Two young Amish women stood behind the counter filling the glass-domed display case beneath with cookies and treats. The girl with dark brown hair and wire-rimmed glasses gave me a shy smile. I floated around the room, trying to decide what to buy, hoping the boys in the office would be surprised and pleased if I showed up with treats. I settled on sugar cookies and a strawberry pie. A short line of shoppers purchased pies and bread as the girls behind the counter chatted with them.
Finally, it was my turn. I placed my purchases on the counter. “Is Esther here?”
The girl wearing glasses glanced at the other young Amish woman further down the counter. “That’s Esther.” Esther wore a white prayer cap over her dark blonde hair. Her hair was the same shade as the maple tables and shelves in her shop.
I paid for my purchases and moved down the counter to where Esther was helping an English woman wearing flip-flops, large hoop earrings, and a maxi dress select a tray of cookies.
“I’ll have the raisin cookies—wait—no the oatmeal. Wait no.” She tapped her nose with her index finger. “They all look so good. It’s impossible to decide.”
Esther smiled. “We have oatmeal raisin baking in the back. They may be done by now.”
“You do? Those would be perfect.”
“I will check for you.” Esther slipped through a swinging door that led to the back of the bakery.
I checked my cell phone for the time. A minute later Esther returned with a white bakery box. “Here you are, ma’am. I put two dozen in there for you.”
“Thank you.” The woman gushed, her maxi dress swishing around her feet as she moved down the counter to pay for her purchases.
Esther’s smile faded when she spotted me. “Do you need something else?” She scowled at my shopping bag.
“Are you Esther Yoder?”
“Yes.” She folded her arms across her chest.
“I’m—”
“I know who you are.”
“Oh.” I couldn’t hide my surprise.
“I will sell you anything in the shop, but I won’t talk to you about the Glick family or that girl.”
“That girl? You mean Becky?”
She ignored my question. “If you don’t need anything else, I would like to help my next customer, please.”
I glanced behind me. I was the only customer left in the store. “I don’t mean to upset you.”
The dark-haired girl at the cash register adjusted her glasses. She opened the counter display case and rotated the trays of cookies. With each tray turned she got closer to Esther and me.
“Becky and her family may think it is all right to talk about our ways with you, but I don’t.” She wiped the counter. “Please leave.”
The dark-haired girl walked over and said something in Pennsylvania Dutch to Esther. Esther shook her head. Abruptly, she turned and went through the swinging door that led to the kitchen.
I held up my shopping bag. “Thank you for these. I’m sure they will be a big hit at the office.” I stepped outside and the cowbell clanged after me. Hmm, that went well. I sighed and headed in the direction of the college.
The cowbell on Amish Bread Bakery rang behind me. “Miss!” A voice called. I turned to find the girl with the brown hair and glasses running down the sidewalk after me.
“Did I forget something?” Mentally, I checked for my purse, the cookies, and the pie.
“No.” She tried to catch her breath. “You wanted to talk to Esther about Becky Troyer?”
“Yes.”
“This is about the accident?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Good! I’ve been waiting to talk to someone. Esther may not speak to you, but I will.”
I blinked at her. “Why?”
She adjusted her glasses. “Not now. I have to get back to the bakery. I can talk to you when I’m finished with work.”
“When is that?”
“Two o’clock. You work at the college, right?”
I nodded.
“I’ll meet you by the campus entrance at two thirty.”
Before I could answer, she bolted back for the store. My heart lifted as I continued my way down the sidewalk, until Chief Rose sidled up next to me. I jerked a look over one shoulder. “Where did you come from?”
She smirked. “You don’t look too happy to see me.”
“I don’t like how you appear out of thin air.”
She shrugged. “It’s a special talent of mine. Now, tell me more about the attempted rescue last night of Buckley and Fanning.”
“Are they okay?”
“Sure. Their truck wasn’t too bad off. They’ll be back on the road by the end of the day.” She folded her arms across her chest.
I wasn’t so sure that was good news.
She cocked her head. “So what did they say to you?”
“Nothing important. Just like I told you last night. They cracked a few jokes.” I didn’t mention that Curt had reached into the car.
“Good. It was nice of you to stop, but in the future, you will be better off if you stay away from those two.”
I picked up the pace. “I plan to. I can’t help wondering what they were doing out that way, since they’re all Amish homes there.”
“You think they are the ones harassing the Amish?”
I nodded.
“I agree, but I need concrete proof.”
I frowned. “Did the tornado do much damage?”
“It destroyed some outbuildings around the county, but no homes. No one was seriously hurt.”
“Thank God for that.” The college came into view.
The chief kept up my pace. “I heard you got caught on the road in the tornado last night.”
I stopped. “How’d you hear that?”
