Bits & Pieces: Bitd und Stücke

By James R Taylor III

Annabelle Wolfe is used to doing things her way. But in 1890 Ohio, doing things “your way” isn’t always easy. A woman is expected to marry early and be a dutiful wife and mother. Much to her own mother’s chagrin, Annabelle wants nothing to do with such a sedentary life. So by the age of twenty, she’s graduated colle

• Language: English
• Publisher: TOPLINK PUBLISHING, LLC
• Release date: Sep 26, 2017
• ISBN: 9781947938526

James R Taylor III

Although born in Virginia, James R. Taylor has spent most of his life living in the Greater Cincinnati Area which serves as the background for Bits and Pieces. After matriculating from Georgetown College and Xavier University, his career was spent in various professions including criminal justice, technical recruiting and retail management. He has always had a life-long interest in local and social history. By making Bits and Pieces a period piece set in the local area, he has tried to incorporate much of the flavor and life of Cincinnati in the 1890's. With his wife and three cats, the author is retired and lives in Cheviot. Bits and Pieces is his second published work.

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BITS & PIECES

BITD UND STüCKE

An Annabelle Wolfe Thriller

Image_1

James R. Taylor III

Copyright © 2017 by James R. Taylor III.

Paperback: 978-1-947938-51-9

eBook: 978-1-947938-52-6

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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Contents

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

Chapter XVI

Chapter XVII

Chapter XVIII

Chapter XIX

Chapter XX

Chapter XXI

Chapter XXII

Chapter XXIII

Chapter XXIV

{It is 1890 and a serial killer is terrorizing this sleepy Southern Ohio community. Law enforcement is baffled as the bodies keep mounting. Now it is up to Annabelle Wolfe, this young woman, a writer of mysteries, to step in and solve the case.}

For my granddaughters,

the real

Annabelle Sue and Rebecca Eloise.

May they grow

to possess

the courage and intelligence that

their namesakes show.

Bits & Pieces

Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following you; For wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. The LORD do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me." (Ruth 1:16–17 KJV)

Prelude

The year is 1890. The nation has become an entirely different place from what it was a generation earlier. For the most part the country had turned its back on the Civil War and the Panic of 1873. Everywhere new inventions and discoveries are remaking the world and how man sees his place in it. Growth and technological advancement are the bywords of the day. Railroads reach into all but these most remote parts of the nation tying all parts of the nation together. Undersea telegraphic cables and steamships are shrinking the world. Bell’s telephone is following close behind making instantaneous communication possible throughout most cities and it is expanding into the countryside. Edison’s light bulb is conquering night as Otis and his elevators have allowed skyscrapers to grow like weeds. It seems that there are no limits man can’t overcome.

The operative word here is man because half of the world’s population is still being held back. Women may have won the vote in England but not in The Land of the Free. Most states still deny women access to the ballot box. Most professions are still closed to them. One can count on the fingers of one hand the number of women lawyers, engineers, and company presidents there are. Most college students are men and when a woman goes to college, she is taught how to make ceramic vases not locomotives. Women are expected to write love poems not laws. The professions are not considered to be very lady like.

The heroine of our story, Annabelle Wolfe, finds herself facing these obstacles. But she is trying to break the mold, to be her own person. Not only has she gone to college, she has graduated first in her class; she won the right to take the Bar Exam, besting all of the male candidates; yet still the door to the courtroom is barred to her. She is a published novelist; her mysteries are well received, but they have to be written in the guise of a male author. Even Annabelle’s parents’ fondest hope for their youngest daughter seems to be that she settles down, marries a nice young man and starts a family like her sisters.

In Bits & Pieces, Annabelle Wolfe seizes the opportunity to lock mental horns with a serial killer who has been terrorizing the countryside. Annabelle quickly discovers that there is a vast difference – and danger – between writing about crime and actually fighting it in the real world.

Will she be successful in apprehending the murderer? You must read to find out.

Chapter

I

Detective Sergeant Uriah Roebuck stood at the end of a polished walnut table in the conference room of the Salem Police Headquarters. He was surrounded by a number of men and women who hung on his every word and movement.

