A Simple Shaker Murder Read online

  One night, Rose and one kitchen sister had worked late because the kitchen needed more cleaning. Since work was a form of worship for Believers, they’d decided to skip the service. That’s when they discovered that the heating pipes went both ways—heat drifted upstairs, and sound came downstairs. The kitchen crew was able to sing along with the service and even fit in a few dance steps.

  Rose was fairly certain no one was around to hear as she hurried down the old wooden stairs to the basement, but she trod quietly anyway. A door at the bottom, slightly ajar, led into the dim kitchen. One light had been left on, and Rose saw why—for the casual snackers who must be frequent visitors. The kitchen was a shambles, by Shaker standards. A stained, filthy cloth hung over the worktable, which was piled with dirty crockery and utensils, dried hunks of cheese, bread crumbs, and several open jars of Shaker preserves. Pans caked with grease spilled over the edges of the sink, rather than hanging, clean and shiny, from the wall pegs. In fact, only one item still hung, unused, from a wall peg—the flat broom.

  Rose couldn’t stifle a grunt of disgust as she picked her way across the sticky floor to the heat pipes. She would deal with this mess later, since Wilhelm obviously did not concern himself with his guests’ living habits.

  By now, Rose’s anger had bubbled near its boiling point. She felt that Mother Ann and every last angel would forgive her eavesdropping, and if they didn’t, she would just have to pay the price. She would not allow her community to be tromped on by these strangers. If she had to defy Wilhelm, she would do so. But first she needed to know what was happening in this dwelling house.

  She brushed some crumbs off a chair and pulled it close to the heating pipes. The voices were clear enough, and she hoped to identify speakers, if she could. The more she knew about each of them, the better.

  “No!” A familiar male voice shouted. Despite the emotion, Rose recognized Earl Weston’s deep tones. “I say we confront Gil as soon as he returns. We need to act fast. If they haven’t already found us, they probably will soon. Lord knows we haven’t kept very quiet.”

  “Look, it was Hugh’s problem, not ours, and he’s gone,” said another male voice, higher and more nasal than the first.

  “A lot you care!” Rose recognized Celia’s strident voice. “I was unlucky enough to be married to that fool. You can bet that his problems will somehow get dumped on my shoulders.”

  “Come on, Cel, we’ll stand by you, you know that. We won’t let anything happen to you,” Earl said.

  “Yeah, so long as you get the money,” Celia retorted.

  “We need that money,” said Earl. “It’s the only way to make all this happen. But we can’t hang around indefinitely, biding our time. We’ve got Wilhelm with us, at least for now, but once that eldress came back, the situation changed. She’s a suspicious witch. We can’t keep her off the scent forever.”

  “Try harder, dear boy,” Celia said, in silky tones. “We all know you can do it.”

  There was general snickering, and then the discussion became unintelligible, the voices fainter. They must be too far away from the pipes. The singing had been so easy to hear, Rose realized, because it had been done by six strong voices located near the pipes. She leaned in and bent forward, intent on catching even a word.

  A scraping sound came from the opposite corner of the kitchen. Or was it closer? Rose scanned the room, alert to the slightest movement. The meeting room voices, even her own breathing, now distracted her, so she stood up and held her breath as her eyes darted from corner to corner. Despite the poor light, surely she would have seen another person enter the room.

  Nothing moved. She released her breath. Perhaps the sound had come from the meeting room, after all. Unless. Her stomach flip-flopped as she surveyed the piles of refuse outlined in the dimness. Unless all this filth had attracted rats. She would not be surprised.

  The thought that the sloth of worldly visitors had triggered a rat infestation fueled Rose’s simmering rage. She was mad enough to catch the rat bare-handed, and then present it to the inhabitants of the meeting room.

  She had left the kitchen as she had found it, dimly lit to avoid attracting attention at the top of the stairs. Now she switched on every lamp in sight, while she kept an eye out for scurrying creatures. To her surprise, nothing scooted toward the walls or under the furniture. She didn’t see so much as an insect.

