Hearse and Buggy (12 page)

“Oh, Miss Weatherly, that would be good. Very, very good.”

“Then let’s get to it, shall we?” Straightening to a stand, Claire pulled her cell phone from her purse and switched it to the camera function, snapping pictures of the paint-splattered
window from various angles as her thoughts revisited a different place and a different conversation.

“I will speak with Mr. Glick.” Ruth rose to her feet and started toward the steps, stopping to look back at Claire as she reached the bottom. “You will talk to the police next?”

She snapped the last picture, then slipped her phone back into her purse. “I will talk to them, yes. But there’s someone I want to talk to first. Someone who might be able to shed a little light on what’s been going on around here lately.”

H
e walked in the door at exactly one minute past eleven, his eyes darting around the store before coming to rest on Claire. “Is she here?”

“If by
‘she’
you mean Esther, no. She’s not. She’s at home working on a few projects for the store.” Claire plucked her notebook from a shelf beneath the register and set it on the counter. Flipping it open, she bypassed the first few pages, which contained notes about the store—items she wanted to offer, questions she had for Martha, and customer trends she was seeing—and stopped on the one she’d started less than an hour earlier. This page had nothing to do with the store and everything to do with questions she wanted to ask the man standing in the middle of Heavenly Treasures. “I’ll let her know you were in and asking about her.”

Arnie Streen pushed a grubby hand through his disheveled crop of red hair and groaned. “The clock is ticking on my paper. I really need to ask Esther a few questions.”

Propping her forearms on the counter, she leaned forward. “I’m sure I can find another member of the Amish community to speak with you.”

“When is she gonna be back?”

“She’s on the schedule for tomorrow morning.”

“Wasn’t she on the schedule for today, too?” Arnie challenged, frustration evident in his voice.

“She was. But I opted to have her work from home, instead. She’ll get more done if she’s not distracted by customers coming in and out all day long.”

He reached into the candy bowl beside the register and extracted two wrapped caramels, unwrapping the first and popping it into his mouth with lightning speed. “People really get into this Amish stuff, don’t they?”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” she said as she reached down and retrieved the caramel wrapper from the floor. Tossing it into the trash, she followed the anthropology student around the store.

Arnie grabbed hold of one of the faceless dolls and held it up for Claire to see. “Like this. What little kid truly wants to play with a doll that has no eyes and no mouth? Yet grandma after grandma is going to come in here and buy one of these for their grandkids back home in Iowa or Wyoming or wherever it is they’re from, aren’t they?” He tossed it back onto the shelf and moved on, his hand already reaching for something else.

“It’s a look at another culture. Something to share with loved ones who weren’t here,” she countered, replacing the discarded doll in the correct spot. “And, when I was a little girl, I would have loved a doll like this.”

“If you say so.” Arnie spun around holding a painted wooden spoon. “And this? What on earth is someone going to do with a spoon like this?”

Claire took in the delicately painted Amish countryside with its farmhouse and silo nestled in the middle of gently rolling fields. “It’s a decoration. A souvenir.”

Arnie snorted. “It’s not about souvenirs; it’s about having
something to take back home and use to mock people who are different.”

She pried the spoon from his hands and returned it to the display hook from which it had come. “Excuse me?”

“It’s like all those people who rubberneck their way past traffic accidents and stand around staring while some poor slob is dying of a heart attack at the beach.” He flicked his hand across a nearby quilt stand. “They buy this stuff so they can say they were there … where the Amish live. You know, those weird people who don’t have televisions and radios.”

His assertion brought her up short. “I don’t think that’s true …”

“I do.” Arnie stopped along the back wall to inspect a handmade clock, his gaze intent on the impeccable craftsmanship even while his mouth was still trained on the conversation with Claire. “How else can you explain vacationing in a place where the main thing you do is gawk at other people?”

“People vacation here to learn more.”

