Every murder victim has a story to tell. Any cop worth his salt knows that finding that story and understanding it is central to solving his case. Some stories are easy to unravel; the victim wants to tell you what happened and leaves traces of his life behind. Others are a labyrinth of secrets tucked into dark places and not easily revealed. Ananias Stoltzfus falls into the latter category. That’s unusual, because an Amish bishop is not some shady individual who’s been engaging in unsavory activities.
What is his story? Why can’t I seem to unravel it?
A victim should never be blamed for their demise. When it comes to murder, there’s one individual responsible: the killer. Even so, victims can unwittingly play a role. They put themselves at the wrong place at the wrong time. They associate with dangerous or unstable individuals. They partake in risky behavior. They use poor judgment. Or any combination of the above.
Initially, I believed Ananias Stoltzfus was a kindly old man. An Amish bishop who, in the eyes of a few, was too strict. The more I learn about him, the more I’ve come to believe he was not benevolent. The bishop was judgmental, vindictive, and possibly violent.
It’s afternoon when I pull in to the gravel lane of the Hershberger farm. I’m not quite sure how to approach Mary Elizabeth; I spent most of the drive trying to come up with some angle that will compel her to open up to me about her parents. The truth of the matter is she’s not going to like the questions I want answered.
I park in the gravel near the picket fence and go through the gate. I’ve just knocked on the door when it swings open.
Mary Elizabeth Hershberger isn’t happy to see me standing on her front porch. She’s too well-mannered to say it, but I see the displeasure in her eyes. “Thought that was you.”
“I may have some new information about your father. Your mamm, too. If you have a few minutes, I’d like to ask you some questions. It won’t take too long.”
I hear dishes clanging in the kitchen behind her. The Amish woman looks like she’s thinking about slamming the door in my face. Instead, she nods and steps onto the porch.
“It’s not often that husband of mine offers to help with the dishes, so this is probably a good time.” She gives me a tired smile. “Let’s just keep this short.”
She brushes past. I follow her down the steps and along a narrow flagstone path where a bed of purple phlox blooms wildly. She stops and turns to me. “What is it you think you know about my parents?”
“I didn’t realize your mamm was from Germany,” I say.
“Germany?” She laughs. “Where’d you get that nonsense?”
“I spoke to your mamm’s best friend. Amanda Garber.”
She gives me a knowing look, crosses her arms over her bosom. “There’s a piece of work for you. She’s narrisch, you know.” Insane. “Mamm and Datt were from Minnesota,” she tells me.
“Are you sure?” I ask. “I was told she was born in Bavaria—”
“Of course I’m sure. Why on earth would my parents lie about where they’re from?”
“Amanda seemed to think your mamm was troubled by something that had happened in the past.”
“My mamm was just fine. She was happy with her life. Her family. And her husband.”
“Mary Elizabeth.” I say her name gently. “I talked to Pastor Zimmerman at the Lutheran church.”
Her gaze snaps to mine, her eyes narrowing. “Well, now, it looks like you found yourself some juicy gossip, doesn’t it? But then that’s what your kind does. Dig up all that dirty laundry. Make up lies. Start rumors.”
“I’m trying to find out what happened to your father.”
“I know what you’re trying to do,” she hisses. “You’re trying to get Jonas Bowman off the hook for what he did.”
“Mia ended her life in a Lutheran church, Mary Elizabeth. She asked the pastor for absolution. I don’t believe an Amish woman would do either of those things.”
“Are you saying she wasn’t Amisch?” She chokes out a sound that’s part laugh, part outrage. “My mamm had the melancholy, is all. Like her grohs-mammi before her. That’s all it was and now you’re trying to twist it around. I won’t have it. My parents were good, decent Amish folk. I won’t have you trying to ruin their good name for that no-gooder of yours.”
“Don’t you want to know what happened?” I ask.
