Her Amish Protectors

Nadia made herself go into the store, where she found a trio of women she knew.

“Is it true?” one of them said right away.

She had to say, “Unfortunately.”

* * *

FRUSTRATED, BEN DECIDED to go by and talk to Nadia again before he called it a day. She might have learned something, or at least that’s what he told himself. The underlying truth was that he wanted to find out how people had reacted to her disclosure. She’d gotten to him this morning, when she had explained why she needed to start over in a new place. He hadn’t been able to help thinking about the parallels with his sister in her lengthy recovery from the assault that shattered her life, and hoped everyone Nadia talked to had at least been decent to her.

Online, he hadn’t had any trouble finding articles about the horrific episode when she’d been shot. Turned out, she’d given him a very condensed version. It sounded like a real nightmare, and one that had gone on for hours. He also learned that she’d spent those hours using her body to protect the little girl, somehow keeping her quiet after she regained consciousness. Nadia had saved young Molly’s life. She was labeled a heroine in news coverage. He’d seen a picture snapped from a distance away of her being brought out of the house on a gurney. The cops and EMTs in the photo all looked grim in a way Ben recognized. The sight of murdered children scarred the most hardened cop. And to know their own father had killed them...

He shook his head in denial, even though he knew better. Fathers, and mothers, too, regularly hurt and killed their own children.

Nadia was closing up when he arrived. She let him in, then turned the sign on the door to Closed. His gaze went to the shiny new dead bolt lock.

“I see Jim has been here.”

“Yes. I don’t think he charged me enough. He seemed to feel bad about what happened.”

“Yeah, he was pretty upset when Mrs. Jefferson died, too.”

“He told me he recommended she replace the lock on the apartment door, but she didn’t want to be bothered with two different keys.”

Ben nodded. “Jim felt guilty that he hadn’t insisted.”

“Wait.” She gaped at him. “Do you actually think someone killed her? That she didn’t just fall down the stairs?”

“I’m sure she was pushed,” he said grimly.

“But...how can you know?”

“Because her head hit the wall a lot higher than it could have if she’d fallen. We found blood and hair in the dent. It took some real force to launch her up instead of down. The ME agrees, too. People who fall bump down the stairs, but her injuries are consistent with the greater force theory.”

“Oh, no,” she whispered.

He kept a snapshot of Edith Jefferson’s body, just as he did one of every other crime victim he’d seen. Crumpled at the foot of the stairs, Edith had appeared shockingly tiny and hideously damaged.

He tried to shake off the picture. “It happened long before you came to town. What happened to her was personal. It had nothing to do with you.”

“No, I know, but...” She shivered. “Even if she’d changed that lock, it might not have made any difference.”

“It might not have,” he agreed. It stuck in his craw that he hadn’t been able to make an arrest. Nothing had been stolen. Nobody seemed to have both motive to kill the old woman and opportunity. He hadn’t closed the case, though, and wouldn’t. He hoped like hell this current investigation didn’t end up in a similar limbo. So far, it wasn’t looking good. “So, how’d your day go?” he asked.

She told him, but he had a feeling this was the condensed version, too. Her face was pinched, her luminous eyes clouded. It was especially disturbing because he’d seen her glowing on the stage last night as she thanked everyone. The contrast was painful.

She might have taken the money, he reminded himself, but couldn’t quite believe it. Okay, didn’t want to believe it.

He threw out names of people he had been told were there last night. Turned out several were playing a behind-the-scenes role or had good reason to be attending. A couple of the names had her shaking her head.

“I don’t know any of them. Or, if I’ve met them, I didn’t catch their names.”

She didn’t invite him up to her apartment, and since he hadn’t come up with anything else to ask her, Ben finally said, “I’ll bet you haven’t eaten today.”

Expression mulish, she retorted, “You made me have breakfast, remember?”

“A croissant. Did you stop for lunch?”

Her lips compressed.

“You may not feel like eating,” he said quietly, “but you need to make yourself. And take something for that headache.”

Nadia stiffened. “How did you know?”

“You have all the signs.” He knew he could have massaged some of that pain away, but he couldn’t let himself put his hands on her. As the last person to have the money, she remained a suspect.

