The Dalwich Desecration (7 page)

“As do we,” Colin assured as we sat down.

The giant man pulled over another chair and waved to the small monk still gaping mutely by the central table. “This is Brother Rodney. He helps me here and I thank God for him every day. I would be lost without him.” The little monk nodded but did not smile or speak, reminding me yet again how distinctly opposed these two men were. “And I'm sure you will have guessed that I am Brother Green. I make sure everyone has food enough to stay healthy.” He chuckled as he cast a guilty glance down at his belly. “Some of us are perhaps a bit more healthy than others, but I have a rule never to serve anything unless I have tasted it first myself. Isn't that right, Brother Rodney?”

The little monk gave a quick nod, his countenance otherwise remaining resolutely stoic.

“You both do a fine job given what we ate here last night.” Colin smiled. “Is it true that everything is grown right here on the monastery's grounds?”

“God prefers that we take care of ourselves,” Brother Green explained simply. “Our lives are dedicated to the service of the Lord. There is no greater calling than that.” He quickly leaned forward, and added, “Of course, it isn't for everyone. But it isn't meant to be, you know.”

“We'd be a finite species if it were.” Colin flashed a brief smile, earning an unabashed chuckle from Brother Green. “But what can you tell us about Mr. Honeycutt? We understand he's a farmer who makes deliveries of eggs and such several times a week?”

“That he does. He's a wonderful man. We are very blessed to have him as a friend to us here.”

“He
and
his sons?” Colin prodded. “Brother Bursnell tells us he will sometimes bring one of them with him.”

“Not his youngest boy, Benjamin. He's only just turned eight. But the older boys—Edward, Daniel, and David—have all been here.”

“Four sons . . .” I noted as I scribbled down their names.

“And five daughters: Clare, Francine, Margaret, Louise, and little Josephine,” Brother Green grinned. “The missus bore him five sons as well, but God called one back home, bless his little heart. Fevers took him a couple of summers ago. But George Honeycutt's faith is strong and he did not question God's will.”

“And what is the regularity of their visits?” Colin asked.

“Every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday,” he answered. “They have never let us down.”

“Does Mr. Honeycutt ever send one of the boys alone?”

Brother Green shook his head thoughtfully. “Not very often. Mostly it's George and one of his lads, but there've been a few times when Edward came by himself. He's the oldest one.” He turned to his slight compatriot. “Wouldn't you agree, Brother Rodney?”

The little monk nodded his assent once again. I decided he was either painfully shy, which seemed ideal for the life of a monk, or else overshadowed by the grandiosity of Brother Green.

Colin opened his mouth to say something when the sound of the kitchen door swinging open behind us interrupted him. I craned around to find Brother Morrison in the doorway with a handsome young man who didn't look yet out of his twenties by his side. It was immediately evident that the younger man was not a monk, as he wore a black suit with a white shirt and rust-hued vest, a perfect complement to his dark ginger hair. He clutched a black bowler in both hands and his strong, symmetrical features, while turned down in what appeared to be displeasure, still could not spoil his striking face.

“Here you are . . .” Brother Morrison grumbled with obvious irritation.

“Mr. Pendragon . . . ?” the young man interrupted.

Colin stood up with a wary smile and a single eyebrow arched skyward. “Might you be the constable of Dalwich we've been hearing about?”

“I am,” came his answer. “Lachlan Brendle.” If the man was surprised to be so easily marked he did not show it in the least as he stepped forward and shook our hands.

“We had heard you would be joining us today,” Colin continued with noticeably greater charity than he usually dispensed on the local constabulary, and I knew he was charmed by this handsome young man.

“I had every intention of doing so,” Constable Brendle replied in a quick, stiff voice, “but something has happened.” He hesitated, shuffling his feet and clearing his voice, which suddenly made him seem every bit as young as I thought him to be. “Mr. Chesterton told me I would find you here,” he continued, his voice remaining firm and steady, though I could now detect a thin hitch in his tone that made me suspect that whatever had happened, this young man was in over his head.

