Cast a Blue Shadow

by P. L. Gaus

  Branden next said, “We thought you’d know where she is, Sonny. I see. No, the snow is bad here, too. Then why did you let her go? For crying out loud, Sonny! Don’t you think that was a bit reckless? I’d like to talk to you, Sonny. No, I’ve got a faculty meeting tomorrow afternoon. All right, Sunday night, then. No, your dorm lobby. You’re not supposed to be inside your house, Sonny. No, I’d advise you not to do that, Sonny. Look, you just stay out of there. OK. Right. And call me if Martha comes back. OK. Yes. I’m sorry about your mother, Sonny. Yes, truly. Why would you doubt that? I hope you’ll change your mind. OK, Sonny, but you’re wrong. We’ll leave it at that. You just make sure you’re there tomorrow night. Yes, goodbye.”

  At the table again, the professor gave an explanation. “Sonny picked Martha up at the church. Took her back to her dorm. Outside, there was an Amish gentleman in a buggy. Martha spoke to him in Dutch dialect briefly, climbed up onto the seat, and drove off with him.”

  “Ben Schlabaugh,” Caroline muttered.

  “Probably,” Branden said. “Sonny couldn’t think of a reason to follow her. He said she was crying.”

  “That boy has a heart of stone,” Evelyn said.

  “I’m not very happy with him,” Branden said. “He sounds as if he’s washed his hands of her. Spoke about his new responsibilities to his family.”

  Caroline shook her head. “Martha doesn’t need these two guys in her life, right now.”

  Evelyn said, “At least Ben Schlabaugh won’t advise her to have an abortion. That could prove disastrous for her, emotionally.”

  Caroline nodded agreement. “Tomorrow, when we talk to Ben, we’re going to have to get him to bring her back.”

  Pointedly, Cal said, “I don’t think you’d better count on that.”

  “Why?” Branden asked.

  Cal shrugged and said no more.

  “Tell them about the trophy,” Caroline said to her husband.

  Branden gave a brief account, emphasizing the fact that the blow to the head did not kill Juliet Favor.

  “Maybe all Martha did was clean off the blood and put it back on the mantel,” Cal said.

  “If she saw the murder, that would account for her condition this morning,” Evelyn said.

  Branden said, “She saw something. Probably handled the trophy, too.”

  “If she knows who the killer is, she’s in danger,” Caroline said.

  “Maybe all she knows is who hit Favor on the head,” Branden said. “Trouble is, that person may still think he killed Favor.”

  “Or she,” Caroline interjected.

  “Or she,” Branden agreed. “That person might not know Favor was already dead.”

  “Would that be enough to produce the reaction we saw in Martha this morning?” Caroline asked.

  “Oh, very much so,” Evelyn said.

  “What do you all plan to do tomorrow?” Cal asked.

  Evelyn said, “I can’t do anything for her, unless she comes back to see me.”

  “Like I said,” Cal said, “I wouldn’t count on that just yet.”

  Caroline said, “Evelyn and I have an appointment to talk with Ben Schlabaugh tomorrow.”

  “You don’t sound like you care too much for him,” Cal observed.

  “I don’t,” Caroline said, eyes leveled intently at Cal.

  “Hold off on that judgment, Caroline,” Cal said knowingly. “Ben Schlabaugh is about ready to break away from his Old Order sect. I’ve been spending a lot of time in the scriptures with him.”

  “You think he might quit on the thing?” Branden asked.

  “Ben has been in touch with Martha about this,” Cal said. “He put money down on a car, and I have him counseling with the pastor at the conservative Mennonite church over south of Fredericksburg, where Martha’s family goes now.”

  “He’d join Martha’s church?” Caroline asked.

  “I think so,” Cal said. “It’s a delicate thing at the moment. For now, Martha is with him—her choice—and he’s close to a conversion breakthrough. It couldn’t be a more delicate time for him, spiritually.”

  Caroline studied the pastor’s round face and large, tranquil eyes. “We still need to talk to him,” she said.

  Evelyn agreed with a nod.

  Cal slid his chair back and stood up. He slipped his arms into his coat and said, “I’ll let you know as soon as I hear from them. In the meantime, I’m going out to her old district and nose around. There’s a shoe repair shop where I know the fella likes to talk.”

