“You won’t find a clock like that in Rolling Brook,” I told him. “Caroline Cramer would lose her mind over it.”
Oliver looked over his shoulder at me.
I followed the directions to the candy shop. It was in the center of town, so I parked on the side street, and Oliver and I walked to the storefront. What Mattie had forgotten to tell me was the name of the sweet shop. A hand-painted sign announced it as YODER’S SWEETS.
Oliver looked up to me and whimpered, and not for the first time I wondered whether he could read.
“Just because it has the name Yoder doesn’t mean the owner or anyone in the shop is related to Martha,” I told him.
He pressed against my leg. I tried not to take his comforting as a bad sign. Yoder was like the surname Smith in Holmes County. Just because the candy shop was owned by some guy who had the same last name as Martha didn’t mean they were related.
There was a small breezeway at the shop’s entrance. I knelt and tied Oliver’s leash to a gumball machine there. “You are going to have to stay out here, buddy.”
He sighed and then crawled behind the gumball machine and lay down. I wished that I had thought to leave Oliver in the car. I hated him being alone in a strange place for even a moment.
“I won’t be long,” I promised him.
I pushed on the second set of glass doors and went into Yoder’s Sweets. The smell of chocolate and strawberries hit me as soon as I stepped inside the shop. Another smell floated on the air. It might have been butterscotch. Whatever it was, the combination made my stomach rumble, especially after my lunch being interrupted by Austina’s arrest. There was an island in the middle of the room filled with glass candy jars, containing everything from peppermints to gummy bears, from licorice to Pixy Stix. My teeth ached just looking at it all, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want a handful of each.
I picked up a shopping basket in a ruse I was there to spend money. It was late afternoon, maybe a half hour before closing time, and I was the only customer in the store. An Amish girl worked behind the counter, dipping pretzel sticks into molten chocolate and then setting them on wax paper to dry.
Was that Faith? I wished I had asked Mattie what the Amish girl looked like before I left the quilt shop.
“Can I help you?” another young girl asked me. Her name tag read, FAITH. Bingo.
I dropped a bag of buckeyes into my basket. They were Mitchell’s favorite. Maybe he would consider them a peace offering.
I smiled at the girl. “Actually, yes. Are you Faith Beiler?”
Her face paled almost to the color of her white-blond hair. “Who are you?”
“I’m Angie Braddock.” I held out my hand for her to shake.
She didn’t take it.
I let my hand fall to my side. “I’m so very sorry about your father.”
“Do I know you?” She took a step back.
“No, but we have some friends in common. Austina Shaker . . .” I trailed off.
“She is not my friend.” She pointed at the buckeyes in my basket. “If that’s all you are buying, maybe you should pay and leave.”
“Austina told me that you asked her to leave the keys to the bookmobile out, so that you could get the books without your father knowing.”
“Just take the candy and go. You don’t even have to pay for it. It is a gift.”
“You did ask her to leave the key, didn’t you?” I asked.
She wouldn’t look at me. “I am going to have to ask you to leave. If you don’t leave, I will find the owner, and he will make you leave.”
I lowered my voice. “Faith, if you don’t talk to me, you will have to talk to the police. They know you were involved in the murder.”
Her eyes grew wide. “I wasn’t.” Tears welled in her eyes.
“Why did you want inside the bookmobile?” I shifted my shopping basket from one hand to the other. “Was it to get books?”
“Nee,” she said, barely above a whisper. “I did not want inside of the bookmobile. My father did. He made me write that note to the librarian so that he could go inside.”
My eyes widened. “Why?”
She touched the glass jar of peppermints, straightening it by a fraction of an inch. “He said that he was going to stop the bookmobile from coming to our district once and for all.”
“What was he planning to do? How was he going to stop her?”
“I—I don’t know.” She moved another jar.
“Did you tell Levi about the note?”
She closed her eyes. “Nee.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“I don’t want him to know what I did—that I was more responsible for my father’s death than he even knows.” A tear rolled down her cheek.
“How are you more responsible?” I asked.
“I was selfish. My father said if I wrote that note to the librarian for him, he would allow me to marry Levi. I agreed. I didn’t know how Gil would react.”
“You think Gil killed your father?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” She wiped a tear from her flawless cheek. “All I know is my father would still be alive if I hadn’t written that note.” She took a breath. “I love Levi—I do—but I can’t marry him. There has to be some sort of repercussion for what I did.”
“I don’t think—”
“I think it’s time for you to leave,” she said, again barely more than a whisper. “Or I will find the owner.”
I followed her to the cash register and placed the basket with my buckeyes on the counter.
“That will be five-sixty.” She was in a rush to get me out the door.
I opened my bag and removed my wallet.
She silently held her hand out for the money.
I handed her a ten. “The police have arrested Austina for your father’s murder.”
She dropped the bill on the counter and picked it up again with clumsy fingers. “Why would they do that?”
“Because a witness saw Austina at the bookmobile hours before you father was killed. She was leaving the key there”—I paused—“for you, or so she thought.”
