Return to Grace

by Karen Harper

  “You judge him harshly.”

  “I know, ‘Judge not,’ but I think he has designs on you, not just as a witness but as a woman.”

  “No way!” she insisted, but there were signs, and evidently Seth had seen them, too.

  “Let’s not talk about him right now,” he said, sitting down beside her. “I want to say once and for all that I regret my actions with Lena, regret that they caused you to run away, although I can never regret Marlena.”

  “I—I understand that. Besides, Lena was also to blame. I know it’s best not to speak ill of the dead, but as they say in the world, ‘It takes two to tango.’”

  “Does the world still hold such allure for you?” he asked, leaning so close now his breath warmed her cheek. “Could you never be happy here again?”

  “I don’t know. It’s too early, too much—too much going on.”

  “I talked to the sheriff outside before he left. He says that whatever—whoever—they find in the graves, they’re going to check all the graves now. It may take a long time to investigate the additional bodies—to identify them—even with modern science, forensics and all that. I hope, at least, that means you will stay here for a while. And I, for one, don’t intend to give up on finding some of my own answers, especially if it takes their modern ways so long.”

  “John Arrowroot?”

  “From him and whatever other leads we—I might get.”

  He reached out to touch her arm, then slid his hand upward to stroke her cheek. Knowing he’d feel the dampness there, she pulled away.

  “It’s all right,” he said, his voice soothing, yet strong. “All this makes me want to cry, as well. Don’t blame yourself, Hannah. I—I hope the bishop doesn’t, but I see he’s still grim over it all— Your leaving.”

  “Grim—a good word for it.”

  “But maybe this is all God’s will that you came back, that through you these terrible things are being uncovered and maybe, somehow, will be solved, too.”

  “I’d like to believe that, but then I’d like to believe a lot of things. Like when I was a little girl and hid down here as if something naughty I’d done would not be found out, or that I’d get something I wanted that Mamm or Daad said I couldn’t have.”

  Seth leaned close again, and she yearned to throw herself into his embrace, to cling to him with her one good arm and—

  As if he’d read her mind, Seth pulled her to him and held her close.

  She clung to him, amazed how natural it felt, how necessary. And that scared her almost as much as walking a dark maze or graveyard paths in the utter blackness of night.

  13

  JUST AS THE first morning she’d been back in her parents’ home, Hannah awoke the next day to see little Marlena Lantz in her bedroom. So Naomi was still going to keep an eye on her, at least until the wedding? But why had she let her wander off again?

  Hannah saw the door to the hall stood ajar. Marlena had not been watching her sleep this time but was staring up at the doll that had been Hannah’s as a child. Standing on tiptoe, the child had both hands stretched upward with fingers wiggling, as if that doll atop the dresser would float right down to her.

  “Lumba babba,” the little girl said when she saw Hannah was awake. She pointed her chubby finger adamantly now. “I want hold lumba babba!”

  “I’m in here, too, Hannah!” Naomi’s voice came from the foot of the bed. She must be on the floor. “I was trying to be quiet, looking for a box of paper wedding napkins under the bed—oh! Here they are. Believe me, she has her own dolls at home. I think Seth spoils her. She forgot hers today, so I was trying to ignore her. I know that doll is yours.”

  “Which means I can let her play with it if she likes. I know she won’t give it up later, but when she’s asleep, Seth can substitute it for her own.”

  “And have another excuse to see you when he brings yours back,” Naomi said with a pert smile, popping up with a cardboard box in her hands. Whatever tragedies beset her people right now, Naomi was so lost in love with Josh Troyer that happiness radiated from her. She spoke softly, with a nod at Marlena, “Seth said she has bad dreams at night.”

  Hannah nodded. She could sympathize with that. How she wished she could help the little girl, even if she never got over her own hauntings.

  “Oh, by the way,” Naomi went on, whispering now, though the child surely could not grasp the import of the words, “Seth dropped her off early. He was heading for you-know-where with his brother Aaron and Mr. Kauffman to dig open the three graves.”

  Even clutching the covers, Hannah shuddered. “Thank the Lord Linc allowed that. He’s very used to getting his own way.”

