by P. L. Gaus
“What about their connections with the Schells?” Branden asked.
“Donna gave them some referrals, from time to time,” Robertson said. “Nothing beyond that.”
“And the Schells?” Branden asked. “You consider that Ed and Donna are telling us the truth, now?”
Robertson shrugged his shoulders and turned to look in at Donna and Detective Lance. He put his hands in his coat pockets and fumbled a bit with his keys. Then he turned back to Branden. “They’re on the same page, Mike. But it’s not the same story that they floated last week. Either they’re finally telling the truth, or they’ve had time to square their stories.”
Branden shook his head. “They’re still lying about something. I’d guess it’s their connection with this Omaha church.”
Robertson asked, “What makes you think that?”
“A blue passenger van, Sheriff. A blue van and phone calls to you from someone pretending to be Mary Yost.”
“You want to try something, Mike?”
Branden nodded. “Which of these two do you think is the poorest liar?”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Lance left Donna alone in Interview A, and she joined Ricky and the sheriff in the observation room. On the other side of the one-way glass, the professor sat talking with Ed Schell in Interview B.
“You really focus on the Schwartzentrubers, don’t you, Ed.”
“Yes, of course,” Ed said with a measure of pride. “They are clearly the most backward. I ought to know better than anyone. It’s a miracle that my parents got us out of that sect.”
“And you consider yourself to be a missionary?”
Schell did not reply.
“Doesn’t matter,” Branden said. “The Church of True Believers considers you to be missionaries to the Amish.”
Again, no reply came from Ed.
“That’s a little bit strange, don’t you think? I mean, aren’t missionaries usually sent overseas?”
Ed smiled. “You don’t have to live overseas to have a wrong understanding of faith.”
“A wrong understanding of faith,” Branden enunciated carefully. “Who understands their faith wrongly? The Amish? I mean precisely, Ed. Who?”
“Well, Schwartzentrubers, surely,” Ed said. “Others, too.”
“Well, you see, Ed. That’s something that has bothered me since I began to understand what it is that you and Donna have really been doing.”
With a dismissive smile, Ed said, “I don’t think you understand at all, Professor.”
“I think I do, Ed.”
“No, you don’t. You wouldn’t be harassing me if you did.”
“We’re just talking, Ed.”
“No! You’re like the others. You really don’t get it.”
“I’ll listen, Ed. You can explain it to me. Really, I’d like to understand.”
Loudly, Schell declared, “They are not practicing faith the right way, Professor!”
“What are they missing? You still haven’t told me.”
“You can’t just do it, Professor. You really have to believe it.”
Branden leaned in to glare across the table. “There was no taxi, Ed.”
“What?”
“There was no taxi for Mary and her two children.”
“You’ve lost your mind, Professor.”
“You said they went off in a taxi, but it was a blue van from CTB in Omaha. You could have just told us the truth. But you knew you had done something wrong, and you started lying about Mary from the first night you came over to my house.”
“Taxi? What in the world?”
“Mary and her two children are in Omaha. It’s rather obvious that they traveled there in a blue passenger van owned by the CTB. You could have just told us that. You could have just told us the truth.”
“Really, that’s a small matter, Professor.”
“You lied to cover the truth. That’s an indication that you were aware of your criminality. But there’s more.”
“Do I need a lawyer?”
“Again, you’re aware of a crime. Just by asking that, you admit that you are fully aware of a crime. I suspect you’ve been covering for CTB. Someone there is going to be charged with hindering a law enforcement investigation. You will probably be charged with that, too.”
“What are you talking about? Nobody . . .”
“Stop! Stop before you make it worse. Someone made phone calls to the sheriff, pretending to be Mary Yost. I suspect it will have been one of your confederates at CTB. That’s criminal interference. Do you want to tell me who it was who made those calls?”
Schell had nothing to say.
Branden stood and pronounced a judgement. “Worse than anything, Ed? You broke apart a family because they don’t agree with your definition of faith.”
