Shunned and Dangerous (An Amish Mystery)

by Bradford, Laura

  Slowly, he looked from the cow to Claire and back again, the hint of a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. “Aside from getting this beauty back to Harley’s, I’ve got no plans. Except, hopefully, to sit outside on your aunt’s porch with you, enjoying what may very well be one of the last relatively pleasant evenings we’ll have before winter rears its head.”

  She tried to think of something to say that would remove Jakob from the hook he was voluntarily putting himself on but came up empty-handed. The truth was, she liked the notion of Jakob coming out to get her, liked the image of sharing Diane’s porch swing with the handsome detective. If nothing else, his presence would keep her from poring over her gift shop’s books, searching for the financial life jacket she needed to keep Heavenly Treasures open.

  Tilting her head upward to meet his gaze, she gave in to the smile that surely mirrored the dimple-laced one making its way across his face with lightning-quick speed. “You’re on.”

  • • •

  Turn by turn, Claire made her way through the first part of Mose Fisher’s maze, each step she took sending an amusing chill skittering down her spine.

  In all her years of navigating mazes, Claire had never succumbed to the creepy factor that had sent so many of her childhood friends back to the starting line before they’d completed even a quarter of the course. Granted, cornfields had been the backdrop of many a horror movie and thriller novel, but to her, mazes were all about the challenge—one she’d never been able to walk away from.

  Yet, there she was, not far from the starting point, and her heart was beginning to pound, the isolation of her current path fraying her nerves.

  “Stop it, you sissy,” she scolded herself as she lifted the flashlight Mose had handed her upon payment and flipped it on. The circle of light it cast confirmed the maze was, indeed, crafted from rustling cornstalks rather than the paper-thin people her mind had almost convinced her were whispering.

  Shaking away her momentary bout of stupidity, Claire turned to her right and then her left only to stop and turn back at the familiar sound of Esther’s voice.

  “I’m over here, Esther,” she called out, turning the beam of light in the direction from which she, herself, had just come and waiting for her friend to appear. Hired to assist Claire at the shop, Esther King had quickly earned a place in Claire’s heart.

  More than a handful of times, Claire had tried to put a finger on what, exactly, it was about Jakob’s niece that had left such an indelible impression on her heart. After all, they’d only known each other just a little over three months—a drop in the bucket compared to so many others who’d come and gone throughout Claire’s life. Yet, each and every time, she came back to the same thing. Esther was true in every sense of the word. And, as a result, Claire appreciated the simpler things in life more than she’d ever imagined prior to meeting the young Amish woman.

  “There you are.” Esther stepped around a break in the cornstalks and waved. “Dawdy said you were inside the maze.”

  Claire nodded at the mention of Esther’s grandfather. “I just started a few minutes ago if you want to come with me. But if you do, you can’t tell me when and where to turn, okay? I want to figure this out myself—”

  “It happened, Claire! It finally happened!”

  “What happened?” The words were no sooner out of her mouth than she knew. The sparkle in Esther’s eyes that magnified tenfold whenever her beau, Eli, was within a mile radius crackled beneath the thin white cap covering her hastily pinned head of soft brown hair. And her skin, which had never known a lick of makeup, boasted a lovely shade of crimson befitting the almost-twenty-year-old’s unmistakable happiness.

  “Oh, Esther . . .” She closed the gap between them, reaching for Esther’s hands as she did. “Eli asked you to marry him, didn’t he?”

  The healthy red glow in Esther’s cheeks deepened still further. “He asked Dat, and Dat gave his blessing.”

  “Oh, Esther . . .” she repeated, the enthusiasm emanating from her friend duplicating itself inside Claire. “I told you this day would come. I told you Eli would do everything he could to win your father’s trust and respect.”

  And she had. Even when Eli himself threatened to make Claire eat her own words with his bouts of anger, an emotion that was not acceptable among the Amish.

  “So when will it happen? When will you get married?” she asked.

  “In early December.”

  “You mean this December? As in five weeks from now?”