  The voices from upstairs were coming through clearer again. Rose could hear them from across the room. She gave up on hunting rats and started back, her eyes on her chair, when she stepped right on a half-eaten hunk of bread covered with raspberry preserves. Her right foot slipped out from under her, and she landed sharply on her left knee.

  Rose slid off the injured knee and sat on the filthy floor, breathing in shallow bursts as the throbbing subsided to barely tolerable. She touched the area gingerly. Hot pain stabbed through her leg. She cried out and squeezed her eyes shut.

  Again she waited, biting her lip to keep from screaming. Slowly she relaxed her muscles and allowed her eyelids to open. She was looking directly into a worried pair of coppery green eyes.

  “You are hurt,” Mairin said.

  Rose started and jerked her leg. She groaned. Mairin’s hand hovered over the injured knee as if to soothe without a painful touch.

  Rose drew in a ragged breath. “Mairin, what . . . what are you doing here? You should never, ever wander around alone after dark, no matter where you are. I’m very upset with you.” She might have spoken more gently had her knee not been on fire.

  Mairin shrank away as if she’d been struck, and Rose almost forgot her pain. She reached her own hand out toward the girl, palm upward. “Forgive me, Mairin. It was wrong of me to raise my voice to you. I know I sounded angry, but I’m just startled and hurt—and very, very worried. Come back over here, and let’s talk.”

  Mairin inched back toward her. Rose opened her mouth to speak, and in that moment she realized that something had changed. Except for their breathing, the kitchen was silent. Voices no longer murmured through the heat pipes. Then Rose remembered a tidbit she had discovered with the kitchen sisters all those years ago—if they’d sung along with too much gusto, they could be heard in the meeting room above them. It hadn’t been much of a disturbance because there had been enough noise upstairs to drown out their contributions, but now and then a worshiper who had sat near the pipes had later teased the kitchen sisters, so they had learned to participate discreetly.

  Rose’s recent cries of pain and her outburst at Mairin had been far from discreet. Had the New-Owenites heard her and realized they were not alone in the dwelling house? Or perhaps the meeting had ended—in which case, judging by the well-used condition of the kitchen, hungry New-Owenites might soon wander down for a snack.

  “We have to get out of here,” Rose whispered. Her urgency sent Mairin scooting back under the table. “It’s all right, you needn’t hide,” Rose said, reaching her arm toward the girl. “Neither of us is supposed to be here, you know, but nothing bad will happen if we are found. Only it would be so much simpler, wouldn’t it, if we left before anyone came down here?” The last thing she wanted to do was frighten Mairin into even deeper reticence.

  “I’m afraid I’m going to need your help getting out of here, because of my knee. I don’t think it’s broken,” she whispered, with more hope than conviction, “but I’m a bit wobbly.” She rolled onto her good knee and winced as the swollen left knee moved. An inch at a time, she bent the damaged joint until, though she was whimpering with pain, she was relatively certain it was only bruised, not cracked. She stretched it out again. She slid over to the sturdy table leg, sat on her good knee, and pulled herself up on her right foot. Mairin clung to another table leg and watched, expressionless, as Rose straightened.

  Holding her breath to stifle a scream, Rose eased some weight onto her injured leg. It wasn’t as bad as she’d feared, but it was bad. As she winced in pain, she noticed Mairin flinch, and she rejoiced at yet ano
ther sign that the girl’s heart could be touched. Hope for Mairin gave Rose the strength to endure her own pain.

  “I’ll be all right,” Rose assured the girl. “But I could use a hand. Let’s get home and to bed, shall we?”

  Quick as a chipmunk, Mairin scooted out from her hiding place and flipped off the lights, leaving the kitchen as it had been, lit by one small lamp. Before Rose’s eyes had adjusted, Mairin was at her side, prying one of her hands loose from her tabletop anchor.

  Voices floated down from the top of the stairs, and Mairin froze.

  “I know another way,” the girl whispered. “Come on, come on.” She had already reached the south end of the kitchen when she turned back with impatience to a limping Rose.

  “It’s back here,” Mairin said. “It leads right outside.”

