The Widow's Touch (A Whimsical Select Romance Novella)

  THE WIDOW’S TOUCH

  Tamara Ternie

  Copyright © 2013 Tamara Ternie

  All rights reserved worldwide.

  Books by Tamara Ternie

  Available at Amazon.com

  THE ENTANGLEMENT

  BITTERSWEET ENDEAVORS

  ABIGAIL’S SECRET

  THE WIDOW’S TOUCH

  THE SOCIAL PARIAH (Coming Soon!)

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  CHAPTER ONE

  1873, CAROLINE COUNTY, VIRGINIA

  When they found her fourth husband dead in the cellar, Eloda knew that gaining a fifth would be difficult, and the buckshot that riddled his body didn’t aid her cause. Forced to take two hours away from her painting, she tried to convince Sheriff Jack Finley that the soul of her husband had long taken off to Hell before a bullet penetrated his person. But being a man of the law and suspect of everyone, she knew he wouldn’t be easily persuaded.

  “I can assure you that I’m telling the truth,” Eloda said, more than a mite peeved that the man assumed the worst about her character. “I came down to fetch some wood and spotted a rodent making his dinner of him. So, I did what any decent wife would do to preserve her husband’s dignity.”

  “You decided to shoot the rodent,” Sheriff Finley said and nodded toward the rifle that was lying next to Peter Timmons, her dead husband.

  “Yes, that was my intent,” she said. “But a gun in my hands is as unnatural as men having babies, so I missed my mark and hit poor Peter’s already dead body.”

  The sheriff cautiously walked across the brick laid floor and suspiciously viewed the perimeter around her husband’s body, as well as the entire room. Yet he only needed a cursory glance being their two story brick home had been placed on the same said foundation. From floor to ceiling, only fire red bricks were to be seen from all directions. She thought it was quite fitting for her husband to lie there dead, as he, too, was just as hard, cold, and heavy. Peter laid there near to naked, clothed in a nightshirt that poorly covered his enormous frame. Aside from him, the only other article in the room was a stack of firewood for the hearths in the upper rooms.

  Sheriff Finley kneeled down onto one knee and observed Peter’s body with the same regard Eloda provided to her canvas when she’d take it to paint. He pulled the corner of his greatcoat over his nostrils, but as pungent as the odor was that emanated from her husband, Eloda figured it was no more helpful than a single spit was to a shine.

  “How long has he been dead?” the sheriff asked and he rose to his full height which Eloda suspected was near to six-feet tall. He swiped his hands across his brown wool trousers and tugged the edges of his matching vest beneath his black sack coat.

  “Nearing three weeks now,” she replied. “The snow has prevented my taking him out for burial, but betwixt the cold and the ale that coursed regularly through his veins, I reckon that’s what has preserved him rightly well up until now.” She waved her hand across her face and fluttered off the offensive odor. “But I dare to say that this early spring weather we’re having may have him smelling up the whole upstairs by noon.”

  “And what of these” Sheriff Finley asked, waving his finger downward toward several discolorations on Peter’s legs and arms.

  “I suppose that happened when I pushed him down the stairs,” she sighed. “His arms and legs kept catching on the stair’s railing. I thought to never get him down here. But I couldn’t leave him upstairs to wait out the weather so this seemed the only option,” she defended.

  “And that?” he asked, and pointed at a fire red marking the size of a button on Peter’s forehead. “Did you brand a horseshoe into his face as well?” he asked, and his eyes squinted for a better view of the marking.

  “He was born with that,” Eloda replied. “My husband hated horses even more than work, yet due to that mark he felt it was God’s calling for him to raise them. So he bought this ranch.”

  Sheriff Finley raised his brow and cocked his head. “So, if Mister Timmons didn’t die from the gunshots, or the fall, then what robbed him of his life, ma’am?”

