Chapter 10

The first thing Alexander Beall did when he reached Georgetown the next Saturday morning was to purchase two dozen large, tallow candles and a half dozen hard, bayberry ones after deciding that the beeswax candles were too dear for his purse. Then he did the rest of his wife's shopping, stowed the purchases in his wagon and visited the Anchor Tavern for a fried fish. Not seeing Jamey Nolan about, he walked to the constable's office reminding himself he had to revisit the smith's shop.

"Ah, Mr. Beall, please have a seat." Mr. Wainright, neatly dressed and bewigged as usual, greeted him with a small smile. "I have some news for you."

"Good, let's have it," Beall replied pulling his ladder-backed chair closer to the desk.

"Sparks has fled. Yes, sir, fled, scampered. That's the word I can use. Several men and not a few women are looking for him including his most recent employer. He has absconded with an undetermined amount of hard cash, and he seems to have left at least two wives behind in addition to a certain Abigail Moss, a young widow who says he promised to marry her." Wainright looked down at one of his papers. "She also states that she lent him a sum of money."

Beall pulled out his pipe and rubbed its bowl against his cheek before stuffing it with tobacco. "That is news," he said after some thought. "I wonder what it means in regard to the death of Betsy Miller."

"Nothing. Everything. Who can say?" Wainright replied, waving his hand, flicking the lace at his cuffs and then shrugging his shoulders.

"When did all this happen?" Beall lit his pipe from the small whale oil lamp on the desk.

"This week. He did not come to work yesterday so he likely left town Thursday evening. Very little is missing from his room, and I have not found anyone who saw him depart. Of course, he may have been done in and is floating down river, feeding the fishes."

"He own a horse, a rig?"

"I do not think so. I've inquired at the local hitch stables. No one rented him a horse. I talked to most of the ostlers and know that for a fact. His landlady does not recall a horse or buggy. The liverymen do say he sometimes hired carriages for weekend jaunts, often with a young lady on his arm. They recall a tall, fair-haired one particularly. Hm, I wonder..." Wainright shuffled through some other papers and then put them aside.

"Did you ask around to see if anybody rowed someone like him across to Virginia?"

"No, I did not. That's a good idea." The constable, whose powers in Georgetown seemed to be the equal of any sheriff's, took a pen and made a careful note on the clean sheet before him. "I should have thought of it after I inquired of the ferrytender. Perhaps your friend Mr. Nolan could help there."

"Yes, he certainly might know something," Beall replied, puffing deeply on his glowing bowlful. "He might."

They sat looking at each other briefly, and then Beall blew some smoke toward the ceiling and asked, "Did you examine Miss Miller's body closely or did a local doctor perhaps?"

"Yes, I did. Her throat had been cut, the jugular, probably from behind, and I'm sure she was dead before her arm was cut off. There were no signs of struggle, of roughness, around the wounds. The arm was removed as if a surgeon had done it. I saw a few of those amputations during the war, the revolt."

"Clean cut, eh?"

"Indeed. What about your case out in the country?"

"Been some time, but very similar except I think there may have been a struggle before she died, but the shoulder cut was as clean as you described. Quite neat."

"Might this Sparks have done both these terrible things?"

"He was around, and he usually carried a sizable knife. He probably, likely, knew both women. Betsy Miller was hardly a pretty girl or even a flirt of a young matron for that matter although she wasn't much older than Elizabeth Clagett, but she was a woman and that seems to be all Sparks is interested in."

"That's odd," the constable said, a forefinger at his lips.

"What's that?" Beall asked.

"Both women were named Elizabeth. I didn't realize that until you said the name. Betsy Miller was buried as Elizabeth Nolan."

Beall enjoyed the watery sunlight as he walked down Falls Street to the place where he had bought Annie's stove. He thought about Jonathan Sparks running. Was he really escaping, from what? No one had suggested that there was any real evidence pointing to Sparks in either crime, except that he knew the dead women and that he carried a big knife. If carrying a knife became a crime, there were a lot of men and not a few women who would be in trouble, thought Beall. Maybe Sparks was just fleeing from woman trouble. Sounded like he had more than his share. And, of course, he was a thief to boot.

The former sheriff talked to the smith about the operation of the new stove, and after discussing its venting, purchased another elbow, a short length of sheet metal pipe and a conical cover with a rolled edge. He carried these back to the stable, deposited them in his wagon and revisited the Anchor Tavern. There he received directions to Jamey Nolan's home and headed down along the riverside. Nolan's place would have fit right in with some of the poorer hovels out near the one-time courthouse. It leaned away from the river, had an ill-fitting door and only one small piece of glass to its name. Beall knocked on the doorpost and called out, "Nolan, it's Alexander Beall."

The fisherman came to the door barefoot and squinting into the sunlight. "Up late last night," he yawned. "Come on in and set. I gotta, you know..." He fumbled with his buttons.

"Must be near noon," Beall said, looking up toward the dim sun as the man shuffled behind his hovel. "Get some shoes on after you drain that thing, and I'll buy you some breakfast. I thought you fishermen was up before dawn,"

Beall joshed with Nolan as they walked back toward the tavern and then asked, "Anybody you know row folks across to Virginia, regular like?"

"Oh, they's a few do that. I've done it myself. Tain't hard 'lessen the currents running with a flood from up in the hills. Y'know it's tidal hereabouts. Can push you up or down stream, so you has to be careful. There's some good landing spots over yonder." He gestured toward the tree-lined shore across the Potomac. "And of course, there's the old ferry, Mason's they call it. Been running back and forth since Hector was a pup."

"River looks high today," Beall said.

"You're right. Been a lot a'rain. Good to see the sun for a change."

Beall suddenly thought of a question that Nolan might be able to answer. He stopped him with a hand on his arm, put on a serious look and asked, "If a person drowned here or a body was thrown into the river at Georgetown, where would it likely be found?"

"Now, that's a queer question. No telling, no telling at all; that's the answer." Nelson scratched at his balding pate. "Could stay right where it fell. Just wash back and forth in one of these here inshore eddies. Might even go north a bit with the bottom current. Most likely would surface pretty soon and head for the Chesapeake 'cept in deep winter. Old river gets pretty wide a mile or so south a'here, down there where old Gen'l Washington had his pretty home, his brother's it was. Damn shame Tarleton burnt it. Anyroad, a body could reach the ocean after a while. Don't know how long it would take, months maybe, if it didn't get et."

At the ordinary, Nolan folded his lanky frame onto a sturdy chair and ate a pile of corn fritters and drank a pot of weak, black coffee while Beall enjoyed a pewter mug of beer and some cheese with a small loaf of dark bread.

"German baker round the corner makes that," Nolan said pointing at the bread with his two-pronged fork. "Good ain't it?"

When they were almost finished, Nolan looked up and said, "Aw oh, here comes trouble."

Beall turned in his chair to see the neatly dressed constable making his way toward them. His beribboned wig and dark, well-cut suit with its long-skirted coat made him stand out in a room filled with working men in faded homespun and threadbare Scotch cloth. Without invitation or preamble, Wainright pulled up a chair and sat at the small table placing his thin, silver-headed cane in front of him.

"Mr. Nolan, Mr. Beall," he said, his pink, clean-shaven face showing excitement, "they found his body, Spark's body. A fisherman discovered it tangled in tree roots on the tip of that large island, Analostan, Anacostan, whatever is it?"