Assaulted Pretzel (14 page)

The only thing that wasn’t there was a ready explanation as to why.

“Sarah?” Claire’s gaze skipped down to the tiny mound jutting outward from beneath Sarah’s black aproned dress. “Is everything alright? Are you feeling poorly?”

Lifting her hand to her abdomen, Sarah glanced down at the floor and swallowed, Claire’s answer coming in a barely discernible shake of the woman’s head.

“I was at the toy shop just now and decided I’d stop by and say hello.” Claire looked around for something to help
ease the tension emanating off the woman and settled on the closest thing she could find. She gestured toward the pairing of rocking chairs in the center of the porch. “It’s such a lovely day, I thought you might enjoy sitting out here on the porch and visiting with me for a little while.”

A little boy, clad in a light blue shirt and a pair of black suspendered pants, poked his straw-hatted head around Sarah’s lower body and flashed a shy smile at Claire. Something about the movement snapped Sarah from her fog and pushed the dullness from her eyes.

“Amos, did you feed
all
of the chickens?”

The three-year-old looked up at his mother and nodded solemnly. “Yah.”

“Where is David?”

“Making toys. With Mr. Schrock.” A burst of respect for his older brother made its way across the youngster’s face before disappearing behind the silent question even Claire could read.

“You may go, too, Amos.” Pulling her splayed hand from her stomach, Sarah moved it to the top of her son’s hat. “But do not get in Mr. Schrock’s way. He and Dat have much work to do.”

In a flash, Amos was out the door and down the porch, his bare feet carrying him across the yard and over to the barn in record time.

“I take it he wants to be a toy maker like his Dat?” Claire asked around the smile that stretched her mouth wide.

“He does. But I do not know how much of that is the toys and how much of that is his Dat. Sometimes I think he and David would be excited to collect sticks if that is what Daniel did.” Sarah stepped to the side of the doorway and offered Claire the first semblance of a smile. “Please…please come in. It will be nice to visit, Miss Weatherly.”

“Claire. Please, call me Claire,” she reminded as she preceded the woman into the sparsely furnished front room that seemed to be the norm in the handful of Amish homes she’d been inside. From Esther, she knew these rooms were where families would host Sunday church service when it fell to them by way of rotation. The wide-open space easily accommodated the many benches brought in for the occasion and the dozens of Amish families that followed suit.

“I will try to remember and call you Claire.” Sarah’s simple black boots made soft, gentle sounds against the wood-planked floor as she closed the gap between them. “I have bread baking in the oven that I must check.”

Claire lifted her nose into the air and inhaled, the aroma she’d detected from the porch finally identified. “Mmmm, Sarah, that smells wonderful.”

When they reached the kitchen, Sarah gestured toward the wooden benches that lined the long sides of the simple wooden rectangular table. “Please sit. This will take just a moment.”

Claire settled herself on the bench facing the oven and looked around the plain yet adequate kitchen, noting the presence of many of the traditional staples. Yet in this home—as in all the other Amish homes around them—the refrigerator and stove ran on propane, and the water in the sink was delivered via the wheel she’d seen turning round and round not far from the outbuilding that served as Daniel’s toy shop.

She took in the pale green walls adorned only by one clock, a simple shelf with a smattering of plates, and a calendar that depicted a large maple tree adorned in its autumn finery. She knew, from Esther, that the only decorations the Amish were permitted to have were those of the functional variety.

The plunk of metal atop the counter brought her focus back to the oven and Sarah just in time to see the woman’s shoulders slump heavily. “Claire, I do not know what to do with all of this.”

Leaning to the side just a little, Claire noted the perfect rise and color of both loaves. “Sarah, they look perfect to me…”

“I do not mean the bread.” Sarah’s voice stopped just shy of a whisper as her back remained turned. “I mean about the toy man’s…
murder
.”

