“Does it bother you?” His expression turned suddenly serious, and he set his fork down on his plate. “Our age difference?”
“Seven years isn’t that much of a difference.” She sipped her coffee. Were they in a relationship? Is that what Tate was hinting at? “At least it doesn’t seem like much now.”
Tate resumed eating. “You’re right. I wouldn’t have wanted my boys dating someone in high school when they were out of college, but I can hardly see how it matters in our case.”
“Are we dating?” She blurted the question before she considered whether she should ask it.
Tate cocked his head and studied her. “We’re chasing a murderer together. Usually that comes after a formal date. Doesn’t it?”
“I don’t usually chase murderers.”
“So maybe we should—” Whatever he was about to say hung suspended between them as they both turned toward the sound of a knock at the front door.
She set aside her fork and napkin. “I better get that.”
Amber noticed as she walked toward the front door that he had stood, as if he needed to be prepared, as if they needed to face whatever came next together.
Twenty-Two
Carol Jennings had finally agreed to sit, and she murmured her thanks when Tate brought her a mug of decaffeinated coffee. Amber had always admired the older woman. She wore her brown hair, which was streaked with gray, in a stylish bob, cut a half inch below her jawline. Her clothing was always conservative, clean, and neat. Tonight she wore the same long denim skirt, starched blouse, and sweater she’d had on at the managers’ meeting.
Amber couldn’t remember her age, probably sixtyish. She did know, without looking at Carol’s employee file, that she rarely missed a day of work and had been with the Village for many years. She was what Amber’s mom would have called a “no-nonsense type of woman.” She worked methodically and efficiently.
At the moment Carol was perched on the edge of Amber’s recliner, staring at an envelope she was clutching. Tate and Amber were seated together on the small couch. She’d always thought of the leather and cloth sofa as plenty large enough. Sitting so close to Tate, she was reminded of what her mother would have called it—a loveseat.
“I should have given this to you earlier, at the meeting this afternoon or as we were leaving.” She glanced up and then away. “I didn’t know what to do. I almost couldn’t believe who it was from. Then I went home and showed it to Stu. He said I shouldn’t be in the middle of this. He said to bring it to you.”
“Bring me what?” Amber kept her voice low and calm, but her pulse had begun to thrum like the bass drum in a rock band.
Carol held up the envelope, stared at it a moment longer, and then thrust it out toward them.
Tate reached for it and handed it to Amber.
She was glad he was with her.
She was comforted to know that they were a team. What could possibly be in what she could now see was a letter? It was addressed to Carol Jennings. Why did they need to read it? She didn’t know if she could handle one more surprise, but she did know with a deep certainty that she didn’t want to face it alone.
Given a choice, two were better than one.
Together she knew they could make sense of this bizarre turn of events.
“It came in the mail. Today. I’m sorry I didn’t bring it to you immediately, but I . . . I . . . I still couldn’t believe it was from him. Maybe it’s not.” She picked up the coffee mug Tate had set on the table beside her and wrapped her hands around it.
“Read it,” she whispered.
The envelope had been opened with a letter opener, one smooth slit across the top. It occurred to Amber that Avery might want to check the envelope and its contents for fingerprints, but then, Avery didn’t believe there had been a crime.
Amber pulled out the single sheet of paper. Writing covered both sides. Their heads nearly touching, she and Tate read what was written there together.
April 21
The clock has not yet passed four in the morning. My wife sleeps on the other side of the house, oblivious to my suffering. I tried to speak with her yesterday, but didn’t get far. Her preoccupation with remodeling the kitchen kept her from listening.
A kitchen remodel.
As if that matters one bit when your soul is standing at heaven’s gate. I’ll be pushed across that threshold soon—every fiber of my being knows it. I’m like the song playing on the old radio here beside my desk. Solitary. A cry in the darkness. No one listening. No one who cares.
Perhaps that is fair. I spent my life concerned over the wrong things. One more regret piled upon many.
My wife will be fine—of that I’m sure. But what will become of Patricia? All she can speak of is the land. Her future weighs heavily on my mind, on my heart.
Carol, I am sorry to pass to you this burden. Preston will post my last letter to you when something happens to me. You were always a kind coworker. Perhaps you will know who to turn to with the final details of my life. Perhaps you can help to find my killer.
“You received this today?” Tate’s voice was grave, and Amber was conscious of events taking another turn. The letter she was holding confirmed so much of what they had suspected. It didn’t prove anything, she was aware of that. But it did line up precisely with their darkest fears.
“Yes. It came this morning in my regular mail.”
“According to the top line, Ethan wrote it the twenty-first. That was the day he died.”
Carol didn’t answer that, but she nodded in agreement.
“If it was mailed Monday, it shouldn’t have taken five days to reach you. Not in a town our size.”
“He left off the zip code.” Amber turned the envelope over and tapped the address. “Middlebury postmark, so we know he mailed it from here. Date of the postmark is Wednesday. Normally mail across town arrives in one day, but no zip may have caused it to take two.”
