The Shelter of Darkness

By Marguerite Mooers

The year is l945 and John Winthrop, a man with leprosy has fled to northern New York with his step-daughter Jenny. Into John and Jenny's life comes a young woman, Annie Conroy, who is pregnant and fleeing an abusive husband. John decides to give her shelter, even though her presence in his home turns some of his neighbors against him and limits his income from selling produce. On the day Annie goes to have her baby, John confronts Al on the street. Al wants Annie back, and when Annie resists, John threatens him with a gun and rescues Annie. After Annie has her baby, John returns to his farm, and discovers behind the barn the body of Al Conroy. Al has been shot with John's gun. Now John has to prove his innocence when every bit of evidence points to him as the killer, and while the real killer is still out there, looking for blood.
A Gripping Read "I read this book in one setting. It takes place mid 20th century and is the story of how people overcome severe limitations and sorrows." (Amazon review)
If You Like a Good Story With Well-Developed Characters, The Shelter of Darkness Fills the Bill "Mooers has the gift of pacing, building tension and bringing her characters to life but also feeling protective of them. We're rooting for them and distressed for them at the same time. Her ability to write in several voices is as satisfying as reading Alexander McCall Smith. Take the time to read her. You'll be glad you did." (Amazon Review)
Good Book "I really enjoyed this book. It has lots of information (about the leprosarium in the US) that I never knew existed. The author knitted together a good story of a loving unrelated family. Easily readable and left me with a feeling that more stories from this family will come. I hope so." (Amazon review)
"(The character of Al) brought great tension to the story and when they found his body, well, it only got better until ending on a wonderful heartwarming note. This is a wonderful book. I thoroughly enjoyed it." (Goodreads review)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marguerite Mooers
• Release date: Feb 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311905789

Marguerite Mooers

Before retiring, Marguerite Mooers taught inmates in a medium security prison in upstate New York. She is the author of numerous short stories and award winning poems. An enthusiastic watercolorist, as well as watercolor teacher, she and her husband divide their time between upstate New York and coastal Texas. Take My Hand is her first novel. "Take My Hand" published in 2014, is Marguerite's first book. "The Shelter of Darkness," also a murder mystery was published in 2015, and coming in 2016 will be "A Casualty of Hope" (Guess what? A murder mystery). You can read her blogs on Goodreads or on her website, and enjoy seeing some of her art on the website. To contact Marguerite, e-mail her at [e-mail]

Book preview

Other books by Marguerite Mooers

Take My Hand

Detective Chris Bellini who is raising his young grand-daughter is asked to solve the cold case of a murdered boy. Can he find the killer without putting his own life and the life of the child he loves in jeopardy?

The Shelter of Darkness

by

Marguerite Mooers

Copyright © 2015 Marguerite Mooers

All rights reserved.

Print Edition ISBN: 0990444821

Print Edition ISBN 13: 9780990444824

To Dick, my partner in crime, co-conspirator, research associate, first reader and wise critic. Thank you for your support.

At ten o’clock on that Sunday morning, March 1, l931, I became an exile in my own country.

It is not what we have lost that matters most, but what we choose to do with what we have left.

Stanley Stein Alone No Longer

Table of Contents

Other books by Marguerite Mooers

A Word

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty One

Chapter Twenty Two

Chapter Twenty Three

Chapter Twenty Four

Chapter Twenty Five

Chapter Twenty Six

Chapter Twenty Seven

Chapter Twenty Eight

Chapter Twenty Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty One

Chapter Thirty Two

Chapter Thirty Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty Five

Chapter Thirty Six

Chapter Thirty Seven

Chapter Thirty Eight

Chapter Thirty Nine

A Word

I am deeply grateful to my first readers: Nellie Bright, Judy deGraaff, Sally Kirby, Dick Mooers and Aileen Vincent-Barwood. I think the book has become better because of all your suggestions.

The genesis of this novel came when I read an article about the United States Leprosarium in Carville, Louisiana, now called the National Hansen’s Disease Museum. Hansen’s Disease is a chronic disease caused by a bacillus, mycobacterium leprae that primarily affects the peripheral nerves (fingers and toes), skin, upper respiratory tract, eyes and nasal mucosa. Untreated it can cause progressive and permanent damage to skin, nerves, limbs and eyes. Hansen’s disease’s worst effect is the disfigurement it causes, specifically the lesions and boils that erupt on the face, and ‘mitten hands’ with their shortened fingers. In spite of its fearful reputation, about ninety five percent of people worldwide are immune to the disease.

