Hearse and Buggy

by Laura Bradford

  Chapter 5

  She let herself in through the back door of the inn, her shoulders heavy with worry and regret. All afternoon she’d tried to get Esther to change her mind, to let Claire place the call to Detective Fisher, but to no avail.

  The girl had been adamant she speak with her mother and, eventually, Claire resigned herself to the notion of waiting. It was the only way.

  Hanging her keys next to the washer, she paused in the middle of the mudroom, grateful for the answering sound of silence. Dinner was still a good hour away, and most of the guests were probably still out and about, enjoying the Amish countryside.

  If she moved fast enough, she could finish the candles she’d put into molds before heading out that morning. If all went as she hoped, the colors and scents would sell well in the shop. Particularly the ones that mimicked the aroma of baked goods.

  Turning left, she entered the inn’s kitchen and headed straight for the table beneath the picture window. There, she found the three dozen votive molds she’d painstakingly filled nine hours earlier, the perfect shape and attractive colors enveloping her in a feeling of satisfaction. The candle-making process, like most things in life, had come with a learning curve. Her first few times at bat had earned her wax burns, off-centered wicks, and the oddest of colors on the rare candle that actually made it through the process unscathed.

  She slid onto the closest chair and began to work, peeling the molds back from each candle. Slowly, candle by candle, she made her way through the molds, the fruits of her labor paying off with her best batch to date.

  “Whatcha doing?”

  Claire spun around. “Oh. Mr. Streen. You scared me.”

  The freckled redhead shrugged, then reached into the fruit bowl on the counter. “Just looking for something to eat. This seven o’clock dinner hour is rather ridiculous.”

  She searched for her least defensive-sounding voice and hoped her facial expression didn’t give her true feelings away. “That’s why my aunt includes the dinner hour in the inn’s brochures. So prospective guests who prefer an earlier meal can find accommodations better suited to their needs.”

  “Whatever.” One by one, Arnie pulled each piece of fruit from the bowl, turning it over and over in his faintly scarred hands before finally settling on the first one he’d touched. He bit into the apple, ignoring the juice that dribbled down his chin. “What’s with the candles?”

  Shaking her head, she willed herself to focus on the question rather than the urge to go at him with a napkin and a bottle of disinfectant. “Uh … They’re for the shop. They’re one of the few things that I make in my inventory.”

  Arnie paused midbite. “Speaking of inventory, why do you price those blankets so darn high?”

  “You mean the quilts?” She felt the rise to her left brow. “Those are Amish made. It is standard to charge double the hours spent making it.”

  He snorted. “You’re telling me those things take three hundred hours to make?”

  “Have you seen the detail, Mr. Streen?”

  “I have.” His bite echoed off the walls of the kitchen.

  She folded her arms and met his challenging gaze. “Then you must know they deserve every penny of that money.”

  A second snort. “For something that’s flawed? Give me a break.”

  “Mr. Streen, if you are going to write your thesis on the Amish, you must know that the notion of the Amish intentionally making a mistake in their quilts as a nod to God’s perfection is a myth. Other cultures might do that, but not the Amish. The price tag simply reflects the quality work and attention to detail they put into their quilts. And that’s it.” She heard the rise to her voice, knew it was something she should try to rein in, but she couldn’t.

  Wiping the back of his shirt sleeve across his chin, Arnie flashed a smile in her direction. “Gotcha.”

  She stared at the man, all anger temporarily suspended in favor of confusion. “Excuse me?”

  He tossed the core toward the trash container at the base of the counter and missed. “I was just checking to see how much you knew about the Amish goods you sold, that’s all.” Then, turning on his bare feet, he headed toward the main part of the house only to stop just before he reached the doorway. “If I were you, I’d talk to that Amish guy from the bake shop. His constant mooning over Esther is making her uncomfortable.”

  “Amish guy—you mean, Eli?”

  He waved away the name. “Yeah. How can she do her job if he’s continually bothering her?”

