Hearse and Buggy

by Laura Bradford

  So she’d been wrong. The absence of light she’d attributed to Benjamin’s grandparents was actually due to his long walk. “Did you ever consider moving back in with your family after your wife passed?”

  “I did not. I was a man, not a boy.”

  It was the same basic reason she’d given to Diane the few times the possibility of moving was discussed. It wasn’t that she didn’t love the inn—because she did. And it wasn’t some sort of burning desire to get out from under her aunt’s watchful eye. She treasured their time together, valued her aunt’s opinions and experience.

  She just wanted to do what grown-ups were supposed to do.

  “Does it get lonely sometimes?” she asked, addressing one of her aunt’s chief concerns for her.

  “When I go inside and close the door, it is because I need time. I have many responsibilities. For my sisters and brothers. It is nice to sit alone at night.”

  “Yet you still come here …”

  He braced himself back against his hands and looked up at the sky. “I am worried. For Ruth. And for Eli.”

  She caught her breath and waited for more.

  “Eli … He does not know when to be silent. He does not learn from his mistakes. I worry his actions will hurt Ruth.”

  “How so?”

  “He wants to be man. To earn respect. So he does not tell of problems at the shop. But he gets angry and says things he should not. He angers people. That anger is now on Ruth.”

  She jerked her head right, Benjamin’s strong jawline visible in the light of the moon. “You think that everything that has happened is because someone is angry at Eli?”

  Benjamin’s head nodded beneath his hat. “I do.”

  “Who is angry at Eli?”

  “Yoder … Stoltzfus … Lapp … Beilers … Troyer”—one by one he ticked them off on his fingers, the list continuing as he finished one hand and moved on to the next—“and Schrock.”

  The list of Amish names surprised her. “But why? Why are all of those people angry at Eli?”

  “He made things worse.”

  She dropped her legs to the rock and spun around to face Benjamin. “What things?”

  “He scared Mr. Snow. Mr. Snow ran. Took their money with him.” It was a simple explanation and one she couldn’t believe she’d missed. Suddenly, it made sense why someone would lash out at Shoo Fly Bake Shoppe.

  Or did it?

  The Amish were supposed to be pacifists. It was his failure to act as one that had earned Eli a spot in front of his elders as he asked for forgiveness for his behavior toward Mr. Snow. Surely they wouldn’t condone things like stealing pie boxes, breaking milk bottles, spattering paint, and starting a fire.

  She said as much to Benjamin.

  “I do not believe they would do those things. But they are not the only ones angry at my brother. There are others who are not Amish.”

  It was a point she couldn’t argue. In just the short time since she’d opened Heavenly Treasures, she’d heard countless stories of Eli losing his temper with everyone from tourists to local teenagers—and everyone in between. Most people probably shook it off or maybe used it to further their ignorance of the Amish people. But most was not all. And it only took one bad apple to take things too far.

  The notion was both appealing and unappealing at the same time. For if Benjamin was right, the pranks could continue, possibly even escalate beyond anything they’d seen so far. If he was wrong and Arnie was right, the stain of Eli’s actions would reach far into his family.

  She lifted her gaze toward the stars that peppered the sky and found the brightest one she could see. “Do you see that star right there?” she asked, indicating the correct one with her finger. “It’s the brightest one in the sky tonight, which makes it a wishing star according to Aunt Diane.”

  He followed the path made by her finger. “A wishing star?”

  “She says that if you find that star and stare at it good and hard, whatever you wish for at that moment will come true.”

  “Have you done this before?”

  She felt his eyes on her face and knew he was waiting for an answer. She took a deep breath and released it slowly. “I have. When I first moved here. We had spent the evening talking about all of the hopes and dreams I’d had before I got married. The ones that faded to nothing as my husband lost interest in his vows.”

  Like clockwork, the mere mention of Peter enveloped her in sadness, and she fought to keep it at bay. “So I told her I’d always wanted to own a shop with all sorts of things to make people smile.”

  His silence while she spoke was different than Peter’s had always been. Peter’s had been because he wasn’t listening, something he’d proven again and again throughout their nearly five years together. Benjamin, on the other hand, was listening to every word, waiting, like a child, for the rest of the story.

  “You said this wish on a bright star?”

  “I did,” she said. “I know it’s silly to believe that wish made it happen, but I do.”

  When he didn’t say anything in response, she glanced in his direction and found him looking up at the stars. “Will you make a wish now?”

  She nibbled at her lower lip but gave up as her smile won. “I could.”

  “Will you wish for a new home?”

  “I’m not sure I’m ready just yet,” she said, the words surprising even her. “I think I need my aunt’s presence a little longer. I need our talks; I need her encouragement; I need her hugs.”

  Benjamin stared up at the stars. “That is good. Family is good.”

  “I agree.” It was hard not to lose herself in the sincerity that was Benjamin Miller. But as was always the case when she dared to think of him, she heard Diane’s voice in her head, reminding her to look at his vest, his hat, his pants.

  “So what is your new wish?”

  She closed her eyes against the one she couldn’t have, the one she couldn’t voice to anyone, least of all him.

  “Miss Weatherly?”

