A Plain Disappearance (23 page)

“Sometimes I work at the shop. Nothing official.”

“What do you do there?”

“Just odd jobs when he needs help. I like working on cars.”

Tanisha cocked an eyebrow. “Does he pay you under the table?”

Jason ignored the question and concentrated on his oranges with renewed interest.

I took the orange from his hand. “Did Billy call you about a job?”

His shoulders sagged. “Yes. On Christmas, he called me. He wanted me to go to the Gundy’s old barn and dig up a box for him. He wanted me to go right then, but I couldn’t. It was Christmas. My mom would freak if I left the house, especially with my grandparents there. It’s my job to keep Grandma and Grandpa out of Mom’s kitchen on holidays.”

Tanisha pursed her lips. I knew that look. She was trying not to laugh.

“Did he tell you why he wanted you to dig up the box?” I asked.

Jason’s forehead crinkled. “He said that he was out of town and couldn’t get there, but he needed the box to be moved because there was important stuff inside.”

“Did you ask him what that important stuff was?”

“No.” He turned the color of a blood orange. “But I planned to open the box when I found it. I almost had it out, and then you two showed up.”

“Sorry to ruin your party,” Tanisha said.

I wasn’t sure what to believe about Jason’s story. Did he trust Billy enough to follow his directions without questioning him? Tanisha must have been thinking along the same lines because she asked, “How much was Billy going to pay you for this little errand?”

The pyramid of oranges was halfway back to its original height. “He didn’t pay me anything.”

Tanisha placed her hand on one hip and looked like a model with an attitude. “We know he didn’t pay you anything because you didn’t finish the job, but how much did he offer to pay you? You didn’t trudge across the snowy tundra and dig a hole into the frozen ground for free.”

Jason’s lips quivered. “He promised me five hundred dollars.”

Tanisha whistled. “I’d dig a hole for five hundred dollars. Where do I sign up?”

I elbowed her. “How were you going to deliver it to him?”

Jason sighed. “I was supposed to meet him at the wildlife reserve off of Route 13.”

That wasn’t too far from the factory where Billy had been hiding out. “Did you know where he was staying?”

Jason shook his head. When I talked to Billy later that day, I would see if Jason’s story held up. Hopefully, their stories would match. I moved on. “How did you know Katie?”

He set four oranges in a line. “We were friends.”

I folded my arms. “That’s pretty unusual for an Amish girl to be friends with an English boy, isn’t it?”

He shrugged a second time. “I guess.”

“How did you meet?”

He scowled. “None of your business.”

Tanisha gave him one of her most dazzling smiles. “Come on, Jason, we were doing so well. What difference does it make if you answer our questions about Katie now?”

He seemed to consider her question.

Tanisha repeated my question. “How did you and Katie meet?”

He straightened an orange on the pyramid. “She used to work at the cheese shop on the square and I saw her walk home every day from work. My family lives a couple of miles down the road from the Lambright farm, so one day it was raining really hard and I offered her a ride.”

“She accepted a ride from a stranger?”

Jason glared at Tee. “I wasn’t a stranger; I was her neighbor. We’d seen each other lots of times growing up.”

“Were your families friendly then?” I asked.

Jason flicked his dark eyes in my direction. “No. Her parents didn’t have much use for
Englischers
,” he said, mocking the Pennsylvania Dutch word for non-Amish.

“When did you offer her that first ride?” Tanisha asked.

His pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his thumb. “About two years ago. We chatted on the way home. She was really funny and friendly. Not like other Amish girls I’ve met or even most regular American girls. She was the first girl to take an interest in me.”

Tanisha pounced on that comment. “An interest in you? Like as a boyfriend?”

He fingered combed his hair over his glasses. “No. Katie would never have thought of me in that way. I wasn’t Amish.” His voice was laced with bitterness. He added two more oranges to his structure. “We were friends. That was it. After that first one, I gave her rides home a lot. We could talk about things, like what we both really wanted. Katie and I understood each other.”

“How did her family feel about you giving her rides if they didn’t like non-Amish people?” Tanisha asked.

He picked up the shopping basket I filled with oranges and began setting them one by one back into place. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “They didn’t know. Katie always had me drop her off out of sight of the farm even when the weather was really bad. Her dad is a tyrant and her stepmother is a terror. They would have never allowed Katie to ride in my car.” He frowned. “They’d rather she’d freeze to death on the side of the road.”

