Separate From the World

by Gaus, P. L.

  Though not a dwarf, Mary was short and would probably not reach average height. Her brown hair was put up in a bun under her prayer cap, and her olive dress ran long, to the tops of her black shoes. Her eyes were brown and restless with anxiety, and she had a dish towel in her fingers, working it like prayer beads.

  “He used their names?” Branden asked.

  Mary hesitated. “I’m not sure, now.”

  “What else?” Robertson commanded harshly.

  Tears welled in the corners of Mary’s eyes, and Branden knelt to face her.

  Eyes level with the professor’s, Mary said, “We were not to look for them. That’s what the man said.”

  Branden pushed up from his knees and shot Robertson a glance. Then he said to Israel, “We can use the phone, Israel. We can take information from it. That’ll tell us who called.”

  A tragic sorrow bled into Israel’s gaze. It was mixed with the long vistas of resignation. With the long memories all Amish carry of the persecutions in Europe. He raised his palms helplessly and said, “We do not have the phone.”

  The sheriff started to growl out something profane, but Branden turned on him so fast that he choked it back and bit down on his temper as if he’d been slapped in the face.

  Carefully, Branden said, “Israel, that’s the one thing right now that can lead us to the person who has Albert.”

  Israel whispered, “We got rid of the phone. Such gadgets have no place here.”

  Branden asked, “OK, where did Benny get it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How did you know he had one?”

  Israel shrugged.

  Mary said, “Benny said he got it from a friend he met. He told us kids that. After Benny died, Daniel got it out of his apartment and gave it to me. He knew I liked it.”

  Branden turned back to her and leaned over to ask, “Do you know who gave it to Benny, Mary?”

  “No,” Mary said with a quivering lip.

  “Do you know how long he had it before he died?”

  “No.”

  “Did he ever tell you his number?”

  “No.”

  “Did he ever let you use it?”

  “No. He said it was for grown-ups.”

  “You didn’t call your friends? You didn’t want to use it?”

  “No.”

  Branden pressed, “And Daniel just gave it to you, Mary?”

  “He said he didn’t like it.”

  “He’s your brother?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you like it, Mary? Did you like the phone?”

  “Yes,” Mary said and started to cry. “I just carried it around. Then I got that call.”

  Branden straightened up. He held Mary’s eyes and judged that she was telling the truth. To Israel he said, “Do any of your children —maybe the older ones—maybe Daniel—know what Benny’s number was?”

  “I don’t know,” said Israel.

  Robertson started to speak again, but again Branden cut him off.

  “You see, Mr. Erb,” the professor said, “if we had Benny’s number, we could trace all of his calls. We could use computers to see who he had been talking to.”

  Israel hesitated, thought, and said, “If any of them had used the phone, they would have told me.”

  “You’re guessing,” Branden prodded. “You’re not sure.”

  More hesitation from Erb. “I believe that they would have told me. They would have told me today, while we were praying.”

  Frustrated, but unwilling to show it, Branden decided to try shock. “Do you know that Enos thinks Benny was murdered?”

  That registered on Israel’s face as a clear and cruel surprise. He gasped a quick breath and appeared to wobble on his legs.

  Branden said, “Benny wouldn’t have fallen off a ladder.”

  Groaning with his effort, Enos Erb mounted the steps to the porch and said, “He is right, Israel. Benny didn’t want you to know, but he couldn’t climb ladders anymore.”

  Deep sorrow filled Israel’s countenance. He staggered back a pace and braced himself against the front door. Enos continued forward and said, “Bishop Miller is wrong, Israel. We have to trust the English.”

  Robertson demanded, “Give us the phone, Mr. Erb.”

  Shaking his head, Israel moaned, “We don’t have it. I don’t know where it is.”

  Heat shot into Robertson’s face as if he were biting down on burning flares. He advanced on the taller Erb, and looked ready to strike the man.

  But from the lawn below, the men heard, “I burned it, Sheriff. I burned the phone.”

