A Perfect Square

Chapter 32




AN HOUR LATER, Shane had joined them in the back room and the sky outside had turned completely dark.

“I called your Englisch neighbors,” Callie reported. “They’ll get word to Jonas that you’re going to be a little late. Would you like more tea?”

Deborah shook her head and pushed away her mug. “Danki, Callie. But if you put any more tea in front of me, I’ll float away like Jonas’ bobbers when he’s fishing.”

“All right, ladies. This is the one lead we have, and I think it’s worth following.” Shane sat with his forearms propped on his knees. He’d rolled up his shirtsleeves thirty minutes ago, and he had the “Information Wanted” poster, crime scene pictures, and witness reports spread out across the table.

The pictures should have bothered Deborah, but they didn’t. They confirmed what she suspected. The girl was from Goshen. The dress patterns were identical.

“I wish I could say for certain who she is.” Faith shook her head. “There are so many young Amish girls, and I don’t see them as often as I did since our district has grown and split into smaller churches.”

“But you think she could be the daughter of this Mr. Lapp?”

“I’m fairly sure. There are a lot of Lapps in Goshen, but Timothy Lapp on Old Branch Road …” Faith’s voice faded away as she reached forward and picked up the picture of the girl in the pond. Finally she shook her head and dropped the photo on the table. “He’s a gut man, and this will break his heart. Timothy Lapp … well maybe you have men like him here, in Shipshewana. He has not changed at all. He doesn’t abide with the idea that rumspringa is a part of a child’s passage into adulthood.”

She took a last sip of her tea, which had long since grown cold, grimaced, and set the mug carefully down on the table, next to the girl’s photo. “There are no cars hidden in his barn, and his older children have no cell phones in their belongings that they charge when they go into town. At least if they did, they would never let their dat know about it. He follows the old ways.”

“We have families like that here too,” Deborah said gently. “They want what is best for their children, and they worry that any type of change is bad.”

“Exactly. Don’t misunderstand me. He loves his family. It’s only that he’s a bit strict.”

A dozen unanswered questions swirled in the air around them, made the room seem close and crowded. Deborah thought Shane would begin questioning Faith then, about whether the father might have killed the girl or at least caused her to flee her home, but instead he sat back and waited.

She’d watched him work for many years now, and his ways always surprised her. She had once thought it was because he was an Englischer, but tonight she thought it was because he had the instincts of a panther. Her father had once described watching a big, black cat on a far ridge, stalking its prey, not moving closer until it was sure of its attack. Shane was like that elusive animal.

Faith reached out and turned the photo, so she was looking again at the girl. “When his oldest dochder wanted to marry the Eby boy, Timothy agreed, but there was some scuttle about where they would live. This was a little while back — before the marrying season. I’d say four or six weeks ago.”

Deborah noticed that though Shane was listening intently to every word that Faith said, occasionally he’d glance up at Callie, as if he were waiting for her to jump in and add something. The two seemed different tonight, as if something had changed between them. Deborah was going to have a talk with Callie about the men in her life. She was tired of guessing!

For her part, Callie was silently following the exchange as if it were one of the Agatha Christie novels she always had on the counter of the shop.

In the back of her mind, Deborah had to wonder if this would help Reuben’s case at all. What if it incriminated him further?

But she realized she needed to tamp down that fear.

The important thing at this moment was to find the girl’s family, to give them a last bit of peace.

“You know a lot about the family, given that you can’t positively identify the girl.” Shane spoke quietly, in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Ya. I suppose it seems that way.” Faith smiled sadly. “But even in Goshen where we have several districts there is a …”

She looked to Deborah and Callie for help, unable to find the expression she wanted.

“Grapevine?” Callie asked.

“Ya. Grapevine of sorts. It’s not so much that we gossip, as it is that we share one another’s burdens. The word in Goshen was that Timothy’s daughter had run away. At first with the boy, but then, a week ago, Samuel Eby came back. He said Katie stayed among the Englischers. We all believed she would return in time. Most Amish kids do. No one was really worried, and it hasn’t been that long.”

Everyone considered her words, even as they looked at the pictures the crime techs had shot of the body at the pond. Callie didn’t reach for any of those though. She reached for a shot Trent had taken — one that did not appear in the Gazette. A shot of the girl before the medical examiner had pulled a sheet up and over her face.

The young girl looked almost as if she’d been sleeping, the skin of her face remarkably un-deteriorated — which was part of the evidence the lawyers had used against Reuben, stating the body had only been in the water a short time when Esther had found it.

“Whoever she was, you can tell she was a beautiful young lady.” Callie fingered the picture carefully, her voice full of the loss they all felt each time they considered the tragedy of such a young life cut short.

