Sins of a Shaker Summer

by Deborah Woodworth

  “They went to a tea party,” Marjorie said.

  “We weren’t supposed to tell!” Janey wailed. “Now everybody will be mad at us.”

  “Who is ‘everybody,’ Janey?” Rose asked.

  Janey clamped her mouth shut.

  “Marjorie? Janey doesn’t realize how important this is, but you do, don’t you? It will help me so very much if you tell me who you think will be angry with you.” Two sets of pale eyes exchanged glances.

  “Are you scared of someone?” Rose asked.

  Marjorie’s small chin bobbed in a tiny nod.

  “Who? Who are you afraid of?”

  “Don’t tell, don’t you dare tell,” Janey screamed, and threw herself on her sister. Startled, Rose jumped back.

  “All right, you two, stop it right now.” She pried Janey off Marjorie. “Janey, we never hit one another in this village. I want you to go back to Charlotte at once and tell her that you hit your sister. She will know what to do.”

  A sulky Janey jumped up, tossed a stinging glance at her sister, and ran toward Charlotte.

  “Your dress is torn,” Rose said. “Are you all right? Do you hurt anywhere?”

  Marjorie shook her head.

  “Okay, you don’t have to tell me who you are afraid of, at least not right now. But what did you mean when you said that Nora and Betsy went to tea?”

  “They do it a lot.”

  “Where do they go?”

  “You know, the woods and places.”

  “These woods, do you mean?”

  A sudden gust of wind rustled the leaves above them and lifted Marjorie’s fine hair. “I guess,” she said. “All the woods, I think. They never took us along, even though we told them about the flowers. It wasn’t fair.”

  “What flowers?” Rose asked.

  “The magical flowers.”

  “Who told you the flowers were magical?”

  Spots of color appeared on Marjorie’s sallow cheeks, and she looked as if she were about to cry. “I’m not s’posed to tell,” she said.

  “You can tell me,” Rose said gently. “It’ll help keep Nora and Betsy safe and well.”

  Confusion and misery took their toll, and Marjorie’s thumb went back into her mouth. She shook her head. Tears spilled down her cheeks and her hand.

  “Okay, you don’t have to tell, then. But can you tell me what the flowers’ names were?”

  Marjorie shook her head again.

  “Do you remember the name ‘foxglove’?”

  Marjorie shrugged.

  “Did you see any of the flowers yourself?” This drew a nod, so Rose asked, “What colors were they?”

  This question seemed safer; Marjorie removed her wet thumb from her mouth and thought for a few seconds. “They were lots of pretty colors. Pink, and blue, and purple, and white.”

  “Were any of them shaped like bells?”

  “Sort of,” Marjorie said. “Those were the bad magic flowers.” When Rose looked puzzled, Marjorie explained, “Mama told us to be careful of the bad ones and to remember that they were shaped like bells. If we ate them, a bad angel would come and take us away forever. We told Nora and Betsy, but Nora didn’t believe us. She said Mama was just trying to scare us. She said flowers are good, so they have to be good magic.”

  So Nora had served Betsy and herself a “bad magic” flower as a form of defiant experimentation. That certainly sounded like Nora, Rose thought. She was a bright child, who sometimes put too much faith in her own logical processes. By adulthood, she’d be cured of that—if she lived that long.

  “So was it your mama who told you about the flowers, Marjorie?”

  The thumb went back in the mouth, and the girl scooted backward. “You said I didn’t have to tell,” she mumbled around her thumb.

  “But you just said—”

  “You said I didn’t have to tell!” Marjorie jumped to her feet and ran back toward Charlotte, where her sister had joined Nora and Betsy. Rose knew there was no point in pursuing her.

  Rose got to her feet and brushed the grass and dried leaves off her skirt. Another roll of thunder, this time closer, gave her a comforting hope of at least a temporary cool-down. With luck, it would arrive by the next evening, so the purging, if it must take place, could be accomplished in more comfortable temperatures.

  Rather than walking back through the group of children, and perhaps upsetting Marjorie again, Rose took a circuitous route through the trees. She circled, just out of sight, around the clearing where the children played. She could hear them laughing.

