A Simple Shaker Murder

by Deborah Woodworth

  A worse specter popped into her thoughts. What if, by some doubtful miracle, the New-Owenites decided to join with the Shakers? Even if they were only Winter Shakers—using the community’s food and shelter for a time, perhaps pretending to be serious novitiates, and leaving in the spring—then Mairin could come, too, but at what cost? Would the Society be taking in Hugh’s killer—or killers?

  Rose took a sheet of paper and a pen from her desk drawer, set the drawings aside, and settled down to organize her thoughts. She drew three columns, labeled “Murder,” “Suicide,” and “Oddities/Questions.” After half an hour of writing—small, so she could fit everything on one page—she relaxed in her chair and read her lists.

  Murder? Suicide?

  Celia felt imprisoned by Hugh.

  Hugh had gambling debts.

  Gilbert wanted Hugh’s money,

  Suicide note.

  could get through Celia?

  Chair.

  Gambling threatened the $ source.

  Earl disliked Hugh—why?

  Oddities/Questions

  Was Hugh gentle or cruel?

  Who took the chair from the orchard, and why?

  Why so much furniture? Just how many New-Owenites are there?

  What do they want from us?

  Is the note real?

  What is Celia’s relationship with Gilbert, Earl, Matthew, and Archibald?

  What did Mairin see in the orchard?

  What frightened Mairin outside the Schoolhouse?

  What does Gilbert keep locked up in his wall cupboard?

  Despite the lack of factual information, Rose felt more sure, seeing it all written down, that murder was a stronger possibility than suicide. Mairin’s shock proved nothing by itself; she might have been affected as badly by suicide as by murder. But something continued to frighten her, as if a threat still existed.

  The amount of furniture being readied disturbed her. She had understood from Wilhelm that Gilbert had left behind a handful of followers, far too few to need all that. It was possible that Wilhelm had given the initial instructions to begin the repairing, and he might not have checked recently to see how much was being done. It would be like him to lose interest in the details. If that was what had happened, then the New-Owenites were the ones stockpiling furniture.

  She folded the paper and staffed it in her apron pocket. When she heard from Andrew, perhaps she could straighten out some of her questions. In the meantime, the list would help to guide her efforts. She wanted a look at that so-called suicide note. Then it would be time for a heart-to-heart talk with Mairin, and she would need Agatha’s help.

  NINETEEN

  THERE WASN’T TIME FOR A VISIT TO LANGUOR BEFORE PICKING up Mairin from her extra lessons, so Rose asked Charlotte to deliver the girl to Agatha’s retiring room. Then she made a quick call to the Languor County Sheriff’s Office. Grady O’Neal had returned, and Sheriff Brock was out for the day. Perfect. Rose made an appointment to visit Grady in half an hour.

  Andrew usually watched over the Society’s black Chrysler, but since he was gone, Rose decided not to tell anyone where she was going—not yet. It was mid-afternoon, and the other Believers were busy at their rotations, so though she might be seen taking the car, especially by a New-Owenite wandering around, no one would know her destination.

  She hurried to the parking space beside the Trustees’ Office, slipped into the car with more haste than grace, and pressed the starter button. The brethren kept the Chrysler clean and well-maintained, and it was still fairly new, so she began her trip with no difficulties. However, as she pulled onto the unpaved road leading through the village center, she glanced out the driver’s window and saw one of the brethren standing outside the Carpenters’ Shop, watching her drive off. From the tall, thin stature, it had to be Matthew.

  Rose headed west from the village over the eight miles of hilly, bumpy road to the town of Languor, the county seat. When she’d served as trustee, she had traveled to town regularly to meet with customers and to order supplies. Since she had become eldress, the visits had become rare, though she had more freedom now to travel.

  She drove through the outskirts of Languor, where the poorest of the poor lived, and she was reminded that not all the world lived as pleasantly and productively as the Shakers. As this grinding Depression wore on, their neighbors suffered more each day.

