The red and blue lights began to pulse, and an officer stepped out.
Aaron couldn’t see him in the backdrop of the lights, but he immediately recognized Officer Tate’s voice.
“Son, I want you to put your hands up and turn around for me.”
Chapter 36
Lydia stared at the female police officer.
The woman had just asked her something, probably had repeated the question twice, but Lydia had no idea what it was.
“Look, Miss Fisher. I understand it’s been a long night for you, but we’re almost done here.”
The Hispanic officer was unlike any woman Lydia could remember meeting before. She wasn’t ultrathin like most Englisch girls Lydia knew. If anything, she tended toward being on the heavy side, but it seemed to be a muscular weight. She didn’t look like someone most criminals would mess with. She was all business, from the way she planted her feet to the uniform she wore—complete with a belt like Officer Tate’s, which had all manner of items clipped to it: radio, handcuffs, gun…
Lydia did not question that Officer Mendoza had been well trained to use every item hanging from her belt. The scowl on her face conveyed that she wouldn’t hesitate to do what needed to be done to maintain order in her jurisdiction.
There were no doubts in Lydia’s mind. This policewoman was as different from her as the crane which visited the river behind them was from the fish that darted in and out of the rocks. They had nothing in common.
She couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to cross a law officer. At least Lydia wouldn’t, but then she wasn’t the one being arrested.
She glanced over at Jerry, who was waiting in Officer Tate’s squad car, and to Mattie who waited in Officer Mendoza’s car. They should have been able to prevent this from happening.
The lights from the patrol car continued to splay an unnatural pattern of red and blue beams across the parking area. In addition, battery-powered floodlights had been set up in the office, in the shop, and along the path in between.
Crime techs were collecting fingerprints, shoeprints, and taking photographs. With each snap of the camera, Lydia felt herself flinch, and each flinch reminded her of Jerry and Mattie.
Yellow crime scene tape was strung from the speckled alder bush to the parking lot. It seemed to hang everywhere she looked, garish in the Englisch lights.
Officer Mendoza clicked her pen. Golden brown skin, long black hair that was pulled back and fastened with a clip, and a Spanish accent did nothing to soften her appearance. Her dark eyes, though, eyes that met Lydia’s and didn’t blink—they spoke of understanding.
“Is this…all of this…necessary?”
“There have been other burglaries in Cashton and the surrounding villages. We need to be able to confirm whether Mr. Beiler—”
“Jerry wouldn’t do that.”
Mendoza didn’t argue with her. She glanced down at her notes one more time. “Is there anything else you’d like to add to your statement, Miss Fisher?”
“No. That’s all I can think of. I appreciate your sending someone out to my parents. They would have been very naerfich. I’m so late, and they might have heard there’s a problem here. They might have heard from the family who reported Jerry’s car.” Lydia ran her hand down her dress, attempting to brush off some of the mud caked on it.
It was no use. Some of these stains might not wash out. What had happened tonight, it couldn’t be undone.
“It’s no problem. Let me check with Officer Tate to be sure he doesn’t need anything else from you or your sister. Once he clears you, it should be okay for you both to go. Would you like a patrol car to follow you home? It’s late to be on the road.”
“That’s not necessary. We’ll be fine.”
“I’ll follow them.”
She hadn’t heard Aaron walk up behind her, and she didn’t turn to look at him, but the sound of his voice sent her stomach tumbling. So much had happened, so much she didn’t understand. She wanted to talk to him, but she wasn’t sure she was ready to hear the answers to the questions circling around in her mind.
“All right. I’ll be back with you in just a minute.”
Aaron dropped down beside her on the porch steps. From where they were sitting, they could see Clara—Clara, who was already in the buggy waiting, staring straight ahead and looking very much alone.
Lydia didn’t know where to start, what to ask first, and she was suddenly so tired she wasn’t sure she could drive Tin Star home.
“Are you okay?”
She shook her head as tears slipped down her cheeks.
Why was she crying now?
Instead of asking her about her tears or what he could do to help, Aaron reached over and laced his fingers with hers. Lydia stared down at their hands, and focused on taking deep breaths and pushing the images of the previous three hours away. She slowly became aware of other things—a fish splashing in the creek, the call of a night bird and another’s answer, the croaking of a frog, and the breeze in the trees.
When had it stopped raining?
“Gabe will be glad the rain was light and didn’t last.” Aaron’s thoughts mirrored her own.
Did he know her that well? Did he know what she was thinking of now? All that she was worrying over?
She turned to look in his eyes, warm brown eyes she sometimes dreamed about.
Did he know what effect he had on her?
“We’ll be all right, Lydia.” He reached forward and pushed the hair that had escaped her kapp out of her eyes. “And I understand there are some things we need to speak of, but not tonight.”
“When?”
“After you rest.”
He leaned forward and brushed her lips with his own, sending warmth cascading through her. With a smile, he pulled her to her feet.
They were both covered in mud, but the cabins were safe.
