Plain Peril

by Alison Stone

  “We’re investigating.”

  The woman brushed his hand away and grabbed the railing and pulled herself to her feet, a mix of embarrassment and anger lacing her tone. “Ruthie told me she was afraid.”

  Spencer’s pulse ratcheted up a notch.

  Miss Wittmer yanked off her bonnet. The moon rising above the trees lit on the golden strands of her dark hair. If she weren’t an Amish woman, he would have thought she had highlighted her hair. She smoothed a hand over the few loose strands that had sprung free from the bun at the nape of her neck.

  She sat, resigned. “She told me she feared too many things were changing.” She leaned back and wrapped her fingers around the arms of the chair. “My sister and I hadn’t seen each other for over a decade, then about five months ago, she called me. She wanted to see me.”

  Spencer rubbed his jaw. “I guess it’s my turn to be confused. She called you?”

  Miss Wittmer looked up at him, a battle waging behind her watchful eyes. “John had a phone installed in the barn.” She shrugged. “Claimed he needed it for work.”

  “And you have a phone, too?”

  “I’m not Amish.”

  Spencer bit back a comment.

  “I left Apple Creek and the Amish community eleven years ago.” Miss Wittmer dragged her lower lip through her teeth. “It—” she lifted her palms “—this life wasn’t for me. Once I left, my father refused to allow me to visit.”

  “You were shunned.” Spencer had been sheriff of Apple Creek for only a year, but he was slowly learning the ways of the Amish.

  She shook her head. “I was never baptized, so technically, there was no reason to shun me. But my father was a controlling man. He was part of the reason I left. I felt suffocated. And I suppose there was always the fear that if I came back home for a visit and talked about my wonderful, worldly life, who’s to say my sister wouldn’t want to leave with me.” Heavy shadows masked her expression, but Spencer thought he detected an eye roll when she referred to herself as worldly.

  “The clothes.” He gestured to her long gown, her apron, the bonnet in her hand.

  “It’s easier this way. I wanted to make sure I respected both my sister and my mother.” She grabbed a fistful of material by her thigh and fluttered her skirt. “This is my sister’s.” Her words came out droll, sad, lifeless as if to say, “She won’t be needing it anymore.”

  A thought nagged at Spencer, and he didn’t know how to broach it. He decided to be direct. “If you were estranged from your family, why did they contact you when your sister died?”

  A mirthless laugh escaped her lips. “My mother, who wouldn’t dare use the phone herself, sent word through a neighbor. I’m her only surviving child. My father’s gone. Now my sister’s gone.” She sighed heavily. “And someone needs to take care of the children...until John returns.” The tone of the last three words convinced him she understood John was unlikely to care for his children when and if he did return.

  “No other family can care for the children?”

  “John’s family is busy searching for their son and brother. They believe he ran off in grief after finding Ruthie in the silo. Perhaps blaming himself. His new job has taken him away from the farm.” She rocked slowly in the chair. “My mother is not as strong as she used to be. She’d never be able to manage two young girls.” She stopped rocking. “I’m worried about my mem. The news Ruthie was murdered will devastate her all over again.”

  “I’ll do my best to find whoever did this.” He studied Miss Wittmer’s face to see if she had the same suspicions he had. “Why was Ruthie worried things were changing?”

  “Ruth embraced the Amish way. When we were kids, she spoke of raising her family here. She was doing that. She had two beautiful daughters. By all outward appearances, she had what any humble Amish girl could want.”

  “What about her husband? Was her husband a good guy?” John Lapp had come under his radar once or twice, which definitely wasn’t a good thing.

  “I didn’t know John. He returned to Apple Creek shortly before I left. He was one of a group of young men who had left the area to work on a ranch out West. A handful of them returned and embraced the Amish way and were baptized and married.” She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It was the talk of the community. The families considered themselves blessed because their wayward sons had returned.”

