by P. L. Gaus
Missy said, “She has a slight contusion over her shoulder blade. And Meredith admits in her note that she did shove her, causing her to fall. We can’t know if she did that on purpose.”
“What do you make,” Branden asked, “of Louise Herbeck’s carting clothes out of her sister’s house?”
Robertson answered. “She claims that she’s strapped for cash.”
“Could be,” Branden said. “But it’s a little bit suspicious. I’d expect her to be more bereaved by her sister’s death. At the very least, it seemed callous to me.”
Robertson said, “So I’ve got Lydia’s death as a tragic accident – involuntary manslaughter, if you believe Silver’s suicide note – and Silver’s death as a murder. Even if she wrote her own suicide note, it’ll be someone else who shot her.”
The professor asked, “What did you get from the scene at the Yost farm?”
“Just what you’d expect,” Missy said. “Two sets of footprints, overlapping one another, going up the hill before the storm, and coming down in the middle of it. There are a lot of Silver’s boot prints in the mud around the body, as if she tried to check for a pulse or something.”
“OK, but Missy,” Robertson said. “It’s the two fingerprints that are interesting.”
“Right,” Missy said. “Getting to that. There are two sets of fingerprints on the suicide note. One set from Silver, and another one that’s not in the system. So, we can’t identify it.”
“Except,” Robertson said, “we’ve gotten a warrant for Louise Herbeck’s fingerprints, and a search warrant for her trailer and car. We’ll be looking for the gun.”
“You going to wait until morning?” the professor asked.
“Oh no,” Robertson said. “Pat and Ricky are over there now, searching her place on Harrison Road. I’ll have her prints tonight, and I’ll also know if she’s got a gun hidden in her car or trailer.”
“Could she really have killed her sister?” Caroline asked.
“That’s the thing,” Missy said. “The muzzle of the gun was back about four feet from Silver’s cheek when she was shot. There’s gunpowder stippling on her face, but it’s a widely scattered spray, so she can’t have shot herself. It’s centered on her cheek, but it spreads radially out across her entire face and diminishes at every angle, with distance from the entry wound. I call it a radial differential. It gives me the approximate distance to the muzzle.”
“So that’s a wide spray,” Branden said. “Four feet to the muzzle?”
“Yes,” Missy said, smiling.
“Was there any gsr on Silver’s hands?” Branden asked.
“None,” Missy said. “Nothing on her hands. It was all on her face and neck.”
“And you can’t dust the gun for prints,” Branden commented.
“We can dust it when we find it,” the sheriff said confidently. “And we are going to find it someday. You can all count on that.”
Chapter 17
Wednesday, August 30
10:05 AM
Professor Branden’s meeting with President Benetti was to take place Wednesday morning, in the Millersburg College Trustee’s board room, on the third floor of Jadet Hall, just down the corridor from Benetti’s office. It was on their schedules for the quarter-hour right after his 9:00 class on slavery.
Branden climbed the worn marble steps inside Jadet Hall, and twice on the way up in the cool and shadowed stairwell, he paused with his thoughts. He hadn’t slept well Tuesday night. He hadn’t been able to set aside his questions about the Schells, and his questions about what it was that they really did with their ministry. And as he had laid awake, he also ruminated over the crime scene evidence, the visit by Junior Yost, and the sorrowful response by Junior, while they had traveled around the campus that night, seeing the places and things that his Aunt Lydia had loved so much. Plus, all through the night, concerns about Mary and her little Esther had pestered him. How troublesome had it been for her, married to John? Where could she have gone for help, if the bishop was unwilling to step in? What must she be thinking, now that she was out in the English world?
Then there was Lydia, who had obviously been searching for Mary. Had Lydia known something more than just that Mary had reached her limit with John? Who had convinced Mary that leaving her husband, her family and her church was a good solution to her problems? All through the night, Caroline’s most fundamental question had found its way into the forefront of his consciousness. Why would a mother leave her older children behind?
When Branden arrived inside the board room, Benetti was already seated and working on documents at the long, polished boardroom table. She was a slight woman with short black hair, and she had a tendency to smile in almost any circumstance. She had tried to devote herself to academic issues, but her main responsibility was always to raise money for the college’s endowment. For the meeting that morning, she had placed herself at the head of the table, and a chair on the corner beside her had been pulled out for Branden.
Benetti held her peace while Branden took his seat, and then without preamble, she looked up from her paperwork with an apologetic smile. “Look Mike,” she said softly. “Your firearms museum is causing some speculation. You know we’ve talked about this before. It’s prime real estate on campus.”
“It’s a unique museum, Nora,” Branden said. “There isn’t a duplicate anywhere in the country.”
Benetti took her glasses off and smiled solicitously. She relaxed her posture, and she leaned forward to rest her elbows on the table in front of her. “Mike,” she said, “it doesn’t bother me, particularly, but we’re dealing with a complicated science. It’s neuroscience. It does necessarily involve neurotoxin research, and the environmental impact studies tell us that the only place on campus where we can locate the isolation labs is your museum’s location. The issues are air handling and scrubbing and water decontamination. For that, we need the space that your museum occupies.”
