Killing Gifts Read online

  Dedication

  For Norm, again and forever

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am deeply grateful to many people who patiently gave of their time and their expertise to help me put together this story. Todd A. Burdick, Director of Interpretation and Education at Hancock Shaker Village, was invaluable for his knowledge of historical detail about the Hancock Shakers. Any errors are, of course, mine alone. For their memories and knowledge of train travel in the 1930s, many thanks to James R. Woodworth, David Schiferl, Mike Stousland, and Peter Dahoda. And, as always, I appreciate the insightful editorial comments provided by Tom Rucker; Becky Bohan; Norm Schiferl; my agent, Barbara Gislason; and my editor, Patricia Lande Grader.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  In the late 1930s, Hancock Shaker Village, in Massachusetts, was still open, though in decline. The community contained fewer than twenty-five members, only two of whom were brothers, as well as a few girls being raised by the sisters. Many buildings had been abandoned, including the lovely Round Stone Barn and the Meetinghouse. The Hancock Shakers lived a quiet life, their membership dwindling until the village closed in 1960. Hancock Shaker Village has been restored as a not-for-profit educational organization, open year round, where visitors may see how the Shakers lived during the nineteenth century.

  Brother Ricardo lived in the village at the time of this story, and Fannie Estabrook was eldress of Hancock throughout the 1930s and until the village’s demise. However, the following tale and Fannie’s and Ricardo’s parts in it are fiction.

  Deborah Woodworth

  May 1, 2000

  Contents

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Author’s Note

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Praise for the Shaker Mysteries by Deborah Woodworth

  Other Shaker Mysteries by Deborah Woodworth

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  ONE

  JULIA MASTERS TWIRLED A HONEY-GOLD CURL AROUND HER finger and pushed out her lower lip in a pout that might have been alluring to someone other than her companion.

  “I’m cold,” Julia said. “I want my wrap.”

  “It’s unseasonably warm.”

  “We’re in for snow, and you know it.” Julia’s voice quivered with petulance.

  “Then you should have dressed more warmly.”

  Julia paced the length of the unheated Summerhouse, hugging her bare arms. “Oh, stop being so mean,” she said. “This is my very best dancing dress.”

  “So you said.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t even have this one if it weren’t for Cousin Vera in Boston. She hasn’t passed me down one for winter yet—not something up-to-date. Anyway, why did I have to dress up just to meet in this stupid old Summerhouse? I’m not one of the sisters, you know.”

  “Indeed, you are not.”

  “Then why are we here?”

  “I told you,” her companion said with growing impatience. “I’m taking you dancing. You’ll have so many invitations you’ll be glad to be wearing something so pretty and light.”

  “You’ve never taken me dancing before.” Julia tilted her head and smiled, as she had earlier to her mirror. She knew her smile was fetching. Few men had ever been able to resist her. But her companion was immune to her soft shoulders and the sweet, inviting scent of the rosewater she’d swiped from the Shaker store to dab behind her ears.

  The midwinter sun had drawn in the last of its rays and given the moon its turn. The silent cold enveloped Julia. Freezing and alone was an all-too-familiar state, and one she’d vowed never to feel again.

  “This is silly and boring,” Julia said. “If we’re going dancing, then let’s go. I still can’t see why we had to meet here, of all places.”

  “It isn’t silly. I wanted a quiet place. Sit down, Julia. I’ve brought something for you—an opportunity, shall we say? You’ll understand when you see it.”

  “A present!” Julia spun toward the cracked wood table in the center of the Summerhouse. Her pink satin evening gown shimmered like a seashell in the moonlight as she clasped her hands together in childlike excitement. Two lengths of shiny fabric hung down her back to her waist; one of them had flipped forward over her breast, and she smoothed it back over her bare shoulder with a manicured finger.

  “Sit down and be patient like a lady.”

  With an irritated sigh, Julia shivered and slid into a ladder-back chair. Her companion placed a package on the table in front of her, just out of reach. Julia eagerly stretched out her arm.

