by Jane Jensen
During the rest of the week, things stalled out again. John Stanza, the friend who had “double-dated” with Larry, was a big, bearish guy who was humiliated by the whole thing. He had a solid alibi for the time of Jessica’s death. He’d been working at a mechanic garage in Harrisburg and had been home all that night as well—according to him and his exceedingly unamused wife. He had no priors.
Larry’s dairy truck and his own car were gone over by the forensics team. They found nothing—no trace of blood, no blonde hairs. If he’d killed or moved Jessica in either one of them, he’d done a hell of a cleanup job. There were no records of a rental car or anything else suspicious on his credit cards. Grady got a court order and we searched his house. We found a bit of cocaine, nearly a pound of pot, and some suspicious prescription drugs. We didn’t find the boots that had made those prints in the snow or anything else to link Larry Wannemaker to the murders of Katie Yoder and Jessica Travis.
Grady kept Larry in jail for the drugs. He still had a real jones on for Larry having done the murders and wanted me to figure out how he’d done it. I told him I didn’t think Larry was our guy. Grady got pissed off with me, but I was pretty sure he suspected I was right. Hernandez and Smith brought in four more responders to the Craigslist ad and Grady and I grilled them. I didn’t consider any of them good suspects, and none of them had any ties to Grimlace Lane that we could find.
It was roadblocks all the way around.
Except with Ezra. That was more or less full steam ahead. Every few nights I texted him as I left work and he walked down Grimlace Lane to meet me. I picked him up where Grimlace met Clearview Road. Because it was risky going out for both of us, I’d take him back to my place.
He was like a comforting drug. When I wasn’t with him, the world just didn’t turn right, like it was slightly off its axis, and the stress of the case sat on my chest like an ugly little gargoyle. But when I was in his arms, all of that went away. He didn’t push to go any further, and I didn’t either, but just being with him was enough. It was like ripping off a Band-Aid every time I had to drop him back off at Grimlace Lane.
I didn’t like the situation. It felt underhanded, furtive, picking up this beautiful Amish man on a dark country road. It reminded me of the way Larry had described them picking up Katie. I didn’t like the comparison at all. I didn’t want to hide my relationship with Ezra Beiler. But he wasn’t ready to walk away from his farm quite yet, and I had no idea how Grady and Chief Lumbaker would respond to the news of our relationship. So we snuck around.
—
“Did you like livin’ in New York City?” Ezra asked me on a Friday night. We were curled up on my couch. I was getting no sleep whatsoever, and I really didn’t care.
“It was exciting at first,” I admitted. “But after a while the lack of green got to me. And the crowds. I was happy to come home.” I kissed his fingers.
“This is home?”
I looked around at the blank walls of my living room. “This . . . this is a rental. Just a place to be until I can make a real home. Hopefully with someone.”
I felt a flush of nerves as I said it, and I looked away from those brown-green eyes.
“Someone? Will there be a lottery?” he asked seriously.
I laughed.
“’Cause I’d like to buy a ticket.”
I looked at him slyly. “You already have a whole bunch of tickets.”
His lips quirked. “Anybody else have tickets?”
“No. But . . . you’re just getting ready to leave the Amish. You should have some time to be free for a while. Figure out what you really want.”
He thought about that for a long moment, his mouth pursed. “I’m startin’ over. I’d just as soon do it with you. No point in startin’ over twice. That’s a plain waste of energy.”
His voice had that laconic irony, but I knew there was vulnerable truth in there too. I nestled closer to him on the couch and stroked the blond fuzz on his chest where I had opened his shirt. My heart skipped along with a happy “tra-la-la.” “Yeah?”
“Ja. Horse is good company and all, but he makes a mess when I let him in the house.”
I rolled my eyes. “What about Martha. She’s leaving with you, isn’t she?”
He frowned. “Not sure she will in the end. She doesn’t really wanna leave the Amish, but she knows if she stays, she’ll be an old maid. She’s past courtin’ age, and we have a small community. It’s unlikely she’ll find a husband now. And she wants to get married more’n anything.”
