Suspendered Sentence (An Amish Mystery Book 4)

by Laura Bradford

  “I’m glad you stopped me.” She inhaled slowly, giving herself a little extra time to think through the untruth she was about to share. When she’d taken in as much air as she could, she let it out along with her story. “I know you’ve been working on Mr. O’Neil’s campaign for quite some time and I know we’re getting awfully close to the election, but I was wondering if maybe I could help a little.”

  “Seriously?”

  At her nod, he broke out into a grin. “I take it you know him?”

  She looked again at the pamphlet and the man it portrayed on the front cover. “Actually, no. I’m just fascinated by the”—she paused to choose her words carefully—“road he’s traveled to get to this place.”

  “Me, too. So many folks think he’s just doing it to follow in his father’s footsteps . . . but he’s not. He wants to make his own mark on this town.”

  Unsure of what to say, she merely nodded again.

  “Hey, I’m Tim, by the way.”

  “Claire. Claire Weatherly.”

  He shook her hand, and then hooked his thumb in the direction of the empty storefront housed between the police station and the parade of park benches heavily utilized by tourists throughout daylight hours. “Our campaign headquarters just took up shop in this place last night and the electricity has been running inside nonstop ever since. Why don’t you come on in for a few minutes and let me show you around.”

  She quickened her step as they neared their destination. “Do you expect Mike will be stopping by often? You know, to check on how everything is going?”

  Tim reached for the door handle and nodded. “I absolutely think he’ll be around every chance he gets. He’s real hands-on in everything he does. Heck, he helped us move into this place last night and I’m not sure he’s even gone home to change yet.”

  “He’s inside now?”

  “He sure is. Want to meet him?”

  She refrained from pinching herself long enough to follow Tim through the door and into the hustle and bustle that was Mike O’Neil’s campaign headquarters. A table off to her side was flanked by teenagers tasked with folding a stack of glossy colored printouts into the same brochure Tim had handed Claire. In between the folders were three telephones and three older volunteers who were in varying stages of campaign calls. One was dialing, one was in the throes of her pitch, and the other was answering questions.

  Another table off to the left housed a variety of ages hovering around a pair of button-making machines. Each and every button they made found its way into a big box for distribution at a later date.

  “I think it says a lot about a candidate when so many people are willing to give up their free time just to see him in office, you know?”

  Before she could formulate a reply, he stepped forward and again motioned for her to follow. “I think he might be in the back room with his dad.”

  “His father was Heavenly’s mayor for a long time, wasn’t he?” she asked as much to make conversation as for any other reason.

  “Not long enough, from what my own dad has said.” Tim headed through an open doorway in the back of the main room and stopped as he reached the other side. “But Mike’s dad is the first one to say new blood is good if for no other reason than it makes you appreciate what you had. Once you do, it’s easier to recognize it again in the future.”

  When she caught up, Tim poked his head into a room similar in size to Claire’s office in her own storefront. “Excuse me, Mike? Do you have a minute?”

  The younger of the two men stood and met them at the door, his blue-green eyes dancing between his campaign volunteer and Claire.

  “Of course, Tim, how can I help you?”

  “Claire Weatherly, here, would like to help with your campaign.”

  Mike reached for Claire’s hand and shook it warmly. “Claire, I can’t thank you enough for your support. It’s knowing I have the support of people like you that keeps my head held high during what can be a rather grueling process.”

  “My pleasure,” she said. “I love knowing you grew up in this town. I’ve only been here a little over a year myself, but I committed to it being my home for many years to come when I opened my own shop here on Lighted Way.”

  “Oh? Which one is yours?”

  “Heavenly Treasures.” Then, for clarity’s sake, she put its location in perspective using the one shop everyone knew. “It’s next to Shoo Fly Bake Shoppe.”

  The man laughed. “Ruth Miller’s apple pie really is something else, isn’t it?”

