“I’d like you to go back and visit her. Drill down and see if you can come up with some details.” He spooned a large portion of pie into his mouth.
Ettie squirmed in her chair. She’d feel uncomfortable going back again and asking the same kind of questions. Besides that, they were still keeping some very important information from Kelly in an effort to keep Gertie safe.
“Well, Ettie?”
“If that’s what you want.”
“Well, don’t you want to help your friend find out what happened to her husband, and find out why the man you stumbled across in the woods was murdered?”
“Yes, I do.”
“I still wonder at what a coincidence it was for Gertie to call the station after all those years and then you stumble over the body a couple of days later. Now, if you don’t get the information I need, I’ll have to go there myself.”
“No.”
“What do you mean ‘no’?”
“It’ll scare her. It’s taken all these years for her to call the police, and that was because she was scared over what her husband witnessed and then he ended up dead. There’s a reason she didn’t give her name when she called in.”
“Yes, shouldn’t you respect that? If it weren’t for you thinking she sounded like Ettie, you wouldn’t have found out who it was.”
“Hmm. She called the police station not an anonymous hotline,” Kelly said.
“Surely the principle’s the same?”
“I can see what you’re getting at. Let’s just leave things as they are, shall we? If there’s a possibility the man was murdered next to her house, I’ll need to get a forensic team over there. What’s the address?” he pulled out a notebook and pen from his inner coat pocket.”
Elsa-May gave him the address.
When he finished writing, he pushed the book back into his pocket. “I hope what you’re telling me isn’t a waste of time.”
“She seemed to know what she was talking about.”
“I’ll start with going through Simon Fisher’s file to see if there’s anything that doesn’t add up.”
“You mean, see if you think he was murdered?”
“Yes.”
When Kelly left, Ettie and Elsa-May busied themselves with putting away the leftovers, and washing and drying the dishes.
“We’re going to have to get over there first thing in the morning and warn her about the forensic team.”
“Oh dear. I hope she doesn’t think we betrayed her trust.”
“We didn’t say she’d seen the murder.”
“I know, but I’m sure she doesn’t want the police crawling all over her property.”
“They might find something, and catch the killer.”
“That’s true.”
Chapter 6
The next morning, Ettie and Elsa-May got ready early and headed to Gertie’s house, hoping to get there before the police arrived to comb all over her property. They got out of the taxi and walked up the long drive to Gertie's house.
"We can’t really urge her to go to the police, Elsa-May. She's seen the murder, and she might get killed. I didn't like telling Kelly as much as we did but we had to. Now we have to tell her what we told him.”
"Yes, I know. We'll just find out if she knows anything else or if she's left anything out."
“Like the name of the man leasing the house?”
“Exactly. She’s keeping that very much to herself.”
"And she was understandably scared. I was surprised she told us as much as she did."
"She would've felt better telling us rather than holding it all in after all those years."
"Be quiet. Here comes Amos."
A disheveled Amos shuffled toward them adjusting his hat. One pant leg was caught up in his sock and only one side of his shirt was tucked into his trousers. "She's gone," he called out.
Knowing he must be talking about Gertie, Ettie asked, "Where did she go?" Ettie and Elsa-May stopped still and waited for Amos to speak.
"I don't know. I didn't see her leave, but she's not here now."
"How do you know that?" Elsa-May asked. “She could be asleep still.”
"She never sleeps in. She's always having breakfast in her kitchen by seven. And this morning she wasn't there."
Ettie and Elsa-May looked at each other. "I hope she's all right."
"We should check in the haus."
Amos said, "I've already looked, just in case something had happened to her. She's not there."
Ettie gulped and put her hand to her throat, suddenly feeling uneasy. It was all too convenient that an eyewitness to a murder would disappear right after the body had been found.
"She didn't tell you where she was going?" Amos asked.
Elsa-May shook her head. "Nee."
"Do you have a key to her haus?" Ettie asked, assuming he must’ve.
He shook his head. "Nee, but I don’t need one. She always keeps her back door unlocked."
"Perhaps we should have a look then, and see if we can get some idea of where she's gone."
Ettie added, "I hope she's all right."
Elsa-May led the way around the back of the house, opened the back door and pushed her way through. She spun around and looked directly into Amos' face. "Has she ever left without telling you?"
He shook his head. "She always tells me when she's going away so I can water her plants. And she's got vegetable seedlings she just planted last week, and they'll need to be watered." He shook his head.
As Elsa-May moved into the kitchen, Ettie asked Amos, "Where do you think she would've likely gone?"
He shook his head. "She could've gone to visit her schweschder but she only just visited her at Christmas time. And she said once a year is more than enough to visit her schweschder."
Ettie could relate to that.
"You didn't hear any cars or anything?" Elsa-May asked.
He shook his head. "But I'm a sound sleeper. My head hits the pillow, and I don't open my eyes again until morning. I wake early, around five thirty to six, so if a car did come to collect her, it would've been before that. She goes everywhere by taxi. That is, if I don’t drive her, and she didn’t ask me to take her anywhere in my buggy."
