A Prayer for the Night

by P. L. Gaus

  In the distance, a buggy could be heard rattling briskly up the lane. Robertson, Troyer, and Branden walked to meet it, the sheriff and the professor instinctively letting Cal take the lead. Cal stepped up on the driver’s side of the black buggy and spoke a few lines of old Dutch dialect to an elderly Amish gentleman with a weathered face and long white chin whiskers, tinted yellow at the corners of his mouth. His denim suit was old and worn, and his vest was unhooked in front. He took off his battered straw hat, wiped out the sweatband with a wrinkled handkerchief, and put the hat back carefully on his head. To Troyer he said, “We understand there’s a body in the barn.”

  Robertson stepped forward and said, “It’s a younger fellow dressed in Amish clothes.” He waited a beat, stuck out his hand, and added, “I’m Sheriff Bruce Robertson.”

  “I know that,” the man said and took Robertson’s hand lightly. “Bishop Irvin Raber. I voted for you in ’92.”

  “I appreciate the confidence,” Robertson said.

  “Didn’t say I voted for you any time since,” Raber said.

  Robertson let that pass and said, “Bishop Raber, it’ll help us if you could take a look at the body. Tell us who it is.”

  Raber stroked his chin whiskers, looked at Cal Troyer, and said to Robertson, “It’s not the kind of thing you think you’ll ever have to do when you’re called to serve as bishop. Identify a murdered soul.”

  Raber got down gingerly from the seat of the buggy. Robertson led him into the barn, and Troyer and Branden waited by the buggy. The bishop soon came out alone, looking somber, and climbed up to the springy wooden seat of his rig. He shook his head, took off his wire-rimmed glasses, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You never know how far you can let the kids go, Cal,” he said, an agonizing sorrow in his eyes.

  “They have to find their own way, Irvin,” Cal said softly. “They have to come to the faith of their own choosing.”

  Raber brought his gaze to meet Cal’s, studied the pastor’s expression, and sighed heavily. “Now I have to go tell his parents.”

  He slapped the reins, and Cal and Branden stepped back from the buggy. Raber swung out in a wide circle, said, “I’ll send someone out here for Sara Yoder’s buggy,” and headed his clattering rig back down the lane.

  Robertson came out of the barn as the deputies were wrestling a loaded body bag into the back of Missy Taggert’s station wagon. The sheriff walked over to Troyer and Branden slowly, rubbing the bristles of his gray crew cut with his red bandanna.

  “Bishop says it’s John Schlabaugh who’s been murdered,” he said.

  Branden watched the buggy disappear behind the trees that lined the lane and said, “John Schlabaugh dead, and Abe and Sara Yoder missing. That leaves six to talk to, and who knows where any of them will be.”

  Robertson said, “I just hope they’re all alive.”

  “What in the world is going on, Bruce?” Branden asked.

  “It’s been getting worse every year,” Robertson said. “Sooner or later it was going to end up being really big trouble. Now we’ve got it in spades.”

  Branden turned to face the pond behind the barn. His eyes fell on the treeline at the far edge of the cornfield. He turned in place and studied the quiet green of the forest that bordered the lane, then the far edge of the tall corn, and last the red barn. “Who owns this property?” he asked the sheriff.

  “Beats me.”

  “Why would an Amish kid keep a Pontiac Firebird in somebody’s barn?”

  Robertson grunted, shrugged.

  “What are Amish kids doing with cell phones and GPS trackers?”

  “The cell phones I get,” Robertson said.

  “Amish never used to use phones,” Branden said.

  “It’s the wire,” Cal said, “not the phone.”

  Robertson said, “What?”

  “It was always the wire that Amish folk objected to. If you hook your house up to a wire from a public utility or other concern, then you’re not living the life of a completely autonomous peasant farmer. You’ve lost your independence. You’ve become ever more attached to the world outside the church. Amish resist that in every form.”

  “Phones were OK, but the wires weren’t?” Robertson asked.

  “Something like that,” Cal said. “There aren’t many English who understand this point, but cell phones don’t have wires. So the bishop never has to ask why you’ve got that phone. No wire, no phone. At least there’s no need for the bishop to make an example out of anyone.”

