The Search The Secrets of Crittenden Cou

Chapter 1




“Perry and I kissed one time. Once was enough.”

FRANNIE EICHER




Three months later . . .

Frannie Eicher didn’t sleep at night. Actually, she didn’t sleep that much during the day, either.

It was becoming something of a problem.

She didn’t try to stay awake on purpose; it was just that sometime over the last couple of weeks, it had become a habit. One night, she hadn’t been tired and read for hours. Once she’d realized it was past two in the morning, Frannie turned off her light and closed her eyes.

Nothing happened. She didn’t relax, didn’t yawn. Didn’t feel that comforting blanket of sleep begin to descend. Instead, guilt would creep slowly into the forefront of her mind.

And then while the red numbers on her battery-operated digital clock flickered and changed, she’d start to remember her transgressions.

Until the sun began its morning climb up to the horizon.

The following evening, the same thing happened.

By the fourth night, she’d almost begun to accept insomnia as part of her life. Kind of like praying during the morning sunrise and doing wash on Tuesdays.

The good news was that she now had a very small to-be-read pile of books on her bedside table. The bad news, of course, was that she felt permanently tired. Her muscles ached, her head pounded. She’d begun to have small, silly accidents.

Her concentration would waver.

None of these things were welcome. She was a single woman running her own business. When her bed-and-breakfast was filled with guests, she needed to be at her best in order for everything to get done.

Everything was not getting done.

Every so often, her brain would listen to her body and she’d instantly fall asleep, wherever she might be. Sometimes it would be at her desk; she’d awaken with a crick in her neck and a drool spot on the papers she was reading—and a fresh wave of embarrassment, too. No one wanted to be seen passed out in public with one’s mouth open wide.

Other times Frannie would fall asleep on the couch when she was working on her mending. Right in plain sight of all her guests!

She’d wake up besieged by feelings of guilt warring with the delicious sensation of finally feeling refreshed.

All in all, her insomnia was becoming a difficult secret to keep.

Especially from her best friend, Beth.

“Frannie, maybe you should go to a chiropractor,” she said as they pressed dough into tiny pastry molds for the mini quiches that Frannie liked to serve with fruit and muffins at breakfast.

“A chiropractor?” Frannie turned to her in surprise. She’d never thought of her friend as one who would be needing a chiropractor. To one and all, Beth was always happy and healthy. A joy to be around. “My back is just fine.”

“I’ve heard chiropractors can do wonders with other parts of your body, too. And Dr. Collins is a gut doktah, for sure.” As she smoothed more dough in her hands, she added, “You know, he helped Katie and Mary John with their stomach ailments. Cleansed their colons, it did.”

Frannie privately thought a better diet would have helped Katie and Mary’s stomach problems years ago. She almost blurted her thoughts, but held her tongue. Detective Reynolds’s criticisms about her tendency to stick her nose into places it didn’t belong still stung.

Beth seemed to take her silence as an invitation to talk some more. “If Dr. Collins can help Katie and Mary John, he could surely help you, too. Maybe even help your sleeping problems.”

She knew what her problem was, and it wasn’t likely to be solved by a doctor’s visit. But of course, she couldn’t tell Beth that. So she kept the conversation easy. “You think I have a sleeping problem?”

“Sure you do. No one should be as tired as you are, Frannie. You’ve got circles under your eyes like a raccoon.”

Almost against her will, Frannie touched the tender skin under her eyes with some dismay. “I have circles?”

Never one to temper bad news, Beth nodded. “Dark ones.”

Frannie cleared her throat. “If things don’t get back to normal soon, maybe I’ll talk to the doktah. But for now, I’ll keep trying to rest when I can. I’m a busy innkeeper, you know.”

“If things don’t change, something bad’s going to happen.”

“Something bad has already happened. Perry’s body was discovered in a well.” Sheriff Kramer had called in Luke Reynolds, a city detective from Cincinnati, to investigate, and now the whole county was up in arms. He’d been staying at her B&B until he’d discovered she’d kept her relationship with Perry from him. He felt he could no longer stay there, as it was a conflict of interest.

Looking more and more distraught, Beth added, “I mean, something bad is going to happen to you.” Beth made a show of looking Frannie up and down. “I know you’ve lost weight. And you seem far more tense than usual. If you’re not careful, you’re going to fall apart soon.”

“I don’t have a choice. This is my business and I have guests to take care of.”

“But someone needs to take care of you.” She snapped her fingers. “Maybe your daed could help out some?”

