A Marriage for Meghan (15 page)

However, his sacrificial heartburn had been for naught. Santos had no clue as to the identity of the thugs and hadn’t seen them since being interviewed by the sheriff. Nevertheless, he repeated everything he could remember for Thomas. A couple of young men had picked up two extra-large pizzas around eight o’clock and paid with cash. Both were of average height and weight, and multitattooed—neither their tats nor the way they dressed stood out as memorable. They had spoken with an accent Santos described as West Virginian. The men had eyeballed his Amish patrons but not engaged them in conversation. Santos didn’t remember seeing them before and hadn’t seen the vehicle they had been driving.

From this Thomas gleaned only that their accent was mountain as opposed to Deep South, and that the two had been providing dinner for several others. Few young men could eat an extra-large pizza by themselves. He surmised they ate their pie, consumed a few beers in the back lot, and waited for the Amish to finish their evening in town. Santos, eager to help, promised to call him if the two men returned to his restaurant. Despite the dearth of places to eat in the area, Thomas doubted they would be back soon.

Sipping his first cup of coffee from the room’s four-cup machine, Thomas considered the scant evidence. Without license plate numbers, credit card receipts, or positive ID, he had nothing to go on. But with his promise to the sheriff, he decided to ride out to visit the schoolteacher’s spurned boyfriend. Even if Jacob Shultz had sought vengeance for his broken heart, he likely had nothing to do with the other crimes. But Thomas couldn’t sit around in downtown Wooster watching the snow melt. Wayne County would get their money’s worth in crime investigation, even if he were chasing down a spider with a shotgun.

“Good morning, sir.” A cheery staff member greeted him as he left his hotel room.

“Good morning. Know where I can buy breakfast in town?” asked Thomas with a friendly smile.

The woman frowned. “Why would you want to
buy
a meal? A full breakfast is included in your room rate—eggs, biscuits, gravy, waffles, juice, and coffee, as well as fresh fruit, cereal, and yogurt if that’s your pleasure. Go down to the room off the reception desk.” She pointed in the general direction.

“Thanks for the advice,” he said.

And so he started the day with an overly full stomach after last night’s pizza. But who could resist such a deal? Only in small-town America could a person spend the night comfortably and eat heartily for sixty bucks. However, the hotel failed as his personal Utopia because their sole pool was outdoors.

The scenery on the ride to the Shultz farm astounded him. No power lines intruded on the pristine winter landscape for as far as the eye could see. Nothing but tidy homes, well-kept outbuildings, and acres of snow-covered fields waiting for the spring thaw. He might have come on a movie set for the eighteenth century if not for the occasional passing car. One thing about the Amish—their penchant for simplicity meant far less stuff cluttering up backyards.

He found the correct farm on township road 148 by checking names on the mailboxes, and then he drove up the narrow lane that was the Schultz driveway. Twenty or thirty chickens, pecking around in the shoveled path, scattered with his arrival.
This must be what they mean by free-range chickens
, he thought as he parked near the rambling farmhouse. A middle-aged woman was hanging laundry under the long roofline of the porch. She stopped working and stared as he approached.

“Good morning, ma’am. I’m looking for Jacob if this is the Shultz residence.”

She shaded her eyes. “
Jah
, of course this is the Shultz farm. Jacob’s in the barn. He has the fire burning hot today.” She pointed toward the back outbuilding. When she grinned, her cheeks resembled two round apples.

So far everything Thomas encountered reminded him of storybook clichés. He’d better get back to civilization before Hoss Cartwright ambled up looking for Little Joe.

Thomas entered a lean-to behind the main barn. At one end stood an old-fashioned, wood-fired blacksmith forge, complete with air bellows and a tall stone chimney. He stared with his mouth open, never imagining a facility like this existed in this day and age outside of historical villages such as Williamsburg. A powerfully built young man held a piece of iron inside the firebox with long-handled tongs. The metal was turning bright pink from the intense heat. The blacksmith, wearing heavy gloves up to his elbows, glanced over his shoulder when Thomas entered.

For several seconds both men gave the other a careful perusal. After one glance Mast knew this man was strong enough to knock down those fences single-handedly. And with the help of his Blue Ox, Babe, this Paul Bunyan could probably tear up a farm field. “Mr. Shultz?” he asked.

The man turned back to the fire. “
Jah
, that’s me, but I gotta bend this combine bar while it’s hot. Be with ya in a few minutes.” His words floated over his shoulder while the blacksmith concentrated on his work. After removing the metal from the firebox, he hammered it against an anvil and returned it to the heat. He pounded and heated and then pounded some more, gauging his progress with a tape measure that he snapped open and shut after each bend. When Shultz finally reached his sought-after dimension, he carefully placed the implement in a bucket filled with blue-colored liquid.

“I’m Jacob Shultz. What can I do for you?” He stripped off his gloves and extended a hand.

Thomas shook, hoping his hand wouldn’t be crushed from Jacob’s grip. “Special Agent Thomas Mast of the Cleveland office of the FBI.”

The blacksmith’s green eyes revealed shock—the same reaction Thomas had discovering a wood-fired forge still in operation. But apparently it wasn’t Mast’s vocation or the location of his office that triggered his surprise.

“Are you from around here?” asked Jacob. “I mean, did you once live in the area? I went to school with several Masts, and I know a couple others from the grain elevator.”

“No, no. I live in Cleveland. Yesterday was my first time in Shreve. Nice little town, though,” he added to be sociable. Back home, small talk had never been his strong suit.

