Material Witness

by Vannetta Chapman

  Can’t sleep. Might b late 4 r bfast date. 6:30 instead? Am sure Margie will hold our tbl. Gnight.

  He’d wanted to call immediately to talk to her, but he’d resisted because of that last word — it sat there, like a nail in a firmly sealed coffin. Everything about her message sent warning bells screaming through his head and heart, but that last word plainly indicated he was not supposed to call her.

  Gavin had reported that all of Callie’s lights were off when she had gotten home and every ninety minutes after that as well. So the part about not sleeping made no sense.

  And Shane and Callie had never made plans to meet for breakfast. Why was she pretending they had? Why was she pretending she needed to move the time to six thirty? It was as if she were speaking in code, as if she expected her message to be intercepted — which was ridiculous — and needed him to read between the lines.

  It was only six fifteen, but he’d decided to go with his instinct and scope out the only place he knew of where someone named Margie might hold a breakfast table for them. He snapped his phone shut and walked toward The Kaffi Shop. Between the murder and the cozy mysteries Callie had been reading, perhaps she’d developed a little paranoia.

  Still, Shane scanned the street as he pushed open the door. The odor of fresh coffee — which in no way resembled what he’d been drinking at the police station — and baked breads nearly knocked him back out to the sidewalk. For one second, he forgot why he was there as his stomach responded to his more primal needs.

  “Morning, Shane.” Margie glanced up in surprise. Bright red hair framed a face spotted with freckles, even though she was in her late-thirties. He’d yet to see her when she wasn’t smiling. Margie was one of the most contented persons Shane had ever met — and definitely a morning person.

  “Morning, Margie.”

  “Surprise seeing you here so early.”

  He ordered a coffee and a cinnamon roll, placed his money on the counter, then leaned in closer and lowered his voice. “Have you seen Callie today?”

  Margie shook her head, causing her long, green earrings to bounce and glitter. “Nope. Callie’s not much of an early bird. She usually drops by at lunch or in the evenings after she closes her place.”

  “Got it.” He grabbed a copy of the Gazette, which had a photo of yesterday’s murder splashed across the front, and placed another dollar on the counter. “I’ll be at the back if anyone needs me.”

  Ten minutes later, at exactly six twenty-eight, Callie pulled up across the street. She had Max with her, and Shane knew as soon as they both stepped out of the car that something was wrong.

  For one thing, Max usually bounded out of a car. This morning Callie had to reach in, pick him up, and set him down on the ground as if he might break. The dog sniffed around, gazed up at his owner, then began to walk gingerly — but when he took his first step, he wobbled.

  What was that about? It looked like her dog was dizzy.

  Callie wore a knee-length jean skirt, her Texas boots, and a long-sleeved brown suede top. In other words, she looked like the country girl who was in the process of stealing his heart. As she moved toward the shop, walking stiffly with her head never glancing left or right, her eyes focused completely on him, Shane stood. He began to move in her direction, but she shook her head, or at least he thought she did. The shake was so small, he could have imagined it.

  And then she was opening the door.

  “Morning, Callie. What can I get you?”

  But Callie didn’t answer Margie. She just walked toward Shane. And then he noticed her lack of color, the dark smudges under her eyes. His pulse kicked up a notch, and his mind began to shift through all the things that might have happened since he saw her last night.

  Before he could choose one though, before he could begin to guess what might be wrong, she walked straight into his arms.

  “Callie, what?”

  “Hold me,” she whispered. The tremor in her voice was nearly his undoing.

  His arms closed around her, and he could feel her trembling. He wanted to pull away, wanted to look into her eyes, but something told him she would fall onto Margie’s floor if he didn’t hold her up.

  After a minute, no more, she disentangled herself and walked to the booth where he’d been sitting. She sat on the side he’d occupied only moments before, facing the front of the shop.

  Which forced him to take the seat with his back to the windows.

  “Nice seeing you so early, Callie. Still want a double shot of espresso in your coffee and whipped cream on top?”

