Something is on fire. I can smell it, a quarter mile from town, and I fear, for a moment, that destruction has followed death into Hallowell this morning. But when we round the bend, I see that it is only the tavern heaving thick smoke from both stacked-stone chimneys. Wet wood never burns well, and the smoke settles like a fog, perfuming the air, thick and pungent, making my nose sting.
Pollard’s Tavern is a dark hulk against the pre-dawn sky. It sits squarely at the crossroads of Water and Winthrop Streets, a stone’s throw from both Coleman’s Store and the Kennebec River. The building itself, a two-story rectangle designed in the simple post-and-beam fashion, changes its purpose depending on the public function performed within: tavern, courthouse, lodge, meeting hall—or, in this case, mortuary.
These occurrences are hardly irregular. Last September the tavern served as barracks when the Boston militia marched through Hallowell— the Hook, as locals call our village. They camped here a fortnight, drinking grog and sleeping on the floor, until they could join their regiment in Pittston. The tavern smelled of manure and unwashed male for weeks afterward. Then, exactly nine months after that, I delivered Sarah White’s daughter—a rather inconvenient but decidedly permanent reminder of the Boston militia. Still unmarried, the girl has become a favorite topic of gossip among the women, and—unfortunately—of interest among the men. For my part, I pity the girl—pretty faces and misfortune often go hand in hand—but I don’t like her any less. Sarah has been a friend to my daughters
for many years, and I of all people understand the myriad, unfair ways that women find themselves in childbirth.
“Does anyone else know about the body?” I ask. “Not that I’m aware.”
“How many men did it take to cut him out?” “Seven. All of them chosen by Amos.” That’s a stroke of luck, I think.
A quick glance up and down Water Street reveals that the residents of Hallowell are certainly up, if not about. Curtains are thrown open in homes
—revealing the warm light of lanterns within—and children gather wood beneath eaves heavy with snow. More than one industrious housewife is sweeping her front steps even as she stifles a yawn. It is only a matter of time before news of the morning’s events makes it to Colonel North—I can see smoke rising from his chimney five houses down—and then across the river to Fort Western and Dr. Cony. I will be lucky if I can examine the body before they interrupt my work or take over altogether.
James helps me down from my perch astride Brutus as best he can—he is a good five inches shorter than I am—and ties both sets of reins to the hitching post. He unbuckles my medical bag from the saddle as I shrug out of my riding cloak and pull off the kid gloves that Ephraim gave me for Christmas. I tuck them through the slits on either side of my riding skirt and into the pockets affixed beneath, then settle my expression into one of trained indifference.
James holds the door open and motions me forward with one thick arm. “After you.”
Careful not to make eye contact with anyone on the street, careful to appear as though this is simply an early, casual visit, I climb the front steps and cross the threshold. There is an instant uproar. Men spring to their feet and begin shouting. Gesticulating. Pointing toward a door at the back of the tavern. Three of them hold mugs of hard cider. None of them think to greet me. One of them is already drunk. Chandler Robbins sways in his chair with the stupid look of a man who has gone hard and fast into his cups.
“Hush,” I snap, setting my fists against my hips. They fall silent as I scan the room, looking each of the seven men directly in the eyes. “An explanation, if you don’t mind.”
Moses Pollard—a young man of twenty—breaks away from the group and lifts his chin. He is broad shouldered and narrow waisted and has the look of a man who will only grow stronger as he ages. But when he speaks, it is with the soft, kind lilt of his Scottish mother.
“Thank ye for coming, Mistress Ballard,” he says. “He’s in the back. The man, I mean. The one we cut from the ice.” Moses gives me a crooked half smile—also inherited from his mother—but his words are weighted with apology when he adds, “We dinna want to lay him out on one of the tables, ye ken, seeing as we’d be eating off them soon. Apart from issues of cleanliness, my Ma said it would scare off the breakfast crowd to have a dead man staring at them while they eat their porridge.”
