Shunned and Dangerous (An Amish Mystery)

by Bradford, Laura

  Still, the book had lost its ability to hold her attention despite the fact she’d hit a pivotal point in the story. Instead, she let the book close on its own as she turned her attention to the only other subject that had a prayer of settling her down for the sleep she knew she needed.

  Her talk with Martha earlier that day had squashed any thoughts she’d had about throwing Esther a shower. Which meant she had to come up with something else, something special that would let Esther know just how much Claire treasured their friendship.

  Somehow a set of sheets fell short in that endeavor.

  The unmistakable snap of a twig outside the same window brought her to her feet while the answering thump in her chest made her reach for her phone. Quickly, she scrolled through her contact list until she came to Jakob’s number and hit dial.

  Two rings later, the sound of his voice in her ear settled her nerves enough to allow her to think clearly.

  The sound had stopped—a sound that easily could have been made by one of the three or four cats who lived next door . . .

  Feeling suddenly foolish, she covered her late night phone call with the only explanation she could find at the ready. “Hi, Jakob, I hope you don’t mind me calling so late but I was lying here, thinking about what happened at Harley’s wake, and, well, I guess I want to make sure you’re doing okay.”

  The lame excuse was barely out of her mouth before she smacked herself in the forehead. Why, oh, why did caller ID have to be the norm these days?

  “Uh . . . I’m hanging in, I guess . . . thanks.” He cleared his throat of any signs of sleep and turned the conversation back in her direction. “Is everything okay with you?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course.” Immediately she knew she’d answered too quickly. Her rapid response negated any believability her just-called-to-say-hi-and-see-how-you-are phone call may have otherwise held. She groaned inwardly.

  “Now, don’t get me wrong here, because I’d welcome a call from you anytime—day or night. But, that said, are you in the habit of checking in on folks at midnight?”

  “Is it that late? I . . . I didn’t—” She stopped, mid-lie, and leaned toward the open window, the lack of any odd noises making her feel all the more ridiculous. Instead, she changed topics. “I was talking to Diane tonight about some different things and I had a thought.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “Maybe Isaac is wrong. Maybe those signs he was talking about had nothing to do with your father and everything to do with Patrick. Maybe it was his bubbling anger that finally exploded.”

  If he responded, she didn’t hear, because at that exact moment a string of nonsensical mutterings seeped their way through the screen, churning her stomach with fear in the process.

  “Claire?”

  “Shhhh,” she whispered. “This time I’m sure . . .”

  “Sure? Sure of what?”

  “Someone is outside my window.”

  Instantly, any and all sleep that had been detectable in Jakob’s voice was gone, in its place the sound of someone on full alert. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think it’s just one of your aunt’s guests?”

  She slid off the bed and tiptoed to the window, a quick inventory of the parking lot and the lack of light reflecting on the lawn enabling her to give a confident no. “Everyone was in their room by nine o’clock tonight,” she said. “I’ve been hearing odd noises for a while now but kept thinking it was something else.”

  “And now you don’t think it is?”

  She stood to the right of her room’s creakiest floorboard and squinted into the darkness below, her first sweep of the ground outside her window revealing nothing of consequence. “I don’t know. I think I just heard someone mumbling . . .” She shifted slightly to the left and bobbed her head still further in the same direction. “I guess I was—no!” She cupped her hand around her mouth to quiet her words even more as she gave a play–by-play of the shadowy figure that emerged from behind a tree and slinked along the outer edge of the front porch.

  “Can you tell anything about this person? Is it a male or female?”

  She dropped into a squat and leaned closer to the screen. “It’s definitely a male. He’s broad shouldered . . . maybe a little stocky. Could you send a patrol car, please?”

  “I’m already on my way, Claire. But stay on the line with me until I get there.”

  She continued to follow the stranger as he crept around the corner of the porch and into a narrow patch of moonlight just bright enough to send a shiver of awareness and fear down her spine.

  “Jakob,” she hissed into the phone, “it’s Patrick. Patrick Duggan! Please, please hurry!”

  • • •

  She glanced over Jakob’s shoulder at the inn’s still-dark second-floor windows and allowed herself a moment to breathe. The detective’s arrival and subsequent collaring of Patrick Duggan had been surprisingly quiet, and for that she was grateful. The last thing Diane or any of the guests needed was to have their sleep disrupted by news of a would-be prowler.

  “Seems a little late for a walk, don’t you think, Patrick?”

  Patrick’s shoulders rose and fell against the side of Jakob’s car, yet he remained silent, the agitation he wore in his eyes and across his face speaking volumes all on its own.

  “It’s your prerogative, of course, not to answer, Patrick . . . but it’s also mine to put you in the back of my car and bring you in for trespassing.”

  “Last I checked, taking a walk wasn’t a crime.” Patrick, too, crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Has that changed?”

  “If you were walking down there”—Jakob pointed down the driveway and toward the main road—“it wouldn’t be an issue. But you weren’t. You were walking here . . . on private property.”

  “The lady that owns this place knows me. She invites me onto her property all the time.”

  Jakob’s gaze shifted to Claire. “Is that true?”

