IN PLAIN View

by Olivia Newport

  Rufus adjusted the tilt of his hat. “I couldn’t say.”

  By Wednesday afternoon Annie’s cell phone had been missing for two days. She picked up the telephone in the shop and dialed Tom’s number. No, he had not seen her phone in his truck.

  She hung up and pulled a phone book from beneath the counter, found the number, and dialed the hospital in Cañon City. Following a system of automated prompts, she finally reached a nurse in the emergency room who left her on hold so long Annie was about to hang up and start over again. In the end, though, the lost and found box did not yield Annie’s phone, either.

  The shop door jangled, and Annie switched to customer alert mode. But rather than customers, Mark and Luke Stutzman entered.

  “Our mamm asked us to see what you’ve decided to keep in the shop,” Mark said.

  Annie gestured to the shelf Mrs. Weichert had arranged. “The blackberry jam does well, and the embroidered pillowcases.”

  “I’ll tell Beth. She is the one who makes the pillowcases.”

  Of course she was. Miss Perfect Stitches. Annie forced a smile. “Well, if she has more, I’m sure Mrs. Weichert would like to have them. They’ve been popular.”

  “We can take anything that is in your way,” Mark said.

  “Mrs. Weichert is not here, but I’ll look in the back room.”

  Annie crossed the store, vaguely aware that the boys were following at their own pace. In the storeroom, she riffled through Edna Stutzman’s crates.

  Well, Edna’s work and Beth’s. Maybe the other girls had contributed something, but Annie suspected the superior stitchery that customers had been admiring was Beth’s. A full-sized quilt had lasted barely two days on display, despite a price even Annie thought was outrageous.

  Some pot holders and small wooden toys had not sold, and Mrs. Weichert had returned them to the back room. Annie placed them in a crate and applied her own discretion to finish filling it. The sound of shuffling just beyond the door told her the boys had finally come to the back of the shop, where she knew they would wait politely. She picked up the crate, pausing to gain a firm grip.

  The boys were speaking rapid Pennsylvania Dutch to each other. Annie strained to understand something. She had been hearing this language in the Beiler home and around tables after church services for eight months, and if pressed, she was capable of bits of polite conversation with speakers who indulged her with a reduced speed. But the words spewed too swiftly from the boys. Annie understood only fragments that did not seem to connect logically.

  But one word was unmistakable, and she heard it four times.

  Joel.

  And another. Phone.

  Behind Annie, the building’s back door opened to a rush of spring air.

  “I saw the buggy,” Mrs. Weichert said. “I figured the boys were here.”

  “I was just gathering some things that aren’t selling.”

  Mrs. Weichert ran a hand over the contents of the crate. “You’ve chosen well. I’ll talk to them.” She took the crate from Annie’s arms.

  At the back of the shop, the boys switched to polite English.

  The shop’s phone rang, and Annie moved to the counter to answer it.

  “Come get your bike,” the caller said. “We’re finished with it.”

  Thirty-Four

  Annie lowered her bicycle to the ground in the same spot where she had left it two days ago. She took the hill faster this time, curious to see what the spot looked like now that the crime scene tape was gone. Finding her lost phone among the singed brush seemed unlikely, but she had nothing to lose by looking.

  She stood on the hill, staring at the rock, and wondering what the boys could have thought they were accomplishing by trying to blast out a chunk of the hillside with a homemade bomb.

  Unless they accomplished exactly what they intended.

  She hated to think any of them were capable of hurting Karl—and certainly not Joel. It just did not make sense.

  Annie kicked around in the dirt. Rain the previous evening had wiped out footprints and washed blackened brush into stripes down the incline. She set her feet squarely in the place where Karl Kramer had lain, and memory sparked. Her hand had still clenched the phone when she boarded the ambulance. She had it when she answered questions in the emergency room. After that, she was unsure.

  Wandering back toward her bike, Annie wondered if the sheriff ’s officers had found anything useful among the footprints and tire tracks that had crowded the ground. Sophie’s revelation that Annie was under suspicion for the explosion simmered in her mind. When Annie reached her bike, she yanked it up with fresh determination. If Joel had something to do with this, she was going to find out. And for Carter’s sake, Annie hoped that what she suspected was not true.

