Dead and Berried Read online

  “No, although I’ll take what you’ve got.”

  “I’ve got a few documents together, but I haven’t had time to copy them yet.”

  “Whenever you get a chance,” I said.

  “What can I do for you then?” she asked as I unzipped my windbreaker and rubbed my chapped hands together.

  “I need to find out what happened to a priest named Father Martin. He was at St. James in the 1870s.”

  She pursed her thin lips. “I don’t recognize the name. Do you know how long he was in residence here?”

  “That was what I was hoping you could help me find out.”

  “I’m sure it’s in the files on St. James. If you’ll give me a moment to get my jacket, we can go and have a look.”

  I stood in her hallway admiring the framed hundred-year-old photographs of Cranberry Island as she disappeared upstairs. Several of the buildings I recognized, but there were a few that evidently hadn’t stood the test of time. I wondered about the people who had lived here then, and reflected that in another hundred years’ time, chances were my life, too, would be reduced to a footnote in a dusty old file.

  “Ready?” Matilda interrupted my melancholy thoughts, and a moment later I followed her back out into the cold, wet afternoon. It was a short walk to the museum, and within a minute she was closing the museum’s heavy door behind us and flipping the light on. It was cold inside, too, with the musty smell of disuse, but at least it was dry.

  “The files we need are over here,” she said, walking past a display of ancient fishing tackle and shoving a few dusty boxes out of the way. “What year did you say, again?”

  “Eighteen seventy-five.”

  “Here it is.” She took the lid off a yellowed cardboard file box marked “S.J. 1860–1890,” releasing a cloud of dust that made me sneeze.

  “Sorry about that. I need to get this place cleaned up.”

  “There’s always something that needs doing, isn’t there?” I said as she pulled out a stack of documents.

  “I know. Some days I don’t know where to begin,” she chuckled as she flipped through the documents. “The stuff on top is more recent. What we want is closer to the bottom. St. James wasn’t built until 1860, so Father Martin must have been one of the first priests.” She dug through and pulled out a manila file folder, shaking off the dust. A few skinny insects tumbled back into the box. “Gosh. Silverfish, too. We really need to get these documents preserved.”

  I nodded, impatient to see what was inside. She gave the folder a last shake, then flipped it open and peered at the names and dates. The wind howled outside, and a shiver passed through me. “Father Martin. Looks like he was here from 1871 to 1875.” She glanced up at me. “That corresponds with your information, right?”

  My hand snaked into my jacket pocket, touching the diary. “Right. Why did he leave?”

  She peered closer at the records. “Doesn’t say here. Hang on a moment, though.” She rifled through the papers and pulled out a slim, leather-bound book, edges crumbling with age. “It might be in the parish register. It’s 1875, right?”

  I waited as her finger slid down the columns. Finally, her finger stopped. I leaned forward to look.

  “Looks like he never left the island,” she said.

  The script was faded, but clear. Father Martin had died of blood poisoning brought on by an infected cut, only a month after J.S.’s confession.

  Matilda shook her head. “It’s amazing. So many things that we take for granted these days—antibiotic cream—weren’t even imaginable back then.” She replaced the papers in the folder. “People died of diseases that are just an inconvenience these days. To think that an infected cut could be enough to kill someone...”

  I shivered, thinking of the knife that killed McLaughlin. He hadn’t been the only priest to die by the blade, I thought... although as far as I knew the cut that ultimately killed Rev. Martin hadn’t been inflicted with murderous intent.

  “Do you have a census of who was on the island at that time?”

  She shook her head. “There’s the parish register, but it focuses mainly on the priests. I know there’s a bigger record somewhere around here—births, deaths, baptisms, marriages—but it’s incomplete, and severely damaged. I’ll look for it, but you might have better luck in the churchyard. Most of the stones are in pretty good condition; since the families are still here on the island, for the most part, they keep them up.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “I’m going to be doing a bit of digging in here over the next few days,” she said, nodding at the stacks of boxes surrounding us. “I’ll keep my eyes open. Anything else I can help you with?”

