Suspendered Sentence (An Amish Mystery Book 4)

by Laura Bradford

  “So you took out her journal and read it?” she prompted.

  Again he nodded, his gaze slipping past hers and settling somewhere in the distance. “I did.”

  “And?”

  “I am confused.”

  Something about the raw uncertainty in his normally confident voice caught her by surprise. “Oh? How so?”

  He reached into the part of his waistband she couldn’t see around his coat and pulled out a simple black spiral-bound notebook. “I would like you to read Elizabeth’s words. Maybe you can understand what I cannot.”

  Surprised, she reached for the book only to drop her hand back to her lap, empty. “I don’t know, Benjamin. I’m not sure I should read something so private. I never even knew your wife.”

  “Please. I would not ask if I did not need your help.”

  She looked from the book to her friend and back again, her heart thumping slowly but deliberately inside her chest. “If you’re sure . . .”

  “I am sure.” He deposited the book onto Claire’s lap and then gestured toward the inn. “You will need light to read her words.”

  “Do you want to come inside? Or would you rather I turn on the porch light?”

  Ben stepped toward the porch railing and exhaled into his fist. “I would like to be here if that is okay?”

  “Then I’ll be right back.” She laid the book beside her on the swing and then rose to her feet, the necessary light switch no more than three feet away. “Ready? It’ll be bright.”

  At his nod, she flipped the switch and returned to the book, the absence of a title or any outward markings exactly what she’d expect from a married Amish woman. Slowly, she opened the cover and stared down at the uneven writing, the hastily scrawled sentences filling the first page from top to bottom.

  “Are you absolutely sure you want me to read this?” she whispered, glancing up.

  “Yah.”

  She held the page into the light now streaming down from the exterior wall of the house and began to read, the words of Benjamin’s deceased wife filling the air between them.

  For too long I have kept this secret for fear of what would happen to me. I did not want to live in a small room. I did not want to drink only water and eat only bread. I did not want to hurt Mamm and Dat. I did not want to cry each night.

  I did not tell, yet I still cry each night.

  Not because I am afraid.

  Because I am sad.

  Because I did not do the right thing.

  Your mamm is so happy for me and Benjamin. She smiles like I am good. Like I am kind. But I am not good. I am not kind.

  I am a very bad person.

  You know that more than anyone.

  I am sorry, Sadie.

  Claire reread the last sentence and looked up at Benjamin when she reached the end. “I . . . I don’t understand.”

  “Go on,” he said, pointing at the book. “There is more.”

  Turning the page, she did as she was told, Elizabeth’s penmanship becoming more and more difficult to read.

  Benjamin asked me if I had made a mistake in marrying him. At first, I did not understand his question. I am happy to be his wife.

  But I do not smile as a wife should, he says.

  I have tears I should not have, he says.

  I want to tell him why I do not smile. I want to tell him why I cry at times. But if I do, he will not look at me with love anymore. He will look at me as if I am bad.

  Something roiled in the pit of her stomach. Ever since the very first moment she’d learned of Elizabeth’s existence as both Benjamin’s late wife and Jakob’s once romantic interest, she’d had an image in her mind. That woman had been beautiful, sweet, and good at everything she did.

  Yet now, in a matter of two pages, her image was changing. Rapidly.

  Elizabeth may still have been beautiful.

  Elizabeth may have been good at everything she did.

  But now, the sweet factor was definitely in question . . .

  “There is more, Claire. Much, much more.”

  This time, she turned the page without stopping to look up at Benjamin, the wooden quality of his tone telling her more than any glance ever could. She felt a sudden chill race down her spine and shivered in response, but if Benjamin noticed, he said nothing.

  I have tried to forget, just like Leroy and Miriam and Michael.

  But I cannot.

  I see your skin and it is like a new snowfall.

  I see your eyes. They are wide and looking at me.

  Sadie, you were my friend.

  But I was not a friend to you in the end.

  She sucked in a breath and flipped to the next page.

  I cannot do it anymore.

  I cannot stay silent.

  What we did was not right.

  It was not God’s will.

  It was ours.

  Sadie’s mamm and dat may not know.

  My mamm and dat may not know.

  Benjamin may not know.

  But I know.

  God knows.

  I cannot forget like they can.

  Suddenly, the bits and pieces of a tortured mind were starting to assemble into a workable picture far different from anything Claire could have ever imagined.

  Glancing upward, she saw the troubled look on Benjamin’s face and knew it reflected her own. “Benjamin, I—”

  “Do not stop. Please.”

  Her hands trembling, Claire dropped her focus back to the book and turned the page again, any positive effects from the quick fortifying breath she took disappearing in mere seconds . . .

  I am not the only one who cannot forget.

  Miriam cannot forget.

  But she tries.

  Leroy cannot forget.

  I do not need his words to know this.

  It is in his eyes when we talk.

  It is in his head when he looks into the valley.