  As she rounded a large maple, she heard something else, underneath the laughter. Someone was crying, somewhere to Rose’s left. Walking quietly, she followed the sound and found a man in Shaker work clothing, standing in the shadows with his back to her, watching the children play. He wore the flat-crowned, wide-brimmed hat of the brethren, so she couldn’t see his hair or the shape of his head. He raised his arm and wiped his sleeve across his cheeks as if clearing away tears.

  Rose ducked behind a tree as he turned and headed east, toward the perimeter of the maple grove. As she saw his profile, she realized the man was Thomas Dengler. On his arm he carried a basket. Though she was too far away to tell for sure, the basket seemed to hold a pile of green stalks with flowers attached.

  TWENTY-TWO

  AFTER A TENSE EVENING MEAL, THE BELIEVERS WERE SENT to their retiring rooms for an early bedtime. The next day would be demanding—a full day of work followed by the evening purging service. Gertrude had picked at her food, clearly anticipating the anguish of exposing her episode of physical violence. If Rose couldn’t come up with a solution fast, Gertrude would probably confess to murder, as well. Rose might lose her position as eldress, but that was nothing compared with Gertrude’s potential loss.

  Rose decided it was time to check in with Grady O’Neal. She closed the door to the Ministry library, hoping to keep her conversation private from Wilhelm. The Languor County Sheriff’s Office told her Grady was off duty, so she put through a call to his home number. His people were among the wealthiest in the state, so Grady could afford telephone service, even as a young bachelor on a deputy’s salary.

  Grady answered quickly. “Rose? I thought it might be Gennie calling. It’s about time.”

  “Sorry,” Rose said. “I won’t keep you long.”

  “Are you wondering if I’ve looked into Patience’s death? Somehow I thought you wouldn’t let go. Well, I have done some checking, and I’m beginning to think you were right. Besides, the doctor I sent over said there’s a good chance Patience’s wound came from being hit with a sharp rock. So I talked to the folks who were gathered around when we found Patience. Most of them had followed Gertrude’s scream, and they were in full view of each other, so they all have alibies way back to their arrival at your worship service. There’s others, of course, but I think I got most of their names, and nobody could think of a single reason why any of the townsfolk would hurt Patience. They hardly knew her, and she wasn’t one to come into town and be friendly.”

  “So you’ve got nothing?”

  “I wouldn’t say that. There was one young courting couple that no one saw at the service, but they appeared when Patience was found. When I questioned them, they admitted they’d sneaked off to the woods well before the service to do some smooching—sorry, Rose. Anyway, they heard a loud argument, and it sounded to them like it was between two women.”

  “Did they check to see what was happening?” Rose asked, with misgivings. She could see the noose settling around Gertrude’s neck.

  “Uh, well, they were pretty occupied, I guess. Anyway, the arguing stopped, and they just forgot about it.”

  With great reluctance, Rose had decided that she must tell Grady about Gertrude’s argument with Patience. She took a deep breath to keep her voice calm.

  “But it gets weirder,” Grady said, before Rose could start her story. “After a while, they heard all sorts of odd sounds coming from close by. They said it
sounded like someone was having fits.”

  “I suppose they were too busy to investigate that, as well?”

  “Yup. So we need to figure out what the ‘fits’ were and who was having them. Was Patience still alive and in a trance? Was she badly injured and crying out in agony? Or was someone else there, having fits over her body?”

  “I think I can help with those questions.” Rose told Gertrude’s story. When she’d finished, Grady paused so long that Rose was afraid he’d broken the connection.

  “I’m afraid,” he said finally, “we still can’t be sure what was going on. We only have Gertrude’s word for it that she left Patience alive.”

  “But—”

  “We have to be realistic, Rose. I don’t want to arrest Gertrude, for heaven’s sakes, but we have to cover all the possibilities. For one, we have to remember that there’s no evidence that anyone from town had anything to do with this. So if Patience was murdered, and if Gertrude didn’t do it, that means another Shaker probably did.”

  “I know,” Rose said. “But we can’t just let it drop.”

