Chapter 9
As she made her way down the muddy path from Blanche’s trailer, Rachel heard her cell phone ring. She’d deliberately left it in her car. Now, she opened the door and retrieved it. The call was from Evan. She was tempted to answer, but she wanted to talk to more residents here in Park Estates. What if Evan asked where she was? She didn’t want to lie to him . . . but she knew he would disapprove of her being here.
She placed the phone gingerly on the seat. If she didn’t talk to him, he couldn’t ask, and she wouldn’t have to tell him she was snooping around. She ignored two dogs tailing her, in hopes of more snacks probably, and started for the next trailer.
If she found out anything important, naturally she’d tell the police. She didn’t want to cause a problem. She wanted to right an impending wrong, and arresting Uncle Aaron for killing someone—even unlikeable Willy O’Day—would be as wrong as you could get.
Being raised Amish, she’d heard from the time she was a toddler that God has a plan, that everything that happens is meant to be. If Uncle Aaron was arrested, the conservative Amish would believe that that was part of God’s mysterious plan.
She wasn’t Amish anymore. She didn’t know exactly what she believed, but she didn’t believe God meant for her uncle to be charged with a murder he didn’t commit. So on this matter, she and her family would have to agree to disagree.
That didn’t mean that the Amish weren’t still blood and bone of her body. She shared their history, their customs, and their language. And she loved her family and friends with every ounce of her being. Being rejected by some of the Plain folk hurt. Having her own mother refuse to speak directly to her caused her grief every time it happened. But it didn’t lessen the ties she felt to her mother, and it didn’t make her doubt her mother’s deep love for her. If Esther Mast kept herself apart from her daughter, it wasn’t for lack of caring. It was because she cared so much for Rachel’s soul and wanted to bring her back to the faith. Mam and Uncle Aaron had always been close. Perhaps helping him would help breach the gap that had opened between them all.
With renewed vigor and determination, Rachel approached the next single-wide, a yellow Royal Crest model. The chrome R and C were missing, so that it actually read oyal rest. However, unlike the majority of the other homes, someone had made the effort to spruce up the tiny yard with crockery flowerpots full of early-blooming marigolds, seven brightly painted cement gnomes, and a collection of white wooden rabbits holding orange wooden carrots. There was also a four-foot-high blue plastic windmill with yellow blades that spun merrily in the breeze.
There was no vehicle in front of the trailer, but muddy tracks showed that there had been one there recently. Homemade cement stepping stones set with bits of colored glass led to a side door and a small stoop. This one bore a fresh coat of white paint. A plaque proclaimed, The Blatts—Lil & Bill, and just beneath it, a smaller sticker read, Warning! House Guarded by Attack Cat! Rachel knocked.
There was no answer. She knocked again, harder. Again, she was rewarded only by silence. “Hello!” she called. “Mrs. Blatt? Is anyone home?”
“They’re not there!”
Rachel turned around to see Chelsea’s face at one of the windows of Blanche’s trailer. “They went to visit their daughter in Harrisburg! Home next week, I think!”
“Oh, thank you,” Rachel answered, disappointed. She was curious to see what Bill and Lil were like. The gnomes intrigued her. And, of course, she wanted to see if they had any information about Willy’s last day.
Rachel retreated past the row of rabbits and the round-eyed stares of the gnomes to the main and only street. The next space was empty, and the one after that contained one of the ruined trailers, but across the drive was a promising prospect, a green single-wide with a tiny bit of close-cropped grass and a five-inch-high picket fence. There were no flowerpots, gnomes, or windmills, but there didn’t seem to be any dogs tied outside, either.
As she crossed the road, she could hear her cell ringing again. Evan was nothing if not persistent. The thought that he might have news about Uncle Aaron rose to worry her, but she was already approaching the mobile home. She’d try this one and then leave. She’d have to return later to question Bill and Lil. She could try the other residents then.
Here, at least, there was an older-model VW Bug parked in front, and the Bug had tags that were current. Maybe someone was home here.
A stack of concrete blocks formed the steps. Rachel took them gamely, opened the storm door, and knocked. There was silence within. “Hello?” she called. She rapped harder, waited a good two minutes, and then conceded defeat.
