Still Life in Shadows (25 page)

But her breath only came out in guttural spurts.

Luke said, “Do you want us to call your sister?”

Kiki managed to shake her head. “Don’t …” Clutching Gideon’s arm with both of her hands she said, “I saw … I saw … a …”

“What did you see?”

“Was it a mouse?” Luke asked. “They love living inside the Dumpster. We used to put rat poisoning around.”

Kiki’s fingers pressed into the fibers of Gideon’s shirt. “Oh, tell me it isn’t so.”

“What is it?” Gideon took her by the shoulders and tried to make eye contact. “Tell me.”

She avoided his eyes.

Gideon tried again. “Kiki, what did you see?”

“A finger.”

“A what? Where?”

“At … at …” She covered her mouth, choked. “Dumpster.”

“Where did you see the finger?”

“I said at the Dumpster.”

Ormond and Luke exchanged confused looks. Ormond muttered, “What in the Sam Hill is she talking about?”

Gideon ushered Kiki into his office and helped her to his chair. “Wait here. I’ll go check it out.”

Beside the Dumpster were the two cardboard boxes Kiki had gone to throw away. The dirty green metal sliding door was partially opened, something leaning near it. Gideon stepped closer. What could she have
meant? A finger? Is that what she’d said? Once he’d seen a mouse climbing over the opening and was embarrassed that it scared him so much that he hated going to toss anything in the Dumpster after that. About that time he’d suggested mousetraps, and when they didn’t work, Ormond bought d-CON baits. Gideon inched closer so that his face was parallel with the door.

Immediately, he saw it. Resting against a stack of flattened boxes, barely visible due to the sunless day, was a human hand, an index finger sticking out of the sliding door.

He yanked the door to open it completely so that he could get a better view. Then he stopped, paralyzed for a moment. Bile rose in his throat.
No, no, this couldn’t be!
With a sprint to the garage, he rushed to the storage room. He grabbed the ladder and carried it outside. Propping it against the Dumpster, he climbed until he was higher than the metal compartment. He made himself cast his eyes downward.

Moriah’s eyes were open, hollow with fear. Crusted blood stained his army-green cotton shirt.

Gripping the ladder, Gideon fought to stay on the middle rung.

Kiki was now behind him. “Do you see it? Who does it belong to?”

“Take her inside!” Gideon shouted as both Luke and Ormond came after her.

He couldn’t look any longer. His stomach twisted and jerked like a car sputtering out of gas on a rocky road. Stepping off the ladder, he turned from the Dumpster as his last meal spewed from his mouth.

“What is it?” Kiki demanded. “Who does that finger belong to?” Quickly, before anyone could stop her, she bolted up the ladder. “No! No! No!”

Wiping his wet mouth with his hand, Gideon tried to stand straight. “Take her inside!”

He wished that Ormond would listen, would take her inside, away from this horror. “It’s not him! Say it’s not him!” Her voice escalated as Luke lifted her up and carried her into the shop.

But Gideon couldn’t lie, as much as he wanted to. For inside the
Dumpster lay a dead body, stiff as a board and caked with blood. Every inch of him seemed to be bloody. Bruises—the color of moldy cheese—spread across his chin and sunken cheeks.

“I’ll call the police,” Ormond said.

Gideon wiped his mouth again. For a second, he thought of climbing the ladder again and letting himself fall off, onto the hedges by the fence. When he came to after that, surely this scene would be erased. He’d be in bed, grateful that this day had only been a nightmare.

Gideon made himself look at the body again. The wide, lifeless eyes … searing his mind like a hot iron … the mouth that broke so easily into a smile … clamped shut. Upon closer observation, he saw that the jeans and shirt were torn in places and soiled with not only blood but dirt. “Moriah,” he cried, agony draining his voice. “Moriah,” he repeated. “Please, wake up.”

