Shunned and Dangerous (An Amish Mystery)

by Bradford, Laura

  Chapter 7

  The sun was just rising into its mid-morning position when Jakob turned onto the long dirt driveway belonging to the late Harley Zook. Claire pressed her forehead to the passenger side window and peered out at the line of trees separating the Amish farm from the outside world.

  “You don’t think Esther and Eli will end up moving north or west, do you?” she asked, taking in the occasional rusting metal box visible through breaks in the foliage. “Eli is a go-getter for sure, but he’s also a farmer at heart.”

  The car slowed as they approached a bend in the path, Jakob’s attention flitting between the deceased’s property and Claire’s question. “I don’t know. I really don’t. I sure hope they stick around for Martha and Abram. But when there’s no farmland to be had, it certainly makes that option a bit tougher to exercise.”

  “Maybe they could buy that.” She pointed through gaps in the trees to a stretch of vacant land on the other side. “It certainly doesn’t look like it would be missed.”

  “Won’t happen. There’s more money to be had in building homes. Add to that the fact that more homeowners bring more tax revenue for the county and, well, suffice it to say Eli will need to consider other income-producing options if he and Esther hope to stay in Heavenly.”

  Jakob was right. Her sitting there, brewing over the unfairness of things, wasn’t going to change anything. Except, perhaps, her mood . . .

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to get all mopey on you like that.” Claire straightened in her seat, changing her view to the simple yet sturdy fence that lined the edges of Zook’s farm. In the distance, Holsteins grazed, their mouths moving constantly despite the lack of any discernible food source. Ahead and to their left stood a long, white, meticulously kept building Jakob referred to as the cows’ milking quarters—the bread and butter of the victim’s farm.

  “Looks like the girls lived well out here . . .” His words morphed into a long, low whistle as he slowed to a stop beside a not-so-meticulously kept farmhouse. “Certainly better than Zook, it seems.”

  She felt her jaw slack open as she, too, took in the peeling paint around the windows, the sagging roof atop the front porch, and the rotting stairs that led to the misshapen door. Along a rural road anywhere else in the country, she wouldn’t have batted an eye. But an Amish farmhouse? In Lancaster County? It didn’t fit . . .

  “Harley was still Amish, wasn’t he?” she finally asked, the question rather rhetorical against the haunting memory of the body she found propped against a shovel barely thirty-six hours earlier. “I-I didn’t know there were Amish who lived so”—she stopped, swallowed—“so . . . sloppy.”

  “Harley always was one to march to a different drum. But somehow, he was still respected. By everyone but Mose Fisher, anyway.” Jakob began shaking his head even before he finished uttering his father’s name aloud, his hand guiding her focus away from his pained expression and back to the house. “Good thing he worked his fix-it business from his buggy, huh? Because I’m thinking this place probably would have scared off any and all prospective customers.”

  And it was true. If a potential client had seen Harley’s house, they’d have doubted his prowess with a hammer and nails. Yet, according to items Diane had pointed out around the inn, the man was talented with his hands. Some might even say gifted if you took into account items he built rather than fixed.

  “I knew a reporter once. He wrote all sorts of articles—crime, features, hard news, you name it. But ask him to write a letter or anything outside his work hours, and it was like pulling teeth. He used to say the last thing he wanted to do on his own time was write.” Claire reached for the toolbox she’d set on the floor between her feet. “Maybe that’s how Harley felt about fixing things. He could do it for work, but on his own time he’d rather take care of his cows.”

  She moved the toolbox to her lap then shifted in the seat to afford a better view of Jakob. “I mean, if you think about it, running a dairy farm is a full-time job for many of the Amish in this area, isn’t it? But for Harley it was one of two jobs.”

  “True.” He liberated the box from her lap and jerked his head toward his door and the metal fence beyond. “So? Should we find Mary’s escape route and seal it off?”

  Answering by way of opening her car door, Claire stepped onto the dirt driveway and lifted her chin to the early-morning sun, an unexpected odor assailing her senses with an immediate punch. “Ewww! What on earth is that?” she asked from behind her hand. “It’s . . . it’s rancid.”