Tanisha moved her basket of oranges closer to Jason. “Do you think her parents would become angry enough to hurt her?”

“I—I don’t know.”

I shifted my feet. “How well do you know Caleb King?”

His eyes flashed as he straightened up. “He’s a jerk. I told Katie to break up with him. I knew if she married him, she’d be sorry. He’s just like her father.”

“What do you mean?” Tanisha asked.

Jason ignored her question. “Nathan was better for her.”

“You know Nathan?” I asked.

“No. I know what she told me.”

“What did she tell you about Caleb?”

He turned to me with eyes shining with tears. “What does it matter now? She’s dead.”

“Jason, that’s exactly why it matters.”

The woman at the cash register snapped her gum and glared at us. “Catcher, you think you’re on break or something? Stop flirting and get back to work.”

Jason’s face turned red. “I can’t talk to you anymore about this.”

I leaned forward so the clerk couldn’t hear me. “Can we talk another time?”

“No.”

“What about Anna?”

He stared at me. “Katie’s little sister?”

“Don’t you want to help her? She wants to know what happened to Katie. She asked me for help. What was Katie’s relationship with Anna?”

His mouth turned downward. “She loved Anna. Her sister was her whole world and the only reason she stayed in that awful house.” He shuddered. “The last thing Katie would have wanted would be to leave Anna alone with no one to protect her.”

“Protect her from whom?” Tanisha asked.

The cashier’s glare dug into the back of my neck.

Jason’s eyes flicked toward the cashier. “I’m done with my shift at three. If you want to meet me in the parking lot then, I’ll talk to you.”

“Thank you, Jason.” I pulled on Tanisha’s arm. It was time to go before Jason changed his mind.

Tanisha pulled a plastic bag from the turnstile and placed five oranges inside. “I’m ready to go.” She walked to the cashier to check out.

The cashier snapped her gum. “What are two pretty girls like you doing talking to that screw-up? He’s never had a girl look at him in his life.” She said this loud enough for everyone in the small market, including Jason, to hear.

Tanisha gave her one of her more brilliant smiles. “I think he’s cute.” She slapped a five on the counter. “That should cover the ruined oranges.”

Hiding a smile, I followed my best friend out into the parking lot.

Tee snorted as she zipped up her coat just outside of the automatic doors. “That woman was awful. I don’t know how Jason can work with her all day long.”

“He probably doesn’t have much of a choice. There aren’t many non-Amish jobs in Appleseed Creek.”

“That stinks that he can’t talk until three. I promised my mom that I would be on my way home by then. I’m kind of getting into this sleuthing thing.”

“We can make one more stop for you to exercise your detective skills on.”

She rubbed her hands together. “Are we going to question the boyfriend? He’s usually the main suspect.”

I shook my head. “We’re going to buy some cheese.”

T
anisha inhaled the earthy scent of the cheese shop. “I must buy some for my mom. She loves Amish cheese. It might make up for me coming down here and not spending every waking minute with the fam.” She picked up a basket and fell into line with the other English shoppers taste-testing the cheeses from the room-long, open-air coolers. “Horseradish.” She popped it into her mouth. “Wow, that has a kick.” She scooted closer to me. “Who are we looking for?”

“The girl stocking the mustard display.”

Tee whipped her head around and examined Debbie Stutzman, a tall and thin Amish girl with a slightly slumped posture, the kind often found in girls who wished they were shorter.

I poked her. “Can you be a little more subtle?”

“No need to be subtle. She already knows you’re here. She’s glaring at you. What did you do for her to dislike you so much?”

I sighed. “Got her arrested.”

“What?” Tee yelped.

“Shh, it’s a long story, and I’m not going to tell it to you here,” I hissed.

“Fair enough.” Tee started in Debbie’s direction. “I think Mom would like some Amish mustard too.”

I suppressed a groan and followed her.

Debbie crossed her bony arms. “What do you want?”

I wasn’t surprised by the cold reception, considering that the last time I saw Debbie she was being handcuffed and read her rights by Chief Rose.

When I didn’t answer right away, she said, “I know you’re not here to buy cheese.”

