A Plain Malice: An Appleseed Creek Mystery (Appleseed Creek Mystery Series Book 4) (25 page)

“What about
Hudson? He must play a part in this gambling thing,” Timothy said.

“Probably,” the chief said. “Nottingham and I will talk to him before we go.”

“Do you want me there?”

She shook her head. “No,
you still have to work with him on the tour tomorrow. He might think even less of you if you interrogate him tonight.”

I bit my lip. I wanted to hear what
Hudson had to say and badly, but the chief had a valid point. “I doubt he would dislike me anymore than he does already. We aren’t exactly best buds.”

“All right, you can come.”
She slipped her sunglasses over her eyes. “But it’s hard for me to believe you and Hudson don’t get along. I thought you made friends with everyone.”

Yeah right. Deacon Sutter and Brock Buckley beg to differ.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Hudson
sat alone at a round table in the dining room. The tourists gathered around the three other tables. Becky held court at the center table. This time she told the story of her brother Thomas letting the sheep loose at the schoolhouse’s Christmas pageant last year. Earl sat at a table with Jimbo and Bobbi Jo. He had his head down and concentrated on his food.

The room fell silent when Chief Rose and Officer Nottingham followed me in
to the room.

Officer Nottingham approached the bus driver’s table.
“Mr. Dugan, we would like to speak with you in the lobby.”

Hudson
cut into his roast beef. “What about?”

“We would prefer to discuss that in private.”

Earl shoved a spoonful of mashed potatoes into his mouth, and a bead of sweat rolled down the side of his face.

Hudson
lifted his head from head plate and his eyes trained on Earl. More mashed potatoes went in Earl’s mouth. His cheeks were so full, he resembled a chipmunk.

“Fine.”
Hudson dropped his fork onto the table. It spun across the smooth surface and fell to the floor. He didn’t bother to pick it up as he followed the two officers from the room. Before I left, I quietly set the fork on the edge of the table as Ivy cleared away his dishes.

In the lobby,
Hudson glared at me from the couch. “What is she doing here?”

Chief Rose stood in front of the river stone fireplace. “
Chloe spoke to Earl earlier, so I thought it would be helpful if she sits in while we talk.”

“Whatever,” the bus driver muttered.

I glanced at the registration desk. Jane wasn’t there as she helped Ivy in the kitchen with dinner. However, Cheetos lay across the counter and blinked at me.

“What do you know about Dudley’s side business?” the chief asked.

“You mean Dudley’s gambling?” Hudson said. “If you spoke to Earl, that’s what this must be about.”

Chief Rose held onto the mantle. “Yes.”

“He was a bookie, so what? It didn’t make any difference to me. I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

Officer Nottingham had his notepad out again.
“You never reported him?”

“Not my job
. I just drive the bus.”

“How long had Dudley had this side business?” the chief asked.

Hudson scrapped at his front teeth with pinkie nail. “Just the last year or so. He was tired of being on the road. Can’t say I blame him.”

“
He planned to leave Blue Suede Tours?”

Hudson
nodded. “He thought this would be his last tour.”

His last tour?
It certainly was that.

I spoke for the first time.
“When he said this would be his last tour, what did he mean?”

Chief Rose shot me an irritate glance. I’d forgotten I was there strictly as an observer.

“He was going to take his money and run,” Hudson said.

“And he didn’t plan to share it with you even though you had kept his secret?”
I asked.

Hudson
was up and off the couch. An inch from my face, he said, “You think I killed Dudley and that old lady?”

I stepped back and ran into Timothy. I hadn’t even known he was in the room.

“Because I didn’t.” He threw up his arms. “If you have to know, Dudley would give me a
tip
every now and again for keeping my mouth shut. Why would I kill my source of easy money?”

Chief Rose dropped her hand to her side
. “Because the easy money would dry up if Dudley left the tour bus for good. Maybe you tried to talk him into changing his mind, and he refused.”

Hudson
grunted. “I would have just shot him. Sure, I wasn’t happy that Dudley was leaving because of the money, but I wasn’t broken hearted over it either. He wasn’t the easiest guy in the world to get along with. I hoped the tour company would put me with some young buck, who I could boss around. I’m the driver. I should be the one in control.”

Officer Nottingham scribbled more notes.

“It’s good news for you we didn’t find Dudley with a bullet hole in his head then,” Chief Rose said dryly.

“I guess so,”
Hudson said. “Was that all,
officer
?” he asked.

“For now,” the chief replied.

Hudson stomped up the stairs to the second floor, and Officer Nottingham and Chief Rose left shortly afterward.

I petted Cheetos and felt homesick for Gigabyte. “Another suspect of
f the list,” I said with a frown.

Timothy
pulled me into a hug.

I bent my neck back so I could see his face. “What’s that for?”

A slow smile crossed his face. “I can’t hug you whenever you want?”

“You can.”

He looked worried. “Chloe, I know this case is taking all of our time, but I need to tell you—”

“Chloe!”
Becky cried as she bounded into the lobby.

Timothy groaned. I patted his chest and pulled away from him

“Chloe, can you give me a lift home? After you and the cops took Hudson away, dinner broke up.”

I turned to Timothy.

“You might as well take her. I still haven’t finished those odd jobs for Jane yet. I really want to get them done tonight.”

