Harmless as Doves: An Amish-Country Mystery

by P. L. Gaus

  Orton laughed. “There has to be about a thousand miles of river to search. And Old Connie knows it all better than anyone else. So, the chances of finding him are pretty slim.”

  Branden said, “We still don’t know who killed Glenn Spiegle.”

  Orton laughed again. “I’d put my money on Conrad Render. For all three of them. Billy Winters, Glenn Spiegle, and Jacob Miller. It’s the kind of play Render would make.”

  “OK,” Ricky said. “He killed Spiegle and Winters because of his daughter. But why kill Miller?”

  “Can’t say,” Orton said. “But you can be sure about Spiegle and Winters.”

  “That would mean,” Branden said, “that Render found out where Spiegle had gone. So, how’d he find him all the way up in Ohio, hiding out with the Amish? Spiegle wouldn’t even need a driver’s license in Ohio, if he wanted to hide there. You know, disappear.”

  “Jacob Miller is the only connection I know of,” Orton said. “He was staying with a Mennonite lady, over in Sarasota’s Pinecraft.”

  “How do you know that?” Ricky asked.

  “He wrote her phone number in the margin of his plane ticket. We called her—a Mrs. William Laver—and she said he had made half a dozen trips down here, over the last year or so.”

  “We should go talk to her,” Branden said.

  Orton got up, saying, “I’ll get you a map.”

  Niell and Branden followed Orton up the stairs, and Ricky said, “I think we should talk to the driver, too.”

  “Stevens Clark,” Orton said over his shoulder. “He’s in Bradenton’s Manatee Memorial. Maybe he can tell you what Miller was doing to get himself shot.”

  Orton went into one of the first-floor offices and pulled a folded map out of a desk drawer. When he handed it to Niell back in the hallway, the professor asked, “Is there somewhere else that Miller might typically have gone? You know, a place where Amish people from Pinecraft like to gather? Or a favorite restaurant or beach?”

  Orton smiled. “You’re going to be driving right past the north end of Lido Beach, and you ought to stop there and look around before you go see this Mrs. Laver. It’s right on the county’s bus route, and the kids from Pinecraft ride the bus to go swim in the ocean. I think you’ll find it interesting.”

  “Do you think our Miller would have gone there?” Branden asked.

  “No,” Orton smiled, “but you ought to get a feeling for how Amish live in Florida before you talk to Mrs. Laver. It’ll help you understand the Pinecraft community better.”

  “Is it just the kids who swim at Lido Beach,” Niell asked, “or adults, too?”

  “Mostly kids. The older people ride farther, to the park at South Lido Beach. There’s a lot of trees there, and they have picnics in the shade.”

  Niell shook his head and smiled. “This isn’t anything like what we know about the Amish up in Ohio.”

  “That’s my point,” Orton said. “If Jacob Miller stayed with Mrs. Laver in Pinecraft, nobody would have thought it was unusual that he was out running around from time to time. On those county buses, the Amish can go just about anywhere. Lido Beach, Siesta Key, even up here to Bradenton Beach and Coquina Beach. And if they don’t want to wait for a bus, they rent a van and hire a driver to take them to the malls or to Walmart. So, Jacob Miller would have fit right in with the Amish community at Pinecraft. They get around quite handily, all over the Sarasota/Bradenton area, even though none of them owns a car.”

  26

  Friday October 9

  11:30 A.M.

  CAL PULLED his truck into Darba’s drive under a gray overhang of clouds, and before he had switched the engine off, his cell phone rang. He put the truck into park, checked the display, answered the call, and said, “Hi, Mike. You in Florida yet?”

  “Bradenton Beach,” Branden said. “We just talked to the cop that Rachel has been talking with.”

  Branden was standing on the concrete steps at the top level of the police station, waiting for Ricky to retrieve the car from a side lot and turn it around on the narrow, sandy street in front of the building. While he waited, he told Cal what they had learned about Conrad Render’s murdering Jacob Miller, and about Spiegle’s driving drunk with Billy Winters, causing the death of Ginny Lynn Render.

  Cal listened and then asked, “Is there anything in that saga that I can tell Jacob Miller’s family? Something to ease their pain?”

