Amish Covert Operation

by Meghan Carver

But as the vehicle door closed behind her, and the bishop and his wife returned to the porch, a bit of doubt wiggled its way down her back. What if this copy of the hymnal didn’t help and they couldn’t decipher the message?

  NINE

  “My house would be the quietest place to work on the secret code, and I should change my bandages.” Katie waved one more time to the bishop and his wife, and then stared out at the nearby cornfield as Adam backed down the lane and into the road. The corn was just about ready for detasseling—the removal of tassels from every fourth row of corn—but would she live long enough to see the harvest in the fall? How terrible it would be to miss the cooler temperatures, fall foliage and wunderbar aroma of pumpkin pie. “May I see my twins again?”

  “I’m not sure that’s best, but we’ll see.”

  In the short time they had been forced together, apparently Adam had learned enough of the country roads that he didn’t need directions back to Katie’s. The drive passed quickly in silence, with Katie offering up continued prayer for her safety, for Adam’s safety and for her twins.

  As the Tahoe turned into her driveway and she surveyed the yard, making a mental note to water her marigolds, goose bumps pricked at her flesh. Something was wrong. She rubbed her arms, a reassuring gesture meant to flatten the bumps, as she scanned the area.

  Adam turned off the engine, but when he moved to open his door, she stopped him. “There is something not right, but I cannot tell what it is.” Her voice came out only as a whisper.

  She continued to scan, feeling like she was looking for what was missing in a child’s search-and-find game.

  Adam’s whisper broke through her concentration. “It’s your front door. It’s ajar.”

  Katie’s hands flew to her throat, where she could feel her pulse thrumming. “Someone has been in my house?” Visions of the attack from the night before rose up unbidden, and she grasped the door handle to steady herself.

  “Whoever it is may still be there.” He retrieved his weapon from the holster at the small of his back. “Stay here and lock the doors behind me.”

  Once he was out of the Tahoe, the clunk of the locks falling into place seemed to ricochet around the quiet vehicle. Katie sat in the passenger seat, her hands bunching and releasing her skirt fabric as she watched Adam creep around the house and peer into the windows. In what seemed like a few heartbeats later, he emerged through the front door. A stricken look stretched across his face. The despair in his eyes forced her from the vehicle, rushing forward toward the front door as fast as she could with the cane to help her.

  “What is it?” She couldn’t keep her voice low any longer. “What is wrong?” She could imagine all sorts of terrible things happening, but all the people she loved would not have been nearby.

  “Your house.” His voice was hoarse with some unidentified emotion. He laid his hand on her arm as she came close. “Someone’s torn it up.”

  A gasp erupted. She hobbled to the door, still standing open from Adam’s exit. The sight from the door was one of utter destruction, and she felt herself leaning heavily against the doorjamb, perspiration breaking out across her forehead despite the cool of early evening.

  Adam stood behind her, his hand on her shoulder, a weight of strength and comfort that gave her a different sort of goose bumps. “Whoever it was is long gone.” His breath tickled the back of her neck and the few hairs that she could never get caught up into her bun and prayer kapp. “I’ve cleared the house and the yard. I’m going to call the sheriff. He’ll want to send a team over.”

  Katie could only nod as she sagged in the doorway and listened to Adam talk on the telephone about statements and dusting for fingerprints and setting up a perimeter.

  Ach, another statement? How much longer, Gott? How much more? She was sorely tempted to begin a mental list of her woes, beginning with the death of her parents and continuing with the untimely death of her husband in an accident at the sawmill. But she stopped herself before she could go on. Instead she would choose to bless the Lord. At all times. She blinked furiously, but she couldn’t stop the tears once they began. Soon they were cascading down her cheeks and dripping onto her dress, despite how much she tried to thumb them away.

  And then, as quickly as the tears had started, they dried up. She refused to wallow in self-pity but determined instead to count her blessings. Adam was still talking on the telephone, so she stepped inside.