“Ya. It’s heartbreaking for sure,” Faith agreed. “And the cause of death was some sort of blow to the back of her head?”

Instead of answering her question, Shane looked down at his notes, flipped to a new page, and picked up his pen. He sat back in the chair and began drawing circles in the margin of the paper. “Wouldn’t Mr. Lapp have seen the notices we put out? The ones that stated we found a girl? We advertised in The Budget and all the local papers.”

Faith stared across the room a full minute before answering. “It’s possible he might have seen them, but then again, their farm is in a remote area. If I remember correctly, they don’t come into town often. He’s busy running the acreage, with only girls and not wanting to hire out the work when he doesn’t have to. The mother has her hands full raising all the girls.”

“But wouldn’t their bishop have brought it up?” Deborah asked. Her mind was spinning, wondering how it would feel to open a paper and see your child’s face staring back at you. Her stomach clenched, and she wished she’d had less of the tea.

“Of course the bishop would have spoken to them, if their dochder had been missing. But remember, they think the girl is with freinden.”

Everyone considered the possibilities.

Finally, Shane stood and began gathering up his photos and papers, touching Callie’s arm as he scooted by her. “There’s one way to know for certain. I’ll go down to Goshen tomorrow, show Mr. Lapp the pictures, see if he can identify the girl as his daughter.”

“I’ll go with you if that would help.” Faith stood as well. “It’s been a while since I’ve spoken with the Lapps, but I believe it would be gut to have a familiar face there.”

“I’ll go too,” Callie said.

“And so will I,” Deborah added.

Shane stopped and gave them his most serious officer-on-duty look. “That’s hardly necessary, ladies. I believe I can handle this alone.”

“If I know Timothy Lapp, and I do, things might go better if someone he knows is there when you first show up.” Faith didn’t look as though she would take no for an answer. “The man doesn’t have a temper, but he doesn’t take kindly to Englischers. He’s likely to ask you to leave his land and walk away.”

“Ask a police officer to leave?” Shane’s eyebrows rose.

Faith shrugged. “If he’s done nothing wrong — and I’m sure he hasn’t — then, ya. You’d never have a chance to show him your pictures, because he’d never listen to you in the first place. Timothy Lapp lives very strictly by the law, but as I said, he prefers to keep to himself. He won’t abide outsiders. It’s part of the reason no one was surprised when the girl ran away.”

Before Shane could respond to her reasoning, Deborah began gathering her things.

“I want to be there also,” Deborah said. “It matters to me, Shane. This might not help Reuben at all, but I’m sure he’d like to know that the girl’s family has peace at least. And I do still believe he’s innocent. If he has to suffer for a crime he didn’t commit, at least let me be able to tell him I was there and able to ease someone’s pain. At least let me be a part of closing this case.”

Shane shook his head, even as he continued gathering the papers and photos and picked up the worn leather work bag that held his investigation folders.

Deborah realized she hadn’t changed his mind at all. She hadn’t really expected to. Of course, she could hire a driver or she could possibly ride along with Faith’s driver, but she barely knew the woman.

“I’m the reason Faith is here.”

Callie’s statement was the one that stopped Shane cold. Deborah wasn’t sure if the look on his face was one of exasperation or admiration. She could not figure out the relationship between Shane and Callie. There was something going on between them, some energy in the air like before a big storm, but was it hostility or passion?

“What?” Shane asked.

“I’m the reason she’s here. When everyone told me that Ira Bontrager was babbling and I should ignore him, I didn’t.” Callie walked around the table, took the folder out of his hand, and opened it. She shuffled through the pictures as if they were a deck of cards, not stopping until she came to the one of the girl on the ambulance gurney. The one taken before the medical examiner had covered her face.

“Are you trying to say that I owe you?”

“No.” Her voice grew softer now. Max stood and walked between her and Shane. “I’m saying there’s something else at work here, and we shouldn’t ignore it. I tried to forget Ira’s ramblings, tried not to look for Faith, but the thought of her out there not knowing about her dat haunted me.”

Faith’s eyes met Deborah’s, and Deborah suddenly realized she did know this woman. She knew her because they shared a friend, and that counted for more than years or distance.

“If I hadn’t found Faith … if she hadn’t come here today … and if Deborah hadn’t stopped by before Faith was about to leave …” Callie looked at the photo one last time, then snapped the folder shut and handed it to Shane, “I would never have told Faith about the intricacies of the case. It never would have occurred to me to tell her. There’s a reason we’re all involved in this, and we all need to go to Goshen tomorrow.”

