Her Last Breath: A Kate Burkholder Novel (27 page)

“He was,” I say simply. “All this came up after he went missing. It’s in the file.”

“I know it was a long time ago, Chief Burkholder, but do you recall actually seeing him that day? Did you talk to him?”

I shake my head. “I don’t remember seeing him. I was in the house most of the day. Daniel and Jacob were in the field, behind the barn.”

“He didn’t come in for a drink of water? Anything like that?”

“I don’t think so.” I smile. “The hose is usually good enough for Amish kids.”

Redmon watches me closely, hanging on to each syllable, as if he’s memorizing every detail so he can take them apart later. “Did Lapp’s parents talk to your parents when he didn’t come home?”

“It seems logical that they would have, but I don’t recall them visiting our farm,” I say. “If they did, my parents didn’t mention it to me.”

“Did Daniel help your brother bale on more than one occasion that summer?”

“It’s possible,” I tell him. “Amish kids are always looking for work. It was a long time ago and those memories kind of run together.”

“Were Jacob and Daniel friends?”

“More like friendly acquaintances.”

“So they didn’t hang out? Spend time together?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Do you mind my asking how old you were that summer?”

“I was fourteen.”

He grins as if imagining me at that age. “You probably had better things to do than pay attention to a bunch of sweaty boys.”

I smile, but it’s so forced I feel a tick in my lip.

“Benjamin Lapp thinks something happened to his brother that day,” Redmon tells me.

“Like what?”

“He thinks Daniel might’ve had some kind of accident while he was working in the field.”

“That’s the first time I’ve heard that.” I shrug, but my heart is pounding so hard I can barely hear my own voice. I wonder if Redmon can see the vein pulsing at my throat.

“You know how these things go,” the sheriff says. “Something happens to a loved one, they go missing or whatever, and the family starts looking for someone to blame. People’s imaginations get to running when someone disappears.”

“If anything had happened to Daniel that day, if he’d been hurt while working on our farm, I’m sure my
datt
would have taken him to the hospital.” I tilt my head, make eye contact with Redmon. “In case you’re wondering, the Amish have no problem utilizing doctors or the ER when necessary. There are no rules against that.”

“To tell you the truth, Chief, I wasn’t sure what the belief system was in that area,” he drawls. “Did you ever wonder what happened to Daniel? I mean, since he’d been at your parents’ farm that day and no one saw him again?”

“Sure,” I tell him. “Everybody wondered.”

He waits, watching me.

I don’t believe the sheriff suspects me or anyone in my family of wrongdoing. But he hasn’t ruled us out and he’s not above using law enforcement interview techniques to trip me up. In this case, it’s the give-someone-enough-rope-and-they’ll-hang-themselves tactic. I don’t bite. “Like I said, I always thought Daniel took the money he was paid that day and left.”

“Benjamin was adamant that Daniel wouldn’t do that. Said he was looking forward to getting baptized.”

I shrug. “No offense to Benjamin, but sometimes the family is the last to know. The Amish don’t want to believe there are others living among them who no longer want to be Amish.”

“I guess you got a point there.” He chuckles, a grandfatherly sound designed to disarm. I don’t buy it for a second. The sheriff is about as grandfatherly as Charles Manson. “So you think Daniel Lapp, an eighteen-year-old Amish kid, just up and left town without so much as a good-bye to his brother and parents?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”

When neither man responds, I look from Redmon to Fowler and back to Redmon. “Do you have any idea how he got down in that pit?”

“We’re not sure,” Redmon tells me.

“Do you suspect foul play?”

“Coroner says someone shot him with a shotgun.”

I tamp down a quick rise of alarm. “So you got results on the autopsy?”

“Autopsy isn’t complete, it’s all preliminary at this point. Coroner didn’t have much to work with.” He makes a sound of distaste. “We’re talking bones and a few strands of rotted fabric, as you can imagine. While they were gathering samples for the lab, one of the technicians took a metal detector to the scene and found shotgun pellets in the soil. They’re pretty sure the pellets were inside Lapp’s body.”

“So we’re talking homicide.”

“Looks like.” He scratches his head. “I just can’t figure who’d want an Amish kid dead.”

The phone on my desk buzzes; the sound echoes in my ears as if I’m standing in a cave. I let it go to voicemail. “Wasn’t that grain elevator closed down back then?” I ask.

