Whistling Past the Graveyard Page 4

  After a moment’s pause Holmes asked, “What did Dr. Knapp determine was the cause of your daughter’s death?”

  Mrs. Heaster sneered. “At first he called it an everlasting faint. I ask you!”

  “That’s preposterous,” I cried. “All that says is that he had no idea of the cause of death.”

  “There was a lot of such criticism,” agreed Mrs. Heaster, “and so when he filed his official report Dr. Knapp changed it to ‘female trouble,’ which shut every mouth in the county. No one will talk of such things.” She made a face. “People are so old fashioned.”

  “Was there any history of gynecological distress,” I asked, but she shook her head.

  “Nor were there any complications during the birth of her son. She was a healthy girl. Strong and fit.”

  I shot a covert glance at Holmes, who was as likely as anyone to steer well clear of such delicate matters, and indeed his face had a pinched quality, but his eyes sparkled with interest. “In your letter you allude to murder,” he said.

  “Murder it is, Mr. Holmes. Brutal murder of the boldest kind.”

  “And the murderer? You believe it to be Trout Shue?”

  “I know it to be him!”

  “How is it that you are so certain?”

  “My daughter told me.” She said it without the slightest pause.

  “Your…dead daughter?”

  “Yes, Mr. Holmes. For several nights she has come to me in dreams and told me that she was murdered by Trout Shue. She is caught between worlds, trapped and bound here to this world because of the evil that was done to her. Until justice is served upon her killer my daughter will wander the earth as a ghost. That, gentlemen, is why I implore you to help me with this matter.”

  Holmes sat still and studied Mrs. Heaster’s face, looking—as indeed I looked—for the spark of madness, or the dodgy eye-shift of guile—and he, like I, saw none. She was composed, clear and compelling, which neither of us had expected considering the wild nature of her telegram. Holmes sat back and steepled his fingers. The long seconds of his silent deliberation were counted out by an ornately carved grandfather clock and it was not until an entire legion of seconds lay spent upon the floor that he spoke.

  “I will help you,” he said.

  Mrs. Heaster closed her eyes and bowed her head. After a moment her shoulders began to tremble with silent tears.

  -4-

  “Surely you don’t believe her, Holmes,” I said as we cantered along a byroad on a pair of horses the good lady had lent us. Holmes, astride a chestnut gelding, did not answer me as we made our way through sun-dappled lanes.

  It was only after we had reached our Lewisburg inn and handed the horses off to a stable lad that Holmes stopped and looked first up at the darkening late afternoon blue of the American sky and then at me.

  “Do you not?” he replied as if I had just asked my question this minute instead of an hour past.

  I opened my mouth to reply, but Holmes would say no more.

  -5-

  The very next morning found us in the telegraph office where Holmes dictated a dozen telegrams and left me to pay the operator. We then went to municipal offices where Holmes demanded to speak to the county prosecutor, one Mr. John A. Preston. Upon presenting his credentials Mr. Preston first raised bushy eyebrows in surprise and then shot to his feet.

  “Dear me!” he said.

  Holmes gave him a rueful smile. “I perceive that I am not entirely unknown even this far from London.”

  “Unknown! Good heavens, Mr. Holmes, but there is not a lawman in these United States who has not heard of the great Consulting Detective. Why, not eight months ago I attended a lecture in Norfolk on modern police procedure in which the lecturer thrice quoted from your monographs. I believe it’s fair to say that the future of police and legal investigation will owe you a debt, sir.”

  Preston’s words penetrated even Holmes’ unusually unflappable cool and for a moment he was at a loss for words. “Why thank you, sir. If only Scotland Yard were as progressive in their thinking.”

  “Give them time, Mr. Holmes, give them time. A prophet is never accepted in his own country.” Preston laughed at his own witticism and waved us to chairs. “What can I do for the great Mr. Sherlock Holmes?”

  “I will get right to it, then,” said Holmes, and he told Preston everything Mrs. Heaster had told us, even to the point of handing him her letter for examination. Preston chewed the fringe of his walrus mustache as he handed the letter back.

