Hearse and Buggy (7 page)

The tears became sobs as Esther dug her elbows into her lap and dropped her head into her hands, her whispered confession audible to no one but Claire. “I promised Eli I would not tell.”

Claire bit back the urge to offer any sort of condolence or encouragement for fear it would be overheard. Instead, she opted to simply keep patting the young woman’s shoulder until Nellie Snow and her overdressed, overbearing self had disappeared down the steps of Heavenly Treasures, leaving a veritable firestorm in her wake.

“What was she talking about?” Jakob demanded.

Esther looked up from her hands yet said nothing, her eyes wide with fear.

Benjamin stepped forward. “Miss Weatherly, if you would allow Esther a break at this time, I will see that she returns when we are done speaking.”

“Esther is not going anywhere,” Jakob interjected. “Not until I’ve asked her a few questions.”

Benjamin’s blue eyes darkened. “She can not speak with you!”

Jakob worked to contain his matching anger. “I am not asking as her uncle. I am asking as the detective who is trying to get to the bottom of a murder. One that has the victim’s wife accusing both you and your brother.”

Esther’s head dropped forward once again, a barely audible moan escaping her plump lips.

“Would it be okay if I asked the questions?” Claire posed.

Silence filled the room as both Benjamin and Jakob considered her offer.

“I will allow that.”

“Allow that?” Jakob hissed at Benjamin. “
Allow
that? What are you, Esther’s father?”

“In his absence, I will act as so,” Benjamin replied.

Claire held up her hands. “Please. This isn’t getting us the answers we need.” Turning her back to both men, she squatted down beside Esther, covering the young woman’s hands with her own and gently guiding them away from her worried face. “Esther? What was Mrs. Snow talking about just now?”

Esther’s hands began to tremble. “I promised Eli I would not tell.”

“You may hurt him more if you don’t tell,” Jakob said, not unkindly.

Claire continued. “Did Eli ever get into a fight?”

Esther peered at Benjamin from the corner of her eye.

“Esther?” Claire prodded.

“He did,” Esther whispered. “While on Rumspringa.”

Benjamin sucked in a breath. “How did I not know this?”

“Maybe because he feared being treated like a pariah by his friends and family.”

Claire glanced over her shoulder at Jakob, saw the hurt that matched his voice.

“Mr. Gussman got him from jail,” Esther said.

Jakob drew back. “Eli was arrested?”

“That is not so!” Benjamin yelled.

Esther clamped her lips together and nodded.

“When did this happen?” Jakob asked, jotting something down in his notebook.

“Six months ago.”

Jakob took two steps and then squatted on the ground beside Claire, his full attention on no one but his niece. “Do you know where this happened?”

Again, Esther nodded. “I do. But if I tell, Eli will not forgive me.”

Jakob reached out and patted Esther’s knee. “Then you don’t have to tell.”

“I … I don’t?”

Jakob shook his head. “I can find out the particulars on my own.”

Esther’s shoulders dipped in momentary relief only to tense again just as quickly. “Eli would not kill.”

For a moment, Jakob said nothing. Then, slowly, his awkward pat turned into a gentle squeeze. “I will keep that in mind.”

Claire rocked back on her heels, soaking in the brief but tender moment between two family members who had been robbed of time together by no real fault of their own.

“Is that all?” Benjamin asked woodenly.

“For now.” Jakob flipped his notebook shut and smiled at Esther. “If I have more questions, I’ll stop out at the farm.”

Esther’s gasp was drowned out by the sound of her ankle boots as she jumped from the chair. “You can not come there!”

Claire reached out and tried her best to calm the girl, but it was no use.

“Mamm will not allow it!”

Visibly upset, Jakob rose to his feet, sliding a hand down his face as he did. “This is an investigation, Esther. A
murder
investigation. I’m going to have to question members of the Amish community. People like you, and Eli, and”—his gaze met Benjamin’s—“Benjamin’s sister, Ruth.”

“My sister is too upset to talk.”

Jakob met Benjamin’s worry-filled eyes. “I will have to talk to her, Benjamin. The body was found between Claire’s shop and hers.”

“My sister is no killer.”

“I didn’t say she was. But she may know something that can help me find who is.”

