Blood of the Prodigal

by P. L. Gaus

  “You don’t think I can make this new look work for me on campus?” Branden asked, amused by how much his wife and Robertson seemed to be enjoying themselves at his expense. “I’ll simply march into Arne Laughton’s presidential offices one morning and tell his secretary that I’ve been researching Mennonite attitudes regarding combat in the Civil War. In two days, everyone on campus will know I’ve shaved. By opening convocation next fall, they’ll all be surprised if I don’t show up looking completely Amish.”

  The sheriff smiled and passed a bowl of creamed corn to Niell, who declined wordlessly and set it on the white tablecloth in front of him.

  “Good thing Niell here found your car,” Robertson said between mouthfuls. “He’s got a theory I want you to hear.”

  Niell groaned privately and stared at his empty plate. His shift had gone off an hour ago, and now, seated next to Robertson, he had listened to the Brandens’ explanation of their day of shopping, and had started feeling distinctly amateurish for having learned nothing himself about Jonah Miller.

  They had told of the schoolteacher, Miss Beachey. Branden had recounted his conversations with various neighbors and friends of Cal Troyer, and with Enos Coblentz at the sawmill. There had also been discreet intimations about a bundling waitress, Ester Yoder. And then the clothes.

  Niell sipped at his water while the sheriff worked away at his dinner. Pretty impressive, Niell thought, for the professor to have deduced it from the clothes.

  Niell hadn’t uncovered a single fact about Jonah Miller, but he had done some deliberate checking on Branden, Robertson, and Troyer. Branden had grown up with Troyer and Robertson in the fifties and sixties in Millersburg. Troyer had taken conscientious objector status during the war in Vietnam and had carried a battlefield stretcher for a tour in country. Robertson had gone into the army after high school and had ended up an M.P., in Germany. And Branden had gone to college, where he drew a high draft lottery number, continued in graduate school, and came home to teach at Millersburg College rather than accept offers from several universities.

  Niell heard the sheriff’s voice, and pulled himself back to the conversation at the table.

  Robertson said, “Go ahead, Ricky, tell ’em what you’ve come up with,” and held up his empty coffee cup for the waitress to fill.

  “Well, Professor,” Niell said, tentatively, “it’s just that we can’t find a trace of Jonah Miller.”

  “Niell thinks he’s been living under a different name,” Robertson said and shoveled roast beef into his mouth.

  Niell shrugged.

  “That fits what we’ve been finding,” Caroline said.

  “And it fits my idea about why he was killed,” Branden said.

  “On that score, you’ll be happy to know that Missy Taggert has ruled it a homicide, too,” Robertson said. He finished what was left on his plate, set his knife and fork delicately across the edge, crossed his arms over his barrel chest, and studied his three companions at the table. Caroline Branden was dressed in jeans, a sleeveless blouse, and a summer hat. Niell was still in uniform. And there was Branden in Amish attire. Sporting a brown Amish beard, hair grayed at the temples.

  “So, Mike,” Robertson said. “You got all that from the shaving cuts on Miller’s face?”

  Branden nodded.

  “And from the new clothes,” Caroline said. “Jonah Miller bought a suit of new clothes before going home. And he had shaved around his mouth.”

  “So?” Robertson asked.

  “So he hadn’t been living Amish,” Branden said. “Just like your deputy has discovered. Jonah Miller the Amishman hasn’t existed for ten years. And then, out of nowhere, he shows up on that lane down by the Millers’ house in new Amish dress? And he had shaved with a straight razor, not a safety razor—or an electric one—as any sensible English man would have done. He used a straight razor, just as I did today, and with no more expertise. See the nicks?” Branden ran his fingers over the smooth skin above and below his lips. “No reason for him to have been so authentic about it, if he were just playing at being Amish for some reason. So I figured Jonah Miller was truly going home. I expect the bishop knows it, too.”

  Robertson finished his coffee and waited.

  Branden continued. “Jonah switched to a straight razor and bought Amish clothes. He was walking, not driving. None of his old friends had heard of him in recent times. Then there’s the little matter of the obituary.”

  Robertson said, “An obituary?” He was surprised.

