Gone Missing (Kate Burkholder 4) (13 page)

The woman offers a weak smile. “It contains the names and addresses of every wholesale customer we’ve had since Eli’s grandfather sold his first bread box seventy-six years ago.”

Suzy lowers her eyes to the desktop, sets her hand over her mouth, and closes her eyes tightly. “We pray every day for her safe return,” she whispers.

To my right, Eli rounds the desk and comes up behind his wife, sets his hand on her shoulder. “What is it you want to know?” he asks us.

Tomasetti and I read the file before driving over. We know the particulars of the case: when Bonnie went missing, where she was last seen, who searched for her, whom she was last seen with, who was questioned. The local PD interviewed her friends and family. What we’re looking for today are any details that, for what ever reason, either weren’t included in the reports or that her parents failed to mention.

“In the weeks and days before Bonnie disappeared, what was her frame of mind?” I ask.

If my line of questioning surprises him, Eli doesn’t show it. “She was fine,” he tells me. “The same as always.”

I look at Suzy. “Was she troubled by anything? Was she having problems with any of her friends?”

The woman meets my gaze, shakes her head. “She is a happy girl. Looking forward to helping teach the little ones in the fall.”

“Does she have a beau?”

Suzy’s eyes skid right and she picks up her pencil. “She does not have time for a beau. She stays busy with teaching the children.”

It is then that I realize Eli Fisher is either a better liar than his wife or is oblivious to the fact that his daughter was involved with someone. “What about arguments? Did either of you have words with her?”

Eli shakes his head. “Nothing like that.”

I don’t take my eyes off of Suzy. Beside me, Tomasetti hangs back, gives me the floor. “Is that true, Mrs. Fisher?” I ask gently.

“Of course.” But the Amish woman’s breaths quicken. Her grip on the pencil tightens so much, her knuckles turn white.

Eli runs his hand lightly over her shoulder before letting it fall to his side. “Why are you asking these things?” he asks.

“Because I want to find your daughter.”

“We have told the police everything.” He glares at me. “Why do you come here now and ask the same things all over again?”

“I want to make sure no one left something out that could be important.” I hold his gaze. “Something that might help us find Bonnie.”

I feel Tomasetti’s attention burning into me, but I don’t look away from Eli.

“You think we have done something wrong?” the Amish man asks. “You think we are guilty of something?”

“I think you’re trying to protect your daughter.”

He opens his mouth, but no words come.

“You don’t have to protect her from us,” I tell him. “Please. I need the truth. All of it.”

Suzy raises her eyes to mine. I see a resolve within the depths of her gaze, something I hadn’t seen before, and I know my suspicions are correct. She wants to come clean about something, but she doesn’t want to speak in front of the men.

“Mr. Fisher,” I begin, “I was wondering if I could buy one of those bread boxes from you?”

“We don’t sell to the pub—”

He stops abruptly when Suzy reaches up and squeezes his hand. “Sell her the bread box,” the woman says.

I glance at Tomasetti. With a nod, he moves toward the door. “I know which one you want,” he says over his shoulder as he leaves the room.

Eli takes a final look at his wife. With a shake of his head, he follows.

When we’re alone, I address Suzy in Pennsylvania Dutch. “He’s a good husband, isn’t he?”

“
Ja.
” She nods adamantly, but her eyes are sad. “A good father, too.”

I wait.

“But he is a man and there are certain things he cannot understand.”

I don’t agree; men are as capable of understanding as women, but I let it go. I watch her struggle with the words; then she raises her gaze to mine. “Bonnie had a beau,” she says.

“What was his name?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was he Amish or English?”

“I do not know.”

“How do you know she had a beau?”

She looks down at the invoice to her left, transfers a number onto the columnar pad. “Because she was with child.”

I’ve been around the block a few too many times for this news to shock me. Teenagers having babies is nothing new—even within the Amish community. The thing that does surprise me is that this information hadn’t come out before now.

“How far along was she?” I ask.

“I don’t know. She wasn’t showing yet.”

“She confided in you?”

Her gaze skates away from mine, and I realize she’s more hurt by the fact that her daughter didn’t confide in her than she is by the out-of-wedlock pregnancy. “I found the . . . plastic thing,” she tells me. “You know, from the drugstore.”

“A pregnancy kit?”

“
Ja.
In the trash. She’d tried to hide it, but . . .” A sigh shudders out of her. “That’s when I knew.”

“You asked her about it?”

“She denied it at first, but when I told her I’d found the test, she . . . confessed.”

“Do you know who the father is?”

My question elicits a blank stare, as if it hadn’t occurred to her to ask. But I know it had, and I realize with some surprise there’s something else going on that she considers even worse than the pregnancy.

“Who’s the father?” I ask again.

She transfers another number onto the columnar pad.

“Mrs. Fisher?” I say gently. “This could be important. Who is he?”

The woman looks down at the desktop, folds her hands in front of her. “Bonnie doesn’t know,” she whispers.

“She had more than one partner?”

The woman jerks her head. “I don’t understand her. I don’t understand why she does these things.”

“Do you know the names of the men she was with?”

Her face screws up, but she regains control before the tears come. “She would not say.”

“Do you know how many there were?”

She puts her face in her hands and shakes her head. “No.”

“Do you know where she met them?”

“She is . . . secretive about such things. She gets angry when I ask too many questions.”

I want to say something to comfort her. But I’m so far out of my element, I can’t find the words. The things I know as a cop would be no comfort, and so I hold my silence.

“We did not teach her to be that way. I don’t know how she knew. . . .”

I nod, give her a moment. “Is there anything else you can think of that might help us find these young men?”

