chapter 5
MELINDA WATCHED HER SON answer Shane Black’s questions, and the pain was nearly more than what she’d experienced birthing her boys. Hannah had been easy, barely any labor at all, but both her boys were delivered after hours of long, excruciating agony. Rebecca, the district’s midwife, had assured her the babies weren’t in danger, but she’d seen the worried looks exchanged between Rebecca and her own mother.
Nothing about those first two births had been normal.
The pain of watching Aaron’s telling was as real and as hurtful as what she’d experienced when the boys were born.
Why couldn’t she protect them?
Why couldn’t she stand between them and the world a little longer?
As a teenager her parents had sheltered her. She’d never strained against it as some of her friends had. Part of being Amish was being separate. She accepted that easier than some, she supposed.
As a parent, she’d done her best to keep her children within the safe haven of the Amish community. She protected Matt. He was her first, and it was a natural thing to do. But when Aaron was born …
A lump rose in her throat, and she fought against the fears hammering in her chest — fears that were always a mere heartbeat away.
To think her son had witnessed the death of someone, possibly a murder.
To think he was a few feet away when such a terrible thing had happened.
She wanted to grab him in her arms and run, run back to their farm. She wanted Noah by her side, and she wanted him here now.
Aaron drew in a deep breath. She thought she could hear his lungs rattling. What if the shock was too much? What if it caused him to regress?
She gripped the back of his chair more firmly with both of her hands and refused to shy away from Shane Black’s intense gaze. Forcing all the strength she could muster into her voice, she declared, “We have to go home now.”
Shane nodded as if he understood. “You and Matthew can go, but I need Aaron to stay a little longer.”
“I’m not leaving him here.” She pushed up on her glasses.
“I need to take Callie’s statement, maybe Deborah’s.” Shane studied the crime scene as he rubbed the muscles along the back of his neck. “I also need to see what the crime techs have for me. Then I need to look through the reports from people in the shop. Shouldn’t take more than an hour, maybe two.”
“We’re going home.”
“Sure. When we’re finished.”
“We’re going home now.”
“He’s my primary witness, Melinda. He’s my material witness.”
“He’s a child.”
“What he saw will affect the outcome of this case.”
Melinda didn’t see Noah walk up, but she sensed it the moment he was there. She knew it by the scent of the soap he washed with, by the soft touch of his hand at her back, and most importantly, by the way her fear settled like a colt suddenly calmed.
“Problem with the boys?” he asked, handing her Hannah. Their youngest was nearly two now and not really a baby anymore, but Melinda still thought of her that way. Her daughter reached for Melinda’s kapp, then snuggled into her neck.
Melinda closed her eyes and pulled in deep, cleansing breaths as the panic finally settled for the first time since hearing Martha tell Deborah to call 9-1-1.
“Dat!” Matthew jumped up, grabbed his father’s hand.
Aaron squirmed around in his chair, offered his father a genuine smile as he reached for his baby sister’s foot.
“Evening, Noah.”
“Shane.”
“There’s no problem with the boys,” Melinda said, answering Noah’s original question. “I was explaining to Shane that it’s getting late, and it’s time to take the boys home.”
“Can’t do it.” Shane held up his hand to ward off her arguments. “I understand. I do. But your son’s the single witness who saw the perpetrator, and the guy’s still out there. We need to bring our sketch artist over here and have her work with Aaron while his memory is fresh.”
“Ya, I heard about the death. So it’s true, son? You saw what happened?”
Melinda noticed that Aaron nodded but didn’t offer to repeat the details to his father.
“Can it be done in the office?” Noah asked. “This cool night air isn’t gut for his breathing.”
Shane nodded. “Sure. Yeah. We can do it at the station. Is that okay with you, Aaron?”
Aaron nodded as he squirmed back around in his seat. “I don’t have to go alone, do I?”
“‘Course not. One of your parents can come with you.”
“I’ll go,” Melinda assured him, kissing Hannah and handing her back to Noah.
“We’ll be home as soon as we can,” she whispered. “No one’s eaten yet.”
“I’ll see to Matt and Hannah. Be sure to grab a bite for you and Aaron.”
“We keep some snack food at the station.” Shane nodded to Melinda and her family, then turned to answer a question from one of the crime techs, who had been waiting patiently behind him for a few minutes.
“I’m sure Shane will do his best to hurry things along here.” Noah squeezed Melinda’s arm softly, ruffled Aaron’s hair, then put his hand to Matt’s back and walked him away from the site.
It was a small comfort, but at least Melinda knew two of her children were out of harm’s way. Now to finish with what Shane needed and see Aaron safely home. She had no desire to hinder the police investigation, but neither did she want her son to be in the middle of it.
Go to the station, sit with the artist, and then this thing will be over, she thought to herself.