Ettie’s stomach churned, thinking about what might've happened to her. Looking around, there was no sign of a struggle so wherever she had gone or whomever she had gone with, she hadn't put up a fight. Ettie didn't know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing as images of threatening people ran through her mind.
The reality was that someone could have taken Gertie away at gunpoint. Ettie got lightheaded and Elsa-May could see she had to sit down.
Elsa-May took her by the arm and glanced up at Amos. “We’ll find out where she’s gone.”
“This isn’t like her.”
“I know.”
Elsa-May guided Ettie to a chair in the living room. Then she went and picked up an address book that was lying on top of a bureau in the corner of the living room. Elsa-May took the book to her sister.
“We could always call people, Ettie, and see if anyone knows anything. She could be visiting or gone to stay with someone until all the fuss about finding Earl Quinn dies down."
"We don't want to set people off in a panic. Best we get Ava to ask around. She won't set off any alarm bells."
"Very good," Elsa-May said, placing the address book down.
"Do you think I should be worried, Ettie?" Amos suddenly poked his head through the door.
"Nee, I don't. Elsa-May and I were thinking of calling everyone in her address book, but we didn’t want to worry people if they hadn’t seen her.”
Amos stared at her for a moment. "I just want to know where she is."
“Do you want to sit down for a moment?" He looked like he was going to fall down at any moment.
He came inside, staggered into the living room, and sat on the couch. “I don't know what I'd do without her."
Ettie and Elsa-May glanced at one another without Am
os noticing. He wasn't exactly with her now, he was only her next-door neighbor.
He took his hat off, rubbed his forehead and then placed his hat back on his head. "I've always loved Gertie. I thought I might have a chance with her when Aaron died, but she turned to his bruder for comfort and then married him."
Elsa-May sat opposite Amos. "Never mind," Elsa-May said. "I'm sure she'll be back soon."
"Simon’s gone home to be with Gott, and Gertie said she won't marry a third time."
"A third time?" Ettie asked.
"She was never married to Aaron," Elsa-May said. “She only married Simon.”
"You don't know?"
Ettie loosened her prayer kapp strings at the bottom of her chin. She felt like they were strangling her. "She was married before she married Simon?"
Elsa-May leaned forward, “Or, perhaps after?”
"Forget I said anything."
"It might be important," Elsa-May said.
"Do you think that's got something to do with her running off?"
"Tell us what you know, Amos. We're only here to help Gertie, and you too."
He pushed himself further back into the couch. "It was after Aaron died, she married a man briefly and he was killed."
Ettie froze in place not believing her ears.
"I don't remember that," Elsa-May said.
"He wasn't one of us. She was so upset over Aaron and she was lost for a few months. She wandered off the narrow path and strayed. And she became unequally yoked with an unbeliever."
"Gertie can’t have been out of the community for very long because Ettie and I don't remember it, do we Ettie?"
Ettie looked at her sister and shook her head. "Nee, I never knew. I never heard she’d left." Ettie looked over at Amos and it upset her to see him looking so sad. "Do you know anything about this man she was married to?"
"Nee."
Somehow Ettie didn't believe him. He seemed to know everything about Gertie. "Where did she meet him?" Ettie asked
"He might've been a friend of Aaron's. I'm not sure."
Elsa-May said, "You said you liked her back then?”
"Always did," he said.
"Then you would have been observing her movements much like you are now?" Ettie asked.
He remained silent and the corners of his mouth drooped further.
"Isn't that why you moved next door to her?" Ettie asked.
"I wanted to be close to her in case she needed anything. She's too independent sometimes."
Elsa-May leaned forward. "And you've got no idea at all where she might be?"
He slowly shook his head. "No idea. As I said, she always tells me when she goes away."
Ettie let out a long deep breath. "You never married, Amos, because you were waiting for Gertie?"
"Put it this way; I never met another woman I liked better than Gertie."
"Well said, Amos," Elsa-May said. “It’s nice to know you stuck strongly to your affections.”
Ettie stared at Elsa-May. It had never done him any good to be in love with someone who didn’t return those feelings. As far as Ettie was concerned, he should’ve forgotten about Gertie and looked elsewhere for love. Now he was just a sad old man with no immediate family of his own.
"We should visit Ava and ask if she’ll help us ask around about Gertie. The sooner we do that the sooner we might find out where she is." Ettie pushed herself up off the couch.
Amos rose to his feet. "You'll let me know if you find anything out, won't you?"
"We'll let you know right away. Don’t you concern yourself with that.”
"And if we don't get word of where she is, we’ll find her through that address book over there," Elsa-May said.
"We'll be back tomorrow, Amos."
"Denke."
“Oh, and the police might be coming to look around the property.”
“What for?”
“In connection with the body Ettie stumbled across.”
He gave a slight nod. “Gertie told me about it.”
“What did she say?”
“That you were chasing your dog through the trees and found bones of a man who went missing years ago.”
“That’s right,” Ettie said.
