Searching for Rose

by Dana Becker

  “We should ambush him on the road,” Carmen said. “Use him somehow. Maybe even use him to sneak into the Compound.”

  The plan was to learn as much as possible about this guy so that when they grabbed him, they could scare him with credible threats if he didn’t help them.

  “He’s a family man,” Ricky said with a grin. “Got a big family. Likes talking about them. We overheard him showing pictures of his nieces to a waitress at the diner he goes to. If we’re looking for an angle, that’s it.”

  “So . . . what are you proposing?” Carmen asked, hesitantly.

  “We grab him on the road somewhere. Put a gun in his mouth. We show him pictures of his mom and his brothers, you know, his cute little nephews and nieces. We show him that we know their addresses. We show the dude photos we took of the kiddies, and that we’ve driven there and have a plan to take them out if he doesn’t help us. Promise you this: he’ll do anything we ask him.”

  “And what do we ask him to do for us?” April said.

  They would ask him to help them sneak Rose out. They would put this plan into action immediately, before this guy had any chance to take precautions to protect his family, or to alert Whitey. Ricky and Joseph, both armed, would be with the guy the whole time, watching him. Making sure he was doing what they asked. They would show him a live Skype feed of Ricky’s men, in position, ready to launch an assault against his family’s house if he tried anything. They would go with him into the Compound, hiding in his car—just to keep him honest.

  He would get Rose in the middle of the night. And then drive them all out, to a predetermined spot. Whitey was always in bed by 9:00 P.M., and his apartment in the Compound was a sealed bunker: soundproof. Whitey never appeared at night. They knew this from their inside guy. The deal would be simple: deliver Rose and they would forget about everything. And if Whitey’s man tried to renege on the deal, they would kill a niece or a nephew or maybe both. It was an aggressive plan but it seemed feasible.

  Ricky looked at their charts sprawled out on the table.

  “Looks from here,” Ricky said, “like that dude’s gonna leave the Compound in two days, maybe three. We get this plan going right now, we can be there, waiting for him.”

  “Are you all completely insane?” April said. “I don’t like any of this. I’m not gonna kill some little kids.”

  “Don’t worry,” Ricky replied to her. “You won’t. We’ll take care of everything.”

  “Oh, will we?” April said, staring Ricky down. “And that makes it all right?”

  “Honey,” Carmen said to April. “Nobody is going to get killed. Nobody is even gonna get hurt. It’s just a threat, you know, to make sure he does what we ask him to. And so he doesn’t try anything on us. We got to fight hard here. But it’s just a bluff,” Carmen said, turning and glaring at Ricky. “Isn’t that right, Ricky?”

  Ricky thought about this for a moment and replied, “Yeah, that’s right. We convince him we’re serious and he’ll cave right away. You’ll see.”

  “Nobody will get hurt,” Carmen said. “And most important, we get Rose back.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The plan was set. Ricky went into full battle mode. He drove around the roads himself, looking for the right spot to set up the ambush. And once he found it, he installed his men there, in shifts, waiting with clear directions from him. He gave them a three-step plan. The first step was to call him. He’d be staying in a motel nearby. In the meantime, he lurked around the home of Whitey’s deputy, taking photos of the house, the kids playing outside in the yard. Once they got the guy, they’d bring him to the motel and shake him down and show him these pictures. Ricky had gathered all the necessary materials: the rope and tape. According to the information they’d gathered, Whitey’s deputy was due for a trip out of the Compound. It couldn’t be more than a couple of days. And it could be any minute. They were ready.

  They waited and waited some more. A day passed. Nothing. Two days passed and nothing. Finally, there was some movement. But it wasn’t what Ricky or anyone was expecting. And suddenly their carefully laid plan went out the window.

  * * *

  The call came into Carmen’s phone early on a Sunday morning. Joseph, Carmen, and April were staying at a motel outside of Lancaster. A different place from where Ricky and his men were, but close enough to be helpful, if needed.

