I walked home, dodging runoff from melted snow and piles of brown and gray slush. From the gutters of buildings, enormous icicles dripped under the last few rays of sunlight. City work crews wrapped Christmas garland around the town’s lampposts and strung blue-and-white twinkle lights from the young trees. For the town of Appleseed Creek, it was full speed ahead toward Christmas.
I couldn’t help but wonder how Ellie and Uri planned to spend the holiday. The first Christmas someone was missing from the dinner table was the worst. I wished I could tell them it became easier with the passage of time, but it doesn’t. Not really. The void is always there. This would be my eleventh Christmas without my mother, and I felt her absence as keenly as if it were the first. Although the pain was different now, its sharpness dulled by regret for the time lost.
I wondered what my mother would have thought of Timothy. Would she have liked him? Disliked him? Approved of the match? Was it a real match? I knew I cared about him, even loved him, but being with Timothy meant being in Appleseed Creek permanently. That was never a part of my plan.
Dylan’s sedan was parked in my driveway when I came up the walk. I took a hesitant step. The biology professor hadn’t told me he’d be working on the house today. I certainly wouldn’t have okayed it if he had. Between what I’d learned at the historical society on Saturday, and snooping in his office, something didn’t feel right about the professor.
Tentatively, I climbed the porch steps. I heard a thwack, thwack, thwack followed by the sound of something shattering. I threw open the front door. Directly across from me was a hole in the wall large enough for a small child to climb through.
Muslin tarps covered the living room furniture and a sheen of plaster dust covered the hardwood floor. Dylan wore safety glasses and work gloves and took a sledgehammer to the wall. Thwack! He hit the wall again, and plaster crumbled to the ground, sending dust and debris into the air.
“What are you doing?” I cried.
He turned around with his sledgehammer poised as if to strike. I took a step back into the doorway.
“Welcome home, Chloe.” He still held up the sledgehammer, his eyes appearing boggled behind the safety glasses.
I pointed at the sledgehammer. “Can you lower that, please?”
“Oh, right, sorry about that.” He dropped the hammer to his side.
“What are you doing?” I asked again, trying to keep my voice even, though I could still hear the quaver in it.
He blinked at me. “I found the original plans for this house, and there used to be an archway here that led into a breakfast room by the kitchen. I think it’s the place you use as a mudroom now. One of the previous owners must have closed it off years ago. I’m putting it back to the way it was, the way it’s supposed to be.”
“But . . .” I was at a loss.
“The house is going to be returned to its glory. I thought it would be best to start with all of the structural stuff before I moved on to the smaller details.”
“But Becky and I live here,” I finally managed. “You can’t make holes in walls while we live here.”
His eyes narrowed. “Why not? This is my house. I own it.”
“I know that. You repeat that in every conversation we have.” My bag was heavy on my shoulder, which was still sore from holding onto Brock in the pond. I placed it on the floor.
He gripped the hammer a little more tightly. “It’s the truth.”
“You didn’t tell me that you’d be doing this serious of a demolition. This is not like mending a broken latch.”
“I don’t know what your problem is. I protected your furniture with tarps.” He said this as if he did me favor.
“I can’t live like this,” I whispered.
“What did you say?” he asked.
“You didn’t tell me you were coming this time.” I paused. “Dylan, you are going to have to leave.”
“To leave? This is my house. You have no right to tell me what to do. I’m tired of people telling me what to do. My wife. Now, you,” he spat.
The sledgehammer came up a fraction of an inch, and fear gripped me by the back of the neck. Being alone with Dylan when he was in such a temper was not the best idea I’d ever had.
“You’re just like Kara. She thought I couldn’t do anything right either.”
“Dylan . . .” I began.
“If I want to knock a wall down on my property, I should be allowed to do it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this house used to belong to your family?”
He blinked at me. “How?”
I pointed to the wall. “We saw the X on the wall and knew you planned to knock it down. The people at the historical society told me the house’s history.”
His face turned beet red. “You have no right to pry into my personal matters.”
“I wasn’t prying. I needed to know what you were up to. Becky and I have to live here.”
He gripped the sledgehammer. “If I didn’t need your rent money, I would kick you out.”
“Trust me, I don’t mind moving at this point.” I didn’t tell him Tyler was attempting to release us from the lease. I took a deep breath. “Does the demolition have anything to do with Gerald Tanner’s coin collection?”
