A Plain Death, page 25
I hopped out of the car. “What happened?”
“One of the mulch bags broke open during last night’s storm. I’ve been sweeping for two hours. Cookie asked me to finish it before I leave.”
“You have a long way to go.”
“I know.”
I glanced around the lot. “Is there another broom? I can help.”
She grinned and ran into the shop for a second broom. Heat rose from the pavement, and I was glad I had changed into shorts and a T-shirt. “Where are Cookie and Scotch?”
She handed me the broom. “In the hothouse.”
I began sweeping. “I spoke with Sadie Hooley today.”
“Sadie? How is she? I saw her when I stopped at the Amish Bread Bakery looking for work.” She sighed. “I shouldn’t have tried applying there.”
“Why not?” I sneezed as a cloud of dust and mulch flew into my face.
“The bakery belongs to Esther Yoder’s family. Why’d you talk to Sadie?”
“I wanted to talk to Esther.”
“Esther? Why?”
“Just to see if she knew anything about the accident.”
Becky stopped sweeping. “Why would she know anything about that?”
“Ruth said—”
“I know what Ruth said, but Esther wouldn’t do anything to anyone. I already told you that.” Before I could respond, she started one-handed sweeping again. “Esther doesn’t like me. She never has, even when we were kinner, but she would never hurt me.”
“Maybe she asked someone else to do it.”
She looked up. “Why?”
“Isaac.”
She dropped her gaze and shook her head. “The minute I left home, Esther won Isaac. Why would she bother?”
“I’m trying to be thorough. I’m not going to ignore a lead because it’s uncomfortable. Are you more upset about this because of Esther or because of Isaac?”
“I don’t want to talk about Isaac.” She dropped her broom on the blacktop.
“Did you leave for art or did you leave to avoid marriage?” The question popped out of my mouth, and I immediately regretted it.
Her blue eyes filled with tears, and she fled into the greenhouse.
Why did I ask her that? I set both brooms against the front of the greenhouse, then found Becky with Cookie and Scotch in the hothouse.
“Hush! Hush!” Cookie allowed Becky to cry into her shoulder.
Scotch pulled a yellow bandana from his bib overalls and handed it to Becky.
Cookie’s heavily made-up eyes turned on me. “Now, why’d you have to go and make her cry.”
“I—Becky, I’m sorry.”
Becky shook her head against Cookie’s shoulder.
Scotch waved at me. “Come on, Chloe, let’s give the girls a minute.”
Helpless, I followed him back into the store. Scotch moved behind the counter. “Don’t worry about Becky. Cookie will calm her down. She’s good with our girls.”
“You have daughters?”
He nodded. “Two. Both are grown. One lives in Seattle and the other in Richmond. Cookie likes having Becky here so much because our girls are so far away. She misses mothering. Tell the truth, we both love having Becky here and would do anything for her.”
“You’ve already done so much by giving her this job, and driving her back and forth to work goes way above that.”
He waved away my praise. “We need to know she’s safe.” Scotch sat on a stool behind the cash register, clutching his cane. There were no cars in the parking lot and no customers in the shop or greenhouse.
What was Cookie saying to Becky in the hothouse? I hoped her motherly advice was better than her makeover.
Scotch looked around the rustic building. “This greenhouse was Cookie’s dream. It’s something she’s wanted since I first met her more than thirty years ago. I knew I had to make it happen for her.”
“How long have you been open?”
“Four years.” He popped open the cash register and started counting the money in the drawer. There didn’t seem to be much there, but most people shopped with credit cards now anyway.
“It must be hard to run a small business right now.”
He nodded, keeping his eyes focused on the slim pile of bills. “It’s hard to run any kind of business right now.”
I thought about the unfortunate event at Harshberger earlier in the day.
“But,” Scotch said, “in tough times, we have to make tough choices to keep things afloat.”
“That’s true.” Again, Joel came to mind, ornery as he was. Silently, I prayed for him and his family, feeling guilty that it hadn’t occurred to me to do so before.
