Upon A Winter's Night

He’d left two of his best workers, teenage brothers Micah and Andy Beiler, with the animals, but he still couldn’t stay long at Lydia’s. They were kids he trusted, though, unlike the wild rumspringa ones who drank and smoked and ran around out of control.

Often Lydia came over on a Sunday afternoon to help him feed or curry the animals, but after all that had happened he wasn’t banking on that today. As he turned into the driveway he saw the sheriff was just pulling out. Though Blaze was immune to cars coming at her, he got the buggy over as far as he could on the snow-covered, narrow gravel lane.

Jack Freeman rolled his window down and leaned out. His words puffed clouds into the brisk air. “Everything okay today, Josh?”

“Back to normal, I hope.”

“Coroner’s early report says Ms. Keller was struck on the back of the head with something. If she was down on the ground, could that camel have accidentally kicked her?”

“Doubt it. Even in thick snow, camels see great—double eyelids and really long lashes. They’re built that way because of sandstorms. It’s highly unlikely, Sheriff.”

“Got that. Lydia says the camel has a nice disposition and clued me in on their names and humps. ’Preciate it. You did a great job yesterday, helping me get to the body. See you later, Josh.”

Hope not, Josh almost said. It was kind of like dealing with a doctor. You might like the person, but you didn’t want to see much of him.

At the front door of the Brand house—tire tracks showed him that’s where the sheriff had parked, too—he got down from his buggy and draped the cape carefully over his arm. A Shaker-style hardwood oak bench and matching table were on the deep front porch, even in this weather, as if to advertise the heirloom quality of the family furniture. Josh owned only one piece of inherited Brand furniture, his dining room table. It was beautifully built, but Amish craftsmen always had high standards.

Lydia opened the door before he could knock.

“Oh, how kind of you to bring that back. Please come in.”

He stepped inside, onto a dark wood, gleaming-clean floor. She closed the door behind him.

“I saw the sheriff just leaving,” he told her. “He said he talked to you about Melly. You fill him in on everything?”

She nodded, but he would have sworn she looked as if she was going to cry. Had the sheriff been that hard on her?

“I was going to come over for a little bit, anyway,” she said. “Help the boys with the camel and donkey grooming—do Melly myself.”

“I wasn’t sure they would want you to after last night,” he said, keeping his voice low and glancing around. She would know who “they” were, not the Beiler boys but her parents.

“So nothing’s changed, but everything’s changed,” she told him with a huge sigh, not that he was sure what she meant. She added, “Daad’s working in his lair, and Mamm’s lying down upstairs. I’ll leave them a note and just hitch a ride back with you. I have to get something from upstairs. Just a minute.”

“I’ll make sure you get home— Or, I know, your father might come for you.”

“I’d like to get out, like to talk to you.” She darted away, up the stairs, hardly making a sound.

He went a few steps down the hall and looked in the big parlor. Again, he admired the amazing furniture. Yet despite it being Lydia’s home, there was something stiff about the entire place, like it was part of the showroom at their store with the construction area hidden behind the formal facade.

Lydia came back down the stairs. He swirled the cape around her shoulders, thinking of how they’d hugged when she’d held his coat for him last night. That reminded him he’d been trying to remember a dream he’d had last night, something he wanted to recall but couldn’t...something just out of reach...like Lydia.

She closed and locked the door quietly, and he helped her up into the buggy before he saw, in the large, clear plastic bag she held, an old snow globe and an envelope. As he turned Blaze to head out, he also saw, in a second-story window, Lydia’s mother. He didn’t mention it to her since she seemed so on edge. Mrs. Brand was, he thought, just watching them, but behind the shiny window glass, she looked as if she, too, like the poor dead woman last night, was coated with ice.

4

“You don’t mean the cause of that woman’s death might have been kick-by-camel?” Ray-Lynn asked her husband over their midafternoon Sunday dinner. “And in the heart of Amish country?”

She’d had to hold dinner for him, but she was used to that. She’d known about the life of a sheriff—even a small-town, rural county sheriff—going in. But Jack was worth it.