“You’re right.” She sagged slightly. “I’ll follow your advice. I promise.”

He left on that note. On the drive home, he called to let his dispatcher know where he’d be, then made another call to order a pizza for pickup.

Usually by the end of a day, he was sick enough of people to relish a few hours of solitude. Tonight, his house felt strangely lonely when he finally let himself in.

For once, he was glad when his phone rang shortly after he’d cleaned up when he was done eating, and especially when he saw the name displayed. His sister. Odd timing, when she’d been on his mind so much the past few days.

“Lucy.”

“Hey,” she said. “Did I get you at a good time?”

“Yep. Just had pizza and I was thinking of kicking back and watching some baseball. How are you?” He made the question sound light, but it wasn’t. It never was. While he was in college, Lucy, only a year and a half older than him, had been brutally raped and left for dead. The rapist was never identified and arrested. She was the reason Ben had changed his major from prelaw to criminology.

Lucy had remained...fragile. She was gutsy enough to move into an apartment of her own despite their parents’ opposition, and she held a job, but to his knowledge she never dated, probably never went out at night, which limited any friendships. She lived a half life, because she could never forget. He saw hints of the same vulnerability in Nadia, but also more strength.

“I’m okay,” his sister said now. “But I was thinking.”

Ben waited.

“Would you mind if I came for a visit?” she said in a rush.

Traveling was something else she didn’t do.

Hiding his surprise, he said, “What, you think I’ll say no? I’ve only been trying to talk you into coming since the day I moved.”

“I know. Something happened that shook me up—nothing big, just the usual—” which meant she’d had a panic attack “—and, you know, I’ve been reading about your part of Missouri. I’d like to see it.”

“It’s pretty country, but not spectacular.”

“I’m curious about the Amish. They sound so gentle.”

Ben had his suspicions that behind the facade even the Amish had their share of drunks and spousal and child abuse, but he had to admit that on the whole the ones he’d dealt with were straightforward, good-humored and honest. Their belief in forgiveness was profound. Okay, he still had trouble believing an Amish woman who had suffered what Lucy had could truly forgive her rapist. But then, he was a cynic.

“They seem like good people,” he agreed. “Individuals, just like any other group.”

“Yes. I just thought...” Lucy hesitated. “I don’t know. That Byrum sounds like a nice place. Even...”

Oh, hell. He braced himself. Don’t let her say safe.

What she did say was almost worse. “Peaceful,” she finished.

He remembered what Nadia had said, word for word. I had something traumatic happen. I couldn’t get past it. I thought making a change would help.

She’d sought peace here, too, and hadn’t found it.

“I’m a cop,” he said, his voice coming out rough. “They hired me for a reason, Lucy.”

“I know, but it’s not the same as what you dealt with here, is it?”

The hope in her voice just about killed him.

“No.” What could he say but, “When are you coming?”

She would be safer here. She’d have him, and nobody would hurt Lucy on his watch.

She never forgot, and neither did he.

CHAPTER FOUR

AT LEAST, WITH today being Sunday, Nadia didn’t have to open her store. Too bad she had to spend her day doing something worse than facing the avidly nosy and the angry in person. Instead, she was going to call every single person who’d written a check or used a credit card for a purchase at Friday’s event. Karen Llewellyn had offered to help, the reluctance in her voice only part of why Nadia had insisted on handling the entire task herself. The main reason was her sense of responsibility. She’d lost the money. To the extent she could, Nadia vowed to face the unpleasant consequences alone.

She knew a few attendees, and was well aware that some calls would prove more difficult than others. Difficult being a euphemism, of course.

Strictly alphabetical was the only way to go, she decided.

With a cup of tea steeping at her elbow, she opened her laptop and began. Her very first call was to the woman she’d added as a walk-in last night, Louise Alsobrook.

“Oh, you poor dear!” was the first thing Ms. Alsobrook exclaimed after Nadia’s stiff explanation. “Didn’t somebody among your volunteers have a safe?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Nadia said. “And really...I don’t think any of us dreamed of something like this happening. The community has been so supportive. I’ve been involved with charity events in a larger city before and nobody worried about securing the money until the bank opened.”

