Murder in Plain Sight (15 page)

“Who told you that?” Trey snapped the words. He obviously hadn’t heard about this.

Geneva’s friends were turning on her. That was
one of the things Trey had feared. Geneva might say she wasn’t bothered, but it had to hurt.

“It doesn’t matter in the least,” she said. “Now, is there anything else I can do, besides arranging a talk with Elizabeth?”

“Not that I can think of.” If she could keep Geneva out of things, she would, but Geneva had a mind of her own.

“Strawberry-rhubarb cobbler for dessert,” Geneva said. “I’ll bring it in now. Leo, do you want to help me? And Bobby, there’s a fresh pot of coffee on the stove.”

Leo followed her toward the kitchen, and Bobby trailed along after them. Trey stood, hand on the back of his chair. She didn’t need to look at him to know that he was still frowning.

“Maybe I should help—” she began, but Trey stopped her with a look.

“What’s going on?” His voice was a furious undertone. “Why don’t you want me to drive you to see this coworker of Cherry’s?”

Because Chip hinted that you might have been involved with her. Because Cherry’s coworker might be in a position to confirm that, and she’d hardly do it with you standing there.

No, she couldn’t say any of that. Any more than
she could come right out and tell him what Chip had said while they were sitting in his house, with his mother likely to come back into the room at any moment.

“She may talk more freely to another woman. In private,” she added.

She could feel his gaze on her face, probing.

“I’ll wait in the truck.” His tone didn’t allow argument. “Are you sure that’s all?”

“What else could there be?” She stared at him, needing to see his face when she asked the question.

“Nothing,” he said, but again she had that sense of emotion moving behind the word. “Nothing.”

“H
OW WELL DID YOU KNOW
Cherry Wilson?” Jessica tried to keep the question from sounding accusatory. But accusing or not, it wasn’t fair to anyone to avoid the subject because she was afraid of what she might hear.

She gave a cautious glance across the front seat of the pickup at Trey as they drove toward the mobile-home park where Kristin McGowan lived. He didn’t look particularly bothered by the question.

Trey shrugged. “As well as you know anyone in
a small town. I was several years ahead of her in school. She’d have been peddling Girl Scout cookies when I was playing football.”

Sidetracked, she raised her eyebrows. “Let me guess. You were the quarterback.”

“I was. But how did you know that? Has my mother been showing you her family album?”

“Bobby mentioned something about high school.” But now that she thought about it, she’d love to see the Morgan family photo album. “He seems to have a pretty big sense of obligation to you.”

“I wish he’d forget all that.” Trey’s hands moved on the steering wheel. “Maybe I kept him from being stuffed into a locker a time or two. That’s no big deal.”

“It might to the one being stuffed.” That wouldn’t have happened to Trey, she felt sure. He would always have been the Big Man on Campus. “But about Cherry—”

“What about Cherry? We’ll be at her friend’s house in a minute. She probably knows more about Cherry than I do.”

“It would help me to know what to ask if I had a better sense of what she was like,” she impro
vised. “As it is, she’s a body in a crime-scene photo to me.”

The lines in his face deepened, and his hands moved again on the leather-padded wheel. “That wouldn’t give you much of an impression, I guess. But I still don’t see what I can tell you.”

“You went to the inn for lunch sometimes, didn’t you?”

“Sure. Once a week, at least.”

“Just tell me the impression she’d make on a customer.”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether the customer was a man or a woman. She always flirted with the men. Maybe she thought it brought her bigger tips.”

“Did it?”

“How would I know?” Now he did sound irritated. “What’s this all about, Jessica? Why this sudden interest in what I thought of her?”

She could evade the question, but that would be the same as lying, and she didn’t want a lie between them. “It was something Chip said, about how you were one of Cherry’s favorite customers. About how well you always tipped her.”

The look he gave her set a distance between
them. “I didn’t hit on her, if that’s what you mean.” He dropped the words like ice cubes. “If I tipped her better than most—well, I do that, for the most part. I try not to forget that I have it easy compared with a lot of people.”

His lips clamped shut on the words, and he turned into the mobile-home park. He leaned forward, not speaking, obviously checking the numbers for the one she wanted.

She’d succeeded in making him angry with her, and to no good end, as far as she could see. The car stopped, and Trey gestured to a mobile home on the right.

