A Plain Disappearance (17 page)

Jason paled. “Who said anything about going to prison?”

“Whoever killed Katie is going to jail,” I said.

“I told you already—it wasn’t me.”

I crossed my arms and cocked my head. “Tell us about your relationship with Katie Lambright.”

“This has nothing to do with Katie!” he bellowed.

Tanisha put a hand over one ear. “Geez, kid, there’s no reason to break the sound barrier.”

“Katie was your friend, wasn’t she?” I asked.

He glanced away, and tears sprang to his eyes. “She was my best friend.”

Tanisha stuck a hand on her hip. “Your best friend was an Amish girl?”

A tear slid down Jason’s nearly frostbitten cheek. “Please give me my wallet, so I can go home. I knew I shouldn’t have come here.”

I held out the wallet to Jason and he ripped it from my hand. Without a backward glance he took off and ran across the field.

“Why did you give it to him?” Tanisha asked.

“Because it was his, but I didn’t give it all back.” I waved Jason’s student ID at Tanisha before slipping it into my pocket. “The chief will be able track him down with this. I’ve seen her in action. It’s impressive. We did have an important victory here.”

Tanisha jumped from foot to foot. “What is that?”

“He left whatever he was digging up in the barn.”

Tanisha let out an excited gasp and ran for the barn door. “Let’s go see what it is.”

Inside, we stared into the two-feet-deep hole in the barn’s dirt floor. “It’s some kind of safe-deposit box,” I said. “Help me pull it out.”

We dropped to our knees on either side of the box, reached inside the hole, and tugged.

“This thing weighs a ton,” Tanisha complained.

I agreed, but focused on the task before us. “On the count of three. One, two, three!” We yanked the box from the frozen earth, wrestling it out of its hole, and set it on the ground.

Tanisha blew out a long breath. “Is this how the Amish bank? By burying their wealth, underground?”

“I’m not sure this belongs to an Amish person.” With my glove, I wiped dirt away from the box’s latch and lifted it. It stuck at first, but then gave way.

“I guess whoever buried it didn’t think that it needed a lock underground,” Tanisha said.

I lifted the heavy lid and peered inside. A folded cotton sheet covered the contents. I found a windshield wiper in one of the milk crates and used it to move a piece of the cloth back to reveal a framed photograph and a wad of money held together with a rubber band.

“Are those hundred-dollar bills?” Tanisha asked.

I nodded.

She reached for the money with her bare hand.

I grabbed her wrist. “Don’t touch it.”

Tanisha pulled back. “I would guess that’s at least a thousand dollars.”

“If they are all hundred-dollar bills, it’s a whole lot more than that.” I knelt for a closer look at the photograph without picking it up. It was a picture of a middle-aged woman and man. In between then was a younger, thinner version of a man I recognized. “That’s Billy,” I said. “The guy I told you the police were looking for.”

“Why would he bury all this?”

“I guess he wasn’t really ready to give up his old life, the one he had before he went to prison.” I sighed. “I wish there was some clue in here about where he may have gone. He might lead us to Katie’s killer.”

“He might
be
Katie’s killer,” Tanisha said. “This time capsule, or whatever it is, is giving me the creeps.”

“Why didn’t he come here first to collect this before he fled?” I wondered aloud. My fingers had gone numb from the cold. Slowly, I stood up. “We’ve got to take this box with us.”

“Isn’t that tampering with evidence? You know they show old
CSI
episodes on television in Italy too.”

“If we don’t, Jason might come back and take it, and Chief Rose needs this for the case.” I removed my cell phone from my pocket, and speed-dialed the chief’s number. Again, I got voice mail. We couldn’t sit around all day until she decided to check her phone, and I didn’t believe this merited a 911 call. “She’s not answering. We have to take it with us.”

Tanisha shook her head. “We can carry it a few feet, Chloe, but not a mile. It will take forever.”

I spotted a piece of metal—sheeting from a car door. All the innards of the door had been removed. I tapped it with my boot and it moved easily. “Let’s put the box on this piece of metal.” Tanisha helped me hoist the box onto the old car door.

Inside one of the milk crates, I found several large bungee cords.

“What are you going to do with those?” she asked.

“Watch.” I secured the box to the sled with one set of bungee cords. Then used two more bungees to make pulls on either side of the car door.