  The autumn chill had driven the children inside, giving the area an abandoned look. Porches and steps sagged, windows were covered over with paper, and more than one roof had a hole or a patch. And these were the folks who had homes to sleep in. The Society’s carpenters shouldn’t be wasting their time helping the wealthy New-Owenites stockpile furniture. Right here was where Matthew and Archibald should be working. She was still dreaming about turning all the repaired Shaker furniture over to the Languor poor when she parked near the Sheriff’s office.

  “Rose, it’s good to see you again,” Grady said, with genuine pleasure, as he ushered her into his tiny office. “I just spoke with Gennie on the phone, and she sends her love. She’s staying on with my family, to help my mother while my father recovers.”

  “I only knew you were away on family business,” Rose said. “I had no idea your father was ill. I should have pressed harder for information. How is he?”

  “He’s better,” Grady said. “He had a heart attack. Gave us a bad scare, but it looks like he’s through the worst.”

  “We will pray for your father and your family,” Rose said.

  “Thanks.” Grady riffled through a stack of papers on his desk, and Rose sensed his discomfort.

  “I wouldn’t presume upon our friendship at a time like this if it were not a matter of extreme importance—perhaps of life and death.” She drew her list from her pocket and handed it to Grady. A crease between his eyebrows deepened as he read it twice.

  “I’d heard there’d been a suicide on your land, but nobody said anything about suspicion of murder,” he said.

  Rose sighed and closed Grady’s office door. “Sheriff Brock does not seem eager to pursue the matter,” she said.

  “Now, it seems to me, if there’d been any way to pin a murder on you folks, Harry’d be the first to pipe up. So to my way of thinking, that means there wasn’t even the slightest evidence pointing to murder. Why are you so concerned about this? Do you all want to be accused of murder?”

  “Nay, of course not, but . . .” She bobbed her head toward the list in Grady’s hand. “There’s a child at stake—a sad and hurt little girl named Mairin. I think she witnessed the incident, as you can see on my list of questions. Right now she can’t remember, but someday she might. What if it was a murder, and she was the only witness? How much will her life be worth? There are so many unanswered questions, so many contradictions. I know I don’t have anything solid yet, but something is very wrong, I know it.”

  He scanned her list again. “Is it really so odd that the chair got picked up later?”

  “Nay, it’s just what a Shaker would have done—but no one will admit to doing so. Given the slovenly habits of our guests, I doubt any of them would have picked it up, just to neaten the orchard. But someone must have carried or sent it to the Carpenters’ Shop for quick repair.”

  Grady tipped his chair back and stared at the yellowed ceiling. Rose noticed dark circles underneath his eyes and a couple days of beard growth. Dragging him into this right now, with his father ill, cost her a guilt pang, but there was no one else to whom she could turn.

  “Okay,” Grady said, “suppose we assume the possibility of murder. More’n likely it was one of your visitors killing another, for reasons of his own. Why not stay out of it? If any solid evidence comes to light, let us take care of it. Just ask them to leave. You’ve done it before. Sounds like they’d love to get the kid off their hands, so you could probably keep her.”

  “I don’t believe it’s that easy.” Rose explained the power the New-Owenites had over Wilhelm and her fears that Mairin had be
come a pawn. “Besides,” she added, “would you want a killer to go free, perhaps to kill again?”

  “Of course not, but . . .” Grady let the front of his chair drop forward with a clunk. “All right, what do you want me to do?”

  “You can show me the suicide note. Have you seen it?”

  Grady shook his head. “I just got back to work last night, and Harry didn’t fill me in much.” He heaved himself out of his chair, quite unlike the strong, eager young man Rose knew. “We’ll go take a look at the note,” he said, “but don’t you dare tell Harry or anyone who might tell Harry—promise?”

  “Promise.”

  Grady stuck his head out the door. “Ray, you busy? Yeah, it’s a slow day. You might as well run out to the Pike place and check on things. The Pike kid’s been complaining about that neighbor of his again. Something about broken fences. Thanks. I’ll watch things here.” He closed the door and waited a few moments. When he reopened it, the outer waiting area was empty.

