NADIA HAD MADE the front page of the Henness Herald.
When Ben appeared at the breakfast table, Lucy had said, “You need to read that.” Loathing filled her voice.
A snippet about the late-evening shooting in the business district had appeared in yesterday’s paper. Today’s article expanded on it. By the time Ben reached the second paragraph, his blood pressure was soaring.
Anonymous sources identified Nadia Markovic as the victim. Markovic was previously named as a suspect in the theft of over $100,000 raised during a community-wide charitable event to benefit victims needing help to rebuild after tornado damage.
Previously named? Presumably an anonymous source for that statement, too, since in fact the police department had not named any persons of interest.
The article continued with more details about the shooting, including a mention that Markovic remained in the hospital, recovering from her wound. There was a suggestion that the “widespread anger Markovic stirred in the wake of the charity event” left investigators flummoxed as to where to begin seeking this perpetrator. Police had declined to comment, as did the Amish co-chair of the quilt auction and sale, put on with such hopeful intentions.
Declined? Ben hadn’t been asked for a comment, and no one in his department would have done anything but refer a call from the newspaper editor to him.
With a growl, Ben turned to the next-to-last page, where editorials, political cartoons and letters to the editor appeared. The editorial had to do with a noise ordinance the city council was considering. But the two letters to the editor concerned Nadia and her “alleged” theft of the money, and were both vicious and small-minded. He’d have liked to call them actionable, but all the right qualifiers had been inserted, and he’d be willing to bet the editor and principal reporter of the newspaper had taken care of that. Nice way to make his point without his name being appended.
Ben had clashed with Dave Rutledge before, but this time he’d gone too far. As pissed as Ben was that Rutledge had made clear how inept he thought “investigators”—read Ben—were, it was the slaps at Nadia that enraged him.
The front-page article wasn’t news; it was a thinly disguised editorial. And by God, Ben was going to force a retraction. He’d be stopping by to chat with the two authors of the letters to the editor, too. Their nastiness made them prime suspects in Monday night’s attack on Nadia, as far as he was concerned. He might even “name” them as such. Let Rutledge publish that.
“Does Nadia subscribe?” he asked.
“I think so.” Lucy sounded as shaken as she was angry. “She’s being released this morning, right? I’ll go by and ask Hannah to get rid of this morning’s paper before Nadia can see it.”
The article and, even worse, the letters to the editor were another slap to cement her certainty that she couldn’t stay in Byrum.
Didn’t these fools realize that only the Amish were keeping this town alive at all? That the vacant space next door to her store where a florist had gone out of business, that the abandoned building behind hers where a small manufacturer had probably once employed twenty people or more, were only a few of the empty commercial buildings and storefronts in Byrum? Nadia was the first outsider in a long time to open a business in Byrum—replacing one that had been closed—and make it thrive. A business that offered products locals needed, and drew tourists as well.
Her success might have inspired someone else to try. But it would seem the good citizens of Byrum and Henness County in general would rather suffer a continued economic decline than welcome anyone they hadn’t known their entire lives.
Right this minute, he despised the people he had sworn to serve and protect. Ben didn’t much like the feeling.
“Much as I hate knowing how this crap will make her feel, I think we need to let Nadia see this,” he said. “Sooner or later, someone will mention it. She wouldn’t appreciate being unprepared.”
“But...”
“Nadia is strong,” he said quietly. “You’ll see.”
Not looking at him, Lucy nodded and pushed away from the table. “I wish I could say that about myself.”
“I wasn’t comparing you.”
“I know you weren’t. I was comparing myself.”
A moment later, he heard her footsteps on the stairs.
* * *
“I CAN SIT behind the cash register and ring up sales,” Nadia told Hannah in the late morning Wednesday, “if you’ll take over the class this afternoon.” Fortunately, this was their block of the month class. Not that canceling would be the end of the world, she thought. At best, two or three of the registrants might show up.
Hands planted on her hips, expression stern, Hannah looked like a mother taking on a recalcitrant teenager. “You should lie down.”
“I’ve been lying down for two days. I’ll go crazy if I have to stare at another ceiling.” Accepting her determination to spend at least a little time in the shop, Ben had taken her medication and hospital paperwork up to her apartment.
She hadn’t admitted to him that she felt a teeny bit light-headed every time she stood up. With her left arm in a sling at the doctor’s insistence, she wouldn’t be able to heft bolts of fabric onto the cutting table, either. But, by heavens, she could sit here. Probably she should use her time to look at mail, catch up on her newspapers, but she wasn’t ready for a dose of reality on top of the pain pills. Bills could wait.
And, if any customers materialized, she could operate the cash register.
