Kingdom Come (22 page)

Miriam finally raised her eyes to look around the room pleadingly. “I'm a sinner. And I do confess it. I asked God to forgive me. And I ask my family, and my good neighbors, and for the church to forgive me. What I done was wrong, terrible wrong. But I did it for you, to save the scandal. And Katie, you know what she was. You know I was driven to it.”

Hannah finally looked at Miriam, her face set hard. She stood up slowly and, without a word, turned her back. Isaac, looking more sad than angry, did the same. Aaron just stared at the floor, face unreadable.

The Amish bishop, with his long white beard and black hat, stood slowly and when he spoke it was with a terrible gravity. “Miriam Lapp. The law will sentence and judge you in this life, and God in the next. As for the church, you have violated our most sacred beliefs with destruction, deceit, and murder. It was not for you to punish Katie Yoder, or the young girl who came to you for help. As for Detective Harris—” He looked me in the eye. I saw genuine regret and sorrow on his face. “Please accept our sincere apologies for what was done to you, including the day we asked you to be removed from the investigation. We should not have interfered, and the harm that came to you in our community causes us great sorrow.”

He waited, as if really asking me for forgiveness. I found that I held no grudge against the Amish in my heart. I gave the bishop a brief nod. He bowed his head at me.

“Thank you. As for you, Miriam,” the bishop continued, “I
forgive you, but I cannot accept your confession at face value. You say you repent, but true repentance can only come out of true understanding of what you did wrong and the harm it did yourself and others. And I don't think God has touched your heart yet so. We will pray for you.”

With that, the bishop nodded to his men and the Amish filed silently out of the room, not looking at Aaron or Miriam. Miriam seemed surprised at not having been accepted back into the fold, at being left alone. I couldn't help feeling gratified about that.

A warden went to Miriam, helped her to her feet with a strong hand, and put cuffs on her. As she was being led from the room, Aaron looked up at her.

“Miriam, forgive me,” he said. “My sin with Katie put you in a terrible place, confused and befuddled your mind. This is my fault.”

“I forgave you long ago,” Miriam said, in a simple voice, as though surprised. It was the last thing she said before the warden led her out the
door.

 

On October 10, LeeAnn Travis held a memorial for Katie and Jessica. It was at a pavilion at Paradise Community Park, and Hannah Yoder, along with a host of other Amish women, provided food. It turned out to be a beautiful fall day, and the park was full of Amish who had come to show their solidarity. Dotted among the black dresses and black-and-white bonnets were teenagers from Jessica's high school and a few of us from the police force too. The local press turned out, and even one of the major networks, but they respectfully kept their distance.

The bishop of Katie's church gave a brief prayer. He talked about how Katie and Jessica had become friends despite being from different worlds, about how Jessica had never given up on finding Katie, and how her determination to find her friend had eventually led Jessica to her own death. It was moving to hear him acknowledge that—that Jessica and Katie's friendship had been sincere and deep. Like Ezra, Katie had been a square peg
unable to fit into the prescribed round holes of the Amish life, and in Jessica she'd found someone who accepted her as she was, someone who understood, someone with whom to dream of escape.

I'd thought a lot about the girls in the seven months since it had all gone down. I'd thought about what Katie had planned to do, selling a video of her and Aaron Lapp. It had been a nasty act. But when I considered her minimum-wage jobs, how she'd cleaned houses from the age of eleven, worked at the farmers' market, and then sold her body for seventy-five dollars to strangers in an effort to save up that pouch full of money, I couldn't judge her. She was fighting her way to a new life in the only way she knew how. And maybe she felt, too, that Aaron deserved exposure, deserved to have his abuse of her seen by the world. I couldn't blame her for that either.

Aaron's abuse was exposed in the end—documented at his sentencing hearing and reported in all the major papers. He admitted to all of it, and Miriam too. They never stood trial because they did not contest their crimes. Aaron was sentenced to ten years for child abuse and conspiracy to murder. Miriam got twenty. But the video Katie had made never went public. The phone belonged to LeeAnn Travis, and it was up to her whether or not to release the footage to the public. She decided not to, despite being offered an obscene amount of money for it. The Amish community, and especially Hannah and Isaac, had been good to LeeAnn. They'd gone to her home to apologize right after Miriam Lapp's confession, and they'd befriended her since. LeeAnn didn't hold a grunge, and neither did the public. In fact, tourist season was bigger than ever in Lancaster County that
summer, with all the curiosity-seekers coming for a closer look at where it had happened. Grimlace Lane had been getting a lot of traffic. Fortunately, Ezra didn't live there anymore.

Hannah Yoder came up to us after the prayer. Her eyes were red but she looked at me kindly. To my surprise, she put her hands on my upper arms and briefly pressed her cheek to mine before pulling away. “Elizabeth, I haven't had a chance to thank you before now. We're so grateful to you for bringing home our Katie and . . .” She paused, her face pained as if the words hurt. “. . . and for helpin' me understand her . . . why she was the way she was. Thank you.”