“Wilbur Seed Company closed down back in 1976,” Redmon tells me. “I checked.”

“Perfect place to hide a body,” Fowler adds.

Redmon’s gaze burns into mine. “Anyone in your family ever have any kind of dispute with Lapp? You know, over money or pay? Anything like that?”

I’ve lived this moment a thousand times in the last seventeen years. I’ve coached myself on how to respond right down to my body language and the tone of my voice. Now that the time is here and there are two cops looking at me as if I know more than I’m letting on, all the words I had so diligently rehearsed fly out the window, leaving me alone with my conscience and the lie I’ve been living with half of my life.

“Nothing that I know of,” I say. “My father was an honest man and fair with wages.” I put on a face of disappointment and look from man to man. “Whatever happened to Daniel Lapp didn’t happen at our farm.”

“Well, I appreciate your answering my questions, Chief, especially when you’re occupied with that nasty hit-skip.” Redmon pulls his card from his shirt pocket and hands it to me. “We had to do our due diligence. You know how it is.”

“No problem.” I set the card on my desk. “If I remember anything else, I’ll call you.”

I stand and watch the men shuffle to the door. Tension runs like hot wires up and down the back of my neck. At the doorway to the hall, the sheriff stops and turns. “Oh, one more thing, Chief, before I forget. Did your father own a shotgun?”

I stare at him, aware that my knees are shaking, my hands are shaking, so I lower myself into my chair and press them against the desktop. “My father kept a twenty-two. For hunting.”

“Thanks.” He ducks his head slightly. “We’ll get out of your hair now.”

The men trundle out, leaving me with a knot in my gut, an old, familiar fear in my heart, and the disturbing suspicion that while this visit is over, the case remains open.

*   *   *

My encounter with Redmon leaves me restless and edgy. Despite my best efforts, I can’t get my focus back on the Borntrager case. I can’t stop thinking about the secrets and the questions and an investigation that could mean the end of my career.

I arrive at Mattie’s farm to find two buggies parked near the barn, the horses standing with their back legs cocked, their heads down. Two Amish men, one of whom is smoking a pipe, stand at the open barn door, talking. They stare at me as I get out of the Explorer. I raise my hand in greeting, but neither man reciprocates. I take the sidewalk to the back porch. I don’t bother knocking this time and go directly to the kitchen.

I find Mary Miller at the sink. She’s a tall, angular woman with skinny legs and feet that look too big for her body. I’ve known her since my days at school, where she taught for a while. She worked hard to make sure I knew my multiplication tables and smacked my hand with the ruler on more than one occasion to ensure she had my undivided attention. She’s married to the Amish man I saw near the barn when I arrived. They’re a nice couple, with eight children, and live on small farm south of Painters Mill.

“Is Mattie here?” I ask. “I need to speak with her.”

“She’s resting.” She turns her back to me and goes back to her dishwashing. “I see your manners haven’t improved with age.”

“Where is she?” I walk past her, half expecting her to snap the dish towel at my back.

The smells of mock turtle soup and lye soap follow me into the living room. I make my way to the stairs and take them two at a time to the top. Four doors stand open. The first is a bathroom with robin’s-egg-blue walls and a claw-foot tub. I’m midway to the second door when Mattie appears in the doorway ahead.

“Katie?”

I can tell by the soft paleness of her complexion that I roused her from sleep. A crease mark from her pillow mars her right cheek. She’s wearing a black dress and is in the process of tying her head covering as she steps into the hall. “I didn’t know you were here.”

“We need to talk,” I tell her.

Her expression goes wary. “Has something happened? If I’d known you were coming, I would have made coffee.”

“I don’t want coffee. What I want is for you to level with me.”

“About what?” Her eyes go into sharp focus on mine. “Have you found out something about the accident?”

“It wasn’t an accident, Mattie. Someone mowed them down. There’s a difference.”

“I know that, but…” Her voice trails and she looks down at the floor. “I don’t know what else to call it.”

“Try triple murder.”

She steps back, sets her hand on the jamb as if she needs the support to remain upright. “Why are you angry with me?”

I cross to her so that I’m less than a foot away. Her skin is as pale and flawless as a baby’s. Her eyes are deep and clear. She’s magnetic and, even as a female, I can understand why men are drawn to her. She smells of baby powder and laundry detergent and summer sun.

