“DID YOU KNOW ABOUT WILHELM’S PAST?” ROSE SAT IN Agatha’s retiring room, sipping some of the peppermint tea Josie had brought to settle the frail former eldress’s stomach. Agatha had been unable to eat much for the last couple of days. Rose was concerned that the shock of two violent deaths in the village had further weakened her dear friend.
Agatha nodded slowly. Her pale neck looked so fragile that it seemed to have barely enough strength to complete the action. “Yea, I have known for years. When Obadiah became so ill and stepped down as elder, he recommended to the Mount Lebanon Ministry that Wilhelm replace him. However, he told Wilhelm he would do so only on one condition—that Wilhelm confess to me everything from his life before becoming a Believer. Obadiah believed that elders and eldresses could not guide effectively if we kept secrets from one another. In turn, I urged Wilhelm to reveal his past to you when you became eldress, but I lacked Obadiah’s power over him. I did not feel I had the right to tell you myself.”
“Didn’t it concern Obadiah that he had to threaten Wilhelm to make him open himself to you?”
Agatha gave one of her now-rare smiles. The last stroke had weakened her right side, so the smile was lopsided, yet it made Agatha look younger and stronger. “I have always disagreed with Wilhelm on so many things, but I see him as Obadiah did—a devout Believer who lives his beliefs without compromise. Perhaps I’d prefer for him to compromise just a little now and then. However, I must respect his intentions.” Despite the warmth of the room, Agatha pulled her blanket over her arms. “Obadiah saw Wilhelm’s secretiveness as his greatest weakness and tried to force him into the light. It did some good, I believe, though it often might not seem so.”
“Perhaps you are right,” Rose said. “As Grady drove him away after arresting him, Wilhelm turned to look at me. I saw fear on his face—he allowed me to see it, if just for a moment. I suspect part of him welcomes martyrdom, but the rest wants to live.”
With her tiny feet, Agatha pushed her chair in a gentle rocking. “I know Wilhelm was deeply ashamed of having deserted his wife and child—the daughter, I believe, was quite young at the time. But he was able to tell Obadiah and then me about it. Now he has finally told you and Grady, as well. Even if I did not know Wilhelm to be a sincere Believer, and therefore a pacifist, it makes no sense to me that he killed his own daughter and his spiritual brother to keep a secret he had already told.”
Rose had to agree. Unable to sit still, she paced to the window and peeked through the curtain, closed against rude strangers from the world.
“I am sure that you will find out the truth,” Agatha said. “No one is as stubborn as you.”
Rose spun around, then laughed as she saw Agatha’s lopsided grin. “I suppose that is one of my greatest weaknesses.”
“And one of your strengths. Now, before you throw yourself into your search—as important as it is—please do stop by the Children’s Dwelling House this afternoon. That’s important, too.”
“Mairin’s birthday party!”
“Yea, we rescheduled it. First one killing, now another . . . Mairin understands, but I didn’t want to wait much longer. To gain her trust, we must keep our word. I told Gertrude to bring over a cake at three o’clock, just as the children have finished school for the day. I asked Charlotte to speak with all the parents of the other children, so they might stay for the party, as well. Agatha rocked more vigorously. “Mother Ann is with us; I feel her. You must let her guide you, Rose.”
“I will.” Rose believed in the messages brought through Agatha’s heightened spiritual senses, but she wished that, once in a while, she might hear them first herself.
“You will find the truth,” Agatha repeated. “I will keep you and Wilhelm in my prayers.” She slowed her rocking. “And Mairin. I am equally concerned about Mairin. I truly believe the child has gifts,” she said, “and that she has been sent to us. I see a place for her here, with us.”
“I suppose I’m not the best person to show Mairin that adults can be trusted, am I? I do become single-minded—not unlike Wilhelm, I must admit.”
“Just be at the Children’s Dwelling House at three. After that, you can sleuth day and night. I’ll watch over Mairin. I’ve also asked Gennie to come to the party, and she can help keep an eye on the child.”
What will I do without you? Rose didn’t say the words. She knew the answer.