Amos Pollard drops one heavy arm across his son’s shoulders and coughs up a sound that could be either grunt or laughter. His voice—so different from Moses’s green, springy cadence—has the guttural baritone of a first-generation German settler. “My vife said she vould wring my neck if I let zem.”
The tables in question number about ten, and all—except one where the men have been sitting—are wiped clean with benches tucked beneath and lanterns glowing warmly on top. Each can seat eight and, after decades of use, are worn smooth from plates and elbows. As with most things at Pollard’s Tavern—the owners included—the room is solid and rectangular. Open fireplaces—each large enough to roast a spring bull—sit at either end of the room, giving it the look of a Great Hall in an old English manor. The floor is flagstone and swept clean. It smells of candle wax, wood polish, and last night’s meal—stew and potatoes, from what I can judge.
The older Pollard is a sturdy man with a square jaw and enormous hands. He runs the tavern as though it were a small city and he the mayor, but his wife, Abigail, is the real heart of the place, beloved in the Hook for her generosity, good humor, and cooking skills. I’m certain that she is keeping her distance from the grim business at hand. Abigail is the sort of
woman who can kill, pluck, dress, and roast five geese before lunch but can’t stomach the sight of human blood. I have met only a handful of such women in my life, and typically I have no patience for squeamishness, but for Abigail I make an exception because with her it is endearing.
“How can I help?” Moses asks, stepping away from his father.
He’s trying to make a good impression. I’ve seen the way he looks at my daughter Hannah, and I suspect that he’s begun to entertain the idea of courting her.
“I’m not sure. I need to see him first.”
Amos pops the fingers on his colossal left hand one by one, and I wince at the hard cracking sound. He may as well be snapping tree branches. “It isn’t pretty, Martha,” he says.
I look him square in the eye and tell him, “Little about my work is.”
Amos leads me toward the back room, but as I pass Moses, I give him a sly smile of approval. The more I get to know the boy, the more I like him. He might look as if he’d been spit right out of his father’s mouth, but he has his mother’s heart and way with people.
I carry my medical bag in the crook of one arm and my riding cloak in the other. The men trail behind, feeling important to be included but keeping in a tight pack. They take turns muttering inanities while trudging across the floor.
“I’d wager the Kennebec is frozen all the way to Bath, or near enough.” “Aye, likely a dozen or more boats locked in till spring.”
“My knee is swelt from the cold. Canna straighten it enough to ride.” “Did you hear that Negro woman is back in the Hook?”
That last comment grabs my attention, and I flick a quick glance over my shoulder to look at Seth Parker—meaning to catch his eye, ask if the woman seemed well—but he is looking at the storeroom door and doesn’t seem to notice that he’s spoken the question aloud. These men may have done the hard work of pulling a body from the river, but their uneasiness crackles in the air as they move closer to it. When the storeroom door gives way with an eerie whine, they draw back collectively.
Good grief. I shake my head. Men and death: either culprits or cowards.
A rectangle of light from the main room illuminates the floor and the lower half of a table where the man lies, but the form itself is a dark heap of bent limbs and twisted, frozen clothing.
“A lantern, please,” I say, looking over my shoulder at Moses. “Two would be better.”
It is only a moment before he returns, a lantern in each hand. The men step aside to let him through, and he sets one at each end of the table. The sudden warm light provides my first good look at the corpse.
Two things are obvious immediately.
It is—without question—Joshua Burgess. And he has been hanged.
It isn’t just the body that is now revealed but the entirety of the storeroom as well. Foodstuffs are stacked against the wall, piled in corners, and strung from the rafters. The contrast of ham hocks dangling from the ceiling and the body sprawled on the table sends a shiver along my spine. It is enough to make one of the men behind me gag.
I ignore the retreating footsteps, the uneasy shuffling, the sudden hush as I step closer to the table. I ignore everything but the slowing of my pulse and the stilling of my mind—a learned form of concentration in which I push aside all commotion and fear and chaos. I take a long breath through my nose, noting scents of lamp oil, onions, and salt—but no blood, no rot, no vomit—and set my medical bag and riding cape on the floor. Then I undo the buttons at each wrist and roll up my sleeves—first the right, then the left—to my elbows. Inside my bag is a clean, tightly rolled linen apron. It is stained from long use and soft from wear. I pull it out and slide it over my head, then tie it behind my back. I do all of this as I make a curious, roving assessment of the body.
