Mary’s smile widened and was quickly followed by a slight jump and a finger that pointed toward the barn door. “And that is Dat!”
Leroy’s hand rose into the air in a wave before turning into more of a shooing gesture directed at his brood. “It is time to go inside and wash up for dinner. Tell your mamm I will be along soon.”
She watched as each child spun around on bare feet and made a beeline for the farmhouse, their exuberance and joy as evident as it had been two days earlier. “They’re precious, Leroy. Absolutely precious.”
“Please. Come. Let us talk.” He jerked his hatted head toward the inside of the barn and waited for Claire to join him. When she did, he led her toward the horse stalls in the back. “I thank you for listening yesterday. I should not have kept that secret. It was wrong.”
She met his gaze and held it. “Yes. It was.”
“I shared with Eva what I have done. I told her while the children slept last night. She cried.”
“I’m sure it was a shock to hear after all these years.”
He nodded. “That is what she said.”
“And your father? How did he react?”
Leroy’s jaw tightened. “He will know tomorrow. When I repent at church.”
“Will you be shunned?”
“I will ask for forgiveness for I know I have done wrong. I know this now, as I knew then. But now I am older. I am a father. I understand in different ways now.”
Unsure of what to say, she nodded and then pointed to a baby horse in the corner of a nearby stall. “That makes two babies on the farm, I see.”
“Three, actually. There is a cow, too. But the horse and the cow are much bigger than Melvin.”
Her answering laugh went a long way in dispelling any tension between them and she was glad. She didn’t agree with what Leroy had done or the apparent lack of justice for his part in what happened to Sadie, but there was no getting around the fact she liked the man. He was kind and gentle.
“What is his name?” She wandered over to the waist-high pen and took a moment to soak up every detail of the colt—his wide eyes, his long lashes, and his spindly legs.
Leroy came and stood beside her, prompting the colt to approach. “Samuel thinks we should call him Trip. Because that is what he did when he was born.”
“Trip is cute.”
“But Katie calls him Big Baby.”
“Big Baby, huh?” She leaned her upper body over the wall and tried to pet the colt, but the animal jumped back. “Oh . . . hey . . . I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“You would like to pet the horse?”
“I’d love to but I think he is afraid of me.”
“He will come back.” Leroy said quietly. “He is curious and thinks we are all like him.”
For several long minutes they simply stood there, watching the colt as he nuzzled his mother and stopped, periodically, to peek at them. Eventually, he took a step closer to them, his eyes inquisitive.
“Now, hold out your hand. He will nuzzle you. Perhaps he will even move his mouth on you as he does his mother.”
She did as she was told and allowed Leroy to fine-tune her positioning. “Okay . . .”
“Now, hold still and wait. He will want to see and smell.”
Sure enough, the horse’s ears pricked up, his nose lifted, and he took a few tentative steps in Claire’s direction. “Ohhh, he’s coming,” she whispered.
“Keep holding. Do not move.”
The colt brought his mouth down to Claire’s hand and, sure enough, sniffed and suckled at her fingers. After a moment, Leroy took hold of the underside of her hand and guided her palm to the side of the colt’s head. Together, they petted him.
“He is so soft . . . so sweet.”
A cough from the front of the barn made her glance over her shoulder. “Oh, hi, Annie. I just got to pet a baby horse for my very first time.”
Annie stared down at the toes of her boots but said nothing.
“Annie?”
“It is time for dinner, Leroy.”
She looked at the horse one last time and then hurried across the barn as Leroy double-checked the colt’s stall door. “Annie? Are you okay?”
“I did something wrong but I do not know what,” Annie murmured.
“What are you talking about?”
“The Pest. He was just here. Standing right there.” Annie pointed to a spot on the drive not far from where they stood. “His back was to me when I came out of the house. I thought it was Leroy who was looking into the barn, but it was not. It was The Pest.”
“Did he say something to upset you again?”
“He said nothing.”
Claire guided the girl’s chin upward until their eyes met. “Then I don’t understand.”
“When he heard me on the porch steps, he turned and looked at me. He was angry, very very angry.” Annie’s hands flew up to her kapp and its strings, and then moved nervously down the front and sides of her dress and apron. “I have never seen such anger. Such”—she stopped, swallowed, and tried again, her voice muted by fear—“such hate.”
“Where is he now?”
“Look close. His buggy is almost to the road.”
Claire stepped around the corner of the barn in time to see Josiah Beiler turn left onto the main road, his horse and its buggy moving at a good clip.
“He didn’t say anything to you?”
“He did not have to. His eyes said enough.”
She returned to Annie and pulled her in for a hug. “Based on what I saw Thursday night, if he’d had something to say to you, he would have said it. So put him out of your mind and enjoy your dinner with your sister and Leroy and the children.”
“Will you come see the baby?”
She glanced between Leroy in the barn and the open doorway of the farmhouse and politely declined. “Another time. When you’re not getting ready to sit down to eat.”
“Please. Eva will be upset if you do not come inside. I will set a plate at the table and you can join us for dinner.”