  Out under the light of the front porch, with snow accumulating on his black felt hat, Cal asked Branden, “What does Bruce make of this whole mess?”

  Branden said, “He thinks Martha is in it up to her neck.”

  “You remember when we caught the minister’s garage on fire, trying to smoke those cigarettes?”

  Branden laughed. “Bruce told his dad it was only him.”

  “Did you ever own up to it, Mike?”

  “No.”

  “Neither did I,” Cal said. “Too embarrassed. Bruce took a licking over that one.”

  “His dad wasn’t the gentle type.”

  “No. Not at all.”

  Branden stuffed his hands into his coat pockets and watched snowflakes coming down, thinking about his lifelong friendships with Troyer and Robertson.

  Cal said, “Mike, you’re gonna want to think of Martha like you do Bruce.”

  Branden looked back at Cal.

  “Martha is confused about her loyalties right now. She doesn’t know whether she should protect someone, or whether she should tell what she knows.”

  “Protect whom?” Branden asked.

  Cal said, “You know I can’t say,” and stepped off the porch into the snow.

  31

  Saturday, November 2 7:40 P.M.

  AT THE home of Martha Lehman’s parents in Fredericksburg, Cal Troyer accepted a cup of herb tea in the kitchen and sat with them at a round kitchen table with a red formica top. The Lehmans were dressed like ordinary English folk, though more conservatively than most. Mr. Lehman wore a plain white shirt and dark cotton slacks. He was in his evening slippers. Mrs. Lehman wore a plain pink dress with a white lace apron and white prayer cap. She produced a large manila envelope and dumped the contents, pictures of all sizes, onto the table. Mr. Lehman spread them out, and Cal saw immediately that they were all shots of one red barn, from various angles, inside and out, taken at different seasons of the year.

  Mrs. Lehman said, “Martha has not been very happy with us, lately. She thinks we ruined her life, or something.”

  Mr. Lehman said, “She’s only been home once since school started this year, and she brought all these pictures and pretty much threw them out onto the living room carpet. She kinda kicked them around with her toe, and said, ‘What happened in this barn?’ She was mad, really mad. Thought we could tell her something.”

  Mrs. Lehman said, “She thinks we have held something from her. But Cal, we didn’t know a thing. It’s crazy. Why would we hurt her?”

  Cal picked up one of the smaller photographs and asked, “Can I take one of these?”

  Mr. Lehman said, “Sure, take as many as you like. Martha said she had photographed that old barn about a thousand times. Wanted to know why we thought she would need to go back there time and time again. She pretty much accused us of child abuse, or something. Said we let her down.”

  Cal asked, “You haven’t seen her today?”

  “No,” said Mr. Lehman. “Is she all right?”

  “Yes, I think so,” Cal said. “But her boyfriend’s mother was murdered last night, and Sheriff Robertson wants to talk to her about that.”

  The Lehmans looked at each other, puzzled, and Mr. Lehman said, “We haven’t seen her except that one time, since she went back to school.”

  “I wouldn’t worry too much,” Cal said. “If she sees me again, I’ll tell her to come out to see you.”

  “She won’t do that,” Mrs. Lehman said. “Sh
e’s really mad about something.”

  “Then, when I have something, I’ll come see you myself,” Cal said.

  He thanked them for the picture and left.

  32

  Saturday, November 2 8:30 P.M.

  ABNER Mast had clamped a thick leather sole to a size eleven work boot and was running a massive old stitching machine around the edge to sew it together. Cal Troyer stood and watched. They were in a red outbuilding behind the Mast residence about a mile west of Charm. A fire in a potbellied stove heated the room. Overhead, delicate silk mantles glowed at the ends of small, round gas pipes, which crisscrossed the ceiling. Five of the mantles hissed softly with flame, and still the room was not particularly bright.

  Cal asked, “So, you knew the Lehmans?” and watched Abner’s scarred and dirty fingers work skillfully around the thick needle, as the boot turned on the contour of its sole and the leather tightened with the stitching.

