The Names of Our Tears (13 page)

Ten minutes passed, maybe more, by Cal’s estimation, and he sat as still and as quietly as he could manage. Then with the faintest of whispers—as if the breath of her song shouldn’t stir even the flame of a single candle—Emma began to recite the words of a martyr hymn Cal recognized from the Amish
Ausbund
hymnal. With little audible sound and no discernible movement, Emma’s whispering seemed to Cal to be the voice of goose down sprinkled on a breeze, recognizable as an Amish martyr hymn only because of its slow cadence of heartache and loss. He listened through the hymn, and still he didn’t speak. When the whisper of another hymn came to his ears, he listened with his eyes closed in the dark.

When Emma was finished with the second hymn, the buggy shifted on its springs, and Emma whispered behind Cal’s ear, “Those were Ruth’s favorite hymns. She sang them to me in her bedroom, Sunday night.”

Without turning to her, Cal said, “Tears are prayers, Emma.”

Pulling back, Emma said, “I’m not crying. And I don’t pray anymore.”

Cal stood and turned to face Emma in the dark. “It’s OK,” he said. “You’re supposed to be sad.”

“I’m not crying,” Emma said again. “I won’t ever cry again.”

“OK,” Cal said, “but come talk with me for a little while.”

“I don’t want to see you,” Emma whispered.

“Then here in the dark is a good place for us to talk,” Cal said. “You don’t have to look at me.”

He turned around to sit again on the back ledge of the cargo bay, and again the buggy shifted under him as Emma moved closer. “Sit here on the end,” he said. “We can sit in the dark and talk.”

Close to his ear, as if she were on her hands and knees behind him, Emma whispered, “Does anyone know where I’m at?”

“No,” Cal said, “just me.”

“I don’t want them to know that I come here.”

“They don’t know, Emma. And I won’t tell them.”

“They’re not my real family.”

“I know.”

“I haven’t seen Ruth’s body. So I don’t really know that she’s gone.”

Cal waited a beat, then said, “You’ll see her at the funeral.”

“I won’t look at her. I can’t.”

“That’s OK,” Cal said. “No one says you have to.”

“The Zook kids say I do.”

“Not if you don’t want to.”

Emma came forward and sat next to Cal, with her legs hanging over the back ledge.

Without turning to the side to face her, Cal said, “Emma, we want to find out who killed Ruth.”

“Why?”

“It’s important.”

“Not to me.”

“You’re stronger than you realize.”

“I don’t cry anymore.”

“I know. And you don’t have to. Not right away. But when you do, I think it will help you.”

“I don’t need any help.”

“OK, but instead, maybe you could help us.”

Hesitating, Emma asked, “How?”

“The sheriff wants to read the letters that Ruth wrote home to you.”

“They’re private.”

“I know, but if we can read them, it will help.”

“They are all I have left of her. I couldn’t give them to anyone.”

“You can carry them, Emma. I’ll drive. And we can tell the sheriff that all he is allowed to do is make copies.”

“Does that ruin them? The copy part?”

“No. They lay them flat, and only the light touches them. They’re like photographs.”

“We are not permitted to make any graven images. No photographs.”

“I know, but these aren’t people. They’re only objects. We won’t be taking any photographs of people.”

“Will I get them back?”

“Of course. You can stand beside the copy machine. You don’t have to let anyone take them away from you.”

“Some of them might be smeary. Someone might have cried on them, but nobody knows that.”

“God sees all our tears, Emma.”

“I don’t cry anymore.”

“I know.”

“I missed her so much. I couldn’t wait for her to come home from Florida. Then when she did, she was so sad.”

“You said that she cried. The night that she came home.”

“Both nights,” Emma corrected. “Saturday and Sunday. But she wouldn’t tell me why. I slept in her bed, and she sat up in her rocker.”

“I thought she came home on Friday night.”

“Yes, but I was already asleep. I sat with her Saturday and
Sunday, but when I woke up Monday morning, she was gone, so I should have stayed up with her Sunday night, too. I should have sat with her all night.”

“How could you have known?”

“I was supposed to know. I should have gone with her Monday morning. But I fell asleep while she was singing those hymns. She must have cried all night. She wouldn’t let me tell anyone about it. I’m the only one who knew that.”

After a long pause, Cal said, “This is a good place to talk.”

“It’s secret,” Emma said. “No one else can know.”

