Finding Mercy

by Karen Harper

  The stick connected with the clown’s head. Ella felt it in her wrists, heard it. His head slammed into the metal tower. He grunted, turned his head as Andrew landed a blow to his chin and shoved him off to scuttle away like a crab, taking a noose from around his neck. As Alex got to his knees, the clown staggered to his feet glaring at her, surprised and dazed. He roared in anger like a beast, then, even as Andrew tried to grab him, lunged at Ella.

  She had no time to go for the knife. Backing up a few small steps, her back pressed to the curve of the metal tower, she let out a shriek. She tried to lift the stick to swing again, but the clown grabbed it from her and heaved it over the side. Andrew threw himself at the man but the clown tripped over his big shoes, hit his legs backward into the guardrail. With his arms flailing, he tumbled backward like some trick Janus could do from a trapeze—but there was no net below.

  Neither was there a sound, even when the man hit the ground below. Nothing but the balmy breeze, Andrew’s hard breathing and her sobbing. The walkway and railing bounced so hard from the clown’s fall that Ella thought it would spill them both off or just give way. Trembling, kneeling, still unspeaking, they clung together, holding tight. Beyond and above, the night sky was vast and black.

  19

  STUNNED AND SHAKEN, Andrew and Ella climbed down the ladder from the tower. Leaning against each other, hidden by one of the tower’s big legs, they looked out into the dark field at the crumpled body of the hired killer. Ella shook so hard her teeth chattered, but she’d fought off her panic attack. She’d also fought back against an enemy instead of turning the other cheek but, strangely, she felt no guilt for that—only horror.

  She tugged Andrew’s arm and cried, “We have to get Grossmamm and flee before someone finds him here! Then we’d have to explain—it would get all over. We might be arrested. If Trixie makes a police report, she might give them my name and they’d want to talk to me—to us. Whoever hired that man could send someone else, then—”

  “Shh! I know. I know!”

  When she tried to pull him away again, he hauled her back, cupped her face with his hands and looked down into her eyes. “Tell me what happened. You went to McCorkles’ and found what?”

  “First Grossmamm got a phone call to come to Martha in Pennsylvania since she’s having surgery. Because Trixie had a headache—supposedly—I took something over to her for it. She was tied on the bed, and Janus was unconscious on the floor with a bloody head. I cut her loose. She told me about this man—a thief, she thought—attacking them, and I ran to find you—to stop him.”

  He looked around, scanning the area, then back at her. “We haven’t been spotted. There’s only one old couple left at the shuffleboard court. I’ve got to take a minute and check the guy’s deep pockets. Maybe I can find out who he is, who sent him. If he’s got money on him, we need it to run. We’ll get Grossmamm on a bus for Pennsylvania, then hide out somewhere far from here.”

  “She thinks I should go with her.”

  “But if they found and questioned you without me there—so far you’re just a means to an end to get me, but now, whoever wants me knows to use you.”

  “Even if the police arrested me, the Amish won’t testify in court.”

  “The so-called authorities can be relentless. You’d never be able to lie to them or stonewall them. Both of our faces could end up everywhere in the media. Getting any publicity on this would be like putting a big sign on our rears like Corky the Clown wore, only with the words, Come get us and kill us! Do it right this time. Ella, I’m so sorry you got in this so deep with me, but I don’t want you out there on your own where I can’t protect you! Wait here.”

  Her mind reeling at all he’d said, she hunkered down in the grass under the tower that had almost been Andrew’s tall tombstone. The fake clown had first meant to hang him from it, then when Andrew fought back, to push him over. Despite being slick with sweat, she shivered. She hadn’t exactly committed murder, because the killer had stumbled on the stolen clown shoes, but if she hadn’t hit him he would not have gone over, at least not right then.

  A new thought came to her: She’d better get that shuffleboard stick. Not that she’d ever been fingerprinted, but could that piece of wood hold clues to lead to her? What if someone saw her take that stick and described her?