“You know my father wasn’t happy with me taking this inn over from my aunt. I promised him I wouldn’t bother him with the business. That is one promise I intend to keep.”

“He is a good and kind man, Frannie. I bet he will change his mind once he knows what a time you’re having.”

“I don’t intend for him to find out.”

“He won’t like that you’re keeping secrets, Frannie.”

Frannie loved her father very much. For all her life, she’d enjoyed a good and peaceful relationship with him. They’d gotten closer when her mother passed away after battling pancreatic cancer. After her sister got married and moved to Michigan, they’d become a little family of two, doing things together and helping each other with chores. Never had he openly disagreed with her.

Until she defied him by accepting her great aunt’s gift. And though she felt bad for not abiding by her father’s wishes, she felt the pull to step forward into her new venture even more. It felt like God had put the bed-and-breakfast opportunity in her hands, and that she needed to listen and follow His will.

Her father hadn’t seen God’s guiding hand in her new undertaking at all. Instead he’d wanted her to refuse the gift and continue to stay home, waiting to be married one day. Their few conversations about it hadn’t ended well. And so, typical of them, they’d decided to agree to disagree. As long as Frannie wasn’t expecting any help from him.

Since she’d taken over the inn, four months ago, she’d kept her promise.

“Beth, he’s a shy man, and a man much more comfortable with sheep and cows than with people, especially English people. I cannot ask him for help.”

“If you don’t ask him, I hope you will allow someone to help you. No one can live on no sleep, you know. I read about sleep problems when I was sitting in the waiting room at the dentist the other day. Scientists have studied situations like this. Someone is going to get hurt. Probably you. Then what will happen to your inn?”

“Beth,” she said with exaggerated patience. “It’s not like I’m not trying to sleep. It’s just that when I put my head down at night, my eyes pop open and my mind speeds up. Suddenly sleep is the last thing I can do.”

After a long moment, Beth clucked her tongue. “You should talk to Micah about it.”

Frannie jerked her head so fast, she was surprised it hadn’t wrenched from her neck. “What does Micah have to do with anything?”

“He’s sweet on you. Has been forever.”

“Not forever. Not exactly.”

“All right. He has been for almost forever. For most of your life.”

Except when Perry had been courting her.

“I’m not ready to see Micah again.”

“No? Well, all right, then.” After finishing her pan of twelve, Beth sighed and grabbed another muffin tin and began filling more cups. “I can’t believe we make sixty of these at a time,” she grumbled.

“When I make sixty, I have enough pastries for a few days,” she explained patiently. “I do appreciate your help.”

“It’s no trouble. I just wish we could figure out why you can’t sleep. If we got to the root of the problem, I bet you’ll get some rest again.”

Frannie nodded, but she felt as if her insides were ripping apart.

Because, well, she knew exactly why she couldn’t sleep. It was the same reason she couldn’t see Micah. It was the reason she felt guilty and anxious. And why she looked at everything and everyone in the county in a new way.

All because of Perry Borntrager.

Her memories of the last time she saw him caused her to ache. So did his murder. And the investigation.

“I’ll start putting the filling inside the pastry cups,” she said briskly, picking up the antique glass bowl that her aunt had left to her as an “innkeeper gift.”

“Frannie, be careful, that glass bowl is so old and fragile.”

“You’ve become such a worrywart, Beth! I use this bowl all the time.” She held it up to show how well she managed it.

Which was a foolish thing to do, for sure.

No sooner had she lifted the bowl to show off—

The bowl slipped out of her hands as if it had been coated with oil, crashing onto the hard tile countertop.

The old glass was thin. Thin and delicate. When it hit, the bowl shattered into a hundred—if not thousand pieces—each shard sharp and dangerous. And somehow, the majority of the glass bounced off the countertop and took aim at her. Flying right into her face.

All at once, a thousand needles pricked her skin and sent waves of pain throughout her body. Shock engulfed her.

She stood frozen, confused, dazed.

Immediately, her skin felt wet, and instinctively she knew it was from blood, not tears . . . because one of her eyes felt covered in glass.

The pain was unbearable.

Finally, her sluggish brain kicked in and reported the news to her mouth. She cried out, raised her hands up to her face— Too late!

Instead of creating a shield, her hands only served to embed some shards deeper.

It seemed so, anyway, because that was what she felt as the whole room turned dark. And whether it from the pain or the glass, she wasn’t sure.

