Dancing Dead

by Deborah Woodworth

  “Ida, you said you were expecting me. Was Mrs. Berg a problem for you?”

  Ida poured them both another cup of tea, adding sugar to the cups. “Yes, I’m afraid she was quite difficult. Impolite to the other guests, rude to visitors, always complaining about this or that—no one liked being around her. I’d spoken with her about her behavior on many occasions, but she couldn’t seem to learn. You know how difficult it is for me to send anyone away”—in fact, Rose knew Ida’s spine was pure iron clothed in antique lace—“but I was just about to tell Beatrice to find other accommodations when she announced she’d be moving to the Shaker Hostel. She made it sound as if she’d been invited, even urged to come, but I knew her too well to believe that. I considered calling you, but I thought perhaps she’d be happier with you.”

  Rose sipped her tea and said nothing. Ida was a wonderful woman and very determined to make a success of her boardinghouse. It was more likely that she hadn’t wanted the Shakers to send Beatrice back.

  “Can you tell me anything about Beatrice’s background? She told us only that she was widowed and had a small inheritance.”

  Ida took a bite of scone and chewed with deliberation. By the time she swallowed, she seemed to have come to a decision. She put down her plate and cup, folded her hands in her lap, and tilted her head at Rose. With her cap of hair, dyed black, and her tidy gray suit, she looked like a curious chickadee, peeking in the window during dancing worship.

  “I had my suspicions about Mrs. Beatrice Berg,” Ida said. “So I did a little investigating of my own.”

  A chickadee with the soul of a fox, Rose thought.

  “You might recall that I have an old friend in the newspaper business,” Ida said. Rose did recall. The man’s name was Mr. DeBow—Ida never referred to him by his first name. Rose remembered that he had asked Ida to marry him. Ida seemed quite happy as a spinster, running her own business. Somehow she’d managed to turn the man down, yet retain his everlasting friendship.

  “I asked him to find out anything he could about Beatrice.” Ida stood and brushed a wrinkle out of her skirt. “If you’ll excuse me a moment, I’ll show you what he found.”

  She returned in moments, carrying a sheaf of papers that looked like newspaper articles. Without comment, she handed them to Rose. As Rose read through the pile, Ida straightened the tea things, then sat again and waited in silence.

  All the articles but one came from a Lexington newspaper during a six-month period in the spring and summer of 1932. However, the top article was from a four-page weekly, published in a small town Rose had never heard of near Hazard, in southeastern Kentucky. Both the prose and the printing were amateurish. The author wrote with glowing hyperbole about a town father named Darryl Berg. Toward the end of the article, Beatrice’s name was mentioned as the “little wife.” Darryl had just given the town several thousand dollars, a huge amount in those early years following the stock market crash, to rebuild the town hall, which had been destroyed by fire. He’d also, on several occasions, given money to local businessmen to keep them from losing their businesses. There was to be an ice cream social in his honor, followed by a special town meeting at which folks would be invited to publicly declare their gratitude. Someone had suggested naming a street after him.

  Rose put the article aside and turned to the next. Dated a year later, it reported, in the more professional tones of a big-city paper, that Darryl Berg was dead, apparently poisoned. His wife, Beatrice, had been questioned but not arrested. She claimed she’d been sick, too, so somebody was trying to kill both of them. She had no idea who the culprit might be.

  All the remaining articles traced the evolution of the investigation into Mr. Berg’s death. At first, a local handyman was suspected after Beatrice reported that her husband had refused to give him money to pay his gambling debts. “Darryl would give the shirt off his back for a good cause,” said the grieving widow, “but he had his limits. Gambling is a sin, no doubt about it.” The reporter had cleaned up Mrs. Berg’s grammar, yet Rose recognized her distinctive tone.

  There followed several articles, each presenting a different suspect, all suggested, in one way or another, by Mrs. Beatrice Berg. The police did not seem to find this suspicious, stating only that a wife would know best whom her husband had riled. For Rose, however, the pattern fell into place.

  “So you think Beatrice Berg poisoned her husband?” Rose asked, raising her gaze to Ida.

