by Anne Hagan
Her theory flew in the face of my own based on what I’d already heard from Jonah but maybe there were grains of truth in both sides of the story.
“Miss...” I realized I didn’t even know her name.
“I’m Ruth.”
“Ruth, Jonah told me he felt like Katie was in danger and it was good that she left the order. Do you know why he might have thought that?”
She shook her head no but then confided, “Jonah was thinking about leaving the order and just maybe he had planned to join Katie where...wherever she was. Maybe, because she died. it all got to be too much and that’s why he left.”
I was about to respond but held my tongue when I saw the girls’ eyes widen. Turning to look behind me, I saw what she saw; her mother emerging from the barn, a pail of milk in one hand.
I greeted her and tried to speak with her, and though she invited me inside, she was very upset and not disposed to talk. The only thing of real value I got out of her was where I could find Jonah’s boss, the Mennonite Alden Plett.
As I was leaving, I said, “The Hershbergers are having a funeral for Katie tomorrow at their home.”
“We won’t be attending,” she told me.
“Because she was shunned?”
“No.”
That was all she said and, for the second time in as many days, the door was firmly closed as I stood on their porch.
###
Mid-morning, Thursday, February 19th
Muskingum County, Sheriff’s Department
“The autopsy report is back from the Coroner boss,” Shane called out to me when he spotted me passing by the squad bay on my way through the building. I wheeled left and walked into the bay instead.
I was surprised to find Mason at her desk too and I gave her a ‘what’s up?’ toss of the head.
She caught my drift right away. “Shane worked late into the evening yesterday Sheriff. The least I could do was come in and give him a hand this morning.”
“Yeah and you were called out in the middle of the night and worked till the wee hours yesterday morning then came in for your usual shift. You got what, maybe 3 hours of sleep?”
She shrugged.
“Listen, both of you. I know we have a lot on our plates right now but the FBI is on the kidnapping, we have senior patrol people who are more than capable of assisting in the murder investigation and helping. It’s great that you’re backing each other up but the reason there are two of you in the first place is so you don’t flame out when we need you most.”
I couldn’t really be mad at them but neither did I want to lose either one of them to the burden of the sort of job stress Shane had struggled under for several months before I was able to hire Janet.
Mason responded, “Roger, Sheriff.” Shane Harding though, didn’t answer. Instead, he was waiting somewhat impatiently to tell me his news.
“Go ahead, out with it. I can see my concern is misplaced.”
“I appreciate it Sheriff,” he said, “I do, but there are some things the report tells us that could be the keys to this case.”
“Like?”
“Well, for one, we should have stayed with the Coroner the other day until they moved the body. Folded up under her was a baby blanket.”
He flipped open a file on his desk and handed me a photograph. “Do you suppose it’s the one she went back for?”
“It looks familiar to me. Hannah Yoder would know, for sure. It’s odd that it would have been with her, still.”
“Is it? Why would the perp want to keep it? What if he were caught with it?”
“True.” I shrugged. “It does go to show that she really did go back for a missing blanket though. What else is in that report?”
“His initial exam shows extensive bruising on the arms, shoulders, back and neck consistent with being punched and hit with an open hand.”
“Ouch...” My stomach churned. The thought of that sweet 17-year-old girl being beaten in a fight for her life made me want to throw up; throw up and then give the man who did it to her some of his own medicine. I glanced at Mason. She wasn’t even trying to hide her anger.
“There are photos.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“The tox screen showed trace amounts of propofol.”
“That’s a sedative, isn’t it?” Janet asked.
I nodded, “Yes. It’s used in surgeries where the patient is to be kept awake to cooperate but where they won’t remember what happened or feel pain.”
“And it ain’t easy to get,” Shane supplied.
“Agreed. It’s usually handled by oral surgeons or surgeons, period. You can’t get a prescription for it so we’re dealing with someone that either had access through hospital channels or to a black market supply.”
“Is it an injectable?” Janet asked. She had her eyes scrunched up like she was trying to puzzle through the crime as it went down.
A lightbulb went on for me. “You have something there. Not usually,” I said. “For surgery, even dental surgery, it’s usually mixed into an IV and kept flowing because it’s effects only last minutes but my sister was injected with something Tuesday night that knocked her out temporarily.”
Grabbing Janet’s phone since it was closer to me, I dialed the number for the switchboard over at Genesis Hospital and had them patch me through to their lab. Minutes later, my suspicion was confirmed; Kris had been injected with a small dose of propofol that they were only just able to find still in her system. Another hour between Jef’s kidnappers injecting her and her trip to the hospital and we might never have known that.
Now we knew that Katie’s murder and Jef’s kidnapping were related. We just didn’t have any viable suspects.
I told them about Jonah and my talk that morning with Ruth. “He’s not a killer. I’m sure of that.”
“Then he knows something important,” Shane said. “Do you think he really could be Jef’s father?”
“My gut says no. I believe he really liked Katie and he really did want to court her. He had no reason to seek me out and say anything at all to me. He could have just gone along on his way.”
