“Your Joe is a contented man.”
Both rocked a bit, then Serena leaned forward. “Bumbee, Ralston is asking questions.”
“Well, he tore your bodice.”
“Got a big lump on his head, too. I grabbed one of Bettina’s tenderizers. She puts a store by beating the meat to bits.” She sighed. “She would know. But Bumbee, I can knock that fool upside the head anytime. No, he’s asking questions about Marcia.”
This made Bumbee sit up straight. “Tell me.”
“He knows, everyone knows, that Marcia isn’t Rachel and Charles’s child. The story about this being the outside child of her distant cousin stuck. All the white people believe it, as well as our people who didn’t know.”
“Marcia looks white. Selisse blood.”
“He asked about the woman who was sick who stayed here. He has figured out she wasn’t sick.”
“He never laid eyes on her.” Bumbee’s voice was raised.
“I’m not so sure.” Serena folded her hands in her lap.
“I caught him sneaking around just before you came in.” Bumbee sharply drew in her breath. “It’s possible he was spying. But she had half her face smashed in. If he’d seen Ailee, he would have seen that.”
“True. She wore a heavy shawl, drew part of it over her face. But if she went to sit down, he would notice her difficulty. I don’t know why he wants to know. I mean, he asks did anyone ever see Miss Rachel’s cousin. Stuff like that.”
Bumbee ran her hand along her cheek for a moment. “Might be he wants money if he’s figuring something out. He never saw her body when we took her out. We buried her in the dead of night and there’s no stone. That poor woman.” Bumbee shook her head.
“Ralston is a sneak. Money, well, maybe. Buy himself a girlfriend.”
“Dear Lord,” Bumbee muttered.
“All he thinks about. Or so I hear. And he’s fighting with Jeddie.”
“That’s stupid, bone stupid.”
“Barker O keeps his eye on the two of them and Miss Catherine, of course. I worry that Ralston might harm Jeddie, hurt his riding ability. And let’s face it, Jeddie is a handsome boy. Girls notice him.”
“Yes.” A pause. “Yes. Serena, there’s not much we can do unless Ralston opens his big flannel mouth to the wrong person.”
“Do you think I should tell Miss Rachel?”
“No. It will only worry her. She loves the child. She believes, as do I, that Marcia will pass. No one will ever know except those of us who cared for Ailee. Even DoRe doesn’t know. He thinks the child died when Ailee hung herself. I’m pretty certain he knew she was going to have a baby. I expect he figured it was his son’s. I don’t know.”
“Terrible things happen, don’t they, Bumbee?”
“They do. Things have been quiet here. Best to keep it that way.”
“But if Ralston gets out of line?”
“Then we go to Barker O. He’ll know what to do. They’re all in the stables. By the way, is DoRe here?”
Serena nodded. “He slides over two or three times a week now. That will stop when Maureen gets back.”
“M-m-m. I’m willing to bet Sheba is in Philadelphia or even Boston. All those years she stuck to Maureen like a tick. Waiting.”
“They both smashed Ailee’s face. I believe it.” Serena’s mouth formed a grim line.
“More to it than that, but we’ll never know and Ralston must never know. You know, Serena, I believe he will grow to be the kind of man that forces himself on women. Something’s not right there. Oh, I understand how they can get. We all do, but usually it stops with pleasing and promising.”
“Certainly does when we give in.”
They both laughed.
12
April 18, 2018
Wednesday
“What if we get one thousand people?” Mags Nielsen’s blonde eyebrows shot upward. “Will cost a fortune.”
“If we get one thousand people, we should celebrate that so many want to come home,” Harry calmly answered. “And we can start fundraising when the announcement goes out.”
Susan jumped in. “Mags, do we need to hire a caterer? We do. But we can still bring dishes. If we’re careful, those costs can be controlled.”
Janice Childe, another hard worker of the Dorcas Guild, rapped her pencil on the meeting table. “I sincerely doubt one thousand people will journey to St. Luke’s from wherever they may be in the world but”—she emphasized “but”—“three hundred, perhaps more, I expect that. First of all, look how many of us still attend St. Luke’s. Those of us still in the Mid-Atlantic or even New England may well make the journey. Do we have a great deal to organize? We do, but it is doable.”
Mags, not yet convinced, added, “Janice, apart from the food, the chairs, the parking, and the tents, tents’ cost. After marrying our oldest daughter, I can tell you about tents. Then there are the games to organize.”
Susan held up her hand. “Isn’t that why we have the St. Peter’s Guild? I think some of this comes under the heading ‘Men.’ ”
This provoked laughter.
“Speaking of men, surely there are those in the congregation who would write a few restorative checks,” the much older Pamela Bartlett advised.
“Well said.” Harry smiled at Pamela, whom she much respected.
“What about the jewelry that was found with that old body? Why can’t the church sell that? I have no idea what it’s worth. All the papers said was that there were jewels with the bones, but those jewels belong to us.” Janice surprised them with this. “Where are they? Harry, you’re in charge of building and grounds. You must know.”
