Sins of a Shaker Summer (18 page)

One sister stumbled and lost her rhythm. She stepped back out of the line, looking lost. When she turned and made her way back to the benches, Rose saw that it was Gertrude, swiping at her cheeks with the backs of her hands. She sat down and hunched over in prayer. She must have moved quickly to have returned from the holy hill, changed dresses, and made it to worship on time. Or perhaps, Rose thought, it was Patience she had seen disappearing into the woods.

For the next few minutes, Rose forgot all but the spectacle below her. Unlike previous times when the service had been open to the public, the worldly visitors watched with apparent enjoyment. Some sat forward on their benches, straining to see every twirl and hop, while a few swayed with the music as if they wished to join in the dancing.

Though Rose could barely hear the a cappella choir of
two sisters and two brethren, it was clear that the dancers had moved from a march into a livelier song that gave the dancers an opportunity to match their movements to the words. She guessed they were dancing to “Awake My Soul,” as they mimed awakening and then shook their bodies. The movements reminded her of Patience, dancing alone on the Empyrean Mount.

The dancers filed back to their benches, and Wilhelm strode to the podium, which was set between the women on one side of the room and the men on the other, to deliver the homily. Rose decided it was a good time to look for Patience. Wilhelm would be content to finish the service without her presence. She exited by a back door into the afternoon sunshine.

Entering the wild area of trees and undergrowth surrounding the Empyrean Mount felt like stepping into another world, from heat and blaring sun to damp shade, light to dark. The twitter of robins and rustle of dry leaves underfoot would have been soothing on any other day. Today Rose strained for the babbling, not of the small creek, but of prayers spoken in tongues. Beneath the earth sounds, she heard only silence.

She retraced the steps she'd followed yesterday toward the holy hill. Finding the trees she'd stood behind, she peeked around to see an empty hillside. No twirling or bobbing head appeared over the crest. She wasn't surprised; the silence had told her that Patience must have gone elsewhere. Yet why hadn't she come to the service? She'd known she was to lead the dancing. Surely she wouldn't have missed such an opportunity. Unless she had become ill. The fasting and trance-filled nights might suddenly have demanded payment in full. No longer concerned with stealth, Rose began circling the perimeter of the hill, at first following the small creek that ran next to it, then cutting around to the other side.

Patience was there, after all. As before, she lay facedown
on the ground in her position of humble prayer, her arms and legs spread out. Rose approached slowly. As she got nearer, she began to sense that it didn't matter if she gave warning of her presence. Patience was far too still. Her head was turned away, so Rose moved around to her other side. For reasons she did not immediately understand, Rose felt nothing, though she knew now that she was walking toward death. The slack lips did not move in prayer, and those dark eyes watched her approach without a blink or a flicker.

For Rose, as a Believer, death was bittersweet. It might mean the loss of a friend, but that friend was now with the Holy Father and Holy Mother Wisdom. Patience had not been a friend, yet Rose should have felt some joy for her. She knelt beside Patience and closed her eyes. It took several seconds for her to realize what disturbed her. The dead sister's gray-streaked black hair splayed out around her head; her white cap was nowhere in sight. As Rose leaned in close, she saw that the hair was matted in back. She touched the area lightly, certain that it would feel sticky. It did. Under the thick hair, the back of Patience's skull was smashed into a pulpy crater.

Feeling sick, Rose sat sharply on the grass and stared at the blood staining the ends of her fingers.
Dearest Mother Ann,
she whispered,
who could have done such a thing?
She half sobbed a prayer that Patience's soul be granted peace, and for the doomed soul of her killer.

A piercing shriek jolted Rose upright, and her heart lunged against her ribs. She twisted around to see Gertrude standing to her left, her hands held out in front of her as if warding off an attack. The Kitchen Deaconess paused to gulp in some air, then released another wail. Gertrude's screams had apparently reached the Meetinghouse as the worship service ended. Running figures emerged from the trees—people from the world, dressed in their Sunday best; panting brethren; and flushed sisters in their striped Sabbathday dresses. Grady and Gennie appeared as well, hand in hand. They all stopped and stared at the scene before
them. One of the sisters shook Gertrude to make her stop screaming.