  “Well, I have no proof, and I certainly wouldn’t accuse someone out of suspicion alone. But it does seem to be a reasonable conclusion. More tea?”

  “Nay, thank you.” Rose gathered up the articles. “May I keep these for a while? I’ll be glad to return them to you.”

  “You may keep them forever,” Ida said. “I am finished with Beatrice Berg.”

  “I’d better be on my way,” Rose said. She folded the pile of articles and stuffed them into her apron pocket, beside the small, napkin-wrapped slice of cake Mairin had insisted she take to Wilhelm.

  “Do drop in again, Rose, perhaps on a cheerier errand.”

  As Ida swung open the heavy front door, Rose thought to ask, “By any chance, did your newspaper friend know what poison killed Darryl Berg?”

  “Mr. DeBow heard from another Lexington reporter that the police never figured out what poison was used. The poor man showed symptoms of some kind of poisoning—you know, dreadful sickness and so forth.” Ida’s mouth puckered with distaste. “So they were convinced he had somehow eaten something he shouldn’t have. He had a great interest in gardening, Mr. DeBow said. He simply wouldn’t have eaten anything poisonous, not knowingly. Mr. DeBow and I strongly suspect Mrs. Berg of murdering her husband.”

  Rose was inclined to agree.

  “Wilhelm, you must eat.” Rose sat on a small stool Grady had provided for her, since the jail cell held only a hard, narrow bed.

  Wilhelm knelt on the stone floor, his head bowed, mumbling incessant prayer. He raised his head just long enough to shake it once before resuming. Uncertain what to do or say next, Rose offered a few prayers of her own, both for Wilhelm and for guidance.

  “Please, Wilhelm,” she said, after sending a special plea to Holy Mother Wisdom, “we must talk about this situation. You are in danger. I want to help, but I need to hear anything you know that might lead me in the right direction. I’m quite sure you are not responsible for these deaths. I mean to find out who is. We can set this right; I know we can.”

  Wilhelm squeezed his eyes shut and continued praying. Rose couldn’t watch anymore. She gazed around the cell and her spirit sank. Near the ceiling, weak light entered through one tiny north-facing window and painted stripes on the cement floor in front of Wilhelm. Mold grew in malignant clumps along the bottom edge of the wall. The chilled, fetid air sickened her. Shaker retiring rooms were always kept fresh and clean. She wasn’t used to such squalor. She wished she’d brought her cloak along to pull tightly around her; she could have left it with Wilhelm.

  “Wilhelm, I respect your desire to pray, but I believe the Holy Father would understand if you pause a few moments.”

  Wilhelm ignored her.

  “All right, then, I’ll tell you what I’ve learned so far, and what I need to know from you. If you feel guided to do so, please answer my questions. It will make my task easier and get you out of this terrible place that much sooner.” She listed every piece of information she had gathered, speaking slowly so Wilhelm might interrupt at any time. He did not comment.

  “And here’s what I need you to tell me,” Rose continued. “Did you ever speak with Mina Dunmore?”

  “Nay, I did not.”

  She hurried to her next question, hoping to keep him talking. “I myself saw you enter the Ministry House just after Mrs. Dunmore had gone in—on last Saturday afternoon. Are you saying that you two did not run into one another?”

  Wilhelm stopped praying. He stared at the floor in a silence so long that Rose wondered if he’d gone into a trance. Then he
raised his eyes to her face. They were bloodshot and underlined with puffy, bluish circles.

  “I saw her that day, but I did not wish to speak to her. Her demeanor struck me as unpleasant. My own daughter. I found an old chair, closed myself into my old retiring room, and wedged the chair against the door.” Wilhelm’s normally ruddy face, now pale from hunger, twisted in unmistakable pain. “She walked around the building calling out ‘Father, Father.’ I thought perhaps she knew about Mother Ann and was using the information to mock us, naming me father instead of elder or brother. I was enraged, wanted to order her out of the village. That is all. I never spoke with her, never saw her again.” His voice picked up power as his personality reasserted itself, at least for a moment. “I did not kill her, nor did I kill Brother Linus. These foolish police; they have no understanding. I would sooner cut off my own arms than kill another.”

