Marta Perry (8 page)

Sarah saw her coming and held the back door wide. “Meredith. I’m wonderful happy to see you.
Komm.
Sit.” She waved her into the kitchen.

An Amish kitchen was definitely the heart of the home. Sarah’s was warmed by the sunlight streaming in the west windows, laying a path across the faded linoleum on the floor. The countertops and gas range shone with constant scrubbing, as did the long rectangular pine table.

Sarah pulled out one of the ladder-back chairs and gestured her toward it. “Sit down. I already have the kettle on, so it will just take a minute to make tea. You’ll have some oatmeal cookies,
ja?
”

“The way they smell, I could hardly refuse.” The cookies were spread on cooling racks next to the range. “Maybe you’d better not tell the kids I’ve been dipping into their after-school snack.” Meredith slid one off the rack and nibbled. “Wonderful.”

Sarah ducked her head with the usual Amish humility in the face of praise. “The
kinder
will be happy to share, as well you know. The big ones won’t be home from school for another half hour, and the two little ones are napping, so we can have a nice talk.”

She poured steaming water into a brown earthenware teapot and set it on the table. Meredith slid into the chair. No matter how much time had elapsed between visits, she always felt at home in Sarah’s kitchen.

Maybe she’d better ease her way into asking questions. “I see Jonah and his dad are getting a cutting of hay in.”

“
Ja,
the last one, I think. Jonah’s
daad
says he thinks we might have an early frost, so we’re eager to get the new barn finished.”

Meredith nodded, her mouth full of cookie. “I noticed they have everything ready to start building. When is the barn raising?” Building a new barn was a job for the church, not a construction company, in the Amish community.

“Saturday, if the weather doesn’t turn bad.” Sarah sent a glance toward the window, as if assessing the chances, but surely it was too early in the week to know. “You will come,
ja?
”

“If I can.” If her mother didn’t think of a dozen other things she ought to do that day.

“And bring your friend, Zach.” Sarah’s lips curled in a mischievous smile.

“I don’t know if he’ll still be in town on Saturday.” Meredith prayed she wasn’t flushing. “How do you know about Zach?”

“I saw you at the auction, remember? And Samuel mentioned seeing the two of you together the other night.” Sarah’s forehead furrowed as she spoke.

“Did Samuel also tell you why he came to see me?”

Sarah nodded, looking distressed. “He tried to get out of it, but I made him tell me. He said he wanted you to stop looking into Aaron’s death. He said I’d be better off forgetting about Aaron.”

As annoyed as she was with Samuel, Meredith hated seeing Sarah so upset with him. “He just doesn’t want to see you get hurt.”

“That is foolishness.” Sarah’s tone was tart. “The truth is always better, even when it hurts.”

She’d said something like that to Meredith once before. Sarah clearly believed it. But was it always better to know? Could the cost of the truth be too great? Maybe, but in this case she, like Sarah, couldn’t settle for less.

“I was hoping you could tell me a little more about Aaron. Much as I thought I knew him that last summer, I only saw him through a child’s eyes.” A child’s eyes that saw only the golden knight of a fairy tale.

“
Ja,
sure, but what do you need to know?” Sarah lifted her tea mug, holding it cupped in both hands. “I’ll tell you anything that might help, but I don’t know what it would be.”

“Just start with what he was like. In real life, not a child’s imagination.” She smiled. “We always thought he was a hero.”

“
Ja,
I know you girls followed him around that summer, making up your stories. He knew, too.”

Of course he’d known. They hadn’t been nearly as subtle as they’d thought they were. “What did he say about us?”

“He was kind. Aaron was always
sehr
kind.” Sarah put her hand against her cheek, remembering. “He said you three could be doing something worse, and it didn’t trouble him. He’d look after you.”

“You see? He was a hero.” She tried to smile, but remembered sorrow interfered.

How devastated the three of them had been when they’d learned of Aaron’s death. It had put an end to their summer, in a way. Parents were suddenly watching their children more closely, and Lainey had been collected by her mother. Once school started, she’d been back in public school while Rachel was in the one-room Amish schoolhouse, and they’d stopped seeing much of each other.

She cleared her throat, trying to concentrate. “How did Aaron get involved with Laura and her friends to begin with?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I know he went to some parties at someone’s hunting cabin that summer.” Sarah frowned. “
Englisch
and Amish kids both went. Most likely he met Laura there.”

He’d have gotten involved with the other
Englisch
kids through Laura, of course. She’d been the center around which everything revolved.

“Did you ever talk to him about his relationship with Laura?” Sarah must have been hurt, seeing a boy she cared about getting involved with an
Englisch
girl.

