Murder in the Marsh Page 10

  There were so many things about what he said that unsettled him. First of all, even if Adam did pursue a relationship with Laney, he knew it would be a little more than two years before he would be free to fully commit to her. Legally, as an apprentice he was bound to his master until he was twenty-one years of age. And even though his master just happened to be his grandfather, he knew Emmanuel would insist he finish out his apprenticeship for the sake of completing all of his training. Not to mention Adam knew there would be little appeal for Laney to marry a man with no real property to call his own.

  Yet Adam also knew that Laney cared for him. She seemed to keep him at arm’s length, though—at enough of a distance to maintain propriety, but close enough that he could tell she wanted him in her life. And that’s where things got complicated. Adam loved everything about Laney Martin. He’d be the first to admit he’d initially been drawn in by her beauty, but as he got to know her, he had become captivated by her sweet disposition, her sharp mind, and her independent spirit. But part of him did wonder if he was the best she could do. That’s not to say he thought Francis Smythe would be a better choice, but maybe there was another young man out there who could offer her a brighter future.

  Adam thought about his own family history compared to hers. His mother was born into a family of humble means, then orphaned as a young girl and raised by Valentine Hodges and his wife, Margaret, at the Topsail Tavern. She’d married his father in secret when she was only seventeen years old, and they were soon driven apart because of the dangers posed by his father’s crazy, jealous uncle in Cuba.

  And speaking of his family in Cuba, Adam might’ve been wealthier than the Martins could ever imagine if things had been different with his Spanish relatives, but then if things had been different, Adam’s mother and father would have never needed to part ways, leaving Adam to be raised alone by his mother at the Topsail Tavern.

  It was all so frustrating. When it came right down to it, Adam knew the only thing he could do was to just plow ahead at being the most successful he could possibly be. He knew he had a secure position in the shipping company, and especially with the new canal being built, that could greatly increase the amount of shipping business coming into Beaufort. Whether or not things were meant to be with him and Laney only time would tell, but for his part he was going to do his best to become the best man he could be.

  And right now the best thing he could do was get some rest. The days ahead would be long and arduous.

  Chapter Fifteen

  SATURDAY WAS SPENT WITH ADAM and the others getting all of their things ready to spend a couple of days in the marsh up on Harlowe Creek. Sunday, as Emmanuel always insisted, the whole company was in church for services. Afterwards, they all went their separate ways until Monday morning. Adam decided to go spend some time at the tavern.

  Martin, Jones, and Ed Willis said they were going to spend the afternoon playing cards—something Emmanuel didn’t approve of on Sundays but didn’t forbid—but Adam knew they were probably planning a wilder night than that.

  It was a little unusual, only because Ed generally didn’t partake in the same kinds of entertainment that Martin and Jones did, but Adam figured it must’ve been a spur-of-the-moment decision that came from the kind of boredom that plagued all young men in Beaufort when it was too cold to swim or fish or do the other things they usually enjoyed on a full day off from work.

  Adam turned in early Sunday night so he’d not be too tired the next day. He’d learned from experience that traveling on little sleep was not pleasant, and traveling in the cold across a potentially choppy Newport River would be even worse.

  When time came Monday morning for everyone to meet at the warehouse, Martin and Jones were the first to show up. Of course Adam was already there, since he only had to go as far as down a flight of stairs.

  “Where the hell is Willis?” Boaz said to Martin and Jones. “Y’all need to get goin, ’cause winds are coming out of the northwest, so it’s gonna be a long, rough trip.”

  “How are we supposed to know?” asked Martin.

  “I’d wager he’s passed out,” said Jones. “I reckon he’ll be needin the ol’ hair o’ the dog.”

  “Damnit!” said Boaz. “Leave him home then. He’ll drag in eventually and Emmanuel can deal with ’em. He’s near ’bout had it with y’all’s constant drinkin. You’re turnin into a bunch of damned good-for-nothin sots.”

  “Are you saying you just want the three of us to go, then?” said Adam, a little concerned not only about leaving one of their crew behind but also because cutting their team by a quarter would mean they all had more work.

  “Yep. The three of you will just have to go on your own. I’m not losing help in the warehouse these next couple of days just because y’all are too irresponsible to make sure you all show up.”

  “You must be joking!” Adam challenged Boaz. They had a long history of butting heads, so this wasn’t new, but it didn’t usually end well. “Ed’s a grown man. Why should we be expected to be responsible for him to show up for work?”

  “Because you all are a team on this survey. If you can’t even keep your team together now, then I worry about y’all out there in the marsh.”

  Adam was annoyed by Boaz’s answer, but he tried to act as if he didn’t even care.

  “Fine,” he said.

  He grabbed up his satchel and his bedroll and then offered to help Jones carry the small trunk with the tools and camp implements on board.

  Once they were all loaded up into the periauger, they readied the sails and were underway, headed west on Taylor Creek towards Gallant’s Point and into the Newport River.

  Before they made it past the town, Adam had an idea.

  “Let’s dock over there by the boatbuilders. I think I know where we can get us another hand—at least if you fellas don’t mind splitting some of your pay with him. That way Emmanuel won’t even have to know. We can drop him back off here before we get back to the warehouse tomorrow or the next day.”

