A Deadly Shaker Spring (31 page)

Rose grabbed the second bottle of rosewater from her pocket and raised it over her head as Evangeline's trembling hand aimed her gun at the coatrack. The dark blue cloak began to move.

Evangeline fired two shots before Rose brought the bottle crashing down on her arm. The gun hit the floor as the bottle smashed, splattering rosewater all over Evangeline. Her astonishment was short-lived. She saw Rose and fury distorted her face. As she lunged for Rose, a movement from the coatrack distracted her. With the strength of youth, hard work, and fear, Rose used the moment to grab Evangeline, pinning her arms to her side. Evangeline squirmed and kicked Rose, who winced as the sharp heel cracked her shin. But she held tightly to Evangeline's arms. With a suddenness that almost threw Rose off balance, Evangeline stopped struggling.

As they both watched, the coatrack tottered and fell toward them, as if wounded. As it hit the floor, Caleb Cox rolled from behind the cloak. He groaned and pulled himself to the wall before growing silent.

Deputy Grady O'Neal ran from the waiting room into the hallway, his gun drawn.

“What the—?” He knelt over Caleb quickly. “He's alive. Now what's going on?” he asked, as he took Evangeline from Rose's aching arms and handcuffed her.

“This is Evangeline Holker,” Rose said. “Shaker apostate and murderess.”

“Samuel?”

“And a Shaker sister named Faithfull, who died twenty-five years ago. In both murders, she used a pillow to smother her sleeping victim.”

Grady grabbed Evangeline's hands and pushed up her sleeves. Both wrists showed healing scratch marks. “So she's also the one who attacked you.”

Rose nodded as she knelt over a groaning Caleb. “Just a superficial wound,” she said. “We can leave him for now.” She sprinted into the room where the three sisters were still captive. Grady followed, shoving Evangeline into a chair where he could keep an eye on her. She seem resigned.

Grady and Rose untied Josie and Sarah, then reassured themselves that Agatha was breathing regularly, merely sedated. Josie pushed them aside and began to fuss over her.

Grady sniffed the air. “I can tell this is going to be an interesting story, full of interesting smells,” he said, “but I'm afraid I'll have to wait to hear it.”

Rose darted a questioning look at him.

“They're coming, Rose, just like you feared. I need to get back out there fast. You stay here.”

Rose ignored him and raced toward the Infirmary door. “Why did you come here first?” she asked, as he caught up with her, dragging Evangeline along.

“Richard Worthington,” Grady said. “He had a change of heart, I guess. He brought Caleb in to look for Sarah, then caught me as I got to North Homage. Told me a mob was coming this way and then came back with us to help. When I couldn't find you, I got worried. Gretchen said Josie, Sarah, and Agatha were still in the Infirmary, and she'd seen you race off in that direction. I still wasn't worried until I saw Caleb
head that way, too. That's when I figured the Infirmary was the place for me.”

“So Caleb must have been looking for Sarah, to protect her, and heard she was with the rest of us in the Infirmary,” Rose said.

“That's what I figure.”

“I wonder why Richard decided to help us.” They were close to the Center Family Dwelling House, and Rose broke into a trot.

“Something about his kid, doing it for him.”

They reached the Center Family house as four men emerged from the west doorway and stood side-by-side. The group included Elder Wilhelm, Richard Worthington, the Reverend Sim, rector of St. Christopher's Episcopal Church, and the sheriff's department's third officer.

The cloud of dust at the entrance to North Homage resolved into a mob of about thirty men, most on horseback, a few in cars. One man in front yelled and pointed at the Center Family house as he spotted the small group near the door. The Reverend Sim stepped in front of Wilhelm as the mob moved in their direction. Rose and Grady, the latter pushing Evangeline ahead of him, joined the four men.

