Return to Grace

by Karen Harper

  Hannah took a good look at what was left of Lena’s tombstone, which, they’d said, had kept her from sustaining a much worse wound when the bullet ricocheted. The rectangular stone was deeply cracked, one corner shattered. One or more bullets had blasted away the word Lantz and her death date, so it read only Lena and her birth year.

  “He— Seth, I mean,” she said, “is going to replace it when you let him, when you clear away the police tape.”

  “So he said. That tombstone definitely saved your wrist, pins in it or not, and it may have saved your life. The shooter took Kevin down in one head shot, and I suspect was pretty skilled, so you and Tiffany were just plain lucky.”

  “Just plain blessed,” she corrected him, then realized how Amish that sounded. “I’m grateful Mike and Liz weren’t hit at all. The shooter must have been interrupted or— I don’t know. I—I see you have a gun, though your jacket hides it a bit.”

  He turned her toward him and looked her full in the face. “Affirmative—yes. You’re very observant, very smart, Hannah. But this small semiautomatic handgun in my hip holster—I try to especially keep it out of sight among your people—is a far cry from what someone shot you with. That was a high-velocity—that’s a high-speed—rifle, probably with a night-vision scope. We’ve retrieved and tested the bullets, lethal for hunting big game and, obviously, for a person. And I promise you I’m going to find out whether it was a random act, an anti-Amish or anti-goth hate crime, or whether it was some sort of hit with a specific target. Okay, now talk me through what happened when all of you settled here.”

  She did her best, though she’d done the same when he’d interviewed her in the hospital. Was he looking for discrepancies in what she said? As she told him about Tiffany’s wound and screams, Kevin’s scarlet bloom of blood, he interrupted for the first time.

  “So the two of them were sort of dancing around and pretending to dig at Lena Lantz’s grave with Tiffany’s closed parasol when they were shot?”

  The dreadful scene she’d been reliving fled. Her head cleared. She simply nodded. Did he think Seth had seen them and been angry? She darted a look down the hill at her former fiancé. He was pacing, not looking up at them, but frustration and anger emanated from the tilt of his head, his hard strides and clenched fists. Yes, she thought, Seth as she once knew him was capable of passion, of sudden swerves from self-control. He might be Amish, but he was only human! She was surprised to realize that her time away from him had somewhat muted her anger toward him.

  Afraid Linc would think she was somehow suspicious of Seth—and upset at how much she wanted to protect him—she dragged her gaze from Seth back to Linc’s gray-eyed, piercing stare. But he did not pursue what he must be thinking and surprised her by changing the subject.

  “One more quick thing before we ask Seth to join us in this reenactment. Can you give me any idea of how long it was between when Tiffany and Kevin went down and Seth arrived to help? Think about the time frame of when you crawled to your purse to get your cell, made the call, talked to the 9-1-1 operator, then he appeared.”

  “I—I don’t know. Time was…strange. Extended, I think. I was in pain, I saw all that blood on them, then on me—”

  “Ten minutes? Five?” he probed.

  “I’d say two minutes, max, until I made the call, but then don’t you have the rest of the timing from the 9-1-1 records?”

  He blinked. Not, she realized, because he hadn’t thought of that, but because he hadn’t thought she would. She’d read his mind, hadn’t she?

  “I’m not trying to protect Seth in this,” she insisted, even as she realized that was a lie. “He couldn’t have done the shooting up in those trees, with a gun that didn’t match your bullet tests—”

  “Forensics,” he said, but she ignored him and plunged on.

  “And then he didn’t have time to run around, down the hill and drive up in his buggy to help. Give that up, Special Agent Armstrong.”

  “I said before, I admire your backbone, Hannah. You’re a fascinating blend of this world and the one you’ve lived in these past few years—my world. But my world includes solving crimes, and I do what I have to at any cost.”

  “Then I’ll get Seth,” she said.

  “No, I will. I want him to come over the fence, just where and how he did that night. If you don’t mind, lie on the ground as best you can recall where you were that night. Be right back.”

