Paper Woman: A Mystery of the American Revolution Page 5

  In the first second, the news speared her with panic and fear. Then she clamped down on it. Will St. James — dead? Absolutely not. A deep suspicion that the redcoats were baiting a trap carved through her. She glowered at Stoddard. "As you wish." He turned on his heel, and she followed him downstairs, the cipher forgotten.

  ***

  Their destination was on Zack MacVie's property. Feeling her neck branded by summer, she adjusted her straw hat, dismounted the sweating horse just outside a copse of hardwoods, and handed the reins to a private supervising horses.

  Nearby, Mathias Hale stood with Edward, the scarlet of Edward's uniform vivid against the lush countryside. Although she couldn't pick out their conversation, she watched Mathias pivot and bow his head against his horse's saddle, and her confidence sputtered. Could Will truly be dead? Dread seeping into her heart, she hastened after Stoddard, who made for the copse.

  He stomped vines out of her way. Upon entering the cool shade, she passed a tethered horse, then her nose was assaulted by the stench of charred meat. While her eyes adjusted to shade, she spotted sheets draping three bodies. What devilry was this? Had there been three murders? Memory of Mathias's posture of grief knotted her stomach.

  Both lieutenants were afoot among the moldering leaves of the copse, and Stoddard addressed Fairfax. "I didn't expect to find you here. What brings you this way?"

  Fairfax took position above the gore-soaked sheet near Sophie. "I'm solving murders and appreciate your leaving the premises before you destroy evidence. Sir."

  Sophie flushed at Fairfax's rudeness. Stoddard closed the distance between them and swelled his chest. Although he was Fairfax's height, the russet-haired lieutenant outweighed him by at least twenty-five pounds, all of it muscle, making Stoddard look scrawny. "I was given charge of this investigation at one o'clock. You and your commander have been transferred from this garrison. Sir."

  "How unfortunate. Sir. I presume you've skill solving crimes?"

  "I've tracked down burglars and livestock thieves."

  "Capital. Such depth of experience should stand you on firm ground in the realm of violent death."

  "And you've skill solving crimes of violence?"

  "Four cases of arson, three abductions, five murders. I no longer count the burglaries and livestock thefts." Fairfax glanced beyond her and came to attention, mockery departing his expression.

  Leaves rustled behind Sophie. Edward interposed himself between her and the nearest body, diplomacy smoothing his tone. "No need for concern, Mr. Fairfax. I believe we can turn the investigation over to Mr. Stoddard with confidence."

  Sophie shuddered. Being stationed in frontier Georgia offered an ambitious junior officer little opportunity for advancement. Fairfax must have jumped at the chance to perform early investigative work. Now that Stoddard was going to take all the credit for solving the crimes, he was fuming.

  Edward turned to her, the gravity in his expression ringing sincere for an officer who dealt with murder, and lowered his voice. "I wish I could shield you. Not one, but three men lie slain here."

  Compassion tugged at her heart at the thought of Mathias. "Who?"

  "Jonah Hale, his throat slit. A Spaniard, flayed alive —"

  "A Spaniard?" Flayed alive. Her stomach protested.

  "The murderer left his face untouched. I ask you to verify whether he was one who threatened you last night."

  She nodded, lightheaded of a sudden. "I shall do my best. And what —" She gulped. "What of my father?"

  "Burned at the stake."

  No, this was unreal. She gaped at him, horrified. Will St. James burned at the stake. Jonah Hale's throat slit. A Spaniard flayed alive. The Indians were well known for such gruesome executions. Disbelief and betrayal rattled her, and she clenched her jaw to keep from mentioning Mathias's meeting with four Creek warriors the night before. She'd experienced firsthand the power of circumstantial evidence and refused to implicate the Creek when many were quick to blame them for anything that went wrong. Besides it was quite possible the murderers intended to implicate the Creek. "Show me the Spaniard while I still have my mettle."

  Edward led her to the body guarded by Fairfax, which lay twenty-five feet from the other two bodies. At a gesture from Edward, Stoddard stepped back from the corpse. Edward nodded to Fairfax. "His face." Fairfax knelt, fanned away an arabesque of flies, and uncovered the head.

