A Perfect Square

by Vannetta Chapman

  “And he has witnesses to attest to that, I’m sure.” Callie reached out and rubbed behind Max’s ears when he padded next to her.

  “Ya, lots of them. Apparently the girl arrived sometime after last Wednesday. Tuesday was the last day Tobias had been to the farm. He hadn’t mentioned to me he was working extra hours. He didn’t want me to worry. The money was to help with our setting up house.”

  “All right. This is good. Maybe we can solve this thing.” Deborah sat forward, an optimistic look on her face.

  “Solve this thing? Now you sound like old Mr. Bontrager. We’re not sleuths. We’re quilters. Well, you all are quilters; apparently I make cheese.” Callie put an arm around Martha as the last words popped out of her mouth. “It’s not our job to solve this crime.”

  “But it is our job to stand by freinden,” Deborah pointed out. “For some reason Reuben won’t defend himself.”

  “And to Shane and the judge, that looks like guilt.” Melinda picked up her quilting and began sewing again. “But our men have times where they grow quiet. When that happens, it’s no use trying to pull a word out of them.”

  “Reuben’s not one to offer much up in the way of conversation anyway.” Esther motioned to Leah to begin collecting her things.

  “But to stay quiet when it means serving time in jail for murder?” Callie shook her head, dark hair bobbing side to side. “I can’t imagine what would cause anyone to do that.”

  “Of course you can. We all can.” Deborah reached for her purse and pulled out a small pad of paper and a pen. “There are reasons you’d do such a thing. It’s only that the list is short. We’d all keep our mouths closed and suffer years for our children.”

  “But Reuben has no children.” Esther was clearly considering Deborah’s words.

  “Let’s start there. We don’t need to find the girl’s killer, Callie. You were right. We were lucky with Stakehorn’s murder—”

  “And technically we caught the wrong person,” Callie cut Deborah off.

  “True enough, though it still resulted in the correct arrest.”

  Callie rolled her eyes, feeling like a twelve-year-old, but also feeling better with the immature gesture.

  Deborah pushed on. “All we need to do is find Reuben’s reason for remaining silent.”

  As Deborah wrote her list, which was disappointingly brief, Callie wracked her brain trying to think of possibilities to add to it. But even as she focused on helping Deborah, on helping Reuben, her mind began wandering back to Tuesday morning, back to Mr. Bontrager and the daughter he claimed to have lost.

  Chapter 13

  FRIDAY EVENING, Samuel crept deep into the woods, far from Reuben’s house. He’d wanted to stay, wanted to see if Reuben came back, but the police had made him nervous, so Samuel had left and wandered around the woods for days, confused and disoriented. Lost without his Katie. But he’d been careful to stay beneath the trees.

  Now he dumped everything out of his pack and took stock.

  He was cold and he was hungry and he didn’t think he’d survive another night in the woods. Already he’d developed a hacking cough. The hunger pains that had increased as his supplies diminished had been replaced by a constant nausea. He’d taken to drinking water from the stream when the bottles he’d brought had run dry.

  It was time to make a decision, starting with what he knew.

  Katie was dead.

  Reuben wasn’t coming back any time soon.

  The police had searched the entire property and started toward the fields, but before they’d gone as far as the woods, someone had shouted from the pond. Apparently they’d found whatever clue they had sought. Then there was a lot of activity and excitement for a time. When they’d begun searching the house, the house he’d shared with Katie, someone actually yelled out for the officer from the front door, though he couldn’t make out the rest of the man’s words.

  The amount of equipment they’d used was staggering. What could they possibly have been looking for?

  Whatever it was, they’d apparently found it.

  He’d watched as they’d cuffed Reuben, then escorted him to the police cruiser.

  Terrified they’d find him in the woods, Samuel had pulled his things together — including Katie’s quilt, and he’d run.

  He flipped on his flashlight and pawed through the contents of his pack: a county map, his pocketknife, the trash from what he’d been eating — which was mostly junk food he and Katie had bought together in town — both of his changes of clothes, and the envelope from the LaGrange justice of the peace …

  Samuel’s fingers lingered on the envelope, brushed across their names, but he pushed the memory away.

  The map, he studied.

  He’d need to stick to the smaller roads. Maybe he could pick up a ride once he’d traveled another ten miles. He’d have to find something to eat soon, and he needed to burn the bloodstained quilt.

  As long as he continued to follow the creek south, he should be okay. Four miles, maybe five, then he could move out of the woods.

  Making his way down to the water, he removed his shirt, then his undershirt. He dipped a corner of the cloth into the water and began scrubbing himself, cringing when the fabric met his skin. It would do no good to frighten people with his smell.

  Once he was as presentable as he could make himself, Samuel changed into the cleaner set of clothes and bundled the dirty set, placing it into the bottom of the pack — on top of the trash.

  The second set of clothes went above that, and the knife he slipped into his right pocket.

  What to do with the envelope and papers?

  He should burn them with the quilt. He knew he should.

  Samuel started a small fire with kindling he collected from the forest, letting it build to a good blaze before pulling the knife out of his pocket and cutting the quilt into strips, which he fed to the flames. While the quilt burned, Samuel held the envelope and papers in his hand, trying to convince himself to throw them in the fire.

