Kingdom Come (19 page)

I really didn't. I was frustrated as hell though. “What if the case goes cold? What if it's open for years?”

“Sounds like motivation to me,” Grady said with a bit of snark.

“Can I at least see him long enough to explain why I can't be with him for a while?”

“Nope. I'll explain it when I talk to him.”

I pleaded with Grady silently. He leaned over his desk and frowned at me. “There's one way out of this, Harris. Solve the goddamned case.”

“Without talking to any Amish people,” I said drolly. “What's next, one arm tied behind my back? Blowing a kazoo?”

A hint of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “You said when I interviewed you that you liked a challenge. Welcome to Lancaster. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go see Ezra Beiler.” He shook his head in disgust and grabbed his coat.

“Kiss him for me,” I said as Grady went out the door.

He huffed a laugh. “Oh my fucking God.” He slammed the door only a little on his way out.

He really was the best boss I'd ever had. I hated him.

The Bloody Bower

I couldn't stand thinking about what Grady was saying to Ezra. I went home feeling pretty bad. It felt like someone had stolen my wallet, keyed my brand-new car, and told me I had to get a tetanus shot all in the same day.

Ezra.

I hoped Grady didn't make Ezra feel like he'd done anything wrong. He'd had enough guilt heaped on him in his life. And I hoped Ezra understood this separation was only temporary.

God. He was a grown man. I was being ridiculous.

I took my phone to bed with me, but he didn't text. When I was sure Grady could no longer be there, I sent him one.

Sorry. It's just till we solve the case.

I got back a quick response.

Yeah. Don't like it tho.

I HATE it. Miss you.

He didn't reply.

The next morning, I stopped in Grady's office to fish around for how Ezra had taken it, what Grady had said, what Ezra had said. Grady just grunted at me. “Morning, Harris. Get to work.” Then he firmly shut his door in my face.

I figured that meant that, whatever Ezra had told him, it hadn't gotten me fired.

I tried to solve the case.

—

Two weeks went by. Somehow March had snuck up on me and our snowy winter turned into a soaked early spring. It rained as if the heavens were crying.

I spoke to every one of the “clients” who'd contacted Jessica through that Craigslist ad, or at least all the ones we could trace. About ten of them had actually gotten to meet the girls. The others had apparently not satisfied Jessica's criteria and had been declined. When I spoke to the ones who did meet up with them, their stories of how things went down matched Larry's pretty well. We checked out alibis. We checked backgrounds for any link to Grimlace Lane—and found none. Larry, meanwhile, sat in jail on the drug charge. I wasn't able to dig up anything more substantial to tie him to the murders, and several more interviews with him just ended up pissing off the both of us.

I was frustrated being stuck on the Craigslist angle. I knew
our best lead was Katie selling her story about abuse, but I couldn't do much about that due to my ban from seeing any of the Amish. I plagued poor Grady until I think he was about to ban me from talking to him too, maybe making it nice and legal with a restraining order.

“Have you talked to Isaac Yoder again about that whole birthmark comment? Don't you think that's suspicious?”

“I've talked to him. Twice. He can't even stomach the thought that Katie was abused. He didn't know.”

“What about her older brothers?”

Grady shook his head. “I gave you the audio interviews. They don't seem guilty to me. If they are, they're lying their pants off.”

“It didn't sound like you grilled them that hard, though.”

“Harris—”

“What about Amos Miller?”

“It's not him.”

“How can you be so sure? It was his barn. He's an older man and he lived close to the Lapps. He had opportunity.”

A grand rolling of the eyes.

“What about Aaron Lapp? Katie cleaned house for them for years.”

“Miriam Lapp swears she was always with Katie when she was in the house. I got the feeling she didn't particularly trust Katie. So even if Lapp
would
have, which I highly doubt, he never had the opportunity.”

I wasn't convinced on that score. Miriam couldn't have been there
all the time every time
for all those years. But I had to admit to myself that my dislike for Lapp could be coloring my suspicions.

“What about a grandfather? Uncle? Older cousin? She has to have dozens of them.”

“What if Katie wasn't abused at all? What if she was making up a story to get money?” Grady said. I knew he was goading me though. Mostly.

“I don't believe that. And neither do you.”