Sarah looked down at her cup, maybe seeing the past there. “I tried. Before that, I was the one he’d taken home from singings. But more than that, I was afraid he’d be hurt so badly. Either Laura would break his heart, or he’d run off with her and lose who he was.”

Lose who he was,
Meredith repeated silently. Was that what her father had felt he’d done when he married her mother?

“What did Aaron say when you talked to him?” she continued.

Sarah smiled sadly. “That I didn’t understand. That their relationship was different. That they would make it work because they loved each other so much. But they didn’t succeed, did they?”

Apparently not. If Aaron had killed himself... But Meredith didn’t know that for sure. And there was another question she had to ask, even though she feared the answer.

“Did you ever hear anything about my father taking an interest in that group of kids?”

“John?” Sarah looked startled. “I wouldn’t know about that, would I?”

Because John King had left the Amish community behind when he married her mother.

“He wasn’t under the
bann,
since he left before he was baptized into the church,” Meredith pointed out. “We still saw a lot of your family. I just thought you might have heard something.”

Sarah considered, frowning a little. “We were not the same generation, you see. But now that you ask, I did hear something, although it wasn’t from John. It was from Aaron.”

Meredith’s heart was suddenly thudding against her ribs. “What did he say?”

“I’d forgotten that until just this minute.” Sarah pressed her fingers to her forehead. “Aaron said that John warned him away from Laura. That was it. He warned him away from her.”

Meredith felt as if an elevator had plunged downward, carrying her with it. She’d hoped to hear that her father had never shown the slightest interest in Laura. Instead, what she’d heard just added to her doubt.

CHAPTER EIGHT

M
EREDITH
STEPPED
OUT
onto the back porch of Rachel’s house that evening, pausing to zip up her tan windbreaker. It had gotten dark while she was inside, and the breeze that whistled down the valley had a cold edge to it.

She’d come to Rachel’s back door after supper, feeling as if she’d burst if she didn’t talk to someone about her concerns. She should confide in Zach, but she’d become wary of being alone with him after that kiss. Or rather, after her response to it.

She’d always taken pride in being the calm one, the person who didn’t let her emotions drive her. What had happened to that logical, sensible woman?

Rachel had been reassuring, as always. She’d pointed out that Sarah’s story didn’t necessarily imply there was anything untoward between Meredith’s father and Laura. It might simply be that he’d been trying to keep Aaron from making the same mistake he had.

Rachel hadn’t put it quite that bluntly, but that was what it amounted to. John King’s marriage to an English woman had been an unhappy one, and he’d hoped to save Aaron from a similar fate.

Meredith stepped down off the porch, her eyes beginning to adjust to the dark. Through the family-room window she could see Rachel and Mandy talking. They headed toward the stairs, Mandy’s arm around her mother’s waist.

A pang pierced Meredith’s heart. She’d never considered herself especially nurturing, but the love and trust between Rachel and Mandy made her long for something so nebulous she wasn’t sure she could put a name to it.

Shoving her hands in her pockets, she started across the lawn. A flashlight would have been a good idea, but all she had was the tiny penlight on the key ring she’d stuffed in her pocket. Still, she’d come this way so many times that she’d be able to do it blindfolded. There was nothing to bump into.

The back of Rebecca’s house was dark, but a glow came from the front room, where she was probably sewing or reading. Meredith’s thoughts flickered again to Lainey. She could write to Lainey, but she wasn’t sure how to broach the subject of Aaron’s death in a letter.

After all this time, Lainey would think—well, she didn’t know what Lainey would think, but it was unlikely she could know any more than she and Rachel did. Besides—

A sound came from the shed at the back of Rebecca’s lawn. Meredith stopped, peering into the shadows, looking for the source of the metallic clink. Nothing, but she almost felt as if eyes peered out at her from the shadows.

Stupid. No one was there. She took another step and heard it again—a faint clink, as if someone had brushed against something metal, a trash can, maybe.

Meredith’s fingers closed on the key ring, and she pulled it out, feeling better for having something in her hand. She fingered the penlight, knowing she’d have to get closer to the sound for it to be of any use.

“Is someone there?” Her voice sounded loud to her, and she didn’t like the slight quaver it contained. “Hello?”

Nothing. Silence. But she wouldn’t be a coward. If someone was getting into her elderly neighbor’s shed, she had to investigate. Gripping the keys, ready to switch the penlight on, she moved toward the shed, her sneakers making no sound on the grass.

The shed door was closed, but a whisper of noise came from beside it. Steeling herself, she rounded the corner. She switched on the light and nearly cried out when four red eyes stared at her, reflected in the feeble beam.

