Upon A Winter's Night (21 page)

Lydia realized she was gripping her hands so tight together that her fingers had gone white. She had to tell Ray-Lynn about
Daad
’s
 
pills, so she could tell the sheriff.

“There’s something else, something I hope you will tell the sheriff.”

“If it has something serious to do with Sandra’s death, how about you tell him yourself? He’s been a little touchy lately about my coming up with official things he doesn’t know. I don’t want to let you down, but... Or why don’t you write it down and I’ll give it to him? Then I can honestly say I don’t know what it’s about,” she suggested, digging a scratch pad and pen out of the console between the two of them.

“Oh, sure. All right. I understand.”

She scribbled down what the doctor had said and gave his name. Folding the paper in fourths, she handed it to Ray-Lynn. She fought to pull herself together as Ray-Lynn turned into the drive by Josh’s barn. All she needed was to lose control in front of Ray-Lynn, who would tell the sheriff that much, at least. But Lydia knew all too well she’d get another grilling from Sheriff Freeman, not about Victoria or Sandra’s deaths, but about someone trying to hurt her father. Was there any way all three things could be connected?

* * *

As Lydia went in the front door of Josh’s barn, the alarm-system donkeys began to bray and were soon joined by the familiar gurgles and snorts of the camels.

“Who’s there?” came Josh’s shout from the loft where Sandra had fallen.

“Me, Josh! What are you doing up there?” she asked as she walked toward the back of the barn.

He appeared above her and quickly came down the ladder. She could see he’d nailed it back tightly to the loft, but he hadn’t replaced the lowest rung he’d given the sheriff.

“That crazy cat,” he told her. “She took each kitten by the scruff of the neck and carried them back up there, so I’m feeding them—and don’t like it. But I can’t see moving them again.”

He hugged her, and she clung to him. He had shaved again. Her lips grazed his smooth cheek as she said, “Thank heavens, the possible accusations are past, the media people are gone and Christmas is coming.”

“How’s your father?”

“They’re going to release him Monday morning, so I think I’ll be able to help you at the Community Church on Wednesday, to really start the Christmas season for the valley.”

“Okay, what else is wrong? There’s something else.”

It amazed her that he knew her that well. She blurted out about the way the kitchen, bathroom and her bed had been tampered with. “Now keep calm,” she said, as she felt his muscles tense. “There’s more.”

“You know who did it?” he demanded. “Gid?”

“I
don’t
know. But someone substituted candy for my father’s blood pressure pills. He’s blessed to be alive since he’s been taking sugar and chocolate instead of his medicine. It’s like someone wants him hurt or dead. His doctor’s going to write it up, and I wrote a note for Ray-Lynn to give Sheriff Freeman.”

He pulled her hard to him again. “That points to Gid again, doesn’t it?”

“Does it? What if Leo Lowe thinks I’m out to hurt his father, so he tries to hurt mine? What if Connor—”

“Connor?” he interrupted, holding her out stiff-armed and staring into her face.

“Yes, what if Connor wants our land to expand his? I know there’s been bad blood between
Mamm
and Connor—his family—but I can’t believe he’d do something like that. Only, Connor was the first one to knock on my door after that awful night. He said his mother sent him to see if I was all right, but he seemed so eager to know how
Daad
was, like he might be checking up on his own handiwork.”

“How about I sleep here in the barn tonight—I’ve done that before—and you stay at my house? No one has to know. The only other good option is that I sleep in your kitchen by the back door, but I can’t leave the animals alone with all that’s going on. How about Ray-Lynn staying with you?”

“She suggested that, but I turned her down.
Mamm
will be home later today.”

“Does your mother know about your father’s medicine?”

“Yes, the doctor told her, too. It will be the two of us tonight, so you won’t have to worry.”

But
I
will worry, Lydia thought. Spending the night with just her mother, without
Daad
there as a buffer, might be as unsettling as being in the house with the intruder.

