Murder Simply Brewed Page 3

  How could this have happened?

  Thoughts circled so quickly in her mind that she almost felt dizzy—prayers for Ethan’s family, concern for Hannah, and an ever-growing list of things that would need to be done.

  A small crowd of guests had assembled and seemed uncertain what to do now that the drama was over.

  “Thank you for your concern, folks.” Amber’s hands were shaking, but she clasped them around her tablet and pushed on. “We’re sorry for any inconvenience. There will be free coffee in the restaurant for everyone. We hope you enjoy the rest of your stay here at the Village.”

  Turning away from the group, she called the restaurant on her cell phone and alerted them that coffee would be complimentary for the rest of the day. They didn’t offer Ethan’s strong brew, but it would have to do until she thought of a way to reopen the shop.

  “Can I talk to you, Amber?” Gordon Avery touched her arm as he slipped his notepad back into his shirt pocket.

  She sometimes wondered how he managed to carry so much on his six-foot frame. Buckled to his belt were the tools of his trade—his holstered service weapon, pepper spray, a Taser, flashlight, phone, knife, baton, and handcuffs. He seemed prepared for anything. His black hair, which didn’t have a speck of gray, was trimmed neatly. And unlike the cartoon police officers she’d seen on late-night television when her nieces came to visit, he was physically fit. His age was the same as hers, nearly forty-five, so the fitness part was an achievement.

  Or maybe things were different for men.

  A few lines fanned out from his brown eyes. The wrinkles spread when he squinted at her, holding his hand up to shield his eyes from the morning sun. “Maybe we should go somewhere private.”

  “Sure. Yes, of course.”

  Amber turned to Hannah, who was still standing outside the quilt shop. The young girl, in her early twenties if Amber remembered correctly, looked lost. She was approximately Amber’s height and build—in a word, petite. Her chestnut brown hair was braided and covered with the traditional white kapp. A dark purple-colored apron covered her dress, which was lilac. Her eyes glistened behind her glasses, and she stood there waiting as if she were cemented to the concrete walk.

  “Hannah, I’m going to step away and speak with Officer Avery. You can go back into your shop now, unless you’d rather go home.”

  “Nein. I want to stay and work.” The girl continued to run her fingers up and down her kapp strings.

  She had calmed down considerably since the initial phone call. Amber was tempted to insist she take off the rest of the day, but possibly the girl was right. Possibly working would help to restore her day to a normal footing.

  Hannah was completely opposite the young girl Amber had been. Hannah was quiet, serious, and an excellent worker. When Amber was her age, she’d been a bit too loud, much too energetic, and completely clueless when it came to handling life’s ups and downs. When she’d first been employed at the Village as an assistant manager, she’d been good at juggling the various duties, but it had taken her years to learn to do so calmly.

  Hannah’s life experiences were no doubt different as well. Amber didn’t have any idea how to comfort her or even if she needed to do so. She had met and supervised a lot of Amish employees over the years. In her mind, they probably handled matters of life and death more calmly than most. At the moment though, Hannah didn’t look exactly composed. Her eyes were wide, her face pale, and her hands constantly worried the kapp strings. Still, Amber needed someone in the quilt shop until Carol arrived, and if Hannah was offering—

  “Excellent. I’ll check back with you later today.”

  Hannah nodded once and turned to enter the quilt shop. A few customers followed her inside. Perhaps things would return to normal faster than Amber had anticipated. Already crews were working to board up the window on Ethan’s shop until the broken glass could be replaced.

  “How about over there?” Amber indicated a wooden bench farther down the walk that circled the pond. “I could use the walk and a few minutes away from . . . everyone.”

  “The bench is fine.” Gordon reached out to cup her elbow, then pulled back his hand.

  They walked in silence. The sight of trees budding, ducks on the water, and gardeners tending the flower beds helped to calm Amber’s nerves. She didn’t know what she’d expected to see when she arrived at Ethan’s shop, but it had never occurred to her that he would actually be dead.

