Falling to Pieces

by Vannetta Chapman

  Deborah slowly pulled out one of the bolts of fabric from the shelf they crouched near and held it like a softball bat. She hadn’t played since she was a girl, but she still remembered the way it felt to swing the bat and connect with the ball. Would it feel the same to swat a man with a heavy bolt of cotton cloth?

  They squatted there, waiting for the intruder to make his way into the back room where the safe was located.

  Instead they heard footsteps slowly trudging toward the front room. So much for hiding. If the murderer was coming toward them, maybe they could knock him over, run out the door, and get help.

  Motioning for Callie to creep toward the right end of the aisle, Deborah headed toward the left. Then holding up her fingers she counted one, two, and finally three.

  They jumped out at the same time, shouting “Don’t move,” and “We have you surrounded.”

  Trent stumbled backward and knocked over the lamp on the check-out counter. “Easy, ladies. I’m not your man.”

  Deborah and Callie exchanged glances, as if they weren’t quite sure they could trust him.

  “What are you doing here?” Deborah asked, still not relinquishing her bolt of calico print cotton.

  “I came to help, maybe snap a few pictures. Now would you mind dropping the flowery material?” Trent righted the lamp and pushed his glasses back into place. “Callie, put down those scissors, before you hurt someone.”

  “We hadn’t planned on needing to defend ourselves. Stakehorn won’t be walking up and down the fabric aisles. He’ll be headed straight for the safe. Now would you mind getting out of here? We’re trying to be inconspicuous, which we can’t do if you’re on a photo opp.” She pointed her scissors at the camera around his neck. “We also can’t have people just dropping by.”

  “I wasn’t exactly here for a social visit, gorgeous.”

  Deborah noticed Callie’s eyes widen slightly at the nickname, but decided it was something she’d have to ask about later. “Why are you here, Trent?”

  “Like I said, it’ll make good cover copy in the paper. Besides I couldn’t leave you two here to greet a killer by yourself.”

  “How did you get in?” Callie stepped forward.

  “I thought about jimmying the lock, but there was a key hidden under the frog.”

  “You didn’t bring that in?” Deborah asked Callie.

  “I thought you did.”

  “Ladies? Could we hide before he gets here?”

  Callie switched the scissors to her other hand, wiped her sweaty palm on her skirt. “You know we don’t need a man. We can do this by ourselves.”

  “Actually it might be a good idea,” Deborah interrupted. “Jonas wanted to come, but I needed him to stay home with the boppli.”

  “I’m glad someone here is willing to listen to reason.” Trent smiled, apparently happy that he’d won a round.

  “Well, you didn’t say anything last night about wanting to be here.”

  “Maybe that’s because I didn’t have time to think it through when you sprung this crazy idea on me.”

  “If it’s so crazy, why did you agree to it?”

  They were now only inches apart, and Deborah wondered if arguing was some strange English courting ritual. “Umm, guys. I think we probably should move upstairs.”

  Trent and Callie turned to glare at her.

  Deborah pointed out the front window. “Pretty dark out there. I wouldn’t put it past our guy to show up any minute.”

  But in fact he didn’t show up then, and they could have stayed downstairs arguing for quite some time.

  Upstairs, they sat in the darkness of Callie’s apartment on the floor in front of the bay windows and watched the streets of Shipshewana grow less crowded and then deserted.

  One by one the lights went out in each store.

  Twice Andrew Gavin drove by, even stopping once to shine his flashlight in the front door of Daisy’s Quilt Shop.

  “I feel a little guilty about not telling him,” Callie confessed.

  The light of a quarter moon slipped through the front window of the apartment, dispelling enough of the darkness for them to see each other’s expression.

  “Now you grow a conscience.” Trent rolled his eyes, but Deborah also heard the concern in his voice.

  “You can come clean tomorrow,” Deborah reminded her. “After we catch the murderer.”

  “If we catch him.” Callie traced the pattern in the wood grain on the floor. “What if he doesn’t show? What if I remain Black’s best suspect?”