“Moses?”
He steps to my side. “Aye?”
“I’ll need a wash basin with hot water and clean rags.”
He blinks once, confused, then opens his mouth to speak, but I can see him wrestle with the question. He doesn’t want to be disrespectful, but he thinks the orders unnecessary. In the end he can utter only a single word before I cut him off. “But—”
“Yes. I know he’s dead.”
“So why bother cleaning him?”
It is a ruthless question cloaked in simplicity. It marks where his loyalties lie in the scandal that has ripped our community in half. Why clean the body of a criminal? A rapist?
Various grunts and murmurings of assent come from the doorway behind us. Apparently the men chosen by Amos Pollard for this morning’s grisly task are all sympathetic to Rebecca Foster.
“I’m not cleaning him. I am examining him,” I say, matter-of-factly. “And I do it because it is my job.”
A glance over my shoulder proves that the hearth fires are growing, but still, it will be some time before their proffered heat reaches the storeroom. The cold feels damp and malignant, as though it could seep into my clothing. Into my bones. So I rub my hands back and forth across my apron, letting the friction of skin and linen create what little warmth it can.
I decide to put Moses to the test when he returns a few moments later with a small wash basin and a pile of clean rags. It’s my right as a mother, after all, and if he intends to marry my daughter, he can’t show less mettle than Hannah in a situation like this. I need part of him to be tough as leather, fearless like his father. Having his mother’s weak stomach will never do.
“Do you still want to help?” I ask, tilting my chin to the side and giving Moses a look of challenge.
His only sign of uncertainty is a single, hard swallow. “Aye.” “Then you can assist me.”
His eyes are wary, but he nods. It is enough to please me though, and I reward him with a full, bright smile. The sight seems to fortify Moses, and he stands a little straighter. My husband is fond of saying that I am not
generous with my smiles, that they must be earned, but I think that is unfair. There is usually just so little to smile about.
“What can I do?” he asks.
“There are scissors in my bag. Find them please.”
He locates them easily, then stations himself behind me and to the side, ready for additional instructions.
Chunks of ice still cling to Joshua Burgess’s hair and torso but have begun to soften and drip, splashing on the stone floor at my feet. I pull the hair from his mouth and lay it back, exposing the oblong strawberry birthmark at his temple. There can be no questioning the identity of the body now. Burgess is the only man in the Hook with such a mark.
Sections of his shirtwaist and trouser legs were cut away when the men of Hallowell hacked at the ice. But it is his neck, snapped and leaning at an unnatural angle, that draws my gaze. There are rope burns below his jaw, and a ghastly white protrusion—windpipe, most likely—from a vertical split in his neck.
But where is the rope?
“Moses?” I ask.
“Aye?”
“You went with the others this morning?” “Aye.”
“Was there a rope around his neck when he came out of the ice?” “Not that I recall.”
“Ask the others please.”
He turns on his heel and leaves the storeroom, quiet as a cat.
In my nearly five and a half decades of life, I have seen only one other hanged man, and he’d looked quite different from this—but then again, in that case, the drop hadn’t done its job. Performed properly, a hanging breaks the neck and offers a quick—albeit gruesome—death. When done wrong, it is a slow suffocation that causes the face to turn purple and the tongue and eyes to protrude. Joshua Burgess’s eyes are open and wide, but the look on his face is one of surprise, not strangulation. His lip is split, however, and several teeth are broken.
But still, there should be a rope. Whether dangling from gallows, trees, or bridges, hanged men must be cut down. The term deadweight comes to mind as I run my thumb over the abraded skin at his throat.
“No one saw a rope,” Moses says, back again.
Then the killer took it with him.
This troubles me, but I set it aside for now.
