In the Land of Milk and Honey

by Jane Jensen

  James Westley didn’t rat.

  People are dead. Children.

  It wasn’t his business anyway. He was in college now. And probably what he knew had no relevance to anything. He didn’t know the killer. He couldn’t. The person he knew would never do that. It was a coincidence. Just because he’d discussed that paper with someone back in high school didn’t mean they had anything to do with the deaths in Lancaster. He’d just cause a lot of grief for an old friend. Well, not a friend exactly, but . . .

  Someone did it. Probably someone no one would suspect.

  “Earth to James!” Billy yelled.

  “Huh?”

  “I asked if you wanted to go to karaoke night at the Shandygaff on Wednesday. A bunch of us are going.”

  “I dunno. Maybe. Hey, can I ask you something?”

  Billy sat down on his bed, giving James a curious look. “Sure. What is it?”

  James heaved a sigh and scooted around in his chair. “Okay, so let’s say hypothetically there’s this guy. . . .”

  On Friday, the eighth of May, almost seven weeks after the death of Will Hershberger, a Harrisburg news crew broadcast a special segment from Lancaster Central Park. The reporter, Juliet Lindsay, interviewed a serious-looking Amish man on camera.

  “Hi, can you tell us your name?”

  “I’m Isaac Yoder.”

  “Are you a dairy farmer, Mr. Yoder?”

  “I farm lots of things, but I do have a half dozen cows we milk, ’tis so.”

  “And how has this milk crisis been affecting you?”

  “I sell to a dairy, and the dairy stopped takin’ my milk. They say their customers are afraid of Amish milk, even though they pasteurize it.”

  “I’m sure that’s having a real impact.” Juliet, her blonde hair neatly sprayed into a bob, nodded sympathetically.

  “There’s nothin’ wrong with the milk.” Yoder shook his head grimly. “I’ve got ten children at home, and we’re all drinkin’ it right from the cow. There’s nothin’ healthier for youse. And what we don’t drink, I bring here to the protest now that I can’t sell it.”

  “What kind of impact have these tragic deaths—particularly the Kinderman family and the Troyers—had on the Amish community?”

  Yoder wiped his face wearily. “We have terrible sorrow over these deaths, especially the children. We pray for God’s mercy that no more will have to go through such things.”

  Juliet awkwardly patted Yoder’s arm. “Me too, sir, me too. Do you live close to any of the farms that were affected?”

  Yoder shook his head. “Not at all. People don’t realize how big an area this is. I live on Harvest Drive in Paradise. My neighbors are all Amish, and they haven’t had any trouble either, thank the good Lord.”

  “Thank you for speaking to us, Mr. Yoder. I wish you the best.”

  “You’re welcome. God bless.”

  —

  There wasn’t good cover across from the farm, only an open cornfield, its green stalks still too low to hide more than a small dog. The watcher cut the engine on his car and rolled it to a stop on the shoulder just far enough down the road that he could still study the farm without drawing their attention.

  He got out and pretended to fiddle with his phone. It was a sunny day in May, and it grew warm in the late afternoon, which sucked since he was wearing his black hoodie. It was too warm already, and his scalp grew increasingly hot and itchy, but he kept the hood up just in case. Only a loser couldn’t suck it up when he had to. The watcher sat on the front of his car pretend-texting with his phone in case anyone passed. He watched the farm from under his hood.

  The Amish guy who owned the farm, Yoder, had been on the news yesterday. It was almost too good to be true. Maybe it was too good to be true, but he had to at least check it out. You saw an opportunity, you grabbed it. That didn’t mean you had to be stupid about it. He wasn’t moving in until he was sure it was safe.

  But Amish didn’t lie, right? And they didn’t pull ambushes. He was pretty sure Yoder was exactly what he appeared to be. It made sense that the guy was going to talk about how safe his milk was—he sold the shit. He had to look like he trusted his own product, right? That’s probably why his family was still drinking it, and why he’d agreed to be interviewed on TV. Money talks, even to the Amish.

