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[9]CANTICLE ONE
I
JOHN KURTZ, the chief of the Boston police, breathed in some of his
heft for a better fit between the two chambermaids. On one side,
the Irish woman who had discovered the body was blubbering and
wailing prayers unfamiliar (because they were Catholic) and
unintelligible (because she was blubbering) that prickled the hair
in Kurtz's ear; on the other side was her soundless and despairing
niece. The parlor had a wide arrangement of chairs and couches, but
the women had squeezed in next to the guest as they waited. He had
to concentrate on not spilling any of his tea, the black haircloth
divan was rattling so hard with their shock.
Kurtz had faced other murders as chief of police. Not enough to
make it routine, though--usually one a year, or two; often, Boston
would pass through a twelve-month period without a homicide worth
noticing. Those few who were murdered were of the low sort, so it
had not been a necessary part of Kurtz's position to console. He
was a man too impatient with emotion to have excelled at it anyway.
Deputy Police Chief Edward Savage, who sometimes wrote poetry,
might have done better.
This--this was the only name Chief Kurtz could bear to attach to
the horrifying situation that was to change the life of a city--was
not only a murder. This was the murder of a Boston Brahmin, a
member of the aristocratic, Harvard-schooled, Unitarian-blessed,
drawing room caste of New England. And the victim was more than
that: He was the highest official of the Massachusetts courts. This
had not only killed a man, as sometimes murders do almost
mercifully, but had obliterated him entirely.
The woman they were anticipating in the best parlor of Wide Oaks
had boarded the first train she could in Providence after receiving
the telegram. The train's first-class cars lumbered forward with
irresponsible leisure, but now that journey, like everything that
had come before, seemed part of an unrecognizable oblivion. She had
made a wager with herself, and with God, that if her family
minister had not yet arrived at her house by the time she got
there, the telegram's message had been mistaken. It didn't quite
make sense, this half-articulated wager of hers, but she had to
invent something to believe, something to keep from fainting dead
away. Ednah Healey, balanced on the threshold of terror and loss,
stared at nothing. Entering her parlor, she saw only the absence of
her minister and fluttered with unreasoning victory.
Kurtz, a robust man with mustard coloring beneath his bushy
mustache, realized he too was trembling. He had rehearsed the
exchange on the carriage ride to Wide Oaks. "Madam, how very sorry
we are to call you back to this. Understand that Chief Justice
Healey..." No, he had meant to preface that. "We thought it best,"
he continued, "to explain the unfortunate circumstances here, you
see, in your own house, where you'd be most comfortable." He
thought this idea a generous one.
"You couldn't have found Judge Healey, Chief Kurtz," she said, and
ordered him to sit. "I'm sorry you've wasted this call, but there's
some simple mistake. The chief justice was--is staying in Beverly
for a few quiet days of work while I visited Providence with our
two sons. He is not expected back until tomorrow."
Kurtz did not claim responsibility for refuting her. "Your
chambermaid," he said, indicating the bigger of the two servants,
"found his body, madam. Outside, near the river."
Nell Ranney, the chambermaid, welled with guilt for the discovery.
She did not notice that there were a few bloodstained maggot
remains in the pouch of her apron.
"It appears to have happened several days ago. Your husband never
departed for the country, I'm afraid," Kurtz said, worried he
sounded too blunt.
Ednah Healey wept slowly at first, as a woman might for a dead
household pet--reflective and governed but without anger. The
olive-brown feather protruding from her hat nodded with dignified
resistance.
Nell looked at Mrs. Healey longingly, then said with great
humanity, "You ought to come back later in the day, Chief Kurtz, if
you please."
John Kurtz was grateful for the permission to escape Wide Oaks. He
walked with appropriate solemnity toward his new driver, a young
and handsome patrolman who was letting down the steps of the police
carriage. There was no reason to hurry, not with what must be
brewing already over this at the Central Station between the
frantic city aldermen and Mayor Lincoln, who already had him by the
ears for not raiding enough gambling "hells" and prostitution
houses to make the newspapers happy.
A terrible scream cleaved the air before he had walked very far. It
belched forth in light echoes from the house's dozen chimneys.
Kurtz turned and watched with foolish detachment as Ednah Healey,
feather hat flying away and hair unloosed in wild peaks, ran onto
the front steps and launched a streaking white blur straight for
his head.
Kurtz would later remember blinking--it seemed all he could do to
prevent catastrophe, to blink. He bowed to his helplessness: The
murder of Artemus Prescott Healey had finished him already. It was
not the death itself. Death was as common a visitor in 1865 Boston
as ever: infant sicknesses, consumption and unnamed and unforgiving
fevers, uncontainable fires, stampeding riots, young women
perishing in childbirth in such great number it seemed they had
never been meant for this world in the first place, and--until just
six months ago--war, which had reduced thousands upon thousands of
Boston boys to names written on black-bordered notices and sent to
their families. But the meticulous and nonsensical--the elaborate
and meaningless--destruction of a single human being at the hands
of an unknown...