As she sank to the ground, she was only vaguely aware of Beth’s cries for help.

And that, though she’d done her best to go on with her life with no sleep, perhaps Beth had been right.

A person without sleep could only last so long without consequences.

From the other side of their table at Mary King’s, Mose Kramer glared hard and long at Luke. Then he spoke.

“Luke, if you want more hot water than I can provide, you should have never left Frannie’s bed-and-breakfast.”

“Mose, you need to take care of the basics,” Luke said as he picked up his fork and took another bite of the roasted chicken on his plate. “You know . . . all you have to do is pay your bills. Electricity. Gas.”

“Those are taken care of. And that old water heater worked just fine for one person.” The look he sent Luke was priceless. It told, without a doubt, that he thought Luke was complaining far too much. “Settle down, eat, and then we’ll go back to my place.”

“Settle down?”

Mose lifted his chin. “Again, if you don’t want my company, you should go back to Frannie’s.”

“You know I can’t stay there any longer. She was one of the last people to see Perry alive. Because of that, she’s a suspect, or at least a person of interest.”

Mose rolled his eyes. “Miss Frannie’s as much a suspect in Perry Borntrager’s murder as you are.”

“I’d say she’s got more of a motive than I do, Mose. She was seeing him when he died.”

“That don’t mean much. Frannie sees just about everybody. That’s her way.” Primly folding his hands on the table between them, Mose added, “She’s an innkeeper, you know.”

“You, Mose, are a piece of work.” Luke was sure he was going to strangle his old friend before he ever got out of Crittenden County.

Mose chuckled as he dug back into his own plate of food. As the minutes passed and their stomachs grew full, the investigation surfaced again.

“You should forget about Frannie Eicher.”

“I can’t, and you know that. She and Perry were courting.” Luke put emphasis on courting, pushing away the thought that the antiquated word now seemed to be a viable part of his vocabulary.

“Courting don’t mean everything you seem to think it does, English.”

Luke bit back a caustic comment, afraid that with the way he was feeling about his friend he was going to make things worse between them. Already their friendship was becoming strained as he remained in Crittenden County much longer than planned. Plus now he was staying with Mose in his already cramped quarters.

He’d arrived in Marion a little over two weeks ago, intending to put his skills as a detective with the Cincinnati Police Department to good use while he recuperated from a bullet wound. His friend Mose had asked him to help uncover the secrets that surrounded the death of Perry Borntrager. Mose had felt he was too close to the community to get many honest answers, and adding to that was his inexperience dealing with homicides.

Luke, full of pride with his experience in Cincinnati, imagined the whole investigation would only take a few days at the most.

He’d been wrong.

It seemed there were more secrets about Perry than lightning bugs at night. The case was proving to be both frustrating and curiously humbling.

Until he’d found a pair of sunglasses at the crime scene. He shook his head, remembering that moment.

He’d returned to the Millers’ land again, hoping that another walk in the field where Perry’s body was found would reveal a new clue or, at the very least, clear his mind. The ground was dry for once, and as Luke crunched through the grass, a swarm of cicadas began to cry, their shrill humming piercing the air, growing in volume until a man could hardly think about anything else.

He walked on, finally taking a seat where Abby Anderson had said she’d smoked a cigarette and tried to fit in with the wrong crowd.

Closing his eyes, he tried to imagine what the scene had been like, back when someone had taken a young man’s life, carted him across this field, and dumped him in a well.

He tried to imagine what the guys who’d done it had been thinking. Were they angry?

Just doing a job?

Looking off into the distance, he mentally traced a path from the woods, to the area where Mose had decided they’d carried him.

He started walking. Looking around for stones, trash, anything else that could provide enlightenment. Soon after, he tripped, wrenching his leg.

As he fell on his backside, he gasped and silently cursed, wishing his leg would finally work.

Getting up to his feet wasn’t easy. He was going to be back on crutches and icing his knee all night to help with the swelling.

Well, this was probably no less than he deserved, out here by himself. Rolling to his side, he braced himself on his hands, trying to balance his weight so he could get up.

Doing all this, he almost missed the pair of black sunglasses just inches from his right hand. Scooting over, he grabbed a handkerchief from his back pocket, then picked them up.

Black Oakleys. Expensive. Maybe they wouldn’t stand out somewhere like Boulder, Colorado, or Miami. But in a rural place like Crittenden County? . . . They would have stood out like a cop from Cincinnati.

