Plain Death

by Flower, Amanda

  I started the car. “We’re leaving before you get off work.”

  “That’s right. I forgot.” She wiped her face with a handkerchief. “What’s going on between you and my brother?”

  I watched her out of the corner of my eye. “What do you mean?”

  “You’re spending a lot of time with him.”

  I kept my eyes on the road. “To help you.”

  Becky leaned back in her seat. The duct tape holding the headrest together squeaked. “I’d watch out for Hannah if I were you.”

  My body tensed. “What does any of this have to do with Hannah?”

  She frowned. “Forget I mentioned her.”

  That made me worry even more. I opened my mouth to ask her what she meant, but her expression, reflected in the window, was crestfallen, so I decided to drop it. For now.

  We were silent for a few minutes, then Becky started squirming in her seat.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I was thinking about what Mr. Hart said, about me needing to write down everything I’ve done the last few days and everywhere I’ve been. It reminded me of something.”

  “What?”

  A loud sigh escaped her. “Ruth wasn’t the only one I told about my interview.”

  We were approaching the square. The center of the town was empty and many of the Amish and English shops were already closed for the day. An elderly Amish man in plain clothes and a young English man in shorts and a T-shirt strolled down the street, chatting with each other.

  I took my eyes off the road for a second. “Who did you tell?”

  “Hannah,” she whispered.

  I nearly drove off the road. The men glared at me as my tires screeched on the pavement. I took a deep breath. One car accident at a time was more than enough to deal with.

  We drove in silence until I pulled into our driveway and shifted the Prizm into park. It shook, then settled. “When?”

  Becky didn’t answer me. She stared straight ahead.

  “Becky, when did you talk to Hannah?”

  “Isaac is here.”

  Through the windshield, I saw Isaac sitting on the uneven front steps of our house. His eyes downcast, he held his black felt hat in his hands and waited.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  I unbuckled my seatbelt, but Becky didn’t move. “Becky?”

  “Huh?” She clung to her hot pink cast as if it offered protection from the man sitting on the front porch. Was she afraid of Isaac or of what he might say?

  “Are you going to get out of the car?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. Becky was honest to a fault.

  “Don’t you think you should? Isaac is here for a reason. He wants to talk to you.”

  “Why? Why would he talk to me after what I did to his family? He must hate me.”

  “There’s only one way to find out.” I placed a hand on my door handle.

  She shivered. “I’m afraid.”

  “I know, but so is he.” I juggled my car keys in my hand.

  She turned her chin in my direction. “He is?”

  “I’m sure of it.” I tucked the keys into my purse.

  She nodded and opened the door. Isaac stood up, and I followed Becky up the cracked walkway to the house. Isaac nodded at me. “I see you saw Uncle Billy about a new car.”

  “You know Uncle Billy?”

  “I did.” He frowned.

  I hurried up the porch steps and unlocked the front door. “Becky, I’ll be in the house if you need me.” Gigabyte meowed at me from his perch on the back of the couch, his new favorite place. I ignored him and opened the front window a crack. I told myself I needed to hear their conversation for Becky’s sake, but deep down knew I wanted to hear it for myself, too.

  “How did you know where I live?” Becky’s voice quavered.

  “Everyone knows where you live. Appleseed Creek is too small to hide.”

  “You think I’m hiding?”

  Isaac didn’t reply.

  “I’m happy to see you, Isaac. I know this must be hard for you.” She took a shuddered breath. “I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt your daed. I would never want to hurt you or anyone in your family. You know how I care about all of you.”

  “What about your own family? They are hurt too.”

  “I know.” Becky’s voice was low. “Can you forgive me?”

  There was a pause. “How’s your arm?” Isaac asked.

  “It’s better. The doctor said the cast can come off in six weeks. It doesn’t hurt much but itches like crazy.”

  “You broke your right arm.” Isaac stepped out of my view. I heard his footsteps travel to the far side of porch.

  “Yes,” Becky said. Through the curtain, I saw her cradle her arm to her chest.

  “Don’t you think Gott wanted to tell you something?”

  “Like what?” Becky sounded close to tears.

  “Your art is wrong.” His voice cracked like a whip. “Since you chose it over obeying your parents, you have been punished.”

  I shivered.

  “Why are you here, Isaac?” I could hear tears in Becky’s voice. Her back was to me now. I wanted her to turn around so I could reassure her that Isaac was wrong. Should I go out there? Should I defend her? I was afraid my intervention would only make it worse for Becky. Surely Isaac blamed me to some extent too.

  “You dress like an Englischer now.” Isaac sounded sad. “The woman who lives here gave you those clothes.”

  “Chloe is my friend.”

  “You hardly know her. We’ve known each other our entire lives. That meant nothing to you. You turned your back on me and ran away.”

  “I couldn’t stay, Isaac. I know that’s difficult for you to understand, but I wanted to be my own person. I wanted to draw and not be judged for what I drew. How can my portraits be wrong—”

  “Because they are!” His voice thundered. “Because the bishop said they were wrong. That should be enough reason for you. You should have accepted his decision.”

