“It’s all dark up here.” Groby tapped his finger against his temple. “But it’s no mystery. It’s happened to me before. Drink a little too much ale, ’an you can’t remember a thing of what occurred the next day.” He chuckled, but then quickly grew somber.
“Your wife was taking reading lessons from Mr. Otis, and I’ve been told you ordered her to stop, but she continued against your will. Were you jealous of Mr. Otis?”
“Jealous? Not of that whippersnapper, I weren’t.”
“So why did you order your wife to stop the lessons? Was it because of money?”
Groby ran a hand through his shaggy black mane. “It weren’t Otis who had me raging. It were Collins.”
“Collins?” The hairs on the back of Nate’s neck stood on end.
“Aye. She’d take her lessons with Otis an’ then she’d meet up with Collins after. It weren’t too long ’afore she stopped the reading and only went out to meet Collins.”
“How do you know that?”
He hung his head. “I had Trent follow her. He owes me some money, so…”
“And did you confront her about Collins?”
“Nay, I did not.”
“Why not?” Nate asked, but he already knew the answer. Groby loved his wife and confronting her would mean facing a reality that was easier to ignore. Nate had behaved similarly when he’d been betrothed to Helen. “So, when Rupert taunted you about being a cuckold, you became enraged. And you don’t remember what you did after that?”
“It’s all dark, like I said.”
“So, it’s possible that in your intoxicated rage, you attacked and killed Otis.”
Groby stood. His bulky frame took up a large portion of the small cell, making him look like a caged bear. He turned to face Nate and gripped the cell bars with his large, meaty hands.
“I know I look like someone who can crush a man with his fists, but it’s not me nature to act so. I’ve been a butcher for well-nigh thirty years ’an I know how to kill. But I’m no black-hearted murderer. I don’t take pleasure in death like some do. I take care to cause as little pain as possible to the animals an’ treat them well when they’re alive. I don’t abide by cruelty.”
Nate’s gaze fell on the butcher’s beefy hands that gripped the cell bars and the clumps of dried blood under his fingernails. Then he looked up at the man’s face. He was gruff-looking, that was for certain, but his soft brown eyes told a different story. They pleaded with Nate to believe him.
“I’m a God-fearing Christian, Mr. Squires, an’ I wouldn’t condemn myself to an eternity of torment or curse my children with a murderer for a father. If I hang, my wife’s and children’s good names hang with me. I love my family. I’d not do anything to hurt them.”
Nate believed the man. But that didn’t discount the fact that Grobymay have acted out of character if he’d been in a blind, intoxicated rage of which he had no memory. “Aside from Collins, do you have any enemies? Any person who might want to frame you for this murder?” Nate asked.
Mr. Groby shrugged. “A few men who owe me money, and they’ve been a little troublesome.”
“Owe you money?”
“Aye, I loaned them some at a modest interest.”
“When you say modest…” Nate’s heartbeat accelerated. Debt and the threat of debtors’ prison were a strong motive for framing a man.
“Two percent. I’m not practicing usury.”
“How many people?” Nate asked.
“Five or six,” Groby said.
“You mean you don’t know exactly?”
“It’s six, but Wilson finished repaying his debt just last week. So, only five now.”
“Have any of the remaining five had any trouble repaying you?”
“Morris, Hornby, and Trent have given me some trouble for a few months now. Sometimes, I let them pay me in with chickens, pigs, or even labor.”