She shakes her head, as if she’s too upset to speak. When she raises her gaze to mine, her eyes are haunted. “Do you think one of the boys might have taken Bonnie?”

“I don’t know,” I tell her. “But I’m going to do my best to find out.”

Ten minutes later, I slide into the Tahoe beside Tomasetti. Neither of us speaks as he backs from the parking space. The two horses and the wagon filled with furniture are still there. Eli Fisher is helping a younger man load a cabinet into the back. He stops what he’s doing to watch us. His eyes are shadowed by the brim of his hat, so I can’t discern his expression, but he’s not smiling and he doesn’t wave.

“Mrs. Fisher isn’t a very good liar,” Tomasetti says as he pulls onto the road. “Did you get anything?”

“Bonnie Fisher was pregnant.” Only after the words are out do I realize I’m speaking of her in the past tense.

He glances away from his driving and makes eye contact with me. “Who’s the father?”

“She doesn’t know.” I pause. “Evidently, the girl didn’t know, either.”

He cuts me a sharp look. “Maybe her disappearance is some kind of jealous-lover situation. One guy finds out about the other and the girl gets the short end of the stick.”

“Or maybe lover boy decided he didn’t want to be a dad.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

I think about that a moment. “Two of the missing girls were involved in relationships.”

“I don’t think that’s unusual.”

“Undesirable relationships,” I say, clarifying. “Especially in the eyes of the Amish.”

He nods. “Might be something we need to add to the profile.”

I run all of that through my mind. “Do you think she’s dead?”

“Two months is a long time to be missing, Kate.” He grimaces. “We need the names of the men she was involved with.”

“All we can do at this point is talk to the people she knew,” I tell him. “Especially her friends.”

As we pull away, I try to put my finger on something else that’s bothering me about our meeting with the Fishers, but I can’t pinpoint it. I glance out the window and see Eli Fisher standing at the rear of the wagon, watching us, his mouth a thin, flat line.

“You know, Chief, that was pretty smooth, asking for one of those bread boxes.”

I glance over at Tomasetti and see one side of his mouth twitch, and I know he’s messing with me. “How much do I owe you?” I ask.

“I thought maybe you could buy dinner.”

I glance at the clock on the dash. It’s almost 6:00
P.M.
I wish I could reach out and stop time. “Is later okay?”

“What do you have in mind?”

“I thought we’d drive up to Monongahela Falls and talk to the parents of the missing boy.”

He gives me a look of feigned disappointment. “You’re not trying to weasel out of dinner, are you?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Irene and Perry Mast live on a mile-wide swath of farmland cut into national forest fifty miles north of Buck Creek. According to Goddard, the farm is over two hundred years old. During the Civil War, the house was part of the Underground Railroad, a stopping point for African slaves escaping to Canada. Now the Masts run a large hog operation and farm corn and soybeans.

Dusk has fallen by the time Tomasetti and I turn into the narrow gravel lane. It’s bordered on both sides by vast fields of corn as high as a man’s head. I catch the telltale whiff of hog manure as we speed toward the house. Most Amish farms are neat and well managed, the kinds of idyllic places photographers like to capture for postcards or coffee-table books. That’s not the case with the Mast farm.

The lane curves right and a sprawling brick house with peeling white paint and a rusty tin roof looms into view. Ahead, a massive barn with red paint weathered to brown greets us like a grizzled old friend. Looking through the fence rails, I see a dozen or so Hampshire hogs rooting around in mud so deep, their bellies scrape the surface.

The farm has a depressed, overused look to it, as if the people who own it no longer have the will to maintain it. I wonder if the loss of their son nine years earlier has anything to do with it.

Tomasetti steers the Tahoe around deep ruts and parks adjacent to the fence. “Damn place stinks,” he says as he slides out.

“Pigs,” I tell him as I start toward the house. “Poorly managed manure pit.”

“Great.” We share a look, and I know he’s thinking about the case we worked last winter, when three family members perished in the cesspit on their farm.

“There’s a light in the metal building over there.”

His voice jerks me back to the present, and I follow his finger as he points. Set back a short distance from the barn, a large windowless steel building looks out of place among the older wood structures. The sliding door stands open about three feet and dim yellow light slants through the opening.

A narrow dirt path cut into knee-high grass takes us toward the shed. We’re fifteen feet from the door when I notice several objects the size of soccer balls in the grass. At first, I think they’re decorative rocks. I’m nearly upon them before I realize they’re severed hog heads.

Tomasetti actually takes a step back, sends me a “What the fuck?” look.

“They’re probably slaughtering hogs,” I explain.

“Well, if the smell of shit isn’t bad enough, let’s just throw in a couple of severed heads.”

“You want to wait out here?”

He stares down at the heads in disgust. “This is going to ruin the whole baby back rib thing for me.”

Grinning, I go through the door. “Man up, Tomasetti.”

I grew up on a farm where the slaughter of livestock was a routine part of life. I bore witness to the process a dozen times before I was old enough to realize how much I hated it. Sense memories, I think, and I’m surprised at how vividly those days come rushing back.

The smell of dirt and manure and the salty copper stench of blood assaults my senses when I enter the building. A lantern hangs from a wire strung between two rafters and casts yellow light in all directions. A buggy with a missing wheel is parked a few feet away, its dual shafts angling down to the floor. Steel livestock panels lean against the wall. Next to them, an aluminum trough is tipped onto its side. A dozen or more burlap bags filled with some type of grain are stacked neatly atop a flatbed wagon, a good bit of yellow corn spilling onto the floor. Beyond, a shadowy hall leads toward the rear of the building.