  “Come on,” he said to Rose. He led her to a small room that reminded her of the furniture storage rooms back at the South Family Dwelling House, so crammed was it with everything from hunting rifles to clothing. He pulled a string attached to a single bulb, covered with grime, and gray light flickered over their heads.

  “This is our evidence room,” Grady said with a snort. “The Lexington police would call it a junk closet.” He routed around the dusty items until he came to a file cabinet splotched with rust. “We store paper evidence in here. The suicide note is probably just tossed in somewhere, since Harry didn’t think there was a crime involved.”

  He pulled out a stack of papers of all different shapes, sizes, and ages, and he handed half the pile to Rose. “I know what you’re thinking, Rose; you don’t need to say it. If you Shakers could just get hold of this mess, you’d clean it right up.”

  “Just give us a couple of hours,” Rose said.

  “Be careful what you offer,” Grady warned. “If I ever become sheriff, I might just take you up on it.”

  They both found relatively clear surfaces to work on and began their painstaking examination of each item. Since neither had seen the note, they were careful not to toss anything aside too quickly. The minutes crept by, interrupted only by an occasional sneeze from Grady or Rose.

  “Ray will be gone for a while, won’t he?” Rose asked.

  “Yeah, he’ll be lucky to get back by suppertime. That feud has survived generations; poor Ray won’t be able to make a difference, that’s why we usually don’t send anyone. At some point, he’ll just decide he’s had enough and probably go straight home for a couple shots of . . . whiskey.” His voice trailed off, and Rose looked over at him.

  “What is it?”

  “I’ll be damned,” Grady said. When he didn’t automatically apologize for his language, Rose’s curiosity doubled. She dropped the paper she was squinting at and went toward him.

  “Look at this,” he said, some of the old eagerness back in his voice.

  She read it aloud: “I’m ashamed and I can’t take it anymore. This is the only way.” She frowned at Grady. ‘This can’t be it, can it?”

  “Yep, sure can. See that little mark in the top right-hand corner? That’s Harry’s mark, and he wrote the date next to it.”

  Rose held the paper under the light. “It’s dated last Wednesday, the day after Hugh’s death. That’s when Gilbert said he’d found the note and delivered it to the Sheriff’s Office. But I don’t understand. This note is printed, and rather sloppily, too. Hugh was an educated man. Why would he have printed his own suicide note?”

  “I suppose he might have had unreadable handwriting,” Grady said.

  “I could certainly check on that,” Rose said, “but still, it’s written so messily. If he was being careful to make the note readable, wouldn’t he have been neater? This is very puzzling.”

  “No kidding.” Grady took the paper from Rose’s hand and studied it again. “If someone had delivered this note to me, I’d’ve been mighty suspicious. You said it was the leader who found it?”

  “Gilbert Griffiths, right. But retiring rooms are never locked. Anyone could have put the note in Hugh’s room.”

  “Still, you’d think he would know the deceased’s handwriting. I’d expect to see some notes attached to this, something written by Harry saying that the deceased usually printed, and Gilbert vouched for the authenticity, and so on. But there’s nothing. Harry just stuffed this in the drawer, and in the middle of the stack, too . . . almost like he didn’t want it to come to light easily.” Grady shook his head. “No, I just can’t believe it. Harry and I don’t see eye-to-eye most of the time, but he usually makes a stab at following procedure.”

  “Maybe he’s getting ready to retire,” Rose suggested, not without a hint of hopefulness.

  “Yeah, maybe. I don’t know, I’ll have to think about this for a while.”

  “Will you ask him why he handled this the way he did?”

  Grady folded the note and stashed it in his pocket. “I don’t know yet.”

  “I can at least try to find out something about Hugh’s handwriting, whether he ever printed,” Rose said.

  “That would help,” Grady said. “Keep me informed.”

