Matchmaking Can Be Murder Page 7

  I blinked. Deputy Aiden was very well-informed about my family. “How did you know that?”

  He blushed. “Clara mentioned it when Bailey and Charlotte were debating over the wedding cake. She said that Edith’s mother died when she was a child and you stepped in and helped your brother Ira raise his twins, Edith and Enoch.”

  I nodded and wondered what other information he had gleaned from his close relationship to the King family. I would have to be careful what I said in front of Clara King, not that I thought she would say something on purpose to hurt anyone in our community. Even so, it was worrisome.

  The truth was I had spoken to Zeke several times since Edith announced their wedding date. I’d wanted to gauge how much he cared for my niece, and I found his interest wanting. Instead of speaking about how much he loved her and the children, he spoke about expanding the greenhouse and maybe getting some animals besides the barn cats on the property. He said that he would do a great job managing the family and the business. There was no mention of respect, love, or affection. It felt more like a pending business transaction than a marriage.

  When I didn’t respond, Deputy Aiden said, “I will need to question Edith. Should I go to the house and talk to her?”

  I swallowed. “Would it be all right if I speak to her first? The children are with her, and I’m sure that she will want them to leave the room or even the house while you speak with her. Or you could question her outside while I stay inside with the children.”

  He frowned. “It’s not standard procedure to let a witness speak to another witness before questioning.”

  “I’m sure it’s not, but I only ask this because of the children.” That was mostly true, I thought.

  He sighed and compassion relaxed his young face. “I need to check in with my team. I’ll come to the house to speak to Edith in five minutes. That should be enough time for you to decide where the children should go.”

  I thanked him and hurried through the greenhouse into the yard. When the soles of my black sneakers hit the grass, I broke into a run. Just because I was of a more advanced age than my niece or most of the other members of my quilting circle, it didn’t mean that I couldn’t run when I absolutely had to. Nonetheless, I was panting by the time I reached the house.

  I threw open the back door that led into the kitchen. The door was unlocked. Edith and the children were alone in the house and a man had been murdered just a few yards away. Why hadn’t my niece thought to lock all the doors and windows?

  “Edith?” I called, trying to keep my tone even because I knew the children would be anxious and curious about all the activity outside.

  Micah came into the kitchen. “Maam is upstairs.”

  I pressed my lips together as I followed my great nephew into the living room, where I found his brother and sister sitting on the couch like a set of Amish dolls with blank expressions on their sweet faces. Ginny cradled three tiny kittens in her lap. The mother cat, a large white princess of a cat with an impressive plume of a tail, lay in a cardboard box in front of the cool potbellied stove in the corner. She had two other kittens curved next to her body. All the kittens were white like their mother or marmalade orange.

  One of the kittens in Ginny’s lap caught my eye. It had very, very light colored orange, almost peach, fur with a bright pink nose and paw pads. The little creature looked up at me and meowed for all he was worth.

  “Hello there,” I said and scratched his tiny head. The kitten couldn’t have been more than a week old.

  “Why are the police here?” Micah asked, ignoring the kittens altogether. “I wanted to go outside and talk to them but Maam forbid it. The policemen looked like they were very nice. Why can’t I speak with them?” He cocked his head.

  “Your maam doesn’t want you to speak with them because they are here to work,” I said. “They can’t be distracted right now.”

  “Work? Why?” Micah asked, not giving up. “Did someone steal something from the greenhouse? Is that why she’s crying? If they did, I will find out whoever it is and make them give it back. No one should ever make my maam cry. She’s the best maam there is, and I won’t let anyone treat her poorly.”

  “Micah, please,” Jacob said. He had his arm around Ginny’s slight shoulders. Even though he was only ten, he treated her more like he would a daughter than a younger sister.

  “I don’t know why she’s crying,” I said. “Nothing was stolen from the greenhouse as far as I know. Let me go upstairs and talk to her. You wait here.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Micah offered. “To make sure she’s all right.”

  I shook my head. “Stay here like your maam asked you to.”

  With a thump, Micah reluctantly joined his brother and sister on the couch, but I could tell that he wasn’t done asking questions. It was something that I admired in children. I liked ones with spunk, adults too.

  I went up the narrow set of stairs to the second floor. The door to Edith’s bedroom was open and when I peeked inside, I noted the stack of library books on her dresser and the neatly made bed, with a quilt in a Texas Star pattern that I had made for her while I was in Michigan. It did my heart good to know that she still liked the quilt well enough to have it on her bed, not to mention the two matching throw pillows that I had also made. There were two more rooms on this floor, Ginny’s bedroom and the boys’ room.

  I found her in Ginny’s room. Edith was holding a large woven basket on her hip and staring out the window at the greenhouse below.

  When I stepped into the room, she started to move. She walked around the room, picking up toys as she went. There were wooden animals, blocks, toy buggies, and dolls. “It’s amazing what a mess one small child can make. I almost forgot what it was like, since the boys were already six and seven when Ginny came along. It’s like starting over again and with a girl to boot.” Her voice cracked. “On my own. A little girl needs a father, and that will never happen now. She and her brothers might not even have a mother soon if the police arrest me and send me to some Englisch prison. Aenti Millie, what am I to do?” Tears were in her eyes.

