Ettie Smith Amish Mysteries Box Set 3

by Samantha Price

“When the taxi gets here we’ll ask the driver so we’ll be sure what it is before we see Kelly. If we ask Detective Kelly what it is, he’ll have some sarcastic comment to make about us not knowing.”

  “Good idea. Kelly spoke as if we’d know what one was. We can’t disappoint him.”

  Ettie nodded.

  Chapter 5

  Later that same day, Ettie and Elsa-May were told there would be a long wait to see Detective Kelly. While they sat in the large waiting area, a lady joined them, sitting close by.

  After a moment, the woman spoke to them. “Excuse me, but are you friends of a woman called Paula Peters?”

  “Yes, we are,” Ettie said. “Do you know her?”

  “No, I don’t know her at all, but they’ve brought me in to question me about her.”

  Elsa-May and Ettie looked at each other.

  The woman continued, “They found my locket in her house. I told the police I reported it stolen weeks ago and even put in an insurance claim for it.” A tear rolled down her face.

  Ettie leaned over and introduced herself and her sister.

  “Nice to meet you. My name’s Nora George.” She sniffed and pulled a tissue out of her pocket. “I’ve never had any dealings with the police before.”

  Elsa-May said, “I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding that will be sorted out soon.”

  “No it won’t. They didn’t believe me about the locket.”

  “You said you reported it stolen so there’ll be a record of it.”

  “There would. If they look for it, they’ll find it. I can’t remember the exact date I reported it stolen.”

  “Just tell them what you told us and everything will be fine,” Elsa-May said.

  Nora wiped her nose. “They looked in my car and found my tire iron missing and they said it would be the same kind of tire iron that they found at Paula Peters' house.”

  “I’m sure there would be thousands of them out there and when they find that your prints aren’t on it they’ll know you didn’t do it,” Ettie said.

  “I didn’t even know I had a tire iron. They tell me there’s one in every car. My husband looks after all those things. He’s at work now.” She looked down at her wringing hands as though they belonged to someone else. “I hope I don’t have to tell him about this.”

  “Just tell them what you told us and I’m sure everything will be fine.”

  “This way please, Mrs. George.”

  Ettie and Elsa-May looked up to see two uniformed police officers. Nora stood and they escorted her down the corridor where the interview rooms were.

  “So it was her locket?” Elsa-May said.

  “Jah.”

  “Someone stole it she said.”

  “The poor woman. She looks terrified. I don’t know if she was more scared of the police or her husband finding out she’s being questioned by the police.”

  It was an hour later that Detective Kelly walked the elderly sisters into his office.

  When they sat opposite him, Ettie said, “How’s Paula?”

  “There’s been no change I’m afraid. Now, do you have anything for me?”

  “We’ve lots of information for you,” Ettie said.

  He smiled. “Excellent!”

  “We found out from Elizabeth next door…”

  Elsa-May leaned forward. “You were right, Detective, she talked to us more today.”

  “Please, Elsa-May, I was speaking and you just talked right over the top of me.”

  “Sorry.” Elsa-May frowned at Ettie. “Well, go on—he’s listening.”

  “Now, where was I?”

  The detective said, “You were telling me you’ve got some information.” He raised his eyebrows.

  “Elizabeth, Paula’s neighor, told us that Paula had a frequent visitor who was always wearing a suit.”

  “You gave me that yesterday. Do you have anything new? Please say you have something else to tell me? Before you answer that, would your friend be able to identify this man in a lineup?”

  “No,” Ettie answered.

  Elsa-May added, “She can’t see too well over long distances.”

  He pushed himself back in his chair. “That’s no help at all. She’d be ripped apart in a trial.”

  “What trial? I don’t think Elizabeth would ever go into a courtroom.”

  “Forget I said anything. I was more or less giving voice to my scattered thoughts.” He made a circling motion with his hand near his head.

  Ettie continued, “We know something else.”

