Barbara Hambly - Dead water

“My mama used to sing that song when she'd cook,” added Roberson's valet, old Winslow, coming over at the sound of January's singing. “She was from bayou country, but we didn't have bayous in Virginia where I was born. They'd sing in the tobacco-fields,

Oh hide me in the rock,

Oh Lord, oh Lord,

Oh hide me in the rock. . . .

His voice lifted in the rolling rhythm, echoing out over the dark water. “Then they'd go on, ‘ Oh hide me in the tree, Oh hide me in the earth, Oh hide me in the sea . . . .' We children would all know it was somebody who'd run, though I don't recall anyone ever tellin' us so.” He smiled reminiscently, looking back from a lifetime of clean, comfortable house-service, then shook his head. “One fella—from the plantation next to ours—he ran off, and hid out in our mule-barn for three weeks. Everybody on the place knew he was there, while the patrollers hunted clear up to Fairfax County. He finally got out in a wagon of hay.”

Molloy came down the steps again, strode past Rose and January to where Cain was just coming from checking the spancels on his slaves. As he swaggered past the dealer, the pilot said something quietly—impossible to hear, but the angle of his head, the crowding jostle of his shoulder, were like a shove.

Torchlight shone on Cain's pockmarked, impassive face as the bigger man jostled by. Winslow murmured, “Molloy better watch how he mess with that man. That's a hard man, an' no mistake.”

“They both strike me as hard men,” remarked Rose.

The gray-haired valet shook his head. “Molloy, he a loud man, an' he no gentleman, but he's not hard. Not hard like that Cain. A bully'll crowd a weaker man, or a nigger, someone who can't fight back, but he like a barkin' cur-dog. He think Cain ain't gonna push back, 'cause of that letter he's got—”

“Who's got?” asked January. “Molloy?”

Winslow nodded. “This mornin', when it start to rain so bad, I went to the stateroom to fetch Mr. Roberson's umbrella for Mrs. Roberson. Our stateroom's next to Mr. Weems's, and I heard someone movin' around in there. An' I stay still, wonderin' if it's Thu makin' Mr. Weems decent, or Mr. Weems himself . . . Mr. Roberson gives lectures about history at the University in Lexington, an' he's always tellin' me how there ain't no such thing as the dead walkin' or whisperin' or bleedin' when their murderer comes near, but I don't know about that. I seen some damn strange things in my life.”

He watched as Molloy moved on away toward the bow. In the darkness the end of Cain's cigar glowed briefly brighter, like the Devil's eye when Satan speculates evil in Hell.

“So I hears the door open an' I figures it got to be Thu, 'cause whatever I hear of haunts, they don't bother openin' no doors. But next minute I hear Mr. Molloy say, from out on the promenade, It's no good lookin'—I got it. ”

“Got what?” asked January in his most fascinated voice. And indeed he was—he traded a sidelong glance with Rose, and returned his gaze to Winslow's face.

“Got no idea,” replied the valet, shaking his head. “But Mr. Cain say from in Weems's stateroom, I don't know what you're talkin' about, an' Mr. Molloy said, Have it your way—BREDON. But if you don't want to see it printed in the Mayersville Gazette , you and I better come to an understandin' . Then he walked away—I heard his boots goin' off along the promenade—and Cain must have stood there in Mr. Weems's stateroom for two minutes 'thout movin', for I didn't hear a sound. Then he walks off, too, fast.”

“ Printed in the Mayersville Gazette,” repeated Rose, and propped her spectacles on her nose.

“So I think it got to be a letter,” concluded Winslow. “A letter Weems had that Molloy got hold of somehow. You mark my words, whatever they sayin' about your master”—he jabbed a finger at January—“it was either Mr. Molloy or Mr. Cain that pushed poor Mr. Weems overboard. You just mark my words.”

And he turned away to greet Andy and Jim as the two valets came down the steps, shaking their heads over the lateness of supper and the fact that the Silver Moon was likely to be sitting still until after midnight.

“Your words are definitely marked.” January watched as the three servants greeted one another and displayed tidbits abstracted from the galley or stateroom trays. “But unfortunately they won't do us much good until we can figure out a way Cain could have murdered Weems without Gleet becoming aware of it, or Molloy could have done so while he was in the pilot-house with Souter.”

“Molloy might not have been there constantly once Souter came on,” pointed out Rose. “I can easily see him leaving his replacement for a few minutes, saying he's going to check on the paddle after thrashing loose from the bar. . . .”

“And what?” asked January. “For him to have been gone any substantial length of time would rouse comment from Souter. And if Molloy had been on watch since six, he wouldn't have known where Weems was or what he was doing. It's not a big boat, but it would take time to search it. Still, we can ask.”

Sophie appeared a few minutes later, silent and a little standoffish—it was clear Mrs. Fischer had re-indoctrinated her in the villainy of January and Hannibal. It took twenty minutes of Rose's patient gossip and sympathy to return to the interrupted account of Theodora Skippen's nocturnal habits, with the only result being the information that Miss Skippen was in the habit of remaining dressed after she retired for the night when she was waiting for Mr. Molloy.

“If he didn't come straight there from the pilot-house at midnight, she would sometimes go up looking for him, or tap on the windows of the Saloon. But why would she have wished harm to poor Mr. Weems?”

“Perhaps she knew him earlier, in Natchez,” suggested Rose.

“No, I don't think so,” Sophie said. “Julie once spoke of Miss Skippen saying, when she was drunk, that Mr. Weems had a secret: You'd hardly think it of that silly little man, but that's what Mr. Molloy tells me. She meant that he was keeping Mrs. Fischer, but I think if she'd known him, she'd have said so. Julie says Miss Skippen isn't very discreet when she's had a few brandies.”

It was well and truly dark now, and the mosquitoes hummed thick as the trees on the bank faded to a sable wall. Close enough, January thought, for Levi Christmas and his boys to easily swim. But the Silver Moon couldn't go farther into the river, for fear of being caught by the current and swept down toward New Orleans again, and the hands came and went on the deck, carrying wood into the insatiable furnace maws. Every time January had walked along the starboard promenade he'd seen flies by the hundreds swarming around the shut door of Weems's stateroom, and latterly he had begun to smell the unmistakable sweet sickliness of the corpse inside. It was nearly fifty miles to Mayersville. Unless they caught up on a bar they should reach it by noon.

It would still make an unpleasant task for the undertaker.

And a worse one, he thought, for himself and Hannibal, to explain to the Issaquena County sheriff why they could not leave the Silver Moon.

Both Mrs. Fischer and Molloy knew that Rose was friend to Hannibal and him. Even if she remained with the boat, God knew what would happen to her, between Mayersville and Memphis, if she made it that far.

Winslow was right, he thought, looking sidelong at Rose's angular profile as she chatted with Sophie. He would lay money on Molloy or Cain having done the murder, despite having explanations for their whereabouts at more or less the moment of the crime, with a side-bet on Mrs. Fischer, night-dress and all.