Dancing Dead (19 page)

Elsa's eyes took on a familiar cunning glint. Rose could only pray that she found the truth in her memory before she began making up stories just to help Wilhelm. “I'm mighty distracted when I have a trance,” Elsa said. “I usually figure the folks around me'll remember better'n me what I said.”

“Well, most of what you said was incomprehensible,” Rose said.

“To ordinary ears, anyway.” Elsa grasped one of her feet and turned it over to inspect the sole. She grimaced and laid it back on the floor, apparently hoping it would hurt less if she didn't see it. “Well, let me think a spell. Sometimes it comes back to me in pieces.” Rose sat back on her heels and waited. “I don't rightly remember who all was talkin' to me, but it seems like there was a whole passel of angels flyin' around. They was speakin' different languages, but I could understand them.” Her tone had turned haughty, but Rose chose not to suggest humility just then. Later, definitely.

“I do remember them sayin' how everyone at this hostel is heavy with guilt. ‘Heavy with guilt'—that's what they said exact.” Elsa nodded to herself. Her cap was long gone and strands of straight damp hair hung like gray strings around her face.

“But the angels didn't say that all of the guests had committed murder?” Rose asked.

“Nay,” Elsa said, “Nay, they didn't.” She dragged herself across the floor toward the settee. “My back hurts. This here's no place to have a trance, that's for sure.” Rose helped her raise herself onto the settee. Gennie made a quick visit to the kitchen and found a clean rag to spread under Elsa's feet. The soft soles of her shoes had absorbed most of the pressure of the broken glass, but some pieces had cut through to her skin. Elsa lifted her feet up onto the settee and lay back against the arm. She looked about to drift off to sleep.

Rose pulled up a delicate chair with a round padded seat, embroidered in bright colors. “Elsa, do you remember, in your dance, leaning toward each hostel guest, one by one?”

“Yea, reckon I do. Seems like one of the voices told me to do that so's I could tell what was in their souls.” She shook her head and noticed the hair swing in front of her face. “Where's my cap? Get me my cap, it's over there,” she said. Rose bent to retrieve the cap, hoping she hadn't given Elsa time to make up a dramatic lie.

“I got a bad feeling from most of 'em. But that man, though, he was the worst—the fat one with the pasty face. Never did a lick of work in his life, I'll bet.”

“You mean Horace von Oswald?”

“Don't know his name, don't want to. He's a demon in human form. Well, near human, anyways. Where's Josie? My feet are killin' me.”

“Is there anything else you remember, especially anything about the individual guests?”

Elsa shrugged. “They ain't what they seem. Not a one of 'em. Exceptin' Gennie, she was okay.”

“Why were you stomping the floor? What did you pull down from the heavens?”

Elsa's hazel eyes, which could burn with zealotry, looked tired and faded. “Don't remember,” she said, with obvious regret. “Maybe it'll come to me in a dream.”

She pulled herself up straighter against the side of the settee. “I could always try again,” she said. “The angels'll understand. Maybe Mother will come next time—to help Wilhelm.”

Rose said nothing. She had no intention of encouraging another display, yet . . . For the first time, she found herself believing in one of Elsa's trances. Elsa couldn't know much, if anything, about these people, yet her conclusion that none of them was what he or she seemed matched the information Rose had gathered so far. The notion that they were all somehow guilty—if not of murder, then of something else—was intriguing. On the other hand, Elsa's information, if it qualified as information, didn't get them much further. Rose still had to sort out who among the guests had killed two people, and she didn't have much time to do it.

Seventeen

A
CIRCLE OF LIGHT POOLED ON
R
OSE'S RETIRING ROOM
desk, turning the pine a mellow gold. Rose felt immense gratitude that, simple as their lives were, the Shakers never shunned a useful new invention—they'd been the first in the entire county to install electricity, and it had given them many more hours to finish their work. As a consequence, they had more time for worship. Having attended the evening worship service downstairs in the large meeting room, Rose felt free to organize her jumbled thoughts on paper.

