The Constable's Tale (4 page)

“I regret interrupting your evening. There is a matter that I must discuss with you.”

“I hope there is a good reason for this,” said the sheriff.

“The Campbell family has been attacked and killed. Only the baby survived. I and some others are on our way there, but we thought it best to stop here first.”

Though he was keeping his voice low, the room had become so quiet that all could hear every word. There were sharp intakes of breath.

The judge gave permission to use his kitchen for a private conversation. On their way out Harry caught a last glimpse of Maddie, who he was sure now recognized him. Her expression was too complicated to read.

McLeod, along with Ayerdale and Reverend Fletcher, joined them at the long table and Harry summed up what he knew. “The tinner thinks it may have been Indians. But there is the question of why they would have left the baby. Also, we haven’t had Indian trouble in Craven County in my lifetime.”

“Were there no slaves about?” asked Ayerdale.

“The Campbells had no slaves, only two bonded servants. They died of fevers within days of each other some weeks ago. Edward had contracted to get replacements, but as far as I know they are still on the ocean.”

Ayerdale said, “If this is Indian trouble, Williamsburg should be apprised. I would like to go with you.”

The visiting minister also decided to come along. Curious to see how murder is dealt with in the provinces, Harry supposed.

So, actually, was Harry.

*

The sun had dipped to the tree line and clouds were drifting in by the time they reached the property. The effects of the beer were gone. Or so it felt. Noah Burke also looked more clear-eyed. The Campbell boy’s body was limp under the sheriff’s prodding, but Carruthers felt unqualified to judge with any certainty what that said about when the boy had died. The town’s coroner and only physician had recently moved away and not yet been replaced. Maybe the stiffening had not yet set in, or maybe it had come and gone, as the bad smell coming off the body suggested.

Carruthers lit a lantern they found hanging beside the door and they entered the now-darkened house. The bodies of Edward and Anne Campbell were still in the strange positions the tinker had described. The smell of rot was nearly suffocating.

“What’s on this man’s cheek?” McLeod asked. Carruthers brought the lantern closer and all leaned in for a look. And then jumped back.

Worms.

Kneeling for a closer view, Noah nodded his head in recognition.
“Calliphoridae,”
he said. “They appear by their size to be in the second instar. Depending on a number of variables, like the exact species of fly and recent air temperatures, I would say the man died approximately two days ago.”

Everyone looked at the tutor.

“This family of insects was one of the first my father required me to study as a boy. They are born, eat, have babies, and die, just like the rest of us. Nothing to fear.”

“I know that,” Carruthers said. “It just took me by surprise, is all.”

“It doesn’t look like anything of value was taken,” said Noah, casting his eyes about. “Their dearest possession was that set of English dishware in the cupboard. It seems intact.”

Carruthers gestured toward a rifle with a striped maple stock cradled on hooks over the fireplace. “That must be worth a smart penny. Whoever robbed these good people of their lives was not out to steal earthly treasures from them.”

“Edward was a strong man,” said Harry, “but the attack must have been so quick that he had no a chance to defend himself.”

“The positioning of the bodies is demonic,” said Carruthers. “I am inclined to agree with the tinker: it was savages.”

“Barbaric,” said Reverend Fletcher, who was holding a handkerchief to his nose.

“Without a doubt, the guilty have long since fled,” said McLeod. “As much as I dislike saying this, I see no point in forming a search party.”

“This news will not be well received in New Bern,” said Carruthers. “It’s a nightmare come to life.”

With McLeod’s approval, Carruthers ordered Harry, Blinn, and the watch members to stay behind and get the bodies into the ground. Reverend Reed could organize a memorial service later. With that, the sheriff and the others rode off.

Harry began going through the dead man’s pockets.

“What are you doing?” said Blinn. “Leave that poor man alone.”

“Just wondering if there might be something here to help us figure this out.” He was making a small pile on the floor. A few coins, a painted tin soldier with its head missing, and a wrinkled ten-shilling note. Nothing more.

