Ettie followed along, looking all around as she walked, alert for anything out of the ordinary.
"I can't see anything else. Let's get back to the taxi."
With Snowy in her arms, Elsa-May made her way back through the undergrowth, stepping over the long grass and ducking under the low-hanging branches, while Ettie stayed close behind her.
When they got back to the taxi, the driver was pacing up and down smoking a cigarette. He looked at them. "I’ve called the cops. They'll be here soon. We have to wait and show them where the body is."
"Very good," Elsa-May said.
"I don't think there's anything good about it. I could've done without this today. Firstly, they didn't tell me I was taking a dog in my taxi, and now this. Time is money in my business."
Elsa-May and Ettie stood still in silence.
The driver groaned from the back of his throat. "You might as well sit in the car and wait."
The two sisters and Snowy waited in the car, getting out when two police cars pulled up behind them.
“Ach nee, Ettie. It’s Detective Kelly.”
Ettie stood next to her sister, waiting for the detective to walk over to them. “Oh my, he doesn’t look too happy.”
“Nee, he doesn’t.”
Snowy was in Elsa-May’s arms and struggled to get down when he saw the detective.
“Look at Snowy,” Ettie said, “he wants to say hello. Close him inside the taxi. You don’t want him to hurt his stitches.”
Elsa-May glanced over at the driver. “Can I put the dog in the car for a moment?”
He looked back and called over his shoulder. “Okay.”
“Quick, close him in before the driver changes his mind,” Ettie whispered.
Chapter 2
After a brief word with the taxi driver, Detective Kelly directed his officers to follow the driver to where they had found the bones, telling them he’d be there shortly. Then Kelly directed his attention to Ettie and Elsa-May. He stepped forward with his hands casually on his hips. “Well, well well. Who do we have here? Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Lutz.”
Ettie and Elsa-May started talking at once.
Kelly held up his hands. “One at a time, please.”
Ettie licked her lips. “You go first, Elsa-May.”
“Just give me the short version rather than the ‘round-the-world version,” Kelly said, crossing his arms over his chest.
Elsa-May glared at Ettie. “We didn’t want him to have an accident in the taxi, so we let him out to relieve himself. Then he took off up the hill.”
“Wait. The taxi driver had to relieve himself?”
“No. Snowy did.”
“The leash slipped right out of my hand,” Ettie said. "Well, Snowy pulled it right out."
“We just took Snowy to the vet.”
“Yes, we had him fixed,” Ettie explained. “And we were taking him back home when he started scratching and trying to get out.”
“I see.”
“We ran after him and when we caught up to him, he was right near the bones.”
Kelly turned around, looked over his shoulder at the officers making their way through the undergrowth, and then turned back and took another step closer to Ettie. “And what happened to Snowy?”
“He’s in the taxi.”
The detective took a deep breath, giving Ettie a piercing look. “You already knew the bones were there though, didn’t you, Mrs. Smith?”
“Me? How would I know the bones were there?”
“I heard the call myself.”
“What call?” Ettie put her hand on her chest, trying to calm her thumping heart, as she tried to make sense of what Kelly was saying.
“You called the station just two days ago and said you witnessed a murder many years ago. It brought to mind a missing-persons case, a man who disappeared quite a few years back. And now, here we are.”
“I never called the station about a murder. I don’t know anything about this, Detective,” Ettie said.
One of the officers signaled to Kelly and he called out, “Coming.” When he turned back to the ladies, he said, “Neither of you leave town. How are you getting home?”
“The taxi,” Elsa-May said.
“No, I don’t want you talking to the driver. We’ll need to question all of you separately.”
At that moment, another police car arrived along with a white van. Ettie knew enough to know the forensic investigators were in the van.
“I’ll have Struthers drive you home.”
“Thank you,” Elsa-May said. “We’ll just get Snowy out of the taxi.”
“Mrs. Smith, we’ll need you to go to the station. You too, Mrs. Lutz.”
“Right now?”
“Yes, today.”
“Can’t we do it tomorrow?”
“We’re old and tired and we’ve already had one outing for the day,” Ettie said with a pout. "And a run to catch Snowy, which we certainly don't do every day."
Kelly heaved a sigh. “Come into the station first thing tomorrow.”
“Are you sure that will be okay?”
Kelly narrowed his eyes. “I just said so. And you too, of course, Mrs. Lutz.”
Elsa-May nodded and the detective stared at them both before he turned and walked away.
“What was that all about, Ettie?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve really done it this time.”
“I’ve got no idea what he was saying. He thinks I knew about … something about a murder.”
“Did you?”
Ettie crinkled her nose. “I would’ve told you if I did.”
“We’ll have to wait for tomorrow to find out what he’s talking about. There’s always something happening.”
They watched the detective talk to a uniformed officer and then Kelly turned and pointed to the two of them.
“I’m guessing he’s the chosen one who’s taking us home.”
Ettie chuckled, and then looked back at Elsa-May. “Haven’t you gotten Snowy from the taxi yet?”
