“Seems to me the only thing your squint test does each year is drive you batty.”
“There’s that, yes. But it works!” she protested.
The sixty-three-year-old innkeeper rolled her eyes. “Remind me again, dear, who taught you this silly squint test? Because I’d like to remove them from my Christmas card list if they’re on it, or add them just so I can remove them if they’re not.”
With one last look at the strands of lights she’d spent the better part of two hours arranging, Claire pulled the mug to her chest and breathed in the limited warmth that remained. “I’m not sure exactly. Probably someone in New York—an old co-worker, or someone I met through Peter, maybe?”
“Then consider whoever it was to be on and”—Aunt Diane brushed her gloved palms against each other—“now off my list. And you—you need to just see that tree the way I see it.”
Lifting the mug to her lips, Claire refrained from taking a sip in favor of smiling at her father’s only sister. “Okay, so tell me how you see it, then . . .”
“Beautiful. Elegant. Charming. Magical. And most definitely spirit-igniting.”
“Spirit-igniting?” she echoed, cocking an eyebrow.
Aunt Diane nodded. “I could see you from the kitchen window while you were stringing those lights.”
“And?”
“I left the soup simmering while I went up into the attic and brought down my Christmas decorations for the kitchen.” Aunt Diane unburied her chin just long enough to take a sip of her own drink. “Those Santa canister covers we bought at that outdoor market over the summer look even more darling on my countertops than I imagined. Ditto for the Rudolph spoon rest.”
“Ooooh, I must see them.” Claire dropped her slipper-clad feet onto the floor, stilling the swing’s answering sway with the tip of one foot. “Martha brought in some canister covers with snowflakes embroidered on them for the store. I’m sure they’re going to fly off the shelf, like everything else she makes does.”
Aunt Diane’s chin rose above her collar once again, her warm brown eyes landing on Claire. “Actually, dear, could we hold off on looking at the kitchen for a few moments? Maybe talk for a little while instead?”
“Sure,” she said, leaning forward. “Is everything okay?”
When there was no response beyond a loss of eye contact, Claire scooted across the swing’s bench, reducing the space between them to little more than the length of her leg. “Aunt Diane? Are you not feeling well?”
“No, no, it’s nothing like that, dear. I’m fine. Just . . . I don’t know. I guess I’m feeling a little nostalgic, is all.”
“But nostalgia usually makes you happy,” Claire reminded her.
“And I am happy. I really am. But even the best of changes are still changes.”
Depositing her mug beside her feet, Claire reached across the divide between their seats and enveloped Diane’s hand with her own. “Is this about including Bill and Jakob in our Christmas traditions this year? Because if it is, it’s going to be wonderful. They’re going to love it—all of it. Guaranteed.”
Diane’s eyes dropped to her own mug still clenched in her free hand. “It’s just that Christmas is such a special time of year. Everyone has their own traditions, their own way of doing things. And I don’t want to let anyone down, least of all you.”
“Me? Are you kidding? I love the way we do Christmas—the special ornaments for each other, the candlelight service on Christmas Eve, the dessert buffet we have when we get back, the matching pajamas we wear to bed, writing silly riddles for your presents and reading the ones you’ve written for mine, watching an old Christmas movie in the middle of the afternoon, and Christmas dinner on Grandma’s fancy china. It’s”—she released a happy sigh—“the best. All of it.”
“You’re right. It is.” Diane slid her hand out from under Claire’s, set her drink on her armrest, and stood, her focus shifting to the moon-drenched fields of their Amish neighbors in the distance.
Claire, too, stood, and trailed her aunt over to the porch railing, the rapidly plummeting temperature eliciting a shiver from between her lips. “R-r-remember that first day after Ruth and Samuel’s wedding last month? When it really hit me that Ruth wouldn’t be filling the alleyway between her bakery and my shop with all those wonderful smells any longer? And how I went on and on about how much I’d miss her sunny greeting when we were sweeping our front porches at the same time?”
Diane nodded.
