Sins of a Shaker Summer (28 page)

“Tell me everything,” she said. “Did you make it out of Benjamin's room without being seen? What did you find there? I heard rumors going into the dining room that Gertrude has confessed to murdering Patience.”

“I wouldn't be surprised,” Rose said, responding to the last topic first. “I'm afraid her conscience is finely honed. Anyway, we will have to let her suffer pangs of guilt until we can straighten this mess out. As for what I saw in Benjamin's room—and many thanks for giving me a way to escape—I found the drawings you saw in the Medicinal Herb Shop. They are maps of North Homage, showing the location of plantings of dangerous herbs which we Shakers no longer use in our cures. Someone is undoubtedly using them in some of the experiments going on in the shop. We can't be certain who planted them, or whether it was a group effort on the part of the Mount Lebanon Believers.
Until we know for certain, we can't afford to trust any of them.

“I also determined that Nora and Betsy found or were told about some of these plantings and that they were made sick by eating jimsonweed.”

“Jimsonweed? That sounds familiar,” Gennie said.

“It's also called angel's-trumpet. When I saw the symbols on the map, I began to understand. The ‘horn' was supposed to be a trumpet, the cowl was for monkshood, and so on.”

“Angel's-trumpet.” Gennie rolled the words around and listened to them. “So do you think that when Nora mentioned a ‘bad angel' . . .”

“Irene told the children not to eat any flower that looked like a bell because they were protected by a bad angel. Jimsonweed causes hallucinations. My guess is that Nora's guilty conscience created visions of a bad angel after she'd eaten a plant she'd been warned not to eat.”

“So how does this help us know how Patience and Hugo died?”

“At this point, all I can do is speculate,” Rose said. “My guess is that either Patience or Benjamin was responsible for the poisonous herb plantings, but certainly both of them knew where to locate each plant. And someone might have been experimenting with the herbs, disguising their presence in curatives with peppermint. Which, I think, might be how Hugo became ill.”

“By accident?”

“Yea, by tragic accident. Apparently Andrew could not be sure what was in the jelly—at least, he hasn't told me, if he does know—but if we can convince Grady to have it analyzed, we might find evidence of one of those dangerous herbs.”

“I'll convince Grady,” Gennie said.

“If we are successful, he may need no convincing.” A dark cloud passed across the window, sending shadows
leaping through the room. Rose was reminded that she had only a few hours before evening.

“Do you have a suspicion about whether it was Patience or Benjamin who did the plantings?” Gennie asked.

“Benjamin. I think he wanted so much to show himself superior to the others that he was willing to take the chance of poisoning someone. Patience could easily have found out about the plantings while she conducted her personal rituals. Maybe she saw Benjamin actually plant seeds or check on his harvest. It's quite possible that she saw the jimsonweed and got the idea to use it to help deepen her trances.”

“So her gifts were not real after all?”

“I don't know,” Rose said. “I really don't know.”

“Do you think her death was an accident, too?”

Rose leaned back in her chair and rocked gently. “Nay, I'm afraid I do not. I am more than ever convinced that someone killed her. Patience always kept her eyes open, and she knew a great deal about her fellow Believers.” She pulled her list of suspects out of a desk drawer and handed it to Gennie. “Some of her knowledge was true, and some was merely conjecture. Either way, since the information came out most often during trances, it had the ring of truth to it, and that made her potentially dangerous.”

“But we still don't know who might have thought her dangerous enough to kill her?”

“Nay, that is what we still must find out.” Rose checked the small clock she'd brought in from her bedside. “And we don't have long to do it. The purging starts immediately after evening meal.”

“What shall I do?” Gennie asked.

“I don't suppose you'd be willing to stay out of this?”

Gennie laughed. “Rose, you know that if you don't give me an assignment, I'll just create one myself.”

“And that could be worse than my worst nightmare,” Rose said. “All right, perhaps you could talk more with Irene. Confirm our guess that she warned the girls about the poisonous plants and try to find out how she and the
children knew about their existence. But for heaven's sake, stay out of trouble.”

“What if Irene killed Patience?”

