Stars for Lydia

by P. L. Gaus

  Again, the Schells exchanged puzzled expressions. Then Donna said, “I saw her Friday afternoon, a week ago, when I put her on the bus. Up in Wooster.”

  Robertson asked, “Was that to travel up to see the Culps? To talk with the marriage counselors?”

  “Why, yes,” Ed replied. “We thought she could really use their help.”

  “Help with what?” Branden asked.

  “Why all the questions?” Ed asked.

  “We’re worried,” Robertson said. “Her sister Lydia has died, and Mary is now missing. Then also you thought her home life was bad enough to warrant counseling with psychologists from out of town. Is that all a coincidence?”

  “I suppose it is,” Ed said. “You don’t think the woman who called you was really Mary Yost?”

  “Her son, John Junior, told us,” Branden said, “that it was not the voice of his mother on that call.”

  “You must have recorded the call,” Donna said.

  “Well,” Robertson said and hesitated. “Well, yes, I recorded the phone call. I had gotten one earlier from this woman, but all she did then was leave a voice mail message.”

  Ed rolled a smile across his lips. “You didn’t play the voice mail message for Junior? You could have done that a lot sooner.”

  “I guess I could have,” Robertson said. “But this call was more recent, and I just went for that. I didn’t think this was the kind of squabble that a sheriff ought to get into. You know, a family squabble. But it doesn’t matter. It’s the same voice on the earlier voicemail, and on the phone call I recorded, and John Junior says that the voice is not his mother’s.”

  “That’s curious,” Ed commented nervously.

  Branden asked, “She’s Old Order, right? Where do you suppose she got a phone?”

  Ed shrugged his shoulders and lifted his flat palms. “Your guess is as good as mine, Professor.”

  Branden nodded and turned for the steps. Robertson held out his hand to shake Ed Schell’s with a “Thank you, folks,” and he descended the steps with the professor. Ed was closing his door when Robertson said, with a contemplative tone, “I don’t know, Ed.”

  The sheriff came back up the steps, leaving Branden down on the side walk. Under the yellow light again, Robertson said, “Really Ed, if you put it all together, we think someone is helping Mary hide.”

  Donna used an incredulous tone to say, “You think us? Really, you think we’re helping her?”

  “It’s a thought,” Robertson said.

  “We tried to give her the help that we thought she needed,” Donna said with a trace of heat in her voice. “We’ve already told you that.”

  “Yes,” Robertson said. “You’ve told us that. You put her on a bus, Mrs. Schell. To go see the Culps for marriage counseling.”

  Donna gave a simple nod of her head. Ed said nothing.

  Branden asked, “Was her little Esther with her?” He came back onto the porch to stand with the sheriff.

  “What?” Donna asked.

  “Yes, of course,” Ed responded at the same time.

  Branden shot Robertson a look and shook his head for the sheriff. The sheriff stepped forward, and the professor stepped back. This they had planned. An aggressive tone for Robertson was also something they had planned for this eventuality.

  “I want to know,” Robertson intoned authoritatively, “where Mary Yost is.”

  Looking spiked with anxiety, Donna folded her hands in front, saying, “We really don’t know.”

  “I don’t believe that,” Robertson insisted. “I’ve got deputies at your brown house out on TR 354. What are they gonna find?”

  Ed pulled gently on Donna’s elbow to move her back a step, and he came forward as if guarding her. “We haven’t done anything wrong, Sheriff,” he said.

  Robertson pressed on, speaking to Ed Schell. “What are those Amish people out there gonna tell us, Mr. Schell?” He turned to Donna and said, “What are those people gonna say, Mrs. Schell?”

  Donna suffered a rosy blush in her cheeks. “We’re helping them,” she said meekly. “We are missionaries, and we’re just helping them.”

  Branden asked, “And your Omaha church?”

  Ed spoke up quickly. “They are not involved.”

  Robertson asked Donna, “Are these Amish people, or English?”

  “Who?” Donna asked, as if confused.

  “At your brown house, Mrs. Schell. Amish or English?”

