by Judy Clemens
I found Lucy out at the calf hutches, where Tess was feeding Wendy’s girl.
She watched me until I got close. “He take the shovel?”
“Yeah. But he doesn’t believe me.”
“Well—”
“And Meadows is going to do the comparison. He’ll probably screw it up on purpose.”
“Stella, you have got to stop—”
I was kept from pouncing on her by the sound of a car pulling into the lane. Randy’s Caddy. With Zach in the passenger seat.
I met them by the barn, meaning to ask, like a nag, what Zach was doing in the car, and whether his parents knew where he was. But when Randy looked at me, I froze. “What the hell?”
Zach didn’t look happy. “He’s an idiot.”
Randy glared at him as well as he could through his swollen right eyelid. His nose and eye were black and blue, with an ugly yellow color seeping in, and the way he stood it seemed his ribs were sore. And I know all about sore ribs from my bike accident the summer before, so I recognized the stance without any doubt.
“What happened?”
Randy wasn’t answering, and Zach didn’t add anything more.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll guess.”
Randy shook his head and turned away, but the pain caught him, and he stopped.
“You went to talk to your girlfriend, who doesn’t have time for you anymore.” He didn’t look at me. “Stop me when I get something wrong, okay? You went to talk to her, but made the mistake of going to the pool when she got off work.”
“He waited for her at home.” Zach.
“Okay. So you went to her house and caught her after work. But she wasn’t alone.”
“It was the guy from the pool.” Zach again.
“I hadn’t gotten there yet. So the other guy is there, and he’s acting all possessive of…”
“Crystal.” Zach was being very helpful.
“She’s acting weird, probably all worried because you caught her, and feeling guilty, too. At least I hope so.”
I looked at Zach, and he shrugged.
“So she’s dithering around, saying a bunch of stuff about why he’s there and asking you not to get mad, and the guy is looking at you all pleased with himself, so you get torqued and haul off and hit him. He fought back.”
I watched Randy for any signs of agreement. I didn’t get any. And Zach didn’t say anything, so I assumed I was right.
“So is this a case of, ‘Yeah, I’m a wreck, but you should see the other guy?’”
They gave me blank stares.
I sighed. “Is the other guy better or worse off?”
Randy glowered. Zach grimaced.
So much for that.
Randy stomped off into the barn the best he could, which I’m sure he regretted and stopped as soon as he was out of sight.
Zach stayed behind with me, and I gestured to the Caddy. “Your parents know he’s driving you around?”
“Yeah.” He made a face. “They’re not real happy about it, but they like Randy, and decided to give it a try, as long as I promise to keep him driving safely.”
Oh, great idea. One teenage boy keeping another one in check on the road. Can you say “impossible?”
“Do they know about the fight?”
“Well. No. Are you going to tell them?”
I hesitated, but said, “It’s not my place, Zach. It’s yours.”
He shoved his hands into his pockets and looked toward the barn. “Yeah, I know.”
“So why don’t you go and make sure Randy’s not taking his love life troubles out on anything in my barn.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
Oh, Randy, dumb kid. Didn’t he know a fifteen-year-old girl who can’t tell a great guy when she has one wasn’t worth it?
But then, I’d never seen the other guy.
I went into the house and found Nick at the kitchen table with his laptop, which was plugged into my phone jack. I grabbed a Pepsi from the fridge—it was only morning, but who was going to stop me?—and sat across from him. “What’cha working on?”
“Business stuff.”
“Anything interesting?”
He laughed. “Actually, no. It’s all the paperwork my sisters won’t do. I figure they’re running the place in person right now, the least I can do is the boring work.”
My stomach dropped. “You need to get home.”
“No. No, that’s not what I’m saying.”
I got up and went to the sink, looking out the window. “I don’t want to keep you here, if you need to go.”
“You’re not keeping me here. I mean, I’m here because of you, but not because you’re making me.”
“And your sisters hate me.”
“Just one of them. And she doesn’t hate you.”
His phone, sitting beside his computer, began buzzing, scooting across the slippery tabletop. He looked at the screen. “I need to take this.”
“Sure. Fine. Go ahead.”
He reached out to me as I left, but I dodged his hand. I didn’t need any sympathy touches.
Well, maybe I did, but I didn’t want them.
Lucy was still at the calf hutches, cleaning them out, while Tess had gone off to see if any of the barn cats wanted to play.
Lucy looked up. “Boys okay?”
“What? Oh, Zach and Randy?” I told her about Randy’s face.
She let out a short laugh. “I’m sure his folks were happy about that.”
“They let him ride with Randy.”
“I don’t mean Jethro and Belle. I mean Randy’s parents.”
“Yeah. It’s a wonder he’s not grounded. His parents being Mennos, and pacifists, and all.”
She leaned on her pitchfork. “Maybe they figure he’s learned his lesson and won’t do it again.”
“Right. Teenage boys are great at self-control and getting the educational aspect of each experience.”