  “You are a very fine looking gentleman, Sheriff,” she blurted out as mater-of-fact. “I do believe I’d like to paint your image one day if you’d permit me.” Although she wasn’t trying to purposefully be evasive, Eloda realized that in her worry to clear her name, she hadn’t taken due time to examine the man who stood as her accuser. The sheriff was a man of more than ordinary intelligence, and he was tall, shoulder broad, and exceedingly fetching. Eloda guessed him to be in his early thirties. She came to the conclusion that his eyes were the best of him, large and rather prominent, and she believed that she’d never seen a hue so blue. By habit, she mentally assessed her paints and calculated the exact mixture she’d need to obtain it. As they were indoors, the sheriff’s hat was respectfully in his hand, and she admired his full head of wavy, ebony hair that hung long beneath his coat collar. It was so bountiful that she reckoned it could easily accommodate another head. His full mane was in great contrast to her past husbands. Being all older gentlemen, they had more hair on their backsides than their crowns. It was then Eloda concluded that Sheriff Jack Finley was more than a little to her liking. Then it occurred to her; perhaps losing her unpleasant fourth husband was God’s way of rectifying the error and sending her a readily available fifth.

  “Are you married, Sheriff Finley?”

  “No, ma’am, I’m not,” he said, and the sheriff quickly viewed the other side of the room and avoided looking at her. “And your husband, Mrs. Timmons?” he pressed, and nodded to Peter’s body. “I’d also like to know how your other husbands had passed too.”

  “I believe I’ve made you blush, Sheriff,” she teased and leaned forward and around to see his face, which was slightly tinted red. Eloda smiled wide at him. It had been her smile that each husband claimed to be their downfall when they lost their hearts to her. Unfortunately, she couldn’t say it was due her beauty. She wasn’t unsightly, of course, but she wasn’t a striking beauty who stopped a man in his tracks. Yet she was comely enough to slow men down to take notice. Her inviting smile and browns eyes were melting in expression and could efficiently seal the deal when needed. Eloda hoped that her charms still proved as potent although maturing years had removed her from her twenties only the month before.

  “Your deceased husbands?” he reminded, and she allowed him to steer her back into the investigation.

  “Of course, back to my husbands,” she said, and Eloda nervously toyed with a long strand of brown hair that escaped the knot it had once been secured. “Well, Mister James was my first husband when I was sixteen,” she began. “He befell a most unseemly death with the poorest of timing. Being fifty years my senior, his excitement for the consummation had overwrought him insomuch that he expired before the act concluded.”

  Eloda supposed that she shouldn’t have been so candid with her response, but she wanted him assured that she was being forthright and honest. But by the queer look he presented, and the slight parting of his lips, Eloda thought she may have shocked him.

  “And your second husband?” he asked her warily.

  “That would be Mister McKimble. He was a very dear, sweet man,” she said, thoughtfully. “But he died much in the same fashion as my first husband,” she sighed.


  “He, too, died in the wedding bed?” he asked, startled, and the sheriff snapped his attention and stare back to her.

  “Oh, certainly not,” she said. “Had that been the case, I suppose Mister Shultz wouldn’t have been overly eager to become husband number three.”

  “Then how did Mister McKimble die?”

  “I hosted a surprise party for his birthday and when all the guests jumped from their hidden coves, he was so full of joy that he fell dead.”

  “And Mister Shultz?” he asked.

  “I’m not quite finished with Mister Kimble yet, Sheriff, as he died twice.”

  “Twice?” he asked in disbelief, but Eloda reckoned he knew her words were true when he leaned closer for her explanation.

  “Indeed!” she exclaimed. “He hadn’t been as dead as we first supposed. As I walked into our parlor to view him on the second day, he sat up, and right as rain he asked who died upon seeing my mourning clothes.”

  “He hadn’t been dead after all,” he chortled, and the sheriff pleasantly surprised Eloda by offering an amused smile her way.

  “No, but it wasn’t more than a week later that he caught his death from being left in that drafty parlor and died again, but this time in reality.”

  “Are you sure he was dead the second time?”

