A Plain Malice: An Appleseed Creek Mystery (Appleseed Creek Mystery Series Book 4)

by Amanda Flower

  Timothy closed his eyes for the briefest of moments as if to stop himself from saying something he would regret. “I’m not staying. I’m just dropping Chloe off.”

  The chief nodded. “Good. I need to keep these folks as calm as possible. The more riled up they are, the more likely they’ll leave. I won’t able to convince a Knox County judge to write an order to keep them here unless I have hard evidence. I need more time to do that.”

  “Can we get going already?” the bus driver asked.

  Chief Rose pointed a thumb at the bright blue bus. “Go fire up the Smurfmobile.”

  The bus driver gritted his teeth and stomped to his bus.

  “What is this Smurfmobile stuff?” Timothy asked.

  “There’s not time to explain pop culture to you, Troyer. Humphrey will give you a lesson later.” She pointed a finger at me. “We need to have a powwow before you saddle up.”

  I followed her a few steps away. Timothy was close on my heels. Chief Rose frowned at Timothy but didn’t tell him to leave. “Officer Riley thoroughly questioned every passenger before letting them back on the bus, and so far, I have nothing to hold them. That’s why you’re here. You’re going to have the perfect opportunity on the bus to gather information about these people. See what you can find out. Did anyone have any hard feelings for either victim? Did anyone see anything peculiar or was anyone behaving oddly at any point during the trip?”

  “You’re asking Chloe to investigate,” Timothy said.

  The chief gave Timothy a look. “She’s going to anyway. I might as well benefit from it.”

  “She’s right,” I said.

  “See.” She smiled triumphantly at Timothy. “Report everything you learn to me. If you think something is particularly important, don’t wait. Call me immediately.”

  Timothy flexed his hands. “I don’t like this.”

  “Don’t worry, Timothy,” I said. “It’s just one day.”

  The chief shook her head. “Wrong. This trip goes on for four days.”

  My mouth fell open. “What?”

  “Yep, I signed you up for the entire trip through Knox County and portions of Holmes County too. The tour company was pleased, especially when I told them you’d work for free. I said it was the least we could do to help them deal with the tragedy. When the bus moves on to Indiana, you are off the hook. We have to solve this case before that happens, if we ever hope to solve it at all.”

  “I don’t know anything of the Amish in Holmes County,” I argued.

  “The culture is basically the same.” She shrugged. “Buggies, cheese, quilts, and pies. No big deal.”

  “I can’t just blow off work to lead this bus tour.”

  She gave the tiniest of smiles. “I know your semester ended last week. What do you have to do?”

  “Dean Klink isn’t going to go for it.” Even as I said this, I knew it was only wishful thinking.

  She smiled. “You leave the dean up to me.”

  A piercing whistle came from the direction of the bus. “Let’s go. We’re burning daylight,” the driver bellowed.

  “Be charming. You’ll have a great time,” the chief said.

  I straightened my shoulders.

  We were a few steps from the bus when, Timothy squeezed my elbow. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “I have to. It’s for your family.” I bit my lip. “Maybe if I help your father, he will accept me again.”

  “Chloe, he does accept you.”

  “I have to do this for Becky too. Maybe—”

  “Today!” the driver bellowed.

  “It’s going to be a long trip.” I pecked Timothy on the cheek and dashed for the bus before he talked me out of it.

  I stumbled onto the bus as I saw the interior. Nothing could have prepared me for it. I’d thought the outside was blue, but the inside was blue. It looked like blueberry girl from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory blew up in there. Every inch of it was the same cobalt blue color from the floor to the seats, to the ceiling. On the back walk there was a German shepherd-sized white outline of a man’s dance shoe with Blue Suede Tours written in white beneath the shoe, apparently the company logo. The front row was empty. It felt like suede. It had to be imitation leather because it covered every seat. At least, I hoped that it was. The tour company officially took the theme one step too far.

  I held my hand out to the driver. “I’m Chloe.”

  “You’re late.” He pulled the lever to shut the bus doors and revved the engine. Chief Rose was right. He was a charmer.

