Killing Gifts

by Deborah Woodworth

  This reminder was not what Dulcie needed. She slumped forward and looked as if she might be sick again.

  “How can she gain a little weight, Doctor,” Rose asked, “when she continues to feel sick?” She’d been surprised and alarmed when Dulcie had taken off her old Shaker dress and revealed matchstick arms and a protruding collarbone.

  “Just eat little bits at a time, as often as you can,” Dr. Kendell said to Dulcie, giving her a fatherly pat on the shoulder. “Keep some food with you, and eat right before you go to bed. You really must keep your strength up, you know. The baby will drain your energy. We don’t want to lose you in childbirth and leave your poor husband to raise the child on his own, do we?”

  Dulcie’s misery completely escaped the kindly doctor, but it worried Rose. For the first time, she wished she could stay longer in Hancock than it would take to solve the mystery of Julia’s death. She wished, too, that Josie, North Homage’s Infirmary nurse, was there with her. Josie would know how to breathe strength back into the fragile Dulcie. Rose made herself a promise that she would not leave before turning Dulcie and her coming baby over to the tender care of Fannie and the other sisters.

  Rose bundled Dulcie back into the front seat of the Cadillac, wondering if they’d really accomplished any good. Dulcie was under orders to “eat like a horse,” something she clearly wasn’t capable of doing. At least Dr. Kendell seemed convinced the baby was fine, and nothing was seriously wrong with Dulcie—physically, at any rate.

  As Rose pulled away from the doctor’s office, Dulcie slid down in her seat and pulled the wool travel rug up to her neck. She looked ready for a nap, but Rose wasn’t about to lose her chance to ask some of the questions that had been crowding her mind. She cleared her throat. “Are you warm enough?” she asked.

  “Yes, thank you. And thank you for taking me to a doctor. I feel much better now.” It was a lie, but surely well-meant.

  “No need to thank me. Any sister would have done the same.” Rose took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “Dulcie, as you know, Fannie has asked me to help find your sister’s killer. I’m sure you’ll understand how important it is that I know as much as possible about Julia.”

  “I suppose.” Dulcie sounded tired and cranky, but Rose hardened her heart. The girl could rest later.

  The car rattled and slid sideways as they hit a chunk of ice in the road. Rose’s heartbeat nearly doubled.

  When her breathing was closer to normal, Rose said, “I spoke with Otis this morning, and he mentioned you’d seen your sister’s body before the police arrived.” She knew she was being brutal, but she hoped Dulcie now trusted her.

  “Yes,” Dulcie answered, after a moment’s pause.

  “Can you think of any reason she would have been dressed the way she was?”

  Dulcie stared out the windshield, giving no sign of emotion. “It didn’t surprise me,” she said. “Isn’t that strange and sad? It didn’t surprise me that Julia would be dressed in a summer dancing gown in February. She’d do anything for fun, anything to be outrageous. It was like she had to grab everything with both hands and squeeze out every drop of fun. She could have dressed that way on a dare; that would have been like her. I once heard that people in Norway or Sweden or somewhere jump into ice-cold lakes in the winter, I can’t remember why. Julia was like that—she loved to do anything that was wild and dangerous.”

  “What other wild things did she do?” Rose asked.

  “We were very poor growing up, you know, even before the crash. But Julia loved beautiful things, she loved to be beautiful, so one day, she and . . . She stole a lipstick from the five-and-dime in Pittsfield. She didn’t feel guilty at all, and I don’t think she would have even if she’d been caught. It was like she was floating on air for days afterwards.”

  “Who else was with her when she stole the lipstick?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “It might. If it doesn’t, I promise that I will never reveal the person’s identity.”

  “Carlotta was with her. Carlotta was one of our best chums in those days. She was poor, too, and real mad about it. Her family wasn’t so bad off before the crash as we were, so she was bitter when they lost everything. She was greedier than Julia. She stole a whole bagful of stuff—lipsticks and a compact and rouge, some combs, anything she could grab. So she was the one who got caught. She was just thirteen, but the store owner pressed charges. She’d never done anything like that before, so she didn’t have to go to reform school, but everyone knew about it.”