Chapter 29
Despite the lack of lights, Claire could still discern the outline of five little children in her rearview mirror. She couldn’t make out each individual face, but she could tell Annie’s nieces and nephews were waving as she drove down the driveway toward the main road.
“You have a really special family, Annie,” she said as she took one last peek in the mirror. “Your nieces and nephews are absolutely adorable . . . and so smart.”
Annie nestled into the bucket-style passenger seat and resituated the plate of bread atop her lap. “I like to eat with Eva and Leroy often. It reminds me of what it was like when Mamm was still with us and my brothers were still home. Sometimes Eva and Leroy would come to our house with Samuel and Mark. There would be much talking and laughing.”
She looked both ways when they reached the main road but waited a few moments to make the turn. “It’s quiet at home alone with your father, isn’t it?”
“Yah.”
“I remember dinners like that.”
Annie met Claire’s eyes across the center console and pulled back just a little. “You lived with just your dat, too?”
“No. But I did share a home with just one person for many years. Most nights he did not come home for dinner and I ate alone.” She leaned her head against the seat back and chose, instead, to savor the memory she’d just made. Sitting around the dinner table with Annie and her sister’s family had been akin to some of Claire’s favorite Thanksgivings growing up. The food had been good, of course, but it had really just served as a side dish to the conversation and merriment of the evening. It was everything she wanted for her own life one day.
“I am sorry to hear of that.” Annie crossed her feet at the ankles and looked down at the bread. “Do you think you will marry one day? Perhaps have children of your own?”
She felt the smile even before it crossed her lips and knew what her answer would be just as s
urely as she knew her own name. “If you’d asked me that question six months ago, kiddo, I’d have told you no. But I’ve come to realize hearts can heal with time. And if you’re willing to open your eyes to all that is good, your heart will follow.”
“Eva says that you will marry Jakob.”
“Eva says that?” she echoed.
“Yah. She is friends with Esther.”
“Ahhh.”
Six months ago, six weeks ago, even six days ago she’d have protested Esther and Eva’s claim. But suddenly, that protest was gone.
She didn’t know if she’d marry Jakob.
She didn’t even know for certain if they’d ever have another date.
But there was something special about the detective. Something special about the way they interacted with each other. She’d be a fool to discount that.
“Is it true?”
“Is what true, Annie?”
“That you will marry the policeman?” Annie fidgeted with the edges of the plate as she waited for Claire to answer.
“I think we’ll need to see what God has in store for Jakob and me.”
“God is good.”
She reached across the space between their seats and patted Annie’s hand. “Yes, He is, Annie. Just look at that wonderful family we just left. How blessed you are to have them and how blessed we all are to have you.”
“You are blessed to have me?” Annie whispered.
“Beyond words, Annie. Beyond words.” Looking to the left and right a second time, Claire finally pulled onto the main road, her throat tight with emotion. “Five days ago, I was adamant that I wasn’t ready to hire a replacement for Esther yet. And now, I can’t imagine not knowing you.”
She brightened her headlights but kept the speed low in an effort to give them as much time together as possible. “I think that alone has taught me the importance of being open.”
They fell silent as they passed onto the stretch of road bordered by thick woods on the south and farmland on the north. She wondered what Annie was thinking but didn’t ask. Sometimes it was okay to simply sit quietly and reflect . . .
“Whoa, what do we have here?” she mumbled as her lights trained on a familiar orange triangle ahead and to the right. Slowing the car to a crawl, she turned to look more closely at the slow-moving vehicle sign and the buggy it marked, its abandoned horse tethered to a tree. “Looks like someone’s buggy might have broken down.”
Annie leaned her forehead against her window for a closer look. “You are right. It is missing a wheel.”
“Do you know whose buggy it is?” Claire pulled onto the shoulder just in front of the horse and shifted into park.
“If Dat were here, he could tell you who goes with that buggy. But I only know when I see who is sitting on the seat.”
“Which doesn’t do us much good when there’s no one there, does it?” she teased. Then, reaching past her cell phone in the built-in cup holder, she popped open her aunt’s glove compartment and retrieved the flashlight Claire herself had put there several months earlier. “I’m going to get out and look around. Just to make sure no one is sitting out here alone in the dark, okay?”
“Do you want me to come?”
“No. You wait here. I’ll take a quick look on both sides of the road and then come right back.”
She pushed her door open and stepped onto the finely graveled road, the lack of any real moonlight making her grateful for the four or five feet of illumination granted by her flashlight. Swinging the light toward the back end of her car, she was immediately struck by the size difference between the tethered buggy horse and Leroy’s new colt. Both animals were beautiful, but what she saw in their eyes was much different.
The colt was full of wonder as he gazed at the world from behind the safety of his mother. The buggy horse looked tired and maybe even a little confused as to why he was standing on the side of a road all by himself.
“Hello?” she called out as she cleared the horse and shined her light onto the empty buggy seat. When no one emerged from the area behind the seat, she moved the beam into the empty field. Aside from sprouts of rye and barley, there was nothing.
