He’d pulled bad assignments before, but this was one for the books. Not that it was a real problem, since he’d recently been promised a bonus for completing the job. He could imagine the money in his off-shore account.
It wasn’t solely about the money he realized as he made his way down the back alleys.
A man had to have pride in his work.
Chapter 26
THAT SAME EVENING, Deborah was a bit late traveling the final stretch of road home. She’d stopped by her grossmammi’s house to check on her. While she was there, she had decided to stay and work in the garden for a bit. She’d also picked up another quilt top Irma had been helping her with. Though she was in her eighties, she still found time and energy to quilt. By the time she’d loaded the children back in the buggy the sun had set, though darkness hadn’t yet settled over the fields.
Murmuring to Cinnamon, she allowed her to settle into a good trot as they headed toward home.
She was nearly to the turnoff for their lane, thinking of dinner and quilting and the boys and Jonas, which might be why she didn’t at first notice the English car speeding up behind her.
Cinnamon began to toss her head, and Martha jerked around to look out the back window of the buggy. “He’s not slowing, Mamm.”
“Whoa, girl.” Deborah calmed the mare as best she could, spied the double lane just ahead, and aimed for it. By the time they reached the passing lane, all of her children were staring out the back window, and Cinnamon was the most agitated she’d ever seen her.
Instead of passing, the little sports car pulled in front of the buggy, slammed on its breaks, and parked at an angle, causing, Cinnamon to rear and neigh.
“Easy girl. Settle down.” Deborah calmed her, then attempted to back her up a few paces. Before she could put much distance between her and the Englisher’s automobile he was out of it and storming toward them.
“Mamm, why is he walking back here?”
“I don’t know. Hand the baby back to your schweschder.”
Martha did as she was told, and Mary had taken Joshua into her lap just before Roger Stakehorn charged their buggy. There was really no other word for it. With his red face, blocky build, and angry face, he reminded Deborah every bit of an old bull she’d seen in her dat’s field when she was a girl.
Deborah had wondered how she’d reach the other name on her list, the other name Tobias had given her of people arguing with Dennis Stakehorn, and now it seemed that problem had been solved. Tobias had plainly heard the editor outside, on his cellular phone, arguing with his son. He’d shouted the words “Roger” and “son” several times into the phone, before slapping it shut, marching back into the newspaper, and slamming the door.
It would seem Deborah would have her chance to speak to the younger Stakehorn now.
“You,” he sneered. “You are the reason I’m stuck in this Godforsaken town. Doesn’t even have a good tavern. Drove all the way to the next town and all I could find was a convenience store that sold this.” He waved a brown paper bag containing a bottle. “Man shouldn’t have to drink alone,” he added as an afterthought.
The foul odor of his breath left no doubt as to what Stakehorn had been drinking. Deborah wondered if she had enough room to signal to Cinnamon, but he blocked her on the left, and a pasture fence blocked her on the right.
“Mr. Stakehorn,” she aimed for calm and polite though her heart was thudding in her chest. “What’s the problem?”
“What’s the problem?” Though it didn’t seem possible, his face turned an even deeper shade of red. “The problem is that I just came from the reading of my old man’s will. Yeah, that’s right. We have wills, though I guess you Amish people don’t bother with such things.”
Deborah felt Martha move closer to her on the seat. She put a protective arm across the front of her daughter, hoping it would somehow shield this man from seeing her. Instead his blood-shot eyes took in Martha, Mary, and Joshua.
“And what did he leave me? Nothing. All those years working in this stinking town, and what was left? Nothing! Well I don’t believe it—he had money, and I’ll find it. I’ll find it, and I’ll have it. So what if I didn’t see him the last ten years? Why would I come to this poor excuse for a town? He still owed me. Man owes his only son. Miser never spent a dime. The money’s here somewhere, and I will find it. I’ll find it, and I’ll have it, because it’s rightfully mine.”
