Falling to Pieces (15 page)

“About what?”

“About …” Deborah waved her hand, as if that would explain everything. “You know about what. Anything about Stakehorn? Anything new about Callie or Daisy’s Quilt Shop? Anything else on Shane Black?”

Esther’s face had been impassive until Deborah mentioned Black; then she flinched, just once.

“You’re closer to town. You’d hear before I would.”

“Hmm. Well, I haven’t heard anything since Adalyn helped her out of Shane’s interrogation room.”

Esther nodded, but didn’t respond.

“We finally catch a break,” Deborah continued. “We finally get someone who can help us. Who is willing to help us, and now this.”

“Now this?”

“Oh, Esther. You know what I mean.”

“Stakehorn’s death?”

“Yes. Could it have happened at a worse time?”

“A bit inconvenient,” Esther agreed. Her blue eyes relaxed a bit, seemed to be amused though still she didn’t smile.

“Now that’s not what I meant. I wouldn’t have wished it on him, and you know it.”

Esther didn’t contradict her, but she looked down at her apron, ran a finger over the hem.

“What? You might as well say it.”

“Mamm?
Can we have just one more? Joshua is still hungry.”

Esther looked at Deborah. Deborah closed her eyes, then grinned. “Remember when we used to beg for more cookies?”

“You begged. I suggested we go to the orchard and pick apples.” Esther leaned forward, caught her daughter’s eye. “You may split one more, Leah. Then put the rest on the counter and cover them with the cloth so they will stay fresh for your
onkels
.”

The sound of giggling trickled from the kitchen.

“Where were we?” Deborah slipped off her shoes and tucked her feet up underneath her. “You were about to say something.”

“I was about to say nothing.”

“About Stakehorn.”

Esther looked out the front window, out over her fields that her brothers were even now working because her husband had died. Finally she turned, met Deborah’s gaze. “I was going to say what we’ve all been thinking. It could have been the man was ill, or it could have been an accident.”

“Or?”

“Or it could have been murder. We both know there are many here in town—both Amish and English—who did not like the man’s ways.”

“But enough to kill him?” Deborah felt a jolt of surprise at Esther’s words, though they’d been tumbling around in her own mind.

“I wouldn’t think so, but then what do I know of the motives for murder?”

The last three words were so soft that Deborah thought she might have imagined them. She wanted to remind her friend that
Seth’s death was different. She wanted to assure her that her pain would eventually pass. There was so much she wanted to be able to do, but it all seemed out of her control.

And then the children were there on the rug between them. Leah was showing something to Joshua and they were both laughing, and that did bring a smile to Deborah’s face. Before long, her hour was up. As they were leaving, Esther insisted they all walk out and look at her vegetable garden.

The garden was a thing of beauty. It seemed to be where Esther put all of her emotions, all of the things she couldn’t say. Growing beside the onions were large pink roses. Next to the squash were tall yellow sun flowers. Even the giant ball of old fence wire, placed in a corner, bigger than the old wooden garden shed the women stood beside, looked impressive—like a giant ball of yarn artistically placed among three different kinds of flowering plants.

“This is beautiful, Esther. It really is. The entire thing looks like one of our quilts—as if you’d designed a new pattern.”

“Danki.”
Esther’s cheeks pinked with color, and she smiled at the compliment. “I enjoy the time I spend out here. It’s when I come closest to
gelassenheit
.”

“When Bishop Elam spoke of it again on Sunday, I prayed for you.” Deborah looped her arm in Esther’s. Together they watched Leah lead Joshua up and down the garden rows.

“It’s an effort to maintain any composure at all,” Esther admitted. “I pray for it each day when I rise, strive to seem calm and collected.”

“For Leah’s sake?”

“Yes, of course. But honestly, what good would wailing about do?”

Deborah squeezed her arm, stopped in front of the roses.

“It’s been more than a year,” Esther said. “I would think serenity would come, by now. That it wouldn’t be something I have to reach for each day.”

“Every week Bishop Elam reminds us of our need to find
gelassenheit
in all things. That alone proves it’s hard for all of our people. You aren’t the only one who struggles, Esther.”

Esther pulled her hand away, broke off a few dead leaves from the rose bush. “My parents wish me to remarry.”

Deborah started to ask if it was anyone she cared for, but she stopped herself when she saw the desolation in her friend’s eyes.

