A Plain Malice: An Appleseed Creek Mystery (Appleseed Creek Mystery Series Book 4) (35 page)

“Aaron, you are
a genius.” I leaned over and hugged him.

He grinned, and I saw some of the old Aaron sparkle back. Just as quickly, his face
grew somber again. “I wish Becky thought that too.”

Timothy appeared in the barn door.
“Hey, Aaron.”

They did a complicated guy handshake.

I arched an eyebrow. “Is a fist pump part of the Amish repertoire?”

Aaron laughed. “Danny taught it to us.”

“I’m glad to see you out here with Chloe, buddy.” He met my eyes. “You’ve been gone for a while. I was starting to worry.”

Aaron sat straighter in his chair.
“Nothing to worry about. I’ve been keeping an eye on her, but Timothy, I have to tell you, she is a handful.”

“Don’t I know it,” Timothy mumbled.

“Funny,” I muttered. “I’m relieved the stop here has gone so well. I’ve been dreading this one the most. No offense, Aaron.”

He smiled. “Where are you off to next?”

“The Zuggs’ sheep farm and then a fruit farm,” I said.

Timothy gave a sigh of relief. “Two more stops
, and then the tour is over.”

Timothy was right.
The next morning, the group would move on to Indiana where they would meet their new permanent tour guide. Their troubles in Ohio would be forgotten, and someone would get away with murder.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

In the middle of the Zuggs’ sheep barn, big and tough Jimbo patted the head on the newborn lamb in his lap. “He’s so soft.”

“
Jimbo, who knew you were such a softy,” Fred said.

The lamb nestled closer to
Jimbo’s round tummy.

“We have two more baby lambs
. Would anyone like to hold them?” Abby Zugg, a seventeen-year-old Amish girl, asked.

Two thirds of the group raised their hands. The
Zugg Sheep Farm was an official hit. After watching Abby’s mother card and spin wool, which she let the tourists try as well, Abby brought out more lambs for the tourists to pet. The Mississippians cooed over the baby lambs like they were newborn infants.

All-the-while, I thought
about who, other than Charles, had brought a camera on the trip. My eyes felt on Raellen and LeeAnne who patted yearlings’ heads through the feed opening in their pen. The yearlings baaed. “Aren’t they sweet?” LeeAnne asked in her soft Southern drawl.

I stared. I had heard her ask that question before about Naomi and Thomas because she wanted to take a picture of them in the Troyer barn.

Earl sat in a wooden folding chair next to Jimbo, and Abby settled the lamb with a bottle on Jimbo’s lap. “You can feed her if you like.”

He smiled as the lamb ate hungrily from the bottle.

I crossed the barn to the yearling pen and LeeAnne and Raellen. “LeeAnne, do you have your camera with you?”

She blinked.
“My camera?”

“You had a digital camera with you on Saturday.”

Her dark cheeks deepened just a shade. “I did, but I haven’t carried it since that older Amish man told me not to take pictures. I’m respectful of the Amish.”

“
’Course you are, LeeAnne,” Raellen said soothingly.

“You took
photographs on Saturday though,” I said.

“Yes.
” She frowned. “Do you want me to delete them?”

“No,” I said too quickly. “No. I need to see those pictures. You may have captured what happened to Ruby and Dudley
.”

She straightened. “You think so?”

Raellen grabbed her friend’s arm with her bejeweled hand. “LeeAnne, that would make you a hero.”

A
lamb bumped his head into the back of my knee. “What did the police say about them?”

She licked her lips.
“The police?”

“Didn’t the officer ask to see your camera on Saturday?”

LeeAnne’s upper lip began to sweat. “He did.”

My brow furrowed. “So what did he say?”

“Nothing. I may have fibbed and said I didn’t have a camera.” Her cheeks darkened.

“LeeAnne, how could you?” Raellen yelped.

“I couldn’t give it to him, Raellen. My husband once gave the police his video camera after recording a traffic accident in Las Vegas. The police said they would give it back, but we never saw it again.”

“
The police didn’t keep Charles camera,” I said.

“I know, but by th
at time, I realized that it was too late. I didn’t want to look bad by admitting to the police that I lied.” She twirled her wedding band around her finger.

So these were pictures even Chief Rose hadn’t seen.
Don’t get ahead of yourself, Chloe
.
This could lead to another dead end.
My excitement grew.
“Where’s your camera?”

She thought a moment.
“Well, it’s tucked away in my roll bag on the bus.”

“Can I go look for it?”

“I suppose,” LeeAnne said.

“We can go with you,” Raellen said.

I shook my head. “No, no, don’t trouble yourself. I can be there and back in two seconds. You enjoy petting the sheep.”

“If you’re sure
…” Raellen trailed off.

“Absolutely,” I said, giving her a bright smile.

“Okay. My bags are under the seat in front of me. Do you remember where we sat?”

“Yep,” I said over my shoulder because I was already
halfway out of the barn. Outside of the sheep barn, I fast-walked through the crowd and then broke into a run toward the bus. To my relief, Hudson wasn’t hanging around the bus. I raced up the bus’s steps. In the middle of the blue aisle I paused and visualized where LeeAnne and Raellen sat. The left side near the back. LeeAnne sat by the window.

I hurried down the aisle
, sliding into the seat and tugging the roll bag out of its spot in one motion. I pulled out three cardigans, slippers, a knitting magazine, socks, granola bar, and bottle of water.
These bags can hold a lot. Was the camera really in there?
I stuck my hand in again and hit a plastic rounded corner. My fingers curled around the camera, and I pulled it out.