  “Ha! Do you mean ‘Lord’ Linc as well as the Lord God? Oh, one more thing I meant to tell you before all of this sadness. I think Ella’s going to give you something to take to Sarah’s wedding, probably a lot of lavender soap and such. I was really surprised because Ella’s such a stick-in-the-mud about people who break the rules.” She heaved a huge sigh. “At least you’re back with us.”

  Instead of telling Naomi that she wasn’t sure she’d stay, Hannah got up in her nightgown and reached for the doll on the top of the dresser. “I’m surprised Sarah didn’t draw a face on this doll, like she did on her own,” Hannah mused. “Naomi, I know you’re busy. I’ll keep an eye on Miss Marlena here and bring her down when I come to breakfast. And I know she’ll keep an eye on the doll.”

  Naomi thanked her and hurried out. Marlena’s blue eyes lit to have the doll descend from the heights and fly right into her arms. “Danki, danki!” she cried. Hannah lifted the tot up on the bed where she sat chattering to the doll while Hannah got dressed. Now and then she stroked the child’s hair and then in her rich alto voice sang a lullaby. Marlena smiled and started to sing, too, pretty much in one pitch. She evidently had not inherited her father’s musical talents.

  As Hannah took Marlena’s hand and they went down to breakfast, she felt she’d done something good. Caring for this little darling was at least one step in forgiving Lena and Seth for what they’d done. Because she really did want the words Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors to be reality for her. She pictured poor Seth digging Lena’s grave, digging up the past. She recalled what he’d said last night: he was going to try to find out who had shot her and her friends, perhaps because the murderer wanted to distract from or keep people away from the double burials. No matter what Linc, the sheriff or her own father said, she was going to try to get to the bottom of that, too—with or without Seth.

  Ray-Lynn’s hopes that Lily Freeman would not set foot in the Dutch Farm Table Restaurant ended when the woman bounced through the front door midmorning on Monday. What a lousy way to start the week! At least Jack wasn’t here.

  “Table for one?” Ray-Lynn asked.

  “Oh, my, no. Jack said you do carryout sometimes, and I want to order some stuff for him—he-man lunch-type things.”

  If Jack told her that, had Lily seen him last night? Ray-Lynn wondered. And after he, darn him, had more or less promised undying love? Or since everyone in the restaurant was buzzing about the double burials and exhumations—too many outsiders, as Jack had predicted—did Lily know about that from someone else?

  “What will it be?” Ray-Lynn asked, picking up a pad and pencil. No way she wanted to be waiting on or catering to this woman, but maybe she could find out if Jack had asked Lily to bring him food. What if, despite being busy with this big murder case, he was playing things both ways with both of his women? No, she didn’t really think he was that kind of man or she’d never have fallen for him.

  Lily picked up and scanned a menu, frowning over it. “How about eight Reuben sandwiches and the fixings? It’s for those poor Amish men who are digging up their own relatives’ graves, and the law enforcement with them.”

  So, she was up-to-date on all that. Did she learn it directly from Jack? Not by late-night pillow talk, Ray-Lynn hoped.

  “Coffee, too,” Lily went on. “Oh,
never mind that. It wouldn’t keep really hot, would it?”

  Ray-Lynn figured Lily liked most things really hot.

  “Never mind, they’ll have water,” she told Ray-Lynn. “I thought all that would be a nice gesture.”

  “Very nice,” Ray-Lynn agreed, but it irked her to no end because she had planned to take her van out there with what the Amish called eats later today. And it really annoyed her that this woman, whom she was starting to think of as the Wicked Witch of the West, had a decent bone in her voluptuous body. But then, if Jack had loved her—maybe still did and didn’t even know it—she had to have some redeeming virtues that were more than skin-deep.

  “It will take a few minutes,” Ray-Lynn told her, and went back into the kitchen. A couple of other things surprised her when she came out with six sacks of food and told Lily the bill would be $78.20. The woman didn’t blink a fake lash and peeled off two fifties out of what looked to be quite a few bills. Ray-Lynn helped her carry the food outside, mostly because she wanted to see the snazzy red car Hannah had described to her. Next shock—the vehicle awaiting was Elaine Carson’s red truck. And Elaine, in the usual leather outfit, was carrying two cases of bottled water out in Kwik Stop plastic bags and loading them in the backseat, where they put the sacks of food.