“What is it?” Colin asked.

“Maureen O'Dowd . . . the dark-haired barmaid who works for Mr. Chesterton . . . ?”

Colin nodded, a smile coming easily to his face. “Miss O'Dowd is a charming young woman with a devilish sense of humor.”

Constable Brendle's shoulders sagged almost imperceptibly as he struggled to hold Colin's gaze. “She has been murdered, Mr. Pendragon. Either sometime late last night or very early this morning. I need your help. I very much need your help.”

CHAPTER 7

T
he woods that surround Dalwich are neither thick nor dense, which was why Maureen O'Dowd's body had been discovered with the first light of the new day. As the carriage that bore Colin, Constable Brendle, and me pulled up near a patch of tall grass just off the road on the outskirts of Dalwich's west side, it looked almost as though the effervescent young woman had simply overindulged and passed out with her oversized coat yanked up over her face to protect her from the morning sun. But as we came to a stop, the taller of the two men standing near the body reached over and swept the coat from atop her to reveal that her repose was, in fact, quite unnatural. Her legs and arms were akimbo, and her dress was hiked to an improper height, her bodice ripped nearly fully open, making the intention of this attack woefully obvious.

“
What have you done?!
” Colin shouted as he leapt from the carriage.

“What . . . ?!” The other man guarding Miss O'Dowd's body recoiled as though he and his partner had been accused of the deed itself. The second gentleman was stockier and easily the older of the two, with the swarthy coloring of someone from the Middle East.

“Whose coat is that?” Colin seethed. “Who told you to touch it?”

“It's mine.” The first man winced when he answered. He was exceedingly tall and uncomfortably thin, and no matter what he said next, and I already suspected what it would be, I knew he was going to be condemned for it. “I was only trying to cover her indecency.”

“
Indecency . . . ?!
” Colin bellowed the very answer I had presumed. “She is not
indecent,
you damned fool, she is bloody well
dead
. And now you have most assuredly destroyed this crime scene by tossing your blasted bollocky coat over her.”

“I . . .” But the man had no defense and simply stopped speaking.

I almost found myself feeling sorry for him given that he had acted out of propriety rather than any sort of malfeasance, yet Colin was right. The damage was irrevocably done. In spite of Constable Brendle's expedient summons, this site would now prove to be as contaminated as most every other scene we were beckoned to.

“You must forgive his error.” Constable Brendle spoke up, his own mortification visible in the flush of his face. “I'm afraid we are all well beyond our means here. . . .”

Colin shook his head without uttering a word, choosing instead to move off toward Maureen O'Dowd's remains.

“I'm Ethan Pruitt,” I said to the constable's two men, attempting to defuse the situation even only slightly.

“Forgive me,” Constable Brendle responded at once as though the breach in etiquette had been his. “These are my men, Ahmet Masri,” he said, gesturing to the olive-skinned man, “and Graham Whitsett. They both serve as assistant constables and are invaluable to me.”

“I'm sure they are,” I allowed as I shook their hands, assuming this was the best a small town such as Dalwich could come up with. “And my partner is Colin Pendragon of London. A man who undertakes investigating with unfailing seriousness.” I gave a meager grin as I said it, though I had no intention of exonerating their foolishness just yet.

“As do we.” The constable spoke up again. “I do try to keep the three of us abreast of the latest techniques, but as we are a small town that suffers from little more than the occasional drunken escapade or a clipped item here and there . . .” He allowed a small, uncomfortable shrug. “Nothing like this . . .” He pursed his lips as he slid his gaze back to Miss O'Dowd's body. “It is unimaginable to have two such incidents.” He dragged his eyes back to me. “Which is why I am so grateful that Bishop Fencourt sent for the two of you to assist with the murder of Abbot Tufton. We . . .” He did not bother to finish his thought. Given what had already transpired at this scene there was little more that needed to be said.

“Helping to solve the abbot's murder is one thing,” I said to the three men, “but Mr. Pendragon and I had the pleasure of conversing with Miss O'Dowd last night. We both found her to be a delight, which makes this current turn of events especially upsetting.”