“You don’t know anything about this sort of thing, Professor.”
“No, I suppose not,” Branden said, sitting down again. “But I can see that the Schwartzentrubers are living their faith every day.”
Haughtily, Schell asked, “What kind of faith is that?”
“Faith isn’t real unless you’re living it every day, Ed. The Schwartzentrubers are actually living their faith every day.”
“They just follow their rules, Branden.”
“No, I don’t think so,” the professor said. “And I can tell you something else, Ed.”
“You’re a real expert, now, Professor?”
“On this point, yes. Until it has been tested, you can’t know that your faith is strong.”
“How would you know anything about a test of faith?”
“Cal Troyer, Ed. Cal Troyer is teaching me this right now.”
Ed Schell harrumphed. He looked disconcerted. He seemed overwhelmed with anxiety.
“Tell me this, Ed,” Branden said. “When you knew Mary Yost needed help, why didn’t you just go to the bishop? You could have started by talking with the bishop.”
Schell adjusted himself on his chair nervously. “He wouldn’t have listened.”
“Are you sure?”
“He’s a Schwartzentruber, Professor. Of course I’m sure. I know first-hand what I’m talking about.”
Branden smiled snidely, hoping that it would look like an accusation to Ed Schell. “They’re too backward, Mr. Schell? The Schwartzentrubers? How about this? Alva Yost is going to let John Yost take antidepressant medications. Is that good enough for you, Schell? Are you sure that the bishop wouldn’t have helped you with Mary? Because if you aren’t sure about that, then you’ve wasted two lives, and broken apart a family, for nothing.”
Schell stammered. “I. We. I.”
“Starting to see it, Schell?”
Ed’s face took a blush that must have put uncomfortable heat into his cheeks. He curled an eyebrow, thinking it through.
Branden pressed forward. “One last thing, Schell. I just want to know one last thing.”
“What?” Schell asked weakly.
“Meredith Silver wrote that you made a promise to Mary Yost. She wrote it just before she died. As if that were the only reason Mary was willing to leave her family. What was it, Ed? Your promise.”
Ed Schell groaned. Head down, he said, “We promised Mary that we’d get the other children out, too.”
“How in the world did you expect to make good on that promise?”
Schell put his head in his hands and leaned over with his elbows on the table top. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “I really don’t know.”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Branden joined the sheriff and his detectives in the observation room. In Interview A, Donna was finishing another cup of coffee. Tired and distracted, she sighed heavily and tossed her coffee cup into the trash can in the corner of the room. Nervously, she scratched again at the wound on her left hand.
In Interview B, Ed Schell was pacing nervously from one end of the room to the other. He didn’t look happy.
Robertson said to his people, “
They’ve been mixed up in this from the beginning. They’ve been lying on so many levels that it’s astonishing.”
Branden said, “They’ve been trying to keep us from finding Mary Yost.”
“Yah, well they’ve done a pretty good job of that,” Robertson exclaimed.
The professor drew closer to the glass and said, “Wait, are any of you seeing this? It wasn’t an oven rack.”
“What?” Robertson asked.
“The band-aid,” Branden said. “She took it off, and now she’s scratching at her palm.”
Robertson came forward, too. “The band-aid?”
The professor said, “She had that wound the first night they came over with Cal. It was late Monday night, after Lydia and Meredith had died.”
“Mike, What are you talking about?”
Branden explained. “She said she burned her hand on an oven rack. But dollars-to-donuts it was a revolver. She burned her left hand on a revolver’s cylinder gap.”
“Donna shot Meredith Silver?” Ricky asked.
Robertson guffawed and said immediately, “Ricky, I want you to get an evidence case.”
“Which one, Sheriff?”
“Doesn’t matter. A yellow one. A big one. I want to be able to pull out a bunch of equipment. And Pat, get the fingerprint reader and its laptop out of the squad room. Then I want you both to carry it all in and drop it on the table in front of Donna Schell.”