  Esther’s gaze dropped to the soft earth beneath their feet then returned, shyly, to meet Claire’s. “Yah. There is much to do to get ready, but I will still work with you until that time.”

  Releasing her hold on Esther’s hands, Claire noted her friend’s tied kapp strings with a touch of nostalgia then pulled her in for a quick embrace. “I want to help in whatever way I can, Esther. I can cook. I can set up benches. I can help with invitations . . . I can do whatever you need me to do. Just say the word, okay?”

  When Esther said nothing, Claire stepped back for a better look at her friend’s face. “Esther? Is something wrong?”

  Seconds turned to minutes before Esther spoke again, her words barely more than a whisper eked out between hurried glances in the direction from which she’d approached. “W-would you please tell my uncle? I . . . I think he would like to know.”

  Claire blinked against the tears her answering smile couldn’t erase, the excitement over Esther’s need for her uncle to know battling against the reality that necessitated Claire’s involvement in the first place. To Esther, though, she simply nodded. “I’ll tell him this evening, Esther. I promise.”

  “Thank you, Claire.” And, just like that, Esther was gone, her basic ankle-high black boots making nary a sound against the earth as she disappeared between the cornstalks, her destination surely involving one very happy groom-to-be.

  For a long moment, Claire simply stood there, her heart and her thoughts filled with the kind of hope one wished for themselves and the people they loved. Marriage hadn’t worked for her and Peter, but she knew it would be different for Esther and Eli. Different because the Amish didn’t believe in divorce and different because Eli had taken the time to get to know Esther, treasuring all that he’d discovered in the process.

  Yes, Esther and Eli would have a long and happy life together; of that, Claire was sure. Squaring her shoulders, she turned back toward the body of the maze, her enthusiasm for its unknown trails noticeably dimmed in light of Esther’s news.

  “Claire?”

  She spun around in time to see Esther reappear between the stalks. “Esther! You scared me!”

  “I did not mean to scare you, Claire. I want to help you.”

  “Help me?” she echoed.

  Esther’s slender finger led Claire’s focus and flashlight to a small cutout in the stalks. “Every year Dawdy makes a harder maze inside the main one. He says it is for those who find the big one too simple.”

  Claire felt her brows arch in curiosity. “You mean like an expert trail or something?”

  At Esther’s slow nod, Claire clapped her flashlight against her empty hand and squealed.

  “I did not tell too much, did I?”

  She retraced her steps back to Esther and planted a gentle kiss on her friend’s still flushed cheek. “You told me exactly what I wanted to hear. Now go . . . find Eli. Give him a hug from me and tell him how pleased I am at your news.”

  This time, when Esther left, she didn’t return.

  And this time, when Claire turned back toward the maze, she kept going, her instincts guiding her feet around one line of cornstalks after the other with very few course corrections along the way.

  Here, in the depths of a section few knew about, Claire was able to navigate the clever web without distractions, each foot of progress she made entirely her own. Slowly, she rounded one bend and then another, until the beam of her flashlight jogged across the first sighting of a pers
on she’d had since parting ways with Esther nearly thirty minutes earlier.

  “Hello there,” she called, transferring the beam of light from the man’s bearded face down to his simple pale blue shirt and black suspendered pants. “It’s nice to see someone else trying their luck at the harder course.”

  When the man said nothing, Claire stepped closer, lowering the flashlight still farther in an attempt to minimize its blinding effects. “If you’re lost, I can help you find your way out. I’m pretty good at these kinds of mazes.”

  At his continued silence, she decreased the gap between them to mere inches. Her gaze found and then followed the thick rope as it traveled up the man’s chest and around his pasty white neck, his bulging eyes and protruding tongue telling her everything she needed to know and nothing she’d ever forget . . .

  Chapter 2

  If she’d been thinking with a head that wasn’t trying to process the notion of coming face-to-face with a dead body, Claire might have marveled at the speed with which Esther and Eli had managed to find her deep inside the expert maze, but she wasn’t. Instead, all she could really focus on was steadying her breath the way Eli was cautioning.

