Finding Mercy (5 page)

Ella hurried outside and around the corner. “Were you hiding there while she was here?” she asked him. “Did you hear anything she said?”

“I saw she looked Chinese, like the driver who wrecked his car,” he said only, not looking at her, but staring at his feet. His crutch rested against the side of the house.

“What is it? What about the Chin—”

“Never mind. But look at this,” he said, pointing at the damp soil beneath her window. “I came down the hill and watched from around the corner to see what was going on and noticed footprints in the ground, pointing inward. See?”

“
Ya,
well, it rained last night and a couple of days ago. Seth did me a favor and cleaned these windows outside, so that’s probably why the prints.”

“Would he have cleaned every window? Because I’ve almost made it all the way around now and there are the same prints.”

She went with him. He was right. And, for sure, not Seth’s prints, not those of any Amish man, she reckoned, because they were pointy toed with a distinct separate heel, like maybe cowboy boots.

“Not Seth’s,” she said, shaking her head. “Not even Amish.”

“And recent. Maybe made last night, with the rain and all. Let’s go see if they’re at the farmhouse too.”

They were, around all the lower windows, which Seth had not cleaned. The hair on the back of Ella’s neck prickled. Could this be related to that huge eye she imagined on the hill?

“What about the sheriff?” Andrew asked, his voice urgent.

Again, she agonized, what and who was this man hiding from? Despite the fact she was sweating, she shivered. Maybe the prints had been made by someone who wasn’t used to mud, so in the dark he didn’t think about leaving a kind of calling card.

“I—I think the sheriff just wears black shoes,” she told him. “And why would he come here and look in after being here last night?”

“Maybe he knows there’s something fishy about me—but why your place, too, unless he thought I’d be living there and that you were still here in the farmhouse? Can you think of anyone around here who wears boots? That woman wasn’t wearing boots, was she? They could be a woman’s.”

“Andrew, she was at her son’s bedside in a hospital last night. She says they’re moving him to the Cleveland Clinic, so—”

“I’m sorry to involve you in my problems, and if I thought there was one moment of danger for any of you, I’d leave.”

“And go where?” she challenged.

Their eyes met and held as happened far too many times. Ella gripped the hand sickle hard in her hand. For one moment, she thought she should tell him about the reflection she’d seen on the hill last night, but it surely had been one of those tin pans catching wayward light. She didn’t want him to be more upset, or to think he’d have to leave.

“Let’s tell my father about these prints, and we’ll keep an eye out,” she said, longing to comfort him. “My sister Barbara has a come-calling friend from the next farm over, so I’ll ask her when she gets home if it could be Gabe, but he must know she’s not here.”

Ella reached out her free hand to touch his arm. The man was so tense he felt like a carved piece of wood. “Don’t fret,” she said. “Let’s just sniff some lavender, okay? It’s supposed to be as calming as it is stimulating.”

“Sniff some lavender,” he repeated with a little shake of his head. He sighed, and his shoulders heaved as if he was trying to force himself to relax. “As for stimulating,” he told her, “I find peaceful, pacifist Amish country very stimulating.”

His eyes took her in again. What a shift of moods. The man was teasing, almost flirting now—wasn’t he? How she wished she understood worldly ways better.

“So tell me everything our visitor talked about,” he said as he leaned on his crutch and they started back up the hill side by side. “Did she seem to have a foreign accent?”

“There’s something about you and the Chinese,” Ella blurted, when she’d meant to keep her own counsel.

“Have you ever heard of the ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy, Ella?”

“No. Meaning keep my nose out of it?”

“Truth is, I like your nose—and quick mind—but the less you know, the better.”

“I have heard of the ‘inquiring minds want to know’ policy.”

“You are so honest and open, and I can’t be either, not now at least. Can you trust me enough that we can still be friends—as well as boss and slave, of course.”

She could not stop her laughter any more than she could stop wanting to be around this mysterious man. Whatever danger he was in, he was dangerous too—at least to her usually careful and controlled secret self.

5

RAY-LYNN STOOD WITH her sack of two turkey sandwiches, dill pickles, slaw and raspberry iced teas in the sheriff’s office, waiting for Jack to finish a phone conversation. Lately her attempts to rebuild a relationship with him seemed destined to be overhearing snatches of his conversations with others. Only this time, she knew who he was talking to.

