A Killer Carol

by Laura Bradford

  “A life they essentially ran him into,” she mused.

  Again, Jakob nodded. “Funny thing is, I know Abe misses the life. It’s there in the way he opts for paper and pencil instead of computers, and in the simple way he dresses, and even in his beard.”

  “Lots of guys wear beards.”

  “But the length he’s got? It’s about what you’d expect for an Amish man who’s been married for the same amount of time Abe has been married to his wife, Trish.”

  Claire took a moment to look over at Heavenly Treasures as they passed and then redirected her sights to Lighted Way as a whole. Sure enough, the almost Dickens-like shopping area seemed to stand even a little taller in the snow. But as quick as the thought came, it was pushed to the side by the very reason they were on the road in the first place.

  “I’m curious,” she said, returning her focus to the man behind the steering wheel. “What was Mary’s reaction when Abe blamed his repeated shunnings on Lloyd? Did she listen? Did she argue? What?”

  “She left.”

  Claire stared at Jakob. “She just up and walked out?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “She didn’t say anything?”

  “She didn’t . . . no. Not according to Abe, anyway.”

  “That had to have infuriated him, no?”

  Jakob met her eye for a second, maybe two. “It’s why, along with his presence at the scene on the night of the crime, he fit as our perpetrator. On paper, at least. Daniel and Mary were devout Amish. Abe was under the ban. They wouldn’t have invited him to their home. It just wouldn’t have happened. But to answer your question without having been there when he and Mary spoke, no, I don’t think it did infuriate him.”

  “Why on earth not?”

  “Because her reaction wasn’t any different than it had been when it happened. There was no change, no big thing to get angry about.”

  She sat with his words for a few moments as they left Lighted Way and ventured out into the countryside, where the dark roads merged seamlessly with the dark homes and fields. “A few seconds ago you said Mary didn’t say anything when she left. Did Abe?”

  “When she was on her way out to Nancy’s car to go home, he stepped outside after her and told her Greta knew.”

  “His sister?” she said on a gasp.

  “Yup.”

  “Wait. So Greta knew Abe wasn’t drinking—”

  “At the time . . .”

  She waved his assertion away. “I get that. I know he eventually started doing the things he was being falsely accused of but . . .” Pausing, she gathered her thoughts as cohesively as possible. “You’re saying Greta knew her husband was lying to the bishop about her own brother?”

  “That’s what Abe says.”

  “And—and she . . . she let it happen?” she sputtered.

  “She and Lloyd were newly married. Lloyd was related to the bishop. I think she was afraid to speak against them. Add in the fact it might sour her parents’ feelings for her new husband and I think it makes perfect sense.” Jakob slowed the SUV enough to take the left just beyond Benjamin’s farm, but still they fishtailed. “Hold on, Claire, it’s getting pretty treacherous out here.”

  She strained to make out the road in their headlights, but it was becoming more and more difficult to know where it was in relation to the land on either side. As if reading her mind, he pointed out the elevated snow on either side of them and how it denoted the presence of fences.

  “Anyway,” he said, getting back to their conversation, “in Greta’s defense, she was with Lloyd when Abe was caught really drinking a few months later. So if she’d had any thought of speaking up on her brother’s behalf, I’m sure it went out the window then.”

  It was a lot to take in, a lot to process, but still, she tried, her thoughts rewinding and fast-forwarding, again and again. A glance at Jakob showed he, too, was deep in thought. They rode that way past a few farms until another slip of the tires snapped them both back to the present.

  “The ME confirmed it was death by suffocation, right?” she asked, fidgeting with the edge of the printout.

  “Yes.”

  “With pillows?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I would imagine, with them both being in their mid-eighties, that it wouldn’t have taken a whole lot of strength to hold a pillow on their faces until they stopped struggling—” She sat up straight. “Wait. Why didn’t the second one run while the first one was being smothered?”