  Martin and Jones liked the sound of that, and they were willing to give up a little bit of their pay to get another man to come along. The fact was it was dangerous to go into the marsh like that with a team of just three men. If one got hurt, they’d struggle to get the third man back and safely sail to town if weather conditions were less than ideal.

  They all reckoned Emmanuel would’ve insisted they take another man had he been there, but he had gotten to where his arthritic condition was giving him a terrible time early in the morning, so it took him longer to warm up and come down to the warehouse than it did when he was a younger man. At the same time they also knew he would’ve never approved of them challenging Boaz’s authority, since he essentially ran the warehouse these days.

  “Who you goin ta get, mate?” asked Jones.

  “That fella Ben—the guitarist at the tavern. He asked me to let him know if I heard about any odd jobs he could do. He’s trying to save up money to get down to Charleston to see his sister, but Valentine is cheap, and so it’s taking him a long time to make what he needs.”

  “Haha! Perfect,” said Martin. “Good thinkin, Fletcher.”

  They tied up to the public dock near the boatbuilder’s shop, and Adam quickly ran over to the tavern to find Ben. Within about ten minutes he was running back to the boat, Ben following close behind, still trying to stuff his own clothes into a bag on such short notice.

  As they got underway, Ben thanked them all for giving him a chance and said he’d be happy to keep the whole thing quiet as long as they slipped a little bit of money his way once they got paid. The timing worked out nicely, since his trio didn’t play on Monday nights anyway, and if they weren’t back in time on Tuesday, Toby and James could get along without him.

  Chapter Sixteen

  THE TRIP TO HARLOWE CREEK was brutal. Sailing into the wind as they crossed the Newport River meant dealing with freezing temperatures beating against their faces and piercing
through their clothing. It took them hours to travel just the ten-mile distance it was from the public dock at Beaufort to their destination.

  They came with plenty of provisions. They would be making camp for at least one night, possibly two, as they worked their way into the interior of the pocosin, trying to ascertain the obstacles that would be in the way when the canal project did get underway. There were some landowners in the region, but their properties were few and far between and nowhere near where they would be working.

  The only advantage to the bitter cold was that the creeping, crawling, and winged beasts that normally made the marshland and pocosins so dangerous were in hibernation or otherwise dormant. Adam was especially glad they wouldn’t have to worry much about water moccasins as they stepped through the high grasses. His friends might have feared alligators more, but Adam always felt like they were easy enough to see to avoid, whereas snakes could slither up from out of anywhere.

  After pulling the periauger up onto the eastern bank of Harlowe Creek and tying it to a tree, the men decided to work their way as far north as they could until they needed to turn back for nightfall. No official surveyors were with them, since precise measurements weren’t necessary.

  Martin and Jones already had some experience using a Gunter’s chain. They explained how one length of chain—which consisted of a hundred long, straight links—equaled sixty-six feet, which meant eighty lengths of chain equaled one mile. Martin and Jones decided they would carry the chain forward while Adam and Ben held their position. Once they’d marked off that distance, Adam and Ben would cross the terrain, chain in hand, to meet Martin and Jones, and then they would be the ones to carry the chain forward. They would keep taking turns like this, and Ben would make notes in a little journal along the way.

  The shoreline of Harlowe Creek was typical of every estuary in the region. The ground went from being a murky, muddy muck with sparse marsh grasses poking through and the occasional fiddler crabs scurrying past, to increasingly thicker patches of rushes and reeds that made it nearly impossible to see the ground. That, of course, presented a challenge to them as they tried to walk across it, since the marshland was pocked with serpentine channels of water. One never knew whether or not a step on what looked like solid ground might turn out to be wet, sticky mud.

  There didn’t appear anything too remarkable at first, though they did continually see vultures plunging down into the marsh off in the distance to the north of them.

  “Lucky bastards,” said Martin. “Must’ve gotten themselves some fairly fresh kill. It don’t even smell like there’s nothin dead out here.”

  Adam sniffed the air. Martin was right.

  “It’s probably ’cause of the cold, don’t you reckon? Or maybe we’re just not close enough to it yet.”

  “That’s true,” Martin agreed.

  Knowing they’d make it over that way within the next few minutes, the four of them took bets about what unfortunate creature was being gobbled up by the winged scavengers. Adam said he figured it was some kind of large marsh bird, like a heron or a pelican. Martin guessed it had to be something more substantial, like an otter or a raccoon, since it was attracting so many vultures. Ben reckoned it was an ugly old possum, and Jones went so far as to say he thought it might even be a coyote or a red wolf.

  As they got nearer, though, there was definitely a rotting smell, and it seemed to completely permeate the damp swamp air.

  They had their answer of what it was soon enough. Martin was the first one to it.

  “Good Lord,” he said.

  “What is it?” Adam called out.

  Martin stood there dumbfounded.

  Adam and the others did their best to traipse through the grasses and over narrow channels of marsh to get to where Martin was standing on the edge of a reedy bank. The vultures in the grasses nearby seemed unfazed by their approach, but as they got nearer, Jones made some noise, and they all left in a wild commotion.