Standing at the back of the reception area near the short hall to his office, she’d figured out he was talking to FBI Agent Lincoln Armstrong, who had helped him solve a murder case here in town. Meanwhile, Ray-Lynn kept up sporadic chitchat with Doreen, the sheriff’s day shift phone receptionist and dispatcher. Doreen was only twenty-two and fairly new to Homestead, so at least, Ray-Lynn thought, here was someone who didn’t know more about her recent past than she did.

She and Jack had arranged to have lunch together today in his office. At least it was past the noon rush in the restaurant. She wished Doreen would quit chattering so she could hear Jack better.

“Have you seen the new deputy who came over from Wooster?” Doreen asked with a roll of her brown eyes. Her reddish-tinted hair—a much wilder color than Ray-Lynn’s—was in tight ringlets that bounced as did her full breasts. “He’s absolutely gung ho about working here—and absolutely darling,” she said in a stage whisper. “Winston Hayes, but goes by Win, and he is a winner! Not married, either.”

“I heard he was coming but haven’t met him.”

Ray-Lynn could tell Jack was giving Agent Armstrong a bad time. “So why did you recommend to Branin sending someone who was a hit magnet to the Home Valley?” Jack demanded. “That’s a fine way to say thanks after what we been through around here lately!”

Now what in tarnation was a “hit magnet,” Ray-Lynn wondered.

“And now that you’ve taken early retirement,” Jack went on, “forget coming anywhere near Hannah. She’s marrying Seth this Friday. Yeah, that’s what I said, so just keep clear.”

Wow, Ray-Lynn thought, cocking her head to concentrate on his voice while Doreen rambled on about Win Hayes. Linc Armstrong had retired from the FBI he seemed to love so much? She dare not tell Hannah, because she’d also have to tell her where she got the info and no way was she admitting to eavesdropping on Jack Freeman, even if she was desperate to know everything she could find out about him—about them. Drat her memory loss. She had to keep calm; she had a lot to be grateful for, to look forward to and live for.

“In other words, Win’s really a good name for him,” Doreen was saying in her southern Ohio twang, which could not hold a candle to a real Georgia drawl. “He’s built real muscular, a little short for a guy—like maybe my height—but he’s got big ideas. I can tell, he’s going places, wants to be a sheriff someday. Does he ever look great in a uniform! I get the vibe of you’re-safe-with-me, but he gives me the shivers at the same time, know what I mean?”

“I do indeed,” Ray-Lynn said as she heard Jack hang up. “Nice chatting with you, Doreen.” As she went down the hall, Jack swept open the door of his office, which had been ajar.

“Hey, didn’t know you were here!” he said with a smile.

“It’s one-thirty. Actually, after. I was waiting in the main office with Doreen.”

“Wish we had time to drive out somewhere nice, ’cause it’s a pretty day, but I ’preciate your bringing this here,” he said, ushering her in and closing the door firmly. He gave her a hug and a quick kiss. Would he guess she’d overheard him? If so, it wasn’t her fault. “Too much going on for us to really connect sometimes,” he muttered as she took the food items out of the sack and placed them on the edge of his desk.

“And that’s something I want—feel I’m ready for,” she said as they sat in his two guest chairs. He had repositioned them in front of his desk so they were facing each other. Jack reached over and put a big, warm hand on her knee.

“I’d like that, honey. I been trying to give you some space and time, but you bet I’d like that, picking up where we left off.”

She almost blurted out the question that had been haunting her: But where did we leave off? Were we sleeping together? Talking marriage? The Ray-Lynn who was rebuilding her memories and confidence after her brain trauma wasn’t ready for any of that, was she? Because she needed to know where they’d been to trust where they were going.

“Let’s do dinner soon,” Jack said as he unwrapped the sandwich she’d made for him herself in the restaurant’s kitchen. “Not around here unless it’s a private picnic somewhere really pretty. You know, my new deputy—”

“Oh, yes, I heard about him just now from his fan club groupie Doreen,” Ray-Lynn said, thinking he was going to talk business now.

