Separate from the World

by P. L. Gaus

  Robertson stepped to the door and yanked it open. It was obvious that he was through talking. He glowered at the two men. “You’re both being charged with interfering with a felony investigation !” he barked, and marched out of the room.

  A half hour later, Branden sank into the low leather chair in front of Robertson’s desk. The sheriff had a pencil out, drumming the eraser against his cherry desktop as if he were pacing the oar strokes on a slave galley—cruising speed, battle speed, ramming speed.

  Branden slumped in his chair, ankles crossed, as he always did when he needed to think in the sheriff’s big office. He listened to the drumbeat of the sheriff’s pencil awhile and said, “He never saw him. Hershberger, I mean. Hershberger never saw the kidnapper. I can’t get anything out of him to help us.”

  Robertson barked, “They’re both going to jail!” and Branden shrugged his acquiescence.

  “Mike, this is nuts,” Robertson said. “If we’re right about this kid Eddie, he killed Benny Erb, Cathy Billett, and maybe even Aidan Newhouse. And he terrorized two Amish children. What kind of a college are you guys running up there?”

  Bitterly, Branden answered, “We can’t prove anyone was actually murdered, Sheriff.”

  Robertson pounded his desk with the flat of his hand and said, “He did it all, Mike. Your Eddie Hunt-Myers, the Almighty Third, killed three people.”

  “Probably,” the professor admitted.

  “And you think he’s still here?”

  “Not likely, Sheriff. Eddie’s probably headed home right now. He’ll probably be able to produce signed affidavits from his parents that he was home all along.”

  Robertson’s phone rang, and he answered it, listened, and hung up. “Missy says your Professor Newhouse was a suicide. They found a note. You’re probably going to be able to identify the professor’s handwriting and verify that it was really suicide.”

  “OK, how?” Branden asked.

  “Because the note is addressed to you, Mike. You two had a bad argument?”

  “I wouldn’t call it a bad argument,” Branden said.

  “Well, he wrote in his suicide note that you did. He wrote that you’d understand better than anyone else why he had to do it.”

  Branden closed his eyes and groaned.

  On his way out, Branden stopped by the front counter to talk with Ellie, but she got a call, held up a finger, and answered it. As she listened to the call, Branden heard Robertson thumping down the hallway behind him. Ellie stood up beside her desk and held her phone out for the sheriff, saying, “Dan Wilsher, Bruce.”

  As Robertson listened, the heat and anger in his features dissipated. He let Wilsher talk and concluded with, “OK, Dan. Give it another twenty-four hours to be safe. But go ahead and take down the roadblocks now.”

  Switching off, Robertson said, “We’re going to guard the Erbs for another day.”

  When he handed Ellie’s phone back to her, Robertson seemed tamed by failure. The aggression was gone from his posture, and the fire was gone from his eyes.

  Behind him Andy Miller said, “Sheriff, we’d like to go home.”

  Robertson turned slowly to the two Amish men and said, “I’m going to file charges.”

  Miller said, “We’ll admit to what we did. You can find us at home.”

  Robertson eyed the bishop with more curiosity than anger and asked, “Do you know the Erbs are making it nearly impossible for us to guard them? At least that’s what my chief deputy tells me.”

  “We live our lives, Sheriff,” Miller replied. “What more can we do?”

  “Right,” Robertson said, as if it were a revelation to him that Amish men could be so naive.

  38

  Thursday, May 17 10:45 A.M.

  WHEN BRANDEN got home, he found Cal Troyer’s gray truck parked in the driveway and a horse and buggy parked at the curb. He pulled in beside the truck and was met at the front door by Daniel Erb. Daniel introduced himself, explaining that he had seen the professor a couple of times at his father’s house.

  Branden offered his hand and asked, “What can I do for you?”

  Daniel said, “I understand that my Uncle Enos asked you to look into Uncle Benny’s death.”

  “Right,” Branden said. “He thought it might have been murder.”

  “Were you able to find out?” Daniel asked.

  “Not for certain,” the professor said. “It’s not possible to know for certain.”

