She wished she was feisty and bold. She’d hiss a How dare you at the policeman. Instead, she quailed beneath his firm expression. Libby lifted Paul’s obituary, her hand shaking. It’d taken all her courage, all her tenacity, to bring it to the authorities. Especially in the waning daylight that had now become full-on nighttime.
“I’m trying to save a man’s life!”
“As you attempted to save Deacon Greenwood’s?”
“I told you, I didn’t believe it myself at first. As you can see, it’s unfathomable.”
“It’s insinuating we’ve a repeat killer on our hands, Miss Sheffield. In a place like Gossamer Grove, I would find that to be an exaggerated claim. We are a small and safe community. The medical examiner even deemed Greenwood’s death as caused by the deacon’s own hand.”
“The man—the examiner—the doctor had no reason to look for anything other than that,” Libby argued, rather surprising herself, as well as the officer if the expression on his face were any clue. “You must understand that my intentions are good. This obituary isn’t fabricated. My father didn’t write this. Someone else did!”
“Mm-hmm.” The policeman stepped out onto the sidewalk, making Libby step back a few paces.
She gripped the obituary to her chest and tilted her chin. “Do you not care to save a man’s life? Isn’t that your duty as an officer of the law?”
“Miss Sheffield, as I told you a few moments before, we’ll investigate into Mr. Darrow’s well-being. But I will not be organizing a militia to charge his doorstep. Now please be on your way. Leave this to the police.”
The promise of an investigation did little to appease Libby’s angst. She folded the obituary and jammed it into her handbag. “You will come with me then? To check on Mr. Darrow’s welfare? Now?” She looked over her shoulder, as if the writer of the obituary leered from the shadows, snickering at her conundrum. How difficult should it be to inspire a policeman to run to the aid of a potential murder victim? Must she deliver them another dead body to prove her point? Libby shuddered. God help her. She’d hoped the obituary would create a sense of urgency, and at best it’d created only a sense of duty.
“Leave it to the police, I implore you.” With that, the officer closed the door.
She stared at it. He hadn’t even asked to keep the obituary. Perhaps he was simply trying to de-escalate her panic and in truth really was already gathering his things to check on Paul. But, a niggling sense inside Libby told her he wasn’t going to move in any sort of expedited fashion.
“Good night,” Libby mumbled, very belatedly. She turned on her heel and headed back toward the main street. Her hands shook as she clutched her purse. She would never sleep tonight, never be able to close her eyes. If Paul was attacked, somehow subdued, hoisted over a wooden beam and hung—
“Miss.”
“For all that’s holy!” Libby shrieked and spun, whipping her handbag and slapping it across a broad but lean chest.
The man cleared his throat. Muttonchop whiskers were outlined by a streak of moonlight peeking from behind a cloud. Libby squinted to see his features. Long nose, deep-set eyes, angular cheekbones, thin lips, and . . . no mole. This would be Jacobus, not the more intimidating Jedidiah. Although, now that this revivalist brother stared down his nose at her, she wasn’t entirely sure there was much difference between them.
Jacobus ran a hand over his chest, the suit coat he wore a dark outline against the shadowed building behind him. “Your purse is quite the weapon, Miss Sheffield.”
Libby coiled the purse strings in her hand. Perhaps she would use it again. She eyed him.
He eyed her back.
“Well, excuse me then.” Libby tried to sidestep him, but he stepped along with her.
“May I escort you somewhere?”
She didn’t miss the irony that his brother had asked the same only a few nights before.
“No, thank you.” Libby clutched her purse closer.
“Lollie?” A familiar male voice came out of the darkness and from the alleyway between the police station and the brick building that housed a men’s suit emporium. The endearing nickname, and the way he dragged out the syllables, brought instant peace to her soul.
“Calvin!” Libby tipped her head and was able to make out the features of her friend.
“Ah, Mr. Mueller.” Jacobus Corbin gave the young man a nod, and for a moment Libby was thankful the revivalist didn’t give Calvin special treatment due to his more simplified approach to life.
“Hi-ya, Preacher.” Calvin’s face split into a grin. They shook hands, man to man, and then Jacobus turned his attention to Libby.
