Through the Autumn Air

by Kelly Irvin

  “I’m fine.” Knees cracking, back aching, Mary Katherine hopped to her feet. “When do the rest of the shelves get here?”

  “Did you hear? Leo’s making them for me.”

  “Wunderbarr!”

  “I think so. We’ll have an unpacking party when the books arrive.”

  “I should go.” Mary Katherine picked up her bag and strode to the door. “I’m happy for you. You’ll have your dream.”

  “I’d give it up faster than a flash of lightning if it meant getting Walt back.” Sorrow swiped at her face, her smile gone. She gazed at something beyond Mary Katherine, beyond the walls of the store. “I miss him so much my teeth hurt. My fingernails hurt. My toes hurt. Everything in between hurts.”

  “I know.”

  “A bookstore is only a building. The love of a good man is everything.”

  Those words swirling around her so fast and hard she could barely see to navigate, Mary Katherine fled.

  THIRTY-TWO

  A Gunshot. Mary Katherine jerked straight up in bed. A gunshot echoed in that empty field halfway between sleep and wakefulness. The murky night quivered with the ensuing silence.

  She closed her eyes and opened them. Her eyes adjusted to the dark. Her room was empty.

  She had to think for a minute. Where was she? The dawdy haus. Yes, the dawdy haus outside Thomas’s house. Her new home now that it was shipshape. The cough of a car engine that sputtered, then died. A backfire, not a gunshot.

  Uneasiness wrapped itself around her chest and squeezed. Another burglary in the making? Brazen thieves ready to break in while she was home? While Thomas and Joanna slept in the big house. And their kinner. Fear mingled with uneasiness. If they broke into the big house, they might wake the kinner. They might come downstairs and find the burglars at work.

  She didn’t have Moses’ shotgun anymore. Dylan kept it in the move. She threw off the sheets and hopped from the bed. She made quick work of her dress. Her heart pounded in her ears. Her fingers shook. Who were these people to prey on Plain folks who did nothing but mind their own business? They could have her stuff, all of it, but they might not understand that Plain people wouldn’t fight them for those belongings.

  The engine whirred and coughed again, a weak, sickly sound that quickly faded into nothingness.

  The thieves should’ve chosen a better car.

  Thieves in general weren’t very smart or they wouldn’t be stealing. They’d be earning an honest living.

  Mary Katherine stomped into the kitchen and grabbed her broom. She lit the lantern she kept on the kitchen table. Her hands stopped shaking. The scent of phosphorus and kerosene must be what hell smelled like. Fueled by indignation that leaped like a gasoline-fueled fire, she marched to the front door and threw it open. One deep breath and she flung herself onto the porch. “Who’s there?”

  Her bare foot hit something small sitting directly in front of the door. She stumbled. Her arms flew out. The lantern slipped from her hand and fell into the yard. The sense that this had happened to her before galloped through her, borne on the chilly autumn wind. She summoned every ounce of strength to keep from falling.

  Instead, she plopped facedown in the cold grass. Her nose stung. Her shoulder ached. Please, Gott, don’t let me start a fire. She pushed back and managed to sit up on her knees. She grabbed the lantern and set it upright. The flame miraculously held steady.

  It didn’t matter. The headlights of a car blinded her. The engine whirred. It sounded cranky. It started, revved, died.

  Leaves rustled in the breeze, sending a shiver through her. The headlights died. Blessed darkness.

  A car door slammed.

  The thief coming after her.

  Mary Katherine felt around on the ground until her hand connected with the broom. Hauling herself to her feet, she brandished it at the dark. “Who is it and what do you want?”

  “Why are you sweeping in the middle of the night, Miz Ropp?”

  Disappointment at the familiar voice cascaded through Mary Katherine. “Tony? You’re the thief?” Ezekiel trusted the boy, and he was a good judge of character. Tony had worked at the restaurant for two years. He was always polite and never shirked his duties. “How could you?”

  He slammed to a halt just out of reach of her broom. “No, ma’am. No way.”

  “What are you doing here then?” She scooped up the lantern with her free hand and backed toward the porch. “Planning to rob me again? Making the rounds? Shame on you!”

