I called the Appleseed Creek police chief from the cab of Timothy’s truck. The snow glowed with the pink and orange colors from the setting sun, and the icicles hanging from Billy’s shop glittered. I shuddered. They were much smaller, but they reminded me of the icicles hanging from the Gundy barn—and of the one that may have killed Katie.
“Humphrey, I’ve been expecting your call.” Chief Rose’s sharp voice rang in my ear.
“You have?”
“Well, sure. Officer Nottingham saw you and Troyer snooping around Uncle Billy’s place well over an hour ago. How’d you finally get inside?”
Heat rushed to my face. Timothy’s brow furrowed as he watched my reaction. “She knows we were inside of Billy’s place,” I mouthed.
Timothy ran a finger across his throat as if Chief Rose was going to cut off our heads.
I rolled my eyes. “Under the broken garage door,” I said into the phone.
“A tried and true method. Find anything interesting?”
“Since you were already there, I should be really asking you that.”
“More than I bargained for,” she muttered.
I wanted to ask her what she meant by that, but she went on. “We need to talk face-to-face.”
“About Billy?”
“Among other things. Are you available now?”
I heard a tap, tap, tap on the other end of the line. I imagined the Appleseed Creek police chief tapping her pen on her desk. I covered the mouthpiece and repeated what Chief Rose said to Timothy. He nodded once. “Yes,” I told her. “We can meet you.”
“Good. You’re going to have to come to me. I need to hang around the station. Everyone goes off their rocker this time of year, and I made the mistake of giving my secretary the week off. Too much family togetherness makes some reach for the drink and others for the shotgun. I much prefer President’s Day. No one hardly ever shoots anyone on President’s Day.” She laughed. “But I don’t have to tell you about family problems, do I, Humphrey?”
My stomach dropped. Was she referring to the issues the Troyer family had or was she referring to my relationship—or lack thereof—with my own family? Having thoroughly checked my background after I moved here and my car’s involvement in Becky’s auto-buggy accident that killed Bishop Glick, she knew my history. That made me uncomfortable. I knew so little about her. She was a cop and had mentioned once that she grew up in Appleseed Creek. That was all I had.
She tapped her pen more rapidly. “Troyer is with you, I imagine.”
“Yes, he’s right here.”
“Thought so. It’s going to be hard to keep you two apart from each other now that you are courting.” There was laughter in her voice.
I blushed.
“See you in ten minutes,” the chief barked in my ear and hung up.
Timothy shifted the truck into gear. Ten minutes later he turned the truck into the small lot behind the village’s municipal building right off the town square. The parking lot was empty expect for the chief’s cruiser. It was after five o’clock in the evening on a day before Christmas Eve. I imagined the village staff cleared out of the building quickly to jump-start their holiday.
When Timothy, Mabel, and I walked into the department, Chief Rose was sitting with her arms folded on the receptionist’s desk. Mabel trotted up to the chief’s side with her tongue hanging out of her mouth.
The police chief patted Mabel’s head. “What do you want, pooch?”
Timothy scraped snow off his boots on the mat at the entryway. “Fern keeps dog biscuits in her desk for Mabel when she visits.”
The police chief glowered at the dog. After a moment, she opened the lowest drawer of the receptionist’s desk. “These are for you?”
Mabel barked.
Chief Rose reached into the box of treats and threw two across the room into the empty waiting area, which was a grouping of uncomfortable olive-green plastic chairs. Mabel lunged after the treats and grasped them between her paws.
“Where’s Nottingham?” Timothy asked. “I want to know how he saw us at Billy’s when I didn’t see him.”
The police chief laughed. “Nottingham can’t tell you that. It’s a cop trick. For a kid, Nottingham’s turning into a reliable officer, and if I’m not careful, he’ll start gunning for my job. The village would be a lot more comfortable with him in my role since he’s a man.” She stood up, her tone matter-of-fact. “Let’s move to the conference room to talk. The pooch will have to stay out here.”
Mabel lay in the middle of the linoleum floor licking her treats, trying to make them last as long as possible.
“I don’t think she will mind,” I said.
