“I never thought I would get lodgers by train.” Even as I said it, the annoyance and amusement battled in me.
“I wanted to surprise you.” He lit a cigar and extinguished the match with a flick of his wrist.
“Is this how it’s going to be now? You send me bodies and I dig them down?” It was my turn to arch an eyebrow.
“You can handle it, I’m sure. Didn’t you tell me you’d become quite the expert, butchering those pigs?” He was nothing but glittering eyes and smiles, and it was hard not to smile with him.
“How often am I to expect a delivery?” I bit my lip and looked down at the floor, not wanting to be drawn in by his charm just yet.
“My, you are more compliant than I thought.” He sounded amused.
“I want them delivered to my door, though. You can’t send bodies by train.” And yet I could not stop the smile from forming on my lips.
He laughed and added something from a bottle to our coffee. “I promise I won’t do that in the future. As for how often? That depends on my need. You certainly have the land to handle one from time to time. I won’t give you too many, though. It must be neat and clean—no traces.”
“I can do that.” I finally looked at his face again, at the fullness of his lips.
“Don’t you want to know who they are?” He blew out smoke, filling the small room with just one puff.
“No, that doesn’t concern me. I just want to know what’s expected of me.” I shifted on the chair and took a deep breath, making ready to state my terms.
“I always knew you would be of use, Mrs. Gunness.” He looked entirely smug.
“Yes, you always said there would be a time to pay.” I sipped my coffee while holding his gaze.
“That’s not why I like you, though. I hope you appreciate that.” The smugness was replaced with a rare softness, one I did not know what to do with.
“I want you to do me a favor in return,” I said instead.
“Of course you do.” Another puff of his cigar.
“I was thinking I might marry again. A kind Norwegian man or such. A man of means, preferably.” There was a plan in my head but it was incomplete, like jagged shadows playing on a silk screen.
A twitch of annoyance showed on James’s face then, a wrinkle between his eyebrows. “You are fine on your own. A new husband might ruin it all—”
“I need help on the farm, and a farmhand is expensive.” I said it fast and breathlessly, prepared for such objections.
“You know your husbands don’t last, and then you’ll make a ruckus trying to cover it up.” The frown on his face deepened.
“Maybe it won’t come to that.” I leaned closer over the table; the hot steam from the cup warmed my chest.
“You know it will. You have no patience with those men.” The frown turned into a sneer.
“Well, maybe I won’t be marrying, then; maybe I just need a farmhand.” The shadows on the screen danced and played.
“Don’t you have one already?” A puzzled smile.
“He might not last.” Quiet words that sounded like thunder. My breathing came faster. I felt hot all over.
James went quiet for a while; I could see his mind working. “What do you want me to do?”
“Find one for me and send him my way. Some young man with strong arms, fresh from the old country. A man of some means, of course. Say you are my brother, and that I’m looking for hired hands—or a husband, if that’s preferable.” I picked at the tight collar of my shirtwaist, trying to let in some air.
“What do you want them for?” His eyes were mere slits as he regarded me across the table.
“I haven’t decided yet.” I licked my lips and struggled for breath. How could I explain that the shadows were still dancing, that I just wanted someone to be there at hand—to have their bodies within my reach.
“Of course you have decided.” James added more liquor to our china cups. “Now you’ve seen how easy it is to make them disappear on land such as yours.”
“Maybe I just want the company.” Maybe that was all. Maybe it would not come to carnage.
“Maybe you just want the cash.” He gave me a wide grin.
“I can’t have the one without the other.” I smiled back across the table, but my heart beat hard in my chest.
“People disappear all the time in this country.” He said it as if it were nothing.
“No one has roots here, and people move around . . . In the old country, families knew each other generations back, but here there’s no kin so no one feels obliged to look out for one another.” It was just the truth, what I said.
“No one keeps track of all the comings and goings.” James happily played along.
“And the land is so vast. It’s easy to get lost.” I joined in his smile.
“Many bad men on the roads too.” James winked.
“Will you do it, then? Will you send them to me?” I could barely breathe while waiting for the answer.
“Will you keep taking my crates?” His eyebrow rose again.
I nodded and stretched a hand across the table.
“We have a deal, then, Mrs. Gunness.” His hand, so warm and deadly, met mine in a hard grip.
“That we have, Mr. Lee,” I said, and the shadows danced and leapt on the screen. Joyous, I think, and free.
* * *
—
The next shipment from Chicago came a few weeks later. This time the crate held a man, foul looking. It came to my door by carriage, and the man at the reins looked as foul as his cargo, but he was burly and strong and helped me get the crate down in the cellar.
That night I gave the children laudanum drops. Colson was so tired on his feet that he did not need my help. I brought the cleaver and the saw with me downstairs. I had bought quicklime and even read up on anatomy, as I figured there would be some differences from a hog. I hauled the man onto the table and cut his clothes off with scissors. He felt just like another pig to me then, perhaps because I had not seen him alive. I felt no different, I think, than any undertaker filling his customers with embalming fluids. I made a mess of it, though. The oilcloth beneath him was slippery and the floor too, but at last I managed to sever his limbs. Then I placed the parts in gunnysacks and hauled them with me outside where the wheelbarrow waited. I tipped him into the hole I had had Colson dig for just another occasion like this, and covered him in quicklime and ash. Then I cleaned up the mess.
It was a good thing I had married Peter, I thought, cleaning my hands that night. He had taught me how to strike with the cleaver, and the easiest ways to separate limbs from a corpse.
I made some coffee and ate some bread, and then I went to find Colson.
* * *
—