“Annie, I—”
“I know I just turned seventeen and that there are many things I still do not know about the English world. But ears do not need to be old or English to listen.”
Claire felt the familiar prick of tears gathering just behind her eyes and did her best to blink them away. “Trust me, kiddo, I know you’re a good listener. You’ve proven that many times since that first day. And seventeen or not, I value your input every single time. But this thing, on my phone? There’s a chance I’m reading more into it than there really is. That’s why I need to sit with it by myself for a little while, okay?”
“Yah.” Annie started down the hallway, only to return seconds later. “Claire?”
“Yes, kiddo?”
“I saw someone last night. At the viewing. It is someone I remember from that night.”
Pushing off the counter, she joined Annie by the doorway. “From what night?”
“The night my youth group went caroling. To Daniel and Mary’s.”
She stared at the girl. “You mean the night you and Henry found them?”
“Yah.” Annie stepped over to the disheveled display of place mats and quickly neatened them into Claire’s preferred piles. “It was because of the pebbles that I saw him, but then Henry said something about the moon and I looked away.”
“Pebbles?”
“On the dirt outside Mary and Daniel’s home.”
“Do you mean the driveway?”
“Yah,” Annie said, moving on to the bin of napkin rings. “They made a funny sound when he ran. I saw his face, but it was so quick and it has been many years I did not remember. But last night, when I heard Dat say his name, I knew he was the one that made Mary sad.”
She swallowed. Hard. “Who did you see, Annie?”
“Abe Esch.”
Chapter 14
She was exhausted. Plain and simple. Yet something about flipping the sign from OPEN to CLOSED filled her with such dread, she actually entertained the idea of keeping the door unlocked and the lights blazing. But she couldn’t. Not in good conscience, anyway.
Her whole upbringing had been centered around three simple principles: Be kind, work hard, and be truthful to yourself and others. And while she’d always found them reasonably easy to honor thus far, it was the last one she’d been doing her best to ignore all day.
Every customer that had come in, every question she’d fielded, every phone call she’d answered, every purchase she’d rung up, every item she’d bagged, had kept her from this exact moment—a moment with no distractions and no excuses.
Wrapping her fingers around the same rectangular placard that hung in every shop up and down Lighted Way, she pulled in a breath, let it out through pursed lips, and flipped it over, her gaze finding and then quickly discarding the police station. Inside its four walls, Jakob was likely interrogating or getting ready to interrogate the victim’s son—a young man who hadn’t been on anyone’s radar until Annie’s visit.
She knew she should be relieved Annie had spoken up, that Ruth and Samuel had likely been pushed to the bottom of the suspect list because of the teen’s admission, but she wasn’t. At least not in the way she would have been before she’d stopped out at Ruth’s—before Ruth had looked her in the eye and lied.
When she’d woken that morning, Claire had still been certain Ruth and Samuel were no more viable suspects in the double murder than she was. Ruth’s lie had stolen that certainty, leaving in its place the stomach-churning fear she could no longer ignore under the guise of a busy day.
No, the customers were gone, the phone silent, the register closed and locked. There were no more excuses to be had.
Drawing in another deep breath, she took in the garland-wrapped streetlamps lining the sidewalks, the wreath on Glorious Books’ door she knew matched her own and every other shopkeeper’s on the street, and the last of the day’s shoppers heading into Taste of Heaven(ly) for a home-cooked meal, and then turned her back on it all in favor of the one thing she didn’t want to look at.
With heavy footsteps, she made her way past the doll display that needed resupplying, the candle section that needed reorganizing, the quilt section that needed refolding, and the baby section that needed straightening. Had she not been running so late that morning, her purse would be in her office, tucked away in her desk’s deepest drawer with the bag of pretzels she kept on hand for days like this, when a real lunch hadn’t been an option.
Instead, her purse and her phone were below the register in a cubby normally taken up by Annie’s lunch pail and, in the winter, the teen’s scarf and gloves. Here, thanks to the day’s busyness, the bowl of wrapped candies she kept out for customers stood empty, thus negating any chance of a quick food-break diversion.
She wandered behind the counter, pushed the stool out of the way, and reached for her purse, the churn in her stomach growing more intense. Maybe, if she was lucky, she’d have a text from her aunt asking her to pick up something at Gussmann’s General Store on the way home—a text she’d feel obligated to answer lest Diane doubt she’d gotten it and head to the store herself. Or . . . or maybe there would be a voice mail from Harold Glick’s wife regarding the Santa suit she was making for One Heavenly Night. If there was an issue with the suit, Claire would have to address it right away. Time was ticking, after all . . .
Yet when she unzipped her purse and pulled out her phone, a tap of the button tasked with waking the device yielded no little red indicator next to the text or voice mail icon.
Great . . .
Slumping back against the edge of the stool, Claire glanced up at the ceiling, murmured her way from one to ten, and then, dropping all focus back to her phone, pressed the flower petal. Instantly, a checkerboard of thumbnail-size pictures filled her screen.
