Shunned and Dangerous (An Amish Mystery) (21 page)
Read Shunned and Dangerous (An Amish Mystery) Online
Authors: Laura Bradford
S
he stood sentry at the large front window, counting the buggies that followed one behind the other through the Amish countryside. For a man who had been preceded in death by his spouse, his parents, and his brother, there was no lack of a turnout when it came to Harley Zook’s funeral procession. Cousins and other family members had come from Amish communities to the west to pay their respects alongside the man’s many friends in Heavenly.
When she reached a count of sixty, she made herself turn away, the sad reality of Harley’s murder weighing on her heart. It was hard to understand how such a peaceful group of people could be the target of things like hatred and crime.
As a rule, the Amish weren’t confrontational or competitive, they didn’t seek revenge for wrongs inflicted on them, and they preferred to take care of things quietly. So why would Carl Duggan throw away his freedom to end the life of a man who would never have done him any harm? Why would his son, Patrick—
She shook the thought from her head as Diane’s words from the previous night all but pointed the finger of guilt solely back in Mose Fisher’s direction.
“Hey, Claire, you have a second?”
She paused, mid-step, and turned back toward the front of the store, Jakob’s presence just inside the doorway catching her by surprise. “Jakob! I didn’t hear you come in.”
He pointed at the string of bells just above the door and managed a halfhearted smile as he did. “They rang . . .”
“Oh. I didn’t notice.”
“Yeah, I saw you standing at the window a few minutes ago.” Jakob stepped farther into the store. “For what it’s worth, if we’d been standing closer to the actual procession, you wouldn’t have had to count.”
“I’m not sure I could have helped myself. I’ve never seen that many buggies in one place at one time.”
Jakob nodded. “It’s not uncommon to have as many as three hundred lined up behind the body. Fortunately for those standing closer than we were just now, you can gauge how long the line is by the chalked number on the back of each buggy.”
She leaned against the counter and allowed herself a moment to take in the man standing less than two feet from her, the same man who’d been making more frequent appearances in her dreams at night and leaving her more confused than ever about the path she’d come to envision for her life. He tended to show up in her dreams anytime she was apprehensive or uncertain, like her subconscious mind knew he’d keep her safe.
And she could see why. The detective’s broad shoulders and confident stance emitted an aura of protectiveness that made a person feel secure. And the dimples she knew were hiding just below the surface only added to the overall warmth and honesty that was as much a tangible part of his makeup as his sandy blond hair and amber-flecked hazel eyes.
When she felt him eyeing her curiously, she made herself reengage in the conversation. “What do you mean by a chalked number?”
“Usually a few boys—in the twelve-to fourteen-year-old range—are tasked with writing numbers on the back of all the buggies. The number given correlates with the driver’s relation to the deceased. The closer the relationship, the lower the number.”
She tilted her head toward the window as a memory tickled its way to the front of her thoughts. “You know, now that you say that, I think I passed a buggy on a country road a few weeks ago with a fifteen written on the back. But there weren’t any other buggies around at the time.”
“That just means it hadn’t rained since they’d attended that funeral.” Jakob took a deep breath before continuing. “So we talked to Mose again last night. In a more official capacity this time.”
“He
talked
to you?”
His laugh was void of any humor. “Uh, no. But we knew that, didn’t we?” He breezed on in a wooden voice that did little to keep the pain from dulling his eyes. “So, rather than get nothing out of him, I had one of my fellow officers asking the questions while I watched and listened from the other side of the two-way mirror.”
She pushed away from the counter to stand closer to Jakob, her gaze searching every facet of his face for something to indicate the outcome of the questioning. But there was nothing. Just the same sadness she always saw whenever he talked of his family. “Did he say anything helpful?”
“He said only that he did nothing wrong.”
“Well, that’s good, right?”
“I guess that depends on whether he thinks killing Harley was wrong.”
The swallow he took in reaction to the feel of her hand on his face was unmistakable, but still, she didn’t stop. She cared about Jakob and, as a result, hated to see him in pain. “If he did this, Jakob, that’s on him. Not you. Remember that.”
He covered her hand with his own and allowed his eyes to close for a brief moment. “My father wasn’t always so bitter. When I was growing up, Dat wasn’t a demonstrative man, but few Amish are. His encouragement came in quiet ways—a quick pat on the shoulder, a slow nod of his head, that sort of thing. I remember wanting to see that nod come in my direction just so I could know I’d pleased him. But it didn’t come my way all that often.”