“But how? It’s not possible. He couldn’t have mailed it on Wednesday if he died on Monday. This Preston must have mailed it, whoever he is.” Carol set down the coffee. She still hadn’t taken a drink, but the warmth of holding the beverage seemed to have calmed her. Now she rubbed one hand with the other, her brow lined in confusion. “Unless he stopped by the post office before he came to work on Monday. But why would he, when he could have walked next door and handed it to me? And then there’s the postmark date . . .”
“It breaks my heart to read this.” Amber ran her finger over the handwritten lines. “ ‘Standing at heaven’s gate . . . A cry in the darkness.’ ”
A shiver passed over and through her. “He felt so alone, and I didn’t even realize.”
“You didn’t?” Carol’s voice teetered as she shook her head. “I knew and did nothing. I worked next door to him every day. I saw how withdrawn he had become—withdrawn and exhausted. We even argued over it a few weeks ago, but he wouldn’t listen. I should have told someone.”
Tate took the letter from Amber’s hand. “He says right here . . . ‘You were always a kind coworker.’ It sounds as if you were the one person Ethan felt he could trust. But what was going on? What did he try to speak with his wife about? And what is this about land and Patricia?”
Amber covered her mouth with the fingers of her right hand. How long ago had that land transaction taken place? She’d need to look at her records . . .
Suddenly she remembered, and another piece of the puzzle fell into place.
Tate knew the moment Amber had begun to make sense of this latest development. Her expression changed from puzzlement to realization to something akin to despair. He also knew she wasn’t connecting all the dots, probably because she was upset to hear about Ethan’s state of mind.
“What is it?” He reached out and took her hand in his. Her fingers were ice cold. She continued to gaze at the envelope on her lap for another moment before raising her eyes to his.
“Ethan once owned the land across the road. It must be what he
was referring to in the letter. What was it he said about Patricia?” She picked up the letter, turned it over, and found the spot she needed with the fingers of her left hand, leaving her right hand tucked in his. “ ‘All she can speak of is the land.’ ”
“And you think he’s referring to the land across the road from the Village?”
“I do. It’s a rather small piece—no more than twenty acres. Ethan came to me at some point, maybe eight or ten years ago. He wanted me to ask the owners of the Village if they’d like to purchase it, which they did. No improvements have been made to it, but our grounds crew keeps the area properly mowed.”
“Why would he offer to sell it?”
“He needed the money.” Carol again picked up her coffee, turning the mug round and round in her hands. “His wife always wanted a higher standard of living than he could afford. I remember him telling me that once, and then there was Patricia—”
“Who apparently didn’t want the land sold.” Tate looked from Carol to Amber. “Any idea why she’d care?”
They both shook their heads.
“I’d never even met her until the night at the funeral home.” Amber leaned forward. “Carol, do you know anything about Patricia? Anything that might help us?”
“Years ago Ethan made the decision to move her to the duplex, the one supervised by Helping Hands. At first he used his savings to subsidize her rent, but then that money ran out.”
“Do you remember how many years ago that happened?”
Now Carol ran her fingers up and down the side of the mug as she stared across the room, out past the front window.
“It was fourteen—no, fifteen years ago. I remember that because my first grandbaby had been born a few weeks earlier. I was over in Goshen, helping with Little Liza. That’s what we called her.” Carol shook her head, bringing her attention back to the present. “She turned fifteen this year. Stu offered to help with the move, but Ethan insisted he could handle it alone.”
“Who turns down moving help?” Tate placed his arm across the back of the couch when Amber stood and began pacing the little room. A restless feeling gnawed at his gut, probably because of the letter, because he could see where it would lead them next.
He knew where to go. The question was—would it be better to wait until morning? Something deep inside whispered “Hurry,” and he thrummed his fingers against the back of the couch. What should he do? Amber wouldn’t let him go alone. Did he want to take her there, after dark?
If he told her, he wouldn’t have any choice. “Was he embarrassed about Patricia? About her . . . disabilities?”
“I don’t know if he even understood exactly what was wrong with his sister. After the drug incident that sent her over the edge—I can tell by your expressions that you both know about that—Patricia couldn’t keep a job. She also scared the people who lived around her. She’d go off on a tear for no reason . . .”
“Were the police called?” Amber sat forward.
“Sometimes. Often she simply had a tantrum like a small child—hollering and throwing things. Ethan finally moved her to the duplex, and most folks put her from their minds. It’s easy to forget what you don’t see.”
“He was supporting his sister and his wife.” Amber stopped mid-pace. “We need to go and see Patricia, or Margaret, or both of them. We need to find out who or what was putting pressure on Ethan. Find the answer to that, and we might find a motive for murder.”
“Perhaps the police should go,” Carol said.
“We talked to Avery earlier tonight. The police are convinced Ethan’s death was simply from natural causes—”
“But with the letter . . .”
“I doubt it would change their minds. Ethan didn’t go to the police, even though he was plainly frightened. He wanted someone to know though, and he chose you. He sent you this letter in the hopes we would figure it out.”