She forked up another dirty clump of straw. The hutches weren’t too bad, since Tess and Nick had taken care of them a couple of days before, but calves do keep pooping, and you want to keep them clean.
I turned over an empty five-gallon bucket and sat on it.
Lucy glanced up at me, but didn’t say anything.
“Tess name the calf yet?”
Lucy laughed. “It’s between Tinkerbell and Perdita right now.”
“Perdita?”
“The mother in the original 101 Dalmations movie.”
“Oh. Right.”
She looked at me a little longer before heaving the dirty straw onto a pile.
“Lucy?”
She stopped. When she saw the look on my face she put down the pitchfork and came over to kneel beside me.
“Lucy, I…I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“With what?”
“Nick. His illness. Our relationship. This.” I gestured around us at my property.
Actually, I knew what would happen if I sold the farm. It wasn’t hard to figure out. Some developer would buy it, I’d be stinking rich, and my house would become the centerpiece of a brand new batch of townhomes, or condos, or gigantic multi-million dollar dwellings. If my house even survived. I had to hope they’d preserve it as a piece of history, but there’s no telling if that would include the barns. The yard and garden would be gone, and the field would be swallowed up in an instant.
Lucy cleared her throat. “And you’re wondering what my commitment is.” Her voice was soft, tentative.
“I guess.”
She rubbed a hand across her forehead, one elbow resting on her knees. “What do you need it to be?”
“I don’t know.” I pushed myself up from the bucket and walked a few paces away, where I looked past my back cornfield toward the nearest cookie cutter house. “I don’t know what I’m asking. If I’m really asking anything.” I turned around and looked at her.
She stood up. “You don’t have to ask me anything. I’ll just tell you what little I do know.”
“At least one of us knows something.”
She gave a soft laugh. “I know I’ll do whatever I can to support you, whatever that might be. If it’s continuing to work as your farmhand, I’m more than happy to. I love working here. You know that. Even if you’re not here most of the time, if you’re in Virginia, I could probably do it.”
“And if…if I sell the farm?”
“I wouldn’t buy it.”
I doubled over, as if she’d hit me, as if I’d been Randy, fighting his teenage foe.
“I’m sorry, Stella. It’s just not where I am anymore. Not that I’ve ever been in a position to buy it. I don’t have the money.”
I straightened. “I know. I know.” I walked over to the hutches and put my hand under the chin of Wendy’s calf. She looked at me with her mild, gentle eyes, while tears pricked my own. “I don’t know what to do, Luce.”
She came up beside me. “There’s only one thing I can tell you.”
“And that is?”
“That I’m not the one you need to be talking to. But then, I think you know that.”
But knowing something needs to be done, and actually doing it, are two completely different things.
Chapter Thirty-six
Nick found me out there a while later, still petting Wendy’s calf.
He leaned over the fence and scratched her ears. “She have a name yet?”
“Tinkerbell or Perdita.”
“From 101 Dalmatians?”
“How did you know that?”
He smiled. “I always liked that movie.”
“Nick—”
“Willard called.”
“What? What did he say?”
“He wants you to call him.”
“He wouldn’t tell you what he found?”
“Nope.” He grinned. “He only trusts you.”
“Yeah. Whatever. You’re off-line, I take it? I can use my phone?”
“I’m off.”
We walked back to the house together.
“Stella?”
“Yeah?”
“Were you going to say something back there?”
I took a few more steps. “No. Nothing that can’t wait.”
I’m not sure he believed me. But then, of course, he was right not to.
Gladys put me right through to Willard.
“Stella, can you come in to the office?”
“Why?”
“Because I was a knucklehead.”
“Oh, Willard, what did you do?”
“I forgot we need your fingerprints. We’ve got a ton on this shovel, and a set of them is probably yours, right?”
I groaned. “Probably most of them. Although I did wear gloves when I was using it.”
“How about anybody else at the farm?”
“Well, Lucy uses it, and Zach— But I wiped it off before using it the other day. It was pretty well covered with manure and I figured the Hershbergers wouldn’t want that in their mulch.”
“So that limits the prints to whoever else handled it since then, including you. That helps. Dan’s wondering if you can come this morning.”
“Dan?”
“Officer Meadows.”
Oh, great. “I’ll come right now.”
“Super. Thanks.”
“Hey, Willard?”
“Yeah?”
“You are going to be there, right?”
“Yes. I will even hold your hand, if you want. The one not being fingerprinted, that is.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary.”
“Okay. See you in a few.”
I hung up and told Nick.
“Want me to come along?”
I looked from him to his computer. “You don’t need to. Willard says he’ll hold my hand.”
Nick didn’t look so sure about that, but as Willard is a happily married man, and there would be others present—cops, even—he relented.
Not that he was really worried.
Queenie came along for the ride, and happily rubbed her nose on the window while we drove into town. I found a shaded parking spot across from the police department and left the windows partly rolled down, telling Queenie I’d only be a few minutes. She lay down on the seat with a huff, apparently wondering why I’d brought her along if I was just going to leave her in the car. She should’ve been used to it by then.
