Chicory root and fresh ground coffee, Susan gave the hot bitter drink a cautious sniff. Her stomach protested with a truculuent rumble. At the massive farmer’s sink, Tabitha sucked her teeth dismissively. Susan willed her stomach to mind and set her china cup on the kitchen table. Her back twinged painfully.

“Told you,” Tabitha said without turning around.

Susan feigned confusion.

“What’s that, Tabby?”

Having none of her mistress’s foolishness, Tabitha scrubbed the potatoes and shook her head.

“I’s just a feebleminded maid. Not a fancy lady. Not the first colored woman doctor in the world. So what do the likes of me know. I mean my mama and my mama’s mama was midwifes. And even the slowest child on the plantation knows to put a knife under your pillow to cut the back pain and drink boiled gingerroot for morning sickness. But you know best,” Tabitha said, scrubbing harder with each sentence.

Susan sighed. It was hard enough being thirty seven and experiences one’s first pregnancy. So much would change Susan wanted to hang on to herself as long as possible. Already she had limited her practice to two days a week at St. Martin’s. But it was 1884 not 1784, she had heard enough of Tabitha’s old wives’ tales. Susan also hated to point out if she was really such a fancy lady she wouldn’t be sitting in the kitchen breakfasting with the help. She eyed her plate of hominy grits and cheese eggs

“Tabby, I’m the third colored female doctor in these United States and my coffee is just fine. It just needs to cool that’s all.”

Susan made a great show on unfolding the newspaper. Tabitha sucked her teeth again. She scanned the front page until a headline, lower right, made her draw in a sharp breath: Colored Millionaire Burton, 59, Dead By His Own Hands

Susan and her husband Arthur had known Benjamin Burton, the bus magnet of Newport, Rhode Island. The sphere of Black elites was a small one. Maria Burton, Benjamin’s dear late wife, had befriended Susan when they summered in Newport. They were sisters in the National Colored Women’s League. In free health clinics, they worked side by side from Boston to D.C. Just last summer, they had rode the horse-drawn Burton Express, a shuttle service for tourists and locals alike. They’d eaten dinner at the Burtons’ lovely home with therir daughters Marie and Emmie. Gracious and jovial, Mr. Burton was the embodiement of a good man hail went. How could this dreadful thing have happened to such a lovely family.

With Tabitha leaning over her shoulder, Susan read the too brief article. Her mind painted a scene, far richer than any newspaper article. Rain pelted the grand house on Levin Street. Muffled hooves from delivery carriages added to the steady beat of rain. A bell called out as the milkman made his morning round. A gunshot severed the typical autumn morning in western Newport. In the shadow of Belleview’s American castles a second shot soon followed. On Levin, passers-by stopped in their tracks confused. Frantic, a woman’s screams pierced the morning and nothing was ever the same again in Newport.

Her burgundy flannel dressing gown was drenched by the pounding rain, Emmie Burton, 17, ran screaming into the middle of the street. Furniture delivery man, Alfie O’Shea, 32, leapt from his carriage and raced into the Burton house. Emmie’s cries of “Daddy killed himself” followed O’Shea as reached the gore that was the Burton family kitchen. In a widening red pool, Benjamin Burton lay on his back on his tiled floor. Legs under the table, face near the stove, Burton had a neat hole over his right ear and another one on his left side. His kitchen chair had toppled over. His coffee cup, nearly full, waited by his empty plate. Half of a cheese danish was still in his mouth. Crimson bloomed on his crisp white business shirt. O’Shea reached across the red to feel for a pulse. Neighbors alerted by the girl’s screams rushed into the Burton house. Trampling the hand tufted wool rugs, muddying the polished oak floors, tumbling into the once tidy kitchen, the denizens of Levin Street crowded around Benjamin Burton as O’Shea gently placed the dead’s man hand over his broken heart.

Someone wrapped Emmie in a blanket and bundled her, still wailing, into a neighbor’s home. Someone ran upstairs to awaken Allen Dorsey, 22. Burton’s son-in-law and tell him the news. Someone held back Marie Burton Dorsey, 24, as she returned from collecting rents to her home in chaos. Somewhere a policeman’s whistle pealed. Somewhere the coroner put on his overcoat. Nearby the sounds of an ambulance echoed on the wet street. And Alfie, head bowed in prayer, waited with Mr. Burton’s side because it seemed the right thing to do.

Susan didn’t realize she was crying until Tabitha hugged her tightly. First all she could think of was the late Maria Burton, wife and mother and racewoman, born a slave Maria had worked hand in hand with Benjamin as a bookkeeper to build his business. Once successful the woman had devoted herself to uplifting the race. Susan knew Maria’s life work was her family. Why would Benjamin commit suicide? she thought. How could Benjamin commit suicide?

Sniffling Susan drank down the cool minty ginger tea Tabitha had handed her. She hiccuped and felt better. Tabitha put the kettle on. Legs crossed beneath her crinoline and head in one hand, Susan turned the details of the article over in her head with what she knew of the Burton family. Frowning she looked up at Tabitha, who had met the Burtons when they entertained the family during summer vacation.

“Tabby, how do you shoot youself twice on the right and the left?“

“The same way you sleep through two gunshots and a herd of looky-loos stampeded beneath your bedroom. You right it makes no goddamn sense. Suicide my hind quarters! Eat breakfast and I’ll pack our bags. We’ll telegraph your Mister from the station. God willing we’ll catch the Nor’ester to Rhode Island. We’ll brainstorm on the way up how to get you in to do a proper autopsy. Add some hot water to your tea, Doctor, you have another mystery to solve.”