Anger flashes in her eyes. I see her mouth working, as if she’s chewing something that’s stuck in her teeth. “I know what happened. My father was shot to death by an evil person. A criminal.” She says the words brutally, her voice shuddering with the final word. “It was awful. And here you are, trying to blame it on him. On my mamm of all people. Anyone except the person who did it.”
“Pastor Zimmerman said your mamm had a diary with her the day she died. Do you have any idea what happened to it?”
“Mamm didn’t keep a diary. If she did, I didn’t know about it.”
I nod, not sure I believe her, press on. “Do you know a man by the name of Levi Schmucker?”
“Never heard of him.”
“What about the letter Jonas wrote to your father?”
“You talked to my brother.”
“Do you still have it?”
“I gave it to the police years ago.” An odd light enters her eyes. “Got a copy, though. You sure you want to see it, Chief Burkholder? Might tear down that goody-goody image of Jonas Bowman you got stuck in your head.”
I get a bad feeling in my gut. “I’d like to see it.”
Turning away, she walks to the house and disappears inside. I stand beneath the shade of the elm, taking in the beauty of the phlox, but not really seeing it. Mainly, I’m hoping whatever’s in the letter isn’t too damning.
The screen door slams. I look up to see Mary Elizabeth trot down the steps. Her feet are heavy on the ground as she crosses to me.
“This might set you on the right track.” She shoves a single sheet of paper into my hands.
I slip on my reading glasses, recognize Jonas’s handwriting immediately, and I read.
We have the Ordnung to guide us. If somebody doesn’t obey the rules, they are punished. As bishop, you have the right to punish your church people when they’ve strayed. What should happen to you when it is you who wrongs us? Be assured, an evil person will not go unpunished. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed. Your day of judgment is near. When you are gone I will pray for your soul.
I look up at Mary Elizabeth. “Where did you get this?”
“It was in my datt’s desk. I found it a few days after he disappeared.”
I read the letter again, feel the press of dread on my shoulders. The letter itself isn’t incriminatory. Combined with the other evidence against Jonas, there’s no doubt it could be used against him.
Sunshine filters through the treetops when I pull into the Bowman driveway. I park at the rear to see that the buggy is gone. I go to the back door to leave a note and the door swings open.
“You look like you’ve had a hard day,” Jonas says.
“That’s one way to put it,” I tell him. “You got a few minutes?”
“Sure.” He opens the door wider for me to enter. “Dorothy went into town for groceries. Took the kids.” He steps back. “Come in.”
I follow him through the mudroom to the kitchen. He motions me into a chair and then goes to the refrigerator and pulls out a pitcher. “She made mint tea before she left. Want some?”
It’s a uniquely Amish tea; the memory makes me smile. “I’d love some.”
He pours it into glasses, sets one in front of me, then takes the chair across from me. “I’m afraid to ask if you have news,” he says. “Your expression is grim.”
“I saw the letter you sent Stoltzfus.”
He nods. “I barely remember it.”
“It’s damning.” I relay the contents to the best of my memory. “The police have it. The prosecutor will probably use it against you.”
“I have the truth on my side.”
“The justice system isn’t perfect.”
“God will see me through.”
I don’t have the energy or the heart to tell him that sometimes God doesn’t get it right either. Even after everything that’s happened, he’d probably argue the point. “I went to see Levi Schmucker today.”
He arches a brow. “He must be pretty old by now.”
“Not so old that he couldn’t remember that Ananias Stoltzfus beat the hell out of him.” I tell him about my visit. “It was a vicious beating. Busted his teeth. Broke his arm. Put him in the hospital.”
“I didn’t care for Ananias or his tactics, but…” His troubled expression lands on mine. “Is it possible Levi is lying?”
“It’s possible. Or he could be exaggerating. If he was, indeed, molesting his daughter, he might be trying to deflect. That’s not what I’m getting at.”
He raises his brows. “Then what?”
