Upon A Winter's Night

by Karen Harper

  “I don’t think killer is a signature. It’s—” his voice wavered “—it’s pointed at me.”

  “Gid left the manger scene a while ago. Said he had something to do.”

  “It could be someone Sandra knew. Or if it’s to drive a wedge between us, even your parents.”

  She pulled away from him. “My parents? You think they would do this—or ruin our snow angels? Can you see my daad climbing up here right now or my mother, either?”

  “I just meant for motive. They must still want you to stay away from me. Let’s try another way of looking at it. Someone wants to scare me into moving away, to leave here.”

  “Connor might want our property, so maybe he’d like to own yours, too.”

  “What about Leo Lowe? The sheriff hasn’t found him yet, has he? Why is he on the run or in hiding if he didn’t hurt Sandra? Lowe was watching you from out back, so he could be the one who’s been hanging around here. This could be a threat to be sure you don’t try to go to the media or re-open the case against his father.”

  “How about that off-the-wall reporter Roy Manning?” Josh asked. “He ticked me off here today, and I’m sure I returned the favor. We probably both angered him at the church.”

  “You didn’t tell me he bothered you earlier today.”

  “I didn’t want to worry you... And now this. But I can’t believe Manning ruined the snow angels. It’s more like him to just come busting in instead of lurking.”

  “Josh, there’s something that’s really been eating at me. What if someone doesn’t want me to keep asking questions about my real parents? What if Lena and David Brand were involved in something dangerous—or there’s some secret I’m not supposed to know.”

  “I’m praying none of this is aimed at you. Or at least that it just has to do with us becoming a couple.”

  “But even Bishop Esh and his wife act like there’s something they can’t tell,” she said, her voice shaking.

  “You know his sense of honor and duty. Probably someone—most likely your father and mother—asked him once to promise not to talk about it, so you would really feel like their child, to protect you.”

  “Ya, that would be like them at least.”

  “And I can’t blame them for that.” He hugged her and kissed her cheek, then walked slowly toward the loft, climbed a couple of rungs and reached up to touch the bottom of one angel’s robe. “It’s sticky,” he called down to her. “Not blood, I think, or it would smell more coppery. I’m not sure I want to get the sheriff in on this.”

  “That right?” came a voice behind them as a flashlight beam swept across the horrid drawings and word as if pinning Josh there. “Come on over here, Ray-Lynn. Looks and sounds like it’s a good thing we came.”

  * * *

  It was, Josh thought, almost the same nightmare after Sandra’s death. The sheriff had separated him and Lydia. Ray-Lynn waited with Lydia by the front door, while he and the sheriff went into his barn office. And he could tell from the questioning the sheriff might actually think he’d done that paint job himself.

  “Calm down, Josh. Once again, I find myself having to interview young Amish guys to back up your story, that’s all. But I believe you that the Beiler kids said the sheep got out and they had to go down to the long wing of the barn. For sure that might have given someone time to come in the back way and do this in a big rush. It’s not exactly a Rembrandt.”

  “I’m just making sure you don’t think I did that. The boys or Hank would have seen it while we loaded the animals. And why would I make a mess of the snow angels I told you about? Since it was in the papers where Sandra died, the placement of that painted outrage could have been put there by anyone.”

  “Just sit tight now. I didn’t say you did that, but I’ve got to run through all the possibilities. You got any paint on the premises?”

  “Sure, but not red. No Amish man or woman is going to paint anything bright red. It’s the verboten color of martyrs’ blood—our ancestors’ blood in Europe before we came here—the reason we fled to America.”

  Jack Freeman flipped his notebook shut and shoved it in the inside pocket of his leather jacket. “So you don’t mind if I look around?”

  “Of course not—again,” Josh said.

  “Look, Josh. I’m trying real hard to figure out who’s behind that crude graffiti because it will probably lead me to Sandra’s killer. Yeah, coroner’s ruling or not, I feel in my gut that murder is still a possibility, though, no, I don’t think killer is supposed to be a signature, either. And since you were close to Sandra once, you sure want that looked into, too.”