  How had it all come to this? Here she was looking out across a field of dark grass in Florida instead of her own lavender field at home. Her safety had been shattered, her Amish promise of no violence torn apart. And she was in love—ya, that was it for sure, in love—with a worldly, verboten man who had a price on his head, and now she was an accomplice too!

  Keeping low, although, blessedly, no one else seemed to be in sight, Ella ran into the area where the shuffleboard stick must have fallen. She found it easily, took it, then made the mistake of glancing over at the clown. He lay sprawled in a grotesque posture, as if he was running. With his neck twisted at a terrible angle, he seemed to glance fearfully behind him.

  “People will think it’s Janus when they find him,” she whispered as Andrew searched the man’s pockets. “He is…dead, isn’t he?”

  “Very.”

  He stood and came over to her with something in his hands.

  “Did you find any identification?”

  “No. The guy’s a professional killer and careful, but he thought he was clever and he was wrong. I did find a wad of twenty-dollar bills and a car key, and that may actually unlock some of his secrets.” He showed them to her. It looked like a lot of money. “Man,” he muttered, “I wish Amish clothes had pockets.”

  “Too worldly and—”

  “Never mind.” He shoved the key in his right sock and opened the roll of bills to fasten them flat between his suspenders and his bare skin under his torn shirt.

  “Let’s go,” he said. “No running, just a walk around the side of the field and then back to the bungalow, two people out for a late stroll. Grossmamm will be worried, to say the least, and Trixie, I hope, has not called nine-one-one, because we’ll be questioned about her thief then, especially you will be since you found Trixie and Janus. I hope he isn’t seriously hurt, but perhaps she’s had to focus on taking care of him right now, not on calling in the cops.”

  “When we get to the bungalow, maybe we should sneak in the back door, over the fence.”

  “Only if the cops are around. What’s with that?” he said, pointing to the shuffleboard stick.

  “It’s what I hit him with that knocked his head into the tower. Then he tripped and went over the side. I didn’t want to leave it here for evidence.”

  He nodded, but his eyes widened. She could tell he was surprised that she was thinking of not leaving clues.

  “The guy mentioned a TV show called Criminal Minds,” Andrew told her. “I hate the idea that you—my angel-faced Ella enchanted—are starting to think that way too. Let’s lose the stick on the way and head back, but we need to look for his car, probably parked on one of the side streets near our place.”

  “What about the knife from Trixie’s I have stuck in the top of my stocking?”

  His eyes widened again and dropped to her hips and thighs. She guessed he was picturing her pulling up her skirts to place a knife against her bare skin. He raked both bruised hands through his mussed hair. “Unless we get a chance to return it, keep it.”

  They walked hand in hand to the edge of the field, wrapped the shuffleboard stick in Spanish moss and wedged it in the crotch of a huge ficus tree.

  “We’re both a mess,” Ella said when they got back into the glow of streetlights near the park. “You’ve got a big black eye coming on and some of that clown paint smeared on you.”

  “And you, my Amish beauty—I know, nothing just for pretty—look like you’ve been through a tough time you don’t deserve.” He loosed her hand but put his arm around her shoulder as they walked. “Ella, I’ve got an idea to throw them off our trail. If we can leave Trixie a note, we’ll mention that we’re head
ed to Nassau—you know, in the Bahamas.”

  “But that’s out of the country! We can’t—I can’t.”

  “But we’re not really going there,” he assured her as they stretched their strides, glancing down each side street. “I just think my—our—enemies might believe that, since I used to spend time there with my grandmother. They seem to have traced your grandmother here, so maybe they’d take that bait about mine. But if I can find the killer’s car, we’re driving north, not south.”

  “In a stolen car? To Ohio or Pennsylvania?”

  “No, but—look! Just talking about it is good luck!” he said, and pointed down a dimly lit street at a lone parked vehicle, a sleek black car with tinted windows. “That’s a Lexus, and that’s what the key is for. Wait a sec.”