21

L
ydia was grateful to have
Mamm
with her that night—and not. Silent snow was falling outside, but Lydia wished it could be more quiet in here. After their meal, she’d explained about the intruder and the things tampered with. She told
Mamm
she wished now that she’d called in the sheriff.

Mamm
had exploded. “But who? And in my house? My kitchen and bathroom? And then you paraded the sheriff and Ray-Lynn through here? And now you say you wrote to him about
Daad
’s
 
fake pills! He’d better not think it was me, always looking at the mate, they are, when there’s a family problem.”

She jumped up from the table and went straight for the cupboard where Lydia had put the honey jar.

“
Mamm,
don’t touch that in case Sheriff Freeman has to use it later for evidence.”

“Nonsense,” she said, snatching the jar down, turning the sink faucet on full blast, thrusting it under the spray and rubbing it vigorously. “No one will want this jar for that. No one in this household has done anything wrong! Now I’ll have to clean tonight.”

“No, you don’t. I haven’t touched my bed yet.”

“What? Left it that way, messed and dirtied? Every bit of that has to be cleaned, the bathtub, too. I won’t say, ‘What is this world coming to,’ because I know! An intruder in my house. We need to check the windows and relock the doors!”

Lydia got up from the table and went over to where
Mamm
had scrubbed the honey jar, even dumping the rest of the thick contents into the swirl of water.

“
Mamm,
I was thinking, we’d best not spring all this on
Daad
right away. I’m sure his pills being fooled with was enough of a shock.”

“To us all. I think that doctor blamed me because of the so-called side effects of my sleeping pills. Like I would put candy in his pill bottle and not know it!
Daad
said he took the pills to work with him a couple of times, but no one in this house would harm his pills! When he first got them, I made him take them in front of me so he wouldn’t forget. He’s so forgetful sometimes.”

She started to cry. Lydia pulled out the closest chair and sat her in it.

“Lydia, I’m sure I’m not doing things I don’t know,”
Mamm
choked out as Lydia handed her a tissue from the box on the counter.

“Of course you’re not, or we’d see signs of it. This is all too much right now, but I do think we need to have the locks on our house changed.”

“We’ll ask your father.”

“He won’t be home until Monday and, like I said, do we want to spring all of this on him now? I think we should make the decision to change the locks. I can stop at the hardware store on Monday morning, ask Clint Fencer to come out to take care of it. And then we dare not put an extra key in the unlocked barn. I have that one now and
Daad
’s
 
keys from the store.”

“But who would do this? Though I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, it’s that Sandra’s fault one way or the other. You know what your father whispered to me before they took him away to do that test and fix his heart? He said, ‘If I die, I’ll tell Sammy you’re still grieving for him.’ In Heaven, he meant. So how do we know he didn’t put that candy in his pillbox himself, like he wanted to die? What would be so bad in his life that he’d want to die?”

“He just meant he was facing heart surgery, and that’s never a sure thing. Heart attacks aren’t like the common cold.”

But all Lydia could think of were the words on the quilt
Daad
had been working on so hard:
Father Forgive,
or more like,
Forgive Father.
Forgive him for setting himself up for death? Was he that unhappy? Was that why he, too, had pushed her toward Gid when he usually wanted only her happiness—so the business would be well cared for after he died? No, no, that line of thought was crazy. The Amish abhorred suicide, for all life was sacred.

Fighting not to dissolve into tears herself, she kept quiet about those fears. Instead, she sucked in a sob and put her hand on her mother’s shoulder. “We’ll get him home, get him better,
Mamm.
”

When she knelt and hugged her mother hard, she hugged her back. No, surely it could not be
Mamm
who wanted to harm
Daad,
even if she might have been on those sleeping pills and not quite known what she was doing.

Hoping her voice was steady, Lydia suggested, “How about we clean the house together in the morning?”

“As long as I help you change your bed now. Or do you not want to sleep there anymore? Lydia, if you were only married, had a marital bed with Gid, then you’d always feel safe.”