  Her thoughts racing, Hannah sat, then lay where she was certain she had been hit. She felt cold all over and not just from the chill wind in the shadow of this hill. How had her safe Amish life changed so much that she was a new person now, an alien back where she’d been born?

  Suddenly, she longed to see her old friend Sarah Kauffman, who had gone to the world, been shunned, but planned to wed the arson investigator who had solved the barn fires. Sarah had followed her heart, not only with Nate MacKenzie but by becoming an artist who painted scenes from Amish life—with faces on the people. But Sarah was living in Columbus.

  This close to the earth, near the grass of Lena’s grave, Hannah could see that the edges of the replaced sod had not yet evened out or grown into the other grass. At funerals here, she’d seen the shaved-off sod the grave diggers had set aside so it could be replaced after they refilled the grave by hand. Had Linc and his investigators dug up the edges of the grass blanket over Lena’s grave, looking for bullets or digging for more blood spots?

  “Okay, please vault the fence just like you said!” Linc’s loud voice nearby startled her, and she turned her head to see Seth, one hand on the fence with the yellow tape, clear it easily and land on his feet.

  “Hannah, however it happened, I’m so glad you’ve come home!”

  Later that afternoon, her first Amish caller was her close childhood friend Ella Lantz, Seth’s sister. Ella was a year younger than Seth and Hannah, the middle child in their family of five children. They shared a hug, and, as ever, Ella smelled wonderful.

  Hannah had always thought Ella looked like an angel with her white-blond hair and pale blue eyes. As a girl, she had nearly drowned in the pond at the juncture of the three farms. Sarah and Hannah had saved her and it had bonded them all closer. But from that time on, Ella had changed. She’d buried deep her daredevil streak, become timid, even rigid and judgmental of those who didn’t toe the line—and that was Hannah and Sarah now, for sure.

  But maybe, Hannah hoped, Ella had learned that people make mistakes that should not only be forgiven but forgotten. Naomi had told Hannah that Ella had recently broken up with her serious come-calling friend, Eli Detweiler, because he hadn’t given up alcohol after his rumspringa years.

  “I brought you some lavender,” Ella said, and held out a basket of sachets and soaps which perfumed the air. On a large lot near the Lantz farmhouse, Ella grew and harvested the fragrant herb. Then in a little workshop Seth had built for her out the back of their family’s farm, she packaged her precious plants she sold locally. Each hand-lettered label read Lavender Plain Products, Homestead, Ohio.

  “How thoughtful of you!” Hannah said, and inhaled deeply as Ella took a chair at the card table laid out with a half-finished family jigsaw puzzle of the Grand Canyon. “They smell delicious and look lovely,” she added, admiring the printed cotton packets that made each sachet look like a small quilt square.

  “Some say the scent is good for the heart,” Ella said. “I mean, not to cure a damaged heart, like what happened to Lena, but to lift your mood. Oh, Hannah, it was awful that she just fell over like that in their kitchen with the baby there but Seth out on a job. Such a tragedy. But then, you’ve had one, too. And I…believe me, I remember how it feels to…to almost die.”

  “I was sorry to hear about you and Eli parting, but at least it was before you got betrothed or married.”

  “I just couldn’t take a chance on him, trust him not to drink,” she said, gripping her hands in her lap. Ella’s feelings and moods were always transparent. She looked instantly g
rieved. “Every time he said he was done with drinking, he wasn’t. He looked bleary-eyed and was always tired, too, cutting back his work hours. I could smell it on him day or night. I just— I could not trust him to be the father of my children. I guess all of us—you, Sarah and I—had disappointments with men. Though Sarah’s gone the wrong way with a worldly man after that mess with Jacob, I’ll find someone to build a life with here, I know I will!”

  “Meanwhile, you have a sweet future!” Hannah said, forcing a smile and picking up a cotton-wrapped and ribboned bar of soap to inhale the scent. Ella didn’t make the soap at home but provided the dried leaves and flowers for it, then wrapped the bars herself.

