A Perfect Square

Chapter 15




IT TOOK DEBORAH TWENTY-FOUR HOURS to decide how best to proceed with helping Reuben. Saturday, after seeing to lunch for her family, she pulled out the list she had made in the quilt shop — the list of reasons Reuben might insist on keeping quiet.

Callie had been right.

There weren’t many explanations for Reuben’s silence, not when a brief explanation could gain his freedom.

Deborah sipped her warm tea, then tapped her pen against the paper. Had she missed anything?

“One: money.” Did Reuben need money? Was this girl somehow blackmailing him for money? Did she somehow threaten his ability to keep the farm?

“Two: love.” She took her pen and wrote beside this the word Romantic with a question mark. Had Reuben been in love with the young girl in the pond? Seemed unlikely.

“Three: love. For family or freinden.”

“Four: Ordnung.”

This last would be harder to explain to anyone outside their faith, but if Reuben felt it was the right thing to do to remain silent, the moral thing to do, then he would. Much as Esther had remained silent when Seth had died, though she had known almost immediately which boys were responsible. But then Esther hadn’t been in danger of losing her own freedom. The Ordnung did not require this. Again Deborah put a question mark.

She couldn’t think of any other reasons to add to the list, so she folded it and put it inside her handbag. Then she called Martha into the kitchen.

“Yes, Mamm?”

“I need to run errands in town. I’ll be taking Mary and Joshua. Would you like to come with us?”

“‘Course I would. What about the twins?”

“Went with your dat to pick up new pigs.”

“New ones? What happened to the old ones?”

“Nothing happened to them. Your father thinks we need more this winter. Actually he thinks your bruders need more responsibility, so he’s adding a few more animals.”

“I wish he’d asked me about that first. I would not have picked pigs.” Martha walked out of the room shaking her head, and Deborah found herself laughing even as her mind went back over the list.

Why was she so sure that Reuben was holding back something? Could be he was silent because he had nothing to say.

Then it came to her, as quickly as a bird lighting on a tree limb. She remembered the thing she’d pushed to the back of her mind. When she’d first gone to fetch Reuben, when they’d first discovered the dead girl, there had been the briefest of seconds when his eyes had grown wide, he had gone pale, and a deep sadness — like a shadow — had passed over his face. It had occurred so quickly, Deborah was surprised she’d caught it and remembered it at all.

There was no doubt at all that he’d known the girl.

His expression hadn’t been one of shock or surprise like Deborah had felt. It was the look of someone who’d seen something precious ripped away.

In that split second, Deborah had seen Reuben’s grief.

The question was — grief over what? The girl’s death? The fact that she was found? What did the girl’s death mean to Reuben?

“M-Ma-Ma-Mamm.” Joshua tugged on her dress, one arm wrapped firmly around her leg.

“I don’t think she can hear you. You need to learn to be patient when Mamm’s concentrating on something else, at least that’s what Dat says.” Martha offered Joshua his favorite stuffed bear, but he turned away and buried his face in Deborah’s dress.

“It’s all right. I was just remembering something.”

“Something important?” Martha helped Mary gather up her books and put them in a small backpack as they all made their way out the front door.

“Could be. I hope so.”

“Dat says when you get that look on your face, we should try to wait or come back around later. He says you’re puzzling things out.”

“He does, does he?” Deborah reached over to straighten the prayer kapp worn by her eldest as they continued walking. The child was growing up too fast.

“Ya. He also says I act exactly like you at times.”

“Hmm. I’m sure that was a compliment.”

“I don’t know. He said it after I’d poured hummingbird water into the pot on the stove that was for tea.”

Deborah helped the children into the buggy Jonas had hitched up before he left for town. “Yes, I suppose I remember doing that once before.” Deborah climbed into the buggy’s front seat. “It’s merely sugar and water though. I told your dat I was saving him the trouble of adding the sugar to his tea afterward.”

She clucked to Cinnamon and turned the mare toward town. Deborah had three stops to make. Best hurry if she was to be back before dark.

Her first stop was Reuben’s parents. They lived on the piece of land next to Tobias’ parents — the fathers were brothers. Deborah had known the family all her life, though she’d spent more time with the women than the men.

“Why did we bring the apple crisp pie?” Mary held it in her lap as if it were a dozen eggs.

“Always nice to bring a gift, especially when a family is experiencing trouble.”

“I like pie, but I don’t want to have trouble to get it.” Mary rubbed her hand under her chin, then looked to her mamm. “Is that a terrible thing to say?”

“Not at all, and I left a pie for us at home, cooling on the counter.”

“Gut. Smelling this is making me awfully hungry.”

