Breaking Silence

CHAPTER 5

John Tomasetti unpacked the last moving box, set the framed commendation on his desk, and looked around at his new digs. The office was bigger than most—big enough to piss off some of the more senior agents. A window looked out over the newish business park dotted with winter-dead Bradford pear trees. The rosewood desk had a matching credenza with a hutch. There was a comfortable leather chair with adjustable lumbar support. Not bad for a guy who, a year ago, had been on his way out the door.

John had tried to be optimistic about the move from the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation headquarters in Columbus to the smaller field office in Richfield, near Cleveland. This was another chance for a fresh start, replete with a new office, new work environment, new supervisor. All of those things were nice perks. But the truth of the matter was, none of them had impacted his decision to make the move. The real reason was solely jurisdictional—so he could continue working Coshocton and Holmes counties. He didn’t have a particular fondness for either county. What he did have a fondness for was a certain chief of police.

The truth of the matter was, he hadn’t wanted to go back to Cuyahoga County. Hadn’t wanted to go anywhere near Cleveland. Too many memories there. Too many mistakes. Too much of everything, and all of it was bad. Yet here he was.…

Three years had passed since his wife and two children were murdered. They’d been tough years—the kind that could break a man if he let it. John had skated close to that dark edge a couple of times, done a lot of things he wasn’t proud of. He’d spent a year addicted to prescription drugs—antianxiety medications, painkillers, sleeping pills. If the doctors had prescribed them, John had obliged by taking them with the glee of a suicidal junkie. Somehow, he’d always managed to wake up the next morning.

And then there was the small matter of the retribution he’d doled out a few months after the murders. Everyone knew he’d done it—his fellow cops, the Cuyahoga County district attorney, his friends. But cops make the best criminals, and when the grand jury came back after five hours of deliberation, they’d handed down a no bill, and John Tomasetti had walked away a free man.

He’d come a long way since those dark days. He’d left Cleveland, left the Cleveland Division of Police, and landed a position as special agent with the great state of Ohio in Columbus. He’d cut out the pills and most of the booze. He was down to seeing the company shrink just one evening per week now. Tomasetti was on the road to recovery, with the fragile hope of, if not happiness, at least a normal life. He figured it was the best a man like him could shoot for.

He’d just opened his laptop to check e-mail when a tap on the door drew his attention. He looked up, to see Deputy Superintendent Lawrence Bates step into his office. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”

Since he hadn’t done shit except haul in boxes and clutter things up, Tomasetti smiled. “I have a knack.”

Bates slid into a chair, leaned forward, and set his elbows on his knees. He was a tall, lanky man of about fifty who smoked like a chimney, drank like a fish, and somehow still managed to run six miles a day. He was married, with two college-age kids and a couple of Labrador retrievers. He’d come over to BCI from the FBI office in Dallas, Texas, six years ago. Rumor had it that he’d had an affair with his administrative assistant. Things had gotten ugly when his wife found out, and she’d given him an ultimatum. Larry had chosen his marriage over the bimbo and made the move to Cleveland. He looked like a man who’d been paying for his transgressions ever since.

“I understand you’ve spent some time in Holmes and Coshocton counties in the last year,” Bates says.

John thought of Kate and smiled. “I’m familiar with the area.”

Eleven months ago, he and Kate had worked a serial murder case in Painters Mill. It was a brutal case. They’d spent some intense days together, butted heads a few times, and somehow forged a friendship that had, so far, withstood the test of time. Looking back, Tomasetti realized that the Slaughterhouse Killer case and, more specifically, his relationship with Kate, had probably saved not only his career but his life.

“You have a pretty good working relationship with the local law-enforcement agencies down there?” Bates asked.

“I do.”

“This came in this morning.” Bates handed him a blue sheet of paper, which John recognized as a Request for Assistance form. “I spoke with Sheriff Rasmussen down in Millersburg. He tells me there’s been a string of hate crimes in the area in the last six months.”

“Hate crimes?” John knew from experience most were against minorities: African-Americans, Hispanics, Jews, and gay men. “Against who?”

“The Amish.”

“That’s a twist.” But John knew hate for the sake of hate had no boundaries. Vaguely, he recalled that Kate had told him about several incidents. “Doesn’t that fall under the FBI’s jurisdiction?”

