A Christmas to Die For (9 page)

He stepped closer, reaching out as if he'd put his hand on her shoulder and then seeming to think better of it. "Forgive me, please? I know I promised, but you wouldn't believe how busy the shop has been lately."

"I'm happy for you. But the house tour is designed to help everyone's business, remember?"

"I'll finish it tonight and bring it to the inn first thing tomorrow morning. I promise. Forgive me?" He made a crossing-his-heart gesture, giving her the winsome smile that had persuaded too many elderly ladies to pay more than they'd intended.

She was immune. "Only if you don't let me down. Tomorrow. By nine, so I can proof it and get it to the printer."

He sighed. "You're a hard woman. I'll do it, I promise. Now, did you come to buy or sell?" He looked expectantly at Tyler.

"Neither, I'm afraid. I just walked down with Rachel so I could have a look at your shop." Tyler smiled pleasantly. "Very impressive collection."

"Thank you, thank you. I'm always looking, you know. Any chance I might see what you have at the farmhouse soon?"

The police must not have been around. Surely he'd mention the break-in if he knew about it. She was relieved. Knowing Phil, an encounter with the police would probably throw him off his game so much that he'd be another week getting around to the brochure.

"I'll let you know." Tyler took a step toward the door.

"I'd be happy to do a free appraisal. Anytime." Phil retreated toward the counter. "I'll get right on the brochure, Rachel. You're going to love it."

"I'm sure I will." Aside from his propensity to put things off, Phil had a genuine artistic gift. Once he actually produced the brochure, it would be worth the wait.

She pulled the door open and nearly walked into Jeff Whitmoyer. They each stepped back at the same time, surprising her into a smile. "Come in, please. We were just on our way out."

"Morning, Rachel." His gaze went past her. "You must be Tyler Dunn. I've been wanting to talk to you."

Apparently they weren't getting out so quickly, after all. "Tyler, I'd like to introduce Jeff Whitmoyer. Jeff, Tyler Dunn."

Reminded of his manners, Jeff stuck his hand out, and Tyler shook it.

It was hard to believe Jeff and Bradley Whitmoyer were brothers—she thought that each time she saw one of them. Bradley was a lean, finely drawn intellectual with a social conscience that kept him serving his patients in this small community in spite of other, some would say better, opportunities.

Jeff was big, bluff, with a once-athletic frame now bulging out of the flannel shirt and frayed denim jacket he wore—certainly not because he couldn't afford better. He might not be the brightest bulb in the pack, as she'd heard Phil comment, but he made a good living with his construction company and was probably a lot smarter than people gave him credit for.

"Well, shut the door if you're going to talk." Phil's tone was waspish. "I'm paying the heating bill, remember?"

Jeff slammed the door, making the bell jingle so hard it threatened to pop off its bracket. "Wouldn't want you to spend an extra buck." He focused on Tyler. "I'd like to talk to you about the property of yours. I hear you're going to sell."

Tyler seemed to withdraw slightly. "Where did you hear that?"

Jeff shrugged massive shoulders. "Around. Anyway, I've had my eye on that place. I have some plans to develop that land, so how about we sit down and talk?"

Tact certainly wasn't Jeff's strong suit, but she supposed he'd think it a waste of time where business was concerned.

"I haven't reached that point yet, but thanks for your interest." Tyler reached for the door.

"Don't wait too long. I'll find something else if your place isn't for sale."

"Will you?" Phil's voice was soft, but Rachel thought she detected a malicious gleam in his eyes. "Given the scarcity of prime building land, I wonder where."

"Call me anytime. I'm in the book. Whitmoyer Construction." Jeff shook off Phil's needling like a bull shaking off a fly. "Talk to you soon."

Rachel waited until the door had closed behind them. Once they were well away from the shop, she spoke the thought in her mind. "You aren't seriously considering his offer, are you?"

"He didn't make an offer. But what's wrong with him? I thought those people were friends of yours."

"Nothing's wrong with him, except that I don't trust his taste. If he's talking about developing the land, he might have in mind a faux-Amish miniature golf course, for all I know."