  “What do you know about Jonah Selfridge?”

  “Jonah Selfridge? Well, he was born in 1840 and died at sea in the late 1880s.” Her sharp blue eyes flicked to me. “Which means he was around at the same time as Rev. Martin.”

  “I know,” I said. “Were there any other members of the Selfridge clan on the island at that time?”

  “Is this related to your question about the priest?”

  I nodded. “I found an old diary the other day that mentioned a J.S.”

  Matilda’s eyes brightened. “A diary! What a wonderful find. Did you bring it with you? Whose was it?”

  I hesitated for a moment, and decided to hold off showing it to her. “I think it belonged to Rev. Martin, but I forgot to bring it. It’s still back up at the inn.”

  “Can I make a copy of it?”

  “Next time I’m in Somesville, I’ll do it at the library. Actually, if you want to give me the stack of stuff you have on the inn, I’d be happy to take care of that at the same time.”

  She hesitated, too, and I suppressed a smile. I wasn’t the only one having difficulty letting go of documents.

  “I hate for you to have to go to the trouble,” she said. “Besides, I need to make two copies. I’ll head over in the next day or two and copy what I’ve got. If you want to swing by, say, Monday, I’ll have it for you.”

  I smiled. “Can I have a look at them, at least?”

  “If you’d like to come down tomorrow, you’re welcome to them, but I have an appointment this afternoon.”

  I crossed my arms, frustrated. I was itching to get my hands on those documents. Was it Jonah Selfridge who had murdered Annie? Or was there another J.S. on the island? I forced a smile. “Great. And I’ll get you a copy of the diary, too.” Minus the last few pages.

  “Wonderful. A new historical document! Isn’t it exciting?”

  “It sure is,” I said, thinking of the ghostly apparition in the inn. “By the way, if you have any more info on the death of the cook, could you include that?”

  Matilda’s eyes narrowed a fraction, and she nodded shortly. “Of course.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Will I see you tomorrow?” she asked, locking the museum door behind her.

  I hunched my shoulders against the wind. “If I can make it, I will. How about sometime in the early afternoon?”

  “I’ll look for you,” she said.

  “Thanks for everything!” I called after her as she hurried back to the little yellow house. It was still raining, and although it was still early afternoon, I knew the sun would drop behind the horizon sooner than later. Still, there was enough time to take a quick tour of the churchyard. The wind tore at my windbreaker as my fingers fumbled with the zipper. I rubbed my hands together a few times and hopped on my bike, aiming the front wheel toward the rectory—and the Cranberry Island churchyard.

  ___

  St. James looked bleak in the gray afternoon light. Although it was a beautiful little church, framed by red maples that blazed in autumn glory, today the quaint clapboard building looked dreary. The wind had stripped the maples of most of their
leaves. The church’s mullioned windows, which glowed a cheery yellow on Sunday evenings, were a dull black. I rode past it to the picket-fenced churchyard, which was about a hundred feet down the small lane that led to the rectory, and stopped the bike at the front gate.

  A chill passed through me as I closed the gate and surveyed the headstones. The older ones, rough and patchy with lichen, were toward the back, and I passed a number of recent marble stones, carved with names I recognized—Hoyle, Spurrell, Kean—on the way to the thinner stones, pitted with age, near the rear of the small yard.

  I paused, drawn to a tall stone with a long list of names—children of Hezekiah and Eleanor Kean. One of Charlene’s ancestors, I was sure. The dates on this stone ranged from 1860 to 1883, and my fingers traced the carved names. Hezekiah, Sarah, Grace, Prudence, Muriel, William, each name with birth and death dates carved beside it. Six children, and none of them had made it past the age of seven. I closed my eyes. Those poor parents had stood right here, burying each of their children in small coffins... Matilda was right. Things we thought nothing of—a nasty case of the flu, a small cut on a finger, even a sinus infection—were death sentences for so many, just a century ago.