  Jakob lifted his nose into the air as he, too, stepped from the car and sniffed, once, twice. “That, Claire, is the telltale smell of spoiled milk.”

  She lowered her hand to her side, opting to breathe through her mouth rather than her nose. “I’ve smelled spoiled milk before,” she protested.

  “From the confines of your refrigerator, perhaps. But that’s the smell of many, many gallons of spoiled milk.” Tightening his grip on the handle of his toolbox, he motioned for her to follow as he crossed the driveway and headed toward a large troughlike contraption with several dozen smaller containers inside. The closer they got, the more intense the smell became. “Yep, that’s spoiled milk, alright.”

  “Why would he leave it out here in the first place?”

  “The bigger dairy farms use bulk cooling tanks with agitators to keep the milk moving. Harley’s obviously wasn’t one of them.”

  “And people drink that?” she said, pressing down on her nose once again in an unsuccessful attempt to blot out the smell.

  “Farms that store milk in cans like these”—he swept his free hand toward the trough—“can’t sell for the same higher price as the ones with the bulk cooling tanks. Instead, the milk is classified as Grade B and used for cheese.”

  “I’m not sure I ever want to eat another piece of cheese if this is where it comes from,” she murmured.

  “The only reason it smells this bad is because the trough is dry. Normally, the Grade B producers store their milk cans in cold water—hence, the trough—as it waits to be picked up by whatever company they’re selling to.” Jakob ran his hand across two or three milk cans, shaking his head as he did. “Pickups never take place on Sunday for the Amish, but that doesn’t explain this smell or the fact these are still sitting here at all.”

  “Harley’s dead now, Jakob.”

  “True. But I doubt the company who picks up his milk is aware of that yet.” Jakob stepped back and eyed the rest of the cans with casual interest. “Then again, if Harley was in the habit of letting the trough go dry, I imagine the driver wouldn’t bother loading the cans into his truck if they even stop by at all, anymore.”

  She removed her hand from her nose and mouth to speak but got a gulp of spoiled milk–laden air instead. Coughing, she pointed toward the fence in the distance and waited for him to take her cue.

  “Oh. Yeah. Sorry.” He looped his free hand through her arm and led her as far from the assortment of milk cans as possible. When they’d reached a breathable distance, he stopped and looked from side to side. “Do you see any holes anywhere?”

  With a deep, cleansing breath or two under her belt, Claire examined the fence that lined the farm, its shiny metal railing reflecting the late October sun with a brilliance that defied the morning’s autumn temperatures. “No, I don’t see any—wait!” She stepped to the right and then the left, bobbing her head from the path of the sun as she did. “Down there . . . The gate is open.”

  “Ahhh. So Mary didn’t escape, she simply accepted an open invitation, eh?” Jakob fell into step beside Claire, his head shaking side to side. “I don’t care what kind of animal it is, if you leave a gate open, they’re going to wander off. Even the Amish ones.”

  It felt good to laugh. And it felt good to do it with Jakob. “Maybe Mary didn’t know she was Amish.”

  “Maybe . . .” When they reached the gate, Jakob pulled it shut and slipped the impressive latch into place. “There. Now, whoever takes ove
r the herd will actually get a herd.”

  At the sudden downward turn to Jakob’s voice, Claire’s smile disappeared. “You really liked him, didn’t you?”

  “He not only understood my choice sixteen years ago; he respected it, too.” Jakob rocked back on his heels and looked up at the clear blue sky. “Since he was the only one able to do that, I guess you could say I kind of had a soft spot for Harley Zook.”

  “He had the capacity to be open-minded, that’s for sure.” Claire backed against the fence, her focus drawn to the pensive quality of Jakob’s face and stance. “I’m not sure how many people would be able to disassociate someone from their sibling’s killer the way he did. And to give the kid a job? I’m not sure I could ever be a big enough person to do something like that.”

  Jakob pinned her with a stare. “Excuse me?”

  “Harley hired the guy’s son as an apprentice for his carpentry business. ”

  “Guy? Jakob echoed.

