A Simple Murder

by Linda Castillo

  As perfect as all of that was, Noah wasn’t so blind that he didn’t see the troubled waters ahead. His parents disapproved of him dating a non-Amish girl. They hadn’t come right out and said it, but he figured they were quietly hoping he’d break up with her once his rumspringa was over. As much as he hated the thought of disappointing them, that wasn’t going to happen.

  Ashley’s parents were even less thrilled; he’d known it the first time he met her father and he’d started with the questions. Did you graduate from high school? Do you have any plans for college? How are you going to get a good job and support yourself when you don’t even drive a car? Noah had answered as best he could, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the man wasn’t impressed.

  It didn’t matter. Ashley was his world, and nothing could change that. They were in love. Somehow, they’d make it work.

  Noah was thinking about the kiss again when he noticed the headlights behind him. It was unusual to see a vehicle on this stretch of road so late. There were only a handful of farms out this way, most of which were Amish. It was probably Mr. and Mrs. Boedecker coming home from a movie—it was Saturday night, after all. Or else someone was lost.

  Shoving his hands into his pockets, Noah moved onto the shoulder and kept walking. The farm where he lived with his parents and six siblings was a mile or so down the road. Hopefully, he’d make it home before the sky opened up. He picked up the pace. Headlights washed over him. Behind him, the vehicle’s engine revved. Someone was in a hurry, he thought. Scooting right another couple of feet, he glanced over his shoulder. Bright headlights blinded him. The vehicle was moving fast. Too fast for this narrow, pitted back road. He sidestepped onto the grassy shoulder and kept moving.

  Tires skittered on gravel, pebbles pinging in the wheel wells. Right behind him. Startled, Noah spun, blinded, threw up a hand to shield his eyes against the glare. “What the—”

  The impact knocked him off his feet. Pain shot from his hip to his knee. His body cartwheeled. The world went silent for an instant. Then he sprawled face down in the ditch.

  Noah lay still a moment, gasping and dazed, trying to get air into his lungs. Pain coursed through his leg, an electric pulse that zinged with every beat of his heart. Vaguely, he was aware that the vehicle had stopped, the engine rumbling. A groan squeezed from his throat when he rolled. A drumroll of pain in his arm. Nothing broken, so he struggled to his hands and knees and looked around. The vehicle idled thirty feet away. It must have done a U-turn because it was facing him, the headlights blinding.

  Noah thought the driver would have gotten out by now to see if he was all right. In the back of his mind, he wondered if maybe the driver had been texting or drinking, and accidentally veered onto the shoulder.

  “Hey.” Noah raised his hand. “I’m okay!” he called out.

  Dust swirled in the yellow shafts of the beams. No one got out. Noah got to his feet, a cymbal of pain clanging in his leg. He stood there, breathing hard, shaking. Squinting, he tried to make out the type of vehicle, but the lights were too bright. What was this guy doing?

  The driver’s side door swung open. He saw a silhouette as someone stepped out. “Hey, Loverboy!”

  In that instant, Noah knew this was no random accident. He was keenly aware of how close the vehicle was. That he was vulnerable. Alone. He got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  Never taking his eyes off the vehicle, Noah limped across the road to a safer distance, out of the glare of the lights. “I don’t want any trouble,” he called out.

  Nothing but ominous silence came back at him.

  There was a plowed field to his left, a fenced pasture to his right. Home was straight ahead. If he could get around the car on either side, he could make it. All he had to do was climb the fence or cut through the field.

  Noah started toward the fence. He was midway there when the driver gunned the engine. Noah broke into a run, but he was hindered by his injured leg. The tires squealed against the asphalt. The vehicle jumped forward. Ignoring the pain, Noah poured on the speed, sprinting toward the fence a few yards away.

  The vehicle roared toward him, closing in fast. It slid to a stop between him and the fence, missing him by inches, cutting him off. Noah pivoted, changed direction, and ran toward the open field, arms outstretched.

  Behind him, the engine screamed. He glanced over his shoulder, saw the vehicle back up and skid sideways, mudslinging from the rear tires. Then it leapt forward.

