The Search

by Suzanne Fisher

  With unusual presence of mind, Bess thrust his hands in the bucket of water the catfish had been in. “What is the matter with you?”

  He yanked his hands up and she pushed them back in the water. “Those fish. Something’s wrong with them. I shouldn’t have left ’em on the porch, but that black cat of Bess’s was eyeing them in the barn.”

  “What makes you think something is wrong with them?” Bess asked. She was putting ice from the icebox into a rag and tying it up to make an ice pack.

  “Didn’t you see them?” he asked.

  “They were just as ugly as any other catfish,” Mammi offered.

  “They didn’t have whiskers,” he said, taking the ice pack that Bess offered to him. He leaned against the counter, holding the ice pack between his hands. “And one was missing its eyes. A few weeks ago Bess noticed that birds weren’t singing at the lake. So I’ve been back a few times. She’s right. There’s no birds up there anymore. And this time, I found these fish up on the shore, practically dead. Something’s wrong with that lake.”

  “Blue Lake Pond?” Mammi put a hand against her chest. “That place is teeming with wildlife. My Samuel used to say he only needed to hold out a pail on the shore and fish would jump in.”

  “Not anymore,” Billy said mournfully.

  “What were you planning to do with the catfish?” Bess asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I hadn’t gotten that far.”

  “Something like that happened in Berlin. A company dumped chemicals in a lake. Birds ate the fish and they ended up with strange-looking babies.”

  Billy’s dark eyebrows shot up. “Someone is polluting the lake.”

  “Maybe so,” Bess said. “But you need proof.” She held up some B&W salve to put on his hands.

  He held out his palms. “I don’t know what shocks me more.” He looked at Bess as she put a dab of salve on his hands. “Someone ruining my lake—” he gave her a sly grin—“or hearing you speak a full entire paragraph that makes sense.”

  Mammi snorted. “Come around here for breakfast sometime. She babbles like a brook. A person can hardly drink a cup of coffee in peace.”

  Bess wrapped a rag around Billy’s hand and tied it so tight he yelped like a snake bit him and yanked it away from her.

  “So how am I going to get some evidence that someone is polluting my lake?” he asked.

  Bess put the salve back in the kitchen drawer. “You have to go out there and look for tracks. Maybe even stay out there awhile and watch, at different times of the day. Even at night.”

  “Trapping!” Mammi said happily, clapping her big red hands together. “Haven’t gone trapping in years. Used to be my favorite thing in the world. We’ll go tonight.”

  Later that evening, Jonah Riehl was on the bus heading to Pennsylvania. He gave Mose a note to give to Sallie, telling her he had a sudden errand to attend to. He didn’t explain the circumstances. He felt too ashamed of what had happened. He leaned against the window on the bus and tried to sleep, but his thoughts kept him awake. He had been back in Stoney Ridge only once in the last fifteen years—for his father’s funeral—since he left it that year after Rebecca died.

  It was the trial that made him decide to leave Stoney Ridge for good.

  The truck driver who crashed into the buggy, killing Rebecca, had been driving under the influence of alcohol that night. Jonah had to testify against him. It tore Jonah up—he was grieving so deeply for his Rebecca, yet he couldn’t ignore the anguish in the truck driver’s eyes. He saw the driver’s wife at the trial every single day, looking as if she was barely holding herself together in one piece. Who was he to ever judge another man? If he couldn’t forgive that man for what he had done, how could he ever expect God to forgive him? In a letter presented by Jonah’s bishop, he had asked the judge for mercy. “He has suffered, and suffered heavily. It was a tragedy, not a crime. Sending the defendant to prison would serve no good purpose, and I plead leniency for him.”

  The state was less generous. The truck driver was sentenced to six years in prison for reckless driving and involuntary manslaughter.

  Jonah also asked the judge to dismiss a petition for a wrongful death settlement because he was receiving all the financial help he needed from the church. The judge looked at him as if he thought Jonah might have endured more than broken bones in the accident—maybe he had been brain damaged.