When it was arranged as the sheriff wished, Robertson entered the room shaking his head and wearing a deep frown. He advanced immediately to the trash can and retrieved the coffee cup that Donna had pitched out there. He also pulled out the band-aid, and he bagged each of them separately. He was using a blue nitrile glove, and he made a show of handing the items back to Niell.
“Detective Niell,” he said, “I want the print from this cup sent to this laptop as soon as possible. Also, I want DNA from this band-aid.”
Niell backed out of the room with an accusatory smile at Donna Schell.
Robertson sat across the table from Donna and said, “We’ve always wondered about a second set of prints on Meredith Silver’s suicide note. I think we’re going to clear that up right now.”
Donna issued forth with a nervous laugh. “What in the world?”
Robertson arranged the fingerprint reader in front of Donna and said, “Lay your four fingertips on the glass, Mrs. Schell.”
“I don’t have to do that!” she exclaimed.
Evenly, Robertson intoned, “Either you clear this fingerprint comparison by giving me your prints, or I intend to charge you with the murder of Meredith Silver.”
“What? What? I mean, why? Why would you think . . . .?”
“Your fingertips, Mrs. Schell. On the glass.”
“I don’t want to.”
Robertson held a pause. He studied Donna Schell’s anxious expression and said, “Donna Schell, you’re being charged with . . .”
“OK! OK! They’re my prints. I was there. I picked it up and read the note.”
“And the gun?”
“What?”
Robertson shook his head disdainfully. He reached into the yellow evidence kit and pulled out a cotton swab. He also retrieved a sample bottle, which he set on the table between them. “I believe you shot her, Mrs. Schell. I believe that if I use this test for gunshot residue - and believe me it doesn’t wash off that easily - I’m gonna find that you shot the gun that killed Meredith Silver.”
“I don’t have to sit for this!” Donna complained.
“You don’t know anything about revolvers, do you Mrs. Schell?”
Indignantly, Donna said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Robertson nodded and smiled. “The professor saw it first. The burn on your hand, there. You see, the gun fire doesn’t come out of just the front of the barrel, Donna. Revolvers are different from automatics. For revolvers, the fire sprays out sideways through the cylinder gap, too. That’s how you burned your left hand. You were holding the revolver with both hands. Your left hand was covering over the cylinder gap.”
“No!” Donna cried out.
“Mrs. Schell, you are being charged with the murder of . . . “
“OK! Stop! I didn’t kill her. Oh, how could I! Sheriff, I tried to stop her!”
“You’re going to have to explain that, Mrs. Schell.”
“She had the gun,” Donna said, now abruptly calm, as if she had been relieved of an unendurable burden. “When I got there, she was standing in the kitchen with the thing pressed up under her chin. She was muttering, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’ Time and again. I raced up to her and grabbed at the stupid gun. I don’t know anything about guns. We wrestled over it. I got it out from under her chin, and then I stepped back. The stupid thing just went off while I was holding it. I don’t know guns. I didn’t know it could do that. We were wrestling for the gun. I thought I had saved her. But it just went off.”
With that, Donna laid her head in her hands on the tabletop, and she wept. Robertson allowed her time to spend her grief out in front of him, and then he stepped around the table and lifted Donna gently to her feet. She stood willingly, and the sheriff waved at the glass mirror to bring his detectives into the interview room.
As they were leading her away, Robertson said, “Wait Ricky. Donna, there’s one more thing.”
Donna turned back to him with red, swollen eyes. “What?” she asked meekly. “What else can there be?”
“Donna,” Robertson said. “What did you do with the gun?”
Donna seemed puzzled for a moment, looking like she had never once thought about this, and looking like she had managed to forget something that to her was immeasurably dreadful. Eventually she said, quietly, “I ran out the front door. I ran to my car. I had the wretched gun, and I ran into the back yard. I ran across the field behind her house, and I ran into the woods. Then I just threw the thing into the trees, as far as I could manage. I threw it into the woods behind her house.”
