Ettie Smith Amish Mysteries Box Set 3 Read online

  “Denke, Ava. We appreciate this.”

  “Let’s see what the detective has to say, and make sure you hide those, Ettie,” Elsa-May instructed.

  “Okay,” Ettie agreed. She tucked the photos down the front of her apron.

  “I’ll stay here and keep looking to see if I can find out anything else,” Ava said.

  “Gut!” Elsa-May gave a sharp nod.

  As Elsa-May and Florence headed off to call a taxi, Ettie patted Ava on her shoulder. “Don’t forget Florence is staying with us. I’ll call you tonight to see if you found out anything else.”

  “Okay. I’ll listen out for the phone.”

  “I think this young man is deceiving Florence. He says he has no knowledge of Allissa, but we can see from these photos that they knew each other. If there was just one photo, it might have been believable that he didn’t know her, but going by all these photos, they must've known each other."

  "It certainly looks like it," Ava agreed.

  "And not only that, the forensic people found his DNA under her fingernails."

  "It's not looking good, but it sounds as though your sister is very attached to this young man."

  “Jah, she seems to be. Anyway, see what you can find out for me, Ava."

  "Will do, Ettie."

  Ettie hurried to catch up with her older sisters.

  Chapter 7

  Ettie and Elsa-May and Florence walked up the stairs of the police station. They came face-to-face with Detective Kelly as they walked through the door. Kelly had been talking to the officer at the front desk.

  "There you are! Good timing. Come this way."

  The three of them followed Detective Kelly through to his office.

  "Did you find out anything, Detective?" Ettie asked, feeling guilty that she was hiding the photos underneath her apron.

  "Yes, I got those two reports I was telling you about.” He pushed a slip of paper towards Florence. “These are the two dates and the times that the gun was used in hold-ups.”

  “What were the names of the people who were killed, Detective?" Elsa-May asked.

  "Why would you need to know that?" Kelly asked.

  "It will help my sister if she happens to know them. After all, the gun was in her possession for years."

  "We don't even know if it is the same gun. We have no proof that the gun used in these murders was ever in your sister's possession," Kelly said.

  "It won't hurt to give us the names, will it?"

  Florence added, "A simple search on the Internet would give us their names."

  Ettie and Elsa-May stared at their sister who knew nothing about computers before their visit to the library earlier. She was certainly a fast learner.

  Kelly reached over and took the slip of paper back. He looked at his file and then wrote the names down before he pushed the paper back toward Florence. "Happy now?"

  "Yes, thank you."

  "Ettie, we’re looking into the possibility that these two victims had something in common."

  "You are? Does that mean you think there might have been a connection?"

  "In both robberies not much was stolen; each seems almost like it was made to look like a robbery. It wasn’t enough money to kill someone over.”

  "Will you let us know what you find out?" Ettie asked.

  "I will if it will keep you all safe and out of this investigation. How's that?"

  "That sounds good. Thank you," Florence said.

  The detective stared at Florence. “Have a look at those dates, Mrs. Lapp, and see if they ring any bells.”

  Florence stared at the slip of paper. "It means nothing to me now. I'll need to go home and look in my notebooks. I keep detailed notes of what I did every day and who visited me."

  "You do?"

  Florence nodded.

  "That's marvellous. If only everybody did that it would make my job a whole lot easier."

  Florence chuckled.

  "But didn't your notebooks burn in the fire?” Ettie asked.

  Florence's face fell. "That's right. Everything was destroyed.” She put a hand to her forehead. “Oh, what a bother."

  "Yes, that does throw a wrench in the works. I was just about to suggest I could drive you all over there now and retrieve your notebooks." The detective shook his head. "I must be losing it. I knew you were staying at your sisters’ place because your house burned down."

  "We’ll take Florence home and sit down with her while we go through her letters. She wrote to us about once a week. Maybe we can work out who visited her around those times. She often told us about who’d come to see her.”

