I rolled my eyes. The marshal enjoyed his visits to the settlement too much.
Bishop Esch scowled. “Both are disgusting habits if you ask me. The point of all this is to illustrate that not all Amish societies are the same. Blood Rock and Mt. Carmel are vastly different and because of that, we don’t interact with them often.”
“But you have relatives from there,” I chimed in.
“Yes, a few.”
“Melinda King is a second cousin of yours?” Toby asked.
The bishop nodded.
His suddenly sullen behavior made me sit up straighter. “Do you think you’re related to Lynette King?”
He sighed heavily. “Distantly, probably. Even the Miller girl through marriage is a possibility.”
I glanced at Toby. His eyes widened and I knew he was beginning to worry that the bishop wouldn’t tell us anything of importance.
“Do you know why Melinda King left her family in Mt. Carmel to live here with her aunt and uncle?” I asked.
Bishop Esch hesitated. I could tell he was working out what he should say in his head, which was never a good sign. With an agitated breath, he seemed a bit resigned. “Her parents worried that she’d get into trouble at home. The loose rules for the teenagers back in those days caused all kinds of mischief. To avoid their own daughter being drawn into sin, they sent her away. It’s not uncommon to do so.”
“She was only twelve,” I pointed out.
I could tell he was annoyed by the way he puckered his lips and wouldn’t look directly at me. “The family was being extra cautious.”
“Amish families are generally large. Did they send any other children away to avoid being tainted?” I persisted.
The bishop swiveled his head and stared me down. “No. Melinda King was the only child from Mt. Carmel who came to live among us here in Blood Rock.”
Toby jumped into the conversation. “Exactly why did you ask me to check in on the woman in the first place?”
Bishop Esch was quick to answer. “I wondered what had happened to her, that’s all. Now that I have been enlightened to her deviant ways, I might as well forget her name.”
I laughed and both pairs of eyes snapped in my direction. “Sorry, Aaron. You can’t put the cat back in the bag. Melinda King is part of an ongoing investigation. It doesn’t matter if you care about the outcome, we do. Toby did his part. He brought you news about the whereabouts of a woman that used to live here. Frankly, I find it fascinating that not only did Melinda get mixed up with prostitution in Nevada, so did several other ex-Amish women. Something fishy is going on and I aim to find out what it is. If you have any more information to tell, we’d greatly appreciate it.”
I saw the bishop swallow a lump down his throat. His silence indicated that he was deliberating with himself whether he’d help me out. To most people it would be a no brainer—why wouldn’t he tell us whatever he knew? But he was Amish. If there was a chance that him spilling the beans would disrupt the community or make it look bad, he’d stay tightlipped. The only times he invited outsiders, including me, into his secretive world, was as a last resort.
“If you travel to Mt. Carmel, you’ll want to talk to Fannie King. She’s Melinda’s grandmother. She might have the answers you seek.” He tipped his hat at me and then shook Toby’s hand. “I must be going. There’s community business to attend to. I’ve been idle for too long.”
He picked up our empty mugs and brushed by us through the front door. After the door slammed shut, Toby whistled. “It’s like that man stepped straight out of a mystery novel.”
I snorted and proceeded down the porch steps. “Come on. We have a couple more stops to make in Blood Rock before we drive to Mt. Carmel.”
5
I bit into the warm peanut butter cookie that had just come straight out of the oven and sighed happily. Investigations in the Amish settlement had advantages. Toby looked equally as satisfied, sitting in the straight-backed chair in Katherine’s cozy kitchen, eating his cookie. We waited only a minute for Katherine to hustle her youngest children out of the room and return to the table. She finally sat down, wiping her brow with the back of her hand. Katherine was the same age as me and a pretty woman. She had friendly blue eyes and porcelain smooth skin. Today, she looked tired.
“Are the kids getting the best of you?” I asked.
She quickly patted her cheeks. Katherine was probably the vainest Amish woman I knew. “Oh my, do I look that bad?”
