Off the Grid (Amish Safe House, Book 1) (11 page)

“I’ve never, ever, in five years, seen an
Amish person come in to use the internet.”

Kate bit back her annoyance, nodded
politely, and smiled. “Well, there’s a first time for everything,
right?”

Sandra shrugged her shoulders and then
pointed a long finger past Kate’s shoulder. “All the way back,
there’s a computer room on the left. You’ll need a library card to
use the ones at the desks, but the ones along the wall can be used
for fifteen minutes without one.”

Kate smiled once more. “That should be
plenty of time,” she said. “Thank you for your help.”

Sandra didn’t answer, so Kate turned and
headed toward the far end of the library. The computer room was
small, with eight computers at individual desks, like one would
find in a school, and four more along one wall, sitting on a table
built into the wall itself. These computers sat at about chest
height, and so people had to stand to use them. Kate moved to one
and got right to work, delighted to have internet at last.

Kate googled
Henry Moore
, and several
entries popped up. The person who had attacked her was muscular and
well built, and the images on the screen were indeed of a well
built man. Kate squinted at the image. The man’s build certainly
fitted. And what had the knitting circle ladies said about the son,
Moses Byler? They said he was tall and wiry. No, it couldn’t be the
son. The perpetrator was most certainly shorter than she was.

Kate then did an internet search for Joseph
Byler, and one of the first links was a site for the farm. She
wondered who ran it, and then realized that she very well might
have been right about some Amish using computers to sell their
goods. The website, however, didn’t turn up much of anything. When
she clicked on the link, a bare page popped up, simply listing the
address and hours that a fresh vegetable and fruit stand was open,
and during which months. It was devoid of color, and was simply
black and white. There were no photos, and even worse, there was
nothing about Joseph Byler.

Kate backed out of the page, and started
scrolling through the other links that had come up when she
searched the dead man’s name. By the time fifteen minutes were up,
and the computer had logged her out and gone to a black screen with
the library’s name written in thick, white letters, Kate had been
on page eighteen of the search site, with nothing to show for
it.

She was discouraged, but of course the man
was Amish, so it made sense that she had been unable to discover
any information about him. Still, it was disheartening, and she
left the library discouraged. She had only taken three steps
outside when she paused. There was still plenty of time to kill, so
she would go to a café and think over what she knew about the case
so far.

There was a little café not far from the
library, and Kate walked in through the bright orange door of the
corner brick building and looked around for a seat. They all
appeared to be taken, but just as she was about to leave, a young
man got up, and left his seat at a table for two near the window.
Kate headed straight there and sat down, facing out, her back to
the wall.

A waitress hurried over to wipe the table
and take her order. Soon, Kate had a vanilla chai latte and a
grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwich sitting in front of her.
Kate reached for the chai latte with delight. Amish coffee was very
good indeed, but vanilla chai lattes were her favorite, and she
hadn’t had one in ages.

“Ms. Lambright, Katie.”

Kate jumped, and looked up at Officer Ryan
Weaver. “What are you doing here?” she blurted.

“I always come here; it’s near the police
station.” He nodded in the direction of several police officers who
were eating lunch.

How did I not notice them?
Kate
thought.
I must be slipping; I’m going soft
.

Ryan moved closer to the table. “It’s not
usually this full.”

Kate simply nodded, feeling tongue tied in
the officer’s presence.

“Are you expecting someone?’

Kate finally realized that the seat opposite
her at the little table was the only seat not taken. “Oh, I’m
sorry; won’t you join me?” She felt awfully embarrassed and felt
her face grow hot. She imagined it was beet red.

Ryan smiled at her, and her insides churned.
How can he have this effect on me?
she wondered.

The waitress appeared and Ryan ordered
coffee and a cheese quesadilla.

“Are you in town by yourself today?” he
asked, when the waitress had left.

