Material Witness (20 page)

A few seconds of silence passed before Esther said, “Always room for seven more. I vote you stay.”

Murmurs of agreement sounded around the table.

“What happens tomorrow?” Esther asked.

“Can’t neglect the animals at home, so we’ll have to be going back at first light,” Noah said. “At least the men will.”

“I would rather keep the women and children here.” Shane knew this would be a sticking point. Amish folk were hard workers. You could settle them down for an evening, but come daylight, they wanted to be back at their business.

“I’m going into town,” Callie said. “That’s the whole point of this ruse, right? We made a list of ways to keep the shop open and secure like you told us to.”

Instead of answering, Shane eyeballed the men for help.

“Could be I’ll need the twins to return to the farm with me tomorrow. If everything looks safe,” Jonas added. “They have quite a few pigs that need seeing to.”

“I can probably do our work alone.” Noah ran his hand under his suspenders.

Everyone began talking at once, and Shane could feel himself losing control of the meeting. He held up his hands, palms out, to stop everyone. “We can meet back here an hour before sunrise, decide who should stay and if it’s safe for some to leave.”

“We can’t stay here forever, Shane.” Melinda worried the pen she was holding, spinning it in circles.

“I realize that, but I still think our perpetrator will make his move this weekend.”

Melinda glanced over at Noah, who nodded once. “All right. We had some ideas that might help in that area. We think the
money he was looking for may have been advertised in the
Gazette
.”

Shane felt a twitch at the back of his neck. He held very still, because his first reaction was to reject the idea straightaway. “Listen before you reject an idea,” his father had always said. Shane had been quick to turn away from something as a boy, and it was an inclination he had to fight against as a detective. “Why would you think that?”

“The first reason is that it’s a sizeable amount of money.” Callie pulled Simon’s baby blanket tighter and snuggled him to her. “I’ve already admitted that my savings account isn’t all that lucrative. Our assailant knows that, because he found my password book.”

“How much are we talking about, Callie?” Tobias stroked his beard. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

“I don’t mind at all. You are all risking your lives for me. You have a right to know what this guy is after. I have less than five thousand in savings, and another ten thousand from my Aunt Daisy’s probate in a Certificate of Deposit. Since that wasn’t enough to make him go away, whatever he’s after has to be more than fifteen thousand dollars.”

“So how does the
Gazette
figure in?” Shane once again pushed his impatience down. Obviously the girls were excited about this, and they had helped to catch two murderers on his watch — albeit one by accident.

“Remember when we asked Trent to plant the story so that Stakehorn would think Callie had a lot of money in her safe?” Deborah smiled as if those were the good old days.

“I remember. I didn’t approve then, and please don’t tell me you’re thinking about doing it again.”

“No.” Melinda shook her head, causing the strings of her prayer
kapp
to brush against the pages of the paper. “But what if Creeper saw something in the paper, something that made him think Callie had a large sum of money.”

“Money that in his mind rightfully belonged to him.” Esther crossed her arms and frowned.

“Since he picked Callie, we’re thinking it must have something to do with either her personally or her quilt shop.” Deborah leaned forward and tapped her finger against the paper. “We looked through the old copies we found on Reuben’s shelf, and we marked anything that could even possibly be misconstrued. It’s what you might call … a long shot, but better perhaps than nothing.”

Shane wanted to resist their logic, but the women had set the hook in his mouth as skillfully as he could land a five-pound bass with the right lure.

It
was
a long shot, but nothing else was working. They had no fingerprints to work with, and so far no DNA had shown up from the crime scene or the Smart Car. He knew the techs would find evidence eventually. Every crime scene contained DNA, but it would take time, and time was what they did not have.

“I think you might be onto something. I’d like you to show me what you found, and I’d also like to call Trent. See if he has any ideas.”

“I can do that,” Gavin said, pulling out his phone and stepping outside.

“We’ll start moving the
bopplin
over to the house,” Noah said.

