Upon A Winter's Night (28 page)

“Their place was dark when I went by, but sometimes lanterns don’t light up windows well. After what Lydia said happened at the pond last night, no wonder they might have gone to bed already. You got more coffee over there? It’s gonna be a long night,” he muttered.

“I’ll go brew a new pot in the house and be right back,” Josh told him, and went out the camel door.

He glanced back at the terrible message U KILLED S. In a way, he had.

* * *

Panicked that Gid would hear her buggy and follow, Lydia took a different way home, repeatedly looking back on the road as she urged Flower from a trot to a gallop. Since he didn’t follow her, at least she knew he was busy elsewhere. It wouldn’t take a minute to grab the Bessie note, the broken snow globe, go to the bathroom then rush back to the buggy and head for the Starks’ next door.

But, as soon as she drove up she realized that, unless her parents had gone to bed when they got back, they weren’t home from Wooster yet. The house was as dark as it was outside. Maybe they’d been sent to the hospital there. Poor
Daad
must be tired of hospitals right now. Maybe that chill and cough of
Mamm
’s
 
had gone into something worse, like bronchitis or pneumonia. Besides trying to get the truth out of Bess tonight, Lydia figured she could use her phone to call the driver her parents had hired.

She hesitated a moment at the back door. She’d have to get these locks changed yet again since
Daad
had left the house open last night and someone had come in. Someone who had obviously been watching and—

“Hey, Ms. Brand,” came a man’s voice close behind her.

Lydia gasped and turned.

A squat figure emerged from the shadows next to the house. Leo Lowe! He was wearing a bulky coat with a hoodie. She couldn’t see his face but she’d never forget his voice. Had he been in this area the whole time the sheriff had been looking for him? Her knees went weak and she propped herself up against the storm door.

“Oh, Mr. Lowe, you startled me. Please leave me alone,” she told him, trying to keep her voice strong and calm. “The sheriff’s looking for you so you’d better leave town.”

“I know. Listen, I didn’t kill Ms. Myerson.”

“Then you should not have run. You should go turn yourself in, tell the truth and clear it all up.”

“You told the sheriff I scared you—threatened you and bad-mouthed Ms. Myerson,” he said, his voice rising. “That’s another reason he was looking for me, the wife said.” He came closer, just one step down from where she stood with her back against the door.

“But I did not ask for a restraining order or file a complaint. We Amish don’t do that.”

“Don’t have any truck with violence neither, right? Yet you don’t think the guy next door knocked Ms. Myerson off for her big mouth? I’ll bet the newspapers think he’s guilty.”

Leo must be the person who’d painted on Josh’s barn, accusing Josh to throw suspicion away from himself. He surely didn’t mean Connor was the guy next door.

He came up another step. If she could just unlock the door behind her, dash in. But if Leo was her intruder, he had the latest key. And she’d heard criminal acts got worse. Someone who at first just spied might later break in, damage property. She saw again her messed-up bed, her underwear. Then the criminal got bolder and would try an assault, or worse...

She did the only thing she could think of besides run and, in the snow, he could probably catch her, anyway. With her back truly against the wall, she lied.

“Get away from me, or you’ll really be in trouble. Sheriff Freeman said he has no case against you and he just wanted an alibi from you, not from your family and friends he visited. Besides, he’ll be here soon.”

“Yeah—you’re right about my family at least. He’s been talking to them.”

“I said we Amish don’t testify, but I will privately tell the sheriff I don’t think you had anything to do with Sandra’s death.”

Dear God in Heaven, he had a knife! It glinted in the pale moonlight and then went dark against his black clothes.

“You mean that?” he demanded.

“
Ya—
yes, and I’m hardly going to run or hide out like you. I’ve got my family waiting for me inside.” Steady, she told herself. He might know that was another lie. “Besides,” she continued, clearing her throat, “my friend, the sheriff’s wife, told me—”

“Yeah. Ray-Lynn. I checked out their place a couple of times, and he didn’t even know I was there.”

He was bold. Desperate. And she kept imagining the thrust of that knife.

“I was saying,” she went on, “Ray-Lynn told me that the sheriff would be in his office in town late tonight, so why don’t you get it over with—the hiding out, I mean. Clear your name with him, get back to your family, especially your father, who must be very worried about you. I’m sorry he went to prison for hitting an Amish buggy, but I was only an infant, and that’s all said and done. And...forgiven.”

“Forgiven,” he repeated. “Yeah, I hear you Amish are good at that, too, like they forgave the man who killed some Amish schoolgirls over in Pennsylvania.”

