Clark grinned and gave Miller a high five.
I let Clark have his chair. “I’ll pass.” Corn dogs were not on my diet plan.
Later that afternoon, I was on my way out of the office when my cell phone rang. “Chloe,” Becky said. “The chain on my bike broke. Is there any chance you can pick me up from work tonight? I’m off at seven. Timothy’s here working in the pavilion, but he said he’s not leaving until nine or ten. I don’t want to be stuck here that long.”
I repressed a sigh. Carting Becky around town was getting old. “Sure. I’ll be there.”
As I walked up the driveway toward my house, I sensed something was off. I couldn’t place it. The house looked like it had in the morning when I left. I stepped back from the house and took it in. Then, I saw what was bothering me. The light was on in my bedroom. I had turned it off when I left the room that morning. Would Becky have gone in there and left the light on? It was possible.
A shadow moved crossed the window. Someone was in my room, and it wasn’t Gigabyte. I pulled my cell phone from my coat pocket and called Chief Rose.
She was there within two minutes. The village police station was tucked into a corner of the town hall on the square. She climbed out of her cruiser and found me standing on the sidewalk watching the house. “You have a prowler.”
“Maybe.” I was beginning to have my doubts. I hadn’t seen the shadow a second time. “I think someone’s in my bedroom.” I pointed at the window. “See, the lights on. I know I turned it off this morning.”
“Becky may have turned the light on and forgot.”
I bit my lip. “It’s possible, but . . .”
“I know, I know, with Curt and Brock running around we can never be too careful.” She pulled her gun from her utility belt. It was the first time I’d seen her handle it. “I’m surprised you called me instead of Timothy.”
“Timothy is working on a project at Young’s Flea Market today. I figured you’d get here faster.”
She nodded. “You figured right. Is the door locked?”
“It should be. Becky wouldn’t forget to do that.”
“I’ll need your key, then. I don’t think you want me to break it down.”
I handed her my computer mouse-shaped keychain. She didn’t comment on the keychain and kept her gun pointed downward. “Stay here, and I will check it out.” She moved up the walk.
“Don’t shoot my cat!” I called after her.
She rolled her eyes at me.
As the cold seeped into the fabric of my thick coat, I hopped from foot to foot on the sidewalk. I must have resembled Miller as I moved back and forth.
Five minutes later—which felt more like five years—the front door opened. Chief Rose walked a man out of my house, holding him at gunpoint. His hands were up, and his eyes were the size of duck eggs.
“Dylan?”
Chapter Nine
Chief Rose walked Dylan down the porch stairs. Despite the cold, a bead of sweat drew across the biologist’s face as he stumbled on the last step.
“Watch your footing,” the chief of police barked. She used the barrel of her gun to point to the middle of the lawn. “He claims he’s your landlord.”
I cleared my throat. “He is.”
Dylan wore short sleeves and began to shiver. “See, I told you.” He wrapped his arms around his torso.
She watched him, her expression stern. “I don’t want to hear anything out of you.”
“Dylan, what were you doing inside my house when no one was there?” I buried my hands deep inside my pockets.
“Fixing the window in your bedroom. The one that is painted shut.”
“Timothy will fix it when he has time,” I said.
Dylan’s glasses slipped down his long nose. “I know, but like I told you and Becky yesterday, I plan to renovate the house. I don’t have any afternoon classes on Mondays, so I thought this would be the perfect time to get started.”
“How did you get in?” I asked.
He reached into his jeans pocket. “I used my key.”
“No sudden movements,” Chief Rose ordered.
Dylan’s hand froze in midair. “Please ask her to lower the gun.”
I glanced at her. “Chief . . .”
Chief Rose holstered her gun. “Fine.”
My face grew hot. “You may be my landlord, but you can’t go into my house whenever you like.” He said he was fixing the window, but what else could he have been doing while he was in there?
“She’s right, you know,” Chief Rose crossed her arms. “You need to notify tenants at least twenty-four hours before entering their home. I can get you copy of the Ohio Revised Code if you want to see it.”
Dylan turned to me. “I told you I planned to work on the house yesterday.”
I folded my arms. “I know that, but you didn’t say you’d be here today.”
Dylan pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I’m so sorry. Truly, I didn’t mean any harm. I let my enthusiasm for the house run away with me.”
Chief Rose eyed Dylan. “I can still take him in. Run him through the paces.”
I wasn’t entirely sure what “run him through the paces” meant, but it didn’t sound pleasant. “No,” I insisted. “You don’t have to arrest him.”
Dylan gave me a small smile. “Let me go in and grab my coat and tools, and I will be out of your way.” He dashed back into the house before we could argue.
“The good news is it wasn’t Curt or Brock.” Chief Rose’s radio crackled, but she ignored it.
“What’s the bad news?”
“Your landlord is a nut.”
Dylan reappeared, wearing his winter coat and a stocking cap. He carried a red metal toolbox in his hand. “I didn’t finish fixing the window. I’ll come back another time to finish the job.”
“I’m sure Timothy would be happy to do it. He has lots of experience.”
