“Das iss goot.” Eli nodded his approval of Joe’s full pail of foaming milk.
Joe felt as proud of his accomplishment as if he had won a trophy. Spending the early morning hours helping Eli milk the cows had proven to be a study in humility. If he had a shred of pride left after everything he had been through during the past few days, it would have dissipated the moment he walked into this Amish farmer’s barn.
He had never felt so clumsy and less skilled in his life. Manually milking a cow was no walk in the park. Had there been machinery involved, he might have been able to redeem himself, but Eli milked the old-fashioned way—head against the side of the cow and hands on udders that had been soaped and rinsed off in early-morning darkness dispelled only by lantern light.
Eli had been in high good humor as he instructed Joe in the fine art of milking, watching with a solemn expression that occasionally slipped into a goofy grin while Joe repeatedly and unsuccessfully tried to coax a stream of milk into a pail. Once he had achieved a minimal amount of success, Eli had proceeded to strip the milk from three cows to every one of Joe’s.
It was becoming apparent that Eli did not need the help as much as he needed the company and the entertainment that watching a novice provided. Joe figured he had inadvertently become Eli’s own private Saturday morning cartoon show.
It didn’t bother Joe in the least. He had received enough public adulation to last him several lifetimes. The realization that he was giving the old Amishman so many reasons to chuckle into his beard had pleased him.
And yet there came a moment when he finally figured out how to make the milk ring in strong streams against the inside of the metal bucket. The chore settled into a peaceful rhythm as he watched the fresh, pure milk rise in the bucket.
The sounds of the farm awakening around him had the soothing impression of classical music, as the patient cows munched their fodder and the roosters at both Eli’s and the Troyer sisters’ farms competed in an early morning crowing contest. The sound of horses’ hooves clip-clopping down the road as Amish men and women went to work created a sort of counter-beat to the barnyard symphony.
Eli had splashed part of Joe’s earlier milking into a round pan that was immediately ringed by a barn cat and her six kittens. Joe was surprised to hear the tiny kittens growling at one another as they lapped the warm milk. One by one they staggered off, drunk on the richness of fresh milk.
Joe suspected that this was an early morning ritual between farmer and cat, as he watched the mother feline contentedly cleaning her bemilked whiskers as her comically satiated babies, their bellies distended and drum-tight, flopped down in the loose hay and promptly fell asleep.
Eli forced a crumpled twenty-dollar bill into Joe’s hand as soon as they finished the milking, processed it, and cleaned up. Joe knew he hadn’t been worth even that. He knew Eli was simply being kind.
“Tomorrow morning, jah?” Eli said.
“You still want me?”
“Oh, sure.” Eli nodded emphatically. “Many hands make quick work.”
“Clumsy hands make long work.”
“Maybe not so clumsy tomorrow.”
“I’ll be here.”
The sun had just begun to rise as they left the barn. Eli blew out the lantern. “Do not come too early. Remember, I like to sleep late.” Eli jauntily walked toward his house, chuckling over his joke.
Walking home was a pleasure. Joe stopped for a moment to breathe in the unpolluted air while he admired the silent beauty of the sunrise. Everything felt so fresh and clean this morning. No LA smog. No traffic. Even with little sleep, it had been a long time since he’d felt so alive.
He knew they would soon have to leave this place, but his desire to get back on the road had dissipated in the short amount of time they had been here.
When he entered the kitchen and found Lydia bustling about, fixing a second breakfast for him, it felt strangely as though he were truly coming home.
“Watch me, Daddy!” Bobby ran through the kitchen wearing nothing but underwear. He climbed onto a kitchen chair and prepared to jump off. “I’m Superman!”
“Off the furniture, buddy.” Joe looped an arm around his son’s stomach and flew him around the kitchen. Bobby stretched his arms straight out and made swishing sounds with his mouth.
The medicine and the God-given healing properties of a child’s body had worked an overnight miracle. Bobby’s fever was gone and he was now practically bouncing off the walls.
With a start, Joe realized that Bobby had awakened to find him gone and had been okay with that fact. Apparently very okay.
Lydia, in her neat prayer kapp and long lavender dress, flipped bacon with a nonchalant air as though she were quite used to having small children flying through the air. He supposed she probably was, after having run an inn for so many years.
“Boo!”
This time, Joe had the presence of mind to gasp and pretend to almost drop Bobby in surprise, before he turned around to discover Anna. “Goodness, Anna. You scared me!”
