Seeing is Believing (Cuttersville #3)(8)
Author: Erin McCarthy

“Good point. But it’s a small town. Everyone probably knew everyone, so I guess he was trying to score a date with her pleasing figure. Okay, let’s see what went down next.” Brady picked up reading where he’d left off. “‘Mr. Stradley sent a passerby to fetch Mr. Harrison Bingley, the proprietor of the Bingley Funeral Home, who arrived to a scene of chaos. The sweet maid, one Miss Betsy Chambers, who had suffered such a grievous shock upon discovering her mistress soaked in blood over the body of her fiancé, had fainted into Mr. Stradley’s arms. The bloody and coldhearted woman, well-known in our community as Miss Rachel Strauss, daughter of Henry and Alice Strauss, appeared to have murdered her fiancé by repeatedly hitting him on the head with a candlestick.’”

Brady rolled his eyes at her.

Piper made a face back at him. “How do they know that?” she asked, feeling incredulous. “They didn’t even call the police. Or the sheriff or whoever was in charge in 1887.”

“All I know is I’m glad I wasn’t accused of a crime back then. This is nuts. This is barely two days after the murder and they’re essentially telling you Rachel did it in the paper. I guess they hadn’t invented the phrase ‘person of interest’ yet.”

“Obviously.” Piper felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up and she glanced around the kitchen, suddenly feeling like they weren’t alone. But she didn’t see anything. She wondered whether it was possible for Rachel to hear what they were saying and how she might feel about their conversation.

Brady didn’t seem to notice her sudden discomfort. “‘While as shocking as this may seem, one will only be more shocked when the full tale of that horrific night is revealed. Upon questioning Miss Chambers and Miss Strauss, it would seem that Miss Strauss’s fiancé had forced his unwanted attentions on the beleaguered Miss Chambers and that Miss Strauss, upon discovering her fiancé’s perfidy, lifted the brass candlestick off her mother’s mahogany fireplace mantle, and struck the head of her fiancé one dozen times until he fell to his death, his lifeblood spilling on the hardwood floors and ruining the sprigged muslin gown of Miss Strauss as it sprayed her with each blow.’”

Piper wasn’t sure where to start on the bias in journalism contained in that article. It was written like a gossip column, not a reporting of the facts. “Did the maid count the number of times Rachel hit him? Who stands there and counts while they’re watching an assault? That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s also ridiculous that we’re being told the mantle is mahogany and what kind of freaking dress she was wearing.”

“And I always thought the maid was a party to the fiancé’s attentions. That’s the way I always heard the story from Shelby.”

“Me, too. But remember the maid went on to marry a lawyer or something. It seems pretty obvious from this article that she had some skill in manipulating men. Or that she was attractive enough she didn’t even need to do anything more than smile and they thought the best of her. Hell, maybe she married this reporter.”

“Some women can definitely do that, bend men to their will.” Not her. Piper had never mastered the art of flirting. Of course, that implied she had tried. But the only man who had ever melted when she smiled was her father, and she had tried not to take advantage of that fact.

“Don’t you go trying it,” Brady teased. “Though I think you could definitely pull off the innocent look if you wanted.”

Piper wasn’t feeling very innocent looking at his bare chest and the inseam of his jeans. Nor did the label feel like a compliment. She didn’t have a lot of experience with men, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t willing to get down and dirty with the right man. Because she thought she might actually like that. With the right man. Who was not Brady.

“Before or after I hit someone with a candlestick?” she asked.

Brady laughed. “I can’t see you doing that no matter what some guy did to you. Wait, though—I thought Rachel did the hitting. But you know, now that you mention it, did Rachel ever actually confess? Or did they just conclude that she did it?”

“What does the rest of the article say?”

“‘Though some might say that the fiancé got what he deserved for his offensive treatment of women, I think most would agree that there are nothing but victims here. Poor Miss Chambers has had the scare of her life, Miss Strauss will be spirited off to prison, I am certain, and Mr. Brady Stritmeyer . . .’”

Brady’s voice trailed off and Piper started on her chair. “What? Brady Stritmeyer? Are you serious?” The dead fiancé had the same name as Brady?

“Yeah.” Brady looked over at her, his expression stunned. “That’s weird. Creepy. I share a name with a murdered guy. ‘Mr. Brady Stritmeyer paid the ultimate price for his transgressions, with his life! He will now spend eternity lying in the St. Michael’s Presbyterian Church cemetery pondering where he went wrong.’”

The clawing unease was creeping over Piper’s skin again. Another coincidence. A huge one. “Did your parents ever say anything about being named after an ancestor?”

“No. And who would name their kid after a dead guy who was whacked with a candlestick for putting the moves on the maid?”

Piper couldn’t imagine. “Maybe they didn’t know? Maybe they just knew it was a family name but didn’t realize he had been killed?” Though that didn’t seem likely either. Gossip ran rampant in small towns.

“I don’t even know what to say.” He frowned at the paper in his hand. “It’s just . . . weird. And here I thought my name was mine and mine alone.”

“Is that the only article?” It looked like he had more than one piece of paper in his hand.

Brady shuffled the papers. “This other one is just a very short obituary for Miss Rachel Strauss. It just says she died at the Cuttersville Lunatic Asylum and is survived by her parents.”

“She supposedly died of an overdose.”

“That wouldn’t be surprising. They dosed those people into comas back in those days. There was no such thing as mental health counseling.” Brady frowned at the papers. “I can’t believe it. I have the same name as a dead guy.”

“A lot of people have the same name as a dead guy.” If you thought about it, there probably weren’t a lot of truly 100 percent unique names left anymore.