  “Go on.”

  “We were driving to Elizabeth’s place in a taxi and the driver told us that he drove a woman there recently, and she asked to be dropped at the end of the street.”

  “Did you get the driver’s phone number?”

  Ettie pulled the cake receipt, with the driver’s name and ID written on it, from her sleeve and placed it on the desk.

  “Hello,” the detective said as he reached for it. “Good work, you two. What else do you have up your sleeve, a cup of coffee? I could do with one right now.”

  “No!”

  “Anything else?” he asked.

  Elsa-May said, “We met a woman in the waiting area; her name’s Nora George.”

  “She’s the owner of the locket,” Ettie said.

  Kelly grimaced. “I know that, but how did you find that out?”

  “She told us.”

  “She’s a talker then, that’s good. She might tell us what we need to know.”

  Ettie said, “You don’t think she harmed Paula, do you?”

  “My team identified the photo in the locket by scanning the image through some new fangled facial-imaging software, and two possible matches came up. One man was dead, and we tracked the other through his furniture store website where he has an image of himself on the home page.”

  “So the man in the locket photo knows you brought his wife in?” Elsa-May asked.

  “Yes. He was the one who told us where she was.”

  Ettie said, “That’s funny. The woman didn’t know her husband knew about it.”

  “We find it best not to give them too much information when we bring them in for questioning—it keeps them nervous.”

  “That’s not nice, Detective.”

  “Ettie, my job has nothing to do with being nice. I’m not a social director. My job is to keep society safe and lock the bad guys up—remember?”

  “Nora said she didn’t do it. She even reported that locket stolen.”

  He shook his head. “That’s what she told us. We checked into her story and there’s no record of her ever reporting it, or anything else, stolen—either to the police or her insurance company.”

  “She’s such a tiny woman and Paula wasn’t small. It seems unlikely that Nora would be able to overpower a much bigger woman.”

  “Are you forgetting the tire iron, Mrs. Smith?”

  Ettie stared at the detective.

  “Now if you ladies will leave the job to the professionals, I’ve got some business to attend to.”

  “What are you going to do about that?” Ettie tapped on the taxi driver’s ID and name.

  He frowned, picked up the paper and stared at it closely. “There are too many digits.” He looked up at Ettie. “Don’t tell me you got this from the woman with the bad eyesight?”

  Ettie’s shoulders drooped as she nodded.

  “Okay, leave it with me. We’ll run a check and see what we can come up with.” When he picked up the phone to speak with someone, Ettie and Elsa-May took that as their cue to leave.

  The sisters made their way through the police station and out the front door of the building. When they were halfway down the front steps of the station, Kelly caught up with them.

  “Ladies, we’ve struck gold!”

  “What is it?” Ettie nearly overbalanced as she made an attempt to swing around to look at him. Detective Kelly grabbed her arm to steady her. “Thank you, Detective. What is it you’ve found out?”

>   “That woman you met in the waiting area—Nora George...”

  “Yes we know that,” Elsa-May said.

  “That’s what she said her name was.”

  The detective drew in a sharp breath. “Nora’s husband’s plate number is remarkably similar to the number you just gave me. All we had to do is lose the last number and turn one of the zeros into an eight.”

  “So it was Nora’s husband who was visiting Paula?” Elsa-May asked.

  He nodded. “Right, and what’s more, I’ve just been informed we got an anonymous tip off our hotline. Nora George was overheard telling someone her husband was having an affair, and Nora claimed she was going to find his mistress and kill her.”

  Ettie and Elsa-May gasped.

  “This has certainly made my job a lot easier,” the detective said.

  “Oh dear,” Ettie said.

  Elsa-May looked at Ettie and said, “It seems like that poor Nora woman is in trouble.”

  Kelly looked pleased. “I’ll bring her husband in and see what he has to say.”

  Ettie shook her head. “Nora won’t like that.”

  “No; she didn’t want her husband to know.”