  “Nope, that we can’t. So here’s what I need you to do. Put together everything you’ve got about anyone who might have wanted Patience out of the way. I’ve got to be out of town most of tomorrow, but I’ll try to get to North Homage by late afternoon, and we can put our heads together.”

  “All right,” Rose said. “I’m afraid I’ll be busy in the evening.”

  “Yeah, Gennie told me all about that purging thing. Sounds awful. I don’t know what else to say.”

  “As little as possible,” Rose said. “Just get here as soon as you can tomorrow.”

  Early to sleep was out of the question for Rose, but she did slip out of her work dress. The sun had nearly set, but as yet they’d gotten no relief from the sultry air. The occasional bursts of thunder had begun to seem like a cruel trick.

  Rose sat at the small desk in her retiring room with paper and pen and began her notes for Grady. Collecting the names of Believers who had reason to dislike Patience was not a difficult task. Rose thought back to the sweeping gift and jotted down several names: Irene, Elsa, Andrew, and, she had to admit, herself. Benjamin and Thomas also belonged on the list. Gertrude, unfortunately. All Believers. Were there no people of the world who might have wished Patience dead? Willy Robinson? He certainly had contact with her, as well as the strength and opportunity to kill her, but Rose could think of no reason why he would do so. His past was murky but had no apparent connection with Patience. Perhaps she had found out something he wished to keep secret?

  Next to each person’s name, Rose wrote a few notes, giving reasons why he or she might or might not be a killer. To get it over with, she began with herself. Patience had accused her publicly of being unworthy to be eldress; she had left the impression that she could reveal more, probably hints of an illicit relationship between Rose and Andrew. Flashes of shame and righteous anger left Rose with a deep sense of foreboding about the purging ceremony coming up in less than a day.

  Patience had accused Irene of sinning twice. Was she referring to Thomas and Benjamin and their apparent struggle for Irene’s affection? Yet Irene herself seemed uninterested in both men, or in any man, for that matter. So how was she the sinner? Could the accusation have something to do with Irene’s two children?

  Rose jotted down more detail about Gertrude’s disagreements with Patience, then moved on to Elsa. Wilhelm’s protégée, Elsa was ambitious beyond her abilities. She was cunning rather than bright. Her spiritual gifts had been overshadowed by Patience’s, and she was in danger of losing her special place with Wilhelm. Elsa’s will had been thwarted before. This time, did it drive her to murder?

  Benjamin was ambitious, arrogant, and apparently in love with Irene. Yet if Rose saw all this, others surely did, too. Had Patience had additional, more damaging information about him? Was it perhaps related to the odd design drawn in both their journals?

  It seemed that Thomas, too, might be overfond of Irene. Given what Rose had witnessed in the woods, he was certainly attached to his daughters. He had a history of drunkenness and violence. Had Patience known about it?

  Reluctantly Rose reached Andrew’s name. Patience would, of course, have known about the deaths of Andrew’s wife and children. According to Andrew, he had nothing to hide. Had he told the truth? Or was Patience referring, during the sweeping gift, to something else in his past, something no one else knew about? If she and Andrew had indeed had a special relationship, she might have such information.

  Yawning, Rose pushed her notes aside and stretched. A gentle wind ruffled the paper, and Rose walked to her open window, which looked out over the north side of the village. The sky was moonless but lightened somewhat by the clouds moving in. Everyone must be asleep; the Center Family Dwelling House was totally dark, including the kitchen.

  Remembering that she wore only her petticoat, Rose went back to her desk and extinguished her lamp, then returned to the window to enjoy what little breeze there was. She had just pulled forward her rocking chair when she looked out and saw a dim light appear almost directly north of her. At first she thought it must be a flash of lightning, but it didn’t disappear in a few seconds. Then she knew she was seeing a lighted window. Given the location, it had to be the Herb House, which had small windows all around for ventilation. Someone had just turned on a light in the second floor of the Herb House.

  Rose hesitated. Under ordinary circumstances, she would assume that one of the sisters couldn’t sleep and had decided to catch up on some work. But Irene was the only sister working in the drying room right now, and she had told Gennie that she didn’t have enough work to keep the two of them busy. If she couldn’t sleep in this heat, why not sit up and read or write in her journal next to an open window?

