An Uncommon Grace

by Serena B. Miller

  “Shhh.” Levi patted her shoulder. “It is all right. Perhaps finding this gun will help the sheriff find out who did this terrible thing.”

  “Then go quickly. My children need to know that their father’s killer is not lurking about waiting to jump out at them.”

  He knew that Angel Dancer would be surprised to be taken out of her stall again so late. He held the reins one-handed, the paper-sack-wrapped weapon in his other hand. And as he rode, he thanked God that He had spared the children.

  All the lights were out, and he hated to rouse anyone, but his mother was right. They did not need to keep this gun beneath their roof for even one more night.

  Grace was the one who answered the door. She was wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants and her hair was mussed.

  “You were asleep,” he said. “I am sorry I woke you—but I have something the sheriff will want to see.”

  “You are certain this is your revolver, Elizabeth?” Sheriff Newsome said.

  “Absolutely certain. It belonged to my husband, who was a history teacher. His favorite era was the Wild West during the late 1800s. This is a U.S. Cavalry Colt, the kind used by General Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. My husband bought it nearly forty years ago. This one, which is particularly rare, was worth around ten thousand dollars the last time I checked.”

  “Antique or not, it’s the same caliber weapon that was used for the Shetler murder. Do either of you know how it ended up in their yard?”

  “Not a clue,” Grace said.

  “It was in a drawer in an upstairs bedroom,” Elizabeth said. “It’s been months since I even looked at it.”

  “Where is your sister?” the sheriff asked.

  “Upstairs, asleep.”

  “Would you go get her?”

  When Grace opened Becky’s door, she was not asleep. She was still completely dressed and seated at a dressing table looking into a mirror. She wasn’t taking off makeup, or brushing her hair. She was simply staring into her own sad eyes. She didn’t even turn around. Little Tabby was on her lap, and she was stroking the kitten, over and over.

  “The sheriff is downstairs,” Grace said. “He wants to talk to you.”

  “What does he want?” Becky continued to stroke the kitten.

  “Jesse found Grandpa’s old revolver in the weeds behind their house. The sheriff thinks it was the murder weapon.”

  “Grandpa’s gun?”

  “Grandma’s already identified it, and she should know.”

  The pallor on Becky’s face was instantaneous.

  “Here, take care of Tabby for me.” She handed the kitten to Grace. “When all this is over, I just want you to know—I did the best I could.”

  “What do you mean?” Grace felt sick.

  Becky kissed her on the cheek. “Just remember.”

  The sheriff seemed to fill the room when they arrived at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Where were you the morning of the murder, Becky?” he asked.

  Becky didn’t answer. Her head was down. Her long, dark hair created a sort of curtain that hid her face.

  Grace pushed her sister’s hair back. “Where were you that morning, Becky?”

  “School,” Becky said in an unsure voice.

  “No, you weren’t,” Sheriff Newsome said. “We already checked. You were truant that morning.”

  Elizabeth gasped. “Becky, where were you?”

  Becky didn’t answer.

  “With the gun coming from this house, and your lying about where you were, I need to take you in for questioning,” Sheriff Newsome said. He looked at Elizabeth and Grace. “She’s a minor, so one of you will need to come along. Will that be you, Miss Connor?”

  “No,” Elizabeth said. “It will be both of us.”

  chapter TWENTY-Six

  From atop Angel Dancer, Levi watched the sheriff’s car depart with Becky in the backseat. He could hardly believe how crazy life had become.

  Becky could not possibly be the killer—if that had been the sheriff’s thinking. He had watched that girl cry over a wren with a broken wing. When she first moved in with her grandmother, he had seen her try to put a smashed earthworm together with a bandage. Her tenderness with her grandmother had impressed even his own people, who knew what it was to care for family members.

  There was nothing he could do. It was in the hands of the sheriff now. He made a clicking sound with his mouth and urged his horse toward home. He needed to get to bed. Tomorrow was supposed to be a clear day, he desperately needed to get his planting finished, and he needed to oversee his brothers’ work along the fencerow. The earth and the seasons did not wait for people to get their problems worked out.

  Grace put the kitten back in its box on the screened-in back porch. While Elizabeth changed out of her nightgown, Grace ran upstairs and grabbed the shoe box full of letters to take with her to the sheriff’s office. She did not know if they would help, but she hoped they might shed some light. She was worried about her sister, and about her grandmother. Elizabeth had already withstood burying a husband, a son, and a daughter-in-law, as well as triple bypass surgery. She did not need to watch a granddaughter being questioned about the possibility of being involved in a murder. But Grace knew there was no way her grandmother would stay behind.

  What had Becky meant when she told her that she had done the best she could?

  When they arrived at the county sheriff’s, they found Becky sitting in a chair in his office. Sheriff Newsome was doing paperwork while he waited for Grace and Elizabeth to arrive.

  Elizabeth went straight to Becky, sat down beside her, and grabbed her hand.

  “It will be okay, sweetie,” Elizabeth said, patting Becky’s hand.

  Grace wasn’t so sure.

  “I just found these today, Sheriff.” She placed the shoe box on the desk. “I thought they might have something in them that would help.”