  “What is it? I hope it’s a necklace or a bracelet. Something really bright and sparkly.” Julia’s stiff fingers fumbled at the wrapping, a piece of calico tied with a ribbon. With a jewel or two, even if they were fake, she knew she could catch the eye of somebody important. Maybe she could get out of this boring town, go somewhere exciting, like Boston, or even New York.

  Julia had managed to claw open the wrapping to find a wooden box, one of those roundish Shaker ones. It would make a good jewelry case. She paused, savoring the thrill. She hadn’t received a gift that wasn’t a hand-me-down since the Christmas of ’29, just after the crash. It might be years before she got another.

  “I wanted you to understand.”

  Julia reached for the lid and lifted it.

  “I wanted you to know, Julia—just a moment before . . . It’s important. I wanted you to understand what you have done. Why you must pay.” The voice now came from behind her. Julia did not turn around. She stared at the contents of the box, her painted eyebrows knit together and her scarlet lips parted.

  “I wish I could see your face now,” whispered her companion. “It would help somehow. But this way will have to suffice.”

  For most of the world’s people, snowfalls ceased to be enchanting as soon as Christmas had passed. January and February were months to endure, especially in the Northeast, where gray skies dumped regular deposits on rolling hills and mountains and winter-weary villages.

  The Shakers of Hancock, Massachusetts, however, not being of the world, watched with growing anticipation as the dreary midwinter days passed, bringing them closer to their treasured holiday—Mother Ann’s Birthday. Their beloved foundress had been born on February 29, and since it wasn’t currently a leap year, the celebration was planned for the first of March, less than two weeks away.

  Preparations consumed the energy of the small band of remaining Shakers, which was why no one had so much as glanced toward the Summerhouse for days—despite its proximity to the large Brick Dwelling House where they lived, ate, and worshiped. After all, the sisters had scrubbed the small building months earlier, once the weather had turned too cold for afternoon tea. So there’d been no reason to go near it. No one had even noticed that the door was slightly ajar. As Eldress Fannie Estabrook explained to the Pittsfield police, no one had the slightest idea how long the body had been in there. It had probably happened at night, though, Fannie speculated, when the residents of the dwelling house were fast asleep after a long day of work.

 
; Fannie knew the identity of the unfortunate young woman, as did all the sisters. Her name was Julia Masters, and she’d often helped out in the Fancy Goods Store, selling Shaker products to the world. No one could even guess why she’d been found dressed for a summer night on the town, her long dark blond hair piled on her head in disheveled curls, a style more reminiscent of the turn of the century than the late 1930s.

  The quiet village of Hancock had never experienced a murder inside its boundaries, and the pacifist Shakers, unlike their worldly neighbors, went to great lengths to avoid having to view the body. Nevertheless, word got around. Julia’s shell-pink silk-satin gown raised a few eyebrows among the Believers and some snickers among the hired help. Within hours, everyone had heard exactly how Julia looked when she was discovered by one of the hired men, Otis Friddle, on his way to work at the Barn Complex.

  Her dress was a few years out of style, but by all accounts quite glamorous. The bias-cut bodice and narrow skirt hugged Julia’s slender body as if it had been sewn around her. The same shiny pink fabric gathered into straps, which fastened at her shoulders and then flared into pieces that hung down her bare back like two narrow capes. It looked like one of the lengths of fabric had been used to strangle her. Her arms were bare, the skin translucent. With no body warmth to melt it, snow swirled around her frozen feet, shod in light dancing shoes, and settled as a thin dust above the narrow leather straps circling her ankles. Julia had been found slumped against the straight slats of an old Shaker chair, but her arms lay on the table in front of her, stretched forward.