“That’s it. I’ll wait here.”

“Thank you.” She slid out quickly, glad to get away from the frigid atmosphere. “I don’t know how long I’ll be.”

He shrugged, picking up the newspaper that he’d stuffed into the door pocket. “No hurry.”

Kristin McGowan was a very different type from Milly Cotter, the college student who waited tables to help pay the bills. Kristin stood back to let her enter the crowded living room of the trailer, pausing to switch off the television, and led her to a seat on the cracked-vinyl sofa.

“Sorry about the mess.” She waved a vague hand
at the clutter of toys, magazines and newspapers that seemed to cover every inch of the floor. She yawned broadly. “My mom’s watching the kids so I can get a little sleep. I hafta be at work at four, so maybe we can make this short. Don’t see what I can tell you, anyway.”

Nobody ever did. “I’m interested in Cherry, and I understand you were one of her closest friends. Tell me about her.”

Kristin shrugged. “Close—well, yeah, I guess. Cherry wasn’t the type to make friends with women, y’know? But we knew each other since middle school, and there we were working at the same place.”

“So you’d talk. It’s only natural you would, when things got quiet at the restaurant.”

“Mostly Cherry talked. She wasn’t interested in hearing anything about my kids, that’s for sure.” She ran her hand back through shaggy blond hair, yawning again. “Cherry liked to talk about Cherry, period.”

“So I suppose you knew all about her boyfriends. Like Chip.”

“Chip.” Kristin tossed Chip aside with a wave of her hand. “He was just somebody she went to school with. Like I said, she didn’t have women
friends, so he was somebody to talk to. Tell her troubles to, I s’pose.”

“Did she have a lot of troubles?”

“Well, men.” She gave an expressive gesture that seemed to say men were always trouble. “Milly said she told you about Mr. Perfect.”

“Your boss? She said he wanted to go out with Cherry but she wasn’t having any of it.”

Kristin snorted. “That’s all innocent little Milly knows. Cherry went out with him a couple of times. But she figured out he wasn’t going to give up his wife or his job for her, so she put a stop to it.”

It was a little different from the story Milly told, but it still didn’t reflect very favorably on either Cherry or her boss. “Anybody else she dated? Anyone she met at the restaurant, maybe?”

“Cherry didn’t go out with customers. At least, that’s what she said.” Kristin’s voice expressed doubt. “She did hint around about a guy—somebody she said was a cut above anybody else she’d dated. Kept saying as how he was crazy about her, and he was worth a lot of money, and she wouldn’t be waiting tables at that place forever.”

“Really? Did you ever see him?”

“Nah. She was pretty cagey about it. I thought maybe she was just making it up to have someone
to brag about, ’cause of Milly getting engaged and showing her ring all over the place.”

“So you think there wasn’t really any secret boyfriend?” The faint hope went glimmering away.

“Well, I thought that at first, but then she showed me…” Kristin stopped, giving Jessica a sidelong look that hinted at more.

“What did she show you, Ms. McGowan?”

“Wasn’t anything that looked that special to me. Just a funny-looking piece of old jewelry. But Cherry insisted it was worth a lot.” Kristin studied her fingernails with a casualness that was a little overdone. “She…um, she gave it to me to keep for her. Said nobody would look here for it.”

“So you have it.”

Kristin dropped the pose and leaned forward. “If it’s important, seems like I ought to get something for it.”

“I won’t know that until I’ve seen it, will I?” This might be a wild-goose chase, but it was the first tangible thing she’d run across, and she couldn’t let it go. “Tell you what. You let me get an expert opinion on it, and if it’s something that is useful to the defense case, I promise a reward. How’s that?”

“If I was to take it to the district attorney…”

“Then all you’d get was his thanks for being a
good citizen,” she said crisply. “Seems to me you’re better off dealing with me.”

Kristin stared at her for a moment, as if considering. Then she shrugged, rose and waded through toys to the television cabinet. She reached behind the DVD player and brought out a plastic sandwich bag. Opening it, she shook its contents into her palm. She hesitated and then handed the object to Jessica. “I’m trusting you to play fair.”

“You won’t regret it.” Jessica stared at the object on her palm, and a shiver seemed to curl through her. It was a small tile, probably two inches square, with a hole drilled in it, probably to allow it to be hung from a cord or chain. It looked old, scratched and worn, with the black lines dim and faded.

