Vanish in Plain Sight (12 page)

His jaw tightened. “I thought he might be more forthcoming without you there.”

“Did you? Or are you trying to control what I find out?”

They’d been plunged into the middle of a quarrel in the worst possible place. The trouble was that he couldn’t entirely deny her accusation.

“Do you blame me? When this is over, you’re going to go back to Baltimore with whatever answers you have. But my mother, my brother…they’ll go on living here. I don’t want them to end up dealing with a lot of talk over something that’s not their fault.”

“I’m not out to cause trouble or start rumors.” Her face had paled, but her determination didn’t falter. “I’m after the truth, plain and simple. And I won’t be satisfied with less.”

She turned and walked away, leaving him standing there wondering how much of Spring Township had just overheard her.

S
HE SHOULDN’T HAVE
let Link’s response get to her. Marisa paused, not sure where she was going, except away from him. Geneva seemed deep in conversation with several other women, so she moved to the nearest booth, staring blankly at a display of crocheted pot holders.

Link’s first loyalty was to his family. She couldn’t let herself forget that, no matter how she felt about him.

She’d been looking too long at the pot holders…the Amish woman behind the counter would be expecting her to buy. Marisa smiled at her and moved on.

The firehouse itself was an uncompromising cement-block rectangle, the bay doors open to reveal two fire trucks. Next to the building a huge white canopy stretched over folding chairs. The patter of an auctioneer, amplified by a loudspeaker, floated out. Obviously the auction had begun.

People, many in Amish dress, wandered through the rows of items spread out across the field next to the tent. They must be picking out the objects they wanted to bid on. She noticed a couple of men jotting down information in notebooks. Dealers, maybe, out for a good buy that they could resell.

Booths of various sizes, shapes and construction circled the auction tent…everything from a commercial-type trailer selling cotton candy to a card table with yet more pot holders, sheltered from the sun by a beach umbrella whose bright stripes were a startling contrast to the dark dresses of the women fingering the pot holders.

She moved toward the next booth. An eddy in the crowds whirled around her, and she found she was in the midst of a throng of Amish. For a second their dark clothing seemed vaguely menacing on such a bright day, and she was carried along with them, all talking in a language she couldn’t understand.

About her? Some sidelong glimpses made her wonder if that might be true.

She stopped, letting them flow past her. Two men stopped by the next booth…heads together, glancing at her as they carried on a low-voiced conversation.
She recognized one of them. It was Ezra Weis. He spoke, vehemently it seemed, to the other man. They both turned to stare at her, their faces bleak.

She might be imagining some things, but she didn’t imagine that. She turned away. If she could just find Geneva… She’d even settle for Link right now. At least she understood his occasional antagonism.

Instead, Bishop Amos’s smiling face bobbed up from the crowd.

“Marisa, I have been looking for you. I saw Link and Geneva, so I knew you must be here someplace.”

“I was checking out some of the stands.” She didn’t glance back toward Ezra and the other man. Were they still watching? If so, they’d see her on good terms with their bishop.

“Ach, today we have anything you could want. And probably much that you don’t.” He chuckled. “But here is someone I want you to meet.” He gestured to a nearby stand stocked with dozens of jars of jam and preserves, their colors sparkling like gems in the sunshine, and led her to the counter. “This is Doris Yost. Doris, here is Barbara Zook’s daughter, Marisa, come back after all this time.”

“Wie bist du heit.”
The woman nodded, a smile creasing her broad cheeks. “You have a look of Barbara about you, ain’t so?”

“Ach, that is what I said, too.” Bishop Amos’s eyes twinkled. “Doris and your mamm were girls together once, Marisa. I will leave you two to talk for now.”

He moved away, his attention claimed almost immediately by a cluster of small children chattering in Pennsylvania Dutch.

“The kinder all love Bishop Amos,” Doris said, watching him fondly.

Marisa could see why. Kindliness radiated from his face. “So, you knew my mother?”

“Ach, for sure. We were running-around friends when she came to visit the Zooks…me and Barbara and Barbara’s cousin, Elizabeth. I lived next door to the Zooks back then.”

“I’m so glad you’re willing to talk with me.”

“Ja, for sure.” Doris’s face sobered a bit. “I hear tell that William Zook doesn’t want his cousin mentioned, but that is foolishness, it is. Barbara has been gone a long time.” A shadow of sorrow crossed her eyes.

“You think my mother is dead, don’t you?” The question was out before she realized that probably wasn’t the best way to start.

Concern set wrinkles between her brows. “I suppose…well, ja, I do. I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t say that to you.”