  But instead he slipped them back into the bag and slung the bag over his shoulders. Then he reached down and picked up Katie’s duffle. What was he to do with that? The heaviness of his burdens suddenly seemed too much. He didn’t know how he could carry them.

  One thing was certain.

  He couldn’t wait here in the woods forever.

  Kicking dirt onto the last of the fire, Samuel clutched the duffle, cinched his bag over his shoulder, and began to walk.

  With each step, it seemed he could feel the weight of the words printed on the top sheet. But for those words, would Katie still be alive?

  Samuel tried to focus on the ground, on making as little noise as possible, and on staying near the creek as he made his way south, but his mind insisted on going back …

  “Nervous?” he asked, helping her out of the buggy.

  “A little.” She smoothed her apron over her blue dress, then reached for his hand as they walked up the steps of the LaGrange County Courthouse.

  Instead of opening the door for her, he pulled her toward a bench that had been placed to the side, under the branches of a silver maple tree. Most of the leaves were gone, but the day was warm for late October. Katie looked up when a yellow warbler lighted near them, sang once, then flew away. When she glanced back at him, he thought his heart might burst right out of his chest.

  He loved her more than he’d ever thought possible.

  More than he had last night when they’d stopped to rest at her aenti’s house. It had seemed the wise thing to do, and they hadn’t exactly lied when they told her that their business required they press on earlier than they had originally planned. It was but a stretching of the truth and would keep Katie’s family from worrying. By the time her mamm and dat realized Katie hadn’t actually stayed there, that Samuel wasn’t coming back when he was scheduled to, they would be married, and it would be too late for anyone to change their plans.

  He’d wondered if he might have second thou
ghts as the moment grew closer, but the strength of his feelings for her surprised him. Was this what it was like to care for someone more than yourself? He found that he was more certain than ever that their plan was the right one.

  In Shipshe he’d be able to find good work and provide for her like a husband should.

  Still, he needed to allow Katie one more chance to change her mind.

  “What is it, Samuel? Are you having second thoughts?” She smiled up at him then, her brown eyes looking fully into his, and he had to reach out and touch her face. He marveled that the brush of his hand could make her blush, but she did.

  “I’m thinking a lot of things, Katie, but I’m not questioning the wisdom of what we’re doing. I want to give you a chance to stop here, though. I’ll take you back to your parents if that’s what you want, no harm done. “

  Her eyes widened, but he pushed on.

  “And though you know how I feel about continuing to work for your dat, I would do it. I’d do it because I care for you, and I wouldn’t want to rush you into anything or deprive you of an Amish wedding with your family. That’s one thing that weighs heavy on me now that we’re about to — “

  Katie put her fingers to his lips and pressed lightly.

  “Stop.”

  “But — “

  “No. Stop. I appreciate your concern, Samuel. And at first maybe I did agree because I saw how much it meant to you. But after we talked I began to watch how things were around my dat. You’re right. He clings to the old ways even more than the Ordnung requires. Perhaps because he is afraid, or because he doesn’t know how to move even with the changes that our bishop allows. I don’t know. But I see the burden it has brought upon my mamm.”

  She looked up at the warbler, which had returned to a neighboring tree. “Not that I love him any less. I couldn’t, but I also think we have to do what is right for us. It’s gut and right for us to begin with our own life, together. “

  “And the Amish wedding?”

  “I brought the one quilt that meant the most. It’s in the buggy. You spoke with the Mennonite bishop?”

  “Ya. He’s probably waiting inside. “

  “Let’s go see him then. Let’s go be married, Samuel.”

  Chapter 14

  SATURDAY MORNING Esther sat beside her mother, Sara, yards of cloth for her wedding dress, and for a dress for Leah, stretched between them.

  “This dress will be nice for Sundays,” Sara said, straightening the dark blue material before she pulled it through the treadle sewing machine. “I’ve always liked the way this color looks on you. Do you remember the dress you had for Christmas when you were fifteen?”

  “Ya. We let it out three times before I would admit I’d outgrown it. I always loved that dress.” Esther paused in her hemming of Leah’s dress, fingered the soft cotton a moment before she looked up at her mamm. “Seems a long time ago. Hard to believe I’m more than double that age now. Thirty-one sounds old.”

  Sara cocked her head, paused in turning the wheel of the old-fashioned Singer machine. When she began again, she had to raise her voice a little to be heard over the whirr as the stitches were laid down in a perfect row, pulling the seam together neatly. “Suppose it does sound old to you, but trust me when I say it’s not.”

  Esther shook her head and began stitching again, whipping the hem by hand.

  Sara stopped sewing, went to the kaffi pot sitting on her stove, and refilled her cup. When she came back to the table, she sat with her back to the machine, facing her daughter instead. For Esther, looking at her mother was like looking in a mirror. Sara had the same dark hair — now tinged with gray — blue eyes, and thin frame. They differed only in height, which Esther had received from her father.

  “Don’t believe me?” Sara asked.