Claire sat up tall, her eyes, her ears trained on nothing but the pregnant woman standing beside the stove with a simple white cap on her head and a mountain of stress atop her diminutive shoulders. “There isn’t anything for you to do with all of that, Sarah. Detective Fisher will figure it out.”

“That is what I am afraid of.” Slowly, Sarah turned to face Claire, tears running down her round face.

“Sarah!” Claire sprang off the bench and pulled the weeping woman into her arms. “Hey, it’s okay. Everything is fine.”

“It—it is not fine,” Sarah stammered. “P-people are—are talking and they are pointing.”

“Shhh…It’s okay.” Stepping back, she took hold of Sarah’s shoulders and peered into her eyes. “I don’t know what’s going on, Sarah, but I’d like to help if you’ll let me.” Then, with gentle hands, she guided the woman over to the bench she’d just vacated. “Sit with me. Talk to me. We’ll figure this out, Sarah…I promise.”

With only a modicum of hesitation, the woman sat at the table and buried her head in her hands. “I do not want Daniel to know I am upset. I do not want him to know what people are saying.”

Claire sat down beside the woman and began to rub her
back. “If you do not want him to know, I will not tell him. But let’s talk this out. You’re carrying too much stress right now and it’s not good for the baby.”

A nod was followed by a sniffle. “I went to town the day after that man…that
Mr. Karble
was murdered. I saw them pointing at me and I heard them say that my Daniel would be a suspect because he was…
angry
.” Sarah released a breath then pulled her head from her hands to look at Claire. “But I did not think he was angry.”

“Do you mean about Karble Toys making the Amish line in a factory somewhere other than here?”

Sarah nodded again. “I saw the letter at the festival just like Daniel did and I was shocked. Like everyone else. But I did not think he would be angry.”

“Did he show you the letter?” She removed her hand from Sarah’s back and rested it, instead, on the top of the table.

“No. Martha did. She came to my fruit stand and showed me. I knew it was bad, I knew it would make Daniel worry, but I did not think it would make him angry.”

“You saw him later on, though, didn’t you? After Mr. Karble’s body was found?”

“I did,” Sarah said. “He helped me pack up my stand and he took me home.”

“Did he seem angry to you at that time?”

Tipping her chin upward, Sarah seemed to contemplate the question, her answer coming after a few beats of silence. “No. He did not seem angry. He was tired and worried, but I would not say he was angry.”

“Then ignore what the people in town are saying. Sarah, when things like this happen in the English world, it is people’s nature to be curious…to even speculate on what might have happened.” She glanced down at her hands and searched for the best way to wipe the worry from her friend’s
face. “But you know your husband better than anyone else. If you say he was not angry, then he wasn’t angry. Take comfort in that conviction.”

“I tried but it was hard. Daniel is my husband. I do not like people to think such things of him. He is a good man. A hard worker. He is quiet but not anger-filled.”

Pivoting her body to the right, she took Sarah’s hands in hers and squeezed. “Then know that. Believe that.”

“I did. I still worried, of course, as I do not want him to be bothered by this talk of the toy company anymore, but I believed it would be okay,” Sarah explained in a raspy, almost garbled whisper.

“Then why are you so upset?” It seemed a fair question in light of the woman’s tears, yet as soon as she posed it aloud, she couldn’t help but feel she’d crossed some invisible line.

In a flash, Sarah was on her feet, busying herself around the kitchen with jobs that had clearly been done already. Clean counters were made cleaner and spotless floors were swept once, twice.

“Sarah?” she prompted as her internal radar began to ping.

“Daniel will be in for lunch soon.”

“Sarah? What’s going on?”

The woman paused midsweep, her gaze fixed on the floor. “I can not say.”

“But I want to help you and I can’t if you don’t tell me what’s going on.” Again, she rose from the bench and made her way over to Sarah only to have her progress thwarted by a hand. “Sarah, please.”

“Martha says you are friends with the detective…with her brother.”