  Ten kids. That meant a body count of at least twelve, maybe more if they had gran or gramps living with them.

  The farmer, his wife, and his cookie-cutter offspring came and went from the house to the barn and fields. They were like ants on a hill from where he was sitting. A little girl of about seven skipped around with a basket in her hands, her feet bare. She was pretty with dark brown hair. He watched her until her mother opened the door and yelled something. The little Amish girl ran inside.

  Oh, the watcher wanted this one. He wanted it bad. But he felt uneasy. He couldn’t stop looking behind himself, down the road and across the fields, half expecting to be approached by the police or even just neighbors.

  Hold it together. Don’t be a candyass.

  There was nothing illegal about stopping on the side of the road. He had a story ready about a call from a sick family member. He’d say he didn’t want to drive while he was upset, so he was waiting for a call back. That was what a good citizen would do, right? That was fucking responsible.

  He did have white snakeroot in the car, which they might find if they searched it. But why would they? And anyway, it was hidden in the spare tire compartment. There was no danger at all in simply parking here. Suck it up.

  So he watched for over an hour. There was no sign of cops or anyone else. The Yoders didn’t have any locks on the barn. He didn’t see a dog either.

  The father took out some farm wagon, put a couple horses on it, and took off for one of the fields. Two boys went on the wagon with him. Later, two women in Amish dresses came out and put clothes on the line, and there was a different young girl too, maybe twelve.

  Any of them could see him, parked as he was down the road, if they only looked. But they didn’t seem to be paying any attention. Finally. They were acting like they should be acting. Maybe it was the watchfulness that had been a fluke. Maybe he was getting paranoid.

  The sun sat low in the sky like a bloated, diseased orange by the time the father drove the wagon back and he and the boys started unhitching the horses. By then, the watcher’s shoulders had relaxed and he felt perfect—calm and so fucking clear. He felt like he could do anything.

  After dark, he decided. Sunset was around eight P.M. He’d looked it up. These farmers went to bed early, especially since they had no TV or computers. He’d wait until nine P.M. It would be dark around the barn. Very dark. Then, if it still looked clear, he’d make his move. For now, it was time to disappear.

  CHAPTER 19

  The hardest thing I’ve ever done was to watch the killer drive away. Grady and I discussed it over the headset. I was in the Yoder’s barn, watching out of one of the windows in the hay loft. Grady was in the house.

  “He might have something incriminating on him. What do you think, Harris?” Grady had sounded edgy, ready to move.

  God, I wanted to grab him as well. What if we’d been made? What if he didn’t come back? This might be the closest we ever got to him. And it was him. I knew it.

  But the guy didn’t seem to notice anything wrong. He hung out by his car for over two hours. If he’d known he was being watched, he would have left right away.

  The old conundrum of cats and cops everywhere—pounce now? Or wait?

  “He’s doing recon. He might not have the snakeroot on him,” I said in a low voice over the headset. “And even if he does, a smart lawyer might be able to explain it away. I think we should wait. He’ll be back. And I want to nail this bastard with such an airtight case he won’t be able to shift to scratch his ass.” Ah, yes. These tense
situations did bring out the colorful lingo I’d learned as a New York cop.

  “You want a selfie with him, the plant, and the cow?” Grady half teased.

  I smiled. “Yes, sir, that’s what I want. We have someone down the road to grab his license plate number, right?” His car didn’t have a front plate, so I hadn’t been able to get more than the basic make and model through the binocs.

  “Yeah, we’ll get it. We’ve got someone walking a dog at the end of the road.”

  “Then we can trace him if we have to. But for God’s sake, let’s not scare him away now.”

  “Roger, Harris. We’ll wait.”

  He was about to sign off. I spoke up. “Everyone okay in there?”

  “Everyone’s fine, don’t worry. The family’s inside for the day now, and no one’s getting past the uniforms in the front room. Over and out.”

  Good. Grady and I had debated the merits of sending the children away for the entire operation. But we both knew the killer was drawn to kids. It was important that the family looked normal from the outside. And our killer wasn’t a gunman. He shouldn’t be a direct danger to anyone on the property except the cows. I was still glad Grady and two uniformed officers were in the house.