  “The prodigal sons.” Spencer referred to the parable he remembered from his childhood days in Sunday school. Before he realized God didn’t bless all His children, especially poor ones born into bad neighborhoods where guns and hanging out on street corners crowded out God and Sunday church services.

  “Something like that.” Miss Wittmer seemed unimpressed. “But no one killed a calf in celebration of their return. Everyone went about their business. If you haven’t noticed, we are a humble people.” She wiggled her bare toes.

  “Do you know if your sister and John had a good marriage?”

  “When we got together for the first time five months ago—my sister drove the wagon to the McDonald’s in the next town—she said she was worried that John didn’t seem content. She feared he might leave her and the girls. John had given up farming for the most part and had taken a job making fancy swing sets.”

  Spencer pointed toward the road with his thumb and squinted. “The place down the road? A lot of Amish men are employed there.” The Amish were notorious for being hardworking, skilled laborers. No shame in that.

  “That was the first change. John also spent more time with the men whom he had left with years earlier.”

  “Do you know these men?” Rumors reached the station that there had been some discord within the Amish community. When he tried to investigate, the alleged victims, men who had their beards cut in the middle of the night, refused to talk to him. Even Ruth Lapp had sent him away when he had come to this very farm to question her about her husband’s possible involvement. But there was no mistaking the fear in her eyes. Ruth Lapp was afraid of something.

  Miss Wittmer got a distant look in her eyes, as if she were replaying a memory. “Ruth never gave me the names of the men John was hanging out with. I’ve been gone a long time. The names may not have meant much to me.” She ran her pinched fingers down the long tie on the bonnet in her hand. “There was something I found strange. My sister made what I thought was a passing comment about taking care of her girls. I laughed at her.” Regret and grief flashed in her eyes. She sniffed. “When I realized she wasn’t joking, I assured her she was doing a great job as a mom but if the time ever came, I’d make sure Emma and Sarah were well taken care of.”

  Her gaze drifted up to meet his. “Do you think she knew something was going to happen to her?”

  The memory of Ruth Lapp shooing him off the farm so that her husband wouldn’t find him here had haunted him from the moment he heard of her untimely death.

  “Your sister seemed afraid, but she wouldn’t open up to me.”

  Miss Wittmer’s head shot up. “Why didn’t you do something. Protect her?”

  Spencer shoved his shoulders back despite the punch to his gut. “She assured me everything was fine. She told me to go, reminding me that the Amish and law enforcement have a tenuous relationship at best. There wasn’t much more I could do if Ruth didn’t talk to me.”

  Miss Wittmer bowed her head, and her shoulders sagged. “I was helpless when it came to my sister, too. I had no right to snap at you.” Clasping her hands in her lap, as if she were bracing for something, she asked, “How do you know my sister’s death wasn’t an accident?”

  “The county medical examiner didn’t find any corn in her mouth or nose. If your sister had suffocated in the silo, she would have inhaled the corn.”

  Miss Wittmer closed her eyes. “He killed her, didn’t he? John Lapp killed my sister.”

 
; Spencer cleared his throat. “We’re still investigating. The Lapp family has been unwilling to talk to me. I’ll give them a day or two to reconsider.”

  Miss Wittmer rubbed her arms, despite the mild evening. Her bonnet had been abandoned on her lap. “How cooperative do you think they’re going to be when you accuse their son of killing my sister?”

  “It’s part of my job.”

  “I don’t envy you.” She planted her elbow on the arm of her chair and rested her chin in her palm. “I don’t envy either of us.”

  TWO

  Hannah tossed and turned on a small cot in the first-floor bedroom of her childhood home, now her sister’s home. Even the white noise of the crickets couldn’t lull her to sleep, not after the news she had received from Sheriff Maxwell. He had left her with a warning to be careful, his cell phone number and a promise to have his officers patrol her property.

  Small consolation in the dead of night in the middle of nowhere.

  Not even knowing that her mother slept nearby in the adjacent dawdy haus could calm her nerves.