A sigh of resignation filtered its way between Benjamin’s lips. “I do not know, Jakob.”

Claire crossed the room to stand beside Esther. “We’ll figure it out. One way or the other.” She reached out and tucked a stray lock of hair back under Esther’s head cap. “In the meantime, if it’s okay with you, Detective, I’d like to let Esther take the rest of the day off. She’s been through quite a lot.”

After a pause, Jakob surprised her with a nod. “Okay. But there will be more questions.”

Esther opened her mouth to protest but closed it as Claire took charge. “Esther will be back at work tomorrow. If you have any further questions, you can find us here.”

Esther dropped her normally quiet voice to a whisper. “
Us
?”

“Us,” Claire confirmed.

Benjamin closed the gap between his spot by the wall and Esther, grabbing hold of her arm and guiding her toward the front door. “I will see that Esther gets home.”

She felt Jakob stiffen as he moved in beside her, but his thoughts, his feelings, were nothing more than a guess.

B
y the time Claire walked through the back door of Sleep Heavenly, she was nearly spent, the emotion-filled day taking more of a toll than she’d realized until that moment. Suddenly, the thought of chopping vegetables and filling salad bowls alongside Aunt Diane held none of its normal appeal. Neither did the notion of making chitchat with the guests before and after dinner.

It wasn’t that she didn’t love helping, because she did. And Lord knew she’d met some amazing people around her aunt’s dining table. But just this once she wanted nothing more than to escape to the parlor with a glass of wine and the parade of thoughts that had nagged at her all afternoon, making it difficult to concentrate on anything but the mess surrounding Walter Snow’s death.

Tossing her purse onto the catchall table just inside the doorway, Claire took a moment to soak up the sights and smells of the haven she’d come to treasure. Diane’s kitchen
was everything a person dreamed of when it came to such a room. The vast counter space and state-of-the-art appliances were a cook’s dream, yet somehow her aunt had managed to create the kind of homey feel that conjured up images of long talks across a plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies.

And they’d surely had their share of those since she’d made her escape from the city in favor of a new life.

She lifted her nose into the air and sniffed, the hearty smell of her aunt’s beef stew wafting out from the lid of an enormous Crock-Pot situated on a counter beside the stove.

“Mmmm …”

“I thought I heard you come in, dear.” Diane breezed into the room by way of the swinging door that separated the dining room from the kitchen, where she was no doubt in the throes of preparing the table for the guests’ evening meal. “How was your day?”

“Exhausting, confusing, heartbreaking—take your pick.” Flopping onto one of two breakfast bar stools, she laid her head on the cool countertop.

Diane stopped midstep, worry creasing her brow. “What happened?”

She blinked once, twice. “You haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?”

“You always know everything that goes on in this town,” she mused in shock.

“The Bakers are heading home to Kansas in the morning, and they insisted I accompany them for lunch in Breeze Point.” Diane’s hands found her hips. “What happened?”

She lifted her head, processing the information as she did. Breeze Point was a small farming community, three towns over, known for its old-fashioned cooking and delightful fruit and vegetable stands. It was no wonder Diane had left her precious Heavenly for a few hours …

“They’ve found Walter Snow.”

“They did? Oh, that’s wonderful news.” Diane reached over, plucked an apple from the fruit bowl, and thrust it in Claire’s direction. “Eat this. You look a bit peaked.”

She took the apple from her aunt’s outstretched hand and simply stared at it, her appetite virtually nonexistent despite having skipped lunch.

Her aunt prattled on. “It’s about time he developed a conscience and returned all that money he stole from the Amish.”

“He won’t be returning anything to anyone.”

Diane stared at her. “Why on earth not?”

“Because he’s dead.”

Diane gasped. “Dead?”

Setting the apple down in front of her, she nodded.

“Where did they find him?”

Claire inhaled slowly, searched for the best way to break the news. Unfortunately, her lack of energy made locating any tact virtually impossible. “Behind my shop. Near the alley between Shoo Fly and Heavenly Treasures.”

The woman grabbed hold of the closest counter. “But how? He wasn’t more than, what? Forty-five? Maybe fifty?”

