Chapter 23
Halfway across the field, Duck stopped abruptly, ripped the tie cord out of the bottom of her jacket, and used the nylon to tie her wrists behind her back. “That’s better,” he said.
Not better for me, Rachel thought. She winced as he yanked the cord tight. “That hurts,” she protested.
“Too bad for you.”
“Come on, Duck.” Buddy hurried to catch up. “No need to be rough with her.”
“Shut up!” Duck snapped. “She brought this on herself.”
“No, she didn’t,” Buddy argued, punching his cousin in the shoulder. “It was you. You had to throw that beer bottle at the wagon.”
“That was an accident. And you’re as much to blame as me. You were driving the truck. If I go to jail, you get the same sentence.” He jabbed Buddy with a finger. “And don’t you forget it!”
“It was an accident, Rachel. I swear it,” Buddy insisted. “We never meant to hurt her.”
Rachel suddenly felt light-headed. He was talking about Elsie. She’d already guessed he was responsible, but somehow hearing him say it... “How could you do such a thing, Buddy?” she demanded, getting in his face. “How could you kill an innocent person?”
Buddy shrank back. “I . . . I didn’t. He’s the one who did it.”
Duck shoved her. “Another word out of you,” he said to Buddy, “and I’ll make you sorry you were born.”
“Idiot,” Buddy muttered. “You were always an idiot.”
Duck let go of her long enough to swing a fist at Buddy. Buddy dodged him and took off into the darkness.
Duck seized Rachel by her arm and dragged her forward. The flashlight beam bobbed, but she caught glimpses of rocks and trees and high grass. She could tell that they were moving uphill, maybe back toward the house, but she couldn’t be certain. The darkness, the violence, and the revelation that Duck and Buddy had killed Elsie . . . and probably Dathan . . . had left her rattled.
Suddenly, a stone structure loomed in front of them and Buddy appeared, out of the darkness, running ahead. The small building was rooted in the stony ground, backed up against a steep rise, perhaps a story and a half high. A shallow stream spilled out from under the front wall and water soaked her shoes. They splashed through it. Two whitewashed steps led to an old board-and-batten door. A springhouse, she realized. And if this was the springhouse for the Miller farm, they couldn’t be far from the house and barns.
“Open the door,” Duck ordered. Buddy moved up the steps and slid back an iron bar. Years, weather, attacks by black bears—all had taken their toll on both door and latch. Deep claw marks scarred the thick oak, but Rachel could see that it was a formidable obstacle for a four-legged intruder.
Buddy swung the low door open and shined his flashlight through the doorway. Duck shoved Rachel again. “Get inside,” he ordered.
The steps were steep and uneven, and Rachel struggled to climb them without the use of her arms for balance. Her heart was pounding. She could feel something wet dripping from her nose. Blood. At some point in the confrontation, she must have also bitten her tongue or the inside of her mouth, because she could taste blood. Being trapped like this was bad. Bad.
But her fear wasn’t for her own safety as much as for Mary Aaron’s. Please, God, let her be in here, Rachel prayed silently as she stumbled up the stone steps. Let her be alive.
At the top of the steps, Duck pushed her through the opening. Cobwebs dragged at her face. The floorboards sagged under her feet, and she smelled dampness and rodent droppings. Buddy’s flashlight scanned the room.
“Rachel!” Mary Aaron cried.
Rachel caught a glimpse of her cousin, sitting on the rotting floorboards, her back against a wooden post, ankles and wrists wrapped in tape. Mary Aaron was awake and alert, her eyes wide, her expression fierce. She was wearing a pair of jeans, a flannel shirt, and a puffy vest that Rachel recognized from her own closet. And the cowboy boots. There was a water bottle between her knees.
“This has gone far enough!” Mary Aaron shouted at the men. “It’s all over, guys. Time you turned yourselves in. If it was just an accident, the way you said, Buddy—”
“I told you, I didn’t hit her with the bottle,” Buddy protested. “It was him.”
“Yeah, so what?” Duck retorted. “Who was driving the truck that flattened the guy?”
“Dathan was getting away,” Buddy argued, turning to Rachel. “I didn’t mean to kill him. I was just trying to knock him down to—”
“Shut up!” Duck repeated. “Quit running your mouth and tie her up.”
Buddy yanked off his ball cap and threw it on the floor. “I don’t know what you’re thinkin’ here, Cousin. First the girl, then him, and now these two? It ain’t right.”