  “Ya, of course I do.”

  “Besides, the motive for what seems to be an attack on you could actually be an attack on Lydia, too. Let’s look at this another way. What if someone is desperate to keep her from turning up info about her birth parents? Maybe Sandra opened a can of worms asking around about that. So someone panics and gets crazy enough to kill her—or at least argues with her and gives her a shove—hoping to pin it on you.”

  “Maybe,” Josh admitted. “Lydia came up with the same possibility. Sandra was asking way too many questions. But that could mean Lydia’s in some danger now, and she’s got to be protected.”

  “If that theory is correct, you got that right. So he or she—the killer—enters Lydia’s house, moves things around, messes up her bed to imply a threat and scares the living daylights out of her. Lydia’s here a lot, you two are starting to be seen as a couple, ’least that’s what Ray-Lynn says. So the intruder tries to either scare Lydia away from you or scare both of you to shut you up, make you leave—together or alone—I don’t know. So don’t just figure I’m out to nail you. And I’ll be talking to her formal betrothed, Gideon Reich, soon.”

  “They weren’t formally betrothed. Gid wanted it. Some assumed it because it looked so—so perfect.”

  “Got that.”

  “I hate to do it, Sheriff, but taking a cue from Lydia, I’m going to put locks on all the barn doors and hope someone doesn’t come in a loft window high up.”

  “She changed her locks?”

  “Ya. See, I had a key hanging in the stables where I sometimes keep the buggy, too. Tradition, once we all went to keys and locks in Amish country, is to keep a spare in the barn or shed. Relatives or friends come calling and you’re not home, they know where it is. That’s sure got to change. But I had that back door to the barn locked, so you’d better ask the Beiler boys if they unlocked it. I doubt it since it’s locked now.”

  “It’s the first thing I checked after I sat you down here. And you should have checked it earlier.”

  “I was too shocked to think of that at first,” Josh said, standing even though he hadn’t been dismissed. “Look, Sheriff, Lydia needs to get home or her parents will worry. Her mother hears about this, and it will be the straw that broke the camel’s back.” He glanced at Melly and Gaspar, who seemed ever so interested in eavesdropping on all this from their pen across the way. “And then they won’t let Lydia near me so I can help protect her.”

  “Maybe her keeping clear of you will be best, in case you’re the target. Meanwhile, I’ll have to get that artwork documented and photographed, but I don’t intend to tell the newspapers, especially that Plain Dealer reporter Manning. It’s something I’ll keep quiet to help nail the mad painter when I get this figured out. By the way, Roy Manning came in my office, asked all kinds of questions.” The sheriff got to his feet and patted Josh’s shoulder. “But the fact I overheard you say—not admissible in court now—that you didn’t want me to see this picture and message means, if you painted it yourself, you might have only wanted Lydia to see it, not to drive her away but maybe to be more scared and trust you more.”

  Josh exploded, “I didn’t deface my own barn for Lydia or anyone else! I said, the Beiler boys—Hank, too—would have seen it. Sheriff, the paint is barely dry. For sure, someone did it when the boys were lured away just before we got here. I just don’t need
this to get all over town, and at Christmastime when the animals are going out here and there like at your church tonight!”

  “My thinking exactly. Just wanted to get your take on the far-out possibility that you did it. Now, I know Amish privacy and all that, and the fact, deep down, your people don’t trust law enforcement, but that’s not helping us here. Just work with me, not against me, from here on out, Josh. You hear me?”

  “Loud and clear,” he said, but he saw how this man operated. Get cozy, friendly, supportive, then toss in another foursquare hit to the head, hoping to spring some sort of confession loose.

  “Ray-Lynn and I will take Lydia home and tell her mother we stopped by and volunteered. Say, one more thing. Why wasn’t your right-hand man, Hank, with you at church tonight instead of that other guy?”