“You told me the most important stuff wouldn’t change all that much.” Claire pivoted until her back was flush with the railing and her focus was locked on Diane’s. “And you know what? You were right. Ruth Miller becoming Ruth Yoder didn’t change the stuff that matters. Sure, I don’t see her every day like I did before the wedding, but I still see her—like I did yesterday. And between the pies Ruth still sends into the shop each day via Samuel or one of her brothers, and the homemade toffees and candy Hannah King has added to the old menu, the smells are still there. Do I still think Annie should have thrown her hat into the ring for Ruth’s job? Sure. The stuff Annie bakes and brings in for me to try on occasion is nothing short of mind blowing. But as far as Shoo Fly Bake Shoppe, and Ruth not being there every day . . . it’s all worked out. Like you said it would.”
“But it’s still different, yes?”
Claire considered her answer as she watched her breath turn the air white. “It is. A little, I suppose. But it’s okay. Good, even. Because now, in addition to having Ruth as a friend, I’m growing closer to Hannah, too. And in the process, I’ve discovered I have a real penchant for butterscotch toffee.”
As Diane’s answering laugh trailed away, Claire reached for her hand once again, this time adding a reassuring squeeze. “Will our Christmas traditions be exactly the same with two more people there? Maybe, maybe not. But seeing as how those two people happen to mean the world to both of us, I’m willing to bet their presence will make this year’s Christmas the best yet. For you. For me. For all of us.”
Flipping her hand inside Claire’s, Diane pulled her niece in for a quick hug. “Thank you, dear. I don’t know what I’d do without you sometimes.”
“I feel the same about you. A million times over.”
Diane stepped back, gesturing over her shoulder toward the front door. “I suppose we should head inside before we both end up catching colds and having to spend the holiday in bed.”
“I’ll be in in a few minutes. I just need to fill that”—she pointed toward the tree—“gap. If I don’t, I’ll be squinting at it from my bedroom window all night long.”
“You’re incorrigible, dear.”
“I love Christmas, you know that.”
“And you have since you were a little bit of a thing,” Diane mused. “Which is why I know that trying to get you to wait until tomorrow to fix those lights would be futile.”
“You know me so well.” Claire kissed her aunt’s forehead and then crossed to the stairs, glancing back as she reached the top step. “Do me a favor? Don’t tell Jakob about this little issue I have, okay? Especially now, with him being so . . . off, so hard to figure out.”
Diane held up her hand. “Whoa. Stop right there.”
“I really should get to those lights,” she protested.
“And you will. After you tell me what you mean by Jakob being off and hard to figure out. Since when?”
Claire cut short her mental chastising in favor of a labored shrug. “I don’t know, maybe as much as a week.”
“Off? Off, how?”
Oh, how she wished she could answer that. If she could, then maybe the trio of restless nights she’d had wouldn’t balloon into a fourth. Then again, it was the nervous energy sparked by his odd behavior that had her ahead of schedule on her weekly tasks at both the shop and her aunt’s inn . . .
“Off, how?” Diane repeated, waiting.
&nbs
p; “Distant. Removed. Like . . . like he’s keeping something from me.”
“Have you asked him about it?”
“I haven’t really had a chance. Every time we’ve seen each other these past few days, he gets a call or a text that has him cutting our visit or our conversation short. But when I ask him about it afterward, he either pretends he doesn’t remember what I’m talking about or he changes the subject to something completely unrelated.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about, dear. Detective Jakob Fisher is a straight shooter who happens to be head over heels in love with—”
A siren from the direction of town cut short the rest of Diane’s reassurance and sent their collective attention down the stairs, across the driveway, and toward Lighted Way. Bobbing her head to the left, Claire took advantage of the leafless maple trees bordering the northwestern edge of the inn’s property to note the lone gas-powered streetlamp visible from her vantage point. The light, she knew, was the one nearest the mouth of the quaint thoroughfare, a few footsteps from Glick’s Tools ’n More and just two shops away from her own. On a clear, cloudless day, she could make out the front corner of the popular hardware shop if she stepped a bit more to the left and added a jump, but the clouds passing in front of the moon at that moment kept her feet, if not her thoughts, rooted to the porch. “It’s too early in the season for a Christmas tree fire,” Claire mused aloud. “Maybe a space heater?”
