Shadows of Lancaster County

by Mindy Starns Clark

  “So now Doug is missing too?”

  “No, Anna. Doug is not missing. Doug is dead.”

  Dead? That was not news I had expected to hear!

  “Dead? How?”

  From the corner of my eye, I could see Norman turning my way. As Lydia answered me with a story about Doug’s body having been discovered this morning on a construction site, apparently after having fallen quite a distance from a higher floor, I put a hand over the phone and whispered, “Not my brother. Someone else.”

  I made noises of sympathy over the phone, feeling oddly detached from the news that one of the members of our notorious little group was no longer among the living. Before the fire, Doug and I hadn’t been all that close. Back then, he only had eyes for Haley, whom he eventually married, and all my attentions were turned toward his friend Reed. After the fire, of course, going through the same nightmare of court appearances and testimonies and sentencing hearings, most of us grew much closer. Though I hadn’t spoken to Doug in several years, I knew we had shared a strange kinship nonetheless. Now he was dead. The selfish part of me, the part I was ashamed of, knew that this news would give the press yet another opportunity to trot out the old story of the Dreiheit Five and splash it across the latest issues of countless tabloids, newspapers, and magazines just as they had done eleven years ago.

  Back then, the story of the Dreiheit Five was too good to let go, too full of potential, so the media had continued to exploit it, over and over, for far too long. What should have remained for the most part local news caught the interest of the nation, probably because the victims had been Amish. After that, no matter what we did or where we went, photos of our five faces—Reed’s, Doug’s, Bobby’s, Haley’s, and mine—began showing up in the tabloids, on the covers of newsmagazines, on the front pages of the newspapers. Quickly, we went from being five friends who were hanging around one night and made a tragic mistake to the focus of articles like “Wild Teen Party Turns Tragic, Kills Amish Family.” The press’s version of events wasn’t at all true, but it made for great headlines. Now those headlines would be back. In an effort to cover Doug’s death and funeral from every possible angle, the press would no doubt hound us all and ruin our recovered lives just to sell a few more issues.

  Trying not to think about that for now, I decided that Doug’s death had a number of implications, none of them good. I took a deep breath, trying to organize my thoughts and figure out how Doug’s death related to Bobby’s disappearance—and what stealing a motorcycle had to do with it. Norman was hovering nearby, whispering an offer to help, so I asked Lydia to hold on for a minute.

  “Sure,” I said to Norman gratefully, jotting down the make, model, and plate number of Bobby’s car on a slip of paper. Handing it to him, I asked him to run a trace on the vehicle and see if it had been wrecked or towed or involved in any sort of accident last night. My thinking was that at least a car crash would explain the need for alternative transportation—and it would give us another piece of the puzzle, pinpointing Bobby in a specific time and place. While Norman ran the vehicle search, I

  returned to my conversation with Lydia, asking her if she and Isaac were still safe.

  “Yah. Nathaniel and Caleb, they have to milk the cows and work the fields, so they asked a neighbor to come and stay with us. That neighbor brought his son and brother and cousin, so we are well protected.”

  “What about all of their cows and their fields?”

  “They do not work farms, they have jobs in town. Today is their day off, so they come here to watch over us.”

  And that, in a nutshell, was what it was like to be a part of an Amish community. You need help? You need me to come over and stand watch for you? On my one day off this week when I had a million and one things to do and all sorts of plans? No problem. I’m there. That was one of the things I had always respected most about the Amish. They cared. They filled needs in their community, even at the cost of tending to their own individual needs.

  “Do they get in trouble, hanging around with you?”

  “Why?”

  “Because you left the order and all. Aren’t they supposed to limit socializing with you?”

  “Anna, you know I was not shunned. I chose to leave the order before baptism.”

  “But your family—”

  “My family is to be in the world, not of the world. They are to limit contact with me, yah, but not cut it off completely. And if their friends and neighbors are willing to do me and my son a favor, they will do it. That is the Amish way. You know that.”

  I did know that. In the year following the fire, I had the opportunity to see and experience the Amish community at work, up close and personal. Their grace in action ended up being one of the few positive elements to come out of the entire experience.

  Taking a deep breath, I gathered the papers that were spread on my desk in front of me and decided to tell Lydia what I had learned so far about Bobby’s activities from last night. When I described the strange series of online actions he had taken at the Internet café, she sounded as perplexed as I was, especially when I mentioned the reservation to Las Vegas. Trying to find a reason for that flight, I asked Lydia if Bobby ever gambled, but she said absolutely not. In answer to my questions, she also insisted that they did not have any friends in Nevada and that Bobby had never gone there before, not for a convention or a jaunt with the guys or anything.

  “And you’re sure he doesn’t have a secret gambling problem?” I persisted.

  “I am certain he does not. We have never even gone to Atlantic City, which is much closer than Las Vegas.”

  “No missing money or hidden bank accounts or pawnshop tickets showing up in his pockets?”

  This time she was quiet for a moment.

  “Lydia? What is it?”