An officer I didn’t know buzzed me in, and I clumped toward Willard’s office. He met me at his door.
“Heard you coming.”
“I know.”
“Like a herd of elephants.”
“Where do I go, Willard?”
“Crabby elephants.”
“Willard…”
“Over here.”
Officer Meadows—Dan—was at a desk in the back room, and looked up when we entered. I tried not to recoil against Willard, but since he had to nudge me in the back, I guess I wasn’t entirely successful.
“Over here.” Meadows stood stiffly and went to a waist-high counter, where he’d laid out a fingerprint card next to an ink blotter. “Ready?”
It wasn’t until that moment that I realized he would have to touch me to get my fingerprints. I hesitated.
His shoulders slumped, and his jaw unclenched. “Come on, Ms. Crown. Stella. I promise I won’t hurt you.”
Willard gave me one last push, and I was at the counter.
“Right hand, please.”
Meadows rolled each of my fingers, my palm, and then all four fingers together. It took about three minutes. “You gonna take my mug shot, too?”
His eyes flicked up to mine, and when he saw I was joking, he gave a little smile. “Not today. Unless you have something to confess.”
When I declined he led me to a sink, where I scrubbed my hands with a special soap that had gritty little pieces in it. It got rid of every speck of ink. If I had soap like that at the farm I’d always be clean—but it would take all my skin off after a few days.
“How soon do you think you’ll have something?”
Meadows let out a loud sigh. “I don’t know. There’s a lot of prints on here. It could take a while. How many people handled the shovel?”
“David Stoltzfus. And his brother-in-law, Alan. And Alan’s son. Trevor.” An image of Trevor, sullen, quiet, athletic under his baggy teenager clothes flitted into my mind. He went to the gym with David. Had his uncle gotten him on steroids? Was he another guy ready to explode?
Meadows was talking to me.
“Sorry. What?”
He stopped and began again. “So we’re talking about at least three people other than you.”
I looked at him. “For what?”
“The shovel. Fingerprints.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
He looked at Willard. “I’ll check them all. If there’s a hit we’ll need to get them each in here.”
I looked at the clock. Way after breakfast. “David’s probably gone.”
“Gone?”
“Back to Lancaster.”
Willard cleared his throat. “We can at least bring the others in to eliminate them.”
Meadows nodded. “That will have to work for now. If we get a match.”
I liked what I saw in Meadows’ face. He actually cared. “Well, good luck.”
“Thanks.”
We stood, looking awkwardly at each other, until I turned to Willard, who was smirking at me.
“Guess that’s it, Willard.”
He held out a hand to have me go first down the hallway. “See? I told you you could play well together if you tried.”
“Whatever.”
“Have a minute to stop in?”
“Sure.”
When we were both seated and he’d picked up his pencil, he said, “So tell me how David Stoltzfus is connected to al
l of the women.”
“Oh. Okay. Well, Carla’s easy. He got to know her when she came to the Hershbergers’ the day they moved. Trevor had stepped on their dog, and Carla was on call. Katherine, well, that’s obvious. And he always goes for a run before the commuters are even out. It would’ve been easy for him to trash her office.”
“Do you know about Sunday? When Carla was attacked?”
“You mean does he have an alibi? I have no idea. I do know Katherine and Alan went to church, along with David’s daughter, Sarah. But I don’t think David did. Or Tricia.” I remembered the dinner at Ma’s, Katherine flicking a look at her sister when they talked about attending church. I’d interpreted that as a little rebuke for not going with her.
“Okay. Go on.”
“Dr. Peterson was on a list of doctors recommended to the Hershbergers by church people. And Babs is a trainer at Club Atlas, where he’s been going to work out.”
“And the trucking company?”
I had to think. Was there a connection? Yes. “He was at my place the day Patty came with Iris. Ma had brought him and the family to see the farm.”
He nodded, and actually used his pencil to write something down. When he was done, he looked up. “You really think he was at your place to cause trouble this morning?”
“Why else? It’s not like we’re friends. And he’d already seen the place. He acted all funny when he got there, like he was looking for other people, but Queenie held him off. And then Nick came out.”
“Well, I have to say it does make sense.”
“Yeah.”
“So we’ll see.” He studied me. “Something bothered you in there. You completely left us for a minute while Dan was trying to talk to you.”
I took a breath. “It’s the teenage son. I think David might have gotten him on steroids, too.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“David took him to the gym. Keeps saying what an athlete Trevor is. And Trevor’s got acne.”
“Like the majority of teenagers.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“But I’ll keep it in mind.”
“Okay.”
“I guess that’s it then.”
“You’ll—”
“Call you as soon as Meadows gets any results. Thanks for coming in. We appreciate it.”
And I was dismissed.
Chapter Thirty-seven
I couldn’t get David and the steroids out of my mind, so I said something I never would’ve imagined coming out of my mouth. “Come on, Queenie. Let’s go to the gym.”