There is a moment in the course of an investigation when you know it’s going to come together. It’s a frenetic time. You don’t know how all the information fits or if it will come to you in the right order. All you know is that the answer is buried somewhere in the slapdash pile of data churning in your head.
It’s dark by the time I arrive back in Belleville. I swing by a mom-and-pop café for a sandwich and make a beeline to the motel. I fire up my laptop, grab the folder containing every hand-scrawled note and scrap of paper I’ve amassed, and I spread everything on the too-small table. Most of what I have are my notes from conversations, along with my thoughts and observations. I’ve downloaded a few background reports and several newspaper stories I pilfered from the internet. When the tabletop becomes too crowded, I drag the nightstand over, set the lamp on the floor, use it for work space as well. I put everything in chronological order. The newspaper stories about the suicide of Mia Stoltzfus. The disappearance of Ananias Stoltzfus. The things I learned from the Diener when they came to Painters Mill and asked for my help. The flurry of newspaper articles on the discovery of the remains and the arrest of Jonas Bowman.
It’s impossible to lump a culture into a box and profess to know everything about it. It can’t be done and anyone who claims otherwise is a fool. But there are cultural norms that can—and should—be taken into consideration, especially when it comes to the Amish. The culture is steeped in tradition. They are a religion centric sect and prefer to remain separate from the rest of the world. They are a patriarchal society and pacifistic in nature. The family unit is the core of Amish life. They’re decent, hardworking people. They’re good neighbors. Good friends.
All of that said, the Amish aren’t perfect. They’re human and they suffer with all the same failings as the rest of us. They lose their tempers. They make mistakes. They behave badly. They break the rules. Sometimes they break the law. Some of the behaviors Ananias Stoltzfus partook in went beyond human frailties.
It’s eleven P.M. when I remember the sandwich. I unwrap it and eat without tasting, without pleasure. I wash it down with iced tea that’s gone tepid. At midnight, I pull the yellow legal pad from my laptop case, uncap my pen, and I go to town on that paper, stream-of-consciousness. Sometimes nonsensical, but I let it fly. My mind is humming, frustration bumping me from behind, urging me on. The need to know is a drug and I’m an addict jonesing for more.
I write:
No one in Harmony, Minnesota, remembers Ananias. The Amish would remember their bishop. Why don’t they remember him?
Levi Schmucker accused of molesting his daughter. Word got back to the bishop. Ananias beat him. A bishop would never resort to violence.
I flip through several pages and come upon the notes from my conversation with Deputy Vance. Hand bones found in Bowman’s well. Hands missing. Info never made public …
I think about the killer. Try to get into his head.
“Why did you remove his hands?” I murmur.
I answer my own question. “Because you didn’t want him identified.”
That still doesn’t make sense, Kate, tsks a little voice. There’s got to be something else.…
At one A.M. I make a pot of coffee. It’s room coffee; it’s awful. I don’t care. I need caffeine. The answer is here. I’m not going to stop until I find it.
I down a cup, put my notes back in order, and go through them again. I reread everything I learned from my visit with Amanda Garber.
… always got the sense she’d been through something she didn’t want to talk about. Germany? Bavaria?… her Deitsch was different.… She was homesick.…
“Only there are no Amish in Europe,” I say, my voice sounding strange in the quiet of the room.
I go to my laptop and call up my search engine to make certain I’m right. Sure enough, the last Amish congregation in Europe merged with the Mennonite church in 1937.
I take the last sip of coffee, get grounds that have gone cold. I glance down at my notes.
… where she learned to bake. Her datt owned a bakery.
I go to my laptop, hit a couple of keys, scroll aimlessly through my search for Amish communities in Germany. Nothing there. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. I pause on a random page. Some bakery in Bavaria offering up a recipe for Zwetschgenkuchen.
I didn’t write it down, don’t know the proper spelling, but Amanda Garber’s voice floats in the backwaters of my mind.
Everyone loved her Zwetschgenkuchen.
