For just a split second she saw it—the kind of raw emotion and heartfelt appreciation that no words could ever do justice. Yet, as quick as it came, it was gone, hidden behind a set of beliefs no amount of time in the English world could ever stamp from his makeup. “I knew the consequences of my decision, Claire. And I left, anyway. The repercussions are mine alone.”
“Fine. But Mose’s decision to kill another man is not one of them.” At Jakob’s noticeable slump, she altered her words to include the subordinating conjunction she knew he needed to hear. “If Mose is even the one responsible at all.”
Wrapping his hand around hers, he lowered it from his face to the limited space between them, his grip never wavering. “I need you to know that it’s only because of this case that I ended our time together so quickly yesterday. I hated doing it, especially when I’d been looking forward to it all night long . . . but I had to. I had to spend a little time with the first potential non-Mose thread to cross my path since you stumbled across Harley’s body in the middle of my father’s maze.”
“Non-Mose thread? I don’t understand.” She heard the hope in her voice, knew his explanation meant way more than it should in light of the way she tried so hard to convince herself and everyone else they were just friends.
“It’s what you said yesterday out at Zook’s farm. About Carl Duggan’s kid working with Harley. I had no idea.”
“Okay . . .”
“Don’t you see? There’s potential baggage there. Baggage that could lead to a motive for murder for some.”
For the first time since he took her hand, the thumping in her chest ceased. “What are you talking about?”
Releasing her hand, he rose from the swing and wandered over to the porch railing, his focus somewhere other than her aunt’s front porch. “Sixteen years ago, Patrick Duggan was robbed of his father. And, from the little I’ve been able to piece together over the past twenty-four-plus hours, his life hasn’t been terribly easy since that time. Money struggles set in motion by attorney fees and the loss of an income made things more than a little difficult for Carl’s wife and son over the years. Those money struggles made it so Rita Duggan had to take on a second job just to keep their heads above water. Her increasing time out of the home each day to work those jobs left young Patrick alone for long stretches of time—stretches of time that some kids might use to be productive, while others use it to get in trouble.”
“They say negative attention is often better than no attention, don’t they?” she offered.
“Exactly. Then, suddenly, in his mid-twenties, Patrick wants to get his life in order? By signing on as an apprentice to the man who could be seen, by a troubled kid, as the person ultimately responsible for the loss of his father?”
“And thus you have revenge . . .” She, too, abandoned the swing in favor of the same railing where Jakob was now perched. “So it was me mentioning Patrick’s apprenticeship that got you researching his life post murder trial?”
He ran a hand through his sandy blond hair, flashing a quick dimple-laden smile as he did. “Trust me, Claire. That’s the only thing that could have made me skip out on a breakfast date with you.”
She felt the warmth rising in her cheeks and was instantly glad for the increasing shadows engulfing the porch. “But why wait sixteen years for revenge? I mean, I get a ten-year-old boy not being capable of murder. But he’s been a grown man for some time now, right? So why now?”
“Which brings me to the first big sticking point”—Jakob slid his hands down the railing on either side of his body—“and keeps my father still very much on the top of the list. Isaac just took the job with Harley. That’s a far more recent wound.”
“Have you questioned your father yet?”
“One of my other officers did. Mose refused to talk to me. But either way, they were the basic ‘where were you when the body was found’ kind of questions.”
“And Patrick? Have you questioned him? Do you think there’s a chance he’s responsible?”
“No, I haven’t questioned Patrick yet. I’m trying to piece together a timeline for the past sixteen years for the Duggan family before I even talk to him. I’m almost there, but there’s still a few more things I want to nail down. I don’t want to stir up any more grief for Rita Duggan than absolutely necessary, especially considering the word around town that her health may be starting to fail.”
“His mother’s health is failing?” she repeated.
At Jakob’s noncommittal nod, she posed another theory. “Let’s assume Rita is all Patrick has left. Couldn’t grief and fear make the loss of his father rise to the surface in an all-new wave of anger?”