  “That’s the screwiest thing I ever heard of,” Robertson said.

  “You may think so, but there are more cell phones tucked under pillows out here than you’d ever believe.”

  Branden said, “Then it’s not too much of a rebellion for John Schlabaugh’s Amish gang to have used cell phones.”

  Cal said, “No, it’s not. The GPS receivers, though, that’s a little bit different. That’s satellite technology. Cell phones are just fancy radios. I don’t know any bishops who have had to rule on the things, but it might come to that. Somebody’s going to bring it up, and then the bishops will have to come to some decisions about GPS receivers. The objectionable technology comes from satellites in space. They’ll consider that worse than phones.”

  “Cell phones, and those GPS receivers,” Robertson said. “What else do we know about the Schlabaugh gang?”

  “They’ve been having parties,” Branden said.

  “And making trips to Columbus,” Cal said.

  “Drugs again,” Robertson said.

  “Wouldn’t be the first time,” Branden said.

  Dan Wilsher came over with Abe Yoder’s cell phone. “There’s quite a list of numbers in the address book,” he said. “And there’s a key code of integers, 1, 2, 3, like that, that are assigned to each of nine names. Amish names as far as I can tell.”

  Robertson asked, “How about a log of incoming and outgoing calls?”

  “That, too,” Wilsher said.

  “OK, Dan. You run with the phone. Get phone company records, everything. I want to know who’s been calling whom, and when. I want to know where they were standing when they made those calls. I want to know it yesterday.”

  Robertson called Niell over and said, “We still have the Spits Wallace thing. Any ideas?”

  “Nobody’s been in that kitchen for a while,” Ricky said. “The food in the sink is all shriveled up, and the blood is dried. You can see that just standing at a window.”

  Robertson said, “Dan, I’ll meet you back at the jail in an hour. In the meantime, Doc Branden and I are going to go over to the Wallace place to have a look around.”

  Niell said, “The coroner wants more pictures, so I’ll hang back.”

  Robertson countered, “Negative, Ricky. I want you and Cal back out looking for Sara Yoder.”

  Niell said, a little surprised, “No problem.”

  “Anything else you want us to work on?” Wilsher asked, squinting in the sun.

  Robertson thought, looked around, and said, “Try to find out who owns this barn. But, Dan, Sara Yoder is the thing we’ve got to work on first. If Ricky needs more men, send them out. Call in men on overtime if you have to. We’ve got to find her, and she’s been gone a good hour now. Everybody rolls on this one, Dan. I want everybody we’ve got out looking for that girl. I want her found, and I mean right now.”

  5

  Friday, July 23

  10:50 A.M.

  IT WAS a tight fit for Bruce Robertson in the passenger seat of the professor’s small white truck, and when they pulled up to the Wallace place on high ground north of 129, the sheriff popped himself out before the engine was silent. Branden got out and scanned the property, while Robertson stood beside the truck, stretching his legs and taking deeper breaths as he studied the Wallace abode. The cruiser that had been parked at the end of the long drive pulled in behind Branden’s truck.

  Spits Wallace occupied a ramshackle, two-story, plain white clap-board house with
a big porch that pitched forward from the front of the house under the weight of a dozen rusted appliances, everything from cast-off washers and dryers to a refrigerator with its door off the hinges. The dirty white siding of the house had apparently last been painted when Spits Wallace had been a young boy. The untended roof shingles hung out over the gutters, taking a slow slide into dilapidation.

  Behind the house was a crude carport with a cracked, corrugated, green plastic roof covered with wet leaves and supported by unconfident poles, the whole thing taking a lean out of plumb as if the weight of years was more than it could bear.

  To the left of the stone drive, set off about fifty paces and almost hidden by dense, new-growth forest, squatted the remains of a log cabin so old it might reasonably have been considered colonial. The jumbled pile of weathered logs had caved in over its center, the victim of a slow and tortured implosion into ruin.

