Her Amish Protectors

by Janice Kay Johnson

  He kept the call brief, and had just ended it when Terry murmured, “Will you look at this?” before he began wriggling backward, holding up tweezers he’d used to grip something. Sunlight lit the thing on fire.

  Ben stepped forward. “What in hell?”

  “Earring.”

  Terry dropped it in a small brown paper evidence bag, but held it open so they could both study it.

  “Is it a real diamond, do you think?” Ben asked. If so, that had been a pricey set of earrings, because this was noticeably bigger than the one-carat diamond studs his dad had bought for his mom for Christmas a few years back. Two carats, at least?

  It was a simple post earring, the stone set in silver or white gold, or even in platinum. No back, of course.

  “Don’t know,” Terry said, “but it looks like it could be.”

  “There’s no surface that would hold a fingerprint.”

  “No, but the post would have DNA, if we get that far. When I’m done here, I’ll take this by Larson’s.” The town’s one and only fine jeweler.

  “If it’s a diamond, somebody had to miss this,” Ben said thoughtfully.

  “Oh, yeah. If we’re lucky, Larson will recognize it and still have a record of sales. I don’t think it’s been here long. No dirt even under the prongs. Let me see if I can find the back. You might look under the car.”

  It wasn’t there, but Ben located it a few minutes later, in a weedy area of cracked pavement running along the windowless, cinder block back of an abandoned building that had once been a mattress manufacturer. The woman could have taken a couple steps before it fell. Or it could have been kicked away. Terry could be mistaken about how long the earring had lain there.

  Ben had picked up some hairs with his tweezers, too, but this was an alley. The proprietors in buildings all down the block brought their garbage either here or to the Dumpster near the other end. People probably cut through here. The garbage collectors might get out of their trucks on occasion. Ben would have bet one long, dark hair was Nadia’s.

  They didn’t find a single rifle shell. Of course, they lifted multiple fingerprints from the back of Nadia’s car and the side of the Dumpster. In the case of the Dumpster, years worth of them.

  And Terry did finally lift the lid and hoist himself in, but he didn’t stay long. “Almost everything in here is bagged, neat as can be. Nothing dropped on top.”

  Canvassing didn’t tell them anything, either. None of the people who’d heard the gunshots had been able to see the alley. Mr. Orton, who could have looked out a window, had slept through the whole thing. Apparently, even a siren didn’t wake him.

  Neither the neighbors nor anybody else within a radius of several blocks had seen anyone on foot in the dark, far less someone carrying a rifle. Nobody had particularly noticed a car engine starting, or driving away, but why would they have? They didn’t remember hearing Nadia driving into the alley and parking, either.

  The diamond—if it was a diamond—was the only significant find.

  Having noticed Nadia’s ears were pierced, he called to ask if she’d lost an earring.

  “Not that I’ve noticed,” she said immediately. “I pretty much wear plain yellow-gold balls. I can’t remember the last time I took them out.”

  In the city, Ben wouldn’t have leaped to assume a woman had lost it. Men wore post earrings, too. But not here. Anyway, aside from the fabric store and the barbershop, most of the businesses on the block were Amish owned and had Amish employees. “Prettying themselves” up with jewelry wasn’t their way.

  He went home, showered, shaved and changed into his uniform, ate lunch with Lucy, then went into the station to work on the myriad administrative tasks always waiting for him. Terry called to say that their diamond was indeed real, and the jeweler agreed with his estimation of two carats and said it had excellent clarity. A rough valuation lay in the five-to ten-thousand-dollar range. Unfortunately, it had not been purchased at Larson’s.

  Ben checked, but no one had reported it missing or stolen to the police. Shaking his head, he tried to imagine a woman wearing her best diamond earrings to an attempted assassination.

  And if they belonged to the shooter, it seemed to rule out the farmers who might have been enraged thinking Nadia had kept money intended to help them rebuild. Wouldn’t anyone have sold earrings that valuable, if they’d owned them in the first place?

  What he found himself thinking uncomfortably about were some of those auction volunteers he’d interviewed in the first round. Julie Baird, Karen Llewellyn, Jennifer Bronske and a few others. Women likely to wear diamonds.

  What he couldn’t understand was why any of them would hate or fear Nadia enough to want her dead.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  NADIA HAD MADE the front page of the Henness Herald.

  When Ben appeared at the breakfast table, Lucy had said, “You need to read that.” Loathing filled her voice.

  A snippet about the late-evening shooting in the business district had appeared in yesterday’s paper. Today’s article expanded on it. By the time Ben reached the second paragraph, his blood pressure was soaring.

  Anonymous sources identified Nadia Markovic as the victim. Markovic was previously named as a suspect in the theft of over $100,000 raised during a community-wide charitable event to benefit victims needing help to rebuild after tornado damage.

  Previously named? Presumably an anonymous source for that statement, too, since in fact the police department had not named any persons of interest.

  The article continued with more details about the shooting, including a mention that Markovic remained in the hospital, recovering from her wound. There was a suggestion that the “widespread anger Markovic stirred in the wake of the charity event” left investigators flummoxed as to where to begin seeking this perpetrator. Police had declined to comment, as did the Amish co-chair of the quilt auction and sale, put on with such hopeful intentions.

