Authors: Vannetta Chapman
Reuben wanted to reach over and calm him, but instead he waited.
As much as it hurt him, he waited.
Shane stood up straighter, pushed his hands into his pockets. “Drowned in water she could have stood up in? Not likely. Then there’s that nasty head injury. We’ve established an approximate time of death. As I said before, your alibi is good and the folks at the feed store have backed you up, but Reuben has yet to answer my questions.”
“I hear no questions — only accusations.”
“Did you drag her around the pond, Reuben?”
“Why would he drag anything? He can easily carry a hundred-pound sack of feed.”
Shane sighed and ran his hand up and around his neck. “Tell me what happened. Reuben, I’ve known you for years. You can trust me to do the right thing, but you have to tell me what happened here, and regardless, I have to collect the evidence.”
Reuben remained silent, and Tobias continued to rant.
“So you have the right to tramp all over our place?”
“Yes, I do, and he will have to start answering my questions.” Shane jerked a thumb toward Reuben. “I’ll search your grandfather’s place, your barns, this place — I see you’ve fixed it up quite nicely. Is there some reason you didn’t want to live in the house? Something you were hiding there?”
“That’s ridiculous.” Tobias shook his head and clutched the back of the chair in front of him.
“I will have my answers, whether they come from you or Reuben or the evidence. I want to know why that girl had the key to that house. I want to know if she was living there, and if so, why.” Shane’s voice never rose in volume, but it became colder with each word, like a winter storm blowing across the fields.
Reuben felt it and steeled himself against the fight to come. From the worry lines creasing his cousin’s face, he knew Tobias felt it too.
Tobias turned and walked to the wall of the barn. He stood facing it, his hands in his pants’ pockets, his head bowed.
“Reuben, I don’t want to arrest you for murder, but you have to give me a reason not to. You have to give me something. At least start by answering my questions.” Shane leaned forward, both hands on the table. “Why was this girl here? What happened to her? And how did she come to have the key to your grandfather’s house?”
“Maybe she stole it.” The words tore out of Tobias like lightning ripping across a clear blue sky. He stalked back across the room, stopped inches shy of the table, and stood staring down at the key. “Maybe she stole it. We didn’t even know she was staying there. I give you my word that I’ve never seen that girl before today, before I saw her on the stretcher. She could have been a runaway. Reuben’s in the field all day, and I’ve been busy at my job in town and over at Esther’s.”
“All right. I suppose that’s possible.” Shane looked at Reuben, locked gazes with him. “Is that your take on it? We have a forensics team in the house now. We won’t find any of your DNA in there? Any of your fingerprints on anything of hers that might be in there? No evidence that you’ve been in there?”
“It’s our
grossdaddi
’s house. Of course you’ll find evidence, but it will be very old.” Tobias shook his head. “We haven’t been in that house in several years. Our
schweschdern
come over and give it a good cleaning every spring, but it’s too big for two bachelors to live in. That’s why we chose to live in the barn instead.”
“All right. DNA does degrade over time — heat, sunlight, and moisture will all affect any traces that have been left in the house since it’s been closed up.” Shane paused, scrubbed his hand over his face. “But if what you say is true, I shouldn’t find any signs that either of you have been there recently.”
“No. We haven’t.” Tobias slapped his hand on the table, satisfied they’d reached some compromise. “And then you’ll go?”
“I didn’t say that, and you have to stop answering for Reuben. He’s not mute. I know that. He has to answer for himself. I have to receive a statement from him or—”
Two knocks sounded on the door to the barn, and Andrew Gavin stepped through. Reuben felt his pulse kick up a notch, felt sweat begin to trickle down the small of his back, but he forced his expression to remain neutral.
“Black.” Gavin pulled off a ball cap he was wearing as he stepped into the room. “Evening, Tobias, Reuben.”
Tobias and Shane mumbled hellos.
Reuben remained perfectly still.
“Getting here a little late, aren’t you?” Shane’s voice held a bit of a scolding, like Reuben’s father’s when he was working on training a pup.
“Actually I wasn’t on duty tonight, but Captain Taylor called me in. I was fishing out on the lake when I received the message.”
