by Marta Perry
The door opened into a hallway off the kitchen of the farmhouse. As she closed it behind her, she heard Isaac’s voice in the kitchen.
“…need the money now, not sometime in the future.” He sounded…what? Not angry, exactly, but worried and somehow fretful.
“Maybe you should have listened to Esther,” Rebecca said. “Maybe your sister was right about it.”
Libby had reached the doorway by that time, and Isaac saw her.
He seemed to make an effort to banish the worry from his face. “So, how did the therapy go today?”
“Very well. Esther actually took a few steps with help.”
“Gut, gut.” Tears glistened in his eyes for a second. “That is wonderful gut, ja, Mammi?”
Rebecca had turned from the stove, wiping her hands on a towel. “Thank the gut Lord. Does she need me?” She looked ready to fly up the stairs.
“She’s sleeping,” Libby said quickly. She didn’t want Rebecca to escape before she’d made an attempt to find out what she and Isaac had been talking about. “She was tired, so we thought it best to let her sleep. Mary Ann is with her. Maybe we can keep some lunch warm until Esther wakes. Can I help you?”
Isaac murmured something about the barn and went out. Rebecca gave her a doubtful look.
“Do you know how to make the dumplings for the chicken stew?”
“It’s been a while since I’ve done it, but my mother insisted I learn. You’ll need to remind me of the ingredient amounts.”
Libby pushed her sweater sleeves to her elbows and washed her hands. Another thing her mother had taught her was that women shared confidences while they cooked together. If she wanted to get Rebecca talking, there probably wasn’t a better opportunity.
With Rebecca’s sometimes anxious glances over her shoulder, Libby mixed up the light dough in the earthenware bowl, the technique coming back to her as she worked. She kept talking as she did, giving Rebecca a detailed description of the therapy session.
When the stew was bubbling, she began spooning the dumplings carefully on top.
“You know, I couldn’t help but hear that Isaac was worried about something when I came in,” she said casually, her gaze on the dumplings.
“You understand the Pennsylvania Dutch?” Rebecca said. “Ja, I remember you did when you were a child.”
“It’s coming back to me.” She put the lid on over the dumplings. “What did you mean, when you said that maybe Esther was right?”
“Ach, it was nothing.” But Rebecca’s anxious eyes and twisting hands denied her words.
Libby turned from the stove and took the older woman’s hands in hers to soothe away their twisting. “It might be important. Don’t you see? If something was wrong, something that troubled her, that might have something to do with the accident.”
“Ach, no.” Rebecca seemed startled at the thought. “No, no, it couldn’t be. He wouldn’t do anything like that. And he couldn’t be driving a car anyway.”
“Who?” Her tone was urgent. “Who, Rebecca? Please tell me what’s going on. I promise I won’t repeat it to anyone unless it has to do with the accident.”
Rebecca seemed torn between her natural reticence and the urge to share the burden she obviously carried. Her hands twisted in Libby’s grip.
“You know you can trust me,” Libby said.
“Ja.” Rebecca sighed. “It’s a worry, but it couldn’t have anything to do with the accident. You’ll see.”
“Just tell me.” She glanced out the window, praying Isaac wouldn’t come back before she’d gotten the story out of Rebecca.
“You wouldn’t know Eli Bredbenner,” Rebecca said. “He lives over toward Paradise. Amish, but from a different congregation. He does construction and carpentry, and he’s a gut man with money, so people say.”
She nodded, not sure what an Amishman from Paradise could have to do with a hit-and-run on Dahl Road, but wanting to hear it anyway.
“People wonder what’s best to do with their money these days, ain’t so? Whether it’s gut to expand businesses or put it in the bank or what. Anyway, Eli, he has an investment that he said he’s making a lot of money from, and so some of the brothers from the church decided to invest with him.”
Difficult economic times hit the Amish just as they did everyone else. To invest in something with a fellow Amishman must have seemed a logical place to put extra cash.
“So Isaac was one who invested with this man,” she said.
