A Simple Shaker Murder Read online

  Rose didn’t flinch as Wilhelm’s jaw tightened and his fists clenched. Let him struggle to keep his vow of nonviolence. It would be good for his soul. Within moments, however, Wilhelm’s muscles relaxed, and Rose’s confidence oozed away. She felt herself tighten as if the tension had shifted from his body to hers.

  “It might interest thee to know,” he said, “that Hugh Griffiths’ death was most certainly a suicide.” His lips bent into the shadow of a smile. “His cousin found a suicide note in Hugh’s room, while packing up his belongings. So thy suspicions are false. Our visitors have suffered a tragedy, but it is Hugh alone who must answer to God for his sin. The others are merely trying to accept their loss and carry on with then higher purpose.”

  Rose was so filled with questions that she thought she might burst before sorting them out The triumphant glint in Wilhelm’s eyes wasn’t helping.

  “How do you know it was the suicide note?” she finally managed to ask. “Why didn’t Hugh bring it with him to the orchard?”

  Wilhelm shrugged. “Who can explain the actions of lost souls? Perhaps he made and unmade his mind several times before the deed. But suicide was plainly in his mind.”

  “What did the note say? I want to see it.”

  “As to that, I’m afraid I can’t satisfy thy curiosity by offering thee a peek at the note. Gilbert took it at once to Sheriff Brock, after phoning me from the South Family Dwelling House. He read me the note. It was obviously written by a man bent on destroying himself, but I paid no attention to the actual words.”

  Too angry to trust herself to speak, Rose spun away from Wilhelm and headed toward the South Family Dwelling House. Wilhelm may have had the last word, but he couldn’t stop her from finding out all she could about that note.

  TEN

  CELIA SHRUGGED HER WELL-SHAPED SHOULDERS. “SORRY, CAN’T help you. Gilbert’s the only one of us who saw Hugh’s note, and he’s gone off to Languor to deliver it personally to the Sheriff’s Office.” With a quick and dancerlike grace, she swung herself onto a ladder-back chair and crossed her trouser-clad legs in one smooth movement. Bright sunlight shone through the parlor windows of the South Family Dwelling House and on Celia’s blue-black hair. If she was a grieving widow, she hid it well.

  “When did Gilbert leaver?”

  “Oh, I’d say about an hour ago, but he won’t be back until sometime tomorrow, probably late. He had some errands or something.”

  “Did he show you the note?”

  “Nope.” Celia arched her foot and examined the toe of her red leather shoe.

  “I suppose he thought it might be too upsetting for you,” Rose said.

  “Well, yes, as a matter of fact,” Celia said, squaring her shoulders. “I certainly didn’t want to see the thing. It’s bad enough that Hugh would do such a thing to me. I don’t need to read his feeble excuses.” Celia glided to her feet and shook her trouser legs straight. “I’m feeling bushed. I’m going to lie down for a time.”

  As Celia reached for the parlor door, Rose said, “Mairin seems to be doing tolerably well. I thought you’d want to know.”

  Celia spun around. A faint flush on her cheeks was the first sign she’d shown of emotion. Likely it was guilt, Rose guessed. Surely Celia regretted her callousness toward the child.

  “Yeah, thanks,” Celia said.

  “She seems to be eating well,” Rose said.

  “I can imagine.” One of Celia’s perfectly shaped eyebrows arched above a crystalline blue eye.

  “I suppose you’ve had to work with her quite a bit—to help with her eating, I mean.” Rose chose her words with great care. In the long run, information would help her more than the brief satisfaction she might get from taking Celia to task for her apparent neglect of Mairin.

  “Hah! As if it helped. I saw right away how hopeless that child was, but I tried my best. There was no point in subjecting others to her at meal time; she was such a pig, we’d all have lost our appetites.”

  “So you took your meals alone with her?”

  Celia’s other eyebrow joined the first. “I have to eat, too, you know. I had someone bring her some food—when she was even there. Most of the time, she was out running around who knows where, and we had to throw the food away.” Celia yawned and stretched. She made for the parlor door, then stopped and turned back to Rose. Both eyebrows were back in place.