  “Mrs. Heaster has already been to see me,” he admitted.

  “And have you done nothing?”

  Preston cleared his throat. “To be honest, Mr. Holmes, superstition abounds in these parts. Though we are fairly modern here in Lewisburg, much of West Virginia is still wild and a good many of my fellow citizens are deeply superstitious. Everyone has a tale of a ghost or goblin, and this would not be the first time I’d had someone sitting in that very chair there telling me of knowledge shared with them from a friend or relative months or years in the grave. Wild-eyed kooks, Mr. Holmes; superstitious country bumpkins.”

  “And is it your opinion, Mr. Preston, that Mrs. Heaster is another wild-eyed kook?” Holmes’ tone was icy, for indeed the woman had impressed my friend with her calm clarity.

  “Well,” Preston said cautiously, “after all, her daughter’s ghost…?”

  “You are not a believer?”

  “I go to church,” Preston said but would venture no further.

  “You have, I hope, had at least the courtesy to read the transcript of the case, including the remarks of the county coroner?”

  “No sir...I confess that I did not take the case seriously enough to care to investigate further.”

  “I do take it seriously,” said Holmes with asperity.

  They sat there on opposite sides of Preston’s broad oak desk, and as I watched the prosecutor I realized that it was possible for a seated man to give the impression of coming to full attention and even saluting without so much as moving his hands.

  “If you will do me the courtesy of coming back tomorrow at ten o’clock,” he said, “I will by then be fully familiar with this case.”

  Holmes stood. “Then we have no more to talk about until then, Mr. Preston. Good day.” We left and outside Holmes gave me a wink. “I believe we have lit a fire there, Watson.”

  -6-

  Preston was better than his word and not only read the case but officially re-opened it. At Holmes’ urging he sought approval from the judge to exhume the body of Zona Heaster-Shue. Holmes and I attended the autopsy, which was held in an empty schoolhouse, the children having been sent home for the day. It was the custom of West Virginia, perhaps of this part of America, for family members, witnesses, and the accused to all be present during the post mortem. I found this deeply unsettling, but Holmes was delighted by the opportunity to study Trout Shue in person for we had not yet met the gentleman in question.

  He entered with a pair of burly constables behind him but Shue was so massive a man that he dwarfed the policemen. He had the huge shoulders and knotted muscles of a blacksmith. His hair and eyes were dark, and there was a cruel sensuality to his mouth. His jaw was thrust forward in resentment and he made many a protestation of his innocence and expressed deep outrage at this unnecessary violation of his wife.

  “I’ll see you all in court for this!” he bellowed as we gathered around the body that lay exposed and defenseless on the makeshift table.

  “I hope you shall,” replied Holmes and the two men stared at each other for a long moment. I could feel electricity wash back and forth between them as if their spirits dueled with lightning bolts, parrying and thrusting on a metaphysical level while we watchers waited in the physical world.

  Finally Shue curled his lip and turned away, the first to break eye-contact. He flapped an arm in apparent disgust. “Do what you must and be damned to you. You will never prove anything.”

  I broke the ensuing silence by st
epping to the coroner’s side. “I am entirely at your disposal,” I said. He nodded in evident relief, throwing worried looks at Shue.

  We set about the dissection. Zona Heaster-Shue had been in the ground for weeks now but her body was not nearly as decomposed as I had expected in this temperate climate. The flesh yielded to our blades if the skin were yet infused with moisture. It was unnerving, and dare I say it—unnatural; but we plowed ahead.

  We examined her all over but as we proceeded Holmes quietly said, “The throat, doctors. The throat.”

  We cut through the tissue to examine the tendons, cartilage and bone. The coroner gasped, but when he dictated his findings to the clerk his voice was steady.

  -7-

  “…the discovery was made that the neck was broken and the windpipe smashed,” said the coroner from the witness box in the courtroom. “On the throat were the marks of fingers indicating that she had been choked. The neck was dislocated between the first and second vertebrae. The ligaments were torn and ruptured. The windpipe had been crushed at a point in front of the neck.”