  “He was shot, Cal. Close range, with a twelve-gauge shotgun, and we don’t yet know why. I’m not sure they need to know the details, right now. Maybe it’s enough for them to know that he was murdered, and save the details until later, once we know more about motive.”

  “Leon Shetler is over with the Millers. I can let him decide what to tell them.”

  “OK. Your call.”

  “How do they know who shot him?” Cal asked.

  Branden explained about Stevens Clark’s identifying Conrad Render as the shooter, and then he said, “But I was wondering. Why would Jacob Miller have been mixed up with this Conrad Render in the first place?”

  Cal switched his engine off and climbed out of the warm truck into cold October air. “We can figure Render would have wanted Spiegle dead. Maybe even Billy Winters. But I couldn’t say about Jacob Miller.”

  “OK, but there should be records of Conrad Render’s traveling to Ohio to hunt for Spiegle. And what if he made several trips before he found him?”

  “That still wouldn’t tell us why Jacob Miller was mixed up in any of this.”

  “No.”

  Cal thought. “Maybe this is related to why Jacob Miller was so confident he could get Spiegle to marry Vesta.”

  “You going to talk to her?”

  “After I check on Darba.”

  “Caroline said she’s down at Jeremiah Miller’s place,” Branden said.

  “I’ll drive down there this afternoon.”

  “This could be hardest on Vesta, Cal, if she wasn’t getting along with her father.”

  “I know, but maybe she or Crist Burkholder can tell us why her father would be mixed up with your Render guy.”

  Branden started down the steps to Ricky’s car. “Is Leon Shetler going to be able to help Miller’s family, so you can go talk with Vesta? Or do you need to help Shetler at the Millers?”

  “I think I should talk with Vesta. Let him work with the family.”

  “OK, Cal. Maybe he can learn something that we can use, trying to figure out why Render killed Miller. And Billy Winters.”

  “Where are you going now?” Cal asked.

  “Pinecraft. I want to see if anyone there can tell us why Miller made so many trips down here.”

  Standing out under a gray canopy of clouds, Cal said, “Maybe Rachel can help us figure out how many trips he made to Florida.”

  “Wouldn’t his wife know that?”

  “Jacob Miller was not the kind of man to explain himself to women.”

  “Caroline told me he was abusive.”

  “I’m sure he was.”

  “What could Rachel do?”

  “Check on bus tickets. See how many trips Miller made. See how long he stayed.”

  “The last time, Cal, he came down here on an airplane.”

  “Maybe Rachel can find out if he flew any other times. Or find out where he stayed.”

  “He stayed with a Mrs. Laver. In Pinecraft.”

  “You’re ahead of me.”

  “He had a phone number written on his plane ticket.”

  After a pause, Cal asked, “You really going to Pinecraft?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “I always wanted to visit there. It has got to be quite some place.”

  “It’s just Amish and Mennonite, right?”

  “Yeah, Mike. Amish who go to the Florida beaches for winter. Lots of Holmes County Amish do that, and maybe that’s all that was involved here with Miller.”

  “Now you’re getting ahead of me, Cal.”

  “Point is, maybe that’s all Jaco
b Miller was doing. Falling in love with Florida.”

  “Not if he got shot by the same man who wanted Spiegle dead.”

  “No, I guess not,” Cal said.

  “You going to tell Darba about Billy?”

  “Are you sure he’s dead?”

  “The cop down here is sure,” Branden said.

  “I’ll tell her once Evie Carson gets here, Mike. I can’t risk it before then.”

  * * *

  While he was still out front at Darba’s house, Cal called Rachel on her cell, and she answered after one ring, with a curt, “What?”

  Surprised, Cal asked, “What’s all that frustration, young lady?”

  “Sorry, Dad. Busy, is all. Thought you were someone calling from work. Didn’t check my display.”

  “You’re not at work?”

  “I’m back home, Dad. My office is crawling with DEA agents, and they’ve locked me out.”

  “So, you were right about them.”

  “Of course. They’re impounding all of my computers. Boxing up all my papers. It’s the same all over the office.”

  “So, you probably don’t have much to do,” Cal said, intending it to be lighthearted.