  “You will come right away, won’t you, Rose?” pleaded Eldress Fannie. “Say you will. We are beside ourselves. Well, we all just . . .” The telephone line crackled and swallowed her next words. In an effort to hear better, Rose Callahan, eldress of the North Homage Shaker village, edged the telephone receiver under her thin white indoor cap and a thick layer of curly red hair.

  “Slow down, Fannie. I can barely understand you.” The longer Rose served as eldress, the more commanding her voice became. “Did you say that one of the sisters has died? I am with you in spirit, you know that, but—”

  “Not one of the sisters,” Fannie said, her voice quickening with frustration. “A young woman from Pittsfield. She helped out in the store sometimes, during busy seasons. Julia, her name was. A pleasant girl, friendly. Maybe too friendly, if you believe the rumors, but that’s no reason to kill her, surely.”

  “Someone killed her?” Rose realized she was shouting to be heard, but she knew she was alone in the Ministry House, which she shared with Elder Wilhelm Lundel. Not content to let the brethren work on their own, Wilhelm had gone to the Medicinal Herb Shop to “help,” though his knowledge was minimal.

  “I’m afraid so,” Fannie said, “and in our Summerhouse, too. I doubt I’ll ever again wish to sip tea and watch a sunset from that dear little building. One of our own novitiates is under suspicion by the police, but we can’t believe it. So you must come help us, Rose. You’ve . . . well, you’ve done this sort of thing before—remember you wrote to me about that dreadful situation last year with the poor man who was found hanged in your orchard?”

  Rose sighed. She shouldn’t have written that letter. It was a moment of hubris, for which she was about to be punished.

  “And you are one of us,” Fannie continued. “You will understand.”

  Rose hesitated only a moment. She didn’t relish the idea of a midwinter dash across country. She’d never experienced February in Massachusetts, nor had she ever yearned to do so. She hated to miss Mother Ann’s Birthday with her own village, and the first signs of spring in northern Kentucky. But Fannie was right—Rose would likely approach the crisis with deeper understanding and a more open mind than would anyone from the world.

  “Of course I will come and help out,” Rose said. “I’ll pack immediately.”

  TWO

  “HERE I AM!” A DIMINUTIVE FIGURE WRAPPED IN A CREAM wool coat swept like a snow swirl into the Ministry House library, where Rose had just hung up the telephone after Eldress Fannie’s plea for her to travel to Massachusetts. Gennie Malone, Rose’s former protégée, stood before her, eager auburn curls snaking out from under a rust felt hat with a narrow curled brim.

  “Gennie!” Rose hugged the much smaller woman. “It’s lovely to see you, but . . .” She held Gennie at arm’s length. “You have that desperate look I remember from the times I’d assign you to help out in the kitchen.”

  “With Sister Elsa,” Gennie said. “Very astute of you, Rose.”

  “Sit,” Rose commanded. She lifted a ladder-back chair from its wall pegs and settled it close to her own desk chair. Gennie, who was not yet twenty, flopped down and heaved an exaggerated sigh.

  “Tell me.”

  “It’s Grady,” Gennie said in the affectionate, irritated tone she reserved for her fiancé, Grady O’Neal, acting sheriff of Languor County. “Ever since Sheriff Brock resigned, Grady has spent every minute working, or thinking about work, or planning how to keep the job of sheriff.”

  “And you are feeling lonely?” Rose tried not to sound hopeful. She now and then let herself wish for Gennie’s return to North Homage, as a Believer. They could work side by side, she and Gennie, as they used to. Maybe Andrew, their trustee, would be willing to turn over the culinary herb industry to Gennie. Gennie loved herbs so, and she’d make a wonderful second trustee. Sister Gennie . . . the name sounds so natural, as if it had been created especially for—

  “Grady wants me to marry him right away.” Gennie pulled off her hat and ran her fingers through her tousled bob, which bounced around her face.

  No mere hat can flatten those curls. Rose released her fond picture of “Sister Gennie” covered from head to toe in modest Shaker clothing.

  “Where would he find time for a wedding?” Rose asked.

