Death of a Winter Shaker

by Deborah Woodworth

  Gennie was astonished by his talkativeness. Maybe it was there all the time, hidden behind a fake reticence. Or maybe he had finally found a topic he enjoyed talking about. Gennie’s bones felt chilled as though she had spent the night in the root cellar. But her mind clutched at this new knowledge about Albert. If she could use it to delay him, to save her life . . .

  “So it was you I saw running from the Water House? You wore Molly’s cloak so that if anyone saw you, they would think you were a sister. Molly was tall for a girl, so the cloak fit you.”

  Albert’s face clouded. Gennie thought it might have been a mistake to call attention to his small stature.

  “It was clever of you to think of using the cloak,” she said quickly. “But why did you kill Johann in the first place?”

  “I just said. He knew about me.”

  “We all knew you’d had some trouble with the law a long time ago. Why worry about that? You’d confessed it and been forgiven, hadn’t you?”

  Albert narrowed his eyes. She had pushed too hard. She grasped frantically for anything she could say, anything that would get him talking again.

  “The herb bouquet,” she said, trying to control the tremor in her voice, “what did that mean?”

  Albert laughed without humor. “Nearly meant disaster, that’s what. Somebody else’s fool idea, like digging Fredericks up and moving him before I had a chance to bury him far away. Somebody tried to make it look like a Shaker did it. I couldn’t afford that. Too close to home. They might start looking into my background.”

  Gennie nodded in what she hoped was a sympathetic manner. Albert ignored her.

  “Good thing I was around when you found him, so I could sneak in and grab the herbs before the police got there. I figured they’d call you hysterical if you even remembered seeing them. Not that it did any good. That sheriff was so eager to blame a Shaker that he believed you anyway.” Albert was very close to her now. “So now you know.”

  “Rose knows I’m here.”

  “I don’t think so, little sister. You’d have said something long before now. Nay, I think we’ve got just enough time to do this right.”

  Gennie fought back the panic rising in her throat. She had to keep thinking, keep stalling him, until someone missed her. Rose would miss her, wouldn’t she? If she screamed, would anyone even hear her? Or would Albert kill her instantly?

  “You wanted to be a Believer,” Gennie gasped in desperation. “How could you want to be a Believer and kill people?”

  “I wanted to be a carpenter!” For the first time, Albert’s voice took on some depth. “That’s all I ever wanted.”

  “But you are a carpenter.”

  “A damn good one, too.” He waved his free hand around the room, filled with his handiwork. But his eyes and his weapon still aimed at her. “Everyone says I’m gifted. But people keep interfering. It’s the Depression, they said, nobody wants you, no matter how good you are. Sometimes someone would hire me and then they wouldn’t pay me for all my beautiful work! That isn’t fair, is it?”

  “Nay, it’s not fair.”

  His eyes flicked briefly around the shop, skimming over an unfinished table and an exquisite cabinet.

  “They should not have done that to you,” Gennie continued, trying to keep her voice steady, sympathetic.

  “Damn right! Damn right they shouldn’t have. They got what they deserved.”

  Now, Gennie thought, now! She lunged forward, pushing the bundle of thick wool directly into Albert’s knife. Startled, he stumbled backwards. His grip loosened and the knife stuck in the fabric. Gennie sped around him in a wide arc. But Albert recovered quickly and sprinted across the floor toward her. He grabbed her skirt, pulling her off-balance. She twisted and fell on her back.

  She still held the cloak, the knife stuck in the cloth. If Albert fell on her, the knife would go straight into her. With frantic, shaking fingers she felt for the wooden handle. She encountered the side of the blade first. She cried out as it ripped across her palm.

  Gasping with pain, she located the handle and yanked the weapon out of the fabric. She tossed the cloak toward Albert, who batted it aside like a rubber ball. But the maneuver gained her a few seconds. She struggled to a standing position with her undamaged left hand and scrambled out of his reach.

  “Stay away from me!” She held the knife in front of her, just as Albert had done earlier. Only her hand bled and shook badly. Albert smiled and strolled toward her, as though now he had all the time in the world. Gennie stumbled backwards. With a swift movement, Albert’s sinewy hands grabbed her wrists. He squeezed her right wrist until her weakened fingers opened. The knife clattered to the floor. Albert ignored it and dragged her over to the rag pile as if she were light as a bundle of laundry.