  “I’ve got more, Dad! I’ve got to do everything from home, with no files. No documents. No resources. And I’ve got a payroll coming up.”

  “OK, OK. I just thought maybe you could work on something for me. But maybe it can wait.”

  “What is it?” Rachel asked, calmer. “Maybe I can fit it in.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Just tell me, Dad. I’ll help if I can.”

  “OK, well, I need travel itineraries. For Jacob Miller, going down to Pinecraft on the Pioneer Trails buses. We need to know about all of his trips, going back maybe a year.”

  “How would I go about doing that, Dad?”

  “I thought maybe you could ‘hack into’ something. Maybe hack the bus company records. Airlines, too.”

  “I can’t just ‘hack into’ stuff, Dad.”

  “I thought that was the type of thing you could do.”

  “Oh, it is. But, it might get us both into more trouble than it would be worth. Especially with the DEA watching every move I make.”

  “Oh.”

  “Why don’t you just call the bus company? Ask them straight up?”

  “Well, I need to check on Darba, right now,” Cal said. “Then I need to go see Vesta.”

  “This for the sheriff’s office?”

  “Well, yes. Ricky Niell and Mike Branden need to know. They’re down in Florida.”

  After a pause, Rachel said, “Let me see what I can do.”

  “Maybe I’ll just ask Bruce Robertson,” Cal said.

  “What’s he gonna do, Dad? With Ricky down in Florida, he’s got to be stretched pretty thin on deputies.”

  “Well, that’s sort of my problem, really.”

  “I’ll ask him,” Rachel said. “He’s coming here for a lunchtime lesson, anyway, and if what you need is really the sheriff’s business, maybe he can clear it for me to do the search.”

  Smiling, Cal said, “Maybe while you’ve got him there, you could teach him how to hack into something.”

  “That’s not what I do, Dad.”

  27

  Friday, October 9

  12:00 noon

  RICKY DROVE the professor south out of Bradenton Beach on Gulf Coast Drive, skirting the beaches to their right, falling in with the slow tourist traffic, as drivers watched for the rare parking spot to open up along the sandy berm. After they passed the tall trees lining the picnic grounds at Coquina Beach, traffic sped up, and they soon had crossed the drawbridge over Longboat Pass, with sailboats on the luminous green waters of the Gulf to their right, white sails bright against a sky so blue that it seemed improbable to men from the gray north of Ohio.

  On Longboat Key, they passed fenced properties where sprawling coastal mansions anchored the sand, with front-facing views of the Gulf waters. Farther south, they could see taller condominium buildings and towering hotels fronted by wide expanses of lawn and stands of palms, many of the distant buildings done in pastel colors, most sporting bright orange, quarter-round ceramic roofing tiles. Once they had driven over New Pass, with water so green that it seemed to be lit for effect from below, they entered the traffic circle in St. Armands and curved around counterclockwise, passing elegant shops painted in bright, tropical colors. The streets were thick with pedestrian shoppers in summer attire, strolling among shops accented with flowering shrubs and clusters of classical white statues, most of them copies of originals from Italy or France.

  They had driven three-fourths of the way around the circle before realizing they had missed the turnoff for Lido Beach, so they continued around the circle and angled off toward the west once they had gotten back to the right spot. After two city blocks lined with expensive homes, they reached the sand dunes at the Gulf Coast and followed the street as it curved toward the south, skirting Lido Beach to their right.

  Tall condominiums and hotels stood on the beach properties ahead, but before they reached them, a parking lot appeared on the right, and Niell pulled in and found a rare free spot at the back of the lot. The two men got out of the car. Branden laid his sport coat on the seat and Niell locked up. They crossed the sandy parking lot to wooden steps and an arched boardwalk that led over the dunes toward the water.

  The white sand of Lido Beach stretched for fifty yards down to green water. It extended both to their left and to their right along an arching coastline of several miles, dotted with bright beach umbrellas in a variety of colors stuck in the sand, like a strand of jewels strung along the water’s edge. To the north, the coastline eventually turned in at New Pass, at the top of Lido Key, and to the south, the arch of white sand and green surf led the eyes into the distance, where tall hotels on Siesta Key shimmered behind a hazy spray of wind-blown surf and sand, like a border of white marble monuments separating emerald water from ultramarine sky.

