SARAH’S KNEES BUCKLED. AS SHE STARTED TO slide down VERA’s hood, Nate grabbed her and held her to him, her shoulder under his arm.
“No. No, I never… Who would do this?” she whispered, still fanning through the pages, then just pressing the sketchbook to her breasts as if to comfort all the people inside it.
“And why?” Nate demanded. “Do you think someone could have broken into the grossdaadi haus, looking for something else, then saw this? When did you see it last?”
“A couple of months ago. It was hidden. It hurts for me to look at these sometimes.”
“Because you want to draw or paint more than that?”
She nodded jerkily.
“It looks like blood.”
“I know. Quite a bit of it. I—now I’d have nothing to show an art dealer, anyway.”
“Did Jacob ever see the sketches?”
“No.”
“Martha or Gabe? Your parents?”
“As far as I know, only Hannah, Ella and Ray-Lynn, but…”
“What?”
“Well, you know my grandmother gets off her bean sometimes over how our people were persecuted and martyred in Europe, burned to death among other torments. It’s the reason the Amish came to America. She fears we’ll be burned out again and she keeps trying to warn us. What if she found this and did this?”
“I take it she’s not working with knives in the kitchen anymore. Does she have any cuts on her?”
“Cuts and bruises. You’ve seen her, Nate. We try to keep sharp things away now, and she doesn’t quilt anymore. But she still dresses herself and we close our bodices with straight pins.”
He looked at her breasts, squinting as if to see the pins. She went on in a rush, “I guess a pinprick could make drops of blood to smear like this, but she must have done it time after time.”
“Or we’re back to someone else who found your art and wanted to warn or punish you because he or she knew it was verboten. The art itself and drawing in the faces—right?”
Sarah nodded. As distraught as she was, it touched her that Nate was not only recognizing German words but using them now. And that he’d come to know her people well enough already to realize images of Amish faces were as frowned upon as prideful drawings.
“So you can’t ask her if she did this?” he asked.
“I could, but these pictures would upset her. Her copy of the Martyrs Mirror has some etchings of Amish being burned, and those haunt her.”
“Who knows about that book?”
“All the Amish. It’s second only to the Bible for us, and we have a hymnal of song lyrics passed down, too, the Ausbund.”
“Your grandmother never goes out and around on her own, does she?”
“You don’t mean does she wander the nearby fields to ignite barn fires!”
“I mean, if she found this book, wherever you had it stashed, what if she showed it to that person in black she thought she saw.”
“I don’t think she imagined that anymore, not since I saw someone through your night goggles in the field when the Schrock barn burned. But show it to a stranger while he defaced it—no.”
Suddenly, she couldn’t keep the sobs inside. Holding the ruined sketchbook to her breasts with one hand, she pressed the other over her eyes. As she sucked in air and her shoulders shook, Nate took the book from her and put it on the hood, then pulled her into his arms. She clung tight to him, crying, shaking both of them. Then, suddenly, he picked her up and sat down on the grass with her sprawled across his lap.
It was dark, though the gold streaks of VERA’s headlights still stabbed into the night beyond. She shifted in his lap, turned to him and clung, lifting her face toward his. She meant to tuck her face under his chin, but suddenly his comforting turned crazy, his hands everywhere, his lips on hers, soft at first, then strong, demanding.
Thinking she would explode inside, she met him kiss for kiss, opening her lips to his. Nothing else mattered but his touch, his strength, his need battling with hers. These runaway feelings—ya, she’d never known herself before this.
“Sarah, Sarah,” was all he said, and then they kissed again, longer and deeper as her arms around his neck held him to her. They sprawled on the soft grass, already wet with dew. Everything bad seemed washed away, all her fears. She would not have cared if the entire world was lost right now, flamed into the fires she was feeling. Dizzy, dazed. Nate. She wanted Nate MacKenzie even more than she wanted to paint.