  They sat on the bench, spring sunshine falling around them, and didn’t speak for a moment. Gordon was good about that—good about giving her time when she needed it.

  “Will there be an investigation?”

  “No need. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary.”

  Ordinary?

  One of her oldest workers, one of her most faithful employees, had died within an hour of arriving at work. She folded her hands together, pushed down her frustration, and turned to the sergeant for the Middlebury Police Department. “Explain it to me.”

  “Gray arrived at work, probably around six thirty according to the parking attendant who saw him pull into the lot. It looks like he was about to make his first pot of coffee when someone pelted the window with shots from a BB gun.”

  “You’re sure it was—”

  “Yes. We found the round shot—steel BBs. They were coated with copper, which is standard. Three of them were on the floor of the shop.”

  “And that’s what killed him?”

  “No. BBs might leave a bruise if the shooter is close enough, but they’re not fatal. And through glass? It would be startling, not dangerous. The BBs couldn’t have killed him.”

  “Then how did he die?”

  “Heart attack. We don’t know whether he was aware of a heart condition. Looks like the BB shots startled him, he clutched his chest, and died before he could call for help.”

  Amber’s hand went to her throat. “How terrible.”

  She closed her eyes and prayed again that Ethan had found peace in his last few moments, and that his family’s faith would sustain them during this time.

  The song of a bird in a nearby tree brought her back to the present, to the bench, and to Gordon waiting patiently beside her.

  “Why would someone want to shoot at his window? Why harass him?”

  “My best guess is that it’s a simple act of vandalism. We don’t know that their intent was to harm him. It’s doubtful anyone knew about his heart condition. Did you?”

  “No.”

  “Possibly he didn’t either.” Gordon paused, glanced around, and then continued. “Ethan wasn’t the most pleasant man in town. He had a reputation for running off kids, right?”

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “If I remember correctly, he even reported them to us more than once.”

  Amber smiled for the first time in over an hour. “I finally convinced him to call me before he called the police. I assured him I’d take care of any pranksters. But this, this isn’t a practical joke. This killed someone.”

  “No. A heart attack killed him. The paramedics confirmed as much, and my best guess is an autopsy would too, though I imagine his family will pass on that. Autopsies are nasty things, and I certainly wouldn’t recommend it in this case.”

  “So you think—you’re sure—he died from natural causes, a heart attack?”

  “I’m as sure as I can be. The three shots were directed at the bottom left of the front plate glass window. It would have been obvious from the lights on inside that Ethan was standing behind the counter to the right.”

  “They weren’t aiming at him.”

  “No, and there’s no other indication of foul play. If someone were robbing him, they would have taken the cash in the drawer.”

  “What about the muddy footprints I saw?”

  “All accounted for. We checked the size and the tread. All prints matched Hannah’s. She got her shoes muddy when she stepped into the flower bed.”

  Amber blew out a sigh of relief and a
llowed the muscles in her shoulders to relax. It was bad to have an employee die, especially at work. But at least it was from natural causes. Everyone died sometime, and Ethan had died doing what he seemed to love best—brewing his rich, dark blend of coffee. He loved coffee and he positively doted on his old truck.

  Gordon was right. Certainly there was no need for an autopsy or an investigation. She didn’t want any of the kind of legal mess they’d been having in Shipshewana the last few years. The place seemed to have a murder every six months, though at least they’d all been solved. She suppressed a shudder and turned back to Gordon.

  “Anything else?”

  “If you’d like, you can file a vandalism report to help with the cost to replace the broken glass.”

  Amber shook her head so hard that her shoulder-length hair fell forward, obscuring her view. She tucked it behind her ears and explained, “More trouble than it’s worth, thank you. We have money in the budget for repairs.”

  “I thought that would be your response.”

  They sat for another few moments while Amber opened her tablet and made a few notes.