S
urely this was a nightmare. Gideon pinched the skin on his arm. He squeezed harder and felt the pain. Taking a swallow of water, he waited. Any minute now, he’d awaken. He’d be in his bed and all would be fine. He’d enter the living room and find his brother on the sofa, sleeping like a baby, a light snore escaping from his nose.

He saw his mother, dressed in one of her dark dresses, her hair bound inside her bonnet. He saw her face when she was distressed and imagined how destroyed she’d be to know that her youngest child was dead.

When he thought of his father, all he heard were the words he had been trying to escape all his life.
Can’t you ever do anything right? You can’t even keep your brother safe.

Slumping onto the floor, Gideon felt his chest expand into his throat. He muffled his first sob, but let the next ones out in loud, escalating cries.

The sensation to throw up again evaporated, and a new one took its place. Guilt.

He was at fault. He’d let Moriah die.

H
ow could he be dead? It is a lie!
Even though she’d seen the body, cold and lifeless, Kiki wanted to believe that it had not been Moriah’s. She clutched Yoneko until her nose itched from the puppet’s fur. She wanted to go home, to her real home, with Mama. Mama would rub her shoulders and buy her ice cream. Mama would—

Kiki tugged at Yoneko’s red collar. Mama was ill. Mama was not able to care for her. Why couldn’t she get that through her head?

Gideon said Moriah was ill, too. He had an addiction. Mama’s is hoarding stuffed animals, but Moriah’s was drugs.
She’d heard of cocaine and marijuana but did not know as much about this drug called meth. And she—she, Kiki Yanagi—thinking she was doing Moriah a favor, had hidden a package of this drug for him.

Kiki didn’t feel like watching
Rescue Animals
this afternoon. Her mind kept going back to tidbits of conversations she’d had with Moriah. Sure, he could be irritable—the way she got sometimes—but most of the time, he’d been nice to her. She remembered how his hand
felt on top of her head, the way he smiled at her. “I love him,” she had said to the mirror in her room.

He was dead.

Was it okay to still love someone who was dead? Was it acceptable to say,
I love you, Moriah?

Kiki stood slowly and was glad that the blood did not run from her head and make her dizzy. She looked out the window where she’d seen Angie and others playing in the shadows in the yard next door. She wished Angie was outside now. She’d join her. Angie was not to be feared because she was a friend now.

Moriah is dead, and Angie is a friend.
She wondered why the two thoughts kept bumping around together in her mind.

And people in town were saying that Gideon might have been the one to end Moriah’s life.
That is crazy. Gideon wouldn’t kill. Gideon is kind. Sure, he fought with Moriah. But I fight with Mari, too.
She’d never harm her sister, just as she was sure that Gideon would never do anything bad to Moriah.

Sheriff Kingston had arrived immediately when Ormond called his office. He and Tomlin took turns standing on the ladder to look into the Dumpster. An ambulance blared through town, its tires shrieking to a stop in the parking lot. Kiki expected men with a stretcher to immediately lift Moriah’s body from the Dumpster into the vehicle. But they didn’t. Instead, other vehicles followed, even a fire truck. Soon a bunch of people Kiki had never seen before filled the lot. Ormond said that some of them were here to investigate the scene. Rolls of yellow tape were stretched across orange cones just like Kiki had seen on TV shows, keeping those that were just nosy out of the way. Mari arrived, and Mr. Kingston allowed her to slip under the tape. When she saw Kiki, she squeezed her tightly, but after a moment, Kiki pushed away. She didn’t want to be coddled; she wanted to watch everything that was happening.

The owner of Benson’s Laundromat said he’d overheard Moriah yelling at Gideon over the fence that separated the auto shop from the
Laundromat. “I heard Gideon say he’d kill Moriah,” Mr. Benson said to the sheriff. “I heard it one afternoon about three weeks ago, plain as day.”