As was his want, Roebuck was impeccably dressed in a dark gray wool serge suit. Like all of his suits, Detective Roebuck had this one especially tailored to conceal the bulge his Weatherby .38" revolver which he always carried tucked inside his shoulder holster. The detective reached into his suit pocket and took out his steel-rimmed glasses and slipped them on. He carefully eyed the four men and two women, seated at the table; all of them were squirming uncomfortably in their seats as they furtively eyed one another.

Thank you for coming out on such a stormy night like this, the detective said. I have concluded my investigation of John Copley’s murder. I can tell you beyond a shadow of doubt that his murderer is right here in this room tonight.

A sudden chill spread over the conference room as each eyed his neighbor wondering if he was the guilty party or was trying their level best to appear innocent.

Yes, Detective Roebuck repeated. "One of you shot Mr. Copley dead. I will grant you that every one of you has what you feel was a valid reason to kill Mr. Copley, but only one of you pulled the trigger.

Was that person you, Mr. Johnston? the detective asked as he pointed a finger at a small mousey man wearing glasses and a dark gray wool suit.

On hearing his name called, William Johnston jerked in his chair. It was not me, he protested in a squeaky, high-pitched voice. Why would I want to kill John Copley?

Sergeant Roebuck answered him sharply, Weren’t you his bookkeeper? And as his bookkeeper were you not embezzling thousands of dollars from him? What did Mr. Copley say when he confronted you by showing you the ledger books?

That’s a lie, Johnston snarled, the accusation giving him new found courage and a new voice. I was going to pay… Johnston’s voice trailed off as he realized that he had just admitted to stealing.

I shall deal with your theft later, Detective Roebuck said. We are here to name a murderer and you’re not him.

Roebuck then turned his attention to a second man seated at the table - one Jacob Sweeney. Sweeney was about fifty; he was fancily dressed in a loud canary-yellow plaid suit; a large diamond pinky ring was on his finger. He sported a pencil thin moustache.

The detective spoke to him. You played cards with Mr. Copley about every week, didn’t you, Sweeney?

Yes, I did the man answered. Sweeney’s voice almost cracked over his concern about what deep secret the sergeant was ready to reveal about him.

What did he say the other night when you took him for three thousand dollars? Did he accuse you of playing with a marked deck?

Sweeney fairly bristled at Roebuck.

I’ll have you know, sir. I am no cheat. I won that money fair and square. I’ll shoot any man who says that I …

That you shot Mr. Copley, Roebuck finished Sweeney’s thought for him.

No, Mr. Sweeney. You didn’t shoot Copley, Roebuck went on. You would have pissed in your trousers if Copley had so much as let on that he even suspected that he knew. No, we will have to look elsewhere."

Detective Roebuck then affixed his gaze on a young woman, simply clothed in a plain off-the-rack dress, but she was also wearing a fur stole around her neck. Given the inexpensive clothing she was wearing, the fur-piece looked strangely out of place.

Miss Davenport, the detective said.

Yes, she answered in a tiny, almost inaudible voice.

You are a shop girl -- a clerk in Roman’s Dry Goods, am I correct?

Miss Davenport nodded her head.

Roebuck continued to question her. May I assume that you barely make enough to feed yourself and pay for a room at Ma Shepherd’s boarding house? If that is so, please explain to me how you can afford the fur you have around your neck.

Miss Davenport sputtered and tried to come up with an answer, Well, I . . . I. . .

Save your breath, Miss Davenport, Roebuck said. I already know the answer, Miss Davenport. John Copley bought it for you, didn’t he? The two of you were having a dalliance? You two were lovers, weren’t you? I have the statement of a clerk at the Flannery Hotel in Newport where the two of you spent many a night doing who knows what. Am I not correct, Miss Davenport?

Then Roebuck dropped a bombshell.

Did John Copley know that you were carrying his child? What did he say when you told him? Did he laugh in your face and say that he was not about to leave his wife for you? Is that when you shot, John Copley, Miss Davenport?

