Page 101 of The Frozen River

“All right.”

“You helped the others cut Joshua Burgess from the ice that morning? In November? He was found right off Bumberhook Point, near your boatyard.”

“Yes, he was. They came to me since the property’s mine. There were seven of us who did the job. Eight maybe. I can’t remember. It was dark and cold, and it was months ago now.”

And you were drunk by the time I got to the tavern, I think but do not remind him.

“But you had lanterns that morning? You saw well enough to cut him out? To know who it was?”

“Yes.”

I am careful, lowering my voice to a whisper in case Dr. Page has woken. “And what did you think?”

“Same as you, Mistress Ballard. That he’d been hung. Seemed obvious enough. All of us thought so.”

“But there was no rope?”

“Only the one they pulled Sam Dawin out of the river with. But nothing near the body.”

The sharp wail of a baby’s cry interrupts us, and Chandler looks to the top of the stairs.

“Thank you,” I say. “Now go see your son.”

He turns away and is about to bound up the steps, but I grab his jacket just in time.

“Not with this,” I tell him, and pluck the pipe from his hand. “No smoking near the baby. Bad for his new lungs.”

Chandler runs up the steps two at a time, and when he’s out of sight, I put the pipe to my own lips and draw. Chandler’s tobacco smells of cherries and chocolate. It is cased with molasses and topped with vanilla but tastes—as all smoke does—like smoke. Only a nicer, classier kind of smoke. The kind you pay for. The kind that comes in little pouches and smells of gentlemen and scholars. Tobacco. There is no soot or ash, and I don’t bother trying to blow a ring. I simply stand at the bottom of the stairs and let the cloud rise around my head as I ponder what Chandler has told me.

“Give me that,” Mrs. Ney says from behind me. For one moment I think the housekeeper is going to scold me. But instead she adds, “You’re doing it wrong.”

Then the wiry old silver-haired woman puts the pipe to her lips, hollows her cheeks, pulls, puffs, and blows out a perfect smoke ring that grows and grows as it rises until—a foot wide—it dissipates altogether.

POLLARD’S TAVERN

As I pass the tavern on my way home, two drunken patrons stumble out, and I catch a full, warm whiff of Abigail’s cooking. Mrs. Ney and I nibbled at dinner, but I’d had no appetite for the meal knowing that Dr. Page was in the next room and would likely wake at any moment. I’m not in the mood to handle his abuse. So I’d left the happy family and headed home for my own bed. But this? The smell of a hearty meal is all the motivation I need.

The fire is blazing inside, and the lanterns burn bright. The room is only half full of guests but overflowing with laughter, and I am met at the door by Moses. His cheeks are rosy and his smile wide.

“Are ye ill, Mistress Ballard?” he asks, taking one look at me.

“No. I’ve just come from a delivery. I was on my way home when I smelled your mother’s cooking.”

“Ah. Let’s get ye some of it then. Fortify you for the ride.”

I follow him to a table at the back and sink onto the bench with a groan. This is a new thing I’ve discovered about myself in recent years. The noises. Stand and groan. Sit and grunt. Some days it seems that I can hardly take a step without some part of my body creaking or cracking and this—even more than the gray hairs and the crow’s-feet at my eyes—makes me feel as though I am racing down the final stretch of middle age.

Within moments, Moses sets a plate in front of me. “Cornish hen, roasted on the spit, along with carrots and onions and potatoes.” There is also a slab of generously buttered bread, yet before I can even thank him, much less lift the fork to my mouth, he whispers, “Did ye hear about the Burgess homestead?”

“Hear what?”

Moses looks to either side to see if anyone is listening, then drops to the bench across from me. “I guess ye wouldna have, since ye’ve been at a birth all day.”

He clearly wants to tell me the news, but I am famished, so I take a bite of potato while he backs into his story. Oh God. It is even tastier than I remember. I will never understand how Abigail Pollard can make the same meal that I do and yet it is always ten times better. I’m able to sneak in another bite before he continues.

“Someone burned Joshua Burgess’s home to the ground earlier this month. But it was only discovered this morning.”

It’s a wonder I don’t choke. “Why?”