Hearse and Buggy

by Laura Bradford

  Shaking her head, Diane wiggled out from underneath Claire’s feet and stood. “Does Benjamin know?”

  “He does now.”

  Diane paced across the floor and back. “Al Gussman took care of Eli and got him out of jail. It was all fine.”

  “Wait. You knew about that?”

  “I did. Al called me, and I met him at the station.”

  Claire sat up and scooted toward the edge of the couch. “Why didn’t you just tell Eli’s brother? Or his parents?”

  Diane stopped midstep and stared at Claire. “Do you realize the shunning that young man would have endured if his family had known of his drinking and his fighting? We couldn’t let that happen. Especially in light of the fact he was defending them.”

  “Defending them?”

  “Well, the Amish, anyway.”

  She played with a loose thread on the knee of her pajama pants and considered her aunt’s account of the event Esther had been reluctant to share out of loyalty to Eli. “And that wouldn’t have made a difference to Benjamin or the rest of the family?”

  “Fighting is never condoned by the Amish. Under any circumstances.”

  “Well, Mrs. Snow found out about that somehow, and she’s pointing to that as proof that Eli is some sort of hothead capable of snapping.”

  Diane opened her mouth but said nothing, the silence more powerful than any word she could have uttered.

  “You think she’s right?” she whispered. “You think Eli could have killed her husband?”

  “No. Of course not. I …” Diane stopped, her cheeks growing pale in the candlelight. “He did publically threaten the man if the money wasn’t returned. That’s why Walter took off for the hills in the first place.”

  Claire took in the information, compared it with what Esther had told her. “Eli got in trouble with the Amish for making those threats, didn’t he?”

  “He was shunned at home and in the community until he acknowledged what he’d done,” Diane relayed. “From what I’ve been told, he struggled with accepting fault, but he gave in because he couldn’t stand his family—and Esther—not being allowed to talk to him.”

  “Then why would he run that risk by doing something even worse? The stolen money has probably been spent by now, anyway. So what would Eli gain by killing the guy?” They were reasonable questions. They were also the same ones that had contributed to her bout of insomnia in the first place.

  Before Diane could respond, she continued.

  “Unless he wasn’t dealing from a place of logic to begin with.” She hated that she’d given words to the fear that had trumped all the questions and driven her from bed in the middle of the night. But it just kind of came out.

  And went right over her aunt’s head.

  “Ahhh. Now I understand the part about being hurt and hurting. You’re worried about Eli. That’s commendable, really, but there’s more, isn’t there?”

  She paused, torn between tackling the path she’d just turned down and leaving it for private exploration at a later time. On one hand, the nagging fear that had driven her from bed was just that—a fear. On the other hand, that fear was based on speculation rather than cold hard facts. If she talked it out, maybe it would be better.

  Shaking the troubling thoughts from her mind, she focused on the third and final reason she was sitting in the parlor rather than sleeping in her bed. “I guess I feel badly for Jakob.”

  Diane’s left eyebrow rose. “Oh?”

  “He misses his family terribly. You can see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice every single time they come up in conversation or he sees something that reminds him of them.”

  “I can only imagine how much harder it must make things for him to be back here.” Diane crossed back to the couch and sunk onto the cushion beside Claire. “It’s wonderful to see him again, but I can’t help but feel he made a mistake coming back.”

  She rushed to defend Jakob’s decision, crafting reasons based on conjecture. “Maybe he wanted a chance to be a part of their lives again. To get to know his nieces and nephews …”

  “Neither of which can ever happen.”

  “But why can’t it? Those people are his family. He wanted to make a difference in the world. How can they truly fault him for that?” She heard the intensity in her voice and worked to soften it. “I’m sorry, Aunt Diane, I really am. I’m not angry at you. I’m just frustrated.”

  Diane reached for Claire’s hand and lovingly pressed it between hers. “I find it sad, too, dear. I truly do. But he knew what was expected of him when he was baptized. And he knew what would come of his decision to leave. He chose to leave.”

