A Churn for the Worse

by Laura Bradford

  “But . . .” she prodded.

  “But I keep coming back to the same thing I think you’re stuck on—Ben called.”

  Claire shifted the hem of her skirt across her knees and willed herself to think calmly. “You two have gotten closer again. I mean, look at the way he just helped you with Rebecca’s father. Maybe his calling you on the phone has something to do with that. Maybe Rebecca remembered something, told Ben about it after church or wherever it is they may have been visiting today, and he’s calling you because he knows it’s something you need to know.”

  Yes, that sounds plausible . . .

  “Maybe.”

  “Or maybe he heard something from someone else that he thinks is relevant to the case.”

  “Maybe,” he repeated in the same skeptical voice.

  Claire’s gaze moved from his rigid jaw to his too-tight hold on the steering wheel and back again, whatever calm she’d managed to harness rapidly disappearing. “What aren’t you saying, Jakob? Talk to me.”

  “Ben is about as relaxed as they come, you know?”

  She did know. And it was why she was unable to brush off the man’s call to his former Amish friend as no big deal. Still, if there had been a true emergency, surely he wouldn’t have waited for Jakob to be located . . .

  “But we’ll find out soon enough.” Jakob slowed as they reached the mailbox denoting the original Miller farm and turned into the driveway. The evening hour, coupled with the fact that it was a Sunday, had the tractors off to the side, and the horses tasked with pulling them safely in the large white barn visible through the passenger-side window. “The only trick now is figuring out whether we’ll find him at his parents’ house or his own.”

  She looked at the main house where Ruth lived with her younger siblings and her parents, and then toward the smaller house at the end of the driveway. For three short weeks more than a decade earlier, Ben had shared that house with his late wife, Elizabeth.

  “I stopped by his house one evening last spring and I was struck by just how lonely he must be. I mean, to eat alone, night after night the way that he does.” She released a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding and slowly inventoried the windows on the first floor of Ben’s home. “It made me sad.”

  “He doesn’t eat with his parents and siblings?” Jakob asked as he pulled to a stop underneath a large willow tree and turned off the car.

  “Maybe sometimes. But I don’t think he does often.” Movement behind a first-floor window caught her attention, and she pointed it out to Jakob. “I would imagine that’s Ben right there.”

  Before he could respond, Ben’s front door opened to reveal Ben himself. Nodding at Claire, Jakob exited the vehicle and waited for Claire to do the same. “Hey, Ben. I got the message that you called. Is everything okay?”

  Ben glanced toward his parents’ home and then waved Jakob and Claire onto the wide front porch he’d never truly gotten to enjoy with Elizabeth before her death. “Jakob. Claire . . .”

  “I was visiting with Claire when the station called. I invited her along.”

  “I am glad.” Then, turning his full attention onto Jakob, he gestured them inside. “If you have some time, I would like to talk. Inside. Where it is quiet.”

  She was about to make a comment about the entire Miller farm being cloaked in a blanket of peace and quiet, but thought better of it. Instead, she let Jakob guide her into Ben’s home.

  “Let us sit in the kitchen. There is candlelight when the last of the day’s light is gone.” When they entered the clean, yet sterile, surroundings, Ben pointed toward the counter and a familiar bag. “Ruth brought dessert with my dinner as she always does. And, once again, there is too much for me to eat alone. Would you like some chicken? Or some cookies?”

  Jakob waved the offer aside, then smiled at Claire. “Surely you’re not going to pass up one of Ruth’s cookies?”

  She was glad for the low lighting ushered in by the end of another summer day, but it didn’t really matter. Ben, too, knew her fondness for sweets and simply delivered a cookie to the table for Claire. “They are chocolate chip, Ruth says.”

  Claiming the spot next to Claire’s, Jakob took control of the conversation. “So what do you want to talk about, Ben?”

  “I think someone was here today. Looking for money.”

  Jakob’s palm hit the edge of the table and Claire jumped. “Did you see someone?” he asked.

