When the Bishop Needs an Alibi

by Vannetta Chapman

  “You know her?”

  “She works—worked—at the diner.”

  “She worked at Maggie’s?”

  “Ya, it’s the only diner I know of in Monte Vista.”

  Grayson ran a hand up and down his jawline and finally admitted, “Haven’t been there in several months myself. Wife has me on a diet. Seems I’ve gained twenty pounds in the last year.”

  Henry had always thought of the sheriff as tall and thin, but now he noticed the man had put on weight. Grayson pulled off his Stetson, wiped at the sweat on his balding head, and replaced the hat. His uniform was neatly pressed, though he did have what appeared to be a coffee stain on the front of his shirt.

  “It’s a small town,” Henry said. “I’m sure you’ve seen her around.”

  “Maybe.” Grayson reached for his radio, pushed a button, and told someone on the other end the victim’s name.

  “Terrible thing,” he said, turning his attention back to Henry.

  “Indeed.” Henry became aware that the tremor he’d experienced earlier was worse instead of better. The trembling began in his shoulder and worked its way down his arm to his fingers. Just his right hand, though. Strangest thing. He kept his hand in his pocket and closed it into a fist to still the shaking.

  “Good place to kill someone or even dump a body,” Grayson said. “This place is pretty desolate.”

  “Kill her?” Henry realized he sounded like a simpleton. Of course she’d been killed. He’d seen the bruises on her neck. It was just all so hard to fathom.

  Grayson pierced him with a stare, and then he shook his head. “Ligature marks around the neck. Looks to me like she was strangled. She was facedown when you found her?”

  “Ya.”

  “My guess is they came up behind her. Maybe she was running, or maybe they caught her unaware. Strangled her and left her body here in the reeds. Didn’t figure anyone would find her, or even if they did, well, the perp would be long gone by then.”

  “Unless it was someone local.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “I don’t know.” Henry wiped at the sweat running down his face. He suddenly felt inexplicably tired, as if he could barely stand.

  “Henry, listen to me. This is quite a shock. I want you to go home and rest.”

  “But—”

  “You can’t do anything more here. I appreciate your help so far.”

  “Help?” Henry’s laugh was a distraught thing. “I tromped all over your crime scene, turned over the victim, and probably obliterated any clues.”

  “There’s a good chance we’ll come across some evidence yet. You’d be surprised what we can find.” Grayson closed the small notebook and stuck it and the pen back into his pocket. “You kept your head, Henry. Can’t say as I’m surprised, given our history.”

  Henry didn’t answer that immediately. His mind wanted to slip back to the events of sixteen months prior, but he resisted. Today’s troubles were enough. “You said dumped. She wasn’t killed here?”

  “Could have been. Can’t imagine what she would have been doing out here, though. Was she a birder as far as you know?”

  Henry shook his head.

  “We’ll know more when we receive the forensics reports.”

  “And you think it happened yesterday?”

  “I’m not a forensic pathologist, but that would be my guess.” Grayson blew out a long breath. “Like I said, this is a good spot to hide a body. I’m not a birder myself, but I know this area is large.”

  “Nearly fifteen thousand acres.”

  Grayson whistled. “What are the odds?”

  “Of me stumbling upon her?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Low, and I can’t say as I’m glad I did.”

  “She’s bound to have some family.”

  “Not that she spoke of.”

  “We’ll find them. It isn’t the best part of my job—notifying the next of kin—but at least they will know. It’s better than wondering.”

  Henry nodded in agreement, even while he offered up a prayer for Sophia’s loved ones.

  “All right. You know the drill. If you think of anything else—”

  “Actually, there is something.” Henry couldn’t think how to phrase what he needed to say. It was going to sound crazy regardless. “She mentioned being afraid.”

  “Afraid?”

  “That someone was following her.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “She never said.”

  Grayson sighed and rubbed his brow as if to relieve a headache forming there.

  “She told you this?”

  “She did.”

