Jonas and his wife live in a modest midcentury frame house just outside Belleville. The property isn’t in town per se, but the place is a far cry from rural. There are no barns or pastures, no livestock or pens—just the low-slung house and a large metal building at the rear. An ancient hackberry tree shades the entire front yard. A sign next to the driveway tells me this is also home to Bowman Cabinet and Wood Design.
As I make the turn, I’m thinking about my meeting with Jonas earlier, the number of years that have passed since I knew him, and how little I really know about him and his family. I’ve no idea what to expect. The driveway takes me to a parking area behind the house and the red metal building. The door stands open and when I get out I’m met with the whine of a saw and what sounds like the rumble of a generator. I’m about to head that way when the slam of a door from the house draws my attention. I glance toward the house to see a boy of about ten bound down the steps of a small porch. He’s wearing dark trousers with a blue work shirt and single-strap suspenders. A banded straw hat is clamped down over a headful of curly red hair.
He freezes upon spotting me, his eyes going wide. I see a freckled face, a turned-up nose, and lips that are smeared with something purple. He’s cute in a puppy-dog kind of way. Hazel eyes dart from me to the Explorer and back to me.
“Wie geht’s?” I smile and start toward him. How’s it going?
His mouth opens. I can’t tell if he’s surprised because an Englischer spoke to him in Deitsch or if he thinks I’m about to grab him and cart him off in my spaceship.
“I’m Katie from Painters Mill,” I say. “Is your mamm home?”
The boy lets out a squeal akin to the screeching of tires, then turns on his heel and runs as fast as he can back into the house.
Laughing, I ascend the steps and knock.
An Amish woman answers with the caution of a woman who’s been forewarned about a potentially dangerous foreign invader. She’s pretty and in her mid to late thirties, with the same features as the boy: hazel eyes, freckles, and a mane of curly red hair pulled back and tucked into a kapp. She’s wearing a green dress with a white apron that’s stained with what looks like tomato juice, and off-brand sneakers. Judging from her expression, she has no idea who I am, so I quickly introduce myself.
“I’m the chief of police in Painters Mill,” I tell her.
“Chief Burkholder.” She softens, presses a hand against her chest, and lets out a laugh that speaks more of nerves than humor. “Jonas might’ve mentioned you a time or two.”
I try not to show my surprise. “Call me Katie.” I pause. “The Diener thought I might be able to help.”
“Oh.” Her smile fades and for an instant, I think she’s going to burst into tears—or collapse. Instead, she motions to the doorway. “Kumma inseid.” Come inside.
She steps back and swings open the door. An awkward moment ensues and she sticks out her hand for a shake. “Where are my manners? Scattered all over the place, just like the rest of me. I’m Dorothy, Jonas’s wife.”
Her laugh is more polite than genuine, and as we shake hands, I discern the signs of stress on her face. Circles beneath her eyes. A too-quick smile that trembles. A demeanor that’s outwardly energetic, but under scrutiny fails to cover the exhaustion beneath.
“He’s fond of his childhood in Painters Mill.” She looks at me from beneath her lashes. “Fond of you, too.”
I have no idea how much Jonas told her about me. About us. Ancient history, a little voice whispers. Even so, better to stick to the topic at hand.
“It’s a good place to grow up,” I tell her.
“You were Amish.” Tilting her head, she looks at me, wondering, curious.
“I wasn’t very good at it,” I tell her.
She hefts a genuine laugh. “Kumma. Ich habb kaffi.” Come. I have coffee.
She leads me into the kitchen. “Sitz dich anne un bleiva weil.” Set yourself there and stay awhile.
The kitchen is modern for an Amish home. Eggshell-white walls with gleaming oak cabinets. A big walnut table with six ladder-back chairs. High-end gas stove. A big stainless-steel refrigerator hums from its place against the wall, state-of-the-art and powered by gas.
“You and Jonas have a nice home,” I say as I take a seat at the table.
“Jonas built most of what you see, including that table and the cabinets.” At the counter, she pours coffee from an old-fashioned percolator into mugs. She’s in her comfort zone now. The kitchen is her domain and she’s in charge. It’s a precarious grip, but she’s got her hands on it and she’s going to maintain her grasp until she figures out exactly who I am and why I’ve come here.
