Taken Too Soon

by Edith Maxwell

  “I’ll be returning home tomorrow, Edwin.” I stopped and held out my hand. “I wish I hadn’t had the need to work with thee, but I enjoyed it. I very much appreciate thy openness to my assistance.”

  He shook my hand heartily. “Your Detective Donovan is a lucky man to have such an able assistant.”

  I laughed and shook my head. “I’m certainly no detective. Midwifery is my calling, not police work.”

  “You have a talent for the latter, I must admit, and I daresay for the former. My own wife is carrying our first child. I wish she could have you to watch over her when her time comes.”

  “Tell her to seek out Zerviah Baxter’s services. Thy wife will be in excellent hands.”

  “The Indian lady?” He stroked his chin. “Well, why not? You Quakers have opened my eyes a bit this week. I shall pass along your recommendation to Mrs. Merritt.”

  We turned and reversed our steps. “I will say I am relieved my brother-in-law was not involved in any way,” I said. And I truly was.

  “Currie Dodge is a bit of a rake, but we found no criminal wrongdoing associated with him. Nor serious crimes by young Miss Bowman. Taking laudanum isn’t against the law. I suppose I could charge her for impeding an investigation, but it’s unlikely the sheriff has the heart to do so.”

  “I doubt it would change her behavior, anyway,” I said. “Hazel’s a difficult and likely deeply unhappy girl. I’m glad she wasn’t the murderer.” I thought some more. “I was thinking about why Aunt Tilly seemed evasive when she first talked with thee about that morning. I think it might be because her own daughter—Frannie’s mother—was killed in an accident on the water. And when you mentioned Frannie’s death and Tilly being out on a boat, it might have deeply upset her, especially if you thought she was to blame for Frannie’s death.” I was ashamed I’d ever entertained the notion she might have harmed Frannie.

  “Maybe you can ask her, by and by, once her grief has ebbed.”

  “Perhaps I will.”

  As an osprey beat its wings above the inlet, the sun shot a bright silver streak across the water from under gray clouds. I knew it was a natural phenomenon, but I preferred to think of the streak as a symbol of hope. Some among us on this earth perpetrated evil deeds, but most people carried God’s Light within them. They shared love and help and wisdom. It was the reason we as humans kept going, kept reproducing, kept teaching and learning and standing up for justice.

  Tomorrow I would travel homeward. To my husband and my new life as a wife in our shared home. To my calling of midwifery. To becoming a mother myself if I were blessed with that gift.

  I also expected I would become involved in more murder investigations back home. Blessedly, this one was over.

  Acknowledgments

  For all my avid fans who have been asking me over the years, after they finished each of the five previous books, if Rose and David will ever be able to marry—enjoy!

  I very much appreciate Bill Harris and the team at Beyond the Page Publishing, who now publish the Quaker Midwife Mysteries. Thanks to my agent, John Talbot, for steering me in their direction.

  Huge gratitude to Ramona DeFelice Long for deep reading this manuscript, as she has done with each book in the series, and for enriching it in so many ways with her suggestions and critiques. I couldn’t do it without you, my friend! She also leads the seven o’clock online “sprint” group, which starts every morning with an hour of focused creativity and gets my day going in the best of ways.

  Thanks again to mystery fan and midwife Risa Rispoli, my consultant on all things perinatal, for keeping me accurate, birthwise. I named one of Rose’s aunts Drusilla so her nickname would be Dru, in honor of the fabulous Dru Ann Love, a mystery reviewer, blogger, and enthusiastic supporter of the genre. I also borrowed the maiden name of my longtime friend (and gardener) Janice Bugos Valverde for Effie, the old woman who lives and tends flowers across from the wharf.

  Blessings on the West Falmouth Quaker retreat cottage, where I regularly spend a week in solo retreat during the off-season and where I finished the first draft of this book, my twenty-third mystery. I was there in September 2019, which was perfect for checking details of light, weather, flora, and history. West Falmouth Friends generously helped me with local research for this book, as did the West Falmouth Public Library. All errors are of my own making.

  I wrote the first quarter of this book at the Women’s Writing Retreat at Pyramid Lake in the Adirondacks. Thanks to the Pyramid Life Center for letting eighty women writers of all types occupy your camp and share creative energies for a week. Writers—check it out. It might be the best mid-July week you’ve ever spent. I last went to this retreat in 2001, and my first published full-length story sprang from a Pyramid Lake prompt. I was delighted to be back in 2019 with eighteen published books under my belt.

  Amesbury resident Marie Deorocki was the high bidder at the Merrimack River Feline Rescue Society Auction to have her name included in the book. Thank you for supporting the kitties, Marie, and I hope you like your made-up historical self.

  Gratitude to my fellow Wicked Authors—blogmates, dear friends, and lifeboat. Readers, please join us over at wickedauthors.com and meet these fabulous authors: Jessie Crockett, Sherry Harris, Julie Hennrikus, Liz Mugavero, and Barbara Ross (and all their alter egos). I hope readers will also find my two contemporary mystery series, which I write as Maddie Day.

  Thanks as ever to my family—Allan, Alison, John David, Barbara, and Janet—and to my fellow Amesbury Friends, for your support and joy at my successes. Hugh Lockhart—antique house restorer extraordinaire as well as my life partner and kitty co-parent—helped me figure out the crowbar scene after I had placed the door hinges in the wrong place. Whew!

  I’d like to offer deep and special thanks to my dear friend and Friend, the late Annie Tunstall. Even during her own serious health struggles, she never failed to ask about my writing and my books. She taught me about gratitude and celebrated life’s graces with me. This series was her favorite, and her soul was released to God—as Rose would have put it—during the writing of it. I miss Annie very much, but after a long life well lived, she slipped the surly bonds of earth and sailed away (to quote Emmy Lou Harris) knowing she was loved and that she would soon rejoin her beloved late husband, Richard Gale.

  About the Author

  Agatha Award-winning author Edith Maxwell writes the Amesbury-based Quaker Midwife historical mysteries, the Lauren Rousseau Mysteries, the Local Foods Mysteries, and short crime fiction. As Maddie Day she writes the Country Store Mysteries and the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries. A longtime Quaker and former doula, Maxwell lives north of Boston with her beau, two cats, and an impressive array of garden statuary. She blogs at WickedAuthors.com and KillerCharacters.com. Read about all her personalities and her work at edithmaxwell.com.