Closer to Tobias’ age, Andrew Gavin was different from most Amish and
Englisch
men that Reuben had encountered. His short haircut, jeans, and T-shirt left no doubt that he was an
Englischer
, but he was extremely quiet most of the time, which made him seem more like the Amish to Reuben. He also kept himself somewhat apart, and Reuben wondered about that. Perhaps it was because of the things he had seen while he’d fought in their war — serving overseas in Afghanistan, or maybe because once he’d lived overseas he saw things in Shipshewana differently.
Regardless, Andrew Gavin didn’t seem to fit completely into the
Englisch
side of things. In fact, in a lot of ways, Gavin reminded Reuben of a younger version of himself. In other words, he was built like a bull: solid. Some folks would say stocky, but he was really six feet of muscle.
The fact that he’d served in the
Englisch
military would have normally put a wedge between any friendship, but he was impossible not to like. Quiet and unobtrusive, Gavin had always been respectful of their plain ways. He was also a good customer for Reuben’s burgeoning woodwork business. Over the last year they’d moved from being acquaintances to something more — something that included a deep respect for each other’s work.
“Is there a reason you’re in here … right now?” Shane glanced at his watch. “We were in the middle of something.”
“Right. The Captain asked that I tell you they’re ready to move the body to the morgue.”
“Got it.”
Gavin turned to go, then stopped as if he’d forgotten something. When he turned back toward them, Reuben wanted to shout out, to stop him, but he didn’t know how without pulling the entire barn down on top of them all.
“By the way, Reuben, I wanted to say I’m sorry for your loss.”
Reuben nodded once in thanks, hoping Gavin would move on to his work. He nearly did too. He was practically out the door, when Shane called him back.
“What did you mean by that?”
“By what?”
“That you were sorry for Reuben’s loss.”
Gavin looked from Shane to Reuben and back again. “Only that she was his friend and now she’s dead. I wanted to offer my condolences.”
Silence filled the barn as Shane let Gavin’s words sink into the night. Reuben still hadn’t moved, his muscles growing rigid from
standing there in one spot for so long, from anticipating what would happen next.
“I’m curious. Why would you say the deceased was his friend?”
Once again Gavin glanced from Reuben to Shane. This time his military training took over though. He clasped his hands behind his back, posture perfect, and limited his response to the bare facts. “Because when I was here last Saturday, I saw them coming out of the main house together.”
S
AMUEL COULD ACTUALLY SEE
better once darkness fell.
The
Englischers
had set up large lights around the pond, mounted on poles and the tops of their vehicles. Harsh and unnatural, they cast everything in a ghoulish brightness. Giant shadows leapt across the water as the
Englischers
moved west to east, working the net — throwing it into the water, allowing it to sink, then dragging it toward the other end. It wasn’t a fishing net, that much was certain. He wondered what they hoped to find in the deep water among the fish and turtles of the pond, which was surrounded by the wildflowers Katie had found so lovely.
Katie’s body remained in the ambulance.
He’d watched them place it into a dark bag, zip the bag closed, then place it on a wheeled stretcher.
As if they could take her in the ambulance to their hospital and make her well.
As if they could fix all that had gone wrong.
As if they could turn the clock back …
“It seems real, now that we have the official papers.” Katie clutched the envelope with their legal papers allowing them to marry in her hands, scooted closer to him in the open air buggy.
“It is real.” Samuel hunched over the reins as he drove the buggy slowly away from town, back toward her father’s farm.
“Can you believe it though? Less than a week and we’ll be man and wife. It’s what I’ve dreamed of for a long time, Samuel. Since the first day you came to work for my dat.”
Samuel did smile then, there was no helping it. “You’re telling me you knew over a year ago that we would fall in lieb?”
“I didn’t know for certain, but I knew that you were a gut man. I could tell by the way you shook hands and the way you set to work. A woman notices these things. “
A scowl replaced the smile as Samuel thought of his younger self. He’d been so sure he could work hard and make progress on Timothy’s farm in one year. But like most things in his life, it seemed that God or fate had been dead set against him. When the rains had come, they’d nearly flooded the crops. The southern fields had needed replanting, and the harvest had been late. The work was too much for two men, but Timothy refused to hire additional workers, refused to even ask for help from among the local brethren.