  Securing her helmet, Annie put the bike in motion and let gravity pull her down the slope and back on the main road. Hours of daylight remained at this time of year, plenty of time to pedal to the storage site and look for anything that might be have changed since the last time she was there. Grateful to be on pavement again rather than in the uneven brush of the hillside, Annie pedaled harder.

  Lost in her thoughts, she did not hear the car approach from behind. She felt its wind as it whizzed by—a little too close for comfort—and She gripped her handlebars more firmly.

  It was a blue Prius, just like the one she used to own. The vehicle slowed ahead of her, and in watching it, Annie lost her concentration. She strayed off the pavement onto the gravel shoulder, where she lost her balance. Putting out one foot, Annie managed to avoid toppling, but it was not a gracious moment. She got off the bike and pushed out her breath. Ahead of her, the blue Prius stopped abruptly on the side of the road.

  The driver’s door opened. Ruth Beiler got out. Annie grinned.

  “Whatever you were thinking about the crazy driver, you can keep to yourself.” Ruth beamed and dangled the car key. “It’s all true, but just don’t say it.”

  “You’re driving!” Annie laid the bike down to embrace her friend with both arms. “I assume you’re doing it the legal way.”

  Ruth laughed. “Of course.” She pulled her wallet out of her skirt pocket and extracted a long rectangle of paper. “The State of Colorado made it official yesterday.”

  Annie glanced at the car. “Yesterday? And you drove all the way down here by yourself?”

  “When I heard what happened, I knew I had to.”

  Ruth bent her head in toward Annalise, admiring the sheet of paper that gave her the freedom to stand on this road at this time.

  “My friend Lauren gave me driving lessons,” she said. “I was nervous about taking the road test, but she said I was ready.”

  “And she was right!” Annalise leaned against Ruth’s shoulder. “I’m so glad to see you. Does your mother know you’re coming?”

  Ruth shook her head. “Only Elijah knows.”

  “Elijah?”

  “He called and told me what happened to Karl, and that you and Rufus were there.”

  “It wasn’t really an emergency. Rufus and I are fine.”

  “Elijah didn’t know that when he called. He just knew you were at the hospital. I think it rattled him that it happened at… our rock.”

  “I didn’t know you were speaking to Elijah these days.”

  Ruth looked away. “I’m not. Not exactly.”

  “What does ‘not exactly’ mean?”

  A car rumbled past, and Ruth step farther off the side of the road. “Elijah writes, and I don’t answer. I did for a while, but it’s wrong, so I stopped.”

  “Why is it wrong?”

  Ruth shook her head. “It can’t be anything. I was not fair to him when I left on our baptism day. He only got baptized because he thought I was going to do it, and then I left. Now he’s baptized, and we can’t be together.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m going tell him once and for all.”

  Annalise tilted her head to one side. “You’ve said that bef
ore.”

  Ruth kicked a rock. “I know. But it’s wrong. I have to stop it before we do something Elijah would have to confess to the elders.”

  “You’re trying to protect him?”

  Ruth nodded.

  “Because you care for him?”

  Reluctantly, Ruth nodded again. She hoped Annalise would not comment on the blush that that warmed her face and neck.

  “Elijah is a grown man,” Annalise said. “He can make his own choices.”

  “I don’t want him to choose to leave because of me any more than Rufus wants you to choose to become Amish because of him.”

  “This sounds like a conversation that shouldn’t be happening on the side of the road.”

  “Why are you here, anyway?” Ruth asked, pointing down the lonely highway.

  “I lost my phone.”

  “And?”

  “And I just wanted to go back and see where it happened again. I’m trying to make sense of it. I have pieces, but they don’t add up.”

  “Where are you going now?”

  Annalise hesitated, but Ruth waited.

  “Well,” Annalise said, “since you have your driver’s license and a car, maybe you’d like to give me a ride.”