When she and Joshua were in the buggy on their way back home, Deborah replayed the conversations of the last hour. And though her heart was on Esther’s news about remarrying, her mind was on what she’d said about murder.

What were the motives for murder?

And who would have been angry enough to kill Stakehorn, because it most certainly was not Callie Harper. Who had reason to murder the editor, reason and opportunity? How long would it take Shane to find them so people like Gail Caldwell and Baron Hearn would turn their suspicions away from Callie?

Breaking into the
Gazette
was easy enough.

He ducked under the Crime Scene tape and moved back into the editor’s office, snapping on rubber gloves as he turned on the small flashlight he’d brought.

He was almost certain the package wasn’t here, but his boss had insisted that he look one more time. And his boss wasn’t someone you said no to, not if you wanted to keep your job. Not if you wanted to wake up tomorrow. Stakehorn was proof of that.

So where had the editor stashed it?

All the factors seemed to indicate he’d sold it, but no deposits had been made to his accounts—which meant he’d hidden it.

The only question was where.

C
ALLIE THOUGHT
about trying out one of the churches in Shipshewana on Sunday, but in the end fatigue won and she spent the morning reading the paper, browsing the internet, and cleaning up her apartment. It didn’t take much cleaning. She wasn’t a messy person. Okay, she was a bit compulsive about picking up after herself.

Rick had always laughed and said they’d never need a maid.

Rick.

For some reason the day seemed thick with memories of him. She wasn’t sure why. He’d never come to Indiana with her. In fact, he’d never met her family. Her parents had already died when her best friend, Nicole, had introduced them to one another.

Rick had claimed that her stolid independence was part of what drew him to her.

Today, she didn’t feel so independent.

She felt vulnerable and restless and alone. She wasn’t surprised when she picked up Daisy’s journal, placed her finger in the middle, and opened it to October 15.

Her mind looped through the last week they’d spent together, the final days in the hospital as the brain cancer had ravaged his body. She’d stayed with him, showering in the bathroom that was supposed to be for patient use only. The fear that he would slip away as soon as she stepped outside the hospital gripped her, but in the end she’d been holding his hand when he’d pulled in his last breath.

Was that
Gotte’s wille?
That they be allowed to share his final moment together?

Tears blurred her eyes, and she closed Daisy’s journal, placed it back on the nightstand next to her bed.

When Max whined at the windows, she joined him at the seat looking down over Main Street.

“Shipshewana is closed on Sunday, pal. Nothing doing here. If we’re twitchy it’s either a trip to Middlebury or …”

She looked over at the end table positioned next to the recliner she liked to read in at night. Deborah’s directions sat there, tempting her. Why had she even brought them upstairs? She’d meant to throw them away, then decided she should keep them in case of an emergency.

Was loneliness an emergency?

Deborah had written “Come at noon and don’t bring anything” across the bottom, and “P.S. Bring Max” along the edge. The map looked easy enough to follow.

A game of volleyball might be the cure she needed.

She wouldn’t fit in though, and Callie hated not fitting in almost more than she hated this despondent, restless, itchy feeling. Then she looked back out the window and saw the Shipshewana Police Department vehicle slowly patrol down Main.

It was the final push.

She couldn’t sit here thinking about Gavin or Black or Stakehorn. She needed to burn off some energy.

“Come on, Max.” She paused long enough to check her reflection
in the mirror. She wore jeans and a Southwest Texas University T-shirt—gray with a maroon logo. Checking Max’s bandanas she found a maroon one that matched nicely, tied it on him, then snapped his leash onto his collar. After grabbing her car keys off the hook by the door, they trotted down the stairs.

The day’s sunshine felt wonderful on her face, and the weather was nice enough to leave the windows down as she drove. Daisy must have taken Max riding in the car fairly often. He didn’t attempt to hang his head completely out, only sat in the passenger seat with his muzzle resting on the door frame, snout pushed out in the wind.

When Callie had driven only a couple of miles, she passed a sign that said, “fresh produce.” Pulling over she found they had a nice selection of strawberries, so she bought some for Deborah.

“Texans always take something,” she murmured, pulling back out onto the two-lane road. Several buggies rolled along in front of her, but she’d grown used to the slow pace of driving behind them in town, and it didn’t bother her like it had the first few times.

