A Plain Malice: An Appleseed Creek Mystery (Appleseed Creek Mystery Series Book 4) (6 page)

Grandfather Zook shook his finger at
his grandson. “Don’t you start thinking your
grossdaddi
was hearing things. I know what I know. I only wish I had had the good sense to investigate when I first heard the noise. Then, this all could have been avoided.”

Timothy blew out
a breath. “You said yourself it could have been another barn cat or a deer.”

Grandfather Zook snorted.
“I’m going to keep looking.”

“Timothy’s father did say he store
d the milk for the tourists in the refrigerator here around five in the morning. If someone was here at six, they could have tampered with it and left before the bus arrived,” I said.

“That’s not the only time,” Timothy said. “It was so chaotic when the southern
ers first arrived. Since they were an hour early, we weren’t ready for them. Someone could have slipped in here unnoticed and put something in the milk.”

“But wouldn’t that person have to have known your father set the milk aside for the tourists?” I asked. “Did either of you know?”

They both shook their heads.

I fondled Mabel’s ears. “Did you hear anything
, girl? Did anyone come inside here while you snoozed?”

Grandfather Zook leaned heavily on his braces and chuckled. “If someone
did she would have licked him to death.”

Mabel gave me her best doggie grin.
Lassie she was not.

My cell phone rang
. As I retrieved it from my jacket pocket, I saw Chief Rose’s name on the readout. Why was I not surprised?

Timothy examined my face. “Who is it?
Your dad?”

I sighed
. “No. It’s Chief Rose.”

“I thought she just left,” Timothy said.

“She did.” I put the phone to my ear and stepped out the back door of the milking parlor. “Hello?”

“Humphrey, get your behind down to
the hospital now,” the police chief ordered.

“What? Why? What’s wrong?”

“These tourists are what’s wrong. They need a new tour guide.” She sucked in air. “You.”

“Me?” I squeaked.

Timothy touched my shoulder, and I turned to face him. His brow was knit together in worry. “What is it?” he mouthed.

I shook my head.

“Yes, you,” Chief Rose snapped. “I need a new guide or these people are going to bolt.”

I gripped the phone to my ear.
“They still want to go on the tour?”

“Let’s just say I talked them into it.”
She sounded a little too pleased with herself in my opinion.

I knew that smirk on the chief’s face would lead to trouble. “I wouldn’t know what to do.”

“Humphrey, it’s not rocket science. You stand on the bus and tell them about our quaint little town and introduce them to the Amish farmers and convince them to buy buggy-shaped paperweights they don’t need. How hard can that be?”

There has to be a way out of this.
“I’m not a tour guide. I’m a computer geek.”

“You’re not a detective either, bu
t you like to pretend you are,” she said.

I grimaced and knew the chief referred to the few time
s I'd meddled in her investigations, sometimes with her blessing, sometimes without it. Her voice turned sharp. “You know more about the Amish living in this county than English folks who have lived here for generations. I need you.” She paused. “Do it for the Troyers. If the bus people stick around, I will have more suspects.”

“Isn’t there someone else you can ask?
There has to be a real travel agent in Knox County. Isn’t there an AAA office in Mount Vernon? Maybe you should call them.”

“Don’t you want to help your boyfriend’s family?
I’m surprised, Humphrey. This is your chance to be trapped on a bus with all those lovely suspects, perhaps even clear the good name of Troyer’s father.”

Or
be trapped on a bus with a murderer.

“You want me to do that?” I asked. “You want me to i
nvestigate while I’m on the bus?”

“You might as well make use of you
r time. I certainly can’t do it. They aren’t going to say anything incriminating in front of me or one of my officers. Remember everything they say and report back to me. This should be one of your easier assignments.”

A light wind whipped across the pasture. The grass bent low in submission to it. I shivered.
“What if they suspect I’m reporting back to you?”

“Humphrey, you look like a human
replica of Raggedy Ann. No one would suspect you of anything more devious than forgetting to say ‘thank you’ after someone passes you the salt.”

I chewed on the Raggedy Ann comment and reflexively touched my hair to reassure myself it wasn’t yarn-like. “How
many passengers are there?” I squeaked. “I didn’t count when they were here on the farm.”

“
Fourteen. The bus seats thirty-five. See, I’m not even sticking you with a full bus.”

“Thanks.” I pulled my car keys out of my jacket pocket and balance
d them in my hand.

Timothy arched
his brows in question.

“
Fifteen if you count the driver,” the chief said.

Which I do
. I thought of the irritable-looking man in the blue polo shirt.

“Where are they staying?”
My tone was resigned.

“The Dutch Inn right here in Appleseed Creek.”

That made sense since it was the largest inn in town. Hotel options were few in Knox County. There were a couple chain hotels in Mount Vernon or bed and breakfasts dotting the small towns, but none of the B&Bs were large enough to hold fourteen people plus a bus driver.

“Listen to me
.” The chief’s patience ran thin. “If you don’t do this, these people will leave and the only suspect left is Simon Troyer.” The threat hung in the air. Chief Rose had me, and we both knew it. “If you care about the Troyers as much as you claim to, you don’t have a choice.”

I locked eyes with
Timothy. His brow drooped in concern, and even though he was only twenty-seven, I saw the beginning of light wrinkles feathering out from the corners of his eyes caused by sun and worry. Like she said, I really didn’t have a choice. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

Chapter Five

Leaving Grandfather Zook and Mabel at the Troyer farm to continue to search the grounds for evidence, Timothy drove me to the hospital.

