Who the Bishop Knows

by Vannetta Chapman

  “A few shows featuring Amish did well, at least for a time.” When they all stared at him blankly, he said, “Seriously? You haven’t heard of them? Amish in the City, Breaking Amish, Amish Mafia?”

  “I’ve heard of that last one,” Henry admitted. “Actually, I read an interview with Ira Wagler once. Do you know Ira? He wrote a book called Growing Up Amish. He’s since left the faith, but he has a good perspective, I think, on things that bridge the Amish and Englisch world. Anyway, some news reporter asked Ira what he thought about Amish Mafia, and he said the whole concept was just silly. That’s pretty much my take as well.”

  “What does it mean to the investigation?” Ruth asked. “Does it help you at all in finding the person responsible for killing my grandson?”

  “It might.” Grayson ran a hand up and down his jaw, and it occurred to Emma that the job of protecting the residents of Monte Vista was taking its toll on the man. He hid it well, but the strain showed more quickly with each murder investigation. “We’ll contact the producers of the show, see if this was even real, and if he was scheduled to go out for an audition. If nothing else, it broadens our list of suspects.”

  “Someone wanting him on a show wouldn’t kill him,” Emma said.

  “No, but someone else might have been bumped. Maybe they thought they had a spot, but then the producer finds this Amish kid who is a hotshot rodeo star… ” Grayson stopped and shook his head. “I’m only thinking aloud, mind you.”

  “Naomi seemed upset, as if she could have stopped the turn of events that led to Jeremiah’s death.” Ruth rubbed the heel of her palm against her chest. “I’ll speak with her. Not now, but after she’s had some time to rest and pray. I don’t want the poor girl thinking she was in any way responsible.”

  Grayson cleared his throat. “It’s a big break that she was able to tell us the passcode for his phone. It probably saved us a couple of days on the data extraction.”

  “And that’s important?” Ruth asked.

  “The phone will have a lot of information, as I explained at the hospital. I have a tech going over it now. It’s definitely a good, solid lead.”

  Grayson stood, and Henry did as well. “I’ll walk you out.”

  Which left Emma and Ruth alone, for the first time since the shot rang out in Ski Hi Park Arena.

  “How are you holding up, really? And don’t tell me you’re fine.”

  “Nein. Fine isn’t how I would describe myself at the moment.”

  “Did you sleep any last night?”

  “A little.” Ruth rubbed her eyes as if the question had made her realize how tired she was. “I would nod off and then jerk awake, remember what happened, and feel the loss of it all over again.”

  “He was a gut boy,” Emma said. “I don’t pretend to understand all that he was going through, but it’s plain as can be that he treated Naomi well. And he was a real help to you this summer.”

  “That’s true, and it’s part of the reason I didn’t fuss over the nights out and weekends away, or over the Englisch boys he spent time with. It seemed that he was fulfilling his part of our bargain, and so I thought he would grow out of it.”

  “Which they usually do. We’ve all had similar issues, Ruth. Albert Bontrager nearly drove his parents crazy with the way he pushed against the Ordnung, and look at him now. He’s successfully running his own farm.”

  Ruth smiled, maybe for the first time since Jeremiah had been killed. “Rumor is he ordered a wind tree.”

  “A wind tree?”

  “You hadn’t heard?”

  “Nein. I don’t even know what that is.”

  “Like the big windmills, only smaller. It charges a portable generator, which then provides enough power to run small items such as fans, radios, and the like.”

  “Oh dear. Does Henry know about this?”

  Ruth shrugged. “Abe stopped by for something else and saw Albert installing it.”

  “Installing it? Do you bury a wind tree? Prop it up in the dirt? Place it in the middle of your garden? Do you have to water it?”

  “I’m not really sure, but Abe’s wife mentioned it to Franey, who was talking about it at the bakery on Friday. Now that seems like a lifetime ago.”

  Emma could just see out the kitchen window over the sink. Silas walked by with one of the teenaged Amish girls. She never knew from one day to the next whom he was courting. It seemed to her that he’d been through every girl in their community and was now headed back for a second round. Most of the time, the relationship didn’t make it past the first two weeks. She’d asked him about it once, and he’d clumsily patted her shoulder and said, “Don’t worry, Mammi. It’ll work out.”

  “We never really know their lives,” Emma said. “We think we do, but we only know what they want us to see.”

  “It was the same with our generation.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “I do. We thought our parents wouldn’t understand, so why tell them?”

  “Sometimes we assume everything has changed since we were their age.”

  “And yet much of life stays the same. My children and now my grandkinner seem to face the same struggles. It’s as if each generation has to learn on its own.”

  “I know you worry about Gideon and Clara.”

  “Indeed. It’s better now, I think, with the children grown and the boys moved away. My son isn’t a bad man, but it may be as you suggested. Perhaps he is depressed. I’m going to suggest that he see a doctor.”

  “And you think he will?”

  “Probably not.” Ruth stood, rinsed out her coffee mug, and then turned back to Emma. “I’m not saying my son caused Jeremiah’s death. He wasn’t there. He didn’t pull the trigger, but I do think an unhappy home life pushed Jeremiah toward the Englisch, and I won’t tolerate it any longer. He either agrees to see a doctor or I’ll speak to his bishop.”

