“Go ahead and have one,” Ellie said. “Those are my sour cream cookies.”
Sour cream in a cookie? What did I know? I only baked those break-apart premade cookies from the supermarket. All you had to do was slap them on the tray and pop them in the oven. Still, half came out burned to a crisp and the remainder raw.
I selected the smallest of the sour cream cookies. Timothy reached across the table and took the largest one. It was light and fluffy, somewhere between a cookie and cake. “This is the best cookie ever.”
Ellie moved perfectly round shortbread from a cool cookie sheet to the wax paper lying across the table. “I’m glad you like it. I’ll give you the recipe.”
I smiled, knowing my cookies would never come out like these. However, I’d happily share the recipe with Becky. Sigh. My diet was suffering a long and painful death. My wayward thought startled me and I cleared my throat. “When is the viewing?”
She sat at the head of kitchen table and selected a peanut butter cookie from the pile in front of her. “The police chief said his body will be released to the funeral home at four o’clock today. Uri, with the help of the men, will bring him here from the funeral home.”
My brow shot up. “The Amish use a funeral home?” I clamped my mouth shut, feeling crass for asking such a question.
Ellie broke a cookie in half. “Yes, we do for the embalming part of death. We don’t have anyone to do that, and it is the law. We don’t have services there as the Englischers do. Instead, we hold our own services on the third day after death.” She broke the cookie into quarters. “Because of the violent nature of my son’s death, we have had to delay it. The body will be displayed in my home for two days and friends and family will visit. The funeral is on the third day.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said.
“Death is unavoidable.” Her expression fell. “No mother wants to outlive her child, but I have to accept this as the will of Gott.”
I wasn’t as sure about that. I still couldn’t find God’s will in my mother’s death nearly eleven years before.
Timothy swallowed another sour cream cookie. “Grossdaddi sends his condolences.”
Ellie smiled at that. “He’s a gut friend. I hope he will be well enough to attend the funeral.”
“I know that he will want to,” Timothy said. “But the bishop has instructed the district to avoid him and the rest of the family for a time. Grossdaddi would not want his appearance to disrupt such a solemn day.”
Ellie stacked peanut butter cookies five high. “I don’t much care what the bishop and deacon want right now. If I want you and your family to be there, you should come. Chloe, I would like you to come too.”
Uri cleared his throat. “Maam, this isn’t a gut time to irritate the bishop.”
“There’s never a gut time for that. I hope he will respect my wishes.”
“He’s not the one I’m worried about,” Uri muttered.
A timer dinged, and Ellie bustled to the oven. She pulled out the cookie sheet and slipped a new one inside. The baked cookies were just as perfect as every previous batch. “I know you and Timothy aren’t here to talk about the bishop and deacon.” Ellie returned to her seat and started stacking cookies.
I glanced at Timothy and he told Ellie about the attack on his grandfather.
Ellie dropped a cookie on the floor. “That’s horrible. He could have been killed. Do the police think it’s the same person who killed my son?”
Uri picked up the fallen cookie and tossed it into the sink.
“That’s one possibility.” I stacked a few cookies.
“It is hard to believe there would be two monsters like this in the district.”
Uri plucked a sour cream cookie from the table. “Do you really think they are monsters, Maam? They may only be desperate men who made poor decisions.”
She held her son’s gaze. “Whoever would consider murder an option is a monster in my thinking.”
Uri grabbed two more cookies and leaned against the wall.
She glanced back and forth between Timothy and me. “The police must catch this person.”
“That’s why we’re here. We’re helping the police in a . . . um . . . unofficial way.” I resisted the urge to pick up another cookie.
Uri leaned against the wall again. “What does unofficial mean?”
“It means we are concerned citizens.”
He didn’t seem satisfied with that answer. Even to my own ears it sounded weak.
“I know Gott has a reason for all this, but I don’t want it to happen again or to someone else’s child.” Ellie nudged her cookie stacks away from the table’s edge. “How can I help you?”
“Can you answer a few questions?” I asked.
She snapped a cookie in half. “Go ahead.”
I took a deep breath. “Do you know if anyone was angry with Ezekiel?”
“Chief Rose asked me the same thing. Ezekiel rubbed lots of folks the wrong way. A vendor or supplier always seemed to be mad at him. I don’t know how many times I heard my son arguing with someone over the phone about the cost of something. He was a shrewd businessman and felt we deserved the best price and terms on everything. But we’ve worked with all of those vendors and suppliers for over twenty years. I cannot see why any of them would hurt my son now after all this time.”
Ellie had a point. After twenty years, it seemed like a waste of time for those vendors and suppliers to kill Ezekiel now.
“My son was gut at his job. Without him the business would have failed when my husband died.” She sighed.
Against the wall, Uri flinched.
“Was he close to anyone outside of the family?” Timothy asked.
Sadie’s round face came to my mind.
Uri shifted in his place against the wall. “I loved my twin, but he didn’t have many friends. He was prickly. Even so like Maam, it’s hard for me to imagine anyone would want to kill him. Most people were irritated by him.”
