Whiskers of the Lion

by P. L. Gaus

  “What’d he have for you?”

  “Well, Fannie has a fiancé, from Michigan.”

  “So, Fannie and Howie weren’t in love?”

  “Either that or she figured she had to marry Amish.”

  “Could be.”

  “Mike also said he’s going to try to get details from the fiancé, Reuben Gingerich. About how Fannie and Howie moved around this summer. And how they chose their next destinations.”

  “What about the yellow VW?” Ellie asked. “Anything there?” She struggled to adjust her pillows.

  Robertson popped off his chair. “What can I do?”

  Ellie pulled at the corner of one of her pillows. “Just raise this one up. More behind my head.”

  Robertson worked with the pillows and felt foolish for being so clumsy. He mumbled, “I’m sorry,” but he persisted. Eventually, Ellie gave him a thumbs-up, and Robertson returned to his chair, asking, “Is that any better?”

  Ellie was breathing heavily from her exertions. “A little bit, Sheriff. Caroline or Ricky usually helps me with this sort of thing. So tell me what was in Howie Dent’s VW.”

  Robertson scratched nervously at his chin. “Ellie, did you know that Caroline Branden suffered a number of miscarriages early in their marriage?”

  Ellie answered softly. “Yes, Bruce. She’s told me. It’s horrible.”

  “Does she come here every day?”

  “Yes. I’ve tried to tell her that it isn’t necessary.”

  “Don’t, Ellie. Don’t tell her that. She needs to help you. It’s good for her. She’s always been fragile on this topic. If she’s coming here every day, it means that she needs to be here every day.”

  “OK, Sheriff. Now tell me about the yellow VW. What was in it?”

  “His killers took most of Dent’s belongings, Ellie. There’s nothing in the car that can help us.”

  “Maybe Dent wasn’t going back to Middlefield,” Ellie said. “Maybe he was going to leave Fannie with this Gingerich.”

  “Then why not just return home to his farm? The Teresa Molina crew has no reason to harm him, because he was never involved in any of the drug smuggling. So, why would he take the car in the night?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Really, Ellie, I don’t think he’d stay with Fannie all summer and then not go back to her with his car. He could have driven her anywhere. It’s just what she and Gingerich would need—a ride to anywhere in America. So I can’t imagine he wasn’t going back to help her.”

  “OK,” Ellie asked, “so what did he do in Millersburg to get himself abducted?”

  “Right. That’s the question. I’ve been trying to figure where he’d go, once he had retrieved his VW.”

  “There has to be something that answers that, Bruce.”

  The sheriff’s phone rang. He pulled it from his coat pocket and checked the display. “Armbruster,” he said to Ellie, and he answered the call. “What have you got for me, Stan?”

  The sheriff listened a bit and then said, “Wait, I’ll put you on speaker phone.”

  He set the phone on the coffee table, switched to speaker, and said, “I’m with Ellie, Stan. Say that again.”

  Armbruster repeated, “I said, Dent was concerned about some men at the bus’s breakfast stop last April in Charlotte. That’s why he pushed Fannie into a cab. It’s why they took a Greyhound to Memphis.”

  “Did he think those were Molina’s people?” Robertson asked.

  “I think so,” Armbruster said, and he recounted for Robertson and Ellie the details of the scene in the Charlotte restaurant, just as Fannie had described it, with the men searching for her. Then the cab ride to the Greyhound station downtown. Paying the cabbie. Buying the tickets for Memphis.

  “At least that’s what Fannie says,” Armbruster finished. “But I’ll get more if I can. In the meantime, the FBI has arrived here. They want to get Fannie into custody as soon as possible.”

  “Then you won’t have any more time with her,” Robertson said. “That’s a problem.”

  “We’ll get everything we need from Fannie,” Armbruster chuckled. “The FBI won’t be a problem. Caroline and Reuben Gingerich are right up in their faces, and if you want information from Fannie, all you’ll have to do is call Caroline.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Gingerich insists on a proper chaperone for Fannie. He says she’s not going to a hotel with four strange men without a woman to chaperone her.”

