The Morelville Mysteries Collection

by Anne Hagan

  Jef was awake and crying when I got inside. Figuring he was probably hungry, I did the only thing I could do; I got him out of the seat, changed his wet diaper then made him a bottle and fed it to him while I prayed some more.

  Fifteen minutes later, as I held him over my shoulder and patted his back to try and get him to burp, I watched out the front window for any sign of movement anywhere. There was no one out and about other than a single car that passed down the street.

  ###

  Dana

  10:06 AM, Monday, February 16th

  “Hannah, slow down. I can’t understand you.” I was driving and she was coming over Bluetooth like a radio station that’s cutting in and out.

  “I said Katie’s lost. I can’t find her Dana and I don’t know what to do!”

  “Okay, okay; first of all, deep breath.”

  I heard her draw in a lungful of air at the other end of the line. “Now, where’s Jef?”

  “He’s with me.”

  “And where are you?”

  “Right now, I’m back at my house.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  She spent the next minute or so trying to explain what happened that day and I got the gist of it but it left me as confused as she was terrified.

  “I’ve looked all over. I came back here because it’s not far from that office and I hoped she’d come here but now I think I should have stayed there but Jef is with me and it’s so cold...”

  “Hannah,” I interrupted, “listen to me. We’ll find her, okay? You stay there with Jef in case she comes there. I’m going to call Mel and we’ll get the city police, the sheriff, everybody out looking for her.”

  “You’ll look for her too?”

  “I was on my way to Columbus on that assignment I got this morning but I’m just west of town. I’ll get turned around at the next exit and come back. I’ll come to you though. We’ll let Mel and her deputies handle the search sweetie. They’ll find her.”

  “When...when will you be here?”

  “It’s probably going to take me about a half hour but I’m going to call Mel right now.”

  “Okay; hurry!”

  I didn’t say anything to Hannah, but I knew calling 911 wouldn’t get me anywhere. The city cops weren’t going to go looking for a teenager that had been missing less than two hours who was a known runaway but Mel, knowing the whole story, would.

  When I pulled up outside the little house Hannah and Jamie and their friends rented, I wasn’t surprised to see Mel’s county SUV already there and another cruiser. Mel met me at the door.

  “Is Katie here?” I asked right off.

  Mel shook her head no.

  “I feel horrible,” I said. “And, I’m mad at myself. I knew I should have put the job Russ hit me with this morning to the side and gone with them today!”

  Mel held up a hand to hush me. “Hannah’s a mess right now. We need you to be calm.”

  “You’re right; sorry.” I took a deep breath like I’d made Hannah do before. “Any word at all?”

  “No. I’ve got a statement from Hannah already. I have deputies canvassing the area using the only picture we have of her, a profile one with her holding Jef that was taken with Hannah’s cell, and I’ve got a dog on the way to the WIC office to try and pick up her scent. She’s a minor so I’m going to get an AMBER alert out for her next and then head over to WIC myself.”

  “So you do think someone’s after her?”

  “I don’t know what to think. I’m just trying to cover all the angles.”

  “What do you want me to do; stay here?”

  “I think it would be best if you took Jef and went back to our house with him. I’m going to have Hannah stay here with a deputy for a little bit in case Katie shows up here or...” She trailed off as the girl entered the room with a Deputy I thought I recognized. He nodded toward me.

  “Dana, I’m so glad you’re here!” Hannah called out when she spotted me. She ran to me and I pulled her into a quick hug.

  Mel said to her, “I need you to gather up all Jef’s stuff...whatever’s here. I’m going to have Dana take him right now, back to our house.”

  “You believe her now, don’t you? You think someone’s really after him?” She wailed then, “Oh no, Katie, what did they do to you?”

  “Hannah...Hannah,” I had hold of her shoulders and I commanded her to look at me. “They’ll find her. They will. You have to trust them.”

  She calmed down enough that Mel could get her attention again. “Please, gather up all his formula, diapers, anything he has that you didn’t bring with you the other night.”

  “I will but I want to go with them.”

  “When we find Katie, you can go back with all of us. For right now though, I need you to stay here with Deputy Gates in case she comes back here. She’ll want you to be here.”

  It was after 11:00 AM when I was finally underway. It had been a chore to move the car seat base from Hannah’s vehicle to mine and get it all set up correctly and it made me realize, if she hadn’t come down this morning but met us instead, we’d have had no way to secure the carrier in my car. The thought still didn’t make me feel any better about not going with the three of them. I couldn’t help but feel none of this would have happened if I had been there.

  I was wallowing in my own miserable thoughts when my cell buzzed. Hoping it was Mel or Hannah with good news, I answered it.

  “Hi baby.”

  It was Mama.

  “Listen, I’m going to let your father get out of here and do his thing; he’s chomping at the bit to go and we’re not very busy. When do you think you’ll be able to get here, you know, just in case business does pick up?”

  Crap! Between the background check assignment and now Katie’s disappearance, I’d forgotten all about agreeing to work in the store and then it dawned on me that Mama didn’t even know what was happening.