Things were different here than they had been in Pennsylvania. Perhaps he’d been wrong to move here alone, but the memories back home had been painful after his daed’s death. Then his mamm had remarried, and Samuel knew he needed to leave. He’d thought starting over would set things right. Meeting Katie had offered him his first glimmer of hope.
Where was his hope now?
A year later he was doing the same chores Timothy had assigned him when he’d first come. The man refused to trust him with more responsibility. He felt as if he were treated like a boy just out of eighth grade rather than a man.
Nineteen years old and he was still living in the little room back behind the barn. Next week would bring few changes. He’d be allowed to sleep in the house, with Katie, but their room would be small with very little privacy. The other rooms were all brimming with Katie’s five younger sisters.
Seeing an Englisch rest area ahead on the road, he pulled the buggy over into it.
“Is there a problem with the mare?” Katie asked, concern coloring her voice.
“No, it’s not that.” Samuel secured the horse, helped Katie out of the buggy, and commenced pacing.
“What is it? You’re not having second thoughts are you?”
“I would never have second thoughts about marrying you. How could you think that? Are you going to question my every move?” His anger spiked, and he felt the desire to punch something, anything. The weeks had slipped past like a noose settling around his neck. He had to think of a way to fix this, and he could only think of one. Pulling in a deep breath, he pushed the anger down, forced a smile on his face. “Katie, darling, do you love me?”
“You know I do. Samuel, what’s wrong?”
“And do you trust me?” He sat beside her at a picnic table, pulled her hands into his, and rubbed his thumbs over her fingers, which had grown cold.
“Of course I trust you.”
“I want us to go north, to marry there. I want to work in the RV factories near Shipshe.”
“But — “
“Hear me out. I have a delivery to make for your dat tomorrow. Tell your mamm you want to ride along. Tell her you want to visit your
aenti
for a couple of days. Doesn’t she live in Middlebury?”
“Ya, but— “
“We’ll see your
aenti
but you won’t stay there. That will give us time to marry. I’ve asked some friends, and we can do it with these papers.” He touched the envelope that she still clutched, the one they had signed for in town. It was to be used at their wedding, in Goshen, next week. It was to be used with the bishop.
“An Amish wedding?”
“No. You’re not listening!” Samuel stood again and resumed pacing.
“You want us to marry outside the church?”
“God will understand. Katie, there is no other way that I can see. Your father is a hard man — “
“My father is a gut man.”
“He is that.” Samuel stopped in front of her, rubbed at the headache pulsing in his temples. “But he sees the old ways and no other. He doesn’t remember what it’s like to be our age. He doesn’t remember how it feels to be young, to be starting a family. He clings so hard to the old that he won’t even accept the changes the bishop allows. It’s why your life is so hard. Why your mamm struggles so with the work and your schweschdern.”
“He loves us,” Katie whispered.
Samuel waited ten seconds, then twenty. Waited until she raised her gaze to his. “Ya, I know he does. I love you too, and I believe you love me.”
When she nodded, he continued. “Go north with me. We’ll marry there, among the Englischers. I have Mennonite freinden in the factories who will help us to get started. Amish folk as well — there’s a man my mamm knows. He’ll let us stay with him for a few days. We won’t be alone, and it will actually help your family to have two less mouths to feed.”
“How will dat work the fields alone?”
“He’ll be forced to accept the community’s help. It’s what he should have done long ago. “
She looked away for a moment, across the trees that surrounded the parking area. “There is a community where we would go?”
“Amish and Mennonite. You know this. It’s not as if we’re going to Chicago. I give you my word. They’re gut people. I’ve met them before when I delivered things for your dat.”
Katie nodded once, and though tears escaped from both eyes, she glanced at him and smiled slightly. With that smile, Samuel released the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. “We’ll send word to your parents within the week, so they won’t worry.”
“All right, Samuel. I don’t believe you’d suggest this if you hadn’t thought it through carefully.”
“We’ll leave tomorrow?”
“Ya, tomorrow.” She brought his hands to her lips and kissed them once, then stood and pulled him back toward the buggy.