  She cracked her first smile in the man’s presence. “Trust me, Mr. Streen. Eli doesn’t bother Esther.” Rising to her feet, she plucked a napkin from the holder and crossed to the abandoned apple core. With a pointed look in Arnie’s direction, she picked it up and tossed it into the trash.

  The man’s jaw tightened with visible discomfort.

  Point made, she switched topics, her mouth putting words to a question that appeared out of nowhere. “Hey. Did you happen to notice anything funny when you stopped to interview Esther this morning?”

  “We didn’t get a chance to talk.”

  “Oh. I thought—”

  “Claire? Claire, are you here?” Diane breezed into the room in a soft pink aproned dress, her smile remaining steady despite nearly being knocked to the floor as Arnie headed back toward his thesis. “Oh good, there you are. You have a visitor.”

  “I have a visitor?” she asked.

  The woman beamed and whispered conspiratorially. “He’s really grown into a handsome man.”

  And then she knew.

  Or, rather, the contingent of long-dormant butterflies in her stomach knew.

  She stepped to the side of the sink and peered into the mirror, her fingers gliding their way through her growing hair only to stop as they reached the ends. “I wonder if he’s here because Esther and Martha went to Jakob on their own.”

  “There are no circumstances under which Martha would ever seek out her brother, nor allow Esther to do so, either.” A momentary hint of sadness skittered across Diane’s face only to disappear just as quickly. “But that isn’t for you to worry about, dear. Jakob is here to see you and he seems quite anxious to do so.” Grabbing hold of Claire’s upper arm, the woman tugged, then pushed her niece toward the front room. “Off with you.”

  Slowly but surely she made her way through the parlor and into the entryway, an odd mixture of apprehension and anticipation brewing in her chest as she closed in on the man carefully studying her aunt’s framed pictures.

  He turned at the sound of her footsteps. “Claire.”

  “Detective Fisher.”

  He closed the gap she left between them and encased her right hand between both of his. “Jakob, please.”

  She tried to ignore the tingle that shot up her arm, tried to focus on something else. Something mundane. But it was difficult. “What can I do for you, Jakob?”

  With a trace of reluctance, he released her hand, his dimpled smile taking over in the warmth department. “I’ve come to right a misconception.”

  “Oh?”

  “You’re actually quite good at picking a housewarming gift for a man.”

  She felt her mouth gape ever so slightly and worked to keep it shut.

  He glanced down at the ground as a twinge of crimson rose in his cheeks. “Well, at least for this man.” Two beats later, he regained eye contact. “The candles and the framed photograph of Lighted Way in the snow couldn’t have been more perfect.”

  She searched his face for any indication he was being less than sincere but found none.

  “I … I’m glad.”

  “They will make an otherwise plain home feel a bit less plain.” Gesturing toward the parlor, he studied her closely. “Would it be okay if I sat for a moment?”

  Startled, she jumped back, a burst of embarrassment making her own face warm. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know where my manners are.”

  His smile spread to his eyes. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell your au
nt.”

  She had to laugh. “Thanks for that.”

  He pointed her toward the love seat, then sat a few inches away. “Tell me about the gift.”

  If she didn’t know any better, she’d think she was dreaming the kind of dream she used to have as a little girl. Only instead of some castle in the middle of the woods, she was sitting in the parlor of her aunt’s bed-and-breakfast. Peter had never given any of her gifts more than a head nod or a sniff.

  Shaking her thoughts free of her ex-husband, she willed herself to focus on the here and now. “I made those particular candles over the weekend, and the picture is one I took the day I arrived in Heavenly.”

  “You’re very talented.”

  She balked at the label. “Oh no. Any talent I have pales in comparison to your—”

  The peel of an unfamiliar jingle cut her off, mercifully thwarting her from a conversational path she didn’t mean to take. Mumbling an apology, he pulled a cell phone from his back pocket and checked the display.

  He made a slight face and then yanked open the phone. “Fisher here.”