  “A big obit,” Caroline said, “with a little verse, right along traditional lines. We found it in the Sugarcreek Budget. I’m guessing, but I’ll bet it was written by the bishop himself.”

  “It’s a traditional Amish obituary,” Branden said, with emphasis.

  “Now, who’s gonna summarize what that all means?” Robertson asked, looking at no one in particular.

  Niell stirred in his chair. “It means,” he said, “that Jonah Miller was going home on terms that would have canceled the Mite. That’s why he was killed.”

  The sheriff acknowledged that with a nod and prompted, “And?”

  “And it means that, if Eli Miller knows it, so does everyone else in the district,” Niell asserted. “They all probably knew it the day Jonah was killed.”

  “Go on,” Robertson encouraged.

  Niell said, “Jonah Miller was headed back to Amish ways. He used a straight razor. New clothes. No car. Bishop Miller understands this and he also knows something else. Something he’s been hiding. It probably has to do with why Jonah was killed.” That said, Niell laid his hands flat on the table, waiting.

  Robertson studied Niell for a moment and then commented to Branden, “You got all that from the shaving cuts?”

  “First the shaving cuts,” Branden said. “I wondered why he’d start growing a beard and use a straight razor to trim around his mouth. Obvious really. An electric razor would never do for a proper Amish shave. But I couldn’t shake the weird look it gave him, nicks around his mouth, lying in the rain in that ditch.

  “Then we shopped for an identical suit of clothes and found the lady who’d sold Miller his particular outfit in Fredericksburg. She’d even saved his old clothes. Fancy Texan. Pretty much the farthest thing from plain Amish a person could get.

  “Also, we have the fact that old friends and neighbors have not seen Jonah lately. So that meant he hadn’t been living nearby. Now, what Ricky has correctly deduced is also what every Amish man and woman surely knew the day Jonah’s body was found. That’s why they showed up in buggies at the Miller house the day I was out there. Remember? I couldn’t understand why they’d show up if Jonah were still shunned, outcast.

  “Well, he wasn’t outcast by then. The word got out through the entire district. Jonah Miller came home on the only terms his father could accept. And a traditional obituary has been printed by the Miller family in the Sugarcreek Budget. Jonah Miller came home to live on the farm. He had repented. He’d been forgiven. He’s once again the son of Bishop Eli Miller.”

  The sheriff looked at Niell. “You agree?” he asked.

  “Makes sense to me,” Niell said.

  “All right,” Robertson said. “Jonah Miller was killed on the lane, less than a mile from his house. He was going home after ten years. Everybody knew it from the clothes. Now he’s dead, and we still don’t know who killed him.”

  Branden acknowledged the sheriff with a nod and said, “A waitress I talked to said that it was land that got Jonah killed.”

  Robertson looked blankly at Branden, waiting.

  “That Eli Miller’s son, Isaac, would have motive. And if not Isaac, then someone else in the extended Miller line would not want Jonah to come home. At least not come home Amish.”

  “Killed by one of his own family?” Robertson said, vastly skeptical.

  “Or maybe one of his family knows, perhaps even the bishop. Why he was killed, that is. Knows who it was, but isn’t telling.”

  �
�Isn’t telling for what reason?” Robertson asked.

  “I don’t know,” Branden said.

  “Then how do you propose we move forward with the case?” Robertson challenged.

  “That’s what we’ve been talking about this evening, Bruce. I started out to buy the clothes just to satisfy my own curiosity. It helped me realize what the new clothes meant to Jonah. But now I’m going to confront Eli Miller tomorrow morning and let him know that I know that Jonah had decided to come home and live Amish. Then I’m going to take him aside and demand an explanation. Bishop Miller hasn’t told us everything he knows, and I think it’s time he started.” To himself, Branden thought, “Besides, tomorrow is the last day of my three-day promise.”

  “The trouble is,” Robertson said, “neither Eli nor Isaac is likely to have murdered Jonah.”

  “Probably someone they know, though,” Niell offered.

  “Or someone they’re afraid of,” Caroline said. “At any rate, Michael’s plan stands the best chance of producing results, flushing someone out.”