  “No. I was at Eli’s home. Visiting. So, too, was Dat, Mamm, Ruth, and the children.” Ben fisted a hand at his mouth and exhaled. “But I am sure. Someone was here. In Dat’s house and mine.”

  “Is there money missing?” Jakob reached for a shirt pocket he did not have and then looked around the room. When Claire realized what he was looking for, she reached into her purse and pulled out a small notebook and pen and set them down in front of Jakob.

  Ben shook his head.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I am sure. But that is because it was moved.”

  She pushed her uneaten cookie off to the side and leaned forward against the edge of the table. “What was moved, Ben?”

  “My money. Dat’s money, too. I did not want what happened at Stutzman’s and Gingerich’s to happen here.”

  “Where did you move it to?” Jakob asked, his pen poised and ready to record Ben’s answer.

  “Dat’s money is now in his room. In an old pair of boots.” As if in anticipation of the next question, Ben added, “It is still there. I have checked.”

  “And your money, Ben?”

  “It is under my bed. It, too, is still there. Untouched.”

  Jakob took a few notes and then looked up at Ben. “Okay, so what makes you think someone was in your home and your dat’s while you were at Eli’s? Did someone tell you they saw someone?”

  “There was no one to tell. Everyone was at Eli’s.” Ben let his hand drift back to the table, his eyes following suit. “It was the papers that told me.”

  “Papers?” Claire echoed. “What papers?”

  “Dat’s papers. My papers. They were not as they had been left.”

  Jakob stopped writing and pointed his pen at Ben. “So papers are missing? What kind of papers?”

  “They are not missing.”

  Exhaling in frustration, Jakob looked from Ben to the notepad and back again. “I’m sorry, Ben, but I’m missing what you’re saying.”

  “I keep papers on the things that I buy over there. In my desk.” Ben’s gaze traveled across the kitchen to a small alcove on the far side. “My dat used to keep papers on everything he bought—tractors, horses, buggies, cows, and the like. It is something I now do for the things I must buy.”

  “Okay . . .” Jakob prodded.

  “I do not leave papers on the desk. They are in a drawer as they are in Dat’s house.” Turning his body toward his desk, Ben pushed off the wooden bench and stood. “But today, when I returned from Eli’s, my papers were scattered across the desk and floor. Dat’s, too.”

  “Do you have any idea why someone would do that?” Leaving the notebook and pen on the table, Jakob joined Ben in the middle of the room. “What they could be looking for?”

  Ben’s shoulders rose up beneath his suspenders in a shrug. “I do not know.”

  “Where are the papers now?” Jakob moved closer to the now-clean desk and looked back at Ben. “Did you move them?”

  “Yah. I put them back in the drawer.”

  Claire could feel Jakob’s disapproval from across the room and knew its origins. “Can you still get fingerprints?” she asked.

  “We can try.”

  “Fingerprints?” Ben joined Jakob next to the desk, his confusion evident in everything from the lines around his eyes to the downward tilt of his eyebrows. “What does that mean?”

  “Very often we can trace a crimina
l by his fingerprints. Assuming, of course, they’re in the system.”

  “And this person left fingerprints behind?” Ben asked.

  Jakob pulled his phone from his pocket but kept it down at his waist as he nodded at Ben. “If his fingers were bare, yes. They’ll need to be isolated from yours and your dat’s, but we should be able to pull some. But in order to do that, I need your permission to put a call into the station for one of my officers to come out here with a fingerprint kit. Is that okay?”

  “Yah.” Ben strode across the kitchen and retrieved a flashlight from the top of the refrigerator. “Perhaps there will be fingerprints in the barn, as well.”

  “The barn?” Jakob echoed.

  “Yah. But there it is not because of papers.” Ben hooked his thumb over his shoulder and then turned toward the door. “There, it is because of buckets. And feed.”

  Jakob met Claire at the kitchen doorway and guided her down the hallway and toward the front door. Back outside, they stepped off the porch and followed Ben across the driveway and into the barn.