He didn’t say anything for a minute, his gaze dropping to the wood-planked porch floor.
Feeling suddenly foolish, she walked around Jakob and took a seat on the top step. “I’m sorry. I imagine the last thing you need right now is me trying to play Nancy Drew.”
“No!” He shifted his view upward to the porch roof. “Actually, there could be some merit to what you said. If nothing else, it could be used to address that first big sticking point where Duggan’s son is concerned.”
“Which, in turn, adds someone other than your father to the list of suspects.”
Jakob puffed his cheeks with air only to let it diffuse slowly through pursed lips. “Claire, I want nothing more than to get my father’s name off the suspect list. For him, for Mamm, for Martha, for Isaac, for Esther—oh my gosh, Esther!” He pushed off the railing with a sudden urgency. “Esther shouldn’t have something like this shadowing her wedding plans!”
“No, she shouldn’t.” It was a simple reply, yet no less accurate.
“Claire, I’ve got to fix this. I’ve got to find out who murdered Harley, and I’m praying with everything I am that Mose isn’t that person,” Jakob murmured, his frustration-laced desperation palpable. “He just can’t be responsible.”
“But what if he is?”
Chapter 12
Claire wasn’t sure who jumped farther, her or Jakob, but if there was a difference in either direction, it was negligible. They’d been so wrapped up in their discussion that neither had noticed Isaac standing in the shadow of the weeping willow tree for an undetermined amount of time.
“I am sorry. I did not mean to frighten you.” Isaac Schrock, the young man Jakob’s family had raised since the age of four, approached the front porch with humble steps. If Jakob’s presence caused any hesitation for the man, it did not show. “But I cannot stay silent.”
Claire looked from Isaac to Jakob and back again, the slack of the detective’s jaw spearheading a smile across her face. “It’s okay, Isaac. We’re glad you’re here. We just didn’t know you were out there until you spoke.” Rising to her feet, she backed up the steps and gestured for Isaac to follow. “Please, come sit.”
Isaac waited at the bottom, his gaze inventorying his brother’s face in a way that felt as if he was trying to memorize it. “I know I should go. I know that is what is expected of me. But I cannot. I have tried to honor the Amish way these past few months, but it is hard. I miss you, Jakob.” Lowering his hatted head ever so slightly, he cleared his throat of the emotion that was fusing into his voice and then looked up once again. “I miss my brother.”
For a moment, she wasn’t sure if Jakob had heard, his feet seemingly rooted to the floor of the porch, his eyes closed tightly. But just as she was about to touch his arm to bring him back from wherever he’d gone, he brushed a quick hand across his now open eyes and stepped forward, clapping a hand atop Isaac’s shoulder. “As I have missed you.”
She saw Isaac swallow as he worked to reclaim his normal stoicism. “I know it was not right to listen to your words. But what you said . . . I am worried it is not true.” Slowly, Isaac climbed the steps to stand beside Jakob and Claire. “I do not want Dat to be reason behind Zook’s death. Yet I fear that he is.”
Grabbing hold of a pair of wicker chairs grouped together on a far side of t
he porch, Jakob pulled them over to the swing and invited Claire and Isaac to sit down. Then, when they were settled, Jakob began asking the very questions firing away inside Claire’s head. “Why? Why are you so certain that Dat may have done this? Mose Fisher, of all people, believes in living life by the Ordnung. So why would he snap and kill another man?”
“He did not like Zook.”
Jakob gently thumbed the underside of his chin. “I know that he held Harley responsible on some level for my leaving. And I know that Harley’s quiet yet persistent support of me didn’t help the situation. But really, that was sixteen years ago. If Dat was to snap and kill because of that, he’d have done it a long time ago.”
“When I told Dat of new job, he hit table with fist. His face became purple with anger in a way I have not seen. I told him it was a good job. That I would not always fix things and build things in same place as Zook. That we would work together in business but not always side by side. But he did not listen.”