Deborah said nothing, only waited, prayed he would turn and go away. Prayed someone would pass by and stop to help her.
“Isn’t it mine?” he shouted.
She jumped in spite of her resolve not to show fear. “Certainly it is.”
Stakehorn’s eyes darted from her to the horse and past them to the fields. “Old man wouldn’t share with me while he was alive.” He uncapped the bottle in the paper bag and took a swig. Leaning in, he lowered his voice. “I told him he’d regret not helping me, and do you know what he said?” Instead of waiting for an answer, he pushed on. “He said I wasn’t the first one to threaten him. Said lots of people threatened him every week, and he knew how to get even. Said he was always getting even in that paper of his. Said you and that short quilt-shop woman had already been by and threatened him once.”
Deborah’s face must have registered the surprise she felt.
Stakehorn leaned in closer. “That’s right. Surprised to hear he mentioned you by name? Well, he did. And I was able to track you down. Wasn’t I? Even if you don’t have a phone. I might not be a reporter, but I can find an address in a town of six hundred.” His stare traveled over her to the quilt folded on the seat. “You’re her, all right—Deborah Yoder.”
Deborah tightened her grip on Cinnamon’s reins.
“So how do I know you didn’t kill him, kill him and take all his money, kill him and take what was mine?”
Stakehorn was practically inside the buggy now. “Black might suspect me; they always suspect the next of kin, but it could just as easily have been you and that quilt-shop woman.”
Deborah inched away from him, though she still gripped Cinnamon’s reins tightly.
Joshua picked that moment to let out a healthy holler.
Instead of irritating Stakehorn, it seemed to pull him out of his trance. He snarled something out, something incomprehensible, and staggered back toward his car.
“He shouldn’t be driving,” Martha whispered, over the crying of Joshua.
“No, you’re right. He shouldn’t.”
They turned and watched as he fell into the car and maneuvered it into a U-turn in the middle of the road. He’d driven less than another thirty feet, when he swerved off the road into a pasture fence, where the car came to a rest, apparently unharmed.
Though Stakehorn revved the engine and spun the tires, the car was stuck in the ditch and the mass of fence wire.
“Should we stop and help him?”
“No. He wasn’t going fast enough to hurt himself. There’s a phone shack a mile up ahead. We’ll call the police, and they will send someone to pick him up.”
Deborah clucked to Cinnamon, and they hurried down the lane and toward home.
Callie carried her to-go dinner in one hand, and held Max’s leash in the other as she walked back toward her shop. The streets were quiet now. It was amazing how quickly town cleared out at the end of a market day. She supposed folks were too tired to hang around, though far down the road she could still make out quite a few cars parked at the Blue Gate Restaurant.
When her shop came into sight, when Daisy’s shop came into view, she nearly stopped there on the sidewalk. She’d seen her aunt’s name on the sign many times, had even climbed up on a ladder and cleaned off the letters a few days ago. But it struck her tonight, for the first time, that if someone else bought the shop they’d probably change the name. It would become Belinda’s Quilt Shop or Jane’s Quilt Shop or worse yet, something catchy like Sunshine Stitches. The small legacy her aunt had left in Shipshewana would be erased.
&nbs
p; Why did she feel a pain in her chest at the thought? She switched the to-go sack of food to her left hand, to the hand that held Max’s leash, and reached up and rubbed at her chest. Felt like she had a stitch there, like she used to get in her side when she jogged.
Absurd. Probably she was just tired.
She needed to go upstairs, eat her dinner, and rest.
She’d nearly made it to her parking lot when a man on a Harley-Davidson Sportster pulled up beside her.
“Need a ride?” he asked.
Max barked once, but didn’t seem too perturbed. Callie took that as a good sign, that and the grin on Trent McCallister’s face.
“I thought you drove a truck.”
“I do.”
“And a motorcycle? I didn’t realize editors make so much.”
“Have you seen my truck? I’d have to pay someone to haul it off.”