  “I…I did find a ticket from a Harrisburg pawnshop in one of his pockets when I did the laundry. But I do not think that it has to do with gambling. He has just been very…thrifty lately. When I asked him about the ticket, he said that the high cost of gas has been hurting our budget, and so he pawned some things to help make ends meet.” She went on to list the sorts of things he had pawned: his old trumpet, a power drill, some candlesticks that had been a wedding present. Lydia said she hadn’t noticed the items were missing because they had all come from the storage locker in the basement of their apartment building.

  “Hmm,” I said, not sure how to reply. Obviously, Bobby had been keeping something from Lydia, otherwise he would have told her about the pawnshop voluntarily, rather than waiting until he got busted. “How about your cousin, the one who trains race horses? Any chance he’s been acting as a bookie on the side, taking bets on those horses?”

  “I am not sure what a ‘bookie’ is, but Silas is as honest a man as they come. Bobby does not have an interest in betting over horses anyway. He just likes to go fast—on almost anything. Fast cars, fast horses, fast motorcycles, whatever gives him good speed. He is your brother, Anna. You know this about him. Even as a boy, he loved to ride his bike as fast as he could down the hills here, remember?”

  I did remember.

  Norman was waving at me to get my attention, so I asked Lydia to hold on.

  “I ran the plates,” Norman told me, “but your brother’s car hasn’t been seen, cited, or recovered in the last twenty-four hours.”

  I thanked him for his help, and as he returned to his computer, I thought of what my next step should be. I had done the basic skip trace from behind my computer. There were still other avenues to pursue, of course, from exploring complications at Bobby’s job to probing his various hobbies and interests and contacts. This was usually where Kiki took over, doing the kind of investigating that required a lot of face-to-face contact, pounding the pavement, watching for clues. She was so good at that sort of thing, not just because she was smart and observant, but also because she came across to other people as nonthreatening and disarming. Given her age and gender and personality, she was a natural at eli
citing information.

  I, on the other hand, was much more comfortable with a computer screen than I was with people. It wasn’t that I was shy; it was just that I was always on my guard, always waiting for someone to recognize me, always ready to bolt if they got that curious look on their face and asked me if we’d ever met before. Still, given the current situation, I couldn’t see that I had any choice. Now that I had done all I could to solve this riddle from my office here in California, the next obvious step was to go to Pennsylvania and try to pick up Bobby’s trail from there.

  My heart heavy, I said as much to Lydia now. She jumped right on it, obviously relieved and eager for my on-site help.

  “You are welcome to stay at the farm with my family,” she assured me. “I know you can find him more easily if you are here, Anna. More than that, I worry that danger may eventually come your way too, now that someone has your contact information. You will likely be safer here.”

  I decided to be completely honest with her.

  “Remember I told you I had a little run-in this morning?”

  “Yah. Some man came to your house to ask for rubies?”

  “Sort of. You have so much to worry about on your end that I didn’t want to add to your problems, but if you want to know the whole story, he broke into my house, knocked my roommate unconscious, and threatened me with a gun. I’d say danger has already arrived.”

  That set her off on another bout of crying, and once I got her calmed down, I told her I needed to go but I would call her back in exactly half an hour, after I had a chance to look at flight schedules and availability.

  After I hung up the phone, I simply sat there in silence for a long time, closing my eyes and trying to accept the inevitable. I had no choice but to go home. My brother was in big trouble right now; I felt it to my bones. Whatever was happening with him, it wasn’t good.

  What do I do now, God? I prayed silently, knowing the obvious answer. Go to Pennsylvania.

  I thought of my pitiful little savings account, hovering right around seven hundred dollars total, with nothing else in reserve except a hundred in checking and a single credit card with a three-thousand-dollar credit limit—one I never used except in the case of an extreme emergency.

  I can’t afford this, I reminded my heavenly Father, as if He needed reminding. More than that, my going back there would surely catch someone’s eye, and soon the media would slam down on me full force. My new look and new life would be discovered—and no doubt destroyed.

  Go to Pennsylvania anyway.

  I thought once more of the Amish, of how they cared, how they filled needs in their community without thoughts of tending first to their own. Bobby was my community, my closest living relative, and he needed me. Somehow, he needed me.

  “Okay, God,” I whispered, a surge of emotion filling my eyes with tears. Despite everything, I would go back home and straighten things out. Wiping my eyes, I turned to my computer and began to check for flights to Philadelphia. This would be the first time I would return since I had fled seven years ago. With a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, I just knew that by the time this was all over, everything I had done to make a break and start over was going to be for naught.

  Fingers trembling, I was glad at least to find some cheap seats on a few red-eyes leaving tonight. I chose the flight that would connect in Vegas, so I would have a few minutes to do a little sleuthing there. After clearing some time off with Norman and getting his assurance that he would keep an eye on Kiki in my stead, I booked the flight and paid for it, and then I opened my email for the first time today, to send a general “I’ll be out of town” note to my local friends.

