“Jotham told me…and he encouraged me to begin my investigation there.”
The smell of charred wood reached my nostrils just before Rowan turned the horse into a gravel driveway and I saw the wreckage of the building.
Even though fresh snow covered much of the top of the burnt pile of what used to be a barn, it was still obvious that the fire hadn’t been that long ago. The remains of the bright yellow scene tape could be seen poking out here and there among the clumps of snow. The deep, muddy grooves where a fire truck had been parked alongside the road were now filling with puddles from the melting snow.
Rowan seemed to have recovered from his surprise at what his friend had told me and said, “I don’t think there’s any connection at all between the fire that happened eighteen years ago and the recent rash of burnings.”
I gazed at Rowan, trying to get a read on his thoughts from his facial expressions, but coming up empty. Was he lying, trying to cover up some information that he didn’t want me to know about? It would be hard to tell with this man. He was the type that usually controlled his emotions easily, but I had already learned that even though the Amish might be pretty good at keeping up outer appearances, they sweated the same as everyone else.
I didn’t trust Jotham either, but he had thrown me a bone, so I would definitely follow up on it.
Pulling out my little notepad from my back pocket, I dismissed Rowan’s intense gaze and climbed out of the buggy. The afternoon sun was shining brightly, and I reached back into the buggy to retrieve the sunglasses from my purse.
I walked a few feet and stopped. The first thing that occurred to me was that the barn was situated very close to the roadway and Abner Fisher’s house sat several hundred feet up the driveway, partly obscured by patches of trees and another shed-like building. It would have been easy to pull up alongside the barn and slip in through a doorway if it had faced the road. Just as easily, someone could throw a cherry bomb into an open window while driving by.
The barn would have had “burn me” written all over it to an arsonist. But the body was another story altogether.
Rowan appeared by my side and I asked him, “Was there a doorway to this barn facing the road?”
“Yes, there was.”
“And windows?”
He nodded. “If I remember correctly, there were three on each side of the door.”
I quickly drew a stick image of what I imagined the barn to look like and showed it to Rowan.
“That’s pretty close, except the roof line wasn’t as steep.”
“Do you know what part of the barn the body was found in?” I asked, stepping closer to the rubble.
Rowan didn’t immediately answer and I stopped writing to look back at him. He shrugged and replied, “I don’t right know. I must admit, it never even occurred to me to wonder about exactly where the woman had been found.”
Not surprising at all. My prior experiences with witnesses as a cop in Indianapolis were usually the same. Most people didn’t fret about the details too much.
“I want to visit the fire chief and the sheriff’s department tomorrow. Are you up to that?”
“Of course I will accompany you if want me to.”
Rowan’s horse let out a high pitched whinny and I followed its alert gaze to see a buggy coming down the driveway toward us. Even at this distance, I was able to clearly make out Joanna Fisher sitting beside a slender, gray bearded man, who I guessed must be her husband, Abner.
The huffing sound from Rowan got my attention and I looked up at him.
“Not in the mood for company?” I asked.
“You’ll understand for yourself soon enough. No need to waste my breath trying to explain.”
With a heightened sense of curiosity, I impatiently waited for the horse and buggy to reach us.
When the buggy stopped, I stepped up to the open door silently, waiting for Rowan to speak first. I was surprised when it was Joanna who made the introductions.
“Abner, this is the police lady from Blood Rock,” she said the words with a tight smile that was not nearly as friendly as the one she had graced me with earlier in the morning.
I thrust my hand forward. “Serenity Adams,” I said and motioned with the notebook back at the debris pile. “I’m sorry about your barn.”
I guessed the bishop to be in his fifties, maybe twenty years older than his wife. It wasn’t a totally creepy age difference, but almost. Abner Fisher’s high brows and prominent, straight noise made him look as equally aristocratic as his wife. But where she gave the instant impression of a peering hawk that was sitting on a power line, searching for a juicy mouse, Abner came off as a shy man with wandering eyes.
He waved irritably as if he was swatting an invisible fly and assured me, “It’s really a minor thing to lose the building. It can be rebuilt easily enough.”
Memories of Aaron Esch, Blood Rock’s resident bishop, and his lack of concern about a crime, came flooding back, and I almost rolled my eyes at the thought of history repeating itself.
“True, you can have a new barn up by springtime I’d wager, but…I can’t say the same thing about the woman who died in there.” I tried not to sound sarcastic, but I’m pretty sure I failed.
Nodding, Abner smoothly replied, “Yes, well, that was the point I was making. The fact that a person had burned in the fire is much worse than the barn going up itself.”
“Do you have any ideas who the woman was and why she just happened to be in your barn at the time of the fire?” I asked the bishop, but since he wouldn’t make eye contact with me, I tried to read Joanna who didn’t have such qualms about looking me squarely in the eyes.
“Haven’t got a clue,” he admitted.
Joanna didn’t need me to ask to know that she was next to be questioned and volunteered, “I couldn’t even make a guess, and it’s awfully strange that the police haven’t been able to tell us yet, either.” She paused and became even more focused, as if it was possible, and asked a question of her own, “Don’t you think six weeks is long enough for the coroner to discover who the person is?”
