by Judy Clemens
“I have to go, Stella.”
“Sure. Do what you need to.”
He left, and I stood for a while longer, watching the receptionist, who still stood huddled beside the building. And who hadn’t yet been able to stop her tears.
Chapter Seventeen
After standing on the sidewalk for several minutes I summoned up the energy to walk back to my truck, and I drove home, my mind spinning. What was it Nick had joked about just the night before? That it sounded scary to be a woman up here in Pennsylvania? Or had he said dangerous? Either way, he was right. And it was obvious now that it certainly wasn’t a joke.
Dr. Peterson was dead. Carla had been attacked, Katherine’s church struck by vandals, and now… My cow Wendy obviously wasn’t after me because I was a woman, so I wouldn’t count my own broken foot in the mix of events, even though I fit the gender of the victims.
The more I thought about Nick’s words, the more I realized they were true. I swung into a driveway and turned around, heading back into town. I might not be able to give Willard the answers he needed, but I needed to tell him what I was thinking.
Gladys looked up as I lurched into the police station. “He’s really busy right now, Stella.”
“I know. But it’s about that. About Dr. Peterson, I mean.”
She studied my face, which was probably red from crying. “All right. Okay. Come on back.”
She buzzed me in, and this time when I got to his office Willard wasn’t staring out the window. He wasn’t bouncing his pencil up and down, either. He was holding it still, one hand on each end, as if he was going to break it in half.
“Willard?” I asked. “Got a minute?”
He jerked his head up, his eyes taking a moment to focus on me. “One.”
I went in and sat down. “I think they’re all connected.”
He stared at me. “What are?”
“Carla’s car-jacking. The vandalism at the church. And now Dr. Peterson.”
“What church?”
“Remember? Kulpsville Mennonite?”
His face cleared. “That’s right. I’d forgotten about it. Never got around to calling over there.” He looked at me. “But I don’t get it. What’s the connection? Drugs? Were there drugs taken from the church?”
“Willard…” Wasn’t he supposed to be the smart one? “They’re all women. Women in positions men usually hold. A large-animal vet. A pastor. A doctor. See?”
He sat for a moment, thinking. At least I thought he was thinking. Maybe he was just waiting for me to make more sense.
I studied him. “Was there anything…anything at the office that might make you think it was about that? I mean, I know people were angry about Dr. Peterson taking over her dad’s practice.”
He looked at me sharply. “Why do you say that?”
I described the encounter at the office the day before, with the comb-over guy who knocked the pens all over the waiting room. “Dr. Peterson—and the receptionist, too—said it wasn’t the first time. People are really upset at her dad. And at her. They don’t…didn’t…want her to take care of them. They wanted the man they were used to.”
Willard bit his lips together. I had his interest.
I continued. “And there was a sign.”
“A sign?”
The abruptness of his question made me jump. The idea of a sign had struck a nerve.
“There was a sign at the church,” I said, “that made it pretty clear the attack was about Katherine, the minister, being a woman. They spray painted the words, GO HOME SINNER on her office wall.”
He looked at me more intently, but I wasn’t sure he was seeing me.
“Willard, what is it?”
He let go of his death grip on the pencil and began tapping the eraser on his desk. “There wasn’t anything for Dr. Beaumont. No sign.”
“No. Just a concussion. And a swollen face. Willard, what is it? Did Dr. Peterson get a message, too?”
He looked at his pencil, now stilled, and rubbed his chin.
I sat forward. “Willard?”
He dropped his hand from his face and released a drawn out breath. “The attacker went into one of the rooms, Stella. Tore a paper sheet off an examining table. It’s now across Dr. Peterson’s desk.” He looked me in the eye. “It says, ‘Women should be the patients. Not the doctors.’”
A chill settled over me, and I could tell Willard felt it, too.
My voice reflected the feeling. “It’s the same guy.”
“It could be.”
“Oh, come on, Willard. It has to be.”
“Maybe Dr. Peterson and the church are connected. Dr. Beaumont’s car-jacking is a little different.”
“Maybe.” But I didn’t think so. “Do you have anything new on Carla’s truck?”
“Actually, yes. We’ve received a few calls about a man seen walking along Route 63 in Green Lane on Sunday, close to where her truck was found.”
“And?”
“We’re checking into it. There’s not a clear description of him, and there’s no way of knowing if he had anything to do with the attack. But it’s the only lead we have at the moment.”
Better than nothing. I guessed. “And these other two things?”
He carefully set his pencil on the desk, lining it up with his computer keyboard. “I guess I need to be in touch with the police in Kulpsville. There could be a connection between the two. And Stella? Don’t tell anybody about the sign, okay? It’s best to keep it under wraps for now, just in case.”
“Okay.”
I wanted to push him. Get him to say he was sure. That he’d take care of it and nothing else would happen to any other women.
But of course he couldn’t.
I left him and his pencil and went out to my truck, where I grabbed onto Queenie and tried to keep my hands from shaking.
