A Changing Light Read online

  He smoothed back a lock of my hair. “What do you have planned for this day?”

  “Let’s see.” I frowned, picturing my schedule. “It’s Sixth Day. I have a full morning of prenatal visits, and I’ll stop by Esther’s this afternoon to check on her baby. Oh, and I’ll visit Alma to find out about any funeral arrangements. Maybe my new garments will be ready, as well.”

  “Sounds busy. Shall we eat at the Grand Hotel tonight? We’ll have a delicious dinner, and neither of us will have to cook.”

  “That would be wonderful.” I gazed at him. “Thee is all dressed and ready to go. Would thee ever consider opening an office here in Amesbury instead of having to go across the bridge every day? I know we’ve discussed it before, but it seems that now would be a good time.”

  He touched my nose. “I have an appointment this very afternoon to look at a possible space. Did you read my mind?” He laughed. “I want to be closer by after the baby comes.”

  “I would like knowing thee was nearer to hand. Thee could come home for a midday meal together, too.”

  “Exactly. For now, I’d better be off.” He kissed my lips, then stood. “I expect you’re going to add sleuthing on top of all your other tasks today.”

  “I might, just a little.”

  “You’ll be careful, dear Rosie. Please?”

  I extended my hand. “Only if I get another kiss before thee leaves.”

  The kiss having been accomplished to our mutual satisfaction, he was gone. I sat in bed with my coffee, feeling much pampered and refreshed.

  Our lovely bedroom was at the back of the house. The neighboring house was situated far enough down the hill that we had no need to draw the shades at night. I watched through the window as sunlight played with snow-coated branches, making the tall sugar maple outside sparkle with diamond-studded fur. When a squirrel alit on a branch, the white stuff slid off. March snows weren’t the kind to stick around and accumulate.

  As we approached the spring equinox, the days were long enough to melt snow not long after it fell. My list of tasks, as David put it, was also long. I should rouse myself and get started on it. But first I ran my mind’s eye down the notes I’d begun yesterday morning. I could add Pete Beaumont’s myopia to it, and William’s financial troubles. Prudence’s drinking problem might play a role, too, although I couldn’t think of what.

  A visit to Kevin might be in order after I’d finished with my clients, and a talk with Wilson. And seeing Alma, where reminders of Orpha would be everywhere.

  I finally took a moment to think back on my many memories of my mentor. Her taking both my hands, gazing into my face, and agreeing to take me on as her apprentice. I’d summoned my courage and asked her after I had helped out at my niece Betsy’s birth ten years ago, a birth Orpha had assisted my sister with. The day when Orpha had said I was ready to attend births on my own and soon after had offered me her own practice, declaring she was too old to continue staying up all night with laboring women. The countless times I’d gone to her for counsel about difficult pregnancies, techniques for breech and twin births, solace after a newborn had died at only minutes or hours old. And for her wisdom when I was on the track of a murderer. Rather than tell me what to do, she would ask me questions until the answer arose.

  I heard her voice in my head now. “I have every confidence in you, Rose.”

  I’d better get on with it, then.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  I was busy with paperwork in my office at half past eight when I glanced up at a knock. I wasn’t expecting my first client until nine, but two women stood outside, and I could see through the lace curtain that one was my blind friend Jeanette Papka. Her hand was tucked through the elbow of Frannie Eisenman, a woman I’d met through the Amesbury Woman Suffrage Association a couple of years ago. I had a pang, remembering my aunt’s teenage ward, also named Frannie, who had been murdered last fall. I pulled the door open.

  “Jeanette? How nice to see thee, and Frannie, too. Please come in.”

  I shut the door after them, wondering what they’d come about. Frannie’s frizzed dark hair was shot through with silver. I’d delivered her grandbaby a year and a half ago. She was unlikely to be pregnant. I’d caught Jeanette’s very large son Owen at his birth last Tenth Month and hoped she wasn’t carrying another baby so soon.

  “Please sit here, Jeanette.” I led her to my chair. “Frannie, does thee mind the chaise?” I pulled out a stool from the corner and perched on it. “What can I help with today? Is either of thee—?”

