A Killer Carol

by Laura Bradford

  “So what now? You arrest him?”

  “We bring him in for questioning.”

  “When?” she asked.

  “He’s on his way as we speak. Two of my cops are bringing him in.”

  “Oh.” She knew she should be happy the case was closed, that justice would be served, but somehow, it felt like a hollow victory.

  “You okay?”

  She wanted to say yes, but she couldn’t. Tommy’s questioning and inevitable arrest would mean heartache not only for Abe but also for Trish and Nancy—good people who’d opened their hearts and their home to Abe and given him a family when his own had turned their backs on him.

  It would also mean Jakob would be free to have the conversation she knew was necessary yet she dreaded all the same. She wanted Jakob in her life, she wanted the future she thought they were building toward. But she couldn’t want it enough for the both of them. She’d been there and done that once before, and she knew she deserved better.

  “Claire?”

  Reaching down, she picked her purse up off the floor, hiked it onto her shoulder, and stood. “I should head out. You’ve got a big evening ahead of you.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” He lurched forward and onto his feet, the chair creaking with his exit. “Slow down a minute. They’re not here yet.”

  “They will be. And I need to go home.” She squeezed her eyes closed in time with a quick swallow. “I need to prepare.”

  * * *

  * * *

  She’d felt Bill and her aunt watching her off and on throughout the evening meal, but with four other people seated around them talking about the snatches of Amish life they’d observed while exploring Heavenly that day, neither had been able to ask anything on a personal level.

  When dinner was over and cleanup began, she’d flitted back and forth between the dining room and the kitchen so often, there’d been little time for anything beyond a few thank-yous and a smattering of don’t forgets before Tom and Debbie Steele from Room 3 were knocking on the open kitchen doorway asking Diane and Bill to join them in a game of cards.

  Now, a good ninety minutes later, she could still hear pockets of laughter intermingled with an occasional cry of victory, and she was glad. Maybe next week, when the festival and her breakup with Jakob were behind her, she’d be ready to unleash a few tears onto Diane’s shoulder, but for now, she needed to keep a tight rein on her emotions lest she fall apart. Her fellow shopkeepers up and down Lighted Way were counting on her, as were any residents who may have circled the big day on their home calendars.

  Pressing her forehead against the cool glass, Claire watched the lazy, drifting snowflakes begin to pick up speed, first shielding and then covering the sidewalk from view. If it kept up at the current rate, she’d be getting up earlier than normal to help shovel the front walkway in preparation for checkout. If it continued into the morning and beyond, Heavenly Treasures might just have to close for the day.

  It was a thought that would normally leave her giddy.

  But now there was only dread.

  With busyness came distraction. With quiet came time to think and—

  “Nope. Not going there,” she murmured, turning back to her bed and the scads of to-do lists spread across the quilt Esther had given her on her last birthday. By all accounts, everything was ready to go for next week—everyone that needed to be confirmed, was confirmed. Every detail was finalized. Every volunteer scheduled for their post and their hour. Barring any unforeseen complications, One Heavenly Night was looking good. Real good.

  She ran her finger down the master list one more time, stopping on the last entry: Ruth’s Christmas cookies . . .

  As much as she hated the thought of Abe’s face when he learned his best friend had killed his parents, there was a positive in the case being over, for it meant that Ruth could finally tell Samuel about the baby.

  She gave in to the smile that came with the notion of Sarah and her new baby cousin growing up together and playing with each other after church and during visits to each other’s homes. It was everything she’d wanted for her own children one day—children that would have been related by blood to Esther and Sarah if Jakob—

  Sinking down onto the bed, she scooped up her phone and scrolled through her pictures, the moments and people she loved most in the world either there or somehow related to the ones who were.

  There was Aunt Diane in the kitchen rolling out dough for Christmas cookies . . .

  There was Harold Glick, mid-dance, celebrating the way his window display had come together for the holidays . . .

  There was Ben’s horse and buggy in the alley with a stack of Ruth’s pie boxes on the front seat . . .

  Jakob on the front porch, grinning back at her over his shoulder . . .

  Jakob and her cuddled together on the sofa in Aunt Diane’s parlor, smiling up at the phone for what ended up being yet another blurry attempt at a selfie . . .

  Jakob—

  She scrolled right and came to a stop on Mary’s letter to Ruth, the uneven writing and the fears it had stirred in her heart stopping her breath for a beat. But it was okay. Ruth and Samuel were innocent. They hadn’t murdered the elderly couple. Tommy Warren had . . .

  She touched her fingers to the screen, pulling the letter into easy reading range.

  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.