  “Adalyn said he doesn’t have enough evidence to prosecute, Callie. Try not to worry about tomorrow’s problems.” Deborah reached out and squeezed her hand, which was when they heard the tinkle of glass breaking downstairs.

  Then the back door of Daisy’s Quilt Shop opened once again.

  Callie felt every hair on her neck prickle up.

  She stared at Trent and Deborah and knew they were as shocked as she was. They had planned everything so carefully, but now that it was actually happening, they could hardly believe it.

  Downstairs, someone was moving toward the safe in her back room—and that someone was most certainly the person who had killed Stakehorn, the person who had hurt Margie, and the person who had shot her dog.

  Anger surged through Callie’s veins.

  She leapt off the floor and would have hurdled herself down the stairs if Trent hadn’t caught her by the waist. “Slow, Callie Grace. Slow and quiet.”

  He’d never used her middle name before. She had no idea how he even knew it, unless he’d been doing some investigating into her background. Would he have done that? Before she could fully consider the question, he’d encircled her waist with both arms and pulled her back across the room, his lips lingering near her ear. His words were like cold water in her face. The effect of those two words was like her mother’s sensible voice in her memory. It slowed her down, calmed the fury just enough to allow caution a bit of room.

  She pulled in a deep breath, nodded once, and picked up the scissors off the end table.

  They took the stairs in that order.

  Callie first, carrying her wickedly sharp fabric scissors. Trent following, fists clenched at his side, his camera apparently left behind. Deborah bringing up the rear, still clutching her bolt of fabric.

  As they crept down the stairs, then around the corner into the back hall, they lost the light of the moon.

  Callie met a wall of blackness, but was finally able to make out a pin-prick of light, which slowly broadened to a glow the size of her fist.

  It had to be coming from a flashlight.

  As they tip-toed closer, she made out a figure, hunched over the tiny desk which was stored against the east wall. The person was shuffling through papers and pulling out drawers. Deborah had suggested they write the safe’s combination on an index card and tape it inside the middle desk drawer, under the pencil keeper—something a burglar might expect an old lady to do.

  Callie knew the moment he found it. She could have sworn she heard him cackle.

  Then he spun away from them and toward the safe in the wall at the back of the room.

  She could almost make out who it was. There was something familiar about the shape of his head, the way he hunched his shoulders as he worked in the near darkness. She couldn’t see well enough to be sure, but she had the distinct impression she’d seen him before.

  When he turned away, she lost the light from his flashlight. He was turning the combination on the lock, had just opened the safe’s door, and pulled out the envelope stuffed with one dollar bills, when Callie, Trent, and Deborah reached the door to the little back room.

  As planned, they didn’t confront him, didn’t holler out, didn’t try to stop him from taking the money or the package they’d planted in the safe.

  Instead Callie slammed the door shut, Trent braced it closed with his shoulder, and Deborah grabbed the chair they’d placed in the next room. They moved it under the knob in one smooth
motion.

  “Find something else,” Trent said. “In case this doesn’t hold.”

  Callie and Deborah hurried into the next room.

  Callie ran into an old oak trunk Daisy had used to keep extra supplies in, smashing her knee into the brass fixture on the side.

  “William Barret Travis,” she groaned. “I think I broke my knee.”

  Deborah was too focused on the task at hand to comment on the obscure reference—or even the injury. “Hurry, Callie! Let’s drag this back to Trent.”

  Ignoring the throbbing in her knee, she grabbed the trunk by one handle and began to pull it out of the room and down the hall. She couldn’t see Deborah, but she could feel her on the other end, pushing with as much effort as she was pulling.

  They fumbled down the dark hall, where Trent was leaning with all of his weight against the door.

  “Why didn’t you turn the lights on?” he asked.

  “Didn’t think of it.” Callie wondered if she could lift the trunk up enough to drop it on his foot. Leave it to a man to have a better idea in the midst of a crisis. Maybe if he felt the full weight of the trunk he’d cut her some slack.

