One at a time they all sat down. Ettie waited until she was the only one who remained standing.
“This is ridiculous,” Pete Ross, the fruit boy, said.
Elsa-May leaned toward him, and shushed him. “Shhh.”
“Elaine, did you book into Deer Acres on the day or the days surrounding Ebenezer’s death?”
“No and I didn’t go to the hospital either and I had no knife marks on my hands like they tried to make out.”
“Then what made you choose to stay at Deer Acres when we saw you, if you’d never been there before?”
“The detective accused me of staying there, and I guess that name was in my head when I needed a place to stay after they realized I’d been wrongly arrested. I’m sorry, I know I told you to come back the next day, but I just couldn’t stay.”
“Don’t give it another thought,” Elsa-May said.
Ettie looked at Elsa-May clamped her lips and gave a slight shake of her head, telling her to keep quiet. Then she looked at Jack. “Jack, you had cuts on your hands from the murder weapon and so did Levi.”
“So what? That doesn’t prove anything.”
"But lying about it might," she countered.
"Hmmph," he grumbled.
“Patricia, two days before Ebenezer was found dead, you made a large deposit into a bank account. And, I’m guessing you’ve got more cash hiding somewhere. Ebenezer’s money.”
Patricia jumped to her feet. “I don’t have to listen to this.”
“You took Ebenezer’s money that he had hidden in his closet. Money that he’d saved over the years and he figured out it had to be you who took it. He threatened to expose you. Then you framed Elaine.”
“You’re absurd. It’s all lies!”
“When you were snooping around his house, you came across some of Ebenezer’s wife’s identification documents and used them when you booked into the hospital. It wasn’t the closest hospital either because you didn’t want to bump into someone you knew. Then to further cover your tracks, you booked a room at Deer Acres under Elaine’s name. You found the letters from Elaine trying to work with the neighbors to sell them the land if they could get Ebenezer to leave. You copied that handwriting.”
Elaine called out. “And she must’ve forged my writing everywhere she had to sign papers.”
“That’s right.” Ettie nodded, and then turned to Patricia. “What was all that about?”
Jack Simpson yelled out. “She was trying to make us look as though we had something to do with it. My wife never trusted her.”
“You’re all ridiculous and I’m not going to stay here another moment and listen to this ridiculousness.” She hurried to the door and was met by Detective Kelly who was on the other side.
“Patricia Stuart, you’re under arrest for the murder of Ebenezer Fuller. For starters. There's also burglary, elder abuse, forgery and identity theft—and anything else we can dig up.”
“I didn’t! There’s some mistake.”
A female officer stepped forward and snapped cuffs on Patricia and, as they took her to the car, Kelly read out her rights.
Everyone was silent, and Elsa-May hurried over to Ettie. “You were right all the time.”
“I know. I don’t know why no one listened to me. I also didn’t get a chance to ask her why she let Gabriel’s horses out that day.” Ettie looked over at Gabriel to see his mouth turned down at the corners.
“If only I’d gone there after I got the horses back,” Gabriel said.
“Can’t be helped,” Elsa-May said.
“She must’ve planned to keep you away that day, Gabriel. I’m thinking she was preparing to have a difficult conversation with Ebenezer to make excuses for the missing money. Possibly, she was going to blame you. Maybe when he didn’t believe her lies that’s when she resorted to murder.” Ettie looked over at the neighbors. “You knew him better than you let on, didn’t you?”
“We did, but we didn’t want to admit it and get involved. That’s why we said we didn’t know him. We didn’t know who killed him, so we saw no harm in zipping our lips.”
The wife added, “We moved here to get away from the crime in the city. The last thing we expected was for our own neighbor to be killed. One good thing that came out of all this was meeting Pete at the funeral. We're having him deliver our groceries now. He's a fine young fellow.”
Pete looked at them and smiled.
Ettie looked at Blythe. “Why are you so hostile toward Patricia? How did you know she was being harmful to Ebenezer?”
“Ebenezer repeated some of the things she’d said about us and we knew she was poisoning his mind against us.”
“What was she saying?” asked Elsa-May.
“We look like people not to be trusted and then she said she was sure my husband was the same man who staggered through the town drunk every Friday night. She told him he was better off to keep to himself.”
Gabriel nodded. “I know she didn’t like me being there at his house either. She didn’t say anything, but I could feel the hostility.”
Ettie leaned against a wall glad everything was over. She was a little annoyed with Kelly for having constantly insisted Patricia had nothing to do with it. Hopefully, next time he saw them he would admit he overlooked some things that were obvious.
Chapter 29
The next evening, Detective Kelly came to visit the sisters and they were anxious to hear if Patricia had confessed. He sat down in their living room.
“The investigation’s over. She eventually confessed when she found out we had evidence.”
Ettie heaved a sigh of relief.
“Ebenezer confronted her when he realized she’d taken his money. It was more than fifty thousand dollars that he’d managed to save over the years. He grabbed her arm and wouldn’t let her go. To get away from him, she grabbed a knife and stabbed him. Then she dragged him out into the woods behind the barn. I think she was intending to move the body away so it would look like he’d simply disappeared, but he was found before she could do it.”
