A Plain Malice: An Appleseed Creek Mystery (Appleseed Creek Mystery Series Book 4) (27 page)

“
I saw Ephraim here Saturday morning when the tourists were here. Grandfather Zook saw him too.”

She jabbed her fists into the side of her tiny waist. “He didn’t poison those
Englischers
if that’s what you are trying to say.”

I held up a hand. “I wasn’t saying that.
”

She dropped her hands. “Oh.”

“Why was he here, if he and Anna want to keep their courting a secret?”

She started walking again. “I don’t know. I just know Anna was happy to see him.”

Ruth disappeared around the side of the barn.

I stomped
down the tuff of grass she had dug up with her toe. The case of Grandfather Zook’s mysterious noise was solved, but a murderer was still on the loose.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

That evening in my room at the inn, my phone beeped at ten thirty. It was a reminder it was seven thirty in California and time to call my father for our weekly talk.

“Hello, Chloe, your father h
as been waiting for your call,” Sabrina, my evil stepmother, answered.

I translated this from Sabrina speak to mean
, “You’re wasting my husband’s valuable time.” I hated it when she answered the phone for my father. I closed my eyes for a moment. “I’m glad to hear it. Can I talk to him?”

She sniffed.
“He’s finishing up a work email. He will be able to talk to you in a minute.”

Ahh, so it wouldn’t have matter
ed if I had called on time. As badly as I wanted to say that to her, I held my tongue. I was rebuilding my relationship with my father and whether I liked it or not—whether Sabrina liked it or not—that included my relationship with my stepmother.

“How are the kids?” I asked.

“They are very well, exceling in school. We just hired a new tutor. The company guarantees if the children complete their program, Brin and Blake will be accepted to the college they choose.”

“They
’re eight and six. How could the company make a promise like that?” As soon as I said it, I wished I could reach into the phone and pull the words back.

Sabrina took a quick intake of breath. “They have very high standards.
Higher than anything in Ohio.”

I rolled my eyes. It was a good thing Sabrina and I were
not in the same room. “I’m glad they’re doing so well. How is the house?”

“Thankfully, the remodel of the kitchen is finished. It looks like something right out of
Architectural Digest
. We’re moving onto the pool next by having it resurfaced and making it a salt water pool. It will be much easier for the pool boy to take care of.”

“Sounds great.”
I tapped my fingers on the bedspread.

“The next time you visit it will look like a whole new place.”

Every time I visited, their house looked like a new place. Despite being a beautiful multi-million dollar home in the San Diego area, my stepmother kept it in a constant state of remodeling. My father could have bought three more homes for as much as he’d put into that house.

“Here’s your f
ather,” she said.

Finally.

“Hello, Chloe,” my father’s voice came on the line. “How are you?”

Besides stuck on a bus with geriatric
and potentially murderous tourists and arguing with my former Amish boyfriend about a hypothetical house we will maybe own together some day, I’m good.

“Fine,” I said.

“And how is work?” he asked.

“Quiet. The semester ended last week. Graduation is over, and most of the students and faculty have gone home for the summer.”

“Will you have enough to keep you busy?”

“Plenty.”

He cleared his throat. “And Timothy? How is he?”

“Timothy
’s fine. His contracting business is booming.”

“
It’s good to hear construction is bouncing back after the recession. It’s doing quite well out here in California too. You might want to mention that to Timothy. He’d make a much nicer income here than he does in Ohio.”

Did my father want Timothy to move to California?

“That’s true, but the cost of living is higher out there too, and his entire family is here.”

“Yes, well, I would just mention it to him.”

Time to change the subject. “Sabrina told me about the new tutoring company for the children. She was very enthused about it.”

His breath caught. It wasn’t exactly a laugh, but was the closest
he’d ever come to one from something I’d said. “You know Sabrina. She’s passionate about the children’s future.”

“She’s a good mom,” I said, and it was true Sabrina guarded my half-sister and half-brother like a mother bear.

“That is kind of you to say.” He paused. “I know the two of you haven’t had the best relationship, but I hope it’s improving.”

“Little by little,” I said.

He laughed a real laugh. “That’s the most I can ask for.”

We chatted for a few more minutes and then said good-bye. I hung up thinking, “little by little” summed up my relationship with my father too.

I plugged my phone back into the charger when it binged, telling me I had an incoming Skype call. I answered it and Tee’s tiny face appeared on my screen. “I’ve been trying to Skype you for the last ten minutes. Why didn’t you answer?” she asked.

“
Weekly Dad call.”

“Oh right. I forgot you do t
hat on Sunday night. So how is dear old dad?”

“Fine.”
I smiled. Tee still held a grudge against my father for abandoning me after my mother’s death.

“An
d Sabrina the Suburban Witch?” She gave me a wicked grin.

I laughed. “She’s fine too. She
’s turning the pool into a salt water pool.”

Tee snorted.

“Why are you calling so late, or is it early? It has to be almost five in the morning there.”

“Four
, forty-five actually. I couldn’t sleep and figured you’d still be up.”

I sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed.
“You’ll be tired in the morning.”

She waved away my concern. “I’ll
have a double Italian espresso. It will make you lose the ability to blink.”

“Sounds terrific.”

“I love the stuff.” She leaned in closer to her laptop screen. “What’s wrong with you?”

