Suspendered Sentence (An Amish Mystery) (13 page)

He bolted upright on the couch. “A great-niece or—wait! Are you telling me that Esther is pregnant?”

Taking his hands in hers, she held them tightly, grateful for the courage she’d finally mustered to admit her feelings to the kindest, sweetest man she’d ever met. “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m telling you.”

“When did you find out?”

“Friday night. When I had dinner with her and Eli in their home.”

“How is she? Is she feeling okay? Is Eli excited?”

She rose to her feet and pulled him to a stand, too. Then, placing her hands alongside his face, she let her feelings for him shine through in her smile. “She is feeling good so far and she and Eli are very, very excited.”

“Aww, Claire, this is great news.
Wonderful
news. Thank you for telling me.”

“How could I not?” she asked as she leaned forward and planted a kiss on his chin. “Especially when Esther specifically asked me to share the good news with you.”

Chapter 12

C
laire stepped off the curb and studied the front window display with what she hoped was an objective eye. All morning long she’d agonized over the right combination of items to both lure customers into her shop and herald spring’s impending arrival despite the pile of plowed snow that lined both sides of Lighted Way.

Martha’s latest hand-painted milk can instantly drew one’s eye to the right with its focal scene of hillside wildflowers basking in the sun. Beside it, but slightly elevated thanks to the inch-high riser she’d placed under the cover, was the hand-stitched gardening tool bag Esther’s younger sister, Hannah, had made. Closer to the center of the window sat Eli’s newest high chair, each spindle leg hand-carved with careful precision. To the left of that were the Amish dolls Claire was hard-pressed to keep on the shelf—their presence in every seasonal window display a must. They were, of course, still faceless, but the latest cropping of hand-sewn dolls boasted lighter-colored dresses beneath the traditional black aprons. Pastel-colored hair ribbons and baby bibs strategically placed above and below the dolls would make it impossible for grandmotherly types to pass Heavenly Treasures without going inside to shop.

“It looks perfect, Claire.”

She smiled at the familiar voice and turned to greet her friend with a quick embrace. “Esther! What a nice surprise!” Then, pointing to the basket in the young woman’s arm, she stepped back. “Do you have new items for me?”

“Yah.”

Claire took one last look at the window and then guided her friend onto the sidewalk and into the shop. “I hosted the Lighted Way business owners’ meeting here this morning and there’s still some coffee and juice left if you’d like something to drink.”

“I am not thirsty.”

“I have donuts, too. Maybe even a sliver of cinnamon breakfast cake if you’d like? Ruth brought the donuts so you know those are good. And I got up at five this morning to make the breakfast cake.”

Esther crossed the shop to the counter and swapped her basket for Claire’s clipboard of daily tasks. “Did you do some of these things yesterday?”

“I didn’t come in yesterday. Diane said Lighted Way would be deserted with the snow, and from what Howard and Al said at the meeting this morning, she was right.”

Looking down at the clipboard once again, Esther shook her head slowly. “It is just eleven o’clock. You have already had the meeting, set up your new window display, and taken down last week’s sale prices?”

“I’m getting ready to set up this week’s sales now.”

“Have there been no customers today?”

“We’ve had customers. Some even made purchases,” she said before curiosity over her friend’s questions won out. “Why?”

“It is too much for you to work here alone.” Esther unwrapped her black shawl, folded it neatly in fourths, and then held it to her lap as she claimed one of the two cushioned stools behind the register. “I have worked here. I know.”

Claire grabbed a dry-erase marker from the cup of pens and consulted her sale list for the coming week, her thoughts ricocheting between the stack of signs she needed to make and Esther. “Esther, you and I both know there were plenty of times when you opened or closed by yourself. And when you were doing the one, I was doing the other. We managed those shifts alone just fine . . . although they were never as much fun as the ones we worked together.”

“But we did not take care of customers and make window displays alone. When we had such jobs as these”—Esther ran her finger down the side of Claire’s task list—“we worked together. Now, you do all of this alone.”

Glancing up from the stack of blank signs, she made a face at her friend. “That’s because you had to go and marry the dashing Eli Miller . . .”

A hint of crimson rose up in Esther’s cheeks just before disappearing behind a shy hand. “That does not mean you must work alone each day. You cannot open and close each day by yourself. It is a long day.”

“Ruth does it,” Claire reminded her, not unkindly.

“Ruth has Eli and Benjamin to look after her. And she does not open on Sunday . . . or on some Tuesdays and Thursdays during wedding season.”

She noted the dollar reduction on crocheted baby bibs onto the sign and then waved it back and forth to dry. “Ruth practically has a line waiting outside her door the second she opens each day. I don’t. I can’t afford to close.”

“But things have been better since Eli and Benjamin started making bigger items, yah? I think you can afford to hire a new person. Someone who can help with the customers and stock shelves when it is quiet.”

It was a sentiment she’d heard many times in the three months since Esther left to get married. Howard Glick of Glick’s Tools ’n More had said it. Al Gussman, her landlord and fellow shopkeeper, had said it. Drew Styles, owner of Glorious Books, had said it. Her aunt had said it. And even Jakob had hinted at her hiring a little help in order to cut down her hours at the shop.

On some level, she knew they were all right. Dream job or not, working seven days a week was difficult, even exhausting at times. The lightness she’d felt during her unexpected snow day was proof of that.

Yet, every time she considered the notion of hiring someone, she came back to one indisputable fact: if she couldn’t have Esther, she really didn’t want anyone.

She gave the same reply she gave everyone else. “I’m getting along just fine.”

“Why do you not want to hire a new person, Claire?”