  Movement just beyond the candidate’s shoulder yielded a face similar to Mike’s but older. The older man’s handshake was just as warm. “You must be the niece Diane Weatherly is always talking about whenever I see her out and about, yes?”

  “I am.”

  “I’m Ryan . . . Michael’s father.” The man jabbed his son in the side with his elbow while jutting his chin toward Claire. “Claire, here, lives at Sleep Heavenly with her aunt.”

  “For now,” she interjected. “Eventually I hope to buy my own place in town.”

  “Where were you living before you moved to Heavenly?” Mike asked.

  “New York City.”

  “Wow, that’s quite a change.” Michael reached around his father and liberated a familiar to-go box from the first of two rickety desks he’d managed to cram into the tiny space. “Would you like a cookie? They’re from everyone’s favorite bakery in town.”

  She helped herself to a small sugar cookie and took a bite. “Heavenly and New York City are as different as night and day. Here, I fit. There, I didn’t.”

  “How so?” he asked as he returned the box to his desk and his undivided attention to Claire.

  “If I had to boil it down to one thing, I’d say the quiet. Beyond that, it’s the simple life led by the Amish that spreads itself outward to the rest of us.”

  Mike rubbed his thumb along the underside of his chin and nodded, the narrowing of his eyes letting her know he was truly absorbing her words. “I’ve lived here my whole life but have never really been able to put a finger on why I love it in such a clear and concise way. And you’re right. Even though we live our lives very differently than the Amish, their simplicity, their work ethic, and their forgiving hearts have a way of rubbing off. Funny things is, it’s almost ironic that a group of people who are such hard workers can also help the rest of us to slow down, you know?”

  “Something we all need to do once in a while,” she added.

  “Agreed. In fact, it took some Amish friends in my teen years to make me really step back and look at all the things I thought were so important, but weren’t.”

  At the wistful turn to his tone, she broached the subject that had propelled her to sign on as a volunteer for a candidate she’d never met. “You grew up with Leroy Beiler, Miriam Hochstetler, and Elizabeth Troyer, I believe.”

  He drew back in benign surprise. “I did, indeed. How did you—”

  “Sadie Lehman, the girl whose body was likely recovered last week, was part of your group of friends, too, wasn’t she?”

  She didn’t need better lighting to notice the way Mike’s face paled at the mention of Sadie, nor did she need a psychology degree to pick out the genuine sadness that revealed and highlighted the same facial lines she’d seen in his campaign brochure.

  What she did need, however, was a muzzle to mute her audible gasp as the elder O’Neil grabbed hold of his son’s arm, propelled him through the doorway, and instructed Claire to leave her name and number in the very unlikely event the campaign needed more volunteers.

  Chapter 17

  Claire lifted her face to the noon sun and allowed it to warm her from the outside in. All morning long she’d been saddled with an inexplicable chill she couldn’t quite shake or accurately attribute to any one particular thing.

  Sure, it had been chilly when she walked to work that morning. But in the grand scheme of things, she’d contended with far colder mornings during the months of January and Februa
ry.

  The heat had been on the fritz when she first arrived at the shop, but a call to her fellow shopkeeper and landlord, Al Gussman, had gotten things under control and back to a pleasant temperature within an hour of opening.

  She’d tried to keep her shivering to a minimum as she attended to customers and various tasks around the shop, but when Annie offered to hold down the fort while Claire took a break to warm up, she knew she’d been unsuccessful.

  A pulsing vibration just beside her hip made her jump and Claire reached into her pocket for her phone. A quick check of the display screen ignited the chill all over again.

  For a moment, she considered letting it go to voice mail, but knew she couldn’t. Not if she wanted answers, anyway.

  Flipping the phone open, she held it to her ear, the chill that had permeated her body all morning successfully moving into her voice. “Good afternoon, Jakob. What can I do for you?”

  A long hesitation was broken first by a gargled noise, and then a worried plea. “Oh no. Please tell me you got the message last night.”

