Читать книгу 15 Minutes of Flame - Christin Brecher - Страница 10

Chapter 3

Parking in town, I walked down Centre Street and passed my store, the Wick & Flame. I waved through the window at my assistant, Cherry Waddle, who was covering for me this weekend. She waved back, busy with a customer, and I paused momentarily to study my window display, which was filled with orange and black candles I’d made every night over the last week. For fun, I’d come up with some unique scents for the holiday, like Eyeball of Newt and Spider Soup for those who were really into the spirit of the season. As you might imagine, Halloween is one of the highlights of the year at the Wick & Flame. I light many candles to turn up the spooky vibe, albeit one that includes jack-o’-lantern candles scented with pumpkin spice and glow-in-the-dark ghost candles. This year, I’d added the Tinker Special to my product line. It was a black cat, inspired by my feline friend, Tinker, wearing a jaunty orange witch’s hat from which the wick extends.

It’s hard to pass my store without stopping in, but I had no idea how things would unfold back at the Morton House, so I forged ahead to my caffeine fix and trip to the library. When I rounded the corner and reached the entrance to The Bean, I stood aside as a woman exited the cafe.

“Hello!” I said, realizing I’d come face-to-face with Brenda Worthington.

Over the last decade, Brenda has become a sort of fixture on the island. She runs Nantucket Legends and Lore, one of the best ghost tours in town, and we have a lot of ghost tours. Brenda’s tours are unique for two reasons. The first is that she is a walking encyclopedia about the island’s history. Not textbook stories, but legends handed down from generation to generation. My family, the Wrights, can be found in every nook and cranny on the island, and it was a proud day for us when Brenda added the tale of how my great-grandma once chained herself to a flagpole on Centre Street, in front of where my store is now, to advocate for women’s right to vote.

The second of Brenda’s specialties is her claim that she can speak with the dead. As a result, Brenda was not the kind of person that the police or historians would solicit for help. I, however, wondered if she might have an angle on my discovery that others would not. It was worth a shot.

“Greetings, friend,” she said.

There’s something about Brenda that feels otherworldly. For example, although she was wearing sweats and a windbreaker, today her prematurely graying hair was in an old-fashioned bun, and she was carrying a basket of produce from a local farm’s truck stand in town. The basket looked like something my Quaker skeleton would have owned.

“I have news for you,” I said. “I think you’ll soon have a new addition to your ghost tour.”

“Not a ghost tour,” said Brenda with an ethereal wave of her hand. “A history tour that includes visits to the ghosts of Nantucket’s past.”

“My mistake,” I said, fearing she’d try to explain the theoretical difference between the two. Emily, who is an event planner, had made the error once when planning a party, and had been an hour late for a movie night we’d planned, so I kept talking. “You know the house that the Girl Scouts are using for Halloween Haunts?”

“A wonderful house, although a little worse for wear,” she said. “You know, the building out back used to be an old smokehouse.”

I smiled and realized who Shelly’s source was. I also made a note that all of Brenda’s facts weren’t necessarily true. I understood why the experts didn’t pay her much attention.

“I found a skeleton buried above the mantel,” I said.

For a moment, I thought that Brenda might drop her basket. She looked like a Girl Scout who had sold her five-hundredth box of cookies and won the big prize.

“The police are there now, but I’m staying at the main house,” I said. “Feel free to stop by tomorrow.”

“I will,” said Brenda, her hazel eyes dancing with excitement.

“By the way,” I said, “have you ever heard of a candle maker named Cooper from the eighteen hundreds?”

“No,” she said, “but there were many candle makers back then. They were as common on Nantucket then as tourists are now.”

“Have you ever heard of Quakers burying the dead at home?” I asked, trying another angle.

“Oh, no,” she said. “This is very mysterious. I’d like to see if the woman’s aura is still in the room.”

“It’s worth a shot,” I said, hoping I hadn’t made a mistake by reaching out to her.

“Did you say Cooper?” Brenda asked, furrowing her brow.

I nodded.

“Does the name ring a bell?” I said.

She shook her head, but I had a feeling she was searching through her encyclopedic mind.