With Mairin’s party at three o’clock, there was just time for Rose to dig into one or two questions she had about the backgrounds of the hostel guests. She would find the killer among them, she felt sure of it. It was a big job, but she knew Andrew could be counted on to help. They could divide the list of hostel guests between them.
Rose patted her apron pocket, where she’d stuffed the notes she’d made from Andrew’s records. He’d be in the Medicinal Herb Shop now. Luckily, the shop was just east of the Center Family Dwelling House, so she left by the kitchen door and cut through the garden. She picked up her pace as she noticed several strangers leave the central path and veer toward her. Word of Wilhelm’s arrest had surely spread throughout the county by now. The last thing she wanted to do was field rude questions from the world.
Spring had been drifting into summer all day, though the warmth was still far from oppressive. Bright sunlight and thirsty plants had dried the ground and tinted it with vibrant spring colors. The pungent sweetness of healthy young herbs perfumed the air. If she were not hunting a killer and mourning the loss of a brother, Rose would be singing a Shaker song of praise and gratitude. As it was, she prayed for help, guidance, and a quick resolution to this tragic situation.
Brother Andrew had used his talents to rejuvenate the North Homage medicinal herb industry, which now brought in much needed income. He’d recently lost his most experienced workers, so he spent a fair portion of his time in the Medicinal Herb Shop, training two young brothers who’d shown an interest in learning. All three brothers spent their mornings planting and their afternoons studying medicinal herbs, so they’d be ready to work quickly when the herbs became ready for use. As Rose opened the door to the shop, she was greeted by three startled faces, which relaxed as they recognized their eldress. The odor of unwashed socks told her that one of the ongoing experiments involved a large amount of valerian. She was careful to pull the door shut again behind her. Under normal circumstances, Andrew would have the door and windows wide open, to freshen the air.
“Has the world been intruding today?” she asked.
“Yea, very much so,” Andrew said, as he placed a chair next to his tiny, cluttered desk. “I had to ask the last bunch how they would like it if a crowd of strangers walked into their homes without knocking. Apparently it had never occurred to them that this village is our home and doesn’t exist simply for their entertainment.”
“Perhaps we can do something to help them lose interest,” Rose said. She smoothed her long skirt under her and scooted awkwardly onto the chair. She was taller than average for a woman, but this chair had been specially crafted for an even taller man.
“I’ll help in any way I can,” Andrew said. He closed a journal in which Rose caught sight of scribbled notes about various medicinal herb experiments, and rested his elbow on the desk. He had a thin face, with dark eyebrows that often puckered with intense concentration. Rose felt better because she could share this burden with him. Not for the first time, she wished he were elder.
“I strongly suspect that Mrs. Dunmore’s killer and Brother Linus’s are one and the same. And I think he or she is one of our hostel guests.”
“Are you quite certain it isn’t Wilhelm?”
Rose hesitated. She felt sure, but that didn’t mean she was right. She had to keep her mind open. “All right, I’m reasonably certain. We must investigate all possibilities. But Grady is sure Wilhelm is guilty, and he won’t be scrutinizing anyone else. He won’t have reason to look closely at the guests. So we must. Could you free yourself to do a bit more traveling right away?”
Andrew glanced around at his assistants. “Howard and Patrick are learning well. They can work on planting while I’m gone. Where do you want me to go?”
“I want you to track down Saul Halvardson’s background—where he’s from, whether he is who he claims to be, anything you can find out. Since he’s supposed to be a salesman, I thought you might be able to trace his route by talking to your own customers first, and then—I don’t know, maybe you can pick up a clue that will lead you to his customers.”
“Leave it to me.”
“Good. Meanwhile, I’ll work on finding out more about Beatrice Berg.” She pulled her notes from her apron pocket and spread them on the desk, taking care not to lean in too close to Andrew. “According to your notes—” She glanced up at him. “I hope you don’t mind. While you were gone, I went through your desk to find out everything I could about the hostel guests.”
“My records belong to the Society,” Andrew said.
“Well, you wrote that Beatrice listed a boardinghouse in Languor as her previous address. Did she mention anything else, do you remember?”
