Suspendered Sentence (An Amish Mystery Book 4)

by Laura Bradford

  She noted the dollar reduction on crocheted baby bibs onto the sign and then waved it back and forth to dry. “Ruth practically has a line waiting outside her door the second she opens each day. I don’t. I can’t afford to close.”

  “But things have been better since Eli and Benjamin started making bigger items, yah? I think you can afford to hire a new person. Someone who can help with the customers and stock shelves when it is quiet.”

  It was a sentiment she’d heard many times in the three months since Esther left to get married. Howard Glick of Glick’s Tools ’n More had said it. Al Gussman, her landlord and fellow shopkeeper, had said it. Drew Styles, owner of Glorious Books, had said it. Her aunt had said it. And even Jakob had hinted at her hiring a little help in order to cut down her hours at the shop.

  On some level, she knew they were all right. Dream job or not, working seven days a week was difficult, even exhausting at times. The lightness she’d felt during her unexpected snow day was proof of that.

  Yet, every time she considered the notion of hiring someone, she came back to one indisputable fact: if she couldn’t have Esther, she really didn’t want anyone.

  She gave the same reply she gave everyone else. “I’m getting along just fine.”

  “Why do you not want to hire a new person, Claire?”

  Dropping her marker onto the counter, she gave Esther her undivided attention, the emotion in her voice more apparent than she wanted. “The customers loved you, Esther. They loved asking questions about the Amish and having a real Amish person to answer them. And when they learned that many of the items in the store were made by you and your mother, they got even more excited. I can’t replace you, Esther. Not as an employee and certainly not as a friend.”

  “As your friend, I am just down the road. But there are others who could do the things I did here.”

  “Like who?” she challenged.

  “Like Annie Hershberger. She is Amish. The customers could ask her questions.”

  “Annie Hershberger? Is she any relation to Bishop Hershberger?”

  Esther nodded. “Yah. Annie is the bishop’s youngest child.”

  “How old is she? Do you know?” she asked, her curiosity aroused.

  “She is on Rumspringa, so maybe sixteen?”

  “Sixteen,” Claire repeated, slowly. “Is she a good kid?”

  “She is Amish.”

  “Do kids on Rumspringa work?”

  “Most, yah.”

  She came around the counter and sank onto the stool beside Esther, the image of being able to come in late on some days, or head home at lunchtime on others, more intriguing than she wanted to admit. Instead, she shrugged a second time.

  “I could stop by and speak with Annie on my way home if you’d like,” Esther offered.

  “Give me another month. If I feel overwhelmed as traffic picks up in April, I may ask you to send her my way at that time.”

  The jingle of bells over the front door brought an end to further discussion and Claire to her feet. “Good day, welcome to Heavenly—oh, Jakob, hi!” She dropped her hands to her sides, smoothed the lines from her formfitting khaki pants, and stepped out from behind the counter. “I had a really great time yesterday. Thank you.”

  “Thank you. I’ve been able to think of little else all morning.” He raised her smile with her favorite dimples then followed her eyes over to the counter and the young Amish woman seated quietly behind it. “Esther . . . hello.”

  Esther bowed her head shyly in greeting then stepped down off the stool as he approached.

  “Claire told me the wonderful news last night, sweetie. I couldn’t be happier for you and Eli.”

  Esther slowly lifted her chin until she was looking at her English uncle. Then, without uttering a word, the young woman reached out, took hold of Jakob’s hand, and brought it to rest on the tiny mound barely visible beneath her aproned dress. “Mamm thinks it will be a boy,” she whispered.

  Startled, Jakob looked from Esther, to her hand on his, and back again, the emotion that misted his eyes finding its way into his voice. “Either way, you and Eli will make wonderful parents.”

  “Thank you,” Esther whispered in the direction of her feet before unfolding her shawl in preparation for the retreat Claire knew must come.

  And come it did.

  But when Claire looked back at Jakob to gauge his reaction, she saw only euphoria.