  I was so distracted by all I needed to do that I almost missed it. There in my list of incoming mail was an email from Bobby himself, sent to me at ten forty-two ET last night, with the subject line “Urgent.” I opened the note, holding my breath as I read:

  Hey, Bobanna,

  Remember a while back when you said that if you could do one thing over again using the knowledge you have now, you’d do it differently? I’m following your advice. Please communicate accordingly.

  Bobby

  I sat back, swallowing hard. “Bobanna” was his nickname for me. That much of the note I understood. As for the rest, I couldn’t have been more perplexed. One thing I could do over again? Knowledge I have now? I shook my head, trying to clear my brain.

  Sadly, though he had sent me this urgent note and was counting on me to follow up with it, I didn’t know what he was talking about. I didn’t remember any such conversation. What did he mean?

  I simply didn’t have a clue.

  SEVEN

  I spent the next two hours wrapping up pending cases while Norman took a closer look at the reservation Bobby had made for a flight to Las Vegas. My boss had connections I didn’t have—connections with transportation officials and airline employees that sometimes netted him information not available to the average skip tracer. I tried not to eavesdrop as he called in some favors on my behalf, but I couldn’t help but notice the triumphant gleam in his eye when he finally hung up the phone.

  “All right, kid. Pull up a chair and I’ll explain my theory. You said it looked like Bobby was intentionally trying to disappear. Stands to reason, then, that most of what he did on the Internet last night was to create a big, confusing mess that would be difficult to track back out. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “All those account changes were for subterfuge and confusion, to buy time while he slipped out of town. Are you with me?”

  “Yes.”

  “To my mind, the flight reservation and the rental car were also part of that subterfuge. He booked that flight to make it look like he went to Vegas, but in fact I don’t believe he got on the plane.”

  The stuff Norman was giving me was like Skip Tracing 101, the most basic steps of How to Disappear.

  “That was my thought too, at first,” I replied. “But you’re leaving out one important element: the ATM withdrawal. If Bobby didn’t take that flight, then how did he manage to withdraw a hundred dollars from his checking account at an ATM machine in the Las Vegas airport this morning, twenty minutes after the flight landed?”

  Norman narrowed his eyes and studied my face.

  “If this were a stranger you were tracking, Anna, you’d know the answer to that question.”

  I sat and looked back at him for a long moment before realization dawned.

  “Someone else is involved here,” I whispered.

  “Yes, that’s my assumption. That other person was either on the flight and made the withdrawal on Bobby’s behalf when they got off the plane, or they were already out in Vegas and just came to the airport at the right time and did it then. Either way, I don’t think that withdrawal was made by your brother. I don’t think he ever got on that airplane. I heard you asking your sister-in-law about Vegas and gambling and all of that, but I think you’re wasting your time. He never went to Vegas.”

  I sat back and thought about the implications of a second person. I wanted to give my brother the benefit of the doubt, but the more I was learning, the harder that was becoming.

  “According to my source at the airline,” Norman continued, “your brother checked in the for the flight at the Philadelphia airport. That much is in the computer. What’s not in the computer is that second verification, the one that pops up when a boarding pass is scanned in at the gate as the passengers are getting on the plane.”

  “So Bobby checked in at the departures desk but never made it onto the flight itself?”

  “Exactly.”

  “What about heightened airport security and all of that? Aren’t there rules now about airplanes not being able to take off if they’re carrying luggage that doesn’t directly correspond to a passenger?”

  “That’s the procedure, yeah. But Bobby didn’t check any luggage. Apparently, he was carry-on only, so the flight was cleared for takeoff without him.”

  I thanked No
rman for his hard work, my brain spinning. Maybe he was right. If this were a stranger I was tracking, I would have been thinking much more clearly and might have thought about things such as whether he had a girlfriend or if he was involved in illegal activity. But because it was Bobby, my much-needed on-the-job cynicism was missing from this pursuit. If you couldn’t think the worst of someone, how could you ever make the mental leaps necessary for following their trail?

  Returning to my own desk, I shut down my computer and cleared off my desk, ready to head out of town. There was one task left to do, so with a heavy heart I pulled out the card the detective had given me this morning and dialed the number on it.

  When I told Detective Hernandez who was calling, his voice sounded oddly strained this time, and I soon realized why.

  “You weren’t on Gimme a Break. You weren’t on any sitcom, were you? In fact, the reason you looked familiar isn’t because you were a child star at all, but because you were notorious in a completely different way.”

  “I never said the words ‘child star.’ I just said that I was famous when I was younger. You made that leap yourself.”

  “Let’s see,” he continued, ignoring my protest, “we’ve got reckless endangerment…involuntary manslaughter…I’ve got your mug shot up on my screen right now. I seem to recall your face being all over the nightly news back then. I knew I had seen you before.”

  “That’s not relevant to this.”

  “Oh, I think it is. At the very least, you might have mentioned all of this to me this morning, Ms. Bailey. Or, excuse me, Ms. Jensen.”

  “Why? That was in a different state, and it happened a long time ago.”

  “Still, considering the situation, knowing you have a police record might have helped.”

  Pulse surging, I felt a sudden rage build in my chest. When I spoke again, my words were even and firm.