A Circle of Dead Girls

by Eleanor Kuhns

  The kitchen was noisy. David and Jerusha were trying to play cribbage, an exercise in futility as they had to keep stopping to pry the pegs from Sharon’s chubby hands. Now it was a game for her and she giggled as she ran from her older brother and sister. David was laughing but Jerusha looked angry enough to chew nails. Rees guessed she was the one winning.

  He kicked off his muddy shoes at the door and hurried upstairs to put on dry clothing. Then he went into the weaving room. The weather had already ended his plans to work outside. He could not resist a guilty flare of happiness that fate had taken a hand. He needed to think and weaving allowed him to do that.

  As usual, he took a few minutes settling himself. But once he began weaving, the repetitive motion of throwing the shuttle allowed his mind to sink into a place where he could concentrate fully on the murders. Something had happened this morning – he’d either seen or heard something that bothered him. But Rees could not put his finger on it. After several minutes of wrestling with the elusive memory, he abandoned that puzzle and moved on.

  He thought of Piggy Hanson, reflecting upon their earlier conversation. A magistrate who traveled, he’d been on the scenes of several of the murders of young girls. But not all. And he had made a concerted effort to involve Rees in the investigation. Besides, like it or not, he believed Hanson when he claimed the cravat wasn’t his. Even as a boy he had been particular about his appearance. As an adult – well, Rees had never seen him less than perfectly dressed. What’s more, the Hanson Rees had built up in his mind was a different man than the one he’d spoken to this morning. Rees began to wonder about his certainty the magistrate was guilty.

  But who else even wore cravats and silk jackets? Not Aaron. Rees could not imagine him in anything fancy or ostentatious, even though he was no longer a Shaker. On the Perkins farm and then in jail, Aaron had been clad entirely in black.

  Then there was Otto, the strong man from the circus. His large hands could have made the bruises around Leah’s neck. But he wore only simple linen breeches and shirt even while performing. And silk? Far too expensive for a man who was little more than a laborer. Besides, Paul Reynard had not seen him on either the lane or the road.

  Could Boudreaux have been the murderer after all? Rees involuntarily shook his head. Like Otto, Boudreaux always wore plain clothing. And that was in addition to the problem with the timeline.

  At the very last Rees considered Asher. A charming gentleman to be sure, but charm could mask a villain. And he wore a cravat while in his ringmaster’s costume but that article of clothing ended in a fall of lace. The jacket he wore in his role as circus master was bright red. Rees stopped, the shuttle held aloft. He had seen Asher in black. It was at Boudreaux’s funeral. But although Asher’s jacket was black it was not silk. It was linen. Well-cared for, to be sure, but worn to softness and very wrinkled. So not Asher then.

  Then there was the question of whether two people were involved in the murder of the ruffians in the forest. Rees could see no connection between any of the men with the exception of Asher and Otto. At least they were both from the circus. He pondered that possibility for several minutes. Leah – or any of the young girls – would not have had a chance against two men, one of them unnaturally strong. But he had never seen anything that hinted at a relationship between the two men. If anything, Asher treated Otto like a servant. But Otto and Billy?

  ‘Pshaw!’ Rees exclaimed in frustration, stretching his hands above his head. Nothing fit. What was he missing?

  Deciding that he had spent enough time chewing over this conundrum, he rose from the bench and went to the window. The wild storm was over, but rain pattered gently on the glass. He could smell something cooking; it must be past noon and time for dinner. Heat from the fire had risen into this small room and it was now very warm. Too warm. Sweat prickled on the back of Rees’s neck. He pushed the window up to allow in some fresh air. It felt much cooler outside. After a few moments breathing in the rain-scented air he closed the window and clattered down the stairs.

  The light from the candles and the fireplace cast a warm glow over the main room. Rees smelled frying meat and hot cornbread. David, who had given up on the game, was tossing Sharon in the air to loud squeals of excitement. Jerusha finished laying out the plates and went into the pantry for the maple syrup.

  ‘You’re just in time,’ Lydia said, gesturing Rees toward the table. He eyed her. But she was relaxed and smiling so whatever had bothered her had been settled. As he sat down at the head of the table, David put his sister down and joined his father.

