Plain Roots

by Becki Willis

  “But you silenced her in the end. Aren’t you going to tell me how?” Taryn appealed to his larger-than-life ego, knowing he couldn’t resist talking about himself, and the things his sick mind considered accomplishments.

  “You’ll know soon enough. Like the old saying goes, like mother, like daughter.”

  “At least tell me why. Why you killed her, and why you’re planning to kill me.”

  “There’s one thing I’ve always admired about Amish women. They know their place in the world. They belong in the kitchen and in the bedroom, not in business matters.” His eyes glittered dangerously. “Your mother didn’t understand that part. She was too nosy, and she thought she had a say in her father’s business dealings. I proved to her how wrong she was.”

  “And me?” Again, her voice warbled, croaking on her abhorrence for this man and the things he was capable of doing.

  “You’re as nosy as your mother,” he accused. “I knew she gave birth, but it took years to track the child down. Imagine my surprise when you showed up at the very law firm that handled all my business. One look at your eyes, and I knew. You have your mother’s eyes and your father’s nose.”

  “So why wait? For years, you’ve known who I was.”

  “Because you’ve suddenly decided to poke your Lamont nose into matters that don’t concern you. You’ve stirred up just enough interest to cause trouble for some of my more… sensitive business matters. I plan to announce my candidacy for governor soon, and I can’t afford any negative publicity. You understand. It’s a matter of bad timing.”

  “Oh, good.” Taryn’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “I’d hate to think you wanted to kill me for anything I might have done on my own. But if it’s just a matter of bad timing…” Despite her casual shrug, the look she gave him with her flashing violet eyes was enough to wilt a lesser man.

  Not so, Thomas Baxter. He beamed back at her, almost as a proud grandfather might do. “I admire your spunk. Always have. And you’re highly intelligent, too. Too intelligent not to put the pieces together and create quite the problem for me. So you see, you really leave me no choice.”

  “I do understand it could be a problem,” she agreed. “And you’re right. It could put a real kink in your bid for office. You don’t want anyone finding out that you used Ines International—and your illegitimate son, brought to America through your own personal influence—to dope Manuel King’s horses with genetic enhancements and illegal drugs. And you certainly don’t want anyone to know how you kept Manuel in line by getting his wife addicted to cocaine. Even without the details of how you murdered my mother, voters wouldn’t take kindly to hearing about your past.”

  Baxter’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully, and his smile, if possible, turned colder. “As I said, you’re too intelligent for your own good. Definitely for mine.”

  “It makes sense now,” Taryn realized. “You came forward and donated that second scholarship, all those years ago. You weren’t a concerned philanthropist. You were trying to flush out Rebecca’s baby.”

  “It would have been so much simpler, if I had just found you then. Infant mortality is seldom questioned.”

  “Did you bury her body?”

  The question, asked completely out of the blue, took him by surprise. “I felt as if I owed her that much,” he admitted. “There’s a modest grave in the Gordonville cemetery, with the name Violet Cheval. I thought the moniker was fitting, given it was the horses that cost your mother her life. The French translation was in deference to your father.”

  “It wasn’t the horses that killed her.” Taryn’s voice was as cold as his heart. “It was your greed.”

  “Put the milk jug down, Taryn,” he said, using the same indulgent tone he might use with a child. He left his stance from the doorway and came into the room, crowding her with his menacing presence. “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”

  “This is a milk jug?” She pretended new interest in the stainless-steel canister. “Then what are all these hoses and attachments for?” She stepped closer, just enough to be within reach.

  Taryn swung the canister with all her might. The hoses flung outward and curled around his face like octopus tendrils, taking him completely by surprise. The steel jug hit him alongside his jaw and caused him to stagger backwards.

  Taryn knew he wouldn’t be down for long, if at all. She didn’t hang around to find out. With wings on her feet, she flew out the door.

  The backside of the cement wall led to more stalls and sectioned-off areas, but less natural light meant the space was dim. Taryn focused on the crude ladder jutting out from between a giant wood beam and another stone wall. Without second-guessing herself, she scrambled up the ladder.