The young woman put her hand to her mouth as if to stifle a cry.

No, was all she was barely able to speak. As she got her composure Miss Davenport added, I loved John and he loved me. It was just hard for him to leave his wife at the moment.

Wise-up, Miss Davenport, Detective Roebuck lectured her. We both know that it was not going to happen. John Copley has sired a whole room full of bastards and he didn’t leave his wife for any of their mothers. Why do you think he would for you? No, you have a motive but I do not feel that you did the deed. Your forlorn hope for wedding bells had not yet turned to anger, at least not enough anger to kill him.

Next Detective Sergeant Roebuck turned his gaze on the other woman seated at the table.

Mrs. Copley, did you murder your husband? Was Miss Davenport the last straw? Were you so tired of his cheating on you that you just shot him dead?

Young man, I’ll have you know I did no such thing, the portly gray-haired woman said as she stood up from the table in a false show of outrage at Roebuck’s suggestion.

Thank you for the compliment, Mrs. Copley, Detective Roebuck said. I can assure you that I no longer fit the description of young man. But, no, Mrs. Copley, I do not think you did it either. As big a philanderer as John Copley was and as much as that stuck in your throat, you did not kill him. You enjoyed the life style his money gave you too much to kill him. If you left him, you also left his money.

No, the detective said as he took off his glasses and laid them on the table; he leaned forward so that both his hands were resting on the polished surface. "No, none of you whom I have mentioned killed Mr. Copley.

Nor was it you, Mr. Lane.

You have just about as good a motive as anyone here. Didn’t John Copley just foreclose on your farm? That farm was in your family since just after the Revolution, was it not? You hated him for taking it from you, didn’t you?

Roebuck stood up straight again. He took out his handkerchief and made a show of polishing the lenses of his glasses; then he slipped them back on.

Let’s face it, ladies and gentlemen. John Copley was not a nice man. He brought ruin to just about anyone with whom he came in contact, but none of you could summon the courage to rid the world of him and shoot him dead. Then, if none of you killed John Copley, who did?

"Detective Roebuck pointed his finger directly at a young sandy-haired man in his early twenties. The youth was dressed in rough work clothes. Throughout the whole meeting he had remained silent.

It was you, Johnny Coffey. You killed John Copley.

All eyes were suddenly looking at Johnny Coffey, a young man, almost a boy, really. He had blended into the background so well that no one seemed to have noticed him until the detective pointed him out.

Yes, Coffey said as he slowly rose to his feet and looked Detective Roebuck directly in the eye. I killed the bastard and I would kill him a dozen times more if I could.

Why don’t you tell us why, the policeman asked, his voice sounding almost sympathetic as if he already knew Coffey’s motive and understood why the young man had acted as he did.

Johnny Coffey remained standing; he cleared his throat and began to speak in a firm voice that seemed to show pride in what he had done.

John Copley was my father, Johnny Coffey began. "I am one of those ‘bastard children’ you mentioned. My mother was among those countless girls he ruined. He promised her everything until he learned that she was expecting me and then he threw her out like a piece of trash.

"My mother had to work, washing other people’s clothes, from before the sun was up until after it set just to get food for us and a roof over our head. Not once did that man lift a finger to help us. I saw my mother waste away from consumption. There was nothing I could do. The town buried her in Potter’s Field in an unmarked grave. All I asked of my father was for some money to buy her a headstone. It would have been pin money for him; but he laughed at me. He pulled a gun out of his desk drawer. He said if I didn’t leave his sight that he would shoot me dead and say that I was a burglar.

We wrestled for the gun. Somehow it went off. When I saw that he was dead, I didn’t know what else to do, so I ran. I am through running; I am ready to stand trial now so I can tell everyone what kind of a brute he was.

Detective Roebuck walked over to where Johnny Coffey was standing and put his hand on his shoulder. He said to him, "I have to arrest you now, but I shall do everything in my power to see that you get as light a sentence as possible. Of all the people here, you were the only one who would not have acted for himself.

Ladies and gentlemen, this case is closed.

