Death in the Details, page 1
DEATH IN THE DETAILS
A NOVEL
Katie Tietjen
To Matt, Liam, and Sean.
CHAPTER 1
Wednesday, October 16, 1946
“Twelve dollars and sixty-seven cents?”
Maple Bishop squinted at the check the lawyer had just handed to her. It had been eight weeks since her husband had died in a field hospital in France, and she still felt out of step with the pace of the world around her. Her eyes slid across the desk to the two lawyers seated there. They resembled a mismatched set of bowling pins. One was very tall and the other very short, but both sported round midsections. She stared back at the check in her hand, which shook ever so slightly, and then again at the taller man, Mr. Cross, the one who’d handed it to her.
“Yes,” he confirmed, averting his eyes.
There was a rushing in her ears. Her outstretched hand dropped to the desk like an anchor.
Maple found her voice. “But that’s impossible. There must be some mistake.”
The portly man on the right, Mr. Higgins, slid a paper across the desk to her. As Maple lifted her hand again to reach for it, she saw that her fingers left smudges on the desk’s surface, and she caught Mr. Cross’s almost imperceptible frown.
Time sped up. The early afternoon light streaming in through the squeaky clean windows brightened. Her scalp prickled. Her eyes skipped over most of the words on the sheet, bouncing off them, unable to absorb their meaning. The only words she could focus on were at the top of the sheet: William and Mabel Bishop. So formal. So … odd. She’d been “Maple” ever since a plumber misheard her introduce herself when she was two, and Jamie had thought it was so cute that he made sure the nickname stuck. And together, they’d always been Bill and Maple. Seeing their full names written out like that looked surreal, like something out of someone else’s life.
“So, what you’re saying is that the amount left to me from the settlement of my dead husband’s estate is twelve dollars?” she said.
Mr. Higgins cleared his throat and offered helpfully, “And sixty-seven cents.”
She blinked and turned to him. He, too, looked away.
Heat rose to her cheeks. “Explain to me, please, how this is possible. How is the estate of a successful practicing physician who died defending our country”—her voice was getting shrill; she paused, took a breath, and then finished—“worth just under thirteen dollars? I gave you his ten-thousand-dollar life insurance check from the government yesterday, and you’re giving me back this?”
The lawyers exchanged an uneasy glance. Finally, Mr. Higgins spoke.
“I understand your consternation, ma’am. We didn’t have much of a chance to get to know him before he left for war, of course, but Dr. Bishop was starting to make an impression on townspeople.”
This attitude was one of the things Maple resented about Elderberry—if you hadn’t been born and lived your entire life within these arbitrary geographic confines, you weren’t truly a member of the town, nor would you ever be. She and Bill had fled the noise and filth of Boston for a peaceful rural life nearly three years ago only to find it came with its own set of disappointments.
And the ghosts of the past she’d tried to leave behind had followed her, too. She tugged at the cuff of the worn blue peacoat that used to belong to her brother, realizing she hadn’t even had a chance to remove it after entering the office. Mr. Cross had been so quick to hand her the check.
The lawyer mumbled something about nonviable business habits and said Bill’s practice had been “in the red.”
Maple pictured Bill at the dinner table each evening, loosening his polka-dot bow tie and chatting about the patients he’d seen. He was a hard worker, but Maple knew all too well that his big heart always outweighed his financial savvy. He’d treat anyone who walked in the door of his home office, whether they could pay or not.
Maple had been surprised the first time freshly baked bread had appeared on their doorstep, but quickly learned it was people’s way of paying Bill when they couldn’t do so in a more traditional manner. This, her husband had told her proudly, was how things were done in Elderberry. The townspeople had been doing this for the recently retired Dr. Murphy for decades, and Bill found it charming. Maple wasn’t so sure, but regardless of her misgivings, eggs, cookies, and even casseroles soon followed.
But casseroles wouldn’t pay her bills now.
Maple closed her eyes and swallowed her pride. “Are you … quite sure you can’t use my services here?”
Maple, who’d arrived in Elderberry ready to put her law degree to work, had found that the men in charge were not ready to put her to work. She’d responded to The Law Offices of Higgins and Cross’s “help wanted” advertisement right after she and Bill had moved to town. They’d politely declined to hire her. On her way in this morning, she’d walked right by the desk of the young man they’d hired instead.
“We’re quite sure.” Mr. Cross smiled tightly. “We’re very sorry for your loss, Mrs. Bishop—for all of our loss, in fact, as the entire community mourns Dr. Bishop’s death—but there are other clients. If we could wrap this up …”
Maple’s cheeks went hot with shame. And to think she had felt rich mere minutes earlier, striding into this meeting expecting that the government’s insurance payment, inadequate though it may have been in exchange for Bill’s life, would provide her with a comfortable living while she figured out her next steps.
Now, she thought of her dollhouses—all those tiny, silent replicas of real life that she spent hours painstakingly constructing—and of the dolls inside them, created from cotton and buckshot, damned to smile for all eternity because she, Maple, had painted their mouths onto their tiny, porcelain faces.
Trapped.
