Dead Wrong

by Vannetta Chapman

“If you’re eventually found guilty—”

  “I won’t be. I’m innocent.”

  “Then this Bed-and-Breakfast will close. It would have to. I can’t run a B&B. Oh, I know I’m useful in the background, but you’re the quintessential Amish mamm.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a compliment.”

  “The thing to ask yourself is, who would want to see you go out of business?”

  Agatha resumed chopping the potato into small pieces, perhaps a bit too vigorously. “I don’t know who killed Mr. Dixon or why they killed him, but one thing I’m sure of is that it had nothing to do with me.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Tony arrived at Agatha’s mid-morning. He noticed the extra horse and buggy out front and wondered if he should interrupt, but Agatha’s sole employee had texted him and asked him to come over. She’d said it was urgent.

  Gina answered his knock. “They’re in the kitchen.”

  “Who’s in the kitchen?”

  “Church people. I think you need to be here. I think you need to go in there and be absolutely certain that these people understand Agatha had nothing to do with Dixon’s death.”

  “I’m sure Agatha can stand up for herself.”

  “Never hurts to have a friend by your side, and a detective to boot.”

  Which was logic that he couldn’t argue with. So instead, he reached out and patted her on the arm. “Thanks, Gina.”

  “This is a terrible mess.”

  “Indeed it is.”

  “I’m counting on you to help Agatha through it.” Gina stepped closer and lowered her voice. “I know she seems like a tough lady, and believe me when I say she is. It’s not just that she’s Amish, though that’s some of it—they view life differently than you or I do. But it’s also that she’s been through a lot.”

  “You’re talking about the death of her brother.”

  Gina tugged on his arm, pulling him in the opposite direction of the kitchen. “I’m talking about all of it. Moving thousands of miles away from your family, starting a business for the first time when you’re in your fifties, being a woman entrepreneur...all of that would be a huge achievement for any woman, but for an Amish woman...let’s just say not many could or would do it.”

  “Got it.”

  “Good.” She waved him toward the kitchen and returned to aggressively dusting. Tony had the feeling that by the time Gina worked out her anxiety on the furniture, it would be sparkling clean. Come to think of it, the furniture already looked sparkling clean. What possible dust could she be attacking?

  He walked into the kitchen and halted in the doorway. Agatha was sitting at the table with an older Amish man and woman.

  “Tony. I didn’t hear you knock.” Agatha jumped up and motioned to a chair. “Can I get you some coffee? Tea?”

  “No, thank you. I’m good.”

  “This is my bishop and his fraa—Jonas and Minerva Schrock.” Agatha glanced at the older couple and then back at Tony. “Tony is my neighbor. He was the police detective with the Hunt Police Department before he retired.”

  The Schrocks looked at him and smiled, though neither offered to shake his hand. He was learning that shaking hands wasn’t a very Amish thing to do.

  “I can come back if now isn’t a good time.”

  “Now’s perfect. We were just talking about...” Agatha’s hand fluttered out and away. “The events of the past two days.”

  “Real sad about Agatha’s guest,” Jonas said.

  “Mr. Dixon’s life was complete,” Minerva added. “Still...such a tragedy.”

  “And for Agatha to be caught up in the middle of it... That’s why we stopped by. We wanted to assure her that we’re here for her...anything she needs, all she has to do is ask.”

  Tony had done a little reading about the Amish the night before when he couldn’t sleep. He thought he understood what her bishop was saying—if she needed money or someone to look after the place or a friend in the middle of the night, she’d have it. He wondered how different the world would be if everyone had that level of support.

  Clearing his throat, he turned his attention to the matter at hand. “That’s why I’m here, actually. I’d like to help Agatha.”

  “It’s gut that you know the legal system,” Minerva said.

  Jonas nodded in agreement. “As you can imagine, we don’t normally involve ourselves in such matters. Our goal is to remain separate...set apart...even though we may work directly beside Englischers.”