Lydia stiffened and set her mother back in the chair. Little cold fingers of doubt—of terror—crept up her back.
Mamm
doing strange things she did not recall because of her medicine was one thing, but wasn’t her desperation to get Gid and her together another motive? Because of
Daad
’s
 
heart attack, Lydia knew she’d have to work closely with Gid now. And
Mamm
seemed almost eager to erase the signs of the intruder.

“
Ya,
let’s change my bed together,” Lydia said, but she was thinking that, first thing in the morning, she was going to check out the sack of candy in the pantry to see if the red ones were low or missing.

* * *

Despite the fact that Sunday was to be a day of rest, Lydia and
Mamm
worked hard, cleaning the house, tending the horses. Lydia was relieved that
Mamm
’s
 
M&Ms stash in the pantry had quite a few red-coated ones, but were there enough? That wasn’t such a large medicine bottle, and it had been only about one-third full. Lydia had tried scraping the
M
off several red pieces with a kitchen knife and then her fingernail. Both worked quite well, although a bit of the chocolate showed through, just as it had in the doctor’s office. But the change in color wasn’t that noticeable. And, as Dr. Bryan had said, it was dim in Amish homes. Most people would just shake one pill out and down it quickly.

“I’d like to clean up his quilting nest in the side parlor,”
Mamm
had said. “But then he would get upset, and he’ll need something quiet to do while he heals at home. I still say we need to ask his permission before you try to get all our locks changed. Sad world to have to use locks, let alone have to change them. When I was growing up, we hardly ever locked the house and nothing came of it.”

Nothing came of it.
The words echoed in Lydia’s head. So much had come into her life lately, most of it bad. But not her growing love for Josh. And not her gratitude that
Daad
was coming home tomorrow.

* * *

Monday morning early, Ray-Lynn stopped by to tell them that
Daad
would not be released until 3:00 p.m. Lydia had given Ray-Lynn’s phone as their contact number. She also gave Lydia a note behind
Mamm
’s
 
back that the sheriff would look into the pill substitution as he investigated Sandra’s death.

As soon as Ray-Lynn left for the restaurant, Lydia hitched Flower to ride into town to the hardware store to ask for their locks to be changed.

“You should be heading straight for the furniture store, not running errands in town,”
Mamm
had protested.

Ya,
Lydia told herself again as she set out, she was ready to have a home of her own, but not with Gid Reich. Maybe one right next door to her family’s home would do.

In town she arranged to have Mr. Fencer come out to change the front and back door locks early that afternoon. That way it would be done before
Daad
came home, but while
Mamm
was still there. Lydia wanted to be able to report to her father that she’d recently been at the furniture store so she could assure him things were fine there.

The hired car would pick up
Mamm
at one-thirty, then bring her parents both back by suppertime. Lydia wanted to be there for
Daad
’s
 
homecoming. And, as soon as she thought she could ask him, she wanted to talk to him about the quilt he nearly had finished. Was it to be hers and what did the words on the border really mean?

And, hopefully, with that chat, she could assess whether he could be so depressed or upset that he was suicidal. Surely, he had not substituted his own pills, but she was getting used to surprises. Had Sandra or someone else told him that Lydia was searching for information about her birth parents, and he’d been hurt by that?

As she untied Flower’s reins from the hitching post in front of the hardware store, a strange
Englische
man walked up to her. With a broad smile, he flashed a business card at her. “You’re Lydia Brand,” he stated, not asking a question. “Roy Manning,
Cleveland Plain Dealer.
I hear the county coroner has ruled Sandra Myerson’s death accidental just as he did Senator Stark’s sister’s. Since you were on Joshua Yoder’s property at the time of both deaths—found both women dead—do you agree with that ruling? And what is your relationship to those women and Mr. Yoder?”

She was tempted to just keep quiet, climb in her buggy and leave. But wouldn’t that look like she had something to hide?

