The Left Hand of Jim Barton

Flash Fiction

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This odd little piece of one-off flash fiction was inspired by TWO prompts! One was the June prompt from Fictionistas, the second was from radicaledward via Notes: Hands in dirt.

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Caroline sighed deeply and brushed her hands down her blue suit, double-checking for crumbs from her breakfast muffin, as she got out of the car and the smell of the strait washed over her. Across the street she could see the house on the bluff where the whole drama of the last few days had unfolded, the seafront neighborhood now eerily quiet. 

It had started early in the week when a jogger’s dog had escaped its lead and gone on an escapade through the well-appointed gardens of Orchard Beach’s old-money vanguard. Before the jogger could gain control of his wayward pet, the animal had enthusiastically dug a hole in the backyard of elderly resident Moira Hathaway. 

In the hole the jogger had found an old wooden box, and inside the old box were the skeletal remains of a man’s left hand. 

Caroline crossed the street. The house on the bluff was a sunny yellow gingerbread with white trim, the yard bursting with dahlias and roses and singing with bees. She climbed the freshly-painted porch, and knocked on the front door. There was a watchful pause. 

When the door opened, Moira Hathaway stood behind the screen, crisply dressed in a purple blouse and pleated skirt as though she was getting ready to go out, her ancient shoulders stooped. 

“Miss Hathaway?” Caroline said, adopting a professional tone with a gentle smile. “My name is Caroline Phelan, from the Port Salish Chronicle. I called early this morning, do you remember?”

Moira nodded, eyes sharper than her age suggested. “Oh yes, of course. Come in, come in.”

Caroline entered, and the house looked exactly as she thought it would, inside—all brocade and antiques and Turkish rugs. The wide windows were open to the strait, heavy curtains drawn aside to let the midmorning light in.

“Please sit,” Moira said, gesturing to a floral loveseat. “Do you like tea?”

“Thank you, yes,” Caroline said, sinking into the loveseat, which creaked underneath her from lack of use. 

Within moments, Moira returned from the kitchen with a tea tray and silver service, a plate of sugar cookies beside it.

While she poured, Moira asked, “Have they told you whose hand it was?”

“Not yet,” Caroline replied. “It’s very, very old. Difficult to get any viable genetic material, but the coroner is working on it.”

Moira settled herself on a brocade chair opposite the loveseat. “Nonsense,” she said. “I told the police whose it was, yesterday. It was Jim Barton’s.”

Caroline took up her teacup, puzzled. “Jim Barton. First mayor of Port Salish, Jim Barton?”

“That’s right,” Moira said, though she sipped her tea casually.

“You’re saying someone robbed his grave and removed his hand?”

“No, no. That grave has been untouched since 1888. Barton lost his hand when he was alive,” Moira said.

Caroline frowned. “There’s never been any record of that.”

“There are plenty of things no one has a record for, my dear,” Moira said. “Barton among the rest. He was not what everyone thinks he was.”

“Oh?”

Moira sipped her tea. “First-Mayor-Local-Hero Jim Barton was a scoundrel, a liar, and an adulterer. And he lost his left hand for it, too. But you won’t find that in the history books, because he knew the right folks around here to keep that quiet.”

Caroline considered this. It did not seem likely. As the first mayor of Port Salish, every portrait and statue of the man around town and in City Hall had two intact hands. No mention of a missing hand—or bad reputation—in any books or records.

“So, how do you know that he lost his hand?” Caroline asked.

The old woman replied, “Because I cut it off the bastard myself.”

An icy chill ran down Caroline’s spine, but Moira was cool and unruffled, holding her tea in an unnaturally steady grip.  

“He was sitting right where you are now, telling me he didn’t love me anymore,” Moira continued. “After he had wooed and wed me and found someone else.”

“Miss Hathaway, I beg your pardon, but…you couldn’t have known Jim Barton,” Caroline said, slowly. “You said yourself that he died in 1888.”

“I know. I was there for his funeral. Hiding behind the oak tree at the edge of the cemetery,” Moira said. “That man stole my innocence, my pride, my dignity, my life…but no one believed me. They wanted their local hero, and that’s what they got. They called me crazy. He paid me good money to stay quiet, but I’m not staying quiet anymore. I’ve lived too long for that. Far too long.”

The old woman’s gaze was distant. Seagulls passed soundlessly outside the picture window, banking down toward the water below the bluff. The quiet stretched. 

Caroline could feel her heartbeat in her throat. It wasn’t possible, surely. Moira Hathaway was clearly senile, losing her mind. What good would come of such a lie? And why would she want to ruin the reputation of a man so long dead?  

“When you get back to town,” Moira said, quietly, “I would appreciate it if you would set the record straight for me. Tell them all the truth. All of the portraits and the statues of him are wrong. Please let them know that Jim Barton lost his left hand for being a liar and a scoundrel.”

She sipped her tea, eyes steely. “And tell them that Miss Moira Hathaway said so.” 

Caroline opened her mouth to speak, but a buzz in her pocket interrupted her. She pulled out her phone. It was a text from the Chronicle office. 

She read it over and over silently to herself.

Barton exhumed; left hand missing.

END

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