Plain Jeopardy

by Alison Stone

  “Okay.” Grace turned to see Conner plodding through the snow toward her. From this distance, she couldn’t tell whether or not he had found anything. “Here’s Captain Gates now. We’ll leave. We don’t mean to cause you any pain. If you want to talk in the future, I’m staying at the Quail Hollow Bed & Breakfast.”

  Breathing heavily, Conner reached the snow-packed clearing where Grace stood with Katy’s brother. Clumps of snow had attached to his pants. He gave her a subtle nod, indicating that he had found the truck. Her adrenaline spiked and she wanted to ask Levi a million questions. Yet she was empathetic to the young man’s vulnerability and held back. “Captain Gates, this is Katy’s brother, Levi.”

  Conner stuck out his hand, and the Amish man glanced at it, clearly uncomfortable. Realizing he wasn’t going to take it, Conner slipped his hand back into his pocket. “Son, do you know how the truck ended up behind the building back there?”

  The young man’s eyes widened. “Neh.”

  “Did you see it?”

  He shook his head, crossed his arms and seemed to sink deep into the collar of his coat. “We don’t have a reason to go back there. That’s the old barn. It’s falling apart. We have this new one right here.”

  “Levi, I know you’ve had a tough time of it. If you do know anything about the truck parked on your family’s property, you need to tell me.” A muscle twitched in Conner’s jaw. “Maybe we can clear this up without getting your parents involved. They’ve been through enough.”

  * * *

  Conner looked into the fearful eyes of the young Amish man. His sister was in a coma because of Jason, his cousin’s son. The Amish only wanted to live peacefully, yet the outside world—Conner’s world—was forever encroaching on their attempts at a peaceful existence.

  “If you know something,” Conner repeated, “you can talk to us.”

  “I’ve explained that to him,” Grace said. “Right, Levi? You know you can confide in us.”

  Conner caught the grief-stricken expression on Levi’s face before the Amish man bowed his head to hide the emotions playing across his features. Conner’s mind flashed back to the photo his father had kept of Sarah Miller’s three young daughters, taken surreptitiously a few days after their mother’s murder. Conner had never seen such a quiet display of unbearable grief as he had in the portrait of the three motherless girls. Perhaps until today. Conner’s father had claimed that photo motivated him to keep pursuing the case until time and lack of leads made it fruitless.

  “How is your sister doing?” Conner asked.

  “She’s awake and doing better.” He kicked the edge of the snow.

  “That’s good to hear.” He hadn’t realized how good until a sense of relief flooded him. “How do your parents get back and forth to Buffalo, to the hospital?”

  “They hire a driver.”

  “The weather is supposed to clear up. Maybe I can drive your family to the hospital later.”

  Levi shook his head. “That’s okay. I don’t think my parents would want to take a ride from law enforcement. We like to stay separate.”

  “That’s harder to do more and more.” Conner tried to connect with the young man, who seemed to be standing on the edge of making a decision, one that would keep him among the Amish or one that would forever separate him from his family. Grace touched Conner’s arm sympathetically and stepped away, allowing him to try to talk with the young man without her hovering.

  “I found a truck behind the shed. Any idea how it got there? I’ll keep it in confidence.”

  “I’ve been explaining...” The frustration was evident in Levi’s tone. “After my sister’s accident, the bishop spoke to us all at Sunday service. He said the youth of this community are making all the Amish look bad. If anyone is caught drinking or breaking the rules of the Ordnung, they will be punished.” His lower lip quivered. “The Amish have never condoned this type of behavior, but now there is no tolerance.”

  “I thought the Amish were all about forgiveness.” Conner watched the young man carefully.

  “The leaders are frustrated. They feel like they’ve lost control.” Levi ran a gloved hand under his nose. “I can’t take that chance of bringing shame to my family.”

  Levi wasn’t going to give him anything worth pressing for. Conner glanced down the driveway and saw the engine running on his truck. At least Grace was warm.

