Whiskers of the Lion (17 page)

 • • • 

When Caroline entered the bedroom, Fannie was stretched out on the bed closest to the window. Eyes narrowed to slits, Fannie watched Caroline set her purse on the long dresser across from the foot of the beds. When Caroline switched on the bedroom lights, Fannie raised herself to sit on the side of her bed.

Caroline came into the room and asked, “Are you OK, Fannie?”

Fannie stood beside her bed and rubbed her eyes as if sleep had overtaken her. “Sleepy, I guess,” she said. “And I'm hungry.”

“There's food out there,” Caroline said. “They had to check everything before they would let it come up to the room.”

Fannie went out to the middle room, and Caroline followed her. On a cart inside the suite's front door, there was a stack of white dinner boxes. Two agents were sorting through them to select their meals. There was also a large white plastic carafe of coffee, and Agent Parker was pouring himself a cup. When Fannie appeared, he offered the cup of coffee to her, saying, “We were just about to knock on your door, Ms. Helmuth.”

“Please, it's just Fannie.”

“Fannie, then. Would you like some coffee?”

Fannie shook a sleepy “No” and took up a dinner box. Parker carried his coffee out into the hallway and closed the suite's door behind him.

Complaining, one of the agents grumbled, “They're all the same. Amish broasted chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy, and buttered green beans with bacon bits.”

Fannie shrugged her condolences and said, “Typical tourist fare, I'm afraid. It will be food that was left over from the dinner buffet. Reheated in a microwave.”

Once Caroline had taken a meal box, Fannie turned back into their bedroom. She sat on the edge of her bed. Caroline closed the door and sat on the other bed, knee to knee with Fannie. As they unwrapped their plastic dinnerware, Fannie began her series of questions.

“Is there a big lobby downstairs?”

“It's fairly big,” Caroline said as she ate. “Most of the right half is restaurant. It's closed now, so I gather that's why we're eating out of Styrofoam boxes.”

“Are they going to let me go see any of it?”

“I can ask, Fannie. Probably not.”

“Why did it take so long for them to get dinner up to us?”

“Well, Parker had the agents check everything. And they've been asking to see everyone's ID.”

Fannie laughed knowingly at Parker's mistake. “Amish people don't carry IDs.”

“That's why it's taking so long.”

“I recognized the maid with pillows,” Fannie said.

“Who?”

“When I first came up. The maid at the end of the hall was Wanda Mast. She's Abel's sister-in-law. And her supervisor is Diener Miller.”

“That's a deacon?”

“Yes. A diener is a deacon. A servant of the church. Ben Miller is a deacon in Abel's church.”

“Then you may know some of the other people who work here,” Caroline said. “Everyone is Amish.”

Fannie nodded, forked loose a bite of broasted chicken, and smiled as if there was nothing that concerned her. “This is what most tourists think Amish ‘home cooking' is like.”

Caroline stirred her beans. “You can get the same meal in any restaurant in Holmes County.”

“It's not really like home cooking at all, is it?” Fannie said, striving for sincerity in tone, troubled by her thoughts. “Too many additives for my taste. You know, chemicals.” Was that chatty enough? Fannie wondered. Is this what will draw Caroline out?

“Like what, Fannie?”

“Oh, you know. Sugar, soy, preservatives. Chemicals. They're in all the baked goods they sell to the tourists. You ought to read the label of ingredients sometime.”

“But it tastes good,” Caroline said agreeably. “Most people think it's authentic.”

“I suppose so. Are they going to let me go down to the restaurant at all?” Was that a reasonable question to have asked? Fannie wondered. Was she raising too many alarms with all of her questions?

Caroline set her box aside and stood between the beds. “I can only ask, Fannie. Right now, they're pretty nervous about security. Maybe you could just give it a few days. Let everyone settle in, here.”

“I suppose I can,” Fannie said. Three days until they move me to Cleveland. Three days to act. Fewer to test Caroline.

As Fannie ate more of her dinner, Caroline took her box to the corner wastebasket, where she discarded the box and most of her food. Then she opened the bedroom door. An Amish maid was taking the dinner cart away. Her supervisor stood at her side.

Caroline asked, “Wanda Mast?”

Fannie heard the maid answer. “Yes, do I know you?”

Before Caroline could respond, Fannie stepped to the bedroom door and introduced the two women to each other. Then Fannie spoke Dietsch to Wanda, and she spoke with Wanda at considerable length. Eventually, the Amish supervisor, Ben Miller, responded to Fannie, too.

