through Billy’s dirt-streaked windows was insufficient to show my reddening complexion.
“Let’s be off,” Prickett said, taking Hutchason’s beefy arm.
“I’ll come along too,” I said, rising from my chair. “And why don’t you attend as well, Lincoln. I think Simeon’s carriage should have room for us all.” My room-mate gave me an inquiring look, which I ignored and instead added, to the group, “As I said, I’m acquainted with the widow, and she with me. Perhaps I can add something to your investigations.”
CHAPTER 6
When the group of us arrived at the familiar one-story cabin by the stream, Rebecca was waiting at her front door. She was dressed in black from head to toe. I had rehearsed to myself various forms of salutation on the ride up, but as it turned out, none of them was necessary. Rebecca greeted me with a polite nod and a look in her eyes making it clear she wanted to maintain the notion we had never been anything more than business acquaintances. I nodded blandly in return.
She led the sheriff to the barn at the rear of the house, as the rest of us trailed behind. A dingy blanket was draped atop an inert form in the center of the barn. Rebecca took a deep breath and pulled back the blanket. I stared with revulsion.
The mortal remains of a young woman reclined in horrible repose against a large bale of hay. Her legs splayed outward; her hands rested helplessly at her side, palms up. The corpse was stiff and liverish in color. Lifeless, wide-open eyes stared impotently toward the raftered roof. In life, the girl had possessed attractive, prominent cheekbones, but the corpse’s skin was already shrinking away, like wax exposed to the flame, making the cheekbones protrude unnaturally. Her pallid face was framed by curly auburn hair, the vibrant color of which was the only aspect of her appearance that was in any way life-like.
The bone handle of a “Bowie” knife jutted out of the girl’s neck just above the collarbone. Only about an inch of the dull silver blade was visible before it disappeared into her skin. A dried wash of dark blood stained her neck and the bodice of her housedress and had pooled by the side of her figure.
Next to me, Prickett swore quietly. Simeon Francis, whom I had never known to have a religious impulse, made the sign of the Cross. Lincoln sucked in his breath. Sheriff Hutchason bent down beside the body and gently prodded at it. Rebecca watched us all impassively. The lines around her eyes seemed deeper than I remembered, and her black mourning bonnet seemed more faded.
I recognized the victim at once as the young woman whom Rebecca and I had observed at the village fair the prior summer. And Rebecca’s interest that day immediately came into new focus.
“What was her name?” asked the sheriff.
“Lilly,” said Rebecca.
“When did you find her?”
“Yesterday afternoon.”
“When yesterday afternoon?”
“Midafternoon, perhaps later. The sun was getting low.”
The sheriff looked up from the side of the prostrate figure. “You didn’t have reason to come out to your barn before then?”
“Not on a Sunday.”
“And you hadn’t had any reason to go looking for your niece before then?”
“I figured she was off on her own somewhere,” Rebecca replied, after a slight pause. “Girls her age are hard to confine.”
The sheriff grunted and continued his close examination.
“You hadn’t heard any type of disturbance out here the prior night?” the sheriff asked a minute later.
“No.”
The sheriff carefully moved the corpse to the side, and her head flopped from one shoulder to the other. I saw he was examining the pool of dried blood. “She must have been right here when she was stabbed,” he said, talking mostly to himself, “because the blood flowed straight down. There’s none anywhere else. Why didn’t she fight back? Only—what’s this?” He leaned down, his nose only inches above the dirt floor of the barn, then looked up at Rebecca. “Is it possible someone lay their head in the blood? A portion of the stain looks like it was matted by hair.”
For the first time, emotion showed on Rebecca’s face. “Jesse was lying there when I found her,” she said. She blinked.
“And Jesse would be whom?”
“Lilly’s younger brother. My nephew. They both came to live with me a few months ago. He’s inside the cabin just now.” She nodded toward the house. When the sheriff opened his mouth again she added, “If you have more questions, can we move outside? I’d like to