“Let me grab my purse,” I said.

Ten minutes later, I turned the Beetle onto state route in front of the inn. “Have you—”

Becky slumped in her seat.
“If you ask me one more time about those college applications, I will scream.”

“Okay, I promise to drop the college apps, but honestly, I wasn’t
asking about that.”

“Then what?” she asked.

“Do you still want to talk to your parents?”

She covered her face with her elbow. “That’s worse.”

“You need to talk to them. The silence between you can’t go on.”

“
They didn’t even acknowledge me on my birthday,” Becky said.

“And you refused to see them on Easter,” I
reminded her gently. “I’m not saying how they have treated you is right, but you may have to be the person who reaches out. There’s no shame in that.”

“
But I didn’t do anything wrong,” her voice pitched up an octave in a whine. “All I did was cut my hair. What is the big deal? I already left the community. Why did they freak out so much over the hair?”

“It’s the
finality of the haircut.” I paused at a four-way stop. “You know that.”

She folded her arm and stared out the window
. “They’re the parents. I’m the child. Aren’t the supposed to come to me?”

I understood how she felt
. For over a decade, I thought the same way about my relationship with my father. If he loved me, he would reach out to me. If I mattered to him, he would make an effort. He never did. It wasn’t until I saw the coldness of an Amish shunning that I knew the act of isolation hurt the shunner as much as the shunned. “I don’t want you to have the same relationship with your parents that I had with my father.”

“My situation is different.
Daed
will be angry.” Her voice cracked. “
Mamm
will cry.”

“Silence is worse,” I said
, speaking from experience. “Silence and indifference are so much worse.”

She dropped her gaze to her hands. “I’m afraid they
’ll say they don’t want to see me anymore. I’m afraid to hear that to my face.”

“They won’t
. Look at how much you’ve gone through together.” I gripped the steering wheel. “If they were going to shun you, they would have last summer when you were in the car accident, but they didn’t. When everyone else in the district told them to avoid you, they didn’t.”

A tear fell on her folded hands. “You’re right.”

I patted her leg.

She placed her hands on the dashboard and leaned forward.
“Can we go now?”

I made a right turn.
“Now? What if they’re busy?”

“They
’re not. I lived in that house for nineteen years, and I can tell you exactly what’s happening there on a Sunday evening. Dinner is over, and they are all in the living room.
Daed
’s reading to them from
The Budget
or they are playing a game led by
Grossdaddi
.” Her voice caught as she remembered what she was missing, what she gave up for her independence.

“Okay, we’ll go now.”
I pulled into a parking lot, so that I could turn around and head to the farm.

She leaned over and hugged my right arm.

I clung to the steering wheel. “Careful. I’m driving.”

“Oh, right.” She let me go
but grinned from ear to ear.

I hoped she’d be able to retain her smile when we reached the farm.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

On an Amish farm, the sound of a car
engine is unique enough to attract attention right away. Even before the Beetle was all way up the driveway, the front screen door of the Troyers’ two story white farmhouse flew open. Thomas and, to my surprise, Ruth hurried down the front steps.

I parked the car. Becky didn’t m
ove. I balanced my car keys in my hand. “They are waiting for you.”

Becky
gave me a wobbly smile. Her smile reminded me so much of the teenager I met on the side of the road eight months ago. There was an anxious resolve in her face. She unbuckled her seatbelt and slid out of the car. When Ruth saw her sister, she burst into tears and ran to Becky. She slammed her thin body into her older sister and wrapped her arms around Becky like rope.

Into Becky
’s shoulder Ruth cried and mumbled in their language. Becky shushed her and whispered back to her in Pennsylvania Dutch. As she bent forward to comfort her sister, her cut blond hair fell over her face like a silken curtain.

My knuckles ached from holding the steering wheel so tightly. One by one, I pried my fingers free of the molded plastic. However, I didn’t leave the car. I didn’t want to interrupt the moment between sisters.
I lowered my car windows so that I could hear even though I didn’t understand the words they said.

Mr. Troyer stood in the doorway of the house. He didn’t move. Grandfather Zook appeared and poked his
son-in-law in the back. Mr. Troyer shot an annoyed look at his father-in-law but proceeded down the steps onto the yard. Mr. Troyer’s glance shifted over to me sitting in the front seat of my car. “Becky,” Mr. Troyer said. “Your
mamm
and I want to talk to you. Alone.” He went back into the house.

Becky
pried herself away from her sister’s arms, whispering to Ruth in their language as she freed herself. Ruth let go and scrubbed at her face with the back of hand. Becky glanced back at me.

I shot her a thumb’s up sign, and she went inside the house.

Ruth grabbed her brother’s hand and the pair dashed for the cow barn. Thomas waved to me as he went. Ruth did not.

A moment later, the screen door opened again, and Grandfather Zook navigate
d the three porch steps into the yard. I jumped out of the Beetle and jogged across the grass to lend him my arm.

“
Danki,
Chloe,” he said. “Would you like to sit on our bench in the garden?”

I smiled when he called it “our bench
.” We had long talks there many times over the last few months.

When we were settled,
I told Grandfather Zook about the poisoned milk.

“I thought it would be something like that
. As soon as the officer was here cutting plants I knew it was because of the murder.”

“Do you know what a yew bush is?”

“Is that the plant that killed those people?”