  Declined? Ben hadn’t been asked for a comment, and no one in his department would have done anything but refer a call from the newspaper editor to him.

  With a growl, Ben turned to the next-to-last page, where editorials, political cartoons and letters to the editor appeared. The editorial had to do with a noise ordinance the city council was considering. But the two letters to the editor concerned Nadia and her “alleged” theft of the money, and were both vicious and small-minded. He’d have liked to call them actionable, but all the right qualifiers had been inserted, and he’d be willing to bet the editor and principal reporter of the newspaper had taken care of that. Nice way to make his point without his name being appended.

  Ben had clashed with Dave Rutledge before, but this time he’d gone too far. As pissed as Ben was that Rutledge had made clear how inept he thought “investigators”—read Ben—were, it was the slaps at Nadia that enraged him.

  The front-page article wasn’t news; it was a thinly disguised editorial. And by God, Ben was going to force a retraction. He’d be stopping by to chat with the two authors of the letters to the editor, too. Their nastiness made them prime suspects in Monday night’s attack on Nadia, as far as he was concerned. He might even “name” them as such. Let Rutledge publish that.

  “Does Nadia subscribe?” he asked.

  “I think so.” Lucy sounded as shaken as she was angry. “She’s being released this morning, right? I’ll go by and ask Hannah to get rid of this morning’s paper before Nadia can see it.”

  The article and, even worse, the letters to the editor were another slap to cement her certainty that she couldn’t stay in Byrum.

  Didn’t these fools realize that only the Amish were keeping this town alive at all? That the vacant space next door to her store where a florist had gone out of business, that the abandoned building behind hers where a small manufacturer had probably once employe
d twenty people or more, were only a few of the empty commercial buildings and storefronts in Byrum? Nadia was the first outsider in a long time to open a business in Byrum—replacing one that had been closed—and make it thrive. A business that offered products locals needed, and drew tourists as well.

  Her success might have inspired someone else to try. But it would seem the good citizens of Byrum and Henness County in general would rather suffer a continued economic decline than welcome anyone they hadn’t known their entire lives.

  Right this minute, he despised the people he had sworn to serve and protect. Ben didn’t much like the feeling.

  “Much as I hate knowing how this crap will make her feel, I think we need to let Nadia see this,” he said. “Sooner or later, someone will mention it. She wouldn’t appreciate being unprepared.”

  “But...”

  “Nadia is strong,” he said quietly. “You’ll see.”

  Not looking at him, Lucy nodded and pushed away from the table. “I wish I could say that about myself.”

  “I wasn’t comparing you.”

  “I know you weren’t. I was comparing myself.”

  A moment later, he heard her footsteps on the stairs.

  * * *

  “I CAN SIT behind the cash register and ring up sales,” Nadia told Hannah in the late morning Wednesday, “if you’ll take over the class this afternoon.” Fortunately, this was their block of the month class. Not that canceling would be the end of the world, she thought. At best, two or three of the registrants might show up.

  Hands planted on her hips, expression stern, Hannah looked like a mother taking on a recalcitrant teenager. “You should lie down.”

  “I’ve been lying down for two days. I’ll go crazy if I have to stare at another ceiling.” Accepting her determination to spend at least a little time in the shop, Ben had taken her medication and hospital paperwork up to her apartment.

  She hadn’t admitted to him that she felt a teeny bit light-headed every time she stood up. With her left arm in a sling at the doctor’s insistence, she wouldn’t be able to heft bolts of fabric onto the cutting table, either. But, by heavens, she could sit here. Probably she should use her time to look at mail, catch up on her newspapers, but she wasn’t ready for a dose of reality on top of the pain pills. Bills could wait.

  And, if any customers materialized, she could operate the cash register.

  Hannah threw up her hands. “Ja, fine. Ach, you are as muleheaded as Jacob.”

  Nadia laughed. It hurt—but it felt good, too.

  “Someone is here,” Hannah said, looking past her.

  The tension in her voice had Nadia swiveling on her stool. An extra-long van had pulled up right in front. It seemed to be crammed full of people. An attack squad? Protesters?

  Well, attack squad was probably out, since the passengers seemed to all be women, some young enough to spring out of the van, the middle-aged and elderly passengers taking more care. They streamed toward her door.

  Nadia braced herself.

  The first through the door swept the store with an avid look. The second, middle-aged, wore a hot-pink T-shirt that said “Old quilters never die. They just go to pieces.”

  She grinned at Hannah and Nadia, both of whom were probably gaping. “We’re a little overwhelming, aren’t we? We’re all quilters from Kansas City. Every six months or so, we hire a van and take two days to travel from one fabric store to another. You weren’t here the last time we came to this part of the state.”

  In Colorado, Nadia had belonged to a group like this. They were all hungry to find that one special fabric or a color and pattern perfect for a quilt in the planning. No two stores carried the same stock. Nadia made a point of searching out new and unusual lines.

  “We’ve only been open six months. Welcome!”