  When they turned around, they saw Preacher John Hershberger standing next to Cal.

  17

  Saturday, May 12 12:55 P.M.

  ROBERTSON BARKED, “You men all wait here,” and pulled Branden down off the porch.

  He took the professor down Nisley Road about thirty yards, out of earshot. With his back to the porch, he gesticulated wildly, asking, “Are they watching?”

  Branden understood the theater of irascibility that Robertson intended and said, “You’ve got your audience, Sheriff.”

  “I swear, Mike, I’m too old for this.”

  “You need to let Cal and me handle the Amish.”

  “I know. I don’t need this kind of aggravation. Just tell them that you talked me out of something threatening.”

  Branden said, “I’d like to know what Dan and Ricky have got for us before I go back up there.”

  Robertson took his cell phone out. As he dialed, he watched the porch and saw an animated discussion under way. Good, he thought. Let them sweat a little.

  The first call went to Dan Wilsher. Robertson could see his chief deputy some fifty yards down the road when he answered the sheriff’s call, so the two men faced each other over the distance and talked. Branden heard Robertson’s end of the conversation.

  “What have we got, Dan? How many? No, start with the Banks’s house and garage. OK, so tie her up if you have to. Right. Right. Then go through these two Erb farms, Dan. The works. Everywhere, Dan. Everywhere big enough for the body of a four-year-old boy. No. No. Yes, get Wayne County down here if you need the help. OK. But Dan—hurry.”

  He switched off and said, “Dan’s search has turned up nothing, Mike, but they’re just getting started on houses and buildings. The dogs are two miles away, working on scent.”

  “Willa Banks won’t be a problem,” Branden predicted.

  Robertson said, “Don’t know; don’t care. She gets in the way, I’ll arrest her.”

  Next Robertson called Ricky Niell. After a few brief questions, all he had for Branden was a shake of his head, and “Ricky’s got nothing.”

  “We got out here too late,” Branden said.

  Robertson nodded. “I’m gonna call down to the jail.”

  Back on his phone, the sheriff said, “Robertson here. OK, Ellie. Right, then you know. I want an Amber Alert for Albert Erb, four years old. What? OK, I’ll come in. I’ll be right there, Ellie. Twenty minutes. Thirty, tops.”

  Branden asked, “So, you’re going to let us handle Hershberger?” “I’ve got no choice, Mike. Ellie needs help, and I’m supposed to sign off on one of these Amber Alerts, anyway. Ricky’s watching the roads, and Dan’s running the search teams. I’d just be in the way out here.”

  “As soon as I have something,” the professor said, “I’ll call you.”

  Robertson took a grim look back at the Amish men on the porch and said, “We’re too late, Mike. They should have called us right away.”

  18

  Saturday, May 12 2:00 P.M.

  WITHOUT ROBERTSON, the conversation with John Hershberger was a civil one. More than once, Branden found himself thankful for that blessing.

  Cal sat with Branden, on Israel Erb’s front porch, opposite Israel and Hershberger. They had coffee and sandwiches, and they talked. Enos stood by Israel’s chair and fiddled nervously with the butt of an old cigar. He never spoke.

&nbs
p; At one point, Branden asked, “You’re really a Modern, John?”

  Hershberger smiled weakly and stroked his chin whiskers. “To a degree, Professor. Concerning medicine—yes. But, the Good Book says, ‘Be ye separate’ from the world.”

  “What does the Good Book say about telephones?” Branden asked.

  “You know it says nothing,” Hershberger replied evenly.

  “So, you are to use your judgment,” Branden concluded.

  “Our discernment, rather,” Hershberger corrected.

  Going to the heart of the matter, Branden asked, “Anybody’s discernment, John, or just the bishop’s? Your discernment, when you’ve formed your new modern church?”

  “A bishop is called to judge—to discern. We are all made strong through submission.”

  “To whom?”

  “To God, of course. To the Book.”

  “And what of modern medicines?”