  From the spectators’ gallery I watched as the findings struck home to each of the twelve jurors, and I saw several pairs of eyes flick toward Trout Shue, who sat behind the defense table, his face a study in cold contempt.

  In was hot in the courtroom as a June sun beat down upon Lewisburg. Following the arrest of Trout Shue, Holmes and I had returned to England, but a summons from Mr. Preston had entreated us to return and so we had. Despite the autopsy findings it was by no means a certain victory for the prosecution. Shue at no time recanted his claim of innocence and the burden of proof in American law is entirely on the prosecution to establish without reasonable doubt that the accused was the murderer. The evidence as it currently stood was largely circumstantial. Overwhelming, it seemed to me, but in the eyes of the law things stood upon a knife-edge.

  During a break in the trial Mrs. Heaster accosted Mr. Preston. “You must let me testify,” she implored.

  “To what end, madam? You were not a witness to the crime.”

  “But my daughter—”

  Preston cut her off with some irritation, for in truth this was an argument they had revisited many times. “You claim your daughter came to you in a dream. A dream, madam.”

  “It was her ghost, sir. Her spirit cries out for justice.”

  Holmes gently interjected, “Mrs. Heaster, at very best this is hearsay and the laws of this country do not allow it as testimony. You cannot prove what you claim.”

  She wheeled on Holmes while pointing a finger at Preston. “Are you defending him? Are you saying that I should just be quiet and let my daughter’s murderer glide through this trial like the oiled snake that he is?”

  “Indeed not. In fact I have provided some evidence to Mr. Preston that he may find useful.”

  “What evidence?” Mrs. Heaster and I said as one.

  “Watson, do you remember that I sent a number of telegrams when we first arrived in Lewisburg?”

  “Of course.”

  “I cabled various postmasters in this region in a search for forwarding addresses for anyone of the name Erasmus Stribbling Trout Shue, or any variation thereof, and I struck gold! It turns out our Trout Shue has quite a checkered past. He has already served time in jail on a previous occasion, being convicted of stealing a horse.”

  “That hardly bears on—”

  Holmes brushed past my interruption. “Zona Heaster was not his first wife, Watson. Not even his second! Shue has been married twice before, and in both cases there were reports…”

  “…unofficial reports,” Preston interjected.

  “Reports nevertheless,” snapped Holmes, “that each of his previous wives suffered from the effects of his violent temper. His first wife divorced him after he had thrown all of her possessions into the street following an argument. She, of the three Mrs. Shues, survived this man; her successor was not so lucky.”

  “What do you mean?” demanded Mrs. Heaster.

  “Lucy Ann Tritt, his second wife, died under mysterious circumstances of a blow to the head, ostensibly from a fall—according to Shue, who was the only witness. The investigation in that case was as lax as it was here,” Holmes said and gave Preston a harsh glare. “No charges were filed and Shue quickly moved away.”

  “And came here and found my Zona.” She shivered and gripped Preston’s sleeve. “You must secure a conviction, sir. This man is evil. Evil. Please for the love of God let me testify. Let me tell the jury about my daughter, about what she told me. Let me tell the truth!”

  But Preston just shook his head. “Madam, I will try to introduce the evidence Mr. Holmes was clever enough to find, but it, too, is circumstantial. This man has not been convicted of harming any woman. I cannot even bring in his previous conviction for horse theft because it might prejudice the jury, and on those grounds the defense would declare a mistrial. I am bound by the law. And,” he said tiredly, “I cannot in good conscience put you in the witness chair and have you give legal testimony that a ghost revealed to you in a dream that she was murdered. We would lose any credibility that we have, and already we are losing this jury. I thank my lucky stars that the defense has not learned of your claims, because then he would use it to tear our case apart.”

