A Plain Disappearance

by Amanda Flower

  “Oh my, yes. I think that is just what the doctor ordered.” Her brow wrinkled. “Why did you come home so late last night?”

  I took a deep breath and told her about my near-death experience.

  Her eyes widened. “Why didn’t you tell me yesterday?”

  “Because of everything that was happening with Becky. I didn’t want to add to the drama.”

  Tanisha stirred a fourth spoonful of sugar into her coffee. “Are we going to talk to this Billy guy?”

  “No, we’re going grocery shopping.”

  Tanisha added a fifth scoop of sugar. She wasn’t a big fan of coffee. “Groceries?”

  I nodded. “To pay a visit to your good buddy, Jason Catcher.”

  Tee grimaced as she sipped from her mug and made a face. “Will I have to sit on him again?”

  “Not this time,” I promised.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Evergreens and plastic holly decorated the entrance to Appleseed Marketplace. Beside the collection of grocery carts, a pink tinseled Christmas tree stood crookedly in its stand. Tanisha pulled a cart from the line. “Is that a pink Christmas tree?”

  “Yep.”

  “I love this place.” She beamed. “I feel like we have suddenly walked back into the time of black-and-white television and rotary phones. I bet I could find some fun gifts here for my Italian friends. They will think it’s a hoot.”

  The market smelled like over-ripe vegetables and dirt. I grabbed a second shopping cart from the stand. It was part of my cover.

  The market was a no-frills experience in one large room. There was a deli counter in the back, a display of Amish-made products from pies to relishes next to that, and the rest of the space was dedicated to produce. Two checkout counters stood by the front door. A bored-looking woman in a jingle bell Christmas sweater rang up a customer. Christmas was over, but I guessed she wasn’t ready to say good-bye to her holiday sweaters just yet.

  I wondered if Jason would be at the market today. I didn’t know his schedule, so we could have been wasting our time. My concerns flew away when I spied a tall, gawky kid with sandy-colored hair stacking oranges in the produce section.

  “There he is,” I whispered to Tanisha.

  Tanisha held a jar of pickles in her hand. She glanced at Jason, then placed the jar in her shopping cart.

  “What are they for? You aren’t going to take them all the way back to Italy, are you?”

  “Why not?”

  The image of broken glass and pickles all over Tee’s clothes in her checked luggage came to mind. “What if the jar breaks?”

  “It won’t break,” she said confidently.

  I shrugged. “If you say so.”

  She leaned close to me. “Do you think Katie dated this guy? I thought the Amish and English weren’t allowed to do that.”

  “They’re not. This could be a good motive for murder.” I ducked behind a display of cookies. “He’s not going to be happy to see us.”

  She pushed the shopping cart forward. “Then this should be fun.” She rolled the cart and came to a stop beside Jason. “Jason, long time no see.”

  Jason froze, an orange in his hand suspended in the air over his pyramid. “You!”

  Tanisha cocked her head. “Is that any way to greet an old friend?”

  “What are you doing here?” he hissed.

  “A little shopping. I live in Italy, so I’m looking for some unique gifts for my roommates. Do you have any suggestions?”

  “Oranges?” he stuttered. “We’re having a big sale. We have four varieties. All from Florida. This is the best time of the year for citrus.”

  “I don’t think I can pass those through customs.”

  His face flushed. “Oh.”

  I gripped the handlebar of my grocery cart. “Jason, you have to know that we aren’t here about oranges. We need to talk to you about yesterday—and about how Katie died.”

  Jason dropped the orange on top of the pyramid, and the stack cascaded to the floor in a citrus wave. Shoppers hopped out of the way as rolling oranges bounced off their carts’ wheels. An elderly woman hit an orange so hard with her cane that it sent orange juice and pulp flying in all directions.

  The bored cashier shook her head. “Catcher, if any those are ruined, they are coming out of your paycheck.”

  His shoulders drooped. “My boss is going to kill me. I’m already on notice.”

  I picked up an orange that came to rest by my foot. “Is the lady at the register your boss?”

