Return to Grace

by Karen Harper

  The first room was obviously an office. Drawings of Native Americans, including one of Arrowroot in Indian garb, covered the walls. The closet was full of extra filing cabinets. Next the bathroom, empty: he hadn’t fallen in the shower. Next, his bedroom. Indian designs and one wall painted bloodred, with real arrows and feathers mounted on it—eagle feathers, of course—in some intricate, probably sacred design.

  And—in the middle of the bed—a big eagle feather, which looked identical to the one stuck in Hannah’s window, along with a piece of paper with the word Guilty circled on it. Next to that lay a handgun and a rifle.

  Seth backed from the room, ignoring the phone on the bedside table, and nearly tripped on the stairs going down. He grabbed the key, ran outside and relocked the door. Arrowroot had to be somewhere in that house, didn’t he? He’d never leave such damning evidence for someone to see if he was going to flee. And flee how, with his truck still here?

  Rather than go back inside to use Arrowroot’s phone to call 9-1-1—and get his fingerprints on it—Seth decided to get Linc Armstrong and the sheriff without leaving the property. Until help came, he’d act as the men he’d watched at the graveyard, cordoning off and guarding a possible crime scene. Maybe he’d been wrong about Arrowroot; maybe that was the rifle that shot the goths.

  He grabbed his pencil and pad and scribbled a note to the sheriff, who would probably be a lot easier to find than Agent Armstrong. Seth ran down to the road and waited for a buggy to come by—even knew the family, who were going to town. He gave them the note, then ran back up the hill and, from a stand of trees where he could see the front and back doors, hunkered down to wait.

  “Thanks for seeing me so early for this cut and color,” Ray-Lynn told Clair Kenton. Clair was a cute blonde who still teased her own hair into a bubble. That went to show how well Homestead’s hairdresser kept up with the outside world. The woman was friendly and talkative but not the sharpest knife in the drawer. “I’ll be back in the restaurant before the lunch rush, so thanks for working me in,” Ray-Lynn told her.

  “No problem. Hey, I sure love your pun’kin pie at the Dutch Farm Table. You know the recipe offhand? It’s the spices make the big diff’rence.”

  “All the pies are made by women in the area, so I don’t have the recipes. The one I’m thinking you mean is actually made from scratch, from her boiling and mashing the pumpkins right out of her garden,” Ray-Lynn said as Clair painted the dye on her hair and wrapped each area in tin foil.

  “So, any new customers lately?” Ray-Lynn asked, hoping to bring up Lily Freeman. “We’ve had an avalanche of them, but most come and go too fast to stop here.”

  “Sad but true. At least my downtime lets me really read these celeb magazines we buy. I sure do wish the Amish ladies around here would cut their hair. Imagine it being clear to their waists and they only take it down at night for their husbands. You know, if Amish women had their hair done for all the weddings around here, like reg’lar women do, I’d be rich. At least Harlan’s been doing really well the past few years. He says we can both retire young—well, kinda young.”

  Ray-Lynn did not want Clair to get on Harlan’s drinking or money or anything else. “I’ve met Sheriff Freeman’s former wife a couple of times,” Ray-Lynn said. “Have you?”

  “Oh, yeah, a real breath of fresh air. But don’t take that wrong, ’cause you’re the best, Ray-Lynn. I sure hope for your sake she don’t have designs on the sheriff, but a word to the wise, she seems real int’rested in him. Says she missed Ohio and is back to stay.”

  Ray-Lynn gripped her hands in her lap under the plastic cape. “She was telling me some about her life in Vegas.”

  “Oh, yeah. You know, she’s not like those TV ads, ‘What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.’ She told me all about the posh restaurant where she was the hostess.”

  “She told me, too. So had you even ever heard of Asian fusion food before?”

  “I don’t know about that. She said it was a steak house, where à la carte started at something like fifty-dollars for Western-bred beef. À la carte and fifty bucks for the meat alone, can you imagine? And she loved to gamble in her free time, liked blackjack better than the slots or faro or anything else.”

  Ray-Lynn sat up straighter. She was going to correct Clair but then it hit her. Lily might have worked in more than one restaurant, but her comments about gambling couldn’t have been that different—could they?

