Read Online Maritime Murder by Steve Vernon - Free Book Online

skin remained, burnt and shriveled like a crumple of parchment. While the two men stood watching helplessly, the beam gave way and Eminaud’s remains spilled into the hollow of the cellar. After putting out the fire with the help of the locals who had gradually gathered, Eisenhaur and Contoy managed to drag Eminaud’s carcass from the cellar with the aid of a claw hoe.
    The body was a sad mess. Where Eminaud’s back had touched the beam, his clothes remained unburned. It appeared as if he had died while wearing his heavy black wool jacket.
    â€œHe always wore that jacket,” Eisenhaur said. “On account of his rheumatism. Its warmth eased his aches a little.”
    â€œWell he is warm enough now,” Contoy said. “What do you think happened?”
    â€œPerhaps he fell asleep?” Eisenhaur suggested. “A poorly tended oil lamp may have been the cause.”
    Contoy shook his head grimly. “I never knew a man that would sleep in his coat,” he observed. “Nor was George Eminaud in the habit of sleeping in the middle of his kitchen floor.”
    Upon closer examination, the two men found what looked to be heat-baked blood crusted upon the neck and collar of Eminaud’s heavy woolen coat.
    â€œThis was no accident,” Contoy decided. “Bad work has been done here on this very night.”
    Tragically, the two men could find no trace of either Mrs. Eminaud or young Catherine but a few scattered bones. As morning broke through the cold winter stillness, more traces were discovered. About eleven feet from the door frame of the house lay Eminaud’s battered hat. The hat was singed, with the marks of one or two sparks of fire charred upon it. Four or five feet from the fallen hat lay a thick gout of blood soaked into the snow. “About three or four quarts worth,” Eisenhaur later observed.
    Shortly afterwards, searchers spotted the trail of snowshoe tracks. “They’re wearing their snowshoes backwards,” George Bohner, a local tracker and guide, observed. “You can see how uneven the depth of the tracks is.”
    Bohner led a makeshift posse through the snow-covered woods and down to the icy water. “The efforts those two boys went through to try and hide their tracks were nearly comical,” Bohner later remarked. “The more they turned and twisted and tried to confuse me, the easier those two were to hunt down.”
    In spite of the twists and turns of the trail, it was clear that the Boutilier brothers were headed toward Halifax, from where they would most likely head for their home ground in Tatamagouche. If they made it home the brothers believed that there were more than a few friendly locals who would help conceal them from the law.
    But the brothers never reached Tatamagouche. On March 24 , 1791 , a scant five days after the murders were committed, a Halifax County sheriff named Clarke apprehended the fugitive brothers after he found them hiding out in an abandoned shanty just north of the Halifax city limits.
    At first, the brothers denied their visit to the Eminaud residence. “We haven’t seen old Eminaud for nearly four or five years,” George Boutilier said. “We were just out hunting.” Unfortunately for the Boutilier boys, there were far too many witnesses who had seen them in the area.
    â€œLet me see, now,” Sheriff Clarke said. “You’re wearing the same sets of snowshoes and moccasins that we’ve tracked from George Frederick Eminaud’s home. You’re carrying a tomahawk that looks to have blood dried on its blade.”
    â€œGeorge told you we were hunting,” John argued. “We used the tomahawk to skin a deer.”
    â€œDid you eat that deer too?” Sheriff Clarke asked. “Or did you think the dead deer was going to rise up and walk home by itself?”
    The brothers had no answer for that.
    â€œIn fact, the way I see it, you are carrying a bit