by Karen Harper
“The theory of treasure being buried here is far-fetched,” Linc said with another narrow glance up toward the trees, “but then so is a case where picnickers are shot on Halloween night in a quiet, secluded Amish cemetery.”
Sheriff Freeman put in, “And since you and your goth friends were hovering over Lena Lantz’s grave when you were shot, Hannah, I say we start there.”
“Start there, how?” Seth asked. Hannah could tell he continually positioned himself between her and where the shooter had been, even if she moved a bit.
“I’m going to ask your and the bishop’s permission to dig under the sod,” Linc said.
“Bishop Esh and the church elders won’t agree to that, and I don’t like it, either.”
“Seth,” Linc said, “if someone buried something precious they plan to dig up later, they didn’t go down six feet where the coffin would be. We won’t need to disturb that.”
“Can’t you get a short rod and just probe the ground a ways without digging?” Seth asked.
“You do still dig these graves by hand, by shovel, right?” Linc asked.
“Yes, but we won’t agree to just dig randomly.”
“Then I might have to get a court order—but your suggestion of a probe just gave me an idea. I know how we can take a good look, as deep as we want, in this grave—the others, too—without sticking a rod or a shovel in the ground, yet.”
Seeming excited, he hurried back to the buggy and used his cell phone in the wind shelter of it. “Don’t worry,” Sheriff Freeman told Seth and Hannah as he scanned the woodlot up the hill again. From here, Hannah could see no one except one of the Meyers brothers still plowing the corn maze under, with a snowplow attached to the front of his tractor, no less. Sheriff Freeman was just trying to calm them down, she thought as he went on. “Agent Armstrong’s probably referring to probing with radar or some kind of ultrasound. I’ve heard of that. If they find something, they dig.”
Hannah shuddered, remembering the big backhoes that had dug holes in the street for a new sewer near the recording studio in Cleveland. The machines had made so much noise that she was grateful for the soundproof studio, despite the fact it always reminded her that the demo she’d made there had not brought her a singing career and she’d probably remain a receptionist forever if she didn’t move on.
And what if Linc’s idea of a probe did lead to digging up these graves? She’d already brought shame and suffering on people she admired and loved. She knew her father, as bishop, would fight any disturbance of the graves and then the tense truce between the Home Valley Amish and the government’s FBI would be over. And wouldn’t that bring in droves of TV and newspaper people again? Sarah’s grossmamm’s grave on TV would be a terrible gift to her for her wedding day, and for Seth, the destruction of more than a tombstone. Worse, it would be Hannah’s fault again, the rebel, the fence-jumper gone to the world, the grotesque goth, Hannah Esh.
Tears blurred her vision so badly when the three of them started down the hill that she stubbed her toe on the next tombstone and would have fallen if Seth hadn’t caught her.
11
ON THE WAY home from the graveyard—Linc had gone with the sheriff in his cruiser—as Seth’s buggy took them past Kauffman’s farm, Hannah asked, “Can you let me out here? I need to tell the Kauffmans about Grossmamm Miriam’s grave possibly being disturbed, and I haven’t been to see them yet. Besides, I need to break it to them that Sarah’s marrying Nate MacKenzie.”
Seth’s hands tightened on the reins. “She is?”
“And I’m going to her wedding in Wooster next Saturday, so please don’t try to talk me out of it.”
He shook his head, and she saw his jaw clench before he said, “I’d like to try to talk her out of it. Love aside, Hannah, you know it’s best not to be ‘unequally yoked,’ as your father would put it.”
“Love aside? That’s pretty hard to do, isn’t it? At least for me, it is. Oh, sure, just put love aside when terrible things happen and—”
Feeling a furious blush coming on, she shut her mouth. Was she really arguing for Sarah or still fuming over her own situation with this man? She couldn’t help it that her long-buried anger for Seth sometimes roared to the surface.
