The Road Home

by Patrick E. Craig

  Jenny felt a small check in her heart. Great—now she was lying to her friend. Maybe Papa was right. Maybe the whole pursuit of her past would only bring heartache. She felt a surge of guilt about lying to her papa and to Mrs. Blake, and she wondered where else her newly acquired sin would take her.

  The librarian smiled and said, “No one’s using it right now, honey. You can have it until someone comes in and asks for it.”

  Jenny’s need to know about the dead man in the car that night overpowered the quiet voice in her spirit, and she took the key to the microfiche room from Mrs. Blake’s hand and headed down the hall. In the room she placed her folder by the reader and then went over to the wall of filing cabinets where the film was kept.

  Now how did that all go? The big storm was in the fall of 1950. The police located the car in the pond the next spring, and while they were removing it, they found the man’s body.

  She decided to look through the files for articles from early 1951 in the Daily Record, Wooster’s local paper. She pulled all the film for the months she wanted and then sat down at the reader and began to work. It took her about an hour, but at last she found an article in the April 4 edition of the paper.

  Local Police Locate Dead Body in Jepson’s Pond

  BY BOB SCHUMANN

  The Wayne County Sheriff’s Department discovered a dead man in Jepson’s Pond near Dalton. The body was in a severe state of decomposition. Police were unable to take any fingerprints, and no means of identification was found, so the identity of the man remains a mystery.

  The body was located while officers were removing a sunken car from the pond. According to sources in the department, the car had been in the pond since the Thanksgiving Day storm. Local resident and war hero, Bobby Halverson, reported the sunken car in November, but authorities had to wait until the ice melted this month before they could send divers to investigate. While searching the pond for the car, the divers came upon the remains of the dead man.

  Halverson told this reporter that he and Reuben Springer, a member of the Apple Creek Amish community, found the car on the ice while searching for Springer’s wife, Jerusha, who was lost in the storm, but that they did not know about the man in the pond.

  The car slid into the pond when the ice broke as the two men were retrieving a battery from the vehicle during their successful rescue of Mrs. Springer.

  In an unusual addendum to the story, it was also learned by this reporter that Mrs. Springer found a small child in the car two days earlier. She took the little girl to the abandoned cabin near the pond during the height of the storm and kept her alive while awaiting rescue. The identity of the child was unknown, and it remains to be seen whether the man found in the pond was any relation to the little girl or if there was even any connection between the man and the car.

  In the meantime, the child was first given to the State Child Welfare Agency and then, following the Springers’ application, placed in foster care in the Springer home. Mr. Springer is also well known in the area as a winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor on Guadalcanal during the Pacific campaign before returning to the Amish faith after the war.

  Mrs. Springer is an Amish quilter of some renown in Wayne County.

  Jenny read on. There were a few more details about the make of the car, and then she saw that the reporter had put in the license plate number—SN12-66. Jenny looked to see if there were any follow-up articles and found one written a month later.

  Dead Man’s Identity Remains a Mystery

  BY BOB SCHUMANN

  An investigation concerning the identity of the dead man found in Jepson’s Pond in April has proved fruitless. Police investigators working out of the Wayne County Sheriff’s Department have been unable to find any clues concerning the man or what he was doing when he drowned in the pond.

  The officers believe the man was probably driving the car and was involved in an accident that caused the car to slide off the road and onto the frozen pond. Skid marks, broken trees, and pieces of the car led from Highway 30 to the pond.

  When they traced the license plate, officers discovered that the car was reported stolen in New York, and efforts beyond that have reached a dead end. Police also discovered empty liquor bottles and unknown substances sealed in plastic bags in the car. It is believed that the substances were illegal drugs.

  Meanwhile, the girl who was found in the car by Mrs. Reuben Springer remains in foster care at the Springer home. The girl’s name is Jenny, and the Springers report that she is doing very well. The Springers have applied to the courts to adopt the child, and local agencies support their application. Mrs. Springer says they are only waiting for any relatives to come forward and claim the child, but at this point, none are forthcoming.