“My relationship with him is that we are next-door neighbors, and I help with his animals. Camels are my favorites, especially the Bactrians like Melly and Gaspar. I think if you research Bactrians and dromedaries, your readers would appreciate knowing the difference, especially at this time of year. Excuse me, please.”

She got up into the buggy, backed Flower out and giddyapped her away, despite the fact that Roy Manning ran for his car and, oh, no, followed her. She wasn’t sure whether she should drive into the sheriff’s to get rid of this pushy, rude man, but what if Sheriff Freeman wasn’t there? And the Amish would never ask for a restraining order against someone. She could park at the Dutch Farm Table, but why lead that man to Ray-Lynn, who would hide her, but then be facing Roy Manning herself? If he asked folks in the restaurant about her, they’d be as upset as when Sandra played reporter there.

No, she’d keep to her plans and head for the furniture store, where she could have someone else take her buggy and hide out in
Daad
’s office until the reporter left. He reminded her of a bulldog, nipping at her heels.

She drove directly into the horse shed at work and, leaving Flower hitched for someone else to tend, started at a good clip for the back workshop door. Mr. Manning was waiting for her, walking along fast beside her.

“I won’t use your photograph, of course, Ms. Brand. It’s just that you and Mr. Yoder are the best eyewitnesses to both deaths. Not eyewitnesses to the deaths, of course, but the bodies being found. And since one woman was Senator Stark’s sister and the other someone the senator met with—”

Lydia knew she should keep quiet, but she wanted to protect Bess. “It was her son, Connor, who Sandra Myerson spoke to, not the senator.”

“No,” he clipped out, almost at the workshop door, “several Stark Farm Christmas workers I interviewed said that when Sandra went to the tree farm to interview the son—Connor, as you said—Ms. Myerson talked to Bess Stark, too, at length, and they both got a bit vocal, gestured a lot, though Senator Stark won’t answer my questions, either.”

“Excuse me, I’m late for work,” Lydia managed to choke out, but she was now more than upset. Hadn’t Bess said that she had not met Sandra? So why would she lie about that, since Sandra had met and questioned so many others?

She closed the workshop door in the man’s face and asked the men to be sure he did not enter. She rushed to the back offices because, for once, she needed a favor from Gid. He was not in his office but on the sales floor, talking to Naomi.

“A newspaper reporter followed me here, and I don’t want to see him!” she blurted out to them. “He may come around to the front door.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Gid said. He went to the door and then stepped outside, only to come back in to tell them the man was driving away. Lydia hoped the reporter would not return when she left or, worse, go to her house. She didn’t need another Leo Lowe accosting her or upsetting
Daad
when he got home today. Or running amok in town the way Sandra had, maybe gaining her an enemy who was willing to kill her.

Still breathing hard on the way to
Daad
’s
 
office, Lydia passed the coffee room and, seeing no one was there, went in.
Ya,
the bowl of festive-looking M&Ms was there, much depleted from the other day. Plenty of red ones in the mix, but that meant nothing. Whoever changed her father’s pills had probably done it a while ago.

In
Daad
’s office, she closed the door and sat in his chair, elbows on the desk, fingers gripped together, pressed to her forehead. She had to calm down. She wished she could contact Josh to warn him that at least one reporter had not left the area, that he’d questioned their relationship, that the nightmare was far from over.

And should she talk to Bess about what must be a misunderstanding? She felt bad that Bess had been pulled into Sandra’s death, especially after the loss of her sister. Lydia closed her eyes, picturing again the description of Victoria Keller’s drawings of flying angels who looked like children. That vision blurred with an image of the insides of her broken snow globe, then with the angels on the
Father Forgive Father
quilt.

She jerked alert when a knock resounded on the door. Gid’s voice. “Lydia, are you all right? That man didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“Come in,” she told him, grateful he had not just walked in as if the office were his again. When he entered, she told him, “No, he was just rude, that’s all. Thanks for making sure he didn’t enter the store.”

“How’s Sol?”