by Loree Lough
Now, as they stood in foot-deep snow, she patted his hand as he and the rest of the sorrowers squinted into the face-prickling wind, holding hats and bonnets with mittened hands. Those gathered huddled together for warmth, sobbing and crying as the bishop recited hymns in High German. More than an hour later, she watched as Simon mouthed silent prayers and closed his eyes as four strapping Amishmen lowered the small coffin into the gaping hole in the earth. Then more prayers—louder this time, to drown out the grim clatter of dirt being shoveled onto the lid—and, finally, as the men positioned a blank marker at the head of Levi’s grave, it was over.
The rattle of buggy wheels and the steady beat of horses’ hooves mingled with the fading murmur of departing voices, for although winter’s brutal grip had seized Paradise, everyone present had left an assortment of chores behind in order to share the Gundens’ loss. The adults had cows to milk and pigs to slop, eggs to gather and meals to prepare, and for the children, lessons to learn in their one-room schoolhouse. Even the Gundens had formwork waiting for them at home, and so the graveyard slowly emptied…
…except for Simon and Julia, who stood side by side near the mound of fresh-dug earth.
“His whole life,” Simon said, “summed up by a number on a map of the graveyard in the bishop’s office, marking the spot where—”
“Shh,” she said, patting his hand. “It’s their way. It’s always been their way.”
And though he nodded in agreement, Simon had made his point: It grieved him deeply that Levi’s tombstone would stand stark and bare, just like every other in the small cemetery, devoid of his name or birthday or the date of his death, echoing the Amish belief that no particular man, woman, or child is special in God’s eyes—that He loves them all exactly the same.
“It’s always been easy before,” he said, “respecting their ways, but…” After a long moment of brittle silence, he added, “But this…this was…my little Levi.” He launched into a short list of Levi’s pranks and jokes, and how Levi had yearned to grow up and become a hardworking man like his father.
“Your hands are like ice,” she said when he paused. “Let’s go to the car, out of the wind.”
“Okay,” he said, following her across the snowy field. “Did you know other Amish kids his age don’t even speak English?”
Simon sounded so proud of the fact that Julia couldn’t help but smile a little. “I might have heard something like that.”
“They speak Pennsylvania Dutch,” he continued, “and don’t even begin to learn English until they go to school at six.” Simon chuckled. “But Levi? He’s been talkin’ a blue streak every bit as well as you and me since he was in diapers.” Pausing to fish his keys from his pocket, he sighed. “And smart? Man, he was smart! Picked stuff up just by watching and listening. He told me once, ‘I learn a little here, a little there.’”
Once they were settled in his pickup, Simon leaned his forehead against the steering wheel. “Julia,” he ground out, “I still can’t believe what happened. If I’d spotted those good-for-nothing hoodlums sooner…or if—”
“Simon,” she interrupted, “you’ll drive yourself crazy with thoughts like that.”
But he shook his head. “If I’d have been faster, maybe—”
“What if it had been me that day in town, instead of you?” she asked. “What if I was sitting here, beating myself up because I didn’t notice something happening three blocks away, or because I didn’t run fast enough? What would you tell me right now?”
The longer he stared at her, the deeper the frown line between his brows grew. Unshed tears pooled in his eyes and shimmered on his long, dark lashes. He blinked then reached across the console for her hand. “I’d tell you to knock it off.”
“Why?”
“Because I know you, that’s why, and there’s no way anyone could convince me you didn’t try everything humanly possible to…”
His voice trailed off as she squeezed the hand wrapped around her own. “I know you, too, Simon Thomas. There’s no way anybody could convince me you didn’t try everything humanly possible to save Levi.” Another squeeze, and then, “So knock it off.”
He ran both hands through his hair then leaned back against the headrest, spent.
She got out of the car, slamming the door as he said, “Where are you going?”
Julia jerked open the driver’s side door and aimed a thumb over one shoulder. “Out.”
“What—?”
“You’ve been promising to let me drive this ugly old rig since our first date. Time to pay up, buster.”