“What is it?” Tanisha asked.

I handed her one of the pulls. “A sled.”

“Wow,” Tanisha said. “You’ve really gone country. That or you’ve been watching a lot of
MacGyver
reruns. We get those in Milan too. If I needed to, I could make a small bomb with a paperclip and gum.”

I pulled the makeshift sled toward the door. “Let’s hope that particular skill does not become necessary.”

W
e stepped into the Appleseed Creek Police Department and set the box on the floor. Tanisha glanced around the sparse room. “They could use a decorator in here,” she whispered.

The door that led into the interrogation room opened and Chief Rose stepped out. “Sorry I missed your call. I was in the middle of a traffic stop.” She pointed at the box. “What do you have for me, Humphrey?”

“Something Billy left behind.”

She narrowed her eyes, which were outlined in bright blue. “You mean Walter.”

“It’s simpler to call him Billy. That’s who he is to us.”

She shrugged and glanced at Tanisha. “Who is this?”

“This is my friend, Tanisha. She’s visiting from Italy.”

The chief raised an eyebrow. “You’re Italian?”

Tanisha shook her head. “I’m teaching over there. Love your eyeliner, by the way.”

“Thanks,” the chief drawled. “Did Walter leave this gift for me?”

I shook my head and told her how Tanisha and I found the box. Then I handed her Jason’s college ID.

She arched an eyebrow. “He gave this to you?”

Tanisha suppressed a smile. “We borrowed it for you.”

Chief Rose snorted and knelt by the box. She pulled a pair of latex gloves from her pocket, and as she slipped them on said, “I would have preferred you leave the box there and hang around until I had showed up. This evidence has now been compromised.”

I flushed. “We thought that he would come back and take it.”

The chief scowled and picked up the wad of money with a whistle. “Looks like this was Walter’s getaway stash. He must have buried it in the Gundy barn when he first moved to Appleseed Creek.”

“Why didn’t he take it with him before he disappeared?” I asked.

Chief Rose stood and leaned against the side of the desk. “There are a couple of possibilities. Either he didn’t leave of his own free will or he was too spooked by finding or killing Katie Lambright.”

“Do you really think he did it?”

The police chief sat at her receptionist’s desk and flipped Jason’s ID on the desktop. It spun until it came to rest in the middle of the flat surface. “I think he could have and that’s enough for me.”

“How does Jason know Billy?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” the chief said, “but I’ll be sure to ask him.”

“Are you going to arrest him?” Tanisha asked.

Chief Rose leaned back in her chair. “For digging a hole?”

“For trespassing.”

“Then I would have to arrest everyone who goes out to that old barn.” She eyed me. “Including Troyer, Humphrey . . . and you.” She stood up and removed her gloves. “I need to take this over to the sheriff’s department. Maybe one of the techs can pull a fingerprint off the box.” She examined us. “Did either of you touch any of this?”

“We wore gloves,” Tanisha said.

She nodded. “Smart girls. What else do you have for me?”

I swallowed. “Katie was courted by a couple of Amish guys—Caleb King and Nathan Garner. Caleb was upset when she started dating Nathan.”

“I know that. Humphrey, I gave you this assignment to find out stuff I didn’t know.”

I frowned.

She sighed. “I’m not saying that you did a bad job. Thanks for the box. Next time you find something, wait for me. I will come to you.”

Tanisha and I walked out of the police department. “Is she always like that?”

I laughed. “Yep.”

“Where to now? Food? Crime fighting makes me hungry.”

“I know just the place to take you.”

Twenty minutes later, Tanisha burst out laughing when we turned into the parking lot at Young’s. “What’s so funny?” I asked.

“This restaurant is
enormous
. Are you sure it doesn’t have its own zip code? My friends in Italy always say how huge things are in America and I guess they’re right. I notice it more now.” She rolled down the window, allowing the cold winter air to circulate inside the Bug. “Look at all those buggies. Aren’t they charming? I have to take some photos. My friends in Italy will love them.”

“Be careful not to take pictures of the Amish themselves. They don’t like it. Or if you take a photograph, don’t let them see you.”

She nodded.

I drove around to the back of the building. “Where are you going?” she asked. “Wasn’t the entrance in the front?”