She sipped the warm, fragrant tea Sister Josie, bless her, had brought to her room. Josie had tended to Elsa's wounded feet and put her to sleep with some peppermint-valerian tea. Knowing her eldress would be at her desk for some time, trying to sort out the details of the past few days, Josie had brewed a pot of Rose's favorite rose hip and lemon balm tea to “help her think.” For energy, she'd added a dollop of honey from the Society's own hives.

Rose scribbled nonstop for twenty minutes, listing each hostel guest, followed by what she knew about him or her. To be fair, she'd included Brothers Wilhelm and Linus, as well as the reputed ghost, Sarina Hastings. She sat back to read her notes. Interesting patterns jumped out at her, as did the holes in her knowledge. Growing excited, she wrote down her questions. She took out a fresh sheet of paper and began again, this time listing what she knew and what she needed to know. When she'd finished, she went back to the top of her list and considered ways to get the information she needed. There was no time like the present.

She'd begun with the first victim, Mina Dunmore. She had written :
We have evidence she was Wilhelm's daughter and might have come to the Shaker Hostel to blackmail the father who abandoned her. Was she the “ghost”; was this disguise part of a plan to punish Wilhelm and the Shakers? Who was the man in her room the night she died? Did she have previous or hidden relationships with anyone else staying at the hostel?

Next she'd listed Horace von Oswald.
He was very eager to stay in the Shaker Hostel, he knows a bit about the Shakers, and he dislikes us. So he came here with a distinct purpose in mind—perhaps to gather information about us, or to hurt or embarrass us in some way. He has copies of stories about our “ghost,” which he takes care to hide. Are these stories part of a plan? Find out—What has he done to earn a living? Does he have a previous connection with the Shakers? Or with Mrs. Dunmore?

As an afterthought, she turned the paper sideways and added a question to Horace's segment.
Why did Elsa claim that Horace was particularly evil, compared to the others? Did the angels speak, or does Elsa know something she isn't revealing?

Daisy Prescott was a cipher in many ways, but Rose had at least some information.
She apparently worked as a secretary. She had given Andrew a phone number for one employer—probably not her most recent—rather than for her home or a family member. Why?

Saul Halvardson.
He lied about seeing the advertisement for our hostel in the Cleveland paper. Did he lie about his sales route, as well? He said it went north; Andrew thought he remembered it went south. What is his purpose in staying here? Did he lie about hearing a man in Mrs. Dunmore's room? Where does he get the money to be so generous?

Beatrice Berg had several strikes against her, yet her past might have nothing to do with the current situation.
If she murdered her husband, and it looks likely that she did, then she has experience with poisoning, which ties her to Mrs. Dunmore's death and to the
Languor County Courier
story in which Sarina Hastings was reported to have been poisoned. Is this just coincidence, is it evidence, or does someone else know about Beatrice's history and is using it to cast suspicion on her? She claims to have seen the (plump) ghost in the hostel, and she told the story of the ghost looking for jewels. She had a spare master key made,
which she used to search Horace's room. Is she just a snoop? A blackmailer? Did she get her story from Horace, or did he get it from her?

About Brother Linus Eckhoff, she could write little, except that he didn't deserve to be killed. He had never shown any inclination to violate his beliefs, had seemed happy and at peace in North Homage. If he had been the man in Mrs. Dunmore's room—and she could not believe he was—then why was he killed? All Rose could write under his name was:
Did he witness Mrs. Dunmore's murder, and was he killed to silence him?
It was the only conclusion that made sense.

She shook her head sadly when she reached Wilhelm's name. He had been so irresponsible, and now it had come back to punish him. He had abandoned his wife and child, not to become a Believer, but to roam the world. He had served as a soldier, something no Believer would have done. But his real foolishness was in hiding his past. Had he been more open, he might have felt full forgiveness. If he'd been concerned for the welfare of his child, the community would have encouraged him to locate her, make sure she was cared for. Still, despite his wish to hide, he had told his elder and eldress everything. He had been able to bend his pride. Blackmail was not a real danger. For a devout Believer, a pacifist who valued all life, to murder his own child and then one of his spiritual Children—such an act would require a powerful motive, which just wasn't there, as far as Rose could see. Under Wilhelm's name, she wrote:
In the absence of new information, he cannot be the culprit
. She did, however, ask one question.
What brought Wilhelm to us?