As the three talked, Fannie noted that the FBI agents were waiting to the side. Happily Fannie realized that they were uninterested in listening to a language they could not understand. They also seemed reluctant to interrupt. Fannie was able to explain herself thoroughly to Wanda Mast and Ben Miller.

When Agent Parker appeared again at the suite's door, he said, “Are we done here, folks? I need to move this along.”

Fannie said a few parting words, and Wanda and Ben wheeled their cart away. Parker closed the suite's door, and Fannie returned to her bedroom with Caroline. Fannie sat again on the edge of her bed, with her dinner box in her lap. As Fannie finished her dinner, Caroline sat and asked, “What were you talking about with Wanda?”

“Oh, I just asked her to bring me some clothes,” Fannie said, thinking, How much Dietsch does Caroline understand?

“Does she know your size and style?” Caroline asked. “For the clothes?”

“I told her my size. I can wear her style, I guess. For a while.”

Fannie set her dinner box aside. “What am I supposed to do after the trial? If there ever is a trial.” What honesty will Caroline give me now?

“I suppose you could go into the witness protection program.”

“Wouldn't people still be able to find me?”

“Not really. They change your name in witness protection. They give you a new identity.”

“I'd rather just stay me.”

“If you did that, Fannie, where would you go?”

“There are Amish settlements all across America now,” Fannie said. “Wherever I go, I'll be safe. And I'll want to live Amish. After the trial, that is.”

“Did Sheriff Robertson explain any of this to you in his letter, Fannie?”

Caroline's forthrightness is honorable, Fannie thought. “He said I would be safe among my people.” Could she trust her with more? She turned her attention to her dinner, took another bite of chicken, and looked back to Caroline.

Smiling enigmatically, Caroline said, “Fannie, I'd bet any amount of money that the sheriff told you not to trust the FBI very much. I know Robertson, Fannie, and I'd bet that he gave you options. That he's letting you make decisions, now, for yourself. That's just how he is.”

Fannie returned Caroline's smile, thinking, She understands. It is unspoken, but Caroline understands. If so, has she guessed my intentions? Will she keep it to herself?

“I like him,” Fannie said aloud. “Sheriff Robertson. I like it that he told me the truth.”

“I do, too, Fannie,” Caroline said. “But you should understand, if the sheriff hasn't already told you, that they might never capture Teresa Molina.”

“I know,” Fannie said, thinking, There is Caroline's honesty on display
.

In the pocket of her apron, Fannie's cell phone buzzed. She drew it from her apron pocket and checked the display. “This is my friend,” she said to Caroline. “I need to take this call.”

Leaving her dinner unfinished, Fannie entered the bathroom and closed the door to whisper to Jodie Tapp.

 • • • 

Jodie was crying when Fannie answered her call. “Oh Fannie! I can't go to jail. I just can't do it. I'll die in jail.”

“Wait, Jodie. Slow down. Tell me what's wrong.”

“Teresa Molina called me back. She's really going to tell them that I was in her drug gang. And I don't have the money. Not five thousand dollars, I don't. Fannie, I'd just die in jail.”

“Jodie, I'm sorry. I really can't get away right now.”

“Then let me come to you. I've got until noon on Saturday. And I know you have to be close by.”

“Where are you?”

“I'm at a little motel in Akron. I can get to you, Fannie. Sometime tomorrow.”

“You need to get far away, Jodie. You need to run away.”

“I can't, Fannie. They said they would hurt my mother.”

“You talked to them again?”

“Yes, Fannie! Don't you understand? Teresa Molina is going to kill my mother!”

“I have to think.”

“I'm just going to kill myself. I'm going to jump off a building or something.”

“You can't do that, Jodie.”

“Why not? People die every day, jumping off buildings.”

“Let me think, Jodie. Let me think about this.”

“What if the police find me? I'd have to tell them about you, Fannie.”

“Tell them what?”

“That you carried a suitcase for Teresa Molina.”

“They already know that, Jodie.”

“I'm sorry. I don't know what I'm saying. I've lost my mind or something. Please, Fannie. You've got to help me. If I don't have their five thousand dollars by noon on Saturday, they'll kill my mother. Teresa Molina told me that.”

“But why? Why would they kill your mother?”

“These are really bad people, Fannie. You just don't get it. Do you know the girl who was killed in a buggy accident yesterday in Indiana?”

“No. I don't know anything about that.”

“They ran her over, Fannie! Don't you get it? They killed her. They'll kill me.”

“Why would they kill a girl in Indiana?”

