Shunned and Dangerous (An Amish Mystery)

by Bradford, Laura

  Jakob nodded along as the dispatcher wrapped up her report. “I wasn’t sure I should bother you with this, but the chief said you’d want to know.”

  “No, Sue, you did the right thing.”

  “Also, Officer McKenzie is asking if you’d like him to sit outside the viewing and keep an eye on things for the next few hours?”

  He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as they headed into the English side of town, Rita and Patrick Duggan’s home their intended destination. “You know, that might not be such a bad idea. Let him know I’ll be there to cover that spot by nine o’clock.”

  Claire noted the time on the dashboard and the four-hour buffer he’d given himself.

  “You got it, Detective. Should he raise you on the radio or your cell if something comes up?”

  “Have him call my cell.” They passed four streets to their left and five streets to their right before the car began to slow and he shifted his focus from the road in front of them to the note he’d affixed to the center console between them. There, in his unusually neat handwriting, was an address that had them turning right at the next stop sign. “And Sue? Thanks for letting me know.”

  “My pleasure.”

  And then Sue was gone, the background noises on the radio disappearing along with her voice. “Sorry about that, Claire. But it was a tidbit of information I needed to know.”

  She smiled at him across the seat and followed it up with a tiny shrug. “No, that’s okay, I understand. But . . .” Hesitating just a moment, she finally gave in to the question she’d found herself wanting to ask since nearly the beginning of the radio transmission. “Is that really the way they do their viewings? In the bishop’s home?”

  “No. Usually the deceased is viewed in their own home. I suspect the bishop is hosting simply because Harley has no other living family in Heavenly.”

  “But in a home?” she repeated.

  “Sure. It’s like everything else the Amish do. They don’t rely on the outside world for anything, really. A funeral isn’t any different.” He slowed the car still further as they wound their way around parked cars on the first of two side streets that would take them to the Duggans’. “And because it’s in their home, as opposed to a funeral parlor, the viewing isn’t confined to two separate two-hour sessions. An Amish viewing lasts for twenty-four hours or more, with members of the community here in Lancaster County and beyond stopping by to pay their respects at all hours of the day and night.”

  “Seriously?” At Jakob’s nod, she glanced out the window and tried to visualize such a viewing. “And the actual funeral? Is it any different than ours?”

  “It’s simpler. The tombstones are far simpler, too. Harley’s will just contain his name and the dates he was alive. There are no statues, no mausoleums. The Amish don’t elevate themselves in life or death.”

  “Can only the Amish attend an Amish viewing?” she asked.

  “If a person wishes to pay their respects, they are welcome to do so.” He turned his gaze toward her long enough to ask a follow-up question of his own. “Why? Are you thinking about going?”

  “I kind of think I should. I mean, I’m the one who found him, you know?” She shook off the reappearing image she’d managed to hold at bay for much of the day and answered his question with one of her own. “You’re going to go, too, aren’t you?”

  He grew silent beside her as he pulled to a stop in front of a simple ranch-style home with tan siding and fading burgundy shutters. The mailbox at the end of the driveway confirmed they were in the right place. “I’d like to,” he finally said, his voice so hushed she had to lean closer to hear his response. “I mean, Harley championed me for sixteen years. The least I can do is repay the favor for five minutes, right?”

  “But . . .” she prompted in light of the audible hesitation that dotted his words.

  “But I’m quite sure my presence will not be welcomed by Bishop Hershberger.”

  “Can he keep you out?”

  “I don’t think so, but he’ll certainly make it as uncomfortable for me as possible.”

  She felt the familiar anger that always accompanied the subject of Jakob’s excommunication rising up in her throat and did her best to keep it in check. Instead, she settled on the simple facts. “That’s okay, right? Because you’re not there for him. You’re there for Harley. The rest really doesn’t matter.”

  “If only that were true,” he mumbled before flashing the momentary smile she needed to see. “But yes, deep down inside, I know you’re right. And I appreciate the encouragement and support more than you can realize. So thank you for that, Claire.”

