A Simple Shaker Murder (20 page)

“What's that?”

“A message, Elder. From Andrew.”

“Well, why didn't he come in himself?”

“It wasn't him brought the message, it was another one of the brethren.”

Wilhelm's frown deepened. “Give it here. And clean up now—we're finished.”

Lydia slid over to Rose's side of the table, perhaps thinking it safer, and gathered up an armload of dishes. She hurried back into the kitchen.

Wilhelm read the note, then crumpled it and tossed it on his soiled plate.

“What is it, Wilhelm?”

“Nothing. No concern of thine.” He reached the dining room door and turned back to her. “I want to see those drawings
before
the service,” he said, and was gone.

Stifling her guilt, Rose reached across the table and grabbed the crumpled paper on Wilhelm's plate. Hearing Lydia push on the kitchen door, Rose stuffed the note inside her kerchief and hurried out of the dining room. The parlor was empty, so she closed the door behind her and smoothed the paper on the desk. It said:

Rose couldn't help grinning. It was clever of Andrew to slip off so quickly, giving Wilhelm no time to object. It was the sort of plan she would have followed, when she was trustee and more subject to Wilhelm's control. Even more clever was Andrew's pointed reference to the village's financial dilemma, caused by the New-Owenites—and, indirectly, by Wilhelm. No wonder Wilhelm had said it was not her business.

Placing the note back under her kerchief, Rose climbed the stairs to her retiring room to awaken Mairin, get her some breakfast, and deliver her to the Schoolhouse, where Charlotte was waiting to give her some extra Saturday lessons. Rose was eager to pursue her own investigation of the New-Owenites. She did not delude herself that Andrew's note would leave Wilhelm chastened enough to give up his dream. In fact, it was likely to have the opposite effect—Wilhelm might feel increasing pressure to bring the New-Owenites into the fold, so that they would be giving as well as taking.

Hoping not to frighten Mairin, Rose tiptoed through the door and eased it closed behind her. She turned around and saw immediately that Mairin was not in the room. Her small nightgown was once again thrown across her unmade bed, and
her clothes were gone. Her Shaker doll, somewhat crumpled from frequent hugging, lay on the pillow. Rose was getting used to Mairin's disappearances, so she calmed herself with the thought that the girl probably was preparing for the day, as she had done before.

Rose went down the hall to the bathroom and called Mairin's name. There was no answer. She phoned downstairs and checked in the kitchen. Nay, Mairin had not been there. Now Rose was ready to panic. Wilhelm had left the dining room in a hurry. What if he had somehow spirited away the sleeping child, while Rose was shut in the parlor? Surely he wouldn't do such a thing. But he might have asked Sister Elsa Pike to do it. Elsa was the one sister who blindly followed Wilhelm and paid little attention to Rose, her eldress.

A call to the Center Family Dwelling House, where Elsa lived, went unanswered, so Rose called the Laundry. Gretchen answered and assured Rose that Elsa had been ironing since breakfast and had not been gone for even a moment.

Rose hung up the wall phone and caught her breath. Mairin had left her doll as she did when she went to school. All right, Rose decided, she'd check one more place. And then she'd panic. There was no point in calling the Schoolhouse. The phone was tucked away in the hallway, and Charlotte often didn't hear it.

The Schoolhouse was quiet as Rose entered the front door. She peeked into the classroom and saw Charlotte's thin white cap and Mairin's light brown fuzz bent close to each other over an open book.

“Mairin!”

The girl's serious look brightened at the sound of Rose's voice. But Rose's relief had unaccountably turned to anger.

“Mairin, you mustn't
ever
leave without telling me.” Rose's voice was harsher than she'd intended—harsher than she'd ever used except with Wilhelm, when it was hard to get his attention. She knew instantly she'd made a mistake. Mairin's happiness at seeing her evaporated. The girl's skin was just
dark enough to hide a flush, but Rose saw misery dull her eyes as her face became a blank mask.

Rose knelt beside Mairin's chair. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have spoken to you that way. I was afraid something bad had happened to you, and that made me sound angry. Can you understand that? Please forgive me.”

“You were afraid for me?”