“Sometimes, too”—Scotch said more talking to himself than to me—“you have to work with people you don’t care for to save your business and protect those you love.”
My brow wrinkled. “Like who?”
He laughed. “Look at me, an old man muttering about his troubles! It won’t be long before Cookie’ll be wheeling me into the nursing home and my diet will consist of gelatin and creamed carrots.”
I thought there was more to it than that, but before I could ask him, Becky and Cookie entered the shop. Becky’s eyes were dry, and she was smiling. I don’t know how, at age twenty-four, I had a nineteen-year-old under my care. I was not equipped to be a parent and certainly not to someone so close to my own age.
“We’re all better,” Cookie proclaimed. “I gave her the old Cookie pep talk. Worked every time with my girls.” She winked.
“I’ll finish cleaning up the mulch, Chloe, and we can go home.”
I followed her. “I’ll help.”
Becky shrugged, so we worked in silence.
Once in the car, I couldn’t stand Becky’s silent treatment anymore. “Becky, I said I’m sorry. If you don’t want to talk about Isaac, I won’t mention him again.”
She let out a breath as if she’d been holding it a long while. “I’m sorry for being angry.” She stared out her window. “I wanted to love Isaac as much as he loved me, but I loved my art more.”
“Then you made the right decision.”
Her eyebrows shot up into her hairline. “Really? Everyone told me the opposite.”
“Marrying Isaac would be easier for you and for your family. You were brave to turn him down. Someday you will find someone you love more than art.”
Her whole face lit up. “I pray so. Do you think you will find someone you love more than your computers?”
I laughed, but then grew serious. “Maybe . . .”
Chapter Forty-Nine
Saturday morning I woke up to find Gigabyte chewing on my hair. I swatted him away, and he yowled in protest. “Gig,” I complained into my pillow. “This is the only day of the week I get to sleep in. Go away.”
Another yowl.
I opened one eye and focused it on the wayward animal. “I’m sure Becky’s up. Ask her to give you breakfast.”
My bedroom door flew open, and Becky bounced onto my bed. “Chloe, get up. It’s after ten o’clock.”
“Wake me up for lunch,” I mumbled.
She bounced some more. A headache formed at the base of my skull. Most of the time I appreciated her energy. Ten a.m. on a Saturday was not one of those times.
“You have to get up.”
“Why?”
She let out a dramatic sigh. “Didn’t you hear the phone ring?”
“No,” I told the pillow.
“Timothy’s coming.”
I bolted upright in the bed. “What? Why?”
“He says he has a surprise for us, and he’s bringing Aaron too.”
I blinked the sleep from my eyes. “Aaron? Deacon Sutter’s son? That Aaron?”
She frowned. “Ya! Now, get up!” She hopped off the bed and skipped out of the room. She seems awfully excited to see her brother.
I fell back onto my pillow.
By eleven when Aaron and Timothy rolled in, I was presentable in a pink T-shirt and khaki capri pants. Becky wore her jeans again. I told her at some point that weekend we would have to take them to the Laundromat since she was determined to wear them every day. That or we’d have to go back to the department store and buy a month’s worth.
Timothy climbed out of the car, but Aaron waved from the passenger seat. “Climb in on my side,” Timothy said.
Since I was the shortest, I climbed into the back with Mabel. The woolly dog flopped onto my lap. We had bonded during our tornado ordeal. “Where are we going? Does this have to do with the case?”
Timothy watched me in the rearview mirror. “I think we need a break from the case today. We are taking you to one of the best parts of Knox County: the Kokosing Gap Trail.”
Becky beamed. “I love it there.”
Timothy backed out of the driveway. “There’s an entrance not too far from here.”
My toes curled in my sandals. “Won’t the ground be muddy?” In my mind, trail meant puddles and roots that trip.
Aaron laughed. “The trail is paved and follows the river through Knox County for more than thirty miles. Kokosing meant ‘little owl’ to Native Americans. Sometimes you can see an owl on the trail at night.”
