The Amish Clockmaker Read Online Free PDF

buy it now?”
    Kenny cleared his throat, looking hot under the collar all of a sudden. “Yeah. Well, sort of. There have been some… issues.”
    â€œIssues?”
    â€œYeah. With locating the owner.”
    â€œThat’s because we are the owners. And we’ve already turned you down.”
    â€œHold on,” Kenny added as he shuffled through his papers again, looking for something else. Daed glanced at me and then piped up.
    â€œRecords or not,” he said to Kenny in a calm, even tone, “my father bought this entire place from a woman named Lucille Raber in 1956. She’s passed on now, but I’m sure one of her children—”
    Kenny looked up. “Raber?”
    Daed nodded. “Lucille Raber.” He pointed to her name at the top of our deed, the one I’d brought down from the house. Kenny looked at it and then up at me.
    â€œThat’s it. That’s the name I was trying to think of, the owner of lot twenty-three. Raber. But not Lucille. It’s a man.”
    He flipped through a few more pages, pulled one out, and handed it to me. “Here you go, right here. According to county records, lots twenty-four and twenty-five belong to a Zook, but the parcel in question, lot twenty-three, belongs to a Raber. Clayton Raber.”
    Clayton Raber?
    I sucked in my breath. How could that be? I looked over at Daed, who seemed just as startled—and worried—as I.
    â€œAll right,” I said. “We’ll look into it, then.”
    Kenny’s scowl softened. “And you’ll cease and desist with your expansion in the meantime?”
    â€œ Ya ,” Daed and I agreed simultaneously. We turned to go.
    â€œWe’ll be in contact with your lawyer,” I told Kenny over my shoulder as I took Amanda’s arm and guided her down the steps of the trailer.
    Then we began making our way back across the construction site as fast as we could.
    â€œWhat’s going on?” Amanda asked, trying to keep up. “What’s wrong? Who’s Clayton Raber?”
    Daed and I exchanged another look, and then I leaned close to her ear.
    â€œHe’s the Amish man who used to live here, the old clockmaker,” I whispered. “The one people say murdered his wife.”

F OUR
    I first learned about Clayton Raber’s past from twin brothers who used to live up the road. I was about seven or eight. We were playing in my yard one evening after we had all finished our chores, and when I invited them inside for some of my mom’s pie, they refused. When I asked why, they looked at one another and then back at me.
    â€œThat’s where the murderer used to live,” one of them said.
    They then proceeded to tell me the story—or as much of it as they had overheard. The rest I gathered on my own after talking to my parents later that night. Legend had it the clockmaker known as Clayton Raber was a bitter man prone to fits of temper. He’d been the victim of a childhood accident that had left him with various injuries, including a badly mangled leg that had healed poorly and made it difficult for him to walk, as well as a disfiguring scar on his face. He also had a troubled marriage, and when his wife died under suspicious conditions, Clayton was charged with killing her. He was only twenty-seven. Everyone knew he’d done it, they said, but for some reason all charges were eventually dropped and he was released from jail. He later left the community—and the Amish church—in disgrace, and no one ever saw him again.
    Up to that point I had known only that a family by the name of Raber once lived in my house and that they’d had a clock shop in what was presently mygrandfather’s tack and feed store. But even after my friends told me the story, which I’d found startling and more than a little intriguing, I still didn’t understand why it scared them so. My house was warm and safe, its wooden floors worn