“Right here.” A dirty finger thumped the location.
“Ah. I see you had no view of the lighthouse at all.”
“That’s right. That’s two miles from the light and behind the Exmouth bluffs. You can’t see over the marsh grass and cattails, anyway, seeing is how they’s five, six feet high in most places.”
“I was hoping you might have seen something, perhaps coming or going.”
“Nothing but mud and clams.”
Pendergast began rolling up the map. “You must know those marshes quite well.”
“Better than just about anyone.”
“I imagine they have their own peculiar beauty.”
“They do.” Boyle said it with conviction, but also in a tone that meant he had no interest in exploring that subject further.
“And a history?”
“Oh, yes.”
“But I don’t suppose you have much interest in history, being a clammer.”
Now the man bristled. “I was captain on a dragger, Mr. Pendergast, for forty years. I’m a seafaring man, and seafaring men have always had an interest in history.”
Pendergast raised his eyebrows. “I see. But what sort of history could an uninhabited marsh have?”
“More than you might think.” Boyle laughed. He was enjoying having an audience, especially someone as dim-witted as Pendergast. “All kinds of history. Stories, too. Of witches. And the Gray Reaper.”
“The Gray Reaper?”
“Sometimes at night, you see a light out there in the marshes, moving around, bobbing this way and that. That’s the Gray Reaper. Couple hundred years ago, they say, there was a man named Jack, and he was the meanest son of a bitch between Casco Bay and Gloucester. When he died, the devil came and got him, hauled him down to hell. But Jack was so ornery that after a while the devil couldn’t stand it anymore. He tossed Jack a glowing coal and said, “You’re too mean for my hell, so you take that coal and go start a hell of your own!” He roared with laughter. “He’s there in the marshes, covered in the gray-black mud. That’s where he got the name. Blends in, like so you can’t see him. Save for the coal, of course. When you see that light bobbing out there, that’s the Gray Reaper wandering around, coal in hand, looking to reap some souls and start a hell of his own.”
Pendergast seemed considerably irritated by this diversion. “And the witches?”
Boyle waved his hand. “There’s a story, goes back to the days of Salem. When things got hot and they started hanging the witches down there, a group of them hightailed it out of Salem in the dead of night and came north, where they settled on one of those salt marsh islands, out of the reach of civilization. Men and women both, mind you.”
“Are you saying there were real witches?”
“I’m saying no such thing. The legend is those old Puritans hanged a lot of innocent people while the real witches got away.”
“Where in the marshes did they settle?”
“Nobody knows. Inland a bit somewhere, according to the story. But things didn’t go well. A bad winter, starvation, and Indian attacks wiped them out. Later on, they say, from time to time a traveler would get lost in the marshes and come across the ruins of that witch settlement, wooden houses all rotten and collapsed. They say in the middle of this crazy settlement was a circle of flat stones with carvings on them and, in the center of that, a piece of slate with a one-word message.”
“Which was?”
“T-Y-B-A-N-E.”
Pendergast and Constance exchanged glances.
“What does it mean?”
“No one’s ever figured it out.” A knowing leer. “Until now, maybe.”
“So you’ve heard that whoever killed the historian, McCool, carved that word on his body.”
Boyle shrugged. “Can’t keep no secrets in a town as small as Exmouth.”
“Any speculations as to why someone would do that?”
“It’s some kids, probably, tweakers from Dill Town getting their kicks, playing at raising the devil. They robbed the man to buy drugs and are dumb enough to think they’ll get the cops to think witches did it.”
“Why Dill Town?”
“Dill Town’s got a lot of history of troubles. Crime, drinking. That sort of thing.”
“Have you seen any sign of people in the salt marshes?”
“As a matter of fact, I have. I think there’s a homeless guy living out there. Seen some footprints in the mud, trails through the grass. Never seen him in the flesh, but a few times I’ve smelled his campfire.” He laughed. “Maybe he’s the guy swiped Lake’s wine collection. Now there’s a wino’s dream. Maybe he’s even the Gray Reaper in person. You might want to look into that, Mr. Detective.”
“I will,” Pendergast said, rising. “Thank you, Mr. Boyle, for your time.” He glanced at Constance. “I think we can dispense with the rest of the interviews — for now, at any rate.”
Boyle got up. Then he leaned forward and asked, in a confidential tone: “How much does a guy get paid in your line of work?”
16
This was going to be interesting. More than interesting. Bradley Gavin slipped under the yellow police tape that blocked off the end of the second-floor hall at the Inn. He turned and lifted it for Constance Greene. She followed him to the closed door of Morris McCool’s room. He opened the door and pushed it wide.
Agent Pendergast had made it clear that every professional courtesy was to be extended to Constance, which explained why she was being allowed once again into what was, effectively, a crime scene. He was more curious about her than about what they might find in the room, which, he suspected, was precious little. The word intriguing hardly began to describe this strange and beautiful woman. And this was his first chance to speak to her alone.
He turned and held out his hand. “After you, Ms. Greene,” he said.
“Miss Greene, if you please. I find Mizz a disagreeable neologism.”
“Oops. Sorry.” Gavin watched her out of the corner of his eye as she entered, an ethereal figure in a long dress. This woman was as remote as the glaciers, and maybe that was part of what appealed to him — that, and a kind of mysterious self-possession. Gavin rather liked the old-fashioned “Miss” part. He was starting to view this Miss Greene as a challenge. He knew he was attractive to women; and he suspected that, as she got to know him better, he just might prove to be her type.
He followed her into the historian’s room. It was done up in period furniture, like the rest of the Inn, and he took in its charming yet shabby contents: the big heavy bed in dark wood, the lace curtains, the braided rugs that were a little too worn, and the bathroom peeking through an open door, which had last seen a renovation so long ago that the tiling had come back in style and then gone out again.
“The agreement was eyes only, Miss Greene,” he said. “But if you want to handle something, I don’t see a problem as long as you ask me first.”
“Thank you.”
The SOC team had already been through the room with a fine-tooth comb, and their tags and flags could be seen festooning just about everything. They’d been looking for forensic evidence — latents, hairs, fibers, DNA, blood. He and the lady were looking for papers — specifically, evidence on what the historian might have been working on. Not that he expected that would lead to anything; he had already more or less satisfied himself that this murder was just a robbery-homicide, albeit one with some uniquely disturbing aspects.
He did a quick mental inventory. A short stack of books and papers on a rolltop desk. No computer. The maid had fixed up the room after the historian had gone downstairs for dinner, a few hours before his murder. That was too bad. Everything was very neat, but whether this was a reflection of the maid or the historian’s personality was hard to say.