I took a step forward, shattering an acorn with my foot. It sounded like a gunshot in the stillness. I made a noise that was caught between a cry and a scream. I froze again, hoping to hear Aiden’s running footsteps, but I heard nothing. If he was around, he would have heard me. People didn’t scream in the middle of the night in Harvest, Ohio, and go unnoticed. I stood there a full minute with the sole of my boot still on the pulverized acorn, and again nothing. Aiden had left the area.
I walked around the church. The light that illuminated the back door of the church had a hospital-level intensity to its glow. I squinted at it, turning away to face the cemetery. Ambient light reflected off the newly painted white fence. A new sign declaring that the paint was wet hung in the middle of the fence, even though I knew the paint must have been dry by that late hour.
My eyes traveled across the cemetery to the mausoleum that stood in the middle of it. The WET PAINT sign was no longer on the old building, but I still wondered how it had gotten there in the first place. Could someone have hung it there on purpose, and if they did, why?
I stared at it a little harder. It looked like a little house. That’s where Ruby said the pig was. Could he really be inside?
I had to know. I shook off my fear and walked over to the fence line. Taking care not to mar the new paint, I climbed over the fence and landed on my feet on the other side. The dry leaves that covered the ground crackled in protest as I landed.
The cemetery was dark. The light over the church door didn’t reach beyond the fence itself. I tried to push thoughts of goblins, zombies, and creatures that went bump in the night to the back of my mind.
I told myself that I would check out the mausoleum to satisfy my curiosity, and then it would be straight back to Swissmen Sweets for the night.
My pace around the gravestones was brisk. Again, the argument that I had overheard between the two painters played in my memory. Each had been adamant that he hadn’t left the sign on the mausoleum. I had to find out if someone else had put the sign there for a reason.
I shook off the creepy-crawly feeling the cemetery gave me. It was now or never. I either went into the graveyard to take a closer look at the mausoleum or I turned tail and ran back to the candy shop like a scaredy-cat. I wasn’t going to let myself be a coward, even if I was the only one who would know about it.
I removed my cell phone from my pocket and used the flashlight app to guide my way. If I was really going to be searching for a pig in the dark every night, I was going to have to invest in a flashlight.
Most of the names on the markers were German and even Amish-sounding—Yoder, Hostetler, Young—but the Amish weren’t buried there. They were laid to rest in their own plain cemeteries, where the departed’s final resting place was marked with a wooden cross or a plain stone. I knew this from my grandfather’s funeral, which was still fresh in my mind. The Amish certainly would not be buried in an ornate mausoleum.
In this cemetery, the mausoleum was the centerpiece, and I would have been able to find it even if I hadn’t had the light from my phone to guide me.
Although not as lavish as the mausoleums I had seen in New York, I could tell that this one had been built by a family of wealth. I looked up at the worn name. It read Marshall. I shivered. Could this be the final resting place of the cantankerous Sheriff Marshall’s ancestors? Was his family’s stature in the county the reason he was sheriff in the first place?
I shone the light on the mausoleum door. There was a latch above the ironwork door handle. I stared at the latch. I would have thought that the building hadn’t been opened in decades, not since the last person had been laid to rest there, but I couldn’t help noticing that the grime around the latch appeared to have been disturbed, as if it had been opened recently. Someone had been inside the small building, and it wasn’t twenty years ago, as the last death date on the building would lead me to believe.
I knocked on the door. Immediately, there was a bang and a clatter on the other side of the thick wood. I stumbled back off the single step that led into the building, skittering on the heels of my boots. Somehow, despite the stumbling, I kept myself upright.
More banging came from inside the building, and I was about to turn and run when I heard oinking. Yes, that’s what I heard. Oinking.
I jumped back onto the step and threw back the latch, or tried to. Even though the door had been opened in the last few days, the latch was stubborn. The rusty metal cut into my fingertips, and I was glad I was up to date on my tetanus shots.
Finally, the latch gave way. I pulled on the door handle and it moved all of an inch, but it was enough to allow me to wrap my fingers around the door itself and pull with all my might. As if it was attached to a rubber band that had just been let loose, the door swung open. I stumbled off the step again.
The oinking grew louder. I stepped back onto the single step. “Jethro?”
There was the snap of another acorn being crushed behind me. Jethro squealed. Before I could turn around, I felt a hand on my back, shoving me inside the dark mausoleum. My cell phone flew from my hand and clattered across the stone floor. The light went out just as the door was slammed behind me.
I groaned as I rolled onto my side. My knees felt skinned under my jeans, and the flesh on the heels of my hands was raw. I lay there for a moment listening, straining to hear if whoever had pushed me inside the building was standing outside the door waiting for me to appear.
Jethro pressed his warm, damp snout against my cheek, and I jumped. The pig squealed in return.
I reached over and patted the general direction of where I thought the pig’s head should be and touched his back. “It’s okay,” I murmured as I stroked the animal, hoping to calm him, hoping to calm myself. “It’s okay, Jethro.”
He snuggled up to me, pressing his body as close as he could without being on top of me.