Amazingly, he did as she asked, and as he hiked around to the passenger side of the pickup, Simon said, “Just don’t give ’er too much gas too soon. She tends to—”
Julia didn’t know why he didn’t finish his thought. But instead of asking why, she turned the key and fired up the engine. The original plan had been for him to drive her back to the Gundens’ to fetch her car then follow her to her place, where she’d made beef stew for their supper. But her nondescript sedan would be just fine parked outside her friends’ barn for the night. Tomorrow she’d hire a cab to take her back there and pick it up. Right now, Julia only wanted to get Simon to her house, in front of a roaring fire, where he could continue reminiscing about Levi’s life…
…or weep at his passing, instead.
The weeks passed slowly after the funeral, and though Simon tried hard to behave like his usual jovial self, it didn’t take much to remind him of Levi. A child’s voice, a toy commercial, even the apple pie Julia made for dessert woke memories of the boy he’d so loved.
He hadn’t talked much about it since the night of the funeral, except to whisper, “He died in my arms” or “Lord, why wasn’t I faster?” when he thought no one was listening. Often she caught him staring into space, as if he thought Levi might materialize if only he stared hard enough. As Julia saw it, her function was to stand beside him, listening if he needed to talk, remaining quiet when he preferred not to, and pray that soon his melancholy and deep-seated anger would lift.
Then one evening when she answered the front doorbell, he stood on the porch and held out his arms. “Sorry, pretty lady, to put you through all these weeks of me acting like a basket case.”
Julia didn’t know which felt better—seeing that old familiar grin on his face or feeling his arms around her again. “I just put a potpie in the oven. Hungry?”
He ran his fingers through her hair. “Starved,” he said, “for affection.” Holding her at arm’s length, Simon met her eyes. “Why’d you let me go on and on, feeling sorry for myself all this time?”
“You loved him, Simon, as much as if he’d been your own. Losing him has been hard, and you needed time. Time to hurt and cry and get angry that he left you.”
“Left me? Levi didn’t leave,” he growled. “He was taken.”
The source of his hostility was Michael Josephs, who’d thrown the pipe bomb. The mere thought of him was enough to alter Simon’s entire being, from eyes that glittered with loathing to a face contorted with rage, low-hunched shoulders and hands balled into white-knuckled fists.
She hadn’t told Simon the latest about the boy….
When Julia learned that Michael’s parents—embarrassed by this latest in a series of scandals—had turned their backs on him, she’d pitied the boy. With no one to post bail, he’d been thrown into jail with a coarse assortment of hardened felons, where he’d stay while awaiting trial. Ironic, she’d thought, that he might be safer there than on the streets…if Simon had his way.
Sooner or later, she’d have to tell Simon that she’d been assigned Michael’s case. Would he understand that it was nothing personal? That filing pleadings and preparing for jury selection were routine parts of her job and that Michael had as much right to a fair trial and legal representation as every other citizen of this country? Julia sighed to herself, because if she didn’t believe it, how could she expect Simon to?
Worrying about how he’
d react is what had prompted her to pay her boss a visit weeks ago. “I’ve known the Gundens for years,” she’d explained, quickly adding that she also had a personal relationship with the prosecution’s key witness.
“I don’t have time for this nonsense,” he’d bellowed, slamming his office door. “You’re like everybody else in this office, putting in ten-and twelve-hour days because we’re seriously understaffed. So grow up, Julia, and dump the Pollyanna attitude. Nobody on our side is the least bit interested in your relationships. And you can bet the other side ain’t gonna complain if it seems you’re guilty of partiality.” Then he opened the door, her signal to get back to work. “You’re outta your mind if you think you’re gettin’ out of—”
“What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?”
The sudden sound of Simon’s voice startled her so badly that Julia slopped hot tea onto her hand. Her heart pounding, she grabbed a napkin and dabbed at the spill.
“Come on,” he coaxed, “out with it.”