  The insurance company representing the truck that had struck their buggy and killed Rebecca had offered Jonah a settlement of $150,000. Jonah returned the check to the insurance company with a statement: “I’m not seeking revenge. Our Bible says revenge is not for us.”

  Someone in the insurance company, astounded by Jonah’s letter and returned check, leaked it to the press. Newspaper writers and photographers swarmed to Rose Hill Farm like bees to a flower. Jonah couldn’t even go out of his house without someone trying to take his picture and ask for comments. He thought it would blow over, but the story was picked up and reported across the nation. He received hundreds of letters expressing sympathy. And then ordinary folks started arriving at Rose Hill Farm, knocking on their door and wanting to see Bess. That was when he couldn’t take it any longer. Every day brought reminders of what he had lost. It was just too painful to stay in Stoney Ridge. Even more so because he knew better. His people were known for yielding and accepting God’s will. Yet, deep inside, he was angry with God for what had happened. It made it worse still for him to be among his people and feel like an outsider.

  His father understood why he had to move, but his mother didn’t. She felt that family belonged together, through thick or thin. Maybe that was why he agreed to let Bess go this summer. It was time to smooth things out with his mother.

  His eyes jerked open. How could he possibly smooth things out when his mother got his daughter tossed into jail?

  When a round and creamy moon rose above the barn later that evening, Billy came back to Rose Hill Farm to pick up Mammi and Bess in his open courting buggy. It was so small that it tilted to one side when Mammi climbed up on it. Bess was squished between Mammi and Billy and tried not to notice how good Billy smelled—like pine soap. He led the horse up to the turnoff to the lake and drove the buggy to the edge of the trees. Then he hopped out. “I thought we would walk the perimeter and see if we find anything out of the ordinary.”

  Bess climbed out behind him.

  “I’d better stay alert for us all and keep a lookout on things at this end of the lake,” Mammi said, stretching out in the buggy seat. She yawned. “I’ve got eyes like an eagle and ears like an Indian scout.” She dropped right off.

  Billy and Bess had hardly gone a few hundred yards when they heard the rhythm of Mammi’s snores echoing off the still lake water.

  “She’s as loud as an air compressor,” Billy said.

  “This is just the prelude snore,” Bess said. “Wait till you hear what it sounds like when she’s sleeping deep. She rattles the windows. And if you think that’s loud, you should stand clear of her sneezes. If I sneezed like Mammi did, I would fly apart.”

  A laugh burst out of Billy and he stopped to turn around and look at Bess, amazed. “It’s nice to hear you finally talking, Bess. Kinda made me nervous at first when I thought we were going to be stuck picking rose petals together all summer.”

  Bess’s knees suddenly felt as quivery as Mammi’s green Jell-O salad. Her heart was pounding so loudly she was sure it drowned out her grandmother’s snores. She hurried to keep up with Billy’s long strides. There weren’t many perfect moments in life, she thought happily, but this was surely one of them. Here she was with Billy Lapp, on a moonlit summer night, at a beautiful lake.

  “Whatever happened with that lake in Berlin?” Billy said, turning his head slightly to call back to her.

  Oh. Apparently she wasn’t exactly on the top of his mind like he was on hers. “Well, someone found out it was the chemical company that was dumping their waste in the lake. So then the state o
f Ohio got involved and the chemical company was fined a bunch of money and had to clean up the lake. Took a few years to come back, but now it’s just like it was before.”

  “How did the state of Ohio get involved?” Billy asked.

  “I guess someone notified the police.”

  Billy stopped abruptly. “Oh,” he said flatly. He looked crestfallen.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Even if we found something tonight, I’m not sure what I would do with the information. You know I can’t go running to the police.”

  Bess snorted. “Tell that to Mammi.”

  Billy took a few steps and whirled around. “This is no joking matter, Bess. What’s the point of trying to find out who’s polluting the lake if we can’t turn them in?”