  “To be a cop! To help people like the Amish!”

  “It’s just the way it is, dear.”

  “It shouldn’t be,” she said, the wistful quality of her voice evident to her own ears.

  “Some things just can’t be changed.”

  “Maybe. But that doesn’t mean I can’t try.” Slowly, gently, Claire extricated her hand from Diane’s. “I have to, Diane. For Jakob. And for Martha.”

  For a moment, Diane said nothing, her large thoughtful eyes studying Claire intently. If she had any protests to offer, though, she kept them silent. Instead, the woman leaned over and planted a kiss on her niece’s forehead. “I wish I could say I know you’ll succeed, but—”

  Claire held up her hand, stifling a yawn as she did. “Let’s just leave it there, okay? I don’t do hopeless very well.”

  Chapter 13

  Claire lifted her face to the morning sun and slowly inhaled the very heart of Heavenly, Pennsylvania. Lighted Way not only served as a thoroughfare between the Amish and English sects of the town but also provided the place in which both groups interacted, each true to its own way of life. Cars and horse-drawn buggies lined streets walked by people in outfits from tank tops and jeans to long-aproned dresses and head caps. Here, one did not gawk at the other. It was simply life—a quiet, peaceful existence that suited Claire just fine.

  One day soon, she hoped to get her own place. Something small and quaint that could be the kind of home she’d been dreaming about for years.

  She knew Aunt Diane would be heartbroken when that day came, but it was the next logical step in Claire’s personal makeover. Moving to Heavenly had been the first step, while opening Heavenly Treasures had been the second. Both had proven to be two of the smartest things she’d ever done. Getting her own place and turning it into the refuge of her dreams was the next and final step. Hit that one, and she could overlook the fact that she was single.

  Or, at least, pretend to.

  Sidestepping a young boy on a scooter, she glanced in the direction of Glick’s Tools ‘n’ More and offered a smile and a wave at the proprietor, Howard Glick. Like Claire, Howard took pride in his shop and the Amish items it offered. In fact, he’d found customers’ questions about various implements so interesting, he’d begun to fashion his business around various hands-on demonstrations so the English could learn even more about the Amish. It was a smart idea, really, one she had in the back of her head for her own shop in the future.

  She stepped off the sidewalk and crossed the mouth of the alley separating Glick’s from Shoo Fly Bake Shoppe, the aroma of Ruth’s freshly baked pies and cookies wafting onto the street through the open windows and quickening her pace exponentially.

  “Good morning, Ruth.” Stopping at the base of the bakery’s porch steps, Claire smiled up at the young Amish woman, who spoke little yet smiled often. “You’re putting me to shame making your windows gleam like that.”

  Ruth’s rag-holding hand paused on the large plate-glass window highlighting some of the many home-baked goodies inside. Without turning around, she mumbled something Claire couldn’t quite pick out.

  She climbed the steps and moved closer. “I’m sorry, Ruth, I didn’t quite catch …” The words trailed from her mouth as her gaze fell on the splash of white paint across the glass. “Ruth? What on earth happened here?”


  The tall blonde turned around, her big blue eyes wide and sad beneath her simple white head cap. “I do not know. Someone must have spilled a can of paint.”

  Claire looked around the porch, taking in the exterior wall and trim. “Were one of your brothers getting ready to paint? Because everything looks fine to me.”

  Ruth shook her head, then resumed the painstaking task of trying to remove paint from glass. “It is not from them. It is someone else who spilled paint.”

  Turning around, Claire eyed the main sidewalk some three steps and ten feet away. “I’m not sure how spilled paint could have gotten on your window all the way up here.”

  “I do not know.”

  She stepped closer to the window, reality impossible to ignore. “Ruth? I don’t think someone spilled that. I think they threw it.”

  The rag began to move faster, Ruth’s hand making smaller yet more forceful movements despite any sign of progress.

  “Ruth?”

