Secrets Come Home Read Online Free

have been murdered straight away,” Ettie said.
    “Could you both please keep your answers to the point?” The detective raised his eyebrows and scribbled something in his notebook. He looked up at them. “Did they get along well, Agatha and Horace?”
    “As well as any couple who were going to get married,” Elsa-May answered.
    “Why do you ask, Detective? You don’t suspect that Agatha had anything to do with his death, do you?” Ettie asked as she leaned forward.
    He stared at Ettie and blinked a couple times. “Well, the man was murdered. He was found under her floor. When we have a murder, the first person we look at is the spouse – or, as in this case, the significant other. When you put two and two together, Mrs. Smith, you wind up with four.”
    “But not always,” Ettie said before she could stop herself. When the man frowned at her she realized what she’d said. “I mean, two and two make four, of course they do. Well, except if you draw a two, and then you draw another two, and then two and two make twenty-two.  Very often the most likely or the obvious answer is not…”
    As Ettie struggled to finish her sentence, Elsa-May chimed in. “What Ettie is trying to say is that it’s a ridiculous notion to think that Agatha was capable of hurting anyone. No one in our community would be capable of doing such a thing – that’s my opinion. I suggest, Detective, that you start looking outside the community for your murderer.”
    Worried that they were getting on the wrong side of the man, Ettie changed the subject slightly. “How was Horace killed, might I ask?”
    “A blow to the back of the head. Looks like it came from a broad, flat object. As there wasn’t any flesh left, the coroner could only gather evidence from the skeletal remains.”
    Ettie grimaced at the image his words conjured up.
    “Have you spoken to Horace’s family?” Elsa-May asked.
    “They’ve been informed, but they haven’t been formally questioned yet.”
    Ettie scratched her chin. “I guess that explains why they’ve not heard from him in years.”
    “Tell me, Mrs. Smith, did Agatha ever marry?”
    “No, she didn’t.”
    The detective continued, “Did she have any gentleman friends who might have been jealous of Horace’s attention toward her?”
    Ettie stared into the distance and rubbed her top lip with her index finger while she thought. “If she did, I didn’t know about them.”
    “Well,” Elsa-May added. “That means ‘no’ because Ettie is the one person who always knows what’s going on in our community. She talks to everyone – she’s friends with everyone and she’s always talking.”
    “You’re making me sound like a gossiper, Elsa-May, and I’m not.”
    “You do talk with everyone.”
    Ettie frowned. “Not everyone, I don’t.”
    The detective stood up. “Well, thank you, ladies. I might have some more questions for you at another time.”
    Elsa-May and Ettie stood as well. “Anytime, Detective,” Elsa-May said as she showed him to the door.
    Ettie walked up beside her sister and they watched him get into his car. When the sisters were alone again, they sat down.
    “He thinks Agatha had something to do with Horace’s death.” Ettie exhaled loudly.
    “It certainly sounds that way.”
    “I wonder how he got under the floor like that. Who do you think did it, Elsa-May?”
    “I don’t know anyone that would have a reason to kill him, but we don’t know what happened when he was on his rumspringa. Many a young man has gotten himself into trouble when he ran around with the Englischers.”
    Ettie sighed. “She came back to the community without him.”
    “And that was after her mudder died and left her the haus?”
    Ettie nodded. “Her mudder died when Agatha was sixteen, I remember that. It was always just the two of them with Agatha’s vadder dying years before.”
    “How old was Agatha when Horace left?”
    “She would’ve been eighteen and Horace would’ve been around