“You ate lunch not an hour ago,” Martha reminded her.

“I’m growing though — same as Jacob and Joseph.”

Deborah pulled the buggy to a stop in front of the rambling farmhouse. “It’s a warm day for October. I’d rather you children play on the porch while I speak with Reuben’s parents. I shouldn’t be long.”

Martha took the younger children to the rockers at the corner of the porch as Deborah knocked on the door. Five minutes later she was sitting at the table with a cup of tea.

“So you never met the girl?” Deborah asked.

“Never even saw her. We’d been hoping Reuben would find a nice Amish girl, but he kept saying it wasn’t Gotte’s time yet.” Abigail Fisher was nearly as round as she was tall, and it was plain from the redness of her eyes that she’d spent the last few days crying over her son’s predicament.

“Abigail, excuse me for being so bold, but I’m trying to help Reuben — “

“I thought that woman was helping him, that lawyer.”

“Ya. I’m sure she is. Adalyn Landt is a good lawyer, and she’ll help Reuben every way the Englisch legal system allows her to, but there’s something here that doesn’t add up. It’s puzzling me a bit. I don’t understand why Reuben won’t make a statement. Why he won’t say what happened and how he knows the girl.”

Tears tracked down Abigail’s cheeks as she nodded her head. “I know. I don’t understand either. Reuben’s always been the stubborn one, but this doesn’t make any sense. It’s probably the reason people are saying the things they are — “

“Saying what things?”

But Abigail shook her head and refused to speak more on the subject.

She did walk Deborah out to the buggy and say hello to the children.

“Did you like our pie, Mrs. Fisher?”

“Yes, Mary. Thank you for that. Mr. Fisher will be very pleased, as I haven’t done much baking this week.”

Deborah climbed up into the buggy, then tried one more question. “Abigail, when was the last time you saw Reuben?”

“It’s same as I told the police fellow, that Mr. Black. Reuben came by the house the Saturday before the body was found. Asking if his dat knew anywhere that was hiring for work.”

“Work?” Deborah looked out across the fields and thought about what Tobias had told her about staying in town and covering double shifts. “But wasn’t he having trouble keeping up at the farm, what with no help from Tobias?”

Abigail sighed, scrubbed at her cheeks again with the handkerchief. “Makes no sense, no more sense than anything else, anyway. Daniel told him the only places hiring wood craftsmen were the RV places up by the toll road.”

“So he wasn’t looking for work here in Shipshe?”

“I don’t know, Deborah. I wish I could be more help. He seemed pleased with the answer, I do remember that, as he slapped his dat on the back and said the toll road would be fine, said it wasn’t but a twenty-minute ride with a driver. When has Reuben ever hired a driver?”

“When indeed.” Deborah nodded, then thought of one more thing. “This might seem personal, but it could help us. Has Reuben ever been in lieb?”

Abigail smiled, though there was no happiness in it. “Once. He cared about her for sure, but they were so young. Reuben was like a young bull then, unable to control his emotions at all. One minute he’d be in a tear, angry about something. I never knew what. The next moment he’d be like he is now — quiet, sweet, and solid.”

“Reuben?”

“Ya. I know. It’s hard to imagine.”

“Why don’t I remember this?”

“He’s older than you are.”

“Just a few years.”

“Well. Some things you can’t really know unless you’re inside a family.”

Deborah thought on that. “What happened to the girl?”

“Came down with the fever. She died the same year they were courting.”

Deborah left then, steering the mare down the road, trying to fit the puzzle pieces together, but what she’d learned at the Fisher place had added more confusion to Reuben’s case. As she drove into town, Deborah wondered if she should stop by Adalyn’s office and tell her what she’d learned, but that was when the quilt shop came into view and she realized Callie was standing at the side of the road, waving to her frantically.

Callie had been trying to track down Deborah for the last hour. It wasn’t easy to locate an Amish person. Well, it wasn’t as hard as you might expect — considering they didn’t have telephones. If you could reach one person, they seemed to know a piece of useful information, and then it was only a matter of following it to the end.

In this case, she’d reached Tobias’ sister at the shop where she worked. Tobias’ sister had just talked to her cousin, who herself had come in from the farm moments before and had seen Deborah’s buggy there.

Callie guessed that Deborah was having a cup of tea with Abigail and would be heading into town next. Then it became a matter of waiting for her friend’s buggy to pass by.

“Callie. What are you doing?” Deborah pulled into the quilt shop’s parking lot, looking at her as if she were crazy.

“I need to talk to you. Are you sure you can’t get a cell phone or a pager or maybe a walkie-talkie?”