Horses, cars, and shouting men, many holding rifles, left the unpaved road and gouged through the spring bluegrass. A husky man in front seemed to have taken leadership. He pulled up about fifty feet from the dwelling house, and the others stopped as well. They seemed puzzled by what they saw. They recognized Languor's Episcopal priest, his feet planted apart and his arms crossed in a protective stance, in front of the Shakers' elder. Beside the Reverend Sim
was one of the sheriff's men, and Richard Worthington stood next to him, impassive and stern. The presence of two women, one in handcuffs, and Languor's deputy sheriff further confused them. Moments passed in silence.

Klaus Holker, straggling behind on a defiant horse, worked his way to the front of the group. He slid from his mount and stared. “Evie? What's going on?”

Evangeline rolled her eyes and didn't bother to answer. It was Grady who spoke. “Mr. Holker, your wife's been arrested for the murders of Samuel Bickford and Faithfull Worthington,” he said. “And for the attempted murders of four Shaker sisters.”

Klaus's face sagged. He dropped his reins, and the horse pranced away to look for its owner. Confused now, rather than enraged, the men behind him muttered to one another. Their self-appointed leader poked Klaus in the shoulder.

“What the hell's going on?” Clem demanded. “You said your name was Kentuck Hill, and Brother Samuel killed hisself because of killing that Shaker a long time ago.”

Klaus stood silent and motionless, never taking his eyes from Evangeline. Wilhelm stepped from behind the Reverend Sim. Aware that there was no peaceful situation Wilhelm couldn't stir into a frenzy, Rose intervened.

“He misinformed you,” she said. “But it was not entirely his fault,” she added, as an angry murmur arose from the crowd. “Mr. Holker's mistake was in trusting his wife, Evangeline. She lied to him for years.”

“Why should we believe you?” cried a gruff voice from the middle of the group.

Rose turned her head toward Evangeline. Grady pushed her a step forward, holding her upper arm securely.

“Evie, is this true?” Klaus asked. When she merely glared at him, he approached her slowly. “Did you kill Faithfull?” Disbelief and grief choked his voice.

“It's been twenty-five years, Klaus. How dare you feel anything for her after all this time! God knows you never felt anything for me, ever, just cheated on me, year after year.” Evangeline's high voice deepened as she spat the words at him. “At first I thought I could get you to love me, but I gave up, and then all I asked was a child. But you couldn't even give me that much.” She released an angry sigh. “Yes, I killed Faithfull. I thought if she were gone, you'd turn to me. We'd run away together, marry, have a family . . . I did it for your love and our children, and I never got either.”

Evangeline looked Klaus directly in the eyes. “She never loved you.”

“You told me she did! After all those years of telling me nothing, you told me Samuel killed her because she was going to run away with me. Why would you do that if it wasn't true?”

“Because,” Evangeline said wearily, “it was my one chance for children. You were so obsessed with Faithfull's death, with the Shakers being responsible somehow, with Sarah being her long-lost daughter. You wanted to punish them, anyway. I thought if I gave you a good reason, you'd just get Richard to foreclose, and we could have the land and the children,
and . . .” Tears trickled down her cheeks. “Now I'll never have the chance for children, and it was all for nothing. A stupid mistake.”

“What do you mean?” Rose asked.

Evangeline drew in a jerky breath. “I killed Faithfull because I thought she really was in love with Klaus. Because he was so convinced of it. I thought it was the only way. If her death seemed suspicious to anyone, I assumed they would blame Samuel. But Samuel knew she was going to run away with him, so he figured out what I'd done. Then Agatha figured it out, too.”

“But why kill Samuel?” Rose asked. “He never betrayed your secret.”

“He was going to confess, and talk to Sarah, too. Caleb told us. I knew Samuel would talk about Faithfull's death, what he'd figured out about me. So I had to make sure he didn't—and get his journals, too.”

“Why not simply disappear?”

Evangeline's face crumpled. Her square shoulders slumped, and her handcuffed arms hung loosely in front of her. Tendrils of her long gray hair fell over her eyes. She made no effort to brush them aside.

