A Plain Disappearance (2 page)

Chief Rose answered on the first ring. “What is it, Humphrey? Did you run into Fanning and Buckley?” She asked this in her typically terse fashion.

I closed my eyes. Curt Fanning and Brock Buckley, a couple of local thugs, had spent the last few months harassing me and the entire Troyer family. Could they have had something to do with the Amish girl’s death? I winced from the stab of a headache coming on.

In the background, I heard laughter, conversation, and Christmas music playing. Was the Appleseed Creek Chief of Police at a holiday party? I found it startling to think Chief Rose had a life outside of her job, which she seemed to live, breathe, and eat. At least until I heard the background music playing through my phone.

“Are you still there?” she asked.

I removed my Fair Isle hat and pressed the phone closer to my ear. “Yes. I’m still here. We have a problem, and it doesn’t involve Curt and Brock. At least, I don’t think it does.”

“I’m not going to like this, am I? Whatever this is, it’s going to cause me to leave this party, isn’t it?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Where are you?” Sharpness in her voice replaced the sarcasm.

“Um.” I lowered the phone just a tad. “Timothy, where are we?”

He stood and held out his hand for the phone. I gave it to him and listened while he described our location and the sad discovery.

Mabel’s growling stopped. She walked over to me and leaned against my leg with a whimper. I dug my fingers into the curly fur on the top of her head. “You did good, girl.”

I turned my eyes away from the girl’s face then. She was so young—just a teenager—a life cut short. I swallowed the lump in my throat.

Timothy handed the phone back to me. “It’s going to take Greta and her officers a little while to reach us. Also, depending on the location, the sheriff and some deputies may have to be rounded up too. I don’t know if this property falls within the limits of Appleseed Creek.”

I couldn’t look at the blue face, so I concentrated on the hand. “Do you know her?”

Timothy grimaced. “
Ya
,” he said, using the Pennsylvania Dutch word. He was more likely to pepper his English speech with his first language when he was around his family or when he was upset. At this moment, it was the latter.

“Who is she?”

He walked over to stand next to Mabel and me. “Katie Lambright.”

Katie Lambright. I rolled the name around in my head. I didn’t remember meeting a Katie since moving to the county, but my stomach dropped. I did know a Lambright. Anna Lambright was Timothy’s thirteen-year-old sister, Ruth’s, best friend. I prayed I was wrong. “Is she related to Anna?”

He turned to me, tears in his eyes. “Katie was Anna’s older sister.”

Ruth and Anna had only recently been allowed to see each other again. The bishop and the deacon had punished the Troyer family for continuing contact with Timothy and Becky, who left the Amish way, by forbidding Anna to interact with Ruth. The separation had hurt Ruth deeply and almost ruined their friendship. However, when the bishop changed his mind and saw there was no harm in the Troyers interacting with their English children, Ruth’s father had relented.

This tragedy could sever their friendship again—especially since Timothy and I were the ones to discover Katie’s body.

Timothy strode around the corner of the barn.

Mabel and I hurried after him. “What are you doing?”

He slowed just long enough to glance at us over his shoulder. “I want to take a look around before Greta arrives.”

The barn door stood halfway open and hung awkwardly from its hinges. A drift of snow four feet high blocked the doorway. Undeterred, Timothy stepped into the snow drift and sunk up to his thighs. He turned his head. “Mabel, stay.”

The brown and black dog sat with a whine.

Timothy’s steps broke a path into the barn that I was able to follow. The drift was deep but not long. It extended perhaps four feet into the huge expanse of the barn.

Inside the barn was dark, but the gaping hole in the roof worked as a sky light. We stood and let our eyes adjust. The items inside of the barn were what I expected to find: piles of old boards, rusty nails sticking out of the pillars, and grungy wagon wheels. Nothing was of any interest or relation to Katie Lambright, who lay dead on the other side of the barn wall.

Light from the hole in the roof reflected off the metal surface at the back of the building. Without discussion, Timothy and I moved toward the reflection.

The source of the light was a rearview car mirror sticking out of a blue milk crate. The crate was half-covered with an enormous blue tarp. Timothy pulled back the tarp, revealing dozens, maybe hundreds, of automobile parts from steering wheels to spark plugs. Ten tire irons were piled in a stack. “Looks like someone used this old barn for extra storage.”