“Everybody loved Maureen,” Mr. Masri said in a soft, hesitant voice. “This cannot be . . .” He swiped the heel of a hand against his eyes and looked off toward the horizon as though trying to spy something there when, in truth, I knew he was only attempting to compose himself.

“If I have done anything to impede this investigation . . .” Mr. Whitsett started to say, his own voice tremulous at best.

“Mr. Pendragon will solve this,” I assured them when Colin did not bother to answer from where he was kneeling over the body.

“Did anyone come by or try to interfere in any way while you were waiting for me to come back?” Constable Brendle asked his men with a stern authority that belied his age as he was easily the youngest amongst the five of us. It made me wonder how he had managed to achieve his status at so youthful an age.

“A few folks went by on their way into town,” Mr. Whitsett answered first, “but we kept them moving along.”

“No one tarried or touched anything,” Mr. Masri hastily added, though it made little difference now.

“Why don't the two of you get back to town and direct the coroner out here when he arrives,” the constable instructed. “We have no need for our own coroner in Dalwich,” he explained to me, “so we share a man from Arundel with several nearby towns. He may already be here and waiting at my office.” We looked around and watched the constable's two associates waste no time in barreling off on their horses. “I must apologize again for the carelessness of my men. We have discussed maintaining the integrity of a crime scene, but there remains a great chasm between theory and practice,” he said loud enough for Colin to hear.

“What's done cannot be undone . . .” Colin muttered from where he remained crouched over Miss O'Dowd. His proximity to her body was enough to clutch my belly. It felt unfathomable that this cheerful, amusing young woman had been slain and so brutally discarded. No one deserved such an end, but Maureen O'Dowd, with her clever smile and caustic wit, was a character above the rest.

“Do you see anything of note, Mr. Pendragon?” Constable Brendle asked, and it was not lost on me that the young man had yet to move forward, either.

“There is much to see,” Colin answered gruffly as he leaned even closer over Miss O'Dowd's neck and décolletage. “Perhaps the two of you wouldn't mind pawing around a bit”—he abruptly lifted his head and looked back at us—“you know . . . from back there.” He flicked the ghost of a grin before immediately bending back to whatever he was studying.

“Are we looking for anything in particular?” the constable asked.

“Anything out of the ordinary,” Colin tossed back, just as I had expected.

I glanced over at Constable Brendle and found him already crouched amongst the grass along the side of the road, running his fingers through the bent weeds with great intent. He was, I decided, positively relieved at having finally been told what to do. “May I ask your age, Constable?” I simply could not resist as I too bent to fumble through the brush a short distance from the body.

“Twenty-eight,” he answered without diverting his attention from the task at hand.

“Impressive. And have you ever assisted on a murder investigation before?”

This time he did look over at me and I noticed his face bloom pink. “No, is it obvious?”

“Quite the opposite.”

“I read any textbook I can find and will even resort to fiction if I think its ideas worthy of consideration. It seems to me some of the most creative thinking comes from men like H. G. Wells and Jules Verne. Imagine if even a trifle of their whimsy should ever come true.”

Before I could fashion a response to such a flight of fancy, Colin spoke up. “The both of you should come here,” he said, leaning back and pointing to the path he had blazed when he'd approached the body. “Follow my tracks if you will.”

The young constable seemed almost rejuvenated by his foraging along the road's edge as he circled to where Colin was pointing before I could even fully regain my feet. “What is it, Mr. Pendragon? Have you found something?” he asked as he began to carefully pick his way toward him.

“Everything is something,” Colin muttered blithely, which I thought a maddening response. “Who found Miss O'Dowd's body?” he asked as I came up behind Constable Brendle, now likewise crouched down beside Colin.

“A local farmer was on his way to begin his deliveries in town,” Constable Brendle said. “He was on his way to the monastery, actually, with one of his sons. When they found Miss O'Dowd he sent the boy to fetch me.”

“George Honeycutt?” I asked.

The constable turned and stared at me. “How could you know that?”