“Delicious ham and sweet potato casserole, honey,” he said as he took second helpings. “No, I’m not arresting the camel. I only mentioned that since you seem so set on getting one for the church’s living manger scene. Josh Yoder’s camels sound tame enough, but I don’t want you getting near them since you’re going over there to talk to him about the manger scene. And forget anything but having one camel standing off to the side of the manger. No wise men riding them, or we’re the ones could be in for a fall. If something happens to a cast member or observer, the church doesn’t need a lawsuit.”

“I hear you, Sheriff,” she said, smiling at him. “But with a gig just a few miles from his property, I’ll bet Josh himself will come with the camel and maybe Lydia Brand to help out, too. They’ll keep a good eye on things.”

She spread marmalade on a made-from-scratch yeast roll. She loved cooking and baking for just the two of them, even though she oversaw so much food during the week at the restaurant. Honoring Amish tradition and beliefs, she kept the Dutch Farm Table closed on Sundays. If she had not, she would have lost her staff of Amish servers and cooks and been politely boycotted. No Sunday Sales, read many handprinted signs in Eden County. And her Amish friendships meant a lot to her. From the youngest server to her oldest cook, she felt honored to be entrusted with their joys and sorrows.

“I’ve been thinking, Jack...”

“Uh-oh.”

“Don’t tease. This whole thing with Victoria Keller living like a specter in the Stark mansion reminds me of Miss Havisham, the character who was stood up at the altar and turned into a recluse. She went a little crazy, too.”

“I missed that one in Gone with the Wind.”

“It’s not from Gone with the Wind and you know it. It’s from Charles Dickens’s book Great Expectations. Didn’t you ever have to read that in high school?”

“Nope. Nor your GWTW.”

Everyone who knew Ray-Lynn was aware she was a rabid fan of Gone with the Wind and anything to do with it. Their house was a treasure trove of pictures, plates and figurines of scenes from the movie. They’d even worn Civil War costumes for their wedding and reception.

“I’m listening,” he said. “You’ve got good instincts about people, Ray-Lynn, but I don’t want you poking around in the Victoria Keller investigation, so just tell me what you want to say.”

“Well, first of all, Charles Dickens was a genius at naming his characters to give his readers a hint about them and their secrets. Miss Have-a-sham, see? A sham is a trick or hypocrisy. She wasn’t what she seemed to be.”

“What did she seem to be?”

“A spinster recluse, sad and broken over having been jilted by her bridegroom at the altar. But in reality she wanted others to suffer, too. She wanted revenge. And she was wealthy enough to get it. She picked especially on one innocent person, but I won’t go into that.”

“Honey, we don’t know whether Victoria Keller had any motive for going out in the storm to help or hurt someone, get revenge—whatever, and we may never know. She had severe Alzheimer’s. I think we can trust Connor and Bess Stark, when Bess gets here from Columbus today, to tell us if there was anything suspicious we should know. And, no offense, but you better stick with Scarlett O’Hara. Now promise me you’ll steer clear of this Keller-Stark real-life minidrama and just worry about ordering some of the Yoder animals for the manger scene.”

She sensed he was about ready to close this case as soon as he talked to Senator Stark, but Victoria Keller fascinated Ray-Lynn. Hoping he didn’t notice she hadn’t sworn on a stack of Bibles to stay out of his investigation, she asked, “Are you ready for some mincemeat pie?”

“That, I’m ready for. Let me help you clear these dishes, and I’ll tell you how big a piece I can handle after all that good cooking—one way to a man’s heart, anyway.”

“And this,” she said as they both stood, “is another,” and she stretched on her tiptoes to give him a long, slanted, openmouthed kiss.

* * *

Strange, Lydia thought, but the only person she could trust to help straighten out her worries over Victoria Keller’s note was Josh. He would understand the background circumstances, her rush and panic that night to help the woman. He wouldn’t go all emotional or feel she was challenging him in any way as her parents might. He’d probably tell her she had to show the note to the sheriff right away, but at least she could get his advice first.

The minute they got into his open corner “office” in the barn, while the Beiler boys were feeding the sheep across the building, she said to him, “I’d like your opinion about something—something strange.”