  Slowly, Ruth brought her hand to a stop, her shoulders slumping beneath her pale-green dress. “I do not want my brothers to see this.”

  “But why? Surely Benjamin will know how to get this off, and Eli—”

  Ruth spun around, her rag-holding hand now clutched to her chest. “Eli will be angry. He will get in trouble. He is in too much trouble already without”—Ruth gestured to the mess behind her—“this making things worse.”

  “But, Ruth, this was wrong. People can’t just deface one of our shops and go unpunished. It’s not right.”

  “I do not know how, but I have upset someone.” Dropping onto a single rocking chair to the left of the front door, Ruth stared down at her hands. “First, the note on my door the other day, and now … this?”

  “Note?” She opened her mouth to challenge the young woman’s words but shut it just as quickly as the cloud that was Walter Snow’s murder lifted long enough to allow a quick jog of her memory. “Wait. Benjamin took that to Detective Fisher, didn’t he?”

  “He gave it to Mr. Glick. Mr. Glick gave it to the detective.”

  “And?” she prompted. “What did Jakob say?”

  “He said it was probably a prank.”

  “What did the note say, again? I never got to see it.”

  Ruth’s cheeks turned crimson. “That my food made people sick.”

  She had to laugh at the ludicrousness of the statement. Shoo Fly Bake Shoppe was a favorite among locals and tourists alike for one reason and one reason only—Ruth’s baking prowess.

  Based on the note alone, she could see why Jakob had chalked the note up to a prank. No one in their right mind would ever write, or believe, such a thing about Ruth. But now, with the paint splashed across the window, she had to wonder …

  And wonder she did.

  About the paint …

  About the note …

  About the missing shipment of pie boxes …

  And, last but not least, the shattered milk bottles.

  All things that could be pranks on their own but, coupled with one another and an absence of similar incidents with any of the other shopkeepers on the street, could be an indication of something much less innocuous.

  Squatting down next to the rocking chair, she placed a gentle hand on Ruth’s knee. “Ruth, you need to say something. If not to Benjamin or Eli, then you need to tell Detective Fisher. Way too much stuff has been happening around your store to be brushed off as a simple prank.” A second thought occurred to her, and she gave it voice. “And what happens if Mr. Snow’s murder is somehow tied to the stuff happening around here? That’s something the police need to look at and consider.”

  Ruth sucked in her breath. “But I barely knew Mr. Snow.”

  “No. No, I’m not saying his murder is your fault, Ruth. I’m just saying that maybe it’s all tied in together somehow.” Seeing the worry only deepen on the woman’s face, Claire tried to backpedal, to lessen the stress already weighing on her shy friend. “Look. Would you like it if I spoke to the detective myself, since you don’t want your brothers to know what’s going on around here?”

  Worry turned to a flash of hope as Ruth grabbed hold of Claire’s hand. “I would be so grateful. I do not want Eli to know of this.”

  She considered Ruth’s words. “Then I have an idea. How about I take a picture of the window to show the detective, and we ask Mr. Glick for help on how to remove the paint? If we move fast enough, maybe we can get it off before Eli comes to fetch you this afternoon.”

  “Oh, Miss Weatherly, that would be good. Very, very good.”

  “Then let’s get to it, shall we?” Straightening to a stand, Claire pulled her cell phone from her purse and switched it to the camera function, snapping pictures of the paint-splattered window from various angles as her thoughts revisited a different place and a different conversation.

  “I will speak with Mr. Glick.” Ruth rose to her feet and started toward the steps, stopping to look back at Claire as she reached the bottom. “You will talk to the police next?”

  She snapped the last picture, then slipped her phone back into her purse. “I will talk to them, yes. But there’s someone I want to talk to first. Someone who might be able to shed a little light on what’s been going on around here lately.”

  He walked in the door at exactly one minute past eleven, his eyes darting around the store before coming to rest on Claire. “Is she here?”