  “Both bed-and-breakfasts in town use my products now as well as the Amish gift shops and Mrs. Logan’s restaurant, so that gets me more business. I just came from Mrs. Stutzman’s B and B, and she said to tell you that if you want a job you could do one-handed, she needs a half-time housekeeper—dusting, laundry, ironing. She does the cooking and makes the beds. Her half-time girl just quit.”

  “People have been so kind to offer jobs. They must know it’s hard for me to have come home like this.”

  “I know it, too,” Ella said, and reached out to lightly grasp Hannah’s good wrist. “At the B and B, you wouldn’t have to face a lot of our people yet, since Amanda Stutzman and her husband are Mennonite and their guests are ausländers. Oh, and guess who just moved in there for a spell?”

  “Not the FBI agent?”

  “No. Can you see him with all those ruffled curtains and quilts and teatime? Sheriff Freeman’s wife—former wife, like the moderns say—is back in town. I met her there when I delivered the new sachets and soaps I arrange in each room. She’s pretty but wears a lot of makeup. She says she’s here to stay. I think she’s come home, like you.”

  Hannah remembered how much Ella loved to gossip, almost as much as her best friend, Naomi. Ella was to be one of Naomi’s attendants, or sidesitters, in the coming wedding. Would that be hard for her to face since she’d broken up with Eli? But Hannah kept thinking about poor Ray-Lynn Logan. It had been pretty obvious from the sheriff’s visit to Hannah’s hospital room that he and Ray-Lynn were getting close, and months ago Sarah had told her the same.

  “Ella, that job offer sounds good to tide me over, but I don’t know if I’ll be staying after the investigation of the shooting is finished.”

  “Oh, but we want you to. Seth does, I can tell!”

  “Now don’t you go playing matchmaker for us, or for Sheriff Freeman, either. But the fact that the former Mrs. Freeman is living at the Plain and Fancy means she’s a five-minute walk from Ray-Lynn’s house.”

  “That’s right. But here’s the thing,” Ella plunged on, leaning forward and lowering her voice, although they were alone in the living room. “Lillian Freeman’s been living in Las Vegas!”

  She’d said those words, Hannah thought, as if the woman had just come from the very gates of hell. “But that doesn’t mean she was boozing it up, gambling day and night or dancing in a chorus line,” Hannah protested.

  “A chorus line? Did she try to be a singer, like you? No, she was a hostess in some fancy casino restaurant, I think.”

  Hannah wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. She’d actually forgotten how much she’d learned in the outside world that she’d never known about here in the shelter of Home Valley.

  Hannah knew the November sunset would be early, so late afternoon, when she heard Seth come into the house to wash up and get Marlena, she decided to slip outside. However comforting it was to be near her family again, she felt cooped up. She’d even helped, one-handed, with dusting, as if preparing for the job at Amanda Stutzman’s B and B she was considering taking. She had to do something other than sit around waiting for Linc to think of some new clue or lead.

  Hannah had been racking her brain trying to come up with the who or why of the shooting. And she’d shed tears again, writing condolence letters to her goth friends’ families. Worst of all, if she let her thoughts drift a bit or woke up at night, she saw the shootings all over again in her head. Her doctor had told her she might have such spells, like those who’d had trauma in battle, a stress syndrome.

  She swirled her cape around her shoulders, put a bonnet on—but couldn’t tie it with one hand—and went out into the dying day. The brisk breeze perked her up a bit, and she inhaled deeply. She needed to get her strength back, she told herself, so she walked back and forth along the side of the barn, admiring the view of gently rolling fields, now bare of crops but awaiting spring plantings. Partly screened by bare trees, the pond at the juncture of the three farms looked as flat gray as the sky. To the west, the newly repaired Kauffman barn with the bright quilt square Sarah had painted looked more distant than it really was as the sun sank lower and the hills threw deepening shadows.

  Glancing northeast toward the Lantz farm, she admired Ella’s little workshop and Seth’s small house, neither of which had been there when she left home. She pressed her back against the sturdy barn built after the fire. Had she instinctively taken her walk here because she could see for miles? No high-velocity rifles with what Linc called night scopes could be out there now. Or was it because Seth had helped to build this barn, big and strong?