“Well,” Harry prevaricated. “Almost a year and a half has elapsed. If someone were going to come forward, they would have done so by now. But no one has. Still, we might want to wait longer. Can you imagine the mess if we did something like that and a person shows up, DNA test in hand?”
“Oh, Harry, that’s TV stuff.” Mags shrugged. “That body was in there for over two hundred years. No one is going to appear claiming to be a relative. Remember when the reverend gave a sermon shortly after the body was discovered? He said, if I remember correctly, that the abandoned, those without a proper service, prayers, or tears still deserve consideration.”
“You’re probably right, but we live in such litigious times,” Susan reminded them all. “Let sleeping dogs lie.”
“For now.” Pamela’s clear voice rang out.
“Have any of you seen the jewels?” Janice’s curiosity shot upward with the discussion.
“I did,” Harry replied.
“Well?”
“Janice, her necklace was so covered with dirt, I couldn’t tell you much about it.” This was close to a lie. “Yes, she was wearing a necklace, but maybe the shock of the discovery kept me from closer scrutiny.” Another big fib.
“Harry, no one has ever accused you of not paying attention to detail,” Janice shot back. “Surely you could tell if the jewelry was genuine.”
“I couldn’t.” This was practically true. “I can only tell you she wore some very dirty pearls.”
“We should investigate.”
Susan, sharp, interjected. “Janice, the possible uproar doesn’t offset the gain.”
“Aren’t the jewels in the safe downstairs?” Mags asked.
“No. Sheriff Shaw took everything when the corpse was removed. Well, that was hardly a corpse. The bones.” Harry sounded calm. “I expect he has them in a secure place. I know that Reverend Jones hasn’t asked for them back and I think one of the reasons is that he hopes Sheriff Shaw may be able to piece together something about this discovery. The jewelry might help.” She did not reveal that the fabulous jewelry was locked in the big steel safe at Keller and George, an old, established jewelry store.
“This is beyond
a cold case.” Janice again rapped her pencil on the table.
“Oh, I don’t think so.” Pamela, highly intelligent, realized this needed to be shut down. “Who knew the body was on top of the Taylors’? Since this had remained undetected since what, 1786 or so, it’s doubtful anyone knew other than the person who placed her there. The Taylors died in 1786. Had to be close, I would think, and there were no more burials for a year. Good luck for St. Luke’s. But while this may be an old case, it’s not necessarily a cold case. It’s new to us.”
Mags considered this. “True.”
Janice then chimed in. “New to us, but someone had to have known. Someone put her there.”
“Of course they did.” Harry tried to suppress her irritation. “But chances are that person has also been dead for two hundred years.”
“Well, what if whoever killed her told someone, or his or her children?” Janice persisted.
“I think we’d know. I would think whoever that might be, subsequent generations would have dug her up.” Susan, too, was working to slide away from the jewelry.
“Then why now?” Janice was close to defiant.
“Janice, if we knew that, wouldn’t we have solved this?” Harry hit the nail on the head.
As the meeting broke up, the two old friends kept their mouths shut until they were in Susan’s station wagon.
“What is wrong with her!” Harry couldn’t help it.
“Janice has always been nosey. And I say she became more aggressive when she started frosting her hair.”
Harry exploded with laughter. “Oh God, Susan.”
“Think about it. Janice hit forty and forty hit back. Granted, it is a good frosting job, but no one frosts their hair until middle age.”
They howled as Susan drove out of the parking lot.
Once at Harry’s, they sat for a nip of bourbon seasoned in a Madeira cask. Harry rarely drank, but she felt like a special moment and this certainly was that.
“Treats,” Pewter demanded.
Harry dutifully got up and tossed out treats, not because she knew what Pewter said but because she knew if she didn’t buy off the cat, Pewter would be in her lap. The others would then act up, too.
The back door opened. “Me.”
“Come on in. Spirits.” Harry instructed her neighbor, Deputy Cynthia Cooper.
The lean woman hung up her heavy jacket and joined them as Harry put down a small, lovely crystal glass with the bourbon gleaming within. “Still cold out there.”
“Mid-April. You never know,” Susan agreed.
“Heard from the Loudoun Sheriff’s Department what happened at Aldie. You all manage to get right in the middle of things, don’t you? Well, I’m glad it’s up there and not here.”
“I am, too,” Susan agreed. “We just left our Dorcas Guild meeting. No one knows yet, but it will be in the paper. We would never have gotten anything done regarding homecoming if they knew we’d found Jason. Those girls would have been all over us like white on rice.”
“As it was, Mags Nielsen and Janice Childe wanted to know why St. Luke’s couldn’t sell the jewelry found on the old body. It was ridiculous.” Harry sipped her drink.
“What?” Cooper wondered.
“Oh, this all started over money. The homecoming I told you about. The notices haven’t even gone out and Mags and Janice are obsessing over money. You know, it’s made me tired.”
“What did happen at Aldie?” the young officer wanted to know.
The two relayed their experience.
“Not a sound? You would have heard something,” Cooper said.
“We were all pretty far away, but what I think is that he stepped down from the tractor, talked to whomever was planning to kill him. No sign of fighting back, and whoever it was sliced him when he turned around. If this had been done face-to-face, blood would have been all over the killer.”
