Shadows of Lancaster County

by Mindy Starns Clark

  I was ready to do whatever it took to find my brother, once and for all.

  I was about to drop the shade again when I noticed movement out toward the henhouse. It was Grete, wearing a black cape over her Amish dress, and in her hand she carried what looked like the same small item I had caught her with in the kitchen yesterday. When she reached the door of the hen house, she looked to the right and then to the left, almost guiltily, as if she wanted to make sure she wasn’t being observed. I pulled back from the window, afraid her eyes might travel up this way, and then peeked out again a moment later to see her slipping inside the building. Even with the window closed, I could hear the disturbance among the chickens as they clacked and squawked. A moment later, she reemerged, hands empty, and headed back toward the house. I didn’t know what all of that was about, but I hoped to have the opportunity to find out later.

  Despite the cold of the bathroom, I decided to take a quick shower. At least the water was nice and warm. I wasn’t sure how they did that, but I had a feeling it was heated with some source of Amish-approved fuel such as propane or gasoline.

  Once I was dressed in sweater and slacks, ready to go, I came downstairs to find Lydia and Isaac sitting at the kitchen table, their bodyguard standing near the window. Lydia was sipping coffee and reading her Bible, and Isaac was drawing pictures. Lydia told me that everyone else was at church.

  “Church,” I echoed, for the first time realizing it was a Sunday. Suddenly, more than anything, that was where I wanted to be too. For just one blessed hour, I wanted to sit in God’s house and focus on nothing else but my Savior.

  “We’re sticking close to home today,” Lydia added, giving me a knowing look over Isaac’s head. We both knew that as much as she wanted to go, it wouldn’t be safe.

  She offered me breakfast, but I declined, saying I needed to get rolling. Outside, I spotted several cars parked at the end of the driveway, so I took Reed’s advice and didn’t attempt to elude the press. Instead, I gave a small wave as I pulled onto the road, and soon I realized that several of them had jumped into their cars and were following me.

  I had one very private errand to run today, but before I did that, I needed the strength and encouragement a good Sunday service would provide. Not knowing where else to go, I drove to downtown Dreiheit to my grandparents’ old church, one that held many happy memories for me. Once there, I pulled into the parking lot, and by the time I got out of the car, three different reporters were rushing toward me.

  “Have you had contact from your brother, Miss Jensen?”

  “Annalise, where have you been all these years?”

  “Are you romantically involved with Reed Thornton?”

  “I’m sorry, but I’ll have to answer your questions later, when I have more time,” I said sweetly, and then I walked toward the building and pushed through the doors, one backward glance confirming they weren’t going to follow me inside. Choosing a seat near the back of the sanctuary, I forced myself to forget everything else that was going on and focus on the music, the prayers, and the sermon.

  Coming to church had been the right decision, I decided as we stood to sing the closing hymn. After all I had been through in the last few days, all the questions that were swirling around in my mind, all the heartache and concern and frustration and fear, it had felt good to let that go and simply focus on God. I thanked Him for the privilege of worship and asked Him to help me remember its importance even in the midst of trouble.

  When the service was over, I made my way to the front of the sanctuary and through the double doors into the Sunday school building. I felt guilty using church as a cover, but I knew the reporters were probably still waiting for me out front, and I wasn’t ready to be followed again just yet.

  Ducking down a side hall to avoid a group of people congregating near a coffee machine, I managed to get all the way to the back of the building without incident. Once there, I pulled my hat down over my hair, turned up my coat collar, and stepped outside, glad to see that no one was around. Trying not to look suspicious, I took off jogging.

  By my calculations, the WIRE was just six blocks away.

  I wasn’t too winded by the time I got there, but my heart was pounding strongly, nonetheless. Trying not to look suspicious, I jogged to the back of the building, made sure there were no cars in the parking lot, and then I stopped at the door and pulled out my key ring. Hands trembling, I tried the keys I had found in Bobby’s locker, gasping when the biggest one slipped easily into the lock and turned. Moving into the dark building, I quickly looked around for an alarm but didn’t see one. Considering the technology housed here, I knew there had to be something. Before I could decide whether to stay or to go, a flash of light streaked through the darkness. Terrified, I spun around to see that it had come from the sun glinting off the shiny silver bumper of a black Mercedes just pulling to a stop outside.

  Dr. Updyke.

  Heart pounding, I opened the nearest door and slipped inside, realizing once I was there that I was in a mop closet. With the stench of cleaners burning my eyes, I forced myself to freeze. Watching through a crack in the door, I saw the doctor step inside, followed by his teenage son.

  “Catch the alarm, would you?” Dr. Updyke said as he flipped on the light and moved down the hall.

  “What’s the code?” the boy called after him.

  “Four four seven one three.”

  As I watched, the kid flipped open a metal box next to the telephone and punched in the numbers. Then he grabbed a magazine from the nearby counter, sat in a chair, and waited for his father.

  Part of me was sighing in relief that I hadn’t been caught; the other part was still holding my breath, wondering how long they would be there and if I would be able to remain hidden until they were gone.

  “Hurry up, Dad! Practice starts in ten minutes!”