  Jenny leaned back in the chair and took a deep breath. A terrible fear that the man might be her father crept into her heart. She had always been afraid that she was a bad seed, that there was something in her that would cause her to disgrace her mama and papa. Jenny went back to the first article. The license plate was the only clue that showed promise. No identification, no fingerprints…it all seemed hopeless to Jenny. Suddenly the words of the woman in her dream came back to her so strongly she could hardly breathe.

  Jenny, come find me. I’m lost, so lost.

  Jenny put her face in her hands and quietly wept. After a few minutes, she sat up and wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her dress. Jenny could feel a resolve building in her heart.

  “I’m going to find my real mother. I just have to,” she said out loud. “But where do I start?”

  Then she had an idea. Maybe Uncle Bobby could help her! He was the sheriff. He could reopen the investigation and maybe find out where the car was stolen and who owned it. Maybe the real owner of the car would know something. Another thought came to her, and she jotted down a note to call Mr. Schumann, the man who wrote the articles, to see if he had discovered anything else.

  Jenny realized she had to solve this mystery, or her life would never be right. Regardless of what her papa had said to her, she knew she had to do this. If she didn’t, she would struggle with the questions her whole life. She had to find out who she was.

  Jenny checked her purse. She had a few dollars and some change. Quickly she packed up the microfilm and replaced it in the file. She went to the front desk and told Mrs. Blake she was taking a break. Then she took her notes and left. A row of phone booths stood along the curb in front of the library, and she went into one. She thought about calling Uncle Bobby but remembered he was having lunch with her papa. So she picked up the phone book hanging on a chain from the wall and looked up the number of the Daily Record. She dialed it, and a woman’s voice answered.

  “The Daily Record, how may I assist you?” the woman asked.

  “Hello. Does Mr. Bob Schumann still write for the paper?” Jenny asked.

  “Mr. Schumann retired a few years ago, but he drops by from time to time. He’s what we call our editor emeritus. And you’re in luck because he happens to be here today. Let me connect you.”

  After a moment’s silence, a gruff voice said, “Bob Schumann here.”

  Jenny hesitated. She knew that if she started down this path, she would have to go wherever it took her, and a momentary fear of the future and what might happen to her family choked her up.

  “Hello, Bob Schumann here,” the man said again.

  Jenny took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “Mr. Schumann, my name is Jenny Springer. My parents are Reuben and Jerusha Springer. Fifteen years ago you wrote an article about a dead man who was found in Jepson’s Pond and a little girl who had been rescued from the car the man was driving. I’m that little girl.”

  “Well, for goodness sake,” Schumann said, his voice softening. “That was a long time ago. Quite an interesting story. Say, how did you know the man was driving the car? There were so few clues as to his identity, the police could never even definitely connect him with the car.”

  “I remember that night,”
answered Jenny. “The man was driving the car, and he wrecked it when he tried to reach back and grab me. Then when he tried to get me out of the car, he fell through the ice.”

  “You say you remember?” Schumann asked. “You were only four years old. How can you remember that far back?”

  “Mr. Schumann, I don’t know how I remember, but all I know is that over the past few days, the details have become more and more clear in my mind,” Jenny said. “But the man is not the issue. Somewhere to be found in this whole mystery is the identity of my birth mother. It has become very important to me that I find out who she is and why I was alone with that man in the car that night. I don’t know if he was my father—he might have been—but I do know that my mother was associated with him somehow and that she was very, very sad about something in her life. And I can’t rest until I find out what it was that caused her so much pain.”

  “What did you say your name was?” Schumann said.

  “I’m Jenny, Jenny Springer. You wrote about me being placed with my mama and papa—Reuben and Jerusha Springer—and about my adoption.”

  “Oh yes, Jenny. Did they adopt you?”

  “Yes they did, and they have been wonderful parents. But now I need to know more.”

