Cradle to Grave (11 page)

“There's nothing further we can do,” Rees said. He glanced at his wife. Her mouth was drawn closed and her forehead wrinkled. He drew her to him and kissed her cheek. “Don't worry,” he said. “Everything will be fine.”

“I hope you're right,” she replied, and forced a smile. “I hope you're right.”

Chapter Nine

They started out at daybreak the following morning. The fiery sunset of the evening before had promised a fair day and as the sun rose into the sky the clouds vanished and the sun came out. Although barely an inch of snow had fallen, the wet stuff clung to the buggy wheels. Rees allowed Ares to maintain a slow but steady trot, knowing this would be a long journey.

As the morning wore on, other vehicles and some horsemen joined them on the post road. When Rees heard the rapid galloping thud of horse hooves behind him he thought nothing of it, until he heard Elder Herman's voice calling his name. He pulled the buggy to the side. Elder Herman and the black Brother pulled up beside him.

“What happened?” Rees asked, his heart sinking at the sight of Herman's anxious face.

“There's been a murder,” the Elder blurted.

All the blood drained from Lydia's cheeks and she clutched the side of the buggy. “Not Mouse?”

Rees, whose thoughts paralleled Lydia's, said, “Did one of those young ruffians kill her?”

“No. They have not returned. Thank God. But it is almost as serious. Sister Hannah has been accused of murdering Maggie Whitney,” Herman said. While Rees struggled to understand that impossible statement, the Elder continued. “She took a buggy last night without permission and drove to Dover Springs. She says she was trying to rescue the Whitney children. In any event I caught up to her before she reached the Whitney farm. Sister Hannah insists she is innocent of the murder, and that only you can prove it.”

“Where is Mouse now?” Rees asked, struggling to separate the terrible fear aching in his chest from the actions he must take to save her.

“At Mount Unity.” The Elder made a helpless gesture. “Locked in her room. The constable agreed she could stay home on my personal guarantee she wouldn't flee.” He swallowed, and added in a shaky voice, “At least for now.”

“She is safe until public opinion rises against her,” Herman's companion said, his world-weary tone speaking to his own distrust of the law.

Lydia reached out for Rees. “Oh, Will. We must go to her.” He clasped her hand and nodded.

“I know.” He turned the buggy around and started back to Dover Springs.

They reached the Ram's Head shortly after noon. Rees had pushed the horse hard and they'd made the trip in little more than half the time the journey out took. Mr. Randall was unsurprised to see them, but not very welcoming.

“Yes, you can have the room,” he said. He sighed. “But I doubt you'll save that Shaker girl. People are saying she'll hang.”

“Are you so sure she's guilty?” Rees asked.

“Well, she went after those children once, didn't she? Maybe this time Maggie fought back. Anyway, there's no one else that would kill Maggie. We've all known her since she was a baby.”

“Uh huh,” Rees said. And where were all her friends and neighbors when Maggie needed them most? Before her murder,
she
was the outsider. Now she was one of them. “In that case, we won't be required to remain here very long.” He knew he would hear many variations on Mr. Randall's theme throughout his investigation. The Shakers, too, a separate group, would be suspect. But although Rees didn't argue, he could already name a few outside of the Shaker community who wanted Maggie Whitney gone.

He and Lydia moved their things back into the room. Rees could not persuade her to stay behind when he accompanied Elder Herman to the body, and she followed her husband downstairs. As soon as they entered the common room, crowded with men at this dinner hour, all talk ceased. Almost all the customers turned to look at them with expressions that ranged from overt hostility to the naked distress on Mr. Randall's face. Rees hurried Lydia toward the door and she uncharacteristically held his arm as they raced through the silent room.

But before they reached the door it opened. Jerusha and the other children huddled together on the stoop, blinking at the sudden dimness after the bright sunshine outside. Jerusha carried Joseph, both of them wrapped in her ragged shawl. At least she wore her clogs and Rees's socks. Nancy and Judah wore nothing on their feet but rags, now sodden with melting snow. Simon, in his hat and coat and stout shoes, looked like the lord of the manor in a group of orphans. Mr. Randall started forward, his face working.