Walking through the maze of crime scene tape, Lydia had the absurd idea she was trying to navigate her way through a dream. She heard the squawk of Officer Tate’s radio and saw him bend down to say something to Jerry. They passed within a few feet of the squad car, close enough to see what was going on, but Jerry remained hunched over, unresponsive and defeated.
She glanced back at him. He raised his hand to brush his hair out of his eyes. With that movement, the metal handcuffs around his wrists caught the reflection of the cruiser’s flashing lights, and she thought he looked up at her for a moment. She thought they connected. It didn’t last long. His head and shoulder twitching slightly, he slumped forward again.
Mattie was in a cruiser parked farther down the lot, and though her face was turned toward them, she didn’t blink or acknowledge them in any way.
“We can’t let them go, alone…” Lydia’s voice felt raw. The words actually hurt as they clawed their way out. She barely knew these two, but seeing them cuffed and about to be driven away was like seeing two animals from a herd cut and separated for slaughter.
“Bishop Atlee has gone to collect their parents. He’ll meet them at the station.” Aaron rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. “They won’t be alone for long.”
They reached her buggy at the same time Officer Mendoza returned and told them they could leave. Clara still had nothing to say. While Lydia was worried about her, she realized Aaron was right. They all needed rest. Any questions they had, any answers they were searching for, could wait for another day.
Chapter 37
Gabe pushed his way in between Aaron and David in the serving line. “You two plan on taking all of that chicken salad?”
Aaron added another spoonful to his plate, the frown on his face deepening. “A man has to eat.”
“He doesn’t have to eat that much.” Gabe took the spoon out of his hand. “Miriam won’t make this dish unless it’s for church dinners. She claims my waistline is expanding.”
“She’s right,” David said without looking up from the plate of cold meats and cheeses he was helping himself to.
&
nbsp; “You’re one to talk.”
“I need to eat whenever and wherever I have a chance. You’re forgetting I have a newborn boppli in the house.”
“Still waking up in the middle of the night?”
“Ya.”
“Once or twice?”
“Three times.”
“That’s tough. Guess we were lucky with Rachel. She was happy with one middle-of-the-night feeding. Even that only lasted about six weeks.”
Aaron gave them a stormy look. “Do you two have to talk about families and bopplin while a man’s preparing to eat? You’ll steal my appetite.”
“Why? You planning on getting married?” David laughed and jabbed Gabe in the ribs with his elbow.
Aaron shook his head in disgust and trudged off to the farthest table.
“What did I say?” David looked perplexed.
“I have no idea. Let’s go find out.” Gabe added a roll on top of his heaping plate, smiled at Miriam, who was shaking her head no to the extra bread he wanted, and hurried off after Aaron.
The first Sunday in July had turned into a perfect day for an after-church meal, especially an outdoors one. The temperature was in the low eighties, the sun was shining, and everything had finally dried out. From where they sat outside Bishop Atlee’s barn, Gabe could see fields of hay growing tall. Gotte had been faithful to His Word for sure. As the Scripture they had read this morning proclaimed, “For the LORD your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete.”
Gabe’s joy certainly was complete.
He had a wife and two dochdern. His life seemed whole again. He still missed Hope, and he wouldn’t trade the years he had shared with her for anything, even if it meant he could bypass the pain of losing her to the cancer.
But now Gotte had given him a new life, with new freinden, even though some of them seemed a bit out of sorts this fine Lord’s Day.
Aaron glanced up when Gabe and David sat down, but he didn’t say anything. He only picked at his food, which he now didn’t seem very interested in eating.
“Problem with Miriam’s casserole?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so. Her cooking is gut. I should know. Those years as a widower, I nearly starved.” Gabe laughed, remembering the first time Miriam had visited his house. He’d been burning bacon and she’d cooked dinner for him and Grace.
“You can stop smiling. That only makes a man feel worse.” Aaron tentatively tried a forkful of chicken salad, but he looked as if he were having trouble swallowing it.
“Are you narrisch or sick?” David asked, his fork paused an inch from his mouth.
“Maybe I’m neither one.”
“Bad mood. That’s for sure.” Gabe broke the hot roll open and watched the steam escape from it. At that very moment, Lydia happened by.
“Need fresh butter for that, Gabe?”
“Ya. That would be gut. You have perfect timing.” He smiled up at her. He’d realized since helping with the cabins what a fine young woman Lydia was. She’d make someone a gut fraa one day…
Lydia set a small dish of butter on their table and hurried away, never smiling and practically walking into Grace and Sadie as they balanced plates and drinks and walked toward a nearby table to sit with Sadie’s parents.
Oddly, it seemed as if Lydia hadn’t even seen the girls—Lydia who always had a kind word to say to them. Lydia, who always stopped to ask Grace about her drawing or her puppy.
Gabe turned back to Aaron, who was still frowning at his plate. Suddenly, he wasn’t so interested in his roll anymore.
“What’s happened with you and Lydia?”
Aaron only shook his head and continued to push his food around.
“Girl trouble? Is that what this is about?”
Now Aaron dropped his fork all together. “Would you keep your voice down? You make it sound as if I’m a child still in school. It’s not ‘girl trouble.’ It’s worse than that.”