  Gennie filled her lungs and screamed for Rose. The name was barely out of her mouth before it was replaced with a rag, tasting faintly of turpentine and stretched painfully across her teeth.

  His bony face tight with concentration, Albert yanked her flailing arms behind her back and tied her wrists with a few loose rags. Pressing on her shoulders, he forced her down onto the rag pile, where he bound her ankles together and tied a final rag over her eyes.

  He hoisted her up by the waist and threw her over one shoulder. She squirmed and tried to kick her bound legs, but his grip across her knees only tightened. The slight bounce in his step told her they were climbing the stairs.

  They must have reached the second floor, because the climbing stopped. Gennie felt herself heaved backwards into what smelled like a wooden box. For a moment there was silence. Then Albert spoke again.

  “Suppose you’re wondering why I didn’t just kill you downstairs,” he said, so casually he might have been explaining why he had chosen to use a dark stain rather than a light one on a chest of drawers.

  “Too messy. Blood. Hard to explain, if anyone comes looking for you before I get a chance to clean up. But don’t worry. I’ll take care of you later. You’ll be so upset over Molly’s death that you ran away. I’ll fix it up. In the meantime, you’ll be comfortable here. As long as there’s air to breathe, that is. This was meant for Johann, by the way. You’re small enough. Maybe you two can share it.”

  A soft, heavy cloth with a familiar smoky odor landed on top of Gennie. The cloak. As she strained to push it off her face with her chin, a lid dropped and shut out all sound and the sensations of light she had seen through the blindfold. The last sound she heard was the whack of a hammer pounding nails into the corners of what she now knew to be a pine coffin.

  TWENTY-THREE

  ROSE WATCHED SETH REJOIN THE CROWD OF BELIEVERS gathering around Elsa and the police. It wasn’t wise to do what she was about to do, but she had to be sure she was right. She’d never forgive herself if she handed an innocent person over to Brock.

  The Carpenters’ Shop was silent when she entered. At first she thought Albert must have joined the crowd. If so, she’d have to wait for her information.

  She was about to leave when a soft creaking alerted her to someone’s presence. Albert’s thin legs slipped down the narrow wooden steps leading from his upstairs living quarters. On the bottom step, he paused and stared at her.

  “The sheriff is arresting Elsa for murder,” Rose said. “Are you going to let that happen?”

  Albert shrugged. “Nothing I can do. If she’s guilty, she should pay.”

  “Is she guilty?”

  “Stands to reason, doesn’t it? After Johann watched her practice that fake dancing of hers, he probably blackmailed her.”

  “Did Johann tell you that?”

  “Told you, I barely spoke to the man.”

  “Then how did you know what Johann saw?”

  Albert strolled to his workbench and slid onto his stool, to all appearances relaxed. One hand draped loosely over the edge of the table.

  “Were you keeping an eye on Johann, watching his movements and waiting for the right moment to dispose of him? Johann tried to blac
kmail you, too, didn’t he? For something much worse than dancing.”

  Albert snorted. “That’s nonsense.”

  “I made a telephone call to Massachusetts, to the Hancock Society. I should have thought to make the call earlier, as soon as I remembered that you’d spent time in prison. But I didn’t at first put that together with two other facts about you—your skill in making Shaker furniture and your Eastern accent.”

  Albert tilted his head and regarded her with one, too-bright eye, like a sparrow assessing danger in the rustling undergrowth.

  “The eldress at the Hancock Society told me that the sudden departure of their carpenter, Bert Findlay, coincided with a tragic occurrence in a nearby village. The richest man in town—and also the most miserly—was found stabbed to death in his home. Near his body was an exquisite desk of Shaker design, quite new. The eldress said that she had suspected for some time that Brother Bert was selling some of the furniture he made and pocketing the money. She had been planning to confront him about it when he disappeared.”

  Albert’s thumb began to rub the edge of the worktable.

  “Bert Findlay was a short, wiry man. He matched your description perfectly.”