  “No. No message.”

  The initial gargled noise turned into a frustrated groan. “I called your cell, Claire. I left a message telling you my meeting went longer than I expected and that I wanted to reschedule for tonight. If you’re free, of course.”

  The sun cleared the top of Shoo Fly Bake Shoppe and bathed the alley in blink-worthy brightness. More than anything, she wanted to chalk up his unexplained no-show the previous evening to a misunderstanding, but something inside her made her falter, and she hated it.

  She knew Jakob. She knew what kind of man he was—his decent ways and his unshakable integrity. Just because her ex-husband had made a sport out of standing her up didn’t mean Jakob was destined to do the same.

  Still, she had to be sure . . .

  “Hold on a second,” she murmured as she pulled the phone from her ear and looked down at the screen. Shielding the sun from her eyes with her left hand, she went into her message panel and scrolled down to the line dedicated to voice mails. Sure enough, a number one was listed beside the appropriate icon, yet nothing next to the missed-call category. Slowly, she lifted the device back to her ear. “I’m sorry, Jakob. I . . . I never heard the call or noticed the message.”

  “You thought I stood you up, didn’t you?”

  She nodded, only to realize her mistake and correct it with her verbal assent.

  “I can assure you, right now, that I will never stand you up without a darn good reason—like police business. And even then, with the exception of a complete emergency, I will always let you know that I’m not coming and why.”

  She swallowed over the sudden tightness in her throat and found the words she needed to say. “I’m sorry, Jakob. I’m sorry for assuming something about you because of the actions of someone else. I really should have known better.”

  “Hurt at the hands of people we love and trust cuts deeper than even we realize, sometimes. I get that.” She heard a squeak in the background and knew he was calling from his desk chair, the image of the handsome detective in his office birthing her first true smile of the day. “So, since you didn’t get to listen to the message, I should probably bring you up to speed on why I had to put our evening on hold.”

  “You don’t owe me any explanation, Jakob. Just knowing you tried to call is enough.”

  “No, it’s not.” He paused momentarily before filling in the blanks as quickly and succinctly as possible. “When I saw you just after closing last night, I was on my way out to Ben’s place.”

  “You went to Benjamin’s house? Why?”

  “I wanted to talk to him directly, to see if he could shed light on Elizabeth’s mood and demeanor the last few weeks of her life—things that now, in the wake of finding her journal, might be noteworthy.”

  “Okay . . .” she prompted, intrigued.

  “At first, the meeting was rather stilted. I asked basic questions and Ben gave one- and two-word answers. But as we began to revisit the past by way of my questions, we found that there was a lot to say about a lot of things. Some, of course, related directly to my reason for being there, and some didn’t, but the overall conversation ended up going much, much later than I’d originally thought.”

  Suddenly, it didn’t matter that she’d spent most of the night staring up at the ceiling, berating herself for trusting another man. It didn’t matter that she’d moved around the store that morning in a complete funk with a side order of incessant shivering. And it didn’t matter that all of it had been for naught. What did matter was that two men who’d once been friends had found a way to communicate with each other despite decades of bitterness and a belief system that only furthered that divide.

  “I’m glad you stayed with Benjamin. I’m glad the two of you worked out your differences . . .”

  “For the first time since I was probably eight years old, I realized that my father’s preference for Ben wasn’t Ben’s fault. He didn’t seek to make me look bad by building a really good chicken coop or chopping more wood than I did. And it wasn’t his fault that Elizabeth was interested in him instead of me. It just was. I’m the one who chose to blame my problems with my father on Ben. I’m the one who chose to see Elizabeth’s choice as some sort of final betrayal on his part. I’m the one who destroyed our friendship, not him.”

  She leaned against the shop’s side door and sent up a silent prayer of praise for bringing a man like Jakob into her life—a man who had the maturity to open his eyes and truly see.

