The Bird Artist Page 16

  “What drove him from those?” Kelb said.

  “I asked him that. He said that he wanted to live south of St. John’s.”

  Even though it was none of his business, Kelb seemed satisfied with the answer.

  “Has he been in our lighthouse?” Margaret said.

  “He’s toured it, yes. He, his wife, and his daughter all did.”

  “Did he show interest in the gramophone?” Margaret said.

  “As a matter of fact, he commented on it. He said he admired it but didn’t want it. He said if hired he’d bring in his own possessions.”

  “What day has been settled on for our hearing to start?” my mother said.

  “Ask Mr. Kelb there,” Romeo said.

  “Tomorrow,” Kelb said.

  “Romeo,” said Margaret, “please ask my father not to forget to bring me what I asked for. He’ll understand.”

  “I’ll tell him tonight.”

  “Thank you.”

  Late that night, after my mother and Kelb had fallen asleep, Margaret and I sat at the kitchen table. “I notice you gave Kelb your bed tonight,” she said to me.

  “I told him I wanted to stay up painting. To get my mind off things. But I won’t paint. I’ll just sit here.”

  Margaret stood up, stretched, and said, “Groan my bones, a woman my age shouldn’t be so tired. But I am.” She sat down.

  “Margaret, what happened after we left Witless Bay, my father, mother, and me?”

  “Mitchell Kelb was sent for right away. He began snooping, a regular detective. All but door-to-door. I knew that sooner or later he’d come to my house. Do you know how I prepared for that?”

  “Tell.”

  “I hoarded away five bottles of Enoch’s whiskey, plus three I bought myself. They’re all smuggled in and hidden in your pantry, right here.”

  “Then Kelb arrested you?”

  “Yes. But he was polite about it. He knocked on my door. I looked him over. I said I remembered him. He said, ‘I remember you, too, Margaret. May I call you that?’ I said that he could. ‘I’m going to officially place you under house arrest,’ he said. ‘Suspicion of murder, or being part of a conspiracy to murder Botho August.’ Words to that effect. ‘Do you want to put up a fuss?’ I said I didn’t. He took me directly to your house. He assigned a deputy, a man named Llewellyn Boxer, to keep an eye on me while he tracked you and Alaric and Orkney down. Boxer showed up a few hours later. Kelb was right out front about his plans. No secret there. He said he was going overland to the south to try and catch the Doubting Thomas. Romeo had told him your wedding date. Kelb said he had to leave right away. He went out on the porch, then came back in. ‘I’ve seen you twice in my life,’ he said to me. ‘Both times I find that you’re in trouble. If coincidence were otherwise merciful, we’d have run into one another, just to nod in passing somewhere in Newfoundland, on a day that you were happy.’”

  “Did you have a reply?”

  “I said, ‘I’m a girl who looks to the future.’”

  “The future, even for the next day, looks pretty bleak to me. In fact, it scares the hell out of me.”

  “I sit here. I look at you, Fabian. I think, I’m sitting across from a man who was married for less than five minutes. My father told me that news. He said that Mitchell Kelb was holding forth in Gillette’s store one morning. He had everyone enthralled, a regular talking whirligig, for such a composed man.”

  “I was hoping you wouldn’t hear details of the wedding.”

  “Hear them or not, they’d still be the truth. You’re the village idiot, Fabian. You deserve what you get. An arranged marriage can’t mean you can arrange how the marriage will go. I laugh. Our time in the marriage bed alone would’ve been hours. Not five minutes, that’s for sure. What was the room number you got married in?”

  “Twenty-three.”

  “I’ve jotted that down in my mind.”

  Margaret went to the pantry. She opened a bottle of whiskey, poured a glass for herself, then came back and sat at the table.

  “The night Botho was shot,” she said. “Do you remember it raining cats and dogs? Well, inside the lighthouse the rain was drumming in my ears. Botho had come down from the housing and he got me right into his bed. When we were done, he went up to the foghorn again.”

  “I asked about after we left, not that night.”

  “I’m starting my little tale earlier. Don’t interrupt a guest in your house, Fabian.”

  I poured a glass for myself.

