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Tony snagged Agatha’s hand as she started back toward her place.
“You’re going to stay home and clean?”
“Ya. I’ve been neglecting the place.”
“Doesn’t sound like you at all.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You enjoy putting your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say that.”
“You never give up on a mystery.”
She sighed, crossed her arms, then admitted, “I’m stuck. I can’t think of a single lead.”
“No leads, huh?” He tucked a stray hair into her kapp. “So you’re not giving up, you’re just...”
“Pausing. I’m pausing. Even if you do find the buggy that has those letters Henry drew, I don’t think you’re going to find the person who shot Joey sitting in it. Most likely the person borrowed the buggy from someone else. Happens all the time. Sort of like leaving the keys in your truck in case someone needs it.”
“I would never do that.”
“But you’ve loaned it to someone from time to time.”
He nodded in agreement. She knew he’d done that very thing just the week before.
“All right. Just promise me you’ll stay out of trouble.”
“I’m offended by that remark, Tony Vargas.”
“Oh, are you?”
“Ya, but it’s also kind of sweet.” She brushed imaginary lent off his shoulder. “Thank you for worrying about me.”
And she did have every intention of staying home and cleaning and baking. The only guests she had were Henry and Emma. Supper would be simple enough. Maybe they could even play some Dutch Blitz afterwards.
She’d given Gina the day off. The woman had worked more than her allotted hours already that week. Emma was in the kitchen, helping her cut biscuit dough into dumplings when there was a thud on the front porch.
“Uh-oh.”
They ran out together, only to find a rock, wrapped in newspaper on the front porch.
“Lucky it didn’t hit a window.”
Carefully pulling the paper off the rock, Agatha was surprised to find nothing else wrapped around it.
“Turn the paper over,” Emma said.
And there was the note, written in black permanent marker over the newsprint.
You shouldn’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong.
If you don’t want someone else to get kilt, meet me in one hour.
There was a crude map drawn below the words.
“Do you know where that is?” Emma asked.
“I think so.”
“Are you going to go?”
“Ya. I don’t want anyone else to get kilt...” She rolled her eyes, though some instinct told her this might be a quite serious matter.
“I’m going with you then.”
Agatha looked up, studied Emma for a moment, then nodded.
They tried to call Tony, but his phone must have been out of service. It wouldn’t even go through to voice mail, which was odd, but then cell service was notoriously bad in their area. Or so people said. Agatha wouldn’t know.
Then she called Gina and explained the situation. She held the phone’s receiver away from her ear and grimaced at Emma. She wants to go, she mouthed, before pulling the receiver closer and addressing Gina. “You can’t go with us. Someone needs to tell Tony and Henry when they return. Or keep trying to call him. I couldn’t get any answer at all. Emma has drawn out a copy of the note and map. We’ll leave it here on the table.”
She hung up quickly before Gina could talk her out of it.
“I suppose she wasn’t happy.”
“Not at all.”
“She’s a gut friend.”
“That she is.” They were nearly out the door when Agatha turned to Emma and said, “Could you go and fetch Henry’s drawing journal?”
“Ya. Sure.”
Ten minutes later they had Doc hitched to the buggy and had hit the road. Agatha glanced at her watch. The note had said one hour, and they’d already spent twenty-five minutes just getting out of the house.
Emma drove the buggy while Agatha paged through Henry’s drawings. “Something has been driving me crazy. Something I saw in one of these drawings...”
“Do I turn here?”
“Nein. It’s another half a mile down the road.”
“Are you sure we should be doing this?”
“I am not, but on the other hand what else could we do?”
“True enough.”
Agatha stopped pawing through the drawings and looked at Emma. “I’m sorry to drag you into this.”
“There was no dragging involved.” She smiled, and though it was unwarranted considering where they were headed, it was also genuine.
Agatha liked Emma and hoped they would remain life-long friends. One could never have too many friends.
“My life was rather quiet before I became involved with Henry.”
“Was it now?”