Hannah threw up her hands. “Ja, fine. Ach, you are as muleheaded as Jacob.”
Nadia laughed. It hurt—but it felt good, too.
“Someone is here,” Hannah said, looking past her.
The tension in her voice had Nadia swiveling on her stool. An extra-long van had pulled up right in front. It seemed to be crammed full of people. An attack squad? Protesters?
Well, attack squad was probably out, since the passengers seemed to all be women, some young enough to spring out of the van, the middle-aged and elderly passengers taking more care. They streamed toward her door.
Nadia braced herself.
The first through the door swept the store with an avid look. The second, middle-aged, wore a hot-pink T-shirt that said “Old quilters never die. They just go to pieces.”
She grinned at Hannah and Nadia, both of whom were probably gaping. “We’re a little overwhelming, aren’t we? We’re all quilters from Kansas City. Every six months or so, we hire a van and take two days to travel from one fabric store to another. You weren’t here the last time we came to this part of the state.”
In Colorado, Nadia had belonged to a group like this. They were all hungry to find that one special fabric or a color and pattern perfect for a quilt in the planning. No two stores carried the same stock. Nadia made a point of searching out new and unusual lines.
“We’ve only been open six months. Welcome!”
The women spread throughout the store with gasps and cries of delight. Several others, she saw in passing, also wore T-shirts with slogans. The most apropos was one that said “Ever hear about the quilter that had too much fabric? Me neither.” She counted—it felt like more, but there were nine women in the group.
They exclaimed over quilts on display, but most plunged right in between rows of fabric. In no time, they were heaping bolts of fabric on the cutting table, where Hannah worked nonstop with the rotary cutter.
“Oh, I’m not sure there’s five yards left on this bolt,” she’d say. “Let’s see.” Then, “Ja, ja! Chust enough.” Her accent seemed to be thickening with the excitement.
A minute later. “Three yards of each? I will chust pile them here, see?”
Nadia directed several of the women to her displays of fat quarters and fat eighths—small pieces perfect for accents. She bundled many that went together.
The crowd stayed for almost two hours, and spent an astronomical amount of money, sweeping out at last with bags bulging with fabric, thread and a few quilting books.
“This is a fabulous store,” one woman assured her, while another said, “We’ll be back!”
The women piled into the van. As it pulled away from the curb, waving hands could be seen.
Neither Hannah nor Nadia moved for a minute. Then they looked at each other and laughed.
“I think I need to lie down now!” Hannah declared.
“Oh, my. It was like two weeks’ worth of customers all in two hours.”
“The blade on the cutter was getting dull.”
“It felt like a whirlwind.”
Hannah giggled. “Ja! That one woman—did you see her? She bought thirty yards, and some fat quarters, too.”
If gloating was prideful, Hannah didn’t remark on it. Unfortunately, the anesthetic properties of all that excitement wore off with the speed of a birthday balloon losing its helium, and Nadia realized if she didn’t take a pain pill and lie down, she’d be flat on her face any minute.
Hannah shooed her upstairs, where she ate a couple soda crackers in hopes they’d protect her stomach, swallowed a pill and lay down very carefully on her side in bed. She couldn’t decide if her shoulder or her head hurt the worst. But thank goodness she’d been stubborn! Hannah couldn’t have coped on her own, not with so many eager shoppers at the same time.
A smile curved Nadia’s mouth as her eyelids grew heavy. But it wasn’t the numbers she’d rung up on the cash register she was thinking about as sleep sucked her in. No, she pictured Ben in the chair beside her bed the past two nights. Every time she started awake, he seemed to know and would soothe her back to sleep with gentle touches and the deep velvet of his voice.
She hadn’t overcome her fears where he was concerned, and she winced away from the memory of the humiliating search and the scary and hurtful knowledge that he believed she had stolen the money. But...the Ben who hadn’t left her side all night, who had held her hand and kept her safe, he was hard to resist.
When she woke up two hours later, heart pounding from a dream that slid away from her while leaving a weight of dread, she moved stiffly to the kitchen where she ate cottage cheese and a peach, then went downstairs.
Somebody tried to kill me.
And that was why Ben had stayed at her side. Not out of passionate devotion, but because he was determined to keep her alive.
She nodded at the women just arriving for the class session, puzzled when their gazes touched on her sling and slid away. Neither asked how she’d been hurt. Because they already knew?
Lips pressing together, she marched to the hallway where her mailbox was located. Mail and newspapers went in from the street side; she unlocked a small door to retrieve what had been delivered.
The handful of envelopes probably did contain bills; she didn’t really look at them. It was the two newspapers she hadn’t yet seen she set on the counter beside the cash register. The Downtown Shooting headline caught her eye immediately.