  ‘Even though the rain has stopped,’ David said, ‘it’s still too wet to plow or plant. I was wondering if you wanted to look at your flock of sheep with me? It will soon be time for shearing. Have you given any thought to that? Some of your ewes have exceptionally thick fleeces. Good for weaving, I would expect. Or worth a lot of cash money.’

  Rees hadn’t thought. ‘The Brothers in Zion will be shearing their flock in a month or so,’ he said, adding mendaciously, ‘I thought I might ask them for help.’

  His thoughts of murder, the circus, Bambola and the two bodies lying in the coroner’s shed receded as domestic concerns took precedence.

  FORTY-FIVE

  Clad in his oilcloth cape, Rees left early the following morning. Although the sky was the color of pewter and a light rain mixed with snow was falling, a streak of blue on the western horizon promised fair skies later. He wanted to examine the bodies in the coroner’s shed and perhaps say goodbye to Bambola before returning home for his farm chores. The responsibility of more farm work weighed heavily upon him and without consciously realizing it he sighed heavily several times.

  The road into town was empty of traffic but he still could not travel as fast as he wanted. Pools of water pocked a surface that was a slurry of slippery mud and stones. Rees had to steer carefully around the pools as well as he was able, the wagon rocking beneath him like a living thing. Within the first few minutes mud coated Hannibal up to the belly and spattered Rees’s cape.

  He’d planned to stop at the tavern and share his plans with Rouge but the yard was already full of wagons and horses. He looked at the light shining welcomingly through the smoke-begrimed windows and sighed again.

  The coroner’s shed was cold and damp; rainwater seeped under the door and turned the dirt floor into mud. But at least, Rees thought, the cool temperature would slow the corruption of the corpses.

  He left the door open despite the flood of cool, wet air and in the gray light he examined the corpses once again. The bruises around the neck of the smaller victim had come out in all their livid glory. Rees did not spend much time with them; he was already certain the large ovals printed into the man’s skin were a match for those circling Leah’s delicate neck.

  But as he inspected the body this time he noticed that the right hand was clenched tightly upon something. Since the stiffness had passed off, Rees was able to pry the fingers open. And there clutched inside was a piece of black material, ripped from an article of clothing. Involuntarily Rees’s fingers went to his vest pocket and the threads within.

  Now that he was more carefully scrutinizing the body, he noticed dried blood beneath the grimy nails. This victim had put up a fight and, like Leah, had left scratches on the murderer. Rees thought of Piggy Hanson and his plump, carefully tended hands. He recalled seeing scratches on Aaron, though, and he had not been wearing Shaker garb while in jail. No, he’d been wearing black. Not black silk but still Rees wondered if Rouge had freed Aaron too quickly.

  He moved on to the second body. A big man with muscles visible through the linen of his shirt, he should have mounted a serious challenge to the murderer. But there were no marks on the body other than the small, round hole placed neatly on the left side of his forehead. The pistol, Rees thought, must pull a little to the right. Deciding that this victim had nothing further to tell him, Rees returned for another look at the first body. He would have to share what he had found with
the constable.

  He stepped outside, glad to see the clearing skies. He had spent over an hour inside the shed and in that time the rain had stopped.

  Before he went to the tavern he drove to the fairgrounds. He knew he shouldn’t but the yearning to see Bambola was so strong he couldn’t resist. Despite the wagons still grouped around the center, the camp already looked abandoned. The fire, which had burned for a week, had been extinguished and the field was empty of people.

  The three carriages, all with the rearing gold horse proudly emblazoned on the doors, were grouped together. Rees could see even from a distance that they were empty. He looked around, realizing that he did not know which of the wagons belonged to whom. From the outside they all looked alike except for the grandeur of the horse insignia. The more important performers like Billy boasted carved wooden horses on their doors instead of painted pictures. Asher as the owner of the circus and Bambola as the featured star would certainly live in wagons that displayed their status and they would sport metal insignias. Now Rees looked around again, paying particular attention to the doors. There! The only two conveyances with gilded iron were drawn up close together. He started for them.

  A woman’s terrified scream tore through the camp and was closely followed by the sound of a gunshot. It sounded as though it came from Bambola’s wagon. Rees froze for a few seconds and then started running.