  “Perhaps it would be better to wait until after the funeral, until he’s back home.”

  “You could be right, but I won’t wait long. There’s a chance that in his grief, in the depth of his despair, he’ll be willing to listen to reason.”

  “We’ll pray, both of us, that he will.”

  “Thank you, Emma. This life is certainly full of grief and uncertainty.”

  “At times it is, but there will be happiness in your life again, you can be sure of that.” They’d walked out onto the porch, and in the distance she could make out the new colt. When Ruth saw where she was staring, she stepped closer to the railing. Emma knew when she spied the little animal, because a smile tugged at her lips.

  Life was full of grief and uncertainty. Hadn’t the writer of Ecclesiastes said as much? But it seemed there was a balance to life if one could hold on long enough. A time to be born and a time to die… A time to mourn and a time to dance… A time to tear and a time to mend.

  She prayed that her friend would find the strength to hold on to her faith until life took yet another turn.

  Twelve

  Henry and the sheriff were stopped three times as they walked toward the police cruiser.

  Each time, Grayson assured the person everything was being done to find Jeremiah’s killer, and he didn’t believe the community was in any danger.

  Grayson’s presence might have looked odd to an outsider, or even to an Amish person from another community. Normally the Amish mingled very little with police officials. In fact, they often went out of their way to avoid them. But Henry felt that, as the community’s bishop, it was his job to create a channel for communication between the local authorities and the people of his church.

  Certainly one could argue that special circumstances surrounded the community in Monte Vista. They’d been through hard times together. Not just the two previous murder investigations, which had both involved the Amish community, but also at least half a dozen damaging storms throughout the years. Each time the families in his church did what they would in any similar situation, in any other location. They helped on
e another and they helped their neighbors, whether they were Amish or Englisch. This had gone far to build goodwill between the two groups, until they’d finally reached the place where they were separate, but they could work together when the situation required.

  In return, the local shop owners had embraced the cottage businesses established by most Amish families. Over the years it had become difficult to make a living off the land anywhere, but especially in this place that averaged only eight inches of rain a year. Most families sold quilts or blankets or, in Henry’s case, items made from repurposed wood. Those ventures were marginally successful when sold from a roadside stand. However, items offered in the little boutique and gift shops in town reached far more customers. The shop owners took their percentage, which in Henry’s opinion was fair, and quickly reimbursed the remaining amount. They’d forged an economic coalition of sorts, and it seemed to be benefitting everyone.

  That ability to coexist amicably was evident as they walked toward Grayson’s vehicle. The people who stopped them were respectful and offered to pray for the sheriff and the investigation.

  Henry was proud of what they’d built in the valley, and while pride might be a sin and certainly did often precede a fall, he prayed that wouldn’t happen. It wasn’t him he was proud of, but the people he led, in the same way a father could be proud of a child. Certainly that wasn’t a sin, though a good dose of humility was needed in every situation.

  “We’re going to find this person, Henry. I wasn’t just mouthing platitudes.” Grayson stopped at the door of his vehicle but made no move to open it.

  “I believe you will.”

  “It’s not what I was expecting to be dealing with this summer.”

  “Still planning on retiring in the fall?”

  “I am.”

  “Fifty-one is young.”

  “Except I started at twenty-one, so I have thirty years with the department. It’s enough, and I promised Melanie I would. She wants to travel, see the grandkids, spend time together.”

  “There’s more to life than work.”

  “And yet it’s important work. Whoever had the gall to shoot a boy in a public arena, in front of hundreds of people, as his family was watching… well, that person shouldn’t be walking around free. Mark my words, if they get away with it this time, they will strike again.”

  “Unless it was a personal vendetta.”

  “Even then, it’s as if once the monster is unleashed, it grows bolder. Suddenly, a small slight by the clerk in the grocery store may take on monumental proportions.” Grayson opened the door to his vehicle, but he didn’t get in. Instead, he stood looking out over Emma’s farm—at the cattle and the garden, the new foal and the children playing ball. “But there’s another side to it. Someone that bold? They’re going to make a mistake. They probably already have.”

  “You and your department will find that mistake. You’ll do your job well. You always have.”

  “Thank you for the vote of confidence. I’ve never dealt with a murder investigation where hundreds of people were present during the murder. It’s a bit overwhelming.”

  Henry understood that the confession was a testament to their friendship. “We will help in any way we can.”

  As soon as Grayson had driven away, Henry’s deacons joined him—Clyde and Abe and Leroy. They were good men, every one of them, though quite different in their own ways.

  Clyde was Emma’s son, the youngest of the three at forty-two, and fairly new at being a minister. No one had been surprised when the lot fell to him to replace his late father as minister. God’s ways were mysterious, but Henry had known, from the moment Clyde opened his Bible to find the marker, that the younger man would make a good leader.

