Death of a Winter Shaker

by Deborah Woodworth

  “Couldn’t live without the ladies, you mean?”

  Wilhelm’s lip curled with disgust. “He was a fornicator, a damned fornicator.” He closed his eyes and filled his lungs with air.

  “He had no real call to be one of us,” he continued, more quietly. “A Believer must be willing to work hard, and Johann—nay, he could not be bothered to work. It might interfere with his . . . other activities.”

  Frowning, Brock kicked at a clod of dirt.

  “Is it thy belief,” Wilhelm asked, “that I would kill a man, break my own sacred vows, just because Johann would have made a bad Believer?”

  The dirt broke apart against his toe, and Brock squinted up at Wilhelm.

  “I don’t know much about your ways,” he said slowly. “Tell me, what do you all do when a Shaker dies?”

  Wilhelm’s forehead furrowed in puzzlement, and Rose held her breath.

  “When a Believer dies, we bury him, Sheriff,” Wilhelm said. “What do thy people do?”

  A broad smile spread across Brock’s face. “Same thing, Mr. Lundel, same thing. But, well, we’d have a little ceremony. You know, a service. Maybe we’d say some special prayers. Over to St. Mary’s, they might sprinkle a little Holy Water, something like that.”

  “Ah. We have a simple service, of course.”

  Brock opened his mouth again, but Wilhelm continued, “And the answer to thy next question is ‘nay,’ we do not cover the body with herbs. We do not use flowers or herbs for ornament, only for practical purposes, for food or medicine. Johann no longer had need of either.”

  “Now some religions,” Brock continued, “they do even more if the circumstances are what you might call unusual. Some folks even have a ceremony they do for getting rid of evil spirits and such like. Ever heard of such a thing, Mr. Lundel?”

  “I believe it is called an exorcism,” Wilhelm said. “But I do not think that it is performed at a funeral.”

  Rose had to force herself to breathe. There was so much in Shaker history that could seem sinister to someone from the world. How truly ignorant was Brock about their past? Was he using his knowledge to trap Wilhelm—any of them, for that matter—by twisting their words and their beliefs? One hundred years earlier, in the 1830s, it was common for Believers to have visions and messages from the dead. It was common in the outside world, too, but no one would remember that. The Shakers have strange ceremonies surrounding the dead, that’s all anyone would remember.

  “Ever done an exorcism yourself, Mr. Lundel?”

  “Nay, Sheriff, never. We do not conduct such ceremonies. I have books that would help thee to understand us better. But I can assure thee that Johann Fredericks was not subjected to any type of ritual by me or any other Believer.”

  Brock nodded slowly.

  “And now, Sheriff, if our interview is finished, I have work to do, and I am losing precious daylight.”

  “Just one more thing, Mr. Lundel, and then we’re done for now. Were y’all planning to open up your Sunday meeting to the public, like you been doing?”

  “Yea, as always,” Wilhelm said with a tight-lipped smile. “Is it thy wish to join us?”

  The sheriff did not smile in return. If anything, he looked more serious than he had throughout the entire interview.

  “I’m hopin’ you’ll change your mind,” he said. “None of my business, maybe, but—”

  “Correct, Sheriff Brock, it is not thy concern.”

  “What I’m sayin’ is, it’d be better for everyone if you’d keep to yourselves tomorrow. From what I hear, them services of yours is gettin’ to be real popular entertainment, and right now y’all ain’t so popular yourselves. If something was to happen tomorrow, there ain’t much I could do about it. All I got is Grady here and one other officer, and we’re mostly tied up with something else. We can’t help you keep everything peaceful. Not right now.”

  “We do not need thy help.”

  The sharpness in Wilhelm’s tone surprised Rose. He had seemed to be in calm control when the sheriff hinted at mysterious Shaker rituals for the dead, but now he reacted with quick anger to a simple request to close the worship service to the public. There was certainly a precedent for closing the service, as Rose well knew. During dangerous, unsettled times in the past, the Society had closed its Meetinghouse doors and worshiped away from the hostile eyes of the world’s people. Often, they canceled Sunday services altogether if the harvest was at a critical point, as Wilhelm claimed it was. So why, Rose wondered, is Wilhelm so determined to hold a public worship service, now of all times?