  “All right. I’ll see if she mentioned it to anyone at work. Remember, if anything else, anything at all, comes to mind—”

  “I’ll call you right away.”

  Grayson glanced back toward the parking area, though it was too far to see it from where they stood. “You have a way home?”

  “Stuart was supposed to pick me up about this time.”

  “Good. If for some reason he doesn’t show, tell my deputy to call in and get you a ride.”

  Henry had turned away when Grayson called out to him. “I might stop by later. Might have some additional questions for you.”

  Henry raised his right hand, indicating that he understood, and noticed that it trembled still. Calling to Lexi, he tramped off toward the parking lot.

  Twenty-Four

  You won’t believe who found her.

  ?

  The bishop.

  How did that happen?

  He’s a birder.

  And he just happened

  to stumble over her?

  I know. What are the odds?

  This could work to our advantage.

  Exactly.

  I’ll handle it from this end.

  Twenty-Five

  True to his word, Stuart was waiting in the southwest corner of the parking lot. Henry wasn’t too surprised to see he was reading a paperback book and completely ignoring the police activity around him. Like Rachel, Stuart loved to read, which was one reason he’d decided to drive for the Amish. “Lots of down time,” he’d once explained.

  Henry tapped on the hood of the old pickup.

  Stuart jerked his head up and offered a one-handed wave.

  Henry opened the passenger door. “In, Lexi.”

  The little dog jumped up and settled on the floor in front of the passenger seat.

  Stuart placed an UNO card in the book to hold his place—a historical book, apparently, with a picture of President Hamilton on the front—and cranked the truck’s engine. The vehicle didn’t look great with its faded paint, torn seats, and a headliner that tended to droop, but it had always succeeded in taking Henry from point A to point B.

  “Cops mess up your birding?” Stuart pulled onto the two-lane road and turned right.

  “The birds have scattered, for sure.”

  “Word is they found a dead body. That the person had been shot two times.” Stuart tapped the back of his head, down near the neck. “Double tap, Mafia-style.”

  “I found it, or rather her. No bullet holes I could see.”

  Stuart shot him a questioning look. “You found her? Do you know who she was?”

  “Her name was Sophia Brooks. Maybe you’ve seen her at Maggie’s? A little shorter than me, young, brown hair cut near the shoulder.” He touched the top of his left shoulder.

  “Yeah, sure. Sophia waited on me a couple of times. Nice gal. She seemed a little young and a little lost. You’re sure it was her?”

  “I am.”

  Stuart let out a long, low whistle. “Terrible thing.”

  Henry didn’t answer that. It didn’t seem as though he needed to. Lexi dropped her head across his foot and fell asleep as they continued to Highway 15 and then turned north toward Monte Vista.

  “Awful waste of a life. I know you don’t believe that, but…”

  “We believe each life is
complete.”

  “You’ve explained that to me before. You know, back when Vernon…”

  Henry had no desire to rehash the death of Vernon Frey, who had been killed in a fire set by the Monte Vista arsonist.

  “Still an awful thing for a girl that young to have her life end so abruptly.” Stuart set the truck on cruise, though they were only six miles from Monte Vista. “Not a bullet wound, huh? What killed her, then?”

  “I couldn’t say. There was bruising around her neck. Sheriff Grayson thinks it might have been strangulation, but they’ll need to run tests to be certain.”

  “A terrible thing,” he said again.

  “She was lying on her stomach, and I felt for a pulse but found none. So I rolled her over, which in hindsight I shouldn’t have done. I contaminated his crime scene. Only at the time, I wasn’t sure it was a crime scene. Regardless, once I turned her over, it was pretty obvious she was dead. Her body was cold and quite stiff.”

  “Good grief, Henry. I know you’re a bishop and all, and that you’re used to death to some degree, but you touched the body? And then I suppose you were questioned by Grayson. Let me take you for a cup of coffee or something. Breakfast? Anything. It’s on me.”

  Henry waved away his concern. “Another time maybe.”

  “Yeah, okay. I guess after the morning you’ve had, you’d rather be home.”