  I offered up a silent prayer for those long-lost children and their parents and walked on, intent on finding the owners of the initials J.S. The rain had started soaking through my jacket, and I shivered as I tramped through the grass to a line of stones dedicated to the Hoyles, then moved on to the Sarkes, pausing at the tombstone of Jeremiah Sarkes. According to the date on the stone, he was twenty-three at the time of Annie Oakes’ death. Beside him lay Elizabeth Mary Sarkes, his “beloved wife.” My fingers traced the lines in the wet stone. Had Jeremiah been the J.S. that Rev. Martin referred to? According to the priest, the murderer was married. When did Jeremiah marry Elizabeth? Would Matilda be able to find it in the church records?

  The only other J.S. among the Sarkes belonged to a girl named Jenny, who died at the age of nineteen, so I moved on to the Selfridge section.

  The stones here were larger, probably reflecting the enhanced financial status of the Selfridges during the mid-1800s. It wasn’t hard to find Jonah Selfridge’s stone; it was the largest in the vicinity, adorned with winged cherubs and harps. The smaller stone next to him was his wife, Myra, and beyond were the markers for his two children, Jonah Jr. and William. Remembering the picture of the small, sullen family outside the inn, I bent down to examine them, squinting to make out the worn letters. Apparently Jonah’s children had lived long lives—William until seventy-nine, the other to his sixties. Their luck had been far better than the poor Keans’, who had lost all six. The wind blew hard, and I hugged myself against the cold and moved on.

  Jonah was the only J.S. in the Selfridge section, and I hurried through the Spurrells without finding any more J names. I pulled my windbreaker around me and checked to make sure the diary was staying dry in its zipped pocket; the rain was intensifying, and the sky was darkening. If I waited much longer, I’d be heading back to the inn without light.

  I was about to head back to the bike when a broken stone, alone under a gnarled pine tree, caught my eye. Even before it was broken, the stone had been small—hardly a foot high—and I nudged the top half right-side-up with my foot.

  A chill ran through me as I read the simple inscription.

  Annie Oakes.

  I knelt down and placed a hand on the wet, overgrown grass, feeling a pang of pity. Even her body was alone on Cranberry Island. Her own family hadn’t claimed her, although evidently someone had paid for a gravestone. Charlene had once told me that many of the poorer families used wooden crosses, which rotted away quickly. After righting the stone as best as I could, I stepped back. Was this the woman whose ghost had appeared to Henry Hoyle in the inn?

  The wind whipped at my wet hair as I turned and headed back to the gate, averting my eyes from the fresh mound near the front. Skeletal lilies, their curling petals scattered by the wind, framed the small stone that marked Polly’s grave. I shivered. McLaughlin would soon lie underground as well.

  After latching the gate behind me, I wiped the bike’s seat with my sleeve and climbed on. Before turning for home, I rode the few yards to the rectory, drawn by its darkened windows. The wind had swept dead leaves over the freshly painted porch, and the yellow crime-scene tape jerked and fluttered in the wind.

  My mind turned over the question that had been plaguing me since John brought me the news of his death two days ago. Why had someone killed McLaughlin? I dug in my pocket for the diary, sheltering it from the rain as I opened it to one of the last pages, reading Reverend Martin’s account of the murder again. McLaughlin had found this diary hidden somewhere in the walls of the old building. Were there other secrets in the rectory?

  The wind blew a few droplets onto the page. I dried them quickly and pocketed the book, reaching for the handlebars and turning the bike toward home. As I shifted gears to take on the hill, the pedals started spinning with no resistance, and I heard the clack of a dropped chain. I squeezed the brakes and hunched next to the bike to fix it.

  My fingers had just closed around the cold wet chain when footsteps rushed up behind me. I whirled around in time to see a flash of blue plaid before something crashed down on my head and everything went dark.

  I opened my eyes to darkness. My body shivered violently as I sat up. Pain roared in the back of my head, and I reached to touch my hair, fingers probing the source of the pain. The pain sharpened, and I winced, touching my wet hand to my lips. It wasn’t just water that wet my hair; there was also the coppery taste of blood.