“About people they see as freaks.” Arnie doubled back, nearly knocking into Claire as he did. “It’s the way this world works. You don’t think I notice the way those people stare at my hands around the dinner table every night? But do they ask? No. They’d rather gawk than take the time to learn why they’re all scarred up. Do they ask about what I’m doing while they’re out all day long posing for pictures that’ll end up in some dusty old photo album on some basement shelf? No. They’d rather see me as the geeky stranger who keeps to himself—the weird one. And why is that? Well, that’s easy. When someone marches to a different drum, it’s to be mocked not celebrated.”

From the moment Arnie had shown up at Sleep Heavenly
and booked a room for an entire month, Claire had found his fascination with the Amish curious. Yet, in that moment, it all made sense. The only thing that didn’t make sense was how long it took her to see it.

Arnie’s decision to write his thesis on the Amish was based on an understanding, a kinship. This young man, who was as odd as odd could be, identified with these people he insisted were seen as freaks by the outside world.

She cast about for something to say, something to let him know she got it even if she didn’t entirely agree. “Maybe there’s some truth to what you say, Arnie, but you can’t make a blanket statement about everyone. I think an awful lot of tourists who come here come because they admire people who can live such a simple life.”

If he heard her, he said nothing, opting, instead, to grab a handful of mixed candy from the bowl and shoving it into his pocket. “You sure Esther will be in tomorrow?”

“I’m sure.”

“Then I’ll be back.” Arnie started toward the door, then stopped at a bin of Amish reference books. “I didn’t know you had these.”

She moved in beside him and reached for her favorite. The twenty-page picture book covered many of the basics people liked to know about the Amish—home life, religion, farming, clothing, beliefs. “This one gives some good background. Though, living here for a month, as you are, you’ll probably be able to go a bit deeper.”

He nodded. “My research started months ago. Being here is just the final step in the process. It makes it come alive, you know?”

Glancing at the counter, she set the book back in the bin and gestured toward her notebook. “I’ve been wanting to
talk to you about something regarding your research. Do you have a minute?”

Surprise flickered in Arnie’s eyes, and he turned from the book bin. “You want to talk about my thesis?”

“More about something you said at dinner a few nights ago. About hate crimes and the Amish.”

He shrugged. Bypassing the candy in his pocket, he reached for the bowl and yet another caramel. Only this time, he placed the wrapper on the counter rather than the floor. “I remember. Only the particular case that was discussed was the one that precipitated your boyfriend leaving his Amish roots in favor of police work.”

“My
boyfriend
? Jakob Fisher is not my boyfriend. I barely know the man.” She hated the defensive note to her voice the second she heard it, but it was too late to recall it without looking even worse.

“You looked mighty chummy out on the porch the other night. Dinner for two usually implies a relationship in my book.”

“Not in mine, it doesn’t.”

Arnie flashed a devilish grin. “You don’t have to get all touchy. I just made a statement.”

She inhaled to a silent count of ten. When she reached the last number, she regained control of the conversation. “In your research for your paper, have you come across other hate crimes against the Amish?”

His eyes narrowed on her face. “Why are you asking?”

“Curiosity, mostly. I guess I equate hate crimes to people who feel threatened by a particular group of people and so they lash out. Something that seems implausible where a group like the Amish are concerned.”

“Oh, it’s plausible alright. Happens all the time in and
around Amish communities all across this country.” Arnie turned around, braced his back against the counter, and hoisted himself onto it, planting his now-seated body smack-dab in the middle of everything. “There are documented cases in Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, here … You name it. If there’s an Amish community somewhere, there’s been at least one hate crime committed against them.”

“But what on earth is there to hate? I mean, they don’t cause trouble. They don’t get involved in other people’s affairs.”

“Some people simply hate anything that’s different.”

She leaned against the register and considered Arnie’s statement. “You think that’s all of it?”

He shook his head. “No. But it’s some.”

“And the rest?”

“And the rest comes down to ignorance, plain and simple.” He gestured toward the front window and the horse and buggy that passed from view. “Ever been in a hurry to get somewhere and been trapped behind one of those? They’re slower than molasses compared to a car.”

