In the Land of Milk and Honey

by Jane Jensen

  At the Kinderman farm, we waited twenty minutes for hazmat to arrive. The Amish neighbor who’d called it in, Jacob Henner, was there. I interviewed him while we waited.

  Jacob looked like he was barely hanging on, his mind bent under the weight of the horror like a sapling in the wind. “They’d been sick ’bout two days. My wife visited with Mary Kinderman a few days back. She said the whole family had the flu.”

  “Did Mary Kinderman give any details about their symptoms?” I asked.

  “Ja. Said the children couldn’t keep nothin’ down. Bad chills ’n’ shaking. Aches. Real weak like. I seen Thomas and his son Isaac out ta the barn, or I woulda offered to milk for ’em. We pretty much jus’ stayed clear, not wantin’ our young’uns to get it. But my wife sent off a basket with food once a day, jus’ to help out. ’N’ the last one weren’t even touched.”

  “Did it appear they’d been sick when you went into the house today, Mr. Henner? Any sign of vomiting, piles of tissues, things like that?”

  “I dunno. I jus’ dunno. I was jus’ tryin’ to see if any of ’em was alive.” His voice shook. “Poor lil’ children.”

  With difficulty, I got Jacob to list the residents of the Kinderman household by name and give his best guess at their ages. I wrote it all down in my notebook. There were six children living at home, plus the parents and a grandfather.

  He remembered seeing the bodies of Mary and Thomas Kinderman, the parents. But he couldn’t remember where he’d seen them—maybe their bedroom, but he wasn’t sure—or exactly who else he’d seen for sure or even how many. Only that they were “all dead.” He said he’d forced himself to check in case they needed help. I could picture this rather awkward-looking Amish man stumbling around the house checking bodies for signs of life. His disturbing the scene wasn’t really helpful for our investigation or for Jacob either.

  By the time hazmat arrived, three Amish buggies were parked in Jacob’s driveway across the road. They watched the Kinderman house intently, probably hoping for news. As Ezra said, never underestimate the Amish grapevine.

  Hazmat pulled in with a large, converted RV. Grady went over to speak to them and waved at me to come along. The first man out of the truck appeared to be in charge. He was in his thirties and looked inherently open, wholesome, and nice the way so many Pennsylvanians did. It was not a facade I’d seen often in my years with the NYPD.

  “Steve Springfield, hazmat team leader.” Steve shook Grady’s hand with a confident smile.

  “I’m Detective Grady and this is Detective Harris.”

  Steve’s eyes lingered a little too long, and his hand gripped mine too lightly, as if he was nervous. I didn’t take it personally. Men had a tendency to react to any attractive female. I looked away to break eye contact.

  “We don’t know what we’re facing,” Grady said, “so I’d like to borrow some suits for Detective Harris and I. I also want to take in our police photographer, Danielle, and one of the medics. He wants to check for survivors.” He pointed them out. The medics with the ambulance crew had been particularly upset about not being able to go inside right away, even though Jacob Henner swore that no one was left alive. But they didn’t carry protective gear, and neither did the police.

  “You’re welcome to suits, but you should let us go in first. We can run a quick check for gas or chemical contaminants.”

  “I don’t want a lot of people tromping around the crime scene,” Grady said.

  “It’d just be me and one other technician. It’ll take five minutes. Then you’ll know you’re not going into danger.”

  Grady reluctantly agreed. It was another delay, which I found annoying. I hated these time-sucking protocols even though I understood the need for them. The detective in me was itching to get into the house, see things with my own eyes, witness the victims where they lay, try to get a sense of their final moments. There was always a fear that if I wasn’t quick enough, some vital clue would slip away and I’d be unable to solve the puzzle, unable to avenge the dead. I knew it was largely irrational, but that didn’t make me any less anxious to get inside.

  But by the time Grady, Danielle, the medic, and I had put on the clownlike yellow-hooded hazmat overalls, orange boots, and aqua plastic gloves, Steve and his fellow technician were out of the house again. Steve took off his gas mask and strode toward us.