The strange look crossed the professor’s face again. “I don’t need his help. He’s Amish and doesn’t understand what I’m trying to do.”
I pulled back.
Chief Rose placed her aviator sunglasses on the top her head. “Do you have a problem with the Amish?”
“N-no. However, their carpentry techniques aren’t appropriate for this centennial home. It’s paramount that the work and fixtures on this home are in keeping with the house’s original plans and design.”
Chief Rose appeared unconvinced. I’m sure I looked much the same.
“I’m sorry.” He shifted his toolbox into his other hand. “I’m still a little shaken up from being held at gunpoint.”
Chief Rose refrained from comment but stayed with me until Dylan climbed into his beige sedan, parked two houses down, and drove away.
After the chief left, I stepped into the house, Gigabyte yowled at me. His typically short fur stood on end. I stroked his back and smoothed his coat down. “That upset you, didn’t it, buddy.”
He yowled and wove in and around my legs.
“It upset me too.”
Inside my bedroom, everything looked how I left it that morning. Everything except the second window. The edges of the windowpane were scraped where Dylan had chipped away the paint. Flecks of light blue paint lay on the windowsill. I hoped that it wasn’t lead paint but judging from the age of the house it could be. I made a mental note to ask Timothy to take a look at it no matter what Dylan may want. The latch lay in pieces under the window.
I tried to open the window, and it rose easily. With the latch in bits on the floor, the window couldn’t lock. My bedroom was on the second floor and there were no trees near this end of the house, so no one less than Spiderman could scale the house’s siding and enter through my window. But the unlocked window made me uneasy. Curt and B
rock were free, and now, I had renovation-happy Dylan Tanner to worry about too.
I checked my cell phone. I would have to worry about this later. It was about time for me to leave and pick up Becky at Young’s.
After I parked my new car—a VW Bug I purchased a month after my car was totaled in Becky’s buggy-auto accident—I got out and poked my head inside the kitchen. A waitress in a navy blue plain dress and white apron, the uniform for the women who worked at Young’s, smiled at me. I stopped. “Is Becky here? She called me and said she needed a ride.”
They were in the middle of the dinner rush. Waitresses and busboys flew in and out of the bustling kitchen trading empty plates for freshly made meals. The waitress picked up a tray loaded with soft drinks and mugs of coffee. “Becky said she was going to the pavilions to wait with her brother until you got here. She knew if she hung around the kitchen too long, Ellie’d put her back to work.”
I thanked her and slipped back outside. The only lights to guide me to the pavilions were the lampposts scattered around the parking lot and the ambient light from the restaurant’s windows. I stepped carefully as I made my way to the second pavilion, taking Timothy’s warning from the day before seriously. I didn’t want to step on a stray nail.
The job site was quiet. I bit my lip. If Timothy had to work late, why would it be so quiet? Shouldn’t I be hearing hammering, sawing . . . something?
Since the waitress said Becky waited with Timothy, I figured they were in the second pavilion, the one Timothy showed me the afternoon before. I stepped through the clear tarp. Orange extension cords snaked along the cement floor. Gingerly, I moved around them.
One of the extension cords tangled around a wooden sawhorse. I sidestepped it, and my foot bumped into a work boot. I blinked several times. The person wearing the boot was prostrate on the ground. A gasp escaped me. Ezekiel Young lay on his stomach, his neck twisted. His glasses and shorn beard lay next to him on the sawdust-covered floor. The handle of peculiar-looking shears stuck out of his back.
I stumbled backward and tripped over the legs of the sawhorse and a nest of extension cords, landing flat on my back. Breath whooshed out of my lungs. My head had connected with the cement floor, and stars danced in my eyes. I lay there for half a second, scrambled to my feet, and ran.
I burst into the restaurant’s kitchen, clutching the back of my head. The mouths of the Amish women working there fell open. The kitchen’s fluorescent lighting blinded me, and I held up a hand to block the light.
I pointed behind me. “Pa-pavilion.”
The women whispered in Pennsylvanian Dutch.
“He’s in the pavilion.” My legs felt weak. I grabbed at the prep counter to steady myself and knocked a tray of mashed potatoes to the floor. The ceramic dish shattered. Potatoes flew everywhere, and I passed out.
Chapter Ten
Timothy supported my head. “Chloe?” His blue eyes grew wide, and I saw fear there.
I tried to sit up. The room swung around me as if suspended from a bungee cord. The pain throbbed from the base of my neck forward to my forehead.
“Don’t move. You could have a concussion.”
Timothy’s blue eyes came into focus again. Above him, Becky’s pale heart-shaped face peered down at me. Tears ran down her cheeks.
The image of Ezekiel’s shorn beard hit me like a punch to the jaw. “The pavilion. Ezekiel is in the pavilion.”
Timothy’s brow furrowed.
“He’s dead,” I said.
A keening cry went up in the room. Someone threw open the back door, and I felt the rush of air as people ran outside.
“Becky,” Timothy barked. “Stay with Chloe.” Gently as possible, he placed my head back down on the white-tiled floor. He jumped up and followed the others out of the kitchen.
