The Road Home

by Patrick E. Craig

  “An excellent suggestion, husband, and of course that includes you, Jonathan.”

  “Are you sure, Mrs. Springer? I don’t want to be a bother.”

  “Jonathan, we would like to get to know you better. We would like to find out who it is that our girl has become so fond of.”

  “Mama!” Jenny said, with a fresh blush.

  Jerusha smiled. “We would be honored if you would join us, Jonathan.”

  Jenny looked up at Jonathan and had the strangest feeling that he belonged right here with her and her family.

  After dinner, Bobby Halverson pushed his chair back from the table. He groaned and put his hands on his belly.

  “I’m trying to keep in shape, but if I have any more meals like that in the near future, I’m going to lose my boyish figure.” He then turned to Jenny. “Have you found anything in those registry books I got from the VFW?”

  “I haven’t had a chance to look, Uncle Bobby. I’ve been organizing the notes I wrote down when I talked with Mr. Schumann, the man who wrote the article about the crash.”

  “I know Bob,” Bobby said. “What did he give you to go on?”

  “We think we have a service number for a naval officer. We found it in the large tattoo of the Statue of Liberty that the man in the pond had on his shoulder. Mr. Schumann made a drawing of the tattoo when we spoke. The number was under the statue on the man. It had Roman numerals—IVIII IIIVI. We figured it must be 153,351. That’s why I had you bring the books. They have a list of all the service numbers from the time they started issuing them until they stopped.”

  Jerusha cleared dishes from the table while Jenny fetched the books that were stacked on a bench by the back door. Reuben, Bobby, and Jonathan gathered around while Jenny opened the first book. It was titled National Personnel Records Center, Military Operations Branch, Service number index and registry of retired, deceased, and discharged military personnel—volume I. She glanced through it and then closed it and picked up the second volume.

  “That one has the numbers that were issued before World War Two,” Jenny said. “This one has the ones issued from the time the war started. Let’s see, 153,351.”

  She turned the pages, licking her finger each time to help. She kept going until she came to a page that started with 153,000. Slowly Jenny ran her finger down the page until she came to 153,351. A name leaped up at her.

  “Pharmacist Mate Joseph K. Bender, Patterson, New Jersey. Born nineteen twenty-two. Dishonorably discharged from service, September, nineteen forty-two.”

  A chill came over Jenny. His name was Joseph. Joseph, Joe—she remembered that name—Joe. The face of the man from the dream came to her. She could see the evil in his eyes as he tried to get her out of the car. She saw the fear on his face when he fell into the pond and his open mouth calling for help as he sank beneath the water.

  Jerusha put her arms around Jenny’s shoulders. “What is it, dochter?”

  “I don’t know,” Jenny replied. “I just feel strange about it, that’s all. As if it’s familiar…but how can it be? Do you think this man could be my real father?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  More Answers

  “PHARMACIST MATE JOSEPH K. BENDER, PATTERSON, New Jersey. Born nineteen twenty-two. Dishonorably discharged from service, September, nineteen forty-two.”

  Jenny leaned over the table, read the name aloud again, and then looked at her mama.

  “Dishonorable discharge, Mama. I’ve always been afraid my birth father or mother was a bad person. Now that I see it, I seem to remember the name Joe. I think Joe was the man in the car. He was a bad man, and he tried to hurt me. Why would he do that if he was my father?”

  Her mama put her hand on Jenny’s shoulder. “Let’s not jump to any conclusions, Jenny. We don’t know if that was your father. Isn’t that right, Bobby?”

  Bobby nodded. “We don’t even know if Joseph Bender was the man in the car.”

  “What else can you do then?” Jonathan asked.

  “There was a license plate number—SN12-66,” Bobby replied. “Sheriff Cowsill, my predecessor, traced it to a stolen car in New York. He left a file on the case that I’ve gone through a couple times down through the years. Sheriff Cowsill tracked down the name of the person who owned the car and called him, but the guy wasn’t very cooperative, so Arnold didn’t follow up. If we can somehow connect Joseph Bender to the car, then we can place him at the scene of the crash. But that still wouldn’t prove whether he’s Jenny’s father or not.”

