Hearse and Buggy (10 page)

She whirled around, nearly knocking over her carefully arranged dolls in the process. “Jakob. I … I didn’t hear you come in.”

“The bells jingled,” he said, pointing at the rope above the door.

Her face warmed. “I didn’t hear them.”

Jakob wandered over to the window and studied the new items. “I was guilty of the same thing this morning. The chief walked in my office to ask a question, and I didn’t even realize he was there until he’d cleared his throat a half-dozen times or more.” Reaching out, he gently fingered the pale-yellow bonnet and the faceless dolls below. “Only I kind of doubt I was smiling the way you were just now.”

“Why not?”

He fixed his gaze on hers. “I guess I was wrapped up in the case.”

“Have you figured out who killed Walter Snow?” she asked quickly.

“No. Just asking a lot of questions and playing possible scenarios out in my mind. But I’ll find who did it, of that I have no doubt.”

Coming from any other person after less than a week on the job, Claire would have found the claim to be rather cocky. Yet, somehow, it didn’t come across that way with Jakob.

She suspected some of that was because of the quiet confidence he exuded when he spoke. Some, too, was due to the way he listened—carefully, as if every word someone uttered mattered. And, in a murder case, it probably did.

“I hope you catch who did it soon. I hate to see such wonderful people on eggshells.”

Jakob shrugged. “The only one walking on eggshells should be the one responsible.”

It was a tough point to argue.

And a point that made her more than a little nervous.

“Claire?”

She glanced up.

“I wanted to thank you for dinner last night. I guess I hadn’t realized just how badly I needed a little bit of mealtime conversation. Haven’t had that in a while, and it was really nice.”

“I enjoyed it as well.” And she had. Very much.

Jakob gestured around the shop. “So what was the million-dollar smile about just now when I walked in?”

She made a face. “I don’t know, I guess I just like rearranging the window display from time to time.”

“You do a good job.” He lifted one of the dolls in his hands and turned it over, his expression difficult to decipher. “When I was little, I never thought it odd that my sister’s dolls didn’t have faces. It was normal, you know?”

“And now?”

“I don’t know.” With a gentle finger, he traced the edges of the doll’s head cap, lingered his touch on the simple Amish dress. “One moment I question why Amish kids can’t
look down at a doll and see it smile back at them. But then I remind myself that they don’t know any better.”

“I guess the part I find so endearing is that they’re made with love.” Reaching past him, she lifted one of Martha’s dolls into her own hands. “I mean, how neat would it be to have your mom make you something like this?”

For a moment, he said nothing, his gaze traveling over every nuance of the handmade doll. When he was done, he looked up, their gazes mingling with one another. “Did Esther make these?”

She considered giving him the easy answer, knowing the truth might create awkwardness where there was none. But, in the end, she said the only thing she could. “No. Her mother did.”

In a flash, the carefree, if not wistful, smile disappeared from his face, in its place a pain so raw she felt an answering burn in her eyes. She swallowed.

“Would you like to keep that one?” she whispered.

Dropping his eyes downward, Jakob studied the doll once again.

“Because you can have it if you want.”

He cleared his throat—once, twice—then set it back on the raised platform. “Martha wouldn’t want me to have it. Not anymore, anyway.”

She heard the words, even recognized the detachment with which he spoke them, yet the pain behind them was as visible as ever.

“She asked about you this morning.” There, she said it.

He froze. “Excuse me?”

“Martha asked about you this morning,” she repeated.

Somewhere, in the back of her head, a faint warning bell sounded. And she knew why. Jakob’s relationship with his sister was none of her business. Their estrangement had
begun sixteen years earlier, before she’d ever met either one of them. But although she could justify her silence by embracing the fact that their rift was by no fault of her own, she couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that it wasn’t really by their own doing, either.

“She did?”

Claire nodded, the smile making its way across Jakob’s mouth mirroring its way across hers, too.

“Did you tell her I was well?”

“I did,” she said, cringing inwardly at the lie. But she couldn’t help it. She couldn’t smash his hope with reality. Besides, just because Martha had held up her hands and retracted the question before Claire could answer didn’t negate the fact that the woman had asked it in the first place.