Her frustration with the delay was tangible, and I completely understood her angst. I’d been there too many times to count.
“Usually, when someone’s body is decayed or damaged so significantly that a visual determination can’t be made, dental records are used. But sometimes it can be difficult to match records up when you have a body without a missing person. I would guess that your local sheriff is sending out information about the woman to other agencies far and wide to match her with a missing woman from somewhere else…since your community doesn’t seem to have lost anyone.”
I still worried a little that they were all covering up another runaway, but I was definitely getting a very different vibe in this case.
“We have to be patient, Joanna, and have faith that Sheriff Gentry is doing his best to close the case as soon as possible,” Abner told his wife.
A very unladylike snort erupted from Joanna’s nose and she said, “I have faith in our Lord that He’ll shed light on the woman’s identity in due time, but it will still be snowing in July if Brody Gentry finds it in his heart to help us.”
I glanced at Rowan who had the look of a man silently telling me, “This is what I was talking about.”
“Hush now, we must not talk of such things.” The bishop’s tone was much more forceful than it had been earlier when he had spoken to his wife. He was not a happy camper with her outburst.
Clearing my throat, I said, “Why wouldn’t Sheriff Gentry be willing to help?”
“It’s a long story, Miss Adams, and not one I want to get into at this time. We are late for our meeting with the Millers as it is.” He tipped his hat to me, and nodded to Rowan, saying, “We’ll talk later.” He snapped the reins across the horse’s back and they were off.
A mo
ment later, Rowan and I stood silently together, watching the backside of the bishop’s buggy getting smaller and smaller and the sounds of the horse’s hooves striking the pavement becoming less distinct.
“So…Sheriff, what did you make of that?” Rowan finally breached the winter quiet of the air.
I turned to look at him and caught his appraising gaze. He was wondering himself if I was worth all the trouble of bringing me here. Honestly, at that moment, I was feeling a little overwhelmed at all the dynamics that were at play in this case. Once again, I found myself in a situation dealing with a group of people who most assuredly would lie and hide the truth from me—ironic, considering the fact that they were members of a Christian sect.
“Obviously, there is a grudge between your local sheriff and the community, maybe even Abner Fisher personally. Care to elaborate?”
“I will on our way back to the house. The day is flying by and I have a few things I have to do at the farm before dark.”
I took one last look at the crime scene and closed my notebook. The place was a burnt up pile of sticks with six weeks of winter weather on it. The chances of finding any new evidence in the rubble were slim at best. I really wished I had been able to poke around the morning after the fire, and that line of thinking triggered a thought.
Climbing into the buggy, I said, “The fire happened at night, right?”
“Sure did. As a matter of fact, Reuben Lapp’s sons, Jacob and Jory, are the ones who saw the flames and ran to the corner phone box to call the fire department.”
I held up my hand stopping him from picking up the reins. “Where is this phone box?”
Rowan pointed down the road in the opposite direction that we had approached from, and said, “There is a phone box about a quarter mile that way on the corner of Simon Graber’s land, just beside the road.” My face still must have registered confusion, and he went on to elaborate, “It’s a shed of sorts that several of the families use on this road.”
“Aren’t the families here allowed to have telephones on their property?”
“No, it’s against our Ordnung,” Rowan replied matter-of-factly.
Even though Jotham had explained earlier that each community followed its own set of rules, I still had a difficult time accepting the fact that this particular community allowed their boys to smoke, but telephones on their properties were against the rules.
“I see,” I said with a jolt of misgiving, “Have you considered that these Amish boys might have been the ones to set the blaze?”
Rowan’s eyes widened. “Why ever would you think such a thing?”
“It’s not unusual for the person who set the fire to be the one who calls it in. And people who get off on burning buildings typically stick around to see their handy work.”
“I would be highly surprised if that was the case. They are both good boys—hard working and mature for their ages,” Rowan said firmly and then he tried to change the subject, “Now, getting back to Sheriff Gentry…”
Rowan’s voice suddenly trailed off and I turned in the direction of his stare.
A newer model, solid black Dodge Challenger pulled into the driveway and parked beside us. The spattering of dusty white film over the car didn’t fool me. It was a very nice sports car and not the type of ride you would see out in the country. It was much more similar to a vehicle that drug dealers in Indy drove.
But it wasn’t the car that caught the breath in my throat. It was the inhabitants. They were the same two men that I had seen with the group of Amish boys in the lot behind the store. Once again, something needled me to attention and I waited for an explanation from Rowan.
“Hey, bro, haven’t seen you in a while,” the chameleon said.
I shot a look at Rowan, wondering at the newcomer’s use of the word “bro,” when he quickly said, “Serenity, this is my brother, Asher.”
Things were getting stickier by the minute.