  Conner shifted to brace himself against the wind and jammed his hands into his coat pocket. “I’m going to share something with you.” He took a calming breath. “I’m Jason Klein’s cousin, and my entire family feels horrible that your sister was hurt in the accident.”

  Levi cut a look toward Conner, then looked away.

  “Jason’s dad was killed last year while serving in the army. I was supposed to look out for the kid. I failed him.”

  Levi shifted from one foot to the other.

  “And I failed your family.” Conner fought to keep his voice from shaking. “I know you’re cold.” He glanced toward Levi’s house. “I’m guessing you don’t want to go inside to talk.”

  Levi shook his head. “My parents are in there.” He ran a hand over his mouth.

  “The sheriff’s department is going to have to tow the truck off your parents’ property, maybe after the snow melts.” Conner hadn’t thought that far ahead. “We can talk to your parents. I’ll assure them someone else dumped it there and that you had nothing to do with it.” Conner was pretty good at reading people, and he suspected Levi was innocent in all this.

  Levi let out a long, frustrated breath. “I was at that party with the kid—your cousin—who crashed into my sister’s wagon,” he muttered, his words almost lost on a gust of wind.

  “Did you hang out with him?” Conner’s heart beat wildly in his ears. This was not at all what he had expected.

  Levi stared at him for a long moment, his nose growing red from the relentless wind. He chipped away at the flattened snow with the tip of his black boot. “Some guys were arguing with him at the party. They were blaming Jason for getting them in trouble. Jason left the party pretty quick.”

  “Trouble? What kind of trouble?”

  “I’m not really sure. They were making pig noises.”

  Like he’s a squealer? A million thoughts pinged around Conner’s brain.

  “Do you know those kids?”

  “Yeah, from around.”

  Conner didn’t know if it mattered. Didn’t know if it played into Jason’s death. Just because a few guys had words at a party didn’t mean anything, necessarily. Conner scrubbed a gloved hand across his face. He and Grace had built the frame and grouped like colors, yet the final puzzle pieces didn’t quite fit.

  The tips of his ears stung from the cold.

  “Listen, I’m not sure a tow truck can access the back of your property. Not until spring.” He pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket. “I have the registration number of the truck. The sheriff’s department will be able to determine who owns it. If you’d like, I can talk to your parents. Tell them it was abandoned. This way you won’t get in trouble with them or the leaders.”

  Levi glanced toward the house wearily. “I’ll talk to them.” He shuddered. It was far too cold to be standing out here talking. “You think that’s the truck that tried to run over your friend?”

  Conner tipped his head. “There’s some back-end damage. Could be.”

  Levi nodded tightly.

  “Everything will be okay.” Conner turned to walk away when Levi started to say something.

  Conner turned back.

  “Jason and I were friends. We met last summer while working for Able.”

  His young cousin had dug post holes all summer long while working for a fence company. “You worked for Able Fencing, too?” Conner felt like he was getting more bits and pieces of information the longer he talked to Levi
. It would be his job to put the information together.

  Levi nodded, and all the color drained from his face. “Yah, Jason was a gut kid. He didn’t drink or do drugs.”

  Conner froze, the new information jolting his system. “Are you sure?” It didn’t make sense, anymore than the final report that speculated Jason had taken a handful of prescription drugs during what kids called pharming parties. Conner could hardly believe Jason would participate in such risky behavior. But blood results didn’t lie.

  “Yah, we were hanging out that night. He only came to the party because a girl he liked was there. We had some hot chocolate, that’s all. He told me he wasn’t feeling well all of a sudden. When he was heading to the truck, some guys started yelling at him and chasing him. He tore out of the party right quick.” Levi kicked the snow, and chunks shot in different directions. “One of the guys yelling at him was the mayor’s son.”

  “Bradley Poissant? Are you sure? Jason and Brad have been friends since preschool.”

