Hearse and Buggy

by Laura Bradford

  “I … I’m fine. I guess I’m just worried about my friends. The Amish are such peaceful people. I hate to see the stress of the outside world invading that.” And she did. Truly. It just wasn’t the whole truth …

  Jakob crossed back to the swing and reclaimed his spot as Claire brought the suspended bench to a stop. “My niece is lucky to have a friend like you.”

  She blinked against an unexpected burning in her eyes. “I’m lucky to have her.”

  Silence fell over them as they looked out over the setting sun and the glorious shades of red and orange that spread over Heavenly like gentle fingers.

  It was Jakob who finally broke the quiet. “Do you ever see her mother?”

  She had to smile. “Martha? She’s lovely. I just met her the other day. She’s going to be making things for my shop now, too.”

  Jakob stiffened beside her. “How … How is she?”

  The sadness intermingled with the faintest hint of hope she heard in his voice reminded her of the why behind his question, prompting her to lay a gentle hand atop his. “She seemed good to me. Very protective of her daughter yet not in a stifling way.”

  He seemed to consider her words even as he flipped his hand over and held on to hers.

  She stared at their hands intertwined, his voice filling the space between them. “I miss many people from my Amish life. But none as much as I miss my sister.”

  It was hard to know what to say. In five years of being married to Peter, he’d never shared his feelings as openly as Jakob was at that moment. It was everything she’d always wanted yet nothing she knew how to handle.

  She withdrew her hand from his and extended her own foot. When the swing stopped, she stood and crossed to the same porch railing where Jakob had perched just moments earlier. Only instead of sitting, she merely shielded her eyes from the sun’s remaining rays. If she leaned slightly to the left and looked to her right, she could make out the beginning of Lighted Way and the road that linked the English and Amish worlds. They were different no doubt. Different in everything from transportation and clothes to customs and beliefs. But, in the end, they were all people. People with hopes and dreams and memories held dear.

  And if Jakob was missing Martha, she had to believe there was a part of Martha that missed Jakob as well.

  She said as much to the detective.

  “I wish I could know you’re right, Claire. Not because I want my sister to hurt but because I’d know I wasn’t alone. But the Amish are steadfast in their beliefs first and foremost. And I broke those.”

  Slowly, she turned around, her mind processing everything Jakob said against what she had learned so far about her friends. Sure, she didn’t know Martha well—the bulk of Claire’s information was based only on stories Esther shared during quiet moments at the shop. But what she did know cast a shred of doubt on the man’s words.

  “I’d like to help if I can,” she whispered.

  “If today was any indication of the walls I’m going to hit with this investigation, I might have to take you up on that.” Jakob rose from the swing and came to stand beside Claire.

  “I wasn’t talking about that.”

  His shoulders dropped ever so slightly. “You weren’t?”

  She rushed to explain. “I mean, sure, I’ll do my best to be a liaison of sorts with the Amish if that’s what you need while you get to the bottom of what happened to Walter Snow. But I was talking about something more than that.”

  He studied her face closely, the warmth of his eyes sending yet another unexpected tingle through her body. “Oh?”

  “I’d like to help you get close to your sister again.”

  She’d have to have been blind not to see the way her words impacted the detective, to see the flash of hope that flickered behind his eyes before disappearing altogether.

  “I appreciate that, Claire, but it will never happen.”

  “Never,” she repeated. “That’s a word I used a time or two when things seemed bleak. But Aunt Diane showed me how that word lies again and again. Now I guess it’s my turn to show you the same thing.”

  Chapter 10

  The moment the tires of Aunt Diane’s car left the tourist-friendly section of Lighted Way, Claire felt the change. The pace slowed, storefronts gave way to wide open fields, and occasional buggy sightings became the norm.

  Slowly, she inched the borrowed car around one curve and then the next, her focus alternating between the road and the farms as she soaked in her surroundings. She’d been so busy acclimating herself to the shop and helping at the inn that the closest she’d gotten to the Amish side of Heavenly had been via her day-to-day contact with people like Esther and Ruth. But now, as she left the slightly whitewashed version of Amish life and headed smack-dab into the middle of their reality, she couldn’t help but feel her excitement brewing.

  Sweeping farmland as far as her eye could see was parceled into fields of varying colors. From Esther, she’d learned that typical crops for the Fisher family and their Amish brethren were things like hay and wheat, barley and rye, corn and soybeans. Vegetables grown often ended up as wares in an every-once-in-a-while roadside stand that served as yet another way to feed their large families.

  She glanced to her left, her gaze playing across a small sheep-tended cemetery with several rows of simple headstones, then to the right at a team of mules hitched to a piece of steel-wheeled farm equipment and pulling a man clad in black suspendered pants, a collared shirt, and a straw hat through thick alfalfa.

  In the distance, cattle grazed in lush fields while a homemade wheel turned round and round in a nearby creek, delivering a constant source of water to the landowner’s home. A smattering of windmills dotted the horizon, tasked with the job of providing an alternate source of power that wouldn’t connect its users to the outside world.