Finis

Rebecca Rhodenhiser, Annabelle’s cousin, had been perched on Annabelle’s bed reading the last chapter of her cousin’s manuscript. As she had completed reading each page, she carefully laid it on the pile of read pages in front of her. Once she had read the last page, she carefully retied the ribbon around the sheaf of paper, and picked it up. She hopped off the bed, walked across the room to where Annabelle lay lounging in an upholstered chair.

What do you think of it? Annabelle asked, seeking approval for her efforts.

Well, I never suspected that Johnny Boy did it, Rebecca replied. It looks like you will have another best-seller, she said as she handed her the manuscript.

I hope so, too, Annabelle responded. I would so much love to deliver this by hand to the publisher and let them see that their new find, ‘Albert Watson – writer of detective stories’ -- is really a young woman. I bet that would slap them in their chauvinist faces like a splash of ice water.

I still don’t see why you don’t write under your own name, Rebecca said. It doesn’t seem fair that someone else, even if he is made up, is getting all the credit for everything you write. No one out there even knows that there is an Annabelle Wolfe, much less that she can write.

That is just the way of the world, my dear, Annie sighed. The publishers all say that the country is not ready for women to write stories about murder and mayhem. They say we are much too delicate to concern ourselves with such matters.

Whoever said that has never met the likes of you, Rebecca said with a laugh.

1

Miss Annabelle Olivia Wolfe (or just plain Annie as her friends sometimes called her --only her parents called her Annabelle) had spent all of her young life tilting at windmills. But, unlike Don Quixote Del La Mancha, Annie was more successful in her quest.

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A very young

Annabelle Wolfe

ca 1873

Annabelle dwelt in the sleepy Ohio River hamlet of Moscow, Ohio, upriver from Cincinnati. She had been born atop one of Cincinnati’s Seven Hills -- Mount Auburn -- in June of 1870. She was the youngest of four children, all daughters, born to Joachim Poldi Wolfe and his wife Delphillia Rhodenhiser Wolfe.

J.P., as he was known to almost everyone, was a Federal Judge. J.P. was of Protestant German descent; his family had been in Pennsylvania since before the Revolution. After law school he had gone west, ending up in the thriving city of Cincinnati. There he had met and married German Catholic Margaretha Delphillia Rhodenhiser.

Delphillia’s family had originally given a cold shoulder to Delphillia’s new beau, but when they saw how deeply in love the two were, they relented. Archbishop Elder had granted them a special dispensation to marry in the Church. Though J. P. never officially became Catholic, he regularly attended Mass with his wife, though he did not partake of the sacraments. All the Wolfe girls were raised in the Church.

J. P. had built a successful and lucrative law practice, then for several years he had presided over the Federal Sixth Circuit that sat in Cincinnati. In 1885, J. P. had retired from the bench. He moved his family to the little village of Moscow, upstream from Cincinnati and New Richmond. There he built a large rambling and comfortable house with a huge library and flower garden. J.P. had planned on devoting his time to tending his flowers, writing learned tomes on the law and enjoying his grandchildren. Reality has a way of messing with one’s plans. When the replacement presiding judge suddenly took ill, J.P. had been called back from retirement. Though he referred to himself as retired, Judge Wolfe still heard almost a full docket of cases in Cincinnati. He presided over trials at least one or two weeks a month, commuting into town when needed and staying at his club.

Also living with the Wolfes in the Greek revival house on Elizabeth Street, were the judge’s black housekeeper and handyman Gabriel and Mary Jane Jones. Gabriel and Mary Jane had been part of the family since before any of the judge’s daughters were born. Indeed, Annabelle and her sisters looked on Mary Jane almost as a second mother. Annabelle always addressed them as Uncle Gabe and Aunt Mary.

Annie had been a precocious little girl. She started speaking in complete sentences before she was one. With her mother’s help, she was reading before she was three; by age five she had discovered Sir William Blackstone’s Commentaries on British Law. She could understand what she read well enough to ask questions about it from her father.