  “I’m sorry she had to leave like that, Jakob.”

  If he heard her, he didn’t react. Instead, he simply raked a hand through his hair and leaned his back against the paneled upright in the center of the store. “Did you see that, Claire? She let me touch the baby.”

  Blinking back the tears she was desperate to keep hidden, she offered the most convincing smile she could. But even as she stood there, silently cursing a set of beliefs that made Jakob a veritable pariah within his own family, she couldn’t help but acknowledge the aura of pure joy that radiated out from the detective.

  Jakob had accepted his fate in regard to his family seventeen years earlier when he left the Amish, postbaptism, to become a police officer. It was a decision he still stood by despite its unbelievable cost. But for just a moment, when Esther had guided his hand to her unborn child, his place in the family had been acknowledged, remembered.

  “She loves you, Jakob. So does Martha,” she whispered around the rising lump in her throat. “You are their blood, their family. Even the Ordnung can’t change that.”

  He opened his mouth to answer but closed it as the door-mounted bells announced Esther’s reentry. “I forgot my basket.”

  “Oh, that’s right. We got so busy talking you never showed me what you brought.” She met Esther in the center of the store and then followed her back to the counter. “What goodies do we have for the shop this week?”

  Esther pulled the basket close and began removing items from its depths. “I made a few springtime aprons, a few dishcloths, and a baby blanket.”

  “Don’t you think you should keep the blanket for your own baby?” she asked as she unfolded the blanket and held the soft fabric to her cheek. “Ohhh, this is so nice.”

  “I will make a blanket for my baby as it gets closer. For now, this will make money Eli and I need.”

  Claire nodded and reached for the red leather book she used to keep track of her inventory. She jotted each new item into the section assigned to Esther and Eli and then handed the empty basket to Esther. “I’m sure all of these things will go quickly once the spring tourists start coming around in a few weeks. Howard and Al said it gets busy fast once April rolls around.”

  “I’m working on a quilt, too. I hope to have that to you by week’s end.”

  “That would be great. If Miriam Stoltzfus comes through with a quilt or two, the way I’m hoping she will, maybe I’ll have enough to display one of them in the front window.”

  Esther slid her arm beneath the basket handle, retraced her steps back to the door, and then turned to look at Claire and Jakob before she stepped outside into the cold. “I don’t believe you will be getting any quilts from Miriam for a while. She left town in a hired car yesterday after church. Jeremiah said something about her wanting to look after a sick relative in upstate New York.”

  “Who?” Jakob barked.

  “Jeremiah did not seem to know.” Esther lifted her hand in something resembling a parting wave and then stepped outside, the jingle of the door barely noticeable against the sudden roar in Claire’s ears.

  “How could Miriam’s husband not know where, exactly, his wife was going?” She heard the question as it left her mouth but knew it paled in comparison to the second and more important one she posed on its heels. “Do you think Miriam ran to avoid being questioned?”

  Jakob pushed off the upright and strode straight toward the door, his brief but tender moment with Esther shoved to the side by the reality of Sadie Lehman’s unexplained death. “I don’t know, but that won’t be the case for long.”
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  Chapter 13

  There was something about crossing off the very last item on her daily to-do list that never ceased to lose its thrill for Claire. It was like a mini pat on the back for a job well done.

  But at that moment, looking down at the now-completed list, she felt little more than total exhaustion. From the moment she’d stepped out of her room that morning, she’d been running on overdrive—baking, playing host to her fellow Lighted Way shopkeepers, stocking shelves, pricing inventory, arranging displays, and serving her customers. There’d been no time to really sit and think, no time to process the news of Miriam’s sudden departure from Heavenly or to even have so much as a cracker from the lunch she’d hastily packed before heading out to the shop at the crack of dawn.

  Lunch.

  She looked up at the clock on the shop’s back wall and noted the time: three thirty. No wonder she was starving . . .