Wordlessly Rose held out her red-stained hand toward Grady. With a gesture, he told Gennie to stay where she was, but she followed behind as he rushed to Rose's side. He held two fingers to Patience's neck and then her wrist, but shook his head as he found no pulse. Rose pointed to Patience's head, and Grady peered at the damage without touching it. Then he raised questioning eyebrows at Rose, who was staring at her own hand. Gennie pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped the blood from Rose's hand, then put an arm around her shoulders as if she were a child.

Rose took a deep breath and forced her teeth to stop chattering. “I found her like this,” she said. “As if she were in prayer, but . . .”

Gennie tightened her arm around Rose's shoulder.

“What is the meaning of this?” Wilhelm's voice, at sermon strength, roared behind them. He looked through them at Patience, then at Rose and Gennie. “Is this thy doing?” he thundered, pointing a blunt finger at the two women.

“Now, hold on, sir—” Grady began, his fists tightening instinctively.

“Wilhelm, for heaven's sake—” Rose said at the same time.

But it was Gennie who silenced them all. She straightened her tiny body, put her fists on her hips, and said, “Wilhelm, don't you dare accuse Rose! She's had a horrible shock, finding Patience like this. You, of all people, should understand what it feels like for a Believer to come upon violence. Now, let Deputy O'Neal do his job.”

Wilhelm's already ruddy face deepened in hue, but he couldn't argue. She was right, and he knew it. He turned abruptly and began to herd the others into two groups, male and female, at the base of the hill.

“Thanks, Gen,” Grady said, without looking up. “Would you two back away a bit, too, please?” He was
already examining the area around Patience on his hands and knees. Rose and Gennie cleared away but stayed close enough to hear him muttering to himself. He came to a large, flat rock, set in the ground with grass and dandelions poking up around the edges. After peering closely at the rock and the grass around it, he stood, ran a hand through his straight brown hair, and nodded.

“What have you found?” Rose asked.

He jerked his head toward her as if he'd forgotten he wasn't alone. “Might not be murder,” he said.

“But such an injury . . .” Rose objected.

“There's blood on this rock. Looks like she slipped here on the grass and fell backwards. You said she'd been acting strangely, right? Fasting and going into trances and all? Reckon she just lost her balance while she was dancing around. Seems clear enough to me.”

Grady looked toward the hushed crowd at the bottom of the hill. “Y'all can go on home now. It's an accident, couldn't have been helped. Nothing more you can do.”

“Grady,” Rose said, “don't you think Sheriff Brock ought to be—”

Grady put out a hand and almost touched her. “Leave well enough alone, Rose. There's no way to prove this wasn't an accident. You go getting the sheriff involved, and before you know it, the story'll get turned into the devil visiting a witch's coven. You know what Brock is like.”

“He's right, Rose,” Gennie said. “You know how the townspeople react when anything mysterious happens out here. It can get dangerous.”

“Speaking of which, Gennie, I want you to come back to town with me,” Grady said.

“I'm staying here.”

“Gennie—”

“I'll leave when Rose no longer needs me, and not before. Besides, if this is just an accident, then there's no danger, right?”

Grady frowned.

Gennie squeezed his arm. “I'll call you tonight, as I promised,” she said. “I'll be fine. You'll see.”

“Grady, what about Patience's body?” Rose asked. “Should we send for a doctor from Cincinnati for an autopsy?”

Grady shook his head. “Doc Irwin's feeling real poorly still, and I'm calling this an accident.” He shrugged, then continued in a casual tone. “I'll send for a doctor from Cincinnati to come tomorrow and take care of the death certificate.” He took Gennie's hand. “If I don't hear from you every morning and evening, just as we agreed, I'm coming out here and taking you back with me.”

“Agreed.”

