When the Bishop Needs an Alibi

by Vannetta Chapman

  Emma peered closely at the titles. “Looks like journal entries.”

  Tess clicked on the most recent entry—one dated two days before Sophia’s death—and the screen filled with Sophia’s final note.

  I’m lying here in Emma’s house, listening to the sounds of this Plain family begin another day. Katie Ann already crept out of the room, no doubt trying not to wake me.

  When I first arrived in Monte Vista I was frightened and angry and determined. I’m no longer frightened. What else could they do to me? They took the person I loved the most in all this world. However, I am still angry. Why did something so unfair, so cruel, so unnecessary happen to Cooper? I’m angry that whoever did kill him no doubt continues to walk the earth. If so, why doesn’t God strike them down? I suspect Henry would say God’s ways are not our ways.

  My anger has made me even more determined than before. I now know Cooper was contacted by an informant who witnessed illegal activity in Glacier National Park. Cooper flew out to investigate. (All he told me was that he was on an important story—that this one could bring in big money and make a difference at the same time.) While at Glacier, Cooper caught someone who was on a low level within this “organization.” He convinced the man to remain involved and feed him information. He assured him that doing so would mitigate any future charges he might face.

  I don’t know why he didn’t go to the police at that point.

  I’ve read through his journal countless times. The code wasn’t hard to crack once I remembered the stories I’d told him about Tess and me writing notes with our own secret language. Cooper used that code to ensure no one else could read his entries. Because he took those precautions, I think he must have realized what he was doing was dangerous. I also believe he had reason to doubt the authorities. His level of caution indicates this was/is a high-dollar operation with involvement across law enforcement, corporate, and possibly judicial levels.

  Once I’d broken his code, it was only a matter of rewriting the entries to make sense of them. However, he was cryptic in his notes, which has left some guesswork on my part as to where the next meet is supposed to be. Only two more are scheduled, so I have only two chances to get this right. The next pickup is supposed to be at the Monte Vista refuge tomorrow night, or before dawn Wednesday morning. I’ve gone back and read his last entry. He left good directions. I’ll find the spot today and go back tomorrow night. I’ll get the evidence Cooper was after, and then I’ll take it to Henry. He’ll know who to trust.

  If I’m even reading Cooper’s journal entries correctly.

  And if I’ve underestimated these people, and someone else is now reading this journal entry, please finish what I started, what Cooper started. Don’t let his death be for nothing.

  I’m going to save my journal to a flash drive and give it to Emma. If it’s safe anywhere, it will be here—on an Amish farm.

  Fifty-Three

  Emma and Tess stared at each other, and then they both read the journal entry again. It wasn’t long, taking up less than two pages of the document.

  “That’s where they killed her—at the Monte Vista refuge.”

  Emma nodded her head. Her throat was suddenly dry. She reached for her glass of water and took a long drink, and then she glanced up at the clock on the wall.

  “Only fifteen minutes until they close. We could take this back to your motel room.”

  “We could.”

  “Or we could go to the authorities.”

  Tess shook her head, and Emma knew why. Could they trust the Monte Vista police? What if one or both of the officers showing an interest in Sophia had been involved in her murder? Emma didn’t know how to contact Grayson.

  Her hand trembling, Tess pushed a few buttons on the computer, and then they were looking at Cooper’s last entry. To Emma it looked like gibberish. Tess switched over to Sophia’s document and highlighted I remembered the stories I’d told him about Tess and me writing notes with our own secret language.

  “Do you know what that means?”

  “Yes.” She closed her eyes for a moment, the barest hint of a smile playing on her lips.

  “Is it difficult to translate?”

  “No. It’s surprisingly simple.”

  “It is?”

  “Yeah. We used it when we were kids. Probably we’d read too many Nancy Drew mysteries.” Tess pulled the receipt, which was now half full of failed passwords, toward her. Emma handed her the pen.

  Glancing from Cooper’s entry to the receipt, she quickly replaced the code with the corresponding letters.

  Vjg hkpcn rkemwr…

  The final pickup…

  “See? You replace each letter with one two spaces before it. All the v’s are t’s. All the j’s are h’s. And so on and so forth.”

  There was no need to read the entire thing. The final paragraph of his entry told them what they needed to know, and once they’d read it, Emma understood there was no time to read more than that last portion. Cooper’s last words said it all.

  The final pickup will be at the Sand Dunes, three a.m. on September 26.

  That line was followed by a lengthier description. By the time Tess finished translating it, a waitress had changed the sign to “Closed” and was beginning to lift chairs off the floor so someone could sweep and mop it.

  “Just one more minute,” Emma said.

  “I’m here another hour, honey. Take your time.” This waitress was thin, with dark skin, tired eyes, and a ready smile. Was she one of the women who had run interference for Sophia? Emma felt a sudden tenderness toward this woman she didn’t know. She smiled her gratitude and turned her attention back to Tess.

  “The final pickup is tonight.”

  “At least the final one he knew about.”

  “Right. Cooper included the directions, which he must have been given by the informant.”

  “But who was the informant?”