  “No, no, it’s not like that at all.” He moved toward her. “I’ll show you.”

  Her hand tightened on the broom. “Stay back.”

  “Look on the porch. I was returning your stuff, not stealing it.”

  Mary Katherine risked a glance back. A tattered cardboard box lay on its side. The contents were strewn across the porch. She held the lantern up higher. Her enamel box, the chess pieces, and the mantel clock.

  “Why would you steal from me and then return my stuff?” She dropped the broom and sat, her legs suddenly weak. She settled the lantern next to her and picked up a black bishop carved from walnut. It felt solid and heavy in her hand. Moses’ fingers had touched it many times over the years. A knot formed in her throat. She closed her eyes and breathed the night air. In and out.

  She stared up at Tony in his ragged, long-sleeved Keith Urban T-shirt and faded jeans. “For jollies, on a whim, on a dare? Why?”

  “I didn’t steal from you. I promise.” Tony tossed his long braid over his shoulder. His beseeching tone matched the look on his face. “I stole from someone else.”

  “Who? Why?”

  “I can’t tell you that.” He edged toward his car, a dark-colored four-door that looked like it was held together by duct tape and chicken wire. “This stinks. The plan was to give your stuff back and get out of here. Nobody would know.”

  He kicked a tire with a scuffed Roper boot. “Stupid car. I just replaced the battery and put in a new starter. What is it now?”

  “Why would you bring my things back? And how did you know where I live?”

  Sighing, he hoisted himself onto the car’s front end and propped his angular chin on his hands. “Because you were nice to Nicole. Because I listen. People talk at the restaurant. Your daughters. Your sons. Everyone. You moved from your house over here a couple of weeks ago. Besides, it’s a small town. Everyone knows everyone’s business.”

  How he knew didn’t really matter. What mattered was the return of these stolen items. It didn’t make sense. It was impossible to imagine Nicole sneaking into houses and stealing. Or tearing up the place like someone had done at Ezekiel’s. “Did Nicole steal my stuff?”

  “No. Seriously?” Even more adamant than before. “She’s not like that. Nicole’s cool. She’s smart and works hard. She’s going to college. She wouldn’t do something stupid like this.”

  “Then what does my being nice to Nicole have to do with this stuff being taken?”

  “I gave her a ride home from the restaurant last week. She was upset.” Tony rubbed his eyes with both fists. He tapped his boot on the fender. “She told me some things. Things I promised not to repeat. But I didn’t promise not to do anything about it. I decided to give some people a taste of their own medicine. That’s all.”

  He decided to come to the aid of a girl he liked. A nice girl. A nice boy. Trying to do a nice thing. He needed to see that it was also important to do the right thing. “Would you like some hot chocolate?”

  “I should go.”

  “I have peanut butter–chocolate chip cookies.”

  “I’m in.”

  After she had him settled at the kitchen table with his hot chocolate, complete with extra miniature marshmallows and two large cookies, Mary Katherine tried again. “Who’s stealing from the Amish families and why?”

  Tony’s gaze bounced around the kitchen as if he might make a run for it. He took another large bite of cookie and chewed. Mary Katherine gave him her best you’d-better-tell-Mot
her-before-I-takeyou-to-the-woodshed look. He squirmed and took a sip of the hot chocolate. “It’s a game.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The things they take are the prizes. The trophies. They have a trophy case, with the names and dates under the trophies. That’s how I knew which things were yours.”

  “Who? Where?”

  “I go to a really small school. I’m not a jock and I don’t care about being popular, but I still have to get by for two more years before I can join the military. My life in this two-horse town is over if I snitch.”

  “Your parents taught you to be a good person, I can see that.”

  “They were migrant workers before we settled down here. They try to be, you know, worthy of the good things they get. That’s how my mom says it. We should work hard and be good in exchange for what we’ve been given.”

  “Your mother is right. She taught you the difference between right and wrong.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Do you think what these kids are doing is right?”

  “No way.”

  “Is the way they’re treating Nicole right?”

  “No, hel—heck no.”

