Fall from Pride

by Karen Harper

  “So before you showed up at the Kauffmans’ that night, you were doing what and where?”

  “Just driving around. Thinking about how I missed some of my old friends, trying to decide to see my parents or not. The others might not talk to me or eat with me, but my mother would. To tell the truth, I knew some of the kids at that party might not shun me, and I guess I needed that. But what I don’t need,” he said, sitting up straight but still looking down, “is some worldly fire cop coming in here and conning Sarah into helping him, overstepping with her.”

  Nate decided to ignore that. Jacob hadn’t gone for his challenge about “Call me Mack,” and he wasn’t going to react to the overstepping with Sarah accusation. Instead, he said, “So you decided to follow her until you could get her alone, even painted a message on at least one barn for me to stay away from her.” Using the same calm conversational voice, he added, “Was the Miller barn third on your burn list, Jacob?”

  He sucked in a sharp breath. “N-no, but I’ll admit something. Yeah, I painted that message to you there, but I didn’t burn any barns.”

  “I’ve done your case study and you fit the profile of an arsonist. Look, Jacob, this is going to go a lot easier on you and your poor parents, especially your mother—yes, I’ve met her—if you just confess, come clean and get this all over with. Your mother, Sarah and her family, let alone the entire ‘unfair’ Amish community, will think more of you if you tell the truth and ask for forgiveness than if you keep up your lies.”

  Jacob’s hands came out of his pockets, fists clenched. He banged them once on the table. “I can’t afford a lawyer, but I want one.”

  “Sure, we’ll get you a lawyer in here for free,” Nate said, leaning closer to him. Man, it was difficult to deal with someone who wouldn’t look you in the eye. He had to be lying. “And I won’t question you anymore without him or her being present. Only, to your former people, who don’t trust lawyers much more than they like government officials—”

  “You’re government and seem to be doing just fine with Sarah!”

  “Lawyering up, as we say, won’t win you much support with the Plain People you’ve already let down and hurt. And in your head and heart, they are still your people, Jacob—you know they are,” Nate said, rising and going to the door, even lifting his fist as if to knock for the sheriff or the deputy he’d called in from Wooster to spend the night here at the jail.

  “Think about it carefully, Jacob,” he said. “The arsonist has been clever and careful with the two fires. Frankly, I’m in awe of him and Sarah is, too. No one hurt, probably not even a barn owl, so the arsonist’s prison time would not be as long as it would be if he kept telling lies or lit a fire where someone got more than just financially and emotionally hurt. I’ll get that lawyer for you now.”

  “Wait! I—I’ll plead to harassing and stalking Sarah, to painting that warning to you on the Millers’ barn and Hostetlers’ in case you went there, but I am not a barn burner. I told Sarah I knew who it was but I don’t—honest!”

  The man looked distraught, but he finally met Nate’s stare when he’d seemed so shifty and scared before. Naw, Nate thought. He’d bet the farm—if he had one—that this was the arsonist, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t keep looking. Mike Getz still needed to be questioned, as did Hannah Esh and even his new possibility, Ray-Lynn Logan.

  “You want that lawyer now?” Nate asked.

  “Changed my mind. Don’t need one, ’cause I didn’t burn those barns.”

  Late that afternoon, Sarah helped her mother place stacks of boxed half-moon pies in the big family buggy, then helped her father load the wagon with birdhouses he was donating to be sold at the alms auction the next day. She liked the flourishes and designs she’d done on these so-called condo birdhouses for purple martins with their multiple entry holes. She wondered if those beautiful birds lived like the Amish with the generations together. Would one of these holes be a sort of grossdaadi haus?

  She wished she had her buggy here and, for her donation, a collection of paintings of Amish life on stretched canvas, maybe framed, or even small quilt squares painted on wooden plaques, but that would really set everyone to talking about her painting pretty—her hochmut. But was it so prideful to wish she had painted birds or flowers, all parts of God’s grandeur, on those birdhouses instead of circles and swirls? And to yearn to create on canvas or wood the scenes that paraded through her head and heart that would portray the Plain People in all their simple yet busy lives?