  “But the autopsy report—”

  “Shows that she was murdered, but it does not establish the identity of the killer. I’m sorry, but please remember, the jury have to agree that there is no doubt, no doubt at all, that Shue is the killer; and I do not know if we possess sufficient evidence to establish that.” He began to pull her hand from his sleeve but held it for a moment and even gave it a gentle squeeze. “I will do everything that the law allows, madam. Everything.”

  She pulled her hand away. “The law! Where is justice in the law if it allows a girl to be murdered and her killer to walk free?” She looked at Preston, and at Holmes, and at me. “How many more women will he marry and then murder? How will the law protect them?”

  I opened my mouth to mutter some meaningless words of comfort, but Mrs. Heaster whirled away and ran from us into a side room, her sobs echoing like accusations in the still air of the hallway.

  Preston gave us a wretched look. “I can only do what the law allows,” he pleaded.

  Holmes smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. “We must trust that justice will find a way,” he said. Then he consulted his watch. “Dear me, I’m late for luncheon.”

  And with that enigmatic statement he left us.

  -8-

  The trial ground on and true to Preston’s fears the evidence became thinner and thinner, and the defense attorney, a wily man named Grimby, seemed now to have taken possession of the jury’s sympathies. Had I not looked into Shue’s face during the autopsy and saw the cold calculation there I might also have felt myself swayed into the region of reasonable doubt.

  Again and again Mrs. Heaster begged Preston to let her testify, but each time the prosecutor denied her entreaties and I could see his patience eroding as quickly as his optimism.

  Then calamity struck.

  When the judge asked Mr. Grimby if he had any additional witnesses, the defense attorney turned toward the prosecution table and with as wicked a smile as I’d ever seen on a man’s face, said, “I call Mrs. Mary Jane Robinson Heaster.”

  The entire courtroom was struck into stunned silence. Preston closed his eyes, looking sick and defeated. He murmured, “Dear God, we are lost.”

  I wheeled toward Holmes, but my friend did not look at all discomfited. Instead he maintained what the Americans call a poker face—showing no trace of emotions, no hint of what thoughts were running through his brain during this disaster.

  “Mrs. Heaster?” prompted the bailiff, offering his hand to her.

  The good lady rose with great dignity though I could see her clenched fists trembling with dread. To have been denied the opportunity to speak against this evil man and now to become the tool of his advocate! It was unthinka
bly cruel.

  “Holmes,” I whispered. “Do something!”

  Very calmly he said, “We have done all that can be done, Watson. We must trust to the spirit of justice.”

  Mrs. Heaster took the oath and sat in the witness chair, and immediately Grimby set about her, gainsaying niceties to close in for a quick kill. “Tell me, madam, do you believe that Mr. Shue had anything at all to do with your daughter’s death?”

  “I do, sir,” she said quietly.

  “Did you witness her death?”

  “No sir.”

  “Did you speak to anyone who witnessed her death?”

  “No sir.”

  “So you have no personal knowledge of the manner of your daughter’s death?”

  She paused.

  “Come now, Mrs. Heaster, it’s a simple question. Do you have any personal knowledge of how your daughter died?”

  “Yes,” she said at length. “I do.”

  Grimby’s eyes were alight and he fought to keep a smile off of his face. “And how do you come by this knowledge?”

  “I was told.”

  “Told? By whom, madam?” His voice dripped with condescension.

  “By my daughter, sir.”

  Grimby smiled openly now. “Your...dead daughter?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Are we to understand that your dead daughter somehow imparted this information to you?”

  “Yes, my daughter told me how she died.”

  The jury gasped. Preston could have objected here, but he had lost his nerve, clearly believing the case to be already lost.

  “Pray, how did she tell you?”

  Mrs. Heaster raised her eyes to meet Grimby’s. “Her ghost came to me in a dream, sir.”

  “Her ghost?” Grimby cried. “In a dream?”

  There was a ripple of laughter from the gallery and even a few smiles from the jury. Preston’s fists were clutched so tight that his knuckles were bloodless; while to my other side Holmes sat composed, his eyes fixed on the side of Mrs. Heaster’s face.