  Easing off the gas, she inched her way around a horse-drawn buggy, the orange triangle affixed to its back a reminder to English drivers to use caution when approaching. Two small children, no older than six, peeked through the buggy’s back flaps, offering the faintest hint of a smile in response to her wave.

  She couldn’t help but marvel at their surroundings and compare it to that of her own childhood. Did they play with dolls and toys the way she had? Or were they tasked with chores that had them cooking and cleaning and farming from one end of the day to the next? She could only guess, and guess she did.

  Yet, no matter how much she imagined or how much she learned about the Amish from Esther, Claire still found it difficult at times to accept the existence of a world so different than her own less than two miles from her aunt’s doorstep.

  Glancing from the farm on her right to the description Esther had scrawled on a piece of paper, Claire pulled onto the finely graveled driveway and cut the engine. The farmhouse was ample in size and very well kept, the presence of two separate clotheslines and dozens of garments in various sizes the only outward indication that a family of seven lived inside. A smaller home situated slightly to the right was where Esther’s grandparents lived. Claire knew from their many conversations that elderly members of the community did not go into nursing homes. Rather, they turned the family farm over to their children and assisted in ways their increased age allowed.

  Securing a plate of her aunt’s best cookies in her hand, Claire stepped from the car, her pace quickening as she approached the wide front porch and its smattering of empty chairs—chairs she knew would be occupied after chores had been attended to and the final meal of the day enjoyed.

  A rustling off to her left made her stop in time to see Esther step out from behind the same light-green dress the young woman had worn the day before, its simple bodice drying in the sun.

  “Oh. You are here.”

  She transferred the plate to her left hand and embraced Esther with her right. “I told you I would be. Is your Mamm home?”

  Pleased with herself for remembering the Pennsylvania Dutch way of saying mom, she smiled.

&nb
sp; Esther looked right then left, her voice barely above a whisper. “Please. You can not tell Mamm.”

  Claire drew back, confused. “Tell her what?”

  A hint of crimson rose in the young woman’s face. “About her … about Jakob.”

  “But she knows, Esther,” she reminded. “Remember? She saw him outside the shop on Monday.”

  “She does not know we spoke.”

  “But you had to,” Claire insisted. “You really had no choice.”

  “She would be angry.”

  Claire considered refuting that claim once again but opted to let it go. She was a newcomer to all of their rules and beliefs anyway.

  “I won’t say a thing. If and when you share that with her is your choice, not mine.”

  “You believe I am wrong?” Esther asked.

  She shrugged. “I just know that your uncle is a nice man. And I think, if you allow yourself a chance to see him for the man he is, you’ll realize that, too.”

  The front door opened, and Martha stepped outside, a pint-size Amish girl at her feet. “Good day, Claire.”

  “Hi, Martha. I brought you some cookies.”

  The toddler’s eyes widened, yet she said nothing, opting instead to look up at her mother with hope-filled eyes.

  Martha nodded and took the plate, smiling down at her youngest child before looking back at Claire. “That is very kind. Thank you. Please come in.”

  With Esther only steps behind, Claire followed Martha and her little girl into the house, stopping just inside the door to soak up the sights. To her right was an ample-sized kitchen painted in a glossy, soothing green. A large wooden table was placed dead center with eight chairs and a single high chair surrounding it on all sides. The walls contained no photographs or knickknacks except one lone calendar depicting the month against a mountainous backdrop. A solitary window over the sink afforded an unobstructed view of the family’s crops and livestock. An old-fashioned sewing machine sat on a smaller table in a far corner of the room, with a pocket-ridden wall-hanging affixed to the wall above. Each pocket held an item helpful to the home—scissors, needles, clothespins, and the like, stressing function over frivolousness.

  Martha set the cookies on the counter and then gestured Claire to follow her into the next room, a large wide-open space with nothing more than a chair or two.

  “This is such a big room,” Claire mused.

  “It is where we worship when it is our turn,” Esther explained. “When it is, the men bring long benches.”

  She nodded as an image befitting Esther’s description formed in her thoughts. “How many people come at that time?”

  “Twenty families,” Martha said.

  Claire did the mental math, taking into account the fact that most families were probably as large as Martha’s. “That must be a very busy morning for all of you.”

  “Busy day. We share lunch, too.”

  She stopped herself mid–head shake. What seemed so hard to grasp for her was the norm for these people. She had no right to make it seem odd.

  “I have items for you.” Martha crossed the room to a table that spanned the space between two windows on the southern wall. “I made dolls, an apron, and two bonnets.”

  Claire followed behind Martha, picking up first one doll and then the next, the plain faces taking her by surprise.

  Esther rushed to explain. “We do not believe things should be made in our likeness. To do so would be boastful.”

  Turning them over, Claire examined the careful stitching. “What a wonderful taste of Amish tradition for our customers. These are perfect, Martha.”

  A slight smile teased at the corners of the woman’s mouth. “Next week, I will have more things. I thought I would have finished painting the skillet, but that was not to be last night.”

  Esther shot a worried look at Claire. “Mamm heard news of Mr. Snow.”

  “Oh.” She contemplated what she could say without giving away any of Esther’s secrets. “What a shock it was to realize he’d been found behind my shop. In the alley between Heavenly Treasures and Shoo Fly Bake Shoppe.”

