In Dark Company

by Linda Castillo

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  He was going to kill her.

  She ran as she’d never run before. Arms pumping. Sneakers pounding the earth. Breathing hard between clenched teeth. Terror. Darkness all around.

  She tore through cornstalks as tall as a man. Dry leaves slashed at her face like blades, stalks hitting her like clubs. At some point she’d lost a shoe. Rocks and clumps of earth and the gnarled roots of the corn punished her bare foot. No time to stop.

  She darted left, burst into the next row. Trying to lose him. She ran another fifty yards. Lungs burning. Heart slamming against her ribs. She stopped and listened. Struggled to hear over her own labored breaths.

  Then she heard the crack of breaking stalks. Boots pounding against the ground. He ran like some mammoth beast, crashing through brush, flattening everything in his path. He breathed like a bull, the occasional grunt of rage bursting forth.

  Dear God, if he caught her . . .

  She burst from the cornfield, stumbled into a ditch, nearly fell. A gravel road a few feet ahead. Breaths burning, a cramp in her side, she clamored up the incline and stopped, looked both ways. Darkness pressed down on her. A sliver of moon peeking through thin clouds. No headlights. No cars. No one to help her. She couldn’t run much farther.

  Then she saw the dim flicker of light in the distance. Through the trees, a farmhouse. Salvation. Her only hope. With a final look behind her, she started down the long gravel lane and prayed someone was there.

  * * *

  The buzz of my cell phone rattles me from deep sleep. Not bothering to open my eyes, I reach for it, press it to my ear. “Burkholder.”

  “Sorry to bother you, Chief,” says Mona Kurtz, my third-shift dispatcher. “We’ve got a situation I thought you should know about.”

  I push myself to a sitting position. A glance at the clock on the night table tells me it’s not yet 4:00 A.M. “What happened?”

  “I just took a call from Noah Fisher out on Township Road 34. He says he’s got a woman there at his house.” She lowers her voice. “Says she’s battered and scared. She thinks someone’s trying to kill her.”

  “Kill her?” I swing my legs over the side of the bed and get to my feet. “How badly is she injured?”

  “Not sure, Chief. Mr. Fisher says she’s . . . confused.”

  “Is T.J. on scene?” I ask, referring to my usual graveyard-shift patrol officer.

  “He’s en route.”

  “Get an ambulance out there,” I say as I go to the closet, pull my uniform shirt off a hanger. “Let Mr. Fisher know I’m on my way.”

  “Got it.”

  I hit End and glance over my shoulder to see my significant other, John Tomasetti, standing next to the bed, stepping into his trousers. He’s an agent with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the love of my life.

  “Caught the tail end of that,” he says.

  “Sorry to wake you.”

  “One of the hazards of living with the chief of police.” He tugs a shirt off the chair and shrugs into it. “What’s going on?”

  I recap the call. “I’m hoping there’s not some pissed off boyfriend around. I need to get out there.”

  “Want some company?”

  It’s Sunday, a day he usually has off. He’d been planning to start painting our barn. I’d been planning to help him. “Don’t you have a date with a paintbrush this morning?”

  “You’re not trying to tell me something, are you?”

  Grinning, I snag my equipment belt off the night table, buckle it, slide my .38 into its holster. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” I say, and we start toward the door.

  * * *

  Ohio’s Amish Country is incredibly dark at night. There are no porch lights or street lamps; most of the farmhouse windows are unlit. Contemplating the mystery woman’s assertion that someone is trying to kill her, I fasten my eyes on the shadows as Tomasetti and I pull into the gravel lane of the Fisher farm.

  Noah and Bonnie Fisher are Amish and run a dairy operation on a forty-acre spread just south of Painters Mill. They belong to the same church district I once did, back when I was an Amish girl. I’ve known them for two decades; they’re one of the few who didn’t denounce me when I left the fold. They’re getting up in years now. I see them occasionally around town and I always make a point to say hello.