  “I don’t know. We might be able to work it out if we looked back through every entry. We should save that for later, though.” Tess glanced at the clock. “We need to go. We need to go now.”

  “We don’t even know what they’re picking up. What could that phrase even mean?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Whatever it was, they were willing to kill for it. Which is why we need to go there. We need to find out.” Tess shut down the computer and started to stuff it into her large shoulder bag. She froze suddenly, the laptop still gripped between her fingers. “What am I saying? I can’t ask you to go with me.”

  She pulled the computer back out of the bag and pushed it into Emma’s hands. “Keep this. If something happens—”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Listen to me, Emma—”

  “Nein. You’re not going alone.”

  “But Emma—”

  “I can’t let you do that, Tess.”

  “It could be dangerous.”

  Emma thought about that. She remembered Sophia walking away from their home, down the lane, headed to find the exact location of the pickup at the Monte Vista Refuge. She couldn’t have realized it would also be the place of her death, though she must have feared that what had happened to Cooper would happen to her. She didn’t let her fear stop her, though. The result was that the people behind this operation had committed murder yet again.

  What were they protecting? Why would they be willing to go to such lengths? How could they justify murdering perfectly innocent people?

  Emma shook the questions from her mind. “Promise me we won’t confront them.”

  “Of course not.”

  “You’ll use—” She waved her hand at Tess’s phone. “Use your phone. Do something with that.”

  “I can take pictures or even stream a video.”

  “Whatever. We go in, go to the last place Cooper described—”

  “His description combined with Sophia’s code makes it so simple. I’m sure we can find it.”

  “We’ll find the spot, gather some evidence, and then we’ll
skedaddle.”

  In response to that, Tess dropped the computer into her bag and held up her hand, palm out. Emma slapped it as she’d seen Englischers do. It felt rather silly but also good. It felt right to be involved in something that could rectify one of the wrongs in the world. They couldn’t bring Sophia or Cooper back, but they could do whatever was within their power to stop anyone involved in their deaths.

  Tess tossed enough money on the table to cover their three coffees plus a generous tip.

  They hurried out the door, its bell chiming as they stepped into the night.

  Emma glanced left. Tess glanced right. The parking lot seemed to be empty. No police cars or mysterious dark trucks. No one watching their next move. In fact, the main street of Monte Vista was empty. The town was tucked in for the night, everyone snug and warm at home. Everyone except Sophia’s killer.

  And Emma and Tess—two women on a mission for justice.

  Fifty-Four

  Henry had unhitched Oreo and set her to graze in the pasture. Lexi greeted him as if they’d been separated for weeks instead of hours. It was late, but Henry found himself wide awake, his mind spinning with everything he’d learned in the last twelve hours.

  Sheriff Grayson was certain there was a conspiracy. Special Agent Roscoe Delaney might or might not be involved. The files on Sophia’s small computer device were password protected. Tess was certain the person who killed Sophia had also killed Sophia’s husband, Cooper.

  Henry wasn’t sure how to contact Grayson, but he wanted to talk things over with the man and see if he had any additional insight.

  He’d walked back out to the barn and was now sitting on the bench, the same place he’d sat with Grayson a few hours earlier. Lexi waited patiently at his feet. She stared at him for a moment, as if she were questioning why they were outside instead of in bed. When Henry didn’t explain, she turned in a circle three times and collapsed to the ground with a sigh. Five minutes later she was making doggie snore sounds.

  As a bishop, Henry saw his fair share of the dark side of people, but rarely did that darkness lead to murder. It was the final step in a path away from God, or so it seemed to him. The taking of a life was a sin against nature, against man, and against the Almighty. It wasn’t an unforgivable sin, but it separated man from his fellow man in a fundamental way.

  And what could drive a person to such a thing?

  Passion, instability, envy, revenge, jealousy, greed.

  The person who killed Sophia had felt one of those things and had been willing to kill not just once but twice because of it. Moreover, there was a good chance the person was in the pictures Henry had drawn. He wasn’t sure of that, but it felt right. Why else had God put him and Sophia on the same path? If, as Emma insisted, his ability was truly a gift from God, then perhaps God was again using him.

  To solve a murder mystery.

  An Amish bishop.

  Henry shook his head at the absurdity of it all, but he didn’t go to bed. He waited, somehow certain Grayson would return. The minutes ticked by, and Henry started to drift off himself when Lexi gave a low, menacing growl. Suddenly the little dog leaped to her feet, snarling and barking and darting back and forth from the corner of the barn to Henry.

  “I thought you were training her,” Grayson said.

  “It’s only been a few hours since we saw you last.”

  “Which means you haven’t even tried.”

  “Not really.”

  Grayson sat down beside him with a groan. “Tell me why you’re out here.”

  “We figured out a few things—Tess and Emma and I.”

  He detailed what the waitress had said about Officers Anderson and Lawson.

  “I have a hard time believing either of those two could be involved.”

  “Because…”

  “Lawson is new. I hired him myself.” He sat forward, elbows braced on his knees, and rubbed his eyes.

  “How long has it been since you slept?”

