He pulled the mug closer to himself, right under his nose. “I went there to see Faith. She’s refused to see me ever since her father was killed.”
“Why do you think that is?” I asked.
“Because I’m responsible for his death,” he mumbled into his coffee mug.
“You hit him on the head?”
He looked up, meeting my gaze for the first time. I didn’t break my eye contact and simply stared back. Finally he lowered his head and stared into the black abyss of his coffee. “Nee. I wasn’t there when he died.”
I flattened my palms onto the table. “Then why do you feel responsible?”
In my peripheral vision, I could see Sarah begin to dry faster.
His eyes were full of fire. “Because I was engaged to Faith, and Gil Kauffman is not. The bishop and Gil had planned for years that Gil and Faith would marry. Bartholomew was molding him to be the next leader in the district, but then Faith and I fell in love.”
I froze. Was Sarah’s brother-in-law about to tell me he had a motive for killing the bishop? The motive being the bishop had kept him from the woman he loved? That was pretty strong motive to murder someone. By the cuts on the knuckles, I knew Levi could be violent.
He surprised me by saying, “Bartholomew was a hard man, but he wasn’t as horrible as everyone believed. It took some time, but he finally saw how miserable he was making Faith. He relented on his plan and allowed her to be engaged to me.”
“How did Gil take that?” I asked.
He looked up at me with bloodshot eyes. “How do you think? He was furious and said that Bartholomew was betraying the district and letting his sentimentality rule his decisions instead of what Gott wanted. Gil only wanted to marry Faith to put himself in a better position to be bishop someday. He didn’t love her, not like I do.”
“Do you think Gil murdered the bishop?” Sarah asked, speaking for the first time since we entered the kitchen.
He dropped his head in his hands. “I know he did.”
“You’re sure?” I asked.
He nodded. “It’s why Faith won’t marry me now. She feels as responsible for her father’s death as I do. She says it’s fitting if she never marries, since she lost her father.”
“And that’s why you punched the barn wall.”
He nodded miserably. “I know it was stupid to lash out like that, but I waited until after Faith told me and left the barn. I would never do anything to hurt or scare her.” He gave us a pleading look.
I bit the inside of my lip. Like Levi, I had been cast aside by a fiancé. I understood how he felt. He was hurting, and on top of his injured hand, his pride had been badly bruised and his heart was broken.
Sarah set a mug of coffee, thankfully a less strong one, in front of me. I smiled my thanks. I was beginning to feel faint from the lack of caffeine.
Sarah clicked her tongue. “Faith has had a terrible shock. She will come around.”
He shook his head. “She won’t. She knew what she was doing. She even had a little speech planned out for me. She said it like she was reciting something she’d memorized.”
I held my mug and let the warmth seep into my cold fingers. “Could someone else have told her what to say?”
“Who? Her father told her what to do most of her life and now he is dead.”
Good question.
Sarah was more optimistic. “She will come around yet. She loves you. Give her time.”
The front door on the other side of the archway opened.
“Sarah! Angie!” Jonah’s voice rang through the house. Within seconds he was standing behind me in the kitchen. Jonah took one look at Levi and asked, “Levi Leham, are you drunk?”
I pushed back my chair and stood. “Levi has had a tough morning.”
“Looks like it.” He eyed me. “I got here as soon as I could. It looks like you have everything under control.”
I nodded. “Levi and I had a nice chat.”
Jonah arched his eyebrows but didn’t ask. There would be questions later—lots of questions.
Anna entered the kitchen. “Jonah Graber, you flew into this house so quickly, you left me to tie up the horse.” She smacked her son lightly on the back of the head. Then she turned her attention to Levi. “Looks to me like a broken heart.”
A perfect diagnosis.
“Don’t look so amazed, Angie,” Anna said. “I heard about Levi’s broken engagement at the market this morning. News travels fast in this county.”
That was certainly true.
She ambled over and patted Levi on the shoulder. “Have you asked him everything you need to know?”
I gave her a half smile. Anna knew I had taken my conversation with Levi as an opportunity to investigate Bartholomew’s murder. “For now. I might have a few more questions later, and the police will want to talk to him.” I turned to her son. “Jonah, can I talk to you in the living room?”
My childhood friend, who knew me so well, frowned. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
No, he probably wasn’t.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Jonah and I went into the living room, and I shut the kitchen door after us. Oliver lay in front of the potbelly with his legs splayed as if he was an area rug.
I turned to face Jonah. “You told me if I was ever going into Bartholomew’s district, I shouldn’t go alone. I’m going now. Are you coming with me?”
His face fell. “I was right. I really don’t like this.”
“Jonah, I’m so close to finding out who the killer is.”
He folded his arms. “Then call the sheriff.”
“Do you really think anyone in Bartholomew’s district is going to talk to a cop?”
“No,” he said drawing out the word.
“Then we have to go.”
“Angie, the people in that district are private. They won’t want you there. They won’t want me there either.”
I folded my arms and matched his stance. “I’m going whether you come with me or not.”