At least that’s what she told herself as Jakob closed his eyes and inhaled sharply through his nose. A moment later, he spoke. “You must think I’m an idiot, getting so worked up over such a simple inquiry. But to know she asked about me, to know she still cares, I guess that’s kind of”—he walked toward the register, then doubled back—“encouraging.”

“I’m glad—”

The front door of the shop opened, the jingle of the bells redirecting her focus toward the familiar redhead they announced.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Streen.”

Arnie’s head bobbed ever so slightly. “Is Esther here?”

She tracked his gaze around the room and saw it linger on the bowl of butterscotch candies she’d set beside the register for her customers. With hurried strides, she positioned herself between her aunt’s sloppiest guest and the counter. “Today is Esther’s day off.”

“Darn.” Taking two steps forward, Arnie reached around Claire and plucked a candy from the bowl, his fingers making
short work of the little yellow wrapper and dispensing it straight to the floor. “I’ve written as much as I can without talking to her, but I can’t keep waiting around.”

She bent down and plucked the wrapper from the ground, keenly aware of Jakob’s narrowed eyes assessing the situation. “Well, you’ll have to wait a little longer. She’s not working today.”

Jakob extended his hand. “I’m sorry, I don’t believe we’ve met yet. I’m Jakob Fisher.
Detective
Jakob Fisher.”

Arnie’s mouth stopped working the candy long enough to allow a thorough once-over of the lean yet well-conditioned body of the man just off to his left. “So you’re the one who broke the rules, huh? Wow. That took some guts, eh?”

Realizing a shake wasn’t going to happen, Jakob retracted his hand and widened his stance. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about, Mr.—I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

Claire crumpled the wrapper inside her hand and shoved it in the front pocket of her navy trousers. “Jakob, this is Arnie Streen. He’s a guest at Sleep Heavenly as he works on his thesis for grad school. It’s on the Amish.”

A lightbulb flashed behind Jakob’s eyes, but before he could say anything, Arnie prattled on. “You think maybe you’d be willing to talk about your shunning?”

Jakob’s mouth tightened. “No.”

“You sure?” Arnie asked before reaching around Claire for yet another piece of candy. “It might feel good to unload some of that anger in a productive place.”

Sensing the tension simmering below Jakob’s surface, she picked the second wrapper off the floor and gestured with it toward the front door. “I’ll let Esther know you were in and asking about her.” It was a lie and she knew it, but it
was the only way she could think to get the man out of her shop before Jakob blew a fuse.

Arnie poked a finger within inches of Jakob’s chest. “I imagine this murder case has to be a bit like payback for you.”

“Oh?” Jakob’s right eyebrow hitched upward. “How is that?”

“You know, throwing one of them in the slammer after getting all high and mighty with you.”

“One of
them
?” Jakob repeated between clenched teeth.

Wiping the back of his hand across his face, Arnie nodded. “One of the Amish. I mean, they act so perfect, yet there are some incidents in just the last year alone that show the Amish across this country are capable of things like drug trafficking and even murder.”

Jakob quieted Claire’s gasp with a raised index finger. “No, Mr. Streen is correct. There was a case in Ohio where an Amish boy, fresh off Rumspringa, was arrested for trafficking drugs across state lines. Dealers had stowed it in the back of the young man’s buggy.”

“You make it sound like he didn’t know they were there,” Arnie mused.

“Because he didn’t,” Jakob said without hesitation. “I have a friend on that force. He told me about the case.”

Arnie rolled his eyes and snorted. “Yeah … okay. But what about that Amish guy out in Indiana? The one who killed an intruder?”

Jakob met Arnie’s challenge. “He was protecting his family.”

“If you’re so up on Amish crimes, then you have to know about the one in upstate New York four years ago where the guy killed some little kid. You gonna have an excuse for that one, too, Detective?”

“No. It was cold-blooded, and he’s locked away in prison now for the rest of his life.”

“Which proves my point, doesn’t it?” Arnie shoved his index finger in his mouth and picked at the underside of his molars, extracting remnants of the butterscotch candy.

