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

Chapter 14.

I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed,

and am persuaded that he is able to keep

that which I have committed unto him against that day.

2 Timothy 1:12

“Hold up, Sabrina. Why are you in such a hurry?” John asked.

Sabrina did not answer, as she was too intent on seeing why someone was so interested in who was at Mr. Caruthers funeral. It was a short man of five feet two, slightly balding, with thin-rimmed glasses. He looked up, and when he saw Sabrina hurrying toward him, he tucked his notepad into his pocket and walked away at great speed.

Sabrina continued to hurry after him. “Wait,” she called to the man, but he kept on walking and did not turn around. She saw him get into a white, new model car and as it was a one-way street he had to drive past her to get away. Sabrina made a mental note of the number plate and hurried back to John, who was standing near his car. “Quick, John, give me your phone. Do you have email?”

He took his blackberry out of his pocket and handed it to her. She looked at it and handed it back to him. “Get the email up, so I can write an email to myself.” Sabrina could have told John to write the number down, but at this stage she did not know who could be trusted.

John handed the phone back to her with the email open. “What’s this all about, Sabrina?”

Sabrina did not answer him. Instead she checked that he had the email going to her work email then she put the memorized number plate in and pressed
send.

“Sabrina?”

She looked up into John’s eyes. It wouldn’t hurt to tell him what she saw. “Oh, I saw someone taking down number plates. I thought it a strange thing to do.”

“It could’ve just been a parking official. You can only park here for one hour, you know.”

“Then why did he rush off when I wanted to talk to him?”

“I don’t know, could’ve been his lunchtime if he was a government worker.” John gave a bit of a chuckle.

“You’re right, it was probably nothing.” Sabrina did not want to make a fuss.

Before long, John Steele and Sabrina were in the house where Trevor, May and Jamie Caruthers had grown up. It was a grand house and Sabrina hoped that Mrs. Caruthers would not lose the home if Caruthers had owed those men who were calling the office all the time, too much money.

Sabrina had never met Mrs. Caruthers before, as she had never set foot in her husband’s work place the entire time that Sabrina had worked for him. She was a small lady who looked like a much older version of May. Jamie introduced John and Sabrina to his mother. Mrs. Caruthers was a very polite hostess and made a few words of small talk to them before she left them to speak to others who had just arrived.

No one went back to work, and John drove Sabrina home after they stayed a while at Mrs. Caruthers’ house.

“Thank you for driving me home, John. I’d invite you in, but it’s my sister’s house and she hasn’t been too well lately.” Sabrina bit her lip – another lie. She did not need to make an excuse not to invite him in; he’d only offered to drive her home. Sabrina knew if an Amish person had driven her home in their buggy, their horse would have had a rest for a while and some water while the driver of the buggy would have come in and said hello. What was the
Englisch
protocol? Sabrina wondered.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then,” John said once Sabrina was out of the car.

“Okay.” Sabrina walked toward the house but made a detour when she saw Silvie pinning out some washing. “Hi, Silvie.”

“Sabrina, you’re home early.”

“After the service I went back to Mrs. Caruthers house with John Steele, a friend from work. He drove me home. No one’s going back to work today.”

“That’s understandable,” Silvie said as she picked up another shirt to pin on the line.

“Is Bailey home? I’ve got something important to tell him.”

“He’s in town; he was going to call in and see Crowley. What is it that you want to tell him?”

“Someone at the funeral was taking down number plates of everyone who was at the graveside. I mean they hadn’t attended the funeral; they were just standing near the cars writing down the plate numbers. I managed to get the number plate of his car.” At that moment Sabrina realized that she did not have the number, neither did she still remember it. She would have to wait to get into work tomorrow before she could tell Bailey the number plate. “I emailed it to myself, from John’s cell phone, so I’ll have to wait until I get to work tomorrow.”

“Wow, can you email from a cell phone?”

Sabrina nodded then got busy helping Silvie with the washing.

When Bailey came home that night, Sabrina told him about the man taking down the phone numbers and Bailey told her to phone Crowley directly as soon as she got to work the next day.

Bailey sat down with Sabrina to tell her about what he had found out from Crowley. “The reports from the crime scene indicate that Caruthers died where he was found. There was no struggle and from the angle of the knife the person who killed him was around six feet tall.”

“May’s only about five feet two, but that’s around the height that Trevor is. Does that mean that May is going to be released?”

Bailey shook his head. “Crowley said that they’re both going to be charged. If a person makes a confession to protect someone whom they know is guilty then that person must face criminal charges. If she had just confessed and her brother was not implicated and no evidence pointed toward her, she might have been let off especially if she was under some kind of duress to make the confession.”

“So since she is trying to protect her
bruder
then that is seen as a criminal offence?” Sabrina asked.

Bailey nodded. “Whenever two people confess to the same crime they are separated then questioned separately, which Crowley has already done. They both say that they stabbed their father in the back while he was in the stable and that they were alone. Since it’s clear that only one of them did it, both cases will go to trial and one will be charged with murder and it’s likely the other will be charged with perjury and or obstruction of justice.”

Sabrina put her hands to her face. “
Ach
, poor May. What about the knife?” Sabrina asked.

“There were no prints on the knife. The person who killed him was either wearing gloves or wiped the knife clean.”

Chapter 15.

Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom: I am understanding; I have strength.

By me kings reign, and princes decree justice.

Proverbs 8:14-15

The next day at work, Sabrina phoned Crowley as Bailey instructed her to. She gave Crowley the license plate of the suspicious man she had seen at the funeral.