Blinn and the watchmen said they were going outside, away from the smell, to smoke a pipe. Then they would look for something to dig with. Harry felt reluctant to leave just yet. He sat down at the table, where only a week earlier he had been served a dinner of boiled pork, corn, greens and tomatoes with vinegar, and some of Anne Campbell’s cornbread pudding.

In the mellow light his eye caught a glint of something metallic underneath the baby’s crib. He carried the lantern over, got down on all fours, and pulled forth a piece of jewelry and a folded piece of paper it had been lying on. The former was a gold medal about twice the size of a Spanish dollar, inlaid with tiny blue stones.

He returned to the table to have a better look. The medal had a clasp soldered onto its back. On the front side was a miniature silver builder’s square surmounted by an even tinier compass with the letter
G
engraved in the middle. Harry recognized it as the symbol of the Freemasons. The judge had spoken of proposing Harry for membership in the Masons’ New Bern lodge, though that was something far in the future. First Harry needed to show that he was fully worthy of acceptance onto the highest rungs of New Bern society, and that would take time.

Looking again on the back of the medal, Harry saw just below the clasp the etched figure of a pine tree and beneath that a line of angular markings that reminded him of Indian writing he had seen on some of the cave walls in the hill country to the west.

“In the three months I’ve worked here, I’ve not seen this medallion,” said Noah. “I didn’t know Edward Campbell was a Freemason.”

“He wasn’t,” said Harry, “though he wanted to be. What do you make of the writing?” Thinking a well-educated man from a place like Philadelphia might know what it meant.

“Some form of code, obviously. There are quite a few Masons in Pennsylvania. My father has been invited to join, but he doesn’t care for secret societies. Riddles don’t appeal to him.”

The picture of a nine-year-old girl flashed through Harry’s mind. They were sitting by a creek playing at one of Maddie’s favorite games, Maddie posing a riddle and Harry trying to solve it.

“Let’s say you’re right about this happening two days ago,” said Harry, banishing memories. “That would be around the time of the storm.”

“More or less.”

“Let’s suppose that in the midst of the storm there was a knock at the door. Edward opened it, and there was a traveler. Wet and cold in the wind. They offered him shelter, maybe a meal. That’s an old North Carolina tradition, you know.”

“We do the same in Pennsylvania. You southerners aren’t the only hospitable ones.”

“So they are getting to know each other, and for some reason there is a falling-out. Which leads to a struggle. It comes on fast. Edward doesn’t have time to get a weapon in his hand. In the commotion, this badge is torn from the traveler’s clothes. Maybe Edward pulls it off. It skitters across the floor and lands underneath the crib. The traveler doesn’t notice. By the time he discovers it missing, he has left the house. It’s too late to come back and get it. Or maybe he just doesn’t have any idea where he lost it.”

“That’s a lot of speculation without much known fact to go on,” said Noah, leaning back in his chair.

“It’s something I learned from a Tuscarora Indian. A way of looking into the past. You consider a set of conditions, just use common sense and a little imagination, and see if they start to tell you a story. Do this long enough, and you can put yourself into a kind of dream, see things happening. You’d be surprised how close you can sometimes come to what really took place.”

“And the positions of the corpses?”

“The killer wants to mislead us, make it look like an Indian attack. He stays long enough to arrange the bodies. When the storm is over, he places little Andrew’s body outside. Or maybe shoots him as he is trying to run away, then goes out and fixes him where he fell.”

“To make it look like Indians.” Noah looked skeptical.

“Yes, but to imitate Indians, the killer would have had to do away with the baby. For some reason he refuses to go that far. Maybe he feels sorry for it.”

“Which suggests a degree of compassion. Unwillingness to murder an innocent.”

“This was not the work of either an Indian warrior or a low-class criminal. Maybe it was done to keep a secret. Something that Edward or Anne discovered about the traveler that they were not meant to know.”

“And this piece of paper?”

It was about the size of a page from a small ledger book with a pencil-drawn diagram and tiny single-and double-digit numbers here and there.

“This seems to be a nautical chart of Pamlico Sound,” said Harry, bringing it closer to the lantern. “That would be Ocracoke Inlet on the right, next to the ocean, and New Bern on the left, where the Trent River comes into the Neuse. The numbers must be water depths.”

