A Churn for the Worse (4 page)

“I do not know, but I wonder.” Eli swallowed his cookie and then turned his attention solely on his pregnant wife. As her gaze lifted to meet his, he nodded. “Carly took the carrot right out of my pocket.”

The fiddling stopped as Eli's gentle words and reassuring smile worked their magic on Esther. “That is a good sign, Eli. She is eating.”

“Yah.”

Curious, Claire leaned forward. “Can I ask why you bought a horse that is injured?”

“It is only a strained tendon. She will heal in time.”

“She is a wonderful horse,” Esther rushed to add. “She has bright eyes.”

“Bright eyes?” she echoed. “What does that mean?”

“To many, it means nothing.” Eli rose from the wooden bench and crossed to the window above the sink. He surveyed his land for a few moments and then turned to face them once again. “To me, it means she is strong and with purpose. A good thing for one who will pull Esther and the baby.”

“That makes sense—”

A vibration inside her front pocket cut her off mid-sentence and sent her scrambling for her cell phone. “I . . . I'm sorry. I forgot it was on.” Claire glanced at the caller ID screen and instantly smiled.

“It is my uncle, yah?” Esther asked

“It is . . .”

“Please. Take his call.”

“Are you sure?” she asked. “I know phones aren't something you—”

“You are English.” Eli made his way back to the table, gesturing to the phone in Claire's hand as he did. “Please. He might worry if you do not answer.”

To the casual observer, nothing was amiss. They were at their usual corner table in Heavenly Brews, sharing a coffee (his) and a hot chocolate (hers), and engaging in the kind of chitchat that made it appear as if everything was fine.

But no amount of pontificating about the rising humidity or the rapid speed with which Esther's stomach was growing could erase the simple fact that Jakob was preoccupied. Claire sensed it the second he got out of his car to exchange a pleasant nod with his niece and her husband. Sure, the brief interaction had been positive, but still, beneath the smile and the elation that always came with a chance to see Esther and Eli, there had been an aura of heaviness.

Several times during the relatively brief drive back to Lighted Way, she'd thrown out a few seemingly innocuous questions in the hope of getting a feel for his state of mind,
but he'd sidestepped every single one with a comment about a particular farm they passed or one of his own questions about her time with Esther and Eli.

When she couldn't take it anymore, Claire leaned around her mug of hot chocolate and plopped her hand in the center of the table, palm up. Like clockwork, he set his hand in hers.

“What's wrong, Jakob?”

Everything from surprise to knee-jerk resistance paraded across his face before his shoulders pitched upward in a halfhearted shrug. “Is it that obvious?”

“To everyone else in here,” she said, lowering her voice, “probably not. But to someone who knows and cares about you, yes.”

He pulled his hand back and draped it across his chin. “Do you think Esther picked it up?”

“What? That something is wrong? I don't know. I
do
know she was happy to see you, even if she, too, was a little preoccupied.”

For a moment, whatever was bothering the man took a backseat to concern for his niece and propelled his upper body halfway across the table. “Is everything okay with the baby?”

She met his anguished eyes with the most reassuring smile she could muster. “Esther is fine. The baby is fine. Eli is fine. She was just a little taken aback to hear both me and Eli questioning the notion that Wayne Stutzman's death was simply an accident.”

Jakob casually surveyed their immediate surroundings and then lowered his voice. “Are you saying that Eli thinks Stutzman was murdered?” he asked, looking back at Claire.

“Technically, he never said murder. But he certainly doubts the theory that the man somehow stepped on the handle of the shovel and wacked himself in the head.” Tracing her finger around the edge of her mug, she mentally revisited the moment in question. “He, too, finds the man's height a reason for doubt.”

Jakob sat up tall, took a gulp of his coffee, and then kneaded the skin just above his eyebrows. “Oh, there's doubt, alright. A
lot
of doubt.”

“So I did the right thing in calling you about this?” she asked.

“Absolutely.”

“Is that why you seem upset tonight?”

He took another gulp of coffee and then pushed the half-empty cup to his left. “I saw the body. There's no way he stepped on anything.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning someone hit him with that shovel hard enough to kill him.”

Her answering gasp turned more than a few heads in their direction. “But . . . why? He's an Amish farmer. With what—five kids?”

“Seven.” Jakob palmed his mouth, only to let his hand drop back down to the table with a thump. “We don't know the why, we don't know the who. We found nothing in the barn, and Wayne's wife and kids were all inside the house, playing a card game when it happened. They saw nothing and they heard nothing.”

“Was he in a dispute with a neighbor, perhaps?” she asked.

“Stutzman has Amish neighbors on both sides. So, no.”

She willed her thoughts to stay in the moment rather than follow an oft-visited path that had caused more than its fair share of heart-pounding nightmares over the past few months—nightmares she opted not to share with her aunt despite having woken the woman with their effects a time or two. Instead, she simply walked on the edge of the memory that spawned them. “The Amish snap, too, Jakob.”

“I interviewed his neighbors this afternoon. They didn't do this. I'm certain of that.”

“Then who? And why?”

He leaned against the back of his chair and, again, took in the room as a whole before responding. “Do you want my official response or my gut?”

“There's a difference?”

“Right now, in light of the mayor's push to increase our tourism appeal, there is.”

“Meaning?” she prodded.

“Meaning my official response at the moment is this: What happened to Wayne Stutzman is an isolated occurrence. We'll, of course, seek to find justice, but we don't think the public has anything to worry about.”

An odd shiver made its way down her spine and to her extremities despite the outdoor temperature that made her request for hot chocolate almost silly. “And
unofficially
?”

“I'm not entirely sure that last part is accurate.”

