10

This afternoon, Geena’s mind was mainly on dinner. Earlier today she had bought a juicy strip steak at the butcher shop in Stoney Ridge and thought she might ask the Schrocks if she could use their grill. The Amish, she was told, loved to barbecue. And it was still blistering hot, which she didn’t really mind because it meant more canceled reservations and her stay could extend at Eagle Hill. The longer she was here, the longer she could put off the inevitable job search.

As she walked out the guest flat toward the house, she spotted Bethany near the clothesline, a mound of wet bedding in her arms. Of all the Schrocks, she found herself most drawn to Bethany: feisty, opinionated, strong—probably stronger than she knew—yet with an undercurrent of pathos. She wondered what that undercurrent consisted of. Where did it come from?

As she approached Bethany, she could see that something was wrong. Bethany’s hands were trembling. “Are you all right?”

Startled, Bethany said, “Of course. Of course I’m all right.”

“You’re sure?”

Bethany’s eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know.” She looked away. “Maybe not.”

“I see.” Geena leaned forward. “Would you like to talk? Life gets complicated sometimes. It can help to talk things out.”

Bethany shook her head, splattering tears, then ducked her chin in embarrassment. “Shootfire!” she said fiercely. “I’m sorry. I’m never emotional like this. Hardly ever.”

Geena patted her back. “Come inside and let’s chat.”

In the small living room of the guest flat of Eagle Hill, Bethany poured out her life story: her mother’s disappearance, her father’s untimely passing, her brother’s reappearance, and all the pieces in between. “I just want to know why. Why did she leave? Did I do something to make her go? Did my father? I feel as if I can’t stop wondering about her—maybe because my father has died. I’ll never know anything more if I don’t track her down now.”

When Bethany had finally finished with her long story, with her tears and deep breaths, Geena encased Bethany’s hand like a sandwich between her own and looked deeply into her face. “Maybe you should go find your mother and get some answers to your questions.”

“I don’t even know how to get to Hagensburg. Buses, I guess.”

“I could drive you there. I could go with you.”

Bethany’s head snapped up. “I didn’t mean to ask—”

Geena held up a hand. “You didn’t ask. I offered.”

“Maybe my brother is right. Maybe it’s best to just let sleeping dogs lie.”

“Sometimes it is best to leave things alone. But sometimes, a person can’t move forward until she faces what’s holding her back.”

“What if I find out something I don’t want to know?”

“I guess that’s something you need to decide for yourself.”

“I want to know about my mother,” Bethany said. “But I don’t.”

“Sometimes the past can cling to us like cobwebs, getting in the way of the future.” Geena patted Bethany’s shoulder. “If you want to go, just let me know when and I’ll drive you over there.”

From the guest flat window, Geena watched Bethany walk back to the clothesline and her heart felt sad. She hoped it had helped for Bethany to talk to her, though the way her shoulders were slumped made her think she had only added to the poor girl’s confusion. She would have loved to have dropped everything and driven Bethany right over to Hagensburg, right now, and get answers to those burdensome questions. But going, or not going . . . that had to be Bethany’s decision.

Geena wasn’t surprised that Bethany had shared personal information with her even though they had only known each other for a short time. People had always told her their stuff, even before she was ordained. Maybe she was easy to talk to. She hoped so. Sometimes people just needed a safe place to unload their troubles. An objective listener. Her counseling classes at seminary had taught her that the best way to draw someone out was just to listen.

But to whom did a minister go to share his or her stuff?

Early Friday morning, Tobe called Allen Turner of the Securities Exchange Commission. The lawyer told him to sit tight, that he would be there in a few hours.

Bethany had heard the name of Allen Turner for over a year. She had an impression of the kind of man he might be: old, balding, with thick glasses, wearing a detective’s overcoat that brushed his ankles, and carrying a fat briefcase with papers sticking out of it. The real Allen Turner turned out to be youngish, sort of. In his mid-forties, she guessed, with a full head of blondish hair and a rather kind-looking face. Not looksome like Jimmy Fisher, sort of a craggy face, but not bad for a middle-aged English man. His smile was kind, lighting up the sadness in his eyes. That was what surprised Bethany the most—his eyes. They weren’t the eyes of a ferocious lawyer. They were fatherly eyes.

“This is one case I’m determined to solve,” he told Rose and Bethany as they met him at the car and walked to the house.

“Is it still considered to be a case?” Rose said.

“Yes, ma’am, it is.”

“It’s naïve, I suppose, to hope that there’s enough information to clearly show that my husband and son had done nothing wrong with Schrock Investments. Nothing intentionally wrong.”

“Yes, ma’am. That would be naïve.”