Martha, Mary, and even Joshua crowded toward the front of the buggy, all shaking their heads no, though Martha asked: “What’s a pager?”

“Can we go and see Max, Mamm?” Mary asked.

Joshua fairly bounced on the seat.

“We promise to stay clean,” Mary added.

“I’ll watch them,” Martha offered. “And it will give Joshua a chance to run off some energy.”

“Best let them go. We need to talk.”

“Well, all right. But I still have two more errands and can’t stay long.”

“You’re going to want to hear this. Or rather see it.”

Callie practically yanked Deborah into the shop.

Deborah looked surprised to see that several customers were shopping in the buttons and trinkets aisle. “You left customers so you could stand at the side of the road?”

“Lydia’s here, and I needed to catch you.” Callie made sure Lydia was at the register, then tugged Deborah into the small kitchen. “Esther and Tobias were by earlier. Tobias left this here by mistake.”

She shoved a long, black woolen coat into Deborah’s hands, then collapsed on the room’s single stool and immediately began chewing on her thumb nail.

“So they were here — “

“To invite me to their wedding.”

“And he left — “

“That coat!” Callie stood and began pacing the tiny room.

Deborah took her place on the stool. “All right. You’ve officially lost me.”

“I saw him put it on the counter when Esther went to the restroom, but then I forgot about it. I got busy with Max and restocking.” Callie paced as she spoke, her arms crossed and her fingers drumming a frantic rhythm on her arm. “Lydia came in later and spotted the coat. She gave it to me, but I don’t think she looked in the pockets. I’m sure she didn’t.”

Stopping midstride, Callie turned to face Deborah. “I wasn’t sure whose it was, but I’m sure it had to have been left today. I always clean up at night when I close the shop. The only man who came in today was Tobias, so when I saw it, saw that it was a man’s coat, I was sure it was his, but I checked to see if there was any identification in it.”

Deborah waited, but didn’t say anything.

“Look in the pocket,” Callie prodded.

Unfolding the coat, Deborah reached into the right pocket. It was empty.

“Other one.” Callie moved closer, until their heads were nearly touching, bowed over the coat.

Deborah put her hand into the other pocket and pulled out a cell phone. Sleek and black, it was obviously brand new, without a scratch on it. She held it in the palm of her hand as if it had the power to strike out and bite her should she close her fingers around it.

“This belongs to Tobias?” Deborah’s voice was a whisper.

“I don’t know.”

Deborah turned the coat over, studied the collar, ran her finger along a tear in the seam. “What would be the odds that two coats would have a tear in the same exact spot?”

“Slim. Why?”

“Because Reuben’s coat had a tear here. I noticed it at the last church meeting. The meeting was at our house, and I took his coat from him when he came in. I noticed the tear then and offered to mend it for him. I took care of it the next day and returned it to him. I’m sure these are my stitches.”

Callie allowed that to sink in for a moment.

“All right. Let’s think about this. Tobias was wearing Reuben’s coat …” Deborah stopped, clearly stumped.

“Probably didn’t realize it. Probably picked it up the night everyone was in their house. They’re nowhere near the same size, but Amish coats all look the same to me.”

Deborah placed the phone on the kitchen counter. “Could be. That could be what happened. So you don’t think Tobias realized it was in his pocket all this time? That was six days ago. I put my hands in my pockets every time I put my coat on.”

“Women do, but men don’t. I know because I watch people as I sit at the counter or while I’m looking out the front of the shop. Men hardly ever place their hands in their pockets.”

“We could ask Tobias,” Deborah whispered.

“Or Reuben.”

The choice hung between them for a moment, until Callie stated the obvious. “Once we ask either one of them, then our choices are limited. Tobias will insist we return it to Reuben. If we try to return it to Reuben, it will be turned over to the authorities.”

“To Shane.”

Callie’s throat went dry at the thought of going to Shane with a piece of evidence. Why did he affect her that way? It wasn’t like he’d arrest her. “Correct.”

“This doesn’t belong to us though.” Deborah stood, backed away from the phone. “It belongs to Reuben. I suppose. Who else would it belong to?”

She looked at Callie then, and Callie knew the moment dawning fell over her, because her face turned the same shade of white that Callie had felt when the thought had first occurred to her. She knew then that white was more than a color: It was a cold, pale shade of understanding that seems to take all of your hope away.

“Oh, Callie. You don’t think this belonged to the girl?”

“Who else?”

“Then how would Reuben have come by it?”

“I don’t know. But if we give it back to him now, it becomes state evidence. We’ll never know what’s in it or if it could help Reuben’s case.”

“And if we keep it?”

“Then we’re withholding evidence.”