“Hate crimes are against the law whether it’s on a state or federal level. Since we got the call, we show up.” Bates continued: “Rasmussen tells me there’ve been half a dozen incidents. Started out with a few bashed mailboxes. The usual kind of thing you see in small towns. Then a couple of weeks ago, someone ran a buggy off the road. A pregnant Amish woman was injured, lost her baby.”

Tomasetti picked up the RFA form and skimmed the particulars. “Any of the vics press charges?”

“Not a one.”

“So even if we catch the perpetrators, we basically have nothing.”

“We have you.”

“Because I have such a charismatic and persuasive personality?”

Bates chuckled. “Because you know Chief Burkholder.”

John wondered if someone had it written down in some file that he and Kate were sleeping together.

“I understand she was born Amish,” Bates said, clarifying.

“That’s what I’ve heard.”

“I thought she might be able to persuade some of these Amish to come forward, press charges, and testify, if we get that far.”

“If anyone can do it, Kate can. She’s … determined.”

A picture of Kate materialized in his mind—not the cop, but the woman. She was girl-next-door pretty, with big brown eyes and a sprinkling of freckles over her nose. She kept her brown hair cut a tad too short—when she bothered having it cut at all. She wasn’t beautiful in the classic sense, but she was attractive as hell. And she appealed to Tomasetti on a level that went a lot deeper than the flesh.

Working with her again would be no hardship. He and Kate worked well together. Better than well, if he wanted to be honest. It had been over two months since he’d seen her, and he’d been looking for an excuse to drive down to Painters Mill. Last time he was there, they’d closed a difficult murder case. An Amish family gunned down in their home. The case had taken a heavy toll on Kate. He’d been wanting to check up on her.

Leaning back in his chair, John looked around the room. “When do I leave?”

Bates glanced at his watch. “How about five minutes ago?”

The sky hovers low and ominous when I turn into the long gravel lane of the Slabaugh farm. The rain has stopped, but I know there’s more coming, probably in the form of freezing rain. It’s late afternoon, but the temperature has already begun a precipitous drop. To make matters worse, the storm clouds that have been building to the west most of the afternoon are creeping this way. Welcome to northeastern Ohio in December.

Bishop Troyer’s buggy is still parked in the gravel near the back door of the house. Two additional buggies are parked near the barn, and I know friends and neighbors of the Slabaugh family are taking care of the livestock, mucking and feeding and doing what needs to be done to keep the farm and up and running until decisions can be made. I know I’ll find the women inside with the children, comforting them with food, prayer, and reassuring words.

None of that makes what I have to do next any easier. The barn is now a crime scene, off-limits to everyone until it’s been processed and any evidence removed. More than likely, the pigs will have to be loaded onto a stock trailer and hauled away. Another disruption to four lives that have already been devastated.

“Scene is probably going to be pretty trampled,” Glock says.

“I’ll call Tomasetti and request a CSU.” I look at the barn, aware of gossamer snowflakes melting on the windshield. “We need to get it taped off. Talk to someone about getting the pigs hauled away.”

“What are we going to do about the kids?”

Thinking about the four children inside, I sigh. I can’t put off calling for a social worker much longer.

“I hate to see them uprooted or separated.” I kill the engine and punch off the lights. “But I’m going to have to contact Children Services.”

“Can’t the Amish take care of them until Slabaugh is cleared?”

I nod. “If he’s cleared.”

“He a suspect?”

The thought makes me feel slightly nauseous. “Let’s just say he’s a person of interest.”

“Got it.”

I give him a look as I reach for the door. “Let’s get the barn taped off.”

At the rear of the Explorer, I open the hatch and pull out my crime-scene kit. There’s not much to it—just a box of disposable gloves, several pair of shoe covers, yellow crime-scene tape, a sketch pad and notebook, evidence bags, a dozen tiny cone evidence markers, a couple of inexpensive field-test kits—for cocaine and crystal meth—and a digital camera.

“Going to be a tough scene to process,” Glock comments.

He’s right. The place has literally been trampled—by the fire department volunteers, the police and paramedics, whoever has been caring for the livestock. “We’re not going to find much.”

“Whatever we do find is contaminated.”

“Won’t do us much good if this ever goes to court.”

