Dancing Dead

by Deborah Woodworth

  “How long you think she’d been in that vat?” Grady asked.

  “Hard to say.” Dr. Hanfield rolled back on his heels and shook his head. “Rigor is well-established, so probably not longer than a day, but we already knew that.”

  “I’ll need to confirm this, but I’ve heard that a witness claims to have heard her laughing sometime after midnight,” Grady said.

  “Could have been any time after that. Her body’s cold, but she was in cold water. I need to get her to my office fast as possible, then maybe I can tell more.”

  “Okay, I’ll take care of it,” Grady said. “Already called Millard to bring his hearse around. You had a chance to meet our town undertaker?”

  “Sadly, yes,” said Dr. Hanfield. “We’ve had two deaths of old age, but . . .” He stood and brushed off his pants. “Well, I’ll be going back to my office now. Tell Millard to bring her quick as he can.”

  Rose joined the two men. “Is there any way we can keep this quiet for a while? We’ve had a hard enough time protecting ourselves from ghost seekers, and we have a worship service scheduled for just a few hours from now.”

  “I’d cancel if I were you,” Grady said.

  “I sure won’t say anything,” Dr. Hanfield said, “but I’ll bet word will get out. I’ve heard that Millard . . . well . . .” He glanced at Grady.

  “Millard has a mouth larger than the state of Kentucky,” Grady said. “Once he sees the deceased, all of Languor County will know within the hour. Where’s Wilhelm? Can’t he scare off the crowds for you?”

  “Wilhelm left soon after breakfast for a two-day sales trip,” Rose said. “He has no idea this has happened.” In a sense, having him gone made the situation easier—if he were there, he’d be ranting about the world bringing evil to their village, and he’d surely close the hostel instantly. On the other hand, Wilhelm had decided only the day before to accompany Andrew on his sales trip, and Rose suspected he had done so in hopes the curiosity seekers would turn the Sabbathday worship service into a fiasco. Then he’d have something to report to the Ministry at Mount Lebanon, New York, the leaders of all Shaker villages. Wilhelm never gave up hope that he could get Rose removed as eldress and replaced with someone of his choice—such as Sister Elsa.

  Rose glanced down at the sad, wet bundle that once was Mina Dunmore. Now Wilhelm will have his evidence, with or without a worship service. I should have seen the danger. I should have prevented this.

  “Perhaps we’d best leave it that way for now,” Grady said. “If we need him, we can talk to him day after tomorrow. I doubt he saw anything, anyway.”

  “Thank you,” Rose said. And she meant it. Grady understood her difficulties with Wilhelm and had supported her in the past. She guessed Grady wanted to stay in her good graces as well, because he still hoped to marry Gennie.

  “Ain’t nothin’ you could do that’d get me to spend one more night under this roof.” Beatrice Berg huddled in a wing chair by the parlor fireplace, glowering at the sheriff and his officers.

  “I’m afraid we need to question everyone, Mrs.”—Grady consulted a list—“Berg? I want all of you to stay in this room, but please don’t speak to each other. These two officers will stay with you.” Grady indicated the rest of the Sheriff’s Department. Languor County didn’t usually need more than three officers to handle the occasional brawl or feud between neighbors. “Don’t take offense if they keep you from talking. That’s just the way we have to do it.”

  “Okay, then, Gen—Miss Malone, we’ll start with you. Miss Callahan?” Grady turned and nodded toward the dining room. Rose noticed that his cheeks had reddened. The two women followed him.

  Grady closed the dining room door behind them and grouped three seats as far as possible from the parlor.

  “Grady, I—”

  “Don’t worry, Gennie, I’ll be out of your way as fast as I can. I promised you three weeks away from me, and you’ll get them. But this is murder, no doubt about it, and I need to know everything you noticed that might be helpful.”

  “I understand.”

  Rose sat very still, her right palm over her left, as if she were waiting for a Union Meeting to begin. Gennie had grown up so much over the past year. She had not sought Rose’s advice about the difficulties between Grady and her. Rose felt as if she were intruding.