“Indicating navigable channels?” said Noah.

“Looks like it. Ocracoke is the only link between most of North Carolina and the Atlantic Ocean, so this would be of interest to anyone trying to get a big ship in here.”

“Of course there is a deepwater port farther south at Wilmington, but that doesn’t help you up here as far as access to offshore shipping lanes.”

Harry threw him a questioning look. “You seem to know a lot about the layout of North Carolina.”

Noah gave a short laugh. “Don’t start getting suspicious. I made a study of several colonies before choosing to come here to teach. You have a serious geographical disadvantage. The chain of sand islands along your coast form a barrier to the transatlantic trade routes that have enabled Virginia and South Carolina to thrive. You are limited to shallow-draft schooners. They are fine for coasting all the way to New England but not for crossing oceans.”

By unspoken consent, they got up as they talked and walked outside, where the air was fresher.

“Well, people do complain that they’ll never get as rich here as they’d hoped. Some say they were drawn in by false promises. But if you knew we had such poor prospects, why did you choose to come anyway?”

“Wealth isn’t my goal. My family has a great deal of money. I searched out a place I thought could benefit from my skills as a teacher. My parents disagree with my choices. My father wanted me to follow in his footsteps.”

“And where would they have led?”

“He is a student of the natural world, a collector of plants, animals, and insects. Rather famous in New England, as a matter of fact. A founding member of the American Philosophical Society. He’s been proposed for election to the Royal Society.”

Harry guessed that was a good thing. He now had a closer look at Noah Burke. Previously he had spoken with the young man only on occasional chance meetings in town. He was about the same age and height as Harry but thinner, with reedy fingers, hollowed-out cheeks, and eyes that looked somewhat lost in their sockets.

“What would Edward Campbell have been doing with a chart of Pamlico Sound?” said Noah.

“I’m thinking on that. Maybe it wasn’t his. Maybe it was the traveler’s.”

“In any event, I am favorably impressed, Mister Woodyard. I’ve never known a constable personally, but from what I’ve seen in Philadelphia, if a wrongdoer isn’t caught immediately after the crime, the chances of his ever being found out fall dramatically. The constabulary could use more puzzle solvers like yourself.”

Blinn and the others carried out the corpses. They began digging in a fallow field a safe distance off, far enough away that harmful parts of decomposing bodies would not enter the underground water that fed the well. This would be the first cemetery on the property, Harry reflected.

Under lantern light, Harry and Noah took their turns scooping out clumps of gritty clay with a pair of iron shovels Blinn found. The night air was heavy with moisture, the moon having taken on a ghostly mien behind a veil of clouds. In the thin shadow of an oak tree a wild turkey stood watching, solemn as a sentinel.

“I wonder what will happen to the baby,” Noah said, laying his shovel aside and sitting down for a rest. Blinn was balanced on a pile of earth, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief.

“The vestry will take charge, put it in a foster home, just like how little Andy wound up here,” Blinn said. The story was well known, how the Campbells had taken on the child as an act of charity after his natural parents died in a fire soon after his birth. “What I’d like to know is what is to become of this plantation. I’ve heard the Campbells were deep in debt to du Plessis for advances on crops. I’m thinking he might be awarded the property.”

Harry recalled the storekeeper’s conduct at the judge’s house. He was a large man with a firm build. A Freemason in good standing. He had seemed as surprised as anyone by the news of the murders. But Harry wondered where he had been two nights earlier.

As he lifted another shovelful, already setting plans for the next day, thunder sounded in the southwest. Fifteen minutes later they were spattered by fat raindrops. Blinn dropped his shovel, face contorted with what looked like fear.

“It’s only water,” said Harry.

“Everybody knows that if it rains on a dead body, it means the person is not at peace.”

Blinn grabbed Edward Campbell under his dead arms and began dragging him back toward the house. But it was too far. He dropped the body underneath an elm, the best shelter available, and went back for the other two. Harry and Noah joined in the task.

After the heaviest part of the shower passed, they went back to digging in the clay, which was now turning to sludge. The rain looked like it was settling in for a good soak.