  “Yes. Thank you, Margie.”

  “Sure thing.” She studied them curiously. “I think I have some dog treats behind the counter for Max.”

  “That would be great.”

  Max lay with his head down on her feet, showing no interest in the people around him. He didn’t even bother to sniff Shane or respond to Margie’s voice. To Shane he seemed more than unresponsive. It almost seemed like he had been drugged.

  “Listen and don’t ask too many questions.” She licked her lips, tried to speak, but couldn’t. Clearing her throat, she started again. “They could be watching from outside, and I don’t want them to see your expression. I don’t think they could possibly have microphones here. They can’t put mics everywhere. How could they? How would they know where we might meet or who Margie is even if they were somehow monitoring my texts?”

  Sweat was now pouring down Shane’s back. He leaned forward and captured her hands, which were shredding his napkin. “Slow down and breathe.”

  So she did. And then the horrible story began to spill out. At first he had trouble believing what she was telling him. But it synced too well with what he was seeing — Max’s lethargy, her shock, the evidence at the scene. Mrs. Knepp had technically died of a heart attack, but preliminary autopsy reports indicated an electrical shock caused the heart attack. A small mark at the base of her neck, half an inch below her prayer kapp, was indicative of a Taser.

  There were no dart-like electrodes left in her skin though, only the single mark. The killer had used a Taser, but he’d used a model with drive-stun capability, which was not supposed to incapacitate — unless the person being tased was in her eighties. Shane’s preliminary meeting with Knepp’s family had revealed that Knepp had an irregular heartbeat and was taking medication for the condition. Apparently the shock of the night before was too much. “What about the security machine in your shop?”

  “It’s gone. The entire device is missing.” She stared at him, fear mixing with dread.

  And then there was the thing, that single thing that had been scratching the edge of his consciousness for the past twelve hours, and it finally broke through.

  “The dress you had on yesterday —”

  “What about it?”

  “The material, a dark green, was it something new? Something from your shop?”

  “Yes. Deborah helped me with the pattern.” Her hands shook as she tried to drink the coffee Margie had brought. “I made it from our new fall fabrics. Shane, I don’t think that’s important. We need to figure out —”

  “You said he admitted killing Mrs. Knepp, and then later in the conversation you heard a woman arguing with him?”

  Callie nodded. “Right. Something about a Taser and that he should have used something else. I didn’t understand it. I was trying to think of a way out of the conversation, but it almost sounded as if things hadn’t gone according to plan. As if he hadn’t meant to do that at all.”

  “I don’t think he did.” Shane considered holding back what he’d pieced together, but Callie needed to know as much as possible now. She had shown great courage coming to him. He needed to be straight with her, and he needed to find a way to protect her until this psycho was caught. “Callie, I think he meant to attack you. If he had used a Taser on you, it would have knocked you out, but it wouldn’t have killed you. Mrs. Knepp was old, and her heart couldn’t take the stress. Think about it. Both you and Mrs. Knepp
wore a dark green dress. He approached from behind, saw a shoulder or hemline, and thought it was you.”

  “But she was so old.” Her voice rose in indignation. “Are you telling me I look like an old Amish woman? I have much better hair than she does, and my skin … You can’t be serious, Shane.”

  “You don’t resemble each other from the front. He attacked from the back, and there wasn’t much light.”

  “Her kapp —”

  “He might not have seen it with her hiding in the shrubbery, though I still don’t understand why she would have been spying on your shop.”

  “It was just something we did. There was no real harm in it.”

  “Until last night …”

  Callie’s eyes flooded with fear for a moment, then anger won once again. “We have to stop them.”

  “We will, but until then I want you to let me send you away. I don’t know why he’s focusing on you or what this talk of money is, but we can protect you —”

  “No.”

  The stubborn woman Shane knew so well stared at him, and though the fear was still there, lurking below the surface, he knew arguing with her would be useless. “No. I won’t do it. I won’t run and hide while Aaron is in danger.”