  “Yes,” Mr. Schumann said. “That story always bothered me. There was never a conclusion to it, and I like to have conclusions to my stories. It was maybe the one story of my career that I never got the answer to my questions. Jenny, we need to talk.”

  “I’m working at the library today,” Jenny said. “We could meet now, if you’re available…in the microfiche room?”

  “I’ll be over in fifteen minutes.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Roadblocks

  BOBBY AND REUBEN WALKED INTO EILEEN’S on the Square in downtown Wooster. The waitress who met them at the door smiled and grabbed two menus.

  “Hi ya, Sheriff,” she said with a quick wink. “Any place special you two want to sit?”

  “Over by the window would be fine, Jolene,” Bobby answered.

  They made their way to the back of the restaurant, Jolene leading the way like a pilot dolphin. As they passed tables, people nodded and smiled, reached out to shake Bobby’s hand, or nodded at Reuben.

  “People here know you, Reuben,” Bobby said.

  “That’s from growing up here. I used to cut a pretty wide swath through Wooster when I was younger.”

  Jolene got them to their table, dropped the menus and, after asking whether they wanted coffee, headed off to the kitchen.

  “Do you ever miss those days, Reuben?” Bobby asked, setting down the menu.

  “What days?”

  “You know, the days when you were cutting a wide swath through Wooster,” Bobby said.

  Reuben looked at his friend and smiled. “Bobby, you became my friend at a very difficult time of my life,” he said. “I wouldn’t be baptized, my family wouldn’t speak to me, and I was pretty sure that God didn’t even exist. I was finished with being Amish. When I joined the Marines with you, I did it because I believed you when you said that everyone had an obligation to stand up and defend the country that provided them with blessings found nowhere else on earth. I don’t regret serving my country. What I deeply regret is killing the men I faced across those trenches. They were men just like you and me, and they deserved to live out their lives with their wives and children.”

  Reuben reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. In the back section was a piece of paper. He pulled it out. It was a photo of a young Japanese man in the uniform of the Imperial Army. He was standing beside a lovely Japanese woman. She was dressed in a traditional kimono and holding a small boy. The man was stiff, very military in his bearing, and looking straight at the camera. The woman was looking up at the man, and it was plain that she loved and admired her husband.

  “I found this picture on the body of the sniper I killed that day you and I and Thompkins were on patrol. This man had a family—a wife who obviously loved him and a son who grew up without ever knowing his father. Bobby, this man could have been me or you or any of us who fought in that war. I’ve kept it with me all these years to remind me that it’s wrong to kill other men. I’ve never been able to forget the surprised look on his dead face when I turned him over on that jungle floor. So no, I don’t miss any of that. And as for the wide swath I cut, some of it with your able help I might add, I just chalk that up to sheer stupidity. And if you think about it, I’m sure you’ll agree with me.”

  Bobby smiled ruefully and then glanced around. “Don’t tell any of my old drinking buddies, Reuben, but I have to admit you’re right. The only good thing about the good ol’ days is that they’re gone.”

  Jolene glided back to the table with two cups of hot coffee. She put them down on the table and then pulled a pad out of her apron pocket and a pencil from behind her ear.

  “What’ll it be, boys?” she asked.

  Bobby picked up the menu. “You’re going to have to give me some more time. We got to talking.”

  “Sure, take your time,” Jolene said, and then she left.

  Both men perused their menus for a few moments. Bobby peered over his and asked, “So, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?”

  Reuben closed his menu and looked over at Bobby. “I need to ask you some questions about the car Jerusha found Jenny in, and I need to find out what you know about the man they discovered in the pond.”

  “That’s a long time ago, and remember, I wasn’t sheriff yet.” Bobby said, looking back at the lunch menu.

  “Well, did you ever do any investigation? I mean, just out of curiosity? After all, you’re as close to her as a biological uncle.”

  Jolene returned, pencil and pad in hand.

  Bobby handed her his menu. “Hot turkey sandwich with a side of fries, Jolene, and I’m fine with the coffee.”

