She licked her lips. “Nee,” she said barely above a whisper, and her hand twitched.
“It seemed to me if you were in your daughter’s bedroom at the back of the house,” Deputy Aiden said, “you would have the best view of what was going on down below.”
She stared at her hands.
Deputy Aiden leaned forward and propped his elbows on his knees. “What did you see out that window, then?”
“Nothing. I was cleaning my daughter’s room. I wasn’t watching what was happening outside. The last place I wanted to look was the greenhouse after what I found there.”
My heart fell just a little. I knew that my niece was lying now. I had seen her at the bedroom window with my own eyes. Why would she lie about this unless she had seen something and wanted to protect someone? Did she want to protect the Amish man who had run away from me? I had so many questions, and I couldn’t ask any of them with Deputy Aiden and Deputy Little in the room. These were questions that I would have to ask my niece when we were alone. I had to get to the bottom of what was going on.
Deputy Aiden sat up straight again as if he’d come to a decision about something. Whatever that decision was . . . he wasn’t letting on. “We will need you to come to the station tomorrow,” Deputy Aiden said.
“What?” Edith asked. “Why? I have told you all that I know.”
He nodded. “But we need to collect your fingerprints. We’ll also need the fingerprints of everyone who works in the greenhouse, so we can compare them to the ones found in the cactus room. Also, there is a statement that I will need you to sign.” He glanced at me. “You will need to sign a statement too, Millie.”
“How can you hope to find the fingerprints you need? You don’t understand the number of people, workers and visitors alike, who visit Edy’s Greenhouse during the season.” I sat up a little straighter. “Dozens of people, both Amish and Englisch, go in and out of the greenhouse every day, especially now at the height of planting season. I don’t know how you will ever find fingerprints that will help you discover who did this.”
“Usually, yes, fingerprinting would be a waste of time in a public place like this, but we do have what we believe was the murder weapon. We will be testing that for prints, and we need Edith’s prints and her staff’s prints for that.”
My niece bristled, and I knew she was remembering that she’d picked up the decorative rock.
I sat there wondering if I should tell Deputy Aiden this. They would surely find her fingerprints on the rock. Would it be better to tell him now, so that he wouldn’t think we were trying to hide that fact from him? Before I could make up my mind, Edith said, “If you mean that rock that was on the floor of the cactus room, I touched it.”
Deputy Aiden’s eyebrows disappeared into his hairline.
“I wasn’t thinking and saw it on the floor. I picked it up. I didn’t know what it had been used for.”
“I thought you froze when you saw the body,” he said as if he’d caught her in a lie.
“I did.” She lifted her chin. “This was after my aenti was there with me in the cactus room.”
“I saw her pick it up,” I said, supporting her story. “I told her to put it back on the floor, which she did. However, you will find her fingerprints on the rock. I don’t know how fingerprinting her will help when you already know they are there.”
“I still need them,” Deputy Aiden said.
“I didn’t do anything wrong.” Edith squeezed my hand so tightly, I thought my bones would break. I didn’t pull away though. She needed my comfort right then even if her need left a sizable bruise on my hand.
“But you might have killed him and waited to pick up the rock again when a witness was present,” Deputy Little said. “That way you’d be able to explain away why your prints were on the murder weapon. We have seen it happen before. It’s a clever trick to confuse the investigation.”
Deputy Aiden shot his deputy a harsh look, and Deputy Little stared down at his notepad again. I bet he was sorry for speaking up. I glanced at my niece. Now that I knew she wasn’t being completely truthful with the police, a tiny part of me wondered if maybe the younger deputy was right.
Edith let go of my hand. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m sorry Zeke is dead. I may have decided not to marry him, but I did care for him. I wish—I wish that his life could have been different. He made things harder for himself than they had to be.”
Deputy Aiden’s eyes narrowed. “You weren’t going to marry him?”
And I felt my heart sink.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Edith looked at me. “I thought my aenti would have told you that I broke off my engagement to Zeke.”
Deputy Aiden glanced at me again before looking back at Edith. “She did not. When did you do this?”
Edit shot a panicked look at me, but I nodded to her to keep talking. She couldn’t take it back now. “Saturday afternoon.”
“Yesterday afternoon? The day before you found him dead in your greenhouse?”
“Ya.” She clasped her hands together in her lap.
Deputy Aiden looked as if he were going to ask her more about that when the front door of Edith’s house banged open and Ruth Yoder filled the doorway with her hands on her hips. “What’s going on in here?”
I jumped to my feet. “Ruth, shouldn’t you be at church?”
She narrowed her green eyes. “I was at church, church in my very own home when the bishop and I received word that Zeke Miller was dead at Edy’s Greenhouse. What’s going on, Millie Fisher? You had better tell me quick.”
Deputy Aiden stood up. “Ruth, please calm down. There has been an incident. Millie and Edith did the right thing and called the police.”
“Called the police? Called the police before you told the bishop what is happening in his own district? With his own people? Millie, I thought you knew better than to do anything without telling the bishop first. What kind of district did you live in in Michigan that they were so lax about this sort of thing? The bishop and the church elders should be the first to know if something bad is happening in the district. I would think that a church member’s death certainly qualifies.” She placed her hands on her hips as if for emphasis.