  Then, jerking his chin in the direction of the Duggan house, he guided her focus back to the reason she was sitting in his car at all. “Are you ready to go inside?”

  If it meant another temporary reprieve from sharing news of the spray-painted threat on the side of Harley’s house, she was more than ready to go inside. To Jakob, though, she simply nodded. “Is there a certain role you’d like me to play in all this?”

  He considered her words for a few moments. “Well, I guess I want this to seem as casual and nonthreatening as possible in the hopes Rita will talk freely.”

  “And as for why I’m here with you?”

  “I was kind of hoping maybe I could say we’re headed out on a date, if that’s okay with you?” She heard the slight stumble in his request but opted not to make a big deal of it, aloud. The increased thumping in her chest took care of that all alone. “I’ll just say something about it being my first chance to stop by or something like that. Sound good?”

  “Uh, yeah, sure.” She resisted the urge to cool her flushed face with her hands and opted, instead, to turn her head toward the Duggans’ front porch and the hint of light that streamed through the open front door. “Do you want me to say anything? Ask anything?”

  “If you come up with a question or comment you think will help facilitate the talking process, by all means, yes. But no pressure if you don’t, okay?” At her slow nod, he put his hand on the door handle and pulled. “Let’s do this.”

  • • •

  The range of emotions across Rita Duggan’s heavily lined face ran the gamut from pure, unadulterated exhaustion to an intermittent hostility that seemed to lack a discernible target. One minute, Claire was sure it was aimed at Patrick’s inability to sit still and focus. The next, it seemed as if it was directed at the two of them and their presence in her home.

  But still, the wife of convicted murderer Carl Duggan offered them cookies and lemonade and a spot on her tattered sofa.

  “How’s it going, Patrick?” Jakob asked, waving off the snack to focus his undivided attention on the burly, brown-eyed man pacing around the room. “I understand you had a little bit of a rough night last night.”

  The twenty-six-year-old stopped mid-step to rake a hand through his greasy hair, the gesture one of not-so-quiet irritation. “I was tired is all. That ain’t a crime, is it?”

  “No. But most folks don’t throw things across a room because they’re tired.”

  “I was looking for a video game.”

  Jakob looked to the diminutive woman seated across from Claire for confirmation. At her angry nod, he addressed Patrick once again. “Is that really a reason to throw things and yell at your mother, man?”

  “I wanted to play. Wanted to shoot some stuff up.”

  “And I didn’t want to listen to those noises all night long,” Rita hissed through clenched teeth. “Sometimes I need to think, Patrick.”

  “Why? Nothing ever changes in there from what I can see, so why bother?”

  Rita propped her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes on her son. “How dare you question the kind of mother I’ve been. Have you had a roof over your head these past sixteen years, Patrick? Have you had food in your stomach?”

  Patrick’s head dropped in shame, yet Rita continued on, her tirade just getting started. “You’re not the only one who’s suffered a
ll this time. And me? I’ve done my suffering while working two jobs and trying to keep you out of trouble. No one says I have to make your life easier. You’re an adult now, Patrick. Part of being an adult is learning when to show restraint and how to exercise patience. I’ve given you all the rest.”

  “Your mom is right,” Jakob said. “If she didn’t want you playing games last night, there was a reason. You’ll play them again another day. You can’t go flying off the handle because you don’t want to wait.”

  A quiet rage flashed behind Patrick’s eyes as he pinned Jakob with a near-death stare then turned and disappeared down a hallway that led to the back of the house. Seconds later a door slammed.

  “He’s an angry young man,” Jakob stated to no one in particular.

  And, just like that, all of the anger Rita had displayed toward her son only seconds earlier was now aimed squarely at Jakob. “He has every reason to be angry if you ask me.”

  Jakob’s brow raised, but he said nothing.