  “A family birthday. Hank’s oldest boy. You don’t think he—”

  “Just covering all the bases. I would have liked to document those snow angels you two were talking about, too. Now don’t you wash that paint job off or repaint your wall till I send my desk gal, Peggy, out to get a good photo of it from all angles tomorrow morning.”

  “Fine, but then I want to get rid of it.”

  “Now, Josh,” the sheriff said, in his best small-town voice that Josh knew he put on sometimes, “getting rid of something or someone is not gonna help things at all. You want to say goodbye to Lydia, you make it quick now.” He walked away to stare up at the horrible paintwork again.

  For one second, Josh couldn’t decide whether to keep what he knew from the sheriff or not, but he figured he’d better tell him that much. “Sheriff, I do have something else to show you.”

  One hand on his holster, he turned back toward Josh. “Like what?”

  “As you probably overhead when you were eavesdropping,” he said, trying to control the bite in his voice, “those snow angels out back had a pitchfork drawn between them, too. Carrots on the head for horns and a pitchfork where we held hands. But—and Lydia doesn’t know this—a real pitchfork was stuck in each of the chests.”

  “And you’ve got the pitchforks?”

  “Ya, here in the barn with my tools. I pulled them out and brushed over the snow so Lydia wouldn’t get more upset than she already was. It was the same day someone evidently followed her to Amity where she met with an elderly man who used to know her father. She found out that Sandra had been there to interview him first. While Lydia was in his house, someone unhitched her horse and put a camel saddle on it, a heavy saddle that had been stolen from the back of my barn that morning. It’s one we used in the pageant tonight. Lydia brought it back from Amity.”

  “And the reason no one told me any of this before? No, never mind. Don’t trust the local law or the feds.”

  “I’m telling you now—everything. She didn’t want her parents to know she was pursuing information about her birth parents. And, ya, you’re right. Like I said, we Amish don’t on the whole trust law enforcement officers. They’re the ones who dragged our forefathers off to prison, torture and death.”

  “Well, get this straight, Josh,” he said, walking closer and putting an index finger on his chest. “This is America, times are different, and law officers like me are here to protect and defend, to help. Unless someone Amish has committed a crime and deserves imprisonment and even death, I’m on your side. Got that?”

  Josh nodded and stood his ground, meeting the sheriff’s piercing gaze. Now, why had the man mentioned imprisonment and death, as if he was still thinking Josh had murdered Sandra?

  “Let me show you the pitchforks,” Josh said. “I’ve got extras. Over here with my other tools. My prints will be on them, but maybe you can find a trace of someone else. Or you can use DNA or whatever that new stuff is.”

  “You volunteering to get printed, despite the fact it’s against Amish ways? How about a simple swab of your inner cheek in case DNA ever helps us solve Sandra’s death or this defacing of your property?”

  “Ya, if that’s what you need. I’ll have to tell Bishop Esh, though, hopefully not get shunned for all that. But I want to stop this, Sheriff, find out who’s trying to hurt Lydia and me and why. But most of all, I want to get whoever killed Sandra. The thing is, I suppose most people around here own a pitchfork, so this may not be much help. And can you take them both out the back door and put them in your trunk so Lydia doesn’t see them and get more upset if I have to explain?”

  “But the thing is, who, except local farmers—and I don’t have a one of them on my list of suspects—would own two pitchforks?” he repeated, shaking his head.

  “I’d say the hardware store in town, but these two look well used. You know,” Josh said, drawing out his words, “I’m not sure if this will still be true, but one of them had dead pine needles stuck with sap on a couple of the prongs.”

  “That right?” the sheriff said, pursing his lips. “Well, let’s have a look.”

  He squeezed Josh’s shoulder as they walked toward his stash of tools in the corner of the barn. Their working together was a start, Josh thought, because the other option was worse. He had to keep calm. Still, when he passed the bloodred angels and the word KILLER again, he felt like ripping the obscenity down bare-handed, board by board.

  24

  Lydia heard distant screeches and hoots outside. It was barely light the morning after the horror in the barn. So far, she had not told her anxious parents about that, even when Ray-Lynn and the sheriff brought her home. Mamm, who waited up, seemed relieved to see her in any vehicle that wasn’t Josh’s buggy.