The chief unlocked the door on the other side of the desk and led us into a room, bare except for one cafeteria-style table and five folding chairs. Chief Rose’s conference room doubled as her interrogation and booking room. Although I’d only moved to Appleseed Creek the previous summer, I had already spent more time in this room than most of the population. Thankfully, never to be booked for a crime, though I can’t say the same about interrogation.
A legal-sized manila envelope sat in the middle of table. Chief Rose held it down with a finger and dragged it toward herself.
I hung my coat over the back of my chair and took a seat across from the police chief. “What’s in the envelope?”
Timothy slipped into the seat beside me.
“I’ll show you in minute. We will start with Katie.” She drummed her fingers on the tabletop. “We believe she was murdered.”
I gasped. “Murdered? I thought it was an icicle accident.”
“Yeah, I thought my death by icicle theory was a good one too.” She leaned back in her chair. “However, the coroner set me straight. The icicle hit her in the head after she was already dead. The most tell-tale sign was the bruising on her neck. No way those marks were from a rogue icicle. Katie was strangled.”
My hand went to my throat. An image of the pretty Amish girl being choked to death filled my mind. I closed my eyes to block the sight, but that only made it more vivid.
Timothy tapped my foot with his boot. “We didn’t see any sign of that.”
“I wouldn’t expect you would. Her face was half-covered by her bonnet, and she was wearing a thick scarf. The coroner thinks whoever did it used the scarf to kill her and then wrapped it loosely around her neck again when it was over.”
“Poor Katie,” I whispered. “What a terrible way to die.”
The police chief grimaced. “It wouldn’t be the way I’d want to go. I’ll take a gunshot straight to the brain, thanks.”
Timothy blanched. No doubt my expression was much the same.
Chief Rose ran a fingernail under the lip of the envelope. “We’re waiting on the full autopsy before we can say anything official. Now, here’s where it becomes interesting.”
Some of the color returned to Timothy’s face.
“Katie Lambright being strangled wasn’t interesting enough?” I asked.
She eyed me with one of her unusual peridot-colored eyes, her shimmering, forest-green eye liner smudged at the corners. “It’s plenty interesting, and more than enough to keep me busy into the new year. However, then I found this.” She slid the manila envelope across the table at me.
My hands hovered over the envelope, unsure if I wanted to see what was inside.
Chief Rose snorted. “It’s not a snake. It won’t bite you.”
I flipped over the envelope and lifted the flap. Inside were a sheet of paper and a photograph of a man. The name Walter Hoover ran across the top of the page. The young man in the photo looked strangely familiar. I gasped, “Is this . . . ?”
Timothy frowned. “It’s a rap sheet for Billy.”
“Bingo.” The police chief beamed at Timothy as if he were her prize pupil. “Troyer wins.”
He settled back into his seat. “What do I win?”
“Satisfaction at being the victor.” Chief Rose pointed to the second sheet. “There you will see Billy’s rap sheet. I’ll give you the CliffsNotes version: He went to federal prison for fifteen years. Grand theft auto. He managed a chop shop in Detroit. Eight years in, he got out for good behavior, but the moment he hits the streets he doesn’t call into his probation office like he should. Instead, he disappears. He’s been using the social security number of a guy who died over twenty years ago. The real Billy Thorpe didn’t have a family who might have caught the illegal use of his number. I imagine Hoover bought it from some con artist.”
“You can buy a social security number?” I asked.
Chief Rose darted a glance at me. “You can buy anything, sadly.”
I examined the man in the photograph and racked my brain for everything that I knew about Billy. It wasn’t much. He loved duct tape, was good at fixing cars—even if the ones he revived weren’t the most beautiful machines on the road—and was a genuinely nice guy. Had I been wrong about the last point? I took another look at the man in the photo. He had sandy-colored hair. “He’s not a natural redhead?” I asked. For some reason, this upset me. Billy always talked about how we were the only true redheads in town and now I learn that we weren’t even that.
Chief Rose barked a laugh. “Of all the details to pick up on, that’s the best you can come up with?”
Timothy’s jaw twitched. “How long has he been in hiding?”
I watched Timothy. Billy was his friend, not mine. What did he think about this information? If I, after only having spoken to him a handful of times, was questioning if I knew the real Billy, what would Timothy be thinking right now?