  “I would. I need to clean up anyway. I have dried mud on my hands and knees.”

  Stuart let him be then, with the only sound that of the tires against pavement. Once they were within two miles of town, Amish homesteads began to dot the countryside. Henry’s congregation was spread out around Monte Vista, but the town was only about two square miles, with a population that hovered around 4,500.

  Five minutes later, they pulled into Henry’s lane. Lexi stirred, yawned, and stretched as if she recognized the sound of the dirt under the truck’s tires. Henry had only had the little dog a little more than a year, but she had readily accepted the place as home.

  Seeing his house, his workshop, even his garden, which had mostly been harvested, brought a measure of peace to Henry. He hadn’t realized how rattled he had been, but then, who wouldn’t be? He might be accustomed to matters of life and death, as Stuart had said, but he wasn’t used to identifying the dead, especially when it was someone he knew, someone he’d cared about. And he had cared about Sophia, though she’d done her best to keep everyone at a distance.

  Stuart pulled the truck to a stop in the circular gravel area in front of Henry’s house. “Would you still like to go back out on Saturday?”

  Henry reached for his wallet, counted out a little more than Stuart would say he owed, and pressed it into the man’s hand. When he opened the door, Lexi bounced out, tearing around to the backyard and back again.

  “How about I give you a call tomorrow? I can walk down to the phone shack—” A thought blossomed in his mind, one he quickly pushed away. The last thing he needed to do was get any more involved than he already was. “Would that be all right?”

  “Sure thing.” Stuart tapped his fingertips against the wheel as Henry exited the truck. “And call if you need anything else. It doesn’t, you know, have to be for a ride.”

  “Danki, Stuart.”

  He shucked off his muddy boots and left them on the porch before walking into his house, Lexi on his heels. He quickly washed and dried his hands, and then almost unconsciously made his way to the kitchen drawer where he kept pens, pencils, and his drawing paper. He pulled out a tablet and looked at it as the thought he’d had in the truck asserted itself, pushing into his consciousness. He could draw what he’d seen, draw it now while the memory was fresh in his mind. Shaking his head, he stuffed the pad back into the drawer and shut it.

  The Englischers had their cameras. They would record everything the same as Henry’s subconscious mind had. And it didn’t matter if he drew the scene now or a year from now. His mind and hand would render the same drawing. The memory didn’t degrade over time. Or so the doctors had suggested.

  No, he didn’t need to draw Sophia’s death while her body was still being carried to the morgue.

  Embracing his unique talent was fine, and he was glad that twice now he’d been able to help put a murderer behind bars. But he wasn’t Englisch, and he certainly wasn’t employed by law enforcement in any way. He didn’t need to involve himself with the death of Sophia Brooks. He’d tried to involve himself in her life, and what good had that done? None that he could tell.

  No, he didn’t think he would spend time drawing what he had seen that morning. He sat at the table, his hands shaking and his heart filled with sadness. Who would murder Sophia? Why? She’d said something about being close. What did that mean? Should he have mentioned it to Grayson? At least mentioned that she’d been afraid something might happen to her?

  Henry tried to clear his thoughts, to push away the questions that plagued his mind.

  Grayson and his team of forensic techs would solve the murder, if indeed it had been one.

  His life was Plain and simple, and he’d just as soon keep it that way.

  Twenty-Six

  It was midafternoon when Emma heard the story from Katie Ann, who heard it from her best friend, Naomi, who was working at the three widows’ new bakery in town. The bakery was wildly popular, which explained why they needed extra help. And still everyone was surprised when they’d hired Naomi, who would rather be jotting stories in her notebook than manning a cash register. She tended to be rather absentminded and had been known to show up in town with her kapp falling back off her head, two different shoes on her feet, and once with her apron on backward. The girl was a mess but sweet as the apple pie also sold at Bread 2 Go.

  “You’re sure about this?” Emma dried her hands on a dish towel and sat down at the kitchen table across from Katie Ann, her stomach turning at the news. “You’re positive it was Henry who found the woman’s body?”

