A Perfect Square

Chapter 18




“HOW DID YOU DO THAT?”

“Wasn’t so hard. Most people use something easy to remember, like four zeros or, in this case, one, two, three, four.”

Callie reached over and put her hand on Trent’s arm, leaving it there until he raised his eyes from the phone and looked at her. “Don’t touch that button — yet.”

“Having second thoughts?”

“Yes. No.” Her throat suddenly felt incredibly dry, as if she’d been battling a high fever. “Maybe.” “You sound like a woman.”

“Listen. Tobias came by the shop earlier this morning—”

“Tobias into quilting now?”

“He was with Esther. They were bringing me a wedding invitation.”

“Don’t those Amish weddings last, like, all day?”

“Pay attention.” She swatted his arm, then reached down and stroked Max’s fur as she worked out the progression of events. “He left his coat, but I didn’t realize it until later. When I saw it on the counter, I wasn’t sure whose it was, so I looked in the pocket. And that was when I found the phone. The only man who’d been in the shop up to that point today was Tobias.”

Trent looked into Callie’s eyes then and — for a moment — all of his teasing fell away. Possibly, just possibly, he even forgot he was an editor of a small-town newspaper looking for the next front-page story. He reached out and tucked Callie’s hair behind her ear, sending a delicious shiver from her face — where his hand brushed — all the way down to her toes.

Callie closed her eyes, melted into the moment, and wondered what it would feel like to kiss Trent McCallister. But she quickly shook any romantic notions from her mind. She needed to focus. She needed to think of Deborah, Reuben, and the phone they’d just broken into.

“You don’t think this belongs to Tobias. You think it has something to do with Reuben, something to do with the murder.”

“According to Deborah, Tobias would never own a phone. She’s also certain it’s not his coat that was left at my shop. It’s Reuben’s. She knows because there’s a torn seam along the collar. She mended it, so she’s positive it’s Reuben’s coat — “

“So why was Tobias wearing it?”

“Deborah said that the night of Reuben’s arrest, Shane was questioning Reuben and Tobias at their house — or rather the barn where they’ve been living.”

“I remember.”

Callie’s gaze snapped up, met his. Trent the Reporter was on duty. Trent, the guy who would photograph anything, who had often managed to splash her own photograph on the front page of the Gazette, was staring back at her.

“I suppose in the heat of the moment, when they arrested Reuben, he grabbed the wrong coat.”

Trent shook his head. “What’s more likely to have happened is that Shane arrested Reuben, put him in the cruiser, then went back inside to get Reuben’s coat for him.”

“And picked up the wrong one.”

They both stared at the phone still in Trent’s hand.

“So why would Reuben have a phone?” Trent finally asked.

“Maybe he was keeping it for someone, like the girl staying at his place.”

“There’s still only one way to find out, and that’s to listen to the message. I can also take it inside and run a check on the serial number, try to find where it was purchased, research the call history, maybe even run the GPS tracker — “

“You can do all those things?”

“I was an investigative reporter before I was an editor — oh wait, come to think of it, now I’m both.” Trent smiled and Callie began to have second thoughts — maybe she didn’t want to get messed up with Trent and his nefarious ways.

“Okay, the next question is should you do that, should we do it? What if this is considered tampering with evidence? Isn’t that a felony or something? I tried to stop by Adalyn’s and ask, but she’s out of the office until tomorrow.” Callie crossed her arms, hugged them around herself. “I’ve been arrested by Shipshewana’s finest, and I don’t have any desire to go back into their interrogation room, thank you.”

Trent rubbed his thumb over the blank phone display. “Be reasonable. You can’t know it is evidence unless you listen to it. If what we find seems to indicate anything about the girl’s body, anything that will help to identify who she is, then you take it to Black. Whether it helps Reuben’s case or hurts it.”

“And you won’t report what we find?”

“I didn’t say that.” Trent gave her a crooked smile. “You have to leave me something here, gorgeous. Even if it’s just a few crumbs, or in this case — even if it’s just a few lines of copy.”

Callie snatched the phone out of his hand, held it close to her heart. “I can listen to a message by myself.”

“All right. And do you know how to trace the registration number from the SIM card?”

“I didn’t know SIM cards had registration numbers.” Callie felt herself frowning, pouting actually, like a child, but she made no effort to stop it.

“Every subscriber identification module is registered, and of course, all new phones have GPS as well, which constantly tracks the whereabouts of the phone and, presumably, the person it’s with. We could possibly access those logs, but if you don’t need me …”

Glowering at Trent, Callie pulled Max’s leash more tightly and stood. “You don’t have to be so arrogant.”

“It’s not arrogance if it’s true.”

And to think she had been considering kissing him not five minutes ago. “Come on, Max.”

With a slight woof, Max hopped to his feet and trotted by her side. Dogs were loyal and true, and they didn’t try to benefit from every single situation that came their way.

“I’ll run the article by you before I print it.”

She stopped but didn’t turn. Trent was at her side in a second, smiling down at her. “Understand I’m not saying that I’m going to let you edit it.”

And she absolutely refused to smile at the eagerness on his face. At times he did remind her of Max — not the loyalty part, but the enthusiasm.

He wrapped his hand around hers, around the one still clutching the phone. “We’ll work out a compromise as far as whatever information I find and what I put in the article. Face it, Callie — we need each other on this one. I need a follow-up piece on the front page, and you need some help with the technology. Let’s work together.”

She didn’t want to look into his hazel eyes, at the blond hair flopping over his forehead. She sure didn’t want to be amused by him or admit that she needed him, but at the same time he was right. So she slipped the phone into his hand and muttered, “Call me.” Then she tried to ignore the knowledge that he was watching her as she continued walking down the street.

