Charity's Burden

by Edith Maxwell

  Luke smiled. “Yes, Grandfather.”

  “One at a time now, boys,” Daddy said in his usual jovial tone. “Tell you what, I’ll flip a coin. Mark, thee is heads and Matthew is tails. All right? Whoever’s side lands up gets to talk first.” He dug a nickel out of a pocket and expertly flipped it in the air. It landed on the table and spun for a second before rolling on its edge, finally becoming still.

  Betsy peered at it, then frowned at her grandfather. “I don’t see any tails. Those are leaves, Grandfather.”

  My father threw his head back and laughed. “That’s just a figure of speech, dear Betsy. Heads and tails are considered opposite parts of a body. It doesn’t much matter what’s on the back, we call it tails.”

  As Matthew commenced to talking, Mother pulled me to the side. “Is everything ready for tomorrow?”

  “Yes, I think so. Faith has a lovely new dress, and the women of the Meeting are preparing refreshments. I’m so pleased thee and Daddy came.”

  “We wouldn’t have missed this for the world.”

  “I’m doing my best to stand in, but Faith is missing Harriet a great deal right now.”

  “Of course she is.” Mother gazed into my face, laying a hand on my cheek. “Land sakes, thee looks tired, my Rose. Up all night birthing a baby, was thee?”

  I nodded, her care bringing sudden tears to my eyes. “Yes, and chasing down the facts of a very worrisome violent death, as well. One of my mothers was the victim, in fact.” I sniffed and swiped at my eye.

  “Another murder?”

  “I’m afraid so. I’ll tell thee about it later.”

  Mother closed her eyes for a moment, sending up a prayer, no doubt. “Thee should retire for the night then,” she said upon opening them.

  “But I want to catch up with thy news.”

  “We’ll have time, dear. We’re staying the week, thee knows. The Weeds have offered us the use of their spare room.” She dropped her warm hand but kissed my cheek where it had rested.

  “Oh, good,” I said. “I wasn’t sure where we’d put everyone in this house, which is a bit cramped as it is.” Three growing boys in one room, two girls in another, and Frederick in the third, plus me downstairs in the parlor made for a full house.

  The telephone jangled insistently in the sitting room.

  Frederick looked at me. “A call on Seventh Day night? I dare say it’s for thee, Rose.”

  “I expect it is. Please excuse me.” I hurried into the sitting room, once again stretching the cord so I could talk in my parlor with the door closed. The operator, someone other than Gertrude this time, connected me with Kevin.

  “I hoped it was thee calling,” I told him after I greeted him.

  “It’s me, all right, and I’m finally at home where I can speak with you in peace.”

  “I did stop by thy house before I went to the station, but it was dark.”

  “Yes, my sainted wife gave up my getting free of this blasted case and took the boy to her parents for supper.”

  “I hope my visit didn’t cause trouble for thee with the chief.”

  “No. Leaving a note was a good idea, Rose, even though I received it in person.”

  “What did thee think of my news?” I moved about the room, the telephone stand in one hand, the listening device at my ear in the other. “Doesn’t thee think it is significant?”

  “If this girl is telling the truth, it’s an important piece of the puzzle.”

  “She is. I’m sure of it. Has thee or thy men questioned the doctor, Buckham, or Savoire Davies as to their whereabouts that morning?”

  “Miss Rose, it’s Saturday night. We can’t be bursting into people’s homes this late in the evening.”

  “I suppose not.” But I wished they could, even though my grandmother’s clock now gave its soft bong eight times. “Thee hadn’t already investigated Wallace Buckham? I left thee a note about him on Sixth Day.” I heard my scolding tone and breathed in a calming breath. It would do no good to nag the hardworking Kevin.

  “That was yesterday. I got the note after I arrived home Friday evening. And this morning we couldn’t find Buckham.”

  What? “What does thee mean, thee couldn’t find him? Did he leave town?”

  “I don’t know. Could be he was simply out at the hospital or the market. Or skating on the pond. We couldn’t find him.”