“Oh.” Relief poured through me. One muddy adventure this week was more than enough.
Timothy turned into a nearly full gravel parking lot. Apparently, the trail was a popular place in the county. A family filed out of the minivan next to us.
Becky, Mabel, and I climbed out of the truck as Timothy removed Aaron’s wheelchair from the bed and unfolded it. He then lifted his friend out of the truck and placed him on the chair. “Now, this is what I call service,” Aaron proclaimed. “Onward!” He pointed up the ridge that led to the paved path. Timothy took it at a run, pushing the wheelchair up the side, with Mabel barking at his heels. On the path, Timothy clicked a leash on Mabel’s collar, and she barked in protest. He pointed at the leash law sign as if she could read it.
I reached for the leash. “I’ll walk her so you can push Aaron.”
“No,” Becky said. “I’ll push Aaron.”
Timothy pointed at her cast. “Can you with one arm?”
“Watch me,” Becky said.
Timothy shrugged and let Becky take over the reins of Aaron’s wheelchair. He fell back in step with Mabel and me.
“Becky looks happy,” I said.
Timothy grinned. “Aaron, too.”
We fell further back, and I glanced at Timothy. “Becky must think there is some sort of race.”
He laughed.
Broad-leafed trees hung over the bark-topped path, birds twittering in their branches. I could hear the sound of the Kokosing rushing by behind the tree line. “It’s beautiful here.”
Timothy shortened his stride to meet mine. “It’s one of my favorite places. I come here all the time.”
I picked a leaf from Mabel’s fur. “The deacon was okay with you picking up Aaron in your truck?”
“The deacon doesn’t exactly know. If he had his way, Aaron would be hidden away at home all the time.” Timothy’s tone turned raw, almost bitter.
“If his father is so awful, why does Aaron stay?”
Timothy’s brow wrinkled. “Each Amish person must make a choice. I made mine, so did Aaron. Neither of us is unhappy.”
Ahead of us, Becky and Aaron laughed together, and Timothy turned to me. “Could he be happier?”
Suddenly Mabel jerked my arm to the left and started barking on the side of the trail.
Timothy reached for the leash, giving it a tug below where it wrapped around my hand. “It’s just a squirrel, girl.”
She barked an argument. Together, we were finally able to coax her away from the squirrel. By then Aaron and Becky were out of sight.
Timothy looked on ahead. “Knowing my sister, they are half way to Mount Vernon by now.”
I fell into step beside him. “It’s nice to see Becky so happy.” Mabel tugged on the leash again. These woods must be bursting with squirrels to chase.
“Aaron, too.”
“Was your family upset when you decided to leave the Amish?”
“Of course. Especially my father. However, I think they recognized the alternative was worse.”
I stopped in the middle of the trail.
Timothy exhaled. “After the accident, while Aaron was in the hospital, I went through a bad time. I fell into the wrong crowd.”
“The wrong Amish crowd?”
He gave a rueful laugh. “There are tough kids among the Amish too. I got arrested for drunk driving and robbery.” He looked down at the ground, as if ashamed. “That’s how I know Greta, or Chief Rose, so well. She’s locked me up a few times.”
“Oh.” This must me the reason for all of Chief Rose’s cryptic warnings about Timothy. “But you turned your life around.”
He nodded. “Do you remember Hannah? You met her at church.”
Oh, I remember.
“Her father is a carpenter too, and I worked with him a lot before the accident. He saw I was making a bad turn and invited me to their church. This was after my third arrest, third night in jail, and I was ready to turn back to Gott. I just didn’t know how. Actually, I wasn’t turning back to Gott, I was turning to Him for the first time.”
“What do you mean?”