Amber was moving toward her purse, retrieving her car keys and pocketing her cell. Carol had stood, but waited as if she wasn’t sure whether they were done with her.
Tate knew now was the time to speak up, but he hesitated, unsure whether they should attempt this alone or try with Avery one more time. Then he remembered the way Avery had dismissed them, the way he had insisted they have evidence.
“It’s only one letter that anyone could have written.” Tate stood, unsure that he wanted to encourage her on this mission.
“I recognize Ethan’s handwriting—he wrote it, and I want to know why. Avery will explain it away or say it doesn’t prove anything. But I want to know. I need to know.” Amber had stopped at the door, and she looked back at him quizzically. “Are you coming with me?”
“Yes.” He grabbed both of their jackets off the hook by the door. “I am, but we’re not going to see Patricia or Margaret.”
“We’re not?”
Tate understood that they were moving into the unknown, maybe into danger, but he could no more stop these events than he could stop Amber from stepping out into the night. “Carol, thank you for bringing Amber the letter and for bringing it tonight. Do you need us to follow you home?”
“It isn’t that late. I’ll be fine. Thank you.”
He motioned to Amber’s car—the little red Ford that would stand out like a sore thumb. It would have to do. As long as she was driving, he could keep watch out the window.
She started it with a push button. His kids had keyless ignitions as well, but he preferred the solid feel of a key in his hand. Then she placed the transmission into drive and pulled down to the main road.
“If we’re not going to see Ethan’s wife or sister, where are we going?”
“To find Preston.”
The puzzle piece clicked into place. “The homeless man. The man Hannah told me about. The man Ethan was seen talking to.”
“And I only know of one Preston in town. Of course, there could be more, but they’d be kids, and I doubt that’s whom Ethan was talking about.”
Tate gave her directions, and Amber kept her eyes on the road, focusing on the curves and twists until they reached the bottom of the hill. He directed her left and then left again. Finally he motioned for her to pull over on the side of County Road 8, directly across from Krider Garden.
“So, as you told me before, Preston is a veteran.”
“He is.”
“And he . . . what?” She turned to look at him. He couldn’t see her eyes in the darkness, but he could feel her gaze, could imagine her features scrunched trying to figure out this latest turn of events. “He lives here? In the park?”
“Last I heard. During the day he moves around, but at night he tries to find some shelter—a place that will protect him from the weather.”
“The mushroom?” Amber’s voice rose a notch. “He sleeps under the mushroom sculpture?”
“He did.”
“Whoever spotted the two of them was sure it was Ethan because his truck was at the side of the road near the park, near here.”
She glanced left and then right, as if she might be able to spy him in the darkness.
“Why though? Why would Ethan meet with him? I can see why he might be kind to him, to this Preston. The no-begging ordinance the council passed doesn’t stop folks from noticing and trying to help.” She hesitated, then pushed on. “Helping a homeless person doesn’t exactly sound like the Ethan we all knew.”
“Maybe he wasn’t helping Preston. Maybe Preston was helping him.”
Twenty-Three
Hannah stayed out on the porch after Jesse headed for home, walking off into the darkness, whistling a tune they had recently sung at church.
She hadn’t known she was going to ask for his help, probably would have never dared to. When he offered though, she realized what she wanted to do, what she needed to do. Was it the right thing? She couldn’t be sure. She couldn’t even think what part of the Ordnung would apply.
Finally she stood, stretched, and walked into the house. She stopped suddenly when she noticed her
mother sitting in the corner rocker, a fire in the hearth because it was colder inside the house than outside.
“Practically used up all the gas in this lantern waiting for you to come in.”
“Mamm, you didn’t have to wait for me. I’m not a kind.”
“You’re practically grown. Aren’t you?” From anyone else the words would have sounded like a scolding, but Eunice glanced over the top of her reading glasses and smiled. She seldom wore the glasses, but did mainly when she was reading a recipe or sewing. She turned her attention back to the quilt top on her lap, pulling the needle through the seam she was making to connect the dark blue material to the white.
“Still working on Mattie’s new quilt?”
“Ya. She’s ready for a regular-sized bed, asks me every night when I tuck her in. Your dat promised to go next week and pick up the extra bed Fanny Bontrager has. It’s fortunate you heard she had one for sale. With most of her children grown and moving off to different parts of the state, she doesn’t think she’ll need it. I want to have the quilt done by the time he brings it home.”
Hannah sat in front of her mother’s chair, sat on the floor so that she did feel like a child, and studied her mother as she finished sewing the border around the quilt. It was a twin-size nine patch, and she’d filled the squares with appliqués of Sunbonnet Sue in different-colored dresses.
“What will you do with the crib?”
Eunice didn’t even hesitate. “Someone will be needing it eventually. We’ll store it in the barn.”
“Ben is nineteen with no girl in sight, and I certainly won’t need it anytime soon.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s not like Jesse and I are courting, and even if we were . . . courting isn’t marrying.”
“True.”
“But I suppose it would be foolish to give it away.”
“It would.”
Murder Simply Brewed Page 19