  Carefully, while still keeping a tight hold on the steering wheel, Jakob stretched the fingers of first his right and then his left hand. “Mary had two sizable bumps to the head—one in back like Daniel had, and one to the side of her forehead that Daniel didn’t have. The ME thinks both preceded death.

  “That finding leads me to believe the killer knocked them both down, got to work on Daniel, and then had to knock Mary down a second time before he was able to get the pillow on her.”

  She took a moment to see the scene, as Jakob described, his pronoun usage giving her pause. “You said ‘he’—‘before he was able to get the pillow on her’ . . . Have you ruled out the notion the killer could be a female? Because Mary and Daniel were both pretty frail.”

  “No, I haven’t ruled anything or anyone out, officially. Except Nancy.”

  “But Nancy had to have had some anger toward Mary and Daniel herself, wouldn’t she? She clearly regards Abe as a second son . . . Abe and Tommy losing the bid to Daniel hurt her son and her daughter, too . . .” The more she spoke, the more she found herself warming to the idea of Nancy as the killer. Only—

  Sighing, she nixed her own idea aloud. “Planting her son’s glove at the murder scene would hurt Tommy . . .”

  “She also had an airtight alibi for the time frame in which the murder took place. She and Trishy were at a wedding shower in Philly.”

  “Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!”

  His answering laugh was short lived. “Welcome to my past few days. If I wasn’t hitting a dead end like we just did, then my own internal radar was messing with the others on my list.”

  “It’s so frustrating,” she whispered. Stilling her fingers on the corner of the printout, she pulled it onto her lap and then pointed down at her purse. “If I keep it angled down so as not to blind you, could I use the light on my phone to look at this list? Because whoever Nancy drove after Tommy’s last run is the first farm we should visit.”

  “Whoever Nancy drove? I don’t understand . . .”

  “Because the last time he had both gloves for certain was the last time he drove. That means, if he left one of the gloves in the car, it would have been there the next time Nancy drove.”

  He hit the brakes so hard and so fast, she bumped her head against the dashboard in the ensuing fishtail. Popping the gearshift into park, he slid across the seat, cupped her cheeks with his hands, and inspected her point of impact with nothing but sheer horror on his face. “Claire, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking, I just heard what you said and—”

  She stopped his words with a gloved finger. “I should have waited to bend for my phone until you gave me the go-ahead.”

  “Are you okay? You hit the dash pretty hard.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Am I blurry? Do you have a headache?”

  “I’m fine, really.”

  “You might not be saying that in an hour.”

  “Then we should probably get back to things, yes?”

  He looked as if he was about to protest, but when she plucked her phone from her purse and hit the flashlight feature, he followed her finger down to Nancy’s printout. Slowly, and then with gathering speed, she led them down the page to the last highlighted entry, their individual gasps at the sight of the name merging into one.

  * * *

  * * *

  The cold snowflak
es felt good on her forehead as they trudged, side by side, through the last few feet of light from the SUV. He’d tried a few times to back out of the ditch, but there just hadn’t been enough traction to get the job done. Instead, Jakob had wrapped a scarf around her shoulders, secured it in front of her face, and kissed her head just before he pulled her hat down around her ears.

  “Your phone is fully charged, right?” he asked yet again.

  “As charged as it was when you asked back at the car, not that it matters out here—in the middle of nowhere—all that much.”

  “Sorry. I guess I’m just wishing I’d stuck to my guns and made you sit in the car while I went inside. Alone.”

  “And I’m glad you didn’t.” When they reached what he said was the driveway, they turned out of the headlight’s beams and kept walking, the benches and tables of earlier either covered by snow or loaded into the bench wagon she could see sitting in front of the barn. Beyond that, in the limited light from the waning moon, she could just make out the exterior lines of the darkened farmhouse. “Are we going to knock and wake them up?”

  “I am. You’re going to stay out of sight. In case there’s trouble.”

  She wanted to argue, but she let it go. Jakob was the cop, not Claire. And really, right or wrong, she wanted to savor the feeling of being cared for and worried about for just a little while longer.