I paused, thinking for a minute and then I told them, “I had a run in with his father yesterday. He seems much stricter, much more confrontational than is typical of the Amish. He’s got a hard edge to him that even the old order people just don’t have. I don’t know, I just have a very bad feeling about him. Something is off there.”
Janet visibly shuddered. “This is like déjà vu with the Olivia Stiers case...father, son...”
Before anyone could ponder that further, Shane’s phone rang.
He sighed and picked it up, “Detective Harding.”
Janet mouthed, “Tip line,” to me.
We both waited while he spoke to the person on the line. When he started scribbling on a note pad, I stepped toward him to read over his shoulder.
A lady who was at the WIC office on Monday was calling to say she remembered seeing Katie there.
When Shane hung up, I told him I was going out with him to question her.
“Meanwhile,” I said to Mason, “Since you insist on being here, why don’t you put together a team of deputies and go canvass the Amish areas. A boy on foot wouldn’t have gotten far unless he hitched a ride. I don’t think he did. I think he’s scared and hiding out somewhere.”
“Stiers’ case, I’m telling you,” Janet said. “Bet he shows up at your parents’ farm.”
“Well check there too. Oh, and you might want to talk to his boss Alden Plett. He owns AP Contractors out of Sugarcreek, since you’re thinking this case resembles the Stiers one and all.”
Chapter 14 – Witness
Late Morning, Thursday, February 19th
Annemarie Beatty lived off of Lexington, close to the Brighton Presbyterian Church. It took us less than 10 minutes to get to her and most of that time was eaten up trying to get my county truck out of squad maintenance. I often swore that they picked the oddest times to
decide to schedule oil changes and such.
Beatty was older than I expected she’d be; significantly older. She was gray haired and bespectacled but also well dressed in a pretty blouse and slacks with hose on to match the pants and shoes that complimented the belt she wore. “Annemarie Beatty?” I asked her, when she answered the door.
“Yes.”
I tried not to let my dismay show at the possibility that this was just another crackpot who called in with a half-baked theory about a suspect. Shane had been fielding a lot of those calls. “I’m Sheriff Crane and this is Detective Harding. You spoke with him on the phone just a little bit ago.”
“Yes. Please, come in. Let’s sit in the parlor; it gets the morning sun so it’s warmer in there.”
I shot Shane a look as we followed behind her. He just shrugged, as always, giving someone the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.
She offered us seats and then coffee. After accepting the former and declining the latter, Shane flipped open his notebook.
“When you called, you said you’d been at the county WIC office this week?”
“That’s right;” she said, “on Monday.”
“You had business there?” I asked her.
“Most certainly. My granddaughter Nicole – Nikki she insists on being called – is 19, going on 13; you know the type?” She continued before either of us could say a word. “She doesn’t have the common sense of an ant...flunking out of college and now pregnant to boot. Her parents have just simply thrown up their hands over her.”
“I’m sorry to say it, but my son, who’s on the road with his job more time than he’s at home, married a woman who’s not much better than her daughter. She’s not his, Nicole’s not, by the way, but he foots the bill for a lot of things the girl needs.”
“So you took the girl to the WIC office, Mrs. Beatty?” Shane asked.
“Yes. She’s got medical insurance through my son but her mother doesn’t cook a thing; won’t get off her lazy hind end to put a decent meal on the table over there. At least with a WIC card, I know Nicole’s going to get something decent to eat, even if I have to take her to the store myself to help her collect the stuff.”
“So, when you were at the WIC office on Monday, you recall seeing Katie Hershberger and her baby there?”
“Not the baby specifically, but the Katie girl and the other girl she was with. They were sitting in the same row of chairs we were. My granddaughter was being a thorn in my side, so impatient, so I was trying to deal with her more than pay attention to the others around us.”
“But you saw something that made you think you should call us?” I asked her.
She nodded and leaned forward a little from her seat on one end of the sofa. As she splayed her hands out in front of herself, she explained, “The young woman who was killed got called up to the window. They all got up and were preparing to go up there. I felt a little bit of a chill from where I sat as I watched them and I turned to see a man hold the door for another young woman who was leaving with a baby in a carrier. I remember thinking what a gentleman he was; so unlike the boys Nicole chooses to run around with. Anyway, after she passed through, he grabbed a magazine out of a rack near the door and took a seat in the row that was back to back with ours.”
“Was anyone with him?” Shane asked.
“No. That’s the odd thing. As I got to thinking about it all after I saw the news reports about the girl; no one came in before him and he chose one of the only empty seats there. He didn’t appear to be with anyone else in the waiting area and he didn’t go to the sign in window. Don’t you find that odd?” She looked at Shane and then at me for confirmation.
I clenched my teeth and nodded at her. It was odd and the hair pricked up on the back of my neck at the thought of it.
Shane blew out a breath himself and then asked, “Did he speak to Katie or to anyone else?”
“No, not at first. Not until they left and then the girl came back in.”
I slid forward to the edge of my seat. “What happened then?”
