Upon A Winter's Night (19 page)

“Someone came into the restaurant?” Lydia asked, coming instantly alert and sitting up in the passenger seat.

“Actually, it’s our custodian at the Community Church, Nathan Hostetler. He’s about fortysomething, I guess. He’s not of your faith anymore, but he and his family turned Mennonite. He was around during our manger scene planning, and I just thought I’d ask him if he was related to a Lena Hostetler Brand from over near Amity. He is—was—her cousin. One of many, I take it.”

“You didn’t say more to him about that, did you?”

“Only made sure he’d be at the outdoor manger scene, because I thought you could talk to him there, so you wouldn’t have to make a big deal of going to his house, lying to your parents. And I knew you’d be too busy to look him up right away.”

“Ray-Lynn, you’re the best! I don’t know what I’d do without you and Josh.”

“Well, ding-dang. But somehow I know you don’t put us both just in the good-friends category. Lydia, what are you going to do about Gid Reich when all this smoke clears?”

“I’m going to make sure he understands we can be partners at the store until
Daad
recovers, but not in life.”

“It may not be that easy. You just be careful.”

“Don’t I know it, because Hank saw Gid walking around our house, though he did bring our buggies back and was probably just making certain things were secure. I need to bide my time with him—and everyone. Not jump to conclusions.”

“Such as that he was the one in your house? You know Jack and I will help.”

“
Ya,
and I’m so blessed by that. I want to find out, with the sheriff’s help, who it was. Then I’ll have to wait until it can be proved Sandra’s death was an accident. Ray-Lynn—it just had to be! And I need to get
Daad
healthy again so I can tell my parents I love them both but I need to know about my real parents. Sandra sent a voice message to Josh on Hank’s phone that said she had something else to tell me about my mother. It sounded like something bad—”

“Which mother?”

“My birth mother, of course, Lena Hostetler! That’s what Sandra was researching for me, even if she went about it the wrong way.”

But after so vehemently answering that question, Lydia agonized silently the rest of the way home. Sandra had sought out
Daad
at the store and somehow won him over, partly because of her admiration of his quilts, of course, partly because she didn’t tell him her real intentions.

But could she also have dared to meet with or question
Mamm?
And if so, was there any way she’d won her over, too? No, more likely Susan Brand would have reacted just the opposite, because
Mamm
had bad-mouthed Sandra when she, supposedly, hadn’t even met her.

19

A
lthough it was midafternoon with sunlight glaring off the snow and slanting through the windows when Lydia entered the barn to harness Flower, it suddenly seemed a dark place to her. Her parents would not want her to padlock it at night, yet what if the house intruder did something in here? Someone had unhitched and moved Flower when she was in Amity, and that would be easier in a dark barn.

She fed all three horses, putting a feed bag on Flower while she harnessed her. Same as last night, every little creak of wood, even the horses shuffling through straw, alarmed her. She could not and would not live in fear, she vowed, but her pulse still pounded.

As she led Flower outside pulling the buggy, then went back to slide the barn door closed, she thought of it. She was an idiot! Why hadn’t she remembered that before?
Daad
kept an extra house key on a hook at the back of the barn. Could someone have found that—used that? Gid and who knew who else had been in here just yesterday to bring the buggies home.

She went back inside, remembering again that someone strong must have taken Josh’s camel seat, followed her to Amity and unhitched Flower from her buggy the day she interviewed Mr. Raber about her birth father. Gid? Leo Lowe, whom the sheriff couldn’t find at his home last night? Surely not Connor.

But there was the key. Of course, it could have been used and returned. Oh, no. It was hanging on a big nail next to the hook where
Daad
kept it! Had it been used, moved, or could
Daad,
as distracted and ill as he’d been lately, have moved it himself? But he had keys to the house and store on a chain. And that chain had probably been left somewhere in his office when the emergency squad came to take him to Wooster.

She grabbed the key and stuck it in the top of her stocking. After closing the barn door, she rushed to her buggy, climbed up and giddyapped Flower away. She had to oversee more than the front desk at the store. She also needed to carefully, cleverly, keep an eye on her would-be come-calling friend, Gideon Reich.

* * *

“You’re up early, Sheriff,” Josh greeted Jack Freeman at the back door of his barn. At least he had knocked this time and not just walked in as if the place was under his ownership or control.

“More like I haven’t been to bed,” he said, scratching the stubble on his chin. “Knew if I did I wouldn’t get up. Slept in a chair and Ray-Lynn gave me holy hell for not coming to bed. Sorry to put it that way.”

“That’s okay,” Josh said. “But there’s Hell, and there’s what’s holy, and never the twain shall meet. Lately, though, it’s been more like Hell around here.”

“Got some more-or-less good news for you.”

They stood facing each other between the camel pen and the loft where Sandra had died. “I could sure use some of that,” Josh admitted as his hopes soared.