  Robertson thought quietly for a moment, gazing into his empty coffee cup, and then said, “You’re off tomorrow, Ricky. How you feel about a little overtime?”

  Niell shrugged a yes, glad, now, not to have gone home after his shift. The Brandens had a better hold on a case that had been going nowhere.

  AFTER Niell and Robertson had left, Caroline said, “Michael, I still don’t like this. Why didn’t you tell Bruce about the boy? That was the perfect chance.”

  “Nothing’s changed. We’ve been over this before, and you know how Robertson would handle it.”

  “I think you’re selling him short,” Caroline answered.

  “If Bruce really thought he knew who had shot Jonah Miller, he’d have hauled ’em in by now, probably starting with Isaac and the bishop. Everyone in the bishop’s district would know, and surely more would find out within the day. Especially whoever’s got Jeremiah. You know how he can be. I can’t risk it, yet. For now, we don’t know who, if anyone, either in the Miller house or in the district, has got Jeremiah. To go out there as Bruce might handle it would destroy whatever chance we have of convincing the bishop to confide in us about the boy. Even then, we run a terrible risk of tipping our hand, especially if someone close to the Millers has killed Jonah and is hiding Jeremiah.” Then he added, “Providing the boy is still alive.”

  Caroline shuddered. “Donna Beachey told us that the Miller household, or at least the bishop, has always wanted Jonah to come home and take his vows,” Caroline said.

  “I know,” Branden answered. “The bishop told me the same thing. In the end, it’s the most rational argument I have for not telling Bruce about the whole thing right now. The Millers simply aren’t involved.”

  “You’re risking everything because you’re not sure how Bruce might react.”

  Branden shrugged. “One more day, Caroline. For only another day.”

  “I don’t like it, Michael, and that’s not going to change. First Jonah Miller kidnapped his own son, and now you’re covering it up.”

  “You’re forgetting Jonah’s Amish clothes,” Branden said. “He can’t have been part of anything like a kidnapping that’s going on now with Jeremiah.”

  “And you are forgetting Jonah’s fancy Texan clothes in Millie Dravenstott’s little box. He was from Texas, Michael, and that means almost anyone could have Jeremiah, now.”

  Branden held his hands up, palms out. “Just another day, Caroline.”

  Caroline fell silent, and Branden drove toward town, first along County Line Road and then Route 83. In the fields at dusk, on the Amish farms, stolid Belgian draft horses pulled wagons, rakes, mowers. Clothes hung on backyard lines, giving serene splashes of Amish colors in the gloaming. Amish children played in yards bypassed by electric service. Caroline gazed out the side window, her head resting against the glass. An Amish lad of about fifteen stood at a fence beside the road and waved a greeting as they drove by. She glanced at her husband, still dressed in Amish clothes, newly shaved around his mouth, and thought of Jonah Miller. Then of Jeremiah. The dreary notion crossed her mind that Jeremiah could easily be dead like his father.

  The road ran straight for a while and then turned, curved, rose and fell with the hills, followed a stream, and crossed the marshes of Killbuck swamp. On Route 83, Branden turned south into the hill country, away from the flatter, more fertile regions of Wayne County to the north, where the land begins to stretch out more distantly, almost like the plains in the northwest corner of the state, laid flat by glaciers. There, the private enclosures of the hills and valleys in Amish country do not exist. The farms become large, mechanized, prosperous enterprises where the horizon has been enlarged in every direction by the clearing of land, and where the farms are too valuable to be worked by mere teams of horses.

  Jonah Miller had come up out of our secluded Amish valleys, ten years ago, she thought. And gone where? Where could he go? Anywhere. Everywhere. From peasant farms, into the twenty-first century.

  And little Jeremiah? What hope was there, now, for him? Still, in spite of that crumpled place in her heart, something convinced her that Jeremiah survived. What was it? Think. Jeremiah is still alive. She needed to believe in this. She choked back tears, and realized, slowly, what it was that could give her hope for the child.

