A knowing smile crackled behind his blue eyes, making her catch her breath. “Ahhh, yes. Esther. Her name claims my brother’s tongue often.”
She forced her gaze from his eyes and said the only thing she could think of at that moment. “W-would you like to see my shop?”
He nodded. “I would like that.”
Inhaling deeply, she turned and followed the sidewalk the remaining ten feet to the front porch of Heavenly Treasures, the sight of the white clapboard siding and newly hung shingled sign bringing an instant smile to her lips. It was as if the cares of the world stopped at the doorstep, chased from their foothold by the promise of dreams and their power to win in the end. “While I make the candles and a few other odds and ends, the majority of items I sell here are Amish made. Or, to be more specific, Esther-made.”
Benjamin reached around her, pushing the door open and
allowing her to enter first. “Martha has taught her daughter well,” he said above the jingling bells.
Grateful for the common ground that was the Fisher family—or, at least the female arm of the Fisher family—she forged ahead. “She is dedicated and conscientious and everything a shopkeeper could want in an employee.” She set her handbag on the counter and looked around. “Speaking of Esther, she should be here by now.”
Esther hurried into the room and stopped, her scared eyes widening still further at the sight of Benjamin Miller bent at the waist and studying one of her quilts. With quick fingers, the young girl tied the strings of her white head cap and neatened the apron of her simple dress. “I … I am sorry I did not hear you come in.”
“Is everything okay?” Claire asked.
Benjamin straightened and turned to face them both.
Esther swallowed. “Did you not hear about Mr. Snow?”
“I heard, or, rather,
saw
.”
Nodding, Esther continued, her momentary apprehension regarding Benjamin’s presence dissipating in rapid fashion. “How could this happen? And so close to the store?”
Claire crossed the room and rested a calming hand on the young girl’s arm. “That’s what the police will determine. But everything will be fine, I’m sure—”
The front door of the shop opened, its telltale door-mounted bell announcing the presence of a shopper. Pulling her hand from Esther’s arm, Claire turned, her usual customer greeting dying on her lips at the sight of Jakob Fisher in what was obviously an official capacity, judging by the gun on his hip.
“Claire?” The detective’s smile slipped from his mouth as his gaze traveled across her head and narrowed
in on Benjamin before coming to rest on Esther. He reached out, grabbed hold of a nearby shelf for support. “Martha?”
Esther’s gasp brought Benjamin to her side, the Amish man’s lean yet muscular stature creating a buffer of protection between Jakob and the niece he’d never met.
“This is not Martha,” Benjamin said in a voice suddenly devoid of all warmth.
“But it looks just like her,” Jakob whispered.
“It is not.”
Anxious to wipe the pain from the detective’s eyes, she rushed to fill in the gap Benjamin and Esther left open. “This is Esther … Martha’s daughter.”
“Martha’s daughter,” he echoed. “My … my niece.”
“Martha’s daughter,” Benjamin corrected.
Jakob pulled his hand from the shelf and fisted it at his side. “Which makes her my niece, doesn’t it?”
Feeling the tension magnifying tenfold, Claire stepped forward, positioning herself between the detective and his past. “I imagine you’re here about what happened …”
When he didn’t respond, she tried again. “The crime scene out back has to do with Walter Snow, doesn’t it?”
It was as if she’d thrown a bucket of ice water over his head, startling him from a long-ago path of regret and anguish and setting him on one he could still master. “That’s right. But first I have to ask what you’re doing here.”
“This is my shop.”
“
Your
shop …” His words gave way momentarily to a knowing smile. “You mean the place you dreamed about for years but only recently found the courage to grab hold of?”
She felt the pang in her chest at his ability to hear and
remember—almost verbatim—their conversation at the police station. What guy did that?
Not Peter …
With a quick shake of her head, she willed herself to focus on the man standing in front of her rather than the one clouding her past. She found her smile. “Welcome to Heavenly Treasures.”
He looked past her to Benjamin and Esther. “Thank you.”
“So what happened?”
Pulling his gaze from his former life, he fixed it, instead, on Claire. “Last night, around six o’clock, this building’s former shopkeeper was found dead out back, not more than a few feet from the alleyway between here and the bake shop. He was a victim of foul play.”