  “Any more questions?”

  “No. Thank you for taking the time to sit with me. You could have merely emailed me a report.” She reached out and placed her hand on his arm. “I appreciate it, Gordon.”

  They stood and turned back toward the shops. Her to-do list had grown in the last hour, so she might as well hop to it.

  She thought by the look in his eyes and the hesitation before he said good-bye that Gordon would ask her to dinner. He didn’t. He seemed to know intuitively that she would say no, that she would need time to herself.

  Gordon was like that.

  Some days he understood her better than she understood herself.

  Three

  Hannah was relieved that they had a steady stream of customers in the quilt shop all morning. Working helped to push her mind away from what had happened next door.

  She enjoyed cutting fabric, helping customers choose from among their sewing kits, and selling quilts sewn by women in her community. At times she was certain she’d been born to work in a quilt shop. Whether she was sewing something for display or helping a customer, she felt completely at ease.

  Within the first hour she sold a Log Cabin quilt that Fanny Bontrager had stitched. Hannah knew for a fact that the Bontragers could use that money. Her boss, Carol, paid the women what they had earned on the last day of the month, so Fanny would receive a nice check at the end of the following week. Hannah would be sure to mention the sale to Fanny when she saw her at church on Sunday.

  Sunday was six days away.

  It seemed like an eternity.

  Pulling off her glasses, she brushed them clean with the hem of her apron. Maybe she should stop by and talk to the bishop on her way home. She was having trouble banishing the image of poor old Ethan from her mind. Her stomach started tumbling whenever she remembered how he’d looked—surprised and cold and older. How could one look older after they were dead?

  How could that have been Gotte’s wille? He died alone. He died at work! From the expression on his face, he’d suffered his last few minutes.

  Talking to her bishop would be a good idea.

  Carol had arrived after Hannah had gone back inside and Ethan’s body was already gone. When Hannah told her what had happened, she had pursed her lips in a straight line and crossed her arms, as if she needed to hug herself. She seemed upset but not surprised to hear such tragic news. Hannah wanted to ask her if she’d known that Ethan had a heart condition. After all, they’d both worked for the Village for years, and she’d seen them talking together on more than one occasion. She had no chance to question her though, because customers started spilling in and they stayed busy up through her lunch break.

  “Go on out and have your lunch,” Carol had said as soon as the hands on the clock tagged eleven thirty.

  “But—”

  “No buts. You’ve been here four hours, and a difficult four hours it’s been. Go outside. The sunshine will do you good.”

  Hannah didn’t argue. She knew from experience that disagreeing with Carol was as productive as arguing with her own mother. Instead, she went into the back stockroom, removed her lunch bag from the small refrigerator, and headed outside. She started out the door, then ducked back inside to check her image in the mirror that hung on the wall in the bathroom. There was no telling whom she would run into, and she didn’t want to look all out of sorts, though she still felt that way. Tucking a few wayward strands of hair back into her kapp, she leaned close to the mirror and studied her face. Her complexion was deathly pale. Maybe she would stop on the way home and purchase a little makeup. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a sin to try a touch of blush and powder. She’d read that cosmetics contained sunscreen now, which would make the decision more practical and less about her appearance.

  She walked across the bridge that spanned the creek on the east side of the property. It was an old-fashioned covered bridge painted red, and never failed to make her smile. Hannah admitted that Carol was right. It did feel better to be outside. The temperature had risen into the sixties, as promised. The sun was shining brightly. Englisch children were tossing pieces of bread at the ducks. Life continued around the Village, the same as any other day.

  She sat under the kousa dogwood tree and opened her lunch bag. She’d sewn the bag last week, using leftover scraps of fabric. It was reinforced with batting on the bottom and had a drawstring on the top. Hannah loved the patchwork of colors—flowered calico prints, a light purple, blue, yellow, and green. Her mother had frowned at the calico fabric. She still insisted on sewing with only solid colors, which was old-fashioned and not required by their Ordnung. Hannah liked the calico print. Carol had also liked it. She’d immediately suggested that Hannah make more and sell them in the shop.