The big door still stands open, someone’s attempt to air the place out. The smells of hogs, hay, barn dust, and manure greet us like an offensive old adversary when we walk inside. The barn is filled with deep shadows. Looking around, I spot a lantern hanging from a rafter, pull it down, and light the wick.

Setting my crime-scene kit on the wood windowsill, I open it and hand disposable gloves and shoe covers, the crime-scene tape, and adhesive tape to Glock. “Let’s get it taped off.”

“A little late for shoe covers and gloves.”

“Gotta treat it like a crime scene from here on out.” I look around. “Keep your eyes open for anything that might have been used as a weapon.”

“Will do.”

Quickly, we don the protective gear. While he strings crime-scene tape, I cross to the livestock pens and look around. Someone put the hogs outside, but I can hear them grunting and slopping around in the mud beyond the door. The concrete is slick with muck, both liquid and solids. The smell is overpowering. It strikes me that the pit will need to be emptied, all of its contents gone through. Some lucky BCI agent isn’t going to have a very good couple of days.

I lift the gate latch. The steel groans when I push it open and enter the pen. A hundred or more cloven hoofprints mar the thick sheet of mud. I see human footwear marks with a dozen different treads, and I curse myself for not having been more careful. Looking at the destroyed crime scene, I tell myself there was no way any of us could have known. Still, some caution might have given us a better chance of finding something useful in terms of evidence.

Vaguely, I’m aware of Glock stringing tape a few yards away, the wind hissing through the open door behind him, sleet tapping like delicate fingernails against the glass panes. I grew up on an Amish farm. Being here brings back a lot of memories of my own childhood. We raised cattle for beef, but we also had horses, chickens, and several goats. We farmed corn, soybeans, and wheat. Our barn was much like this one: old, but built to last. The manure pit was smaller, but the concept was the same. I was a tomboy and spent many hours exploring the barn with my brother, Jacob. Datt always left the grate over the pit. I made my sister, Sarah, cry once when I told her there were monsters living in the muck. I never thought of it as an instrument of murder.

I walk the perimeter of the pen. I’m not sure what I’m looking for. Something that seems out of place. You never know when something that initially appears mundane will become a piece of evidence. Spotting a pair of leather work gloves on the windowsill, I remove the camera from my pocket and snap four shots from different angles. I do the same with a two-pound coffee can someone probably used to measure feed. I snap two more photos of a big pocketknife that was probably used to cut hay twine. Next, I take a dozen shots of the manure pit from different angles. This is the first step in documenting the scene. Once the CSU arrives, every movable object will be bagged and sent to the lab for examination.

Lowering the camera, I spot a snow shovel leaning against the far wall. The blade is caked with dried muck and I realize it was probably being used to shovel solids into the pit. I think of Solomon Slabaugh’s head wound and realize a shovel would make a pretty good weapon. Stepping back, I snap half a dozen photos. I put the camera in my pocket and squat next to the shovel to examine the blade. A quiver goes through me when I see hair on the back of the scoop. “Shit.”

“Do you mean that literally or figuratively?”

I nearly start at the sound of Glock’s voice. Rising, I glance over at him and motion toward the shovel. “There’s hair on the blade. Looks human.”

“Murder weapon?”

“Maybe.” I bend for a closer look at the hair. “Definitely not from a pig.”

He approaches and squats next to me. “Same color as Solomon Slabaugh’s.”

I’m tempted to put some of the hair in an evidence bag for safekeeping, then decide to let the CSU handle it—mostly for chain-of-evidence reasons. Straightening, I sigh, thinking of the children. As much as I hate the idea of subjecting them to another interview, they’re my best bet at getting my hands on some solid information. “I’ve got some garbage bags in my kit. Bag the shovel. See what else you can find and mark it.”

“You got it.”

Rising, I start toward the gate that will take me out of the pen. “I’m going to talk to the kids.”

“You want me to go with you?”

Snapping off my gloves, I toss them into a trash can, then stop and turn to him. If we weren’t dealing with Amish kids, I might take him up on the offer. But I don’t want to overwhelm or intimidate them. “The fewer non-Amish people present, the more likely they’ll be to open up.”

“Gotcha.”

“You want the bad news?”

“Lay it on me.”

“I’m going to need you to stay here and keep the scene secure until the CSU arrives.”

