Upon A Winter's Night (23 page)

* * *

“Did Ray-Lynn tell you that my birth mother was Lena Hostetler?” Lydia asked Nathan Hostetler.

“She only said you were related, and then were adopted by the Brands,” he told her. He was soft-spoken. Tall and lean with a sun-weathered face, he wore a trimmed beard, not an Amish one, and seemed quite nervous. He was dressed all in black, as were the other church members who were background workers.

“I believe you are a distant cousin of my mother, Lena,” Lydia said. “I was hoping you or someone you are related to could tell me what you recall about her. She and my father, David Brand, were killed in a buggy accident when I was very young, so I don’t remember either of them. Any details or memories would mean a lot to me. I wonder if I resemble her or David at all.”

He shifted on the step beside her. Frowning, he averted his eyes. “Not so much,” he said. “Well, hair color. I remember them, of course, family reunion, weddings, including theirs, Christmastime. But there are many Hostetlers, some still Amish, who are disappointed my family left the church to become Mennonites.”

“I understand that. Is there anyone else you could mention that I could talk to, someone who knew Lena better? And do you know if she collected those little plastic snow globes?”

“Are you sure you got your facts straight?” he asked, sitting up straighter and turning toward her for the first time. “I mean, it was a while ago, and their tragic accident and all...”

“But—”

“The thing is, I think you got the adoption thing confused. It’s been years, but I remember my mother—she passed nearly ten years ago—saying you were adopted all right, but by David and Lena.”

“No, I was adopted by the Brands, Solomon and Susan.”

He shook his head and shrugged. “Sure, well, I know Lena and David would have been good parents had they lived. Growing up, Lena took care of her younger siblings, loved kids. That’s why I remember my mother saying she’d been sick somehow—Lena—and couldn’t have kids, but then got one.”

Lydia wanted to burst into tears, to tell him he was wrong. But what really scared her was that this man’s comments more or less matched what old, blind Mr. Raber had told her. She recalled he had said of Lena Brand that she did not look pregnant, that
They had no child—and then they did.
Could two people who had known her parents—although not well—be so confused?

She was going to ask him for more, for anything to prove to herself he was wrong. It had been years ago. His mother could have been ill when she told him about Lena and David’s child. But could it be—no, no way—that the Hostetlers had adopted her and, when they were killed, she was adopted a second time? No, she just knew Lena and David were her birth parents!

“Mr. Hostetler, is there someone else who might know even more about the Brands, so that—”

It was all she got out before Ray-Lynn appeared, out of breath. At first Lydia feared Melly had acted up again, but Ray-Lynn blurted, “Your parents are here—drove in the parking lot for a closer view. Your Dad stayed in the buggy, but your mother... I mean, she was talking to Josh, but I told her I’d find you so they didn’t have to look for y—”

But
Mamm
was hurrying their way. She must have followed Ray-Lynn.

“Oh, and who is this?”
Mamm
asked, looking at Mr. Hostetler.

Ray-Lynn answered as he and Lydia stood. “This is Nathan, our church custodian. They’re both just taking a little break.”

“Oh, so I see. I’m sure you both worked hard to put this lovely Christmas scene together,”
Mamm
said with a smile, but Lydia could tell she was upset. Maybe because her daughter was sitting alone with a strange man, one not Amish. Hopefully, she didn’t know he was a Hostetler.

“I thank you again for all the hard work you and the church men did to set things up here,” Lydia told him, and tried to move
Mamm
away. But she wasn’t budging.

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Brand,” he said with a nod of his head. “I’m Nathan Hostetler, and my wife sure loves your family’s furniture.”

“Nice to meet you,”
Mamm
said, finally turning to leave with Lydia at her side.

“Hostetler, but not an Amish one,”
Mamm
said, her voice as chilly as the air. “So I find my daughter talking to a stranger in private.”

“If you call the brightly lighted church steps private,” Lydia said as they made their way toward the manger scene. “I assure you,
Mamm,
” she said, trying to keep her voice light, “I’m not going to run off with a Mennonite or a married man.”

“I know,” she said, obviously not wanting to pursue the topic when Lydia figured she would. “Just you be sure you don’t run off with an Amish man who left the faith to live in the world, who wants to marry a girl with enough money to keep his petting zoo going.”