  “For nearly a year after the murder, all the papers talked about was the Zook family. The”—Rita lifted both hands into the air and wiggled her fingers up and down to simulate air quotes—“other victims, they called them. But when Carl was arrested, on trial, and then locked away, no one said a thing about Patrick and me. It was as if everyone thought our loss, our life upheaval was different. But I didn’t ask to raise a young boy on my own and that young boy didn’t ask to be fatherless any more than Harley Zook asked to live without his brother or their parents without a son.”

  “I can only imagine how hard it’s been on the two of you,” Claire finally said. “You’re right. As a society we rarely seem to notice the pain of the people standing on the other side of a tragedy. Unless they were holding the gun or knife or whatever else, the bystanders on that side are victims, too.”

  Anger morphed into anguish as a stifled cry emerged from between Rita’s tightened lips. “Had Patrick been a teenager when everything happened, maybe he could have rationalized everything better in his head and seen it for what it was. But a ten-year-old who worshipped the ground his father walked on? Losing Carl from his life like that was traumatizing. One minute he’d be crying inconsolably and the next he’d be tearing through the house breaking everything in sight.”

  “Did you get him a counselor?” Jakob asked.

  “I couldn’t afford a counselor, Detective. I was raising a child by myself and trying to keep our heads above water from a typhoon of someone else’s making. I worked a job that had him cooking dinners for himself most nights, and a second job that had him heading off to school in the morning by himself. Looking back, I guess in his head my working was about rejecting him. That’s the only reason I can figure he’d proceed to make my life hell over the last decade or so. When I wasn’t working, I was sitting in the principal’s office at Patrick’s school trying to plead with them not to suspend him yet again. When he was a little older, I took my pleading to the office of many a store manager, offering to pay for whatever stupid little thing he’d tried to shoplift out of the store. At home, it was more of the same; only here, he didn’t shoplift or punch a classmate, he just yelled and screamed and broke things every time I tried to lie down and take a well-earned nap.”

  Claire scooted forward on the sofa until Rita’s focus was back on her. “Did it ever get better with Patrick? Did he work through the hurt and anger?”

  “He’d hit these patches from time to time when he was almost quiet. I wish I could say those were the good times. And in the beginning, I could. But I began to realize that’s what he did right before his latest trick. It wasn’t long before I started dreading his quiet times more than his acting out. At least with the latter, I knew what I was dealing with.” Rita sagged against the back of the wing chair. “But then Dave Riddler came along. Dave was Patrick’s high school shop teacher his senior year. He came into my son’s life and recognized him for the damaged soul he was. Dave took Patrick under his wing and gave me a real glimpse of the boy my son might have been had Carl never been shipped off to jail.” The woman’s voice took on a faraway quality matched only by the look in her eyes. “Things were better for a while. Dave even kept in touch with Patrick after graduation . . . calling him on the phone and meeting him for a soda every few weeks or so until he ended up moving to the West Coast with his wife about six months ago. That’s when things got bad again.”

  Jakob claimed a spot on the sofa beside Claire. “Bad how?”

  “The anger was back. The restless energy was back. The depression was back.” Rita shook her head slowly. “Then that man showed up and offered to help. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the two of them being together at all. But after thinking about a few things, I decided to let them do it.”

  “By that man, do you mean Harley?” Claire clarified.

  “I sure do.” Rita rose to her feet and wandered around the room, stopping every few feet to look at something on the wall or on a shelf, yet touching nothing. “That man was always stopping by, asking how we were doing. I stopped answering the door when I heard his horse comin’ down the road. But I wasn’t home that last time and so he got hold of Patrick on his own. He mentioned the work he was doing and asked if Patrick wanted to earn some money helping him. When I got home later that night, Patrick dumped that on me and wouldn’t let go until I finally gave him permission.”

  Jakob braced his hands atop his thighs. “Why do you think he wanted to work with Harley so bad?”

  “Near as I can figure, it’s ’cause he’s been hearing things about them people his whole life and wanted to see it with his own eyes.”