“It ain’t right we spend the rest of our lives in the slammer for an accident either, is it?” Duck said. “Do you know what those places are like? It won’t be some little wimpy jailhouse. It will be state. And I’ve been there. I know what it’s like. And I won’t go back.”
“But we won’t go to jail, right?” Buddy’s tone took on a whine. “We’re takin’ off. We’re going to North Dakota? Plenty of jobs up there in the oil fields. Start over. Make some real money, isn’t that what you promised?”
Duck stood there, staring at Buddy. “You’ve got to be the stupidest guy in the state. You just told them our plan!” He gestured to Mary Aaron and Rachel, who was moving toward her cousin. “You think we can just leave them to run their mouths? They know about the truck.”
“Not just me,” Mary Aaron said. “I called Trooper Mars. I left a message on her voicemail. I told her about the truck and the dent in the front. You think there’s no DNA on the truck in the shed? You think the police won’t find out how you killed Elsie and kidnapped Dathan and killed him, too? It’s over. It’s all over, and the only hope you have of not being locked up for the rest of your lives is to surrender right now. Get a good lawyer and explain how it was all an accident.”
Duck glared at Mary Aaron. “You left a message, she’d have long been here. Tape that one’s mouth,” he said to Buddy, pointing to Mary Aaron. “She hasn’t shut up in the last day. And put that one there.” He indicated Rachel and then the pole Mary Aaron was leaning against.
Rachel didn’t think, she just moved. She lowered her head and charged Duck. She hit him full in the stomach, and he staggered backward. “Scream!” she shouted as she gained her own balance and ran toward the door.
“Catch her!” Duck yelled.
“Don’t hurt her!” Mary Aaron shrieked. “You hurt her and—”
Buddy slammed into Rachel and they both went down. Rachel’s head hit against the floor hard and the room spun. Mary Aaron’s screams were suddenly muffled, and Rachel felt herself being lifted up off the floor and shoved back against the same beam that her cousin was tied to.
Cursing, Duck sat Rachel down, slapping her hard across the face. Her head rocked back. “Give me that tape,” he barked to Buddy. He ripped off a section and taped her ankles together. Mary Aaron’s protests continued while Rachel tried to catch her breath and clear her head. She was going to have to be smart here, she and Mary Aaron, or she was afraid they were both going to end up dead. Buddy, she could deal with, but his cousin? Duck was mean. And deadly.
“Grossdaddi’s gonna hear them,” Buddy warned.
“Is not. He’s deaf as a stone. He won’t hear nothing,” Duck argued. “This springhouse is too far from the house. So, yell your head off,” he told Rachel. “It ain’t going to do you any good.”
“But he might hear. If he puts his hearing aid in,” Buddy said.
“If he does, I’ve got plenty of tape left.” Duck spun the roll of duct tape on his finger. “He’s old. He couldn’t do nothing to us. He doesn’t watch himself, he’ll end up the same as them.”
“But he’s our grandpa. You can’t tie your grandpa up,” Buddy worried anxiously. “And you shouldn’t have hit her like that. You’re not supposed to hit girls.”
Duck stood upright, wiping the dirt and cobwebs away from his mouth. “Yeah, and you shouldn’t have sent that dude flying with your truck. Broke his back, probably. Crushed his skull. But you did, didn’t you?”
Buddy’s flashlight beam jerked, and light spilled across the floor. Rachel saw that some of the boards were missing. Below was only darkness and the rush of running water. She began to shiver uncontrollably as damp and dread seized her. Then she felt Mary Aaron’s fingers brush hers, and Rachel slowly got control of her panic.
Buddy was near to tears. “I didn’t mean to do it,” he blubbered. “I keep telling you that. He was getting away, and I just had to stop him. But I never touched the girl. I tried to help her. I bandaged her head. I didn’t think she was going to die.”
“Why didn’t you just call the paramedics when you saw that Elsie was injured?” Rachel begged. “Why did you take the horse and wagon?”
“We got scared,” Buddy said. “I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“You want to tell truths?” Duck laughed. “Truth is, you were drunk out of your head that night. It was your idea to go bash some mailboxes.”
“But it wasn’t my idea to throw beer bottles at horse and wagons.” Buddy looked to Rachel. “I didn’t think she was gonna die. She was awake and talking when we brought her and him and the horse and wagon back here. We were just figuring out how to get out of town before we cut them loose. But then the horse got out through a break in the fence and . . .” He hung his head. He sounded as if he was trying not to cry. “And then she did die,” he said, softer than before.