“Just don’t try to take Ella with you,” he said as he pulled into the Kauffman driveway. “You left before you joined the church, but Ella shouldn’t be supporting a fence-jumping wedding or she could be censured. Our family doesn’t need her following you and Sarah in rebellion. Look, Hannah, I think a lot of Nate MacKenzie and what he did for us here, and Sarah’s a gifted person, but—”
“But I’m supposed to just abandon her? I may be a fence-jumper, too, but people should not betray or abandon someone and then ju—”
Before he could help her down or come to a complete stop, she stopped midword and climbed out of the buggy. She was talking about the two of them again. He made a grab for her arm but missed. She hit the ground in stride and walked quickly away.
“After you’ve talked to them,” he shouted, “don’t you be running alone across the fields or walk the road. I’m late to order the shingles for Arrowroot’s place and get up there to see him, so promise me you’ll have one of the Kauffmans buggy you home.”
She turned back to face him and shouted back, “Don’t tell me what to do! I’ll be fine—just fine!”
Ray-Lynn took the call, standing by the cash register at the restaurant.
“Hi, Ray-Lynn.” It was Jack! “I know your carryouts don’t have delivery, but Linc Armstrong and I’d be really grateful if you could send a couple roast beef sandwiches over with one of your workers. We’re up to our necks in a new development and haven’t eaten since an early breakfast.”
“Something about the graveyard shooting?”
“Big-time.”
“I’m almost on my break. Your office, right? I’ll bring it myself.”
“That would be great. He’ll appreciate it, and it means a lot to me.”
His voice had warmed at her reply. He was probably thinking she was dying to see him, which she was. But mostly she was just plain nosy, and she’d promised Hannah Esh she’d let her know if there were any new developments.
Ray-Lynn put Leah Schwartz on the cash register and prepared the roast beef sandwiches on sourdough buns with horseradish and dill pickles on the side, along with coleslaw and four half-moon pies. Jack and Linc were probably mainlining coffee, so she grabbed two root beers to give them a change of pace.
She bagged the food and pulled her coat on. The walk to the sheriff’s office wasn’t far, so why did she feel she and Jack were worlds apart? She couldn’t just worry about that tomorrow, like her favorite character Scarlett O’Hara always did. Ray-Lynn blamed Lillian Freeman, crashing into their lives and into this town, which had enough problems without her.
Ray-Lynn greeted Jack’s receptionist at the front desk but walked right on back to his office. The door was open, so she went in and put the food down on the corner of his big, cluttered desk. Agent Armstrong was on the phone, pacing, talking about some sort of machine. Jack took her elbow and steered her back out.
“As the old saying goes,” he told her as they huddled in the hall, “you’re a sight for sore eyes.”
She looked up into those eyes, intense, riveted on her, and felt the thrill race through her she always got near him. She reached up to touch his cheek—unfamiliar beard stubble there—and he turned his head to kiss her palm. That made her tingle clear down to the pit of her belly.
“What’s happening?” she asked, hoping her voice didn’t betray how his mere presence shook her.
“Something strange is going on at the graveyard.”
“Still? Meaning what? Not another shooting?”
“Just consider this a word to the wise. Batten down the hatches—and your restaurant—for another big influx of customers, tourists and media. Now I gotta get back to Linc, but let me pay you for—”
“You will not! I’d rather,” s
he said with a little smile, “that you owe me.”
“I do, sweetheart,” he said. “And, I promise you, I will happily, privately pay—with interest and with love.”
Hannah’s legs shook as she knocked on the back door of the Kauffman farmhouse. How many times had she, Sarah and Ella just bounced in this back door, up to something? Anna—who had the same first name as Ella’s mother, but many Amish names were common—and Ben Kauffman had almost been second parents to her. They’d taken her into their home when she’d sneaked back once a couple of months ago. She prayed they didn’t blame her for setting a bad example for Sarah by going to the world before she did, even if for a different reason. But, even if they welcomed her back now, they could not welcome the news she was bringing them of their daughter’s worldly wedding.
“Oh, Hannah!” Gabe, Sarah’s younger brother, yelled when he opened the back door. “Mamm, Daad, it’s Hannah Esh! Come in!” he barely got out before Mrs. Kauffman appeared with her arms open wide to engulf her in a hug.
They both cried a bit as Mr. Kauffman patted Hannah on the back, and Gabe stood on one foot and then the other. “Martha’s not here now, but we’re so glad to see you!” Mrs. Kauffman said.