But she could still make out the design. It was the same as the symbol of that threatening note—the hex sign.

W
HAT
J
ESSICA WANTED
to do was research the pendant, if that’s what it was. However, Geneva had asked Elizabeth to help her make strawberry jam, giving Jessica a chance for an informal chat. So she headed back to the house.

The powerful scent of fresh strawberries and sugar nearly knocked her over when she entered the kitchen. Geneva, flushed, stood mixing something in a kettle on the stove while Elizabeth cleaned strawberries at the sink with swift, practiced motions.

“Hi. Looks pretty busy in here.” She’d taken the precaution of changing to jeans and a casual shirt. Good thing. Geneva was liberally spattered with pink splotches.

“Come and join us.” Geneva waved a wooden spoon, adding a few more pink drops. “We can use all the help we can get, can’t we, Elizabeth?”

The girl just smiled, apparently used to Geneva.
The long sleeves of her dress were pushed back to the elbows, but her blue dress and its matching apron were spotless. With her hair pulled straight back from its center part in a knot under her kapp, she might have been the model for a centuries-old painting.

Jessica approached the sink. “What you’re doing looks a bit safer for someone like me. I’m not much of a cook.”

“You’re a lawyer, ja? You have other things to do.”

Elizabeth hadn’t said more important things. Just other things. Was that a reflection of how the Amish viewed the world?

“How can I help?”

Elizabeth gave her an appraising look, apparently to be sure she was serious. “If you’d like to, you can wash and stem the berries. That way I can get on with mashing them. If you want,” she added.

“Sounds good.” She moved into Elizabeth’s spot. Simple enough. Wash and stem the berries. “They smell wonderful.”

That got her a shy smile from Elizabeth. “My mamm always says if one looks specially gut, go
ahead and eat it. They always taste best fresh-picked.”

With some idea of establishing rapport, Jessica picked out a berry and popped it in her mouth. The flavor seemed to explode. “I’ve never tasted better.”

“That’s because the ones you’ve eaten before have been picked days or weeks ago,” Geneva said, beginning to ladle the rich red liquid into jars. “They’re even better picked right from the plant and popped in your mouth still warm from the sun. Ain’t so, Elizabeth?” Geneva used the Amish phrase easily.

“Ja.” Elizabeth wielded what seemed to be an old-fashioned potato masher in a large yellow mixing bowl. “My little brothers picked these this morning, soon as the plants dried off, so they’d be just right for you.”

Jessica didn’t miss the affection in the girl’s voice. Not surprising. She hadn’t met anyone yet who didn’t succumb to Geneva’s warmth. “How many little brothers do you have?”

“Three.” Elizabeth’s face clouded. “And one big brother.” Her hands stilled on the bowl. “Daadi says we must accept that whatever happens is God’s will. But—you will help Thomas, won’t you?”

“I’m doing my best.” She tried to keep her gaze on the berries, so that she wouldn’t put too much emphasis on this and frighten the girl off. “You know, you could help, too, Elizabeth.”

“I could?” There was no doubt about her reaction to that. The sun seemed to come up in Elizabeth’s face. “I would do anything for Thomas, I would.”

“Good. I was sure you’d feel that way. You can answer some questions for me, then.”

“Ja, for sure. If I know the answers,” she added.

Jessica hesitated. But there was no way to ask but directly. “Did you know about Thomas and Cherry Wilson?”

She sensed the girl’s withdrawal. “I don’t think—”

“Elizabeth, please.” She caught Elizabeth’s hand impulsively. “You said you’d do anything to help Thomas. You can tell me. I won’t use it against him.”

“Ach, I know that.” She still looked troubled.

“She won’t say anything to your daadi, either,” Geneva said.

Of course that would be what troubled the girl. She should have seen that.

Elizabeth nodded. “Daadi wouldn’t like it. But
Thomas told me that there was an Englisch girl that liked him. He said he met her at a party.”

“What else did he say about her?” Jessica prompted.

A frown settled on Elizabeth’s face. “She was the one who invited him to that party. He told me so. Said she told him to come, and she’d meet him there.”

That was what Jessica’d begun to suspect, but it was good to have it verified. Cherry had been taking the initiative with Thomas. But why? Just out of a malicious wish to embarrass an Amish kid?