“Why are the police looking here then, if it happened somewhere else?”
“They got a call and someone said it might have happened here.”
“The murder,” Elsa-May explained further.
He rubbed his neck. “Here?”
“It would’ve been many years ago, before you lived here.”
“I’ll wait for them,” he said.
“Oh, and don’t alarm them about Gertie being gone,” Elsa-May added.
“She’s not home at the moment. That’s all they need to know,” Ettie said.
Amos nodded.
Chapter 7
After they called for a taxi from the shanty outside Gertie's house, they headed down to the road to wait for it.
"He's not so bad, Elsa-May. That's the most I’ve ever heard him talk. Even at the meetings he just stands around looking sort of menacing."
"It must be hard for him to love a woman all those years and not have it returned. And I agree, he seemed okay. Gertie has someone watching over her; it must be nice."
"You've got me," Ettie said.
Elsa-May looked over at her and raised her eyebrows.
"It wonders me why Gertie never mentioned the other day that she was married briefly to an Englischer who was also killed. Is it my imagination or does everyone around her die?”
"Yes, and that must be what she meant by everyone around her dying. That’s the very words she said. First Aaron and his accidental drowning, then her Englischer husband and then Simon."
"I wonder if she’s secretly in love with Amos but thinks if she marries him he'll die too."
Elsa-May gave a little chuckle. "I don't think that would be right."
"You never know."
"I just don't see the two of them together." Elsa-May dug Ettie in the ribs.
"Ow."
"Look, there's the taxi now. That was quick."
* * *
Ettie and Elsa-May got out at the house of their young friend who was married to Elsa-May’s grandson, Jeremiah.
"I hope Jeremiah isn’t home," Ettie said.
"That's a terrible thing to say."
"I didn't mean it like that. It's just that he never likes us doing what he calls meddling."
Elsa-May chuckled as she walked up the porch steps of Jeremiah and Ava's house. "He's always had a narrow view of things, but he means well."
Ava flung the door open before they could knock.
"Hello, come in." When she had shut the door behind her, she placed her hands on her hips. "I can tell the two of you are up to something. What is it?"
"Can we sit down first?" Ettie asked.
“It’s a long story,” Elsa-May said.
"Will we sit in the kitchen or the living room?" Ava asked.
"Living room," Ettie said at the same time that Elsa-May said she'd rather sit in the kitchen.
"It looks like it's up to you to decide where we sit," Elsa-May said.
"I'm not going to come in the middle of you two. Why don't we go into the kitchen while I put the kettle on to boil and get the tea made, then we can sit in the living room to drink it?"
"Good compromise," Ettie said. They followed Ava through to the kitchen. After she filled up the kettle and turned on the stove, she sat down with them.
"Now, what's going on?"
Ettie told her the whole story about finding the bones, and the mysterious 911 phone call, and then told her what Gertie had witnessed. "Now you can't tell another person she saw a man being murdered. We're only telling you so you'll know how important it is that she's found."
"That's if they haven't killed her already," Elsa-May said matter-of-factly.
"We can't think that way," Ettie said.
"Where do we start looking?" Ava asked.
&nb
sp; "Ettie and I thought you could visit people and just casually ask around. Everyone knows Ettie’s friendly with a detective, but if you ask around they won't think anything of it."
"Okay, I can do that. When do you want to begin?"
"As soon as we finished the tea," Ettie said.
"Okay. I'll start with the most likely people who always know what's going on."
"That used to be you, Ettie," Elsa-May said.
"That's true. I did use to know if anything was going on, but now I don't know where Gertie is so I can't know everything."
"I didn't say you knew everything. It's obvious that you don't know everything. I simply meant that you used to get into everybody's business and you don't so much anymore."
Ettie kept quiet.
The kettle whistled and Ava got up to make the tea. "And what are you two going to do while I'm asking around?"
Ettie and Elsa-May looked at each other. "We haven't figured that out yet."
When everybody had a cup of tea, they carried them out to the living room and sat on the couch in front of the fireplace.
"Now this man that was murdered…"
"Jah?" Ettie said.
"Well, did you talk to his wife?"
"Nee, we couldn't do that."
"Why not?"
"She's upset; her husband has just been found dead."
"What is it we should talk to her about, Ava?"
"You said that Gertie thinks that these murders were linked. What if they were? Don't you need to find out if there was a connection between the killings?"
"Ava, people are dead and now Gertie's missing. I don't think we need to go poking about. That’s the last thing I want to do," Elsa-May said.
"Does she live close by?" Ava asked.
"Not too far away. At least when Earl Quinn was reported missing he didn’t live too far away, according to the detective."
Ava frowned at them. "Have you two lost your nerves?"
Ettie took a sip of tea. This was one investigation she would prefer to stay out of.
"I just don't see that it will do any good."
Elsa-May said, “Why would she even want to talk to us? We’re nothing to her. She doesn’t know a friend of ours saw her husband murdered, and we can’t tell her something like that.”
Ettie Smith Amish Mysteries Box Set 4 Page 25
