For the first time since I arrived in Belleville, I feel the utter coldness of the Stoltzfus case. The distance of it like miles separating loved ones. I think about the years that have passed and I wonder what else lies dormant beneath the decades.
Ramblewood is an unincorporated area thirty minutes northwest of Belleville. I pass through picturesque countryside, including the Rothrock State Forest, where I’m rewarded with stunning views of the valley below.
Amanda Garber lives in a small house in Meadows Park off of Whitehall Road. I knock twice, using the heel of my hand a third time, but no one comes. I’m about to go back to the rental car for pen and paper to write a note when the door creaks. At first, I think the door rolled open on its own. Then I look down and see a tiny, white-haired woman staring up at me.
“Takes me a while to get to the door these days,” she says in a voice that’s surprisingly robust. “Everyone’s in such a hurry.”
She’s barely four feet tall. Blue eyes filled with attitude take my measure. Her face is a mosaic of leather patches stitched together by capillaries. She’s wearing a blue print dress with a crocheted shawl over hunched shoulders, and a Mennonite-style head covering. She leans heavily on a four-prong cane.
“Mrs. Garber?” I say.
“It’s Ms. Garber now. And whatever you’re selling, I ain’t buying.” She starts to close the door.
“I’m not selling anything.” Quickly, I introduce myself. “I’d like to ask you some questions about Mia Stoltzfus.”
The door stops mid-close. Through the space, she looks at me with more interest. “Mia?” Her voice goes soft. “That girl’s been gone for years. Why on earth are you asking me about her?”
“I understand she worked for you.”
“Worked for me, my eye! I loved her like a sister.” She cackles. “She made being Amish all those years bearable and that ain’t no easy task.”
I switch to Deitsch, hoping the shared language will help convince her to invite me inside for a chat. “I’m looking into the death of Ananias Stoltzfus,” I tell her.
Her eyes narrow. “You speak pretty good Deitsch for an Englischer.”
“I left, too,” I explain. “When I was a teenager.”
“I was almost seventy when I jumped ship,” she tells me. “Don’t know why I waited so long.” She pushes open the door and turns away. “Kumma.” Come.
I follow her to a small living room cluttered with a sofa and two recliners, a coffee table strewn with magazines and books, and a TV the size of a boat. The air is stuffy and warm, despite the air conditioner wheezing in the window.
“Ananias Stoltzfus, huh? Haven’t heard that name in a blue moon.” She wobbles to one of the recliners, braces the cane against the floor, and plops onto the cushion, her feet flying up. “I might have something to say about him and it likely won’t be flattering.” She motions me into the other recliner. “Sit.”
I take a seat. “In all fairness, I should tell you I’m a friend of Jonas Bowman.”
She leans forward, looks left and right as if someone might be listening. “Ananias Stoltzfus was a son of a bitch. Far as I’m concerned, that boy did the world a favor. The man was drunk on power and had the conscience of a fox in a coop full of chickens.”
“Was there anyone in particular he had problems with?”
“Rubbed a lot of us the wrong way.” Her mouth curls. “Problem was, everyone was too scared of him to open their mouths.”
“What can you tell me about Mia?”
“She was a sweet thing. Worked at my bakery for four or five years. She was one heck of a baker. That woman and her desserts…” Her thoughts turn inward and some of the wrinkles on her face seem to smooth out. “I closed my shop going on ten years ago and I still miss her.”
“How long did you know her?”
Her face screws up as if she’s trying to remember. “They moved here in 1967 or so.” She shrugs. “Mia had her babies shortly thereafter. Wasn’t until her kids were older that she came to work for me. I think that was around 1982 or thereabouts.”
I put the timeline to memory. “I talked to Pastor Zimmerman earlier.”
She narrows her eyes. “So you know what happened to her.”
I nod. “Do you have any idea why?”
For the first time, Amanda Garber isn’t quite so keen to hit back with some colorful retort. “Why are you asking about her now? After all these years?”
“I’m not sure the police have the right man in jail.”
“I see.” But I can tell by the way her nose wrinkles that she doesn’t care one way or another. As long as the old man stays dead …
“Ms. Garber, I don’t have to tell you how unusual it was for an Amish woman to end her life in a Lutheran church.”
She looks down at hands that are dotted with brown spots. “Mia was a good girl with a soft heart. A kind heart. But she got the melancholy sometimes. She never complained, but I saw it. I always got the sense she’d … been through something she didn’t want to talk about.”
“Like what?”
She shrugs. “Something traumatized that girl.”
I nod. “Was her husband abusive?”