  “Julia never confessed her own involvement?”

  “No. I think Carlotta getting caught made it more exciting for Julia. Afterwards, things were never the same between them. Carlotta was madder than ever, and I can’t say as I blame her. And Julia . . . well, she just didn’t seem to care.” Dulcie’s voice grew softer. “It was almost like Julia knew she wouldn’t live very long, so it didn’t matter what she did.”

  “Otis mentioned something else,” Rose said. “He saw you lift up Julia’s skirt. Why did you do that?”

  Dulcie hesitated, just for a moment. “Oh, it was just because I saw something bright-colored sticking out from under her hem, that’s all. It was only a piece of old calico, a rag.”

  “The police didn’t find it. Did you take it?”

  Dulcie shrugged. “I didn’t think it was important. I mean, it was just an old rag. It was kind of pretty, though—red and blue checks. I thought it would make a good handkerchief. I thought the sisters must have left it in the Summerhouse. It wasn’t the sort of thing Julia would like.”

  It struck Rose as strangely cold-hearted that Dulcie would lift her dead sister’s skirt to take a bit of fabric. Her excuse—that it might make a good handkerchief—was farfetched. “Do you still have the rag?” Rose asked.

  “When I got back to my room, I started feeling bad about taking it, so I threw it away.” Dulcie squirmed under her travel rug. “She wasn’t really bad deep down, you know. Julia, I mean. She couldn’t help being what she was. We were so poor. We didn’t have anything, and she just wanted something.”

  “You aren’t like her, though,” Rose said.

  “I was younger. What Julia was doing, it scared me. I don’t want to be scared all the time.”

  “Are you scared about your baby?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you told Theodore yet?

  Dulcie picked at the wool rug. “Telling him would be scarier than not telling him,” she said.

  “He’s going to find out eventually. From what I’ve heard about Theodore, he would want to do the right thing. And if he doesn’t, perhaps it would be best to know that soon, so you can make some plans for your life. Nothing is hopeless, you know. If you feel you can’t raise the baby on your own, there’s no shame in asking the sisters for help. They would gladly raise the child themselves or find a family for it, and they would help you in any way they can. I can promise you that.”

  “I want my baby,” Dulcie said. Her tone was emphatic, and so was the silence that followed. She turned her face and shoulders away from Rose and leaned her head against the seat.

  After delivering Dulcie to her room and insisting she take a nap, Rose decided to replace her in the kitchen, where preparations for the evening meal were under way. She wanted to try again to loosen Carlotta’s tongue.

  Two sisters were working with Carlotta in the kitchen when Rose arrived. She assured them she would take over for them, and they gratefully returned to their other duties.

  Carlotta moved no faster than usual. “Where’s Dulcie? Sick again?”

  “She’s in need of a rest, so I’m taking her place,” Rose said. She stirred a pot of potato stew, which was to provide the substance of the evening meal. She’d grown tired of potatoes, a winter staple, but the rich scent of onions and salt pork sparked her interest in eating again.

  Rose peeked sideways and watched Carlotta linger over the slicing of a jam cake, a special treat for dessert. The young woman�
�s face was pinched and tense, as if years of hunger made her uneasy near such a luscious dish. But she didn’t even lick the spatula she’d used as a knife. Perhaps her hunger was not for food.

  When they had served the stew and brown bread to the silent group in the dining room upstairs, Rose and Carlotta each took a serving and settled at the kitchen worktable. But Carlotta seemed uninterested in any conversation with the intruder to her world, so Rose broke the silence.

  “Have you worked in Hancock for long?” she asked, though she knew the answer.

  Carlotta took a bite of bread and chewed it before answering. “Nope,” she said, “and I won’t stick around for long. I’m just helping them get ready for this big party they’re supposed to have.”

  “Mother Ann’s Birthday,” Rose said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you enjoy this work?”

  “It’s okay. Better than nothing.”

  “Have you worked at other jobs in Pittsfield? It’s your hometown, isn’t it?”

