Shaker Town (Taryn's Camera Book 4) (13 page)

It smelled wonderful.

The wait staff all looked matronly with ample bosoms and waistlines, another good sign for the quality of food. Taryn didn't always trust food prepared by teenagers who would rather be anywhere else. Her waitress' name was Sandra, at least according to her name tag, and when she smiled she revealed a missing front tooth. She probably weighed over three-hundred pounds but could dance around the tables holding heavy trays of food as good as any ballerina.

After Taryn ordered a dinner of salmon patties, macaroni and tomato juice, mashed potatoes, and cornbread muffins she sat back and observed the room again. It was full to capacity, mostly older couples who chewed their food slowly and didn't look at each other. Above Taryn's head was a faded black and white photograph of an elderly woman with shockingly white hair, a floral-print dress, and thick glasses. She smiled a sweet smile and leaned up against a fence post, her hands crossed primly in front of her. It was the only photo of a person.

“That's Evelyn,” Sandra supplied when she returned with a plate of deviled eggs. “She's the owner's great grandmother.”

“Oh, that's nice,” Taryn smiled. “Was she known for her cooking?”

“She was known for everything,” Sandra laughed. “She cooked for the old one-room schoolhouse here in town for a long time. Then her husband opened a hardware store and she helped him run it. Had eleven kids, if you can imagine. They all lived in top of the store over there.” Sandra gestured out the window to a building across the street. It was now a dry cleaner's on one side and a flea market on the other.

The food was delicious and Taryn ate every bite. Then she ordered butterscotch pie and took it to go. She'd be hungry again later.

An elderly woman rang her up at the antiquated cash register and Taryn waited patiently as she hunted and pecked for all the numbers. “You from here?” she asked with a grunt.

“No, just here working,” Taryn supplied.

“You in some kind of medical supplies?”

Taryn was taken by surprise. Nobody'd ever asked her that before. “Um, no, I'm a painter. I'm working up at Shaker Village.”

“Oh, yeah,” the woman bobbed her head. With one last grunt she hit a button and the drawer sprung open. Taryn handed her the cash and she began the slow process of counting out the change. “Lots of people come here for that. My great-granny was a Shaker. That's her, there,” she gestured to the picture above Taryn's table.

“Evelyn?” Taryn asked.

“Yes, that's her. Joined up with her family when she was a little thing. Turned eighteen and went through the whole ordeal of becoming a real Shaker, cause they won't let you do that any sooner, and then took off about a year later. Don't know why but glad she did. I wouldn't be here if she'd stayed.”

“Where'd she go?” Taryn asked with interest.

“Here in town,” the woman shrugged. “Had some cousins here and stayed with them. Her little brother, my great uncle, came with her eventually. He went on to become a judge.”

“What year would that have been?”

“Oh, I guess around 1855. Bad days for folks here in Kentucky. Lots of people joining the Shakers then, lots of people leaving, all for the same reason.”

“The war,” Taryn murmured.

“Yep, that's right.”

The Shakers were pacifists so they received exemption from military duty. They'd even approached President Lincoln in the Civil War with a petition for exemption from the military draft. It had been granted.

Taryn thought she was finished talking but just as she started to thank her and say goodbye, the woman gave a watery cough and then started up again. “Yeah, that's my great-granny Evelyn. And my great uncle, Junior. Charles was his real name, of course. Rogers, they were. Last name Rogers. Reckon once they left they never saw their parents again. Strange thing about those folks.”

Taryn signaled her agreement. “Yeah, they had some interesting ways of doing things.

“Would've been a sight, though, to have seen them doing their singing and dancing. Folks from around here used to go and watch them for hours making fools of themselves. The women dancing around like they was little kids and the men jumping and yelling. They didn't have the movies and the video games back then, see,” she muttered in distaste. “You had to be entertained in other ways.”

Taryn suppressed the urge to giggle.

“Anyway, I hope you enjoy your stay. Come back and see us again.”

Taryn thanked her and walked back to her car, the heat still wafting up from the pavement even though the sun was set.

U
sing what she knew about the Shakers, Taryn sat down

at her desk and attempted to make a chart, using the people she knew about and what she'd already seen. So far, she knew an elder had been murdered.

Although there were elders and eldresses in the different Shaker communities, there were actually four who oversaw the whole thing. They lived in New York and were called the “Central Ministry.” All the societies had ministers and these trained the neophytes went out into the world beyond the Shakers to preach and find new members. 