  “It was him. I’ve seen the kid around.” That seemed to be the standard answer. Quail Hollow wasn’t that big.

  “But you don’t know what they were arguing about?”

  Levi slowly shook his head. “Look, I have to go in.”

  “All right then. Thanks for taking the time to talk to me.” Conner walked back to his truck while Levi jogged toward his house.

  Grace was tracking Levi’s movements when Conner climbed back into the warmth of his truck. He was still processing the latest bit of news. Bradley and Jason had been arguing the night of Jason’s fatal accident. Why hadn’t Bradley told him? Perhaps guilt that their lifetime friendship had ended after a fight?

  Conner tugged off his gloves and dragged a hand through his hair, shaking off the snow. He grabbed his cell phone out of the drink holder in the console between them and punched in a few numbers. “I need to know who registered that vehicle.” He gave the deputy the registration information and hung up.

  “Is it the truck that crashed into me?” Grace asked.

  “It has damage.”

  “If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck...” She smiled wearily. He stared back, still trying to figure out why Jason was arguing with his best friend the night he died.

  Grace shifted in her seat. “What happened back there? You and Levi seemed to have a pretty intense conversation.”

  Conner stared straight ahead, watching the dizzying swirl of snow. “Levi told me that Jason didn’t drink or do drugs.” This matched what Jason had tried to tell him the night Conner broke up the bonfire. He loosened his collar. When pressed, didn’t most kids claim they didn’t drink?

  “What? How is that possible?” Grace had read the reports. “Perhaps he had a low threshold.”

  “I don’t know. Levi claimed he wasn’t taking drugs or drinking alcohol that night. Levi said he left after saying he didn’t feel well.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  He shifted in his seat, avoiding her eyes. Was he taking a leap? “What if someone drugged him?”

  “You mean, spiked his drink? He wasn’t drinking.”

  “Levi said they had hot chocolate.”

  “Who would do that to him?”

  Conner shook his head. None of this made sense. He’d been arguing with his best friend. No, none of this made sense. “I don’t know.”

  His phone rang and he jumped. The dispatcher. “That vehicle is registered to a Paul Handler on Oak Grove.”

  “Thanks.” He ended the call.

  “You have a name?”

  “Yeah.”

  Grace tapped the dash. “Let’s go.”

  “I need to take you home.”

  “Aren’t you going to take me with you? Keep me out of trouble?” She was hard to say no to.

  “Yeah, I suppose you’re right.” Despite not wanting to put Grace in the center of his investigation, he preferred to keep an eye on her.

  “Maybe I can ID him. I saw his profile at the gas station.” Even Conner knew that was a stretch.

  Before he lost his nerve and came to his senses, Conner jammed the gear into Drive. “Let’s see about the owner of that truck.”

  EIGHT

  Conner and Grace had almost reached the address of the truck owner when his cell phone buzzed. He glanced down and stifled a groan. The sheriff. His boss. He let it ring a few more times, debating if this phone call would somehow deter their little visit.

  “You going to get that?” Grace asked, curiosity lighting her eyes.

  Conner twisted his lips as if to say, “Maybe, maybe not.” Who was he kidding? Of course he was going to get it, but he had to decide how he was going to handle it first. Letting out a long breath between tight lips, Conner grabbed the phone from his cup holder and swiped his thumb across the screen. “Sheriff.” He forced a cheery tone that sounded stiff and insincere.

  “How’d things go at the Weavers?” The men tended to dispense with formalities, getting right to the point.

  “Fine.”

  “That’s it? Fine? Care to elaborate? I hear you got a lead on the hit-and-run from the gas station.”

  “Yes, we did. I traced the owner. I’m at their address now.”

  “You’re still in plain clothes, right?”

  Conner rubbed his jaw with his palm. “Yeah.” He was unable to hide the skepticism from his voice. His boss had given him the okay to stop by the Weavers’ in plain clothes, hoping it would be less intimidating for the folks who didn’t care to talk to law enforcement, even in the best of circumstances.