“That’s too bad.” I wasn’t really surprised given Martha’s plainness and, at least around me, her oddity. There probably wasn’t a lot of joy in life for an Amish woman if she didn’t marry and have children. Though having been in the dating pool in “real life,” I wasn’t sure Martha would fare all that much better out here.
Ezra nodded. “That’s why she come—came to live with me once Mary died. She knew I was preparin’ to go. Martha hasn’t had an easy life. She had a beau once, or thought she did, but he turned out to favor someone else.”
I sat up, something tickling my brain. “Who?”
Ezra blinked at me. “She never said. Why?”
I looked up at the ceiling, pondering.
“You have that look,” Ezra said.
“What look?”
“That I’m-gonna-fix-everything-in-the-whole-world-because-I’m-so-smart look.”
I poked him in the ribs. “I do not. And that’s far too much to glean from a single look anyway.”
“Nope, that’s your look,” Ezra said with absolute, solemn certitude.
I sighed and wrapped my arm around his chest. “If you say so.”
He turned his head away and swallowed. “It means a lot to me, Elizabeth, that you’re so . . . I respect you. You care about people. You care about what happened to those girls and you want to make it right. You’re a good person but you’re your own person too. Just means a lot is all.”
God. I gently turned his face to look at me. “That so? Well, I can’t fix the whole world, but maybe I can fix you.”
“Maybe so.” There was something hot in Ezra’s eyes. It stole my breath away.
“Maybe you can fix me too.”
“All right,” he said grimly.
“Good, then.”
“Good.”
I kissed him.
I’d been waiting for Ezra to take the lead, not wanting to coax anything from him he didn’t want to give. And maybe he’d been doing the same. But after a rough week, I felt an itching need for him, for closeness, and maybe he did too. He led the way further into the dance, waiting for me each step, and I followed him all the way. Joyfully.
In bed, Ezra Beiler showed an unlimited work ethic and an unaccountable lack of mercy for someone who’d been raised a pacifist. When I showed him how to please me, he learned quickly and was determined to repeat it until he got it right.
Dear Lord.
Afterward, as we caught our breath in my queen-sized bed under a down comforter, Ezra proved to be a cuddler as well as a talker.
“I like that you’re not shy about taking your pleasure,” he told me, acting shy himself.
“Didn’t, um, didn’t Mary ‘take pleasure’?”
“Don’t think so,” he said quietly. “Seemed like it was just for me. She liked to be held though.”
“That’s a shame.”
He picked up my hand and nuzzled my wrist. “You act so tough, but here”—a kiss—“you’re delicate as a china cup.”
“Mmmm.” My pride said I should argue the point, but I was too pleasantly sleepy.
“And here . . . so soft.” He stroked my belly with lazy fingers.
I moved onto my side and we stared into each other’s eyes as he ghosted his fingertips over my skin, not with passion this time but with gentle affection. It felt intimat
e—so, so intimate. I could feel our two hearts lying open and unguarded between us.
I thought about how my path had twisted about. I’d come back to Pennsylvania to find peace, to remember there was goodness in the world, and I’d found Ezra Beiler. He was nothing at all like Terry, but I knew that I could love him just the same.
Maybe there wasn’t just one person who could fit you in life. Maybe people were more complicated than that. Terry fit certain facets of me and strengthened them. The side of me Ezra fit was a different Elizabeth Harris. I liked that person. I felt comfortable being her, and I felt good about a future between her and Ezra. Life was strange and, for the first time in a long time, I felt that it was capable of being . . . marvelous.
“You make me feel real good,” Ezra whispered.
I smiled. “I like you too.”
—
Hernandez came into the break room, where I was making yet another cup of coffee. Ezra and I had seen each other almost every night for the past few weeks, and it was starting to catch up with me. It was six P.M. and I felt like if I didn’t hit a pillow soon, I’d pass out at my desk.