  The call came in shortly after dawn. It was Ricky. Over the past two days, he’d been calling in with regular updates—always to say, Nothing new, still waiting. Even so, every time he called, everyone jumped. They were expecting big news any minute. So when the call came very early Sunday morning, Carmen, who was still in bed, grabbed the phone.

  “What’s new?” she said.

  “Crazy, crazy things,” Ricky replied. “I . . . don’t even know.”

  He sounded flustered, out of breath. It sounded like he was running. Carmen could hear men shouting behind Ricky, and cars starting.

  “Omigod, what is it?” Carmen said, quickly running to wake up April and Joseph.

  “Get in your car right now,” Ricky said over the phone. “Go to this address.”

  “Okay, okay,” Carmen said, shaking April and Joseph awake and mouthing “Get dressed” to them.

  Ricky gave her the address. As she repeated it, and wrote it down, Joseph’s eyes got wide.

  “I know exactly where that is,” he said, as he quickly buttoned his shirt. “It’s an old family address.”

  “Ricky,” Carmen said, “what is happening here?”

  “You’re not gonna believe me,” he said. “Whitey sent me a message. He knew we were waiting for his guy. I don’t know how. . . .”

  April and Carmen exchanged a look.

  “He wants us to know,” Ricky continued, “that he’s moving first.”

  “What does that mean, ‘moving’?” Carmen said. “What did he do?”

  “He buried Rose,” Ricky said. “He buried her alive.”

  “What are you saying? Like actually buried, in the ground?”

  “In the ground,” Ricky said. “But alive. That’s what he said. He buried her alive. And he gave us the address.”

  April, now almost fully dressed, had stopped tying her shoe. Her hands froze in panic.

  “It’s like he wants us to go there,” Ricky said. “To dig her up. We’re already on the way. We’ve got shovels. We’ll be there before you. Go!”

  “We’re on our way,” Carmen said, and threw her phone into her purse as they raced to her car.

  * * *

  In the car, even as they sped, April was strangely quiet. Carmen was driving, Joseph was giving directions. And, in the back seat, April just sat there, stunned.

  “I’m calling an ambulance,” she said quietly. And she did. And after she convinced the dispatcher that this wasn’t a hoax, she hung up. And sat there stunned once again.

  “Is this a trap?” she said, finally.

  Nobody replied. It was what they were all thinking.

  “Well,” said Carmen, “it could be. But we have no choice. We have to take the risk.”

  “What are we gonna see there?” April said.

  Nobody replied. But Joseph turned around and reached back and took April’s hand in his.

  When they finally got close to the address, April was squeezing his hand as hard as she could. And when they turned into the long driveway, Joseph leaned back toward her, held April’s eyes with his, nourishing her with their warmth, and said, “April, we’ll get through this. Whatever it is.”

  Then they arrived. The doors flew open and they catapulted themselves out of the car, toward the backyard, where Ricky and his men were already digging furiously.

  They, too, fell on their knees and began to dig. Nobody said a word. They just dug.

  After this first frenzy, April paused. She realized that she wasn’t breathing. She’d burned through all of her adrenaline within seconds, and now her head was swimming.

  Breathe, she told h
erself.

  A strange feeling suddenly came over her. The feeling that she was being watched. Maybe Joseph felt it, too. Or maybe he was just sensing her uneasiness, but he also stopped digging for a moment.

  They looked at each other. Joseph didn’t dare say what was on his mind. But April could sense it: Whitey. He was nearby. He must have been nearby—but how near? Maybe he was watching them. Maybe that was his plan.

  It made sense, in the twisted way that Whitey’s mind made sense of things. Why did he want them to come out here? Why had he given them such clear directions? Didn’t kidnappers hold on to their captives? Didn’t murderers want to hide their crimes? Whitey had literally invited them to the scene of it. What was he up to?

  Joseph shook his head, as if to say, Don’t think about that. And, to April’s anxious gaze, he replied, “Don’t, April. Forget him. You know what we gotta do. Let’s just do it.”