  “Gotta take care of our very own sheriff and the FBI guy,” Elaine said. “Any rep of law and order in the U.S. of A. needs all the support we can give. But Lily and I knew we’d have to feed the Amish workmen, too, or it wouldn’t look right,” she added with a quick frown that wrinkled her nose. “Thanks, Ray-Lynn. Appreciate it!”

  With that, the odd couple jumped in the truck with the flag and eagle decals and roared away.

  When Hannah finished a busy morning cleaning ground-floor rooms at the Plain and Fancy B and B, she felt torn about whether to talk Naomi into taking her to the graveyard or just going home. The familiar buggy wasn’t here yet, anyway, though Ella had just pulled up in hers. Hannah went out to help her carry her week’s supply of lavender products inside.

  “How is it going?” Ella asked as Hannah lifted her second basket of goods out of her buggy.

  “If you mean here at the B and B, great. Amanda Stutzman is a gem, and her brother even brought me some extra sausages to take home today—says they go great with cold beer, as if we’re drinkers like I guess he is. I overheard Amanda telling him his wife would leave him if he didn’t let up on that. So, have you been to the graveyard? I need to know what’s going on.”

  “Daad said we womenfolk aren’t to go because he doesn’t know what they will find. But I heard it’s packed with outsiders, and there’s a helicopter that keeps circling the area. Noisy thing! It scares animals. I hope everyone clears out by Thursday for Naomi and Josh’s sake.”

  “You might know there’s a reporter from New York City, no less, staying at the B and B, but of course she isn’t here right now.”

  They toted the baskets in the front door. “In other words, this place is packed with worldly women,” Ella whispered. “New York, Las Vegas…”

  “And me, from Cleveland.”

  “I didn’t mean that. You’re one of us, back home now. Say you are!”

  Amanda bustled into the front room from the kitchen. “Oh, Ella, I thought you’d be here this morning. It’s fine with me if you just put the things in the two front bedrooms upstairs. No one’s here, of course, not with all that’s going on. Both rooms are unlocked right now because I was going to take in fresh towels. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me. I’m fixing vegetable pizzas for lunch that can be popped in the oven individually when my guests come back.” And she was gone again.

  Standing at the bottom of the wide, wooden staircase, Hannah asked Ella, “Mind if I tag along? I haven’t seen the rooms upstairs, just dusted furniture and floors down here and the Stutzmans’ quarters today.”

  “Sure. I’ll be in and out pretty fast, especially since I don’t need to get the key to unlock them.”

  It wasn’t the New York reporter’s room Hannah was interested in but Lily Freeman’s. Ray-Lynn had been so kind and supportive. Hannah didn’t mean to turn into a spy for her, but if Hannah was going to play detective about who did the shooting Halloween night and maybe who buried other bodies in Amish graves, she was obviously going to have to practice getting nosy.

  At first, standing in the doorway of the first room Ella entered, Hannah couldn’t tell whose it was. It could be Lily’s but Hannah didn’t ask, just practiced her observation skills. In this charming, country-style room with a quilt on the wall as well as on the bed, she noted a laptop, along with several other electronic devices. One looked like those new eReaders. But a photo of a handsome Asian man and what looked to be twin boys who resembled him on the dresser suggested this was the reporter’s room. It didn’t have its own bath, so Ella was putting the items out on the dresser.

  The larger room across the hall, with the bay window and its own bath, was obviously Lily Freeman’s. She would have the larger one since she was here first and was evidently staying for a while. Hannah also saw a laptop, this one on a flat-top desk with a chair in front of the window.

  Hannah moved quickly into the room, across the big braided rug partly covering the oak floor. “There’s a great view from here,” she said, pretending to glance out the bay window while taking a quick look at the pile of papers next to the laptop. On top was a printout of an email of— Why, it was a copy of a news story about Sheriff Freeman calling in the FBI to look into the Amish graveyard shootings! But if Lily wanted to get her ex-husband back, that wasn’t unusual. Hannah jumped when Ella spoke.