Turning in the dim light to face her, Cal said, “I won’t tell anyone about it, but can we talk like this again?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe it would be OK if I look for you here? Maybe another time?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“OK for now.” Cal smiled. “How about if we take those letters to the sheriff?”

“In your car?”

“Yes, but it’s a battered old carpenter’s truck.”

“I’ve never ridden in one.”

“In a truck?”

“Anything at all,” Emma said, shaking her head. “All I’ve ever ridden in is buggies.”

AFTER AN interview with the sheriff, Fannie rode with Pat Lance south and east around the curves and over the rises in the little hill-country burg of Charm, a curious mix of houses, businesses, and restaurants stretched out along the slopes overlooking blacktopped 557. At Township 369, Fannie directed Lance northward, and they crested the hills behind the sleepy town. A right on Township 371 took them to the Helmuth farm on the north side of the road, with the main house set back nearly a hundred yards. Lance slowed to turn into the drive, but Fannie cried out, “It’s her!”

Lance straightened her wheels immediately and looked down the drive as she rolled her cruiser slowly past the turn-in to the farm. She caught the briefest glimpse of people gathered on the front porch and of a car on the drive.

Driving east for another two hundred yards, Lance turned around in the drive of the next farm. She came back slowly to have a look up Fannie’s drive, and as they approached, Fannie crouched beneath the level of her window, wrung her hands and whispered, “That’s the lady! That’s her car. That’s Jonas on the porch.”

In front of Fannie’s house, an old gray Buick sedan was
parked with its front end pointed out toward the road. There’s no front plate, Lance thought, and continued along TR 371.

“That’s my family talking to her,” Fannie whispered, still crouched low in her seat. “That’s my brother Jonas and his wife. Now she knows my whole family lives there. We’ve got to go back.”

“We can’t, Fannie,” Lance said. “She’s looking for you.”

Lance keyed her radio mic and called in to the jail. “Ellie, we’ve got a problem.”

A scratching of static preceded Ellie’s response. “Go ahead.”

Lance reported, “I’m on TR 371, a quarter mile east of TR 369. We just passed Fannie’s farm. Send two units, Ellie. They’ve gotten a visit from the woman who met Fannie for her suitcase. She’s there right now, Ellie, and she’s a suspect in the murder of Ruth Zook. I couldn’t stop to help.”

“OK, what’s your twenty?”

Lance gave her the farm number and said, “But we can’t stay out here. Put the sheriff on. We need to guard Fannie.”

“Have you got a cell signal?” Ellie asked.

Lance stopped, pulled her phone off her belt, checked the display, and said on the radio, “It looks like it’s a good connection.”

“I’ll have him call you,” Ellie said, and switched off.

Lance continued on to the intersection with TR 369. There she turned north toward Ohio 39. Robertson phoned her, and she answered as she drove faster over rolling countryside.

“Fannie’s still with you?” the sheriff asked.

“Yes. We couldn’t stop to help.”

“But are you sure it’s the right woman, Lance?”

Lance asked Fannie, and Fannie nodded, “And she had the same car.”

“Yes,” Lance said into her phone. “I’ve got confirmation of the woman and the sedan. A gray Buick.”

“Did you get a plate number?”

“No front plate, Sheriff.”

“Then bring Fannie here, Lance. To the jail.”

“Ten minutes,” Lance said. “Are we going to keep this quiet?”

“We’re not gonna broadcast it,” Robertson responded. “But they need to know that they can’t get to her.”

Lance switched off and drove faster over the blacktop. The road rose and fell, twisted and turned, and traversed a pastoral countryside with large farms, wooden fences, and tall red barns. The peacefulness belied the worry in Fannie’s eyes.

Focused forward, Fannie asked, “Why don’t you care if she knows where I’m at?”

“The jail is the safest place to guard you, Fannie. She’ll know that she can’t get to you anymore. If we keep you at the jail, she’ll know it’s useless for her to try.”

“They can’t get in the jail?”

“We’ll guard you, Fannie. No one will be able to get to you.”

“Really, Detective Lance, I think it’d be better if I hide in the country, you know, with people I know.”

“The jail is better,” Lance said, focusing on the road.

“Jails make me nervous,” Fannie muttered, but Lance gave no reply.

“Will I have to sleep and eat there?”

“For a few days, Fannie, yes. At least until we’ve got them—her and all her people—in custody.”