“The bike on the other hand …”
“The bike is primo.” Trent motioned toward the back with his thumb. “Hop on. I’ll take you around the block.”
“Actually I’d love to, but—” She held up the dinner sack and Max’s leash. “Kind of bogged down here.”
Trent cut the engine and walked the bike into her parking lot, parking it in the first slot he came to.
“Yeah, I only have one extra helmet, and it probably wouldn’t fit the dog.”
“So have you ridden for a while?”
“Since I graduated high school. My dream was to ride to Sturgis, but I’ve never made it. Always been too busy. This is the year though.”
“Ahh. I’m not really up on my motorcycle lore, but isn’t that in South Dakota?”
“Yes ma’am. The motorcycle convention has been going on since 1938.”
“Long way from here.”
“Eleven hundred miles.” Trent’s grin said it all, so Callie just smiled.
“I hope you make it then.”
“Oh, I’ll make it—ten days vacation was the one condition of my taking this assignment. Six weeks from now, I’ll be headed northwest.”
“Goals. That’s good to see in a man.”
“You’re not kidding. Some guys my age have nothing to aim for.”
He carried her sack as they walked toward the back door, and she held on to Max’s leash. When they were a few feet from the door, Max let out a growl and ripped the leash from her hand, bounding through the back door.
“You didn’t lock it?”
“Yes, I locked it. I always lock it.”
“Stay here.” Trent thrust the sack in her hands and took off through the open back door, after the Labrador who could be heard barking and snarling like a rabid hound.
Callie started through the door, had made it halfway down the hall when she heard the gunshot.
She dropped the sack of food and started running.
She heard the sound of broken glass, heavy footsteps, and her front door slamming.
Her pulse was pounding in her ears, and she could only focus on reaching Max’s side, on finding Trent. When she came around the corner of the main room and saw him kneeling over her dog it occurred to her that Max had stopped barking. Then she saw the blood on the floor, and Trent with his shirt off and pressed to the dog’s side.
Max’s dark eyes were on her, trusting her.
Some part of her mind registered that whoever had been there, whoever had shot her dog had run out, had escaped, but she didn’t care.
She dropped to her knees beside her new best friend and ran her hand over his silky ear. He licked her hand once, and then he lay completely still.
Deborah hopped out of Trent’s truck and ran up the steps of the veterinary hospital.
She found Callie sitting in one of the orange plastic chairs. Andrew Gavin flanked her on one side. Officer Stan Taylor, still in uniform, sat on the other. Though it had been only a month or so since Deborah had seen him, he looked older in the fluorescent lights. His bushy white eyebrows over his drawn face accented how tired he must be, and Deborah could well imagine how the weight of the past week’s incidents had affected him.
Callie looked up, saw her, and flew into her arms.
“Trent told me,” Deborah said. “Any word?”
“No. We’re still waiting.” Callie rubbed her sleeve across her nose, laughed then sobbed when Deborah pulled a handkerchief out of her bag. “Thank you.”
“Gifts between freinden,” Deborah said softly.
Taylor moved over a seat so that Deborah could sit beside her.
Trent remained standing, his arms crossed, a look of anger on his face. “Have you heard from Black yet?”
“Nothing new since you left,” Gavin said.
“I can’t believe there’s no fingerprints at all. Whoever is doing this can’t be that good.”
“He left a slug, son.” Taylor looked at him calmly. “We’ll get something from that. Give him enough time and he’ll leave something else behind.”
“Give him enough time and he’ll shoot something besides a dog.” Trent began pacing.
“What about the items moved around in my shop?” Deborah’s head snapped up.
“It’s true,” Callie told her. “Seems our cat burglar likes to return to the scene of the crime—and play.”
“We’re working on it,” Taylor insisted.
Deborah felt Callie begin to tremble beside her. She put her arm around her, rubbed her shoulder. “Have you had any dinner at all?”
“No, I was walking home when, when …” she tried to finish and failed.