Retreating, head high, she returned to her Jeep, got in, and inserted the key in the ignition. Her trusty motor purred, and she drove to the far end of the drive and turned around in front of the Dumpster. As she steered the vehicle slowly through the ruts toward the access road, she glanced back at the trailer with the VW in the driveway. She saw the distinct movement of a curtain.
A prickling at the back of her neck seconded what her eyes told her. The trailer wasn’t empty. And someone was watching her, now, as she drove away . . . someone who didn’t want to talk to her.
Rachel stopped at Wagler’s Grocery for two gallons of organic milk and two pints of heavy whipping cream. Wagler’s was an institution in Stone Mill, and although she ordered paper goods, cleaning supplies, and dish and laundry detergents online, she did as much of her day-to-day food shopping here as possible. Ed and Polly carried a full line of fresh and canned vegetables and fruits, cereals, baked goods, candy, bread, meat, and assorted sundries. The store was a little higher priced than the chain supermarkets in the larger towns, but most of Stone Mill, Amish and Englishers alike, preferred to support local businesses. Plus, Wagler’s was only a few blocks from home.
Rachel added three pounds of butter and a dozen lemons to her cart and wheeled it into the checkout line. Naturally, she knew most of the customers in the store on a first name basis, including the teenage boy at the register. They all were buzzing about Willy’s death and her uncle’s questioning, and Rachel had to field questions, trying hard not to give away any information while not offending anyone. She waited until she was back at Stone Mill House and was pulling into the driveway before she called Evan back.
“Hi,” she said when he picked up. “I thought you were on duty today.” She drove to the carriage shed and parked the Jeep.
“Clearing up some old files at the station. Where have you been? I left two messages.”
“Just got back from Wagler’s,” she said. Her mother was probably right. She was going to hell. She might not be lying, but this was way too close. “Have you heard anything about Uncle Aaron? Is he going to be arrested?” She scooped up her groceries and started for the back door.
“Haven’t heard anything.”
They were both quiet for a second.
“Anyway, the reason I was calling,” Evan said, “was to see if you’d like to have dinner with me tonight. I thought maybe we could drive over to Huntingdon and eat at that Italian place you like, the one with the huge salads and the great antipasto.”
She groaned. “Can’t. High tea this afternoon and a meeting of the fund-raising committee for the Historical Preservation Society tonight.”
“You can’t skip the meeting?”
“Sorry. Wish I could, but it’s here.” She swung open the back door and blocked Bishop’s escape with one foot. “Plus, I’ve got two couples coming in this evening after five. Can I take a rain check?”
“Sure.” He sounded disappointed. “But I have to work through the weekend. How about Monday night?”
“Maybe. But I’m not sure they’re open on Mondays. I’m really sorry. Why don’t you go tonight anyway? Take your mom.”
Now it was Evan who groaned. “I’m not that desperate. We’ll try for next week, but don’t say I didn’t ask.”
“Sorry. Our schedules don’t seem to be in sync.” She dropped the bags on the counter. Lemons rolled out of one, bounced, and rolled across the floor. Bishop yowled and flew out of the room, his tail fluffed into a bottlebrush.
Evan chuckled. “Sounds like you’re trying to kill your cat.”
“Tried. Failed. Again.” They shared a laugh together, both knowing how absolutely devoted she was to the spoiled Siamese. “You’re welcome to come to our meeting,” she offered.
“Not that desperate, either. Dinner out with my mother sounds better.”
She smiled. “Hey, any word on the notebook that was found on Willy’s body?”
“Nope.”
“The letters. They seem familiar. Like I’ve seen them before,” she said. “But I can’t think where.”
“Well, let me know if you think of it. At this point, anything would be helpful.”
“Right.” She picked up one of the lemons and tossed it in the air and caught it again. “What else was in Willy’s pockets?”
“His wallet with the credit cards. All accounted for. But no cash. George confirmed that he carried his cash in his front pocket with a rubber band around it.”
“And nothing else, huh?”
“Nope. You’re pretty nosy.”
