Her Amish Protectors

He sat on the coffee table right in front of her. “Okay,” he said in a deliberately gentle voice, “tell me what happened.”

“I don’t know what happened!” she cried. “Like I’ve told him over and over.”

Hovering by the doorway, the young redheaded officer flushed.

“Let’s put it another way,” Ben said. “I saw you drive out of the parking lot last night.”

Her eyes widened. “You were still there?”

“I was. That was an awful lot of money you had.”

Her teeth chattered. “It never occurred to any of us that something like this could happen.”

“Now I wish I’d escorted you home, too,” he said.

Nadia shook her head. “I got home fine. I had the box. I thought of hiding it downstairs, but I decided to keep it close by instead. So I put it on the dresser in my bedroom.”

He went very still, not liking the implication.

Officer Grumbach cleared his throat. “When I checked, the back door was unlocked. And Ms. Markovic says the door at the foot of the stairs was unlocked this morning, too.”

“But I checked both last night!” Nadia’s voice rose. “I locked my apartment door and verified that I had. I did!”

Unable to help himself, Ben reached out and laid a hand over hers, now writhing in her lap. She froze, took a couple of deep breaths and continued in a quieter voice, “I worried a little, because I always do, but how could anyone get in?”

He frowned. “Are you a heavy sleeper?”

“Not usually, but I don’t think I’ve ever in my life been as tired as I was when I got home last night.”

“That’s understandable.” He took his hand back. “So you were locked up tight last night. The money box was sitting on your dresser when you fell asleep.”

“I had to have slept more deeply than usual. I never even got up to use the bathroom. I turned my air conditioner off because it’s so noisy, but for once it might not have bothered me. If not for my alarm, I wouldn’t have woken up when I did. I was still tired.”

He nodded his understanding. He gave passing thought to whether she could have been drugged, but her eyes were clear, she was unlikely to have been drinking anything during cleanup at the end of the evening, and he’d heard from more than one person that she’d been at the mansion from the beginning of setup early in the morning to the very end, at close to eleven. She had to have been dead on her feet.

Her teeth closed on her lower lip, the eyes that met his desperate. “Without the air conditioner, it was hot up here.”

An upstairs apartment like this would be, even though it was still early summer.

“All I had on was this—” she plucked at her camisole “—and panties. I didn’t even have a sheet over me.”

Horror to match hers filled him. No, she hadn’t been raped, but she’d been violated anyway.

“He—” her voice shook, and she swallowed “—he could have stood there and looked at me. And I never knew it.” She went back to trying to hug herself.

“Officer Grumbach, please go find Ms. Markovic a sweater or sweatshirt.”

He nodded and disappeared into her bedroom. She didn’t even seem to notice until Grumbach handed her a zip-front, hooded sweatshirt. After a moment, she put it on and hunched inside it.

“This morning?” he nudged.

She accepted the cue. “This morning, I got up, grabbed clothes and started into the bathroom. That’s when I realized the box was gone. I knew where I’d left it, but I ran around searching anyway. I don’t know what I was thinking. That I sleepwalked? Hallucinated last night? Anyway, I searched this whole damn place, then I ran down to my car to make sure I didn’t leave it on the seat. I parked in front last night,” she added.

“That was smart.” He nodded his approval. “Do you lock the car?” Not everyone in Henness County did. Law enforcement kept busy enough, but the crime rate per capita was substantially lower in what was usually a peaceful town and rural surroundings than it had been in urban Camden, New Jersey.

“I always do. And it was still locked, so I knew—” She gulped to a stop.

Ben straightened, careful not to let her see what he was thinking. Because there were two possibilities here, and the most obvious was that she was lying through her teeth. If so, she was one hell of a liar, but he didn’t know her well. Nobody in these parts did. The first thing he’d do when he got to the station was run a thorough search on Nadia Markovic’s background.

Possibility two was that somebody had somehow unlocked two doors without leaving a scratch or making a lot of noise—because however sound her sleep, Ben was betting she’d have woken if she heard a strange sound right there in her apartment—and walked out with the money. And if that was the case...odds were good the thief had been a participant or volunteer at the auction. Who else would know who had the money?

What would have happened if she had awakened to see someone looming in her bedroom? Had the thief been prepared to kill if necessary?

A question he didn’t need to ask himself until he eliminated the possibility that she had either planned the entire event with the intention of profiting from it, or had succumbed to temptation at some point and decided to keep the money.

“Have you had anything to eat or drink yet this morning?” he asked abruptly.

Comprehension was a little slow coming. “No. No.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t eat.”

“You can,” he said firmly. “Let’s go in the kitchen, and I can at least pour you a cup of coffee.”

“Tea. I drink tea.”

“Tea it is.” He rose and held out a hand. Just like last night, she stared at his hand for a split second longer than would be usual before taking it. He boosted her to her feet. “Officer Grumbach, I think you can go back to patrol now.” On a twinge of memory, Ben glanced at her. “Unless you’d be more comfortable not being alone with me, Ms. Markovic.”

“What? Oh, no. That’s fine.” She summoned a weak smile for the young officer. “Thank you. I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

“You were understandably upset, ma’am.” Grumbach nodded and departed in what Ben suspected was more relief. He was a new hire, barely experienced enough to be out on his own. He’d done fine, though; Ben made a mental note to tell him so.

Nadia wanted to make her own tea, but he persuaded her to sit and let him do it. Waiting for the water to boil, he investigated her refrigerator and cupboards, finally settling on a croissant he heated in the microwave before splitting it open and slapping on raspberry jam from a local Amish woman. He recognized the label. He added extra sugar to the tea before setting the cup in front of her, then the croissant.

Under his stern gaze, she did eat and sipped at her English breakfast tea. Finally, she admitted to feeling better.

“Then let’s talk.” He pulled a small notebook from his pocket. He thought being recorded might stifle her. “Who knew you were taking the proceeds home?” he asked bluntly.

She blinked. “I can’t imagine...”

He cocked an eyebrow. “But the thief had to know.”

“Oh, dear God,” Nadia whispered. She stared into space for a minute. “Well, Katie-Ann Chupp, of course. Julie Baird, Karen Llewellyn, probably Rachel Schwartz.”

Two Amish, two Englischers. Even he’d come to divide his citizenry that way. From what he’d learned since moving to Byrum, it would be a cold day in hell before either of the warmhearted Amish women would so much as give a passing thought to stealing, never mind carrying out a heist like this. They’d have no need. If either woman’s family was struggling financially, all they’d have to do was ask for help, and it would pour forth. That’s how the Amish worked; they took care of each other. On the other hand, he knew both the other women, at least in passing, and felt reasonably sure neither made a likely suspect, either. Julie Baird’s husband was a doctor, Karen’s a representative for a farm equipment company. Still, he noted all four names.

Nadia reeled off a few more, then admitted that anyone helping with cleanup might have heard or guessed that she would be taking the money.

Yes, it would have been logical to suppose the event chair would deal with the evening’s take, which could widen the suspect pool considerably. But would somebody really break in to look for the cash box without being 100 percent certain Nadia had taken it home? Ben didn’t think so.

Of course, that somebody could have been lurking outside to see who carried the box out, and even though Ben had been watching for just that eventuality, landscaping around the historic mansion included a lot of dark bushes and trees.