“What did he do?”
“He made house shake when he shut the door. He took the buggy to Zook’s house and Mamm begged me to follow. When I got to Zook’s farm, Dat was yelling, telling Zook to find someone else. But I told him I had accepted and would not go back on my word,” Isaac said. “Zook told him I was a man and could make my own decisions just as my brother did.”
Jakob and Claire winced at the same time.
“I imagine that didn’t help things . . .” Then, realizing she’d spoken aloud, she clamped her mouth shut for fear she’d derail Jakob from procuring the information he needed.
“It did not. Dat believed Zook cost him one son; he did not want Zook to cost him another. He said there would be consequences. I was glad Mamm was not there to see the anger in Dat’s eyes when he said those words. She would have been frightened.” Isaac leaned forward and lowered his hatted head in shame. “It is wrong that I am here, that I am saying these things of Dat. Benjamin would be furious.”
Claire didn’t need the light that streamed onto the porch from the inn’s front windows to see the way Jakob’s face darkened at the mention of Benjamin. Nor did she need the sight of the detective’s clenched fists to know he was angry. His words, delivered through tight lips, only served to underscore the emotion. “Dat is not any of Benjamin Miller’s concern. Mose is not his dat. And Benjamin is not Dat’s son. You are. And”—he inhaled sharply—“I am.”
“Today, Benjamin acts more like Dat’s son than I. For he believes Dat is innocent of this crime while I believe . . .” Isaac’s sentence petered off just before he shook his head in disgust. “I am no son with such thoughts.”
Jakob teed his hands in the air. “Wait just a minute. You have been a wonderful son to Dat. You did your chores faithfully and without complaint from the moment you moved in with us. You never caused a moment of grief for Mamm or Dat during the next five years I was living at home. And you are still there while I am not.”
Claire reached across the arm of the swing to capture one of Jakob’s hands in hers. “You are a wonderful son, too, Jakob, whether your father sees that or not.”
“Thank you.” He flashed a tender smile in her direction then turned his focus back on his brother. “Please. Finish what you were going to say.”
Isaac’s brow furrowed. “I do not know what you mean.”
“You were starting to say something about the difference between Benjamin and you in relation to Zook’s murder, yet you didn’t complete your sentence.”
Isaac’s head sunk lower only to lift enough to pin Jakob with a helpless stare. “Benjamin is certain Dat could not kill Zook. Yet, I am his son and I do not know.”
“Okay, so he was angry you took the job with Harley. Lots of people get angry, Isaac,” Claire said before realizing she’d weighed in on a discussion where she wasn’t meant to be anything more than a spectator. “I’m sorry. This isn’t any of my business.”
Jakob waved her apology away. “Isaac came here, to your house. I believe he wants it to be your business.” He looked at his brother for confirmation. At Isaac’s nod, Jakob resumed the conversation. “Claire is right. So maybe Dat wasn’t happy about your working alongside someone whom he saw as being partly responsible for my choice to leave. Maybe he even unleashed a little anger when he raced out to Harley’s farm that day. But to snap and kill so quickly? I just can’t wrap my mind around that one.”
“It was not quickly. It has been building for long time.”
“Building? As in getting worse?”
Isaac nodded.
“But why?” Jakob insisted, clearly perplexed. “It’s been sixteen years, Isaac. Surely Dat has put me out of his mind the way he’s expected you and Martha and Mamm to do.”
“We tried but it was not possible for any of us. I do not believe it was possible for Dat.” Isaac covered the lower half of his face with a splayed palm and released a burst of air against his skin. “Zook did not believe it was possible.”
Claire glanced at Jakob to see if he was following his brother’s words. The blank look she found there confirmed he was as lost as she was. “Harley didn’t believe what was possible, Isaac?”
Slowly, Isaac let his hand fall to his lap. “That Dat no longer considered Jakob his son the way he said.”