It was his first real break, he was sure of it then. Though, he had no idea whose they were . . . not Frannie Eicher’s, of course.

The glasses belonged to someone, but Luke wasn’t holding his breath. Too much time had passed already. It was very likely that any number of people could have left a pair of expensive designer sunglasses behind. However, his gut had told him he was on to something.

He leaned back in his chair. “Any chance you’ve sent those sunglasses to the lab to be checked for fingerprints?”

Mose eyed him over his pair of reading glasses. “I told ya I did, Luke. Just like I told ya I went around and got fingerprint samples of most everyone who’d ever talked to Perry in his lifetime.”

Luke felt his neck heat up. He would’ve never asked his partner in Cincinnati if he’d actually done what he’d said he was going to. “Sorry. I just want to do things right.”

“I do too, Luke.” Mose took a breath, looking about to remind Luke that he wasn’t a fool, when his cell phone went off.

After checking the screen, Mose answered, turning all business.

When Luke spied the look of concern on his old friend’s features, he pushed aside his apology and got ready to lend assistance.

“You sure?” Mose asked after a moment. “They need help? All righty, then. Keep me posted.” After he hung up, he leveled a glance Luke’s way. “Well, speak of the devil.”

“What happened?”

“That was Melissa, the dispatcher. Have you met her? Kind of a large woman. President of the PTA?”

Mose could talk a gnat’s ear off, if gnats had ears. “What happened, Mose?”

“Melissa just heard from Jason Black. He’s an ambulance driver, you know—”

“I don’t know Jason or Melissa.” Mose’s slow way of talking, combined with his penchant for sharing stories about everyone and their brother was driving him crazy. “What. Do. You. Know?”

“Oh. Jason’s driving Frannie Eicher to the hospital right now.”

Immediately, Luke feared the worst. “Did someone hurt her? Does this have something to do with Perry’s death?”

Mose shook his head. “Oh, no. She was involved in a kitchen accident. She owns the bed and breakfast, you know . . .”

“I know! Of course, I know! Is she okay?”

“That I do not know.” Mose brushed a hand over his face. “Jason said she looks bad. Well, her face does.”

“Why?”

“It seems that a glass or something shattered, and the pieces flew into her face. There was blood everywhere.” He paused. “Jason said a couple of the shards got an eye real good. It might be nothing, but you never know, ain’t so?”

Mose only used an Amish expression like that when he was rattled, which only heightened Luke’s worry.

His stay at Frannie’s Yellow Bird Inn had been frustrating. Frannie had been so eager and attentive, he’d felt stifled. They’d definitely butted heads a time or two. But when she’d admitted to dating Perry briefly, he’d moved out. It had been the right thing to do.

Yet, even though they’d had their differences, he couldn’t ignore the many attractive things about her. She was inquisitive and caring, and would have been downright cover-model pretty if she’d been the type of woman to care about such things. Thinking about her beautiful face covered in cuts made his breath catch.

“I bet she’s in a lot of pain. Does she have family? Did anyone go in the ambulance with her?”

“Family? Well now, let’s see. She has an older sister who lives in Michigan, and her father is here in Marion. Jason said most likely Frannie will be in surgery after they admit her to the hospital. In a little while, I’ll stop by her father’s house and see if he wants a ride.” He paused and looked at Luke. “Hey, you want to go with us?”

Luke knew he couldn’t wait for Mose to finish his meal, talk to Frannie’s father, and then meander to the hospital.

The panic that mixed in with the dismay that was bubbling forward was as much of a surprise as the news. “I need to go there now.”

Mose waved a hand. “It wasn’t a crime. Like I said, just an accident. There’s no investigating needed. Guess Frannie was talking with Beth Byler when it happened. Hey, do you know Beth? Her real name is Elizabeth, but I’m sure I don’t know anyone who calls her by that.” He drummed his fingers on the table again. “Maybe her mother?”

Mose’s rambling was going to send him over the edge. Luke stood up. “Which hospital?”

“Our only hospital, of course. Crittenden County Hospital. It’s on West Gum.” His face went slack as he caught sight of Luke’s determined expression. “You’re really going to go over there? Right this minute?”

Luke was already putting on his rain slicker. “I am. I’ve got to get over there as soon as possible.”

“Why?”

Luke didn’t know why. All he knew was that if Frannie Eicher was going into surgery, he didn’t want her to be alone.

“I just do.” While Mose continued to study him like he’d just presented him with another mystery, Luke turned and walked out the door.