  In my pocket, my cell phone vibrated. I put one hand on it but didn’t get it out. My attention was focused on the road. The Corolla drove out of sight at a leisurely speed. Please get the license plate number, I thought, and don’t make him suspicious.

  The guy would be back. We’d left too tempting a target.

  With a sigh, I took my cell phone out of my pocket and checked the screen. It was a number I didn’t recognize. It was the second time today that number had dialed me and not left a message. We were in the middle of the most important sting of my career. If it wasn’t urgent, I wasn’t going to allow myself to be distracted by it. I put the phone back in my pocket.

  One of the police techs came up to the loft by the ladder and regarded me.

  “Are the lights set up?” I asked.

  “Yup. All rigged to go off with a single click.”

  “And they’re well hidden?”

  “The best we could manage, which is pretty damn good. This barn has more nooks and crannies than a Triscuit.” The tech laughed at his own joke. “Wanna come look?”

  I did.

  —

  The watcher parked his car near a tree a few hundred yards from the Yoder farm at nine P.M. exactly. The sunset had faded to inky darkness. There was only a sliver of a moon in the sky, and the country road had no lighting. The only lights visible as far as the eye could see were the dim lantern lights in the windows of the farmhouse and those of the farmhouse of a distant neighbor. There was no light in or around the barn.

  The watcher got out of his car and removed his backpack from the trunk as quietly as he could. He started toward the farm at a jog, sticking to the grassy shoulder.

  There was no one around. No one at all.

  He was nervous, scared. It seemed like, every time he did this, it felt more dangerous. Part of him wanted to turn around, go back to his car, and drive away. But the thought of another large family, of adding ten or more to his body count, drove him onward. Fuck it. No guts, no glory.

  When he reached the farm’s driveway, he paused, checking everything out one more time. He didn’t see a living soul outside the house. No sign of life in the barn. No barking dog. He darted across the gravel drive in the shadows and headed for the closed barn door. He carefully squeezed the iron latch, opened the door, and slipped inside.

  He heard the cows before he saw them. Yoder had a small herd, at least six. They were in a stall at the back of the barn. The watcher moved toward them over the cool concrete floor. The darkness inside the barn gave him confidence. He could barely make out the aisle in front of him, but that meant he couldn’t be seen either.

  He reached the stall and saw big dark cow eyes staring at him. He slung his backpack off his back, unzipped it.

  “Hey, cows!” he whispered. “Guess what I have for—”

  The lights went on like a thousand suns, blinding him. From beyond the glare he heard a man’s voice shouting, “Freeze!”

  —

  We got him!

  I had my gun out and trained on the figure in the black hooded sweatshirt. The lights our tech crew had strung up in the barn were even brighter than I’d anticipated, and my eyes were fighting to adjust. I blinked rapidly, not wanting to lose sight of our perp for a second. I didn’t dare turn my head to look for Hernandez on my left, or Schmidt, a uniformed cop, on my right. The perp hadn’t moved, hadn’t raised his hands, just stood absolutely still, his back to us, a partially unzipped backpack in his hands.

  What if he had a gun in there?

  “Drop it!” I yelled. “Drop the backpack! Now!”

  “Harris,” Grady’s voice crackled in my ear.

  “We’ve got him,” I muttered, not wanting to be distracted. The guy still hadn’t moved. He was slightly built, but something in the tension of his body told me he was capable of lethal violence.

  “Be careful,” came Grady’s voice, urgent. “One of the Yoder kids got out somehow. Get that guy cuffed and then guns down.”

  Oh shit. Oh no. Hannah and her family were supposed to be well guarded and safe. I’d promised Hannah personally. The possible ways this could turn disastrous flashed through my mind in an instant, more instinctual knowing than words or even mental pictures.

  “Drop the backpack!” I screamed again. “Drop it or we’ll shoot!”

  I saw Sadie at the same instant the perp did. Unfortunately, he was much closer to her, and he was fast.