“I’d rather hear the truth.” She would, wouldn’t she? “Bishop Amos said the same. I don’t understand, though. My father, the police—they don’t seem convinced of that. I was always told that my mother ran away.”

Doris was already shaking her head. “That I don’t
believe. Even if she had reason to go away, Barbara would not leave you behind.”

Those were the words she’d always longed to hear. But could she believe them?

“If she went back to her family in Indiana…”

“No, that she did not. If she had, we would have heard.” Doris sounded sure. And looking at her plain, sincere face, it was impossible to believe she would lie about it.

She could still be wrong, of course. Barbara might have gone somewhere else.

Without her suitcase? The voice of reason would not be silent.

Marisa took a breath, trying to steady herself. This was her opportunity to find out more about her mother. She couldn’t let it slip away.

“Will you tell me about her? What she was like? I don’t remember her very well.”

Doris clasped her hand where it lay on the countertop. “Ach, for sure. She was like sunshine, Barbara was. Always lively and happy. She loved coming here to visit, especially that last summer. She and Ezra Weis were courting.” She paused. “You maybe knew that?”

“Yes. Bishop Amos told me. And I’ve talked to Mr. Weis.” Unsuccessfully. An image of that futile conversation in the middle of the night came back to her.

“Well, to tell the truth, I always thought she was too lively for Ezra.” Doris looked reminiscently back
through the years, a small smile playing about her lips. “Maybe that’s why she loved to come here. From what she said about her folks back in Indiana, they were pretty conservative.”

It took a stretch to imagine anyone more conservative than the Amish she’d met. “I see.”

Doris chuckled. “No, you are thinking that I’m a fine one to talk about someone else being conservative, but it’s true, all the same. Some Amish are much stricter than others. Here, she could go to singings with our gang, or even to Englisch parties if she wanted, so long as her aunt and uncle didn’t know about it. And William, he was ripe for any mischief.”

Now William was so strict that he wouldn’t even talk to her. The two things didn’t seem to fit together.

“Is that how my mother met my father? Going to an Englisch party?” She repeated the woman’s expression, wondering if that meant a beer bash, thrown by the local teenagers.

“She didn’t tell me about your daadi. If she had, maybe I’d have talked her out of seeing him. So maybe that’s why she didn’t tell me.” Doris shrugged. “No sense in thinking about what didn’t happen, and I can’t tell you about your mamm and daad because I never knew about them being together, not until it was too late and she’d left the church.”

“Did you see her afterward? I mean, they settled right in Springville.”

“Once in a while I’d see her. We’d speak. I remember seeing her pushing you in a buggy. She stopped, and we had a chat, comparing babies, you know. She was so proud of you.”

Marisa wanted to hang on to the image of her mother showing off her baby.

“Did she seem happy with the decision she’d made?”

Doris hesitated. “Happy? Well, she had regrets about her parents. They were so strict, like I said. She said she wrote to them, to tell them about you, but they never answered.”

That rejection must have been an arrow in her heart. “I don’t see how they could do that to their own daughter.”

Doris shook her head. “It’s hard to explain. The bann is meant to show a person that he or she is wrong. Turn them back to the church. If that doesn’t happen…well, most folks adjust after a while. They can still stay close to relatives who left. Maybe her parents would have come around in time.”

But time was one thing her mother hadn’t had. “What about her cousins? Did they adjust?”

Doris frowned. “I’m not so sure I can answer that. Elizabeth married, and she went to live over toward Paradise, so she wasn’t here, but I seem to remember she and Barbara wrote. As for William…” She shrugged. “William keeps his own counsel. And Barbara never mentioned him to me, the times we talked.” Doris glanced over her shoulder. “Ach,
we were just speaking of you. Marisa, here is your cousin, Elizabeth Yoder. Elizabeth Zook, she was, before she married.”

The woman who stood smiling at her looked so like Marisa’s memory of her mother that for a moment her heart seemed to stop. Elizabeth Yoder’s light brown hair was pulled smoothly back under her kapp, of course, so it was impossible to tell if it had the slight curl her mother’s hair had had. But she had the same golden brown eyes, the same pointed chin that Marisa remembered.

“You look so much like my mother.” She’d been staring, she realized.

“People always did say we looked more like sisters than cousins.” Elizabeth’s smile showed a dimple at the corner of her mouth. She had to be in her mid-forties, but her skin was as clear and unlined as a girl’s. “Ach, we loved being together.” A shadow touched her eyes, and she reached out impulsively to take Marisa’s hand. “I am so sorry I didn’t get to see you grow up.”

Marisa nodded, her throat tight. Here at least was someone who mourned for Barbara and was glad to see Barbara’s daughter.