“It’s hard to imagine the business without him.” Ellie removed another cookie from the pile and placed it in front of her. “I know how to cook and run a kitchen, but I have no head for figures. Ezekiel took over managing the business, and it’s tripled in size in the ten years since my husband’s death.” She sighed. “It will be up to Uri now to keep the business running.”
Uri pushed away from the wall and scowled. “I’ll be in the barn.” He stomped out of the room.
Ellie sighed. “Uri’s never had much interest in the business. He’s let his brother do most of the work for years. He must realize that it’s on his shoulders now.”
I began stacking chocolate chip cookies. “And if Uri can’t manage the business?”
She frowned and moved cookies crumbs around on her placemat. “Then I will have to reconsider what I want for the restaurant and flea market. My eldest daughter, Bridget, and her husband James have already hinted to me that they are willing to help.” She frowned. “James has had his eye on the flea market since the day he showed up in his courting buggy.”
Mentally, I added James to my list of people to talk to. “Do Bridget and James live in the district?”
She nodded. “They have a sheep farm down the road. It’s been in James’s family for generations.”
I knocked over a stack of cookies and quickly restacked them. Sheep farm? Didn’t Chief Rose say the killer stabbed Ezekiel with sheep shears?
“Are Bridget and James here today?” I asked, hoping my voice didn’t sound as eager as I felt.
“They were, but they had to go home to tend the flock. They will be here as much as possible,” Ellie said.
“Uri will rise to the challenge,” Timothy said, “in time.”
She smiled. “You might be right. You know it was his idea to enclose th
e pavilions, which despite everything, will be a great improvement for our family. Perhaps he will pull through.” She sighed. “Time is what he needs. He’s taking it hard. I know everyone thought the twins spent most of their time fighting, but they were close. They have lived together their whole lives. I worry about Uri. I hope he knows he can go on without Ezekiel.”
I leaned forward. “Was Ezekiel acting strangely before he died? Anything out of the ordinary?”
She thought for a minute. “He was his typical grouchy self, but somehow he seemed less so. I even caught him smiling to himself once. I asked him what he was smiling about, and he snapped at me. That was his way. He didn’t have time for frivolity.”
Sadie. She was the one who’d managed to bring a smile to Ezekiel’s face. I twisted my mouth. “Was there anyone else Ezekiel talked about outside of the family?”
She snapped a butter cookie in half. “You mean in business. He spoke of many people. You wouldn’t believe the number of vendors, suppliers, farmers, and merchants we deal with on a daily basis to keep the restaurant and flea market running. Also, now with the construction, the number of folks Ezekiel dealt with had doubled.”
“Any . . . um . . . friends?”
Timothy stared at me.
Ellie frowned. “Nee, my Ezekiel was too busy for friends, and neither of my sons has shown much interest in marriage.”
“How old are the twins?” I asked.
“They just turned thirty this past May.”
“That’s not too old.”
“Maybe in the Englisch world, but for the Amish they should have two or three children by now.”
Timothy, who was twenty-seven, shifted in his seat. Had he stayed Amish, he would certainly be married by now with children. The idea made me sick to my stomach.
The timer went off on the oven again. “Do you have any more questions?” Ellie asked.
I opened my mouth, but Timothy was faster. “Not right now. Thank you for speaking with us, Ellie.”
She opened the oven door. “You’re welcome. In return, I expect to see both of you at the funeral.”
I opened my mouth again to make an excuse, but again Timothy spoke first. “We will be there.”
Timothy and I walked back to the restaurant together. “Why did you tell her that we would attend the funeral? You know how the bishop feels about it.”
He peered down at me. “If a grieving mother wants me to attend her son’s funeral, I’m going to be there. It’s as simple as that.”
“Are you free now?”
“I can be,” Timothy said with a smile.
“Good, because I need to meet some sheep.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
As I expected, Timothy knew the location of the Zug Sheep Farm. Mabel barked in the backseat of his pickup as the vehicle jostled onto the Zug’s private road. Timothy stared straight ahead and concentrated on driving because over the past week the snow and ice had added more ruts and dips to the road.
“So,” he said as the truck leveled out on a fairly even piece of froze ground. “You think James Zug murdered his brother-in-law so that he could take over the Young family business.”
“It’s a possibility,” I said, defensively.
Woof! Mabel agreed from the backseat. I scratched her under the chin to thank her for the support.
“If that’s the case, why kill one twin? Why not kill them both? There’s no guarantee that Uri’s not up to the task of operating the business.”
“Maybe he feels he knows Uri well enough to know he won’t be able to handle all the responsibility.”
“I’m not arguing with you.” Timothy lightened his tone. “We have to check out every lead. I just wanted to warn you that this might not turn into anything. Besides, if I were a sheep farmer, I sure wouldn’t use sheep shears to kill someone.”
Grudgingly, I admitted to myself that he had a point.
Riding along the Zug’s driveway, even more rut-covered than the road, felt like an amusement park ride as Timothy’s pickup bumped and hopped up the incline. Fencing lined with chicken wire protected either side of the drive and more sheep than I could count. The sheep wore thick, off-white winter coats, their limbs and faces black. I didn’t see any lambs, only adults and yearlings. A yearling leaped over a larger sheep sleeping just on the other side of the fence. He landed in white powder and rolled onto his back, as if making a sheep’s version of a snow angel.
