A Killer Carol

by Laura Bradford

  Bill drew Diane to him in a side arm hug that served only to deepen both their smiles. “I could see her from the door and I figured that’s what she was thinking as she headed in my direction. But then, as she got closer and saw it was me? Yeah, well, I won’t be forgetting that look of pure joy anytime soon, I can tell you that.”

  “I’m glad.” And she was. Seeing Diane so happy, and knowing that someone else saw her the way Claire saw her, was everything she could have ever hoped for the woman. The fact that this person happened to be pretty amazing in his own right was simply the icing on the cake.

  “Come. Sit.” Diane guided Claire toward the couch and its matching lounge chair. “Bill has a toasty warm fire blazing away in the hearth, and the cookies I put in the oven should be done in about six minutes.”

  “I’m not terribly hungry, but I’ll sit for a few minutes.”

  Diane and Bill exchanged a glance, with Diane breaking it in favor of placing a kiss on Claire’s forehead. “No fever, although you just came in from outdoors, so I should probably check you again in a little while.”

  “I’m not sick, Aunt Diane.”

  “Tired?” Bill asked.

  Claire sank onto the lounge chair and watched as one of the logs split in two, scattering glowing embers every which way. “Some, yeah. But I have a feeling sleep isn’t going to come all that easy tonight.”

  “Oops, that’s the oven timer letting me know the cookies are ready.” Turning toward the hallway, Diane squeezed Bill’s shoulder. “See if you can find out what’s troubling her before I get back, will you?”

  Bill patted Diane’s hand and then held it to his lips for the briefest of kisses. “I’m on the case.”

  Together, Claire and Bill watched Diane disappear, her soft but purposeful footsteps fading into a silence broken only by the fire’s crackles and snaps. Seconds turned to minutes as neither rushed to fill the room with chatter, both content to soak up the coziness that was Claire’s favorite room in the old Victorian.

  “How’s your young man?” Bill finally asked as he settled onto the couch across from Claire.

  “You mean Jakob?”

  “Do you have another young man I don’t know about?”

  Shrugging, she glanced back at the fire. “Actually, after the mess I made of things tonight, I’m not sure I have a young man anymore.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  She stared at the bluest part of the flames for a few beats and then, reaching behind her back, pulled out a throw pillow and hugged it to her chest. “An elderly Amish couple was found murdered in their home last night.”

  “Oh. Wow. I didn’t know. Your aunt told me about the lights you two saw last night and the couple that died, but she didn’t mention a murder.”

  A quiet gasp stole their attention from each other and sent it racing toward the doorway and the woman standing just inside it with a plate of cookies in one hand and a stack of napkins in the other. “There’s been another murder?” Diane rasped. “When? Where? Here in Heavenly?”

  “Yes,” Claire said. “Last night.”

  “Last night? I don’t understand this.” Diane carried the plate around to the coffee table and set it down. “But I didn’t see or hear any more sirens after—”

  Claire met Diane’s widened eyes with a nod.

  Clutching her hand to her chest, Diane shook her head as if trying to prevent the truth from taking route. “Please tell me you’re not talking about Mary and Daniel Esch . . .”

  “I wish I could.”

  Diane dropped onto the couch. “I . . . I don’t understand. They were such a lovely couple, so unassuming, so . . .”

  “I know. And I’ve had all day to process it.”

  “Heavenly didn’t use to be like this,” Diane murmured. “Two years ago, before Walter Scott, the most we saw in this town was an occasional crime of opportunity—a wallet stolen after it was left on a park bench, a bike stolen out of an open garage, that sort of thing. And even those were rare. But once Walter was killed, it was like some sort of floodgate opened.”

  Bill found Diane’s hand and squeezed it. “This Walter Scott fellow—was he a friend of yours?”

  “No. He was the previous tenant where Claire’s shop is now.” Diane brushed a piece of graying hair off her forehead and leaned back against the couch. “Walter was a most unlikable soul, but he certainly didn’t deserve to die.”

