by Madelyn Alt
I looked down at our joined hands. Fingers interlacing, heat, and feeling. “It was a feeling, more than anything. I saw him that morning, at the auction. He was a good-looking guy, you know. Different from all the other Amish men I can remember seeing. He had an aura about him, a confidence in the way he held himself. He oozed it. Then there was the way he looked at women. Like he knew exactly what he had going on. I saw him after, too, when I was buying noodles from Hester.”
Briefly I described how he had met my gaze while his wife’s back was turned. The directness that seemed intended to let a woman know that he knew just what she thought of him.
Tom absorbed it all, every last word, every last impression and intuition. “The boy I told you about? He took us out to where he said they’d found the wallet, and it did look like there had been foot traffic there. Grass trampled in the area, plants broken, that sort of thing. We know the boys were seen together at a convenience store that evening, and were back for lockdown at the Lodge by their eight-thirty curfew, but there’s a span of time there in the early evening that isn’t accounted for. The boys are a definite possibility, wanting to cut a deal or no—it could just be they’re trying to head off a more serious charge. But I don’t know. There’s still something about this whole thing that just doesn’t feel right. I can’t put my finger on it.”
Now he was venturing into my territory of feeling and emotion, and while I knew it wouldn’t last, I was determined to make the most of it.
“Where did the boy say they’d found it?”
“Out in Alden Woods. Inland from where Luc was found. It’s a pretty big area—stretches from that county road all the way over to the outside edge of town—and it’s a known playground for the teenage boys of Blackhawk. They’ve been giving us a run for our money lately, that’s for sure. We’ve had loads of complaints coming in, and backlash running counter to the complaints as well.”
“Don’t they have security measures in place at Black-hawk?” I asked him.
“Yeah, sure. Curfews and lockdowns. But it seems pretty easy for the boys to get out and about whenever they damn well please.”
“So,” I said, “exactly what are we dealing with here? Why was Luc killed?”
“Damned if I know. But I’m starting to get that itchy feeling, Maggie. There’s something I’m missing, and I hate that. I’m a cross your Ts kind of guy.”
I heaved a sigh. “I hate to say this, because I really feel bad for her, but if you look at things from a purely factual perspective, I still think that Hester is a strong possibility, despite the alibi. Revenge is a pretty big motivator. Even among pacifists. A person can easily say ‘Turn the other cheek,’ but until faced with betrayal of the most hurtful kind, can they know how they might react?”
“A woman scorned?” His mouth tightened into a grim line. “Yeah, but she has all those kids, and a mother’s protective instincts are pretty strong, too. Would she really risk their safety as well as her own in order to extract her pound of flesh from a cheating husband when divorce was unlikely? I know it’s possible—everything is possible—but is it likely? Pacifist beliefs among the Amish are a pretty hard-line principle. Not something she would turn away from easily. Besides, she’s a woman. She could have made him suffer in so many other ways.”
Oh, that was sooo chauvinistic.
Pain and suffering had so many different faces. So many different victims. And betrayal had a way of bringing them all to the surface.
“There, um, there are symbols marked in the margins of the letter itself,” he confided haltingly. “Like the one on the tree. Maybe you could take a look at them later. Maybe if we understand the symbols, we might understand her state of mind when she wrote the letter. They might be important, and I know no one on the force can help me with them.”
It was a step in the right direction. A huge step, for Tom. I knew what it must have cost him. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Chapter 16
The girls didn’t say anything until Tom had gone on his way. Then everyone gathered around me as I pretended to concentrate on the day’s receipts.
“So?”
I glanced up as Tara leaned her elbows on the counter. “So?”
“What did the Copmeister want?”
Tara wasn’t exactly reserved about voicing her opinions on societal influences, so this was nothing new. “What makes you think he wanted something?”
She arched her brow at me. “Are you denying it?”
I glanced at Evie, but she was watching me just as curiously. “Not necessarily. What makes you think he didn’t just want the opportunity to kiss me senseless without comment or helpful pointers from the peanut gallery?”
“Him? Please. I don’t know what you see in him, Maggie.”
“He has his good points. And besides, I don’t know why you think that’s any of your business.”
She shrugged. “I just want the best for you, that’s all.”
“Well, that’s nice. But I can handle that part of my life on my own. It works out better that way.”
“I suppose.”
“I mean, you wouldn’t want me to make helpful suggestions to you about Charlie Howell, would you?”
She snorted. “Yeah, right. Like I need any help from you. Er, what I mean is”—she backtracked quickly with an apologetic grin—“Charlie and I are taking things slow. I’m a great believer in destiny. If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. I’ve got the time. Whereas you’re getting up there in years, and you’re needing things to get a move on. If you get my meaning.”
I did. Only too loud and clear. And why did that make me want to make a mad grab for the chocolate display?
I waited until Tara and Evie had gone into the back to take care of a delivery before I spoke to Liss, who had absorbed the entire exchange with quiet amusement. “Would you mind if I borrowed your nephew’s book for the evening?” I asked.