  Carlotta had thick, dark eyebrows, which lowered to give her eyes a hooded look. “Yeah, I grew up there. Why do you want to know?”

  “Just curious.”

  “No, you’re not,” Carlotta said. “You’re here to pin Julia’s murder on somebody, and you sure won’t pick a Shaker, if you can get away with it. You’d just love to find somebody like me to blame, wouldn’t you? Somebody unimportant, an outsider.”

  “Carlotta! Is that what you think of us?” Rose pushed aside her empty plate and leaned on the table toward the girl. “All I want to find is the truth. I would never, ever just pick someone to accuse of murder.”

  Carlotta said nothing, but her cynical scowl was eloquent. Rose decided to get tough.

  “However,” she said, leaning back in her chair, “if you refuse to speak to me, I admit it will strike me as very suspicious. I’ll begin to wonder what you’re trying to hide.”

  Carlotta sulked in silence.

  “Do you have something to hide?”

  “Of course not.” Carlotta tipped her soup bowl and scraped up a last spoonful of stew, all the while keeping a wary eye on Rose.

  “Then there is no reason to be afraid. The sooner you tell me everything you know, the sooner we can resolve this tragedy, and I’ll be gone, back to Kentucky.”

  “How do I know you won’t take everything I say and use it against me?”

  “Do you believe that any of the sisters here would do such a thing?”

  Carlotta shrugged. “Most everybody in town says the Shakers are honest.”

  “It’s the same where I come from,” Rose said. “Honesty is part of who we are. You said that I’d rather blame an outsider than a Shaker for Julia’s murder. It would hurt me deeply if it turned out a Shaker committed this crime, but I would know that he—or she—is not truly a Believer. I would not protect such a person.”

  Carlotta’s thin, rigid body loosened slightly. “We’d better serve up that jam cake,” she said. “Then I’ll answer your questions.”

  “Thank you.” Rose realized she’d been tense, as well. Serving the jam cake gave her a chance to relax her shoulders and formulate her questions.

  “Leave the dishes awhile,” she told Carlotta, when they’d finished serving. “I’ll wash them up later.” They settled back at the kitchen table, now littered with piles of soiled dishes and cutlery. “Do you have any suspicions about who Julia might have been meeting the night she was killed?”

  Carlotta’s laugh was short and mirthless. “Could have been anyone,” she said, “but it was probably a man. No, I take that back. There’s plenty of women mad at Julia, mostly for spending time with their husbands.” Now that she’d overcome her initial distrust, Carlotta seemed more than ready to talk. “Honora, for one,” she said. “Honora Stearn, who’s married to that new Shaker, Aldon.”

  “Aldon? The minister? Was he involved with Julia?”

  “Some minister. Julia wasn’t the only girl he had his eye on, though he always claimed they chased after him. I heard that’s why he came here, to escape.”

  “To escape what? Temptation?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe he just wanted to escape that wife of his. She’s a nasty piece of work. You’d think she’d be glad to be rid of him, but she sure liked being the minister’s wife. It made her feel like she was better than the rest of us.” Carlotta’s bitterness honed her voice to a razor-sharp edge. “She doesn’t feel so superior now, and she can’t stand it. I wouldn’t put it past her to kill Julia.”

  “Are you certain that Aldon was carrying on an affair with Julia?”

  Carlotta hesitated. “Well, I’m not certain. I mean, I never actually saw them together since I got here. But I know he was always trying to ‘save’ her, back when we went to that church of his.”

  “You and Julia were part of Aldon’s congregation? Was Dulcie, too?”

  “Oh, yeah, and Sewell and Johnny and Theodore—all of us. That’s how we all come to know each other so well, we grew up together in that church. Except Esther, she came later. I mean, we were different ages, but we still knew each other. I remember Johnny and Esther were Sunday school teachers. Julia and Dulcie and me, we all had them as teachers some of the time.”

  “Did you observe Julia being friendly with anyone else besides Aldon—since you’ve been here, I mean?”