Pictures of the countryside from Sleep Heavenly’s front porch . . .
Shots of Aunt Diane with various horses at Weaver’s farm . . .
Farm animals that had caught her eye while walking the less-traveled roads on the Amish side of town . . .
The cover of a book she’d seen at Glorious Books she’d been certain (and right!) her aunt would enjoy . . .
Her feet beside Jakob’s during their last walk of the autumn season, the reds and golds and oranges around their shoes so breathtakingly pretty she’d had to take a picture . . .
The drawings Annie had made of the various scenes Claire had described when imagining what One Heavenly Night could actually be if everything went off without a hitch . . .
Left to right, row after row, she took in each and every tiny picture until she came to the one she wished she could accidentally delete. But accidental would mean without thought, and it was all she could think about.
For a moment, she let her gaze skip ahead to the one she’d taken during Annie’s lunchtime visit, the wrinkled paper with its bake-off information promising the distraction she’d been silently praying for since the door-mounted bell jingled good-bye to the day’s last customer. On one hand, it would make perfect sense for her to hop on the Internet and sign Annie up for the competition. After all, Annie, who was technically still on Rumspringa while waiting to be baptized, didn’t have any Internet-capable devices at her disposal, and Claire had said she’d sign the teenager up. But considering it was only five fifteen and entries were being accepted for another eight weeks, it was a distraction that could wait.
This thing with Ruth? It couldn’t wait. Not if Claire was being true to her upbringing and the whole be truthful to yourself and others thing.
She hovered her finger above the second to last picture, mustered every ounce of courage she could, and then pressed. Instantly, the letter that had stolen her breath in just the first two sentences she’d managed to read before Ruth’s returning footsteps had sent her scrambling for her phone took center stage. Looking back, she’d felt the heat of shame as she’d unfol
ded the letter that hadn’t bore her name. But in the moment, she’d been so thrown by the ripped seal and Ruth’s lie, she wasn’t exactly thinking clearly. All she knew was the way her thoughts were focused on the lie and stirring up all sorts of what if’s—what if’s that had her starting to doubt her belief in Ruth.
Opening the letter, though? And actually starting to read it? That split-second, poorly thought-out decision had taken all those silly little doubts and turned them into something not quite so little or so silly. Now, where there had been idle curiosity and irritation over a lie, there was fear and dread.
Fear that Jakob’s questioning of Ruth was no longer about checking a box.
And dread over everything that meant—for Jakob, for Eli, for Ben, for Samuel, and for Ruth’s unborn baby . . .
Setting her thumb and forefinger on the screen, Claire spread them apart, bringing the letter she both wanted and hated to finish reading into full view.
Dear Ruth,
I know you will not think too kindly of me by the time you finish reading this letter, but the Bible says, “These are the things that ye shall do; speak ye every man the truth to his neighbor.” That is why I must tell the truth.
By the time you read this, you will know that Samuel’s bid for the Breeze Point job did not win. You will also learn that the one Daniel put in for Esch did. Many, including Samuel, will think it is because his was better, and that is truth. But it is also truth that it was a better bid because we made sure it was so. For many years Esch was good and strong because of him—his work, his name.
Claire felt the hitch of her breath as she stopped, skimmed the paragraph again, and then resituated her fingers so she could keep reading, Mary’s words holding her captive.
I know it was wrong. I know there will be confusion and disappointment and pain, but that is what forgiveness is for. That is what I must remind myself, too. You cannot change what you have done. You can only change what you do. That is what Daniel and I are doing.
You and Samuel are young. You have each other. There will be many years to fix the mistakes I pray you do not make with your loved ones.
From,
Mary Esch
Moving her shaky fingers from the screen, Claire used them instead to help steady her phone-holding hand. The letter she’d been so afraid to read for the answers she wasn’t sure she really wanted had merely doubled—even tripled—the feeling of dread that seemed to claw at every square inch of her being.
Now, instead of Why did Ruth lie about never having seen the yellow envelope and What, if any, tie could that have to the murders of Mary and Daniel Esch, Claire was holding in her hand a picture of what could very well be the case’s proverbial smoking gun. The fact that said gun looked to have a treasured friend’s fingerprints all over it took everything to a whole new level.
Mary and Daniel Esch had fixed a bid for a cabinetry job that Samuel Yoder wanted, bid for, and desperately needed according to his young wife. It was the kind of sickening and underhanded act that made an honest person’s blood boil. It certainly did hers, and she wasn’t the one who stood to lose financially because of it . . .
The trembling under control, she rubbed at her cheek as she tried to recall a moment when the furniture shop owner had ever displayed even a hint of anger. But no matter how many business owners’ meetings she cycled through in her thoughts, or how many buggy sightings she’d had of the quietly confident man, she couldn’t think of a single one.
Ditto for Ruth.
Unless she counted the time she’d been conversing with the former bake shop owner across their respective front porches when a passing Englisher had groused about the prices in Ruth’s then-fiancé’s shop. Ruth had gotten so flustered and so upset, Claire had felt the need to leave her shop unmanned for a few moments while she worked to calm her friend.