“No, no. You’re fabulous as usual.” I paused, staring harder at Katherine. Her face was pale and drawn. “Are you okay?”
Katherine chuckled, shaking her head. “Your instincts are astonishing, Serenity.” She dipped her head and glanced at Toby. “Our sheriff never stops surprising me.”
I recognized her coy look at Toby. She was acting. Katherine Bender was a confident woman, although she pretended to be timid because that was what was expected of her. I finished off the cookie. “What’s going on?”
She shifted her face once again to Toby. “I suppose since you’re English, it won’t make a difference if I speak freely in front of you.”
“By all means,” Toby encouraged her.
“I’m pregnant. Only a couple of months along, but at the beginning of the sickness time unfortunately.”
It didn’t shock me, but it wasn’t exactly what I was thinking about either. “Congratulations. What does that make, eight kids?”
Katherine splayed her hands onto the tabletop and stared downwards in between them. “It would have been eight if Eli was still alive.” She took a trembling breath. Perhaps this one will be a boy.” She lifted her gaze and her eyes were moist. “I hope so.”
Eli had been a boy I’d met during my first investigation in the settlement. He had been a murdered girl’s boyfriend and a prime suspect for a time until I figured out who the real killer was. Later, Eli became infatuated with another unfortunate Amish girl, and the result had left him dead in a gas explosion caused by an insane woman. It had been a couple of years since the tragedy, but it seemed like yesterday. The pain etched on Katherine’s pale face looked as fresh as it did the day she’d learned that her firstborn child was dead.
I slumped in my chair, hating that I had to ask nosy questions on a day that Katherine was obviously distressed. But I didn’t really have a choice. Even though there wasn’t an urgency to this particular case, something pushed me forward.
“Fifty-fifty chance. I’m going to bet right now that it is a boy.”
My comment made Katherine’s face come alive. Her smile was brilliant. “Oh, that’s encouraging. You’re right about almost everything,” she gushed.
I didn’t look at Toby, figuring he was smirking back at me. “I hate to get straight to business, but we do have some questions that we’re hoping you can help us with.”
Katherine scooted her chair in closer to the table and crossed her arms on it. “Of course. Whatever I can do.”
I plunged right in. “Do you remember Melinda King? She lived here from 1996 until 2000 when she up and vanished. Daniel thought the two of you were friends.”
After the initial wide-eyed surprise lit her face, she nodded vigorously. “Melinda was my friend. We used to walk back and forth to school together. Her aunt and uncle’s farm was right next to my family’s property.”
I’d already planned this interview in my head hours ago. Katherine was an honest woman, but like all the Amish, she was careful not to say too much about taboo subjects. I wasn’t sure if Melinda fell into that category yet.
“What was she like?” I asked.
Katherine had been waiting for something more disturbing, so when I asked the simple question, her shoulders lifted and a faint smile tugged the corner of her mouth. “Melinda has a strong character. When she sets her mind to something, it’s bound to succeed.” She tilted her head, glancing betwe
en me and Toby. “Is she all right?”
I deliberated which direction to go. Katherine’s description made me think she knew Melinda was alive the entire time, which was something the bishop hadn’t been so sure of. “She lives in Nevada and is doing well as far as I know.”
Katherine let out a breath and fully smiled. “That’s good to hear. After she left us, I prayed for her safety and happiness for a while, but I knew she’d survive. She had such a force of nature.”
Survive? Was survival something that an Amish teen thought about when her friend suddenly departed? “You two were close, right?” Katherine nodded. “Did she tell you she was leaving or where she was going?”
Katherine’s face changed. She chewed the corner of her lip and shifted in her chair. “No, she didn’t. I was actually taken by surprise when she left.” She glanced up as if she was recalling something specific. “I had stopped in the schoolhouse that day to bring my younger sisters their lunches they had forgotten. I had hoped to spend some time chatting with Melinda, but she rushed home at midday. Said she wasn’t feeling well. I ended up staying the rest of the school day to take over her duties.”