“I wanted the children,” she said, her eyes softening.

“Evie, you couldn't have done all . . .
How?
You were home with me when Samuel died.” Klaus stood before Evangeline, gazing at her as if he were seeing a stranger.

Evangeline's eyes sparked with anger. “It was your idea to have separate bedrooms,” she said. “I could do anything I wanted, sneak out in the night, take the car, anything. You'd never notice. So I called Samuel
and convinced him to meet me in the Center Family kitchen after bedtime.” Evangeline shook her head, and a hank of hair swung loose from its pins and hit her shoulder. “I told him I could prove to him that I never killed Faithfull. I thought I could still make everything work out for the best. But when I arrived, I saw he'd fallen asleep in his chair, and his back was to the door. I got a pillow from the parlor, sneaked up behind him . . . it was so easy, just like with Faithfull.”

“Oh, Evie.” Klaus's legs buckled, and he dropped to his knees. The subdued crowd shuffled their feet and exchanged chagrined glances, clearly aware of the enormity of their narrowly averted error. With Richard Worthington accompanying him, the Reverend Sim wandered among the men, speaking quietly, tapping a shoulder here and cupping an elbow there until they began to mount their horses or walk away.

“So pointless,” Evangeline said, her high whispery voice barely audible. “If I'd just left everything alone, Faithfull would have run away with Samuel, Klaus and I would still have married . . . and I still wouldn't have any children. Everything would have been the same.”

“W
E'LL NEVER GET THE FOUL SMELL OUT OF THIS
room,” Josie complained, as she scrubbed the pine floor in Agatha's Infirmary room with soap and water.

“I could break another bottle or two of rosewater, if you'd like,” Rose said.

“Rose Callahan, how wasteful! I'll just scrub, thank you.”

Rose smoothed clean sheets over the new mattress on Agatha's bed. Agatha herself slept in another room, tired but otherwise unharmed. Evangeline had allowed Josie to sedate the fragile former eldress, so she had missed the terror of the previous day. Rose had thanked God and Mother Ann and anyone else she could think of for that blessing. Someday, when Agatha was stronger, Rose would tell her what happened. But not now. The sisters worked in companionable silence for a time before Rose broached the subject that was on both their minds.

“Josie,” she said, “could you bear to talk about what Evangeline said to you in this room? There are some details that still bother me, and she seemed to be confessing to you.”

“It would probably do me good,” Josie said. “Ask your questions.”

“The cookies—the ones we found with Samuel. Did Evangeline explain those?”

Josie sloshed some cleanser full-strength on the floor and scrubbed vigorously. “Yea, indeed. The cookies were already there. I guess Samuel had put them out for Sarah, for their meeting later.” Josie sat back on her knees. “I have to wonder if it was a gesture of love,” she said. “Evangeline didn't know that Samuel never ate sweets. She thought she was clever to think of biting into one cookie to make his death look like a heart attack during a midnight snack.

“The poor tired man had dozed off with one of his journals open in front of him. Probably planning to show parts to Sarah. Evangeline took the journal, of course, after she saw that he had written down so much about his relationship with Faithfull. She had already convinced Elsa to steal the rest of his journals for her.

“She claimed she hadn't really planned to kill him. But she did, she smothered him, as she had Faithfull, just as though neither was a real, wonderful person with so much good to give to the world.”

Josie wiped a sleeve across her cheek and slopped a wet rag into a bucket.

“Did Evangeline mention anything about some pages from an old Shaker journal that were given to Sarah?” Rose asked.

“Ah, yea, she did. The pages were from Klaus's journal, she said. He was playing a ‘fool's game,' she said, stringing poor Sarah along with enticing tidbits about her mother.”

“Did Evangeline admit to attacking Sarah in the Sisters' Shop?”

“Yea,” Josie said. “Another ‘mistake' was what she called it. The other apostates were at the barn, releasing our animals, and she followed Sarah over to the Sisters' Shop.”