  “Um, there’s a problem,” I told her.

  “Oh dear; are you all right? Is something wrong with that baby?”

  “Mama, it’s a long story but the bottom line is Katie is missing.”

  “No! How? Where?”

  “We’re not sure exactly how but Mel and most of her department,” I exaggerated a bit, “are out looking for her.”

  “Marco,” I heard her tell my dad, “Jef’s little mama is missing. They can’t find her.” I waited patiently while she tried to explain what was happening to him from what little I’d just told her.

  “Where’s the baby? Where’s Jef?” she asked.

  “He’s with me right now. I’m on my way back to the village with him.”

  “He’s with Dana,” she told dad and then, into the phone she said, “You bring him right here to me missy. You don’t know anything about taking care of a baby but you’re about to learn.”

  ###

  Mel

  Muskingum County WIC Office

  “Yeah,” the woman looked at the picture, “I’m pretty sure she was the one in here this morning with no ID, no nothin’. Her and another girl and a baby in a carrier.”

  “We’re told she left here and returned back inside maybe a minute or two later. Did you see her come back in?”

  “No Sheriff; the only one I saw again was the friend that was with her. She came back in and asked about her. Oh wait, but she was carrying the baby carrier that time, I think. It was so busy like it always is first thing Monday morning,” she shook her head, “if the other one came back in, I didn’t notice and that’s what I told the girl that came to the window.”

  “Do you have surveillance cameras?”

  “No; well yes, but not that work most of the time. You could talk to my supervisor. He might know more about that.”

  That’s probably pointless, I thought. “Just one more thing, you said she had no ID with her at all?”

  “Not even a Social Security card. I told her she needed to go get a photo ID and a card. She just had to take a copy of her birth certificate and
Social Security could pull her up if she was in their system and get her a new card or issue her a number and give her temporary proof if she wasn’t. We’d be able to access the birth certificate from here and get a copy if she was born in Ohio and I told her that.”

  “What about the baby?”

  “She never even told me his name and he looked like a newborn but if his certificate’s in the system already, I could see it.”

  “Can we look at both of those please?”

  A man who’d been hovering near us now stepped over to us, “Do you have a warrant Sheriff? Those are official government records.”

  “And this is a kidnapping investigation. I’m assuming you’re the supervisor?”

  “Myron Coates, yes.”

  “Well Mr. Coats, I have reason to believe Ms. Hershberger, who is a minor, was abducted off the premises here this morning and that her son may be in danger as well. This picture,” I showed him the cell phone photo, “is all we have to work with, unless, that is, you have any security footage I can watch?”

  “Uh no, not at this time. There are two cameras. They only catch who’s coming in from the front and back and, right now, with the cold and all...they’re old, and...”

  “So they don’t work?”

  “Uh, no; I’m afraid not.”

  “Then I’d like to at least see the birth certificates. The baby’s may be a key in this investigation.” I was grasping for anything that could give me more information about Katie and about Jef’s parentage.

  “Let her have what she needs,” the manager decided quickly and directed the window worker.

  “Let’s go up front, Sheriff.” She led me from the back area of the large open office where we’d been standing, talking, to the window at the front where another worker was handling the duties in her place. Excusing herself to that woman, she pulled the keyboard toward herself and turned the monitor to face both of us.

  “Is it Katie Hershberger or Katherine?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Try Katie first. She’s Amish so that would be more common.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Seventeen, why?”

  “It’ll help if there are multiples with her name. We can narrow it down to a year of birth.”

  She was able to find a Katie Hershberger home born in the Morelville area quickly enough that fit for the age. It has to be her, I thought. I quickly made note of her parents’ names and their address at the time of her birth. Chances were, they still lived there.

  “What’s the baby’s name?”

  “Jef, spelled J-E-F and, I assume, Hershberger also, born less than two weeks ago.”

  She tapped several keys, waited, searched the screen and then tried something else. After finding nothing again she told me, “Sorry, but he doesn’t seem to be in the system yet.”

  “How long does that usually take?”

  “Depends on how the application was filed: electronically like the hospitals do or by mail like the midwives and home birthers do. If it was mailed right away by, say, a midwife, it’s usually in the state system in a week to 10 days. It might take the official certificate a little longer to get to the mother but we can still pull it up here for her, print a copy and certify it. If his was submitted, it hasn’t made it into the database yet.”

  “Any way to tell if it was ever submitted?”

  “No, sorry.”

  “Can you get a Social or anything else on Katie?”

  She turned back to the keyboard and monitor and tapped at the keys then, after a few minutes, delivered the bad news. “The birth certificate is all there is. There’s nothing else in the system to prove she was ever more than born.”

  Chapter 6 - Shunned

  Mel

  12:10 Monday afternoon, February 16th

  I realized who Katie’s parents were as soon as I pulled into the address I’d gotten from the worker at WIC. The Hershberger’s ran a little store at the front of their property that sold bent and dent items and overstock that the area grocery stores couldn’t sell at full retail. My family had been long time patrons of theirs, especially for the cereal and snack food items Beth and Cole always scarfed down within minutes of buying it, it seemed.