“Oh, Buddy,” Rachel sighed. “So you buried her in the Amish graveyard? Did that seem like the right thing to do?”
“She was dead, wasn’t she?” Duck snapped. “But that one was Buddy’s idea.” He hooked a thumb in Buddy’s direction. “Seemed smart at the time.”
“We tried to tell Dathan it was an accident,” Buddy explained as he retrieved his cap and tugged it on. “We didn’t want to hurt either of them. It was just fun and all. Duck and me were smashing mailboxes, like you do. Sort of a game. But then he threw the bottle.”
“And killed Elsie,” Rachel exhaled, still in disbelief that such grief could have come from such a foolish act. How many lives had Duck ruined with that beer bottle? “But if killing Elsie was an accident,” she said, looking at both of them, “why kill Dathan, too?”
Buddy broke down. “When she died, Dathan went crazy. Wouldn’t listen to reason. Kept shouting that we’d murdered her and we were going to prison.”
“So you killed him with your truck,” Rachel demanded, “and you turned a drunken accident into a double murder.”
“I’m sorry.” Buddy was sobbing. “I’m so sorry. I never wanted to hurt anybody. We were just—”
“Will you shut up!” Duck shouted, grabbing Buddy’s arm and dragging him backward. “It’s too late for all that. Get out of here.”
“Is Wynter back yet?” Buddy wiped his snotty nose with the sleeve of his brown camo Carhartt jacket.
“She will be.”
“And then we’re heading to North Dakota, right? To get them oil jobs?”
“Oh, yeah, you can count on it.” Duck followed Buddy out of the springhouse and jerked the door shut behind him.
Rachel heard the iron bar slam into place, and the springhouse descended into blackness again.
“Get this tape off my mouth,” Mary Aaron mumbled. Apparently she’d loosened it enough so that Rachel could understand her. She wiggled as close as she could get to Rachel, leaning against her.
Even though Rachel’s hands were tied with the cord from her jacket, and she couldn’t see a thing, she was able to grope with her fingers to catch the edge of the duct tape on Mary Aaron’s mouth. It was difficult to maintain her grip, though, because Duck had tied the cord so tightly that most of the feeling was gone in her fingers. “This’s going to hurt,” she warned.
“Just get the tape—Ouch!” Mary Aaron jerked back as Rachel ripped off the tape. “I hoped you’d figure out where I went when I didn’t come home, but I didn’t expect you to come alone.”
“You would have made it easier if you’d left a note where you were going and why.” Rachel strained at the cord on her wrists, but all it did was to tighten the knots. “What made you come up here to John’s farm last night? And don’t tell me to bring him pie.”
“Buddy lied about getting tires put on. On his blue truck. And I knew that Wynter and Duck were staying here and that they were close with Buddy. I came looking for Buddy’s truck. I never suspected they were all in on it. I didn’t find the truck.” She motioned with her chin. “But I did find Charles’s wagon. It’s in the barn.”
“Truck’s in the back.” Rachel shifted her weight. There seemed to be a nail head coming through the floorboard directly under where she was sitting. “How do you know it was Charles’s wagon?”
“There were bloodstains on the seat and floor,” Mary Aaron said, clearly making an effort to remain detached. “And somebody had gone to a lot of effort to hide it. They piled hay on top of it. It’s got to be Elsie’s blood,” she finished softly.
Rachel’s tone was gentle when she spoke. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming up here, Mary Aaron? I’d have come with you.”
“I thought it was safe enough with John here. And like I said, it hadn’t occurred to me that Duck and Wynter were in on the whole thing. I just thought maybe one of them knew something about Buddy, not that they were involved in Elsie and Dathan’s deaths.”
“But you were concerned enough to leave a message on Lucy’s phone.”
Mary Aaron groaned. “Duck was right. I made that part up.”
Rachel leaned the back of her head against the pole for a second. “So you didn’t call Lucy?”
“I tried. I tried to call you when I found the wagon, and then Trooper Mars. But I couldn’t get a signal.”
“Whose phone did you use?”
“John Hannah’s.”
“Where is it?”
“Buddy took it.”
“They took mine, too.” Rachel exhaled. Her head was pounding and her nose had started to bleed again. And she was tied up. But she wasn’t ready to give up. She just had to think. She just had to figure out how to get Mary Aaron and herself out of this. “Mary Aaron. What were you thinking? And look at you! You’re wearing my clothes. What are you doing?”