“I’d love to talk to you about my mother. Maybe not here…”

“No, not here.” She spoke quickly. “This is not the place or time.” She pushed a paper into Marisa’s hand. “That is my address. It’s not hard to find. Come any day next week.”

Marisa nodded, a little perplexed by the urgency in her voice. “I’ll come. Thank you.”

“I must go—”

Someone spoke suddenly behind her, a quick, harsh rattle of Pennsylvania Dutch.

Doris, with the air of someone hoping to keep the peace, touched Marisa’s arm. “Marisa, here is your cousin, William Zook. William, this is your cousin, Marisa.”

Marisa swung around. Somehow she wasn’t surprised that her mother’s cousin was the man she’d seen talking to Ezra Weis.

He didn’t acknowledge Doris and didn’t seem to notice when his sister slipped away with a regretful glance at Marisa. Instead he stared at Marisa, his face a stern mask above his dark beard.

She managed a smile that she hoped didn’t look as false as it felt. “I’m pleased to meet you. I was hoping to talk to you about my mother.”

“No.” The word was flat, harsh with some emotion she couldn’t identify.

Doris made a faint murmur of dismay. “William, you can’t—

“I have only one thing to say to you.” He swept on as if he hadn’t heard Doris. “You must go. Go home. You can do no good here. Listen to me. Leave Springville now or you will be sorry.”

I
F
M
ARISA HAD DRIVEN
herself, she would have gone straight back to the inn after that encounter with her cousin, but that just showed what a coward she was, she’d decided. As it was, she had to endure several more hours of the auction, smiling and nodding to all the people Geneva wanted her to meet, until finally, the trunk loaded with her purchases, Geneva had been ready to go home.

Turning down a dinner invitation on the grounds that she had work to do, Marisa had made it back to her new room at last. A shower helped to wipe away the remaining unpleasantness that had lingered throughout the day.

Or maybe it hadn’t. Propped up in bed with her drawing pad on her lap, she ought to be able to dismiss the encounter with William Zook from her mind. But she couldn’t. His frowning face seemed to appear on the blank page in front of her.

She was being stupid. She’d already known he didn’t want to talk with her. If he wouldn’t respond to Bishop Amos, he certainly wouldn’t to her. But it had been different, hearing that directly from him.

His words echoed in her mind.
Go home, or something bad might happen to you
. That had been the message.
Like your mother
had been unspoken but implied.

It had been a warning. That didn’t mean it was a threat. But why? What had been the point, when he’d already said he wouldn’t speak with her?

Maybe because he’d seen her with his sister and perhaps known that she would not be as silent as he on the subject of Barbara. If he couldn’t get his sister to fall in with his opinion, scaring Marisa away would accomplish the same thing.

She would not let herself fall victim to fear. She’d go to see Elizabeth on Monday. With a little luck, William’s sister would know a bit more about what had been going on with Barbara that fall when she’d vanished. Meanwhile, she’d distract her thoughts with some work.

She’d barely picked up a drawing pencil before a knock at the bedroom door sent it moving in a jagged line. Nerves, she scolded herself, and swung off the bed. It was probably Rhoda, who seemed convinced Marisa wouldn’t sleep without a nightly mug of hot chocolate. Or wondering if the new room had everything she needed.

But it wasn’t Rhoda. It was Geneva.

“Geneva. I didn’t expect to see you.”

“I know.” Geneva’s blue eyes were filled with sympathy. “Link told me you had an upsetting experience with your cousin William.”

“Really.” And how exactly did Link know that? “I didn’t mention it to him.”

“I understand Doris Yost said something about it.” Geneva wrinkled her nose. “You have to understand how word gets around in a small place like this.” She nodded toward the room. “May I come in?”

“Of course.” Marisa stepped back, holding the door wide. She could plead the excuse of work, but she couldn’t shut the door on kindness. Geneva cared. She could stand a little caring about now.

“Link said I should leave you alone, but I just couldn’t.” Geneva glanced appreciatively around the cozy room and then sat down in the rocking chair. “It never seems to occur to a man that women sometimes need to talk.”

Marisa sat on the bed again, since that was the only other place to sit. “I shouldn’t let it upset me. I knew already that William didn’t want to see me. I just didn’t expect him to be so vehement about it. He actually warned me that I should leave here.”

Geneva shook her head, forehead wrinkling in distress. “I just can’t understand that. I don’t know the Zook family well, I confess, but frankly, it seems out of character for an Amish person. Especially when the bishop asked for cooperation. Bishop Amos is universally admired.”

