Now that he mentioned it, the third small white barn looked newer than the other two. The edges were a bit sharper and the paint a touch brighter.
“It’s good of you to finally show up. I should get more respect from the county. I pay my taxes—unlike the Amish. They are a bunch of freeloaders.”
I frowned. This man was touting a common misconception—that the Amish didn’t pay taxes. They paid their property taxes just like everyone else. In fact, they owned so much land that many times they paid higher taxes than their English neighbors.
But before I could correct him, he held up a measuring tool that was in his hand. “I’ll prove it to you.” It wasn’t your average tape measure. This was a serious tool for a serious man. The diameter of the measuring tape was at least a foot when it was rolled up.
He handed me what my father would have called the dummy end of the tape, and he started to walk back away from me while I dumbly continued to hold my end like a kindergartner who had been given very specific instructions. “Ten feet. Twenty feet. Twenty-nine feet. And nine inches. See! Do you see?”
“It’s less than thirty feet,” I said.
“Exactly. He’s breaking the zoning law. The building code states that no structure on his property should be within thirty feet of my land. It’s as plain as day that he’s in violation.” His face was impossibly red.
It seemed that I’d stumbled upon a new suspect for Stephen’s murder without even trying. “When did he build the barn?” I asked.
He narrowed his eyes. “I said all that in my formal written complaint. Didn’t you even take the time to read it? Typical government employee,” he muttered. “A complete waste of my tax dollars. No one wants to enforce the law around here.”
“When did he build the barn?” I repeated, pretending that I didn’t hear his snide remarks.
“It was a month ago.”
I pressed my lips together. Eli had said that his father had started getting threatening notes two weeks ago, and it seemed that Zimmerman had become increasingly angry about the property dispute. Perhaps it had escalated to threats.
For some reason, I had assumed that whatever Stephen had done wrong had happened a long time ago, but there was no good reason to believe that. The transgression could be much more recent. The notes could be from the man standing twenty-nine feet and nine inches away from me. Aiden came immediately to mind. He had asked me to text him every time I went somewhere, and I hadn’t included this little detour to the rabbit farm in my texts. He would be so angry if I got hurt.
I dropped my end of the tape. “I’m not from the zoning board. I just stopped by to talk to the Rabers about Easter Days in Harvest. We’re both involved in the event.”
He glared at me. “You’re one of those Amish lovers. I know the type. You all think the Amish are such good, upstanding Christian men and women. I’m here to tell you that they’re not.”
I frowned, taking personal offense at his comment since my grandparents were Amish and they were the kindest and gentlest people I knew. “Have you seen Eli Raber?”
“If I had seen Eli Raber, do you think I would be wasting my time talking to you? I would tell him exactly what I think about this violation of my land.”
“Do the Rabers know about your complaint?” I took a small step back, and every inch of distance I put between this angry man and myself made me feel a bit safer.
“’Course they know I’m upset. I tell them every day, and they don’t do a thing about it. Neither does the county zoning board. They don’t give a lick as to what the Amish do. The plain folk run around this county like a pack of wolves.”
I blinked. I had never heard the Amish compared to a pack of wolves, and I had heard many comparisons since moving to Harvest. “You spoke to Stephen Raber about this too?”
“Yes,” he said in exasperation. “I spoke with him again yesterday morning. He just nodded like he always does, as if he’s really listening to me, but I know he’s just placating me. He’s not going to do anything about this, and if the authorities don’t make him do something, nothing will get done. I plan to speak with Stephen when I see him again too. The barn has been up since March, and I will not be ignored.” He clenched and unclenched his fists.
He didn’t know that Stephen was dead, or he was a very good actor who was pretending that he didn’t know. I was surprised. An entire day had passed since Stephen had collapsed on the square. I would have assumed that one of the sheriff’s deputies, maybe even Aiden himself, would have come to the Raber farm because it was Stephen’s home.
“Were you home yesterday?”
He frowned. “I was away on business overnight and just got back an hour ago. Why do you ask?”
That would explain why he didn’t know about the murder yet if he was telling the truth. I wasn’t ready to tell him, and I knew Aiden wouldn’t want me to say anything. “I wondered if you saw Stephen or Eli later in the day.”
“I didn’t,” he said shortly.
I glanced back at the Rabers’ property. It seemed to me that Zimmerman had a perfect view of the phone shed and the Rabers’ rabbit barns.
He frowned at me. “When I bought my house two years ago, I never thought I would have the trouble I have come across with the Amish. They have been terrible neighbors to me. They cut through the woods behind my home all the time, trampling the plants that I grow back there.”
I peered beyond Zimmerman toward the woods that ran behind his and the Raber property. The woods were at least two acres away from the back of Zimmerman’s house, so I didn’t know why Amish walking through them would have bothered him so much. I guessed at this point just about anything the Amish did would strike Zimmerman as an insult or a threat to his property. However, what really caught my eye was the shed phone building in front of the Rabers’ portion of the woods. This must be the same phone shed where Eli said his father received the notes. Were the notes from the man right in front of me? He certainly had easy access to the phone shed. All it would require was walking out his back door.
