Hearse and Buggy (28 page)

“Are you absolutely sure of this?” he asked.

The first full-fledged smile of the day made its way across her face. It was going to be alright. Esther and Eli were going
to get to be together. And all because Eli had punched a wall …

“I’m positive.”

“So I’m minus yet another suspect, yes?”

She couldn’t help but laugh at the sheer joy she felt. “It sure looks that way.”

He hung his head in mock defeat only to right it at the telltale snort of a horse. “Are you expecting someone?”

“Not necessarily expecting but certainly hoping, yes.” She rose from her chair and turned toward the open field behind them, the sight of Esther in Eli’s open-top buggy bringing a mixture of relief and anticipation. “Can we tell them?”

She saw Jakob’s nod out of the corner of her eye. “I’d like to be the one to say it, if that’s okay. I’d like to bring at least one good thing to my niece’s life.”

An unexpected lump rose in her throat as Jakob made his way over to the young couple. She didn’t need to hear what he was saying. Just watching the way they hung on his every word and the way they looked at one another was enough. But it was the gratitude in Esther’s face toward the uncle she’d never known that affected her most deeply.

“What’s that chump doing here?”

Claire turned toward the voice beside her, the disappointment in Arnie’s face almost painful to see. “You mean, Eli? Esther asked him to come and I’m glad he did.”

“Pardon me if I don’t share that same sentiment.”

For the first time since they’d met across the dinner table at Sleep Heavenly, Claire found herself willingly reaching out and touching the socially awkward man with a calming hand. “Please, Arnie. Jakob needs this time with his niece. It’s important … to me.”

“Here they come.” As they approached, Arnie stepped
forward to greet Esther, extricating her from her date and the detective with surprising ease. Claire watched as he led her around the far side of the fire, his hands joining in on whatever he was saying to the object of his affections. And as always, Esther was herself—quiet, sweet, and kind.

“Claire?” The whispered touch of fingers on her bare arm brought Eli into view. “Jakob said what you have done.”

“I didn’t do anything except remember.”

“That is enough.”

She followed his gaze as it left her face, traveled across the soaring flames, and settled on the woman he loved. “You should tell her how you feel, Eli.”

A hint of sadness rippled across the young man’s face. “I can not. Esther must make a choice, just as Jakob did.”

Confused, she looked to Jakob for the explanation he was unable to give, either. “You’ve made that statement before, Eli. But I don’t know what choice you’re talking about.”

“Between worlds.”

Jakob sucked in a breath. “Is Esther thinking of leaving the Amish?”

“No, of course not,” she insisted as she too looked over the top of the flames to study her friend. “I … I don’t understand why you’d even think she was considering such a thing, Eli.”

Slowly, deliberately, Eli raised a hand and pointed toward the freckle-faced redhead who was doing his best to curry favor with Esther King. “He is English. I am not.”

“You mean Arnie?”

Eli could only nod.

“You think Esther is interested in Arnie?”

Again, Eli nodded, only this time he shared the true reason he’d failed to tell Esther of his intentions. “He comes
to the shop many times. She spends much time talking to him.”

Taking his hands in hers, Claire held them tight until she had Eli’s complete attention. “He is a graduate student in anthropology, Eli. He is studying the Amish. He talks to Esther to learn more about you … your beliefs … your customs. She is helping him because she is kind.”

Again, his eyes drifted to the other side of the fire although his verbal attention remained focused on Claire. “He likes Esther.”

Jakob stepped forward and into the conversation playing out between Claire and Eli. “Eli, all that matters is who
Esther
likes.”

“He stands at the window. For hours sometimes. And she does not like—”

“Stop right there,” Jakob said. “Say that again.”

“He stands at the window. For long times. I do not know if she looks back.”

“What window does he stand at, Eli?”

“The window in the alley.”

Jakob cupped his hand over his mouth, then let it fall to his side. “Was he there that day? The day Walter Snow was murdered?”

“I do not know,” Eli said woodenly. “I do not remember.”

