He gripped the handle of the shovel like a sword. “I didn’t have anything to do with Katie’s death,” he shouted. “I would never hurt anyone, especially her.”
I stepped back. “If that’s true, why don’t you drop the shovel?”
He looked at the shovel as if seeing it for the first time, his eyes suddenly wide. He lowered it and drove the spade into the dirt ground of the stall until it stuck there.
“What are you digging?”
“It’s none of your business, and you’d better leave. Now.”
I shrugged as if what he said didn’t bother me, but inside my entire body trembled. Thankfully, about thirty feet and the wall of the stall stood between us. I could run out the door before he reached me. I removed my cell phone from my pocket. “Maybe you would like to tell Chief Rose and the police, then?”
His chin jerked upward, then he ran out through the back of the stall. The kid must have been a track and field sprinter because he was on the other side of the barn before I found my footing. I dropped the tire iron and gave chase, but no way would I be able to catch him.
But Tanisha could. She dove at the teen’s feet like she was back on her college volleyball team and he was the ball. Instead of bumping him over the other side of the net, however, she grabbed him around the ankles. He went down like a felled tree. On landing, he pinned his own arms under himself.
Before he could roll over, Tanisha sat on the boy’s back. “My old volleyball coach would be proud of me if he had seen that dig. I jumped three feet.”
“It was impressive,” I said, bending down to examine the kid’s face. “Did you hurt him?”
“How could I have hurt him? He landed on snow.”
I stepped around the prostrate teenager. He was trying to hold his face up out of the snow, but with little success. “What’s your name?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Tanisha bounced on his back. “Come on, kid. Spit it out.”
The boy winced and groaned. “Will you tell her to climb off of me?”
I crossed my arms. “No, not until you tell us your name.”
“So you can tell the police?”
“That is the idea.”
He squirmed back and forth. “Then forget it.”
Tanisha dug her knee into his back and reached into the pocket of the kid’s jeans and removed his wallet. She waved it at me. “I say we check his ID.”
He kicked at her with his long legs, bending them back and trying to smack her with his heels.
She slapped at one of his boots. “That’s not very nice. You cut that out.”
I took the wallet from Tanisha’s hand and opened it. The picture ID inside read Jason Catcher.
Jason. I knew that name. Was he the English boy Katie had called a friend?
Jason began to thrash back and forth. “I can report you both for assault.”
Tanisha snorted. “What are you going to tell the police—that a girl sat on you? Please.”
I rifled through his wallet some more. Behind the driver’s license was a Harshberger College ID. That’s why he recognized me. I held it up for him to see. “You go to Harshberger, then.”
“So what if I do.”
I shrugged. “I just find it interesting since I work there.” I peered at the card. “It says you’re a freshman.”
“So. Is that a crime?”
I tucked his IDs back into the wallet. “No, but vandalizing property is.”
He twisted his neck. “Vandalizing what? I didn’t do that.”
“What do you call the great big hole you were digging in the barn?”
“That’s not vandalism. No one cares about that barn anyway.”
“That’s something you will have to talk to the chief about. She may not agree.”
Tanisha smacked at his foot as he tried to kick her again. “Now, why were you digging a hole in the barn?”
“Get her off of me. I can’t breathe. She’s crushing me.” His squirming became more violent.
Tanisha’s brow shot way up. “Did he just call me fat? Because I think he just called me fat.” She bounced on his back.
Jason gave up the fight. “Ooph.”
Tanisha was far from fat, but as a tall, muscular athlete she wasn’t a lightweight either. I held out a hand to my friend. “Climb off of him. He’s no good to us if he can’t breathe.”
“I’m freezing, too, lying on the snow like this.”
“Poor baby,” Tanisha muttered.
“Tee.”
She took my hand, allowing me to hoist her up. “Fine.”
Jason grunted as he struggled to his feet. “Give me my wallet.”
Tanisha turned to me. “I think you should hold onto it,” she said.
The kid scowled. “If I’m pulled over while driving home, and I don’t have my license, I will be in deep trouble.”
Tanisha brushed off the snow Jason had kicked onto her. “That sounds great to me.”
I gripped the wallet. “I’ll give it back to you when you tell me why you were digging in the barn.”
“Because I was told to.” He held out his hand. “Can I have it back now?”
“Who told you to?”
He dug a fist into his side. “That wasn’t a condition. You keep cheating.”
Tanisha snorted. “This kid has a lot of nerve.” She scanned him up and down. “That will work for you in prison, buddy.”
Jason paled. “Who said anything about going to prison?”
“Whoever killed Katie is going to jail,” I said.
“I told you already—it wasn’t me.”
I crossed my arms and cocked my head. “Tell us about your relationship with Katie Lambright.”
“This has nothing to do with Katie!” he bellowed.
Tanisha put a hand over one ear. “Geez, kid, there’s no reason to break the sound barrier.”
“Katie was your friend, wasn’t she?” I asked.
He glanced away, and tears sprang to his eyes. “She was my best friend.”