  But she didn’t have paintings or her buggy. At first Nate had said he’d take her to pick it and Sally up at Mr. Schrock’s, but he’d later set it up with her mother, while she was drying off and changing clothes, that Daad and Gabe would go get Sally and the buggy after they packed these things for the auction tomorrow.

  Her stomach twisted tighter. What if Nate really meant it that he would work on this arson investigation without her now? She sighed and went to the barn to stare up at the spot where she would paint her new quilt square, Ocean Waves. She and Sally and the buggy had made waves in that waterfilled ditch today. If Jacob was the arsonist, at least they had him confined now.

  She walked to the grossdaadi haus where both she and Martha would spend the nights together because of safety in numbers. Pretty soon Daad might even say Gabe should sleep out here, too, with his hunting rifle. Or he might put Gabe in the barn the way Mr. Miller had said his son, Noah, was guarding their ramshackle one. Tonight, hopefully, there would be no more notes with terrifying Bible verses tacked to the door, no more gravel thrown against the window, though that would be worth it if Hannah would only come back, even just to talk the way she did the night after the first fire.

  As Sarah went into the living room, she could hear Martha reading to Grossmamm from the Budget in the bedroom before her late-afternoon nap. They’d had a family conference and decided that the Home Valley News was all right to read to her, too, but not the extensive coverage dedicated to the fires, because that might set the old woman off again, just as the tales of burning Amish from the Martyrs Mirror had.

  In his most recent editorial, Peter Clawson said the arsons could be hate crimes against the peaceful Amish and that the state fire marshal’s office must find out who was guilty and root out the perpetrators. She’d heard the newspapers were selling like half-moon pies around here lately.

  Sarah shook her head and shoved back her dirty hair. She had to wash it tonight, get the ditch water out of it. A mirror. She wished she had a mirror out here, even the small one they had in the house. No need for mirrors among her people since beauty was all on the inside of a person, but with Nate around, she sometimes wondered how she really looked to him. She sighed again.

  Suddenly overcome with exhaustion, she slumped on the couch, not even taking time to open the hideaway bed she or Martha would use tonight, while the other took a turn in a sleeping bag on the floor. Nate liked to sleep outside in a sleeping bag. She’d left him a note there about Mike Getz and had stroked the deep marine-blue of the soft flannel lining of his outdoor bed….

  She forced herself to think about the hues of blue paint she would use for the triangles of her ocean waves. Tomorrow was the auction and then Sunday was a church day—the Hostetlers’ turn to be hosts. But on Monday, after she took the pastries to Ray-Lynn in town, she would set up the ladders and scaffolding and begin to paint. She would use Nate’s ladder and his scaffolding, not shaky, but firm. No fear of being tipped off…tipped off into the fires…falling from pride into the fires…

  They pressed her against the wooden ladder on the ground, ripped off her bonnet and prayer kapp. The crowd was screaming for blood, those who insisted on plain ways, who would not bow to the rules of the government’s church. The flames grew higher, hotter, close, so close….

  “For wickedness burns as the fire!” someone shouted as she was tied to the ladder. “The people shall be as fuel for the fires of hell! Burn them! Burn them for the fires of hell!”

&n
bsp; The screams of others being burned—her friends, her family, her people—shredded her courage. She wanted to beg for her life. She wanted to struggle, but it was not their way. Accept. Forgive. Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do. Much better to drown in the pond or the dirty ditch, ducked to death like a witch than this terror.

  More men with angry faces came closer, bent over her, lifted her high on the ladder, tied her hands and waist and feet. If she could only fly up to heaven, not have to face the fire! The heat seared her already, burned her with desire for an outsider, an Englische ausländer, a man she could never have. Her precious paintings flamed to pain and ashes as the fires lit her skirts, her skin and…

  Sarah heard someone scream, someone close. Was it Grossmamm afraid again?

  “Sarah. Sarah! Wake up!”

  Martha was kneeling by the sofa, shaking her shoulder. “You had a bad dream. You screamed. Grossmamm nearly jumped out of her skin and asked if the beast was outside again.”

  “The beast? Oh, sorry. Get back to her.”

