A Simple Winter: A Seasons of Lancaster Novel (39 page)

As he spoke, Remy searched for the reporters, squinting every time she saw any couple walking together.

“Nancy is here today, but she doesn’t have much on her table,” Sadie observed.

“I see her.” Remy liked Halfway’s stalwart mayor. “And I recognize the lavender lady. She brought her little baby with her last time, too.”

“Good memory,” Sadie said. “Simon, why don’t you put those glasses down and botch with me.”

Remy suspected she was trying to distract him by playing one of the popular clapping games.

“Okay. You can use these.” Simon handed Remy the binoculars and turned to face his sister.

As Sadie hummed “Pop Goes the Weasel” the two began clapping each other’s hands, then alternately striking each other’s legs.

With the help of the spyglasses, Remy got a closer view of passersby, but didn’t see the reporters.

Had they left after Adam turned them down? Maybe he’d gotten angry enough to scare them off.

She leaned closer to the edge, looking at the people passing directly underneath. The lavender lady wore a rainbow print beret today as she paced to rock the baby strapped to her chest. A heavy-set man in a blue uniform greeted her as he shifted from one foot to the other. Remy recognized the guard as Chris Mueller, the Kings’ neighbor.

Chris looked different from up here. The top of his head was bald, which she hadn’t realized before, but then he’d been wearing a hat.

She blinked. What was that mark on his head … nearly hidden by the tuft of hair combed over it?

She adjusted the focus on the glasses and sucked in a gasp.

A red birthmark … and it was shaped like the state of Florida.

he epiphany zapped her with all the ferocity of an electrical shock.

Chris Mueller was the killer … He had to be.

A balding head with its distinctively shaped birthmark. The uniform pants of a police officer. His burly build, like a bear.

He was the one.

And he stood just a few yards from them.

Remy rose and stepped back so abruptly the binoculars fell to the floor of the loft.

“What’s wrong?” Sadie stopped clapping, attuned to Remy’s panic.

“I … I have to go downstairs.” Remy tripped over her words, trying to downplay the internal alarm that was beating a tattoo in her ears. She didn’t want to scare Simon.

“Why?” Sadie frowned. “Are you okay?”

“Fine.” Big lie, but she had to focus on Simon’s safety right now. Granted, Mueller wouldn’t act here, but if he detected the
smallest hint that someone was on to him, he would surely slip away. She moved toward the stairs, then paused for one more glance below.

Priorities. She had to get word to the police … or a higher authority, if Mueller was part of the police.

Remy wasn’t sure whom to trust. But Adam would know.

With a hand pressed to her chest, she peered down toward the Kings’ table. Adam was engrossed in conversation with an older couple, the woman bedecked in cheetah print and baubles. An apparent quilt sale.

A sale she would have to interrupt.

“Stay here.” Despite the concern on Sadie’s face there was no time to explain now. “I need to do something, right away. But I’ll be back. Just stay here.”

The skirt of her dark green dress swirled around her legs as she spun and charged down the stairs, stopping short of the chain. Her fingers felt numb as she fumbled to unhook it and replace it.

Then she hurried into the marketplace, full-out running. She whipped around the corner and nearly ran head-on into Chris Mueller.

“Whoa.” He stepped aside, nimble for his size.

“Oh … sorry.” Remy felt sweat prickle the back of her neck, beneath her prayer kapp.

“You’re in quite a hurry.”

For an Amish girl
. She knew that was what he was thinking, that the Amish didn’t take to rushing around, but it didn’t seem right to say the words.

Beady eyes glimmered in his meaty face as he stared at her.

Her pulse thundered under his scrutiny until she read the confusion there.

He doesn’t recognize me. He’s never seen me in Amish clothes and he can’t place me
.

“I was just trying to … to catch someone,” she blurted out. A lame explanation. “Trying to catch up with my brother.”

“Okay, then.” His eyes didn’t release her, but he was gesturing for her to move on. “Go.”

Her hands balled into fists as she held herself back from running. Instead she strode quickly around the corner vendor to the Kings’ table—where Adam now stood, blocking the table from a woman who was trying to show him something on an open pad of paper and a man with a hefty TV camera propped on his shoulder.

The news crew …

She froze. Approaching Adam right now was out of the question. The reporter would smell a story.

Remy turned down a different aisle, forced herself to think. Who could she turn to?

Faces of vendors, Amish and Englisher, loomed around her until one came into focus.

Nancy Briggs, the town mayor, was folding cartons at her muesli bar stand. Nancy would understand.

Remy hurried over. “Nancy, I need your help.”

The older woman didn’t look up from her work. “I’m telling you, snow makes people hungry. It’s the hoarding mentality.”

“It’s not about that. I need Nancy the mayor.”

Deep creases appeared in grooves at the edges of Nancy’s eyes as she looked up. “Do I know you?”

“I’m Remy McCallister. We met before the big snow—only I wasn’t dressed in Amish clothes then.”