  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

  It was hard not to laugh at the irony of Mary’s last sentence, the woman’s justification for stealing the bid the exact opposite of what, in fact, happened. Mary hadn’t fixed the mistakes she and Daniel had made in regard to their loved one. No, they’d only made it worse. And now that same son was without his best friend—the one person in his life who actually did see him for the upstanding young man he’d always been.

  The vibration of her phone sent her gaze back down to the device in time to see Jakob’s name pop up across Mary’s letter. She debated letting it go to voice mail, but in the end, she picked it up.

  “Hi, Jakob.”

  “Hi, yourself. I’m sitting here, at my desk, picturing you sitting on your window seat watching the snow. Am I right?”

  “No.”

  He waited through her silence, and then, when it became apparent she wasn’t going to elaborate, he moved on, his tone taking on the fatigue she knew he had to be feeling. “So I just had my guys take Tommy back home.”

  She tightened her grip on the phone. “You didn’t arrest him? Why?”

  “Because he gave me no reason to believe he wasn’t telling the truth. And trust me, I grilled him for”—she heard him move away from the phone and then return less than a second later—“five hours. Asked him the same series of questions a dozen or more different ways and nothing he said changed. He is adamant that he hasn’t stepped foot on Esch land in six years. In fact, until yesterday’s viewing and today’s funeral,
he hasn’t stepped foot on Chupp’s property, either.”

  “He said something about that to me that night in the barn, when you and Abe were in the house viewing the bodies.”

  “Could’ve been a ruse, of course, but considering he wasn’t even on my radar when he said that to you, it’s a little less likely.” Again, it sounded like he moved the phone for a moment, but this time, instead of silence, she heard papers rustling in the background. “Anyway, I sent a few of the cops out to different farms—Hershberger’s, Miller’s, Stutzman’s, Chupp’s, and Lapp’s. Had them ask if Tommy Warren ever drove them anywhere . . . If they knew who else he drove . . . That sort of thing . . . Pretty much everyone has been transported by Tommy somewhere over the past few months. Except Chupp. Derek said that when he stopped out there, he spoke to the wife, Greta. Said she’s never been driven by Tommy, just Nancy.

  “So then I called Nancy and asked if she keeps records of her drop-offs and pickups. She reminded me she doesn’t have to because Amish taxis aren’t regulated by the state the way normal taxis are, but she does just the same. Says it’s a way for her to keep track of her days.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “She faxed me her log from the day Abe submitted his bid until the day of the murders. And assuming it’s all accurate, Tommy’s name shows up a lot. Just never in conjunction with Esch or Chupp.”

  “But his glove was outside the victims’ home,” she reminded. “There’s no getting around that.”

  “And he didn’t try to. When I told him it was there, he stared at me like I had two heads. There was no posturing, no blinking, no buying time. Said he couldn’t explain it, even demanded to see the glove when I first mentioned it as being the reason I’d brought him in. But when I showed him the one we found, he said it was his. No doubt. Even turned it inside out to show me the label where he’d written his initials in Sharpie.”

  “Wow.”

  “Wow is right. So I asked him when he remembers wearing them last. He said it was probably on one of the taxi runs he made for his mom. That in the winter, when he’s waiting for her van to get up to a bearable temperature inside, touching the steering wheel without gloves is like holding ice cubes in your bare hands.”

  He exhaled into the phone, his frustration over the case evident. “So then he goes on to tell me how much he pitied Daniel and Mary for believing Lloyd’s rantings and ravings over their son. Even admitted how much he hated the fact Abe and Mary sat down together. He said she didn’t deserve a kid like Abe. But he said it was Abe’s decision and that getting to tell her the truth after all these years had been good for him.”

  “But it didn’t change anything, right?” she prodded. “Abe was still persona non grata as far as his parents were concerned.”

  “He left the church, Claire. He knew it wasn’t going to change their ability to have a relationship with him in the open. He just wanted them to know the truth; he wanted them to know Lloyd had lied about him to the bishop, that he was a good and honest man with a wife and a baby on the way, and that he was going to try and make a go of the trade Daniel taught him—a trade he wanted to share with his own son one day.”

  “I wish his words could’ve mattered on some level,” she said. “I wish Mary and Daniel hadn’t reopened their business out of left field the way they did . . .”

  She pulled the phone from her ear, switched the call to speaker, and tapped her way back into Mary’s letter, the woman’s cryptic words seeming to leap off the screen.

  For many years Esch was good and strong because of him—his work, his name.

  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.

  Wait.

  Was it possible?

  Had Daniel’s seemingly out-of-left-field bid been for Abe instead of against Abe? A way to give him the name he’d lost through lies? And if it was, how did that change—

  “Claire?”