I run my hand over the tabletop. “He’s good.”
“The English sure like him.” She sets a steaming cup of coffee in front of me. “Maybe a little more than the Amish.”
I’m not sure what to make of that or how to respond, so I pick up the cup and sip, file the comment and its implications away for later.
“How are you holding up?” I ask.
She waves off the question. “Oh, I’m fine. Work around here is piling up a little, but what else is new? Jonas’ll have plenty to keep him busy when he gets home.” She’s making small talk. Nervous. Hesitant to bring up the business at hand with a stranger, especially an Englischer.
It’s a typical Amish response. Even when faced with a devastating situation, they don’t complain. They make do. They accept their problems and deal with them in silence, changing what they can, and leaving the rest to God.
“The kids?” I ask.
She closes her eyes briefly, but not before I see the flash of pain. “I haven’t told them. I mean, they know something’s wrong. Their datt has been gone for two weeks. They’re confused. I just don’t know what to say to them. How do I tell them their father is in jail, accused of murdering his own bishop?”
It’s a devastating question. One I couldn’t begin to answer myself. All children are innocent. But there’s an added ingenuousness in Amish children that makes the situation even more heartbreaking.
“Hopefully, we’ll be able to get him home soon.” I tell her about my visit.
She sits up straighter, the need for news lighting her eyes. “How is he?”
“Okay, I think. More worried about you and the kids than himself. He asked me to check on you, see if you needed anything.”
She looks down at her coffee, but not before I see the quick jump of guilt in her eyes. “He told me not to come, so I’ve not been to visit him yet. I know that’s bad, but I can’t imagine. Seeing him in a cage…” She lets the words trail as if unable to finish.
“Dorothy, bail has been set at five hundred thousand dollars,” I tell her. “Do you have a bondsman?”
“Katie, we don’t have that kind of money.”
“With a bondsman, you only pay ten percent, and Jonas will be released.”
“That’s fifty thousand.… I don’t know.… Maybe.”
“Think about it,” I tell her. “I’ll help if I can.”
I don’t know the dynamics of her and Jonas’s standing in the Amish community, but I do know the Amish will help. Even if there’s some kind of rift, the Amish will set it aside and do what needs to be done.
She blinks back tears. “It’s such a foreign thing. Murder and jail and legal problems. I don’t know what to do.” The tears spill, but she swipes them away. “I can tell you one thing, Kate Burkholder. Jonas Bowman is a lot of things and he’s sure not perfect, but he is not a killer.”
“I’m a civilian here in Big Valley,” I begin. “I don’t have any authority or resources, but I’ll help any way I can.”
“We’re not ones to ask for help, but if there was ever a time when we needed it, this is it.” She sets her hand over mine. “Thank you.”
I pull out my notebook and set it on the table in front of me. For twenty minutes we cover the situation from beginning to end. Jonas’s father being put under the bann and silenced. Ezra Bowman’s death. The ensuing feud. What I’m looking for now is new information and insights from someone close to Jonas rather than the perspective of a stranger.
“What was Jonas’s state of mind after the death of his father?” I ask.
“We’d been married a little over a year at the time.” The smile that follows is fraught with angst. “Losing Ezra was a shock. He was such a strong man. Sometimes he didn’t even seem mortal. It was as if nothing could ever stop him or take him down, not even the nature of life itself.”
Hearing her speak of the larger-than-life Ezra Bowman is like watching a silent, black-and-white film. I remember him as an outspoken man with a piercing gaze that could send even the toughest of the tough running home to Mamm. When he spoke, it was with great passion—and you listened. More than once I recall him arguing with my own datt over some topic to which I wasn’t privy. Ezra Bowman was never unkind, but I was afraid of him.
Dorothy heaves a sigh. “Heart attack finally got him. He was plowing the field and collapsed. He fell and … the plowshares tore him up something awful. Jonas found him.” She shakes her head, takes another sip of coffee as if in an attempt to wash away the terrible image. “Jonas was crushed. We’d lost two babies that year and not once did I see him cry. He’s stoic, you know. Keeps it all tucked away the way men do.” She looks away, blinking, remembering. “Jonas cried that day. And in the days that followed, he grew angry.”