“I don’t think it’s a fire, dear,” Diane said, her voice hushed. “Those look like police lights to me.”
Claire glanced back at her aunt, only to be distracted away by intermittent slices of red and blue racing around the same bends and over the same hills she so often walked after work during the summer months. Only instead of the leisurely pace she preferred, the pulsing lights moved at a speed that didn’t fit with the quiet Amish countryside or its people. Sucking in a shallow breath, she silently ticked off each farm in the patrol car’s path—King, Lapp, Stoltzfus, Lehman, Beiler—then sighed in relief as it sped past each and every one. Just beyond the first of three mailboxes she knew bore the name of Miller, the lights broke left, headed south for a few heartbeats, and came to an abrupt stop. Before she could fully process the where in relation with a who, a second set of red and blue lights hijacked her attention, speeding past the same driveways, the same fields, the same farmhouses . . .
“What on earth do you think is going on down there, Aunt—”
“Claire, it’s Annie.”
Her mouth ran dry as she stared into the distance, her mind’s eye swapping the almost melodic rhythm of the lights for a fully formed image of Annie Hershberger, the now seventeen-year-old Amish girl Claire employed at her gift shop, Heavenly Treasures.
The wide-set brown eyes . . .
The curious nature . . .
The infectious smile . . .
The desire to please . . .
Raw fear ripped through her body as the second set of lights drew to a stop behind the first, flashing and spinning in sync with one another. “It can’t be Annie . . . The bishop’s farm is the other way, isn’t—”
“She sounds upset, dear.”
Sounds?
Confused, she turned to find her phone clutched tightly in Diane’s outstretched hand.
“Wait. You mean she’s—oh thank God . . .” Relief overtook her and she sagged backward down the last step. “I . . . I didn’t hear it ring.”
“I heard it vibrating against the swing and picked it up.”
Shaking her head, Claire jogged back up the stairs and took the phone from her aunt. “Annie, sweetie? Are you okay?”
Answering sniffles gave way to a heartbreaking cry that sent shivers down Claire’s spine.
“What’s going on?” Diane whispered.
Shrugging, Claire tilted the phone so her aunt could hear, too. “Are you hurt? Is it your dat?”
“N-no. It is not Dat.”
With that ruled out, Claire moved on, her thoughts rewinding to the moment they’d gone their separate ways after closing the shop the previous evening. “I thought you were caroling tonight. With Henry and your other friends from youth group.”
“I am. I mean, I was.”
“Did something happen?”
“Yah.”
She looked again at the emergency lights shattering the quiet darkness of the night and willed herself to breathe. “Talk to me, kiddo.”
Another round of sniffles gave way to a cough and, finally, a full sentence, albeit one peppered by brief pauses and even a hiccup. “Henry and I got there first. But it was not by much. Maybe a few minutes.”
“Got where?”
“To Daniel and Mary’s farm.”
“Daniel and Mary?”
Annie’s breath hitched once, twice, in her ear. “Esch.”
Something about the name tugged at Claire’s memory, and she tried to place it among the many Amish faces she’d come to know since moving to Heavenly two years earlier, but she came up empty.
“You know them, dear. They’re one of Nancy Warren’s regular customers. Brings them into town a few times a month,” Aunt Diane whispered, only to grow quiet as Annie began to speak once again.
“Since it is Sunday, and there are no Englishers there, Daniel’s buggy was outside the barn and his horse inside, I am sure. When the rest of our friends came in their buggies, we began to sing. But the curtain did not move. That is when I waved to everyone to sing louder in case Daniel and Mary could not hear.” Annie’s inhale echoed in Claire’s ear. “Sometimes at church, Dat asks me to sit next to Mary and be her ears. And later, after church, I fill Daniel’s plate with the things he likes to eat because he cannot see very well anymore.”