“Had she ever done that before?”

“I don’t think so.” Elizabeth began mashing berries again, the juice squirting up between the metal tines. “He hadn’t known her very long. Just met her at a couple parties, and she invited him to the next one.”

Jessica tried to make that add up to something but couldn’t. “Did your brother have many girlfriends?” He certainly didn’t look like a player, but what did she know about Amish teens?

“Ach, no.” Elizabeth grinned at that. “He always got red when a girl even talked to him. I’ll tell you who liked him, though. Peggy Byler.”

“I met Peggy.” And she’d suspected something of the kind. “Were they going together?” Would Elizabeth understand the phrase? “I mean—”

“Ja, I know what it means.” Blue eyes twinkled. “Sometimes I babysit for an Englisch family. They have television.”

“I guess you’d know, then. So, were they?”

“Peggy would like for Thomas to be her special come-calling friend. I think Thomas liked her, but one of his friends liked her, too. So it was hard.”

An Amish teenage love triangle? She couldn’t make that fit, either. But she had an idea she knew who the friend was. “This friend…was it Jacob Stoltzfus?”

Elizabeth looked relieved that she already knew. “Ja, that’s so. Thomas wouldn’t want to cause trouble for a friend.”

No, he wouldn’t. But Peggy had impressed her as a young woman who knew her own mind and would make it up without any regard for male egos.

It was a sidelight that complicated matters. But how it fit into Thomas alone in a barn with a murdered woman, she couldn’t imagine.

B
Y EVENING
, T
REY HAD
battled his way to the conclusion that he was being unreasonable. It didn’t
come easily—he was ruefully aware of that. Was he really so accustomed to everyone’s good opinion of him that he couldn’t tolerate anything else? That was a humbling thought.

And as if that wasn’t enough, his mother informed him, rather accusingly, that Jessica was talking about moving back to the motel in the morning. Clearly Mom thought that was his fault.

He found Jessica sitting in the corner of the sofa in the family room, intent on her laptop screen.

“Still working?”

She looked up at his words, face startled. She glanced at her watch. “I guess it is getting late. I was trying to find something about this.” She touched, with one finger, the object that lay on the end table next to her—that odd little tile she’d gotten from Cherry’s friend.

“Any luck?” He leaned on the back of the sofa, close enough to smell the faint fragrance of her hair, and tried to focus on the screen.

“Nothing.” She stretched, the movement bringing her even closer, so that her hair brushed his fingers. “I hope Leo has better luck.”

“He will,” he assured her, hoping he was right. “Leo’s forgotten more about the history and folk
lore of this region than most people ever knew. He’ll track it down.”

“It’s not familiar to you? I mean, other than from your father’s collection?” She tilted her head back to look at him, her eyes more green than blue in this light, like a pond in summer with the trees reflecting in it.

It took him a moment to wrench his gaze away and look at the tile instead. He frowned at it.

“It seems vaguely familiar, that’s all I can say.” A memory teased at the corners of his mind, like something slithering out of the shadows, and was gone again. “Leo will know.” He shoved the subject aside to focus on her face. “What’s this I hear about you moving out?”

Her gaze slid away from his. “I just think it’s time I got back on my own.” She flexed her hand. “My wrist is well enough that I can drive again, so there’s no reason to impose.”

“It wouldn’t, by any chance, be because I acted like an idiot today?”

“No, of course not.” Her denial was too quick. “I mean, did you?”

He grinned, coming around to sit down next to her. “Too late. You know I did.”

“You thought I was accusing you of something.” She said the words carefully. “I was only—”

“You were doing your job,” he finished for her. “I’m too used to people’s good opinion of me, maybe. It stung, that you considered I might have been running around with Cherry and keeping it quiet.”

“Because Blake Morgan the Third wouldn’t do that.”

“It sounds a little pompous when you put it like that.”

“You’re not pompous.” She closed the laptop and set it aside. “Just sure of yourself. Sure of your place here.”

She said that almost wistfully, as if she envied him that. Maybe she did. Given what she’d said to him about her early life, shipped off to boarding schools and camps, there probably hadn’t been much sense of a solid place to cling to.