Tanisha shook her head. “We are. I’m making a gift basket for my mother. A belated Christmas gift. I have horseradish in here. What mustard do you recommend to go with that?”

Debbie appraised Tee with her small eyes. “I wouldn’t put any mustard with it. It has enough bite on its own.”

“You’re right about that,” Tanisha agreed.

“I see you have Amish Swiss in your basket. Our natural mustard will go well with that.” Debbie, now more relaxed, removed a four-ounce jar from the shelf.

“That’s not much,” Tee said.

“It will last you a long time. It’s not like mustard from the supermarket where you have to slather it on to taste it.” She opened the taster jar, dipped a tiny white plastic spoon into it, and then handed the spoon to Tanisha. “Try it.”

Tee placed the spoon in her mouth and her eyes watered. “Wow! Now that’s a kick.” Tee put two jars into her basket.

“Debbie, Tanisha is here to shop, but I want to talk to you about Katie Lambright.”

Debbie fixed a hair pin that was falling out of her prayer cap. “Are you wearing a wire today?”

I cringed. “No.”

“Is that police chief with you?”

I shook my head. “We heard that Katie worked here.”

Debbie’s expression was hooded. “She did, but she quit almost six months ago.”

Six month ago. Why hadn’t Jason mentioned that?

“Was she a friend of yours?” Tanisha asked while adding a jar of corn relish to her basket. At this rate her mother, who could not cook to save her life, would have a full Amish pantry.

Debbie glanced at her. She seemed more open to talk to Tee, and that was fine with me. I understood her hesitation around me. “We were friendly, but we weren’t close friends. Katie was always more interested in boys than in girlfriends. There was also a new Amish boy coming around the shop hoping to court her. She was a very pretty girl, so it’s no surprise. When word got around the county she had broken up with Caleb King, it was the worst. There wasn’t a moment of peace in the shop with all the hopeful young men dropping by. It didn’t last long though. She moved on to Nathan Garner within a few weeks.”

“Why did she quit?” Tanisha asked, taking the lead in questioning.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I told you we didn’t talk much unless it was about work, and there is only so much you can say about cheese. She worked here a long time, nearly five years.” She pushed her cart away from the mustard display and in front of the Colby and cheddar cheeses.

Tanisha sniffed a wedge of white cheddar. “Did she find another job?”

“I don’t know.” She stacked Colby cheese in a pile on a bed of plastic grass. “I always thought she left because of that
Englischer
who hung around the shop. He seemed to make her nervous.”

Jason.

“What was his name?” I asked.

Debbie shot me a dirty look. “I heard her call him Jason once.”

Tanisha added a small round of Colby to her basket. “Did she ever say anything about him?”

Debbie shook her head. “
Nee
, but most days when it was near to closing time, he waited for her outside in his car. She was always extra nervous when the
Englischer
was around. She became clumsy, dropping jars and baskets or tripping over her own two feet when he was outside.”

“Would she have confided in anyone here at the shop about him?”

She shook her head. “Like I said, she didn’t really talk to any of the ladies. She was quiet.”

Debbie straightened the cheddar on the bed of artificial grass. “Mr. Umble, who owns the cheese shop, got tired of the
Englischer
standing around outside of his shop. One day last summer he went out to confront the boy. He told him that he wasn’t allowed to park in front of the cheese shop anymore. Didn’t make much of a difference. The
Englischer
just moved his car to a spot by the square where he could continue to watch the store. It was unnerving. I didn’t like to go out there by myself when he was watching. Katie quit a week after that.”

Debbie peered into Tanisha’s basket. “You have some good stuff there, but have you tried the mint-chocolate cheese?”

Tanisha’s eyes glowed. “Mint-chocolate cheese? Tell me more.”

“Follow me.” Debbie led Tee across the room to the specialty sweet cheeses.

I stayed by the mustard. Debbie’s account of Jason wasn’t meshing with the awkward teen that Tanisha and I questioned at the market. Was he a goofy kid head over heels in love with an Amish girl? Or a crazy stalker? Had I been wrong about him? I hurried over to Debbie and Tanisha, my friend’s basket so full of cheese and other Amish foods she could barely lift it. Debbie grinned ear to ear as she rung up the sale.