Chapter Eighteen
Carla wasn’t home. I rang her doorbell and banged on the door, but all I succeeded in doing was getting Concord all riled up. Queenie heard him barking and began her own ruckus in the truck. I found some paper and a broken pencil in my glove compartment. Using one of my keys, I scraped enough wood off the end of the pencil that I could write Carla a note, asking her to call me as soon as she got home. I stuck it in the door, where she should see it, and hoped the breeze didn’t blow it off.
Concord continued to bark, and I tried to calm him by talking through the door, but that only produced whining, which was harder to take than barking.
“Sorry, buddy. Sorry. Carla will be home soon.” I hoped.
My hands had finally stopped shaking, but it was still hard to drive home. The sun hurt my eyes, and the ache from my foot had traveled up to lodge itself in my temple. Or maybe that was just from trying not to let any more tears cloud my vision.
Lucy was at the back of the barn, pulling nails out of a piece of wood. She didn’t notice me until I was standing right in front of her, and even then she didn’t stop working, except to notice my crutches.
“Those are nice. Feel better?”
When I didn’t answer, she stopped what she was doing and looked up. Seeing my face, she dropped the board and stepped toward me. “What? What is it?”
“It’s Dr. Peterson.”
“Dr. Peterson? You mean your doctor?”
“Yes.”
She waited, but I couldn’t speak.
“What? What about her?”
“Lucy, she’s dead.”
Lucy dropped her hammer now, and stared at me, stricken. “What happened?”
I told her.
“Willard thinks it’s about drugs?”
“Seems to. But he’s calling Kulpsville about the church, to see if maybe they could be connected.”
Lucy leaned against a stall and put her face in her hands briefly before looking up. “Are we in danger?”
“Us?”
She held out her hands. “Look at us. Women
running a dairy farm.”
“So you think that, too. That he’s after women.”
“What else would it be?”
“Separate cases. A random car-jacker, an angry Mennonite, a drug addict who happened to choose her office.”
She considered it. “It could be either. But we need to keep our eyes open. Protect each other.”
I looked out the door of the barn, over the manure lagoon and my back pasture, bordered by the developments, which seemed closer every day. Closer to this farm, that had been my haven.
Lucy came to stand beside me. “Does she have family?”
“Dr. Peterson? Her dad, at least. And I think she’s married. I haven’t seen any photos of kids. And she never talked about any.”
Lucy shook her head. “What a waste.”
Soon she left me, and I heard the hammer scraping against the wood, and the sound of nails being dropped into a can. I turned and walked back through the barn to my office, where I stood staring at my phone. I sat down and picked it up, dialing Carla’s cell phone.
No answer. Where could she be?
I looked at the phone a little longer, and ended up calling Nick. He answered, out of breath.
“Sorry,” I said. “Bring you running from somewhere?”
“Actually, I’m on the treadmill. I’ve got a ton of paperwork to go through and I’m getting all stiff, so I thought I’d loosen up. I only answered the phone when I saw it was you. What’s going on?”
I tried to tell him, but my throat closed, and I pushed on my eyes with my fingers to get myself together. The whine of the treadmill on the other end of the phone stopped.
“Stella?”
I took a shuddering breath. “Something awful has happened.” And I told him.
He was quiet for a moment, and I listened to him breathing before he said, “You okay? Is Lucy there with you?”
“She’s here.”
“You want me to come up?”
Yes. “You don’t have to. I know you have things to do there. I’ll be fine.”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m fine. I’ll be fine. I just wanted to talk to you. That’s all. Hear your voice.”
“Why don’t I—”
“You don’t have to come. I feel better now. Sorry to bother you.”
“You never bother me.”
I bit my lip, trying to breathe deeply, trying to get rid of the tight feeling in my chest. “You can call later, if you want.”
“Okay. Okay, I will.”
“Love you.”
“Stella?”
“What?”
“Nothing. Love you, too.”
I hung up and looked at the phone some more before getting up. It was lunch time, but I had no desire to eat, so I strapped a garbage bag over my foot and went to work around the farm. After a short while I realized I had only managed to get in the way of the others and give myself a headache. I figured if I waited another day or so I would be able to do the same work in a quarter of the time with no extra resulting body aches or irritated co-workers, so I took some painkillers and set myself up in the office…again. The amount of time I’d spent sitting at my desk and staring at my computer during the past twenty-four hours was enough to make me stir-crazy.
So when Zach and Randy stopped by, asking me to give them a ride to see Randy’s calf at his uncle’s farm, I jumped—or stood up very slowly—at the opportunity.
I grabbed my keys and followed the boys out the door. “How come you didn’t drive today, Randy?”
He frowned. “My dad dropped me off on the way to work.”
“Caddy not working?” I remembered the whining it had made as he’d left the farm the day before.
“It’s working fine. Never mind, okay? Can’t a guy get a ride to work without playing Twenty Questions?”
He stomped off ahead of me, and I looked at Zach, who gave me a sickly smile. “Sorry.”
“It’s all right. Just make sure you sit in the middle. I don’t want to have to smack him while I’m driving.”