Mary Aaron sighed loudly. “Making a mess of my life, obviously.”
Rachel didn’t respond.
“So,” her cousin asked. “How did they get you?”
“I came up here looking for you. I talked to John, and then on the way out, I stopped to look around for Hulda’s car. I honestly didn’t think you were here. I was afraid you’d run off the road with it last night. Had a terrible accident.”
“I didn’t wreck. I know how to drive.”
“Then I discovered the Jag,” Rachel went on. “But Duck and Buddy caught me.” She looked toward Mary Aaron, even though it was too dark to see anything. “Have you seen Wynter? It doesn’t sound like she was with Duck and Buddy, but it would be too good to be true to think she might be able to help us.”
“Ne, I haven’t seen her since this morning. But she’s part of it. She knows what happened. I heard Buddy tell Duck that she knew where John hid his savings. He doesn’t believe in banks. Apparently Wynter’s the thief of the group.”
“She intends to rob her grandfather?” The nail was still digging into Rachel’s thigh and she shifted to another position. The pins-and-needles sensation in her hands was fading, replaced with a dull ache. “I didn’t ask if they’d hurt you. Are you okay?”
“Duck hit me. I hit him in the elbow with an ax handle.”
“Why didn’t you use the other end?”
Mary Aaron managed a halfhearted chuckle. “There was no other end. The ax head was missing. I tried to get away by climbing a ladder to the hayloft in the barn. I would have made it, but the ladder rungs were rotten. One broke and I fell about ten feet to the floor. I did something to my right knee. It’s all swollen, and I don’t know if I can put any weight on it. Buddy had to carry me to the springhouse. But he’s not so bad. He gave me his coat last night so I wouldn’t be cold.”
“That vest has a rip in it,” Rachel said. “It was new.”
Mary Aaron sighed again. “Sorry.”
“You should be. And you’re going to have to buy me a new one once we get out of this mess.” She looked down at her cousin’s feet. “Apparently you’ve got a Zappos account now.”
“You get us out of this and I’ll buy you two down vests,” Mary Aaron told her. Rachel heard her shift her weight. “This didn’t work out like I thought it would,” Mary Aaron went on. “I wanted to find the truck with evidence that they had been involved in Elsie’s murder and solve the case. Like you did before.” She sounded as if she was about to cry. “I wish I was home in my own bed.”
“Me, too,” Rachel admitted. They were quiet for a moment, and then she said, “Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Leaving.”
“This springhouse? I hope so.”
Rachel swallowed. Her mouth felt dry, and she could still taste blood. “I meant, are you leaving the church?”
“I don’t think so. Jeans aren’t as comfortable as they look when English girls wear them.”
“Can you be serious? We’re in a bad spot here.” We could die, Rachel thought, but she didn’t want to say so. Saying so would make it all the more real. “Are your hands taped, too?” she asked.
“Ya, but there’s a trickle of water leaking in through the back wall of the springhouse. I’ve been soaking the tape when—”
“Shhh!” Rachel cautioned. Something scraped on the steps beyond the door. The latch squeaked. A beam of light flashed across Rachel’s face. It was a more powerful light than the flashlights had been earlier.
“It’s just me,” Buddy said. “Don’t be scared. I brought you a blanket. The temperature’s dropping outside. We might get frost tonight.”
“I’m thirsty,” Rachel said. “Could you give me a drink?”
He picked up the water bottle from between Mary Aaron’s knees. Rachel hoped that Buddy wouldn’t notice that the tape around Mary Aaron’s mouth was gone. Buddy unscrewed the bottle cap and held the bottle to her mouth. Rachel took a long drink, coughed, and shook her head.
“No more,” she said. “Thank you for the blanket. I am cold. But aren’t you going to get in trouble with Duck for bringing it? He won’t like it.”
“Duck don’t tell me what to do.” He spread the blanket over their laps. “Besides, he went to check on our grandfather. To make sure he’s asleep. Duck won’t find out I’m here. I’m not stupid.”
“I can see that,” Rachel reasoned. “But he’s the boss. He’s the one who started all this. He threw the bottle and killed Elsie. You said he did.”
“He threw the bottle. It was an accident. But the bottle hit the girl right in the head. It was awful, dented her skull in.”
Mary Aaron uttered a tiny whimper.