  “I just don’t see how we can find the answer,” Jenny said, sinking back in her chair. “I never should have gotten you all into this. It’s hopeless. Why can’t I just be satisfied with the family God gave me?”

  She put her head down in her arms on the table. Reuben awkwardly patted her shoulder. Jerusha pulled up a chair next to her daughter and put her arms around Jenny’s shoulders. She laid her head close to Jenny’s.

  “Remember what I shared with you—what the Lord showed me when I was praying for you?”

  “You mean about the quilt?”

  “Yes, dochter,” Jerusha replied. “I believe these things are true. There are places inside of you that need to be healed, and the way that will happen is by you finding out the answers to your questions. Don’t you see, Jenny? All these things have been happening for a reason. There must be an answer, and I believe it’s right here in this room. It’s no mistake that your papa’s best friend is the sheriff. Your Uncle Bobby can help us discover things we couldn’t possibly find on our own.”

  “I’ll do my best to help, Jerusha,” Bobby said. “We do seem to be at somewhat of a dead end here, and I can’t promise anything, but there are a couple of things I can do.”

  Jerusha went on. “Your papa and I want you to be whole and free, Jenny. We want you to fully know the life that God has planned for you.” She paused and looked at Jonathan, and then she continued. “Even if that means that you leave us.”

  Jerusha laid her head back down on Jenny’s shoulder. “Wherever God takes you in this life, my darling, your papa and I will always love you, and your home will always be here with us.”

  Jenny turned into her mama’s embrace. The two women clung to each other and cried softly while the men looked at each other uncomfortably.

  The next day Bobby sat in his office going over the notes his predecessor had compiled on Jenny’s case. The details of the autopsy, the report on the wrecked car, and the articles by Bob Schumann were spread out on his desk. Sitting on top of it all was the license plate number of the car and a phone number. He had checked the area code and discovered that it was a Manhattan number. He had called the number twice already without success.

  He sighed and picked up the phone again. He dialed the number one more time, but he wasn’t really expecting an answer, so he was surprised when a gruff voice spoke from the other end of the line.

  “Talk to me,” the voice said.

  “Is this James Radford?” Bobby asked.

  “Yeah, and I’m not interested in any insurance,” said the voice.

  “Mr. Radford, this is Sheriff Bobby Halverson from Wayne County, Ohio. I can assure you I’m not trying to sell you insurance.”

  There was a pause, and then Radford spoke. His tone was not friendly. “How do I know you’re a sheriff?”

  “I can give you the number of the Wayne County Sheriff’s office. You can check it out and call me back on your dime, or you can just trust me and answer a couple of simple questions,” Bobby replied.

  “Is this about the car?” Radford asked gruffly. “That happened a long time ago.”

  “Actually, it is about the car,” Bobby said. “I understand that you were the owner of a nineteen forty Ford station wagon that ended up in a pond outside of Apple Creek, Ohio.”

  “As I said, that was a long time ago,” Radford said. “It was a piece of junk anyway. Besides, I didn’t put it there, it was stolen from me.”

  “I know that, Mr.
Radford, and I’m not accusing you of anything. I would just like to find out more about the car if I can.”

  “Why?”

  “A little girl was discovered in that car fifteen years ago. We’re attempting to track down her birth parents. Your car is one of the few clues we have. Can you tell me anything about it?”

  There was a pause. Then Radford answered. “Another guy called me about fifteen years ago. He said he was the sheriff.”

  “Yes,” Bobby said. “That would have been Arnold Cowsill. He was the sheriff before me. He said you weren’t very cooperative, so he never followed up. Now I’m following up.”

  “Well, what if I don’t want to cooperate with you?” snarled Radford.

  Bobby paused, and then he followed a hunch. “Look, Mr. Radford, I don’t want to get into unpleasantries with you. Let me just say that I have much more of a concern about this case than Sheriff Cowsill did. The girl who was found in the car is very dear to me. I have a vested interest in her well-being. And let me also say this. I am willing to come to New York and speak to you directly, but I won’t be as pleasant as I am today if I have to do that. I also have access to the most modern databases and can do a very thorough background check on you if I need to. If something unsavory appears on your record, I would be…shall we say…compelled to turn it over to the New York authorities.”