  She pushed off the couch and wandered around the room, her desire to give him privacy tempered only by the need to offer an apology of her own. Had he known what she was going to say? That she was going to speak of his sister’s talent? His niece’s?

  “Where?”

  The abruptness of his words caught her by surprise.

  “When?”

  She wasn’t delusional enough to believe she knew Jakob Fisher beyond their brief encounter at the station that morning and the five or so minutes they’d had so far that evening, but she also wasn’t blind. The calm, friendly man she’d seen seconds earlier was gone, replaced by someone who not only seemed tense but maybe even a bit angry.

  “You sure it’s Snow?”

  A feeling akin to ice water splashed across her face as she abandoned all attempts at privacy in favor of out-and-out eavesdropping.

  “I’ll be there in five.” Snapping the phone closed inside his palm, Jakob jumped to his feet, his amber-flecked eyes trained on her face. “Claire, I’m sorry. I hate to run out like this but I’ve got to go.”

  She crossed to him, stopping his forward progress with a hand on his arm. “He came back again?”

  Regret turned to confusion. “Who?”

  She pulled her hand back, unsure of what to say without breaking her promise to Esther.

  “Who?” he repeated.

  “W-Walter.” She heard the stammer in her voice. “Walter Snow.”

  “Then yeah, you could say he came back.”

  Bringing her hands to her mouth and looking at him over the tops of her fingertips, she sent up a mental prayer for Esther’s safety. “What happened?”

  He trotted toward the door, stopping with his hand firmly wrapped around the knob. “It looks as if someone has settled the score with him once and for all.”

  Chapter 6

  She pushed the hair from her eyes to afford a better view of the bright-yellow tape pulled taut between the buildings.

  Still, it made no sense.

  Things like murder happened in big cities with lots of people, not in quiet places like Heavenly, Pennsylvania.

  And if by chance they did happen, they most definitely didn’t happen behind her shop.

  Claire swallowed against the denial that continued to rise in her throat, its presence futile against the billowing crime-scene tape strung across the narrow alley separating Heavenly Treasures from Shoo Fly Bake Shoppe. A crime had, indeed, happened. And judging by the chalk outline on the other side of the tape, it had occurred mere strides from her back door.

  Pulling her hand from her hair, she let the wind hamper her vision long enough to find a calming breath. It didn’t take a genius to put a name with the outline. Jakob had essentially handed it to her the night before as he hurried from the parlor.

  Yet, somehow, despite a meaning that was suddenly crystal clear, she’d actually thought Walter Snow had been on the other end of someone’s fist rather than a murderous rampage.

  And she knew why.

  Heavenly had become her safe harbor—a place where all the heartache of her divorce and the constant feeling of social inadequacy had disappeared, a sense of hope and belonging rising from its ashes. It had been a battle well fought, and she didn’t want someone else—dead or otherwise—to come along and mess it up.

  Not now.

  “It is shocking.”

  Startled, Claire spun around, the unfamiliar voice accompanying a pair of oddly familiar and deeply penetrating blue eyes beneath the brim of a black hat. The man’s strong but callused hands rose into the air. “I am sorry. I did not mean to frighten you.”

  Before she could speak, Eli Miller appeared on the porch to her left, tipping his own black hat a hairbreadth. “Good day, Miss Weatherly.”

  She pulled her gaze from the strikingly handsome man in front of her and fixed it, instead, on the object of Esther’s never-ending daydreams. “Eli. How’s that hand of yours today?”

  He lifted his splinted fingers into the air and shrugged. “Soon it will be fine.” Looking past her, Eli turned his focus to the stranger. “I have filled the case with Ruth’s desserts.”

  Like a lock yielding to a key, she looked back at the well-built man and inventoried the clean-shaven skin, the erect posture, the hint of dark-brown hair that escaped around the brim of his hat, the masculine version of Ruth’s high cheekbones …

  And just like that, she knew.

  “Benjamin Miller?” She thrust her hand in the man’s direction and felt the unexpected catch in her throat at the answered warmth and the tingle it sent down her arm.

