Early Thursday Morning, February 19th
Gingrich Farm,
Morelville, Ohio
I pulled up in my pickup outside the Gingrich farm just before 6:30 AM. A Yoder Toter was already there, presumably for Jonah. The driver beeped the horn but, after several long seconds waiting where no one appeared at the door, I got out of my pick-up and walked up to the oversized passenger van.
The driver rolled the window down barely a crack when I stopped by his door.
“You here for Jonah?”
He looked me up and down in my uniform, now realizing as I stood before him that I was a law officer. “Yes Miss. Just given’ these boys a ride to work, is all.” There were two Amish boys about Jonah’s age sprawled on the seats behind the driver. One looked familiar but he had his hat shading his eyes and I couldn’t get a good look at him.
I figured this guy was probably another one of the many who worked off the books to service the needs of the Amish.
“You come out here every day to get him?”
“Look, officer, I don’t want no kind of trouble.”
“It’s Sheriff, and you’re not in any trouble and neither is he. I just need to speak with him briefly and I haven’t been able to pin him down.”
He pressed the button and put the window down a little further then. “I pick them all up most days and take them right to the jobsite, wherever it is. Lately they’ve been working on a house remodel up Dresden way.”
“Dresden? Where about?”
“Right off Dresden Road.”
That was close to where Katie had been found.
The driver beeped again but still, no one came to the door.
“Why don’t you go ahead and get going,” I told him. “We wouldn’t want these two to be late. If Jonah’s going in today, I’ll give him a ride to the job.”
“Alright then, uh, Sheriff.”
Once he was gone, I went to the door and rapped on it. Just as I started to lower my hand, Jonah’s sister answered it.
“I was beginning to think no one was here.”
“I’m sorry ma’am. Mama is out doing the morning milking and I was upstairs doing the beds.”
“You didn’t hear the horn?”
“That was you?”
“No, it was the driver for your brother.”
“That’s why I came down; to tell him Jonah wouldn’t be working today.”
“Is something wrong?” My mind was running through all sorts of possible reasons why he might be skipping work again, most of them involving his controlling father who didn’t seem to be present this morning.
“He’s gone ma’am.”
“Gone where?”
“I don’t know. He left in the night.” She shifted from one foot to the other in the door frame.
I could tell she knew something but she wasn’t sure she should tell me.
“It’s pretty important that I speak to your brother. You’re sure you don’t know where he went?”
“You were here before and you were here again yesterday too?”
“Yes.”
“I heard you talking to father yesterday and so did Jonah. He seemed upset after that. His room is next to mine. He left in the middle of the night; I heard him but I just thought he was going to the outhouse. He said at dinner he wasn’t feeling well and he didn’t eat much.”
“What time did he leave?”
“I don’t know ma’am but he’s been gone many hours.”
“Does your father know he left?”
She nodded. “Jonah wasn’t back for breakfast. Mother tends to them both before they leave for work.”
“Your father went to work then?”
“Yes.”
“Where’s that?”
“At the buggy shop up the road.”
I knew the one she meant. “He wasn’t worried about Jonah being missing?”
“No ma’am but Mother is upset.”
“Did he take a buggy?”
She looked out the door toward the barn. “Father took ours and I see Jonah’s horse poking his head out of his stall so he didn’t take him or the wagon.”
The boy was out there on foot somewhere. Leaving in the middle of the night, from out here in the middle of nowhere, with no access to a phone, he couldn’t have gotten far, I figured.
“Can you answer one more question for me?”
“All right.”
“Why do you think he left?”
The young woman squirmed again in the doorway and her face flushed. “I...I think he may be scared.”
She paused then but I just stood patiently eyeing her, waiting for more.
“He was, I think...I know very taken with Miss Katie and, I don’t want to speak out of turn, but it wouldn’t surprise me if maybe he lost control one night and he got her pregnant. They were courting you know and...well, I heard it said she was raped and she was shunned for that but, just...just maybe it wasn’t rape.”
Her theory flew in the face of my own based on what I’d already heard from Jonah but maybe there were grains of truth in both sides of the story.
“Miss...” I realized I didn’t even know her name.
“I’m Ruth.”
“Ruth, Jonah told me he felt like Katie was in danger and it was good that she left the order. Do you know why he might have thought that?”
She shook her head no but then confided, “Jonah was thinking about leaving the order and just maybe he had planned to join Katie where...wherever she was. Maybe, because she died. it all got to be too much and that’s why he left.”
I was about to respond but held my tongue when I saw the girls’ eyes widen. Turning to look behind me, I saw what she saw; her mother emerging from the barn, a pail of milk in one hand.
I greeted her and tried to speak with her, and though she invited me inside, she was very upset and not disposed to talk. The only thing of real value I got out of her was where I could find Jonah’s boss, the Mennonite Alden Plett.
As I was leaving, I said, “The Hershbergers are having a funeral for Katie tomorrow at their home.”
“We won’t be attending,” she told me.
“Because she was shunned?”
“No.”
That was all she said and, for the second time in as many days, the door was firmly closed as I stood on their porch.