  Bobby knew he was taking a chance but he pressed ahead. “Now, if I can just get a few answers over the phone today, I will be most appreciative, and you and I can go our separate ways.”

  There was a pause and then Radford answered. “What do you want to know?”

  “Is there anything more than I already know that you can tell me about the car?”

  “Well, I don’t know if this will help, but they caught the guy who stole the car.”

  “What?” Bobby exclaimed. “We assumed the man who stole the car died in the pond.”

  “Yeah, one of the guys died in the pond.”

  “One of the guys?”

  “Two guys stole it and used it to rob a bank. The one they caught was inside the bank while the other guy was outside with the motor running. The guy inside got shot by a guard and was captured. The other guy got away.”

  “Do you know the name of the man who was caught?”

  “Yeah, Sammy Bender.”

  “Bender! His name was Sammy Bender?”

  Radford paused. “Yeah, Bender. Ain’t that what I said?”

  “Okay, Sammy Bender. So what else?”

  Radford waited for a moment and then went on. “I had to testify at Bender’s trial. The rat tried to implicate me as the other guy, but I had an airtight alibi.”

  Bobby’s thoughts were whirling. Bender! The dead man’s name was Bender. Maybe this Sammy was a direct connection to Joseph Bender.

  “Do you know where this Sammy Bender is now?”

  “Yeah, he’s up at Sing Sing. He got seventeen years because he wounded a bank guard and a teller in the crossfire. I was glad to see him put away. The guy steals my car and then tries to frame me. Jerk!”

  “Why didn’t you tell Sheriff Cowsill about this?” Bobby asked.

  “When Bender robbed the bank, someone got the license number of the car and traced it back to me. When they tracked me down, Bender told them I was the driver. If I hadn’t been out of town on a fishing trip at the time with my pals, he would have framed me. So when the sheriff from Ohio called, I thought they were still trying to stick me with the heist, and I clammed up. It took a long time for the whole thing to come to trial, and Bender finally admitted that I wasn’t with him, but he wouldn’t rat out the other guy.”

  Bobby smiled. Radford obviously had a shady background, or the cops wouldn’t have been so eager to nail him. He decided to try one more thing. “So did you know this Sammy Bender before he stole your car?”

  There was another long pause.

  “Mr. Radford?” Bobby asked.

  “Yeah, okay, I used to see him and his brother around. We ran in somewhat the same circles.”

  Bobby smiled. He had been right! Radford was most likely shady too.

  “Oh, and one more thing,” Radford said. “The eyewitness saw a woman and maybe a kid in the back of the car.”

  “A woman and a small child?” Bobby asked.

  “Is there an echo in here?” Radford snarled. “That’s what I said.”

  “Thanks a lot, Mr. Radford,” Bobby said. “You’ve been a big help and—”

  Radford interrupted. “Are we done?”

  “Sure,” Bobby said. “Unless you can think of something else, I think that will do…for now.”

  There was a click as Radford hung up. Bobby looked at the phone and then smiled. Maybe they were getting somewhere.

  Jenny sat with Jonathan on the swing on the front porch of the Springer house. She wanted Jonathan to put his arms around her and hold her, but her parents were inside, so they sat apart. Jenny pushed on the porch with her feet, setting the swing in motion.

  “I used to do this when I was a little girl,” she said. “I had so much energy, I would swing for hours. Mama would sit over in that chair and sew or read her Bible. I never seemed to have enough time to read as much as she did. I was always on the go, like a shooting star buzzing across the horizon. When I had swung long enough, I would do this.”

  Without thinking about her sore ankle, Jenny pushed really hard with her feet, and the chair swung far up on the backswing. When it came forward, Jenny jumped from the swing and sailed over the porch steps and landed on the lawn. Her bad leg buckled under her, and she went down on her face in the grass. Jonathan got off the swing and knelt beside her.