“Twelve years. He was pretty good at it. We discovered his true identity when we lifted some prints from his single-wide this afternoon. Afterward, I went over to the sheriff’s place and ran the prints through AFIS. The village doesn’t believe it necessary that I have my own access to the database,” she added bitterly. “I got zero hits for William Thorpe, but Walter Hoover popped right up.”
She reached across the table and tapped the man in the photograph on the nose. “I called the Detroit Police Department to share my discovery. I can’t say they were all that enthused or impressed by it.” She raised her palms. “Why worry about a car thief that disappeared twelve years ago when you have gangbangers shooting each other every night on the streets? However, they said they would take him back if I found him.”
“That’s nice of them,” I muttered. I flattened my hands on the table. “Billy,” I said unable to call him Walter. “Billy was the one who introduced me to Becky’s lawyer, Tyler Hart. He said that the lawyer got him out of trouble. I thought it was legal trouble.”
The chief dropped the envelope onto the table. “I’ve cited Walter before for small violations, but nothing that would have required me to collect his fingerprints. Had I, he would be back in Detroit by now. Seems I need to have a little chat with Tyler to find out what those legal matters were.”
Apparently, Chief Rose had no problem saying Billy’s real name.
“He can’t tell you,” I said. “Anything between him and his client is confidential.”
A strange look passed over her delicate features. “We’ll see about that.”
Timothy folded his hands on the table. “No matter what Billy may have done in his past, it doesn’t mean he’s responsible for Katie Lambright’s murder.”
Chief Rose clicked her tongue. “Troyer, you are loyal to a fault.” She turned to me. “You’d better remember that about him, Humphrey. Could come in handy in the future.”
“I don’t think loyalty is a bad attribute,” I said.
The chief ran her hand through her brown curls, and they immediately sprang back into place. “Neither do I. Troyer, you know our visit to the Lambright farm didn’t go well. The Lambrights won’t talk to me about their daughter. That’s why I called the two of you here. I need someone,” she looked directly at me. “I need someone to poke around and find out who the Amish suspects are in this case.”
I pressed my palm to my chest. “You want me to do that?”
The chief sat back, eyeing me now. “Sure, why not? It’s not like you haven’t done it before. Troyer can help you out with it too.” She grinned. “I know you were planning to do it anyway. Why else would you be snooping around the car shop? This way it’s sanctioned by me. Unofficially, of course. My department is not liable if you break a leg or if you bust your spleen in pursuit of a suspect. Trust me, if it comes to that, I will deny this conversation ever happened.”
“Thanks,” I said, the sarcasm back in my voice.
As if she approved of my tone, the chief of police smiled. “That’s the right attitude.”
“Where do you want us to start?” Timothy asked.
“I want you to find out who was beating up Katie Lambright.”
I grew still. “Beating up? I thought she was strangled.”
“She was, but this wasn’t the first time she had been the victim of violence. Her body was covered with bruises, and even before the autopsy, the coroner could tell that a finger on her right hand had been broken.”
Timothy’s brows knit together. “Growing up on a farm, a broken finger isn’t that uncommon. Thomas breaks something every year.”
“True, but this isn’t any typical break. The coroner said it appeared to be a spiral fracture. He said the only way that could have happened was if the finger was twisted. So she either got it stuck in a vise or someone grabbed it and twisted it until it snapped.”
Instinctively my fingers curled into fists to protect themselves. I thought of what Timothy said of Katie’s father Jeb Lambright. Just how hot was his temper?
Chief Rose slid Billy’s photograph and rap sheet back into the envelope. “What do you say, Humphrey? Are you willing to help me out again?”
Timothy gave me the slightest of nods.
I licked my lips. “Yes.”
The right side of the police chief’s mouth turned up. “Terrific.” She made eye connect with me, then Timothy, and then back to me. “Do me a favor this time—keep me in the loop. You think of or find something important, you call me, night or day.”
“Even on Christmas?” I asked.
Her brows drooped low over her eyes. “Especially on Christmas.”
“Sounds fair,” I said.
On the other hand, Timothy said nothing.