And now Maple was trapped too, stuck in a small town where her brain and legal training would fester, where memories of Bill were everywhere. It didn’t matter that she’d worked herself to the bone to become the first female graduate of Boston City Law School. Her diploma and her training meant nothing if no one would hire her because of her gender.
It had been a mistake to come here. There was no such thing as a fresh start after all. She glared from one man to the other.
“I have a mortgage to pay,” she said, her voice rising, “twelve dollars and sixty-seven cents to my name, no source of income, and no husband.”
The men exchanged a sideways glance.
“Perhaps your father or a brother—”
“Gone. Dead.” A lump rose in her throat, and she gripped the cuff of her jacket again.
“Our condolences.” Mr. Cross tapped a folder twice on the table and checked his watch. “Well, Mrs. Bishop, it’s been a pleasure meeting with you, but I’m afraid it’s time for us lawyers to embark on an important part of our day: lunch.”
He chuckled at his own joke.
Maple tilted her head. “But you’ve already eaten lunch.”
A flush spread across Mr. Higgins’ neck. “Pardon me?”
She pointed at Mr. Cross’s chin. “There’s a dab of mustard just there.” She turned to Mr. Higgins. “And you have what appears to be a bit of roast beef stuck in your mustache.”
“Well, I—” Mr. Higgins sputtered.
“Not to mention the crumpled napkins in the trash can near the door,” Maple went on. “And the fact that it’s already one thirty in the afternoon, and the sign on the front door says your office closes from twelve to twelve forty-five for lunch. You’re just trying to get rid of me.”
“We are doing no such thing,” Mr. Cross said, swiping at the mustard on his chin. He stood up fast and knocked his chair over. Then he strode to the door and yanked it open. “Good day, Mrs. Bishop.”
She’d done it again—been too honest, as her friend Charlotte would tell her. She’d said just that on numerous occasions when Maple had bluntly pointed out something others would leave unsaid—or fail to notice at all. Maple pictured the exasperated expression Charlotte reserved just for her, just for situations like this, and heard her gently chiding voice: “Don’t antagonize them, Maple. You’ll catch more flies with honey than vinegar.”
But it was too late. For better or for worse, vinegar had always come more easily to her than honey. Given her nickname, the irony was not lost on Maple.
She wanted so badly to leave that check lying there, along with her fingerprints, to stand up and stalk out with her last shred of dignity intact. Instead, she grabbed the check, shoved it in her pocket, and pressed her arms to her sides so the lawyers wouldn’t see the sweat dampening the armpits of her shirt.
She rose from her chair and held her shoulders high. She pointed at Mr. Cross’s chin.
“You missed,” she said as she swept past him and out into the hall.
CHAPTER 2
The door slammed behind Maple. She stalked down the hall, past the desk of the man they’d hired instead of her, and pushed open the office’s door. The mid-afternoon air was warm for October, but it still felt cool on her hot cheeks. Even though she was a relative newcomer to Vermont, Maple already knew better than to expect this weather to last. The steel blade of winter lurked, ready to fall with a mere moment’s notice.
She tugged at her jacket, a faded cornflower peacoat that was too big around the shoulders and clearly meant for a solid man, not a petite woman. Maple knew from the raised eyebrows and pointed looks that people thought it looked ridiculous, but she didn’t care. She’d started wearing it right after Jamie died, when it still smelled like him. In
From the pockets, she retrieved her gloves. Unlike the coat, the gloves were dainty and fancy. They had little maple leaves embroidered on the wrists and had been a birthday gift from Bill, one of the last things he’d given her before he left for war. Her gaze lingered on the tiny leaves for a long moment before she set off again.
Main Street in Elderberry, Vermont, bustled. Other shoppers strode past with purpose, carrying their parcels. Despite her resolve not to wallow, Maple’s legs faltered underneath her as the thought hit her: What’s my purpose? She reached a hand out to the wall to steady herself and saw that she was outside Hamilton’s Grocery. A newspaper in the window screamed, “TEN HANGED AT NUREMBERG: NAZI WAR CRIMINALS EXECUTED.” Underneath, a photograph of a stern man wearing a gray suit glared at her, a reminder that the harsh reality of the war wasn’t actually that far away from sunny, quaint New England.
As though she needed that particular reminder. She moved her hand from the store’s brick exterior to her throat, where she felt her pulse racing.
Maple stepped back and caught sight of her own reflection in the window, her face hovering like a ghost over the dead Nazi’s picture. She should have felt vindicated—triumphant, even—about these executions, which had been carried out after a trial the whole world had observed. These men, after all, were the reason Bill was dead. If it hadn’t been for their despicable actions, her gentle husband, who’d been just over the age limit for the draft when the war started, wouldn’t have felt compelled to volunteer to go overseas and treat wounded soldiers as the war was winding down. For some reason, though, reading about the executions just left her feeling cold.
She took a deep breath and dropped her hand from her throat. Her face was flushed, and her unruly brown hair, which fell gracelessly somewhere on the spectrum between wavy and straight, frizzed out as usual. Maple detested hats, only deigning to wear one if the temperature dropped below twenty degrees. She cocked her head, taking in the lines around her eyes and the pinch of her forehead. She looked older than her thirty-one years.
