Chapter Twenty-Six

“I knew it. I knew it,” Ruth said. “I knew that boy from Michigan would be trouble for the district. You tried to fool me into thinking that he was a gut young man, but I should have trusted my instincts. They are never wrong.”

“They’re wrong in this case, Ruth. Ben was not on drugs. If he was, I would have known,” I said.

The other women shared a look with each other. I was certain they were wondering how I could make such a claim. Perhaps I couldn’t, but it was still impossible for me to believe Ben would take drugs. “If Ben was on drugs, what drugs was he taking?”

Raellen shook her head. “I didn’t hear that part.”

I frowned at her. “If you don’t know the whole story, then maybe you shouldn’t go around repeating it.”

She hung her head, and I regretted my sharp tongue. However, that didn’t make what I had said any less true. Raellen needed to learn to control her tongue before someone was hurt by it, before she was hurt by it.

Even so, I should not have spoken so sharply to her. “Raellen, I am sorry if I sounded harsh. That was not my intention.”

She looked up. “I know that you are just hurting, Millie.”

I nodded. “But can you please tell me how you learned about the drugs?”

She swallowed as if she was considering my request. I knew she wouldn’t want to give up her news source for fear I would go and talk to that person. I would if I knew who it was.

“I heard it from an Amish driver,” she said. “He said that his cousin is a technician at the county morgue. The technician said that there were drugs at the scene and in Ben, too, when they did the autopsy.”

I bit the inside of my lip. A morgue technician, I would assume, was a reliable source. “I know Ben didn’t start that fire. I just know it.”

“Whether or not Ben started the fire,” Ruth interrupted, “are we going to participate in the flea market?”

“Let’s put it to a vote,” Leah said. “Raise your hand if you want to have Double Stitch at the outdoor market on Saturday.”

Leah, Raellen, and I raised our hands, and, after a beat, Iris tentatively lifted hers too. Of the group, she was the one most intimidated by the bishop’s wife.

Ruth folded her arms. “I see I’m outvoted, but I never said that this quilting circle was a democracy.”

“Sure, it is, Ruth,” I said. “We voted on that too.”

She scowled at me.

“Millie,” Iris asked. “Have you heard from Ben’s family in Michigan?”

I nodded my head. “I called twice and spoke briefly to Ben’s stepmother. Linus, Ben’s father, is on his way to Harvest. He might already be here for all I know.”

“Oh, he’s here,” Ruth said. “He was here at the house today, speaking to the bishop about a small service for Ben. He said the police released the body to him.”

I stared at her. “And you are just telling me this now? Ruth, you know that I would have wanted to know about Ben’s funeral.”

“It’s not even a full funeral.” She sniffed. “Linus only wants a brief prayer at the gravesite.”

“Even so, you should have told me.”

“I thought you would have known because you are so close to the family,” she said hotly.

I took a breath. There was no point in getting angry at Ruth over this. “When’s the gravesite service?”

“Tomorrow at the cemetery at seven in the morning. Linus said that he had an Amish driver taking him back to Michigan at eight, so it had to be early.”

My heart sank as I realized that Linus had no intention of speaking to me about Ben while he was in Ohio, and I might have missed Ben’s service altogether if Ruth had not mentioned it. But I was going to be at the service, and I would make Linus talk to me. I didn’t care how he felt about it. Ben was my friend, and I owed him that.

“I’m surprised this is the first time I’m hearing of this,” Raellen said.

“You don’t know everything that is going on in the village, Raellen,” Ruth snapped.

Iris and Leah shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

“Let us quilt and speak of happier things,” Leah suggested. “I have a niece who is to be married in the spring. I just heard the news.”

And with that, the conversation moved away from drugs and murder onto weddings and family gatherings. I didn’t speak much while the other women compared what they planned to make for the upcoming holidays. An Amish cook can never plan her Christmas menu too soon. However, I was too preoccupied with what Raellen had said. Could it be true that Ben had been on drugs when he died? Would the drugs have caused him to set the fire and then fall asleep in a building that was ablaze? It didn’t seem plausible.

Also, why hadn’t Deputy Aiden told me? Why, instead, did I have to hear about it from a gossipy neighbor?

The women and I worked on our quilts for another hour, and we agreed that on Saturday, we would take turns at the quilting stand at the flea market in one-hour shifts. Ruth even signed on for an hour. This way the weight of manning the booth wouldn’t be all on poor Iris.

At the end of the meeting, we said good-bye to Ruth and walked out in a group.

Raellen stopped me as I untied Bessie from the hitching post. “Millie, I’m so sorry. I should have told you what I knew about Ben and the drugs in private.” She pressed her lips together. “Will you forgive me?”

“There’s nothing to forgive, Raellen. I know that you don’t do these things with the intention to hurt.”

“I don’t.” Her face fell. “My husband is quite angry at me for speaking about the quilting circle and the crimes in the village so much. He would much rather that I just tend to the house and the children.”

I frowned. “Did he tell you that I was there very early this morning to use the shed phone?”

