Page 58 of Winterset

Nick shook his head somberly as he brought the teapot to the table and poured the golden-brown liquid into their cups. “Bad business, that.”

“Yes, it was. Very bad.” Anna took a sip of tea, then said, “Nick…”

“Yes, miss?”

“You were here, were you not, forty-eight years ago? When the first murders happened?”

He glanced over at her. “Aye, I was.”

“What do you remember about them?” Anna asked.

“What do you want to know about those for? They’re long past. It’s better to leave the dead buried.”

“But someone won’t let them,” Anna countered. “Have you heard the details of the current murders? The first was one of our maids, and the last was the son of a farmer. They were slashed with what looked like claws. Just like the murders forty-eight years ago.”

“It couldn’t be the same person,” Nick said flatly.

“No. I think it’s clear that someone is imitating him. But perhaps the answer to these murders lies in those old ones.”

“I don’t see how,” he said with a shrug.

“Did you know the people who were killed back then?” Anna asked.

“I knew Will Dawson. He was an old man. He didn’t deserve for his life to end that way.” Perkins’ usually cheerful face was grim.

“No one does. So you didn’t know the servant at Winterset?”

He shook his head. “No. Oh, I’d seen her once or twice, I suppose, but I didn’t know her.”

“Who do you think killed them?” Anna asked.

“Everyone said it was the Beast,” he replied.

Anna cocked an eyebrow at him. “Surely you don’t believe that.”

“It would take a beast to do those things.” His eyes slid away from her.

“Was there no one they suspected?” Anna persisted. It seemed to her that Nick, usually such an open, even talkative person, was being peculiarly vague with his answers.

“The girl’s fiancé,” he replied. “But when Dawson was killed, they let him out of jail. He couldn’t have done that one.”

“But no one else?”

“I never heard that there was.”

Anna looked at him with narrowed eyes. She could not shake the feeling that her old friend was holding something back from her. “Did you never suspect who it was?”

“I had no way of knowing,” he replied. “I didn’t spend much time worrying about it. It was harvest, and I had a lot of work to do. And then the murders stopped, so…”

“Isn’t it peculiar, though? How the killer just stopped after two? Why did someone kill those two and no one else?”

“Mayhap he left the area,” Perkins suggested. “More tea?” He lifted the pot.

Anna nodded, with a little sigh. When she had thought of Perkins, she had been so sure that he would be able to tell her something useful. He must have seen her disappointment, for he reached over and patted her hand, a more familiar gesture than he would normally have made.

“Don’t worry about it now, Miss Anna.” He smiled at her. “It was all a long time ago. Just let it lie.”

“I can’t. What if there’s some connection to the present murders?”