“No problem.” He pats the coat pocket where he keeps his cell phone. “Just give a call if you need anything.”

“Thanks, Glock.”

I go through the door and into the cold. A strong west wind buffets me as I head up the sidewalk toward the house, and I huddle deeper into my coat, wishing I’d put on a few more layers. At the back door, I knock and wait. A moment later, a tall, thin Amish woman I’ve never met answers. She’s wearing a blue print dress with a black apron, the requisite kapp, opaque hose, and well-worn black shoes. I show her my badge. “I need to speak with the children.”

She doesn’t look happy to see me, even less happy with my request. I’m relieved when she opens the door and ushers me inside. “Sitz dich anne.” Sit down.

The smells of coffee and cinnamon titillate my olfactory nerves as I step inside. Heat from the kerosene stove warms my face. A second woman stands at the kitchen sink, washing dishes. She turns as I sit at the table, nods a greeting, then returns her attention to her task. Being here in this Amish kitchen brings back memories. Growing up, I spent countless hours sitting at a big table just like this one while my mamm fussed at the stove, and I feel an uncharacteristic jab of melancholy for things lost. Not because I want to be Amish, but because I know that once pieces of your past slip away, those pieces are gone forever, and there’s no going back.

I think of my brother, Jacob, and my sister, Sarah, and for an instant I miss them so much, my chest aches. As children, we’d been close. Now they’re strangers; it’s been weeks since I’ve seen either of them. I have two nephews I barely know and a brand-new niece I’ve never met, mostly due to my own evasion. I don’t know why I avoid them the way I do. To say it’s complicated would be an understatement. As I sit at the table with the smells of an Amish house all around, I wonder if they’re part of my lost past, or if they’re part of a future I simply haven’t been able to reach for yet.

“I’m Ellen.”

I’m pulled from my thoughts to see the thin woman who’d answered the door eyeing me suspiciously as she dries her hands on a towel. “Would you like coffee and pie?” she asks.

I wonder if she’d be offering these if she knew I’d once been Amish and that I’d been excommunicated for going on fourteen years now. “Coffee would be nice. Thank you.”

She pours from an ancient-looking enamel pot and carries the cup to me. “The younger children are in their room, sleeping,” she says. “They have had a very trying day.”

I pick up the cup and sip. “What about Mose?”

“Wait.” She disappears into the living room. A moment later, Bishop Troyer appears. He’s a short man with bowed legs, a round belly, and thick gray hair that’s blunt-cut above heavy brows. A salt-and-pepper beard hangs from his chin, reaching nearly to the waistband of his trousers. He’s looked much the same since I was a child: old, but never seeming to age further.

He doesn’t look happy to see me. “Chief Burkholder.”

“I need to speak with the children,” I say without preamble. “It’s important.”

He sighs as he crosses to the table and takes the chair across from me. “Katie, the children are grieving. They have been through much already this day.”

“Solomon Slabaugh may have been murdered.”

“Murdered?” The bishop recoils as if I’d splashed hot coffee in his face. “Solly? But I thought he fell into the pit. How can that be murder?”

I tell him about the head trauma. “I need to talk to the kids, Bishop Troyer. Right now.”

The old man looks uncertain as he rises, as if he doesn’t know what to make of this new information I’ve just thrown at him. “The three youngsters are in their rooms, sleeping. Mose is outside in the workshop with the men.”

“Gather the younger kids for me.” I take a reluctant last sip of coffee, then rise. “I’ll speak to Mose first.”

The bishop bows his head slightly, then disappears into the living room.

Leaving my coffee and the warmth of the kitchen, I go back outside. The wind penetrates my parka as I make my way down the sidewalk. Midway to the barn, I turn left toward a newish steel building, noticing for the first time the dull glow of lantern light in the windows. The sky is even darker now, the gray clouds to the west approaching like some vast army. There’s no snow yet, but I can smell it—that cold, thick scent that tells me we’re about to get dumped on.

I open the steel door of the workshop and find a single lantern burning atop a workbench. The air smells of kerosene and freshly sawed wood. Two Amish men sporting insulated coveralls and full beards stand in the circle of golden light, talking to Mose. The three males eye me with unconcealed suspicion as I approach.