  His father didn’t reply, but after a short while he reappeared, a small stack of manila files tucked under his arm.

  “All right, let’s go.”

  After re-enabling the alarm, he flipped off the light, stepped outside, and locked the door.

  I didn’t know what to do next. On the one hand, I had been given the code to the security system like a free gift out of the blue. On the other hand, the doctor could just be running his son over to the high school and coming right back, in which case I could still get caught.

  Summoning my nerve, I stepped out of the closet, crossed to the metal box, and punched in 44713. Then I gave myself exactly two minutes to dash through the building to see if I could locate the file cabinet my round key would unlock. Whether I found anything or not, I told myself, I wasn’t sticking around.

  Fortunately, I spotted a small sign on a door near the back of the first hall I went down, one that simply said “Archives.” The door was locked, but the second key on Bobby’s ring turned as easily as the first had on the back door.

  The archive room was dark and smelled of old paper. From what I could tell by peering through the shadows, there weren’t any outside windows here, so I took a chance and flipped on the light.

  I quickly surveyed the room, which held rows of metal cabinets. With just a minute and a half left, I kept moving. Scanning the room, I could see that a number of the filing cabinets had no locks on them at all. Moving forward, I looked at each row until I reached the back of the room. There stood a wall of locked Steelcase filing cabinets, each with a round keyhole. As quickly as possible, I tried the key on them one by one, finally finding success on the fifth try.

  With just thirty seconds left, I opened the top drawer and looked at the contents, which seemed to be organized by last name. There wasn’t time to go through any files now, so I simply scanned the labels, looking for anything familiar. Under “Jensen,” my heart raced to see that there was one file, which I pulled. After that, nothing else seemed relevant until I got to the name “Schumann,” which was written on three different files. Grabbing all three, I slid the drawer shut. My self-appointed
time was up.

  As I crossed back toward the door, I tucked all four files under the waistband of my slacks, smoothing my shirt and coat into place over them. Once I had turned off the light and locked the door, I sprinted up the hall toward the back entrance.

  I stopped at the corner and peeked around it toward the door, but I didn’t see anything in the parking lot outside. Steeling my nerve, I reactivated the alarm, stepped outside, pulled the door shut, and made sure it had locked behind me.

  Taking off, I jogged along the back of the empty body shop next door, avoiding the main road for as long as I could. The coast seemed clear, no black Mercedes in sight, so finally I dashed across the street and ducked between two buildings to get to the next block. When I finally neared the church, I slowed my run to a walk, trying to catch my breath in the cold morning air. It wasn’t until I was back inside the Sunday school building and making my way toward a front exit that the magnitude of what I had just done hit me.

  In pursuit of the truth, I hadn’t simply gone “sneaking and peeking,” as Kiki liked to call what skip tracers did. I had actually let myself into a medical lab using keys that weren’t mine, gone through restricted files, and removed four of those files from the premises. There was no other way to say it.

  I had just broken the law.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Considering files were tucked in my pants and pinching me at the waist, it wasn’t easy to appear poised for the reporters who were still waiting by my car when I stepped out of the church. Trying to act natural, I simply walked toward my car and acknowledged the three of them with a slight nod.

  As soon as they saw me, the questions started up again. Listening as they fired away, I finally responded to the man who asked how it felt to be back in Dreiheit after all these years.

  “It feels a lot like coming home,” I said to him, surprised to realize I meant it. After that, I got in my car and drove away, smiling at the sight of the entourage that quickly fell into place behind me. Reed was right. Finding security through my own private papparazzi had been a good idea.

  When I was sure they couldn’t see me, I slipped the files out from under my clothes and set them on the seat. I was dying to flip through and read them, but I didn’t dare until I was somewhere much more private than this.

  Turning on my phone, I saw that the battery had only two bars left. Prioritizing the calls I needed to make, I started with information, where I requested the number for the Wong family in Holtwood, Pennsylvania.

  Mrs. Wong answered the phone, and once I explained who I was, I told her that it had come to my attention that a family heirloom might be hidden inside the structure of the house they had bought from my parents. I said I had an expert who wanted to wander through and take a look for possible hiding places. When I finished explaining, Mrs. Wong said she was sorry, but that would not be possible.

  “I’d let you if I could,” she added, “but we had the house dismantled five years ago.”

  “Dismantled?” I asked, incredulous.

  “Yes, can you believe that, after all the trouble we went through to have it moved here? My husband’s an architect, you know, and he always has to be changing, evolving, improving. We kept some of it, like the paneling from the downstairs study and the marble bathtub. But everything else was disposed of or sold off and taken elsewhere five years ago.”

  I thanked her for her trouble and hung up the phone, disappointed but not devastated. I felt sure that if a secret hiding place had been built into that house, Bobby and I would have found it as children. Considering all the games of hide-and-seek we played, all the cupboards and cabinets and closets we had hidden in, if there had been some sort of secret latch or door, I just knew we would have run across it. The house that was no more had been a lovely home in its day, but I didn’t think it had held the Beauharnais Rubies in my lifetime.

  Back on the road, I called Remy and left a message with the bad news on his voice mail. As I finished, my phone sounded a little warning jingle and then it died. I tucked it into my purse, hoping I could find somewhere to charge it again soon.

