Chapter Thirty-Seven
I wished that I could say that I had the ability to overpower the young woman, knock her down, and steal her gun, but she was forty years younger than me and six inches taller. My mind whirled over how I could get away as she marched me over to the scorched building. Nothing came to mind.
Flora smiled and waved to the people we passed on the way to the building. It was almost as if she was enjoying herself. That was the most terrifying thing.
We went in through the side door of the massive building. The first thing that hit me was the scorched smell. Where we were was dark and smoke damaged. I had a clear view of the middle of the building where the fire had begun. Bright morning sunlight shone on the fire-blackened rubble. There were dusty boot prints all over the ground. I guessed they’d been made by the firemen when trying to stop the blaze, and then by the investigators, trying to discover what exactly had happened.
“Where are you?” Flora asked. She gripped my arm.
I thought it was a strange question since she held me in place.
“Come out,” she ordered.
Slowly, a figure came out of the shadows. My mouth fell open when I saw that it was Jay. I had sensed that he was somehow involved with this. My instincts had been right about Flora and Jay, but until right now—when I could be killed—I hadn’t been sure.
Jay wrung his hands. “Flora, I can’t believe you brought her here. This was such a terrible idea. What do you think we can do with her?”
“We’ll do what we must,” she snapped.
I didn’t like the sound of that in the least.
“But we can’t get away with it.” Jay’s voice was pitched in a high whine.
“She’s an overly curious grandmother. No one would be surprised if she just happened to wander into the crime scene and get herself killed in an unfortunate accident,” Flora said.
I wasn’t a grossmaami, but I didn’t think this was the time to correct her. She was also wrong that no one would be surprised, because Lois would. She would wonder why I went into the burnt barn without her, and she would be angry about it, too, because she would have wanted to come along. But I wasn’t going to mention Lois. I didn’t want them dragging her to her death as they were trying to do to me.
“Did you go up into the loft?” Flora asked.
“Not yet,” he said in a resigned voice. I didn’t like the shift in his tone. I would have been much happier if he’d continued to argue with Flora over what a terrible idea killing me was. I personally thought it was an awful idea.
She glared at him. “Why not?”
“It’s unstable. Why should I risk my neck climbing up there when I didn’t know that you were going to go through with grabbing her? I half thought you were joking.”
“I never joke,” Flora snapped. “And I always do what I say I will. Now get up there and set it up.”
Jay bit his lower lip; despite the cold, he was sweating. He wiped his brow and pushed the sleeves up on his sweatshirt, revealing a bright red apple tattoo on his right forearm.
I stared at it. Emily Keim at Swissmen Sweets had told me about the young man with the apple tattoo who had come to see Ben at the Christmas tree farm. She had told me, too, how uncomfortable that man had made her feel. If I had only seen Jay’s tattoo earlier, this case might have been solved days ago when Lois and I were at Miller’s Lumberyard. However, because of the cool weather, Jay had been wearing a long-sleeved shirt that covered the apple.
“What are you staring at?” Jay asked.
“That just seems like an unusual tattoo.”
He glared at the apple and pulled his sleeves back down. “I got it for my grandmother. Her maiden name is Appleton.”
I frowned. How could a young man who cared about his grandmother so much that he got a tattoo for her, be willing to kill me, a woman old enough to be his grandmother?
“Jay, I can tell you don’t want to do this,” I said. “Certainly your grandmother wouldn’t want you to do this.”
Jay began to sweat even more than before, but he made no move to push up his sleeves again.
“Don’t listen to her, and don’t be a coward,” she snapped at him. “You’re just as much in this as I am. And you made it worse by stealing Ben’s bike and taking it to your job.”
That explained how the bike had ended up at the lumberyard. I realized that it had been a missed opportunity for me. If I had told Deputy Aiden about the bicycle, would the police have found Jay’s connection to the murder sooner, keeping me from winding up in this position now?
“I wasn’t thinking when I took the bike.”
“That’s the problem. You never think,” Flora snapped.
“I just wanted to make some money. I didn’t want anyone to die,” Jay said.
“You think I did?” she asked. “That wasn’t part of the plan.”
“How was I supposed to know that girl would freak out so much and start the fire?” he whined.
My head whirled as I tried to piece together their conversation in a way that made sense. At the same time, I scanned the flea market for something I could use to protect myself. There were so many things to grab, but I couldn’t reach any of them while Flora held my arm in a vise grip.
“Millie,” Flora said. “You will stand under the block and tackle hanging from the loft above, and Jay will drop it onto you.” She said this as if it made perfect sense for me to agree to her insane idea.
“Jay, you don’t want to do that,” I said. “I can see it on your face.”
Jay shook his head. “It’s your fault you’re here. You should have heeded my warning.”
I felt cold. “You threw the rock at my buggy.”