  Ellie leaned from her pillows toward the phone. “Stan, it’s Ellie. Caroline could do that. Chaperone.”

  “I know,” Armbruster said, laughing. “She’s telling them right now that Fannie’s not going anywhere without her. It’s a showdown out of some classic western movie. You ought to see this. A professor’s wife haranguing the FBI.”

  • • •

  As Reuben Gingerich argued with lead agent Parker, Caroline paced behind him, kicking at the gravel beside the FBI’s black panel van. Her hands were hanging like stiff cudgels at her sides, and uselessly, her fingers were begging her to make claws. A hoarse rattle had built a nest in her throat, and she felt as if it were hatching chicks there. She growled to clear the tangle in her throat, and Reuben turned momentarily to smile appreciation at her before he resumed his arguments with the agent.

  Caroline kicked up a stone and paced. Fannie’s protests had counted for nothing. She had retreated to the Daadihaus with Irma. Caroline spun in place and then paced again.

  Her husband’s credentials as a reserve Holmes County deputy had counted for nothing. He had gone into the kitchen for water. Or so he had said.

  Reuben’s arguments about the impropriety of an engaged Amish woman staying in a hotel room with four strange men had counted for nothing. The agents, it seemed, cared not a whit for Fannie’s sensitivities.

  So Caroline was pacing and growling. She felt as if she would not be able to work through her tension unless she could claw something loose from the FBI’s wall of intransigence. Unless she could claw something loose from their barricade of practiced indifference.

  As Caroline scored the gravel with the toe of her shoe, the professor stepped off the back porch with a bottle of water and said, “Here, Caroline. Drink this.”

  Caroline snatched the bottle from his hand and took a single long drink. When she handed the bottle back, she whirled around and pulled gently at Gingerich’s sleeve to press forward to the FBI’s lead agent. With her index finger punctuating the vacant space in front of the agent’s nose, she snapped, “You said it was a suite, Parker. You said it yourself. A suite with two bedrooms. So that puts Fannie and me in one bedroom, and you with all of your roughies in the other. We share the middle space. And we’re gonna use the kitchen.”

  “It’s not big enough for all of us,” Agent Parker said. “And it’s not proper procedure.”

  “I don’t care,” Caroline said more temperately. “It’s a suite, and I’m going with Fannie.”

  “Not possible,” Parker insisted.

  Reuben pressed forward again. “Then Fannie’s not going.”

  “She has to go,” Parker said. “We need her testimony.”

  “Does she have to testify?” Reuben asked. “I mean, does she really have to testify?”

  “No, Reuben,” Caroline answered authoritatively. “Her testimony is voluntary.”

  “Is that right?” Reuben demanded of Parker. “Is it really her decision?”

  Parker ignored the question and said to Caroline, “Mrs. Branden, are you prepared to sit indefinitely in a hotel room? Are you prepared to play chaperone until Teresa Molina is caught?”

  “I don’t play at anything,” Caroline said. Her index finger reappeared in front of Parker’s nose. “And don’t you try to intimidate me.”

  “I’m not, Mrs. Branden. But really, have you thought this thr
ough?”

  “Don’t you try to patronize me, either, Agent Parker. I’m going to spend my nights here with Fannie. During the day, I’ll be going back and forth to Millersburg. I have a friend there whose pregnancy is not going well, and I’ll have to split my time between here and there.”

  “You can’t be coming and going like that, Mrs. Branden. It’ll upset our routines.”

  “I’m coming with Fannie, Parker. That’s just how it is.”

  From behind them, at the open door of the little Daadihaus, Fannie called out, “Stop! Stop arguing, all of you.” She stepped forward on the drive. “It doesn’t matter, Agent Parker. If Caroline is not going, then neither am I.”

  24

  Thursday, August 18

  7:15 P.M.

  STANDING OUT at the curb in front of Ellie’s house, Sheriff Robertson called the professor on his cell. When Branden answered, Robertson asked, “Where are you with things, Mike?”