“I’ve always known where I belonged. What my future held.” He said it slowly, feeling his way. “Maybe it sounds hopelessly old-fashioned, but Morgans are important to this community. My father…I never wanted more than to be the kind of man my father was.” His throat tightened on the words.

“His suicide hurt you,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t understand it. I still don’t. Mom says he was troubled about something else. I didn’t see that.” His voice thickened. He didn’t talk about this, not to anyone. But Jessica wasn’t just anyone. He knew that as surely as he knew anything.

“You’re not blaming yourself, are you? If your father didn’t talk about it to your mother, he wouldn’t have to you, would he?”

“Probably not.” He stared absently at the braided rug. “And what could have pushed him to suicide, other than his illness?” He shifted his gaze to her. “If you heard about a suicide like that, not knowing anyone involved, what would you think?”

Her eyes showed so clearly that she didn’t want to say anything. Didn’t want to risk hurting him. “I don’t know. Debts, I suppose. Or depression, mental illness. Or some scandal that was about to be revealed.”

“That’s the list I’ve come up with, too. But any of those things would have come out.” He shook his head, trying to shake off the feelings that clung like cobwebs. “Anyway, I just have to carry on, but there’s a hole where something sure and solid used
to be. Like stepping through a familiar doorway and finding yourself falling into a well.”

It was a relief to say the words. He hadn’t been able to, not to anyone else. He’d had to take his father’s place, to be the rock everyone could depend on.

“I’m sorry.” Jessica’s voice was very soft. She touched his cheek, turning his face toward hers. “I’ve never known anything like your relationship with your father, so I can’t claim to understand. But when I was sent away, on my own, all my security was gone. It was like I was walking a tightrope without a safety net.” Tears glimmered in her eyes, like rain on still water. “I do understand the feeling.”

He put his hand over hers where it lay against his cheek, feeling the warmth and comfort that flowed from her. He turned his face slightly, so that her palm was over his lips, and he kissed it. There was a pulse beating in her wrist, and it seemed to be beating in him, as well.

He turned, drawing her into his arms, and kissed her. The familiar lamplit room receded, the sounds of the old house faded. His responsibilities, her duty…they’d be waiting, but for now there was nothing beyond the two of them.

P
REDICTABLY,
T
REY WAS
still arguing with Jessica when he followed her down the hall to Leo’s office the next day.

“There is no reason for you to move back to the motel.” It was probably the thirtieth time he’d said that, with an increased edge of irritation to his voice with each repetition. “Especially now.” His fingers closed over hers warmly.

She returned the pressure of his hand, feeling warmth and caring flooding through her. “Maybe because of that.” She paused, her hand on the door, knowing there was something she had to say before she lost the will. “Trey, we’ve moved a long way in a very short time.”

“Yes.” He brushed her face, a featherlight touch, his eyes darkening. “Too far? Is that what you’re trying to say?”

She shook her head. Impossible to deny her feelings. “Just that I have a job to do now. I have to concentrate on that. Afterward…”

“Afterward.” There was a promise in his gaze. “But you’re wrong about one thing.”

“What?”

“
We
have a job to do. Not just you.” He pulled the door open. “We’re all involved. Especially me.”

Not alone, in other words. She didn’t have to do this alone.

A flicker of excitement lit Leo’s face when he saw them. “Guess what I’ve found.” He held up a slim book—an old one, judging by the faded, stained cloth cover. She could just make out the title,
Legends and Lore of Old Pennsylvania.

“Something about the hex sign,” Trey said. “I figured you’d get so caught up in the research that you wouldn’t quit until you’d found it.”

“Guess I am a bit predictable.” Leo didn’t look as if that bothered him. “I knew it was familiar to me.”

He flipped open the book. Jessica stowed her wet umbrella safely out of the way before she looked. The illustration was of something that looked like a woodcut—a raven, identical to the one on the threatening note.

“What does it mean?” She dropped her bag on her chair and came to look over Leo’s shoulder at the book. Closer examination didn’t help. She still felt the revulsion she’d had the first time she’d seen it.

“Sign of the raven,” Leo said, satisfaction in his voice. “The so-called hex signs have been part of Pennsylvania Dutch folk art for hundreds of years.
Most of them are used over and over—painted on barns and pottery, carved or stenciled on furniture, even inked onto documents. This particular symbol is rare, though. It’s almost never seen, except…” He paused.