What the Bishop Saw

by Vannetta Chapman

  Sam nodded, though Henry wasn’t sure he believed. Perhaps in time, he would.

  “You’ve confessed your sins, and you can be assured of Gotte’s forgiveness.”

  Seventeen

  Sheriff Grayson and Investigator Allen didn’t see it the same way.

  Sam was fingerprinted and booked on the felony murder of Vernon Frey. There were other charges—arson, obstructing justice, and destroying evidence, but Henry wasn’t concerned about those. It seemed all of the charges against Sam hinged on his one fateful decision to return to Vernon’s home the early morning of May first.

  Henry sat in the waiting area next to Abigail and Daniel Beiler. Sam’s parents had arrived home from the funeral to find Sam gone. They learned through the Amish grapevine that their son had been arrested. As soon as Henry walked into the room, they began to pepper him with questions. Abigail wiped away tears as Daniel lapsed into Pennsylvania Dutch. They were upset. Of course they were. But they didn’t believe for a second that their son was capable of such a thing.

  Henry counseled with them, prayed with them, and then sent them home. They didn’t need to be in the police station, Sam’s brothers and sisters would be worried, and honestly, he didn’t want them meeting up with Sheriff Grayson at this point. Henry still hoped to be able to talk some sense into the man.

  So he sent Abigail and Daniel home after assuring them he would be by in the morning and that together they would devise a plan for how to prove Sam’s innocence.

  But Henry was unsure what to do next as he pushed back the memories of the trial in Goshen. That time he had been the one being fingerprinted, falsely accused, and led to a cell.

  Grayson walked into the room and sat down opposite him. “You should have gone on home. There’s nothing you can do here. Nothing to do until the trial begins. Sam will need legal representation. He can be appointed a public defender or—”

  Henry held up his hand to stop him. “He didn’t do it. If you’d heard his explanation of what happened, you would understand.”

  “We did hear. We heard all of it. We were on the other side of the mirror.”

  “You were listening to our conversation?”

  “Attorney-client privilege doesn’t apply here. Neither does clergy privilege. When you looked up and saw Meg about to enter the room and she backed away, it was because we suspected he was about to confess.”

  “But he didn’t confess. Not to murder.”

  “He admitted he was there, and even that he handled the body. He’s sugarcoating it for you, Henry. He cherry-picked what he told you. Or maybe he left out a little piece, like when he killed the man.”

  “Nein. I don’t believe it.”

  Grayson yawned. “It doesn’t matter if we believe it or not. The only thing that matters now is what a jury decides. But I’m telling you Sam Beiler had means and motive. If you factor in the evidence, the eyewitness account that places him at the scene, his own testimony, and any evidence the lab might return, I’d say there’s at least a seventy percent chance of a conviction.”

  “Then you’ll be convicting the wrong man.”

  “I understand your loyalty to him.”

  “Are you even going to check his alibi?”

  “He has no alibi for the night he was at Vernon’s. The only other person in the room was dead. Remember?”

  “What about his alibi for the fire at the construction site?”

  “Oh, that. Yeah, sure. We’ll check it, but I don’t see how it matters. Even if he’s found not guilty of setting the fire at JSW, it doesn’t absolve him of what happened at Vernon Frey’s.”

  “Check with the salesperson at the hardware store and owner of the secondhand store. You’ll see he’s telling the truth, and then maybe… maybe you’ll be motivated to look past your assumptions of guilt.” Henry’s temper was rising, which was a rare occurrence indeed. He stood, realized he didn’t have a ride home, and decided he wouldn’t ask for one.

  The sheriff called after him, but Henry wasn’t listening.

  He needed the two-mile walk. He needed time to pray and consider what he was going to do next.

  Eighteen

  Breakfast was a rather big affair at the Fisher household. Three adults and four children, though Katie Ann and Silas were hardly children anymore. Regardless, they all ate heartily in the morning, and it took some planning. Emma usually made a casserole of some sort the night before, and Rachel scrambled eggs, cut up fruit, and sometimes included a side of bacon or sausage or ham. The heavenly aromas never failed to get everyone up and moving.