With my heart thumping in my chest
, I turned it on and scrolled back to Saturday. There were only ten pictures from that morning, and true to her word, those were that last photographs LeeAnne took on the trip. Two were of her and Raellen on the bus, three were of the scenery of the Troyer farm, but the rest were the inside of the Troyer barn during the milking presentation. I scrolled through the five pictures in disappointment. I didn’t see anything right away that gave me a clue. Determined, I went through them again, slowly and deliberately. Mr. Troyer milking the cow. Jimbo and Bobbi Jo behind Mr. Troyer milking the cow. Fred and Nadine standing poised for a picture in from the milk table. Then, I saw it in the background. Melinda handing Ruby a cup of milk.

Thoughts flashed through my head. Melinda was a science teacher
, Melinda asking Gertie to go on this tour, and Melinda handing me a glass of lemonade the afternoon I was poisoned.
But why?

I heard a release of air, the sound the bus doo
rs made when they closed, followed by a decisive click. My head snapped up.

Melinda
stood in the middle of the aisle with a syringe in her hand. “Found what you were looking for, Chloe?”

I pushed all of LeeAnne roll bag contents off of me and onto the floor and started
clamoring to get out of the seat, but I was too slow. Melinda and her syringe were already at my seat.

She twirled the syringe in her hand. “What I have here is extract from
Canadian yew. It’s much more potent than what I gave Ruby and Dudley and will work more quickly.”

Someone shook the bus’s door and banged on it. Melinda was unconcerned and slid the needle back and forth along the bare underside of her arm.

My back was up against the metal siding of the bus’s interior. There was nowhere to go.
Was the Blue Suede Tour Bus to be my blue coffin? This is so not my first choice.

“Melinda, everyone can see what is going on. If you hurt me
, you will never get away with it.”

“This isn’t for you. I’m done hurting others.
” She tipped the syringe point in the crook of her arm.

“No!” I cried. “Don’t do it.”

She hesitated.

I licked my lips.
“Why did you kill them? You had no reason to—”

She glared and me. “
No reason? Is that what you think? I had more reason than anyone needs. That woman destroyed me.”

I blinked.
“How?”

“She was my mother
, and she abandoned me to an orphanage as a baby. When the orphanage closed, I moved from one family to the next. No one ever wanted to keep me. I’m a problem no one wanted. I will spare your delicate ears the horrors I faced in those homes, but if you imagine the worst then double it. Finally, I ran away when I was thirteen and made my own life. I
never
forgot what she did to me.

“When I put myself through college and was a teacher, I poured all my free time into research
about who my birth mother was and where she was from. The orphanage kept poor records, and the ones that weren’t destroyed were scattered.” She rolled the needle in her fingers and the tip spun on the top of her skin. “Finally, I found her name. Ruby Carne later to be married and be name Ruby Masters. I moved to Tupelo and watched and waited for my opportunity.”

In my peripheral vision, I could s
ee people moving around the bus. Someone shouted for Hudson. I thought it might be Timothy.

“When I
discovered Ruby and her cousin signed up for this tour, I knew this was my chance. I was already Gertie’s traveling companion. It was easy to convince her to join me on a quiet little trip to Amish Country.”

She doesn’t know Pearl
is her mother.
I swallowed. “And Dudley? What about him?”

“He was just an aside.
I was there, although they didn’t know it, when Earl confessed his gambling problem and the pressure Dudley put on him to gamble again to Ruby. Dudley’s death would distract the police, or so I thought. It wasn’t nearly distracting enough.”

Outside I could hear Officer Nottingham and Timothy yelling at
Hudson to unlock the bus.

“Melinda, Ruby wasn’t your mother
,” I said quietly.

Confusion and rage
twisted her features. “What? What would you know about it?”

“Pearl told me the story just this morning.
She
was the one who had the baby. She couldn’t bring herself to sign the release papers to give you up so Ruby did it for her. She claimed to be your birth mother and signed the papers.”

“I don’t believe you. I saw the document.”

“All you have is a signature on a document. I heard it from Pearl herself who lived it.”

Melinda clenched her jaw. “I can’t even have
the revenge that I earned?”

“You think you earned Ruby’s death
?” I whispered.

“Yes,” she screeched.
“Because I died a thousand times as a child.”

I inched away from the wall. “Melinda, put the needle away. Maybe you and Pearl can salvage this somehow.”

“After I murdered her cousin?” She began to shake. “No. I have to end this.” Her tears fell freely. She tipped the needle straight down.

I froze.

The bus door opened and wave of sound of the agitated tourists and Amish outside filled the bus. At the bus steps, an argument broke out.

“I’m going in,” Timothy said. “Chloe’s in there!”

“Stay back, Troyer,” Officer Nottingham snapped.

“Move!
Let me through. I will talk to Melinda.” Gertie ordered and she climbed onto the bus. “Stay back!” she shouted at whoever was behind her also trying to climb on. She stamped her cane in the aisle like a lion trainer keeping the wild beasts at bay. Then, the tiny centurion focused all of her attention of Melinda. “Melinda, what are you doing?” She set her cane in the first row of seats.

Melinda shook her head back and forth like a defiant child.
The syringe made an indent crease on the inside of Melinda’s elbow. She pressed down. “There is no reason to be here. I have no one. No family. No one has ever loved me.” A bead of blood appeared where the needle broke her skin.

I was afraid to jump up and grab
the syringe from her, afraid I would push the needle in deeper.

“I have no family.” Tears coursed
down Melinda’s face.

Gertie stood in the middle of the aisle with her arms outstretched to Melinda. “What am I, Melinda? What am I?”

Melinda lifted her head.