Shane started to reach out and touch Callie’s face, but stopped himself when he realized they weren’t alone in the room. Instead he nodded slowly, then stuffed the folder in his bag. “All right, but you’re not a part of the investigation. Your role is completely unofficial. You can follow in your own car.”

“Fine. I’ll drive. Deborah and Faith can ride with me.”

“I’ll leave at seven.” Shane said, as he walked out the door, not bothering to say good-bye.

Deborah rode with Callie as she dropped Faith off at the bed and breakfast. Then Callie turned to take her home.

“Want to explain to me all those looks and touches between you and Shane?”

“We touched?” Callie’s voice squeaked, though Deborah couldn’t make out her expression in the darkness of the car.

“Nearly, several times. I’m your closest freind here in Shipshe — “

“You’re my closest friend anywhere.”

“And you don’t want to talk to me about being in lieb?”

A truck passed them, its headlights brightening the interior of their car for a moment, long enough for Deborah to see the confusion on Callie’s face.

“I don’t think I’m in lieb.”

Deborah reached over and patted her hand. “But you like him, ya?”

“When I’m not angry with him.” Callie laughed, but it was uneasy, as if she wasn’t sure whether she should laugh or cry.

“I feel that way when I’m pregnant,” Deborah admitted. “Never knowing if I’m happy or sad. Jonas says it’s because the baby is pushing on my heart, causing my feelings to run together.”

“But I’m not pregnant!”

“I think it’s the same though.” When Callie didn’t add anything, Deborah confessed, “I had wondered if you had feelings for Andrew or even Trent.”

“That’s part of what confuses me.” Callie pulled into the Yoder’s lane. “Andrew is such a sweetheart. He’s very important to me.”

“And Trent?”

“At first — yes. But the more I know him, the more I think of him as a charming college kid who hasn’t grown up yet.”

Callie brought the car to a stop, and Deborah waited for the sound of the engine to die away. “I wouldn’t worry about it,” she said.

“Because God will show me?”

“Oh, ya. He will show you, but I was thinking that time has a way of sorting such things out. And there’s no rush.”

Deborah reached over with her left arm and hugged her friend tightly. Callie reminded her of her younger schweschder, which was really how she thought of her now: family.

Then Deborah stepped out into the night, hurrying up the steps toward Jonas, content in the knowledge that those years of uncertainty were behind them.

Deborah didn’t worry about Reuben at all that night. The hug she and Callie had shared before she walked up the front porch steps said it all. Deborah knew tomorrow wouldn’t decide Reuben’s fate — the Lord had control of that — but she felt certain, down to her very bones, that tomorrow was going to reveal an important piece of the puzzle that had begun when she’d stopped by Reuben’s pond to let Esther pick a bouquet of fall flowers.

The next morning dawned so dark, Callie had trouble believing her alarm. She rose anyway, dressed for bad weather, and took Max outside for his morning romp. While he did his patrol of the little side yard, she studied the sky. What she saw didn’t look good.

Callie hadn’t experienced a really good Indiana rainstorm in November, but she’d heard about them. Temperatures were predicted to drop — not enough to freeze, but enough to make everyone miserable.

Snow she thought she could handle. She’d missed snow when she’d lived in Texas, which was why she’d taken up skiing. As a child, Callie had always fantasized about visiting her Aunt Daisy in the winter, dreamed about romps through snow-covered fields, sled rides, and choosing a Christmas tree from a snow-filled lot. It seemed as if this year she’d have her chance.

Today though, it looked as if the forecast should read: wet and wretched.

Callie went back inside and pulled a sweater on over her cotton blouse, changing her shoes for rain boots. Donning a yellow rain slicker over the entire outfit, she studied herself in the mirror and decided she looked like an ad for Outdoor World.

Max whined once as she headed down the stairs.

“Sorry, boy. This is one day you should be glad I’m leaving you behind.”

By the time Callie had picked up Deborah and headed back to Faith’s bed and breakfast, the rain was beating a pattern against her windshield. When they pulled in front of the Shipshe police station, Shane blinked his lights once as he pulled out in front of them.

“Does he know where we’re going?” Callie asked.

“Ya. He called me at the bed and breakfast last night and confirmed directions to Lapp’s place.”

“Wants to be in the lead,” Deborah said with a half smile on her face as she pulled her knitting out of her bag and began working on what looked like a scarf.

To Callie, everything being knitted looked like a scarf. Then, when it was done, it looked remarkable and soft and like something she wanted to learn how to do.

“You look better this morning, Deborah. More …” Callie glanced at her friend, who was sitting beside her in the front seat, then back at the wet black road. “More at peace I guess.”