“Nee, I was trying to listen to what Kelly was telling you.”
“Just get him.”
The young officer walked toward them looking glum. “Good morning, Ma'am.”
“I don’t know that it’s good,” Ettie said. "And you look like you'd agree."
Elsa-May had gotten Snowy out of the car, and she joined them with him in her arms.
The officer explained. “That was going to be the first murder case for me to help with, and now I’m driving you two home instead.”
“You’re welcome,” Elsa-May said. “And no one said it was a murder, did they?”
“Guess not, but it’s likely. It’s that car there.” He walked with them to his car. “I wanted to work on the case.”
“In that case, we’re sorry,” Ettie said.
As the young officer drove them home, Ettie, who was sitting next to Elsa-May in the back seat, tried to find out as much as she could from him. “Does Kelly know who the dead person might be?”
“I can’t say.”
“You can’t say, or you don’t know?” Elsa-May asked.
“Yes”
Ettie and Elsa-May exchanged glances.
“Detective Kelly told us that there was a case of a man who went missing in the area years ago. It sounded like Kelly thinks it might be him turned up dead,” Elsa-May said.
The officer glanced in the rear view mirror. “We won’t know anything more until the coroner delivers his report.”
Elsa-May frowned.
“Well, do you know anything that you can tell us?” Ettie asked.
“No, I’m sorry. I’d just arrived when I was asked to take you two home.”
“Take this road just coming up to your left.”
“Then will you have to go back there after you’ve taken us home?” Elsa-May asked.
“I’ll form part of the search team.”
“Searching for evidence?” Ettie asked.
�
��Yes. We’re trying to find some identification or a clue to why the deceased might have died there or why his body was left there. You two were lucky to have found the body.”
“Lucky? It’s never a good thing to be around unnatural death.”
“I’m making my career around it. I want to become a detective.”
“It’s the house here, the one on the right,” Elsa-May said.
Ettie and Elsa-May got out of the car and thanked the young man. Once they were clear of the car, he executed a U turn and sped away.
“Look how fast he’s going, Ettie.”
Ettie shook her head.
When the elderly sisters walked through their front door, Elsa-May put Snowy in his basket and he made himself comfortable.
“How do his stitches look now?” Ettie asked.
Elsa-May rolled him over to look underneath him. “The same. I think he’ll be okay as long as we keep him quiet.”
“Hmm. That’s not so easy sometimes. I’ll make us a nice casserole for tonight and we’ll try to forget what happened this morning.”
Elsa-May sat in her chair and took hold of her knitting by her feet. “That sounds nice, but it’s going to be hard to forget about it, particularly since we have to talk to Kelly in the morning.”
“The good thing is that Snowy’s okay. We might have had to rush him back to the veterinarian.”
Elsa-May nodded and looked over at Snowy who was now fast asleep. “Look at him. Not a care in the world.”
“Hmm. I do hope they can find who the person is. He would be missed by someone.”
Chapter 3
Ettie couldn’t sleep that night; she’d tossed and turned, worrying about the body she had found and who it might have been. Was that man murdered like the detective thought? She finally got up in the early morning, made herself some tea, and sat at the kitchen table while her mind continued to chew on the puzzle.
Later in the morning, Elsa-May and Ettie sat opposite the detective in his gray office.
“I don’t know anything,” Elsa-May insisted. “Ettie was the one who spotted the bones.”
Ettie turned to her sister. “You were there too.”
Elsa-May opened her mouth to reply, but the detective spoke first. “I need to speak to the two of you since you were both there, as your sister just pointed out, Mrs. Lutz.”
“Was it a man or a woman?” Elsa-May asked.
“More than one person, Detective? Or just the one?”
He frowned at Ettie. “Just one." Then he turned to Elsa-May. "As I suspected, the body was male. Estimated to be in his late thirties or early forties. He’s been there for a number of years. To start with, the grave was quite shallow and over the years the soil eroded away.”
“It’s amazing how they can figure these things out simply by looking at the remains.”
“Yes. But what I am more concerned about, Mrs. Smith, is how you knew about the murder.” He leaned back in his chair and interlaced his fingers and put them behind his head. After he glanced at Elsa-May, he looked back at Ettie. “Would you rather speak to me alone?”
“No. I told you before I never made a phone call.”
“Or don’t you want your sister to know how disturbed you were that day you called us?”
“But I never made a call.”
“Ettie might be a lot of things, Detective Kelly, but she’s not a liar.”
Ettie turned and stared at her sister open-mouthed. Was that a compliment? Or something else entirely?
Kelly continued, “You called us three days ago and I’ve got the tape. I didn’t recognize your voice immediately, but when I saw you, or rather, when I heard you, yesterday at the scene, the pieces fell neatly into place. ”
Ettie thought back over the last few days. Could she have called the police station and forgotten about it? Possibly, but the point was she had known nothing about a dead man in the woods.
“Can I listen to what I said?” Ettie asked Kelly.
