Plain Murder (Amish Romance Mystery): Clean Mystery series (Amish Secret Widows' Society Book 8) (7 page)

Chapter 12.

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear;

but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

2 Timothy 1:7

The next day, Sabrina made sure she took her lunch to work just in case Jamie made a habit of asking her to go to lunch with him. As she walked past his office door at 8.30 a.m., she saw that the door was closed. She put her ear to the door and heard some music playing softly; she assumed that Jamie was already there.

While she answered the overnight emails, her mind drifted to the funeral. She had never been to an
Englisch
funeral, and she did not have May to go with her, unless May happened to be released beforehand.

Sabrina almost jumped when her phone sounded. It was the intercom system to Mr. Caruthers’ office. “Yes?”

“Coffee, please.”

“Coming up.” Sabrina hurried to the lunchroom.
One thing in Jamie’s favor is that he is a hard worker,
she thought. The early mornings at work had always been Sabrina’s favorite time because she was always the first one to arrive – it was so peaceful. She knocked on Jamie’s door.

“Come in.” Once Sabrina walked in he said, “You can leave the door open now.”

Sabrina put the coffee on his desk.

A moment later he looked up. “Is there something that you want to say?”

“It’s just that I was concerned about your father’s funeral and whether May and Trevor would be going.”

“I don’t know, and neither is it any of my concern,” Jamie said. “I’ve got other things to worry about.”

Sabrina frowned. “But they’re your sister and brother. I know they’d both want to go to their father’s funeral.”

“Whether they do, or they don’t, it hardly concerns you.”

Sabrina knew she had crossed the line. Of course, none of their family matters concerned her, but May was her friend, and Mr. Caruthers was her boss. Surely it was only natural for her to want what was right for his funeral.

“I’m sorry, Sabrina, that came out wrong. One of them or maybe both of them are the cause of me having to bury my father tomorrow and until I know the truth of the matter it does not upset me to have them both stay away.”

Sabrina dropped her eyes away from him and nodded. His excuse seemed a reasonable one; his father was dead after all. “I’ll get back to work.”

“Yes, good idea. I’m sure you’ve got a lot of filing to do.”

“A ton of it,” Sabrina went to close the door, but then remembered that he had asked for it to be kept open, so she pushed the door wide open.

“Oh, Sabrina, one more thing.”

Sabrina turned around. “Yes?”

“Have you ever heard of a Mrs. Wright, or did she ever come here?”

“Oh, yes. I think she trades horses. She comes in here quite a bit.”

Jamie bit the end of his pen.

“Why?”

“I think my father was very friendly with her, that’s why. If you know what I mean by friendly. I think she’ll be at the funeral, and I have to find a way of keeping her and my mother apart. If you can come up with a way to do that let me know.”

Sabrina nodded.

“That’s all.”

As Sabrina left his office, she remembered an argument that Trevor had with his father. Trevor had mentioned Mrs. Wright. It all made sense why he brought her name up. Trevor knew that his father had crossed the line of decency with Mrs. Wright. Is that another reason Trevor killed his father, to avenge his mother?

Once she sat behind her desk, her thoughts went to the people who had loaned Mr. Caruthers money. They had both phoned yesterday; surely they would phone again today and what could she say to them? Jamie was not the least bit concerned. Sabrina wondered what happened to a debt when a person died.

Sabrina looked at the time on her computer. It was not yet 9.00 a.m., her official starting time. She looked on the Internet to try and find out who owns the debt once someone dies. After fifteen minutes reading up on probate processes, 401ks, and dying with credit card debt, she was none the wiser. Some articles seemed to say that the debt was wiped and other articles suggested that the debt would only be wiped if there were no assets left after everything of the deceased had been sold, leaving no funds left for that particular debt. To make matters worse, each state had different laws, which made it harder to find out what happened to personal loans when one dies.

Sabrina glanced up at the clock and noticed it was five minutes past nine. She logged into the work emails and sure enough there were emails from Addison and Clarkwell. She didn’t open them; she had already wasted five minutes of work time and if Jamie was adamant that he was not going to pay them, it was a waste of time her even reading the emails. Instead, she forwarded them on to Jamie. She knew that doing so might make Jamie cross, but they could have some important information in them. What if either Clarkwell or Addison intended to sue the Caruthers family?

“Morning, Sabrina.”

Sabrina knew that the deep voice belonged to John. She looked up from the computer. “Hi, John.”

John looked at Jamie’s open office door then leaned toward Sabrina and whispered, “I just called to the police station hoping to speak to May or Trevor, but they said neither of them can speak to anyone.”

“I know, that’s what my brother-in-law told me. I don’t know how long they will be held for. Their father’s funeral is tomorrow.”

“Speaking of which – would you like to go in my car? That is if you intend on going.”

“Yes, I wanted to go. Mr. Caruthers was always good to me; I’d like to pay my respects.”

John smiled down at her and said, “I’d better get to work.”

Chapter 13.

Wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions.

The fear of the Lord is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.

Proverbs 8:12-13

Sabrina met John at work, and they went to the funeral from there. Mr. Caruthers’ service was held in a church building with steeples and stained glass windows. This was the first time that Sabrina had gone inside an
Englisch
church building. To the Amish, the church was the gathering together of people coming together to worship
Gott;
the church was not a building.

John and Sabrina were pointed to the position where they were to sit. It was a closed casket service. Very different to the Amish funerals where the body is taken to the family home, and people view the deceased and say their goodbyes before being taken to the graveside.