“They’re cute.”
Timothy gave me a sideways glance. “They’re not super bright.”
“What does brightness matter when compared to cute?”
He rolled his eyes and parked the truck about twenty yards from a large red sheep barn. Farther down the road, stood a one-story ranch-style home. “Most likely they are in the barn since Ellie said they left to care for the sheep. I imagine they will do everything they need to here, then head back to Young’s.”
Timothy and I hopped out of the truck, and Mabel jumped out too. Her tail went into overdrive when she saw the sheep.
Timothy eyed her. “Mabel, sit.”
She sat by the truck. Her tail swept back and forth across the frozen ground like a broom, but her eyes never left the sheep.
An Amish man in muddy work boots and a black overcoat came out of the barn. His beard was sandy blond, and he wore a black stocking cap on his head.
“Timothy,” the Amish man said. “What can I do for you?” He shot a curious glance in my direction.
Timothy stuck his hands in his jeans pockets. “We’ve just come from Ellie’s and shared our condolences.”
A strange look crossed James’s face. “Danki. It’s been a hard time for my wife and her family.” He half turned and shouted something in Pennsylvania Dutch into the barn.
A woman and girl stepped out of the barn, their skirts mud-encrusted at the hemlines. The girl was sixteen or seventeen and had round cheeks, bright pink from the cold, and dark hair tucked under a bonnet. The woman was an older version of her daughter.
“This is my wife, Bridget, and my daughter Abby.”
Abby Zug. She was one of Leah’s two friends. Would James attack his own child like that? Why hadn’t Ellie mentioned her granddaughter was one of the girls attacked?
I cleared my throat. “Nice to meet you.”
Abby wouldn’t meet my eyes.
James placed a hand on his wife’s arm. “Timothy and . . .” He looked at me questioningly.
“Chloe,” I supplied.
He nodded. “ . . . Chloe are here to pay condolences for your brother.”
“We are so sorry for your loss,” Timothy said. “Ezekiel was a smart man, a great business man.”
“Danki.” Bridget lowered her head and removed a white handkerchief from her black apron pocket. As she pulled her hand from the pocket, I saw a flash of metal, shaped like a circle.
“Business is all Ezekiel Young cared about,” James muttered.
“James,” Bridget said. “My bruder was a fine man.”
James snorted. “A fine man. His twin bruder could barely tolerate him.” He grimaced. “I’m sorry for the family’s loss. Ellie’s been gut to us. I don’t wish any of them any ill will, but let’s not pretend that Ezekiel was a saint just because he is gone.”
I stared at the circle of metal sticking out of her pocket. “Are those sheep shears?”
Bridget removed the shears from her pocket. “Yes. We were trimming some of the yearlings just now. They won’t really be sheared until spring, but Abby and I were cutting out the burrs and knots from their coats.”
The seven-inch long shears were like two butcher knives facing each other, welded together by a compressed circle of metal. They had a medieval appearance. If I were a sheep, I certainly wouldn’t want to see those prehistoric scisso
rs coming at me. The tips were sharpened to a fine point.
James turned to his wife and daughter, speaking to them in their language. They nodded and went back to the barn. When they were inside the barn, he glared at Timothy and me. “What is this really about? You could have paid my wife condolences the next time we were at Young’s. I know you are working for them, Timothy.”
Timothy shifted from foot to foot. “Do you know why anyone would want to hurt your brother-in-law?”
His eyes narrowed. “Nee.”
“Where were you the night your brother-in-law was killed?” I asked. It was a simple question but held so much weight.
James turned his hazel eyes on mine for the first time. “I was at the auction house, bedding down my sheep for the night. I sold them next day. Do you doubt this?”
I swallowed. “No.”
“Because if you do, you can talk to any number of livestock owners who were there.” He turned to Timothy. “Do you think I killed my brother-in-law?”
“We heard you want to run Young’s,” Timothy said.
James’s jaw twitched. “I’ve made no secret of that. Why shouldn’t I be included in the business? It is part of my wife’s heritage. I could contribute to it.”
“Uri and Ezekiel didn’t want your help.”
“Of course, they don’t. They want to keep all of it, including the money. Let’s make no mistake, theirs is one of the wealthiest, Amish or Englisch, families in the county.” James’s face turned red. “I will not let you insult me on my land. Please leave.”
I shook my head. “We didn’t mean . . .
“I know exactly what you meant. Please, go. I see now why the bishop advised us to stay away from the Troyers.”
Timothy’s jaw twitched. “We are sorry to have offended you.” He turned to me. “Let’s go, Chloe.”
Inside the truck, I stopped just short of punching Timothy in the arm. “Why didn’t you tell me Abby Zug was Ellie’s granddaughter?”
He shrugged. “I guess I forgot.”
“You forgot? How could you forget that?”
“Chloe, everyone in the Amish community is related to someone else in some way either by marriage or blood or both. Half the folks in the county are related to me. It’s hard enough for me to keep all my own relatives straight.”
Appleseed Creek Trilogy, Books 1-3 Page 42