“Nora, this couldn’t come at a worse time.”
“I know. I am truly sorry about your student. Everyone is shocked. Everyone is sad. But I want to move forward with this new major, and I want to recruit the best senior faculty to the college. So, it’s more complicated than you realize.”
“OK, I hear you, Nora. I hear you, but I need some time with this.”
Benetti nodded. “What about Lydia Schwartz, Mike? Was it just an accident?”
“I’ve still got to run some things down, Nora.”
“But it was an accident, right?”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“How?”
“Lydia’s sister seems to have left her husband. She’s been missing for three weeks.”
“Which is it, Mike? She’s left, or she’s been missing? There’s a difference.”
“I know,” Branden said, frowning.
“Your best guess?”
“I’m not sure, Nora. I’m really not sure.”
“Isn’t it possible that she’s been harmed?”
“I’m not sure, Nora,” Branden said. “I hadn’t wanted to think in those terms, but yes. It’s possible.”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
“How did it go with President Benetti?” Caroline asked.
She was driving her blue Miata with the top down after lunch, out past Mt. Hope to TR 606, to see Mose and Ida Schwartzentruber, and to check on the Yost children.
In the passenger’s seat, Branden laughed at Caroline’s question. “It went as well as we could have expected. The location of my museum is the problem. It’s where they want to place the neuroscience labs.”
“Really then, Michael. Should you be out here like this? Off campus, I mean. If your museum is in play?”
“I’ll be back in time for my afternoon class. I’ll talk to some of the professors.”
“That’s not my point.”
“I know that. Should we turn around?”
“Don’t be silly, Michael. I need to check on the child
ren. I need to meet their grandparents.”
“So, do I. Check on the children, I mean.”
“Eggshells, Michael. You need to be walking on eggshells for your museum problem.”
“First the Schwartzentrubers,” Branden said. “I’ll call Lawrence. He can help us while we’re out here.”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
“Mallory,” Lawrence answered the professor’s call. “Professor Branden’s office.”
“It’s Mike. I need you to make a couple of calls.”
“Okay who?”
“Second call, to Kathryn Rausch. Trustee. I need an appointment with her.”
“Okay when do you want the meeting, Mike?”
“I’ll fit into her schedule. At her earliest.”
“What about?”
“Money, Lawrence. It’s always about money, when you’re talking to the trustees.”
“Can this wait until the council of the Board? She’ll be here for that.”
“Not really. I’ll go up to Cleveland if her schedule is tight, but ask politely if she can come down here instead. This week or next.”
“And the first call?”
“Pam Stone. Find out if she’s willing to tell us anything quietly about Benetti’s moving forward with construction. I need to know how much time we have.”
“And if Pam knows something?”
“When you call Rausch, Lawrence, spend a little time telling her what you and Pam know about all of this.”
Chapter 18
Wednesday, August 30
12:35 PM
When the Brandens pulled in at Mose and Ida Schwartzentruber’s drive, Alice Shewmon was sitting in a wicker rocker, out on the front porch at the farmhouse. Her black pony tail was pulled around in front, and as she scribbled notes rapidly on a pad, she was fiddling with the strands of her hair. The Brandens climbed the wooden steps together, and Alice turned her head up to smile at them, looking like a woman whose intensity was matched only by her determination.
Caroline spoke a greeting and brought a straight-backed porch chair around so that she could sit beside Shewmon. “You look like you’ve been out here for a while,” she said to Alice.
“Since 9:00,” Alice laughed. “I don’t think I’ve made any progress here. I’ve been trying to teach them about vaccinations. They say it’s for the bishop to decide.”
“OK,” Caroline said, chuckling. “Good luck with the bishop.”
Upon hearing that, the professor left Caroline with Alice on the front porch, and he rapped loudly on the porch door. A woman answered with a call from the far back reaches of the house, “It’s still open, Miss Shewmon.”
Branden entered the farmhouse through the front screened door. Inside, on the bare living room floor, two of the Yost girls were down on their hands and knees, playing a game of marbles. They had the circle surrounding the marbles laid out with a length of brown yarn, with its ends tied together. They looked up warily when Branden approached.
“Where is your grandmother?” he asked the girls, and one of them pointed woodenly to the back of the house, saying only, “Laundry.” As Branden moved past the girls, they tracked him with their suspicious eyes.
Branden sorted his way through to the back porch, and there a wrinkled Amish woman in a black dress and a black bonnet was stirring a galvanized tub of sudsy water with a canoe paddle, turning the clothes over and around to immerse them. She was a slight woman, and thin. The hem of her full-length black dress brushed the floorboards of the porch. She was Ida Schwartzentruber, Lydia and Mary’s mother, and she was not a fan of the professor.
She said tersely, without more than a glance to Branden, “You caused this, Mr. Branden. You are the reason that she’s dead.”
“No, Ida,” Branden said, trying for a smile. “Lydia made her own choices.”
Ida frowned, and she didn’t speak. She didn’t look up from her washtub.
“Are all the Yost children over here, now?” he asked.