“How can you tell anything is wrong with me over Skype?”

“Because I know you, that’s how. Spill. Dad stuff?”

“No.”

“Murder stuff?”

“To some extent, but it’s mostly
Timothy stuff.”

She jerked back from her screen.
“Don’t tell me you and golden boy are fighting.”

“We had a disagreement.” I went on tell her about our argument about the house Timothy wanted to buy.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, you’d better hold up there. Why are you talking about a house before you’re engaged?”

I came to Timothy’s defense. “He’s just being practical. It makes sense
he would want to talk to me about a house. If we were ever to marry, I’m going to live there too. He’s just thinking ahead.”

“You make it sound like you
’re planning a merger. Where’s the romance in that?”

She had a point.

“Before there is any more house talk, buggy boy better put a ring on it.”

“Okay
, Beyonce,” I drawled.

“And you had better get used to arguing with Timothy,” Tanisha said.

“Get used to it? Why?” I bit my lip.

“Because t
his won’t be the first thing you argue over. It’s just the start. What about kids?”

“Kids?
Who said anything about kids?”

She shook her finger at me.
“It’s something that will come up. Don’t the Amish have like forty-six children or something? You’d better find out about that too.”

“That’s a gross
exaggeration,” I said. “And I’m so not ready for that conversation.”

“
Get ready because if Timothy is talking house, the next stop is the cradle. And what about schooling for the kids?”

“There
’s only one school district in Appleseed Creek.”

“There are a lot of things you and Timothy need to know about each other before you’re off buying houses.
You get what I mean.”

I did.
Loud and clear. “I feel like you have just given me some of your Italian espresso. How will I sleep tonight?”

She leaned into the screen again. “Oh, rats, I upset you. I didn’t mean to do that.
Chloe, just talk to him. He loves you. Trust in that.”

“I know.”

She twirled a braid. “All this other stuff will work out.”

“I know.”

“Can we talk about crazed Amish murders now?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m much more comfortable with that topic.”

Chapter T
hirty

On Monday, the bus tour’s main event was a tour of Holmes County, which had the largest population of Amish in the world. Even with that in mind, I hurried to the college in the early morning to grab a few files from my office and to tell my staff, Clark and Miller, where I would be the next couple of days. As expected both men seemed unconcerned with my absence.

Our first bus stop in Holmes County was an Anabaptist education center which had a panoramic Amish and Mennonite history. It had been an educational stop for me as well as the tourists because although I had been in entrenched in Amish culture between Becky and Timothy, I knew little about how the religion began.

We were only there for an hour. Hudson was determined to keep on schedule today or even ahead of it. I couldn’t help but wonder if he had a reason to want to hurry back to the inn.

“Head ‘
em up, move ‘em out,” Hudson cried as the tourists shuffled in a single file back onto the blue tour bus.

“Does he think he’s running a cattle drive because I might take offense to being treated like a cow
.” Gertie, who stood next to me, stamped her three-prong cane on the ground.

Melinda
’s cheek twitched as if she physically bit down on her tongue to stop herself from saying something. “I’m sure it’s just an expression,” Melinda managed to say.

Gertie pointed her cane at Melinda. “You wouldn’t feel that way if he had a cattle prod.
”

Charles clutched his professional-grade camera in his hands. “I don’t
understand why that man wouldn’t let us take photographs of the panorama. What did he think we would do plaster them on the Internet? What difference would that make?”

Nadine rooted through her purse and came up with a tube of lipstick
. “The Amish don’t like photographs, dear.”

“If that guy was Amish, I’m an ancient Egyptian. He had a cell phone strapped to his belt.”

“He said he was Mennonite.” Nadine reapplied bright pink lipstick.

“I still think it wouldn’t have hurt him if I took on
e picture,” Charles groused.

His wife dropped the lipstick into her straw purse.
“You couldn’t have taken more than one. Photographs are your potato chips, honey.”

I glanced at the readout on my cell phone
, and worry gripped me. Time was running out. The bus would leave for Indiana on Wednesday morning.

“In a hurry to be somewhere
?” Doris asked.

I shook my head. “I’m just ch
ecking to see if we are on schedule.”

“We are,” Duke said. “We aren’t a second behind.
Hudson runs a tight ship.”

“What about Dudley?” I asked. “What was his…umm… ship like.”

Duke stuck out his lower lip while he considered my question. “He seemed like he was in a hurry too. I can’t say I got the impression either one of them enjoyed their work. Miss Chloe, you are a breath of fresh air. Thank you for joining us.”

Doris smiled at me one more time before her husband helped
her onto the bus.

These were my murder suspects. How could I imagine any of these people were devious enough to orchestrate a murder?

Through the bus window, Hudson watched me intently. Then again, they couldn’t be all innocent.

The bus tour’s next st
op was a cheese-making factory, and I’d hoped that I could talk to Hudson while in the factory. It was easier said than done. The pudgy Amish woman, named Mercy, leading the tour did not abide by foolishness.

“These are the rules we need go over
before the tour begins. There is no talking on the tour unless you would like to ask a question. In that case, raise your hand, and I will call on you.” She scowled at Fred and Nadine who whispered to each other about how to text their granddaughter from Nadine’s cell phone. “And no photographs or video are allowed during the tour.”