“Ruth, don’t get your bonnet strings in a knot.” I put my own hands on my hips, matching her stance pose for pose.
Ruth opened and closed her mouth as if shocked that anyone would snap at her as I had. But she didn’t leave me much choice. I knew Ruth, and if I didn’t jump in, she would just keep going.
“Edith called your shed phone. I told her to do that at the same time she called the police. It’s not our fault if no one answered the phone. Furthermore, we had to call the police. We couldn’t leave poor Zeke Miller lying on the floor of the greenhouse forever. I know that your husband would have told us to do the same thing. This is beyond what the district can handle alone.”
“We didn’t get any call to the shed phone. I would have known about it by now.”
I glanced back at Edith, and her gaze didn’t meet my eyes. Ruth was telling the truth. Edith had never called the Yoders’ shed phone.
“Why didn’t someone come to our farm and tell us in person?” Ruth asked. “This is important news for the district.”
I turned back to Ruth with an ache in my chest. Something was going on with Edith, and I didn’t know what it was. “Only Edith and I were here, and frankly, I wasn’t going to leave my niece and her children alone under the circumstances.” I sat back down next to Edith and put my arm around her shoulders. “If you didn’t hear about it by phone, how did you hear about Zeke’s death?”
“Everyone at church knows about it,” Ruth said, more than a little frustrated that she hadn’t been the first to hear. “It is the talk of the district. The bishop had to stop the services because of the whispers running through the congregation like wildfire.”
“Oh dear.” Edith covered her mouth. “Was his mother, Carolina, there?”
“Ya, she
was, and she is beside herself.” Her face fell and for the briefest moment Ruth allowed us to see the compassionate woman beneath the tough exterior. “She wanted to come herself to see if the rumors were true, but I insisted she stay back under the care of the other church members. I don’t look forward to telling her the rumors are true.”
Edith shook her head. “The poor woman. I know she was already upset . . .”
Ruth folded her arms and looked as large and as fierce as ever. “She was already upset because she knew you had no intention of marrying her son. She felt that she lost you, as her future daughter and your children as her future grandchildren, and her son on the same day. The woman is a complete wreck. I hope you are pleased with yourself.”
“Ruth!” I shouted. She’d gone too far. Oh, the woman had a good heart and her penchant for drama was usually more amusing than antagonistic. But she’d gone too far. “That is not fair,” I said. “We’re sorry for Carolina’s loss—of course, we are—but don’t bring my niece’s decision on her future into this. Who started the rumor about Zeke’s death?” I asked.
Ruth scowled at me. “We don’t know. That’s why I came here. You know it’s hard for the bishop to get around, and he had to tend to his flock. It made the most sense for me to come and see what was going on, especially since you and I are friends.”
I guessed that Ruth had told her husband it made the most sense for her to go, and rather than argue with her in front of the entire district, he’d agreed.
I stood up and smoothed my apron over my skirts. It worried me that a faceless and nameless person knew about the murder and had already informed the entire district about it even before the police had left the greenhouse. How would anyone have learned about it?
Tucker Leham knew that I was leaving the services before they even started that morning, but he hadn’t known where I was going. Ruth saw me leave as well. Could it have been the man I saw running away from the greenhouse? I had thought he was Amish. He was at least dressed as if he was Amish. But if he was guilty, why would he run right to the church meeting and start the gossip mill? If he was the one who’d killed Zeke, wouldn’t he have wanted the murder to go unsuspected for as long as possible, so that he could get away?
I felt Deputy Aiden watching me. His face was blank, but I knew there were many questions in his mind. I didn’t want to answer any of them.
“Deputy Brody.” A crime scene tech poked his head into the room over Ruth’s left shoulder.
Ruth jumped. “What are you doing, young man? You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that. It is extremely rude. Didn’t your mother raise you better?”
The tech took a step back, and I think I would have too if I didn’t know Ruth. She could be scary when she wanted to be.
“I’m so sorry, ma’am. I only—”
“You only nothing. You can’t come barging into someone’s house uninvited. It is very ill-mannered.”
I noted that everyone in the room was far too polite to point out that Ruth had done just that only a few minutes ago.
The tech looked as if he might cry.
“Watterson, what is it?” Deputy Aiden asked.
Watterson inched into the room, staying as far away from Ruth as possible. “We’re done with the scene and thought you would like to do one final walk-through before we rope it off.”
“Rope it off? Do you mean we won’t be allowed in the greenhouse?” Edith asked, jumping to her feet. “How will I take care of the plants?”
“You’ll still have access to most of the greenhouse,” the tech said. “We’re only going to close off the cactus room where the body was found.”
Ruth’s hand fluttered to her chest. “He died on a cactus?” She made a face.
I shook my head. “Nee, Ruth, that’s just where he was found.”
“But there are plants in the cactus room as well,” Edith protested. “They need to be cared for. This is my livelihood and I need to do all I can to save—” She stopped herself from saying more.
What did she need to save? I had a feeling Deputy Aiden was about to ask just that. I wasn’t sure I wanted him to hear the answer before I did, so I jumped in and asked, “How long will the room be off limits?”