He turned to her, nodded wide-eyed, then gestured her toward the bales of straw in the corner. Knees almost touching, they perched on two adjacent ones. Bless him, he seemed instantly intent. His warmth radiated, bathing her in friendship, and she saw in his eyes—something more? In her lap she clutched the envelope with the note and the plastic snow globe with its little scene of a child standing and an angel hovering overhead. An undecorated Christmas tree was off to the side. The liquid inside had gone a bit murky, but if she shook it hard, it still snowed.

“Last night,” she began, choosing her words carefully, “when I found Miss Keller, she had a damp, blurry note in her hand. I tried to read it then but couldn’t, so I stuffed it in my mitten and didn’t think to look at it again until I got home last night. Very little of it is readable.”

“And what did it say—the part you could read?”

She reached into the envelope and extended it to him.

“You still have it? The sheriff let you keep it?” he asked as he held it up to the kerosene lantern light and squinted to make out the words.

He glanced at her. She tried hard to blink back tears.

“Did Sheriff Freeman give you a hard time about not handing this over right away? But why—”

“I didn’t,” she said, her voice shaking. “I didn’t give it to him—didn’t tell him. I know I should have—have to, but I think it’s about me, the Brand baby. And if so, it says my mother—my birth mother—is still alive and that Victoria must have known something about her, like maybe where to find her. I don’t— It can’t mean, can it—that she is—was my mother?”

“Victoria Keller? I don’t think she’s ever lived around here before lately.”

“I know I’m clutching at straws, but I’ve been so desperate to know more about my birth parents. I haven’t acted on it because it would hurt my parents so. Daad would take it personally and Mamm would—I don’t know. She puts on a good front, but she’s very fragile.”

He nodded. Did he realize that? Most people who observed or knew Susan Brand thought she had a prickly personality and figured it was because of Sammy’s loss. Some thought she blamed herself for that—even blamed God.

He said, his voice low, “I had a friend when I was in Columbus who researched her roots, as she called them, online. You know, a computer, but that would be tough in this case if you can’t get information directly from your parents. You’d need to hire a researcher privately.”

“Somehow, I have to get answers on my own.”

“Like how? First of all, are you sure Victoria wrote this? If she’s as out-of-it as Connor says, couldn’t she have picked it up, found it somewhere in their house, then out in the snow, it got all wet and smeared.”

“I don’t know! I don’t know where to start. I only know I have to do something. I thought my parents might overhear if I gave it to the sheriff. Then the note would become public property, bring up things I’ve learned not to ask or talk about. Even Bishop Esh told me ‘to learn in whatever state I am to be content.’”

“That’s in the Bible. But I do have one idea. This friend of mine, Sandra Myerson, who was researching her family tree, is also a writer who was doing a doctoral paper on Christmas customs of immigrant people in the Midwest. She’s a real go-getter.”

“She’s a doctor?”

“Not a medical doctor. She’s working on a university degree that will give her the title of doctor so she can teach sociology at the college level.”

“Oh. So I could write to her with what I know? Maybe trade information about an Amish Christmas for her looking up some things for me? Should I tell her about Old Amish Christmas and how upset our people are about what’s happened to the worldly one? About how Bishop Esh said he’d almost like to kill that other Christmas?”

“I spent a lot of time trying to convince Sandra that the German immigrant Amish do not have fancy Victorian Christmas trees and lots of wrapped gifts. I explained we have a plain and simple family day without secret Christmas customs. But to most outsiders, I guess Old Amish Christmas is a secret. I’m sure she’d like to meet you, and you can back up what I said. Yet our Christmases are always, well, just plain beautiful.”

“Yes. Yes, they are. So was she working at the zoo, too?”

“I met her at a social event there my second year in the city, ironically a Christmas tree holiday extravaganza called Wildlights. We became friends, did some things together. She tried to talk me into going to vet school at Ohio State University by working my way through, but it wasn’t in my plans. I can have Hank phone her for you, ask her to come out to visit. You could meet with her here instead of your house.”

“Was this Sandra like a social friend? I mean, you dated her?”

“Something like that, but our lives were on two very different career paths. No way a humble, plain life is for her.”

Lydia’s heart was beating hard. Her face felt flushed. Had Josh been in love with Sandra Myerson? Had he been heartbroken to leave her when he came back here? He had never mentioned her. Of course, she could have visited here. Still, it sounded as if he hadn’t seen her for a while.