  The small bedroom grew stifling, yet she still couldn’t bring herself to move to her sister’s more spacious bedroom upstairs. Hannah slipped out of bed and slid the window open. She dismissed her silly fears that someone would climb through her window because if someone really wanted to get in, all they had to do was stroll through the front door. It didn’t have a lock.

  Hannah flopped down on the cot and sighed. She pulled the sheet up to her chin and stared toward the open bedroom door, imagining the shapes morphing into an intruder, namely John. She was driving herself crazy. Her nerves felt like they were jacked on too much caffeine.

  Had John really killed her sister? The sheriff had warned her they didn’t have enough evidence to prove John had been involved. But still...

  Hannah struggled to quiet her mind with prayer and the hope of sleep. The chirping crickets filled her ears, and she realized the noise could also mask footsteps on creaking floorboards.

  Tingles of dread crept up her spine.

  “You’re being silly. You lived in the city and never were this afraid,” she whispered into the night.

  You never tried to fall asleep with the knowledge your sister had been murdered.

  Sitting up, she leaned against the wall and tipped her head back. The piece of snitz pie she had eaten before bed didn’t seem like such a good idea. She was making herself sick with anxiety.

  Just when her rational side had talked her irrational side out of a full-blown panic attack, the blaring of a car alarm sliced through the cacophony of chirping. Hannah bolted upright and snapped her attention toward the window. Her car was parked behind the barn and covered with a tarp.

  She pressed a hand to her thumping chest and drew in deep breaths.

  The alarm will turn off by itself. It will turn off by itself.

  How many times had a car alarm gone off in the city? Especially on her street filled with college students and their varying schedules. Car alarms were sensitive. An animal probably scampered across the tarp. Or a tree branch dropped on it. Or...or...

  No, it did not mean someone was out there waiting for her. Her apprehension grew with the strident pulsing of the alarm. She drew in another deep breath through her nose and released it.

  Hannah threw back the sheet and climbed out of bed. She pushed back her shoulders. I’m being ridiculous.

  She grabbed her cell phone from the end table and dialed six digits of Sheriff Maxwell’s phone number, ready to press the seventh digit if needed. She grabbed a flashlight and her car keys from the kitchen on her way out the door. She stopped long enough to stuff her feet into boots.

  Her focus tunneled. She made a direct path to her car, tucked neatly between the barn and a dense crop of trees. Striding across the yard, she rolled her ankle in a rut. “Whose great idea was it to park my car way out here? Oh yeah, mine,” she muttered. Hannah was doing everything possible to comfort her mother, even if it meant hiding everything that made her an outsider.

  The alarm came at Hannah in varying waves of ear-piercing obnoxiousness. Wincing, she lifted her key fob and aimed it in the general direction of the car and hit the alarm button. The sudden silence deafened her. Even the crickets were mute. She glanced back toward her mother’s dark residence. Apparently, the noise hadn’t disturbed her.

  Hannah debated about returning to the house, but decided to quickly check on her car. She rounded the corner of the barn, and the beam of a flashlight blinded her. Her heart leaped in her chest, and she turned to run.

  “Wait.” A deep, commanding voice vibrated through her.

  Hannah didn’t wait. She had to put distance between herself and the man trespassing on the farm. She was out here alone. She had to protect the girls. She bolted toward the house, calculating how she’d reach the girls’ room and wedge something against the door.

  She stumbled in a wagon wheel rut and pitched forward. Crying out in panic, she braced herself. Pain shot up the heels of her hands as they met the earth. Her knees slammed down hard on the packed dirt.

  “Miss Wittmer, it’s Sheriff Maxwell.”

  On all fours, Hannah dropped her head in relief. She pushed to her feet and brushed the dirt from her palms and her pj’s. She spun around. “What are you doing? You scared me to death.”

  “What are you doing out here? You shouldn’t be wandering alone outside.” The sheriff arched the beam of the flashlight across her dirty pj bottoms and her University at Buffalo T-shirt, complete with boots she obviously should have laced up.