  “I was not happy when I saw the mess. Sometimes the younger boys are not always good about picking up after themselves. But then I remembered they were still with Dat and Mamm at Eli’s. And they arrived at Eli’s before I did, too. So it was not messy because of them.” Ben led them over to the stalls that housed the family’s horses and pointed into the first one. “That is one bucket that was knocked over. And that”—Ben pointed into the stall to their right—“one, too.”

  “Maybe the horse kicked it over,” Claire suggested as Jakob stepped forward for a closer look. “They both look strong enough to be able to do that.”

  “Yah, but the buckets were outside the stalls when I left. And it is where I left them that they were knocked over.”

  Jakob’s head snapped up. “And you’re sure you were the last one to leave here this morning and the first one back here this evening? There is no chance your dat came back at any point during the day?”

  “I am sure.” Ben walked to a third stall and pointed at a large draft horse. “And it is this one that was in the field.”

  Jakob tightened his grip on the still-unused phone in his hand and made his way over to Ben. “What do you mean?”

  “It is a good thing he did not run. He is needed in the field tomorrow.” Ben reached over the half wall and stroked the side of the sturdy animal. “It is as if he thought it was a workday.”

  “Are you saying this horse got out?” Jakob asked.

  “Yah.”

  “How?”

  “Someone left his stall open.” Ben reached up under the front brim of his black hat and scratched along his hairline. “Perhaps it was him who knocked over the feed buckets.”

  Jakob nodded, his face deadpan. “Do you think one of your brothers forgot to latch the stall before church?”

  “No. I checked on the horses before I left. The stall was latched.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Yah. I am certain”

  “And, again, you are absolutely sure your dat did not return at some point during the day?”

  “Yah. I am certain,” Ben repeated.

  Claire slapped a hand to her mouth in an effort to stifle the gasp that followed Ben’s words, but it was too late. The sound earned the stare of both men, as well as the trio of horses closest to where she stood.

  “Claire? Are you okay?”

  She bypassed Ben’s question and, instead, focused on Jakob. “Standing here, listening to Ben and everything he’s saying, I can’t help but feel like maybe Annie wasn’t careless with Katie’s stall door after all.”

  “I’m thinking the same thing. Only Annie didn’t mention anything being wrong inside the house.”

  “Maybe she came straight to the inn after she found the stall door unlatched,” she posed even as her thoughts jumped ahead to yet another possibility. “Or maybe, if it’s a question of money being missing from inside her home, she simply hasn’t noticed yet.”

  Jakob looked down at his phone, pressed a few buttons, and then held the device to his ear. Seconds later, he was barking out orders. “I need a patrol car out at the Miller farm ASAP. I also need Officer Latner out here with his fingerprint kit to do a sweep of both houses and the barn.”

  A few moments later, he lowered the phone to his side. “Once they get out here and I show them what I need them to do, I want to head over to Bishop Hershberger’s place and check around. The fact that Katie’s stall door was unlatched could be a coincidence or it could mean that the same person who was rooting around this farm was doing the same out at the bishop’s place.”

  Chapter 18

  For what had to be the hundredth time since the shop opened, Claire peeked at the clock on the back wall and noted the time in relation to Annie’s expected arrival. Sure, the extra pair of hands on a relatively busy Monday would be nice, but more than that, she just wanted to know what, if anything, Jakob and his officers had discovered at the bishop’s farm.

  She’d stayed awake until the wee hours of the morning hoping Jakob would text or call when his work was done, but he hadn’t, his concern for her need to sleep a likely reason. And that morning, on her way in to work, a peek at the parking lot behind the Heavenly Police Department yielded no sign of the detective’s car. Whether that was because he was home sleeping or out in the field, she could only guess.

  “Good afternoon, Claire.”

  Abandoning the display of painted spoons she wasn’t really paying attention to anyway, Claire stepped off the footstool and took a moment to study her sixteen-year-old employee from head to toe. Dressed in a typical Amish dress and apron, Annie stood just inside the back entrance to the shop’s main room, clutching a lunch pail in her hands. “Annie, you’re early. I wasn’t expecting you for another thirty minutes or so.”