She thought of Benjamin and his admiration for Mose, their contrasting memories of the same man hard to hear let alone understand.
“For a long time, I believed it was just Dat’s way.” He used his hand to press hers more tightly against his skin. “When I saw him with Benjamin, I knew it wasn’t.”
“Jakob, don’t,” she whispered.
He moved his head just enough to whisper a gentle kiss across her palm, a slight smile skittering across his mouth at her responding sigh. “I guess I’m afraid that the outcome of this investigation will somehow prove to Mose that I wasn’t a good son.”
“How he could look at you as anything other than a blessing is a mystery to me.”
Her hand shook inside his as he met her gaze and held it tight. “Claire, when this is all over, when this case is behind me and you’ve found your replacement for Esther at the shop, I want us to talk.”
The shop . . .
The mere mention of the shop and the future it didn’t have was like a bucket of ice water atop Claire’s head. She staggered back, pulling her hand from his in the process. She knew she should tell him Heavenly Treasures would be closing in January, that she herself would probably be moving on shortly thereafter, but she couldn’t.
Not yet, anyway.
Somehow, saying the words aloud to Jakob would mean they were true, that her dream job in her dream town was about to go up in smoke.
“Claire? Is everything—”
The ring of her cell phone from its temporary spot beside the register saved her from having to tiptoe around the truth. She nearly sprinted to pick it up, ignoring the unfamiliar number on the display screen in favor of the reprieve it offered. “Hello?”
“Hi, Claire, it’s me, Megan. I hope you don’t mind, but I asked Diane for your number just now and she said it would be okay to give you a quick call.”
She made a mental note to pick up a piece of Shoo Fly Pie for Diane on the way home just before she shrugged an apology in Jakob’s direction. “No, no, it’s fine, Megan. What can I do for you?”
“I was hoping I could entice you into meeting me you-know-where in, say, a half hour.”
“You-know-where?” she teased. “I thought you said you weren’t going to talk about that place anymore.”
“Well . . . things have changed.”
She tried to concentrate on the voice in her ear, but it was hard when Jakob was pointing toward the door in silent signal of his exit. The call had certainly brought a welcomed end to an uncomfortable conversation, but if the sudden heaviness of her heart was any indication, she wasn’t ready to see him go.
“I’ll check back in with you soon,” he whispered.
“I look forward to it.”
She followed him with her eyes as he disappeared through the door, the pull to follow him undeniable.
“Claire? Are you still there?”
“What—oh, yeah, I’m sorry. I was just saying good-bye to someone.” She wandered aimlessly around the shop, the listlessness she felt in the wake of Jakob’s presence impossible to miss. “So what’s going on?”
“I am going to burst—absolutely burst—I’m so excited! Kyle, of course, is in meetings all day today and probably won’t check his phone before he gets back to the inn tonight. But I need to tell
somebody
. Can you meet me out there again this one last time? Please?”
She checked the clock then peeked at her to-do list. “Make it an hour and you’re on.”
T
his time, when Megan Reilly arrived on the grounds of Serenity Falls, Claire was waiting beside her car on the very lot that had a stranglehold on the Chicagoan’s heart. Shielding her eyes from the late-afternoon sun, Claire waved a greeting to the woman now picking her way across the hard-packed earth with a smile wide enough to offset the sinking sun.
“Hey, Megan,” Claire called as she, too, parted company with the side of her car to split the remaining distance. “I knew you were happy when we spoke on the phone a little while ago but, wow—that smile! What’s going on?”
“Remember how I told you that Kyle was leaving the final decision to me?”
“Yes . . .”
“Well, I’ve decided.” Megan threw her arms out to the side and slowly spun around in a little circle before coming to rest in her original spot with a little celebratory jump. “Welcome to our new home . . . or, rather, the
site
of our new home.”
“You bought
here
?” She heard the confusion in her voice and instantly felt remorse. “Wait. I didn’t mean to sound like that. It’s just that, well, I thought you decided last night to build in Roaring Brook. I thought you were going to put down your deposit today.”
The hum of work trucks on the other side of the development softened the edges of Megan’s squeal. “I did. But then, this morning, I came out here to say good-bye. I needed to make peace with my decision, as silly as I know that sounds.”
“No. I get that.” And Claire did. Because not too deep down inside, she suspected her aunt would have to drag her out of Heavenly Treasures the day she turned her key back over to Al Gussman.
Megan continued, her voice breathless. “Anyway, I came out here, got out of my car, and . . . nothing. It was gone!”
