Chapter 11

"What're those pieces of tin pipe in the back of the wagon?" Margaret Beall asked her husband.

"Something a feller down at the courthouse asked me to get," Beall replied, wondering how he could have forgotten they were there.

"Well, you've done a good job of shopping this time, Mr. Beall. Set and we'll eat." She took off her apron and pushed at her graying hair.

Beall and his wife sat at their small table with its thick walnut top, held hands and bowed their heads. Neither was particularly religious, but this mealtime pause was a family tradition which had come with the bride more than twenty years before. Alexander Beall and his wife had never had any children, and their relationship had mellowed over the years to one of friendship, mutual respect and cooperation.

When Beall had served as sheriff during the Revolution and Arnold County's brief existence, his meticulous wife had helped him keep his records and write his reports. She handled the family finances as well as the larder, made most of the clothes both of them wore, and always had a book or newspaper at hand when the light was good enough. Both of the Bealls were literate, but Margaret read more and wrote better than her husband who generally perused only the Bible and wrote only what he had to for his work.

"What's the news from town?" his wife asked between spoonfuls.

"Well, I saw something I don't think I want to talk about at the supper table," Beall said with a grimace. "Old tavern outside of town's gone back to being the Farmer's. Guess that's news."

"What'd you see?" his wife asked, dabbing at her mouth with a corner of her linen napkin.

'Body, dead body that'd been in the river a few days."

"Oh," his wife said. "Whose?"

Beall waited until he had chewed down some of the dumpling in his mouth and thought of how much his wife really wanted to know as well as how much she already knew. Margaret Beall did not like being left out of her husband's business. "Fellow called Sparks, was the Brookes' overseer once, some time back."

"I remember, stocky, dark haired cutthroat. Vicious but perhaps that goes with the job. Scandalized some of the women I sew with. They were forever telling tales of his conquests and peccadilloes."

"Old Judge Brookes fired him for dallying with his slave girls the way I understand it."

"Caught him in bed with one, so I was told at a quilting frolic."

"My, what you ladies do discuss." Beall smiled at his wife and she smiled back.

"Yes, I expect you would be surprised. What happened to him, to Sparks?"

"Somebody killed him, with a knife, evidently robbed him too."

"And how or why were you involved, Alex?"

Beall explained about visiting the constable and discussing the similarities and possible relationships of the Clagett and Miller killings and then told his wife about the discovery of Sparks' body. He did not tell of the emasculation. His wife shared her idea that the McNishes might have been involved especially since one seemed to be missing.

"Could be," responded Beall, stirring his stew. "How do you think that constable down there found me and the fisherman in that old tavern. I never told him where I'd be."

"Suppose he's got eyes and ears around that town."

"Don't much like the idea of being watched."

"But I think you liked being sheriff," his wife said as she finished her supper. "Best you should see about the roads. M'Gregor, old Ninian the grumpy one, stopped by today to complain about the lanes down his way. Said they were awful, full of ruts and need some corduroying in low places. Asked was you sleeping on the job."

"Well, when they were his concern back ten years or so, he did do a good job, so I best see to it. Thank you. I'll do it tomorrow, and I've got to check on the Clagetts' territory too."

On his way to the courthouse tavern two days later Beall passed a brace of oxen pulling a stone-weighted scraper along the crest of the road. He waved to the driver, Mose Clagett, and smiled as he went by. A bit farther on two men were knee deep in a weedy roadside ditch swinging large sickles. A mattock and two long- handled shovels lay nearby. Beall stopped, exchanged nods with the two young men who had sweated through their shirts despite the cool, clear weather. There was no need for words since both sides knew their jobs and were doing them.

Stud Farrell stopped him with a "Ho, sheriff" as soon as he opened the tavern door. "Got a message for you," he said, waving a folded paper.

Beall spread the sheet of brown paper out on the bar where the light was good and read the carefully printed words: COME QUIK NOLAN. "Ain't much of a message, air it?" asked the bartender.

"Nope, but I don't think this man writes anything very often. Probably had somebody print it out for him." Beall brought in the pieces of pipe he had tied behind his saddle and gave them to Farrell. "If you have time, hook this here elbow on that pipe that comes out of Annie's lean-to and then this piece here and this thing goes on top. If you're too busy I'll get it later. We do need to seal up the hole in her wall."

Beall asked his mare to gallop a little on the way home, and she responded willingly. He told his wife he had to go into town and not to worry if he didn't get home by dark then he set out for Georgetown. Most of the old Frederick-Georgetown road was in good shape except in the low places where the creeks ran. A week of dry weather had helped. The mare clattered down the High Street hill about an hour later and stuck her nose in the big trough at his usual stable. "Rub her down and give her some oats, will you Zep?" he asked the black man who took the reins. The big slave nodded. Beall could not recall if he had ever heard the large man speak. "Hope I won't be long," he told him.

Beall found Jamey Nolan at the Anchor, ordered two beers at the bar and carried them to his table. "See you got my message," Nolan smiled at him.

"Yep," Beall said as he stretched his sore back and legs. "What's so important?"

"Saw my friend Gil right after you left for home t'other day. You 'member him down there where Constable whatshisname showed you that bloated body?"

"Oh yes, unhappy little man down in the boat. He's the one that found Sparks?"

"That's him. Dog poor he is and a miser besides. The devil may dance in his pocket. Begs, borrows and steals mostly. Too lazy to fish. But we's friends nohow. So I stopped in the Sailors' Tavern down there in Frog Land on my way home. Needed something after looking at that feller's belly with his cock cut off. And there's Gil with most of a whole bottle a'rum in front of him, pouring drinks for his friends and strangers too."