Chapter Thirty
I was grateful when Lois didn’t argue with me about going to the funeral. Not that I thought she would. And she spoke the truth when it came to the hat too. We were in her car driving to the cemetery when she reached into her purse and tossed two hats onto my lap. “Which one should I wear? I didn’t know that I would be going to an Amish funeral today, or I would have brought something black.”
The first hat was a bright pink crocheted beret, and the second was a multicolored cloche covered with felt flowers.
“The beret?” I said.
“You don’t sound too certain about that.” She glanced away from the road for just a moment to look at me.
“That’s because I’m not.”
“Okay. I’ll wear the pink one. It’s more sedate.”
If she said so.
The district’s cemetery was at the top of a hill in a secluded part of the county. A lone sycamore tree stood at the top of the hill in the middle of the plain funeral plots. I sucked in a breath as soon as the tree came into view.
“Are you okay?” Lois asked.
“Kip’s buried under that tree,” I said. “I have been meaning to come back and visit since I moved home to Holmes County but haven’t yet. It’s just such a shame that Ben’s death was the event to bring me here.”
She squeezed my hand. “You’ve told me before that the Amish believe that when a person dies, they are no longer on this earth. Not visiting Kip’s grave doesn’t mean you love him any less.”
I smiled at her. “I know that, but perhaps I should have come here for me. For some type of peace or closure, as you Englischers call it.”
Lois looked as if she wanted to ask me more about that, but I wasn’t sure I was prepared to answer her questions. I was saved by pointing out the only other Englisch car parked along the road near the cemetery. It was Deputy Aiden’s departmental SUV. “We have company.”
“He did mention that he was coming to this last night,” Lois said.
“Nee, he did not.”
Lois parked the car and we both got out. If Deputy Aiden was surprised to see us, he didn’t show it. The deputy stayed outside the weathered rail fence that surrounded the cemetery. He leaned against his vehicle.
Inside of the fence, a small group of mourners stood around a fresh grave. It was a quarter to seven, but it looked to me as if the service was about to start early.
“Are you going inside, Deputy Aiden?” Lois asked.
He shook his head, and then, looking at me, he said, “I’m very sorry for your loss, Millie. I truly am.”
Something lodged in my throat, and I couldn’t answer. I only nodded.
Lois took my arm as we walked through the opening in the fence. There was no gate.
Among the mourners, I saw Bishop Yoder, Ruth, three other elders from the district, and Linus Baughman. Linus was a tall, lanky man. His face was perpetually tanned from working hours in the sun on his farm. He wore a pair of round glasses that were perched high on his nose, and he frowned at me.
“It seems to me,” Bishop Yoder said, “that everyone we expected to come is now here. Shall we begin?”
Linus gave a slight nod.
Bishop Yoder led us in a short prayer, and then Ruth began to sing a hymn as we each threw a handful of dirt onto the coffin. Ruth’s voice was a clear and strong alto. Beside me, I heard Lois sniffle. I didn’t look at her. I knew if I did, I would break down as well.
After Ruth’s song, the bishop said another short prayer, and then it was over. Bishop Yoder and each of the elders spoke to Linus in turn. He nodded at their words.
Ruth walked over to where Lois and I were standing. “I expected you to be here, Millie.” She wrinkled her nose. “But not you, Lois.”
Lois cocked her head. “Ben was my friend, too, and I came to pay my respects.”
“You’re not Amish,” Ruth shot back.
“I have no idea why you continually feel the need to point that out to me,” Lois said. “I think my first clue that I wasn’t Amish was when I was born in a hospital.”
Behind them, Linus began to walk with one of the district elders to the cluster of buggies. This might be my only chance to speak to him. I left Ruth and Lois bickering at the edge of the cemetery and hurried after him. “Linus! Can I speak to you for a moment?”
He turned and looked at me and then spoke quietly to the district elder. The elder nodded and walked the rest of the way to his buggy.
Linus waited for me just on the other side of the fence. “Millie,” he said.
“I’m glad that you are here. I’m so very sorry about Ben.”
He pursed his lips. “Danki.”
“I tried to call you a couple of times about all this, but you must have already been on your way here.”
“I came as soon as the police told me,” he said.
“I just want you to know that Ben was doing very well in Holmes County. He was happy.”
He nodded but said nothing. Linus was not making this conversation easy for me. Not that I expected he would. He was a stern man, and as far as I knew, had always been so.
“I know it must have been difficult for Ben to choose to move to Ohio, but he was doing very well. He had several jobs and was extremely responsible.”
“I am glad he moved. I told him he needed to find a place to go. This was as gut as any other place.”