  “Claire, it is to be okay. You must breathe slowly.”

  She tried to heed the young man’s words, but knowing a corpse was propped against a shovel handle less than five feet away made it difficult.

  “Eli, we must get help,” Esther pleaded from the shoulder-patting position she’d claimed within minutes of Claire’s post-scream collapse. “Perhaps, if my uncle hurries, Mr. Zook will be okay.”

  Zook . . .

  Zook . . .

  Claire tried to pull the semi-familiar name from the fog in her brain and fit it inside the vague recollection that kept surfacing behind it, but to no avail. She just couldn’t seem to focus on anything besides the face of death that had stared out at her from beneath an Amish hat.

  “Jakob will come soon. But to hurry would make no difference.” Eli squatted down beside Esther long enough to cover his fiancée’s hand with his own, the warmth of their layered touch reaching through the fabric of Claire’s shirt. “Harley is with the Lord now, Esther.”

  Harley . . .

  Zook . . .

  Suddenly, Claire was back on the side of the road, standing next to Jakob and a mooing dairy cow. She struggled onto her elbow, looking up at Esther and Eli as she did. “Did you say Harley Zook?”

  Esther nodded along with Eli’s verbal confirmation. “Yah.”

  Claire swung her gaze in the direction she’d silently vowed never to look again and shuddered. Sure enough, there, propped upright among the cornstalks, was the man who would need no help in finding his way through Mose’s or anyone else’s maze ever again. “That’s Harley Zook?” she whispered.

  “Yah,” Eli repeated. “That is Zook.”

  “Claire? Eli? Am I getting close?” Jakob’s voice, strong and clear against the otherwise too-quiet backdrop, emerged from the row of cornstalks beside Claire just before the detective himself. “Where is he?”

  Eli lifted his finger to guide Jakob’s gaze from Claire to the body that had necessitated the Amish man’s use of a cell phone. “He is dead.”

  A long, low whistle escaped from between Jakob’s lips as he approached the body with a high-powered flashlight of his own, his steps slowing as he covered the final foot or so. “Did you see anything?” he asked, reaching into his pocket and extracting a pair of rubber gloves. “Anyone running from this area?”

  “Children run through the maze all day.” With Eli’s hand, Esther rose to her feet. “But they do not run from this spot. There is no map to make it so.”

  Jakob pulled his radio from his belt and raised it to his mouth. “I need the ME at Fisher’s maze. We’ve got an active crime scene. Send accordingly.” When he was done, he looked back at his niece and offered an encouraging smile. “This place isn’t on a map?”

  Esther’s kapp shook along with her head. “Dawdy says this”—Esther raised her arms outward—“is to find without maps.”

  Sitting all the way up, Claire chimed in. “It’s more for the maze experts, for lack of a better word.”

  “What is to happen now?” Eli moved closer to Jakob, his gait showing little hesitation.

  Jakob’s gaze lingered on Esther a moment longer before focusing, once again, on the body of a man who’d stood by him when no one else had. “We close things down here and investigate.”

  “Close things down?” Esther echoed.

  “We have to. It’s the only way to keep the scene from being contaminated any more than it already has been.” Jakob reached out, touched the end of the rope with his gloved hand, then let his arm fall to his side in obvious frustration.

  “I . . . I didn’t touch anything.” Claire struggled to her feet beside Esther. “As soon as I saw the rope and his tongue”—she stopped, steadied her breath, then continued on—“I knew it was too late.”

  “Dawdy will not be pleased to close the maze. He is already angry at Mr. Zook. This will not help.”

  Jakob’s head snapped upward at the same time a strangled cry erupted from somewhere deep inside Esther’s chest. Instinctively, Claire wrapped an arm around her friend and pulled her close. “Shhh, Esther, it’s okay—”

  “Dat—I mean, Mose,” Jakob quickly corrected himself, “may not have been fond of Harley Zook because of my choice to leave, but that was sixteen years ago, Esther.”

  “But Isaac is just one week.”