  Branden switched off his cell phone and went around the front of the truck to stand next to Robertson. The sheriff asked, “You know how to get into this house without getting our heads blown off?”

  Branden chuckled. “Unless Spits Wallace has learned a thing or two about booby traps since his father owned the place.”

  “Great,” Robertson breathed. “Just great.”

  “In through the back kitchen door is best,” Branden said and led the sheriff around a disordered pile of old furniture and battered crates to a door at the back of the house.

  Robertson peered through a high window over a sink, and Branden tried the screened door.

  “It’s still open,” Branden said, and let the door swing back shut.

  “Can’t see anything through the window,” Robertson said. He walked over, opened the screened door, and stuck his head into the kitchen.

  From behind, they heard the metallic snap and click of a shotgun action, and when they turned around, a dirty and ill-clad Spits Wallace was standing twenty feet behind them with a double-barreled shotgun draped across the crook of his left arm. With his right hand, he had a nervous grip on the stock and trigger.

  “Spits,” Robertson said.

  “Sheriff.”

  Robertson heard his deputies climbing out of the cruiser behind him, and he turned and waved them back into their seats.

  Wallace said, “You’ve got me outnumbered, Sheriff. Send your men away.”

  “Now, why would I do that, Spits?”

  “I’ll plug you good, if you don’t all get off my property.”

  Robertson turned to his deputies and made a hand signal. The cruiser backed slowly down the drive. Then Robertson turned back to Wallace.

  Spits Wallace was a short man with an erratic beard. Bald at the top, he had a nose like a hawk and rheumy eyes. His fingers were bent with arthritis, and his grip on the shotgun kept slipping. He had an involuntary twitch under his left eye, and his face screwed up into a painful grimace each time he shifted his weight on his bowed legs. Brown clay and gray mud caked his clothes, face, and boots, and his forehead was streaked as black as soot. Behind him was parked an old rusty wheelbarrow stacked full of irregular lumps of coal.

  “You in the habit of greeting company with iron, there, Spits?” Robertson asked coolly.

  “When it suits me,” Wallace said evenly, and spat tobacco at his feet.

  “How about you show us some hospitality, Spits,” Robertson barked. “Explain that blood my boys found in your kitchen.”

  Wallace spat again and wiped a brown dribble from his bearded chin with the back of his hand. He studied both men intently and grunted disapproval. “How’s about you boys just clear on out of here and leave me be.”

  “When you explain about the blood,” Robertson said.

  “Cut myself shaving. So, I reckon you boys oughta leave.”

  “I used to know your father,” Branden said. “Back when I was a kid. I’d come out with my dad when he’d to try to sell your dad insurance on his gold coins. You and I played one day over in your cave while they talked.”

  Wallace leveled his gaze at Branden, a mixture of disdain and alarm in his eyes. “My dad never needed any insurance dandies to tell him how to take care of his gold.”

  Robertson said, “Maybe your gold has something to do with the bloodstains on your kitchen wall.”

  “You got it wrong, Sheriff. It was my dad who had the gold. I got nothing.”

  “Your neighbors told us they heard shots over here a while back, and they haven’t seen you in a spell,” Robertson said.

  “My neighbors don’t know how to mind their own business,” Spits said and spat again, this time closer to Robertson.

  Robertson stared back at Wallace for a dozen beats of his heart, nodded at the wheelbarrow behind the man, and said, “You’ve been over to the old strip mines.”

  “What if I have?”

  “Nothing. It might account for why you need a bath, is all.”

  Wallace eyed the sheriff, laughed scornfully, and spat again.

  Branden said, “A young Amish boy’s been murdered, Spits. Over east of 58. It’s not that far from here. You know anything about that?”

  Wallace stared back at the professor wordlessly.

  Branden asked, “You ever see any Amish kids out in these parts?”

  “We got Amish all over the place. You know that, Branden, good as anybody does.”

  “Do you know John Schlabaugh from Saltillo?” Branden asked.

  “Might.”

  “He’s been shot.”

  Wallace’s brow knitted almost imperceptibly and his eyes flashed brief heat. “Then I reckon he mixed in with the wrong crowd.”