It was a statement she couldn’t dispute. “I am. But Jakob
is a good man, Sarah. A fair man. And the last thing he wants to do is hurt anyone in this community.”

“Do you share everything with him?”

Surprised by the question, Claire drew back. “Jakob is not my boyfriend, Sarah. He is a friend…just as Esther is my friend…and Martha is my friend…and, I hope, you are my friend. I do not share things one friend says with another unless I am permitted to do so.”

She stood perfectly still as Sarah studied her closely, the woman’s quandary over sharing personal fears aloud as tangible as the broom in her hand. When Sarah did finally speak, it was in a tone so hushed Claire had to bring her ear within mere inches of the woman’s mouth.

“The people were right.”

“People?” she whispered back.

“The people in town. The ones who pointed and say such things.” Removing her hand from the broomstick, Sarah reached into the space between her apron and her burgundy-hued dress and pulled out a sloppily folded piece of typewritten paper. Before Claire could make sense of what was happening, the paper was shoved against her own hand. “They were right, Claire. Daniel must have been angry. Very, very angry. Now, please…you must go.”

S
he stepped to the side of the road, yielding the way for Keith Watson and his busload of satisfied customers as they made their way back toward the center of town. The smattering of waves she earned from the left side of the bus managed to register in some dusty corner of her thoughts, but not until the opportunity to return the connection-making gesture was long gone.

“Good one, Claire,” she mumbled to herself. “Great way to bridge the gap between the tour and the shop…”

Slowly, she released a whoosh of air from her lungs and dropped her gaze back to her feet, the pace with which they were moving more than a little hypnotic. She’d walked this same road not more than sixty minutes earlier with one real task in mind. Yet, here she was, on her way back to Lighted Way, with more questions than ever about Daniel Lapp—questions she’d been unable to ask him in light of Sarah’s less-than-subtle desire for Claire to leave.

When he’d come to the house after ringing up Keith’s customers, Claire had wanted nothing more than to secure the previously sought moment or two alone with the toy maker. But, Sarah’s well-timed stomach clutch, coupled with impressively realistic complaints of feeling light-headed, nixed that.

“What has you so afraid, Sarah?” She listened to the question as it left her lips then cringed at the answer that formed in its wake.

She thinks her husband killed Rob Karble
.

Claire stopped and reached into the pocket of her trousers, her fingers closing around the folded note Sarah had shoved into her hand mere moments before Daniel entered the house. For whatever reason, the toy maker’s wife had felt the paper was something Claire needed to see. And, based on the sudden thumping in her chest at the notion of what it could be, she couldn’t help but agree.

But where did she go to look at it? Right there—where any number of people could pass by at any given moment? The shop—where Esther might see? The inn—where Diane had eyes in the back of her head?

No. At least not yet, anyway. She needed to read the note in private. If it contained something that necessitated a second pair of eyes, she’d worry about that later.

Glancing from side to side, Claire made a mental note of her location. To her right was the Amish cemetery, its sacred feel and lack of trees making it an inappropriate place to sit and read something that could, potentially, be volatile in nature. To her left were a man and his sons, all working hard to harvest the final crop of the season. To veer off onto their property to examine Sarah’s note would be awkward at best.

She looked in the direction she’d been headed once again, the final few farms between her and town rapidly diminishing
in number. But just as she was preparing to come up with a plan B that had her sending Esther out on an errand, she saw it.

Just up ahead, where the road curved toward town, a narrow path jutted off in the opposite direction, leading the way toward the semisecluded watering hole that had played a big part in Jakob’s childhood.

Confident that no one was watching at that exact moment, Claire turned down the trail and into the grove of trees that sheltered her final destination from the eyes and ears of anyone traveling the main road. As she made her way through the trees and out into the clearing, she couldn’t help but notice the sense of peace that washed over her despite the worrisome note in her hand. Even if Jakob had never brought her there, she would have recognized the pond and the lone signature tree poised alongside it like a sentry.