Lydia’s nostrils flared and she gritted her teeth as they headed
 
toward the buggy where
Daad
was waiting. Sadly, it sounded as if her undeclared truce with
Mamm
was over, and was it only because she was panicked that Lydia was chatting with a Hostetler? Why did
Mamm—Daad,
too—have to be so secretive about her past? Did they fear she might reject them or were they just overly protective since they’d lost Sammy?

“A nice manger scene!”
Daad
called to her from the buggy. “The biblical animals add a lot, but I really like the angels.”

“They’re my favorites, too,” Lydia said, and smiled at him. She wondered if, like her, he was thinking of her snow globe and the angelic figures on the quilt that would soon be hers.

And she vowed that this wonderful man, in every way a father to her, would know, even when she told him she was seeking news about her birth parents, that he, Solomon Brand, would always be the father of her heart.

23

A
lthough her parents wanted her to go home with them in their buggy, Lydia stayed to help Josh take the animals to his barn and get them bedded down.

“Bedded down?”
Mamm
said. “Then how do you plan to get home?”

“
Mamm,
Josh lives barely a quarter mile from us,” she said, trying to keep her annoyance in check. “His buggy will still be hitched, and he can easily run me home.”

“Your mother just means,”
Daad
put in, “don’t you be walking the road or through the woodlot alone that late.”

“I won’t. Josh wouldn’t let me.”

“I’ll wait up,
ya,
I will,”
Mamm
said as she took the reins from
Daad.
She must have decided it would be too much for him to drive home. And they were gone.

Josh came over. “Did Mr. Hostetler tell you anything useful?”

Lydia shook her head. “He thought I was adopted by the Hostetlers as well as by the Brands. The thing is, that’s what Mr. Raber from Amity said, too, but I thought he was just senile. I’m going to have to find another Hostetler who knows what really happened. What if it’s true? About two adoptions?”

“That can’t be. It was a long time ago and followed a tragedy. They’re confused. Are you sure you can’t just ask your father?”

“I’m afraid to so much as tell him or
Mamm
I’m looking into my past. It’s a miracle they haven’t figured it out so far. They’re so different from each other but both fragile. Come on, let’s get these animals home.”

Holding the envelope with Josh’s payment from the church on her lap, sitting beside him in his buggy, Lydia treasured every minute of their slow journey. She could tell he was nervous, probably since Hank wasn’t driving the truck behind them. It was a friend of Hank’s who didn’t work much with animals. But all went well, and the Beiler boys came out to help them unload.

“Everything all right?” Josh asked them. “No problems?”

“Just that the east side old milking door blew open a little bit ago,” Micah said. “I mean, the wind wasn’t much tonight, but we heard it bang, so we went down there. That old lock was broken.”

“
Ya,
we had to nail it closed with a couple of boards,” Andy added. “And somehow the sheep you keep down there in the old cow milking area got loose in the barn—broke the latch on their pen, I guess. Musta been an accident, but we finally caught them all. Just got the last one back in the pen.”

Lydia saw Josh stiffen. His facial muscles tightened to a grimace.

“We don’t need more accidents,” he muttered, “not even something minor. That’s the wing I’m going to have remodeled soon, so it sounds like I’ll need a new door, too. Lydia,” he said in a louder voice, “you take Melly in. Andy and Micah, get the donkey penned up and fed, then you can head home. I’ll take the sheep and check things out down by the old cow stanchions. Oh, and your week’s salary’s in an envelope on my desk.”

“
Danki,
Josh,” they said, almost in chorus.

Lydia led Melly to the camel pen where they were greeted with welcoming snorts and gurgles. She made sure the water and feed pans were full, but the boys had done a good job. She walked with the two of them to the front barn door and watched them leave in Andy’s small courting buggy. Realizing she was still holding Josh’s payment envelope from the church, she headed back yet again to his office area. She wondered how the mother cat and her kittens were doing in the loft and glanced up at it. And screamed.

It was hard to see from here, but—but... She tried to shout for Josh, but no sound came out.

“Lydia! What is it?” Running feet. Josh’s voice, still distant. “What—”

He skidded to a halt next to her. She pointed upward. He squinted into the lantern-lit dimness of the barn and gasped. Painted in crimson on the side of the loft, one on each side of the ladder, were two crudely drawn angels. They both had their haloes pierced by devil’s horns, and the larger angel held a pitchfork as if guarding the very gates of Hell.

And under that angel, in heavy, freshly dripping paint—or blood—the ladder leaned against the huge word
KILLER!