  Tony nodded as though what they were saying made perfect sense, and on one level maybe it did. As a detective, he’d met many people who had a motto of family first. For some, it meant that family came first, middle, and last. With his Catholic upbringing, he was well acquainted with the attitude that family was everything. He understood that, in a sense, an Amish community was one large family.

  “Agatha has asked me to help her,” Tony explained. “Though I have no official position with the police department anymore.”

  “Tony’s wife died nine months ago.” She refilled the bishop’s coffee cup. “He took early retirement to care for her and spend time with her.”

  “And I’m so glad I did.” Tony cleared his throat. He didn’t often talk about Camilla. People who’d never experienced terminal illness with a loved one rarely understood, and those who had been through a similar situation didn’t need it explained. “But back to Agatha...”

  “Never thought I’d find myself visiting an Englisch police station,” she admitted.

  “Agatha told us what you did for her.” Jonas ran his fingers through his salt and pepper beard. “She mentioned that you provided a lawyer who represented her. That was very kind.”

  “Kiara Bledsoe is a successful attorney with an unblemished reputation. Both our local judges, as well as her fellow attorneys, respect her.”

  “We have plenty of money in our benevolence fund, and we’re more than happy to compensate Ms. Bledsoe on Agatha’s behalf.”

  “At this point no fee is involved.” When Jonas and Minerva looked at Tony with brows raised, he clarified, “She owed me a favor. If it comes to a trial she’ll charge her standard rate, which is a reasonable one, but hopefully the investigation will move on and Bannister’s fascination with Agatha will pass.”

  Agatha had been standing at the counter with her back against it, watching the three of them talk. At the mention of Bannister, she walked to the table and sat down. “Bannister seemed pretty certain I was involved.” She let her gaze drift over each of them, then shrugged.

  “He’s fishing.” Tony pulled out the small notepad he kept in his shirt pocket. It was a habit from his detective days and one he’d quickly picked back up when he became involved with Dixon’s murder. “I’m curious about this situation with your brother and his insurance. If you can explain it to me, maybe I’d understand what Bannister is after. Once we understand that connection, we can convince him to move on to looking for the actual killer.”

  “So it was murder?” Minerva asked.

  “Yes. It’s officially been declared a homicide.”

  He waited and allowed Agatha to gather her thoughts. If the subject affected her emotionally, he couldn’t tell. Agatha struck him as the kind of person who carefully considered what to say before she spoke—rare in a person in modern society.

  “You have to understand that I wasn’t living here when Samuel died. In fact, I hadn’t even visited Texas, though of course my bruder wrote me letters...or rather, his fraa did.”

  “Samuel was in the first group to come down,” Jonas explained. “When we start a new community we try to have ten to twelve families, including one bishop. I was pleased to have Samuel and Deborah in that first group.”

  “How did he afford this place?” Tony thought the question might offend, and that wasn’t his intent, but he needed to know Samuel’s background since Bannister seemed to believe his death was tied to Agatha’s property. In fact, the only common denominator he could think of betw
een Dixon and Agatha was her brother’s death. It seemed wise to trace that particular thread back to the beginning.

  “You’re going to need a cup of coffee if you want the whole story.” Agatha fetched coffee as well as a plate of oatmeal bars.

  When was the last time he’d eaten something homemade? Not counting the dinner she sent home with him two nights before, he probably hadn’t had anything homemade since Camilla was well enough to cook. Oh, he heated soups and made sandwiches and scrambled eggs, but his cooking skills were limited. He’d forgotten how good homemade food tasted.

  Ten minutes later, he understood that Amish did sometimes take out loans for businesses and that Samuel had done that very thing. For a down payment, he used money his family pooled together combined with his own savings. He purchased the land from someone who had specifically wanted to sell to Amish.

  “Seems Mrs. Klaassen had kin who were Mennonite.” Jonas smiled and slipped a thumb under his suspenders. “She had a deep respect for the Anabaptist faith—which includes both Amish and Mennonite. When she learned we were considering a community here, she offered several pieces of property she owned below the actual value.”