  She pointed to a plain, narrow doorway that blended so well with the white walls that it was barely visible in the dimness. Rose remembered that it led to a series of rooms where vegetables and canned goods used to be stored to help the South Family survive the winter. She’d forgotten that the storerooms ended with a door leading to a few earthen steps and a cellar door. During the fall harvest, the brethren used to carry squash, onions, potatoes, and other storable crops directly down to the cool storerooms.

  How many other forgotten passageways and hiding places had Mairin discovered during her brief time in North Homage? More disturbing, how many other secret meetings had she listened to, and what else might she have seen that she shouldn’t have? It was then, as she limped after Mairin through dank, dark storerooms, that Rose vowed never to let the girl return to the life she’d been leading—either before the Griffiths or with them. Rose felt oddly confident that she would succeed in keeping Mairin with her, with the Shakers. Mother Ann would help her. Mother Ann would understand.

  “I’m so very sorry, Rose,” Sister Charlotte whispered over the telephone line. Rose had taken the risk of calling her and awakening the children, rather than leave Mairin unsupervised again. “I had no idea she’d left the Children’s Dwelling House, or even how she could have managed it. Nora must have been exhausted to have slept through it. She feels so responsible for watching over Mairin.”

  “Don’t even bother to blame yourself, and make sure Nora doesn’t hold herself responsible, either. Mairin is far more clever and resourceful than Celia or Gilbert gives her credit for being. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s found a secret way out of all the buildings in the village.”

  “Heavens!”

  “Indeed. But don’t worry, I’ve got her with me, and I intend to keep her. I’ll bring her to school tomorrow and pick her up after. Now I have just one more favor to ask of you, then go back to bed. Please call Josie at the Infirmary and ask her to come to the Ministry House right away. I’ll meet her at the door in ten minutes so we don’t awaken Wilhelm.”

  “Oh, Rose, don’t tell me Mairin is hurt!”

  “Nay, it was my clumsy self. I’ve twisted my knee, that’s all. A poultice will fix me up.”

  Rose replaced the receiver and limped back into her retiring room.

  Mairin’s tiny figure, curled up and fast asleep, looked like a small downy ball on Rose’s narrow bed. Despite the ferocious ache in her knee, Rose did not dare crawl in next to the child. She’d just have to crawl out again to meet Josie downstairs, and besides, she didn’t want to risk awakening Mairin.

  Rose slipped out into the hallway again, softly closing the door behind her. The trip down the staircase took her several times as long as usual, but she told herself her knee would improve with the exercise.

  She reached the front door only moments before Josie, who arrived out of breath and worried, carrying two baskets full of tins, bottles, bandages, and chunks of ice from an ice box. She knew enough not to speak, beyond a cluck at Rose’s limp. In silence, they worked their way up the staircase. After a quick peek at the sleeping Mairin, the sisters closed themselves in Rose’s workshop.

  “Promise me you will stay in bed tomorrow,” Josie said. “And don’t use heat. No matter what the doctors say, cold is best.” She removed the melting ice pack from Rose’s knee and peered at the puffy, darkening skin. “It isn’t broken, thank goodness, but that’s a nasty bruise. Knees are tricky; one wonders what God could have been thinking. If you don’t take proper care, you’ll cause permanent damage, and you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.”

  Rose knew better than to object, though she longed to ignore the injury and stay active, to keep Mairin and the village from danger. However, one day shouldn’t matter.

  “I’m keeping a close eye on Mairin,” she said, “so I’ll need to take her to and from the Schoolhouse tomorrow.”

  “Nay, you will not,” Josie said, her plump, normally cheerful face puckered in disapproval. “I will take Mairin to and from school. It’ll not be the slightest problem. I’ve some extra help these days from one of our visitors. She’s trained as a nurse and wants to learn how we stay so healthy and live so long.” Josie arched an eyebrow at Rose. “Most of us, anyway.”

  “Which one is she?” Rose asked, as she hoisted herself to her feet with Josie’s help.

  “Martha, her name is. Just a child, about your age or so,” said Josie, to whom anyone less than her own eighty years was young and untested. “A bit talkative and over-zealous, like all of them, but bright enough.”