Her hands shook as she punched in the amount into the cash register. “All this time, I thought it was Gil. Maybe I was wrong?”
“I still don’t believe she killed him,” I said. “Are you sure that your father was going to the bookmobile alone that night? Could anyone else have gone with him? Was he meeting anyone there? Gil, maybe?”
“I don’t know. He told me nothing.” She dropped my candies into a plastic shopping bag and slid it across the counter to me.
A round woman came from the back room. “Faith, is everything all right? Ginny said that she heard arguing.”
That was a bit of an exaggeration. I suspected Ginny was the girl dipping pretzels in chocolate.
Faith looked at her hands. “Everything is fine.”
I picked up my shopping bag from the counter. “We were just discussing quilts.”
Faith stared at the counter.
“Oh?” the older woman asked, studying me. “My cousin owns a quilt shop in Rolling Brook, Authentic Amish Quilts. Do you know it?”
I suppressed a groan but forced a smile onto my face. “Yes, I know it. I own Running Stitch. It’s right next to Martha’s shop.”
His eyes narrowed. “Are you the Englischer who stole the other quilt shop from my cousin?”
“Stole it?” I yelped. “Is that what Martha is telling people?”
“It is what she told me. She said that Eleanor Lapp planned to give her the quilt shop when she died because she took such gut care of her, but you swooped in and talked Eleanor into leaving it to you.”
I gritted my teeth. Nothing could be further from the truth. I had been as shocked as Martha when my aunt left me the shop. “That’s not true.”
Faith looked from the Amish woman to me and back again. “I think you should leave.”
I marched out of the candy shop with my head held high.
Chapter Thirty-six
I left the small town of Charm feeling more confused about the case than ever. I hoped that the ladies from my quilting circle could shed light on something that I had missed. Instead of going back to Running Stitch, I went straight to the Lehams’ farm. Anna would have closed the shop for the day by now.
I turned on the Lehams’ road, where neighbors were miles apart. To my right, the sun was setting over the pumpkin patch. Two figures stood in the patch. I recognized Levi’s stocky form. The second person was a woman in Amish dress. In the lengthening shadows I couldn’t make out her features.
I drove farther up the road and pulled into a dirt driveway that gave trucks and buggies access to the fields.
Oliver cocked his head at me.
“I need to know who Levi is with in the pumpkin patch. It can’t be Faith. There is no way she could have beat me here.”
I debated leaving Oliver in the car, but I hesitated too long with the door open. My determined Frenchie hopped out and trotted toward the field. I grabbed my cell phone from the dash and locked my bag in the car. “Oliver, come back here!” I hissed.
He looked over his shoulder with his tongue hanging out, but kept going.
When Sarah said that she and Jeremiah had a bumper crop of pumpkins, she hadn’t been lying. There were so many pumpkins that it was a miracle I could walk through the field without breaking an ankle. The pumpkins came in every shape and size. Oliver wove in and out of them, disappearing behind the largest ones.
“Oliver,” I hissed again.
He ignored me and kept going. I debated running and tackling him, but didn’t think that was worth a broken leg. We were almost to the place where I had seen Levi and the Amish woman, but by now no one was there.
I glanced around the pumpkin patch. The setting sun painted purple, grays, and pinks on the clouds overhead. The temperature dropped with each inch the sun fell. Levi and his lady friend were gone. There was nowhere to hide unless they’d dove between the rows of pumpkins, and that was hard to imagine.
“Ollie,” I said, no longer bothering to whisper.
Oliver was two rows of pumpkins away digging a hole. I stepped over a large pumpkin with my right foot while the toe of my other boot got caught in a neighboring one. I pitched forward and landed in a muddy row between the pumpkins. Groaning, I rolled onto my side. I just lay there for a moment.
Oliver whimpered and licked my cheek. “I’m all right, Ollie. At least almost breaking my ankle gets your attention,” I told him.
“Who’s there?” a voice called.
Maybe we weren’t alone after all. I rolled onto my stomach and peeked over a pumpkin.
The sun was almost gone now, and a yellow light bobbed through the field.
I grabbed Oliver and forced him to lie down next to me. “Shh,” I whispered.
He buried his face under my arm.
The voice called a second time. This time in Pennsylvania Dutch.
As the shadow moved closer, I was wondering what I should do. Oliver shook next to me and snuggled up so close he was practically on top of me.
The glow of the lantern disappeared. Oliver and I lay there for a little while longer. Could whoever was in the field have left? Was it Levi, or someone else? By now, the ladies of the quilting circle would start to wonder what had happened to me.
I peeked over the pumpkin again, but by this time it was so dark I could only make out rough shapes, and nothing in the field moved. Then I heard something.
“I told you someone was listening.” It was a woman’s voice.
“There is no one here,” a man said. “I looked.”
“I should go home,” the woman said.
An owl hooted somewhere in the trees that blocked the view of the pumpkin patch from the warm light of the Leham farmhouse. Oliver shivered.
“Nee,” the man said. “I need to talk to you. You are the only friend I have in the district.”