  “Lots of men look like me.”

  “But not many who are skilled in Shaker carpentry.”

  Albert raised one shoulder in a tiny shrug. “I learn fast.”

  “You killed Johann and Molly. You also burned down the barn to throw suspicion on the townspeople and the Water House to dispose of Molly’s body, didn’t you?”

  Slow seconds passed. Rose was acutely aware of the ticking of a clock, the scraping sound as the carpenter dragged a length of wood toward himself, her own thudding heart.

  “You’d do better to tell me. The Society will help you. We’ll find you a lawyer, a good one. You know we abhor the death penalty; we’ll fight any effort to impose it on you.”

  As Albert’s thin lips curled into a snarl, the door behind Rose crashed open and slammed against the wall. She spun around to see Sheriff Brock and Grady burst into the room, their guns drawn. Seth slid in behind them.

  “Where’s Gennie? What have you done with her?” Grady shouted.

  “Gennie? What do you mean? What are you saying?” Rose searched the men’s faces, looking for the answer she was afraid to hear.

  Seth edged forward. “You talked like you knew who the killer was,” he said softly to Rose, “and then I saw you go off toward the Carpenters’ Shop. So I told the sheriff. Charity was there, and she said she brought Albert some rags and saw a Shaker woman’s cloak on the floor here. She also said that Gennie was at the door when she left.”

  “You’re all crazy,” Albert said. “The girl just wanted to ask if I’d seen the fire, and she left right away.”

  “Don’t believe him. This man’s real name is Bert Findlay,” Rose called over her shoulder as she dropped to her knees before Albert’s rags. She rooted frantically through the disheveled pile, tossing aside the frayed remains of summer dresses and dish towels as she searched for the fine, dark wool of a Shaker Dorothy cloak.

  “I spoke with the eldress at the Hancock Society and found out he’s wanted for murder in Massachusetts.”

  “Oh yeah?” Sheriff Brock said. “Maybe we’ll be using those handcuffs after all—Findlay, is it?”

  Rose stared at one bit of cloth, a scrap of light blue-and-white-striped cotton. It was worn and shredded and spotted with fresh red splotches. She grabbed a handful of rags. Two others clearly were splattered with blood, still tacky to the touch.

  “Explain this.” Rose swiveled on her knees toward Albert. “This is blood, isn’t it? Where did it come from?”

  Brock grabbed the cloth from her hands and tossed them to Grady. “Well, Findlay?”

  “I cut my hand,” Albert said evenly. “Happens a lot in my work. Used the rag to stop the bleeding.”

  “You cut your hand over here, where you have no tools, and then dripped blood on all these other rags?” Rose faced Albert and thrust a stained cloth under his nose.

  “And while you’re at it,” Grady said, “explain this.” He bent over a small chest next to the workbench. One drawer hung open. In his hand, Grady held an open envelope from which a stack of green bills poked out.

  Too late, Rose realized that she stood between Albert and the police. Grady and Brock surged forward, but not quickly enough. Albert’s hand flew to the worktable and grabbed his wood-carving knife. He held it to Rose’s neck, while the strong fingers of his left hand wrenched her arm behind her back.

  “Stop where you are,” Albert warned, “or the knife goes in where it’s aimed. I’ve got nothing to lose. It’ll take more than Shaker lawyers to keep them from killing me this time.”

  Albert threw a startled glance up the narrow staircase. Rose heard it, too, a pounding noise, just upstairs. For a moment, Albert’s grip relaxed. Rose wrenched free of his grip and, with all her strength, shoved him backwards, directly into the path of an unfinished rocking chair. He and the chair flipped backwards and crashed. No sooner had he hit the floor than Brock and Grady jerked him upright and forced his wrists into handcuffs behind his back.

  Rose flew up the stairs toward the source of the pounding. In the carpenter’s retiring room, she found a plain pine coffin. Grady appeared at her shoulder. The pounding began again, and it came from inside the coffin.

  “It’s Gennie, it’s got to be!” Grady cried. He spun around and located a hammer, tossed on top of Albert’s bed. He wrenched up the nails securing the coffin lid. Together, he and Rose heaved it up and slid it to the floor. Gennie squirmed inside.