How Gabe has grown! Hannah thought. And like her own parents, Sarah’s mother and father had aged, though Mrs. Kauffman bustled about to serve them hot chocolate and the half-moon pies the family produced by the scores each day for Ray-Lynn’s restaurant. The four of them sat at the kitchen table, as familiar to Hannah as her own, while she answered question after question about how her injuries were coming and her new job at the Plain and Fancy B and B. Finally, Hannah put in, “I have two important things to tell you.”
The Kauffmans quieted. Although they’d all been turned toward her, they leaned in even closer now.
“Something about Sarah?” Mrs. Kauffman asked. Both their mothers—Ella’s, too—always seemed to have a sixth sense about things.
“Yes, one thing about Sarah. She phoned Ray-Lynn Logan and asked her to tell me that she and Nate are going to be married.”
“Ach,” Mr. Kauffman said but he managed a nod. “Better than just living together.”
His apparent acceptance of the wedding surprised Hannah. She had expected more of a protest. “They weren’t living together,” Hannah corrected. “She was living with his stepmother. It—the wedding—will be in Wooster on the thirteenth, because they’re moving there. Nate has been promoted to oversee this area for the State Fire Marshal’s office.”
“I like Nate,” Gabe blurted out. “He was always good to me, and he saved our barns and lives.”
“But that doesn’t mean,” Mrs. Kauffman said with a nervous glance at her husband, “we can approve of her leaving—being put under the bann—or marrying an outsider, even if he is a good man, and we all know he is.”
“I miss her, and I’m going to see her,” Hannah said, looking from one to the other of them. Both of the senior Kauffmans were holding it all in. Sarah’s mother blinked back tears.
“You mean going to her wedding?” she asked.
“Yes, and to visit them once they get settled. I know it’s verboten and I’ll probably get in even more trouble for it. But whatever I did, whatever she did, she’s still one of my two best friends in the entire world, and I’ve learned lately that life can be cut short, even when you’re young.”
“You mean, because of what happened to your goth friend—” Gabe got out before a look from his father silenced him.
“Yes,” Hannah answered him anyway. “Because of that and missing all of you when I left, as I’m sure Sarah does. The other thing—and I know this will be difficult, too, for you—Mr. Kauffman, your mother’s grave, along with Lena Lantz’s and at least one other, may have something buried in the ground besides the coffins. The sheriff and the FBI agent found something strange there.”
Ben’s chair scraped back and nearly toppled as he jumped to his feet. “They are disturbing those graves? Something buried there? Anna, I’m going to see Bishop Esh. Hannah, you want to go home now? If there’s nothing else to say, I’ll take you.”
Mrs. Kauffman was crying quietly now. Gabe jumped up, too, and Hannah heard him pounding up the stairs. “Yes, I—I need to go home now,” she said as Mr. Kauffman left the room.
“Good to hear you say ‘home,’” Sarah’s mother said, and reached over to squeeze her shoulder. “Just a minute now before you go.”
She also hurried out, although she went toward the back of the house and Hannah heard her rustling through something that sounded like paper. She came back into the kitchen, glancing around to see if they were alone, with two brown paper sacks in her arms, each filled with a folded quilt that protruded out the top.
“These are two of the four quilts Sarah’s grossmamm Miriam had in the grossdaadi haus when she died. I kept one and saved one for Martha’s hope chest, but there were two others. With her Alzheimer’s, of course, she never knew what Sarah had done—to leave so she could do her paintings and be with Nate—and so be shunned.”
Tears blurred Hannah’s vision, and she wiped at her eyes. “One of these is for you,” Mrs. Kauffman said, speaking quickly and quietly, “a welcome home gift. The other—I hope you will know what to do with it—give it to a friend, if you wish.”
This woman wanted Sarah to have a quilt, a wedding gift, but she could not give it to her daughter directly, oh, no, not under the strict rules of the meidung. And it was pretty obvious she feared that her husband would not approve.
Hannah nodded and took the sacks. Mrs. Kauffman hugged her again, crunching the paper and soft quilts between them. When Mr. Kauffman came back into the room, she said to him, “I’m giving two of Grossmamm Miriam’s quilts to Hannah.”
