He didn’t mean that, not really. He wouldn’t be willing to stay in Holmes County, Ohio, and give up his life in Dallas if that was what I really wanted. I swallowed the lump in my throat, because I did not want him to stay. I did not.
• • •
After a quick stop at home to pick up Oliver (my mother was in the throes of decorating the giant Christmas tree), I arrived at Running Stitch just as Mattie unlocked the front door. “Angie, there you are. How did the meeting with Nahum go?”
I gave her a sheepish look. “He was more forthcoming than I expected.”
She frowned. “About Eve?”
“Yes.” I bit my lip. “And about Rachel’s mother too.”
Her mouth made a little “o” shape.
Oliver waddled around the shop, snuffling the ground. He always liked to make sure the perimeter was secure each morning when we came in. Being such a scaredy pooch, he wouldn’t do anything about it if he found something amiss though.
“This case is so confusing. In my gut, I think it is someone from the play who cut Eve’s rope swing. I’ve spoken with almost everyone who might be involved.”
“Who would you like to talk to next?” my assistant asked.
“There is one more person, but I can’t remember his name. He was Eve’s Amish boyfriend before she left for New York.”
“Oh.” Mattie hung up her cloak and wouldn’t look at me.
I folded my arms. “Is something wrong with that?”
“Nee. Just I know who that is. It’s Nathan Eby. He and his family own a buggy shop on River Road just a mile south from the covered bridge.”
“Eby? Are they related to the Ebys who own the mercantile?”
She nodded, still not looking at me. “It’s the same family. The owner of the mercantile is Nathan’s brother.”
That could be awkward. I hoped that he wouldn’t know my part in solving a crime that put his brother in jail last February. “Thanks,” I said. “I had better talk to him today if I have any hope of catching him. Tomorrow and Christmas Day all Amish businesses will be closed. He probably knows about Eve’s death by now, so at least I won’t have to break the news to him.”
“He knows.” She smoothed her skirt. “I told him.”
I frowned. “Was he the reason you ran off yesterday without telling me?”
“I went to school with Eve and with Nathan. He’s a nice guy and my friend.” She hit the button on the cash register to open the cash drawer and started to count the money.
“Okay, but why didn’t you tell me where you went?”
She set a stack of dollar bills on the counter. “Because I knew this would happen. I knew you would want to talk to him, and I wanted you to leave him alone.”
I frowned.
“I can’t believe that he had anything to do with what happened to Eve. He’s married to someone else now with a baby. They seem very happy, but his wife isn’t going to like you asking him questions about Eve.”
“You act like I’m going to interrogate him,” I said.
Her shoulders sagged. “I know you are just trying to help the police, but I don’t know how talking to Nathan will help anything.”
“It’s probably another dead end, but I know I won’t be satisfied until I speak with everyone who might have had a close enough connection to Eve to feel strongly about her return to Holmes County.” I straightened the Christmas quilt in the large display window. There were some telltale pinpricks on it, a sure sign that Dodger had climbed it. Maybe Mattie was right and the kitten shouldn’t come to the shop until he was better behaved. Who knew when that would be?
I saw the Dutchman’s Tea Shop and Miller’s Amish Bakery through the window. “Is Rachel in the bakery?” I asked.
Mattie nodded. “She’s there alone. My bruder is delivering pies to restaurants in Charm for their Christmas sales.”
She adjusted her prayer cap. “Angie, can you tell me what Nahum said about Rachel’s mother?”
I shook my head. “Rachel might decide to tell you, but that is her decision to make.” I paused. “Please don’t tell the other ladies in the quilting circle that I learned anything about Rachel’s mother.”
Mattie nodded. “I won’t.”
“Do you mind watching the store? I think Oliver and I will pop over to talk to her while she’s alone.”
“Not at all.” She paused. “And I am sorry for not telling you about Nathan earlier. I should have.”
I smiled at her as I opened the front door. “It’s okay. You thought you were helping out a friend. I understand that. Just don’t do it again.” I winked at her before I left the quilt shop.
The bell on the bakery door rang. Rachel came out of the back room with an expectant face. When she saw Oliver and me, she smiled. “Gude mariye, Angie. It’s so nice to see you on this cold morning. Can I get you a cup of coffee?”
“Do you have hot chocolate?”
She laughed. “Of course. I think I will have a cup too. Hot chocolate sounds wunderbar on such a cold day.”
Before she started making the hot chocolate, she removed the plastic container from under the counter.
Oliver’s rump started to wiggle as soon as he saw it.
She removed two homemade dog treats and tossed them over the counter at my Frenchie. His one black and one white ears flicked back and forth in excitement.
“Ugh,” I said. “Come January, Oliver and I will be in a foul mood, as we’ll be on our diets.”
Oliver delicately picked up both treats in his mouth and carried them under one of the café tables to eat in private.
She laughed. “You are the only person I know who would put her dog on a diet.”
“That’s because most of the people you know are Amish,” I said.
“True.” She put the container back under the counter and fixed the hot chocolate.
“What have you been up to this morning? Are your parents enjoying their visit?”