Becky knelt beside me. The cotton fabric of her navy plain dress floated to the floor. “Chloe, are you all right? What happened?” She twisted her white apron in her hands.
I started to sit up again.
“No.” She pushed on my shoulder to force me to lay back down.
I brushed her hand away. “Help me up or I’ll get up on my own.”
She supported my elbow as I stood. The room spun. Somehow, I stayed upright.
The back door to the kitchen was open, and the chilly air cut through the room. Fallen leaves blew in and danced over the tiled floor. No one seemed concerned. The Amish women who worked in the kitchen whispered to each other in their own language. The only word I understood in my foggy state was Englischer, in reference to me I was sure.
Sirens broke through the sound of their conversations.
“Chloe, what do you want to do?” Becky gripped my elbow as if her grasp was the only support keeping me from tumbling back down to the floor. I took a wobbly step. She may be right about that.
“Sit down.”
My head spun like a Tilt-a-Whirl.
“There’s a break room on the other side of the kitchen.”
She led me from the room. My eyes blurred, and I concentrated on my steps, trying to forget Ezekiel Young’s face. The small break room held a sofa and a round table surrounded by cane chairs. I lowered myself onto the sofa and fatigue washed over me.
Becky voice broke through the fog. “Chloe, aren’t you supposed to stay awake in case you have a concussion?”
She was right, but what could it hurt to rest my eyes for a minute?
“Miss, miss? What’s your name?”
My eyelids fluttered open.
A burly EMT with black hair curling around his ears shone a penlight in my face. I blinked. I turned my eyes away. Chief Rose watched me from over his shoulder.
“Your name?” the EMT asked again.
I shook the cobwebs from my head. Ouch. Shaking my head was the last thing I should be doing. “Chloe Humphrey.”
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Three.”
He smiled. “Good answer, Miss Humphrey, though I’m afraid you might have a concussion. We’re taking you to the hospital.”
I felt sick to my stomach. I hated hospitals, and I had ever since my mother died in one. “I feel fine. It’s a little headache.”
He squinted at me. “It’s a big headache, and this isn’t up for debate. The ambulance is outside ready to take you. Do you think you can walk there?”
I nodded and immediately regretted it.
He helped me to stand.
“Hold on, Nate. She’s not going anywhere until I ask her a few questions.” Chief Rose’s tone was firm.
Irritation flashed across the mild-mannered EMT’s face. “You can talk to her at the hospital.”
I started to sit back down. “No, I want to talk to her here.” The sooner I spoke with Chief Rose, the sooner I could forget the image of Ezekiel Young. At least I hoped so.
A smile spread across the police chief’s delicate features. With her petite frame and short poodle-like hair, she looked like the girl next door, not a seasoned police officer. I knew better than to underestimate her. “I’m surprised to see you again so soon, Chloe. You’ve had an eventful day.”
My forehead creased, then I remembered Dylan and the broken window latch back in my bedroom. That seemed so long ago. Could it possibly be the same day? What day was it? I didn’t dare ask Nate. He would cart me off to the hospital that very minute.
She pulled a chair in front of the sofa. “Tell me what happened from the beginning.”
So I did.
The police chief didn’t take any notes. Does she have a photographic memory or something?
She leaned back in her chair. “Shame about the sawhorse tripping you.”
My throbbing head agreed. “Do you think this could be related to the other haircutting incidents in the county?”
&
nbsp; She arched her brow.
“There was a story in the paper. Ezekiel’s beard was cut off.” I shivered at the memory. “I doubt I will be the last person to make the connection.”
Chief Rose frowned. “Cutting off hair is one thing. Murder is something entirely different.”
I thought for a moment. No easy feat considering the pounding in my head. It was like someone was doing the Irish jig on my frontal lobe. “Do you think Curt and Brock could be behind this?”
The chief’s peridot eyes flashed. “Cold-blooded murder would be a big step for those two.”
Not that big of a step.
“I’ll have one my officers find out what they were up to at the time of the murder.”
I placed a hand to the side my head. “Please don’t mention my name.”
“I don’t plan to, but Curt and Brock have a grudge against you, and they might figure it out, especially since the Amish are involved.”
Nate shuffled his feet. “Is that all, Chief? It’s time for Chloe to go.”
Chief Rose glanced at him. “That’s all for now.” She helped me to my feet and the world didn’t tilt on its axis as it had before. My stomach turned.
Was I nauseous because I was headed to the hospital or from something more?
Chapter Eleven
Becky readjusted the sofa pillow behind my back. She touched me on the shoulder. “Sit up.”
I sat up, and she rearranged the mound of pillows for the third time. She stepped back and cocked her head. “It still doesn’t look comfortable.” She took a step toward the sofa.
I held up my hand to stop her. “It’s fine.”
Now out of her plain Young’s uniform, she wore a neon pink sweat suit. She perched on the edge of our living room coffee table. “I’m sorry. I’m being a nuisance.”
“You’re not, but the pillows are fine.”
Timothy walked in from the kitchen, carrying a tray of chicken soup and hot tea. Gig followed him expectantly. He loved Becky’s chicken soup. Becky moved from the table to the couch, and Timothy set the tray on the table.
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