“Hey, Harris.” Hernandez smiled at me. He had a good smile—big, white teeth.
“Hey.”
“You look tired.” He got close to me and tilted his head to study my face, apparently checking out the purple accents under my eyes. His eyes were warm and . . . sexy. “The case keeping you up?”
I refrained from taking a step backward and/or spilling hot coffee down my shirt. Hernandez was flirting with me. Not that I wasn’t used to a lot of guys at the station making it clear I had an open invitation—oh, boy—but Hernandez had never done it before. He was a good cop and a nice guy. Pretty cute as well. I liked him. I didn’t want to lose his friendship.
I hesitated. I wanted to defuse but not offend. “Actually, I’m sort of in a new relationship. Haven’t been getting a lot of sleep.”
“Ah.” His smile faltered, then came back strong. “Good for you.” He hit my shoulder good-naturedly. “Being kept up having hot sex beats the hell outta being worried about a case.”
“Well, that keeps me up nights too.”
Hernandez got his coffee and leaned against the break table. “Any new ideas?”
I tapped my cup. “I keep thinking about something Larry said when we interviewed him. He said Katie told him she was expecting to come into some money soon—big money.”
“Hmmm.”
“Assuming she wasn’t lying to Larry, and Larry wasn’t lying to us, where was this money supposed to come from? There was only so much money she was going to earn prostituting herself on Craigslist. And her parents weren’t about to give her any. . . .”
“Right.” Hernandez thought about it. “You found some stuff of hers, didn’t you? That bag in the barn? Anything in there?”
I started to say no, because I remembered clearly what had been in that bag—clothes, shoes, makeup, a little jewelry, condoms, the money pouch. . . . Maybe it was worth another look.
“I’ll go get it,” I told him. “Meet me in the conference room.”
I retrieved the bag from Evidence. The money had been returned to Katie’s parents, but the pouch was there along with everything else. I took it into the conference room and spread the stuff on the table.
Hernandez went through her clothing, checking pockets, but of course that had already been done.
I carefully unfolded the single page of newsprint that had been in Katie’s money pouch along with the money. I’d looked at it when we found it of course, but it hadn’t seemed relevant at the time. I smoothed it out on the table.
“What is it?” Hernandez asked, giving up on the clothing.
“Not sure. It’s just a page from some tabloid. The National Tattler.”
It was an inside page dated Saturday, September 7, 2013. There was an ad for diet pills on one side. But nothing like that had been found among Katie’s possessions. I turned it over. The other side showed a table of contents with articles about the death of a soap star, a celebrity feud, a murderous cheerleader, and a pair of conjoined twins. The rest of the page was taken up with an information directory—a list of the tabloid’s editors and contact information.
I turned it so Hernandez could get a good look. He met my eyes.
“It’s a long shot,” I said.
“Hey, it’s been a whole day since I’ve been stuck on the phones. I’m on it.”
“Thanks,” I said sincerely. “I’ll take half if you will.” I made a Xerox of the page, tore the list of names down the middle, and handed him a strip.
“No problem, E.” Hernandez held out his fist for a bump. I looked at it. Maybe that was taking the one-of-the-guys thing a bit too far, but I wasn’t going to complain. I bumped it. Yo.
Hell. Maybe the Amish elders didn’t want me on their turf, but things were going to be okay here in the Lancaster police department.
—
It took thirty minutes. I was on the phone at my desk when Hernandez called my name. He stood at his desk, receiver at his ear, and gave me a thumbs-up. He motioned that he was going to transfer the call. I got off mine quickly and picked up line two.
“Detective Elizabeth Harris. Who am I speaking with?”
“This is Jim Johnson. I’m the crime editor for the National Tattler.” The man sounded confused and more than a little interested.
I looked up. Hernandez was standing at my desk looking pleased with himself. He mouthed, Katie.
“Were you in touch with an Amish girl named Katie Yoder last September?” I asked.
