A Circle of Dead Girls

by Eleanor Kuhns

  ‘Tell me everything that happened?’ Rees said, turning his back on Aaron.

  ‘We saw the circus wagons on Surry Road early Thursday morning. It was … amazing.’ Shem’s eyes began to sparkle at the memory. And Rees could easily imagine how these children, isolated within the Shaker community, would respond to the circus’s color and flash.

  ‘Leah wanted to go,’ Rees murmured.

  ‘I tried to explain that only men and boys were allowed,’ Shem said with the unconscious superiority of his sex. ‘But she insisted. She said she would call for one of the Brothers if I didn’t take her.’

  ‘You don’t need to tell Mr Rees anything,’ Aaron put in, glaring.

  Rees ignored him. ‘You left after dinner?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. We crossed the Surry Road to the lane and followed it into town.’

  Rees reviewed the timing once again. The two children would have reached the town probably about two fifteen or so. ‘Did you see Monsieur Boudreaux riding his horse as you went into town?’

  ‘Yes. That’s why I wanted to talk to him.’ Shem’s voice lifted with excitement. ‘Leah and I walked across the fairgrounds—’

  ‘You spoke to Monsieur Boudreaux?’

  ‘Yes. He wasn’t back at first so I waited by the horses. And he returned just a few minutes later.’

  Rees grabbed the boy’s arm. ‘Where was Leah?’

  ‘She was there, of course.’ Shem stared at Rees as though he were half-witted. ‘The show didn’t begin until five o’clock.’

  ‘What happened then?’ Rees leaned forward.

  ‘Well, Monsieur Boudreaux came back and he was so nice and he showed me all the horses and explained how he trained them.’

  ‘Leave him,’ Aaron said, trying to insert his body between Rees and the boy.

  ‘Do you speak French?’ Rees asked, trying to absorb all that he was hearing.

  ‘Un peu,’ the boy replied.

  ‘And Leah?’ Rees turned his body, blocking Aaron behind him.

  ‘She was bored. She said she was going home and would come back later. And she left. And I never saw her again.’ For the first time, the realization that Leah had started walking back to Zion alone hit Shem and tears filled his eyes. ‘It’s my fault. I should have gone with her.’

  ‘Would you be willing to tell Constable Rouge your story?’

  ‘No, he isn’t,’ Aaron said.

  As Shem began shaking his head Rees continued. ‘You see, Monsieur Boudreaux has been accused of Leah’s murder. But he can’t be guilty, not if you were with him that afternoon.’

  ‘I’ll get in trouble,’ Shem said, grimacing.

  ‘Do you want Constable Rouge to hang Monsieur Boudreaux?’ Rees asked in a sharp voice. Shem’s mouth dropped open and he shook his head.

  ‘No. No. Of course not.’

  ‘You can’t take the boy,’ Aaron said belligerently.

  ‘He has information that he needs to share with the constable,’ Rees said, keeping his voice low and calm with an effort.

  ‘You don’t have to go back,’ Aaron said, turning to Shem.

  ‘I want to help,’ Shem said, his voice breaking on the final word. Scowling, Aaron, retreated.

  ‘We’ll return to Durham together,’ Rees promised. He paused and added, ‘And you should be brave enough to speak to Brother Daniel as well, tell him openly and honestly you want to leave the community.’

  ‘I can’t do that,’ Shem said. ‘He’ll be disappointed.’

  ‘You must,’ Rees said. ‘Sneaking out is the coward’s way. Standing up and telling Daniel face to face is the behavior of a man.’

  Shem stared at Rees. Finally, swallowing, he said, ‘I’ll go back.’ His voice broke and soared to a high treble. His face went scarlet.

  Rees looked at Aaron. ‘You should return as well.’

  ‘Of course,’ Aaron said, eyeing Rees with dislike. ‘I won’t let the boy go alone.’

  ‘Mr Rees?’ Mr Asher came up behind Rees. ‘What are you doing here?’ He was dressed in buff breeches and shirtsleeves, his jacket and cravat discarded. Rees glanced at his hands. They were badly scratched, but several of the marks were so new they were still oozing blood. They told Rees absolutely nothing except that Asher was not above working with his hands.

  ‘How nice to see you again, Mr Rees,’ Bambola said as she came up behind Asher.

  ‘I came to fetch the boy,’ Rees said as he turned. ‘His testimony should free Boudreaux.’