  TWELVE

  “MOLLY IS DOING HER ROTATION ON LAUNDRY, SHERIFF. She’ll be upstairs.” Rose had to raise her voice to be heard over the pounding of the agitators in the huge washing machines lining the wall of the dimly lit ground-floor laundry room. Two sisters piled clean, wet clothing into a large basket set on a wooden platform attached to a hoist. When the basket was full, the sisters pulled it upward through a hole in the ceiling. Grady and Brock watched, mesmerized, as the basket traveled to the floor above. The sisters flashed amused smiles at Rose and curious glances at the men without slowing the pace of their work.

  “Pretty fancy,” Brock said. “I thought you folks were supposed to be such hard workers. What’s wrong with carrying your clothes upstairs the normal way?”

  “Our faith requires that we work hard,” Rose responded, “not that we break our backs. We’ve always invented labor-saving devices to make our work quicker and better. It leaves more time for worship.”

  “Yeah?”

  They reached the plain, wooden staircase in the center of the room. Rose climbed a few steps before pausing to point to the row of washing machines.

  “Those agitators, for example,” she said. “They make laundering far more efficient. A Believer invented that.”

  “I never heard that,” Brock said, his eyebrows shooting upward. “Y’all take out a patent?”

  “Life is hard enough,” Rose said. “We prefer to share our discoveries with the world. We usually don’t bother with patents.”

  “So you can’t prove anything, can you?”

  Rose let the question hang. She decided not to push the matter further by listing Believers’ other inventions, such as the clothespin and the circular saw. It would only make him combative and probably tougher on Molly.

  Rose led the group upstairs to a large, bright room cluttered with clothes and ironing boards. Tall, narrow, oak panels with long handles lined one wall. Molly stood before one of the panels, both hands grasping the handle. With the easy strength of youth, she slid the panel straight out from the wall to reveal long rows of linen napkins and pillowcases draped smoothly over rods attached to the back of the panel. Rose was proud of this feature, an adaptation of the steam-drying laundry in the Canterbury, New Hampshire, Shaker community. The clothes dried quickly, needed little ironing, and the whole process was neatly out of sight. It pleased Rose’s sense of order and efficiency.

  For the moment, Molly fit the picture well. She gave no more than a quick, disinterested glance at the visitors, lingering a moment on Grady, then attended to her task with apparent concentration. She smoothed the hem of a napkin between her fingers, testing for dryness. Satisfied, she folded it with a swift movement and placed it in one of several baskets. But discontent clouded her lovely face. Her full lips, though still sensuous, were pulled into a frown. Her dark eyes locked on the laundered items as if she were alone with them. Only the studied grace of her movements hinted at her awareness that two men watched her.

  “Molly,” Rose began, “we must speak with you. Would you prefer to go outside?” She touched the girl’s arm gently.

  Molly’s dusky, unreadable eyes met Rose’s for an instant. She shrugged her slender shoulders and wordlessly led the group to the wall where the drying-rack panels ended, farther from the well-meaning but curious ears of the other two sisters. With the washing machines pounding downstairs and the hiss of steam piped to the drying racks
, there was little danger of being overheard.

  Though the sheriff and Grady had by now learned to keep their distance from Shaker women and girls, Rose stood protectively between them and Molly. She was surprised by her mothering instincts, usually elicited only by Gennie and which the gypsylike Molly was unlikely to appreciate.

  Molly leaned a shoulder against the wall and pushed her hip outward into an alluring curve.

  Brock paced back and forth before Rose and Molly, jangling some keys in his pockets. He stopped in front of Molly. She met his stare with defiance.

  “You might as well tell us everything, you know,” Brock said. “We got enough information to put two and two together and get plenty. You’re just a kid. Spill it all now, we’ll go easy on you.”

  Molly watched him in silence, but her lip trembled slightly. Rose knew she should want Molly to be truthful, but instead she found herself hoping the child would stay quiet.

  “Well?” Brock demanded.