“I couldn’t have said it better. Jonas and I talked a long while after you dropped me off.” Deborah’s needles were a blur, much like the white lines painted down the middle of the road, which they were speeding past. “He helped me to see that none of this is a surprise to God, and God still does have Reuben’s best interests at heart.”

“He has a hope and a plan for him?” Callie reached for her travel mug full of coffee and took a big gulp.

“Exactly.”

“I’m not following you two very well.” Faith leaned forward, sticking her head between the front seats. “Reuben is wanted for the girl’s murder, right? No offense, Deborah. I know he’s your freind.”

“No offense taken.” Deborah slowed in her knitting to smile at the older woman. “Reuben is wanted for the murder of this girl, because she was found on his place.”

“And because he won’t testify as to how he knew her. He won’t explain how she came to be staying in his house,” Callie added.

Faith pulled herself up straighter, and when Callie glanced in the rearview mirror, she could see that her eyes had widened to big blue circles.

“She was staying in Reuben’s house?”

“Reuben’s abandoned house,” Deborah corrected. “Reuben and his cousin Tobias live in the barn on the property, which they’ve remodeled. No one has lived in the house since their grossmammi and grossdaddi moved out.”

“Oh. Well, maybe he didn’t know then.”

“There are other things though, that seem to indicate Reuben had spoken to her.” Callie went on to give her the quick version of the grand jury findings, including the fact that Reuben had been in the house. Traces of blood had been found on the bottom of Reuben’s shoes, which is how they tied him to the clean-up of the blood splatter.

“Splatter? So did she fall or did someone hit her on the back of the head?”

“That part the crime techs couldn’t determine, or they didn’t reveal to the grand jury.” Callie sighed. “I’m sure they’ll bring in experts to debate the point.”

Somehow talking about the case this way, explaining the facts as they traveled toward what felt like the conclusion of what started two weeks ago, helped. When Callie was done, she glanced again into the rearview mirror.

“So what do you think now?”

“I think I’d like to meet this Reuben. He sounds even more stubborn than my Adam, and I’ll tell you — before he died, he was known as one of the most stubborn plain folks in all of Goshen.”

Deborah glanced back at Faith. “I sometimes think we grow men that way here in Indiana.”

“Nope,” Callie said. “Same thing is going on in Texas. Rick was terribly stubborn, and he most certainly wasn’t Amish. Must be a nationwide trait.”

They all considered that for a moment, Deborah and Callie exchanging pointed glances as they pulled up behind Shane’s car, which was stopped at a red light.

“Speaking of hardheaded,” Callie muttered.

Faith sat forward again. “What you first said though, about God having a hope and a plan for Reuben — and yes, I recognize that Scripture from the book of Jeremiah — “

“It’s one of Deborah’s favorites. She throws it at me all the time.” Callie smiled to soften her words.

“You need some reminding is all.” Deborah didn’t slow in her knitting.

“But you believe it applies in this case?”

“I do.” Deborah set her knitting in her lap. “I’ll admit, yesterday I was worried. Reuben seemed more tired than usual, and staying inside, in the jail, has taken its toll on him. But Jonas reminded me that God is doing something special inside of Reuben and that maybe today will be the day of his freedom.”

“Deborah, I don’t want you to get your hopes too high.” Callie reached over and clasped her hand. “We don’t know what we’ll find in Goshen.”

“Ya. Jonas said that too.”

They drove the rest of the way south on the state road in silence, each considering the possibility of Callie’s last words.

Before Callie felt quite ready, she was slowing, turning onto Old Branch Road behind Shane’s car. The lane was long and not quite like the type Callie was accustomed to. This looked more like the driveways to the horse farms near northern Houston, and in fact, horse fences lined the rolling pastures to the right and left of the lane. They continued to drive for several minutes as Callie studied the tremendous trees that spotted the fields beyond the fences. Most had dropped their leaves, stripped by the recent winds.

The leaves lay piled on the ground.

Callie wondered what type of trees they were. She hadn’t lived in Indiana long enough to be able to recognize all the foliage, but when she glanced over at Deborah, she saw that her friend had stopped knitting and her eyes were focused completely on the scene in front of them.

Now that they’d finally reached the end of the lane, the home looked to Callie like any other Amish farm.

A medium-sized house sat beneath a stand of trees. Behind it, hills unfolded for miles, draped in the morning’s rain. Adjacent to the house were the obligatory barn and grain silos. The barn, as usual in this area of the country, was painted gray and was much larger than the house. Callie noticed no electrical lines ran to the house or the barn.

What was different, what she studied as she pulled to a stop behind Shane and cut the engine to her car, were the silos. She’d never seen anything quite like them.

She’d never seen so many.