She shakes her head. “I didn’t like the man. He was a tyrant and a bully and he sure didn’t pull any punches when it came time to dole out punishment. But I don’t believe he was beating her.”
“What about infidelity?”
The woman tightens her mouth. “I might’ve heard a thing or two. If you were Amish, then you know it isn’t the kind of thing to be talked about.”
“But women talk, don’t they?” When she doesn’t continue, I prod gently. “Friends talk.”
Her gaze meets mine and holds. For a moment, I see beyond the rheumy eyes and wrinkles and get my first glimpse of the young woman she once was. A spirit that was too strong to fit in, one that wouldn’t be quashed by propriety.
“He was two-timing her. Mia let it slip one day. Told me he went over to Lewistown every so often. Had himself a loose girl there. Worked at some dive called the Triangle. Serving liquor to drunk men.” She removes her glasses. “Mia made like it didn’t bother her. Let him have his little huah.” Whore. “But it broke her heart.” She tuts. “Kept him off her, I guess.”
“Do you know the woman’s name?”
“Rosemary, I think it was. Don’t know what became of her. Don’t much care.”
“Is that why Mia killed herself?”
She shakes her head, adamant. “It didn’t help. But there was something else there, too. Something she didn’t talk about. It broke her.” She taps her chest. “Inside.”
I ask her about Jonas Bowman and Stoltzfus’s children, but she doesn’t know any of them. “Is there anything else you can think of that might help me find the person responsible?”
She leans back in the recliner and contemplates me, as if trying to decide if I’m worthy of the information. “There’s a story about Levi Schmucker was going around years ago. Can’t vouch for the truth of it.”
“Who is he?”
A light enters her eyes. A storyteller about to embark on a tour de force. “Levi lived down to Reeds Gap with his wife and kids. Worked at the mill out Strodes Mills way. Word got around that Levi was acting improper with his oldest girl. Bad medicine, you know?”
I nod, wondering where she’s going with this. What it has to do with Ananias Stoltzfus.
“It was a hush-hush kind of thing. Somehow, Ananias caught wind of it and paid Levi a visit.” She leans forward, places her elbows on her knees. The light in her eyes shifts, goes dark. “From what I understand, there wasn’t much talking done that night.”
“What happened?”
“Someone beat Levi Schmucker to a pulp. Laid open his head. Broke his arm. Busted his teeth. Heard he spent the night in the hospital up in Lewistown.”
A slow boil of disbelief churns in my gut. Of all the things I expected her to say, this isn’t it.
The old woman isn’t finished. “Levi claimed he fell. But two days later, he quit his job and left town without a word.”
“Are you saying Ananias Stoltzfus assaulted him?”
“I’m saying the bishop got his message across. He was just mean enough to get the job done. For once, all that mean was justified.” She leans back in the chair. “He carried that big walking stick, you know. Needed it for his rheumatism, or so he said. Maybe he used it for other things, too.”
“Is Schmucker still alive?” I ask. “Is he still in the area?”
“Last I heard he was living in a nursing home up in Lock Haven.”
“Does he have family?”
“What do you think?”
I ask a few more questions, but Amanda Garber is no longer in the mood to talk. “All this talk of ghosts.” She waves me off. “It’s exhausted me.”
“Thank you for your time.” I shake a limp, cool hand and start toward the door.
I’m midway there when a final question occurs to me. “Ms. Garber, did Mia ever talk about her life in Minnesota?”
“Minnesota?” She looks at me as if I’m a conspiracy theorist.
“Mahlon and Laura Barkman told me they were from Minnesota,” I tell her.
“Mahlon Barkman is dumber than a bucket of rocks,” she huffs. “He couldn’t find Minnesota if it was a dot on his ass.” She shakes her head, the way a teacher might at a student who’d failed a test he should have aced. “I can’t speak for Ananias, but Mia was from Germany. Bavaria, I think it was.”
“Germany?” I stare at her, flummoxed, wondering if she’s mistaken. I’m no scholar on the Amish or the European history of the Anabaptists, but to the best of my knowledge, there are no Amish left in Europe.
“That’s why her Deitsch was different,” she says. “Mia mentioned Germany a few times. Asked me not to speak of it. She was homesick. Missed it something fierce. I upheld her wish. Until now, anyway. I reckon she won’t mind.”
The old woman shrugs. “The stories she told. Seemed like such an exotic place.” She sighs, remembering. “Her datt owned a bakery, there. That’s where she learned to bake. Everyone loved her Zwetschgenkuchen. Never could replicate the recipe, but it sure wasn’t for lack of trying.”