  “Oh yes,” she exclaimed. “I had the good sense to stick my hairpin in him three times before allowing the undertaker to bury him. He was most certainly dead.”

  “And Mister Shultz?” he asked. “Was his constitution as poor as the other husbands?”

  “Certainly not!” she exclaimed. “He was much younger than my other two. Indeed, he was a very strapping gentleman of fifty-five years and had a sturdy composition. I don’t believe he had ever taken on a cold in his lifetime.”

  “If not by health, then what brought on his passing?”

  “I stabbed him.”

  The sheriff flinched hard and she realized her blunt honesty, again, stunned the poor man. But she always fell short on tact, insomuch that her second husband had often stated that she was less delicate than newspaper in a privy. When the thought occurred to her that she ought to apologize to the stricken sheriff, it was too late. He recovered readily enough on his own when he scowled at her. She wondered if he thought less of her by the admission.

  “I was acquitted, Sheriff,” she further explained. “He had taken up with our eleven year old servant girl, and unlike him, she wasn’t as agreeable to participate, so I stabbed him dead with a fire poker when I walked in on the situation.”

  His dark brow quirked upward and he silently ruminated on what she had said, but he didn’t offer her the courtesy of sharing his thoughts, which she was rightly sure didn’t go in her favor.

  “You can check with the courts, Sheriff. There are records that clearly define that it was justifiable.”

  He slowly nodded but she could tell he pondered on her words. When he finally spoke, he said, “If I haven’t missed a former husband, I believe that brings us back to Mister Timmons.” He nodded toward the flooring where her most recent husband laid.

  She shook her head and shrugged. “I’d like to be obliging, but I don’t precisely know what happened to my Mister Timmons,” she responded innocently.

  “When did you see him alive last?” he asked, and his thumb slowly tapped repeatedly on the well-worn hat in his hands.

  “It was a Thursday, and after two days passed and I didn’t hear a word from him, I thought it fitting to check on him.”

  “Two days?” Sheriff Finley interrupted. “You didn’t think to check on him before that?” He raised his voice much to the likes that a father would scold a child, which annoyed Eloda when she heard his harsh tone.

  “Apparently you didn’t know my Mister Timmons,” she returned. “If you had, you’d know to appreciate the times when he wasn’t speaking. When he spoke, it was too often, too loud, and at great length.”

  “Even if he hadn’t spoken, one would expect that he’d have anticipated a meal within those two days. You weren’t curious why he hadn’t shown up at the supper table?”

  Eloda gestured toward Peter on the floor. “Sir, we have butchered cattle of lesser size than my husband. Certainly you cannot fault me for overlooking an occasion that he’d take a spell to pass over a few meals.”

  Sheriff Finley looked down at her husband who dominated the room not only by scent but also bulk. “Well, ma’am, I’d have to say that is the first thing you’ve said that makes any sense.”

  “The servants know nothing,” his deputy, Frank, said as he came down the steps. “You ready to take him out?” The older man donned hair nearly white as snow and beheld side-whiskers cut in English fashion, and although his frame was slight he carried with him a rather large belly. He had in tow a slab board which they intended to carry her husband up the stairs and out of the house, but Eloda had her doubts that the two men alone could handle such a load. She thought to suggest they cut Peter in half to make the hauling easier, but Eloda reckoned with their current suspicions she was best keeping her cogitations to herself.

  After an hour and half had passed, they finally succeeded in getting her husband out of the house and loaded onto the buckboard. The sheriff said little when parting and the deputy said nothing. The sheriff tipped his hat instead of saying goodbye and slowly rode away, taking her husband’s body to Doctor Cannon’s office for examination.

  As she watched them go forward towards town, Eloda breathed a sigh of relief. She was thankful he was gone, and not only for reason of the stench that had begun rising through the house. “Rest in peace, Peter,” she murmured, and then returned to her house and to her paintings. It felt odd being without a husband again, she thought. To her, a lack of a husband at her side felt more naked than being unclothed.