  Taryn stepped softly, hoping the boards didn’t creak and give away her location. She crept further into the loft, careful of the piles of equipment and stacks of hay. Battery-operated lanterns hung at intervals but were unlit, leaving the space murky and shadowed.

  She had little choice but to follow the trail left between hay bales. The windy path snaked around beams and braces, opened unexpectedly into hay holes for easy dropping, and left her completely disoriented. Even when she passed an actual set of steps, crude though they were, and peered down, she had no clue to her whereabouts in the barn.

  And where was Bryce, she wondered, not for the first time. What was taking him so long? He should have been here by now.

  There were no suitable hiding spaces amid the tightly packed hay, forcing her to keep going. As she passed another opening with a ladder, movement from below caught her eye. Taryn shrank back as Baxter passed, his back to her.

  Eyes wide, she bit back a gasp. He now carried a long pitchfork.

  The sound of an incoming call was a shrill giveaway in the stillness of the barn. She answered before the second ring, noting Bryce’s name on the screen.

  “Bryce!” she hissed in a whisper. “He’s here. Thomas Baxter is the Toad, and he’s here in the barn. He’s trying to kill me. Call 911.”

  “Taryn! Are you all right? Do you mean Thomas Baxter, the multi—”

  She cut him off before he could finish. “Yes, that one. Hurry.”

  She stuffed the phone into her pocket and went back the way she had come. With any luck, she could reach the set of steps before he could maneuver the ladder behind her.

  Either he didn’t trust the ladder, or he anticipated her next move. Regardless of the reason, Thomas Baxter chose to take the same crude set of steps, and they reached them at the same time. Taryn managed to duck out of sight, just as she saw him put his foot on the first stile.

  There was no time to hide, but she rooted betwixt and behind the hay bales anyway. She held her breath as his tall form cleared the stairs and stepped onto the landing. If she had been closer, and braver, she might have pushed him, toppling him back down the passage. But she was neither close nor brave, huddled there in a quivering mass.

  “You may as well come out,” he said into the small opening. Suspecting she hid within one of the bales, he stabbed them at random. “I heard you moving this way, and saw straw falling through the cracks. I know you’re here somewhere.” A dozen more jabs, and his breath grew labored. “You’re making me angry, Taryn!” he raged.

  The long tines of the pitchfork came dangerously close to where she hid. The slightest noise on her part, and his aim would be more accurate.

  “I know the police are on their way,” he said. “I’ll convince them it was the other way around. You knew the details of my business. You were trying to blackmail me. You lured me here, so you could press me for money.” He jabbed at a bale across the way, moving to the opposite side of the opening. Taryn dared to peek between the straw. “When I refused to pay you, you came at me with this pitchfork. You left me with no choice but to defend myself.”

  He moved further along, poking and thrusting the fork as he went. He paused once or twice to mop his face with his embroidered handkerchief and to catch his breath.

&
nbsp; He did so now, the fork buried deep into the hay. It was now or never. Taryn jumped from behind the bales and dashed toward the steps.

  “No you don’t!” he cried, flinging forward to grab her with a long, outstretched arm.

  With momentum of the grab behind him, Baxter was unable to stop his forward thrust. When Taryn whirled and dipped, twisting out of the way, there was nothing there to catch him. Nothing to stop his fall. Thomas Baxter fell headlong down the crudely constructed steps. The pitchfork he had pulled from the hay was of no use to him now. He stabbed it frantically into thin air, striking at nothingness.

  He landed on the top of his head, one step from the bottom.

  The sound of his neck snapping was like that of a breaking tree limb. It echoed in the open cavity of the space and made Taryn sick to her stomach.

  Swallowing the bile that gathered in her mouth, Taryn inched to the edge of the opening and peered down. The dignified Thomas Baxter lay sprawled upon the steps, his head at an odd angle from the rest of his body. An arm folded beneath his prone body. His legs were askew, his once-neat blazer now dusty and wrinkled. One shoe was missing. A fine trickle of blood already seeped from his lax mouth.

