A Perfect Square

Chapter 6




SHANE WAS FRIENDLY ENOUGH as he greeted everyone, though he was quick and to the point, no doubt wanting to get down to business. It seemed to Deborah that his gaze lingered a moment on Callie, but she might have imagined that.

She had thought after the brush with death they’d experienced together, Callie and Shane might have a blossoming romance going on, but even after growing up beside Englischers, she still couldn’t claim to completely understand their ways.

Stakehorn’s murder had been solved in June. Whenever Shane’s name was brought up, Callie still became flustered, but as far as she knew, Callie and Shane hadn’t shared even one buggy ride since that time.

“You ladies found the deceased?” Shane asked.

“I didn’t,” Callie squeaked.

“Why are you in that dress?”

“Why is everyone worried about my clothing? Maybe I like Amish clothes. Maybe it’s the new fall fashion.” Callie crossed her arms around her middle and pulled in her bottom lip.

Shane placed both hands on his hips, scanned the site again, as if he were expecting another body to pop up, then focused on Callie. “I thought maybe you’d fallen in the water and Deborah had loaned you something to wear, but apparently not.”

Callie stepped forward.

Deborah recognized her posture and the expression on her face — she was ready to start an argument, and that would most certainly not help the situation right now. She needn’t have worried though, Shane had already dismissed her with a wave of his hand and moved on. “So who exactly — “

“It was Esther and myself,” Deborah said, “and the children. But Taylor said they could go home with Jonas now.”

Shane ran a thumb along his bottom jaw, and Deborah knew — she was certain beyond the smallest doubt — he was considering how to get a statement out of Leah and Joshua.

“Ya, I’m taking them home now. I wasn’t even here, Shane. Haven’t seen anything other than my fraa, and I’d like to see her again before the day wears on too long.” Jonas nodded at the officer as he shifted Joshua to his other arm and reached down for Leah’s hand. “I know you’ll finish as quickly as you can.”

Then he was gone, walking toward his buggy, not waiting for permission or any sort of confirmation. Deborah wanted to run after her husband and throw her arms around his neck. Thank him for bulldozing past Shane Black. She could tolerate standing here and answering his questions another hour or two, as long as their children were home and away from this scene of death.

Shane mumbled something under his breath as Jonas walked away but made no move to stop him. Instead he turned and shouted at Trent, who was still snapping photos for the newspaper. “Take it easy, McCallister. Don’t step on my crime scene.”

“I’ll stay back the standard distance.” Trent gave the Englisch thumbs-up sign as he began to circle the site.

“And don’t take any identifying photos of the deceased,” Black barked. “We want to notify her family before they read about it in the Gazette.”

“She’s facedown in the pond, officer. They won’t identify her from my photos.”

Shane ran his hand up and around the back of his neck. “All right, ladies. Take me through what happened from the moment you arrived.”

Callie’s hands came up, palms out. “I wasn’t even here. I heard there was a fatality — “

“How did you hear?” Shane asked.

“Trent has a scanner.” Callie’s eyes were as wide as a doe’s, her voice now sweet and charming.

Deborah wanted to laugh … the Amish clothing did make it hard to look at her without smiling. Her shaggy hair was so incongruous with the plain clothes, and besides, this was Callie, her closest Englisch friend.

“So you ran over when you heard about a fatality.”

“No. Well, yes. But it’s not like I have a fascination with death or murder investigations. I’m not creepy or obsessed or anything.” Callie patted Max, who whined softly as he pressed against her side. “Trent mentioned Deborah’s and Esther’s names. I was worried. They’re like family to me.”

She linked arms with the two women.

Deborah had the image that they were forming a wall — a wall of friendship against whatever was coming toward them. She couldn’t imagine what it was, but she had a feeling it might be more than the investigation regarding the body floating behind them.

Shane began his line of questioning, asking the same questions Taylor had asked her earlier. Esther repeated the exact same answers Deborah had given before, which was a bit surprising. Deborah knew enough about police and questioning to understand that if you had two witnesses, you usually had two different stories. It was human nature, rather like wearing two different types of glasses.