“I’m so sorry. We were just drinking like we do, messing around, throwing beer bottles, hitting mailboxes. We never intended to kill anybody. Not a girl. Not anybody.”
“But it happened,” Rachel said. “And now all this. But you’re just making it worse, Buddy. You know that, right? If you tell the truth, people will listen. Elsie was Amish. So was Dathan. You know how the Amish forgive. If you say you’re sorry, if you mean it, they won’t insist on you going to jail.”
“I can’t go to jail. You heard Duck. Bad stuff happens in there. Bad stuff happened to him. He was different before he went to Lewisburg. He just ain’t the same. But he’s my cousin, like a brother to me. I gotta look out for him.”
“You have to look out for yourself, Buddy,” Rachel argued. She hesitated and then went on. “You know Duck wants to kill us, right?”
“He won’t really kill you. He’s just scared because he’s on parole. He’s afraid they’ll send him back for a long time. He said we would work it all out, and stuff just got out of hand. That girl, she shouldn’t have died. She was awake and talking to me.”
“What did she say? Did she ask you for help?”
Buddy shrugged. “It didn’t make much sense. I know some Deitsch, but she was just jabbering. Something about her father and getting home on time. I thought she’d be okay in the morning and then we’d let them go.”
“But you took them away from the scene of the accident? You took the horse and wagon,” Rachel said. “Why?”
“Duck was scared somebody would come along. And I’d had a few beers and I didn’t want a DUI. We brought them here. Just until we sobered up and got our plan worked out. I never thought she would die. Then Duck said we couldn’t let him go, because he’d tell.”
“How did Dathan get from here to where he was killed?”
Buddy grimaced. “I said it wasn’t safe here. Wynter said so, too. We were gonna take Dathan to this guy Duck knew. Then when we were safe away from here, Duck’s friend could let him go.”
“But he got away?”
“Yeah. I don’t know how. He was in the back of the truck. He was tied up. But he got loose. He jumped out and started running down the road. He was fast. I was just trying to catch up with him and I accidentally hit him. He just flew through the air.”
“So why didn’t you keep going to North Dakota then? Why did you stay?”
“It was Wynter. She said the truck was evidence. Cops would stop me before I got across the state line. We needed a new car or to get my bumper replaced. That’s what we were working on when you saw us in Wagler’s.”
“So Roy Thompson was going to do the bodywork and then you were heading to North Dakota?”
“Yeah. Wynter said she knew where Grossdaddi had a couple thousand dollars stashed. She wasn’t going to take it all, just enough for expenses. You can make a fortune out there, working on the oil wells. We can make a new start.”
“But there won’t be any new start if Duck kills us,” Rachel said. “You know my fiancé is a state trooper. A detective. You murder us, and the authorities will hunt you down no matter where you go.”
“I won’t let him hurt you. The other stuff, that just piled up. But we’ll leave you here. And tomorrow, when we’re a long way off, I’ll just call 9-1-1 and say that you’re up here. Nobody else needs to get hurt.”
“That’s not going to happen. You know that, right, Buddy? Duck’s going to kill us. And he might kill you, too,” Rachel insisted.
“No, you don’t know him like I do. Duck’s family. He’s smart, and he cares what happens to me and Wynter. Thousands of guys up there in North Dakota. Nobody will find us. And if they try, we’ll just slip over the border to Canada. I’ve always wanted to see—”
The door flew open. “You idiot! What are you doing back in here?” Duck filled the doorway. He was wearing a headlamp now. “I told you—”
“You can’t keep tellin’ me what to do,” Buddy protested. “We’re in this together. Gramps okay?”
“He’s sound asleep. I told you he’d never hear them yelling.”
“I think—I think we need to leave for Dakota tonight—tonight,” Buddy stammered. “Right now. Just leave Rachel and Mary and go.”
“We will,” Duck said. “As soon as we clean up the loose ends. We can’t leave witnesses, not now that you blabbed where we’re going.”
Wynter appeared in the doorway behind Duck.
“Wynter, tell—tell him he can’t do this,” Buddy pleaded. “He’s got this crazy idea we can kill Rachel and Mary Aaron. I can’t—”
“I got it, Duck,” she said, cutting Buddy off. “Right where I thought it was.”
“The money?” Buddy asked.
“Oh, yeah, and what I went to town for. He sold it to me, all right.”
Rachel’s breath caught in her throat as she saw a flash of metal.
“You heard Duck,” Wynter said as she pointed a revolver at Mary Aaron. “No witnesses.”