  Wiping my hand on my jeans, I tried to remember how I had gotten here. An icy gust of wind sucked away what little heat my skin retained, and my body shuddered. I had to get out of here—had to get warm.

  I staggered to my feet, bringing on a fresh wave of pain, and my body doubled over involuntarily. My head spun, and the darkness around me seemed to explode in purples and reds. What had happened? I fuzzily remembered the dropped chain on the bike. The bike. I crouched down, fumbling through the wet gravel until my hand met cold metal. The ten-speed was still there—although with no light to see by, I was probably better off walking.

  I took a step forward, hands stretched out before me. I was near the rectory still—the gravel road, the bike. Why had someone hit me? Blue plaid, I remembered. I had been reading the diary. The diary!

  My hand leaped to my jacket pocket.

  Empty.

  I felt through both pockets, then dropped to my knees, ignoring the blast of pain, and felt the gravel for the little book. Wet leaves, mud, the cold hard bike.

  No diary.

  A fierce gust of wind made my entire body start to quake. The diary had to wait. I had no idea how long I had been out here—but if I didn’t get warm soon, the churchyard might soon have a new permanent resident.

  I felt for the handlebars of the bike; since I had been aimed homeward when I was hit, I figured that was my best indicator as to which way to go. My hands closed around the taped bars; they pointed to my right. Staggering to my feet, I started in that direction, reaching out into the empty air. After about twenty steps, the crunch of gravel disappeared. I doubled back and adjusted course, figuring that as long as I stayed on the gravel, it would decrease the risk of smacking into a tree.

  It seemed I had been stumbling along for ages when a light glimmered through the thick pine branches. Hunching my shoulders against the wind, I plowed onward, determined to reach the beacon in the darkness. Finally I reached it—a lamp glowing warmly through a curtained window. I staggered up the porch steps and knocked, almost collapsing on the doorstep when the door cracked open and someone peered through the narrow slit.

  “Holy Mother of God!” a voice said as I swayed on my feet. The door swung open, releasing a blissful wave of warmth, and a moment later a strong arm propped me up and le
d me into a dim front hall.

  ___

  A half hour later, I sat on a spindle-backed kitchen chair with a steaming cup of hot chocolate clasped between my hands and two wool blankets draped around me. I took a sip of chocolate and winced as Patrice Connolly dabbed the cut on the back of my head with alcohol.

  “So you have no idea who did this to you,” she said as she inspected the wound. I had been relieved to recognize Patrice’s weathered face, and her warm, cluttered kitchen was a welcome respite from the cold rain outside. Thank goodness I had knocked on Patrice’s door, instead of the O’Learys’. Patrice was one of the regulars at Charlene’s store, and unlike some of the islanders, had always had a kind word for me.

  “I have no idea who brained me,” I said, yelping and jerking my hands as the alcohol burned my scalp.

  “You might want to put that mug down for a moment, or you’re like to burn yourself.”

  I reluctantly slid the mug onto the table with hands that still shook from cold. The fire crackling in the wood stove was starting to penetrate the ice that had formed in my limbs, but I was far from warm. Patrice dabbed at my wound again, and I hissed involuntarily.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, “I’m almost done here.”

  “How bad is it?” I asked.

  “You’ll have a headache for a few days, and you might want to see a doctor, but I think you’ll be okay.”

  “That’s good news.”

  Patrice paused and reached for another cotton ball from the pile on the table. “I don’t know what’s come over people lately. First Polly, then the reverend, and now this...” She clucked her tongue. “All this violence. It’s just not normal.”

  My hand moved automatically to the pocket where the diary had been, but my jacket was gone, hanging by the wood stove in the corner of the little kitchen. The diary was gone too, I remembered. Who had taken it? And why?

  “The police think Polly killed herself,” I said.

  “And I suppose they think the reverend stabbed himself with a knife, too,” she snorted. “I have half a mind to call the department and complain. Until now, the island’s been a safe place. There’s people come here to raise children because of it, you know.”