  Breathing hard, he sprinted toward the field, feet pounding the ground, boots sinking into mud up to his ankles. Loose cornstalks threatened to trip him. Headlights played crazily all around. The roar of the engine in his ears. No place to take cover. No fence or trees.

  He tore through the field, feet barely touching the ground, pain zinging, arms pumping. Ten yards and he risked a look behind him. Headlights a scant few feet away, a giant beast about to devour him.

  “Stop!” he shouted.

  Noah cut hard to the left, tried to outmaneuver the vehicle. It tracked him, tires eating up the ground at an astounding speed, headlights bouncing over the rough terrain.

  Noah swung right toward the trees a quarter mile away. The vehicle stayed with him, mud flying, closing the distance in seconds. Noah zigzagged right and left, slid and nearly fell, then turned back toward the road. Not too far. If he could reach the fence he’d be home free.…

  The bumper struck him from behind, a wrecking ball slamming into his backside. Noah’s feet left the ground. He somersaulted across the hood, elbows and knees knocking against steel, the windshield. For an instant he was airborne, tumbling end over end. He hit the ground hard. Pain screaming through his body. Wet earth against his face. The taste of blood in his mouth.

  Choking back a groan of pain, he rolled, got to his hands and knees, and crawled toward the fence. Just fifty feet to go. Behind him, the engine bellowed. He glanced back, saw the oncoming headlights, dirt and debris flying. The silver glint of the bumper loomed.

  He raised his hands. “No!”

  Thoughts of Ashley flitted through his brain.

  The world exploded, and the waiting darkness sucked him into the abyss.

  * * *

  At seventy-eight years of age, Orin Schlabach figured he was old enough to know not to venture too far from the house, especially when his wife had just pulled a double batch of cinnamon rolls from the oven. He’d reached for one—just a little something to tide him over while the coffee perked—but she’d smacked his hand with the wooden spoon she kept next to the stove and told him to feed the cows first. Not a man to argue with a woman in charge of breakfast, Orin grabbed his coat and headed out to the barn. He was on his way back inside when he heard his birddog, Jojo, barking somewhere out in the front field.

  Drizzle drifted down from an overcast sky; the temperature hovered somewhere around forty degrees. It was Orin’s least favorite kind of weather. Unfortunately for him, Jojo loved it, the colder and wetter, the better.

  Standing in the driveway between the house and barn, Orin looked out at the field. Sure enough, a quarter mile away, Jojo was barking at something on the ground. Some debris or trash that had blown in with the storm last night. Orin put his hand to his lips and whistled.

  “Jojo! Kumma inseid!” Come inside.

  The dog was usually obedient, especially during breakfast when more than likely he was in store for table scraps. This morning, he didn’t even look back. In fact, if Orin wasn’t mistaken, the dog’s barking seemed frantic. What was he barking at? And what on earth was that on the ground?

  Muttering beneath his breath, Orin crossed the driveway, opened the gate, and started across the field. He was thinking about cinnamon rolls and the possibility of scrambled eggs when he realized the dog wasn’t barking at some flapping piece of trash. At first, he thought maybe a deer had come into the field and died. At forty yards, he realized that wasn’t the case at all.

  Concern twinged in his gut, and he broke i
nto a wobbly old-man run. “Hello?” he called out. “Who’s there? Are you all right?”

  The person on the ground didn’t move. A young man. Just a boy, in fact. The hat and suspenders told him he was Plain. He was sprawled on his side, one arm thrown over his head, legs splayed.

  Jojo looked up at Orin, tongue lolling, tail wagging.

  “Good boy, Jojo.”

  Ignoring the arthritis protesting in his knees, Orin knelt beside the boy. Recognition kicked him hard enough to shake his innards when he got a look at his face. “Noah,” he whispered. A quiver of fear went through him when he noticed the blood. It was on his shirt. More matted in his hair. On the side of his face. Dear Lord, what had happened?