Andrew leaned back in his chair and pressed an index finger against his lips. “She mentioned she’d been widowed for some time and had only a tiny income. She said that was why she lived in a boardinghouse rather than in her own home. As I remember, she also said she’d grown up in the hill country.”
Andrew’s memories squared with Rose and Beatrice’s conversation in the hostel kitchen. “Did she say how long she’d lived in Languor?”
“I believe she said she married a Languor man and lived in town most of her adult life. She mentioned having a house near the center of town. I think she wanted me to know she wasn’t right out of the hollow. Not that I’d have cared, but it seemed important to her.”
“Thank you, that helps,” Rose said, gathering up her notes. She remembered Horace’s contention that Beatrice had lied about living in Languor. It was something to investigate. “Let’s get to work, shall we? I suspect we haven’t much time.”
“I’ll phone you if I find out anything that seems important.” He swung both their chairs onto wall pegs. “And Rose,” he said, turning around to face her, “be careful. If you’re right, we’re up against someone who doesn’t hesitate to kill anyone who gets in his or her way.”
“You, too,” Rose said. “Be safe.”
Impatient as she was to begin investigating Beatrice Berg’s background, Rose first went to the Children’s Dwelling House for Mairin’s birthday party. If she didn’t appear, she knew Mairin would be crushed, probably would not show it, and they’d be back where they’d started.
By the time Rose entered the ground floor meeting room in the Children’s Dwelling House, the children were seated in a circle and chattering wildly, as if they’d already consumed more than enough sweets. Rose counted—only the seven children being raised by the Shakers were present. Sister Gertrude, Sister Charlotte, and Gennie were piling plates and forks at a side table. On the table they’d set a lovely cake with thick white frosting. Normally, Gertrude would have sprinkled powdered sugar on a dried apple cake, but for the children, she’d splurged. Rose suspected the frosting would be flavored with rosewater, and her mouth watered. She’d meant to skip the cake, leaving all of it for the children, but perhaps a small sliver . . .
Mairin caught sight of Rose and ran over to her. She grinned up at Rose, the copper flecks sparkling in her green eyes. “Come on,” she said. “Sister Gertrude is going to let me cut the cake.”
When they reached the table, Sister Charlotte drew Rose aside. “I haven’t had a chance to tell you,” she whispered. “None of our students from the world have come to school this week. Their families don’t have telephones, so I haven’t been able to contact them yet.”
“It’s because of the murders, I’m sure,” Rose said. All the more reason to solve them quickly. The world would not be patient for long. If the murderer turned out to be someone staying at the hostel, the Shakers might lose the business, but at least the children would probably return to their school. However, if the killer turned out to be a Believer . . .
“Does Mairin understand?” Rose asked.
“Yea, I think so. I explained to her that their absence has nothing whatsoever to do with her, and I think she accepted it, though it’s hard to tell sometimes. She does seem thrilled about her birthday, even so.”
Gertrude was holding Mairin’s hand to steady her as she clambered onto a wooden stool, so she’d be high enough to slice the cake. Mairin took the knife from Gertrude, then looked around until she saw Rose. “Come on. It’s time to cut the cake,” she said, a note of command in her voice.
Rose and Charlotte obeyed. With intense care, Mairin sliced thirteen more or less equal pieces. “One is for Sister Agatha,” she said. To Rose, she said, “I want you to take the other extra one to Brother Wilhelm. Maybe it will cheer him up.”
The children’s prattle didn’t diminish as they jostled one another for the best positions in line, but the three adults grew still. Gertrude wiped her eyes with the edge of her apron. As always, Agatha is right, Rose thought. It was a rare twelve-year-old who had such compassion. Perhaps Mairin would someday be a Shaker, and a gifted one indeed.
As Mairin, with Gertrude’s help, slid each piece of cake onto a plate and handed it to the next child in line, Rose made her way to Gennie’s side.
“You look more cheerful,” Rose said. “I do hope it isn’t murder that has raised your spirits.”
Gennie chuckled. “I know it’s just terrible, but I suppose the excitement does distract me from my own problems. I’m awfully sorry about Brother Linus, though. He always seemed so kind.”
“Yea, he was. Are you truly not sorry about Mrs. Dunmore?”