Tanisha stuck a hand on her hip. “Your best friend was an Amish girl?”
A tear slid down Jason’s nearly frostbitten cheek. “Please give me my wallet, so I can go home. I knew I shouldn’t have come here.”
I held out the wallet to Jason and he ripped it from my hand. Without a backward glance he took off and ran across the field.
“Why did you give it to him?” Tanisha asked.
“Because it was his, but I didn’t give it all back.” I waved Jason’s student ID at Tanisha before slipping it into my pocket. “The chief will be able track him down with this. I’ve seen her in action. It’s impressive. We did have an important victory here.”
Tanisha jumped from foot to foot. “What is that?”
“He left whatever he was digging up in the barn.”
Tanisha let out an excited gasp and ran for the barn door. “Let’s go see what it is.”
Inside, we stared into the two-feet-deep hole in the barn’s dirt floor. “It’s some kind of safe-deposit box,” I said. “Help me pull it out.”
We dropped to our knees on either side of the box, reached inside the hole, and tugged.
“This thing weighs a ton,” Tanisha complained.
I agreed, but focused on the task before us. “On the count of three. One, two, three!” We yanked the box from the frozen earth, wrestling it out of its hole, and set it on the ground.
Tanisha blew out a long breath. “Is this how the Amish bank? By burying their wealth, underground?”
“I’m not sure this belongs to an Amish person.” With my glove, I wiped dirt away from the box’s latch and lifted it. It stuck at first, but then gave way.
“I guess whoever buried it didn’t think that it needed a lock underground,” Tanisha
said.
I lifted the heavy lid and peered inside. A folded cotton sheet covered the contents. I found a windshield wiper in one of the milk crates and used it to move a piece of the cloth back to reveal a framed photograph and a wad of money held together with a rubber band.
“Are those hundred-dollar bills?” Tanisha asked.
I nodded.
She reached for the money with her bare hand.
I grabbed her wrist. “Don’t touch it.”
Tanisha pulled back. “I would guess that’s at least a thousand dollars.”
“If they are all hundred-dollar bills, it’s a whole lot more than that.” I knelt for a closer look at the photograph without picking it up. It was a picture of a middle-aged woman and man. In between then was a younger, thinner version of a man I recognized. “That’s Billy,” I said. “The guy I told you the police were looking for.”
“Why would he bury all this?”
“I guess he wasn’t really ready to give up his old life, the one he had before he went to prison.” I sighed. “I wish there was some clue in here about where he may have gone. He might lead us to Katie’s killer.”
“He might be Katie’s killer,” Tanisha said. “This time capsule, or whatever it is, is giving me the creeps.”
“Why didn’t he come here first to collect this before he fled?” I wondered aloud. My fingers had gone numb from the cold. Slowly, I stood up. “We’ve got to take this box with us.”
“Isn’t that tampering with evidence? You know they show old CSI episodes on television in Italy too.”
“If we don’t, Jason might come back and take it, and Chief Rose needs this for the case.” I removed my cell phone from my pocket, and speed-dialed the chief’s number. Again, I got voice mail. We couldn’t sit around all day until she decided to check her phone, and I didn’t believe this merited a 911 call. “She’s not answering. We have to take it with us.”
Tanisha shook her head. “We can carry it a few feet, Chloe, but not a mile. It will take forever.”
I spotted a piece of metal—sheeting from a car door. All the innards of the door had been removed. I tapped it with my boot and it moved easily. “Let’s put the box on this piece of metal.” Tanisha helped me hoist the box onto the old car door.
Inside one of the milk crates, I found several large bungee cords.
“What are you going to do with those?” she asked.
“Watch.” I secured the box to the sled with one set of bungee cords. Then used two more bungees to make pulls on either side of the car door.
“What is it?” Tanisha asked.
I handed her one of the pulls. “A sled.”
“Wow,” Tanisha said. “You’ve really gone country. That or you’ve been watching a lot of MacGyver reruns. We get those in Milan too. If I needed to, I could make a small bomb with a paperclip and gum.”
I pulled the makeshift sled toward the door. “Let’s hope that particular skill does not become necessary.”
Chapter Eighteen
We stepped into the Appleseed Creek Police Department and set the box on the floor. Tanisha glanced around the sparse room. “They could use a decorator in here,” she whispered.
The door that led into the interrogation room opened and Chief Rose stepped out. “Sorry I missed your call. I was in the middle of a traffic stop.” She pointed at the box. “What do you have for me, Humphrey?”
“Something Billy left behind.”
She narrowed her eyes, which were outlined in bright blue. “You mean Walter.”
“It’s simpler to call him Billy. That’s who he is to us.”
She shrugged and glanced at Tanisha. “Who is this?”
“This is my friend, Tanisha. She’s visiting from Italy.”
The chief raised an eyebrow. “You’re Italian?”
Tanisha shook her head. “I’m teaching over there. Love your eyeliner, by the way.”
“Thanks,” the chief drawled. “Did Walter leave this gift for me?”
I shook my head and told her how Tanisha and I found the box. Then I handed her Jason’s college ID.