They jolted apart as they heard her daad’s voice, probably from the farmhouse porch, but too close. “Sarah? Nate? Mamm wants to know did Hannah say she’d come back?”
Suddenly bereft of Nate’s touch, Sarah stood, settling her skirts. How she found a steady voice she wasn’t sure as she walked around the front of VERA where he could see her in the headlights and called to him, “She left. I think she’s missing everything here, though.”
“A lot can be learned from your old friends Hannah and Jacob,” Daad called to her, not coming closer. She heard the porch swing. How long had he been sitting there? “They both wanted something away from our people outside the Home Valley and both are unhappy and in real trouble.”
Was that a clever warning to her about Nate? About her painting? Did Daad think Hannah could be guilty of the arsons?
“I’d better get going,” Nate said, keeping his voice low. “Can I take the sketchbook to look at it carefully, maybe run a test on the blood?”
“Ya, it’s no good to me now—ruined.”
“Anyone looking at it carefully could still tell a lot about the artist, the skill, the potential.”
“You don’t think someone would look at it and think the artist is a pure maniac?”
“Pyromaniac?”
“That’s it.”
“I think your raw talent shines through. This book would have to actually be burned before someone wouldn’t see a unique artist at work here.”
He walked around the truck cab and got in. Sarah stepped up on the grossdaadi haus porch, feeling the lack of him—physical, sure, but emotional, too—the moment he drove away. She could not bear to go speak to her father now, so she went into the grossdaadi haus and locked the door behind her.
She tiptoed into the bathroom, hearing her grossmamm’s gentle snoring in the next room. Could she have defaced the drawings? It must have been her. If not, since the sketchbook had been hidden, she’d have to start believing in a demon who left damning notes around, where she was sure to find them.
On the way out of the Home Valley the next morning, Nate saw the buggies of Amish families as they headed to church. Services were held in homes or barns every other Sunday, and the Hostetlers were hosts today. All those people—about thirty local families—would gather in the Hostetler barn with Sarah’s painting on it with an arsonist loose, one he couldn’t catch. He pictured Sarah’s sketch of buggies parked around a barn for a church service and the bloody flames someone had smeared across it all.
He wondered if the arsonist would be at church. If so, it wasn’t Jacob Yoder, though he was back in the mix of suspects again at least for the first two barn burnings. Could the third have been a copycat arson? At dawn this morning, Sheriff Freeman had served the search warrant to go through Jacob’s rented room and car in West Salem, a small town about a half hour away. Nate had just met with the sheriff at his office.
“That third fire makes it look like Jacob’s not guilty, but I’ve got to show you what I found on his bedroom wall,” Jack had said, and pointed to a folder he shoved toward Nate across his desk.
Inside were at least ten newspaper articles about the first two fires—pieces of tape still attached—roughly ripped from the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Home Valley News. One of them had printing in small block letters up the left margin: “Serves them right for treating me wrong” and another had “God’s Justice!”
“I guess he’s back on the list of possible perps for the first two arsons,” Nate admitted. “First tier.”
“You got a second tier?”
“Just people of interest. Not counting Hannah Esh, two other females on the fringe of things. Women involved in something like this are rare. But Cindee Kramer for one. I talked to her about an hour ago, got her out of bed while, luckily, her charming friend Getz was still asleep. She claims she was confused about where she told Sarah that Getz was standing when he saw the second fire. She has easy access to artificial fireplace logs. Maybe she’s working with Getz or just covering for him. And I found out only recently that Ray-Lynn Logan was at the Esh place just before the first fire ignited, even opened the barn doors.”
The big man jerked back in his chair as if he’d been slugged. “Ray-Lynn there then! You gotta be kidding me!”
“One of the Amish kids told me so I talked to her. She said she saw nothing and didn’t want to get involved. She was there to ask Bishop Esh if Sarah could paint a quilt square for the restaurant. Let’s just say she’s been encouraging Sarah to branch out with her painting.”
