When the Bishop Needs an Alibi

by Vannetta Chapman

  “Actually, I’d like to stay longer if you don’t need the table. But I want to check on my mare.”

  “Plenty of tables,” she assured him. “We’re between the lunch rush and the dinner crowd now. I’ll refill your mug.”

  “Danki.”

  Henry knew Oreo would be fine, but it felt good to stand and stretch a moment. At sixty-five, he’d learned that sitting too long in one position left him stiff. He walked out into the fall air and fed the mare a few sugar cubes from his pocket. The day was beautiful, the sun shining as it usually did in the valley. A slight breeze blew from the north, reminding him winter wasn’t far away, and if the weathermen were correct, a significant cold front would move in later in the week.

  “Enjoy the sunshine while you can, girl.” He patted her nose and then went back inside.

  Sophia was helping an old woman to her feet, making sure she had a solid grip on her walker before hurrying around the counter to ring up her check. The woman was accompanied by a nearly bald gentleman who looked as fragile as she did. Whether Amish or Englisch, people aged the same. Henry had found the process held agonizing change as well as beautiful moments of grace.

  When Sophia glanced up, he nodded once, and then he made his way back to his booth. She’d cleared off the dishes but left the mug, steam rising from freshly poured coffee. He sipped it appreciatively, and then he opened his tablet, pulled out a pencil, and began to sketch.

  Henry had spent most of his life actively ignoring his drawing talent, but the situation with the Monte Vista arsonist had changed all of that. He smiled as he drew, thinking of Emma and her admonition that his strange ability was a gift from God. Emma was a good friend—and, he thought, perhaps something more. They were both widowed, and he’d taken to attending social events with her as well as asking her on a buggy ride at least once a week. He wasn’t sure where their relationship was headed, if anywhere, but he was enjoying the time they spent together, and for the moment that was enough. Emma seemed to feel the same way.

  As often happened, he became lost in the process as he drew. He had no sense of how much time had passed or that his coffee had long grown cold, so he startled when he realized Sophia was standing beside him, again holding a pot of coffee. She raised it, silently asking if he wanted more.

  “Nein. I’ve had plenty.” Henry glanced around and saw the diner was now mostly empty. “It seems I stayed longer than I intended.”

  “You were pretty focused on your drawing. May I?” She nodded toward his tablet.

  “Sure. Of course.” He turned it toward her and motioned for her to sit down.

  Sophia’s eyes widened in surprise as all color left her face. She pressed trembling fingers to her lips, and when she spoke, there was a note of fear in her words. “How…how did you do that? And why?”

  In that moment, Henry couldn’t have said what he’d drawn. Sometimes that was the way of things with him. Sometimes his hand rendered what his unconscious mind had seen rather than any particular scene, such as the beautiful mountain vistas outside the window. So he was surprised when he looked at the tablet.

  He had produced a nearly photographic rendering of Sophia.

  Three

  Henry cleared his throat as he tried to determine how much to explain.

  Sophia’s gaze darted around the diner, and then she sank into the booth across from him. “Why did you draw me?”

  “I don’t always decide what I’m going to draw.”

  “You don’t decide? Did someone tell you to do this?” Now her voice was rising in alarm.

  He wasn’t sure how a picture could frighten someone so. Well, that wasn’t quite true. He remembered how his first drawing, done when he was a young lad of twelve, had spooked his parents. But this was different. Sophia’s fear was personal.

  “I have this…ability. To draw anything I’ve seen. I suppose when I came back inside after checking on Oreo, I saw you helping this customer, and the kindness of your gesture caught my attention.”

  “But this is more like a photograph than a drawing.” She glanced up now, her fear replaced by confusion. “You weren’t even facing me, Henry. You were facing the wall or maybe the window. How could you remember these details?”

  With the drawing angled so they could both see, Sophia’s fingers skimmed over it—touching the clock above the register, the sign advertising cinnamon rolls only $2.99, the embroidery on the old woman’s shirt, and a small scar along the side of her own neck.