  “I did not mean to scare you, Miss Weatherly.”

  She rushed to ease the worry etched in his brow. “You didn’t, really. It was more a case of me being so wrapped up in”—with a reluctance she vowed to address with herself later, she removed her hand from his and waved it toward the tape that sagged and snapped in the breeze—“that.”

  Her breath caught as his eyes left hers in favor of the chalk outline. “I feel the same way.”

  “I say, good riddance to the man.”

  A flash of something resembling disappointment skittered across Benjamin’s face. “You shan’t talk like that, Eli. A man is dead.”

  “Walter Snow was no man,” Eli hissed. “He was a crook.”

  “Hush, brother!” Benjamin’s words, clipped yet firm, brought a flush to the younger man’s face. “That distinction is to be made by no man.”

  Eli smacked his good hand against the porch railing, then stormed into his sister’s bakery, slamming the door in his wake.

  “I apologize for my brother’s rudeness. He has much to learn and a broken hand to prove it.” Benjamin glanced from Claire to the taped-off crime scene and back again. “Did you know Mr. Snow?”

  She drew in a breath and let it work its way past her lips once again. “Only what I’ve heard from others.”

  “What have they told you?”

  “That he stole money from your community.” It was a simple answer but true nonetheless. “Eli’s anger is understandable.”

  “It is anger he must learn to keep inside.”

  She shrugged. “He’s human, I guess.”

  “He is Amish,” Benjamin corrected, not unkindly.

  She considered his words and offered the only response she could. “I’ve only been here a few months, but I know this much. Your younger brother is kind. I glimpse him out the window of my shop often throughout the day, and when I do, he is always helping your sister with various tasks. Sometimes he even stops in to see if I need anything. Though I suspect that’s as much about Esther as anything else.”

  A knowing smile crackled behind his blue eyes, making her catch her breath. “Ahhh, yes. Esther. Her name claims my brother’s tongue often.”

  She forced her gaze from his eyes and said the only thing she could think of at that moment. “W-would you like to see my
shop?”

  He nodded. “I would like that.”

  Inhaling deeply, she turned and followed the sidewalk the remaining ten feet to the front porch of Heavenly Treasures, the sight of the white clapboard siding and newly hung shingled sign bringing an instant smile to her lips. It was as if the cares of the world stopped at the doorstep, chased from their foothold by the promise of dreams and their power to win in the end. “While I make the candles and a few other odds and ends, the majority of items I sell here are Amish made. Or, to be more specific, Esther-made.”

  Benjamin reached around her, pushing the door open and allowing her to enter first. “Martha has taught her daughter well,” he said above the jingling bells.

  Grateful for the common ground that was the Fisher family—or, at least the female arm of the Fisher family—she forged ahead. “She is dedicated and conscientious and everything a shopkeeper could want in an employee.” She set her handbag on the counter and looked around. “Speaking of Esther, she should be here by now.”

  Esther hurried into the room and stopped, her scared eyes widening still further at the sight of Benjamin Miller bent at the waist and studying one of her quilts. With quick fingers, the young girl tied the strings of her white head cap and neatened the apron of her simple dress. “I … I am sorry I did not hear you come in.”

  “Is everything okay?” Claire asked.

  Benjamin straightened and turned to face them both.

  Esther swallowed. “Did you not hear about Mr. Snow?”

  “I heard, or, rather, saw.”

  Nodding, Esther continued, her momentary apprehension regarding Benjamin’s presence dissipating in rapid fashion. “How could this happen? And so close to the store?”

  Claire crossed the room and rested a calming hand on the young girl’s arm. “That’s what the police will determine. But everything will be fine, I’m sure—”

  The front door of the shop opened, its telltale door-mounted bell announcing the presence of a shopper. Pulling her hand from Esther’s arm, Claire turned, her usual customer greeting dying on her lips at the sight of Jakob Fisher in what was obviously an official capacity, judging by the gun on his hip.