“Mr. Pruitt is good with names and, as I am sure you are aware, they don't get many visitors at Whitmore Abbey.”

“Of course.” He nodded.

“Which son was he with?” I asked for no better reason than to see if I could remember which order the lad was in the Honeycutt family.

“Thankfully it was his boy David.”

“Thankfully?” Colin repeated.

“His oldest son, Edward, and Miss O'Dowd were known to have grown quite close over the last year. It would have been a terrible thing if he had been with his father this morning.” He let his eyes fall onto the desecrated body.

“A bit of good fortune then,” Colin stated grimly, but I knew he didn't believe any such thing. We'd never found fortune or chance as random as most people alleged. “Tell me what you see here,” he said to the constable, his words striking me oddly since they were usually meant for me.

Constable Brendle closed his eyes and shook his head. “The poor girl . . .”

I looked down at Miss O'Dowd and noticed two things at once: a startling redness in her slightly protuberant eyes, and a smear of pinkish fluid along her cheeks and jawline. The two symptoms seemed distinctly unique, yet I wondered whether Colin had found some correlation therein that I had not considered. There were signs of inflammation around her neck and her skin appeared pallid, making me suspect that she had been strangled. A quick glance along her body revealed neither bloodstains nor other points of damage, including a curious lack of scratches where her bodice had been torn asunder. I found myself sympathizing with Mr. Whitsett's determination to cover this poor woman, as the tableau was an offense to the grace and dignity of the vigorous person she had been. Yet I also knew there was a distinct tale being told in her having been left like this—most specifically about the man who had done it.

“Her face is so white,” the constable said in a whispered tone, “and yet there seems to be a pink hue around her jaw. And her eyes . . .” He looked up at Colin. “What has happened to her eyes?”

“She has been strangled,” he answered softly. “Such an action bursts the blood vessels in the eyes and almost always causes the fragile hyoid bone in the neck to break.”

“I believe I have heard of that . . .”

“It's a thin, U-shaped bone at the top of the larynx that serves as the host for a series of neck muscles. If you feel here”—Colin ran his fingers gingerly up along the underside of Miss O'Dowd's jaw—“you will be able to tell that it has been broken.” But Constable Brendle did not reach forward, instead choosing to simply nod his understanding. “I also don't believe she was murdered here,” Colin continued. “Miss O'Dowd was a woman of some substance and would not have been strangled without a struggle. You can see the evidence of that by the dishevelment and tearing of her clothing. Had she been garroted from behind it might have been possible to subdue her without as great a struggle, but the broken hyoid bone suggests an attack from the front. I'm quite certain the coroner will be able to lift at least one handprint from her throat. And if you look around the area”—he scanned his eyes across the underbrush and I found myself doing the same—“you will notice by the pristine state of the scrub and grasses nearby that no such struggle could have taken place here.”

“I've found countless horse prints and wheel ruts along the roadway.” Constable Brendle spoke up as he slid a hand through his wavy, dark ginger hair. “But I can't tell if any of them were made today or a month ago.”

“And you, Ethan?” Colin glanced over at me.

“I saw some newer horse tracks coming from the direction of the woods, but I can't be certain when they were made, either,” I answered, dissatisfied with my own response.

“More than one horse?”

“No.”

Colin's face remained bleak as he turned back to Miss O'Dowd's body. “I shall look then,” he mumbled. “Your other observation, Constable, is well-made. There is indeed a pinkish tone across the bottom of her face.” To my shock, he abruptly leaned forward and pried her mouth open. “If you will look you will see that her tongue has been rather badly removed.”

I felt the constable recoil beside me even as I felt compelled to lean slightly forward and gaze into the dark cavern of her mouth. A deeper rose color was smeared across her teeth and I could see the ravaged nub of her tongue lolled up against the back of her throat.

“Just like the abbot . . .” Constable Brendle blanched.

“Yes,” Colin said as he stood up. “So it would seem.” He glanced at me from over the top of the constable's head as I straightened up, and I could see that there was something exceedingly troubled within his gaze.