Rachel set the lemon on the counter. She thought about telling Evan what she’d been up to, but she decided not to. “That’s me,” she said. “Always nosing in other people’s business.”
“Well, I better go,” he said.
“Sorry about dinner.”
“Later.”
Thursday night was so busy that Rachel didn’t get a moment to herself until after nine, too late to try to find Dawn Clough in Florida. The committee meeting had gone all right. At least, Ada’s sandwiches and cherry scones had been a hit.
It would have been better if the members had been able to agree on anything, anything at all, but they hadn’t. Plans for a Christmas house tour were still in the works without any decisions made, since George, who was serving as president of the Society, was absent. The tour was his idea, and so far, George and Hulda were the only residents, besides herself, who’d agreed to open their houses to visitors.
George had also been writing a self-guided tour of the valley, with stops at various historical sites, including a Revolutionary War skirmish site and a farmhouse that had been on the Underground Railroad. He also wanted to include a cave that had been used by Native Americans for thousands of years and was now being excavated by state archeologists. George had said at the last meeting that the map and text were almost ready, but again, without his input, there wasn’t much they could do. The one conclusion that the committee did reach was that Stone Mill House was the best place to hold the general meeting next month.
They also decided unanimously that Rachel should take over the bookkeeping for the committee. She didn’t mind. With her business background and their small budget, it wouldn’t be hard. She picked up the ledger she’d been given and set it on the table. The hardest thing was going to be reconciling years of—
She glanced at the ledger. Reconciling . . . She picked up her cell. Evan answered on the second ring. “Accounts to be reconciled,” she said.
“What?”
“I’m sorry, were you asleep?”
“No,” he said, but he sounded drowsy. “In bed, reading.”
“The letters in Willy’s notebook, ‘A.T.B.R.’ Accounts to be reconciled. That might be what it means.”
“Accounts to be reconciled,” he repeated. “Okay. Exactly what does that mean?”
“If you reconcile an account, you double-check numbers, make sure all the columns add up. That sort of thing. It’s like a final accounting.”
He was quiet on the other end.
“Does that make sense?” she asked. “I mean, what was under the heading?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see inside the notebook. The detective just mentioned the letters. He was thinking out loud, I guess. Wondered if any of us knew what it meant.”
“Well, I could be wrong. I just wanted to tell you because it came to me that that might be what it meant. You know, Willy being a money man.”
“Well, thanks. I’ll mention it to the detective.”
“You have dinner with your mom?’
“I did.”
They talked for another five minutes and then Rachel let him go.
Friday morning was hectic, but Mary Aaron arrived early, and breakfast went off smoothly. Mary Aaron packed new orders for the craft co-op, and she had everything ready to go when the parcel truck arrived for pickup. Together, Rachel and Mary Aaron cleared away the dining room things while Ada and Minnie took care of housekeeping.
By eleven, Rachel was done with her immediate chores and was able to slip into her office and make the call to Florida from her office. This time, a cheerful woman answered on the third ring. “Hello,” Rachel said. “Is this Dawn Clough?” She was sure that it wasn’t because the person on the other end of the line sounded much older.
“Yes, this is Dawn. I don’t want another credit card.”
“No, I’m not selling anything. My name is Rachel Mast. I’m from Stone Mill, Pennsylvania, and I’m looking for a woman who worked at a local restaurant here last fall.”
“Is this a collection agency?” The voice took on a sharper tone. “Dawn is my daughter, but she doesn’t live here, and I don’t—”
“No, no,” Rachel assured her. “I’m not calling about a credit issue. This is more . . . personal.”
“You’re a friend of my daughter’s?”
“I just need to speak with her. It’s important.” Rachel went on quickly, afraid the woman might hang up. “How about if I give you my number and you ask her—if she should happen to contact you—to call me. I’d really appreciate it.”
“Rachel Mast.”
“Yes. Could you write down my number?” Rachel urged. “It would be a big favor if you would ask her to call me back.”
“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt. If she does contact me,” the woman added. “We have the same name. Dawn took back her maiden name after the divorce. I guess that’s how you got us mixed up.”