  Instead of answering that question, Grayson said, “Though his application came to me in an unusual way. Lawson was requesting a transfer from another division in a different state. Everything was in order, and he interviewed well. Someone had written a note and stuck it on the top of the file. I can’t remember who, but it must have been someone with authority. I interviewed him over the phone and offered him the job. We checked his references, and they were glowing.”

  “Could it be a coincidence that he transferred to your department so soon after Sophia moved here?”

  “I don’t believe in coincidences, but the spot was open because one of my officers retired. That had been planned for six months. Whoever is behind all of this couldn’t have had anything to do with that.”

  “But they could have seen the opening—”

  “And figured it would be a prime opportunity to put someone in my crew.”

  “Is that what you think happened?”

  “No. I don’t. I’m not discounting what the waitress told you, but maybe Lawson just had an infatuation with Sophia. She was a pretty woman.”

  “What about Anderson?”

  “That one is a little more difficult.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t like him. Never have, and that feeling has only grown stronger over the years. It’s not that he’s done anything wrong. He’s something of a whiner. He’ll do what I ask, but he makes sure everyone knows he’s going out of his way to do it.”

  “He wants to be recognized.”

  “Maybe. He was never going to get a promotion. He knew that. He just doesn’t have what it takes to lead other men, and he certainly isn’t an investigator. His work is a little sloppy. I guess I’m saying he does the minimum amount of work required. He knows how not to get fired, but that’s about it.”

  “Not a rousing recommendation.”

  “No, it isn’t, but it doesn’t make him complicit in a murder case either.”

  Henry stood and stretched, and then he told Grayson about his most recent encounter with Delaney. “Based on what you said earlier, either Agent Delaney is involved or he’s being deliberately misled.”

  He studied Grayson, who had suddenly sat up straighter, squared his shoulders, and pushed his right fist into his left hand.

  “You just remembered something.”

  “I did.”

  “Care to share it?”

  “When the murder was called in, I didn’t want Anderson working it. I didn’t trust him to do things right. So instead I put him on the telephones. He would have been the person working the tip hotline.”

  Grayson didn’t speak for a moment. Then he stood and said, “I have some people to call, a few details to chase down.”

  “And then?”

  “I’m going to skip my immediate supervisor and hand this over to his boss, a man I’ve known since college and someone I trust.”

  “Do you have enough evidence to do that?”

  “Not yet, but I will. Together he and I will decide how best to proceed.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “You’ve done enough. I want you to stay here, Henry. Stay on your farm, and nothing can happen to you.”

  “How can you say that with any certainty? They drugged my dog and left some sort of electronic device in my house.”

  “So they’re watching you. That doesn’t mean they’re willing to trot over here and kill you. It would be too obvious. They wouldn’t take that risk.” He paced back and forth for a moment, as if he were testing a theory and deciding if it was sound. Finally, he turned to Henry and said, “They don’t know you’ve figured anything out or that you found the device. No doubt they’re hoping it simply malfunctioned. Stay here. Attend to your regular business, and hopefully we’ll have that ankle bracelet off in the next twenty-four hours.”

  Which sounded pretty good to Henry.

  Reaching into his back pocket, Grayson removed his wallet and pulled out a business card. “This has my personal phone number o
n it. Call me if there’s anything I need to know.”

  He adjusted the ball cap on his head and turned to go, but then he turned back to Henry. “If you talk to Emma or Tess, tell them to stand down.”

  “Stand down?”

  “Stay out of it. Tell them to stay out of it. I’ll take care of this, but I don’t want them running around playing sleuth. The people who killed Sophia and her husband are dangerous.”

  Henry knew Grayson was right.

  Emma was a commonsense person. He imagined she was already home, tucked into bed and surrounded by her family.

  He didn’t know what Tess would do, but the woman had looked utterly exhausted at the diner. He hoped they’d called it a night. Tess had promised to give Emma a ride home, and he suspected she’d gone to her motel room after that. She’d be safe there.

  Henry watched Grayson jog across his pasture, and then, a few moments later, he heard the engine of a truck turn over. In a short time, a dark-colored Ford passed down the road, illuminated by the lone streetlight.

  What was it the waitress had said? The times she’d given Sophia a ride, they’d been followed by a dark-colored truck.

  He momentarily wondered if Grayson could be somehow involved in this, but he knew that couldn’t be true. Grayson was a good man. He was determined to help Henry despite his superiors ordering him off the job. It wasn’t the first time, either. Grayson had helped Henry before. No, he couldn’t be involved in what had happened to Sophia, though it was possible that the killer drove a truck similar to Grayson’s.

  “I’m jumping at shadows, Lexi.” The little dog rolled onto her back, all four feet in the air. Henry gave her a thorough tummy rub and then motioned toward the house. “We should head inside. Old bishops and young dogs need their sleep same as anyone else.”

  Lexi looked disinclined to move. She lay there in the dirt, content and staring at Henry as if he should take a spot beside her.

  “Come on, girl. Maybe there’s a treat for you inside.”

  Lexi’s ears perked up first, and then her tail began thumping. Finally, she bounded to her feet.

  “There’s no telling what tomorrow will bring, but hopefully it’ll bring Sophia’s murderer into police custody.”