“Greed can happen anywhere,” the woman said practically. “Well, I just looked online, and the charge to my credit card hasn’t been presented. I’ll ask my credit card company to put a stop on this number and issue a new card. In the meantime, I’ll put a check in the mail for the same amount, or even some extra. Because a lot of what’s gone must have been cash, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, unfortunately. Thank you so much, Ms. Alsobrook,” Nadia said fervently. “This is...such a nightmare, and you’ve been very kind.”

“Oh, honey, I know all of you worked so hard. Now, should I send it straight to the aid organization?”

“Yes, please.” She asked that Ms. Alsobrook add a note to let Bill Jarvis know that it was a replacement for the stolen credit card slip. He’d agreed to keep track so that the auction organizers knew who had sent money and how much.

“I’ll send that check first thing tomorrow,” Ms. Alsobrook promised.

Eyes stinging, Nadia ended the call, made a note and allowed herself a few sips of tea before she reached for the phone again.

* * *

ARMS CROSSED ATOP the white-painted fence, Ben watched foals with legs too long and spindly for their bodies gamboling in the field as their mothers grazed placidly. Gary Edgerton bred, raised and trained horses destined to be harness racers or to pull an Amish buggy. His wife was the quilt enthusiast, but both had attended the auction and spent a substantial amount.

Having heard approaching footsteps, Ben wasn’t surprised when a man’s voice came from behind him.

“A lot of money on the hoof.”

Ben turned to see Edgerton watching him rather than the mares and foals. “Cute little buggers,” Ben commented. “How old are they?”

“A couple weeks old up to three months. The last few broodmares are due any day.”

Ben knew next to nothing about horses. He’d never thrown a leg over one in his life, although he’d now ridden in a buggy and had become accustomed to the splats of manure decorating the streets of his town, as well as to the hitching rails as common as they would have been in the nineteenth century.

“Why the age spread?” he asked. “I thought foals were born in spring.”

“Mares don’t all come into season at the same time. Some breedings don’t take, so we have to wait until she’s ready again for a second go-around.”

Edgerton offered a tour, but Ben asked for a rain check.

“Guess you go at it hard when this much money is missing,” the guy remarked.

“Ms. Markovic called?”

“This morning. She and Allison had words.”

“And why is that?”

The horseman snorted. “Woman comes out of nowhere, charms her way into taking the lead on the auction, leaves with the money and, oh, oops, reports it stolen the next morning. You’re in the wrong job if you’re credulous enough to believe crap that smells a lot worse than my manure pile.”

From long practice, Ben hid his irritation successfully. “Allison thinks the same?”

“Hell, yes!” Expression bullish, Edgerton glared at Ben. “Slick a scheme as any I’ve ever heard of.”

“She put a lot of money into starting that business,” he said mildly. “Sure, Ms. Markovic would walk away with some money, maybe sixty, seventy thousand in cash. But if most people think the same as you and your wife, her business will go under. I don’t think she’d come out of it much, if any, ahead.”

“Sixty thousand bucks on top of what she recovers by selling the building and the business? That’s not a bad take. And then she can move on, pull the same shit somewhere else.”

Unwilling to argue the point, because, yes, he was already considering that very scenario, however unlikely he believed it to be, Ben steered him to recollections of Friday. Mrs. Edgerton had attended the quilt sale earlier in the day Friday and spent money there, as well as a larger amount at the evening auction. Edgerton offered the names of a few people who weren’t already on Ben’s list but sneered at the idea any of them would steal.

“These are folks who have lived around here their whole lives,” he insisted, as if that was all Ben needed to know about them.

Choosing not to point out that he’d arrested more than a few longtime residents for crimes ranging from misdemeanor shoplifting to rape and negligent homicide, Ben ascertained that the missus was up at the house and went to talk to her.

She was even sharper-tongued than her husband had been. Ben drove away without having learned anything useful, but with a sour taste in his mouth and a cramp of pity for what Nadia must be experiencing.