Sabrina had to find out if it could be anyone other than Trevor who killed her boss. She knew that Jamie always got to work very early and he was the one who locked up at night. She would have to wait ‘til he goes out then she would search Mr. Caruthers’ computer.

Her opportunity came just before lunch. One of the workers wanted to show Jamie some repairs they wanted to carry out in the main stable building. As soon as he was out of the office, Sabrina slipped into Mr. Caruthers’ office and turned his computer on.

“Now, the day he died was the 8
th
so I will check his email a few days before that day.” The door of the office opened quickly. Sabrina jumped to her feet and shut the lid of the laptop. “Oh, John, you scared me.”

“What are you doing in here, Sabrina?”

She couldn’t tell him she was snooping on her dead boss, could she? “What are you doing here, John?”

“I just came to talk to Jamie.”

“What are you really doing here?” Sabrina crossed her arms and stared at him.

“Alright, I don’t trust him. For all we know Jamie could have been the one to kill Caruthers.”

“Why do you say that?”

“He’s running the place now, isn’t he? And with Trevor out of the way everything’s turned to his advantage.”

Sabrina did not tell him that Jamie had an airtight alibi; she did not want him to know about her brother-in-law unofficially helping with the case.

Sabrina shook her head and sat down behind the desk. “Close the door. I’m just checking on something. Jamie will be gone for a while; I’m just looking at the boss’s emails over the last few days before he died.”

“What are you doing? Don’t get involved,” John said.

“Shh. I’m just looking at a few things.”

There was nothing unusual in his emails, so Sabrina looked at his browsing history. Two weeks prior to his death he had looked up things about being a witness in court. “Did Mr. Caruthers say that he had any court cases coming up, John?”

John pushed out his lips and shook his head slowly. “Not that I know of. Why?”

Sabrina did not know whom she could trust. “Just wondering that’s all.”

John stepped toward her. “Come on, Sabrina; you must have asked that for a reason. What have you found out?”

Sabrina was barely listening to what he said. She’d have to see what Bailey could find out.

“Sabrina.”

Sabrina looked up at John. “Oh, nothing, just a hunch I got from something Mr. Caruthers said a few days before he died.” Sabrina bit down hard on her lip; she had lied. “Quick, we had better get out of here.”

John and Sabrina left Jamie’s office just in time. Sabrina had only just sat down behind her desk when Jamie came back.

“Any calls for me?” Jamie asked Sabrina as he headed toward his office.

“No.”

As soon as Sabrina got home that night, she told Bailey what she had learned from Caruthers’ computer.

“Caruthers’ personal computer was taken from his home, but apparently they didn’t check his work computer, it would appear,” Bailey said.

At that moment, there was a knock on the door, and when Sabrina opened the door, she saw Emma standing there. “Come in, Emma. Are you staying for dinner?”

“
Nee
, I just have some information. Ettie found it out, but she was feeling too poorly to come here herself; she asked me to tell you.”

“Silvie and Bailey, Emma’s here.”

Once the four of them were sitting in the living room, Emma began. “Sabrina, one of men you mentioned the other night, Victor Parker, is wanted in Australia and he’s been arrested here too. He led several investment scams and it seems he was doing the same thing here in the USA. He’s awaiting trial on a number of charges for instigating scams.”

“What kind of scams?” Bailey asked.

Emma unfolded a piece of paper. “The biggest one was a land investment scam. He paid people to sign for mortgages knowing these people could never pay the mortgages back, and then he bundled the mortgages and on-sold them as securities. Before that he sold parcels of swampland in the state of Queensland, Australia, to people who thought they were buying beachfront land.” Emma dropped the piece of paper into her lap. “He has had so many scams that there are too many to mention.”

“How could he do that?” Sabrina asked.

“The man has no conscience. He obviously had a lot of charisma and charm, according to the people who he swindled. He was also paying off government officials, which would have helped him along,” Emma said.

Bailey scratched his head. “These types of people have a way of making people think that they’re trustworthy.”

“Emma, how does this relate to Mr. Caruthers? Jamie said that Mr. Caruthers had been speaking of a great investment and he’d soon make a lot of money, but stopped speaking of it around a year ago,” Sabrina asked.

“Seems like he’s invested in one of these scams and was considering or had agreed to testify against Victor Parker. I’ll have Crowley see what he can find out.”

Bailey rubbed his chin. “Ettie’s been very busy finding all this out.”

“
Jah
, she has, but I’m a little worried about her. She hasn’t been well,” Emma said.

“Has she still got that rattling cough?” Silvie asked.

Emma nodded. “Elsa-May is trying to talk her into going to the doctor, but she hasn’t had much success with her.”

“I’ll go and see her tomorrow,” Silvie said. “You come with me, Emma, and we’ll see if we can get her to the doctor. She might listen to both of us.”

“Okay,” Emma said. “I’ll pick you up in the morning.”

“So it seems that Mr. Caruthers invested money with Victor Parker and then lost a whole heap of money. That’s why he was in two minds about going ahead with the expansion of his business that he had planned,” Sabrina said.

Bailey nodded.

“Well, that would make sense, since he was going to expand his business, he had to be getting the money from somewhere. He most likely thought he’d be getting a lot of money back some time soon.” Silvie took a deep breath. “Mr. Caruthers must have found out that Victor Parker was charged and was considering testifying against him, maybe suing his company as well.”

“We might have a new suspect,” Bailey said. “Crowley should have the name of the man you saw at the funeral too tomorrow, Sabrina.”