A Circle of Dead Girls

by Eleanor Kuhns

  The heavier, taller man proved more of a struggle. Rees couldn’t carry this body by himself so Rouge had to help. But how to carry a heavy body and the lanterns as well? Finally, each man took one of the body’s arms in one hand and the lantern in the other. Step over step, they carefully began backing down the slope, the corpse’s booted feet dragging on the ground. Jerking him over the roots made for a stop-go, stop-go journey.

  This man was heavy! His linen shirt began to rip from the strain. Finally, Rees wound his arm around the body’s shoulder and began to drag him. After a few seconds Rouge copied Rees. Now they made some distance although they had to stop every few minutes to rest. Rees’s back began to ache.

  It seemed to take an hour or more to reach the wagon, but Rees thought it was probably half that. He was sweating hard; his shirt was soaked. They dropped the body by the wagon and leaned against it panting. Rouge looked at Rees and grinned. ‘We did it,’ he said. Rees nodded.

  ‘Still have to get him in the wagon.’

  ‘I’ll grab the feet,’ Rouge said.

  ‘A minute,’ Rees said, holding up a hand. He waited until his heartbeat slowed slightly. ‘Ready.’ Grasping the body by the shoulders, Rees jerked it up and into the wagon bed. Then he climbed into the wagon and when Rouge lifted the feet, Rees pulled the body inside to lie next to its companion.

  Rees made his way to the wagon seat. Every movement sent a twinge of pain through him. When he finally arrived home – and he did not want to think what Lydia might say – he would beg a draught of willow tea.

  Even with the lanterns throwing light on the road the going was slow. By the time they reached the town, all the roads were empty and many of the candles they’d seen from the road had been extinguished for the night. They drove past the fairgrounds. The fire had been banked and except for a few men passing a jug as they sat by it, the field was empty of people.

  The coroner’s house was dark but for one solitary candle burning in an upstairs window. Rouge pounded on the door until a young girl, her hair in its night-time braid and with a wrapper hastily thrown over her nightgown, opened the door. He explained why they were there. Inviting them into the front hall, the maid went upstairs. When she returned she told them the coroner would meet with them as soon as he exchanged his dressing gown for shirt and breeches and slippers for shoes. Then she retreated into the darkness.

  A few minutes later the coroner came down the stairs scowling. ‘What do you want?’ he asked. ‘Do you have any idea what time it is?’

  Rouge gestured to the wagon behind him. ‘We have two bodies. Murdered men.’

  ‘You’re sure they’re murder victims?’ the coroner asked in a surly tone.

  ‘There is no doubt,’ Rouge said sharply. ‘One was shot, the other strangled.’

  The coroner glanced behind him. Turning back with a sigh he said ungraciously, ‘Put them in the shed. I won’t have time to start them until tomorrow.’

  ‘I want P– the magistrate to look at them,’ Rees said.

  ‘Can’t this wait until tomorrow?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘If you think he can recognize them by candlelight,’ the coroner said, ‘and you can find him, bring him over.’

  ‘I think you should wait until tomorrow morning,’ Rouge advised Rees in a low voice.

  ‘No. What if he leaves town before then?’

  ‘But he might anyway if he knows we found these men,’ Rouge argued. Rees folded his arms and shook his head.

  Rouge exhaled an exasperated breath. ‘Stubbornness should be one of the seven deadly sins,’ he said. ‘But I’ll fetch him. If he sees you, he’s likely not to come. And I can’t say I’d blame him,’ he added.

  The coroner refused to help with the bodies but Rees and Rouge managed. Rees pulled his wagon up to the shed and he and the constable half-carried, half-dragged the bodies inside. Then Rees stepped outside to wait while Rouge took off at a run, quickly covering the short distance to his tavern.

  FORTY-ONE

  Magistrate Hanson looked as though he too had been pulled from his bed. Although he wore his fine, black jacket and carried his cane, his shirt hung untidily from the bottom and he’d dispensed with his cravat.

  When he saw the man waiting for him, he took an involuntary step backward. Rees saw the magistrate steel himself for what was to come. ‘What is this about?’ Hanson blustered.

  ‘Get a candle,’ Rouge said to the coroner.

  ‘We have the bodies of two men you might know,’ Rees said, throwing open the door to the shed.