“Not at all.” She took out a tote bag and put the book inside, tucking tissue paper all around it to disguise it. “There we are. One book of magical symbols, incognito. No one will ever guess.” As an afterthought, she grabbed a couple of red candles and a glass tray and wrapped those to tuck into the bag as well. At my raised eyebrows, she said, innocently enough, “Red is for passion and romance, you know. Just in case you wanted to—how did Tara so succinctly put it?—‘Get a move on.’”
Et tu, Liss? Et tu?
“Thanks. I think.”
“Any time, ducks. Don’t forget to state your intent in your mind before you light the candles if you want to use them for anything more pertinent than soft lighting. Oh, and if you need any input, just give us a ring. I should be home later this evening.”
It wasn’t that I didn’t want Liss’s help, but I had told Tom he could trust me, and I was bound and determined not to say anything about it without his permission.
The book called to me as soon as I got in my car. I took it out of the bag, smoothing my hand over the cover, feeling its heft. The amount of knowledge and scholarship in this thick volume would be enough, I hoped, to steer us in the right direction. A light to guide the way.
I dialed Tom’s cell.
“Fielding.”
“Hi, it’s me,” I said when he picked up. “I’m on my way home. I have a book that might help with the symbolism.”
“Maggie, you’re awesome. Can you leave it with me?”
“Oh. Oh, I don’t know that I can do that. It’s Liss’s book, actually. I told her I was only borrowing it for the night.”
“Damn. I’m tied up right now. There’s no way I’ll be getting out of here for hours.”
“Well…You know, if you wanted to, you could make a copy of the letter for me. I’d be happy to start sorting through the symbols myself. You can stop by my place when you do get free.”
“I don’t know,” he hedged.
“Did you want to draw out the symbols for me? I could pick them up.”
“Well, I guess it wouldn’t h
urt anything. I’ll leave it in an envelope for you at the front desk.”
Another huge foray into the realm of trust. “Okay. See you later?”
“Count on it. And Maggie? Thanks.”
I hung up, feeling warm and wonderful and somehow useful. At least, I hoped I would be of use to him.
Tom had everything ready when I arrived at the police station. I picked up the envelope from Jeannette, and was out the door in minutes and on my way again. I couldn’t resist peeking inside the envelope in the parking lot, to see what he’d decided to share.
He hadn’t bothered drawing out the symbols. He’d given me a photocopy of the letter itself. He did trust me. He did.
I was getting that warm and mushy feeling again. Followed immediately by a moment of guilt when an image of Marcus nudged its way in. What was wrong with me? And where was Grandma Cora’s voice of reason when I needed it?
It took every scrap of patience I owned to make myself wait until I reached my apartment on Willow Street
before I took the letter out of the envelope.
Silently, feeling a bit voyeuristic but unable to look only at the markings that had baffled Tom, I read the letter that Hester had written to her husband less than a week ago.
My darling Luc,
I beg of you, don’t turn away from me. Do not think that I don’t see the things that you have been doing. I am not blind, unless it is blindness that causes me to love you despite your weakness. You must stop this, for once and for all. You are my husband, in the eyes of God and all the world. You must turn your face away from the temptation that guides you to others for comfort. I am here, and I give myself to you willingly, body, mind, and soul, for you to do with what you will. I give myself to you completely. Once you loved me above all else and you made me yours, and I am yours still. You must see that…
Tears streamed down my cheeks with each besotted, gut-wrenching avowal of love and forgiveness. A desperation born of love and mindless devotion settled in my heart, crept along my nerve endings, and lodged in the pit of my stomach. I was shaking by the time I finished the letter, signed so plainly:
Love always,
Simple words, and I felt them all as though I had written them myself. She loved him so much, and still he had turned from her to another woman, despite the fact that she knew of his actions and had pleaded with him to stop, to cast the other woman aside, to love only her.
And now he had gotten himself killed.
The question was, Was it Hester herself who had done the deed?
There were four sigils, each identical, one drawn in each corner of the letter. Surrounding her words. This one was different from the sigil that had been nailed to the tree. That one had possessed a darker feel, one of strength and power.
I didn’t need the book for this one.
This symbol was a prescription for love. A ward to preserve it, to strengthen it—I felt sure of it. Within a circle rimmed with a scalloped edge there was an eagle with one wing spread wide and the other wing curved around another bird, reminiscent of a cooing dove or quail. The second bird’s full breast was drawn flush with hearts, and what looked like open tulips trailed from its beak. It was very hearts and flowers, very romantic in feel, and the colors that had been filled into the ink drawing—blue, pink, white, and yellow—definitely followed suit.
What was it about love that tied betrayal to it so irrevocably and so often? In my mind’s eye, I saw Hester that day at the 4-H fairground at Heritage Park, pink-cheeked and lovely with her wayward lock of auburn hair escaping her tidy white cap. And I saw Luc, too, an angel of a man with a devil riding his back. And I couldn’t help but wonder how things had gone so wrong for this young couple.
A beautiful man.
Too beautiful.
Oversexed.
Was he also overhexed?
No more, she had told him.
Just this one last time.