She set the radio to a country station, turned the tune down low, and enjoyed the view of the fields she was passing.

In no time at all, she saw the red barn and county road Deborah had drawn on the map. Turning down it, she had the feeling of stepping back in time. If she thought Shipshewana was old-fashioned, the back roads surrounding the little town were like something out of a Norman Rockwell poster.

It was easy enough to tell which farms were English and which were Amish, since some had cars and others had buggies. Also the English homes had electrical lines running to the house. If she looked closely she saw that the Amish farms had electricity only to the barns and some didn’t have even that.

They sat side by side, and lay out before her like a patchwork quilt. Most had grain silos beside the barns, and all boasted barns bigger than the houses.

Callie was so intrigued by the farms, so busy comparing and contrasting them to the way farms and ranches were laid out in Texas that she almost missed the Yoder place altogether.

The reason she didn’t was because the buggy in front of her slowed, then pulled into the lane. Quite a few buggies were pulled up at the tidy farm. To her surprise, even a few other cars were there. Glancing down at her map, she realized she was at her destination.

When she looked up, she’d nearly passed the entrance; she had to brake a bit harder than normal, and Max nearly fell into the floorboard. He whined once, then barked.

They both parked in front of the corral fence, in the line of buggies and cars.

She pulled slowly up beside the buggy that had been traveling in front of her, careful not to startle the mare. When she’d removed her key from the ignition, she finally noticed what was fastened to the back of the buggy—strapped tightly with bungee cords above the large black box where most Amish folk stored their packages.

Callie felt her hands go clammy and her heart rate increase. The wheelchair reminded her too much of Rick, of trying to wrestle the chair out of the trunk of her car, of their last few weeks together when he’d been too weak to walk. Though she knew she should step out of her little car, she felt frozen in place, as if she was caught in a spotlight and couldn’t look away.

When it was Melinda Byer who stepped out of the buggy, Callie literally clutched her stomach, as if she’d sustained a double punch. Melinda wore a dress like the others Callie had seen her wear, this one a light gray with mid-length sleeves. Her light brown hair was pinned neatly beneath her white prayer
kapp,
and she was soon joined by a tall Amish man who handed her baby Hannah.

Melinda had two children? More than two children?

The boy who jumped out after Melinda was probably ten years
old. He wore the suspenders and wool cap that Callie had seen on most of the Amish boys around town.

Melinda’s husband wore the traditional black hat.

Then Melinda’s husband and the older boy moved to the back of the buggy and all thoughts of black hats and wool caps fled. They unfastened the wheelchair as if they’d done it a hundred times, which no doubt they had.

Callie had a sudden urge to flee, to back away and pretend she hadn’t come.

But Melinda glanced over and spotted her at that exact moment. She said something to her husband, and walked toward her car, still holding baby Hannah in her arms.

“Callie, I didn’t know you and Max were coming.”

“I didn’t know we were either.” Callie stepped out of the rental, pulling Max’s leash and fumbling with the strawberries. “Deborah invited us, and it seemed like a good day to be outside.”

“Ya.
The children were eager to get here. Would you mind holding Hannah for a moment?” Without waiting for an answer, Melinda thrust the infant in her arms and moved back toward her buggy.

Max contented himself with taking care of his business on the wooden fence, then sitting and staring at Melinda’s horse. Callie juggled the baby, uncomfortable with the warm, sweet softness of her, afraid she might hold her wrong and injure the child somehow.

Then she saw why Melinda had left her with the baby.

She’d walked back to the buggy, had reached in for a box of food, and moved in front of the buggy door—holding it open with her body while her older son positioned the wheelchair next to it.

“Hurry, Mamm,” the boy said. “They’re starting the baseball game.”

“There will be plenty of time for baseball, Matthew.”

Her husband reached into the buggy and emerged with a boy
whose arms were wrapped around his father’s neck. His hair and eyes were an exact replica of his mother’s—a warm brown. He looked to be just about school-age, wore clothing identical to his brother’s right down to the cap on his head, and even from where Callie stood she could tell he had trouble breathing.

“You promised I could play this time, Matthew,” the boy said as his father placed him in the wheelchair.

“Sure, you can play. We’ll put you in outfield.” Matthew barely waited for the younger boy to shift his weight and find a comfortable position in the wheelchair before he flipped off the brakes and wheeled him away from his parents and in the direction of the barn, where a game of ball had already begun.