“No, Rose Kauffman drove me in. She’s the
daughter of the people I live with.” Kate hoped he wasn’t going to
give her the third degree. It was one thing to fool nice, trusting,
Amish people, and quite another thing to fool a trained cop.

Ryan shrugged. “I haven’t been in town long,
so I don’t know many of the Amish folks here. I was transferred
from Chicago.”

Kate was unable to hide her surprise. “You
were? Why did you want to come here?”

“I wanted to get away from city life. I
thought the country would be much better – you know, cleaner,
better living, that type of thing.”

“You wouldn’t know much about the Amish
then, coming from Chicago,” Kate said, secretly pleased at the fact
and starting to relax somewhat. If he didn’t know much about the
Amish, she was less likely to be caught out.

Ryan smiled again. “No, I don’t, and I
haven’t really had any long conversations with any Amish
people.”

Just then, the waitress appeared with Ryan’s
cheese quesadilla, but just as she was about to set it down, a
young child appeared from nowhere and slammed into her back. The
waitress dropped the plate.

Without thinking, Kate’s hand flung out and
seized the plate. Her reflexes were finely tuned from years of
physical training, and her action was purely driven by
instinct.

The child’s mother at once appeared and
apologized profusely. The waitress tried to make light of it but
said it was just as well she hadn’t brought the coffee at the same
time, or there could have been a nasty accident. The mother took
the little boy by the arm and hurried him out of the café, while he
poked out his tongue at everyone.

The waitress promptly returned with the
coffee, and Kate looked at Ryan, wondering if he would comment on
the way she’d caught the plate.

“That was amazing, the way you caught that
plate of food, and not even spilling so much as a piece of tomato.
How did you get such good reflexes?”

Kate had to think fast. “Chickens.”

Ryan frowned. “Chickens?’

“Yes, chickens move like lightning, and
they’re so hard to catch. I’ve developed good reflexes from years
of catching chickens,” she said, managing to keep a straight
face.

Ryan frowned for a while. “I see,” he said
slowly, but Kate knew that he didn’t see at all. “You know, I’m
finding out new things about the Amish all the time. I had no idea
that you’d be so interested in a police investigation. I thought
Amish believed in turning the other cheek? Live and let live, that
sort of thing?”

“We do,” Kate said carefully, “but not all
Amish are the same.”

“I see,” Ryan said again. “So do you
work?”

“I work on the farm,” Kate said, again
choosing her words carefully.

“Does anyone ever leave the Amish?”

Kate was taken by surprise by his question.
She had heard talk within the community of some people who had left
while on
rumspringa
and never returned. “Yes,” she said
truthfully. “Why do you ask?”

Ryan slowly stirred sugar into his coffee,
before looking up at her. “It’s just that you’re not like any other
Amish person I’ve ever met, not that I know the Amish too well,” he
added. “And given that, I was wondering if it had ever crossed your
mind to maybe leave one day, or whether you intend to stay in the
community forever.”

Kate looked at him, and saw a slow flush
travel across his face. “I have definitely thought about leaving,”
she said, and he beamed at her. A small thrill ran through her as
she realized that Ryan was likely asking as he was attracted to her
and wondered if there was any hope for them.

Kate did not know whether to be pleased that
Ryan seemed attracted to her, or whether she should be upset that
she wasn’t doing a good job pretending to be Amish.

Psalm 5: 12.

For you bless the righteous, O Lord; you
cover him with favor as with a shield.

Chapter
17
.

Kate was uncomfortable in the driver’s seat
of the buggy as she made her way to the large farm. Despite the
horse in front of her doing most of the work once again, Kate was
quite anxious about driving. Nevertheless, it wasn’t too bad. She
was finding it easier to make small adjustments to the right or
left with just a slight pull on one side of the rein. If she
flicked the reins, the horse sped up; if she pulled on the reins a
little, he slowed down.