“Ray-Lynn should have told me that and told me you talked to her.”
Nate thought Jack looked as if he’d chew his desk apart. His ruddy complexion had gone bright red.
“Jack, you okay?”
“Yeah, sure. Just surprised about Ray-Lynn, though it proves nothing except she needs a good shaking up for withholding evidence. Anyhow,” he went on, though Nate could tell he was still steaming, “about Jacob. I found nothing but those articles in his possessions to implicate him. Thing is, his parents want to get him out on bail. Don’t know where they’d get the money, though. I can stall them until tomorrow, but, after that, I think he’s sprung unless we got more than these articles. Anger at the Amish does not an arsonist make.”
“The printing doesn’t look like a real match for the two threatening notes, either.”
“I gave Clawson a bad time for not bringing that note he got at the newspaper office straight to me, but then you’re the one he really wants info from. Let’s just pray there are no more fires and that you get information out of poor Noah Miller. He might have seen something before that barn blaze.”
As he’d left the sheriff’s office, despite being hungry, Nate avoided Ray-Lynn’s crowded restaurant. Jack had said she usually kept it closed on Sundays in deference to Amish beliefs about no Sunday sales. But he’d also admitted he knew that she’d been ticked off at the Amish lately for forbidding Sarah’s artistic talent to blossom and that Ray-Lynn needed the money. Nate wondered if she could also want money from helping Sarah sell her art. And if Sarah’s barn paintings were destroyed…or got her more publicity…
Sarah was at the center of things again. Nate agonized as he passed more buggies. Sarah, his helper, his distraction, his passion. He sighed, and tried to force his mind back to business. She’d said that after the long church service of preaching and singing, the Amish shared a simple meal. He’d been invited to both and would have liked to attend, but he’d called the Cleveland Clinic and—since he was an official on the arson case—was told he would be allowed a few minutes to speak with Noah Miller. His condition had stabilized but was still serious.
Driving past the burned Miller barn, which he would examine more closely when the ruins cooled, Nate left Eden County and turned north on busy I-77. The pace picked up. Lately, he’d gotten used to slower driving, and he had to force himself to keep up to the speed limit. He needed to push this investigation. Funny how the Home Valley area seemed so sheltered by gentle hills, yet a serpent had gotten into paradise.
Partway to Cleveland, he got a call from his boss. He put him on speakerphone so he could drive with both hands.
“I got your message, Nate. Have you talked to the burn victim yet?”
“On my way right now. They stabilized him, some second-degree burns, some third.”
“He dies, and we get the FBI in on this.”
“The Feds will come in strong and that won’t work in Amish country. I’ve been learning the hard way there are special dos and don’ts around here. At times I still walk on thin ice, even though the Amish have embraced me.”
Nate wished he hadn’t used the word embraced. That sounded strange. He knew Sarah was never far from his thoughts.
“By the way,” Mark said, “Peter Clawson called me for a phone interview Friday.”
“A real go-getter, that guy.”
“He insists there’s an estranged daughter of the family from the first fire you’re not looking at, maybe because she’s a neighbor and friend to Sarah Kauffman, the one you said is helping you.”
Nate gripped the steering wheel harder. He’d mentioned Hannah to Mark, but what was with Peter Clawson horning in?
“I’ve interviewed Hannah Esh twice,” Nate explained, “once just last night. Her alibis are vague but plausible. She’s on the list and is getting cut no extra slack.”
“Glad to hear it. Well, you know the big-fish-in-little-pond syndrome, and I suspect Peter Clawson has it in spades. I’ve read his paper online. After you interview the fire victim, let me know if you still think the third fire is atypical.”
“Roger that.”
“One more thing. Are you going to publicize those two threatening quotes from the Bible or still sit on them? Clawson’s pressing to publish the one he got.”
“For now, unless Clawson blows it, I’d like to keep them quiet. We don’t need more upheaval around here. But if a third one shows up, I might change my mind.”