“I knew what I was getting into...eyes wide open and all that. I didn’t know what being a bishop’s wife would entail. That kept me awake some nights...but this part? Dealing with his gift? I rather feel like it’s what Gotte intended me to do. Does that make sense?”
Agatha thought of Tony and how smoothly they worked together as a team. Tony, who had been so sad and despondent over the death of his wife. Tony, who had saved her on more than one occasion.
“It does make sense.” She glanced back down at the paper in her hands. “That’s it!”
Emma jumped and looked at her in surprise.
“Here. Turn here. Then pull over. I want you to look at this.” The day had turned cold and the wind had picked up. It was still Texas weather—no snow in the forecast, but the north wind had a bite to it. Agatha rather wished she was home, sitting in her rocker, reading a good book.
That wasn’t true.
She was glad she was here, with Emma, and hopefully about to put the question of Nathan’s killer to rest.
“We noticed something around the goats’ necks.”
“I remember that. It didn’t make sense though. It’s not as if you’d put a halter on a goat.”
“But I think someone did.” Agatha tapped the drawing. “I think those are rope fibers in the goat’s hair.”
“Okay. Maybe. But it still doesn’t make any sense.”
“And then there’s the bruising around Nathan’s neck.”
Emma touched the drawing. “If someone got close enough to choke him, why did they step back and shoot him?”
“Also, we have this bit of tire track...”
“Only Tony thinks it belongs to a mountain bike.”
“I think so too. And don’t forget the piece of paper.” She shuffled through the pages again. “Here. This was not written in Nathan’s handwriting. I’m sure of it. Last night I pulled out a note he’d written me. I don’t even know why I kept the thing. It wasn’t personal at all, just a note telling me he’d enjoyed our date. Anyway, it’s not the same handwriting. I’m sure of it.”
“Someone was threatening him.”
“Reminding him that he was going to pay...but for what?”
“And what does it have to do with the person who threw the rock onto your porch? Do you think the two notes are related somehow?”
“That’s what my mind was trying to remember.” She traced the letters on Henry’s drawing. “Look at the way the person makes their letter y, look at the loopy tail.”
“Huh.”
Agatha pulled out the note they’d found on her front porch only an hour before. The y’s were an identical match. “The same person who left this note to me, also sent a note to Nathan—a note he had in his pocket when he was murdered.”
“So both are from the killer.”
“Maybe.” Agatha reached for Emma’s hand. “Do you still want to do this? Because I wouldn’t blame you one tiny bit if you—”
She never finished the sentence. Emma squeezed her hand, picked up the reins and called out to Doc.
Ten minutes later they were pulling into a remote farm. The fields looked as if they hadn’t been planted in some time. The house’s roof had long ago caved in, and the barn was leaning slightly.
“There. A bicycle.”
It had been left near the corral to the east of the barn.
“And a buggy—an old dented one, near the door of the barn.” Agatha slipped the tablet under the seat.
“Should we wait?” Emma glanced back the way they had come. “Tony and Henry can’t be far behind.”
“The note said one hour. I think...I think it’s been close to that.”
“Okay. Fine. Then we go in together.”
“Let’s leave Doc back here. In case there’s any shooting.” Even as the words came out of Agatha’s mouth she had to suppress the urge to laugh. Surely she was being dramatic. Surely someone wasn’t lying in wait, pistol drawn, ready to put a bullet through their hearts.
Nein.
She wasn’t certain about much in this life, but she was certain that she wasn’t going to die today from a gunshot.
You would know.
Wouldn’t you know?
You’d have some sense of impending doom. All she’d woken with was a hankering to cook a cobbler and a pressing desire to finish the baby blanket she was knitting.
They walked toward the corral, holding onto their kapp strings, the north wind tugging at their dresses.
Agatha bent over the bicycle tire, comparing the treads to what she’d seen in Henry’s picture. If her memory was clear, and she knew it was, they were a perfect match.
She stood to call out to Emma, who was peering into the corral, when she heard a swish and then felt something tug her shoulders. She looked down to find a rope wrapped around her upper body, and then from behind she heard a satisfied laugh.