An Amish phone shed can be any kind of a shed with a telephone landline connecting to it. Many times, the phone sheds reminded me of an old-fashioned outhouse and the Rabers’ shed was no exception. The wood was weathered, and the siding ran vertical instead of horizontal across the exterior. The clue that it was a phone shed was the phone line running from the road to the roof of the small building. Eli had said that they shared the shed with other families in the area. I wondered who those families were.
“Are you sure it’s not deer going through your portion of the woods?” I asked.
“Deer don’t wear size eleven boots. I’ve called the police about the trespassing more times than I can count, but they seem to be blinded to the Amish as well. Neither the Millersburg police nor the sheriff’s department will do a thing about it. It’s my life in those woods.”
I must have looked confused, so he went on to say, “I’m researching native plants. I was away on business yesterday because I was giving a lecture on this very topic. That’s what is back there. I can’t learn how the plants thrive in a pristine environment when they are trod upon every few days because people are trying to get to that cursed phone.” He pointed at the phone shed, confirming my suspicions about the building. “They don’t even look where they step when they are back there. I have seen countless trillium and ferns stomped to the ground by their careless steps.”
“Have you asked them to walk around the plants?”
“Yes, do you think I’m one of those men that don’t try to resolve their own problems and run straight to the police with every complaint?”
No, I would never think that, I thought sarcastically.
“I have told them countless times, but they don’t listen. Without any enforcement from the law, why would they listen to me? I take it as a personal insult. It’s disrespectful.”
I could see why Zimmerman was upset that Eli was walking through his property when he’d explicitly asked
him not to, but I thought he was overreacting just a tad.
“I can tell by the look on your face that you are like everyone else. You don’t understand the importance of these native woodland flowers. Trillium, jack-in-the-pulpit, joe-pye weed . . . if we don’t continue to plant these flowers, they will be lost, and the bees will be lost too. They depend on these pollinators.”
“Can you show me?” I asked.
He blinked at me. “You want to see them?”
I nodded, thinking that whatever was in the woods behind Zimmerman’s house could have gotten Stephen Raber killed.
He seemed calmer then. “Maybe if you see it, you will understand. Follow me.” He marched in the direction of his property and the woods.
I hesitated for a moment.
“If you want to know about these flowers and plants, now is the time.”
Before I followed Zimmerman into the woods, I texted Aiden that I was at the Raber farm and might need his assistance very, very soon.
Chapter 18
I knew Aiden would be furious when he got that text, but I thought it was better to play it safe than sorry. Later, I would deal with Aiden’s anger at me for being so careless. As I walked into the woods, I kept my distance from Zimmerman, always maintaining five feet between us. If he noticed this, he made no comment on it.
“The flowers start here.” He pointed to a cluster of hundreds of large white flowers, which grew low to the ground.
The sight of them took my breath away. They were so pure and bright white.
“These are trillium, my wife’s favorite.”
I felt my eyebrow go up. For some reason, I’d thought this unhappy man was unmarried.
Trilliums were beautiful white flowers with three large heart-shaped petals. I could see why Zimmerman would want to save them.
He pointed to another spot on the ground, where a delicate, light purplish pink flower grew. “Wild geranium.”
I kept my gaze divided between him and my footsteps. I didn’t want to be accused of trampling on the native plants as the Amish had been.
The next plants he stopped next to were simply thick stalks of green coming out of the earth, with no leaves yet.
“The jack-in-the-pulpit doesn’t bloom until June. It’s just breaking ground now.”
He pointed at the ground. “But look at this one. This is what I have been telling you about.”
I frowned. It did look like whoever had stepped on the plant had done it purposely to grind it into the ground. I could see the tread of a boot in the damp earth.
“Does this look like something done by a kind person? The Amish aren’t as good as everyone would make them out to be.” He sighed. “I might not have put up such a fuss over the new barn if the person didn’t come back here and ruin my land. I have to find some way to hold whoever it was accountable for their actions.”
“How far away is the next farm? The people who live there must use the Rabers’ phone too.”
“By foot, it takes ten minutes to walk there if you cut through here. If you were to go by buggy, it would take at least a half hour because you have to go through the entire city of Millersburg. I’m not an unreasonable man. I understand their need for a shortcut, but do they have to disrespect me in this way?”
I nodded and found myself feeling just a little bit of sympathy for Liam Zimmerman. The trampling of his plants did feel intentional. I knew I needed to tell Aiden all this just as soon as I could. The phone in my pocket vibrated against my leg. I removed it and checked the screen. The text from Aiden read, On my way there. Stay put. 5 minutes.
It seemed I wouldn’t have to wait long to tell him what I knew.
“It only became worse,” Zimmerman said, “when Raber’s son started seeing the Amish girl at the next farm. He goes through my woods twice as often now. Hers is the closest farm.”
“Eli Raber is courting someone?”
“I suppose that’s what the Amish call it,” he said with a sneer.
