Simply Dead Read online

  Lydia stopped slicing beets, pausing to think with the knife up raised. The dark red juice ran down her arm and dripped on the table. ‘Oh dear.’ Dropping the knife, she grabbed a towel and began sopping up the juice on her arm. ‘Maybe he wanted to protect his wife’s feelings? Well, wouldn’t he? I know I would be heartbroken to hear something similar about my husband.’

  Rees moved to her and dropped a kiss upon the patch of her forehead revealed by her cap. ‘You never will,’ he promised.

  Smiling she pushed him away. ‘But wouldn’t he want to protect Sally’s feelings?’ she persisted.

  ‘Maybe. But that assumes someone would travel to the cabin to tell her.’ Rees hesitated, thinking about the woman who was a virtual prisoner in her room. ‘Maybe not,’ he said, contradicting himself. ‘She probably knew about Hortense anyway, since Wootten’s attack took place only a door’s width away. And when Jake confronted his father, well, the noise of the fight would surely have penetrated her refuge. Besides, Hortense was in the room with Sally Wootten.’ Lydia stared at her husband.

  ‘She knew,’ she said. ‘She must have.’

  ‘Wootten had no reason to strangle Hortense,’ he said. ‘Not to keep the secret anyway.’

  ‘Maybe he planned to revenge himself upon her for her refusal,’ she said in a dry voice.

  Rees looked at her, wondering what she had experienced to occasion that darkly knowing tone. ‘Perhaps.’ He considered Wootten, a man given to anger – but sudden quick outbursts, not planned revenge. ‘When I accused him of visiting Zion, he told me he had never been to Zion.’

  ‘And you believed him?’ Lydia asked in amazement. ‘He lied to you.’

  Rees did not reply. He wasn’t sure he believed Josiah Wootten – but wasn’t so sure he didn’t either. Wootten’s denial had seemed genuine. ‘We’re missing something important,’ Rees said now.

  And then the opportunity to continue reviewing the case ended with the entrance of the four children, their cheeks red with cold. Their laughter filled the kitchen as they dropped the snowy sticks in the wood pile. Rees, who could barely think with all the noise, escaped upstairs to spend some time weaving.

  When he awoke in the early hours of morning, Lydia was already gone from the bed. He rolled over into the cooling hollow to peer into the cot by the bed. Sharon was missing as well but he could hear her high treble voice. Rees scrambled out from under the warm quilts. He quickly donned socks and slid his feet into his shoes. He added breeches and two shirts, one a heavy woolen one, over his body linen. He decided no number of shirts would be enough to keep him warm and hurried downstairs. Although he tried to step quietly, his footsteps sounded very loud in the still house.

  When he entered the kitchen the fire was blazing on the hearth. Lydia was sitting at the table with a cup of tea watching her small daughter play.

  ‘I’ve set up the coffee pot,’ Lydia said, half-turning in her seat. ‘If you want coffee, put it over the fire.’

  With a nod, Rees arranged the pot on the spider and pushed the pot nearer the flames.

  Then he joined his wife at the table. ‘Couldn’t sleep?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about Pearl,’ she said. ‘Something about her – well, her disappearance – bothers me.’

  ‘What, exactly?’ he asked. He too had been worrying about the fate of someone lost in this cold weather.

  ‘I don’t know. But I’m not so sure she ran off with a young man,’ Lydia said.

  ‘Why?’

  Without speaking, she brought a handful of something from her lap: the earbobs and the necklace.

  ‘She would have taken them, if only to sell. I know she would have. These earrings would fetch a good price.’ She held one up and the red stone sparkled, as crimson as a drop of blood. Involuntarily Rees flinched.

  ‘But Esther said Pearl was interested in the boys,’ he said. ‘She told me Pearl hangs out the window and smiles and waves at the boys any chance she sees.’

  Lydia nodded, but not as though she agreed. ‘Daniel said none of the boys were missing – and none of the Shaker Brothers either. So who?’

  Rees stared at her for several seconds. ‘We’ve got something wrong,’ he said at last. She nodded in agreement. ‘But what? I keep thinking that Pearl is the key. If we understand Pearl, we will understand everything.’

