2

Jesse Stoltzfus heard the harsh shriek of a police siren and pulled himself out from under a buggy to see which direction the sound was coming from. It was a rare occurrence in Stoney Ridge and well worth taking a break from work. He wiped his hands on a greasy rag and stopped short when he saw his two apprentices, Sammy Schrock and Leroy Glick, stroll up the driveway. His black Labrador, C.P., two years old but still a puppy at heart, was already darting across the sheep pasture to greet them.

Jesse’s spirits instantly dropped to the basement. These two boys worked at the buggy repair shop. Work might not be the right word. Puttered. That’s the word. They puttered around Jesse’s buggy shop.

Why, he wondered for the umpteenth time, did he ever start taking on apprentices? When the idea was first presented to him, over two years ago, he thought it would be a win-win situation. His buggy repair business needed an extra pair or two of hands and he would like to work fewer hours. Miriam Schrock had asked him to take on her brother Luke, the town’s juvenile delinquent, with the hope that Jesse would be a positive influence on him. A sterling example, were Mim’s exact words. “Everyone knows Luke is a difficult boy,” she said, tears glistening on her sooty eyelashes. How could he say no to Mim, the girl who held his heart in the palm of her hands? He couldn’t.

But he should have.

Luke was impossible to manage. Oppositional Defiant Disorder was the diagnosis given to him by the local doctor, Max Finegold, and Luke was delighted. “See?” he said, grinning. “It’s not my fault.”

To Jesse’s way of thinking, Oppositional Defiant Disorder was an excuse that let Luke persist until he got what he wanted and avoid whatever he didn’t want. Like work.

There was another apprentice, just as impossible to manage as Luke but for an entirely different reason. Yardstick Yoder had cornered Jesse into the apprenticeship, driving a hard bargain, insisting he wouldn’t agree to be the Bent N’ Dent’s delivery boy unless he also learned buggy repairs. Jesse’s father’s store was trying to expand customer services, and Yardstick was the one to make deliveries, quick and speedy. He was the fastest boy in town. How could Jesse say no to that? He couldn’t.

But he should have.

Optimistic to a fault, Jesse started the apprenticeships with high hopes for success: Yardstick Yoder, who had a strong work ethic, would settle into work at the store. Mim Schrock would feel beholden to Jesse for being kind to her difficult brother, Luke, who had no work ethic at all.

Sadly, Jesse’s high hopes were mistaken.

Those two boys were oil and vinegar; they couldn’t stand being anywhere near each other—all because of Ruthie, his sister, whom they both had serious crushes on. Jesse spent most of his time keeping them occupied with tasks at opposite ends of the buggy shop just so they wouldn’t irritate each other. Once, they nearly came to blows over something as ridiculous as the tune one of them was whistling.

And then everything changed.

His sister Ruthie concluded that Luke was a Person of Interest to her—a POI—and Yardstick was no longer a POI. Stunned by her cold rejection, Yardstick decided that the problem did not lie with him but with Ruthie and, by extension, with the entire Stoltzfus family. He quit the buggy shop, he quit the Bent N’ Dent, and he took a job at the Hay & Grain.

Not to be outdone, Luke quit too. If the job was beneath someone as low as Yardstick Yoder, he said, it was certainly beneath him.

Personally, Jesse could not imagine what Ruthie saw in either one of them. It wasn’t only that the boys never had much on their minds, but they did not seem to have the proper awe and admiration for the important task of buggy repair work. Not the way they should have.

Never again, Jesse decided, would he take on apprentices just to make a woman happy. Any woman.

Alas alack. His resolve was promptly challenged.

As soon as Birdy, his father’s new wife, learned of the two vacancies, she paid a call to Jesse to ask if he would hire her nephew, Leroy, who sorely needed someone like Jesse in his life.

And he buckled.