His eyebrows lifted. "I should think a new attraction would draw more people. Isn't that what you want as a business owner?"

"Not something that turns the Amish into a freak show. Besides, our guests come to the inn for the peace and quiet of the countryside. How would you like your window to overlook a putting green or shooting range?"

"If and when I sell, I probably won't have much choice about what use the new owners make of the property. Any more than your neighbors could control your turning the mansion into a bed-and-breakfast."

He was being annoyingly rational, turning her argument against her in that way. She'd like to argue that at least her bed-and-breakfast, even if it benefited from its proximity to Amish farms, didn't make fun of them.

Maybe she shouldn't borrow trouble, but she couldn't help worrying how much Tyler's plans for the property were going to affect her future.

The strains of "Joy to the World" poured from the speakers of the CD player the next morning, filling the downstairs of the inn with anticipation. Rachel took a step back from the side table in the center hall to admire the arrangement of holly and evergreens she'd put in a pewter pitcher. The antique wooden horse toy next to it sported a red velvet bow around its neck.

"What do you think?" She turned to Grams and Emma, who were winding a string of greens on the newel post. "Should I add some bittersweet, too?"

"It looks perfect the way it is," Grams said. "I wouldn't change a thing."

Nodding, Rachel looked up at the molding along the ceiling, finding the eyehooks from which something could be hung. "Where's the Star of Bethlehem quilt? I'm ready to hang it now."

"The Star of Bethlehem quilt," Grams echoed. "I haven't seen it in ages."

Rachel blinked. "But we always hang it here. It's part of my earliest Christmas memories. We can't not have it." Absurd. She actually felt like bursting into tears.

Grams exchanged glances with Emma.

"I know chust where it is,
ja,
" Emma said quickly. "I will get it."

How silly she was, to be that obsessed with recreating the Christmases of her childhood. "You don't have to. If you'd rather put something else here—"

"Of course not," Grams said quickly.

"Well, let
me
get it, at least."

But Emma was already halfway up the stairs, her sturdy, dark-clad figure moving steadily. "It makes no trouble." She disappeared around the bend in the stairs.

Grams smiled. "Don't worry about Emma. She enjoys the decorating as much as we do, even though it's not much of a tradition among the Amish."

"Not like you Moravians." Rachel smiled. "You're Christmas-decorating fanatics."

Grams's face went soft with reminiscence. "That's what it is when you grow up in Bethlehem. Every aspect of Christmas has its own tradition."

Grams had brought those traditions with her when she married. The Moravian star, the peppernuts, the
putz
, an elaborate crèche beneath the Christmas tree—those were part of the lovely Christmas lore she'd passed on to her granddaughters.

All Rachel's memories of Christmas had to do with Grams and Grandfather, not her parents. Hardly surprising, she supposed. Her parents had been separated so much of the time, with her father always off pursuing some get-rich-quick scheme or another. And her mom—well, Lily Unger Hampton had used the holidays as an excuse for extended visits to friends in the city. It had been Grams and Grandfather who made up Christmas lists, baked cookies, filled stockings.

Then Daddy had left for good and Mom had fought with Grandfather and taken the girls away. And their childhood ended.

She smiled at her grandmother, heart full. "We should go over to Bethlehem some evening while the decorations are still up. You know you'd love it."

"If we have time," Grams said, avoiding an answer. "We still have a lot to do before Christmas. I hope this weekend's guests don't mind our decorating around them."

"I'm sure they'll want to pitch right in." She hoped. Two couples would be arriving tomorrow, and there was no possibility she'd have everything finished by then. So her idea was to turn necessity into opportunity and invite the guests to join in.

"I hope so. They might be more enthusiastic than Tyler is, anyway." Grams looked a little miffed. She had suggested that Tyler might want to help them today, but he'd left the house early.

"Tyler's not in Churchville to enjoy himself, is he?"

Grams must have read something in her tone, because she gave her an inquiring look. "You're worried about that young man. I've told you—there's nothing he can find about your grandfather that will hurt us."

