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the same age.”
    “And living in that place by herself?”
    “Jah. What are you thinking?” Ettie asked her sister.
    “It seems odd that a stranger would kill him and then put him under her haus. Wouldn’t it have been easier to dump a body somewhere else rather than wrap the body and bury it under the haus?”
    “Seems it was a good place to hide it. No one found it for forty years, and if it weren’t for you spotting those holes in the floorboards, he might never have been found.”
    “Possibly.” Elsa-May scratched her neck.
    “You’re not thinking Agatha did it, are you?”
    “Don’t you think it odd that her rocking chair was directly over the body? It’s an odd place for a chair, to be placed in the middle of the room like that.”
    Ettie breathed out heavily and cast her mind back to her many visits with Agatha. She’d always considered it most strange for the rocking chair to be where it was, but then again Agatha did live alone. It wasn’t as though she had to be mindful of others and keep the centre of the room clear. “That’s what we have to do then, Elsa-May.”
    Elsa-May lowered her eyebrows and looked at Ettie over the top of her glasses. “What?”
    “We have to find out from Jeremiah how the body would’ve got there.”
    “How would he know? He wasn’t even alive back then,” Elsa-May said before she realized what Ettie meant. “Oh, I see. Did the floorboards have to be taken up for the body to be placed where it was, or was the body simply dragged under the house? That would explain why those boards were different, perhaps.”
    “Exactly.” Ettie nodded.
    “It seems obvious to me that the boards were taken up, but then the person would have had to have access to the haus. Well, we shall do that. First thing tomorrow we’ll go and see Jeremiah.”
    That evening, as Ettie watered her vegetables, she cast her mind back to dredge up what she could remember about Horace and Agatha. Agatha and she weren’t close back in those days. Agatha was a young single girl, and Ettie was busy with her own large family. She knew that Agatha had returned to the community, and had heard talk of Horace returning and that was all. Perhaps she should make her own enquiries with Horace’s family. They’d know if Horace had spoken of having crossed or accidently wronged someone, and they might know if he’d had any enemies.
    A smile crossed Ettie’s face as she bent down to look at her tomato plants. The first tomato had formed. It was the size of a large cherry, and it was still green. “It’s a wonder I didn’t see that before,” she murmured to herself. When she finished the watering, she placed the watering can by the back door. Elsa-May could be heard rattling around in the kitchen making dinner.
    Ettie decided that when Elsa-May went to her Wednesday knitting circle, the day after tomorrow, she would visit Horace’s family alone. If God willed it, they would find out more from Jeremiah tomorrow about how the body was placed. With that knowledge she could go to Horace’s family with a little more information up her sleeve.
     

Chapter 5.
     
    Ettie and Elsa-May’s taxi came upon Jeremiah’s buggy just as he was leaving his house.
    “Where are you two headed?” Jeremiah asked when the taxi drew even. “I could take you.”
    “We’re coming to see you, but you could take us home and we can talk to you on the way,” Elsa-May said.
    “Fine.” Jeremiah agreed.
    After they paid the taxi driver, the two elderly ladies climbed into the buggy.
    “What did you want to talk to me about?” Jeremiah clicked the horse onward.
    “We were curious about the body,” Ettie began.
    “Jah,” said Elsa-May. “How would it have been placed there? Would it have been lowered from above? You did say you thought that some of the floorboards were different from the others.”
    “What are your thoughts, Jeremiah?” Ettie asked.
    “It could have been dragged under the haus, but it’s a tight fit