  “She must still be something of a night owl,” Ray-Lynn said. “I think she still likes the bright lights, but I don’t know where she’d find them around here.”

  “Harlan said he saw her once at the Rooster Roadhouse when he was out for poker night with his buds.”

  “That’s kind of a man’s place—a little rough, isn’t it? Was she alone?”

  “I think he said the sheriff checked it out from time to time to keep a lid on the place. I told Harlan he’d better just drink at home or I was gonna pour that fancy stuff he buys in the creek, but he said…”

  Clair’s voice went on and on. While Ray-Lynn was sitting, waiting for the dye to take, she formed a plan. Somehow, despite what she’d promised Jack, she was going to just check out who he was keeping an eye on at the Rooster Roadhouse, where his ex had gone at least once. It seemed Lily really did like to gamble, so Ray-Lynn was ready to risk some high stakes, too.

  Seth saw Linc get out of his black unmarked car behind his buggy. No sheriff in sight, so he walked down out of the trees to meet him.

  Linc, jacket open and hand on his gun, called to him, “Sheriff got called out on a domestic before your note came to his office. I called him, and he’ll be here soon. Can you can get me inside without breaking and entering?”

  “I found the back door key, went through the place looking for him. I checked the bathroom in case he fell and in a few closets, but didn’t search the basement or much else. Thought I’d better leave that to professionals.”

  “It seems you’re at the center of the action once again,” Linc said as they walked toward the back door. Seth didn’t like the tone in his voice or the narrow-eyed look he gave him. “Yesterday, there you were with Hannah in her escapade at the mill. She told me about it, but you should have, too.”

  “I haven’t seen you, like she obviously has. Besides, she’s seeing bad guys behind every tree. You want to deal with this, or shall we wait for the sheriff?”

  “Yeah, we’re going in. No note from Arrowroot on the premises?”

  “A message, in a way. The thing is, he said he’d be here,” Seth said as he retrieved the key again and unlocked the back door. “It’s really strange—especially what I found on his bed upstairs—that’s the message.”

  “Which is?” Linc demanded as they walked through the first floor, then started up the stairs.

  “I guess what you might call incriminating evidence, at least for leaving a feather in Hannah’s window. And a rifle that may link to the graveyard shootings. There’s a paper he cut or tore out from somewhere with the word Guilty circled on it. And he left a pistol there that looks like the one you carry.”

  Linc’s head jerked up and his eyes widened. His hand jumped to his gun again.

  “In here,” Seth said, and pointed at the items on the bed.

  “You didn’t touch anything?”

  “After all your earlier suspicions about me? No. And I don’t like the look you gave me just because I happened to be here. He sent for me. I have his note at home.”

  Linc leaned over the bed. Seth thought he’d check out the rifle first, but he picked up the pistol with a ballpoint pen stuck through its trigger guard. “Yeah, it’s the one taken when Hannah and I checked out the corn maze.”

  “You took her in the corn maze and someone took your gun?”

  “I thought she’d told you. You mean, for once, she did what I said?”

  “What happened in the maze?”

  “I said, someone took my gun. Please stand out in the hall while I call in a for
ensic team,” he said, and dug his cell phone out of his jacket pocket.

  Seth stepped out into the hall but asked, “You sure it’s the gun you lost?”

  “You want to quit playing FBI agent here?”

  “I’m only playing concerned citizen. So what happened in the corn maze? You obviously didn’t think it was Arrowroot or you would have arrested him. If there was violence involved, I’d say it wasn’t him. He’s prideful and hostile, but he uses words, not guns.”

  “I said I’ll handle this. I need to make this call!”

  Linc turned away and Seth backed off, but he could hear most of what he said. He asked for a search warrant and a BCI team. He said that it was possible he had a suspect in the Halloween shootings and in the professional hits found in the graveyard. And that it was also possible there was another victim.

  21

  RAY-LYNN HAD JUST finished tallying up the day’s receipts in her office when she heard a rapping on the front door of the restaurant. Her employees were long gone. She stashed the money in her little safe and peeked out to see who was there.