  Now Lydia pressed her face to the cold windowpane above the kitchen sink to see who was making that noise. Down on the road, she could see a car hit its brakes and swerve. Was there ice on the road? But who was shouting and squealing? Despite the cold morning—new snow had fallen last night—she opened the window over the kitchen sink and stuck her head out a few inches. The horse and buggy that came along after the car went on its way with no problem.

  But then another car braked and swerved, and this time she saw why. Two boys were hiding behind the first row of Christmas trees edging the road and throwing snowballs at passing cars. A third car hit its brakes, then sped on. Hoots and hollers filled the air.

  Ya, it was Connor’s twins. Now, what were their names again? Bradley and Blaine, something like that, so worldly. Although they were obviously unsupervised this morning and doing something that could cause great danger—their grandmother would be appalled—they suddenly made her remember Sammy. He had died when he was five and these boys were seven, but Sammy had loved to throw snowballs. He’d made a snow fort once with Daad and always begged her to play fox and geese in the snow.

  Lydia’s parents were both still in bed, but she had to stop Connor’s kids before they caused a wreck. Besides, a few years ago, Amish boys throwing tomatoes at cars had been shot at by an angry motorist. She closed the window with a bang.

  Jamming her feet into boots, she yanked on her coat and tied her bonnet as she went out and down the driveway. You might know the boys had chosen the corner of the Stark land that abutted the Brand driveway. She took such huge strides she was almost out of breath when she got within their earshot.

  “Boys! Stop that! You’re going to cause a wreck!” she shouted. “Your father will be upset and your grandmother, too!”

  As they turned toward her, snowballs in hand, she marveled again at how much they looked alike. Blaine? Bradley? She had no idea who was who. For one minute, she thought they would throw snowballs at her or run, but they probably figured she’d just tell on them. Reminding her so much of their father, they stood their ground defiantly.

  “We’re just having fun. It’s only snow,” the boy in the blue coat said. She saw they were dressed for school and had made a mess of their jeans and jackets, as if they’d been pelting each other first.

  The boy in the orange jacket said, “We don’t care if you tell our dad.”

  “Why don’t you care? You know what you’re doi
ng is wrong. You could hurt someone. Won’t he punish you?”

  “If he does, at least he’ll have to talk to us. He’s gone a lot and Mom’s mad at him, too.”

  “I see. Well, he’s mayor now and he’s trying to buy more land for trees, you know, so all that keeps him busy.”

  “Too busy. Mom argues with him and Gran did, too—real loud. We can’t fight with him, so if he hears about this, he’ll have to talk to us.”

  Lydia was astounded. Evidently desperate to get their father’s attention, the young boys had laid this plan, one they knew could get them in trouble. And here she wanted to talk to her own father about things, but couldn’t because she didn’t want to hurt him or cause him to strain his heart.

  “So, you gonna tell him?” the boy in the blue coat challenged.

  “I think we need to march right up the hill to your house, and you can tell him what you did and why. It may be that one of those cars you hit just went up your driveway to tell your parents, anyway. It doesn’t look good for the mayor’s sons to be throwing things at cars, does it?” she asked as the three of them started to trudge up the hill toward the house.

  “Boy, if someone drives in to tell him, he might get mad at them, too,” the twin in blue said. “But it’s that bad story in the newspaper about him that really got him mad.”

  Lydia’s head jerked around. She’d seen the local weekly paper, so what were they talking about? It did have a short article about her father’s heart attack and that he was home again. It was only then she realized her parents might find her missing and be panicked.

  “Listen, you two,” she said. “I have to go back and get my buggy and head for work. But on the way, I’m going to stop in to check with your parents that you told them the truth about all this. So I expect you to get back to your house right now. Besides, aren’t you supposed to catch your school bus?”

  “Not for a while. They think we went to our room to study.”

  “Oh, that’s a good one. You just go on up to the house now, and I’ll be there soon. But what about a bad story in the newspaper?”