  The dead man had been the one who labeled her "Daughter of the Wolf." Sophie's skin crawled at the torment twisting his expression. Surely a corpse's face shouldn't retain such agony. It was unnatural, diabolical. "Yes. He was at my house last night." Who could be so barbaric as to kill another human being meticulously, with such torture? She wished she'd done the Spaniard a favor by blowing his brains out with her pistol.

  Edward studied her. "What time did he come to your house?"

  "One in the morning. Where's his partner?" She realized her hands were shaking and pressed them together to still them. "And is — was — this man El Serpiente?"

  "His partner is El Serpiente, and we don't know where he is. Let's finish this business so we can bury the bodies." Edward walked off, his boots crunching leaves and twigs.

  Her attention shifted from the dead Spaniard to Fairfax, and her stomach torqued. Tenderness wreathed the lieutenant's face as he draped the sheet back over the corpse's head — the kind of fondness one reserves for an object of devotion. He noticed her observing him then, regained his familiar non-emotion, and rose. She backed away in revulsion and hurried to Edward, who had paused beside the second body, leaving it covered.

  The third sheet-covered body drew her attention, and a mechanical part of her brain registered details. A scorched post nearby about five feet tall. A zone cleared of grass and leaves around the post. Six buckets of dirt. Someone had planned it well enough to take precautions against the fire getting out of control.

  Edward shook his head over the second body. "We all know Jonah Hale was a rebel. St. James might have betrayed them, and they took his life. Perhaps he and Hale betrayed the group. Or perhaps the Spaniards killed St. James, and Hale, seeing the blaze, hastened over and met his death at their hands. Ah, but who killed the Spaniard?"

  Her neck tingled, and she resisted an urge to gape at Fairfax. She really didn't want to know what was going on inside his head. Fortunately, Fairfax had untied and mounted his horse. "I've picked over the area well in the last hour," he snapped to Stoddard from the saddle. "Do let us know whether you find evidence. And, by the by, there is a cure for pimples. You find yourself a lusty wench and plough her every day and night for a month straight — but I don't suppose you'd know about the plough, having spent so long with your own shovel buried in guano."

  Stoddard held Fairfax's gaze, and even through Sophie's personal jumble of emotion, she couldn't help but admire the dark-haired lieutenant's professionalism at expressing only detachment. "My benefactor raised peregrines, not seafowl."

  Edward's mouth tightened, and steel infused his tone. "Mr. Fairfax, you may fetch the surgeon now." He then guided her to the third body, where the stench of incinerated flesh dangled her on the edge of retching. Still, her nose tried to identify another stench that the fire almost obscured. Edward lifted the sheet.

  The thing beneath it looked like a sketch she'd seen of a pharaoh's mummy, shriveled and blackened. The mechanical part of her brain took control again, sweeping her scrutiny the length of the body, past charred clothing, up along the withered face and familiar shape of the nose and brow, back to the incinerated waistcoat and crispy remnant of trim she'd promised to repair. No, this wasn't real!

  She gagged. Tears cresting her eyes, she bolted from the stench to the edge of the copse, dragged her apron over her mouth, and half-sobbed, half-gagged several times. Her tears dried up, yet she kept shaking. That burned thing had looked demonic, not human. It wasn't Will. He couldn't be dead. She'd just talked with her living, breathing father last night. The cremated abomination wasn't Will, no, n
o, no!

  Desperate for the release of tears, she squinted toward the sun and blinked, but tears didn't come. Mathias still stood beside his horse. She didn't blame him for not rushing home to tell his stepfather. Old Jacob Hale adored his son, Jonah.

  Edward joined her, his face haggard. "We found this on the body." He showed her a blackened ring. "His wedding band?"

  Her heart wrenched again. "We never understood why he kept wearing it. He could have remarried."

  "Do you want it back?"

  She extended her hand and closed fingers over the ring when he dropped it onto her palm. She imagined feeling her father's heartbeat trapped within the ring, pulsing a whisper: "Not dead."

  Her chin jerked up. "It appears you no longer need my assistance with the cipher."

  "To the contrary, we need you to decode it more than ever. In return, we shall place as much priority as possible on bringing your father's murderer to the gallows."