  Molly shrugged. “Can’t help you if I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Brock’s eyes narrowed to a slit. He jangled his keys again in a rhythmic way.

  “We know you and Johann Fredericks was keeping company,” he said. “We know you had a falling-out, and next thing anybody knows, the man is dead.”

  Molly crossed her arms and hugged herself hard. “What of it?”

  “What went on between you two?”

  “Can’t recall.” Her eyes were wide and watchful under their dark lashes.

  “Not good enough. We know you two argued. What about?”

  “Nothin’. Weren’t no argument, anyways. We was just talkin’. I ain’t no Shaker yet, you know. Ain’t likely to be, neither.” She tossed her head, which would have been more effective had her long, black hair not been tightly contained in her white, gauze cap.

  “Girl, you was seen arguing with Johann,” Brock continued, his voice now clipped and firm.

  Molly raised her free shoulder in a sulky shrug. “Reckon he got a little fresh, and I had to put him in his place. Men do, ya know.”

  “You’re lyin’, girl,” Brock snapped. “You was seen in a big fight with the man, and clingin’ on him, too. Sounds more like you was throwin’ yourself at him.”

  “I was not!”

  “Well, I think you done just that,” Brock said, poking a finger at Molly’s face. “I think he was the one who put you in your place. And you didn’t like it none, did you?”

  “That’s a lie! You can’t say that to me. Rose, make him stop!”

  Rose closed her eyes briefly and made a prayerful request for patience. Brock had a certain cunning, but his bullying treatment of women and girls could only backfire in a Shaker community, where Believers consider women equal to men because they see God, thought bodiless in human terms, as possessing both male and female attributes. Rose supposed she could try to explain this to the sheriff, but he would never understand, and surely he could not change. Rose wished for privacy and the leisure to lead Molly gently out of her lie and into the truth, but now she had to do something fast. Brock would soon have Molly incriminating herself. She turned to Brock.

  “Sheriff, Molly has been working since sunup, she’s tired. I can’t allow her to be questioned further now.” Rose forced herself to soften her voice. “Besides, we’ll all work better on a full stomach. We eat on a regular schedule here, and it is time for our noon meal. Would you and Deputy O’Neal join us? We always have food enough for guests. Our only request is that you will sit with the brethren and remain silent during the meal.” She smiled and waved her arm toward the stairs. “I believe I smelled apple pie from the dining room.”

  Brock glared at Molly for a few seconds, then said gruffly, “Guess we could all do with a bite. But don’t you wander off, girl,” he said, pointing a warning finger at Molly. “I got a lot to ask you.”

  Gennie carried a tureen of steaming potato soup to the brethren’s side of the dining room and saw Grady O’Neal sitting at the end of one bench, next to Sheriff Brock. Grady saw her come toward him, started to rise as though to help her, then sat down again at a word from one of the brethren. Gennie understood. If he had taken the tureen from her hands, he might have brushed against her accidentally. But he did smile at her, just a little. Gennie met his eyes without daring to smile back.

  On her return to the kitchen, Gennie glanced over at the sisters’ table and noticed Rose and Molly sitting together. They sat in silence, as did all the sisters. Rose’s thin, pale face was composed, Gennie guessed, in prayer. She seemed unaware of Molly’s constant movement and restless eyes, which sought out the two policemen across the room. Had Molly told them of her rendezvous with Johann, and did they now suspect her of murder? Why else would Rose sit protectively next to her, still deep in prayer while the soup in front of her grew cold?

  In the kitchen, the warm air, yeasty and sweet with fresh bread and apple pie, could not dispel the continuing chill between its occupants.

  “Elsa, don’t cut the bread so thickly,” Charity snapped, as she scraped hunks of butter onto small dishes. For once she had remembered to wear an apron, and already it was streaked with potato soup.

  “Won’t need no bread if you waste the butter like that,” Elsa retorted, hacking at thick brown bread with more vigor than was usual for a nonviolent Shaker sister. Her strong arms embedded the knife in the wood cutting board with each whack. With a grin at Charity’s back, Elsa sliced a few extra-thick pieces. She scooped up the slices in her broad, stubby hands and plopped them in a precarious pile on a white serving plate.

