A Killer Carol

by Laura Bradford

  She couldn’t hear what was being said, but she could tell, from Jakob’s demeanor, that he was sharing something important with the man in the suit. Drawing in a breath, she took a step backward, only to stop when Jakob looked up, spotting her immediately.

  “C’mon in, Claire. There’s someone”—he paused, slanted a glance toward the man still restlessly pacing—“some people I’d like you to meet.”

  She stepped inside the barn, slid the door closed at Jakob’s request, and made her way across the uneven and straw-littered aisleway that ran the length of the building from front to back.

  “Abe, I’d like you to meet my girlfriend, Claire Weatherly. She owns the Heavenly Treasures gift shop on Lighted Way.”

  The dark-haired man lifted his chin to reveal equally dark eyes rimmed red by tears that had long dried. Pushing off the hay bale, he stood, cleared his throat, and extended his hand. “Claire Weatherly,” he repeated. “Might you be kin with Ms. Weatherly from the inn?”

  She shook his hand, his grip gentle yet firm. “I am, actually. Diane Weatherly is my aunt. I live with her at Sleep Heavenly.”

  “My father and I did some work for her about six years ago.”

  “I was there, too, Abe.”

  Recognition dawned swiftly as Claire turned toward the second Englisher who’d stopped, mid-step, to join the conversation. “Wait. I know you. I met you last night . . . at Heavenly Brews. You were there with your mom, Nancy.” She held out her hand, letting it drop to her side when the gesture was not returned. “You’re Tommy, right?”

  “Yep.”

  “Ms. Weatherly was so happy with the work we did, she sat us down at this big table when we were done and fed us the best pot roast I ever had in my life.” The faintest hint of a smile played at the corner of Abe’s mouth at the memory. “After the meal, when we were heading back home, I told my father that, asked him not to tell my mother in case her feelings got hurt. He pulled us over to the side of the road, reached down beside his feet to a container I hadn’t noticed him leaving with, and showed me the helping of pot roast Ms. Weatherly had sent home for my mother. He looked at me, square in the eyes, and told me there was no need to keep it from her because she’d know for herself soon enough.”

  Claire’s soft laugh mingled with Abe’s. “I’ll be sure to tell my aunt that story when I get home tonight. I’m sure she’ll get quite a chuckle out of it, as well.”

  “Send her my regards, will you?”

  “Of course. Will she know you by Abe?”

  “She’ll likely know me as Abraham—Abraham Esch.”

  The last name, spoken with anguish, smacked her back. “Oh . . . Abe . . . I . . . I didn’t realize.” She dropped her gaze to his suit, his tie, his wrinkled shirt. “I was so intent on your story just now, I didn’t realize”—she stopped, glanced at Jakob, and tried again. “I didn’t realize you were Amish.”

  “That’s because he’s not,” Tommy sneered.

  Abe bristled but kept his focus on Claire. “There’d be no reason for you to know that, seeing as how you weren’t living out at the inn when Dat and I put those cabinets in.” He ran his faintly scarred and trembling hands down his rumpled front. “And I am wearing English clothes.”

  “Abe left after baptism like I did,” Jakob said by way of explanation. “Mary and Daniel were his parents.”

  And just like that, she didn’t need a rewind button to know what Jakob and Abe had been discussing when she’d first looked inside the barn. Jakob’s calming hand on the man’s back and the man’s broken demeanor came together to form a picture she knew well—a picture that had Abe floating in the world alone, void of the grounding tether that was a person’s childhood family.

  Without thinking, Claire stepped forward, wrapped her arms around the man, and pulled him close, the quick yet stifled sob that followed nearly breaking her heart in two. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you,” he murmured, stepping back.

  “As you can imagine from what you’ve lived through with me so far, Abe’s arrival here—to his sister’s farm just a little while ago—wasn’t exactly welcomed.”

  The shouts . . .

  The angry words . . .

  She looked between Abe and Jakob as the reality she didn’t want to believe loomed large. “But Mary and Daniel . . . They’re still his parents . . . They raised him . . . He loved them . . . Surely they can understand he would want to say good-bye to them, too!”