* * *

“Oh, no. Look,” Ray-Lynn said to Jack after they parked side by side in their garage that night. “Lydia left her purse in my car for safekeeping and evidently forgot it. She was so harried at the end, she won’t even remember where she put it.”

“Do Amish women put as much stuff in those as non-Amish?” he asked, looking at the plain black bag Ray-Lynn was holding out.

“Are women
women?
Ding-dang, I’m tired, but I’ve got to get it to her tonight.”

“Get back in, and I’ll drive. I swear, honey, you just ought to adopt one of these Amish girls you’re always sticking your neck out for. Okay, I know,” he said, snatching her car keys from her. “With Lydia, that adoption joke came out way bad.”

* * *

“Let’s get the boys back in here,” Josh said. “Can you catch them?”

“They’re gone. Should I take your buggy and go after them? But you know they didn’t do this.”

“No, I don’t want you out on the road alone at night. I know they didn’t do this or even see it, or they’d have said so. The broken door and the sheep made a diversion to get them away while someone came in the back. I hate to start locking barn doors. And that mess better not be blood, but it seems like it’s turning black, maybe clotting. I didn’t count the sheep. If someone’s killed one of them...but it’s obviously a reference to Sandra’s death.”

They clung together, still staring aghast at the message and pictures.

Finally, Lydia whispered, “But why the word
killer?
Is it accusing you or is that the signature of Sandra’s killer? Or is it meant to keep me from trusting you? Who could hate you that much?”

“I don’t think
killer
is a signature. It’s—” his voice wavered “—it’s pointed at me.”

“Gid left the manger scene a while ago. Said he had something to do.”

“It could be someone Sandra knew. Or if it’s to drive a wedge between us, even your parents.”

She pulled away from him. “My parents? You think they would do this—or ruin our snow angels? Can you see my
daad
climbing up here right now or my mother, either?”

“I just meant for motive. They must still want you to stay away from me. Let’s try another way of looking at it. Someone wants to scare me into moving away, to leave here.”

“Connor might want our property, so maybe he’d like to own yours, too.”

“What about Leo Lowe? The sheriff hasn’t found him yet, has he? Why is he on the run or in hiding if he didn’t hurt Sandra? Lowe was watching you from out back, so he could be the one who’s been hanging around here. This could be a threat to be sure you don’t try to go to the media or re-open the case against his father.”

“How about that off-the-wall reporter Roy Manning?” Josh asked. “He ticked me off here today, and I’m sure I returned the favor. We probably both angered him at the church.”

“You didn’t tell me he bothered you earlier today.”

“I didn’t want to worry you... And now this. But I can’t believe Manning ruined the snow angels. It’s more like him to just come busting in instead of lurking.”

“Josh, there’s something that’s really been eating at me. What if someone doesn’t want me to keep asking questions about my real parents? What if Lena and David Brand were involved in something dangerous—or there’s some secret I’m not supposed to know.”

“I’m praying none of this is aimed at you. Or at least that it just has to do with us becoming a couple.”

“But even Bishop Esh and his wife act like there’s something they can’t tell,” she said, her voice shaking.

“You know his sense of honor and duty. Probably someone—most likely your father and mother—asked him once to promise not to talk about it, so you would really feel like their child, to protect you.”

“
Ya,
that would be like them at least.”

“And I can’t blame them for that.” He hugged her and kissed her cheek, then walked slowly toward the loft, climbed a couple of rungs and reached up to touch the bottom of one angel’s robe. “It’s sticky,” he called down to her. “Not blood, I think, or it would smell more coppery. I’m not sure I want to get the sheriff in on this.”

“That right?” came a voice behind them as a flashlight beam swept across the horrid drawings and word as if pinning Josh there. “Come on over here, Ray-Lynn. Looks and sounds like it’s a good thing we came.”

* * *

It was, Josh thought, almost the same nightmare after Sandra’s death. The sheriff had separated him and Lydia. Ray-Lynn waited with Lydia by the front door, while he and the sheriff went into his barn office. And he could tell from the questioning the sheriff might actually think he’d done that paint job himself.

“Calm down, Josh. Once again, I find myself having to interview young Amish guys to back up your story, that’s all. But I believe you that the Beiler kids said the sheep got out and they had to go down to the long wing of the barn. For sure that might have given someone time to come in the back way and do this in a big rush. It’s not exactly a Rembrandt.”