  It took several moments to absorb the depth and breadth of the destruction of her personal belongings, many of them sentimental and irreplaceable. It seemed that every drawer and every door had been opened. Some looked as if they had been ripped off their hinges in a violent fit. The armoire that Adam had heroically saved just the night before was now on the floor, smashed into a dozen pieces. A quilt her grossmammi had made that Katie had hung over a chair had been slashed, its fluffy fill falling out. Katie took two steps farther in, peering into the kitchen. Another tear leaked out as she saw that even her canisters of flour and sugar had been dumped. It looked as if the monster—whoever it had been—had stood at the cabinets and pulled everything out, not caring whether or not it smashed on the floor. Several pieces from a set of dishes her husband had given her had been destroyed and scattered over the floor.

  More tears sprang to her eyes, but this time they were mixed with something different. It was something a good Amish woman shouldn’t feel, and her fists began to shake and her arms began to quiver with the desire to throw something for herself. She was a widowed woman, responsible for two little girls, with no family to help. Jah, she had friends, but they were not the same. She forced her fists to unclench and she inhaled slowly as she turned to glance at Adam, who was still on the telephone. Now, to add to that burden, she had no choice but to traipse around the county with the Englisch law enforcement officer.

  But as she watched him, his eyes met hers. He smiled slightly, just enough to indicate that he knew she was overwhelmed and that he would do whatever he could to help her. Ach, so much trouble and danger could ferhoodle, truly confuse, a person. Her shoulders relaxed as she chided herself. What was it the Englisch Christians liked to say?

  Gott is gut. All the time. Even with her house torn up, she knew that Gott was with her. It was all in His will, and she had no place to question His goodness.

  She bent to pick up a chair and set it to rights, but Adam’s strong grasp on her arm stopped her.

  “Don’t touch anything. We need to leave it all as it is for the crime-scene photographer. The sheriff will dust for fingerprints, as well. There could be evidence here, if we can just find it, that would lead us to whoever did this.”

  Katie sniffed and swiped away another tear, her heart thumping a rapid beat. “Who, though? Was it the same man as last night?”

  “That’s my guess. It was probably your attacker from yesterday, looking for something. Remember he seemed to suspect that your brother had given you something, perhaps some kind of communication? He could have been looking for that note or maybe that social security card you found at Timothy’s.” He ran his hands down her arms. “Whatever it was, I’m glad you weren’t here when he returned.”

  Katie shivered and wrapped her arms around her middle at the memory of the foul man who had pressed himself upon her the night before. But the warmth and comforting pressure of Adam’s hands on her arms soothed her.

  But as she stood as still as possible, not wanting the moment to end and Adam to draw away, another thought struck her. When this was over, how could she return to so-called normal life without Adam’s comforting presence?

  * * *

  Gingerly, afraid he would scare her away, Adam pulled Katie all the way into his arms. Even as he wondered if that was proper law enforcement behavior, he knew he couldn’t just leave her standing there by herself. He couldn’t watch her cry in the middle of her living room, surrounded by chaos.

  She felt good
in his arms. Warm and soft. That much was for sure and for certain, as Katie would say.

  Slowly her tears subsided. “Danki,” she whispered as she tilted her head upward to look at him.

  Her beautiful face was so close that he could feel the short puffs of her breath on his face. What if he kissed her? Would that be verboten?

  His memory of that Pennsylvania German word rocked him backward on his feet. How many times had he heard his father use that word as his excuse for running away from his faith? He had thought that the Amish forbade too many things. And yet here was his son with his arms around a pretty young Amish woman, wondering what a plain life with her would be like.

  Sirens sounded in the distance, and Adam immediately dropped his hold on Katie. No matter what was on his mind and in his heart, he had a job to do and he was determined to do it well. Surprise lit her face. Was that a tinge of disappointment he saw, as well?

