A Plain Malice: An Appleseed Creek Mystery (Appleseed Creek Mystery Series Book 4) (2 page)

Naomi gripped
my hand more tightly at the mention of her oldest sister’s name. As young as she was she still felt tension between Becky and her parents even if she didn’t know the cause.

“She’s working a
t the restaurant today,” I said, hoping Grandfather Zook would leave it at that.

“Strange that Ellie wouldn’t give her the morning off. She
knew this tour was coming through.” Ellie Young was the proprietress of Young’s Family Kitchen and Flea Market, the largest Amish business in Knox County, and a close family friend to Grandfather Zook and the Troyers.

“I don’t think that was the issue.” I let m
y statement hang in the air.

Thankfully, Grandfather Zook dropped
the topic at least for the time being.

Ten yards from the barn
, I saw Bishop Hooley standing with Deacon Sutter. The two men studied the tourists milling around the Troyer farm. Bishop Hooley smiled and stroked his brown grizzled beard as he watched the travelers. In contrast, black-bearded Deacon Sutter looked like he was ready to excommunicate everyone within a twenty foot radius, including the non-Amish. I nodded in their direction. “What are they doing here? Isn’t this the last thing they would want to see in the district?”

Grandfather Zook dug the end of his brace
into bright green grass. “The tour was Bishop Hooley’s idea.”

I pulled up short. “It
was?”

The older man nodded.
“
Ya
. Bus tours like this have been traveling through Holmes County for decades. The bishop contacted some travel agencies and found one to come to Knox County instead of Holmes. If it goes well, this could go on all spring and summer.”

“
Deacon Sutter was okay with that?” I stole a glance at the deacon. He glared in return.

Grandfather Zook shrugged.
“He might not agree with the bishop, but he won’t cross him. What the bishop says goes.”

I wasn’t so sure about that.
“Why did the bishop do this?”

“
He saw this tour as a way to attract tourists to our district. Many times they pass Knox County on their way to Holmes.” He snorted. “Holmes County doesn’t have anything we don’t have.”

I smiled.
“Just a few thousand more Amish and five times the businesses.”

Thomas and Naomi ran ahead. Again wisps of hair flew behind the small girl
.

Grandfather Zook
tugged at his beard. “There is that. It is
gut
for the district. Bishop Hooley is turning into a fine bishop.” He grinned. “All the families taking part will get a portion of the money the district earns from the tours. I think that’s why my son-in-law agreed to participate. We could always use the money.”

We’d almost reached the large white dairy barn.
The familiar scent of dry milk, manure, and hay washed over me, and the sound of the cows mooing mixed with the German-sounding Pennsylvania Dutch and Southern drawled English voices. Thomas and Naomi dashed into the barn. I touched Grandfather Zook’s arm. “Is the farm in financial trouble?”

“
Nee
. It’s not in any more trouble than usual, but it is hard to compete with those big corporate farms buying up land. They’re so large they can undersell us until we go under. They can take a loss on the sale of milk, we can’t. After all the small farms go out of business, they can hike their prices.”

I stared at Grandfather Zook
, surprised by his bleak comment. He was more cheerful after the attack that sheared off his beloved beard.

He must have notice
d my expression. “
Es dutt mir leed.
I’m sorry. We’re here to promote the farm. Instead I am scaring you.”

“I
’m not scared.”

He laughed. “
You’re face tells me something different.”

Thomas and Naomi
stood just inside the barn door as if too shy to enter. This was nothing new for Naomi, but Thomas was typically more fearless.

“Aren’t the
y sweet? Don’t you love the little girl’s dress and the little boy’s suspenders?” an African American woman with close cropped gray hair asked. “My, I wish I could take a picture of them. The photo would look so nice in my country style kitchen. I know right where I’d hang it too. Between the buffet and my plate collection.”

“Now, LeeAnne
, you know the Amish don’t like their photographs taken,” her companion, a white woman with a half dozen rings on her fingers and beads around her neck, said.

LeeAnn
e lifted her tiny digital camera. “One little picture won’t hurt.”

Grandfather Zook
cleared his throat behind them.

The two women turned around and a blush flew up both of their
cheeks.

“Those are my grand
children you are talking about,” he said.

The lady
’s hands with the rings fluttered into her face. “I’m so sorry. We were only saying how much we would like a photo of them. We would
never
take one. We would
never
disrespect your culture like that. Isn’t that right, LeeAnne?”

LeeAnne hastily tucked her small camera into her tapestry purse
, which was large enough to conceal a bowling ball or two. “Raellen is right. We would never do that.”

Grandfather Zook folded his arms
, trying to look gruff but failing horribly at it. “
Gut.
Because I would hate to have Chloe escort you off the farm. She’s in charge of security today.”

The two wome
n looked my petite frame up and down.

“She’s a lot tougher than she looks,” Grandfather Zook said in a conspiratorial whisper. “She’s taken down murderers.”

Technically, that was true, but it was attributed to good timing and wits, not brute force.

The women
whispered to each other as I followed Grandfather Zook into the barn.

Because of their herd of dairy cattle, the Troyers had one
of the largest barns in the district. Despite its size, which could hold up to forty head of cattle, the building felt claustrophobic with the dozen or so tourists roaming the interior. Most were in a half circle around Mr. Troyer and one of his cows. Like his children, Mr. Troyer was blond, but his hair had darkened with age, and gray streaks ran throughout his beard and the hair visible under his black felt hat.