“I spoke to the ghost of Mary Coffin the other day,” she said instead.

“Get out,” I said.

Brenda’s eyes widened.

“OK,” she said, and headed down the street.

“I didn’t mean ‘leave,’ ” I said, calling after her. “It’s an expression.”

But Brenda continued along her way. I let another patron pass me out of The Bean and entered to the rich aroma of their brews.

My coffee stop was uneventful after that. My favorite barista, Clemmie, gave me a sympathetic smile after seeing Brenda bolt from me down the street. I downed a shot of espresso and continued on to the library. When I pulled up to the building, it looked empty, but I got out to make sure. The library is fittingly an extension behind the old Quaker Meeting House. The front door was closed, but I knocked and tried to listen for noise inside. When none was forthcoming, I knocked again. I was about to leave when the door opened.

“I heard the wind is going to pick up this afternoon, so I closed the door,” said a friendly, familiar face.

“I didn’t know you worked here,” I said to Agnes Hussey, whose laugh lines framed her fading hazel eyes and whose gray hair looked something like a halo. Agnes is a sometimes member of my candle-making classes. She is a gem. She had joined my current workshop, and had arrived for the first class with delicious, freshly baked scones.

“I volunteer here,” she said, welcoming me inside. “Since my family and I have been on Nantucket for as long as I can remember, I decided to do my part. I’m helping an historian today. Jameson Bellows. He’s been working at the Historical Association for the last six months, preparing for an exhibit at the Whaling Museum. I hear they’re planning to hire him full-time if all goes well. He’s certainly hungry for the job. I can’t remember the last time we opened up on a Saturday for someone.”

“Well, I’m in luck because of it,” I said. “I’m here to research a few old stories, but I don’t know where to start.”

“Then you need to come upstairs,” said Agnes, leading the way inside.

I followed her up a flight of stairs and to a light-filled reading room on the second floor, which was empty aside from one gentleman who had his head buried in a large tome with yellowed pages. The aroma of old books wafted through my delighted nose; it’s a scent that is hard to describe but is familiar to everyone who loves books.

“Here you go,” Agnes said, motioning to a computer terminal. “This will connect you to our research database. If you find a manuscript or a photo or a map you like, I can pull it out for you to peruse further.”

“Perfect,” I said, taking a seat.

When Agnes left me, the man across the room looked up as if noticing me for the first time. He wore a corduroy jacket whose elbow patches seemed to have been added for necessity rather than style. His forehead was a little shiny, and his hair was a bit matted. I surmised that the fashion statement of his jacket was important to him since he wore it in spite of his growing perspiration.

I smiled. He nodded and went back to his tome, so I typed in the first word that came to mind in the search box on my screen.

MURDER

I was surprised to find twenty-five hits, most of which were dated from the nineteenth century. I clicked on each return, and realized that much of the information came from private journals. These dozens of journals—all owned by different individuals—included pasted-in newspaper clippings, handwritten notes about local news and family issues, accounting lists, and some drawings, doodles, and creative writings.

I felt I’d come to the right place when the name Cooper jumped out halfway down my search results with a listing from a diary from the 1860s. I clicked on the header, but when the summary of information found in the diary popped onto my screen, I knew I’d have more work ahead of me. The entry mentioned the confession of one Phoebe Cooper about the murder of one Phoebe Fuller. Unfortunately, there was no missing body in Phoebe’s confession. Also, Miss Cooper was described as a servant. It was therefore unlikely that she was a member of the Cooper family that had lived in my friend Jean Pierre’s good-sized house and had owned Cooper’s Candles. I was disappointed, but honestly not surprised I hadn’t found a good lead right away.

I continued to scroll down the page.

In his letter book, William Coffin, a well-known Nantucketer, noted the murder of Barnard Grayham by Jaiz Cushman. Two men. Not my story.

Eduard Stackpole mentioned “the trial of two Indians held for murder” in the 1730s, which was too early to be connected to my skeleton if I was to believe the medical examiner, which I did.

There were also notes about murders on board ships from the right time period that were interesting, but not helpful.