“Is that allowed?”

He shook his head. “Not without the permission of the owner.”

“Who is somewhere in Colorado.”

“Right.”

“Maybe all this belonged to the Gundys.”

Timothy shook his head. “They’re Amish.”

The sound of snowmobiles broke into the tranquil quiet of the frozen farmland. Chief Rose and her posse were coming.

Timothy turned. “We’d better step outside. Greta won’t like it if she finds us in here.”

“She’ll know we were. We can’t really hide all the tracks we made in the snow.”

Timothy shoved his hands into his pockets. “You’re right.”

I scanned the car parts one last time because I knew Chief Rose would never allow me to snoop in the barn after she arrived. I gasped and stared at one of the mirrors.

Timothy touched my arm. “Chloe, what is it?”

Silver duct tape covered every inch of it except for the mirror itself. The duct taping had been a careful job, free of bumps or creases. Only one mechanic in Knox County, perhaps in the entire state of Ohio, used duct tape as a fix-all for automobiles and everything else: Uncle Billy from Uncle Billy’s Budget Autos.

“What is it?” Timothy asked a second time.

I pulled a smaller tarp off of another crate, dozens of new shiny rolls of duct tape inside. “Duct tape.”

Timothy picked up the duct-taped mirror. “It could just mean that this is Billy’s stuff. It doesn’t mean he has anything to do with . . . with Katie outside.” He set it back inside of the crate.

Although Timothy made sense, something told me that Billy might have a larger role in this than either of us wanted to believe.

The noise outside grew louder now. I followed Timothy out of the barn as three snowmobiles pulled up about twenty yards from Sparky and the sleigh. The horse whinnied and kicked the ground as if to complain about the noise. Mabel was less discreet and barked at the intruders. The chief and her officers cut their engines.

Timothy grabbed Mabel by the collar and pulled her back toward the sleigh and agitated horse.

Chief Rose removed her helmet and her short poodle curls sprang perfectly into place. Had I removed my stocking cap, my straight hair would have stuck up in all directions as if I had been electrocuted. She hopped off her snowmobile and set the helmet on the seat, the other two officers following suit. As there were only three Appleseed Creek police officers, our discovery brought out the entire department.

Chief Rose stomped over to me, her peculiar peridot-colored eyes flashing. “For crying out loud, Humphrey, can’t I even have Christmas off?”

I gave her a weak smile. “I guess not.”

She pointed her thumb at the barn. “Is the body in there? I thought you said it was outside.”

“It is. It’s behind the farthest corner of the building.”

She reached into her coat pocket and removed a navy stocking cap, placed it on her head, and pulled it down over her ears. “Then you and Troyer must have a really good reason for being inside of the barn.”

I buried my hands deep inside my pockets. “We took a look around.”

“I hope you’re not up to your old tricks, Humphrey.” She watched Timothy as he covered Sparky with a green horse blanket and tucked Mabel back into the sleigh. The dog would be asleep within seconds.

I tilted my chin. “What tricks are those?”

“Snooping. I don’t need the extra headache.” She rested her hand on her gun belt. “Did you touch anything in there?”

“No.” I hadn’t. Timothy had. I knew she would ask him the same question, and he wouldn’t lie.

Timothy strode over to us.

A smile spread across the police chief’s face. “So, Troyer, you were taking Humphrey out for an old Amish sleigh ride. How cute.”

Timothy didn’t rise to the chief’s bait. “Do you want to see where we found her?”

Chief Rose whistled at the two officers, and they came running. “Riley, you stay here and keep watch.”

Riley, a middle-aged man with a goatee, snapped his gum. “Watch what? There’s nothing for miles.”

She narrowed her eyes to forest-green-lined slits. The chief seemed to wear a different color of eyeliner every day. Was the new shade in honor of Christmas?

Riley snapped his gum. “I’ll stand watch, Chief.”

She nodded. “Nottingham, come with us.”

Nottingham knew better than to argue with Chief Rose. He was the youngest of the officers, maybe around my own age of twenty-four.

I let Timothy lead the way, not eager to see Katie’s body again.

“Don’t walk in any of the existing tracks,” Chief Rose said.