  “Then we’ll hide Aaron too.”

  “And his entire family? How do we know they won’t go after Deborah or Esther or a dozen other families in Shipshe? No. This stops with me. So far he’s already accidentally killed an old woman and tranq’d my dog.”

  “And tossed your apartment.”

  Callie’s eyes nearly closed in anger. “If you catch him, promise me ten minutes alone with this creep.”

  “When we catch him. It might take us a while, but we will catch him.” Shane felt a sudden urge to hit something — a punching bag, a wall, this perp’s face. “Have you forgotten how many people are in town this weekend? This won’t be easy.”

  “He’s not leaving until he gets what he wants, and he wants his money.”

  Shane sighed, realizing again how much the woman sitting across from him had found her way into his heart. She was stubborn, yes; but she was also smart, even when she was scared. “I’ll put up perimeter security.”

  “That won’t work. They’ll be watching. He told me he could see everything.”

  Shane smiled for the first time since receiving her text. “That was probably a bluff.”

  “But he knew where I was sitting —”

  “A good guess. He knew where the phone was located, so of course you’d be nearby.”

  “But he knew” — her hand came out of her lap, waving, nearly knocking over their coffee mugs — “other things.”

  “He may have had binoculars or infrareds on the place, but I doubt it. I think we have a Vegas player here. Someone who knows how to bluff and how to bluff well.”

  “So how do we catch him?”

  “Use the festival to our advantage.”

  “But you said it would be hard to find him with so many people.”

  “True, but there are good things about it being the busiest weekend of the year. There are people everywhere.” Shane tapped a beat on the table. “He can’t watch us all, and he’s not the only one who can wear a disguise — if what he had on when Aaron saw him was a disguise, and I’m betting it was. You’re not going to be out of my sight until your creeper is behind bars. I will catch this guy, and when I do — only God will be able to help him.”

  Chapter 8

  MELINDA SET HANNAH in her high chair and placed two toys on the tray, then turned to the sink full of breakfast dishes. She took her time with the plates and cups, allowing her hands to linger in the warm, sudsy water.

  Every day included chores, but holidays like Fall Festival seemed to bring extra work for each member of her family — including both boys.

  Matt was in the barn, mucking out stalls.

  And Aaron, well … Noah had a plan to see what Aaron was capable of doing.

  The kitchen window looked out over the side yard as well as an area Noah had put together for the chicken pen. He’d even smoothed a path for Aaron’s wheelchair.

  Though Melinda understood Aaron needed chores like everyone else, it was still difficult for her to watch him struggle to remove the lid from the barrel, scoop out the correct amount of feed into the bucket he had fastened across his lap, then work his thin arms, wheeling the chair down the path.

  Noah had also set the pen up with two gates, knowing Aaron wouldn’t be fast enough to keep the chickens from escaping if there was only one. The dishwater grew cold as she watched Aaron open the first gate, wheel through and shut it, then open the second. He was instantly surrounded by noisy, hungry chickens. He scattered feed with one hand as he wheeled slowly with the other, attempting to spread the food out for the large group of hens, just as his father had shown him.

  “How’s he doing?” Noah’s soft voice in her ear caused Melinda to jump, sending suds and water flying.

  “He’s fine.” She grabbed the dishtowel and wiped her apron. “But it seems so hard for him. I could have done it myself in half the time, and you know I don’t mind.”

  Noah took the towel from her hands, turned her so she was facing the kitchen rather than the window, and wiped the water off her neck. “Ya, you were always gut at feeding the chickens.”

  He smiled and kissed her gently on the lips, which sent a stream of warm feelings down through her stomach all the way to her toes. “It’s not you that needs to learn though, and it’s not you that needs to grow stronger.”

  Melinda closed her eyes, forced herself to lay aside her fears for one more day. “I know you’re right. Still … I worry.”

  “Which is one more thing that makes you a gut mamm.”