“Who the hell were you?” I lean back in the chair, astounded by the words I just spoke aloud. “Why were you lying to everyone?”
I feel another layer of information falling into place. Whoever removed the hands from the corpse in that field knew the answer. The killer wasn’t afraid the body would be identified as Ananias Stoltzfus. He was afraid the body would be identified as someone else.…
“What were you hiding from?” I whisper.
Something unsavory scratches at the back of my brain. A sharp claw, dirty and germy, digging into my brain. Something I don’t want to know.
I reach for my notes. Ananias and Mia Stoltzfus moved to Mifflin County in 1967 or ’68. He was elected minister in 1977. He became bishop in 1990. I scrabble through several pages. Levi Schmucker was beaten in 1991. Allegedly, Schmucker sexually abused his daughter. A normal course of action would be for a family member or friend or neighbor to call the sheriff’s department. A bishop would counsel the individual, tell him he must confess to the congregation or else be placed under the bann. Instead, Ananias Stoltzfus took his walking cane to Schmucker. Put him in the hospital. Ordered him to leave town. The sheriff’s department was never called.…
“You didn’t want the police involved.” I set down the notes, pick them back up. “That beating wasn’t about Schmucker or what he did. It was about you, wasn’t it?”
What were you hiding, old man?
I think about Mia.… always got the sense she’d been through something she didn’t want to talk about.
What had disturbed Mia so profoundly that she couldn’t live with it? That she couldn’t live with herself? Bad marriage? Secrets? Infidelity? All of the above?
I think about the woman he’d taken as a lover.… Grams was a little ahead of her time. From what I hear, she liked her men.
Remembering the pics I took of the memorabilia display case at the bar in Lewistown, I glance around for my cell, find it on the bed. I pull up the photos and swipe. Useless memorabilia. Meaningless junk.
Shit.
I come to the photo of the badge Bob the bartender pulled from the case. The one with the eagle, the map, and “LAPPLAND” inscribed in all caps. I look around, find my reading glasses on the bed, slip them on, go back to my cell. I enlarge the image. I still don’t recognize the geography of the map.
I spin back to the table, type “LAPPLAND” and “badge” into my search engine.
The Lapplandschild was a World War II German military decoration awarded to military personnel of the 20th Mountain Army which fought Finnish and Soviet Red Army forces in Lapland from 1944 to 1945.
A chill I can’t identify sweeps up my spine. A glass of ice water splashed between my shoulder blades and pouring down. I stare at the photo and the dirty claw that had been scraping at my brain gains access. A boil being lanced. A release of pus. The stench of something vile.
For a moment, I can’t quite catch my breath. My mouth fills with saliva. The acid burn of coffee roils in my gut. And in that instant, another unanswered question coalesces. I know what Ananias Stoltzfus was hiding. I know why his wife couldn’t live with herself. I understand why he beat Levi Schmucker to within an inch of his life.
Messed up his preaching service a time or two …
… funny accent when he spoke Deitsch.
Wasn’t much good at sewing for a woman her age …
Everything that hadn’t made sense suddenly does.
I close my eyes, sick with exhaustion and too much coffee. I don’t like the information zinging in my head. I push away from the table, get to my feet, sit back down. I feel like hell. A little wild on the inside. I don’t know why; this is what I wanted, isn’t it? Isn’t this what you wanted, Kate? A solid theory? Part of one, anyway. But I feel like crying. I feel sullied. Unclean.
The alarm clock tells me it’s 4:18 A.M. Too early to call Tomasetti. But I need him. I need to know if I’m right. I hate it, but I don’t trust my instincts. I hate it even more that I’m so desperate to find the truth and grasping at straws. I’m afraid the answer that’s come to me is so far out there it couldn’t possibly be true.
I make the call. One ring. Two rings. I close my eyes, suddenly desperate to hear his voice. I’m about to hang up when his voice rasps over the line. “Everything okay, Chief?”
Tears burn the backs of my eyes. I want to blame it on dry eye or sleep deprivation or the fact that I’ve been staring at my damn notes and laptop screen for six hours, but it’s not the truth.
