Garner Dutch Furniture Warehouse was located on a lonely stretch of Route 13 between Mount Vernon and Appleseed Creek, not far from the wildlife preserve and the auto parts factory where Billy had been hiding out. The shop had just opened, and Grandfather Zook and I were the first customers of the day. I helped Grandfather out of my Bug and popped the trunk. Then I lifted the large plastic bin of Grandfather Zook’s wooden wares from the trunk.
“Do you need help with that?” the old man asked, even though he surely knew that with his braces he could not offer me any assistance.
I adjusted my grip on the bin. “Nope. I got it.” At the door, I balanced the bin on my knee and held it open for us both.
Inside the warehouse, the first detail that hit me was the smell, which had the hard bite of vinegar—Amish used it to polish furniture—and the earthiness of sawdust. Not that there was any sawdust on the floor. The simple concrete flooring was swept so clean I wondered if the proverbial statement was true and if the Garners ever ate off of it.
Unlike those furniture showrooms that helped the shoppers imagine the pieces in his or her own home, the Garners displayed their wares in like groups. All the chests of drawers were in one corner, the end tables in another, the pie safes in another. Shoppers had to hunt for what they wanted, but discovering hidden gems instead of being coaxed into an impulse buy was part of the fun.
Levi Garner grinned ear to ear, showing off his dimple. “Joseph Zook, you came all this way to see me. To what do I owe this honor?”
Grandfather Zook knocked the snow off the end of his braces by the front door. “Gude Mariye, Levi.”
Levi’s eyes slid to me. “I remember you from our last visit to the Troyer farm.”
“Chloe is driving me around on my errands today. I have some more items to sell to you.”
The dimple appeared again. “Gut. The Englischers like your small woodworking projects. They feel like they can take a little bit of Amish country home with them.” He pointed to a dining room table to the left of the door. “We can look at everything right here.”
I set the bin on top of the table and stepped back. Levi peered inside and pulled out one of Grandfather’s letter holders. It had a cardinal carved into the front of it that was so lifelike, I thought it might fly right off the piece of wood. The source of Becky’s artistic talent was obvious. Levi placed two more letter holders next to the first, each one more beautiful than the last. “You do excellent work, Joseph.”
Grandfather Zook lowered himself into one of the dining chairs and grinned. “It passes the time.”
Levi ran his hand over one of the carvings. “I’ll price these at thirty a piece. We will break the sale as always. Sixty, forty, in your favor.”
Grandfather Zook scratched his chin. “Is that what you sell them for? Last time you said forty for each.”
The warehouse owner folded his hands on the tabletop. “It’s the time of year. We’re entering January and February and there will be far less visitors to the county until the winter weather breaks. I have to consider space costs, because these will likely be in my warehouse at least until spring.
Grandfather Zook rubbed the short white beard on his chin. “Maybe I should hold them and come back and sell them to you in the spring then.”
A knowing sparkle glinted into Levi’s dark eyes. “Thirty-five it is. Let me grab my ledger and calculator.”
Grandfather Zook chuckled. “You use an Englischer’s calculator to do your figures?”
Levi slipped behind the counter and waved the calculator at the older man. “Sure do. The district says we can if the calculations are work related. Trust me, it has come in handy recently.”
Grandfather Zook leaned back against the straight back dining room chair. “I heard you had Katie Lambright working for you. Did she help you with the figures before?”
Levi’s eyes narrowed. “Who told you that?”
Grandfather Zook’s eyes widened innocently. “We were just over at Amos’s cheese shop on the square, and he said that Katie helped him with his arithmetic before she quit and came to work here.”
Levi snorted. “Amos Umble may need help with his facts and figures from a girl, but I do not.”
Still standing, I held onto the back of one of the dining room chairs. “If Katie didn’t help you in the office, what did she do here?”
His dark eyes flicked in my direction. Was I mistaken, or was there a bit of distrust in his expression? The warehouse owner cleared his throat. “I hired her as a favor to my son. He and Katie were to be married, and he wanted her to work here in the family business. She did help me in the office some with clerical work. Mostly, she worked the cash register or on the floor helping customers.”
“That was nice of you to hire her for your son.”
“He wanted to keep an eye on her. Apparently she was being stalked at the cheese shop by some Englischer.”
Grandfather Zook’s white bushy eyebrows knit together. “Must have been tense around here sometimes, seeing how Caleb courted Katie before.”
Levi frowned. “Caleb knew Katie made her choice. He should have had more understanding for his friend.”
Remembering the coldness between Caleb and Nathan on the Troyer farm days ago, I wasn’t so sure that was possible.
Levi interlaced his fingers on the tabletop. “My son was never happier than when he and Katie talked of their plans to marry. It wounds me to see my son so distraught over her death. It’s a terrible, terrible act, and the person responsible will be punished, if not by the world, by Gott.”