  “Christians,” Ed said, standing up straighter. “They are just Christians, now. Mennonites. We’ve done nothing wrong.”

  Stepping forward, Donna said, “We’re helping them. We’re just helping them. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “Like you helped Mary and Esther?” Robertson asked.

  Evenly, Ed said, “We’re just trying to help people.”

  Robertson eased back a step and said, “Sorry for pushing, folks. I just needed to know.”

  The sheriff stepped down off the porch. He was headed for his Crown Vic when Ed Schell said, “That’s awfully rough treatment, Sheriff. For good people who are just trying to help.”

  Robertson tilted his head at that, turned back to Ed and said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Schell. Sorry that you don’t like it.”

  “But not sorry to have done it?” Ed challenged.

  “Sorry,” Robertson said as he came back up the steps. Branden was still on the porch.

  “It’s OK, Ed,” Donna said. “They’re just doing their jobs.”

  “Just a few more questions,” Robertson said. “And then we’ll get out of your hair.”

  Branden addressed Donna. “You told us that it was just Mary who traveled to Parma on the bus.”

  Donna stammered a bit. “I must be confused. I guess I really don’t remember.”

  Branden arched a brow. “It’s rather an important detail, Mrs. Schell.”

  “I’m all flustered. It’s late. Can’t some of this wait until morning?”

  Robertson said, “Yes, sure,” and he pulled lightly on the professor’s elbow. The two men went down the porch steps again, and Robertson paused there to ask, “How would it be if we came back at 9:00? First thing in the morning, I mean. How would that be?”

  “Why?” Ed asked. “We’ve answered your questions.”

  Robertson came back a few steps toward the porch. Speaking up to the Schells, he said, “We are just worried, folks. We need to be certain that no one has hurt Mary Yost. And there’s the matter of the little girl Esther. Surely you can understand that. We need to be certain that no one has hurt them.”

  Donna bristled a bit and said, “We haven’t hurt anyone. We’re not like that.”

  Robertson spoke up aggressively. “Is Mary Yost still alive?”

  “What?” Donna gasped.

  “How would we know?” Ed asked.

  “OK,” Robertson said as he came back up the porch steps. “OK,” he said. “But we’re still worried. There’s already been one tragic death in that family, and no one can tell us where Mary is. Or little Esther.”

  “You should look to her husband,” Donna said anxiously.

  “We’ve got to ask the questions,” Robertson said. “We started with you two, because you are close in town. We’ll also talk with the Culps, in the morning.”

  From the side walkway, Branden pressed a statement forward. “The Church of True Believers,” – he came up onto the porch to join the sheriff – “owns a house in Fort Wayne.”

  “So?” Ed asked. “There are a lot of houses in Fort Wayne. Churches do own some of them. That’s certainly not illegal.”

  “Do you know anything about this church’s house, Mr. Schell?” Branden asked.

  “Of course not.”

  “They also own the brown house,” Branden said, “The one that you all went to, over south of 39. The house where you took four Amish people just this Friday. Is that just a coincidence? Because they’re listed on the mortgage, along with you.”

  “This is starting to get a
nnoying,” Ed said.

  Roughly, Robertson asked, “Do you know where Mary Yost is, Mr. Schell?”

  Forcefully, Donna said, “What kind of question is that?”

  Ed pulled again on Donna’s elbow, but she resisted him, saying, “They are safe, now, Sheriff. You’ve asked your questions. Now really, you need to stop this. It’s insulting. And like we said, it’s late.”

  “Safe from what?” Robertson asked.

  Ed showed a touch of heat. Sternly he started to exclaim, “Safe from . . . . ,”

  “Ed!” Donna shouted, stopping him.

  Sternly, Branden said, “You’ve been lying.”

  Robertson angrily said, “Don’t you realize how much of our time you’ve wasted?”

  Ed stood tall, and Donna wore a satisfied smile. Robertson stepped down off the porch, and Branden followed him.

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  Once they had driven off in the Crown Vic, Branden said, “We need to go at them again.”

  “No doubt,” the sheriff said gruffly.

  “I don’t trust anything they’ve said, Bruce. I don’t trust anything that I thought I knew about this case. For all I know, Mary Yost has been dead all along.”