  “Is Mairin . . . has she said anything yet about—you know, whether she saw what happened to Hugh?”

  “Nay, she has said nothing.”

  “So maybe she really didn’t see anything?”

  “Perhaps.” So Celia’s real concern was not for Mairin, Rose thought, as she watched the slender figure sway from the room. Celia had figured out that Mairin might be a witness. She’d used the phrase “what happened to Hugh.” That didn’t sound quite like a reference to suicide. Did she have reason to fear what Mairin might have seen?

  “The Sheriff? Lemme check, Miss Callahan.” The telephone receiver clanked as the officer dropped it to go look for Sheriff Brock.

  Rose scanned the room while she waited. She was alone in the South Family parlor and had been surprised to find the phone hooked up, as if the residents were expected to stay and conduct business from home. Moreover, the parlor was well furnished. At least half of the wall pegs encircling the room had been put to use holding ladder-back chairs, a flat broom, small bookshelves, and a moveable cabinet. A long wool coat, clearly a design from the world, hung crookedly from a peg as if tossed from a distance. Her gaze paused at a table in the corner. It was littered with books and magazines, so she couldn’t be sure, but it looked oval in shape.

  Clattering over the phone line was followed by throat clearing. “Uh, Miss Callahan? The Sheriff ain’t able to talk right now. Important meeting. Take all afternoon, more’n likely. You might try back tomorrow.”

  Rose wasn’t surprised. “Fine,” she said. “And perhaps you could ask him to call me if he gets done early with his meeting.” She knew he wouldn’t, of course.

  “Yeah, sure thing.”

  “Before you go, would you be kind enough to see if Deputy O’Neal is available?”

  “Nah, Grady’s off on family business or something for a few days.”

  “He’s at home with his family?”

  “Lexington, I think. Or Louisville. Can’t remember right offhand.” After a pause, he added, “I’ll be sure and mention you called, when he’s back.”

  “Thank you,” Rose said, as the receiver clicked.

  She hadn’t really expected help from the world, of course, and she loved being a Shaker, but sometimes she wished Wilhelm didn’t toil ceaselessly to remind the world of their differences. At his insistence, they had reverted to nineteenth century dress and the old forms of dancing worship, all to avoid being absorbed by a world which viewed them as those strange people who lived all together but never married, who went into trances and worshiped a woman.

  Rose had no time for dejection. She needed to clear her head. She untied her thin white indoor cap, shook out her tangled mass of red curls, and stuffed them back into the cap. As she tied it snugly at the nape of her neck, the table in the corner caught her eye again. She walked over to it.

  Of course, she thought, as she lifted up a stack of books, it’s one of the old oval candle stands—like the one Archibald had been sanding in the Carpenters’ Shop. She ran her fingertips across the smooth surface. Recently restored.

  Rose circled the room, touching the pieces hanging from wall pegs. All were very old, but beautiful, carefully repaired and refinished. The room was filled with such treasures. Matthew and Archibald must have been working on them steadily ever since the New-Owenites first arrived.

  A small, round side table held an oval box, freshly painted in forest green. Rose picked it up. Of the oval boxes made by Shakers decades earlier, many had become cracked or warped through extensive use. This one was still lovely, its seams tight and the swallowtail joints smooth. She held it upside
down. The lid stayed on—a snug fit, as it should be.

  Rose set the box back on the table; with a spark of guilt, she grabbed it again and slid off the lid. There was nothing inside. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting, but it wasn’t this. Believers used oval boxes for storing small items—buttons, sewing implements, herbs—but never just for decoration. This box is not empty, Rose thought, as she replaced the lid and arranged the box on the table. It holds the vast distance between us and the world. Wilhelm was blind if he thought he could ever turn these people into true Shakers.

  A creaking in the floor above her head reminded Rose that she’d stayed alone in the parlor far too long for easy explanation. She retied her cloak and slipped out the door.

  The schoolhouse door burst open to lively children like a dandelion releasing its seeds to the wind. The Languor children raced to their waiting parents, while the Shaker children, only slightly more restrained, twirled and skipped in the grass in playful imitation of Shaker dancing. They slowed down as Charlotte emerged, followed by a somber Mairin.