Within the smaller communities there were different groups called “families” and these also had two elders and eldresses. Two of each, who were in charge of their spiritual life and well-being. Families also had Deacons and Deaconesses and these guys oversaw the crafts, farm work and stuff. The Trustees, on the other hand, oversaw the legal things and business side of the Families. It was hard to say, without looking at the records, who the elder truly was. He could've been a legitimate elder, or he could’ve been a Deacon or Trustee and over the years the identity was confused. She hoped Rob's book would help with this. She was still trying to avoid the archive room, thanks to Andy.

It was highly possible that the elder could've been killed by an outsider. Not only did the Shakers do business with them, but once their population started declining and they didn't have as many men around they needed to hire out. The hired hands chopped wood, stacked hay, and did other odd jobs. They were usually paid every day and it was good money if you could get hired on and didn't mind not being able to talk to the women.

Money seemed to be high on the list of motives when it came to murder, with love (or jealousy) right behind. She'd stick to those two motives for now.

When her phone rang Taryn answered it absently. She was stuck when her aunt's attorney began talking on the other end.

'Taryn? I hope I haven't caught you at a bad time,” he apologized. He always sounded so flustered, like he'd been caught doing something he wasn't supposed to.

“I'm fine. Everything okay?”

Taryn's Aunt Sarah had passed away back in the fall, a fact Taryn was still trying to deal with every day. Although she hadn't seen her aunt in years, she'd always been someone Taryn had admired from afar; indeed, she was one of the few adults who had treated Taryn with love and respect. As the only surviving relative (Sarah had never married or had children), Taryn inherited her estate in New Hampshire.

“It's fine, it's fine. I checked on the house today and everything looks good. I was wondering, however, if you planned on coming up here soon?”

Taryn let out a deep breath. She'd been avoiding that so far, the idea of going through Sarah's belongings and walking through the rooms of that old farmhouse without her just felt too much. Taryn had already lost her parents, her grandmother, her fiancé (or husband, depending on who she was talking to). If she lost Matt she would truly be all alone in the world; she had nobody left.

“I am hoping to come up this summer,” she replied. “I'm on a job at the moment and can't leave.”

“Well, my advice is to hire a manager or overseer to keep an eye on it,” he lectured. “Nobody's vandalized it, yet, but it's a big house in a remote area. People are going to start getting curious.”

Taryn felt a moment of panic. She certainly didn't have the money to hire anyone. She even did her own taxes and hoped the IRS had a sense of humor.

As though reading her mind, the attorney laughed. “I know someone and can send you their information. Your aunt didn't leave behind a fortune, but you'll have enough to get someone for a few months and still have a nice sum left over.”

Taryn let of a sigh of relief. Well, that didn't sound so bad.

“Okay, that's good. If you can just email me then I'll get in touch with them.”

She hung up the phone feeling a little depressed, her Shaker ghosts and drama momentarily put to the side. 

“
S
orry I’m late,” Julie sang as she arranged bottles of spirits on the small table. She was set up outside, since the weather was nice, and a couple of guys cleared room for the musicians who would be showing up later. “All kinds of hoopla in my neighborhood and I'm too nosy not to get involved in that.”

“What happened?” Taryn asked from the table next to her. She wasn't super hungry, but an appetizer plate of fried green tomatoes (one of the South's most reverent offerings) hit the spot.

“Someone broke into the house next door. It's being built, you know? Anyway, they went in and sold the copper and stuff. Been happening a lot lately,” Julie confided.

“I heard about that. Any idea who's doing it?”

“Not a clue. But it's not just here. You hear about it in Danville, Lexington, Richmond...” Julie let her voice trail off as she ducked under the table to retrieve a runaway cup. “It freaks me out a little, though, because I live alone. Knowing that there were burglars next door doesn't put my soul at ease.”

“Well, maybe it means they've hit your area now and are going to move on to someplace else,” Taryn suggested weakly. She would've felt the same way.

“You know, I kinda feel bad for the crooks, too. Not a lot of jobs around here and people are desperate. Not just because they're druggies but because they got bills to pay.”

Taryn acquiesced. She often felt financially desperate herself. Before the Shaker Town job came along she was on the tip of accepting a job from a company that wanted her to paint a series of chain bar and grills for them to hang in their entrances.