I raised one brow. This was not what I’d expected him to say. I’d thought he would be angry because Ben had chosen to move so far away from his home district. “You approved of his moving here?” I asked.
“I’m starting a new family with my new wife. It would not do to have my adult son hanging about. He needed to make his own way. Since he was showing no motivation to leave on his own, I encouraged him to go.”
I frowned. To push one’s child out of the nest wasn’t a very Amish practice. Typically, young Amish men and women lived with their parents until they were married. I wondered if Linus’s new wife had asked Linus to make Ben leave because he was a reminder of Linus’s old life. I hoped that I was wrong in that suspicion.
I shook my head. It was not my place to judge the choices that Linus and his wife made about raising their family. One of my proverbs came to mind. “It is better to hold out a helping hand than point a finger.”
I took a breath. “Is there anything I can do for you? Ben was a great help to me when my sister was ill. I would like to help you, too, if I can.”
“I think you have done enough, Millie.” He said this in a way that suggested I had done too much and none of it was gut.
As much as it hurt me to hear that, I did not argue with him. No matter what his relationship with his son had been, he had lost his child. That was something I had never been through and, as a childless widow, would never be able to fully understand. Even so, I said, “I do have some of Ben’s belongings. You should take them.”
“The police gave me some of his things.”
“There is also a courting buggy that he paid for. It’s in my barn.” I swallowed. “It was never used. He was courting a young woman named Tess Lieb, but he died before the buggy was completed. It’s rightfully yours.”
“I don’t want the buggy,” Linus said.
“You could sell it, or I could sell it for you and send you the money,” I offered.
He scowled at me. “I don’t want the buggy or the money.”
“But—”
“But nothing,” he snapped. “I have made my decision. Please respect that. I do not care what you do with the buggy.”
My heart sank.
“Now, I must go. I have an Englisch driver waiting for me in Millersburg to take me back to Michigan.” He walked away.
I took a step after him and then stopped myself. He’d made his choice.
He paused and looked over his shoulder. “Danki for taking care of my boy while he was here.”
Before I could respond, he walked to the waiting buggy and climbed in.
Lois joined me. “That didn’t look like it went so well.”
I gave her a sad smile. “I would say that it didn’t.”
“What did he say about the courting buggy?”
“He doesn’t want it. Doesn’t want to sell it for the money either.”
“I suppose that makes it yours now.”
I frowned, unsure how I felt about that.
Deputy Aiden joined us at the fence. “It was a lovely service even if it was brief and I couldn’t understand the Pennsylvania Dutch. There was a serenity about it.”
“I couldn’t agree more, Deputy,” Lois said.
“Why didn’t you come into the cemetery?” I asked.
“I promised the bishop that I would just observe from outside the fence. He did not want law enforcement at the service.”
“You didn’t stop Linus to talk to him. Didn’t you want to question him about what he might know of Ben’s death?” I asked.
“I spoke to him yesterday when he arrived in Holmes County. He came down to the station and was there for a couple of hours. I’m sorry to say that he had little contact with his son after he left Michigan, so he wasn’t much help in the investigation.”
“If you already spoke to Linus, why come to the funeral at all?” I asked.
He frowned. “In the middle of a murder investigation, we usually go to the funeral to see who shows up—or doesn’t. It can be telling at times.”
“What did you learn?” Lois asked.
Deputy Aiden folded his arms.
“I am glad that Linus had the service, no matter how small it was. Ben deserved a Christian burial and he would have wanted his daed to be there,” I said.
Deputy Aiden nodded.
“It’s clear to me that Linus had nothing to do with his son’s death,” I added.
“I don’t see how he could. He was in Michigan when Ben died, nowhere near the fire. We know he was there because I called the sheriff’s department in his county, and an officer went to Linus’s farm to tell him about his son. I know it is difficult to get hold of the Amish on their shed phones, and this was certainly not a message I wanted to leave him over an answering machine.”
I had felt the same way when I left my first message at the Baughman farm after Ben’s death.
“Where does that leave the investigation?” Lois asked.
Deputy Aiden rubbed the back of his neck. “Pending. The sheriff is tired of so many resources being used for this case when there is no factual evidence of foul play. All that we know for sure is that Ben ate brownies laced with marijuana and fell asleep. The fire was caused by a broken lantern. We do not know if that lantern was broken on purpose or accidentally. It is possible that Ben knocked over the lantern unwittingly when he was high from the drug.”
“Are you telling us that you are giving up on the case?” Lois asked.
He frowned. “No, not yet, but if I don’t find something to prove there was foul play involved, the sheriff might just take the case from me and close it. Permanently.”
And Ben’s reputation would remain tarnished forever.