“Should I call my brother? It’s really his house that she’s at.”

Lance drove past the boxy white Troyer Ridge schoolhouse at TR 368 and handed her phone to Fannie. Fannie keyed in a number and waited. When she was connected, she said directly, “That English woman’s not safe, Jonas. She’s trying to find me.”

When she handed the phone back to Lance, Fannie said, “They’ve already figured that out, Detective. She slapped Jonas’s wife on the face.”

*   *   *

At the Helmuth farm on TR 371, Ricky Niell followed Stan Armbruster’s cruiser down the long potted driveway with their light bars set to flash and strobe, sirens switched off. They pulled to a stop in front of the Helmuths’ porch and scrambled out of
their cars. A woman in Amish attire held the front door open for them, and they ran up the porch steps, Armbruster keying his shoulder mic to say, “We’re here, Sheriff. No Buick, though.”

At Ellie’s radio console, Robertson bent over to push the switch on the microphone stand and answered, “Secure the location, Stan. I’ll have more people there in five minutes, maybe less.”

Inside, Ricky pulled the four adults aside and asked, “Has she left?”

A younger man stepped forward and answered, “Yes. Just before you got here. She hit my wife.”

Beside him, a middle-aged woman in Amish-plain dress stood holding a wet hand cloth to her cheek. Niell asked to see her cheek, and she took the washcloth down to reveal a red welt under her right eye.

“It looks like she backhanded you, Mrs. Helmuth,” Ricky said, and the woman nodded silently, a fatalistic resignation to violence showing in her expression. She put the cold cloth back over her cheek and stepped behind her husband.

Turning back to Jonas, Ricky asked, “Did you notice her license plate number?”

“No,” Jonas said. “We didn’t pay any attention to her car.”

Armbruster keyed his mic again and said, “Ellie, post a unit on 557 north of Charm. South, too, as soon as possible. We’re looking for a gray Buick sedan, woman driving. But wait, Ellie.”

To the men, he asked, “What was her hair color?”

“Black,” Jonas said, “and short.”

“Short black hair, Ellie,” Armbruster said into his mic. “We just missed her.”

Ricky asked, “Do you have a basement?”

The oldest man, a grandfather, Ricky judged, answered with a nod and said, “The stairs are off the kitchen.”

“Then take the children down there, and don’t open the door unless it’s a deputy knocking.”

The two women ushered the kids toward the kitchen at back. Eyes cast to the floor, Jonas said, “We have no locks on our doors.”

Ricky nodded, not surprised, and said, “Take the back door, Stan.” Armbruster followed the family along a narrow hall toward the back of the house and into the kitchen.

Once they had descended the steps and Armbruster was in the kitchen, Ricky called out, “OK?” and Armbruster shouted back, “Got it.”

“Please go downstairs with the others,” Ricky said to Jonas and the older man. “Block the basement door with something heavy.”

Grandfather Helmuth complied without speaking, but Jonas stood his place, reproachfully passing judgment on his circumstance. Passing judgment, Ricky assumed, on all English harmfulness.

“Please, Jonas, go with the others,” Ricky said, and Jonas turned wordlessly for the kitchen stairs.

At the front door, Ricky shouted back, “I’m on the front door, Stan, and you’re on the back.”

Armbruster shouted back, “There’s no gray Buick, Ricky,” and Ricky thumbed Robertson’s speed-dial number on his cell phone, with his pistol out in his right hand.

Again, Armbruster shouted from the back kitchen. “No cars behind the house, Ricky,” and while his call to the jail rang through, Niell shouted, “Stay put, Stan. Nobody gets past you.”

“Done,” Armbruster said, not bothering to shout anymore.

“And don’t let anyone up from the basement just yet,” Ricky answered.

*   *   *

Pacing indignantly behind his desk, Robertson complained to Captain Newell, “I can’t spare the people, Bobby. This woman’s out driving on my roads, and if we don’t find her in the next five minutes, she’ll be long gone, and there’s nothing I can do about it. And we can’t really guard all the Helmuths out there. Our resources have got to go toward protecting Fannie.”

“At least leave a deputy there,” Newell argued, “with a black-and-white parked in the driveway.”

Still pacing, Robertson punched up Ricky’s cell number.
When Niell answered, Robertson asked, “How many do you have, now, Ricky? To guard them, I mean.”