Free The Blackest Bird by Joel Rose Page B

the body. The Hoboken police were quickly notified of the death and forwarded immediate word to High Constable Hays in New York City.
    A storm rose up early that evening. Hays, with Acting Mayor Purdy, who again insisted on inviting himself to accompany the high constable and Sergeant McArdel of the Night Watch, rode over in a small boat through the squall to investigate.
    Upon their arrival, wet and chilled, the high constable was handed a note found by Dr. Cook in the dead man’s pocket. It was addressed:
TO THE WORLD
    “Here I am on the spot,” Payne had written in a clear if not strong hand. “God forgive me for my misfortune in my misspent time.”
    “He has died as the result of congestion of the brain, brought about by irregular living, exposure, and aberration of the mind,” Dr. Cook responded to questions posed to him by High Constable Hays pertaining to the exact cause of death.
    Hearing this, the acting mayor let out an unsettling, self-satisfied yelp, proclaiming to one and all, with the death by his own hand of the corkcutter Daniel Payne, the mystery of the murder of Mary Rogers was solved, the murderer unmasked, the puzzle complete.
    “Obviously, the young man had been rebuffed by the segar girl,” Purdy lorded. “My friends, it is the only explanation that need be drawn,” he continued with his pontification. “Mr. Payne, in what can singularly be called a fury of rejection, commenced then to throttle her, and abuse her in a violent, intimate manner. He then proceeded to murder her on the spot of the very clearing where he himself has now died by his own hand. Warranted by every observation, here lies our culprit.”
    Hays paid silent attention to this smugly delivered conclusion, fixing first the invidious acting mayor, then Coroner Cook, with his famous steady, cold gaze before declaring:
    “Not so, gentlemen. I have made life study of the police science of physiognomy. Daniel Payne was not one to escape my scrutiny. He is not our man.”

13
His Is the Rampant Temerity
    I t is a cold and rainy day on the streets of Philadelphia. Overhead, the slate gray of the sky is uniform, one somber shade. He has made plans with hope, as if hope might make a difference. His is the sudden uplift, the abrupt downward spiral. He blames magnetic fields gone haywire, celestial powers askew, the powers that be looking down on him askance, as he is convinced they have always done.
    Sissy is dying. His wife is dying. She ruptured a blood vessel while singing. Since then his life has been one of constant despair. God help him, in his mind he has taken leave of her forever, and has undergone all of the agonies of her death.
    He shoves his hands deep in the pockets of his greatcoat, the same greatcoat he wore as a cadet during his stint at West Point, but now, twelve years later, the garment so much worse for wear, a miserable reminder, one of so many, of his failure.
    Muddie has done yeoman’s work. She has patched the heavy garment a dozen times: where the wool has worn thin, where the moths have lain in wait, where the insects have laid their eggs and watched them hatch. It is these hatchlings, the moths’ loathsome larval offspring, that have had their fill, leaving behind a dozen holes.
    No matter, he reassures himself, moth holes are inevitable, even in the best of broadlooms.
    But to be truthful, all those patches and darns are telling. Everything is telling on this man. He does not disguise well.
    Yet he deems himself genius.
    But if he is a genius, why is he not recognized? Why is he so poor, so destitute, he must beg to eat? Why does society reject him?
    A man of his vast talents?
    His name is Edgar Allan Poe, although he loathes the Allan part, and eschews it. He prefers to be known simply as Edgar Poe. Or Edgar A. Poe. Or E.A. Poe. Or Eddie Poe. Or even E.A.P., as in his first published work.
    His darling little wife, his Sissy, his Virginia, calls him “Brother,” or “Buddy.” Sissy’s mother,