“It’s your call. You know what you’re doing. Talk to you soon.”
And he’d talk to Peter Clawson soon, Nate thought. He would get on his case if he kept meddling. How Ray-Lynn, whom he hadn’t mentioned to Mark as a person of interest but maybe should have, put up with Clawson as a partner was beyond him. Of course, if she could act as agent for Sarah’s art, maybe she’d earn enough to buy full control of the restaurant and get Clawson off her back, too.
Sarah was glad that church was in the Hostetler barn today instead of the house. Not only did it allow the nearly one hundred and fifty Amish in their district to sit in the same room—men and women on separate sides of the aisle on backless benches—but their presence seemed to bestow a blessing on the only barn left with one of her quilt squares. The painting was Sunshine and Shadows, with its contrasting pattern of yellow, white, gray and black. Ya, she thought, life was like that, too. Much joy but much sorrow.
She stood with everyone for the first hymn, led by the deep-voiced vorsinger, or song leader. As usual, it was Seth Lantz, Ella’s brother, the man Hannah should have married. Sarah remembered how beautifully their voices had blended together. For sure, Seth’s sin was part of the reason Hannah left home. Sarah’s rejection of Jacob didn’t help him, either, but what he got into wasn’t her fault—was it?
The barn had been swept and scrubbed. She loved being in it, feeling its strength over and around them. Her eyes took in the rows of her people all dressed up for the service as the chantlike first hymn began. Like some of the others, it had been penned by imprisoned Amish martyrs in Europe awaiting their torture or deaths. No wonder Grossmamm had fears buried deep inside her, despite the fact that was generations ago and they were safe here in America.
But lately, not safe enough. Noah Miller might die and was horribly burned. Someone was waging war on their barns, someone still hated and persecuted the church leaders—perhaps her, too—for her prideful art. Tears in her eyes, she sang the traditional hymn in German.
We wander in the forests dark,
With dogs upon our track;
And like the captive, silent lamb
Men bring us, prisoners, back.
They point to us, amid the throng,
And with their taunts offend,
And long to let the fire or ax
On heretics descend.
After a hymn of praise, Bishop Esh began to preach, gesturing broadly, walking back and forth before the congregation. Forgiveness and turning the other cheek were his first topic. He shared passages from the Book of Psalms that promised protection even in the hardest of times, which, as far as Sarah knew, was right now, the worst since the old days of death and burnings.
“‘I called on the Lord in my distress…I will not fear, for what can man do to me,’” Bishop Esh recited.
He was much heartened she knew, by the thousands of dollars raised at the auction that would go toward his new barn and some toward the Schrocks’. Now there would be huge medical bills for Noah. The local lumber mill had donated part of the timber for the new barn, and it had been announced this morning that the raising would be this coming Saturday. Nate had said he wanted to help. She hoped he had the arsons solved by then but she still wanted him to be around to be part of that. His completing his work here was something they all hoped for, yet something she dreaded.
As the congregation knelt in silent prayer with their el bows on their benches, Sarah prayed extra hard for her own weaknesses and sins. But she prayed, too, for the Englische man she would never have but would never forget.
Nate followed the Cleveland Clinic burn unit nurse down the hall into the sterile area of private rooms. The nurse had said they’d worked hard to stabilize Noah, to keep him from going into shock. This afternoon he would have a hyperbaric treatment in an oxygen chamber, the beginning of months of painful but necessary healing and rehab.
Like her, Nate wore scrubs and booties and had been warned not to touch Noah or anything in the room. “The third-degree burns on his legs are, in effect, an open wound,” the nurse told him.
An open wound. The words stuck in his mind. Once you lost someone in a fire, there was always an open wound, even when your body healed, even when someone gave you a good home and the years passed. But you always longed for your own people and place.