  A sound not unlike glass shattering set Jakob into a run through the nearly calf-high snow. She tried to keep up, but his long legs and strength had her following behind in his indents. As they rounded the bend in the drive that gave them a straight shot to the house, he turned around, pointed her toward the tree Ruth had stood behind three days earlier, and when Claire stopped, he began to run again, his body disappearing into the darkness as a shout, followed by a woman’s scream, floated into the night.

  Soon, glass was shattering again, followed by another shout, another scream. Reaching into her pocket for her phone, Claire looked up in time to see a quick flash . . . and then Jakob . . . and then the orange glow of fire lighting her way across the snow.

  * * *

  * * *

  She was almost to the door when he grabbed her by the waist and pulled her back, their bodies tumbling off the porch and onto the snow as the second floor melded into the first, the flames hungrily eating everything in their path. “Jakob . . . Jakob . . .” she shrieked, rolling off him and onto her knees. “I thought you were inside, I thought I lost—”

  It was his turn to silence her words, pulling her close while he worked to catch his breath enough to speak. “I’m here. I’m here.”

  She looked back at the fire, pulled off her scarf, and tucked it into Jakob’s hands. “Hold this. I can use it to pull you away. It’s getting too hot, the fire too big.”

  “No, no, I can move. I’m fine.” He sat up, scanned the area around them, and then, cupping his hands along the sides of his mouth, he began to shout. “Hey! I’m here—I’m up front! I’ve got her!”

  “Who are you talking . . .” His eyes led hers toward the side yard in time to see Tommy Warren step into the fire’s light, his arm wrapped tightly around Greta Chupp.

  Chapter 23

  It was nearly two in the morning when Jakob ushered Claire into his apartment over Gussmann’s and shut out the rest of the world with a turn of the deadbolt. “I am so sorry I can’t get you back to the inn right now. If I’d thought about it when the fellas first brought us back here, I’d have taken you home then, before we got even more snow.”

  “I wasn’t ready to go home then,” she said, slipping out of her coat and draping it across his waiting arm. “Way too much adrenaline pumping.”

  He hung her coat inside the closet and then led the way into the tiny yet comfortable living room she could maneuver around in the dark, if necessary. The couch off to their left was overstuffed, the blanket draped across its top perfect for burrowing under on movie nights. The end table next to the far side of the couch contained a coaster, a small candy dish, and a single hardback book—the latest Andrew Grant thriller Jakob had purchased at Glorious Books the previous month. To her right was the fireplace, its mantel boasting the framed black-and-white photograph of winter’s Lighted Way—the gift she’d given Jakob the day they’d met.

  “I’d offer to make a fire, but I’m thinking we’ve had more than our share for the night?”

  Nodding, she flopped onto the corner of the couch. “Do you think it’s out yet?” she asked.

  “There’s a chance it’s moved to the barn, but the fire chief thinks it’ll go out on its own before it gets there.” He pointed into the kitchen, his eyes lighting on hers. “Popcorn? Something to drink? Or do you just want to go to sleep?”

  “Popcorn works.”

  “Coming right up.”

  Seconds later, she heard the cabinet, and then the microwave, opening and closing—the familiarity of the routine both comforting and heartbreaking all at the same time. It was time to get everything out in the open, she knew that. But for just a few more minutes she wanted to pretend they were the team they’d once been—the team she thought they’d be forever . . .

  Drifting her head back against the couch, she looked up at the ceiling while she steadied her breath. “So that’s it? The case is closed? Lloyd Chupp killed Mary and Daniel?”

  “That’s right. And if we hadn’t shown up when we did, Greta Chupp would be the one dead, instead of Lloyd, and Tommy would likely be under arrest—all orchestrated by Lloyd.”

  “He was that bitter?”

  She didn’t need to see Jakob to know he was nodding. The momentary pause in his answer was a good enough indication.

  “He wanted what Abe had with Daniel when he and Greta first got married. But Daniel didn’t take too well to Lloyd’s laziness. When Lloyd learned Daniel was thinking about turning the cabinetry business over to Abe, Lloyd got angry. Thought it should be his, as Greta’s husband. That’s when he started making up those stories about Abe with the hope it would destroy the boy’s relationship with his father.”