“What if Ananias Stoltzfus wasn’t who he claimed to be?” Even to me the notion sounds far-fetched. Unlikely at best, conspiratorial at worst.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he says.
“There are a lot of things about Ananias and Mia Stoltzfus that don’t mesh with their being Amish, certainly not with his being a bishop,” I say. “I’ve been told his wife was from Germany. She committed suicide in a Lutheran church. She asked the pastor for absolution. The couple spoke Deitsch, but with an accent. Ananias messed up his preaching, not once but several times. He beat a man nearly to death with a walking stick. Jonas, none of those things are the actions of an Amish person.”
He blinks at me. “Then who is he?”
I ponder the question a moment. “I need to know if there’s anyone who knew Ananias or Mia. Even if it’s someone who’s moved away. Or elderly. Is there anyone I can talk to?”
“I don’t know of anyone else. Ananias was old and all of this happened eighteen years ago.” His expression turns troubled again. “Even if we discover he was not Amish or who he said he was, how does that help us find the person who killed him?”
“Maybe it was someone from his past or somehow related to his past. Maybe he has a history we don’t know about.”
Thoughts churning, we sip our tea in silence for a few minutes.
“So what’s next?” he asks.
I shrug. “I put a call in to Minnesota,” I tell him. “I’m waiting for a call back. Maybe someone there knows or remembers something about the Stoltzfuses or their past.”
He nods, staring down at the glass sweating on the table in front of him. “Maybe we’ve reached a dead end.”
Seeing the stress etched into his features, the circles beneath his eyes, I’m reminded of how much he has at stake. His freedom. His business. His family. His life.
“Not yet,” I tell him.
When he raises his gaze to mine, it’s disconsolate. “Maybe my going to jail is part of God’s plan.”
“That’s bullshit.” I soften the words with a half smile.
“You’ve done more than I would have asked, Katie. You’re away from home. Your family. You’ve been hurt. I can’t ask you to stay on. Or do more than you already have. We’ve reached the end of our options. Maybe you should just go home. Forget about this mess and get back to your life.”
“There’s only one problem with that,” I tell him.
He raises his brows in question.
“I’m not a quitter. You should know that about me. I can’t abide injustice. I can’t abide a killer thinking he beat the system. I sure as hell won’t tolerate an innocent man going to jail for something he didn’t do.”
He looks down at the glass, his jaw working, saying nothing.
In that moment a hundred memories assail me. The mess I’d made of my life the last summer we were together. The intensity of the feelings we shared. The tumult of our relationship. The mistakes, most of them mine. Everything that happened between us—both good and bad—in the final days before he left.
“Last time I was here,” I say quietly, “you mentioned the elephant in the room. I didn’t let you finish.”
“Probably a good call on your part.” He smiles, but it’s for my benefit. There’s a profound sadness in his eyes he can’t hide. He shrugs. “Ancient history.”
I smile, too, and I’m surprised to feel that same sadness reach into my chest and twist. “Maybe ‘ancient’ isn’t quite the right word.”
We stare at each other, unspeaking, and yet we’re communicating clearly and in a way that speaks of a closeness the years haven’t erased.
“I’m sorry for what happened,” I tell him. “I never got to tell you that.”
The history between us is the last topic I want to revisit, ancient or not. But I’m a far cry from the confused and rebellious girl I was. The one that was in love and didn’t have the slightest clue how to handle it or what it meant.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he says.
“Maybe. But I knew better. I knew what I was doing. I knew it was a mistake. That it was serious. I knew you would be blamed for all of it. You got into a lot of trouble.”
A minute quiver runs the length of him as my words register. I expected him to wave off the statement. Make some joke. Laugh it off. Chalk it up to inexperience and immaturity. But he doesn’t do any of those things. Maybe because we both know what happened that summer was as genuine and pure as it was wrong.
“It was a bittersweet time,” he says quietly. “For both of us. You were too young. I was—” He bites off the word. The smile that follows is sheepish and reluctant. “I wasn’t exactly kicking and screaming to get away from you.”