  Gennie stared at her lap as Grady rummaged through his jacket pockets until he found a small notebook and a pencil. “Okay, Gen, just tell me everything that you can remember—anything you think might help us find whoever did this. Don’t worry if it’s small, even the—”

  “Even the tiniest detail can solve a crime, I know,” Gennie said.

  They gave each other a quick smile, then their eyes were elsewhere. Gennie began with her first introduction to Mina Dunmore and the other Shaker Hostel residents, as best she could remember, and ended with her morning visit to Mina’s room.

  “There’s one more thing,” she said. “I hope I haven’t ruined the investigation. It never occurred to me that this would turn into murder, or I wouldn’t have touched a thing.”

  “No one expects you to have known,” Grady said. “Just say what you need to say.”

  Gennie ran a hand through her auburn curls, leaving them in charming disarray. Grady’s gaze wandered to her hair, then dropped to her face.

  “Well, you saw how messed up the sheets were in Mrs. Dunmore’s room? That’s what I saw when I went to check on her. But there was something I left out. I found an empty port bottle under the blanket. I assumed she’d made herself sick from drinking. Right after breakfast I ran back upstairs and took the bottle.” Gennie turned her small palms upward, and Grady’s wrists jerked as if he wanted to take her hands in his own.

  “I wanted to protect the hostel’s reputation,” Gennie said. “If it got about that one of the guests had been drinking heavily enough to get sick, everyone would say the Shakers were probably selling alcohol or something, that it was their fault. I was going to hide the bottle under my coat and bring it to Rose, ask her what to do. But I never got a chance. We eat later than the Shakers, and we were especially late this morning. I was just putting on my coat when Hank—when one of your officers arrived to tell us Mrs. Dunmore was dead and we had to stay in the hostel.”

  “So the bottle is in your room now?”

  “Yes. I put it in one of my built-in drawers, under my . . . um . . .”

  For the first time, Grady grinned. “Don’t worry, we’ll find it. I doubt we’ll find any usable fingerprints by now, but we can try. Maybe there’ll still be some dregs; we’ll ask the pharmacist in town to see what he can do with it.”

  “I’m sorry,” Gennie said.

  “Oh, I reckon we’ll catch the varmint anyway.”

  Gennie giggled—not quite the way she used to as a child, but close enough.

  “And why is the good sister here, may I ask?” Horace von Oswald laced his fingers over his stomach as if he hadn’t a care, but his tone was far from casual.

  “I’ve given her permission to listen,” Grady said. “Think of her as the police in her own community.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

  “Why not?” Rose asked.

  The only sign of personality in Horace’s face came from his eyes, which looked like deep, burned holes. “Police care about solving the crime,” he said. “The sister cares about saving the reputation of her village.”

  “Do you distrust all Shakers, Mr. von Oswald?” Rose asked.

  Horace didn’t answer.

  “I do want to save my community,” Rose said. “I suspect you would feel that same way if you were in my place.”

  A faint grimace passed across Horace’s face. “I don’t care one way or the other about Shakers,” he said. “I know very little about them. Stay if you must. I have nothing to hide.”

  “When was the last time you saw Mrs. Dunmore?” Grady asked.

  Horace gazed out the dining room window. “Last evening in the parlor,
” he said. “We all spent the entire evening together in friendly discussion, sipping port. The gentlemen smoked some rather good cigars. We listened to the storm. That was it. I never saw Mrs. Dunmore again after she retired to her room.”

  “She left before you did?” Grady asked.

  “I believe I indicated so.”

  “When did you leave the parlor?”

  “I left last. I wished to enjoy the fire and have one more cigar in peace.”

  “In what order did everyone leave?”

  Horace closed his eyes, and Rose felt a sense of relief. “I believe that little mouse, Miss Prescott, vaporized first,” he said. “Can anyone truly be so demure?”

  His eyelids opened, and he looked straight at Rose. She forced herself to hold his gaze, despite a wave of revulsion that swept through her.

  “The other gentleman, Saul, left fairly soon after that.”

  “What is your impression of Mr. Halvardson?” Rose asked.