  I gripped the railing. “I’m so sorry about your loss.”

  He blinked at me. “My loss? I didn’t lose anything.”

  “Oh, I meant the guide, Dudley. He was your coworker.”

  “He might have been that, but it doesn’t mean he meant anything to me. Dudley Petersen was a thorn in my side. As far as he was concerned, I couldn’t do anything right. ‘Hudson, you’re driving too fast. Hudson, you’re driving too slow.’ Dudley was like having a gnat in my ear twelve hours a day for three years. Truthfully, I would have preferred the bug.”

  “Oh.” I clung to the closest handrail. “What about his family?”

  “What about it? I don’t know anything about the guy. He never mentioned a family, but we were not exactly chums, you know what I mean?”

  “What about the woman who died?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Are you going to lead this tour or keep running your mouth?”

  I stepped back.

  “Time is money, and I don’t have very much of either.” He ripped a piece of paper from his breast pocket and handed it to me. “This here is the itinerary Old Dudley made.”

  I unfolded the paper. It said the Mississippi gang would be in Central Ohio for four days just as the chief said. I swallowed, which meant we had to find who framed Mr. Troyer in four days. After leaving Ohio, they were headed to their next destination in Shipshewana, Indiana. It appeared they were doing a thorough tour of Amish Country, which began in Lancaster County, Pennsylvanian. It was a long trip. The group had already been together for five days. Two weeks on a bus through Amish Country with these people didn’t sound like that great of a time to me.

  After the Troyers’ dairy farm, the next item on the itinerary was a stop at Deacon Sutter’s place. “Care if I make some adjustments to this?”

  “As long as we start moving and I get paid, I don’t care what you do.”

  “Then, I have the perfect place.” I told him the address, hoping Ellie wouldn’t mind.

  Chapter Six

  As Hudson turned the bus out of the hospital’s parking lot onto Coshocton Ave, the main shopping district in Mount Vernon, I turned and waved to the passengers. “Hi, everyone. I’m Chloe.”

  “We can’t hear you!” someone called from the back.

  “I’m Chloe,” I shouted.

  “We still can’t hear you. Are you mumbling on purpose?” the same man with sparse gray hair and a pronounced nose asked.

  Hudson shoved a thin microphone at me with his right hand. “The mic, the mic. Use the mic. Half of the bus uses hearing aids, and the other half needs to.”

  “Let’s try this again,” I said into the mic. “Hello, everyone. I’m Chloe Humphrey, and I will be leading the remainder of your tour through Ohio’s Amish Country.”

  “What about the tour after Ohio?” a man with a bulbous nose shouted from the back of the bus. “Who’s going to lead the tour when we get to Indiana? We paid good money to see this tour from beginning to end. I’m not going back to Mississippi until I see all of it or get all of my money back.”

  Other disgruntled voices in the group agreed.

  “Tell ‘em we’re working on it,” Hudson said out of the side of his mouth.

  I covered the microphone. “Are we working on it?”

  “Just tell them. You don’t want this group to get restless. Trust me. They’ll eat you alive. They have dentures. It won’t be pretty.”

  I m
ade a face. “That’s yet to be decided,” I said into the mic. “But rest assured we are working on it.”

  Nose didn’t appear satisfied with that answer. I suspected he planned to ask every day until we could give him the new guide’s name and social security number. There was some rumbling from the back, but no more shouts. That was progress.

  “Because of,” I paused, “the sensitive circumstances, there has been a small adjustment to today’s schedule. We will skip the Sutter farm and go straight to our lunchtime destination, Young’s Family Kitchen. There’s an enormous Amish flea market on the property, and you will have plenty of time to eat, shop, and mingle with the Amish.”

  “Shop?” my heckler in the back called. “That’s the last thing my wife needs to do. She’s already spent my life savings on this trip. Do you know that she bought an entire dining room set, table, chairs, and buffet in Lancaster? They are being shipped to my home as we speak.”

  A silver-haired lady in the seat next to him punched him in the arm. “Fred, stop your complaining. Just think of how nice it will be when the kids come home for the holidays.”

