A Plain Malice: An Appleseed Creek Mystery (Appleseed Creek Mystery Series Book 4) (3 page)

A few minutes later,
Timothy stumbled through the open barn door. His neck bent down.

I jogged over to him. “What happened? How could they both fall at the same time?”

“Chloe—”

“Are they okay?”

He grabbed me by the upper arm. “Chloe, they are dead.”

“Dead?”
I stepped back from him but didn’t go too far as he still had a hold of my arm. “Both of them?”

He nodded. “We tried CPR on both but couldn’t get any response. Maybe the EMTs can revive them.
”

“But how is that possible
for them both to fall like that? Had they been sick? Did someone say anything about that?”

“I don’t know.” He released me. “They both fell ill just after drinking a cup of
Daed’s
milk.” He let his last statement sink in.

“You don’t—it couldn’t be the milk that did this.”

His expression was pinched. “That’s exactly what everyone will think. It’s what they already think.” Timothy wrapped his arms around me, I suspected more to comfort himself than to comfort me. “It’s what Greta will think. I can promise you that,” he said as Chief Greta Rose’s police cruiser rolled onto the property.

The petite, curly hair
ed police chief jumped out of her car. Officers Nottingham and Riley climbed out of a second patrol car but stayed a few feet behind the chief. They knew this was her show. Officer Nottingham was a young guy close to my own age of twenty-four. He had perpetually wind-blown hair that looked like he’d just surfed in on some wave even though the closest beaches were hours and states away. In contrast, Officer Riley was just what you would expect to find in a small town Midwestern cop. He was middle-aged and grumpy with a slight paunch hanging over his duty belt.

Despite her small frame, the police chief walked with the swagger and confidence of a
gun slinging cowboy. She shook her head as she approached. “Humphrey? Why am I not surprised?”

I
grimaced and noted she wore teal eyeliner. Her love of brightly-colored eyeliner was legendary in the county.

She nodded at Timothy.
“Troyer.” She hooked a thumb at tour bus. “What’s with the Smurfmobile?”

Timothy stared at her as if she spoke Farsi. Smurfs were not part of his childhood.

“It’s the bus the tourists arrived in,” I said.

“Interesting color choice
,” the cop in teal eyeliner said. “Tell me what is going on here.”

Timothy told the chief about the bus tour and had just gotten to the part where the two
people fell when an EMT poked his head out of the barn door and whistled. Chief Rose’s head snapped in that direction. The EMT frowned and shook his head. The chief sighed. “It appears the victim is dead.”

“Victims,” Timothy corrected. “Two people from the tour bus
died. The tour director, Dudley Petersen, and a woman. I don’t know the woman’s name.”

An EMT jogged back to the ambulance and pulled a medical kit from the open bay.

“I heard someone call her Ruby,” I said.

The chief sighed again.
“You two stay here. I will want to talk to you—”

Mr. Troyer rushed out of the barn and
threw milk from a galvanized bucket onto the trampled grass.

Chief Rose broke into a run. “What are you doing?”

Timothy and I raced after her.

Mr. Troyer froze, and droplets of milk fell from the bucket’s rim.

Chief Rose placed her hands onto her hips. “What are you doing?” Her steely voice would have brought a drug dealer to tears. It only confused Timothy’s father.

Mr. Troyer
removed a handkerchief from his back trouser pocket. “I’m dumping the milk. It’s bad. I don’t want anyone else to drink it and become ill.”

Chief Rose gl
owered at him. “You’re destroying evidence.”

Mr. Troyer pulled his neck back. “
Nee
.”

“Greta.
” Timothy’s voice held a warning.

She pointed a finger at Timothy
. “Don’t get involved, Troyer.”

Officer
Nottingham stood a few feet away with his SLR camera.

“
Nottingham, take the bucket from him,” the chief ordered.

Nottingham
hung the strap of his camera over his shoulder and carefully removed the bucket from Mr. Troyer’s hands.

“Is there any milk left?”
the chief asked.

Mr. Troyer stood ramrod straight. “Not that I gave the guests. That was all of it. I threw it all out.
It was the right thing to do.”

The chief’s eyes narrowed into teal painted slits. “No, Simon Troyer, it was not the
right
thing to do. You’ve made my life a lot harder.”

Nottingham peered into the pail. “There’s some liquid sticking to the sides of the bucket, Chief. There may be enough to test.”

“Good.” She turned. “Riley, run back to the squad car and grab the evidence kit. I want to see if we can salvage any of this milk before it’s all washed away.”

The older officer held onto his duty belt.
“It’s going to be contaminated, Chief.”

“I know that,
but I want backup to test if what’s in the pail isn’t enough.” she snapped. “Hurry up. The ground is soaking up the evidence.”

Officer
Riley jogged back to the squad car.

“
Nottingham, start collecting the names and personal information from everyone here. No one leaves until we question them. I’m going inside to take a look at the scene.”

The
improbable redhead who was with Ruby when she fell stood a few feet away. A cluster of women, including LeeAnne and Raellen, who wanted to take photographs of the Troyer children, surrounded her, so that I could only see the side of her bright red head. The women murmured platitudes to her. Whatever they said didn’t appear to be working as the woman’s sob escaped the semicircle.

Timothy followed the chief to the barn but waited outside when she shot him a dirty look. Officer Nottingham
carried the milk pail to his squad car. After it was stored away, he cupped his hands around his mouth. “Your attention please. We know that you are all eager to leave, but we need to speak with each one of you first. Please be patient.”

His announcement caused a flurry of conversation to run through the group.