Kurtz was yanked down hard by his coat and tumbled into the soft,
sun-drenched lawn. The vase thrown by Mrs. Healey shattered into a
thousand blue-and-ivory shards against the paunch of an oak (one of
the trees said to have given the estate its name). Perhaps, Kurtz
thought, he should have sent Deputy Chief Savage to handle this
after all.
Patrolman Nicholas Rey, Kurtz's driver, released his arm and lifted
him to his feet. The horses snorted and reared at the end of the
carriageway.
"He did all he knew how! We all did! We didn't deserve this,
whatever they say to you, Chief! We didn't deserve any of this! I'm
all alone now!" Ednah Healey raised her clenched hands, and then
said something that startled Kurtz. "I know who, Chief Kurtz! I
know who's done this! I know!"
Nell Ranney threw her thick arms around the screaming woman and
shushed and caressed, cradling her as she would have cradled one of
the Healey children so many years before. Ednah Healey clawed and
pulled and spat in return, causing the comely junior police
officer, Patrolman Rey, to intervene.
But the new widow's rage expired, folding itself into the maid's
wide black blouse, where there was nothing else but the abundant
bosom.
The old mansion had never sounded so empty.
Ednah Healey had departed on one of her frequent visits to the home
of her family, the industrious Sullivans, in Providence, her
husband remaining behind to work on a property dispute between
Boston's two largest banking concerns. The judge bid his family
good-bye in his usual mumbling and affectionate manner, and was
generous enough to dismiss the help once Mrs. Healey was out of
sight. Though the wife wouldn't do without servants, he enjoyed
small moments of autonomy. Besides, he liked a drop of sherry on
occasion, and the help was sure to report any temperance violations
to their mistress, for they liked him but feared her deep within
their bones.
He would start off the following day for a weekend of tranquil
study in Beverly. The next proceeding that required Healey's
presence would not be heard until Wednesday, when he would railroad
back into the city, back to the courthouse.
Judge Healey didn't notice one way or another, but Nell Ranney, a
maid for twenty years, since being driven out by famine and disease
in her native Ireland, knew that a tidy environment was essential
for a man of importance like the chief justice. So Nell came in on
Monday, which was when she found the first splattering of dried red
near the supply closet and another streaking near the foot of the
stairs. She guessed that some wounded animal had found its way into
the house and must have found the same way out.
Then she saw a fly on the parlor drapes. She shooed it out the open
window with a high-pitched clicking of her tongue, fortified by the
brandishing of her feather duster. But it reappeared while she was
polishing the long mahogany dining table. She thought the new
colored kitchen girls must have negligently left some crumbs.
Contraband--which is how she still thought of the freedwomen and
always would--did not care of actual cleanliness, only its
appearance.
The insect, it seemed to Nell, gurgled loud as a train's engine.
She killed the fly with a rolled up North American Review. The
flattened specimen was about twice the size of a housefly and had
three even black stripes across its bluish green trunk. And what a
phizz! thought Nell Ranney. The head of the creature was something
Judge Healey would murmur over admiringly before tossing the fly to
the wastebasket. The bulging eyes, of a vibrant orange color, took
up nearly half its torso. There was a strange tint of orange
glowing out, or red. Something between the two, something yellow
and black, too. Copper: the swirl of fire.
She returned to the house the next morning to clean the upstairs.
Just as she crossed through the door, another fly sailed like an
arrow past the tip of her nose. Outraged, she secured another of
the judge's heavy magazines and stalked the fly up the main
staircase. Nell always used the servants' stairs, even when alone
in the house. But this situation called for rearranging priorities.
She removed her shoes and her wide feet fell lightly over the warm,
carpeted steps, following the fly into the Healeys'
bedchamber.
The fire-eyes stared out jarringly; the body curled back like a
horse ready to gallop, and the face of the insect looked for that
moment like the face of a man. This was the last moment for many
years, listening to the monotonous buzz, that Nell Ranney would
know some measure of peace.
She rumbled forward and smashed the Review against the window and
the fly. But she had faltered over something during her attack, and
now looked down at the obstacle, twisted on her bare foot. She
picked up the tangled mass, a full set of human teeth belonging to
the upper chamber of a mouth.
She released it at once but stood attentively, as though it might
censure her for the incivility.