Tobias reached for Simon. Callie was standing up to hand the infant over when her cell phone rang. She pulled it out of her handbag, and all color left her face.

Shane knew immediately it was the killer calling.

“Deep breaths, Callie. We went over how to handle this. Let it go the full four rings.” He pulled out his own phone and texted Perla.

Tobias stepped outside with the baby, and Jonas went next door to quiet the children. Everyone else froze in place, their eyes locked on Callie.

She answered it the second before it went to voice mail.

C
ALLIE SAT BACK DOWN,
swallowed once, and closed her eyes as she uttered a silent prayer.

Then she opened her cell phone. “Hello.”

“Took you a long time to answer.” The voice was all business tonight.

Callie’s left hand went to her throat, and she forced herself to look at Shane’s eyes, to draw strength from his strength.

“I was in bed already. I’m not feeling well.”

“I might need to see a doctor’s note on that.”

“It’s a headache is all — a bad headache. Sometimes I get … stress headaches.”

“Uh-huh. You’re not playing games are you? Because my mood is tending toward lousy.”

“No games.”

“Turn a light on.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“What light do you want me to turn on?” Callie frantically waved a hand at Shane. He texted the instructions to Perla.

“Any light. I want to see that you’re really there.”

Shane nodded that it was done.

“Fine,” she muttered. “Now are you finished giving orders?”

“Walk to the window so I can see you.”

“Walk to the window?” She tried to put sass into her voice, when in fact she needed to stall, hoping Shane was a fast texter. They’d considered putting the call on speakerphone but were afraid the killer might pick up on a background noise. It was too risky. So instead she needed to give Shane clues as to any demands he made.

“Stop repeating everything I say and do it.”

She waited. Shane nodded that he’d relayed the directions to Perla. No one in the room moved, but they all stared at one another. In the distance, one of Reuben’s horses neighed.

Apparently Creeper was satisfied with Perla’s shadow, because he moved on to interrogating Callie. “Where’s my money?” he asked.

“It’s still there. I had someone confirm it for me today, but they didn’t know what they were checking. Of course I didn’t ask them to bring it to me.”

“Why not?” he growled.

“I was surrounded by people all day, plus that’s a fair amount of money to lug around. How conspicuous do you want me to be? I don’t think you want me to bring it back here. Do you?”

She tried to slow her heart rate as she waited for him to answer.

“So how are you going to get it?”

“I’m going to wait until Sunday morning. Sundays are dead around here, especially when there isn’t church. This Sunday everyone’s off, so —”

“I know the schedule.” The voice was seething now. Callie heard the woman in the background for the first time since the call had begun. They began arguing about something, but Creeper held his hand over the receiver, and Callie couldn’t make out his words, only his tone. “Sunday morning. You don’t get a minute longer.”

Then the line went dead.

Callie set the phone on the table and stared at it.

“What is it, Callie? What did he say? You look as if he might be lurking outside the building.” Deborah reached over and squeezed her hand.

“When I told him Sunday would be better like Shane suggested — because there is no church this week — he cut me off and said he knew the schedule.” She slowly met the gaze of each person in the room. “I … I can’t describe his voice when he said it, but he was angry. More so than any other time I’ve heard him. What does that mean? Why would that upset him so much? If it’s the money he’s after …”

She shook her head, once again completely lost.

“Reuben, is the church schedule actually published anywhere?” Shane had disconnected with Perla after calling and speaking with her to make sure everything there was fine.

“No. There’s never been a need to. Everyone here knows when to meet.”

There was silence in the room, as the weight of his words sank in fully.

“So the killer is from here?” Esther asked.

Shane ticked off the possibilities on his fingers. “Either he’s from here, his lady friend is from here, or one of them currently lives here now.”

When no one said anything, Shane added, “We’re getting closer. Might make you feel worse, but trust me. It’s a good thing.”

How could it be a good thing?

Silence filled the room while they each digested the evening’s events.

As Callie helped the women gather up dishes and carry them over to the house, the children running along with their fathers in front of them, she kept wishing this could be over and done with. All of these people walking beside her in the dark were dear
to her. She didn’t want to think about anything happening to a single one of them.