She laughed. “I don’t think you understand how life in a small town works.” Chief Rose removed her mirrored sunglasses. I wondered, for the second time, if she chose those to wear while in uniform because they were so popular on cop shows. Maybe she thought the sunglasses would make her more attractive to the sheriff’s department as a deputy.
I shook my head and started walking again.
“And Timothy Troyer was with you.”
I froze. How could she know that?
The police chief put her sunglasses back on. “I would be careful about how close I got to the Troyer family, Chloe. You may think they’ve let you into their world, but you will never completely fit. Trust me. I have lived around the Amish my entire life. What makes you think you can break into their family in such a short time?”
That is none of your business. I gritted my teeth. “Is that all?”
She tipped her hat at me, that smirk still squarely on her face. “For now.”
Chapter Forty-Six
As I walked onto the Harshberger campus, my thoughts turned from Chief Rose to the Computer Services Department.
My cell rang. “Miss Humphrey?”
“Yes.”
“This is Tyler Hart. Becky’s public defender brought me up to speed on her case. Her case is set to be heard at the Knox County Courthouse on Tuesday.”
“So soon?”
“There was a cancellation on the court’s calendar, so I was able to get her in. It shouldn’t take long since she is pleading guilty to all the charges.”
“There are no new charges?”
“No. She needs to be there at eight thirty Tuesday morning. I know the judge. He usually makes up his mind quickly. We should know her sentence within the hour.”
I pressed my lips together, taking in all that Becky’s lawyer told me. “What do you think it will be?”
“Like I told you and Becky in my office, I’ve asked for community service and probation. I think the pros
ecutor will go for it. He doesn’t want to send an Amish girl to jail.”
My breath caught in my chest. “Is jail possible?”
There was a pause. “If the prosecutor decides to add auto theft to the list of charges, yes, she would get at least six months in jail.”
My knees went weak. “She didn’t steal the car!”
“I know, I know. Don’t worry. I’ve seen a draft of the charges. It wasn’t on there. If it shows up, we’ll fight that. Just make sure Becky’s there on Tuesday. The best thing to do is keep the prosecution on our side and the judge happy.”
I stepped into the department to find Miller and Clark hovering over their laptops at the conference table. Joel wasn’t in the office yet. Why was I not surprised?
“Good morning,” Clark said.
Beads of perspiration gathered on Miller’s upper lip and the crease of his brow.
I put the cookies and pie on the conference table.
Clark eyed it. “Is this like a last meal before the execution?”
I sighed. “No.”
Clark grinned. “I’m not saying I won’t eat it. I love strawberry pie.” He nodded toward Miller. “You can have the cookies. I’m not wasting my time on those.”
Joel arrived as Clark was slicing the pie in half. He pointed at one half. “This is my share. You can divide the rest among yourselves.”
Joel glared at the table, then at me. “Is that from your little Amish friends?”
I ignored his comment and went into my office.
“Dude,” Clark said. “You’re making it worse for yourself.”
“I already know how this is going to go,” Joel snapped.
So do I. The decision had been clear from the beginning. At ten o’clock, my office phone rang. It was Dean Klink’s secretary, Irene. He wanted to see me again.
I walked to the dean’s office as if to the executioner. Inside Dean Klink’s office, fishing lures reflected colorful light around the room. He smiled at me from his seat. “You have to make a decision.”
“I . . .”
“I know this is hard, Chloe, but we need to do this for the college.”
The decision was made, but I had a question of my own before I gave the dean my answer. “Why did you hire me?”
The short man pushed away from his desk and peered at me with narrowed eyes, as if taken aback. “What do you mean?”
“There are plenty of qualified candidates out there looking for work who would love this job. Most of these people have much more experience than I do. Why did you choose me?”
He licked his lips. “I knew you were the best person for the job.”
“How?”
He stood and began to pace. “Chloe, did you make your decision or not? Who is it going to be?”
I took a deep breath and told him.
He smiled. “I knew you would do the right thing. That’s why I hired you.”
I felt sick. As much as I disliked Joel, I knew he needed the job.
“I knew who you would choose,” the dean said. “I’ve already spoken to human resources. The sooner we take care of this, the better. Let me call security.”
My eye brows shot up. “Why do we need security?”
“It’s a precaution, one we have to exercise with all our employees, especially considering his access to sensitive information. Joel works for you. You know he has access to everything.”
I chewed off my lip balm. Dean Klink was right.
“You will have to kill his access to all the servers and computer networks. Can you do that?”
I inhaled another deep breath. “Yes.”
Two hours later I watched as Joel cleaned out his desk. Clark and Miller sat at the table and solemnly watched too. The pudgy sunburned security guard observed Joel from the department’s entrance.
Joel set a picture of his family into the box. My stomach clenched. “Do you need help carrying anything?”
He glared at me. Obviously not the right question.