“
Jah
, we like it. What can I do for ya? I trust you’re not here because a runaway team bent the blades on your combine. That’s what I got over there.” Shultz nodded at the cooling metal on the workbench. “The combine hit some nasty boulders along the way.” He crossed his tree-limb sized arms over his leather apron.

“No, I’m here to ask about your relationship with Meghan Yost.”

The friendly green eyes turned wary. “She’s my gal, but I don’t see why that’s any business of an FBI agent all the way down from the Cleveland office.” His emphasis indicated he had been paying attention.

“That’s not exactly the way I heard it. I believe she told you to give her some breathing room.”

“Did Meghan say that?” His face turned the color of the iron inside the firebox.

“It’s not important where I heard it.” Thomas kept his tone soft and nonconfrontational.

“It’s important to me, so if you want me to answer your questions, you’d better return the favor by answering mine.”

The two didn’t need to circle each other in the barnyard for lines to be drawn. After a pause, Thomas relented. “No, it wasn’t Meghan. I’ve never met the woman.”

Jacob visibly relaxed, exhaling his pent-up breath. “That’s a relief.
Jah
, she wants me to stop pestering her about serious courting. She has a bee in her bonnet about teaching school for a while before we get hitched.”

Mast had to bite his cheek to keep from grinning. The young blacksmith saw no amusing irony in his choice of words. “How did you feel about her rejection? Did it make you mad? Maybe angry enough to wreak havoc in the schoolhouse?”

Jacob laughed and rolled his eyes. “You can’t be serious, man. My nieces and nephews go to that school. I know every district member who has kids going there. Even if Meghan told me she wouldn’t marry me if I were the last man on earth, I wouldn’t shame myself in such a way.” He glanced back at the house. His mother had started hanging wash on the unprotected clotheslines too. “Or bring that kind of disgrace to my family.” Jacob turned back to the agent, seemingly unruffled by the allegation as though it was simply too ridiculous to worry about.

“Any idea who might have done it?”

Jacob glanced at the fire and started feeding in more wood. “I’m sure the teachers gave you some possibilities. Me? I’d rather not throw around accusations.” Once his fire had been sufficiently fueled, he gave Thomas another once-over. “If that’s the reason you drove down here from the city, Agent Mast, you might as well point your car north toward the freeway. I can keep an eye on Meghan and her schoolhouse. Nothing bad will happen to that little gal while I’m still breathing.” He returned to bending metal as though the agent had already left.

Thomas scanned the big man’s archaic workshop once more and walked out into the sunshine.
Yep. Nothing bad will happen to her unless you’re the sociopath in the first place
. He glanced around the tidy barnyard with clucking hens, climbed in his car, and drove away from the Shultz farm.

He did not, however, head north out of town.

One thing about a preaching service in February—a blizzard changed everything. Folks who weren’t feeling well, those with newborn
boppli,
and those who didn’t own sure-footed horses or have carriages to trust for long, arduous trips would most likely stay home. Gideon’s flock would be thinner than usual.

Last night it had snowed from sunset until dawn. Light flakes still landed on his sons’ black hats as they shoveled a narrow path to the livestock barn. Animals needed to be fed and watered even on the Lord’s Day. And on this cold, blustery Sabbath, Gideon sipped his coffee with a heavy heart.

He dreaded facing the other brethren. And considering the events of the past two weeks, it would take more than eight inches of new snow to keep them from today’s service. As his wife and daughters ate bowls of cold cereal with fruit and packed hampers with casseroles for the luncheon table, Gideon tried to stay focused on the sermon: turning the other cheek when you’ve been wronged.

Would there be forgiveness and understanding for him?

Did he even deserve it from the other elders? A man who placed himself above his fellow man was destined for a hard fall. And hadn’t he done just that when he called the English sheriff without consulting the others? Four heads usually arrived at sounder choices than one man operating on his own. When Gideon checked his pocket watch for the third time, he rejoiced that the hour had finally come. With the service next door at the deacon’s, no long journey added to his unease. In fact, the drive took only a few minutes. Before he knew it, James parked their buggy close to Stephen’s barn and released their horse into the paddock. The bishop spotted all three brethren lined up in a row on the side porch like crows on a telephone line.

The bad weather hadn’t kept his ministers away. David seemed anxious. Paul looked piqued, and Stephen’s face held only pity for his friend.

“Looks like they’re waiting for you,” said Ruth, stepping down from the buggy. “They probably just want to decide who’ll preach first.” She lifted the hamper of pies, leaving the heavier containers for her girls.

“Looks like they’re mad,” interjected Meghan, jumping down into a snowdrift. This particular daughter had only recently stopped creating snow angels.

“No, not mad,” corrected Catherine, the tactful voice of reason. “They’re probably worried about buggies skidding off the road into ditches. It’ll be days before the plows get to these back roads.” She hefted the largest of the roasting pans from the back of the buggy.

“I think we cooked too much food yesterday,” said Meghan, lifting the other casserole dish. “Look how few buggies are here.”

She was right. Usually more than twenty buggies would be lined up on a preaching Sunday. Today, Gideon counted only three thus far besides their own, plus three sleighs. “Thank goodness,” he murmured, drawing a curious glance from his
fraa.

“Services inside the front room today, Bishop,” called Stephen, their host. “With this weather, we don’t expect a crowd. No need to heat the outbuilding.” He walked down the steps to offer a hand to Ruth. Although salted, the stairs still looked slippery.

“
Guder mariye
,” greeted Paul.

“Good morning to you,” answered Gideon, nodding to each man.