Silence the Dead Read online

  What critics say:

  The Albert Mysteries

  “Albert is one of my all-time favorite sleuths.” New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen

  “(The Albert Mysteries)…shine with comic brilliance. Crossman has a gift for creating characters…who should show up in further adventures of Albert. And there should be more.”

  Chicago Sun-Times

  “If you have ever aspired to be a private detective, here is some hilarious inspiration. Crossman’s delightfully offbeat tale of wacky academic politics contains a host of bizarre characters and an inexplicable homicide. Albert is indeed a unique, likeable operative. I certainly look forward to an encore.”

  St. Louis Post-Dispatch

  “The novel is an exercise in the comic style, defying disbelief. To his credit, Crossman brings it off nicely. Albert is clearly a survivor, likely to be heard from again.”

  Los Angeles Times Book Review

  “Crossman…creates an offbeat, sympathetic sleuth who meanders innocently through this tale like a lamb through a pack of wolves. Bravo. Encore! Publishers Weekly

  The Winston Crisp Mysteries

  “Crossman is a skilled mystery writer with a knack for suspense, clues, local color, and a flowing story. His creation, venerable Winston Crisp, is a compelling and likable old fellow whose reappearance in future stories will be warmly received.”

  Times Record

  “The writing is fast-paced and full of enough twists and turns to engage the most avid of mystery readers. Crisp is a delightful, plausible sleuth. I look forward to more Crisp books.”

  Maine Sunday Telegram

  “As clever as (this) premise is, as satisfactory as the complex plot may be to the mystery buff…it is the peripheral characters that make this book shine. Let’s hope Mr. Crisp and his pals survive the mayhem and entertain us again.”

  Ellsworth Weekly

  The Shroud Collector (formerly Dead of Winter)

  “Crossman has created a delightfully unique detective in Winston Crisp, who uses his brains, not his brawn. With the help of a charming cast of supporting characters, both author and sleuth triumph with panache.”

  Tess Gerritsen, New York Times best-selling author.

  “It is the author’s intimate portraits of life on a Maine island that pull this book together and give it character. Neither Nero Wolfe, nor Columbo, nor most of the rest of the thousands of storybook sleuths ever came close.”

  Brunswick Sun Journal

  “David Crossman is a wizard. The Shroud Collector is a charmingly crafted, magically airy book, not to be mistaken for a lightweight.”

  Kennebec Sunday Journal

  The Bean and Ab Mysteries

  “These well-structured tales never loses momentum. Bean and Ab are likable characters who move through the stories, unearthing clues that take them closer to solving mysteries past and present. Their youthful enthusiasm, investigative prowess, and endearing friendship make for interesting characterization. The carefully orchestrated chapters and the fast pace will hold children’s attention throughout.”

  School Library Journal

  “Impossible-to-put-down Maine mystery. Suspense builds neatly from chapter to chapter, and the ending is richly satisfying.”

  Bangor Daily News, Sunday

  “Crossman’s Secret of the Missing Grave is a gripping and well-imagined adventure mystery.”

  The Horn Book (Boston Globe)

  “Be warned…you’ll find this suspenseful volume as fascinating as your youngster will.”

  Portland Press Herald

  Copyright 2014 David Crossman

  Published by Alibi Folio Publishers

  2479 Murfreesboro Road, #170

  Nashville, TN 37217

  Printed in the United States of America

  Second edition

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2012918592

  All rights reserved. With the exception of brief quotations for the purpose of review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form without prior written permission of the author.

  ISBN 978-1-4800-3539-3

  Other than those individuals familiar to history, the characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to folks living or dead is entirely coincidental, not surprising, given that their characteristics are common to us all.

  Cover design: CiA

  Silence the Dead

  by

  David Crossman

  Alibi-Folio Publishers

  Nashville, TN, U.S.A.