###
Mid-morning, Thursday, February 19th
Muskingum County, Sheriff’s Department
“The autopsy report is back from the Coroner boss,” Shane called out to me when he spotted me passing by the squad bay on my way through the building. I wheeled left and walked into the bay instead.
I was surprised to find Mason at her desk too and I gave her a ‘what’s up?’ toss of the head.
She caught my drift right away. “Shane worked late into the evening yesterday Sheriff. The least I could do was come in and give him a hand this morning.”
“Yeah and you were called out in the middle of the night and worked till the wee hours yesterday morning then came in for your usual shift. You got what, maybe 3 hours of sleep?”
She shrugged.
“Listen, both of you. I know we have a lot on our plates right now but the FBI is on the kidnapping, we have senior patrol people who are more than capable of assisting in the murder investigation and helping. It’s great that you’re backing each other up but the reason there are two of you in the first place is so you don’t flame out when we need you most.”
I couldn’t really be mad at them but neither did I want to lose either one of them to the burden of the sort of job stress Shane had struggled under for several months before I was able to hire Janet.
Mason responded, “Roger, Sheriff.” Shane Harding though, didn’t answer. Instead, he was waiting somewhat impatiently to tell me his news.
“Go ahead, out with it. I can see my concern is misplaced.”
“I appreciate it Sheriff,” he said, “I do, but there are some things the report tells us that could be the keys to this case.”
“Like?”
“Well, for one, we should have stayed with the Coroner the other day until they moved the body. Folded up under her was a baby blanket.”
He flipped open a file on his desk and handed me a photograph. “Do you suppose it’s the one she went back for?”
“It looks familiar to me. Hannah Yoder would know, for sure. It’s odd that it would have been with her, still.”
“Is it? Why would the perp want to keep it? What if he were caught with it?”
“True.” I shrugged. “It does go to show that she really did go back for a missing blanket though. What else is in that report?”
“His initial exam shows extensive bruising on the arms, shoulders, back and neck consistent with being punched and hit with an open hand.”
“Ouch...” My stomach churned. The thought of that sweet 17-year-old girl being beaten in a fight for her life made me want to throw up; throw up and then give the man who did it to her some of his own medicine. I glanced at Mason. She wasn’t even trying to hide her anger.
“There are photos.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“The tox screen showed trace amounts of propofol.”
“That’s a sedative, isn’t it?” Janet asked.
I nodded, “Yes. It’s used in surgeries where the patient is to be kept awake to cooperate but where they won’t remember what happened or feel pain.”
“And it ain’t easy to get,” Shane supplied.
“Agreed. It’s usually handled by oral surgeons or surgeons, period. You can’t get a prescription for it so we’re dealing with someone that either had access through hospital channels or to a black market supply.”
“Is it an injectable?” Janet asked. She had her eyes scrunched up like she was trying to puzzle through the crime as it went down.
A lightbulb went on for me. “You have something there. Not usually,” I said. “For surgery, even dental surgery, it’s usually mixed into an IV and kept flowing because it’s effects only last minutes but my sister was injected with something Tuesday night that knocked her out temporarily.”
Grabbing Janet’s phone since it was closer to me, I dialed the number for the switchboard over at Genesis Hospital and had them patch me through to their lab. Minutes later, my suspicion was confirmed; Kris had been injected with a small dose of propofol that they were only just able to find still in her system. Another hour between Jef’s kidnappers injecting her and her trip to the hospital and we might never have known that.
Now we knew that Katie’s murder and Jef’s kidnapping were related. We just didn’t have any viable suspects.
I told them about Jonah and my talk that morning with Ruth. “He’s not a killer. I’m sure of that.”
“Then he knows something important,” Shane said. “Do you think he really could be Jef’s father?”
“My gut says no. I believe he really liked Katie and he really did want to court her. He had no reason to seek me out and say anything at all to me. He could have just gone along on his way.”
I paused, thinking for a minute and then I told them, “I had a run in with his father yesterday. He seems much stricter, much more confrontational than is typical of the Amish. He’s got a hard edge to him that even the old order people just don’t have. I don’t know, I just have a very bad feeling about him. Something is off there.”
Janet visibly shuddered. “This is like déjà vu with the Olivia Stiers case...father, son...”
Before anyone could ponder that further, Shane’s phone rang.
He sighed and picked it up, “Detective Harding.”
Janet mouthed, “Tip line,” to me.
We both waited while he spoke to the person on the line. When he started scribbling on a note pad, I stepped toward him to read over his shoulder.
A lady who was at the WIC office on Monday was calling to say she remembered seeing Katie there.
When Shane hung up, I told him I was going out with him to question her.
“Meanwhile,” I said to Mason, “Since you insist on being here, why don’t you put together a team of deputies and go canvass the Amish areas. A boy on foot wouldn’t have gotten far unless he hitched a ride. I don’t think he did. I think he’s scared and hiding out somewhere.”
“Stiers’ case, I’m telling you,” Janet said. “Bet he shows up at your parents’ farm.”
“Well check there too. Oh, and you might want to talk to his boss Alden Plett. He owns AP Contractors out of Sugarcreek, since you’re thinking this case resembles the Stiers one and all.”