  “Back down from the housing later,” Margaret said, “Botho got it into his head to show me his hobby. Hobby other than the gramophone, that is. This was a man who didn’t just stare at the walls between foggy nights. No. He invented a whole menagerie, hours’ worth of animals, and he had all of these ways of clenching and bending his fingers to make shadows. It was child’s play, but he took it deadly seriously. And he was showing me his skills when you shot out the window.”

  “I saw your hand helping his out. I was in the yard looking up. I saw your hand.”

  “I’d had a good bit to drink.”

  “Had I gone to your house earlier that night, it might have kept a murder from occurring.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You might not have gone to the lighthouse. I might not have shot Botho August.”

  “He still would have died, is my bet. You just got there first.”

  “Maybe so. Maybe my father—”

  “You know, I didn’t actually see you shoot Botho. But I know that you did, Fabian. I know it. I heard the shots. But at first I didn’t dare go to the window.”

  “I heard that goddamned gramophone.”

  “God, he was stingy with those records. Would not let me touch a one, or even make a selection. That night I was reeling around. I laid a hand on a record, tore a rut. A terrible sound, really. Louder than a gull close-up.”

  “Why, Margaret? Why did you go there that night?”

  “To punish you for being a moron. I had half thought out a plan. First, I would go see Botho. Second, I’d tell you about it. And third, I’d tell Romeo, so everyone else would know. Then I was going to go up and live with my aunt for a week or so, and let you think me over. I hoped that jealousy might shake a clear notion into your head, or shake the arranged marriage out, one and the same. Every plan’s really half thought out, isn’t it, because you can’t know the consequences. But any plan was better than none, and it was getting close to your wedding.”

  “They might ask you intimate things at the hearing, you know.”

  “Of course they will. What’s a hearing for? They’ll cross-shackle me, make me tell my part in it. What I was doing in the lighthouse, as if they don’t already know. They’ll want to hear me say it, though. It’s only natural.”

  “I suppose so. What did you do once you heard the shots?”

  “I walked down the stairs. Botho was coughing up blood, all down his shirt. You’d left him for dead, maybe because he looked dead. But he wasn’t. Not yet. I looked close, too. I saw the revolver. I started for it, but then—how could this happen?—Botho went for it, too. It was like the first moment of his being a ghost; he mustered up enough strength. He tore off his nightshirt. He went for the gun. I got to it first. I looked at him. It went off. Bang! Fabian, I don’t remember pulling the trigger. I swear. I don’t know what happened. I hated him, true. I had just lain with him. But did I want to kill him? That I don’t know. Maybe I just wanted to finish what you’d started, then hope you’d get blamed, I was that angry at you. I did shoot him, though. Then I heard someone slapping through the mud.”

  “That must have been my father.”

  “It was. It was Orkney. I went back up into the lighthouse. I stood at the window. He took Botho’s pulse. He picked up the revolver, then dropped it and ran off. I went back down the stairs. I took the revolver and went home. Enoch was asleep. I sat on my bed, drinking. Then—I don’t even know what time—Alaric and Orkney were in my house. I h
eard their voices. They woke up my father. They were talking, then they were gone.”

  I finished my drink. Margaret poured herself another. “Your father didn’t fire a shot,” she said.

  We sat awhile in silence.

  “Was there a funeral?” I said.

  “The morning after the murder, a lot of people actually saw Botho lying in the mud. It was like a procession. And guess what? I got right in line. When that old buzzard Sillet got wind of what had happened, he took over. He got to Botho’s body and he was just fuming. He waved everyone off. He got some men; it was Giles, Peter Kieley, and Romeo. They carried the body to the funeral parlor. Peter Kieley dispatched himself to St. John’s to report the murder. Two days later Mitchell Kelb showed up. He moved into Spivey’s. The rest went as I told you.”

  “But, Margaret, was there a funeral?”

  “Yes, but the strange thing was, who could people offer condolences to, really? August had no family. And people over the years hadn’t exactly come to feel family feelings toward him, or vice versa. In the very next Sunday’s sermon, Sillet took a moment to remember Botho.”

  “You were in church?”

  “I sat front and center. Me and my paramour, Llewellyn Boxer.”

  “And what did Sillet say?”