“Yes, I was. We talked several times and I made her an offer for a story, but then she vanished. I thought maybe she wasn’t able to get proof or she changed her mind. Now I have some questions for you, if you don’t mind, Detective.”
“Hang on,” I said. I covered the phone. “Get Grady,” I told Hernandez. “And meet me in the conference room. I’ll transfer the call.”
—
Jim Johnson was a hard-assed reporter. He tried to get out of us what had happened to Katie Yoder and why we were involved. But it wasn’t the first time I’d dealt with the press, or Grady’s either. We ended up telling him it was a murder investigation—and not disputing the fact that it was Katie’s murder but not confirming it either. We promised him he’d be the first reporter we talked to when the time came. That opened up Jim Johnson’s sealed lips.
Katie Yoder had contacted the tabloid and eventually been forwarded to Jim. She claimed to have a story about sex abuse among the Amish, and sent him photos of herself, probably taken with Jessica’s phone. Jim had been interested but wary. He told her he’d need proof. And if she could get something like an incriminating video, get the guy to confess on camera, preferably with a little kissing and groping, he thought he could get her ten to twenty-five thousand dollars.
“A story like hers, with her face and personal testimony along with an authentic video? It would have been worth some money,” Jim claimed. “Amish stories always do well for us. Add in sexual abuse of a young girl and that’s the kind of story you can bleed for weeks to sell papers. I have some contacts in reality TV that might have been interested too. I offered to agent her. If, you know, she could really get the goods.”
I just bet he had.
“So, what was the story she told you?” Grady asked. He watched me over the conference table with an unreadable expression.
“She wouldn’t give me a name. Said she’d do that once we had a firm deal. She wasn’t stupid, Katie Yoder.” Jim sounded sad.
“She must have said something,” I pushed. “Was it a family member? Any indications it was her father or brothers? Her abuser was Amish, right?”
“Yeah, he was Amish. It started when she was only eleven and it went on for years, so he must have been considerably older than her. That’s what I know
for sure.”
I stroked my chin, my gaze locked with Grady’s.
“No names?” Grady asked again, just to be sure. “Not even an initial?”
“Nope. She just called him ‘this man.’ She was very wary. She wanted the money, that much was clear, and she was going to make sure no one took the story away from her until she’d gotten her fair share. Like I said, she wasn’t stupid.”
“Did she tell you what kind of proof she had or was going to get?”
“When I told her the kind of money we could get if she had video, she said she’d get video, just like that. I told you, she wanted as much money as she could get from the story.” He paused. “Do you think this guy killed her?”
We hadn’t even verbally told him the victim was Katie yet. I wasn’t going to play that game with him.
“As we said, this case is ongoing and we can’t discuss anything that might hurt our chances of finding the killer. But Detective Harris here will be in touch when we can talk,” Grady said.
“I certainly hope so.” Jim Johnson had an edge to his voice. “I went out on a limb for you guys.”
“And we appreciate that. You’re been enormously helpful. We’ll be in touch.”
Grady disconnected the call.
I knew Johnson would sniff out something. With some digging he could even find out that Katie Yoder’s body had been found in the Susquehanna and had sat in the cooler in Maryland until claimed by her Amish parents. That stuff was public record. But there was nothing we could do about that now.
“Fuck.” Grady rubbed his heavy face. “Great work, Harris, Hernandez.”
I was bubbling over with energy. This was a huge lead. “That’s two sources now that say Katie was abused—the psychiatrist and now a reporter who talked to Katie herself. We have to find that guy, Grady. If he got a whiff of what Katie was planning . . . Talk about a motive for murder.”
Grady nodded grimly. “Yeah. I’ll ask for an urgent meeting with the elders of the local district. I’ll impress upon them the importance of giving this guy up. Someone has to know something.” He stood. He must have seen the frustration on my face, because he added, “Go write up a list of questions you want me to ask them and e-mail it to me.”