Sabrina slid into the highly polished wooden church pew and John sat beside her. The fancy coffin was placed at the front of the church. There was a large photo of Mr. Caruthers, and there were two huge pitchers of flowers either side. A large white bunch of lilies lay on the top of the glossy, black coffin.

“That’s his wife over there.” John pointed to a woman dressed in black in the front pew. She had her head bent over and appeared to be crying into a large white handkerchief.

“Poor woman,” Sabrina said as she recalled the pain her
schweschder,
Silvie went through when she suddenly lost her first husband, John. Silvie and John had expected to grow old together and not be torn apart by a tragic accident. What Jamie said made a little sense –
don’t expect too much, and you won’t be disappointed.

“I can’t see May or Trevor anywhere,” John said.

“I hope they’ve been allowed to come,” Sabrina said turning her head to the door. “Look; Jamie’s arrived.”

John swiveled his head toward the door. When Jamie saw John and Sabrina, he nodded to them and made his way to the front row where he sat next to his mother. Sabrina could not help but notice how handsome Jamie was in his black suit, crisp white shirt, and shiny black shoes. She took a deep breath. He was so handsome; she was sure she would never grow tired of looking at him.

“I thought there’d be more people here,” Sabrina whispered to John. There were, Sabrina estimated, around one hundred people in attendance which was a very low number compared to an Amish funeral.

John leaned close to her. “From what I understand, they didn’t have much family.”

“Ah,” Sabrina said with a nod.

The organ began to play, and everyone rose to their feet and began to sing. The sound of rustling paper filled the room as everyone fumbled through the hymnal to find the words of the song. Sabrina had never sung to music before. The Amish sing in their gatherings, but never to musical instruments. Sabrina had asked why there were no musical instruments allowed, but no one had been able to give her an answer which satisfied her. Even though the words were in front of her, Sabrina chose not to sing. Now that Sabrina had been baptized into the Amish community, she did not want to do anything that was not right in the sight of
Gott.

Once the hymn was over, the minister said a few words on life and death. It was quite similar to what Sabrina would have heard at an Amish funeral. After the minister finished, an older gentleman who was a friend of Mr. Caruthers got up to say a few words about him. He told a few funny stories about them playing golf together. Then on behalf of his family, Jamie got up to say something. Sabrina heard a noise at the back of the church and looked around. May and Trevor had appeared inside the door and each of them had two large policemen either side of them.

May saw Sabrina and smiled. Sabrina smiled back at her and tried to hide her concern for May’s welfare. May looked as though she had not slept the whole time she had been there. She looked as white as a sheet; her hair was not brushed and there were dark circles under her eyes.

Jamie said some nice things about his father, but they were laced with comments such as nobody is perfect, which gave the impression that Jamie certainly was not close with his father.

Sabrina glanced behind her once more and saw that the four police, May and Trevor had taken a seat in the very back pew. Sabrina remembered what Jamie said about Mrs. Wright, but she was nowhere in the church – Jamie would be pleased.

Jamie stepped down and sat back next to his mother. The minister announced that the service would continue at the graveside.

“Do you want to go to the graveside?” John asked Sabrina.

Sabrina nodded. She wanted to attend the whole funeral. People began to leave the church and Sabrina turned around to see that May and Trevor and their police entourage had left. “Do you think that May and Trevor are allowed to go to the graveside too?”

John rose to his feet. “We’ll soon find out.”

Ten minutes later, John and Sabrina arrived at the graveyard where Mr. Caruthers was to be buried. The graveyard was much fancier than the Amish and Mennonite graveyards that Sabrina was used to. Some of the graves here were marked with angels and pillars; some had rotundas covering the graves, whereas the Amish graves were marked with simple, rounded headstones.

As they walked further toward the grave, John poked Sabrina in the ribs. “Look over there, May and Trevor.”

Sabrina looked in the direction in which Trevor was pointing. May and Trevor were standing back from the rest of the crowd gathered and they still had policemen either side of them. “Why do you think that they both confessed?” She asked John as they walked toward the small crowd gathered around the grave.

“Stupidity most likely.” John leaned in close to Sabrina. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? May is trying to protect her brother.”

Sabrina guessed that was most likely what people thought.

The casket was carried to the grave then the minister said a few more words before ropes lowered the casket into the ground. Mrs. Caruthers threw a white rose on top of the coffin and stepped back. It was over, just like that.

“Are you going back to work, Sabrina? No one would expect you to,” John said.

“Are you going back to work?”

John shrugged. “I guess so. There’s a lot of work today and it’s not going to get done by itself.”

“I’ll go too then,” Sabrina said.

“Do you want to stop and grab a bite before we go back?”

Sabrina nodded. She needed a break before she went back to work; she needed to gather herself together.

“Thanks for coming, both of you.” Sabrina and John turned around to see Jamie. Jamie continued, “We’re having people back to my mother’s house. Would you both like to come?”

John Steele looked at Sabrina as if it were her decision; Jamie must have thought so too, as he looked at her as well, as if waiting for an answer.

“Okay, we’ll come.” Sabrina smiled, to hide her dread of going to Jamie’s house. She would have to meet his mother and she had no idea what to say to a distraught woman. What would she say to Mrs. Caruthers apart from offer her sympathy? The idea of going to a somber
Englisch
gathering was distressing, but she felt as though she had no choice.

As they walked back to John’s car, Sabrina noticed someone writing down the number plates of the cars at the funerals. Sabrina walked very fast to see who the person might be.