  Daniel thought, nodded, and said, “I suppose it doesn’t matter.”

  Daniel took a DVD minidisk case out of his shirt pocket and handed it to Branden. The professor opened the case, took out the minidisk, and held it to the light so that he could read the label written on it: “Uncle Benny.”

  “Uncle Benny?” Branden asked.

  “It’s video, Professor. Of Uncle Benny, mostly. I thought you might like to see what he was like.”

  “You took the video, Daniel?”

  “Yes. I like electronic gadgets. I’ve shot a lot of video, but the bishop says I shouldn’t do that anymore. He says it’s vain to make a graven image of people.”

  “Are you giving up videos altogether?” Branden asked.

  “Yes, Professor. I’ve boxed up all of my disks and given them and the camera to my father. But I thought you might like to have this one of Benny. He’s the only one who’d let me take his picture, anyway.”

  “Benny was pretty outgoing, wasn’t he?” Branden said.

  “He was a chatterbox, Professor,” Daniel said, and smiled. He tapped the disk and said, “You’ll see.”

  Branden put the disk back into its case and slipped the case into his pocket. He thanked Daniel, shook his hand again, and stood on the front porch to watch him guide his buggy slowly down the street. He lingered there in the morning sun, and thought of Benny Erb, Cathy Billett, and Aidan Newhouse, all dead and no way to be certain they weren’t murdered. Probably they weren’t murdered at all, he thought momentarily. But that was wrong, too. Someone had kidnapped two Amish children to get Benny’s cell phone. Branden took out the disk and tried to imagine what he’d see when he played it. Benny Erb, he thought. Benny Erb the chatterbox.

  He fished out his keys, put the front-door key in the lock, tarried a moment with his eyes closed, pushed the door open, and was struck from behind with a blow so forceful that it knocked him four feet into the house and toppled him onto his hands and knees in the hallway. When he tried to get up, he was struck in the head.

  When he regained consciousness, Branden found himself sitting upright at the kitchen table, his hands taped behind his chair and his ankles taped to the chair legs. The first thing he saw distinctly was the muzzle of a silver pistol. He blinked blood out of his eyes and saw that it was a grinning Eddie Hunt-Myers who held the gun on him. With a mouth as dry as baked sand, the professor said, “Big gun, Eddie. Compensating?”

  Eddie laughed and put the heavy gun on the table. He raised his hands in mock surrender and said, “You got me, Professor. I’m positively mortified.”

  Branden looked down at the floor and saw Cal Troyer, bound with duct tape and lying as still as death. He nodded at the pastor and said to Eddie, “You’ll pay for that.”

  Eddie studied the professor and said, with a serene detachment, “I enjoyed that puppy, Professor.”

  Branden responded, “Did you kill Cathy Billett, Eddie?”

  “I had to, Professor. She was in charge of Lobrelli’s genetics-class genealogy chart. She knew the whole clan, inside and out. One night this week, after we had gone to sleep, I found her up reading my thesis on my computer. She knew it was a fake, but tried to hide it.”

  “How unfortunate for you, Eddie.”

  “It was! The last thing I needed right then was some snoopy girl who could turn me in.”

  “Did you kill Aidan Newhouse, too, Eddie?”

  “There, Professor, we have an unfortunate turn of events. I’m afraid he really did kill himself.”

  “How did you
get Benny Erb up a ladder?”

  With a wide smile, Eddie said, “I didn’t. I just picked him up and dropped him on his head.”

  “And the oatmeal?”

  “Nice touch, don’t you think? I climbed the ladder and poured it all over him. Fooled them all.”

  “Why did you have to kill him, Eddie?”

  “That’s on Professor Lobrelli, Dr. Branden. She’s the one who’s really responsible for all of this.”

  “Because she nominated your thesis for the Walton?”

  “If she hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have had to kill Benny. As it was, I had to shut him up.”

  “But you didn’t get the phone, did you, Eddie?”

  “Can’t plan for everything, Professor.”

  “So you trashed his apartment, looking for the phone. That’s why the Erbs had to clean the place up after Benny died.”

  “My, oh my, Professor. You’re a quick study.”