  I take the driveway to the rear of the house. T.J.’s cruiser is parked adjacent a five-rail fence where a dozen or so cattle encircle a mound of hay. I pull up next to the cruiser and park.

  “No other vehicles in sight,” Tomasetti comments as we make our way to the front of the house.

  “She was either on foot or someone dropped her off.” In the back of my mind I wonder where the ambulance is.

  We take the steps to the door. Before I can knock, it swings open. Noah Fisher squints at me, a lantern in his hand. “Katie, thank you for getting here so quickly.”

  “Hi, Mr. Fisher.”

  “Kumma inseid.” Come inside.

  The man is about my height but outweighs me by a hundred pounds. He’s wearing typical Amish garb: blue work shirt, dark trousers with suspenders, and a flat-brimmed straw hat. His salt-and-pepper beard hangs nearly to his waist. I glance past him to see T.J. standing in the living room. A young woman I don’t recognize huddles on the sofa next to Bonnie Fisher. Late teens or early twenties. Blond hair. Blue eyes. She’s wearing an old-fashioned dress that’s not quite Amish. No head covering. Even in the dim light of the lantern, I discern her disheveled appearance. An abrasion glows red on her forehead. A smear of dirt stripes her left cheek. She’s holding a mug of something hot with hands that aren’t steady. Her knuckles are badly scraped. Dirt and grass stains mar a dress that’s torn at the skirt. She’s wearing a single non-descript sneaker; her other foot is encased in a sock that’s covered with mud.

  I make eye contact with T.J.

  He crosses to me, nodding at Tomasetti, and we move out of earshot. “Fisher and his wife were sleeping,” T.J. says in a low voice. “They heard pounding on the door and came downstairs to find this girl on the front porch. She claims someone’s trying to kill her.”

  “You run her through LEADS?” I ask, referring to Ohio’s Law Enforcement Automated Data System. “Check for warrants?”

  “Uh, that’s the thing, Chief.” T.J. scratches his head. “She doesn’t seem to know her name.”

  I look from T.J. to Tomasetti and back again, wondering if he’s messing with me. “Is she impaired? Or refusing to say?”

  “She seems . . . cooperative,” T.J. tells me. “I don’t smell alcohol on her. Eyes look normal. It’s just that when I asked for her name, she said she couldn’t remember.”

  I look at Tomasetti and he shrugs. “If this is some sort of domestic dispute,” he says, “she could be trying to protect someone.”

  “I’ll talk to her,” I tell them. “In the interim, get me an ETA on that ambulance.”

  “Will do, Chief.”

  I lower my voice. “T.J., it might be a good idea to take a
look around, make sure there isn’t someone out there waiting for her.”

  “You got it.”

  Both men go through the door. I approach the young woman. She watches me with anxious eyes, clutching a knitted afghan that’s draped over her shoulders.

  Bonnie Fisher sits next to her, hovering like a mother hen. Noah busies himself lighting a second lantern in the kitchen.

  “Hi,” I say to the woman. “I’m Kate Burkholder, the chief of police. Are you hurt? Do you need an ambulance?”

  She shakes her head. “I’m fine,” she says. “I’m just . . .” She lets the sentence trail as if she can’t find the words to finish it.

  “Can you tell me what happened tonight?” I ask.

  The woman blinks. Her brows knit as if I’ve posed some complex math equation she hasn’t a clue how to answer. She opens her mouth as if to respond, but doesn’t speak. Her gaze slants toward the Amish woman sitting next to her, as if she’s seeking help, then her eyes slide back to mine. “I don’t know,” she blurts.

  “Let’s start with something easy.” I pull my notepad from my pocket, flip it open. “What’s your name?”

  She stares at me as if I’ve stumped her. “I’m not sure.”

  “I need your name,” I say gently. “You’re safe. I’m a police officer, and I’m going to get you some help. Okay?”

  Blinking, she shakes her head, as if trying to loosen the information from a brain that’s locked down tight. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I mean . . . I should know my name. How can I not know who I am?”

