Thaddeus Lewis Mysteries 4-Book Bundle. Janet Kellough
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had brought the full weight of his authority as a preacher to this pronouncement, and the woman abruptly closed her mouth.
For once in his life he was impatient to see the service at an end. The minister alluded to the girl’s death briefly, offering comfort to both the family and the church members. The group of Martha-minders was red-eyed and downcast, and not even the little girl’s antics could enervate them. They filed soberly out the door at the end, none staying behind to tease or play. To Lewis’s surprise, Isaac Simms’s red and blue painted wagon was pulled off the road just outside the gate, and Simms himself was leaning against it, waiting for the meeting to be over. Everyone clustered around him, for if anyone had the latest details of the crime, it would be the peddler.
“They think it was a thief who hadn’t expected to find anyone in the house,” he said. “Maybe one of the Patriot Hunters who escaped and is still roaming the country.”
This made no sense to Lewis. The Hunters who had been captured at Prescott had all been executed, transported, or returned to the States. Any who had avoided arrest would have melted back across the border as soon as they could. They wouldn’t have lingered long if they could help it, for every moment at large was a moment in which they could be seized.
“I heard it was Bill Johnston, or one of his men gone off on his own.” It was the same woman again, the one who had proffered this opinion before.
To his surprise, Simms seized on this statement. “It could well be,” he said. “Johnston is finding it harder and harder to get supplies. Everyone knows Kate and everyone is watching her every move. Maybe he got desperate and came in off the river. If that’s the case, we’d all better watch out.”
This statement caused a great alarm in the crowd. If Johnston could attack here, he could attack anywhere and none were safe. The fact that the peddler had allowed this as a possibility was as good a confirmation as any of them needed: It was the pirate Bill Johnston and they were all in mortal peril.
It was at this point that Simms reached into the back of his wagon and brought forward his box of bibles and prayer books. If anything was guaranteed to generate interest in religious materials, it was the prospect of meeting one’s maker in a sudden and violent way. Lewis was disgusted at Simms’s obvious manipulation of the crowd for his own mercenary purposes, but everyone else seemed oblivious to it. They pushed and shoved their way to the front in order to be the first one to buy. The most popular items were the small books of prayers and psalms, each of them bound in cheap leather covers that left dye stains on the palms of those who handled them. Those and the prayer pins.
The details, when Lewis got them, for the most part matched what the smith had told him, and what he expected to hear. The girl had been left alone and was later discovered in her bed, fully dressed, by her returning family. Again, a small red Book of Proverbs was in her hands, open to Chapter Five. And like the last time, her petticoats had been thrown up and her womanhood exposed, and although it was not general knowledge, Lewis discovered from the local doctor that she had been slashed, not only below her skirts, but around her breasts as well.
Lewis outlined his interest in the case, and the doctor listened soberly to the details of the earlier deaths.
“Have you discussed this with the chief constable?” was his first question.
“Not yet. I’ve gone to the law on previous occasions. With the first murder, of course, no one thought it was a murder. With the second, I was suspicious but the local constable didn’t show much interest. The Coroner’s jury ruled it was a natural death, and he was little-disposed to investigate beyond that. I got no farther with the third. That time it was evident to all that it was foul play, but the constabulary was too busy to do anything about it until it was far too late to make any sense of it. Unfortunately, the crimes all took place in different jurisdictions, so I don’t know who to talk to next.”
The doctor nodded. “Yes, that’s one of the things that I hope will change now that we’ve been organized into a country of sorts. As long as there’s an amateur police force, we’re going to see amateur results. We need full-time police.” He exhaled in a long, whistling breath. “I have never in my thirty years as a doctor seen anything like this. I think you’re right, there’s a monster out there. The question is, what do we do now?”
Lewis felt an enormous relief at these words. His encounter with Francis Renwell had shaken his confidence and he had not communicated his theories to anyone since. He had been obsessed with Renwell, and now he was obsessed with the details of the murders. He had been wrong about Renwell, so he could have been wrong in his conclusions concerning the entire matter.
“Well,” he said, “I think we need to inform the local constable and hope he has enough sense to see the pattern. After that, I suppose, it’s up to him, but I can’t help but feel that he’ll take my words more seriously because you have.”
The doctor was deep in thought. “If this man has killed four, he’ll kill more. It’s only a matter of time. The real question is where he’ll strike next. Unfortunately, he, and I’m assuming it’s a ‘he’ …”
It hadn’t occurred to Lewis that it could be a woman. His heart wanted to instantly dismiss the notion of any woman being capable of committing such a deed, but in his mind he knew the doctor was right. Evil lives in women’s hearts as well as men’s, as much as everyone liked to claim otherwise.
“I think, for the moment, we should assume it’s a man. I mean, there’s a prurient aspect here that speaks of a man, and the marks on the neck looked to me as though they were made by someone with large hands.”
The doctor agreed. “Whoever it is has an excuse to travel. There are not many women who are unaccountable for their whereabouts for any length of time.” He looked at Lewis shrewdly. “Do you have a list of possibles? You must have at least thought about it.”
“There are a number of men I know who were in the different communities at the right time, or at least had the opportunity to be there. I’m disinclined to start pointing fingers, because truth to tell, one of those men is myself.”
The doctor chuckled. “Thank you for that. It had occurred to me that this was the case, but I suspect you wouldn’t have been pointing it out to me if you were the murderer.”
“Unless I was deviously clever.”
“No, I don’t think this is a clever man. I’m not even sure the murders are premeditated. He’s left too many clues. It’s almost as though there is a ritual that has to take place when the madness strikes him. The book, for example, would argue a religious man, yet what religious man would do such a terrible thing? The skirts thrown up, yet no act of intercourse undertaken.”
“That’s one of the things that has differed from time to time,” Lewis pointed out. “With the first two murders, he was careful to leave the skirts so that they seemed to have become disarranged through some thrashing of the victim. It’s only with the last two that his intervention is obvious.”
“So, his madness is growing. The ritual is becoming more complicated. Lust is not a factor here, I think; otherwise he would have assaulted them. It’s more like some strange version of revenge. But revenge against whom?”
“Well, women, I suppose. Else why would he murder only women?”
“There is another possibility. It could be somehow tied up with his feelings toward religion, or some sort of guilt that the verses emphasize.”
Deep down Lewis felt the truth of this assessment. The Proverbs warned against the wiles of strange women, the Lord’s Prayer promised comfort and forgiveness for the sin.
“There’s something else,” Lewis said. “With the first murders, it’s as if he waited for extraordinary external events to occupy everyone’s attention to help cover his crime. This last time there was nothing — no turmoil in the community, no battle, no fire. It happened with no reason and no warning.”
“He’s becoming bolder. He’s killed three times with no consequence. He must