  He was breathing hard. It wasn’t the rapid breathing of exertion but that of distress. He face had a hint of green, and it wasn’t a reflection off his hazmat suit. “No gas, radiation, or chemical leaks in there that our gear could detect. It’s clear for you to go in. But—”

  Grady impatiently pulled his arm away from the hazmat girl checking the tape seal on his glove. He was clearly as eager to get to work as I was. “But what?”

  Steve swallowed. “It’s pretty bad.”

  Grady nodded once and pulled up the paper respirator mask that was hanging around his neck. “Ready, Harris?” His voice was muffled.

  I nodded and we headed for the house. I prayed it was all a ridiculous precaution.

  Inside the modest home, the stench of death was thick, even through the face mask. I started breathing through my mouth and motioned Danielle to stay close and photograph each body as it was found. I pulled out my iPhone to record a video of my walk-through, talking as I went. The little details I found myself describing would be useful later.

  The first body was in the living room, just inside the door. It was a girl, and she was lying on the couch. The medic checked her and shook his head, then he and Grady headed farther into the house while Danielle took pictures of the body. I leaned in for a better look.

  “Adolescent female, approximately twelve to fourteen years old. Brown hair bound in a disheveled ponytail. She’s wearing a long flannel nightgown. . . .”

  The only sounds in the house were the ticking of a loud grandfather clock, the click of the photographer’s Nikon, and my recitation. “She’s lying on the sofa under an afghan as if she’d been sleeping. There’s a bed pillow under her head, white pillowcase. No trace of blood or fluid on it. There’s a large stainless steel mixing bowl by the side of the couch, possibly to be used if she had to vomit. There’s also a book on the floor. A Girl’s Story Collection. Maybe she was reading before she fell asleep.”

  The thick aqua plastic gloves made my hands feel awkward, but I carefully raised the afghan so I could look underneath. “Postmortem, hands are curled protectively around her stomach. Possibly she was in pain. There’s a sharp odor of excrement.” I forced myself to pull the afghan up a little higher to confirm. “Looks like the deceased vacated her bowels before or after death. Material is liquid in nature.”

  I was glad for the face mask. Not just because it lessened smells, but because I didn’t like the looks of this at all. The girl, likely named Sarah by Jacob’s account, had been very ill. Which meant whatever killed her might be contagious. God, she was so young. The death of a child like this felt wrong, even obscene, as if life itself had a freak-show deformity.

  I pushed aside my emotions and finished my observations. There were no signs of foul play, and it didn’t appear that the body had been disturbed in any way. I motioned to Danielle, and we moved on to the kitchen. There was no one in it, but there were dirty dishes in the sink, glasses with dregs of milk, cups, and bowls of what might have been Jell-O and ice cream. I knew enough about Amish families to know it was unusual for them to leave dirty dishes in the sink like this. Whatever had happened had been bad enough to disrupt the normal cleanup routine for at least a day. On the counter I found a bottle of cod liver oil, a near-empty bottle of Pepto-Bismol, and a box of saltine crackers. I noted my observations on the iPhone video and Danielle photographed the items.

  I headed back through the living room to the old farmhouse stairs. I met the medic on the way down. I couldn’t see a lot of his face behind his paper mask, but his eyes were va
cant. He shook his head. None alive. He practically ran from the house.

  I looked over my shoulder at Danielle. I didn’t know her well, but from everything I’d seen, the plump and acne-scarred young police officer was professional and unflappable. Danielle nodded. I’m okay. I continued up the stairs.

  I spoke into the iPhone. “First bedroom on the left at the top of the stairs. Looks like a queen bed containing three bodies. Two girls around four and six and an older woman, possibly the mother, Mary Kinderman.”

  I paused as Danielle’s camera snapped away. I felt the need to take in the scene without interference from technology for a moment. The two girls were side by side in bed, both ashen with hollowed cheeks and purple bruises under their eyes. Their eyes were closed, as if they’d passed in their sleep. The woman was in a nightgown and a thick flannel robe that closed with a fabric belt. She was above the covers and on her side, one hand protectively stretched over her children. Her fingers just brushed the top of one brown-haired head. Her eyes were closed too. On the bedside table were a box of Kleenex, another bottle of Pepto-Bismol, and a partially drunk glass of milk.