  “I thought of it,” Deborah pushed her end in place. “Electricity isn’t working.”

  Why didn’t the electricity work? Had the man cut the power before he’d broken into the shop? Why would he do that?

  The person on the other side of the door had realized his predicament by this point. He’d begun banging on the door and hollering—demanding to be let out. Swearing he’d get even once he found a way through the solid wood door.

  “Have to admire the construction in these older buildings.” Trent’s voice sounded tight and uncharacteristically nervous.

  Callie thought she heard him sit down on top of the chest.

  “This should hold him for a while, but I’d feel better if you ladies stayed in the next room.”

  “Whatever for?” Deborah asked.

  Next to her, Callie felt Deborah pick up the bolt of cloth she had dropped and hug it to herself. She stood so close that their shoulders were touching, and Callie could feel the slight tremor passing through her arms.

  The rattling at the door continued, its shaking a noise as nerve-wracking as fingers on a chalkboard.

  “Trent’s worried he has a gun,” Callie explained, as she pulled out her phone and dialed nine-one-one. “I really don’t think he does, though.”

  “Why not?” Trent asked.

  “I know who it is,” Callie said. “I’d know that sniveling voice anywhere. And I’m betting all he has in his pocket is a bottle of whiskey.”

  In what she hoped was a calm voice she told the dispatch operator that she’d like an officer sent over to Daisy’s Quilt Shop, yes that quilting store. Snapping the phone shut, she pulled Deborah back into the doorway of the main room.

  If they glanced left, they could stare into the darkness where Trent sat on the trunk and the sounds of the door rattling, of the murderer trying to break free, continued.

  If they glanced to the right, they could barely make out a bit of ambient light from the street.

  “What about Trent? Shouldn’t he be with us? What if the guy does have a gun?” Deborah stuck her head out into the hall, and Callie pulled her back.

  “He probably should be with us, but he’s a man. English men need to be the protector. Plus if the guy did have a gun, he’d already have used it.”

  “I hope we don’t have to wait long. I’m ready for this to be over.” Deborah’s voice was calm, but she reached over and clasped Callie’s hand.

  Though it was still pitch dark, Callie looked down, tried to see their fingers entwined together. She suddenly realized how close they’d become in such a short time.

  Maybe extreme circumstances did that to people—forged relationships that otherwise might have taken years to build. Or maybe it was the Amish way. How could she know?

  She didn’t have long to think about it though. The darkness of the night was split by the light and blip-bleep of a Shipshewana Police Department vehicle.

  Andrew Gavin’s voice was one of the sweetest sounds Callie had ever heard.

  “Shipshewana Police. Whoever is in there needs to come out with your hands in the air.”

  “Gavin, it’s us. Don’t shoot!” Callie and Deborah hurried to the back door, their shoes crunching on broken glass as they practically ran out into the night, out into the light of Andrew Gavin’s flashlight.

  “Callie? Deborah? What’s going on?” Gavin reached into his squad car and silenced the siren.

  “We caught him. We caught the murderer!” Callie couldn’t stop herself from hopping up and down. She pointed into the still dark shop.

  “He’s locked in the storage room.” Deborah pointed back to the hallway, only slightly more calm. “Trent McCallister is guarding the door.”

  “You two are sure you’re all right?”

  “We’re fine, but you better hurry. He’s trying to bust his way out. We braced the door with a chair and a trunk.” Callie shuffled from one foot to the other.

  She should feel calmer now that the guy they’d been searching for was about to be arrested, but suddenly everything felt wrong. She had an abrupt overwhelming urge to be back inside.

  “Trent’s worried he might be armed,” Deborah explained. Gavin pulled out his radio. “This is Officer Gavin. I’m at Daisy’s Quilt Shop on Main Street. We have a burglary in progress. I’m requesting back-up, over.”