And then Mim Schrock paid him another call, apologizing for her brother Luke and pleading with him to take on her other brother, Sammy. “Before it’s too late,” she said, batting her eyelashes at him in that way that made his stomach feel like Jell-O. “Before Luke’s influence over him is permanent.”

Again, Jesse buckled.

It was another grave mistake in his brief management career.

Jesse had spent the last couple of years diligently improving the disastrous reputation of the buggy repair shop. He had inherited the business from Hank Lapp, a good-hearted but easily distractable man who was untroubled by matters of timeliness. Most of the Amish of Stoney Ridge, Jesse had learned, had taken their buggy business over to Gap or Leola. When he did a little mental calculation, he realized that Hank had lost himself a substantial revenue stream for no good reason other than laziness. Jesse wanted to convince local residents that they didn’t need to go elsewhere for buggy repairs. He could use the help of good apprentices.

Unfortunately, he did not have good apprentices. He had less-than-average apprentices. Leroy Glick and Sammy Schrock were obsessed with fast girls, fast horses, and fast cars, and they left grease marks from their dirty hands on the freshly painted, pristine walls of the buggy shop. Even more irritating, he had found greasy fingerprints on the cupboard where he kept his private stash of snacks.

How often did he need to point out the rags to those boys? Yesterday was an example. “When you finish working on a buggy,” Jesse had told them both, “wash your hands before you touch other things. What’s so hard about that?”

“Not hard at all,” Sammy said, brushing back his floppy brown hair. “I always wash my hands.”

Both boys, aged fourteen, looked as though they had barely entered adolescence, other than a whisper of untended fuzz on their upper lips—something they were quite proud of.

Jesse turned to Leroy, who was enormous, a great pumpkin of a boy, as round as Sammy was thin. “Then is it you? Are you the one who leaves handprints on my cupboard?”

“Not me,” Leroy said, lifting his hands to reveal greasy palms. He had to talk around a big wad of bubblegum in his mouth. “I wash my hands more often than Sammy. Twice as often. Maybe three times.”

Jesse decided there might be something essential missing in those boys’ brains. Something significant. An axle, a rod, a wheel. Something like that.

Today, as the boys sauntered up the driveway, late as usual, they stopped halfway up. Leroy did a little dance step and Sammy tried to copy it. Jesse whistled for C.P., but the dog ignored him, dashed between the apprentices, his whole body wagging with excitement. As far as dogs went, C.P. was not good for much. He wasn’t the brightest, he wasn’t the most obedient, he still chewed up any shoe left unguarded, but Jesse had wanted to believe he was, at least, loyal. Not true. Fickle, fickle dog.

Just as Jesse was about to shout to the apprentices to hurry up and get to work, another police car sped down the road, siren blaring. The apprentices stopped their dance jig and swiveled around to watch the car race along. Not a minute or two later, the siren stopped.

Leroy looked at Sammy, eyes wide. “I think it stopped near your house. It’s down by Eagle Hill.”

“Let’s go!” Sammy said, and the two of them bolted down the driveway, C.P. on their heels.

Well, Jesse thought, watching them as they veered onto the road, to quote his predecessor Hank Lapp, these buggies aren’t dying. They’ll still be there when you get back.

He hurried to catch up with the apprentices and his fickle dog to find out what the ruckus was all about.

Later that day, at home, Ruthie heard a knock on the door and went to answer it. Rose King, the owner of the Inn at Eagle Hill, stood on the porch with a tired look on her lovely face, dark circles below her eyes.

“Has something happened? Did the coroner finish the autopsy? It was a murder, wasn’t it? Oh my goodness, oh my goodness.” Ruthie’s heart started pounding as she stepped aside to let Rose come in. All day long, she had felt rattled by the morning’s gruesome discovery.

Rose waved off Ruthie’s anxieties. “Slow down! First, I haven’t heard anything. Matt Lehman told me the coroner’s report will take awhile, apparently because he’s backed up.”