And so it went.

—

On Saturday night, when there wasn't one more thing I could think of to do at the station, I went home and went to bed early. I was all caught up on my sleep now that Ezra wasn't around. I hated it.

I lay there staring at the ceiling and gave in to an irresistible urge to call the man. After all, Grady had said I couldn't
see
Ezra. Talking on the phone wasn't seeing him, right? I'd been a good Girl Scout for two weeks. I needed this.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey.”

For a moment, we just listened to each other breathe.

“You know I don't want this, right?” I told him morosely.

“All right. You solved the case already?”

“No, babe. But I'm doing everything I can. How are your plans going?”

“Got my social security card in the mail. And I looked at a couple of places I could maybe rent. Places where I can have the mules. Ain't cheap though.”

“Yeah? Where are they?”

“One's south of Mount Joy. One's near Stevens.”

Stevens was too far away.

“Can't afford it yet.” Ezra sounded a bit low.

“If I moved out of this place, I could pay half.” My chest hurt just saying that. God knows, I hadn't planned on saying any such thing.

There was a long pause. “Don't think you mean that, Elizabeth.”

I sighed. “I dunno. Right now the idea of being able to see you every day is pretty sweet.”

Ezra's voice was dry. “What about after two months? Maybe it'll sour by then.”

“I like you sweet
and
sour.”

“You ain't even seen me sour yet, Detective Harris.” I could hear the hint of a smile in Ezra voice. I'd give anything to be able to see that tiny, wry tilt to his lips right now. And then kiss it away. Being with Ezra had revved me all up again, gotten me used to being held, being touched. Now I'd been forced to go cold turkey. It wasn't fair.

“Well, maybe you could text me a few of those addresses you're looking at. And maybe I could just happen to drive by and take a look.”

Ezra was quiet again. “All right.”

“Good then.”

I could feel his confusion and doubt over the phone, wondering if I was stringing him along. Or maybe I was just projecting my own fears about what he was feeling.

“Ezra, I can't see you right now because it would be a mess for the police department if the press found out about us. You see that, right?”

A shaky breath. “I see it.”

“It'll pass. I want to be with you.”

“Okay.”

I waited. “Is that all you've got for me, farm boy?”

“I'm glad you want to be with me,” he said solemnly.

I snorted. “Nice. Thanks a lot.”

“And I want to be with you more than anythin'.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I'm really missin' the smell of you.”

There was a teasing heat in his words that sent what was already a perked-up libido, just from the sound of his voice, all the way to eleven.

“Damn,” I breathed. “I wish we had Skype.”

“Sky?”

“Skype. Have you ever had phone sex?”

“What now?” He sounded very confused.

I smiled. “Not you having sex with a phone. Two people having sex
over
the phone.”

“How could we . . . ?”

I explained to him the principle of the thing and got a strangled reply. “I knew there was a reason I shoulda installed a lock on my bedroom door.”

I grinned, unreasonably happy to have made him suffer a little. “Well, someday we'll try it. Someday when you're not living with your sister. To be honest, it doesn't quite live up to the real thing though.”

“Bet it beats Parcheesi.”

I laughed. “What?”

“Been playing way too much of it with Martha in the evenings.”

“Yes, I think we can safely say it beats Parcheesi.” I sighed, wishing I could reach through the distance between us and touch his hand as it held the phone—anything.

“If that's what you English get up to, I think I understand why cell phones are forbidden 'cept for work.”

I laughed.

“Well.” His voice was heavy with things he didn't say.

“Good night, Ezra. Send me those addresses.”

He hesitated as if there was something he wanted to say, but he didn't. “Good night, Elizabeth.”

After we hung up I had the most terrible feeling. What if this case never ended? What if Ezra changed his mind about leaving the Amish? What if we were never together, in the flesh, again?

It was like having the stomach flu. No matter how bad the end might be, or what terrible things you might have to go through to get past it, at this point, I was willing to face it all just to have this done so we could get to the other side and things could be better.

I needed it to be done.

—

It must have been the sound of rain battering my bedroom windows, along with my stress about the case, but I dreamed again of drowning.