Forcing an “I don’t get it” expression, she grinned nervously. “Can’t a girl’s mind stray a little without people thinking there’s stuff on it?”
“Some girls can, but Julia Spencer?” Simon lowered the recliner’s footrest and leaned forward to gently tap her temple. “There’s always something going on in that head of yours.”
She swallowed. Hard. “Must’ve been nonsense, then, because I…I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Left brow raised and right eye narrowed, Simon shook his head. “I dunno. From the look on your face, I’d have said you were thinking scary thoughts. Real scary.”
Well, it was scary, knowing her job was on the line if she refused the case. And worse—wondering how Simon would react to the news.
Maybe she should just blurt it out, get it over with.
But one look at his weary face told her to wait, let him catch up on lost sleep, give him more time to adjust to life without Levi. If the boy’s death still occupied such a huge part of her mind this many weeks after the funeral, how much more must he be in Simon’s heart?
There were hundreds of things to do before the trial began. Later, as the date drew closer, she’d tell him. And in the meantime? She’d pray as she’d never prayed that the media wouldn’t jump all over this story as they had the Amish schoolgirls’ shooting years ago.
“I’m in the mood for popcorn,” she said, standing suddenly. “How ’bout I make a batch while you stoke the fire?”
Simon got to his feet and pulled her to him. “Something tells me somebody is trying to evade something important.”
Heart pounding, she kissed his chin. “And sometimes,” she echoed, “some people are too quick to judge.”
“Okay, have it your way,” he countered, tucking a tendril of her hair behind her ear.
“Ahh, so I can make double-buttered popcorn, then.”
When he chuckled, a bit of the joyful spark she’d grown to love returned to his beautiful eyes, and Julia sent a silent prayer of thanks to the Almighty…then quickly tacked on, I sure could use a healthy dose of good timing, Lord.
But even as she thought Amen, Julia knew that what she needed most…was courage.
Chapter Eighteen
“Michael Josephs for you, counselor.” The guard held the door as a portly teen entered the interview room.
“Thanks, Dave,” Julia said, as the officer secured the boy’s shackles to thick metal clips bolted to the concrete floor. “Remind me…do you prefer to be called Michael or Mike?” she asked as he flopped onto the chair across from hers.
He shrugged. “My parents call me Michael, but since they’ve disowned me, I guess it’s time for something new.” Smirking, he said, “How ’bout Mike?”
She ignored his sarcasm. “And you can still call me Julia,” she reminded him. “I’m sure you know why I’m here.” She slid a thick accordion file from her briefcase and pushed PLAY on the tape recorder beside it. “I need to record our talks in case I need to refer to anything while preparing for your trial.”
“Hey,” he said, balancing both elbows on the table, “do what ya gotta do.”
As she’d reread the contents of his file and some of the charges brought against him in the past, Julia had cringed….
At six, he’d stolen firecrackers from a neighbor’s back porch and used them to launch his mother’s stew pot high into the air…and when it landed on the hood of a parked car, the explosion had left its driver scarred for life.
Michael was seven when he set fire to kerosene-soaked rags he’d hidden in his lunch box and flushed them down the elementary-school toilets…destroying the plumbing and flooding the boys’ bathroom.
Shortly after his eighth birthday, he made a bow from balsa wood and strung it with heavy-gauge fishing line then fashioned arrows from quarter-inch-thick wooden dowels sharpened to a daggerlike point…and used them to kill robins and rabbits in his backyard.
By ten, he’d formed the “Here Comes Trouble Club” in his neighborhood and taught boys to fashion slingshots, used to pepper passersby with pea gravel if they dared to walk or bicycle near the clubhouse. Their antics blinded a two-year-old in a baby stroller.
Enraged when disgruntled former club members stole his basketball net, Michael glued thumbtacks to its rim, costing one prankster two fingers and a thumb.
In junior high school, Michael graduated to breaking and entering, burglary, assault and battery, and muggings. And most recently, a young female art teacher at the high school had accused Michael of cornering her after class. If not for a janitor who had come upon them, there was no telling what might have happened.
