Upon A Winter's Night

by Karen Harper

  “Could it be the same guy who scared Lydia, the son of that man whose car hit her birth parents?” Ray-Lynn asked.

  “She told me you knew about her quest to learn more about them and that she’d told you about Leo Lowe showing up and threatening her.”

  “She said you and that Myerson woman were helping her, though I guess she’s been a bit out of control and needs to be stopped.”

  “Ya, don’t we wish. If she comes back for a quick visit, I’ll put an end to her ‘Amish research’ if I can.”

  “But you used to be close, right? I mean the two of you—Sandra and you, so—”

  He frowned at her, and she stopped in midthought.

  “A good friend from the city,” he said, “but one who doesn’t fit in here or with my new life, my real life.” He stood up to leave. “See you with a menagerie in tow, Ray-Lynn. Will the sheriff be there?”

  “He’d better be because he’s on the committee with Mrs. Sheriff, but you know how sudden problems can take first place sometimes. I married the man and the job, and that’s the way it should be.”

  “I hope to have a marriage like that,” he said, then realized he was about to confide to the woman in town who probably talked to more people than anyone else. He trusted her on business matters, but on ones of the heart? “Thanks,” he added, picking up his bill and hat as he headed out. “For everything.”

  * * *

  After work, Lydia couldn’t believe Josh wasn’t in the barn feeding the animals and waiting for her. She couldn’t find him anywhere. She knew the Beiler boys couldn’t be working tonight as they’d both managed to come down with bad chest colds. The handwritten note on the desk in the barn said so.

  Nor was Josh over at his house. She’d already checked, rung the doorbell and knocked on the back door. The house was dark, the sky was darkening, and she was getting nervous.

  Taking one of his flashlights, she even looked in the stables and his large, back storage shed—garden tools, a hand push lawnmower, rolled-up wire fencing, a volleyball or badminton net stretched across the wall, but no sign of Josh. Worse, his unhitched horse and buggy were here. Her heart began to pound. She’d checked that all the animals seemed to be in the barn, so he wasn’t out searching for one.

  She saw something protruding from behind the shed and, her heart thudding, she went back to look. He didn’t own any big farm machinery.

  Sandra’s red car! It glowed scarlet in the flashlight beam. So she was back, maybe had been for a while, and Josh didn’t want anyone to know, so he’d had her park here. Maybe they were in the house together, not answering the doorbell and ignoring her knocking.

  She flashed the beam of light in the car. Of course, no one was in the front or backseats. She touched the sleek red hood. Oh, still faintly warm, so she must not have been here long. But where was she—and Josh? Hurrying out from behind the shed, Lydia looked up at the second-floor bedroom windows. Dark. No one was up there. Or were they?

  Her stomach clenched. Had Sandra been coming back secretly, and Josh tried to keep others, especially her, from knowing? But to leave his animals when it was feeding time...

  Lydia stomped back through the snow to the barn and went in. She’d feed his animals for him, but if he and Sandra were meeting in secret, that was that. She bent to her work, tears in her eyes, making two Mellys, two bags of grass hay feed.

  She’d trusted Josh, cared for him, but something could still be wrong here. Lydia fed the sheep, who baaed in thanks before sticking their snouts in the feed, and then she tended to the cantankerous donkeys. She remembered Josh had been taking a pan of milk up to the cats in the loft and wondered if they’d been fed.

  Feeling drained, still fighting back tears, she rounded the camel pens toward the distant corner of the straw-strewn barn floor beneath the haymow loft. The ladder was there, not straight up, but tipped at a strange angle.

  When Lydia saw what lay beneath, she shrieked so loud the animals shied and snorted, kicking their pens. In a leather coat, slacks and boots, her gloves on, Sandra lay sprawled on the floor of the barn, her limbs positioned all wrong, her head twisted at a terrible angle. A puddle of blood had formed under her open mouth. She didn’t move, and her unblinking eyes stared straight at Lydia.

  13

  Lydia stared in horror. Sandra looked dead. Lydia leaned over to peer closer but couldn’t bear to touch her. She must have gone up the ladder to see the kittens and she fell. That’s exactly what it looked like.