  “You went through my room?” Becky said.

  “I did, and from what I’ve seen and heard tonight, I had good reason.”

  The sheriff glanced at the return address. “Owen Peterson? I remember him. He was a foster kid we arrested a couple years ago on drug charges.”

  Elizabeth gave a small groan. “You are involved with drugs!”

  “No! I’ve never touched them,” Becky said.

  “That’s the man I saw with you at Troyer’s, isn’t it?” Grace said.

  Becky began to sniffle.

  The sheriff had been typing on the computer. Now he turned the screen around so Grace could see.

  “Is this the man you saw with her?”

  Grace found herself looking into the eyes of a young man in his twenties. He wasn’t someone she would exactly describe as clean cut, but he didn’t look like a killer. And he certainly wasn’t the man she had seen talking to Becky. She also doubted that Becky would try to pass this kid off as her uncle.

  “The man I saw was at least fifteen years older.”

  The sheriff turned the screen back around.

  “It says here that Owen Peterson was just released from prison a few weeks ago. It looks like he’s made all his appointments with his probation officer.” The sheriff hit a few more keys. “Hmm. That’s interesting.”

  “What?”

  “The home address they have on record is yours.”

  “What?” Grace looked at her sister. “What have you done, Becky?”

  The sheriff thumbed through the letters. “You have been a very foolish girl. Whatever possessed you to write to an inmate?”

  “It was something people at my church were doing,” she mumbled.

  “Why is his address the same as yours?”

  Becky shrugged.

  “This isn’t a game, child.” The sheriff leaned forward, both elbows on his desk. “This isn’t a movie. This is real life. A man has died and right now I’m looking at you as a possible accomplice to a murder. If you don’t talk to us right now, you could be facing serious jail time. The courts aren’t
nearly as lenient with minors as they used to be. You have to tell us what you know.”

  Becky’s shoulders slumped and she began to cry. “I was just trying to help.”

  “Who were you trying to help?” the sheriff asked.

  “Owen.”

  “Why were you trying to help Owen?”

  Becky’s nose was running. Grace saw a tissue box, grabbed a few, and handed the tissues to her sister, then squatted down in front of Becky so they would be eye to eye. “Just tell us the truth, Becky.”

  The sheriff tried again. “Why is Owen’s address the same as yours?”

  Becky wiped her nose. “Because he’s living there.”

  “Where?” Elizabeth exclaimed.

  “In the old smokehouse.”

  “For how long?” Grace asked.

  “Weeks.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he was my friend.”

  “What do you mean he was your ‘friend’?” Grace asked. “You mean you became friends with him after you started writing to him?”

  Becky gave a great sigh. “No. We were friends before. There was a big boy who picked on us little kids when I first moved here. He was really mean. Then Owen got placed in a foster home close by and started riding the bus. He was a senior and he made the big boy stop. I was the smallest kid on the bus and Owen always watched out for me. I heard he was in prison, and when they started the prison ministry thing, I decided to write to him.”

  “I remember your telling me about that foster kid who helped you,” Grace said, “but I didn’t remember his name. And I didn’t know he was in prison.”

  “You were always gone,” Becky said.

  “Start at the beginning, Becky,” the sheriff said. “And tell us everything.”

  Once Becky started talking, it was as if a dam had broken. She told about the hard life Owen had lived, bouncing from one foster home to another. How he had sold drugs, but had had a jailhouse conversion in prison and was clean now. She explained that he had nowhere else to go except a halfway house for prisoners that was badly run and known for its brutality. Owen wasn’t a violent man. He had needed an address to give his probation officer, and she offered one to him—along with a dry place to sleep.

  It was such a Becky kind of thing to do.

  “Is this true?” Grace asked. “Are our halfway houses that bad?”

  “Some are better than others.” Sheriff Newsome checked the computer again. “I see that the one Owen was scheduled to go to has a bad reputation, but, then, some pretty nasty guys end up there.”

  “Becky has always taken in strays,” Elizabeth told the sheriff. “Cats, dogs, turtles, damaged birds. Looks like she found another stray to save.” She shook her head in disbelief.

  “What happens now?” Grace asked.

  “We need to find Peterson and bring him in for questioning. He may not have anything at all to do with the murder, but with his prison record and proximity to the Shetlers’ house, he is definitely someone I want to talk with.”

  Becky shook her head. “He didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “You don’t know that,” Grace said.

  “Yes I do. Owen would never hurt anyone.”

  “Nearly every criminal I have ever known,” the sheriff said, “had a girlfriend or a mother who said that. They were almost always wrong.”

  “I’m not his girlfriend.”

  “Then why have you been selling Grandma’s things?” Grace asked.

  Becky’s eyes widened. “You know about that?”

  “Oh, yeah. You want to explain it?”

  “Can I have another tissue first?”

  Grace handed her one and Becky blew her nose loudly. “Okay, then. Owen owed a guy some money from before he was arrested. The man’s name is Frank Skraggs and he’s really mean. He’d been waiting for Owen to get out of prison so he could collect. Owen didn’t have the money. Frank beat him up because of it.”

