“We did. They were loaded with poison. They were sent to his mother. He was the one who put them in water and must have gotten enough of a whiff to kill him.”
Matt had hoped for something easier to track down, but the flowers didn’t seem to have come from any local florist. And Moe was dead and couldn’t tell them who delivered the box of roses. Nora had no idea either. He rose and moved to the door. “Thanks, Whit.”
“Got a Jane Doe that you might be interested in. About the right age. Drowned, natural causes looks like.”
Matt’s fingers tightened on the door handle. “Hair color?”
“Light red with gray.”
The right hair color. “Can I see her?”
“Sure.” Whit drained his coffee cup and rose.
Matt followed him down the hall to a room that held the cadavers in cold storage. When Whit pulled out a drawer, Matt drew in a deep breath. The rasp of the zipper sliding open on the body bag sounded loud in the cavernous room. He focused on a spot on the wall, probably the spray from a soda can.
“Well?” Whit prodded him on the arm.
Matt looked down into the woman’s face. His gaze took in the sharp nose, the narrow-set eyes, the wide forehead. “It’s not her.” Relief and disappointment did a two-step. Why did he even think it might be? Only Whit knew of his secret search. “Thanks, my friend.”
“No problem.” Whit zipped the bag closed before shoving the drawer back into place.
Back outside, Matt drew in a lungful of clean air. But the taint of death stayed with him. His cell phone rang at his belt, and he grabbed it. He noticed he’d missed several calls while he was in the dungeon. “Beitler.”
? Blake’s voice came over the phone. “Where you at, partner? I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“Talking to the coroner. My cell doesn’t work in the basement.”
“Your grandma called. She said she saw something the night Moe Honegger died.”
“I’ll meet you in front of headquarters.” Trudy probably was one of his missed calls. He put Ajax into the backseat, then drove to the sheriff’s office, where he slowed down long enough to allow Blake to jump into the passenger seat.
“She say what she saw?” Matt asked Blake.
Blake shrugged. “Someone cut through her corn patch, knocked down some stalks.”
“Might be kids.”
“Maybe. She seemed adamant she had to talk to you.”
She was always adamant. Matt drove west out of Rockville. When he passed the road toward Nora’s house and the other Amish farmlands, he wondered if Hannah had stayed in the community or gone home. And why had she come? She’d never explained.
Blake ran his window down. “How’s Gina?”
“Fine. You two need to work it out.”
“I’m working on it.”
Matt’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. “Is it true, Blake?”
His partner didn’t look at him. “Is what true?”
“You having an affair?”
“That’s none of your business.”
Matt closed his mouth. He wanted to ask where Blake had gotten the money for the ring, but he feared to hear the answer. If Gina’s suspicion wasn’t true, wouldn’t Blake deny the charge?
He turned down his grandmother’s road. Trudy’s house was the only one on this narrow way. She came to the door before Blake’s raised fist could fall on the door.
“Don’t just stand there—come in,” she said, standing aside so they could enter. “Not the dog.” She pointed her finger at Ajax. “Stay.”
Ajax’s tail drooped, but he settled down with his head on his paws and a mournful look in his eyes. “I’ll be right back, boy.” Matt pressed his lips together but didn’t say anything. This was an old disagreement, and one he wasn’t going to win. Trudy’s ways were set by seventy-two years of footsteps encased in concrete.
She wore her gray hair loose on her shoulders. Even at seventy-two, her skin held a pink bloom. Tiny wrinkles crouched at her eyes and around her mouth, but she didn’t look her age. The flowing red caftan gave her frame an elegance that matched the proud tilt to her head.
Matt followed her past stacks of old newspapers and magazines. He’d tried to clear out the clutter for years before finally giving up. Trudy was who she was. There was no changing her. She settled in a worn chenille rocker. He and Blake took the matching sofa. The crocheted doilies on the arms and the back of the sofa were starched and spotless.
“You’ve been neglecting me, Matthew,” she said, fixing her blue gaze on him. “It’s been three weeks and four days since you were here last.”
Sheesh, did she keep a calendar? “I’ve been working a lot of overtime. You know how it is when there’s been a murder. It will calm down soon.” The guilt was a familiar companion. His job demanded so much of him. There were only so many hours in the day.
He took out his pen and notebook. “So you said someone trampled your garden?”
“More than trampled. Destroyed it.” She began to rock. “And there’s white powder on the ground.”
He and Blake exchanged alarmed glances. “Don’t smell it. Moe died from inhaling strychnine. Hang on.” He called headquarters, and his boss promised to send out a car. “We’ll get it checked and cleaned up,” he told his grandmother. “In the meantime, stay away from it.”
The coils of the chair seat screeched with Trudy’s every movement. He could still hear that sound in his dreams. He would never forget the nights she locked him in his room and sat outside his door, rocking and rocking.
He took out his notepad and began to write. “Footprints?”
“Plenty of them. All one man, I think. You can check them for yourself. They lead across the field toward Nora Honegger’s house.”
“Did you see anyone?” Blake put in.
“If I’d recognized someone, don’t you think I would have said that right off? But I saw his truck parked down the way under the old sycamore tree by the river. Just before the covered bridge.”
“Make and model?” Matt asked.
“Tan. That’s all I know.”
Gina had said the man who followed her and Caitlin home drove a tan truck. “Anything else?”
She stopped rocking a minute. “I heard him whistling.” She pursed her lips again and blew out a tune. “Like that.”
Matt recognized the tune. “‘Bad Moon Rising.’”
“If you say so.”
Blake wouldn’t know it, but Reece was a big Creedence Clearwater Revival fan. “Thanks for your help, Trudy. I’ll go take a look at the footprints and the powder.” He stood and started after Blake, who was already heading to the door.
Trudy caught his hand. “You found her yet?”
“No.”
“And you won’t,” his grandmother said. “A woman like that can just disappear. She was never worthy of David. It was good riddance when she disappeared.”
“Not for me.” Wrong thing to say, and he knew it.
“She could wrap men around her finger like yarn. You’re just as stupid as your father.” She waved her hand. “Go ahead, get out of here. You’re dying to escape.”
Matt’s guilt wouldn’t let him just walk away. He brushed a kiss across her hair and inhaled her Suave hair spray. The scent reminded him of a time when he was lost and afraid. He wasn’t that little boy anymore.
TEN
“You see windmills at many Amish homes. They’re used to bring water up. The Windmill Quilt is a quaint reminder that God provides all we need.”
—HANNAH SCHWARTZ,
IN The Amish Faith Through Their Quilts