Pray for Silence

I can’t think about the rest, and I climb out of that fetid place, back into my own mind.

I’m still shaking when I traverse the kitchen and enter the living room. Crepuscular light slants in from the two windows. I can make out the silhouette of a wooden bench. A low table where a solitary lantern sits cold and dark. I sweep my beam around the room. Three pools of blood mar the floor like dull black mats. My heart skips a beat when I sense movement to my left. I jerk my beam toward it, but it’s only the curtains billowing in the wind. One of the technicians probably opened a window for fresh air.

I close and lock the window, then turn to face the room. I train my light on the pools of blood. I think of the dead children, and I know this house had once been full of light and chaos and life. Most Amish homes are welcoming, warm and loving; the family is a tightly knit unit. Of course, I didn’t know the Planks. I don’t know if their lives were happy or sad or someplace in between. The one thing I do know is that they didn’t deserve to die.

Rain taps on the windows like impatient fingers as I take the stairs to the second level. I find myself thinking of Mary Plank as I walk down the narrow hall. So young and pretty. I think of her pregnancy. The fact that she had recently engaged in sexual relations. I wonder who she was seeing. I wonder if that relationship or her pregnancy had anything to do with the murder of her family. It wouldn’t be the first time a reluctant father-to-be killed his pregnant girlfriend. The legal age of consent in Ohio is sixteen years old. Mary was fifteen. If her lover was an adult male, he could be charged with statutory rape. But is that motive enough to wipe out an entire family? No matter how hard I try, I can’t get my mind around that.

And what about the torture aspect of the crime? In that moment, the realization that there’s more to this than I’m seeing strikes a blow. A statutory rape charge isn’t motive enough to wipe out an entire family. It doesn’t explain the slaughter of two young women. I’m missing something. Something truly, stunningly evil. But what? It’s like having a word you’ve been trying to remember all day on the tip of your tongue.

My mind rewinds, takes me back to the crime scene in the barn. I’m moving through the murk and into the tack room. I see the girls strung up like ghastly puppets. I see the tools the killer left behind. My mind’s eye stops on the scuff marks left on the dusty floor. Everything inside me stops, focuses on those three small marks, and I know they are somehow meaningful. But how?

The possibilities niggle my brain as I take the hall to Mary’s bedroom. It’s a small space containing a single chest of drawers, a night table, and two narrow beds draped with intricate quilts. A plain dress and two kapps hang on wooden dowels mounted on the wall between the beds.

The chance of my finding anything useful tonight is slim. It’s dark and the house has already been thoroughly searched. On the other hand, the parents’ bedroom, kitchen and living room were the main focus of our earlier searches. No one had known about Mary Plank’s pregnancy. I can’t help but wonder: How thoroughly was her room searched?

Crossing to the window, I part the curtains and look out. The rain is coming down in earnest now. Water streams down the glass in a kaleidoscopic waterfall. The dormer window looks out over the tin roof of the front porch. Having been a mischievous teenager myself, I notice how easy it would be to sneak out the window. I check the lock, find it secure. When I shine my light on the sill, I’m shocked to see that the window is nailed shut. Had someone been coming to Mary’s window? Or were the nails a father’s effort to keep his daughter from venturing out? Whatever the case, the nails tell me the parents knew something was going on.

The generator has been removed from the scene, so I go back downstairs. I grab the battery-powered work light, lug it up the stairs to Mary’s room and set it up on the chest of drawers. Donning latex gloves, I begin my search with the night table. In the top drawer, I find two Bibles, an ancient tome titled Martyrs Mirror, which is a record of persecutions suffered by European Anabaptists during the Reformation era. In the second drawer I find a hairbrush and comb. A kapp in need of mending. I smile when I see the mirror. Young Amish girls are no different that other girls when it comes to adolescent vanity. In some of the more conservative Amish homes, mirrors are forbidden. I wonder if Mary’s parents knew about this one.

The night table nets nothing of interest so I move to the chest. I find boys’ trousers with tears and holes that need mending. Underclothes. A baseball and well-used glove in the bottom drawer.

“Where did you keep your secrets?” I say aloud.

It’s been a long time since I was a teenager. But I remember what it was like. The awkwardness. The longing for things I didn’t understand, most of which I knew I could never have. Like Mary, I had secrets, and those secrets caused me untold agony. It’s the loneliest feeling in the world to so desperately need the love and support of your family, and feel as if you don’t deserve it.

I go to the bed. It’s unmade, the covers turned down and rumpled. A faceless doll with blond curls lies facedown next to the pillow. I wonder if Mary tossed it aside when she was roused from bed by her killer. I pick up the doll and an overwhelming sadness engulfs me. Amish dolls are faceless because in the Bible, in Exodus and Deuteronomy, graven images are forbidden.

I set the doll against the pillow. Lifting one side of the mattress, I feel around, but find nothing. At the second bed, I do the same. Nothing hidden beneath the mattress. I’m probably wasting my time; frustration grinds inside me. Kneeling, I lift the quilt for a quick look beneath the bed. My beam reveals a lone sock surrounded by a dust bunny the size of my fist. I’m about to straighten when a flash of lightning brightens my view. In that instant of light, I notice one of the floorboards sticks up a scant quarter inch higher than the rest.

“What the hell?” Reaching beneath the bed, I pry at the oak plank with my fingers. Surprise ripples through me when it lifts easily. Using my shoulder, I shove the bed over a couple of feet. My pulse spikes when I see the hiding place—and the small book staring up at me. I should photograph it before moving it, but I don’t have the camera with me, and I don’t want to wait. I reach for the book.

It’s a homemade journal, about six inches square and an inch thick. The front and back covers are made of pink construction paper. Glued to the front cover is a slightly smaller swath of contrasting pink felt upon which the white lace cutout of a sheep is secured. Three holes have been punched along the left side. The paper is secured with pink ribbons tied into neat bows at each hole. The book is meticulously made by caring hands and with much attention to detail.

I open the journal. It’s filled with lined notebook paper, the kind any kid would have at school, that’s been painstakingly cut to fit inside. The words Mary’s Journal are written in slanted cursive with blue ink. I turn the page and read.

May 19

I saw HIM today at the shop when Mamm and I went to deliver the quilts. My heart was pounding so hard I thought I would faint. My legs were shaking so badly Mamm asked me if I was cold. I don’t understand myself. He is not Amish. I should not be having these feelings. . . .

May 24

He spoke to me today. Just to say hello, but my poor heart didn’t know that. I could not look at him. Mamm and I were delivering the second quilt (the green baby quilt I love). How I hated to see that quilt go. I felt as if I were giving away my own child! But I know some loving mamm will give it a good home, and it will be used to wrap a well-loved baby.

May 29

I volunteered to stock candies this morning. Not for the money, but because if I work over six hours, I get a lunch break. I can go to the park, and I know he will be there. I feel terribly guilty for that. I know my feelings are wrong. Against the will of my parents. Maybe against God’s will, too. But I wonder . . . how can something that feels so wonderful be bad?

I stare down at the words, aware of my heart drumming against my breast-bone. Who is he? The father of her unborn child? Does she reveal anything about him at some later point in the journal? Realizing I need to take it with me and read it from cover to cover, I rise and scoot the bed back into place. I’m midway to the door when my cell phone trills.