Suspendered Sentence (An Amish Mystery) (29 page)

She willed herself to breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out . . . When she was steady enough to speak, she took control of the conversation before her mind started traveling through bridal magazines. “And if it turned out to be nothing? And what you’d always believed proved to be right in the end?”

“Then nothing really changed.”

Chapter 28

C
laire tried not to think of the smell of her aunt’s famed pot roast as she drove down the driveway and back onto Lighted Way. The pull to stay and sample had been strong, but, in the end, the need to get behind the wheel for a little alone time had been stronger.

From the moment she’d hung up the phone with Jakob she’d been gripped by an anxiety she hadn’t been able to pinpoint. She’d tried several times to figure it out, but short of little things here and little things there, nothing justified her unease.

There was no doubt the lack of punishment for Miriam, Leroy, and Michael ate at her insides. It wasn’t that she had a burning desire to see them live out their remaining days in a jail cell, because she really didn’t. Not when she considered the pain and suffering such a sentence would inflict on their family members—people who were no more deserving of pain than Sadie’s parents and siblings. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that they needed some sort of punishment for deciding what a young girl’s family should and shouldn’t know.

And then there was the whole thing about Elizabeth . . .

She hated the thought of Jakob tossing a theory like murder into Ben’s lap fourteen years after the fact. Somehow, it seemed almost cruel, like prying open a thinly scabbed wound just to pour a tablespoon of salt inside.

If the salt was needed, that would be different. But until they knew whether Elizabeth was murdered for sure, she just didn’t think it was worth telling Ben.

Turning west, she headed through town, the gas lanterns along Lighted Way guiding her past Heavenly Treasures and its neighboring shops. A fine spray of gravel shot up from her tires as she piloted the car onto the road that would wind her through Amish country. Where she was going, she had no idea. She just knew she needed some time away, time to clear her head.

The road curved every so often as it traversed trees and fields. She turned the steering wheel with each bend and mentally ticked off the Amish farms that she passed. It was a silly thing to do, really, but it had become a routine.

King.

Lapp.

Stoltzfus.

Lehman.

Hochstetler.

Another Lapp.

Hersh—

She shifted her foot to the brake as she came around the corner and spied a familiar outfit moving along the edge of the dusk-filled road.

Annie . . .

Pushing the button on her door handle, Claire lowered the passenger-side window and pulled to a stop beside the teenager. “Hey, Annie, want a lift the rest of the way?”

“Yah, I would enjoy that very much.” Annie pulled the car door open and sat in the seat, her smile wide but tired. “Some days that is a very long walk.”

“Mine is less than half as long and sometimes
I’m
tired by the time I get home.” She waited as Annie fastened her seat belt before pulling onto the road once again. “Sorry I didn’t come along before you were this close to home.”

“That is okay. I do not mind. It is still less walking.”

“That it is,” she said, laughing. She turned the wheel to the right and followed Annie’s driveway as it bumped along between a line of trees.

A quick gasp from Annie’s side of the car was followed by a hand on Claire’s upper arm. “Could you turn, please? I . . . I should stop at Eva’s house. To check on the baby . . . and the other children, too.”

Claire stopped the car halfway up the driveway and turned to look at Annie, the girl’s sudden stiffness and lackluster eyes a study in extremes compared to her demeanor less than three minutes earlier. Confused, Claire took in the farmhouse and the single buggy waiting outside. “Is that your father?”

“No. He is not home yet.”

“Then who is that man sitting in that buggy?” she asked.

“The Pest.”

“Ahhh. Say no more.” She K-turned her way back out of the driveway and turned west again, their new destination little more than a quarter of a mile ahead on the right.

As they passed the heavily wooded lot that separated Annie’s home from her sister’s, Claire stole a glance in the teenager’s direction. Annie was sitting ramrod straight in her seat with her head turned toward the trees. “I do not know why he cannot stay on his own land. I do not know why he must always come one way or the other.”

“Who? Leroy’s father?”

“Yah.”

“Where does he live?” she asked.

Annie answered with the point of her finger, the gesture guiding Claire’s focus off her employee and toward the woods. “He lives in the woods?”

“He has fields, too. But you must first drive through trees to get to his house.” Shifting her finger left, Annie indicated a narrow gravel lane Claire had never noticed. “I do not know why he has a house when he is always at mine . . . or Eva’s.”

They drove on, Annie’s body noticeably relaxing as her sister’s driveway grew nearer. “You really don’t like that man, do you?”

“I try not to have such feelings. I know it is not right. But I cannot help it. He is a mean man. He tries to do Dat’s job but he does not do it well.” Annie’s voice broke off only to pick back up with a shrillness that hinted at impending tears. “Sometimes, I think he forgets that we live in
God’s
world.”

“How do you mean?”

“When I do not tie my kapp strings, I do not answer to Josiah. I answer to God.”

“But I thought that was how the Amish do things. That shunning or excommunication or whatever is carried out by the Amish themselves.”

“By
everyone
, yah. Not by one man,” Annie whispered fiercely. “Josiah judges alone.”

Claire pulled her right hand from the steering wheel long enough to find and squeeze one of Annie’s. “Let’s not give that man another thought for the rest of the evening, okay?”

“I will try.” When the car left the main road and turned up Eva’s drive, Annie brightened. “You should come inside, Claire. Eva would like to meet you, and the baby is very sweet.”

“I’d love to.” Five towheads came running from their various locations around the yard as Claire parked beneath the same tree she had the first time. “I think you should go inside and check though, okay? Just in case your sister is tired or the baby is sleeping.”

“If the baby is sleeping, he will sleep. That is not a reason to stay outside.”