“Who is she?”
“I don’t know the girl’s first name. I have only seen her around her family farm when I’ve gone there to tell them to stop walking through my woods. Little good that’s done.”
“Who is the family?” I asked.
“Last name of the Amish who live there is Beiler.”
I frowned. Beiler was a common Amish name, but if they were in the same district as the Rabers, there might just be one family by that name. In all likelihood, my grandmother would know them.
Eli Raber had ruined a man’s research project by walking through Zimmerman’s land to see his girl. I could understand why Zimmerman might be angry, but was he angry enough to kill over it? If he was, wouldn’t Eli be the dead man? And was Zimmerman really angry enough to kill over less than a three inch discrepancy in the zoning code? It seemed far-fetched, and now that we were in the woods, he seemed much calmer. It was clear he loved his land.
“You moved here two years ago?” I asked.
“Two years ago, and it’s been a struggle with the Rabers since day one.” He scowled. “I think they have been accustomed to going back and forth through these woods and didn’t see why that should change when I bought the property. But it’s my land!”
I thought about the notes I had seen. One had read, “You know what you did. Confess.”
Could that note have been from Zimmerman? Confess that the new barn was a few inches too close to Zimmerman’s property line? It seemed like an overly dramatic way to get his point across, especially when he said that he had complained directly to Stephen every day about it and had gone to both the Millersburg police and the sheriff’s department. Zimmerman didn’t strike me as someone who would be stealthy about his dislike of another person. Also, if he complained often enough about it, surely Aiden and the sheriff’s department would know exactly how he felt about the Rabers. Still, I had to know for sure.
“You said you gave a lecture yesterday. Did you come home at all?”
He frowned at me. “When?”
“In the afternoon.”
“I’m not home in the middle of the afternoon. Unlike the Amish, I have to work to pay my bills. Things aren’t just handed to me.”
I stepped back. This man’s misconceptions of the Amish were worse than I had first thought. “Where do you work?”
“I drive for a local delivery service.”
I frowned. “I thought you said you were a botanist.”
“I am. I’m working on a study that I hope to publish, but I have to pay the bills. I don’t get charity like the Amish.”
I bit my tongue to keep myself from correcting him yet again. The Amish didn’t accept charity. They shared resources in the community, but they were far too proud to accept charity from an English organization. I wondered where all his ideas about the Amish had come from.
“Do you work by yourself?” I asked.
He glared at me. “Why are you asking me all these questions about me? I thought you were interested in my plants.”
I took a step back out of the woods. “I came here because I was looking for Eli.”
“And Stephen too, I suppose. Everyone who comes out here is looking for Stephen.”
“Who is everyone?” I asked. “Was anyone here recently?”
“For almost two weeks there has been a different Amish person going into the phone shed each day. They aren’t the usual people who use the shed. I have never seen any of them before or since.”
It was clear to me that Zimmerman kept a close eye on the Raber rabbit farm. Perhaps too close an eye.
“What time of day do they come?” I asked.
“In the morning. At just about five.”
“Are the Rabers there when they come?” I asked.
“I would guess so, but I have never seen them go to the phone shed. I leave for work just about then. I can’t hang around and see what happens when I need to make money.”
“What do the people do at the phone shed?” I asked.
&n
bsp; He thought for a moment. “They go inside for a minute or two.”
I froze when I heard this. “Are they Amish? Could they just be making a phone call?”
He gave me a dubious look. “Every morning at the same time like clockwork? And different people each and every time? Doesn’t seem likely to me unless they were all calling the same person.”
I thought about this for a moment. That would be easy enough for Aiden to find out if he asked a judge to subpoena the phone records on the shed phone. I wondered if the phone was in the Rabers’ name or in the name of the district.
“Were the people who went into the shed holding anything?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m always leaving for work at that time. I can’t be late for my first delivery, so it’s not like I can go over there and investigate. Besides, it’s still dark that early in the morning. I most likely wouldn’t even see them if they didn’t go through my woods to get there. I put floodlights on the back of my place to discourage the Amish from going through there. Not that it’s done any good.”
“Did someone come to the shed this morning?” I asked.
He frowned. “Now that you mention it, no. No one came to the shed this morning, and I was looking for them.” His face reddened just a bit. “It’s become a habit of mine to look for them when I’m leaving for work.”
I shivered. He had said exactly what I expected. In the last couple weeks, someone had come to the phone shed each morning at five a.m., but those visits had stopped today. The day after Stephen Raber died of poisoning. I needed to talk to Aiden. I believed those visits had stopped because Stephen was dead. There was no need to warn him any longer. He’d paid the price for what he had done. Whatever that might have been.
I stared down at the plants at my feet and my eye caught a long bright green leaf that was perfectly shaped. It grew up around a delicate stem. The stem dripped with a line of little green buds. The flower hadn’t yet bloomed. That would come later in spring. I swallowed. There were dozens of these plants behind the jack-in-the-pulpits. With a shaky hand, I pointed at the plants. “What are those?”
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