Putting aside the hope that I’d find a story about the Cooper murder I was seeking, I typed my next query:

COOPER’S CANDLES

The return was disappointing: NO RECORDS FOUND BY LATEST QUERY.

I typed in HOME BURIAL.

NO RECORDS FOUND BY LATEST QUERY.

I typed in MISSING WOMAN.

This time, I was happy when NO RECORDS FOUND BY LATEST QUERY popped onto my screen again. If I wasn’t going to learn more about my skeleton with this search, I didn’t want to find anything.

After a few other dead ends, I typed in COOPER, on its own, to see it anything other than the Phoebe Fuller murder might come up.

Sometimes the simplest route is the best. I was in luck. Two pages of listings hit my screen. The Cooper murder I’d already read about was featured, but to my surprise, another story was listed that had nothing to do with murder. Instead, the listing referenced COOPER THIEVES.

Thieves and murder felt like a potential marriage, so I scanned these listings. The database information was limited, but one entry jumped out at me from the diary of one Mary Backus: COOPER THIEVES ROBBERY OF PETTICOAT ROW FUNDS.

At the mention of Petticoat Row, I froze. I already felt a personal connection to the woman and the chandlery I’d found, but here was another tie. About the time my skeleton was alive, Centre Street, where my store is located, was familiarly called Petticoat Row because the establishments that lined the road were all run by women. They were power babes who used their business endeavors to support their families while their husbands were away. They were also able to build nest eggs in case of an unsuccessful voyage or, sadly, in case a husband was lost at sea. Most of the women who worked on Petticoat Row were dressmakers, dry goods retailers, and the like. I was as much a kindred spirit to the Petticoat Row ladies as I was to my candle maker.

Wondering if there could be a connection between the Cooper Thieves and Cooper’s Candles, I decided to look at Mary Backus’s diary. I printed out the screen result and took the page down to Agnes. She was busy studying a crossword puzzle when I arrived at her post.

“Can you think of a seven-letter word for ‘tiramisu part?’ ” she said.

“Espresso?” I said.

“That’s eight. I’ll think of it,” she said, absently taking the sheet from me and heading to the back room.

While I waited for her to return, I stretched a bit. I was reaching down to my toes, enjoying the fact that this was my first library visit that had not ended with me falling asleep, when a phone began to ring from the center of the building, which rose to a loft-like opening to the second floor. I looked above me to the source of the sound.

“Bellows speaking,” the guest curator said in a voice that suited his name.

I’d always thought that talking on the phone in a library was a no-no, but apparently not.

“Uh-huh,” Bellows said.

“Uh-huh,” he said again.

Sounded like business.

There was a nice spindle-back chair reproduction across from Agnes’s reception desk, so I took a seat.

“I absolutely want the diary,” Bellow continued. “The exhibit will be nothing without the supporting elements of various whaling towns involved in these voyages. And reach out to Smith in Hudson for the example of a captain’s wife’s diary.”

Agnes returned to her station, and immediately I noticed her wrinkled brow and pursed lips.

“You’re interested in the Cooper Thieves?” she said, placing a piece of paper onto her desk. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Walking back to her desk, I looked at the single page she had produced. I suspected it wasn’t Mary Backus’s diary, but I was surprised and a little confused, by what I saw. The page contained a list of names, with Agnes’s among them. I seemed to be looking at her family tree.

“I can tell you all you want to know,” said Agnes. “Patience Cooper was a member of my family.”

“Patience?”

My eye fell to the name Patience Hussey Cooper on the paper between us. I let the name settle in. I could almost feel my pupils dilate with interest.

“You know her story?” I said.

“Stella,” she said, laying her hand protectively over her family tree, “I’ll be honest. Not many of us left are familiar with the story. It’s one of those skeletons in the closet we try not to remember. Before I say anything more, why are you asking?”

“I think she might have lived at the Morton house,” I said.

“Really?” said Agnes, looking shocked that anything to do with the story was coming up.

Agnes sighed. I knew that she loved a good story. As much as she wanted to let it lie, it would be impossible for her not to tell me more.