  “Don’t answer my question with a question.” Hannah crossed her arms and huffed. She had a tad more confidence in her English pj’s than she had wearing her sister’s Amish dress. No one expected her to fake Amish while she slept, did they?

  “I was patrolling the area and heard the alarm.” Sheriff Maxwell flicked his flashlight toward her vehicle. “Yours?”

  She didn’t bother to answer the obvious. He tossed back the tarp, revealing her three-year-old Chevy Malibu. “Someone slashed your tires.”

  Hannah plowed a hand through her hair, and a mix of annoyance, resignation and fear wound their way up her spine. “Did you see anyone?”

  The sheriff shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”

  She glared at him skeptically. “Why are you lurking around here?”

  “I’m not lurking. I’m doing my job.” An annoyingly coy smile played on his lips.

  “If you were doing your job—” she held out her hand toward her car, the one with twenty-seven remaining car payments “—then this would have never happened.”

  “Fair enough.” His smooth voice rolled over her. “But doesn’t it make you feel better to know I’m not far away if you need me?”

  Hannah smoothed the tarp back over her car. “Let’s be clear about something. I don’t need anyone.”

  He seemed to give her a once-over. “That’s debatable.”

  Hannah swept her hair into a ponytail and fastened it with a rubber band from her wrist. “Fair enough.” She repeated his words. “I am glad you’re here. Find out who did this. But make sure you’re not lurking around too much. I don’t want the neighbors talking. They already give me enough grief.”

  Hannah spun around—her snippiness fueled more from her adrenaline-soaked nerves than from anger—and marched up to the house, keenly aware that Sheriff Maxwell was watching her.

  * * *

  The next morning, Hannah slipped into her sister’s black Amish dress, an outward sign she was grieving. She peeked in on her sleeping nieces and decided to check on Mem. Through the screen door of the adjacent dawdy haus, Hannah saw her mother sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee. When Hannah knocked, her mother pushed back from the worn pine table slowly. Hannah couldn’t be sure, but she thought she
saw her mother wince.

  “Are you okay?” The screen door squeaked, and Hannah stepped into the small space. Memories crowded in on her. Hannah had spent long hours here visiting her own grandmother. Her mammy was the one person who loved her unconditionally. When Mammy died shortly before Hannah turned sixteen, Hannah had found herself rudderless between an overdemanding father and a too-passive mother.

  “Tired is all.” Her mother waved away her daughter’s concerns. “Would you like coffee?” She took a step toward the stove.

  “No, I can’t stay long. I want to make sure I’m in the house when Emma and Sarah wake up.”

  Her mother shook her head in disbelief. She did that a lot since Ruthie died.

  “Did you hear the commotion outside last night?”

  Her mother paused. “Commotion?”

  “My car alarm went off.” She omitted the part about the slashed tires. She hated to add to her mother’s grief.

  “Neh.” Her mouth pursed her lips. “My hearing is neh gut.”

  Hannah leaned against the counter and watched her mother slowly sit back down. Her mother took a sip of coffee then touched her head. “Your kapp.”

  Hannah tugged on her apron with both hands. “But I’m wearing a dress.”

  Her mother looked down without saying anything, renewed disappointment etched in her pale features. An expression Hannah had seen many times. An expression that had both frustrated and confused Hannah as a teenager. Why didn’t her mother say what she meant?

  “Mem, I came back for Sarah and Emma...and you.” Hannah pulled out the chair across from her mother and sat. She angled her head to see into her mother’s eyes. “I don’t know what my future holds.”

  Her mother lifted her brows. “Your sister said you were coming home.” Her hopeful tone broke Hannah’s heart.

  Hannah dipped her chin, surprise making her momentarily speechless. “Ruthie told you about our visits?” Ruthie had sworn her to secrecy.

  Her mother nodded. “Yah.” She fingered the handle of the coffee mug. “Are you ready to be baptized Amish? Find a nice Amish boy and marry? Maybe next year you can prepare—”