  “That was more than kind of her. Do you know her full name?”

  “Kathy Klaassen. I’ve met her on two occasions. She’s an older woman with vast resources—seems her husband made a fortune in oil before the prices dropped.”

  “Does she live here? I’ve never heard of her.”

  “She has a place in Ingram and a penthouse in San Antonio. Not that I’ve ever seen it, but there was an article in the paper a year or so ago.”

  “All right, so Samuel buys the property with a loan. I seem to remember that he first set it up as a Bed-and-Breakfast. How did he do?”

  Jonas and Minerva shared a look, and Agatha stared out the kitchen window.

  When no one answered, Tony crossed his arms and sat back. “What aren’t you tell me? What am I missing here?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Agatha wanted to hop up and go work in the garden, or see how the Cox brothers were doing fishing in the river, or even scrub one of the upstairs bathrooms. Anything would be preferable to speaking badly of Samuel. She understood Tony was asking because of his interest in the case. So she stayed where she was, fought to ignore the fluttering in her stomach, and met Tony’s confused gaze. “It’s no secret, really. My bruder wasn’t much of a businessman.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You lived next door, Tony. Didn’t you notice that the lawn was overgrown and the place in general was quite unkempt?”

  “Can’t say I did.” Tony sat back and tapped his finger against his lips. He finally shook his head. “I wouldn’t have known if a circus had moved in next door. My attention was completely focused on Camilla.”

  “Samuel had a gut heart,” Jonas said.

  “And Deborah was a hard worker.” Minerva turned her coffee cup to the left and then the right.

  Agatha realized it was up to her to explain Samuel’s business failings. Minerva and Jonas wouldn’t speak poorly of the dead. “Samuel never quite understood the concept of being an entrepreneur. Jonas tried to counsel with him a few times.”

  “I did. Each time he listened eagerly and patiently, even taking notes as you’re doing. Next time I came by, he’d be down at the river fishing.”

  “He kept a detailed log of the fish he caught, but the receipts for this place were all stuffed in an old shoebox.” Agatha smiled and took a sip from her now cold coffee. “He lived life to its fullest.”

  Tony waited for more, but Agatha wasn’t sure exactly what to say. She summed it up with, “They never had many guests here, and the ones they had didn’t return for a second visit. My bruder was friendly and Deborah was a gut cook, but it takes more than that to run a Bed-and-Breakfast. Guests need to feel like they’ve stepped into someplace special. That doesn’t happen when things need painting or mending.”

  Tony offered her a weak smile. Finally, he looked down at his list and moved on.

  “Tell me about the accident.”

  “It was raining and the road was slick.” Jonas stretched his neck to the left and the right. “We hadn’t been here long, then. There weren’t any buggy signs up on the roads, though of course people knew we’d moved into the area and that we drove buggies. At least the people who lived close by knew.”

  “Though we have a lot of visitors in this part of the state,” Minerva piped up. “They might not have been aware, and the woman who hit Samuel—she was from the Houston area.”

  “Samuel was coming back from town. He and Deborah had been to the market. He had a problem with a buggy wheel...or so witnesses told us later. One of our men had even pulled over to help him, but Samuel waved him on. After he fixed the problem, he continued home.”

  “By then it was quite dark,” Minerva said. “And beginning to rain.”

  “The woman coming around the corner was going the speed limit, but when she tried to stop, the slick roads...” Jonas’s hands spread out in front of him. “The emergency personnel said both Deborah and Samuel died instantly.”

  “Amazingly, the horse survived.” Minerva picked at an oatmeal bar, crumbling it into pieces.

  “How is that possible?” Tony asked. “That the horse would survive?”

  “There’s a break-away bar between the horse and the buggy,” Jonas explained. “When the buggy flipped to the right, Doc went left. The bar broke—as it’s designed to do under that amount of pressure—and the horse was standing by the side of the road when the police arrived.”