  “Child, sit down.”

  “An Amish woman is always supposed to keep up the house. It’s a good task to keep my hands busy while I wait for the police to pass their judgment.” She dropped another toy in the basket.

  “No one is passing any judgment on you.” Well, not just yet. “Now, please sit.”

  She picked up a faceless Amish doll and tossed it in the basket.

  I walked over to her. “Edith.” I took the basket from her hands, and she didn’t fight me. “Sit down, please.” I set the basket on the floor.

  This time she did as I asked and settled into the rocking chair by the window. The window overlooked the greenhouse. From this vantage point, we could see a number of police officers and other personnel coming and going from the greenhouse. Before I could make Edith look away, the two crime scene techs I’d met at the greenhouse came out of the building, pushing a stretcher with a black bag on top of it. By the length and shape of the bundle on the stretcher, it wasn’t hard to imagine what or who was in the bag.

  Edith looked away and I squeezed her hand. “I’m so sorry. I know that even if you and Zeke were not to marry, he was still an important person in your life.”

  She sat up a little straighter. “I will be all right. The children need me to be strong, and I will be, for them. It is not the first time, is it?” She picked up the doll from the top of the toy basket beside her chair. “This is Ginny’s favorite doll. It was a gift from her father, a man she never met. But she knows it’s from him because I told her it was. Moses had his faults, but I never wanted the children to think poorly of their father. Despite the bad choices he made, he will always be their father, and I want them to remember him in the best way. It’s too hard for them to recall the difficult things about Moses and his death. And now, another man that they were starting to think of as a father is dead. I don’t know what to tell them. I suppose that
’s why I came up here and hid from my own children. You know that Micah is relentless when he has a question, and I didn’t know what to say.”

  I smiled. “I do know how inquisitive he can be. He asked me a number of questions when I first came into the house. He is by far your most curious child.”

  She smiled. “He is indeed.” She set the doll back into the basket.

  “Edith, I saw something in the greenhouse I need to ask you about.”

  She nodded and seemed to brace herself.

  “I saw a small wrench about five inches long under the potting table in the cactus room. There was some sort of black grease on the end of it. Do you know where it came from?”

  “It doesn’t belong to the greenhouse. We have many tools but none like you have described. I don’t know where it came from. It could have been Zeke’s or maybe Tucker’s. No one else would be working in there. I don’t know why either one of them would need a wrench like that or why it would have black grease on it.”

  I frowned. “Don’t you have more employees? I thought you had five or six people working for you.”

  She pressed her lips together.

  Jacob came into Ginny’s room. “Maam, I’m sorry to come up and bother you like this when you told us to leave you alone, but there is a policeman downstairs and he wants to talk to you. He told me to fetch you.” Jacob said all this with worry etched on his face. Knowing the eldest of Edith’s children, I guessed his fear stemmed more from concern about disappointing his mother for disobeying her than from the police.

  I stood up from where I kneeled by Edith’s rocking chair. I had been expecting this summons and was surprised it hadn’t come sooner. Deputy Aiden had said that he wanted to speak to Edith in five minutes and that was well over ten minutes ago.

  “I’m sorry, Maam. I know that you asked us to leave you alone.” His voice quavered.

  Edith stood up, and I gave a sigh of relief. She needed to be focused and strong when speaking with the police. I knew Deputy Aiden Brody would have compassion for her and her situation, but he was still an officer of the Englisch law and had to speak to her in a direct way that she wouldn’t be used to hearing from an Englisch man. “It is fine, Jacob. You did the right thing by finding me. I need to talk to the police.”

  An expression passed over the boy’s face as if he wanted to ask something more, but he didn’t. He didn’t because he was quiet and serious Jacob. Had it been Micah with the question sitting on his tongue, he would have asked.

  Edith walked out of the room without saying another word, and I couldn’t have been more proud of her in that moment. People who don’t know our culture tend to think that Amish women are weak and submissive. They are wrong. We are as tough as any other women, or any other people, and my niece was about to prove that.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Deputy Aiden Brody stood in the middle of my niece’s living room with his hands behind his back. Deputy Little stood a few feet away with a small notebook and a pencil in his hand.

  “Would it be all right if I pulled up a chair, Edith?” Deputy Aiden asked in a kind voice. “Why don’t we all have a seat?”

  “That’s a fine idea,” I said, taking a spot on the sofa. The children, kittens, and mother cat had been banished to the front yard.

  Edith sat beside me on the edge of the sofa and smoothed her skirt over her legs.

  Deputy Aiden raised his eyebrows at me. “I thought you planned to be with the children, Millie?”

  “I think Edith would be more comfortable if I stay while you ask her your questions. I plan not to interfere.” I smoothed my skirt over my knees and settled back in my seat. I wasn’t going to move a muscle.

  Deputy Aiden nodded. After asking Edith permission a second time, he grabbed a ladder-back chair from the long dining table beside the kitchen door and set it in front of the sofa where we sat.