  It was enough to warrant investigation, especially given the possibility that Irene or someone else from the Mount Lebanon group might be a killer. Rose pulled her work dress back over her underclothes and slipped into her cloth shoes. She debated leaving off her white cap since it might be too visible, but she had been caught without her cap before, and she was in enough trouble as it was.

  Leaving the Ministry House without Wilhelm’s knowledge was easily accomplished. His room, on the ground floor, faced south and was far enough away from the staircase and front door that she could slip out unnoticed. A quick look up and down the village assured her that all other windows, besides the one in the drying room, were dark.

  To avoid being seen from the Herb House, she veered off to the right and hurried past the east side of the barn. It was a short run to the southeast corner of the Herb House, where she would not be visible from the window. She edged around the corner and along the front of the building until she reached the front door. Praying the hinges had been oiled recently, she opened it just enough for her thin body to slide through.

  The ground floor was dark, the huge presses silent. The upstairs drying room door must be open because Rose could hear loud, angry voices from above her. She heard two voices, both too low to be Irene. She tiptoed to the staircase, wincing each time she stepped on a squeaky floorboard. The men were too involved in their argument to hear.

  Rose had almost reached the bottom step when her hand brushed against a table piled high with wrapped packages of pressed herbs. One package, balanced precariously on the top, slid down the stack, hit the corner of the table, and plunked on the floor.

  The arguing stopped. Rose held perfectly still, preparing herself for a confrontation, until she realized that another voice was speaking. A higher, softer voice. Then both men began speaking—or shouting—at once. Rose was desperate to understand what they were saying, but getting up the stairs without being heard seemed impossible. She ventured up one step, which squeaked loudly enough to wake the village. One of the men continued speaking, but Rose knew she couldn’t risk going any farther. If the woman, presumably Irene, spoke again, her voice wouldn’t cover the sound of a creaking board
.

  The men’s voices were becoming more distinct. She was fairly certain now that she was hearing Benjamin and Thomas. She heard one man, possibly Thomas, say, “Over my dead body. You keep your hands off them. They’re mine!” Rose guessed Thomas was warning Benjamin to stay away from his family. So perhaps Irene was, indeed, guilty of two sins—loving two men in a worldly way.

  When Rose heard Irene say, “It’s none of your concern,” she realized why the voices had become easier to understand. They were moving toward the door of the drying room. Without waiting for a louder voice to offer cover, she jumped backward off the lower step and flattened herself against the side of the staircase. Feeling behind her, she realized there was an open space under the stairs. She backed into it, trying to avoid the brooms and dustpans leaning against the wall. They should have been stored on wall pegs. Some Believer had picked an inconvenient time and place to be lazy.

  Footsteps clattered over her head. Rose prayed, fervently and silently, that the group would head for the front door. They did. She heard the door swing open, then a male voice said, “Just a minute. I forgot something. You go on ahead.” Footsteps left the building, and Rose waited. Her own breathing sounded like a train engine to her. Surely she would be found out. All she could do was huddle in the shadows under the stairs and pray.

  Benjamin walked past her hiding place. Even in the dark, she recognized him. She could have reached out and almost touched him. She held her breath, but he looked straight ahead, intent on a mission on the other side of the room. When he passed out of her view, Rose risked inching her head forward, but she still couldn’t see him. She heard some scraping sounds, as if something heavy was being moved aside, then a rustling sound and the thump of something being dropped. Benjamin cursed softly. A repeat of the scraping sound indicated something being moved again, perhaps back into place.

  Rose pulled her head back just in time as Benjamin passed in front of her again. She remained still, breathing quickly, for several moments after she heard the front door open and shut. Slowly she eased out of her nook. As soon as she had shaken the kink out of her back, she followed the path she assumed Benjamin had taken to the far corner of the room. She came to a dusty herb press that must have broken down and never been fixed. Just behind it was a small, badly damaged chest of drawers that looked as if it had been made before Hugo took over the Society’s Carpenters’ Shop.