  There was no doubt the man was dead.

  Taryn trembled, chilled from the ice that flowed through her veins. She hugged her arms to her, but the shaking wouldn’t stop. Not even when she heard Bryce burst into the barn and call her name.

  She wanted to call to him, but her voice wouldn’t work. Like the rest of her, her vocal chords were frozen and useless. She didn’t think her legs could support her any longer, but her knees locked in place. So she stood rooted to the spot, staring down at the Toad, the man who killed her birth mother and who was responsible for so much ruin and destruction.

  She felt nothing. No remorse. Not even relief. Her emotions were as numb as her body.

  She heard the wail of sirens approaching, and the quiet rustle of Bryce, moving cautiously through the barn below. The cows called to him in greeting, shuffling their feet as he moved through the cavernous space, until at last, he reached the backside of the barn and the gruesome scene on the stairs.

  “Taryn! Taryn, where are you? Come out. You’re safe now.” He called her name repeatedly, until he saw her there, barely visible from the stairwell.

  “Taryn! Are you hurt? Say something!”

  She managed to shake her head.

  “Hang on, Taryn. I’m coming up. Just stay there. I’ll come to you.” He knew better than to contaminate the crime scene, going instead to search for another way up. “Hang on,” he called over his shoulder as he ran. “I’m coming.”

  Taryn had no choice but to wait. Her body was as rigid and fragile as a sheet of ice.

  One wrong move might shatter her forever.

  Chapter 37

  By the time evening shadows crept in, Zook Farm was blessedly quiet.

  The crime scene crew had gone, taking the intrusive lights and sirens with them, along with the barrage of people, personnel, and reporters who inevitably accompanied such a spectacle. In the wake of so much commotion and frenzy, the quiet calm of dusk was never so welcome.

  “You should eat,” Lillian scolded, noting the untouched food on Taryn’s plate.

  As tradition mandated, the stove was idle on Sunday. Lunch was cold fried chicken and pickled beets, even though no one had much of an appetite. Lillian reran the offering at supper, adding sliced ham, bread, an assortment of jams and butters, and several bags of chips. Allowing Taryn special privileges, she didn’t insist her niece join them at the table but brought her sandwich to the couch.

  “I can’t,” Taryn protested.

  Seeing the shiver that still ran through her shoulders, Lillian tucked the crochet throw more snugly around the younger woman. “There, now. That’s better, ain’t so?”

  Taryn managed a wan smile. “Thank you.”

  Lillian took a seat beside her on the couch. The no-nonsense polyester rustled but remained wrinkle-free.

  “I can’t say it too often, Taryn. Es dutt mer leed. I’m sorry for today, and for not speaking up, all those years ago. I beg you vergewwe.”

  Taryn noticed that when her aunt was especially upset, she tended to use her native language. With a bit of a smile, she put her hand upon her aunt’s and said, “If that means what I think, there’s nothing to forgive. None of this is your fault, Aunt Lillian.”

  Still, she fretted, “I should have told what I knew. Even if the ministers forbade it, I should have come forward.” Taryn felt her aunt’s worry, winding through her and leaving her fraught with tension.

  “You would never have disobeyed their instructions,” she pointed out. “And you were only thirteen. There wasn’t much you could do.”

  They sat silently for a moment, listening to the rest of the family gathered at the table. Even after the solemn tragedy of the day, laughter floated from the dining room and lightened the air. It worked like a magical thread, weaving into the fractured pieces of Taryn’s soul. Stitch by stitch, sounds of the family gathered at the table—laughing, talking, even arguing—mended the ripped fabric of her heart, pulling it together in a semblance of order. For the first time since those awful moments in the barn, Taryn knew she would eventually heal.

  “Denki,” Lillian said after a moment.

  “For what?”

  “For not telling the police the full story.”

  Taryn’s smile was small. Sad. “What was the point? The doping happened almost forty years ago and stopped with your father’s death. Why tarnish his good name, and the integrity of his horses? People still think highly of his legacy, and they think fondly of your mother, assuming grief took her mind. I couldn’t tell one truth without the other, so I chose to say nothing at all.”

