Dead Broke

by Vannetta Chapman

  “It’s in the next drawing too.”

  “It had rained a little that morning, barely a mist actually. I remember because I was relieved to not have to water my potted plants.” Agatha cocked her head, studying the drawing. “It looks as if the ground was wet enough to retain the print.”

  “Even on dry soil you can sometimes find footprints. This...it’s a fine print even though it’s partial, and even though the rain was beginning to erase it.”

  “You can use that?” Emma asked.

  “Possibly. Boots in these parts are often custom made, and that means that the soles are original; plus, each person wears the tread on the bottom of their shoes in the same way. Go to your closet, turn over all your shoes, and you’ll find similar patterns of wear on the bottom. This is good. It’s not a complete print, but it’s enough that the police could do an analysis on it.”

  “The question is, will they.” Emma frowned at the journal. “Often they are skeptical of Henry’s drawings.”

  “Having been a detective, I can understand that. We’re trained to question everything we see. These drawings? These are like receiving a gift...they’re pretty much too good to be true.”

  “But they are true,” Agatha reminded him.

  “We know that. I can’t guarantee what the investigating officer will think though.” He indicated the bottom right corner of the drawing. “There’s also a tread mark here. It’s just a partial tread, and like the boot print it could be from days or weeks before the murder, but...”

  “Do you think it shows how the killer arrived?” Emma asked.

  “A person who is committing murder will often remember to pick up their shell casing, but they rarely remember that they leave impressions in the dirt with their shoes and possibly with their mode of transportation.”

  “Too many trees to be a tire track,” Henry pointed out.

  “For a vehicle, yes. But if it were a mountain bike...” Tony peered more closely, then shook his head. “Let’s look at the next drawing.”

  The first drawing was from a distant viewpoint. The group had approached the body, which was why it had included the goats huddled nearby. The second was drawn from the perspective of Henry and Tony as they’d knelt next to Nathan. The close up of the man was disturbing, to say the least.

  Nathan was Amish. He was dressed in a blue shirt, work pants, and suspenders. He’d been wearing a straw hat, but it had fallen to the side of the body.

  “What can you tell me about Nathan, Agatha?”

  “He’s roughly our age, I guess. Hard worker. Single. I don’t know much else.”

  Henry thought the man seemed a bit unkempt—his hair needed a cut, and it didn’t look as if he’d shaved recently.

  “The victim was shot and fell onto his back. He hadn’t been moved at this point. The bullet either went through his body or it was lodged inside. Look at his neck though.”

  They all leaned closer to the drawing, so that the tops of their heads were practically touching.

  “Looks like some light bruising.” Agatha’s voice contained the confusion Henry was feeling.

  “Do you think it was recent?” Emma murmured.

  “Looks to be, in this drawing. If so, there might be some DNA from the person who left the mark. The Medical Examiner will check it out, I’m sure. But it could mean that whoever shot him approached him first. Perhaps they had an altercation, a little push-shove-choke.”

  “The ground is undisturbed around him,” Henry noted. “And Amish don’t push or shove. They certainly don’t choke one another assuming the person who killed him was Amish. We don’t know that of course.”

  Tony let that go. He did note, “There’s only the single boot print. Our perp didn’t hop over, grab Nathan around the neck, then hop back and shoot him.”

  “This all seems like risky behavior to me.” Agatha leaned forward now, elbows resting on the table. “Whoever did this wasn’t thinking very clearly.”

  It occurred to Henry that if he had to go through this again—go through yet another murder investigation—he was glad to go through it with Agatha Lapp and Tony Vargas.

  “Why would a killer leave a note?” Agatha shook her head, a quick jerk left then right. “Why would he choke Nathan?”

  “Our list of questions grows.” Tony turned the page to the third drawing. “Remember, I’d moved you three over to a nearby stand of trees.”

  “To get us out of the rain.” Emma offered Tony a quick smile.

  “Right. So it’s as if we’re getting a broader view of the area here.”

  “The body looks the same to me,” Henry said.

  “It does, but you’ve drawn more of the area behind the victim.”

  Agatha sat up straighter. “The area the bullet would have gone, if it isn’t still in him.”

  “Yup.” They all four hovered close to the photograph, the tops of their heads practically touching.

  “There.” Henry tapped a tree near the top of the drawing. “It’s a very small spot, but I think...”

  Instead of answering, Tony stood and walked into the adjacent room that he used as an office. He returned with a magnifying glass and held it over the portion of the drawing they’d been studying.

  “Do you think...” Agatha’s voice now held a note of wonder.

  Henry didn’t even remember drawing the detail, but there was a small hole in the bark of a tree. He might have thought an animal had caused it except the hole was perfectly round.

  “I don’t know if that’s the bullet or not, but it’ll be easy enough to check.” Tony turned to the last page of drawings.

  “I believe that’s as we were leaving,” Henry explained. “As you can see, it’s again from a distance, and I recall I had looked back over my shoulder.”

  It was quite apparent from the drawing that the police had taken over control of the crime scene. Some were kneeling by the body, others were wrapping crime scene tape around adjacent trees, but one was standing apart and looking not at the body of Nathan King, but at Agatha’s group of friends.