He scowled. “And it didn’t do any good. You kept asking questions.”
“You wanted to warn me to protect me,” I said. “You just wanted to make money. That’s all. Did you talk to your Uncle Ford about needing money?”
His blue eyes went wide. “How did you know that he’s my uncle?”
“Ford just told me. He said he wanted you to prove you could work hard elsewhere before working for him.”
Jay balled his hands into fists. “He’s selfish. I am his only nephew, and he doesn’t have any children. He should be supporting me. He should have at least given me a job, but he refused. He deserved to lose everything we stole from the flea market.”
As soon as he said that, the clues clicked into place in my head. “You two! You’ve been stealing from the flea market. Jay, you did it because you’re angry at your uncle.” Another thought hit me. “And you, Flora, because this was your family farm.”
“Why shouldn’t I have money from this place?” Flora asked. “This is my family’s land, and Waller stole it from us.”
“He didn’t steal it,” I said. “He bought it from the bank.”
“We were going to get it back!” she cried. “We just needed a little more time. The bank said we could buy it back. We had almost scrimped and saved enough to do it, and then Waller swooped in and bought it out from under us.”
“He might not have known that you were trying to get it back,” I said.
“That doesn’t matter! It’s English men like him that are taking over this county when it should be left to the Amish and the Mennonites.” She pushed me into the spot where she had wanted me to stand, so that Jay could drop the tackle on my head.
How did she know I wasn’t going to move? I might not be as agile as I once had been, but I knew enough to jump out of the way if someone was trying to kill me. Jay made his way up the ladder. Flora put me in the spot and held the gun on me. She really did have a gun, and I could see it clearly now as she released my arm and stood across from me.
It was the gun. The gun was what she was going to use to keep me in place. So I would be crushed or shot. Neither of those was a gut option. I made up my mind to jump out of the way when the time came. At least I could try to save myself. Kip always told me never to give up. Even when he was dying from cancer, he made me promise him that I would go on and live a good and full life. I meant to keep that promise.
Jay was halfway up the ladder when a giant rope fell from the loft, but not onto me. It hit Flora. She fell to the sooty floor, and the gun went skittering away. Jay jumped off the ladder and went after the gun. I did, too, but he was younger and faster and scooped it up.
Flora lay on the floor, her nose bleeding from where she had been hit with the large rope.
Behind me a small figure scurried down the ladder. It was Tess Lieb.
Flora struggled to her feet.
“What are you doing here?” Jay asked.
“Tess, I told you to stay out of this at the orchard. All you had to do was be quiet.”
Tess shivered. “I can’t be quiet any longer.”
“Shoot them both,” Flora said disgust.
He stared at the gun in his hand.
“Do it!”
“Don’t!” Tess cried. “You’re not a killer.”
“I know that! The only killer in this room is you. You’re the one who killed Ben. You started the fire,” Jay accused.
Tess took a breath. “I know.” She looked at me. “Millie, I’m so sorry. I went to the flea market that night to ask Ben to run away with me and get married. My daed was determined to send me to Wyoming. I had a lantern with me. But Jay was in the flea market stealing things. I didn’t expect anyone but Ben to be there. Before I could find Ben, Jay jumped out and scared me. I threw the lantern at him to protect myself and the flea market went up.” Tears rolled down her face. “I was so scared, I ran back home. I didn’t know that Ben was sleeping in the flea market until the next morning when I heard he was dead.”
“He was sleeping there because someone drugged him,” I said. “Was that you, Flora?” It was a guess, but I thought it was a gut one.
“Yes, I made those brownies. I knew that Waller would never let me give Ben the night off so that we could take more goods from the flea market. They were just supposed to knock him out.” Flora glared at Tess. “You started the fire, so you killed him. Jay, shoot them and let’s be done with this.”
Jay stared at the gun.
“Oh, for goodness sake, I’ll do it,” Flora said and marched over to Jay, grabbing the gun from his hand. As she moved, I noticed that a loop of the rope was still caught around her leg. The other end of it was just a foot from me. I jumped for it and pulled tight. She fell forward onto the floor again, but the gun was still in her hand.
She rolled over onto her back and aimed the gun at Tess. Tess made no attempt to move.
“Police!” Deputy Aiden shouted as he ran into the barn from the burnt opening in the building. He was followed by Deputy Little and two firemen. They rushed forward, and Deputy Aiden made short work of taking the gun from Flora and arresting both Flora and Jay.
I held out my open arms to Tess. She ran into them like a child in need of comfort. “It’s over,” I said.
“I came here to pray, to ask forgiveness for what I had done. Not just forgiveness for Ben’s death, but for not loving him the way he deserved. I was selfish and only wanted to marry him to escape my own problems. Because of that, he’s dead.”
She fell into my arms in tears.
“Shh,” I whispered and hugged her close.