  Here Hershberger stalled. He considered a moment and said, “Our lives are supposed to be hard. Sacrifice and struggle teach us humility. Humility enhances grace. And God is glorified through our sufferings, if we are submissive. But, if God has made medicine possible, then we should accept it. That’s where Andy Miller and I differ.”

  Cal asked, “Needless suffering, John? How is God’s Grace amplified by needless suffering?”

  “If God has chosen us for trial of our faith—and we are all tried, the Bible promises—then we see that as a blessing. The trial of our faith is a blessing because it produces maturity. Our lives are surrendered to God so that we may know the full stature of a man in Christ-likeness.”

  “Do you reject phones?” Branden asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you reject electricity?” Branden asked, suspecting the answer.

  “We do.”

  “Even batteries?” Branden said.

  “Yes.”

  Standing next to him, Israel cleared his throat, unhappy with Hershberger’s answers.

  Hershberger corrected himself. “Where a business is required to have light for safety, we allow a bulb. But in Israel’s store, there, he has only gas mantles for light. We will not compromise for reasons of convenience. Only for safety, when the law requires. And for medicine.”

  There it is, Branden thought—the fringe of inconsistency. He knew what further questioning would bring. Whatever compromises the preacher would allow with the world, he’d hold his people steadfastly to submission. To submission to him, once he had formed his church. The people of the church, the Gemie, were made perfect and whole only by submission to one another, submission to God, and submission to a single earthly authority—their bishop. And it didn’t matter where the line on culture had been drawn. It didn’t matter now, and it didn’t matter in the sixteenth century when Europe’s Anabaptists had been persecuted. They had drawn a line in the cultural sand in order to fit their society into a submissive posture toward God, because they had been powerless, as pacifists, to stop the intense persecution for their beliefs about adult baptism. They had done this according to their best understanding of the scriptures, and now there was to be little compromise with the modern world. In the twenty-first century, they lived on sixteenth-century peasant farms for their faith, and cell phones and electricity had no place in their world. But, ironically, modern medicine did.

  Hershberger repeated, “‘Be ye separate’ from the world, Professor Branden. It is not a request. It is God’s command on our lives.”

  Branden asked, “Aren’t surrender and submission nothing more than fatalism?”

  “Without faith, yes,” Hershberger answered.

  Branden followed with, “Isn’t faith, in the presence of danger like this, just an excuse, John? Nothing more than an elaborate cop-out?”

  Hershberger answered softly, “Not if it is redemptive. Not if it is restorative, Professor. Faith requires greater strength than violence. We are nonresisters to violence because we understand faith.”

  Branden knew it would be pointless to argue. He cared, really, only about the phone. It was his only link to Albert’s kidnappers. “You burned the phone?” he asked. “You actually burned it?”

  “In my wood stove, in the kitchen, Professor. I burned it before it could harm us any more. I burned it to ash and molten plastic, and I scattered it all in the fields.”

  Cal offered, “What if Benny left something behind, John? What if we had his number? Would you let us use computers to find Albert?”

  Israel Erb leaned forward on his chair to hear the preacher’s answer.

  Hershberger said, “We don’t expect English to understand obedience.”

  Heat flushed quickly into Cal’s neck, but he calmed himself and asked, “Are Benny’s things still in his room? Is it still his room? Can we search it?”

  Hershberger looked to Israel for an answer.

  Israel said cautiously, watching Hershberger closely, “We had to clean it up after Benny died. He left it a mess, everything thrown around.”

  Branden stood up.

  Cal asked, “May we see it?”

  Israel waited for Hershberger to reply.

  Hershberger said, “This would not diminish us. This does not mock God. We can submit to this.”

  19

  Saturday, May 12 3:10 P.M.

  BENNY ERB had lived in the second apartment attached to the back of the addition on Israel Erb’s house. Hershberger and the two Erb men waited outside while Branden and Troyer went inside to search for information about Benny’s cell phone.