“Murder is a bit less age discerning than regular death.” The second the words were out, she wished she could recall them. Just because her day had been the stuff of nightmares didn’t mean she had to take it out on her aunt.

“Did you say
murder
?”

She pushed her stool back from the counter and swiveled her legs to the side. “I’m sorry, Aunt Diane, I shouldn’t have told you like—”

“That can’t be,” Diane balked. “This is Heavenly. We haven’t had a murder here in sixteen years.”

Oh how she wished that were true.

For her aunt.

For Esther.

For Eli.

For Ruth …

Reaching into the pocket of her skirt, she pulled out the same heart-shaped piece of construction paper she’d been staring at since shortly after Jakob left the shop. She looked down at the now-familiar words and felt the telltale churn to her stomach at their meaning.

“We do now,” she whispered.

In an instant, her aunt was by her side, holding her close. “Why didn’t you call? I’d have come right away.”

She blinked against the tears that threatened to escape the corners of her eyes. “Everything got crazy. Fast. And then, when things finally settled down enough that I was able to breathe again, I found this …”

Pulling back from her aunt’s warm embrace, Claire opened her hand to reveal the carefully cut piece of paper that had haunted her thoughts for the past few hours.

“What is this?” Diane took the note and squinted at the masculine writing it featured. “What does it say?”

Claire leaned over and handed a pair of reading glasses to her aunt. “I need you to read it yourself.”

Diane’s confusion disappeared behind ten-dollar glasses as Claire silently read along.

“Where did you find this?” Diane asked when she was done, the bewilderment on her face surely a mirror of Claire’s the first umpteen times she read the same words.

“Crumpled up and shoved under the register.”

“What register?”

“My cash register.” Even now she still couldn’t fully wrap her mind around the notion that had come to her in one heart-stopping moment at the shop.

“How on earth did it get there?”

“Someone hid it there, I guess.”

“Who’s
W
, and who would hide this under your …?” Her aunt’s voice disappeared briefly as their eyes met in a moment of frightening clarity. “You don’t think this is Esther’s, do you?”

She shrugged. “Who else would shove something under the register?”

Diane seemed to consider her words, her head shaking side to side after the briefest of moments. “But this says
W
… not
E
.”

“I realize that.”

“Do we know any Amish men whose names start with
W
?”

She traced the pattern on the counter with her forefinger, hoped the gesture would soothe her somehow.

It didn’t.

“Not any
Amish
men, no.”

Diane’s eyes narrowed on Claire. “You think the person isn’t Amish?”

“If he were, why would he address her in the way he did?” Again, she held the note out for her aunt.

“Okay, so he’s not Amish.”

She couldn’t stand it anymore. She blurted her fears out in the open, where they could be discarded by a woman with
far more sense than Claire possessed. “I think
W
stands for
Walter
.”

“Walter?”

“As in Walter Snow.”

She waited for the laugh, watched it build momentarily only to disintegrate away just as quickly. “I suppose it’s possible. It certainly wouldn’t be the first Amish girl he’s taken an interest in. But why Esther? She wasn’t working when he owned the shop—”

“Diane? Claire? Are you in there?”

Spinning on the balls of her feet, Diane ran a quick hand down her apron. “Yes, Gerry, we’re in here.”

The door pushed open to reveal Gerry Baker and his wife. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but there’s a fellow out in the parlor looking for Claire. Said his name is Jakob Fisher.”

“Jakob is here? To see me?” she asked before glancing at her aunt and noting the slow smile that appeared on the woman’s face.

“That’s what he said.” Gerry hooked his arm through his wife’s and turned toward the hallway. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’re going to have a last walk around this delightful town before it’s time for yet another meal designed to make me gain weight.”

Quickly, Claire crumpled the note inside her hand and shoved it back inside her skirt pocket. “I can’t imagine what Jakob could possibly want with me …”

“I can.” Turning to focus on her niece once again, Diane reached out and tucked a renegade strand of auburn hair behind Claire’s ear. “I don’t want you worrying about dinner tonight. The bread is cooling, the stew almost done, and the salad bowls are already filled and in the refrigerator. In fact, there’s enough extras that the two of you can take supper on the front porch if you’d like.”