“It’s odd that William still feels so strongly, isn’t it? I mean, that happened years ago. In a way, I could understand Ezra Weis’s attitude more easily. If he was
in love with my mother, he might resent having the whole subject brought up again.”

“I’ve often noticed that the Amish don’t have the same concept of time that most English do.” Geneva rocked absently. “Our days are crowded with different things, while theirs move at a slower tempo. And anything to do with family has a deep effect, because they’re so close. I suppose William must have felt responsible, in a way, for Ezra’s pain.”

“Why would he? It was my mother who fell in love with someone else. William was hardly responsible for that.”

“No, but he and Ezra were best friends in those days. I’d guess William encouraged that relationship and then felt terrible when it turned out badly. But neither of them should blame Barbara for falling in love. The heart doesn’t listen to common sense.” Her smile carried a tinge of sorrow, reminding Marisa that it hadn’t been all that long since Geneva’s husband died.

“So many people seem to have been hurt in one way or another by my mother’s decision.” She stopped, not sure she wanted to go further.

“You wonder if she had regrets, don’t you?”

Geneva saw too much. Marisa nodded. “I suppose I do. I remember…”

“What do you remember?” Geneva asked gently.

“Something I heard my mother say once. I don’t know when, or even who she was talking to. Just the words.” She hesitated, but the urge to tell someone
was too strong. “‘I don’t belong anywhere.’ That’s what she said. ‘I don’t belong anywhere.’” The weight of unutterable sadness seemed to accompany the words.

“I’m sorry.” Geneva reached across the space between them to put her hand over Marisa’s. “That’s not something a child should hear.”

“I didn’t understand, then. I just knew she was unhappy, and it frightened me.”

“Of course it would. Every child needs to feel that his or her parents are the solid center of their world.”

She tried to manage a smile. “You and your husband obviously achieved that with your children.”

“We tried.” Geneva sighed. “But we made other mistakes. Having children is such a reminder of our frailty. If anything will bring a person to their knees, it’s having children. When the boys were small, I used to pray every night for more patience. And God just kept giving me more occasions to learn patience.”

She smiled, as she was sure Geneva intended. “From what I’ve heard of Link as a boy, I’m sure he gave you plenty of practice.”

“He went from one scrape to another, always trying to keep up with his brother or do something Trey hadn’t done. No matter what was going on, there would be Link in the thick of it, always popping up grinning, whatever happened.” She paused. “Maybe that’s why it’s been so difficult, seeing him as withdrawn as he’s been since he came home. And he’s
past the age at which I can kiss the hurt and make it better.”

Marisa nodded, not sure what to say. Geneva was showing a bit of her heart. “I’m sorry. It has to be so hard to watch him struggle.” She moved slightly, and the sketch pad slid from the bed, fluttering to the floor next to Geneva’s feet.

Geneva bent to pick it up, pausing to look at the drawing on the page. Marisa sucked in a breath. That picture revealed too much.

Geneva gave her a questioning look. “Is this something you saw?”

“No. I don’t…I don’t think so.” She moved her hand over the image of a woman in Amish dress, walking away toward a misty wood. “It’s just the picture that’s in my mind. Sometimes in my dreams. My mother, going away from me. Not hearing when I call her. Not turning back.”

“Oh, my dear.” Geneva’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m so sorry.”

“I guess that’s the picture I formed when I was a kid, piecing it together from what I heard about my mother.” Her father hadn’t done her any favors by trying to protect her from the truth, always assuming he had known it. What her imagination had conjured up had been worse.

“But now you know that—” Geneva stopped, clearly thinking she was about to say the wrong thing.

“I know that nothing I believed was true, but I still
don’t know what is.” Pain gripped her. “Is it better to think that my mother ran away and didn’t take me with her or that she was murdered?”

She hadn’t said that out loud before, but now she knew that was the question that haunted her. And would continue to haunt her until she knew the truth. “What if I never know?”

“You mustn’t think that way.” Geneva gripped her hands as if to give her strength. “The truth will come out. Sometimes it happens when you least expect it.”

“I’d like to believe that.” But she thought Geneva was being overly optimistic.

“You can.” Geneva hesitated. “I know it’s easy for people to say they understand. But I do. Because it happened to me.”

“To you?” She tried not to sound skeptical.

Geneva leaned back, clasping her hands together as if in prayer. “Thirty-four years. That’s how long Blake and I were married.” She let out a long breath. “He went in for a regular checkup. That was all, just a checkup. And they found the cancer.”

“I’m so sorry.” That was tragic, but hardly the same.

“We were coping, I thought. It wasn’t hopeless, according to the doctors. Serious, but there was a chance. But two days later, Blake went out to the hunting cabin. He said he had something to take care of. Trey found him the next day. It looked as if he’d killed himself.”