  The single door opened to a combination sitting room-bedroom, with a small bathroom behind a door at the back wall. Light came in from two west-facing windows, but the openings were small, so Israel produced two kerosene lamps and a box of kitchen matches. When Troyer had the lamps burning, he set one on a bedside stand and the other on a small dresser.

  Once they had the room well lighted, Branden said, “This Benny had a lot of stuff.”

  Clothes for a dwarf were jumbled in a pile on the bed, as if Benny had just done laundry and brought the clothes in off the line. Branden searched all the pockets of the clothes.

  Cal went through the top two drawers on the dresser and found more clothes. The pockets all proved empty, but in the bottom drawer, Cal found nearly a hundred business cards scattered loosely with some paper money and dozens of coins.

  Cal said, “Mike, look at this,” and started sorting the business cards from the money.

  When they had most of the cards stacked on top of the dresser, Branden read out the names of the first two dozen or so. There were lawyers, contractors, dentists, doctors, professors, landscapers, carpenters, cab drivers, real estate agents, bankers, insurance agents, and many others in the stack. There appeared to be a card for every type of professional in Holmes County. Branden took up one and said, “Here’s Nina Lobrelli’s.”

  In the nightstand, they found old matchbooks from area restaurants. In the bathroom, they found courtesy soaps from ten different motels. Under his bed, there were bumper stickers and flyers from a score of political candidates. In the trunk at the end of his bed, Benny had a collection of box tops from carryout and delivery pizza places, all cut to the shape of a circle so they would stack together in the trunk. Under one window, a small set of shelves held free cookbooks from the Holmes County fair, hand tracts from churches and revivals, magazines from doctors’ offices, pamphlets about kites and radio-controlled airplanes, an English-German dictionary, and a stack of old raffle tickets bound together with a red rubber band.

  Nowhere in the apartment was there evidence of Benny’s phone. There were no phone numbers scribbled on scraps of paper. There were no phone company bills and no cell phone accessories. There were no address books with phone numbers.

  Branden and Troyer carried the lamps outside and asked the Erbs if Benny had any other places where he kept things. They asked if Benny had an account at a bank. Did he see a doctor, dentist, anyone like that? Had he used the services of a lawyer? Did he
ride in taxis, busses, or the vans that went to Wal-Mart? Did Benny correspond with anyone regularly through the mails? Had he ever posted announcements or letters in the Sugarcreek Budget newspaper? The answers they got were either “No” or “We don’t know.”

  Thus there was no way to trace his calls. There was no evidence that he had ever made any calls. If he had talked on a phone to anyone, Branden and Troyer would never know it. And if they used the cards, papers, magazines, and other contents of his apartment to track down the people the little man had known, they’d be at it for over a year.

  “We struck out,” Branden said to Robertson on his phone. “There’s not going to be a phone number to trace.”

  He was standing on the pavement of Nisley Road, at one of Ricky Niell’s roadblocks. Two Wayne County deputies had searched his truck. They seemed bored and tired, and withdrew when Branden made his call.

  Robertson asked, “You gonna stay out there, Mike?”

  “No, I’m driving back.”

  “We’re searching the whole township, but I think this kid is gone.”

  Branden considered that and said, “If this is a pedophile, he’s not going to contact the family again.”

  “I know,” Robertson said.

  “There’s the Amber Alert, still,” Branden said.

  “There is that,” Robertson agreed.

  “This isn’t going to end well, Bruce.”

  “I know. Look, Mike, Missy is finished with Cathy Billett’s body. She says there’s no sign of a struggle. No bruising, nothing like that. She tested under Cathy’s fingernails, but it’s not conclusive, since Eddie admitted she scratched.”

  “So, it was suicide,” Branden said.

  “Missy says there’s no way to tell. She says there’s nothing to suggest Cathy Billett didn’t throw herself off that bell tower, but that doesn’t prove she did.”

  “Her parents were supposed to fly in today,” Branden said.

  “They’re already here. Arne Laughton brought them down to Missy at the hospital. She says she’s going to release the body after her toxicology samples come back from the BCI labs.”

  “What about Eddie?” Branden asked.