“Yeah, real ambitious, doesn’t quite know yet that he doesn’t know much. But I’m glad to get the extra manpower with the crimes we’ve had around here lately. He was fairly new on the Wooster force but volunteered to come here when he heard there was an opening—likes smaller towns and rural folks, he said. Anyhow, I was going to say, Win told me that if you stand on the hill above Ella Lantz’s lavender field, the scent is great and there’s a stunning view of the valley. How about we do wine, cheese, a loaf of bread and thou up there some evening as the sun sets—maybe tonight, if I can get away. It’s short notice, but how about it? I’ll take a radio, bring a blanket, just like in the old days.”

“You know the old days for us are new days to me, Jack. But it sounds wonderfully romantic.”

“That’s what I mean it to be. I think we’re more than friends again. We’ve rebuilt that a different way from what we did the first time, but now we can move on by going back.”

He looked so intent. His sandwich was halfway to his mouth, but he seemed not to know it, and she saw that as a great compliment.

* * *

Ella knew Andrew needed some horse skills, especially hitching and handling a buggy. She was disappointed when
Daad
told Aaron at midday dinner that he should take an hour and give their guest his first buggy lesson. She’d been planning to take a back road through a field to the mill today and teach Andrew herself along the way. Though it wasn’t her regular day for it, she’d also planned to make lavender deliveries to Amanda Stutzman’s Plain & Fancy B & B and to the Dutch Farm Table Restaurant in town, all excuses to show Andrew around a little more. And, she admitted to herself, just to have more time with him. She had never been so passionately curious about anyone in her life.

Daad
called to Aaron as he and Andrew headed out the back door, “Harness up in the barn, so no outsider can see you teaching him.”
Mamm
and Ella got up from the table and began to clear dinner dishes while Aaron walked out to the road to get the mail. “So,”
Daad
said, turning toward Ella, “what do you think about those footprints Andrew spotted? You got a secret come-calling friend who’s too eager?”

“I’m not seeing anyone. I don’t know what to make of those prints, made by Western cowboy boots, I think. Maybe Aaron’s ready-for-
rumspringa
friends came after him or were playing a prank. Some of them don’t have much sense about sneaking out.”

Amidst the clink of flatware and dishes,
Mamm
put in, “Though you’ve changed your ways, that’s the pot calling the kettle black, my girl. I believe you and your friends used to sneak out once or twice.”

At that, Ella kept silent. She’d been pleased she’d somehow thrown off the black mood that was threatening her yesterday, and she didn’t want it circling back. Just because she couldn’t teach Andrew to handle a horse and buggy, just because he couldn’t go with her to get ground oyster shells from the gristmill today, so what, she tried to buck herself up.

Also she didn’t say anything back to
Mamm,
because it would be a lot worse for her if her parents ever learned she’d almost drowned on one of those nights she’d sneaked out, had suffered the attacks of black moods ever since—and had never told them one thing about it. Shouldn’t someone Amish just be able to trust in the Lord for healing? It should work to just pray fears away. A good Amish soul would confess to the bishop or the entire church to cleanse her conscience, yet Ella was certain that would not change a thing for her. In a way, she felt afraid of life now. The sampler
Grossmamm
Ruth had on her bedroom wall upstairs seemed like good advice, but it just didn’t work for Ella: Do Not Fret. It Only Causes Harm.

“You’re a real pretty girl, Ella,”
Daad
said as he rose from the table. Ella looked up, taken aback by the worldly compliment.
Daad
continued. “And since you go here and there delivering the lavender, sell some to outsiders, talk friendly to them, maybe you attracted the wrong kind of attention. What about a secret admirer, someone you might not even be thinking about? Should
Mamm
go with you today to the mill?”

“You mean like I’m being stalked? No one like that,
Daad,
really,” she said, and began washing up the dishes with such a vengeance that the warm, sudsy water swirled in the sink and made waves. “Sometimes, I wish there was someone for me—but not one who peeks in windows. I’ll be fine going to the mill on my own, just fine.”

* * *

As Ella started out to the barn to hitch her horse Fern to her buggy, two of Aaron’s buddy-group guys pulled into the lane at a good clip. They were in a fancy courting buggy one of them must have borrowed, because at fourteen, they were both too young to own one. Two more bug-in-their-beans pre-
rumspringa
boys who were feeling their oats already, Ella thought. They couldn’t wait for their running-around time, couldn’t wait to court a girl.