  “Jenny, are you okay?” he asked. “You need to be more careful of that ankle.”

  Jenny lay still, her heart pounding, afraid to look at him for fear her heart would burst in her chest. Then she rolled over and looked up at him.

  “Jonathan, do you love me?” she asked simply.

  Without caring if her parents saw, Jonathan enfolded Jenny in his strong arms and held her close. Jenny’s words came out in a rush.

  “I’m so afraid, Jonathan. I cry at the least thing. Everything is mixed up and crazy. I love you and yet I’m Amish—but am I really? And if I am, I shouldn’t love you because we come from different worlds, and I belong here but I belong to you and…and…oh, Jonathan, can you help me? I don’t know what to do.”

  Jonathan held Jenny in his arms without saying anything. There was the sound of a cough behind them, and they looked around. A tall, older man wearing an old baseball hat was standing on the lawn, self-consciously shifting from one foot to the other.

  “Hi there, er…I didn’t mean to interrupt, I mean…well…”

  Jenny sat up and rubbed her tears away with her coat sleeve. “It’s all right, Mr. Lowenstein. This is my friend Jonathan. He helped me get home. Jonathan, this is our neighbor, Mr. Lowenstein.”

  Jonathan got to his feet and shook Hank’s hand. “Nice to meet you, sir.”

  “You too, son,” Hank replied. He looked at Jenny. “Jenny, is your pa around? Sheriff Bobby just called, and he said it’s important that Reuben call him right away. Can you tell him?”

  “I will, and thank you, Mr. Lowenstein.”

  Jenny looked at Jonathan, and then Reuben came out on the porch. “Hello, Hank,” he said.

  “Howdy, Reuben. Just came over to let you know that you should come over and call Bobby. He said he has some interesting developments concerning Jenny to share with you.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  The Visit

  JENNY WATCHED OUT THE CAR WINDOW as the Pennsylvania countryside rolled by. Uncle Bobby was driving, and her papa sat in the passenger seat. Jonathan sat with her in the back. They were trying to be respectful to her papa by not sitting too close, but Jonathan had slipped his hand over to hers about an hour before, and she took some comfort in his touch.

  They had been on the road for what seemed like hours, and Jenny was tired. So
much had happened to her in the past two weeks. Her ankle still hurt, and she had a nagging headache. Her hopes had risen when Uncle Bobby told her about the man who might know about Joseph Bender. But since then she had slipped back into a dark mood. Even Jonathan had been unable to cheer her up. Now she sat staring out the window, lost in her thoughts.

  “Jenny?”

  Jonathan’s voice brought her back from her musing. “Yes?”

  “We just passed the place where they captured us.”

  A chill ran down her back as she remembered how close she had come to death, or worse, at the hands of Jorge. She leaned forward to speak to Bobby. “What’s going to happen to Jorge? I feel sorry for him. At first he seemed nice, but he couldn’t break away from his uncle’s influence. Then he tried to…hurt me.”

  “I’m afraid Jorge is going to spend a few years behind bars,” Bobby said. “He’s over eighteen, so they’ll try him as an adult. He wasn’t in San Francisco when Jonathan’s friend was killed, but he has been involved in a lot of other crimes. The state will make sure he gets indicted along with the rest of them.”

  “Shub wasn’t my friend,” Jonathan said. “I just knew him. I’m really sorry I ever got involved with him.”

  Jenny felt irritated at Jonathan’s response. She wondered why he couldn’t just accept the truth that he had done some really foolish things out in San Francisco. Jonathan heard her sigh.

  “Are you okay, Jenny? You seem awfully—”

  “Uptight?” Jenny asked, with a half-smile.

  Jonathan smiled back. “Yeah, really uptight, man,” he said in an exaggerated hippy drawl.

  That produced Jonathan’s desired effect—a smile at last. He looked at her face and took her hand again. “Look, Jenny, I know that everything that has happened in the last two weeks has taken a toll on you. I just want you to know that I’m so sorry I ever got you into this mess. I’ve done some really dumb things and messed my life up pretty good. But in the midst of all this I’m beginning to believe that maybe there might really be a God after all.