They were false teeth, crafted with an artist's care by a prominent
New York dentist to fulfill Judge Healey's desire for a smarter
appearance on the bench. He was so proud of them--told their
provenance to anyone who would listen, not understanding that the
vanity leading to such appendages should prevent any discussion of
them. They were a bit too bright and new, like staring right into
the summer sun between a man's lips.
From the corner of her eye, Nell noticed a thick pool of blood that
had curdled and caked on the carpet. And near that, a small pile of
suit clothes folded neatly. These clothes were as familiar as Nell
Ranney's own white apron, black blouse, and billowing black skirt.
She had done much needlework on his pockets and sleeves; the judge
never ordered new suits from Mr. Randridge, the exceptional School
Street tailor, except when absolutely essential.
Returning downstairs to put on her shoes, the chambermaid only now
noticed the splashes of blood on the banister and camouflaged by
the plush red carpet that covered the stairs. Out the parlor's
large oval window, beyond the immaculate garden, where the yard
sloped into meadows, woods, dry fields, and, eventually, the
Charles River, she saw a swarm of blowflies. Nell went outdoors to
inspect.
The flies were collected over a pile of rubbish. The tremendous
scent caused her eyes to tear as she approached. She secured a
wheelbarrow and, as she did, recalled the calf the Healeys had
permitted the stableboy to raise on the grounds. But that had been
years ago. Both the stableboy and the calf had outgrown Wide Oaks
and left it to its eternal sameness.
The flies were of that new fire-eyed variety. There were yellow
hornets, too, which had taken some morbid interest in whatever
putrid flesh was underneath. But more numerous than the flying
creatures were the masses of bristling white pellets crackling with
movement--sharp-backed worms, wriggling tightly over something, no,
not just wriggling, popping, burrowing, sinking, eating into each
other, into the...but what was supporting this horrendous mountain,
alive with white slime? One end of the heap seemed like a thorny
bush of chestnut and ivory strands of...
Above the heap stood a short wooden staff with a ragged flag, white
on both sides; it was flapping with the undecided breeze.
She could not help knowing the truth about what lay in that heap,
but in her fear she prayed she'd find the stableboy's calf. Her
eyes could not resist making out the nakedness, the wide, slightly
hunched back sloping into the crack of the enormous, snowy
buttocks, brimming over with the crawling, pallid, bean-shaped
maggots above the disproportionately short legs that were kicked
out in opposite directions. A solid block of flies, hundreds of
them, circled protectively. The back of the head was completely
swathed in white worms, which must have numbered in the thousands
rather than hundreds.
Nell kicked away the wasps' nest and stuffed the judge into the
wheelbarrow. She half wheeled and half dragged his naked body
through the meadows, over the garden, through the halls, and into
his study. Throwing the body on a mound of legal papers, Nell
pulled Judge Healey's head into her lap. Handfuls of maggots rained
down from his nose and ears and slack mouth. She began tearing out
the luminescent maggots from the back of his head. The wormy
pellets were moist and hot. She also grabbed some of the fire-eyed
flies that had trailed her inside, smashing them with the palm of
her hand, pulling them apart by the wings, flinging them, one after
another, across the room in empty vengeance. What was heard and
seen next made her produce a roar loud enough to ring straight
through New England.
Two grooms from the stable next door found Nell crawling away from
the study on her hands and knees, crying insensibly.
"But what is it, Nellie, what is it? By Jesus, you ain't hurt
now?"
It was later, when Nell Ranney told Ednah Healey that Judge Healey
had groaned before dying in her arms, that the widow ran out and
threw a vase at the chief of police. That her husband might have
been conscious for those four days, even remotely aware, was too
much to ask her to permit.
Mrs. Healey's professed knowledge of her husband's killer turned
out to be rather imprecise. "It was Boston that killed him," she
revealed later that day to Chief Kurtz, after she had stopped
shaking. "This entire hideous city. It ate him alive."
She insisted Kurtz bring her to the body. It had taken the
coroner's deputies three hours to slice out the quarter-inch
spiraled maggots from their places inside the corpse; the tiny
horny mouths had to be pried off. The pockets of devoured flesh
left in their wake spanned all open areas; the terrible swelling at
the back of the head still seemed to pulse with maggots even after
their removal. The nostrils were now barely divided and the armpits
eaten away. With the false teeth gone the face sagged low and loose
like a dead accordion. Most humiliating, most pitiable, was not the
broken condition, not even the fact that the body had been so
maggot-ridden and layered in flies and wasps, but the simple fact
of the nakedness. Sometimes a corpse, it is said, looks for all the
world like a forked radish with a head fantastically carved upon
it. Judge Healey had one of those bodies never meant to be seen
naked by anyone except his wife.
Excerpted from THE DANTE CLUB © Copyright 2011 by Matthew
Pearl. Reprinted with permission by Random House, Inc. All rights
reserved.
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