Harmless as Doves: An Amish-Country Mystery

by P. L. Gaus

  Miller’s daughter Vesta was another concern. Such a beautiful girl. So many suitors. Evidently she had chosen a boy—Crist Burkholder. They had been to see Shetler already, to have their first marriage consultations with their bishop. They’d be a fine couple. Vesta Miller was to marry Crist Burkholder in March, before the spring plantings, when all the families could attend.

  It was all arranged, it seemed, but then Jacob Miller couldn’t accept it. He wanted Vesta to marry Glenn Spiegle, a man twice her age. Miller the bullish authoritarian, insisting that Vesta was only seventeen, and that he was still the ruler of his own household. The scriptural head of his family, the bishop sighed. So, that was another long, hard conversation that awaited him today—to teach Jacob Miller the deeper truths about a father’s authority.

  You’ve already chastised him enough, Shetler thought as he milked. Time for sterner words. Take Jacob Miller aside today, and warn him one last time.

  Behind him, Shetler heard a rustling in the straw. When he turned on his milking stool, he saw young Crist Burkholder standing behind him, head down, hat in hand, grief in all his features.

  When he saw Burkholder’s face, Shetler stood and turned, asking, “What’s wrong?”

  Burkholder shook his head and shrugged fatalistically. “You know Herr Spiegle wants to marry Vesta Miller?”

  “Yes, I’ve heard that, Crist. But I reckon that I’m still bishop. I reckon that I’ll have something to say about that.”

  “Doesn’t matter, now, Bischoff. Vesta isn’t going to be able to marry me or Spiegle.”

  “Why, Crist? What’s wrong?”

  “I just killed Glenn Spiegle.”

  * * *

  Bishop Shetler pulled Crist Burkholder out of the barn, and Crist tried to follow on legs that were stiff and unresponsive. His mind was the same—stiff and frozen—processing thoughts only sluggishly, giving him mostly the surreal flashes of a nightmare he himself had just created.

  There was a brief glimpse of Vesta Miller’s eyes, hopeful yesterday. Happy. Then he imagined how her face would twist in disgust, once she knew that the man she had pledged to marry was now a murderer. Lost, outcast, frozen.

  Crist tried to command his legs to move as the bishop pulled him out into the dawn air, but his mind gave him no encouragement in the task, and his legs produced only a feeble stutter step, like the Tin Man in that Oz movie.

  Strange that you’re thinking of that. Funny. That Tin Man, frozen in place without his oilcan. Couldn’t get his legs to move. In that Wizard movie we saw. In Crazy Darba’s Rumspringe room.

  “Crist, tell me what happened.”

  “I hit him. As hard as I could. Can’t remember.”

  One good swing, and he dropped at my feet like a limp rope.

  They were out under the stars now, and Crist still couldn’t get his legs to cooperate with the bishop’s intentions.

  “Stand right here, Crist,” the bishop was saying.

  Cold night air, still as death. Light beginning to break at dawn. Oilcans and the Tin Man. Maybe the Scarecrow, too, with a useless, frozen brain. A head full of straw. Why can’t you think, Crist Burkholder? Hooves pounding out through the barn door, the clatter of wooden wheels on a hack trailing behind it.

  “Crist, climb up!”

  But Crist Burkholder was frozen by a singular mental clarity—dead Glenn Spiegle, in a crumpled heap at his feet.

  “Crist! We’ve got to call the sheriff.”

  “What?” Vesta is waiting for me. “Crazy Darba saw me.”

  “Stop calling her that, Crist,” the bishop scolded. “Climb up. We’ve got to get to a phone.”

  Nervous tension broke in Burkholder’s throat as a strangled croak, and the bishop shouted down from the hack, “Wait!” and jumped down from his seat to run back into the barn.

  This was to be our day of emancipation. Vesta and me. Does she know by now? Darba Winters saw me run away. So, Vesta surely knows by now that I am a murderer.

  “Here, Crist,” the bishop said behind him. “Sit down on this stool.”

  Sit? Sure. Ease down on your Tin Man knees.