  Esther buried her head in Claire’s arm, forcing Jakob to turn toward his niece’s beau. “Isaac? What does my brother have to do with this, Eli?”

  Eli looked from Jakob to Esther and back again, the light from the detective’s flashlight illuminating the sudden prick of red in the young man’s cheeks. “Zook offered Isaac work. With him. He said Isaac would do better working for him than making toys for Daniel and farming with your dat.”

  Jakob clapped a gloved hand to his face then let it slip slowly back to his side. “And Isaac? Did he accept?”

  Casting a helpless look in his bride-to-be’s direction, Eli hesitated.

  “Did Isaac accept the offer?” Jakob repeated, his voice more gruff the second time around.

  “Yah.”

  With obvious effort, Jakob raised his gaze to the sky above, a flash of something Claire couldn’t identify in the absence of direct light making its way across his face and stance. Whatever it was, though, it wasn’t good. That much was evident in the air that hovered around them on the heels of Eli’s reply.

  Swapping places with Eli, Claire took advantage of the young man’s concern for Esther to offer Jakob a semblance of the support he so obviously needed. “Jakob? I’m sorry about Eli having to be the one to call you about this. But I wasn’t really thinking when he asked for my phone.”

  Slowly, Jakob lowered his chin until he was looking down at Claire, the expression she’d missed only moments earlier now on full display. He was worried, scared even. But of what, she wasn’t sure, as his response addressed her worries rather than his own. “No, Eli did the right thing in calling me. I’m just sorry you had to come across something like”—his gaze flitted in Harley’s direction before returning to study her from head to toe—“this all on your own . . . and in the dark, no less. Are you okay?”

  “I’ll recover.” She heard the residual shake to her voice and worked to eliminate it completely. “But I’m worried about you. You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “That would be preferable at this moment.”

  She allowed herself one last look at the face she knew she’d see in her dreams for many weeks to come, a silent prayer for the man’s soul preceding the hand she laid across Jakob’s arm. “I know his support and kindness meant a lot to you all those years ago. I’m sorry this happened to him, and I’m sorry you have to see him this way now.”

  Widening his stance ever so slightly, Jakob stared down at the hard packed earth, his haunting response deli
vered via a choked whisper. “Harley Zook tried to bring my father and me back together. Problem was, there wasn’t much to bring back together. Long before I left my life with the Amish, my father decided I wasn’t up to par . . . not next to Benjamin Miller, anyway.”

  Benjamin Miller . . .

  Eli’s big brother . . .

  The man whom Mose Fisher used as a yardstick for his own son and who wrested the heart of an Amish girl whom Jakob himself had once loved . . .

  Claire mentally culled her limited knowledge of the strained relationship between two men Claire counted as friends, and remained silent, waiting for Jakob to say the rest of his piece.

  He did not disappoint. “Needless to say, Zook’s efforts were wasted. There was nothing that man could say, no case he could plead, no injustice he was capable of righting, that would have convinced my father to look at me let alone utter a word in my direction.”

  The emotion with which Jakob spoke spawned a mist in Claire’s eyes that she quickly blinked away. “I’m sorry about that, Jakob, I really am. All I know, though, is that it was—and is—Mose’s loss.”

  When Jakob said nothing, she hooked a finger beneath his chin and nudged it upward until their eyes met. “You’re a good man, Jakob.”

  “All Zook wanted was for Dat to talk to me. To acknowledge me as a person, if not a son. And now, sixteen years later, he will finally have his wish.”

  She searched Jakob’s face for something that would explain his words, but there was nothing. Not the hurt that always accompanied mention of his father, not the fear she’d seen when she stepped away from Esther, not the excitement she’d have figured as a match for his last sentence. No, there was simply blankness.

  “Jakob?”

  “I wonder if Harley knew, at the end, that his own murder would make it so my father would have to talk to me again . . .”

  Chapter 3

  Letting her nose guide her feet, Claire reached the bottom of the steps and turned right, the telltale aroma of her aunt’s blueberry pancakes calling to her as much for the normalcy they represented as for the mouthwatering good taste that was a given.