“Hello,” I say, but my focus is on Mose. Even in the poor lighting, he looks pale and troubled and unbearably sad.

Looking away, he mumbles something I don’t quite hear.

I nod a greeting at the two men. I’ve met them both at some point, but I don’t recall their names. “Bishop Troyer said I’d find you here,” I say to Mose. “I need to ask you a few questions about what happened this morning.”

The boy glances at the other two men, as if hoping they’ll intervene and send me packing. Of course, neither man does. Looking at Mose, I realize that the reality of everything he and his siblings face in the coming days and weeks and months is starting to hit home. He’s apprehensive, sad, maybe a little scared.

“I know this is a tough time for you and your sister and brothers,” I begin, trying to put him at ease. “But I need to go over some things with you that we didn’t cover this morning.”

He shoves his hands into his pockets. “Okay.”

I want to speak with him away from the men. Not because I don’t trust them, but because I know the Amish are as bad about spreading gossip as the English.

The workshop isn’t large. Looking around, I see a dozen or so unfinished cabinet doors stacked neatly against the wall, and it strikes me that Solomon Slabaugh was also a cabinetmaker.

“Did your datt make these cabinets?” I ask.

Mose ventures closer to me, eyeing the cabinets. “Ja.”

“He was very good.”

“He liked to work with his hands.”

“Did you help him?”

“I made the one on the left. It’s red oak.”

“It’s nice. I like the wood grain.” I walk to a half dozen intricately made Victorian-style birdhouses. “He make these, too?”

The boy glances uncertainly at the men, then follows me. “Ja. The mailboxes, too.”

“They’re really lovely.”

We’re standing about ten feet from the men now. It’s the farthest away I can get him without being too obvious about getting him alone. “Are you doing okay?” I ask, lifting the roof of a birdhouse and peeking inside.

Shoving his hands into his pockets, he mumbles something that sounds like yeah.

“You feel up to answering a few questions?”

He fixes his gaze on me and I see him resign himself to dealing with me, dealing with whatever reason I’m here. “What is this about?” he asks.

“Did your datt and uncle Adam get along okay?” I say the words easily, but I’m watching Mose carefully now—his eyes, his body language, his hands.

He looks confused by the question for a moment, then shrugs. “They used to.”

“What about recently?”

He shakes his head. “Datt wouldn’t let Uncle Adam come over to see us.”

“Why not?”

“Because he doesn’t keep the faith.”

“Did they ever argue?”

“Once or twice.”

“What about?”

Mose doesn’t want to answer; I see it in his eyes. Amish roots run deep. Though his uncle has been excommunicated, Mose still wants to protect him. But the boy was raised Amish and taught from an early age to respect and obey his elders. “Us kids.”

“Did Adam ever get angry?”

A lengthy pause ensues, then a reluctant “Sometimes.”

“Did he ever threaten your mamm or datt?”

“No,” he snaps.

“When’s the last time you saw him?”

“I don’t know. A long time, I think.”

I move on to my next question. “What about your uncle Abel? Did he get along with your datt?”

“Sure. They got along. They were brothers. They loved each other.”

“Did they ever argue?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Any recent disagreements?”

“No.” His brows go together. “Why are you asking me these things?”

I don’t want to unjustly accuse the dead. But I know the possibility exists that the two brothers had some kind of confrontation before Rachael and the kids got to the barn. Abel could have struck Solomon with the shovel. They could have struggled and fallen to their deaths. Or maybe Abel pushed Solomon into the pit, realized what he’d done, and then attempted a rescue, only to succumb to the methane gas and become a victim himself. It’s a long shot, but I’ve been a cop long enough to know it’s an avenue that needs exploring.

Ignoring Mose’s question, I move to the next. “What about your mamm and datt? Were they having any kind of disagreement?”

He tosses me an indignant glare. “No.”

“Did they argue?”

“Mamm and Datt never argued.”

The Amish are a patriarchal society. Even so, at some point in their marriage, husbands and wives have disagreements. Generally speaking, Amish women have a strong voice when it comes to decision making, but males have the final say. “You sure about that? No disagreements at all?”

Shaking his head, he turns away and starts toward the two men. I snag his coat sleeve and stop him. In my peripheral vision, I see the two Amish men shift restlessly and exchange glances. “Did you see anyone else in or near the barn this morning?” I ask.