Chapter 35
Monday, September 4
1:15 PM
In Professor Branden’s office, Lawrence Mallory announced, “Kathryn Rausch is here, Mike.”
Branden stood. “Show her in, Lawrence. Then you stay, too. I suspect this is about you as much as anyone.”
As she entered, Rausch extended her hand and began by saying, “I’ve been hearing about you since I was a child, Professor. I’m very pleased to meet you at last.”
Branden took her hand, offered her a seat in front of his desk, and took one there beside her. Lawrence brought in the chair from his desk in the vestibule.
“I knew your grandfather,” Branden said to Rausch. “I knew him quite well.”
“The General. I know. I envy you that. He was quite special.”
“I understand you’ve been to see our President?”
“News gets around.”
“Small campus. When we’re not teaching, we work diligently to refine the lower arts of gossip and intrigue.”
“I can’t take much time here, Mike. Your museum? I understand there is some new thinking on campus about that.”
Branden nodded and said, “It’s the space that Nora Benetti needs for her new neuroscience major and its necessary labs.”
“Mike,” Rausch said, “the trustees don’t like to determine academic policies. That’s for the professors. If the college wants a neuroscience major, then it’ll be our job to see that it happens smoothly.”
“It’s history, Kathryn,” Branden said. “The museum is important because of the history.”
“I wouldn’t disagree with that, Professor. We actually want to do something about that.”
“We?”
“My family. The General’s family. We had pledged to increase the college’s endowment at the end of this semester. Three million dollars. The Trustees have now been informed that that three million is going to be changed. I explained this to Nora this morning.”
“Oh?”
&n
bsp; “My people tell me that Benetti’s proposed new major is very popular. You weren’t going to have enough support among the faculty to keep your museum on campus. And it isn’t just a few professors. There are alumni involved, too.”
“I’ve been a little distracted. You know, a student died.”
Rausch nodded. “I know. I’m sorry Mike. It’s really very sad.”
Branden kept a silent moment, and then he asked, “Three million?”
“Yes, Professor. It’s now pledged for your new museum building. We’ll build something off campus, but still here in the village. We’re still going to give the money, but it’ll go for your museum instead of the endowment. We’re going to have a separate and proper museum building, just not on campus.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Branden said. “Lawrence?”
“It’d be a thousand times better, Mike,” Lawrence said, obviously pleased.
“You knew about this?”
“No, Mike, but I gave Ms. Rausch some of the information that I’d gathered here, and this all played out over the weekend. There hasn’t been time to tell you about it.”
Branden looked to Rausch and then back to Mallory. Lawrence said, “Mike, I didn’t think our president was sympathetic to our museum. So, I just told Ms. Rausch what we really needed.”
Again, Branden said, “I’ve been a little distracted.”
Kathryn Rausch nodded and said, “We understand. It’s going to be better, now. Lawrence is going to have a very nice office. Millersburg College is not going to abandon one of its most valuable traditions. Your museum is a treasure, and my family is going to make certain that you don’t lose it. Academics change. History doesn’t. We’ve withdrawn our money that was pledged for the general endowment, and we’re going to use it to make a statement that my Grandfather would respect. I hope you can agree to that.”
Branden’s smile was as big as Kathryn Rausch’s news. He couldn’t find words adequate for the moment. Simply and earnestly, he just said, “Thank you.”
“I’m flying to Chicago tonight, Professor. Then LA, San Francisco, and Atlanta. We’re going to see if other trustees of the college want to participate. We’re going to launch a drive for matching contributions. I expect that our three million will grow to something more like six million. That’ll make up for what the college will lose, for its general endowment. Your president is not going to be disappointed. She’ll still get her three million. She’s going to be able to go forward with her renovations, sooner rather than later.”