Return to Grace

by Karen Harper

  A party of interest? That sounded so cold, and the badge looked so…so commanding. No wonder the Amish never wanted to be involved with government agents, even though they were not arresting and executing the Plain People for their beliefs like in the old days in Europe.

  Lincoln Armstrong’s words were clipped; he talked fast. He said he was Assistant Special Agent in Charge assigned to investigate violent crimes in Northeast Ohio. He was from “the Cleveland office,” but would be staying at the Red Roof Inn on the interstate eight miles from Homestead until his investigation was finished.

  “I want to help in any way I can,” she told him. “Those were—are—my friends, though I shouldn’t have brought them here—there—that night.”

  The man made her very nervous. Even seeing a State Highway Patrol or police car when she was driving bugged her and she slowed way down, but then she’d never really liked driving the car she and Tiffany had shared. But she told herself again that this man was here to help, and she was going to help him.

  Still with bolt-upright posture, Agent Armstrong sat on the bedside chair and asked question after question, while she answered as best she could. She could tell that sometimes he was asking the same question but in a different way. No, she didn’t think they were followed that night. No, she’d told no one else where they were going.

  “To the best of your knowledge,” he said, looking up narrow-eyed from where he’d been taking notes, “did you or your friends have any enemies who might want to scare or harm you? For instance, I understand you broke up with your boyfriend, Jason Corbett, recently. Though he has an alibi, you never know that he didn’t send or hire someone.”

  She just stared at him. Mamm was right, this man had been checking into her past. And he’d had three days to interview everyone else.

  “He wouldn’t do that,” she insisted. “We really weren’t that serious to start with, a friend of a friend kind of thing, and breaking up was a mutual decision.”

  “Okay, that fits what he told me. It’s ironic, isn’t it, that Seth Lantz, your other former boyfriend, came along just after the shooting in time to find and help you? And I understand your breakup with him was not a mutual decision.”

  Hannah pushed the button that raised the top of her bed higher. She was fairly tall for an Amish woman and wanted to stand up to this man’s height and rigid posture, but in bed like this she felt at such a disadvantage.

  “Thank heavens, Seth came along!” she said, a bit too loudly. She lowered her voice. “Although I managed to call 9-1-1, he saved Tiffany and me, even if it was too late for Kevin. And he tried to spot the shooter, though he must have gone by then.”

  “He or she or they. It’s best not to assume or construe. But we can surmise the shooter went back into the woods above the graveyard, then down to wherever a vehicle or buggy was hidden. Unless the shooter lived close enough to walk home.”

  Buggy? Walk home? She’d never considered it could be someone Amish, but she and her friends had been disturbing the peace, desecrating hallowed ground. She had no doubt that Seth must have been upset by that.

  “We were in the dark, so he, she or they must have been a good shot.”

  “You didn’t glimpse any movement from higher on the hill, did you? I realize the music kept all of you from hearing anything until the shots.”

  “You know,” she said as the memory came back to her, “I did glance up the hill, just to calm myself because I was upset that Tiffany and then Kevin were dancing on the graves. But no, I saw nothing, no one.”

  “And then Seth rode up—though not on a white horse—from the other direction.”

  He had interviewed Seth, hadn’t he? “No. You must know he was in a buggy. And Blaze, his horse, is chestnut-colored with a white mark only on her face and chest.”

  Something she’d said amused him, but she wasn’t sure what. Had he been trying to trap her in something? Agent Armstrong—no way was she going to call him Lincoln or Linc—leaned closer and lowered his voice, too.

  “Considering your and Seth’s past, I’m sure he hurt you more than you did him when you broke up, Hannah, but I have to examine all possibilities, even that an apparent rescuer was the perpetrator.”

  She sniffed and shook her head.

  “It happens,” he went on. “Seth was out with a hunting rifle, but our forensics have shown that wasn’t the weapon involved. Still, I can tell from talking to him that he is upset that you ‘jumped the fence,’ as he put it, and hung out with the goths. He’s still upset with you about that.”