“Y-you think the public is—is in danger?” she stammered.

“The general, visiting public? No.”

She tried to get a read on what Jakob was thinking, but she got nothing. Nothing except tension, exhaustion, and—

Fear?

“Jakob, please,” she pleaded. “Talk to me.”

“I'm not sure what to say. I've got nothing to back it up. No evidence, no report, no letter or phone call confirming my suspicions.”

“You've got experience and amazing instincts.” She grabbed hold of her mug but stopped short of lifting it to her lips. Any warmth she'd hoped to gain from the move, however, was inconsequential in warding off the chill that now enveloped her entire being. “And you've got my undivided attention.”

Jakob raked a hand through his hair and down the back of his head. “I'm worried this is a hate crime.”

“A hate crime?” she echoed. “Against a farmer?”

“It could be. But it's more likely a hate crime against an Amish farmer . . . with
Amish
being the operative word in that sentence.”

Oh, how she wanted to laugh his theory away, to believe that people who lived their lives as pacifists would be treated the same way in return, but she couldn't. Not any longer, anyway. Not since moving to Heavenly and coming face-to-face with reality.

Granted, the incidents of aggression toward the Amish were few and far between, but they weren't unheard-of the way Claire had once ignorantly believed. Now, thanks to nearly eighteen months as a resident of the quaint little Lancaster County town, she knew that impatient English drivers drove Amish buggies and the families they transported off roads and into ditches. She knew that Amish roadside stands—where the honor code was used—were robbed on occasion, the owner's money box and homemade wares stolen. And she knew that Amish children were sometimes
taunted, their simple dress and even simpler lifestyle making them an appealing target for English counterparts with too much time on their hands.

“Has there been word of something similar happening in a neighboring town?” she finally asked.

Jakob shook his head.

“Did someone say something to make you think they're being targeted?”

Again he shook his head.

“Then why do you think a hate crime is even a possibility here?”

Slowly, he lifted his gaze to meet hers, the fear she'd seen reflected there only moments earlier now taking on a hint of sadness. “It's just my gut, Claire. The problem is trying to figure out what's driving that feeling. Is it something I registered on a subconscious level while I was at Stutzman's today? Or am I reaching for my old standby simply because I've got nothing else?”

She released her hold on the mug and reached for Jakob's hand again, the coolness of his skin a perfect match for the internal chill she couldn't seem to shake. “I've never known you to reach on anything, Jakob. You're careful, you're inquisitive, you're steady. Trust that. Trust
yourself
.”

“I want to, Claire. I really do. But I can't discount the fact that I'm former Amish. Heck, the whole reason I became a cop was because I wanted to avenge a crime against one of my own. I believed, with everything I was, that John Zook was dead because he was Amish.”

“And you were right.”

“I was.” He interlaced their fingers and sighed. “But
that doesn't mean that's the case all the time. Sometimes Amish are victims of crime for the same reason as anyone else—wrong place, wrong time . . . money . . . random violence, etcetera. It doesn't have to always be because they're
different
, you know?”

“You're right, it doesn't. But your gut is telling you something, Jakob. There's a reason for that.”

“I get that,” he said, his voice taking on a husky, almost strained quality. “I'm just afraid that reason is more about bias than fact.”

She considered his words. “Okay, so why do people murder? Maybe that's where we need to start.”

He shrugged even as he started rattling off the various reasons. “Revenge, greed, jealousy, drugs, property disputes, a need to protect, love, other felonies, and, as we both know from what happened this past spring, to keep a secret.”

She shook off the last reason out of self-preservation and a desire to avoid a repeat of the previous night's nightmare and, instead, started at the top of Jakob's list. “Okay, let's consider revenge. Is there any reason to think someone wanted revenge on the victim?”

“No. I talked to Bishop Hershberger this afternoon and he said there were no problems with Wayne. He was not being shunned for anything and he wasn't in business with anyone.” He extricated his hand from Claire's long enough to take a final gulp of what was now surely lukewarm coffee. “Then I stopped at Benjamin's.”

“Oh?”

“I figured Ben might give me more thorough answers than the bishop had. And, although he elaborated more
when prompted, he said all the same things—the victim was a good farmer, a good husband, a good father, and well respected inside the community.”

“Greed? Jealousy? Any chance those are possibilities?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“I imagine it's safe to assume no property disputes or drug issues, yes? So what does that leave us?”

“A need to
protect
—which wouldn't be the case because Wayne was in his own barn—and . . .
love
. I asked his wife if he ever disappeared for unexplained bouts of time, but of course, he didn't.”

“Could he have been killed by someone who was there to do something else?” she posed. “Like to steal something?”

“He was in the barn, remember?” Jakob said, not unkindly. “And his oldest son, Henry, did a thorough inspection of everything for me and said nothing was missing.”

“Well, then I think it only makes sense that your gut is leading you toward a hate crime. After all, what else is there? Nothing else fits.”

“Nothing else fits,” he repeated. “Nothing. Else. Fits.”

She squeezed his hand inside hers and hoped her smile offered whatever boost he needed to believe in himself and his instincts. “Follow your gut, Jakob.”

“The mayor isn't going to like what my gut is saying.”

“So don't tell him,” she said. “Not yet, anyway. Tell him only if and when you have to.”

Silence followed in the wake of her advice and she let it hover, unchecked. Jakob had a lot on his mind. If there
was any chance her words were going to hit their target and take root, she needed to let him think, process.

When he finally did speak, it followed the very real thrill of feeling his lips on her hand. “Thank you, Claire. I needed this more than I can ever say.”

“I'm glad.” She pushed back her chair and stood. “Now, Detective, you need to get some sleep. You've got a gut to follow come morning.”