  “This is the hardest part,” Abner said, and concentrated on the last few inches. He finished up, cut the waxed thread with a knife, and tossed the old boot onto the floor. In all, there were, by Cal’s count, five finished pairs on the floor, and a dozen or so left to do. Abner’s supply of new soles was sorted into cubbyholes over his workbench. Taking up a child’s boot, he chose the right size sole and lined it up on the bottom of the boot.

  Cal waited and watched.

  Abner made an adjustment on his stitching machine, used an old oilcan in places, and then glanced back at Cal. “The bishop put the Mite on all the Lehmans when they pulled out of the congregation. I’m not supposed to be talking about ’em.”

  Cal smiled. “I reckon you could tell me a few things, and it wouldn’t get around.”

  Abner smiled too. “Can’t see how it’d hurt.” He worked the small boot into place on his machine and threw a few stitches before letting go. The boot was pinned by the needle. Abner walked over to the stove and pitched in another log. He was five feet, four inches tall, and his hair and beard were gray. He had the butt of a thick cigar caught in the corner of his mouth, and he used a glowing splint to light it. Some sparks caught in his beard, and he danced a bit, brushing the glowing hair out onto the floor. He pinched the cigar in his fingers and spat tobacco.

  Cal laughed, and Abner said, “You think that’s funny?”

  Cal shrugged and said, “Bishop sees you dancing around like that, and you’re gonna be out, too.”

  Abner laughed and put the cigar back into the corner of his mouth. He puffed on the thing several times and finished by blowing a dense cloud of blue-white smoke toward the ceiling. “Boots it was,” he said. “That was the first of the Lehmans’ troubles.”

  “How many people split off?” Cal asked.

  “Well, let’s see, now. There was the whole John Lehman family —thirteen, I guess. And his brothers, too. With their families, I guess maybe about fifty souls. They all went Mennonite. But it was boots as I remember the first of it.”

  “Had to be more than that,” Cal observed.

  “Oh, it was. But first John wanted his family dressed in those store-bought walking shoes. Said it’d be better for their feet.”

  “He was probably right,” Cal said.

  “I just mend them,” Abner said, waving a hand at the pile of old boots on his workbench. “Truth was, John Lehman was a bible scholar, or so he thought, and he started hounding the bishop’s tracks over all our little rules. Said we were all wrong to obey so many rules.”

  Cal said, “He’s Mennonite now, so I’m guessing he preached about salvation by faith.”

  “That’s all he talked about, Cal. Wanted to organize bible studies, teach people about faith. Said we could be certain about heaven when we die. Through faith. Saving faith, he called it. Said it was in the scriptures.”

  “It is,” Cal said. “We are saved by grace, through faith, and not by works—the way we live our lives—so that no man can boast.”

  Abner shrugged. “Who’s gonna keep the old ways, Cal? It matters how we live.”

  “I wouldn’t disagree,” Cal said, “but do you think that was enough to get him Mited?”

  “Bishop warned him not to preach that liberal doctrine. So, yeah, they were shunned.”

  “Have you seen much of him since then?” Cal asked.

  “You bet. He still comes around here. Drives that fancy car of his right up into my yard. I had to tell him to stop coming around. He was gonna get me shunned, too.”

  “I think they’ve got a good church now, Abner.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “What can you tell me about his daughter?”

  “Which one? He had six.”

  “Martha.”

  “She was in the middle. Strange girl. She stopped talking one day, and he took her to a head doctor in town.”

  “Do you think that brought the bishop down on him harder?”

  “Naw. We know about psychiatrists. We’re not backward, Cal. Just like to do things the old way.”

  Cal nodded, tried not to smile. “You have any idea what happened to her?”

  “I guess I lost track.”

  “She had a baby when she was fourteen. Gave it up for adoption.”

  Abner nodded, shrugged to indicate he had known that. “Some folks said it was Ben Schlabaugh’s baby.”

  “Wasn’t,” Cal said.

  Abner raised an eyebrow. “Nobody out here knew that.”

  Cal figured otherwise, but said, “Martha is in trouble again. I thought she might have been out this way.”

  Abner pulled his cigar out and eyed Cal closely. “She comes around to take pictures.”