Human perception colored how one understood what they saw. Listening to Esther’s answers closely, Deborah noted they were identical to hers in nearly every way.

The single difference being the one thing Esther had noticed about the girl, the one thing Deborah hadn’t seen.

“You’re sure about this?” Shane asked.

“Ya. I was bending down to cut the flowers. Why, do you think it’s important? It might have been nothing.”

“Describe it to me again. Anything you can remember.”

“I don’t remember it, not really. I was too frightened, worried about hurrying the children away.”

“Then close your eyes and describe the moment before you thought of the children.”

Esther hesitated, but finally shut her eyes and began recounting what had happened two hours earlier. “I had moved closer to the water’s edge to reach some of the autumn goldenrods. I thought how lovely they would look on Tobias’ table, how I wanted to take some to Callie as well, how the seeds would dry just so. I thought to plant them in my garden where the ground stays damp from the drip irrigation system my bruders set up last year.”

A northern wind rattled the trees around them, and Esther’s hand automatically reached for her kapp, steadying it on her head. But she didn’t open her eyes. “As I bent to cut the flowers, I saw something in the water, something sparkling. It wasn’t blue like the water was blue. It was darker. It caught the light, reflected it for a moment.”

Shane looked to Deborah for confirmation, but she only shrugged then shook her head no. She’d seen nothing when she arrived except the body. Perhaps she’d been too surprised or too worried over calming Esther and the children. Her first thought had been that there was a snake in the grass, so she’d been too frightened to notice anything in the water.

Then, when she’d seen the body, she’d been focused on trying to determine the girl’s identity. She hadn’t seen anything else in the water.

“What else, Esther?” Shane’s voice was gentle, smooth, like the molasses Deborah poured over the children’s morning biscuits.

“Then I heard Leah giggle and Joshua say something. I turned toward them — “

“Right or left?”

Eyes still closed, Esther’s right hand came out. “To my right, to check on them, and that was when I saw the body.”

Esther opened her eyes, looked from Callie to Deborah to Shane. “That’s it. That’s all I remember. Do you think it’s important?”

“It could be. You did well, Esther. One more question. You’re sure you saw the shiny object first, to the left of the body?”

“Yes.” Esther smoothed her apron with her right hand. Callie’s arm remained firmly linked with Esther’s left, as if she was afraid the woman would run away.

“Isn’t it a little odd that you didn’t notice the body as soon as you walked up?” Shane glanced down to where Taylor was still speaking with Reuben. “Doesn’t look like it’s far from the water’s edge.”

“Obviously you haven’t been around Esther when she has her mind on flowers,” Callie muttered.

Shane shot her a look to quiet her, even pointed his finger at her as if he were a teacher and she were a pupil. Deborah again felt the urge to laugh. She finally recognized the emotion for what it was: shock. There was nothing funny about this tragic scene.

A growing number of crime techs were invading Reuben’s property.

The corpse still floated in the water.

And what had been a pleasant fall day now seemed to speak to her of winter.

Callie tilted her head and frowned at Shane. “I’m just saying, she’s a bit focused when it comes to flowers.”

“Callie’s right,” Deborah agreed. “Esther probably wouldn’t have noticed a buggy in the water. Plus, as you walk around the pond in that direction, the reeds grow taller and hide anything near the edge.”

“Unless you walk very close to the water, which she did when she was cutting the flowers.”

Esther said nothing to defend herself.

They all knew from experience that she’d answer Shane’s questions, but she would say no more than required.

Shane looked past them, studied the scene, but didn’t agree or disagree with what they were saying.

Finally, he turned and pierced Esther with those dark eyes that she’d been up against before.