  Horace’s mouth formed a perfect semicircle, as artificial as a frosting flower on a cake. “A friendly young man,” he said. “Especially with the ladies. He seems to be well-heeled for a traveling salesman in these difficult times. He provided the port and cigars, as well as the coffee this morning. A most generous man—though I suspect it is for a purpose.”

  “Any idea what that purpose might be?” Grady asked.

  “Ah, that would be doing your job, Sheriff.”

  Grady’s jaw clenched, but his face did not betray any irritation. “When did Mrs. Berg leave?”

  “Mrs. Berg had secured for herself a coveted chair in front of the hearth. When Mrs. Dunmore left, Miss Malone took the other seat by the fire. The two women chattered for perhaps fifteen more minutes, then left together. It was by then about eleven, I believe. I stayed for perhaps another half hour, then went directly to my room. Does that clear up the murder for you?”

  “Did you hear anything—folks talking, for example—when you went up to your room?” Grady asked.

  “Not a peep. It was quiet as a tomb.” Horace gave no apology for his macabre remark. “That is all I have to tell you, Sheriff, and I am really rather tired. I need to rest. If you will excuse me.” He stood and gave Rose a slight bow.

  “By the way,” he said. “You might look into Mrs. Berg’s background. She claimed to have spent her married life in a well-to-do section of Languor, but I happened to be exploring the area and found myself in that very section of town. In the course of a friendly chat with a storekeeper and several customers, I mentioned Mrs. Berg. No one seemed to have heard of her, though they’d all lived in the area for decades. Interesting, don’t you think?”

  “I ain’t talkin’ in front of no one else,” said Beatrice Berg. “You can call Sister Rose the police if you want, but that don’t make it so. I got my rights.” Ignoring the empty chair, she crossed her arms over her chest and moved in front of the kitchen door.

  “Our hope is to help solve this tragedy quickly,” Rose said, “and to keep the hostel operating. If we can’t do that, you will lose your job.”

  “Don’t make me no never mind. I can do without gettin’ myself murdered and stuffed in a barrel.”

  “You can’t believe that we Shakers had anything to do with this? Why would we?”

  “Don’t ask me why y’all do any of the things you do. Don’t make no sense to me. All I know is, you should be looking at them, not us.” She spoke to Grady and tossed her head toward Rose.

  “Why?” Grady asked.

  “Ask her if she seen that Brother Linus around anywhere today,” Beatrice said.

  Grady raised his eyebrows at Rose. “What’s this about Brother Linus?”

  “Andrew assigned him to help with chores here in the hostel,” Rose said.

  “Well, he sure ain’t helped out this morning,” Beatrice said. “See this mess all over my dress? It was clean before breakfast, but after I had to haul my own wood, and start my own cooking fire, and lift all the heavy stuff myself, this dress was a mess. Where was Linus, answer me that?”

  “I’m sorry Linus missed this morning,” Rose said, “but I’m sure he had pressing work elsewhere. The storm last night caused a lot of damage. He is probably out making repairs.”

  “Oh yeah? Anybody seen him yet?”

  “We really haven’t been looking for him,” Rose said.

  “Then maybe you’d better, and that’s all I got to say on the matter.”

  “We’ll do that, Mrs. Berg. Thank you,” Grady said. Mrs. Berg loosened up enough to take the empty seat across from him. She did not glance toward Rose. Grady flipped back a few pages in his notebook. “As I understand it,” he said, “you left the parlor last night with Miss Malone at about eleven P.M. Is that correct?”

  “I reckon. I didn’t check the clock, just went on up to bed. It was after Mrs. Dunmore, and Miss Prescott, and that flimflam man, Saul Halvardson, already left. That Horace von Oswald, he was still in the parlor, smoking one of those nasty cigars. Soon as I got up, he took my chair and said something uppity to me. I didn’t pay him no mind.”

  “Did you hear anything during the night?”

  “I heard fat old Horace clump up the stairs. Didn’t hear his door slam, though, like it usually does. Stopped at the washroom, probably. I fell asleep soon as the racket stopped. I work hard all day, don’t just sit around primping, like some.” Beatrice had thick gray eyebrows that joined over her nose when she frowned. “Now I think on it, I did hear more racket later on, way past midnight. That’s when I heard Mrs. Dunmore havin’ a good old time with someone in her room. They was laughing fit to wake the dead—well, she was, anyway. Couldn’t hear him.”