Allen Turner sat at the kitchen table of Eagle Hill, opened his big briefcase—that was one part of him that did fit the image in Bethany’s mind—and started to pull out thick files. She had to fight a powerful urge to stand up and fuss with the food or do the dishes, start some coffee. Women, Rose had once said, had to do something with their hands in times of crisis. Boy, was that right. She had to sit on her hands to keep from fidgeting.

Rose sent Mim over to Naomi’s to tell Tobe that Mr. Turner was here. And she asked Mim to stay over there, to keep an eye on Luke and Sammy. Bethany was pretty sure Rose wished she could send Mammi Vera away for this conversation too. Her grandmother was hovering in the kitchen, glaring at Allen Turner as if she were a mother lioness and he was threatening one of her cubs. Which, in a way, was true.

When Tobe returned from next door, his face was flushed and not from the heat. Even Bethany was aware this was a significant moment in his life. Tobe shook Allen Turner’s hand and sat down at the table.

Bethany caught Rose’s eye and nodded her head to the door.

“Would you like us to leave?” Rose said, setting a pitcher of iced tea on the table with two glasses and a plate of cookies. “We can give you some privacy.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Mammi Vera announced, seating herself at the table.

Allen Turner took a glass and filled it with iced tea. He took a long sip and set it down, then wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. The room felt like an oven and it was only eleven in the morning. “Please stay, all of you. I have questions for you too. We’ve got a lot to wade through.” He set a tiny tape recorder on the table and looked up. “I hope you don’t mind if I record our conversation.” He turned it on without waiting for anyone’s permission. “Tobe, start by stating your name and age.”

“My name is Tobias Schrock. I’m twenty-two years old . . .”

Tobe answered Allen Turner’s questions for over two hours, while Rose and Mammi Vera and Bethany sat at the table, patiently listening. There was nothing new in what Tobe had to say, not to Rose, but something new did occur. Allen Turner pulled out two black ledgers and set them on the table. “Do you recognize these?”

Bethany pressed her backbone against the hard chair. Those were the two books that she had given—searched for and handed over!—to Jake Hertzler, just two months ago. She felt that strange feeling start again in her chest, like she couldn’t get a full breath of air.

Comprehension stilled Tobe, but only for a moment. “Those are the actual ledgers for Schrock Investments. Those show the real story. That we were running out of money.”

“This case has been pretty unusual for me. Without any computers, there’s no paper trail. Everything boils down to these ledgers.” Allen Turner opened one of them up. “Maybe you knew that.” He lifted his eyes to observe Tobe’s response.

“I’ve never worked with computers. I wouldn’t know any difference. That’s just the way Schrock Investments kept their records.” Tobe bit his lip. “How’d you get those?”

“They arrived at my desk, sent anonymously. A note inside said they belonged to you.”

Tobe squeezed his eyes shut. “The entries were made by Jake Hertzler. You can compare handwriting and see that’s the truth. But I took the books and hid them on the day the subpoena was delivered and my father was told there was a lawsuit forming against Schrock Investments.”

“Why did you hide them?”

Tobe shrugged. “I panicked. It was stupid. I just thought I could protect my father.”

“These ledgers only reveal part of the story. Schrock Investments was in trouble but it wasn’t only because of poor returns.” Allen Turner reached out and took one of Rose’s cookies. He took a bite, then a few more. The room had grown quiet, the crunching of the cookie sounded like a cow in dried cornstalks.

“I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation,” Rose said quietly, but she clasped her hands so tightly, the knuckles turned white.

“Quite right, Mrs. Schrock,” Allen Turner said, talking around bites of cookie. “Someone was siphoning money from the company.”

Tobe jerked his head up. “It wasn’t me! I would never have done such a thing.”

Allen Turner flattened his palms on the table. “No one’s accusing you, son. We think it was Jake Hertzler. He was skimming off the company from the start.”

“How did you discover that?” Rose asked.

Allen Turner pulled out another file, with a picture of a man on top. Jake’s picture. “It’s taken me awhile to piece it all together. Jake Hertzler, aka Jack Hartzler, John Hershberger . . . he’s got a number of aliases. He’s a con artist. A clever one. He dabbles in all kinds of money laundering scams.”

Quietly, Bethany added, “Horse trading too.”

Allen Turner looked over at her as if he just realized she was there. “Wouldn’t surprise me. Anything he can get his mitts into, he finds a way to turn a fast one.”

Mammi Vera slammed her fists on the tabletop. “That Jake Hertzler always did strike me as slicker than a pan full of cold bacon!”

Allen Turner grinned, a first. “Well, his luck is running out. He got greedy with Schrock Investments and caught the SEC’s attention on this one. I’m going to nail this guy.” He looked at Tobe. “And if you want to avoid some jail time, you’re going to help me.”

“Jail?” Tobe asked, color draining from his face. “Why would I have to go to jail?”