  Before she could answer, Patrick did some pointing of his own. “See them steps over there? The ones that go to that back door? I helped fix them just the other day. And that window to the right of the front porch? I helped caulk that just last week. Both times, I was asked to be here.”

  “Did you make both those repairs at midnight?” Jakob asked as he looked, again, at Patrick.

  “Nope.”

  “Did Diane Weatherly call you this evening and ask you to come fix something out here this late?”

  Patrick narrowed his eyes. “Nope.”

  “Then you’re trespassing, Patrick. And if Ms. Weatherly, here, wants to press charges, I can haul you into the station right now.” He nodded at Claire, yet kept his gaze firmly on Patrick. “Claire? Do you want me to take him in?”

  “Hey now, there’s no reason for this.” Patrick let his arms drop to his sides. “Look, I realized I left something the last time I was out here, and I just figured I’d come out and get it. No big deal, you know?”

  “What did you leave behind?”

  Again, the arms crossed. Again, the touchy demeanor was back. “What business is it of yours?”

  “When you’re slinking around on private property at midnight, it becomes my business, Patrick.”

  “A hammer. I left a hammer.” He threw his hands up in the air and pushed off the car only to lean against it once again when Jakob blocked his path. “Can I go now?”

  “Did you find your hammer?”

  “No.”

  “You use this hammer while you were working for Harley Zook?”

  Something Claire couldn’t quite identify passed across Patrick’s face, and she wondered if Jakob had caught it, too.

  “Yeah. So what?”

  “What did you think of working for Harley?”

  The look was back, but, once again, it was fleeting. “It got me away from my mother.”

  “And?” Jakob prodded.

  “It was a job. Period.”

  Whatever Jakob was l
ooking for in Patrick’s response, he wasn’t getting it. Long seconds passed as he seemed to wait for a different, more acceptable answer.

  But none came.

  He tried a different approach. “Did you like Harley?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  “I realize that.” Patrick parted company with the side of Jakob’s car for the second time, this time leaving the space he created despite Jakob’s unyielding presence. “So? Can I go now? I’ll check with Diane about the hammer tomorrow.”

  “I’ll check with Ms. Weatherly about this hammer of yours tomorrow. If she has it, I’ll let you know.” Then, as Patrick made a move to leave, Jakob blocked his path once more. “Tell me something, Patrick . . . Have you ever been out to Harley’s farm?”

  Patrick’s head jerked up, his gaze skirting between Jakob and Claire. “To his farm?”

  “Yes, to your employer’s farm. You ever been there?”

  She held her breath in anticipation of the answer to a question she’d been dying to ask for the past several minutes. In her mind, his answer would remove Mose from the list of suspects in Harley’s murder and relieve Jakob of the incredible burden he’d been carrying the past few days on top of his already broken heart.

  Reality, however, had a very different feel as Patrick brought his eyes level with Jakob’s. “I might not be the brightest bulb in the box, but I know the big business these Amish folks are in this town. People come from all over just so they can gawk at people riding around in a buggy instead of a car. They buy postcards by the dozens of folks who never agreed to have their picture taken in the first place because they think it’s being boastful or something like that.” He flicked his left hand toward the inn and clenched his teeth around his words. “Heck, that place right there probably wouldn’t even exist if it wasn’t for all those people who want to experience a more peaceful way of living for a few days. They sign up for tours, drive their cars past Amish schools, and point at the farmers as they work in their fields from one end of the day until the other.

  “And stores like yours,” he said, acknowledging Claire, “enjoy a booming business because people like that want to bring stuff the Amish make home with them at the end of their trip. If they didn’t, why else would they spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on a quilt?”

  At any other time and in any other place, she might have considered challenging him on the “booming business” part, but to do so would derail the conversation and bring unwanted scrutiny her way.

  “I’m not sure how any of this is answering my question, Patrick. Have you or haven’t you ever been to Harley Zook’s farm. It’s a simple yes or no.”

  This time, the look on Patrick’s face was easy to decipher. Even in the dark.

  “Those folks come here out of curiosity. Either they read about the Amish in a book or watched a movie about the Amish or had parents who talked about the Amish in a way that made them want to learn more . . . see the way they live up close and personal.” Patrick took another step forward, his clenched fists and restless demeanor bringing Jakob’s hand to rest on the top of his gun belt. “Then there’s me. I was raised right here in Heavenly. I’ve seen thousands of buggies out my window since I was a little boy. I’ve crossed paths with Amish kids my own age along the way, some of whom I even wished I could be friends with back then. Yet, in all that time they were practically living in my backyard, I’d never stepped foot on an Amish farm no matter how close I may have been.”

  “Never?” Jakob challenged.

  Slowly, Patrick raised his field of vision upward, to the stars that dotted the night sky above. “You seem to forget who my dad is, Detective.”

  “I know who your father is, Patrick.”

  “Then you have a pretty good window into how I was raised.”

  She looked at Jakob to see if he was following everything that was being said, but what she saw in his face only shored up her own confusion.

  “I’m listening.”