She walked back to the horse and gently stroked the side of its head the way Leroy had taught her, the animal’s initial rebuke soon followed by a soft whinny. “I can’t believe someone would just leave you out here like this. It doesn’t make sense . . .”
A distant but audible moan sent her light skittering across the street and moving from one narrow gap in the trees to the next. “Hello? Is anyone there? Are you hurt?”
“Yah. I . . . am hurt. Please come. Please help.”
The light from her flashlight bobbed up and down as she ran across the street and into the first gap she could find. “Where are you?” she called.
“Keep walking. I am here. In the woods.”
She moved the light to the left and walked in the direction of the male voice, the snap of twigs and branches beneath her feet little match for the thump of her heart in her ears. “Should I go back to my car and call for help?”
“No! I will be fine with your help. Please. Do not leave. I knew you would come, knew you would try to help.”
With careful steps, she walked farther into the woods, her progress thwarted from time to time by the pull of a branch on her clothes or a stumble on an unexpected rock or fallen tree. Twice she fell all the way to the ground and twice she picked herself back up.
The third time she fell and struggled to her feet, she heard it.
It was fast and it was faint but the metal-on-metal sound was unmistakable.
“Do not move!”
The voice that spoke was the same as it had been from the start. But now, instead of pleading, it was commanding.
Slowly, she moved her light to the right and then the left, trees and branches disappearing amid the fear of what she knew she would find.
Inch by terrifying inch she scanned the thick woods in front of her until she saw it—the long narrow shaft of steel trained on her chest. She wanted to turn, wanted to run faster than she’d ever run in her life, but she knew it wouldn’t matter. Her only chance at that moment was to stand perfectly still.
Lifting the beam upward, all moisture that remained in her mouth drained straight through to her hands as the identity of the man holding the rifle became crystal clear.
“Josiah? What are you doing?”
“I am doing what needs to be done!”
“What are you talking about?” She heard the heightened pitch to her voice and did her best to keep it under control. The last thing she needed to do was escalate the situation with her emotions. “What needs to be done?”
“The Amish do not do these things!”
“What things?” she shouted back.
“I must rid my son of such temptation!”
“What are you talking about? What does Leroy have to do with any of this?”
“I know why you hired Annie! I know it was so you could have excuses to come to Leroy’s farm.”
“Come to Leroy’s farm?” she echoed, confused. “No, I hired Annie because I needed help!”
“I saw you with Leroy in his barn not more than two hours ago! I saw his hand on yours! It is not right!”
“You saw Leroy’s hand on mine?” she repeated even as her thoughts traveled back to Leroy’s farm . . . to the dinner . . . to playing with the baby horse . . .
And then she knew.
Josiah hadn’t been upset at Annie when she came out of the house. He’d been upset at Claire. At what he thought he was seeing between her and his son in the barn.
“Josiah, you misunderstood! Leroy and I weren’t doing anything wrong. He was just introducing me to the new horse!”
“He was holding your hand!”
She stepped forward only to recover her step the moment the rifle inched upward toward her face. “He—he wasn’t holding my hand! He was guiding it!”
“My son is married! To the bishop’s daughte
r! I did not allow that behavior before! I will not allow that behavior now!”
“What are you talking about?” she shrieked. “We weren’t doing anything wrong! He was just helping me!”
“If I do not stop this, it will continue. One help will turn into two helps . . . and then three. This time I will not wait for three!”
“This time you won’t—”
She heard the echo of her gasp as reality struck with a punch to her gut that left her breathless.
Howard was right.
Elizabeth hadn’t been killed by a stray hunting bullet.
She’d been killed by one specifically earmarked just for her.
By Josiah Beiler.
“You killed Elizabeth Miller, didn’t you?”
“It was God’s will!”
“God didn’t pull that trigger . . . you did!” she shouted back.
“She was at my son’s farm. Again and again, she was there! Talking to him . . . walking with him. She did not care that he was to marry in two weeks.”
“Because Leroy and Elizabeth were friends! That’s all!”
“He held her hand! He wiped her tears!” Josiah thundered. “He held her in his arms!”
She resisted the urge to drop to her knees and sob. She had to keep him talking, had to hope Annie would come looking when Claire didn’t return to the car.
Annie . . .
No, Annie, don’t come looking for me . . .
“He held her in his arms because she was scared,” Claire protested. “She was trying to convince Leroy to tell the truth.”
“He was to marry Eva! That was the only truth!”
The snap of a twig somewhere off to her right brought a momentary stop to the thud in her ears. If Josiah heard it, though, he gave it no due, opting instead to pull his arms and the rifle closer to his own body.
A methodical tapping from somewhere behind Josiah caught his attention and he turned, momentarily removing the crosshairs from her body. Before she could react, before she could even think, Jakob burst out of the trees to her right, his duty weapon aimed at Josiah’s back. “Police! Drop the weapon or I’ll shoot.”
Suspendered Sentence (An Amish Mystery Book 4) Page 22