  Tucking the clipboard under her arm, she headed toward the back hallway and the tiny office beyond. Barely big enough to accommodate the beat-up metal desk left behind by the building’s previous tenant, the room was rarely used for anything other than a coat closet now that Esther was gone. Without the extra pair of hands her friend’s presence had provided, Claire had little to no time to balance the shop’s books during normal business hours. Instead, that cumbersome task was now done in her room at the inn, after the guests had been fed and the kitchen cleaned.

  She reached into the windowless room and flipped on the fluorescent overhead light for as long as it took to deposit the clipboard onto her desk and to retrieve her paper lunch sack from her oversized purse.

  “Finally,” she mumbled as she turned the light off and made her way back to the front room, the cushioned stool calling to her tired body every bit as loudly as the trio of chocolate chip cookies in her lunch sack were calling to her stomach. Flopping down onto the stool, she reached into the bag and pulled out its contents one item at a time.

  Ham sandwich.

  Grapes.

  Crackers.

  Cookies.

  She arranged her late lunch on the counter in front of her and resisted the impulse to start with dessert. As tempting as a sugar boost was at the moment, she needed a more sustaining kind of energy if she was going to make it through the remaining ninety minutes that stood between her and closing.

  She scooted closer and reached for the sandwich only to drop it back to the counter as the all-too-familiar jingle announced the arrival of another customer. Stifling the groan that threatened to earn her and her shop an online thrashing for unfriendliness, she stood and smiled. “Good afternoon. Welcome to Heavenly Treasures.”

  A young Amish girl paused just inside the entryway and glanced around, her wide-set brown eyes missing nothing, including the buffet of uneaten food in front of Claire. “Are you Claire?”

  “I am.” She rounded the counter and met the teenager on the other side. “Can I help you?”

  The girl said nothing as she continued to survey her surroundings with an air of grudging approval. “Is it always like this in here?”

  She followed the teenager’s gaze to the display of baby items she’d spent a chunk of her day fiddling with and gave a half-nod, half-shrug combination. “I tend to base the front window display on the season, but this particular rack leans more toward a special sale or a peek at a new category of items. Are you looking for something in—”

  “I mean, is it always quiet like it is now?”

  “Quiet?” she echoed in confusion.

  “Yah. No customers to talk to, no bags to carry . . .”

  “I—”

  “Because if all I have to do is sit behind a counter and eat, I will take the job.” The girl reached up, pulled her kapp off her head, and crumpled it into a ball in her hand. “It’s like Kendra said, having a little cash in my pocket might not be such a bad idea.”

  Startled, she allowed herself a moment to really study the teenager, to catalogue the usual giveaways that someone was Old Order Amish, as opposed to a slightly more relaxed sect.

  No jewelry—check.

  No buttons—check.

  Plain clothes—check.

  No makeup . . .

  The girl leaned backward as Claire leaned forward, rolling her eyes as she did. “Yes, I took off my kapp . . . yes, I’m wearing eyeliner. I’m on Rumspringa.”

  Claire straightened. “Do I know you?”

  “I’m Annie. Annie Hershberger.”

  “Hershberger? As in Bishop Hershberger?”

  This time, Annie’s eye roll was followed by a snort of irritation. “I know, I know. What a disappointment I must be for my father, yah?”

  “I didn’t say that,” she protested weakly.

  Annie waved her off. “It doesn’t matter. You have no idea what it’s like to grow up an Amish kid. And you have no idea what it’s like to have an Amish bishop as your dat.”

  Claire walked backward until she reached the paneled upright and leaned against it heavily, the day’s lack of food starting to take its toll. But at that moment, if given the choice between food and the conversation taking shape in her store, she’d pick the conversation a hundred times over. “Does he have higher expectations for you than other Amish parents do?”

  “Nah, not really.” Annie wandered over to the counter and stared down at Claire’s lunch. “But people act funny around me because he’s my dat.”

  “Help yourself to a cookie if you’d like.” She smacked a hand over her stomach but not before its growl earned an odd look from Annie. “They’re really good.”