  “What do you know about it?” Robertson tried.

  “I know his little gang of kids. Every one of them. They use those old summer cabins for parties. I’ve run ’em off my property a couple of times.”

  “When was the last time you saw any of them?” Robertson asked.

  Wallace chewed and spat, and scratched at a scab on his wrist. He thought about an answer and hesitated.

  Branden said, “John Schlabaugh’s been shot, Spits. He’s dead. If you can tell us something that’d be helpful, I’d be grateful.”

  “For old times’ sake?” Wallace scowled.

  “Like I said. I knew your dad. He used to take me and my father through your house. Showed us his collection of coins, in all those old canvas bags. Stuffed under all the furniture. Stacked in the closets.”

  “Ain’t got no gold,” Wallace spat. “I’m tired of telling people that.”

  Robertson said, “We’re not here because of your gold.”

  “I don’t have no gold!” Wallace shouted.

  Robertson took a step forward, and Wallace shouldered the shotgun and barked, “You boys stand where you’re at!”

  Robertson froze, stared at the 12-gauge barrels, and tried to relax. “Easy, there, Spits,” he said. “Just tell us what you know about John Schlabaugh.”

  Wallace croaked out an angry growl, stepped forward, pointed his shotgun at Branden’s truck, and said, “You boys get back in your truck and don’t do anything I don’t tell you to do.”

  Branden eased back several paces, and Robertson matched him. Slowly the two men moved back to the truck. When they were seated with the doors closed, Wallace said, shotgun still at the ready, “Now buckle up, gents.”

  Both men did that.

  “Now start her up, Branden, and back it up around here so’s you’re pointed back the way you came.”

  Branden did that.

  Wallace stalked up to Robertson on the passenger side and said his piece, punctuating the space in front of the sheriff’s nose with the muzzle of his shotgun.

  “Last I saw of John Schlabaugh, that dirty little brat and his pal Abe Yoder were leading a gang of three city slickers up to my back door. But I don’t like visitors, see, so I made myself scarce.

  “It’s like I keep telling everybody. I AIN’T GOT NO GOLD!”

  6

  Friday, July 23

 
; 10:55 A.M.

  WHEN Ricky Niell and Cal Troyer made it back to the valley along Township Lane T-110 where Sara Yoder had left the Pontiac in the ditch beside the Salem Cemetery, the Firebird was being hooked up for a tow. From where they stood on the east ridge, they could see the several houses and barns of the Yoder compound on the other side of the wide valley. Through the heat shimmers across the long, hazy distance, they could see the trunk and rear bumper of an old black car in the doorway of a barn. They turned Niell’s cruiser around, drove back down County 68 to the creek, crossed to the other side of the valley under tall shade trees, and took the long gravel drive back to the Yoder houses. When they parked the cruiser and got out behind what proved to be a ’50s model black Ford Fair-lane with no license plate, there were several Amish children, a mix of ages, milling around the old car. One little fellow had planted himself behind the steering wheel, turning it left and right, bouncing on his seat, and making a grrr sound like an engine. When the other kids saw Niell’s black and gray uniform, they backed shyly away from the car. Eventually, the boy behind the wheel noticed the new tension in his brothers and sisters, turned and saw Niell and Troyer, and climbed sheepishly out of the car. All the kids backed up a pace, but none of them took the opportunity to leave.

  An Amish woman in a light green dress, white apron, and white head covering with loose tie strings came out the side door of the adjoining house. She walked across the grass in plain black shoes and black stockings, carrying a wadded handkerchief. Her eyes were red and her lids were puffy.

  To Ricky, she said, “Can I help you?” and held the handkerchief to her eyes.

  “Ma’am, I’m Sergeant Niell, and this is Cal Troyer.”

  “I know the pastor, Sergeant,” she said and acknowledged Troyer with a respectful nod.

  “Ma’am, we’re looking for Sara Yoder,” Niell said.

  “She’s my niece, Sergeant. Is she in trouble, too?”

  “The sheriff wants to talk with her. It’s very important. Urgent, you might say.”