  Rose stopped briefly in her retiring room to pick up the drawings before arriving at Agatha’s room. She felt a surge of warmth and hope as she entered to find Mairin standing at Agatha’s side, feeding her with care. Mairin responded inconsistently to affection; sometimes she emerged from behind her mask, and other times she withdrew further into her silent world. This was one of the good times.

  “Good evening, dear,” Agatha said. “Mairin has finished eating, and I’m almost done, but I asked Gertrude to bring you some soup, in case you returned hungry.”

  Mairin put down Agatha’s spoon and lifted a brimming white bowl from the desk. As she carried it to Rose, she bit her lower lip in concentration, trying not to spill a drop. Rose took it from her with a thank-you.

  Rose was very hungry indeed, and the creamy chowder was still warm enough to send its rich fragrance spiraling up as she stirred it. She ate faster than she’d intended and was finished almost the same time as Agatha.

  “Now,” said Agatha, easing back in her rocker, “tell us about your day, Rose. You’ve been running about at top speed, which usually means you’re trying to work out a puzzle.”

  Rose looked from Agatha to Mairin and hesitated. Mairin watched her with bright, coppery eyes, but how much could the girl really handle?

  “While you were gone,” Agatha said, “Mairin and I had a nice talk—didn’t we, child?—about lots of things, such as what she remembers about her younger years and about her bad dreams.”

  She’s telling me the time is right, Rose thought. It was like Agatha to have read her mind and paved the way. She pulled Mairin’s drawings from her pocket and unfolded them, watching the girl’s face. Mairin’s eyes widened but did not dim as she recognized her pictures. Rose took the checkerboard design and held it out to her.

  “What is this a picture of, Mairin, can you remember from your dream?” Rose avoided any direct reference to Hugh’s death for fear Mairin would withdraw again.

  Mairin took the drawing and stared at it, her full lips parted, showing badly stained teeth. Rose silently promised that as soon as she had the right, she would take Mairin on a visit to the dentist.

  “Take your time,” Rose said. “Close your eyes and let your mind wander.” She wrapped a soft blanket around Mairin’s shoulders and settled her into a corner of Agatha’s bed. Mairin curled into a ball and closed her eyes. Rose returned to her chair and waited.

  Minutes passed, and Rose began to wonder if Mairin had fallen asleep. Agatha seemed to be dozing off, as well. Rose’s knee began to ache, and she shifted her position. The room grew chilly. Rose was considering finding a blanket for herself when Mairin whimpered. Agatha jolted awake. She struggled out of her rocker, and Rose hurried to help her. Mairin cr
ied out and curled more tightly. With Rose’s support, Agatha sat on her bed and began stroking Mairin’s forehead with her steadier left hand. She crooned to the child, an old Shaker song, “Love, Oh Love Is Sweetly Flowing.” Mairin’s body relaxed. But instead of falling into a deep sleep, her eyes opened and focused on the rocking chair Agatha had vacated. Rose moved her own ladder-back chair so that Mairin could see it, too.

  Mairin sat up. Rose had lain the drawings and crayons on the bed, within reach. Mairin took the checkerboard drawing and a red crayon and began coloring every other square.

  “So it was a ladder-back chair,” Rose said.

  Mairin glanced at her with a puzzled expression.

  “Was this what you saw in your dream? Red-and-white checks?”

  Mairin nodded.

  Rose prepared to take it slowly. So far, she had only confirmation of her guess—that Mairin had been dreaming about Hugh’s death scene, where an old red-and-white Shaker chair had lain as if kicked aside. Rose needed more, much more. She touched Mairin’s shoulder.

  “I know your dreams have been very scary, and that you don’t want to have them anymore,” she said. “Agatha and I can help you be free of those dreams. Would you like us to try?”

  Mairin nodded.

  “I used to have bad dreams sometimes when I was your age,” Rose said, “and Agatha taught me how to make them go away. She used to hold my hand and let me tell her the entire dream. Whenever I got to a really frightening part, she told me to stop and remind myself that I was not alone and that Mother Ann was watching over me. And do you know what I found out? That even if the dreams didn’t stop right away, they got less and less scary the more I talked about them.”