“Oh Fannie. You're so naive. I knew her in Pinecraft. Just like I knew you. And they killed her just because she knew too much. They're cleaning up loose ends, and I'm next. Then they'll come for you, too.”

“They'll never find me, Jodie.”

“Well, they're gonna find me, Fannie. If you can't help me, they're going to find me, and they're going to kill me and my mother.”

“I need to think, Jodie. I need to figure out how I can get the money to you.”

“I can come to you. Really, Fannie, I can drive all night if I have to.”

“OK, let me ask Reuben.”

“Thank you, Fannie! You're saving my life.”

“It will take some time, Jodie. Reuben doesn't carry that kind of cash. He'll have to talk to the bishop to get such a large sum.”

“OK, Fannie. I can wait. I can wait until Saturday morning. Then I've got to get back here to Akron. To give them their money.”

“Just give us some time, Jodie. There are a few things I have to do first.”

“Are you close by? Will I be able to get to you in time?”

“Yes. I'm only a little bit northeast of Akron. We've got time. Just let me think about this.”

“Will you call me?”

“Yes. But I have to make some arrangements.”

“To get the money?”

“Yes, Jodie. That, and a little bit more.”

Friday, August 19

5:15
A.M.

IT WAS the clang of a ricochet that broke Stan Armbruster out of his early-morning dream. It was the resonant clang of a bullet striking a bell. A note that couldn't be unrung. The arresting transfixation of an alarm.

The content of Armbruster's dream vaporized as soon as he opened his eyes. But the ringing tone of the ricochet lingered in his consciousness like a threat.

In his bathroom, Armbruster splashed cold water on his face, trying to refocus the dream. In his kitchen, he put up a pot of coffee, endeavoring to understand the warning. In his shower, he relinquished his efforts to recall the dream and struggled instead to scrub the bell's insistent note from his mind. In this he failed. So as he dressed, he again made the effort to recall his dream. But it was gone. He could decipher only that it had been a nightmare that had woken him with the startling awareness of peril.

Now he knew that something yesterday should have alarmed him. He understood this because of the bell of his dream. Something at the Mast farm? Something on the drive home with Lance and the professor? Perhaps something at the St. James.

But Armbruster could neither reach it nor grasp it. It had been only a resonance lodged in a vanishing dreamscape. It had been an audible warning without the clarity of specificity. An echo from memories he could not identify.

Armbruster finished his coffee and clipped his holster to his belt. He went out into the steamy August morning, locked his trailer home's door, and drove down the farmer's lane. It was a long gravel drive, potted with muddy holes. He rolled down the windows and heard the tires of his red Corolla splashing murky water to the sides as he advanced.

The hiss of the splashing called to Armbruster's mind the gravel drive at the Helmuth farm. That drive had been puddled, too. He remembered the rain that had fallen the morning when he had discovered Dent's body. That had been only two days ago—the day he had called in his location in the rain, sitting in a mud puddle beside his Corolla.
“The day
,
”
Armbruster muttered. The day that his new career as a Holmes County detective had skipped abruptly and irrevocably sideways. The day that his hopes of impressing Pat Lance had been dashed.

Armbruster stopped at the edge of the blacktop in the dark, and he anxiously considered the turn onto the county road toward Holmesville. His fingers clenched the steering wheel while his thumbs drummed against it. What had he overlooked yesterday? Why did it seem so important? Did he still have a chance with Lance?

Nervous with vague unease, Armbruster glanced left, then right. He studied the floodlight in his rearview mirror. His trailer sat two hundred yards behind him, at the end of the farmer's lane. It was parked in a glade beside the beagle run. Beside the hutches where he kept the farmer's rabbit dogs.

“Beagles,” Armbruster groaned. He cranked his steering wheel and backed around on the lane. He drove slowly back toward his home. He had forgotten to tend to the dogs, and the urgent concerns of his dream were dissipated by the needful practicality of feeding the beagles.

 • • • 

Fannie Helmuth awoke in her hotel bed and lay for a moment with her eyes closed, thinking about last night's phone call from Jodie. Still troubled by the call, Fannie opened her eyes slowly, rolled onto her side, and saw that Caroline's bed was empty beside her. Slowly, Fannie became aware of water running in the shower, behind the closed door to the bathroom.

Had Caroline guessed last night who had called? Certainly she had been curious to know who it was. Was it a good sign that Caroline had not asked about the call? Perhaps. It did reveal her restraint. Did it also reveal her trustworthiness?

