“Did you say PC?” I said, almost shouting.
Solder clicked off his recording device and raised the handkerchief gently, holding it by tweezers, for us to view. Embroidered neatly in the corner of the simple linen were two initials: PC.
There was now no doubt in my mind. The skeleton I’d found of a young woman who had once been a candle maker was Agnes’s relative, Patience Cooper. And given the discrepancy between Agnes’s story that Patience had skipped town and the cold hard truth that she was lying here with a single stab wound as her cause of death, something very foul indeed had happened to the woman.
“If I may, I believe the body is Patience Cooper,” said Bellows with great authority. “Married to Jedediah Cooper in eighteen forty-seven.”
Andy, Solder, and even Leigh looked impressed. Me? I held my tongue, knowing that the only way Bellows had this information was because he’d listened in on my conversation with Agnes. He was certainly trying hard to establish his authority. Luckily for him, I was still too stunned to quibble.
“Your theory is an interesting one, but our focus is on scientific facts, Mr. Bellows,” said Solder. “The linen is illuminating, but we may only ever be able to theorize, not prove, that this is someone named Patience Cooper. That’s an important distinction.”
“Excuse me?” said a voice from behind us.
We turned, startled, to find Agnes.
“I’m related to the Coopers. I came to see if you have found Patience.”
“Agnes? How’d you know to come here? And what made you think we’d find Patience Cooper?” Andy asked. Then he looked at me. “Never mind.”
Agnes stopped and stared at the skeleton like a deer caught in headlights. Before she could faint, Andy walked briskly to the door, grabbing a folding chair while he did. Reaching her, he opened the chair and led her to it.
“What are you doing here, Agnes?” he said.
“I’m fine,” she said, taking a deep breath and composing herself. “I’ve never seen anything like that before. And to think she could be family.”
I joined them and rubbed her back.
“You shouldn’t have come,” I said.
“But I wanted to help,” Agnes said, and looked at me.
Agnes absently touched the glasses that were perched on top of her head as she took a breath.
“I remembered something more about the story of Patience Cooper,” she said.
Chapter 5
For a few moments, there was some confusion about Agnes’s pronouncement and its relative value to the work at hand. Bellows took the liberty of filling in Andy, Solder, and Leigh about Patience and Jedediah Cooper and the robbery of the Petticoat Row ladies’ money. I was happy for him to take the lead. I knew the police and anthropologists would be more receptive to the story if it came from a historian rather than from Agnes or me.
I also didn’t mind taking a back seat because, while Bellows spoke, no one was paying much attention to me. Capitalizing on their distraction, I crossed the room. My pretense was to lower the sheet hanging over the skeleton, since it continued to spook Agnes, but I also wanted to glance at the grave itself, which I hadn’t done earlier.
“What did you remember about Patience’s story?” Andy said to Agnes when Bellows had finished.
“It’s something about Nancy Holland, Patience’s best friend.”
My eye had just caught sight of a stone that was at a funny angle, but I paused to listen to Agnes. Having my own very best friend on the island, Emily Gardner, I know that best friends are a vault of secrets and that they can answer a lot of important questions. For example, if Emily’s husband came to me before birthdays and holidays, he’d save himself a lot of hassle when buying gifts.
Agnes shifted in her seat, now that so many eyes were on her. She looked in my direction. I nodded toward her to continue.
“The story has always been that Nancy was racked with guilt about the Petticoat Row ladies’ lost funds, and she was devastated by the betrayal of her best friend,” Agnes said. “Shortly after Patience and Jedediah left, she killed herself by jumping down the well behind her house out in Monomoy.”
“Juicy,” said Leigh.
I had to agree. I’d always thought of the old-time ladies on the island as straight shooters and hard workers, but there was a lot of drama going on as well.
“The Hollands lived in what is now Old Holly’s house,” said Agnes. “You know the one. I guess Holly is Nancy’s great-great-grand-whatever nephew.”
Old Holly is the affectionate name given to Gil Holland, who lives out by a quiet area called Monomoy. He is a short-tempered fellow, now a retired widower, who had made his living as a mechanic. I knew his family had been on the island forever, but I didn’t know him well outside of serving him a Thanksgiving dinner at the Rotary Club once. I remembered him because their stuffing is out of this world and he’d complained that it was too dry. It’s the opposite of dry.
“I found an article about Nancy’s suicide that disturbed me,” said Agnes.
She opened her tote bag and retrieved a photocopy of an article she’d likely found at the library. I was proud of Agnes for bringing evidence with her since there was a circle of curious professionals around her. Since I didn’t need Agnes to prove anything to me with a piece of paper, however, I shifted my attention back to the hearth.
“See?” said Agnes. “Nancy jumped down the well behind Old Holly’s house. She left a note that said she could not live, having lost her friend and the Petticoat Row money. Aside from the letter, however, all that was found was her cloak, hanging from the well.”
“Hello,” I said to a small object I pried from behind the rock, at a spot that would have been beside Patience’s clavicle. “Check it out.”
I held up a small metal tool to the group.
“What is it?” said Andy.
“It’s a tong,” I said, bringing it over to the still small but growing team. “Used to remove pots of melted wax from heat before pouring it into molds.”
“It’s from the right period,” said Bellows, admiring the piece. “Mid-eighteen hundreds.”
Solder took the tool from me and walked back to the skeleton. He removed the sheet that covered Patience and then moved aside her blouse. He held the tong over the exposed rib cage.
“One mystery solved,” he said. “The injury and the tool match. Combined with the blood spatter on the metal, I believe she died from a wound inflicted by this tong.”
“The handkerchief’s initials suggest that the body is Patience Cooper, and the hidden blood-spattered tongs suggest someone used them to kill her,” I said. “Given that there are no signs of a brutal attack from robbers, I think there’s more to the Cooper legend than anyone ever knew.”
“It’s just as I feared,” said Agnes. “You know, I was at Old Holly’s house once. Years ago, before his wife died. We were making jams for the cranberry festival. Holly’s wife said that when he inherited the house there was a stipulation that the well remain untouched, as it had been for decades, because Nancy was down there. She thought it was creepy that the body of a dead woman was in her backyard, but she said no matter how much she complained, Holly would never go near the well.”
“There are many fascinating tales of inheritance restrictions,” said Bellows with an air of self-importance