  “Do you sense she is trying to win you over to her side?”

  “Convert me, you mean? Here, put your arm around my shoulders and let me bear most of your weight.” Rose hop-limped toward the door, leaning on Josie. “Well, she tried mighty hard for a while, but you know me, Rose, I’ve got my heart set on meeting Mother Ann and spending eternity with you and Agatha. I wouldn’t even mind if Wilhelm showed up someday.”

  Both women were laughing as they opened the workroom door and found themselves face-to-face with the subject of their mirth. Wilhelm had pulled his work pants and shirt over his nightclothes and left his feet bare. His thick white hair had flattened upward on one side of his head, which might have started Rose giggling again, exhausted as she was, had she not noted the glowing coals smoldering in his eyes. Behind Wilhelm, Rose’s retiring room door opened and a small figure wandered out, wearing one of Rose’s chemises and rubbing her eyes.

  Wilhelm noticed that Rose’s gaze shifted to Mairin, and he twirled around to face the girl. She shrank against the wall, crossing her arms over her narrow chest as if to create a barrier between her and the frightening man before her. Without a word, Wilhelm spun around to Rose again. His eyes no longer smoldered; they had burst into flame. A swollen artery throbbed down the center of his forehead.

  “What is the meaning of all this noise in the middle of the night? Has the Ministry House now become a nursery for the world’s lunatic children?”

  “Wilhelm, please don’t—”

  “Shame on you, Wilhelm!” Josie’s curt interruption caught Wilhelm off guard, and Rose was glad to let her handle the situation.

  “She’s a sweet, innocent child,” Josie continued, “and she certainly doesn’t deserve to be spoken about in that manner. How do you feel, for heaven’s sake, when someone calls you names?”

  Wilhelm’s lip trembled with fury, but he kept quiet. Josie was the only one among them who’d ever been able to quell Wilhelm. Despite her soft and cozy exterior, she was every bit as tough as he was. She needed to be. Her charges often balked at putting aside their work to heal their bodies, never mind their belief in healthy living.

  Wilhelm changed tactics. “Then tell me, Sister Josie, is thine eldress also an innocent? Just what has she been drinking that she giggles like a foolish girl and needs thy arm to hold her upright?”

  Rose had no intention of letting Wilhelm know about her visit to the South Family Dwelling House, but she did not wish to lie, so she said simply, “I’ve been feeling unwell.”

  “And I’m here to help her recover,” Josie said, “which she’ll never do standing about in this d
rafty hallway. Surely anything you have to say can wait a day or two, Wilhelm. It would be unfortunate if the village found out you’d been wandering around the eldress’s quarters late at night. Come along, Rose. And you, too, little one.” Josie held out her free hand for Mairin and led her charges into Rose’s retiring room.

  As Josie closed the door, Rose caught sight of Wilhelm’s face reddening at an alarming rate. She half expected him to break down the door, but of course he would never commit such an act of sinful violence. Would he? As the moments passed peacefully, she dared to believe that Josie had, in fact, vanquished Wilhelm. For the time being, anyway.

  “Thank you, Josie. I am in your debt.”

  “Nonsense. It is good for Wilhelm’s soul to be reminded now and then that we are all equal in the sight of God. He forgets his humility more than most, I’m afraid.” Josie helped Rose limp to her bed, lift off her work dress, and settle down with a rolled-up blanket under her injured knee.

  “Now, I assume there’s a spare bed or two in the empty rooms? Good, I’ll roll one in and make it up in a jiffy for Mairin. Then we’ll see to a comfrey poultice for that knee of yours, and some strong valerian tea to help you sleep.”

  Josie bustled out the door and returned in minutes pushing a narrow bed on wheels, on top of which lay a pile of fresh white linens.

  Rose watched groggily, thankful to be who she was, where she was. “Josie, was Wilhelm—”

  “Gone, of course, my dear. Even Wilhelm knows when he is hopelessly in the wrong.”

  “And hopelessly outmaneuvered,” Rose said quietly.

  “Come along, little one,” Josie said to Mairin, “hop into bed. That’s a good girl. You can say your prayers from under the covers tonight.”