  Emma had just set the pan of apple cinnamon French toast on the table when she heard a knock on their front door. She was surprised to look out the window and see Henry.

  He ate breakfast with them—or, rather, he sat there and spoke to the grandchildren and sipped his coffee. Once the children had run off to complete various chores, the adults walked out to the front porch. Henry and Emma and Rachel sat in the rockers. Clyde opted to stand with his backside against the porch railing.

  Henry explained what had happened concisely and without emotion, but he wasn’t fooling her. Emma understood how devastating this turn of events was. It occasionally happened that one of their own ended up in the Englisch judicial system. Once there it was rare for them to find a quick or easy way out.

  “You believe Sam’s story?” Clyde asked.

  “I do.”

  “There must be a way, something we can do, to prove Vernon was dead before Sam found him in his house that night.”

  “Maybe we don’t have to do that,” Emma said. “Maybe we only have to prove someone else could have done it. After all, it’s not our job to catch whoever killed Vernon.”

  Rachel bobbed her head in agreement. “Reasonable doubt—that’s what the Englisch call it in their court proceedings.”

  “I’d rather it not go that far.” Emma rubbed the palm of her hand up and down the arm of her rocker. “I hate to think what it would do to Sam to have to sit in a jail cell until a trial. It’s not natural for any man, but it’s especially devastating for a Plain person. We’re used to the sun on our faces, working with our hands, and falling into bed exhausted at night. It’s our way.”

  Henry was staring out at the horizon, toward the sand dunes that could be seen from practically anywhere in the valley. Emma had read they were the product of years of erosion from the nearby mountains. The wind and sun and rain and snow slowly wore the mountains down, until the sand washed into the dunes.

  “I understand what you’re saying, Emma. I remember well enough my time in an Englisch jail.”

  The memories fell over the four of them—dismal and heavy. It was Clyde who slapped the porch railing and grinned. Emma adored her son for his positive outlook on life. They’d yet to encounter a problem Clyde didn’t believe could be fixed. “Gotte saw us through those times, Henry. He will see us through this.”

  “I’m the bishop here. I should have said that.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’ve barely slept, and you didn’t eat any of Emma’s fine breakfast.”

  Emma heard their banter. She understood that her son was trying to calm and reassure Henry, but that wasn’t their primary concern. Their primary concern was to find a way to show that someone else might have killed Vernon Frey. How had the sheriff put it? Henry had explained Sheriff Grayson said Sam had “means and motive.” Surely someone else might have had those as well, but if there had been any clues in Vernon’s house, they’d been burned up.

  “Didn’t you say you’d been to see him the afternoon before he was killed?”

  “Ya. Late in the afternoon I went by his place to see if he was okay, to see why he didn’t stay to fellowship with us after the service.”

  “Can’t you remember anything you saw there?” Rachel asked.

  “Nothing useful.”

  “Maybe something not useful, then.” Clyde crossed his arms and frowned. “Something you wouldn’t think would help, but
in another light, maybe could.”

  Henry sat forward, propped his elbows on his knees, and rubbed at his forehead. Finally he sighed, and said, “Nothing. Vernon was in a foul mood, but that wasn’t unusual.”

  Emma suddenly had an idea. It was something they’d discussed the other night, but they never thought it would be useful in this situation. The question was, did she dare suggest it? What if it made things worse? But how was that possible? Young Sam Beiler was in jail and about to be formally charged with murder. Things didn’t get much worse than that. So she pulled in a deep breath and offered a silent prayer. Then she looked directly at Henry and said, “Maybe you should draw it.”

  Clyde looked at her sharply, frowning and giving the distinct impression that he wanted her to drop the subject and move on.

  “Why not?” She questioned her son, though he hadn’t actually responded to her suggestion—at least not verbally.