  “The Ordnung trumps all, don’t you know that?”

  Jerking her head to the left, she stared at Tommy. But it was Jakob’s voice and the calming and familiar touch of his hand on her arm that eased her heart enough to listen. “It’s the rules, Claire. I knew it when I chose to leave and so, too, did Abe. No, knowing doesn’t always make it easier, but it is what it is. All we can do is make peace with our choice and hold our head high.”

  A glance back at Abe showed him nodding, albeit sadly, along with Jakob.

  “So that means he can’t go inside and see them one last time?” she rasped.

  “It might. But I have faith Bishop Hershberger will do the right thing if I ask.” Jakob turned to Abe. “You ready to see if we can make this happen?”

  Abe nodded but remained in place, his voice, his very gaze, suggesting he was no longer standing there in the barn but rather somewhere else—a different time and place. “I always knew this day would come, knew it was coming closer with each passing day. But I just didn’t think anything I could ever say would make a difference for him.”

  “Him?” Jakob prodded.

  “Dat.”

  “You can tell him now, in your prayers.” Jakob’s own voice grew strangled as he clamped his hand down on Abe’s shoulder. “Perhaps, with the Lord by his side, he will listen with his heart instead of the Ordnung.”

  It took every ounce of restraint she could muster to keep from crying—for the distraught Abe who’d lost his parents and for Jakob, who was getting a bird’s-eye view of what lay ahead in his own life. Still, as Jakob passed by with his arm on Abe’s shoulder, she leaned forward and whispered a kiss against his cheek. “I’ll wait for you out here,” she said softly.

  “You want me to come, too, Abe?” Tommy asked, trailing behind his friend.

  Abe shook his head. “No. I’m good. Thanks.”

  She watched as Abe and Jakob walked, side by side, down the barn’s center aisle, each lost in thoughts she could only imagine. When they’d disappeared out into the darkness, Claire turned back to Tommy. “How long ago did Abe leave the church?”

  “Six years.”

  “Six years,” she repeated as she wandered over to the closest stall. Its occupant—a sturdy chocolate brown mare—studied her with avid interest. “Six years of being completely cut off from his family. I have such a hard time wrapping my head around that. I mean, how many kids did Mary and Daniel have?”

  “Six. Four of them live elsewhere—upstate New York, Indiana, Ohio, and someplace in Wisconsin. Unfortunately Greta and ol’ Lloyd stayed here, in Heavenly. If they hadn’t, maybe things would have been different.”

  She stilled her hand atop the mare’s head. “Greta is Abe’s sister?”

  “Yep. And Lloyd is the wackadoodle she married,” he said, spreading his arms wide. “And this? This is their barn . . . their farm . . . their house . . . their district . . . their everything. Make no mistake about it, those two won’t bend the rules for anyone, under any circumstance.”

  “How long have you and Abe been friends?”

  “Since we were six. My maw became an Amish taxi driver when my twin sister, Trishy, and I started first grade. Said it gave her something to do when we were at school. Most of the time, she just trekked the Amish around when we were gone, but sometimes she’d get a call to drive one of them somewhere when we were home. When that happened, she’d take
us along, too. That’s how we met Abe.”

  “There wasn’t any issue with the two of you being English and Abe being Amish?”

  “Not that I ever saw. Maw, neither.”

  Liberating a brush from the hook beside the stall door, Claire began to brush the mare’s back, the soft, rhythmic strokes proving to be every bit as relaxing for her as for the horse. “You said something about helping Abe and his father with the cabinets out at my aunt’s place?”

  “My dad walked out on my maw when I was thirteen. Went out for some milk one day and never came back. So Maw started picking up even more runs just to make ends meet, and Abe’s mamm let Trishy and me hang out with them. By then, Abe was helping his dat out with the cabinet business—sanding them, painting them, and sometimes installing them. In the beginning I just watched, maybe handed them some tools when they needed them, but that was it. After a while, Abe started showing me how to do certain things. Next thing I knew, I was going along on jobs with them. They’d install everything, but I was there to help with little things that came up—like putting on whatever knobs the customer wanted or swapping them out when they decided they wanted something else. My part was never anything too big, but I liked it. And Abe? He was really good at all parts of the business. Even came up with a few new designs that ended up catching the eye of Harper Construction out in Blue Ball.”