Others were now suspicious, and even though they’d been closed for three days, business had been slow at the shop ever since. Seemed people weren’t sure whether having a car serviced at Russell Brothers was safe since a corpse had been pulled out of the Dumpster.
Sheesh
, thought Kiki.
Doesn’t everyone know that Gideon is like a big teddy bear underneath his John Deere cap?

She knew she had to get out. This house was too stuffy, too cramped. Although it was dark, she got her bike from the garage and hopped on. She would ride and ride. She would ride until she got blisters on her feet from pedaling and until her back was sore. She would ride to Heaven if she could and ask God to please bring Moriah back to earth.

G
ideon rubbed his eyes and then tried to ease the tension in his neck. If his desk phone rang now, he wouldn’t answer. He’d let Ormond or the answering machine take the call. What if the caller was another Amish, wanting to leave home? Here he’d been the Getaway Savior and now, the most important person he’d ever wanted to help was dead. What kind of savior does that?
I couldn’t even keep my own brother alive. This is it, never again.
As much as he enjoyed helping dissatisfied people from his community and others around the country find fulfillment in the Western side of life, he could do it no more.
I’m a farce; I am no savior.

Mechanically, he walked outside, leaving the shop, calling out that he was heading to the tearoom. He wasn’t sure if anyone heard him, and he didn’t care.
What mattered now? Who cared about life and morals and all of those other things I once held dear?
He cringed at how determined he’d been on keeping the auto shop clean, on making sure everyone came to work on time and left when they were supposed to. What a crock it all was. Where was the meaning in any of it?

Mari filled a customer’s water glass quickly when she saw Gideon
enter Another Cup. Without a word, she poured green tea into a large mug and handed it to Gideon.

He thanked her, took a sip, burned his tongue.

“It’s hot.”

“I know. Guess I’m not thinking today.”

She reached over the counter and took his empty hand.

He tried to smile, but his mouth wouldn’t move. He took another taste of tea. It seemed bland this afternoon.

Customers came and went, and he tried not to notice those who spent too much time glancing at him. He purposely ignored the whispers from a table behind him. Seated at it were three elderly women sharing a plate of club sandwiches. Was it all hearsay or had the
Twin Star
printed a story about the incident? He didn’t want to know if there was a news story. He would avoid the newspaper and every other form of media connected to this town. Gideon drank the tea, now cool against his tongue, as his mind hosted a mass of noisy thoughts.

Who killed his brother? Did Henry have a list of suspects?
The autopsy report revealed that Moriah was shot in the chest with a handgun, the point of penetration just half an inch from his right ventricle.

Suddenly Kiki was at his side at the counter. She must have slipped in without him noticing her footsteps. “We have to take his body to be buried,” she announced.

“What?” Gideon ran a hand over his face.

“He asked you.” Kiki climbed onto the barstool beside him.

“He asked me what?”

“If he died, to take his body to the weeping willow tree by the apple orchard. Don’t you remember anything?”

Gideon felt the weariness ache behind his eyes. He would bury his brother here. There was no way he was going to take a body to Carlisle. Besides, Moriah would never know where he was or wasn’t buried.

But Kiki’s eyes were pleading, and when Gideon looked at Mari for some sort of help in explaining to the child that driving all the way to Pennsylvania was not necessary, he got none. Mari’s eyes were hopeful.

“I can’t go.” His words sounded hollow and hoarse.

“You can,” said Mari.

“We will be with you,” said Kiki.

“Yes,” whispered Mari. “We will help you.” Gently, she put her hand over Gideon’s.

Gideon would rather have Angie’s family’s funeral home take care of the arrangements. He told the two this, knowing that it was his last attempt to get them to see that a trip to the homeland would not be necessary. Moriah could be buried in the plot beside the wooded lot he passed on his walks to work. He’d come up with a eulogy; Angie’s family could take care of everything else. Moriah would never know that his body didn’t lie under the weeping willow.

“You can get the funeral home to give you a coffin, but then you need to take it to your parents’ house.” Kiki’s hand was firm on his sleeve.