  Becky stumbled back and almost collided with the window.

  Gigabyte batted his paw at the glass and hissed. He wasn’t a fan of Isaac’s.

  “You are your own person now.” Isaac voice was still sharp. “You were wrong to leave. Because you did, my father . . .” His voice caught.

  I placed my face closer to the window. I wanted to see Becky’s face, but her back was still toward me.

  Isaac added something in their language, and Becky gasped.

  Gigabyte jumped off the sofa and leapt onto the windowsill. “Shh,” I warned him.

  He yowled in return.

  “I’m sorry.” Becky spoke in English.

  “You made your choice, Becky. Now we both have to live with it.”

  Isaac hurried down the rickety porch steps and along the walk.

  The front door opened, and Gigabyte and I jumped away from the picture window. Becky ran across the room and fell onto the couch. Tears covered her face.

  I took tentative steps toward her. “Are you all right?”

  She cradled her broken arm, and I sat beside her. I pulled my knees up under my chin and rubbed her back just as Mrs. Green did when I had nightmares after my mother’s accident.

  She gripped her cast with her left hand. “I can’t paint because of my arm. The reason I left everything behind is broken. Isaac is right, I have been punished.”

  “Isaac is wrong. God loves you. He would never punish you like this.”

  Her large blue eyes swam in tears. “Then why did this happen?”

  I rubbed her back and thought. I wished Mrs. Green were here. She would know the right thing to say. I tried to remember what she said
to me the many times I cried over my mother’s accident. “Because bad things happen. Bad things happen because there is sin in the world. Jesus saved us from sin when He died on the cross and rose again. Just because we’re Christians doesn’t mean bad things won’t happen to us while we are still on earth.” I fumbled over my words.

  She looked unconvinced.

  “I think—” The sound of my cell phone ringing interrupted me.

  “Go ahead and answer, Chloe. I think I’d like to be alone for a little bit.”

  “Okay.”

  By the time I dug it out of my purse, the phone had stopped ringing. I checked the missed call. Sabrina. I grimaced and debated calling her back. Before I could make up my mind, the phone rang in my hand. I almost dropped it.

  “Hello?”

  “Chloe!” Sabrina’s voice snapped in my ear. “Why didn’t you answer my call?”

  I slipped out the front door and onto the porch. “I—”

  “I don’t want to hear your excuses. Your father is furious.”

  I sat on the bench. “With me?”

  “Of course with you! Who else would it be?”

  I should have known that was a dumb question. “What did I do?”

  “You are harboring a murderer.”

  “What?” I stumbled into one of the porch posts. It shifted under my weight. Timothy hadn’t been able to mend it yet.

  “We know about that girl killing the Amish judge or whatever he was.”

  “He was a bishop, and it was a horrible accident.” I stepped away from the rickety post and sat on one of the brown folding chairs.

  She huffed. “If it’s an accident, why are the police investigating it?”

  “Becky’s part in it was an accident,” I said firmly.

  “Is she still living with you?”

  I bit my lip. “Yes. How do you know all this?”

  “One of your coworkers e-mailed your father the newspaper story. You can imagine his surprise when he’s in a board meeting and reads a story about his daughter in the middle of a murder investigation.”

  I shook my head. “All of that wasn’t covered in the paper.”

  “Thank goodness it wasn’t. Your father e-mailed the man back and asked for more details.”

  My mouth hung open, my forehead creased. “So instead of calling me, his daughter, he e-mails a perfect stranger to find out about my life.” The corners of my eyes itched, but I refused to cry. I had wasted too many tears over my father—a lifetime’s worth. “Who?” I demanded.

  “Who? Your father, that’s who!”

  “No. Who told you about the accident?”

  “Does it matter?” she practically growled.

  “It matters to me.” I scooted to the edge of the chair and tipped forward ever so slightly.

  Her dramatic sigh sounded like an airplane landing. “It was something with a J, like John or Jason.”

  I grew still. “Joel.”

  “That’s it. He said he was looking out for you. As a friend, he was worried about you and wanted your father to know about it.”

  I leaned back into the chair, and its back legs hit the porch’s warped wooden boards with a thud. “Looking out for me? A friend? Nothing could be farther from the truth.”

  “The point is your father is upset, and rightly so; you never stop and think how your behavior will reflect on your family. Your father’s opponents would love news like this to use against him.”

  I clenched my jaw. “My family? Is that what you are? You could have fooled me.”

  “I will tell your father you spoke to me like that.”

  “Go ahead. I’m not a child anymore.” I lowered my voice. “Have a nice time on your Thanksgiving cruise.” And then I hung up on her.

  Chapter Forty

  The next morning, the house was silent. Becky wasn’t moving around in the kitchen making an enormous breakfast as she had every other morning. When she wasn’t up by the time I was about to leave for work, I knocked on her door. She didn’t respond. In the short time I had known Becky, she’d always gotten up with the sun. I opened her door and almost tripped over Gig as he wove around my feet to get inside. He jumped onto her bed, but she didn’t stir.