She arched an eyebrow. “He gave this to you?”
Tanisha suppressed a smile. “We borrowed it for you.”
Chief Rose snorted and knelt by the box. She pulled a pair of latex gloves from her pocket, and as she slipped them on said, “I would have preferred you leave the box there and hang around until I had showed up. This evidence has now been compromised.”
I flushed. “We thought that he would come back and take it.”
The chief scowled and picked up the wad of money with a whistle. “Looks like this was Walter’s getaway stash. He must have buried it in the Gundy barn when he first moved to Appleseed Creek.”
“Why didn’t he take it with him before he disappeared?” I asked.
Chief Rose stood and leaned against the side of the desk. “There are a couple of possibilities. Either he didn’t leave of his own free will or he was too spooked by finding or killing Katie Lambright.”
“Do you really think he did it?”
The police chief sat at her receptionist’s desk and flipped Jason’s ID on the desktop. It spun until it came to rest in the middle of the flat surface. “I think he could have and that’s enough for me.”
“How does Jason know Billy?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” the chief said, “but I’ll be sure to ask him.”
“Are you going to arrest him?” Tanisha asked.
Chief Rose leaned back in her chair. “For digging a hole?”
“For trespassing.”
“Then I would have to arrest everyone who goes out to that old barn.” She eyed me. “Including Troyer, Humphrey . . . and you.” She stood up and removed her gloves. “I need to take this over to the sheriff’s department. Maybe one of the techs can pull a fingerprint off the box.” She examined us. “Did either of you touch any of this?”
“We wore gloves,” Tanisha said.
She nodded. “Smart girls. What else do you have for me?”
I swallowed. “Katie was courted by a couple of Amish guys—Caleb King and Nathan Garner. Caleb was upset when she started dating Nathan.”
“I know that. Humphrey, I gave you this assignment to find out stuff I didn’t know.”
I frowned.
She sighed. “I’m not saying that you did a bad job. Thanks for the box. Next time you find something, wait for me. I will come to you.”
Tanisha and I walked out of the police department. “Is she always like that?”
I laughed. “Yep.”
“Where to now? Food? Crime fighting makes me hungry.”
“I know just the place to take you.”
Twenty minutes later, Tanisha burst out laughing when we turned into the parking lot at Young’s. “What’s so funny?” I asked.
“This restaurant is enormous. Are you sure it doesn’t have its own zip code? My friends in Italy always say how huge things are in America and I guess they’re right. I notice it more now.” She rolled down the window, allowing the cold winter air to circulate inside the Bug. “Look at all those buggies. Aren’t they charming? I have to take some photos. My friends in Italy will love them.”
“Be careful not to take pictures of the Amish themselves. They don’t like it. Or if you take a photograph, don’t let them see you.”
She nodded.
I drove around to the back of the building. “Where are you going?” she asked. “Wasn’t the entrance in the front?”
“It is, but Ellie, the owner, lets the Troyer family park by the kitchen in the back.”
She smirked. “She lets the Troyer family, and you are counted in that number. You still think you and Timothy aren’t serious?”
I ignored her question and parked my Bug a few feet away from Sparky stan
ding in front of Grandfather Zook’s buggy. “Hey, Spark,” I said as we passed him.
Tanisha threw a glance over her shoulder. “You’re friends with the horses too?”
I laughed.
Instead of walking through the kitchen, I led Tanisha to the side door by the office entrance. I knew that would be closest to the hostess stand where we would most likely find Ellie.
We walked down the short hallway past the offices and restrooms. A group of English tourists who waited for their table played checkers on a white wooden table between matching rockers. Others read Amish Country brochures in front of the burning fireplace. Although an Amish home would not have a Christmas tree, a simply decorated one stood in a corner next to the fireplace. The only ornaments were handmade bows and silver glass balls. Naomi and Thomas stood in front of the Christmas tree examining each ornament with studied attention.
Grandfather Zook sat on a rocker closest to the hostess station. He stacked his metal braces against the wall behind him. “Chloe, we have been waiting for you,” he said. “Becky told us that you had a friend visiting.”
“Grandfather Zook, this is Tanisha.”
Tanisha held out her hand to the older Amish man, and he clasped it between his two wrinkled ones. “It is gut to meet you. Chloe has spoken about you and your family many times.”
Tanisha smiled her dazzling, white smile. “Every time she e-mails me she writes about your family.”
“E-mail? Yes, I know this is some computer mail. I prefer a letter, which you can keep and save.”
“When I arrive back to Italy, I will send you a letter then.”
“Oh, make it a postcard. I would love to see a picture of where you live.” Grandfather Zook winked at me. “I bring in the mail every day, which is a gut thing. Who knows what my son-in-law would think about me getting mail from Italy.” He let go of her hand. “You say Chloe writes about us, but she must mention Timothy the most?”
A blush worked its way up my neck. Between Tanisha and Grandfather Zook I would have no rest from the teasing.
Tanisha leaned toward Grandfather Zook. “She talks about him all the time.”
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