He took two steps toward me. His jaw clenched, and sweat gathered on his upper lip and forehead.
I jumped back into the open doorway. Heat flowed to the outside, but I didn’t care. No way would I block my escape route.
I kept my gaze steady on him, and he was breathless. “Did you find the coins? Give them to me. They’re mine. You have no right to them.”
I took a smaller step back. “We didn’t find them, but that’s what you’re looking for, isn’t it?”
“You’re lying,” he snarled. “You found the coins and are keeping them for yourself.”
I patted my pocket, feeling for my cell phone, never taking my eyes off of him. “I didn’t. I don’t want the coins.”
His gaze darted around the room, his eyes wild. “I know they’re here somewhere. My family has spoken of them for as long as I can remember. Gerald hid them in the house during the Depression because he was afraid the family would sell them. Then, the old coot could never find them again.”
“You think he hid the coins inside of the wall?”
“Where else could they be? I’ve looked everywhere.”
My chest tightened. How had Dylan been able to look everywhere else for the coins unless he had been in the house many times without Becky’s or my knowledge? Another thought came to mind. I lifted my chin, facing him. “Did Curt and Brock know about the coins?”
He scowled at me. “No. Do you think I am stupid enough to tell them? They thought this was a standard remodel job.”
Relief, albeit a small amount, flowed through me.
A bead of sweat ran down the side of his face. “Kara, you don’t understand that I’m doing this for us, so you will come back.”
“I’m not Kara,” I whispered.
Dylan blinked a few times and placed his free hand to his forehead.
“Are you all right?” I asked. As long as he held that sledgehammer, I didn’t dare move closer to him.
“I . . . I have to go.” He dropped the sledgehammer to his side, then stumbled to the front door. I sidestepped out of the way and watched as he tripped down the front steps and into his car. He backed out of the driveway, then swerved his way up the street.
My heart pounding, I shut the door behind him and locked it. I leaned my forehead against the door, listening to the frenetic pace of my own breathing and the thumping of my heart, almost afraid to turn around.
After a moment, I spun around and found myself inspecting the hole. At eye level, I could see all the way through to the mudroom and out the back window.
The framed photograph of my mother had shattered on the floor. It must have fallen while Dylan knocked the hole in the wall. The picture itself was unharmed. I grabbed a broom and dust pan from the mudroom and swept up the shards of glass. As I did, Gigabyte tiptoed into the room, creeping low to the ground on his haunches, looking for any sign of Dylan and his loud hammer. Seeing none, he straightened—although he looked ready to bolt back into hiding at a moment’s notice.
I put the broom away and called Tyler. “I need to be out of this lease like yesterday.” I told him about my confrontation with Dylan.
“I’m on it. I should have you out of there by the end of the week. In the meantime, I don’t like the sound of Dylan’s behavior. He seems erratic. I suggest you and Becky camp somewhere else until you can officially move out of there.”
I exhaled. “Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned the coins. It . . . um . . . upset him.”
“Probably not. Be careful, Chloe. Dylan doesn’t sound stable to me.”
“I will.” I hung up and called Timothy. I wanted to ask him if Becky and I could bunk at his place for a little while. Gigabyte wouldn’t like rooming with Mabel, but it was better than the alternative. The only other option was staying with the Troyers, and I knew that would be more than enough reason for the bishop to shun the entire family.
My call went directly to voice-mail. I left a message. Becky would be at the elementary school by now, so I sent her a text telling her to go to Timothy’s after she finished at the elementary school. I got one immediately back that said, “OK.”
I went upstairs and quickly packed overnight bags for Becky and me with just the essentials. If we needed anything else, we could get it the next day when Timothy was with us. We would be completely out of the house by the weekend—no matter what.
In the kitchen, I tossed Gigabyte’s favorite toys and several cans of cat food into my overnight bag. He followed me into the mudroom, where I pulled his cat carrier off the shelf. He hissed and ran from the room.
“Gig!” I groaned. “Come on, buddy. We have to go.”
A cat-sized lump hid under the muslin tarp that covered the couch. Casually, I walked in that direction. The only visible part of him was the dark brown tip of his tail, which twitched. I pounced onto the lump. Gigabyte hissed. Finally, I was able to wrestle him out from under the tarp.