  “I would enjoy a grape, if that’s okay.”

  “Sure. No problem.” She pushed off the upright and joined Annie at the counter. “So how do people act funny around you? You know, because of your father?”

  Annie popped one grape and then another into her mouth before moving on to the pile of crackers. “Some girls do not speak to me because they are afraid. I think some speak to me because they want to be good.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “When someone is shunned for doing wrong, it is my father who decides. I think some think to be nice to me is to . . .” Annie cast about for the right words, only to shake her head in frustration when she came up short. “I do not know how to say it.”

  “Do you mean that you think your friends try to curry favor with your father by being nice to you?”

  Annie nodded, fast and furious. “Yah.”

  “Can kids your age be shunned?”

  “No, but their mamm and dat can.”

  She contemplated the teenager’s words and compared them to everything she knew about the Amish at that point. On one hand, the girl’s gripe sounded plausible, if not more English-like. On the other hand, it was hard not to chalk the whole thing up to Annie’s status as a teenager—a time when everything lends itself to being angst-worthy, especially on the family front.

  “I’m sorry to hear—”

  Annie moved on to the cookies, downing two of the three before Claire knew what was happening. “Anyway, I think I could do this a few days a week.”

  “Do this? What’s this?”

  Lifting the third and final cookie to her lips, Annie popped it into her mouth, whole. “Work here.”

  She resisted the urge to search high and low for a hidden camera and, instead, kept her focus on the girl hell-bent on eating her way through Claire’s lunch. “Did you say w-work ? Here?”

  Annie nodded. “Yah. Esther Miller stopped by the farm this morning and said you were looking for help at your store. She said I would have fun. She also said I would need to wear my boring clothes, but that is okay. I can wear both.”

  Then, without waiting for anything resembling a follow-up question, Annie lifted her dress to reveal an ultrashort skirt. “See?”

  “Wow. That’s really . . . uh, short.” It was all she could think to say at the moment, but it fit, unlike the skirt.

  Annie released the Amish dress from her hands and la
ughed. “That is what Rumspringa is for—to do as the English do.”

  “I don’t wear skirts like that.” Claire reached around Annie and liberated the sandwich from the counter before it, too, disappeared.

  “You’re old.”

  She had to laugh. “No, I’m not old, Annie. I just don’t feel the need to showcase myself like that. Most English women don’t.”

  A flash of something Claire couldn’t quite identify skittered across Annie’s face, disappearing as quickly as it had come. “Plenty do. I see them at the bridge. I see the attention they get from boys.”

  “It’s the wrong attention, Annie. From the wrong boys.” She took a bite and then brought her free hand to the side of the teenager’s face. “The right boys see this, Annie. And your face is beautiful with nothing more than a smile. Remember that, okay?”

  Annie stepped back, surprised. “You think I am beautiful?”

  “You don’t?”

  “I am plain.” Annie brushed at her dress like one might brush at an unwanted crumb. “Like these clothes.”

  Reluctantly, Claire lowered the sandwich back to the counter and, instead, reached for the small handheld mirror she’d bought for Esther’s use whenever Eli’s buggy appeared in the alleyway. She held it up in front of Annie. “Look at your eyes, Annie . How can you call them plain?”

  “That is because I am on Rumspringa and I wear makeup.”

  “Smile, Annie. A real smile.”

  Annie made a face first, but finally did as she was told, her cheeks rising upward and igniting a sparkle deep inside her eyes.

  “Do you see that sparkle? The way it makes your eyes dance? That’s not makeup, Annie, that’s you.”

  The chocolate brown of the girl’s eyes disappeared momentarily behind lashes clumped with too much mascara. “The Amish boys do not notice me. But, with makeup, the English boys do.”

  Claire tucked the mirror back on its original shelf beneath the register, shaking her head as she did. “I don’t believe that, Annie. I really don’t. You are far too pretty to go unnoticed. But you are also only, what? Fifteen? Sixteen?”

  “Sixteen.”