  ‘Do you think one of the Wootten boys found her and dragged her home?’ Lydia asked.

  ‘Then where is she?’ Rees asked. ‘I swear, she was not there when I went after Jerusha. And our daughter never mentioned another girl.’

  Lydia chewed her lip. ‘Perhaps she saw her opportunity and ran?’

  ‘Where would she go?’ he asked, wondering if he would need to visit Mr Morton again. At least Rees need not fear meeting Josiah Wootten this time.

  Lydia stared into space for several seconds, the necklace clutched in her hand. Finally, surprised to find herself still holding the beads, she stared down at them. ‘These were made with love,’ she said. ‘Look. They are all carved.’ She held out the necklace to her husband. He had assumed the beads had been crudely made but now he saw one was carved into petals like a rose and another indented with circles. He reached for the necklace. Each bead was different, carefully carved and polished.

  ‘It must have taken a long time to carve this,’ he said, once again experiencing that twitch of familiarity. ‘I wonder …’ Lydia turned to look at him. ‘Jake Wootten carves,’ Rees said. ‘I saw him working on a wooden bowl.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘He carved it for his sister. That’s why Pearl has it.’

  Rees nodded. ‘That makes sense.’

  ‘No it doesn’t,’ Lydia said fretfully.

  ‘It doesn’t? Why not?’

  She did not reply. Instead she stared into space, her facial expressions changing with her thoughts. Finally he asked, ‘What are you thinking about?’

  ‘Laundry.’

  ‘What?’ Rees gaped at her.

  ‘We have to go back to Zion.’ She looked at him. ‘I have to check on something.’

  ‘But today is Sunday,’ Rees said.

  ‘I know,’ Lydia said. ‘But I suspect the Sisters did not finish all of the wash. When I was a Sister we almost never finished it all.’ She paused. ‘I hate to miss church but we must. I’ll leave Jerusha to watch her younger brothers and sisters.’ She added with a twist to her lips, ‘I am not so afraid with the Woottens behind bars. And I want to leave as soon as we can.’

  ‘The Shakers will be attending services in the Meeting House.’ Rees said, thinking of the questions he might consider asking and couldn’t if they were busy.

  ‘That may be for the best,’ Lydia replied with a cryptic smile.

  Morning chores meant they did not get on the road for another three hours, despite their intentions. When they drove into Zion the main street was empty of people. Although Rees still found the silence of this community disconcerting, he was accustomed to seeing the Brothers and Sisters walking through the village, on their way to chores or to the Dining Hall. The empty streets felt strange and he was glad to hear the singing emanating from the Meeting House.

  ‘Let’s drive as close to the laundry shed as we can,’ Lydia said. Rees turned a quick glance upon her. A furrow had formed between her brows and as he watched it deepened. She was clutching at the side of the wagon and he thought that if not for her gloves he would see her white knuckles. Something, some thought, was making her tense but he knew she wouldn’t tell him until she was ready.

  They crossed the bridge but once on the other side Rees pulled Hannibal to a stop and climbed down. Although no snow had fallen the previous night, the temperatures had dropped below freezing and the vegetation crunched beneath his feet. He draped the horse blanket over Hannibal and then helped Lydia alight. In silence they walked through the glade to the laundry shed.

  Usually a hive of activity, all was quiet now. But, as Lydia had predicted, the Sisters on laundry duty had b
een here working here yesterday. A few pieces of body linen and a couple of sheets, all frozen solid, festooned the leafless bushes. She pushed open the door and stepped inside. Rees followed. The fire had been banked and a line of cold irons waited on the hearth for the Sisters to return.

  ‘What are we looking for?’ he asked.

  ‘Dirty laundry,’ she said. ‘I am almost positive it has not been done. Yet. At least, I pray not.’

  Rees turned a look of bewilderment upon her. She did not notice. She moved purposefully toward the large baskets in which the Sisters brought the washing to the laundry. Most were empty but there were still a few full ones at the back. She began hurling sheets, towels and other linen items to the floor. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

  ‘Looking for something. I may be wrong. I hope I’m wrong.’ She went from basket to basket until an enormous pile of laundry lay upon the stone floor. Finally, at the rearmost basket, she found what she was searching for. ‘Look.’ She held up a handful of towels. All of them were stained dark.