“Ja.” Rebecca seemed relieved just to have gotten her worries out. “He was supposed to start getting money back already. But Eli, he said he was having trouble with all the government rules and such, and it would be a little longer.” Her forehead wrinkled. “He’s Amish. We trust our brothers.”
“It sounds as if Esther didn’t think it was such a good idea, though.”
Rebecca shook her head. “Esther tried to tell Isaac not to put his money into something he couldn’t see for himself. And she asked a lot of questions when the returns didn’t start coming on time. But Isaac couldn’t admit that his little sister maybe knew more about it than he did.” She shook her head. “I don’t like to see my children fussing. And you know Esther. She’s as stubborn and determined as Isaac is.”
Yes, Esther was. And if she thought someone was cheating her brother, she wasn’t one to sit back and let it happen.
“What exactly did they invest in?”
“Eli said it was a very nice resort place up in the mountains in Maryland. He showed us pictures of it. There’s a lodge and a lot of cabins for folks to rent. A nice family place, and he said it would make a lot of money. Wait, I’ll show you.”
With a quick glance around, probably to be sure Isaac didn’t see, Rebecca crossed to the jelly cupboard and opened one of its shallow drawers. She came back with a colorful brochure. She shoved it into Libby’s hand as the outside door rattled.
“Take it,” she whispered. “Don’t let Isaac see. He wouldn’t like me telling you.”
Libby just had time to slip the folder into the waistband of her jeans and pull her sweater down over it before Isaac and the two youngest children came into the kitchen, knocking snow from their boots, cheeks ruddy with cold.
Libby edged toward the connecting door to the daadi haus as Rebecca began dishing up the chicken stew. “I’ll tell Mary Ann to come down for her lunch. I can get mine later, when Esther has hers.”
Isaac lifted his youngest, two-year-old Jacob, onto a chair. “You could leave Esther while she’s sleeping, ja? Then you can both sit and eat.”
“That’s all right.” She exchanged glances with Rebecca. It was useless to repeat her concern that Esther was in danger to Isaac. Convinced that was nonsense, he wouldn’t listen.
“Ja, that’s best,” Rebecca said. “I’d be worried we wouldn’t hear Esther call if all of us were over here. Denke, Libby.”
Seizing the opportunity to escape, Libby slipped out quickly. She had to make an effort not to pull out the brochure the minute she reached the daadi haus. Better not let Mary Ann see that she had it.
She hurried up the stairs, the stiff brochure sticking into her skin, and tiptoed into the room. “You go down and eat,” she whispered to Mary Ann. “Isaac and the children are already at the table.”
Nodding, Mary Ann went softly out, and Libby listened while her footsteps faded.
Finally she felt safe enough to pull out the brochure. Glossy, colorful and professionally printed, the first thing that struck her was how sophisticated it was. The usual advertisement for an Amish business was a fairly simple affair, not a full-color brochure.
The cover featured a photograph of a timber lodge surrounded by wooded mountains and a description of the amenities of Hidden Valley Resort that would do credit to a Madison Avenue adman. Folded open, the brochure showed cabins, a children’s playground, a lake, tennis courts and swimming pool.
She had to admit, Hidden Valley looked the sort of place that should be a gold mine for its owne
rs. So why weren’t the investors seeing any return? She flipped to the back, where the owner was listed as Mountain Treasures, Inc., with an address in Frederick, Maryland. A sketch map seemed to put the resort not far from Frostburg.
Libby turned it over in her hands, wondering. If this outfit was incorporated, there had to be records somewhere. Unfortunately, she hadn’t the slightest idea how to find out.
If Trey were here, with his position as head of the family businesses, he’d know exactly how to proceed. Link? She considered her twin, but dismissed him with a shake of her head. Link ran the construction business, but his strength was engineering, not business. She’d have to hope Adam would know how to go about this.
She studied Esther’s face, relaxed in sleep, every tiny line wiped away. How would you react if I showed you this brochure, Esther? Would you remember? Tell me about it?