  “What if Abe was telling the truth?” she said, gathering her thoughts together. “What if Mary and Daniel did ask him to come to their house that last night? What if they were going to tell him he could have the company? That they’d won the bid for him? That they wanted him to build under the Esch name?”

  The utter silence in her ear told her everything she needed to know in that moment. Jakob was processing her words, running them through the detective part of his brain.

  She, on the other hand, needed to keep talking it out. For herself. “I mean, if you reread Ruth’s letter from that perspective, it reads very differently.”

  The paper shuffling was back. Then, “Oh, Claire . . .”

  “It doesn’t mean Tommy or Abe didn’t do it,” she said. “Because if we’re right, and Daniel and Mary bid and won the job for their son, they never got to tell him that. All they would have known was they didn’t win and that Daniel did.”

  “Abe didn’t kill his parents,” Jakob said. “I know this with everything I am.”

  “And Tommy says he wasn’t on that farm that night, and you’re inclined to believe that, too, right?” she prodded.

  “Right.”

  “So if Tommy wasn’t on the Esch farm that night or any other night, then how did his glove happen to get dropped outside the very window the killer likely used—or pretended to use—to kill Daniel and Mary?”

  She heard Jakob draw in a breath, could picture him following it up with a palm to his mouth as he took in her words. But she didn’t need him to say anything. Her question had been rhetorical and he knew it.

  After a few deep breaths (his) and a few last glances at the letter (hers), his voice returned in her ear. “You interested in making a drive? I can get the department’s snow beast.”

  “Snow beast?”

  “The black SUV that sits out back in the parking lot . . . It does snow like nobody’s business.”

  “I’ll be out front in twenty minutes.”

  Chapter 22

  Foot by foot and, at times, inch by inch, they made their way down Aunt Diane’s driveway, the mounting snow promising a difficult drive. Between them on the long bench seat were the hats, gloves, and scarves she’d secured from the inn’s front hall closet after jotting a note for her aunt.

  Claire had considered stepping into the parlor and sharing her plans aloud, but all that would have done was dull her aunt’s fun. The note, when it was found, would tell Diane everything she needed to know . . .

  “So I’m not going to be stopping at stop signs unless I have to. The less stopping we do, the less chance we have of getting stuck. Same goes for slowing down at all. Once I find the quickest yet safest pace possible, I’ll try to keep it there.” Jakob glanced her way. “Sound good?”

  “Sounds good.”

  At the bottom of the driveway, he turned left onto the main road, his wipers working furiously against the speed and volume of the falling snow. The plows she knew would start coming through the streets as the storm wound down were nowhere to be seen. The winds the forecasters had predicted were starting to gust, drifting snow, shaking power lines, and decreasing visibility with each sudden burst. Ahead of them, in the flake-covered beams of the SUV’s headlights, the snow was relentless.

  “So that paper there”—he nudged his chin and her gaze to the open bench space between them—“that’s the list Nancy faxed me this evening. I highlighted all of the runs Tommy made for his mom in the three weeks leading up to the murders. That’ll be our road map of sorts tonight.”

  Lifting the computer printout onto her lap, she strained to make out the four distinct columns barely v
isible in the limited light from the dashboard. The first column showed the date, the second showed the customer’s name, the third showed the destination and whether it was expected to be a quick or lengthy stop, and the fourth showed either Nancy or Tommy as the driver.

  “And after you and I got off the phone, I decided to call out to Abe’s place.”

  “Oh?” Claire said, sliding the printout back onto the seat.

  “Yeah. I wanted to hear him tell me about his conversation with Mary again. The one that Nancy Warren helped arrange.”

  She glanced Jakob’s way. “Do you think he held something back?”

  “No. I just needed to hear it again, see if something struck me differently.” He tightened his grip on the steering wheel as the tires adjusted to the change from snow-topped pavement to snow-topped cobblestones. “He told her he was getting back into cabinetry. That working with his hands in a trade he learned from Daniel made him feel closer to them somehow. He told her about the baby on the way and that it was going to be a boy. He told her that one day, maybe his son would work beside him just as Abe had once done with Daniel.”

  “He told her what he was going to call his company, right?”

  “He did. He told her he was going with Abe’s Custom Woodworking and that he was getting ready to bid on his first big job.”

  “The Breeze Point job . . .”

  “The Breeze Point job,” Jakob repeated, nodding. “He said he even showed her the calculations he used to come up with his bid.”

  “So she knew his bid.”

  “Yup.” Stripes of light from the lanterns they passed lit and then shadowed his face. “Abe said she was surprised he still did all his calculating with paper and pencil when he lived the life of an Englisher.”