“I see you’re in capable hands.”
Calvin grinned.
Libby nodded. Yes, please. Go away. She needed assistance, needed someone who would understand the earnestness of the situation and not dismiss it. Calvin would understand. He had been there. He had seen Deacon Greenwood hanging. Jacobus Corbin had not.
Presumably.
Libby eyed the man, his odd features.
“Good night then.” Jacobus tipped his hat and his long legs strode away toward the corner where the saloon doors were open and music and raucous laughter filtered onto the sidewalk. Fancy going into the saloon, a preacher who’d just hours before had reported death threats against himself. Libby blinked to clear her thoughts. There was little logic left in this town.
“What are you doin’ alone?” Calvin challenged her with a cock of his head and a lopsided smile.
Libby reached for her friend’s hand. His fingers curled around hers in a boyish familiarity, one with the promise of lifelong devotion and nothing more.
“I must find Elijah. Quickly, Calvin. I believe he’s the only one who will listen to me.”
“I’ll listen.” Calvin seemed hurt, and his childish smile waned.
Libby squeezed his hand. “I know you will, and I will explain. But we must go to the Greenwood home. Will you go with me?”
Calvin wagged his head back and forth. “That man died, Lollie.”
“I know.” Her throat clogged. Explaining death to Calvin was something she’d prefer to leave to his father. Reverend Mueller had always doted on him, before and after the accident that trapped Calvin in the world of a child. He would be the best person to explain such things. But she could certainly empathize with Calvin. “Yes, he did.”
Calvin’s eyes widened, and Libby could make out the whites of them in the darkness. “Swung to and fro. Remember?”
She couldn’t get it out of her mind.
Calvin was too fascinated, and Libby’s empathy shifted. “Calvin, you mustn’t speak ill of the dead.”
“Oh, I’m not.” He shook his head with fervor. “I’m just sayin’ the truth. One notch tighter and the rope woulda cut off his head.”
She was going to be sick. And now? Paul. Libby pressed her hand over Calvin’s wrist. “Please.” It was all she could say. Praying Calvin saw the desperation in her eyes.
“Okay.” Calvin nodded, the fascination draining from his face, replaced with a softer gleam of affection. “I’ll walk with you. You can’t be alone, Lollie.”
His hand stayed wrapped around hers. In another life, in another world, perhaps it would have been different. Two beloved friends growing up side by side and walking hand in hand through life together. Now . . . Libby stole a sideways glance at Calvin. Now she walked with him under the pretense he could and would protect her. But he was captive to a mind forever damaged by tragedy. He was forever a boy.
Chapter 18
I’m not going to die tonight!” Paul Darrow threw his hands in the air, exasperation lacing every intonation of his voice. He glared first at Elijah, then at Libby, then gave a perplexed glance over her shoulder at Calvin. The light from inside his home lit the doorway and deepened the shadows on his bony face.
“You don’t know that!” Libby insisted. Though she lacked a fondness for anything Paul, she certainly didn’t wish him murdered.
> Elijah held the obituary up for Paul to read. The newspaperman snatched it from Elijah’s hand and crumpled it.
“Drivel. Sheer drivel.” He wagged his finger at Libby. “Stuff your father would want to print, especially in lieu of that ridiculous article about anonymous death threats against the Corbin twins.”
“Death threats against the twins?” Elijah shot Libby a concerned glance, and she gave her head a small shake. This wasn’t the time to expound on that story.
“Now, I ask that you leave me alone tonight so that I may sleep in peace, mind you, not rest in peace.”
Elijah tried again, this time with more conviction to his voice. “Mr. Darrow. Consider my father. You heard of the obituary that Libby received, and assuming it wasn’t concocted to create some news story, then someone out there has sinister intentions.”
Paul’s skin turned ashen, and he shifted his attention over their shoulders into the black night. When he brought his gaze back, his eyes reflected a very distinct glimmer of anxiety. His voice dropped to an assertive hiss.
“I’m telling you, leave it alone. Leave me alone. There is—I’ve no intention of being slain tonight. You also have no business nosing into this any further.”