  “It won’t be paid off until I’m long dead. I bought that life insurance for my burial, Nadine, not for a new dining room set.”

  She smiled and shook her head. I had a feeling Nadine had done that many times over the last sixty years.

  Fred gave her a withering look. “That’s fine just have me cremated and stick me in a shoebox. That’s all I ever meant to you anyway. Better to save money that would have been used for a proper burial for a new sofa.”

  Nadine laughed. “Oh, Fred, you’re too much.” She smiled at me. “Don’t mind him, Sweetie. He’s just a jokester.”

  From the scowl on Fred’s face I wasn’t so sure about that. “Oh look,” I cried with relief. “There’s Young’s now.” The large parking lot was full with buggies and automobiles. Locals and visitors packed the flea market and restaurant on a gorgeous spring Saturday like today. The enormous Amish restaurant that boasted a twenty foot long buffet, a bakery, pie shop, and gift shop loomed over the parking lot.

  Behind the restaurant was the Youngs’ prize business, the flea market. Most of the vendors in the market were Amish, but the Young family opened their doors to English sellers as well. In the flea market, a shopper could buy everything from Amish kettle corn to mint condition Beanie Babies to a new tractor. Over the winter, Timothy enclosed the flea market’s three pavilions to make them all weather safe, so the Young family could rent the space to vendors year round. Only open a month, the enclosed pavilions already earned the Youngs a twofold increase in profits. This was great news for Timothy too. He was a carpenter by trade and Young’s Flea Market was the first project he’d taken on as a general contractor. Because of Young’s, he received countless calls for contracting jobs within Knox and neighboring counties.

  If the demands of his business continued to grow, Timothy would have to find a new workshop space. Right now, he worked on site or out of the garage of the old purple Victorian house he rented with another former Amish guy, Danny. Purple was not Danny’s or Timothy’s color choice.

  “Not soon enough,” Hudson said under his breath. “If Fred keeps this up, I might lose him somewhere. He can hitchhike back to Mississippi.”

  “I heard that,” Fred bellowed.

  “Course you did,” Hudson muttered.

  “Heard that too.”

  Chief Rose had scoffed about this easy assignment. Obviously, she had not seen Hudson and Fred in action before she put me on the bus. Then again, maybe she had. To my relief, Hudson pulled up in front the restaurant’s door. The passengers gathered their jackets and handbags before they disembarked.

  Hudson snapped his fingers to get my attention.

  It was my turn to scowl. Snapping fingers didn’t work for me.

  “Before I open the door,” he said. “You’d better tell them when to return to the bus. As soon as they hit the pavement, they’ll scatter. They may look like a slow bunch, but they can move quickly when a meal’s involved.”

  I covered the mic. “When should I tell them to come back to the bus?”

  “Hey, open the door. We’re not getting any younger,” Fred crowed.

  “Yeah, open the door,” Jimbo chimed in.

  Hudson’s jaw twitched. “I don’t care. Pick a number before one of the old biddies smacks me in the head with her pocketbook.”

  I turned back to the anxious crowd. Many stood in the aisle waiting to exit. Hudson was right, they wanted out. “Be back on the bus at three o’clock, then we’ll head back to the inn.”

  The driver opened the door, and they charged. I hopped off of the bus to avoid being trampled. Fred was the first off. No surprise there. “Hurry up, Nadine,” he said to his wife as she gingerly navigated the bus steps. “We need to get in line for lunch, or we will be here all night.”

  I gave Nadine my hand to help her down the last step. “Thank you, dear,” she said. How did a sweet lady like Nadine end up with such a grump like Fred? Another case of opposites attract?

  I greeted each guest as he or she disembarked. Gertie took my hand. “Thank you, Chloe. I forgot to tell you my real secret for living over a century.”

  Behind her Melinda sighed.

  “What’s that?”

  “I’ve eaten two pieces of fish jerky every morning for the last seventy years. It’s an old family recipe, and I cure and dry it myself. It keeps me young and fit.”

  “I’ve never heard fitness attributed to jerky before,” I said.