“My bruder would not like that I’m here.” The woman’s voice quavered.
“Don’t worry about him.”
“That is easy for you to say.”
Something crawled up the back of my neck. I squelched a squeal as I knocked it away.
“Did you hear that?” Levi asked.
“I told you someone was here.”
I couldn’t identify the woman’s hoarse whisper. It might have been Faith, but I still believed that it would have been impossible for her to beat me there.
Then my cell phone rang. I frantically reached into my pocket to try to stop it, but the damage was done.
The lantern blinked on and the light was directed at my eyes. I held up my hand to block the light, and Oliver wedged himself between two large pumpkins.
The phone continued to ring.
Levi glared down at me. “Are you going to answer that?” he asked, just as the call went to voice mail.
I scrambled to my feet, still shielding my eyes. “Can you lower your light?”
Levi lowered the lantern a fraction of an inch. As he did, I could make out the woman’s face. It was Phoebe Truber, the redheaded schoolteacher. I blinked at her as my suspicions rose. “What are the two of you doing here? Together?”
“This is my family’s land,” Levi said.
I brushed dirt from my jacket, a futile gesture as I was covered head to foot in mud. I knew Oliver probably was too. “Why are you out here, Phoebe?”
“Levi asked me to come.” Her teeth chattered.
“I needed to talk to her.” Levi shone the light in my eyes again.
I raised my hand over my face. “Do you have to keep doing that?”
“You deserve worse for spying on us.” He lowered the light.
I scooped up Oliver and held him to my chest. “I think we should all go to your brother’s house and talk this over.”
Phoebe looked to Levi. “I should go home.”
“Nee. You are my friend. You should come too.”
Phoebe chewed on her lip but didn’t argue.
He sighed. “All right. Ya, let’s go to my bruder’s house.”
Silently, we walked through the woods to the Leham home. All the while I wondered what Levi and Phoebe were going to reveal. Was it a secret romance? Phoebe was easily ten years Levi’s senior, but that didn’t mean it was impossible. But he had been so broken up about Faith calling off their wedding.
Breaking through the trees, I recognized the Millers’ and the Grabers’ buggies parked in the driveway. Heavy black horse blankets protected both horses from the cold. Mattie stood on the front porch holding the lantern and hurried down the steps toward us. If she was surprised to see Levi and Phoebe with me, she didn’t say anything. “Angie, Rachel and I saw your car and wondered what became of you.”
“Rachel came?” I said.
Mattie’s brow furrowed. “Ya, of course she came. She always comes to quilting circle meetings.”
“Right.” I realized that Mattie still didn’t know about the incident in the woods with Nahum.
She held the lantern higher and inspected me. “What happened to you? You’re covered in mud.”
“Pumpkins,” I said.
She shook her head. “Everyone is inside.” She looked to Levi and Phoebe. “Sarah and Anna made plenty of food. You two should come inside and eat. You look cold.” Dozens of unasked questions played across Mattie’s face.
Phoebe shook her head, but Levi said, “That would be nice.”
“Angie,” Sarah said. “There you are. We were all getting worried when we saw your car but not you.” She blinked when she saw Levi and Phoebe standing behind me. “I see you’re not alone.”
I stepped into the house and set Oliver on the floor. He headed for the warmth of the potbelly stove. “I met up with Levi and Phoebe in the pumpkin patch,” I said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “I told them that they should come inside for a chat.”
“Oh, ya, please come inside.” She looked to her brother-in-law. “It’s gut to see you are feeling better.”
In the warm lantern light of the Lehams’ home, it was easy to see that Levi’s eyes looked better after that morning’s incident. They were bloodshot, but alert.
She nodded at Phoebe. “It is nice to see you.”
Anna and Rachel were in the living room. Both of them were piecing quilt toppers on their laps and froze midstitch when they recognized our visitors.
“Please sit,” Sarah said. “I will go make coffee for everyone. Mattie, will you help me?”
Nervously, Phoebe perched on the only open seat on the couch between Rachel and Anna.
Levi sat on the hearth.
I excused myself to go to the bathroom to wash what mud I could from my hands and coat. The coat might be a lost cause. Luckily, most of the mud was on my upper half. My boots would be okay with a little boot polish. When I returned to the living room, Anna set her work aside and rooted through her basket. She came up with several pieces of cloth, a needle, and a spool of white thread. Anna handed Phoebe cut pieces of cloth. “We are having a quilting circle meeting tonight, and if you are going to join us, you have to quilt. You can sew, can’t you?”
Phoebe nodded and seemed to be happy to have something to occupy her hands.
“How are the children at your school, Phoebe?” Rachel asked in her gentle voice.
“I don’t know.” She concentrated on her work. “We have not had school the last two days. I hope they will return on Monday. Without the bishop, many families in the district are confused about what to do. He was a big part of our everyday lives. Levi is not the only one in the district who has shared his concerns with me. Many in the district have come to me for comfort.” She dropped her gaze to the needle and thread in her lap.
Murder, Plainly Read Page 22