  And the expression on Tami Griffin’s face? It could only be described as a look of suspicion.

  Chapter Four

  After asking for and receiving Henry’s permission, Tony took the journal back into his office and copied the relevant pages. He returned the journal and thanked him for sharing it. “You didn’t have to become involved. Given your history with law enforcement, I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d kept this to yourself.”

  Henry and Emma shared a look.

  Agatha understood it to mean that they’d talked about it, considered staying out of the investigation, and probably prayed about it as well. In the end, they’d done what their conscience had dictated.

  “You’ll take it to the police?”

  “Yes, and they’ll probably be in touch with you.”

  Henry nodded, as if he’d expected as much. He thanked Tony for his help, reached for Emma’s hand, and they made their way back toward Agatha’s property.

  Tony tugged on Agatha’s arm as she started after them.

  “Talk to you for a minute?”

  “Of course.”

  “What do you think?”

  “About Henry? I think he and Emma are wunderbaar people. What do you think?”

  “I think I’m a little freaked out and trying not to show it.”

  “Because of his drawings.”

  “Yeah. Have you ever seen anything like that before?”

  Agatha shook her head.

  “Can you...I don’t know...check out his story?”

  “You want me to check up on Henry?”

  “Just float some questions out there. Didn’t you tell me once that you have an Amish grapevine?”

  “Ya. I suppose I might have said something like that.”

  Agatha laughed for the first time since hearing Nathan’s frantically bleating goats. The poor things. They must have been frightened out of their minds. If only goats could speak...
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br />   “Say, that reminds me.” She worried her bottom lip, then plunged into what she needed to say. “When we were sitting at the table, before we kayaked across...I thought I heard a car backfire.”

  Tony was nodding before she’d finished. “I heard it too. Figured it was someone sighting in their gun for deer season.”

  “But if I had realized what it was, maybe...”

  “No.” The look he gave her was filled with such tenderness that it brought a lump to Agatha’s throat. “You couldn’t have saved him. I couldn’t have saved him. Nathan was dead before he hit the ground. It happens that way sometimes.”

  “Okay.”

  Tony clumsily patted her shoulder, then crossed his arms. “So you’ll ask around? About Henry?”

  “Sure. I can check with my bishop, or possibly my friend Becca. I think she once told me that she had relatives in Goshen. They might remember Henry from his time there.” She rubbed a finger along her bottom lip, then added, “I’m from Shipshewana myself, which is a short buggy ride from Goshen, but of course, I was busy raising children then. Still, I don’t remember any talk of a murder or of a bishop who had an extraordinary talent for drawing.”

  “I’m pretty sure anyone who has met Henry...anyone who knows what he’s capable of...will remember him.”

  Agatha followed Tony over to his pick-up truck. He apparently felt it was important to take these drawings to the police right away. She didn’t understand the hurry. Nathan would still be dead, and she suspected his killer would be lying low.

  “Why are we checking up on him? I can’t see that Henry would have any reason to lie, and the drawings...well they sort of speak for themselves.”

  “Agreed, and yet detectives question things. It’s a habit that dies hard.”

  Agatha reached out and patted his shoulder. She’d become increasingly familiar with Tony, and she was fast adjusting to the Texas way of doing things. Soon she’d be pulling complete strangers into a hug and offering them large glasses of sweet tea.

  “Thank you, for not laughing at him.”

  “I would never.”

  “And for helping.”

  At this he stepped closer and lowered his voice. “Promise me you’ll stay out of this, Agatha.”

  “Stay out of it?”

  “I’ll turn the drawings in to Lieutenant Bannister. Hopefully he’ll send someone out to speak to Henry, and then that’s the end of it.”

  “After I make a few discrete inquiries.”

  “Yes, after that.”

  He returned her smile, and she felt her heart race a little. Tony was one suave guy, and he was endearing too. A ball cap covered his thick crop of black hair that was just beginning to gray. He wore his standard uniform—blue jeans, a plain t-shirt, and a blue jean jacket. It was hard to believe that a little over a year ago she’d barely known him. A little over a year ago, they’d been involved in another murder investigation.

  He stepped back and crossed his arms. “Just remember, this isn’t a mystery like those books you read.”

  “Who has time to read?”

  “I saw them in your living room.”

  “For the guests.”

  “And one on the kitchen counter, with a scrap of yarn for a bookmark.”

  “Caught me.”

  “I’m not kidding. We’re not getting involved. This isn’t like last time. This isn’t about you or your property or your guests. We’re going to help the investigation by giving Henry’s drawings to the authorities, and then we’re going to wash our hands of it.”

  “Absolutely right.” She moved to the edge of the driveway, then waited for him to back out. Once he’d pulled out onto the main road, she gave him a little wave and headed across the lawn to her place.

  A row of hedges marked the property line, and there she turned and looked back at him. Tony had yet to drive down the road. Instead he sat there, truck idling, watching her. Was he waiting to make sure she got home safe? She waved again to indicate that she was fine, that she could traverse the great distance of a few hundred feet without any mishaps, and then she turned back and walked through the hedge.