  “I hope he didn’t become suspicious and go into hiding.”

  “I hope the same.” Kevin cleared his throat. “We did ascertain that Madame Restante, that is, Mrs. Davies, was at her office on Tuesday morning.”

  “Truly?” This could be the break we needed. My heart beat faster in anticipation. “Then perhaps Delia took Charity there and Savoire performed the abortion.”

  “Perhaps. Except we have only Mrs. Davies’s word on the matter, and she said she didn’t arrive at her, uh, bureau, as she put it, until nine o’clock.”

  I thought fast. “I don’t think there would be enough time to do the procedure and for Charity to have traveled home and summoned me, all before ten o’clock. Unless Savoire was particularly brutal with the instrument.” I shuddered to think of it. “She could be lying about the time, couldn’t she? Surely some neighbor or tradesman would have seen her in the street. Did you ask people in the area?”

  “Not yet. It was too bad Miss Davies left tonight before I got your note,” Kevin continued. “I plan to question her at first light Monday morning.”

  “Not tomorrow?”

  Kevin didn’t speak for a moment. “Miss Rose, you know that tomorrow is the Lord’s blessed day of rest, don’t you?”

  I sighed. “Of course I do. But the murderer might not respect that. What if there is another killing tomorrow? Will thee honor the day of rest then?” I heard the impatience in my voice but I was too exhausted to tame it.

  “Now, now. No need to get testy with me,” he said. “Of course in extreme case of need, I shall work on the morrow.”

  “What did Delia have to say to Norman Talbot?”

  He made a frustrated pshh sound. “Some falderal about Joe Swift. Said he was blackmailing Mr. Skells.”

  “About what?”

  “She claimed not to know.”

  And well she might. Otherwise she would be admitting to adultery—to the police.

  “Maybe he is. Maybe Joey knew about Ransom and Delia’s affair and threatened to go public with it. But wait, thee brought Joey in for questioning. What did he say?”

  “The scoundrel called his late father’s lawyer and then clamped his mouth shut. Didn’t get a thing out of him. The lawyer told us unless we had evidence Swift committed a crime, we couldn’t lawfully keep him. We’re not getting any breaks in this case.”

  We certainly weren’t.

  forty-nine

  I clucked to Peaches at eight thirty the next morning on my way to visit to Lucy and her baby son. The snow had stopped during the night and now, in the bright morning sunlight, the whitened world sparkled with tiny diamonds. But the clear air had also brought frigid temperatures. Even the heavy wool driving blanket wrapped around me and all the woolen layers I’d dressed in couldn’t keep my feet warm.

  I’d left a little early because I wanted to drive by Wallace’s house to see if he was within. Surely it was the mark of a guilty person to flee. I turned onto Moody Street and walked Peaches until we were across from the doctor’s big house. I pulled Peaches to a halt. Wallace did seem to be at home, after all. I spied a lit lamp through the window of his examination room. It didn’t mean he was innocent of the crime, though.

  As I sat there in the street, I considered the timing of that fateful morning again. I’d received Charity’s note before ten o’clock because I’d noted the time in my parlor when a boy had arrived with the message. Priscilla had said Delia came with a hired conveyance to fetch her mother
at seven thirty. So where had Charity been between seven thirty and nine? And if Savoire was telling the truth, could she have purposefully or accidentally perforated Charity’s uterus between, say, nine and nine thirty?

  I exclaimed out loud. When I conjured up the image of the room where I found Charity, I saw that red piece of paper I’d found in the drawer. Why hadn’t I made this connection earlier? It could easily have been Wallace Buckham’s brochure listing his services, the very one he’d let me take, that I’d left with Emmaline for Kevin. Was it coincidence that Charity had slipped the red brochure into her bureau? She might have been to see him for other family spacing advice. Or … he could be the man who killed her.