  Lydia felt she shouldn’t leave her, yet she wanted to flee. At first her feet would not even move. Where was Josh?

  She turned and tore out of the barn to her buggy. She had to get the sheriff, maybe the emergency squad—the coroner. The Starks owned the closest phone so she headed in that direction.

  “Giddyap! Schnell! Schnell!” she cried to Flower, and the buggy lunged forward. She turned out onto the road and drove past her house. Daad’s buggy was just going into the barn so he was home early for once. No light in the kitchen. Mamm had been delivering loaves of friendship bread lately but she was usually home by now.

  As dusk deepened, the Stark acreage with its rows of pines and spruces flew past. She turned Flower into their driveway, but an SUV heading toward her with a big Christmas tree tied to its roof made her pull up and get the buggy off the lane. Under strings of lights at the sales and hospitality shed, shoppers were paying for their trees or waiting while they were put in net bags. A few stood around with hot drinks, talking.

  Of course, someone would have a phone out here, and she wouldn’t need to go all the way up the hill to the house. Lydia turned Flower a sharp right toward the lighted area.

  To her surprise and relief, the first person she saw was Bess, sitting in the golf cart Connor sometimes used to ride around on their land. She must have been talking to the workers and customers. When Lydia reined in, jumped down and rushed toward her, she saw there were two loaves of Mamm’s distinctively wrapped bread on the seat beside Bess.

  She had started to drive away but stopped when she saw Lydia and got out. “Lydia, are you all right? Your mother just left if you’re looking for her.”

  Ordinarily, the fact Mamm had so much as set foot anywhere near Stark land would have been a shock, but Lydia was beyond that. She tried to whisper so everyone wouldn’t hear.

  “I need help—a phone.” Her voice sounded shrill and much too loud.

  Bess put an arm around her shoulders. “What is it?”

  “Please call the sheriff and tell him there’s been an accident at the Yoder barn.”

  “Josh is hurt?”

  “His friend Sandra Myerson. I think she’s dead—fell from the ladder or the haymow loft.”

  “Oh, no! Where’s Josh?”

  “Don’t know.”

  Bess reached back onto the floor of the cart and grabbed a small phone. A young Amish worker Lydia knew, Silas Kline, a man her age, smiled and waved at her, but she felt frozen in place, her face a mask of ice. Bess pulled Lydia away from the lights and people. Her feelings were so jumbled she hardly heard what Bess was saying into the phone at first.

  “Yes. Yes, the same Yoder barn. Yes, Bess Stark making the call for Lydia Brand.” Bess punched off her phone. “Lydia, let one of our helpers care for your horse and buggy and come with me.” Bess took her hand as if she were a child. “I’ll go back with you, wait with you. We’ll find Josh.”

  Bess led Lydia to the golf cart and sat her inside it. Lydia watched as Bess spoke with Silas, pointing to her buggy. He nodded and gave Lydia another quick glance. Bess got in the cart beside her. It made a humming sound as they zipped up the hill. In the triple-car garage there were only two cars. She saw Connor’s was out. Bess took a key off a hook and put Lydia in the front seat of her car, even snapped her seat belt closed for her.

  “You talked to the sheriff?” Lydia asked as Bess got in the other side and started the engine. Her thoughts were running together, all around.

  “No, his 9-1
-1 operator. She’s sending him and the E.R. squad. After all, Ms. Myerson may not be dead.”

  Bess turned her bright lights on and drove fast down the hill, honking to get a couple of people out of the way near where they were selling the trees. She turned left on the road and sped up even more.

  “I—I couldn’t bear to touch her,” Lydia admitted.

  “Speaking of which, she sure touched a lot of sore spots around here. I heard about her Candid Camera trick at the Dutch Farm Table, and Connor had to ask her to leave when she got pushy at our house.” She heaved a sign, then added in a rush, “I’m glad I didn’t talk to her.”

  That’s right, Lydia recalled, though her thoughts seemed soaked in molasses. And after Connor got rid of Sandra, she’d been arrested for speeding, so at least the sheriff already knew her. Thank heavens, Sandra hadn’t bothered Bess like she had so many others.