  On the beach in front of the men, there were easily a thousand vacationers lying out either in the sun or in the shade of their umbrellas. Nearly as many swimmers played in a light surf as a gentle rhythm of low waves broke slowly as soft foam on the sand. Niell and Branden stood at the end of the wooden walkway, both somewhat taken aback by the colorful spectacle of sun-bleached ease displayed before them, their northern Ohio biorhythms—braced for the oncoming winter back home—clashing with the scene before them.

  Eventually, Branden asked, “Should we walk along the water and see if we spot any Amish kids?” but as he spoke, a young Amish woman in a long gray dress and black bonnet came over the boardwalk behind them and started across the sand toward the water, carrying a basket and a small red and white cooler with the Pepsi logo. When she had threaded her way between the sun umbrellas and the many people stretched out on the sand, she spread a towel from her basket beside two other beach towels at the high-tide line and sat down facing the water. Soon two younger Amish girls in two-piece bathing suits came out of the water and joined the Amish woman at the towels, where they dried themselves and sat down to put on their own bonnets, over hair that was wrapped in buns at the backs of their heads. Niell pointed beyond the surf, and there in chest-high water stood three boys with pale white shoulders and black Dutch haircuts, waving back at the girls on the beach.

  Branden shaded his eyes and gazed along the stretch of white sand toward the north, and soon he was able to point Niell’s attention to a young Amish couple about forty yards up the beach, standing at water’s edge in traditional attire, the woman’s long forest-green dress snapping in the ocean breeze, the man holding his straw hat on his head as he watched sailboats on the horizon. Taking his hat off, the man said something to his partner, and she laid her head back and laughed as if he had spun her at a dance. He spoke again, and she studied his face for a moment, and then smiling as if she shouldn’t trust him, she started moving tentatively into the water, where the small waves cresting near s
hore stirred the hem of her dress at her ankles. The Amish man waved her farther out, and she hesitated. Again he waved her forward, and again she laughed and waded deeper into the water, until the skirt of her long green dress was swimming in the waves at her hips. Laughing as if something were tickling her, she called for him to join her, and he sat immediately to take off his boots and socks. Soon he was out with her, his denim trousers hip-deep in the ocean water, the two splashing each other like young children when the waves crested around their waists.

  Branden looked at Niell, and Niell laughed, saying, “Professor, did you ever expect to see anything like that?”

  Branden had no answer for the sergeant. He just scratched at his beard, shook his head, and started back toward their car. As they were opening the car doors, a SCAT bus pulled to a stop along the sidewalk bordering the parking lot, and four more Amish kids climbed down from the bus carrying towels, baskets, and coolers of their own. Branden pulled his sport coat out of the car and got in with it laid across his lap, but Niell stood beside the car to watch as the kids made their way across the parking lot to the wooden steps at the edge of the sand. Once they had disappeared over the dune, Niell said, “This Pinecraft has got to be something to see,” and he got in shaking his head, waited for the professor to buckle up, and drove out of the lot.

  Back in traffic at St. Armands Circle, Niell drove halfway around the circle and headed east over the high-arching John Ringling Causeway, into the stone and glass architecture of downtown Sarasota. Then they drove around the bay, south on State Route 41, passing the parade of boats at the Bayfront Marina and the modern sculptures lining the waterfront walkways. At Bahia Vista, they turned east again and followed the wide boulevard for a mile, crossing over a narrow channel past the little hand-lettered sign for Pinecraft Park. There, they entered an Amish community of summer cottages, small houses, and trailers bearing familiar Holmes County names: Helmuth, Wengerd, Yoder, Weaver, Keim, Gingerich, and Miller.

  Some of the houses mixed into the closely packed neighborhood were old and relatively stately, but most seemed to be afterthoughts on the original property. Next to an old Florida bungalow with a shaded front porch, there was a twenty-by-twenty brick hut with a tired aluminum overhang and an old air conditioner propped into a small window on two-by-four posts anchored on cinder blocks in the sand.