He was calming down now, wasn’t he? But he still didn’t budge. A long time seemed to stretch by. And he still had the knife. She felt frozen in place, afraid to flee, afraid to stay here, afraid for her life as Sandra must have been in her last moments.

“You forgive my father for hitting that buggy, killing your folks?” he asked.

She almost told him,
If they were my folks.
But instead, she said, “We all need to be forgiven.” Those were
Daad’
s
 
very words to her when they talked about the quilt he’d made for her.

“I’ll go see the sheriff,” he said, and turned away. He went into a half run down the driveway. Only then did she realize she was hardly breathing and that, even in this cold, she was dripping with sweat.

Eager to get to the Starks to use their phone, she unlocked her back door and dashed inside. The winter night was young, and she had much to do.

28

L
ydia almost lost her courage when she saw how beautiful Bess looked—how worldly. No long denim skirt or casual clothes. She wore a turquoise wool dress and a chunky gold necklace and earrings to match. Even her high heels—really high ones—matched her dress. Makeup highlighted her pretty face even more.

Lydia began to tremble. Of course, there was no way in all God’s creation this woman could be her mother. They didn’t even look alike—well, maybe eye color and the shape of the mouth. But Lydia didn’t look like
Daad,
either. Did she have a bug in her bean to pursue this?

“Sorry to bother you when you’re going out,” Lydia apologized. “I’m hoping I could make two calls from here instead of going way down the road to the phone shanty.”

“Of course you can,” Bess said, smiling and encircling her shoulders to bring her inside. “As you can see, we’re stepping out, but we don’t have to leave yet. Since Connor is mayor now, the family is giving a holiday appreciation dinner for the small businessmen in town. We had invited your father, but I believe he planned to send Gid Reich to represent your family, even before he had his heart attack.”

Family, family. She knew she shouldn’t even ask Bess if the two of them could be family, but that note she had in her sack with the broken globe would always haunt her.
Ach,
Josh was right. That didn’t really prove anything.

“Well, you look beautiful, Bess.”

“I have to work at it more and more the older I get. I admire you Amish for not worrying one bit about outward appearances—and for having no TV in your homes, let alone the internet. My rivals have been trying to make a big deal out of Connor spraying those trees. Here, let’s go into my office, and you can make your calls from there. The others are upstairs getting ready, and my special guest from Washington is meeting us there. Heather’s in the bathtub, so Connor’s riding herd on the boys.”

“Good. I got the idea that’s exactly what they needed and wanted.”

Bess led her into the room with the snow globes, but the curtains were closed again. She sat Lydia in the same chair she’d been in the other day and handed her a phone—no cord attached. “You have to punch the talk button, then dial your number,” Bess told her. “By the way, we’re having the party at Ray-Lynn’s and the sheriff’s restaurant. Ray-Lynn’s been a great help.”

“That’s the way she is. She’s helped me and several others I know. Actually, I’m calling my parents’ driver to see why they’re not back from Wooster yet where my mother had a doctor’s appointment. And then the sheriff because he needs to know the son of the man who hit my parents’ buggy years ago was outside my house just now. I think I talked him into going to the sheriff.”

Though Bess had started to step out into the hall, she came back and sat again, turning toward Lydia. “He didn’t hurt you? If he’s like his father, he’s a loose cannon. Isn’t he the one the sheriff put out a bulletin on? You can just stay here when we leave, until you find out when your parents are coming back, because you don’t need to be out on these roads after dark.”

Lydia thanked her and, when Bess went out, quickly made her calls. Her spirits were buoyed when the sheriff’s night dispatcher put her right in touch with him. After she explained things, he said he’d planned to spend the night with Josh, but had been called by his dispatcher that Leo Lowe was indeed at the station. He was on his way there, then hoped to stop by the party at the restaurant before “hustling” back to Josh’s barn. “And I’m gonna have to lock Lowe up tonight, Lydia, so don’t you worry about him bothering you again.”

It made Lydia feel so much safer, stronger, especially when she talked to her parents’ driver to be sure they were all right. He was en route back to Homestead without them because her mother had been admitted to the hospital with pneumonia, and
Daad
wouldn’t leave her. Lydia made plans for the driver to pick her up the next morning to go into Wooster. If she had to have her big talk with
Daad
in a hospital corridor or lounge, so be it. She had to end this agony of waiting. And who knew, maybe the sheriff might get out of Leo Lowe that he was the intruder, the barn painter, even Sandra’s killer. A man with a knife could easily have been enough to scare someone into stepping backward off a barn loft.

