Case File MO70

[Recording opens with seventeen minutes of ambient noises. The sound of wind and crickets suggest that the recording is taking place outside.]

Walstead: Come on, you Negro. I didn’t spent all that time listening to the mad pastor for nothing.

[Four minutes of ambient noises]

Walstead: Is that him or…

[Footsteps on dirt]

Walstead: Mr. Freestone!

[Stumbling noises]

Walstead: Good evening! Sorry to startle you. Have you been well?

Freestone: Ah. Ms. Walstead. Hello.

Walstead: Where are you heading, might I ask? It’s rare to see someone out and about this late, especially in this cold.

[Several seconds of silence]

Freestone: The rooster’s sick. Made a mess in the cellar. I’ve cleaned it up but I needed to step out for a bit to clear my lungs. Decided to take a walk about it.

Walstead: Really! I had to clear my head as well; one of the contraptions the Marshal assigned me caught fire. Shall we walk together?

Freestone: I…of course. It would be improper of me to leave a woman by herself in the cold, especially without a lantern. I suppose you’ve always had a habit for wandering at night in the dark?

Walstead: What can I say? I’m good at navigating by ear.

Freestone: Of course.

[Two minutes of footstep noises]

Walstead: Heavy knapsack on your back for a casual walk out. What’s it for?

Freestone: Oh, just my…usual tools. You never know when you’ll come across someone injured. Just a few months ago, there was a bible-seller I found with a broken leg just outside of town.

Walstead: I see, I see. That rubber tubing sticking out though, is that your usual tools? Never seen a doctor use that before.

Freestone: That is…a personal project. Designed to extract excess humors from the body. I brought it in case I felt like tinkering. Sometimes inspiration strikes me even during a walk.

Walstead: A skilled physician and an inventor? I can see why Geraldine’s so fond of you. So how do you get the humors into the piping? Let me take a look and-

[Scuffling noises]

Freestone: Please keep your distance, Ms. Walstead. It still needs to be patented before I can show it off to anybody else.

Walstead: Fine, fine. Does that little shovel need to be patented too?

Freestone: That…is a trowel. Sometimes I run into plant cultivars useful for medicine. Couple of patches of chamomile around here. I’ve been meaning to dig one up safely, replant it somewhere on hand.

Walstead: Dig them up in the dark?

Freestone: Maybe I’m good at identifying plants by ear. Or I can recall where I saw them in the day so I can revisit them at night. Surely that’s plausible enough.

Walstead: Well, I suppose that’s all my answers questioned. Aren’t you good at answering them!

Freestone: A skill mastered by most schoolchildren by the age of six, yes.

Walstead: Maybe you can answer another one for me? It’s about the graveyard. Someone reported possible tampering with the graves of the recently deceased - from the circus incident, of course. We were worried it might be grave robbers.

Freestone: Really? How despicable. I know medical students will drag out a corpse for study, but still, it makes my skin crawl to think of the bodies of good Christians being violated like that.

Walstead: I agree. That’s why I dug one of the bodies up two nights ago.

Freestone: You…have.

Walstead: Just to make sure the body was still down there, of course. It’s under the Marshal remit; a few wizards are known to use corpses as bases for homunculi; got sign-off from the Mayor and everything. Body’s still down there, but…well, his body was heavily battered before it went down there, but the undertaker, Graham, thought it had an extra scar on the chest when we dug it up. It was a recent death, while you were here, so I was hoping you might’ve had something in your medical records we could use to confirm.

Freestone: Ah, I don’t believe he…well, I’d have to know exactly who you dug up to answer that. You can hardly expect me to read your mind, Ms. Walstead.

Walstead: You made a good effort. You got the gender right.

Freestone: Perhaps it’s different on the East Coast, or different for you, but I doubt anybody in Henshaw would admit to seeing the chests of Mrs. Edwards or Ms. Banks, especially Mrs. Edwards. Sixth commandment and all.

Walstead: I suppose. I hear in some places, doctors are given some leeway in such matters. Can’t perform surgery through a gingham dress, right?