“You’re admitting you called us now?”
“No. I should rephrase that. I just want to hear the person you think is me.”
Kelly picked up the telephone’s receiver and spoke to someone and then wrote down some numbers. “We’ve got it on a computer file. Bear with me, these things still confound me.” He pressed buttons on his computer and the recording began.
Ettie knew at once that it wasn’t her voice and it didn’t sound anything like her. The woman said a man witnessed a murder and told her about it. Now the witness is dead. When the woman was just about to say the name of the killer, the call abruptly ended.
Kelly looked at Ettie. “Well?”
“That doesn’t sound anything like me.”
“It does, Ettie. That sounds like you. I can understand why the detective thought it was.”
Ettie pulled her mouth to one side. “That’s not the voice I hear in my head.”
“Well, that’s what you sound like to other people,” Elsa-May said.
“That doesn’t change the fact that it wasn’t me.”
He leaned forward. “It’s really not you?”
“No, and that’s what I’ve been saying all along.”
“If it wasn’t you, how did you know where to find the body? And is that the body of the man who was originally murdered or the body of the supposed witness?”
“We just stumbled across the bones, Detective Kelly. Snowy wanted to get out of the taxi and the driver didn’t want him messing all over the car. So he stopped the car and then Snowy took off and we followed. Then, when we caught up to him, we found him digging at something. That's when I spotted the bones.”
“You want me to believe this was all a coincidence?”
“I don’t know what it was. Who was the man?” Ettie pursed her lips staring at the detective.
“That’s something we’re still trying to ascertain. There was no ID in the vicinity, so we’ll have to wait for the DNA results. Meanwhile, we’re matching the dental records of missing persons. There was a particular case of a man who disappeared years back, before my time here.”
“I’m sorry I can’t help you further. I don’t know anything.”
“Maybe you do. You’ve helped me a lot in the past when no one in your community would talk to me, but if you’re withholding information I won't hesitate to arrest you for obstruction of justice.”
Ettie gasped. “I don’t.”
“You don’t what?”
“I don’t know anything. It’s a difficult thing, to prove you didn’t do something. How would I prove that I didn’t do what I’m being accused of? Where would I start? I said I didn’t do it, so if you don’t believe me, I don’t know what to do.”
“It wasn’t you who made that call?”
“No. I keep telling you that.”
“I know how you and your sister like to snoop around.”
Ettie’s mouth turned down. Now he was being rude. He was the one who asked for their help when he had a case to do with someone Amish.
“If Ettie knew something, she’d say so.”
He sighed loudly. ”Would you agree that the woman you just listened to is Amish?”
“Yes. She sounds so,” Elsa-May said.
“She holds the key and I need you to find her. We need justice for the families.”
“So you do think he was murdered?” Elsa-May asked.
“He was beaten to death.”
Ettie shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to help you find this person.”
“She sounded about your age, so that’s a starting point.”
“I don’t know how—”
“Make a list of all the women around your age in the community and visit them all. Cross them off as you go.”
“There aren’t that many,” Elsa-May said.
“Good. It won’t take you long to find out who it was.”
“How do you know if she was from around here?”
“She witnessed a murder,
so if she wasn’t from around these parts, she would’ve had to be visiting many years ago because the bones look like they’ve been there for a number of years. Anyway, it’s a long shot that this is the man she witnessed being murdered, but we need to start somewhere. If he’s not the one, there might be another body out there somewhere.”
“When will you know who the man is?” Elsa-May asked.
“Hopefully, I’ll know more in the next two days.”
Ettie and Elsa-May made their way out of the police station. When they were walking up the road to call a taxi from the pay phone, Elsa-May stopped still and faced her sister. "Did you recognize the voice on the tape?"
"Gertie Fisher."
"Exactly what I thought. We'll go over there right now and ask her."
"What are you going to say?"
"We'll just ask her if she called the police about a murder of a man, someone who was murdered a long time ago."
"Okay, but you do all the talking."
Elsa-May sighed. "That's what you say all the time and then you take over when you get there."
"I wonder if this is the man she was talking about on the phone."
"Kelly was talking about a man who disappeared a long time ago and was never found. Maybe they are one and the same."
Chapter 4
They knocked on Gertie’s door, and then heard a deep voice behind them.
“She should be home.”
They turned to see Amos Craven, an elderly Amish man who was Gertie’s next-door neighbor.
“Hello, Amos,” Ettie called out.
He took a few steps closer. “Isn’t she answering the door?”
“Not yet,” Elsa-May said.
Just then the door opened and Amos laughed loudly. “There she is. I told you she was home.”
Gertie waved to him. “Denke, Amos.”
He waved back, looking pleased with himself, and stood there as still as a post.
“Ettie and Elsa-May, come in.” She flung the door wide to allow them through. After she gave a second little wave at Amos, she closed the door. “Shall I make us a cup of tea?”
Ettie Smith Amish Mysteries Box Set 4 Page 23