  “Maybe you should wait in the Tahoe.” He hated that his voice was husky and vulnerable, but he couldn’t seem to control it. After what he had confided in the sheriff, that he had been a drunkard himself just a few short years ago, he knew he didn’t deserve a loving wife or family. He might be a failure at his job, but at least it gave him a reason to get out of bed in the morning, a way to assuage the grief from his father’s wreck of a life, a chance to make the world a better place so that others could have a better life than he did. And he certainly wasn’t good enough to hold such a beautiful Amish woman in his arms.

  “Jah, that might be best.”

  “You’ll feel better if you’re not in the midst of the mess.”

  He assisted her back to the SUV and helped her into the front seat. The sheriff and his deputy arrived just as she rolled down her window for some fresh air.

  “I know I said to keep me updated, but I didn’t expect to hear from you this soon.” The sheriff slid out of his vehicle and introduced a freelance photographer he said did some crime-scene work for his department as needed. “We had just barely finished up at the coffee shop when I got your call. What’s happened here?”

  After Adam filled him in, the sheriff turned to Katie. “I’m so sorry this has happened. A home is a sort of a sacred space, isn’t it?”

  Katie nodded. “Jah, and so many sentimental things that can’t be replaced.”

  “We’re doing our best, but would you mind going inside to determine if anything is missing? It sounds as if Special Agent Troyer believes this was related to your brother, and I agree. But we do need to rule out burglary.”

  She slid out of her seat, leaning on the cane. “Burglary? But I am Amish. What is there to steal?”

  Adam offered her his arm, gratified when she accepted. “It’s true, Katie, that the Amish don’t generally have the typical valuables that burglars look for, things like a cash hoard, jewelry or expensive electronics. But we just want to make sure.”

  At the door, she continued to lean on Adam’s arm as he led her through the rooms. The crime photographer was already busy, working his way through the house and shooting the chaos from every angle imaginable. The deputy followed behind, beginning to dust.

  Carefully Adam picked a path through the mess of the house, letting Katie rest on his arm and absorb the surroundings, evaluating what, if anything, was missing. Only a couple of tears leaked out through the process, her strength and courage in this adversity impressing Adam.

  As they stood in the kitchen, making footprints in the flour that had been dumped on the floor, Adam donned a pair of disposable latex gloves and opened a cabinet door, as well as the refrigerator and freezer. “Is anything missing?” He looked around the disarray of Katie’s belongings, unable to imagine that it wasn’t all there in the chaos.

  “I don’t think so...”

  Adam released a breath. “Well, that’s a bit of good—”

  “Except for a container of cookies I had made two days ago that were on the countertop and maybe a bottle of water I usually keep in the refrigerator.”

  “What?” Adam shifted his weight. “Cookies and water? So the thug who broke in and destroyed your house was hungry and didn’t take anything except food?”

  Katie shrugged. “That is all I see. May I return to the vehicle now?”

  Adam watched her fiddle with one of the ties to her prayer kapp. It seemed obvious to him that it was a gesture of anxiety. She probably longed for what felt like safety in the Tahoe. “I think so. Just let me check with the sheriff.”

  Sheriff Moore disengaged from a conversation with his deputy when Adam approached. “I don’t need anything more from her. She’s free to go. But be careful with her. This is a lot to take in, especially for an Amish widow. Home is of utmost importance to the Amish, and this probably feels like a violation of a sacred space.”

  “I understand that, Sheriff.” Adam promised himself he would be extra gentle with Katie, but then the memory of her in his arms rose up. He shook his head, determined to focus on the task at hand. He should also check in with his supervising agent again and give him an update.

  “I’ll finish up here, but again I don’t expect to find anything helpful. The modus operandi so far seems to indicate a professional—or professionals—who knows enough to wear gloves so as not to leave fingerprints. We have a partial shoe print in a bit of flour, but it’s small. Whoever it was was careful.”