“Two are still at school,” Ida said, continuing to stir her wash with the paddle. The bonnet so completely covered the side of her face, that Branden could not see her expression. “Except little Esther,” she added. “They say she is with her mother, but I don’t know that for certain. The other young one, Jonas, is napping. Frankly, I don’t know why you’d care, after all the trouble you English have caused. Dithy Silver was a decent enough woman, but she didn’t know what was right for our Mary.”
“Please, Mrs. Schwartzentruber. My wife and I came here to see about the children. And to see about you and Mose. Are you all going to be OK out here? Is there anything we can do to help? We know how sad you must be.”
Ida stood her canoe paddle against the house and turned to face the professor. “We are fine. And what would you know about sadness? Has anyone you loved ever died?”
Branden stepped back a little bit. He bowed his head and said, “We lost three children to miscarriages, Mrs. Schwartzentruber. Like I said, we know how very sad you must be.”
Ida softened and said, “I am sorry, Mr. Branden. Sorry for your loss, but our Lydia got that scholarship from you. That’s when she left us to go English. That’s when all the sorrows began for us. When Lydia left. You’ll have to forgive me if I remind myself every day that you are the ones who did that to her.”
“I’m sorry,” Branden said. “I’m here with my wife Caroline. I was across the road last night, after they found your daughter. After they found Lydia’s body. I am sorry for your loss, too. I am brokenhearted about it.”
Ida rubbed her fingers nervously on her work apron, and she pulled open the back screened door to her house. As she went stiffly inside, she said, without looking at Branden, “We have no use for your English Social Services, here, Professor. We can take care of our own.”
Branden followed her inside to a large kitchen. He waited while she leaned over to add small slats of wood into the belly of her cooking stove. “Mose is out in the fields,” she said, standing upright and facing Branden directly. “You’ll need to talk with Mose,” she said as if dismissing him.
“Please tell me, Mrs. Schwartzentruber. Where has Mary Yost been for the last three weeks?”
“You’ll need to speak with my husband,” Ida said sternly. She turned and left the room abruptly.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Out on the front porch again, Branden found Caroline and Alice Shewmon standing together at the end of the porch. They were talking quietly, side by side, and Alice looked to Branden to be considerably more perplexed than before. She was listening intently to what Caroline was saying, and she was shaking her head as Caroline spoke to her. The professor thought better of interrupting, so he took a seat in a wicker rocker, and he listened to Caroline.
“Faith, yes,” Caroline was saying. “But they have rules based on how they interpret the Bible. And they have rules based on what their bishops and preachers tell them about traditions. Their peasant lifestyle is as important to them as your career is to you. They’ll never abandon their traditions. It is what makes them Amish.”
Shaking her head, Alice said, “The children? They don’t have a choice. They’re the most in danger here. Really, I think I can help them. I think I can convince them.”
Caroline led Shewmon to a rocker beside the professor, and the two women sat down together, Caroline beside Alice as before.
“What can we do?” Alice asked. “There’s so much I could do to help, here. I thought I’d be able to reason with them. But they’re all so reserved. Unapproachable. Even the children. I can barely get a word out of them. It’s like they don’t trust English people at all.”
Branden nodded. “They are reserved, Alice. They really do not trust us. They won’t accept your help. They’ll never abandon their lifestyle. And Schwartzentruber kids are taught not to talk to us English. They’re taught to be suspicious of us.”
Alice scoffed. “They need to let me help them, at least with vaccinations.”
Caroline stood with her. “We’re trying to tell you something important, Alice, about their traditions.”
Shewmon took up her bag, clipped down the steps and turned back on the driveway to look up at the Brandens, saying, “I’m going to find a way around these traditions. I’ve got some things to show the bishop. I’m hopeful, and I’m not giving up.”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Mose Schwartzentruber came into his house through the back-porch door. He seemed surprised to see Caroline in his kitchen. She was helping Ida there, cutting thin slices from a loaf of warm bread. Without speaking to her, Mose came up to the cutting board and gently moved Caroline’s hand over so that her next slice of bread would be doubly thick.
The professor joined them in the kitchen. In his fingers, he was rolling three glass marbles around. “It has been a long time since I played a game of marbles,” he remarked.
He held his hand forward and said, “I am Michael Branden. I am a reserve deputy with the sheriff’s department. Lydia was my student at the college. This is my wife Caroline. I am hoping that you remember us.” He handed the three marbles to Mose.
Mose nodded and took the marbles. He did not offer to take Branden’s hand. He gave an appraising look to his wife Ida, and then looking to Branden but not to Caroline, he said, “I know who you are, of course. We can talk on the front porch.”
Once they were all seated outside, Mose said, “That Social Services lady is not welcome here anymore. We’ll never let her take our grandchildren away.”
“I understand that,” Branden said. “It’ll never come to that.”
“Have you actually talked with this woman?” Mose asked.
“Yes,” Caroline said. “We’re trying to get her to understand.”
Mose did not turn to Caroline when she spoke. Addressing only the professor, he ignored her rather purposefully. “Do you know where Mary is, Mr. Branden?” he asked. “She’s our daughter, too.”
Caroline smiled knowingly at his rebuff and held silence.