  “Well, that’s it, except for the extras I leave with Amanda in case any of the guests want to buy some. What? What is it?”

  “Nothing. Just thinking how hard it must be for Mrs. Freeman to be living in this single room when she used to have that whole nice brick ranch house. And, of course, who knows what she was used to in Las Vegas?”

  Ella studied her but said nothing. Hannah figured she’d sensed she wasn’t telling her the truth. Worse, Hannah realized, if she was going to do some investigating on her own—and she still wasn’t sure of whom or how—she was going to have to lie to some of her family and friends, and Linc, too.

  Seth was glad the sheriff had produced a tall, plastic, four-sided barrier they wrapped around poles stuck in the ground to give them a bit of privacy while they dug. It rattled in the wind but that sound was mostly drowned out by the helicopter overhead. The crowd had grown larger, including John Arrowroot, who seemed to be camping out up the hill. Seth had mentioned him to Armstrong, who had said he was definitely making himself a person of interest.

  Seth, his brother Aaron and Ben Kauffman took turns digging in pairs while Bishop Esh and Armstrong watched. The sheriff and several Ohio Highway Patrol officers handled the crowd. Sheriff Freeman had produced three black plastic body bags and summoned the Wooster coroner, whose van was parked down on the road with two men in it. But Armstrong had pulled rank on the sheriff, telling him that “as soon as the Bureau of Criminal ID and Investigation boys get here, they’ll protect and process any findings.”

  Right now, Aaron and Ben Kauffman stood below in the hole. The mounds of soil they’d dug out lay along each side of the grave to keep the head and foot clear. The sounds of chunk-swish-chunk-swish of each spadeful of earth they dug up and threw out of the grave haunted Seth, and each circuit of the TV chopper overhead annoyed him to no end.

  They were about four feet deep in the grave and still digging, slower, more carefully now. Guided by the GPR images Armstrong kept studying on a piece of paper, they tried to stand along the edges of their dig to avoid putting weight directly over where the mystery body would be. The helicopter came close overhead again, no doubt taking video because they had no roof on their makeshift shelter.

  “Can’t you pull some strings and get that helicopter out of the air?” Seth asked Armstrong, raising his voice to be heard.

  “Alread
y did!” he shouted back. “It’s supposed to be radioed to land at the Troyer grain elevator and mill, where there’s a parking lot! It should be soon.”

  It should be soon. The words rotated through Seth’s head. The uncovering of his wife’s coffin, defiled by someone who had dumped another body here, should be soon. And whose body? Why?

  “Got something, ya, not too far down,” Aaron said, and stopped digging. “Should we switch to the trowels?”

  “I’ll do it,” Seth said. “Come on up here.”

  “Seth, you sure?” Armstrong asked. “I’ll take over.”

  Taking one of the four trowels and a hand broom, Seth lowered himself into the hole and boosted Aaron and Ben out. But the moment a space was clear, Armstrong, trowel in hand, came down, too.

  “I could order you out,” he told Seth.

  “I could make things difficult for you,” Seth countered.

  “Then let’s work together. The forensics people from BCI will be here soon. We find something, they’ll insist on doing the other digs.”

  He crouched and, using the side of the trowel, swept soil away, again, again, until he was down another foot. Seth knelt beside him. Gooseflesh covered his arms; his hands shook. It might be best to let others do this, but he still felt he was protecting Lena—and somehow Hannah, too. Had someone shot at her and her friends to protect what was hidden here? And now all that had blown up in the shooter’s face. At least, wouldn’t these finds make the murderer flee? Or would it only make him—or her—more desperate to stick around to be sure he wasn’t linked to serial or mass murders? Surely the extra bodies buried here could not have died naturally.

  “Got it!” Armstrong said, going for his brush.

  “Got what?” Seth demanded.

  Armstrong cleared the soil with the brush, then both hands. A sheet of sleek, thick plastic emerged. The sun was almost straight overhead and illumined what lay beneath.