  “That’s my impression, as well.” Adam held out his arm to Katie to lead her through the debris and to the door. “We’ll be in touch.”

  Back out in the Tahoe, with the key in the ignition and his foot ready to press the accelerator, Adam wasn’t sure where else to go but to Sarah and Jed’s house. Katie had pleaded with him about her need to see her twins, and her friendship with Sarah would be comforting to her. Truth be told, he wouldn’t mind seeing the little girls either, with their twinkling blue eyes and mischievous smiles.

  The distance between the two homes had not changed, but with Katie’s nearly palpable anxiety over her home being violated and his own constant vigil for further danger, the time it took to reach Sarah and Jed’s house seemed to stretch to eternity. Katie’s breathing had finally evened out by the time her friend’s house came into view, but Adam doubted she would be able to relax or take a deep, cleansing breath until she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that her girls were safe.

  That wasn’t going to happen just yet, though. The house was there, but instead of turning into the driveway, Adam drove past at an even speed.

  Katie hiccupped as she watched the house, and Adam feared her tears would return. But her voice was steady when she asked, “Are we not going to stop?”

  “Not yet.” Several yards down the country road, Adam pulled the Tahoe into a dirt road. Truly, at this closer proximity, it looked like more of a path that led to a gate for a cow pasture. “I saw this little drive when we were here earlier, and I thought it might come in handy in the future.”

  He turned the vehicle around to point out to the road but stayed far enough back that they were protected by thick bushes and trees.

  “Are we hiding?”

  “Hiding and watching. We don’t want to bring trouble on your friends, just in case we’re being followed, since we drove straight here from your house.”

  Adam kept a steady watch up and down the road, even glancing in the rearview mirror from time to time. These few minutes would have the added benefit of allowing Katie to steady her nerves and slow her heart rate back toward something resembling normal.

  When he was satisfied that all was quiet, he pulled out of the dirt lane and then into Jed and Sarah’s drive.

  At the crunch of gravel under their tires in Sarah’s driveway, two little faces appeared in the window, noses pressed against the glass. Sarah’s face appeared above them, and a moment later Ruth and Rebekah came running from around the back of the house, the ties from their prayer kapps flying behind them,
and each clutching one of his whittled squirrels. Katie opened her passenger door and slid from the seat to rush to her girls, barely leaning on the cane as she embraced the twins.

  Adam stood back, giving the little family room to cherish the time of togetherness. He circled around, surveying the area by instinct. Foreboding gray clouds were beginning to fill the western sky. In a couple more hours, they would be overhead, pressing down their rain and wind.

  Katie and the twins disentangled themselves from their embrace and headed toward the house, Katie with an arm around each girl. Adam stood still, letting them get a head start on greeting Sarah and Jed and Lyddie. As much as he had come to enjoy Katie’s company—truly he had begun to care for her, although he wasn’t sure he was ready to admit that—this would end soon, as all cases did eventually. He would move on in his single life, and she would return to her life filled with her children, as well as hopefully her brother and friends. He straightened some of the gravel, pushing it around with his shoe, as a single large raindrop dropped on his shoulder. With another look at the sky, he hurried inside.

  Chamomile tea was poured quickly, but it looked like the plate of cookies had been out for some time. Crumbs were scattered on the table in front of each twin, and there were only two cookies left on the plate. He chewed on a cookie absentmindedly while he stared out the window.

  “Adam?” Katie’s lilting voice with the Pennsylvania German accent broke through his trance. “Is that okay?”

  He rubbed at an eye, bringing himself back to the present. “I’m sorry. What were you saying?”

  Sarah cocked her head as she looked at him, a quizzical look on her face. “I was asking if I could organize some of the women to clean up Katie’s house.”

  “Oh, yeah. As soon as the sheriff says it’s okay.”

  Thunder cracked overhead, and the twins startled and then ran to Katie. A few heavy drops plinked on the roof and the window. It looked as if the storm wouldn’t wait.