* * *

Ray-Lynn and her staff at the Dutch Farm Table were decorating to the hilt for this Stark family party tonight. Ropes of pine boughs tied with red velvet ribbons circled the main room. Two Christmas trees—of course, donated by the Starks—studded with shiny balls and swagged loops of colored glass beads and lights shed a soft blur of color. The place smelled of a delicious blend of pine, fresh-baked bread and coffee.

Her Amish girls were now working like mad to clean up after the last dinner customer left. They were carrying some of the tables out into the back room to make a more spacious dining area. Ray-Lynn had the red-and-green tablecloths and centerpieces ready. The Starks were paying well to rent the venue and have Ray-Lynn’s kitchen staff prepare the feast of turkey, two kinds of potatoes, a salad buffet and too many pumpkin and pecan pies to count.

It relieved her when Jack called to say he had Leo Lowe in custody—thanks to Lydia—but he was still planning to “stop by” to greet everyone.

“I sure hope you’ll be here,” she told him, holding her cell phone with one hand and gesturing where the tables went with the other. “Especially since the Starks are the hosts for this. Besides, Bess’s new significant other is going to be here, some mover and shaker from D.C. Ding-dang, I’ll just bet he’s advising her on a statewide or national campaign, and he’s been around here a lot more than anyone knows. Jack, it can’t hurt for you to know people like that. Maybe he can pull someone’s chain to get you a deputy with all that’s gone on here lately. You can’t help it that your last one didn’t work out.”

She watched her waitresses flapping open and arranging the tablecloths Bess had sent over. Even as she listened to Jack, she grabbed the fancy name tags off the counter to place them herself.

“I said I’ll be there, honey,” he went on, “but it’ll be brief. I’m going to lock this guy up for one night and depose him tomorrow ’cause I’m spending most of the night with Josh, keeping an eye on things there.”

“But if you have him in custody, and he’s the one who threatened Lydia and had it in for Sandra, Lydia’s and Josh’s worries are over.”

She started to place the name tags: Bess Stark, Heather Stark, Mayor Connor Stark...

“He actually has a solid alibi for the day and night Sandra died, and only ran ’cause he thought no one would believe him since he’d threatened Sandra and Lydia,” Jack explained. “No, the guy who I think killed Sandra Myerson, who’s been painting up a storm on Josh’s barn trying to blame him, isn’t Leo Lowe. I got a gut feeling her killer’s still out there, getting closer and even more desperate.”

* * *

Lydia’s heartbeat kicked up the moment Bess came back into the room after she made her phone calls. “Some hot chocolate for you,” she said, putting a bright green mug on the desk in front of her. “Listen, we’ll be leaving in half an hour, but I can give you a guest bedroom for the night.”

“That’s very kind, but I should go home. So you have a minute to talk now?”

“Of course,” she said, but she looked suddenly wary. “Your phone calls—is everything all right?”

“
Ya—
yes, fine with that. Bess, I happened to notice from outside yesterday that you have a beautiful collection of snow globes. You must have been collecting them a long time.”

“Quite a while. I consider them seasonal decorations, don’t have them out year-round. And they seem to fit better here than in my Columbus office or condo.”

“But you must be an expert on them. I have a very special one. It’s broken, but I intend to fix it. My father gave it to me years ago and said it had been my mother’s—my real mother’s—but I was not to ask questions about her. It always bothered me, intrigued me, and lately I tried to have someone—Sandra Myerson—help me find out about her, especially since no one, not even Bishop Esh, seemed to want me to know much about my past.”

“No doubt because it was so tragic with that fatal buggy crash.”

Bess had glanced at the snow globe Lydia had drawn from her sack, then quickly away. A frown line appeared above her penciled eyebrows, and her red lower lip pouted, then quivered.

“But then several people told me that Lena Brand—supposedly my real mother—never had a child.”

“Did your father tell you that?” she demanded, her voice almost strident.

“No. I heard that from both a friend of Lena and David Brand and one of Lena’s cousins. But I was just wondering if you had a snow globe similar to this one which has meant so much to me. I was devastated when it got broken and am determined to put it back together.”

Lydia got up and walked beside the desk, back to the low bookcases and the curtained window above them. She pulled the cord that drew the curtains open and gazed at the rows of snow globes—and found one almost identical.

“Oh, there, see?” she said, pointing at it before turning back to face Bess. “This one and mine really resemble each other.”