“It is terrible, but perhaps there can be forgiveness too,” Grandfather Zook said.
“Nee,” Levi said. “Not for this.” He cleared his throat. “Now, let me count all these pieces and tally up the total for you, so you can be on your way.”
“Mind if I look around?” I asked. “Where I’m living now is fully furnished, but I’m hoping to move to a new place soon and put my own pieces in it.”
Levi showed me his dimple. “By all means then, see what we have. If there’s anything that catches your eye, we can hold it for you until you move.”
I thanked him and wandered around the maze of furniture. Before long, I could no longer see Grandfather Zook and Levi, but their voices echoed through the expansive building. Along a back wall of the second cavernous room, I found Grandfather’s napkin holders for sale. I smiled as I straightened them on the shelf. If I were a tourist shopping in the warehouse, I certainly would be tempted to buy one of them. I picked one up, a buggy carved into the front of it, and flipped it over. The small sticker on the bottom said that napkin holder was seventy dollars. My forehead crinkled. Hadn’t he told Grandfather Zook he priced them at thirty-five? Why were these different? Did Levi think someone would pay seventy dollars for a napkin holder? Either he was confident in Grandfather Zook’s craftsmanship or delusional about what an English person would spend.
I turned to find my way back to the front of the store, but the muffled sound of angry voices stopped me. I walked along the back wall of the warehouse and discovered an entrance to yet another room. How big was this building? They could house the Goodyear blimp in here.
Sunshine flowed into the room through an open bay. An Amish wagon, the one I had seen at the Troyers’ home, stood right outside of the bay, and Caleb and Nathan glared at each other near the open bay doors. They held either end of a dresser. I couldn’t tell if they planned to load it onto the wagon or take it off.
Caleb gripped his end of the dresser until his fingers turned white. “She loved me!”
Nathan glared at him. “If that is true, why did she leave you?”
“I will tell you why—because you are going to inherit the furniture warehouse. You will be able to provide a good living and life for her and . . .” He gave a strangled breath, “her children. After the childhood that she had, that’s all she ever wanted.” He dropped his end of the dresser with a resounding thud, and it echoed through the warehouse.
Nathan stumbled back but was able to keep hold of his end of the dresser. He carefully set his end down and examined the piece. “Look what you have done. We just got it from a craftsman and you ruined it.”
“Maybe your father will sell it for a fair price, then?”
Nathan launched himself at his former best friend, and the two Amish young men crashed to the concrete floor. Caleb, clearly the stronger of the two, pinned Nathan to the ground in seconds. He wiped blood from his lip.
Nathan kicked at him, but Caleb easily stayed out of the way of the wayward boots.
“What are you going to do? Strangle me like you did Katie?” Nathan cried. “You could have hit her dozens of times, and she would have never said a word. It won’t be that way for me. You’re fired. You will never work in this county again. I will ruin you. Ruin you.”
Caleb laughed. “You can’t fire me. You can’t do anything to me.”
“Yes, I can. Have you read the sign on the warehouse? It says Garner.” He spat the words out. “King is the name of a grunt.”
Caleb straddled Nathan’s back and pulled his friend’s hand backward, twisting his index finger. The crack and pop of Nathan’s finger breaking went off like a gunshot in the enormous room, echoing off the bare walls and rafters.
I gasped and covered my mouth, my stomach roiling. In my mind’s eye, I saw him breaking—not Nathan’s finger—but Katie’s. I had little doubt that Caleb was the one behind the old wounds on Katie’s body.
My gasp caught Caleb’s attention and he jumped off Nathan—but it was too late. I had seen everything and he knew it. I stumbled backward and the corner of a desk stabbed my hip.
“What are you doing?” Caleb bellowed.
Writhing in pain, Nathan rolled back and forth on the concrete floor, holding his broken finger.
I turned and ran.
“Stop!” Caleb cried.
I was lost. The maze of furniture had me confused. It was all the same color, the pieces blending together. I turned a corner and smacked into Levi Garner’s chest.
He pushed me back, holding me at arm’s length.
I gulped air. “Caleb broke Nathan’s finger like he did Katie’s.”
“Where are you?” Caleb cried.
Levi’s eyes narrowed, and he pushed me aside. Caleb appeared in the aisle and saw Levi’s fury. It was his turn to run. He spun on his heels, dashing back the way he came when a silver brace spilled quietly into the aisle. Caleb never saw it and landed face down on the floor.
Levi reached Caleb in four strides, lifting the young Amish man off the ground by his shirt as if he weighed no more than Naomi’s favorite doll. “What did you do to my son?”
Caleb cowered.
Grandfather Zook appeared in the aisle and waved one of his arm braces at me. “That worked like a charm.”
I dialed 911, followed by Chief Rose’s direct number.