Pray for Silence

“Must be bad if you’re smoking,” he says.

“It’s bad.” The words feel like an obscene understatement.

“I would have been here faster, but I had to pick up the generator and lights.”

“It’s okay.” A sigh shudders out of me. “None of these people are going anywhere.”

“You get the shooter?”

“I’m not exactly sure what we’re dealing with yet.”

He looks at me a little too closely as I drop the butt on the gravel and crush it out with my boot.

“Could be a murder-suicide,” I clarify.

“Shit.”

I motion toward the generator. “Get some lights set up, will you?” I start toward Skid’s cruiser. “I’m going to talk to the witness.”

I’ve met Reuben Zimmerman several times over the years. He’s a quiet, serious man, one of the few Amish I know who does not have children. He and his wife, Martha, own a small house on a couple of acres down the road. Reuben is a retired carpenter and spends most of his time building decorative birdhouses and mailboxes for the Amish tourist shops in town.

I open the back door of the cruiser and bend slightly to make eye contact with him. Zimmerman leans forward and looks at me. “Did you find Bonnie and the other children?” he asks.

Though Skid had only been following departmental procedure, I’m dismayed to see the Amish man’s hands cuffed behind his back. I pull the key out of my belt. “Turn around, and I’ll take those off for you.” I speak to him in Pennsylvania Dutch, hoping it will help break down the barrier of mistrust that exists between the Amish and the English police. This morning, I need his full cooperation.

Turning, he offers his wrists. I insert the key and the handcuffs snick open. “What are you doing here at this hour?”

He rubs his wrists. “I help with the milking.”

“Why does Amos need you when he has two sons?”

Zimmerman looks perplexed by my question, but only for a moment. “He has twenty-two head of cattle and milks twice a day. I deliver the cans to Gordon Brehm in Coshocton County.”

His answer is consistent with the absence of a milking machine and generator in the barn. Without refrigeration, there’s no way to keep the milk cold, therefore it cannot be sold as grade A for drinking. Stored temporarily in old-fashioned milk cans, it can only be sold as grade B for cheese-making, which would require a buggy trip to the local cheese-maker in the next county.

I tilt my head and snag his gaze. “Reuben.” I say his name firmly, letting him know I want his undivided attention. “I need you to tell me everything you saw when you arrived this morning.”

He nods. “I arrived early, so I sat on the back stoop for a few minutes. Usually, there is lantern light inside. Amos and I have coffee. Sometimes Bonnie fries scrapple. This morning the house was dark.”

“So you went inside?”

“I knocked, but no one answered.” He gives a small smile. “I thought, Er hot sich wider verschlofe.” He overslept again. “So I went inside.”

“How did you get in?”

“The back door was not locked.”

My brain files that away for later. Many Amish don’t lock their doors at night. It’s not that locks go against the Ordnung in any way; most simply don’t see the need. And it’s not just the Amish who are lax. I’d estimate half the folks in this county don’t lock up before going to bed. Having been a cop in a large, metropolitan city for six years, I don’t share the mind-set. I snap my dead bolts into place every night with the glee of a paranoid schizophrenic.

“Did you see anyone else inside the house?” I ask.

“Just Amos . . . and the two boys.”

“What about outside? In the yard? Or the barn?”

“I saw no one.”

“Any vehicles or buggies?”

“No.”

“Have you noticed any unusual behavior from Amos? Has he been under any pressure? Or talked to you about any problems?”

“Amos?” The Amish man shakes his head. “No.”

“Was there any disharmony within the household?”

“No.”

“Were there any problems between Amos and Bonnie? Or between Amos and the children? Problems with outside friends? Money problems, maybe?”

He shakes his head so vehemently, his beard flops from side to side. “Why do you ask these things, Katie?”

“I’m just trying to find out what happened.”

Zimmerman stares hard at me. “Amos lived his life in the spirit of Gelassenheit. He was a good Amish man. He was modest and yielded to God’s will. He worked hard. And he loved his family.”

“Did the Planks have any enemies?” I ask. “Were they involved in any kind of dispute?”

Another emphatic shake. “The Planks loved their Amish brethren. They were generous. If you needed something, Amos and Bonnie would give it to you and were happy to go without themselves.”

But I know that even decent, God-loving Amish families keep secrets.

For a moment, the only sound comes from the blast of the generator on the back porch and the chorus of crickets all around us. Then Zimmerman whispers, “Are Bonnie and the other children all right?”

I shake my head. “They’re gone, too.”

“Mein Gott.” Bowing his head, he sets his fingertips against his forehead and rubs so hard the skin turns white. “Who would commit this terrible sin?”

“I don’t know.”

“I do not understand God’s will,” Reuben says.

I don’t think murder is what God had in mind for the Plank family, but since my views aren’t popular among my former brethren, I remain silent. “I’m going to have one of my officers drive you to the station so we can take your fingerprints. Can you do that for me?”

“But what about the cows?” he asks. “They must be milked.”

Dealing with cattle is the least of my worries this morning. But having grown up on a farm much like this one, I know the animals must be dealt with. “I’ll have Bishop Troyer send some men over as soon as possible. They’ll take care of the milking.”

He nods. “It is the right thing to do.”

It’s no small sacrifice for Zimmerman to ride in an English police car; it’s against the Ordnung, the rules set forth by the local church district, but he nods. “I will help any way I can.”

I close the car door and cross to my Explorer. Opening the rear hatch, I pull out my crime scene kit. It’s not very high tech. Just a box of latex gloves, disposable shoe covers, a sketch pad and notebook, a stack of miniature fluorescent orange cones used for marking evidence, a roll of crime scene tape, a couple of inexpensive field test kits, and the new digital camera I recently had approved for purchase by the town council.

I find Glock on the back porch, marking the bloody handprint for the CSU, a work light in his hand. “Zimmerman any help?” he asks over the drone of the generator.

I shake my head. “He didn’t see anything.”

“You believe him?”

“For now.”

We enter the kitchen. After being outside in the fresh air, the reek of death is suffocating. Setting the kit on the table, I remove a small tube of Vicks and dab it beneath my nose.

I offer it to Glock, but he refuses with his usual, “Can’t stand the smell.”

It’s an ongoing joke that usually garners a laugh. We don’t laugh this time around.

Quickly, we don latex gloves and shoe covers. This kind of crime scene is every cop’s nightmare. It’s spread