“I told you before. I din see no one.”

The two Amish men are within earshot and stare at us with rapt attention. Turning my back to them, I pull my notebook from my coat. “Mose, I need for you to start at the beginning and tell me everything you remember, okay?”

He takes me through the same turn of events as he did this morning. “After Samuel came in screaming, Mamm and the rest of us ran to the barn. We were scared, because we knew something bad had happened. The first thing I noticed was that the barn door was open. I remember thinking Datt wouldn’t leave the door open, because it was cold and he was always trying to keep the barn warm so the water wouldn’t freeze.”

Frustrated by the lack of new information, I sigh. “Is there anything else?”

His brows go together again, as if I’ve posed some complex math equation. “I don’t think so.” He looks at me, his brows knitting. “Do you think someone killed my datt?”

“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “But I promise you I’m going to find out.”

Salome is fifteen years old and beautiful in the way that young girls are. She has huge eyes the color of a forest at dusk and a complexion the beauty industry has been trying to emulate for decades and never quite managed. Wearing a sky blue dress with a white apron and kapp, she sits at the kitchen table, looking as broken as a baby dove that’s fallen from its nest.

Next to her, young Ike spoons hot cocoa into his mouth. Samuel stares down at his empty cup, one elbow on the table, resting his chin on his palm.

“I know you guys have had a rough day,” I begin, “but I need to ask you some more questions about what happened this morning.”

Ike looks up from his cocoa, the spoon sticking out of his mouth. “Did the English doctor bring back my mamm?” he asks around the spoon.

I’m not a big fan of kids in general. But this little guy is cute and sweet and moves me in a way I’m not accustomed to. Maybe it’s because he’s Amish, or maybe because the grief I see in his eyes is so damn pure. So real. The urge to go around the table and put my arms around his skinny shoulders is strong, but I don’t. I’m afraid if I do, I’ll feel something I can’t afford to feel. “No, honey, he didn’t. I’m sorry.”

Taking the spoon from his mouth, he lowers his head and begins to cry.

Sitting next to him, Salome sets her hand on his shoulder. She’s got pretty hands. They’re soft and dimpled at the knuckles, like baby hands. I give them a moment, then move on to the purpose of my visit. “I wanted to go over a few things about this morning.”

Salome raises her head. Her eyes find mine, and for an instant I’m taken aback by her natural beauty. “Things like what?”

I know how easy it is to plant thoughts in a young mind, so I phrase my questions carefully. Without prompting her, I need to know, in her own words, every detail of what happened this morning. “I want you to think back to this morning again for me. I want you to tell me everything that happened. Everything you saw or heard. Details, even if you think it’s not important.”

Salome pats her brother’s back as if she were burping a baby, then folds her hands and stares down at them. The wash of pain over her features is so profound, I feel the same emotions knocking at the door to my own psyche.

Looking at her, I find myself thinking of my own life when I was her age. Until the age of fourteen, I was a typical Amish girl—happy, innocent, chock-full of a young girl’s hopes and dreams. I had all of those things stripped away in the summer of my fourteenth year, when a man by the name of Daniel Lapp introduced me to violence. By the time I was fifteen, Salome’s age, I was well on my way to eternal damnation—drinking, smoking, making out with guys I barely knew. I even did some shoplifting at the local drugstore—cigarettes, nail polish, makeup; things I didn’t need but couldn’t seem to live without. I got into a lot of trouble in my fifteenth year, and most of the time I didn’t get caught.

The contrasts between me and this girl are stark. Looking back, I don’t think I was ever as innocent. As I stand here and wait for her to recount a scene no child should ever have to endure, I feel guilty because I know I’m at least partly responsible for the death of her innocence. I don’t let that keep me from asking the questions that need to be asked.

“We were just sitting around the table, waiting for our scrapple,” she tells me. “We were hungry, waiting for Samuel to come in with Datt and Uncle Abel so we could say our before-meal prayer and eat.” She picks at a nail with intense concentration. “Then all of a sudden, Samuel came in, screaming. At first, I thought he was playacting, like he does sometimes. But Mamm got scared. She grabbed him and asked him what was wrong, and I knew something terrible had happened.”

“What happened next?” I ask, pressing her.