“Yea, child, very afraid. I don't want any harm to come to you; that's why I need to know where you are when you aren't with me or Agatha. Okay?”

Mairin's expression cleared.

“I'll tell you what. Promise me that you'll always let me or Josie take you to school. Will you do that?”

“I promise.”

“Good. And if you have to visit the bathroom during the night and don't want to wake me, just write me a quick note, okay? Then I won't worry.”

To Rose's alarm, Mairin hung her head. Charlotte placed a hand on Mairin's shoulder. “It's all right, dear. No one blames you. Rose, Mairin was never taught to read and write. I only just realized it yesterday, and that's why we've decided to spend extra hours on lessons. Mairin is quite eager, but she was embarrassed to have you know.”

Rose lost her temper more easily than she wept, so it surprised both Charlotte and herself when the tears appeared and spilled over her eyelids. “Of course,” she said, “take as much time as you need. I'll help, too, when I can, and as you learn, I'm sure Agatha would love to be read to.”

“Mairin, would you go to the storeroom and get more paper for me?” Charlotte asked.

“Sorry,” Rose said, once Mairin was gone. She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket. “I don't usually blubber like that. If anything, I'm furious. Gilbert Griffiths is always spouting off about the value of education—why on earth didn't he insist Mairin get reading lessons? I'm quite sure she has the ability.”

“Oh, she has the ability,” Charlotte said. “She learned her
alphabet in one morning. And don't ask me to explain those people. It seems to me they've treated Mairin like some sort of freak show they captured in the wilds. They just want to show her off, but they don't seem to have taken her seriously as a human being. I hope you're planning to put a stop to it.”

“Oh, I am,” Rose said. “I most certainly am.”

Rose squatted in the small Ministry House garden, pulling out dead roots and breaking up the soil. It was a task that didn't truly need to be done, but Rose couldn't just wait and do nothing. She was watching for an opportunity to search the South Family Dwelling House. While waiting for Andrew's report, she intended to find out everything she could about the New-Owenites and their reasons for being in North Homage.

Gertrude had said none of the New-Owenites had shown up for breakfast. She'd called all the workshops, and none of them had reported visitors yet that morning. So the visitors must have slept in; perhaps they were even now deepening the mess in the South Family kitchen.

She counted the New-Owenites one by one as they strolled from the building. Gilbert first, then Earl, followed by Celia and the others. They went in different directions, as if they had assignments. Rose waited until the last one was out of sight before she slipped around to the back of the dwelling house. She entered by way of the cellar door Mairin had shown her. She moved quickly through the storage rooms and even faster through the frightful kitchen and up the stairs to the main floor hallway. There she paused for a few moments, listening. Aside from the tick-tock of the large clock in the hallway, she heard nothing to indicate human presence.

She took the women's staircase out of habit, though she guessed she was as likely to run into a man as a woman on these stairs. She must be getting used to the filth. Mother Ann had told them always to “keep a clean habitation,” and Rose had taken the advice to heart, but she was able to stay calm as she noticed the dust gathering in the corners of the stairs. There was more important work to be done. Once this was
over, the sisters could give the dwelling house a thorough cleaning, and she would talk with Wilhelm about a sweeping ritual, too, to restore purity.

Most of the first-floor retiring room doors were ajar, which made Rose's task easier. She peeked in the room she had already visited. It was little changed, except that the chairs were empty. The room looked as if it had already been torn apart in a search, so Rose set to work without taking much care to replace items as she'd found them. If anything, she had to stop herself from neatening up as she moved among the drawers and cabinets.

Against the wall, Celia had a large cherry wardrobe, which she must have bought in town. Certainly Shaker sisters never needed such monstrosities; each hung her Sabbathday dress and two work dresses on peg hangers. She opened the wardrobe and caught her breath. It looked like a treasure chest, crammed with bright colors and silky fabrics. Only a few dresses actually hung on hangers; most items clung to the end of a hanger or were piled on the wardrobe floor.