“Hey, Ella!” Mose Raber, a distant cousin, shouted. “Where’s Aaron? We got to show him this buggy!”

“He’s in the barn. I’ll send him out!” she called back. Since Andrew seemed to want to steer clear of people, no use to get these excited kids chattering away at him too in their
Deutsche
dialect he wouldn’t understand. What if the bishop hadn’t been able to tell everyone in the church yet that they were harboring an
Auslander
for a while?

Ella was surprised to find that Aaron was teaching Andrew with her horse and buggy. “We knew you were going to the mill, so we thought we’d hitch up for you while I show him,” Aaron said.

That kindness didn’t sound like Aaron lately—or had Andrew suggested that? “
Danki,
but I can do it. Besides, Mose and Sol are outside to show you a courting buggy. It’s okay if you go out to say hi. I can show Andrew.”

Could it be, she thought, that the Lord had set this up with perfect timing? Andrew might not be going with her to the mill, but she had him to herself again. How she wished he’d tell her something about his real life.

“Aaron said your horse’s name is Fern,” Andrew said, interrupting her thoughts as he patted her mare’s flank.

“Right. See the little leaf mark on her forehead, like a fern? What else did he say?”

“That you always curry her before hitching up, but he’d skip that part right now. And that she used to be a champion pacer and could do almost eight miles an hour instead of just six, like the slower horse your dad lets him use.”

“Speed,” she said, giving Fern a few quick strokes with the curry brush. “Both my brothers like fast buggies, new leather and speed. I do too, and if I blow Fern a kiss she goes even faster.”

He smiled. “I’ll remember that. The love of speed sounds universal to me—something the Amish have in common with the world.”

“I know what universal means,” she replied, trying not to sound testy. “You had to leave behind a fast car, I bet.”

“Not a sports car, though. I went for a black BMW—corporate image.”

He had actually told her something personal. “Oh, I see.”

“I don’t mean to talk down to you, but I suppose you think I’m speaking a foreign language sometimes.”

“Like you think about us, I guess. And never the twain shall meet, my grandfather used to say.”

“But we are meeting, and I want to learn your ways. I admire much about your life.”

“Okay, then,” she said, tossing the curry brush onto a hay bale. She hoped Andrew didn’t notice she was blushing over a compliment as simple as that. She stroked Fern hard with the palms of her hands a couple of times where she’d brushed her, whispering,
“Ser gut, ser gut, mein Fern.”

She picked up some of the tack Aaron had already taken from the pegs along the wall near the stalls. “Here’s what to remember to harness a horse and hitch him or her to the buggy.” She named the different parts of the tack while she used each, then reviewed. “Collar around neck, breast strap between forelegs, crupper under tail…”

“That under-tail stuff can be dangerous, right? Got to watch out on that back end.”

She turned to look directly at him for the first time since she’d started harnessing. “You mean, what we call horse apples? Mostly, that happens when they’re grazing in the field or especially on the road. It’s one of the things some English hold against us, that and they say these steel wheel rims on the buggy cut into the asphalt. But we have a right to be there too, and we put up with fumes and noise and the danger of being hit or run over.”

“I never thought about outsiders disliking the Amish for anything. Do they harass or retaliate against you? Could that be a reason someone would be looking in the windows—to plan something against your family?”

“There have been a few hate crimes. Some folks blame us for being pacifists, for turning the other cheek, not serving in the army, and they take advantage of that. You know, I’ll tell Aaron to ask around to see if anyone else has had people looking in their windows. It could be just someone curious. Okay, here now, let’s back her up to the buggy. These long, narrow hickory pieces attach the horse to the buggy and keep her in line with it.”

As he helped her, he said, “I was surprised to see the bishop’s buggy had a foot brake. I mean, can’t you just tell the horse to ‘whoa’?”

“Going fast enough, the buggy could slide into her. Did you notice all our wagons and buggies have reflective orange safety triangles on the back? Headlights too—a high- and low-beam switch on the floor with the battery under the seat. Now, whatever is keeping Aaron?” she asked, taking a step back when he came closer to peer into the buggy.