by P. L. Gaus
Robertson snorted. “Cal! She’s letting Amish kids run wild in her barn!”
“Kids are kids,” Cal said. “They need a safe place to go, and Darba’s generosity is well intentioned. She does good here.”
“That’s just great!” Robertson shot. “She’s giving them an excuse to run loose.”
“You want them running loose in town?”
“I don’t want them running loose at all,” Robertson said.
“Yeah, well, that’s not likely.”
Robertson gave up, said, “I’ve got to get going,” and walked out into the open barn. Cal followed and said to the sheriff’s back, “The Burkholders are going to want to talk to Crist. Vesta Miller, too.”
The sheriff kept going and talked back over his shoulder. “He’s got to be processed first. You know that.”
Cal advanced and pulled at the sheriff’s arm to turn him back around. “But this afternoon, Bruce, I’ll bring Vesta down.”
“Whatever.”
“Bruce, this needs to be handled gently. The Amish don’t know anything about criminal matters.”
Robertson considered the pastor’s intensity and softened. “I’ll let them talk to him as soon as his lawyer says it’s OK.”
7
Wednesday, October 7
MORNING
FEELING STIFF and mechanical, but trusting that Dr. Carson had been right on the phone, Darba went slowly about the business of the normal, getting herself out of her bathrobe and into something “comfortable and happy,” as Carson had put it—a loose-fitting sundress with a purple and green trillium pattern. She pulled the dress over a white cotton blouse and slipped into a pair of summer sandals, starting to remember some of the details about finding the body and calling 911.
In jerky, awkward sequences, as if it were an old, silent movie in her mind, she saw herself walking up to the body of Glenn Spiegle, sprawled out prone on the concrete, beside the blue Chevy.
A sad Oh, Billy! sparked in her thoughts. Your best friend. Murdered while you are in Florida.
An Amish lad had admitted doing it? Was that possible? But she had seen him running up her drive. It was his car she had found running in the barn.
Then the bullish sheriff had come—crawling through her barn. Nosing into her Rum Room, no doubt. And Oh! How much they would judge her for keeping that room! “Crazy Darba” is what they’d all say, Amish and English alike.
But her medicine was starting to help now, and instead of nursing her “negativities” as she sometimes was inclined to do, Darba knew to stand at the picture window and wait for Dr. Carson. “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Carson had promised.
So, just stand here quietly, Darba told herself. Let the medicine work. Watch the people.
Bishop Shetler, out front. Katie, too.
Cal Troyer, up and down the drive.
Oh, Billy! her thoughts cried anew, as she swung back into a memory of the morning. Do you know your friend is dead? Did you feel him go?
Glenn Spiegle had tried so hard. He had tried so hard for a new life. Who will stand up for him now, Billy? You did everything you could, but who will stand up for him now?
Not the bullish sheriff, Billy. He never liked you, anyway. He doesn’t know how much you did to help Glenn Spiegle. He doesn’t know the real you. So, he won’t stand up for Glenn. Not like you would.
How did Spiegle’s troubles find him, all the way up here? He had made such a good start here with the Amish. But that’s all gone now, Darba girl. That’s all gone like your job.
Sadly shaking her head, and aware only intermittently of her thoughts, Darba found herself gazing out at her Amish neighbors and friends, gathered on her front lawn.
She knew them all, young and old. Children, parents, and grandparents. The younger parents had been students in her last sixth-grade classroom. Not so long ago, Darba girl. Grown now, with children of their own.
There’s Ricky Niell, putting young Burkholder in the back of that cruiser. The cruiser driving away. People heading home.
Cal Troyer, with Leon, and Katie Shetler, watching her from her front lawn. Talking. Probably talking about you, Darba girl.
People out here won’t let me teach anymore.
After a black spell, Darba thought again of the barn. I didn’t go to the barn right away. They’ll never understand that. How my brain is slow to focus when I’m off my medicine. They don’t understand how the smoke can drift into my mind. They never get the “tickle knees.” Never get the “crinklies” inside their ears. So, they won’t understand why I waited to go down to the barn.