With a troubled heart, Rose watched him descend the hill and talk with the crowd, presumably to tell them his accident theory. He could easily be right, of course. She fervently hoped he was. But she knew he should at least have kept the suspicion of murder open awhile, long enough to have a doctor examine Patience and confirm his observations. Or perhaps he was more suspicious than he was willing to let on. He might be playing down the idea of murder to protect her and the Shakers—and Gennie, as long as she stayed here—from the unreasoning fury of a suspicious world. But it might not be the wisest move. He could be letting a killer believe he—or she—had escaped without retribution. If Grady hoped that Rose would drop the issue there, he was mistaken. However, it might serve her best to keep her own suspicions quiet. An overconfident killer was more likely to become careless.

“W
HAT DO YOU THINK
?” R
OSE ASKED
. S
HE SAT TENSELY IN
a ladder-back chair, well back from the bed on which Patience lay, covered with a white cotton sheet. Josie had pulled aside a corner of the sheet to examine the wound on her head. She replaced the makeshift shroud and rubbed her several chins.

“A rock could certainly have caused such damage,” Josie said. “But something bothers me. The rock Grady found was large and flat. Patience's wound seems concave, almost as if crushed by a smaller, more pointed rock. Though I suppose the bone could simply have fallen in on itself so as to make the injury look deeper than it really was . . .”

“Is that likely?” Rose asked.

Josie shrugged a plump shoulder. “Who can say? Thank God, I have infrequent experience with violent deaths.” She tilted her head at Rose. “Do you suspect her death was more . . . well, more complicated than Grady deduced?”

“Perhaps.” Rose frowned at the shrouded body, abandoned by its soul. “Let's keep this between us for now,” she said. “Grady is right about one thing, at least—the hint of a murder in North Homage would be enough to set off the hatred of some of our neighbors. I'll do a bit of checking on my own.”

“As you wish.”

Rose cut through the medic garden to reach the Medicinal Herb Shop without attracting attention. Tramping through gardens had become a habit, she thought; she was hiding too much, and it made her uncomfortable. As a Shaker, she had accepted the importance of living her life in the open, in the company and full view of her fellow Believers.

She hesitated only a moment at the front door of the shop, while she formed a plan. Everyone had been instructed to gather in the family room of the Center Family Dwelling House for an impromptu prayer service for both Hugo and Patience. As prearranged, Gennie had called from the dwelling house parlor to tell Rose that Andrew, Benjamin, and Thomas were present. Willy Robinson might be in the shop, cleaning up, but Rose could always send him off on an errand.

Her plan proved unnecessary. The shop was empty. Quite cluttered, as well, Rose noted with disapproval. Aware that Willy might appear at any time, she shut the door behind her and headed for Patience's worktable, ignoring the crumbled leaves that clung to the hem of her long dress.

According to Gennie, she had returned Patience's journal to her worktable. Despite the clutter of stems and leaves and equipment, Rose could see instantly that the table held no books. She glanced underneath, but found nothing but more debris, which she scattered with her foot, just to make sure. She examined the broom closet, in case Gennie had taken it with her and forgotten. Nothing but thin lengths of wood and far too much dust, cleared in the areas Gennie must have slid against.

Patience might have come in after breakfast and removed the journal for some reason—perhaps to catch up on her notes during the short interval between the noon meal and the public worship service. Where might she have left it then? Her retiring room, perhaps?

Rose moved to the men's worktable, where she found
two journals on top of one another, just as Gennie had described. After glancing at one page and seeing columns of numbers, Rose tossed aside the top journal. She picked up the second journal and turned to the end. The pages were blank. She peered closely at the binding and saw jagged tears. Two pages had been torn from the journal.

Fragrant lavender needles brushed against Rose's ankles as she hurried through the herb fields. Not wishing to explain her errand to Believers exiting the Center Family Dwelling House after their prayer service, Rose had raced north from the Medicinal Herb Shop. Since no one was in sight when she reached the west end of the fields, she sprinted through the grass to the trees surrounding the holy hill. This time she wasn't worried about disturbing anyone as she crushed the undergrowth. She climbed partway up the hill and located the rock Grady had found. It was smudged with blood, though not much for such a deep wound. As she had remembered it, the rock was large and flat, with no protrusions.