I carried the hissing cat to the mudroom and shoved him inside his cat carrier. “I’m sorry.” I sucked on the scratch on my left hand. “But it’s not safe here anymore,” I mumbled. He yowled in my face. I sighed. Poor Mabel was going to be stuck bunking with a very angry cat tonight.
I carried Gig and the overnight bags to the other side of the room. As I did, something dark on the couch caught my eye. A coat. I set Gig and the bag down and picked it up, feeling for the pockets. Dylan. He had left without putting on a coat. As I moved it to the other end of the sofa, my fingers slipped over a jagged seam.
My fingers turned to ice. I lay the coat on the sofa and spread it out so I could get a good look at it. On the top of the right shoulder was a poorly sewn seam of black thread. Whoever had sewn it wasn’t confident with a needle. I tugged on either side of the seam, and the thread gave way with little effort, revealing a hole the size of a man’s fist—or the mouth of a horse.
I sat on the couch, staring at the hole. Grandfather Zook’s words came back to me. “If you find the coat, you find the killer.”
Dylan cut off Grandfather Zook’s beard. Did that also mean he killed Ezekiel Young?
A cold sweat broke out on my skin. What if Dylan realized that he forgot his coat? What if he knew I’d be able to put two-and-two together? He had a key to my house. I had to get out of there. Once he realized his mistake he would come back for it—and no way could I hide what I knew from him.
Gig yowled from his carrier.
I glanced at my pet. “Gig, we are out of here.”
I grabbed my own coat and tucked Dylan’s under my arm. I stumbled out through the front door carrying the coats, bags, and Gig, placed everything into the Bug, and called Chief Rose.
“Humphrey, what’s up? I read the piece about you saving the world in the press. Nice.”
“It was the dean’s idea.” Before she could go on, I said, “Listen, I know who killed Ezekiel.”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “Tell me.”
I peered over my shoulder, reassuring myself that I was still alone. Then I told her about the coat.
“I do have a piece of wool from Sparky’s mouth as evidence, but I’ll want that coat to compare.”
“You can have it,” I said.
“I’m in Newark for law enforcement training. I’ll swing by your house on the way home to get it.”
I shook my head. “I’m not staying in the house. I’m going to Timothy’s.”
“Good thinking.” She paused. “I’m leaving now. I’ll call your cell when I get close to knowing when I can get the coat. Don’t lose it.”
“I won’t,” I promised.
Remembering the promise I had made to Timothy in the hospital, I called his cell again, to tell him we were in danger. It rang three times then went to voice-mail.
He probably couldn’t hear it over the tools.
When I reached Timothy’s house, it was dark. I knocked on the front door. No answer. Neither Danny nor Timothy was home. I tried the doorknob, but it was locked. I swallowed and glanced around, goose bumps rose on my skin. I called Timothy a third time. Voice-mail.
An idea popped into my head. I’d swing by Young’s and collect Timothy’s house key. Gig yowled as I turned on the engine and backed out of Timothy’s driveway. He wasn’t fond of car rides.
The restaurant lot was half full with evening diners. The spaces near the flea market were empty except for, to my relief, Timothy’s blue pickup truck parked by the second pavilion.
I shoved Dylan’s coat under the passenger seat of my car. It was in the lower forties and I thought Gigabyte would be warm enough in the car while I ran into the pavilion to fetch Timothy’s house key. I glanced at my cat, his eyes wide. “I’ll be a minute.”
He yowled. It would be a long time before he forgave me for all this running around.
I jogged to the second pavilion. “Timothy?” I called out while ducking under the plastic sheeting.
No response. I heard the echo of a power tool running at the end of the pavilion near the meat and dairy counter Timothy had started building before the murder. I shivered. I hadn’t been inside the pavilion since finding Ezekiel’s body. I followed the noise.
My shoulders relaxed a little when I noticed that the sawhorse that had tripped me during my last visit was gone. Perhaps, Chief Rose had confiscated it for evidence. “Tim—” His name died on my lips. The air compression nail gun lay on the ground, humming in the corner of the pavilion. It was not being used.
My body shuddered. About fifteen feet from the gun, I saw the back of an Amish man, his hands in the air. Another man faced him—Dylan Tanner. He held a handgun, with an extra long barrel, and pointed it at the Amish man’s chest.