“The only tracks here are Timothy’s and mine,” I said.

She turned her gaze on me. “Humor me.”

We gave the tracks a wide berth. As we rounded the last corner to where Katie lay, my eyes zeroed in on her blue hand reaching out from the snow drift. The first time I saw it I didn’t know the victim’s name. Now that I knew the potential impact Katie’s death had on the Troyer family, the sight seemed that much more terrible, that much more gruesome. I swallowed, and stopped fifty feet away. “I’ll stay back here.”

Timothy squeezed my shoulder before he walked on with the two police officers. Despite the distance, I could hear their conversation clearly in the stillness of the winter air.

Chief Rose crouched a few feet from the body and examined the scene. “Nottingham, take photos.”

The young officer removed a SLR camera from its case slung over his shoulder. Carefully, he moved around the body. In the silence, the
snap-snap
of the camera’s shutter sounded like the
crack-crack
of a handgun.

“Will the sheriff be coming out?” Timothy asked.

“Nah.” The police chief straightened her legs to standing. “This is still within Appleseed Creek’s village limits, even if just barely. The Knox County sheriff will be happy to leave this mess in my hands. I’ll give him a heads-up, of course.” She peered at the baseball-bat-sized icicles hanging menacingly from the barn’s eaves. Then she dropped her gaze, removing a collapsible trowel from her utility belt and unfolding it. She inched around Katie’s head and carefully removed snow that surrounded her bonnet.

I crept closer to them as Chief Rose worked.

“Nottingham, get a shot of this.” She pointed to a depression in the bonnet’s frame. She continued to dig about Katie’s head and revealed large pieces of ice frozen to the ground and to the girl’s cloak. She looked up again. Then, I saw it—an empty space between the icicles. It stuck out like a missing tooth.

“Did the icicle kill her?” I asked, feeling oddly hopeful. If Katie’s death was accidental maybe there would be no impact on the Troyers.

Chief Rose ignored my question. “Nottingham, how long before the coroner arrives?”

Nottingham pushed up his parka sleeve and checked his watch. “It will be another thirty minutes.”

She grimaced. “Let’s call it forty-five. He’s always late, even on a good day, and two days before Christmas is not a good day.”

Christmas. The word struck me like a blow. The Lambright family would be notified that their daughter died close to the holiday. From now on, this day would always hold a bitter taste for them.

Chief Rose stood. “We might as well record your statements while we wait. Humphrey, you’re up first.” She walked away from the barn out of earshot of Timothy and Nottingham, as the officer continued to snap photos of the barn, the snow, the icicles, and of Katie.

I worried my lip. Timothy gave me the briefest of nods and his grim smile buoyed me somehow to follow Chief Rose. The necklace he had given me rested against my skin.

The chief cleared her throat. “I hope you can answer a few questions after you and Troyer stop mooning over each other.”

Heat rushed to my cheeks. I gritted my teeth, determined not to reply in kind. “Ask away.”

“Tell me what happened from the beginning. Start by telling me why you were here. With luck, you and Troyer’s stories will match.”

“They will,” I snapped.

Mischief glinted in her eyes. “That’s good to hear.”

I went on to tell her everything that had happened since Timothy and I left his family’s farm with Sparky and the sleigh. When it came to the part of finding the car parts in the barn, I paused.

Her gaze sharpened. “What is it?”

I swallowed. “One of the mirrors is covered in silver duct tape. It struck me as odd.” She could draw her own conclusions.

She understood immediately. “Sounds like I should talk to Uncle Billy.”

I shouldn’t be surprised the police chief came to the same conclusion. No doubt she was smart and very good at her job. Little happened in Appleseed Creek that Chief Rose didn’t know about.

“I know another thing about this case, Humphrey.”

“What’s that?” I asked, unsure that I wanted to hear the answer.

She squared her peridot-colored gaze on me. “You are the common denominator in every murder case on my books.”

I bit the inside of my lip because . . . she was right.

A
fter the coroner and Chief Rose’s officer loaded Katie’s body onto the sled attached to the back of a snowmobile, the chief waved us over to Grandfather Zook’s sleigh. “I have a favor to ask, Troyer.”

Timothy’s brow shot up.

“You know the Lambright family, don’t you?” she asked.