  “No, but Marlene thinks she is. She’s like a hundred years old and has worked here since before my dad was born.” He made a face. “I need to start cleaning up.”

  Tanisha picked up two of the rogue pieces of fruit. “We can help.” She cocked her head. “Why are you already on notice?”

  He held up his left hand and showed a huge bandage on his thumb. “They let me try working in the deli. It didn’t go well.”

  I grimaced and made a mental note not to buy meat at the market. Ever.

  “Catcher, stop talking and clean up that mess.” Marlene’s hoarse voice cracked. She turned to her customers. “I don’t know what they teach these kids in school today. They can’t do the simplest tasks.”

  Jason gathered oranges from the concrete floor and carefully placed them inside the bushel basket at his feet with a dramatic sigh. The pyramid would have to be started again from the beginning.

  I grabbed a shopping basket from the end of the lettuce counter and start collecting some in there.

  “You don’t have to help me,” he said as he dropped five oranges into the basket.

  I added three more oranges into mine. “We want to help.”

  When my basket was full of oranges, I grabbed a second one. Tanisha finished filling one as well. Jason got a mop and bucket and cleaned up the orange pulverized by the lady’s cane. When that was done, he began reassembling the pyramid.

  Tanisha set her basket of oranges by mine on the floor. “Maybe I shouldn’t have startled you like that.”

  “Yeah,” Jason agreed. “You tackling me yesterday wasn’t cool either.”

  “Sorry,” Tanisha said but could not hide the humor in her voice. “Now about Katie—”

  “I don’t want to talk about Katie,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “Okay,” I said. “Then tell me how you know Billy Thorpe.”

  “Who’s that?” He placed three more oranges on the pyramid.

  I folded my arms. “Come on, Jason. Uncle Billy of Uncle Billy’s Budget Autos? You know it.”

  He lowered his head and hid his eyes behind his hair. “Sure I know of that shop. Billy is the only mechanic in town.”

  “You know Billy better than that or you wouldn’t have been at the Gundy barn yesterday.”

  “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Tanisha was losing patience. “If you didn’t know him, why did you dig that hole?”

  “I . . .”

  “Come on, Jason,” I said. “I know that Chief Rose already asked you all of these questions. She would not have let you go if she hadn’t felt like she’d gotten good answers from you. How do you know Billy?”

  “Sometimes I work at the shop. Nothing official.”

  “What do you do there?”

  “Just odd jobs when he needs help. I like working on cars.”

  Tanisha cocked an eyebrow. “Does he pay you under the table?”

  Jason ignored the question and concentrated on his oranges with renewed interest.

  I took the orange from his hand. “Did Billy call you about a job?”

  His shoulders sagged. “Yes. On Christmas, he called me. He wanted me to go to the Gundy’s old barn and dig up a box for him. He wanted me to go right then, but I couldn’t. It was Christmas. My mom would freak if I left the house, especially with my grandparents there. It’s my job to keep Grandma and Grandpa out of Mom’s kitchen on holidays.”

  Tanisha pursed her lips. I kn
ew that look. She was trying not to laugh.

  “Did he tell you why he wanted you to dig up the box?” I asked.

  Jason’s forehead crinkled. “He said that he was out of town and couldn’t get there, but he needed the box to be moved because there was important stuff inside.”

  “Did you ask him what that important stuff was?”

  “No.” He turned the color of a blood orange. “But I planned to open the box when I found it. I almost had it out, and then you two showed up.”

  “Sorry to ruin your party,” Tanisha said.

  I wasn’t sure what to believe about Jason’s story. Did he trust Billy enough to follow his directions without questioning him? Tanisha must have been thinking along the same lines because she asked, “How much was Billy going to pay you for this little errand?”

  The pyramid of oranges was halfway back to its original height. “He didn’t pay me anything.”

  Tanisha placed her hand on one hip and looked like a model with an attitude. “We know he didn’t pay you anything because you didn’t finish the job, but how much did he offer to pay you? You didn’t trudge across the snowy tundra and dig a hole into the frozen ground for free.”