Claire looked from one man to the other, frustration making her hands shoot up in the air. “Look, Mr. Streen, you’ve obviously found some cases where a small handful of Amish have made bad choices. But you can’t deny the fact that it’s not the norm.”

“Just as Detective Fisher, here, can’t deny the fact that murder at the hand of the Amish is not completely out of the question,” Arnie mumbled around his finger.

“I will go wherever the facts of this case lead, Mr. Streen.”

A muffled ring permeated the confines of Arnie’s back pocket. He reached back, extracted his phone, and glanced down at the display. “Awww darn. I gotta take this call. It’s my professor.” He took three steps toward the door, then flipped the phone open and covered it with his hand. “Hey, Claire? If you talk to Esther before tomorrow, tell her I’ll be by sometime after eleven. And that I like her lavender dress best.”

The jingle of the door, signaling Arnie’s long-overdue departure, was met by utter silence broken only by a low whistle.

“Wow.”

She shook her head, then retrieved the wrappers from her pocket and tossed them into the wastebasket behind the counter. “I’m sorry you had to deal with that.”

“How long has he been at the inn?” Jakob inquired, wide-eyed.

“Coming up on three weeks, I think.”

A second, longer whistle followed. “Your aunt deserves a medal.”

Crossing back to the front window, she looked out on Lighted Way and inhaled deeply, the gentle cadence of the horse-drawn buggies alongside the relaxed pace of vacationing tourists slowly ebbing the knot of tension ushered in by Arnie Streen. “I don’t understand why so many people feel the need to tarnish what is good. It’s like it makes them feel better about themselves somehow if they do.”

Jakob moved in behind her, his proximity and his quiet calm making her feel inexplicably better. “You know what? I’d rather have an open and honest discussion with someone like that guy who’s taken the time to uncover facts. It’s the other ones—the kind who make assumptions—who are most damaging to the Amish and their reputation.”

Slowly, she turned, his words and his experience educating her to things she wished the whole world could hear.

“So many people think that because the Amish keep to themselves that they don’t pay taxes. And that’s not true. They do … just like everyone else. The only difference is they don’t utilize the services that come from paying them. And for as odd as our life is to outsiders, the vast majority of Amish return home after Rumspringa. Says something, don’t you think?”

When he was done, she met his gaze and held it. “You miss it, don’t you?” she finally asked.

“Every single day.”

W
hen Claire first tiptoed her way down the stairs and into the parlor, she’d hoped reading a few chapters of the paperback mystery novel her aunt had recommended would finally entice sleep to her doorstep. Yet, six chapters later, she was as awake as ever, her attention now fixated on the flickering glow of candlelight as it wiggled and danced along the ceiling.

She’d made a valiant effort at sleep when she retired to her room shortly after ten o’clock, the evening’s dinner dishes and dessert plates freshly washed, dried, and set aside for the next day. But as tired as she’d thought she was, her mind proved otherwise, driving her from bed as midnight loomed.

Insomnia was something she knew well from her time in New York. In the beginning, it had been out of hurt as she listened for Peter’s key in the doorway after yet another late-night business dinner or cocktail party to which she
hadn’t been invited. Then, as time passed, it had been a result of the mental chastising and second-guessing she subjected herself to as the sham that was her marriage became too hard to ignore.

Moving to Heavenly had changed that, though, until now.

And, once again, it came down to mental chastising and second-guessing. Only this time it had nothing whatsoever to do with her ex-husband and everything to do with the people and the town she’d grown to love over the past six months.

“I thought I noticed a light coming from down here, and I figured it was probably you.” Diane padded across the wood-planked floor in her favorite fuzzy white slippers and struck a match to a second, larger candle. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Claire peered over the top of the couch. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t. My kidneys did.” Diane extinguished the match with a quick shake and then blew on it for good measure. “I noticed the light when I stepped into the hall.”

Claire watched as the light from the new candle joined with the first in its ceiling dance. “I couldn’t sleep, so I figured I’d read a little bit until my eyes got tired.”

Diane’s gaze shot to the unopened book on Claire’s stomach. “Oh?”