Catching a shaky breath, she waved the penlight at the two raccoons who were busily attempting to open Rebecca’s trash can. They stared back at her, undeterred.

“Shoo!” A rake leaned against the wall of the shed and she grabbed it, brandishing it at the raccoons. Finally impressed, they scrambled down and waddled quickly off toward the woods.

One of the lids was tilted. In another minute they’d have had it off and been scattering trash in their search for food. She put the lids on both cans firmly and ran the handle of the rake through them. Hopefully that would discourage a repeat performance. In the morning she’d find a couple bricks to weigh down the lids for Rebecca.

The little adventure with the raccoons had banished whatever imaginings she’d been building about someone watching from the dark. She strode briskly to her own back door, finding the right key as she mounted the steps.

The lock resisted the key for a moment before it slid into place and turned. She opened the door, stepped inside and jerked back as she caught movement from the corner of her eye. A broom just missed her shoulder and clattered to the kitchen floor.

“Mom! What on earth are you doing?” Meredith swung the door closed, staring at her mother, who stood behind it.

“Lock the door again, quick, quick.” Mom’s eyes glittered almost feverishly, and her hands fumbled with the lock.

What on earth?
“It’s all right, Mom. The door’s locked.” Meredith took her mother’s hands in both of hers. “Calm down and tell me what’s wrong.”

“Someone was out there!” Her mother’s voice cracked, and her breath came too fast. “I heard someone outside the house.”

Meredith’s thoughts flashed back to that sense of someone watching, but she pushed the fear away and spoke softly. “It was probably just me. I had to scare off some raccoons that were trying to get into Rebecca’s trash cans. I’m sorry if the noise frightened you.”

“Are you sure?” Her mother’s fingers tightened on hers. “Really?”

“That’s all it was.” She put her arm around her mother. “Why don’t we get you settled in your chair? I’ll make you a cup of tea, all right?”

Her mother let herself be led into the living room, her breathing returning to normal as she settled into her favorite chair, her book and the television remote close at hand.

“You know I can’t have caffeine at this hour of the night.”

“Some chamomile tea.” Meredith tucked the granny-square afghan over her mother’s knees. “That will help you relax.”

“I suppose. Be sure you put honey in it, not that artificial sweetener.” Anxiety was slow to fade from Margo’s eyes.

“I will. I’m sorry the noise alarmed you.”

“Really, Meredith, you might have been more considerate. You know it worries me when I’m alone after dark.”

“I know.”

Her mother leaned back, switching on the television. She was calming down, and with any luck, the chamomile tea would complete the process. Meredith headed for the kitchen, realizing that her own nerves were jumping. Maybe she should have a cup, too, but she was already awash.

What had possessed her mother to be so alarmed she’d attempt to brain someone with a broom? Meredith would have expected her to lock herself in the closet with her cell phone, not go on the attack.

Carrying the electric kettle to the sink, she started the tap running, looking out the window over the sink automatically. The kitchen lights turned the window into a mirror, showing her face looking a bit the worse for wear.

But beyond the image, out in the dark— She froze, the water overflowing the kettle as her stomach clenched.

A flashlight flickered through the trees. Someone was at the dam, the beam of the light moving back and forth.

Water splashed on her hand. She turned the tap off, emptied the excess from the kettle and set it on its stand, never taking her eyes from the light.

Maybe her mother
had
heard something, then. And maybe that feeling she’d had of being watched had been genuine, as well, as someone had been waiting for her to go inside, out of the way.

Should she act? If it was Laura at the dam, having slipped away from her keepers again, something should be done. But would Laura bring a flashlight? Would Laura try not to be seen? That seemed unlikely.

She could go and see for herself. Or call the police. She could call Zach and ask him to check it out. And end up looking like an idiot when it was someone who had a perfect right to be there.

Wrestling with it, she brewed the tea and carried it to her mother, who had become absorbed in one of her endless game shows.

“I’m going to work in the office for a little while, Mom. If you want anything else, just call me.”

Her mother nodded, not taking her gaze from the screen.

Meredith headed for the office and stopped at the door, frowning. The desk lamp was on. But she hadn’t been in the office this afternoon, and she wouldn’t have walked away and left it on if she had.

She chased away a flicker of what might have been fear. If anyone had been in here, it must have been her mother. She glanced back toward the living room.

“Mom? Were you in my office while I was out?”

For a moment the only reply was silence. “Well, what if I was?” Her mother sounded peevish. “I just needed a pencil to work my puzzle. You don’t need to act as if I was snooping.”