Officer Riley returned with the evidence kit, but even I could see most of the milk had absorbed into the ground. He removed a small spade from the kit and collected a dirt sample where Mr. Troyer had dumped the milk.

I inched away
toward the women clustered around the redhead.

“I want to go home,” Ruby’s friend wailed.
“Today. I want to go home today.”

“Pe
arl, you need to calm yourself.” LeeAnne fished through her enormous purse and handed Pearl a tissue.

Pearl
clutched the tissue but did not dab at the mascara running down her cheeks. “My cousin is dead. I knew this trip was a mistake. I kept telling her it was a mistake.”

Raellen twisted on
e of the strands of beads around her index finger, so tightly I was afraid her finger might turn blue. “Is there anyone we can call for you? Ruby’s husband? Any children?”

“Ruby and I are both widows.”
Her eyes cast down to the grass. “Neither of us has any children.”

While Nottingham moved among the tourists, gathering their names and numbers and asking them what they knew about the two dead Mississippians
, four EMTs checked the temperatures and blood pressures of the other bus passengers. Timothy carried wooden folding chairs from one of the sheds and began setting them up on the grass. The Troyers only used the chairs on the Sundays when district church services were in the Troyer home. Timothy helped an elderly woman into one of the chairs. Reluctantly, I left my eavesdropping post and went to help him.

Before I reached the shed,
Chief Rose stuck her head out of the barn. “Nottingham, get in here and take photos of the scene. Riley, take up where Nottingham left off in the questioning. Make sure you look at their cameras and phones. Tourists take pictures. Maybe someone captured something on film.”

“They weren’t supposed to be taking photos while on the farm,” I said.

She eyed me. “That doesn’t mean they didn’t.”

A red-face
d, heavy-set man stomped toward the police chief. “Is it the milk? Did that Amish man poison us?”

A collective gasp
swept through the tourists. The EMTs ignored the outburst and focused on the task at hand, and Timothy continued to bring out chairs with a clenched jaw.

Chief Rose stepped all the way out of the barn. “
Right now, everyone on this property is a suspect. Understood? We will make sure you all get the best medical attention, so that no one else falls ill.”

“I feel a little woozy,” an African-Americ
an woman wearing red plastic-framed glasses murmured in one of the chairs.

A man—I assumed
her husband—placed a hand on her shoulder. “My wife is diabetic.”

An EMT stopped
taking the blood pressure of another man and knelt in front of the woman.

“See,” the red-faced man said. “
Another person is about to keel over. Who will be next? Me?”

“Mr.—” the chief began
.

“French.
My name is Jimbo French, and I’m here with my wife Bobbi Jo.” He pointed at an equally heavy woman wearing shearling jacket and sitting in a chair next to the diabetic woman.

The chief held onto to the barn’s doorframe.
“Mr. French, as soon as we record your statement and the EMTs say you are ready to transport, you will be heading to the community hospital.”

“Community hospital?” he blustered. “I don’t like the sound of that. I want to go to a real
hospital, not some back water clinic.”

The chief jabbed a fist into her hip. “It is a
real
hospital. The closest
city
hospital is over an hour away. Do you want to wait that long to be checked out? Because if you do, we’re going to need to you to sign a waiver that says you refused our advice in case you die. We can’t have your family suing us.”

Jimbo
placed his hands on his ample stomach. “Is this how you northerners treat visitors? It’s shameful.” He pointed a meaty finger at Mr. Troyer. “I hope you Amish are prepared for a lawsuit because that’s what you have coming to you.”

Behind
Jimbo, the Knox County coroner’s SUV turned into the Troyer land.

The invisible
rod held up Mr. Troyer’s back and his pride gave way. His shoulders slumped forward and my heart broke for him. Simon Troyer was a beaten man.

Chapter Three

Chief Rose scowled as she watched the Mississippians line up to climb back onto the blue bus. “Well, Humphrey, this is one for my memoir. I have a bus full of Mississippians who want their stomachs pumped after drinking Simon Troyer’s milk. The hospital staff is going to love me for sending them their way.” She folded her arms. “And I thought this was going to be a quiet spring.”

The Knox County coroner, who
m the chief simply called “Doc,” and his team examined the bodies inside the Troyer barn. Chief Rose had told them to wait to bring the body bags out until after the tourists were off the property.

Ten yards from the barn, t
he EMTs packed their equipment. Timothy and his father were inside the Troyer home along with the bishop and deacon. The other Amish men left shortly after Officer Nottingham questioned them, but the unknown Amish teenager slunk around the periphery of the farm. I needed to ask Timothy who he was.

“Do you think
more of them will get sick?” I asked the chief.

She slipped her aviator sunglasses
, which were a tad too large for her small face, over her eyes. “Hard to say, but the EMTs believe whatever caused the two peoples’ deaths would have reacted in others by now. With that said, we’re not taking any chances. Two dead southerners in my town are more than enough, thank you.” She folded her arms. “There was some remnant of milk in the bucket and in the cups. I hope there’s enough for the techs at the sheriff’s crime lab to test. It doesn’t look good for your boyfriend’s father.”

I unclenched my hands.
“If it was the milk that made them sick…”

“Point taken.”

I shaded my eyes from the sun. “Mr. Troyer wouldn’t hurt anyone. You can’t believe he would do something like this on purpose.”

Chief Rose looked me straight in the eye
. We were the same height, five-four, and my pale, lightly freckled face and worried hazel eyes reflected back to me in the lenses of her sunglasses. “I would think by now, Humphrey, you should know anyone is capable of murder. You have certainly seen your share.”