  He had a hard time pushing open the door, finally managing to shove it in. When he squeezed through the gap he understood why; Asher lay dead on the floor with a bloody hole over his left eyebrow. His sightless eyes stared at the roof.

  ‘Oh no,’ Rees said. Even though he knew the circus master was dead he knelt beside him and felt for a pulse.

  ‘What happened here?’ He stared around in shock and disbelief.

  Screaming and crying, Bambola stood a few feet away, the muff gun lying at her feet. The right side of her skirt was charred black and smoking. And Lydia was bound to the built-in bench behind her.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he gasped as his eyes took in the ragged boy’s clothing she wore.

  A rag had been tied over her mouth and Rees saw the beginnings of a bruise on her cheek. A trickle of blood ran down from her nose and when she looked at him her blue eyes were wide with fear. ‘Oh, Lydia,’ Rees said. What if Asher had killed Lydia? Faced with the possibility of losing her forever he felt the wagon walls spin around him. His stomach twisted into knots. What had he been thinking? He stepped forward, to his wife. But before he reached her, Bambola flung herself into his arms and began weeping against his chest.

  Closing her eyes, Lydia turned her face away. Rees tried to push Bambola aside but she clung to him with a desperate grip.

  ‘He made me help him,’ Bambola sobbed, her voice muffled against Rees’s vest. ‘He threatened me …’

  Rees shot an agonized look at Lydia. A tear formed in the corner of her one visible eye and crept down her cheek. He shuddered in self-disgust and put his hands on Bambola’s upper arms to push her away. Although the soft and sweet-smelling body pressed against him was still as enticing as before, the overpowering hunger had faded. The attraction he’d felt earlier now seemed no more than a form of madness.

  ‘Bambola, please,’ he said, his gaze fixed on his wife. Lydia still would not look at him.

  The ropedancer snuggled closer, her hands twisted in the homespun of his vest.

  ‘When he tied up your wife, I took his gun and shot him,’ she said, tipping her head back so she could look into his face. ‘I had to stop him before he hurt anyone else.’

  Lydia shook her head.

  As interested in listening to Bambola’s story as he was, right now he cared more about helping Lydia. ‘Please, I need to free my wife.’

  ‘He hired those men to shoot Boudreaux.’ The ropedancer’s voice rose. ‘I’ll never forgive him for that, never!’ Rees believed her.

  ‘What the hell is happening here?’ Rouge squeezed part way through the half-open door. ‘I had reports of screaming and gunfire …’ His voice trailed away as he stared at the circus master lying at his feet. He looked up, staring first at Rees with Bambola held in his arms and then at Lydia, in boy’s clothes but with her long auburn hair cascading down her back.

  ‘What the …?’

  ‘How could Asher hire those men to kill Boudreaux?’ Bambola wept. ‘How could he be so wicked? Boudreaux was like a brother.’

  ‘What?’ Rouge asked, sounding confused. ‘Why would he do that?’ he added, grasping the one piece he understood. ‘Have Boudreaux murdered, I mean?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Bambola said, lowering her eyes. ‘I wondered but I was not sure until today. Until she came.’ She flicked a glance at Lydia.

  ‘Here,’ Rees said, attempting to thrust Bambola into Rouge’s arms. ‘Take her. And get Asher’s body out of here. I must see to my wife.’

  Bambola reluctantly relinquished her hold on Rees’s vest. Casting him a reproachful glance, she allowed herself to be pulled from the wagon.

  He turned to Lydia. ‘Are you hurt? Did Asher hurt you?’ She shook her head in denial despite the bruises on her face. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said as he knelt beside her. ‘So so sorry.’ He tried to untie the gag but the knots stubbornly opposed his efforts. At last he took out his knife and cut it. He saw with a spasm of pain the red lines on either side of her mouth where the tightly bound linen had pressed into her cheeks. ‘I’ll get you out of these ropes.’

  ‘Are you leaving with that woman?’

  ‘No, no,’ he said, trying to put his arms around her. ‘Never. You are the woman I love.’ Her stiff body resisted him and he finally abandoned his effort to embrace her.