  The cipher's decoded message might hold a clue to Will's murder, but it was more certain to provide information of rebel espionage. Heartsick, she envisioned the Crown's idea of justice as contingent upon first trussing up a spy ring. "I'm unable to work on it today. Please tell Captain Sheffield I shan't have the translation ready —"

  "Sophie." He rubbed his neck. "Promise that we shall have your cooperation. Promise you'll stay in your house."

  "I've already given you my word on the matter." Grief and outrage plunged her ahead. "Folk will want to pass along condolences to me. Am I still denied visitors?" He hesitated, and she ground her teeth in desperation. "I've sworn to you I'm innocent of dealings with the rebels! Allow me to come to terms with my father's — with this catastrophe. Allow me visitors."

  "Very well. You may have one visitor at a time for five minutes, and a soldier must be present during each visitation."

  Such a decision wouldn't go over well with the garrison. Edward would have to soothe Fairfax, that watchdog of regulations, and minimize the wildfire of gossip through the ranks about the colonial frill who'd enchanted their commanding officer. Perhaps Edward did love her. "Thank you."

  "I shall visit you this evening."

  She wished he needn't bother. She didn't covet the company of someone who'd burglarized her house, and she wasn't in the mood to hear Edward retract his offer from the previous night. But he'd allowed her extravagant privileges. "Don't bring Mr. Fairfax."

  A dry chuckle escaped him. "I shan't."

  Her father's ring tucked in her pocket, she walked over to the horses, where she paused behind the blacksmith before resting her hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry. I shall miss Jonah." Her throat shuddered. A childhood friend murdered. Tears gathered in her eyes, only to be dammed up again. She squeezed her lips together and sniffed.

  Mathias swiveled and embraced her, his voice a whisper. "My condolences for the loss of your father, a friend to all who —" He broke off. She felt tension in his body soar, as though at any second he would dissolve into lamentation, but he maintained control. "I shall find who murdered him and avenge his death."

  Did he speak of avenging Jonah or Will? "Stay clear of the soldiers," she whispered.

  He coughed with derision before grasping her hand and walking with her a few feet from the horses. "Three enemies of the Crown are dead," he said, low. "Don't expect the redcoats to trouble themselves solving the murders. As far as they're concerned, justice has been served." Determination fired his expression. "If we want answers, we shall have to find them ourselves. But you've been arrested."

  "House arrest. A cipher supposedly intended for my father fell into Major Hunt's hands. In exchange for decoding it, I exonerate myself from involvement with the rebels."

  "Ah." He glanced over her shoulder. "Mr. Stoddard draws near. You and I must speak again."

  "I'm allowed no privacy with my visitors."

  He wrapped an arm about her shoulder and raised his voice for Stoddard to hear. "Take heart. You aren't as isolated as you believe." After releasing her, he retrieved his rifle and reins and hoisted himself into the saddle. With a nudge, he sent the horse eastward, back to town and the Hale smithy.

  Stoddard brought her the horse she'd ridden. In the seconds that she watched the diminishing figure of the blacksmith on horseback, she concurred with Mathias. The redcoats wouldn't exert special effort to solve the murders. That meant it was the responsibility of the St. Jameses and the Hales to bring the killers of their loved ones to justice. Plagued by doubts of her father's love in his final months, she resolved that moment to find his murderer and show herself a worthy daughter.

  Chapter Six

  RANKLED OVER BEING implicated for the broadsides, stunned by her father's death, Sophie clung to composure while receiving condolences in her dining room. Who killed Will St. James? The redcoats had motive to arrest and imprison him, but burning him at the stake just wasn't their style. Indeed, the manner of his murder, hallmark of someone hell-bent on revenge, made his rebel cohorts, the mysterious El Serpiente, and the Indians suspects. So, suspects she had aplenty, but as for their motives —?

  Private Barrows entered the dining room with a sour look. "A savage is outside. Says his name is something like As-say-see-cora." One shoulder jerked with dismissal. "Shall I get rid of him for you?"

  She sat forward. "Assayceeta Corackall?" Runs With Horses, son of Madeleine le Coeuvre's adoptive sister, Laughing Eyes — what brought him to Alton? He seldom ventured into town.

  "That's the fellow. You want to see him?"