  “You’re talking about a situation where a dozen people are involved in a conspiracy, Mike, here and in Parma, Fort Wayne and Omaha.”

  The professor held silence and shook his head. “We’re still going to search the Yost farm?” he asked eventually.

  “Count on it, Mike. First thing tomorrow. The bishop is expecting us.”

  Chapter 32

  Sunday, September 3

  7:00 AM

  By the time Professor Branden had reached the Yost farm on Sunday morning, the barnyard between the horse barn and the farmhouse was tangled with the sheriff’s vehicles. Branden knew he was there to watch. That would be his role. Chief Deputy Dan Wilsher was managing a sizeable crew of deputies. Captain Bobby Newell led his detectives Pat Lance and Ricky Niell. He would have done enough, the professor figured, if he just kept the impulsive sheriff company.

  Robertson’s Crown Vic had been the last to pull into a spot, and Branden parked his truck behind the Crown Vic, on the Yost farm lane coming in from TR 606. Because of the congestion of vehicles, Branden was thirty yards out from the barnyard when he locked his doors. He walked past Robertson’s sedan, and he also passed a pickup truck that had a small trailer for dirt bikes attached to the hitch. The dirt bikes had already been removed from the trailer.

  A cruiser was parked in front of the pickup, and Ricky Niell was seated behind the wheel, talking on his cell phone with his windows down. As he passed by him, the professor heard Niell say, “Dr. Evelyn Carson, please. She’ll be in John Yost’s room.” Branden made a mental note of that and continued forward.

  It was already warm at the farm. Another hot day, the professor told himself. There’s today, still. Time to work the case. Then a full Monday, with its classes, office hours, appointments with staff, and a department chairperson’s monthly conclave after dinner.

  In the barnyard at the back of the farmhouse, the sheriff and Chief Deputy Dan Wilsher were talking with two uniformed deputies, Ryan Baker and Dave Johnson, who were seated side by side on an off-road, four-wheeler ATV of the type that hunters use, with two seats and four large knobby tires. Stacked in the back compartment of their ATV, behind the tall steel roll bar, there were shovels, pick axes, hoes and handsaws. Also, there was one chainsaw in a hard, yellow plastic case.

  A larger trailer for two ATVs was parked with its tow truck beside the horse barn. The second of its two ATVs, the one not occupied by Baker and Johnson, was not in the barnyard any longer. Tracks for its wide tires angled out of the barnyard and ran over to the side of the house, where Branden had found the trail that led to the slaughter pit first, and then to a spot on 606 opposite Meredith Silver’s ranch house. Beside the trailer, Wilsher was talking on his hand-held radio, while Baker and Johnson listened.

  “How far are you, Lance?” Wilsher was saying. “At the bridle trail yet?”

  “Yes, Chief,” Pat Lance replied on the radio. “It crosses the creek beside some Sycamores, and it leads back into the woods.”

  “Is it wide enough for one of our four-wheels?” Wilsher asked. “I can send Daniels and Wilson.”

  “It’s just a bridle path, Chief. Little more than that. I can’t tell how wide it is inside the woods, but it goes past the creek, runs through the forest, and comes out on a hill, to a clearing at the top of the property. That’s where the headstones are. Up at the top. But I can’t tell how wide it is. It may take a dirt bike to get up there. Through the forest, I mean.”

  “Have you flown over all of the cornfield yet?” Wilsher asked into his handset.

  “Most of it. I’m taking it back now, to finish that. But I flew up to the clearing at the top of the hill, beyond the woods. It’s got two simple stone markers. There’s tall grass up there, and I can’t get down low enough to read any inscriptions.”

  “Where’s Captain Newell, Lance?”

  “He’s taking my video feed on his laptop. He’s parked in his cruiser at the end of the lane. Well, at the far curve in the lane.”

  “Bobby?” the Sheriff Robertson asked into his own radio.

  “Yes, Sheriff. I’m recording everything she sends me. We haven’t found anything other than those two graves at the top of the hill.”

