Half an hour later, they were sitting down with Florence, sipping hot tea and nibbling cookies.
“I hope these aren’t the cookies you got from Levi’s house,” Elsa-May joked.
“I didn’t eat them when he was alive and I certainly wouldn’t eat them now. Wherever they are.”
“In evidence,” Ettie said. “I can’t work out whether they’ve got the stale cookies in evidence, or just the box.”
“I suppose it would be the cookies that were in the box,” Elsa-May said, “as well as the box and packaging. They might have put the cookies in those zip lock bags they use for evidence.”
“Seems weird. I just saw cookies in the box when Levi opened it.”
They proceeded to tell Florence everything they knew.
“Levi never mentioned anything to me about wanting to be cremated. It certainly was an unusual choice. I didn’t know what he wanted. The only time he ever talked to me about dying was the day that he died. The only thing he was concerned about then was me getting to the bottom of his murder. And I feel I’ve failed him. I thought the police would listen to me, I really did.”
“They listened to you and that’s why they ordered an autopsy. If it weren’t for you, they would have just thought it was a heart attack and let it go.”
“I suppose you’re right, but they still haven’t found out anything.”
“If there’s anything to find, Detective Kelly will find it. I know he’s suspicious too, but he just won’t admit it. That’s why he jumped all over the cremation as soon as he got wind of it. He thought there was something suspicious.”
“It’s not uncommon for them to miss things in autopsies,” Elsa-May said. “So I’ve heard, anyway.”
“If there were anything to find out they would’ve found it by now, I’m sure of that,” Florence said. “I still can’t figure out what Justin said to you about the two men liking the same woman. Levi and Tony Troyer. I certainly had no idea that Levi had his eyes on anyone.”
“We guessed it was his sister that Justin was talking about, but he wouldn’t say it.”
“What do we do now?” Florence asked her sisters.
Ettie said, “I don’t know, but I find it odd that Levi would think his son would try to kill him. Justin said Levi borrowed money from Tony to help John out with his debts and maybe he was charging John interest.”
Florence chuckled. “That would be just like him to charge a relative interest. Especially his only son.”
“Only child,” Elsa-May corrected.
“So, it could be that Levi had borrowed a lot of money to help John, and John had a big debt to his father. Now that his father’s gone, that debt has been wiped. Not only that, now John’s inherited the orchard.”
“We should write all this down, so we don’t forget,” Florence said.
“Why don’t we do just that?” Elsa-May said.
“We’ll put it on one of my spare recipe cards.” Florence pulled out her recipe box from a drawer, and then took out a pen and an empty recipe card. “John’s motive might have been money.” She looked at her two sisters. “Then the man next door’s motives would be what?”
Elsa-May said, “With Levi out of the way, he might’ve thought he had a better chance of getting the orchard.”
Florence scribbled that on her card. “And then we have the nurse.”
“We still don’t know the nurse’s motive. It doesn’t make sense she would kill one of her patients. And now we know Kelly was making that up about the serial killer business. It wasn’t very nice of him.”
“So we’ll put that down as unknown for the nurse’s motive, and then we have Tony Troyer, and his possible motive might’ve been jealousy if the two of them loved the same woman. Maybe she had rejected each of them, and told each that she was interested in the other one.”
“You mean she told Tony she was interested in Levi and told Levi she was interested in Tony?”
“That’s right.” Florence giggled.
“Let’s stay on the track with believable scenarios,” Elsa-May said, looking annoyed with Florence.
“I just don’t see that lovely young woman with either of those men.”
“Neither do I, Ettie,” Elsa-May said. “Unless it’s true that love is blind.”
Ettie giggled at what her older sister said. “Blind, and takes away people’s common sense also.”
“So is that the four people he named taken care of?” Elsa-May asked Florence.
“That’s it.”
“Let me see that list.” Ettie peered at the list. Something was off. None of these were strong enough motives to kill someone. There had to be something else happening that they still didn’t know about.
“What’s the matter, Ettie?”
“Just look at the list, Elsa-May. Let’s just suppose that Levi was right and someone did kill him, and it was one of these four people. You saw how John was highly emotional about performing his father’s last wish. It doesn’t seem likely to me that he would be like that after killing his father.”
“He could’ve, Ettie. He could’ve killed his father and then regretted it deeply. Also, people who habitually lie are often very good at it. They’re called psychopaths.”
Ettie sighed. Her eldest sister would always disagree with her no matter what, even if she really believed the same as she.
“Then why would two Amish men in their seventies like the same woman who was a good twenty years younger, and an Englischer at that? It’s not practical that they would pursue an Englisch woman—the both of them. And then we have the man next door claiming he paid Levi all that money. It’s odd that he’s not making much fuss about it. He’s never gone to the police about it.”
“Levi never went to the police about it either,” Florence pointed out.
“I think we can rule the neighbor out. It doesn’t make sense to kill Levi in the hope that the person who would inherit the farm might want to sell it to him. And why would a nurse turn around and kill a patient?”
“If she’s not guilty, why would she disappear?” Elsa-May asked Ettie.
“I don’t know. She could be frightened. She could think that she appears guilty and can’t face it, especially since she’s been charged once before over something she probably didn’t do.”
“The trouble with you, Ettie, is that you always think people are innocent.”
“That’s not correct. I just see both sides of things.”
Florence said, “The other thing is that Levi could’ve been totally wrong. Nobody might have been out to kill him.”
“Somehow, I believe him,” Ettie said. “I’ve never been one to believe in coincidences. I believe you were meant to be there that day, and something within Levi made him tell you of his fears right then when he did.”