I’m familiar with grief and all of its gnarly repercussions. I’ve been handed my share by a Fate who’s rarely fair about how she doles it out. I’ve watched Tomasetti suffer with losses that hollowed him to the core. I’m no stranger to the anger stage.
“Jonas blamed the bishop,” I say.
“Right or wrong, he did.” She shrugs. “Ezra and Ananias had been at each other’s throats for a year. Ezra, the stubborn fool, had been put under the bann. But it was the silencing that did him in, Katie. He couldn’t preach and that destroyed him.”
“Tell me about the argument between Jonas and Bishop Stoltzfus,” I say.
“I’ll never forget it.” Her eyes meet mine. “Church Sunday after the funeral. Jonas was just … raw. He wasn’t himself. Wasn’t eating or sleeping. I figured worship would be good for him, you know. It always is. But when he saw the bishop that day. And his own datt wasn’t there to preach.” She shudders. “I’ve never seen him like that. Jonas went for the bishop and he didn’t stop. They had words. Terrible things were said. They nearly came to blows. Can you imagine? Right in front of everyone.”
“What was the argument about exactly?”
“Jonas blamed Ananias for his datt’s death. Called him cruel. Said the stress of the bann and the silencing killed him.”
“How did Ananias respond?”
“The bishop didn’t help. He said Ezra had fallen to error and sin. He said that God took him because of that tractor.” Dorothy puts her hand over her mouth as if to smother a sob. “I couldn’t believe he would say such a thing. To blame a dead man and point out the error of his ways.”
“Did Jonas threaten him?” I ask.
Her brow creases as if there’s more to be pulled from her memory. “I was so shaken up, Katie. I’ve likely misremembered some of it. One thing I do recall is Jonas telling the bishop that there were a dozen families who supported Ezra’s use of the tractor. Jonas said he was going to rally those families, and that they were going to form a new church district. You can imagine how that went over.”
Dorothy lowers her head, sets her fingers against her forehead, sucks in a deep breath as if to compose herself. “There were so many ugly things said. I could barely take it all in. I don’t want to say it, Katie, but Jonas lost some friends that day. He was too angry. Some of the Amish thought he was just wrong.”
“How long after that argument did the bishop disappear?” I ask.
“Two months to the day.”
“The police spoke to Jonas?” I ask.
“The sheriff’s department picked him up. Talked to him for hours. When they brought him back, Jonas was shook up something awful.”
I think about the case against Jonas in terms of motive and realize that, as a cop, I would have done the same. Pick him up. Question him hard. Apply pressure. Shake him up.
“What about the muzzleloader?” I ask.
She huffs. “That old thing sat in the mudroom gathering dust for years. Jonas likes his meat just fine and that includes venison, but a hunter he isn’t. You know how he is. Got a soft spot for animals.”
I think about that long-ago day when Jonas unleashed the family of skunks on those bullies at the baseball diamond, and something warm flutters in my chest.
“Do you know what happened to the gun?” I ask.
“I must have walked by the thing a hundred times. It sat in the corner for so long I didn’t even notice it anymore. Then it was just … gone.” She shakes her head. “I’ve been racking my brain, trying to figure out when it disappeared and who might’ve taken it, but I just don’t know.”
“Could it have been a neighbor or friend who borrowed it?”
“We asked. No one did.”
“Can you show me where you kept it?”
“Sure. We walked right by it on the way in.” She gets to her feet. “Mudroom. Come on.”
I follow her to the narrow porchlike room I passed through upon entering. A row of windows on the outside wall lets in a generous amount of sunlight. A big chest freezer rattles against the opposite wall. There’s a shelf unit littered with canning jars and a few gardening tools. Next to it, hooks set into the wall for hats and jackets.
“Kept that old gun right there in the corner.” Dorothy points. “Propped against the wall.”
“Loaded?”
“I don’t think so. To tell you the truth, I don’t even know.”
“Do you keep your door locked?” I ask. “I mean, at night?”
She smiles tiredly. “No one in Belleville locks their doors.”
I stand there a moment, taking in the proximity of the place where the gun was stored in relation to the door. It wouldn’t take much for someone to slip inside unnoticed and snatch it up.