“I gave Mom the project of decorating my Christmas tree. It will be a glitz and glamour monstrosity. You’ll have to stop over before I take it down after the New Year to see it. You’ll never see anything in Holmes County like it.”
She grinned. “I will see it tonight. A group from the district is going caroling, and I put your home on the list of those we must visit.” She sipped from her mug.
“Thank you. Mom and Dad will love that.” I stirred the liquid in my mug and watched the brown powder dissolve into the hot water. “You asked me what I did this morning.” I met her gaze. “I went to Nahum’s cabin in the woods.”
“Alone?”
I shook my head. “With Jonah. I made him take me there.” I thought it was best to leave Ryan out of the conversation.
She lowered her mug. “Oh?”
I swallowed the too-hot chocolate. It burned my throat on the way down. “I went there to speak to him about Eve.”
“Did you learn anything?” she asked as if trying to sound disinterested.
“About Eve, some,” I said. “About your mother, much more.”
Rachel stood up. “My mamm? You had no right to speak to him about that. Angie, I know you are just trying to help, but please leave it be. I am a Miller now, and that is my family.”
“I know, but do you at least want to know what he said?”
She sat back down. “I wish I didn’t, but I do.”
So I told Rachel what Nahum had revealed inside his cabin.
Chapter Twenty-nine
I followed the directions that Mattie gave me to the Eby Buggy Shop. The covered bridge made only for buggy traffic over a creek bed looked like a postcard photo, with icicles hanging off the bridge’s eaves and snow covering its roof. As Oliver and I drove by on the road that ran parallel to the bridge, a fox dashed out of the bridge and down the bank to the creek. Oliver ha
d his nose pressed up against the glass.
I smiled. “You wouldn’t see a scene like that back in Dallas.”
He glanced over his shoulder at me and cocked his head as if to ask a question.
“Not that I am considering going back.” I turned straight ahead. “I don’t think so, anyway.”
The Eby Buggy Shop was a freestanding building on the side of the road. It had a large parking lot. A third of the lot was filled with buggies. I didn’t know if they were on sale, as they would be at a car lot, or were recently repaired and waiting for their owners to return. They had only remnants of snow on them as if someone cleared them off each morning.
Not surprisingly, there were no automobiles in the parking lot. Usually, an English person didn’t have much cause to visit a buggy shop.
Oliver sighed as I put on his boots before getting out of the car. He had given up fighting me on the reindeer Christmas sweater, but the boots were a different story. He kicked his front paws in disgust.
“I know. I know, buddy. The sooner we do this, the sooner we can go back to Running Stitch and you can take them off.”
He pressed his flat nose against the passenger-side window. He was ready to go.
The buggy shop appeared to be a converted barn. The bifold barn doors stood half open.
“Hello?” I called as Oliver and I stepped into the building.
Wagon and buggy wheels hung from the wall along with leather reins and harnesses for the horses that would pull the buggies. Five buggies stood in a horizontal line in front of me in differing stages of repair or disrepair. The floor was concrete and sprinkled with sawdust. The soles of our boots slipped on the powdery surface. Oliver picked up one of his paws and inspected the sawdust clinging to his red bootie. He set it back onto the ground with a sigh.
“Hello?” I called again.
There was the sound of the whirl of tires on the concrete. An Amish man shot out from under one of the buggies to my right on a flat board with rollers like a gearhead that appears out from under a car’s undercarriage. He held a screwdriver in his hand and blinked at me. “Can I help you?” he asked as he stood. “Are you lost? Do you need directions?”
The man couldn’t be more than twenty but had a short Amish beard. He was the right age to be Nathan.
“I’m looking for Nathan Eby.”
“That’s me.” Nathan noticed my dog for the first time. “He’s wearing a sweater.” He paused. “And boots.” Nathan laughed.
Oliver gave me his best I-am-totally-humiliated-and-it’s-your-fault look.
“He does. He’s not used to the cold.”
“Oh.” Nathan’s brow folded together. “Are you a tourist?”
I shook my head. “I’m Angie Braddock.”
He frowned. “Where have I heard that name before?”
“I’m a township trustee,” I said quickly before he could remember that a crime I solved while visiting my aunt in Holmes County last winter got another Eby sent to prison.
His face cleared, and he walked over to a rolling tool cabinet. It was bright red and looked just like the one that my father had in his garage back in Dallas. “That must be it. Is there something the trustees wanted to talk to me about? I hope it’s nothing to do with my business. I follow all of the rules.”
“It’s not the business,” I said. “But the trustees did send me,” I fibbed, “to talk about something important.”
“What’s that?”
“Eve Shetler.” I let the name hang in the air.
Nathan dropped his screwdriver into the tool cabinet. It clattered against the other tools in that drawer. “Why would they ask you to talk to me about her?”
“You courted her while she was Amish, didn’t you?”
He removed a socket wrench from the drawer below. “Ya, but that was more than three years ago, a long time ago. I am married now. I haven’t even seen Eve since she returned.” He rooted in the drawer as if searching for the right tip to the wrench. “I was very sad to hear about Eve. She was a gut person, even if she left the Amish way. But this life is not for everyone.”
“I sat next to Eve Shetler at the dinner. I liked her very much.”