  “Not much of anything. But he called on Patrick Flood. And Patrick stood right up. He recounted close scrapes he’d had out in his boat, how Botho threaded the needle with his lighthouse beam, and how he—Patrick—appreciated being alive. ‘When a sudden gale catches you—’ and, ‘I have other thoughts about Mr. August, but that’s the one I think is most fit, seeing as he’s deceased.’ Patrick was evenhanded and calm throughout.”

  “Where is Botho buried?”

  “Tucked to the northeast corner of the cemetery. A flat stone.”

  “And who buried him?”

  “If you’re wondering, Fabian, was there a nice, respectful ceremony graveside, no, there wasn’t. NO SACRED TO THE MEMORY on the marker. But at the same time, it was a clear, beautiful day, and people did turn out. Not many, but some. I was escorted by Llewellyn Boxer. If it was all a lark to him, he was still a gentleman about it. Just a young man of eighteen, I’d guess. Early to the law enforcement profession. Maybe ten others were there. Counting Sillet, naturally. Counting the gravedigger, Darwin McKinney. Counting Isabel Kinsella, the seasoned griefmonger; she was there. No tears were shed as far as I could see. But there were a few people who looked to be barely holding back tears. Any funeral will cause that.”

  “I’m surprised you attended.”

  “It got me out of the house. I simply dressed in black. I walked with Llewellyn Boxer, not arm in arm, to the cemetery. Amen. Amen. And how do you suppose I spent the hour or two after?”

  “I don’t want to guess.”

  “All right, I’ll tell you. The only men I’d ever known intimately were either dead or in Halifax getting married. I couldn’t freely go out and shoot ducks. Most ducks were gone from the harbor, anyway. I couldn’t leave this house. House arrest. And Llewellyn Boxer saw that my poor brain was on the loose. We sat at the table and I just started to talk. Talked and talked and talked. I fixed us each a sandwich. The poor boy. He got an earful, but don’t ask me of what. I can’t remember what I said at all. It was just talk. And when I was done, I wanted to take a nap and told Llewellyn Boxer. He just said, ‘Fine,’ as if I’d used up every other word in the dictionary, with all my talking. And I slept the rest of the day and night. And as you well know, that’s not a traditional habit with me.”

  Margaret walked to the window and looked out. “Hey, look!” she said. She opened the door and dragged in her childhood bicycle. “My father must have brought it. He didn’t knock to say hello, though.”

  “He might have been afraid of violating house arrest.”

  “He might have.”

  She propped the bicycle against the wall. She stooped and checked the spokes, the tires, the handlebars. “My pop’s got this in top shape,” she said.

  “I’m going over to the sofa now,” I said. “I’ll stay to one side of it, if you want the other. I’m more tired than I thought.”

  “No, help yourself. I’ll sit awhile.”

  I fell off quickly. The next morning, I found Margaret asleep at the table. The bottle was empty.

  My mother was making tea. Mitchell Kelb was smoking a cigar on the porch.

  “Margaret was talking in her sleep,” my mother said. “It woke me. I came out to listen, but for the life of me, and I leaned close, I couldn’t make out a word she said.”

  The hearing was held in Gillette’s store.

  Romeo sat on a barrel of nails, in the front row of barrels. To his immediate left sat Boas LaCotte. To his right, Enoch Handle. Margaret, my mother, and I sat at the defendant’s table, to the direct right of the judge’s table at the front of the store. The hearing was popular. There was want of room. People even sat on the porch, dressed in coats and sweaters.

  As a formality, Mitchell Kelb stood up from his seat at the judge’s table and announced, “November two, nineteen and eleven, ten o’clock in the morning.”

  “Duly noted,” Mekeel Dollard said. She was taking down the proceedings in shorthand.

  “Now, this is just a preliminary hearing,” Kelb said. “To determine whether to transfer it up to St. John’s, where the worst crimes end up. I’d sent, as some of you know, Enoch Handle up to St. John’s to fetch a presiding judge. Honorable Judge H. L. Fain. But Enoch Handle returned to say that Judge Fain is bedridden, and he’s appointed me representative of His Majesty. Representative magistrate. So that’s what I am to you. I didn’t expect this, but now it’s official.”