  With the sun long down, her head resting against the window pane, without looking at her husband, eyes nearly awash in tears, she said, “If you’re right, then I’m guessing that the bishop knows who killed Jonah, or he knows who has the boy. He’s being cautious about Jonah’s murder because the boy’s life is still at risk. Bishop Miller has been protecting the boy. He simply must have been.”

  21

  Thursday, June 25

  6:00 A.M.

  “IT’S ELLIE Troyer,” Jim Larson said gravely to Richard Niell Sr. He made his voice sound serious, but he grinned past a two-day stubble, showing several missing teeth, and elbowed Ricky Niell in the ribs.

  They were seated in a booth at the McDonald’s on the south side of Millersburg, Jim and Ricky on one side, Niell Sr. on the other. Younger Niell’s eyes were haggard, and he had his nose parked over a large black coffee, pulling in aroma. He frowned, took a sip, rolled his eyes with a simmering animosity, and rubbed mirthlessly at his temples, exhausted.

  He had been out all day yesterday, looking for the Brandens. Then the long dinner, which he didn’t mind so much. Finally, up until three A.M. thinking it through. First from one angle and then from another. From all angles, even with coffee, it made no sense. There was no reason for Bishop Miller to have hidden anything. And yet, Niell had decided, that’s precisely what Miller had done. Bishop Eli Miller had been hiding something important.

  “I tell you it’s little Ellie Troyer that’s put a hitch in his shorts,” Jim Larson gloated again, chewing the last of an Egg McMuffin. “She’s the reason Big Deputy Niell, here, won’t go huntin’ anymore.”

  “For crying out loud, Jim,” Niell complained, knowing it was useless with Larson. The muscles at the base of his skull knotted painfully.

  “You’ll have to tell me again, boys, who Ellie Troyer is,” Niell Sr. said.

  Niell ignored Larson and said, gruffly, “She’s the new dispatcher down at the jail, and I think it’s about time you two told me why you drug me out of bed so early.”

  Niell Sr. explained, “We were out all night, raccoon hunt, down in the swamps, running the dogs, just like we used to. And Jim’s right. Seems like you never go huntin’ anymore, Ricky.”

  “Coon hunting’s not legal this time of year unless you’re a farmer and have a nuisance permit,” Niell Jr. said.

  “Then write us up,” Larson challenged, half serious now, instantly more quarrelsome.

  Ricky turned sideways in his seat and glared directly and disdainfully at his old friend Larson. Then, after a suitable interval, he turned purposefully to Niell Sr. and resumed, “And why are you telling me this?”
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br />   “Found a campfire, Ricky. Tracks all around,” Niell Sr. said. “There was a gasoline smell, too, and Jim noticed a bumper sticking out of the water. He’s still a little crazy, but we were both wearing waders, so it wasn’t any trouble to ease out into the water, run the snakes off, and reach down to try for the door.”

  Ricky drank coffee and stared at his father with his head down, eyes high up in their sockets, reproachful.

  “I’m getting there,” Niell Sr. said. “Anyways, Jim waded to shore, took off his waders, swam back out to the truck, got the door open and the glove compartment, too. He wasn’t under that long, but he managed to pull something out of the glove compartment.”

  With that, Ricky’s father drew a sodden wallet from the top of his waders and laid it open on the table. He took out a plastic driver’s license, dried it on his shirt sleeve, snapped it down onto the table in front of Ricky, and asked dramatically, “What do you think of that, young deputy?”

  On the table beside Ricky Niell’s coffee lay the driver’s license with a picture of Jonah Miller, not much different from his appearance in the sheriff’s photos.

  Niell scrambled to comprehend all of what had happened. They had found the truck last night. Then by five A.M., they had shown up pounding on Ricky’s door, their coon dogs still hot from the chase, waking up neighbors, bantering about getting Niell a promotion.

  “You just got the wallet and brought the license to me?” Niell asked, trying to ignore the self-satisfied grin on Larson’s face.

  “Came straight to you,” Jim said, “but I see you’ve been out all night,” winking at Niell Sr.

  “Jim, I’m only gonna tell you this once more, and then ...”

  Larson interrupted, “Then you’re gonna what?” adding a challenge, “Everybody’s seen her flirting with you.”