Paul made a move to close the door, but Elijah’s foot stopped it. His chin was set, and even in the glow of the lamplight, Libby could see Elijah’s jaw flex. It was firm and unemotional, his expression calculated. One that seemed to add up the circumstances and find them lacking.
“It is my business.” Elijah leaned in, effectively edging out Calvin and causing Libby to take a step sideways. “My father’s legacy is now as a man with a weak-willed constitution whose only way to cope was to end his own life. But, these obituaries speak otherwise. If my father’s life was taken by another’s hand, I would be a fool to deny it.”
Elijah pressed his hand against the doorframe. Libby moved to her tiptoes to see over his arm. Elijah ignored her and leveled a look on Paul.
“Whoever wrote my father’s obituary must have written yours.”
Libby noted Paul’s knuckles whiten with his grip on the door.
Elijah did not back down. “I will not have my father’s name stained with scandal and his killer taunt us days after as though we were playing pieces in a game of chess.”
Paul blinked and then pushed his spectacles up his nose. His lips were set in a thin line, and his chin jutted out as he raised it. “Your father’s name will always be stained with scandal, whether by his own hand or another’s.”
“What are you insinuating?” Elijah demanded.
“Haven’t you read his obituary? My obituary?” Paul jammed the crumpled obituary touting his impending death against Elijah’s chest. “We have sins that must be paid for. One can only outrun their sins for so long. There is nothing you can do.”
The door slammed in their faces. With it came a shroud of darkness as Paul snuffed out his lamp.
Morning dawned, a gray fog floating low against the earth. Sleep was as elusive as a wandering spirit haunting an old house. Libby held the collar of her coat against the breeze that blew into her face as Mitch drove them toward the newspaper in his Orient Roundabout motorcar. She bounced on the long seat that resembled a buckboard wagon, the thin white-rimmed tires vibrating against the brick street. The padding on the seat made it cushion-like, but the open-air carriage didn’t shield her face from the breeze. It may have the simplicity of a bicycle, as the advertisement touted, but today it complicated matters. Mitch enjoyed shifting between its two speeds, and in the fog and mist, in town no less, it felt dangerous. Disconcerting. Libby was not a fan. Neither, for that matter, had her mother been when Mitch plopped down four hundred twenty-five dollars for it.
She shifted her hand from her collar to her hat and pressed down as the wind from the ridiculous fifteen-miles-per-hour speed continued to play on her nerves. But Libby didn’t try to slow Mitch’s driving. For as much as she preferred to walk, she was anxious to get to the paper. Nothing would bring relief like the sight of Paul’s annoyed face, balding head, and pinched expression. She’d spent most of the night praying, hoping the police had offered Paul protection whether he desired it or not. That they had taken the obituary seriously and, at the very least, humored the panicked, silly girl of the local newspaperman.
Another motorcar sped toward them, two men perched on its seat. The driver waved at Mitch. They both slowed, and Libby noted the paleness of the driver’s face. It was Reverend Mueller, his graying hair flipping in the breeze as he applied the brake. Beside him was the studious Jacobus Corbin, less his twin brother, cloaked in his bland expression.
Their eyes met. His were sharp. Libby dropped her gaze.
“Reverend Mueller! Reverend Corbin!” Mitch’s smile of greeting waned as he too noticed the pallor of Calvin’s father. Reverend Mueller ignored the greeting. He gripped the steering wheel that extended in front of him on a long metal rod.
“You’ll want to follow me, Mitch.” Reverend Mueller was grave, and his eyes lacked the smile and warmth Libby was accustomed to. He didn’t even acknowledge her presence, which was unusual for him.
“What’s happened?” Mitch asked the question, but Libby already knew the answer.
She laid a gloved hand over her mouth. Paul. If only he’d listened!
“They found a body this morning. In Gossamer Pond. I’m headed there now.” Reverend Mueller pointed in the direction from whence they’d just come. The pond was located just on the outskirts of town, past the Greenwood Mill, about a mile away.
Without another word, Reverend Mueller shifted and set his vehicle into motion with a puff of exhaust and a jolt. Jacobus adjusted in his seat and turned to look at them. Libby stared after him as if some unbreakable thread connected them. As if he’d compelled her to follow with just a look and not a word. She was convinced. He did read souls.