  ‘Blood,’ Rees said.

  Lydia nodded. ‘There are only a few items in this basket besides these towels. Of course, there may be a perfectly innocent explanation for the blood but I don’t think so. There’s too much of it, for one thing.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ he asked. But the words died on his lips as his thoughts raced. ‘Something else was in the basket,’ he breathed in understanding.

  ‘Someone else,’ she corrected him. He stared at her. ‘What if Pearl did not run away with a boy? She didn’t take her treasures. That’s bothered me from the very beginning. I kept thinking that if she had simply run away, well, she would have taken her valuables. They were important to her. If she didn’t take them, then there had to be some other explanation.’

  ‘You think she’s dead?’ Rees said. This was exactly what he had feared. Lydia nodded. ‘But where is she? We – I mean the Shaker Brothers and myself – searched the entire village.’

  ‘But you were looking for a living girl, not a body,’ Lydia pointed out. He gulped. ‘What’s more, I think her body is somewhere here, around the laundry.’ When he did not respond, she added, ‘Her body was brought here, to the wash house, in the laundry basket. Pearl cannot be too far away.’

  ‘Surely the Sisters would have seen her …’ he began. But perhaps not. Not if Pearl had been carefully hidden. And she would have been hidden in a laundry basket. Rees looked at his wife. ‘We must search the wash house.’ She shook her head but followed him into the next room.

  Although the laundry was not very large, it was full of hiding places. They turned over all of the coppers, looked into the cupboards and peered under the ironing tables. Nothing.

  ‘I think,’ Lydia said, ‘we need to search the area around this wash house. If she is dead …’ Her words trailed away and she met Rees’s gaze with an anxious frown.

  He thought of the steep hillside behind the laundry. It dropped to a stream below and was a handy location for the disposal of unwanted items. He sighed. He should have thought of it before. ‘The hill behind the laundry,’ he said. ‘I’ll climb down and search.’

  Lydia joined him as he walked around the wash house to the steep slope at the back. Hillocks of dead grass and large stones protruded through the snow. ‘Be careful,’ she said. He nodded. Even during the summer this hill was difficult to navigate. Now, with snow covering the uneven ground and ice slicked over the stones, both the descent and the climb back up would be difficult.

  He began inching his way down the hill.

  Dirty wash water was sent down the hill by way of a hollowed-out log. With the cold temperatures, the most recent evacuation of water had left a large icy streak descending down the slope. He was careful to stay well away from it; he did not want to slide all the way down to the stream below.

  Using the leafless branches of the scrubby trees that somehow managed to cling to this hill as supports, Rees picked his way down. When he was about a third of the way and had stopped to rest – he was breathless and his thighs were beginning to ache – he saw something fluttering below. Something dark. ‘Oh no,’ he said involuntarily. Now he began to hurry, his feet slipping in the snow. He fell twice but he barely felt the impact before he was up again. His injured ankle began to ache.

  Dusted with snow, the object disappeared into the white landscape, invisible to even a cursory search. But Rees, with each step closer, became more and more certain that he was approaching a body. The fluttering cloth that to a quick glance could appear as leaves or a discarded rag resolved into a corner of a dark blue dress.

  Finally he stood over the snow-covered mound. When he used his handkerchief to brush away the snow he revealed Pearl’s white face. She was dead and he thought she had been for some time. Abandoned in the cold, her body displayed no signs of corruption. Except for the bluish tint to her skin and lips, her face was unmarked. Her cap had fallen off somewhere and the dark red wound in her blond hair glittered with crystals of ice.

  Rees turned and began the long climb back to the top. ‘I guess Pearl could not have started the fire that killed her mother,’ he said. Lydia nodded mutely. The only sound was the clicking of the carved beads she held tightly in her hands. He stared at the necklace and thought, Jake Wootten.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Brother Jonathan was not pleased when Rees pulled him out of services. The Elder was unhappier still when Rees guided him down the steep hillside behind the wash house. But his irritation faded when he saw the body lying in the snow. ‘Oh dear,’ he said. ‘Oh dear.’ Looking up at Rees, he added, ‘How long has she been here?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Days, I suspect. It’s been cold. She’s frozen almost solid She could have been here since we first found out she was missing.’

