Down a Dark Road (Kate Burkholder #9)

I don’t expect to learn anything earth-shattering, but you never know when some nugget will come your way. Besides, it’s been a long day. I could use some caffeine.

The Sweet Rosemary Café is part bakery, part restaurant, and part Amish tourist shop, all of it housed in an old two-story house built into a hillside. I take the sidewalk around to the antique-looking front door and enter to the enticing aromas of cinnamon, yeast bread, and fresh-brewed coffee. There are three other customers in the dining room. Two elderly men sit at a small corner table, embroiled in conversation, and a woman in a denim skirt and blouse sits at another table sipping iced tea and tapping a message into her phone. The waitress, a middle-aged Mennonite woman, is behind the counter, drinking coffee and watching a soap opera on the television mounted above the kitchen pass-through.

Four stools line the counter, so I slide onto the nearest one and upend the mug in front of me.

Tearing her eyes away from the TV, the waitress glances my way and grins. “They’re about to kill that guy for the third time this year. Damien Rocco aka bad dude.”

I laugh, game for the topic. “He deserve it?”

“Oh yeah. He’s offed so many people I lost count.” Snagging the coffeepot, she treads over to me and pours. “My husband thinks I’m a hard worker. He has no idea I come here to watch TV.” She taps her kapp. “We used to be Amish so we don’t have one at home.”

“Your secret is safe with me,” I say in Deitsch.

Arching a brow, she shoves a tiny stainless-steel pitcher of cream toward me. “You Amisch or what?”

“Used to be.” I offer my hand and introduce myself, letting her know I’m the chief of police from Painters Mill.

“Leah Yoder.” She wipes her hand on her apron and we shake. “You miss it?”

“Sometimes.” I pour cream into my coffee. “Not the rules so much.”

“I hear that.”

I sip the coffee and sigh. “I think that’s the best coffee I’ve ever had.”

She beams. “The owner, Mrs. Kresovich, gets it from a roaster up in Cleveland. Fancy stuff, let me tell you. We got some lemon custard pie left if you want a piece. On the house since you’re a cop.”

“Let me pay and you have yourself a deal.”

“Never argue with the fuzz.” She goes to a small refrigerator, pulls out a plate, and removes the plastic wrap. Snagging a napkin and fork from another place setting, she slides them over to me and sets the pie in front of me. “What brings you to this neck of the woods?” she asks.

“I’m tying up a few loose ends on a case.”

Her eyes meet mine, her expression sobering. “You talking about the Joe King thing?”

I nod. “Did you know him?”

“I knew Naomi,” she tells me. “She worked here for a time.”

“Were you close?”

“We were. I considered her a friend. I liked her a lot and I sure hated to see her go the way she did. Such a tragedy, especially for the kids.”

Emotion flashes in her eyes, so I give her a moment before asking, “What was Naomi like?”

“Quiet. Kept to herself at first. But I’m a talker. You give me enough time and I could carry on a conversation with a tree. I got the gift of gab, or so my husband tells me. So, yeah, we talked. She was a real nice gal. A good woman. Better than most. She liked to laugh, but didn’t do it enough.” She sighs, thoughtful. “She loved them kids, that’s for sure.”

“Did she talk about Joseph much?”

“Complained about him plenty.”

“Did they get along?”

She huffs. “Like cats and dogs.”

“Any idea what they argued about?”

“A lot of ground to cover, how much time you got?”

Grinning, I sample the pie, find it tart and creamy and delicious. “Till the end of this fine slice of pie at least.”

“Not to speak ill of the dead, but Joe was impulsive and lazy. Spent too much money and they didn’t have much to begin with.” She chuckles. “That Naomi. She’d come in slamming things around and grumbling and I knew they’d been at it. Heard her actually cuss him a couple of times and believe me, she wadn’t a cussing kind of girl.” Her brows snap together. “Always got the impression Joe didn’t like her working. That set her off a couple of times because he was always buying stuff he didn’t need with money they didn’t have.”

I think about my conversation with Bishop Fisher. “Was he jealous?”

She gives me an odd look, the meaning of which I can’t quite decipher. “Never met a man who wasn’t. Some just hide it better than others.” She lowers her voice. “Don’t tell my husband I said that.” She punctuates the statement with a conspiratorial wink, but she’s trying a little too hard to keep it light.

Sighing, she shakes her head. “I never thought it would end up the way it did. I mean, with her dead. One day we’re complaining about rude customers, the next she’s just … gone. I don’t even think I said good-bye to her that last day. Figured I’d see her soon enough. I guess you never know.”

I fork a piece of the pie. “You heard Joseph is gone, too?”

She nods. “That standoff thing was all over the news up here.”

“I’m working to close the file,” I tell her. “I’ve talked to a lot of people in the last couple of days. Interestingly, I’m getting quite a bit of conflicting information.”

“About who?”

“Joseph.” I shrug. “I talked to him the day he was killed.”

The waitress’s eyes widen. “You’re the one who was in that house with him for a bit.”

I nod. “He was adamant that he didn’t murder his wife.” I glance left and right and then lower my voice. “One of his children, the little girl, corroborated it. I wasn’t sure what to make of any of it, so I decided to look into a few things before I closed the file for good.”

When she doesn’t respond, I add, “I’m not here to dig up dirt or ruin anyone’s reputation. I’m trying to find the truth. That’s all.”

Suddenly Mrs. Gift-of-Gab isn’t quite so talkative. Picking up a small box, she begins stocking postcards in a rotating countertop display rack. “I don’t see how that matters now. I mean, with both of them dead.”

“The truth always matters,” I tell her.

She doesn’t respond, but continues to slide postcards into slots.

“Did Naomi ever mention the Amish bishop?” I ask. “Bishop Fisher?”

She goes still, a machine that’s gone into a stall, and in that instant I know there’s something there. Something she doesn’t want to discuss.

“Don’t think she ever did,” she says breezily.

“What about his wife, Salome? I heard she and Naomi were friendly.”

Rather than answer, she spins the rack, stuffs another stack of postcards into a slot.

“I know Joseph wasn’t a good husband,” I tell her. “If Naomi turned to someone else, no one would blame her.”

She stops and turns to me. “Is that what you think she did? You think she two-timed her husband?” She hefts a short laugh.

“I don’t think anything. I’m asking.”