“His mother’s sitting with him, and I believe his father and two friends who came with him have gone to the cafeteria,” the nurse said as they stopped at one of the closed doors. “If you’d like me to have her step out, I will.”
“Yes, I’d appreciate that.”
She put her hand to the door but didn’t open it. “Did the young man start those Amish fires?” she asked. “I’ve been reading about those in the Plain Dealer.”
“That’s what I need to talk to him about.”
The room seemed bare with just the raised bed, a bank of blinking monitors, the IV stands—Noah had two tubes snaking into his arms—and minimal furniture. Mrs. Miller rose from a chair and came over to them.
“I can’t thank you enough for pulling him out of the barn, Mr. MacKenzie. I thanked Sarah Kauffman, too, for her quick thinking. And the sheriff. We might have lost Noah, sure could have.”
“Has he said anything about the fire?”
“Just that he’s sorry, very sorry. I’m sorry he didn’t see whoever set it to help you out, but he must have been so busy in the loft when that person sneaked in, that’s for sure.”
Nate nodded, thinking how Hannah had kept repeating that she was sorry the night she came back to see her family’s newly burned barn. He regretted that Mrs. Miller might not be so grateful to him when she learned why he was really here. After a brief talk with the nurse and another peek at her son, she left the room.
Nate approached the bed quietly. Noah’s legs were uncovered and looked horrible. His torso, where he had more shallow burns, was covered with white gauze. He hated to wake him because the pain must be awful, despite the meds they were pumping in him, but it had to be done.
To Nate’s surprise, Noah opened his eyes. They were bright blue, feverish above the breathing tube attached to his nostrils.
“Noah, you know who I am?”
“Ya.”
“I need to hear what happened in the barn to start the fire. I know you’ll tell me the truth. I don’t think the arsonist was anywhere around. Did you accidentally spill that kerosene and ignite it somehow?”
His eyes widened in surprise. He grimaced slightly. Nate could see even that movement hurt him as a deep frown furrowed his brow. Tears tracked from the corner of each eye into his hairline.
“Ya,” he whispered.
“I thought so from the burn pattern. Was it an accident or not?”
“I—it’s an old barn. We need a new one.”
“That’s not what I asked. After the kerosene ignited, why did you go back into the loft?”
“I left Daad’s tools up there—forgot. Expensive.”
“Exactly how did that lantern spill and ignite downstairs?”
“Needed more light up there. You remember, ya? Dark up there.”
“Noah, I know you’re in pain, but you know your people are, too, fearing the arsonist will strike again, so I have to find him.”
“It’s not me.”
“I know it isn’t. I asked your father last night where you were during the other two fires. So maybe it’s still Jacob Yoder.”
“He wouldn’t. Can’t say more. Sorry, that’s all,” he said, and closed his eyes.
“All right, then. I’ll tell you a true story, since you won’t tell me one. The reason I am so dedicated to my job is because my father deliberately lit our house on fire when I was a boy, much younger than you.”
Noah opened his eyes and fixed them on Nate as he spoke. “He wanted insurance money for the house because he was going into debt—didn’t have as much money as some of his friends and neighbors. I know the Amish don’t have insurance, but they have donations and barn raisings.”
More tears ran down Noah’s cheeks.
“But my father made a mistake. He didn’t know the flames would spread that fast. He used an accelerant that got out of hand. He was going to be a hero and get us out. But my mother was burned so badly in the fire she died, and my dad got trapped, too, and died. The fire got out of his control and trapped him. Is that what happened to you? You lit it so you’d get a new barn and so your friend Jacob wouldn’t look guilty? You ran back up to the loft for the tools, but fell through the hole in the rotting floor and got trapped, right? I’m trying to help your family and your people, Noah. I need the truth. Is that what happened?”
Noah closed his eyes tightly; his lips moved. Nate could barely hear the response, one he wanted yet dreaded because it would make a bigger mess than he was already in with the Amish in this case.
“Ya,” Noah said. “I did it.”