  It was so dark inside it might have been a tunnel to the center of a mountain. Rees fetched one of the lanterns from his wagon and held it up. It illuminated only a small circle around them. He carried it to the table and held it so that the light shone upon the faces. In this yellow glow, the flesh appeared waxy pale. Hanson glanced at the bodies.

  ‘What am I looking at?’

  ‘Do you know them?’ Rees asked, expecting to see some involuntary flicker of guilt.

  ‘I’ve never seen them before,’ Hanson said, looking up to meet Rees’s gaze.

  ‘The light is poor,’ he said, watching a bright blaze approach. The coroner carried a candelabra with six candles, every one alight. When he entered the shed it suddenly seemed quite bright. ‘Look again, Piggy,’ Rees said.

  Hanson bent over the bodies and examined each pallid face with care. ‘No,’ he said finally. ‘I don’t know them. Who are they?’

  ‘These are the men you hired to kill me and who shot Boudreaux instead,’ Rees said.

  The magistrate looked blank. ‘I hired?’

  ‘We don’t know who hired them,’ Rouge said, putting a hand on Rees’s arm. ‘We aren’t even certain these are the men who killed that circus vagabond.’

  Rees wrenched his arm away. ‘I’m certain.’

  ‘Wait,’ Hanson said. ‘Boudreaux is dead? Who shot at you? And I didn’t hire anyone.’

  ‘Yes, you did,’ Rees said. ‘You’ve been threatening me and my family for a long time.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Boudreaux is dead?’ Piggy took a deep breath. ‘I thought Boudreaux was the murderer of all those girls.’

  ‘You don’t understand?’ Rees laughed bitterly. ‘I can’t believe you are still protesting your innocence.’ He moved forward.

  Hanson held up his hands. ‘I am no threat to you or your family,’ he said. ‘I offered to work with you to identify the murderer.’

  ‘You and Farley drove me and my family out of Dugard,’ Rees shouted, crowding the smaller man with his bulk. ‘I should punch you right now.’

  ‘I could have you taken into custody for threatening me,’ Hanson shouted in return, shaking his cane in Rees’s face.

  ‘Farley threatened to hang my wife.’ The remembered fear swept over Rees. Reaching out, he grasped the other man by his silk lapels. ‘He came to my house with a rope.’

  This time Rouge grabbed him from behind and held tight, pulling him backward. Rees released Piggy’s jacket.

  Hanson stared at Rees and then, very slowly, he lowered his cane. ‘He did?’

  ‘Don’t pretend you didn’t know,’ Rees said.

  ‘I didn’t know.’ He paused for a beat before speaking again. ‘When I returned home from circuit Farley told me the murderer had been discovered. You and your family were gone. Farley, well, he and I parted ways and I put Caldwell back into the position of constable.’ He looked directly into Rees’s eyes. ‘I told you that. When I saw you in Grand Forks I knew you could help me. You have certain skills—’

  He broke off as Rees broke free of Rouge’s grip and surged forward. But although Rees did not want to believe the magistrate, Hanson’s story was plausible. And he certainly had made several attempts to make peace with Rees.

  But Rees wasn’t ready. Turning around, he stamped angrily from the shed and climbed into his wagon. By the time Rouge and Piggy Hanson followed, he had already driven several paces down the road.

&nb
sp; ‘Wait,’ Rouge called after him. But Rees did not slow down.

  It was very late when he reached the farm. The moon had risen. In the silvery illumination from the moon and the fitful glow from the lanterns on the wagon Rees was able to see well enough to unhitch Hannibal and release him into the field. He left the wagon by the barn; it was too dark to see inside and the candles had burned low and were beginning to gutter out. He extinguished the last struggling flame and started for his house.

  He thought everyone was asleep. But, although he saw no movement through the window, several candles burned inside. Cautiously he went up the steps and through the door. Lydia was sitting at the table knitting. She looked up and her mouth thinned into a straight line. But she said nothing. Instead she rose to her feet and went to the fireplace where the coffee pot rested by the embers. She poured a cup, brought the sugar cone and the tongs to the table and followed them up with a pitcher of milk. Still she said nothing.