  “I think Aunt Diane said his name was Patrick.” At Jakob’s blank stare, she revisited his question. “Wait. You mean the father? I can’t remember his name. You’d know it far better than I would.”

  When it was still apparent Jakob was lost, she tried again. “Carl Duppan . . . Ducken . . . I don’t know, but it was something like that.”

  “Carl Duck—?” Jakob’s face drained of all color. “Do you mean Carl Duggan?”

  “Duggan?” She tried the name on for size, Diane’s voice in her head confirming its match. “Yes! That’s it! That’s the man who killed Harley’s brother, right?”

  At Jakob’s nod, she continued, repeating the basic sentiment that had brought them to this spot in the first place. “Can you imagine hiring that man’s son as your apprentice sixteen years later?”

  This time, instead of reacting with a mere look and a dose of confusion, Jakob took off in a sprint toward the car, his footfalls nearly silent against the hard-packed earth. “C’mon. I’m gonna have to take a rain check on that post-fence-fixing coffee I promised you.”

  Chapter 8

  She took advantage of the midday lull in customers to nibble away at the ham and cheese sandwich she’d hastily tossed in a bag a mere four hours earlier. Yet just as her early morning outing with Jakob hadn’t lived up to her expectations, neither had her lunch.

  Part of that, she knew, was the overwhelming desire she had to close up shop early and plant herself in the middle of the Heavenly Police Department. Maybe if she did that, she’d have a better handle on why Jakob had felt it necessary to drop her off at Heavenly Treasures a good hour before they’d planned. She didn’t like being out of the loop, especially when it was obvious her tidbit about Patrick Duggan was behind the detective’s abrupt departure.

  The other part, she suspected, was the intense loneliness that had attached itself to her heart the moment she let herself into the shop. Sure, she’d known Esther wasn’t on the schedule to work—it was Sunday; the Amish girl never worked on Sunday. But somehow, knowing that Esther’s days at the shop were numbered, the weekly ritual was far less innocuous. Suddenly, instead of being able to focus her full attention on the handful of tasks still remaining on her to-do list, the lack of chitchat seemed to suck away her motivation to do anything besides mope.

  Deep down inside, she knew she should see Esther’s pending marriage as a bright spot amid an otherwise bleak canvas. After all, Esther’s elected departure meant Claire could bypass the whole pink slip debacle and the guilt that would surely follow.

  Still, the thought of losing Esther—whether in six weeks or twelve weeks—was painful. She brightened the shop in a way no overhead light or sun-drenched picture window ever could. And something about Esther always had a way of cutting through life’s little hiccups and convincing Claire to look past them with her chin held high.

  Rewrapping the sandwich she’d unwrapped just moments earlier, Claire placed it back in the brown paper sack from which it had come. There was no use trying to eat; she simply wasn’t hungry. Besides, a lull in customers meant a chance to look at the books one more time. Maybe, just maybe, she’d subtracted wrong along the way, or forgotten to record a deposit or twenty . . .

  She slipped off the cushioned stool behind the counter and made her way toward the back of the shop, the certainty of what she’d find in the books pulling on her resolve with each step she took. Glancing at her wristwatch, she couldn’t help but sigh. Three more hours until she could call it a day. Three more hours until her self-thrown pity-party would be forced to an end by the nonstop busyness that was dinnertime at the inn.

  The jangle of bells from the opposite side of the shop elicited a sigh of relief from her throat and she turned. The momentary pleasure ushered in by the promise of a much-needed distraction quickly morphed into surprise.

  “Isaac?” Then, realizing she sounded more shocked than friendly, she altered her tone and added a more proper greeting. “It’s good to see you. How have you been?”

  He nodded, his brilliant emerald green eyes disappearing momentarily behind the brim of his black hat. “I am well, Claire. And you?”

  She smiled at the man Esther called uncle and Jakob called brother—a man who’d embraced the Amish life based on nurture rather than nature. “I’m good, as well. So what brings you by?”

  A long pause had him shifting from foot to foot under an invisible weight that was as plain as day.