Despite her high cheek color, Bess’s face had gone pale. She said nothing, then finally murmured, in a whisper, “I can’t help you, Lydia.”

“Well, maybe just one more thing, then.”

“This is not the time for this.”

“There’s never been a time for this! But I have to know. I have a note here my father saved—he is really my father, isn’t he?—that I found hidden in his desk drawer at the store. It’s from someone who loved him a long time ago before he married
Mamm,
someone who signed her name Bessie. I haven’t told him I found it yet because of his heart attack, but I’ll have to now. Besides you and Josh’s mother growing up around here, who could this Bessie have been? I won’t tell others, really. And your sister knew about it, didn’t she, since she drew those pictures of angels carrying a baby away?”

Bess looked frozen. She didn’t move, but two tears tracked down her cheeks. Lydia stood aghast at what had spilled from her, especially the last thought about Victoria, since she hadn’t fully reasoned that out before.

Finally, Bess moved. She stood and went to the door, which stood slightly ajar. Lydia thought she would walk out, but she closed it. She turned back, leaned against it. They stood facing each other across the big desk, Lydia with the note outstretched in her hand, Bess staring at it but making no move to look at it closer.

“Yes, God forgive me for hurting you,” Bess said, her voice a mere whisper. “Sol and I...after my husband had been dead two years... Yes, my girl, yes.”

Bess opened her arms, and Lydia went to her, half joyous, half afraid. Bess pulled her hard into her embrace. They both cried, Lydia shaking but holding on tight to stop the tilting of the room, Bess crying, then kissing her wet cheek, again, again.

“It was a terrible decision to have to make—to give you away, but I was ready to run for public office the first time. I was widowed, a single mother with a young son who was spending the month of July with his aunt Vicky. But Sol and I—that one insane summer...”

Blinking back tears, Bess hesitated. She put Lydia in one chair, pulled two tissues from a brass container on the desk, sat down next to her and handed her one of them. She scooted her chair closer. Their knees almost touched.

Bess leaned forward as she talked. “Connor was thirteen when I got pregnant with you. He and I moved away and lived with my sister Vicky, who wanted you for her own. But Sol said an Amish adoption was best, as he wasn’t married yet, hadn’t even proposed. Bishop Esh weighed in on it and suggested it be a secret—a sealed deal. Vicky was hurt and angry, and I regret that. But Sol found a distant cousin of his whose wife wanted a child.”

“David and Lena Brand.”

She nodded and took Lydia’s hands in her own. “And then that buggy catastrophe, but at least you weren’t with them. I was both glad and sad when Sol insisted on taking you in when he got married. He told your mother—then his wife—whose child you were, of course. But to see you growing up and not as mine...”

Her shoulders shaking, she started to cry again.

“Mom, you ready?” Connor’s voice came from the other side of the door. He knocked but didn’t come in. “Whose buggy is that out there? We’ve got to get going.”

“I’ll be right out. No, you go ahead without me, and I’ll be a little late. It’s important,” she called to him. Bess got up, opened a little door in the tallest bookcase and stared at herself in the small mirror there. “Wow, time for major repair.”

“You have just done major repair—helped me. I won’t tell anyone, except my father, that I know. Well, Josh, if I marry him someday. I don’t want to hurt your career. And Connor—”

Bess turned back, grabbed another tissue and dabbed under her eyes. She blew her nose. “And Connor has a half sister he should love and admire. That was one of the hardest things, besides not being able to be with you enough. Connor maybe sensed how much I loved you, and he took it out on you sometimes. I mean, he knew I’d had a baby, but I told him it died. Too—too many lies. That one he evidently figured out later.”

“Victoria—your sister Vicky—had a note in her hand the night she died. It said, ‘To the girl Brand baby. Your mother is alive.’”

Bess turned and put both hands on her desk to steady herself. “She was saying things like that a lot, the worse her Alzeimer’s became. Truth from a demented woman and lies from a supposedly sane one,” she whispered as if to herself. “She never forgave me for not letting her adopt you, but back then—a single woman... That wasn’t common like it is now. But that’s one reason we brought her here, so she wouldn’t tell others the truth. Somehow, over the years, she’d tracked you down or guessed who you were, and Connor caught on, at least got suspicious then, I think, though he didn’t exactly say so.”

Lydia wanted to comfort Bess. But what if Connor was the one who had shut Sandra up? Maybe he was the intruder who was trying to put the blame on Josh. But no way could she spring that on Bess tonight, too, maybe never.