  “OK,” Robertson said, “when you’ve finished covering the cornfield, have Lance send it up over this slaughter pit in the other woods, along the professor’s trail.”

  “OK,” Captain Newell replied. “OK,” Lance agreed.

  Turning to Branden, Robertson said, “We’re using a drone to search from the air. Lance is the best we have at running it. She flies it like a stunt pilot. Maneuvering, I mean. She’s a bird. A natural.”

  “Those woods are pretty dense, Bruce,” the professor said.

  Robertson nodded. “We’re going to cover most of that ground on foot, once we’ve done what we can with the drone and the vehicles.”

  Robertson turned to Baker and Johnson in the ATV. “Did you hear Lance?”

  Deputy Ryan Baker nodded, saying, “Take the bridle trail across the creek and up through the woods.”

  Dan Wilsher spoke up. “But if you can’t make it through, Baker, I’ll call the dirt bikes back, and you can give it a try with one of those.”

  Baker cranked a coughing start out of his ATV, and he drove off down the farm lane, toward the first turn that would take him east, to the trail where Lydia Schwartz had died.

  To Wilsher, Robertson said, “You squared away here, Dan?”

  Chief Wilsher smiled and said, “Of course.”

  Turning back to Branden, the sheriff asked, “Care for a walk, Professor?”

  “The slaughter pit,” Branden said, and he led Robertson over to the path.

  As they took the path through the woods, off to their right and deeper into the woods, the growls of two dirt bikes filtered back through the trees to Branden and Robertson. As they continued along the path, Robertson said, “We’re searching everywhere, Mike. We haven’t found anything, yet.”

  The two men quickly reached the slaughter pit that Branden had discovered on Thursday evening. Deputies there, with the second ATV, had already excavated the bones of farm animals from about four feet of soil.

  Robertson asked, “Do we need a backhoe here?”

  “We need to go slowly,” one deputy said. “Shovels and picks.”

  “Then stay on it, Brett,” Robertson said to him. “Go deep here and then put in other shallow holes around the clearing, to see if there are other burial places.”

  “Sir,” Brett said to acknowledge his orders.

  Pointing to the ATV, Robertson asked Brett, “OK if we take this out on 606? Over to find the edges of the Yost property?”

  The deputy nodded and said, “We won’t need it for several hours, Sheriff. But we could use some help here, if
anyone gets free.”

  The sheriff lifted his radio. “Bobby?”

  “Sheriff?”

  “When Baker and Johnson get down from the grave markers on the hill, send them over here to help with the digging.”

  “Where?”

  “It’s on the trail that leads away from the house. It’s on the other side of the house.”

  “OK, Sheriff. Lance and I will be done soon, too.”

  “Find anything?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then I’m going to take the professor up and down 606. I want to see how far the Yost farm extends.”

  Captain Newell didn’t immediately reply. “Bobby?” Robertson said, and Newell said, “Wait one.”

  Sheriff Robertson stood with his radio up to his lips. Thirty seconds later, Captain Newell said, “There’s a clearing in the corn field. Lance has her drone over the top of it now.”

  “How big?”

  “Ten by five. Enough for four or five people to crowd in together.”

  “Let me know,” Robertson said.

  “We’re walking in to it now.”

  “About where is it, Bobby?”

  “Thirty yards from 606. Twenty back from the farm lane, on the east side of the field.”

  “Wait there, Bobby?”

  “OK.”

  “Mike,” Robertson said, and he got in authoritatively behind the wheel of the ATV.

  Branden ducked into the seat beside the sheriff. “You remember how to drive these?” he asked Robertson.

  Robertson laughed. “Better than you, Mike. At least I won’t get myself stuck in the mud.”

  “That was forty years ago, Sheriff.”

  “More like fifty,” Robertson said and chuckled. When he started off toward 606, the four-wheeler jerked with the abrupt start that the sheriff gave it. It snapped their heads back. With an awkward grin, the sheriff shook his head and glanced surreptitiously at Branden.

  The professor grabbed the hand bar in front of him, and he smiled and laughed. “Really, Sheriff? Whiplash? There isn’t even a manual clutch on these anymore.”

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