Never mind. Doesn’t matter.
Glenn Spiegle tried so hard.
Oh, Billy! Billy. Your friend is dead. Why can’t you answer your phone? Just switch it on for once. Just check your messages. The government can’t always want to track you.
* * *
When Katie Shetler knocked on her front door, the smoke had been drifting again through Darba Winters’s mind. She opened her eyes and stepped woodenly to the door. When she opened it, Katie spoke through the screen. “Darba, are you OK?”
Darba gave a halfhearted smile, and Katie pulled the screened door open. “Darba, can I use your bathroom?”
Darba nodded and stepped back. Katie stepped inside and said, “Can we make some coffee?”
To clear her thoughts, Darba stretched her eyes open wide and rolled her head from side to side.
“Make some coffee?” Katie asked again.
Darba studied Katie in the vestibule and settled her sight on Katie’s Amish attire. You have always rather liked it, Darba girl.
An ankle-length dark plum dress, with four pleats in front, and four matching pleats in back. Tied at the waist with a plain and thin dark plum string. Plain, round neckline with a thin, stitched border. Covered in front with a white day apron. The fabric of Katie’s sleeves gathered over the rounds of her shoulders. Over her hair bun, a white prayer cap, cloth ties hanging down over the back of her shoulders. On her feet, Katie wore plain black Rockport walkers, with about an inch of black hose showing at her ankles. Yes, Darba rather liked Amish attire.
Seeing Darba’s thoughts drift away, Katie tried again. “Darba, let’s put up some coffee. We can talk.”
“Is someone looking after Vesta Miller?” Darba asked, turning slowly for the kitchen.
“Yes, Darba.”
Darba stopped in the living room and turned back to Katie. “Her father is a monster.”
“We can talk in the kitchen,” Katie said, waving Darba on.
Darba started again toward the kitchen, and then she stopped again. “Who is helping Vesta?”
“She’s next door, Darba,” Katie said and led into the kitchen. “She’s with Emma Peachey. I think Anna Mast is there, too.”
In the kitchen, Katie took out Darba’s coffee carafe and filled it with water at the sink. Darba stood haplessly in the doorway, watching Katie make the coffee. When the coffeemaker was chirping, Katie took a seat at Darba’s kitchen table and waved for Darba to join her. Darba sat down and stared at the red Formica tabletop. After another slow roll of her head, she asked, “Are they upset with me for not going down to the barn right away?”
“I don’t think so,” Katie said. “I don’t see why they would be.”
Darba closed her eyes on a memory. “Glenn Spiegle didn’t deserve to be beaten like that.”
Katie glanced over at the coffeemaker and said, “I’m sorry you had to see that, Darba.”
Eyes open again, Darba asked, “Did young Burkholder really say he did it?”
“He wouldn’t lie, Darba.”
“No, I suppose not.”
When the pot had finished brewing, Katie got up, poured two cups, and brought them back to the table, saying, “Drink some coffee, Darba. It’ll help if we talk.”
“OK,” Darba said and stared at the cup in front of her.
“Is Evie coming out?” Katie asked.
“I called her.”
“As soon as she can get here.”
“We can talk while we wait.”
“OK.”
“Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“Smoke in my thoughts.”
“Anything else?”
Darba shrugged. “It’s a shame about Vesta. Her father is such a know-it-all.”
8
Wednesday, October 7
10:30 A.M.
AS HE came up the Millers’ long dirt drive in his buggy, Bishop Shetler met Jacob Miller walking out toward the blacktopped road, Township Lane 569, which makes a T-intersection with 601 about a mile north of the bishop’s farm. Miller was carrying an old brown hard-shell suitcase, and he seemed to be in a hurry.
Shetler stopped his buggy on the drive and waited for Miller to come forward. Stopping beside Shetler’s rig, Miller glanced anxiously down the drive to 569, and began to offer an explanation, saying, “Bischoff, I’ve got to take a short trip. I need to catch a taxi.”