  Abe was in his mid-forties with dark hair and glasses. He’d matured spiritually and emotionally over the last ten years, though much of that had been because of tough times in his family. His brother, who had originally moved with them to Monte Vista, had left his wife, sued for divorce in Englisch court, and eventually married an Englisch woman. It was up to Abe to care for Franey, Alvin’s first wife. In Amish communities, women weren’t eligible to remarry unless they were widows. In the eyes of the church, Alvin and Franey were still married. She was often referred to as a widow, and the women who owned and ran the bakery were often called the three widows, but for all practical purposes she was still considered married. It made for an awkward situation, but Abe navigated it well.

  Leroy was an unlikely candidate for deacon, but again the lot had fallen to him, and he’d taken up the mantle of service without complaint. He had a dour disposition, which kept the others’ optimism in check. In addition, he was the wealthiest of their group, owing to a fine business sense and a real skill with numbers. Those abilities had come in handy when keeping track of how much they had to spend on benevolence as well as on missions, which were their only two expenses other than a small stipend for the schoolteacher.

  Now the three men stood around him, and it was plain from the look on their faces that they were trying to think of how to begin. Finally Leroy said, “This is a terrible thing for our community to endure—again.”

  “Very few burdens are heavy if everyone lifts.”

  “Ya, the proverbs are good, but I doubt they were inspired by murder investigations.”

  Henry smiled at his deacon and tried another tack. “James wrote that where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.”

  “Is that what this was? Jealousy? Ambition?” Abe pushed up on his glasses.

  “Hard to say.”

  “But what can we do?” Clyde asked. Henry could always count on Emma’s son to be the practical one of the group.

  “For the moment, we need to focus on ministering to Ruth. Her son and his wife will arrive tomorrow. The funeral will proceed on Tuesday as we planned.”

  “We’ll have the plot dug in plenty of time. I’ve already marked out the spot beside Leon, just like Ruth asked.” Leroy had donated a corner of his property for their cemetery. He and his sons took care of digging the graves by hand, as was their custom.

  “Albert has begun work on the grave marker.” Abe pushed up his glasses again. “It’ll be a proper funeral, Henry. No need to worry.”

  “You can do one other thing for me. Sheriff Grayson could use our help.”

  “Did he say that?” Leroy asked.

  “He didn’t, but I’ve worked with the man before, and I can tell. This case is weighing heavily on him. He thinks he’ll find answers on Jeremiah’s phone, and he may. But we all know much of what Amish do is off the grid, so to speak. And Jeremiah, even though he may have been flirting with an Englisch lifestyle, was still very much Amish. I suspect if clues are to be had, they’ll come from our youngies.”

  “What would you like us to do?” Clyde asked.

  “Start with your own children. Talk to them privately. Ask them to talk to others. Let’s find out exactly what Jeremiah was involved in. When we do, maybe we’ll find the person who felt justified in taking his life.”

  Thirteen

  Naomi and Katie Ann had walked over to the barn and then out to the back pasture, where a picnic table sat underneath a large aspen tree. The day was warm, and since they were alone, Naomi pulled off her kapp and shook out her hair. The sun felt good. It reminded her she was alive, that the world would keep spinning, that some things continued the same day in and day out regardless.

  “Your hair is so wavy,” Katie Ann said. “Mine is straight as a board, like a boy’s.”

  “Straight hair can be a blessing. It stays in place better.” Tears pushed at Naomi’s eyes and her arms began to tremble. She closed her eyes and focused on pushing past the grief.

  “What is it? You thought of something.”

  “Jeremiah and I never did more than kiss, you know? But he loved it when I’d take my kapp off. He’d run his fingers through my hair and tell me it reminded him of golden wheat.”

 
“I know you told Henry you weren’t sure, but did you love him?”

  “Nein.” Naomi met her best friend’s gaze and then looked away, ashamed to have admitted such a thing. “I should have, but I didn’t.”

  “You can’t help how you feel about a person.” Katie Ann moved behind her and began to massage her scalp. The slight breeze was just enough to keep it from being hot, and Naomi began to relax for the first time since Friday night.

  “My aenti says you choose someone you respect to marry, someone you know will care for you and provide for you, like a partner in a job.”

  “Only the job is for life.”

  “Exactly. She says the feelings come later.”

  “Maybe for some people it is that way. Remember Erin? She married that man in Montana, someone she’d never even met. They’d only exchanged letters. Yet according to Mammi, her mother says she’s quite happy.”

  “How would they know?”

  “Letters they receive, and I guess the occasional phone call.”

  Naomi shook her head, causing her hair to shift back and forth. Some days she wondered what it would feel like to cut it short, to be rid of the weight of it, though of course such a thing was unheard of among Amish women. They would get a slight trim now and then perhaps, but she’d never seen an Amish woman with short hair. “Sometimes, though, you tell people only what they want to hear. Sometimes it’s easier to hide the part that hurts.”

  “Is that what Jeremiah did? He hid his feelings?”

  “I believe his family life was difficult.”

  “I think you’re right. I heard Mammi tell Mamm that Ruth mentioned his father was quite harsh.” Katie Ann lowered her voice. “Maybe he tried to ignore the hurt, and it… festered. Maybe that’s why he was thinking of leaving the faith.”

  “I guess it’s possible, and maybe that’s why I never fell in love with him.”

  “You knew you wanted to stay.”