  “I suppose it seems that way to you. After all I’ve been through the last few years though, I feel old.”

  “Ya. At your age, when the kinner are small yet, it can appear that way. I think in another year or so, you’ll feel younger.”

  Esther glanced up, giving her a disbelieving look, but didn’t bother to argue, didn’t pause in her sewing.

  “Do you remember when your dat first planted the orchard of dwarf apple trees in the southern pasture?”

  “How could I forget? Every year we would wait for the harvest because we were allowed to eat the seconds. Every year I made myself sick eating too many.” Esther smiled at the memory. The Red Delicious apples had given her plenty of stomachaches at the time, but she had never been able to resist eating just one more.

  Age and maturity had finally taught her to stop at two.

  “What you might not remember is that after we’d been harvesting for five years, we had a late spring snow, very late.” Sara stared out her kitchen window. Though the orchard was not visible from the window, Esther knew she was seeing it. “The flowers had barely bloomed on the branches when the snow began to fall. Your father was certain it would ruin the year’s fruit, and possibly damage every tree in the orchard. We were new to apple growing then and have since learned just how sturdy apple trees are, but at the time he worried. He wanted to take all of my bedsheets and cover them. Instead I convinced him to go down to the phone shack and call the man he’d bought the trees from who owned an orchard in Ohio.”

  She sipped the kaffi and smiled.

  “I don’t remember any of this,” Esther admitted.

  “You wouldn’t. You were very young at the time, worried more about your lessons and what would happen at recess the next day.”

  “How many of the trees did he lose?”

  “None. Just the blossoms.” Sara shook her head, as she carried her cup to the sink. “It’s not what he lost that I was thinking of though. The man from Ohio told him that the storm would make the trees stronger. He told your dat not to worry, not to fret over what he had no chance of controlling. The trees were young then. Now they’re mature, and your father — both of us, truthfully — worry less about storms. We know the trees can handle whatever nature brings.”

  Esther stared at her for a few seconds, before finding her voice. “Would you be comparing me to an apple tree?”

  Sara kissed her on the top of the head, making Esther feel for all the world like a small kind again. “No, dochder. I’m comparing you to your father.”

  As Esther finished Leah’s dress and new apron, then helped her daughter try it on, the daughter whom she loved more dearly than the breath she pulled into her own lungs, she kept thinking of her mother’s story. She kept thinking of the trees in the orchard. Esther had grown up there, and maybe they were the reason she loved to garden so.

  After Seth’s death, when little else could sooth her soul, when reading the Bible seemed to bring more questions than answers, Esther had been able to walk through her garden and find the closeness to her Lord that she needed.

  When she’d knelt in the dirt she’d been able to pray.

  When she’d trimmed away the flowers’ dead buds, she’d finally been able to cry.

  And when she’d seen the new blossoms of spring, she’d felt a tiny sprig of hope, and yes — she’d finally been able to thank God again for all he’d left her.

  The land.

  Her family.

  Leah.

  Still, Esther did feel old, and it was hard to believe she would feel younger as the years passed. She would admit she was like her father in many ways — that part of her mother’s story she understood. And she even understood that hard times created strength in each person.

  But younger as the years passed?

  No, that was beyond her ability to imagine.

  Just then, Tobias arrived to take Esther into town.

  “You have your invitations?” Sara asked.

  “Yes. They’re all here in my bag.”

  “Why can’t I go, Mamm?” Leah knelt in the dirt outside, drawing something with her finger and looking forlorn.

  Before Esther could think of an answer, her father, O
be, was there, kneeling beside Leah. Esther had always considered him as something of a mountain of a man — nearing six-four or six-five and muscular in the way of men who worked the land. As he’d grown older, he’d retained the fitness he’d needed, but something had softened about him. She could see it as she watched him with Leah.

  “Thought you were going to help me catch some fish for dinner?” Obe asked.

  Leah didn’t look up immediately, but she did dust her hands on her apron. “I’m not a gut fisher.”

  “You will be today. Your onkel Saul told me they were fairly jumping out of the creek.”

  “Fish don’t jump, Daadi.” Leah began to giggle.

  “Well, now. We’ll have to walk down to the creek and see. Perhaps we should take the little butterfly net you received for Christmas just in case any happen to jump onto the bank. We could catch them in the air.” Obe reached out with his hand and pantomimed the act of catching and wrestling a small fish, finally subduing and putting it into his pocket.

  Leah turned and threw her arms around her grandpa’s neck. “I left my butterfly net in the family room. Come with me to get it.”

  “Ya, and maybe while we’re in the house your mammi will give us a snack to eat at the creek.”

  Esther mouthed a thank-you as she climbed into the buggy. When her father winked at her and waved good-bye, she saw it — she saw the younger man her mother had spoken of. When she’d been growing up, he’d been weighed down with burdens. Where were those now? Had they disappeared? Or had he learned to lay them down?

  “You’re awfully quiet today.” Tobias directed the mare onto the road.

  “Thinking of something my mamm said earlier.”

  “Anything you want to share?”

  Esther sighed. “I’m not sure I understand it completely, but it was about apple trees and how we grow younger as we get older.”