“Oh, of course I am. No one should die like that. But she was a frightful woman. She was so bitter all the time, and she made everyone else suffer for it. I guess we know why now, don’t we?” Gennie glanced toward the children, half of whom were still waiting for their plates of cake. “Rose, do you want me to try to find out more about Mrs. Dunmore?”
The eagerness in her voice sparked fear in Rose’s heart. “Nay, I’m sure Grady will do that as he builds a case against Wilhelm, and he has far more resources than we do.”
“Then what shall I do? I want to help.”
Rose thought fast. Telling Gennie to stay out of it was tantamount to a dare. It might be best to give her an assignment—one that sounded adventurous but wasn’t too risky. “After the party, I’m going to Languor to look into Mrs. Berg’s background. Has she said anything to you that might be helpful?”
“Nothing that I can remember,” Gennie said, with regret. “Do you want me to—”
“Nay, Gennie, please don’t search Mrs. Berg’s room.” Rose patted Gennie’s shoulder to soften the warning. “But if she says anything, pass it along. And there’s one more thing you could do for me, if you would.”
“Anything.”
“When she’s settled down from her party, ask Mairin to tell you every single place she has seen the ghost. Make her think it through night by night. We know she has followed the creature through buildings, but she’s afraid we’ll be angry with her, so she tells a little at a time. Convince her we won’t punish her and that she’s helping us by telling everything.”
“Sure, but why? Do you think a ghost is killing people?”
“At the moment, I haven’t any idea what’s going on, but this so-called ghost just happened to appear right when we opened our hostel. I’m betting there’s a connection. I want to know what it’s doing wandering around our buildings at night.”
The last child was reaching for her slice of cake, so Rose and Gennie walked back toward the party. The noise level had declined now that the children concentrated on eating. The smallest two had frosting smudged faces, which Gertrude and Charlotte were attempting to wipe off with their aprons.
“Gennie, one more thing,” Rose said, before they were close enough for Mairin to hear them. “Ask Mairin if she has seen the ghost in the last few days.”
“You mean you think Mrs. Dunmore might have been—”
“I have no evidence one way or another,” Rose said. “I haven’t heard any reports since Mrs. Dunmore’s death, so I just wondered.”
“But why would she do such a thing?”
“Well, think about it. You said yourself she seemed bitter, and she had good reason to hate the Shakers. This ghost has brought us nothing but problems—our village is overrun with people from the world hoping to catch sight of the ghost, so they were right on hand when the murders occurred, making everything more public and more complicated for us. Mrs. Dunmore might not have known how much trouble she would cause—surely she didn’t expect her own murder—but, if she was the ghost, she has certainly exacted revenge on us.” Rose didn’t add that she hoped Mrs. Dunmore had indeed played at haunting the village. It would be so much simpler that way.
With Andrew off sleuthing in the community’s staid black Plymouth, Rose had been forced to borrow Gennie’s roadster. The car was smaller and showier than anything Rose had ever before driven, and she had to admit to a smidgen of guilty pleasure. Given the current situation, she was glad the car would make her less recognizable as a Shaker, at least while she drove down Languor streets. North Homage’s relations with its neighbors were generally peaceful, even friendly, except during periods like this—when hard times combined with fear, rumor, and suspicion.
The dirt road from North Homage to the town of Languor got bumpier every spring. There was no money to maintain it or most of the other roads in rural, poverty-stricken Languor County. Rose felt the ruts even more in the smaller car. Yet the countryside exploded with vivid greens, the intense purple-pink of redbud trees, and the subtle white of dogwood flowers. In nature, there was no poverty.
Only when she reached the outskirts of Languor, the poorest section of town, did Rose see the effects of interminable Depression. Each spring, the shacks looked shabbier and their inhabitants thinner. A few curious heads swiveled toward her as she drove through the shantytown area, but she sensed no antagonism. Perhaps they were now too hungry and dispirited to care.
Rose stopped first outside the county courthouse, which housed the Languor County Sheriff’s Department. The courthouse had once been an elegant building, and would be again if its limestone façade ever got cleaned. She found a parking spot right at the bottom of the worn stone steps. Normally she would park a block or two away to enjoy the elm-tree-lined walk to the building and the chance to run into old friends from the world, but today she was in a hurry—and she was nervous about the town’s reaction to the murders at North Homage.