“I miss you,” I tell him.
I hear a rustle on the other end, picture him sitting up in bed, concerned, giving me his undivided attention. “You want to talk about something?”
“I think I need to.”
“I’m all ears.”
For an instant, I can’t find my voice. I don’t know where to start. I blink and I’m surprised to feel tears on my cheeks. “I slept with Jonas Bowman. I was fifteen. He was nineteen. I think I might’ve loved him, but I was so screwed up at the time, I never figured it out.”
Several beats of silence and then, “All right.”
“He didn’t seduce me. I seduced him.”
“Okay.”
“I was a minor child. He … wasn’t. That’s why his family had to leave town. My datt found out and somehow the sheriff’s department got involved.”
“Even with a Romeo and Juliet law,” he says slowly, “Jonas could have been charged with statutory rape or some variation thereof.”
“That was the year…” I clear my throat. “That was the year after everything happened with Daniel Lapp. I was … messed up. Stupid. Confused.”
“You were a teenaged kid who’d been through a severe trauma.”
I let out a breath, hear it shudder. I know he hears it. I know he’s going to ask before he does.
“You still love him?”
“No, but I care. Too much. I feel guilty for … what happened. To him. His family. The role I played. I want to make it right. I’m not sure how. It might be too late.”
Another pause, part thoughtful, part baffled. He’s usually grumpy first thing in the morning. He’s the guy you don’t talk to pre-coffee unless you want a smartass reply. He knows this is an important moment. He’s being kind.
“It was a long time ago,” I tell him. “But I needed to get it off my chest.”
“Just so you know,” he says. “I didn’t ask.”
“I know.”
“I trust you, Kate,” he says. “You know that, right?”
“I do.”
He sighs. “That said, I’m pretty damn glad you’re not in love with another dude.”
“That would have really complicated things, wouldn’t it?”
We laugh and some of the ugliness loose inside me scampers back into its hole.
“You sound exhausted.”
“And weird, I know.”
“So what’s going on?”
I tell him all of it, leaving nothing out, ending with my happenstance visit to the Triangle Bar and Grill and my conversation with Bob the bartender.
“I know it seems unlikely,” I say, “but it would explain just about everything.”
“Text me the image of the badge,” he says.
I put him on speaker, find the pic and send it. “I feel like all of this is pretty far out there.”
“Timeline is right. In terms of his age, anyway.” He falls silent and I know he’s looking at the image. “Let me take a closer look.”
“Thank you.”
“There aren’t many of these war criminals left, Kate. They’re in their nineties or older now. Most are dead. But I know there are a couple of organizations that are working to identify remains, both perpetrator and victim. Do you know if there’s DNA?”
“The remains found in the field are at a forensic lab in Erie. I don’t know if they were able to extract DNA.”
“They use the Erie Regional Laboratory,” he says. “Let me make some calls.”
“Do you have any contacts in Pennsylvania?”
“I’ll figure something out.”
“All of this seems like a long shot,” I tell him.
He makes a sound that’s not quite a laugh. “That might be a little optimistic.”
“Even if the DNA identifies Stoltzfus as another individual, it can’t tell us who killed him.”
“No, but it opens up a new field of possibilities,” he says.
“That doesn’t necessarily involve the Amish community.”
“Especially if your suspicions about him are correct.”
The weight of the statement presses down like humidity before a storm.
“What’s next?” he asks.
“I’m going to talk to his family again. See if there’s anything they can tell me.”
A too long pause and then, “Are you okay?”
The pang of missing him that follows is so powerful, I set my hand against my abdomen, close my eyes, take a moment because I know the pain of it will reverberate in my voice if I’m not careful. I don’t want him to worry.
“I am now,” I say. “Sorry to wake you so early.”
“Hey, that’s what I’m here for.” But he laughs. “Do me a favor?”
“Name it.”
“Be careful.”
I smile. “Tomasetti, did anyone ever tell you you worry too much?”
“Just you.”