She clutched both hands behind her back and rocked back and forth on her bare feet, beaming with delight at the success of her joke.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lydia nodding with approval at his reaction. “Breakfast will soon be ready,” she said.
Joe set Bobby on the floor. “Let’s go get your clothes, buddy. I think we’ll give Lydia and Anna a break from Superman.”
“ ’kay.” Bobby whooped and galloped into the living room, now pretending to be a horse, until he weakened and allowed Joe to put on his clothes and tennis shoes. The medicine was good, but it was apparent that the little boy hadn’t completely recuperated yet.
Joe had a strange feeling when he reentered the kitchen. Breakfast was waiting on the table, but all three aunts were looking at him with overly bright eyes. They kept glancing at one another, as though sharing a great secret.
After a silent prayer, in which Joe participated by thanking God in his heart for this wonderful—if temporary—home, Bertha passed him a dish of crisply fried potatoes. “We have been talking…”
Anna put a couple of slices of bacon on Bobby’s plate, and Lydia poured Joe a cup of coffee.
“…and we have a business proposition for you,” Bertha finished.
Lydia passed the cream. Anna clasped her hands beneath her chin and waited.
“You do?”
Everyone wore serious expressions. Even Bobby knew something was up and looked from one adult to another as he munched his bacon.
“We happen to know of a job opening,” Lydia said.
“I’m listening.” Joe’s voice was cautious.
“It is time we hired some help around here,” Bertha stated.
Anna nodded happily. Lydia watched him over the brim of her cup of coffee.
“We’re offering you a job,” Bertha said. “Here. Helping us. We would like to reopen the inn next spring, but there are many repairs and much cleaning that must be done. Our home needs to be painted. We can no longer take care of the yard. I need a new clothesline.”
“You could live in the daadi haus—the grandfather house.” Lydia’s voice was eager. “It was where our father lived for many years.”
“The salary won’t be large,” Bertha continued. “But it would be enough to live on and…”
Anna bounced up and down in her seat as she finished her sister’s sentence. “Bobby can stay!”
It sounded wonderful to him after the long, lonely weeks on the road. “Are you women serious?”
“Yes,” Bertha said. “As Rachel has pointed out to us many times, we are not as strong as we used to be.”
Joe toyed with his fork. “Eli told me this morning that his eight sons have given him thirty-four grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren. Why would you hire me, a stranger, when you have relatives who would help you?”
“You are right,” Bertha said. “We have many people, and they would help. But all who are old enough to be of any use have their own homes and families and jobs. More importantly”—she placed both hands flat on the table and leaned toward him—“the day you arrived, I was in my bedroom praying that Gott would allow us to show His love to one more stranger before we died. When Eli knocked on our door and I saw you and Bobby in his buggy, I knew that Gott had brought you to our door, Joe.”
“All that happened was that my truck quit and Eli was kind enough to pick me up. I doubt God had anything to do with it.”
“Gott created the world.” Bertha cocked an eyebrow. “You think He cannot break a truck motor?”
Bobby, who had been helping himself to one slice of bacon after another, understood at least part of what the ladies were saying. He stopped eating, climbed onto his father’s lap, put both hands on the sides of Joe’s face, looked him directly in the eyes, and said, “I don’t want to ride in the truck anymore, Daddy.”
Joe’s heart shattered. The three women had no idea how long he had been dragging his son around the United States and how tired he was of it.
Despite his misgivings about spending even one more day in the same town as the lovely, suspicious-eyed Rachel, he silently bowed to the Lord’s sense of humor. Becoming a handyman to three Amish women and an old dairy farmer would never have occurred to him as an option for his life—but it was looking pretty good at the moment. He had no transportation. He had no money. Unless he resorted to crime—or called Henrietta—his choices were practically nonexistent.
One thing that was not an option was going back to LA and the life he had once lived. He simply couldn’t take it anymore, and Bobby couldn’t either. In his estimation, every normal, nontraumatic day his little boy could spend with these gentle women was a godsend.
Flashes of The Witness came back. Being deep in Amish Country had thwarted the discovery of Harrison Ford’s character by the bad guys, at least for a while. Perhaps it would confuse those who were trying to find him, as well.
“I appreciate the offer, ladies,” Joe said. “More than you know. Thank you. I’ll try to do a good job.”
“Of course you will do a good job. What else would you do?” Bertha frowned. “Bobby, do you not want some scrambled eggs to go with all that bacon?”