So Zach sat between Randy and me, and no smacking took place, or even much conversation. Queenie, who had joined us and taken a spot in the extended portion of the cab, kept sticking her nose in Randy’s ear, until he’d finally snapped at her to keep her drool to herself, and she’d stayed over on my side. I reached up to scratch her ears, telling her she was much better off leaving grumpy teen-agers to themselves, but I glanced over at Randy a time or two and wondered exactly what had happened to turn this nice boy into Oscar the Grouch. Was it just the driving thing, or was there more to it? I’d have to ask Zach later.
Randy’s uncle lived on one of the few farms left out toward Chalfont. We made it there in a little over twenty minutes, dodging cars and sitting at traffic lights a good portion of the time. His uncle, who was mowing his lawn at a speed faster than what we’d been able to do most of the way over in the truck, waved and kept on going once he saw who it was.
The boys took off for the barn, and I paused to let Queenie jump out ahead of me and run to greet the obviously ancient golden retriever who lay almost flat out on the sidewalk. I hoped Queenie wouldn’t be too annoying to the old dog, but it seemed she’d already discovered its limitations, and had trotted restlessly away, sniffing the bushes.
I stumped into the barn, following the path of the boys, and soon found them at a stall, where Zach leaned on the door, watching Randy.
Randy’s calf nuzzled the hand I held out to it, and I checked out my former property. He looked good. Healthy and clean. Friendly and manageable. Very cute, with his mostly black body and a white spot right over his rump.
“Looks good,” I said.
Randy grunted and continued forking dirty straw into a pile.
“What’s his name?”
Randy mumbled something I couldn’t understand.
“What?”
“Simeon,” Zach said.
I glanced at Randy and opened my mouth to say something else, but Zach grimaced at me, shaking his head. I closed my trap and turned around, taking in the smells and sounds of a beef cattle operation. Quite a different beast from home.
Before long we were ready to go, and Randy closed the door, making sure the hook was secure. He didn’t even look at us before walking away.
Zach followed, and I tried to push down my concern at Randy’s unusual behavior. By the time we were in my truck, I was about ready to burst.
“So, where are we going now?” I asked.
Zach’s seat belt clicked in. “Dropping Randy off at home, if that’s okay.”
“No problem. And you?”
“Back to the grind at your place.” He grinned.
“Okey-dokey.” I waved to Randy’s uncle and pulled out of the drive. We were a few miles down the road, enduring Randy’s sulky silence, when I remembered. “Hey, how was MYF last night? Was it fun?”
Zach shrugged. “It was all right.”
Randy mumbled something about “women” and “telling people what to do.”
I raised my eyebrows at Zach. He smiled weakly. I decided to let it go so I wouldn’t damage my suddenly tense relationship with Zach’s best friend.
We dropped Randy off at home none too soon—without even a ‘thank you’—and Zach held his hand up before we’d even left the driveway, to keep me from pouncing. “He’s hurtin’.”
“Obviously. What the hell is going on? It can’t all be because your parents don’t want you driving with him.”
“No.” He sighed loudly. “It’s a coupl’a things. But mainly his girlfriend’s acting weird.”
Oh, boy. “That swim team girl? What’s her name? Chrissie?”
“Crystal. She’s a lifeguard. And she decided this summer that 4-H is boring and she’s ‘outgrown’ the farm stuff.”
Stupid girl. “So she’s too good for him now?”
“Seems to think so. And Randy’s convinced she’s met ano
ther guy at the pool. She’s always busy when he calls, and they haven’t seen each other for over a week. He thought once he got his license it would help, but…” His voice trailed off.
“Poor Randy.”
“Plus he is ticked at my mom and his for not letting him drive me around.”
Can’t say I was too bummed about that, myself.
“So that was the problem with MYF last night?” I asked. “Was he complaining that Katherine’s just another woman to tell him what to do?”
“He seems to think his life is run by women, even at church now. Except the MYF sponsors haven’t changed any. There’s still a couple of guys doing that. Well, their wives, too.”
We drove in silence for a few minutes.
“And how about Trevor?” I asked. “Was he as weird last night as everyone thought he was going to be?”
“Yeah, kinda. But I feel sorry for him. I think he’s pretty tired of his mom telling him what to do, too. I don’t think he talked to her once all night. And when she tried to introduce him he acted all embarrassed and mad.”
Like any normal teen-ager in front of a group.
When we got home Zach thanked me and headed into the barn, where Lucy had already gotten started with milking. I was tempted to follow him, but decided I’d take one more round off. By morning I figured maybe I’d feel well enough to try my hand at work again. If I could possibly sleep without nightmares.
It smelled yummy in the house, and I was surprised to notice I was actually hungry. A peek in the kitchen showed a crockpot full of chicken and vegetables. I was just reaching to take off the lid for a better view when the phone rang. It was Ma.
“You can drive your truck, right? Your foot doesn’t keep you from doing that?”
“Yeah, I can.”
“Good. Then I need you to go around to the Hershbergers’ tomorrow morning and deliver a load of mulch.”
“You mean Katherine’s?”
“Who else would I mean? Go out to the nursery in Hilltown and get a load of the nice dark stuff. You don’t have to worry about unloading it. Alan and David will take care of that part.”