6
Asher dipped his head in greeting, but he didn’t bother to remove his shades. I never liked talking to people with sunglasses on. It put me at a disadvantage when I couldn’t read their eyes. That’s why I rarely had mine off when I was outdoors in the daytime. But all the same, I still got the definite feeling that Asher was paying close attention to my reaction to news of his relationship with Rowan. Now that I was up close to him, I could see the family resemblance, physically. Both men had the same striking high cheek bones, but where Rowan was more reserved, Asher appeared to be extremely outgoing.
Asher continued to stare at me while he asked Rowan, “Have you been holding out on me? Are you dating this pretty English woman?”
Interestingly, the fact that Asher didn’t know about me the way everyone else in the community did, signaled that there might be a rift of some kind between the brothers.
Rowan didn’t beat around the bush when he said, “This is Serenity Adams. She’s the sheriff in Blood Rock.”
“What would the sheriff from Blood Rock be doing in our neck of the woods?” Asher asked. His tone was amicable, almost teasing, but I wasn’t fooled. When Asher and the man seated beside him heard the word sheriff they had both straightened in their seats. It was if I had just turned into a grizzly bear before their very eyes. They were suddenly extremely alert, poised for action. I’d seen this kind of reaction from plenty of people before, and it always meant they were guilty of something.
Not giving Rowan a chance to answer, I said, “I’m doing a private investigation of the recent barn burnings and the death of the woman in this particular barn.” I lifted my chin toward the wreckage, but I didn’t take my eyes off the men as I gaged their reactions to what I’d said.
Asher’s companion’s eyes widened considerably before he quickly looked away. Asher remained staring back at me, seemingly weighing my words before carefully saying, “Do you have any ideas who might be our pyromaniac?”
It was a reasonable question, but something in Asher’s tone and the tilt of his head put me on edge. I also made a mental note that he had referred to the problem as our, which struck me as odd since he obviously had left the Amish community to become English.
With a quick glance, I saw that Rowan was waiting for my answer as well. “I just got here today, but hopefully some leads will pop up soon,” I said.
Asher seemed to breathe a little easier with my answer and I decided to see how much about himself he was willing to share. “When did you leave the Amish, Asher?”
Asher leaned back and smiled broadly with the look of a man who got asked that particular question a lot. “I was about eighteen when I cut out. The Amish lifestyle didn’t suit me very well,” he turned to Rowan and quickly added, “If you need anything, bro, give me a call. Don’t be such a stranger.”
Rowan nodded his head stiffly and then Asher said to me, “Have a nice day, Sheriff.”
Asher’s words were like rotten potatoes dripping with honey. I squinted at the sports car in annoyance as it backed out onto the roadway and drove away.
Rowan wasted no time clucking to his horse and snapping the reins. As we began building speed, he glanced over and said, “What did you think about my brother?”
“You want my honest opinion?”
“Of course,” he said firmly.
“He’s a jerk, but a charismatic one.” As an afterthought, I added, “I can see why he didn’t fit in with your people.”
The farms were once again whizzing by and the breeze was getting colder by the minute. The late afternoon sun had dipped low in the sky and all the snow that had melted earlier in the day was beginning to refreeze, causing the landscape to glisten delightfully. I zipped my jacket up against the chill, and had the fleeting thought of how strange it was that I was riding around in a buggy in northern Indiana with an Amish man whom I barely knew. God definitely had a wicked sense of humor when it came to me, I thought.
&nbs
p; “You are a very astute person. Asher was always rebellious, but he hid it well from our parents when we were teenagers. He broke the rules…but he never did get caught.”
“So what finally forced him out?”
Rowan took a deep breath and his mouth quivered slightly. I suddenly became hyper aware, recognizing the imminent signs of a person about to betray a secret. I had discovered through my relationship with Daniel that both the Amish, and ex-Amish people, didn’t like discussing their pasts. Then it suddenly occurred to me as if a blinding flash of lightning had struck the ground beside me that the fire of nineteen ninety-seven would have happened about the same time that Rowan and Asher were teenagers themselves.
Was it just a coincidence that Asher showed up at the crime scene today, or was there a more sinister reason for his visit to the community? I really didn’t believe in coincidences and I already knew that it was very common for perpetrators to return to the scenes of their crimes. Maybe I was getting way too far ahead of myself, but I had the instant impression that Asher and his friend were not law abiding citizens. And I trusted my instincts. They had served me well thus far.
The surrendering look on Rowan’s face was fleeting. It was replaced by the expression of stubbornness that I had unfortunately discovered was all too common among the Amish people. “Our ways didn’t suit him, just like he said.”
I leaned back and chuckled inwardly for thinking this case would be that easy. “You guys aren’t that friendly anymore, I take it?”
“No. He chose to walk on a very different path than me and I couldn’t have him influencing my children.”
I got it. I had a sensible sister who was similar to me in everything from politics to basic values, but not everyone was that lucky. Shunning aside, it would be impossible for Rowan to keep up a relationship with a badass brother like Asher.
The horse slowed to a walk just before we turned up Rowan’s driveway. I experienced a bubble of happiness for a moment at the prospect of a hot shower before I remembered that the simple luxury probably wasn’t an option.