The Morelville Mysteries Collection

by Anne Hagan

  We sat for better than an hour waiting for something, anything else to happen. Just as I was contemplating rolling down the street and getting a look at their plate number before I headed back to Jov-tech, the couple emerged.

  The woman was carrying what appeared to be an infant wrapped in a pink blanket with large white polka-dots so big I could make them out even from where I sat.

  Finally realizing what I’d been looking at and snooping around, I smacked my own forehead and called myself a dummy out loud. Boo shot me a look and then stretched herself upside down on the opposite seat.

  “It’s probably a private adoption agency,” I said to her as I scratched her exposed belly. While I watched the woman work to get the infant into the back seat, presumably in a car seat, I thought about all that I knew. The card with nothing but a phone number, the vague answering message, no signage outside, not letting a stranger inside and keeping close tabs on me while I was on the grounds; their secretiveness and their vigilance was all explained now. Someone from there had given Katie the card at some point. She had been considering giving Jef up for adoption. It all made perfect sense.

  Satisfied with what I now was reasonably sure was going on, I left the Italian village, grabbed a sandwich for lunch and drove back to Jov-tech.

  Roman Bakula left work just after 4:30 PM and drove straight home. He pulled his car into his garage as before and entered his townhouse from there as the garage door closed behind him.

  Around 5:10, Boo was getting very restless and I was contemplating leaving when a man rounded the corner of Bakula’s little group of townhomes from the opposite end of my position, passed by the first one, walked up to his front door and knocked.

  I cursed myself again over leaving my binoculars in the trunk. “I should have grabbed those damn things when we stopped for food and for you to pee,” I told her. She ignored me and continued to hop around.

  I couldn’t get a very good look at the man now on Bakula’s doorstep without my optics. To stay somewhat concealed, I’d had to park a bit further away than I would have liked. Against the cold, the man was wearing a long, heavy overcoat and a hat with a brim that shaded his eyes...not that I could see them at my current distance anyway.

  Bakula answered the door. The new guy pulled something out from inside of his coat and handed it to him. They chatted for maybe 30 seconds and then Roman closed the door and the other man turned to leave.

  He headed back in the opposite direction of where I was, crossed the road, and got into a car parked well up from me and then drove away. Finding that really odd, given that he’d come from around behind Bakula’s building to start with; I decided he was worth a follow to see what sort of intel I could gather on him.

  Chapter 22 – Co-inky-dink

  The mystery man drove north on Yearling Road and took a left at 5th Avenue. In the evening rush hour traffic, 5th was a long slog even though we were going toward downtown Columbus instead of away from it. All hope was dashed for me when he kept in the left lane and just kept going.

  “Boo, we’re not going to make it home in time for any kind of a reasonable supper time,” I told my short haired, Boston terrier companion.

  A little sense of relief flooded my system when we got on I-670 and blew through downtown Columbus rather than continuing to traverse city streets. By the time we reached it, most traffic had left the immediate downtown area and was gone to face the trek out to the suburbs. That relief turned to a dumbfounded sense of shock when the guy exited 670 onto North 4th Street and then a few blocks later, made a left on East 1st Street and entered the Italian Village.

  “What are the odds?” I asked out loud as I pounded the steering wheel. “Of all the neighborhoods you could be going to in the whole metro area...”

  I almost caused an accident when he turned his maroon Ford right onto Hamlett Street, the same street where the place I suspected was an adoption agency was. Speeding past Hamlett, I took the next legal right I could take almost two blocks away and went as fast as I dared in the residential neighborhood up to 2nd Avenue where I hung another right and scooted back toward Hamlett myself.

  When I got to the old fashioned, cobbled brick street, I looked right and left but I didn’t see the Ford. He was gone. Dejected, I turned north to go up the street past the agency and toward the little park. I figured I’d let Boo out at the park to relieve herself one last time and then we’d head home.

  As I passed by the Victorian house, I couldn’t help but look that way. Parked halfway back in the driveway near the side entry door was the maroon Ford. The driver wasn’t in it. It was all I could do, not to do a double take.

  I did drive to the park but I nearly forgot all about Boo as I sat and shuddered and tried to calm myself. “It’s just a crazy coincidence, a crazy coincidence.” I said to myself.

  Finally, as I rocked myself back and forth in my seat, she yapped at me, breaking through my swirling thoughts. I hooked her to her leash and we got out of the car but, while she did her business, I continued to run all the possible scenarios through my mind. Only one made any sense. I realized the little scene I’d witnessed a half hour between this guy and my background check assignment guy may have been a payoff for something.

  “Maybe he’s not as squeaky clean as I thought,” I whispered to myself.

  I didn’t know what to do. One part of my brain was telling me I was making wild assumptions with absolutely nothing to go on but the other side of my brain, the one that represented the curious investigator in me was dying to know more. Was it all just a coincidence or had I inadvertently stumbled into the unthinkable, I asked myself.

