Assaulted Pretzel (12 page)

“Aunt Diane, you can’t really believe what happened to the Karbles’ room yesterday was simply about thievery, can you?”

The fading sound of footsteps stopped and then resumed once again, this time growing louder as they made their way back toward the center of the porch. “What else would you call it?”

“Calculated. Intentional. Planned out. Take your pick.” Claire patted the vacant spot to her left. “Aunt Diane, please come sit. It’s easier to talk to you when you’re not walking all over the place.”

“I’m too keyed up to sit, dear,” Diane said, plopping down onto the swing and continuing the conversation, anyway. “It doesn’t matter what fancy word you give it, Claire. My guests still had their sense of safety violated in
my
inn. They made the choice to spend their vacation here rather than one of the chain hotels in Breeze Point and I let them down.”

“Let them down?”

“Of course.” Diane clasped her hands in her lap only to disengage them and start fiddling with a loose thread midway down her simple dress. “I’ve been so busy trying to create this atmosphere of home and family that I’ve become careless with my guests’ safety.”

Before Claire could muster a protest, Diane continued. “Every week there are multiple newspaper accounts of criminal activity around the county. Yet, somehow, I thought we were immune from such nonsense here in Heavenly. And because of that naiveté, I let my guests down.”

She considered her aunt’s words only to discard them against a reality that was being missed. “So what do you think you could have done differently? Locked the front door? Wired in a few surveillance cameras? Installed a home security system? What?”

“All of those, I guess,” Diane said, shrugging.

“Do you really think any of those would have mattered yesterday?”

Diane drew back. “Of course. Don’t you?”

“No, actually, I don’t.” This time, it was Claire who stopped the swing and rose to her feet. “Let’s say you locked the door. You don’t think a
determined
person could come in through, say”—she gestured toward the long windows on either side of the front door—“one of these? Because I do.

“You don’t think a
determined
person could cover their head with a hood and look down at the floor as they were passing a surveillance camera? Because I do. And as for a security system…you really think, on a day that virtually every resident and police officer in this town was at that food festival, a
determined
person couldn’t have been in and out of this place before anyone responded? Because I don’t, Aunt Diane, and neither should you.”

Even in the dim porch light, Claire could see the flash of hope in Diane’s eyes just before a soft clapping exploded from the vicinity of the stairs and made them both jump.

“Hey, it’s just me. Jakob.” Stepping into the lighted section of the porch, Jakob held up his palms in surrender. “Sorry about that. I guess I got so caught up in what you were saying just now, Claire, that I didn’t really think about announcing my presence in a way that wouldn’t give you both a heart attack.”

Diane unclutched her hand from the front of her chest and managed a wan smile for the detective. “Jakob. I’m so sorry. We didn’t hear you…”

Jakob’s laugh slowed the beating of Claire’s heart in her ears. “I’m the one who’s sorry. For scaring the two of you just now and for not making things clear where yesterday’s break-in is concerned. My failure to do so has obviously made you doubt yourself, Diane, and for that, I’m doubly sorry.”

Claire motioned to her aunt while silently acknowledging the way this man spoke to her on a level that had nothing to do with talk of break-ins and murder and everything to do with the alluring mixture of kindness and strength he exuded just standing there in faded blue jeans and a navy blue Henley. “Tell her, will you? She doesn’t seem to get what happened here.”

Tipping his head in her direction, Jakob crossed to the swing and sat down, taking Diane’s hand in his as he did. “The key word in what your niece just said, Diane, is
determined
. What happened upstairs wasn’t a random break-in. If it was, your china would be gone, your guests’ jewelry would be gone, and virtually any item of monetary value would be missing. But none of that was taken.”

Diane stopped fiddling with the loose thread on her dress and met the detective’s eyes. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that whoever came in here yesterday came with a purpose. And that purpose had nothing to do with Sleep Heavenly and everything to do with one particular guest who’d chosen to stay here.”

“Rob Karble,” Diane whispered.

With a nod of confirmation, Jakob moved on. “Whoever it was who did this was on a mission and I don’t think there’s anything you could have done to deter him or her from that mission.” Claire saw the gentle squeeze he offered Diane’s hand and swallowed, the sudden need to feel his hand on hers unnerving. “Which is why I’m here. Or, rather, why I showed up on your porch steps just now.”

Desperate to fill her mind with something other than the way Jakob’s blond hair faded just above his ears or the broad set to his strong shoulders, Claire turned toward the house and began walking. “You need to see Room Six?”

Jakob rose to his feet. “I’d like to, if that’s okay. If it’s too late, I could come back first thing in the morning. As it is, I didn’t even know I was going to stop by until I walked up your driveway.”

“Do you think you’ll be loud?” Diane asked as she followed them into the front entryway. “My guests have all retired for the evening and I don’t want them to be disturbed.”

“Nope. I’m looking for something very specific. I have no intention of being loud and what I’m looking for shouldn’t take all that long to locate.” Jakob stopped at the base of the staircase and motioned his chin to the top. “Which room is Mrs. Karble in?”

“She’s in a room here on the first floor but she’s sleeping. The shock of everything that’s happened has drained the poor thing,” Diane explained in true caretaker fashion. “You don’t have to speak with her at this late hour, do you?”

“No. Anything I need to ask her can wait until morning.”

Twenty minutes later, while Diane was bustling about the kitchen catching up on her premorning prep work, Jakob came down the stairs and met Claire in the parlor, his face grave. “Well, that’s all I need. I’m sorry I had to intrude on your evening like this.”