  As Burkholder tried to lower himself to the milking stool, the old bishop failed to guide him down, and Burkholder lost his balance, struck the edge of the seat, and toppled onto the packed soil in front of the barn doors. Shetler set the lantern on the ground beside Burkholder’s head and tried to sit him up. But the strapping farm boy, built like a sturdy oak and twice the size of the old bishop, lay stiff and unmovable on the ground, and before the bishop could get a good grasp on his shoulders, Burkholder pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, thinking, I’m the Tin Man.

  And I just killed the only man who could have taken Vesta away from me.

  So, that’s what the sheriff will think. What everyone will think.

  That I killed a man over Vesta Miller, because her father just couldn’t let it be. That he just couldn’t let Vesta marry a simple farm boy, when so rich an eligible man lived right among us.

  2

  Wednesday, October 7

  6:00 A.M.

  THE BISHOP ran back toward the house shouting, “Katie! Katie, wake up!”

  He hurtled two steps at a time up into the mudroom and dashed into the kitchen, where Katie was standing at the sink, holding a half-peeled orange, head turned in his direction.

  “Katie!” he shouted, waving her forward, “Help!” Then he ran back outside.

  Barefooted, and dressed only in her pink sleeping gown and blue quilted robe, Katie followed her husband out into the backyard. There the bishop knelt at Burkholder’s head and rocked him by his rounded shoulders, trying to secure a grip on the lad. Katie knelt at Burkholder’s side and pushed against his elbows, which were locked in place over his knees, and together the Shetlers managed to roll Crist onto his back.

  Burkholder’s arms slipped from his knees, and his legs straightened. He lay flat in the dirt, his eyes popping open and then closed, as if he were testing his vision, coming up from a deep sleep.

  The bishop bent over Burkholder and asked, “Crist, are you sure he’s dead?” and Katie drew a startled breath, stood up, and cried out, “Who?”

  Shaking Burkholder to rouse him, the bishop said to Katie, “Crist says he killed Glenn Spiegle.” He wedged his hands under the boy’s shoulders and heaved him up to a sitting position, adding, “He says he struck Spiegle in a fight, and Spiegle fell dead.”

  With her fingers laid across her lips to stifle a cry, Katie stood stiffly beside her husband. Stunned, she asked, “Are you sure he’s really dead?”

  Coming somewhat back into awareness, Burkholder focused his eyes on the bishop’s face and said, “I felt his neck. Like they do on the TV.”

  Shetler positioned himself behind Burkholder and braced him under his arms to help him up onto his knees. Then Burkholder stood to full height, two heads taller than either of the Shetlers, and wobbling on his unsteady legs, he stepped to the hack in front of the barn doors and leaned over to plant his forearms on the buckboard seat, head hanging down.

  “Where is he?” Katie asked at Burkholder’s side. “Where is Glenn Spiegle?”

  “Inside Crazy Darba’s barn,” Burkholder muttered. “Just outside the Rum Room. I left him lying in a heap. On the concrete pad. Right where he fell.”

  Then with sorrow cast in his eyes, Burkholder turned to Katie and asked, “Do you think Vesta knows by now?”

  “I don’t know, Crist,” Katie said, laying a gentle hand on his arm. “News travels. Have you told anyone else?”

  “No,” Burkholder said. “But Darba saw me running up her drive.”

  “Will she know to check in the barn?” the bishop asked.

  Crist shrugged. “I left my Chevy running. With the lights on. So maybe she’ll go down there.”

  “I need to go to Darba,” Katie said. “She’s gonna need some help today.”

  The bishop disagreed. “No, Katie. We need to find a phone.”
>
  “You two can do that, while I check on Darba.”

  “No, Katie. I need you to get the Burkholders.”

  “OK, but I can do both.”

  The bishop hesitated, and then nodded. “Which phone should I let on that I know about?”

  Katie thought. “You know there are a lot of cell phones. If people were aware of that, you’d have to pass a ruling.”

  “I was thinking about Mony’s phone. In the woods behind his barns.”

  “If he knows that you know about that phone,” Katie said, “he’ll expect you to tell him to take it down.”

  “But I do know about his phone,” the bishop complained. “And I know about all the cell phones, too.”

  “Are you ready to rule against all the cell phones?” Katie asked.

  “I don’t know,” the bishop said, shaking his head. “Probably not yet.”