  “I know,” Rose said. “We have had our differences, but be assured that I will never stop searching until I have discovered who did kill Linus and Mrs. Dunmore. Now, I beg of you, eat—and rest. You need your strength. I hope you won’t have to be here long, but—”

  “Nay, leave things as they are.”

  “What?”

  “I did not kill my daughter in the physical sense. But I killed her spiritually. I am responsible for the woman she became. I deserve to stay here, in this hell on earth, until the Holy Father, in His mercy, ends my misery.”

  Rose took the somewhat smashed bundle of birthday cake from her apron pocket and placed it on the bed behind Wilhelm. “Mairin insisted you have this,” she said. “She is concerned for you. We all are.”

  Wilhelm did not respond.

  Rose rubbed her forehead with her thumb and index finger. Wilhelm always seemed to trigger a headache—even now, when hardship had brought them closer than she’d ever believed they could be. She would continue, of course. There was no other choice. But Wilhelm would be little help, most likely would never thank her for her efforts. She called for Grady to let her out. She was not about to let Wilhelm hang to atone for his sins. He would just have to find another way.

  It was late afternoon when Rose left Wilhelm, and the Kentucky spring was at its glorious best. After being in Wilhelm’s dark, damp cell, she paused outside the courthouse to breathe in the balmy air. A sweet breeze brushed her face with warmth, and color surrounded her. She was tempted to walk to the town square, maybe sit on a bench under a magnolia tree, and think through everything she’d learned. Yea, that would surely clear her mind. She turned toward the square and nearly ran into two men of the world—businessmen, by the look of their pressed suits. They stared at her for several moments. She flinched with discomfort, aware of her long loose dress, tied to her waist with a white apron; the white lawn cap covering her hair; and the plain black shoes that gave comfort rather than glamour. One of the men slowly raised his dark blue trilby and nodded a silent greeting. The other did not.

  Once the men had passed by, Rose reconsidered her visit to the town square. Since Grady had taken over as sheriff, the townsfolk had shown less animosity toward the Shakers. Relations between North Homage and the world were friendlier than they’d been in years, and the Shaker businesses were thriving as best they could during such painful economic times. But when something went wrong at North Homage, the world was still quick to blame. Because the Shakers strove to establish a heaven on earth, outsiders expected them to be perfect in every way.

  Rose settled herself back in Gennie’s car and pulled her notes from her well-used apron pocket. She realized immediately that Beatrice Berg had lied to Andrew about her past—if Andrew was remembering correctly, and Rose trusted him to do so. Beatrice claimed to have lived her married life in a house near the center of Languor, yet it was clear from the newspaper articles about her husband that they had lived in a small town, probably near the hollow where she’d grown up. Clearly, Beatrice wanted to hide her past, but her lies were stupid. Did she assume the Shakers were so unworldly that they wouldn’t know how to check the veracity of her answers? Everything Rose had uncovered so far placed Mrs. Berg firmly on the suspect list. Her lies, the possibility she had murdered her husband, the apparent use of poison in two cases—all pointed to Beatrice Berg.

  Rose skimmed the rest of her notes, searching for another avenue of investigation. She paused at Horace von Oswald’s name. He’d given Birdhill, Ohio, as his most recent address, but he had responded to the first advertisement for the Shaker Hostel—the one that appeared only in Kentucky papers. Granted, he could have gotten the news through friends or relatives or any number of other sources. Yet he had phoned Andrew the very first day the advertisement appeared.

  Daisy Prescott—no one knew much at all about Daisy. She seemed to fade into the walls when anyone else was in the room. Rose closed her eyes and searched her mind for memories of Daisy. The images emerged in shades of gray and brown. No wonder she seemed invisible. Yet Rose recalled her stance as she walked into the dining room, how she slid onto her chair as if her body were made of silk. Her tall, slender figure and heart-shaped face promised great beauty, yet somehow the promise was never fulfilled. Why? Was she a woman who cared nothing for outer beauty and so ignored her own? Yet Gennie had mentioned that Daisy spent an entire evening reading women’s magazines. Did she wish for beauty and not realize that she already possessed it?