  Cal produced the small photograph he had borrowed from the Lehmans and showed it to Mast. “You recognize this?” he asked.

  Abner took the photograph in his fingers and studied it. “Sure. That was John Wengert’s barn. He had the farm next to the Lehmans.”

  “Was?”

  “It burned down a few weeks ago.”

  “Martha has about a hundred photographs of that barn,” Cal said. “Inside and out.”

  “Like I say, it burned down,” Abner said.

  “Why do you suppose she took so many pictures of it?” Abner Mast focused his eyes on the floorboards. “John Wengert moved up north. He’s dead, now.”

  Cal waited, but Abner had nothing more to say.

  “What happened in that barn, Abner?” Cal asked.

  Mast looked into Cal’s eyes, briefly, and then turned to his sewing machine. Nothing else Cal said that night convinced Abner to talk any more than he already had.

  33

  Sunday, November 3 Noon

  CAL preached at his church for an hour and a half Sunday morning and found himself afterward at the Brandens’ house for lunch. He finished a large bowl of soup and a roast beef sandwich, and took a refill of coffee when Professor Branden carried the carafe over to the table. Caroline had questioned Cal about his conversations Saturday night, and he had told of the barn photographs Martha’s parents had shown him.

  “I think Martha has fixated on this old barn,” Cal said. “Even Abner Mast knew she’d been out several times to take the pictures. The man who had lived there when Martha was a young girl moved away about ten years ago. He’s dead now. But Abner was strangely agitated to have been talking about him.”

  Caroline asked, “Mast is from the Lehmans’ old congregation? Old Order Amish?”

  “He’s Beachy Amish,” Cal said.

  “Is there really that much of a difference?” Branden asked.

  “Quite a bit, actually,” Cal said. “At the simplest level, and this wouldn’t at all be considered to be a thorough listing, we have the most conservative Old Order Amish, what you might call House Amish, then Beachy Amish, Church Amish, Swiss Mennonites, Old Mennonites, Wisler Mennonites, Mennonites, New Amish or Apostolic Christian, Reformed Mennonites, and most liberal, Oak Grove Mennonites up in Wayne County. They are all Anabaptist sects sprung off from the original groups led by
Menno Simons and Jakob Ammann. In 1693, Ammann split off the ‘Amish,’ as they are now called, because he believed in the most conservative principles. Menno Simons is then the founder of the Mennonites, and they went a more liberal way. To this day, there have been dozens of splits in both branches, and it’d take a trained sociologist years to sort out the differences, and then it’d probably be wrong. Or out of date. The Lehmans split from the Mast sect over a fine point of doctrine and found a Mennonite congregation that suited them better. But other Amish groups have split over things as little as putting a side glass window in a buggy.”

  Caroline asked, “Is Martha a member of that Mennonite church now?”

  “Not really. She has never been baptized. The Anabaptists believe in the baptism of adults only. They figure it is only an adult who can appreciate the importance and the significance of the sacrament of baptism. They believe God intends adults to accept baptism as an outward expression of their faith.”

  “Then was she ever a member of her old Amish church?”

  “No,” Cal said. “It’s the same thing there. Church membership starts with baptism. That is considered to be the first act of faith. That, and a public confession of faith. Any confession of faith by an adult is immediately followed by baptism. That’s what puts you into the church.”

  “How many congregations of Amish and Mennonite do you figure there are now?” Branden asked. “In Holmes and Wayne counties, anyway.”

  “Probably a hundred. Even the locals have a hard time sorting it out. And it changes every time there’s a split over something like phones.”

  “I see a lot of Amish with cell phones now,” Caroline said.

  Cal shrugged. “Anything modern can cause a split.”

  “What do you think, then, of Martha’s predicament?” Branden asked.

  “She needs God in her life now, more than ever before. But she’s mad at God. Mad at her parents. She’s got something eating at her that she doesn’t understand, and I can’t see a way to help her with that. She needs someone who will understand, and stand by her through some rough times up ahead. Evelyn Carson may be the best person for that. But Martha doesn’t trust authority figures right now, and she’s tired of doctors. Says she just wants to be happy, but I don’t think she can be, at least not under the circumstances.”