  Callie took a step toward the door. “We can’t wait, Andrew. We need—”

  They’d been standing between the shop and the police cruiser, but everyone turned when they heard Trent yell out for help. “Guys, I think you should get in here, and you better hurry.”

  Chapter 30

  DEBORAH FOLLOWED Callie and Officer Gavin back inside. She’d never feared the darkness or the night, but something told her this evening held danger—danger of a kind she hadn’t faced before.

  She said a prayer for safety and a prayer for wisdom, then reached for her bolt of cloth while Gavin directed Trent and Callie to remove the trunk and the chair.

  And why did she find such comfort from holding the fabric?

  She’d always been soothed by the sight, smell, and texture of cotton—whether she was quilting, sewing, or doing a simple task such as laundry. It seemed that in many ways fabric was a gift from God which held her family together physically, much as his love and grace held them together spiritually.

  The light from Gavin’s flashlight flooded the hall. He handed it to Callie; then he held up his weapon and nodded at Trent to open the door.

  Deborah tried to focus on what was happening; but her mind kept returning to the fabric, to the quilt squares she sewed into patterns.

  This pattern was coming together all wrong. Something was missing, but she couldn’t put her finger on exactly what.

  Trent opened the door—now cracked and splintered from the battering it had received from the inside, and Roger Stakehorn nearly fell out into the hall.

  Sweaty, flushed, and wild-eyed, he looked ready to charge at the first thing that moved.

  “Hands in the air,” Gavin barked.

  Stakehorn froze, blinking in the bright light. “What? I don’t understand. What’s going on here?”

  “Why don’t you tell us, Mr. Stakehorn? Looks like a pretty clear case of breaking and entering.” Gavin motioned with his gun. “Turn around, walk to the back of the storage room, and put your hands on the wall. You can drop the envelope of money on the desk.”

  Stakehorn looked at the envelope he was holding as if he were seeing it for the first time. “This is my money to begin with. I’m not stealing it. I’m taking it back.”

  “Tell it to the judge. Now turn around.”

  Finally noticing Callie, Stakehorn’s face turned red as the plums at the local market. “You! This is your fault. You’re the one who killed my father and now you’re getting away with his things. Well, I won
’t allow it.”

  He moved toward Callie. Trent moved in between them at the same moment Gavin raised his gun higher, sending Trent back to Callie’s side with a single look.

  “I will shoot, Mr. Stakehorn. This is your last warning. Turn around and walk toward the back walk.”

  “This isn’t over, Harper.” Stakehorn practically spit the words, but he turned slowly, walked to the back of the storage room, and stopped when his fingers touched the wall.

  Deborah noticed he did not drop the envelope of money.

  To Callie it seemed that everything happened at once.

  She had the absurd notion she was inside a dream, one where she had no ability to control events and was powerless to stop what would occur next.

  Stakehorn threatened her, Trent moved in between them, and Gavin raised his gun.

  Stakehorn sneered, said something else, finally turned and walked toward the back wall.

  It all happened as if from a distance.

  She noticed the beam of light from Gavin’s flashlight wavering and realized her hand must be shaking.

  Then she felt, more than saw, Deborah leave the room.

  Where was she going?

  Before she could turn to ask, before she could fully formulate any reasons to explain what might be happening, Gavin stepped forward so that he too was in the beam of light.

  Callie wanted to call out, wanted to stop him, but again she was frozen—exactly like in a dream.

  He lowered his gun so that he could put handcuffs on Stakehorn. Trent moved forward a step, maybe two.

  And that was the moment when her dream fell away, the slow motion of sleep time dropped like a cloak, and reality snapped into events that moved too quickly, events that became a full-fledged nightmare.

  The cold hard metal against her neck could only be a gun, and the voice in her ear sent shivers all the way down to her toes.

  “Real quiet, and don’t drop the flashlight or I’ll shoot the officer first.”

  More loudly he called out. “Drop the gun, Officer Gavin. I don’t want to cap the girl, but I will if you insist.”