  “Smart girl!” Grady lifted Gennie carefully to a sitting position, eased off the gag and blindfold. With a flick of his pocketknife, he slashed through the rags binding her hands. Gennie sobbed hoarsely and threw her arms around his neck. He lifted her tenderly and held her.

  Rose averted her eyes. She had broken her own pledge of nonviolence today. She did not feel capable of judging Gennie, who had not yet taken the same vows. And, it seemed, might never do so. Nevertheless, Rose found herself smiling.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  A HALLOWEEN WIND PIERCED THE CORNERS OF ROSE’S bonnet despite the added protection of her cloak hood. She and Gennie walked between the lightly frosted rows of the herb fields, their feet crunching in unison.

  “Are you too cold?” Rose asked. “Shall we go back?”

  Gennie shook her head and gazed across the herb fields.

  “I love these fields.” She turned to Rose. “And I love all of you. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yea.”

  They walked on in silence for a time, catching their capes when they flew open and watching the ground for slippery patches.

  Gennie broke the silence first. “Rose?” she asked tentatively.

  “You asked me to walk with you this morning because you had something to tell me?”

  “How did you know?”

  Rose flashed a smile. “It wasn’t difficult. Besides, according to Grady O’Neal, I’ve proved myself to be a fair detective.”

  “Well, that’s part of what I wanted to talk about. About some of the things I still don’t understand about what happened, and . . . about Grady.”

  “You’re leaving, aren’t you, Gennie?” Rose tried to keep the sorrow out of her voice.

  “Grady asked me if we could see each other. He said to tell you he’d treat me with respect. He wants us to think about getting married.”

  “And what did you tell him?”

  “I said I’m only seventeen. I said I wouldn’t marry anyone until I’m at least nineteen.”

  Rose saw with a touch of pride that Gennie held her chin high. Unlike the tragic Molly, Gennie would not be pressured.

  “What was his response?”

  “He said that was smart. And he said that . . . that I could stay with his sister . . . after I leave. Isn’t that funny, Rose? Remember the girl in the red dress who stopped in the police station to
see Grady? I thought she was his girlfriend, but she’s his sister, Emily! He’s been keeping a close eye on her because she’s so pretty, and Johann tried to . . . well, you know, get too friendly with her, and Grady was afraid she’d be suspected of having something to do with his getting killed.

  “Grady said that she works in a flower shop in town, and she could try to get me a job there. Maybe I could talk them into using herb flowers. Then I wouldn’t have to leave everything so . . . so completely.”

  Gennie chattered happily and Rose let her. She saw they were approaching the old cemetery, one of Molly’s favorite hideaways. To her left, across the village’s central pathway, she could just see the burned-out Water House, and the empty Carpenters’ Shop, boards nailed across the smashed door. There was no one left to fix it. Maybe it was for the best, Gennie’s leaving. The best for Gennie, anyway, not for the Society. And not for Rose. Maybe Gennie would decide not to marry after all. Maybe she would come back. It had happened before.

  “I never thought that Charity would leave,” Gennie was saying.

  “What? Ah, Charity. Yea, she has decided to leave, at least for a time.”

  “But why? She didn’t hurt anyone, did she? She didn’t even trip someone over a rocking chair, like you did.” Gennie giggled, something Rose hadn’t heard her do for some time. For the giggle, she forgave Gennie’s making light of violence.

  “Anyway,” Gennie continued, “I’m glad that Wilhelm’s stopped trying to make Elsa into Mother or even eldress.”

  Rose shook her head sadly. “Wilhelm has been wounded in spirit.”

  “You feel sorry for him? After the way he treated you? He wanted to send you away!”

  “Wilhelm was betrayed. Worse yet, he betrayed himself. He is not a man who can easily live with that knowledge. And as it turns out, he’d been struggling with suspicion for some time. The night he found you in the cemetery, he had followed Elsa out to the herb fields. Elsa practiced her dancing and suddenly began to speak in tongues. Then she stopped and started again, as if perfecting her performance. Wilhelm wanted her behavior to be evidence of divine spirit, but he was haunted by the fear that she had more in mind than he’d bargained for.”