  “I understand you not being able to tell me who it is, but what if you told me where you found my things? The place where all the stolen stuff is? Just the place.”

  His forehead wrinkled in a frown, Tony gobbled the rest of his second cookie. He picked at the crumbs and tossed them in his mouth. He sipped his cocoa. He burped behind his hand, then wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

  Mary Katherine waited, her own cup nestled tightly in hands that barely felt its heat as she anticipated his answer.

  He rolled his eyes and sighed. “Are you gonna do something about these guys—people?”

  “Yes. Maybe—probably not me personally. I’m not sure how, but yes, something will be done.”

  “I could tell you where, I guess. But it has to be like an anonymous tip. Like somebody left a note or called the sheriff or something like that.”

  For a second she feared the hooray had been said aloud. “I won’t tell anyone it was you.”

  “I can even draw you a map.” He grinned. “Even better, if I get my car started, I can show you.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  If Thomas found out about this, Mary Katherine was toast. History. Banished to the woodshed like a naughty child for the rest of her life. Or called in for counseling with Freeman again. A kneeling confession before the church. What Ordnung rule was she breaking, exactly? She wasn’t sure, but there had to be one or even several. Was solving this mystery and stopping the “game” that victimized her community wrong? Or was it simply wrong for a Plain woman to get involved instead of leaving it to the men?

  It wasn’t the stuff that was important, it was the idea that making people uneasy and insecure in their own homes was funny, somehow. The unintended consequence was the testing of their faith. That God had this under control. That He had a plan. That something good would come from it. What it was, remained to be seen. In time.

  Surely.

  Tony’s car bumped, shook, and shimmied in the deep ruts of the dirt road that led to William and Leah Gingerich’s farm and Ezekiel’s dawdy haus. Tony’s car had obliged them by starting after a string of mutterings from the boy that ranged from prayers to curses followed by apologies. He had a mouth on him. His mother would have washed it out with soap. They hit another bump and Mary Katherine bounced. She grabbed the door handle.

  More curses. Some in Spanish. More apologies. “Sorry. It needs a new suspension.” Tony steered toward the middle of the road again. “It used to be my brother’s car. He passed it down when he joined the Navy.”

  “That was nice of him.”

  “All the Lopezes go into the military. That’s how we get an education and serve the country we adopted.”

  “Good for you.”

  “Yeah. Whatever. Nicole probably doesn’t think so.”

  It didn’t seem right to tell him about her conversation with Nicole only a few weeks earlier. Something about Mary Katherine seemed to invite confidences. Her grandma face? Or the lateness of the hour and the darkness. “Have you asked her?”

  Tony snorted. “I haven’t even asked her on a date.”

  “Does she know about what you did tonight?”

  “No, and you can’t tell her.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m just the guy who buses dirty dishes at the Purple Martin.” He shrugged bony shoulders. “She thinks I’m a loser.”

  She did not. Her questions the night Mary Katherine gave her a ride home made that obvious—to Mary Katherine. She bit her lip. “All hard work is honorable. I’m sure Nicole knows that. She let you give her a ride. She must think you’re an okay guy.”

  “I don’t know why girls make it so hard for guys to tell. We’re the ones who have to do the asking. They should give us hints.”

  “You should give Nicole a chance. Don’t count yourself out without trying.”

  He pulled in front of Ezekiel’s house and turned off the engine. “You think Mr. E. wants to go?”

  “Yes. Go knock. When he comes to the door, tell him what you told me.”

  “Me?” Tony’s voice ratcheted up two notches to a squeak. “I thought you were going to tell him.”

  “I can’t. I’m a woman. I shouldn’t be at his house in the middle of the night.”

  “This ain’t the fifties.” Tony looked genuinely confused. “Are you serious?”

  Some might call it splitting hairs. Mary Katherine sat in a car driven by an Englisch teenager in the middle of the night. She likely couldn’t make it much worse by knocking on Ezekiel’s door. “Please.”

  “He’s gonna be mad.”

  “Not at you.”

  “Fine.” Tony shoved his door open and got out. Then he turned back and stuck his head through the open window. “If he shoots me, tell my mom I love her.”