  Kelly scoffed. “Too bad. Anyway, I’m glad I caught you before you left. I thought you’d like an update.”

  “Yes, we did.”

  “We appreciate it,” Elsa-May said.

  “Well, keep asking around and see what else you find out. It’s not over until it’s over.” Kelly turned back and sprinted up the top two steps, then disappeared into the station.

  Ettie and Elsa-May hung onto the railing staring at each other.

  “Well, that’s an interesting turn of events, Ettie.”

  “Jah, and the woman didn’t know her husband knew about it when he was the one who told them where she was. I don’t like the sound of that. He doesn’t sound nice at all.”

  “You think he would’ve dropped everything and come here to be with her.”

  “Exactly. She was dreadfully worried and her husband should’ve known she’d be upset.”

  “Let’s go home and rest. We’ve had a long and tiring day.”

  Chapter 6

  The next day the sisters went back to see Detective Kelly, who had more news for them.

  “The fingerprints on the tire iron belong to Nora George.” He closed his office door and sat behind his desk.

  Ettie said, “Nora said her husband looked after the car and the maintenance of it. It sounded to me like she would’ve never touched the tire iron.”

  “I’ll go and set her free, shall I?” the detective said with more than a hint of sarcasm.

  “Maybe she had occasion to touch the tool—the tire iron—and that’s why her prints were on it. It doesn’t mean she’s guilty,” Elsa-May said.

  Ettie continued, “If she’d been the one to do the attack, why would she have left it behind? Everyone knows about fingerprints and DNA and the like.”

  “Would you allow us to speak with Nora?” Elsa-May asked.

  Kelly laughed. “What do you expect her to say? She’ll say she’s innocent. Everyone’s innocent; didn’t you know that?”

  “We believe her,” Ettie said.

  “Oh, then it must be true!” He shook his head at them.

  “Can we speak with her?” Elsa-May repeated.

  “No! Definitely not! We’ve interviewed her enough, and besides, we need everything on tape.”

  “What harm would it do if we talk with her?” Elsa-May asked.

  “Unless you’re her lawyer there’s no point. Have you gotten your law degree since we last spoke?”

  “Of course not,” Elsa-May scoffed. “Is she allowed visitors?”

  “No! She’s being transferred from here in a couple of days and she’ll remain in prison until her court case.”

  “What about bail?” Ettie asked.

  “Her bail was set at two hundred thousand dollars.”

  “That’s a lot of money! What about her husband? Didn’t he bail her out?”

  “She’s still here. It’s a lot of money and he’d have to come up with ten percent of the full amount for the bail bondsman. That would be twenty thousand and not many people have immediate access to that kind of money.”

  “Have you interviewed the husband yet?”

  “Yes. We did interview Cameron George yesterday. He’s previously been in law enforcement. He’s quite a nice fellow, and he had no idea his wife was capable of such a thing. The poor man’s devastated by the whole thing. He admitted to us that he had an affair with Paula Peters some time ago—that’s not against the law. It’s morally wrong but not criminally.”

  “It goes to show what kind of person he is,” Elsa-May said.

  “By whose standards?” Kelly asked.

  “Society’s standards.” Elsa-May looked Kelly directly in the eyes.

  He looked away. “Seems Nora found out her husband had an affair with Paula, and maybe thought it was ongoing. She tried to do away with her competition. It’s a crime of passion.”

  “Wouldn’t you let us speak with her?” Ettie asked.

  Elsa-May added, “What harm could it possibly do if we spoke with her? We’ve agreed to help you all we can with information, so it would only help us if we heard directly from her and listened to what she has to say.”

  The detective’s face turned beet red. “For the last time, no! And nothing you can do or say will make me change my mind.”

  Ten minutes later, Kelly led Ettie and Elsa-May into the lock-up area of the station. He snarled at them, “This is against our policy, so you’ll have to make it quick.”