  ‘Do you have any water?’ she asked. He jumped to his feet and looked around. Asher had tied Lydia to the bench that also served as the bed and the chair. Across the small aisle was a wash basin in which Bambola’s black dress was soaking and, next to it, a pitcher of water. Rees tasted it to make sure it was drinkable – the wash water was brown – before pouring it into a glass and holding it to Lydia’s lips. She drank thirstily.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he asked when she had drained the glass. She did not speak as he began sawing at the ropes.

  ‘Trying to save my marriage and my family,’ she said. ‘I had to ask Bambola some questions.’

  Rees’ fingers slipped on the handle and the knife clattered to the floor. ‘What do you mean?’ But he knew. ‘There was never anything between me and Bambola,’ he said. He could not meet her eyes.

  ‘Nothing physical,’ Lydia said. ‘Yet.’

  His ears burning, Rees picked up his knife and began struggling with the ropes once again. ‘I think,’ he said, trying to explain, ‘that Bambola’s allure was tied up with the glamour of the traveling circus.’ He knew that didn’t excuse his behavior. ‘I wanted to be a young man again.’

  ‘She is beautiful,’ Lydia said shortly.

  ‘Yes,’ Rees agreed. He couldn’t deny it. ‘And exotic. She looked like an angel dancing along the rope in her spangled costume. But it wasn’t real.’ And then, emphasizing it to himself, he repeated, ‘It was never real.’ Who had tried to tell him this was all illusion? He cast his mind back. David – but Rees had not been able to listen.

  In the ensuing silence he could hear Rouge talking outside.

  ‘I know I said I didn’t want you traveling,’ Lydia said at last. ‘Taking your weaving trips.’ She gulped in a big breath of air. ‘I’ve changed my mind. I think you should go.’

  ‘I should take weaving trips, you mean?’ Rees repeated. ‘But …’ He stopped and started over. ‘What about the farm? And the children?’

  Lydia managed a smile. ‘I’ll manage. I’ll have the children to help.’

  Rees stared at her for a few seconds. ‘Are you sure?’ When she nodded he went on, ‘If my earnings are good, we can hire help.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true. But it is not even about the money.’ She darted a glance at
him and then looked down at her lap. ‘You aren’t happy unless you take your loom and your wagon and go. I’ve always known that.’ Tears flooded her eyes. ‘I just want you to come home to me at the end of your journeys.’

  ‘Oh Lydia,’ Rees began, pulling her into an awkward embrace.

  ‘Are you finished with those ropes?’ Rouge asked, putting his head through the door. ‘We’re waiting for you.’

  Quickly releasing Lydia, Rees said, ‘Almost done.’

  The circus folk were clustered around the wagon. Rouge had called for a cart and now everyone watched in silence as Asher’s body was positioned in it. Not Rees’s wagon for once, he thought with a touch of gratitude. He would have expected Bambola to join Billy or Otto for comfort but instead she was standing beside the magistrate. He was smoothing down the lapels of his elegant, gray jacket and re-tying his cravat into a fussy bow. The ropedancer had found no comfort there.

  Lydia turned to her husband. ‘Pretend you don’t know Bambola,’ she said urgently in a low voice. ‘Think this through,’ she added as the ropedancer ran to Rees’s side.

  ‘Tell the magistrate,’ she said to Lydia, ‘tell him I saved you.’

  ‘Is this true?’ Hanson asked, blinking at Lydia’s boyish garb.

  ‘Mr Asher was threatening to kill me,’ Lydia agreed.

  ‘So, we owe her a debt of gratitude?’ Rouge said dubiously.

  At the same moment Rees caught Billy’s expression of mingled horror, fear, and disgust. Arrested by it, he said, ‘Wait. Tell the whole story, Lydia. What happened after you arrived here, at the circus?’

  ‘Yes, tell it,’ Rouge said. ‘What were you doing here? And dressed like that?’

  ‘It’s easier to travel like this,’ Lydia said. ‘And I wanted to talk to Miss Mazza in private.’ She regarded the other woman with cold eyes. Rouge’s face went through a series of embarrassed contortions and Rees realized his attraction to Bambola had not gone unnoticed. He stared at the ground as heat traveled up his neck and into his ears.