In spite of the fact that syphilis and tuberculosis, rampant in the twentieth century, were more contagious than Hansen’s disease, most countries’ response to the disease was isolation. In l917 the United States Quarantine Act required that anyone with leprosy must be quarantined in a Leprosarium. In 1921 the U.S. government took over the Louisiana Leper Home in Carville, Louisiana as the National Leprosarium. By 1922, rules prohibited patients from leaving the grounds and provided that patients shall not hold communication with patients of the opposite sex. If patients showed no signs of the disease after a year of medical tests, they could appear before a board of medical officers who might pronounce the patient no longer diseased, and release them. In the l930’s the only treatment for the disease was a painful infusion of Chaulmoogra oil, which caused nausea when taken orally, and raised painful boils where injected. In l941, Dr. Guy Faget started a clinical trial of Promin, a sulfone drug, which had positive effects, and resulted in many patients being released. By l945, in spite of the effects of Promin and the American Public Health Association’s advice against isolation, putting people in the National Leprosarium was still the response to the disease. It wasn’t until l952, that the government decided that people who were ambulatory could be released and treated by a private physician. Those who were disabled, could stay in the institution (some had been living there for more than forty years), but could leave if their relatives offered appropriate care. In l956 Dr. Edgar Johnwick, the new director declared that no one would be discharged against his/her will and no one would be kept against his/her will. In l960 the last compulsory isolation case was enforced and in l975, the term detention was dropped from the code for treatment of Hansen’s Disease.

The stories of patients escaping through ‘the hole in the fence" and of dances and Mardi Gras parades at Carville comes to me from a wonderful book, Carville: Remembering Leprosy in America by Marcia Gaudet (University Press of Mississippi, Jackson). I am also deeply indebted to Stanley Stein’s insightful book, Alone No Longer (Funk & Wagnalls, New York). I have not only borrowed his words for the initial quote, but some of his stories.

The history of Hansen’s disease in America and of the Carville Leprosarium is that of the institutionalized stigmatization and incarceration of U.S. Citizens. Hopefully, we have come a long way in our treatment of and attitude toward outcasts like John Winthrop.

My second area of research for this book was farming. I am grateful to the following for their help in teaching me about what it means to be a small farmer in America. To Betsy Hodges at the Cooperative Extension Learning Farm (and at her own farm), for showing me the animals, and talking to me about farming. To Walter Theobald for recounting his experience on a farm in the forties. To Jerry Apps for his YouTube video on ‘the party line’ and for his book, Every Farm Tells A Story (Voyager Press). And last but not least, to Serafina, a milking shorthorn cow, who resides at the Cooperstown Farmers Museum, for letting me milk her. I have enormous respect for farmers. They work very hard to feed all of us, and we often have no idea how difficult farm work really is. Farmers are indeed America’s true unsung heroes.

Last but not least, to my readers. I am grateful to you for buying, borrowing, stealing or otherwise acquiring this book. (Actually, I hope you didn’t steal it.) I am very interested in what you thought, pro or con. If you liked the book I would be grateful for a positive review. If you didn’t like it, let me know. My e-mail is [e-mail]. This book is available in paperback or as an e-book.

Chapter One

May 1933, Lafayette, Louisiana

John Winthrop

They came for me in the afternoon.

There were two men, driving up to the rooming house in a hearse. They parked the vehicle near the sidewalk and stepped out, studying a piece of paper as though looking for an address. They were wearing dark suits in May when the Louisiana heat pours down over you like molasses and most local men wore white suits, open collared shirts and light Panama hats. They appeared to be undertakers, but to my knowledge no one in my neighborhood was recently deceased. I watched as they checked the address one more time, and then looked directly at me.

John Winthrop? one man asked.

I nodded.

The man reached into his pocket and put on a pair of rubber gloves. I stood up from where I’d been sitting reading the newspaper. There’s no one dead here, I said.

He mounted the steps, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it to me. The other man stood beside him, barring my way to the steps.

I unfolded the paper. I worked as a high school English teacher. Was I being fired? I glanced over the words, and what I read stopped my heart. Patient John Winthrop. Pauci-bacillary leprosy. By order of the U.S. Government remanded to Carville Leprosarium.