Katherine pouted with the last part of her statement, making me think that she hadn’t been too happy at the time that she’d had to fill in for Melinda’s job.
“Melinda was a school teacher?” I asked.
Katherine shook her head. “She had volunteered to be a helper that day.”
“That was the last time you ever saw her?” Toby asked.
“Yes. She rode her bike out of there like her legs were on fire.”
“I thought you said she was sick?” I closely watched Katherine for a lie.
Her features were relaxed, and she looked me right in the eye. “No, she said she wasn’t feeling okay. She appeared fine to me.” She leaned over the table and lowered her voice. “I believe she was faking sickness to get away. She must have had someone lined up to spirit her away that very afternoon.”
Toby tapped the top of the table and I glanced at him. He flicked his finger for me to continue, but I guessed we were on the same page. “Why are you convinced that she left on her own? Isn’t it possible that something else happened to her?”
Katherine straightened in the chair; her features suddenly alert with confusion. “Do you mean kidnapping?”
“I don’t really know. It just seems strange that an eighteen-year-old girl goes missing one day, without saying a word to her friend about her intention of running away, and everyone assumes that it was her choice to leave.”
The Amish woman gave a curt nod and smoothed down the front of her maroon dress. I sensed the usual lesson coming. “Many of our teenagers go English. It’s been that way for as long as I can remember. That’s one of the reasons we have such large families. One never knows how many of their children will run to the outside. So, when someone like Melinda is gone, we assumed that she left on her own. Just because we were friends doesn’t mean she’d tell me her plans. Leaving family and community is an intense endeavor. If something goes wrong, anyone involved might meet the wrath of the elders.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Once a person leaves, they are no longer a part of our world. We hold the pleasant memories close but expect that the relationship is over.”
Yeah, I knew all about how intense it was for Amish teens to run away. I’d investigated several incidents, including my own husband’s, but the one that was cemented in my mind was poor Naomi Beiler. She planned her escape perfectly, and she had help from my nephew, but it still wasn’t enough. Naomi had been shot dead in a cornfield by a sadistic peer who had a crush on her.
Katherine’s feelings and behavior were reasonable because she was Amish. Surely, she must have noticed something, anything that might help us figure out why Melinda disappeared suddenly from Blood Rock and eventually ended up running a brothel in Nevada.
“Look, Katherine. Melinda has been discovered in a place that I don’t think any of your women would be willing to go. And there’s other Amish women there, too. I’m trying to understand what happened to them so no one else goes down the same illicit path.”
Katherine sighed loudly. “Melinda had mentioned that she might not stay in Blood Rock—something about a duty to fulfill a promise made by her family. It was a random statement that I should have pestered her about, but I didn’t. Something in her gloomy tone made me afraid to ask what she was talking about.”
Strange. “Did she have a boyfriend?” I ventured.
“Mark Yoder. They’d only been courting about a month or so when she left. He was devastated.” Katherine looked down again and played with her fingers. “Mark was convinced some terrible fate had befallen Melinda, but no one believed him.”
The name didn’t ring a bell. “Is he still in the community?”
Katherine inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. “He died a long time ago.”
Toby beat me to the punch. “How?”
Mark Yoder would be our age now. A long time ago would make him a young man when he left this world.
When Katherine looked up, her eyes were shiny. “He drowned in the pond out behind his house. It was six months to the day from the last time I saw Melinda. His family moved away after that. I’m not even sure where they went.”
A chill ran up my spine and Toby’s glance told me he was feeling it too.
“Was his death handled in the community or were paramedics called in?” I held my breath.
“I heard he was already dead when his brothers found him, but his mother was so distressed, she called English authorities to confirm he had passed away.”
I exhaled. Thank God. There were records. “Why do you think a young man would drown in a pond?” I asked Katherine.