“I saw the girl out of the corner of my eye. She stooped and pulled a thin blanket or something like one of those little receiving blankets out from under the chair where the baby carrier had been sitting. He got up from behind us and came around the end of the little row as she made to leave again and said something to her that I couldn’t quite make out myself. He had some sort of an accent.”
Shane scribbled on his pad but asked the next most obvious question in his mind, “Did she seem to know him?”
“No...well, possibly. I don’t know if she didn’t hear him of if she was just ignoring him at first. She started to go back toward the front door, the way she’d come back in and he called out to her. She turned and smiled at him...must have recognized his voice.”
“And then?” I asked.
“That’s all I know. Nicole was called to the window then and we got up and moved that way. I don’t know what happened after that.”
“You said the man had an accent. Can you describe it?”
“As I said, I didn’t hear much but I thought it might be some sort of Slavic accent.”
“Could it have been German?” I asked. She probably mistook the guys’ accent for a Slavic one when it was more likely the German lilt of someone who was Amish or ex-Amish, I thought.
“No. It was a harder accent than you hear from a native German speaker; I do know that.”
“Please describe the man for us Mrs. Beatty,” Shane said, his pen poised over his pad.
“He was a fairly thin man, I’d say. He was dressed for winter with a heavy black ski style jacket on and dark slacks – not blue jeans like kids wear everywhere. As I recall, they were navy blue and he had on dark shoes. His hair was dark black too and I’d call his skin tone...what I could see which was mainly just his face and hands, as not quite olive but definitely darker than the average. Not tan...definitely not tan; natural.”
“Anything else; anything unusual you can recall?”
“No Detective, as I said, he was dressed for winter. He was tall though, I’ll give him that but, perhaps that was just my perception. That girl was just a little slip of a thing standing next to him.”
“I’d put Katie at about 5’1”,” I said. “How much taller was he?”
“Oh, easily a foot or more taller than her.”
“6’3” – 6’4” or so?” Shane asked.
“At least. My husband, God rest his soul, was 6’2”. That man was definitely a few inches or more taller than he was.”
Shane made a note. “Any unusual facial features, any facial hair?”
“No beard or mustache, no. Maybe a half day’s stubble though it was morning. I would have thought he would have shaved but then, it’s cold out so who knows. Oh, and he had dark eyes – brown or maybe even black but, other than his height, nothing unusual.”
She’d given us a lot and, given the height of the man and her insistence that his accent wasn’t German, I was beginning to rule out Katie’s actual abductor being Amish or ex-Amish. This man might well be one who later kidnapped Jef too.
“Mrs. Beatty, I do thank you,” I began, “for all of your help today.”
“You’re welcome dear. I certainly hope I’ve given you something to work with.”
“It’s a lot to ask, I know, but I wonder if you might do us another favor? Would you be willing to work with an FBI sketch artist?”
“A sketch artist?”
“Yes. The FBI is now involved since the kidnapping of Katie’s infant son. They have a sketch artist on standby who can work directly with you from your description and try and come up with a likeness of this guy.”
“I’ve told you everything I know but I’d be willing to try; anything to help.”
I told Shane to call ahead to the station and get it set up.
Chapter 15 – A Fight
Hannah
Also Late Thursday Morning, February 19th.
Putnam Street, Z
anesville, Ohio
“Why didn’t you go to work?” Jamie asked me, her tone hinting at her irritation with me.
“I called in and talked to Gianni. They have enough bread and rolls to get them through today at the restaurant and they don’t have any catering today so they can handle the bake for the store runs tomorrow.”
“Are you going in tomorrow?”
“Yes, of course. They’ll need lots of bread and pastry for the weekend.”
Jamie smiled then. “I’m off today, you know. You planned this, didn’t you?”
“Um, no. Why?”
“Then why even call off?” She was back to the irritated tone again.
“I just don’t feel up to going in, is all. I feel so bad about Katie and now Jef, and...”
Her face fell at my explanation and then she stuck her lip out in a pout.
“Why?” I asked her again after taking note of the look she was giving me. “Were you wanting to do something today or something?”
“We’re both off Hannah. We should go out and have a little fun or, I don’t know, let’s see, roll around in bed with both of those guys gone.” She waved a hand back over her shoulder toward our housemates’ room.
I sighed. “I suppose we can go and do something but, it’s cold and, well...”
“And you don’t feel like it. All you want to do is mope around, I know, I know. It’s all about Katie and that baby with you!”
“That isn’t fair Jamie! Katie’s dead.”
She took a deep breath and tilted her head to the ceiling as she let it out slowly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just, I feel like there hasn’t been any time for us to just go and have fun in a couple of months now and...”
“You mean ever since Katie moved in, just admit it. You never liked her or wanted her around.”
“That’s not true! I just...I just...look, I felt bad for her, I really did but she wasn’t actually our responsibility to begin with Hannah; can’t you see that?”
“And just what was she supposed to do? Did you want her living out on the street somewhere? God help us all that you were a little inconvenienced.” I normally didn’t get very angry but I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing. She must have realized I was about to seriously lose my temper with her because she suddenly backed off, literally taking a couple of steps back away from me.