Jodie had always been so certain that nobody could ever know that they talked to each other on their phones. Jodie had been on the run, too—in hiding, just as she and Howie had been—and Jodie had always cautioned her not to tell anyone. Not to tell even Howie. They could talk, Jodie had said, but they could never tell. They could never meet. Jodie had said this from the very beginning, when Fannie had called her in April, on the new phone that she and Howie had bought at the Walmart in Memphis. “Fannie,” Jodie had cautioned her, “we can never try to see each other.”

Quickly though, Howie had guessed who it was that Fannie was calling. And who it was that was calling Fannie back. Howie had known almost from the start that it was Jodie. He had known about the calls, and he had advised her not to continue. He had always suspected that Jodie was just as much an enemy as Teresa Molina was.

Still, hadn't Jodie said herself that Fannie should never tell her where she was? And Jodie in turn would never tell Fannie where she was. Their safety depended on this. That's what Jodie had always told her when they had started calling each other. It was to be a sign of trust that Jodie would never ask where she and Howie were.

And she hadn't asked. Jodie hadn't wanted to know. Through all of their weeks in hiding, Jodie had never wanted to know where they were. Until last night.

Last night, that had changed for each of them. Jodie knew that Howie had been murdered. And Fannie knew that Teresa Molina was threatening the life of Jodie's mother. Certainly these things changed everything. For Jodie and for Fannie. Now Jodie did want to see her. She had said that she urgently needed Fannie's help. Beyond the five thousand dollars, she was asking for the very thing she had promised she would never ask. She was asking, she had said, because of Teresa Molina's threat.

The bathroom door opened, and light and steam emptied into the bedroom. Caroline came out wrapped in a white bath towel. With a hand towel, she was drying her long auburn hair.

Fannie sat up in bed and said, “You were in Sarasota?”

Caroline spun the length of her auburn hair between the ends of her hand towel and answered, “Yes. We were there in April.”

“Were you there because of me?”

“Partly,” Caroline said. “We were there on vacation, and Bruce Robertson asked us to interview Jodie Tapp. Ruth Zook had been murdered. He knew Ruth had worked at the same restaurant where you and Jodie did. In Pinecraft.”

“That's where I met her,” Fannie whispered.

“Fannie,” Caroline said, “how did you know I was in Sarasota? I never told you that.”

“I have a friend who calls me,” Fannie said. “Are you done in the shower?”

Caroline sat on the bed to face Fannie. She held her hand towel idle in her lap. “Is this the same person who called you last night? The one who called yesterday at the Mast farm?”

“Yes.”

“Because, well, you went into the bathroom to talk last night. You didn't want me to listen.”

Fannie pulled her covers off and stood up beside her bed. She walked into the bathroom, saying, “It was just a friend.”

 • • • 

In room 7, on the third floor of the Hotel St. James in Millersburg, Bruce Robertson watched the red numerals of the digital alarm clock blink from 5:44 to 5:45. He was seated in a corner chair with the lights off. He had spent the night in the room, sometimes sitting in the dark, sometimes pacing with his thoughts. He had tried to rest at first, but he had found that impossible. Long after Pat Lance had closed her door and fallen silent in room 6 next door, Robertson had settled into the corner chair to watch the clock and to think.

The shades of the sheriff's Jackson Street window were tightly drawn. At no time had he turned on the lights in his room. When Lance and the professor had registered for their rooms, Robertson had already secured the key card for room 7 without putting it on record that he had taken the room for the night. In this he had secured the hotel management's cooperation. No calls would be put through to his room's phone. No deliveries would be made. None of the maids would knock on his door. He would leave and reenter, if he needed to, through the door to Lance's room, number 6.

Robertson rose in the dark and entered his bathroom by the dim glow from a nightlight he had installed near the floor. He ran cold water onto a washcloth and rubbed stiffness from his face. He rewetted the washcloth and brushed it several times back and forth over his bristly gray hair. He fingered the whiskers on his chin and took out his razor to shave. When he had finished, he came out and dressed without turning on the lights.

Lance would be waking, he thought. She's probably grumbling about the Amish clothes she'll have to wear today.

The professor will be up soon. If he managed to get any sleep. He had brought a small bag from home, but he, too, faced a day in Amish attire.

Once he had dressed, Robertson put his wallet in his hip pocket and swiped his keys from the dresser. The keys slipped from his grasp, and they clinked against each other when they landed on the carpet. He bent over to pick them up, and he gave them a shake. Again, they clinked against each other. They made a tiny cluster of notes, hanging from their ring on his index finger. He shook them again, and he found his thoughts roaming anxiously over the evidence that he had.

It wasn't much. There was the yellow car. And the red backpack.