Thoughts collided in Ruthie’s head. The coroner was backed up? A wave of nausea rolled through her as she visualized stacks and stacks of dead bodies in a cold morgue. She had never been comfortable around dead bodies, despite the fact that she had been to plenty of open-casket viewings and funerals in her seventeen years. No matter how lifelike the undertaker tried to make a corpse, it looked weird and smelled awful.

Rose sat down at the kitchen table. “There’s a favor I need to ask of you.”

“Anything. Anything at all.” Ruthie couldn’t do enough favors for Rose. She loved working at the inn. She loved it when new guests arrived. There was always someone new to talk to, something new to learn about.

“The inn’s next guest has reserved the cottage for a month. I called and told him what happened, about the stranger who died in the cottage last night. I was sure he would cancel. Would you believe he wasn’t bothered in the least? In fact, he’s already on his way. If I turn this guest away, we’ll lose a month’s booking.” She bit her lip. “Ruthie, we need the income. So I wondered, do you think he could stay in Jesse’s old room until the cottage is given the all clear? Matt Lehman said it should only be a few days until the coroner is . . . well, until he gets caught up.”

Another wave of nausea hit Ruthie at the vision in her mind of dead bodies. “I’ll have to ask Birdy and Dad, but . . . I don’t think they’d object.” A thought occurred to her. “Does he have proper identification?” She wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.

“His name is Patrick Kelly. He’s from Canada. He already paid me, in full, for the month.”

“But he’s coming alone? That seems odd when it’s not hunting season.”

“He’s not interested in hunting. Not for game, anyway. That much I know.” Rose hesitated. “He says he wants to become Amish. That’s why he’s coming to stay for a full month. He wants to immerse himself in the culture. That was the word he used. ‘Immersed.’ Like a teabag in hot water.”

Ruthie knocked her forehead on the table, once, twice, three times. “Not another,” she groaned. Why did anyone think he could, or should, convert to the Amish? So many people came to the Inn at Eagle Hill with the intention of becoming Amish. They poked around the countryside, visited quilt shops, and returned at the end of the day to wax romantic about their longing to simplify life. Ruthie listened to them, answered their silly questions, and masterfully hid a smug smile. She knew how these stories played out.

Three weeks ago, two sisters had arrived with the same determination as this Patrick Kelly fellow. The sisters peppered Ruthie with questions about her life as if she was an endangered species at the zoo, asked if they could attend a church service. “Why, certainly,” she told them, barely able to swallow a smile. Imagine these two sisters, with highlighted hair and French manicures, sitting on a backless hard bench in a barn filled with horseflies . . . for three-plus hours! But then a heat wave rolled in, spiking the temperature with hair-curling humidity. The cottage had no air conditioning, no ceiling fan . . . and . . . whoosh! The sisters had a change of heart. They opted to leave early and head back to city life. Going Amish had lost its romantic appeal.

As far as Ruthie was concerned, there was nothing romantic about being Amish. She felt like a bird trapped in a cage, eager to break free and fly away. The only one who could understand how she felt was her father’s sister Ruth, for whom she was named. Her aunt Dok, an emergency room doctor at the local hospital, was everything she wanted to be. Dok led a purposeful, valuable, significant life. A non-Amish life.

“So . . . ,” Rose said, pulling Ruthie out of her muse of discontent, “will you ask your dad and Birdy? See if they’re comfortable with having a stranger in the house?”

“I’m sure it’s no problem at all,” Ruthie hastened to say. “You know that Birdy thinks nobody’s a stranger once you know their name.”

Rose stood. “Tell Birdy that Patrick Kelly sounded . . . nice. Friendly. Not someone I would hesitate to host in my home, if we had the room for him.”

Unlike the bloody soon-to-be-murdered mobster whom Ruthie had let in. She was sure that’s what Rose was thinking but was too kind to say.

Rose took a few steps, then turned at the doorjamb. “Do you think you could ask Birdy about it as soon as possible? Patrick Kelly is due in this afternoon at the bus stop on Main Street. I told him someone would pick him up.”