  There was another barn entrance near the cow stall, and they’d taken care of that door. One of the uniformed cops, Davis, was supposed to have locked it from the outside as soon as the perp entered the barn so he couldn’t escape that way. Davis was also supposed to be watching the outside of the barn to make sure no one got in or out.

  But Sadie was small, and she knew the barn the way only a child could know it. Somehow she’d gotten past Davis. There was a heavy rubber flap in the wooden barn wall on the feeding aisle, not far from where the perp stood. It pushed inward, and Sadie crawled through, back legs first.

  Oh God, no!

  Before I could shout a warning to Sadie or make up my mind to just shoot and wound the perp, he moved. He hurled the backpack toward us as a distraction and dove for Sadie.

  “Don’t shoot!” I shouted. My voice sounded amazingly calm. “There’s a child! Don’t shoot!”

  Then he had her. He picked Sadie up and clutched her to his chest as a shield. His face was still hidden by the hood, and now by Sadie’s head as well. One eye looked past Sadie toward me, but it was mostly in shadow. He held a large knife at Sadie’s throat. She froze, her eyes round with shock.

  Oh God, please, no.

  It was my worst nightmare. He held not just any Amish child, but Sadie Yoder, a little girl I adored, and Katie’s sister. And it was my fault. I’d used Hannah’s friendship to orchestrate this. Sadie had probably come out to the barn looking for me.

  I didn’t pray often, but a prayer erupted in my mind. Please, God, don’t let him kill Sadie. Please let me stop him. Please.

  Three guns were trained on the man in the hoodie and the child, including, I realized, my own. I took a deep breath and slowly lowered my gun.

  “You’re gonna let me go. I walk away or the girl dies,” the perp said. They were his first words, and he was talking low, clearly trying to disguise his voice. But there was a quaver of fear there. “Back off or I’ll do it. I swear to God I will.”

  I knew he would. He’d kill Sadie with absolutely no remorse. But I also knew that if we let him walk, if we let him escape by using her as a human shield, if he got her into his car, he’d kill her anyway. As far as I was concerned, there wa
s no way in hell he was taking Sadie Yoder out of this barn.

  I risked a glance at Hernandez. He looked back, his face rigid with determination. I shook my head slightly. Then I took one step forward so the perp would focus on me. I let the gun go lax in my hand, hanging down at my side. Suddenly, the knot of terror in my stomach eased, and I felt a warm wave of calm.

  “Rob Myers!” I called out. “We know who you are. Even if you escape this room, it’s over.”

  That surprised him. I heard him gasp, and he drew back half a step. The hand that held the knife shook dangerously. “How? How did you know?” Strangely, he sounded curious, even pleased.

  I’d found out an hour ago, when I couldn’t stop thinking about the calls from that unrecognized number and had decided to return them. The caller had been James Westley. He reluctantly told me a story about a guy in his high school who’d wanted to talk about James’s paper on milk sickness after he’d presented it in class. The guy had been obsessed about it. That high school student was now Amber Kruger’s intern.

  “That doesn’t matter, Rob. The point is, we know who you are, we know your car, and we know where you live. We know your mother.”

  “Then I’ve got nothing to lose, cunt!” He sounded angry now. He pushed the knife tighter against Sadie’s throat. She whimpered, her big eyes pleading with me. But she didn’t struggle, didn’t move, didn’t cry out. Good girl.

  I spoke fast. “Rob, wait! If you hurt that little girl, if you even start to use that knife, we will shoot you. Dead. That’s not what you want, is it? You want to be able to tell your story. The famous raw-milk poisoner. Maybe there’ll even be books and movies. You’ll want to be around for that. If you die now, you lose it all.”

  Rob hesitated. That one eye stared at me.

  “Come on.” I lifted my chin with more casual confidence than I felt. “Don’t be foolish. You’ve done all this work, now you’re not gonna benefit from it? Was that really your plan?”

  He tightened his grip on Sadie, but the knife, I noticed, moved farther away from her throat. “You’ll shoot me anyway,” he said doubtfully.