Finally, Rose had listed the “ghost” of Sister Sarina Hastings. Somehow she—or it—was connected with the opening of the Shaker Hostel and with its guests. Rose had been treating the ghost's appearance as a nuisance. Now she intended to discover everything about it she could. She listed several questions.
Was there really a Sarina Hastings here in North Homage? In any of the other Shaker villages? Is the “ghost” plump or pregnant—or disguised as either? Has the ghost disappeared since Mrs. Dunmore's death?

Rose rubbed her eyes and stretched. With her thoughts neatly organized on paper, her mind had finally slowed down. She saw her direction more clearly. Sleep sounded delicious. She forced herself to wash her face and brush her teeth; exhaustion was no excuse for slovenliness.

 

“Rose. Rose, please wake up. This is our chance.” Gennie's urgent whisper interrupted Rose in the middle of a lovely dream about—well, now she couldn't remember anything except that it had been delightful. She groaned and tried to pull the bedclothes over her head.

“Oh, I know you're tired, but truly, Rose, this is important.”

“It had better be.” Rose opened her eyes a fraction of an inch. She could barely see Gennie, the room was so dark. “What time is it?”

“Three o'clock,” Gennie said. “Yes, I know, it's the middle of the night.” She reached over to Rose's bedside table and turned on the lamp.

Rose moaned and flipped her pillow over her head to block the light. She was awake, whether she wanted to be or not. She heard the muffled sound of a chair scraping next to her bed, followed by an exaggerated sigh.

“I'm only here,” Gennie said, “because you always fuss so much about how I go out on my own and put myself in danger, but if you'd rather sleep while I investigate by myself, well, that's just fine with me.”

Rose peeked out from under her pillow. “That wasn't fair.”

“And this is really important.”

Rose sat up, hugging her blanket around her. “All right, what's so important?”

“Remember you asked me to find out from Mairin if she'd seen the ghost in the past few days—you know, since Mrs. Dunmore's death? Well, I had a long talk with her, and she insisted she hadn't seen a thing. First she said she'd stayed in her room, but then she admitted she'd looked but hadn't seen any lights or the ghost.”

“This couldn't wait until morning?”

“There's more,” Gennie said. Her whisper was breathy with excitement. “It was just last evening that I talked with Mairin, in her room after supper. I made her promise on her honor that if she looked out and saw a light again, she wouldn't go outdoors without coming to get me. Nora was stern with her and insisted she keep her promise, so I sort of believed her.”

“You told Mairin to walk alone to the hostel at night to get you?”

“Oh. Wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. No, I decided to spend the night camped out on the third floor of the Children's Dwelling House. Mairin's little kitten, Angel, is so darling, I stayed in her room. To be honest, I could see more of the village from the dwelling house than from my room in the hostel, which faces south. I wanted to keep a closer eye on Mairin, too.”

“I gather Mairin or you saw something?” Lack of sleep had turned Rose irritable, and she couldn't muster the strength to pray for patience.

“Yes! Mairin kept her promise. She came knocking on my door a little while ago. I'm afraid I'd fallen asleep. Anyway, she told me she'd seen a light in the Meetinghouse. She was really excited, thought maybe her guardian angel had gone there to dance and worship. We went to another room to look out, and the light was still on. It was upstairs—you know, in those rooms the elders and eldresses once used for . . . oh, I don't remember, offices or something.”

Rose was now fully awake. She threw off her blanket and pulled a loose work dress over her nightgown. “Let's go,” she said. She didn't bother to tell Gennie to stay back; it would be pointless. Gennie was already holding the door open for her. Besides, Gennie had proven she could be resourceful in a touchy situation.