Annabelle’s one desire in life was to become lawyer and judge like her father; so, while her older sisters were getting married and having babies, Annabelle headed off to Wheaton College in Massachusetts. Annabelle was barely sixteen when she graduated from the college summa cum laude. But when she tried to get into law school, no one would accept her. It was simply unheard of for a mere woman to pit herself against all those learned men in the rarified atmosphere of legal discourse; it simply went contrary to human nature and a woman’s place in the world.

Annabelle did not dismay. After all she was living in the same house with one of the best legal minds in the country; she simply persuaded her father to take her on as a clerk and let her read law. What she needed to know of legal matters, J. P. could teach her. She proved to be a very apt and bright student, but once again after she had completed her studies and was ready to sit for the Bar Exam, Annabelle hit another roadblock. The Ohio Bar refused to allow her to take the exam. For a second time, J.P. had to rise up to defend his daughter’s cause. He used his influence and quite a bit of arm twisting (a sitting Federal District Judge, especially when he is the Presiding Justice, can wield a lot of influence). The Ohio Bar made an exception and allowed Annabelle to sit for the exam. The Credentials Committee created a special test for her; they tried to make the test as difficult as possible, one a seasoned attorney would find difficult to pass, yet Annabelle scored the highest marks of any of the candidates, though they took an easier exam.

Now that Annie was free to hang out her shingle, no one wanted to practice with her. Quite frankly, most of the attorneys in the state were afraid of her; still fewer were willing to go up against her in court. Annabelle O. Wolfe, Atty. at Law, soon found her practice limited to drawing up wills and writing the occasional contract or land deed. The criminal practice she longed for was put on indefinite hiatus.

If Annie could not practice criminal law and defend justice, she would write about it. The book she had just completed was Annie’s third. All centered on her main character, Detective Sergeant Uriah Roebuck. Roebuck was an American counterpart to A. Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, who was at that time rapidly gaining a following, especially in England. Though the publishing house in Boston was clamoring to meet this promising new author, Albert Watson, he communicated with them only through the mail or via telegraph.

Physically Annabelle was a few months shy of her twenty-first birthday. She stood about five feet six inches tall and weighed in at about one hundred-thirty pounds. She had strawberry-blond hair which she usually wore hanging loosely in curls. She had eyes the color Columbian emeralds that gazed out on the world from behind a freckled pug nose.

In an era where women were treated as delicate china, Annabelle definitely was not. She rode a coal-black Arabian stallion named Thunder-bolt. The horse had been a gift from her father. Things had not started out that way. J.P. had bought the Arabian from a local farmer for one hundred dollars. The farmer had named the horse Tom Walker after the Washington Irving short story The Devil and Tom Walker. The horse was a devil; no one could ride it; no one could even get near enough to the horse to even put a bridle on its head. Tom Walker deemed destined for the glue-factory. Then Annabelle decided to give him a try. One afternoon she armed herself with a bag of apples and a pocket full of sugar lumps; before supper that night, she had a saddle on the horse’s back and was riding him about the paddock. From that day forward, horse and rider were inseparable.

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Annabelle and her mother Delphillia shortly before Annabelle left for Wheaton College

Annabelle named him Thunder-bolt after the lighting-striped white blaze on his forehead. The neighbors soon got used to seeing horse and rider, with Annabelle bending low with her face next to Thunder-bolt’s neck, tearing cross-country at breakneck speed, taking fences at a full gallop. Annabelle was not one to ride sidesaddle as most women did; no, she normally wore split skirts so she could sit astride her mount.

In addition, Annabelle was a crack-shot with her rifle and no slouch as a bow-woman with longbow or crossbow. Annabelle had a more artistic side, too. Besides her father, Annabelle’s childhood hero had been Emperor Frederick the Great of Prussia. Besides being a military genius, Frederick was also an accomplished flutist and composer. Annabelle played both flute and piccolo well, often playing piano-flute duets with her mother.