“If you become fearful of her, use those wits of yours. Get away from her and find me immediately. Do you promise?”

“Of course, I promise. Where will you be?”

“Probably at the Medicinal Herb Shop, since I'm suspicious of everyone there.”

“Are you accusing one of us of harming Patience? We would never do such a thing,” Andrew said, hurt in his voice. Rose had decided that the quickest, safest route was direct confrontation, so she faced Andrew, Thomas, Benjamin, and Willy inside the Medicinal Herb Shop. She had hoped that the culprit would break down when confronted with his secret and the enormity of his crime. After all, she'd reasoned, three of them were Believers. They had vowed not to kill even for a just cause. Surely the guilt of knowing he had murdered another human being, and a fellow Shaker at that, must be nearly unbearable. But so far she had not seen so much as a flicker of remorse. She decided to recount what she had pieced together about Patience's accusations against each of them.

Andrew's story about his family and his denial of a special relationship with Patience remained unchanged. “As you well know,” he concluded, “her information was often inaccurate.”

“Not always,” Rose pointed out. “Benjamin, she found out you were planting poisonous herbs, didn't she? That's what you had mapped out in the back of your journal, which Patience copied. Did she threaten to expose you unless you provided her with sufficient jimsonweed to enhance her trances?”

Benjamin's boyish features hardened. He shot a resentful look at Andrew and shrugged. “I could have done a lot of good with those herbs.”

“They are dangerous,” Rose said, “and it is illegal to put them in cures without revealing their presence.”

“I know what I'm doing. Maybe they are dangerous in the hands of others, but not in mine. Patience was a fool. To tell you the truth, I suspected she would kill herself eventually, she was so determined to explore those gifts of hers. She actually thought Mother Ann had told her about my herbs just so she could have a supply of jimsonweed.”

“But the jimsonweed didn't kill her,” Rose said.

“Nay, and neither did I,” Benjamin said. “Why don't you ask Thomas about his arguments with Patience?”

“We didn't argue.”

“Yeah, you did,” Willy said, ducking his head as if he expected to be chastised for speaking up. “I heard you from the garden a few days ago. Couldn't hear what you said, but you sounded plenty mad.”

“I'd bet they were arguing about Irene,” Benjamin said. “I mean, Sister Irene. He won't leave her alone.”

“
I
won't leave her alone. Look who's talking.” Thomas stepped forward, fists curling tightly. Benjamin rose to meet him.

Andrew touched Thomas's rigid arm. “Brethren, remember your vows,” he said. “And ask yourselves how much extra confession time you want to fill this evening at the purging worship.”

Both men relaxed and stood back. “Anyway,” Thomas said, “I had no reason to kill Patience. Irene and I are finished. I only want my children to be taken proper care of, that's all. You and Irene can run off together for all I care, but leave the children here.”

Rose was ready to jump out of her skin with impatience. Her conjectures were being confirmed, one by one, but she was no closer to learning who might have smashed Patience on the back of her head and killed her. Before she could turn her attention to Willy, the shop's telephone rang. Andrew answered, listened briefly, and hung up.

“We're all called back to the dining room,” Andrew
reported. “Wilhelm ordered the evening meal moved an hour early, so we can gather in the Meetinghouse before the rain comes in.”

Her time was up. She had failed, and Wilhelm would have his way. Rose had not felt such despair since Agatha's first stroke. The medicinal herb brethren went back to their various projects, so their work could be brought to a conclusion in the short time left before the bell rang.

Willy followed Rose out the door and did not immediately veer off to the garden. He walked along beside her in silence for a few moments, then said, “I know you're real busy, ma'am, but I was wondering if I could ask you something.”

“Of course,” Rose said.

“It's about Gennie. I know she's not a Shaker sister like you, but I wondered if she's promised to anyone.”

His voice held a poignant hopefulness, and Rose wanted to be gentle with him. “Yea, I'm afraid Gennie is spoken for. But I know you'll find someone just as nice.”

Willy nodded slowly, not showing great surprise. “She sure is nice,” was all he said.

He continued to walk beside her as they neared the central path. “Willy,” she prodded him, “was there something else you wanted to talk about with me?”

