Breaking Silence

“Mamm and Datt never argued.”

The Amish are a patriarchal society. Even so, at some point in their marriage, husbands and wives have disagreements. Generally speaking, Amish women have a strong voice when it comes to decision making, but males have the final say. “You sure about that? No disagreements at all?”

Shaking his head, he turns away and starts toward the two men. I snag his coat sleeve and stop him. In my peripheral vision, I see the two Amish men shift restlessly and exchange glances. “Did you see anyone else in or near the barn this morning?” I ask.

“I told you before. I din see no one.”

The two Amish men are within earshot and stare at us with rapt attention. Turning my back to them, I pull my notebook from my coat. “Mose, I need for you to start at the beginning and tell me everything you remember, okay?”

He takes me through the same turn of events as he did this morning. “After Samuel came in screaming, Mamm and the rest of us ran to the barn. We were scared, because we knew something bad had happened. The first thing I noticed was that the barn door was open. I remember thinking Datt wouldn’t leave the door open, because it was cold and he was always trying to keep the barn warm so the water wouldn’t freeze.”

Frustrated by the lack of new information, I sigh. “Is there anything else?”

His brows go together again, as if I’ve posed some complex math equation. “I don’t think so.” He looks at me, his brows knitting. “Do you think someone killed my datt?”

“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “But I promise you I’m going to find out.”

* * *

Salome is fifteen years old and beautiful in the way that young girls are. She has huge eyes the color of a forest at dusk and a complexion the beauty industry has been trying to emulate for decades and never quite managed. Wearing a sky blue dress with a white apron and kapp, she sits at the kitchen table, looking as broken as a baby dove that’s fallen from its nest.

Next to her, young Ike spoons hot cocoa into his mouth. Samuel stares down at his empty cup, one elbow on the table, resting his chin on his palm.

“I know you guys have had a rough day,” I begin, “but I need to ask you some more questions about what happened this morning.”

Ike looks up from his cocoa, the spoon sticking out of his mouth. “Did the English doctor bring back my mamm?” he asks around the spoon.

I’m not a big fan of kids in general. But this little guy is cute and sweet and moves me in a way I’m not accustomed to. Maybe it’s because he’s Amish, or maybe because the grief I see in his eyes is so damn pure. So real. The urge to go around the table and put my arms around his skinny shoulders is strong, but I don’t. I’m afraid if I do, I’ll feel something I can’t afford to feel. “No, honey, he didn’t. I’m sorry.”

Taking the spoon from his mouth, he lowers his head and begins to cry.

Sitting next to him, Salome sets her hand on his shoulder. She’s got pretty hands. They’re soft and dimpled at the knuckles, like baby hands. I give them a moment, then move on to the purpose of my visit. “I wanted to go over a few things about this morning.”

Salome raises her head. Her eyes find mine, and for an instant I’m taken aback by her natural beauty. “Things like what?”

I know how easy it is to plant thoughts in a young mind, so I phrase my questions carefully. Without prompting her, I need to know, in her own words, every detail of what happened this morning. “I want you to think back to this morning again for me. I want you to tell me everything that happened. Everything you saw or heard. Details, even if you think it’s not important.”

Salome pats her brother’s back as if she were burping a baby, then folds her hands and stares down at them. The wash of pain over her features is so profound, I feel the same emotions knocking at the door to my own psyche.

Looking at her, I find myself thinking of my own life when I was her age. Until the age of fourteen, I was a typical Amish girl—happy, innocent, chock-full of a young girl’s hopes and dreams. I had all of those things stripped away in the summer of my fourteenth year, when a man by the name of Daniel Lapp introduced me to violence. By the time I was fifteen, Salome’s age, I was well on my way to eternal damnation—drinking, smoking, making out with guys I barely knew. I even did some shoplifting at the local drugstore—cigarettes, nail polish, makeup; things I didn’t need but couldn’t seem to live without. I got into a lot of trouble in my fifteenth year, and most of the time I didn’t get caught.

The contrasts between me and this girl are stark. Looking back, I don’t think I was ever as innocent. As I stand here and wait for her to recount a scene no child should ever have to endure, I feel guilty because I know I’m at least partly responsible for the death of her innocence. I don’t let that keep me from asking the questions that need to be asked.

“We were just sitting around the table, waiting for our scrapple,” she tells me. “We were hungry, waiting for Samuel to come in with Datt and Uncle Abel so we could say our before-meal prayer and eat.” She picks at a nail with intense concentration. “Then all of a sudden, Samuel came in, screaming. At first, I thought he was playacting, like he does sometimes. But Mamm got scared. She grabbed him and asked him what was wrong, and I knew something terrible had happened.”

“What happened next?” I ask, pressing her.

“We ran outside. I remember seeing that the barn door was open. Datt never left it open. He scolded us when we did. There was lantern light inside. We ran to the barn.”

“Why do you think the barn door was open?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you see anyone else?”

She shakes her head. “It was just us kids. And Mamm.”

“Was anything out of place?” I ask.

“Not that I recall.”

“Did you see any vehicles? Or buggies?”

“No, but I wasn’t really looking or paying attention. We were just so scared.” She looks at me as if she’s somehow failed me, then shakes her head. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” I smile to reassure her. “You did good.”

I can tell by the way her eyes slide away from mine that she doesn’t believe me. She may be only fifteen years old, but she knows these are not idle questions.

I query Ike and Samuel, but aside from the barn door being left open, neither boy remembers seeing anything out of place. In the backwaters of my mind, I find myself thinking of Adam Slabaugh, the estranged uncle, and I can’t help but wonder if he wanted a relationship with his niece and his nephews badly enough to kill for it.

I spend the next ten minutes going through every detail of the morning again, step by terrible step. But the kids are unable to offer anything new. I’m in the process of tucking my notebook into my pocket when another line of questioning occurs to me. “Did your datt ever hire anyone to help him around the farm?”

Salome nods. “Once or twice. He preferred to do the work himself, but sometimes it was too much for him and he would hire someone, when he had money to pay or goods to trade.”

“Who did he hire?”

“I don’t know their names.” She lifts her shoulders. “Men or boys in need of work.”

“Were they Amish or English?”

“Amish, mostly. Except one time he hired an Englischer.”

I look at the boys. “Do any of you remember the names of the people your datt hired?”

Two heads shake in unison.

I move on to my next question. “Did your parents keep money in the house?” It wouldn’t be the first time some day laborer decided stealing money was easier than working for it and turned on his employer.

The two boys defer to their older sister. “Datt kept some paper bills in a canning jar in the basement,” she says.