“Putting it in layman’s terms, the coroner’s official report will be that Sandra’s death was caused by a traumatic blow to her head and a broken neck. Probable cause—her head hitting the lower ladder rung, so that eliminates a blow to her head by a second party.”

Josh exhaled. “A tragic accident. I had nothing to do with it, or at least, I wasn’t there.”

“What’s that mean? ‘At least’ you weren’t there?”

“Indirectly, I might have been the reason she climbed up there. I think she wanted to prove to me that she was willing to come in the barn with the big animals. She’d been afraid of any animal much larger than cats since she was a kid. She told me once she’d accidentally fatally injured her brother’s puppy and everyone made a big deal of it, not thinking of her feelings. And then, once she was in the barn, she must have wanted to see the cat and kittens I’d mentioned to her—and somehow fell.”

“You’re a smart guy,” the sheriff said, “so help me with a couple of things. You mind if we sit down?”

“That’s fine. You can have the one chair I’ve got out here.”

“A hay bale will do,” he said, going over to Josh’s makeshift office and sinking onto one.

“Coffee? I brought some out. I’ve got cups.”

“Sure, thanks.”

Josh poured, hoping what was coming next wasn’t some complication to the so-called “good news” he’d just shared. Not wanting to tower over his guest, Josh sat on a hay bale, too, one a few feet away.

“You know what I’m gonna say?” the sheriff asked after he took a long sip of the coffee.

“That two women have died on my property by blows to their heads?”

“That, too. No, I’m thinking, even if Sandra fell and hit her head on the ladder, that would not have been enough to make it come loose from its moorings considering the way you had it nailed down. The ladder must have been wrenched or the nails removed to come away from the loft like that.”

“Maybe when she fell, she grabbed the ladder and pulled it loose.”

“Then took a header into the bottom rung? Like you say, maybe. With her injuries, she must have fallen headfirst, and it’s still hard for me to picture her not clinging to the loft or ladder, then falling feetfirst, unless she was pushed. A broken leg maybe, but not a broken neck.”

He drained his coffee cup. Josh was amazed the man could drink coffee that hot straight down.

Staring at Josh again, the sheriff continued, “Her head hitting the lowest rung clears up any worries about your flashlight being involved. That brings up another problem for me, though.”

“Sheriff, if you can take fingerprints off the wood of that rung, of course my fingerprints would be on it, but yours would be, too.”

“I’m not talking about that. That rung had traces of her blood on it.”

“Blood? I didn’t see any blood on it. Did you? We both handled it.”

“Nope, but that’s why I have the BCI forensic guys involved. Under a powerful microscope, the blood—a match to her blood—showed up on that rung. Now, here’s the kicker, Josh,” he said, leaning closer, elbows on his knees, his empty cup dangling in his big hands. “You and I didn’t see any blood on it—and I got scolded for how carelessly we’d handled that piece of evidence—because the traces were in the grain and cracks of the wood. Someone had tried to wipe wet blood from that rung and drove it into the crevices, and since I don’t think it was the victim—yeah, the victim—I think we still got us a case of possible murder. And if Sandra Myerson was murdered by a blow to the head, or being shoved out of the loft headfirst, maybe more than an icy cold gate caused Victoria Keller’s death, too.”

“But nothing links those women!” Josh protested, realizing he was getting loud again, angry, feeling trapped.

“Other than they were both on your property, got to agree with that. For now, at least.”

Trying to keep calm, Josh told him, “But there were no other footsteps in the snow, like someone had been following Victoria.”

“True, but the falling snow and strong wind could have obscured some of that. However, we do have Lydia’s footprints coming up behind her and then a lot of yours when you went out to help. So anyway, the coroner’s ruling is accidental death—again, just like Victoria’s. But I gotta admit, I’m not willing to let it go, and if you cared for Sandra, which your mutual friends in Columbus say you did, you won’t let it go, either. You’ll help me find the truth.”

You’ll help me find the truth.
The sheriff’s parting words rang in his ears. But he was terrified the sheriff’s version of the truth could still be focused on him.

* * *

Lydia knew she’d have to tread carefully to find the truth about Gid. She already knew he’d been walking around the outside of her house. He had been in her barn. He coveted this business and perhaps wanted her as his ticket to owning it in the future. But could all that have anything to do with Sandra’s death? Since she seemed to have talked to so many people, could she have talked to Gid, maybe let on she was investigating whether Lydia’s parents really were her parents, so he’d wanted to shut her up? After all, if Lydia was not the true heir, how would Gid solidify his future claim to the store? She knew he wanted to own, not just manage it for Lydia if she married someone else.

One of their young shop apprentices, Amos Getz, was in the horse shed at the store and took care of unhitching Flower for her, so she hurried inside. It took her a while to get through the shop, where she announced
Daad
’s
 
good progress and accepted the well wishes and promises of more prayers from everyone.

To give herself some time to get her courage up before facing Gid, she went directly to her father’s office. She was both annoyed and panicked to see Gid sitting behind
Daad
’s
 
desk.

