5:50 PM, Friday, February 20th
Morelville, Ohio
Hannah Yoder’s car was parked off to one side of the gravel driveway leading to the Hershberger’s home when I pulled onto their property. I parked my county SUV behind her vehicle, stowed my personal cell in the console and got out. I was surprised to note she was there and even more surprised when I went inside and entered the room Rebecca had been preparing to see her standing demurely in a plain black dress of ankle length, with lace up black boots like many Amish women wore in the winter months. Her head was unadorned and, I noted, she wore no makeup either as she stood and talked quietly with another young woman, also in black and obviously practicing Amish. I nodded to the two of them and went to pay my respects to the family.
There weren’t many people there. Besides Samuel and Rebecca and Hannah and the girl she was talking to, who I assumed to be another daughter, and a couple of young men I knew to be sons including the one I’d seen a couple of times before, there was only one other person present; a man I took to be the minister who would conduct the funeral service. I was sad for Katie that these were all who would her passing. Even in death, the practice of shunning continued.
Katie’s coffin, a simple pine box traditional for the Amish, was closed. I had only been to one other Amish funeral and that coffin too had been closed, I assumed because the decedent, a friend of my father’s, had been killed in a horrific sawmill accident. Now I wasn’t so sure it just wasn’t the Amish way.
I gave the two parents my condolences, paused briefly at the bier and then took a seat along the wall opposite it.
No sooner was I seated than all eyes turned as the front door opened and, seconds later, Jonah Gingrich, the young carpenter every deputy in my department was searching for, walked into the room. I watched as one of Katie’s brothers strode to the door and, though he said nothing, gave him a look that could only be read to say he wasn’t welcome. Jonah however did speak and though I couldn’t understand what he said because he spoke in German, his words seemed to calm the other man and he stood down, moving aside to let Jonah proceed to Katie’s parents and the bier beyond them.
Rebecca Hershberger hugged the boy and Samuel took his hand and said something to him softly that, even had they been speaking in English, I wouldn’t have been able to make out.
He moved over to the coffin after that and placed on hand gently against it for just a brief moment as he muttered something in German that I did know roughly equated to ‘rest in peace’. He nodded at the minister and took a seat along the end wall at the front of the house, well away from where the family stood and the bier where Katie’s coffin rested.
The minister cleared his throat and the others, realizing the time had come for the service, found seats. Hannah came and took a seat next to me. We shared a glance but didn’t exchange words.
The funeral service was all in German and quite short, lasting less than half an hour. I remembered the congregants singing at the service of my father’s friend but that wasn’t done here. If any of the address even mentioned Katie, I couldn’t tell it. I wasn’t able to pick out her name from the eulogy that was given that seemed more like a sermon than a tribute to the deceased.
When it ended. Katie’s father rose. He addressed us all in German and then again in English, probably specifically for my benefit, inviting us to supper. The family rose then and filed out with the minister following. Jonah Gingrich fell into line behind them.
As Hannah and I stood, she asked, “Are you staying to eat?”
I watched as one after the other, the line of folks filing out the door turned toward the back of the house until Jonah reached the doorway and turned left to go back out the front.
“No,” I answered her. “I need to talk to someone.”
Striding fast to catch the boy who was hustling toward a horse and an open wagon, I called out, “Not staying to fellowship with the family?”
He looked back over his shoulder at me and then stopped short as if he was noticing me for the first time.
“No, I have to get back.” He toed the gravel nervously.
“Back where?”
“To the family I’m staying with.”
“Jonah, I’ve been looking for you, my whole department has been looking for you for the last couple of days.”
“Am I in trouble?”
Before I could answer him, the sound of a car door opening just behind me caught me off guard. Hannah was getting into her vehicle.
I shook my head in confusion. “I thought you were going to stay?” I asked her.
All she said was, “I can’t,” and then she closed the door and started her car.
I stepped to the side of the driveway I was standing in the middle of and so did Jonah as she maneuvered away from the edge, did a sort of ‘K’ turn to get herself turned around and drove by us as I sketched a wave at her.
“She couldn’t stay because she’s shunned,” Jonah said. You left; she would have had to sit and eat alone.”
“I don’t understand; they were talking to her when I got here.”
“No one will be rude ma’am but neither will they socialize.”
“We really need to talk,” I said to him then, letting go of the strange Amish customs for the moment. “It’s cold and I know you want to be on your way in that open rig before it gets much worse.”
He nodded. “I’m only going to the Browning Road ‘Y’.”
I was incredulous. “You’re staying along there?”
He nodded.
It was less than three miles from where we were standing.
“I’ll follow along behind.”