“It is, but Ellie, the owner, lets the Troyer family park by the kitchen in the back.”

She smirked. “She lets the Troyer family, and you are counted in that number. You still think you and Timothy aren’t serious?”

I ignored her question and parked my Bug a few feet away from Sparky standing in front of Grandfather Zook’s buggy. “Hey, Spark,” I said as we passed him.

Tanisha threw a glance over her shoulder. “You’re friends with the horses too?”

I laughed.

Instead of walking through the kitchen, I led Tanisha to the side door by the office entrance. I knew that would be closest to the hostess stand where we would most likely find Ellie.

We walked down the short hallway past the offices and restrooms. A group of English tourists who waited for their table played checkers on a white wooden table between matching rockers. Others read Amish Country brochures in front of the burning fireplace. Although an Amish home would not have a Christmas tree, a simply decorated one stood in a corner next to the fireplace. The only ornaments were handmade bows and silver glass balls. Naomi and Thomas stood in front of the Christmas tree examining each ornament with studied attention.

Grandfather Zook sat on a rocker closest to the hostess station. He stacked his metal braces against the wall behind him. “Chloe, we have been waiting for you,” he said. “Becky told us that you had a friend visiting.”

“Grandfather Zook, this is Tanisha.”

Tanisha held out her hand to the older Amish man, and he clasped it between his two wrinkled ones. “It is
gut
to meet you. Chloe has spoken about you and your family many times.”

Tanisha smiled her dazzling, white smile. “Every time she e-mails me she writes about your family.”

“E-mail? Yes, I know this is some computer mail. I prefer a letter, which you can keep and save.”

“When I arrive back to Italy, I will send you a letter then.”

“Oh, make it a postcard. I would love to see a picture of where you live.” Grandfather Zook winked at me. “I bring in the mail every day, which is a
gut
thing. Who knows what my son-in-law would think about me getting mail from Italy.” He let go of her hand. “You say Chloe writes about us, but she must mention Timothy the most?”

A blush worked its way up my neck. Between Tanisha and Grandfather Zook I would have no rest from the teasing.

Tanisha leaned toward Grandfather Zook. “She talks about him all the time.”

I placed my hand on the back of Grandfather Zook’s rocker. “Okay, okay, you two. I’m standing right here.”

The hostess stand was only a few feet away. Ellie returned from seating an English couple and dropped a stack of menus into a holder on the side of the podium. The line to be seated was nearly to the front door. “Your table should be ready in one minute,” she said to the next couple. “They are bussing it now.”

The couple thanked her, and Ellie caught sight of Tanisha and me standing by Grandfather Zook. “Chloe, I have been holding Joseph’s table for twenty minutes. What took you so long?”

Tanisha raised her brow at me. With so many tourists and Amish in close eavesdropping range, I couldn’t really say anything about Jason, the box, or our conversation with Chief Rose. “We got held up. I’m sorry.”

Ellie sniffed and placed her hands on either side of her hips. “Held up. This is an
Englisch
problem, I see.” She had on the same blue dress worn by all of the women on her staff—even the English ones—and a black apron with “Young’s Family Kitchen” embroidered on the hip pocket. Her steel gray hair was parted in the middle and tied back at the nape of her neck in the Amish style. “Who is this?” She nodded toward Tanisha.

“Ellie, I’d like you to meet my good friend, Tanisha.”

Ellie inspected Tanisha from head to toe.

Tanisha shot me a nervous glance. I smiled back. Ellie could be pushy, but she was harmless.

Ellie nodded as if she had decided something. “If you are a friend of Chloe’s, you are a friend of mine. You look a bit thin. I hope you came here to eat.”

“I did. I’m starving. Chloe said that this was the only place to go.”

Ellie nodded with satisfaction. “That is the truth.” Then it was my turn to be scrutinized. She watched me, curiously. “I heard you’ve made another unpleasant discovery. How are you holding up?”

The last person I found in Katie’s condition was Ellie’s thirty-year-old son, Elijah. His death was only a month ago and I knew the pain was still raw for Ellie, as well as Uriah, Elijah’s identical twin. “I’m okay. How are you?”

“It comes and goes.
Gott
gave me much work to do, which is a blessing. My mind wanders when my hands are still.”