  “Did he talk about his day when he got home each night? Did he tell you whether he liked Harley or not?”

  Rita’s gaze moved to Claire. “Patrick isn’t one to talk about his feelings. He prefers to act them out. If he’s not yelling and swearing or breaking things, he tends to stay to himself as he did when he was working with that man.”

  “When he’s staying to himself, would you say he’s happy?”

  “Like I said before, I think it’s merely the calm before the next storm.”

  She broke eye contact with Rita long enough to make a mental note of the way Jakob leaned forward on the heels of the woman’s assessment. “When did this most recent storm start?”

  “I don’t know, maybe a week or so ago.”

  Chapter 17

  If she weren’t so hyperaware of everything about him at that exact moment, Claire might have reached across the table and tried to smooth the worry from Jakob’s face. But when her heart started racing at the image of touching him, she knew it would be a bad move.

  It wasn’t all that long ago that her heart had reacted the same way whenever Benjamin Miller was near, as well. And while she knew her feelings for Jakob were growing with leaps and bounds, she was also well aware of the way her thoughts still meandered toward Benjamin and the life he’d proposed every now and again.

  “I’m not being the best company, am I?” Jakob finally asked as he pushed his half-eaten hamburger off to the side and propped his elbows on the edge of the table.

  She took a bite of her chicken sandwich and tried to think of the best way to address his comment without sounding patronizing. “You have a lot on your plate. I think it would be odd if you weren’t distracted.” That said, she couldn’t help but wish for a do-over of that moment without the cloud of Harley Zook’s murder investigation hanging over their time together.

  Jakob rubbed at his chin, shaking his head as he did. “Is it just me or don’t you find it ironic that the one person who continued to reach out to Rita and Patrick more than a decade after John’s murder was Harley Zook, himself? I mean, of everyone on the fringes of what happened back then, Harley was the one who had a right to be angry, to resent a man who robbed him of his brother based on reprehensible ignorance. Yet, there Harley was, offering to expose Patrick to the one thing he’d finally allowed himself to have after sixteen long years of tryi
ng to maintain a connection with his dead brother through a herd of cows.”

  She peered at Jakob over her water glass. “You lost me.”

  “Harley. He always loved building things. When a barn burned, he was the first one there, leading the charge to raise a new one. When repairs needed to be made at the school down the road, he made them despite not having any children of his own. It was his passion the way police work was mine and dairy farming was John’s.”

  “Oh, I get it now. He abandoned his own intended career path to follow John’s in his absence, right?”

  Jakob nodded, once, twice. “From what—um, I gather, Harley jumped into the dairy business with both feet for the first thirteen or fourteen years. Then, around that time, he got wind of the fact your aunt was looking for a fix-it man and he did a few odd jobs for her here and there over the next year or so. Something about doing that kind of work again really spoke to him and he started devoting more time to that and less to the dairy farming.”

  She considered calling him on the details Diane hadn’t provided but decided to let it go. If Jakob wanted to keep the occasional clandestine meeting with his sister a secret, it wasn’t her place to out him. Instead, she kept the conversation on topic and hoped he’d trust her enough one day to actually come clean on his own. “I suppose that explains a lot about the farm being the way we found it.”

  “There’s not a lot of room for pursuing passions in the Amish community. People who have a special affinity for painting like my sister, Martha, can paint . . . if it’s on a stool or something useful that will make money. But Harley? He liked working with his hands. He truly liked it for what it was. The fact that it also happens to be a field that fits well with the Amish made it a no-brainer. But then John died and Harley pushed his own interests to the side. He finally allows himself the chance to live his own life instead of the one left to him, and someone decides to take it from him.” He filled his cheeks with air only to let them deflate slowly, audibly. “Would you mind if I try and talk through some of my thoughts with you? See if they make sense to someone other than a guy who wants to find anyone but his father to blame for Harley’s murder?”