I was in the water looking for Katie. I knew she was there, but the water was muddy and I couldn't see her. I searched around for her with my hands, blindly. I kept thinking,
I need to go up for
air
, and I kept deciding just one more step, just let me reach this way. And then I realized I'd left it too late, and I was losing consciousness.

I woke up suddenly and sat up in bed. I wanted to go out there
right now
. It was a lingering panic brought on by my dream, that Katie was in the creek, she was drowning. I knew, of course, that Katie was long dead. There was no one I needed to save in Rockvale Creek. But I couldn't sleep anymore either. I looked at the clock—it was half past midnight.

I got dressed, got in my car, and headed toward Grimlace Lane.

I had no plans other than to drive around the area, make sure nothing looked amiss, and to use the quiet time to think about the case. That, and glean what hollow satisfaction I could just from driving by Ezra's house. But as I drove down a country road on my way there, I got behind a slow car. It was a sedan, and in the glow of my headlights I could see a young guy driving. His arm was around a girl who was seated as close to him as possible. They had no interest in going over twenty miles an hour.

After a few frustrating minutes, the car rolled into a pullout with an irritating nonchalance. I passed it.

I pushed the gas pedal, glancing behind me at the car, which seemed content to sit where it was for a while. It reminded me of something—Ezra turning the mule and buggy into a pullout while we were on our way to the farmers' market that day in February. I came to the next intersection and sat there, thinking. In the dark of night, in the heavy rain, I sat at a stop sign in the middle of farm country. If it had been the summer, I'd be serenaded by the sound of crickets and the glow of fireflies. In the
March rain, the staccato beat of raindrops supplied the soundtrack.

Jessica hadn't been killed in the Millers' barn. She'd been killed elsewhere and then, already cold, stiff, and dead, guided through the water of the creek to her final resting place.

She could have been killed anywhere, we'd agreed. She could have been killed in a Klein's Dairy truck—except we'd found no trace of it—or at the park where Larry Wannemaker took his lunch break—though blacklight tests there had found no blood. She could have been killed on any of a million country roads, like the one back there. When we hadn't found footprints in the snow exiting the creek toward the road, we hadn't followed up heavily on that theory.

I turned my car and headed for Ronks Road.

—

I started at Route 30. From there I followed Ronks south, toward the area of Grimlace Lane. I remembered from the map—it was a few miles before Ronks curved and parallelled Rockvale Creek for a time. I passed a pullout too close to 30 and kept going. Then I saw one on the right side of the road. I had a sense the creek was over there. I lowered my car window, but the rain made it impossible to hear the sound of moving water. I was pretty sure I was still downstream of the Millers' farm. I pulled into the dirt area. In my headlights I noted muddy wheel tracks and hoofprints from earlier in the day. This pullout was used by buggies.

I parked and got out, grabbed a flashlight from my glove compartment, and flipped up the hood on my windbreaker. The pullout was roughly curved and framed by trees. There was enough
gravel to keep the dirt from completely turning to mud, but the footing was slick and wet. The rough shapes of larger rocks shone in the flashlight's beam. I walked to the woods, the trees foreboding in the dark and the rain. I pressed on, and a few minutes later I was on the bank of Rockvale Creek. Or, to be honest, the bank was submerged, flooded from the recent rain, and I was as close as I could get to it without wading.

I shone the light upstream. I could make out nothing but trees, but I knew the farms on Grimlace Lane lay in that direction.

Jessica was hit in the back of the head while turned away, then finished off with suffocation. She'd lain somewhere, in the snow, for ten to twelve hours before she was moved via the creek.

Why had she lain outside? Why not in a car trunk?

I had a deep, intense burning in my gut. I wanted to search this area. I wanted a forensics team here, now.

I looked at my watch. It was a little after one in the morning. If I called a forensics team out in the middle of the night, in the rain, and it turned out to be a false lead, I'd never hear the end of it. Grady would say it could wait till morning. After all, we were well past those critical first few days. But the rain . . . The heavy rain was going to wash away any evidence that might be left, if it hadn't already.

—

I drove to the Lancaster Police Station. Some facilities stayed open twenty-four hours including, thankfully, the Equipment Rec office. The female officer who worked the night shift got
what I asked for and signed me out with no words wasted. At least, until she looked at her log.