“It was always a mystery to me, especially since it was wintertime. There was speculation that he might have tried to walk across the ice, but it wasn’t cold enough to freeze the pond over solidly and he wasn’t wearing ice skates, so there’s that as well. Mark was a sensible boy. Sad and depressed after Melinda was gone, but definitely sensible.”
Without coming right out and saying it, Katherine had just informed me that Mark Yoder was bright enough not to walk around on pond ice that wasn’t frozen enough to hold his weight.
She didn’t believe that it was an accident either.
6
We found Anna Bachman, Daniel’s mom, in her garden with a rake in hand. Yellow, orange, lavender, and white chrysanthemums bloomed brightly along the hillside behind her. A patch, filled with pumpkins of every size and shape spread beneath the trees, bursting with vibrant colors of orange. She was so busy clearing the leaves into a pile that she didn’t notice us walk up. Anna was a tiny, gray-haired woman, but her strokes with the tool were strong and quick.
“Anna, may we have a word with you?” I asked loudly to be heard over the rustling leaves.
She spun around and placed her hand to her heart. “Oh, my, Serenity. You gave me a fright.” She eyed Toby, nodded at him and returned her attention to me. “What brings you by on this fine fall day?”
She was right about the day. Puffy clouds decorated the blue sky in a very symmetrical and still way. The breeze was warm and smelled like dry leaves and cut grass. I hated to ruin her day with questions about a new investigation, but Daniel was the one who’d mentioned talking with his mother.
“Melinda King,” I said.
She stifled a cry. Her smile was gone. When she spoke, her voice was keen with interest. “Have you heard from the girl?”
I glanced at Toby and his face was blank. Like me, he had no idea what to expect. Anna wasn’t just Daniel’s mom; she was also a minister’s wife. Her strange healing and foretelling abilities added to the formidable aura floating around her. Her knowledge was sometimes valuable, and other times elusive.
“Do you remember, Marshal Bryant?” I asked. When she nodded briskly, I co
ntinued. “Aaron recently asked him to look into her disappearance back in 2000. The marshal tracked her down in Nevada. She’s alive and well.” There wasn’t any reason to tell her what Melinda’s occupation, and Daniel had already warned me not to say too much that would shock his mom.
Anna stared past me. “That’s good to hear. I wonder why Aaron wanted to dredge up past, though?”
Her carefully worded question didn’t help. “I hoped you might have some insight about Melinda and why she left the community when she did?”
Anna leaned on the rake’s handle. The breeze picked up some of her stray hairs and blew them across her face, but she ignored them. “Melinda was a blessing to Sam and Miriam Yoder. She was their niece, you see. They hadn’t been blessed with children of their own, so her arrival was extra special. Her sudden departure left a mark on the couple. They were never the same afterwards.”
“We were told that her parents sent her to live here in Blood Rock because they worried that she might get into trouble in her own community. Does that sound right?” I asked.
Anna’s brow shot up and she made a tsk-tsk sound between her gritted teeth. “That wasn’t the way of it. Her parents didn’t want her, plain and simple. Not long after surrendering their child into Sam and Miriam’s home, they moved out of the area. I believe they eventually settled in Pennsylvania after drifting from one community to another for a while.”
A cloud blotted out the sun and the garden dimmed. Goosebumps rose along my arms and I didn’t know why. “Why do you and Aaron remember things differently?”
Anna didn’t hesitate. “It’s been many years. Our bishop has been distracted lately. I’m sure you understand that. He might not be thinking clearly.”
Toby spoke up. “Do you think Melinda ran away?”
She tilted her head in his direction and paused. The wind picked up and I crossed my arms, waiting. A light of resignation flashed across Anna’s face. “There’s been rumors about Mt. Carmel for as long as I can remember. I cannot confirm or deny them, and I won’t partake in the gossip, but it was uncanny that the King girl disappeared when she did.”
Wicked Legacy (Serenity's Plain Secrets Book 10) Page 4