"I'm not worried so much about that as about what he's going to do with the property. Jeff Whitmoyer approached him about buying it. Says he has plans to develop it."

"And you don't want that to happen?"

Rachel stared. "Grams, surely you don't want that either. He could put up something awful in full view of our upstairs windows. Fake Amish at its worst, if his other businesses are any indication."

"Oh, well, it won't bother us, and the Amish will ignore it as they do every other ridiculous thing that uses their name." Grams tweaked the ribbon on the newel post as Emma came down the stairs, the quilt folded over her arm.

Grams didn't seem too concerned, maybe because she didn't understand the possible effects. Their peaceful, pastoral setting was one of their biggest assets.

Emma unfurled the Star of Bethlehem quilt, and every other thought went right out of her mind. Here was the warmth of Christmas for her, stitched up in the handwork of some unknown ancestor.

Together she and Emma fastened the quilt to its dowel and climbed up to hang it in place. Once it was secure, she climbed back down and moved the stepstool away, then turned to look.

The star seemed to burst from the fabric, shouting its message of good news. Warmth blossomed through her. It was just as she remembered. After all those years of trekking around the country with her mother, with Christmas forgotten more often than not, the years when she'd been on her own, working on the holiday out of necessity, she'd longed for Christmas here.

Now she finally had it, and she wouldn't let it slip away. She had come home for Christmas.

"Ah, that looks lovely. I don't know why we ever stopped putting it up." Grams smiled. "This will be a Christmas to remember. You here to stay, Cal and Andrea coming home soon—if we could get Caroline to come back, it would be perfect."

Rachel hugged her. "We'll make it perfect, even if Caro doesn't come."

Grams patted her shoulder. "It's just too bad Tyler doesn't have any sense of belonging here. I'm afraid his grandfather and mother took that away from him a long time ago."

As was so often the case when it came to people, Grams had it right. Thanks to a family quarrel, Tyler had been robbed of that. Small wonder he didn't care who bought the land.

"His grandfather was a bitter man." Emma entered the conversation, planting her hands on her hips. "Turned against God and his neighbors when his wife died, left the church as if we were all to blame."

Rachel blinked. We? "Are you saying John Hostetler, Tyler's grandfather, was Amish?"

"
Ja,
of course." Emma's eyes widened. "Until he came under the
meidung
for his actions. You mean you didn't know that?"

The
meidung
—the shunning. The ultimate act for the Amish, to cut off the person completely unless and until the rebel repented. "How would I?" She turned to Grams. "You knew? But you didn't mention it to Tyler."

"Well, I just assumed he knew. Everyone in the area knew about it, of course. Do you mean he doesn't?"

She thought about their conversations and shook her head slowly. "I don't think so." Would it make a difference to him? To what he decided to do with the property?

She wasn't sure, but he should be told. And probably she was the one to tell him.

T
he office of the township police chief was tiny, with a detailed map of the township taking up most of one wall. Tyler sat in the sole visitor's chair, taking stock of his surroundings while he waited for Chief Burkhalter to return.

At a guess, the faded, framed photographs of past township events and the signed image of a former president were relics of the previous chief. He'd credit Zach Burkhalter with the up-to-date computer system and what seemed, looking at it upside down, to be a paperweight on the desk bearing the insignia of a military unit.

The door opened before he could follow the impulse to turn it around and take a closer look. Burkhalter came in, carrying a manila file folder and looking slightly apologetic.

"Sorry it took me so long to come up with this. My predecessor had his own method of filing that I still haven't quite figured out."

Tyler grasped the file, unable to suppress a sense of optimism. If there was anything to learn about his grandfather's death, surely it would be here, in the police report.

He opened it to a discouragingly small sheaf of papers. "It looks as if he also didn't care to keep very complete records."

Burkhalter sat down behind his desk. "Things were pretty quiet around here twenty years ago. I don't suppose he'd ever had occasion before to investigate a case of murder."

Tyler shot him a glance. Burkhalter's lean, weathered face didn't give anything away. He couldn't be much older than Tyler himself, but he had the look of a man who'd spent most of those years dealing with human frailty in all its forms.