Burgess is not married. He lives—No, he lived—on a small homestead, on a third-tier lot, three miles down Winthrop Street. These lots—the smallest, least desirable, and farthest from the river—are typically assigned to single men or former militia with scant means and few connections. Since coming to Hallowell, Burgess has made no secret of the fact that he wants a lot with river frontage so he can join the mill trade. Those lots are hard to come by, however, and, according to Ephraim, have all been leased.
But the fact remains that Burgess does have a homestead, and on it are any number of animals that must be tended now that he is dead. I mention this to Moses as I run my fingers along Burgess’s scalp, looking for wounds that might be hidden in his long, dirty hair.
“I’ll go tell Da’,” he says, “see if he can send someone to collect them.”
Moses is back by the time I’ve determined that Burgess has no lacerations on his scalp.
“He sent three men to move the animals to the neighbors. They’re also going to collect any valuables in the house and bring them here for safekeeping until his family can be found.”
I thank him, then steady myself for the next part of the examination. “Scissors,” I say, extending my hand to Moses.
He sets them in my palm, then shifts closer. The metal is colder than the air, but the weight grounds me to the task at hand. I cut away what is left of Burgess’s shirt and take a half step backward to make sense of what I see. As a student of human anatomy, I am always amazed at the variations it can take. Tall. Short. Round. Straight. Fat. Thin. Burgess is not a big man. Average size, or less, and the kind of wiry that runs to skinny in winter. Yet he is possibly the hairiest man I have ever seen. As is typical this time of year, he’s grown a beard, but his chest, arms, and back are carpeted with
dark, coarse hair as well. None of it can hide the countless gruesome bruises, or the obvious broken ribs, arm, and fingers. At first glance it looks as though someone has taken a boot to Burgess’s entire face and torso. When I cut away his trousers, I see that the damage includes his groin as well.
And that is when the remaining witnesses in the doorway depart en masse, gagging, cursing, and sweating. It would seem that—accusations of rape aside—few men can stomach the sight of another man’s crushed genitals.
I look to Moses for signs of distress, but he stands quietly, a muscle twitching along his clenched jaw. He breathes through his nose, and his eyes are unfocused. But at least he hasn’t fled. Or vomited.
“Deserved it, he did,” Moses finally whispers. “If it had been my sister he’d hurt, I’d have killed him too. And I wouldna feel bad for it.”
I wash away the blood and dirt from the exposed, frozen, twisted body. I let the exclamations and comments out in the tavern fade away. I ignore the men as they say their farewells. I don’t startle when a door bangs, or a dog barks, or a man curses. Nor do I cease my meticulous inspection of each bruise and cut and gash as a pair of even footsteps tread across the flagstones behind me. My focus remains entirely on the body, on my work, rendering careful inspection.
After several seconds I can feel Moses shift uncomfortably beside me. “Mistress Ballard…,” he says, voice rising on the last syllable.
“Joshua Burgess was beaten, hanged, and thrown in the river.” I nod, wipe my hands on my apron, and step back from the table, pleased with my conclusion. But when I turn toward Moses, I find that he is looking to the storeroom door. He spoke my name in warning, not in question.
“I think I’ll be the one to determine that.”
A young gentleman stands in the doorway wearing a good coat and a smug grin. He holds a leather satchel in one hand and a new felt hat in the other. He is freshly shaven and handsome in the meticulously groomed way that has always irritated me.
“Who are you?” I demand.
“Dr. Benjamin Page.” “Where is Dr. Cony?”
“Away. In Boston. I am here in his stead.” “I don’t think—”
“I assure you, Mistress…?” “Ballard.”
“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mistress Ballard.” He dips his head, but his voice is dismissive. “I assure you that, as a licensed physician and a recent graduate of Harvard Medical School, I am more than capable of undertaking this examination.”
My grip tightens, but I force myself to loosen my fingers and drop my hands so that they hang my side. “No need, Doctor Page. For I have already completed the assessment.”
He steps forward with a fake smile. “As interesting as your amateur observations might be, I’m sure you won’t mind if I take it from here.”