She smiled at Annie. “Just check, okay?”

Annie began to protest but stopped, shrugged, and stepped from the car. “You do not have to stay in the car while I check. That would be silly.”

“We can’t have that, now, can we?” Claire dropped the car key into her purse and pushed open the door to find five smiling Amish children lined up to greet her. “Well, hello there. It’s very nice to see you all again.” Then, with a concerted effort to put the right name to the right little face, she extended her hand to each and every child from tallest to smallest. “Samuel . . . Mark . . . Joshua . . . Mary . . . and Katie.”

Mary’s smile widened and was quickly followed by a slight jump and a finger that pointed toward the barn door. “And that is Dat!”

Leroy’s hand rose into the air in a wave before turning into more of a shooing gesture directed at his brood. “It is time to go inside and wash up for dinner. Tell your mamm I will be along soon.”

She watched as each child spun around on bare feet and made a beeline for the farmhouse, their exuberance and joy as evident as it had been two days earlier. “They’re precious, Leroy. Absolutely precious.”

“Please. Come. Let us talk.” He jerked his hatted head toward the inside of the barn and waited for Claire to join him. When she did, he led her toward the horse stalls in the back. “I thank you for listening yesterday. I should not have kept that secret. It was wrong.”

She met his gaze and held it. “Yes. It was.”

“I shared with Eva what I have done. I told her while the children slept last night. She cried.”

“I’m sure it was a shock to hear after all these years.”

He nodded. “That is what she said.”

“And your father? How did he react?”

Leroy’s jaw tightened. “He will know tomorrow. When I repent at church.”

“Will you be shunned?”

“I will ask for forgiveness for I know I have done wrong. I know this now, as I knew then. But now I am older. I am a father. I understand in different ways now.”

Unsure of what to say, she nodded and then pointed to a baby horse in the corner of a nearby stall. “That makes two babies on the farm, I see.”

“Three, actually. There is a cow, too. But the horse and the cow are much bigger than Melvin.”

Her answering laugh went a long way in dispelling any tension between them and she was glad. She didn’t agree with what Leroy had done or the apparent lack of justice for his part in what happened to Sadie, but there was no getting around the fact she liked the man. He was kind and gentle.

“What is his name?” She wandered over to the waist-high pen and took a moment to soak up every detail of the colt—his wide eyes, his long lashes, and his spindly legs.

Leroy came and stood beside her, prompting the colt to approach. “Samuel thinks we should call him Trip. Because that is what he did when he was born.”

“Trip is cute.”

“But Katie calls him
Big
Baby.”

“Big Baby, huh?” She leaned her upper body over the wall and tried to pet the colt, but the animal jumped back. “Oh . . . hey . . . I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“You would like to pet the horse?”

“I’d love to but I think he is afraid of me.”

“He will come back.” Leroy said quietly. “He is curious and thinks we are all like him.”

For several long minutes they simply stood there, watching the colt as he nuzzled his mother and stopped, periodically, to peek at them. Eventually, he took a step closer to them, his eyes inquisitive.

“Now, hold out your hand. He will nuzzle you. Perhaps he will even move his mouth on you as he does his mother.”

She did as she was told and allowed Leroy to fine-tune her positioning. “Okay . . .”

“Now, hold still and wait. He will want to see and smell.”

Sure enough, the horse’s ears pricked up, his nose lifted, and he took a few tentative steps in Claire’s direction. “Ohhh, he’s coming,” she whispered.

“Keep holding. Do not move.”

The colt brought his mouth down to Claire’s hand and, sure enough, sniffed and suckled at her fingers. After a moment, Leroy took hold of the underside of her hand and guided her palm to the side of the colt’s head. Together, they petted him.

“He is so soft . . . so sweet.”

A cough from the front of the barn made her glance over her shoulder. “Oh, hi, Annie. I just got to pet a baby horse for my very first time.”

Annie stared down at the toes of her boots but said nothing.

“Annie?”

“It is time for dinner, Leroy.”

She looked at the horse one last time and then hurried across the barn as Leroy double-checked the colt’s stall door. “Annie? Are you okay?”

“I did something wrong but I do not know what,” Annie murmured.

“What are you talking about?”

“The Pest. He was just here. Standing right there.” Annie pointed to a spot on the drive not far from where they stood. “His back was to me when I came out of the house. I thought it was Leroy who was looking into the barn, but it was not. It was The Pest.”

“Did he say something to upset you again?”

“He said nothing.”

Claire guided the girl’s chin upward until their eyes met. “Then I don’t understand.”

“When he heard me on the porch steps, he turned and looked at me. He was angry, very very angry.” Annie’s hands flew up to her kapp and its strings, and then moved nervously down the front and sides of her dress and apron. “I have never seen such anger. Such”—she stopped, swallowed, and tried again, her voice muted by fear—“such
hate
.”

“Where is he now?”

“Look close. His buggy is almost to the road.”

Claire stepped around the corner of the barn in time to see Josiah Beiler turn left onto the main road, his horse and its buggy moving at a good clip.

“He didn’t say anything to you?”

“He did not have to. His eyes said enough.”

She returned to Annie and pulled her in for a hug. “Based on what I saw Thursday night, if he’d had something to say to you, he would have said it. So put him out of your mind and enjoy your dinner with your sister and Leroy and the children.”

“Will you come see the baby?”

She glanced between Leroy in the barn and the open doorway of the farmhouse and politely declined. “Another time. When you’re not getting ready to sit down to eat.”

“Please. Eva will be upset if you do not come inside. I will set a plate at the table and you can join us for dinner.”

Chapter 29