  “Ya.” Katie Ann pulled in her bottom lip and worried it with her top teeth.

  It occurred to Emma that Katie Ann did not need this type of complication in her life. It had taken her months to get over the trauma wrought by the Monte Vista arsonist, and in the end they’d sent her to Florida for a while. She’d come back more mature and calm—not the bright, cheerful schoolgirl she’d once been, but also no longer plagued with nightmares. Now this. Only seventeen years old, and two people had been murdered in her hometown.

  Emma reached across the table and covered Katie Ann’s hands with her own.

  “We will pray for whoever it was, for any family she might have had, and of course for the authorities as they puzzle this out. Perhaps you’re mistaken on some of the details. Let’s hope so. It could have been an accident of some sort.”

  “Nancy told Naomi who told me, which makes it nearly straight from Henry’s mouth.”

  “I’m not sure about that.”

  “Not sure about what?” Rachel walked into the room, holding a book in one hand and a dust rag in the other.

  Rachel and Katie Ann looked as much alike as a mother and daughter could. Both had long, thick blond hair, which was properly covered by a kapp. They also shared brown eyes, medium height, a small pert nose, and a splash of freckles. The only real difference between them was thirty pounds, but then Katie Ann was young and hadn’t birthed four children. Katie Ann also resembled her father, Clyde, but in more subtle ways. Emma’s son often teased that he didn’t see a bit of himself in the girl, but Emma understood they shared a tendency to stubbornness and a big heart. Plus, Katie Ann preferred working outside, like her father, and was rarely caught looking at a book.

  Life was interesting, and families were the best part of it, in Emma’s opinion.

  “Henry found a dead body,” Katie Ann said.

  “Are you kidding?” Rachel dropped her book on the kitchen table and reached for her mug of cold coffee. “How? Where?”

  “No one is sure how the woman died, but Henry stumbled acr
oss her body at the Monte Vista Wildlife Refuge.”

  “Have they identified her?” Emma asked.

  “Naomi wasn’t real clear on that. Someone mentioned a movie star, but then someone else said she was just a stranger passing through.”

  “Not Amish, then.” Rachel put the mug back down on the table without drinking from it. “I shouldn’t have said that. Any death is a tragedy.”

  “And yet it’s natural to worry about our own.” Emma tsked as she walked back to the counter, picked up the shoo-fly pie she’d assembled, and slipped it into the oven.

  Rachel and Katie Ann continued wondering aloud about the poor girl found in the marsh, but Emma gradually tuned out the sound of their voices, lost in her own thoughts and worries. She needed to check on Henry. She needed to see for herself that he was all right, that this terrible thing hadn’t pushed him over some proverbial edge.

  She stood near the kitchen sink, drumming her fingers against the countertop and staring out the window. Deciding to go with her instinct, she turned around and said, “I think I’ll take Henry some of that leftover chicken casserole from last night.”

  Her daughter-in-law and granddaughter exchanged a knowing look.

  “It’s a cas-se-role,” she said slowly, as if by pronouncing her words carefully they’d believe her excuse. “He’s probably hungry.”

  “It’s okay to say you want to check on him, Mamm.”

  “Ya. We all know you care about Henry in a special way.”

  Emma shook the dish towel she was holding at Rachel. “You read too many romances.”

  “They’re Christian romances.”

  “Will you watch my pie?”

  “Of course.”

  “And you…” Emma studied her granddaughter, trying to think of what she could say to the little imp to curb her imagination. But Katie Ann, as usual, was one step ahead of her.

  “It’s okay, Mammi. We all think it’s sweet. Now, would you like me to hitch the buggy to Cinnamon, or would you rather walk?”

  “I’ll walk.” She could use the exercise. She’d sworn she wasn’t going to eat any of the coffee cake Rachel had served with breakfast, and then she’d promptly consumed two slices—though they were thin slices, which was why she’d needed two. “Danki for offering.”