  “Then use Mony Detweiler’s phone in the woods. You can think about the cell phones later.”

  * * *

  With Crist Burkholder on the buckboard seat at his side, Bishop Shetler whipped his horse out onto Township Lane 601 and turned south to descend the high hill where the Shetler farm commanded a view of the wide pastoral valley of the Salt Creek South district. Shetler kept after his horse with an impatient whip, and a half mile later, he turned right to drop over a ridge into the long drive that cut the wide fields of Mony Detweiler’s farm, on a west-facing slope between 601 and the narrow creek far down in the timbered bottoms.

  As he pulled to a stop in front of the Detweilers’ white frame house, Shetler shouted out, “Mony!” and climbed down, stepped around, and eased Burkholder down from the buckboard.

  The front door opened, and a stocky woman in a plain rose dress and white lace apron stepped out onto the front porch, holding a kitchen towel and a white china plate that she was drying.

  Shetler called up to her. “Lizzie, I need to use Mony’s phone.”

  Other than the slight arching of an eyebrow, Lizzie Detweiler displayed no surprise. Circumspectly, she said, “Mony’s out in the barn, Bischoff.”

  Shetler scolded, “I know about the phone, Lizzie,” turning to round the corner of the house with Burkholder in tow.

  When the bishop confronted Mony Detweiler in the barn about his phone, the thin Amishman showed only a faint disappointment at losing his secret. When Shetler explained why he needed to use the phone, Detweiler took a sympathetic step toward Crist Burkholder, and then waved the two men forward, setting a hurried pace through the back doors of the barn, out into the woods behind.

  Young Burkholder and Bishop Shetler followed Detweiler along a trail for nearly a hundred yards through the timber, coming at last to a small glade, where an old-fashioned black dial phone was mounted on a wooden shelf fastened to the broad trunk of a maple tree. A small, shingled roof with sideboards sheltered the phone.

  Taking the lead, Detweiler stepped up to the phone, spun the dial through a nine and two ones, and held the phone receiver out for the bishop. Shetler took the phone, held it to his ear tentatively, and then pressed the earpiece closer to listen, saying, “Yes, I have an emergency. One of my boys has killed a man. Glenn Spiegle.”

  Then Burkholder and Detweiler heard the bishop answer several questions from the 911 operator:

  “No, Crist Burkholder. It is Glenn Spiegle who has been killed.”

  “Crist has told me only that he struck Glenn Spiegle in a fight, and that Spiegle is dead.”

  “In Darba Winters’s barn, on Township Lane 601.”

  “Yes, Township 601. The Billy and Darba Winters residence.”

  “It’s the brick ranch home, across the road from the Spiegle farm.”

  “Really? How did that happen so fast?”

  “OK, we’ll go there now.”

  “Yes, tell the sheriff we will be there in ten minutes.”

  “No, Crist says openly that he did it.”

  “No, not really.”

  “OK, but please tell the sheriff that we are coming there now, so that Crist can turn himself in for the murder.”

  When he handed the phone back to Mony Detweiler, Bishop Shetler said, “The sheriff is already at Darba’s place. There’s a bit of a crowd out front on the lane, and the sheriff is down in the barn with the coroner.”

  Hesitating, the bishop added, “They’re expecting us, so we should get going.”

  Crist fell in behind Detweiler, who led the men back up the trail, with the bishop following after Crist. The morning light was stronger now, casting long shadows behind the tall hickory, walnut, and maple trees of the wood. The splashes of fall color overhead were backlit by the sunlight, giving a red-orange glow to the trail. Leaves already down crunched underfoot, and the acorns and twigs cracked and popped as the men paced along, Burkholder whispering, “I need to talk to Vesta.”

  Behind him, the bishop said, “First, Crist, you need to tell the sheriff exactly what you did. There’ll be plenty of time to talk to Vesta, after that.”

  Stopping to turn back to the bishop, Burkholder asked, “What makes you think she will come to see me in jail?”

  Thinking compassion appropriate where encouragement wasn’t reasonable, Shetler took Burkholder by the shoulders, and said gently, “I’ll bring her down to see you, Crist. Once she is ready to talk.”

  Privately, Shetler wondered, How many bishops do you know, Old Leon, who would know what to do now?