Well, she couldn’t risk it; that was all. Any upset might throw back Esther’s progress. Until Esther started to remember on her own, she didn’t feel she dared ask too many questions.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
ADAM HEADED INTO the Springville Inn a little before noon, blinking a little as his eyes adjusted to the interior after the brightness of sunshine against the snow. With any luck, today’s warm-up would melt what remained before the storm that was forecast for the weekend.
He was meeting an old high school buddy, Danny Whitman, for lunch, something he did every month or so. Danny, like Trey, was one of the handful of people who had never jumped to negative conclusions about him. Usually Trey joined them, since the three of them had been classmates. As Trey said, they could relive their glory days on the high school football field together, since no one else was interested in hearing about long-ago games.
Trey, of course, was still on his honeymoon, and whether he’d want to continue these get-togethers after marriage was up in the air. Marriage tended to change friendships, he’d noticed.
Adam headed for the coatroom to get rid of his heavy jacket. Danny was probably already here. He’d developed an alarming promptness since joining his father’s real estate firm as a very junior partner. The old man, according to Danny, didn’t cut his son and heir any slack in the office.
This lunch meant more than catching up with an old friend. The senior Whitman knew all there was to know about pricey real estate in Lancaster County, having handled most of it at one time or another. Maybe, through Danny as an intermediary, Whitman senior would be willing to shed some light on how Tom Sylvester had finagled his way past the zoning board. To say nothing of why he would hire Taylor as a watchman.
Adam stepped back from the coatroom door as Sandra Smalley sailed out, with Leonard a step behind her as usual. She gave Adam that arch smile she always seemed to wear when she saw him, as if to remind him she knew what he came from.
“Well, Chief Byler. Imagine running into you here.”
He nodded, doing his best impassive expression. “Mrs. Smalley. Leonard. Nice day to go out to lunch.”
Leonard looked like a horse about to shy. “We…we’re going to the civic club luncheon.”
Adam nodded, edging past them as he shrugged off his jacket.
“Nice to see we pay the police enough to lunch at the inn,” Sandra said, loudly enough for him to hear as she walked off toward the private room the inn reserved for club luncheon meetings.
Adam hung up his jacket and turned, realizing that Leonard was still there.
“I’m sorry about that. Sandra doesn’t know…she doesn’t understand….”
Well, obviously not. Smalley could hardly tell his wife what Adam knew about him.
“No problem.” He waited, wondering if that was the only thing on the man’s mind.
“I just wanted to thank you again for…well, you know.” Leonard sent an apprehensive glance after his wife. “I owe you for not talking. Anyway, you asked me about Jason—about why he’d want to see the investigation into that hit-and-run dropped.”
“Yes?” He came to alert. Was he actually going to learn something?
“I tried to bring it up casually, you know, just to see what he’d say.” Leonard seemed to fumble for the words. “Jason just laughed. He said it never did any harm to do favors for influential people. He wouldn’t say anything else, so I don’t know who. Or if it’s important. I just wanted…”
Adam was beginning to understand why Libby felt sorry for the man. “Thanks.”
Leonard nodded. He darted off after his wife.
Danny waved his arm like a semaphore the minute Adam reached the restaurant archway. A born extrovert, he was probably a natural at real estate sales, even in the current market. With his open, boyish face and broad smile, he didn’t look all that different than he had in high school.
“Hey, good to see you.” Danny pumped his hand when he reached the table and then waved for the server. “Don’t know why you have to come armed, though. It could make the clientele nervous.”
“The weapon goes with the uniform,” he said easily, never bothered by Danny’s comments. Insulting each other was part of the ritual.
“Uniform, is that what it is? Doesn’t the township budget extend to anything better-looking than that?”
“Better than that junior executive look you’re going for,” Adam said, studying the menu and settling, as usual, for a steak sandwich. “Did your father pick out that tie for you?”
“The old man has one just like it,” Danny said complacently. “He likes to see me wear it. Makes him stop moaning about how I’m going to ruin the business. For a day or two, at least.”