I straightened my seatbelt’s shoulder strap while Timothy turned onto State Route Thirteen, heading into Mount Vernon. “When I first arrived at the farm this morning, you and Dudley were talking. He didn’t look happy.”

“He wasn’t,” Timothy said.

“What were you talking about?”

“Dudley wanted the tourists to have an opportunity to walk through the house. I told him that wasn’t part of our portion of the tour. There may be other Amish families that invite them in, but
Daed
would never be comfortable with that many strangers in the house at one time.”

“That seems reasonable. Why was he so upset about it?”

“I guess the district he used to take tours to in Holmes County always included a home tour. He said if the district didn’t provide one, he wouldn’t have his tours stop in our district again. I told him that was something he would have to take up with the bishop.” Just inside of Mount Vernon, Timothy stopped his truck at a red light. “He didn’t seem to want to talk to the bishop.”

“That’s odd. The tour was the bishop’s idea.”

The light changed to green. “I thought so too.”

Another questions struck me. “Who was th
e Amish teenaged boy on the farm?”

Timothy turned his head toward me for a half second.
“Amish teenaged boy? Who are you talking about?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you. He looked about sixteen and sort of gangly.”

“I didn’t see anyone like that there.”

“You didn’t?” I asked. “I saw him a couple of times with Amish men and then later by himself.”

“Maybe he was a son of one of the men.”

I wrinkled my forehead not sure why I was so concerned with the boy. Then, I remembered how he
'd watched Ruth and Anna as they'd stood in the kitchen doorway so intently. “Maybe Ruth knows who he is?”

“Maybe,” Timothy said seemingly unconcerned about this little mystery. He drove up the small hill to the community hospital. Most of
the Mississippi folks waited on their tour bus and scowled out of the windows at anyone who happened to walk by.

I placed
my hand on the door handle. “You don’t have to come with me.”

He
shifted in his seat to face me. “One of these tourists may have killed two people. Do you think I would let you ride in a bus alone with them?”

“
I’ll be fine. Chief Rose wouldn’t ask me to do this if it put me in any kind of danger.”

Timothy barked a laugh.

I tightened my grip on the door handle. “You need to go back to the farm and help your family.”

“There’s nothing that I can do there.
Daed
refuses to talk me about it.
Grossdaddi
is wandering around the farm hunting for the source of the mysterious sound.”

“I know but…” I trailed off.

He shifted away from me. “You don’t want me to come with you?”

I squeezed his arm.
“No! No, it’s not that.”

“Then what?”

“They know you are Simon Troyer’s son.”

“So.”
He shut off the ignition and slipped the pickup’s key into his hip pocket.

How do I say this nicely?
“They think your father killed their friends. They might not welcome you onto the bus.”

Timothy’s face fell as
if he realized I was right. “I can’t let you go alone. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

I
couldn’t help but smile at his concern. It felt strange to have someone worrying about me. “I’ll be fine. And remember Chief Rose—”

Timothy snorted. “
Wouldn’t put you on the bus if she thought you were in danger. I know.”

I opened the door and paused before hopping out of the truck.
“Whoever did this isn’t going to do anything in a bus full of tourists. There would be too many witnesses.”

He leaned across the bench seat and
brushed his lips across mine. “Just remember I said this was a bad idea.”

I
patted his cheek. “I’ll remember.”

Timothy and I
climbed out of the pickup and joined Chief Rose and the bus driver waiting outside of the bus. The police chief with arms folded and her aviator glasses hiding her eyes said, “Took you long enough, Humphrey. I want—”

“
His father murdered my cousin!” Pearl cried from the open bus window.

The police chief muttered something under her breath I didn’t catch, and
Timothy took a huge step back from the bus.

“
Humphrey, I don’t remember asking you to bring Troyer. Are you two attached at the hip?” She made a show of examining our legs.

Timothy
closed his eyes for the briefest of moments as if to stop himself from saying something he would regret. “I’m not staying. I’m just dropping Chloe off.”

Th
e chief nodded. “Good. I need to keep these folks as calm as possible. The more riled up they are, the more likely they’ll leave. I won’t able to convince a Knox County judge to write an order to keep them here unless I have hard evidence. I need more time to do that.”

“Can we get going
already?” the bus driver asked.

Chief Rose pointed a thumb at the bright blue bus.
“Go fire up the Smurfmobile.”

The bus driver gritted his
teeth and stomped to his bus.

“
What is this Smurfmobile stuff?” Timothy asked.

“There’s not time to explain pop culture to you, Troyer. Humphrey will give you a lesson later.”
She pointed a finger at me. “We need to have a powwow before you saddle up.”

I followed her a few steps away. Timothy was close on my heels. Chief Rose frowned at Timothy but didn’t tell him to leave. “
Officer Riley thoroughly questioned every passenger before letting them back on the bus, and so far, I have nothing to hold them. That’s why you’re here. You’re going to have the perfect opportunity on the bus to gather information about these people. See what you can find out. Did anyone have any hard feelings for either victim? Did anyone see anything peculiar or was anyone behaving oddly at any point during the trip?”

“You’re asking Chloe to investigate,” Timothy said.

The chief gave Timothy a look. “She’s going to anyway. I might as well benefit from it.”