  “We’re just all on edge. It’s all right,” Martha soothed with a squeeze of her shoulder before she hurried back into the bedroom.

  But it wasn’t all right, Sarah thought as she hugged herself hard, then staggered to her feet and went into the kitchen to wash her hair. She leaned over the sink, her hands on the counter, propping herself up. Nothing had been right since that first barn went up in a blaze, taking her painting and her Amish turn-the-other-cheek beliefs with it.

  After Nate filled in the sheriff about Jacob’s claims of innocence for the arsons, he went outside and, exhausted, just sat in VERA’s driver’s seat. It was late afternoon, the time, he’d heard, Ray-Lynn Logan went home for a break before the evening rush. He knew which house was hers just outside of this little one-cross-street town with its two rows of commercial establishments and then a scattering of houses. He intended to keep an eye on things at the auction tomorrow, and he was sure she’d be in the thick of things there, too, so he’d probably never get any private chat time with her then. Yeah, he’d phone her just before going to her door. He had to check out the lead Gabe had reluctantly given him. Even if she wasn’t somehow tied to the arson, she might have seen something. But why hadn’t she come forward?

  Before he could start the engine, someone knocked on his window. He jolted in surprise, then saw it was Peter Clawson. He turned the key so he could run the window down.

  “I’d like your statement about Jacob Yoder’s arrest,” Peter said without any ado. “I’ll get one from the sheriff, but you’re still ‘the Man’ on this arson case.”

  “I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a couple of days,” Nate countered. “Walk around and climb in.”

  “I’d rather have you come to my office. I have something you’ll want to see.”

  Nate got out and locked up, then followed Peter across the street. “Working hard?” Nate asked as Peter held the front door of the newspaper office open for him. It amazed Nate that this was a one-man shop except for distribution, but with a small paper in the digital age, it was obviously possible and profitable.

  “Always. To use a cliché—which I hate to do—I like to strike while the iron is hot, and these arsons are making things hot here.”

  “So what is it you wanted me to see?”

  “Before I show the sheriff or write it up for the next edition—this,” Peter said, and pointed to a piece of white paper with large, block hand printing on his cluttered desk.

  Nate saw he’d placed the paper in a stiff plastic envelope, so it shone in the overhead lights. Nate read, “A fire goes before him, and burns up his enemies round about.”

  The handwriting looked the same as on the note pinned to Sarah’s door, but to be sure, he’d have to scan and send both to a handwriting expert the bureau consulted with in Columbus. But the expert didn’t like photocopies or faxes because the pressure of the pen point on the paper could reveal things, too. He was quite sure this handwriting was different from what Jacob had done on the Miller barn, even though the materials were so different.

  “I checked,” Peter said, sitting in his high-backed leather desk chair which creaked under his big frame. “It’s a quote from the Bible, Psalms 97, verse 3—the Revised King James Version to be exact.”

  Nate began to sweat. He’d opted to keep the Biblical quote from the Kauffman grossdaadi haus privileged information, to avoid causing panic and undue speculation and so he could use it to be sure he arrested the right person. Besides the Kauffmans and the sheriff, only his boss knew about it. But if this man discovered he was withholding information from the public, he could skew it to look bad. He’d already written an editorial suggesting Nate should get on the stick—to use a cliché. Peter’s pompous manner rubbed him the wrong way.

  “What are you implying about this note?” Nate asked. “That it’s somehow tied to the arsons?”

  “Put through the mail slot of the newspaper that’s been crusading to have the arsons solved. Don’t you think so?” Peter demanded, thumping the desk with his index finger. “Fire…burns up…enemies. I’d bet my Phi Beta Kappa key that this is from the arsonist. He or she wants more notoriety, wants to stir things up even more, to cause fear and panic if I print this, but I can’t see not printing it. You think I should?”

  “As you said, only if you want to stir things up more. I suppose it would sell more papers if that’s your main goal.”

  “It isn’t. Absolutely, the truth matters, but I care deeply about this community. I’ve got money and years of my life invested here, but I can’t sit on something like this. However, if I had a strong interview about your questioning Jacob Yoder today—you did, didn’t you?—I wouldn’t have room to include the note, because I need to save big layout space for coverage and photos of the charity auction tomorrow.”