The clip-clop sound of a horse approaching up the driveway drew Ruthie to the window. “There she is now. Let’s go ask.”

What a day. It began for David Stoltzfus with the birth of his beautiful new grandson. A new life, just beginning. It was ending with the untimely, unfortunate death of a stranger, right across the street.

David couldn’t shake a feeling of uneasiness. Certainly, the muddy circumstances that surrounded the man’s death were to blame. There was no point in borrowing trouble, no point in assuming that it had been an actual crime, not until the coroner’s report came back.

But on the other hand, the entire thing sounded suspicious. The blood on the man’s forehead, the lack of any identification. His daughter Ruthie said she overheard the reporter say that most likely the stranger had been in a tussle, then whoever had injured him had come to the inn later to finish off the job.

If that were true—and David knew enough about such matters to not jump to conclusions on unfounded fears—but if that were true, could Ruthie be in any danger as the sole witness?

David was willing to let the Inn at Eagle Hill’s guest stay at their home for the time being, but he also insisted on being the one to pick him up at the bus stop. After ten years as an ordained leader, he felt he had become a pretty good judge of character. If he brought a stranger into his home, one filled with young girls, he was going to make absolutely sure he felt comfortable with him.

He pulled the horse over to the side of the road to wait for the bus to arrive and thought about the other stranger who had created ripples of anxiety. So odd. No one knew who that guest at the inn was, where he came from, how he died. Or why he died.

He was grateful that Galen King was the one who went into the cottage this morning and not his daughter Ruthie.

Ruthie’s face suddenly swam into view. Right now, he worried about her more than any of his other children. David had found a GED practice book in a trunk in the barn’s tack room and had no doubt it belonged to Ruthie. Seventeen now, she was the one who was in the barn most often because she milked their dairy cow, and she was the one with the lively, active, insatiable mind. She was the one most intrigued by life outside the boundaries of the Amish world.

After Ruthie had finished eighth grade, David hoped she would work at the Bent N’ Dent, but she took a job at Edith Fisher Lapp’s chicken and egg farm. Ruthie assumed she would be collecting eggs and caring for the hens. Edith gave her the job of ending the life of old layers and preparing the hens for the freezer. That job only lasted one week but gave Ruthie nightmares for a month. She kept dreaming that chickens were coming after her to seek vengeance.

She worked for two weeks at the Sweet Tooth Bakery but had trouble sticking to the proper suggestions to use with customers. One of the bakery girls heard her discuss calorie counts with a customer instead of offering, “Better take two cinnamon rolls. They’re going quickly.” The customer did ask, Ruthie defended. She was let go.

Brief, but that short stint at the Sweet Tooth Bakery gave Ruthie a taste for working “out.” She wanted to interact with as many non-Amish as she could. She loved the sound of foreign accents, the close-up glimpses of lives far removed from her own. When she heard there was a job available at the Inn at Eagle Hill, she begged David to let her work there.

David held himself partially responsible. Maybe more than partially. When he moved his family from Ohio to Lancaster County, he hadn’t fully realized how distracting a place it would be for his family, especially for someone like Ruthie. Lancaster County was far less isolated, with far more interaction with tourists. Ruthie kept postponing baptism class (postpone? or avoid? he wasn’t sure which) and David respected her wishes. He wouldn’t interfere, but oh, how he prayed for her.

Even more so now that his sister, nicknamed Dok, had become such a big part of his family’s life.

It was a great blessing to have reunited with his sister, but with every blessing came a burden. Dok and Ruthie had a special connection. He wasn’t troubled that Dok’s influence over Ruthie would pull her away from faith, but he was concerned that Ruthie would leave the Amish church and all that it meant: the security of community, the comfort and blessings of family. His sister was a woman of sincere faith, and she firmly believed that one didn’t have to be Amish to live a life of faith.