  He nodded to the cells. “She’s in the end one.”

  Ettie and Elsa-May walked past two empty cells before they reached the one where Nora George was being held.

  Nora was sitting slumped on a bench, and she sprang to her feet when she saw them. “You’ve come to visit me?”

  “We have.”

  “Do you know where my husband is?”

  “Hasn’t he been to see you?”

  “I don’t need him to see me, I need him to bail me out.”

  “He might be trying to raise the money. They said he’d need ten percent of the bail money.”

  “He can borrow it against the house. I spoke with him not long after I arrived here and asked him to get me out. I haven’t heard from him since.” Tears rolled down her face.

  “Don’t be upset. I’m sure there’s just some mistake and it’ll be sorted out soon.”

  “They think I did it. They think I killed a woman that I don’t even know.”

  “Did your husband know her?”

  “No! Not that I’m aware of. If he knew her, he would’ve said so. Can you please go and see my husband and tell him to get me out of here? They won’t let me make any more calls. Tell him to borrow the money. I don’t know why he hasn’t gotten me out already.”

  “Okay,” Ettie agreed. It was clear that Detective Kelly hadn’t told Nora all he knew about her husband.

  Nora continued, “I can’t believe this can happen to an innocent person. I was minding my own business and the police arrested me.”

  “We’ll help you all we can,” Ettie said

  Nora gave Ettie and Elsa-May her address.

  “Will you remember that, Ettie?” Elsa-May asked.

  “You remember the street name and I’ll remember the street number.”

  Chapter 7

  Ettie stood close while Elsa-May knocked on the door of Mr. George’s house.

  A woman came to the door. She stood staring at the two of them and no one said a word for a good five seconds. The woman had a pretty face. Her hair was black and cut bluntly at her chin; her skin was creamy and her eyes were nearly as dark as her hair.

  “Yes?” the woman finally said.

  Ettie cleared her throat. “We’re here to see Mr. George. Is he at home?”

  “Who wants to see him?” The woman wedged herself in the doorway so they couldn’t see
inside.

  “We know Mrs. George, and she sent us here to give him a message.”

  “Wait a minute,” she said before she closed the door.

  Ettie and Elsa-May looked at each other.

  “Is she getting him?” Ettie asked.

  “I think so. She told us to wait and she wouldn’t have done that if she wanted us to go away.”

  A few moments later, the door opened again and a dark-haired tall man stood in the doorway. “Hello?”

  “Are you Mr. George?”

  “Yes. What’s this about?”

  “We’ve just come from speaking with your wife. She’s very distressed and she asked us to give you a message.”

  He dipped his head. “What is it?”

  “She’s very distressed, as I said, and she wants you to bail her out. She said you could borrow against the house.”

  “It’s not as easy as that,” he said. “There are other circumstances.”

  “Like what?” Ettie asked.

  “I’m afraid I can’t say, but if you’re talking to my wife again, tell her that I’ve got a good lawyer for her. He’s a friend of mine, and he owes me a favor.”

  Ettie pulled her mouth to one side. “I don’t think we’ll be speaking with her again.”

  He looked at Ettie and then at Elsa-May. “I’m sorry—who are you people?”

  “We’re friends of the woman who was injured and we happened to bump into your wife at the police station and she told us what happened,” Ettie said.

  “And she also told us how the police think she did it because of the locket that was found in our friend’s house,” Elsa-May said.

  Ettie nodded. “Yes. The locket that she’d reported stolen.”

  He shook his head. “You shouldn’t get yourselves involved. My wife is a storyteller. That locket was never stolen like she told the police. I even checked with the insurance company and no claim was ever made. I’ll do the best I can for her, but I can’t do the impossible.”

  “Do you know Paula Peters?” Ettie asked, to see if he’d be open and honest.

  “Yes, of course. I employed her in my furniture store up until just over a year ago.”

  “Can I ask who the lady is who answered the door?” Elsa-May asked.