  Rose watched the girl move through the grass, her hair puffed around her expressionless face. What memories hid behind those striking eyes? Were they buried so deep they could never come to the surface?

  Mairin looked across the lawn and saw Rose. She gave a faint smile and changed course, now walking toward Rose at the same deliberate pace.

  “Let’s go for a walk, shall we?” Rose suggested, as the girl approached. Mairin placed her hand in Rose’s outstretched one.

  “You aren’t cold, are you? Good, then we needn’t go back for our cloaks and miss any sunlight. I want to show you some of the herbs we have planted around the village. Do you know what an herb is?”

  Mairin nodded but did not elaborate.

  Rose let the silence rest between them as she led the way past the west side of the Trustees’ Office and toward a wooded area. A narrow path wound among the thick trees. Mairin showed no fear as they left the sunlight behind. They came to a meandering creek, where they stopped.

  “This area has been special to us Shakers for a long time,” Rose said. “Just off that direction is a hill that is holy to us. Many years ago we used to gather there for feast days, when we would worship for hours on end.”

  Mairin stared up at Rose as if she were speaking an unintelligible language.

  “Sometimes we would speak to the angels and receive special gifts from them.”

  Mairin’s expression took on a hint of animation.

  “Do you know who the angels are?” Rose asked.

  “Mama used to talk to angels,” Mairin said. “They’re little people, aren’t they? Mama said they were special, and I couldn’t see them, so I thought they must be really little.” Her eyes lit up. “Am I an angel? Is that why I’m so little?”

  Rose’s heart was not behaving normally. She dropped down on the grass beside the girl. She wanted to throw her arms around Mairin, but instinct told her the gesture might be alarming.

  “Someday,” Rose said, “I’ve no doubt you will be an angel. But for now you are a girl who has suffered enough for a lifetime. You lost your mama and your papa far too young, and you have gone without for too long.”

  For a moment, the mask cracked open. Mairin’s features twisted, and her eyes flashed like hot metal before filling with tears. The reaction was gone so fast, Rose wondered if she’d imagined it. A few blinks, and the tears vanished, along with the startling array of emotions.

  Mairin skittered away without a word. By the time Rose had pushed to her feet, the girl was leaning close to a small plant that was enjoying a narrow ray of late-day sunlight in a clearing. It was one of the few plants that hadn’t given up and turned brown as winter approached.

  “Nay, Mairin, you mustn’t!” Rose cried, as the child broke off a stem and began to rip off the leaves with her teeth.

  “It’s okay,” Mairin said, still chewing. “I’ve eaten this before.”

  Rose reached her side and recognized the plants as sage, an edible perennial, and a pungent one. She was surprised Mairin was willing to eat it.

  “Do you know the name of this plant?” she asked.

  Mairin shook her head.

  “It’s called sage. If you didn’t know what it was, how did you know you could eat it?”

  “Is it suppertime yet? I’m really hungry.”

  “Mairin, did someone tell you it was safe to eat this?”

  “I can figure things out. I don’t need someone to tell me.”

  “Do you understand how dangerous it is to eat plants when you don’t know what they are? Now please tell me, how did you know this would not make you sick?”

  “Because it didn’t. I tried a little, and I was fine. If a little bit makes me sick, I don’t eat it again.”

  Rose sank to her knees and, this time, gave in to the impulse to fold Mairin in her arms. The girl neither responded nor resisted. Rose released her, but held her by the shoulders and looked in her eyes.

  “Tell me truly, Mairin. How much time do you spend outdoors?”

  “Oh, lots. That’s how I know about what to eat. I get hungry.”

  “Didn’t Celia and Hugh ever come looking for you? Didn’t they worry?”

  Mairin shrugged and pointed to another nearby plant, a wild bergamot. “I can eat that one, too,” she said.

  “Mairin, listen to me.” Rose took the girl by the shoulders. “Bad things happen to everybody. Bad things happen even when you haven’t done anything wrong. Sometimes, people are just mean to others, to people who don’t deserve to be treated meanly. Do you have any idea what I’m talking about?”