  Intrigued, she finished grooming the part of the horse she could reach from outside the stall and returned the brush to its hook. “I’ve heard of Harper! They build some really pretty homes out in that area. But isn’t that kind of far to take the buggy?”

  “It is. So that’s when Abe suggested hiring a few Englishers to get the cabinets from his dat’s workshop to the farther-away job sites. I had a truck of my own by then, but it wasn’t big enough to hall everything we needed.”

  She wandered over to a barrel, checked its sturdiness, and then pulled herself onto its closed lid, her feet dangling off the edge. “Did that work out for Daniel and Abe—hiring English?”

  “Business took off fast. A few months in, Abe’s dat hurt his back so bad he couldn’t build anymore. Abe tried to keep up with everything on his own by working late into the night and starting long before dawn every morning, but it cost him big-time. The Amish girl he’d started courting a few months earlier moved on to someone else—someone who wasn’t too busy to linger at hymn sings or drive her around in his buggy.” Tommy’s throat tightened with a hard swallow. “Abe took it real hard. Between losing her, worrying about his dat’s health, and taking everything on his own shoulders, he had a lot to deal with. But he always wanted to do right by his dat, no matter what.

  “Then he dropped a big ball. He missed a critical deadline for Harper, and they severed ties with Esch.”

  The barrel wobbled beneath her as she drew back. “Ouch.”

  “A few months before all this went down, Abe’s sister Greta had married Lloyd Chupp, this guy from some place I can’t even remember. When Abe lost Harper, Lloyd suggested he take over the company, since Daniel was wanting to get out—he, the guy who couldn’t hammer a nail straight even if his life depended on it . . . But Daniel was adamant it was going to Abe—said Abe knew the business, knew how to build the cabinets, had grown it to what it was.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “Then one Sunday, Abe is shunned at church. For drinking.”

  “Had he been baptized yet?”

  “Yeah.”

  She winced. “Oh. Yeah. Not good.”

  “It wouldn’t have been if it were true. But it wasn’t.”

  She stared at him. “Then why was he shunned?”

  “Near as we can figure, Lloyd told the then bishop he’d caught Abe drinking. Told him he’d talked to him multiple times and he just kept doing it. So he was shunned.”

  “That’s horrible!”

  “Trust me, it gets worse. Without Harper, Abe had to let both delivery drivers go. I tried to tell him they’d be okay, they’d find other work, but he felt like he was disappointing everyone—his dat, Harper, the girl he’d wanted to marry, and now the drivers.”

  “What happened?” she prodded.

  “He started actually drinking. I was cool with it because he was my bud and we were having fun. But one night, Lloyd—who was always nosing around and is as old-school Old Order as they come—and Greta saw Abe cutting through the field, and they followed. Caught him drinking and horsing around with Trishy. Lloyd went straight to the bishop at the time, and once again, Abe was shunned. Which, in the event you’re unaware, means no one speaks to you until you repent—they turn their backs on you and refuse to do business with you. Abe repented, said he wouldn’t drink anymore, and he didn’t. But Lloyd? He said otherwise. Which meant, Abe was shunned a third time, and his dat’s company suffered again. The shame of that alone started him drinking again for real. After the fourth or fifth shunning, he left the church in an effort to spare his father’s business.”

  “Why would Lloyd say that stuff if it wasn’t true?” Claire asked. “Didn’t he risk being shunned himself if he’d been caught lying?”

  “Lloyd was older. He was married. That alone made him more trustworthy, more believable in the eyes of the bishop.”

  “Oh. Wow . . .”

  “And as for your first question? About why Lloyd would say that stuff? He thought it would play out differently than it did, I guess.”