He dropped his arms and groaned. “Fine,” he said, sounding much as he had when we were children and I had successfully talked him into doing something he didn’t want to do.
I beamed. “We can take my car. It’ll be faster than your buggy.”
“All right,” he said. “Let me just tell Mamm, so that she will drive the buggy back to my farm.” He muttered something to himself that I couldn’t make out when he went into the kitchen.
Ten minutes later, we were in the car on the way to Bartholomew’s district. Jonah told me the way.
“When we get to the Kauffman farm, let me talk first,” he said.
I took my eyes off the road for a second and gave him a look.
“I’m serious.” He held on to his seat belt.
“Okay, but I’m going to talk. You can’t tell me to be silent.”
He snorted. “I would never dream of that.” He pointed at the intersection ahead of us. “Turn here.”
I paused at the intersection, if I could even call it that. It was more of a glorified running path through the woods. “Is my car going to fit through there?”
“Sure it will,” Jonah said. “Buggies go in and out of there all the time.”
“Are you sure?”
He sighed. “Ya. It’s the quickest way to the Kauffman farm.”
I turned my SUV onto the narrow road, and a tree limb scraped my roof. I winced.
My car’s tires bounced in and out of the deep ruts in the dirt road.
I gripped the steering wheel. “This must be a nightmare in the winter. There is no way a snowplow can get back here.”
“Bartholomew’s church members keep to themselves as much as possible. Not being able to leave the district during the winter months isn’t a big concern.”
Afte
r about a mile, the road widened and the trees began to thin out. Through the thinning trees, I could see the outline of a narrow two-story house, and beyond that a large white barn.
“That’s it,” Jonah said. “That’s Gil’s farm. Actually, it’s his father’s farm. Gil will inherit it someday when he marries, and then his parents will move to the dadihaus.”
I wondered whether that was another factor, wanting to take over the family farm, that motivated Gil to want to marry Faith.
There was a black mailbox at the end of the driveway. I turned onto the dirt drive.
“Stop the car here. They might not want your car too close to the house.”
I shifted the car into park and removed the keys from the ignition. If Jonah was trying to make me apprehensive, he had succeeded.
The house was modest, and I could see an outhouse a few yards away from it. Jonah caught me looking at it. “Bartholomew didn’t allow indoor plumbing in his district.” He shivered. “Thankfully, my district is more civilized.”
That made me laugh. Worrying about being “civilized” was so un-Amish.
I cracked a window before exiting the car. “Ollie, you stay in here, okay?”
He gave me a mournful look before snuggling under his blanket.
I slammed the door shut after me as a man stomped down the driveway to us. He had a steel gray beard, and his navy work shirt was buttoned up to the very top button. I knew right away he wasn’t Gil. He was too old. I guessed it was his father.
Jonah waved and smiled brightly. “Gude mariye, Silas.”
Silas’s eyes narrowed. Jonah’s charm hadn’t worked.
He spoke to Jonah in Pennsylvania Dutch. I didn’t understand what he asked him, but it wasn’t a friendly greeting.
Jonah replied in English. “We’d like to talk to Gil.”
“You have no reason to talk to my son.” Silas balled his fists.
“It’s about the bishop,” I said.
Silas glared at me for less than a second. “Why do you bring that English woman here?”
I opened my mouth to say something, but Jonah stepped on my foot to stop me. I scowled at him. He knew not to step on the boots.
“She’s right. We would like to talk to Gil about Bartholomew,” Jonah said calmly.
“Nee. My son has nothing to say to—”
“Daed, I will talk to them.” A voice came from the direction of a large barn, three times the size of the house.
Gil Kauffman looked much like his father, although he was clean-shaven. He wore his shirt buttoned up to his chin and had the same rigid posture.
The two men argued for a moment in hushed tones. Finally, Silas threw up his hands and stomped away.
Gil started in the opposite direction toward the barn. “I have work to do,” he said over his shoulder. “If you would like to talk to me, you can while I work.”
Jonah and I followed him across the lawn.
“You’d better let me do the talking,” Jonah whispered.
“Jonah,” I hissed.
“He’s not going to talk to you.”
“We’ll see about that,” I said as I stepped into the dim barn.
By the time Jonah and I had entered the barn, Gil had a shovel in hand and was mucking a horse stall. The smell of manure and hay was almost overpowering.
“Danki for talking to us, Gil,” Jonah said in his usual jovial way. “We stopped by because we just saw Levi Leham a little while ago.”
Gil tightened his grip on the shovel handle. “What does that have to do with me?”
“Well,” Jonah said, “he’s concerned about Faith now that her father’s gone.”
Gil removed a metal pail from a nail in the side of the stall and set it on the barn floor. “He is going to marry her.”
“Huh.” Jonah rocked back on his heels. “I thought I heard you were going to marry Faith.”
“I was,” Gil said through clenched teeth, “but the bishop changed his mind. He told me Faith would be happier with Levi. How could he say that? He knew that Levi’s brother left the district. How did he know that Levi wouldn’t leave too and take Faith with him?”