Inside, the first-floor rotunda was dark, cool, and empty. She climbed the staircase to the second floor, where the Sheriff’s Department door was wedged open. Grady’s predecessor, Sheriff Brock, had kept the department as inaccessible as possible to anyone but his patrons and friends. Since Grady had become sheriff, the department had opened up and become responsive to all, earning Rose’s fervent gratitude.
Still, thought Rose, if Grady can so easily conclude that Wilhelm would kill two people, then he doesn’t truly know us.
With a surge of determination, Rose barged through the open door and nodded to Hank, who glanced up in surprise. She burst into Grady’s office without knocking.
“I don’t care what you think,” she said. “I know Wilhelm is innocent, and I mean to prove it. I want to know all the evidence you’ve collected, and then I want to see Wilhelm.”
Grady’s startled expression turned to amusement. “Whoa, you’re loaded for bear today. Sit down, Rose, please. Whether you believe me or not, I want you to be right. Okay now, you asked to know what evidence we’ve collected, and I’ll tell you. As you predicted, we found nothing in Wilhelm’s room to prove that Mina Dunmore had contacted him personally. However, in her room, we found this.” He held out a small leather-bound book. Rose took it.
“As you can see,” Grady said, “it’s full of references to Wilhelm. The lady would have made a fine investigator. She’d uncovered just where Wilhelm was and what he was doing every year back to nine years after he’d left her and her mother.”
Rose skimmed the pages, which contained precise notes along with the rantings of a vengeful woman. The first few pages, though short on details, made it clear that Wilhelm had not gone directly from hearth and home to the Society. That was a problem. It looked like he’d simply deserted his family, roamed around for a number of years as if he hadn’t a care—or a responsibility—in the world, and then joined the Shakers. He did not, apparently, leave his wife and child to serve a higher purpose.
“You are welcome to read it all,” Grady said, “but I can save you time by summarizing. Wilhelm took off in 1905, when little Wilhelmina was only seven years old. Wilhelm was twenty-nine—plenty old enough to assume adult responsibilities, I’d say. In 1917, he enlisted at the ripe old age of forty-one and served six months in the war. Most un-Shaker-like, I’m afraid. He was sent home, wounded and suffering from shell shock. He spent some time in a hospital in Lexington, then checked himself out and disappeared for almost a year. In the fall of 1918, he showed up at North Homage, wanting to become a Believer. Don’t y’all call that a ‘Winter Shaker’?”
Rose skimmed through rest of the journal. According to this account, Wilhelm did indeed look like a bread-and-butter Shaker—one who arrives in the autumn, professing conversion to the Shaker faith, then leaves in the spring after using the Society for room and board. Yet many Shakers had lived less than admirable lives before finding their way to Mother Ann. These notes, assuming they were true, did not prove Wilhelm’s faith to be false. However, they might make him look suspicious to the world.
“What else have you found?”
Grady consulted some papers on his desk. “We have statements from several folks who’ve been spending time in North Homage recently.” He glanced up at Rose, who waved her hand impatiently. She knew full well what these witnesses had been doing in her village. “Anyway, several of them claim they saw Mina Dunmore enter the Ministry House shortly after Wilhelm on Saturday afternoon.” Rose was another witness, but she didn’t admit it. Grady took her silence as disbelief.
“They described her perfectly—middle-aged woman, slightly stout, dressed in bright pink. That’s her, right?”
Rose nodded.
“Which puts them in the same building at the same time. And yet Wilhelm denies having met her. Why would he do that if he had nothing to hide?”
“He might not have seen her in the Ministry House. Perhaps he was cleaning out his own retiring room with the door closed.”
“Perhaps. To be honest, we don’t have any witnesses to a conversation between them. Still, the Ministry House isn’t a large building, and according to most everyone, Mrs. Dunmore barged in just about anywhere she pleased.”
Rose said nothing. It was true, of course, that Mrs. Dunmore had seemed fearless when it came to intruding upon the Shakers’ lives, but Rose felt no need to add weight to Grady’s suspicions.