The server came to take their orders. When she’d left, Adam figured he’d better get to the subject on his mind before Danny got off on one of his frequent tangents.
“You being such a big shot in the real estate world, I thought you might be able to help me with something.”
“Sure thing. You finally going to settle down? Looking for a vine-covered cottage with a white picket fence? Or a Spanish-style rancher?”
“Neither,” he said. “And I’m not settling down. I need to get some behind-the-scenes info in regard to real estate.”
“Well, it’s the old man who knows where all the bodies are buried, but he doesn’t talk easily. That’s probably the secret to his success. He says I shoot my mouth off too much ever to make it, and he just might be right. What do you want to know?”
“Tom Sylvester,” he said promptly. “And that parcel of land where he’s building a new hotel.”
Danny brightened. “Actually, you’ve hit upon one deal where I know something. See, I had my eye on that piece of property for a client who wants to build a house near Springville. So when the owner passed away, I went snooping around.”
“You reduced to studying the obituary pages for business?” Adam couldn’t help the crack.
“Shut up,” Danny said. “So, anyway, it turns out the old guy who died was the maternal uncle of Tom Sylvester’s wife. And everyone knew they were retiring to Florida, so I figured she’d be putting it on the market. Turned out I was wrong. Tom said his wife wasn’t interested in selling, and they were thinking of putting up a little hotel there. A retirement hobby, he said.”
“And what did you say?” Adam asked, sure a disappointed Danny would have had some colorful remarks.
“Told him he was nuts,” Danny said promptly. “That it was zoned farming/residential, and he’d never in this world get a variance granted. So anyway, it turns out the laugh was on me, because next thing I knew, that hotel was going up. But it’s no mom-and-pop operation, for sure. I couldn’t believe the zoning board let that go through. Quick and quiet, that’s for sure.”
“So why did they? Influence?”
“Influence, definitely,” Danny said. “But not from Sylvester. He’s a nice guy, but he doesn’t have that kind of clout. Somebody must have gone to bat for him.”
“Any ideas floating around as to who that someone might be?”
Danny looked faintly embarrassed.
“To tell the truth, some people think it was the Morgan family. After all, Sylvester ran their construction firm for a lifetime or so.”
“It wasn’t.” It had never occurred to him that people were saying that.
“I’ll take your word for it, but if that’s the case, I don’t have a clue as to who the person doing the pushing was. But I might know who the pushee on the zoning board was.” He dropped the bombshell casually.
“Who? And how do you know?” He shot the questions, leaning across the table.
“Frank Albright.” Danny came out with the name as if he was sure.
“Coach Albright?”
Adam frowned. Frank Albright had been their football coach, and Adam had always considered him one of the most ethical people he’d ever met. His boys would have done anything for him, and he never accepted less than their best. He was principal of the high school now, still a public-spirited guy, volunteering for various drives and charity events as well as serving on the zoning board.
“Right. Coach.” Danny’s expression was that of someone who didn’t like what he was saying.
“What makes you think it was Albright?” He couldn’t help the skepticism in his voice.
Danny shrugged. “I can’t prove it. But a few of us were in here one night after a basketball game, just shooting the breeze, and somebody started ragging on the zoning board for passing that variance. You know Albright. Usually he never turns a hair—probably comes from all those years of dealing with high school kids. But this time he lost it. Very defensive. Too defensive.”
“Maybe he thought you guys were out of line.”
Danny flushed at Adam’s doubtful look. “Listen, Owen will back me up.” He reached out and waved at Owen Barclay, the inn’s manager, who was making his usual round of the lunch crowd. “Hey, Owen, come here a minute.”
“Don’t…” Adam began, but it was too late.
Owen had already reached their table.
“I hope your lunch was to your liking,” Owen said, as gracious as if he’d cooked it just for them.
“Fine, fine.” Danny brushed aside the pleasantries. “Listen, Owen, remember that night we were talking about the zoning board decision on that hotel of Tom Sylvester’s?”