Kate hoped that Henry Moore would swallow
her cover story, which was that she had lost her dog. Her real
purpose was to identify him, to see whether or not he was the one
who had attacked her in Mr. Byler’s barn. Katie was a little
concerned that Henry Moore would recognize her, but she figured he
probably wouldn’t be able to tell one Amish lady her age from
another. After all, Amish women dressed alike, and the bonnet was a
further bonus in concealing her identity.

The road she traversed on her way to the
Byler farm was paved all black, and looked as though it had been
redone within the last few months. The black top was as dark as a
starless night. The road ran right along the farm she was aiming to
get at, but a guard rail kept her from getting impatient and just
cutting across the fields to the large white farmhouse near the
center of the farm’s allotted land.

The fields were green and full, each long
rectangular patch growing something else. There was what looked to
Kate like cabbage; there was corn; there were peas and potatoes.
The horse trotted slowly along, flicking his head back and forth
when the flies came to give him bother. They would fly away for a
few minutes, and then they were back, and the horse flicked his
head to the side again.

Finally, the guardrail ended for a short
distance, and there was a break in the fields, and Kate pulled the
horse to the right. Slicing up through the fields was a dirt path,
well worn, and the buggy wheels fell into thicker ruts put there by
cars driving up and down the path again and again over the
years.

Kate bumped along, working to get used to
how unforgiving an uneven section of ground was in a buggy as
compared to car. The white house grew larger as they neared it, and
the dirt path rose slightly. When it broke a small crest and went
even for a few feet before dipping back downwards, Kate could see a
smattering of vehicles parked at the end of the drive, near the
front door of the house. A red pick up and a black car were
standing in the shade of an old oak tree.

Kate kept the buggy going forward slowly,
and as she neared the cars, she stopped. She wasn’t sure if horses
kicked out at cars or not, so she tied the horse a good ten feet
from the closest car. She climbed out, had a few words with her
horse, and then went to the house.

The front porch was as white as everything
else, all wood, the paint flaking away in some spots, while the
house looked as freshly painted as that road had looked paved. The
second step creaked, and Kate paused, suddenly feeling nervous,
without being able to exactly tell why.

Of course, it had something to do with what
she was about to do, and certainly had to do with the fact that she
was reasonably sure the man who owned the house had murdered
another man. She was also reasonably sure that he was the one who
had attacked her in the barn.

Kate balled a fist and went to knock, but
the door in front of her opened, leaving just the screen door
between her and the living room of the home. Henry Moore himself
was standing there, but he was turned away from Kate, and he didn’t
even notice her as someone called for him and he walked away from
the door, leaving it open. Through the screen door, Kate could hear
voices one room over. She strained to hear what they were saying,
and could just make the words out.

“You did it; I know you did. Didn’t you?” a
voice said. Kate estimated it to be a man’s voice, or maybe a
teen’s. Male though, Kate was sure of that. After the young voice
stopped, an older one started, deeper and steady. Kate was certain
this voice belonged to Henry Moore.

“I recommend you think hard about what
you’re going to say to me.”

“I’m only speaking the truth,” the younger
voice argued.

“The truth?” Henry Moore asked. “What would
you know of it?” His voice was cold and held the hard edge of a
sneer.

“I know that you came to me, and you asked
me if I would sell the farm to you, whenever I happened to inherit
it. Sure, I agreed, but I had no idea that you were going to kill
my father! You killed him! You killed my father, and we both know
it.”

“To say such a thing, to me, in my own
home,” Henry Moore said. “I’m shocked, appalled, and saddened.”

Even from where she stood, Kate could hear
no tone of sadness in the man’s voice. Instead, he sounded smug, as
if he had gotten away with something.

“Your father and I knew each other for a
long time,” the man continued. “Indeed, I’ve had quite an
upstanding reputation amongst your former people, in this
community. And now this? If your father could see you, what do you
suppose he would think? If he could speak to you, what do you think
he would say?”

“He can speak to me, and he will again,” the
young voice claimed. “I’ll see him again someday, when I too am
called home, and he’ll tell me everything.”