“Easier to rope than a goat, that’s for certain.”
Emma lurched toward her friend.
“Don’t do it. I’ll pull her off her feet and across that pasture.” Quick as a cat sprinting toward fresh milk, the other end of the rope was wrapped around a saddle which sat atop a pretty black gelding. “Beauty here likes to run. All it will take is one slap from me. So you best stay where you are, Emma Lapp.”
Agatha met Emma’s eyes. Neither said a word.
“What do you say we all go into the barn?”
Which was a terrible idea in Agatha’s opinion. The barn looked as dangerous as the person standing in front of them.
“At least it’ll be out of the wind,” Emma muttered.
She went first. As she passed Agatha, she pretended to stumble into her and whispered, “Henry and Tony will be here soon.” Then she marched forward, head held high and back straight. Agatha followed, and Nathan’s killer brought up the rear. The barn would have been dark, but there were holes in the roof that allowed some of the scant afternoon light to reach them.
Nathan’s killer stopped to free the other end of the rope from the gelding, then slapped its rear, sending the horse into a gallop across the pasture.
Agatha could have been dragged to her death!
She would have at least suffered a concussion and some good bruises. It was a sobering thought.
“Agatha, I want you to knock that crate over and sit down on it. That’s good. Now Emma, fetch another and put it beside your friend. Not facing, back to back.”
Again the cackle, but this time it sent shivers up Agatha’s spine. It was the laugh of insanity, of a person beyond reason.
Once they were both seated, Nathan’s killer fetched another rope off the wall, slipped it over Emma’s shoulders, and then walked around the two women, binding them together.
“This is my best calf rope. Four-strand texturized poly-blend. It’s guaranteed to hold up in all weather conditions. Reliable. That’s important. Don’t you think? Reliability? You ought to feel honored.”
“Well, we don’t.” Agatha’s temper was rising. “This is ridiculous. Let us go this minute or...”
“Or what? You going to call the police? Oops. No cell phone so you can’t. You can’t even call that boyfriend dee-tective of yours. And by the time Henry gets here to draw what he sees, I’ll be long gone.”
Lickety-split, the killer had secured a tight knot in the rope. Agatha’s left shoulder was beginning to hurt already, and the throbbing pain wasn’t helping her temper one bit.
“Why did you do it? Why did you kill him? What did Nathan King do to you?”
“None of your bizz-ness, Agatha.” One jerk on the rope confirmed the knot was secure. “You wouldn’t understand anyway. You and your perfect little home with your long line of guests just waiting to hand over money so they can spend a few days on the river. You have a perfect life, Agatha. I wonder if you know that.”
“I do now,” Agatha muttered.
“And Emma, you and your savant husband, taking vacations in Texas. If that isn’t putting on airs, I don’t know what is. I had everything figured out, even waited for the rain so it would erase any clues. But you and Henry had to go snooping around. Well, now you’re going to pay for that.”
“What are you planning to do with us?” Emma’s voice didn’t waver at all. In fact, she sounded as if she was speaking to a wayward child.
“None of your bees-wax.” Quick as a wildfire crossing a dry Texas field, Nathan’s killer sprinted to the door.
Agatha couldn’t make out much in the darkness of the barn. Some old hay bales were stacked against one wall. Cobwebs covered the ceiling, and something...something with beady eyes stared at her.
“What is that?”
“Ha. You’ve noticed my little friends. Don’t worry about them. Bats are nocturnal. You’ll be dead long before they begin their nightly hunt.” And with a last cackle, the person Agatha had thought she knew, a member of their own congregation, Nathan’s killer, fled into the afternoon.
“Agatha, we have a problem.”
“Yup. I don’t like bats, though I am aware that they eat a lot of mosquitos and such.”
“Not what I’m talking about.”
“Rats? Did you see a rat?”
“Over there.” Emma must have nodded toward the direction that Agatha couldn’t see. She felt a tug on the rope as Emma leaned slightly forward.
“What is it?”
“A gas can.”
That was when Agatha finally admitted to herself that they were in very serious trouble.