  ‘Aren’t you going to ask me where I was?’ Rees asked. ‘And why I returned so late?’

  Lydia glanced at him and quickly looked away. ‘I assumed you were at the circus,’ she said in a brittle voice.

  A wave of heat crept up Rees’s neck. ‘I wasn’t,’ he said. He was speaking the truth so why did he sound as though he were lying? He hurried on. ‘Rouge came by after supper. I suppose I should have told you where I was going.’

  She nodded. Rees attempted to pull her into his arms but a wooden board would have been more responsive. After a few seconds he released her and stepped backwards.

  ‘A farmer out hunting found the bodies of those two men who shot Boudreaux,’ he said. ‘Hidden in the woods. Rouge came and fetched me so I could identify them.’

  He could see Lydia struggling to appear disinterested. But she couldn’t resist. Turning to look at him – finally – she said, ‘Did you recognize them?’

  ‘I did. They were the ones I saw at the circus camp.’

  Lydia ruminated for a few seconds. ‘Where were the bodies?’

  ‘West of town, where the forest gets thick. One was shot, one was strangled.’

  ‘Bare hands?’

  ‘Yes. Probably by the same man who murdered Leah.’ Rees sat down and picked up his cup. When Lydia joined him at the table, he expelled a long slow breath and some of the tension drained from his shoulders. He was not foolish enough to believe the conflict between him and his wife was settled but at least for the moment they could be friends. Rees shook his head. ‘Not sure how their employer managed to kill both, virtually at once.’

  ‘You’re assuming the man who hired them committed the murder?’ Lydia asked.

  ‘I think so, yes. He’s tying up loose ends.’

  ‘There were two people, of course,’ Lydia said.

  Rees shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. If the murderer is eliminating anyone who could identify him a second person would just be one more risk.’

  Lydia frowned. ‘But there were two of them. How would one person subdue both?’

  ‘He shot one,’ he said laconically. It didn’t feel right that Lydia should echo Rouge’s argument. Lydia bit her lip and Rees knew he had not persuaded her.

  ‘So, whom do you believe is the murderer?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Right now I’m leaning toward Piggy Hanson.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Lydia said. Rees could hear the skepticism in her voice. ‘I really can’t see Piggy wandering around the forest. For one thing, he’s far too plump. And for another, he is too fastidious, too careful of his fine clothing to want to muss it.’

  Rees involuntarily nodded. That was true. ‘Unless he and Aaron are working together,’ Rees suggested, forcing a chuckle.

  Lydia did not laugh. She looked at him with her eyebrows raised. ‘Really, Will,’ she said disapprovingly. ‘This is not a time for jokes. I think,’ and she paused.

  ‘Are you going to tell me I should talk to the magistrate again?’ he asked stiffly.

  ‘No.’ She eyed him for a second. ‘I think you should but I already know you aren’t listening.’ As she turned away she said, ‘I am retiring now. It is very late.’

  Rees stood in the kitchen and watched her until she disappeared. He did not follow her up the stairs but instead turned and settled himself at the table. Although he was very tired, his thoughts raced through his mind in a never-ending loop. ‘She’s blaming me for something I didn’t do,’ he said aloud. But he knew, although he didn’t want to admit it, that his strong attraction to Miss Lucia Mazza, circus performer, justified Lydia’s anger and uncertainty.

  He passed a hand over his damp forehead. He couldn’t stop thinking about Lydia. How had they gotten to such a place? And he needed to concentrate on other problems; now there were four murders to solve. Rees moved his hand suddenly, closing his fingers into a fist, and the movement sent his coffee splashing everywhere. Cursing under his breath, he brought a rag from the sink and wiped up the puddles.

  It was time for bed. He washed quickly in the sink and went up the stairs. The bedchamber was in darkness but he still had the clear sense Lydia was not asleep. He undressed hurriedly and climbed in beside her. She kept her back to him and after a few moments he folded his hands on his chest and closed his eyes.

  But he did not fall asleep for a long time and when he finally drifted off he slept poorly. He did not truly slumber until close to dawn, finally falling asleep to the sound of rain dripping from the eaves. When he awoke a few hours later Lydia and Sharon were already gone and he heard voices from the kitchen. Sluggish with fatigue, he arose and followed them downstairs.