There were more people he should talk to, but he was increasingly doubtful that he’d learn anything new. He needed to get a more complete list of volunteers from Nadia... With a grimace, he corrected himself. He should get that list from Julie Baird or Katie-Ann Chupp. Because, much as he disliked the idea, Nadia remained his only potential suspect right now. Katie-Ann—yeah, he could count on her for complete honesty. But this, if memory served him right, was church Sunday for the Amish. With no child missing, no dead body, he couldn’t justify bothering her before tomorrow.

* * *

BEN HAD WORKED BEFORE with Tricia Mears, the deputy prosecuting attorney who was waiting for him at the station. Thanking her for coming, he escorted her to his office. As soon as he shut the door, she said, “I have your warrant.”

He needed to search Nadia’s financial records, something that also would have to wait until morning, when banks opened. If she really were a thief, she’d hardly be brazen enough to deposit the money. If she found a secure enough hiding place, she could filter the cash slowly into her finances with no one having a clue.

“You drag a judge out of church to get this signed today?” he asked.

Maybe in her late twenties, tiny and blonde, she grinned. “Wouldn’t dare. But I was parked in Judge Greenhaw’s driveway when he arrived home after church. He asked if this couldn’t have waited, but he didn’t seem to really mind. And, like everyone else in town, he already knew about the theft.”

“Did he have an opinion, too?” Ben asked drily.

“Hadn’t had occasion to meet her, he said, but he understood why you had to look at her first.”

“Thanks for getting right on this,” Ben said.

Vibrating with energy, she perched on the edge of the seat she’d taken across the desk from him. “Anything else I can do for you?”

“Not yet. What I’d like is to find out where everyone who attended that auction stands financially, but I kind of doubt Greenhaw would go for such a sweeping warrant.”

“That’s safe to say.” She rose to her feet. “Unless you’d like to...well, throw around ideas, I need to show my face at my grandparents’ for Sunday dinner.”

He waved her off. “Go.”

Only a few minutes later, someone knocked on his door. When he called, “Come in,” Officer Danny Carroll entered.

In his early thirties, stocky and stolid, Carroll had demonstrated the kind of judgment and work ethic that put him at the top of a short list for promotion. Today, he and Riley Boyd had gone to Nadia’s block to speak to the neighbors who hadn’t been home yesterday.

Ben leaned back in his desk chair. “Anything?”

“I found one woman, a Laura Kelling, who saw a light in Ms. Markovic’s place during the night Friday. She’d gotten up to go to the bathroom, but has no idea what time.”

Wonderful. “Overhead light?”

“She was uncertain about that. She lives across the street, but a few doors down. Not a perfect angle. She said the light was diffuse, just a glow coming from somewhere inside, downstairs. She claims it went out while she was watching.”

“So something about it caught her eye,” Ben said thoughtfully.

“That’s my take,” Carroll agreed.

“And she couldn’t pin down the time at all.”

“She went to bed about ten because she needed to be up by six yesterday morning. She admits to getting up at least once, sometimes twice a night.”

“Ms. Markovic was home just after midnight. Is it likely this Ms. Kelling would have needed to use the bathroom that quick?”

Officer Carroll shrugged. “Depends when she cut off liquids for the night.”

That was true, unfortunately. Ben could imagine a defense attorney trying to persuade a jury that the witness’s bladder would have held out longer than two hours and that, therefore, the light she saw had shone inside what should have been a dark building well after Ms. Markovich had gone to sleep.

After which the prosecutor would point out that they had only Ms. Markovic’s word for when she turned out the lights and went to sleep, and that it was entirely possible she had gotten out of bed at some point during the night to hide the money in a location the police were unlikely to find in any initial search.

Something he probably should have had done yesterday, he reflected, although he had taken precautions to ensure she couldn’t sneak the money out of the building and hide it elsewhere.

“Okay, thanks,” Ben said. “Have you spoken to everybody?”

“Yep. Sundays are good that way.”

Left alone again, Ben realized he was disappointed. He would have liked incontrovertible evidence to turn up showing that someone besides Nadia had taken the money. And he knew better than to develop feelings for a suspect, far less allow sympathy or any other emotion to influence him. Because of his usual objectivity, he’d been called a cold bastard; no one outside his family having any idea how much rage burned in him for one particular class of criminals. He’d succeeded in hiding it from the people he worked with until the day he came close to crossing a line that would have ended his career and conceivably resulted in jail time.