  “Caroline is going to go with Fannie to the hotel,” Branden said. “They’ve decided on that much. Now Gingerich is haranguing them about books, knitting, and Fannie’s liberties while in custody.”

  Robertson pulled the door open on his Crown Vic. “Would I like this Gingerich?”

  “Quite a lot, Bruce,” Branden answered. “You’d like this Gingerich quite a lot. Anyway, I estimate it’ll be another half hour. Then Caroline and Fannie will be headed to the hotel, and I’ll be riding home with Lance and Armbruster.”

  “You won’t drive your car?” Robertson asked.

  “No. Caroline is going to follow Fannie in our car. She wants to be able to drive home to check on Ellie during the day.”

  “Good. Ellie can use the help.”

  “You’ve seen her?”

  “Just now. She’s struggling, Mike. But how is Caroline going to handle all of this? It’s too much.”

  “It’s Caroline, Bruce. If she doesn’t think she can take care of Ellie, she’ll hire a nursing service or something.”

  “Mike, she’s worried about a miscarriage.”

  “Can you blame her? Given our history?”

  “No. I suppose not. Look, Mike, are you still dressed Amish?”

  “Yes, but they tell me here that it’s more like conservative Mennonite attire. It’ll do, they assure me, since Gingerich is from a Michigan congregation, and dress is not always similar. So nobody would expect Gingerich to dress exactly like a man from Holmes County, anyway. They assure me that the outfit will do the job.”

  “OK, then is Lance dressed like Fannie? That’d be more critical.”

  “Yes, only they had to make her an outfit. And I gather they gave her some lessons on how an Amish woman should behave.”

  “Like what, exactly?”

  “Mostly it’s aspects of proper public behavior. Being demure and submissive. Reserved. That sort of thing.”

  “How did that go over with Lance?”

  “You can guess. But look, Bruce, I’ve been thinking. Whatever Dent’s killers got out of his VW, it didn’t help them find Fannie.”

  “Or she’d already be dead,” Robertson said in agreement.

  “Precisely,” Branden said. “And whatever they left behind at the Helmuth farm, we have to understand that those are things that they thought they didn’t need.”

  “Yeah, Mike, but I’ve been trying to guess what they might have taken away with them.”

  “Items from his backpack,” Branden said. “Among other things.”

  “I suppose. If so, when we catch them, they’ll have something of Dent’s in their possession.”

  “They wouldn’t be that stupid.”

  “But maybe they are stupid, Mike. I mean, think about it. It was a mistake to leave anything at all in the VW.”

  “Or even to leave the VW sitting right there in the open,” Branden said.

  “OK, Dent must have wanted his car for some reason. Otherwise, why would he risk coming home for it?”

  “I think Fannie expected that he’d come back here to Middlefield,” Branden said. “He could have driven Fannie and Reuben anywhere they wanted to go.”

  “Do you know where they were going next?”

  “Not yet. I’ll ask. But Fannie said that Howie loved that VW. Maybe he just wanted it, and they really hadn’t figured out where they’d go next.”

  Robertson climbed in behind the wheel. “Call me if you get more, Mike. And call when you are actually leaving Middlefield.”

  “OK. It might take more time than I thought. The FBI doesn’t understand a single thing about Amish ways.”

  “I’m counting on it, Mike. And with Caroline there to help her, it’ll be even better for Fannie.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Has either you or Caroline read the letter I wrote to Fannie?”

  “No, should we?”

  “Caroline should.”

  “Right now?”

  “Once she settles in at that hotel.”

  “What’s in the letter, Bruce?”

  Robertson started his engine. “Mike, I just told her where I thought she’d be the safest.”

  • • •

  When the professor punched out of the call, Fannie had already climbed into the side door of the panel van with her suitcase. Reuben Gingerich was standing in the rain at the open door, speaking to her. A line of rainwater was spilling off the back rim of his straw fedora. He seemed focused on Fannie, oblivious to the rain, and he stood immobile there beside the open door of the van, talking softly. Branden could see Fannie nodding, as if she were reassured by Reuben’s words.