  She lay under a pile of blankets, only her foot peeking out from under the yellow-flowered comforter. “How can you sleep under all those covers? You must be burning up.” I tugged on her toe.

  She retracted the foot as if I pricked it with a needle. “Go away.” She pushed her face deeper into a pile of pillows.

  I checked my cell phone. Seven forty-five. I needed to be at work by eight if I wanted to take off early with Timothy. Today we were going to talk to Grayson Mathews. “Get up!” I felt like Mrs. Green when she tried to convince Tanisha or me to get out of bed. “Cookie and Scotch will be here in less than an hour to pick you up.”

  “I don’t care,” the muffled voice said.

  My brow shot up. “I thought you liked your job.”

  She rolled over onto her stomach. “It doesn’t matter. I ruined my life. I ruined Isaac’s life. Why should I bother?”

  “Because that’s what Isaac thinks.”

  She opened one bloodshot eye. Gigabyte jumped on the bed and began kneading her hair. She swatted at him, but he moved out of range.

  I smacked her on the back. “Now, get up!”

  As I left, I heard the shower running.

  Emotions were high at work as well. Clark and Miller waited for me in the Computer Services office. “Good morning.”

  Miller fidgeted in his seat and turned a flash drive over and over again in his hands. He gave Clark a look.

  Usually low-key, Clark seemed tense, but he sat still.

  I stood there, watching them both. “What’s going on?”

  Clark opened his mouth, but Miller blurted out, “Is someone going to get fired?”

  I put one hand on my hip. “Where did you hear that?”

  “Chloe, Harshberger is tiny.” Clark eyed me and opened his laptop on the conference table. “Everyone knows everything. Word on campus is that you have to reduce our budget by twenty percent. That can only mean someone’s going to get the ax. There’s no way you can cut that much from services. It’s true, right?”

  It made my stomach turn that they knew the exact amount I must reduce my budget. “I can’t answer that.”

  “That’s boss talk for yes,” Clark told Miller.

  The nervous programmer dropped the flash drive onto the table. It bounced off the table and onto the floor. “I’m doomed. I have the least seniority.”

  I picked the flash drive off the floor and handed it to him. His hands were shaking. “Miller, if I have to make this decision, and I promise you I am racking my brain to find a way to avoid it, I won’t base that decision on seniority.”

  Joel stepped into the room with a smirk on his face. “If she was going to make the decision on least seniority, boys, she’d have to fire herself.” He glared at me.

  My back stiffened. “Joel, can I talk to you in the hallway, please?”

  His smirk faded a little, but then he shrugged and followed me out of the office. I shut the office door behind him and walked a little way down the hall.

  “Where are you going?” Joel followed me at a distance. “Are you going to fire me?” There was laughter in his voice.

  When we were out of earshot of the office, I spun around. “Did you e-mail my father?”

  A grin spread across his face.

  I took that as a “yes.” “Why would you do that?”

  “I’m a father myself, and I would want to know if my daughter was in trouble.”

  I gritted my teeth. “I’m not in trouble. How did you find my father anyway?”

  “Do you Yahoo?” he
quipped. “Who knew your father was some big shot California executive. He made it clear in the emails that we exchanged that he’s a very important man.”

  I wanted to slap Joel across the face just like in a movie, but I put my hand in my pocket. “I don’t want you contacting anyone in my family again.” I tried to keep my voice even, but I heard the quaver in it.

  “Sure thing, boss. Like I said, I was just looking out for you.” He winked at me. “I’m going to take my break now if that’s okay with you.”

  As he walked away, he looked over his shoulder, “Sorry about your mother’s accident.”

  I felt like I might be sick.

  At three o’clock, Timothy picked me up in the parking lot outside Dennis. I jumped into the truck, thrilled to escape campus. I had spent most of the day worrying over my budget. I examined my funds from every angle, desperate to find a way to save my employees’ jobs. There was nothing. Dean Klink was right. The only way to reduce the budget by twenty percent was to let someone go. Now I had to decide who that would be.

  Timothy smiled. “I hope you don’t mind Mabel coming along. She was with me on my job in Sunbury, and I didn’t have a chance to take her home.”

  I twisted around in my seat to pet the dog’s ruff. She woofed in return.

  “I don’t mind. She will make nice company for the trip. How long will it take?”

  “About sixty minutes if we beat rush hour.”

  As Timothy pulled out of the lot, I buckled my seatbelt, “I did some research on Grayson Mathews. He was a huge football star, a quarterback. He took Ohio State to the national championship his senior year, and even played pro for a few years. He retired because of a knee injury.” I frowned. “I couldn’t find any online connection to Harshberger though. I wonder what he was doing talking to Dean Klink.”

  Timothy gave me a gloomy look. “How did you learn all of that?”

  “It’s all on the Internet.”

  He shook his head. “I can barely send an e-mail.”

  “You have to remember I grew up with computers. I think I had my first computer when I was six. It was an enormous beige box, and I loved it. I wish I still had it.”

  “Our childhoods could not have been more different.”