Gone Missing (Kate Burkholder 4)

The eastern horizon is awash with Easter-egg pastels as he parks adjacent a ramshackle barn, next to an old horse-drawn manure spreader. We exit the Tahoe without speaking. I notice the yellow glow of lantern light in the window, telling me the Hertzlers are awake. We’re midway to the porch when the door swings open.

An old Amish woman with a braided rug draped over her arm looks at us through bottle cap–lensed glasses. She’s wearing a plain black dress with a white apron. Her silver hair is pulled severely away from her face and covered with the requisite prayer kapp. “Who goes there?” she asks in a gravelly voice.

“Mrs. Hertzler?” I call out.

“I can’t see you. Who are you?”

“I’m Chief of Police Kate Burkholder and this is Agent Tomasetti with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation.” We reach the porch and show her our identification. “We’re assisting the police department in their search for Annie King.”

The woman squints at our IDs. Her eyes are rheumy and huge behind the lenses of her glasses. But I see within their depths a sharp mind and a foreboding that wasn’t there before. The police don’t show up at your back door at 6:00 A.M. for idle chitchat.

“Is the bishop home, Mrs. Hertzler?”

“Was der schinner is letz?” What in the world is wrong? She asks the question as she opens the door wider and ushers us inside.

Tomasetti and I step into a small kitchen. I see a homemade wooden table for two, rustic shelves mounted on the wall, an old-fashioned potbellied stove. The smell of coffee and scrapple laces the air. A bent old man, as thin as his wife is plump, sits hunched over a cup of steaming coffee. He’s clad wholly in black, the shock of white beard and hair contrasting severely against his jacket. Their dress tells me they are conservative Amish, and I wonder if they’ll agree to ride in the Tahoe, or if we’ll have to follow their buggy to the King farm, which will add hours to the identification process.

“Guder mariye,” I say, bowing my head in respect as I bid them good morning.

Both people look at me as if I just beamed down from another planet. The last thing they expected was for an Englischer to walk into their kitchen and greet them in Pennsylvania Dutch.

“Kannscht du Pennsilfaanisch Deitsch schwetzer?” the bishop asks after a moment, surprised I speak Pennsylvania Dutch.

I explain to them that I’m from Holmes County—leaving out the part about my excommunication—and am assisting with the Annie King case. “The body of a young woman was found this morning.”

Mrs. Hertzler gasps, but I don’t stop speaking. “We need Mr. and Mrs. King to tell us if it’s Annie.” I look at the bishop. “I thought you might be a comfort to them.”

The room falls silent. The only sounds are the hiss of the lantern and the rain dripping from the eaves. The air is hot and stuffy, but neither the bishop nor his wife seems to notice.

“Mein Gott,” Mrs. Hertzler whispers. “God be with that poor child. God be with her family.”

“We need to speak with the family as soon as possible, Bishop Hertzler,” I tell him. “I don’t want them to hear the news from someone else. Will you come with us?”

The old man reaches for the cane leaning against the back of his chair, grips it with a gnarled hand, and pushes unsteadily to his feet. “Bring me my Bible.”

The drive to the King farm is silent and tense. By the time we pull into the gravel lane, it’s nearly 7:00 A.M. The sun sits on the eastern horizon like a steaming orange ball, burning away the final vestiges of the night’s storm.

Despite the early hour, the King farm is abuzz with activity. Two children—little girls clad in matching blue dresses—are on their way to the barn when we park next to a flatbed wagon loaded with a single milk can. They stare at us as Tomasetti and I help the bishop from the Tahoe, but they don’t stop to chat. More than likely, they’ve got cows or goats to milk before school.

A big black dog with white paws bounds over to us, tongue lolling. Tomasetti bends, stepping between the animal and the bishop to keep the dog from knocking the old man off balance.

We’re midway up the sidewalk when the screen door squeaks open and Levi King steps onto the porch. He looks gaunt and exhausted. His eyes settle on Bishop Hertzler, and I see a recoil go through his body.

“Has something happened?” he asks, starting toward us. “Is it Annie? Did you find her?”

“Mr. King—” I begin, but he cuts me off.

“Bishop?” Desperation rings in King’s voice. He stops a few feet away and stares at the old man, as if Tomasetti and I aren’t there. “Tell me. Why are you here?”

“We found a girl’s body,” I interject. “There was no ID. We need for you to come with us and tell us if it’s Annie.”

King looks at me as if I just rammed a knife into his abdomen and gutted him. His mouth opens. His lips quiver. “It isn’t Annie. It can’t be.”

In my peripheral vision, I see Tomasetti glance toward the Tahoe, and I wonder if he’s reliving the moment when someone told him about the deaths of his own daughters, the death of his wife.

The bishop maintains his grip on the younger man’s arm. “Be faithful, Levi, and leave the results to God.”

The screen door slams. I look up, to see Edna King standing on the porch in her plain dress and kapp, a threadbare dishcloth in her hands. There’s no way she overheard the conversation. But she knows this is about Annie. She knows it’s bad.

The dishcloth flutters to the ground, and then she’s running toward us. “Is it Annie?” she asks. “Did something happen?”

Levi steps back into himself. When he turns to his wife, his face is resolute and calm. “There was a girl found,” he tells her. “It may not be Annie.”

“A girl?” She covers her mouth with both hands. “She is alive?”

Her husband sets both hands on her shoulders, shakes his head. “God will take care of Annie,” he says with conviction.

“Edna, there is much comfort in that,” the bishop adds.

I see the struggle waging within her, the war between absolute faith and the terror of knowing something horrific may have happened to her daughter. “It cannot be Annie,” she whispers. “Not Annie.”

Tomasetti snags my attention and motions toward the Tahoe. I take a step back and we start down the sidewalk.

“I have to go with them,” Levi tells her. “Be strong, Edna. Get breakfast for the children. I’ll be back before you’ve washed the dishes.”

“Levi . . .”

I hear her crying softly, but the Amish man turns away. Stone-faced, staring straight ahead, he starts toward the Tahoe.

Behind him, his wife falls to her knees, clenches handfuls of grass in both hands, and cries out her daughter’s name.

The drive to Trumbull Memorial Hospital takes twenty-five minutes, but it seems like hours. The sense of dread inside the vehicle is palpable. Bishop Hertzler and Levi King ride in the backseat and spend much of that time in silent prayer or speaking quietly. Mostly, they talk about Annie—her youth and goodness, her love of God and family, the possibility that the body isn’t hers and that another family will be needing their prayers. Levi returns to that theme again and again, and I know he’s clinging to that hope with the desperation of a man trying to save his own life. In a way, he is.

By the time we park in the garage across the street from the hospital, the men have fallen silent. No one speaks as we disembark. The two Amish men draw some attention as the four of us take the skyway from the garage to the hospital. It’s always hard for me to believe there are people living in Ohio who’ve never seen an Amish person. Once inside, we take the elevator to the basement, where the morgue is located.

The elevator doors open to a reception area with pale yellow walls, a blue sofa and chair, and a couple of large areca palms. The coffee table holds a vase filled with silk peonies. A flat-screen television mounted on the