  Jason’s lips quivered. “He promised me five hundred dollars.”

  Tanisha whistled. “I’d dig a hole for five hundred dollars. Where do I sign up?”

  I elbowed her. “How were you going to deliver it to him?”

  Jason sighed. “I was supposed to meet him at the wildlife reserve off of Route 13.”

  That wasn’t too far from the factory where Billy had been hiding out. “Did you know where he was staying?”

  Jason shook his head. When I talked to Billy later that day, I would see if Jason’s story held up. Hopefully, their stories would match. I moved on. “How did you know Katie?”

  He set four oranges in a line. “We were friends.”

  I folded my arms. “That’s pretty unusual for an Amish girl to be friends with an English boy, isn’t it?”

  He shrugged a second time. “I guess.”

  “How did you meet?”

  He scowled. “None of your business.”

  Tanisha gave him one of her most dazzling smiles. “Come on, Jason, we were doing so well. What difference does it make if you answer our questions about Katie now?”

  He seemed to consider her question.

  Tanisha repeated my question. “How did you and Katie meet?”

  He straightened an orange on the pyramid. “She used to work at the cheese shop on the square and I saw her walk home every day from work. My family lives a couple of miles down the road from the Lambright farm, so one day it was raining really hard and I offered her a ride.”

  “She accepted a ride from a stranger?”

  Jason glared at Tee. “I wasn’t a stranger; I was her neighbor. We’d seen each other lots of times growing up.”

  “Were your families friendly then?” I asked.

  Jason flicked his dark eyes in my direction. “No. Her parents didn’t have much use for Englischers,” he said, mocking the Pennsylvania Dutch word for non-Amish.

  “When did you offer her that first ride?” Tanisha asked.

  His pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his thumb. “About two years ago. We chatted on the way home. She was really funny and friendly. Not like other Amish girls I’ve met or even most regular American girls. She was the first girl to take an interest in me.”

  Tanisha pounced on that comment. “An interest in you? Like as a boyfriend?”

  He fingered combed his hair over his glasses. “No. Katie would never have thought of me in that way. I wasn’t Amish.” His voice was laced with bitterness. He added two more oranges to his structure. “We were friends. That was it. After that first one, I gave her rides home a lot. We could talk about things, like what we both really wanted. Katie and I understood each other.”

  “How did her family feel about you giving her rides if they didn’t like non-Amish people?” Tanisha asked.

  He picked up the shopping basket I filled with oranges and began setting them one by one back into place. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “They didn’t know. Katie always had me drop her off out of sight of the farm even when the weather was really bad. Her dad is a tyrant and her stepmother is a terror. They would have never allowed Katie to ride in my car.” He frowned. “They’d rather she’d freeze to death on the side of the road.”

  Tanisha moved her basket of oranges closer to Jason. “Do you think her parents would become angry enough to hurt her?”

  “I—I don’t know.”

  I shifted my feet. “How well do you know Caleb King?”

  His eyes flashed as he straightened up. “He’s a jerk. I told Katie to break up with him. I knew if she married him, she’d be sorry. He’s just like her father.”

  “What do you mean?” Tanisha asked.

  Jason ignored her question. “Nathan was better for her.”

  “You know Nathan?” I asked.

  “No. I know what she told me.”

  “What did she tell you about Caleb?”

  He turned to me with eyes shining with tears. “What does it matter now? She’s dead.”

  “Jason, that’s exactly why it matters.”

  The woman at the cash register snapped her gum and glared at us. “Catcher, you think you’re on break or something? Stop flirting and get back to work.”

  Jason’s face turned red. “I can’t talk to you anymore about this.”

  I leaned forward so the clerk couldn’t hear me. “Can we talk another time?”

  “No.”

  “What about Anna?”

  He stared at me. “Katie’s little sister?”

  “Don’t you want to help her? She wants to know what happened to Katie. She asked me for help. What was Katie’s relationship with Anna?”