There were many Amish who would disagree with Dok’s perspective, many who believed that only the Amish were the true believers, but David wasn’t one of them. In fact, he encouraged the youth to get baptized and join the church only if their whole heart was in it. The worst thing of all, he was convinced, was to be half Amish. To sit on a fence for most of one’s life, partly in, partly out. Did not the Scriptures warn men of fence sitting? “So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth.”

He heard the approaching bus before he saw it. It rolled around the corner and came to a squeaky halt at the stop. The doors opened and one person jumped off. A young man. A very English-looking man, with short-clipped hair, khaki pants, a crisply ironed blue button-down shirt, a fat brown backpack slung over his shoulder. In one hand he held a birdcage with a large black bird inside.

That sight alone, David thought with a smile, would endear this young visitor to Birdy, his wife. Her childhood nickname had been bestowed on her because she was passionate about anything with feathers and wings. He hardly gave much thought to birds until he met Birdy, but now he spotted them everywhere and tried to identify them with the tools she’d taught him: size and shape, color pattern, behavior, habitat. He still couldn’t identify much more than a bright red male cardinal, but he found himself enjoying bird-watching. On buggy rides, on walks in the woods. No matter how complicated life became—and boy, did it ever—Birdy had a way of reminding him of its simple joys.

The young man strode right toward David’s buggy and went to the open window, shifted the birdcage to his left arm, and thrust his right hand out for a shake. “I’m Patrick Kelly. I’ve got a reservation at the Inn at Eagle Hill. That is, as soon as the police give it the all clear.”

A little startled by the young man’s direct manner, David reached a hand out to return his shake. “David Stoltzfus.”

“The bishop?”

David nodded. “How did you know?”

“I’ve been a subscriber to the Budget for four years now. I’ve been reading about Stoney Ridge for a while.” He pointed to the empty seat next to David. “Mind if I get in?” He walked around the horse and slid open the buggy door before David had a chance to answer. He tossed his backpack into the backseat and settled into the passenger seat beside David, resting the birdcage on his lap.

David ran through the identifying tools for this bird. Size and shape: bigger than a robin, smaller than a crow. Color: glossy black feathers, yellow-orange bill, yellow streaks on the sides of its head, fleshy wattles, bright yellow feet. Behavior: perched on a wooden rod. Habitat: a birdcage. Nope. He had no idea what kind of bird this was.

The bird made a few clucking noises, a whistle, then suddenly burst out with a very clear phrase: “This is the day the Lord hath made!”

David’s jaw dropped. “It talks?”

“Yes and no.” Patrick grinned. “She mimics. This is Nyna, my common hill mynah bird. One of the world’s best birds for mimicking the human voice. I’ve taught Nyna to quote Scripture. That’s the verse we were working on during the long bus ride from Canada. It’s her longest phrase so far.”

David laughed. “Wonders never cease. Imagine that! A bird quoting the Holy Book. She might be useful to keep people awake during church.” If he had harbored any doubts about letting this young man stay at his house, they just evaporated. “My wife will be interested to meet Nyna the Mynah. She’s a bird lover, a true birder. In fact, her name is Birdy.”

“Oh boy.” Patrick beamed. “This is great. Just great. I can’t tell you how excited I am to be here. I’ve been planning this trip for years. Looking forward to it for a very long time. It’s my defining moment.”

David flicked the reins and clucked his tongue to get Thistle moving. “How so?”

“A few years ago, my parents took our family on a trip to Lancaster County.” He shot David a grin. “My mother has regretted the trip ever since.”

“It wasn’t a good trip?”

“Just the opposite. It was the best trip of my life. That was the moment I decided I was going to become Amish. I was fifteen at the time, and my parents insisted that I wait until I . . . well . . . until I was a little older before I returned to Pennsylvania.” He grinned at David. “So here I am.” He looked out the storm front, straight ahead. “My parents have given me thirty days. But as far as I’m concerned, there’s no turning back. I’m going Amish.”

Well, well, David thought. Interesting.