“You have a taxi coming to your house?”
“Well, one of the travel vans, really. I need to catch it at the end of the drive, there.”
“Will you be gone long?”
“A few days. Maybe three or four.”
“And your family?”
“They know their chores.”
“Aren’t you going to check on Vesta? She’s still at the Peacheys’ house.”
“My Annie can check, Bischoff. I told her to check.”
“You seem anxious, Jacob.”
“I just need to catch this taxi.”
“Where are you going?”
“Sarasota.”
“Pinecraft?”
“Yes. Pinecraft.”
“I didn’t know a bus was leaving today.”
Miller set his suitcase on the drive and took a handkerchief out of the side pocket of his britches. Despite the autumn coolness, his blue shirt was stained with sweat under his arms. He wiped his beaded brow, pushed the handkerchief back into his side pocket, and picked his suitcase up again, saying, “I’m not really taking a bus, Bischoff.”
“You’d hire a taxi to go to Florida?”
Uneasy, Miller answered, “No, Bischoff, I am taking an airplane.”
“We use vans and buses, Jacob. Not airplanes.”
“It has to be a quick trip, Bischoff. The corn needs to come in next week, and I should be here for that, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” the bishop intoned. “You need to be here, with your family.”
“I’ll be back in a few days, Bischoff. We can talk then, if you wish.”
Shetler looked down to the Miller house at the end of the long drive. A daughter was cutting grass with an old, smoky gasoline mower. Another daughter was hanging laundry out to dry on a line at the side of the house. The oldest son, Andy, stepped down from the front porch, waved to the bishop, and went into the barn to the right of the house. From the chimney of the grandparents’ Daadihaus to the left, a thin line of gray smoke rose into the sky and blew away on a high breeze. The pinging of a hammer on metal came from an outbuilding beyond the barn, and at the front parlor window, the bishop could see a young girl gazing out between the long purple curtains.
No longer surprised by anything new he discovered about Jacob Miller, the bishop still considered it a revelation that Miller would be leaving town while his family was, from all reports, in such obvious crisis, and with his daughter Vesta struck numb by heartache and despair over Crist Burkholder. So he focused his stern attentions back on Miller and said, “Jacob, we are commanded to be ‘as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves.’ Do you still know what that means? I have preached about it many times at Sunday meetings.”
Surprised and very much chastened by the bishop’s tone, Miller nodded.
“Because, Jacob, I’m not sure, anymore, that you do understand this scripture.”
Miller stared back in silent shock.
“Which of these two injunctions is written, Jacob, for the well-being of wolves?”
“What?”
“The verse begins, ‘Behold I send you out as sheep among wolves. Wherefore be ye as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves.’ So, I ask you, which of these two injunctions is written for the benefit of the wolves?”
After a long pause, Miller replied, “Bischoff, if you don’t mind, I really do need to catch a ride. Can we talk when I get back?”
“The answer is ‘Neither,’ Jacob.”
“What?”
“The answer to my question is ‘Neither.’”
“What?”
Weary to the core, the bishop sighed out the full weight of his years, disinclined to explain his point further. “Then go along, Jacob,” he said. “But when you fly home, come first to my house, not here to yours.”
“Why, Bischoff?”
“I’ve got a decision to make about you, Jacob, but first I need to minister to your family.”
“A decision?”
“Yes. Do you understand? Come first to my house, not to yours.”
“I really don’t understand, Bischoff.”
“I know you don’t, Jacob. Believe me, I know.”
Miller shook his head as if he were perplexed by a great mystery, and Shetler stared back at him with calm certainty.
“Do you pray for your wife, Jacob?”
“Yes, Bischoff.”
“What do you pray, Jacob?”
“That she will be steadfast, diligent, industrious.”
“These are qualities in a wife that would please you, Jacob?”
“Yes.”
Gazing sternly into Miller’s eyes, the bishop asked, “What blessings do you pray for your wife, Jacob?”
Again Miller answered, “Steadfastness, diligence, industry, Bischoff. Are these not the qualities of a good wife?”