  Except for the reporters who once again lined up at the end of the driveway, things were quiet at the farm when I returned, as Grete and her family still had not returned from church. I spotted Lydia and Isaac and the ever-present bodyguard out in the field, Isaac sitting comfortably atop a horse as Lydia led it around the path. I gave them a wave and went inside, my heart beating quickly as I carried the pilfered files up to my bedroom.

  There was no lock on the door, so I rolled up the window shade and kept one eye on Lydia and Isaac outside as I took a look at what I had managed to acquire. Saving the Jensen folder for last, I first flipped through the ones labeled “Schumann.”

  Two of those files were for Schumanns I didn’t know with addresses I didn’t recognize. The third file, however, was the one I had been hoping to find: that of Katherine Beiler Schumann, Lydia’s mother. My hope was that the file would contain her full medical record without anything blacked out as it had been in the version Doug faxed to Reed.

  Flipping through several pages, I was disappointed to see that the typed office visit notes weren’t there at all. Instead, the folder only held lab test results and signed legal consent forms. I was no doctor, but even I could tell that this information showed nothing of importance, as if someone had stripped out the good stuff and left only filler.

  Bracing myself for more disappointment with the next folder, I tossed this one aside, but as it hit the bed, something slid forward and poked out from the edge. Picking up the file again, I realized a photograph must have popped loose from inside the folder’s front pocket.

  I picked up the picture and studied it, not quite sure what I was looking at. I heard a loud squeal outside, and I glanced up to see that Isaac was much closer to the house now. Turning my attention again to the photo, I decided that it was a close-up of someone’s skin—someone’s very diseased skin. There was a gray pallor to it, and the surface was dotted with puffy, pustule-like globs.

  Bile burning at my throat, I held the photo out at arm’s length, trying to make sure that was what I was seeing. The scene reminded me of something familiar, some Third World documentary I had seen about smallpox.

  “I fed the horse an apple!” Isaac cried suddenly from the doorway of the bedroom, startling me so thoroughly that I dropped the photo and knocked the file folders on the floor.

  As Isaac proceeded into the room without invitation, jabbering about the horse, I scrambled around to pick up the papers and the photo, tuck everything together, and shove it into a nearby tote bag.

  “What do you need, Isaac?” I asked, my voice a little too sharp.

  “My mom is making potato soup and wants to know if you’ll be here for dinner.”

  “Well, why don’t you run down and tell your mom I’ll be right there and we can talk about it?” I replied in a nicer tone.

  “Okay.”

  Just as quickly as he had appeared, Isaac turned and left. To the sound of his feet clunking down the stairs, I pulled the papers from the tote bag, neatened them into a pile, and slid them between the mattress and box spring. After smoothing out the covers, I grabbed my purse and slipped the photo into an inside, zippered pocket.

  “Are you coming, Aunt Anna?” Isaac called.

  “Just a second.”

  Leaving things as they were for now, I forced myself to head downstairs. From the sound of a male voice and the excited exchange of greetings between old friends, I realized that Reed was here.

  Spotting him as I neared the bottom of the stairs, I couldn’t help but think how handsome he looked in black slacks and a maroon sweater. As he caught me looking at him and returned my gaze, I felt heat suddenly flushing my face. The moment was not lost on Lydia, who smiled shyly and averted her eyes.

  Now that he was there, what I most wanted to do was fly into his arms, show him the photo and the files, and tell him about the illegal thing I had done. Resisting the
urge, I simply gave him a hug so that I could softly ask if he would take Isaac out to the barn for a few minutes while I explained to Lydia what was going on.

  “No problem,” he replied, and soon the two fellows were bundled up and out the door. At my urging, the bodyguard followed along behind as well.

  Lydia was sitting at the table, peeling potatoes, so I joined her there, trying to think how to say all I needed to say. Before I could even put together the words, she spoke.

  “You have news of some kind,” she said, more of a weary statement than a question.

  “Yes, I do.”

  As gently as possible, I explained to Lydia the medical portion of what I had learned at dinner last night, that apparently two generations of Jensen ancestors had been married to Amish women. Before I went any further, Lydia held up a hand to stop me, fully aware of what I was getting at.

  “For what it’s worth,” I added, “Reed is very optimistic about Isaac’s health. He just wants to run some blood tests to rule things out, if you’re willing. Right now in fact, if you don’t mind.”

  “Reed can do this here? Today?”

  I nodded, saying that was why he had come.

  Lydia set her peeler and potato down on the table and walked to the window. There, she stood for a long time, hands on her hips, looking outside, silently thinking or maybe praying. I gave her some space, not speaking, picking up a potato and slowly peeling it myself.

  Finally, she turned to look at me, her eyes filled with tears.

  “Had I known Bobby carried these genes, I would have done nothing differently. I would still have married him. I would still have had children with him. The women in this community know the risks of having children, but this does not stop them. God’s will always prevails. Who are we to say exactly how a child should be? Who am I to think I have a right to a perfect child and a perfect life? What is perfect, anyway? In the eyes of God, all of us are. Even the children with disorders. Maybe especially the children with disorders.”