were workman’s pants, worn and dirty. They were too short for him; she could see his ankles. She folded back the blanket, noting the dampness, no doubt from the pond. He wore a cotton shirt, like any laborer in town might wear.

This man was a stranger to her, she was sure of it. Finally, just to be certain, she pulled the blanket away from his face.

She stumbled back and fell to the wooden floor.

“Mr. Nobody,” she whispered. She swallowed hard to settle her stomach and then rose and approached again, putting her hand to the table to steady herself.

Her hand hovered above his. After a long hesitation, she stroked his left hand. “I’m so sorry,” she said. The moist chill of his fingers made her shiver. She remembered the warmth of his skin when he had touched her hand in the stable. She began to weep. No amount of blinking would hold back the tears.

All the while, her mind was racing. Mr. Nobody had been hale and hearty two days earlier. And he had been dressed expensively. Why had he changed his clothes? When she saw him last, he was headed to her father’s law office. And the day before that, he had left her to go toward an unpleasant encounter. How had he ended up facedown in the Dickinsons’ pond? Was he trying to come to Emily? Might she have saved him if she had only known he was outside?

“Do you know him?” A voice startled her from her reverie. She jumped, and Mr. Nobody’s hand flopped to the side of the table. Reverend Colton stood in the doorway.

While she considered her answer, Emily carefully folded Mr. Nobody’s hands across his chest. His body was beginning to stiffen, and she had to use more strength than she expected. “I have no idea who he is,” she said scrupulously.

The reverend came closer and stared at her. “Have you been crying?”

“Perhaps.” Emily sniffed. “It’s very sad, isn’t it?”

He offered her a handkerchief, which she accepted gratefully. “I never thought of you as sentimental, particularly about someone you’ve never met.” He watched her carefully, as though he doubted her truthfulness.

She hurried to divert his attention. “Did he drown?”

“I assume so. Too many people don’t know how to swim; it was probably a tragic accident.”

“Even if he knew how to swim, would he go into a pond fully dressed?” she asked doubtfully. And in clothes that weren’t his own, she added silently.

“No one has recognized him,” he said. “We may never know what happened. Constable Chapman has his work cut out for him.”

Emily covered her involuntary snort with a muffled cough. In his mind, Constable Chapman had already closed the case.

“What will happen to him?” she asked.

“In another few days, we’ll have to bury him in the potter’s field.”

The potter’s field was the burial ground for strangers and the destitute. “That’s terrible,” Emily cried. “It would be a sin to bury him without a proper marker.”

“Yes, Emily.” A pious smile played upon the reverend’s lips. “Every soul deserves a proper accounting on earth and in heaven.”

“There’s power in a name,” she said slowly. Her thoughts were racing, but she considered her words carefully before speaking. “Reverend Colton, you said we are all responsible for him.”

“Indeed.”

“So it’s my duty to find out who he was?”

“In a manner of speaking,” he said, looking startled. “But I didn’t mean you personally.”

“But if I can, I must?” Emily was implacable.

Staring down his long nose, he watched her closely. “I think your mother might disapprove.”

“She disapproves of many things I want to do,” Emily confided.

Reverend Colton considered. “Then perhaps it is better she doesn’t find out,” he said. “After all, a proper Christian burial is the important thing.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Emily breathed, feeling as topsy-turvy as if she were riding a wave of righteousness.

He patted her on the shoulder. “The Lord chooses mysterious vessels to do his will.” He pulled out his pocket watch. “I’m due at the Hitchcocks’ for dinner. Why don’t you precede me, my dear?”

“Reverend, if you don’t mind, I’d like to sit here for a moment with this poor man.”

He hesitated, then nodded with a gentle smile. “Be sure to lock the door when you leave.” He turned and walked away, leaving Emily alone with Mr. Nobody. A draught from the closing door threatened to extinguish the flickering candles.

Emily pulled out her notebook and silver pencil. “Well, then, Mr. Nobody. We have a mission. How can you help me to help you?

Looking more closely at his shirt, she noticed that the sleeves were far too long for his arms. The material was well-worn but clean. She had already noticed the pants were too short. Gingerly, she pulled at his collar. His head flopped to one side. Murmuring an apology, she peeked to see if there was a label.

The shirt was from Cutler’s dry goods store in the center of Amherst. That was surprising. Mr. Nobody was from out of town—why would he shop there? And of course, why would he buy a shirt that was the wrong size and so different from the dapper clothes he seemed to prefer?

She jotted down this first clue:
Clothes alien to himself. Proportions distorted.

She saw a pale whiteness stuck to the fabric of the collar. Using the tips of her fingers, she pulled out a twisted white flower with a woody stem. She gently separated the petals and held it up to one of the candles illuminating the vestry. The blossom had a ghostly appearance. Emily frowned, trying to recall if she had seen a flower like that near the pond. She didn’t think so. She carefully placed it between two pages in the back of her notebook.

As she recalled only too well, Mr. Nobody’s hands had been callused. But now she noticed that his nails were trimmed and shaped.

“You pampered yourself when you had the chance,” she murmured. “But what’s this?” The skin underneath his tidy nails was blue.

Fingernails protect flesh blued with death.

She carefully replaced the blanket over his body and walked upstairs and out into the fresh evening air.

“I could have known his name if I had only asked a second time,” she muttered, kicking a stone hard against the wooden church steps. Not one stranger in a thousand would have understood why she wanted a bee to land on her nose. Or would see the humor in her ridiculous parents. Or agree that one could worship God anywhere.

Mr. Nobody had met the real Emily Dickinson, with all her unconventionality, and he had liked her for it. It was up to her to find out his name, and how he came to be floating facedown in her pond.

Drowning is not so pitiful
As the attempt to rise.