Sunkissed Innsmouth
Part Twenty Five
Felecia was confused and angered by such a quick and flippant response. There was already ample evidence that Mullens’ son likely didn’t have anything to do with the murders, and even if he did, what about the law?
Felecia didn’t frequent the town, no one from Rotary house did. Trips were very rare and only made when father was still alive. Men from the house and the servants from the village who accompanied them wore large hats and coats with high collars. Women and girls were careful to wear sun hats and veils. The words deformed and backwards were whispered a lot, some curious children would come close enough to gasp while elders in town forked their fingers at the family. Felecia saw constables in town, men in crisp blue suits with funny hats that looked like the top of a bell. They all had their gun and their club and their badges pinned to their uniforms. When she asked who they were father told her “They’re the law, or rather, the ones who do the catching of criminals so they can be tried before a judge.”
Felecia never saw the law on family grounds, only the groundskeeper, then again, she had never heard of a murder on the family grounds either.
“Surely the constables in town have to be notified. Even murderers get a trial in court!”
Again, Phillip surprised her. She expected him to shout back, yell at her like he did his son, otherwise to simply grunt and keep moving without a word. Phillip stopped and took a knee in the mud and looked Felecia up and down before giving her the grimmest of looks.
“You are the smartest person I’ve ever known, smarter than me by half and I make most of the folks in this village look stupid. I don’t need to tell you what the townies think of us. I was there on your family trips to town. Deformed monstrosities, malnourished products of endless incest, foreigners from some far-flung savage lands. No matter that we’ve been on this island since it was a British colony, no matter that we served in that first war and the many that came after it right along side those uptight snobs. No. The constables, the police, won’t come up here. They wouldn’t if I walked into town and begged them. We live and keep to ourselves here unless there’s money to be made off us.”
“We can’t just kill him, not without a trial, not if we don’t know that he did it, not if we think someone else might have. You can’t kill someone if they’re innocent!”
More of that grim look. “Guilt or innocence doesn’t matter to a mob, only what they’ve already decided, and make no mistake, that torch wielding pile of humanity that walked up my lane and yelled my name, was a mob. They expect the easy conclusion to a scenario they’ve already imagined, if I do anything else, if we do anything else, we’re just as likely to wind up their target as that poor dullard is.”
When Felecia’s eyes and mind started to wander Phillip spoke louder, “Felecia, I told you back at the house, if you came along, you would have to watch what I do. I’m not going to kill that poor bastard because I think he killed his father, or sour Marge, or the candle maker. I’m not going to kill him because I didn’t like his father or because I’m worried about the danger he might pose to the rest of the village. I’m going to kill him because there is no one left to take care of him now and because that mob, likely as not, has already beat him so bad there won’t be anything left but to put him out of his misery. I need you to accept that or you need to go back now. I’m not getting killed be those people because you decide to rile them up.”