  But even her new lunch bag could only distract her for a moment. She stared out across the creek and back toward the pond, back toward Ethan’s shop. How could she eat? Looking at the food made her nauseated. When she’d packed the hard-boiled egg, sliced ham, cheese, and apple the night before, the entire thing had sounded delicious. But she hadn’t known then that during her first hour at work she’d be finding a dead body.

  “Are you going to eat that or stare at it?” Jesse Miller plopped down beside her on the grass. His blue eyes sparkled mischievously as he pulled her lunch bag toward him and peered inside. “Looks gut.”

  Hannah’s hands went to her glasses. She adjusted them and then attempted a smile. “Ya, I suppose, but I don’t feel much like eating. You take it.”

  Jesse grinned up at her, his light brown hair—nearly blond if you looked at him in a certain light—framing his face. She hadn’t seen him on Sunday, since this wasn’t their week to have church service. She admitted to herself that she’d missed him. He was dressed in traditional Amish clothing, which included dark pants, black suspenders, a blue work shirt, and a straw hat. When he took off his hat and placed it on the ground between them, Hannah noticed that his mother had cut his hair. She must have done it over the weekend, because it was shorter than it had been when she’d seen him Friday. His ears practically poked out from the sides of his head. Instead of looking silly, he looked more handsome. Why was that? What was it about Jesse Miller that caused her heart to skip a beat now and again?

  “I heard Ethan Gray was gasping for breath when you found him. That he told you a secret.”

  “Nein. He wasn’t gasping. The medical people, they said he’d been dead for nearly an hour.”

  “That so?” Jesse reached for a cube of cheese from her lunch and popped it into his mouth.

  “And so of course he didn’t tell me a secret. What secret could old Ethan have? All he did was work at the kaffi shop and then go home and work on that old truck of his.”

  “Truck’s a beauty. I wonder who will get it.”

  Hannah slapped his arm.

  “What?”

  “The ma
n isn’t even in the grave yet.”

  “I meant no disrespect. It’s a natural thing to wonder.”

  Hannah rolled her eyes and stared down the creek bed at some children who were attempting to fish in the gently running water. She could have told them their odds of success were better over at the pond, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves even though they weren’t catching anything.

  “Are you sure you don’t want any of this food?”

  “Nein.” Hannah pushed the lunch bag closer to him. “Didn’t you bring anything?”

  “Sure. I ate it already.” He pulled out the slice of ham, folded it in quarters, and waved it at her. When she shook her head, the ham disappeared into his mouth same as the cheese.

  “Danki,” Jesse said. He lay back in the grass, tilting his hat over his eyes to block out the sun.

  “Doesn’t it bother you?” Hannah lay back and stared up at the dogwood tree.

  “Doesn’t what bother me?”

  “Having someone die. Right here on the property.”

  Jesse took his time answering. She thought he might have fallen asleep in the April sunshine, but then he rolled over toward her and looked her in the eye. Whenever he did that, her stomach jumped and her hands began to sweat. Did that mean something? Did it mean she should agree to go to the singing with him, if he asked again?

  “Everyone has to die somewhere.” His voice grew quieter, more serious. “Every life reaches a natural end, as Joseph reminded us at the last service.”

  “I know he did, and I do listen to the words of our bishop. It’s only that he’s so young—not much older than my onkel. Do you think he understands as much as Hans did?”

  Jesse raised up on one elbow and studied her. “Hans was a gut bishop. His moving away was understandable, since he wanted to live with his children in Ohio. But we will miss him.”

  “He’s the only bishop I’ve ever had.”

  “Change can be difficult, but don’t doubt that Joseph was chosen by God and that he will lead us well.”

  “Ya.” Hannah hesitated, and then she added, “When did you become so wise?”