  The investigator won out. I bundled Boo back into the car, gave her a little drink from a water bottle I’d bought in between stops earlier and then I locked up and hoofed it up the back alley that ran behind the houses on the Victorian’s side of the street.

  There was a bit of a gap between the gate and the fence post it latched too. In the waning light, I peered through it. There wasn’t any movement at the back of the house or even any lights on. I could still see the car that had been there in the morning parked up close to the garage and the maroon Ford parked about midway up the drive, next to the house. I figured at least the woman who’d answered the door and the mystery man were inside, at a minimum.

  I checked over my shoulder. There wasn’t a house across the alley directly behind me. No one seemed to be around at all.

  I pulled gently on the gate. It was unlatched, just as I’d left it. Ducking, I crept low along the fence across the back yard and then up along it toward the back side of the house, opposite of the driveway side. My left leg, injured months before when I took a bullet in it in the line of duty and already aching from the cold, screamed with pain from the odd crouching walk but I pressed on.

  Working my way along the back of the house, I made it to the little patio, mounted the steps and peered through the screen door. The heavier door beyond had a window that began at waist height and continued upward. It was curtained like the other windows but with a much more sheer fabric.

  The kitchen was the only room in my view and it was dark. I listened intently but I could hear nothing.

  I stepped down, backed up to the building again and contemplated entering the root cellar. I was already trespassing; might as well add breaking and entering to my list of crimes. If these people had Jef and I could prove it, any charges I got slapped with would be worth it to me.

  “I’m making a real habit out of eavesdropping these days,” I whispered to myself as I eased the door on the right that overlapped the left one open.

  A set of sandstone steps, weathered with age but still largely intact led down to the basement. I stepped down carefully as I hung onto the edge of the door. I knew it would be dark when I closed it but I didn’t want to risk leaving it open and having someone see it so I eased it down. The old hinges creaked even more than they had when I opened it. I held my breath and waited several beats to see if anyone moved
about above.

  I descended carefully them pulled out my cell phone and used only the main screen for light. I was standing on a packed hard dirt floor. Over the years, it had never been upgraded. There was a tiny bit of light coming in through a single dusty window to either side of the room I was in. There was a dividing wall out in front of me with a doorway set in it more to the left.

  There wasn’t anything but dust and grime in the area I was in and I couldn’t hear the occupants of the house. Assuming I was under the kitchen, I went toward the opening and stepped into what had to be the main part of the basement.

  There was one set of rickety wooden stairs that led from the right that I assumed went up to the main floor. I moved around stuff that was stored in the room to those and tested my weight on the bottom step. It held me but creaked a bit. Taking note of the rest of the staircase, I realized there was no way I could climb up them to tray and listen in at the top without being heard and discovered. They were mostly unsupported and would moan and groan as I moved.

  While I was trying to pick my way in the darkness carefully and form a new plan, I heard muffled voices coming from a few feet over my head. Backing up a little, I stood back and shined my phone screen indirectly on the spot where I thought the sound had come from. There was a heating vent there and the sound of people speaking came from it again but I couldn’t make out what they were saying.

  Stuff was all around me. I found a couple of curiously heavy cardboard boxes and stacked them under the vent then climbed them to get an ear as close to it as I could.

  A slightly accented male voice was saying, “It’s been difficult to get the paperwork done for the male child. There’s a couple waiting but we can’t seem to get a birth certificate that will pass.”

  Another male voice, also slightly accented, responded, “Once Roman is at Riverside, that little problem will be a thing of the past.”

  Realization dawned for me quickly; these people have Jef! In my mixture of horror and excitement, I jerked back away from vent and lost my balance.

  I fell off the boxes and bit my tongue to keep from crying out as I hit the cold, hard dirt of the floor. Tears flooded my eyes from the physical pain shooting through my mouth and continued as I thought about the possibility that I might be within a few yards of Jef.

  I pulled my cell out again and powered the screen on. That’s when I realized the boxes I’d been standing on were actually banker’s file boxes full of paperwork. I lifted the lid of one and pulled out a thick file. Nothing was legible in the dim light of my phone so I pulled out several pages, folded them in half and stuffed them into the inner pocket of my ski jacket.

  Chapter 23 – Bereaved?

  Mel

  5:50 PM, Friday, February 20th

  Morelville, Ohio

  Hannah Yoder’s car was parked off to one side of the gravel driveway leading to the Hershberger’s home when I pulled onto their property. I parked my county SUV behind her vehicle, stowed my personal cell in the console and got out. I was surprised to note she was there and even more surprised when I went inside and entered the room Rebecca had been preparing to see her standing demurely in a plain black dress of ankle length, with lace up black boots like many Amish women wore in the winter months. Her head was unadorned and, I noted, she wore no makeup either as she stood and talked quietly with another young woman, also in black and obviously practicing Amish. I nodded to the two of them and went to pay my respects to the family.