He smiled wistfully at the wrench. “I’m sure she was the hit of the progressive dinner. She always was at the center of attention even when she was Amish.” He nodded. “I did court Eve for a short time. When we were young, I knew there wasn’t much hope that she would stay Amish. I suppose my boyish wish was she would remain for me, but the Englisch life was what she wanted and I couldn’t give her that. I am happily married now. For me, it happened just like Gott wanted it to. I have no regrets. Other than I am sorry about what happened to Eve. She did not deserve that.”
I shifted my stance. “And Junie?”
“What about Junie?” He slid the bit onto the socket wrench.
“When I spoke to Junie, she mentioned you, and I got the feeling that she might have had a crush on you.”
“Junie was like a younger sister to me from the time that I was courting Eve. Eve was so self-confident. Junie is afraid of her own shadow, but I always got the feeling she had a crush on me.” He frowned. “These seem to be strange questions that the township trustees would like answered.”
“Eve’s death is not only a tragedy, but it disrupted the progressive dinner and play. We were hoping that if we found out who did this to Eve, we would be able to stop this from happening again.”
He shook his head. “I won’t be much help to you because I don’t know. I haven’t seen Eve in three years.” He walked back to the buggy he had been working on. “Now if that’s all, I need to get back to work. I won’t have time to finish the buggy for the King family over the holidays, and they want it by Christmas Day to ride to see relatives in Knox County.”
I nodded. “Thanks for your time.” I glanced around the shop for Oliver. “Where did my dog get to?”
Nathan came over to me. “He shouldn’t be too hard to find in a sweater and boots. At least we won’t mistake him for an Amish dog.”
“Oliver!” I called.
A whimper came from one of the other buggies.
Nathan and I followed the sound. Oliver was inside one of the buggies with glass windows. All the doors were closed.
Nathan opened the door, and Oliver hopped out. He marched in place, happy to be free again.
“How in the world did he get stuck inside there?” Nathan asked.
“You would be surprised how many tight spots he gets himself into.”
Nathan laughed. “Since he’s wearing boots, I doubt that there’s anything that would surprise me about your dog.” Nathan walked Oliver and me to the barn door. He stopped and said, “I always thought that Esther, their mother, loved Eve more than Junie. That was hard on Junie. I think she hoped when Eve left Holmes County, she would earn her mother’s love. Instead, Esther went into a deep sadness over Eve’s leaving. It was almost like Eve was dead.” He nodded. “And now she’s dead for certain. It’s terribly sad.”
I agreed.
What was it like for Junie to live in a home that pined for a girl who chose to leave but ignored the girl who chose to stay? I felt even worse for the hotel maid. “And were you as upset as her family when Eve left?”
“Ya, I was angry and disappointed when she left the way. I thought all of my dreams left with her, but my wife, Susan, has shown me that Eve was not the one Gott intended for me. If Eve had stayed, we would have been miserable. We were too different, and we wanted too many different things. My life is just as I want it to be. I pray that Eve’s life was like that for her.”
I was beginning to have my doubts on that. Yes, Eve had been a working actress in New York, but she’d only been in plays well off Broadway. She took the part in the Amish hotel production because she was desperate for her big break. That thought gave me pause. Had Eve
tried out for the part because of Wade’s historic career prior to whatever derailed it twenty years ago? Was she like the others and thought she could ride on his comeback? He certainly had high hopes for what she could do for him.
It was driving me crazy not knowing what had caused Wade’s career to derail all those years ago.
Nathan pushed the barn door open wider for Oliver and me. “Thank you for coming in. I hope you and your family have a blessed Christmas.”
“Thank you. Merry Christmas.” I left the workshop, certain at least that Nathan had nothing to do with the murder, and more certain than ever that Eve was never meant to be Amish if she could leave such a kind man behind for the bright lights of New York. Susan was a very lucky woman.
Chapter Thirty
From my car, I called the sheriff.
“Is this a social call?” Mitchell asked in my ear.
“I hope you think every time I call is a social call,” I said.
“I know better than to believe that.”
I frowned. “Okay, you win. It’s half social, half murder.”
He sighed.
I reminded him about the Christmas Eve party at the Grabers, and I also told him about the fight that I witnessed between Jasper and Wade last night at the hotel’s barn. Maybe I should have told him about it the night before, but I had been so preoccupied with taking Junie home and making it to the trustees’ meeting that I’d forgotten.
“I know Jasper and Wade don’t like each other. It was obvious from the interviews with them.”
“What did they say about each other?” I asked eagerly.
“I got a Christmas surprise for you today,” he said.
“Are you trying to change the subject?”
“Yep.” He chuckled. “Is it working?”
“Well, yeah. What girl doesn’t like a Christmas surprise?”
There was laughter in his voice. “I’ll give it to you tomorrow.” He hung up.
I got to Running Stitch and stayed with Mattie in the shop until closing. Business was surprisingly brisk as shoppers came in for last-minute Christmas gifts. At four thirty, Mattie flipped the CLOSED sign around on the front door. “Won’t it be nice to have a couple of days off, Angie, to spend with your family?”
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