  “Despite my grandparents’ best efforts, I was raised around hatred. The kind of hatred that makes a person kill because of a difference—a different look, a different belief, a different way of living.” Patrick took one more look at the stars then angled his body toward the driveway and the deserted road that would eventually lead him back home. “When a kid is raised around that kind of hatred, Detective, it’s awful hard to shirk it off all by yourself. It’s like being taught to tie your shoe. You’re taught it often enough, it sticks. And if the teaching stays the same, the learning will, too.”

  Chapter 22

  Despite her bleary eyes and sleep-deprived brain, Claire knew something was off with Esther the second she reported for work Thursday morning.

  The first glance at her Amish friend told Claire the basics—no discernible smile, fidgety fingers, and red-rimmed eyes that hinted at recently shed tears. The second glance revealed nothing additional except a general sense of foreboding deep inside Claire’s heart.

  “Good morning, Esther.” She stepped through the doorway between the back hall and the shop and hung her keys on a hook underneath the register. “You can certainly tell the colder weather is coming. I actually had to button up on the way here just now.”

  Button by button she worked her way out of her autumn jacket and then draped it over her arm. “Did Eli bring you by this morning?”

  It was a simple question. One she asked virtually every morning Esther arrived at Heavenly Treasures. But something about the way she asked it or, perhaps, the morning itself, netted a far different reaction than the usual face-splitting smile and emphatic head nod that was the norm.

  “No.”

  Claire waited for her normally chatty friend to say more, but nothing else came. Just the one no, followed by a sinking of Esther’s narrow shoulders and two distinct sniffles.

  But it was enough for Claire to go on even if she didn’t like the direction in which her thoughts were already beginning to travel.

  “Esther? Are you okay, sweetie?” She transferred her coat from her arm to the counter and then patted the pair of stools with her hand.

  When Esther shook her head and remained standing, Claire bypassed the stools completely and came around the counter to stand beside Esther near the front window. “Talk to me, Esther. What’s wrong? Did you and Eli have a fight?”

  “Eli and I, we do not fight.” Esther reached up and carefully adjusted her white head cap. “But he is not happy with my suggestion.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Slowly, Esther shifted her focus outside, to the cars and buggies that passed the shop on their way to wherever it was they were going at that particular moment. Seconds turned to minutes, yet still Claire’s question went unanswered.

  At least in a verbal way, anyway.

  “I think it’s best if I leave you alone for a while.” She reached out, squeezed Esther’s shoulder quickly, and then retraced her steps back to the counter and the coat that needed to be stowed in her office for the duration of the workday. “I’m here, though, if you want to talk, okay? Just say the word and—”

  Esther spun around on the soles of her simple black lace-up boots and held up her hands. “It is not that I don’t want to marry Eli! I do! But to do it now . . . at a time when so much is wrong . . . would only make things worse on everyone.”

  “You called off the wedding?” Claire heard the shock in her voice and saw the pain it stirred on Esther’s face just before being covered from view by two trembling hands.

  “I did not call the wedding off. I will marry Eli. I . . . I”—Esther gulped for air between sobs—“just said maybe we should w-wait. Until there is n-not so much s-sadness and worry.”

  “You mean with Harley Zook’s murder and the possible connection to your grandfather?”

  Esther sniffled, nodded, then sniffled some more. “Y-yes. We do not want to burden my mamm and dat at a time when their hearts are heavy with wor
ry. Eli tried to ask Benjamin his thoughts, but Benjamin, too, thinks of other things.”

  Benjamin.

  Just the mere mention of Eli’s older brother brought an ache to Claire’s heart. She missed Benjamin. Missed their talks. Missed his smile. Missed the way he listened. Missed the hope he’d helped bring back to her life . . .

  “Hope . . .” Yes, she needed to find some more hope. Hope that she could find a new job after the shop, something to fill the void she knew would forever be in her heart in the wake of her failure.

  “Claire?”

  Esther’s voice, shaky and confused, broke through Claire’s woolgathering and brought her back to the moment—a moment that included Esther, not Benjamin or Heavenly Treasures’ impending demise. Claire forced herself to focus.

  Esther’s wedding . . .

  “So what’s the worst that would happen if you postpone the wedding?” she finally asked. “You wait, what? Three, maybe four months? Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing in light of everything that’s going on.”

  “It would be a year. There is far too much to do in the fields once spring comes. There would be no time for a wedding until November. It is this that upsets Eli.”

  “And you?” It was a rhetorical question, really, because she already knew the answer. All she had to do was look at her friend’s tear-swollen eyes to know how the notion of waiting even a day longer than they’d planned hurt Esther deeply.

  “I do not want to wait, but there would be some good, too.”

  “Like what?”

  “I could stay here and work with you even longer.”

  Claire closed her eyes and allowed herself a moment to imagine twelve more months working alongside her best friend. But just as she felt the smile creeping across her mouth, reality came knocking.

  Pretty soon there would be no shop for Esther to work in, no shop for Claire to own. No, it was better for Esther to marry as previously planned.

  Better for Esther.

  Better for Eli.

  And better for Claire in the long run, too . . .