Geneva’s pain was so tangible that it seized Marisa’s heart. “Geneva, you don’t have to tell me.”

“Yes, I do. Because I thought I had to believe that my love wasn’t enough for him. That he’d choose to kill himself rather than fight to stay with us.”

Marisa’s heart twisted, and she made a murmur of distress.

“But that wasn’t the end of it. It was nearly a year later that we learned the truth. Blake hadn’t killed himself. He’d been murdered by someone we knew and trusted.” She leaned forward, face intent. “Terrible as that was, it was better to know the truth. I don’t suppose I’ll ever stop grieving for my husband, but I know he didn’t choose to leave us. So you see, I do understand.”

“I guess you do.” Her voice was husky with tears. Geneva rose and bent to hug her. “I’ll pray for you.”

With Geneva’s soft cheek pressed against hers, Marisa could almost feel herself in her mother’s arms again, and her heart was too full to speak.

L
INK GRIPPED THE
steering wheel a little tighter, trying not to glance across the front seat at Marisa. She’d been cool, to say the least, since he’d picked her up at the bed-and-breakfast for their appointment with Tom Sylvester. She obviously hadn’t yet forgotten their sharp exchange at the auction yesterday.

Well, what had she expected of him? She could
hardly think he’d be happy at the can of worms opened by finding that suitcase.

Mom hadn’t said what happened between her and Marisa after she got home the previous night, and he’d had to respect her feelings. But she’d looked strained, and he didn’t like that. Mom had been through enough in recent years. She didn’t need any further grief.

Then this morning Mom had been fussing be cause she hadn’t invited Marisa to attend church and have brunch with them. He’d assured her that Marisa would be more comfortable not being overwhelmed with invitations, and Trey had jumped in to agree with him. Link could tell that Trey was thinking the same thing he was…that if anything unpleasant came out about Uncle Allen, Mom was going to be hurt, and developing a friendship with Marisa would just make that even worse.

He glanced at Marisa. She stared out the window at the houses they were passing—pleasant newer houses built along a tree-shaded street sometime in the ’50s, probably. Her face was set.

“I suppose you’d rather be going to talk to Tom Sylvester alone,” he said, more in response to her expression than anything else.

“Whether I would or not, that’s not going to happen, is it?”

It took an effort to reply evenly. “If you went alone, you might not get very far. Tom has worked
for Morgan Enterprises all his life. He’ll talk more freely if I’m there.”

“He’s loyal to the Morgan family, in other words. Like a lot of people around here.”

“Are you accusing us of something?” He ground out the words.

She turned to him with what seemed honest surprise. “I’m not accusing. I’m stating what seems to be a fact. Going anywhere at all with your mother makes that clear. Everyone knows her. Everyone likes her.”

“Is that so surprising?” He caught hold of his temper and tried to look at the situation as an outsider would. “Look, Morgans have been here since year one. The old-timers remind me that they knew my grandfather, watched my dad grow up, watched me grow up, too. That’s not exactly an unmixed blessing.”

“I wouldn’t know. I didn’t have the sort of family background you did.”

And what exactly was she implying? He pulled into the driveway at Tom’s split-level and stopped. “This is it. It might be better if you let me take the lead in this conversation.”

Her lips tightened. “I realize that.”

A few minutes later they were following Tom Sylvester onto the patio at the back of the house. Tom, heavyset and jovial as always, ushered them out the sliding glass doors.

“The wife says this might be the last nice Sunday
afternoon this fall, so she wants to cook out. I keep telling her that in a month we’ll be in Florida, able to cook out every day of the year, but she doesn’t hear me.”

“Don’t let us slow you down. If you’re supposed to be starting the grill, you’d best get on with it.”

Tom grinned. “Already done. If I tell her I have to watch the fire, I can stay out of her way in the kitchen.” He prodded at the coals with a long fork. “The neighbors all have those fancy gas grills, but as far as I’m concerned, nothing beats the flavor you get with charcoal.”

“Right.” That was enough chit-chat. “Well, you know why Ms. Angelo and I are here. You’ve probably heard about the suitcase I found in the wall of the addition.”

“Everybody in the township has heard about that by now. Especially since Ms. Angelo arrived. You know how news travels around here.”

He nodded. He did, unfortunately.

“Adam Byler stopped by with some questions, but I couldn’t help much.”

Link thought he recognized the caution in Tom’s voice. Loyalty. He’d have to defuse that, make it clear that Tom should talk.

“Now that you’ve had a chance to think about it, I’m hoping you remember more.”