  Jonathan shook his head with dismay. ‘All right,’ he said. He paused and Rees guessed that the Elder was considering leaving the body here until later, after prayers. But he thought better of it; death trumped even the services to God. ‘We’ll have to bring her up,’ he said.

  Within the hour several of the Shaker Brothers had been called in to assist Rees. They were struggling to bring the body up the hill and to the front of the wash house. Although Pearl had been of slight build, her dead weight and the uneven and snowy terrain meant removing her to the top of the slope involved six men. Rees did not think Rouge would be available but a boy had been dispatched to town to alert him nonetheless.

  By the time Pearl’s remains had been brought to the top, Rees was sweating. They had almost lost the body once. It threatened to tumble down the hill, when one of the Brothers had fallen over a snow-covered tree root. Rees had wrenched his shoulder grabbing at the body, preventing the slide down the slope by catching the full skirt. It was a great relief to reach the flat ground by the building. Rees stood aside when the Brothers carried the slight figure around to the front.

  Esther, and some of the other Sisters, waited there with Lydia. Louisa stared at the motionless body on the ground with avid curiosity but Glory, her eyes filling with tears, turned away. ‘Oh no,’ Esther said. ‘Oh no.’ Taking her handkerchief from her cloak pocket, she smoothed it across Pearl’s waxen face.

  ‘She’s not wearing her cloak,’ Lydia said quietly to Rees.

  ‘She was killed inside,’ he replied. She nodded.

  ‘I suppose the young man she was seeing murdered her,’ Esther said sorrowfully.

  ‘But she—’ Rees stopped speaking abruptly when Lydia put her hand on his arm.

  ‘Not now,’ she said so softly he could barely hear her.

  Male voices sounded clearly from the path and within a minute or so Rouge and Thomas appeared.

  ‘I thought you would be at Mass,’ Rees said.

  ‘I should have been,’ Rouge replied. ‘I overslept. I daresay God had a plan for me today.’ His gaze went to the still form lying on the ground. ‘What happened?’ He sounded both resigned and tired.

  ‘This is the miss
ing girl,’ Rees began but Jonathan, directing a frown in his direction, stepped forward.

  ‘We all assumed she had left our order for a man,’ he said.

  ‘And you think he didn’t want her?’ Rouge said. When Jonathan nodded, the constable added, ‘Maybe the man was one of you.’

  Jonathan took a quick step backward. ‘Of course not,’ he said.

  Esther, her caramel-colored cheeks damp with tears, stepped forward. ‘Although Pearl was forward and pushed herself at Daniel and other young Brothers, we never saw any special or inappropriate relationship. Most of the Brothers seemed embarrassed rather than intrigued. So we—’ and here she gestured to Jonathan and Daniel standing behind the older Elder – ‘assumed she had met someone from the World.’

  Rouge glanced at Esther then quickly away again. He was not accustomed to women, and colored women at that, speaking directly to him as though they were equals.

  ‘You don’t have any idea who she might have been seeing?’ Rees asked, stepping into the sudden awkward silence. ‘One of the hired men perhaps?’

  ‘We only have the one at present,’ Jonathan said, ‘and he is an old man more interested in his supper and his beer than in any young girls.’

  ‘No idea at all,’ Esther said.

  Lydia took the jewelry from her pocket and stared at it thoughtfully.

  ‘I’ll bring the body back to town,’ Rouge said. ‘The coroner must examine her.’

  ‘She is one of ours,’ Jonathan argued. ‘We’ll put her in the spring house and bury her when the weather turns and the ground warms.’

  ‘She is a murder victim,’ Rouge said, although he knew there was a question of his jurisdiction over the Shaker community. His predecessor had been more circumspect about entering Zion even when a violent death occurred, but he was cut from different cloth. This was not the first time he had quarreled with this community over whose authority took precedence. ‘She needs to be examined. Especially considering the circumstances of her death.’