“I'm sorry, Mr. Rees, Miss Lydia,” Jerusha said, her gaze going straight to them. “I hoped you would still be here.” The marks of tears scored her dirty face. With a muttered epithet, Lydia ran forward and lifted the baby from her. Jerusha gasped as the weight disappeared from her aching arms.

“Why didn't you stay at the farm?” Rees asked, also stepping forward. “Surely you didn't walk all the way into town.”

Jerusha shook her head. “No. We went to Mr. Baker's dairy farm first. Uncle Silas—well, he said he wasn't really our uncle—he came to our farm and told us he owned it now and we had to leave. He said Mama was dead.” A strangled sob broke through her control. “I know it's not true. But he said we couldn't stay there.”

“It's not true, is it?” Simon said, looking at Rees. “He's lying, right? Mama isn't dead. Right?”

Rees didn't know what to say. He looked at Jerusha.

“I couldn't even take Joseph's teething stick,” she wailed.

Lydia, whose cheeks were shiny with her unchecked tears, pulled the child close to her.

Rees recalled the scrawny bantam rooster of a man who'd stood up at the meeting. Once Maggie was gone, Silas hadn't wasted a minute before snatching at those pitiful few acres. And telling the children about their mother in the cruelest way possible. “That…!” Rees was so furious words failed him.

At that moment a heavyset man with crimson cheeks came into the tavern. He looked at Rees kneeling on the floor and Lydia holding Joseph and sighed in relief. “I'm Tom Baker,” he said. “Jerusha and the other children walked to my farm.”

“I'll take them upstairs,” Lydia said. She wiped her arm across her face.

“Make sure they have something to eat, too,” Rees said, not just for Lydia's benefit but for Mr. Randall's as well.

She nodded. “We can talk later.” She meant, Rees understood, that they would confirm the death of their mother after the children were fed and warm and better able to handle the terrible news.

Forcing a smile for the children's benefit, Lydia gathered them together and herded them toward the stairs. “Why didn't they remain with you?” Rees demanded of Mr. Baker. “My wife and I were on our way.”

“My wife. She … Well, they couldn't.” Mr. Baker fumbled for words. “And they were already all in. Jerusha carried that baby the entire distance. Thank the Good Lord, today is not terribly cold, else they probably would have frozen to death.”

“Thank the Good Lord, indeed,” Rees said, his voice trembling with anger and sarcasm. He turned and glared at every man sitting behind him. Mr. Baker had, at least, tried to help. Most looked away from him. Rees hoped they felt guilty and ashamed.

“When my wife said they couldn't stay…” Mr. Baker's eyes slid away from Rees's. “She's afraid, you know, that the town fathers might simply leave them with us. But I could see these children could walk no farther. So I told them I'd take them to town. We stopped first at the log church but Reverend Vermette wasn't there. He left today on circuit. Then Jerusha remembered how kind you and your wife were to them.”

“Thank you,” Rees said, although the words choked him. He turned to the door, intending to speak to the Elders waiting for him outside. It looked like Mouse would get her dearest wish and the children would come to live with the Shakers after all. “Silas was certainly quick to evict these children from their home,” he said, his voice laden with disgust. “Is there any way to prevent this?”

“Olive and Silas never got along,” Mr. Randall said, moving forward a few steps to converse quietly with Rees. “He despised her. But she”—he shook his head admiringly—“she was as intelligent as they come. She had a will. Quite uncommon for a woman. I don't believe Silas has the right to take the farm.”

“Of course not,” Rees said. “But Mr. Demming will probably agree with Silas and give him that little farm. Then where will the children go?” Rees wondered if Mr. Randall would speak up for them with the selectmen. Would the town fathers even notify Elder Herman of the desperate circumstances of the Whitney children, or simply wash their hands of the family and turn them out to starve on the road? Rees realized he was shaking with rage.

“We need to find Olive's will,” Mr. Randall said.

“I've got to return home,” Mr. Baker said, throwing a nervous look at Rees's expression. “I have chores.…”

“Of course,” Rees said. “Thank you, Mr. Baker.” The farmer, with another squint at Rees's furious face, quickly disappeared through the door.