“Was Bishop Stoltzfus having problems with anyone else in the community?” I ask.
“Well, Ananias was strict. He was tough on anyone who broke the rules.” She purses her lips. “Now that you mention it, there might’ve been a time or two when someone got their back up.”
“Anyone in particular?”
“Duane Mullet. That one was trouble from the day he was born. His poor mamm. He talked like a demon with all the cursing and taking the Lord’s name in vain. Drank like a fish. The bishop wouldn’t have it and put him under the bann straightaway. Duane was just twenty years old and he sure didn’t take it sitting down. Cussed out the bishop right in front of everyone.”
“Did the police question Mullet?”
“He was a truck driver at the time, and he was up in Alaska when Ananias disappeared.”
I write down the name anyway. “Is he still around?”
“Lives up in the hills last I heard. Still a roughneck from what I hear.”
“Anyone else?”
“Roman Miller comes to mind. That boy was as cute as a speckled pup. He’d been courting a nice Amish girl. Going to the singings and whatnot. Rumor had it, he was messing around with a Mennonite girl up to Lewistown at the same time. I don’t know how the bishop got involved; someone probably saw Roman with the girl and told him. Ananias came down hard.”
“Did Roman come around?”
The Amish woman scoffs. “Got mad is what he did. Roman’s a firebrand. He denied all of it. Refused to confess. Kept on seeing both them girls. Strutting around like a rooster. Believe me, he was no catch. Ananias finally put him under the bann.”
“How did that go over?”
“Didn’t like it one bit. Roman’s a farrier, you see. Lost all his Amish business. From what I hear, it put him into financial ruin.”
“So he was more worried about the financial impact than being ousted from his friends and family,” I say.
“Tells you something about the man, doesn’t it?” she replies.
“How long ago did this happen?” I ask.
“A few months before Ananias went missing.”
The timing makes the back of my neck itch. “Does he still live in the area?”
“Last I heard, he joined a Mennonite church. Married that floozy and had a herd of little ones. Still a farrier, though. Does mostly English horses now. Cowboys and such. Lives on the other side of Belleville.” She rattles off directions.
I write all of it down. “Did the police talk to Roman?”
“I wouldn’t know.” She looks down at her hands and shakes her head. “They seem to have their sights set on Jonas.”
I think about other sources of information. Family or friends of the bishop who might be able to shed some light on his life. “I understand the bishop was a widower.”
“Mrs. Stoltzfus passed away when I was barely a teenager,” she tells me. “I think it was in 1999 or so.”
“Do they have children?”
“Mary Elizabeth lives right here in Belleville. Last name is Hershberger. Henry lives a ways out of town. Only had the two far as I know.”
I jot down the names. “Do you think they’d talk to me?”
“Probably. They’re Amish. Decent folks. Not too fond of Jonas and me, as you can imagine.” Her brows furrow and she drops her gaze to the floor. “Mary Elizabeth had some trouble a while back.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Vandals. She and her husband own an old paper mill at the back of their property, you know. Place has been abandoned for years. They were renovating it with plans to turn it into a bed-and-breakfast for all the English tourists that never seem to come. Anyway, someone set fire to the place. Did a lot of damage.”
“Were the police called?”
She gives me a what-do-you-think look. “The Amish like to handle things on their own when they can.”
“Any idea who did it?”
“Mary Elizabeth blamed Jonas. Accused him of holding a grudge.” She makes a sound of distress. “I suspect it was teenagers. English youngsters out drinking and driving around the way they do.”
I glance at my notes. I don’t have much, but it’s a start. I slide the notebook into my pocket and finish my coffee.
“The little boy I met in the driveway,” I begin. “He looks like you.”
“That would be Junior, our youngest.” Her grin reaches all the way to her eyes. “He’s a shy one. Smart. Good little worker, too. Short on words, though.”
“Jonas tells me you have three.”
Her expression lights up at the mention of her children. “They’ve been in the shop all day, like little worker bees. Wouldn’t come in for lunch, so I took soup to them. Poor things. They’ve been working on some cabinets Jonas promised a client.” She glances at the clock on the wall and gets to her feet. “It’s past time for them to come in and eat. Come on, Katie, and I’ll introduce you.”