This isn’t right, I said. You’ve made a mistake. I’m John Winthrop but I’m not the man you want. I was twenty five years old, ran every evening, even in the heat, and except for a few lesions on my arm that seemed impervious to treatment, was perfectly healthy. I’d been to several doctors for the lesions over the past six months, hoping to get a cream that would fix things, but no one seemed to know what the problem was. The last doctor took a small sample from one of the lesions and told me he’d call me in a week. But I’d heard nothing.

We’re here to take you to Carville, the man said. You’ve been diagnosed with leprosy.

I was sure it was a mistake. The doctor said he would call, I said. There’s nothing wrong with me. I was backing toward the door, wondering if it were too late to run. The money I’d been saving for a new car would be enough to take me to Texas or even California. Leprosy the men had said. How could I have leprosy?

You’re coming with us, the first man said. He must have outweighed me by a hundred pounds and under the dark suit, I could see his bulging biceps. He had not been casually chosen for this job.

Get your things, the second man said.

They pushed me toward the front door of the rooming house and followed me into the small downstairs hallway. Mrs. Hartigan, the landlady was standing by the door to the dining room, her hands covered with flour from baking. John, she said. What’s going on?

He has leprosy. We’re taking him to Carville, one of the men said. I watched Mrs. Hartigan’s horrified face, as she pulled herself back into the dining room. Oh my goodness, she said, looking at me and then glared at the two men standing behind me. And just tell me who’s going to pay for disinfecting his quarters? she asked angrily.

I mounted the steps, followed closely by the two men. When we got to my room I looked around. On a bookshelf were a couple of Indian pots I’d picked up last summer in Arizona, and Mardi Gras beads from a New Orleans celebration. I couldn’t take everything with me, so these remnants of my life as a free man, would be carted to a trash heap. I sat, overcome by all I was losing.

I teach high school English, I said. The kids will be expecting me back on Monday. And then I realized that even if all of this was a mistake and I were released, I would never be a teacher in Louisiana again. The good Catholic men and women of Lafayette Parish would not let an unclean man spread the filth of his disease among their innocent children. By Monday I would be the subject of horrified speculation, and if I ever decided to re-enter the classroom without ringing a bell, I would be stoned.

How long will I be in Carville? I asked.

One man shrugged. The other said A few years. Carville wasn’t far away and I’d heard stories of people who’d been incarcerated as teens, spending the rest of their lives behind the fence. I might never again go to a concert, a movie or a ball game. I might never again date a pretty girl, or walk down the street as a free man. I had been sentenced to be an outcast.

Let’s go, one man said.

Without even thinking about what I was taking with me, I began throwing things in a bag. In the time it had taken to say the word, I had become a leper.

Chapter Two

John

The ride from Lafayette to Carville took a little more than an hour. I had refused to ride in the back of the hearse, since there was nothing to lie on but the hard wooden floor, and the roof was too low for me to sit. The two drivers weren’t too happy to have me sit in the front, but there was nowhere else I could go. Wedged between the driver and his assistant, I watched as each man removed a pocket handkerchief from his coat and put it over his nose and mouth, twin banditos, afraid to breathe my poisoned air.

About half an hour into our ride, the two stopped at another house for a second patient. This man was on a stretcher, in far worse shape than I was. His breathing was labored, he had boils on his face and hands, and he seemed close to the end. How long had he been ill like this, and was this what my own future held? No one was going to answer my question, least of all the unlucky patient. He was pushed into the back of the hearse on the makeshift stretcher and the door closed on him. There was no nurse to even try and keep him alive. Clearly, if he expired during the journey, it would be his own bad luck.

We followed the highway east, and when we were west of Baton Rouge we dipped south following the curve of the Mississippi. Now what had been smooth pavement became mud, threatening to mire the wheels of the hearse in the sticky mess. To my left was the levee hiding my view of the Mississippi river, to my right a series of small, dilapidated shacks, each one worse than the one I’d just passed. How could people live like this? But more than my reaction to the surroundings was the fear, chewing away at my insides. I was being thrown away, like garbage, an unclean man from whom good people had to be protected. I might stay in this place for months, for years. I could be going to a place where I would spend the rest of my life.

We had reached a cluster of white buildings around a green lawn, dotted with live oak trees. Around this was a cyclone fence with three strands of barbed wire running along the top, and a uniformed guard at the gate. Whatever rumors might circulate about the place, that it was like a country club with its wide green lawns and arching oak trees, the reality was here in the metal fence topped with barbed wire. It was a prison.