  With that, they both turned back to the ground and continued digging.

  * * *

  Earlier that day, first thing that morning, Whitey had woken up Rose. When he’d first kidnapped her, he’d treated her the way he treated all of his captives.

  But Whitey had taken a special liking to Rose. Even before he knew who she was, he’d found himself drawn to her. He’d gotten into the habit of waking her up himself, quietly unlocking her door so he could crouch next to her bed, watching her gently sleep.

  She really did look like his beloved sister, he thought.

  More and more, each day, he saw the resemblances between Rose and Hefsibah, the girl who was buried alive—the physical similarities were striking. The red hair in long curls, the big eyes, the slightly pouty lips. She was Hefsibah. God had brought her back and delivered her to him. And not only that: she was the Hefsibah he remembered so well—the one who was full of life, the Hefsibah before the incident, before the burial. Somehow, some way, God had brought back his older sister, whom he loved more than anyone, and restored blooming life to her.

  That very morning, as on all recent mornings, Whitey slunk into her room at 4:30, before anyone else was up. He lit a small candle, gently brushed her hair back from her forehead with his fingers, and whispered, “Hefsibah . . . it’s time to wake up, sweetie.”

  He took her hand and squeezed it tightly. He kissed her on the forehead. Just as he did every morning.

  Except this morning was different. She didn’t know that—although, in his heart, Whitey suspected that she did know, that she knew everything. How could she not know? Her eyes were so wide and knowing. He believed that she knew everything that was to come. That she knew, as well, that it was all for the good. That it was necessary. Yes, Whitey believed that she approved of the ordained plan, of what he was bound to do. And her approval moved him deeply. Whitey was not a humble man. But he was genuinely humbled before what he truly believed was Rose’s willing sacrifice.

  “My brave, brave girl,” he whispered that morning upon waking her. “What did I do to earn your love back?”

  Whitey was in tears.

  “Today is the day, my dear,” he whispered as she opened her eyes that morning. The sight of her eyes closed, then opening, was almost too much for him to bear. Whitey turned away and wept for a moment. Then, gathering himself, he repeated to her, “Today is the day, my dear Hefsibah.”

  She hadn’t replied right away. But then a tiny smile curled about her lips. “Thanks, Poppa,” she whispered, groggily. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  He’d held a ritual for her in the main sanctuary. He had her lie down on her back in the center of the circle. One after another, each member of the Community took a turn walking up to her, kneeling beside her, kissing both of her cheeks, and whispering into her ear, “Good-bye, Hefsibah, we will see you soon.”

  Every single woman was in tears; some sobbed openly. They had come to love the mysterious girl named Hefsibah. And they had been moved deeply to see how much this girl had, for reasons they could barely understand, captured the heart of their leader. His love for her was obvious. It was a love they all shared. They could also tell that there was something more, something deeply painful for Whitey behind this love, something that they would never understand. And so they wept for that, as well. When they saw her tears, it only opened up their hearts even more.

  From this room full of tears, Whitey removed Rose for the last time. He gently bound her feet and hands with ribbons—to keep you safe, he whispered to her, and she nodded—blindfolded her, and carefully placed her in the back seat of his van. He drove her out to the site, near the creek, near his old family’s house—which he’d purchased and kept empty, as a sacred ground. This was where his sister had been buried that first time. He sang the hymns that had so moved his sister as a child. He looked in his rearview mirror and saw the blindfolded girl, her hair hanging messily over her face, just sitting still, listening to him.

  “Sing with me,” he said. And she did.

  After spending so much time with Whitey, Rose knew the words to “I’ll Fly Away.” And they were beautiful to her.

  Whitey remembered seeing his sister’s body laid out, dead—or so everyone had said. They were preparing her for burial. He hadn’t thought about that image for many years. But now, as he was driving to bury Rose, it came back to him as vividly as the day it had happened. Her hair had been tied back in braids. She was wearing a Sunday dress. Her arms had been folded over her chest, her favorite bonnet folded in her hands, her eyes, gently closed. Even to Whitey, who was younger, she had looked so small, so slight. Gone was the energizing force that had given her life.