Michael’s dad, a prominent businessman who’d made regular and generous contributions to politicians’ campaign funds, managed to call in favors to keep the details of every incident out of the public record. High-priced lawyers and disreputable judges ensured light—or nonexistent—penalties.
But this time, Michael had deliberately planned and executed the killing of a five-year-old Amish child, in broad daylight and in plain sight of a half dozen witnesses. Humiliated, Gus Josephs and his socialite wife washed their hands of the boy…ensuring that this time, he’d face the full extent of the law.
“This is quite a file you have here,” Julia said, flipping through the pages.
“My biggest crime was stupidity.”
Julia removed her reading glasses and looked up from the folder. “Stupidity?”
“I got caught.”
What a waste, she thought, staring into gray blue eyes that sparkled with intelligence. If Michael’s parents had sought help after his first offense, perhaps they’d have discovered a way to prevent the rest. Instead, payoffs and pretense designed to protect their own reputations guaranteed their son’s emotional demise.
She grabbed a blue-lined yellow tablet. “So tell me about the day of the accident.”
“Ahh,” he said, leaning closer, “you’ve been misinformed.”
“How so?” she asked, clicking her pen into “write” mode.
Michael ran a hand through straight dark hair. “Lucky me,” he said, mostly to himself, “I get a hot, stupid lawyer to defend me.” Then, “It wasn’t an accident.”
If not for the smug expression on his pudgy face, Julia might have thought she’d misunderstood. “Okay, tough guy,” she said, narrowing her eyes, “how about we start with why.”
“The Clapes are dirty, for starters. And slow. And always in everybody’s way.”
“First, in my presence, you’ll call them ‘Amish.’ Got it?”
Blinking, he nodded.
“So why that boy, that day?”
“Because,” Michael said around a bored yawn, “he was there.”
“So you knew he was in the buggy?”
“Sure. What would be the point of blowing up an empty one?”
It took hard work to keep her emotions at bay. Harder still admitting that she’d wrangled his freedom after the shoplifting charges. If
he’d been in jail, serving time for that…Swallowing, Julia decided to leave such thoughts for later.
“So how’d you feel afterward? When you realized the little Amish boy had died, I mean?”
Michael shrugged. “I dunno…how was I supposed to feel?”
“How about bad? Guilty? Sorry? Anything to indicate you wish you hadn’t done it?”
A halfhearted grin, then, “Not really.”
“Do you know that Levi Gunden had a mom and a dad, a brother and a sister?”
Rolling his eyes, he said, “I do now.”
“Do you feel bad about the grief you’ve caused them?”
“Why should I? Those…those Amish…they reproduce like rabbits. Give them a couple months and they’ll have another to take that one’s place.”
Julia couldn’t help but remember the agony Hannah had gone through with her recent miscarriage. No one but God knew if she was capable of having more children…. So the question was, did Michael have a capacity for empathy at all, or was he truly devoid of human compassion? She met his cold, gray eyes and knew that deep down he felt nothing. Nodding, Julia closed the file and returned it to her briefcase.
“We’re done? Already?”
“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll be back.” After he’d undergone a physical and a complete psych workup. He’d confessed to cold-blooded, calculated murder and would be tried as an adult. But even with the testimony of professionals to show the jury proof of Michael’s mental problems, Julia had her work cut out for her if she hoped to spare him the death penalty. She owed him that much, didn’t she? Because if she’d recommended mandatory in-patient psychiatric care to the judge who’d heard Michael’s shoplifting case, he would’ve been in a juvenile facility on the day of the accident.
And Levi would still be alive….
Thoughts like that are counterproductive, she told herself. She’d never make it up to the Gundens, a tough fact to cope with, especially knowing that Hannah and William would be the last people to censure her for doing her job and doing it well. But that didn’t stop the pangs of guilt from echoing deep in her soul. “Don’t talk to anybody, anybody,” she told Michael, “unless I’m in this room with you. Got it?”