  Reuben nodded. “Sounds good, Jolene. That’s what I’ll have also.”

  Jolene picked up the menus and headed for the counter to put the order in.

  Bobby turned back to Reuben. “Since you ask so direct, the answer is yes, I did do a little investigating. I was reorganizing the old sheriff’s files, and I came across that folder, so I sat down and read through it. As I remember it, the car was stolen in New York. The owner was contacted, but since it was totaled and had been in the water for five months, he didn’t want the car back, so it went to the junkyard and was scrapped.

  “The police and sheriff’s departments had gone over the car and made some interesting discoveries. There were several glassine bags in the glove compartment that had stayed sealed under the water. The bags contained an unknown substance. The lab boys determined that it was heroin. I believe there were also some empty bottles. That, along with the hypodermic needle in a nice little kit, convinced the investigators that whoever was driving the car either used or sold drugs and drank a lot. Not a lot to go on.”

  Reuben interrupted. “What about the man in the pond?”

  “I was coming to that,” Bobby said. “The investigators can’t be sure that the man in the pond was even connected with the car. More than likely he was, but there’s nothing to link the man and the car together.”

  “Was there any identification, anything that could be traced, that would help determine who the man was?”

  “None,” Bobby replied. “The only thing that was unusual was a pretty spectacular tattoo—the kind you see the Navy boys sporting, with two flags on each side, the Statue of Liberty in the middle, and the words ‘God Bless America’ on the top. It was pretty deteriorated, but it was big enough to figure out what it was. Still, he would have to have a criminal record with the tattoo listed as an identifying mark to be able to trace him with it. And that’s a needle in a haystack because there were probably thousands of guys with that tattoo. As far as fingerprints, his fingers were mush, and it was impossible to get any prints from him. The whole story is pretty much a dead end, really.”

  Bobby paused for a min
ute and then asked a question. “So, my old friend, why do you want to know all this? I thought it was a closed case as far as you and Jerusha were concerned.”

  “Yes, it is all in the past. Jerusha and I seldom think about it.”

  “What then?” Bobby asked.

  Reuben looked down at the table. “It’s Jenny. She’s been pestering us with questions, and the whole issue of who she really is has become of great importance to her. Her head is filled with all kinds of fantasies about the possibilities.”

  Just then Jolene returned with lunch balanced on her arms. She bent down and slid the first plate of turkey in front of Bobby and then handed Reuben the other one.

  “Hot plates,” she said with a grin.

  “Didn’t seem to bother you any,” Bobby said.

  “I’m a tough old biddy,” Jolene answered as she headed off.

  “Back to Jenny,” Bobby said.

  “I think Jenny is going to ask you to help her find out about the man and the car,” Reuben said slowly.

  “What if she does?”

  “I’m asking you not to help her. I’m afraid for Jenny. She’s headstrong and determined, and this crazy idea of hers could lead her to places she doesn’t need to know about. If she comes to you, I’m asking you to put roadblocks in her way, to hedge her in. The world isn’t for Jenny. She belongs with us, with her Amish family, in Apple Creek. I’ve seen what’s out there, and I know that the plain way is best, especially for Jenny.”

  “But, Reuben,” Bobby said, “she’s almost grown up. You can’t run her life forever.”

  “Our way is different from the Englisch way. We want our girls to be safe and secure while they’re at home and unspoiled when they marry. As long as Jenny is under my roof, I’m responsible for her. When she marries, I will hand that responsibility over to her husband.”

  “Can I remind you of something, old friend?” Bobby asked quietly.

  “I know what you’re going to say. Yeah, I do feel most secure when I have rules to follow. Call it a weakness if you want, but to me, it can also be a strength. But, in spite of what you might think about me, I’m not trying to impose my rules on Jenny for the sake of having my own way. It’s because she’s my daughter, like flesh and blood to me. I love her very much, and to the extent that I can, I want to keep her from the pain.”