  "Very good, Mrs. Smith. And contact me the moment you know anything," he said when he looked back at Florence.

  "I certainly will."

  "We’ve got a few errands to run now, but we’ll be home after that. We’ll be sure to call you as soon as Florence remembers something."

  "Very good," he said.

  Chapter 8

  "This looks to be a very old building. It makes me wonder if he's not a good lawyer." Florence stood with her sisters and looked up at the building where Claymore Cartwright’s office was.

  "He did a good job for some friends of ours," Elsa-May said.

  "I’ll have to take your word for that."

  The three ladies walked up a few steps into the building, and then pushed the button for the elevator. They piled into the elevator and pushed the button for the fourth floor. When the doors opened, they stepped out.

  Ettie looked around. The place looked the same as last time. All the other offices on that floor were still unoccupied.

  Florence looked around, bewildered. "Has he moved?"

  “Nee, he's up this way—at the end." Ettie led the way to the end of the corridor. She was pleased when she saw that his door was open. When she stepped through the doorway, the first thing she saw was his brightly colored baseball cap.

  Claymore Cartwright looked up and bounded to his feet. "Hello there. I know you, don't I?"

  Ettie stepped forward. “Yes, I'm Ettie Smith. We met before when you represented a friend, Jacob Esh.”

  "That's right, and this is your sister," he said smiling at Elsa-May.

  "Yes, you've met Elsa-May, and this is another sister, Florence Lapp."

  “Come in come in," he said as he arranged chairs for them in front of his desk. When they were all seated, he asked, "What can I do for you ladies?"

  Ettie said, “We’re here to see you about Dustin Gandara—he’s been arrested.”

  “Oh, yes. He’s my client.”

  “Yes, we found that out and that’s why we’re here,” Elsa-May said.

  Florence took over. “I was very close with his grandfather, and Dustin visited me a couple of times. He’s a very nice young man."

  "And you’re here because…?"

  “I heard on the wireless he’d been arrested.”

  “On the what?”

  “She means the radio.”

  “I only listen to the news—nothing else. It was the day after my house burned down and I was staying with one of my daughters. Anyway, I visited Dustin and he insists he’s innocent. What’s more, when I talked to the police who arrested him, they mentioned a gun. When they described it, I knew it was my gun that they’d found.”

  Ettie pulled out the photographs from under her apron and pushed them toward the lawyer.

  “Well,” Florence said as she watched Claymore flip through the photos. “He claims he doesn’t know this woman, but it appears he does?”

  “Where did you get these pictures?" he asked frowning.

  "Off Allissa Thomas’ Facebook page," Ettie said.

  "Yes, I’m aware of these, and the prosecution will no doubt have found them as well.” He tossed them down on his desk.

  “We thought perhaps you should tell Dustin that he should tell the truth," Elsa-May said.

  “He insists he doesn't know the girl," Florence repeated her concerns.

  “The photos prove
it can't be."

  "It can be, Mrs. Lapp. The fact is, that Dustin has a twin," Claymore said.

  Florence gasped. “He didn't tell me that."

  "According to Dustin, they don't get along," Claymore said.

  "Well that must be it, then. The twin did it. They would have the same DNA, wouldn't they?" Ettie asked.

  The lawyer shook his head. "They’re twins, but they’re not identical twins. Only identical twins have the same DNA. The two of them look similar, as any two brothers might, hence you mistaking them in these photos. They go to the same college, but they don’t associate with one another."

  "So we just need the twin brother to testify that it was him in those photos to verify the fact that Dustin didn't know the girl?" Elsa-May asked.

  "I'm working on it, but his brother has disappeared."

  Elsa-May raised her eyebrows. "Doesn't that make him look guilty?"

  The lawyer shook his head again. "His twin is not wanted for anything. There’s no law against him disappearing. It wasn’t his DNA under the girl’s fingernails. The only problem might be if the prosecution claims they’re photos of Dustin. Then I’ll have to drum up some witnesses to say that the photos were of Darrin, the twin, and not Dustin."