  I took a deep breath and resumed the video. “From the position of the bodies, it looks like the mother came in to check on the girls and lay down for a moment. She died here. It’s unlikely the girls were already dead when this happened, or the mother would have gone for help. She looks like she just closed her eyes for a brief nap.”

  Had the girls been alive? Or was it possible they’d already been dead and the mother, in her grief, had simply lain down and given up. But her face looked too relaxed, her body’s position too casual. I thought my first instinct was correct. At least Mary Kinderman had been spared the horror of her children’s deaths.

  In the next bedroom there were two single beds and two deceased boys in them. There was vomit in a bucket by one of the beds, lumpy and vile. A third boy, a young teen, was sitting up on the floor and leaning his back against one of the beds. His arms were around his knees and his face was buried in them. There was defeat and despair in his posture. This boy knew, I thought. He knew at least some of his family was dead. He probably knew he was dying too. That especially hurt.

  The last bedroom on the left was the parents’ bedroom. There was a man in the bed. He was on his back and I could see his full, long beard and bloodless face, his eyes closed. He had to be the family’s father, Thomas Kinderman. Grady was standing next to the bed, arms folded in his yellow hazmat suit. He walked over when he saw me. Danielle began to photograph the body.

  Grady’s eyes above his paper mask were troubled. “No signs of foul play. Nothing environmental . . . You ever seen anything like this, Harris?”

  I shook my head. When I’d been a beat cop in New York, I’d been on calls to check on a neighbor or to investigate a foul smell and found someone deceased. Many of those deaths were illness-related. But this? An entire family? And so fast too.

  A thought went through my mind—what if this had been Hannah Yoder’s family? All of them dead—Sadie, Ruth, Hannah, Isaac, and the rest—strewn about the house like dolls in a dollhouse shaken by an angry child. The idea was unbearable. “According to Jacob Henner, and what I saw in the kitchen, the family’s been sick for a few days at least.”

  “Could be food poisoning,” Grady suggested. We both knew that would be preferable to some apocalyptic disease, and more likely too. “In any event, this isn’t looking like a homicide.”

  “What about poisoning?” I asked. I wasn’t ready to walk away from this, not yet.

  Grady looked at me sharply. “You seen any indication of that?”

  I shrugged. I wasn’t about to tell my boss about brauche men and powwow, but I couldn’t completely dismiss Hannah’s fears in the face of this new tragedy. “Whatever it was, it was relatively fast and a hundred percent fatal. Poison would explain that.”

  “Christ.” Grady went to rub his jaw and ended up crinkling up the paper mask instead. “Guess I should at least talk to the CDC. I don’t really wanna bring in the crime-scene team, at least not until I hear what the experts say about protocol. But if you and Danielle want to continue to record what you can without disturbing anything—or taking off your gear—go ahead. I’m gonna go make that—”

  There was a loud knocking from downstairs. Someone was pounding on the front door. Grady and I looked at each other and we both headed down. When Grady opened the door, the neighbor, Jacob Henner, was standing there with an officer in uniform. Jacob’s face was wild.

  Not wanting to expose the men to whatever was in the house, I stepped out onto the porch. Grady followed and shut the door behind him.

  “What is it?” he asked the cop, still speaking through his face mask.

  “Tell ’em,” the cop said, looking at Jacob.

  His face was red and his eyes bright with unshed tears.

  What now? I thought, feeling a new wave of dread. Was Jacob’s family sick too?

  “Th-thought I should tend to their animals,” he stuttered, his voice thick. “Went into the barn. The cows . . . the cows’re sick too.”

  “Show me,” I said, starting off the porch. Grady followed.

  The barn door was open, banging in the April wind that had sprung up. As we crossed the yard, I would have given a week’s pay to be able to strip off the confining suit and gloves, to peel the mask off my face, and breathe as much fresh air as I could get. The toxic, smothering smell of death and bile and sickness inside the house had seeped into my skin, hair, and mouth. But I didn’t dare remove anything. Would I have to be sprayed down with disinfectant? I didn’t even know. I was so out of my depth.