  It is in the lines beside his eyes when I talk of that night.

  I do not know about Michael but Leroy is sure he cannot forget, either.

  How could he?

  How could any of us?

  I do not want to live in a small room. I do not want to drink only bread and water. I do not want to hurt my mamm and dat. I do not want to hurt Benjamin.

  But it is time for God’s will to be done.

  The chill from earlier returned, only this time, instead of a quick skitter down her spine, it spread outward to every nook and cranny of her body and remained.

  There was a part of her that wanted to read on, to see if the picture now fully formed in her head was, in fact, correct. But there was also a part of her—the part that cared deeply for Benjamin and Jakob—that wanted to shut the book and marvel at Elizabeth’s obvious gift for compelling fiction even in first-draft form.

  Which part would win out, though, was decided by the man standing against the rail.

  “I have always wondered what Elizabeth’s last thoughts were before she died. Now, because of that book, I must wonder no more.”

  She ricocheted her focus between the book and Benjamin, the date in the upper right-hand corner of the page winning out in the end. “This is the day Elizabeth died?”

  “Yah.”

  “Aunt Diane says Elizabeth was walking by the woods when she was killed. That she was struck by a stray bullet from a hunting rifle . . .”

  “Yah.”

  Closing her eyes, she put herself on the same road that wound its way through Heavenly’s Amish country, the stretch of woods her aunt had mentioned, the same stretch of woods she’d passed with Jakob twenty-four hours earlier . . .

  On the way to the Stoltzfus farm . . .

  The same farm that had once been owned by Sadie’s parents . . .

  Elizabeth’s journal thudded to the ground as Claire rose to her feet and started toward the house and her cell phone, the final piece of the puzzle slipping into place with startling ease. “Oh dear Lord, she was trying to tell them! She was on her way
to tell the Lehmans what happened to Sadie, when that bullet hit her!”

  At the door, she turned to see Benjamin’s head hung low, his shoulders hunched forward. “Ben?”

  When he didn’t respond, she swallowed. Hard.

  There was no doubt whatsoever that Elizabeth had known Sadie was dead. The woman’s journal entries made that virtually crystal clear. But just as that picture had come into focus for Claire, the one Ben had always had of his late wife had surely blurred into the unrecognizable.

  “Ben,” she whispered just loud enough for him to hear. “Ben, I’m so sorry.”

  After what seemed like an eternity, her friend finally looked up, the various stages of pain she’d seen in his eyes throughout the day slowly disappearing behind a heartbreaking resolve.

  “We must show Jakob, yah?”

  Chapter 6

  At any other time and under any other circumstance, Claire might have been vaguely amused at the way Jakob’s fingers tapped along with the ticking of his office clock. But when she took into account the almost two-to-one ratio of her heartbeat to that duet, suddenly the music it created in her ears wasn’t terribly appealing.

  She swallowed and nudged her chin toward the now-closed notebook atop his desk. “Are you upset to learn Elizabeth may have been privy to details of Sadie’s death?”

  A long hesitation gave way to a single nod of the detective’s head.

  “What else is bothering you?”

  Jakob turned his troubled eyes in her direction. “Else?”

  For not the first time since handing him the deceased Amish woman’s journal, she wished she could slip it back into her purse and simply bypass the white, clapboard-sided building completely. Especially now, without Esther as backup, the opening and closing of Heavenly Treasures fell on Claire. The last thing she needed to do was fill her morning with other people’s problems.

  Then again, Benjamin and Jakob weren’t other people. Benjamin was her friend and Jakob was possibly something more. Or could be if she stepped out of her own way like Diane was always encouraging her to do.

  “I . . . I don’t know. I guess I’m picking something else up from you right now.” The second the words were out, she wished she could recall them. Really, who was she to think she knew Jakob well enough to translate his thoughts?

  Shifting uncomfortably in her seat, she cast about for something to say that would serve as both an apology and a reset button. She settled on the straightforward approach. “Look, I’m sorry. Can we just chalk it up to a short night of sleep and the fact that my brain is still a little groggy? I tend to have a rather overactive imagination and sometimes . . .”

  The corners of his mouth lifted ever so slightly as she continued to babble. “Whoa. Slow down a minute, would you? I’m not upset that you’re picking up more. Quite the contrary, actually.”

  “Quite the contrary?” she echoed before indulging in a second, slower swallow.

  “Yeah. I guess I find your ability to see inside my head rather encouraging.”

  She didn’t need a mirror to know her cheeks were turning red. She could feel the increasing warmth of her skin just as surely as the unmistakable flip-flop in her stomach. “So . . . I’m right, then?” she said quickly, the question as much an attempt to take control of the conversation as it was a fact-finding mission. “There is something else bugging you about Elizabeth’s journal?”

  All hint of a smile disappeared as Jakob’s focus shifted back to the notebook she’d handed him roughly twenty minutes earlier, the entries she’d read and reread throughout her sleepless night now responsible for a third set of troubled eyes.