Gabe and David exchanged glances, and it was all Gabe could do to hold back a smile. It was obvious that Aaron had lost his heart to the young woman. “Lovesick” was written all over his face.
Either that or he’d taken the stomach flu. Gabe had learned through the years that the two things had similar symptoms. “You might feel better if you talk about it.”
“Now, why would you think that? Talking doesn’t solve anything. You can see she won’t so much as glance my way.” Aaron scrubbed his hands over his face, and now Gabe did smile. He couldn’t help it.
He could remember that feeling. It was coming back to him with the force of a hard driving rain. He’d solved his problem with a valentine in a lunch box, but that solution probably wouldn’t work for Aaron because it was July.
Four more people sat down at their table and started talking about the baseball game the boys had been playing the day before. From bits and pieces of their conversation, apparently the older Lapp boy had a decent pitching arm.
Aaron stopped talking completely when they arrived.
“Let’s go have a look at Bishop Atlee’s southern hayfield,” Gabe suggested.
“Why would we do that?” David stared at him before looking back down at his plate, which was only half empty.
“You can bring it with you. I wanted to show Aaron how Atlee mixes the red clover in more heavily than some do. Makes for an interesting crop.”
Aaron pushed his plate away and stood, though he’d eaten very little. David grabbed his plate, some of the extra bread on the table, and his drink.
Ten minutes later they were standing in front of the clover, alsike, alfalfa, and timothy. It was a sight to behold, full of color, birds, and butterflies. But, of course, that wasn’t why Gabe had brought Aaron away from the increasingly crowded table.
The boy needed to talk, to share the burdens he was carrying. He was merely giving him a chance to do so.
“So what happened?” Gabe leaned back against an old fence that partially enclosed the field.
“If I knew that, would I be standing out here with you two?”
David continued eating his food and studying them both. Swallowing a large bite, he pointed his fork at Aaron. “I’m a bit sleep deprived, but let me see if I can catch up. You care for Lydia.”
“Ya. Ya, I do.”
He moved the fork toward Gabe. “And you think something’s wrong between the two of them. So we’re out here to give him some advice.”
Gabe shrugged. “He has no family here.”
“True.”
Aaron folded his arms across the top slat of the fence and stared out over the field. “I don’t understand women. Everything seemed fine after the last burglary. We even shared a kiss. I followed her home and—”
“You kissed her?” David finished eating and placed his plate on the ground, finally more interested in Aaron than in his food.
“I did, ya. She was tired and maybe a little scared. It had been a long night.”
“Is that why you kissed her?” Gabe asked. “Or did you kiss her because you care for her?”
“Well, both, I guess.”
“You guess?” David belched. “A man should know why he kisses a woman.”
Aaron took off his hat and rubbed his hand over his hair. “Because I care for her. Sure. But I’d been waiting for the right moment.”
“And being surrounded by police officers seemed like the right moment.” Gabe pulled his fingers through his beard.
“Ya. At the time it did.”
David made a sound between a laugh and a harrumph. He stretched and then reached over the fence, pulled up a piece of the clover, and commenced to chewing on it.
“Maybe it was. Maybe so. Go on with your story.” Gabe made a forward motion with his hand.
“So I saw her home. And the rest of last week we were busy at the cabins, and now she won’t speak to me.”
David and Gabe stared at each other, and then they turned and looked out over th
e hay field. Finally, Gabe said, “You’re leaving something out. Miriam always tells me I’m leaving something out. She says I’ve skipped over something—something that doesn’t seem important to me but is very important to someone else.”
“Huh. I’m lucky to remember where I left my buggy.” David yawned. “You’re sure Rachel only woke you once a night?”
“Ya. Just the once.”
Aaron dropped his head between his arms and stared at the ground. “Well. I can’t think of anything else. We were going to talk of some things, but we haven’t yet…so I figured after she rested she didn’t want to talk anymore.”
“Oh, never figure that.” Gabe shook his head.
“Nope. You’re supposed to offer answers,” David said, yawning again.
“I am?”
“Yes, you are.” David worked the clover to the other side of his mouth.
“Why would I do that?”
“You’re supposed to go to her and tell her you’re ready to talk,” Gabe explained.
“About what?”
“You need to talk about that kiss.” David put his hands on the fence, stepped back, and stretched his back, which made a satisfying crack.
“Lydia’s a wunderbaar girl. I didn’t want to move too fast, though. I wanted to give her more time.”
Gabe and David exchanged another look.
“Why do you two do that?”
“Do what?” Gabe asked.
“Look at each other that way.”
“What way?” David’s smile stretched so that his beard reached up nearly to his eyes.
“Oh, never mind.”
“Giving a girl more time isn’t always best.” Gabe tugged his hat down. “Unless she asks for more time.”
David said, “Giving her more time can make her think you want more time.”
“Or that you’re having second thoughts about the kiss.” Gabe turned and faced back toward Atlee’s barn. All this talk about kissing made him think of Miriam. He wondered what she was doing.
“I’m not having second thoughts,” Aaron said.
A Home for Lydia (The Pebble Creek Amish Series) Page 26