It was obvious to Deborah from the way they were facing off that neither had forgotten the inquiry into Seth’s death over two years ago. When Esther’s husband had died, she’d wanted to bury him, to let him rest, but Shane had insisted on a complete investigation. Everything about Esther’s body language — from her ramrod-straight back to the tilt of her chin to the look of bitter resolve in her eyes — said that she hadn’t forgiven him for prolonging her pain.

Deborah had hoped they’d put it behind them with the events of the summer. Now here they were again, on the property of Esther’s fiancé. And once again, they were facing another investigation.

Unless the girl had died of natural causes.

“Esther, humor me for a minute. I want to be sure I understand your statement correctly. You were cutting flowers, then you saw something shiny, something reflective in the water.”

“Ya.”

“Then you heard the children.” “Right.”

“And you saw the girl and thought what?”

“I saw her floating, facedown. I saw that she was dead.”

“You didn’t for a minute think she might be alive? It never crossed your mind that she might need your help?”

Deborah had feared the question was coming. Actually she’d dreaded Esther’s reaction more than Shane’s question. It was natural enough perhaps, if you’d not been around the dead before, but Shane Black should have known better.

Instead of being angered, Esther drew herself up to her full five-foot-ten height, looked at Shane as if he were a child, and said simply, “No.”

“No?”

“I believe you heard me, Shane.”

“That’s it? No. You did not think to help her.”

“As far as I know, I haven’t the power to raise the dead.”

“But …” His hand went again to the back of his neck, rubbing at the muscles. “A person’s natural reaction is to jump in and help.”

“Your natural reaction might be. Perhaps you haven’t sat with the dead as often as I have. Perhaps you haven’t held them in your arms as I have. Perhaps our experiences have been different.”

Then she pulled her arm out of Callie’s grasp. The one indication of how emotional she’d become was the color blossoming on her cheeks. She turned and walked down the lane toward the approaching buggy, toward the man Deborah had watched her fall in lieb with over the last four months. She walked toward Tobias until he saw her and slowed the buggy. Then she gathered up the hem of her dress and ran.

Esther turned away from the Englischer, away from her group of freinden, and walked down the lane toward the man she loved.

The man she loved.

A year ago, she didn’t think she’d ever love again.

A year ago, Esther Zook thought love had died beside her barn in the middle of the night when Leah was a boppli.

She had thought her heart had died with it.

Yes, she’d walked through her days, kept up appearances, done her duty for her precious little girl — but her heart, the part inside of her that once sang when the sun rose and used to pound faster when she worked in her flower gardens, that part of her had not known hope for quite some time.

Then, four months ago, Tobias Fisher had strolled over to her table at Sunday luncheon and asked if he could sit down in the empty chair.

In that moment, everything in her life had changed yet again. And she had not been prepared at all. She’d thought to turn him away. But something in his smile, in his gentle ways, in the eyes that looked at her — not with pity but with kindness and hope — something about Tobias had touched Esther’s heart and awakened it.

“Esther, was iss letz?” Tobias stopped the buggy in the middle of the lane and jumped out of it, caught her as she ran the final few steps to him, and pulled her into his arms. “You’re trembling. Don’t speak yet. Just be still a moment. Whatever it is, don’t worry. There’s no need to worry. We’re together now. We’ll stand together.”

His hands on her back, rubbing in small circles, eased the knotted muscles that had begun to ache. Esther felt the tension lessen for the first time in hours. She wanted to sink to the ground there in the dirt lane and pretend the scene unfolding around the pond was nothing more than another one of the bad dreams that had plagued her for so many years.

“Can you climb into the buggy?”

“There’s no need. I can walk.”

“I want to talk to you though. Away from — “ Tobias waved a hand at the people tromping around his pond. “Away from everything and everyone. It will give us a bit of privacy.”

“Ya. All right.” She allowed him to help her into the buggy, allowed its smells to comfort her. It was an older model, without the new built-in heaters or the fancy leather seats. Something about the age and dependability of the old carriage soothed her nerves. Or perhaps it was only the memories she connected to it.