  Still, she rushed to remove at least some of the weight he now shouldered. “Even if none of that had happened, the Ordnung is the reason you can’t be friends, now.”

  “True. But the Ordnung wasn’t responsible for the anger I’ve carried in my heart toward Ben all these years. That’s on me . . . and it was wrong. My father’s hang-ups were his alone.”

  A telltale clip-clop at the entrance to the alley forced her eyes open and her attention to the approaching buggy, the hatted man seated behind the trusted horse acknowledging Claire with a quick nod and an even quicker smile. “Speaking of Ben, he just pulled up for the Miller brothers’ noon check on their sister.”

  “I’ll let you go so you can say hi. But before I do, will you consider giving me another shot at our date tonight?”

  “There’s nothing to consider. I’m looking forward to it very much.” She heard the breathless excitement in her voice and knew he heard it, too.

  “Any thoughts on whether you’d prefer the drive, the coffee, or the movie?” he asked via a smile she didn’t need to see to know was there.

  “I think the movie sounds most fun.”

  “Me, too. I’ll pick you up at seven, okay?”

  “I’ll be ready.” She flipped the phone closed, held it to her face for an extra minute, and then slipped it back into her pocket as she stood to greet Benjamin. “While I always love seeing your brother, Eli, it sure is nice to see you around here again.”

  Ben crossed in front of his horse with an unfamiliar gait and an even more unfamiliar pair of dark circles rimming his lackluster blue eyes. “Claire.”

  “You look awful. What’s wrong?” Then, realizing how she sounded, she hurried to explain. “You look like you haven’t slept in days. Did something happen?”

  “I slept last night. For a few hours. But it was the first time since I found Elizabeth’s notebook.”

  She lowered herself back to the step she’d inhabited while talking to Jakob and patted the top one for Ben. He remained standing, his eyes now hooded. “Was it a special memory of Elizabeth that finally enabled you to relax and sleep?” she asked.

  “I have many memories. On many, many days. Her smile. Her laugh. But, most of all, I cannot forget the way she stared into the fields like she was waiting for something.” He pulled a sugar cube from his pocket and offered it to his horse, the animal as pleased with his owner’s gentle touch as he was with the treat. “When I would ask her, she would wipe at
her face and then go back to her chores, saying all was fine. Now, because of her written words, I know that she wiped tears she did not want me to see.”

  Oh, how she wanted to argue, to make up some sort of excuse that would remove the anguish from her friend’s heart, but she couldn’t. From everything she’d heard from Ben, Elizabeth had been a troubled woman her last few years on earth, a fact underscored by the Amish woman’s own written words. But just as Jakob had come to realize Ben was not responsible for his father’s actions, Ben was also not responsible for Elizabeth’s.

  How to say that, though, was the hard part.

  Benjamin had loved his wife. He’d asked for her hand in marriage and committed his life to her. Knowing, after the fact, that she had been tormented by a secret she never should have kept, had to be torturous in its own right.

  “But Jakob helped me to see that her step was lighter her last day.”

  “Her step was lighter?” she repeated, confused. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Again, Ben stroked his horse, his back to Claire. “It is there, on the last page of her notebook. She was going to tell. To know that she would soon be free of her secret would give her peace.” His hand dropped to his side and he turned until his gaze was on no one but Claire. “Before the notebook, I knew her death was God’s will and that she died content. After the notebook, I feared she died troubled. Now, because of Jakob, I believe she died with peace.”

  Unsure of what to say, she seized on the mention of a man she knew they both treasured. “I’m glad you and Jakob were able to talk last night. It’s apparent you both helped each other accept something that needed to be accepted in order for each of you to find peace, as well.”

  “Jakob is a good man.”

  This time when her throat tightened, she didn’t fight the feeling so fast. Instead, she let herself mull over the many precipitating reasons for her reaction, not the least of which was the obvious thawing that was beginning to take place between two childhood friends and the hope it brought to her own heart.