“In the 1830s, Patience Hussey Cooper, a motherless only child, worked on Petticoat Row. When she was in her late teens, she fell in love with a sailor, Jedediah Cooper. He was a wash-ashore, arriving on Nantucket from a whaling voyage he’d joined in the South Pacific.”

“You know your stuff,” I said, genuinely impressed and wondering how Jedediah fit in to Agnes’s family story. I still wasn’t sure if I’d found the right Coopers, but I was eager to hear more.

“Jedediah wasn’t a Quaker, but he was handsome and charming,” she said, as if she’d met the man herself. “As you can imagine, Patience wasn’t the only girl who had her eye on him. She and her best friend, Nancy Holland, competed for Jedediah’s affections. By all accounts, Patience was not the more beautiful of the two, but he chose Patience. Probably because her father had just died, and Jedediah could pick up her family’s business and settle down from a life at sea without much difficulty. The Coopers made candles, you know.”

“I didn’t, but that’s a very helpful detail,” I said, my confidence rising that I’d found the right Coopers to investigate further. It was a thrilling, yet surreal possibility, since all the characters had been dead and gone for so long.

“Nancy and Patience worked on Petticoat Row together. They were seamstresses. They were also savvy women. Shortly after Patience and Jedediah married, there was a whaling ship about to set sail around the horn of South Africa. The ladies decided to invest in the voyage, in hopes of making a tidy sum if the enterprise went well.”

“People could do that?” I said.

“Oh, yes. It was like buying stocks, but you might have to wait years for a return,” said Agnes. “Anyhow, Nancy was in charge of taking the women’s funds to the vessel’s captain on behalf of the investors. Legend has it, she was sick that morning, so Patience offered to conduct their business instead. Nancy gave her the money, and Patience headed off. That night, however, Jedediah told the neighbors that Patience had been beaten and the money stolen as she made her way to the ship. He told everyone he was going to take Patience to the mainland for medical attention on a boat that was about to leave for the Cape. That was the last anyone saw of the Coopers and the Petticoat Row ladies’ money.”

“The Cooper Thieves,” I said, remembering the headlines. “They stole the money and hightailed it. The end?”

“The end. And a terrible end at that,” said Agnes, shaking her head in disapproval, even all these years later.

As excited as I had initially been about the candle connection, I now felt I was back to square one. I was looking for a murdered woman, not two con artists who had skipped town. Although both stories included candle makers, there didn’t seem to be anything in Agnes’s tale that ended with a dead body.

“You can see why we like to let this one lie,” Agnes said. “But you think she lived at the Morton house? I have to admit it’s interesting to know that.”

“Actually, in spite of the name Cooper and the candle connection, I don’t think it’s the same family. You see, I found a skeleton in their old chandlery with the sign for Cooper’s Candles above it, but I’m in search of a murderer, not thieves. There must have been more Coopers on Nantucket than I ever realized.”

“A dead body?” she said. “Oh, lordy. I hope they didn’t kill people while they were at it. I’ll keep searching for you. Maybe I can come up with something that could help.”

“Knock, knock,” said Bellows.

We turned to find the island’s popular historian in his patched jacket standing at a cautious distance. I could now see that he was quite tall, which was not what I had expected, having only seen him hunched over his books. I wondered when he’d come downstairs, and how long he’d been there.

“I have a list of periodicals and diaries for you to find for me, Ms. Agnes,” he said, and gave us both a smile. “I don’t think we’ve met,” he said to me, handing me his card. “Jameson Bellows.”

“Welcome to Nantucket,” I said.

“Keep in touch,” said Agnes to me.

“I will,” I said. “And try the word, layered, for tiramisu part.”

The tightness in her face faded and was replaced with a smile as she glanced at her crossword puzzle.

“Thanks, Stella,” she said.

She filled in the word, then took Bellows’s list and disappeared as my phone pinged an update from Peter. His note informed me that I had twenty minutes until maximum low tide, when the “city” of crabs was revealed. It was an invitation I now decided to accept. I nodded politely to Bellows, who seemed to be searching for something else to say to me, and headed out the door.