  Was Daisy Prescott playing a role? Why?

  Rose moved on to Mina Dunmore. Investigating the victim might shed some light on why she died. According to Andrew’s notes, Mrs. Dunmore had asked some questions about North Homage that made more sense in retrospect. She’d wanted to know who were elder and eldress, probably to make sure she’d found her father. Her question about how many buildings the village had might have been a crude attempt to assess how much money she thought she could extort from Wilhelm.

  Otherwise, they had no information about Mina Dunmore except a phone number. Rose had scribbled the number too quickly, and now she couldn’t make it out. A shadow blocked the light from entering the car’s small side window. The number looked like a Languor exchange, but she couldn’t be sure. She held the paper close to the window to catch what light she could, and the shadow moved. It was a person. Several people, in fact. A small crowd had gathered next to her car. It moved closer, and a dirt-streaked face appeared at the window. Two other faces materialized behind the first. All three were boys around fifteen or sixteen years old. What Rose could see of their clothing looked stained and tattered. Ordinarily, Rose would greet such an audience with kindness and generosity, but something told her to stay safe inside the car. She crammed her notes back in her pocket, rammed her foot on the starter button, and drove off before the crowd could move around in front of the car. She looked back and saw the boys standing in the street, watching her speed away.

  Sixteen

  BY THE TIME SHE HAD DRIVEN FROM LANGUOR BACK TO North Homage, Rose’s heart had settled back to a normal rhythm, and she was a bit ashamed of herself. The boys who’d frightened her probably meant no harm. It occurred to her that in Gennie’s roadster she might have seemed an unusually prosperous—and ostentatious—Shaker. Perhaps the boys had only wanted food or a little money to buy some bread. She could at least have given them the dollar she always carried with her in case of emergency. When everything was back to normal, she would take some food and clothing—in North Homage’s conservative black Plymouth—and seek out those boys.

  She had about half an hour before the bell for the evening meal, so she parked Gennie’s car next to the hostel and went directly to the Trustees’ Office. She plucked the page from her notes that listed all the hostel guests’ former telephone numbers. She began with Daisy Prescott. The operator put through her Indianapolis call, which was answered after two rings with the precise and unmistakable tones of a butler, probably hailing from Boston. Rose was taken aback and stumbled over her words. The butler waited politely until she managed to ask if Miss Daisy Prescott was at home.

 
“I’m afraid madam must have the wrong number,” he said. “This is the Carswell Houghton residence. Miss Prescott does not live here.”

  “Oh, I must have been misinformed,” Rose said. “Perhaps Miss Prescott has been a visitor at the Houghton home at some time? I was told I could reach her at this number.”

  “Ah. Madam is surely referring to Mr. Houghton’s secretary. She has worked here on occasion, but she does not make her home with the Houghton family. I believe she has several such appointments. She has not been here for several weeks.”

  “Do you know the names of any of her other employers?” Rose asked.

  “No, I’m sorry, madam, I do not. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  Rose almost said, “Nay,” but stopped herself just in time. “I’m sorry to have bothered you,” she said.

  “Not at all.”

  Rose jotted down the results of her call, then selected Mina Dunmore’s number to try next. The call went unanswered, and Rose made a note to try again later. She might have just enough time between dinner and the evening worship service.

  She skimmed her list again. Saul Halvardson she would leave to Andrew. Next came Horace von Oswald, who both repulsed and intrigued her. She connected with the operator and prepared to wait. Within seconds, the operator came back on the line.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, this number isn’t in use. Are you sure you got it right?” She repeated the number Rose had given her.

  “Perhaps I was given the wrong number,” Rose said. Interesting. Horace might have invented the number. Maybe he thought Birdhill, Ohio, was such a tiny dot on the map that no one would care to check it out. What he couldn’t know was that Rose had a friend in Birdhill, Terrence Smythe, rector of St. James Episcopal Church. Terrence had spent a summer in North Homage several years earlier, while Rose was serving as trustee. He thought he might be called to become a Shaker, but in the end he decided the life was too restrictive for him. He and Rose still corresponded, though. It was time for a chat.