“Let me spell it out for you.” My voice feels like a steel zipper being ripped from my throat. “I asked you if you’d had any recent disagreements or arguments with anyone. It’s a straightforward question, Mattie. Then I hear about you and an unidentified man arguing on the road in front of your house in the middle of the night. What am I supposed to make of that?”

She chokes out a sound that’s part laugh, part incredulity. “I don’t know who you’ve been speaking with or what they said to you, but no such thing ever happened.”

In the years we’ve been friends, Mattie has shocked me, infuriated me, and made me laugh. The one thing she’s never done is lie. But I see the quicksilver flash of conscience in her eyes, and the truth of it hurts a hell of a lot more than I thought it would. “You’re keeping something from me. I suggest you start talking and, if it’s not too much trouble, focus on the truth.”

She takes a step back, presses her hand to her breast. I steel myself against the hurt in her eyes, remind myself that a man and two children are dead and I have a job to do.

“You’re being purposefully cruel,” she says quietly.

“I’m asking a question I want answered. Who was the man?”

“Katie, I am a Plain woman. I don’t speak with strange men in the—”

“There’s nothing Plain about you,” I cut in, and the words make me sound like a petty, jealous shrew.

She looks away as if the words shame her.

“I have a witness, Mattie. They saw you. They saw him. I know he’s Amish—”

“Sell is nix as baeffzes.” That is nothing but trifling talk.
Looking shaken, she sputters the words in Pennsylvania Dutch.

“Is it?” I tilt my head and lean closer, invading her space, getting in her face.
“Wu schmoke is, is aa feier.” Where there’s smoke there’s fire.

“Please stop.”

“Someone ran down that buggy and killed your husband and children. I’ve been beating my head against the wall trying to figure out who and why.” I slam the heel of my hand against the jamb next to her head. “And you’re playing games with me!”

“I’m not…” Her breaths come short and fast, as if she’s in the throes of a panic attack. “I would never…”

I don’t know if I’m right about any of this. The one thing I do know is that she’s keeping something from me, so I don’t give her a respite. I’m truly angry, but part of my display is calculated. I want her shaken. Even better if she’s furious with me. Because I know Mattie. Pressure is the only way I’m going to get anything out of her.

“I want the truth and I want it now!” I shout.

“Please. Leave me alone!” She lowers her head and puts her face in her hands. The cry that follows is so wrenching I feel the hairs on my arms prickle, the threat of tears at the backs of my own eyes. I shake off both.

I give her a moment to regain her composure, then ask, “Who is he?”

Her shoulders shake as she sobs uncontrollably into her hands. I wait, letting her hurt, resisting the urge to set my hand on her shoulder. All the while doubt and guilt poke a pointy finger at my back, laughing at me because I’m wrong about this. I’m wrong about her and I’ve destroyed one of my oldest friendships on a hunch I wasn’t sure about to begin with.

After a moment, she raises her gaze to mine. Her nose is red, her cheeks mottled and streaked with tears. “Please don’t tell,” she whispers. “Please, Katie, I couldn’t bear it if anyone knew.”

“Knew what?” I snap.

“Wayne Kuhns. He tried to … He wanted to…”

I know most of the Amish in and around Painters Mill, but that name isn’t familiar. “What did he do to you?”

“He didn’t do anything. But he … he wanted to … be with me. He tried to … you know, the way men do sometimes.”

Surprise is like the slash of claws across my face. I break a sweat beneath my uniform. I’m aware of my heart thrumming against my ribs. I stare, knowing I shouldn’t be shocked, but I am.

“Mattie, did he hurt you? Did he force you to do something you didn’t want to do?”

“No. I … pushed him away.”

“Did you have an affair with him?”

“No! Of course not. Katie, I’m married in the eyes of God. I would never forsake my vows. I wouldn’t do that to Paul or to myself.” Her mouth quivers. “I can’t believe you would think that about me. Now please, I just want to forget it ever happened.”

“Are you kidding me?” I choke out a laugh, incredulity ringing hard in my voice. “What were you arguing about?”

“He wanted to … be with me, and I told him it would never happen. He became upset and began shouting. It was upsetting and very uncomfortable.”