Deborah sat across from Callie in the otherwise empty waiting room of the Shipshewana Police Department. Martha had gone home with her aenti an hour ago.
Callie and Deborah had decided to skip dinner, since neither had any appetite. Deborah knitted as Callie stared at the pages of the latest Agatha Christie novel she was reading.
“You haven’t turned a page in nearly twenty minutes,” Deborah observed.
“Yes, well, you keep pulling out that row of stitches. Maybe I should try knitting and you should try reading this story.” Callie slapped the book shut and drummed her fingers against the cover.
“I’m distracted,” Deborah admitted. “And you seem naerfich. Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“At least Esther wasn’t at the store tonight. I wouldn’t have wanted her waiting inside with all the grumbling customers while they filled out Gavin’s forms.”
Callie smiled, but it was a sad thing. “Tobias would have come up and pulled baby Simon out through a back window.”
“Ya, I believe you’re right. He’s considerably protective of that boppli.”
“Who can blame him after all they’ve been through?”
Deborah’s mind drifted back over the last murder investigation, back to the young girl she and Esther had found in Reuben and Tobias’ pond, and back to Samuel Eby — the boy who was now working building cabinets in the RV factory twenty miles to the northwest.
“ ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.’ ” She didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until Callie bumped her with her foot.
“Amish proverb?”
“Nope. Scripture.”
“I don’t remember that one.”
Callie reached down and ran her fingers through Max’s coat. The Labrador rolled over on his side and groaned in his sleep. Deborah wondered if the Shipshe police allowed everyone to bring their canines into the station or if they made an exception for Callie. She was certainly becoming a frequent visitor — they both were.
“I should have let it go,” Callie whispered, still staring at Max. “You told me to drop it. Lydia told me to. Even Esther told me to. All I could think of was making my shop better than hers. All I could think of was competing, and now she’s dead.”
Deborah stood, holding her knitting by her side, and moved to the seat beside Callie. Max opened one eye and gazed at her, but didn’t bother changing positions.
“You did try in the beginning, remember? You went and visited Mrs. Knepp. You even sent cookies to her shop once. Wasn’t that last Christmas?”
“Yes.” Callie pulled in a shaky breath, then wiped her nose on the sleeve of her dress.
“That’s new, and you’re soiling it. Use this.” Deborah handed her a handkerchief, which made Callie’s tears fall faster. “Tell me the real reason you’re bedauerlich.”
“She was a cranky old woman, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t win her over. So it became a game of sorts. You know? Like in high school when you couldn’t get in with a group, so you decided it wouldn’t matter — except it did matter. You only had to pretend that it didn’t.”
Deborah nodded, though in truth she wasn’t sure exactly what Callie was talking about.
“If she wouldn’t like me, I decided I would make a sport of it. So I walked by and scoped out her displays, and a few times a week, I’d catch her walking by to check out mine. She was always crabby. I never saw her smile, and not once did she say a kind word to me.”
“You’re saying you’ll miss her?”
“I will miss her.” Callie blew her nose in the handkerchief. “In my mind there was always going to be a day — sometime in the future — when we would call a truce. Then we’d find a way to work together, to make Shipshewana the quilt capital of Indiana. Now she’s dead, and she died in my parking lot. Someone did something to her —”
“We don’t know that.”
“You think she died naturally as she was hiding in my bushes?”
“Probably not.”
“Do you think the person who pushed her was playing around and then ran off?”
“No. I don’t think that at all.”
“Do you think Shane would bother with a sketch artist unless he was convinced this person was dangerous?”
“All right,” Deborah acknowledged, though the admission sent a weariness through every part of her body and soul.
“Someone killed her.”
“Ya. I suppose you’re right.”
“Someone killed her, and they didn’t even wait until it was dark. Who does that? He walked up behind her and somehow struck her down so that she fell in the middle of the pavement without any dignity at all. No one deserves to die that way, least of all a little old lady whose biggest crime was …”
Callie’s tears came again in earnest. Max rolled over on his stomach, laid his head on his paws, and stared at her with what Deborah thought seemed like great sorrow in his eyes. “Her biggest crime was being old and cranky. Maybe she was … lonely. Maybe I should have taken her a casserole!”
Deborah put her arm around Callie and rubbed her shoulder. “I believe you’re tired. You’ve worked hard preparing for this weekend.”
“That’s some of it, yes.”
“And perhaps you’re experiencing regret. My mamm always said, ‘To forgive heals the wound; to forget heals the scar.’ ”
Callie frowned, rubbed at her forehead with the fingertips of both hands. “Is that one of your Amish proverbs?”
“I suppose Englischers might call it that. It’s one of those things my mamm said when I worried a thing too long.”
“But what does it even mean?”