Freestone: Let’s not pretend that I’d be given it. I work around it. Anyways, recent deaths of men narrows it down to three people. I saw no scar on Richard Campbell, and the other two I never treated, particularly Mr. Edwards. I don’t think he or his wife approved of me as Dr. Birch’s replacement.

Walstead: Ah, yes, I’ve had so many questions about that! And you’ve been so good at answering questions. How did you two know each other? I hear he recruited you personally to replace him.

[A few seconds of silence]

Freestone: We have a mutual connection. He was looking to retire, I needed a change of scenery, and he trusts my credentials.

Walstead: Tch, and we were doing so well. Mutual connection? Change of scenery? How vague.

Freestone: I’m not expert on social mores, but is it appropriate to drill into an acquaintance’s history on a casual walk together? After all, it’s not like I’m being interrogated. You don’t have the authority to do so. Now, I think I’ve walked enough. I’ll be-

Walstead: Of course, I don’t need more details on the credentials. Four years of volunteering at the Francois Hospital for Creoles and Colored, down in Baton Rouge. Not quite a professional medical doctorate, but enough education to get you by. Tyce Francois was likely your ‘mutual connection’ as well, given his family’s history in Missouri. I’m sure you learned enough to handle a position in a small little town like-

Freestone: I’d suggest you stop now. I told Marshal 24 and I’ll tell you too; I’m out of your jurisdiction. There’s not a scratch of sorcery in me and I can prove that if I need to. So it’s deeply unwise to use information obtained from background checks you had no authorization to perform.

Walstead: Background check? What background check? Geraldine told me. She talks a lot about you. She gets a bit obsessive about things she likes, you know? And she definitely likes you.

[thud]

Walstead: You, uh, dropped your ‘trowel’.

Freestone: You, miss, are lying. That’s…not information she’d be privy to. And she’d know better than to tell that to you.

Walstead: How confident of you. Her father’s an influential man with money, you know. Maybe she asked him to hire a private investigator. How well do you really know her?

Freestone: Well enough to know she’d ask me about my past before talking about it with you. She trusts me that much, at least. We’re…friends.

Walstead: And she, you. I have to wonder why. Such close allies after a few months, despite coming from opposite sides of society. And then the ‘private tutoring’. I suppose one could call it romantic.

Freestone: You’re not suggesting…you are, and you’ll stop that now. I refuse to acknowledge such insinuations about my conduct with a student.

Walstead: She’s your student now, but she was your friend before. Funny the way that shifts. Now, now, don’t get too angry, I’m not here to judge. I know what your kind are like.

Freestone: You know nothing about my kind.

Walstead: I know you’re very careful, very paranoid, and very lonely out here. I know you’ve spent hours alone with a young woman who trusts and admires you deeply. Perhaps your paranoia prevented you from taking advantage of that, but if you truly trust her, it’s only a matter of time before you start teaching her the ways of the world, isn’t it? Shaping her into something you can get your hands around.

Freestone: Bold of the woman who came up with ‘Jack Fletcher’. I treat her as a student - because that’s what she is. I don’t treat her as a prop, to be kissed in order to shock people I don’t respect.

Walstead: What can I say? I can be a lustful scoudrel. Sometimes I go too far and I have to apologize. But I don’t hide what I am. I may inflect here and there, but I’ve never hidden my nature; I’ve never been able to.

Freestone: Never mind your lust. I’ve never agreed with common church dogma on the sinfulness of it. But I know what a natural-born trickster looks like. You don’t have to be a scoundrel; you’d just like to believe that.

Walstead: Says you. What about your nature? Does she know what your kind are like? How much have you told her, if you trust her so much? What does she know about your past? Your motives? Your feelings?

Freestone: She knows enough.

Walstead: I doubt she knows more than exactly what you want her to know. Anything more and she might slip out of your control. And you can’t have that, now can you?

[A few seconds of silence]

Freestone: Apologies, I think I’ve lost the plot. Are you trying to indict me for a crime or are you just trying to make me feel guilty for being a bad friend?

Walstead: I’m just asking questions. After all, this isn’t an interrogation; I don’t have the authority for that.

Freestone: How candid. I’ve answered quite a few of your questions. I think I have one of my own. What exactly have I done wrong in your eyes?

