Read Online Assaulted Pretzel by Laura Bradford - Free Book Online

able to spend time in the room she’d shared on the second floor with the victim without rousing her unnecessarily.”
    “Don’t you find it rather ironic that those of us who didn’t even know the man couldn’t sleep in the wake of his murder, yet his own wife could sleep so soundly she didn’t hear the detective assigned to her husband’s case coming and going this morning?” She hadn’t meant to share the observation aloud but sleep deprivation and stress tended to wreak havoc on one’s good sense.
    “I suspect her ability to sleep is due to heartache and depression more than anything else.”
    And, just like that, Claire found herself feeling like a monster for uttering such a statement in the first place. Jakobwas right. She couldn’t even begin to fathom what Ann Karble was going through at the moment.
    Before she could apologize, though, Jakob wiggled the rubber gloves onto his hands and motioned for Claire and Benjamin to join him behind the camera’s viewfinder. “I could use a little help in identifying some of the pictures taken on this camera yesterday.”
    “Is that the same camera that was around Rob Karble’s neck when we found him?” she asked as she moved in beside Jakob and waited for Benjamin to do the same.
    “Yes.”
    Benjamin remained in his spot between the counter and the stockroom door. “I do not understand why you need me to look at pictures.”
    She felt Jakob tense in response. “Because I’m trying to figure out what the victim was doing in the hours leading up to his death. If I can, maybe I’ll be able to catch a killer and put him away where he can’t hurt anyone ever again.”
    A momentary pause was soon followed by the sound of Benjamin’s work boots against the thinly carpeted floor. When the man was situated just behind the detective’s other shoulder, Jakob pushed a button to the side of a small screen to reveal a crystal clear shot of ham, apple slices, and dumplings, alongside a large salted pretzel. The angle of the shot indicated the person shooting the picture was also the person holding the plate—a person Jakob identified as Rob Karble based on the attire the man was wearing when his body was discovered.
    “That is Martha’s pretzel and Hannah Yoder’s Schnitz and Knepp dish,” Benjamin stated in his usual matter-of-fact tone. He turned to her and smiled. “Did you like it, Claire?”
    “I never got to try it,” she replied. “That’s what we were on the way to try when we heard Esther’s screams.”
    Esther…
    Oh, how she hoped Esther was feeling better after a good night’s sleep. Finding Rob Karble’s body behind the Schnitz and Knepp booth was—
    “Wait!” At the feel of both Jakob’s and Benjamin’s eyes on her, she pointed to the screen, her own eyes trained on the subtle details around the plate of piping hot food held aloft over a dirt field that had seen its fair share of foot traffic and lazy festivalgoers. Details that put the time the picture was taken not all that long before Esther had found the body.
    “This must have been taken shortly before he died,” she mused as she drank in the position of Rob Karble’s shadow in relation to the corner of the Schnitz and Knepp booth barely visible in the upper right-hand corner of the shot.
    Jakob nodded. “Since it’s the last picture he took and it shows him having eaten at the very booth closest to where we found him, I’d have to agree.”
    She leaned still closer to the screen as Jakob worked backward through the last few hours of Rob Karble’s life.
    There was a picture of Martha’s pretzel booth…
    There was a picture that showed the main thoroughfare of booths through the center of the festival grounds—the image capturing everything from curiosity to utter joy on the faces of people who never realized their photograph was being taken…
    And there was a picture from the hill above the grounds that took in the festival as a whole—the Amish and English intermingling