  Little did the same, but he kept his chair about four feet behind Deputy Aiden. If he moved it back any more, he was at risk of being outside the small house.

  I heard the shouts of the children through the open window as they played with the kittens outside.

  I was relieved Zeke Miller’s body had already been removed from the property. There were a few crime scene techs still in the greenhouse, but they were out of the children’s sight.

  Micah and Jacob, at least, knew that something very strange was happening inside the greenhouse. They would have questions later, I was sure, and they were old enough that Edith could not shelter the truth from them forever. Zeke’s death surely was already the talk of the district.

  “Edith, can you tell me how you discovered Zeke’s body?” Deputy Aiden asked.

  A tremor went through Edith’s frame when he said “Zeke’s body,” but then she pressed her hands together as if to steady herself. “I went out to the greenhouse this morning to water as I do every morning. However, I went later than I normally would because it is a church day, and I had to get the children ready for services. It takes time to dress three children for church. When I went inside the greenhouse, I watered the plants the way I always do, starting with the annuals, and working my way back to the cactus room. The cacti don’t need to be watered every day, but I do check the room several times a day just to make sure the plants are happy and healthy. It’s very important that they get enough light. It’s what they crave most.”

  “So you watered everything except the cacti before you found the body?” he asked.

  Without a moment of hesitation, she said, “Ya.”

  I thought back to what I remembered of walking through the greenhouse, and I recalled that the plants didn’t appear to be watered. Usually when Edith watered the greenhouse or when one of her workers did it, the concrete was soaking wet with a number of slowly drying puddles throughout. I saw nothing like that. I remembered looking at my feet and noting that the floor was dry, and when I ran after that man who went out the back door of the greenhouse, the floor was dry too. Had she watered so early that the floor was already dry? I could not see how the concrete would dry that quickly. It was still spring, long before the dry summer season, not that it was ever that dry in Ohio. Late July and August could have long stretches of bright sun and rainless weeks, but nothing was hot enough to dry up the water in the greenhouse that quickly. Was she lying to the sheriff’s deputy?

  I said nothing of my suspicions when Deputy Aiden asked, “What did you do when you saw the body?”

  Edith looked down at her folded hands. “Nothing.”

  “What do you mean, nothing?” Deputy Aiden asked.

  She looked up. “Nothing. I did nothing. I was frozen in place until my aenti walked into the room and snapped me out of it. I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It reminded me . . .” She trailed off.

  I knew what she was going to say. It reminded her of when she’d found her husband, Moses, dead behind their home, presumably from a drug overdose. Drug culture hadn’t spared the Amish community. It wasn’t spoken about often, but it was well-known that Moses Hochstetler had had a problem with drugs for a long time, to the point that he stole from his own family to feed his habit. Ultimately, it had cost him his life.

  I squeezed my niece’s hand. I wished I could have been with her at the time. I wasn’t then, but I could be at her side now.

  Edith swallowed. “My aenti told me to call the police and bishop, and then take the children into the house. That’s what I did and that’s where I have been until now.”

  “You were with the children the entire time?” Deputy Aiden asked.

  “The children were here in the living room, but I went up to my bedroom because I was quite upset and didn’t want them to see it.” She glanced at me. “My brother was here earlier this morning too.”

  I started at the mention of Enoch.

  “Your brother Enoch.”

  She nodded. “He’s my twin. He’s visiting Harvest for a few days.”

  “When does he plan to leave?” Deputy Aiden asked.r />
  “He hasn’t said.”

  “And when did he arrive?”

  “A few days ago,” she said.

  “Where is he now?” the deputy asked.

  “I don’t know. He left very early while I was getting the children dressed. He said he had business to attend to.”

  “On Sunday?” Deputy Aiden arched his brow.

  “That’s what he said.”

  Deputy Aiden nodded, and Deputy Little scribbled notes in his book.

  “Where were you upstairs just now?”

  “In my daughter’s room.”

  “And where is that?” Deputy Aiden asked.

  She frowned but answered the question. “It’s in the back of the house.”

  Across the room, Little made a note in his little book.

  “Does it have a window that overlooks the greenhouse?” Deputy Aiden said.

  She nodded.

  I squeezed Edith’s hand.

  “Your aunt saw someone in the greenhouse after you left. Did you see anyone on your land?”

  Edith’s head snapped in my direction. “Who did you see? Who was there?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I heard a noise outside the cactus room. When I went out to investigate, the man ran away. The goats chased him.”

  “The goats? How did they get out?”

  That was a good question, one I hadn’t thought of. It reminded me that the goats were undoubtedly still running free at the moment on my niece’s property. That was probably not the best place for them to be. There were too many plants that they might view as snacks. Before I could comment, she asked, “Do you think he was there when I was in the greenhouse alone? Was he the man who did this?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. It was the best answer I could give her.

  “Did you see anyone around your property who shouldn’t have been there at this time of day on a Sunday?” Deputy Aiden asked.

  “None of us should be here,” she told Deputy Aiden. “We should all have been at church.”

  Deputy Aiden nodded. “But did you see anyone run away from the greenhouse?”