 

“You see?” Gennie whispered. “It's sort of faint, but it's up there.” Clouds hid the moon and stars, so the light in the upper Meetinghouse stood out more than it might have in a brighter night. Gennie and Rose stood at the southwest corner of the South Family Dwelling House, watching the Meetinghouse next door.

“That light is moving,” Rose said. “I think it must be a flashlight. Didn't the ghost always turn on the building lights? I don't see any movement in the window, either. Maybe this is something else. Those rooms haven't been used in some time. Why would anyone be up there?”

The room went dark. “Look!” Gennie pointed to the room next to it, where the wavering light had reappeared.

“There she is! There's the ghost. Come on, over here.” The shout came from a voice Gennie recognized—Betty, the ghost hunter. She and a group of seven or eight other folks from the world came trampling through the grass from the north. They hadn't seen Rose and Gennie, who jumped back out of sight behind the back of the South Family Dwelling House. The visitors gathered on the Meetinghouse lawn and watched. At once, the window filled with light. A hooded figure with its arms raised in the air twirled across the window without stopping. Several seconds passed, and the figure twirled back the opposite direction. The room went dark.

“Well, that sure ain't worth waitin' for,” Betty said.

“Maybe she went 'round to the other side,” someone else said. The group took off at a run to circle the Meetinghouse.

When the last stranger had disappeared, Rose said, “Come on, we're going in. I've had all I can take from this . . . whatever it is.”

They took a cautious peek around the corner and found that no one was watching the front of the Meetinghouse, so they were able to slip in one of the doors. They stood quietly in the large meeting room where for decades the North Homage Shakers had sung and danced in Sabbathday worship. Rose was glad for the absence of moonlight; they'd be less visible to outsiders who might peer in the large windows lining the walls. To their right was a cast-iron stove beside a closed door, which led to small offices and a staircase.

“Follow me,” Rose whispered. “Keep as quiet as you can. If she's here, I want to surprise her.” Rose knew the Meetinghouse, its creaks and corners, the way Gennie knew the Herb House. She led the way up the narrow staircase to the top floor. They paused at the landing and listened. Gennie's young ears had picked up a sound, and she gestured for Rose to follow her down the hall toward two small offices that once had been used by elders and eldresses. The rooms had been empty—and uncleaned—for years. Both doors were ajar and no light shone out.

The hallway had one small window at the end, so it got little natural light. Rose and Gennie tiptoed, sliding along the wall for guidance. They were within about twenty feet of the offices, when something large and dark swooshed through the far doorway, barely moving the door itself. Rose and Gennie flattened themselves against the wall. The whole second story needed a good cleaning and airing. The walls smelled musty; humid summers and lack of air circulation had caused some mildewing.

For a moment, the figure looked up at the ceiling, then down the hallway, apparently missing the two women in deep shadow. It moved to the hallway window and looked out. Rose wished for just a moment of moonlight to clarify the silhouette, but it remained nothing more than a dark clump. A slight ridge around the shoulders and the shape of the head told her the figure was wearing a Dorothy cloak, so it must indeed be Sarina Hastings, whoever she or he really might be. She was tall, probably agile, perhaps strong—especially if she was a he—but Rose believed she and Gennie between them could subdue her, if they could catch her off guard. Rose grasped Gennie's hand to get her attention.

If ever Rose needed proof that dirt chased away good spirits, this was it. Gennie sneezed.

Without even a split second of hesitation, the figure whirled around and ran past them, toward the staircase. She had disappeared down the stairs before Rose or Gennie had managed to budge. Gennie took off first, but Rose grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the observation room, which had a window overlooking the large meeting room below. Elders and eldresses sometimes used the room to watch over worship services. Perhaps in other villages, observers tried to catch private, forbidden looks between a brother and a sister, but Agatha and Rose had used the room to keep an eye on the visitors from the world. It provided an almost complete view of the worship space below.