  “Go.”

  Kerosene lamp in one hand, Ezekiel shuffled to the door. His heart hammered in his chest. Someone pounding on his door in the middle of the night would not bring good news. “I’m coming. Hold your horses!”

  “Mr. E., it’s me, Tony.”

  Ezekiel tugged the door open.

  Tony Lopez stood on his porch, looking as if he expected a mountain of hurt to come tumbling down on him. “Hey.”

  Ezekiel rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn’t sleepwalking. His busboy was standing on his porch in the middle of the night. “Did something happen at the restaurant? What are you doing here?”

  “Miz Ropp told me to come get you. She’s waiting out in the car for you.”

  Ezekiel squinted. Maybe he should pinch himself to make sure he was awake. It had to be a dream. Mary Katherine would not get in a car with his busboy and drive to Ezekiel’s house at . . . “What time is it?”

  Tony glanced at the phone clutched in his hand. “One a.m.”

  At one in the morning. For a Plain woman, Mary Katherine had gumption. And then some. But she was also a mother and grandmother senior in age who knew what was expected of her. “Are you telling me Mary Kay is in your car right now?”

  “Right now. Yes, sir.”

  “Don’t sir me. Why is she in your car at my house at one o’clock in the morning?”

  Tony whizzed through an explanation so bizarre Ezekiel considered the pinch again. “Now. She wants to go now?”

  The boy nodded. He glanced over his shoulder. Ezekiel glanced with him. In the wavering lamplight, not much was visible. A beat-up old car on its last tire. “She’s pretty set on it.” He paused, then shrugged. “Me too.”

  “Why is that?”

  “I think there’s a dog out there. I heard it bark. There was a padlock on the door. I didn’t have any way to get it off. I saw lights up on the road so I didn’t have time to look around anymore. I didn’t want to get caught. We shouldn’t leave a dog out there.”

  Sunny. “I’ll get my clothes on.”

>   Ezekiel whirled. He nearly ran into Burke, who stood in the hallway in a pair of blue flannel pajama pants and a white T-shirt. “What’s going on?”

  He explained. Burke rubbed his five o’clock shadow, then his eyes. “I’m right behind you.”

  “You don’t have to go.”

  “Sunny’s my dog too.”

  Fair enough. “Hurry up.”

  Five minutes later they were crammed into the backseat of Tony’s ancient car with its peeling paint and nonexistent heater. Ezekiel laid the bolt cutters on the floor at his feet. He shivered and tugged his coat tighter across his belly.

  Burke huddled next to him. His hands were stuffed in the pockets of a dark-green sweatshirt hoodie. “Whose property is it?”

  “I don’t know.” Tony muttered something under his breath as the car’s engine coughed and sputtered. A buggy would’ve been faster—and safer. “Some farmer.”

  “Is it Mark Meade’s dad or Bobby Davidson’s grandpa?” Those were the two Ezekiel knew were farmers. The rest lived in town. “How could they not know this was going on?”

  The car jerked slightly to one side. Tony cursed. “Sorry. Nope. What makes you think that? It’s some Amish dude.”

  Mary Katherine hadn’t spoken since they left Ezekiel’s house. Now she turned and craned her head toward the back. “I know I should’ve stayed home. I could’ve sent Tony to—”

  “You couldn’t stand it, knowing we were solving this mystery and having an adventure like the ones in your stories.” Ezekiel smiled at her. He couldn’t help it. Mary Katherine didn’t have a proud bone in her body. She was humble. She accepted Moses’ death as God’s will. She even gave up her dream of owning a bookstore as God’s will. But she didn’t abide by wrongdoing that affected her family and her community. And she was stubborn. “If there is punishment to be had, I’ll take it.”

  Burke’s laugh turned into a cough. He put his hand to his mouth. Ezekiel glared at him.

  Mary Katherine faced the passenger-side window. “If it comes to that, I’ll take my own punishment.”

  “Punishment for what? You guys didn’t do anything.” Tony shook his head so hard his braid flopped. “You Plain folks are weird.”