Slowly taking care not to press the raw part of my hands on the dusty stone beneath me, I pushed myself up into a sitting position. I tried not to think of the fact that I was trapped in a tiny building with at least a dozen dead people and a terrified pig. If I let myself dwell on my circumstances, I would panic, and I would be no use to Jethro or myself if that happened.
Other than my skinned hands and knees, I was fine. I gave Jethro a final pat and rose to my feet. I held my hands out in front of me like a zombie, thrashing at the empty space in the hope of hitting a wall or making contact with an object that would help me get my bearings. I froze as my hand hit cool metal. It could have been a vase, or it could have been an urn holding someone’s ashes. On second thought, I didn’t need to get my bearings.
I stumbled away from the smooth metal, and my shoulder connected with a stone wall. I spun around and let my fingers lead me around the wall. I stubbed my toe on what I assumed was a casket encased in stone, but I didn’t let myself dwell on that possibility either.
After what seem like an inordinate amount of time, my fingers finally moved from the cold stone to rough wood. I knew I had found the door. I gave a sigh of relief. Now Jethro and I could escape. I felt the pig press his snout into the back of my lower leg.
Despite the abrasion on the heel of my hand, I ran my palm all over the door. I found the side with the hinges. They were large, at least three inches in length and as wide as my wrist. I ran my hand across the surface of the door in the opposite direction from where the hinges were to the logical place where the door handle should be, but there was no handle.
There was no handle on the inside of the door at all. There was no need for anyone inside the mausoleum to get out. I felt like someone had grabbed me by the throat as fear began to bubble up from my center. If there was no door handle, then I was truly trapped. What was worse, whoever had pushed me inside the mausoleum knew that too and could come back at his or her leisure to finish me off.
I took another deep breath. There had to be another way to escape my prison. My cell phone. That was what I needed. With my phone, I could call for help
. When whoever attacked me had shoved me into the small building, my phone had gone flying from my hand. I winced to think what the phone’s condition was after it had crashed into the stone floor.
Gingerly, I dropped to the floor. I yelped in pain as all my weight settled on my skinned knees, but there was no other way to find the phone other than scouring the mausoleum’s floor inch by inch on my hands and knees. Jethro snorted next to me, and I realized he’d noticed what I was up to and had his snout on the cold stone floor. I doubted he knew what we were looking for, but I appreciated his piggy support.
I ran my hand back and forth over the dusty floor in a sweeping motion, taking care not to miss an inch of the surface. There was nothing there other than small pebbles, dust, and—I was almost certain—the world’s largest spider, which thankfully scurried away when I encountered it.
I shook the creepy-crawly feeling from my hand that the spider left behind. Taking a deep breath, I slid my hand across the floor again. This time, it came in contact with a smooth object that went skittering across the floor. I followed the direction it went in by the sound. I moved more slowly. I didn’t want to knock it out of the way again. Finally, my thumb grazed it. My hand wrapped around a small smooth object. It felt like a bottle. In the blackness, I touched the top of the bottle, and it was sticky. I held it under my nose, and the overwhelming scent of licorice assaulted my nostrils.
I knew what this bottle was, but I hoped I was wrong. I wouldn’t know for certain until I had some light. I stuck the bottle into my jeans pocket and began to search again for my cell phone.
It had to be in there somewhere. In the dark, it could be right next to me and I wouldn’t know it.
Then I heard something outside. There was a scarping sound right outside the wooden door.
I made one more frantic sweep across the floor in search of my phone, and I found it. My fingers curled around the device, and I hugged it to my chest. The screen was cracked, but the phone was operational. I quickly turned on the flashlight app and shone the weak light around the room. There was an overturned stone vase in the corner. The flowers that had been inside it were long dead. I picked up the vase. It weighed a good six pounds. It would make an effective weapon if it came to that. Next to where I had found the vase, there was a crack in the foundation, and water pooled at the spot where the floor and the wall met.
I was about to call the police when Jethro shoved his snout into my face.
He was covered in dust and wide-eyed. It was difficult to say how traumatic his stay in the mausoleum had been. He had been there for almost two full days without food, and it showed. The only water he had had to drink was from this crack in the foundation. In his mouth, he held a note.
I set the vase back down and took the note from him. I studied it under the light of my phone. It was just a plain quarter sheet of paper that had been folded in half.
I glanced at the door, willing it not to open.
I unfolded the note. It was in English. Because the Amish learned English in school, that was what they used when they wrote. Pennsylvania Dutch was more of a spoken language.
Josephine,
Meet me behind the church at 10 am to discuss your suggestion. I will be able to get away then. I’m sure we can come to an agreement.
There was a rattling at the door as someone tried to open it. I skimmed to the end of the letter, which was signed, “JB.”
And that’s when I knew who was on the other side of the door, waiting for me.
Chapter 36
Clumsily, I tucked the note into the inside pocket of my jacket. The door began to move. I didn’t have much time. I dialed 911 on my phone. The operator came on as a crack of light appeared around the door.
The operator asked me what my emergency was. Before I could answer, the door opened. Leaving the phone on, I tucked it in the back waistband of my pants, praying that the operator could hear what we were saying.
“Jeremiah Beiler,” I said loudly. “What are you doing here at the church cemetery with a knife?”