Bobby accepted a spoonful of eggs, but his mind was on more important things. “Can I keep the white kitty cat now, Daddy?”
“Maybe.”
“You will need to get the daadi haus ready,” Bertha said. “It has long been sitting empty. There will be much work.”
Rachel entered the kitchen at that moment. “How’s Bobby this morning?”
“Much better,” Joe answered. “Aren’t you, buddy?”
Bertha glanced disapprovingly at Rachel. “Da kee shvans is immah shpoht!” she said.
“What?” Joe asked.
“Bertha just told me that the tail of the cow is always late.” Rachel made a wry face as she helped herself to a cup of coffee. “It’s something Amish mothers say to children who come straggling in.”
“Do you want some breakfast?” Lydia asked.
“Sorry, I can’t stay,” Rachel said. “Bertha’s right. I am late.” She shot a glance at Bertha. “Although I don’t think that exactly makes me a cow’s tail.” She took a sip of her coffee. “What was that I heard you saying about a job, Bertha?”
“We have hired Joe to be our handyman.” Bertha’s voice had steel in it, daring Rachel to disagree. “He will be moving into the daadi haus.”
Rachel nearly choked on her mouthful of coffee. She carefully set the cup down on the counter. “You did what?”
Anna whispered loud enough for everyone to hear. “Rachel’s mad.”
Kim was hard at work on the computer when Rachel came in from overseeing yet another fender bender. These roads were not meant to handle the heavy traffic of the Swiss Festival. And the fact that it was a gorgeous fall Saturday with the clarity that came after a thunder-
storm had brought people out in swarms.
“Did you find anything about Joe Matthews?” Rachel asked.
“Sure,” Kim said. “There are hundreds of Joe Matthews in the United States. Take your pick.”
“Try in Texas. That’s where his tags are from. We really need to find this guy.”
Kim clicked a few keys and the computer screen filled with names. “Looks like there’s at least fifty. You’re going to have to give me something more to work on.”
“Try seeing if there are any whose wives were murdered in the past year.”
“Whoa.” Kim turned to look at her, eyebrows raised. “That should narrow it down. How did you find out?”
“It’s not important.” Rachel didn’t want to admit that she had been eavesdropping.
“Is he a suspect?” Kim turned her focus back to the computer screen.
“I hope not,” Rachel said. “My aunts have hired him as their new handyman.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” Kim kept her eyes glued to the computer as she clicked keys. “Any luck in running his tags?”
“The truck belongs to a car dealership owner in Dallas, Texas. When I called, he said he had let Joe borrow it.”
“Did he give you any other information?”
“Nope. It was like talking to a wall. When I tried to get some personal information out of him, he clammed up. Said he had a customer and hung up.”
“Tough luck.”
“I suppose. It would have been even tougher if I had found out the vehicle was stolen. I’m not wanting to tell my aunts the man they just hired is a bad guy. I just want to make absolutely certain he’s not.”
“Gotcha.”
“I need to get over to the Swiss cheese judging in a few minutes.” Rachel checked her watch. “I think I’ll check in with Ed first.”
She stuck her head inside the police chief’s office. “Have you gotten word about those fingerprints?”
“Not in the system.” Ed Spencer looked up from his desk. “Sorry about that. I know you’re disappointed.”
Ed was thin and of medium height—which was why criminals tended to underestimate him until they were facedown on the ground. He was a good boss and a better cop, and Rachel respected him.
“There’s no need to be sorry, Ed. Joe’s prints not being in the system is a good thing.”
“You think?”
“It proves that the man living at my aunts hasn’t been arrested.”
“It also proves that he’s never applied for a government job or gotten a driver’s license in Texas, California, or Florida, the three states that require fingerprints.”
No Texas driver’s license? Interesting. Joe had driven to his car dealership buddy’s from some other state. Eliminating those three states narrowed it down a little. Only forty-seven to go.
“Are you done with the man, Rachel?”
She moved from the doorway into Ed’s office. “I’d like to know who he is and where he came from.”
“Maybe he’s Joe Matthews, like he says. A decent man who’s down on his luck. A lot of good people are having a hard time these days.” He fiddled with a pencil. “Have a seat.”
She slid into a chair.
Ed dropped the pencil, clasped both hands, put them behind his neck, and leaned back. “Do you know what the difference is between being poor and being homeless, Rachel?”
“No.”
“It’s family.”
She had to acknowledge the truth of that statement. After she had been released from the hospital in Cleveland, she’d sheltered with her aunts until she had recuperated enough to hire on with the Sugarcreek police force a year and a half ago. What if she’d had no one?