She nodded. “He did. He was furious about it. I’m afraid that he blames you for my ramblings.”

“I know he does.”

“It’s not fair of him. I’m curious about these things on my own. I wish he’d understand that, but Roman doesn’t have curiosity. He just wants things to be as they always were. I can’t be like that, and the older we become, the more stuck in our own ways we become too.” She bit her lip.

I was sad to learn that my suspicions were right, and Raellen was struggling in her marriage. I knew that she would never get divorced. It was frowned upon in the Amish community, and she had those nine children to care for. Other than making quilts, she didn’t work outside of the home, so it was hard to imagine how she would make enough money to care for the children. I could tell her to speak to the bishop about it, but I feared that he would side with her husband. If he did, that would do little to change things for Raellen. In fact, it might make her feel worse.

“What brought you to the shed phone so early this morning?” Raellen asked.

Despite her husband not wanting her to ask questions of this type, she simply could not help prodding just a little.

“I was calling Lois. I needed a ride.” I left it at that. I knew if I said any more, Raellen would spread the news through the district, despite her best intentions.

She nodded. “We should have come together, Millie, just like Iris and Leah did.”

I smiled. “Lois and I were out and about until it was time for me to leave, but ya, that would be a good idea for next time.”

“Gut, because now that autumn is here, these roads can be dangerous in the dark.” She walked to her buggy.

Frowning, I watched her go. There was something vaguely menacing about her last statement. I tried to put that thought out of my head.

It was getting on to dusk, and it was time that Bessie and I went home. I knew Peaches the kitten and the goats would be looking for me. Perhaps it was something that came with age, but I no longer liked being out after nightfall alone. I felt my eyesight wasn’t as reliable as it once had been, and even though I had yellow markers and headlights on my buggy, both of which were allowed by my district, I didn’t feel safe on the road at night when a car flew by me. It seemed to me Englisch drivers were far less patient with Amish buggies at night, and too many times I had heard about buggy-auto accidents that happened on the county roads after dark.

Bessie seemed to sense my need to get home, and she didn’t fight me when I put the bit back in her mouth. I knew that at times it bothered her, so I was careful only to use it when I needed to run the buggy. We were both up there in age. As my father used to say, “getting older wasn’t for wimps.” Of all the proverbs and lessons that I remembered and recited, I found this to be one of the most true to life. I didn’t realize it when I was a child, but that wasn’t even an Amish proverb. My father must have heard it from his Englisch friends. Surely, the “wimp” part should’ve tipped me off.

“That’s right, girl. Let’s go home. Phillip and Peter are anxious to greet you at the barn.”

She shook her bridle at that. Bessie just barely tolerated my two rambunctious goats. They tended to hop around a little too much for her liking.

“I know that they can be a pain, but they mean well.”

I imagined the horse rolled her eyes at that comment. My, what Ruth Yoder would think if she knew I spoke to my horse in such a way.

It was probably best that Ruth didn’t know what I was thinking half the time. And, in truth, it was for the best that I didn’t know what Ruth was thinking. We would find each other more irritating if we did. Not knowing exactly what was on each other’s minds was indeed a blessing.

Bessie and I turned out of the Yoders’ road and made our way home. Despite the misgivings that I felt from Raellen’s last comment, we made it home without incident.

There was something about autumn that made it a little more urgent to be safe and cozy inside. The nights grew longer and colder. The chill in the air could trick your mind into believing that there was something afoot. I was Amish and took pride in not being a superstitious person. It was not the Amish way to believe in such things. We trusted in Gott to keep us safe. We needed no more security than that.

Bessie turned into my long gravel driveway, and I pulled back on her reins. “Let me get the mail, old girl. I don’t want to walk back out here in the dark.”

She kicked at the gravel but came to a stop. I hopped out of the buggy and went to my mailbox on the road. I opened it to find a number of bills and one letter from a friend. I was happy to see the letter, the bills not nearly so much.

I was about to climb back into the buggy when there was a scraping sound behind me in the brush that lined the road. I turned but didn’t see anyone there. I thought I’d imagined it. Or could it be the goats? I had put them in the barn when I’d left because I knew I wouldn’t be back until after dark.

“Phillip, Peter,” I whispered. “If that’s you, come out and show yourselves.”

There was more scraping, and I told myself Gott would protect me, but it was gut not to be foolish. It was time to go home. I put my hand on the side of the buggy to climb back in.

Wham! A rock hit the buggy just to the right of my hand. It hit the buggy very hard. I gripped Bessie’s reins, and thankfully, she did not bolt down the driveway. She was a well-trained horse, and when I pulled back on the reins to keep her still, she didn’t budge.

There was a commotion in the brush now, and I saw a figure running away. It was too dark to see if it was man or woman, Englisch or Amish, but I got the distinct impression that it was a person.

My breath caught and I hopped out of the buggy again. There was a rock the size of my hand just a foot from the buggy. I bent and picked it up. There was a piece of paper rubber banded to it.

I climbed back into the buggy and directed Bessie to take us into the barn. She didn’t wait for me to flick the reins twice.