Heartsick, I searched through the book until I found the section Liss had marked earlier: “Folk Magic in America.” Needing as much time as possible to gather my thoughts, I began to read the scholarly treatise. How the protective symbols came with settlers from the Old World, mostly Germany and Switzerland, but the magical practices had tended to blend and merge with the mythology of people from other European countries as well. How they were used mainly as protective measures, talismans to ensure fertility, good harvest, even to protect from lightning and bad weather. To draw blessings.
A happy marriage. Faith. Fidelity. Love.
There were others that the book touched on, but only briefly. Hex signs with darker meanings weren’t as prevalent, but the author—Liss’s nephew, I kept reminding myself—theorized that it was because that was the nature of the beast. Happier messages needed to be seen repeatedly to be reinforced within one’s heart and mind. Just like affirmations could be used to change one’s attitude, happy hexes grew stronger the more they were reviewed.
Darker hexes were formulated in silence, and were sheltered by secrecy. Their very strength lay in their concealment. Forbidden by the Amish way of life, they were relegated to the shadow realm of myth and legend. Their existence was suspected but never admitted to. They were the work of the heverei, magic with dark purpose—the very thing that most benign hex signs were meant to protect against.
Was the sigil on the tree proof of this? What was its purpose?
That was the problem. As it was taboo for the Pennsylvania Dutch even to speak of their hex symbols with outsiders, there was very little information to go on for these markers of shadowy intent.
I sighed, closing the book at last. Slightly more educated, but only very slightly. The book would be of little to no help in deciphering the meaning of the symbol on the tree. When it came right down to it, the only person who could do that with any certainty was its creator.
Chapter 17
I don’t know how long I sat there, feeling numb. What had happened? Had Luc gone too far? Had Hester’s benevolence and patience somehow been stretched so far that they had suddenly snapped? That she had snapped?
Suspicion is such an ugly thing, especially when you desperately don’t want it to be true. And the truth of the matter was, when it came right down to it, I didn’t want Hester to be guilty. I’d been on the receiving end of betrayal. I knew the desperation, the regret, the self-recrimination. Hester was a victim here, just as much as Luc was. She had to be.
Only the person who created the symbol could know with any certainty…
She deserved the chance to speak on her own behalf, didn’t she? To explain?
Whoa, what are you thinking, Maggie girl?
Nothing. Except…
I couldn’t get the sigil on the tree out of my mind. Was it still there? Or had it been removed as evidence?
At least I still had the drawing.
It was still there, just inside the front cover of the book. I took it out and smoothed the wrinkles from the worn scrap of paper. What magic was there in these symbols? What intent? What purpose?
Hester, what were you thinking when you made this?
A thought occurred to me as I studied it. Was it possible? Could looking at it through a more generic universal symbolism help us to decipher it?
It certainly wasn’t your usual hex sign, based on a sun wheel design of some sort. It wasn’t all hearts and flowers and good feelings, either. That much was definite. The absence of color was one of the most telling features. No matter the magical tradition the world over, black was most often used as a color of shadow, of binding, of protection. This design was fiercer, somehow. Harsher lines. A heavier hand.
My phone rang as I sat there, contemplating. I picked it up and held it to my ear, still focused on the drawing before me.
“Hello?”
“Maggie? That you?”
It was Marion’s voice on the other end of the line; I would recognize those forthright tones anywhere. “Hi, Marion. Yes, it’s me. What can I do for you?”
�
��Listen, Maggie. I’ve been doing some more digging—you know me—and I think I found something. About Bertie.”
“Mmhmm?” I was so caught up in my own research, I was only half listening. “You found something about Bertie?”
“And Helen. Maggie, I don’t think that Bertie’s the one who’s causing all the trouble here at the library. I think it’s Helen herself.”
That information managed to filter its way through. I sat up straighter. “Whoa, wait a minute. Really? But I thought—”
“So did I. But I was directing the focus of my research based on years and years of verbal telling, and of course on the diary, which was Helen’s viewpoint only. And you know that in doing research, that logic is totally flawed. People lie. They lie, they cheat, they try to purposely misdirect, to pin blame elsewhere. Maggie, what I’m saying is, I am ninety-nine percent certain that Bertie didn’t start that fire, even accidentally. I think Helen did it.”
I frowned. “But that would mean she caused her own death.”
“Accidentally. She didn’t mean to, of course. She was getting married! She had the library, a respected fiancé, the future to look forward to. But she also had a thorn in her side whose lovelorn behavior embarrassed her. She set the fire. She meant to pin the blame on Bertie so that she could go to the board of directors to have him terminated for negligence of his duties. Only something went very wrong, and she ended up being caught in the fire and dying at the tender age of twenty. Bertie, I think, always suspected, and when he died years later, I think he made a conscious, or at least subconscious, decision to stay, too.”
I sat in silence a moment, absorbing this. “Wow.”
“Is that all you have to say?”
“Yeah. Wow with regard to your researching capabilities, wow that so many things have happened in the past that will always remain shrouded in mystery. Just…wow. How often do you think stuff like that still happens, that no one ever realizes or discovers?”
“Too much. Too many crimes go unsolved. Too many people get away with things that remain shrouded in secrecy. Just look at all the crime-solving shows on television that deal with cold cases. Thank goodness some of them are getting caught at last, even belatedly, with new technology.”