  Asher’s brows rose. ‘Free him? I thought he’d be hanged by now.’

  Rees shook his head. Deciding he did not want to confide the entire sorry tale, he said only, ‘He’s not even in jail.’

  ‘Where is he then?’ Bambola asked.

  ‘Working in the kitchen of a local tavern,’ Rees said.

  Bambola glared at Asher. ‘You said they were going to hang him.’

  ‘I thought they were.’ He chewed his lower lip. At last he looked at Rees and said, ‘As you see, we are stopped, probably for at least the rest of today. A broken axle that must be repaired before we continue. And Elliott is still some distance away. If Pip Boudreaux is a free man, as you say, I’ll return to your town and collect him.’ He offered Rees a faint smile. ‘When we heard the gunshot that last night we thought he’d been killed. And we did not want to be attacked as well.’

  ‘Of course,’ Rees said in understanding. ‘But the constable prevented any harm from coming to your man.’

  ‘I owe him a debt of gratitude then,’ Asher said with a bow.

  ‘Thank you, thank you,’ Bambola said, leaning forward and putting her hand on Rees’s. He could feel the warmth of her hand through her glove. He cleared his throat but found he could not speak. ‘He is one of my greatest friends and I am so grateful to you.’

  ‘I’m sure Mr Boudreaux will be glad to see you return for him,’ Rees stammered.

  ‘And when we’re in town,’ Bambola added, smiling at him from under her straw bonnet, ‘I must do another reading for you.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said. He knew he should make his excuses, say he would be too busy and that superstitious claptrap made him uncomfortable. But he did not. Instead, with the prospect of seeing her again dangling in front of him, he executed a clumsy bow. ‘I’ll look forward to it,’ he said in a strangled voice. His face felt as though it was on fire.

  ‘In fact,’ Mr Asher said, clapping Rees on the shoulder, ‘why don’t you join us for our noon meal.’ Rees hesitated. ‘There is no town around us,’ Asher continued persuasively. ‘Nowhere to stop.’

  ‘Shem and I won’t run away, if that’s worrying you,’ Aaron said in a sour voice. Rees, who hadn’t been concerned about that, shot him a hostile glance.

  ‘Very well,’ he said to Asher. ‘I’m delighted to accept.’

  While Hannibal was pegged out with the circus horses, Asher brought Rees to the makeshift camp on the other side of the wagons. Inside a circle cleared of last year’s stalks, a fire burned enthusiastically under a bubbling pot.

  ‘Sit by Billy,’ Asher directed, pointing to the dwarf.

  Billy was sitting next to the strong man, his eyes fixed on the woman stirring the soup. As Rees found a seat, Billy said, ‘You are so graceful, Jeanne. Even stirring the soup is poetry.’ She smiled politely and handed him a wooden bowl filled with fragrant stew.

  ‘You are wasting your time,’ Otto said, in such a thick accent Rees could barely understand him.

  ‘It’s my time,’ Billy said.

  ‘But you have so little of it left,’ Otto retorted as he took his bread and put it in his soup.

  Rees tasted his bread. It was so stale and hard he quickly followed suit.

  ‘We bought the bread in Grand Forks,’ Billy said conversationally, turning to Rees.

  ‘Did you put on a performance?’ Rees asked, knowing they hadn’t.

  ‘We planned to. But the constable asked us to leave before we’d even begun building the arena.’ Billy forced a lop
sided smile. ‘Maybe it was for the best.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Rees asked. Billy did not reply. Putting down his barely touched bowl, he coughed. The first brief sound rapidly became a relentless grinding cough from deep in the chest. Scowling at Rees as though this was his fault, Otto helped Billy to his feet and they moved away. Rees saw the blood on Billy’s lips and fingers with a spasm of pity.

  ‘He has the white plague,’ Asher explained as he sat down. ‘It comes and goes.’

  ‘Will he return to his family?’ Rees asked, staring after Billy. He’d known others, too many in fact, who had died of the disease.

  ‘We are his family,’ Asher said, turning to look at Rees. ‘He was born on a farm near Philadelphia. His small stature made him unsuited for farming and when he got sick his birth family expelled him. We found him, half-starved, begging by the side of the road.’

  ‘He was lucky you took him in,’ Rees said.