  “Anywhere,” Ruth answered. “What about the bike?”

  “I happen to know how to put the backseat down in that car. We’ll jam it in somehow.”

  Ruth followed Annalise toward the Prius, where Annalise swiftly pulled a couple of levers.

  “Are you sure about this?”

  Annie pushed the car door closed and glanced across the open space ahead of them. “Sorry to drag you so far off the road, but I knew the Prius could handle it.”

  “I’m sure you know more about the car than I do,” Ruth said, “but what are we looking for?”

  “I’m not sure. Clues.”

  “Clues?”

  “Just follow me.”

  “Why did we have to park in the trees?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Annie led the way, hearing the hesitancy in Ruth’s steps.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever been here before,” Ruth said. “How can that be?”

  “I think that’s what they’re counting on.”

  “Who’s ‘they’?”

  “I hope I’m wrong, but I have to be sure.”

  After a couple of minutes, the fenced area came into view, still covered in thick plastic sheeting. “I think Karl Kramer uses this place for storage,” Annie said.

  “It doesn’t seem very convenient,” Ruth observed.

  “That’s one of the pieces I haven’t figured out.” Annie scanned the area for guys in hard hats. “The coast is clear.”

  They circled around, while Annie tried to remember where the loose flap was that had given her access the last time.

  “Annalise, I’m not sure about this,” Ruth whispered.

  “Here.” Annie punched a hand through a slit, pushed aside thick plastic, and ducked through the fence. “Coming, Ruth?”

  Ruth’s head appeared. “What is this place?”

  “Hurry up.” Annie reached out and tugged on Ruth’s wrist.

  “Ow!”

  “Shh.”

  “What are we doing here, Annalise?”

  “There has to be something here.”

  “Like what?”

  “Just look for something that doesn’t belong.”

  Annie dragged her fingers along a pile of flooring underlayment and a carton of four nail guns. Next were two rolls of plush gray carpet and neat upright row of windows in three sizes, and beyond that a half dozen enormous rolls of black roof sheeting. A skid of concrete blocks seemed especially out of place. Ruth had taken her own path through the maze of construction supplies. Annie could see the top of her head as she moved along a makeshift aisle.

  “Ruth? Are you finding anything?”

  No answer.

  “Ruth?”

  “You’d better come here.”

  Thirty-Five

  Annie hustled around a stack of two-by-fours to kneel beside Ruth. “What is it?”

  Ruth’s arm was wedged between piles of three-inch PVC pipes banded in sets of six. When she pulled it out, her hand gripped a neatly folded cloth. When Ruth unfolded it on the ground, Annie saw that it was a shirt—an Amish shirt. Between its layers was a small case holding four small chisels.

  “Joel’s shirt!” Ruth said softly.

  “Are you sure?”

  Ruth nodded. “I remember the fabric. It was the only time Mamm tried dyeing cloth herself. She wasn’t happy with the irregular color. She just made the one shirt. The rest went into quilts.”

  Annie fingered the fabric between thumb and forefinger. “The quilt on your bed has some of this.”

  “Right. Jacob’s quilt, too.”

  “I think these tools belong to Rufus.” Annie put the thought out of her mind that Beth Stutzman knew more about chisels than she did.

  Ruth nodded. “He uses them for fine work.”

  “He replaced the set the last time he went to the Springs because he couldn’t find it.” Annie put her hand under the shirt so she could take the tools without touching them, wondering if fingerprints could be lifted from steel. She was not taking any chances. She folded the shirt around the set again. “We can go now.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I have to talk to Joel.”

  “But Joel wouldn’t have anything to do with the explosion.”

  Annie saw the protest in her friend’s eyes, even in the dimness of the plastic shelter. “I’m afraid that remains to be seen.”

  Annie asked Ruth to drop her off at the end of the field where Joel was supposed to be working. Together they lifted the bicycle out of the Prius.

  “Shouldn’t I come with you?” Ruth said.

  “I think it’s less complicated if I go alone.”

  “Well, if you’re sure…”

  “Go on to the house,” Annie urged. “Your mamm will be glad to see you.”