  Dedication

  Raleigh Gardenhire, the Tattler,

  And my indefatigable editor, Barbara

  SILENCE THE DEAD

  Prologue

  County Kerry, Ireland – 1893

  “I was with ‘im when ‘e went over the cliff, Father!”

  The priest, his robe billowing in the wind as he rushed along the barren headland, had difficulty matching strides with the old shepherd, to whom every rock, root, and bush was as familiar as a family curse. “Is no one with him, then?” he yelled in ragged breaths.

  “No! Naught but me! ‘e was walkin’ the edge path when one’ve his damned beasts…pardon Father…one’ve his blessed flock startled at somethin’ an’ knocked ‘im over! When I got down to ‘im I says as I’d run f’r the doctor, but ‘e’d ‘ave none of it. He wanted you!” The shepherd flung further remarks over his shoulder, but the wind ran away with their meaning.

  At that moment the grassy path fell away toward the sea and the old man disappeared over the edge. The priest pulled up short of the precipice, breathless, and watched the shepherd descend, scorning gravity as he flung his loose amalgamation of sinew and bone toward the spume-pounded beach hundreds of feet below. Father O’Shields, choosing not to tempt physics with faith, grasped clumps of grass and let himself down the nearly-vertical slope with a delicacy becoming a man three times his age. Nevertheless, he arrived on the shore muddied and shite-streaked, but in one piece.

  Sedgework, the shepherd, was waiting, dancing fretfully from stone to stone around the body of his fallen companion. “O, Jesus, Mary, an’ Joseph, ’e ain’t dead, father!”

  That much was evident. Flanagan, his back bent over a hump of granite at an unnatural angle and his left leg crumpled backward under his torso, was losing blood from several wounds about his head and shoulders. But his chest rose and fell in spasms as he gulped at the frigid air of the North Atlantic. O’Shields ransacked his vestments for his Bible. “No time, Father!” Flanagan wheezed, the words barely audible over the course expulsion of his breath. He held up his arm. “Come . . . come ‘ere!”

  The priest’s knees creaked a painful complaint as he stooped over the dying man. Flanagan threw his arm around the priest’s neck, jerked him close, and pressed his lips to the ear of his confessor. “Forgive me Father, for I ‘ave sinned…”

  Los Pinos Creek, Colorado

  March 5, 1957

  In the course of researching his doctoral thesis on the Tierra Amarilla Land Grant, Regan Ryan had made the trip on the #41 freight train from Antonito, Colorado, to Chama, New Mexico, more times than he could count. This trip, however, presented a number of firsts. It was the first time he’d ridden in such luxury: One of Denver & Rio Grande Railway’s deluxe parlor cars – refurbished as a living museum piece – was being transferred to the Chama roundhouse for service. The car’s plush, high-backed chairs and their time-worn plaid fabric crowned with starched white antimacassars were an anachronism in a decade of chrome, plastic, and Elvis Presley, and contrasted sharply with the bench seats he was used to.

  The second first: In his experience the train had never before been stopped by snow so late in the season. Having spent countless
hours over the last six months talking to crew members, he’d learned enough about the trains of the D&RG to identify the number of every engine on the line by its whistle. He knew the idiosyncrasies of various sections of track, the names and personalities of the engineers, and the wives and children of the section heads from Cresco, to Cumbres, to Los Pinos, Osier, and Sublette. He had also learned, in gory detail, the notorious reputation of Cross Long Creek – where the brutal wind could stack up drifts of twenty to thirty feet in a few short hours – especially milepost 321 where the train had come to a standstill – but he somehow fancied no amount of snow could ever hinder stout-hearted engine 483.

  Then again, he’d never seen snow like this. True, it had been a record-setting year, but this was March. Nearly spring!

  Then there was the last first; his only companion in the car was an attractive girl about his own age who had boarded in Antonito and, for nearly three hours, kept aggressively to herself. Burying her head in a book, not once did she catch him looking at her . . . which was most of the time as there was nothing else to look at beyond the steadily falling curtain of white outside the windows. This was somewhat dispiriting in that it made the likelihood of conversation remote; however, it allowed him all the time in the world to study her, which he did unabashedly.

