Running in the Shadows

March 1926: Salem, Massachusetts The clock on her nightstand said quarter to eight. “Too early,” Lizzie groaned and pulled the eiderdown comforter over her head. But after fifteen minutes of trying without success to go back to sleep, she gave up. Tossing the covers off, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and shuffled into the en suite bathroom. After washing her face and running a comb through her fashionably bobbed, chocolate-colored hair, she pulled on a blue crepe dress with a low waist and pleated skirt. She rubbed a bit of rouge on her cheeks and painted a red Cupid’s bow on her lips. Then she made her way along the second-floor hallway of Isaac Roman’s mansion to the staircase that swept down to the foyer.
Her host’s housemaids scurried here and there, tidying up after last night’s party that lasted until nearly 3:00 in the morning. A night full of music, dancing, and a seemingly endless river of champagne that defied the tiresome law known as Prohibition. The memory of the naked young woman who trotted her horse into Roman’s ballroom, swept up a talented artist named Sebastian Amory, and rode off with him still blazed in Lizzie’s mind. She didn’t know whether to applaud the equestrian for her audacious “Lady Godiva” act or be mad at her for interrupting Lizzie and her band’s performance and stealing their thunder.
None of her fellow musicians or any of the other houseguests appeared to be roaming about at this early hour. Following the seductive scents of coffee, bacon, and cinnamon buns, she found her way to the kitchen at the rear of the 18th century mansion. There she asked a kitchen maid for a cup of coffee. The girl filled a delicate porcelain cup that might have come to Salem on a clipper ship from the Orient seventy years ago, and handed it to her.
Trying not to spill coffee on the waxed wooden floors, Lizzie meandered through the first level of her host’s house. Despite the busy ministrations of the household staff, the three-story brick mansion on Salem Common seemed relaxed and peaceful after last night’s raucous gala.
Avoiding the garish ballroom, she turned down a hallway that led behind the kitchen and into a glass-walled solarium illuminated by gray morning light. Flowering trees filled the space with evocative scents. Birds flitted about, trilling their songs. White wicker furniture invited her to stop, sit a while, and let herself be transported into a lush tropical world, even though wet snow splattered the solarium’s panes of glass. Brick pathways wound through the copious vegetation. Lizzie followed one of them, past a pair of squawking parrots and a koi pond.
At first, she didn’t register what she saw––it was too bizarre and too horrible.
A pale young man, naked to the waist, was tied to a tree. A slew of arrows pierced his torso. Dried rivulets of blood streaked his bare chest and stomach. A wad of purple cloth hung from his mouth.
Lizzie clamped her hand over her own mouth to keep from screaming. It took her a moment to recognize Sebastian, whose lifeless eyes stared back at her. Who had those eyes seen in his last moments on earth? she wondered.
Gathering her wits about her, she choked back her initial reaction to retch and stepped closer. Gingerly, she touched his arm and found it cold. The dead artist reminded her of Botticelli’s fifteenth-century painting of the martyred saint by the same name.
She hurried back into the kitchen and hailed one of the maids. “Please summon the housekeeper. It’s an emergency.”
A few minutes later, a stout woman wearing a simple black dress with a starched white collar strode into the kitchen, trailed by the curious young housemaid. She shooed the girl back to her tasks and asked Lizzie, “I am Mrs. Nutley. What’s this about an emergency?”
“One of Mr. Roman’s friends is dead. He’s in the solarium, tied to a tree. Would you please telephone the police? And let Mr. Roman know?”
“May I ask who are you, miss?”
“Elizabeth Crane. I’m the vocalist with The Troubadours. We’re entertainers from New York City. Mr. Roman hired us to perform for his guests this weekend. Surely he told you.”
Mrs. Nutley nodded. “Before I bother the police, let’s have a look at this man who has ostensibly died in our greenhouse.” The skeptical expression on her long, plain face suggested she’d witnessed more than a few pranks during her employment at the home of the flamboyant and controversial art collector Isaac Roman. “Oh, he’s dead all right,” Lizzie said. She’d seen lifeless bodies before, but none as grotesque as this one. “Come, see for yourself.”
The housekeeper followed Lizzie down the hallway behind the kitchen and into the glass-walled garden. A parrot shrieked as they followed the winding pathway through the foliage. Mrs. Nutley shrieked even louder when she spotted Sebastian Amory’s lifeless form, perforated by more than a dozen arrows.
“Now, please, go and telephone the police,” Lizzie said.