  She jumped at the feel of his fingers on her shoulder and the rapid heartbeat his touch inspired.

  Vest, hat, pants—Amish …

  Vest, hat, pants—Amish …

  Swallowing against the lump that threatened to render her speechless, she searched for something, anything she could say that would deflect him from the knowledge that had to be written all over her face.

  “I suppose I would make two wishes if I could.”

  He pulled his hand from her shoulder and gestured toward the stars, his expression difficult to read. “We must find two bright stars?”

  She allowed herself to laugh, the sound echoing around them. “I suppose that would be best.”

  “That is one.” Benjamin pointed to her star’s biggest contender. “So now there are two. Two stars. Two wishes.”

  “Okay … here goes.” She looked at the first star and closed her eyes, the wish coming easily.

  “What? I do not hear?”

  She lifted one lid and peeked out at Benjamin. “You want me to say them out loud?”

  “Of course. How am I to know your wish if you do not tell me?”

  She thought about explaining the practice of silent wishes and the longstanding belief that they wouldn’t come true if you spoke them out loud. But when she saw the way he looked at her, with such curiosity and anticipation, she simply couldn’t burst his bubble. Besides, he was Amish. He thought wishes and such were hooey anyway.

  She repeated the lead-up to her wish, this time voicing her request aloud for Benjamin and all of the insects and animals around them to hear. “I wish to live a simple life surrounded by love and family.”

  Opening her eyes, she searched the sky for the second star but to no avail. “Uh-oh. I think your star was an airplane.”

  Benjamin cleared his throat and pointed above his head. “No. It is there.”

  “Oh, yeah, I see it now.” She closed her eyes again and spoke her second wish aloud. “I wish for us to fig
ure out who is doing these awful things to Shoo Fly Bake Shoppe before any more harm is done.”

  “That is a good wish.”

  She turned away from the stars to find him staring at her with a look she couldn’t quite identify. “You liked that one?”

  “I liked both.”

  Chapter 26

  Claire had just let herself into the stockroom via the back door when Esther started crying, tears streaming down the young woman’s cheeks with reckless abandon.

  “Esther, what’s wrong?” Claire dropped her purse and keys at her feet and grabbed hold of her employee’s soft hands. “Are you hurt?”

  Esther’s breath hitched once, twice, three times before she was able to shake her head.

  She peeked around the girl and into the main room of the shop. “Did something break?”

  “N-no.”

  When she was satisfied that she wasn’t missing something in plain view, she focused on Esther once again. “Is it your mother? Your father? Are they sick?”

  “It is not Mamm or Dat.” The girl wiggled her hands from Claire’s grasp and clutched them to her chest as tear after tear continued to fall. “It is Eli.”

  She heard herself gasp, the sound bringing Esther’s tears still faster. “Was Eli arrested for Walter Snow’s murder?”

  Esther’s eyes widened with horror. “You think they will do that?”

  She took a step back to steady her breath. “Esther, please. Just tell me what happened.”

  “Last night he came to Eli’s house. He asked questions.” Esther swiped at the tears as they left her cheeks and dropped onto her dress. “He … He said Eli should not leave Heavenly.”

  “By he you must mean Jakob.”

  “Benjamin could not be found. He was not there to help Eli.”

  Guilt flooded her body as she realized where Benjamin had been. “Does he know now?” she finally asked.

  “I do not know. Eli did not say.”

  She tried to absorb what she was hearing and to say something to wipe the fear from Esther’s face, but she came up empty. “When did you see Eli?”

  “He was just here. He told me what has happened.” Esther reached for Claire. “He asked for you.”

  She shook her head and forced herself to focus. “Wait. I’m confused. I thought you were talking about Eli, not Jakob.”

  “It is Eli I speak of.”

  “Eli was looking for me?”

  “I tell him you are smart. I tell him you are kind to the Amish. I tell him you are friends with Jakob.” Esther spread her arms in pleading. “I tell him you can help.”

  Claire spun on her heels and headed across the stockroom, doubling back as she reached the wall. “Esther, I can’t help Eli. I’m not a police officer. I don’t know about any of this stuff, any more than you do.”

  “But you can learn,” Esther insisted. “You learned about this shop. You learn about the Amish. You learn about so much. You can learn about this, too.”

  She made a second and third trip across the stockroom before stopping midway through her fourth go-round. “Esther, I don’t know what you want me to say. I mean, I want to help … I really do. But I don’t know how.”

  Esther bridged the gap between them. “Just speak to him. Maybe it will help.”

  “But you said Jakob already did that. Last night, right?”

  “That is right.”

  “Then what can Eli tell me that he hasn’t already told Jakob?”

  “Your ears are not Jakob’s. You do not have”—Esther cast about for the right words—“resentment as Jakob does.”

  She wanted to argue, to insist Jakob would be fair in his pursuit of the truth, but Esther didn’t give her a chance. “We need help. Please, Claire.”

  There were times in her life when she’d second-guessed decisions she’d made—recipes she’d tried and hated, job interview questions she could have answered differently, a marriage proposal she never should have accepted. But none came as quickly and swiftly as the bout that started screaming inside her head before she finished uttering the words Esther had begged to hear.