  “Apparently not quick enough, Eddie. Why are you here? You could simply have gone home, and we’d never have made a case against you. Not one that would stick.”

  Eddie pulled Daniel Erb’s minidisk out of his shirt pocket and held it up to the light. “Those Amish teenagers, Professor. You just never know what they’ll do.”

  “Daniel?” Branden asked.

  “Right. He’s been the tricky one all along.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ve been following him, Professor. You know he has a buggy with electricity?”

  “So?”

  “It’s got lights, Professor. And a boombox wired to a car battery under the carriage. And he likes computers, this Daniel does.”

  “You followed him?”

  “You’re slowing down on me, Dr. Branden. Of course I’ve been following him. He’s the only Amish person who stood a chance of hurting me, once I got the phone back.”

  “But you did get the phone back, Eddie. What could he do?”

  Eddie reached into his pants pocket and brought out a cell phone. “Benny’s cell phone,” he said and laid it on the kitchen table. “The event log on this phone shows that somebody downloaded the call information onto a PC the day after I killed Benny. That would have to have been Daniel, Professor. He uses the computers at the library all the time.”

  “You think he dumped the phone records?”

  Eddie nodded.

  “And you think that’s what’s on the disk he just gave me?”

  “What else, Professor? I saw him give it to you.”

  “It’s video, Eddie!” Branden spat. “It’s pictures of Benny!”

  Eddie considered that and said, “Can’t take the chance, Professor. Can’t assume it’s not those phone records.”

  “Go take a look at it, Eddie. The laptop’s in my office. Be my guest.”

  Eddie laughed. “I don’t know what trick you’re up to, Professor, but it doesn’t really matter what’s on that disk at this point, does it?”

  Branden stared at Eddie blankly. The irony of the situation paralyzed his thoughts. With effort, he brought his mind back to the immediate problem, and asked, “Why are you telling me all this, Eddie? You plan to kill us all, too?”

  “You’ll all be the victims of a home invasion. What alternative do I have?”

  “For starters, Eddie, you could have written an honest thesis.”

  “What fun would that have been?”

  “Then, you could have left little Albert and Mattie out of this, Eddie.”

  “Again, Professor, what fun would that be?”

  “Do you realize you’ve traumatized two of the most innocent little kids on the planet?”

  “They’ll get over it.”

  Branden stared at Eddie and gambled on something Missy had said. “You could have said ‘No’ to your impulses.”

  Eddie flared into instant and fierce aggression, vaulted out of his seat and around the table, and hoisted Branden and the chair off the floor. He carried the professor into the family room, dropped the chair angrily to the carpet, and struck Branden on the back of his head with a bunched fist.

  When Branden looked up, he saw Caroline strapped to a recliner with what appeared to be an entire roll of duct tape. Caroline’s head was taped, too, covering her eyes and mouth and matting her long hair. The professor groaned and said, “I’m here, Caroline. I love you.”

  “Oh, so touching, Professor,” Eddie said. “How numbingly commonplace of you.”

  Branden said, “Get your gun, Eddie, and then cut her loose. She’s just a woman. Let her go, Eddie. You can shoot her if she causes trouble. She can tend to that cut on your forehead. I gather the pastor gave you a fight.”

  Caroline tensed against her bindings and growled furiously. Eddie laughed and stepped back into the kitchen. When he returned with his gun, he said carelessly, “Looks like your friend in there isn’t going to make it, Professor. I had to club him pretty hard.”

  Branden tested his bindings and said, “You’ll be doing yourself a favor, Eddie, if you just let us go.”

  Eddie’s face froze. He took a folding knife out of his pants pocket, snapped the blade open, and moved toward Caroline.

  Branden lunged against the tape that bound him to the chair and cried out, “Don’t you touch her!”

  Eddie turned back with an infantile grin and mocked, “Don’t you touch her! Don’t you touch her!”

  Again, Branden strained his arms to stretch the tape, but it was too strong. He watched in desperation as Eddie closed on Caroline with his knife. Abject terror infused his veins as Eddie raised his knife.