“That’s why the house was so clean, Elsa-May. Remember how Helga said it was so neat and even had fresh flowers?”
“I do.”
Ettie frowned. “One thing I can’t understand is the blood samples. Didn’t you ask her for a DNA sample in the first instance?”
“We did, but the DNA sample she gave us and the one we took now that she’s in jail, don’t match. It seems she switched samples somehow right after the first test was performed.”
“So she’s the missing blood match?”
“That’s right, and she booked herself into the hospital pretending to be Ebenezer’s wife. The intake nurse identified her from a photo.”
“Just like you thought, Ettie.”
“I know.” Ettie stared at Kelly. “I told you she was always wearing gloves. That was to cover up her wounds. If you’d listened to me at the beginning you would’ve saved yourself time.”
Kelly pressed his lips together. “Don’t think you’re so smart, Ettie.”
Ettie’s mouth fell open. “I don’t.”
“Ettie was right though,” Elsa-May said in her sister’s defense.
“You thought it was her to start with, and then you were convinced it was Elaine.” He smiled smugly.
That made Ettie upset. She had only dismissed Patricia because of the false evidence and surely that was Kelly’s fault. “Detective Kelly, let’s play a little game.”
“A game?”
“Yes. Would you rather have cake or cookies?”
He frowned and then said, “Cake. Depending on what kind it is and what kind of cookies.”
Ettie shook her head. “That’s not how this works. You have to pick one or the other.”
“Well, then … cake.”
“Would you rather it rain on one of your days off or be sunny?”
“I hardly ever have a day off as you know.”
“One or the other,” Ettie repeated.
He
eyed them both carefully. “What’s going on here?”
“Would you rather the rest of your hair fall out or lose all your teeth?” Elsa-May asked.
He slowly rose to his feet. “I just remembered I’ve got somewhere I need to be.” He hurried to the door and opened it, took a look over his shoulder at them, and closed the door behind him.
Ettie giggled. She held her stomach and laughed so hard she slid off the couch and thought she’d be ill. Elsa-May held her belly, laughing too, and laughed even harder when she saw Ettie on the floor. Ettie wiped her eyes and picked herself up off the rug. “I haven’t laughed so much for a long time.”
“Did you see his face?”
“I did.” Ettie giggled again and had to wipe a tear from her eye.
“It’s amazing the lessons the young can teach us. That game has some uses after all. Now, on a different subject I have something I was going to give you on Christmas, but it’s close enough.”
Ettie sat up straight. “A gift?”
“Kind of.” Elsa-May went into her room and came back with a cardboard box and stretched out her hands to Ettie. “I haven’t had time to wrap it.”
Ettie looked at the box, and Elsa-May placed it into her hands. “What could it be?”
“Open it and see.”
When Ettie opened it, she saw the very thing for which she was hoping. She pulled out a white china teacup with small pink rosebuds. “It’s exactly the same.” Then she pulled out the saucer and set them both on the table in front of her. “Denke, Elsa-May. This is truly thoughtful.”
“I’ll make you a cup of hot tea right now.”
“That would be wunderbaar.” Ettie sat looking at the flames flickering in the stone surrounds of the fireplace. What more could she want right at this moment? Hot tea in a favorite cup, made by someone other than her, sitting warm by the fire, and Snowy cuddled up asleep in the corner.
Elsa-May placed the tea down in front of Ettie. “I’d say the cup and saucer could be your Christmas present, but I know you’ll want something to open on our gift-giving day.”
Ettie giggled, reaching for the tea. Her sister knew her far too well.
Amish Scarecrow Murders
Ettie Smith Amish Mysteries Book 20
Copyright © 2019 by Samantha Price
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Chapter 1
Sunday afternoon dragged slowly for Ettie as she rested in bed with Snowy by her side waiting for Elsa-May to come home from the bi-monthly meeting. It was rare that Ettie didn’t attend one of the gatherings, but in her rush to open Snowy’s dog door to let him out that morning, she’d hurt her back. Now she lay in bed waiting for news of what was happening in the community.
If there was one thing Ettie disliked it was staying home. But she’d been forced to do just that and, unlike most things that happened, she couldn’t blame it on anyone else.
She knew Elsa-May had arrived when she heard the front door open and then close at the same time as Snowy scampered away from her bedside.
“Is that you, Elsa-May?”
Elsa-May stuck her head around the bedroom doorway. “Who else would it be?”
It was typical of Elsa-May to answer a question with a question. “Come, sit down and tell me everything. Don’t leave anything out.”
“Ettie, you’re such a lover of gossip.”
Ettie chuckled. “You call it that, but I call it finding out what’s going on. You know how I love to be kept up-to-date.”
Elsa-May smiled and sat down on her bed, and then bent down to lift Snowy onto her lap.
There was something wrong. Even though her sister’s lips held a smile, Ettie noticed her shoulders were stooped and her eyes were more hooded than normal, as though she was carrying the burden of sad news. “What is it?” Had another of their good friends gone home to God? With both of them over eighty, it was inevitable they’d continue to say goodbye to their friends.
“I didn’t want to tell you until you felt better, but—”
Ettie tried to sit up straighter, but yelped instead and held her side covering the pain with her hands.