“Son, you broke the law,” Allen said, his eyes both weary and wary. “You committed felonies.”

“How?”

“Concealing records. Withholding information. You’re facing jail time. A lot of it . . . unless . . . we can prove Jake Hertzler’s involvement as the mastermind behind this pyramid scheme.”

“But he was!”

Allen lifted an eyebrow. “Then help me prove it.”

“How?”

“You’ll need to come back to Philadelphia with me.”

Tobe looked at him suspiciously. “So you can throw me in jail?”

“I’m going to do what I can to keep you out of jail. But there are people you’re going to have to talk to first. And I need to have your full cooperation to build this case against Jake Hertzler. We need your testimony.”

“I’ll do anything I can to pin Jake down.” A shadow crossed over his eyes. “Anything.”

“Tobias Schrock!” Mammi Vera snapped. “Revenge is not an option.” She tapped a finger on the tabletop. “Don’t forget who you are.”

Tobe looked over at her. “Jake should pay for what he did. Is wanting justice so wrong?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “God decides those matters. Justice belongs to him. You were raised to be a Plain man. You can’t toss that away like an old hat.”

Allen Turner leaned forward in his chair. “Son, is there something else you know? Something you’re not telling me?”

Tobe hesitated. He kept his eyes on the tabletop. “I know he falsified bank statements. I saw him do it.”

“Yeah,” Allen Turner said. “I figured that out.”

“What else, Tobe?” Rose said. “Do you know something else about Jake Hertzler that you’re not telling us? Are you frightened about something? Is that why you disappeared?”

Everyone stilled, all eyes on Tobe. He ran his finger along a spot on the oilcloth that covered the table, then finally lifted his head. He didn’t back down. If anything, his jaw hardened. “I told you what I know for sure.”

Bethany knew her brother well enough to know he was lying. Tobe knew something else he didn’t want to say. But what?

Rose must have had the same sense. “I’m going with you to Philadelphia,” she said.

Tobe’s head jerked up. “No you’re not. I got myself into this and I’m going to get myself out of it.”

“I’m coming too,” Mammi Vera added. She looked right at Rose. “Don’t even try to talk me out of it.”

Rose opened her mouth, then clamped it shut with a frown. Both women ignored Tobe, talking over his objections as if he weren’t even there.

“I’m due for a three-month checkup with that Dr. Stoltz anyway. I’ll just move it up a little. We’ll stay at Delia Stoltz’s house. She stayed here plenty long.” Mammi Vera waved a hand at Rose as if shooing a cat. “You call her today and let her know we’re coming.”

Rose sighed. It was decided. “Then we’ll have to take the boys too. Bethany and Mim have enough to do with the inn and their work at the Sisters’ House.”

“You can leave them, Rose,” Bethany said. “We’ll trade off watching them. Tobe needs you right now.”

Rose hesitated, nodded, then turned to Allen Turner. “We can’t leave for a few days, though. There’s a work frolic tomorrow to help build the community garden.”

Allen Turner had been watching the family interaction with a stunned look on his face. Bethany thought everything about Schrock Investments probably stunned him. “Mrs. Schrock, this isn’t a vacation. Your stepson is under investigation for criminal charges.”

Rose lifted her chin. “My son is innocent.” She didn’t like to use the word “step” when referring to her relationship to Bethany and Tobe. As far as she was concerned, they were a family. Period. “And my son is not going to Philadelphia without me. We need Tobe tomorrow for the frolic. And then there’s Sunday church. So we can’t leave until Monday. You can come back for us then.”

“Noooooooo,” Allen Turner said, drawing the word out for emphasis. “I am not letting Tobe Schrock out of my sight. I’ve been trying to catch up with him for a very long time.”

“So have we,” Rose said firmly.

Bethany nearly grinned, despite the seriousness of the matter. Rose could be surprisingly stubborn.

“Another day or two won’t matter in the grand scheme of things,” Rose said. “You’ll just have to sit tight. You’re welcome to help with the frolic. You can stay here, at Eagle Hill.”

“Frolic? Under the circumstances, that hardly seems like an appropriate use of time.”

Rose’s face softened into a faint smile. “It means a work party.”

Allen Turner rubbed his forehead. “This is highly unorthodox.”

“You have our word, Mr. Turner. We will leave with you on Monday morning.”

“Do any of you have an idea where Hertzler might be?” Allen Turner asked. “Favorite places? People tend to do predictable things even when they’re in trouble, maybe even more so then.”

Tobe shook his head. “Jake won’t do anything predictable.”

“True, but it’s also true that an animal run aground usually finds a way to reproduce the familiar.” Allen Turner turned to Bethany. “How did you contact him when he was in Stoney Ridge?”

“I had his cell phone number. I still have it.”

Allen Turner’s eyebrows shot up. “Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place? We might be able to trace his location.”