Claire stood silently, trying to make sense of what she was hearing while comparing it to what she knew. “I know he wanted to talk to Esther that day, but he said she wasn’t able to talk—oh my gosh! Jakob, that’s it! Arnie must have seen Walter yelling at Esther. He must have seen him grab her by the arm and neck!”

Eli stiffened. “Mr. Snow grabbed Esther?”

She looked again at Arnie and nodded. “Knowing how
he feels about Esther, he must have been incensed. I certainly would have been.” Yet even as she voiced her thoughts aloud to Jakob and Eli, she knew the freckle-faced man on the other side of the fire wasn’t strong enough to strangle a flea, no matter how enraged he may have been. “On second thought, it
can’t
be Arnie. I mean, look at him. There’s not a muscle anywhere on that body. And he’s as lazy as they come. He can’t even walk to a garbage can that’s six inches from his feet to throw a candy wrapper away. But when it comes right down to it, it’s really no wonder he’s lacking strength of any kind when his greatest form of exercise is talking endlessly on one of three subjects.”

Jakob crossed his arms in front of his chest, his eyes trained on no one but Arnie. “And what subjects might those be?”

“Everything Amish, everything Esther, and oysters.”

Jakob’s gaze cut to her face. “Did you say oysters?”

“That’s how he paid for grad school.”

“By eating
oysters
?”

She laughed. “No, by
shucking
them, silly.”

A beat of stunned silence was soon followed by the snap of Jakob’s phone as he flipped it open and pressed a single, solitary digit. “I think we’ve got our man.”

I
f there was one thing that defined her walk to work that morning more than anything else, it was the sound of whistling.

From pedestrians …

From her fellow shopkeepers …

And from one very happy Eli Miller.

In fact, virtually every single person she’d come in contact with so far was either whistling or smiling. The fog of uncertainty that had settled around Heavenly with the discovery of Walter Snow’s body had finally lifted.

Justice had been served not once, but twice—with the discovery of Nellie’s wrongdoings and the arrest of Arnie Streen for murder. In fact, the relatively swift resolution to both problems seemed to lessen the lingering sting of Walter Snow’s thieving ways.

The man had been a bad apple, plain and simple.

The best thing they could do now was move on—like Eli
was trying to do, if his presence in Claire’s store rather than Ruth’s was any indication.

It wasn’t that she minded the volunteering hands every time she needed to go to the trash bin or climb to the top of a shelf to retrieve a customer’s sought-after item, because she didn’t. At all. But she was also smart enough to know that the young man’s presence had absolutely nothing to do with Claire and everything to do with the happier-than-ever Amish girl beaming up at him as if he was the greatest thing in the world.

That kind of adoration and that kind of respect and belief was sure to keep Eli on the straight and narrow, maybe even pave the way for him to become the same respected member of the Amish community that his older brother, Benjamin, had been for quite some time.

She knew that Benjamin had been looking for her before she arrived; Esther had already clued her in on that little fact, but it was okay. Diane was right. Benjamin was a wonderful man for someone else.

Someone Amish.

Now it was just a matter of her heart getting on board with her head. Whatever feelings he’d stirred inside her needed to remain a mystery—one that would be forever locked away in some corner of her soul.

As for Jakob and the way he made her smile from the depths of her being, that too would remain a mystery. At least until she figured out a little bit more about herself—her likes, her dislikes, her hopes for the future. Until then, she’d simply count him as one of the many blessings she’d been given since moving to Heavenly.

Like owning her own shop …

She shook herself out of la-la land and grinned at the Amish couple making puppy-dog eyes at one another across
the register. “Earth to Esther, earth to Esther: come in, Esther.”

A hint of crimson rose in the Amish girl’s face, but the love-struck smile remained. “I am here.”

“Is your mother still bringing me some new treats today?”

“She is.”

“Good. I can hardly wait.” And it was true. There was something about seeing the talents of such peaceful people that gave her hope. Like wishing on the brightest star in the sky or spending an evening in the parlor with Aunt Diane.