“At least for a couple of days,” Deputy Aiden said, watching Edith.
I glanced back at my niece. “When was the last time you watered the plants in that room?” I knew the cacti and succulents in the cactus room didn’t need to be watered every day.
“Yesterday,” Edith said. “Tucker did it.” A strange look crossed her face.
Why would Edith feel strangely about Tucker? I wanted more and more to speak with the greenhouse worker.
“Who’s Tucker?” Deputy Aiden asked.
Edith looked at him. “Tucker Leham started working at the greenhouse years ago when my father was alive. He did most of the watering and maintenance around here.”
Ruth straightened her back. “Tucker is a very fine young man, one of the kindest and hardest working in the district. He constantly lends an extra hand to my husband for whatever might be needed in the community.” She narrowed her eyes at Edith. “It would serve us all well if his contributions to the community were more appreciated.”
I looked from Ruth to Edith and back again. What was I missing here between the two of them?
“So they won’t need to be watered for some time?” I asked, hoping Deputy Aiden would put Tucker in the back of his mind. I wanted to speak with Edith’s employee first.
“When was Tucker here yesterday?” Deputy Aiden asked.
I realized I’d been guilty of wishful thinking; of course Deputy Aiden would want to know more about Tucker.
“In the morning,” Edith said. She looked at me. “The cactus won’t need to be watered for another four days.”
“The police should be out of there by then and even if they are not, they will let you in to water.” I looked at Deputy Aiden for agreement.
“We can do that,” he said. “If we still need the scene to be secure, then one of my officers will go in with you to water the plants.” There was a pause. “Where is Tucker? When will he be coming in?”
I pressed my hands together.
“He won’t be coming in today. It’s Sunday,” Edith said.
“Tomorrow?” Deputy Aiden raised his eyebrows and waited.
She looked at her feet. “He won’t be coming in tomorrow either.”
“Why’s that?” Deputy Aiden asked.
She glanced at me.
I nodded to encourage her to go on. She was the one who’d brought up Tucker. There wasn’t anything we could do to stop Deputy Aiden from wanting to know about him now.
“He did a lot of the maintenance around the greenhouse until Zeke started to help me out. We didn’t need two men to do the same work.”
“So what happened?” the deputy asked.
“Zeke told him that he would be doing the work around the greenhouse from now on, and we didn’t need Tucker any longer.”
“What?” Ruth asked. “I didn’t know that. No one had mentioned this to me.”
It must be a great disappointment for Ruth to know she wasn’t the best-informed person in the district. However, the truth was I didn’t know that Tucker had been let go either.
“When was this?” Deputy Aiden asked.
Edith looked at the floor. “Two weeks ago.”
“But you said he was here yesterday morning to water.”
She swallowed. “Sometimes he still comes by and helps us without pay.”
Deputy Aiden cocked his head. “That seems likes a very generous thing to do for a business that just fired you.”
“Tucker is a kind man,” Edith said.
“This is awful,” Ruth interjected. “I can’t believe you have treated Tucker so poorly. He’s too humble to make a fuss about it too. That’s just like Tucker.”
“How did he take being let go?” Deputy Aiden asked, ignoring Ruth’s outburst.
She shrugg
ed. “I don’t know. I wasn’t there when Zeke told him. He’s worked for my family for a very long time. I missed working with him, but Zeke thought it was best to let him go to save money. Zeke said he could do the work that Tucker did. Tucker is so kind—he has a way of noticing what a person or plant might need. He stopped by to visit Saturday morning and noticed the plants needed to be watered. I was busy with other things and he just stepped in and did the job. He expects nothing in return.”
“Who was supposed to water the cactus room yesterday?” Deputy Aiden asked.
She looked down. “Zeke.”
I guessed that Deputy Aiden and I had just added Tucker Leham to our separate lists of murder suspects.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“It’s my fault that Zeke forgot to water the cactus room,” Edith said quickly. “Zeke had been so busy these last few weeks working extra construction jobs because of the fair weather. You have to take work like his when you can get it because you never know when or how the weather will change. I should have handled the watering myself. It was careless of me not to. But I was too distracted with other parts of the business and with the children.”
I pressed my lips together. Even on his busiest work day, a loving and caring man would have found time to water the cactus room. I would like to think that it was just an accident that Zeke hadn’t. However, I knew better. Zeke wanted the money from my niece’s greenhouse, but he did not want any of the work. If that was the case, why had he let Tucker go? Tucker would have continued to do the greenhouse work for minimal pay. There must have been another reason Zeke had wanted him gone. Could he have suspected that Tucker had feelings for Edith too?
Deputy Aiden glanced at me. “Before Zeke died, when was the last time that you were in the greenhouse?” Deputy Aiden asked Edith.
“I—I don’t know. It was just before dark yesterday. I usually walk around the greenhouse before locking it up at night to double-check on the plants.”
“You do that, not Zeke?”
She frowned. “Zeke doesn’t live here. Just the children and I do, so yes, it’s up to me to check the greenhouse and the rest of the property at night. Even my oldest son is not yet old enough to do it.”
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