  Eddie held the knife against Caroline’s neck, turned the sharp edge to her skin, and looked back to see Branden’s reaction. Caroline pulled back from the knife as far as she could manage, but Eddie stroked the blade across her throat and drew a thin line of blood. Then he sliced at the tape binding her to the recliner, and in a single slash, he cut her free. Again he turned to Branden and laughed.

  The knife went next to Caroline’s ear, and again Eddie drew blood. But he simply cut the tape loose from her eyes.

  Caroline pulled her hands free and peeled the tape away from her face. She started to work the tape out of her hair, but Eddie said, “Leave it, Caroline. I like it that way.”

  Caroline eased herself out of the recliner and took a tentative step toward her husband. Eddie stepped in front of her and held up the knife. He moved closer to caress the tape in her hair, fixing on it as if it were charming. She pulled away from him, and he laughed again. “You go make us some coffee, pretty lady,” he said. “I want to be perky for all the fun.”

  Caroline stepped around Eddie and locked her eyes on her husband’s as she passed into the kitchen. She knelt beside Cal and laid her gentle hand on his head. Then she got busy with the coffeepot.

  Eddie watched her in the kitchen for a minute and then returned to the family room to sit in the recliner, facing Branden. He held the big gun out and played with it and the knife as if they were nothing more than sandbox toys. A distant focus appeared in his eyes, as his mind turned inward. When he looked up, Branden asked, “Have you had a lot of girlfriends, Eddie? Has it been fun playing one off against the other?”

  Eddie focused his eyes on the professor and smiled. “More than you’d believe, Professor. I took them all up to the bell tower, too. Billett was the first to jump.” He laughed ironically.

  Branden nodded. “How did you get up there, Eddie? Have a key?”

  “Since my first day here, Professor. President Laughton gave it to my daddy, so we could stand up there and see all around. Daddy gave it to me, and Laughton never asked for it back.”

  Stalling to give Caroline time, Branden said, “He probably forgot you had it.”

  “Naw, Professor. He asks about it from time to time. Says it’s his responsibility to keep track of it.”

  “Did anyone else know you had that key, Eddie?”

  “No, just Laughton.”

  “Since you’re going to k
ill us, you might as well tell me what you did to those Amish kids. Albert and Mattie.”

  Eddie seemed suddenly arrested by an intensely visual memory. He smiled like the damned and said, “I made her rub her hands in that puppy’s guts. I made him wipe blood on her face. I gutted that puppy right in front of them.”

  “Do you know what harm you’ve done them, Eddie? Do you have any idea at all?”

  “Why, no, Professor. I really don’t have a clue.”

  “I believe that, Eddie. I believe you really don’t get it at all. But, do you know what the parents of those children are doing right now? They are praying for you. You sacrificed the innocence of their children on the altar of your criminal narcissism, and they pray for you. They pray that you will change. That you will repent.”

  “There is no innocence, Professor. You don’t get it. The monsters are everywhere. And there is no changing. No repenting. We are what we are made to be. Nobody changes. Nobody has a choice.”

  “The Amish are innocent, Eddie. All of them.”

  “Give it time, Professor. Just give it time. Have the children been deprived? No, they’re spoiled. Are their futures mortgaged to the legacy of a simpleton father? No, their futures are secure. Have the monsters crept into their young beds yet? No, but give it time, Professor. The monsters are everywhere.”

  Branden heard the coffeemaker growling in the kitchen, and he heard Caroline’s mug cupboard open. He needed time. He needed to give her time. His mind worked for an angle, an advantage. He thought of the thesis. “How did you get your thesis past Newhouse?” he asked, desperate to distract Eddie.

  Eddie came back to the present slowly. “What?”

  “How did you get Newhouse to approve your thesis, Eddie?”

  Eddie’s mind was focused on a strange and distant realm, so Branden tried for shock. “We’re going to revoke your degree, Eddie. Your thesis is a fraud.”

  Absently, as if it were a small matter, Eddie said, “Newhouse will accept any thesis so long as he likes the introduction.”

  Branden asked, “What’s that about, Eddie? Cults?”