Willy stopped and faced her. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and kicked at the dry dirt of the path with one scuffed shoe. “Yeah, it's about Brother Hugo.”

“I'm so sorry, Willy, I'd forgotten that you spent a lot of time with Hugo. You must have felt very sad when he died.”

Willy nodded and kicked harder. “There's something been preying on my mind,” he said. “I went to see him when he was feeling so poorly, you know, before he got real sick. He was telling me everything he could remember about my ma and pa, and he'd look in his old books, too, the ones he wrote in a long time ago, so's he'd remember better. He was really nice to me. The nicest thing he said
to me was, I wasn't like my pa. He said I work real hard and I don't tell lies. All I remembered about Pa was, he used to haul off and hit me any time he got mad. But I still felt bad that him and Ma went off without me. I figured Ma didn't want me, neither. Hugo, he said Ma did the right thing by getting Pa away and leaving me with Granny. That way Granny could teach me to be gentle, Hugo said. He said sometimes mothers love their children so much they have to give them up to protect them.”

“Hugo was very wise,” Rose said. She was aware of the moments flying by. “Was there anything else?”

“Yeah.” Willy grimaced. “I hope I didn't do wrong. Hugo asked me to do it, and I figured anything Hugo wanted me to do was okay. But then Brother Andrew asked me if I'd been taking any of the herbs, which I never did, but I felt like I'd done something wrong.”

“What? What did you do?”

“I . . . Hugo asked me to sneak into the Medicinal Herb Shop one night and get all the journals and bring them to him, just for a few hours. Which I did. And then I brought them back real quiet, so nobody would know they was gone.”

“Why did he want to see them?” Rose felt her heart perk up with hope. “Did he tell you what he learned from them?”

“Not straight out, he didn't.”

“Tell me exactly what he said, as best you can remember,” Rose urged.

“Oh, I can remember, because it struck me odd. He said, ‘Shades of Nathan Sharp.' I asked who was Nathan Sharp, and he said, no one I needed to worry about, just someone from long ago. Hugo said he'd be talking to Wilhelm about it soon, but he promised I wouldn't get into trouble.”

“When was this?”

“Right before he got real sick. I don't know if he ever talked with Wilhelm. Did I do the right thing? Maybe I should've told you earlier.”

“You did fine, Willy.”

A quick and carefully worded call to Wilhelm from the Center Family Dwelling House told her that Hugo had never spoken with him about what he learned from the journals. She cut off the conversation before Wilhelm could ask any questions. Next she stopped in Agatha's room.

“Nathan Sharp is a familiar name,” Rose said, “but I don't recall the story.”

“Ah, Nathan Sharp. That incident happened at least a hundred years ago, but still new enough when I was a young sister. He was a trustee at Union Village in Ohio. One day he took off, absconding with cash and property belonging to the Society. Others had done the same thing, of course, but he always stood out in our minds.”

Rose felt her legs lose strength, and she sank onto Agatha's desk chair. A trustee who defrauded his Society. If Hugo had examined all the journals from the Medicinal Herb Shop, he must have seen Andrew's, too. Somehow he must have seen evidence that Andrew was cheating North Homage. It was tougher now that Shaker holdings were no longer in the trustees' names, but it was not impossible. She cursed her own heart that had not allowed her to view Andrew as a serious suspect. Patience and Hugo must both have known, and he must have killed them. He tried to make both murders look like accidents, and it almost worked.

A kitchen sister arrived with a tray of bread and cheese for Agatha's evening meal. Rose had no time to waste; she had to keep a close eye on Andrew until Grady arrived and could arrest him. She tossed a distracted kiss at Agatha's cheek as she hurried from the room.

The evening meal had already begun when Rose slid into her seat. A quick glance at the brethren assured her that Andrew was there, eating as if his soul were free of guilt. She had solved what now appeared to be two murders, saved Gertrude's reputation and conscience, and should be able to put a halt to the purging ceremony, yet Rose found
she had little appetite. Luckily, the meal was light, and she managed a few bites before giving up. Josie tossed her a sympathetic glance, probably thinking she was upset about the public confessions to come.