  “Well, how are you going to protect the lake if you don’t find out what’s causing a problem?” She walked a few steps to catch up with him. “Maybe you’re getting ahead of yourself, assuming it’s a person doing wrong. Could be something else entirely.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, like algae growing. In science class, I learned about some kinds of algae that grow so thick they wipe out any oxygen in a pond, so all the plants and fish die. That might explain what happened to the birds. No fish, no birds.” Bess liked science much better than math.

  Billy took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair. Then he put his hat back on. “I guess what you’re saying is not to get ahead of myself.” He started walking again, scanning the shore for some sign of human activity. Too soon, they had walked the rim of the lake and were back at the buggy. Mammi’s head was rolled back and she was sawing logs. Billy helped Bess up into the buggy, which startled Mammi out of her deep slumber.

  “Sorry to wake you,” Bess said.

  “I was just resting my eyes,” Mammi said. “Find anything suspicious-looking?”

  “Nothing,” Billy said, untying the horse’s reins from the tree. “Not a thing.”

  “What about that?” Mammi pointed behind Billy. There, on the ground, was a pile of sawdust in between two wheel ruts, as if it had spilled from the back of a vehicle.

  Billy bent down and rubbed the sawdust between his fingers. “It’s fresh. I can smell the sap.” He picked up some more and looked up at the trees. “It’s not from these pines. It’s from a different wood. Someone brought it here.”

  “Could sawdust ruin a lake?” Bess asked.

  “If there’s enough of it,” he said.

  “I’m feeling a little peckish.” Mammi rubbed her big red hands together. “And when I get hungry, I get cranky.”

  And heaven knows, Bess thought, they couldn’t have that.

  Jonah got off of the bus in Stoney Ridge at five in the morning. He walked down Main Street straight to the sheriff’s office, but the doors were locked and it was pitch black inside. The town was silent. It drove him crazy knowing that Bess was just yards away from him, locked up in a dirty jail cell. Frustrated, he turned and bumped right into a young English woman as she came around the corner.

  “I’m sorry,” Jonah apologized and picked up the purse she had dropped. “What are you doing out at this hour of the morning?” he asked. The birds weren’t even singing yet.

  She looked at him cautiously, then seemed to relax as he handed her the purse. “I work at the bakery. This is when the workday starts. What about you?”

  He pointed up the street toward the bus stop. “I just got off the bus. Waiting for the sheriff to arrive.”

  “You might have a long wait. His hours can be very . . . casual.”

  Her gaze took in his straw hat and his jawline beard. Her face was lit softly by the streetlight and she smiled. To his surprise, so did he.

  “You look pretty harmless. Why don’t you wait for the sheriff in the bakery?” She crossed the street and unlocked the door to The Sweet Tooth, then turned on the lights.

  He followed her inside but stood by the door. She put on her apron and turned on the lights in the kitchen. He hadn’t really noticed what she looked like out in the dark street. He didn’t usually pay much attention to English women, but there was something appealing about this one. That face . . . it seemed vaguely familiar. Where had he seen her? He studied the woman more closely as she bustled around in the kitchen. There was a cautious quality in her eyes that made him suspect she’d seen more of life than she wanted to. He felt as if he’d met her before, but of course that was impossible. She was quite a lovely woman, he realized, with fragile, finely carved features and a long, slender neck. And she had been kind to him, even after he nearly knocked her down in the street.

  She poked her head out from the kitchen. “If you don’t mind waiting a minute, I’ll start the coffee.”

  “I don’t mind,” he said. He was famished. He hadn’t eaten dinner last night; he was too busy trying to pack and get to the bus station in time. He sat down in a chair at a small table and stretched out his legs.

  She set down a mug of coffee and a cinnamon roll on Jonah’s table. “Cream and sugar?” she asked, glancing at him. Then she got a startled look on her face and froze.

  He felt a spike of concern, wondering what had caused her to suddenly look so alarmed. Had he done something wrong? She dropped her eyes to the floor and spun around, returning to the kitchen to get started on the day’s baking.