  “You say someone killed him?” Bill asked.

  Nodding, Diane stretched her feet onto the oval hook rug. “That’s right. First murder in Heavenly in more than fifteen years at that point.”

  “So there had been another?” Bill looked from Diane to Claire and back again. “Before Walter?”

  Claire pushed the pillow off her lap and scooted forward on her chair. “That very first murder? The one Diane just referenced? That’s the case that propelled Jakob to leave his Amish upbringing and his baptismal vow to become a cop.”

  “Why that case?” Bill asked.

  “Because the victim was an Amish farmer.”

  “Ahhhh. And Jakob wanted to help catch the person who’d murdered one of his own?” At Claire’s slow nod, Bill hiked his ankle onto his knee and draped his arm across the back of the couch. “But you just can’t become a cop out of the chute like that. There’s a test to take first. And then, if you pass, you have to get called up for a particular police academy. Surely the person who killed that Amish farmer was caught before Jakob even got into the academy, yes?”

  “He was, but Jakob had already walked away from his Amish life by then, not that that mattered.” Claire crossed to the hearth, retrieved a log from the holder, and added it to the fire. “He wanted to be a cop. That particular case just gave him the courage to make his desire known.”

  “I still can’t believe this . . .” Diane took a deep breath. “About Daniel and Mary . . . I mean, Annie didn’t say anything about them being murdered when she called last night.”

  Claire returned the poker to its spot beside the other fireplace tools and wandered over to the picture window and its view of the Amish countryside. Parting the drapes with her left hand, she stared out at the darkness. “That’s because she didn’t understand what she was seeing and she never actually went inside.”

  “But she said Henry did . . .”

  “You’re right, he did. But he didn’t recognize the scene for what it was, either. He, like Annie and their friends, assumed Daniel and Mary died of old age.”

  “I take it they were a married couple?” Bill asked.

  “Yes. A married Amish couple. In their mid-eighties!” A quick shift in the volume of Diane’s voice let Claire know the woman was headed in her direction. “Who on earth would want to do them harm?”

  Bill, too, stood and made his way over to the window. “I imagine that’s what Jakob is trying to figure out as we speak.”

  “Does he have any leads?” Diane asked, stepping in beside Claire. “Anything to go on?”

  Pressing her forehead against the glass, Claire used the limited moonlight peeking out from behind a cloud to locate a few barns and silos in the distance. “He does. Or at least he thinks he does. But he’s wrong.”

  “I’m sure that has to be defeating—thinking you’ve got something and then realizing you don’t.” Diane tsked softly beneath her breath. “I can’t even imagine how truly frustrating that must be for him.”

  Slowly Claire let the curtain fall back into place as she turned toward Bill and her aunt. “It might be if he actually realized he was wrong, but he doesn’t. And now, on top of that, he’s upset with me for not standing by him.”

  “Not standing by him?” Diane echoed. “Oh, don’t be silly, dear. You have been by his side, supporting him, through every case he’s had since Walter Scott.”

  Claire tried to smile, to lighten the atmosp
here back to what it was when she’d first seen Bill standing in the parlor doorway, but now that she’d let the proverbial genie out of the bottle, she couldn’t really see a way to stuff it back inside all that easily. “I don’t think Jakob sees my disagreeing with his choice in suspects as being terribly supportive . . . And I suppose, if I’m being honest, he’s right. But that’s just because he’s barking up the wrong tree.”

  Diane trailed her back to the seating area and its cozy proximity to the fire. “Do you want to talk about it, dear?”

  “He thinks Ruth and Samuel are viable suspects.”

  “Ruth and Samuel?” Bill echoed as he stopped en route back to the couch to poke a smoldering log into a better burn position. “Isn’t that the couple whose wedding we went to last month? The bakery owner and the furniture store owner?”

  Diane’s delayed gasp let Claire know her aunt had caught up to the ridiculousness of Jakob’s suspicions. “Oh, Claire . . . Surely you misunderstood something! Jakob Fisher is too smart a man, and much too good of a detective, to suspect either of them in something so . . . so . . . horrible.”