Dropping her marker onto the counter, she gave Esther her undivided attention, the emotion in her voice more apparent than she wanted. “The customers loved you, Esther. They loved asking questions about the Amish and having a real Amish person to answer them. And when they learned that many of the items in the store were made by you and your mother, they got even more excited. I can’t replace you, Esther. Not as an employee and certainly not as a friend.”

“As your friend, I am just down the road. But there are others who could do the things I did here.”

“Like who?” she challenged.

“Like Annie Hershberger. She is Amish. The customers could ask her questions.”

“Annie
Hershberger
? Is she any relation to
Bishop
Hershberger?”

Esther nodded. “Yah. Annie is the bishop’s youngest child.”

“How old is she? Do you know?” she asked, her curiosity aroused.

“She is on Rumspringa, so maybe sixteen?”

“Sixteen,” Claire repeated, slowly. “Is she a good kid?”

“She is Amish.”

“Do kids on Rumspringa work?”

“Most, yah.”

She came around the counter and sank onto the stool beside Esther, the image of being able to come in late on some days, or head home at lunchtime on others, more intriguing than she wanted to admit. Instead, she shrugged a second time.

“I could stop by and speak with Annie on my way home if you’d like,” Esther offered.

“Give me another month. If I feel overwhelmed as traffic picks up in April, I may ask you to send her my way at that time.”

The jingle of bells over the front door brought an end to further discussion and Claire to her feet. “Good day, welcome to Heavenly—oh, Jakob, hi!” She dropped her hands to her sides, smoothed the lines from her formfitting khaki pants, and stepped out from behind the counter. “I had a really great time yesterday. Thank you.”

“Thank
you
. I’ve been able to think of little else all morning.” He raised her smile with her favorite dimples then followed her eyes over to the counter and the young Amish woman seated quietly behind it. “Esther . . . hello.”

Esther bowed her head shyly in greeting then stepped down off the stool as he approached.

“Claire told me the wonderful news last night, sweetie. I couldn’t be happier for you and Eli.”

Esther slowly lifted her chin until she was looking at her English uncle. Then, without uttering a word, the young woman reached out, took hold of Jakob’s hand, and brought it to rest on the tiny mound barely visible beneath her aproned dress. “Mamm thinks it will be a boy,” she whispered.

Startled, Jakob looked from Esther, to her hand on his, and back again, the emotion that misted his eyes finding its way into his voice. “Either way, you and Eli will make wonderful parents.”

“Thank you,” Esther whispered in the direction of her feet before unfolding her shawl in preparation for the retreat Claire knew must come.

And come it did.

But when Claire looked back at Jakob to gauge his reaction, she saw only euphoria.

“I’m sorry she had to leave like that, Jakob.”

If he heard her, he didn’t react. Instead, he simply raked a hand through his hair and leaned his back against the paneled upright in the center of the store. “Did you see that, Claire? She let me touch the baby.”

Blinking back the tears she was desperate to keep hidden, she offered the most convincing smile she could. But even as she stood there, silently cursing a set of beliefs that made Jakob a veritable pariah within his own family, she couldn’t help but acknowledge the aura of pure joy that radiated out from the detective.

Jakob had accepted his fate in regard to his family seventeen years earlier when he left the Amish, postbaptism, to become a police officer. It was a decision he still stood by despite its unbelievable cost. But for just a moment, when Esther had guided his hand to her unborn child, his place in the family had been acknowledged, remembered.

“She loves you, Jakob. So does Martha,” she whispered around the rising lump in her throat. “You are their blood, their family. Even the Ordnung can’t change that.”

He opened his mouth to answer but closed it as the door-mounted bells announced Esther’s reentry. “I forgot my basket.”

“Oh, that’s right. We got so busy talking you never showed me what you brought.” She met Esther in the center of the store and then followed her back to the counter. “What goodies do we have for the shop this week?”

Esther pulled the basket close and began removing items from its depths. “I made a few springtime aprons, a few dishcloths, and a baby blanket.”

“Don’t you think you should keep the blanket for your own baby?” she asked as she unfolded the blanket and held the soft fabric to her cheek. “Ohhh, this is so nice.”

“I will make a blanket for my baby as it gets closer. For now, this will make money Eli and I need.”

Claire nodded and reached for the red leather book she used to keep track of her inventory. She jotted each new item into the section assigned to Esther and Eli and then handed the empty basket to Esther. “I’m sure all of these things will go quickly once the spring tourists start coming around in a few weeks. Howard and Al said it gets busy fast once April rolls around.”

“I’m working on a quilt, too. I hope to have that to you by week’s end.”

“That would be great. If Miriam Stoltzfus comes through with a quilt or two, the way I’m hoping she will, maybe I’ll have enough to display one of them in the front window.”

Esther slid her arm beneath the basket handle, retraced her steps back to the door, and then turned to look at Claire and Jakob before she stepped outside into the cold. “I don’t believe you will be getting any quilts from Miriam for a while. She left town in a hired car yesterday after church. Jeremiah said something about her wanting to look after a sick relative in upstate New York.”

“
Who
?” Jakob barked.

“Jeremiah did not seem to know.” Esther lifted her hand in something resembling a parting wave and then stepped outside, the jingle of the door barely noticeable against the sudden roar in Claire’s ears.

“How could Miriam’s husband not know where, exactly, his wife was going?” She heard the question as it left her mouth but knew it paled in comparison to the second and more important one she posed on its heels. “Do you think Miriam ran to avoid being questioned?”

Jakob pushed off the upright and strode straight toward the door, his brief but tender moment with Esther shoved to the side by the reality of Sadie Lehman’s unexplained death. “I don’t know, but that won’t be the case for long.”

Chapter 13