  “I do not know why people murder,” Martha said. “God decides man’s fate.”

  “Because some people find it hard to wait for that day, I guess.” It was all she could think to offer by way of explanation. It was lame, she knew, but it was something.

  Martha’s head bowed forward. “Mr. Snow was not a good man. He had no worry for anyone but himself.”

  A strangled noise from Esther’s side of the room prevented Claire from offering any sort of agreement, leaving her, instead, to mentally revisit the love letter, which she’d left on her bedside table the night before. A love letter that left a cold feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  Esther jumped forward, her hand pushing aside the modest curtain. “Look, Mamm. Benjamin and Eli are here.”

  The relief in Esther’s voice was unmistakable, though the reason behind it wasn’t quite so clear. Sure, the girl was smitten with the younger Miller brother, but the timing of his arrival also served to eliminate any questions that may have transpired as a result of her odd reaction to her mother’s assessment of Walter Snow.

  Claire, however, simply filed it away for a quiet moment at the shop when questions didn’t have to be censored in quite the same way as they did in Martha’s presence. Maybe the love letter was none of her business, and maybe Esther would tell her so, but she had to at least ask. Especially if there was a chance it could implicate Esther in some way.

  “Dat left a hammer for Benjamin on the porch. That is why he is here, I am sure.”

  Esther stepped back from the window, and then, when she was sure her mother wasn’t looking, she tried to make out her reflection in the glass.

  “You look beautiful,” Claire whispered. “That lavender dress is quite pretty with your skin coloring.”

  Esther blushed under the praise, her lips forming a silent thank-you.

  The young woman’s behavior, coupled with the anticipation on her pretty face, gave every indication that Eli Miller was at the center of her thoughts and dreams. Yet the love letter Claire had found crumpled and hidden beneath the register painted a very different picture. One that left Claire more than a little confused.

  The open-top buggy carrying the Miller men stopped behind Claire’s car, the horse tasked with pulling them not the slightest bit fazed by the more traditional form of transportation parked just in front of its nose.

  The sight made her smile. The odd little flutter in her chest, however, didn’t begin until Benjamin jumped down from the buggy and strode toward the house.

  “I’m surprised Benjamin is not married. I thought Amish men married young.” The second the words were out, she wished she could recall them, the question making her sound quite a lot like a busybody.

  “Benjamin is a widower,” Martha stated matter-of-factly. “His wife died two months after the wedding.”

  She heard herself gasp and rushed to stifle the reaction. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

  “He has remained unmarried for nearly thirteen years.”

  It was a part of Amish culture she was unfamiliar with, a part she’d question Diane about that night after dinner. In the meantime, she simply trailed Martha to the door and watched as the men approached the Fisher home.

  Eli was first, his boyish smile evident the moment he saw Esther. If Martha was surprised by his reaction, she did not show it. Moments later, Benjamin entered the home, his warm eyes making note of each face before noticeably brightening at her presence.

  “Miss Weatherly. This is a surprise.”

  She nibbled her lower lip inward, buying herself time as she searched for a voice that would sound natural. “Martha has made things to be sold in my shop on consignment.” Raising the dolls to eye level, she forced herself to focus on the woman’s talent. “They’re wonderful, aren’t they?”

  “God is wonderful,” Martha protested. “Those are just dolls.”

  “It
is more than I can do,” she answered softly.

  “Everyone can do as God allows.”

  Eli shifted from foot to foot, his smile disappearing behind the weight of an entirely different emotion. “And some do things that are for no God.”

  Esther studied her love interest. “Eli?”

  “They steal and they lie and they try to change hearts. That is not God’s way.”

  “Change hearts?” Claire echoed curiously, casting a sidelong glance at Esther as she did.

  Esther blushed.

  “That is for God to address, Eli.” Benjamin’s firm yet gentle statement pulled her focus back on the Miller men and the exchange happening between them. “And He will.”

  Eli fisted his left hand at his side as his slow boil began to grow. “When they die, He will. But that must happen first.”

  “Eli, that is enough!” Benjamin thundered. “We must go.”

  Tipping his head at the women, he pushed the front door open and waited for Eli to exit. When he did, Benjamin followed, the authoritative step of the older brother overtaking that of the sullen younger sibling.

  Once they were gone, Martha eyed her daughter closely. “It is time to return to your work, Esther.”

  Esther nodded, then disappeared onto the front porch as the Millers’ buggy turned and headed back toward the road.

  Martha looked at the floor but said nothing, her silence heavy with something Claire couldn’t identify.

  “Martha? Is everything okay?”

  Slowly, the woman’s covered head tilted upward until her gaze met Claire’s. “Mr. Snow’s death brings the police, yes?”

  Claire swallowed.

  Uh-oh.

  “Yes.” It was all she could think to say. Anything else might betray her promise to Esther.

  “Was it the new detective?”

  Her heart ached for the pain she saw on her new friend’s face, a pain she knew was shared by the man in question. Again, she gave the simplest, most true answer she could give. “Yes.”

  “How is he?” Martha whispered. “Is he well?”