On the Rocks: A Willa Cather and Edith Lewis Mystery (30 page)

And after John Thomas Bush appeared on Grand Manan, what was James to say? That a man James had never actually met and no one on the island had ever seen, within hours of his arrival, forced young James to take him to Seven Days Work where he expected James to jump off the cliff? That the resulting death was an accident and self-defense?

Would anybody believe any of this? Miss Cather was incredulous.

Of course, young James withheld information and tried at first to flee and then to conduct his own investigation, Miss Cather scoffed. If James had come forth sooner, his story would have made no sense at all and he might still have been in danger. Knowledge was what James needed, knowledge and proof. He didn’t even know who else might be involved. And that’s exactly what he was trying to find out when Miss Cather and Miss Lewis first spotted him at Eel Brook. When the time was right and they asked him what he had been doing, he told them. And then he told Daggett, Miss Cather assured Daggett. And what James said had allowed Mark Daggett to hold Matthew Johnson. Daggett had no reason to hold Johnson just for jumping on and off the S. S. Grand Manan. So Johnson had tricked Daggett and run when he saw Daggett on the beach. Nothing criminal in that. Quite right, Daggett finally conceded, quite right. And what more could the constable ask in terms of cooperation, Miss Cather wanted to know.

Miss Lewis said she thought James should be released. Where else would James go, she wanted to know. He wasn’t likely to run off the island. Not now. Miss Cather said that if Daggett was reluctant, they would pay his bail. Daggett assured them he would release James without bail. Miss Cather had grinned broadly and Miss Lewis said she thought a celebration was in order. They would talk to Miss Jacobus.

That’s why James thought Miss Cather and Miss Lewis should be part of the celebration. He wanted to make a speech. He wanted everyone to know the full story, to know what these women did. He wanted to give public thanks. Miss Cather and Miss Lewis would refuse him, he was certain of that, but they wouldn’t refuse his mother. They could say no to him, but no one had ever said no to his mother.

Mary Daniels, however, was less keen about insisting the ladies come. She thought they should be able to preserve their privacy if that’s what they wanted. Jenny Dawson took her side.

“Miss Cather already said it, James. What matters is not what they did but that you are free,” Jenny squeezed his hand. They had already reached the bottom of the orchard. The cottage wasn’t far beyond.

“You are free, the danger is past, the mystery is solved,” Mary Daniels sighed her relief. “That’s all that really matters.”

“Right,” Jenny dodged a low-hanging branch. “And besides, those women really didn’t have much to do with that, James. You did,” she patted his arm, “you and the constable.”

“You’re wrong there, Jenny,” James chided. “Those women, the constable, and your brother Eric. That’s who did it. Don’t forget your brother in all this. Not only did he collect the body, he helped Daggett bring in the motor launch.” James began to chuckle, “I just wish I could have been there.”

“Puffins,” Mary Daniels flung out her arms, “thousands of puffins … millions of puffins … and four people in a dingy,” she began to giggle.

“Not my idea of desperate desperadoes,” Jenny caught the joke and laughed at her own and James’ seriousness, “or a dangerous situation.”

“But Eric and the constable didn’t know that,” James felt he must defend their honor. “They couldn’t know that until they got to Machias and saw the motor launch moored and Dickie Dalhouse rowing toward land. Even so,” James ventured, “Johnson could still have been planning to force Dickie to take them to Eastport … or Lubec … or … well, anywhere,” James flung his arms in the air. “He said he wasn’t, of course. Daggett said he thought Johnson was enjoying the cat-and-mouse game so much, he just didn’t want to call it off.”

“Daggett doesn’t take Johnson very seriously, does he? As a criminal, I mean,” Jenny brushed away a low-hanging bough.

“Arrogant, that’s what Mark Daggett called him, and I guess I agree,” James paused to flick a mosquito from his forehead.

“Men like that never think about getting caught,” his mother nodded, “and when they do, they think the law is just something for people like you and me.”

“I never thought of it like that,” Jenny glanced at her future mother-in-law.

The cottage lay just ahead, shadows stretching across the lawn.