Within seconds, nausea hit.
Markovic was previously named as a suspect in the theft of over $100,000 raised during a community-wide charitable event to benefit victims needing help to rebuild after tornado damage.
Still absorbing the other veiled allegations, she read the rest of the newspaper mechanically, not really taking any of it in.
But she did take in the vitriolic content of the letters to the editor. Oh, yes. She did.
* * *
AFTER CONTEMPLATING THE surprisingly full parking lot, Ben walked into the Harley-Davidson store on the outskirts of Byrum. The place was busier than Hy-Vee, the only large grocery store in town. He scanned the store as he did any space when he entered it, his eye catching on a cluster of guys in their late teens or early twenties ogling a bike, chrome and black leather and a powerful engine, not to mention a price way out of their means. Dreaming was a lot of fun, though, and it appeared the salesman was being indulgent.
He recognized the woman he’d come to see, working behind the counter. Her hair wasn’t the same color it had been, but he knew her, all right. She was tied up right now, apparently helping a pair of women make a decision on...he couldn’t tell from this distance. Coffee mugs? Maybe. Another customer was hanging back waiting for her attention.
It was logical that the store offered replacement parts and accessories for the motorcycles, as he’d have expected, and, okay, riding pants and chaps, helmets, boots and bandannas. But regular clothes? Men’s and women’s departments both carried shirts, jeans, caps, distinguished by the Harley name or logo. There was even luggage. When he finally approached the glass counter, he saw the coffee mugs, along with barware, clocks, sunglasses and heated gloves. No, not just gloves—heated vests, jacket liners and pants, too. Seemed like cheating to him.
“Chief Slater.” The platinum blonde behind the counter said. “Did you find something that interests you?”
“Afraid not,” he said easily. “I was passing by, thought I’d stop by to check in with you.”
“With me?” Alarm flickered in her eyes, but he didn’t get excited; most people got worried when he came looking for them. “Have you found out something about Aunt Edith?”
“Afraid not. Although I’ve been in and out of her place a lot these past few weeks, as you probably know.”
“There does seem to have been some excitement there.” She gave a quirky smile. “I kind of pay attention, since I owned the building for a little while.”
Thirty years old in March, Corinne Bissett must have been a lot prettier before she started looking hard. He guessed she smoked, which had an aging effect. Or maybe it was just the heavy makeup, the too obvious cleavage and the white-blond hair contrasting with darker roots. Ben’s gaze flicked to her hand—no wedding or engagement ring. She did have pierced ears, along with probably 90 percent of the other women her age, today wearing something dangly.
“Seems odd, doesn’t it? Your aunt getting killed, and then the woman who bought the building having so much trouble.”
Just as she always had, she argued, “I still can’t believe anyone pushed Aunt Edith. Why would they? She was a nice old lady. She’d lived there forever and ever. Everybody liked my aunt.”
That was true enough, although a few times Ms. Bissett had slipped a little, revealing the sharpness and irritation she had felt for Mrs. Jefferson. That in itself wouldn’t have been enough to make him suspect her of her aunt’s murder. The young often had reason to find the elderly exasperating. Corinne probably hadn’t expected to be stuck with the responsibility of an aging aunt. But she was the only remaining family—and she was Edith Jefferson’s heir.
She’d had an alibi. He’d verified her airline tickets and the hotel room in New York City, where she and a couple of girlfriends had met up to sample big-city life. He’d had to rule her out, even though she was the only person who seemed to benefit from Mrs. Jefferson’s death. That, and he’d seen right through her pretense at grief.
“You know why we’re certain she didn’t just fall.” He kept his response mild, although she’d seen the spot dented in the wall by her aunt’s head. Common sense said Edith Jefferson couldn’t fly. Still, denial was a normal human failing.
Ben didn’t like coincidences, though, and the idea of two intruders in the same building, albeit a year apart, both seemingly having keys to let themselves in, nagged at him. She was one of only two people who’d admitted to having a key, and the other one was a dear friend of Mrs. Jefferson’s, also in her seventies. Ms. Bissett could have kept a key. There’d been nothing to stop her from making as many copies as she wanted before she signed the papers selling the building.
All of that would bother him even more if Ms. Bissett had any interest in the value of quilts or had showed her face that day at the auction.
He had solved other crimes this way, though. He didn’t let people drop from his radar. A cop stopping by to see them now and again tended to make people edgy. Especially people with guilty consciences. Edgy enough, sometimes, to do something stupid.
Corinne was tough, though. He could tell she didn’t like having him here, but she stayed calm.