  ‘We were the fortunate ones. He is popular with the audiences.’ Asher smiled. ‘We are a family of misfits. My father disinherited me. Of course, the old sot had already gambled away everything that wasn’t entailed. Boudreaux is French, the scion of one of the noble houses that met their end at the guillotine. He still has nightmares almost every night.’

  Rees nodding, understanding all too well. The past, especially one bound up with fear and guilt, frequently came back to haunt one in the wee hours of the morning.

  Asher pointed to a group of young men, all dark and with enough resemblance for Rees to suspect they were related. ‘They are from Italy, Jews running from that Devil’s spawn Napoleon. And Otto, he killed a man. Accidentally, in a tavern brawl.’ Rees turned to stare at Otto, who had returned to finish his dinner. His hands were enormous, as befitted a man Otto’s size, and Rees could see several bloody scratches. So, the strong man had killed someone, that was documented. But no one had seen him on the road when Leah met her end.

  ‘And Bambola?’ he asked finally.

  ‘Ah. It is different for her. She is from a circus family. Fortune smiled upon me the day I met her.’ Asher looked at Rees. ‘But what of you? Why did you follow the boy? We have had other boys run away to join us’ – he pointed to a group of ragamuffins clustered around Shem – ‘but rarely does someone come looking. Especially not two men.’

  ‘I had questions to ask,’ Rees said, purposely vague. He turned to examine Asher’s hands once again. They were extraordinarily large, well able to circle a girl’s neck and squeeze, and as he’d noted before covered with scratches. But the nails, now rimmed with dirt, had been chewed down to the quick and the cuticles were ragged and bloody. Rees felt himself relax; Asher could not be Leah’s strangler.

  ‘About the girl’s death?’ Asher asked, looking puzzled. ‘You surprise me. Why not accept Boudreaux as the murderer? In every other town every other constable would believe he was the guilty man.’

  ‘You don’t believe it,’ Rees said.

  Asher stared, his dark brows rising almost to his hairline. ‘You are correct. I know him too well to believe he’s guilty. He is too softhearted.’ He paused and took a bite of stew. ‘Is there someone else you suspect?’

  ‘It’s too early to say,’ Rees said. ‘Besides, shouldn’t the search for the truth be more about protecting the innocent rather than punishing the guilty?’

  ‘You are a very unusual man,’ Asher said in surprise. ‘Most people wouldn’t blink at hanging one of us circus folk.’

  ‘Doesn’t make it right,’ Rees said. Asher turned to gaze at Rees before breaking into a wide smile. He clapped Rees on the shoulder and they finished their meals in a companionable silence.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The sun had barely crossed the zenith when Rees, followed by Brother Aaron and Shem, left the circus encampment to return home. At first worried that Aaron might decide to veer off and try to escape, Rees was pleased to see the Shaker Brother keep up. They made good time. They passed the village of Grand Forks mid-afternoon without stopping and Rees began to think they might make it all the way to Durham in one long day.

  The sun was beginning to set when they approached Durham. Rees knew he would have to travel the remainder of the way home in darkness, but he was on familiar roads now. Even Hannibal, who’d walked more and more slowly as he tired, began to move a little faster now that he knew his barn and his supper waited.

  Although he yearned to continue to home, Rees pulled into the inn yard behind Rouge’s tavern. He wanted to make sure Shem spoke to Rouge before running away again. And he probably would if Daniel tried to keep him at Zion. Shem, it was clear, would not make a Shaker despite Aaron’s attentions, and Rees thought the boy would be happier with Asher’s circus.

  Constable Rouge greeted their arrival in his tavern with surprise. ‘You found the boy.’

  Rees looked around. Since it was now past seven o’clock at night and on a Sunday, there were few customers. ‘This lad has something to tell you,’ Rees said, pushing the boy forward.

  Shem stumbled into speech and gradually, as Rouge understood what he was being told, the amused smile dropped from his face. ‘Are you telling me, boy, that you were speaking with Boudreaux while that girl you came into town with was being murdered?’

  Shem went white.

  Rees grabbed the constable’s arm. ‘Really Rouge,’ he said disapprovingly, ‘must you terrify the boy?’

  Rouge threw down his rag upon the scarred bar. ‘Wait. Just wait.’ He stamped away, bellowing for his cousins.

  ‘Doesn’t he believe me?’ Shem asked.

  ‘He’s an honest man. He’ll do what’s right.’ Rees added half under his breath, ‘I hope he does.’

  Rouge returned with Thomas in tow.