  “You shouldn’t be out here in the open, Hannah.”

  She jumped and her heartbeat kicked up at the voice behind her, as if her thoughts had summoned him.

  She turned to face Seth with Marlena in his arms.

  “Because I’m in the open for miles around, I feel safe. I refuse to be a prisoner.”

  “I was up on a roof all afternoon. Someone else could be, too—on one of these roofs, hidden behind a tree, even hunkered down on the ground in camouflage hunting gear. You have no idea the range of some rifles today.”

  A shiver snaked down her backbone and she pressed tighter to the barn. “I will not just hide. I’m fine, just fine!” Realizing she sounded strident, she stood straight and said in a calmer voice, “I’ve been waiting for a moment to thank you for all you did that night. I know my family has expressed their gratitude, but Tiffany and I might have died, too, without your help.”

  “God’s will that I came along to help in time—and that it was you. Even through your friend’s screaming and your pain, I knew it was your voice. Talking, singing, even shouting, your voice has always been beautiful to me.”

  She gaped at him, eyes wide, mouth open before she caught herself and, not trusting that voice, nodded. Marlena fidgeted in his arms and sneezed. He cleared his throat.

  “That’s all I had to say,” she whispered.

  “It means a lot to me. Can I talk to you a minute before I head home? But not out here, where Marlena might catch cold. Can we step into the barn? I have my buggy there.”

  She was afraid of the rush of feelings that overwhelmed her near this man, memories, yes, but too strong a reaction to him even now. Distrust, dislike for what he’d done to her, but also raw need, far different from the curiosity she felt about Linc Armstrong. Not moving to follow him at first, she asked, “Do we really have anything but the shooting—which we’ve been over backward and forward with Linc Armstrong—to talk about?”

  “I want to show you—you, not him—something I found stuck or caught in the window with the slit screen late this afternoon. He didn’t climb a ladder to look at your window from the outside so I did.”

  “Which means now your footprints are probably where you said they weren’t!”

  “We’re both starting to think like him, aren’t we?”

  “But what did you find?” she asked, following him around the corner of the barn, not that she wanted to feel even more alone with him, but she understood about Marlena. If she had a little girl like that, especially if she was rearing her alone, she’d be so overprotective that she’d be as uptight as Ella.

  He went to his buggy, not the two-seat courting one Hannah was picturing. Of course he’d have a family-size one now. He put Marlena on
the front seat, where she sat primly, while he reached in past her and brought out what looked to be a big chicken feather, until Hannah noted its strange black-brown markings in the light from the open barn doors.

  “That was stuck in my bedroom window?”

  He nodded. “So you couldn’t see it from inside, or almost from outside, either. Wedged lengthwise with the side of the quill and the outer edge of the feather holding it.”

  “So, wedged there carefully, intentionally, by someone who managed to open the window itself at least a crack.”

  “I’d say so. You can see I damaged it a little, pulling it out. If I wouldn’t have been nearly on top of it, I never would have seen it, either.”

  “It’s a big one. From…”

  “From an eagle, I think. A wing pinion.”

  “An eagle? Like the American bald eagle?” she said, picturing the eagle with arrows in its talons on Linc’s FBI badge.

  “I think they’re endangered and government-protected. But that kind of eagle is also sacred to Native Americans. I heard the eagle and the panther were special animals to the historic Indian tribe that once lived around here.”

  Her good hand on her hip, she demanded, “Indian tribe? From long ago? You heard that where?”

  “At your father’s request, my daad’s been reading up on Iroquois and Erie Indian history because of tribal rights disputes to some lands around here—some of our land. We’ve got to be prepared if there’s a lawsuit or more bad publicity. It’s all come to a boil since you’ve been gone. John Arrowroot, their local spokesman, is on a mission about getting Indian land back from people in this valley.”

  “I remember him. He’s a retired lawyer, isn’t he? He’d always show up at our auctions or fundraisers, stalking around and looking grim. I used to be scared of him when I was little.”