She set the paperback mystery novel she’d been reading onto the coffee table and patted the vacant sofa cushion to her right, the burst of happiness she felt as he accepted her invitation warming her cheeks. “Is everything okay?” she asked.

Jakob propped his elbows atop his thighs and rubbed at the skin around his eyes. “When I turned up your driveway this evening it’s because I was out walking. Thinking about my sister and Isaac. All I want to do is help them, Claire. So they don’t have to worry anymore and…”

His voice faded along with his focus, prompting her to touch his shoulder. “Go on, Jakob. Finish your sentence.”

His hands moved upward to cradle his head. “I want them to think I’m okay. I want them to think I made a good decision when I left to become a cop. I want them to think”—he stopped, swallowed, and then continued on, his voice barely more than a raspy whisper—“that I’m still an okay guy. An okay brother.”

“And that’s changed all of a sudden?”

Dropping his hands to his knees, Jakob leaned against the back of the couch and looked up at the ceiling. “I still want those things, want them more than I can ever completely explain. But now, I’m doubting that’ll ever happen.”

She shifted her body so as to afford a better view of the detective, the urge to reach out and touch his face almost more than she could bear. Instead, she tucked her hand beneath her leg and willed her voice to remain as neutral as possible. “I don’t understand. What’s changed in the last forty minutes or so?”

A long pause was followed by a labored shrug. “Everything.”

“Tell me.”

Shifting his gaze to hers, he tried to muster a smile for her benefit but gave up when it became obvious a grimace was the best he could offer. “Do you remember the roller track plans we saw on the victim’s camera this morning? The ones Ben said were Isaac’s?”

She pulled her hand out from under her leg. “Yes.”

“The time stamp on the corner of that photo said it was taken yesterday morning. When I asked your aunt what time Karble came back to the inn yesterday, she said he came back prior to going to the festival. When he did, he had a briefcase in one hand, and his camera in the other.”

“She told me that, too,” Claire offered.

“Diane also said that within ten minutes, he was back down the stairs and heading out the door for the festival with only the camera around his neck.”

“Okay…”

“His return to the inn was
after
that picture was taken.”

At a loss for what to say, she simply waited for him to continue.

“Don’t you see?” he asked. “Those plans should still be in his briefcase or, in the event he removed them before leaving for the festival,
somewhere
in his room upstairs.”

And then she got it. “And they’re not, are they?”

“Nope. Not a trace of them anywhere. In fact, there are absolutely no signs there was any contact between Karble and either Daniel or Isaac to be found anywhere.”

“Except in the camera,” she whispered.

He nodded, slowly. “Except in the camera. Which was on Karble when he was killed.”

She tried to make sense of what she was hearing but came up short. “So what, exactly, are you saying?” she finally asked.

“I think I figured out what was driving the determination to get into Room Six.”

“The roller track plans?”

Again, he nodded, this time with even more resignation. “That or anything having to do with the Back to Basics line as it pertained to the Amish. I mean, let’s face it, if a man with Karble’s clout comes to town to make a business deal, don’t you think there’d be at least some paperwork to be found?”

She pushed off the sofa with her hands and meandered her away around the room, stopping to straighten a book or move a votive candle every few feet. When she reached the last set of shelves, she turned back to the detective. “And you’re thinking the memo that made its way around the festival yesterday is what drove either Isaac or Daniel to come here—while everyone was gone—and go tearing through Mr. Karble’s room?”

“It’s the only theory that makes any sense so far.”

She stared at Jakob. “And the murder? What about that?
You can’t possibly be considering either one of them for that, can you?”

He, too, pushed off the sofa, his shoulders, his stance, every bit as wooden as Claire’s. “I repeat, it’s the only theory that makes any sense so far.”

S
he lifted her face to the warmth of the sun’s late morning rays and inhaled slowly, savoring the peaceful Amish countryside spread out around her. No matter how much she adored her shop, no matter how quaint and perfect she found the tourist-friendly section of Lighted Way to be, there was simply no getting around the fact that this side of town was Claire’s vision of peace.

Here, everything was different. The pace slowed, storefronts gave way to wide open fields tended by fathers and sons, and the most pervasive sound was silence. A windmill off to her right turned round and round with purpose, delivering an alternate source of power to a group of people who saw no need to rely on the outside world for such things. On her left, just beyond a small sheep-tended cemetery with several rows of simple headstones, was a large white farmhouse with a buggy parked off to its side. She didn’t really need the various-sized dresses and pants swaying back and
forth on the clothesline to know a large family lived inside. That was simply a given with the Amish. But still, she smiled. In this particular home, the mother had obviously purchased a bolt of lavender fabric, as every shirt and dress on the line—whether male or female—was the same color, save, of course, for the darker shade used on her own dress.

Claire followed the bend in the sparsely graveled road and looked ahead to the farmhouse about a quarter mile away. The house, like the one to her left, was large, too, with a recently harvested field just beyond its back door and a small white outbuilding to its side. With any luck, Daniel Lapp would be inside, crafting toys and open to the kind of questions he didn’t normally field from Keith Watson’s tour bus customers.

She’d planned to work in the shop all day, rearranging the front display window while Esther took care of the customers. But as soon as she walked in the back door and put her stuff on the tiny desk in the alcove she used as her office, she knew she couldn’t stay. All night she’d tossed and turned thinking of little else besides Jakob.

The detective wanted nothing more than to reestablish some sort of bond with his sister. And finally, just as it looked as if there might be a chance for real interaction between the two, he’s forced to have to look at their brother as a possible suspect in a murder.

A suspect with motive, no less.

What, if anything, she actually thought she’d accomplish by talking to Daniel Lapp was a complete mystery. She just knew she needed to try.