  Branden crossed the gravel to his wife, who was opening the driver’s door of their sedan. “Are you ready for this?” he asked as he came up to her. “You didn’t bring anything for an overnight stay.”

  Caroline covered him with her umbrella, embraced him with her free arm, and said, “As soon as I have her settled, I’ll go out shopping somewhere, Michael. To buy clothes, groceries, and toiletries.”

  “OK,” the professor said. “I’m riding back with Stan and Pat.”

  “Right.”

  “There might be some trouble.”

  “I know, Michael,” Caroline said. “I trust you.”

  “And how about the FBI, Caroline? Do you trust them? You going to give them a break?”

  “Not likely.”

  “Good. I don’t think they get it.”

  “Get what?”

  “Anything, really, and Bruce says you should read the letter he wrote to Fannie. Once you get to the hotel.”

  “Fannie has it?”

  “I presume so.”

  Twenty yards away, Reuben turned from the panel van’s sliding door to address Agent Parker again. His voice was only a whisper, but his posture was stern. Caroline watched Reuben and said to her husband, “That’s fun to see. A plain Amish man confronting the exalted FBI.”

  “Right now, I don’t think Agent Parker could tell you who he’s dealing with.”

  “Right now,” Caroline smirked, “I don’t think Agent Parker could tell you Peter Pan’s first name.”

  “That bad?”

  “Worse. Are you going to carry a gun, Michael?”

  “Always. Under my vest.”

  “The three-eighty?” Caroline asked. “Or the nine?”

  “The little three-eighty.”

  “It’s not big enough, Michael.”

  “It’s easy to conceal.”

  “Take the nine-millimeter,” Caroline insisted.

  “I’ll be with plenty of people who have guns.”

  “Take the nine-millimeter in an ankle holster.”

  “OK, but I’ll have to get it from home.”

  “So get it, Michael. Before you turn in tonight. Before you do anything else.”

  The profess
or agreed, and then a wide grin stretched across his face. “Peter Pan’s first name?”

  Caroline returned his smile and kissed him under her umbrella. “I’m just saying, Michael. They really don’t know who they’re dealing with.”

  25

  Thursday, August 18

  9:25 P.M.

  WHEN STAN Armbruster pulled to the curb in front of the Hotel St. James in Millersburg, Sheriff Robertson was waiting at the front entrance with an umbrella. Dressed in the clothes that Irma and Fannie had made for her, Pat Lance got out of the backseat of Armbruster’s cruiser, carrying her suitcase. The professor, still dressed Amish, slid over on the backseat and got out behind Lance. Robertson held the umbrella for them as they hurried into the hotel lobby, and then the sheriff stood guard while Lance and Branden registered at the black marble counter for their rooms. In uniform, Deputy Ryan Baker was posted at the back alley door, at the far end of the hotel’s narrow lobby. When Stan Armbruster knocked on the outside of the alley door, Baker opened it for him. Armbruster had parked his car in the lot behind the hotel. Another deputy was already at his post outside the elevator on the third floor, and he was also in uniform.

  Once Professor Branden and Detective Lance had the keys to their rooms, Robertson and Armbruster rode with them in the elevator to the third floor. As Armbruster watched from the end of the hall near the elevator, Branden, Lance, and Robertson headed for their rooms at the other end of the hall. Branden entered room 5 briefly, dropped the satchel he had brought from home on the bed, and came out directly to the door to room 6. There, Pat Lance had already opened her door and entered, and Branden found her at the back of the room with Robertson, inspecting the lock on the suite door to Robertson’s room, number 7. Branden came forward to say to Robertson and Lance, “There’s not a door between five and six. Is that how you want it? Because, five can make a suite with four, but not with six.”

  “I know,” Robertson said. “I doubt you’ll spend much time in five.”

  “I’ll need to sleep,” Branden said. “Some, anyway.”

  “There’ll be at least one of us in room seven, Mike. Probably more than that at any given time. If you need to get some rest, that’s going to be enough, I think.”