We passed through the gatehouse and I saw to my left a two story Southern mansion. Is that the hospital?

Nope. The Administration building. The cottages belong to the doctors, and those are their kids.

Do the patients have children too?

Some do, but they ain’t here. Kids aren’t allowed to stay with the lepers, even if the lepers are their ma and pas.

The hearse rattled past The Station as the estate-like part of the hospital was called, to The Colony, the patient’s side. A low hedge separated the two domains, not much of a real physical barrier, but certainly a psychological one. We stopped in front of the Infirmary and I went inside to be greeted by a smiling nun wearing a blue habit and the white upswept cornette of the Daughters of St. Vincent du Paul.

The orderly will show you to your room, the nun said. We’ll do your medical intake tomorrow.

I followed the orderly down one of the screened board-walk tunnels, dodging bicycles, wheelchairs and pedestrians. Everything seemed dirty and smelled. Didn’t they have cleaners here?

We reached a bedroom which was in worse shape than the hallways. The bed was unmade, there were girly pinups taped to the walls and multiple smears of dirt. On the floor in addition to more dirt, was an empty bottle of disinfectant and a discarded cloth bandage.

We’ll get this cleaned up in no time, the orderly said. I looked around, not knowing where to light. Who knew what germs still lingered here, courtesy of the previous occupant, who from the look of the place, hadn’t been gone long. Just at that moment two men came into the room with brooms and mops. One of them had shortened fingers on both hands, what I would come to know as ‘mitten hands.’ The other was unmarked, but seemed to be too weak to move very fast. Were these people really paid staff?

As it turned out, Carville had a policy of hiring inmates to do the routine jobs like giving out medications and cleaning. For these jobs the patients were paid the princely sum of twenty-five to thirty-five dollars a month. For some of these inmates, especially husbands who were breadwinners, this was not enough money to keep a family going, so inmates created lots of ways to earn extra money.

What happened to the guy who was here? I asked the cleaners. Looks like he left in a hurry.

Sure did, the orderly said. My hopes rose. So people could be discharged from Carville. My visions of a life sentence began to fade.

Committed suicide, he did, the orderly said. Drank a whole bottle of disinfectant. Took him two days to die.

Chapter Three

September, 1945 Northern New York

John

Ten years after I’d left Carville, I was standing looking out over a farm that had belonged to my parents. I had come here with my wife Cathy, and her three year old daughter, Jenny.

When I first saw Cathy Sinclair, sitting in the corner of the recreation hall, selling quilts, I thought she was the prettiest woman in Carville. Lots of people at Carville sold goods or services as a way to ramp up the funds they got for their jobs; cutting hair, or carving toys, reading to the blind. There was even a small restaurant that served good Chinese food during the hours that the mess hall was closed. Since there were many more men than women in the place, I worried that Cathy might have a lot of beaus vying for her attention. I bought a quilt from her, stretching out the transaction, so we could talk more.

The next month, I bought another quilt. I had money I had saved from my teaching job, and my parents sent me sums too. On our second visit, I learned that Cathy was divorced and her husband was in jail. She was trying to support her small daughter Jenny on the twenty five dollars she got cleaning the dining room floor, plus what she got for her quilts. She even added to this sum the yearly Christmas gift of two dollars given by the American Mission to Lepers.

The third time we saw each other I asked her to the movies. At that time Carville had an old projector that frequently broke the films and mangled the sound so that actor’s lips moved out of sync to their words. But none of that mattered. I had fallen in love and Cathy and we were together.

We got married outside Carville and when Cathy got pregnant we decided to flee. If she had the baby while she was at Carville, it would be taken away, and she’d already had one child being raised by someone else. And so, in May of l935, ten years ago, we left Carville.

Fleeing was not without anxiety. We went out through the hole in the fence, and had a taxi waiting for us. When we got to the babysitter’s house, three year old Jenny was sitting in a baby carriage outside in the May heat.

This is terrible, I said. Why don’t we report this woman to the police. You pay her for her service, and look how she treats the baby.

Don’t John, Cathy said, snatching up the toddler. Let’s just take her.