“Lydia,” he said, his voice gentle, as he reached out to give her the note back, “she didn’t like animals, except her three cats.”

“Oh.”

“What’s with the snow globe?” he asked. She could tell he was itching to change the subject. And had he read her mind about his relationship with Sandra?

“Daad gave it to me a long time ago. He said it was my mother’s. My real mother’s. Someone had dropped it off in the furniture store, but he didn’t know who and said not to ask more about it. I just—I thought I should hide the note with it.”

“Will you tell the sheriff about the note?”

“Will you tell on me?”

“No. It’s your decision, though now you’ve made me an accomplice.”

She almost smiled at that, but she bit her lower lip. “He—the sheriff said I was to be invited to the private funeral for Victoria. I may ask someone there about it.”

“Connor?”

“Maybe his mother.”

“At least they were trying to do the right thing, taking her in, keeping her there.”

“Then, would she have run away? I need to know more about dementia, I guess. Yes, if you could have Hank contact your friend for help with tracing my family tree—quietly—I would appreciate that. There must have been newspaper articles about the fatal buggy accident. There always are.”

“But it would be almost twenty years ago. There was no local paper then. Maybe we could ask Sandra to check the Wooster Daily Record. Do you know the date of the accident or your parents’ names?”

She shook her head and could not stem the tears. “Not even that,” she whispered. “They were distant cousins of Solomon Brand, but I don’t even know if their last name was Brand. They were Amish, though.”

Josh covered her hands, clasped over the snow globe, with one of his. So warm, so steady, so reassuring. Except that her stomach flip-flopped and her pulse pounded when he so much as touched her.

* * *

Feeling more upset that she didn’t even know her real parents’ names, when she knew the ones for every animal in this barn, Lydia worked hard at grooming the camels. It bothered her, too, that Sandra Myerson, the woman she’d agreed to have Josh bring out to Amish country, was probably a woman he’d really cared about. What was that worldly saying? Oh, ya, maybe she was an old fire of his—no, an old flame.

Lydia kept up a string of talk to the camels, not only to calm them but to calm herself. She rubbed their ears, cleaned their eyes and brushed their heads. She was glad they weren’t shedding this time of year and she didn’t have to work through dirt, mats and mud balls. She had to smile when Gaspar tried to gently shove Balty out of the way to be next in line.

When she heard a woman’s voice, she peered around Balty’s chest. Coming down the center aisle with Josh was Senator Bess Stark, taking long strides and dressed in black slacks, white blouse and unbuttoned bright green coat. And here Lydia looked like this, red-eyed and dirty with her hair flopping loose because Melly had playfully pulled her prayer kapp off and her long braid had broken free.

But she smoothed her skirt and apron and stepped out into the aisle to greet them. Mrs. Stark’s gaze went over her thoroughly, but she didn’t let on one bit how bad she looked. Josh was staring, kind of hot-eyed at her hair. Just because he’d never seen her with her hair loose? That was reserved only for husbands among the Amish. Nervously, she tossed her long hair back behind her shoulders and was really surprised when the senator stepped forward to give her a light hug.

Elizabeth Stark, called Bess, was in her early fifties and a striking woman, though Lydia had never figured out why she’d suddenly appeared with all silver-white, sleek hair when she’d looked real nice with just a dusting of silver in her sandy-colored tresses. Her eyes were as green as grass, and her teeth were white and perfect. She’d been a widow a long time, since Connor was about twelve. Rumors always flew around that she was dating someone important in Columbus or Washington, D.C. Everyone in this area was proud of Senator Stark, even the Amish, who had no truck with politics, but more than once she’d helped them out and always supported their charity events.

Whether Bess Stark was a politician or not, Lydia had always liked her. Though she wasn’t around much anymore except at holidays or when she was campaigning for reelection, years ago she’d give Lydia cookies and lemonade when Lydia used to play in the rows and rows of pine trees the Starks grew. That is, until Connor told her to stay on her own property. She’d never told anyone—and Mamm forbade Lydia to go over there, anyway.