“I’m not.” Whether she thought it or not, she hadn’t implied it. “I just wondered why the lamp was on, that’s all.”

She paused for a moment, but her mother didn’t respond. Well, she couldn’t get into any of the work files, since Meredith had never shared the passwords, so it didn’t really matter.

Meredith took a quick glance through the desk drawers, but nothing seemed disarranged. She settled in front of the computer, dismissing her mother’s rampant curiosity from her mind.

She wasn’t going to wander down to the dam in the dark, and she wasn’t going to call Zach, either. She’d sit here and get some work done while keeping her ears pricked for any noise from the driveway that ran right past her window. If someone came up this way from the dam, she’d know it.

* * *

Z
ACH
FOUND
IT
hard to believe that he was on his way to spend Saturday at a barn raising with Meredith at her invitation. He’d had the distinct impression that she’d been scared off by that kiss.

In fact, he’d told himself that it was a good thing. It was foolish to try and rekindle what they’d once had. Their lives were too far apart to make anything work between them. Then she’d called, and he’d forgotten all his good resolutions and jumped at the chance.

Meredith sat next to him, directing him along the narrow blacktop road that led to her cousin’s farm. He glanced at her. She looked relaxed, sitting with her hands loosely linked in her lap, but he suspected that was an illusion.

Well, if you wanted to know something, the best way to find out was generally to ask. “What made you ask me to come along today?”

She looked up, eyes somewhat guarded. “Well, I... When I talked to Sarah, she invited you. I just thought you might be interested.”

Somehow he didn’t think that was all, but he suspected the rest of it would come out eventually. “How did you make out with Sarah? Did she shed any light on your concerns about your father?”

He’d hit a sore spot. He could see it in the way her face tightened, feel it in her slight wince.

Meredith stared down at her hands. “I asked Sarah if my father had ever shown any interest in that group of kids. She remembered something she thought was odd. It seems Aaron told her that my dad had warned him away from Laura.” Her voice was tight and colorless.

“That could mean a lot of things,” he said quickly, trying to think of some. “Maybe he realized that Aaron was getting in too deep and was trying to keep him from...” He let that sentence peter out when he realized where it was going.

Meredith’s lips tightened. “Trying to keep Aaron from making the same mistake he had,” she said.

“I didn’t mean that exactly.” He sounded lame, he suspected.

“It’s all right. Rachel said the same thing. And I don’t have many illusions about my parents’ marriage.”

He rejected several soothing platitudes. “Maybe it makes sense that he’d try to get through to Aaron.”

“Maybe. But saying he warned Aaron away sounds like something else.”

“Is that what your cousin implied?” He could read the answer in her face before she responded.

“Of course not.”

“Well, then, maybe you ought to give your dad the benefit of the doubt.” And maybe it was time to get away from the touchy subject of her father. “Did Sarah ever talk to Aaron about his relationship with Laura?”

“She told me she’d tried, but didn’t get anywhere. I suppose the fact that she’d been sweet on Aaron made it awkward for her. I did ask who Aaron’s closest friends were, and she said Samuel was his best friend.”

“Samuel,” he repeated. “Does that have anything to do with why we’re going to a barn raising?”

Her face relaxed into a smile. “It might. It’s not easy for me to corner Samuel for a chat, but he’s bound to be at the barn raising. I ought to be able to find some time when I can ask him a few questions about Aaron.”

Zach turned that over in his mind, discovering that he was not pleased with the idea of Meredith confronting her cousin. “Why don’t you let me ask the questions?”

“You?” She was clearly startled. “I don’t think so. You’re a virtual stranger to him. Why would you do it?”

“I am a cop, after all. Asking questions goes with the territory.”

“All the more reason why you shouldn’t attempt asking him anything. The Amish are the most law-abiding people in the world, but they don’t believe in getting mixed up with the law. If you start acting like a cop, everyone will clam up.”

“And if you question Samuel, you’ll make him realize you’re not following his advice.” He still didn’t like it, even though what she said made sense. His one encounter with Samuel hadn’t left him with a positive impression of the man.

“I’ll just have to take that chance. We can’t let anyone think this is a police matter. You understand that, don’t you?” She made a tentative gesture toward him and then clasped her hands again.

“I guess so. But that doesn’t mean I’m happy about it.”

“I can see that.” She seemed to study his face. “How did you get to be a police officer anyway? It seems an unlikely choice—”

“For a troublemaker like me?” He finished the thought for her.

“I wasn’t going to say that. But we had talked about how you wanted to go into the military, and I always thought that’s what you’d do.”