  She gasped as he retrieved the key, merely pointed it at the car, touched a button, and the car’s lights flickered on like magic. Then he punched the key again and the lights dimmed and went out.

  “I’d love to go through the car right now,” he admitted, “but we need to get to Grossmamm and get on the road. If she hears what happened next door, she might think you’ve been hurt by that thief too by now.”

  They hurried home, half-expecting to find a police car sitting in front of their house or McCorkles’. The lights were on in both houses, but they saw no sign of anything unusual.

  “A trap?” she whispered.

  “We have no choice but to go in. But you’re getting as paranoid as me.”

  “And without even having a panic attack.”

  “Let’s look in the window,” he said and, keeping low, went into the small yard. She hurried after him. Inside, they could see Grossmamm kneeling in prayer, her elbows on the old sofa, her head down.

  They hurried to the back door and knocked. “It’s us!” Ella called.

  They heard the lock turn, and the old woman opened the door. “I knew the Lord would protect you both,” she said with outstretched arms that encompassed them both. She gasped when she saw their bruises and ripped clothing. “Trixie and Janus had a break-in tonight,” she said as she shooed them inside. “Ella, she said you ran out to get me or Andrew but you never came back, and I knew something terrible happened.”

  “How is Janus? Are they home?” Ella asked.

  “Still at some walk-in clinic where Trixie took him. Lots of blood, a concussion. I knew it could be those evil people who were after you again, but I told Trixie nothing. And here I was so sure today that nothing bad could ever happen in Pinecraft! Now we have to leave again, ya?”

  “Both of you get packed right away,” Andrew ordered. “Ella, we’ll have to change clothes. Yes, we’re going to have to run again—this time in a killer’s car.”

  * * *

  Alex regretted that they dared not leave an explanatory note for Trixie and Janus. He’d changed his mind about involving them in his lie about heading to Nassau. He promised himself that once he lived through the trial and could be himself again—if that were ever possible—he had a lot of explaining to do and repaying of people who had been kind. But before they’d locked the bungalow, he’d left a note on the table that made it look as if he’d called an airline to inquire about flights to Nassau from Miami. And as soon as he’d driven several blocks away, he’d disabled the car’s GPS system in case it could track them as well as give directions.

  “Any other hints of how Janus was doing?” Andrew called over his shoulder to Grossmamm, sitting in the backseat of the car as they left Pinecraft and headed northward on I-75.

  “I saw him get in their car with his head wrapped in a towel. Hardheaded circus people, Trixie said.”

  “Did she say anything about calling the police?”

  “No. I got the feeling that circus people trust them about as much as our Plain People do. But she’s going to be mighty confused when someone tells her that man who stole Janus’s extra clown outfit fell off the tower and is dead.”

  Alex exchanged a glance with Ella. Neither of them wanted this dear old woman to know all they’d been through tonight, but they had told her that much. She’d been as shocked as they were to realize the reach of Andrew’s enemies: he had been tracked to quiet, little Pinecraft, spied on along with the McCorkles. His enemy had gone to great lengths to try to make his death look like suicide.

  “It just might be your prayers that got us all through,” Alex said. “Now, here’s my plan. We’re going to head across the state and put you, Grossmamm Ruth, on a bus to Pennsylvania to spend time with your daughter. Once you’re there, you can contact your family at home, tell them where you are but that they should tell no one else. But I think both you and Ella will be safer if she goes with me.”

  “I talked to her about that. I suppose you think you can protect her, but can you?”

  “She can’t just go home or even to Pennsylvania, where a lot of people know who and where she is. I’m afraid there’s someone local in the Home Valley hired to kill me. My captor tonight admitted he was the one who tried to gun me down in Atlanta, but he claimed someone else was the one in Ohio. I hate to say it, but I believe him. And since my enemies tracked us to Pinecraft, evidently through the fact you have a place there, Grossmamm, both of you could be hurt in Pennsylvania if Ella were there.”