  "I wonder why he never mentioned he had a twin," Florence muttered.

  Ettie raised her hand to get her sister's attention. "Could it have been Darrin who visited you and not Dustin, Florence?"

  "It was Dustin in jail and he knew me too. What would be the purpose of Darrin seeing me; pretending to be his brother?"

  "To get your gun?" Ettie suggested.

  The lawyer raised both hands. "Can you tell me more about the gun, Mrs. Lapp?"

  "The gun that they found in Dustin’s car was Florence’s gun," Elsa-May said before her sister could answer.

  The lawyer frowned. "And do the police know that?"

  Florence spoke quickly. "The police say that there’s no proof it was my gun. But it's exactly the same gun. I saw a photo of it. They burned my house down and the gun was nowhere to be found. Dustin's grandfather gave it to me. He’s the one who painted his initials on the gun and painted the trigger blue—for some unknown reason."

  The lawyer tugged at his ear looking confused.

  “I told the police that the gun has been with me for years. I checked every night to see that the gun was there, and there was no night that it was missing until the fire."

  "And now your gun’s gone missing?"

  When Florence nodded, he made a couple of notes.

  “My house burned down and the gun wasn’t in the debris."

  "That’s interesting. When did the fire take place?"

  “The day before Dustin was pulled over by the police for drunk driving.”

  The lawyer scribbled down some more notes. “Did you know that they’ve identified that this gun killed two people?”

  Elsa-May nodded. "Detective Kelly said that.”

  “They're trying to find enough evidence to pin those murders on Dustin before we go to trial," the lawyer said.

  "We were just at Detective Kelly's office and he gave us the names of the people and the dates they were killed. We are just going to go home and Florence is going to try to remember if she had any visitors on those particular dates," Ettie said.

  "That's good, that's good. Can you give me your phone number, Florence?"

  "I don’t have a phone. I'm staying with Ettie and Elsa-May now. I stayed with one of my daughters, Pearl, for a few days. I was at Pearl’s when I heard about Dustin. One of my other daughters and her husband are arranging for my house to be rebuilt. Then I remembered how Ettie had a policeman friend and I thought he might be able to help.” She lifted up her hands. “And here I am.”

  “He’s a detective,” Ettie corrected her sister.

  "Do you have a phone, Mrs. Smith?”

  “No, we don’t,” Elsa-May answered for her sister.

  “Can you give me your address?" he asked.

  Ettie gave the lawyer their address, and then asked, "Do you think Dustin’s innocent?"

  "It's my job to get him off. It’s for the courts to decide whether he’s innocent."

  Ettie stared into his eyes waiting for him to say more, but he didn't.

  “Okay, we should go. We’ve held you up long enough,” Elsa-May said, pushing herself to her feet.

  Chapter 9

  They headed down the hallway and went down in the elevator.

  "Well, he was certainly a surprise. I didn't expect a lawyer like him," Florence said.

  "Jah, we were taken aback when we first met him. He’s young and doesn’t look like a lawyer, but don't worry, he wears a suit in court."

  "That's good to know. As long as he does a good job it doesn’t matter what his age is."

  "What do you think about him being a twin?" Ettie asked.

  Elsa-May frowned. “Claymore’s a twin, too?”

  Ettie sighed. “Not Claymore. I’m talking about Dustin being a twin.”

  “Ach, jah. That was a surprise.”

  "I wonder if there’s any way that a twin can have the same DNA as the other one if they’re not identical?" Florence said.

  "The lawyer said ‘no.’ He’d be knowledgeable about things like that," Ettie said.

  "So the twin knew Allissa, but Dustin didn't," Florence said.

  "That sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Seeing that the brothers never got along," Ettie said.

  "How does Dustin get along with the rest of his familye?"

  "Not well at all," Florence said.

  "And you know why that is?"