  My heart pounded as I considered my options. I needed to pay Lucy a visit this morning. The afternoon would be taken up with Faith’s wedding, David, and the family gathering. With this idea about Wallace, I ought to have Peaches gallop straight to Kevin’s home. But I couldn’t bother him so early on a First Day morning. What my duty, my calling, told me to do was rap the knocker on Wallace Buckham’s front door and confront him with what I knew. But if I’d learned anything from the several murder investigations in which I’d been embroiled, it was to not insert myself in a potentially dangerous situation. My duty to the case didn’t need to extend that far. I would let the police do their expert job and I’d do mine, that of midwifery. I resolved to continue on to Lucy and Henryk’s farm.

  Before I left, I glanced over at the house again and spied a carriage house to the right and toward the back of the main building. My eyes widened. A black enclosed wagon sat in front of the closed carriage house doors, its traces resting on a stump, its harness hanging slack. Except it was free of snow. It hadn’t sat outside all night. It must have been driven here this morning and the horse put up inside the carriage house. Why would Wallace have taken such a wagon out so early in the morning? David had said Wallace’s family had deserted him, so it could only be the doctor himself who would go for a drive. The police hadn’t been able to locate him yesterday. Perhaps the doctor had been away overnight and had just returned. I pulled Peaches across the street, climbed down, and tied him to a hitching post so I could take a closer look first at the driveway and then at the wagon.

  The driveway showed only the tracks leading toward the carriage house. My eyes widened. If Wallace had taken a wagon out this morning, there should be two sets of tracks in the fresh snow: one set for leaving, one for returning.

  I checked the residence but didn’t see anyone watching me, so I took a half dozen steps into the driveway. I couldn’t help myself from moving closer, drawn like an iron filing to a magnet. I’d thought my heart was hammering a minute ago, but it doubled its rate now, and my throat thickened, making it hard to swallow. The vehicle looked very much like the one that had run me off the road on my way home from Bertie and Sophie’s a few nights ago. I wished I’d had the chance to look for markings on the wagon that had attacked me but I hadn’t. All I knew was that it was a dark closed wagon. And so was the one in front of me. The steed the other night had been black, too. When I examined the wide leather breeching where it would run under the horse’s tail, I was not surprised to discover a long black horsehair stuck to it. Definitely not from Peaches. I stood rooted in place like a swamp oak, running the hair through my fingers. If I opened the carriage house, I had no doubt I would find that black horse.

  But … I frowned as I curled the hair into a coil and pocketed it, thinking back over the events of the week. I hadn’t spoken to Wallace until the morning after being attacked on the road. Why would he have accosted me, trying to hurt or even kill me? I could understand him wanting me to disappear after I came to see him, asking about his services and alluding to abortion. But before? And if the wagon wasn’t his, whose was it?

  A sudden wind set branches to rattling. It blew snow off the tree above, plopping clumps onto my bonnet and cloak. I shivered. What was I doing out here on a suspect’s private property staring at a horsehair? I had a newly delivered mother to attend to, a worship service to participate in, and after that a family event to celebrate, the happiest one in a long time. It was high time for me to get moving. A church bell in the distance began to toll as I turned to leave, and a crow high in a bare tree croaked a warning.

  “Where do you think you’re going, Rose Carroll?” Delia’s voice sounded behind me even as her hand grasped my left arm and something very sharp poked a spot of bare skin just below my right ear.

  Where had she come from? “Delia?” I tried to twist to see her but the sharpness threatened to pierce my skin.

  Her low laugh was the scariest sound I’d ever heard.

  fifty

  “You couldn’t leave other people’s business alone, could you?” Delia’s voice was low and as cold as the frigid ground. “Telling stories to your detective pal.”

  The sharp object pricked harder. An ice pick? A hat pin? Whatever it was, it hurt. I winced. “What does thee mean?” I asked, even though telling stories was exactly what I’d been doing. True stories, too.

  “I’ve been watching you, and I’ve had enough of it. Following me here today was a bad idea.”

  “I wasn’t following thee.” With any luck Wallace would look out a window and notice us. He would come to my rescue. Except … no. My heart sank. Delia being here must mean the two of them were working together. I cast my mind about for a response, thinking as fast as my galloping heart. “I have something of Wallace’s I wanted to return.”