  “Now,” she said, and Eloda picked up her brush, “I just have to figure out how to convince Mister Jack Finley that he’d make a perfectly suitable husband number five.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  The men and women of Caroline County were aflutter and came from all corners of the county. Eloda steered her wagon down the main road and initially assumed that the break in weather had instigated their onset, but that wasn’t the case. When she went past the sheriff’s office, a crowd gathered from one side of the road to the other and blocked her path to the general store. She slowed her horses until they came to a full stop and they neighed out their objections. Eloda smiled when she saw Jack Finley standing in the doorway of the jailhouse. His hands were raised in a futile attempt in hushing the determined crowd. In the full light of day, she noted, he was more pleasing to the eye than she first assessed.

  “Those men should receive justice,” a man from the gathering shouted.

  “This has been going on for years. It’s time something is done,” another man called out.

  “If the law isn’t going to bring her to justice, then we’ll do it ourselves,” another fellow cried out, which Eloda recognized as Jonathon, her first husband’s son which she shared an equivalent age. He was a tall, wiry man who had always given her the notion of a weeping willow tree, as his arms were overly long for his person and always swayed, even when his body remained still. Although he was an exceptional attorney, Jonathon was well regarded for his nervous temperament.

  “Gentleman,” the sheriff called out before them. “If you’ll quiet down I’ll try to explain where the inquest stands.”

  It was a few moments before the crowd calmed, and when they did, Jack removed his hat. He raked his fingers through his dark locks and then swiped his sleeve across the sweat that formed on his brow. He patted his hat against his thigh a few times before he angrily placed it back onto his head. Eloda had seen men refused service at brothels who looked less frustrated.

  “Doctor Cannon is still trying to determine Mister Timmons’ precise cause of death. Until then, I cannot proceed further,” Jack announced to his unruly audience.

  The crowd squawked and barked out their ang
ry objections and they were all in uproar again. The sheriff raised his arms and hollered to overcome their intensity.

  “But that doesn’t mean we’re not going to make an arrest,” he yelled. “We’re just trying to make sure we have sufficient evidence so we do not put Mrs. Timmons away without due provocation.”

  “She killed all her husbands,” a man bellowed. “How much more provocation does Caroline County need before convicting and hanging a murderer?”

  “She’s only been proven to kill one,” Jack argued, “And that was by her own admission. As you are all aware, she was cleared of blame.”

  “We all know she poisoned the others,” Jonathon cried out, and the throng loudly hallooed their agreements. “My father was a healthy man until he married that woman!”

  “Your father, sir,” Eloda loudly finally chimed in, “Was sixty-six, had an over fondness for ale, and was diagnosed with Bright’s disease not even a year prior to our marriage. That is by no means a healthy man,” she loudly called out.

  The crowd gave a strong resemblance to a pack of wolves when they turned sharply and stared hungrily at Eloda. Their proverbial black sheep was garbed in her dark mourning clothes, and was completed with matching gloves and veil. Most the men glowered at her, but Eloda noticed a few who looked properly embarrassed by standing against her, especially during her time of bereavement. Those particular folks cowered away from the rest of the group and ducked within the shadows of the assembly.

  “She lies,” Jonathon shouted at the crowd. He snarled at her and took a few strides closer toward her as if ready to attack. A lock of his dark hair fell over his forehead and he looked even more menacing.

  “Everyone needs to settle down,” Sheriff Finley ordered. “If it should come to it, the court will settle this matter. Until then, I suggest you all go about your business.”

  Sheriff Finley made long, quick strides and stood protectively between her and the angry mob. She’d have given a thought of relaying her appreciation but she was techier than a bag of snakes. With no reasons other than their speculations and rumors, the people in town had always regarded her with disfavor. It had been that way since she was sixteen, and although their unwarranted behavior ordinarily brought sadness to her heart, she didn’t feel that way then as she stood against the crowd. She was furious.