  “Henry was coming to town and offered to give me a ride in his buggy.” A hint of crimson crept across the girl’s rounded cheeks just before she thrust the pail outward. “I brought you some chicken for lunch. An apple, too.”

  Claire crossed the room to Annie but stopped short of actually taking the pail. “Annie, you don’t have to bring me lunch. You really don’t.”

  “But I know how much you like the way Eva has taught me to bread the chicken. It is too much for just me and Dat to eat alone, anyway.”

  Feeling her stomach start to respond to the proximity of a meal she’d so far skipped, she took the pail and smiled at her young friend. “Thank you, Annie.” Then, glancing over her shoulder at the front door, she carried the pail to the counter and removed the cloth cover. “We seem to be in a little bit of a lull at the moment, so maybe I will take a quick bite . . .”

  “Why don’t you sit down on the stool and eat. Or take it outside on the back stoop. I am here now. I will take care of any customers who come.”

  Again, she looked at the clock. “Are you sure? Technically you still have some more time to walk around with Henry if he is still nearby.”

  “Henry is not here to walk around,” Annie said as she gazed down at the clipboard and the list of daily tasks Claire had yet to check off. “He is here to talk to your detective. I am here to work.”

  Claire let the chicken leg fall back into the pail and drifted back against the edge of the counter. “Henry is talking to Jakob right now?” At Annie’s nod, she added, “Why? Do you know?”

  “To see if the things that happened in our barn and the Millers’ barn last night is what happened in Henry’s barn.”

  “So Jakob thinks Katie’s stall door being unlatched is connected to whatever went on at the Millers’ house yesterday?”

  Annie’s dark eyes swung toward the front door and then back to rest on Claire. “I was to be in bed when the detective and the other policemen stopped by last night. But it was not hard to hear the things they said. Dat looked to see if h
is money was missing. But it was not.”

  “Was anything disturbed inside your house when you got home from your hymn sing yesterday?”

  “I did not go into the house until after I came to see you at the inn, but when I got home Dat was there and everything was as it should be.”

  “Is he sure?” Claire asked.

  Annie laughed. “That is the same question your detective asked. And just as Dat told him, yah, we are sure.”

  Claire reached, again, for the chicken and this time took a bite, her mind dissecting everything she knew so far. “But Jakob thinks someone was in your barn?”

  “Yah. There was half a boot print in the earth that did not come from Dat or me.”

  “I wonder why this person didn’t go into your home as they did Henry’s, Rebecca’s, and the Millers’.” She took another bite of chicken and then slid the apple over to Annie. “I feel bad eating in front of you. Why don’t you have the apple?”

  “I already ate.” Annie slid onto the stool next to Claire and lowered her voice despite the absence of any customers. “It is no surprise that this person did not go into my house. He could not get in.”

  She looked at Annie over her chicken leg and hoped any surprise depicted on her face didn’t come off as judgmental. “You lock your doors?”

  “No. But the doors stick. You must push in just the right place to make them open. The person in our barn did not know the right place.”

  “They didn’t break any windows?”

  Annie shook her head and then reached into the pail long enough to retrieve a pair of cookies Claire hadn’t noticed underneath the napkin. “I brought cookies. They are from a recipe my mamm used to make. They are Dat’s favorite.”

  “You are too good to me, Annie,” she said honestly.

  “God is good. It is He who has brought us to be friends. It is His will.”

  Claire reached her free hand across the space between them and patted Annie’s knee. “I’m glad that it is,” she said simply. And she was. Annie had been a godsend since the moment she started working at Heavenly Treasures, her presence and work ethic enabling Claire to reclaim a little bit of the personal life she’d lost when Esther left to marry Eli. The young girl’s enthusiasm for the job and obvious admiration of Claire had simply been the icing on the cake. Now, several months later, Claire considered Annie a friend despite the doubled age difference between them.