  Jeanette threw her head back and laughed. “Good heavens, no, Rose. Neither of us is pregnant.”

  Frannie snorted. “I went through the change a decade ago, thank goodness.”

  “And my boy is such a lusty nursling, I can’t imagine my body would think it was time to make another baby already.” Jeanette patted her bosom with a grin. “Do you know he weighs twenty-five pounds at five months?” She shook her head.

  “He was thirteen pounds at birth, and long, to boot,” I said.

  “Yes, he certainly was.” Jeanette nodded. Her second labor and birth had gone surprisingly easily, despite the baby’s remarkable size. “Listen, Rose. Frannie here heard something interesting, and I convinced her we should come straightaway and tell you.”

  “You have information, too, Jeanette,” Frannie said.

  “Yes, I might.”

  I glanced from one to the other. “Is it about the murder?”

  “I think so,” Frannie replied. “I have a kitchen girl, but she only comes twice a week, as it’s only Mr. Eisenman and me at home now. She mainly does for Mr. Bailey.”

  “Which Bailey?” I asked.

  “Mr. Ned Bailey.”

  Ah. I waited for her to go on, then thought of a question. “Is Ned married?” He hadn’t been when he was pestering me to step out with him, but his circumstances might have changed.

  “No,” Frannie replied. “The man doesn’t have much luck with the ladies. He lives alone.”

  “I’ve met him,” Jeanette said. “I’m not surprised he’s still a bachelor despite being well up in his thirties. He’s like an overeager puppy, that one.”

  I smothered a laugh. It was an apt description for Ned.

  “In any event,” Frannie began, “my girl said she spied Mr. Bailey hiding something in his bureau the morning the poor visitor’s death was reported.”

  “It was Tuesday,” Jeanette offered.

  “Yes.” Frannie nodded. “He went off to the Opening. Later she was putting away his clean laundry, and what did she find? A gun. A gun, I tell you! In his unmentionables drawer.”

  I stared. Lighthearted Ned? He didn’t seem like a killer to me. On the other hand, he had cast a peculiar look at me after I’d mentioned hearing about his uncle’s plans being stolen.

  Jeanette nodded sagely. She’d clearly heard the story.

  “Goodness. Is she willing to speak to the police?” I asked Frannie.

  “I doubt it. She’s pretty much fresh off the boat from Greece, and she doesn’t trust anyone in uniform. I think someone in her family was maltreated by either the police or the military.”

  “Would thee be willing to report it?” I asked Frannie.

  She wrinkled her nose. “I’d have to give them her name, and then she’d quit on me, I’m sure of it.”

  I suspected this was very likely in both cases.

  “Can’t you find some way to tell your detective buddy, Rose?” Jeanette asked. “I mean, a way not involving Frannie’s girl?”

  “I can try. I assume the girl left the gun there.”

  “Naturally,” Frannie said. “She was in quite a tizzy about even seeing it. She never would have touched it.”

  The clock was inching closer to nine o’clock, when my first pregnant lady was due to arrive. “I’m sorry, but I have a client coming in ten minutes. Jeanette, did thee say thee had information to share, too?”

  “Perhaps. I haven’t yet returned to my live interpreting
job at the court, but a lawyer I know brought me a paper yesterday to translate into Polish along with another document in French he needed put into English. We chatted a bit, and he said the Parry factory is in dire straits.”

  “I heard something about Parry having financial problems, too,” I said.

  “He also mentioned Zebulon Weed,” Jeanette continued. “He’s a fellow Quaker, isn’t he?”

  My heart sank. “Yes. What did he know about Zeb?”

  “He’s representing young Zebulon.”

  I stared at her. “Was Zeb arrested yesterday?”

  “I don’t believe so, but the senior Weed seemed to think his son needed a lawyer.”

  And maybe he did.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  I didn’t get to the police station until half past one. Making a telephone call to Kevin about Ned’s gun would be a very bad idea. This was a talk we needed to have in person. And we hadn’t spoken about the murder since Third Day, the day after it happened.