“You lost a lot.”
“You lost something, too, no?” He studies me with such scrutiny that I can barely hold his gaze, but I do. “We both did.”
“You paid a big price,” I tell him. “So did your family.”
“Bad timing, no?” He cocks his head, his eyes probing mine. “A few more years and things might’ve worked out differently.”
I’m not sure I agree, but I don’t say. He wanted to marry me. I was too young, too screwed up, to know what I wanted let alone make such an important life decision.
“The years teach a lot of lessons the days never know,” I tell him.
It was one of my mamm’s favorite sayings. As a fifteen-year-old Amish girl with the weight of the world on her shoulders and a duffel bag full of anger in her heart, I had little understanding of its meaning. As a grown woman, I’ve never appreciated it more.
The sound of shod hooves against gravel and the music of children’s voices come to us through the screen door, telling us Dorothy and the kids have arrived home.
And the moment is gone.
I call Deputy Vance on my way to the motel. I can tell by his tone he’s not happy to hear from me. I make a halfhearted attempt to soften him up with small talk and a not-so-funny joke. He doesn’t bite.
“I need your help,” I say.
“Nothing personal, Chief Burkholder, but I think I’ve done my share of helping.”
“I know this isn’t an ideal situation,” I begin, but he cuts me off.
“You’re going to get me fired.”
“There’s no one else,” I tell him. “I’m not getting much cooperation from your department.”
“Let it go through the channels.”
“Kris, you know as well as I do that Jonas Bowman didn’t murder Ananias Stoltzfus. He didn’t leave his muzzleloader at the scene. He didn’t cut off a dead man’s hands and toss them into his own well.”
“Murderers aren’t exactly the brightest bulbs in the pack.”
“Will you at least hear me out?”
Vance says nothing, so I trudge on. “I’ve discovered some things about Stoltzfus that don’t sit well. The more I uncover, the more convinced I am that he’s not who he claimed to be.”
“What are you talking about?” he asks irritably.
I give him the rundown of incongruities, starting with Mia’s suicide and her request for absolution and ending with the beating of Levi Schmucker. “I grew up Amish. I can tell you those are not the actions of an Amish bishop.”
“Maybe he was just an asshole.”
“You guys should have looked into it.”
He groans. “Look, I wasn’t exactly involved in the case, Chief Burkholder. What the hell do you want from me?”
I pause, close my eyes briefly. “I need a DNA sample from those remains.”
He has the gall to laugh. “You’ll have to talk to the sheriff about that. I’m not part of chain of custody,” he says. “I spend my time writing tickets and rounding up cows, for God’s sake.”
“Kris, if I can get my hands on that DNA, I’ll send it to the lab and have it run through some databases to see if we get a hit.”
“What are you looking for?”
“A definitive ID for one thing. I know it’s a long shot, but—”
“I’m not going to risk my job on a long shot, Burkholder.”
“Will you at least look into it?” I think about Tomasetti, wonder if he has the connections to help, if he knows anyone on a federal level who might be able to step in and grease the wheels.
“Look, I’m not going to make any promises, but I’ll see what I can do.”
“Fair enough. Thank you.”
He’s anxious to end the conversation, so I jump into my next question. “One more thing. Do you have any idea what happened to the diary that was found with Mia Stoltzfus when she committed suicide?”
“I don’t know anything about a diary.”
“Do you know who might—”
He hangs up on me.
I’ve devoted most of my adult life to law enforcement and solving crimes, which sometimes includes putting someone in jail. How ironic that the one time I’m trying to prove a man’s innocence and keep him out of jail is the one time I can’t pull all the loose ends of the case together.
It’s nearly midnight. I’m sitting at the table in my room at the Kish Valley Motel, thinking about old bones and the story those bones have told so far. I’ve been at it for a couple of hours and I’m doing my best not to be discouraged. I’m failing at that, too.