  She didn’t like the direction this was going, but it scared her even more how much she wanted to defend Seth. She blurted, “Then you’d better put about everyone in the Amish church under suspicion, Agent Armstrong! They were all pretty upset when the bishop’s daughter left, though of course we—they—are all pacifists and would never shoot someone!”

  “But that was a pretty big stretch for an Amish girl, wasn’t it? Not only leaving the only life you’d ever known, but going goth?”

  “That’s just the group of friends I fell in with when I went to my ‘Cleveland office,’ to try to start a singing career.”

  His eyes seemed to light, and the corner of his mouth twitched as if he would either grimace or smile at her subtle jab. “I like backbone in a witness and a victim,” he said, standing. “Good move to call 9-1-1, and good job giving all that information when you were shot and your friends were bleeding around you. I think you’re being released to go home tomorrow, Hannah, so I’ll see you then, because I want you to walk me through exactly what happened at the crime scene. It’s been secured, photographed, sketched and searched. I’ve questioned your remaining three goth friends, but I think your visiting the site with me would be invaluable. I take it I can find you at your parents’ place.”

  It was a statement, not a question. Did he imply she was being confined there at least until she returned to the scene of the crime with him?

  “If they’ll take me in for a while, yes, then I—”

  “Take you in?” Mamm said as she peered around Agent Armstrong’s shoulder. “It’s your home. You are coming home, ya, at least till your wrist is better. Then we can all discuss what comes later.”

  “Yes,” Hannah said as tears she could not stem blurred her view. “Agent Armstrong, I’ll be there—at my parents’ home.”

  He tapped the edge of her mattress twice as if she were being dismissed, at least for now. “Thank you for your time and help, and thank you, Mrs. Esh,” he said with a nod Mamm’s way as she stepped to the side of the bed. “And thank you and Bishop Esh for feeding me so well yesterday.”

  This government officer and law-enforcing ausländer had eaten at her house—that is, at her parents’ house—when she hadn’t been inside for years? It made her homesick all over again.

  It was strange, Hannah thought as Agent Armstrong left the room, to have to deal with a man who knew things you didn’t and, even though you were both an eyewitness and a victim and he was going to help, who made you feel like you were under surveillance, too.

  It was a couple of hours after dark that night when Sheriff Jack Freeman pulled into his driveway. Hearing an engine, Ray-Lynn Logan went to the kitchen window over the sink and cracked the curtains to make sure the headlights slashing through the night were his. Yes, his black sheriff’s cruiser with the gold logo on the side. He no doubt saw her van in the driveway. They had keys to each other’s places now. She wondered if he could possibly be as excited as she was each time they were together, but he was probably exhausted investigating the graveyard shooting and working with that hard-driving FBI guy from Cleveland.

  Using the window glass for a mirror, she quickly checked her appearance. Pretty good for a woman who was almost fifty, she thought. She knew Jack liked her full breasts and hips, even though he’d admitted he was a “leg man.”

  Ray-Lynn had seen little of Jack since the shootings three days ago, and just when things were really getting com
fortable between them. So she’d left the restaurant the minute it closed tonight to bring them a meat loaf dinner to share—brought him his favorite raisin cream pie, too. She was getting familiar with his kitchen and this spacious brick ranch house, though she didn’t like the fact he’d lived here and decorated it with his ex-wife. Besides, it was two miles east of town, and there was a woodlot right out back, when some idiot was shooting people from trees in the dark. Maybe, she tried to tell herself, the shooting had been just some Halloween prank, an aberration, a one-night freak thing, and goths sure looked like freaks. Dealing with the Plain People was one thing, but no way did she want strange outsiders around her adopted town.

  Ray-Lynn met Jack at his own back door with a big hug he returned so hard it made her toes curl. A Southern girl by birth, she’d almost chucked all the good manners her mother ever taught her to finally get this man to notice her as more than the source of good country cooking at her restaurant in town. Jack was divorced and had been sort of a loner, married only to his job since his wife had left him to move somewhere out west several years ago. He’d admitted that his ex was the only woman he’d loved, and he’d been heartbroken when she said she was done with him and rural, small-town living. But Jack had finally added, “That is, she was the only one I ever wanted before I fell in love with you, Ray-Lynn.”