She thought back to the moment Arnie had been arrested, the shock and horror on her aunt’s face nearly bringing her to tears. But as she’d tried to explain, again and again throughout the rest of the weekend, there was no way Diane or anyone else could have ever known what Arnie had done. He’d spent so much of his life living in the background that he’d become proficient at the skill.

But Diane had fretted anyway, convinced she, who had been nicer to Arnie than anyone had ever been, should have known something, should have done something. It wasn’t until Claire had wrestled the conversation away from Arnie and onto his obsession with Esther that her aunt had finally let it go, her nurturing side clucking away at the angry way in which Walter had handled Esther.

“He was after something mighty important, Claire, to have risked going back inside your shop to see Esther a second time.”

It was a statement that had nagged at her subconscious throughout the night only to rise to the surface again while watching Esther speak so happily to Eli …

“Esther?”

Esther ran a hand down the front of her aproned dress. “What is it, Claire?”

“What was it again that Walter was so intent on finding when he grabbed your wrist and then your neck?”

Esther flashed a reassuring look at Eli, then followed it with a calming hand to his cheek before addressing Claire’s question. “He wanted the chest. He said it was in the stockroom.”

“Did he say why?”

“No. Only that he must have it.”

She closed her eyes in a mental review of the Amish-made furniture pieces she’d sorted through every chance she got during the first few weeks the shop was open. There had been rocking chairs and horses, bed posts and night stands, kitchen chairs and quilt racks. And there had been one chest …

“I gave that chest back to your brother, Eli.”

Eli nodded. “He gave it to Ruth. For pots and pans. It almost burned in fire.”

And then she remembered. She’d knelt beside that very chest when she’d checked in on Ruth the morning after the fire.

“Can I see it?” she asked Eli.

“Benjamin can make a chest for you.”

She waved the appealing notion from her thoughts. “No. I want to see
that
one—the one that Walter was so desperate to find.”

With a shrug of his shoulders, Eli led the way through the stockroom and into the alley, his hand wrapped tightly around Esther’s. When they stepped inside Ruth’s kitchen, he swept his hand toward the finely crafted chest that sat no more than a few feet from where Nellie had started the fire designed to punish Ruth.

She dropped to her knees and ran her hand across the
chest, the smooth wood beneath her palm oddly comforting. “May I open it?” she asked over her shoulder.

“Please.”

Lifting the latch, Claire used her fingers to raise the lid upward until it rested against the back wall and she was looking down at an assortment of baking pans that sparkled and shined. Then, with barely a hesitation, she began removing them from the chest, handing each and every pan to Esther until there was nothing left but the floor of the chest.

“There is a compartment. In the bottom.” Eli moved in beside Claire and pointed toward a small recession in the wood. “The English use it for papers. For keepsakes.”

Reaching into the chest, she pushed her fingers into the recession and slid them to the right, a split panel giving way to a shallow compartment below.

“What is that?” Eli shouted as he dropped to his knees beside Claire.

Her heart pounded double time in her chest at the sight of so much green. “I’m not positive, Eli, but I suspect that’s the money Walter stole from the Amish.”

T
hree hours later, every single dollar had been accounted for and sorted into envelopes bearing the names of several different Amish families …

Stoltzfus.

Lapp.

Troyer.

Beilers.

Yoder.

Miller.

And King.

She lifted the last envelope off the counter and handed it to Martha, the shock on the woman’s face threatening to bring the same tears to Claire’s face that Esther’s already sported. “This belongs to your family.”

With hands that trembled, Martha turned the envelope over and lifted the flap, her body sagging against the counter at the sight of the hundreds of dollars it contained. “I do not understand. I have not made enough things.”

“This is not for the things you bring for my shop. This is for the things your husband brought to Walter Snow.”

Martha’s head snapped up, her gaze volleying between Claire and Esther. “Walter Snow? But he … took our money.”

“And now you’re getting it all back. Right down to the very last dollar.” The telltale jingle of an arriving customer brought an intake of air from Esther’s direction. The sound told Claire everything she needed to know even as she kept her focus squarely on the girl’s mother.

Slowly, Martha looked back down at the envelope of money, her hand shaking almost violently. “But … how?”