  The women spread throughout the store with gasps and cries of delight. Several others, she saw in passing, also wore T-shirts with slogans. The most apropos was one that said “Ever hear about the quilter that had too much fabric? Me neither.” She counted—it felt like more, but there were nine women in the group.

  They exclaimed over quilts on display, but most plunged right in between rows of fabric. In no time, they were heaping bolts of fabric on the cutting table, where Hannah worked nonstop with the rotary cutter.

  “Oh, I’m not sure there’s five yards left on this bolt,” she’d say. “Let’s see.” Then, “Ja, ja! Chust enough.” Her accent seemed to be thickening with the excitement.

  A minute later. “Three yards of each? I will chust pile them here, see?”

  Nadia directed several of the women to her displays of fat quarters and fat eighths—small pieces perfect for accents. She bundled many that went together.

  The crowd stayed for almost two hours, and spent an astronomical amount of money, sweeping out at last with bags bulging with fabric, thread and a few quilting books.

  “This is a fabulous store,” one woman assured her, while another said, “We’ll be back!”

  The women piled into the van. As it pulled away from the curb, waving hands could be seen.

  Neither Hannah nor Nadia moved for a minute. Then they looked at each other and laughed.

  “I think I need to lie down now!” Hannah declared.

  “Oh, my. It was like two weeks’ worth of customers all in two hours.”

  “The blade on the cutter was getting dull.”

  “It felt like a whirlwind.”

  Hannah giggled. “Ja! That one woman—did you see her? She bought thirty yards, and some fat quarters, too.”

  If gloating was prideful, Hannah didn’t remark on it. Unfortunately, the anesthetic properties of all that excitement wore off with the speed of a birthday balloon losing its helium, and Nadia realized if she didn’t take a pain pill and lie down, she’d be flat on her face any minute.

  Hannah shooed her upstairs, where she ate a couple soda crackers in hopes they’d protect her stomach, swallowed a pill and lay down very carefully on her side in bed. She couldn’t decide if her shoulder or her head hurt the worst. But thank goodness she’d been stubborn! Hannah couldn’t have coped on her own, not with so many eager shoppers at the same time.

  A smile curved Nadia’s mouth as her eyelids grew heavy. But it wasn’t the numbers she’d rung up on the cash register she was thinking about as sleep sucked her in. No, she pictured Ben in the chair beside her bed the past two nights. Every time she started awake, he seemed to know and would soothe her back to sleep with gentle touches and the deep velvet of his voice.

  She hadn’t overcome her fears where he was concerned, and she winced away from the memory of the humiliating search and the scary and hurtful knowledge that he believed she had stolen the money. But...the Ben who hadn’t left her side all night, who had held her hand and kept her safe, he was hard to resist.

  When she woke up two hours later, heart pounding from a dream that slid away from her while leaving a weight of dread, she moved stiffly to the kitchen where she ate cottage cheese and a peach, then went downstairs.

  Somebody tried to kill me.

  And that was why Ben had stayed at her side. Not out of passionate devotion, but because he was determined to keep her alive.

  She nodded at the women just arriving for the class session, puzzled when their gazes touched on her sling and slid away. Neither asked how she’d been hurt. Because they already knew?

  Lips pressing together, she marched to the hallway where her mailbox was located. Mail and newspapers went in from the street side; she unlocked a small door to retrieve what had been delivered.

  The handful of envelopes probably did contain bills; she didn’t really look at them. It was the two newspapers she hadn’t yet seen she set on the counter beside the cash register. The Downtown Shooting headline caught her eye immediate
ly.

  Within seconds, nausea hit.

  Markovic was previously named as a suspect in the theft of over $100,000 raised during a community-wide charitable event to benefit victims needing help to rebuild after tornado damage.

  Still absorbing the other veiled allegations, she read the rest of the newspaper mechanically, not really taking any of it in.

  But she did take in the vitriolic content of the letters to the editor. Oh, yes. She did.

  * * *

  AFTER CONTEMPLATING THE surprisingly full parking lot, Ben walked into the Harley-Davidson store on the outskirts of Byrum. The place was busier than Hy-Vee, the only large grocery store in town. He scanned the store as he did any space when he entered it, his eye catching on a cluster of guys in their late teens or early twenties ogling a bike, chrome and black leather and a powerful engine, not to mention a price way out of their means. Dreaming was a lot of fun, though, and it appeared the salesman was being indulgent.

  He recognized the woman he’d come to see, working behind the counter. Her hair wasn’t the same color it had been, but he knew her, all right. She was tied up right now, apparently helping a pair of women make a decision on...he couldn’t tell from this distance. Coffee mugs? Maybe. Another customer was hanging back waiting for her attention.

  It was logical that the store offered replacement parts and accessories for the motorcycles, as he’d have expected, and, okay, riding pants and chaps, helmets, boots and bandannas. But regular clothes? Men’s and women’s departments both carried shirts, jeans, caps, distinguished by the Harley name or logo. There was even luggage. When he finally approached the glass counter, he saw the coffee mugs, along with barware, clocks, sunglasses and heated gloves. No, not just gloves—heated vests, jacket liners and pants, too. Seemed like cheating to him.

  “Chief Slater.” The platinum blonde behind the counter said. “Did you find something that interests you?”