  Bess slammed the car to a stop outside Josh’s barn, and they rushed in. The animals seemed restless, as if they knew what had happened. Still no Josh, but a flashlight sat upright near Sandra’s body. He must have been here just now, but why did he need a flashlight when lanterns still lit the barn?

  Lydia began to shake. Had Sandra lain here when Lydia first arrived and began to look for Josh and then fed the animals? If she’d found her sooner, would she have still been alive?

  “Wait, I hear a buggy!” Lydia cried and ran back to the front barn door they’d just come in. It was Josh, urging Blaze to a gallop out of his driveway.

  “Josh!” she shouted, cupping her hands around her mouth. “Josh, I got help! Bess is here, too!”

  He reined in at the bottom of his driveway, then turned the buggy sharply toward her. Surely, he had not been running away. He must have been going for help.

  He didn’t even tie Blaze to the hitching post but tossed the reins and leaped out of the buggy. “She’s dead—inside, Sandra,” he cried. “Fell from the loft or ladder!”

  “I know. I saw her. Where were you?”

  “For a while, hiding in the woodlot, waiting to see if the intruder came back toward the barn.”

  “Hiding? What intruder? I—”

  Bess came out to them through the barn door. Her sharp voice interrupted Lydia’s questions. “Best you two come inside and wait for the sheriff. He’ll want to talk to both of you, and you shouldn’t compare notes. It looks like an accident, but you never know.”

  Josh blurted, “Sandra told me she would come back just to see the barn animals—especially the kittens in the loft. She should have waited for me.”

  “Come inside,” Bess insisted. They walked slowly toward her. “Listen, you two, there will probably be questions, an investigation, and I will help either or both of you if you need it. I know your people don’t trust or use lawyers, but just keep what I said in mind. It took a couple of days to close the case when my sister died, but this will take at least as long. Come on now, let’s sit down to wait. I just hope this doesn’t turn into a media circus. Oh, I think I hear a siren.”

  Ya, she was right. A distant shrill sound pierced the crisp night air, but Lydia saw no blinking lights down the road yet. She felt so blessed to have Bess here. She leaned slightly against her as the older woman put her arm around her shoulders again and they went inside with Josh out of the cold night air.

  But was Bess suggesting this could be murder? A lot of people didn’t like Sandra, but surely with that ladder tipped...the kittens in the loft... Of course, it could have been set up, but surely not by Josh.

  At least, Lydia thought as they went into the barn and the animals looked up and stared, Josh’s explanation meant he didn’t even know Sandra had parked behind his shed. And they hadn’t been together in the house or the loft—had they?

  * * *

  As if the nightmare of Victoria Keller’s death was haunting him again, Josh saw the sheriff rush into his barn, which had once been a haven for him and his animals. The volunteer emergency squad arrived and pronounced Sandra dead, then the sheriff phoned the coroner while Josh, Lydia and Bess waited in his office area. His bringing Sandra here in the first place was a terrible decision, but it wasn’t his fault she’d turned out to be poison. Everything had happened so fast—out of his control.

  Once the coroner arrived, it seemed an eternity before Sheriff Freeman left the far corner of the barn where the body lay and approached them. “Josh, I’d like to talk to you first since Ms. Myerson was your friend and her death was on your property. From a card we found in her purse, we got next of kin and made that call. Her purse was in the loft, so she did climb up there. It’s all roped off now, but, of course, I’ll leave the animal pens and stalls accessible for you.”

  “Next of kin is her mother in Akron?” Josh asked.

  “That’s right. I called the local police there, and they’ll go to her door. No good to get a call after dark in the holiday season—but then there’s no good time for this.”

  “Can’t you question Lydia first so she can go home? What are they doing with the can of spray paint over there, anyway?”

  “No, Lydia needs to stay for a while. They’re outlining the body, so we can study how she fell later, match it with any internal injuries.”

  “My flashlight has a ring around it, too.”

  “Standard procedure since it’s in the vicinity of the body.”