  Ruth winced. “Not if I show up in a car.”

  “I told her I gave you my car.”

  “That’s different from seeing me actually driving it.”

  “You have to tell her eventually.”

  Ruth nodded. “Right now, though, I want to go find Elijah. Don’t tell anyone you saw me.”

  “Okay.” Annie reached out and squeezed Ruth’s hand. “Find a way to tell me how your talk goes.”

  Annie watched Ruth strap herself into the car and navigate carefully back to the road. Then she put the bundle in the basket on her bicycle and began to pedal across the field.

  She found Joel right where he was supposed to be, kneeling to inspect a row of alfalfa that would be ready for harvest in a few more weeks. He stood as she approached. Annie took the shirt from the basket and laid her bike down.

  Joel reached for the garment, and Annie moved it out of his grasp. “I’ll be curious to hear what you have to say about this.”

  “It’s an old shirt that Mamm gave to Edna for her boys,” Joel said. “I have nothing to say anything about it.”

  Annie opened the shirt and revealed the tools. “How can you not say anything about this?”

  “I am not accountable to you, Annalise.” His eyes hardened.

  “Would you rather explain this to the elders?” It was the worst threat Annie could think of at the moment.

  Joel was unflapped. “I asked you to trust me, Annalise. I thought you did.”

  “That was before a bomb went off, and before I found your brother’s missing tools.”

  “Why were you looking?”

  Annie pressed her lips together and blew her breath out her nose. “I was there, remember? I was the one who saw what happened to Karl Kramer. I was the one checking to see if he was breathing. That gives me some rights.”

  “Rights. Not very Amish of you.”

  “A man has been injured, Joel. Give me a reason not to go straight to the police with what I
suspect.” Annie wrapped the shirt around the tools and used the sleeves to tie a vicious knot.

  “Suspicions are all you have. What you need is a confession.” Joel put one hand on the bundle. “I will fix this. I just need a little more time.” He spread his fingers to take the shirt from her.

  She snatched it back. “How much time?”

  Joel looked up and swallowed hard. “Three days.”

  “Everyone hopes the police will get to the bottom of things before then. Including me.”

  Joel spread his hands. “I might not need three days. “

  “I don’t know if ultimatums are very Amish, either, but here’s the deal.” She untied the sleeve knot, opened the case, and removed the smallest chisel. “You get the shirt and the case. And three days. If you don’t fix this by Saturday, then I will.”

  The moment Ruth pulled off the highway onto Main Street, she regretted the decision to drive into town. Old habits tugged. In fine weather, she and Elijah used to walk into town on any errand they could scrounge up in exchange for the miles of conversation. In chill or damp, they took a buggy and often Jacob. Periodically they would turn their heads toward each other in shy smiles. Their mothers seemed not to mind the hours they spent together. And why should they? Ruth and Elijah were sixteen when they found the wideness of their common ground—old enough to think of marriage. If their mothers had known how often they spoke of life beyond Amish bonds, they might have been less generous in assigning errands in town.

  Ruth was startled by how much it pleased her to have a car. And a driver’s license. These possessions made this trip into town inaugural. Until Annalise’s gift of the Prius, Ruth never entertained car ownership. She still thought of herself as living plain. But now she would save hours every week by not having to arrange her life according to bus schedules, and she could go wherever she decided to go.

  And that was the very thing that made owning a car objectionable to her own people. Independence of will. Pride of ownership. Ruth gripped the steering wheel, determined that driving a car would enrich her life, rather than subsume it.

  She drove the length of Westcliffe’s primary street, turning around only when she reached the sign that welcomed her to the adjoining community of Silver Cliff. Even before she glanced at the dashboard clock, Ruth knew she had most of an hour before she was supposed to meet Elijah. She could not bring herself to get out of the car, though. If she spoke to anyone, the conversation would drive straight to awkward and complicated. The English shopkeepers would assume she was more like them now than she actually was. Amish neighbors would say nothing impolite, but their lips would press together in disapproval.