Taryn finished her meal but then sat back, intent on listening to the band. They had a little bit of a heavy metal bluegrass sound to them, “metal grass” or “punk grass” some people called them, and they were good. She wished she'd left sooner, though, when she saw Andy stalking up to her table.

“You mind if I sit here?” he asked prissily.

Taryn shrugged and moved her plate over to make room for him. He looked out of breath and out of patience.

“You okay?” she asked.

“I have to stay here at least two more nights,” he huffed. We've had a water leak at the house and have to replace some pipes. No telling what that's going to cost me.”

“We were just talking about money,” Taryn said, gesturing to Julie. Julie was busy laughing with a small group of German tourists as they pointed at the American beers on display and scratched their heads. They wouldn't find much comparison to what they were used to.

“So how's the work going?” she asked. She didn't care for the man but he was all she had at the moment.

“Fine, fine,” he answered with a wave of his hand. “I was knee deep in records today.

“Yeah? What did you find?”

“Mostly school stuff,” he shrugged. “They seemed to have a hard time keeping a teacher towards the end of the nineteenth century. Just one right after another.”

Taryn's ears perked up. That was, after all, her area. “What happened?”

“I don't know,” he shrugged. “Work too hard, maybe. Lots of women leaving. Like that one who the restaurant was named after.”

“Evelyn's?” Taryn asked in surprise.

“That's the one. She was a schoolteacher here for, oh, I guess four years. That was the longest stretch I found.”

Taryn leaned back in her chair and considered. The band was playing a low-key version of the Avett Brothers' “I and Love and You” and the air was damp, but warm. It suddenly didn't seem so bad sitting out there, even with her current company.

“I met her great granddaughter when I ate there a few nights ago,” Taryn volunteered. “She talked a little about her living here, but didn't say anything about her being a teacher. I'm painting the school at the moment.”

“Well, she was there. Life just seems like a series of coincidences sometimes,” he said bitterly and then took a drink of his beer. Taryn still had to laugh at the irony of drinking alcohol at Shaker Town.

“Know anything about the murder here?” she asked hopefully.

“Nah. Probably fell and hit his head on something and wasn't even killed at all.”

“
S
o I was thinking...” Taryn paced around her room, getting ready for bed, and kept Matt on speakerphone.

“Yep?”

“You could come up here and we could drink wine and then have sex in my room. We could even walk up the same stairs together. You know, just break all the rules?”

“You could get pregnant, too, and we could throw procreation in there. It would be very un-Shaker of you,” Matt added.

Taryn stopped in her tracks, her shirt and arms raised over her head. He was joking, right? “You're joking, right?” she asked, edging closer to the phone.

“Mostly. I'm getting older, though, and think about having kids sometimes. Don't you?”

Taryn balanced herself on the edge of the bed while she pulled on her pajama bottoms. “In theory I guess. But it seems a little impractical to me, seeing as to how I am not married, don't have any form of stable income, and have some health issues.”

“The health problems would be concerning,” Matt agreed. “But we could take care of the other things. In fact, when I checked my mail today I saw I had a coupon for one of the jewelry stores in the mall. I think it might have been a sign.”

The idea of Matt proposing was both thrilling and a little unsettling. “Matt, please don't buy me an engagement ring from the mall using a coupon.”

“Why?” he asked, sounding genuinely puzzled.

“Never mind.”

Since they hadn't seen each other in awhile and she was in a pretty good mood Taryn considered flashing herself in her bra and sending him a picture but it was unlikely he'd appreciate that. Matt belonged in another century and would probably go around wearing a top hat if he could find a good, inexpensive supply of them. And there was always the chance it could go viral. She could see the memes being created already...

Still in a happy mood, Taryn crawled under the covers and flipped on the television. Her favorite episode of
Designing Women
(Bernice's sanity hearing) was on and Taryn snuggled under the thick, cool duvet and smiled. Life wasn't so bad at the moment. As her feet dug into the coolness of the cotton sheet below her, she smiled and felt a momentary surge of euphoria.

It was almost immediately replaced by a sharp, sudden tug of sadness. The despair hit her like a ton of bricks, starting at her forehead and moving in a luxurious wave down her body to her stomach, where it settled. The feeling of hopelessness, lonesomeness, and grief were not unfamiliar to her; she'd been having similar incidents since she was a child. Life felt futile, pointless, and she was divided between wanting to burst into tears and feeling so numb she couldn't move.