Mitch’s voice brought reality crashing into her. “You’ll have to come with me. I’m not waiting to get there.”
Libby clenched her hands all the way to the pond. There had to have been something more she and Elijah could have done to stay this dreadful course of events. But, they’d warned Paul! Warned him and he’d refused to take heed. What sin could be so great as to justify murder?
The word echoed in Libby’s mind as the trees along the roadway cleared and open field bordered them. The car hit a rut in the hard-packed dirt, causing Libby to bounce on the seat and lean into Mitch’s arm. He ignored her and kept the speed where it was as the automobile cut through the fog. The emerald green of spring’s new growth almost glowed with dew, and Libby could make out a cluster of motorcars and wagons on the side of the road up ahead.
Gossamer Pond was only an acre, not large at all, and its edges were already patchy with algae and lily pads even though summer hadn’t yet brought its suffocating, humid warmth. The medical examiner’s wagon was positioned at an angle, and Reverend Mueller had already alighted from his seat and stood next to Dr. Penchan.
Two rowboats had been launched into the pond. Shouts drifted across the fog. Mitch brought the Roundabout to a shuddering halt. For a moment, he cast Libby the concerned look of a father rather than a newspaperman.
“You’ll want to stay here, I’m sure.” He patted her knee, and then intrigue entered his eyes and he jumped from his seat.
She might be timid and even squeamish, but Libby had no intention of staying in the motorcar. It was as if the body in the pond drew her. She was bonded to it for no other reason than she had more likely than not been one of the last people to see Paul alive.
Libby’s shoes sunk into soggy earth at the pond’s embankment. A man’s hand gently wrapped around her arm and drew her back.
“Libby, you’d best not look.” It was the calming voice of Reverend Mueller. But she couldn’t give him attention, couldn’t even meet his concerned gaze, for her own eyes were fixated on the body still floating in the water.
She took a few steps forward, away from Reverend Muelle
r. A presence moved beside her, but this time it wasn’t the reverend. Jacobus Corbin stood to her left, his hands clasped behind his back. His hair curled in the morning mist, whiskers outlining his strong jawline.
“Death is mesmerizing,” he said, his voice splitting the morning. The sounds of men yelling across the pond provided an eerie background noise. Jacobus turned to stare down his nose at her. “Don’t you agree?”
How could she argue the morbid truth? She could barely tear her eyes from the activity in the pond. The men in rowboats were reaching for the body, one of them trying to pull it toward their boat by hooking an extra paddle on the other side of the body.
Her breath caught. It wasn’t Paul! Long, dark hair floated around the corpse and a white chemise gown, almost sheer from being wet, draped over the body like a funeral shroud. Pale fingers, bare feet, and the face. The face was still in the water, concealing the victim’s identity. Libby squeezed her eyes shut against the sight.
“Open your eyes, Miss Sheffield.” Jacobus’s words compelled her compliance. But when she did, he commanded her attention. “Deep breaths and we shall focus on those here who will need our help.”
“It’s not Paul,” Libby mumbled. She realized her error at Jacobus’s furrowed brow.
“Who?”
“I thought it may be someone else. Somebody I knew. I mean, know. Well, there’s—it’s not them.” She fumbled to a halt. She needn’t explain her thought process to anyone. Especially a virtual stranger like a Corbin brother.
Jacobus surprised her and reached out to touch her arm. “Are you all right, Miss Sheffield?”
She nodded. But their eyes locked once again. She lost her breath for a moment as he studied her. A slight smile touched his mouth.
“Yes. You’re quite all right. Good woman.”
His words bolstered her strength in a way she hadn’t expected. He seemed pleased she wasn’t swooning at the sight of the body.
Libby focused on the pond and the poor drowning victim. Another rush of relief that it wasn’t Paul was fast replaced by a horrible fascination with who it was in his place. An older woman by the looks of the plentiful gray among the brunette strands. The rescuers finally grasped her body and struggled to pull it from the water.
The Reckoning at Gossamer Pond Page 12