  “How much did he owe?” Grace asked.

  “Ten thousand dollars. It was something to do with when Owen was dealing drugs.”

  “That’s why you’ve been selling my things?” Elizabeth asked. “To give money to some ex–drug dealer to protect an ex-convict?”

  “I was going to pay you back, Grandma. Honest.”

  “We’ve already established that you were not in school,” the sheriff interrupted. “Where were you the morning of the murder?”

  “I picked up Owen and took him to check in with his probation officer. He was scared to miss even one appointment.”

  “What time was the appointment?”

  “Eleven.”

  “That would have given him plenty of time to rob and shoot the Shetlers. Were you in on that, Becky? Did you know what had happened?”

  “I didn’t. If I had known Frank was part of it, I would have told you, I swear. But I didn’t even know about Frank until a few days later. Owen never said a word about the murder.”

  “Tell us more about this Skraggs guy.” The sheriff drummed a pencil on his desk.

  “As long as he got enough money every week, he promised not to hurt anybody. I gave Owen everything I had in my savings account, but it wasn’t enough. I thought if I could sell some things and give him the money, Frank would go away.”

  “Why in the world didn’t you tell me?” Grace asked. “I could have helped you.”

  “You would have gone straight to the sheriff’s department, and Owen would have gone back to jail if his probation officer found out that he was having contact with a felon. Plus, Frank said he would hurt anyone we told. I believed him. I never knew where he lived, or when he would show up. Sometimes he would send threatening text messages to me, saying that he was watching me, and I could tell he really was. Besides, if I had told you about Owen, I know you wouldn’t have let him stay and he didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

  “Is Owen the reason you told us you were taking food to a stray dog that lived in the woods?”

  “Yes.” She nodded miserably.

  “Allowing children to write to criminals . . .” The sheriff shook his head. “I’m a religious man, and I understand the Scripture about visiting people in prison, but sometimes I think the church should pay a little more attention to being as ‘wise as serpents’ instead of putting so much emphasis on being as ‘gentle as doves.’” He shook his finger at Becky. “There truly is evil in the world, young lady—and a lot of that evil, thanks to a whole lot of people like me who put their lives on the line, is behind bars. I have no problem with prison ministries, except when it involves people like you who are young and easily manipulated.”

  “But Owen wasn’t just some sleazy prisoner,” Becky said hotly. “He was a good guy!”

  “How much have you given him so far?” Grace asked.

  “Counting my college savings account, about six thousand dollars,” Becky said. “I had to go to a lot of antique stores. It’s harder to sell antiques than I realized.”

  “How did you even know which things were worth anything?”

  “I think I can answer that,” Elizabeth said. “A few weeks before I got sick, I had an expert come in to evaluate some items. I knew I might have a few things that were valuable, but I didn’t know how valuable. My husband and I just bought things that we liked and enjoyed, but it turned out we had better taste than I realized. When the evaluator finished going through everything, Becky and I found out that our little collections were worth around a hundred thousand dollars.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding!” Grace exclaimed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I was going to.” Grandma shrugged. “But I had plans to have an auction when I got better, and sell most of it off. I have enjoyed my things, and they hold a lot of memories, but I didn’t want to be one of those people who die and leave a house stuffed full of possessions that their children have to sort through. Plus, I wanted to do what good I could with the money while I was still alive.”

  “That’s terrific
,” Grace said. “But I still don’t understand why you didn’t tell me.”

  “It was a private joke between Becky and me. We thought it would be funny to see the look on your face when what you kept calling ‘clutter’ brought in enough money for a trip around the world, or a college education, or any number of things that would be more fun than staring at a bunch of dusty antiques. It sounds a little foolish now,” Elizabeth said, “but I guess I was just anticipating the look of surprise on your face when you found out.”

  “When did you take all this stuff out of the house, Becky?” Grace said. “We were usually there. We would have seen you.”

  “I always knew when you would be taking Grandma to a doctor’s appointment. I would plan to come back after you left.”

  The sheriff had been typing something into his computer while listening to Becky. He turned the screen toward them.

  “Is this the man?” he asked.

  “That’s Frank,” she answered.

  Grace recognized the person Becky had introduced as the janitor.

  The sheriff turned the screen back around and stared thoughtfully at Skraggs’s face.

  “What has he done?” Grace asked.

  “You name it, he’s done it,” he said. “There’s a good chance Becky actually might have saved your life by doling out money each week. Some of these guys—the really nutso ones—can almost read your mind. They are such good liars themselves, they can practically smell a lie coming from someone else. In my opinion, this guy would have had no moral problem with wiping out your whole family.”

  “Do you think Skraggs had something to do with the Shetler murder?” Grace asked.

  “I have no idea. I don’t want to go around trying to pin that killing on every stranger that enters Holmes County—but I’ve already sent the gun to the lab and we should hear something soon. I’m hoping that whoever shot Abraham and Claire didn’t remember to wipe his fingerprints off the bullets.”

  “I still don’t understand,” Grace said. “Why is someone like Frank Skraggs even out?”