“That made you angry?” Jonah asked.
“Ya,” the other Amish man snapped. “It made me angry. Now the bishop is dead. It is only right.”
I shivered at how calmly he said that.
“What do you mean?” Jonah asked.
“The bishop got what he deserved. It is Gotte’s judgment for going back on his word. He told me countless times that Faith and I were to marry.”
Jonah removed his hands from his coat pockets. “Did you help with Gotte’s judgment?”
Gil did not answer.
“Where were you the night the bishop died?” I asked, speaking for the first time since we entered the barn.
Gil continued to muck the stall and said nothing.
Jonah repeated my question.
“I was here on the farm, all day and night.” Gil dumped his shovel into the metal pail. “My parents and four younger siblings who were all here that night will tell you the same.”
I had a suspicion that Gil’s family wasn’t above lying to the police just to keep the cops out of the district and off their farm.
“Could you have left in the middle of the night without them knowing?” I asked.
He went back into the stall for another shovelful. It was as if I didn’t even exist. If this was what Amish shunning felt like on a small scale, I wasn’t a fan. I ground my teeth.
Again Jonah repeated my question.
“My family will vouch for me. That’s all you need to know.” He pointed the business end of the shovel at Jonah and me. “Now you must leave.”
I stepped back because I didn’t want to get smacked with a shovel—and definitely not with a shovel covered in horse manure.
Jonah thanked Gil for his time, and he and I made a hasty retreat back to my car. When we reached it, I was relieved to see Oliver was safe and warm under his blanket in the backseat.
When I backed my car out of the Kauffmans’ driveway, Jonah said, “What are you so upset about? We heard what he had to say.”
“He completely ignored me.”
“You’re a woman and an Englischer. I told you they wouldn’t talk to you.” He seemed to put this as gently as he could.
“I just hate it when you’re right,” I grumbled.
He laughed as I turned back onto a paved road outside of Bartholomew’s district.
Chapter Twenty-eight
After dropping Jonah off at his farm, Oliver and I made a quick stop at home, so I could shower off the scent of the Kauffmans’ horse barn. I fed and checked in on Dodger too. The cat was not pleased when Oliver and I locked him in the house again. There had been no sign of the Peeping Tom so I felt Dodger would be all right. I didn’t want to take him to the store, since I already knew I would be in and out all day helping with the farmers’ market and the library book sale. I hadn’t heard anything more about the book sale since I saw Mom and Willow at the salon the day before, but between the two of them, they had everything well in hand. By this point, I was the organizer in name only, which was how I liked it.
As we drove into Rolling Brook, my little SUV crawled behind an Amish man on a bicycle toting a cart filled with jars of fresh Amish honey. The man continued to pedal down Sugartree Street toward the pie factory. Oliver and I stopped at the shop. As we did, we were passed by a farmer carting cabbage in the same direction. It seemed Aaron had called on all of his Amish friends to make the farmers’ market happen.
Oliver and I got out of the car. Across the street, Rachel bustled around the bakery, assisting her early-morning customers. There was no sign of Aaron. I suspected that he was already at the factory preparing with Phillip Truber for the opening. I hoped to swing by the bakery late
r. I heard one of Rachel’s blueberry muffins calling my name.
I unlocked the front door to Running Stitch as my phone rang deep in the recesses of my hobo bag. I let Oliver inside and hurried over to the cash register. I slapped the bag on the counter, hoping it was Mitchell finally returning my call.
I fished in my bag and pulled the phone out in victory just as the call switched over to voice mail. I didn’t have time to check the message before the phone rang again.
I held the phone to my ear without looking at the readout. “Mitchell?”
“No,” an irritated female voice said. “This is Caroline Cramer.”
Ugh. I should have let the second call go to voice mail too. “Hello, Caroline,” I said, without enthusiasm.
“Please confirm whether or not this is true,” she said in a clipped tone. “I have been told there is an unauthorized farmers’ market happening on Sugartree Street this weekend.”
Through my large display window, I watched another Amish cart roll by. This one carried jams and jellies in pint-sized mason jars.
I flicked on the shop lights. “There is a farmers’ market happening, but it is not unauthorized.” I held the phone away from my ear, but I could still hear her blow her gasket.
When her rant wound down, I placed the phone back at my ear.
“The Millers do not have permission to host such an event without township approval,” she continued, and I imagined steam coming out of her ears like in a Wile E. Coyote cartoon.
“Wait a second,” I said, with an edge to my own voice. “The Millers have nothing to do with this. They got approval from Willow. In fact, it was her idea!”
“Willow Moon is not the head trustee of Rolling Brook Township. She can’t unilaterally approve such a thing.”
“That’s something you will have to take up with her.” I locked my purse in the cabinet under the counter.
“I will. I attempted to call her, but she’s not answering her phone.”
Lucky me. If only I’d had the same idea.
“Willow said the farmers’ market wasn’t a problem.” I propped my elbows on the sales counter. “She’s been a trustee for a long time. I took her word for it, and I’m sure the Millers did the same.”
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