“You’re the poor girl who collapsed here a few weeks back. What can I do you for, dearie?”

“I’ve been staying with the Kings through the snowstorm and … and Simon King has begun to remember things from last year, details from the night his parents were killed.”

“You’re not kidding?” Nancy pressed a flattened carton against the top of the table. “Let me have the facts.”

With a look over her shoulder to be sure Chris Mueller was out of sight, Remy explained how she’d pieced together the details, how Simon’s recollections added up to a profile that fit the Kings’ neighbor. “I’m sure about this, and I’m afraid for Simon. This man is walking around, in a position of power—”

“We’ve got to talk to Hank about this.”

“The sheriff?” Remy bit her lip. “I was worried about that. Does Chris Mueller work for him? Isn’t he a deputy?”

“Chris? No. I know he likes to wear the hat and the gold badge and all, but he’s just a hired security guard for events like these. Hank has two very capable deputies. Pristine records, both of them. And if they can’t figure it out, they’ve got access to county and state resources. There’s the crime lab where evidence is being stored … the whole ball of wax.”

“Then I need to talk to Hank. Simon needs to talk to him. But we have to be discreet. I’m afraid of what Mueller might do if he knows we suspect him.”

“Just take a deep breath and relax a minute while I close up shop. Chris isn’t going anywhere unless he gets wind of trouble.”

“I hope you’re right.” Remy pressed a hand to her chest and turned to glance up at the loft. If she squinted against the lights, she could make out the tops of two heads there—Simon and Sadie waiting safely.

“You know, Remy, I’m a bit flabbergasted that you’ve managed to piece this puzzle together in so little time while the rest of us have been banging our heads against a wall for the past year. I’ve known Hank Hallinan for years, and he’s good people. He’s been here round the clock since the snow started. Roped off Main Street so that people wouldn’t walk in the way of snow removal equipment
during the storm. What I’m saying is, Hank is about as good as it gets in the law enforcement community. How did you leapfrog ahead of him on this case?”

“I suppose the time was right.” A line from the Bible came to mind, the one Adam had shown her about there being a time and a season for everything. “A time to scatter stones and a time to gather them.” Remy believed the time had come to gather the pebbles strewn along the path to justice.

“I’ve been snowed in with the Kings. I was there to see Simon suffer some flashbacks of a sort, episodes that brought him back to the night it all happened.” Remy took another breath in an attempt to steady her nerves. “In the meantime, I was searching for some answers. My father is Herb McCallister of the
Post
, and originally I came here to pursue the real story behind the murders.”

“I see. It does sound like fortuitous timing all around. Hold on while I pack up. I’m taking you to Hank. We can pile into my Jeep.”

“But your merchandise—the market just opened.”

“I didn’t run for mayor to sit on my duff and sell snack bars while someone needs help. I’m going to stay on this thing until we see some results. We’re going to see this thing through. I made a pledge to this town, and I won’t back down till this killer is off the streets.”

dam had wasted twenty minutes arguing with the reporter, Mai Tonka, to leave his family alone.

And now this.

His stomach knotted painfully as he stood at the side of the quilt table, talking with Remy and Nancy.

Was Remy right? Could Chris Mueller, the Englisher neighbor down the road, have killed his parents?

It made him sick to think about it. He found it hard to believe anything bad about Chris, but when Remy lined up the facts, it made sense. Remy had logic on her side, and Nancy Briggs had the authority of age and the law.

Adam rubbed his chin, still not sure. “It’s hard for me to believe. Chris and his mother, Gina, are our friends. Gina sold her land to my parents, and Chris is always making jokes about buying it back from us.”

“Maybe there’s something behind the jokes.” With arms folded across her chest, Nancy Briggs was a force to be reckoned with.
“Maybe Chris resents losing the land to your family, or maybe this is all a mistake. But we’ve got to get this information to Hank, and I think he’ll want to talk with Simon.”

Would the bishop approve of Adam taking Simon to the sheriff?

When Adam had returned home last year, the bishop had advised him to steer clear of the police investigation. He was to answer questions, cooperate, then let it go. The Amish made a point of living separate and apart from the Englishers. They strove to live in this world, but not of it.

But in the process of remaining neutral, the Amish were not supposed to break the law or defy law enforcement. Even if the district leaders were here to consult, Adam doubted that any of them would have crossed the mayor and sheriff of Halfway.

He would cooperate. He hated to put Simon through questioning again, but the boy would need to reveal the truth.

Adam was glad when Nancy insisted that the female deputy call the sheriff in from the field. From his seat on the sofa in the sheriff’s office, he nodded as Hank entered with his jacket still on, snow dripping on his boots.

“Hey, there. It’s not too often I get visitors in my office.” Hank hooked his jacket onto the coat tree, where Simon and Adam’s black hats were hung. “Give me a minute here, and I’ll be ready to talk with ya.”

“How’s it going out there, Hank?” Nancy asked from the wooden chair by the window.