  Joseph and Sharon were playing on the floor while Lydia washed dishes. It looked from the pan as though they’d eaten cornmeal porridge. But Lydia had coffee ready. She pushed it over the fire. ‘I have bacon,’ she said. ‘And fresh cornbread.’ She forced a smile. ‘I rose very early today.’

  Rees nodded. He felt awkward and wasn’t quite sure what to say.

  ‘David?’

  ‘Already out doing chores.’ She paused and then, keeping her eyes on the dishpan, she asked, ‘What do you plan to do today?’

  Rees saw that she felt as uncomfortable as he did. ‘I have to go into town, inspect the bodies once again.’ He looked through the window. He could see the raindrops bouncing in the mud puddles in the yard. He thought it was raining even harder now than it had been when he’d gotten up. But a brightening in the west hinted at clearing skies. ‘It was too dark to see much last night.’

  Lydia followed his gaze. ‘This might be a good day to finish questioning the Reynard boy. You’ve been talking about it.’

  ‘Or I can finish winding the warp and begin tying it on the loom.’ The crackling sound and smoky aroma of frying bacon filled the kitchen. The water rushed into his mouth. He suddenly felt almost faint with hunger. ‘But first, breakfast.’

  Lydia put a plate full of bacon in front of Rees. Fresh cornbread came out of the oven. She cut it and put several hot pieces on his plate. He smeared them with butter and doused them liberally in the honey. As he was taking his first bite, David came inside with a clanking of the milk pail. He’d discarded his mucky boots on the porch and crossed the kitchen in his stockinged feet.

  ‘Breakfast is ready,’ Lydia said, taking the pail from her stepson. David sat down by his father.

  After several strips of bacon, with Joseph standing beside his chair and hungrily watching every piece that went into his father’s mouth, and two big pieces of cornbread dripping with honey, Rees felt ready to tackle the day. He broke the last fragment of bread in two and divided the honey-soaked pieces between Joseph and Sharon. ‘Oh Will,’ Lydia said reproachfully, ‘now they’re all sticky.’

  ‘They’re hungry,’ he said, pushing back his chair.

  ‘They already ate breakfast,’ she said, moving toward the children with a wet rag in her hand.

  ‘What are you planning to do today?’ David asked his father.

  Feeling that David was hinting,
Rees said, ‘I thought I might help you.’

  ‘There’s nothing you can do,’ David said. ‘I’ve finished the chores.’

  Rees nodded, trying to hide his elation. ‘Then I’ll visit the coroner.’ Just as though he hadn’t been planning it. ‘And,’ he added with a glance at Lydia, ‘I’ll speak to the Reynard boy again.’

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ she said as she stripped off her apron. Rees looked at her. Although she was staring at him with her most determined and forthright expression, he saw that her hand was clenching and unclenching on her rag. He hesitated, a spark of irritation flashing through him. She didn’t trust him. Although he’d been planning to stop by the circus – the pull to see Bambola felt like a rope drawing him forward – he knew he could not with Lydia by his side. But he didn’t want to blatantly refuse her either. That would only add fuel to the fire.

  ‘It’s raining,’ he said, hoping to persuade her to change her mind.

  She glanced out the window. ‘It’s clearing up,’ she replied.

  ‘Rain is already stopping.’ David lent his voice to hers.

  ‘You should know I also plan to re-examine the forest where the bodies were found,’ Rees said. ‘It will be wet and muddy.’

  ‘I understand,’ Lydia said. ‘I’ll wear my boots.’

  ‘Don’t worry about the kids,’ David said. ‘I’ll be here.’ When Rees glanced at his son – why did David have to interfere? – he smiled innocently. But his eyes were alert and watchful.

  ‘Very well,’ Rees said, knowing he sounded ill-tempered. ‘Let’s go now.’

  FORTY-TWO

  Light rain continued to fall while Rees harnessed Hannibal to the wagon but as they drove toward town the sun appeared through the clouds. The Reynard boys were already outside in the fields, wet and muddy though they were. Rees stopped by the fence. The young men had already stripped the stubble from last year – the piles edged the plot in heaps of gold – and were now reseeding. Paul was working in the field where Leah’s body had been discovered. Mr Reynard could not afford to be anything but a pragmatist.