“Had to be someone who knows how to kill. You need to clasp the lower jaw, jerk the head back as far as you can, hold it still for a second, and then slice and slice deep enough to cut the jugular.”
“Jason was a fairly big man.” Susan thought about what Cooper had pictured.
“That he was,” Harry agreed. “But again, he knew his killer. He had to, so whoever did it had the advantage of complete surprise.”
“They had to be fast,” Susan added.
“Which is why I will bet you this is a trained killer,” Cooper said.
13
September 25, 1787
Tuesday
A low fire glowed in the elegant fireplace in Ewing’s library, which also served as his office. The first blush of fall shone on the trees, and as the sun set, an early chill filled the air. Weymouth, the butler’s son, had built a fire for Ewing, who had been glued to his desk since late afternoon.
The large grandfather clock chimed the half hour in the hallway. Seven-thirty. The middle-aged man removed his spectacles, rubbing his eyes. In front of him on his desk rested the Constitution, which had been signed on September 17, 1787, by those delegates still in Philadelphia, a small number, thirty-eight, but the wrangling had gone on since May 25.
A farsighted man, Ewing paid under the table the princely sum of five hundred dollars to Roger Davis, who traveled to Philadelphia with James Madison, acting as the small gentleman’s unofficial secretary. As the convention dragged on and on, Ewing made certain Roger received further compensation. After this last spectacular service, he would amend the amount, nearing one thousand dollars to one thousand three hundred. Roger, having recently married, could certainly use this sum.
Many would see this as exceedingly generous, but given that Ewing was one of the few private citizens to be reading the document early, Roger’s efforts were worth every penny. Fortunately, the young man’s handwriting was clear, for the Constitution, when printed, proved large. This was sent to every state assembly. Virginia used the term “House of Delegates” for the state Senate. But in the main the term “assembly” proved accurate for the proceedings therein.
Ewing had regular fine paper, the normal size, which allowed him to receive this by post, for which he paid thirty dollars. However, the package would arouse little suspicion, the suspicion being: How did this successful businessman receive what state governments had received or were still receiving if further south or north of Virginia?
Once again, Ewing read General Washington’s cover letter. “Sir, we have the honor to submit to the consideration of the United States in Congress assembled, that Constitution which has appeared to us the most advisable—”
The appeal continued, as Washington knew full well that this document would create the largest exercise in public debate imaginable. The Constitution had to be ratified by the states to be in force. Knowing the dramatically different economic interests of those former colonies, this would be as much a test of the new nation as had been the war to separate from England.
What pleased Ewing was the phrase in Washington’s appeal that this involved “prosperity, felicity, safety, perhaps our national existence. This important consideration…each state in the Convention to be less rigid on points of inferior magnitude….And thus the Constitution, which we now present, is the result of a spirit of amity, and of that mutual defense and concession which the peculiarity of our political situation rendered indispensable.”
Ewing read and reread Washington’s letter and the Constitution three times. He wanted to be certain he understood the contents. Pushing back in his chair, he inhaled the odor of the wood burning, again rubbed his eyes as the candles flickered. While the hour wasn’t late, he had been reading, reading for hours. This was far too vital to toss off.
Did he understand it? He thought he did. He feared Massachusetts and, oddly, South Carolina. Would those states, so very far apart in economy, be able to accept this? The representation issue, which
vexed everyone, was resolved thanks to the Connecticut Compromise, but there were other issues that were bound to be raised as the memory of an irresponsible and then seemingly vindictive king were stirred up. While the Constitution appeared to be neutral concerning economies, could the difficulties of a New England state enduring rocky soil, really relying on trade by sea, trust a state with soil perfect for rice?
It seemed to Ewing that the New England states, anticipating being overshadowed by the more robust agriculture of the southern states, would naturally be suspicious of the large southern landowners. A banking elite, a concentration of monies, loans, and foreign dealings with other banks loomed large in Ewing’s thoughts. If New England could concentrate income through its banks, that would more than offset the influence of the wealthy in the South.
As he was one of those wealthy ones, this deeply concerned him, yet he felt that Hamilton was right. The country needed an economic elite, it needed liquid assets, so to speak, it needed a government, strong and central, to prevent the weaker agricultural states from being held hostage by the richer northerners. But the reverse was just as unsettling. The country needed a securities exchange, which Massachusetts created in 1741, the Land Bank, only to see it destroyed by the British government.
So he put his glasses back on and read again.
Worn out, mind fatigued, he gave up by nine o’clock when Weymouth came in for the second time to refresh the fire.
“Weymouth, thank you. I’m going to retire for the evening.” Ewing stood up. “You retire, too. It’s been a long day and I hear there was another rumpus at the barn.”
Weymouth nodded, not wishing to get caught in the middle. If Ralston learned Weymouth, older and far more powerful than he, had criticized him, the younger man would find a sneaky way to get even.
“It’s cooled down even more. Would you like me to start a fire in your bedroom?”
“Ah, yes.” He smiled warmly at Weymouth, in his twenties, a good young man but not his father’s equal, which troubled both his father and Ewing.
Whiskers in the Dark Page 8
