Page 106 of A Gathering of Secrets

She frowns at me, letting me know I’m being rude for butting in line, but she glances at the card. “That’s Viola’s handwriting,” she says. “I can sign you up for the class, but you’ll need to get in line and wait your turn.”

For an instant I stand there, feeling as if I’ve been sucker punched. I’m aware of the Amish woman staring at me, wondering what’s wrong with me.

Sliding the card into the back pocket of my trousers, I back away from her and head for the door.

CHAPTER 24

Twenty minutes later, I pull into the parking lot of Quality Implement and park in the fire lane a few feet from the front door. Hoping I’m wrong, I tug out the card as I walk inside and look at it again. The handwriting stares back at me in indisputable black and white.

“What did you do?” I whisper.

Then I’m through the door and striding directly to the tire, battery, and auto department. I find Ralph Baker sitting on the top rung of a stepladder in the windshield wiper aisle, jotting SKU numbers onto a clipboard.

“Mr. Baker?”

He glances up. “Oh, hi, Chief Burkholder.” Smiling, he rises. “What can I help you with today?”

I show him the card. “Do you recognize this handwriting?”

“Huh? Well … let me see.” Lowering reading glasses from his crown, he tilts his head back to look at it through his bifocals and squints. “What am I looking at here, exactly? I mean, what is this?”

I rephrase my question. “Is there anything about this handwriting that’s familiar to you?”

Again, he lowers the glasses and looks at the handwriting. “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it before. But I’m not exactly sure where you’re coming from here.”

The last thing I want to do is ask a leading question. A question posed in such a way that it could influence his answer. “Mr. Baker, when you came to me about the note Daniel Gingerich received shortly before his death, you described it as a ‘girlie’ style of handwriting. You mentioned little hearts over the i’s. Is that correct?”

“Oh! By golly, I did. I’d forgotten all about that. Sheesh.” He makes a “crazy” gesture with his hand, then takes another look at the index card and frowns. “Gosh, Chief, I only saw that note for a second, but this sure looks like the same writing. Same little hearts over the i’s, just like what’s on that card there. Same color ink, too.”

“Do you think it’s the same handwriting?”

“Well, I can’t say for sure, but it sure looks like it.”

* * *

Questions bombard me as I walk back to the Explorer. Is it possible Viola Stutzman wrote the note that lured Daniel Gingerich to the barn the night he was killed? Was she somehow involved? Or did she simply write the note for Edna Lambright? If that’s the case, why didn’t she mention it when I talked to her about it?

By the time I climb into the Explorer, I’ve got a knot in my gut. My hands are shaking when I set them on the steering wheel. I sit there a moment, trying to make sense of it, and what it could mean in terms of the case.

Thoughts racing, I pick up the phone and call Tomasetti. “Do the latent prints on the key found at the scene of the Gingerich fire belong to Edna Lambright?” I hear the high-wire tension in my voice. I’m pretty sure Tomasetti hears it, too, because he takes his time responding.

“I thought you were about to close the case.”

“I thought so, too.” I tell him about finding the card at The Mercantile and my conversation with Ralph Baker.

“He thinks it’s the same handwriting?”

“He only got a glimpse, but he remembers the little hearts above the i’s and the purple ink.”

“Viola Stutzman probably isn’t the only teenaged girl who writes that way or uses colored ink.”

“I know. And I know it’s a tenuous connection.”

“That’s not to mention you don’t have the note for comparison purposes.”

“The note was never found. I assumed it was destroyed in the fire.” I take a breath, blow it out. “Tomasetti, I don’t think I can ignore this.”

I hear computer keys clicking on the other end of the line and I know he’s accessing the information on the latents. He makes a sound low in his throat, telling me he found what he was looking for—and he doesn’t like what he sees.