“Anyway,” James began to aim their conversation toward its conclusion, “I didn’t do much to catch anyone. Eric did. I just told Daggett what happened to me. And I might not have done that if Miss Cather and Miss Lewis hadn’t forced me … hadn’t figured it all out and listened and taken me directly to Daggett. Miss Cather had figured it out ahead, you know. My part anyway. But she thought I should have a chance to confess.”

“Wise women, waiting for you to come to them.”

“Yes, I guess so,” James glanced at his mother. “Miss Cather said she knew I would, knew my character. Miss Lewis said she knew I would, too. It had just never occurred to her I had so much to tell. They hadn’t talked it through yet, the two of them together, and Matthew Johnson was a total mystery to them.”

“Some sleuths,” Jenny giggled. “But you were the piece that didn’t fit. That’s what Constable Daggett called you, the piece that didn’t fit.”

“He had only one part of the puzzle,” James responded seriously, “they had the other.”

“A darned silly puzzle, if you ask me,” Mary Daniels blurted out and pointed to the view ahead. Deep purple touched the horizon, spiked with lavender and pink. “All that fuss about liquor.”

Without sunlight, a haze would soon settle down over Seven Days Work. James increased the pace.

“B
OOTLEGGING ON
G
RAND
M
ANAN
,” Margaret Byington bellowed and wiped the table clean, “can you beat that. Just when we’re beginning to enjoy the taste of champagne again, that could have caused a lot of trouble,” she picked up a tray stacked with soiled tableware and carried it into the kitchen.

“Let’s invite Hoover’s Crime Commission to come for a visit, what do you say. They’ll see how well behaved we are with liquor and how poorly off others are because of the ban,” Ethelwyn Manning planted herself next to the swinging doors. She filled a tray with clean plates. The crowd was still pouring in.

“Let’s, I say,” Alice Jordan chuckled dryly, passing the cups along, “then Willa and Edith can swap their stories with old friends from Lincoln.”

“That’s right, I remember now,” her sister nodded wisely, licking frosting from the back of her hand, “Dean Pound was a friend of theirs, wasn’t he?”

“The way I heard it, his sister is the one Willa knew best. A lovely tennis champion, I believe,” Manning added an elaborate wink.

“Is she the one who earned her doctorate in Germany?”

“She is,” Alice Jordan gave Byington a sharp glance. “A Nineties’ Modern Woman … socialite, scholar, and all-around athlete.”

“A Nineties’ example of Willa’s janefoolery, to hear Edith tell it,” Margaret Byington’s deep laughter filled the room.

“Willa, too,” Alice Jordan gave in and giggled behind her hand, “when she’s in a mood to confess.”

“So I understand,” Manning confirmed, “though I’ve never heard her say it.”

“There’s a lot they never say,” Margaret’s humor began to turn droll, “and inviting the Hoover Commission to visit is about the only way the Commission … or anyone … will ever find out what Willa and Edith have been up to just now.”

“Absolutely,” Mary Jordan began to pump fresh water into the largest tea kettle.

“We must never tell a soul,” Alice Jordan admonished.

“We never will,” Margaret Byington crossed her heart.

“M
ARY
D
ANIELS
is so proud of young James,” Edith yawned and brushed crumbs from her lap, “it’s a pleasure to see.”

Mattie took the opportunity of the empty dining room to sidle closer to Edith’s chair.

“It was absolutely the nicest thing in the world you could have done for Mary Daniels to have this celebration here tonight, Sallie Jacobus,” Mark Daggett raised his empty cup.

“It was absolutely the nicest thing in the world you could have done to make it possible for her son to be here, Mark Daggett,” Jacobus filled his cup with black coffee.

From across the table, Elizabeth Daggett smiled and added sugar to her cup.

“He still has to go through the hearing, of course,” Daggett used a spoon to cool his coffee.

“Oh, but he should be fine with that,” Edith sipped the last of her lemonade, “now that his secret’s out and he knows the response. Such applause. Such cheering,” she placed her glass exactly in front of her on the blue-checkered oilcloth, “and for Eric, too. Fine young men, both of them,” she glanced up, “Willa said so, too. The island has a right to be proud.”