  I wait, looking for a lie, some sign of deception. The only things that come back at me are wide blue eyes filled with trepidation, stress, and fear.

  “Did someone hurt you this evening?” I ask. “Or were you in an accident?”

  Her eyes slant toward the door. “There was someone in the field with me. Chasing me. I was running and lost my shoe.” A shudder moves through her. She grips the afghan more tightly, drops her voice to a whisper. “He was so close.”

  “What’s his name?” I ask. “Who is he to you?”

  She gives a quick shake of her head, frustration flashing in her eyes. “I don’t know.”

  “Why was he chasing you?”

  “I must have done . . . something.” Her brows knit. “He was angry with me. I was . . . scared.” She raises her gaze to mine. “I think he was going to kill me.”

  I feel Bonnie Fisher’s stare, but I don’t look at her. I don’t take my eyes off the woman. She’s looking down at her dress as if she’s never seen it before, taking in the dirt ground into the fabric, the torn skirt. Her eyes move to her stocking foot, the abrasions and scratches covering her hands, and the fear in her expression augments to something closer to panic.

  “What happened to me?” she says, her voice rising. “Who did this? How did I get here? Why can’t I remember?”

  I let the questions linger, allow her the time to think them through and calm down. When she doesn’t respond, I say, “Why don’t you take a deep breath, and then tell me what you do remember?”

  Holding my gaze, the young woman obeys, drawing a breath, blowing it out slowly. She stares at me for the span of a full minute, then her shoulders slump. “There’s nothing there,” she whispers.

  “You’re shaken up is all.” Speaking in Deitsh, Bonnie pats the younger woman’s arm. “It’ll come back to you.”

  “It hurts . . . to think.” The young woman raises a shaking hand to the back of her head and winces. Her fingertips come away smeared with blood. She stares at it and chokes out a sound that’s part laugh, part sob. “I don’t remember how that happened. How is that possible? How can I not remember?”

  When you’re a cop, you get lied to a lot. It’s a fact of life. Over the years, I’ve developed a pretty decent built-in lie detector. Yet as implausible as this woman’s claim appears, I see no sign of deception.

  “I know how crazy all of this must sound,” she says. “But I don’t remember what happened to me. I don’t know how I got here. I don’t know who I am.”

  “There’s an ambulance on the way,” I tell her. “We’ll have the doctor take a look at that cut on your head.”

  The woman’s eyes go wide. “What if he’s still out there?”

  “My officer is looking around outside now. If anyone’s there, he’ll find them.”

  “He’s going to kill me.”

  The woman whispers the words in Deitsh, but the dialect is unlike any I’ve heard. I’m fluent; in fact, I spoke Deitsh before I learned to speak English. And yet when she speaks, I understand only a few words, just enough to string together the gist of what she’s saying.

  Bonnie and I exchange a look, and I realize she’s thinking the same thing.

  “Where are you from?” I ask the woman.

  The flash of uncertainty is followed by a too-long hesitation and then, “I’m not sure.”

  “Do you have a family?” I ask. “Is there someone we can call for you?”

  Tears fill her eyes and spill onto her cheeks. “What am I going to do?”

  She’s getting herself worked up, so Bonnie pats her arm again and purrs in Deitsh, “God is there to give us strength—”

  “ . . . For every hill we have to climb,” the young woman finishes in Deitsh, and her eyes light up. “I’ve heard that saying before.”

  “Of course you have,” Bonnie says. “You’re Freindschaft.”

  I watch the exchange with interest. Freindschaft is a Deitsh word that means “friends and family,” but it is sometimes used to include all Anabaptists—Amish, Mennonite, and Hutterite—across the United States and around the world. The young woman’s reaction reflects her understanding of the word and the comfort it’s intended to impart.

  I turn my attention to Bonnie. “Her Deitsh,” I say. “Have you heard it spoken that way before?”