It made her angry and sad at the same time.

Shane tugged on her arm, and she let out a small yelp.

“Sorry,” Shane said. “I wanted to talk to you a minute before you go inside.”

She nodded and handed her casserole dishes to Deborah, then stepped to a corner of the yard with Shane. Max trotted off to nose around in the bushes. The stars were incredibly bright, as if someone had taken a jar of glitter and thrown it up into the sky. She closed her eyes, focusing on the way the evening breeze cooled her face.

Shane’s lips on hers were a complete surprise — warm, sweet, and enticing.

When Max bumped in between them, it was Shane who growled, then backed away, tracing her bottom lip with his fingertips. “Your dog and I need to have a talk.”

She laughed, something she couldn’t have imagined doing five minutes ago.

“Thanks,” she said, turning her back to him and focusing on the stars again.

“Thanks? I’m not used to kissing a woman and having her thank me.”

“Oh, but you are used to kissing women, huh? Some sort of hobby of yours?” Callie teased.

“Not what I meant.” He wrapped his arms around her, rested his chin on the top of her head.

“Well, thank you anyway. You made me forget … everything, for a minute. I needed that.” Her heart was thumping a beat like Max’s tail beside her, and she felt like a teenage girl on her first date. But she wasn’t. She was a grown woman, and she needed to tell him how much she appreciated the things he was doing for her. Sure it was his job, but he seemed to be taking a personal interest in the case.

Turning in his arms, she reached up and touched his face in the darkness. “That’s three times you know.”

“Three times?”

“Three times you’ve kissed me today. Twice in the car earlier, and just now —”

“I’ve been busy or it would have been more.” Then he lowered his head and found her lips again. This time Max didn’t interrupt them.

She’d wanted to talk to him, wanted to tell him how she was feeling. Suddenly though, it was enough to stand there in the circle of his arms. And honestly she couldn’t have explained her emotions anyway. Why muck it up with words?

She allowed herself to relax and enjoy the moment. Finally she laced her fingers in his, and he walked her to the front door. Max gave her a reproachful look and one miserable little sigh before curling up on the porch. She stopped to scratch him behind the ears, plant a kiss on his head, then made her way inside. It did sort of feel like when she was in high school — except her dad wasn’t waiting up for her.

Well, perhaps not her dad, but Deborah, Esther, and Melinda were — sitting in the living room with children running in and out, preparing for bed. A knowing smile passed between them as she shut the door behind her.

Esther tried to hide her amusement when she saw the expression on Callie’s face. She focused instead on her son, who was nursing contentedly.

Deborah and Melinda made no effort to conceal their curiosity.

“Were you two talking about the case?” Deborah helped Mary with her nightgown, then shooed her into the bedroom the girls were using.

“
Ya
. I’m betting Shane was whispering in your ear about
escape routes as you both gazed up at the stars.” Melinda pulled out her quilting as she settled into the rocking chair near the stove in the corner. Tobias had built a small fire in it though it was barely cool enough to need one.

The crackle and pop provided more than heat — it provided comfort.

Deborah and Melinda giggled, but stopped when Callie turned and placed her hands on her hips.

“Are you saying you were spying on us?”

“Not spying exactly.” Deborah also pulled out her quilting. “I might have passed by the window once.”

“We needed to be sure you were safe, Callie.” Melinda didn’t sound ashamed of herself at all.

Esther raised Simon to her shoulder, covered him with the blanket, and rubbed his back in gentle small circles. It was something that never failed to calm her, and suddenly she could picture Callie with a child — maybe several of them. “Don’t be angry, Callie. They did the same when I first began seeing Tobias.”

“And Seth. Even when we were young we looked out for one another.” Deborah stared at the border of her quilt, frowning.

“It’s true. I’d forgotten how you would follow Seth and me outside after singings.”

“We allowed you your privacy,” Melinda said. “It’s not as if we hid in the buggy with you.”