“John Hilty, Hannah’s father, taught me there’s a difference between Amish faith and Gotte’s grace. Amish faith would not forgive me, but the grace of Christ would. I only needed to ask Him for it. This was so different from what I was taught by the leaders of our district. They taught us from a young age that you had to work for forgiveness. What John helped me realize is that I could never work hard enough to undo every wrong deed I had ever done. The rules that I followed or broke being Amish were not getting me any closer to Gott. For me, they were a form of separation because I knew I could never close the distance, so why bother trying. I left the Amish because I wanted to know I was forgiven. I didn’t want to live in constant fear. I could not earn Christ’s love and forgiveness, only accept it.”
Could I ever be as confident about what I believed, enough to give up so much?
Timothy watched me for a moment, as if reading my mind. “That doesn’t mean I don’t have moments of doubt or even guilt. Every time I see Aaron’s wheelchair, I feel guilt. Every time I run into the deacon, guilt is there.”
“You didn’t make Aaron jump on that roof.”
“He’s confined to a wheelchair for something I told him to do.”
I grabbed Timothy’s arm. “But he did it.”
He shook his head, his expression sober. “It doesn’t matter. He’s a son. He cannot take over his family farm and may never marry. It’s because of me.”
I squeezed his fingers. “You don’t know he won’t get married.”
“What Amish woman would want to marry a man who can’t work? The father in the family is supposed to be the provider. Aaron can’t do that.”
“I don’t believe that he can’t provide for his family in some way. He might not be a farmer working in the fields, but there’s other work he can do. A person’s entire worth is not measured by the type of work they do.”
I let go of Timothy, and started walking again. “I know what it’s like to live with guilt.”
He didn’t say anything, but simply waited for me to continue. And yet, I saw the concern on his face.
I rubbed my eyes, remembering. “My mother died in a car accident when I fourteen, and it was my fault.” I took a shaky breath. “It was late, close to one in the morning when it happened, and it was because of me.”
He reached for my hand and squeezed it.
“I was at a friend’s house for a sleepover and got sick.” I winced at the memory. “Really sick. I must have had food poisoning. Anyway, the mom of the girl—not Tanisha, although Tee was there—called my parents and told them that one of them had to come get me. This was in January over Martin Luther King weekend. On the way to pick me up, my mother hit a patch of black ice that sent her car spinning into a tree.”
Timothy squeezed my hand harder, our fingers intertwined.
“Mom died at the hospital from her injuries, and my father never forgave me.”
He didn’t let me go. “You were just a sick kid. How could that be your fault?”
I watched Mabel sniff her way down the path. “Within a year of the accident, my father remarried. My stepmother’s not the easiest woman to get along with, and she pulled my father and me further apart. When I was fifteen, she convinced him to move to California and leave me behind.”
“What do you mean ‘leave you behind’? Why didn’t you move with them?”
“Sabrina—she’s my stepmother—thought she was doing me a favor. She said I wouldn’t want to move and leave my life and friends in Cleveland. That was true to some extent. She asked Tanisha’s family to take care of me, and even offered them money to do it. They never took any money from her, but they agreed to let me live with them. I don’t know what I would have done without them.” I said all of this without tears. The tears I cried over my father were gone. Only a cold, hollow sadness remained. “I went along with it because my father never said a word about it. He never asked me to move with them. He never asked me to stay. He said nothing. That’s pretty much how it’s been ever since. Silence.”
Timothy looked down at me, his eyes unwavering. “I told you, you had me the night of the tornado, and I meant it.”
I smiled. A red-iron bridge that spanned the Kokosing River came into view. “Wow,” I said. “It’s beautiful.” Trees heavy with bright green leaves hung heavy over the river. Becky parked Aaron’s wheelchair so he could peer into the water. She sat next to him cross-legged on the bridge. I admired them from afar. “Clearly, Becky doesn’t care if Aaron can run his family farm.”
Timothy squeezed my hand one more time before letting go. “Clearly not.”
The four of us and Mabel returned to the parking lot, then pulled up short. The green pickup was parked next to Timothy’s truck.
Timothy picked up the pace and called to me over one shoulder. “You guys hang back until I unlock the truck.” He marched toward his pickup, and Brock stepped out from behind it.