“Oh, Gid. Why aren’t you in your own office? Can’t you run things from there?”

“Lydia! I didn’t know you would make it in today,” he cried, popping up and coming around the desk. “I’ve been back and forth—needed some things he had here.”

She stood her ground, one hand on the door, barely outside it, hoping that barrier and her sticking to the public hall would keep him from hugging her.

“He’s doing as well as can be expected,” she told him, not budging, so he stopped a few feet from her. “He’s talking. I’m still not sure when they’ll release him.”

“And your mother’s staying with him?”

No way was she going to let this man know she might be alone again tonight. “That’s not decided,” she lied. “Ray-Lynn’s coming over tonight.” That, at least, was true, Lydia thought as she walked past him and sat in her father’s big chair herself. The sheriff was coming to look at the things disturbed in her house, and Ray-Lynn said she’d come, too.

“Oh, good,” he said, but he didn’t sound sincere. Yet that might just be because most Amish did not have close
Englische
friends, and certainly not the sheriff’s wife. “But, aren’t you going to the front desk where you can keep an eye on the store? I have everything under control here.”

“I’ll help Naomi on the desk when I can, but, of course, while my father’s away, I’ll be keeping an eye on things in his office also.”

“When he talked to you at the hospital, he suggested that?”

“He expects me to report in to him—about everything.”

She leveled the calmest, coldest look she could at him. He almost flinched. He did seem especially nervous, didn’t he?

“We’ll have to work together more closely than ever,” was all he said. “Now, I’ve got things to do.”

She breathed a huge sigh when he walked out. She looked down at the file drawer open in the desk. If he’d come in here for something, why did he just walk away without it now?

She leaned closer to look at the file he’d partly pulled out. Accounts payable—nothing unusual there. But she noticed another desk drawer was also ajar and pulled it open. She gasped. A kind of junk drawer, though one neatly arranged. But something stood out. Amidst the tidy compartments of paper clips, stamps, pens and business cards,
Daad
’s
 
chain with his keys—for the store and the house—had been hastily dropped or thrown here, and hardly in its proper place, an empty section of this big, clear plastic organizer. Had Gid been looking for these, or was he putting them back?

Lydia carried the keys when she went out into the store, jingling them to make sure that Gid saw she had them as she passed him chatting with a salesman. She had no intention of letting this chain out of her sight any more than the key from the barn that she had hidden in the top of her stocking.

* * *

Lydia had just finished talking to Naomi about any problems she’d had at the front desk. And, even without Gid’s consent, she’d promised her a small raise for running the front desk without Lydia until
Daad
returned.

She also had subtly learned that Isaac Gerber, one of the men who had helped Gid drive the Brand buggies back to their barn, and who had eyes for Naomi, had said that before Gid drove the three men back here in his buggy, he had returned to the barn alone and then walked around the house, looking in windows to check that everything was all right.

Lydia was planning to personally thank—and carefully quiz—all three men who had accompanied Gid by driving a Brand buggy that day. But as she worked her way toward the back of the store, she heard the front door open and a familiar voice.

Bess Stark was here.

“I see the sign on the front door about customers only.” She was evidently talking to Naomi. “But for a place of business that’s discriminatory at best, illegal at worst.”

Naomi’s voice. “It was just to keep the media people out, then we forgot to take it down.”

“Much as we’d all love to keep them away, freedom of speech and all that, my girl. Freedom of religion, too, that’s the best part for your people. But I think you’d better take that sign off the door. Oh, Lydia, there you are! I’m so sorry to hear the latest. And if that sign is company policy and you intend to toss me out, I came in to buy a gun-rack cabinet for Connor for Christmas.”

The entire place seemed to be brighter with Bess here. Although Lydia saw Gid heading toward them, she indicated Bess should come with her and took her around the other way.

“I came in the back and forgot Gid had put that sign up,” Lydia told Bess as Naomi scurried toward the front door. “Thanks for sending Connor over to check on me. Let me show you the cabinets you’re interested in.”

“But let’s talk first things first. How is your father? Connor said a heart attack but improving?”

“Ya,”
she told her friend as they walked toward the back of the store, winding their way through the larger dining room pieces and kitchen cabinets. “The doctor put in a stent and is changing his medications, I think.
Mamm
’s
 
staying with him. I got the idea he’ll be released fairly soon but will need a lot of downtime.”

“Ah, downtime. What’s that, right? I’ll bet you’ll be especially busy here now. Any time left to work with Josh’s animals—and the male animal?”

Bess’s eyes seemed to twinkle. For the first time in days, Lydia smiled. “I’m helping him as best I can, especially when he goes out with a menagerie for a Christmas pageant. We’re helping Ray-Lynn Freeman put on her church’s living crèche scene next week. It will kind of, as Ray-Lynn says, kick off the Home Valley holiday season, though your trees have set the mood, too.”