At the time, she’d been surprised such a reaction had come from someone she’d always equated as being shy, even timid. But when she’d shared the encounter with her aunt later that same day, Diane had offered the same chilling reminder now looping its way through Claire’s head.
Ruth was, in fact, Eli’s twin. And up until Eli had set his sights on marrying Esther, he’d been shunned by his district a time or two for his temper—a temper that had been witnessed by many prior to Claire’s arrival in Heavenly.
No.
No.
No.
Determined, she willed the troubling thought from her head and instead looked back at the screen, her eyes and thoughts narrowing in on the second part of the letter . . .
I know it was wrong. I know there will be confusion and disappointment and pain, but that is what forgiveness is for. That is what I must remind myself, too. You cannot change what you have done. You can only change what you do. That is what Daniel and I are doing.
You and Samuel are young. You have each other. There will be many years to fix the mistakes I pray you do not make with your loved ones.
What did Mary mean, the part about not making mistakes with loved ones? Wouldn’t it have been so much easier to say I’m sorry than messing with someone else’s livelihood?
She didn’t understand people sometimes. The decisions they made, the actions they took, the justifications they used. Then again, she was holding the image of someone else’s letter in her hand—a letter she hadn’t been given permission to read, let alone copy.
Aware of the slump sagging her shoulders, she wandered her gaze across the section of her shop devoted to home and hearth and then out the window to the white clapboard exterior of her next-door neighbor, Shoo Fly Bake Shoppe, her thoughts traveling back to the first day she’d met Ruth Miller.
It had been a nice day, the bright morning sun reflecting off the Heavenly Treasures shingle she’d ordered from her landlord. Something about walking down Lighted Way that morning, toward the start of a new dream, and a new life, had been more than a little scary. Yet as she’d unlocked the back door of her new shop, Ruth had stepped out into the alley with a freshly made cookie and a smile of encouragement.
Somehow, those two simple gestures had calmed Claire’s nerves and made her feel as if everything would be alright from that point forward. And it had. Ruth’s quiet ways, yet willingness to help and encourage, had led Claire to hire Esther. Esther, in turn, had become Claire’s best friend. That friendship had led to even more inside the Amish community—from both a personal and a professional standpoint.
How different would her life be now if Ruth hadn’t reached out to her? If Ruth hadn’t introduced her to Esther?
She looked back down at the phone, the words on the screen blurring in her tears. “What a way to thank her, dummy,” she whispered.
Chapter 15
It was close to six thirty by the time she finally stepped into the alley, her thoughts as jumbled now as they’d been when she’d finished reading the letter. Did she head across the street to the police station? Did she get in Aunt Diane’s car and head back out to Ruth’s? Or did she turn right, walk straight to Heavenly Brews, and lose herself in the biggest mug of hot chocolate she could buy, thus prolonging a decision she was no closer to making than she’d been an hour earlier?
She pulled the door closed, locked it, and took a moment to look around. The small turnaround spot at the back of her building where Annie hitched her horse, Katie, was empty, the horse’s feed bucket dangling from the post by its handle. Across the alley, next to Shoo Fly’s side door, was the milk box that, come morning, would hold a few bottles of fresh cow’s milk, delivered to the shop in the wee hours by either Ben or Eli. Up ahead and across the street, the display of holiday titles in Glorious Books’ front window was slightly visible thanks to one of Lighted Way’s many lampposts, which stood sentry along the cobblestone thoroughfare.
Dropping the key into her purse, she made her way down the short alleyway to the sidewalk and the
full view of Lighted Way it afforded. At night, during the holiday season, the cobblestones sparkled with the addition of countless twinkling lights, transforming the already picturesque street into something straight out of a Dickens novel. It was, in a word, magical, and at that moment, she was in dire need of a little magic.
To her left, just beyond Shoo Fly, was Glick’s Tools ’n More. Like the lamppost across the street had done for the bookstore, the one positioned outside the hardware store shone brightly across Harold’s holiday window display—shovels for those snowy days, tools and other assorted gadgets that were just the right size for stocking stuffers, and gift cards scattered about that recipients could use toward one of the many how-to classes the store offered throughout the year. It had taken some coaching to become the visual stunner it was, but the memory of Harold’s nearly face-splitting smile when it was finally done helped quiet her troubled heart for a few moments.
To her right, just beyond the Heavenly Times’ office and Heavenly Hairdo, she spotted a couple, not much older than she and Jakob, stop to look at the Christmas tree in all its glory, the weather-resistant garland and twinkling white lights casting a glow of contentment around them. It was hard not to rewind back to the day the detective had joined her and a few of the shopkeepers to decorate the shared outdoor tree. They’d had such fun winding the light strands around the tree, reminiscing about past Christmases they’d each had, and brainstorming real and even outrageous ideas for One Heavenly Night. Everything had seemed so light and happy and . . . promising.
A Killer Carol Page 14