Walstead: You mean besides whatever you did in the graveyard?

Freestone: ‘Whatever I did in that graveyard’. Not only can you not prove I was there, but you can’t even name what I’ve supposedly done. It’s not like you can accuse me of body snatching when the body’s still there. What have I done wrong?

Walstead: You’re being awfully defensive for someone who’s ‘supposedly’ done nothing wrong.

Freestone: I am a Negro. Not Creole, Negro. When I was born, the only difference between me and legal property was a few government papers. The law has been corrected in my favor since then, but it is not my friend - and you should know better than to treat it like yours. Surely that’s not your only argument. Do you think I’m a danger to this town? To these people? To Geraldine? Do you have a real reason to draw me into this vortex of interrogation and accusation? Am I just an obstacle to whatever your goal is; is your manipulation just a matter of following orders? Or does making me upset just amuse you on some level?

[A few seconds of silence]

Walstead: You came here mysteriously, you barely talk to anyone unless you need to, and you deflect any attempt to understand you. You have the mayor’s daughter wrapped around your finger and you, you ripped a homunculus in half and nobody knows how! Even your heroics are terrifying!

Freestone: Supposition, suspicion, superstition. What have I done wrong?

[A few seconds of silence]

Walstead: Fine. You’ve done nothing yet, nothing I can prove. But nobody knows when that will change-

Freestone: So you’ll be burning my office down then?

Walstead: What?

Freestone: It nearly happened last July, when I was still fresh in town. An attempt to drive me out quickly - or kill me - only hampered by poor-quality material and general incompetence. Do you need recommendations on firestarting equipment? The best trees for a hanging? Want to know the best way to whip the town into a mob? I’m sure I can answer a few more questions for you.

Walstead: What are you…what? Freestone, I’m not going to…I’m with the Marshals, goddamnit; we’re supposed to stop that kind of violence.

Freestone: Of course you won’t lynch me. It’s only lynching if the little people gather together to do it, the stupid farmers. When the government chases down a nigger for being suspicious, it’s legal - barely. Either way, the point is that my existence and presence is a nuisance to be cast out, beaten into shape or destroyed. Never mind that I’m the one who’s suffered from being here - singed walls, stalking and stangulation - I am the illness and not the patient. Is that correct?

[Several seconds of silence]

Freestone: Still chewing that over? Fine, I’ll continue. You’re hardly free of suspicion yourself. You came here attached to wizards and their dupes, happy to play along with them until they became trouble. You sidestep any criticism by insisting on your nature - as if you simply can’t stop being a trickster. As far as I’ve seen, you rarely talk to people unless you need information from them or you need a laugh at their expense. And if you’re accusing me of being untoward with Geraldine, there’s more sin on your back than mine. It would take one bad turn to put you where I am right now.

Walstead: Is that how it’s going to be? Fine. I’ve spent my whole life having to play the villain and I’m not afraid to-

Freestone: She likes you, you know. Geraldine. She jumped at the opportunity to mend your arm. She’s described your ‘nature’ frustrating at times, but she still willingly seeks you out for your companionship. I’m not sure if you realize how meaningful that is from her; I doubt she trusts even five people in this town that much.

Walstead: What, so you think I’m an awful woman but you’ll graciously tolerate me for her sake?

Freestone: No. I think you’re a good person, Matilda Walstead - or at least, you would like to be if you had the chance. Circumstances have put you in my way and led you down thought patterns that, I think, do you a disservice. I’m sorry we are at odds with each other over the government. We could both be better than this.

[Several seconds of silence]

Walstead: If you think you’re getting an apology back, you have a long time to wait.

Freestone: No. I’m just making my stance on you quite clear. I think…I’m a good person as well, just not perfect. Whether this earns me a bit of trust in your eyes is up to you; I can only hope that it makes our next conversation less uniformly unpleasant. Now, it’s quite late and very cold and I’d like to go to sleep. Your coat is better than mine, but I’m sure you’re freezing as well.

Walstead: Well. You’re not wrong there.

Freestone: Good night then. Though, personally, I think I’m quite done with the night.

[Departing footsteps, followed by five minutes of silence. Four minutes in, the ambient wind goes quiet]

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