  “That’s because you’re not eating the right kind. I eat one hundred percent Mississippi fish jerky. It makes all the difference.” She shot her thumb toward the bus. “I never leave home without it. I got a stash back on the bus. I’ll give you a taste later. It will change your life.”

  My stomach turned at the thought. “That’s a very kind offer.”

  “Gertie, you’re holding up the other passengers,” Melinda said.

  Gertie pursed her lips. “I’m over a hundred years old, so that makes me the closest to death. They can wait.”

  “I hope you and your daughter have a lovely lunch. I recommend the fried chicken,” I said. “It may not compete with your jerky, but it’s very good.”

  Gertie wagged her finger at me. “Melinda isn’t my daughter.”

  I blushed. “I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed.”

  Gertie was unconcerned. “She’s my companion. I pay her to travel with me.”

  Melinda’s face turned bright red.

  I smiled at Melinda. “That sounds like a fun job. I’m not well-traveled. I’ve been to California and a few other states. I hope to visit Italy this summer. My best friend Tanisha lives there.”

  Gertie beamed. “Melinda and I went there three years ago for my ninety-seventh birthday. Oh, the Italian men, were they ever taken with me! I can tell you stories that will make your toes curl. We had pip of a time, didn’t we, Melinda?”

  “A pip,” Melinda deadpanned.

  Melinda gave an all-suffering sigh and followed Gertie up the short walk into the Young’s.

  Ruby’s cousin, Pearl, was the last person to exit the bus. Although Gertie was one hundred, Pearl seemed to be twice Gertie’s age and did not have the centurion’s energy. She hunched forward as she navigated the bus steps. I offered her my hand to help her down the steps. She thanked me quietly as tears gathered in her light brown eyes.

  “I’m so sorry about your loss.” I didn’t know what else to say.

  She took a shuddered breath. “I don’t know what I’ll do without her. She was all the family I had. Should I go home? How will I get there?”

  “If you need to make arrangements to return home, I’m sure the travel company can help you. There’s an airport just an hour away.”

  Her eyes were bloodshot. “What about Ruby? I can’t leave her here alone. Who would take care of her arrangements?”

  She had a point, and Chief Rose wouldn’t be ha
ppy with me if I encouraged a prime suspect to skip town.

  Tears gathered in Pearl’s eyes. “I don’t think I can face the rest of the tour.”

  “I can take you to the inn if you would like some time to rest.”

  A tear slid down her heavily powdered cheek. “I would appreciate that. It would be nice to lie down and make some phone calls. There’s so much to do. I need to call the funeral home, the church, and…” She trailed off as the enormity of her task settled on her shoulders.

  Hudson placed his hand on the door closer. “How are you going to get her there? You’re not taking her in my bus.”

  I glared at Hudson. “I have no intention of driving your bus.”

  “Good.” He moved to shut the bus’s folding doors.

  I grabbed the door. “Wait! Pearl, is there anything on the bus that you will need before we go?”

  A SUV behind the tour bus honked and the driver shared a rude gesture.

  Pearl flushed. “I do have a small carry-on under my seat.”

  “I’ll get it for you.” I jumped onto the bottom step. “It will take me two seconds to grab her bag.”

  “Fine,” Hudson grudgingly agreed.

  As I climbed onto the empty bus and realized this might be the only time I’d be on it without passengers. I should look for clues. Trouble was I had no idea what to search for. I wished Chief Rose had given me more direction on this investigation.

  Umbrellas and folded jackets lay on the empty seats. Small roll bags with the Blue Suede Tours logo of a blue shoe were embroidered on the front of it were tucked up the seats. The Mississippi tour group was a neat bunch. There were no confession notes or smoking guns left behind.

  Hudson watched me in the rearview mirror. “What’s taking so long? I’ve got to eat too, you know.”

  I shuffled to the back of the bus and retrieved Pearl’s bag; it looked like all others, but had Pearl’s name and address on the luggage tag. Under the seat next to hers was another bag. I flipped over the luggage tag. It was Ruby’s. Before I could change my mind, I took that one too.

  Chapter Seven