  “Many Englisch would set out to ruin his name, even in death.”

  “But not Amish?”

  “We believe in forgiveness. Even when someone does us harm, we pray for them. We know hardness in our hearts is a sin.”

  “I can’t say I’ll ever forgive Thomas Baxter for what he did,” Taryn confided, her admission filled with truth.

  “Nee, but you didn’t smear his name, either. You showed compassion for his wife and family, when revenge could have been so much sweeter.”

  “The smear will probably come,” she predicted with a heavy exhale. “The media can’t let things go. They’ll want a reason for what happened. A headline to go with the story. A reason why the mighty Thomas Baxter was here at the farm. They know I worked for the law firm. It won’t take long for someone to connect the dots, assuming I knew something I shouldn’t. Which I did,” she admitted.

  “Ach, but if they dig in the mud, it will be on their hands, not yours.”

  A sad smile touched Taryn’s lips. “When I came looking for my roots, I jokingly said I may have to dig in the mud to find them. I had no idea how true that statement would be.”

  “Families aren’t perfect. They can be messy and unruly, and downright worrisome. But the gut Gott gives us to them, so that we may bring love and forgiveness, and a chance of redemption. You’ve brought that to our family, sweet Taryn. Because of you, I’ve finally forgiven my father. After all these years of resentment, the hardness in my heart has softened.” She grabbed her niece’s hand within her own. “Denki, for that.”

  “Thank you. You’ve given me the family I always wanted. You welcomed me into your family, and into your home. You have no idea what being here has meant to me. Knowing I have family—meeting my family—is more than I ever hoped for. I finally have roots.”

  “You sound as if you’re leaving. If you think you can escape us that easily, you have another think coming, young lady.” Lillian’s mouth lifted with a smile, but she tapped her niece’s arm with a firm pat.

  “Believe me. I’m not trying to escape. Never that.”

  “Gut, because I’ve been thinking. Why go back to the city? You have no job there, no family.”

  In truth, the though
t had occurred to her, but Taryn hadn’t yet voiced it, thinking the notion too foolish. She felt certain she could find a suitable job nearby, but where would she live? She wasn’t a country girl.

  And yet, Taryn knew she had never felt at home in the city, either. Philadelphia always struck her as too loud, and too crowded. Too busy. She felt uncomfortable in the city, like a turtle wearing another tortoise’s shell. Lancaster County was the first place she had ever felt at ease. She recalled the feeling that seeped into her soul the first time she set eyes on the Zook farmhouse, the whisper in her heart that welcomed her home. Perhaps this was where she belonged. If not here on the farm, at least nearby.

  Perhaps she should try a small town on for size. New Holland, perhaps?

  “And you can’t go,” Lillian continued, “before you’ve met the rest of your family.”

  Taryn eyed her aunt curiously. “I’ve never had the opportunity,” she pointed out.

  “It’s time that changed, ain’t so? I’m hosting a Meet Our Taryn dinner Sunday after next,” she announced.

  “When did this come about?” Taryn asked, half-laughing, half-frowning.

  “Peter and I discussed it this afternoon. I’ll send Susannah and Melanie round with the invitations tomorrow. There’s much to do, so don’t be thinking you’ll get out of helping.” She pretended to sound stern, even though Taryn saw the teasing sparkle in her violet eyes.

  Guessing what a huge undertaking it must be to host the extensive King clan, Taryn was overwhelmed with her aunt’s offer. No one had ever gone to such lengths for her. Such generosity and love were almost foreign to her.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.” Her voice, sticky with tears and emotion, had trouble pushing out a whisper.

  “You’ll bring your young man, of course.”

  Taryn brushed away a tear and gave her aunt an exasperated sigh. “You know he’s not my young man, Aunt Lillian. First of all, he’s in his early forties. And second, we’re not romantically involved. You know this already, so why do you insist otherwise?”

  “Because I have two eyes in my head, and I know a thing or two about matters of the heart. You two have feelings for one another.”