  "Nee, I don't. I’m only guessing, because he never spoke of them when he visited me. I only met him recently when he came to college nearby. He said he was going through his grandfather’s things and found a letter I’d sent Morrie a long time ago. Dustin had my name and knew I was Amish, so he tracked me down. When he found out where I lived, he simply knocked. He said he wanted to meet someone who knew his grandfather. He was very proud of him."

  “Why is he proud of him? Isn’t his grandfather in prison for murder?” Ettie asked, trying hard to make sense of everything.

  “That doesn’t mean Morrie did it. Anyway, Dustin’s proud of his grandfather’s music.”

  “Did Dustin talk about him much? Where is Morrie now anyway?” Elsa-May asked.

  Ettie asked, “Is he still in prison?”

  “I told you before—that’s something I’d rather not talk about,” Florence said.

  "Well, maybe next time you visit Dustin you can ask him about that. That is if you don’t know where Morrie is."

  "I have no intention of visiting Dustin again. I don't like prisons."

  Elsa-May said, "I think you should visit him and ask him some questions."

  “I’ll consider it if you stop talking about it for a while."

  When they were at home later that day, Ettie and Elsa-May pulled out all the correspondence they’d gotten from Florence over the years. Because she lived too far away for them to visit, that was how they’d kept in touch.

  "These are all the letters from you," Ettie said as she placed the bundle on the kitchen table directly in front of Florence.

  "And these are all mine," Elsa-May said.

  Florence pulled the letters closer to herself. "It’s a good thing I always put the date on my letters. Not everyone does that these days. Some letters come to me with just the day of the week."

  “Elsa-May and I always thought it was funny that you didn't write to the both of us."

  "I always wrote to you in turns."

  "We read your letters aloud to one another," Ettie said.

  "Now, we’re looking for these dates." Florence tapped on the slip of paper the detective had given her.

  Soon they had narrowed the letters down by timeframe.

  "I just need to read these carefully to jog my memory."

  "Do you want us to leave you alone?" Elsa-May asked.

  "Jah. I need to relax
and visualize what was going on in my life at that time. Make me a cup of tea, would one of you?"

  "I've got to make a phone call. Maybe you can, Elsa-May?"

  "I was just about to walk Snowy."

  "Why don't I take him for a walk with me?"

  “Okay," Elsa-May agreed.

  Ettie grabbed Snowy’s leash from beside the back door and clipped it onto Snowy’s collar. "Come on, boy; you're going to go on a little walk with your Aunty Ettie."

  Snowy looked up at her from his bed in the corner of the living room and wagged his tail before he hopped out of the bed and followed her to the front door. Together they hurried down the road.

  Ettie popped some coins in the tin, and then picked up the receiver of the phone. She dialed Ava’s number, which was one of the phone numbers she remembered by heart.

  "It's me, Ava. What did you find out?"

  "Hello, Ettie. I found out that Morrie is still in jail waiting for parole."

  "That's good to know. Did you find out what he was accused of?"

  "Murder."

  "I know, but do you have any details other than that?”

  "Nee, I'm sorry, Ettie, I couldn’t find any newspaper reports, but I didn’t have a lot of time."

  "Don't worry. I suppose that's not important at this stage."

  "Ettie, I was thinking I could go to the college and ask around. I could talk with the friends of Allissa, the girl who was killed. I know who her friends are because she's got them all on Facebook. No one’s closed her page down yet. She’s still getting comments on her wall from mourners.”

  "That would be helpful if you could do that, but be careful."

  "I could go tomorrow."

  "That would be good.”

  “Okay.”

  “If this young man is telling the truth, how did the DNA get under Allissa’s fingernails?" Ettie asked. “That’s one thing I can’t get past.”

  "I've done a bit of research about DNA. There’s such a thing as touch DNA. If you just touch something, you leave your DNA on it."

  "Do you mean if someone shakes hands with me, and then with someone else later that day, my DNA could be left on their hands?"