“No, but I just need a few minutes of his time.” Taking in her rigid posture, I suspect she’s hall monitor and visitor screener rolled into a single formidable package.
“I’m guessing he’s in the courtyard out back.” She motions to a folding table. “You can put the packages there.” Then she jabs a finger toward another door. “Take the hall to the courtyard. Last door on the right.”
I thank her and make my exit. The courtyard is an outdoor patio that’s crowded with planters and greenery. Containers of geraniums and petunias burst with color. Hanging planters overflow with feathery asparagus ferns. There’s a birdbath ahead and a row of birdhouses secured to the brick wall at the back. Half a dozen hummingbird feeders dangle from the eave. It’s a pretty, calming place that smells of growing things and earth.
A scholarly-looking man with white hair and a neatly trimmed goatee tips a watering can into a terra-cotta planter the size of a barrel. Clad in khaki slacks and a blue shirt with a clergy collar, he looks serene and focused as he pinches off an unwanted stem.
“I like the snapdragons,” I say by way of greeting.
He looks up from his watering and smiles. “You know your flowers.”
“A few. My mom was a gardener.”
“Everyone thinks I spend too much time with my plants.” He chuckles. “I do. But then I’m of a certain age. Seems like it’s either flowers or birds. I chose both.”
I smile, liking him.
He sets down the watering can. “I’m Pastor Zimmerman.” He gives me a curious once-over as he approaches. “You seem troubled this morning.” He sends a pointed look to the bruises blooming on my throat. “Can I help?”
We shake hands and I introduce myself. “I’m looking into the Ananias Stoltzfus case.”
“You’re a private detective?”
“I’m a police chief. From Ohio. And a friend of the Bowman family.”
“Ah.” He grimaces. “I heard they found the bishop’s remains. God rest his soul.” Some of the good humor leaves his eyes. “Hard to believe an Amish person is responsible, isn’t it?”
“I think his guilt is still to be determined.”
He picks up the can and tips it to an exotic-looking fern. “It doesn’t bode well for Mr. Bowman that they found his rifle at the scene.”
“That’s one of the reasons I’m here.”
For a moment, the only sound comes from the chatter of barn swallows in a nest beneath the eave. Then he asks, “Are you a churchgoing woman, Chief Burkholder?”
“I’m thinking about it,” I say honestly.
“Lutheran?”
“Anabaptist.”
His brows shoot up. “Mennonite?”
“Formerly Amish,” I tell him. “I left when I was eighteen.”
He smiles. “You should find a church that you like and go.” He says the words without judgment. “God takes on so many of our burdens. As I’m sure you know, we live in troubled times.”
“Yes, we do.”
He looks out across the courtyard, taking in the dozens of plants, but not quite seeing them now or appreciating their beauty. “You’re here because you heard about what happened to Mia Stoltzfus.”
I nod. “I don’t know if her death is relevant to what happened to her husband, but it’s enough of an anomaly to make me curious.”
“A lot of people have asked me about that day, Chief Burkholder. Still do. Most are just nosy, you know. One gal drove all the way from Philadelphia, claiming she was writing a book of all things.” He shakes his head. “I don’t like talking about it. One thing I can’t abide is morbid curiosity.”
He turns to me, his gaze meeting mine, assessing. For the first time, I see the weight of his profession reflected back at me, and I’m reminded of the Amish Diener, the men who devote their lives to serving their community. I see the same burden of responsibility in this man’s eyes, too.
“It sounds like you have a legitimate reason for asking,” he says quietly.
“I’m trying to find the truth. Figure out what happened and why. A man’s life depends on it.”
“In that case, come on.” He motions to the pavestone path that winds through the courtyard. “I’ll finish my watering while we chat.”
We take the path to a concrete-and-stone trough filled with a brilliant array of flowers, zinnias and daisies and a dozen other varieties I couldn’t begin to name. I stand back and watch while he puts the watering can to use. “I never used to garden. Never had a green thumb. But after that day … those few minutes I spent with Mia, I suppose the Lord knew I needed healing and, as He always does, He showed me the way and gave me this gift of growing beautiful things.”
We move to a row of wire baskets lined with coconut husk hanging from the rafter of a pergola. “I’d only been pastor a couple of years when it happened. I came in early that day. Worked in my office for a time and then I went into the chancel. I found her lying on the floor, near the altar.” He makes a sound I can only describe as grief. “Poor child of God. She looked so alone. Blood everywhere.”
“Was she already gone when you arrived?”
“She was alive, actually.” He grimaces. “Barely. We weren’t chained to our cell phones back in those days, so I covered her with my jacket and ran to my office and called the sheriff’s department. Then I came back … to see if I could help. So she wouldn’t be alone.” As if lost in the memory, he pauses. “I did what I could. Applied pressure. Spoke to her. Held her hand. Stayed with her until help arrived.”
“Did she say anything, Pastor?” I ask.
He pulls a small pruner from his pocket and snips a stem from a hibiscus. “We Lutherans practice confession and absolution. We put much emphasis on the holy absolution. The pastor, of course, is pledged to keep the confessed in confidence because those sins have been removed. That seal cannot be broken.”
“Are you telling me she asked for confession and absolution?”
“Make of that what you will, Chief Burkholder. I’m bound by the seal of the confessional.”
“Had you ever met her before?”
“No.”
“Do you think it’s odd that an Amish woman, an Anabaptist, would come to a Lutheran church and ask the minister for confession?”
“I do. As you well know, the Amish have their own ways. That said, we’re all the children of God. Mia Stoltzfus was obviously in a dark place. Did she come here seeking comfort?” His expression tells me that while he has learned to live with what happened that day, the unanswered questions still bother him. “Do you have an opinion on that, Ms. Burkholder? I mean, you were Amish. Is there some scenario in which an Anabaptist woman would eschew her own religion for another?”
I think about my own community, growing up. How the Amish as a whole view the preachers, the deacon, and the bishop. How we view our English neighbors. “One of the most basic Amish tenets is that of separation from the rest of the world.”
He nods, as if he’d already drawn the same conclusion. “I can only hope that in her final minutes, she found peace.”