Rachel thanked her again, gave her the number, and ended the call. She wondered if Dawn, the daughter, was there. If she wasn’t, she guessed that she lived with her mother or nearby. That wasn’t the response of a woman who didn’t know where her daughter was. And she hadn’t been unpleasant. Rachel could only hope that she would pass on the message, and that the waitress wouldn’t ignore her request.
A half hour later, Rachel and Mary Aaron were able to slip away to continue retracing Willy O’Day’s progress on the day he disappeared. They were going to see Alvin and Verna Herschberger, an Amish couple who rented a small hillside house and farm from Willy. Willy should have gone by their place to collect their rent that day, too.
Neither Alvin nor Verna had been particularly friendly with Rachel since she’d returned to Stone Mill. She knew they disapproved of her, but the couple often visited with Uncle Aaron and Aunt Hannah, so Mary Aaron knew them well. She’d offered to come along and try to smooth things over.
They pulled off the hard-top road onto a gravel one that led to several properties just below the edge of state game lands. “You aren’t wearing makeup, are you?” Mary Aaron asked, glancing at Rachel. “Your cheeks are awfully red.”
“No makeup,” Rachel assured her. She rarely wore anything more than a dab of lipstick, but she hadn’t even done that today.
The Amish had no television, and the majority had no radios or cell phones, but generally, they knew more of what was going on in the valley than their English neighbors. Rachel hoped that she’d learn something useful from the Herschbergers, something that would point suspicion away from Uncle Aaron and toward the real killer. She wasn’t about to ruin her chances by doing anything to antagonize these people on sight.
“Verna is strict and Alvin stricter.” Mary Aaron glanced out the window. “Not this mailbox. It’s the next one, across from the ruins of that stone barn.”
The road was bad, the gravel rutted by buggy and wagon wheels. “This ground is pretty poor,” Rachel said. “I hope the rent isn’t too high.”
“Wait until you see the house; it’s not much. And I’ve heard Willy’s price was high, but it was the only place the Herschbergers could find to rent. It’s not a great property, field-wise, either. Rocky. A garden and corn for the animals is all they can manage. Mostly, they make do by Alvin doing carpenter work when he can get it.”
Rachel slowed and turned onto a long dirt driveway flanked by thick evergreens. Between the trees, Rachel caught sight of a single strand electric fence enclosing a pasture that looked like more rocks than grass. Grazing here and there were goats—a lot of goats.
“They milk them and make cheese.”
“Is the cheese any good?” Rachel asked. “Maybe we could market it on the website.” The goats were pretty, and she’d been around enough livestock in her life to know that the females, the milkers, didn’t smell. The only stench came from the mature bucks, and farmers rarely kept more than one around because they fought each other.
“I didn’t think so.” Her cousin wrinkled her nose. “Tasted like old socks.”
“Really?” Rachel chuckled. “I never tasted old socks.”
Mary Aaron giggled. “I don’t know if they know what they’re doing or not.”
“Maybe we could help, bring in some experts to give them pointers or something. Raising goats and making cheese is time-consuming and exact, but cheese can be extremely profitable if we can get it to the right customers.”
“It would be good if you could find a way to help the Herschbergers. They have a young family, and I’ve heard that they’re struggling.” Mary Aaron pointed. “There’s the house. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Willy O’Day had been known for his tightfisted ways, but Rachel couldn’t believe that even he would have the nerve to charge rent for a house in such bad condition. The main two-story structure was stone, early nineteenth century, maybe even older. The roof had been patched so many times that it looked like a crazy quilt, the porch sagged, and two windows were boarded up. There were no electric lines, obviously, but there were no generators, either. Behind the house was what looked suspiciously like an outhouse. Beyond that was a tumbledown stone barn.
Rachel stopped the Jeep at a gate.
“Maybe it would be better if I went up and talked to them first,” Mary Aaron said. “See if they’re willing to speak to you. We’d hate to be run off—”
At that second, a scraggly-bearded man stepped out from behind the barn. He was barefoot and wearing Amish clothing. His expression was fierce, and in his hand, he was carrying an ax.
Rachel gasped. “That’s Alvin, right?” she whispered to Mary Aaron.
Her cousin looked at her and nodded. “I’m afraid so.”