“Boys.” Melinda’s voice was quiet but firm.

Matthew stopped, turned the wheelchair in a half circle.

“Mamm?”

“You didn’t say hello to Miss Callie.” Both boys waved their right hand. “Callie, meet Matthew, our ten-year-old and Aaron who is six.”

“Hello,” Callie murmured.

“You may go now,” Melinda said. They didn’t hesitate; Matthew spinning the chair again and taking off at twice his previous pace. Melinda called after them. “Be careful.”

Two hands waved back at her, though neither child bothered to turn around.

“Boys.” Melinda smiled, gave the box to her husband, and turned back to take baby Hannah from Callie.

This time though, Callie wondered if she detected something hidden underneath the smile.

She’d been so busy with her own troubles, it had never occurred to her that other people might have a few of their own.

“I hope I didn’t hurt her. I’m not sure exactly how to hold a baby.”

“Hannah?” Melinda laughed and pushed up her glasses. “Can’t hardly hurt a six-month-old, Callie.”

“There was that time I laid her in the apple bin,” Melinda’s husband said. “You thought I’d hurt her, but she was fine.” He had finished unloading two baskets from the box at the back of the buggy. Now he stood beside his wife, baskets in his left hand, box in his right, and a giant grin on his face. “Learned then that women tend to worry more than men.”

Melinda shook her head and handed him the baby, taking the baskets of food from his hands. “Callie, this would be my husband, Noah.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“Same.” He nodded toward Max. “I’ve missed seeing Daisy’s dog.”

“You know Max?” Callie’s mind suddenly tripped back over an entry she’d read in Daisy’s journal several nights ago—prayers for M. and her family and their special needs.

“Daisy used to join us every once in a while.” Melinda pulled one last basket out of the back seat of her buggy, then peeked at Callie’s bag of strawberries. “Those will be
wunderbaar
with the homemade ice cream Jonas makes.”

“I haven’t had homemade ice cream in ages.” Callie put a hand to her stomach. “This is not going to be good for my waistline.”

“Deborah mentioned you play volleyball,” Melinda said. “You can run it off. Come on. I’ll show you where to put the food.”

As they walked toward the back of the house, under the shade of trees, Callie mentally slapped her forehead. She didn’t know what she’d imagined an Amish home to look like, but it wasn’t this.

This
was a normal farm. In fact, other than the silo towering next to the barn, it could have been any country home in Texas. Of course there were community grain silos in far west Texas, but rarely right next to a house like she was looking at now.

A trampoline sat in the front yard under the shade of a giant tree. It was surrounded by a passel of children waiting for a turn, both boys and girls, while four at a time bounced.

The difference, of course, was in how the children were dressed.

It was Sunday though, and Callie could remember wearing dresses to church every Sunday, then coming home and waiting for her mom to set out fried chicken and mashed potatoes. These children didn’t look that much different than the scene around her house would have looked twenty-five years ago. Other than the
kapps
on their heads.

She smiled at the thought.

“Want to share?” Melinda asked.

“I was thinking how normal it all looks.”

“Oh, it’s normal all right. You’ll find that out when you get involved in the volleyball game.”

The sight that greeted her as they turned the corner to the back of the house wasn’t quite like anything she’d ever seen.

Tables were set up in two long rows, with enough chairs to feed forty to fifty people.

“I guess you need so many chairs because of all the children.”

Deborah laughed as she came up and accepted the strawberries, giving them both a hug. “Most of the
bopplin
will eat in the barn or under the trees. The chairs are for the adults.”

Within the next half hour, Callie realized adults were everywhere—women in the house still preparing cold dishes, men in the barn talking crops and horses. Things weren’t completely segregated, though; a few couples walked under the trees. Callie noticed several younger women gathered around what looked like a brand-new colt, with a tall, beardless man proudly standing beside the mare.

“That’s Jonas’s brother, Stephen. He helps on all the family farms, since he isn’t married yet.”

“I could have guessed as much, the way he has so many young ladies around him.” Callie smiled and followed Deborah toward the new tan colt.

“You can also tell because he has no beard. Our single men shave. Once married, they no longer cut their beards, though you’ll notice they still have no mustache.”

“Ah, a code.”

Deborah laughed and accepted the flowers Mary brought her.

“Would you like some flowers, Miss Callie?”