  Rouge gestured Rees and Shem to an empty table in a corner. Aaron trailed after them. ‘All right,’ Rouge said, ‘tell me the whole story again. Slowly this time.’ Shem stumbled through his tale once more.

  ‘Look,’ Rees explained impatiently, ‘Shem and Leah left Zion immediately after dinner at noon. They took the lane and arrived in town probably between a quarter after two and half past.’

  Rouge nodded. ‘That follows,’ he agreed.

  ‘Well,’ Rees continued, ‘Boudreaux had already departed on his ride down the road. If he rode to the junction with the Surry Road, as Paul Reynard said he did, and rode back, he could not have arrived back in town until two thirty, two forty-five.’ Rouge nodded reluctantly.

  ‘Leah was still with Shem.’ Rees glanced at the boy, who nodded. ‘When Boudreaux returned, Shem and Leah spoke to him. But Leah did not want to stay.’

  ‘She was bored,’ Shem interjected in a low voice.

  ‘So, she started home.’ Rees paused, gathering his thoughts. ‘Are you with me so far?’ Rouge did not speak. ‘Instead of following the lane – I’m not sure why, maybe she saw Aaron and was afraid or couldn’t find it, she took the road. Someone approached her there. That’s where her body was found. Shem stayed with Boudreaux talking until when, Shem?’

  ‘He showed me some tricks,’ Shem said, his face lighting up with remembered pleasure. ‘But then he had to get ready for the performance. And it was getting late. Maybe four thirty? Or after. So I left.’

  ‘He arrived in Zion for supper,’ Aaron said.

  ‘Just because you wish Boudreaux guilty does not make it so,’ Rees told Rouge emphatically.

  ‘But how could the villain not be seen?’ Rouge asked in frustration. ‘Or heard? I’m certain she was screaming all the while …’

  With a gasp, Shem slid limply to the floor.

  ‘Oh no,’ Rees said, reaching down to pick up the unconscious boy.

  ‘I forgot,’ Rouge said in a guilty voice. Turning, he shouted at his cousin, ‘Whiskey.’

  ‘No,’ Rees said. ‘Not for him. He’s from Zion.’

  ‘Ah yes.’ Rouge grinned at Rees. ‘Fortunately, I know you don’t drink whiskey either and I had the girl put on coffee for you. Or is he not permitted to drink
coffee either, Mr Rees?’

  ‘Coffee would be fine,’ Rees replied, ignoring Rouge’s mockery. He wrestled Shem, who weighed more than his skinny body would suggest, into the chair. He had regained consciousness but remained white and shaky. By then the barmaid had slopped coffee into three large mugs. Rees poured cream into one and sugared it heavily before putting it into Shem’s hands. ‘Drink,’ he said. ‘You’ll feel better.’ Aaron put his hands around one of the mugs but did not drink.

  As Rees doctored his own coffee and took a sip, Rouge poured out a glass of the amber whiskey. Frowning in thought, he took a drink. This time Rees had the sense to keep silent.

  At last Rouge exhaled in acceptance. ‘All right, maybe Boudreaux could not have murdered the Shaker girl. I’ll release him.’

  ‘The circus will be returning for him,’ Rees said helpfully.

  ‘But someone killed that girl. And that someone could still be one of those circus people. You say they’re coming back? Good. I’ll tell that Mr Asher and his crew of villains to stay in Durham until we find the murderer.’

  Rees knew the circus master would not enjoy obeying that directive but did not say so. After all, Rouge was correct. Someone had murdered Leah. And if Boudreaux was not the guilty party, then the killer was still out there, free to kill again. ‘And by the way,’ Rouge said to Rees as he and his companions prepared to leave, ‘come by tomorrow. I have something to tell you.’

  Something that the constable did not want anyone else to know, Rees guessed. ‘First thing in the morning,’ he promised.

  By the time Shem finished his coffee and followed Rees and Aaron from the tavern, it was quite dark. Only a few threads of light still streaked the sky. Shem, swaying on his feet, climbed up to the seat. That was when Rees realized he had to light the lanterns on each side of the wagon – it was too dark to travel without light – and rather than struggle with his tinderbox he went back inside the inn to borrow a coal. When he returned he found Shem asleep in the wagon bed.

  Aaron had been waiting patiently, seemingly content to drive to Zion in the dark. He glanced at Shem without comment and climbed into his cart.