  “I’m supposed to plan it,” Gennie said. “Grady’s so busy, he insists the only way we’ll be able to see each other is if we’re married. Besides . . .” Gennie’s gaze left Rose’s face and wandered over the neatly shelved books lining the wall. “He wants to start . . .” Gennie bit her lower lip.

  “To start a family?” Rose asked.

  Gennie nodded.

  “You know, Gennie, I do understand what happens when you get married. I don’t choose to participate, but if you do, it certainly won’t affect our friendship.” Rose shifted her position to recapture Gennie’s gaze. “And I promise I won’t perish of shock. I believe that some are called to celibacy, and some are not.”

  Gennie relaxed with a chuckle. “I suspect I’m more easily shocked than you are. Or maybe I just feel guilty for choosing the world over a celibate life of faith. I keep wondering if I made the right decision.”

  Rose kept her hopes under control this time. “You’re just feeling confused right now because of Grady’s pressure to marry. Remember, you can always insist you’re not ready yet. Grady may be eager for a family, but you are still quite young.”

  Gennie’s pretty face scrunched into an unhappy frown. “I do want to marry him,” she said, “but—oh, I wish I could think more clearly.” Her expression brightened. “Everything was so much simpler when I lived here with you and Agatha and the sisters. Could I . . . could I come back and stay awhile? Business is slow at the flower shop right now, so I’m not needed there. Couldn’t I come and stay just a week or two, through Mother Ann’s Birthday? I know you can always use more hands right now, with the celebration coming up. I’d even be willing to work in the kitchen—well, some of the time, anyway. I used to enjoy helping to make Mother Ann’s Birthday Cake.”

  Rose fixed her with a raised eyebrow. “As I recall, you used to lick all the bowls. No wonder you liked the assignment.”

  “Elsa told on me, didn’t she?” Elsa was almost everyone’s least favorite sister, because of her frequent mean-spirited remarks, her un-Shaker–like ambition, and her habit of watching the other sisters for any breach of conduct, which she would promptly repo
rt to Elder Wilhelm.

  Rose smiled. “I told the kitchen sisters to let you lick the bowls. You didn’t get sweets very often, and I knew you loved them.”

  Gennie leaned forward with a beseeching look that Rose found hard to resist. “You’ve always understood me, Rose, even when I didn’t understand myself. I could always talk to you. That’s why I just know I can work out this wedding dilemma if only you’ll let me stay here awhile and talk it all over with you, like I used to.”

  “Certainly, you can stay here as long as you wish, my dear, but you see, I won’t be here.” Rose quickly explained about Eldress Fannie’s plea for her to come straight to Hancock.

  Gennie’s confused and bereft expression transformed into glee. “How perfect! I’ll come with you. When do we leave? Tomorrow?”

  “But, Gennie, I don’t think—”

  “Don’t you see, Rose? This couldn’t be better. We can help each other!” The gold flecks in Gennie’s brown eyes glittered with excitement, and Rose knew her well enough to assume that it was not the occurrence of violent death that gave her such a thrill. Well, not entirely anyway—Gennie did have a most worldly yen for adventure.

  “This is a long journey, Gennie, and there may be danger at the other end.”

  “I’ve never been stronger and healthier. Oh please, Rose, please let me go with you. I’ve been saving money from my job at the flower shop, so I can pay my own way, and we can keep each other company and plan our strategy, and—”

  “What about Grady? What will he say?”

  “Grady can’t tell me what to do.” Gennie’s small chin tightened. “Please, Rose, let me come with you. I’ve barely even been out of Kentucky!”

  Rose wilted against the hard wood of her chair back. “I’ll think about it. Call me on the telephone me this evening, and I’ll let you know my decision.”

  “Wonderful!” Gennie bounced out of her chair, grabbed her hat and coat, gave Rose a quick hug, and headed for the library door. She crossed the threshold, then poked her head back inside. “I’ll go home and start packing. Just in case.”