  “Was the person cited for DUI or DWI?” He’d meant to look that up the night before, but after researching the Amish in general, he’d fallen asleep.

  “No. The young woman’s tests came back clear of any substances. She sustained injuries as well, and we offered to pay her medical bills.”

  “Wait. You offered to pay her medical bills?”

  “She’s a single mom, or so we were told. We’re commanded to take care of widows and orphans.” Jonas shrugged. “It seemed like the thing to do, but her lawyer advised against her taking the money.”

  “Okay. So then you filed a wrongful death suit?”

  “Nein.” Agatha took up the story. “We don’t believe in suing.”

  “She killed two members of your family.”

  “And she’ll be answering to our heavenly Father for that, but it isn’t my place to judge her.” Agatha raised her eyes to his. “She didn’t set out that evening intent on killing Samuel and Deborah. There was no malicious planning on her part. It was all a terrible accident.”

  “Well...” Tony ran his hand over the top of his head. He’d read that the Amish were forgiving. He’d even read about the West Nickel Mines School shooting. Charles Carl Roberts had shot ten girls in the one-room schoolhouse, killing five. In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, the local Amish community had cared for the shooter’s wife and children.

  He’d read the facts, but it hadn’t really sunk in just how different the Amish attitude toward tragedy was from mainstream America.

  “It’s called grace,” Jonas said, tapping his fingers against the table. “That’s the word you’re looking for—grace. We are given grace by our Heavenly Father, and so we offer it to all.”

  “Don’t get him started preaching,” Minerva said with a smile.

  “So who filed suit?”

  Agatha once again took up the story. “The police took the case to the grand jury, who didn’t find sufficient cause to indict the woman. Her name was Willow, by the way—Willow Davis. The public defender contacted me, said we might have recourse, pending the results of the insurance investigation. He advised that I hire an independent investigator, but I saw no reason.”

  “The insurance company would have assumed you were going to do just that.” Tony jotted a few notes on his paper, then dropped his pen on top of the pad. “Enter Russell Dixon.”

  “I looked back over the
paperwork last night.” Agatha fought to ignore the tightness in her chest. Looking over the details of her bruder’s death had been difficult. “Mr. Dixon found that Samuel hadn’t added the required triangles to the buggy. He’d meant to, I’m sure, the same as he meant to fix the front porch steps and paint the house.”

  “Most people would have pursued the case regardless of those facts. Often insurance companies will pay to make a case go away.”

  “Possibly, but the case died from lack of interest.” Jonas glanced at Agatha and then back at Tony. “Agatha didn’t want to pursue it. We only hire lawyers when there’s no other path, and in this case, it all seemed to be a terrible accident. What good could possibly come from drawing out the process?”

  “It wouldn’t bring Samuel or Deborah back.” Agatha carried her coffee cup to the sink, rinsed it, placed it in the drainer, and turned to look at them. She crossed her arms, then decided that felt too defensive so she dropped them by her side. When had her body started feeling so awkward? It was as if her own arms didn’t quite fit her body. “The public defender contacted me, said there could be a substantial amount of money recovered from the woman’s insurance company, and suggested I pursue that in the civil courts. I told her I wasn’t interested.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Of course. Money—it wouldn’t cure the grief in my heart. I even received offers to buy this place, and I considered that. But in the end, it seemed the best way to honor Samuel’s life—Samuel’s and Deborah’s—was to try and see their dream of an Amish Bed and Breakfast along the Guadalupe River become a success.”

  Tony picked up his pen and tapped it against his note pad. “Russell Dixon had been assigned to the insurance investigation, which meant he worked for either the company or an independent contractor. Sometimes insurance companies want to maintain the illusion of using an uninvolved investigator, but of course they’re paid by the company, so the illusion of objectivity is just that.”

  “I wouldn’t know.” Agatha stared down at her apron, straightened it, and returned her attention to Tony. “As I said to Lieutenant Bannister, I’d never met Mr. Dixon before he checked into his room earlier this week, and I didn’t remember seeing his name on any form.”