“Is Mattie here?” I ask. “I need to speak with her.”
“She’s resting.” She turns her back to me and goes back to her dishwashing. “I see your manners haven’t improved with age.”
“Where is she?” I walk past her, half expecting her to snap the dish towel at my back.
The smells of mock turtle soup and lye soap follow me into the living room. I make my way to the stairs and take them two at a time to the top. Four doors stand open. The first is a bathroom with robin’s-egg-blue walls and a claw-foot tub. I’m midway to the second door when Mattie appears in the doorway ahead.
“Katie?”
I can tell by the soft paleness of her complexion that I roused her from sleep. A crease mark from her pillow mars her right cheek. She’s wearing a black dress and is in the process of tying her head covering as she steps into the hall. “I didn’t know you were here.”
“We need to talk,” I tell her.
Her expression goes wary. “Has something happened? If I’d known you were coming, I would have made coffee.”
“I don’t want coffee. What I want is for you to level with me.”
“About what?” Her eyes go into sharp focus on mine. “Have you found out something about the accident?”
“It wasn’t an accident, Mattie. Someone mowed them down. There’s a difference.”
“I know that, but…” Her voice trails and she looks down at the floor. “I don’t know what else to call it.”
“Try triple murder.”
She steps back, sets her hand on the jamb as if she needs the support to remain upright. “Why are you angry with me?”
I cross to her so that I’m less than a foot away. Her skin is as pale and flawless as a baby’s. Her eyes are deep and clear. She’s magnetic and, even as a female, I can understand why men are drawn to her. She smells of baby powder and laundry detergent and summer sun.
“Let me spell it out for you.” My voice feels like a steel zipper being ripped from my throat. “I asked you if you’d had any recent disagreements or arguments with anyone. It’s a straightforward question, Mattie. Then I hear about you and an unidentified man arguing on the road in front of your house in the middle of the night. What am I supposed to make of that?”
She chokes out a sound that’s part laugh, part incredulity. “I don’t know who you’ve been speaking with or what they said to you, but no such thing ever happened.”
In the years we’ve been friends, Mattie has shocked me, infuriated me, and made me laugh. The one thing she’s never done is lie. But I see the quicksilver flash of conscience in her eyes, and the truth of it hurts a hell of a lot more than I thought it would. “You’re keeping something from me. I suggest you start talking and, if it’s not too much trouble, focus on the truth.”
She takes a step back, presses her hand to her breast. I steel myself against the hurt in her eyes, remind myself that a man and two children are dead and I have a job to do.
“You’re being purposefully cruel,” she says quietly.
“I’m asking a question I want answered. Who was the man?”
“Katie, I am a Plain woman. I don’t speak with strange men in the—”
“There’s nothing Plain about you,” I cut in, and the words make me sound like a petty, jealous shrew.
She looks away as if the words shame her.
“I have a witness, Mattie. They saw you. They saw him. I know he’s Amish—”
“Sell is nix as baeffzes.” That is nothing but trifling talk. Looking shaken, she sputters the words in Pennsylvania Dutch.
“Is it?” I tilt my head and lean closer, invading her space, getting in her face. “Wu schmoke is, is aa feier.” Where there’s smoke there’s fire.
“Please stop.”
“Someone ran down that buggy and killed your husband and children. I’ve been beating my head against the wall trying to figure out who and why.” I slam the heel of my hand against the jamb next to her head. “And you’re playing games with me!”
“I’m not…” Her breaths come short and fast, as if she’s in the throes of a panic attack. “I would never…”
I don’t know if I’m right about any of this. The one thing I do know is that she’s keeping something from me, so I don’t give her a respite. I’m truly angry, but part of my display is calculated. I want her shaken. Even better if she’s furious with me. Because I know Mattie. Pressure is the only way I’m going to get anything out of her.
“I want the truth and I want it now!” I shout.
“Please. Leave me alone!” She lowers her head and puts her face in her hands. The cry that follows is so wrenching I feel the hairs on my arms prickle, the threat of tears at the backs of my own eyes. I shake off both.