“So a person takes it out on the guy driving the buggy?” she asked.

“It’s not always a big act of aggression, Claire. Sometimes it’s a simple case of gunning a car around the buggy and then cutting in really quick and spooking the horse into an accident. Stuff like that has killed everyone in the buggy more than a few times.”

She gasped.

“Then there’s the people who think the Amish don’t pay taxes. They assume, quite ignorantly, that because the Amish don’t utilize city services and government-funded schools that they aren’t paying the same taxes everyone else
is paying. So, rather than educate themselves to the reality, they lash out through vandalism, theft, and a boatload of other ways.”

“That really happens?”

Pushing off his hands, Arnie jumped to the ground. “Just ask your friends next door. I believe your aunt said they have broken milk bottles and stolen pie boxes to prove it, didn’t she?”

All she could do was nod. If there was any truth to what Arnie had said, the brains behind the shenanigans at Ruth’s bakery were ill-informed at best. “So how does it stop?”

“My guess is, it doesn’t. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” Arnie shuffled over to the door and yanked it open, the jingling bell overhead doing little to bolster her mood.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, people will believe what they want to believe regardless of the facts staring them in the face. It’s easier, somehow.”

“Thanks, Arnie. I really appreciate your help.” And she did. She just wished he hadn’t emptied out her candy supply in the process. “Stop by again tomorrow. I’m sure Esther will be happy to talk with you.”

He stopped, one foot on the porch, one foot in the store. “It’s hard to miss that fact, ain’t it?”

She cocked her head, trying to retrieve whatever conversation piece she’d obviously missed, but she came up short. “Miss what fact?” she finally asked.

“That she digs me. Only, in my case, it’s reciprocated.”

It took everything she could muster not to laugh out loud or rewind the conversation a few sentences to the one where
Arnie himself had talked about people who couldn’t accept simple facts. To do either, though, would be an exercise in futility. Instead, she simply waved good-bye and reached for the last remaining caramel in the bowl.

F
rom the time Claire had first moved to Heavenly, Aunt Diane had insisted that her niece claim a night to herself—a night to bury herself in a book, take a long soaking bath, or while away the hours watching sitcoms on the small television in her room. In the beginning, she’d balked, seeing the various tasks around the inn as her way of paying the woman back for allowing Claire to stay with her in the first place.

But when she’d opened Heavenly Treasures a few months later, she’d conceded that one night off each week was probably a good idea. And so Tuesday became that night.

More times than not, she spent her evening off performing tasks for the store. Candles were made, inventory was scoured, and the financial books were brought up to date. The fact that she could do them in front of the TV helped them feel less like a chore.

Occasionally, she spent a Tuesday reading in the parlor
or sitting on the front porch talking to guests. When she opted for the latter, her aunt simply shook her head, convinced that Claire wasn’t truly enjoying the hard-earned respite her niece needed.

What Diane didn’t fully understand was how isolating Claire’s time in New York had been. That despite living in one of the most famous cities in the world—where people were in abundance—she treasured Heavenly for the human contact she’d desperately needed.

Tonight, though, was different. Tonight she wanted to be alone, to try her best to make sense of everything happening around her. Which is why, after locking up the shop, she turned right instead of left.

It was a perfect evening for a walk, thanks to the faintest hint of an autumn chill that seemed oblivious to its too-early arrival. And, thanks to the evening hour, Lighted Way was less crowded than normal, the bulk of the cars and horse-drawn buggies heading home for the night.

Still, she couldn’t help but release a sigh as her feet left the commercial district and headed toward the quieter, more peaceful side of town, where buggies were the norm and cars the exception. Though, with the fast-approaching dinner hour, buggy sightings were growing rarer as well.

She envied the Amish families who were preparing to share the evening’s meal with loved ones. It was like dinner at the inn, only better because the people at those tables didn’t leave after a few days. They stayed. For life.