  Inside the barn, Jacob led us over to a bar gate that opened into a large stall. The end of the stall was open to the pasture. Jacob went inside and held the gate for us. I looked at the manure-and-straw-covered floor of the stall and realized that, if I went in there, there’d be no going back into the house, at least not without visiting the hazmat RV again to change boots. I paused for only a moment though—this felt important. I stepped into the stall, and Grady came in behind me. The uniformed cop stayed on the other side.

  “This way,” said Jacob, still shaky.

  He led us through the stall to the pasture. Just beyond the barn was a dead cow. It was light tan in color and fairly small, probably a calf. I recognized it as a Jersey, the docile and cream-rich dairy breed the Amish preferred. The carcass was lying up against the white wall of the barn, as if it had been sheltering there. Flies buzzed around it, and its tongue was out and bloated, its legs stiff.

  “That one’s dead. ’N’ that one’s sick,” Jacob said, pointing.

  A few feet away, a full-grown light brown cow stood, staring at us with enormous eyes. It blinked and seemed to want to start toward us, but after one hesitant step it stopped. Its entire body shook, its flank trembling. It bleated out a cry. Foamy mucus hung from its nose in ropes.

  Feeling sick, I put a hand to my mask.

  “She needs to be milked,” Jacob said, his voice tight. “Her udder’s so full ’n’ she’s in pain. Probably been a whole day or more. But I dunno if I should touch her. Do ya think I should go ahead and milk her? She’s sick, but she needs to be milked real bad.”

  Grady cleared his throat. “We should probably call in the ASPCA.”

  “She needs to be milked right away,” Jacob repeated. This was a man used to taking care of things, not calling in someone else to take care of them for him.

  As much as I hated to see the cow suffer, this felt all wrong, so wrong it prickled the hairs on the back of my neck in warning. “Don’t touch her. We don’t know how long she’s been sick or what she has. She might even have given it to the family. Plus, the milk—”

  My brain hiccupped mid-sentence. The milk in the sink. Glasses of milk on the bedside tables.

  I looked at Grady, horrified. He shook his head as if he coul
dn’t believe what I was thinking, what we were now both thinking.

  “Fuck it,” Grady mumbled. “I’m calling in the CDC.”

  CHAPTER 3

  By Saturday morning, the Lancaster City Bureau of Police was overwhelmed with technicians and investigators from the Centers for Disease Control in Washington, also known as the CDC. They were the knights and wizards of food-borne illness, and with the high number of fatalities in the Kinderman case, they were rightfully concerned. So was the public. News of an entire family dying—an Amish family at that—had made local headlines. The story was picked up by the Huffington Post. It was lurid and frightening enough to draw attention.

  I was neither officially on the case nor, thanks to my pleading with Grady, officially off it. I couldn’t forget my promise to Hannah to look into the sickness in the Amish community. The curse. I never mentioned that conversation to Grady, but I did my best to convince him that the department shouldn’t close the case until the CDC or the coroner determined the exact cause of death. Then again, there wasn’t much for me to investigate until they did, and I had plenty of other work to do.

  Within twenty-four hours, E. coli, the most likely suspect, had been eliminated. It wasn’t found in the Kindermans or in their cows. Nor was a viral infection the cause. The CDC labs set in to dig deeper, looking for less likely pathogens. I knew they’d combed the Kindermans’ farmhouse from top to bottom and were fanning out agents to speak to other Amish families in the area to see if anyone else had been ill recently. Remembering my own stonewalled investigation as an outsider a year before, I didn’t envy them.

  I decided it was time to talk again to a source of my own. I went to see Hannah.

  —

  “I can’t believe it. The whole family!” Hannah’s voice was mournful as she placed two cups of strong, black coffee on the table. Supper was over in the Yoder household, and the older children were upstairs giving their mother a break by bathing the younger ones.

  “It’s devastating,” I agreed. Scenes from my walk-through of the Kinderman farmhouse rose up, my gorge rising with it. I swallowed down the burning acid in my throat. “It must be so hard on your church.”