“Maybe this guy is just a decent man who doesn’t have anyone he can turn to,” Ed said.
“But he’s hiding something. There’s something off with him, Ed. I can feel it.”
“ ‘Off’ as in being a psychopath, or ‘off’ as being half a sandwich short of a picnic?”
“Neither.” Rachel drummed her fingers on her knee. “If you cut his hair, dressed him in a business suit, and put him in a boardroom, he’d dominate the meeting. He has a presence about him that simply doesn’t fit someone who is in his present circumstances.”
“You’re impressed with him?”
She glanced down at the floor. “How can I be impressed with someone who is living off the charity of my relatives?”
“I thought you told me that he’d been doing work around the farm. That doesn’t sound like a man looking for a handout. It sounds like your aunts have simply worked out a barter arrangement. The Amish do it all the time.”
“He is a hard worker,” Rachel said reluctantly.
“You’re dogging a man who has done nothing illegal, is taking care of his child the best he can, is trying to pay your aunts back with repairs around the farm, and whose only crime is that his truck broke down in a strange town and he doesn’t have the money to repair it.”
“It’s not quite like that.”
“It’s exactly like that. What’s really eating at you, Rachel?”
“Nothing. I’m just trying to do my job.”
“There’s more than that going on.” He sighed. “Okay. We’ve tiptoed around it ever since you got here. Are you ready to talk about what happened in Cleveland?”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“You saved the life of a woman and her three children.”
“I screwed up.”
“That’s how you see what happened? A screw-up?”
“I should have called for backup earlier. I shouldn’t have tried to deal with the situation alone.”
“You made a judgment call. None of us can read minds.”
“I lost control of a situation.”
“You fought a mentally ill man three times your size and gave his wife and children time to escape to safety. You could have been killed, but you protected them anyway.”
“I could have handled it better.”
Ed arose and walked over to a bookcase beside his desk. He returned with a framed picture of a man in uniform and handed it to her.
“Your dad was the best cop I’ve ever known. He hired me fresh out of the academy because he saw something he thought he could use.”
She traced her father’s face with her finger.
“I chose you for this job out of twenty-four other qualified applicants. All of whom were bigger than you.”
“And male.” She pointed out.
“Yes.”
“Don’t tell me you hired me because of my dad.”
“I did, but not for the reasons you’re thinking. If Frank Troyer were alive, he’d have my hide if he thought I put you on the police force simply because you were his daughter.”
“Then why did you?”
“Frank always said there were four kinds of people who go into law enforcement. Some crave the power over others they think the job entails. Some want the respect they think comes with the uniform. Some simply like the adrenaline rush of chasing down bad guys—they think it will make them feel like heroes. All are eventually disillusioned. But there are the others—the fourth kind—who simply have a heart for protecting the weak and the helpless.”
He took the picture from her and set it carefully on his bookshelf. “You were born with that kind of heart, just like your dad. That’s the reason I hired you.”
It was true. That’s all she had ever wanted—to protect the weak and helpless. Even if it had meant drinking her dinner through a straw in the hospital for a month while her broken jaw healed.
“You’re a good cop, Rachel. One of the best. But I’m worried about you. A person needs some balance in life. You can’t be a cop twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. You have to hang up your gun from time to time and just be a person, or you aren’t going to last in this job—even here in Sugarcreek. You’ll burn out. I think you are already beginning to.”
“I have my aunts.”
“But do you have any friends your own age? Do you have any hobbies? Any other interests? Do you ever just let down and go to the movies or bowling or, I don’t know, church activities of any kind?”
“I have a good life.”
“You need more in your life than a gun and a badge.”
“No offense, Ed, but what can it possibly matter to you what I do when I’m not at work, as long as it isn’t illegal?”
“Because I drove out to the farm and visited with your aunts. I talked to Eli. Met Joe. Watched him interact with his son. He seems like a decent man to me. Eli likes him. So do your aunts. I think you’re seeing boogeymen where there are none. I think part of it is because of what happened in Cleveland and part of it is because you never, ever, unclench your emotional fists. You see danger everywhere you look. That’s not healthy. You have to realize that sometimes all you’re looking at are people just getting by the best they can.”
His words hit her like a slap. “I don’t know how else to be.”
“Then you’d better learn.” Ed picked up the papers he had been working on. “Because I wouldn’t want to let go of one of the best cops we’ve ever had.”