He only nodded and headed for the door as Hannah followed, the precious quilts in her arms.
Seth saw that word had spread quickly by the next morning. Although it was the Sabbath, it was the off-week for the bimonthly Amish gathering at a church member’s home. But neither that nor the fact the Plain People did not have phones in their home stopped the shocking news. It didn’t take long for an Amish crowd—all men, not even Hannah—to gather at the graveyard where the sheriff had again cordoned off the area with neon-bright yellow police tape. Seth had brought his father. Bishop Esh, Ben Kauffman and the church elders already lined the outside of the fence, with other Amish men behind them or strung out along the barrier. They stepped aside to allow Seth and Eben Lantz to stand near the bishop.
Seth was also amazed at the number of Englische who had come out to gawk: Harlan Kenton and Elaine Carson stood lower on the hill along the fence, as did both of the Meyers brothers, George and Clint. Mr. Baughman, who owned Homestead Hardware, was there. And a blonde woman with dyed hair and a lot of makeup, dressed in a pink jogging outfit. He didn’t see a camera or microphone, but could a reporter be here already?
Inside the fence, Sheriff Freeman and Linc Armstrong were working hard, along with two men he didn’t recognize. Amid the grass and plain tombstones, near some of the graves, including Lena’s, they had laid out rows of yellow and orange string. Like the fluttering plastic tape along the fence, it looked so wrong in this graveyard. One of the strangers had a sort of box with an antenna strapped on against his chest, and the other was pushing what looked like a big-wheeled red lawn mower back and forth down the narrow rows between the graves right in front of Lena’s broken tombstone.
Once Seth and his father had joined the other men, Bishop Esh summoned Ben Kauffman to stand next to them. Then he called out, “Sheriff Freeman! Agent Armstrong! This is the Sabbath, a day of rest. And this graveyard is the property of the Amish Church of the Home Valley.”
Linc hardly looked up, but Sheriff Freeman came over as the bishop went on. “We have here next of kin of Lena Lantz and Miriam Kauffman, and we at least want to know what is going on. Is that contraption a mower or a digger?”
“Bishop Esh, this is government business, out of even my hands, b
ut I assure you,” the sheriff said, “that machine merely probes the ground with radar—invisible rays—looking for abnormalities in the soil. There is no digging yet.”
“Yet? But if you find abnormalities, you intend to dig? We need to know more than that. We protest the destruction of these graves.”
“Let me explain it to you as best I can, Bishop Esh. I didn’t know this would all happen so fast. I decided to stay here to keep an eye on things, so that I could inform you after they found something, if they did.”
“Are there any signs at all of abnormalities yet?” Seth demanded. “And we should have at least one observer at the graves, not held off our property by this fence and tape.”
“Just a minute. I’m going to tell Agent Armstrong, since Seth and Mr. Kauffman are closest of kin to two of the deceased whose graves are in question—”
“In question?” Bishop Esh cut in.
“—that I intend to bring the two of you and the bishop inside to explain things. It’s all new to me, too, but it may lead us to why the shootings occurred here. Just a minute now. I’ll be right back.”
Seth’s stomach cramped as he watched the machine run over Lena’s grave, back and forth between the grid lines. When the sheriff motioned the three of them inside, Seth almost vaulted the fence rather than walking through his murmuring people to the gate.
“Bishop Esh, Seth, Mr. Kauffman,” Linc Armstrong greeted them and shook their hands. Linc pointed at the man with the computer screen strapped to his chest. He was reading it as he walked back and forth, following the man with the wheeled contraption. “The reader is Mel Pleiss, a geologist from Akron, who works for a company that uses GPR—ground-penetrating radar—which can peer into concrete or soil. It can locate such things as pine boxes in unmarked graves—”
“These graves are all marked—clearly,” Bishop Esh said, but the men went about their business and did not look up.
“Or it can locate underground voids or foreign objects,” Armstrong went on. “In other words, even disturbed soil or other things buried will show up as imagery—a kind of wavy picture—on that screen that Mr. Pleiss can read. It can take a long time to process a scene, but this is not clay soil so the GPR can read almost six feet down.”