Ben settled himself comfortably against the counter. “So, were you able to buy a house once the inheritance came through?” He didn’t add, “What about a really nice pair of diamond earrings?” He couldn’t imagine she’d admit that, not if she’d happened to lose one in the alley behind Nadia’s building.
Her chin rose as if he’d made an accusation. “Yes, I did. I was really tired of always having to share to cut costs.” Only then she wrinkled her nose. “Sometimes I’m sorry, though. I didn’t think about having to mow my own lawn.”
Ben laughed despite himself. “I have to admit, I don’t love mowing.”
She grinned. “Can’t call the landlord to whine if the shower starts dripping or the furnace craps out, either.”
“But you can call a repairman without waiting days to hear from your landlord first.”
With them both laughing now, he left it at that. His only goal had been to remind her that he had his eye on her, and he’d accomplished that.
* * *
“I WANT TO sue them all,” Nadia snapped. “Starting with that creep—” her gaze strayed to the newspaper on the table “—Rutledge. He was sweet as shoofly pie when he came to interview me about the store opening. I’ve never talked to the man again!” She slapped the paper. “He doesn’t know me at all, but he despises me?”
“No.” Ben almost told her to sit down, but knew better. Wounded or not, she needed to vent some of her anger and pain. “He wants to make people talk. Sell papers and advertising. I doubt he gives a damn about you one way or another.”
She stopped to look at him. “You don’t sound as if you like him, either.”
“I don’t. And the feeling is mutual. Whatever the crime, if we haven’t made an arrest by the time the paper goes to print, he gets in a few jabs. He’s all but accused me of police brutality, or condoning it in one of my men, but he always stops just short of setting himself up for a lawsuit. If we bring someone in for questioning and determine they had nothing to do with the crime, we’ve sullied the reputation of a fine citizen of this community.” He didn’t even try to hide his bitterness. “Not we—it’s the police chief ‘some members of the community now believe was mistakenly imported from New Jersey by the city council, who may be questioning their own decision with this latest outrage.’”
Nadia pulled out a chair and sat across her kitchen table from him. “That sounds like a quote.”
“It burned itself into my memory.”
“So I’m not the first person he’s insulted.”
“No, and you won’t be the last. Hey, didn’t you notice a jab or two aimed at me in that article?”
“You mean the part about you being flummoxed?”
“Yeah.” He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “I shouldn’t let the jackass get to me.”
Her distress appeared to have eased. Because misery loves company?
“Police brutality?”
Figures she’d home in on that.
“On top of all his other sins, he’s a bigot. If someone with a smartphone catches one of my officers wrestling with a black or Latino suspect who has resisted arrest, you won’t see a mention in the Herald. Make it a seemingly upstanding white citizen—even if, really, he’s brewing meth in his spare bedroom or has raped a woman who didn’t think one date meant she’d agreed to have sex with him—and Rutledge jumps right on it.” He was getting pissed all over again, and probably grinding his molars to dust.
“Figures.” Nadia sniffed.
“We’ll make him grovel once we arrest the person who really stole the money.”
“That would be nice.” She went quiet for a moment. “But what are the odds after all this time?”
Not good, but Ben wasn’t going to admit as much.
“The whole thing’s a puzzler,” he did say. “Right now, I’m more worried about who ambushed you.”
“You don’t believe it’s the same person?”
“It’s not logical.” He probably sounded as frustrated as he felt. “He got away with the money. How can you be a threat to him?”
“Because I know something I don’t know I know.” She made an awful face. “That didn’t come out so well. But you know—”
Laughing despite the topic, he said, “I do know what you mean. And, yeah, I guess that’s possible.”
“What if he’s afraid I saw him?”
“If you had, why wouldn’t we long since have arrested him?” Ben countered.
Nadia lifted a shoulder to concede his point. “Well, what if someone wants to take over my store? Or just buy my building?”
Why would somebody be desperate to take over the building? And if they did...it had been for sale not that long ago. So maybe owning it wasn’t what mattered—it was having free access. A chance to retrieve something left here? Or to search for something that had been hidden?
Terry Uhrich’s crew had done a pretty thorough search already, he reminded himself, albeit they hadn’t pried up floorboards or blasted holes in the walls.
Frowning, Ben said, “Far as I know, there’s never been so much as a rumor that Mrs. Jefferson might have stashed anything valuable here.”
“Who owned the building before her?”
“No idea. I do know she ran that fabric store for something like forty years.”
Troubled eyes met Ben’s. “But somebody murdered her. And now, somebody tried to kill me, too. What could we have in common?”
The fabric store. A love of quilts. And the building, which wasn’t anything special. The very similar one next door was vacant, available for sale or lease.
But he also could not believe Mrs. Jefferson’s death and the shooting weren’t connected somehow.
Right now, he just shook his head.