  3

  Wednesday, October 7

  7:00 A.M.

  THE BISHOP drove Crist back to the Shetler farm on the high ground along 601. In the kitchen, they found a note from Leon’s wife. Shetler read the short note and handed it to Burkholder. Crist read it while the bishop pulled a pitcher of fresh milk out of the heavy wooden icebox beside the pantry:

  Leon—I have gone to get the Burkholders. I will meet you at Darba’s place. I finished milking Hedda. You should eat something.

  Shetler poured two glasses of milk and handed one to Burkholder, saying, “You should eat something.”

  While Crist sipped milk, the bishop pulled two oranges out of the crate under the kitchen sink and handed one to Burkholder. Crist set his glass on the counter and absently rolled the orange in his fingers. The bishop took it back, pierced the peel with his thumbnail, worked some of the peel loose, and handed it back to Burkholder. “You can eat that in the hack. On the way to see the sheriff.”

  * * *

  A mile north on 601, the bishop pulled his horse left into Darba Winters’s drive and stopped at the top of the slope that led down to Darba’s red barn. The coroner’s wagon was parked in front of the barn doors, which were closed.

  At the top of the drive, Deputy Stan Armbruster stroked a palm over the nose of the bishop’s buggy horse and then stepped to the side to talk.

  Shetler said, “We need to see the sheriff. This is Crist Burkholder.”

  Armbruster keyed his shoulder mic and said, “Crist Burkholder is here.” Below at the barn, a small door swung open, and Sheriff Bruce Robertson and Sergeant Ricky Niell stepped outside to wave Shetler and Burkholder down the long drive.

  Abruptly, Burkholder leapt off the buckboard seat of the hack and started down the drive with a determined gait, shouting, “I did it. I killed him.”

  Robertson started up the drive with Niell, and they met Burkholder halfway. Holding out his wrists for cuffs, Burkholder confessed again, saying, “I killed him. I killed Glenn Spiegle.”

  Gently, Robertson pushed Burkholder’s hands down and said, “We’ve no need for that, Crist. Not yet.”

  “I did it. I killed him.”

  “I know,” Robertson said. “Can we ask you some questions? In the barn?”

  By now, Bishop Shetler had pulled his rig off to the side, and he joined the men on the gravel drive. The four men turned for the barn, with Robertson leading and Ricky Niell following after Burkholder and Shetler.

  Inside the barn, Coroner Missy Taggert had set up three stands with bright floodlights p
owered by batteries on the ground. Lying in the focused beams of the lights, on the concrete slab behind a powder-blue Chevy Bellaire, was a prone body, covered with a long tarp.

  The shock of seeing the covered body caused Crist Burkholder to double over at the waist, and he turned into a corner of the barn and began to vomit up milk and bits of orange.

  Deputy Pat Lance, working beside the body with Missy Taggert, stood up and walked over to Crist, offering him a towel for his mouth. She laid her hand gently on his back, and Crist straightened up at her touch and pulled away, seeming shamed by his weakness. Lance, a stocky, blond Germanic woman in uniform, handed the towel to Burkholder and took a step back to give him some space for his embarrassment.

  Ricky stepped over and said, “Crist, we want you to look at the body. Tell us what you did.”

  “I can’t do that!” Crist cried out. Doubling over again, he heaved from his gut.

  The bishop said, “I can look,” and moved to Taggert’s side.

  Coroner Taggert, kneeling by the head, lifted the tarp for Shetler, and Shetler looked down, gasped, and stepped back. “That’s Glenn Spiegle. He’s got the farm across the road.”

  In the corner, Crist groaned, “I killed him,” and straightened up. He used one end of Lance’s towel to wipe his lips and the other end to dry his eyes. “I hit him as hard as I could, and he dropped straight down.”

  Robertson stepped up to Burkholder and asked, “Why did you fight, Mr. Burkholder?”

  “We fought about Vesta Miller. He said he wanted to marry her, and he knew I was going to.”

  “That’s all?” Robertson asked.

  “He said he’d die if he couldn’t marry her. Then he offered me fifteen thousand dollars to let her go. He just threw the money into the trunk of my car, so I got mad, and I hit him. After he dropped, I don’t remember much, until I was standing in Bishop Shetler’s barn.”