  “And he was right.”

  “Sadly, yes. But instead of turning the business over to him when Abe left, Daniel just closed it down. Lloyd was furious, of course, but it was tempered by the fact Abe was out of the picture.”

  When the popping from the kitchen slowed, she heard the microwave open and the buttery treat being poured into the cream-colored bowl they always used. The sound of the refrigerator opening meant he was pouring two glasses of milk—one for her and one for himself. When he was done, he’d load everything onto a small tray, grab a few napkins, and carry it back into the living room.

  She knew this because it was what he did—what they did together.

  “Over the years, Lloyd tried to get Daniel to let him open the company back up so he could run it . . . usually after he’d tried some other way to make money and he messed that up,” Jakob said. “But Daniel wouldn’t budge. Said Esch Cabinetry was done.”

  “Then Abe and Mary had that talk, and Mary walked out on him when he brought up the lies,” Claire mused.

  “She did. But remember, he told her Greta knew the truth.”

  Greta . . .

  She cleared a spot on the coffee table for the tray, and then pulled the popcorn bowl onto her lap when he sat down. “Mary asked her, didn’t she?”

  “She did. And Greta told her the truth.” He plucked out a few fluffy pieces and popped them, one at a time, onto his tongue. “Mary, in turn, told Daniel, and that’s when they decided to make things right—or as right as they could when Abe had left the church after baptism. Since Mary knew Abe’s bid, and Daniel could guesstimate what Samuel’s might be, they were able to put one in that would still make money yet virtually ensure they got it. They asked Abe to come out to the farm that last night because, I believe, they wanted to tell him Esch Custom Woodworking—and the accepted bid—was
his.”

  “‘You cannot change what you have done. You can only change what you do. That is what Daniel and I are doing,’” she recited by memory from Ruth’s letter. “Wow. It was right there. In that letter.”

  “If you’re seeing through the right glasses, it is. When you look at it with something entirely different in your head, it doesn’t read the same.”

  “So I take it Lloyd found out? About Daniel reopening the company for Abe?”

  “He sure did, and that’s when he snapped. His jealousy of Abe got the best of him. So he killed Daniel and Mary before they could tell Abe. And he decided to try and frame Tommy for the crime with the glove—as yet another way to push back at Abe for being liked and trusted in a way Lloyd had never been.” Jakob took a few more pieces of popcorn and then laced his fingers behind his head. “But then we didn’t see the glove, and we learned Abe had been out there, and, well, it wasn’t the end of the world for Lloyd if Abe ended up going down for the crime, after all. Same end result, you know?”

  “And what about Ruth’s letter? Who read it?”

  “We don’t think anyone did. We think Mary just didn’t seal it when she slipped it inside the box.”

  “Wow.”

  “I know. And tonight? Those noises we heard when I left you by the tree? That was Tommy confronting Lloyd because he’d figured it out, too.”

  “It was his mom’s forms that they faxed to you, wasn’t it?” she prodded.

  “It was. He saw them sitting on the fax and he looked through them. And just like you did, he realized his glove was likely left in the car after his last run. Out of curiosity, he looked to see who his mom drove next, and when he saw Lloyd’s name, the wheels began to turn.”

  “But how did he get out there before we did? Especially in this snow?”

  “He borrowed a neighbor’s snowmobile. Parked it far enough away that Chupp wouldn’t hear him coming. When he got inside and confronted Lloyd with what he suspected, Lloyd actually threatened to kill Greta and pin it on Tommy. Lloyd and Tommy fought, the kerosene lantern got knocked over, Lloyd pushed Greta, and she fell into a table, which, in turn, knocked a candle onto the spilled kerosene. Tommy grabbed her and ran . . . straight into me. By then the flames were everywhere and I knew we had to get out. We were heading out the back when I heard you screaming my name. I was afraid you were going to go inside after me.”