  A dazzling sun shone on the snow, which was melting fast, and the air smelled fresh and clean. After I popped in to check on Esther and baby—both blessedly thriving—I walked into town rather than cycling through the slush. A robin hopped on a bare-limbed oak. A squirrel leaping onto a branch in an elm overhead plopped a clump of wet snow squarely on my bonnet. The wheel of a wide dray pulled by a tired-looking gray mare dipped through a puddle and splashed me. My shoes and hems were soaked through by the time I arrived at the station. The fresh-faced young man usually behind the counter had been replaced by a florid older officer with what looked like a permanent scowl etched onto his face.

  I greeted him with a smile, anyway. “I’d like to speak with Kevin Donovan, if thee pleases.”

  “Not here.”

  “When does thee expect him back?”

  “Don’t know.” He nearly barked the words.

  I erased the smile from my face and stood up to my full height. “Please inform him Mrs. Rose Dodge needs to speak with him at his earliest convenience.”

  He gave one slow nod and didn’t write down my name. I suppressed a sigh at this unhelpful man’s lack of response. Weren’t police officers public servants with an obligation to help the citizens of our fair town? This one must have forgotten the service part of his training. Was it that he disrespected my faith, which was always revealed by my speech and bonnet? Or maybe this was how he treated all females. Perhaps he thought my gender had no place inquiring into police business.

  I turned toward the door but stepped out of the way when it opened. A young officer tugged on a middle-aged woman, holding her upper arm in a tight grip.

  “Come along now, Mrs. Weed,” he said. “You know I’ve got to charge you.”

  My jaw dropped as I took a second look. This was indeed Prudence Weed, Zeb’s mother. She wasn’t wearing a bonnet over curly graying hair escaping its hairpins. Her round face was flushed, her eyes bright and bloodshot, and her coat flapped open. I brought my hand to my mouth.

  “Another drunk and disorderly for her?” asked the cross-tempered man behind the counter.

  “Yes, sir,” the younger fellow said. “Found her on a bench singing at the top of her lungs.”

  “It’s not a crime to sing in public,” Prudence protested with slurred diction.

  “It is when you’re tippling out of a bottle of hooch at the same time.” Her escort pulled a pint bottle out of his pocket. Only half an inch of an amber liquor remained in the bottom. “And when proper ladies are giving you a wide berth as they pass.”

  The older officer cocked his thumb toward the door to the back. “Lock her up. I’ll call the husband.” His voice was tired, as if he’d been through this routine before, which he no doubt had.

  “I can tell the Weeds she’s here,” I offered.

  Prudence gazed at me as if she’d only now seen me. “Well, hello there, Rose. Did they lock thee up, too? Did thee just get freed?” She gave me a sloppy smile.

  I inwardly recoiled from the stench of alcohol on her breath. “No, Prudence.” I struggled with what to say next. Scolding her for being drunk before two o’clock in the afternoon would be pointless and cruel. Wishing her a lovely day would be silly. Who enjoyed time in a jail cell? Asking her why she drank wasn’t the right question, either, at least not here and now. But it gave me an idea.

  “Instead of calling her family, might I accompany Prudence to her cell and help get her settled?” I asked. I’d visited others in jail in earlier years, but never a woman. “We attend the same church.”

  The two men exchanged a glance. “That’d be fine,” the older one said. “The matron isn’t present right now.”

  From a previous case, I knew the department employed only one woman, whose primary role was to watch over female prisoners.

  “I thank thee.” I followed the younger officer and Prudence into the back, turning into the holding area after he unlocked the heavy door. The cell they reserved for women was the back one of the three, for privacy, I supposed. Blessedly the men’s cells were unoccupied, or Prudence might have been subjected to a dose of verbal abuse.

  After the officer unlocked the door, it creaked as it opened. Inside sat a cot with a ratty gray blanket, a small washstand with a chipped pitcher and basin, and a wastes bucket smelling as if it had not been recently scrubbed. The small barred window hadn’t had a cleaning lately, either.

  Prudence plodded in and sank onto the cot with a groan.