  “Isaac? Is everything okay?”

  “I do not know. That is why I am here.” He glanced back at the sidewalk and the tourists who traveled it alone on this Amish day of worship and visiting. “Is there any news?”

  “News?”

  “Of Harley Zook.”

  She drew back, surprised. “You haven’t heard?”

  All color drained from the man’s otherwise healthy pallor as he stumbled back a step or two. “So it is true? Mose is a suspect in his death?”

  “No . . . I . . . I just wasn’t sure if you knew Harley was dead.”

  “Yah. I know. Everyone knows.” Clearing his throat, Isaac noticeably tried to regroup. “Zook was a good man. An honest man.”

  She moved to the paneled upright in the middle of the shop and leaned against it for support. “You were working for him, weren’t you? In his carpentry business?”

  “For one week, yah. I still make toys with Lapp, but with Zook I will do more. On Thursday I fixed a porch railing at a home in Breeze Point, and on Friday I made a cabinet for a woman in Heavenly. She was pleased with my work.”

  Squaring her shoulders, she dove into the subject he’d touched on only moments earlier, the insight she’d gleaned from Esther and Eli at the murder scene making the question virtually rhetorical in nature. “And Mose? He wasn’t happy that you were working with Harley?”

  A cloud skittered across Isaac’s face just before the slight nod of agreement. “He did not like Zook. But I did not know my decision to take work for Zook would push him to . . .” His words trailed off as his gaze traveled to a spot somewhere over Claire’s head.

  “Push him to what?”

  Slowly, Isaac lowered his chin until his focus was on Claire once again. “Such anger.”

  “But if you knew the history there, how could you think taking a job from Harley wouldn’t upset Mose?” The second the words were out, she gasped. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Isaac. I have no right asking such a question. Please forgive me.”

  “I do not agree with Dat’s anger toward Zook. It was not Zook’s choice for his brother to be murdered. And it is not a crime for him to respect my brother’s decision to want to solve that murder. It was Jakob’s choice to leave the Amish, not Zook’s.” Isaac took a deep breath then released it slowly. “It was nice to work beside someone who does not pretend my brother does not exist.”

  Finally, Isaac’s choice made perfect sense. Yes, he’d been working with his hands in Lapp’s Toy Shop. But with Harley Zook, he worked with his hands and could talk of the brother he was forced to shun within his own commun
ity and his own home. She rested a hand atop his arm and smiled up at the man. “Someone else’s anger is not your fault.”

  “But if my choice led someone to kill, I am to blame.”

  She considered his words, the meaning behind them making it difficult to breathe let alone think. “You can’t really believe Mose killed Harley, can you? Your dat is Amish.”

  “That did not stop him from hating for sixteen years.”

  It was a simple statement and one she couldn’t dispute no matter how much she wished she could—for Isaac’s sake and for Jakob’s. Abandoned beliefs often had a domino effect.

  “You have to know that the last thing your brother wants to see is Mose convicted of any crime, much less murder.”

  “Dat will not speak to him.”

  “He might not have a choice.”

  “Dat will not speak to him,” Isaac repeated, the force of his statement softened somewhat by the worry that tugged at his broad shoulders.

  “Jakob will figure this out, Isaac. I’m confident of that.” And she was. Jakob Fisher was a smart man. He also maintained a fierce and undying loyalty to the family who’d long since turned their backs on him. “If Jakob needs me to step in and help by talking with Mose, I’ll do that. He just has to ask.”

  She felt Isaac’s worried gaze turn to one of a more studying variety and she looked down, unsure of his thoughts. “For so many years I worried about Jakob. I wondered if he was well. If he was happy. If he was lonely. I would lie in my bed at night trying to picture his new life. Even though I did not know much of life outside, I would picture only good. Like you. You are good for Jakob. You make him happy. Martha sees it, too.”

  She pushed off the support beam, her face warm. “It’s not like that with Jakob and me. We’re just . . . friends. Please make sure your sister knows that.”

  “Friends, yah. But there will be more. Esther tells of the smile Jakob has for you.”