  Henry, for his part, was rubbing a hand up and down his jawline, staring out at the dunes.

  “What harm could it possibly do?” To Emma the answer now felt right and even obvious. “It’s a gift, Henry. Everything we’re able to do is a gift from Gotte. I’ve heard you share as much with our congregation—our gifts are to be used to serve one another. You said that. The Bible says that.”

  No one interrupted her, so she pushed on. “You’ve also reminded us that we each have different gifts according to Gotte’s grace.”

  “Emma’s right,” Rachel said.

  “This isn’t the same thing.” Henry’s shoulders drooped forward, as if a great weight was pulling them down. “You know it isn’t the same. You know what happened last time.”

  “Ya, I know,” Emma said. “We were there, Henry, and we’ll be with you through this. But what happened in Goshen wasn’t your fault. And in fact, if you hadn’t become involved, then that girl’s killer might have never been caught. He might have gone on to hurt others. What you are able to do is a gift from Gotte, and forgive me for being so bold, but you’re wrong to turn away from it.”

  “Mamm never was one to hold her tongue,” Clyde muttered.

  Henry stood, walked to the porch railing, and remained silent. Emma thought he would reject her idea, possibly even rebuke her for speaking so plainly. When he turned to face them, the expression on his face nearly broke her heart—it was so full of exhaustion and pain and fear. Yet underneath all of that was the tiniest bit of hope. He was only a man, after all. He’d been given the task to watch over them. He’d been given the holy job of bishop, but he was only a man.

  Finally, he nodded and said, “I’ll try.”

  Nineteen

  Henry meant what he said to Emma and her family. He would try to draw what he saw at Vernon’s home the day before his death. He would, for the first time in fifteen years, indulge his gift, though he still wasn’t sure he agreed with Emma on that definition.

  First, he needed to take care of his buggy horse, and then he realized the stall needed mucking out. His buggy was also looking a bit worse for wear. He spent a good hour cleaning it thoroughly. Then he stopped by his workshop and thought about working on another one of the birdhouses he’d begun before Vernon breathed his last. This particular model was a three story, built from found lumber and some old shutters one of the local contractors tossed out when he was remodeling a home.

  Henry sat down on his workbench and held the birdhouse in his hands. He particularly enjoyed the three holes placed vertically four inches apart, perhaps because he liked the thought of three bird families living together, close enough to hear the baby peeps through the walls. Or maybe it was the symbolism of the number three—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. He often prayed as he worked, that God would use something as small as a birdhouse to touch his heart, to remind him of the joy of his salvation.

  But Henry realized if he worked on the birdhouse now, he would only mess it up. Working with wood took concentration. One wrong cut, and you could ruin a piece of lumber or injure a finger. He set the birdhouse back on the table, stepped out of his workshop, and plodded over to his house. Stepping inside, he realized there was no work to do there. The women in his district had taken care of everything. They’d even left a few labeled dinners in his refrigerator, enough to last a week. He wasn’t hungry, though, and it was time to stop procrastinating.

  But instead of pulling out pencil and paper, he went to his rocker and picked up the family Bible. It had belonged to his father, and his father’s father. The text was in German, which was as familiar and natural to him as any Englisch text. He thumbed through the worn pages, stopping now and then to read a passage that caught his eye.

  He found the verses on talents and gifts Emma had referred to.

  Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given… Servants of Christ… entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed.

  They were verses he’d read and shared with others, many times, but they did nothing to ease the trouble in his heart. There was something else he needed to read, something an unconscious part of his mind, or his soul, was yearning for. He found it in the first chapter of Philippians, verse six: “Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

  Did he believe it? Was this promise meant even for him, at the ripe old age of sixty-four?

  It had all begun so long ago, when he was a young lad of twelve. Staring out the window at the light fading across the valley, Henry could still hear the crack of the bat. He’d never actually felt the impact as the ball slammed into his head, but he had heard the gasp from those watching the game. They’d known before he did. In fact, it was weeks later, when he finally woke up in an Englisch hospital, that his parents told him about the blow to his head and what doctors were calling a traumatic brain injury.