  Reaching past her to hang up the dishtowel, he gave her the smile that had the power to settle her world, then walked over to the high chair and picked up Hannah. “Thought I might take this little girl to check the crops with me.”

  Hannah squealed and reached for her daddy’s beard.

  “Want to ride with your dat? Want to ride behind the big work horse?”

  At the word horse, Hannah began hollering, “Down. Down, dat. Down.”

  “You’ve done it now. She means to go and find her shoes.”

  “A gut idea, baby girl.”

  When Hannah had toddled out of the room as fast as her chubby legs would take her, Melinda confessed to Noah what had been bothering her from the moment her eyes had opened earlier that morning. “After last night, after what Aaron saw, I was wondering if I should allow him to rest today.”

  “It was a terrible thing for him to witness, for sure. If he has questions or worries, I believe he’ll talk to us, Melinda. Besides, do you think he’d be better off inside chasing it round and round in his head?” Noah scooped Hannah up as she came tumbling back into the room carrying her shoes. Before he walked out the door, he stepped closer to Melinda, kissed her once more, and whispered, “Look at your son now, Mamm. I think he’s going to be fine.”

  Melinda turned and looked out the window. The picture that met her eyes was a bright fall morning, like so many others in her heart. It caused her breath to catch in her throat and her hand to fly to her lips. There wasn’t a day that went by when she didn’t thank God for her family — even with all the worries and fears Aaron’s special condition brought. Even though she watched Hannah constantly, concerned perhaps she too would have the same disease. Melinda trusted God, trusted his provision and care. When she thought of having another child though, a part of her heart shrank back — afraid.

  Could she bear watching another child suffer as Aaron suffered?

  Still, when she looked out the window as Noah had told her to, she couldn’t help but know Aaron was blessed by God. She couldn’t help but be grateful he was a part of her life.

  The sun had broken through the clouds that the weather forecast had said would scatter by noon, and her son sat in a patch of sunlight. The hens were all busy with the feed Aaron had
managed to scatter, and he had somehow reached down and caught one of the baby chicks. He was holding it carefully in one hand and petting it with the other. Even though she couldn’t see it from this distance, she knew that a look of pure wonder covered his face. It was only a chick and the boy who had managed to surprise it away from its mother. Melinda knew Aaron had held plenty of chicks before; she’d handed him one last week. But he’d managed to catch this one himself. It was his secret, and hopefully, even if only in some small way, it would help heal a portion of what had happened to Aaron the night before.

  As she watched, he set the chick carefully on the ground, put his skinny hands on the wheels of his chair, and made his way slowly, laboriously, back through the gates and along the path — a look of marked determination on his face.

  It was a few minutes before noon when Esther pulled up to Melinda’s house. Simon was sound asleep in the wooden carrier Reuben had designed that fit perfectly on the floorboards in the back. Esther hoped she wouldn’t wake him carrying him inside, but she needed to talk to Melinda, and she needed to do it before continuing to town. So she picked up her bag of quilting supplies, then reached for her infant son.

  She’d barely stepped away from the buggy when Melinda was at her side.

  “Let me help you. I’ll take him.”

  “Danki. Where are the boys?”

  “They finished their chores a little while ago and have gone to fish at the pond behind the barn. Is Leah with your parents?”

  “Ya.”

  “I can fix you some lunch if you’d like.”

  “No. I ate an early lunch with Tobias. Then I dropped Leah off, and Simon fell asleep before we’d even made it to the main road.” They walked up the steps of the front porch and into the sitting room.

  “Hannah’s down for her nap as well. I can’t believe how this boppli is growing, Esther.”

  “Tobias says he’s longer each week, but I refuse to believe it. I want him to stay exactly this size for a while.”

  “He’s beautiful.”

  Melinda traced Simon’s face with her finger, a wistful look shining in her eyes — a look Esther recognized all too well. Esther had waited a long time to have another child, waited a long time for Tobias to come along. She certainly never thought she’d be happily married again after the death of her first husband, but God had had other plans for her.