  Nate sat down in the wooden armchair at the side of the big desk. He was uptight, but he tried to look calm. He leaned back and put his arms on the wooden arms of the chair. “That almost sounds like a bribe. Or even a threat, Peter.”

  “Not at all. I’m willing to let you take that piece of evidence to see if you can get fingerprints off it, though I admit I touched it before I knew what it was, so you’ll have to eliminate mine. Do we have a deal?”

  “You can print that both the sheriff and the state fire marshal’s arson investigator questioned Jacob Yoder, but he is only being held for DUI, speeding and driving with an illegal license plate at this time.”

  “You don’t think the firebug is Jacob Yoder?”

  “Do you? I respect how you seem to have your finger on the pulse of this place.”

  “I’d say the odds are good for Yoder. Motive—in spades. Proximity, at least to the first burn, ditto. To the second burn, hard to prove. But then, Mike Getz, maybe. Hannah Esh, possibly.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  “The power of the press—and the brain behind it.”

  Talk about pride and hochmut, Nate thought as he looked up at the framed certificates and famous newspaper articles on the walls of the office. Then, taking the plastic envelope, holding the note with him, he stood and walked over to read several of them.

  “A Pulitzer for powerful reporting is my inspiration, my goal in life. It’s what keeps me going in this little place I have come to cherish. And I think we’re either up against an arsonist who is Amish—or one who wants to appear Amish—or a religious nut who hates the Amish. By the way, did I leave out anyone on your lists of possible perps? You can tell me that much, at least.”

  Nate turned to face Peter. He’d risen from his padded chair and sat on the corner of his desk. Wouldn’t Peter be shocked to know that his own partner in the restaurant had been on the scene of the first fire just before it ignited?

  “See you at the auction tomorrow,” Nate said. “If you notice anything fishy there, let me know. When I nail the arsonist, I’ll be sure you have the complete story before the big boys in the heavy-hitter papers
in Cleveland or Columbus get a thing.”

  At that, Peter’s chubby face lit in a smile that made him look like a Christmas cherub.

  Ray-Lynn was hoping that Jack might be calling when her phone rang during her break at home, so she took her time answering it. But it wasn’t him.

  “Ray-Lynn, it’s Nate MacKenzie. I know this is your downtime from the restaurant, but I’d like to stop by for a few minutes and ask you a couple of questions. It’s important.”

  She gripped the phone hard. “In person? Not on the phone?”

  “No, ma’am. I’m only a few minutes away.”

  “Don’t you ‘ma’am’ me, Nate, because it makes me feel older than I am and more old-fashioned than I’d like to be. All right. You just drop on by,” she said, trying to sound cheerful.

  She poured him iced sweet tea and fed him lemon sponge cake while they talked about the auction. He seemed interested in her Gone with the Wind collectibles—porcelain statues of Scarlett O’Hara, Miz Melanie and Rhett Butler, with a collection of china painted with scenes from the movie behind them: Tara before and after the war, Rhett carrying Scarlett up the stairs, the burning of Atlanta. She chatted on about it all, wondering if this investigator knew she had her net out to catch a cop—the head honcho around here. And then, the other shoe dropped.

  “I’d like to ask you where you were the evening of the first fire, about 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 22,” Nate said, looking up from her small painting of the Tarleton twins with Scarlett on Tara’s portico from the opening scene of the movie.

  Ray-Lynn’s stomach flip-flopped. Could he know somehow? She hadn’t seen anyone else there that evening. What if Jack found out that she hadn’t told him? What if the Kauffmans, Sarah, got wind of what she had planned?

  Slowly, she swirled the tea in her glass. “I suppose someone saw me on Bishop Esh’s property,” she said, trying to sound matter-of-fact. “I was fixing to ask him if I could get permission to have one of Sarah’s quilt squares painted on the front of the restaurant, but he wasn’t home, so I just admired her painting there on his barn. I could use the extra oomph of the publicity, you see, and I’m not afraid I’d be an arson target here in town near the sheriff’s office. Don’t you think the arsons are targeting Amish leaders rather than her lovely art?”