I smile. “Disaster averted.”
“I’m sorry to bother you on your day off, but there are three gentlemen here to see you. Apparently, they’ve traveled all the way from Pennsylvania.”
“Pennsylvania? Any idea what they want?”
“They wouldn’t say, Chief. Just that it’s important and they’d prefer not to wait until Monday.” She lowers her voice. “They seem kind of serious about something.”
I sigh, thinking about the birdhouse, and decide to pick it up later this afternoon. “I’ll be there in two minutes.”
I toss the empty to-go cup into the trash and head toward the Explorer.
* * *
The Painters Mill Police Department is housed in a one-hundred-year-old building dressed in red brick and sandstone. It lacks the character inherent in most of the town’s historic structures. It’s drafty in the winter, sweltering in the summer, and fraught with an array of inexplicable sounds and smells, most of which are not pleasant. Despite its shortcomings, it’s my home away from home, and when I walk through the door, I don’t see the cracks in the plaster, the battered dark molding, the outdated furniture, or the century of wear on the floor. Instead, I absorb a warmth that has nothing to do with temperature, but with the percept that I’m surrounded by people I admire and respect.
I enter reception to find my off-hours dispatcher, Margaret, sitting at her station, headset clamped over her head, fingers flying over a keyboard that’s so well-used the letters are worn off. To my right, three Amish men—elders by the looks of them—sit on the sofa, looking out of place and uncomfortable.
“Guder mariye,” I say to them. Good morning.
The three men get to their feet, each of them showing some level of stiff knees and achy joints. Judging by the varying degrees of silver hair and stooped postures, I guess all of them to be in their seventies or older. They wear full salt-and-pepper beards and are clad mostly in black. Felt, flat-brimmed hats. White shirts. Black jackets and trousers. Nondescript dark shoes. Their expressions are as somber as their clothes.
The tallest of the group steps forward, his eyes meeting mine. “My name is Nelson Yoder. I’m the bishop over in Belleville, Pennsylvania.”
I take his hand and we shake. “Lancaster County?” I ask, wondering why these men would travel so far to talk to me without so much as a call.
“The Kish Valley,” he tells me.
My knowledge of the Kish Valley is limited to a vague perception that it’s somewhere in central Pennsylvania and home to a small but diverse group of Amish. My expression must reflect as much, because the short man with bright blue eyes and fifty pounds of extra weight wrapped around his middle ducks his head and extends his hand. “That’s the Kishacoquillas Valley,” he says in a gravelly voice. “In the central part of the state. I’m Nathan Kempf, the deacon.”
I shake his hand. His palm is cool to the touch, with the calluses of a man who still partakes in a fair amount of physical labor. “I’ve been to Lancaster,” I tell him, “but never the valley.”
He grins. “We won’t hold it against you, Kate Burkholder.”
I smile back, liking him.
The third man shuffles closer. He’s thin, with the angular frame of a scarecrow, a beard the shape of a wet sock, and two missing eyeteeth. “I’m Mahlon Barkman,” he says. “One of the ministers in the valley.”
We shake hands.
“We are the Diener of die alt gemee,” Yoder tells me.
“Diener” is the Deitsch term for “servants,” which means these men are, indeed, the elected officials of their church district. “Die alt gemee” translates to “the old church.” While I’m able to translate the Pennsylvania Dutch, I’m not exactly sure what the words mean in terms of which sect they’re part of.
“You gentlemen are a long way from home,” I tell them.
The men nod in unison. Hands are shoved into pockets. Legs cocked. Eyes lowered to the floor, the occasional flick going to Margaret, who’s covertly listening to every word, even as she burns up the computer keys.
“We have a problem,” the bishop says solemnly. “We need your help.”
He’s the leader of the group. Their collective body language tells me they are in agreement about their mission, how they will accomplish it, and that I am somehow central to their goal.
“Let’s go into my office.” I motion toward the hall, and cast a glance at Margaret.
She raises her brows and gives me a what-the-hell-is-going-on shrug.
“Would you mind making coffee?” I ask.
“Are you sure you want to subject these nice gentlemen to that?” she whispers.
I can’t tell if she’s serious, but I’m smiling as I unlock the door to my cubbyhole office and usher the men inside. “Have a seat.”
A few minutes later, having dragged in an extra chair, I’m sitting at my desk. The three men have settled in with their coffees.
I sip, try not to wince at the acrid bite that comes back at me. “What brings you to Painters Mill?”
Nelson Yoder grimaces. “Two months ago, human bones were discovered by one of our brethren while he was cutting hay. The police came. They took the bones and they did what they do with their machines and chemicals and such. A few weeks later, those bones were identified as belonging to Ananias Stoltzfus.”
I’m not familiar with the name or the case, so I wait.
Deacon Kempf picks it up from there. “Ananias was bishop for many years. He was a good bishop and performed many communions, baptisms, marriages, and excommunications.”
Mahlon, the minister, shakes his head. “Ananias disappeared eighteen years ago. Vanished without a trace.” He grimaces. “It was a terrible time. For all of us. As you can imagine, his children and grandchildren were beside themselves with worry—and heartache—because no one knew what had happened to him. Of course, the Amish stepped in. We did what we could. We searched. We helped the family. Mostly we prayed, but…” The old man offers another shrug. “His safe return was not to be.”
The men fall silent. I look from face to face, seeing the remnants of grief, not the kind that dulls with age, but a sharper, newer angst that comes with more recent news.
“Did the police determine what happened to him?” I ask.
The bishop raises rheumy eyes to mine and gives a single nod. “The sheriff told us Ananias had been shot.”
“Twice,” Mahlon adds.
“So it wasn’t a hunting accident or suicide,” I say slowly, knowing there’s more coming. That I’m not going to like it.
Nathan raises his hand and strokes his beard, thoughtful. “There was a rifle found with the bones. A muzzleloader. A rusty thing that was half buried.”
“The muzzleloader belongs to one of our own.” The bishop offers me a sympathetic look. “Jonas Bowman.”
The name strikes me like a stick of dynamite igniting in my chest, unexpected and painful. For a moment, I’m so surprised, I think I misheard. “Jonas Bowman?” I repeat the name, even as I feel the rise of heat in my cheeks. “Are you sure?”
Glances are exchanged, the kind that make me wonder if they know more about me and Jonas and the past we share than I’m comfortable with.