  As she selected another loaf to slice, Elsa began to hum a tune with snatches of words that Gennie did not recognize. That in itself wasn’t surprising. Over the years, the Shakers had written thousands of songs, and Gennie certainly didn’t know all of them. But that Elsa, still a new sister, should know a song that Gennie had never heard, that was surprising.

  Gennie paused as she filled another tureen with soup from the large kettle on the stove. Her back was to Elsa, but she knew that voice. Elsa’s singing voice was strong and clear and betrayed none of the roughness of her speech. Gennie strained to hear the lyrics. Two lines appeared to be a refrain, repeated between verses. Mother Ann, Mother Lucy, you speak and I hear; Mother Ann, Mother Lucy, your message is clear. Not very inventive, Gennie thought as she turned to place her tureen on the table.

  Charity’s hand shook as she held her butter knife in midair. “What is that song? Where did you learn it?”

  Elsa grinned. “At a place thee’ll never go to.”

  “Where? Tell me this instant.”

  “Everyone will know soon enough,” Elsa said, barely above a whisper.

  Rose knew that she would have only a few minutes with Molly before the sheriff and Grady would expect to continue their questioning. The two men now stood with the brethren, ready to file out of the east doorway of the dining room.

  Grasping the girl firmly by the upper arm, Rose swept her out of the line of sisters exiting the west doorway. Surprised, Molly did not resist, but followed Rose through the kitchen door and over to the far corner behind a large arch kettle. The spicy, comfortable smell of mincemeat still clung to its cast-iron sides.

  “Molly, we must be quick,” Rose said in an urgent whisper. “You must tell me the nature of your relationship with Johann and why you were arguing with him. The sheriff was telling the truth. You were indeed seen arguing with him, and your denial only makes the sheriff suspicious of you. Do you understand?”

  Rose knew that if she did not protect Molly, no one else would. The girl was not a sister and, as she herself had said, not likely to become one. Many Believers saw her as hopeless, dishonest, and defiant. Everyone expected her to leave the community, and probably to take to the streets, as soon as she turned eighteen. It would be easier for all of them if a non-Believer were arrested for the killing, even one partly brought up by the Shakers. But Rose could not give up on her. She saw only a frightened se
venteen-year-old not bright enough to handle her beauty, not nearly as blasé as she pretended.

  Her eyes black with fear, Molly nodded and bit her lower lip. “OK,” she said. “I’ll tell you. But you’ll be mad.”

  “Just tell me.”

  Molly drew a tremulous breath. She fidgeted with her neckerchief. “Johann and me, we was . . . well, you know, lovers.” Molly tilted her chin defiantly. “I loved him, and he loved me, too, no matter what anyone told you. He loved me true.”

  Rose spent precious moments calming herself. “Are you telling me,” she said, “that you and Johann . . . that you fornicated?”

  “I reckon that’s what you call it. I call it love. You wouldn’t understand. You gonna kick me out?”

  A sense of failure weighed on Rose’s heart. She had thought so much about how to protect Gennie, her favorite, that she had let Molly slip through her fingers.

  “Nay, child, I will not ask you to leave. Not now, anyway. But your future depends on you,” Rose said.

  “Do you have to tell the sheriff what we done?”

  Rose was saved from answering immediately as Elsa clumped through the door and clattered her hefty tray on the large oak worktable, followed more quietly by Gennie. Elsa glared at them, distrust tightening her plain features, and swung out again.

  Gennie grinned at Molly, and Molly’s mouth curved slowly in return. The effect was lovely, turning her eyes a luminous blue-black. Rose was familiar with the cleansing of confession and thought perhaps it was the emotional release that allowed those dark features to soften. That, and friendship. Maybe she and Gennie together could help bring out the good in this sad, rebellious girl.

  But time was very short. “You still haven’t told me what you argued with Johann about,” she said.

  Hurt feelings pinched Molly’s face into a pout. “He said he didn’t want me no more. Said I was just a kid and he wanted someone more growed-up, a ‘challenge,’ he said.”