She brought her hands to her mouth and looked at the detective across her fingertips. “Who? How?”
“The
how
is easy. He was strangled. But we’re still actively working on the
who
behind the crime. And that’s why I’m here, Claire.”
It was her turn to grab for a shelf, her turn to wish Benjamin’s strong form would move in to protect her …
Benjamin did not disappoint. “Miss Weatherly did not kill Mr. Snow.”
Jakob’s hand stilled, midflip of his notebook, irritation marring his otherwise-attractive features. “Did I say she did?”
“You are here to question her, no?”
“I’m here to ask her questions. There’s a difference, Benjamin.”
“I see no difference.”
“You never do.” Jakob fixed his gaze back on Claire. “The estimated time of death has Mr. Snow’s murder within an hour of his body being found.”
“Okay …”
“I assume your shop closes at five like the rest of the shops on Lighted Way?”
She nodded.
“Well, since you were at Diane’s about that time, can you tell me who handled the closing of this place?”
“Esther did.”
Jakob peered around Claire. “Then I will need to speak with Esther.”
An audible gasp emerged from Esther’s mouth. “I can not. Mamm would not allow it.”
“I’d be speaking to you as a police officer, not as your … uncle.” Jakob raked his free hand through his hair.
Esther stepped closer to Benjamin, worry and fear evident in every nuance of her young face. “Mamm will never forgive me, Benjamin.”
“Your mom can be with you,” Jakob suggested softly.
“No!” Esther grabbed hold of Benjamin’s arm. “I can not do that to Mamm.”
Claire rested a hand on Jakob’s arm, his tension rising up beneath her fingers as she addressed her young friend. “Esther, would it help if I stayed with you?”
Esther looked from Claire to Benjamin and back to Claire before finally settling on Jakob. “I would like Claire to be with me.”
Jakob offered an encouraging smile. “Of course. I don’t need to take you to the police station, Esther. I just have a few basic questions that I can ask you right here.”
“Basic?” Esther echoed.
“Like this one,” Jakob said as he flipped to a clean page in his notebook. “Did you notice anything unusual in the alleyway when you were closing up?”
Esther considered the question. “I did not. I took the trash to the outdoor bin and saw …”
Jakob looked up as Esther quit talking. “What did you see?”
Knowing the answer, Claire encouraged Esther to continue. “Tell him, Esther. It’s okay.”
Esther peeked at Benjamin through long lashes. “I … I saw Eli.”
A slight smile tugged Jakob’s lips upward. “Benjamin’s brother?”
“Yes,” Esther whispered.
“How is he?”
“Very well, thank you.”
Claire grinned at Esther’s sweet reply.
“Did the two of you talk?”
“Talk?” Esther repeated.
“Yes. Did you have a conversation?”
“We did.”
“May I ask what you talked about?” Jakob asked.
“He asked about my day. And I told him.” Claire stood up straight as a cloud passed across Esther’s face. “He … He got very—”
Bells jingled over the door once again, preventing Esther from finishing a sentence Claire wasn’t sure she should finish. Grateful for the momentary reprieve, she turned toward the fiftysomething woman standing in the doorway.
“Good morning. Welcome to Heavenly Treasures.”
Pushing past Claire, the overly made-up woman planted herself between Jakob and Esther, eyes blazing. “Detective Fisher?”
“Yes? And you are?”
“Mrs. Snow. Mrs. Nellie Snow.” Bypassing Jakob’s hand, the woman pointed at Benjamin. “I want you to arrest that man and his brother, Eli.”
Benjamin stumbled backward, shocked. “Why? What did I do?”
“You and that brother of yours killed my husband. You killed my Walter!”
I
n Claire’s experience, a person was hard-pressed to know much about another human being inside twenty-four hours. It simply wasn’t enough time to learn the kinds of things that mattered. Those things came with time. Sometimes painfully so.
Jakob Fisher, however, broke that mold.
In fact, the list of things she’d discerned about the detective since dropping off his welcome-to-Heavenly gift at the station the day before was growing. Quickly.
There were the basics, of course—the sandy blond hair, the amber-flecked hazel eyes, the strong arms, the tall form. But there was also the deeper stuff, the kinds of things that Peter had failed to display after five years, let alone one day.