  Jack, who was just a year older, stood tall and ramrod straight, maybe a leftover from his days as a marine. His auburn hair had a touch of gray at the temples, but with all that had gone on around here lately, he’d kidded her that he’d be all silver-headed soon. He’d bailed her out of a financial crisis earlier this year by investing in half of her restaurant in town, though he sure had more than fifty-percent of her heart. She loved it that they were partners in business, and she longed to be partners in life, too.

  “Something smells good, but you smell better, honey,” he said, closing and locking the door behind him, then burying his face in her hair before giving her a long, openmouthed kiss that made her want to forget supper. She held tight to his leather jacket. He smelled of crisp autumn air and, as ever, both of safety and sexiness.

  When they came up for a breath, she asked, “Progress here for sure, but any progress on the graveyard case?”

  “Luckily, forensics cleared Seth Lantz, or at least the rifle he had in his buggy that night. Witnesses have been interviewed by either Armstrong or me—in some cases by both of us. Both wounded women are being released tomorrow, and Hannah Esh is coming home, at least for a while, so—as ever—the Amish see a blessing even in a tragedy.”

  He hung his jacket, gun belt and hat on pegs by the back door, then, with a playful pat on her rear, went to use the bathroom. All dreamy-eyed—she had to admit, that’s what this man, in or out of uniform, did to her—Ray-Lynn jumped when she accidentally touched the hot pan she was warming the meat loaf in as she took it out of the oven. She yanked back about as fast as she had when she’d come across an old photo of Jack and his ex while she was looking for candlesticks today. It had been shoved, facedown, under some candles and matchbooks in an end table drawer.

  As she ran cold water over her burn, she pictured their faces in the photo again, though it was the last thing she wanted in her head right now. They’d both looked so young and happy. Lillian Freeman was a pretty blonde, big-busted but not fat. Hopefully, Jack preferred Ray-Lynn’s real red hair to that bleached blond, but sometimes men couldn’t see through that and a blonde was a blonde. In the pic, they were sitting on a fence somewhere, grinning like all get-out, him in his marine uniform, her flaunting great legs in shorts and her breasts in a skimpy top.

  “Smells like meat loaf!” Jack said when he came back in. “You okay, honey?” he asked when he saw her holding her finger under running water.

  “Just a little burn.”

  He came over and hugged her from behind. “I’m starved, but willing to kiss it—kiss you—to make it better.”

  “And who said the way to a man’s heart is only through his stomach?” She turned in his arms to face him as he pressed her against the sink and kissed her again. They both ignored the running water, though they could have used a bit of a cold shower right now, she thought as she kissed him back hard again and slid her hands, burn or not, in the back pockets of his pants.

  She was surprised when he broke their embrace, leaning past her closer to the window over the sink. He cracked the curtains and squinted out into the November night. Her head cleared. She heard something outside, too.

  “Bad timing,” he said. “Headlights from someone pulling in. Hope it’s not the G-man, but someone might be in trouble. Don’t recognize the car.”

  “If they come to the back door,” she said, straightening her blouse and smoothing her hair, “it must be someone who knows you.”

  To her dismay, he strapped his gun belt back on as someone knocked hard on the back door. He motioned for Ray-Lynn to step out of the kitchen, and she did, hovering in the hall where she could see the back door in the hall mirror.

  As Jack opened the door and a blast of cold air rolled in, Ray-Lynn gasped and pressed both hands over her mouth to stifle a shriek. Though she’d never met the woman, she recognized her image in the mirror the minute Jack opened the door. “Lily?” he asked, sounding shocked, but excited, as well. “Lily!”

  “Jackman!” his former wife cried. “I’ve come home! I’ve missed you so much, baby, but I was scared to call ahead in case you said not to come!”