  A pleasant pastime.

  He got up and put a few more coals on the fire in the pot-bellied stove.

  “You may find it warmer by the fire,” he said.

  Finally she raised her eyes. “I’m fine, thank you.”

  He wandered casually toward her end of the car. She stiffened visibly at his approach, but he’d committed. It was too late to turn back now. “It’s going to get cold, I’m afraid. Especially all the way up here…so far from the stove.”

  She returned to her reading. “I’ll survive.”

  He cocked his head to look at her book. “‘Hemingway?”

  “Dickens.”

  “Oh, Dickens. ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…’.”

  “This is The Mystery of Edwin Drood, not A Tale of Two Cities,” she said coolly.

  Regan reddened and tugged at his collar. “I don’t, ah . . . I’m more of an historian. The name’s Regan.” Venturing all, he extended his hand. If she didn’t take it, it was going to be a long, lonely walk through the wilderness back to his seat.

  She looked at his hand, then at his face then, pleasantly and unexpectedly, smiled and shook his hand. “I’m Maryellen MacCartney.”

  Even the snow on the roof seemed to groan with relief. The worst was over.

  For a long time they engaged in small talk. He learned that she was a teacher from New Hampshire. She’d accepted a position at the middle school in Chama. It was her first job – she’d graduated Dartmouth in December – and her first trip west of Pennsylvania. She preferred the Four Freshmen to Elvis, I Love Lucy to Milton Berle, and – at least to the extent she had a preference at all – the Red Sox to the Yankees. She had two sisters, one older and one younger, and her family had a cabin on an island off the coast of Maine where they spent their summers.

  She learned his academic particulars – that he was from St. Louis, an only child who liked everything she didn’t, that his mother taught English, his father was an ear, nose, and throat specialist, and their family had never been on a vacation together that he could recall. He enjoyed hiking, pizza, and football, which she detested.

  After that, conversation flagged for a while, its echo drifting in that unsteady silence where relationships are forged or acquaintances ended. He was thinking about putting more coals in the fire when she spoke. “So, what’s there in Chama to interest an historian?”

  She’d touched upon his passion, and for the next hour and a half, there was no stemming the tide of his enthusiasm. The New Mexico Land Grants – of which the Tierra Amarilla Grant was a part – dated back to the 1500s and the machinations of the Spanish Crown to settle the territory. Through successive Mexican and U.S. governments, documented ownership of the land and its component parts had become about as convoluted a morass of claims and counterclaims that could be conceived by “the two fists of Satan, lawyers and entrenched bureaucracies” on all sides. His studies, however, had led to the discovery of certain personal documents – including the diary of an exceptional young boy, a copy of which he had with him at the moment – of a family whose extraordinary history had captivated his imagination and become his pastime; perhaps his passion.

  Chapter One

  County Kerry, Ireland – 1879

  “I’m sorry, boys. There was nothin’ I could do.” Doc Murphy ducked through the low doorway as he came out of the bedroom, vigorously wiping his hands on a flannel he’d brought with him. The refrain was both bitter and familiar on his tongue. He’d only been doctoring a year or two during the blight of ’48 – ’49 when, in town after town, village after village, hovel after hovel across the Irish countryside, he’d had to announce death.

  At first, in those days, he’d tried to couch the blow in soft language. It never worked. There was no dulling the edge of the Reaper’s blade and the response seldom varied: violent, or angry . . . or pathetic; sometimes all three in dizzying succession. Better that, though, than the fourth – apathy – expressed by those whom life had so beaten down they envied the dead.

  Thirty years’ experience told him it was best just get it over with. In this case it was harder than usual though: Josh Conlan had committed suicide.

