She smiled. “Exactly — you know just how this works, then.”
They wore brown tunics and trousers with gray sashes. Somber colors, cold like winter, probably designed to inspire a chill. Bert stood a head taller than she did and looked like he could break tree trunks. How sinister, to see the pair of them approach.
“And you — this is your last case, isn’t it?”
That was what she’d told the regional committee, that it was time for her to go home, settle down, take up basket weaving or such like. “I’ve been doing this almost twenty years,” she said. “It’s time for me to pass the torch.”
“Would you miss the travel? That’s what I’ve been looking forward to, getting to see some of the region, you know?”
“Maybe,” she said. “But I wouldn’t miss the bull. You’ll see what I mean.”
They approached the settlement. Enid put her gaze on a young woman carrying a basket of eggs along the main road. She wore a skirt, tunic, apron, and a straw hat to keep off the sun.
“Excuse me,” Enid said. The woman’s hands clenched as if she was afraid she might drop the basket from fright. As she’d told Bert, their reputation preceded them. They were inspectors, and inspectors only appeared for terrible reasons. The woman’s expression held shock and denial. Why would inspectors ever come to Southtown?
“Yes, how can I help you?” she said quickly, nervously.
“Can you tell us where to find Apricot Hill?” The household they’d been sent to investigate.
The woman’s anxiety fell away and a light of understanding dawned. Ah, then people knew. Everyone likely knew something was wrong, without knowing exactly what. The whole town would know investigators were here within the hour. Enid’s last case, and it was going to be all about sorting out gossip.
“Yes — take that path there, past the pair of windmills. They’re on the south side of the duck pond. You’ll see the clotheslines out front.”
“Thank you,” Enid said. The woman hurried away, hugging her basket to her chest.
Enid turned to Bert. “Ready for this?”
“Now I’m curious. Let’s go.”
Apricot Hill was on a nice acreage overlooking a pretty pond and a series of orchards beyond that. There was one large house, two stories with lots of windows, and an outbuilding with a pair of chimneys, a production building — Apricot Hill was centered on food processing, taking in produce from outlying farms and drying, canning, and preserving it for winter stores for the community. The holding overall was well lived in, a bit run down, cluttered, but that could mean they were busy. It was spring — nothing ready for canning yet. This should have been the season for cleaning up and making repairs.
A girl with a bundle of sheets over her arm, probably collected from the clothesline the woman had mentioned, saw them first. She peered up the hill at their arrival for a moment before dropping the sheets and running to the house. She was wispy and energetic — not the one mentioned in the report, then. Susan, and not Aren. The heads of the household were Frain and Felice.
“We are announced,” Enid said wryly. Bert hooked a finger in his belt.
A whole crowd, maybe even all ten members of the household, came out of the house. A rough looking bunch, all together. Old clothes, frowning faces. This was an adequate household, but not a happy one.
An older man, slim and weather-worn, came forward and looked as though he wished he had a weapon. This would be Frain. Enid went to him, holding her hand out for shaking.
“Hello, I’m Enid, the investigator sent by the regional committee. This is my partner, Bert. This is Apricot Hill, isn’t it? You must be Frain?”
“Yes,” he said cautiously, already hesitant to give away any scrap of information.
“May we step inside to talk?”
She would look like a matron to them, maybe even head of a household somewhere, if they weren’t sure she didn’t have a household. Investigators didn’t have households; they traveled constantly, avenging angels, or so the rumors said. Her dull brown hair was rolled into a bun, her soft face had seen years and weather. They’d wonder if she’d ever had children of her own, if she’d ever earned a banner. Her spreading middle-aged hips wouldn’t give a clue.
Bert stood behind her, a wall of authority. Their questions about him would be simple: How well could he use that staff he carried?
“What is this about?” Frain demanded. He was afraid. He knew what she was here for — the implications — and he was afraid.
“I think we should go inside and sit down before we talk,” Enid said patiently, knowing full well she sounded condescending and unpleasant. The lines on Frain’s face deepened. “Is everyone here? Gather everyone in the household to your common room.”
With a curt word Frain herded the rest of his household inside.
The common room on the house’s ground floor was, like the rest of the household, functional without being particularly pleasant. No vase of flowers on the long dining table. Not a spot of color on the wall except for a single faded banner: the square of red and green woven cloth that represented the baby they’d earned some sixteen years ago. That would be Susan — the one with the laundry outside. Adults had come into the household since then, but that was their last baby. Had they wanted another child badly enough that they didn’t wait for their committee to award them a banner?
The house had ten members. Only nine sat around the table. Enid took her time studying them, looking into each face. Most of the gazes ducked away from her. Susan’s didn’t.
“We’re missing someone, I think?” Enid said.
The silence was thick as oil. Bert stood easy and perfectly still behind her, hand on his belt. Oh, he was a natural at this. Enid waited a long time, until the people around the table squirmed.
“Aren,” Felice said softly. “I’ll go get her.”
“No,” Frain said. “She’s sick. She can’t come.”
“Sick? Badly sick? Has a doctor seen her?” Enid said.
Again, the oily silence.
“Felice, if you could get her, thank you,” Enid said.
A long stretch passed before Felice returned with the girl, and Enid was happy to watch while the group grew more and more uncomfortable. Susan was trembling; one of the men was hugging himself. This was as awful a gathering as she had ever seen, and her previous case had been a murder.
When Felice brought Aren into the room, Enid saw exactly what she expected to see: the older woman with her arm around a younger woman — age twenty or so — who wore a full skirt and a tunic three sizes too big that billowed in front of her. Aren moved slowly, and had to keep drawing her hands away from her belly.
She might have been able to hide the pregnancy for a time, but she was now six months along, and there was no hiding that swell and the ponderous hitch in her movement.
The anger and unhappiness in the room thickened even more, and it was no longer directed at Enid.
She waited while Felice guided the pregnant woman to a chair — by herself, apart from the others.
“This is what you’re here for, isn’t it?” Frain demanded, his teeth bared and fists clenched.
“It is,” Enid agreed.
“Who told?” Frain hissed, looking around at them all. “Which one of you told?”
No one said anything. Aren cringed and ducked her head. Felice stared at her hands in her lap.
Frain turned to Enid. “Who sent the report? I’ve a right to know my accuser — the household’s accuser.”
“The report was anonymous, but credible.” Part of her job here was to discover, if she could, who sent the tip of the bannerless pregnancy to the regional committee. Frain didn’t need to know that. “I’ll be asking all of you questions over the next couple of days. I expect honest answers. When I am satisfied that I know what happened here, I’m authorized to pass judgment. I will do so as quickly as possible, to spare you waiting. Frain, I’ll start with you.”