  Henry read the passage again. The words weren’t a suggestion, but rather a commandment. A description of a fact. Being confident of this. There was no room for doubt or questioning. And who gave such confidence? Who gave all things? Their heavenly Father.

  He bowed his head and prayed that his heart would reflect a confidence in the provision and purpose of Christ. He petitioned God to use what had begun so long ago, to use this gift, for His glory. He pleaded with God to complete the good work He had begun. He allowed the Holy Spirit to minister to his heart and his mind and his soul.

  Opening his eyes, Henry was surprised to see that the sun had fled and darkness had settled across the land. He stood and turned on the lantern in the sitting room as well as the one in the kitchen. Walking to his desk, he pulled out two pencils and several sheets of the oversized paper he used when he plotted out his large garden.

  It might be that he’d need a few attempts to get it right.

  Or perhaps this strange ability was something that had left him, and he would be able to draw nothing more than a child’s sketch.

  But when he sat down and picked up a pencil, he knew neither of those things was true. He began drawing, first an outline that covered the entire sheet—the kitchen table where he and Vernon had sat and the cabinets and window beyond. Through the window, Vernon’s yard, filled with a hodgepodge of items. Back inside and to the left, a doorway that looked into the sitting room.

  His pencil practically flew across the page. He didn’t pause to think, to try to remember, to ascertain if the details were correct. He simply allowed his hand to draw what his mind had already recorded.

  He started again in the middle of the page, shading and adding even more details, working his way out to the top, the right, the left, and then the bottom edges of the sheet of paper. He added layer upon layer to the drawing, catching the slant of late sunlight through the window, the dregs of coffee in a mug, the lines of writing on a letter. No detail was more important than any other. His brain was rendering a photographic-like drawing of a specific moment in time.

  He added leaves on the tre
e outside the window, a stack of mail on the table, a postmark stamp upon an envelope. He drew the lines on the letter, the words that weren’t obscured by the stack of mail.

  The entire process took place without Henry being completely aware of what he was doing. He wasn’t in a trance. He knew he was sitting at the table, drawing on a piece of paper, and that his goal was to save Sam Beiler from the fate that he had once endured. But the actual drawing of the scene was as natural and unconscious as drawing the next breath.

  When he’d finished, he pushed the paper away, stood, and walked to the sink. Filling a glass with water, he drank the entire thing, pulled in a deep breath, and uttered yet another prayer. Only then did he turn back to the table and study what he’d done.

  His first response was that he would need to return to the police station immediately.

  His second was that he did not plan on going there alone.

  Twenty

  Emma, Clyde, Henry, and Sheriff Grayson were crowded into a small office in the police station. Emma was painfully aware that Sam waited down the hall, probably sitting on a simple cot, no doubt inside a cell with bars. That image solidified her resolve. Somehow they would convince the sheriff to believe what they had to tell him, to show him.

  Grayson offered coffee, but they all declined. It would only make Emma more jittery than she already was. Her son and the bishop seemed calm enough, but then Clyde had been a young man of twenty-five the last time. He didn’t realize how quickly the legal system could turn, especially once it started off in the wrong direction. As for Henry, he seemed calmer than he had been in recent days. The bishop had found the spiritual strength to push through, and it was evident in everything from his posture to his expression.

  The arson investigator, Meg Allen, appeared in the doorway. She looked as if she’d been roused from sleep. Her short red hair stuck up in the back, though plainly she’d combed through it with water in an attempt to settle the cowlick. Emma’s grandson had the same problem, and somehow it made the woman seem more human to Emma—in spite of the gun she wore on her hip beneath her jacket. It was plain enough to see the outline of the holster through the thin fabric, which perhaps was the point. Was her life constantly in jeopardy because of the criminals she pursued? Emma couldn’t imagine such a job, such a life, for anyone—but especially not for a young woman.