Timothy’s father
squatted on a three-legged milking stool in the middle of the room demonstrating how to milk by hand. Typically, Mr. Troyer milked six cows at a time with the milking machine in the milking parlor, an adjoining building at the rear of the main barn. A propane generator powered the milking machine and refrigerated the seven hundred gallon milk tank next to the milking parlor. I guessed Mr. Troyer thought it would be more “Amish” to show the Mississippians the by hand method. A calico barn cat watched a few feet away from Mr. Troyer’s stool. He clicked his tongue at the cat. The feline opened her mouth, and Mr. Troyer squirted milk into it. The crowd cheered at him.

“Isn’t that the sweetest
thang?” A woman murmured.

Several tourists held
small plastic cups of milk in one hand and one of Mrs. Troyer’s muffins in the other. Half-empty trays of blueberry and cranberry muffins sat on a cafeteria-length table to the right of the barn’s main door. Grandfather Zook was right. The Mississippians hit the muffins hard. Not that I could blame them. Mrs. Troyer was a world class baker. “Mr. Troyer is giving free samples of the milk too?” I whispered to Grandfather Zook.

He nodded. “That was Timothy’s idea. He said the tour
ists would like to taste the real thing. Not that watered down stuff they buy at the grocery store.”

I frowned as I watched a man take a big swing of milk. It left a white mark on his
Just for Men
black mustache. “It’s not pasteurized?”

Grandfather Zook chuckled. “You are still a city girl.
The milk is fine to drink. You’ve had it straight from the cow many times when you’ve visited and didn’t even know it. It won’t hurt these Dixie folks.”

I cocked an
eyebrow. “Dixie?”

“I know the song.” He hummed the tune. “I wish I was in the land of cotton.
”

Naomi pulled on my arm. “
Isn’t it funny when
Daed
feeds the kitty like that?”

I gave her a squeeze. “It’s very funny.”

Thomas stood beside the muffin table stuffing muffins into his pants pockets as if he were a squirrel hoarding nuts for the winter.

A woman
in an ankle-length denim dress stood a few feet from Thomas and gripped the edge of the table. I took a step in that direction. Was she fainting? Her Ronald McDonald red-headed friend held a paper plate. “Ruby, are you all right?”

Beads of sweat gathered on Ruby’s
upper lip. “Dizzy,” she slurred.

Her friend set her plate on the table. “It must
be the close air in here. Let’s go outside, so you can catch your breath.”

Ruby nodded as if she
were underwater. She stumbled toward the open barn door and swayed. Her sway turned into a fall as she collapsed to the barn’s dirt floor, hitting her head on the side corner of the table as she went down. Muffins and little cups of milk went flying in all directions. Her friend screamed.

Across the barn, the
mustached man with the neon umbrella fell. He gripped his chest. The plastic cup of milk he held in his hand crashed to the floor, spilling milk onto his blue polo shirt. Ruby started to writhe on the dirt ground. Naomi gripped my leg so tightly that she cut off circulation.

“Chloe, get the children out of here
!” Mr. Troyer bellowed.

I scooped up Naomi and grabbed Thomas by the hand. I
took them from the barn. Thomas dragged his feet and the muffins he gathered fell from his pockets onto the grass. I looked back hoping that Grandfather Zook would follow, but I didn’t see him.

Chapter Two

Naomi buried her face in my neck. Her hot tears trickled down the front of my cotton jacket. “Shh. Shh.” I tried to sooth her.

Thomas tugged on my sleeve. “What’s wrong with those people? Are the
y sick?”

Sick was an understatement. “I don’t know, Thomas.”

He inched back toward the barn.

I
grabbed him by the back of his suspenders. “No, Thomas, stay here with me.”

For once the seven-year-old did as he was told. I reached into t
o my pocket for my cell phone and dialed 911. “We need an ambulance.” I told the dispatcher the address. “Two people have fallen seriously ill.”

“What are their symptoms?” the sheriff’s department dispatcher asked.

“Heart attack, maybe? The man clutched at his chest. The woman looked like she was having a seizure.”

“Did anyone try to assist them? Turn the woman on her side, so she doesn’t swallow her tongue
,” she asked in a calm voice.

I felt sick. “I don’t know. They are inside the Troyers’ barn. I’m standing in the yard with the children. I don’t know what happened after I left the barn.”

“Do you know their medical history, Miss?”

Naomi’s small frame quivered against my body.
“No, I’ve never seen them before. They’re tourists.”

“
Stay where you are. An ambulance is on the way.”

“Thank you,” I paused. “Can you call Chief Rose too? I think she would like to be here for this
.”

“Do you suspect foul play?” He
r voice was sharp.

“It’s possible
,” was all I managed to say. I had no proof, only suspicion.

Mrs. Troyer burst out
of her house and called to her children in their language. Naomi wriggled out of my arms. Both she and Thomas ran for their mother. As grown up as Thomas claimed to be, he still needed his mother’s comfort when he was afraid. I would love to have my own mother to comfort me at a time like this, but that wasn’t possible.

Their thirteen-year-old sister Ruth stood in the kitchen doorway
with her arms crossed. Anna, Ruth’s closest friend peeked over Ruth shoulder. Her face paled. After her sister’s sudden death in December, this couldn’t be bringing back good memories for her.

Tourists poured out of the barn.
The women cried, and men murmured to each other in a low timber.

Two Amish men and
a lanky Amish teenager with sandy-colored hair joined the bishop and the deacon. The men spoke to the elders in their language, but the teen stood a few feet away. His eyes trained on the Troyer’s back door where the girls stood.

Sirens
blared as two ambulances turned in the Troyers’ long driveway. The EMTs whooshed by us as they raced into the barn.