  “On a Sunday morning? Hardly,” she scoffed.

  “It’s true. Thee can ask him.”

  She barked a harsh laugh. “No, I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s dead.” She pressed the object into my neck until it stung. “Just like you will be soon.”

  A chill of dread rippled through me. “Wallace is dead? What happened to him?”

  “I’m not at liberty to divulge that right now. Let’s just say it wasn’t from natural causes. He was threatening to go to the police. I couldn’t let that happen.”

  She’d killed him because he was going to turn her in. She planned to kill me, too. If I could keep her talking, surely someone would drive by and take notice. We were out here in plain sight, after all. “Did he kill Charity?”

  “No, the idiot refused. I had to do it myself.”

  May God rest his soul. Wallace had had some morals in the end. She must have done away with him yesterday morning, which is why Kevin’s men couldn’t find him. My thoughts raced on to the obvious conclusion. “Thee used thy mother’s office to murder Charity.”

  She barked out a laugh. “The woman was a simpleton. I’d befriended her when Ransom and I fell in with each other. After I intercepted Charity’s letter to my mother, I told the woman I had trained with my mother, and that I would give her a lower price for her abortion than the famous Madame Restante. She believed every word of it.”

  Poor, poor Charity. She wasn’t a simpleton, but she had indeed been a desperate and trusting soul. She hadn’t divulged Delia’s name to me because she’d thought they were friends. “What did thee see in Ransom? Doesn’t thee know he has with six young ones?”

  “Of course.” She scoffed at my questions. “The grandmother will take the children. And the money Charity was inheriting changed everything.” As I had suspected. She clearly didn’t know Ransom would not have control over the funds.

  “I know thee took Charity to thy mother’s office in this very wagon.” Why didn’t someone drive by? Where was the milk wagon, an early churchgoer, anyone?

  “How do you know that?” she demanded

  “Thee was seen with Charity that morning.” The crow in the tree scratched out more warnings, as if it was telling me, “Go-go, go!”

  “Who saw us?” she demanded. “Who told you? I’ll attend to him when I’m finished with you. Unless you’re lying.”

  “I
am not.” However, I would die before I would give her sweet Priscilla’s name. “Does thee own this wagon?”

  “You ask too many questions. But I’ll tell you what, you get to have the special tour.” Her icy words cut the air worse than the freezing wind. She pushed my shoulder and poked my neck until I stood facing the back of the wagon. “Open the door,” she snarled.

  I pulled on the handle with some effort until the door creaked open. All I wished to hear was a clanging police bell growing ever nearer, but that was not to be. Not yet.

  A reek of blood stained the crisp winter air. The vehicle was, or had been, a meat wagon. A length of rope lay coiled in one corner near the door.

  “Where did thee obtain this vehicle?” I asked.

  “It’s my uncle’s. Now shut up and get in before somebody sees us.”

  No. I was not going to be locked in a windowless wagon and left to freeze to death. I had to get away from her, and quickly. My brain raced, seeking a plan.

  “Move!” she commanded.

  “Very well.” I’d move, if that was what she wanted. Fast and furious, I ducked down and away, freeing my neck from the sharp object. I twisted my left arm free of her grasp and jabbed my right elbow hard into her solar plexus.

  Delia cried out and crumpled to the ground. She curled up, wrapping her arms around herself, gasping.

  I grabbed the rope from the wagon and knelt behind her feet. I began to loop the cord around her ankles but she kicked back at me. I cried out as her heel hit my knee. My ire rose. She was not going to win this battle. I quickly twisted to sit on her knees, which immobilized her legs.

  “That hurts!” She scrabbled at me with her hand.

  I turned my back. “I don’t care.” I tied her feet together as fast as I could. I pulled the knot tight and tied a second, for good measure, then rolled off her and stood. Near her head I spied her sharp object sticking up out of the snow. I gave her a wide berth as she began thrashing about.