A DNA sample from the human remains found in the field or the water well could be tremendously helpful. Not only in terms of matching, but also running it through some databases to find out exactly who those bones belonged to. Chances are, that won’t happen; the lab will likely only make the match and not take the testing any farther. That’s when it occurs to me that at some point, I’ve come to believe Ananias wasn’t the man he proclaimed to be. If I’m right and that’s the case, who was he really? And why was he doing his utmost to conceal his identity?
Frustration sits in the chair across from me, a foul apparition, mocking me. I resolve to call the sheriff’s department first thing in the morning and formally request that the DNA results be run through several databases. They may or may not agree to do so. I’m not going to hold my breath.
I google “Minnesota Amish” and tap a key, landing on the blog of a well-known scholar on the Amish culture. He writes about the settlement in Harmony, Minnesota, and I read with interest. I’m midway through when something pings my brain. I stop reading and backtrack, read the passage again.
Founded in 1972, Wadena is the oldest Amish community in Minnesota. Harmony was founded by the Swartzentruber Amish in 1974.
My conversation with Amanda Garber flashes in my brain. They moved here in 1967 or so.
If the Harmony, Minnesota, settlement was founded by the Swartzentruber Amish—in 1974, no less—how is it that Ananias was elected bishop? He wasn’t Swartzentruber. According to Amanda, he arrived in Belleville in 1967.
“The timeline doesn’t add up,” I whisper.
It’s possible that Ananias and Mia lived in Harmony before the church district was formally established. But in order for a bishop to be elected, there must be an organized church district, even if the term is used in a loose sense. In addition, it would be extraordinarily unusual for a bishop to move. Usually, when a bishop is struck by the lot, it is a burden he bears the rest of his life.
So what happened in Harmony?
And what does it mean in terms of the case here in Belleville?
There’s one other source of information that might be helpful. A publication titled Raber’s New American Almanac, which is a comprehensive list of Amish bishops and ministers by state. If I can get my hands on a copy or have someone look it up for me, I should be able to determine if Ananias was, indeed, a bishop in Minnesota. One of the Diener here in Belleville may have a copy. Possibly the library or another Amish elder.
My cell phone buzzes. A burst of pleasure in my chest at the thought of Tomasetti. But when I glance at the display, I see a local number I don’t recognize.
I answer with, “Burkholder.”
A hiss of air and then a whispered male voice. “I got proof Jonas Bowman killed Ananias Stoltzfus.”
A couple of thoughts strike me at once. The caller is trying to disguise his voice. And there’s no ping of recognition. No accent. Nothing familiar.
“Who is this?” I ask.
“Nelson Yoder knows the truth. He was there the night Stoltzfus was killed. He knows everything.”
“What does he know?” I ask.
“Bowman wasn’t the only one who wanted Stoltzfus gone. They all did.”
“Who?”
“Everyone hated him, including Yoder. Don’t let them lie to you. They’re covering for Bowman.”
“Tell me who you are,” I say.
Nothing.
“Why should I believe you?” I ask.
The hiss of a breath and then, “Because I was there, too.”
“Who is this?” I demand.
A resonant click sounds and the call ends.
Exasperated, I toss the phone, watch it clatter onto the table. I sit there a moment, not sure what to make of the call. Is it an anonymous tip that warrants follow-up? Or is someone yanking my chain? Trying to convince me Jonas is guilty? That there’s a witness? Deflect my attention to Yoder? Something else?
Nelson Yoder knows the truth.
If the bishop knows something about the case, why didn’t he mention it? Why would he travel to Painters Mill to ask for my help? It doesn’t make sense.
Cursing beneath my breath, I pick up my phone and look at the incoming number. Local. I hit the Call button. It rings a dozen times, but no one picks up. I go to my laptop, enter the number into a reputable reverse phone lookup site. To my surprise, the call originated at an Amish pay phone right here in Belleville.