  She glanced at Henry. Her dark hair was shoulder length and pulled back with a hair band. She quickly put a hand to her neck, covering the mark that appeared in the drawing.

  Henry tried to understand her reaction. Many people were surprised when they first saw his drawings. He knew it wasn’t just the degree and accuracy of the details. It was that he was somehow able to capture the emotion of the moment. Glancing down at this drawing, he saw that he’d depicted both Sophia’s compassion and the elderly woman’s look of gratitude and vulnerability as she accepted help.

  “How do you do it?” she asked again.

  “It’s rather difficult to explain.”

  She stood, walked back behind the counter, and placed the coffeepot on the burner. “I’m taking my break,” she hollered toward the pass-through window where the cook set plates of food. Someone answered back, “I’ll keep an eye out,” and Sophia returned to his table.

  She sat down, her arms crossed and her expression grim.

  “Try. Try to explain this to me.” She reached forward and tapped the drawing. “Because this is sort of freaking me out. It’s as if you were watching me, only I know you weren’t. And I still don’t understand why—”

  “I’m sorry I’ve frightened you. This talent I have is the result of an accident. I was hit with a baseball when I was twelve years old.” Henry’s hand went to the spot on his head. He couldn’t resist touching it whenever he related the story of the accident. “The doctors thought I might die, and my parents…well, they were sore afraid. But I recovered, as you can see.”

  Henry reached for his mug of now-cold coffee and turned it around in his hands. “Afterward, I found I had this ability to draw things, and not just draw them but accurately render them as in an Englisch photograph.”

  “You have a photographic memory?”

  “Not quite. The doctors claim there is no such thing. They say what I have is most similar to eidetic memory.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “The ability to view memories like photographs.” Henry paused. He’d shared his story with very few people, and he could count on one hand the number of Englischers he’d spoken to about it. But he’d frightened her, that much was plain, and because of that he felt he owed her an explanation. “I couldn’t have told you the gentleman had a stain on his shirt or the woman wore glasses suspended on a chain. I wouldn’t remember those details, but somehow my subconscious recorded them.”

  “Could you draw before? Before the accident?”

  “No better than any other child.”

  “Henry, are you saying you’re a savant?”

  He glanced up, surprised at her use of the term. “A label the doctors use, but I’m not quite comfortable with it. Actually, they called me an ‘accidental savant.’”

  “Like those people who can play Mozart on the piano when they’ve never had a lesson, or tell you what day of the week your birthday fell on the year you were born?”

  “Ya, savants come in all types.”

  Sophia again pulled the drawing toward her and studied it.

  “So you didn’t come in here today to draw me?”

  Henry chuckled. “Indeed I did not.”

  “You came in for the meat loaf.”

  “Which was delicious.”

  “And stayed to draw.”

  Henry had already shared more than he normally would with a near stranger, and an Englischer at that. But something in Sophia’s expression pricked at his heart. He remembered the fearful l
ook in her eyes when she’d first seen the drawing. Why? What was she scared of? And what had she asked? Did someone tell you to do this?

  He didn’t understand her concerns, but he wanted to ease them.

  “I’ve hidden my ability for most of my life, but a little over a year ago something happened that changed my mind about that. I’m trying to learn to embrace it as a…well, as a gift from Gotte.”

  She tilted her head but didn’t interrupt him.

  “My freind Emma gave me a few drawing tablets and pencils for a Christmas gift. I sometimes take them to the park or library or—”

  “Diner?”

  “My first time to do that. Perhaps it wasn’t a gut idea. I certainly didn’t mean to alarm you.”

  She tapped her fingers against her lips, staring off across the diner. Finally, she raised her eyes to his. “May I keep this?”

  “Of course.” He tore the sheet from the tablet and passed it across the table to her.

  “Thank you.” With a weak smile and a nod, she stood and walked away.