  Lillian Freeman—if that was still her name after four years away—threw her arms around Jack’s neck as he took a step back in surprise, then hugged her as she burst into tears. Ray-Lynn fled into the living room, grabbed her jacket and purse and cried, too, all the way to her car.

  She fumbled with the key in the ignition and backed down the driveway before remembering to turn her headlights on. Jack ran out and shouted something to her, but she spun her wheels and roared off into the dark night.

  4

  HANNAH WAKENED TO the muted thud-thud of Mamm’s hand-operated pressing machine that put the creases in the stiff, white prayer kapps she made in the old sunroom at the rear of the house, a familiar sound that always carried up the back wall. She opened her eyes, then closed them again. It was bad enough to have to look at the wrapped gauze and taped bandage on her left wrist and the array of pills on the bedside table but worse to feel she was in a time warp. Except for moving her twin bed to the guest room and storing some wedding supplies here, Naomi hadn’t changed much of their shared back-corner bedroom after Hannah had left.

  From the top of the familiar maple dresser, Hannah’s bonneted childhood doll seemed to stare at her for all the things she’d done wrong, despite being eyeless and faceless. Strange to have the feeling she was being watched in this private, second-story bedroom in the middle of open fields.

  Despite her pain pills, she hadn’t slept well because she’d heard some sort of unfamiliar flapping, like bird wings, from time to time. Maybe it was a loose shingle on the roof in the brisk wind that had now calmed a bit. If Seth was working up on the roof today, she hoped he’d be careful. Amish men didn’t use safety harnesses, for whatever happened was God’s will, one thing she’d learned to question during her days in the world. After all, sometimes people’s injuries were their own stupid fault.

  But one huge change in this spot of her happy childhood and rumspringa years were the signs of Naomi’s coming wedding adorning the room: a treadle sewing machine with a nearly completed, sky-blue wedding dress, bolts of burgundy material for her four attendants’ dresses, boxes of favors and inscribed napkins stacked in the corner by the closet. The talk at supper last night had been all about the Esh-Troyer marriage. Well, of course, Hannah could see why. It wasn’t just to avoid talking about the mess she’d made of her life. Amish weddings were planned and prepared quickly after the announcement in church of the betrothal. With so many invited, lots of people pitched in, preparing to feed nearly four hundred guests at a wedding fea
st with a traditional, home-cooked meal.

  In the emotion of her reunion with Naomi yesterday—Hannah knew her younger sister had looked up to her just as she had to her older, now-married sisters, Ida and Ruth—she had promised not only to attend the wedding but to help with it. Nothing like facing the entire Amish community she’d let down. At least she had until a week from today to prepare herself for that.

  Hannah groaned, sat up carefully and gasped to see a small, round face staring up at her over the side of the bed. So that’s why she felt she was being watched. It was a darling little Amish doll—a living one, with a pert mouth and wide, azure eyes.

  “Where Naomi?” the child asked in their German dialect. Then Hannah knew who it was. Not the niece whose birth she’d missed while she was gone, but Seth and Lena’s little daughter, Marlena, now around two and a half years old.

  “I’m Hannah,” she told the child, and her voice broke. Like an idiot, she blinked back tears. The little girl resembled Seth more than Lena. “I—I can help you find Naomi.”

  “Daadi go up,” Marlena said, pointing at the ceiling or, more likely, the roof since Seth was reroofing the house, though she hadn’t heard one hammer or nail when it must be midmorning. “Mamm go up, too,” Marlena added.

  “Oh, there you are!” Naomi cried, rushing into the room and scooping up the child. “She was playing in the hall when I went to use the bathroom.”

  “Naomi,” Hannah said as she swung her feet carefully to the floor, “you do not have to move out of your room for me, especially not with all you have going on here.”

  “It was our room for years and still is!” Naomi insisted. “And now it can be yours, because after next Thursday, we’ll be living with Josh’s folks for a while. I’m fine in Ida and Ruth’s old room.”