  “Noah?” He set his hand on the boy’s shoulder, found it cold and wet to the touch. “What happened, son? Can you hear me? Can you move?”

  No answer. No movement. Not even a shiver or twitch. No sign of life. For a terrible moment, Orin thought the young man was dead. Relief skittered through him when he saw the boy’s chest rise. At least he was breathing. Working off his coat, he draped it over the boy.

  “You just stay there and get warmed up.” He patted the boy’s shoulder and looked around. “I’ll get help.”

  The old man struggled to his feet and took off at a lumbering run for the neighbor’s house.

  * * *

  My name is Kate Burkholder, and I’m the chief of police of Painters Mill, a pretty little township in the heart of Ohio’s Amish Country. I’ve just pulled into my parking spot outside the police station when my cell phone vibrates against my hip. The screen tells me it’s my graveyard-shift dispatcher, Mona Kurtz, who also happens to be a part-time patrol officer, and she hasn’t yet left for the day. “Hey, Mona.”

  “Chief, I just took a call from the Amish pay phone out on Township Road 4. Orin Schlabach says the neighbor’s son, Noah Kline, is injured and unconscious in his field.”

  It’s not the kind of call I’d expect at 7:00 A.M. on a Sunday morning. “How seriously is he hurt?”

  “Orin says it’s bad. He went back out to the field stay with him.”

  “Do Noah’s parents know?”

  “Not yet. No one has a phone out there, except the Boedeckers.” The couple are the only non-Amish who live on the township road.

  “Get an ambulance out there,” I tell her.

  “They’re en route.”

  “Tell Skid to meet me there,” I add, referring to Chuck “Skid” Skidmore, my officer on duty this morning. “I’m on my way.”

  * * *

  The Schlabach farm is on a township road that’s more dirt than asphalt and dead-ends at Painters Creek. There’s an ambulance parked on the shoulder when I arrive, red and blue lights flashing. An Amish man and two paramedics are standing in the field fifty yards away. Skid’s not arrived yet. A dog sniffs around in the distance. I park behind the ambulance and head toward the men.

  I reach them as the paramedics are loading the patient into the ambulance. The young man is draped with a Mylar blanket; there’s a cervical collar wrapped around his neck and an IV drip in his arm.

  “What’s his condition?” I ask.

  “We’ve not been able to rouse him, Chief,” the EMT tells me as he slams the rear doors. “He’s got visible injuries about his head. Compound fracture of his arm. He suffered some kind of trauma. Pulse and heart rate are extremely slow. If he’s been out here long, chances are he’s hypothermic.”

  They’re in a hurry to get their patient to the hospital, so I don’t hold them up.

  I’ve met Orin Schlabach a few of times over the years. I bought pumpkins from his wife last fall. The couple are well into their seventies, but they still run their farm and are active in the community.

  “Can you tell me what happened, Mr. Schlabach?” I ask as we shake hands.

  He’s about six feet tall with a salt-and-pepper beard that reaches nearly to his waist. He wears traditional Amish garb—flat-brimmed hat, trousers with suspenders, blue work shirt, and a black barn coat—along with about fifty pounds of extra weight.

  “I went out to feed the cows. Jojo started barking.” He motions toward the dog. “That’s when I spotted the boy on the ground.”

  “Noah Kline?”

  He nods. “My neighbor’s boy. The oldest, I think. Nice young man.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “He’s been out cold the whole time.”

  “Any idea what happened?”

  “I can’t imagine.” The Amish man shakes his head. “I see that boy walking along the road couple times a week. He don’t drive, you know. And we don’t get any traffic out this way.”

  “Have you talked to his parents?”

  “I called you first thing, Chief Burkholder, and then I came back to stay with him.”

  We’re standing in a cornfield, about fifty feet from the road. The corn has already been cut and harvested. Leftover dried yellow stalks litter the ground. A small circle of blood has soaked into the dirt where Noah Kline had lain. On the other side of the road is a tumbledown fence. Beyond, a wooded area that runs along the floodplain of Painters Creek.