  “Yeah, Sewell, of course. He’s friendly with all the girls, but he don’t mean nothin’ by it. I did see him and Julia go off for a walk together one night after supper. They wasn’t hand in hand or anything, but they looked chummy enough to me. I asked Julia about it later, and she just giggled and said that he wasn’t a real Shaker yet, so he had some time left for a few sins.”

  “What about the other men here? Did you ever see any of them with Julia?”

  “Well, all of them, I guess. Julia was friendly, if you know what I mean. I never told Dulcie, but that fiancé of hers, Theodore, I saw him have a couple of talks with Julia. I don’t know what that was about, and anyway, he ain’t a Shaker, so it ain’t against the law or anything. I mean, him and Julia was practically family.”

  Carlotta curled a short piece of dark hair around her finger. “Then there’s Johnny—you know, Johnny Jenkins, another new Shaker. I saw him talk to Julia, maybe three times. Julia said he was just bossing her around, but I didn’t believe her. He’s just the sort of man she’d fall for in a big way. He’s tall and so handsome. Have you seen those shoulders? Oh, I used to just stare at those shoulders when he was my Sunday school teacher.”

  Rose knew Carlotta was watching her reaction. She waited, in silence, for Carlotta to go on. It didn’t take long; Carlotta was enjoying herself now.

  “Julia liked her men rich and important and good-looking. If she couldn’t have all three, she’d settle for one while she kept on looking. Johnny, he’s good-looking, and he was always figurin’ how to get rich. Besides, he’s married and he’s practically a Shaker, and that would’ve made him real exciting to Julia.”

  Rose was aware that time was passing, and Carlotta was speculating wildly. Her information might have some use, but it couldn’t be counted on. At least Rose was getting a picture of Julia. Unfortunately, she seemed to have been the kind of girl any number of folks might have wanted, at some time or other, to murder.

  “Is there anyone else who might have been involved with—or angry with—Julia?”

  “Well, Dulcie and her didn’t always get along, but I don’t think Dulcie hated her or anything. I mean, not unless Theodore was carrying on with Julia, and Dulcie found out about it. Theodore means more to Dulcie than her own life, practically.”

  “And what about you, Carlotta? Did you and Julia get along?”

  The hooded look returned to Carlotta’s face. “Yeah, we got along fine. We grew up together.”

  Rose hesitated. If she confronted Carlotta with the shop­lifting story, she’d probably never get any more information out of her. It was best, she decided, to go elsewhere for information a
bout Carlotta’s relationship with Julia.

  “That’s good,” Rose said. “I’m very grateful for all the information you’ve shared with me. If you think of anything more, I hope you’ll be willing to tell me; anything can be helpful, anything at all. You can call or visit me in my retiring room—even at night, if you think of something that might be useful.”

  Carlotta almost smiled. Rose had made her feel important, clearly a rare experience in the young woman’s life.

  TWELVE

  ROSE SPLASHED SOME WATER ON HER FACE AND LAY ON HER bed for a few minutes, grateful the long day was coming to an end. After her talk with Carlotta, she had hurriedly washed the dishes and straightened the kitchen, in hopes of a short rest before the evening worship service. However, no sooner had she closed her eyes than she heard a knock on her retiring room door, followed by a creak as her visitor slipped inside.

  “Rose? You aren’t asleep, are you?” Gennie closed the door behind her and peered into the gloomy room.

  “Nay, come in, Gennie.” Rose pulled herself upright. “Have a seat, and tell me why you are still here. I thought we weren’t going to meet until early tomorrow morning. I saw you at evening meal, but I assumed Abigail had invited you. Don’t you need to get back to the boardinghouse soon?” She hoped Gennie wasn’t depending on her for a ride to Pittsfield.

  Gennie switched on the light and settled into a short chair next to the small pine desk. “Oh, don’t worry about me,” she said airily. “I’ve got everything all arranged with Abigail, who’s already spoken with Fannie. Sewell will drive me back after evening worship, which Abigail invited me to stay for. Then he’ll pick me up again tomorrow morning.” Gennie brushed a speck of lint off her wool skirt and cleared her throat.

  “What else have you arranged?” Rose asked, resigned to another Gennie-hatched plot.