“I’m just making sure you don’t think I did that. The boys or Hank would have seen it while we loaded the animals. And why would I make a mess of the snow angels I told you about? Since it was in the papers where Sandra died, the placement of that painted outrage could have been put there by anyone.”

“Just sit tight now. I didn’t say you did that, but I’ve got to run through all the possibilities. You got any paint on the premises?”

“Sure, but not red. No Amish man or woman is going to paint anything bright red. It’s the verboten color of martyrs’ blood—our ancestors’ blood in Europe before we came here—the reason we fled to America.”

Jack Freeman flipped his notebook shut and shoved it in the inside pocket of his leather jacket. “So you don’t mind if I look around?”

“Of course not—again,” Josh said.

“Look, Josh. I’m trying real hard to figure out who’s behind that crude graffiti because it will probably lead me to Sandra’s killer. Yeah, coroner’s ruling or not, I feel in my gut that murder is still a possibility, though, no, I don’t think
killer
is supposed to be a signature, either. And since you were close to Sandra once, you sure want that looked into, too.”

“
Ya,
of course I do.”

“Besides, the motive for what seems to be an attack on you could actually be an attack on Lydia, too. Let’s look at this another way. What if someone is desperate to keep her from turning up info about her birth parents? Maybe Sandra opened a can of worms asking around about that. So someone panics and gets crazy enough to kill her—or at least argues with her and gives her a shove—hoping to pin it on you.”

“Maybe,” Josh admitted. “Lydia came up with the same possibility. Sandra was asking way too many questions. But that could mean Lydia’s in some danger now, and she’s got to be protected.”

“If that theory is correct, you got that right. So he or she—the killer—enters Lydia’s house, moves things around, messes up her bed to imply a threat and scares the living daylights out of her. Lydia’s here a lot, you two are starting to be seen as a couple, ’least that’s what Ray-Lynn says. So the intruder tries to either scare Lydia away from you or scare both of you to shut you up, make you leave—together or alone—I don’t know. So don’t just figure I’m out to nail you. And I’ll be talking to her formal betrothed, Gideon Reich, soon.”

“They weren’t formally betrothed. Gid wanted it. Some assumed it because it looked so—so perfect.”

“Got that.”

“I hate to do it, Sheriff, but taking a cue from Lydia, I’m going to put locks on all the barn doors and hope someone doesn’t come in a loft window high up.”

“She changed her locks?”

“
Ya.
See, I had a key hanging in the stables where I sometimes keep the buggy, too. Tradition, once we all went to keys and locks in Amish country, is to keep a spare in the barn or shed. Relatives or friends come calling and you’re not home, they know where it is. That’s sure got to change. But I had that back door to the barn locked, so you’d better ask the Beiler boys if they unlocked it. I doubt it since it’s locked now.”

“It’s the first thing I checked after I sat you down here. And you should have checked it earlier.”

“I was too shocked to think of that at first,” Josh said, standing even though he hadn’t been dismissed. “Look, Sheriff, Lydia needs to get home or her parents will worry. Her mother hears about this, and it will be the straw that broke the camel’s back.” He glanced at Melly and Gaspar, who seemed ever so interested in eavesdropping on all this from their pen across the way. “And then they won’t let Lydia near me so I can help protect her.”

“Maybe her keeping clear of you will be best, in case you’re the target. Meanwhile, I’ll have to get that artwork documented and photographed, but I don’t intend to tell the newspapers, especially that
Plain Dealer
reporter Manning. It’s something I’ll keep quiet to help nail the mad painter when I get this figured out. By the way, Roy Manning came in my office, asked all kinds of questions.” The sheriff got to his feet and patted Josh’s shoulder. “But the fact I overheard you say—not admissible in court now—that you didn’t want me to see this picture and message means, if you painted it yourself, you might have only wanted Lydia to see it, not to drive her away but maybe to be more scared and trust you more.”

Josh exploded, “I didn’t deface my own barn for Lydia or anyone else! I said, the Beiler boys—Hank, too—would have seen it. Sheriff, the paint is barely dry. For sure, someone did it when the boys were lured away just before we got here. I just don’t need this to get all over town, and at Christmastime when the animals are going out here and there like at your church tonight!”

“My thinking exactly. Just wanted to get your take on the far-out possibility that you did it. Now, I know Amish privacy and all that, and the fact, deep down, your people don’t trust law enforcement, but that’s not helping us here. Just work with me, not against me, from here on out, Josh. You hear me?”