“Trent, would you mind finding Callie a soft drink and perhaps a package of crackers? I believe we passed some vending machines when we came in.”
“It only takes change,” Gavin muttered.
“You’ve been here before?” Callie looked up in surprise.
“Last week. My cat decided to fight with a raccoon and needed stitches.”
Deborah tried to hide the smile which insisted on forcing its way out. “You have a cat, Officer Gavin?”
“He looks more like a dog person, doesn’t he?” Callie leaned forward and studied Gavin who was now turning a nice shade of pink.
“I don’t have a cat. This stray showed up at my place, so I started feeding it, and now …”
“Never feed a stray,” Taylor muttered.
“Ya, I tell my children the same thing,” Deborah said.
“I only have fifty cents,” Trent said.
The men all stood and began going through the change in their pockets, then moved off toward the vending machines.
“Thank you.”
“For?”
“Getting rid of them for a few minutes. They’ve been very kind, but they’re also teeming with energy and busting to do something. It’s exhausting.”
“I have four males in my house. I know exactly what you mean.”
They sat there, quietly, and Deborah thought Callie had just begun to relax a bit when two things happened at once.
The men returned—laden down with sodas and junk food—and Dr. England walked in through the double doors, holding a clipboard and looking exhausted.
He sat down directly across from Callie.
Gavin, MacCallister, and Taylor took three chairs to the left of her.
Callie sent Deborah a grateful look when she reached over and clasped her hand, entwining their fingers together.
“First, I want to say you have one very brave dog.”
Deborah squeezed Callie’s hand.
“The bullet passed through, as you know. It did quite a bit of muscular damage. I was able to repair everything. Max lost a lot of blood, and I want to give him antibiotics for at least forty-eight hours to fight infection, but I think he’s going to be fine. Again, he will have to stay here several days.”
Callie leaned forward, dropped her head into her hands, and began to cry.
“This is gut. He’s going to be fine.” Deborah rubbed her back in soft circles.
“Thank you, Doc.” Taylor asked.
/> “No problem. Terrible thing, to be happening in Shipshewana.”
“Well, I believe we’re close to catching him.” Taylor walked with the doctor back toward the double doors.
Gavin knelt in front of Callie. “I don’t want you going back to the shop tonight.”
She sat up, scrubbed at her face with the handkerchief. “He’s not running me off from my house. I don’t know who’s doing this, but I’m going home.”
“Callie—”
“You can’t stop me.”
“You’re not thinking straight.”
“Yes, I am. You want to patrol the streets, fine. But I won’t be run off. Whoever did this only came by because he thought I wasn’t home. He’s a coward and a thief.” She stood now, giving her anger full rein.
“I can stay downstairs if you insist on going back,” Trent offered. When everyone turned and stared at him, he added, “Think of the front page story when I snap a picture of the guy and manage to single-handedly catch him.”
“No, you won’t stay downstairs.” Callie turned on him like a whirlwind undecided as to which path it would take.
Deborah caught her by the shoulders, turned her around. “Callie, look at me. They’re only trying to help. They’re concerned.”
“Ya, I know that.”
They smiled at the same time at her use of the Amish word.
“But don’t you see?” Callie continued. “Whoever this is keeps hitting places he thinks are empty. He’s not going to come back while I’m there. I haven’t figured it all out, but that much I’m sure of.”
“What about Stakehorn?” Trent asked. “He’s dead. We don’t want you to end up like him. So don’t be angry at us for caring.”
Callie took a deep breath, looking back toward the double doors where Taylor still stood speaking with the doctor. “I appreciate it. I do, but I need to go home, okay? I need to not be afraid anymore.”
Taylor turned and walked toward them, and Deborah knew no one would change Callie’s mind.
But she also had a sense that they were running out of time, as if the windup clock like the one she kept by her bed was ticking down … but to what she didn’t know.
Falling to Pieces Page 23