  “But he does! And that’s the problem!” Claire dropped onto the edge of the lounge chair and buried her head in her hands. “How can I possibly support that when I can’t even wrap my head around how he got there, let alone the fact he’s giving the theory any credence whatsoever?”

  “Thinking Ruth Miller could harm anyone, let alone an elderly couple, is like thinking”—Diane threw up her hands—“I don’t know . . . I can’t even come up with an analogy for how preposterous that is.”

  Claire slid her hands down her cheeks until she could see Diane across the tips of her fingers. “I know, right? That’s how I feel. But instead of agreeing or telling me he was kidding, he got upset that I didn’t see it from his perspective.”

  Diane wandered her way over to the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that lined the northern wall of the room, only to turn back before she’d actually reached them. “You know how highly I think of Jakob . . . He’s smart, he’s funny, he’s kind, he’s everything I could want for you, dear. But this? I don’t understand.”

  “Why is he looking at Ruth and her husband?” Bill asked, placing the poker back in its holder. “Do you know?”

  “That’s my fault, I’m afraid.”

  Diane stared at Claire. “Your fault?”

  “Esther stopped by to see me with the baby earlier today, and we got to talking about what we assumed was Daniel’s and Mary’s passing from natural causes. She mentioned how Ruth and Samuel would have seen them right before it happened, as they’d gone to the Esch farm to visit and collect their wedding gift.”

  Halting the rest of Claire’s explanation with her hand, Diane swept her attention toward the fireplace and Bill. “In Lancaster, an Amish bride and groom don’t usually receive wedding presents on their special day. Rather, over the next several weeks, they’ll go off visiting the various people who attended their wedding. It is during these visits they are given their gifts.”

  “Why is that?” Bill asked, crossing back to his previous spot on the couch.

  “It helps establish the newlyweds as an adult couple in their district and gets them in the habit of visiting—something the Amish believe in as a way to keep one another close.” Diane turned her attention back to Claire. “Go on, dear . . .”

  “Jakob stopped by while Esther and I were talking, and he heard that Ruth and Samuel had been at the Esch farm shortly before the murders. At first, he seemed to just see that little tidbit of information as a starting point for his investigation—even used those very words. But somehow, over the next few hours that followed, he went from seeing Ruth and Samuel’s presence at the Esch farm as helpful to them now being on the top of his list of suspects.”

  “Were they the last known people to see this couple alive?”

  Claire shifted her gaze to Bill’s. “You mean other than the real killer? Quite possibly. I really can’t say for sure, though.”

  “If they were, it makes sense they’d be suspects.”

  She didn’t need to look at Diane to know her surprise was wholly shared. But before she could dispute his claim, Bill continued, the calm rumble-like quality of his voice luring Diane back to the couch. “When a child goes missing, the parents are questioned. When one half of a married couple goes missing, the other half is questioned. It’s just the way things are done, a way to rule out possibilities—no matter how remote they may be—so the investigators can get to the truth sooner.”

  Diane perched on the arm of the sofa. “Come to think of it, that makes sense. That’s the way they do it on all the police procedural shows on TV. So maybe that’s all this is, Claire. Maybe Jakob is just following a standard checklist. Ruth and Samuel saw Mary and Daniel before they died. Therefore, they need to be questioned, regardless.”

  “That’s what I thought initially, too.” Claire pushed off the chair, only to lower herself back down seconds later. “But he’s got a motive for them and everything.”

  “Good heavens!” Diane gasped. “A motive?”

  She looked down at her hands and then back up at first Bill and then Diane. “Apparently Daniel Esch made kitchen cabinets or something like that?”

  “He did. Some years ago.” Diane slid off the armrest and onto the actual couch cushion. “Esch Cabinetry. In fact, he did the cabinets in my kitchen.”

  Claire settled back into her spot with the throw pillow on her lap. “I didn’t know that.”