As Bess pulled back and held Lydia at arm’s length for a moment with her hands on her shoulders, Lydia saw there were worry lines on the senator’s forehead. Of course, she’d been grieving for her sister’s sad death.

“My little next-door neighbor from long ago! You have certainly grown up from that tomboy in a skirt and bonnet, Lydia. Hasn’t she, Joshua?”

He cleared his throat. “For sure,” he said, sounding breathier than usual.

“We are so sorry about your sister,” Lydia said, as Bess stepped away and pulled her shoulder purse up, which had slipped down her arm. It was real fancy, bright yellow leather, big, too, almost like a small, soft suitcase.

“I can’t thank both of you enough for what you did to try to help her last night. Sadly, she’s been slipping from us for a long time, wasn’t herself, didn’t know what she was saying or doing.”

Lydia’s hopes that the note could mean anything fell. Those who knew Victoria Keller best had said the poor woman was completely out of touch with reality.

She glanced at Josh, who nodded. He seemed to have read her mind again and knew that she was undecided whether to show the note to Bess Stark or not. Lydia’s heart beat faster. Did she dare to show her the note? But then she’d take it, wouldn’t she?

“I’m late and have to run,” Bess said, as if deciding for her. “I haven’t even been home yet, just saw Joshua out in front as I drove by. So much to do to plan the funeral, but I would like you two to attend. The sheriff and Ray-Lynn will be invited also, so it will just be the four of you from the community with our family and friends. I hope your parents will let you take a break from the furniture store, Lydia. Wednesday afternoon at one, our house. We’re interring her in the Wooster cemetery on our family plot near my husband, but we won’t expect you to go to the cemetery—can’t be away from the animals too long. True?”

“Ya. You’re right about that,” Josh put in.

“Lydia?”

“I would be honored to be there. I’m sure Daad will let me go.”

“I hope so,” she said, frowning, seemingly lost in thought about the funeral again. “If Victoria had been in her right mind, she would have thanked you both. Joshua, I’ve written a check—” she fumbled in that big purse and dug it out “—to help toward all you do with your animals at Christmastime. For feed, gas for transporting them—whatever. Just a little something. And don’t you mention it to anyone else.”

His eyes widened when he glanced down at the check she handed him. “But—four thousand dollars. I can’t take that for a human kindness, Senator Stark. It’s enough to rebuild one entire wing of the old dairy!”

“I hear Lydia loves the animals, too, so half of it is her contribution. Yes, get some good Amish builders in here. All of us need to promote jobs right now. You go ahead—remodel and rebuild. Everybody needs to do that from time to time, especially in great loss and tragedy. Don’t you dare tear that up,” she insisted, walking away from him. “I think you’re doing a great service to the community I represent with your petting zoo and the holiday events. And I will see both of you on Wednesday at one. Now I have to go see the sheriff and then the coroner about releasing her body despite all this nonsense about an investigation into her death, but I think they will agree with me.”

“Oh, ya,” Josh said to Lydia as they stood in the door to watch her drive away, “I think they will.”

5

Because Christmas was barely a month away, the Home Valley Amish Furniture store was abuzz with business. Although the Amish gave only single, simple gifts to commemorate the Lord’s birth, the Englische world, despite a supposed recession, seemed to be buying every piece of solid hardwood furniture in sight.

It was the Monday morning after the tragedy of the weekend, and Lydia still felt shaken. At least being so busy meant she had little time to agonize over her decisions. She would meet and hope to work with Sandra Myerson, Josh’s more-than-good friend. And she was dedicated to learning all she could about her deceased parents—if her mother really was dead.

Greeting customers kept her occupied. She let Naomi, one of their seasonal staff, answer the phone while she darted here and there with inquiries or to pair up shoppers with particular salesmen. Although the store hired Englische delivery vans, some folks came in to pick up their orders. She could see out the row of side windows that not only workers’ buggies but worldly pickup trucks filled the parking lot.

To answer customer questions for salespeople on the floor, Lydia practically ran from her front desk to the side showrooms, which displayed the various styles the craftsmen, who worked out back or in their homes, produced: Shaker-style, Mission-style and traditional furniture of all kinds. Now and then, she darted to the offices between the spacious showrooms and the large, rear workshop to ask someone a question.