Rose ran her hands through the pile and recognized the feel of fine silk and satin. She picked an item off the top and held it up. It was a ruby red satin negligee, low-cut and form-fitted, with matching red lace barely disguising the décolletage. Rose dropped it on the floor. She looked through the rest of the items of clothing and found elegant sheath evening gowns; casual, but still expensive, silk dresses; and more negligees. She had seen Celia wear none of this clothing. Did she go out at night? The New-Owenites had their own automobile, a white Buick.

The room held two narrow Shaker beds. Under the wrinkled and soiled clothing piled on it, one of the beds was still made—clearly by a Shaker. So Celia was not entertaining at night. However, the single bed also indicated that Celia and Hugh had not shared a bedroom. According to Wilhelm, who believed deeply in the sinfulness of any and all carnal pleasure, the New-Owenites had promised to separate their men from their women, but Rose never believed they would actually do
so. For whom had Celia been wearing those negligees? Earl had told Gretchen that Celia was in love with Gilbert; perhaps she'd find further evidence in Gilbert's room.

In Celia's dresser drawers, Rose riffled through delicate underthings, silk stockings, belts, and embroidered handkerchiefs. One entire drawer held jewelry, which had become entangled into a wad of chains and pins. The Shakers took better care of their most worn baskets than Celia did of all these riches.

Closing the last drawer, Rose looked around. Open jars of cold cream, several perfumes, a mirror, and at least a dozen make-up containers littered a table near the full-length mirror. A couple of fashion magazines lay splayed across Celia's unmade bed; otherwise, there was no evidence that she ever read or wrote anything. Next to her bed was a new-looking radio.

If Celia was a prisoner, she was a pampered one. No one had mentioned that she had money of her own, so she must have freely spent Hugh's, perhaps adding to the pressure Of the gambling debts. Rose wondered what Gilbert thought of these expenditures, since he must have wanted Hugh's money all for his own vision. So far, Celia seemed the preferable victim, not Hugh—unless Hugh had threatened to cut off Celia's resources. If Celia had been involved in her husband's death, she would have needed an accomplice, someone strong—like the faithful Earl or the besotted Matthew.
Though I suppose
, Rose thought,
she could have driven Hugh to take his own life
.

Time was passing, and Rose hurried through the rest of the rooms on the women's side of the dwelling house. Two more rooms contained women's clothing. Both rooms were neater than Celia's, but far short of Shaker standards. One of the rooms held a new maple double bed. So one of the couples had decided to stay together. To her surprise, though, the drawers contained no men's clothing. Perhaps they were preserving an appearance of propriety, though Rose couldn't see why. Or perhaps one of the women was expecting her husband to arrive soon.

Rose crossed over to the men's retiring rooms. Her heartbeat picked up speed, but not because she shouldn't be there. Every morning, while the brethren were out doing chores, the sisters went to their rooms to air out the beds and do mending. Rose was used to being in the brethren's empty rooms. But now she wished she had started with these rooms first. At any moment, one of the New-Owenites might decide to come back, and there was far more to look at here than on the women's side.

The first room was the opposite of Celia's messy one. Rose recognized Gilbert's walking stick standing in a corner. A map of Kentucky was tacked to the wall above a bookcase filled with scholarly tomes, including several geology and zoology books. The bed was made, if not with precision, at least with neatness.

A leather chair sat in front of a Shaker pine desk. Except for the chair, all the furniture in the room looked like refurbished Shaker items. Gilbert had even hung his work suits on peg hangers, as the Shakers did. His built-in drawers held neatly folded shirts, socks, and underclothes. Rose opened the desk drawer and found a stack of blank paper and several pens. If Gilbert had written anything, he kept it somewhere else.

From time to time, Rose had needed to keep an item concealed, and she had always used her built-in wall cupboard. She scanned the room. Every retiring room had a cupboard—except, apparently, this one. Unless the bookcase was in front of it. Gilbert kept his room so neat, using every amenity almost as the brethren would. It seemed out of character for him to ignore something so useful as a built-in cupboard. The heavy bookcase was already about an inch away from the wall, so Rose edged it out a bit more. The cupboard was there, but Gilbert hadn't ignored it. He had fitted it with a lock, drilled right into the wood, and sealed it tight with a padlock.