Annabelle’s Sancho Panza was her first cousin Rebecca Rhodenhiser. Rebecca, no one called her anything else, was two years Annabelle’s junior but, equally as athletic and open to adventure as her older cousin. Rebecca’s father and Annabelle’s mother were brother and sister. But it was there that the family similarity stopped. While Annabelle’s father’s passion was the law, Rebecca’s father’s was the land. His daughter was following in his footsteps.

Much to her mother’s chagrin, Annabelle allowed that although she liked boys (they posed more of a challenge than most girls), the idea of settling down to marriage and raising a family was far in the future; besides, it would take a very special man not to be intimidated by Annabelle.

Chapter

II

When J. P.’s presence was required at the court house in Cincinnati, be it for a trial or hearing, the jurist would travel into the city via train. In the late 1880’s the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad completed laying its tracks along the south bank of the Ohio River into Cincinnati. It was now possible to catch the morning local at Ivor Station and be in Cincinnati before ten o’clock. The C. & O. was proving a Godsend to people in this part of the country. A trip to Cincinnati by wagon or horseback used to take the better part of two days before the rails came; now the trip could be made in a about an hour and a half. Travel still was a process; to get to Ivor in order to catch the train one had to first cross the Ohio River. That was no mean task considering that the river was bridgeless from Cincinnati upstream to Maysville, over sixty long miles.

To close that gap was where Alonzo Judd came in. Alonzo Judd was a ferryboat man; he owned the ferry that crossed the river at Moscow. Alonzo had run the Moscow Ferry for as long as anyone could remember. He had started carrying passengers in a simple rowboat and had advanced over the years to a boat powered by horses walking on a treadmill that moved a paddlewheel propelling the boat forward.

In 1885, in anticipation of the railroad’s completion, Alonzo bought a steam-powered ferryboat. The boat was built downstream at Cincinnati. Alonzo Judd christened it The Clermont, (named after the Ohio County where Moscow was located); it was especially built for its task. The Clermont was basically a planked-over hull of a typical shallow-draft riverboat. On either side of the deck were structures housing a boiler for steam and two walking-beam steam engines driving paddlewheels. Each engine drove one of the side mounted paddlewheels. Between the two paddlewheel boxes, spanning the deck was a bridge-like affair; it served to support a pilot house, glassed in on all sides. The windows granted the pilot an excellent 360° view of the river. Ramps at either end allowed wagons and carriages to be driven on or off the ferry.

Alonzo ran the ferry with two others; his younger brother Homer worked as the deckhand and a cousin, Karl Schmidt stoked the boiler and tended the engines. Alonzo charged twenty-five cents per foot passenger and a dollar and a quarter for wagons or carriages.

Normally whenever Judge Wolfe was hearing a case, he would take the ferry across the river. Uncle Gabe would haul him and his luggage down to the boat; they would ferry across and ride up the river bank to Ivor Station. There the judge would catch the morning local into Cincinnati. Usually, when court was in session J. P. would stay at his club in downtown Cincinnati, returning home on Friday. Sometimes he would take Annabelle with him to serve as his law clerk. If that were the case, Annabelle would have to take a room in one of the downtown hotels as the Cincinnati Club had accommodations only for men.

When Judge and daughter made the trip, their routine was always the same: Uncle Gabe would take them down to the ferry about 7:30 in the morning. It was a quick ten minute ride to the far shore where the two had plenty of time before 8:05 when the morning train arrived; then it was an easy hour and twenty minute ride into Cincinnati.

This morning, however, would be different.

2

The month of May had been one for the record books; it was the wettest that even the old-timers could remember. In fact, for the last two weeks it had rained every day. The corn, wheat and barley fields that should have been planted and sprouted already remained unplowed. It simply had been too wet for the farmers to get into their fields. The Ohio River, which usually flowed serenely past Moscow, was barely within its banks. It was a dirty, surging torrent. Though the river had not gone into flood, the water stood a foot high on the trunks of trees that lined the river bank. The people, who rode the ferry, were getting an extra long trip for their fare.

