Pray for Silence

told him about the baby. He got really mad. I don’t care. I love him. And I love our child. I told him I want to marry him and have his child. Forgive me, God, but I told him I would leave the Plain life to be his wife.

September 29

It’s all my fault. My pregnancy. That my life is a mess. He’s so angry with me. I think he hates me. I hoped the baby would make him love me. But everything is ruined. I pray to God for the wisdom to do the right thing.

October 2

I can’t believe he came to my window. When I went downstairs he tried not to show it, but he was mad. He called me a stupid little whore. I know it was the wrong thing to do, but I went with him. I still love him. He drove too fast and it scared me so bad I started to cry. He took me to his house and gave me wine. Afterward, I couldn’t move. I don’t remember everything that happened next. All I recall are the bright lights, but I hurt down there the next day. I think he took pictures of me. I hate myself. If it wasn’t for the baby, I might just step out in front of a car. Thank God for my baby. The child gives me strength.

October 4

He came for me, but I refused to go. He told me I was selfish. That everything is my fault. He says he loves me and our baby. But how can he when he treats me this way?

October 5

I was weak and went with him. We drove around for a long time and then we went to a fancy house in another town. He pretended not to be mad, but he was mean to me on the drive. He gave me wine. I dumped it without drinking it. I know why he drugs me now and I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid.

October 8

I’m so ashamed of what I’ve become. What kind of mamm will I be to my baby? I beg for God to forgive me. I’m going to end it. I’m going to tell Mamm and Datt everything. He met me at the end of the lane and took me to a house in town. I tried to tell him I didn’t want to see him anymore, but he wouldn’t listen. I pretended to drink the wine, but dumped it in the plant when he wasn’t looking. When he went to the bedroom, I ran from the house. I was so scared, I didn’t stop until I was out of town. I kept looking over my shoulder. Every time a car went by, I ran to the ditch and hid.

October 11

I can’t stop crying. I told Mamm and Datt. I was so ashamed I wanted to die. Mamm cried. Datt couldn’t look at me. We prayed and decided I would speak with Bishop Troyer. How can I confess my sins when they’re so terrible?

October 12

Who am I? What have I become? I hate myself. I hate him. I’m so ashamed I want to die.

October 13

I told Datt the rest of it. All of it. And I think that broke his heart. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him cry. I feel so guilty and stupid. He’s going to the English police. I begged him not to. If he does, everyone will know what I’ve done. I can’t believe this is happening. Sometimes I wish I could just die.

I finish reading Mary Plank’s journal at four A.M. It’s like watching a movie where you know some cataclysmic event is about to happen to some hapless character you’ve come to care about. A huge meteor spinning through space, drawing closer and closer to destination Earth.

It’s indescribably sad for me to bear witness to a young Amish girl’s descent into a world she is unequipped to handle. Maybe because I discern echoes of my own past in her words. My situation was different, but the parallels are glaringly there. We broke the rules and paid the price for it. The difference was that I didn’t have a choice in what happened to me. Young Mary made the wrong choices over and over again.

In all those pages of teenaged angst, not once did she mention her lover’s name. Not once did she reveal the kind of car he drives, the name of the club they frequented, the location of the houses they visited, or what he does for a living. At this point, I’m not even sure he had anything do with the murders. But I’m suspicious as hell. If Mary Plank forewarned her lover of her father’s plan to go to the police, he had a big motive to do away with not only her, but her entire family.

I’m a firm believer that people are responsible for their actions. They are masters of their universe. There’s no doubt Mary used poor judgment. Her only saving grace is that she was a kid. Raised Amish, she lacked the skills to deal with the world into which she let herself get dragged.

I’m betting the man she fell for was quite a bit older, much more experienced, and knew exactly what he was doing: taking advantage of her innocence, her lack of sophistication, her naivete. Not to mention her love for him. That alone makes him a bastard in my book. It makes me want to find him and tear him apart with my bare hands.

CHAPTER 12

The clip-clop of a hundred or more shod hooves fills the cold, late-morning air. Clouds of vapor spew from the flared nostrils of dozens of horses, frisky from the first cold front of the season.

I’ve spent the last two days in wait mode. Waiting is a big part of police work—the most difficult aspect as far as I’m concerned—and I’ll never be good at it. I’ve walked the crime scene a dozen times now, talked to the same neighbors and asked the same questions a hundred different ways. But I always get the same answers: No one saw anything. Frustration has been my constant companion. I haven’t slept much. Forget to eat half the time. And so I wait. For preliminary autopsy results. For various lab results. For fingerprints. For footwear imprint matching. Cartridge casings and bullet striation results. Hurry up and goddamn wait.

T.J. and I sit in my Explorer, the windows midway down, watching the somber procession. Black buggies, the sides of which are marked with chalk designating their order in the convoy, stretch as far as the eye can see. Some of the mourners come from as far away as Zanesville and Western Pennsylvania, and probably began their journey as early as two or three A.M.

Drizzle floats down from a glowering sky the color of charcoal. The smells of horses, wet grass and the tang of dry autumn leaves waft through the window. T.J. and I have been here since daybreak, when Bishop Troyer swung open the gate to the graabhof, or cemetery, and the gravediggers began their sad task.

I attended several Amish funerals growing up. The day before the ceremony, male friends and neighbors of the deceased build the unadorned, six-sided casket. Amish caskets are lined with fabric sewn by female friends and neighbors. Once the coroner releases the bodies, the dead are washed and dressed. Deceased males are usually garbed in white—pants, vest and shirt. The females are clothed in a white dress, apron and cape. Bonnie was probably dressed in the same clothes in which she was married.

“So you think the killer is going to show?”

I glance away from the procession and look at T.J. “I don’t know. If he’s Amish, he might.”

T.J. nods. “English guy would probably stand out.”

“A little.” I spent most of the night re-reading Mary Plank’s journal, and I can still feel the weight of her words pressing down on me this morning. I drank too much, but it’s not the fuzzy ache behind my eyes that bothers