The grocer’s door flung open, and a man burst out, nearly knocking her over. Maple pressed her back to the window and looked to her left and right. There were no other people on this stretch of sidewalk. The man, clad in overalls and a flannel shirt, turned his head and shouted over his shoulder back into the store: “You’re a liar!”
Another man, his face mottled behind his brown beard, followed him onto the sidewalk. This man towered over the first by at least a head, and both of them looked vaguely familiar to Maple. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the owner of the grocery store peek his head out the door and then quickly duck back in.
The bearded customer stuck his pointer finger right into the first man’s face. “Now, you see here, Elijah Wallace! I know you killed her.”
Maple gasped. She clapped a hand to her mouth and pressed her back harder into the glass display. In front of her, the two men glared at each other. Behind her, she could feel the dead Nazi’s unseeing eyes bore into her back.
Elijah Wallace’s thin face was mean and pinched. He hissed, “You can’t prove a thing, Mooreland.”
Mooreland thrust out his chest in a move that reminded Maple of a photograph she’d once seen of a silverback gorilla. He curled his meaty hands into fists.
Wallace smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You gonna hit me in front of a witness?”
The bigger man turned and saw Maple for the first time. The rage in his eyes pinned her to the grocer’s wall.
She wanted to run, but she was frozen—a motionless doll at the mercy of the man in front of her.
Mooreland dropped his hands to his sides. He looked back at Wallace. “Get out of my sight,” he growled, “and stay off my property.”
With that, he turned and stalked over to a large rust-red pickup truck. He hopped in and roared away, leaving a cloud of dust. Elijah Wallace smirked, and then turned and winked at Maple. She shrank back. He set off in the opposite direction, his gait uneven and halting.
Maple peeled herself off the wall, her heart thudding, and pressed a shaking hand to her throat.
CHAPTER 3
Sheriff Sam Scott’s dead-eyed stare didn’t alter in any way when Maple finished telling him what she’d just witnessed.
She sat across from him in his tiny office. It was the first time she’d met the county sheriff in person, though she’d seen him sometimes out and about. From this close up, she noticed that what had undoubtedly once been a crisp, bright, khaki uniform was now faded at the collar and the cuffs. The patches on the shoulder that designated him as the county sheriff were frayed around the edges.
Maple recalled her last experience with police officers. That had been back in Boston, and those officers had sharper, crisper uniforms, but possessed similarly cold stares even as they’d informed her that her brother was dead. That memory ratcheted up her impatience with the reaction of the law enforcement officer seated across from her now.
“Did you hear what I said? Mr. Mooreland accused Mr. Wallace of murder! Someone might be dead!”
The sheriff gave a long-suffering sigh, looked up at the ceiling, and ran his hand through his thick brown hair. He needed a haircut. Gray flecked the temples and also his thick eyebrows and bottlebrush mustache, which twitched as he answered.
“Those two are the bane of my existence.”
Maple blinked. Were all police this uncaring? Her anecdotal experiences with them thus far indicated that they were. Anger rose in her. “But Mr. Mooreland said—”
“I know what Mooreland said,” the sheriff replied, moving his gaze from the ceiling to Maple’s eyes. “Don’t get your pantyhose in a twist.”
Again, the face of that Boston policeman flashed to the forefront of Maple’s mind. Though it had been three years, she still recalled clearly how he, too, had addressed her in a condescending way, clearly having pegged Jamie as a lowlife and his death as a boon for society.
The sheriff’s voice pulled her back into the room. “Let me ask you this: Were you the only one who overheard this argument today?”
Maple pushed down her anger and forced herself to consider this question. She hadn’t thought about it before, so consumed had she been by what she’d overheard. Closing her eyes, she replayed the scene in her mind as though she were watching her own private picture show, able (as always) to recall the most minute detail of anything she’d seen. “Photographic memory,” her mother had always called it. Now, sitting safely in the sheriff’s office, she realized there had been two other men—they’d worn faded overalls and flannel shirts, just like Mr. Mooreland and Mr. Wallace—standing just off to the side, but well within earshot. In her mind’s eye, Maple saw them shake their heads and shrug their shoulders, not appearing the least bit concerned. And the altercation had happened just outside the grocer’s door, but he hadn’t poked his head out to investigate …
Her eyes snapped open. The sheriff was looking at her expectantly.
“There were two other farmers!” Maple said, her heart thudding. “Why haven’t they reported this as well?”
The sheriff inclined his head and made a “there-you-go” gesture with his hand.
“Because they know these guys. And they’re probably just as tired of them as I am.”
Maple was working herself into a state of righteous indignation. “How can you be so … so callous about this?” she demanded.
He sighed. “Look, it’s not what you think. Mooreland’s talking about Bessie, his prize cow. He found her dead in the field two days ago, her throat slit. He’s convinced Wallace did it in retaliation for Mooreland filing a dispute over a property line. They’re next door neighbors. This is just the latest in years of back and forth.”
Heat rose in Maple’s cheeks. She felt relieved and stupid at the same time. There were many subtleties of small-town life she was unfamiliar with. Gruff disputes between rural neighbors was one she’d need to add to her mental list.