  Four

  Emma Fisher was sixty-two years old, plump but not heavy, with hair that was now completely gray. She lived with her son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren, and she had quite a schoolgirl crush on her friend and bishop, Henry Lapp.

  “Rather an odd reaction,” Emma said. Henry had just explained about drawing the young waitress, a woman named Sophia Brooks.

  Henry often stopped by her place on his way home from town, and she looked forward to their visits. Now they were strolling through her garden, harvesting the last of the fall vegetables. Her basket held some tomatoes and a few bell peppers. Henry dug around a sprout, pulled out a nice-sized potato, shook off the dirt, and set it beside the rest of her crop.

  “It was.”

  “You know people are often surprised by what you can do.”

  “It was more than surprise, though. I’m sure she was quite frightened for a moment.”

  “At what you’d drawn? Because it sounds harmless enough. No doubt your mind was taken with her kindness to the old woman.”

  “But I don’t think she would have reacted the same way if I’d drawn only the old woman. Nein, it was more that I’d drawn her. Did I mention her scar?”

  Emma shook her head.

  “Small one on her neck. As soon as she saw it on the drawing, she brought her hair forward to cover it.”

  “Many people are self-conscious about scars.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “But you think it was something more.”

  “I’ll admit the entire situation makes no sense to me.”

  He took the basket from her, and they walked to the front porch. Once there, he set the basket near the door, and Emma sank onto one of the rockers. Henry walked to the railing and looked out over the barns and fields. Emma’s son, Clyde, had done a good job caring for the place since George died. George had been one of Henry’s closest friends and Emma’s husband, and at first she had denied her feelings for Henry because it felt like a betrayal.

  Time and prayer had assured her it was no such thing. George would be pleased at the turn her friendship with Henry had taken. He would want her to live her life fully. Hadn’t those been among his last words? That, and I love you.

  Henry turned now and studied her. He was older—by two years—but his hair was still brown in places, he’d managed to avoid the extra weight most men put on, and more importantly, his faith and optimism were a balm to her soul. Right now a smile was playing across his face. “This is your fault, Emma.”

  “Mine?”

  “Ya, for sure and certain. You bought me the drawing tablets.”

  “And I’m happy you’re using them.”

  “You also encouraged me to draw more.”

  “It’s a wunderbaar gift.”

  Henry sat down beside her and set his chair to rocking. “At least no murderer is involved this time.”

  “We can be grateful for that.”

  Katie Ann burst onto the porch. “Mammi— Oh. Hello, Henry.”

  “Hello, Katie Ann.”

  “Do you need something, dear?”

  Instead of answering, she peered around the porch and asked, “Where’s Lexi?”

  “I came from town,” Henry explained.

  “So she’s okay?”

  “Ya. No doubt she’s lying on the back porch in a spot of sunshine, dreaming of chasing rabbits. Or maybe she’s chasing rabbits.”

  “You didn’t come out here to ask us about Lexi, though.” Emma knew how much Katie Ann loved the little dog, but something else was plainly on her mind.

  “Doc Berry rang the phone shack early this morning, and Silas just remembered to tell me.”

  Even as she spoke, Silas drove off in the buggy, waving but not pausing to talk.

  Silas was Katie Ann’s older brother. At nineteen he was actively courting at least one girl and had fallen into the habit of checking the messages at the phone shack a couple of times every day.

  “I’ll speak to him when he returns. It’s easy enough for him to write you a note and leave it on the table.”

  “That’s what I said!” Katie Ann was seventeen and full of spunk and energy. She had an unbridled love for animals. After trying jobs at a quilt shop, a bakery, and the library, she’d finally found her niche helping Doc Berry on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Since today was Thursday, it was safe to assume the message from their local veterinarian was about an emergency call.

  “Do you need to be somewhere?”

  “She asked me to meet her at the Kline place, but now Silas is gone in one buggy and Mamm in the other—”

  “Not a problem, Katie Ann.” Henry stood. “I’d be happy to drop you off.”