As usual, once on-board Judge Wolfe was not paying much attention to the river; he had been asked to write an article for the Ohio Law Review. He was testing out his arguments on Gabriel by reading him excerpts of what he had written and asking his opinion. As far as Gabriel was concerned, the judge could have been reading the Æneid to him in the original Latin and it would have made just about as much sense. The judge had been trying out his tomes on Gabriel for about as long as he had been in his employ. The hired-man had learned long ago that when the law scholar did this, all he needed to do was to nod his head on occasion and make a knowledgeable um-hmm once in a while. The judge did not want a discussion on the finer points of the law; he just wanted someone to sound as if he were agreeing with him.

While the two law scholars were arguing these finer points, Annabelle was standing near the bow of the boat, helping Homer to keep a sharp lookout on the river. The rising waters had dislodged all sorts of debris from the shoreline and had sent the jetsam adrift --floating down the river. Mixed with the smaller stuff were whole tree trunks. If one of these floating battering rams were to strike the ferry broadside, the force of impact could easily stove in the hull or smash one of the paddle wheels into kindling.

To guard against such a mishap, Alonzo had his younger brother, stand a lookout in the bow. His duty was to yell out a warning if anything big was coming too close. Annabelle was standing next to him, watching, too. As it was, she was the first person to see something.

From a distance, the object looked like the bloated body of a cow or some other barnyard animal which had fallen into the river, drowned and now was floating down stream with the current. Annie pointed the body out to Homer. What do you think it is? she asked.

I dunno, Homer said. It looks like a dead pig. It ain’t no cow. Too pink t’ be a cow.

By this time the floating carcass was less than twenty feet from the boat. Annie could get a much better view.

That’s not a pig! she yelled It’s the body of a woman. It’s got breasts! She yelled up to Alonzo to stop the boat.

If Alonzo heard Annabelle’s cry, he did not act as if he did; he was intent on being on time to meet the morning train. Annie yelled again, also without success,

When she saw that she was getting nowhere, Annabelle ran to the carriage and breathlessly exclaimed to her father. Homer and I just saw a body floating down the river. You are going to have to get Alonzo to go after it before it is lost.

Are you sure it was a body? the judge asked incredulously? ‘Are you sure it is not a dead animal dislodged by the current?"

Father, I would not say that it was a body if I were not sure that it was a body, Annabelle scolded him.

Very well, grumbled Judge Wolfe as he lumbered down out of his carriage. He made his way over to where he had a good view of the pilot house and shouted up, Alonzo, until he got the pilot’s attention.

I am afraid you are going to have to turn about, Alonzo. Annie thinks she saw a body in the river.

Alonzo called back, If I turn about you will miss your train.

You let me worry about that, the judge yelled. I would rather have the whole Court House mad at me for delaying a trial than to have to listen to my daughter fussing at me all day.

Very well, Alonzo called down from the open window of the pilot house. It’s your train you are going to miss, not mine. I’m sure glad that I do not have any other paying customers who have to go on this wild goose chase.

He reached over and rang Full Stop on the engine telegraph and then "Reverse/One Fourth."

So be it, the judge said. If it is indeed a body, we can’t just leave it to float down the river.

The Clermont ran equally well going forward or in reverse. When the boat was headed back across the river, it always did so in reverse; this tactic saved having to back away from the landing point and then turn the boat around. The ship’s wheel stood in the middle of the pilot house. So, for Alonzo to run in reverse direction, he had to simply signal the engineer to reverse the engines and walk around the wheel so he was facing the other way.

The river current was so swift, that by the time the decision was made to go after the corpse it had drifted down stream and was out of sight. It took half an hour of chasing and looking before the corpse was spotted again bobbing among the snags and other drift.

Alonzo was able to get The Clermont close enough so that Homer was able to snag it with a grafing pole and hook. Once they dragged the body onboard, Homer and Annie discovered that the corpse was not a complete body. The carcass was bloated and mis-shapened from its time in the water and the effects of the warm weather, but it was only part of a body. It was the torso of a woman, but it lacked arms, legs and a head. The head had been severed just above the shoulders and the limbs had been amputated by cutting them off at the joints. Part of the flesh in the groin between the hips was also missing. It was impossible to tell if it