  The officer looked from her to me. “I ought to lock her in, but if you want to stay and visit a bit, suit yourself. She’s not dangerous. Shut the door when you leave, and let me or my buddy out there know.”

  “I thank thee.”

  “She’s not exactly a flight risk in her condition.” He gave a little toss of his head and disappeared back down the hall.

  Prudence gave me a hopeful look. “Did thee bring me something to eat? I am famished of a sudden.”

  “I’m sorry, no. Perhaps I can fetch something and bring it back.” There was nowhere to sit except next to her on the questionable blanket. A year ago I would have perched there. Now, carrying a child, I didn’t dare. Who knew what vermin lurked in the cloth or on the thin mattress under it?

  “Never thee mind.” She mustered a wan smile. “My husband will release me soon enough, I daresay. Or maybe young Zeb will. He’s such a good boy.”

  “He is. And a good husband to Faith.”

  She bowed her head, staring at her clasped hands. She looked up at me. “Rose, why does my weakness keep getting the better of me? Every morning I resolve not to imbibe, not ever again. But look at me. This is the third time I’ve been tossed in the clink—in broad daylight.” Her voice rose and ended in a pitiful sob.

  I laid my hand on her shoulder. “I don’t know why, Prudence. Some are susceptible to overeating, thinking food will assuage their pain. Others fall prey to laudanum or other opiates. Thee clearly has a weakness for hard spirits. Complete abstention would be thy only cure.”

  “I know,” she murmured, her voice barely above a whisper, as her shoulders sank. “Thee remembers when we lost poor Isaiah in the Great Fire?”

  “Of course. It was a terrible day.” Two years ago, the disastrous fire that nearly destroyed Amesbury’s carriage industry also took the lives of some of its workers. Zeb’s younger brother Isaiah, who’d been stepping out with Annie, had been one of the victims.

  “The drink helps me forget the pain of losing him.” She studied her hands. “If I stopped imbibing, I’d have to face my anguish square on. And more. Whiskey is like an old, comfortable friend to me.”

  I nodded. I’d heard this reaction from others who struggled with their emotions, including my brother-in-law Frederick. For a time, missing my late sister, he’d drowned his sorrow in drink—to the detriment of his children—until he’d met Winnie. Blessedly, I’d seen no further evidence of his drinking since then.

  “Wouldn’t thee like to resume thy music?” I asked. “Teaching and
performing?”

  She wagged her head with a sorrowful look. “Rose, that ship has sailed.”

  I supposed it had. “Does thee sometimes drink in public late at night?”

  “Thee heard,” she finally said, gazing down again.

  “I don’t know if I have.” I tucked my skirts under me and squatted next to the cot, bringing my face level with hers. “Tell me.”

  “When the Canadian was killed.” She covered her mouth with her hand, blue eyes wide above it.

  I waited. Silence was normally my friend. Not now. “And?”

  “I was there.” At the creak of the jail area door, Prudence clamped her mouth shut.

  Kevin strode in. “Heard you wanted to talk with me, Miss . . .” His voice trailed off when he spied me inside the cell with Prudence. To his credit, he didn’t glare at her, instead giving her a kindly look. “Ah, Mrs. Weed. Back for another visit, I see.”

  If I were one to curse, I would do so now. She’d been about to tell me something important, her words flowing almost as fast as the water in the Powow River. But the gate on that millrace had just clanged shut.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  “I think Prudence saw something the night of the murder,” I told Kevin in his office a few minutes later. “She was about to tell me when thee walked in.”

  “More’s the pity. I’ll have a little chat with her before she leaves.”

  “Good.”

  “But Mrs. Weed landing back in the lockup isn’t why you were looking for me.” He tilted his head and tented his fingers.

  “No.” I considered how to phrase the information about the gun. If I told him, Frannie’s girl would have to be involved. I had no way to get around Kevin needing to speak with her. I let out a sigh. It was unavoidable. “Apparently Ned Bailey has a gun in his bureau at home. The girl who works for him saw him hurrying to hide something the morning after the murder.”

  “What?” Kevin slammed his hand on the table.