  Silence from the backseat. Alex heaved a sigh as he turned onto the I-75 ramp and headed north. Finally, Ella said, “Grossmamm, we believe no one saw our struggle on the tower, but I hit the man with a shuffleboard stick just before he tripped over the clown shoes that had given him trouble from the first—and fell to his death. So someone might blame me as well as Andrew.”

  “Pride—and evil—goeth before a fall,” Grossmamm said. “So you committed violence, just like Andrew—struck back?”

  “Yes, and can’t regret it because it may have saved us both. He was trying to shove Andrew off, then lunged at me.”

  “So, Andrew, you left behind in my place a note about flying from Miami to Nassau, but you are really going where?” Grossmamm asked.

  “Best I don’t tell you.”

  “Andrew Lantz, or whatever your God-given name is, you don’t think you can trust me after all this?”

  “It’s just safer for everyone. For all I know, this car could be full of listening devices—as soon as we stop for gas, I’m going through it with a fine-tooth comb. I just think Ella’s safer with me. She’s a link to me now and even if they don’t try to get rid of her, they could pressure her to tell where I am.”

  “All right then, I’m going to say my piece. If Ella goes with you without me, any good Amish man will not have her to wife. And she won’t ever leave our people. I know our Ella! You, Andrew Lantz, need to get this all straight in your life, then come back to us and turn Amish!”

  He almost swerved off the road. He shocked himself by not shouting, No way! Instead, he blurted out, “You can do that?”

  “Oh, ya!” Grossmamm insisted, sounding more excited than angry now. “Not common but possible. Takes a year living among the people, join the church, turning your back against the world’s ways, but look what the world has done to you.”

  “It would never work,” Alex insisted, more to himself than to them. “I’m too—worldly, as you say.”

  “The reason I know you can is you were ready to lay down your life for Ella when she was taken at home, give yourself up for her, right?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Same thing the Lord did, was willing to lay down his life for others.”

  Ella couldn’t hold back longer. “Grossmamm, the point is Andrew does not want to die. I want to go with him. I’d be scared to go out of the house if I was home, afraid to tend my lavender until he can testify against evil men, see them sent to prison, and it’s finally all over.”

  “And then you come home and face your people? I repeat, who will wed you then?”

  “Who wants to wed me now? It might be as rare as someone turning Amish, but I would rather remain a maidal than marry someone I don’t want or m
aybe marry at all. I’d be happy tending my lavender and building my business.”

  “Ach, I’ve said enough,” Grossmamm muttered. “You put me on a bus to Pennsylvania, and I’ll pray for both of you to find your way to green pastures and still waters, because it sounds like you been walking through the valley of death.”

  After that, it got quiet in the car as all of them agonized silently. At least he saw that, as upset as Ella looked, she wasn’t going to have a panic attack. But he was considering having one of his own.

  20

  ALEX STOPPED FOR gas shortly after they turned east on I-4 toward Orlando. He figured it would be easier and safer to get Ella’s grandmother on a bus to Pennsylvania in the land of Disney. After he filled up the hit man’s gas tank, paying with the hit man’s money, and everyone used the bathroom, he pulled away from the gasoline bay and parked next to the building, where a light was shining. Grossmamm got back in the car, but Ella lingered while he opened the trunk.

  Inside lay a small suitcase and a long, black leather case.

  “Not a musical instrument in there, I bet,” she said, pointing at the case. “Do you think it’s a rifle?”

  “Probably a high-tech version of one.” Using his shirttail to avoid touching the handle and latches, he snapped the case open. Disassembled, each piece in its perfectly shaped section, lay an assault rifle with a long-distance scope. Two pistols were also snug in their foam pockets.

  “All we’d need is to be stopped by police with no driver’s license and this in the trunk,” he said. “I’m going to deposit it in that Dumpster beside the station. I just wish I could have found his cell phone somewhere, so I could check who he’s been talking to. He either hid it or it came out of his pocket when he fell. Or if it’s in that suitcase, it’s great evidence.”

  “Are you sure this gun doesn’t have his name on it?”