“Wait.” Two kind faces emerged, fully formed, in Claire’s thoughts. “I think I know who you’re talking about. They’re elderly, aren’t they? In their mid-eighties, maybe? Mary has white hair, right? Big round cheeks? And pretty blue eyes that seem to laugh when she smiles?”
“Yah, that is Mary.”
“And Daniel . . . He’s tall and slender? Gets around on a cane? Long gray beard that reaches nearly to the top of his pants?”
“Yah, that is Daniel.”
“Ruth mentioned something about them when we last spoke but the names didn’t ring any bells at the time. But now, talking to you, I realize I’ve seen them going into Gussmann’s General Store on occasion—usually with Nancy Warren in tow to help carry their groceries.” Claire leaned against the closest upright, her eyes on the flashing lights, her thoughts rewinding back a few weeks. “In fact, if I’m picturing the right people, I spoke with them a little at Ruth and Samuel’s wedding last month. I found them to be very warm and welcoming—especially Mary.”
“When my mamm died, it was Mary Esch who let me cry without saying it was God’s will. When I could not cry anymore, she told me to look and look until I found things to make me happy. She said the sadness would not go away, but happy things would make it a little lighter.” Annie exhaled a breath into the phone. “That is why I wanted everyone to sing louder. Because I knew the carols would be a happy thing for Mary.”
“Okay . . .”
Annie’s breath hitched again. “But still they did not come to the window. When I stepped closer, I saw that it was open.”
“The window?” At Annie’s strangled yes, Claire added, “But it’s cold and the temperature is only dropping.”
“That is what I thought, too. So I showed Henry and he walked up to the window with me while the others continued to sing. When he bent down to pick up a worker’s glove, I called to Daniel and then to Mary through the open part of the window. But they did not answer. That is when Henry handed me the glove to hold while he got the lantern from his buggy and shined it inside. At first we did not see anything but a chair that was tipped over, and a dish. It was on the floor. Chicken
and potatoes, too. Henry said it was a good thing that Mary and Daniel did not have a cat or it would be big and fat because of such food on the floor.”
A glance at her aunt yielded a visual of the growing fear she felt snaking up her own spine. When Diane’s eyes traveled back to the flashing lights in the distance, Claire closed her own and waited.
“It is then that I saw her foot. And soon, his boots . . . and his legs. Henry climbed in. He looked at Daniel and then moved the pillow to see Mary. It is then that he knew they were”—Annie’s voice broke—“dead.”
Diane’s gasp echoed Claire’s. Before either could speak, though, Annie continued. “Henry told one of the other boys to run to the phone on the other side of the Dienners’ farm and call for help. Soon there were many lights—blue lights and red lights, spinning and spinning.”
Again, Claire looked at the flashing lights, one set belonging to a patrol car, the other surely to—
“Your Jakob is here,” Annie said as if reading Claire’s thoughts. “The lights from his car make it so I can see him and the other policeman through the window. He has been looking at Mary and Daniel a long time. But I wish he did not have to. I wish he could be drinking hot chocolate with you at Heavenly Brews, and I wish Mary and Daniel could have heard us sing. They would have liked that very much, I think.”
Slowly Claire shifted her focus to the evergreen tree just beyond the porch railing, the lights she’d intended to fix just moments earlier no longer quite so pressing. An elderly couple was dead, Annie was traumatized by the discovery of their bodies, and Jakob was now tasked with notifying the couple’s next of kin.
The sniffling in her ear segued into a raspy whisper. “Claire?”
“Yes, yes, sweetie, I’m still here.”
“I know it is late, and I know it is wrong to ask when you must get up early in the morning, but if Henry and the others do not mind, could we sing a Christmas carol for you tonight? Outside your aunt’s inn? You—you don’t have to come outside, or even stand at the window if you are too tired. I just want . . .” Annie paused, then made a sort of dismissive noise that echoed in Claire’s ear. “Pay me no mind. My question is . . . silly.”
A Killer Carol Page 2