“What was—” She stopped, straightened her stance, and inhaled. “Oh. Wow. You’re right. What happened?”
“I don’t know. And I really don’t care. All I know is that Kyle can open his windows and I can live in that fairy tale that’s been torturing me almost nonstop this past week.” Megan’s smile disappeared momentarily as she gestured toward the truck sounds. “Now, all I want to do is make these last few months of the school year fly by this one time so we can bring the boys here. They’re going to love the house, the playground, the trails, the horse and buggies everywhere, and all of the construction vehicles that are a part of any new housing development of this magnitude.”
“Sounds like a perfect fit for two little boys.”
Megan’s smile returned, tenfold. “It does, doesn’t it?” The woman reached into her purse, fished out a camera, and held it out to Claire. “Would you mind taking a picture of me standing here? I know there’s not really anything to see except dried mud and a few utility hookups in the background, but still, I want to show them something when we get home.”
Claire held the camera close to her eye and pointed it in Megan’s direction. “If I zoom out a little, I can get a tiny part of that bulldozer over there in the frame, too.”
“Definitely. Bulldozers are always good with the male population.”
Shifting her position once or twice, she snapped a few decent pictures and then handed the camera back to Megan. “You’ve also got those brochures and stuff. Those will certainly help the boys picture their new home, too.”
“Actually, I gave those to you, remember?” Megan deposited the camera back in her purse, the last of the sun’s rays making her eyes shimmer. “But I want you to keep those. I’ll get new ones from the sales office before I head back to the inn, and you can hang on to yours in the event you want to be neighbors one day.”
“I’m thinking this place will be sold out long before I’m in a position to buy a home,” she quipped, intentionally bypassing the truth about her store. This was Megan’s moment, not hers. “Besides, the floor plans you showed me in the folder are way too big for one person.”
Megan draped her purse across her shoulder and laughed. “They wouldn’t be too big for you and that extremely handsome guy you were sitting on the front porch with the other night.”
“Guy?”
“I think Diane said his name is Jakob?”
She felt the instant flush to her face and turned away, moving her head from one side of the tree line to the other to buy herself some time. “Jakob is a friend, that’s all.”
“If my male friends looked at me the way that guy looks at you, Claire, my husband would go insane.”
There was no doubt there was a part of her that wanted to question Megan’s read on Jakob’s feelings the way she would have in her high school days. But she couldn’t. Somehow, hearing someone else back up what Benjamin, Diane, and Martha already believed was more than she could take. Instead, she did her best to laugh it off while searching for a ready-made conversation changer.
“I imagine they’ll keep these trees here, yes?” She pointed to the back of the property.
“They’ll have to replace that one there, of course.” Megan nudged her chin in the direction of the lone struggling tree and the gap its miniscule size offered between her future home and the farm. “But if a new one still doesn’t take, I’ll be okay with that. After all, it’s the chance to be closer to the Amish that made this spot so hard to ignore for me in the first place.”
“I wonder who will move in there now that Harley is . . .” Her inquiry vanished from her lips as a flash of movement on the gravel driveway in front of Harley’s farmhouse caught her attention. She moved her head to the left just in time to catch a glimpse of a dark blue flannel shirt and a crop of thick brown hair.
“Patrick?” she whispered.
“Patrick? Who’s Patrick?”
“Megan, I’ve got to go.” She took off in a half jog, half sprint toward the break in the trees, calling back over her shoulder as she did. “Congratulations on the new home! I hope it’s everything you want.”
When she reached the gap, she stopped, maneuvered her way between the branches, and stepped onto the edge of Harley’s driveway, her ears listening for anything her eyes failed to see. Yet, strain as she might, she heard nothing other than the faint hum of the bulldozer and a barking dog somewhere in the distance.
“Hello?” she called out. “Is anyone here?”
When the only response she got was silence, she moved farther across the driveway, the unsettling message on the side of Harley’s foundation propelling her feet away from the house and toward the barn, instead. As she walked, she couldn’t help but notice the empty metal trough and the ability to breathe through her nose without her eyes watering.
It was as her aunt had always said: the Amish pulled together in rough times. They helped one another raise a barn after a fire, collect money to offset the cost of a lengthy hospital stay, and, so it seemed, tidy a deceased brethren’s farm in order to prepare it for sale or auction.