  Thank heavens—Jack! She hadn’t seen him all day, but there had been restaurant buzz that John Arrowroot had gone missing. Folks who came in from over by Valley View Road said there was an army of outside law enforcement in the area. She hurried to unbolt the door.

  “Did you all find him?”

  “I knew word would get around,” he muttered as he stepped inside. “No. It’s like he vanished right out of his locked house, which has been thoroughly searched by Linc, me and the BCI team. His truck’s in the garage. No signs of violence or foul play—nothing but some stuff I can’t talk about.”

  She saw he had some big pieces of cardboard in his hands. Oh, missing-persons posters. He put them down on the counter and pulled her into his arms behind the counter in the dimly lit front dining room.

  She held tight, her face pressed against his black padded jacket, which was damp.

  “Don’t tell me it’s raining outside,” she said.

  “Spitting snow. Wish I could stay, but I’ve got two more stops to make with these posters. I talked Linc into letting me organize a hunt for Arrowroot tomorrow, especially up in his neck of the woods. Under normal circumstances, we’d never search for a missing adult for days, but he’s got information we need about the murders, at the least. Can you put up a poster on both sides of the front door? Hope to have several search parties ready to go out by 9:00 a.m. Gathering place will be the parking lots of the sheriff’s office and fire department.”

  “Of course,” she said as they stepped apart. “I’ll be there with coffee and doughnuts. Leah Schwartz can take over the restaurant briefly. She even has a key, though I’m hoping to train Hannah Esh as my new assistant. John Arrowroot’s not the most popular man in the county, but folks will pitch in, even the Amish.”

  “You bet they will, though he’s harassed them for years. I’m going to stop by Bishop Esh’s to ask him if he can get the word out to his people, then stop a few more places—the gas station, the Roadhouse.”

  “The Rooster Roadhouse?”

  “Yeah. Jake Johnson, the owner, is a nice guy. He owes me for dropping in there once in a while, just so his patrons know to behave. He’s got lots of contacts, and we’ll need some big bruisers to cover some of that hilly, wooded terrain up by Arrowroot’s place. We’ll fan out from there.”

  “If Arrowroot had anything to do with the graveyard shootings or hidden bodies, maybe he thought he’d better just get out of Dodge, make it look like someone took him,” she suggested.

  “If so, he’s been planning it for a long time because it looks like he took nothing with him, even his precious tribal art. His wallet’s there, money found in a drawer, and he hasn’t touched his savings account at the Citizens Bank, not that he couldn’t have something stashed elsewhere.”

  “It— What if it’s a suicide? You said there were some things you couldn’t talk about—like a suicide note?”

  “Not exactly, but he’s got to have some answers we need. As crazy as he was about the old Indian ways, I half wonder if he hasn’t gone out to live in the wilds the way his people did once. But in this weather…? Look, honey, much as I’d like to stay with you, I’ve got to get going to set all this up tonight.”

  “You just be careful if the roads are getting slick. The Rooster Roadhouse is a ways out.”

  “Just a couple miles. Ray-Lynn, I can’t wait till this is all over and we have our town, our restaurant, our lives back. You be careful driving home now, hear?”

  “Sure. And I’ll get your signs posted and talk up the search with the early-breakfast crowd, too.”

  He pecked a hasty kiss in the general area of her mouth and was out the door, which she locked behind him. It sounded like he knew the owner of the Roadhouse pretty well. If he stopped to see Bishop Esh first, he was going out there pretty late tonight. Couldn’t he just call Jake Johnson to put up a hand-lettered sign and tell his patrons about the search tomorrow?

  She picked up the poster and read it carefully. He had even come up with a photo of John Arrowroot, maybe one they found when they searched his house. “Missing. John Arrowroot, age sixty. Six feet tall, medium build, 185 pounds, black hair, brown eyes, wears thick glasses.” At the bottom in smaller print was “Contact Sheriff Jack Freeman” and his phone number and email address. Then, “Outdoor search party members needed, Thursday, November 17, 9:00 a.m. All day or anytime until dusk. Meet at Sheriff’s Office in Homestead.”