“We ran outside. I remember seeing that the barn door was open. Datt never left it open. He scolded us when we did. There was lantern light inside. We ran to the barn.”

“Why do you think the barn door was open?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you see anyone else?”

She shakes her head. “It was just us kids. And Mamm.”

“Was anything out of place?” I ask.

“Not that I recall.”

“Did you see any vehicles? Or buggies?”

“No, but I wasn’t really looking or paying attention. We were just so scared.” She looks at me as if she’s somehow failed me, then shakes her head. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” I smile to reassure her. “You did good.”

I can tell by the way her eyes slide away from mine that she doesn’t believe me. She may be only fifteen years old, but she knows these are not idle questions.

I query Ike and Samuel, but aside from the barn door being left open, neither boy remembers seeing anything out of place. In the backwaters of my mind, I find myself thinking of Adam Slabaugh, the estranged uncle, and I can’t help but wonder if he wanted a relationship with his niece and his nephews badly enough to kill for it.

I spend the next ten minutes going through every detail of the morning again, step by terrible step. But the kids are unable to offer anything new. I’m in the process of tucking my notebook into my pocket when another line of questioning occurs to me. “Did your datt ever hire anyone to help him around the farm?”

Salome nods. “Once or twice. He preferred to do the work himself, but sometimes it was too much for him and he would hire someone, when he had money to pay or goods to trade.”

“Who did he hire?”

“I don’t know their names.” She lifts her shoulders. “Men or boys in need of work.”

“Were they Amish or English?”

“Amish, mostly. Except one time he hired an Englischer.”

I look at the boys. “Do any of you remember the names of the people your datt hired?”

Two heads shake in unison.

I move on to my next question. “Did your parents keep money in the house?” It wouldn’t be the first time some day laborer decided stealing money was easier than working for it and turned on his employer.

The two boys defer to their older sister. “Datt kept some paper bills in a canning jar in the basement,” she says.

I rise. “Can you show me?”

“Sure. I know exactly where it is.” She gets to her feet. “You think one of the workers came back to steal the money?”

“I think it’s worth checking.”

I feel the Amish women’s eyes burning into my back as Salome takes me to the mudroom. They don’t trust me; they want me to leave the children alone. I wish I could, but at the moment, these kids are my best source of information.

The mudroom is a large, drafty room with half a dozen windows and a plywood floor. A defunct potbellied stove squats in the corner, its door hanging open like a slack mouth. Behind it, an ancient hunting rifle with a glossy wood stock leans against the wall.

“It’s always cold in the mudroom,” Salome says with a shiver.

In the dim winter light creeping in from the windows, I see that her hair is very shiny. I’m so close, I can smell the clean scent of it, see the soft perfection of her skin. Lifting a lantern from the sill next to the door, she lights the wick. “It’s dark in the cellar. Watch your step.”

The door creaks when she opens it. The odors of damp earth and rotting wood fill my nostrils as we descend the steps. Cold and darkness embrace me like strong, icy hands. Holding the lantern in front of her, Salome leads me into the bowels of the house. The basement is divided into several rooms with low ceilings, which make me feel slightly claustrophobic.

“I heard the women talking,” she says as we enter the next room. “They said you used to be Amish. Is that true?”

I walk beside her, hoping I don’t trip over some unseen object. “A long time ago,” I reply.

I see curiosity in her eyes, the same kind of curiosity I felt when I was her age. The only difference is that hers is innocent; mine was not.

“Did you do something wrong?” she asks.

“I did a lot of things wrong.”

“Like what?”

I don’t have a canned answer ready for a question that’s so far-reaching, especially for an innocent. “It’s complicated,” I say, hedging.

She appears to struggle with her next question, but in the end curiosity wins. “I heard you disobeyed the Ordnung and that Bishop Troyer put you under the bann.”

“I wasn’t baptized,” I tell her. “I decided to leave.”

“What did you do?”

“I made a lot of mistakes.”

“Oh.” She considers that for a moment. “Bishop Troyer is mean sometimes.”

“He’s a good bishop.”

She bites her lip, thinking. “Didn’t you miss your mamm and datt? Your sisters and brothers?”

I still miss them, a whisper inside me replies, but I don’t give it voice. “I missed them a lot.”

“If you missed them, why didn’t you confess your sins and stay? How could you leave them?”