Miller jumped up and picked up a box. “I’ll help him.”
I nodded and retreated into the doorway of my tiny office.
Joel picked up his briefcase, and Miller and Clark each took a box. After twenty years of working at Harshberger, his entire career fit into two boxes. Nausea overwhelmed me. Miller and Clark left the office first.
Joel turned at the doorway. “Klink didn’t make a mistake when he hired you after all. You did exactly what he wanted. The only surprise is that you don’t scare easily.”
He left, and the security guard closed the department door behind them. I pushed the taste of bile back down my throat and erased Joel’s access from every part of Harshberger’s computer system. You don’t scare easily resounded in my head with each click of the mouse.
Chapter Forty-Seven
At one o’clock, Clark peeked into my office. “I’m going to run to the cafeteria for lunch. Do you want anything?”
I tore my eyes from my computer screen. “No, I’m all right.”
He leaned against the door. “You don’t look all right. Why don’t you come with me? It will be good for you to get out of the office, away from the place of execution.”
“I wish you’d stop calling it that.”
He grinned. “So, how about it?”
“All right. Can Miller come too?”
“Naw, he already left. He usually goes home for lunch. Poor guy is pretty shaken up.”
I gave him a pained expression. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“Don’t worry about it. Miller will be fine by Monday. Now, let’s go.”
Clark and I walked in companionable silence across the green to the cafeteria, which was located directly across from Dennis. The only students on campus were volleyball and soccer athletes here for practice. Harshberger was too small for a football team. The students elbowed each other as they moved down the line to fill their trays. At twenty four, I was only a few years older, but felt worlds away. The teams sat together on the far side of the cafeteria close to the entrance to the college bookstore.
Staff and faculty dotted the rest of the large room. None of them seemed to relish their meals. The culinary options were a salad bar that could double as a biology experiment—I bypassed that—greasy pizza, or overcooked hamburgers and limp french fries. I settled on the hamburger and fries, hoping a thick layer of ketchup would overpower the burnt taste.
Clark was already seated at a table by a window that overlooked the gymnasium and student dorms when I paid for my lunch. As a staff member, the whole meal only cost me two dollars, so it certainly had price in its favor. I slipped into the beige plastic molded seat across from Clark.
Clark sawed his hamburger in half with a white plastic knife. “What do you think of the food?”
“Well . . .”
He laughed. “You don’t have to pretend to like it. No one does. When the semester starts, it will be fifty percent better. Notice I didn’t say one hundred percent. However, fifty is a marked improvement.”
After slathering the burger with ketchup, I took a bite. It tasted like charcoal dipped in ketchup. I set it back on the ceramic plate.
Clark put down his burger. Despite his complaints about the meal, most of the burger and fries were gone. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.” I popped a soggy fry in my mouth, swallowing hard to force it down my throat.
“How long are you going to be here?” Clark squinted in the sunbeam that cut through the window. The legs of his chair made a horrible screeching sound as he scooted away from the glare.
“What do you mean?”
“Dean Klink may look harmless, but he’s done this many times before.”
“Done what?”
“R
estructured a department.” He made quotation marks with his fingers when he said “restructured.” “Not that firing Joel was wrong. The dude had a chip on his shoulder the size of Mount Rushmore.”
“Joel wasn’t fired,” I corrected. “He was let go,”
“Whatever. We knew when our old boss resigned that it was just a matter of time for us.” He sipped from a paper cup. “Klink hires some young hotshot like you—someone who won’t be here too long—to take over a department.
“Then the hotshot leaves for bigger and better things, and the department is how Dean Klink wants it. Now he hires the person he really wanted for the job because having fired one or two people means he can now afford the expert with more experience.”
The bite of french fry lodged in my throat. I took a big gulp of water.
“So how long are you going to be here?”
I didn’t answer right away.
“Your silence is all the answer I need.” He popped another fry into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “What, one year? Two years?”
“I don’t know.” After meeting the Troyer family, leaving after two years didn’t sound as good as it once did.
He wiped mustard off his chin. “At least Miller and I know what to expect.”
I leaned forward, unable to eat another bite. “Are you going to tell Miller about this conversation?”
He thought for a long minute while dragging the tip of his knife along the rim of his plate. “Naw. The kid is spooked enough as it is.”
“Can I ask you a question now?”
He nodded.
“What can I do to make it better for you guys at work?”
He dropped a french fry. “No one has asked me that before.”
I pushed my plate away. I would eat the lunch that Becky packed for me when I got back to my office.
“I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it.”
I gave him a nod. “Ask Miller to think about it too.”
AT A QUARTER AFTER two, I waited at the entrance to Harshberger, checking my cell phone for the time every few minutes. Will the girl from the bakery show? I wished I knew her name.
Appleseed Creek Trilogy, Books 1-3 Page 24