Yet of all the things she’d seen crossing paths with Jakob, the scene unfolding in front of her eyes was by far the most impressive. Sure, his reaction to her gift had been refreshing.
So, too, was the way he listened and remembered things she said. But the clarity of thought and bent toward kindness he showed during a high-stress moment said the most. The fact that the same attributes appeared to have been noticed by Benjamin Miller and Esther King, of all people, only served to strengthen his character.
Claire glanced around Esther’s chair and studied the woman who had blown into Heavenly Treasures with nothing more than wild accusations and an ax to grind. Nellie Snow was the proverbial wounded soul. Her husband of twenty years had skipped town on her a month earlier amid a hailstorm of finger-pointing from the Amish community. But rather than consider the notion that her precious Walter had stolen thousands and thousands of dollars from these same people, Nellie placed the blame on them.
Walter hadn’t stolen their money and run, she claimed.
No, the Amish had concocted an elaborate plan to drive an honest businessman from town for some other nefarious reason. What that reason was, Nellie claimed, was Jakob’s job to determine. But when it came to her husband’s murder, she had the suspects all picked out.
“Now tell me again why you believe Benjamin and Eli were behind your husband’s murder, Mrs. Snow?” Jakob asked, pausing to rake his hand through his hair before listening to a tirade that simply didn’t hold water when it came to the Amish.
Nellie took a slow, deliberate inhale, her broad shoulders rising and falling as she did. Then, with pointed finger, she gestured at a wide-eyed yet silent Benjamin Miller. “That man there, he was the one who came into Walter’s shop and accused him of stealing money. Why, he said my husband sold their handmade furniture and chests and pocketed all the money for himself.”
“That is because he did,” Benjamin said, his voice wary yet firm.
Nellie’s chin jutted into the air. “If he had, he would have spent it on me. On clothes and fine restaurants, love letters and trips.”
“There were letters but not for her,” Esther whispered above the soft clatter of her own teeth.
Claire’s hand stilled on the young woman’s shoulder. “What was that, Esther?”
Esther’s eyes widened as the clattering stopped, the rhythmic sound quickly replaced by an insistent shushing meant only for Claire’s ears. But the girl was unsuccessful.
“Don’t you shush me, Esther King. This man”—Nellie again pointed at Benjamin—“may have made the original accusation, but his brother—the boy you moon after morning, noon, and night—is the one who hated my Walter enough to kill him.”
Benjamin stood erect. “Amish do not kill.”
“Do they drink, Mr. Miller?” Nellie spat.
“No.”
Nellie’s eyes narrowed. “Oh no?”
“No.”
“Do they fight?”
“No.”
Jakob raised his hands in the air. “What are you getting at, Mrs. Snow?”
“This man says his brother would not kill because he is Amish. Yet he also says that same boy would not drink or fight because he is Amish.”
“You’ve lost me.” Jakob looked from Nellie to Benjamin and back again, the confusion in his face surely a mirror of Claire’s.
Nellie walked to the center of the store and spun around,
her face a study in righteous indignation. “If an Amish man would drink and fight, why wouldn’t he kill?”
Jakob pinned Benjamin with a stare. “What is she talking about, Benjamin?”
The Amish man’s shoulders hitched upward. “I do not know.”
Raising her finger once again, Nellie pointed in Claire’s direction. “She does.”
Claire drew back. “Excuse me?”
“Not you,
her
.”
All eyes turned on Esther, prompting the clattering to start all over again.
“Esther?” Claire whispered. “Is there something you need to tell us?”
One by one, tears streaked their way down the young woman’s makeup-free face, twisting Claire’s heart in the process.
Claire sent a hopeless glance in Jakob’s direction and prayed he would understand its meaning.
He did.
“Mrs. Snow, I’ve heard what you have to say and will want to speak with you in greater detail at the station. But for now, I must ask you to leave as I conduct my investigation.”
Rage reduced Nellie’s eyes to mere slits. “I’ve heard about your past, Detective. And I will tell you right now that I will go to every ethics board I can find if this becomes an Amish-protecting-Amish case.”
For a moment, Jakob was silent, the only sound in the room his breath as he worked to steady it. “I am neither Amish nor English, Mrs. Snow. What I am is a detective. And I will not rest until the truth surrounding your husband’s death has been found. No matter where that leads.”