“His phone isn’t on very often,” Bethany said. “Usually, I just left messages for him.”

Allen Turner turned over his yellow pad of paper to a fresh page. “That’s because he knows to keep it off so it can’t be located. And if he’s smart enough to take the battery out, we can’t trace calls at all.”

“Jake is freakishly smart,” Bethany said.

Tobe scratched his chin. “How can a cell phone be traced?”

“Mobile phones work by hopping from one tower to another. As you drive out of one range, you hook onto another. Each of these towers have a certain range, and the cellular provider can use triangulation and calculate the time it takes for the signal to get from the tower to your phone and back to calculate distance from that point.” Allen Turner tapped his pencil on his pad of paper. “So do you have the number?”

“It’s up in my room. I’ll go get it.” As Bethany passed the front door, she saw Geena Spencer come up the steps with her breakfast tray. She hurried to open the door to let her in. “I forgot all about your tray.”

“No problem. I’m heading into town so I thought I’d drop it off.” Geena handed the tray to Bethany, then looked quickly around the table. Her smile faded at the sight of Allen Turner. She backed up against the pistachio-colored wall, a look of astonishment on her face.

Allen Turner stared at her for a long moment. Then the craggy lines of his face softened in a smile. “Hello, Geena. Long time no see.”

Of all the people in all the world over, Geena thought, as she made a hurried return to her guest flat, she would not have expected to find Allen Turner on an Amish farm. She hadn’t seen him in years and years, not since the day she had told him she wouldn’t marry him.

No—that was only part of it. She wouldn’t give up the ministry for him. That was what he wanted from her and it was more than she could give him. She had hoped that Allen would reconsider and discover that he couldn’t live without her, but that wasn’t the way he was wired. He loved her but wasn’t willing to share her with a church. She loved him but wasn’t willing to give up the ministry for him. And so they parted ways.

A year or so later, news trickled to Geena that Allen had married. It was for the best, she knew, and she had prayed for Allen and his bride to be blessed. But she’d never gotten over feeling a bit of a sting whenever she thought of Allen.

At that moment the subject of her thoughts knocked on the guest flat door.

“Do you mind if I come in for a moment?” Allen said as she opened the door. He was big, blond, and had the kind of angular face that some might find handsome. She did. The added lines in that virile face had only given him character. His was the kind of presence that filled a room. “I’m going to be staying up in the farmhouse for a few nights. Three, to be exact.”

“Did they invite you?”

“Sort of.” He wiped the back of his neck with a handkerchief. “This heat wave is really something. No air-conditioning anywhere.”

“It’s an Amish farm, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

He grinned. “I did, in fact. Geena, I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

She raised a palm toward the sofa. “Well, then, why don’t you sit down.” She sat across from him in a chair. “I take it this is legal business?”

He nodded.

“I don’t know anything, if that’s what you’re wondering. I’ve only been here a week and a half.”

Allen leaned back and raised an arm against the top of the sofa. “What brings you here, of all places?”

“Someone in my church gave me a gift certificate and I finally had time to use it. The inn has been booked up for months, but this heat wave brought some cancellations. So . . . I was in luck. At least until the heat wave breaks, anyway.”

“It is hot. I’ll never take air-conditioning for granted.” He picked up a magazine and started to fan himself. “So, have you been able to get to know the Schrock family? The Amish tend to be utterly private people.”

“They’ve been very welcoming to me. Very pleasant. I’ve gotten to know Bethany, in particular. She’s the oldest daughter.”

“Has anyone mentioned a fellow named Jake Hertzler to you?”

“No. And Allen, even if she did, I would consider it to be a confidence.”

He nodded. “The privileges of the priesthood.”

She bristled. How strange. Twenty years had passed and they were automatically in the roles they had left behind. She stood. “If there’s nothing else, I have an errand to run in town.”

“Wait, Geena. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Really. It was a careless comment. I just meant it as it was—you have the right to hold confidences. Please, sit down. I’d like to catch up with you.”

She slowly sat down again. “There’s nothing much to say.”

“Are you still working at the church in Ardmore?”

How did he know where she was working? “I’m . . . in between jobs right now.”

“Is that why you’re hiding out here, on a remote Amish farm?”

Okay. That was enough probing. She glanced at her watch. “I really need to head into town to get an errand done.” That wasn’t entirely an untruth. She had planned to go to the Sweet Tooth Bakery where she could get wi-fi and update her résumé on her laptop. And get a cinnamon roll. “If you’ll excuse me, Allen.” She went to the door to open it.

He rose and walked to the door. “Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I don’t think so. I’m going to help the Amish build a community garden tomorrow.”

He smiled. “So am I. Wherever Tobe Schrock is, there I will be. See you tomorrow, Geena.”