  I parked in the only spot I could find where I wouldn’t be stepping out of my SUV into horse dung and the muddy mess of a winter that was slowly winding down and I picked my way over to the door.

  An older teenaged boy was busy shoveling coal into a homemade heating unit not very far from the entrance. I hung back as a shovel full of chunks he tossed inside sent coal dust from spent pieces shooting out. The acrid smell alone was enough to start me coughing.

  He turned and gave me a tight lipped smile and then spoke. “My apologies ma’am; I didn’t know you were there.”

  “It’s okay,” I wheezed. “I’m looking for Samuel or Rebecca Hershberger. Am I in the right place?”

  The young man nodded, “They’re both inside.”

  “Thank you.”

  There were a couple of people browsing the offerings of the store and a young Amish man, about the same age as the one shoveling coal outside, was speaking with the older woman who I knew worked in the store much of the time. I now suspected she was the Rebecca I was looking for.

  She was taking her time with the young man in front of her. He was smiling and unfailingly polite and she really seemed to like him. Finally, she told him, “Now it will be just a minute and Samuel will bring that out to you.”

  He stepped aside and when she trained her gaze on me next, he did too. “May I help you?”

  “Yes, thank you. I’m Sheriff Crane. Are you Rebecca Hershberger?”

  “I am.”

  “Mrs. Hershberger, I’m trying to find your daughter, Katie.”

  I watched as her face went from smiling and cordial through a range of emotions before finally settling for sad.

  The man I presumed to be Samuel Hershberger appeared from somewhere in the back area that was draped off and hidden from the retail area with layers of heavy plastic sheeting. He was carrying a straw basket covered with an older but clean linen towel. “Jonah,” he called to the young man, who turned then to watch his approach, “I had five. Now you tell your mother she can have those and when I get more in, I’ll send another along.” When he reached the boy, he handed him the basket directly.

  “Thank you, I will.”

  Samuel continued, “There should be work tomorrow, shouldn’t there?”

  Jonah nodded, “Aye. I should think so. Only a materials issue today.” He turned back then to Rebecca and said “Ma’am,” and dipped his head by way of taking his leave, nodded to me as well and then walked toward the door.

  Rebecca said to her husband, “This one is asking about Katie.”

  “Katie no longer lives with us,” Samuel told me. The door clicked closed behind us as the young man he’d called Jonah left.

  “When was the last time you saw her, sir?” I was doing my best to be polite and neutral. He looked at his wife for the answer.

  “It’s been four months now,” she told me. “She left the order then.”

  “She hasn’t been back at all?”

  “No,” Samuel said. “Is there a problem with her?”

  “You were aware that your daughter was pregnant?”

  “Yes,” Rebecca said with the slight hint of a smile. It was fleeting and I almost missed it. Her face clouded over again as it had before and she dipped her head until she was no longer looking me in the eyes.

  “Katie had her baby, a boy she named Jef. He’s about a week old now or a little more. I thought you would want to know.”

  “Is that why you came?” her father asked.

  “No. Jef is fine and in good hands. However, Katie disappeared this morning. I’m not sure if foul play is at work or if she was perhaps feeling overwhelmed and came back here to her family.”

  Her mother looked up at that. “She hasn’t come here. She wouldn’t.”

  “B
ecause she was shunned for being pregnant out of wedlock?”

  The two of them looked at each other. Rebecca Hershberger appeared to be puzzled but Samuel, his eyes narrowed, was the first to speak.

  “Katie was shunned when she refused to repent and make amends with the church.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Katie lied,” he said. “When she wouldn’t apologize for her lie, she was excommunicated and shunned. If she comes back and atones for her sin, she’ll be welcomed back.”

  My mind was running in circles. I had no idea what to make of what they were telling me; it just didn’t add up. “Did Katie have to leave your household?” I asked then.

  Her mother shook her head no but it was Samuel who again replied. “She left on her own. She was welcome to stay here and her child too. We would have to follow the rules of the church in our association with her but she is still our child and Jef, as you said he is called, is our grandchild.”

  “Would Jef be shunned too?”

  “No,” he said again. “The child is innocent. His mother could bring him here and we could tend to him with no repercussions for any of us.”

  “So you haven’t been shunned because of Katie’s actions?”

  This time, Rebecca answered, “No. We will not be unless we break the laws of the church and socialize with her while she is still unrepentant.”

  “But, just to confirm it in my own mind, she could live here?” I was finally starting to see their ways a little more clearly.

  “Yes,” they both said.

  “Will you get in touch with me if Katie comes back here? I live in Morelville, so not very far from you.”

  “Where is our grandchild,” Samuel asked.

  “He’s safe with my family for now,” I admitted.

  The man simply nodded, turned on his heel and retreated behind the plastic sheeting leaving me standing with his wife.

  “Do you have access to a phone?” I asked her.

  She shook her head no.

  One of the other customers approached then so I thanked her for her time and left. The young man who’d been outside when I arrived was gone, his coal shovel leaning against the building.