  The Amish woman shakes her head. “She’s not from around here.”

  “Chief Burkholder?”

  I glance toward the door to see two paramedics standing in the doorway with a gurney.

  Rising, I cross to them. “We need a transport to Pomerene Hospital,” I tell him. “She’s got a laceration on the back of her head.”

  “You got it, Chief.”

  While the EMTs take her vitals and load her onto the gurney, I meet Tomasetti and T.J. on the porch. “Did you find anything?” I ask.

  “Looks like she came through that cornfield on the east side of the property,” Tomasetti says. “On foot.”

  “Quite a distance,” I say, wondering what would prompt a woman to run through a cornfield in the dead of night.

  “There was a second set of footprints,” Tomasetti tells me. “Probably male. Long stride. Deep imprint. Moving fast. At some point a vehicle went off the road.” He looks past me where one of the paramedics is placing a cervical collar around the woman’s neck. “It looks like there was a struggle. Grass is trampled. There’s blood.” Grimacing, he lowers his voice. “Evidently, she ran into the field to get away from someone.”

  “That jibes with what she told me,” I say. “Which isn’t much.”

  “The good news is we got tire tread,” Tomasetti says.

  “Imprints?” I ask.

  “Maybe,” he says. “You want me to get the crime scene truck out here? Get some plaster impressions?”

  “Might be helpful to have them.” I turn my attention to T.J. “Look, I don’t know what we’re dealing with here, but it might be a good idea for you to call the Maple Brook Mental Health Center in Millersburg and find out if they’re missing a patient.”

  “You got it, Chief.” He hefts two small clear plastic bags. “Found these items in the field.”

  I look down at the bags. The first contains a sneaker that matches the one the woman is wearing. Inside the second bag, I see what looks like a swatch of fabric. It’s black with tiny white dots. A headscarf, I realize, and I find myself thinking about the woman’s fluency in Deitsh.

&n
bsp; Taking the bag, I study the headscarf. “This might help identify her.”

  T.J. cocks his head. “A scarf?”

  “She’s fluent in Pennsylvania Dutch, but I don’t think she’s Amish or Mennonite.”

  “Did she tell you that?” Tomasetti asks.

  “Her dialect did; I’ve never heard anything like it. And the style of that dress she’s wearing isn’t Amish.” I turn the bag over. “That’s not to mention this scarf.”

  “Was she able to tell you anything, Chief?” T.J. asks.

  “No,” I reply. “I’m hoping once we get her to the hospital, she’ll calm down and things will start coming back to her.”

  Neither man has anything to say about that.

  * * *

  It’s a little past 7:00 A.M. when I drop Tomasetti at the farm. From there, I head to Pomerene Hospital, which is just north of Millersburg.

  The clerk at the information desk tells me “Jane Doe” was examined in the ER and admitted for “observation,” and has just been settled into a room. When I ask about the woman’s condition, even though I’m in full uniform and I’ve shown her my ID, because of confidentiality rules, all she can tell me is that her condition is listed as “good.”

  “Any chance I could talk to the doctor who treated her?” I ask.

  “You’re in luck. Doctor Brumbaugh is still on duty.” She taps a few keys on the computer in front of her. “Let me give him a call and see if he can spare a few minutes.”

  Doctor Denny Brumbaugh has patched me up a couple of times over the years. He’s about fifty years old with a neatly trimmed silver goatee and a kind, competent demeanor. This morning, he’s wearing blue scrubs that are stretched taut over a middle-age paunch. His red-rimmed eyes tell me it was a busy night in the ER.

  “You’re here about the Jane Doe?” he asks as he slides behind his desk.

  “I’m trying to identify her.” I take the visitor chair adjacent him. “And find out what happened to her. Was she able to shed any light on either of those things?”

  “After the paramedics brought her in, the nurse on duty asked her to fill out a couple of forms,” he tells me. “We’re talking basic questions like name and address. That young woman couldn’t fill out any of it.”