“What is it? Your back again?”
“Yes, forget about that. But what?”
“Scarecrows. What does that mean to you?”
Ettie pushed her head into the pillow behind her and then brushed away some silvery strands of hair from her face. “Scarecrows, like the ones in the fields?”
Elsa-May nodded. “They were the talk of the meeting.”
“Whatever for?”
“Cast your mind back several years to the scarecrow murders.”
“The so-called scarecrow murders were a spate of murders, five of them. The victims were stabbed and stolen scarecrows were placed in their front yards.”
“Exactly,” Elsa-May said as she stroked Snowy’s white ears. “All the victims had left the Amish, too.”
“It was never solved. They never found who dunnit.”
“Who did it.” Elsa-May frowned at her.
Ettie was used to her sister correcting her in an exacting and superior manner. Of course she knew the proper words, but her way sounded better. Sitting there in pain, she didn’t have the energy to argue. Besides that, she was aching for Elsa-May to get to the point. “That was decades ago. Why are they talking about it now?” Ettie held her breath hoping someone hadn’t been killed. Surely not. “What’s happened?”
Elsa-May’s thin lips turned down at the corners. “They thought it was someone with a grudge.”
“Tell me what you know. Why are you nattering on about it?” Ettie tried to push herself higher in the bed again, but the pain shot through her like a knife.
Elsa-May frowned at her. “You’ll have to go to the hospital.”
“Nee I won’t, but you might have to if you don’t tell me what’s happened!”
Elsa-May stared at her with her big blue eyes and blinked a couple of times. “Eli Schaeffer has been killed and a scarecrow was left in his yard.”
Ettie gasped and held her throat while an image of Eli formed in her mind. “He left us right after he married Kate.”
“I know.” Elsa-May nodded. “Another man who left the Amish was also killed two weeks ago.”
“What? You mean to say there are two who’ve been killed?”
“That’s right.”
“That’s awful.”
Elsa-May leaned forward and placed Snowy on the ground. “Two people have been killed in the last two weeks.”
Ettie clutched the edge of the sheet. “Two in two weeks?”
“That’s right.” Elsa-May gave a sharp nod.
Ettie bit her lip. “That’s dreadful.”
“I know.”
“Why are we only just learning about this now?”
“Because we didn’t know the first man who was killed.”
Ettie cupped her hand under her chin. “He wasn’t once Amish like the others?”
“He was, but not from around these parts. Two in two weeks.”
Ettie sighed.
“I’m taking you to the doctor tomorrow first thing.”
“Nee. We should go see Detective Kelly.”
“How, if you can't get out of bed?”
“I’ll be okay by tomorrow.” If she wasn’t better, she’d do her best act of pretending to have recovered.
Elsa-May jabbed a finger at Ettie, stopping just short of contact. “If you’re not better tomorrow, I’m taking you to the doctor. You make me go when I’m ill.”
“I do not.” Ettie figured she should take full advantage of being bed-bound. “I’ve been lying here starving. I’d like some hot soup. Is there any chicken soup left?”
“How can you be hungry? What happened to the three chicken sandwiches I l
eft you?” Elsa-May’s gaze traveled to the empty plate on Ettie’s nightstand. “Snowy?”
“Nee it wasn’t him. I ate them. I had them for breakfast, lunch, and also brunch. Now I’d like some dunch please.”
“What’s dunch?”
“It’s between dinner and lunch.”
Elsa-May’s eyebrows pinched together.
“Brunch is between breakfast and lunch, so dunch must be between lunch and dinner.”
The two sisters looked at each other and burst into giggles.
“Would you like that soup with a hot dinner roll for dunch?”
“I certainly would.”
“All right, but I don’t know how you can think of food after what I just told you.”
“The living have to keep living, and I’m starving. Bread with—”
“Lashings of butter, I know.”
“That’s right.” When Elsa-May left the room, Ettie settled her head back in her pillow. It was nice to be made a fuss over for a change. Then the image of a scarecrow jumped into her mind. She’d forgotten all about those unsolved murders. What had prompted the killer to recommence his evil deeds?
The next day, Ettie still hadn’t been able to convince her sister that she was better, so Ettie was dragged to the doctor’s office.
As they waited, Ettie lifted up a two-day-old newspaper with an article about the scarecrow murders. “Look what’s in here.”
Elsa-May grabbed the paper and looked at it. “This is it.”
“Let me read it.” Elsa-May passed it back and Ettie read the article in full. “After we’re finished here, I can’t wait to see what Kelly knows.”
“He won’t tell us anything. He hasn’t come to us this time.”
“I don’t know why since it involves our community.” Ettie smiled. “Let’s save him the trip.”
Slowly, Elsa-May nodded. “I suppose we could.”
Ettie tilted her head to one side. “Do you think it’s the same killer?”
Elsa-May shrugged her shoulders. “Who would know? These might be totally unconnected with the other ones. Hmm, with the old killings, people who left our community were killed. Perhaps that’s why we haven’t seen Kelly. Maybe he already knows who the killer is and he’s following him or collecting evidence ready for an arrest.”
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