  But it was she. Hefsibah was right there. And young Whitey had refused to accept his family’s insistent claim that she was dead. Finally, when his father had lost patience with Whitey and said, Enough foolishness, his sadness and frustration had come together into something else: rage. It had suddenly and horrifyingly occurred to him that his father was deceiving him intentionally, and that the whole family had turned on him and on his sister.

  This is the devil, he’d thought.

  It was something he’d learned about from the boys around the farm. They hadn’t learned it in their own church, no. But there were neighbors, non-Amish Christians who had talked about the devil. And the Amish boys were whispering about it, speculating wildly when nobody else was around, especially at night, when they went on secret adventures into the woods together. Yes, there was this thing called the devil, or Satan. It was a man, a force that could take any shape, and which was pure evil. It could appear anywhere and do its work in unimaginable ways. One of the boys would say, “It could be Teacher Ruthie. It could be your daed or your mamm. It could be one of us right here. It could be you.”

  “How do we know who the devil is, then?” some boy would eventually ask.

  And one of the other boys, the kind who always seems to have the answers, and always seems to have them immediately, would reply, You know. When the devil shows you his face, you know it.

  Well, Whitey had looked at his father’s face, which had been scowling down over him—even as his sister lay dead, even as she was being prepared for burial. He’d looked closely at his father’s face as he’d said Enough foolishness, and what he saw there wasn’t his father’s face at all. It was a vacant look. It was the devil. When the devil shows you his face, you know it.

  Whitey had been sure of it. And his voice, too; it didn’t quite sound like his father’s voice, especially his tone. This was the devil showing himself. That was the moment Whitey came to believe, with total certainty, that his sister wasn’t really dead. That they were burying her alive. As it turned out, he was right about that part. And, to Whitey, being right about that also proved that he was right about his father—that the devil had taken him. Whitey believed that as a boy. And, now, as a grown adult, he still believed it.

  Of course, as a child no one believed him about anything. And there was no reason to believe him. The girl was quite clearly dead. Anyone who put their head on her chest
could confirm it: there was no heartbeat. Had they kept their ear on her longer, they would have heard it, would have heard the impossibly slow beat, with long pauses between, the sign of her rare condition—but nobody did, and so they drew the natural conclusion. Her heart had stopped.

  They ignored Whitey’s growing fury. They forgave it and explained it as the pain of a sensitive young boy, unable to reconcile himself with the painful truth. But as he grew more upset, more defiant, more accusatory, and ultimately violent, they began to fear him. Fear what had come over him.

  And now that boy, Whitey, fully grown, was taking Rose—whom he had truly come to believe was his sister Hefsibah—down to the creek, to be baptized, and then buried alive. Or, as Whitey referred to it, “to be given over whole,” and thus to redeem her forever.

  After drying Rose off with a towel, after baptizing her in the creek, after tying up her hair in braids and putting her in a Sunday dress, then gently placing her into an unadorned pine coffin, he could feel the taste of rage rising in him once more.

  “How can they do this to you?” he roared. “They will pay.”

  That was when he knew he had to contact Ricky and tell his nephew Joseph Young, son of Hezekiah Jonathan Young, about his plan. Let them come here, he thought. Let them suffer, the way that he had suffered. Maybe it would be good for them. Maybe, in this way, they too would be redeemed. He immediately dispatched one of his men to find Ricky and tell him.

  And, just like that, in the next moment, his rage completely disappeared, replaced by a painful tenderness toward the girl, and a reverent love. She was a true saint. Look at her! She was meeting her ending without a peep, lying still, waiting, with a serene look on her face. Whitey sobbed heavily, from deep inside himself.

  “Don’t forget me, Hefsibah. Please remember me,” he said between sobs as he closed the top of the coffin.

  And after he’d shoveled all the dirt back over the coffin, he’d felt empty. But serene. And then he left.