  Josh’s stomach clenched. His prints would be on the flashlight, but so what? He had to stay steady. He’d seen too many forensic and criminal TV shows when he’d lived in the world.

  “A BCI tech’s on the way from Columbus, too,” the sheriff said. “He’ll take a lot of photos. BCI, Lydia and Josh, is Bureau of Criminal Investigation. We rural sheriffs call in help when it’s needed.”

  “Criminal investigation?” Josh demanded before realizing he was speaking much too loud. “You don’t think she just fell off the ladder?”

  “How ’bout I ask the questions, starting with—” he turned toward Bess and Lydia “—Bess. Would you mind waiting with Lydia at the other side of the barn by the front door? I’ll be over to talk to her soon as I can, then she can go home. If you need to leave before Lydia does, I’ll be sure she gets there safe and sound.”

  “Of course, Sheriff,” Bess said, getting to her feet. Josh was glad she was taking care of Lydia. “By the way, I know the attorney general who oversees the BCI, if you need anything special. I think they do a good job, but they’re not as low-key as they used to be. No more flying under the media radar since he likes the publicity of protecting the public. I intend to call him anyway and tell him this is in no way connected to my sister’s death and I want him to keep a lid on the two-women-die-on-same-property angle. Come on, then,” Bess said to Lydia, and Josh watched them walk away.

  He blinked back tears as Lydia patted Melly and Gaspar on her way past them. It was the first time it had occurred to him that Lydia had obviously fed the animals. But as distraught as he was, it wasn’t the first time it had hit him what a great wife she would be.

  As soon as they were alone, Josh told the sheriff, “I had that ladder nailed down, and I can’t figure how it came loose. If someone loosened it, it wasn’t me.”

  “Listen, Josh,” Sheriff Freeman said as he sat down next to him, “I gotta warn you that the BCI guys aside, the Columbus media, probably Cleveland folks, too, are gonna swarm in here with questions and cameras. No matter how much clout Bess Stark has, they’ll jump on the two women dying on the same property, all that. I don’t know what your past with the deceased was, but the press will ferret it out. You think Sandra caused a stir with her camera, you haven’t seen anything yet. And here I thought,” he added with a sigh, “after the other upheavals round here, we were gonna have a nice, peaceful holiday season. It won’t help that Senator Bess Stark was in on it, either—another news angle they’ll exploit.”

  Josh put his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. At least the sheriff already knew about his intruder and that Leo Lowe had threatened Lydia.
Sheriff Freeman wouldn’t think he was making it up, since there was another witness. Josh had not wanted to get young Amos Baughman in trouble with his parents for trying to ride the donkey, but he was going to have to give the sheriff the boy’s name.

  Josh wasn’t an idiot. He’d lived in the world and heard media stories of murders. If there was any chance of foul play, they always looked at the husband or boyfriend of a dead woman first—former boyfriends, too. At least the sheriff had not read him his rights—and as an Amish man, he would not call in a lawyer, anyway. Man, he wished this would not have happened! For Sandra, of course, for himself...for Lydia. And Sheriff Jack Freeman was looking at him with narrowed eyes and a poised pen on paper as if he were waiting for a confession right now.

  * * *

  Lydia felt she was standing outside herself, like this was happening to someone else. After the sheriff talked with Josh for about a half hour, he sat down with her on a bale of straw near the front door of the barn. Josh had hooked a kerosene lantern to a big beam over their heads. He had nodded at her. She could tell he tried to smile to buck her up, but his face seemed gaunt and stiff, not his own. They were both in disbelief, like this was some horrible nightmare.

  It scared her silly that it could become common knowledge that Sandra had come to the Home Valley to help her find her birth parents. Worse, if the sheriff thought for one moment that either Josh or Lydia would lure her into the barn, then push her off the loft or ladder, he was dead wrong. Ach, why had she thought of it that way?

  “Sorry you had to be the one to find both bodies,” Sheriff Freeman said as he sat on the bale of straw catty-corner from her. “Pretty bad coincidence.”

  “The Lord must have wanted it that way for some reason we can’t understand. His ways are higher than ours.”

  “That’s for sure. Speaking of high, were you ever up in that loft?”