We got in the taxi and drove to the train station, all the time looking around us for the authorities. If they caught us and sent us back, what would happen to the baby? As the train sped north to where my parents had a farm, I expected to see uniformed men, like the ones who had arrested me, marching up the aisle. We had absconded. We were criminals on the run. But no one ever came, and when we reached the farmhouse in Euclid, my mother was there to meet us, my father having died a year before.

Robert Frost said Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in, and that was what this farm had been for us. By coming here, we could get far enough away from Louisiana that no one would know us, or discover our illnesses.

But the world changes in ways you don’t expect. Several months after we arrived, my wife and new born son died. And two months later my mother had a heart attack. I was left with a three year old toddler, Jenny, and an ancient farm and since no one would hire me as a teacher, I took a job making deliveries for the local feed store and attempted to learn agriculture.

Now, ten years after my wife’s death, I was standing on the porch watching the dying evening light sift in soft layers across the western sky, gilding the tops of the distant trees, and spreading a pinkish hue over the barn and outbuildings. I was waiting for my step-daughter, thirteen-year old Jenny to return from picking tomatoes. She had set off for the garden an hour ago, and should have returned by now. I wasn’t really worried, Jenny was a conscientious, responsible girl, but still...

I heard a noise and looked up to see Jenny crossing the yard toward me. Behind her, trying hard to keep up, was a very young pig.

Where did you find the pig? I asked when she’d reached the porch.

He was on the road by the garden, Jenny said. I think he fell off a truck going to market. She reached down and picked up the animal. Can we keep him, Dad?

Absolutely not. You know he belongs to someone else and that person is going to come looking for him. I’m not going to have people say we are thieves.

I saved him from drowning when he fell into the stream. We can’t just let him go to the slaughter house.

I didn’t want to get into something where we were shouting at each other. Come on, I said, let’s make him a temporary pen in the barn and then we’ll decide what to do.

We’ll need lots of straw. It’s getting cold, Jenny said. She was still carrying the pig and would reach down every once in a while to kiss its head. He’s so cute. Can’t we just bring him into the house.

We’d reached the barn. No, I said firmly. I went to the bales and began pulling out straw which I threw into the empty pen where Serafina’s calf had last resided. Go get some water, I told Jenny handing her the dish. Tomorrow we’ll get some pig food at the store.

I put the pig down in the pen and he began rooting around in the straw, making little grunting noises as he did so. The pen seemed a little large for him, and maybe he missed the sow and his piglet siblings.

Couldn’t we bring him in after supper? Just to let him listen to the radio for a while.

I shook my head. I didn’t want to be the bad guy, but there wasn’t going to be a pig in my house.

Tomorrow I’ll go the library and find some books on raising a pig, Jenny said. Maybe I can teach him to do tricks.

I looked at her hard, trying not to say what she knew I would.

I know, she said. Don’t get attached. He’s not mine to keep.

We walked back into the house where I heated up our supper. Green beans, carrots, potatoes and some left-over chicken. I dished out two plates and we sat at the table in the kitchen, a room which is warmer and less intimidating than the dining room. Jenny pushed food around on her plate, but took only a few bites. Finally, she said. I’m not hungry, Dad. I think I’ll go out and see Pig.

I watched as she put her food into a container and covered it, then grabbed her coat from the hook. Pausing at the door she said, You know Dad, I’ve never had a pet of any kind. Not a dog, a cat, a turtle---not even a goldfish.

I’m sorry, honey, I said.

Don’t say it. I know, she said, going through the door and slamming it hard behind her.

When Cathy and my baby died, my heart broke open. Without Jenny, I might have taken to my bed, disabled by grief or I might have set out one freezing night in a t-shirt, determined to sit in the woods until the cold took me. But Jenny was a lively child, chatty, curious, smiling and laughing at everything. She was just learning to talk but most important of all, she needed me.

When I got a job making deliveries for the feed store, I would strap Jenny into the car with a pillow for protection and we would head out together. As she grew older, she rode with me on the plow behind the horses, played in the dirt while I planted vegetables, and sat in a play pen while I hung up wet laundry. In those early days, when I was still trying to find my bearings, Jenny became my lifeline to the world. How could I deny her a pet?

I finished my supper and then washed my own plate and glass. I turned on the radio, but nothing held my interest, because I was still thinking about Jenny and her longing for something of her own. Finally, I put on my coat and headed out to the barn. When I got there, it was dark, so I switched on the lights. There were two shapes in the pig pen and as I got closer, I could see that Jenny had