  How, exactly, she was going to help Eli was anyone’s guess. Including hers. But a promise was a promise, so she was determined to try if nothing else.

  The fifty-year-old man behind the counter covered the phone with his hand and chinned her toward the door on his left. “Detective Fisher said you can come on back.”

  Hiking the strap of her purse higher on her shoulder, she thanked him and proceeded toward the specified door, her thoughts already skipping ahead to what she could possibly say that would make Jakob share the facts of the case thus far.

  Several sets of eyes glanced in her direction as she made her way down an interior hallway that passed a handful of cubicles and a half-dozen or so offices. When she reached the correct office, as evidenced by the gold plate bearing the detective’s name, she knocked on the open door frame.

  Jakob looked up and smiled. “Well, isn’t this a nice surprise.” He pushed back his chair and stood, then swept an open palm toward the chair across from his desk. “Please. Come in.”

  She pulled her purse onto her lap as she sat and raised his smile with one of her own. “I’m sorry to bother you at work but …” Closing her eyes, she ran through the various ways she’d planned to ask about Eli and his standing as a suspect and settled on the only one that felt right. “I was wondering if we could talk about Walter Snow’s murder and whatever role you think Eli Miller may have played in it.”

  His smile still in place, Jakob plucked a pencil from the wooden holder on his desk and turned it round and round between his fingers. “Esther has asked you to help, hasn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that’s because Esther is worried I won’t be fair on account of my supposed bitterness toward the Amish in this area, right?”

  She watched his fingers slide down the pencil only to flip it over and start once again from the top. It was the kind of motion that could distract her if she allowed it to. “Look, Jakob, I truly believe you’re going to see this case through to the right conclusion wherever that may lead. I really do.”

  His smile faltered ever so slightly, but he recovered it so fast that she had to question her eyesight. “That’s nice to hear, Claire. Thank you.”

  She forced herself to remain on task, to not be distracted by the memory of his hand on hers … “But, right or wrong, Esther and Eli are concerned. They were just toddlers when you left. They know only what they’ve been told.”

  “Which, in my case, was probably nothing until I showed up in Heavenly again.”

  She considered his words and discounted them. “Actually, I’m not sure that’s true. Not where Esther was concerned anyway.”

  His eyebrows rose in interest, yet he said nothing.

  “The first time she saw you, she seemed to know who you were. So Martha must have said something along the way.”

  He dropped the pencil back into the holder and rose from his chair once again. Wandering over to the corner window, he stood looking out at the midday hustle and bustle of tourists that was synonymous with Lighted Way. “I’d see that as a sign of encouragement if she weren’t asking you to snoop around in the case.”

  She heard the hurt in his voice and felt the renewed desire to help bridge the gap between the detective and his family. “Maybe if I help her, and she sees that you are good and honest, something will change.”

  “Nothing will change because the Ordnung will not allow it. But I do want her to know those things about me.” Slowly, he turned from the window and made his way over to a whiteboard that covered one entire wall of his office. He pointed at a series of notations he’d written down the left-hand side of the board with Eli’s name at the top.

  1. Motivation: Revenge over stolen money.

  2. Opportunity: Was at Shoo Fly Bake Shoppe daily. Routinely parked buggy in alley where victim was found.

  3. Method: Strangulation. Suspect had to be both
strong and angry in order to choke the life out of another human being with his bare hands. See Motivation.

  She read each line several times. It all made sense on so many levels, yet something was holding her back from jumping on the bandwagon with both feet. “Are there any other suspects you’re even considering?”

  Jakob pointed to a similar list on the opposite side of the board that named a half-dozen or so other Amish men who could work for the same motivation he had down for Eli, but the opportunity wasn’t there, nor was the well-documented temper of his primary suspect.

  “What about the other people who were hurt by Walter Snow’s scheme?”

  He pointed to the Amish names a second time. “That’s why they’re all here. But I just can’t believe any of them would act in a vengeful manner. It’s just not what they believe.”

  “It’s not what Eli believes, either.”

  “But that hasn’t stopped him from bar fights and threatening to rip a man from limb to limb.”

  She couldn’t argue with that. To do so would be pointless. “I’m talking about the non-Amish people who were hurt by Walter’s scheme.”

  Jakob pinned her with a curious stare. “What are you talking about? Did he pull the same scheme on other vendors, too?”

  “That I can’t answer. Though it’s my understanding that his shop offered only Amish-made items.” She shifted her purse to the floor and then stood awkwardly by Jakob’s desk. “No, I’m talking about the other shopkeepers who were made to suffer the carryover from shattered trust.”

  It’s not that she actually thought someone like Howard Glick or Al Gussman was capable of murder, but she also didn’t believe that Eli’s culpability should be a slam dunk, either.

  “How did it affect them?” he asked.

  “Once you’ve been burned, you’re not as likely to trust the next guy, I guess. And when a person’s business thrives largely on goods made by the Amish, losing that connection is going to hurt a shop’s bottom line.” She hadn’t really thought much about it when Howard first mentioned the struggles his store had endured in the wake of the scandal, but now that she was repeating it out loud, she couldn’t help but give it its proper due.