  Murphy tried not to let his gaze be caught by that of Josh’s sons – both of whom he’d helped bring into the world; Thomas some sixteen or seventeen years past. Tiffin, what, eleven? Twelve? Last of all Katy, now asleep in the nook in the wall near the fireplace. Could it be five years ago already? The record was in his journal, the dreary chronicle he’d come to call his Book of the Dead. Alice, the children’s mother, had died not six months earlier as a consequence of any of the maledictions attendant upon grinding poverty. Take your pick. Now their father was gone as well. At the ripe old age of thirty-eight. Bloody waste. Suicide seemed redundant, somehow. He’d have starved to death in a week or two anyway.

  What would become of the Conlans who remained?

  Tiffin had been standing by the fireplace, immune, by long practice, to the smoke the wind stuffed back down the chimney. He was carefully inscribing something in the notebook he always carried. Murphy, anticipating the weeping that would come once the news sank in, lingered a little longer than necessary over the ceremony of washing his hands in the ice cold water of the tin basin, just to be there. When the time came, there would be nothing to do but withstand the onslaught; tears, accusations, wailing.

  He’d heard it all, even received physical blows from hearts so bloodied they mistook him for God: husbands who’d lost their wives, mothers who’d lost their children. Children who’d lost all hope. It was part of the job.

  “I read once,” he’d said to someone long ago, (no doubt at the pub, for that was where such recollections came to him) “there’s a heathen tribe somewhere on the back-side of bumpus that makes life-sized dolls of reeds and takes their grief out on ‘em. They might just hit ‘em a few times. Or twist their heads off, or set ‘em on fire or feed ‘em to the cattle in bits and pieces. Maybe then they eat the cattle. Who knows? Anyway, when it’s over, they just go on with their lives. All that hurt and anger bundled into that Judas Goat of a doll . . . and forgotten!

  “That makes me a kind of grievin’ doll, I suppose. Though not as effective.”

  In the present, Tiffin stood staring at the smoldering peat fire. “He’s with Ma now,” he whispered at the flames.

  Instinctively, Murphy reached out to put a hand on the boys’ shoulder, but thought better of it. The boy, bookish like his mother, was trying to be brave. Who knew how fragile the walls of his little fortress were? A simple touch might knock them down in ashes and tears.

  Thomas was standing in the doorway, staring at his father’s corpse on the bed, reading Mu
rphy’s mind. “You did what you could, Doc,” he said, speaking low so as not to wake Katy who, in her rope-lattice crib, continued to sleep the sleep of blessed ignorance. “Thank you for that.”

  In the darkness – wrapped in layers of shadows that made him feel like a storybook ogre in the tiny, low-ceilinged room of the cottage – Murphy shook his head. He was about to say, ‘Wish I could’ve done more …’ but the stoicism of the boys in the face of impending doom demanded something more than platitudes. “What you gonna do now, Thomas?” he asked. He knew the landlord – too strapped by taxes to keep a tenant who couldn’t work the farm, even if he was disposed to kindness – would have to evict the little orphan family, the demands of his mortgage-holders ringing louder in his ears that the muted sobs of suffering.

  For a moment, the boy didn’t respond. He sniffed a little and wiped his nose on the back of his dirty sleeve. “Bury him,” he said. “Up by Ma.”

  The funeral, Murphy knew, would be sparsely attended. That’s the way it was with suicides. Objections of the church aside, there was a deep suspicion in the region that the ghosts of suicides – shades, as the locals called them – forever caught in limbo, visit their torment on passersby, whispering the horrors of hell to the wind, which repeats it in the ears, baring it to the brain of the Unfortunate where, ultimately, unavoidably, it brings on madness.

  Murphy didn’t know how the boys would take the next bit of bad news. Their mother was buried in the church yard. Consecrated ground. Josh, having taken his own life, would no doubt be buried without ceremony in Sinner’s Bog, alongside all the others whom life, over the years, had heaped with more than they could bear.