  There weren’t many people there. Besides Samuel and Rebecca and Hannah and the girl she was talking to, who I assumed to be another daughter, and a couple of young men I knew to be sons including the one I’d seen a couple of times before, there was only one other person present; a man I took to be the minister who would conduct the funeral service. I was sad for Katie that these were all who would her passing. Even in death, the practice of shunning continued.

  Katie’s coffin, a simple pine box traditional for the Amish, was closed. I had only been to one other Amish funeral and that coffin too had been closed, I assumed because the decedent, a friend of my father’s, had been killed in a horrific sawmill accident. Now I wasn’t so sure it just wasn’t the Amish way.

  I gave the two parents my condolences, paused briefly at the bier and then took a seat along the wall opposite it.

  No sooner was I seated than all eyes turned as the front door opened and, seconds later, Jonah Gingrich, the young carpenter every deputy in my department was searching for, walked into the room. I watched as one of Katie’s brothers strode to the door and, though he said nothing, gave him a look that could only be read to say he wasn’t welcome. Jonah however did speak and though I couldn’t understand what he said because he spoke in German, his words seemed to calm the other man and he stood down, moving aside to let Jonah proceed to Katie’s parents and the bier beyond them.

  Rebecca Hershberger hugged the boy and Samuel took his hand and said something to him softly that, even had they been speaking in English, I wouldn’t have been able to make out.

  He moved over to the coffin after that and placed on hand gently against it for just a brief moment as he muttered something in German that I did know roughly equated to ‘rest in peace’. He nodded at the minister and took a seat along the end wall at the front of the house, well away from where the family stood and the bier where Katie’s coffin rested.

  The minister cleared his throat and the others, realizing the time had come for the service, found seats. Hannah came and took a seat next to me. We shared a glance but didn’t exchange words.

  The funeral service was all in German and quite short, lasting less than half an hour. I remembered the congregants singing at the service of my father’s friend but that wasn’t done here. If any of the address even mentioned Katie, I couldn’t tell it. I wasn’t able to pick out her name from the eulogy that was given that seemed more like a sermon than a tribute to the deceased.

  When it ended. Katie’s father rose. He addressed us all in German and then again in English, probably specifically for my benefit, inviting us to supper. The family rose then and filed out with the minister following. Jonah Gingrich fell into line behind them.

  As Hannah and I stood, she asked, “Are you staying to eat?”

  I watched as one after the other, the line of folks filing out the door turned toward the back of the house until Jonah reached the doorway and turned left to go back out the front.

  “No,” I answered her. “I need to talk to someone.”

  Striding fast to catch the boy who was hustling toward a horse and an open wagon, I called out, “Not staying to fellowship with the family?”

  He looked back over his shoulder at me and then stopped short as if he was noticing me for the first time.

  “No, I have to get back.” He toed the gravel nervously.

  “Back where?”

  “To the family I’m staying with.”

  “Jonah, I’ve been looking for you, my whole department has been looking for you for the last couple of days.”

  “Am I in trouble?”

  Before I could answer him, the sound of a car door opening just behind me caught me off guard. Hannah was getting into her vehicle.

  I shook my head in confusion. “I thought you were going to stay?” I asked her.

  All she said was, “I can’t,” and then she closed the door and started her car.

  I stepped to the side of the driveway I was standing in the middle of and so did Jonah as she maneuvered away from the edge, did a sort of ‘K’ turn to get herself turned around and drove by us as I sketched a wave at her.

  “She couldn’t stay because she’s shunned,” Jonah said. You left; she would have had to sit and eat alone.”

  “I don’t understand; they were talking to her when I got here.”

  “No one will be rude ma’am but neither will they socialize.”

  “We really need to talk,” I said to him then, letting go of the strange Amish customs for the moment. “
It’s cold and I know you want to be on your way in that open rig before it gets much worse.”

  He nodded. “I’m only going to the Browning Road ‘Y’.”

  I was incredulous. “You’re staying along there?”

  He nodded.

  It was less than three miles from where we were standing.

  “I’ll follow along behind.”

  “Or you can meet me there and save yourself the frustration,” he grinned as he framed his reply.

  “You’ve got me there.” I really didn’t want to do the six mile per hour crawl a trip following his rig would take and I knew down deep that I could trust him. My gut told me there was a good reason why he disappeared and he would tell me in due time.

  He told me what farm to meet him at and I departed. Five minutes later I was parked at the base of a drive to a place I knew was owned by Mennonites. I waited there patiently for him in the warmth of my vehicle. Twenty minutes or so later, true to his word, his horse and wagon rig passed me by and he turned up the drive. I followed.

  I left everything in my vehicle including my gun belt. This conversation was going to be off duty and off the record. I helped him unhitch the horse and lead it to the barn where, while he fetched it water and then got it rubbed down a bit I began my informal interview.

  “Why are you staying here?”

  “I work with one of the guys whose family lives here. They’ve given me the bed of a daughter just recently married who now lives with her husband.”

  “So you’ve continued to go to work?”

  “Yes. He doesn’t drive. We ride in the van from here to the job site.”