  “Report for your shift, then track down the owner of the truck.” The clock on the dash told him he was fifteen minutes past the start of his shift.

  “I’m already here. I need to talk to the owner before word gets out. I want to catch him off guard. See what his excuse is.” He thought back to the Amish man seeking him out this morning at the bed & breakfast. It was only a few hours ago, yet it felt like a lot longer, perhaps because now he had new information about his cousin. Information about him not feeling well prior to leaving the party. About not drinking. Conner shook his head, trying to clear it. He hadn’t had time to process all the jumbled information and what it meant, if anything.

  No matter how all this unfolded, at the end of the day, Jason would still be dead. The familiar fist of grief sat like a rock in his chest.

  “See you in ten,” the sheriff said, still pressing the issue that he report to the station immediately.

  “I’m sitting in front of the residence now,” he repeated to the sheriff, giving Grace an exasperated look. “Let me shake a few trees. See what falls out.”

  The sheriff’s impatient sigh sounded over the line, and Conner imagined him leaning way back in his leather chair with one hand behind his head, his feet perched on the corner of the desk. “You got the reporter with you?”

  Conner turned away from Grace, as if that would make a difference. “What’s this about?” A sure way to act innocent: answering a question with another question.

  “I hear you’re getting chummy with her. Don’t do anything stupid to jeopardize your career.”

  Gritting his teeth, Conner adjusted the vent on the dash to clear the frost from the windows. No, he didn’t think he was getting “chummy” with the reporter. But he was limited in what he could say with her sitting inches away.

  “Your silence speaks volumes.” Conner imagined his boss’s chair crashing forward, his feet slamming onto the floor and his face growing red with rage.

  “Look, I have to go. I’ll report back in after I talk to the truck’s owner.” Conner swiped the red button on his phone while the sheriff was still talking. It sounded like, “Who’s the owner?” Conner would deal with the repercussions of hanging up on the sheriff later.

  Grace casually gestured to his phone. “What was that all ab
out?”

  “Nothing.”

  She frowned, not exactly convinced.

  “One problem at a time,” Conner muttered, turning his focus on the situation at hand.

  The Handlers’ small white ranch house was ahead. His boss wasn’t going to be happy with him for going against his request. It was a request, right? Not an order? He ignored the band of hesitation constricting his chest. Mentally, he was already calculating how much vacation he might be able to take if he needed to do some digging on his own. He had a sense the sheriff was about to put him on desk duty. And even if his boss did find the humor in his subordinate hanging up on him, Conner needed to be able to follow up on some things without the sheriff breathing down his neck.

  There was no way Conner could give up exploring the path he was already on, because in the short time he had gotten to know Grace, he knew she wouldn’t be easily deterred.

  * * *

  “I’m going with you,” Grace said, hopping out of the truck before Conner even dared make the suggestion.

  “And I’m doing the talking.”

  She twisted her lips in a wry expression. He’d accept that as agreement, but had his doubts even before they climbed the front steps of the Handlers’ porch.

  Conner lifted his hand to knock when the door flung open. Jenny Handler, a woman in her midforties, came up short, her purse swinging on the sleeve of her puffy winter jacket. “Oh.” Surprise lit her eyes. Obviously, she had been on her way out and hadn’t expected visitors to be standing on the other side of the door.

  “Captain Gates.” She tilted her head in recognition, and deep ridges lined her forehead. “Is something wrong?” She glanced over her shoulder, and her expression softened, perhaps after she had a chance to realize two things: her son was home and Conner was dressed in plain clothes, indicating he was unlikely to deliver bad news.

  Maybe. Maybe not.

  “Hi, Jenny. Is your husband around?” His name was on the truck’s registration, after all, not hers.

  Jenny leaned back on her heels and a cheerless smile slanted her lips. “You haven’t heard?”