  She heard Tony’s truck head toward town.

  And then she heard a scream, coming from the B&B.

  Agatha broke into a run.

  By the time she reached the back porch steps, she was out of breath. Mary Hochstetler had dropped into a rocker, her face pale and her hand pressed against her heart. Daniel stood beside her, assuring her that everything was fine. And Gina? Agatha’s friend and housekeeper was standing three feet away, having picked up a quite large rat snake with the end of a rake.

  “Don’t usually see these in November,” she admitted. “They’re harmless of course—in fact, they’re rather helpful. They keep the rodent population down. I better relocate him to the garden.”

  She trotted off without another word.

  Daniel continued to console his wife, who looked quite shaken.

  Agatha sat in the rocker next to Mary. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. I suppose. It just...it gave me a fright is all.”

  “That’s understandable. The first time I saw a rat snake I was sure it was a rattler. I was about to attack it with a hoe when Gina stopped me.”

  Daniel had fetched his wife a glass of water. She took it in trembling hands and attempted to take a sip, but the water splashed onto her lap.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Ya. It just gave me quite the fright.”

  She didn’t look all right. She looked as if she might faint, even with the snake safely moved to the other side of the property.

  “I believe I’ll go to our room and rest for a few minutes.”

  When her husband moved as if he meant to go with her, she waved him away. “I just need to lie down, Daniel. I’m fine. Go ahead and do your fishing.”

  Agatha and Daniel watched her totter into the house.

  “I’m sorry about that,” Agatha said.

  “Well you can’t be responsible for the wildlife as well as everything else.” Daniel cleared his throat, then added, “A few months ago, Mary had a scare with a diamondback rattlesnake at our place. I believe she may be developing a phobia.”

  He picked up the fishing pole he’d dropped and made his way down the path that led to the river, then turned left and meandered down the bank.

  Which left Agatha sitting there, wondering if everyone was hiding something. Because the Hochstetlers were from Ohio, which was not a common habitat for diamondback rattlesnakes.

  He’d either lied about the snake or he’d lied about being from Ohio. But why would he do that? Or was he simply confused? Perhaps he was developing early onset dementia. She didn’t know, but she filed the question away in her mind, thinking that she would mention it to Tony later. At some point she was going to have to start writing these things down. There was only so much a B&B owner could be expected to remember.

  ONE LOOK AT TONY’S grim expression told Henry that the police would not be coming to interview him.

  Tony found him sitting in an Adirondack chair, studying the river.

  “Where’s your better half?”

  “An apt expression if there ever was one. Emma is inside helping roll out pie crusts. It would seem that you can take the woman out of Amish country, but...” He waved a hand to indicate that Tony probably knew the rest. “Have a seat. I take it you have bad news.”

  “So you think they laughed at me and threw me out?”

  “It crossed my mind.”

  Tony sank into the chair next to him so that both men were facing the river. “They laughed at me and threw me out.”

  “I can’t say I’m surprised, but thank you for trying, Tony.”

  “He barely looked at these.” He tossed the envelope with Henry’s drawings on the table between them. “Jimmy Bannister is the lieutenant for the Hunt Police Department. He isn’t a bad detective, but neither is he known for thinking outside the box.”

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nbsp; “Those...” Henry nodded at the envelope. “Are definitely outside the box.”

  “Yup.”

  “So what do we do?”

  Tony shook his head. “I don’t know. I was a detective on the Hunt PD force for many years, but I retired a few years ago, when my wife was sick. Camila died not long after Agatha bought the B&B. I still miss her, still expect to see her in the kitchen when I come down in the morning, or in the bed reading a book when I give it up for the night.”

  “I’ve very sorry for your loss.” Henry understood the pain and grief that came with the loss of a spouse. It had been twenty-eight years since Claire had died, and he now understood that the hole left by a loved one’s absence never fully closed. You learned to live with it. If you were fortunate, you even learned to laugh and love again—as he had with Emma—but you never stopped missing that person you lost.

  “Muchas gracias.” Tony sat back, clasping his hands together. “After Camila died, I didn’t adjust well. The job was gone, and then my wife was gone. I guess I had trouble finding my place again. Agatha helped me with that.”

  “You two seem like good friends.”

  “We are.” Tony glanced over his shoulder at the B&B, then back at Henry. “She’s a special lady, that’s for sure. I haven’t quite figured out if we’re just friends...or something more.”

  It wasn’t the first time Henry had heard this sort of thing. He was after all a bishop, and as the Amish community intermingled more with the Englisch, it was bound to happen that the occasional man and woman from different backgrounds would be attracted to one another.

  He’d learned it was best to keep his opinion on such relationships to himself. Most people worked out what was best for them...what God intended for them. It was only when they specifically asked for his opinion that he gave it, and Tony was not doing that. He was once again staring at the river and reflecting on the path his life had taken.

  “I always thought I would enjoy retirement,” Tony admitted. “I didn’t expect to feel at loose ends.”

  “The trouble with doing nothing is, it’s too hard to tell when you’re finished.”