“Or you can meet me there and save yourself the frustration,” he grinned as he framed his reply.
“You’ve got me there.” I really didn’t want to do the six mile per hour crawl a trip following his rig would take and I knew down deep that I could trust him. My gut told me there was a good reason why he disappeared and he would tell me in due time.
He told me what farm to meet him at and I departed. Five minutes later I was parked at the base of a drive to a place I knew was owned by Mennonites. I waited there patiently for him in the warmth of my vehicle. Twenty minutes or so later, true to his word, his horse and wagon rig passed me by and he turned up the drive. I followed.
I left everything in my vehicle including my gun belt. This conversation was going to be off duty and off the record. I helped him unhitch the horse and lead it to the barn where, while he fetched it water and then got it rubbed down a bit I began my informal interview.
“Why are you staying here?”
“I work with one of the guys whose family lives here. They’ve given me the bed of a daughter just recently married who now lives with her husband.”
“So you’ve continued to go to work?”
“Yes. He doesn’t drive. We ride in the van from here to the job site.”
“Wherever that might be?”
“Yes.”
I was angry that my detectives hadn’t followed up with his boss as I’d asked them to do but I pushed those thoughts aside for now. “Why did you leave your family?” I asked him instead.
“I couldn’t stay there but I haven’t left them ma’am. I’m still going to help take care of them.”
“Take care of them? They think you ran away.”
“No, my obligation is to them...I just couldn’t stay there.”
I tried a different tack, “Level with me; did you have any sort of a physical relationship with Katie Hershberger?”
“No!” He shook his head vigorously. “I’ve never even held her hand.”
Somehow, I believed him but that meant that his sister was either speculating a lot or she had flat out lied. In either case, her actions would be highly unusual for a woman – or anyone for that matter – that was a part of the Amish community. I found myself growing concerned at all of the possible reasons why she might lie.
“Tell me then, why did you leave you father’s house?”
“Because of him.”
I mentally shuddered. Like Janet had mentioned only a day or so ago, I had a similar déjà vu feeling come over me. It was as if I was talking to Nevil Harper Jr. from the Steirs case, all over again but I shook the eerie thoughts off and tried to concentrate only on Jonah. “What has he done?” I questioned him softly.
Jonah stopped brushing the horse and turned to face me. “Katie’s brother and me, we came up together. That’s how I know her. We work together.”
“The big guy who stopped you at the doorway when you came in tonight?” The one I saw shoveling coal and returning from digging Katie’s grave, I thought to myself.
He nodded. “Caleb.”
“What does Caleb have to do with it?”
Jonah put the brush away and pulled down a blanket for the horse. I helped him get it over him while he tried to decide what to tell me. Finally, he just came out with it.
“Caleb said he was there when Katie told her ma and father she was raped. He let me have it at work one day; said my father did it to her and got her pregnant and that now she was dead because of him.”
Words escaped me but Jonah wasn’t done.
“I was ashamed and angry. I had to leave. If I stayed there, I might have done something a good son should never do.”
“Did Caleb say your father killed Katie?”
“No. He didn’t say that.”
“Do you think he did?”
A tear rolled down his cheek then and he swiped at it angrily as he answered. “I don’t think so. Deep down, I believe he may have...may have...”
“Raped her?” I supplied.
“Yes, but I don’t think he killed her. I know he didn’t...”
“How can you know that for sure?”
“I can’t know it for sure but...but I know where he’s been and he’s hardly been anywhere at all these last couple of weeks...at least, not while I was there.”
“Katie disappeared on Monday, Jonah.”
“I remember.”
“Where was your father then?”
“At work just like every day but that, that Wednesday when we were all home...the day after...”
“After we found Katie,” I finished for him again.
“Where does he work? I thought he was a farmer.”
“Aye, both. He’s a wheelwright too.”
“For buggies?”
“Yes.”
“The shop close to your house.”
He nodded.
“He goes there every day?”
“Most days, even Saturday sometimes, especially in the summer.”
Though I had bad feelings from the start about the man, Jonah had no reason to lie to me and I was well aware that his father had no means to get to Dresden where Katie was found or even to Zanesville unless he commissions a ride, something I’d be willing to bet he didn’t do very often.
Now I was torn; on the one hand I had a guy locked up who fit the description almost to a tee, other than his height, and who had a history of violence against women and on the other I had a man that would have had easy access to Katie and other young women and very well may have been her rapist but who had no real means to go after her more than 10 miles from where he lived, transport her more than 10 miles further north from where he found her and then return more than 20 miles home. It just wasn’t plausible...or did he have help? Why? To what end?