  It took Adam a moment to assess the situation. Martin still wouldn’t say a word. Jones and Ben looked at each other in shock—they apparently understood what it was right away. Adam, on the other hand, was behind them and couldn’t see yet what they were seeing. Then he noticed something in the grass. It was an old canteen with smeared blood dried on the top and across the front.

  It must be a man, he thought. He caught up with the others as quickly as he could, and as soon as he saw what they were looking at, almost instinctively he backed up and looked down at his feet, lest he be stepping in some kind of filth.

  There lay the corpse of a man that had been chewed up by scavengers. His death must have happened days or even weeks earlier, but Adam still couldn’t help but feel like the very ground they were standing on was contaminated. He wondered what kind of diseases might ooze out of the decaying body and into the water that licked at the bank nearby with every high tide.

  After a few seconds of silence, finally Jones spoke up. “What in the hell happened to ’em?”

  “I’m not touchin him,” said Martin.

  As they all exchanged glances with each other, Adam said, “Don’t look at me!”

  Ben stroked at his chin but appeared determined to show his maturity around these young men. He tentatively stepped over to the body and examined it as best as possible without actually kneeling down or touching it in any way—which didn’t amount to much of an examination. He looked around and said, “Anybody see a stick or a branch anywhere? I ain’t touchin no corpse with my bare hands.”

  The three others looked around the immediate area but didn’t find much. Then Adam’s foot stumbled on something. When he looked down, he saw it was a walking stick. It must’ve belonged to the poor fellow rotting nearby. He reached down and picked it up and brought it over to Ben.

  Ben examined the stick for a moment before using it to poke gently at the corpse’s torso. The body was facedown in the wet marsh grass. Adam was sure all four of them were thinking the same thing: the corpse ought to be turned over so that they might be able to figure out what happened to the man, but they all dreaded to see the condition of his face and gut. It was bad enough to see that his ears and fingers were being picked apart by crabs, in addition to the work the vultures had done to get past the obstacle of the man’s clothing.

  “Just do it quick,” said Martin. “Get it over with.”

  “Put that stick under there,” said Jones, pointing to the corpse’s arm, which was tucked under his side, “and wedge it under ’em a bit so you can turn ’em right over.”

  Ben looked at Jones with a little wince. Adam understood his sentiment exactly. None of them wanted to see that body turned over, but they knew it had to be done. They at least wanted to see if he had any kinds of obvious injuries, or if it was more likely that he died of natural causes or exposure.

  It so happens that turning over a corpse with a stick isn’t as easy as it might sound. It ultimately took not only Ben using the walking stick to apply leverage under the body, but also the other three using their boots to turn the whole corpse onto its back all at once.

  The most ungodly smell was released into the air as they flipped him over. Once he was on his back, they were at least slightly relieved that the front side of his body actually wasn’t as bad off as his back side. There was no question as to what killed the poor man. It was a stab wound in the center of his chest, just below the sternum. None of them had seen blood when the corpse was facedown, because it had obviously poured out of the wound and was absorbed quickly by the front of his clothing and the ground.

  Speaking of clothing, he wasn’t dressed in any finery. His clothes were quite common, in fact.

  They wondered if this was possibly the result of some family feud on a nearby farm, but Martin pointed out that there were no families that he knew of within at least a mile or two from where they were standing, and that it was unlikely that a family feud would’ve ended way out there in the marsh.

  After
a largely fruitless debate about what it could have been and what it was unlikely to have been, Adam suddenly had a different thought.

  “What about that couple that was attacked on the road to New Bern? Maybe everybody’s been thinking those killers were headed north, but what if they were really headed south?”

  Martin and Ben both nodded as they appeared to consider the possibility.

  “Wait. What couple?” said Jones.

  “You mean you haven’t heard about it?” said Martin, incredulous.

  Ben shook his head in lament as he began to explain. “It was in the paper. A husband and wife were traveling about ten miles south of New Bern—on the south side of the Trent—and a couple of bandits attacked them. The husband tried to fight them off before they attacked his wife, but one of the men knocked him in the head and killed him.”

  “What happened to the woman?” asked Jones. “Did they abuse her in any way?”

  Adam shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. Apparently the men argued after the husband fell dead and then decided to just take off before anyone came along and discovered them.”

  “Yes,” said Ben. “They just left that poor woman in the woods, bless her. They say she walked near ’bout two miles before she was rescued.”

  Jones was speechless.

  The four of them stood there by the body for a moment before Martin said, “That was a terrible crime, but like Ben said, that happened almost ten miles south of New Bern. And that means it was about twenty miles northwest of here. It ain’t like that’s right down the road.”

  Adam nodded. “That’s true. I was just thinking—what are the chances of there being a murdered man here and then there being a couple of people attacked not twenty miles up this same route? I don’t know that that girl in New Bern has anything to do with this.”

  “What girl in New Bern?” Ben asked.

  “Just last Monday there was a girl attacked right in town and left on the road that leads to the estate where she’s bound as a servant,” said Adam. “It wouldn’t have made it in the paper yet, though.”