  “How do you know it was a man?”

  Beatrice snickered. “Who else would it be, that time of night? I’m bettin’ it was Brother Linus.”

  With an effort, Rose kept silent. Beatrice was opening up, and any objection from Rose might stem the flow.

  “Why do you think it was Brother Linus?” Grady asked.

  Beatrice shrugged and smirked. “Stands to reason. Mrs. Dunmore waren’t no spring chicken, but when she took off her mournin’, I knowed she had a hankerin’. She wanted a man.”

  “Had Brother Linus paid any special attention to Mrs. Dunmore?” Grady asked.

  “Not that I saw, but then I wouldn’t, would I? Brother Linus, he kept to hisself, like all them Shaker brothers.”

  “I see,” Grady said. “Anything else you remember about last night? No? Then, thank you for your help.”

  Grady waited for the kitchen door to close behind Beatrice before turning to Rose. “What about Brother Linus? Any idea where he is?”

  “Nay, but I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for his failure to appear this morning.” She spoke softly. Beatrice was just the type to put her ear up against the door.

  “Nevertheless,” Grady said, “I think I’ll send Hank out to locate him, just so we can put this accusation to rest.” He opened the door to the hallway and poked his head out.

  Rose closed her eyes and tried to envision the dwelling house dining room that morning. As always, the Believers maintained silence during the meal, so she wouldn’t have heard Linus’s voice. The women sat at tables on one side of the room, and the men clustered on the other side, but she’d had a clear view of the brothers as they’d entered single file and stood behind their chairs in prayer. In truth, she could not remember seeing Linus’s face at breakfast, nor any other time since the previous evening, when the community had held a brief worship service in the Center Family Dwelling House. But, then, she hadn’t been looking for him.

  It was inconceivable that Linus could be involved in this murder. Wasn’t it? He had been a wholehearted Believer, as far as she could tell, for all of his ten years in the community. He was quiet, an enthusiastic worker, skilled at finding creative ways to fix buildings and machinery that had seen better days. Wilhelm had never said a critical word about his devotion, nor had Andrew commented on his work wi
th anything but approval. Nay, it was impossible.

  “Two interviews left,” Grady said, as he returned to his chair. “I’ve sent for Miss Daisy Prescott. I’m curious; no one seems to have much to say about her.”

  Daisy Prescott slipped into the dining room and closed the door soundlessly behind her. Without complaint, she sat in the empty chair and waited for Grady’s questions.

  “Does it bother you if Sister Rose stays?” Grady asked.

  Daisy glanced over at Rose, then back at Grady. “No, it doesn’t bother me.”

  “I am interested in everyone’s movements from yesterday evening until this morning,” Grady said. “Could you tell me what time you left the parlor last night?”

  “It was about ten o’clock. I always get to bed no later than ten-thirty. I am not a sound sleeper, unfortunately, so I like to read in bed for a while to make myself sleepy.” With a slender finger, she pushed her spectacles up the bridge of her nose. Her nails were well-shaped, but short and free of polish.

  “If you’re a light sleeper, perhaps you noticed if there were any unexpected noises during the night?”

  Daisy licked her lips, which glistened with a pale shade of lipstick. “If you think it will help, I guess I should tell you, though I hate to speak ill of the dead.”

  “It can’t hurt her now,” Grady said.

  “No, I suppose not. Well, I did wake up around two in the morning, and I heard distinct sounds coming from Mrs. Dunmore’s room.” Daisy again licked her lips and her gaze drifted over to Rose. “You understand, I would never have revealed this if the poor lady hadn’t died. It’s so . . . degrading. But I know I must.

  “As I said, I heard sounds. Laughing and so forth. She was having a . . . well, a good time, I suppose they call it. There’s no other way to say it. She was entertaining a man in her bedroom.” Daisy sat up straight, her chin raised in genteel defiance. Rose was growing curious to know what Daisy actually did for a living. A secretary, perhaps, or a librarian?