In Plain View (Amish Safe House, Book 2) (4 page)

“It's not gossip,” Beckie insisted, before
gulping down half her glass. “My cousin, Jeremiah, saw them with
his own eyes. He’s on
rumspringa
, you know.”

Beckie, clearly ignoring Maria's stern
disapproving looks, scooted to the edge of her seat. “They are a
right nasty group too. Jeremiah says they have connections in the
town's political structure. Jeremiah is staying with some people
who run their own café. These thugs started shaking the family down
for protection money. When the man said the mayor would run them
out, the leader just laughed and said they own the mayor. Jeremiah
told me that he thinks that they have people in the police force,
and judges already, too. No one even acknowledges complaints.”

“Es waarken maulvoll gat!”
There’s
nothing good about that!
Lillian covered her mouth with
delicately curled fingers. “What has this world come to, these
days?”

“He really should come on back home,” Esther
said. “I know this is his time, but it's dangerous out there.”

“That's not even the scariest part of the
story.” Beckie was all but bouncing in her seat. “That photo of man
the police showed us? The man found in the pond? That man was the
one shaking down that family for money.”

“How could you possibly know that?” Maria
asked, looking torn between shutting down the woman's story and
listening.

“Because Jeremiah saw the dead man's picture
in the newspapers. And he's the exact same man that shook the cafe
down for money. Twice that he knew of.”

Kate was surprised. She was sure that agents
would have given themselves headaches trying to figure out how to
find out that information, yet Beckie had effortlessly gotten all
that information from her cousin.
That's it - forget the
Feds
, Kate thought.
When I get back to my real life, I’m
going to hire an Amish knitting circle
.

Lillian looked around the room and twisted
the scarf she was working on in her hands. “My brother nearly got
run into on his way to market the other day. That was the day
before they found the body. He said two cars came through the main
trail going awfully fast. If he hadn't scooted this horse to the
side in time, they would have smashed clear through his cart. He
said it looked like one was chasing the other.”

This brought on a fresh wave of whispers and
gasps. The town road was not far from the community at all. And the
man had been found in a pond right there on the path.

“Do you think that was the man that died,
and the ones that killed him?” Esther asked as the women started to
whisper among themselves.

“Goodness gracious, Lillian. Your brother
had
Der Herr
watching out for him then,” Abigail said, her
face white.

“No doubt about that,” Esther chimed in.
“Why didn't you say anything?”

“I thought it was just some mindless
teenagers from town or something.”

Naomi banged her cane against the wooden
floor, sending the women into immediate silence. Despite her age,
the woman commanded immediate respect. “All right, ladies. There's
no use speculating about things we have no control over.”

“That's right,” Maria said, recovering her
composure and stern expression. “We're not here to be a bunch of
gossiping hens. One minute it’s news about Jeremiah having an
encounter, next you are all letting your imaginations run
wild.”

Maria rose to her feet and neatly placed
down her knitting as she sniffed and headed toward the kitchen. “It
should be about time for the cobbler to come out of the oven. I'll
prepare the plates. Beckie, would you help me with the drinks?”

Beckie agreed as she struggled to her feet,
but the fact that she was disappointed that Maria was pulling her
away from continuing the hushed gossip, was as plain as day.

Kate frowned and tried to look busy with her
knitting as she thought about the details. The crime ring had some
sort of connection to the mayor. The dead man had been shaking down
town businesses for protection fees. And he was found dead in a
pond the day after they nearly ran over Lillian's brother. That
about summed it up. If she had her badge, she'd be having a hay day
with this rush of information. But how to do it as Kate, the
amnesic Amish girl?

“Is your brother okay?” Kate asked Lillian,
trying to think of any details he might have told her about the car
chase. If it had been right before the murder, then there could
potentially be some vital clues in their stories.

Lillian turned her attention to Kate.
“
Jah
, Benjamin is fine,
denki
. He was a mite shaken
up over the whole thing, but that is it.”

Kate was about to work out an innocent
enough request for details when she saw the gears turning in
Lillian's head.

“You know, Kate,” Lillian started
speculatively. “My
bruder
, Benjamin, well, I think he might
have an eye on you. You and he ought to take a little buggy ride
together. How would you feel if he happened to ask?”

Esther reached over to smack Lillian on the
knee. “Lillian! You can't just go pushing your brother on poor
Kate. She might have herself a fiancé back home she still needs to
remember.”

“Well then, she should break it off with him
for not coming by all this time,” Lillian shot back in an indignant
tone. “She can't remember what doesn't come visiting. And we all
know there's plenty of eligible
menner
that would come
courting if Kate gave them half a hint she was looking.”

“But I'm not looking,” Kate said. She was
startled and her mind was whirling. How in the world did they go
from a crime ring to her love life? Or lack thereof?

“Well you can just look. Having a little
attention now and then never hurts anyone.” Lillian smiled
mischievously.

Esther shook her head. “Oh let her be,
Lillian. Kate, don't fret over it. Lillian is just teasing you a
bit. Don't pay it any mind.”

Kate smiled, but already her thoughts were
drifting away. The sooner she could solve the case, the safer these
ladies would be. If organized crime got their claws too far into
the town, an occasional burglar would be the least of this Amish
community's problems.

Colossians 3:1.
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that
are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of
God.

Chapter
6
.

As the sun shone through the window,
illuminating her bedroom, Kate rolled over, partially waking up
from the intrusion of light that crept into her tightly closed
eyes. She rubbed her eyes furiously and forced herself to wake from
her deep slumber. After struggling to avoid getting out of bed for
several minutes, she finally rolled out of bed and walked into the
kitchen. She put on the coffee and then started to make
scrapple.