  Ray-Lynn hurried back to her office and phoned Amanda Stutzman at the B and B. “Hi, Amanda. Ray-Lynn here. Listen, I thought you, Harlan, Clair and Lily ought to know there’s going to be a volunteers’ search for John Arrowroot, who has disappeared or wandered off from his property.”

  “Wandered off? You can’t tell me that quick-witted man had Alzheimer’s!”

  “No, it isn’t that, but maybe he fell and is dazed or something. I know you’re pretty tied to your place, but I thought Lily might have some extra time. She’s such a great jogger that tramping through the hills might be her thing, even if the weather’s a little iffy.” Then she asked the first question about what she really wanted to know. “Is she there right now?”

  “She went out just a few minutes ago, but I’ll let her know when she gets back. I might not see her until tomorrow morning, though, since she said she’d be in late.”

  “It’s spitting snow out there, so the roads might be slick. Hope she’s not going too far.”

  “I think to that sports bar out on Troyer’s Mill Road, but she’s lived around here long enough to know how to drive on icy roads.”

  That sports bar out on Troyer’s Mill, Ray-Lynn thought, and stamped her foot. Spitting snow be ding-danged, she was getting spitting mad about being taken for a ride. So she was going to go home to change her clothes, then just take a little ride herself.

  Hannah was in the kitchen getting a bedtime snack about nine. Her reflection in the window—like a black mirror—bothered her. Her hair was growing out, so that was good, but her image made her feel caught between two worlds. Her once-spiky red hair was brushed smooth, so it would look strange to the goth world she’d grown used to, though never really felt a part of. She suddenly missed the sweet shape of a white prayer kapp like the ones Mamm made so beautifully. Which was it going to be in her future, worldly living or Amish life? If Linc offered to loan her money for another try at a singing career, what should she do?

  She bent closer to the window so she could see out through her own shadow. A few snowflakes swirled down outside, the first of the season. Now and then a gust of wind whipped them sideways. A car pulled in at the back of their house, its headlights illumined the dancing dots. Linc? No, it was the sheriff.

  Her heartbeat kicked up. What if something had happened to Seth, like he fell off a roof? What if the sheriff had already been to the Lantzes and thought he’d best tell the bishop, too? She left her half-moon pie and milk on the counter
.

  “Daad,” she called toward the living room where the three of them had been playing Scrabble, “Sheriff Freeman’s here!”

  She opened the back door for him. He had several big pieces of paper in his hands. Daad and Mamm both came into the kitchen, concern written on their faces. The sheriff took off his hat, which was wet with melted flakes. “Bishop, Mrs. Esh, Hannah. Got us a missing person, and we’re organizing a search tomorrow.” He put what appeared to be three posters down on the kitchen table. John Arrowroot! Hannah realized she’d been holding her breath.

  “Seth went out there this morning to give him an estimate on doing his garage roof,” the sheriff explained, pointing at the picture. “Seth has a note to show Arrowroot asked him to come out. But our Indian activist was not home, not anywhere, like he just vanished right out of his house. The FBI and the forensic teams are assisting on the case.”

  “You know we will help,” Daad told him. “No matter who, we will always help our neighbors.”

  “Here’s the info on the meeting time and place,” the sheriff explained, pointing to the bottom of the top poster. “I knew you’d help, Bishop—even if the person hurt you or your people. Well, gotta get going.”

  Hannah kept quiet, though she had a dozen other questions. Why an immediate search for a man who was not only in his right mind, but clever and careful? Had they found proof that John Arrowroot was involved in the Halloween attack or the double burials? She’d alienated Seth, but she’d sure like to know what he knew. But then, maybe Linc would tell her.

  Seth figured he was blessed Arrowroot had paid him for roofing the house, but his disappearance, perhaps set up and timed so that Seth would find him missing, really baffled and bothered him. As he told Marlena a bedtime story about horses pulling little girls on sleds in the snow, and then tucked her in, his mind raced. Though Linc had been busy all day, he’d asked for permission to drop in tonight. Seth was expecting more than what Linc had referred to as a debriefing. He figured it would be like an interrogation.