Secrets Come Home Read Online Free Page B

and would’ve been hard to do. It would more likely have been lowered from above. And the boards there are different, but I’m not sure that’s the reason. They could have still used the old boards. Lifted the boards up, lowered the body, and then nailed the boards back down.”
    “Would the boards normally be damaged when they lifted them up?” Ettie asked.
    “Unlikely; not if someone knew what they were doing. It’s not hard to lift some boards up,” Jeremiah said.
    “So the person who did it might have split the boards and had to replace them and that’s why the boards are different?” Elsa-May asked.
    Jeremiah rubbed his jaw. “It’s straightforward – I don’t think anyone would make a hash of lifting boards up.”
    “They were damaged somehow, and because the body was right underneath those replaced pieces of wood, it seems likely that’s when it was done.”
    “Jah , it would be an extreme coincidence – the softer wood being directly over the body, and all,” Jeremiah said.
    “Precisely,” Elsa-May commented. “So we can guess that the person who placed the body under the floor was not good at using tools.”
    “A woman perhaps?” Jeremiah said, causing the sisters to glare at him. He quickly added, “I mean to say, not all women can use tools, but I’m certain there are many that can.”
     
    * * *
     
    As soon as Elsa-May’s friend, Deidre, came to fetch her for the knitting circle, Ettie hurried along the road and called a taxi. She would go to her new house and gather her thoughts before she headed to Horace’s mother’s place.
    The ride in the taxi was a fast one and no sooner had Ettie paid the driver and got out of the taxi than she saw Ava hurrying toward her.
    “Ettie, I’m glad you’re here.”
    The taxi sped away.
    “What is it, Ava? You look dreadful.”
    “There was a man hanging around the haus last night. I heard some scratching noises, so I looked outside and saw a dark figure. I opened the door and called ‘who’s there’ and he ran off.”
    “Did you see who it was?”
    Ava shook her head.
    “I called the police first thing this morning.”
    “What did they say?”
    “They said if I’m scared I should get a dog or a personal alarm. That’s after they found out I didn’t have a telephone.”
    “What time did you see the man?”
    “Around two. I couldn’t sleep and when I got up I saw it was a few minutes past two. I went to light the lamp, but before I could, I saw someone over near the front corner of your haus. They were crouching down.”
    “The police didn’t come out?”
    Ava shook her head. “They might have if I’d been able to call them at the time. Agatha had always talked about getting a phone in the barn, but she never did anything about it. Do you know it’s in the papers?”
    “What – Horace’s murder?”
    “Jah, the story was in the paper yesterday. When I gave the police our address, the officer said it was in the paper.”
    Ettie tapped her fingers on her chin, wondering if the newspaper article had caused them the unwanted attention.
    “You know the police think that Agatha did it?”
    Ettie looked up at her. “I thought she was a suspect, but I didn’t think they thought she was a killer. Surely not.”
    “I’m convinced of it. They asked me to go to the police station so they could ask me some questions.”
    “Did you go?”
    “Yes, I went yesterday.”
    “What did they ask you?”
    “They asked me what kind of things Agatha spoke to me about, how well I knew her, if I knew any of her close friends, and if she’d ever mentioned Horace.”
    “Had she ever mentioned Horace to you?”
    “She had. She told me there’s no right man and I shouldn’t wait for one. I asked her how she knew and she told me about Horace and that he disappointed her – she thought she loved him. I’m sorry now that I didn’t pay more attention to what she said.”
    “That’s sad, very sad. She was waiting for him to come back and he