How could I, indeed? It’s a question I’ve asked myself a thousand times over the years. My answer is always the same: “I didn’t have a choice.”

Her eyes flick to mine. In their depths I see the burn of curiosity. I can tell she wants to ask me about my transition from Amish to English. But Salome is too well mannered to pry any more deeply than she already has.

“I think about what it would be like sometimes,” she says after a moment.

“The grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the fence.”

Tossing me a sideways look, she laughs. “That’s a funny way to put it.”

Because I don’t want to encourage her one way or another, I say nothing.

Our feet are silent on the damp earthen floor as she takes me to a wall of shelving filled with dusty canning jars. Each is meticulously labeled: PEARS, APPLES, BEETS, GREEN BEANS, SAUSAGE, RHUBARB. I watch as she moves aside a jar and pulls one from the back. Unscrewing the lid, she peeks inside. “Oh no!”

“What is it?”

Eyes wide and searching, she shoves the open mason jar at me so I can look inside. “Datt’s money. It’s gone. Someone took it!”

I mentally kick myself for having let her pick up the jar. “Set it down, Salome. I’m going to take the jar and have it processed for prints.” Even in the dim light, I can see recent smudges in the dust. Fingerprints, maybe. Damn. Damn. Damn.

She looks distressed as she places the jar back on the shelf. “Who would do such a thing? How did they get down here in the cellar without us seeing them?”

“I don’t know.” I think about that a moment. “Do you know how much money was in there?”

She shakes her head. “I wouldn’t even know it was here if I hadn’t seen Datt drop in some money when I was getting sausage for Mamm.”

“When’s the last time you saw it?”

She traps her lower lip with her teeth. “I don’t know. I never pay attention.”

I pull a pair of latex gloves from my coat pocket, slip them on. I don’t have an evidence bag with me, but I pick up the jar anyway, decide to carry it out to the Explorer to bag it.

Salome turns wide eyes on me. “Whoever stole the money,” she begins. “Did they kill my mamm and datt and Uncle Abel, too?”

I look down at her, shocked that her mind had already made the leap. She stares back at me, her expression as guileless as a child’s. The lantern casts pin lights in her eyes. “I don’t know, honey, but I’m going to find out.”

She blinks back tears, and for an instant her grief turns to anger. “I don’t understand why this had to happen. If someone needed money, Datt would have given it to them.”

“These kinds of crimes never make any sense,” I tell her. But even to me, the words sound like a practiced understatement. She deserves a better answer. Because there isn’t one, I sigh and motion toward the stairs. “Come on. Let’s go.”

Mose is sitting at the table when we return to the kitchen. Salome takes her place at the table and puts her face in her hands. As if knowing something has changed, the younger children stare at her, wondering about the tears. They look up to her, I realize. And in that moment, I vow to do everything in my power to keep them from being separated.

I remain standing. “If any of you remember anything about the men who worked for your datt, let me know, okay?”

The request elicits four blank stares. After a while, Mose perks up. “The Englischer had a white dog. I remember because it killed one of our chickens.”

“What kind of dog?”

“It was a mongrel. Small. With wiry hair.”

I make a mental note to canvass the area and ask about any day laborers with white dogs. “Did your datt keep records? Write things down?”

Three heads shake in unison. Samuel pipes up with a solution. “Do you want us to look for his papers?” When I look at him, he smiles. He’s anxious to help, the kind of child who likes to please. He stares at me with the most innocent blue eyes I’ve ever seen. He’s got a smudge of dirt on his cheek, freckles on his nose. His lashes are still wet from an earlier cry. Before realizing I’m going to touch him, I lean forward and run my fingers through his mussed hair. “Thank you, Samuel, but I’ll have one of my officers do it,” I say.

My heart turns over in my chest when he smiles. The emotions running through me are so powerful, I take a step back, closer to the door. “You guys did good,” I say after a moment. “Thanks for all your help.”

One of the Amish women approaches the table with a dishcloth in her hand, gives me a firm look, and then addresses the children. “Supper’s ready,” she says softly. “Go wash your hands.”

Knowing that’s my cue to leave—or escape, I’m not sure which—I turn and start for the door. I may not be able to bring back these kids’ parents, but the one thing I can do is find the son of a bitch who killed them.