  “There was no reason to really mention it, I guess. He, along with Abe and the boy’s friend, installed them for me about six years ago.”

  “Why didn’t I know he had a cabinet business?”

  “Because my kitchen was one of the last he did before shuttering his business. Three of his daughters moved out of state with their husbands, and one stayed here in Heavenly with a husband who’s pretty much all thumbs in everything he does. Daniel’s oldest son, Amos, moved to upstate New York a good decade or so earlier. He’s a farmer, I believe. Anyway, I imagine he and Mary, like everyone else, had always assumed Abraham, his youngest son, would take it over when Daniel was ready to retire, but that didn’t happen.” Diane helped herself to a cookie, handed it to Bill with a sweet smile, and then turned back to Claire. “One day, the Esch Cabinetry shingle that used to hang outside Daniel’s farmhouse just came down. After that, there were no more Esch cabinets made.”

  “Well, something must have changed. Because, according to Jakob, Daniel’s cabinetry business just won some bid out at that new senior housing project you first told me about last month.”

  Diane’s eyes widened. “You mean the one out in Breeze Point?”

  “That’s right. In fact, I just saw a pre-leasing flyer for the place on the bulletin board inside Heavenly Brews this evening.”

  “That’s a huge project, with something like two hundred and fifty units being built in just the first phase alone,” Diane mused. “And the second phase is set to be every bit as big, according to that original article in the Lancaster paper.”

  “That’s a lot of cabinets,” Bill said around his cookie. “Especially for a mom-and-pop-size company, like I imagine this man’s operation was.”

  “It was small, for sure. But Daniel’s work was so good that builders from around the area loved using him.”

  “Did you know he was getting back in the business?”

  Diane’s head began shaking before Claire was even done with her question. “I had no idea. The man was in his mid-eighties, after all.”

  “So what does this bid have to do with Jakob and your friends?” Bill asked.

  “From what Jakob told me tonight, Samuel had bid on the same project and was virtually certain his reputation in the area would give him the edge over the competition.” Squeezing the throw pillow to her chest, Claire rested her chin on the soft material. �
�Only he didn’t get it. Daniel did.”

  Bill’s long, low whistle had both women looking to the man now making his way back to the fireplace. “I can see why Jakob is looking at Samuel for this now. It makes sense.”

  “It makes sense?” Diane held the cookie plate out to Claire and, when she declined, set it back on the table and folded her arms across her chest. “How do you figure that?”

  “Samuel’s business is small in the grand scheme of things. He’s not a national chain, he doesn’t have franchises, he’s just a mom-and-pop-style furniture store in a tourist-friendly town in southeastern Pennsylvania. A job like the one you just described? Supplying kitchen cabinetry for five hundred apartment units? That would’ve been a big coup for him. And I mean, big. Surely people have murdered over far less.”

  “And I’m sure you’re right.” Claire tilted her head against the back of the couch and stared up at the ceiling, the stress of the day beginning to take its toll on her patience and her energy level. “But they weren’t Samuel and Ruth Yoder.”

  “I agree with Claire.”

  Bypassing the last few remaining pieces of wood in the copper holder, Bill grabbed the poker and maneuvered the burning pieces into a centralized pile. When he had them the way he wanted, he braced his hands against the mantle and watched the shoots and sparks that rose up toward the chimney. “Please know I’m not saying I think your friends did it, because I don’t. I found them to be lovely people when I met them at their wedding. But if I was Jakob, I’d have to give them a closer look for this crime, too. They had means and they had motive. You can’t wipe your hands of that just because you know them. Not if you believe in the integrity of your job the way Jakob does.”

  “Wait.” Claire focused all her attention on Bill now. “Say that again?”

  “Which part?”

  “The last part. About the integrity?”

  “Oh. Sure.” Bill turned his back to the fire. “I was just saying that if you believe in the integrity of your job the way Jakob does, you have to follow protocol. So you can know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you dotted all your i’s and crossed all your t’s.”