  Claire shifted her weight across the barrel, the heels of her ankle boots making a soft thump against the aged wood. “Meaning?”

  “When Abe left, Daniel closed the company down. Said it was time. Lloyd, of course, got angry, tried to make a go of his own company, but it never took off. Of course, Lloyd blamed his lack of success on Abe, and considering the way the Amish have a stranglehold on just about every business in this town, it’s an accusation he’s allowed himself to wallow in for years. But the reality is Lloyd Chupp isn’t someone most people would want to work with. On anything.”

  “Wait.” She rewound the conversation back a sentence. “The Amish don’t have a stranglehold on every business in this town.”

  He pinned her with a stare. “You’re kidding, right? You ever try to make a go of something around here that the Amish are already doing? It doesn’t work. Period.”

  “I own a gift shop and it’s thriving.”

  “That’s just because it’s the only one in town,” he countered. “Had they had one first, you wouldn’t. Not for long, anyway.”

  She considered challenging him but let it go as her thoughts drifted back to the man with the rumpled suit and red-rimmed eyes—a man who was likely standing beside his parents’ bodies at that very moment. “Is Abe still drinking?”

  “Hasn’t touched a drop in nearly a year, and it was something he was excited to tell her when they spoke.”

  “Her?”

  Tommy rubbed at his cheek, his chin, his throat. “His mamm.”

  “But Abe left the church . . .”

  “He was still her son,” Tommy said, his voice tight.

  She waved away his rebuttal. “No, I get it. I’m glad they spoke. I . . . I just know, from my relationship with Jakob, that’s not the way things usually go.”

  “My maw said Mary was never the same after Abe left. Thinks she might’ve been one of the Old Order who’d have broken the rules to keep him close, but Greta and Lloyd weren’t having that. There’s no gray with those two. Ever.”

  “So what changed? What made her risk talking to him now—or whenever it was they talked?”

  Pulling in a breath, Tommy raked his fingers through his hair. “Abe was at our house this time last year, and he was drinking. My maw told him it was time to stop, that he was letting his life slip by. He said something about it not mattering, and Maw went off on him. Told him how it was up to him what kind of man he wanted to be in life.

  “T
hat’s when he got himself cleaned up, even started building things again. Then, one day about three or four weeks ago, he asked Maw’s help in finding a way for him to talk to his mamm. She did, and they did.”

  “Good for Abe.” Again, she glanced toward the barn door, the hands of her internal clock making it likely Abe and Jakob would be returning sooner rather than later. “I imagine that’ll be a comfort for him in the days and weeks ahead—knowing he got to reconnect with his mamm?”

  His answering laugh held no humor. “You sound like my maw; ever the peacemaker. Trishy and me? We’re not like that, not like Maw is, anyway. Trishy can fake it better than I can, but I don’t see much use in that. If I don’t like you, I’m not gonna pretend I do. The day Abe left that farm for good was the last time I stepped foot on that farm or his sister’s. Maw says I should forgive, that a job is a job. But I’d sooner riffle through a garbage can for food than make so much as a penny driving the likes of any of them around.”

  Claire brushed a piece of straw off the half wall to her left and wandered over to a different stall, a different pair of soulful eyes watching her every move. “I remember the first time I witnessed the back-turning thing in regard to Jakob. I knew he’d left after baptism, and I knew it meant he couldn’t go back, but to watch his own family act as if he didn’t exist? That was hard to see. Still gets me worked up sometimes, even though Jakob is the first one to tell me he knew the consequences of his decision.”

  “Did you know him when he was Amish?” Tommy asked.

  Grinning, she shook her head. “No. But I wish I could’ve, even if only for a few minutes.”

  “You getting worked up when his family treats him like dirt? It’d be even worse if you’d witnessed the before and after the way Trishy and I did. Growing up friends with Abe, we watched him pick wildflowers for his mamm, we stopped our playing because he wanted to help his dat with a cow or a lame horse or whatever . . . Abe was always thinking about his family, even when he left. But when he did leave, he might as well have been dead. Because to them, he was”—Tommy splayed his hands toward the barn door—“is.”