  Mairin hung her head as if she’d been caught in a lie. Rose released the girl’s shoulders with a frustrated sigh. She searched her mind for other words, other phrases that Mairin might understand better. Her mind went blank.

  She began to back away from the girl, then changed her mind and slid her arm around the small shoulders. She pulled Mairin close and whispered in her ear. “You will surely be an angel someday. You are good, I promise you.” She made a silent prayer to Holy Mother Wisdom to help Mairin believe and trust her before it was too late.

  ELEVEN

  “ROSE, CAN I TELL YOU SOMETHTNG IN SECRET?” NORA glanced sidelong at her retiring room door, through which Mairin had just left.

  “Of course you can, Nora. It will take Mairin a few minutes to freshen up for the evening meal. Go ahead.”

  Nora closed the door and seemed to relax a little. She settled herself cross-legged on her bed, and Rose perched on the side, next to her.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “It’s Mairin. I’m worried about her.” Though two years younger, Nora had appointed herself Mairin’s guardian. “She has terrible, awful nightmares. Last night she woke me up twice.”

  “Did you ask her what the dreams were about?” Rose tried not to appear too eager.

  “Well . . . first I listened for a while, but all she said was, ‘No, no, no!’ So I shook her and she woke up, but she said she didn’t remember what she was dreaming, which didn’t make sense to me, ’cause I always remember my dreams when I first wake up, ’specially the bad ones, but Mairin said she didn’t remember a thing.” Nora cocked her head to one side. “She seems awfully sad a lot, doesn’t she? She hardly ever wants to play. I wish I could get her to play more.”

  Rose laughed and tousled Nora’s short-cropped blond hair. “You’re doing just fine, Mother Nora. You did right to tell me this. I’ll see what I can do to help her. Meanwhile, keep an eye on her, okay?”

  It had been dark for hours when Rose slipped out of the Ministry House. Wilhelm’s ground floor retiring room was far enough back that she hoped she wouldn’t waken him. She’d rather not have to explain her actions to Wilhelm, who already viewed her as lost to the world.

  Her long wool cloak and heavy palm bonnet felt good against the damp chill. All other Believers were in bed by now, exhausted by long hours of work, so the buildings
housing them were dark and quiet, as was the path through the middle of the village. Times being what they were, North Homage didn’t waste money on outdoor lamps. Shakers weren’t expected to be out after dark, anyway.

  Rose couldn’t help a twinge of guilt, but it didn’t stop her. Up ahead, to the left of the central path, stood the South Family Dwelling House, its entire ground floor ablaze with light. The New-Owenites clearly weren’t worried about the Shakers’ electricity costs.

  As she walked the path to the women’s entrance, Rose whispered a less-than-wholehearted prayer for patience. She was keyed up for a fight. It was one thing to provide succor for visitors from the world, but quite another to sit back and let them stir up trouble as they ate up your stores and drained your cash.

  Rose entered the building without knocking. After all, the dwelling house belonged to the Shakers. Her plan was to corner Celia for a private talk about Mairin. The hallway was empty and so was the parlor. A rumble came from behind the closed doors of the family meeting room.

  An eruption of angry voices interrupting each other drew Rose a few steps closer to the meeting room doors. She struggled with herself. Listening outside closed doors was appalling behavior for any Shaker, and hardly a good example for an eldress to set. Yet, if these visitors were up to something that might involve her village—and it seemed as if they were—Rose needed to know.

  She headed for a rear staircase as her mind flashed back more than two decades to her early adolescence. She was fourteen, had just finished her Shaker schooling, and was ready to begin work rotations, helping the sisters. Agatha wanted her to try everything at least once, so she’d worked several times with the South Family, spending one of the rotations in this very building.

  The South Family Dwelling House had a special feature, the brainstorm of a South Family kitchen sister. She’d known of the Laundry, where steam from the boiler was piped upstairs to racks so clothes could be dried indoors during foul weather. The sister had wondered if the same principle could be used to direct excess heat generated in the kitchen, located in the basement level, up to the room above—the family meeting room. Her idea had worked beautifully to keep the meeting room toasty during winter evening union meetings and family worship services.