If he noticed that I was talking abnormally loud, he didn’t show it. He glared at me. “Why couldn’t you leave this alone?” In his right hand, he held a knife as long as my arm. The sharp metal weapon caught the moonlight coming in through the open door. I supposed my chances were better with a knife than a gun. Maybe I had a shot at getting away from him and the knife. I would have no chance of escaping if he had a gun. No chance at all. But I was basically trapped in a windowless stone room the size of a walk-in closet. I was a sitting duck.
“Leave what alone? Looking for Jethro?” I asked. “Juliet is my friend. Of course, I had to keep searching for her pig.”
“Did you find him?” Jeremiah asked.
“No,” I lied. “I’m afraid he might be gone for good. Juliet will be heartbroken.”
“We all have our reasons to be heartbroken,” Jeremiah said.
“Maybe,” I said, trying to sound as conversational as possible. “Maybe it would be easier if we discussed this outside the building. It’s too dark in here, don’t you think?”
Jethro hid behind me, and I hoped he was doing his best to keep out of sight. I didn’t think that Jeremiah would take it well if he knew that I’d lied to him.
“We can talk about it right here,” Jeremiah said.
I supposed it was just wishful thinking to expect him to let me go so easily. I wracked my brain for any way to get around him, but nothing came to mind. Jeremiah was a large man, and he almost filled the doorway. The few spare inches on either side of him weren’t nearly big enough for me to squeeze by. I had to think of another way out. I removed the note from my pocket.
“What’s that?” Jeremiah demanded.
“Maybe you can tell me since you wrote it.”
“Give it to me,” he said.
“Did she want to talk to you about Hiram?”
He froze in the midst of trying to rip the paper from my hand. “What did you ask?”
“Hiram. This all comes back to Hiram, doesn’t it? You worked in the buggy shop for the Weaver family. I remember seeing you there when I was a child. I thought at first it was Hiram that I remembered, but then I knew I was wrong. It was you.”
“So what if it was?” he asked.
“Sol said he wasn’t there the day that Hiram died, but one of the young men who worked for him was.”
“And if it was me, what does that mean?”
I swallowed and glanced down at the knife in his hand. “I think you know how Hiram really died, and maybe so did Josephine.”
“It was an accident.”
“If it was an accident, why is it still haunting you?”
“It was an accident,” he bellowed, and his voice reverberated off the walls of the mausoleum. “A complete accident. I ran into the wheel stop holding the buggy at the top of the hill. I was tired. I had been moving mulch all day. I was careless. I hit the stop with my wheelbarrow just right and sent the buggy flying down the hill directly at Hiram. The buggy was too fast. There was no way I could stop it. I yelled for Hiram to get out of the way, but he must not have heard me. He never moved, and when the buggy hit him, he never moved again.” His breath became shallow.
“Do you think Sol knew?” I asked.
“He might have, but since he was the new owner of the buggy shop, he never questioned me. He believed me when I said I didn’t know how the buggy broke loose.”
I was certain Sol did know what had really happened, but there was no way I could prove that.
“After Hiram’s funeral, I was destroyed by what I had done. I couldn’t eat or sleep, so I went to Josephine and confessed everything. She said she understood and that I’d suffered enough. She said she wouldn’t tell the church leaders or the police. I was so grateful. She kept her word all these years.”
“Until now?” I asked.
“Until now. She wanted to win the ACC so badly, and I was her way to do it. You don’t know how important this competition was to
Josephine. If she won the ACC, it would validate her business and everything she’d done after her husband’s death. Everyone expected her to remarry after Hiram died, but instead she opened Berlin Candies and put her heart and soul into that shop.”
“She was blackmailing you?” I asked.
“She wanted a guaranteed win. She wanted to win the ACC, and she was blackmailing me to make sure that it would happen. I couldn’t let her do that. If she got her way this time, I knew it wouldn’t be the last time she asked. I wanted to talk to her in person to reason with her. But there was no reasoning with that woman. I never thought she would do it. For a time after her husband’s death, we were close.”
I weighed the implication of the last word he’d said. “You were lovers then.”
He bristled. “Just for a short time when we were both hurting over Hiram’s death. We knew it was wrong. It didn’t last long, but we loved each other for a time.”
Something that Ruby had said came back to me, “Love and hate are two sides of the same coin.” In her confused, wandering way, she had been trying to steer me toward the realization that Jeremiah was the killer.
I shook my head. “This doesn’t make any sense. There were no signs of struggle on her body. How did you make her drink the extract?”
“She drank it on her own.”
“Why?” I asked, confused.
“If an Amish woman doesn’t have her reputation, what does she have?” he asked.
My mouth fell open. “You blackmailed her right back and threatened to tell about your affair with her, and she killed herself to avoid being shamed by the community, a particularly strict Amish district.”
Aiden had been right. Josephine’s death had been at a woman’s hand.
“But that would tarnish your reputation too,” I said.
“It’s different for a man.” His tone was matter-of-fact.
I felt sick, knowing that this was true, especially in the Amish community. I had seen how Emily’s own family had treated her after her affair that led to an unplanned pregnancy.
Lethal Licorice Page 24