  “Do you remember the other night? At your aunt’s? When I was talking about Elizabeth?”

  “I do. You were talking about the way Elizabeth changed during Rumspringa. How having Sadie leave was hard on her because they’d been such good friends.”

  “That was my speculation three nights ago, yes.” He fingered the cover of the plain notebook before pushing it to the center of his desk, punctuating his action with a weighted sigh. “Though now we know differently, don’t we?”

  “Meaning?”

  “If nothing else, we know Sadie didn’t just take off.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “And now, that”—he pinned the book with a sharp glance—“has me questioning a lot more than all those tears I wiped from Elizabeth’s face back then.”

  She leaned forward, the urge to smooth the worry from Jakob’s brow strong. Instead, she merely rested her hand atop his and squeezed. “I’m sure she was hurting, Jakob. You can feel it in every sentence she wrote. I’m sure the tears were real. Especially if she knew her friend was gone forever.”

  Flipping his hand over, he linked his fingers with hers momentarily before releasing them to stand and wander over to the window that overlooked the fields behind the station. “Oh, I don’t doubt her tears were real. I’m just starting to question the driving force behind them.”

  She waited a minute to see what else he’d say, but there was nothing. The tension emanating from his body, though, spoke volumes.

  “I’m not sure what you’re saying, Jakob.”

  “When Elizabeth’s Rumspringa was over and she said she wanted to be baptized, I doubted her conviction because of her tears.”

  Claire, too, stood and made her way around the desk, perching against the side closest to the window. “Yes. That night at Diane’s you told us you had asked her if she was sure she was making the right choice.”

  Slowly, he turned away from the late-winter fields, his eyes tired but focused solely on Claire’s face. “I guess I didn’t understand why leaving Rumspringa behind was so upsetting to her if it was what she really wanted.”

  “Makes sense, based on what you knew at the time.”

  He shrugged in agreement. “But then, when she got so upset about my never-ending fascination with the police, I figured she had truly embraced everything about the Amish ways—including their wariness toward men in uniform.”

  “And now?”

  He cupped his left hand over his mouth and exhaled against his palm.

  “And now?” she repeated.

  Letting his hand drop, he tipped his head toward the ceiling, a second, uninhibited burst of air echoing around the room. “And now I’m wondering if there was an entirely different reason for her reaction.”

  “To what? Being baptized?”

  “No. To my endless talk about being a cop.”

  “What other reason could there be?”

  Slowly, he lowered his chin until their gazes locked, the raw pain in his eyes catching her by surprise. “If I became a cop, maybe I’d figure out the truth.”

  “You mean about Sadie’s death?”

  He looked past her to the notebook still sitting on the middle of his desk, the wooden tone of his answer befitting the difficult thoughts he finally unleashed. “I’m thinking more along the lines of Elizabeth’s involvement in Sadie’s death.”

  * * *

  Claire sunk onto the stool behind the cash register and rested her head on the countertop. Somehow, despite her best efforts to the contrary, she’d managed to have decent sales during the first half of the day thanks to the tour bus of senior citizens that had parked itself at the end of Lighted Way as she was opening the shop.

  Within ten minutes of debarkation, Heavenly Treasures, and every other shop on the quaint street, was reaping the rewards of having so many seasoned shoppers intent on bringing a slice of Amish country home with them. One of Martha’s quilts had sold, as had three of Esther’s hand-sewn shawls. A hand-carved footstool and coatrack of Eli’s had gone as well.

  She’d tried to be cheerful to each and every customer who had wandered in, some asking specific questions about her inventory, others asking more general questions about the Amish. But, no matter how hard she’d tried to focus, her thoughts hadn’t been able to stick on anything except Elizabeth’s journal entries and Jakob’s bone-chilling suspici
on.

  Oh, how she’d wanted to laugh at the detective’s theory until he saw its absurdity, too. But she hadn’t and she couldn’t. Because as much as she hated to admit it to herself, the contents of the notebook proved Ben’s late wife had known of Sadie’s true fate. And, as Jakob went on to outline for Claire in his office that morning, only the guilty tended to keep quiet.

  She closed her eyes, tried to stop her thoughts from revisiting the moment Ben verbalized Jakob’s need to see Elizabeth’s journal, but to no avail. The memory was as clear as if they were standing on the porch and she was still looking into his troubled face.

  “Claire?”

  Hadn’t Ben been through enough already? Did he really need to entertain the possibility his late wife had played a part in someone’s death?

  “Claire?”

  Her name, in conjunction with a cough, brought her attention to the back of the store and the twenty-two-year-old staring at her from beneath the rim of a straw hat. For a split second, she thought it was Benjamin, the ocean blue eyes a near-perfect match. But as quickly as the impression came it was gone, thanks to the mop of blond hair peeking out around the edges of the hat, and the three-month-long beard taking shape along his jawline.