  I take a moment to walk the scene, trying to figure out what might’ve happened, when Skid’s cruiser pulls up behind my Explorer, lights flashing. He meets me in the field, and I brief him on what little I know.

  “How’s the kid?” he asks.

  “Not sure,” I tell him. “Hasn’t regained consciousness.”

  “That’s not good.” He looks around. “Any idea what happened to him?”

  “I thought we might walk the scene, see if we can figure it out.”

  We fall silent, thoughtful, eyes on the ground. That’s when I notice the tire ruts.

  “Those look fresh,” Skid says.

  We follow the tracks. Sure enough, twin furrows cut deeply into the wet soil. Farther out, there’s a place where the driver may have done “donuts,” turning the steering wheel sharply while accelerating so that the rear wheels spin and the vehicle turns in a tight circle.

  “Looks like a vehicle left the pavement at a high rate of speed,” I say, motioning toward the deep ruts and mud that’s been slung onto the asphalt.

  “Braked hard there.” Skid gestures.

  “Did a donut there,” I say.

  “Goofy damn teenagers.” He looks at me and shakes his head. “Could this be a case of car surfing?” he asks, referring to the practice of someone riding on the roof or hood of a vehicle, often while said vehicle is traveling at a high rate of speed.

  “Maybe. But why would they leave him like this?”

  “If they were drinking they may have panicked.”

  I move closer and kneel. “I’ve got footprints here.”

  “Someone was on foot.” He kneels next to me, leans over the nearest imprint. “Judging from the depth of that print and the length of the stride, I’d say he was running.”

  Mindful of the possibility that this may not have been a case of teenage antics gone wrong, I look at the ruts in relation to the footprints and try to get a sense of what might’ve occurred. Was this a case of “car surfing” as Skid surmised? Or was this something more sinister? Road rage that led to an altercation? A hit-and-run?

  Rising, I walk back to Orin Schlabach. “Did you or your wife hear or see anything unusual last night?”

  The old man shakes his head. “Not a thing.”

  It’s too soon to know how severe the young man’s injuries are. In the course of my career, I’ve seen more than my share of traffic accidents—and worse. A head injury can go from minor to fatal in a heartbeat. Keeping that in mind, and knowing Noah Kline didn’t get hurt without help, I call my significant other.

  “I hear you’ve got a possible hit-skip on your hands,” he says without preamble.

  John Tomasetti is an agent with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation. He’s also the love of my life. We live on a small farm a few miles out of Wooster, north of Painters Mill.

  �
�Word travels fast,” I say.

  “Especially when you have a police scanner.”

  I recap what little I know. “It might be overkill, but I’m wondering if you know someone in the area who can come out and take a look at this scene. Depending on what happens with the victim, this could get serious, and I may want some plasters of the tire tread.”

  “You thinking drunk driver? Foul play?”

  “Not sure.” I tell him about the tire ruts and footprints. “Some teenagers may have been horsing around and had an accident.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

  I think about Orin Schlabach saying that Noah Kline walked this road on a regular basis. “Tomasetti, I don’t know if I’m right, but it looks like someone ran this kid down with a vehicle.”

  “I know a guy,” he says. “Give me half an hour.”

  * * *

  Mervin and Rhoda Kline are Swartzentruber Amish, a conservative sect that adheres to the old traditions with an iron fist. No windows or slow-moving vehicle signs for their buggies. Some don’t use gravel in their driveways or even have indoor plumbing in their homes. The Klines live with their seven children on a dairy farm just down the road from the Schlabach place.

  I drive up the long lane to find Mr. Kline hitching the buggy horse in the muddy area between the house and barn. His expression tells me he’s already realized his son isn’t at home. That he’s worried about him and likely hitching the buggy to either use the Amish pay phone down the road or to look for him.

  “Mr. Kline?” I cross to him.

  He meets me halfway, glad to see me, which usually isn’t the case, but he’s apprehensive, too, afraid I may be the bearer of bad news. “You bring word of my son?”

  We shake hands. “Your neighbor, Mr. Schlabach, found Noah unconscious in his field this morning.”