“How did Mrs. Dunmore and Brother Linus die?” she asked.
“Ah, now that’s interesting.” Grady tipped his chair back on two legs, making Rose anxious for his balance. Perhaps it was the strain of the past few days, but she had to stifle a giggle. She remembered stories of some of the first rocking chairs fashioned by the Shakers—in an effort to create an efficient design, the carpenter had made the curved bottom pieces shorter than usual, and Believers had routinely rocked themselves into a back flip.
“Mina Dunmore was poisoned. There wasn’t a mark on her body. She was already dead when she was stuffed into that dyeing vat, as was Linus when his killer shoved him onto that shelf. But Linus was strangled. When we moved Linus’s body, we found a skein of a sort of brownish-colored yarn, like what was hanging around the room where we found Mina Dunmore. Doc Hanfield said it could have caused the bruises around Linus’s neck.”
“Could Dr. Hanfield determine when Linus was killed?” Rose asked.
“He said a day or two was as close as he could get. Rigor was complete, he said. We figure that Wilhelm killed them both early Sunday morning. Mina Dunmore’s death seemed planned. There was nothing unusual in the port bottle Gennie took from her room, but somehow Wilhelm got her to ingest poison—maybe he met with her in the Sisters’ Shop and offered her another drink. After he’d stowed her in the vat, he grabbed a skein of yarn and met with Linus in the root cellar. Or maybe he hadn’t intended to kill Linus; maybe Linus surprised him.”
“Then why would he take the risk of carrying Linus into the South Family Dwelling House? There were more vats handy in the dyeing room.”
Grady shrugged. “Heck, there could be lots of scenarios that make sense. Maybe Wilhelm convinced Linus he’d pay hush money if Linus would meet him a little later in the root cellar.”
“Wilhelm had no money of his own.”
“Gennie has told me something of Shaker history,” Grady said. “There have been occasions, haven’t there, when elders or trustees have absconded with Society funds?”
Rose’s fingers cramped, and she realized she’d been clutching the sides of her chair. Grady’s speculations seemed so logical, but they made no sense when they were about Wilhelm and Linus. How could she convince him? She couldn’t, not without evidence.
“Both murders would have taken some strength,” Grady continued, “and Wilhelm is plenty tough, even against a younger man.”
“I’ll bet I could accomplish both those feats,” Rose said. “The shelf we found Linus on was quite low. Someone could have lifted his lower half onto it, then his upper half. It wouldn’t take excessive strength. And Mrs. Dunmore wasn’t really very stout; I could surely have tipped her into the vat.”
“You’d have splashed green dye all over you, wouldn’t you?”
“Yea, I suppose so. But if I were wearing a dark-colored Dorothy cloak, it probably wouldn’t show much once it had dried. You haven’t found such a cloak, have you?”
“Nope, but it’s a good idea. I’ll send Hank over to look.”
“What poison did the killer use?” Rose asked.
Grady’s chair landed on all four legs with a clunk. “That’s the part that makes me so suspicious of Wilhelm. During the autopsy, Dr. Hanfield found some tiny bits of a plant, ground fine enough so Mrs. Dunmore could have ingested them in a glass of port. When we emptied that dyeing vat, we found some rags that might have been used to clean up after someone who’d been pretty sick.”
“Poor woman,” Rose said.
“Yeah, it couldn’t have been much fun.”
“You said all this made you suspicious of Wilhelm. Why, just because of the plant?”
“Dr. Hanfield called in a chemist he knows in Lexington. His best guess was she was poisoned with monkshood. Only place I know of where that’s grown is right here.”
“It’s all over, if you know where to look,” Rose objected. “Besides, it’s too early to harvest monkshood.”
“Yeah, but I checked with one of the brothers in your Medicinal Herb Shop—Howard, I think it was. Andrew was gone. Howard said they keep some dried monkshood leaves and roots in the shop, clearly labeled as poisonous.”
“Anyone could have taken that.”
“But only Wilhelm had a reason to. As elder, he can go where he pleases, when he pleases. Sorry, Rose, but it all adds up.”