“Rather depended on the situation.”
“But you think it applies here?”
Deborah smiled, patted her on the back a final time. “Ya. Perhaps.”
“I rarely understand the things Amish folk say.” Callie blew her nose, but she did sit up straighter.
“She used to say this in German, so you wouldn’t have understood her at all.” Deborah reached for her knitting and began again. “I think what she meant, though, is that if you forgive the harm someone has done to you, then a wound will stop aching and heal, but the scar will remain.”
“I know I’m supposed to forgive. Everyone is taught that it’s the right thing to do …” Callie hung her head, appearing as lost as a calf without a momma, but at least she’d stopped crying.
“Ya, forgiveness is gut, but the second part of the saying is just as important. If you forget the harm, then not only will the ache be gone, but the scar will disappear as well. You’ll have no recollection of the injury to tarnish your memory of the person.”
Callie frowned, reminding Deborah so much of her twin boys that she almost laughed out loud. “Mrs. Knepp’s dead body has barely been scooped up off my pavement, and you’re telling me I should —”
But before she had a chance to finish the thought, the door to the back room opened, and Melinda walked out, pushing Aaron’s wheelchair. The boy was fast asleep.
They were followed by Shane. He needed a shave and his shirt was rumpled, but he seemed pleased with what they’d accomplished.
And though Deborah thought Melinda looked exhausted, there was also an expression of satisfaction on her face.
“How long has he been out?” Callie asked, as Max nudged the wheelchair, checking on Aaron.
“Nearly thirty minutes.” Melinda leaned forward, moving Aaron’s cap off of his eyes. “We were waiting until the artist finished.”
“He did well, Melinda. Tell him this will help a lot.” Shane held up a letter-sized sheet of paper as he spoke. “I’ve already instructed officers to post copies around town, and Gavin has sent it out on the wire as well.”
“May I?” Deborah reached for the sketch at the same time Callie did.
They both stared down at a white male with thick brows, long-ish hair, and a prominent nose. A scowl covered his face. He had no facial hair, though he did have long sideburns. Something in the jawline or maybe the set of the eyes reminded Deborah of …
Who did they remind her of?
A friend?
An acquaintance?
Someone she’d passed on the street?
“So he’s an Englischer?” Callie asked.
“Because he has no hat or beard?” Shane shook his head. “Can’t jump to that conclusion.”
Deborah continued to stare at the drawing.
“Recognize him?” Shane asked.
“No,” they said simultaneously.
“But there might be something familiar about him.” Deborah held the drawing out at arm’s length, as if distance could jog her memory.
“Do you think perhaps you’ve seen him before?”
“No, that’s not it. I can’t quite put my finger on it. The feeling reminds me of when I study one quilt pattern that is similar to another.”
“Maybe he’s related to someone you know.”
Callie crossed her arms, hugging them to herself. “The sheet says he was dressed in blue jeans and a flannel shirt. Sounds like an Englischer.”
“He may have wanted to appear that way, but we can’t know for certain.” Shane put his hand on Callie’s back as he walked them toward the front door. “Thanks for waiting so long. I know Melinda appreciates it.”
“Ya, I do, but it wasn’t necessary.”
“Do you want me to send an officer to escort you ladies home?”
Deborah pulled her sewing bag over her shoulder as she shook her head. “Nein. I’ll follow Melinda to her lane, then it’s not much farther to my place. I’m sure we’ll be fine.”
“And I’m less than a mile away.” Callie started to walk out with them, but Shane pulled her back.
“I’d like to talk to you. It won’t take long.”
“Can it wait until tomorrow?”
“No. Give me five minutes.”
“All right, but I wanted to help with Aaron.”
“We have this, Callie. You stay here with Shane if he needs you.” Deborah pulled Callie into a hug, reached down, and gave Max a pat good-bye. “I’ll be there to help early in the morning. It’s a school holiday for the children, so as soon as the chores are tended to I can be at the shop.”
“Maybe you should call her first,” Shane suggested.
Deborah stopped so abruptly Melinda bumped into her.
“To be sure the shop is ready to open,” Shane said.
“Surely the crime team will be done by morning —” Callie’s voice rose a full octave and Aaron began to stir in his chair.
“That’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about,” Shane explained. “Deborah, can you call her before you come in?”
“Sure. I can call from the phone shack at the end of the road.”
Callie scowled but nodded in agreement.
Melinda gave everyone a small wave and pushed the wheelchair through the door. Deborah glanced over her shoulder as she followed Melinda and Aaron out into the night. The last glimpse she had of Callie was Shane leading her back to the chairs they had just been sitting in.
Everything about the man, from the tightness around his shoulders to the scowl on his face, said the news he was about to deliver was going to make her friend very unhappy.