  He fell silent. He closed his eyes a moment. Then he looked at the gathering. “I’ll tell you a thimbleful about myself,” he said. “Then we’ll get on with it. I was born in Cupids, Newfoundland, in 1864, but by the time I was three I was in England. That’s private family circumstances. I grew up there, and when I came back I was trained in law enforcement in St. John’s, paid for by the crown. I had a year of law books to boot. I’ve presided over one previous hearing, but that was merely for theft.”

  Kelb paused. “Now,” he said, “who examined the body?”

  “I did,” Romeo said.

  “Stand up.”

  Romeo stood.

  “Why you?”

  “I’m half a doctor,” Romeo said.

  “And what did you discover in your examination?”

  “Three bullets hit Botho August.”

  “And that makes up the physical evidence, three bullets?”

  “Yes. Plus the revolver.” He pointed to the revolver on the table.

  “Thank you, Mr. Gillette. Mrs. Dollard, did you get all that?”

  “Yes,” Mekeel Dollard said.

  “Good.”

  Romeo sat down.

  “We’ll talk about the revolver now,” Kelb said.

  But there was a commotion in the back of the store. Along the middle aisle people stepped back. I saw Bevel Cabot, Miriam Auster, Giles LaCotte, Ruth Henley, Olive Perrault. Toward the back were Elmer Wyatt, Peter Kieley, Patrick Flood holding his son Colin, Seamus Doyle. Carrying a Bible, Reverend Sillet made his way to the front. He stood sideways to Kelb, facing me and Margaret. “If one be found slain,” he said, reciting by heart. But now he opened the Bible. “—in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee to possess it, lying in the field, and it be not known who hath slain him: Then thy elders and thy judges shall come forth, and they shall measure unto the cities which are round about him that is slain: And it shall be, that the city which is next unto the slain man, even the elders of that city shall take an heifer—”

  “Reverend Sillet, sit down,” Kelb said.

  Sillet ignored him and went on: “—heifer which hath not been wrought with, and which hath not drawn in the yoke; And the elders of that city shall bring down the heifer unto a rough valley, which is neither eared nor sown, and shall strike off t
he heifer’s neck there—”

  “Mrs. Dollard,” Kelb said, “this is not testimony. Don’t bother.”

  “—in the valley: And the priests the sons of Levi shall come near; for them the Lord thy God hath chosen to minister unto him, and to bless in the name of the Lord; and by their word shall every controversy and every stroke be tried: And all the elders of that city, that are next unto the slain man, shall wash their hands over the heifer that is beheaded in the valley: And they shall answer and say, Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it. Be merciful, O Lord, unto thy people Israel, whom thou hast redeemed, and lay not innocent blood unto thy people of Israel’s charge. And the blood shall be forgiven them.”

  Sillett glowered at Kelb. “Deuteronomy 21:1—8,” he said. He then all but pulled a barrel out from under Boas LaCotte and maneuvered it next to the judge’s table as Boas stepped to the wall. He sat down on the barrel, staring fixedly toward the back of the store. He slapped the closed Bible once against his open hand.

  John Rut, a man who had fished off Newfoundland for forty years, called out, “There’s no Levis who live here, so there’s no goddamned sons of Levi.”

  “Mr. Rut, it is, I believe,” Kelb said. “I didn’t ask your opinion.”

  “I’ll offer it, anyway, free of charge. My opinion is this: Somebody did shed some blood, and whoever did probably watched themselves do it. Their eyes did see it done. Why not ask, Mr. Kelb, straight out. Ask one question straight out: ‘Is there anyone here in this room murdered the lighthouse keeper Botho August?’ It might get direct results.”

  “That’s maybe more effective than English proceedings,” Kelb said, “but it’s not my protocol here. The truth doesn’t usually come that quick in such cases, anyway.”

  “It came quick to Botho August,” Rut said. “It came quick three times.”

  “Let’s stay calm and clear-headed and respectful here,” Kelb said. “This is not an easy task. Here are three people whom you’ve known many years: Margaret Handle, Fabian Vas, Alaric Vas. Plus Orkney Vas, not here today, but still, you’ve known him and he is on trial. Calm and respectful, please. I don’t want to have to clear the store. Now I want to continue. I want to follow the revolver. Mr. Gillette, do you keep transactions written down?”