  “If by ‘she’ you mean Esther, no. She’s not. She’s at home working on a few projects for the store.” Claire plucked her notebook from a shelf beneath the register and set it on the counter. Flipping it open, she bypassed the first few pages, which contained notes about the store—items she wanted to offer, questions she had for Martha, and customer trends she was seeing—and stopped on the one she’d started less than an hour earlier. This page had nothing to do with the store and everything to do with questions she wanted to ask the man standing in the middle of Heavenly Treasures. “I’ll let her know you were in and asking about her.”

  Arnie Streen pushed a grubby hand through his disheveled crop of red hair and groaned. “The clock is ticking on my paper. I really need to ask Esther a few questions.”

  Propping her forearms on the counter, she leaned forward. “I’m sure I can find another member of the Amish community to speak with you.”

  “When is she gonna be back?”

  “She’s on the schedule for tomorrow morning.”

  “Wasn’t she on the schedule for today, too?” Arnie challenged, frustration evident in his voice.

  “She was. But I opted to have her work from home, instead. She’ll get more done if she’s not distracted by customers coming in and out all day long.”

  He reached into the candy bowl beside the register and extracted two wrapped caramels, unwrapping the first and popping it into his mouth with lightning speed. “People really get into this Amish stuff, don’t they?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” she said as she reached down and retrieved the caramel wrapper from the floor. Tossing it into the trash, she followed the anthropology student around the store.

  Arnie grabbed hold of one of the faceless dolls and held it up for Claire to see. “Like this. What little kid truly wants to play with a doll that has no eyes and no mouth? Yet grandma after grandma is going to come in here and buy one of these for their grandkids back home in Iowa or Wyoming or wherever it is they’re from, aren’t they?” He tossed it back onto the shelf and moved on, his hand already reaching for something else.

  “It’s a look at another culture. Something to share with loved ones who weren’t here,” she countered, replacing the discarded doll in the correct spot. “And, when I was a little girl, I would have loved a doll like this.”

  “If you say so.” Arnie spun around holding a painted wooden spoon. “And this? What on earth is someone going to do with a spoon like this?”

  Claire took in the delicately painted Amish countryside with its farmhouse and silo nestled in the middle of g
ently rolling fields. “It’s a decoration. A souvenir.”

  Arnie snorted. “It’s not about souvenirs; it’s about having something to take back home and use to mock people who are different.”

  She pried the spoon from his hands and returned it to the display hook from which it had come. “Excuse me?”

  “It’s like all those people who rubberneck their way past traffic accidents and stand around staring while some poor slob is dying of a heart attack at the beach.” He flicked his hand across a nearby quilt stand. “They buy this stuff so they can say they were there … where the Amish live. You know, those weird people who don’t have televisions and radios.”

  His assertion brought her up short. “I don’t think that’s true …”

  “I do.” Arnie stopped along the back wall to inspect a handmade clock, his gaze intent on the impeccable craftsmanship even while his mouth was still trained on the conversation with Claire. “How else can you explain vacationing in a place where the main thing you do is gawk at other people?”

  “People vacation here to learn more.”

  “About people they see as freaks.” Arnie doubled back, nearly knocking into Claire as he did. “It’s the way this world works. You don’t think I notice the way those people stare at my hands around the dinner table every night? But do they ask? No. They’d rather gawk than take the time to learn why they’re all scarred up. Do they ask about what I’m doing while they’re out all day long posing for pictures that’ll end up in some dusty old photo album on some basement shelf? No. They’d rather see me as the geeky stranger who keeps to himself—the weird one. And why is that? Well, that’s easy. When someone marches to a different drum, it’s to be mocked not celebrated.”

  From the moment Arnie had shown up at Sleep Heavenly and booked a room for an entire month, Claire had found his fascination with the Amish curious. Yet, in that moment, it all made sense. The only thing that didn’t make sense was how long it took her to see it.

  Arnie’s decision to write his thesis on the Amish was based on an understanding, a kinship. This young man, who was as odd as odd could be, identified with these people he insisted were seen as freaks by the outside world.