“Of their constable, too,” Jacobus poured the last of the pot into her own cup and returned Elizabeth Daggett’s broad grin with one of her own.

The crowded dining room was empty at last, the main house and the grounds quiet. Only intermittent clattering came from the kitchen, one of the serving girls filling kettles in preparation for the early morning rounds of hot water. In her mind’s eye, Edith could see young Kate who delivered their water each morning and hear Willa say, as she did without fail, I declare, that jug is bigger than the girl. Of course, the water wouldn’t have much time to heat this evening. It was already past midnight. Edith stifled a yawn. Just about everyone had gone, including Willa. Daggett had delivered James, his mother, and the Dawsons to their doors and come back for Elizabeth and Jennifer, whose deep, sleeping sighs reached them from the sofa in front of the fireplace where she had tucked up her feet.

The islanders had reveled through the night, raising cheer after cheer when Daggett brought word that Jack Watson was under lock and key in Calais and officials in Montreal were questioning Jackson Knoll. St. Stephen had taken Burt Isaacs in tow. Telegrams had also come in from New Bedford, where several dockworkers had explaining to do, and friends of John Thomas Bush were being sought in Boston and Detroit. Bush himself, the telegrams said, was hardly missed. Even fellow gangsters feared the man and his temper. His real name, Detroit suggested, may have been Buschetti, Johnny Buschetti, a bad seed from Chicago who came back from the Great War a seasoned con artist and killer who was deadly with women. He had ties to Capone. Daggett planned to check with Chicago.

Edith and Willa had watched the evening’s festivities from the edge of the orchard, where James made them comfortable. A compromise, Willa declared. They would see everything but talk to no one. And no one, James in particular, must say anything to or about them. And so, undisturbed, they had watched through the speeches and the fiddle playing and the dancing. Sabra Jane stopped by to talk. Daggett waved from a distance. No one else even seemed to be aware of their presence. Willa’s delight when Emma Parker grabbed Jesse Martin for a few turns among the dancers had almost given them away, Edith chuckled to herself. Emma’s gray curls bounced perfectly in time, but Jesse never quite got the step.

“Very likely no one will be tried for anything, you know,” Daggett broke the silence.

“Self-defense is no crime in Canada,” Elizabeth nodded.

“Neither is bootlegging,” Daggett swallowed his coffee. It was agreeably warm.

“Shouldn’t be elsewhere, either,” Jacobus pushed back in her chair. “Too many people like their glass of wine,” she waved her hand as though the dining room were still filled with her friends. “Most of us do. And none of this would have happened if it weren’t for Prohibition.”

“I wish that were entirely true,” Elizabeth traced a line through blue squares on the oilcloth with the edge of her spoon, “but violence does go with drunkenness.”

“It does,” Daggett nodded, settling back in his chair, “but Jacobus is right too. Bush or Buschetti’s kind of violence, whatever his name, well, that goes on with or without alcohol.”

“True,” Elizabeth conceded, “it’s like a disease.”

“Universal … endemic … epidemic,” Edith extended the simile.

“Yes,” Jacobus drew her own conclusion, “a plague upon men.”

Daggett chuckled, and Elizabeth smiled.

“It’s too bad about that young Mr. Johnson,” Edith shifted to consider the lure of fast money. Jacobus’ joke passed her by.

The three looked at her.

“Trying to catch up in that way with his wife’s wealth, I mean,” Edith tried to explain.

Jacobus cocked her head.

“It’s hard for a couple when the money’s not equal. Especially for men … for some men …”

“What’s hard is earning respect, not money,” Jacobus interjected, her voice acquiring an edge.

“Perhaps he has learned,” Elizabeth smiled. “Mark says Matthew Johnson was truly shocked when he found out that Bush murdered a young woman and tried to kill James.”

“He was, but he shouldn’t have been. A man like Bush may dress like money and talk like wealth, but he’s a man without breeding. Johnson would have known that if he’d had any real class himself,” Daggett nudged his cup around on the oilcloth before him. When it reached the spot from where it started, he let it rest.