  Emma watched in surprise as Katie Ann threw herself at Henry, hugged him, murmured her thanks, and then ran off to fetch her workbag.

  “She treats you like she used to treat George.”

  “I’m certainly not trying to step into his shoes.”

  “I meant that as a compliment, not a critique. It does my heart gut to see her excited about something again.”

  “That mess with the arsonist is behind us.”

  “Thank Gotte you’re right. Though some nights I still dream about what happened that day.” She glanced toward the woods, to the place where the Monte Vista arsonist had abducted them. “Do you still write to him? In prison?”

  “I do.”

  “And?”

  “And you don’t need to worry about him, Emma. He’s doing well incarcerated, but his sentence was for life with no parole. That won’t change even with gut behavior.”

  Emma tsked, slapped her hand over her mouth, and pretended to be overly concerned with the status of a pot of marigolds. She’d noticed herself tsking a lot lately. What did it mean? Why did she do it? When had she fallen into the habit? Tsking sounded old, and while she was fine with the fact that she would soon turn sixty-three, she had no intention of sounding that age.

  Katie Ann popped out of the house, her arms wound through a backpack that contained animal medical supplies. “Just let me check on one thing in the barn.”

  While her granddaughter dashed in the opposite direction, Emma walked with Henry to his buggy.

  “I’ve been thinking about your situation.”

  “Situation?”

  “With Sophia. The waitress.”

  “Oh, ya. That. I’m not entirely sure it’s a situation, per se. More a puzzle to be solved.”

  “I might know a way to solve it. You can take me to dinner there on Saturday.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Problem?”

  “Nein.”

  “Did you have other plans?”

  “I did, in fact.” Henry reached for her hand. “I was going to ask you to the pizza place in town.”

  “It’s a date, only we’ll go to the diner instead.”

  “And what do you think we’ll accomplish?”

  “Put the girl’s mind at ease, maybe?
And also, I can tell you if you’re imagining things. Women are often a better judge of another person’s emotional vibes.”

  “I won’t argue with that.”

  “You can pick me up Saturday, then.” Emma almost laughed at that. Two years ago she would have been terribly embarrassed to admit she was going on a date. Things had changed since then, though. She’d looked death in the face when the arsonist had abducted them. She’d feared for, prayed for, and pleaded for Katie Ann’s safety. She’d learned to appreciate each day as well as the small things in life—such as a meal shared at the local diner.

  She was no longer embarrassed that the thought of a date made her happy.

  One way or another, she and Henry would figure out what was going on with Sophia. It was a small mystery, and a small mystery wasn’t a dangerous thing. In fact, it could be quite amusing, something to break up the monotony of fall cleaning.

  It wasn’t as though they were trying to catch a killer.

  Five

  We have confirmation.

  She’s living/working in MV.

  To what end?

  No idea at this point.

  Any indication she has information

  re our next harvest?

  Negative.

  Could be she’s simply following

  the husband’s footsteps.

  Sentimental journey?

  Something like that.

  Safer/simpler to eliminate her.

  MV isn’t San Diego. We don’t want

  to draw attention.

  We do what we need to do.

  Agreed. For now,

  maintain surveillance.

  Six

  I feel somewhat guilty that we’re not going to Bread 2 Go.”

  “They close at four on Saturday, and besides, we’re after dinner.” Henry wiggled his eyebrows, causing Emma to laugh and let go of any last morsel of guilt.

  Her daughter-in-law, Rachel, had made a nice casserole for the family. They’d be enjoying it and then board games afterward. Stephen and Thomas were still young enough to look forward to the time of family fun—though they often laughingly called it forced family fun. They were now ten and eleven and delighted in anything that could be remotely considered a game. Silas would be out on a date, but Katie Ann would join in the evening’s entertainment. Emma’s family was fine without her, and Emma understood she had no reason to feel worried about leaving them for a few hours.