They’d ridden to a dozen picnics in Tobias’ buggy. Gone to church and socials and family gatherings — all things Esther would have done before, but she would have done them out of duty and with a heavy heart. The times with Tobias had been happy, with Leah laughing between them. They’d even visited the different living quilt gardens around the Shipshewana area. The fact that Leah now played and smiled like the other children eased Esther’s soul more than Tobias could know.

Or perhaps he did.

Perhaps he understood exactly the things that caused her to worry.

“I heard the Englischers were here, and that there’d been a death. Is it true?” At her nod, Tobias picked up the reins and murmured to the horse. “I see Rueben from here, so I know he’s fine. Not that I’d ever believe anyone could better my cousin. He’s bigger than the work horses.”

“It’s a girl, Tobias. A girl who is dead, and I found her.”

“You found her? I don’t understand.” Tobias guided the horse to the side of the lane, a few feet away from the other buggies and vehicles, secured the reins, and turned her toward him. “Tell me everything that happened since you arrived. And why were you here to begin with?”

So she told him about the casserole and the flowers. Described seeing the shiny object, then spying the body.

“A girl, huh?”

“Ya, but she didn’t look familiar to me.”

“There have been no strange girls about this property.” Tobias’ jaw clenched, a look Esther had rarely seen before. “You know our families. Are you sure she’s not related?”

“She’s young — looks to be between fifteen and eighteen. I don’t believe you or Reuben have any girls that age in your family.”

“No. Our nieces and cousins are younger, and they wouldn’t have been out here on a school day, and certainly not alone.”

“Plus her dress was different than ours, Tobias.”

“She wasn’t Amish?”

“No, that’s not what I mean.”

Tobias listened as she worked through the details she hadn’t shared with Shane Black.

“It was hard to see with the girl still in the water, but it looked like her dress was different than those we wear here in Shipshe. It wasn’t the material so much as it was a peculiarity about the design or pattern.”

“You told Black?”

“What would I tell him? That her dress didn’t look right? He’ll have his ways of confirming who she is, believe me.” Esther heard the bitterness creep into her voice, like frost tiptoeing up on a fall morning, but she couldn’t stop it.

“I know of your troubles with Black.” Tobias pulled her hands into his own, massaged her fingers until her trembling stopped. “Look at me, sweet Esther. Look at me, dear.”

When she finally did, he smiled.

How could he smile when her heart ached so for what was happening only feet away and for what had happened only a few years before?

“I don’t know what tragedy befell the poor girl in the water. And I don’t know why you’ve once again been thrown into the path of Shane Black. But I do know one thing.”

Esther looked down at their hands. She didn’t want to hear the words he was about to say. She was afraid if she didn’t accept them, it would drive a wedge between them, and she needed Tobias in her life.

Their wedding was less than two weeks away.

“Look at me, Esther.”

He waited until she did, then he continued softly, gently. “Do you think it’s by chance that you are the one who found her body?”

“It was the flowers.” Her head began shaking, side to side as if she had no control of it, as if the wind had picked up and was shaking the buggy. “I wanted to bring you something nice — a casserole and then the flowers. You know how you two keep that old barn you live in. It’s clean but …”

“And it was a kind thing for you to do, but Esther look out in front of the buggy, look toward the barn.” To the right of the buggy, across the road and away from the pond waving in the gentle breeze were more flowers. “They grow near the creek as well, and also around the edge of the field where the birds have seeded them.”

“I don’t understand,” she whispered.

“It was Gotte’s wille that you look up and see the ones by the pond’s edge. That you find the girl this morning. I don’t know how she died or why she died, but now her body will have its proper burial as it should. One day her parents will thank you for that.”

Esther wiped at the tears spilling down her cheeks. “I don’t want to be involved with this. I don’t want to answer Shane Black’s questions.”

“Often we don’t want to do what God throws us in the midst of, but I’ll be there with you.” Tobias squeezed her hands one more time. “Now let’s go and see if I can help my cousin before his famous temper lands him in jail.”