The pain from Isaac’s words skittered across Jakob’s eyes only to be dulled away by whatever wall the detective had erected around his heart in the years he’d been living with his family’s disgrace. “Did Harley say or do something that makes you so sure he saw a crack in Dat’s resolve?”
“Each day that he passed Dat, Zook would make mention of you. He would tell of how hard you must be working in the big city. He would wonder if you were married and if you were a father yourself. When you came back to Heavenly this summer, he said it was good you had come back home where Dat could see the man you had become.” Isaac straightened his back against the wicker chair and shrugged. “His words reminded Dat each day of your choice and of your absence.”
“Wow.” Jakob stood, took a step or two in the direction of the railing, then doubled back toward his chair, the reality of Isaac’s words clearly affecting him on a deeper level. “I had no idea Harley lobbied for me so hard.”
“Lobbied?” Isaac repeated. “I do not know what that means.”
“Spoke out in my defense, supported me, championed me, that sort of thing.” Jakob sat once again, this time turning his entire body in his brother’s direction “So you’re saying that the constant reminder of my choice by the man Dat saw as partly responsible for that choice not only kept Dat’s anger fresh, it also allowed it to build?”
“Yah. That is right.”
“Were there indications it was building? I mean, real signs?”
“Yah. Signs I did not see until I took job with Zook.”
“I’m not talking about Dat yelling at Harley when he learned you took the job, Isaac,” Jakob implored. “I’m talking about signs before that final straw.”
“I speak of the same thing.”
“Tell us about these signs,” Claire interjected in an effort to ward off Jakob’s budding frustration. “Help us to understand why you believe Mose’s anger has been building to an unhealthy level all these years.”
“I do not know how he did it. I do not remember him leaving the fields during the day to do such things, but perhaps when I am with Lapp making toys, he leaves. It is the only way I can see it happening. Zook worked long hours and was gone much of the day.” Claire met Jakob’s troubled gaze and followed it back to Isaac, the weight of the man’s rambling answer clearly weighing on his mind and body. “But I suppose it could have happened at night when Zook was sleeping and Mamm was not awake to notice Dat leave . . .”
“What could have happened at night, Isaac?” Jakob pleaded. “What do you think Dat has been doing at Zook’s farm?”
As if some unseen switch had been flipped off, Isaac stood. “I have said too much. I cannot say any more. I cannot be one to hurt Mamm in
this way.”
Jakob jumped to his feet and grabbed hold of his brother’s arm. “Isaac, wait. You can’t say this much and then walk away. Finish what you started.”
“I have spoken against Dat. He would never forgive me if he knew I was here . . . with you . . . saying such things about him. I have said enough. Now, you must see signs on your own.”
“What signs?” Releasing Isaac’s arm from his grasp, Jakob threw his hands up. “How can I help if you don’t talk to me? You have to know that I don’t want Dat to be responsible for Harley’s murder any more than you do, Isaac.”
“You do not need my help. You must only go to Zook’s farm to see what I will not say. If you do, you will see signs of Dat’s anger with your own eyes and I will not be forced to betray him more than I already have. I, in turn, will pray that I am wrong.”
Chapter 13
The line was five deep at the counter when Claire arrived at Heavenly Brews, the faces in front of her all familiar and all desperate for a little help in shaking off the same morning fog that had her hiding more than a few yawns behind her hand. If any of her fellow shopkeepers noticed her arrival, they didn’t let on, their collective focus on the barista tasked with providing the jolt of energy that would get them through the first half of their workday.
At the front of the line was Howard Glick, the round-faced man who owned Glick’s Tools ’n More. The popular hardware store served as Heavenly Treasures’ opposing bookend alongside Shoo Fly Bake Shoppe. Glick’s store was a popular tourist stop for both men and women alike. The men liked the hands-on Try-Me sections Howard had set up around his showroom. The women liked the extended shopping windows those Try-Me sections afforded them in return. It was truly a win-win for everyone.
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