  "Please."

  Barrows looked surprised. "But everyone thinks the savages killed those men."

  Foreboding twined with her grief. She stood. "Please."

  In contrast to the thud of Barrows' boots, Runs With Horses glided into the kitchen, his moccasins a whisper on the wood floor, his earrings and nose ring silent. Lines of dotted, charcoal-colored tattoos ornamented his bronze, shaven head and encircled his topknot of blue-black hair. A bandoleer of tiny charcoal tattoos extended from left shoulder to right hip, continuing over the portion of his right buttock visible outside his breechcloth and coiling down his right leg like a rattlesnake. He halted about two feet from her and bowed, the sigh of arrows brushing together in his quiver and a rancid whiff of bear grease the non-visual harbingers of his arrival. "Nagchoguh Hogdee." Paper Woman.

  The Creek slit enemies' throats, and flayed them alive, and — heaven forbid — burned them at the stake, but until she had a motive, she'd grant them the courtesy she'd always given them. "You honor my house with your visit, Assayceeta Corackall."

  "As you have honored the house of my mother." Behind him, Barrows leaned against the doorjamb yawning, bored with condolences, perplexed by her choice of company. "The people send well wishes. The journey of Will St. James separates from yours for awhile, but Creator will again unite your paths."

  Hardly the speech of a murderer or enemy. Intrigue gleamed in the onyx depths of Runs With Horses's eyes, sending a shiver through her. On a deep level, she sensed he wasn't just spouting Indian-speak. "And how do you know this, friend of my house?"

  With peripheral vision Runs With Horses ascertained Barrows' inattention and reined back disdain. "We saw his spirit pass through the forest last night."

  Yes, they would have, after all the times her father had visited the village. She bowed her head, by then certain the Creek weren't involved in Will's death. But unless the murderer was found, they'd be blamed. Sorrow thickened her voice. "You bring me great comfort. Thank you for your kindness."

  Barrows escorted the warrior out. Sophie's attention wandered all afternoon. Susana drenched her sleeve with tears during her visitation. David kept a tight cover on his grief. Between two visits from Alton's undertaker, thirty townspeople paid their respects. She kept wondering what secret mission was worth dying for in such a horrendous manner. The redcoats, the rebels, the Spaniard: who killed Will? Through her head wove that column of numbers in the cipher.

  Back in her bedroom Sunday ev
ening, she studied the cipher while nudging ham and hominy around a pewter plate with her fork. With a sigh, she shoved the plate aside and cleaned her teeth. Then she set the supper tray at the top of the stairs. Jollity from Mary and both soldiers carried upstairs. Will's death created little stir in Mary's life, for it was Sophie who managed the finances. "Mary! Fetch my plate. I'm done with supper."

  "Right away, Mrs. Barton."

  In Will's room, Sophie eased into the rocking chair and thought about rocking Betsy, all full of squalls, brawls, and life, her dark hair tousled and damp. Five years later, she'd rocked a boy babe, born too soon, until his hold on the earth slipped away. Then she'd laid him to rest beside his tiny twin who'd never mewed signs of life.

  There'd been no solace from Richard Barton, her second husband, away on business in North Carolina when she'd borne the twins in Augusta. He was always away on business, even when he was home. As soon as she could travel, she'd returned to Alton with little Betsy, where her family had given her the solace she needed. Not just her family, she recalled, but friends as well. The Carey brothers and their wives stammered out platitudes. Newlywed Joshua Hale and his wife were full of trite little sayings about life and love. Jonah Hale had mumbled out an "I'm sorry," then scurried off because he was still mourning his wife, who had succumbed to yellow fever earlier that summer — Jonah, whom she'd never see again. Sorrow clutched the back of her throat and receded without leaving her the relief of tears.

  The visitor who stood out most in her mind from that time was Mathias Hale. Unmarried after his Creek wife, Stands Tall, had died in childbirth, he'd sat quietly with her one morning. When she'd asked him why he didn't speak, he'd said, "I figure by now everyone has said all the words and still not made it better, so I'll sit with you and not say anything." His stoic presence bolstered her more than anyone's shallow attempts at cheer. Mathias, she reflected, had always been anything but shallow.