Rees glanced at Mr. Randall but couldn't spare the time to question the old man further right now. He needed to see Maggie's body before too many people tramped around, destroying all signs of the killer. In his past experience he'd seen how quickly evidence of the murderer could disappear: the murder weapon carried away, boot prints obliterated by the tracks of the curious.

He directed one final glance at the men in the common room, raking them with his contempt, and went outside to meet the Elders waiting for him.

Chapter Ten

Elder Herman handed the bridle for his horse to the other Brother with him and came across the yard. “Are the children all right?” he asked in concern. “We saw Mr. Baker driving them here.”

“For the time being,” Rees said. “My wife will watch them for a while.” He paused, startled at how odd and yet how natural it seemed to refer to Lydia as his wife. “And now?”

“I'll guide you to the body,” Elder Herman said, nodding at his companion. He acknowledged the wordless instruction and offered the bridle of his horse to Rees.

“Your horse is all in. Take mine.”

“What will you ride?” Rees asked.

“I'll start walking toward Mount Unity,” the Brother said. “Someone will stop. If not, well, the community isn't very far away.”

“Take him,” Herman said to Rees. “We're wasting time.”

So Rees mounted and, after spending a few minutes adjusting his stirrups to fit his long legs, followed Herman out of the yard. They rode west, maybe ten or so miles out from the center of town, until they reached a log church. The logs, most still sheathed in their bark, were chinked with fresh white clay, and the large cross over the door had the unstained pallor of freshly peeled wood.

“Is this Reverend Vermette's meetinghouse?” Rees called out, recalling the circuit minister mentioning his church.

The Elder nodded. “He insisted on building his church this way, as unspoiled and natural as possible.”

Rees, who thought this grandiose log cabin was simply a different form of ostentation, said nothing.

They rode past the church to the yard behind it. A few simple tombstones marked the snowy meadow as a graveyard. There were still plenty of spaces left for the faithful. Herman stopped at the back, just before the thicket of winter-bare forest began. Constable Cooper and a crowd of men were gathered around an open grave at the extreme edge of the cleared land. Rees jumped down and tramped through the snow toward them.

Maggie Whitney lay at the bottom of the grave. Her limbs were askew, as though she had been tipped in and left where she fell, and the skin around the reddish swollen eye and the bruises left by someone's fist was as white as the thin layer of snow that covered her.

“What am I supposed to do for Mr. Gray?” a grizzled old man was demanding of Cooper. “That's his grave.”

“We'll remove her from the grave,” the constable shouted, wiping his sleeve across his damp eyes. He sounded as though he'd repeated this same statement several times and had run out of patience.

“I sent someone after Reverend Vermette,” Cooper said, keeping his eyes fixed upon the body. “He'll want to officiate at the funeral on Sunday.” He sighed. “He'll be horrified by this … this tragedy. The meetinghouse, all of this”—he swung his arm around to include the cemetery—“was his dream.”

“How was Mrs. Whitney killed?” Rees asked. That poor young woman.

“Look at her face,” Cooper said, his voice breaking. “I think someone beat her to death.”

She was little more than a girl, really, Rees thought, looking at the bruises and the black blood trailing across her marble cheek. “The wounds aren't severe enough,” he muttered. “Unless there are more where I can't see them.” He knelt at the hole's frozen edge. Was that bruising around her throat or simply shadow? “I'd like to go into the grave,” he said. “Take a closer look.”

“I'm sure that's sacrilege or blasphemy or something,” Cooper said with a shake of his head.

“You need to take her out anyway,” Rees said. “I'll lift her up to you after I've finished my examination.”

Cooper regarded Rees thoughtfully. “Have you done this before? Investigated sudden death?”

“Many times,” Rees admitted. “More times than I wish to remember.”

“Ahh. Now I understand why Miss Moore asked you to help her.”

“When Mouse and I first met I was looking into the murder of a young Shaker girl,” Rees said.

After a few moments of silent thought, Cooper nodded. “Very well,” he said. “If you're sure. Call me when you're ready to climb out.”