  His mouth turned downward. “She loved Anna. Her sister was her whole world and the only reason she stayed in that awful house.” He shuddered. “The last thing Katie would have wanted would be to leave Anna alone with no one to protect her.”

  “Protect her from whom?” Tanisha asked.

  The cashier’s glare dug into the back of my neck.

  Jason’s eyes flicked toward the cashier. “I’m done with my shift at three. If you want to meet me in the parking lot then, I’ll talk to you.”

  “Thank you, Jason.” I pulled on Tanisha’s arm. It was time to go before Jason changed his mind.

  Tanisha pulled a plastic bag from the turnstile and placed five oranges inside. “I’m ready to go.” She walked to the cashier to check out.

  The cashier snapped her gum. “What are two pretty girls like you doing talking to that screw-up? He’s never had a girl look at him in his life.” She said this loud enough for everyone in the small market, including Jason, to hear.

  Tanisha gave her one of her more brilliant smiles. “I think he’s cute.” She slapped a five on the counter. “That should cover the ruined oranges.”

  Hiding a smile, I followed my best friend out into the parking lot.

  Tee snorted as she zipped up her coat just outside of the automatic doors. “That woman was awful. I don’t know how Jason can work with her all day long.”

  “He probably doesn’t have much of a choice. There aren’t many non-Amish jobs in Appleseed Creek.”

  “That stinks that he can’t talk until three. I promised my mom that I would be on my way home by then. I’m kind of getting into this sleuthing thing.”

  “We can make one more stop for you to exercise your detective skills on.”

  She rubbed her hands together. “Are we going to question the boyfriend? He’s usually the main suspect.”

  I shook my head. “We’re going to buy some cheese.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Tanisha inhaled the earthy scent of the cheese shop. “I must buy some for my mom. She loves Amish cheese. It might make up for me coming down here and not spending every waking minute with the fam.�
�� She picked up a basket and fell into line with the other English shoppers taste-testing the cheeses from the room-long, open-air coolers. “Horseradish.” She popped it into her mouth. “Wow, that has a kick.” She scooted closer to me. “Who are we looking for?”

  “The girl stocking the mustard display.”

  Tee whipped her head around and examined Debbie Stutzman, a tall and thin Amish girl with a slightly slumped posture, the kind often found in girls who wished they were shorter.

  I poked her. “Can you be a little more subtle?”

  “No need to be subtle. She already knows you’re here. She’s glaring at you. What did you do for her to dislike you so much?”

  I sighed. “Got her arrested.”

  “What?” Tee yelped.

  “Shh, it’s a long story, and I’m not going to tell it to you here,” I hissed.

  “Fair enough.” Tee started in Debbie’s direction. “I think Mom would like some Amish mustard too.”

  I suppressed a groan and followed her.

  Debbie crossed her bony arms. “What do you want?”

  I wasn’t surprised by the cold reception, considering that the last time I saw Debbie she was being handcuffed and read her rights by Chief Rose.

  When I didn’t answer right away, she said, “I know you’re not here to buy cheese.”

  Tanisha shook her head. “We are. I’m making a gift basket for my mother. A belated Christmas gift. I have horseradish in here. What mustard do you recommend to go with that?”

  Debbie appraised Tee with her small eyes. “I wouldn’t put any mustard with it. It has enough bite on its own.”

  “You’re right about that,” Tanisha agreed.

  “I see you have Amish Swiss in your basket. Our natural mustard will go well with that.” Debbie, now more relaxed, removed a four-ounce jar from the shelf.

  “That’s not much,” Tee said.

  “It will last you a long time. It’s not like mustard from the supermarket where you have to slather it on to taste it.” She opened the taster jar, dipped a tiny white plastic spoon into it, and then handed the spoon to Tanisha. “Try it.”

  Tee placed the spoon in her mouth and her eyes watered. “Wow! Now that’s a kick.” Tee put two jars into her basket.

  “Debbie, Tanisha is here to shop, but I want to talk to you about Katie Lambright.”