Dear Mother,

It was an especially busy day today. My housekeeper, Theresa Ryan tragically suffered a double bereavement after an incredible emergency here.

I was at lunch with brother John’s old friend Jake Magrath when he was called to a terrible emergency. A tank full of molasses exploded in the North End of Boston. Numerous people were killed or injured. Theresa’s husband is a fireman and his station house on the docks collapsed. He was in horrible pain when I saw him in the hospital last night. I heard this morning that he passed away in the early hours.

But even before her husband’s death, poor Theresa found her sister dead in a rooming house near the tank. While she was there, the tank exploded and the building was swept away, She was desperate to find her sister’s body after she dug herself out of the rubble. When Theresa was taken away to her husband at the hospital, I made sure her sister’s body was found.

I was present at the scene because I came with Jake, Dr. Magrath. He is the county medical examiner. I insisted on accompanying him when he was called away from our lunch.

I know you won’t approve of my rushing to the scene. Unlike Jake, I have no qualifications to provide assistance in an emergency. I wish I did have his education and training to be useful in an emergency. I admire Jake so much for what he has accomplished.

But you already know my frustration and I am thankful for the job you helped me to get here in Boston. We have over a hundred soldier and sailors in the main building and a dozen officers in the adjoining townhouse on Beacon Hill. You would be proud of how we have made the common rooms comfortable so these returning men can feel at home while we find and contact their families in Chicago.

Tomorrow I’ll take on Theresa’s duties, consulting on menus and overseeing cleaning. She’ll be absent mourning her losses for the week, I’m sure. I also need to get back to my correspondence so we can locate more of my men’s families and arrange reunions where possible.

There was a strange incident yesterday that is worries me. One of my officers, Lt. Bradley, happened to be on hand at the site of the molasses flood. He accompanied me to the hospital when I went to tell Theresa that we had found her sister’s body. Unfortunately, the dead woman’s husband, a police detective, saw Lt. Bradley and immediately attacked him! He thought my young officer was his dead wife’s lover. It was an awful scene. He had to be pulled off the young man.

Lt. Bradley assures me he never met the dead woman, and we believe it was the uniform the ex-army officer wore that led the policeman to assume he was the soldier rumored to be his wife’s lover. I’m sure the policeman will come to his senses and see his error, but I will not allow anyone to unjustly accuse any of my young men. That, at least, is something I can do, and I know I can rely on Jake to help me if needed.

I feel I must represent poor Theresa as well in making sure her sister’s killer is found. She worried the death would be assumed to be caused by the molasses flood, but it wasn’t. This morning, I will go to Jake’s morgue and give him the information he needs that I got from Theresa in the hospital.

I received the terrible news about Lt. Bradley’s parents when I returned yesterday. I didn’t have the heart to tell him yet. I will need to break the news gently. Thank Father for his help in finding the family and I’ll rely on him to help Lt. Bradley claim his inheritance when the shock of the news wears off.

Despite the tragic events of yesterday, I am still very thankful to you for finding this position as Resident Manager at Wendall House. I feel I am doing something useful.

Your loving daughter,
Fanny

Molasses Murder in a Nutshell, A Nutshell Murder Mystery #1
Genre: Historical
Release: January 2023
Format: Digital and Print to come
Purchase Link

The purpose of a forensic investigation is said to be “convict the guilty, clear the innocent, and find the truth in a nutshell.”

In January 1919 a tank bursts in Boston’s North End, flooding the neighborhood with molasses. When a woman is found murdered in the wreckage, Frances Glessner Lee asks her old friend, medical examiner Dr. George Magrath to help exonerate a young serviceman. Frustrated by her lack of education and skills, she wants the clear the young man’s name and find the killer. Will creation of a miniature crime scene lead to the truth? It’s the best she can do.

This is the first in a series of fictional stories roughly based on the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death. Over twenty miniature crime scenes were used from the 1940’s to the present to train police detectives. Set in the 1920’s these stories imagine Frances Glessner Lee working with Dr. George Magrath to learn about “legal medicine” as forensic science was known at the time. Working with Magrath provided the foundation for the miniatures for which Frances Glessner Lee has become known as the Mother of Forensic Science.

Meet the author
Frances McNamara is the author of the Nutshell Murders from Level Best Books and the Emily Cabot Mysteries from Rudiyat Press. She grew up in Boston where her father was Police Commissioner and worked in the library field retiring from the University of Chicago Library.

All comments are welcomed.