When Kate had first arrived in the
community, she had done her best to avoid the mixture of meat and
cornmeal, but now she looked forward to the breakfast meal. She had
even become used to not having electricity, and was becoming
accustomed to the slower pace of life.

Yet Kate was still was not comfortable
driving the buggy, despite the fact that she had done so many a
time. Today, she had to drive Rose to town so Rose could work in a
quilt store for several hours, and the thought of driving the buggy
was making Kate’s stomach churn. She thought of asking Rose to
drive, but it was expected that the older woman would be the one to
drive.

Later, while Kate was walking around town,
trying to keep herself entertained while waiting for Rose, she
stopped in a small café and ordered coffee, this time a spiced chai
latté.
I feel almost normal again
, Kate thought, drinking a
latté and watching the television affixed to the wall.

The local news report was on, talking about
such things as the weather, and some cats stuck in a tree, and a
bank robbery in another county. None of that interested her, but
then something she heard definitely caught her attention. The
narration of a breaking news report echoed through the café.

“Good morning, I’m Maria Mandalay, reporting
for Channel 7 news. Today we are bringing you an update on an
ongoing investigation. Last week we reported that a man was found
lifeless in a resident’s pond. Police have now released the
victim’s name. He is a thirty-four year old man by the name of
Ethan Jackson
. Police are also reporting
today that new evidence in the case is being examined. A 2007
Lincoln Continental was found crashed into a tree near a back road
just south of the park and approximately one hundred yards from
where the victim’s body was recovered. Stay tuned to Channel 7 for
more updates on this breaking story.”

Kate listened intently
to the shocking report. She knew there was a good chance that the
car had probably been towed back to the station to be inspected and
tested for evidence by now, but perhaps there could still be some
sort of clue that could point her in the right direction. She
didn’t have an exact location, but she had a good idea of the
general vicinity of the site of the car wreck.

Kate walked out to the
buggy and untied the horse, patting his glossy neck before climbing
aboard the buggy. After trotting for some time, the buggy arrived
at the park that had been mentioned in the news
report.

Kate drove around,
looking for any signs of a tree that could have been hit recently.
Other than some poorly trimmed bushes and an abandoned sneaker that
hung from an electrical wire, nothing seemed out of place in the
slightest. She circled the area several times and decided to head
toward the neighbor’s land where the body was found. Just a few
minutes later, she came upon a clearing right to the side of the
road. Some ribbons of caution tape blew in the wind, still wrapped
around a barely standing tree. Its bark was severely scuffed, and
there were some large, broken branches dotting the ground beneath
it. This had to be where the car was found.

Kate carefully tied
the horse to a tree well away from the road, and looked around the
scene. She noticed several shards of glass decorating the ground
and some deep tire impressions in the soft earth. Crouching down on
one knee, she carefully examined the marks, but she knew they would
be of no help to her. The police already knew the make and model of
the vehicle, so the tires would surely match it, she thought.
“Hmm,” she said softly.

Kate was startled by
the sudden low buzzing of what appeared to be some type of music.
She looked around, but could see nothing that could be emitting
such a sound. There were no cars on the desolate, forgotten back
road. The ringing continued, so Kate walked toward the source of
the noise.

As she approached the
melody, Kate realized it was coming from a large set of bushes
located several yards away from the damaged tree. Making her way
over, she peered between a few short branches, hoping to catch a
glimpse of the source of this unexpected music. To her surprise,
what appeared to be a small electronic screen lit up and rumbled as
the device danced to the rhythm of the ring tone. It was an
abandoned cell phone that must have been discarded there recently.
Kate reached in through the sharp, needle-like leaves of the
evergreen shrub, gripped the phone in her hand, and pulled it from
its hiding place.

Kate looked around to
make sure nobody had been watching her, and then decided to head
back to the buggy and examine the newly discovered cell phone in
privacy. Once she was back inside the buggy, Kate tried to look
through the phone; however, there was an obvious problem - it was
locked, and to get in, she needed to swipe the touch screen
interface in a specific order and pattern. After trying for some
time to connect the dots in the correct sequence, Kate became more
and more frustrated as attempt after attempt
failed.

Finally, just as she
was about to give up, she noticed it was possible for the sequence
to outline a letter. First she used her finger to trace a Z -
nothing happened. Then, she tried a Y - definitely not. “This is so
frustrating,” she said aloud. Right before she placed the phone
down, Kate had the urge to try just one more time. After she swiped
a V from left to right, the phone unlocked, giving her free access
to the device and all of its contents.

The first place she
looked for clues was the phone’s photo album. As she scrolled
through several images, a clear portrait of a man who was most
likely the victim appeared. Because it was taken in the manner of a
selfie, she assumed that the phone must have belonged to the
victim. Reinforcing her claim, the man’s social media sites were
all linked, proving the identity of the cell’s
owner.

Maybe she could find a
contact who would be willing to give her some information about the
guy and with whom he was involved. Yet the list of names and phone
numbers was long. How would she know just who to contact? It was
like looking for a needle in a haystack, and the haystack just kept
growing.

Kate decided to look
through a few more screens on the phone, when an app caught her
attention. It was named,
Record-a-Call
. How odd.
Opening it up, a splash screen welcomed her back, and then revealed
a list of saved files which looked like recordings. Each file was
labeled with a contact, followed by what appeared to be a date and
time.

The newest recording
was entitled
Lucas_03_15_01:32
. With
curiosity building, Kate tapped the track and listened closely to
what came next. The snapping of twigs could be heard, as the voice
yelled into the phone. “Yo man, I need your help!” The voice
subsided and all that could be heard was static before the sound of
more rustling.