Read A Simple Shaker Murder Online
Authors: Deborah Woodworth
A Simple Shaker Murder
SILENT WITNESS
The child glanced at Rose's hand but made no move to climb down. She shifted her head slightly so that she looked into the distance. Rose followed her gaze and realized the girl could see the plum tree from which Hugh Griffiths had been hanging.
She might easily have witnessed what happened . . .
“Deborah Woodworth's suspenseful exploration of the Shaker way of lifeâand deathâwill fascinate mystery readers. Sister Rose Callahan is a marvelous heroine with wisdom and charm to spare.”
Carolyn Hart
CONTENTS
An Excerpt from
Death on the River Walk
An Excerpt from
liberty Falling
An Excerpt from
A Simple Shaker Murder
An Excerpt from
In the Still of the Night
An Excerpt from
Murder Shoots the Bull
In memory of Dan Cooperman, mentor and friend, and for Suzanne and Jen, with deep affection
The original Owenites, a short-lived utopian community led by Robert Owen, lived in New Harmony, Indiana, in the early nineteenth century and had a lasting impact on American education. In 1825, at the Pleasant Hill Shaker village, a group of young Believers, influenced by the ideas of Robert Owen, agitated for reform. The result was a crisis in leadership and the apostasy of many Shakers.
However, the New-Owenitesâalong with the North Homage Shaker village, the town and the county of Languor, Kentucky, and all their inhabitantsâare figments of the author's imagination. The characters live only in this book and represent no one, living or dead. By the 1930s, the period in which this story is told, no Shaker villages remained in Kentucky or anywhere else outside the northeastern United States. Today one small Shaker community survives: Sabbathday Lake, near Poland Springs, Maine. The Pleasant Hill Shaker community (near Harrodsburg, Kentucky) and the Hancock Shaker Village in Massachusetts have both been restored and are open to visitors who wish to see how Believers lived during the nineteenth century.
Deborah Woodworth
May 14, 1999
A
SHADOW LEAPT UP THE BARN WALL, FOLLOWED BY A SQUEAK
of animal terror from a corner. The dirt floor softened the sounds of scuffling. A man swore, loudly at first, whispering by the end of the oath. He paused and straightened, resting a moment on the heavy crate he'd been dragging from a corner of the barn. He had no idea what might be in the crateâhe had never been near a farm before, let alone a barnâbut the thing was large and heavy and nailed shut. He'd need something tall and stable, just in case all this didn't work out and he had to take drastic steps.
The thought of what he might have to do sent a shiver through him and brought back the damp chill of the November morning. He shivered again. He was a slight man, unused to discomfort or physical labor. Fear drove him on. He leaned against the crate and pushed again. It scraped across the floor, leaving a trail of gouges in the dirt.
He positioned the crate under a low rafter, crawled on top, and reached upward. Should be just about right. He jumped to the floor and stood silent for a moment, conscious of the soft thump his shoes had made. He sucked in his breath and released it as a field mouse squeezed from under a hay bale and skittered away from the human presence.
After a brief search, the man located a neatly wound coil of heavy rope, worn but not too frayed. He unwound the rope along the floor, nodded when he'd estimated its length, then
carried it over to the crate. He glanced up at the beam, and for a split second his eyelids fluttered, the only outward sign of the terror that flashed through his body.
He had done all he could. If the meeting went as he hoped, he'd have no need of these preparations. There would just be time to move everything back in place, and the Shaker brethren would notice nothing amiss when they arrived to feed the animals. If the meeting didn't go well, the brethren would be in for a shock. But he couldn't concern himself with that.
This is the way it's got to be
, he thought;
it's the only way
. They couldn't go on like this.
The creak of the barn door told him the time had come. He brushed the dust off his coat and forced his lips into the curve of a smile. It wouldn't do to look desperate or frightened. Although he was both.
T
HE NORTHERN
K
ENTUCKY SUN ROSE SLOWLY, ALMOST RELUCTANTLY
, as if it would just as soon sleep till spring. Not that autumn, or even winter, was brutal in this part of the country; though damp, the temperature was rarely cold for more than a short spell.
Sister Rose Callahan pulled her long wool cloak tight around her thin body and sprinted the distance to the Center Family Dwelling House. After the sultry summer, it was a relief to be able to move quickly again. As eldress of the North Homage Shaker village, Rose had decided to flout tradition and take most of her meals away from the Ministry House, where she lived. She told herself her decision kept her more involved with the sisters, her spiritual charges. Still in her late thirties, she was eager to grow as a leader and to help her declining community endure a Depression that seemed endless. But she had tired of meal after meal in the Ministry dining room, sitting across the table from Elder Wilhelm Lundel, who planned unceasingly how to return North Homage to its days of greatest strength in the 1830s, a century earlier. Let him plot alone.
The evening before, Rose had returned from a month away visiting the Hancock Shaker village in Massachusetts, very near the Lead Society of Mount Lebanon, in New York. Communication between the eastern and western Shakers had often been poor, and the Lead Ministry worried that North Homage
had drifted astray recently, so Rose had been called to give a full report of doings in her village. The visit had been tense and exhilarating, and the train ride back exhausting. Rose wanted nothing more than to be home with her own Shaker family, enjoying the familiar routine of hard work and worship.
She was late, so she took a few running steps, already planning her morning tasks. Eight men and women from the world, members of a utopian society calling themselves New-Owenites, would be at breakfastâor at least, some of them would. According to Sister Josie Trentâthe Society's Infirmary Nurse, who'd dropped by Rose's retiring room early, to catch her up on the village newsâthe visitors kept their own unpredictable schedules. Josie had said they'd been in North Homage for twelve days to “study” the Shakers, whatever that meant. Rose intended to find out. It was just like Wilhelm to take advantage of her absence to accept a group of strangers for an extended stay. Undoubtedly he had his own reasons for doing so.
The sisters would be inside, waiting for her in silent prayer. They would expect Rose, as eldress, to lead them single-file into the dining room for their silent meal. Since Wilhelm rarely dined with the community, their trustee, Brother Andrew Clark, would lead the brethren and the New-Owenite men to their table at the opposite end of the room.