Shetler sighed with weariness and shame. He looked to his feet and said humbly and meekly, as if he were handing a jewel of great worth to a man who could not appreciate its value, “When she falls asleep in my arms, Jacob, in my prayers, I take Katie’s name into the throne room of God, and I weep at His feet to thank Him for the joy she has brought to me. I weep at His feet to praise Him for His gift of her to me.”
“Bischoff?” Miller asked, dumbfounded by the man’s self-effacing sincerity.
Shetler let a long, disquieting moment pass while Miller grew ever more uncomfortable, and then he said, “Jacob, I am not going to let you go home to your family, until you have learned to pray for your wife.”
9
Wednesday, October 7
10:45 A.M.
WHILE BRUCE and Missy were finishing their work in the barn, Cal knocked at Darba’s back door. Katie Shetler opened the kitchen door and stepped out onto the screened porch to let Cal in. Darba was still seated at the kitchen table, nursing her first cup of coffee. She did not make an effort to greet Cal, other than to toe a chair out for him and nod that he should take a seat opposite her. Before she reclaimed her seat next to Darba, Katie poured Cal a cup of coffee and set it in front of him.
Once seated, Katie said to Cal, “Billy is in Florida.”
“Won’t answer his phone,” Darba said to her coffee cup. “He doesn’t know his friend is dead.”
“Have you left messages?” Cal asked.
“About a hundred,” Darba said. She looked over to encourage Katie to explain.
Katie said, “Billy doesn’t like to leave his phone on. So, at the end of the day, he switches on only long enough to check his messages. Then, if he needs to call Darba, he uses a land line.”
“He conserves his minutes?” Cal asked.
“No,” Darba laughed. “He doesn’t want the government to be able to track him.”
“Does he take the battery out?” Cal asked. “Because they can still tell where the phone is, if he doesn’t do that.”
Darba smiled as if the question were sophomoric. “Of course, Cal. Billy likes to be thorough.�
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“He doesn’t like the government?” Cal asked.
“Ha!” shot Darba.
“That’d be an understatement,” Katie answered.
Cal smiled and tasted the coffee. Burnt, he thought. Need to make another pot.
“Darba,” Katie asked, “have you ever told Cal what Billy does after he makes his deliveries?”
Cal shook his head as Darba told Katie, “No.”
Then to Cal, Darba said, “He parks at Bradenton Beach to watch the sunsets. He won’t switch on to check his messages until it’s dark.”
“But you said you left him messages this morning,” Cal said. “Why would you do that, if you know he doesn’t use his phone until after dark?”
“Got worried,” Darba explained. “Maybe he’ll check early, for once.”
The doorbell rang, and Katie got up and started toward the living room to answer it. But before she reached the living room, Evelyn Carson pushed in and entered at the front door. She started through the living room, calling out to Katie, “Is she OK?”
“I can hear you, Dr. Carson,” Darba sang out. “I’m fine.”
Silently, Katie shook her head for Carson, who came through the living room and into the kitchen ahead of Katie. Taking the fourth chair, opposite Katie’s cup of coffee, Carson sat down and studied Darba’s eyes.
“Have you taken all of your medicine?” she asked Darba, and accepted a cup of coffee from Katie. Ignoring the coffee in front of her, Carson held her gaze on Darba and reached for her wrist to take her pulse. Familiar with the routine, Darba held her wrist out and said, “I’m much better, Dr. Carson. Finding the body threw me off. Forgot my morning meds.”
Carson released Darba’s wrist and nodded satisfaction. “I want you to tell me about your mood, Darba.”
Darba glanced with embarrassment at Cal and then Katie, and Cal stood up, saying, “I’ll clear out, so you two can talk.”
Still standing, Katie said, “I’ll check on the bishop. He said he’d need help at the Jacob Millers.”
* * *
When they had left, Dr. Carson moved Darba into the living room and asked her to lie back in an easy chair and close her eyes. When Darba was positioned, Carson said, “First words, Darba. What are they?”