The hatred for rapists was one explanation for why his blood boiled every time he pictured a man slipping uninvited into Nadia’s bedroom, detouring from his main purpose to look his fill.

Statistically, the odds were the thief was a man. In this case, the auction volunteers, who were most likely to know who had the money, were all women except for a few men dragged in to assemble the stage, do some heavy lifting and build quilt display racks. Imagining a woman in Nadia’s bedroom instead of a man wasn’t a big improvement. Either way, what sense of security she’d gathered around herself after the tragedy would be stolen again.

Unless, of course, nobody else had ever stepped foot in that bedroom, and she knew exactly where the money was.

He wondered whether she’d give permission for a thorough search of her premises.

Ben groaned, rasped a hand over his jaw and decided to call it a day.

* * *

NADIA ENDED THE DAY feeling battered. Sick to her stomach, bruised head to toe. Remembering Ben Slater’s chiding, she dragged herself to her kitchen and examined the contents of cupboards and refrigerator. She’d skipped lunch and had no appetite for dinner, but he was right—she had to eat. Even a salad felt like too much work, so she settled for cottage cheese and a small bowl of strawberries. Finally, new lock or no, she carried a kitchen chair downstairs and braced it under the doorknob. In theory, there’d be an awful noise at the very least if someone tried to open the door.

Nadia watched TV shows that didn’t really interest her until it was late enough to go to bed. If she’d had a sedative, she would have taken it. After very little sleep last night, she was mind-numbingly tired. But once she climbed into bed, lights out, she lay stiffly. The nausea soothed by her bland meal returned with a vengeance. As if she’d recorded today’s phone conversations, they replayed in her head, some voices heavy with disappointment, others sharp. A few vicious.

Have you no shame?

I suppose you think we’re country hicks, too dumb to see through your little story.

I won’t be buying so much as a spool of thread at your shop again, and I hope every other woman in this county feels the same.

Plenty of people had been neutral, promising to let her know if the credit card had been run or check cashed. Perhaps half had promised to replace the money. A very small minority had been, like Louise Alsobrook, really nice.

Of course, it was what the nasty people said that was stuck in her head.

Nadia tried with the “sticks and stones may break my bones” thing, but still felt like an old woman when she opened the store come morning. Thank heavens she didn’t have to teach a class today! She hoped makeup, applied more heavily than usual, disguised some of the signs of her exhaustion, especially the purple bruising beneath her eyes. The fact that her eyes appeared sunken...well, there wasn’t anything she could do about that. Plus, her head ached, blinking almost took more effort than she could summon and she wasn’t sure the muscles that would allow her to smile were functioning.

But this was the one day of the week she had no help, and the sign out front listed open hours that included Mondays, ten to five. If anything of her new life was to be saved, she couldn’t hide in her apartment.

Mondays were the slowest days, businesswise, so she wasn’t surprised, and was almost relieved, that no one at all came in to browse until after eleven. Then it was a husband and wife she pegged immediately as tourists. They exclaimed over the displayed quilts, gasped at the prices and bought a set of machine-quilted place mats.

Her next visitor was Colleen Hoefling, who wanted to hear what, if anything, the police had learned, and who purchased fabric for her next quilt, or so she said. Nadia suspected Colleen, like most serious quilters, already owned enough fabric for her next ten or twenty quilts. She was simply being nice.

Colleen also shooed Nadia upstairs to get some lunch, insisting she knew how to use a cash register.

After eating, Nadia came down to the sound of voices.

The first was scathing. “And who do you think stole the money if it wasn’t her?”

“I don’t know,” Colleen said, hers distinctly cool, “but I’m appalled at the rush to judgment I’m seeing. Nadia has been nothing but friendly. She’s warm and likable. Do you have any idea how much time she gave to make the auction a success? I’m not sure it would have happened at all without her.” She talked right over the other woman, whose voice Nadia had recognized. Peggy Montgomery, whose consigned quilt was currently starring in the front window display. “What’s more, Nadia is a fine businesswoman with a good eye for color. With the way she’s selling our quilts online, she’s giving all of us opportunities we haven’t had.”