Claire’s footsteps grew heavy as she neared the barn, and the reason wasn’t hard to pinpoint. Even though she hadn’t really known him beyond an occasional street passing, she identified with Harley Zook. Like Claire, the Amish man had only recently allowed himself to pursue a line of work that interested him in the way Heavenly Treasures did her. And just as Claire’s past life had made her connection and proximity to Diane all the more important, Harley’s had resulted in him developing a bond with the only other living creatures on his farm. Each cow had been given a name and each had obviously held a special place in his life from things Diane had said.
Aware of an invisible weight pushing down on her chest, she pressed her body against the main door of the barn and stepped inside, the sound of a hushed voice on the other side of the cow pens stopping her dead in her tracks.
“I promise you, Molly, I’ll stay close by until that family comes back and gets you, too. No one is going to hurt you on my watch.”
She ducked down beneath the railing line and peered past the back legs of the cow closest to the door, the same dark blue flannel pattern she’d seen through the tree line now in plain sight. Only this time, the odd sense she’d had as to the identity of its owner was confirmed mere seconds before the fear kicked in.
She tried to turn around, to quietly retrace her steps back to the door, but it was too late; he’d caught sight of her in her haste to leave.
“Hey! What are you doing here?” He was beside her and grabbing hold of her upper arm before she knew what was happening, the intensity of his grip making her howl in pain.
“Patrick, stop!”
He loosened his grip enough to allow himself an opportunity to step back and take her in from head to toe, the last of the sun’s rays through a back window providing sufficient light to shore up her identity. “Wait. I know you. You were at my house the other night . . . and again outside Ms. Weatherly’s place when that detective was badgering me.”
“Ms. Weatherly is my aunt.” When he let go of her arm, she stepped closer to the door, rubbing the spot where his fingers had pressed against her skin. “I’m Claire. Claire Weatherly.”
“Sorry. I guess I thought maybe you were the one.”
She allowed her gaze to travel past him just long enough to take in their surroundings and the presence of only one cow. “Are the rest of Harley’s cows in the pasture?”
“No. They’re gone.”
“Gone?”
“Some Amish family has been bringing them over to their farm. Each day they come and get a few more. Yesterday, they came and got all the rest ’cept Molly. She’s going later today, I think.”
“And the milk cans with all that spoiled milk?”
Patrick nodded. “We took care of that day before yesterday.”
“We?” she echoed.
“Me and that kid . . . Luke something or other.”
“Luke Hochstetler.” She looked around again, her gaze falling on the matching patches of paint halfway up the wall just as a memory from the last time she saw Patrick surfaced in her thoughts. “I thought you said you’d never been out here before.”
He took a step back only to recover it just as quickly. “I never said either way. I just said that as a kid, I’d never been allowed to step foot on an Amish farm no matter what my grandparents said. That was the truth. But I ain’t a kid no more. I can see what’s true with my own two eyes now, and there ain’t a whole lot either of them can do about it.” He pointed toward the source of light near the back of the barn. “See that window right there? That’s where my father’s bullet came from. The one that killed Harley’s brother. He stood on a rock in my grandfather’s yard and took the shot. Only took one from what the papers said.”
She searched for something to say but came up short. Patrick’s manner of presentation had made it so she wasn’t entirely sure whether he was saddened by, or proud of, that fact.
“The papers said he fired that bullet out of ignorance and they were right. My father spouted all this hatred against the Amish all the time, but he wasn’t right. I know that now.” Patrick’s gaze lingered on the window for a moment before finally turning back to hers. “I also know that hatred can wear a black hat just as easily as no hat at all.”
She shook her head in an attempt to make sense of what he was saying. “I’m sorry, Patrick, I don’t understand. What was that about hatred wearing a black hat?”
“Amish people. Some of them can hate just as much as some of us. And their hatred can do bad things, too.” Patrick slumped against the barn wall and raked his hand through his full head of hair. “Sometimes even to their own people.”
Something about his words, and the way in which he said them, rewound her ears back to the moment he released his death grip on her arm.
“What did you mean earlier? When you thought I was ‘the one’? What one?”
He jammed his hands into the front pockets of his pants and sighed. “I thought you were that one who used to lurk around here all the time. But when I stopped long enough to actually see you, I realized you were a girl . . . and that you weren’t wearing all that Amish stuff.”
“Amish stuff?”
“Yeah. That Amish guy was always letting Harley’s cows out and messing with our workday. And when he wasn’t, he was yelling at him or just hanging around.”
It was her turn to grab his arm. “Wait. You’ve seen an Amish man lurking around here?”
“I haven’t this past week, but before . . . when Harley was still alive . . . yeah.”
Steeling herself for an answer she didn’t want to hear, she asked the only question she could. “Do you know this man’s name?”