  Jonah decided he should leave, that he must have made her uncomfortable, but she started to ply him with questions. Where had he come from? What was it like living there? She was mixing dough and rolling it out and the oven was starting to send out some delicious smells. Before he knew it, she was asking about his family and he found himself answering. He began to talk: slowly at first, like a rusted pump, then things started spilling out of him in a rush.

  “Rebecca and I met when we were both only sixteen. She lived in a neighboring district. I courted her for four years, driving my buggy two hours each way to see her on Saturday nights. Sometimes, I would barely arrive home in time to help my father milk the cows on Sunday morning.” He gazed into his coffee mug as the bakery lady refilled it. She poured herself a cup and slipped into a chair across from him, listening carefully.

  As Jonah lifted the coffee mug to his lips, his mind floated to a different time. “As soon as her father gave us his blessing, we married. Rebecca came to live at Rose Hill Farm and a year after that, our Bess arrived.” He glanced up at the bakery lady, wondering if she was listening to him only out of politeness, but the look on her face suggested otherwise, as if she was anxious for him to continue. “Most men wanted a son, but I was glad the Lord gave us a daughter. I knew Bess would be good company for Rebecca.” He stopped then and looked out the window at the empty street. “You see, I thought there would be plenty of time for sons. But there wasn’t.”

  “Life can be that way. Things have a way of not turning out the way we expect.” She said it so softly, he wondered if it was more his thought than her voice he’d heard.

  Jonah caught her gaze and gently smiled. “No, you’re right about that.”

  Then, in a voice that hurt him with its gentleness, she asked, “How did she die?”

  His smile faded and he took his time answering. He’d never spoken aloud of Rebecca’s accident, not with his parents or Bess, nor Mose. Not even with Sallie. Yet on this morning, the morning he returned to Stoney Ridge, he found himself wanting to talk about Rebecca. “It was a warm April night, just a week or so after Bess had been born. Rebecca wanted to go visit her folks—they were moving to Indiana—and truth be told, my mother was making Rebecca go a little stir crazy. She was always afraid of my mother, was Rebecca.” He gave up a slight smile. “My mother can be a little . . . overbearing.”

  The bakery lady nodded sympathetically, as if she understood perfectly.

  “The baby was in Rebecca’s arms, sound asleep, and Rebecca had nodded off. The baby’s blanket had slipped to the floor. I reached down to pick it up. I took my eyes off the road for just a moment . . .” His voic
e drizzled off and he closed his eyes tight. “It was the last thing I remember.” He covered his face with his hand, but just for a moment. He came to himself with a start and glanced cautiously at the bakery lady. She didn’t say a word, but the look in her eyes, it nearly took his breath away. It wasn’t pity, nor was it sorrow. It was . . . empathy. As if she understood what a horrific moment that was for him, and how that moment had changed his life.

  He hadn’t meant to reveal so much to an English stranger. It shocked him, the things that spilled out of him in the predawn of that day. Maybe he was just overly tired and overly worried about Bess and his mother, but talking to that bakery lady felt like a tonic. His heart felt lighter than it had in years.

  But this lady had work to do and he had stayed long enough. He stood to leave. “I don’t even know your name,” he said at the door. “I’m Jonah Riehl.”

  “I know,” she said, giving him a level look. “I know who you are.” She put out her hand to shake his.

  He took her hand in his. It surprised him, how soft and small it was.

  She took a deep breath. “My name is Lainey O’Toole.”

  Jonah’s dark eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Lainey? Lainey O’Toole. I remember you. You were just a slip of a girl. Simon’s stepdaughter.”

  She nodded.

  “You disappeared. After your mother died.”

  She nodded again.

  “What happened to you?”

  “I became a long-term houseguest of the state of Pennsylvania.”

  He must have looked confused because she hastened to add, “Foster care system. Until I was eighteen.”

  He leaned against the doorjamb. “What then?” Jonah asked. He was sincerely interested.