Callie’s attraction toward Trent McCallister — which she did not understand at all — didn’t matter at the moment. What mattered was helping Deborah and Esther, which meant helping Reuben. Not that she wanted to be drawn into another murder, but it was beginning to feel as if she didn’t have much choice.

A few minutes later Callie was home. She pulled the mail from her box and sorted it while standing in front of the recycle bin and next to her in-box tray. She’d learned that trick years ago. Junk mail went straight where it belonged. Bills went into the in-box tray. Efficiency simplified life.

Sadly she didn’t have to worry about a third stack since she rarely — correction, never — received personal mail.

The thought had no sooner crossed her mind than she saw a small personal-sized envelope made out in wobbly handwriting to Ms. Callie Harper. She set it on the counter and continued sorting.

Why did companies insist on sending so many advertisements? If she wanted to order something, she’d look online. Oops — except for this one from L.L.Bean. She did love to look through their clothing line — a guilty pleasure that she rarely indulged. She’d keep it and see what her profits were from this month. Setting it on the counter beside the hand-addressed letter, she sorted through the last two pieces of mail. Both were credit card applications she hadn’t requested and went straight into the shredder.

But the letter, now that was a mystery.

She slit the top of the envelope with her letter opener, then poured hot water over a chamomile tea bag. Lately she’d been experimenting with the different flavors she stocked for her customers.

“Let’s go, Max. We’ll read this one sitting down.” Making sure the sign on the door said closed, since it was after six, Callie wound her way over toward the chair near the front windows. On the horizon she could see clouds pressing toward town, clouds that hadn’t been there a short while ago when she’d made her way home from her meeting with Trent, who still hadn’t called with any information.

She sat in the big overstuffed chair near the plateglass windows and watched the wind throw leaves down the street. “Looks like it’s going to get cold.”

Max whined and placed his head across her feet.

“I agree, boy. Now let’s see who would send me a letter.”

Ms. Harper. Have you started looking for my dochder yet? I’m currently in gut health, but can’t be sure how much longer I’ll be on this earth. My age is eighty-nine. Gotte could call me home any day. I know you can find her.

Ira Bontrager

Callie stared at the letter far longer than it took to read its contents. The handwriting was shaky, like that of many of her older customers who wrote out checks or signed her guest book. But the words he’d written were remarkably clear, indicating none of the confusion she’d seen in him when he was at her place a few days ago.

How many days had it been? Tuesday she’d found the old guy on her doorstep, it was Monday when Esther had found the dead girl in Reuben’s pond. Hard to believe how life could change in less than a week. Before then their lives had been traveling along fairly smoothly.

Callie folded the sheet of paper and placed it back in the envelope.

There were times she felt much less alone here than she ever had while living in Houston. When the shop was open and people were stopping in, Callie felt a part of the community, even though she’d lived in Shipshewana less than six months. Through the mess with Stakehorn few people had really seemed to believe she could be guilty of murder, and most had been vocally pleased that she’d permanently taken over her aunt’s shop.

But when the shop closed and everyone went home to their families, Callie sometimes did feel alone. Occasionally it seemed she’d traded her life in Houston for an identical life in Shipshewana, only planted in different soil.

Perhaps that was her own fault.

Trent had asked her out twice, and both times she’d made excuses and said no. She’d wanted to say yes. She’d wondered what it would be like to spend time alone with him. The entire situation reminded her of her junior year in high school, when she’d had a crush on a guy in her homeroom class, but never had the courage to let him know.

Trent seemed to understand there was an attraction between them. Callie admitted it to herself occasionally, so why did she always back off when the opportunity to investigate those feelings arose? She’d caught herself comparing him to Rick, but she also compared Andrew and Shane to Rick as well. She supposed all widows did that. There was a physical attraction between her and Trent, but in other areas they seemed like complete opposites.

Was physical attraction enough to make a relationship worth pursuing?

If you had to think about even pursuing a relationship, was it worth chasing down? She’d always thought a relationship was butterflies in your stomach and something that you couldn’t live without, not something you put on your calendar — like a dental appointment.

As Callie checked the automatic lighting outside the shop to be sure it had turned on and straightened a few items up and down the aisles, she admitted the problem was probably within herself. She wasn’t sure that she was ready to move into another relationship.

Maybe she was.

When Trent touched her arm or looked into her eyes she thought she could be.

Sometimes she’d even wondered what it would feel like to see Andrew Gavin on a personal level. He seemed to understand what she was thinking and feeling, and he wasn’t always interested in what he could gain from a situation.

But then she’d feel herself pulling back, which was why she’d turned Gavin down when he asked her out to the movies, to the concert over in South Bend, and to the police barbeque. One part of her really wanted to go, but the other part … the other part was scared.

“Come on, boy. Let’s go home.” Max barked once, then bounded up the stairs to their apartment.

Callie stopped at the mirror at the top of the stairs to study her reflection. Her hair was a bit of a mess, had been since she’d started growing it out. Her eyes still took up too much of her face, but the chocolate-colored sweater she wore accented them well.

All of that was cosmetic though.

What she saw in the mirror was the same thing she saw between the lines of Ira Bontrager’s letter: a reflection of herself, a reflection of her loneliness.

She couldn’t find the old guy’s daughter. She had no illusions about that. Even if the girl had existed, which Callie somehow doubted, the police would have found her if it was possible. Surely he had notified the police if he’d actually lost a daughter. What more could she do than the officials? Maybe she could somehow ease the loneliness that she’d sensed in him.

For whatever reason, the man’s son wasn’t able to help him, maybe he wasn’t even able to spend time with him.

So beginning tomorrow, Callie would.