I didn't know what to say, and I didn't trust my voice anyway. I managed a simple reply. “You're welcome, Hannah. If there's ever anything I can do for you or your family, please call me.”

She nodded with a sad smile and even gave a nod to Ezra too before walking away. “You okay?” I asked him as we stood at the edge of the crowd.

“Yup. I'm good.” He wasn't though. I could see the strain in his shoulders. We knew it would be hard to come to this, but he'd wanted to do it anyway. As we expected, the Amish all ignored Ezra, though of course they recognized him, despite his jeans and blue blazer. Their loss. Ezra was the best, most appealing human being on the entire freaking planet. Of course, I could be biased. I suppose it wasn't as bad as it might have been. Though they ignored Ezra, no one gave us dirty looks.

Ezra went to talk to Mike Grady and his wife, Sharon, while I said my good-byes. LeeAnn Travis gave me a long hug and I got one from Katie's little sister Sadie. Katie's parents, Hannah and Isaac, were polite, and Isaac shook my hand. But there was an
undeniable reserve in them that set them apart. That was fine. Ezra and I didn't belong in their world, and we were just fine in our own.

—

Ezra was quiet that evening. He did his chores out in the barn with our six-month-old golden retriever named Rabbit while I cooked a quick stir-fry. The police department had given those involved with the Grimlace Lane case the afternoon off to go to the memorial, and it was a treat to be home early on a Friday night. The farm we rented was small, just twelve acres, but it had a barn that opened onto a ten-acre fenced pasture and a place for Ezra's kitchen garden. Martha had decided to return to their parents' home and remain Amish. Neither of us was really surprised. She didn't have the burning need Ezra had to break free, and the pull of family and the familiar was just too strong.

Ezra wore different clothes these days, but there was still a grounded simplicity about him, like the wildflowers and weeds that crowd around the white pasture fence. It was a simplicity that spoke of the past and of home to me, like the smell of my grandfather's shed. Pennsylvania was home to me. Ezra was home.

I thought Ezra's solemn mood that evening was due to the Amish gathering at the memorial and the way he'd been shut out of it, the way his own family hadn't acknowledged him. Sometimes I wondered if he ever regretted his choices. But then we had a dinner full of heated looks and low words. He made love to me that night with fire and passion and a heart full of love, and it seemed to me that he didn't regret a thing.

We had a good life together, a wonderful life. As far as I was concerned, I wasn't going to take a single minute of it for granted.

Ezra fell asleep and so did Rabbit, hogging the foot of the bed. But I was too wound up from the memorial. I put a coat on over my pajamas and went to sit on the back porch. Horse came to the fence and looked at me and then, seeing I was just fine and, furthermore, was not Ezra, went on his way to roam in the dark with the dozen other mules Ezra was raising.

The copper beech tree in the pasture shook its limbs, its dying leaves
shrrr
ing in a light breeze. The clouds parted and the moon broke out, creating light and shadows. An image of Terry came to me from out of the blue. It felt as if he stood there under the copper beech tree, watching me. For the first time, the thought of Terry did not fill me with rage or fear or guilt. In my mind, Terry was smiling.

I smiled back.
I still miss you
, I thought,
but I'm happy
.

Maybe there is no such thing as a perfect place in life, or a perfect person. But we are granted perfect moments, I think.

I went back inside to join Ezra and savor this
one.

Keep reading for a special preview of Jane Jensen's next Elizabeth Harris novel . . .

IN THE LAND OF MILK AND HONEY

Coming soon from Berkley Prime
Crime!

 

Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, March 2015

“Mama! Mama!”

The strained cry pulled Leah from a fevered dream in which she'd been sewing and sewing. The stitches fell apart, disintegrating as she frantically worked. It was something important and she had to finish it . . . a bridal dress.

No. A shroud.

“Mama!”

Leah sat up in bed. Beside her, Samuel was asleep. She touched his forehead. It was still hot and dry with fever. But it wasn't Samuel who had called for her. It had been a child's voice. She left her husband to his fitful rest and went out into the hall in her white cotton nightgown and bare feet.

Coming!
she thought. She left the reassurance unspoken
because it was the middle of the night, and she didn't want to wake the rest of her children.

A shining band of lantern light peeked out from under the door of the upstairs bathroom the children all shared.

She knocked lightly. “
Hast du mich gerufen
?” she asked, low.
Did you call me?

“Mama!” Breathless and weak, the cry came from behind the door. Leah opened it.

On the floor by the toilet lay Mary. She was pale as snow. Her thirteen-year-old body had recently begun to develop a woman's shape, but she looked years younger now. Her long dark hair, loosened for bed, was sheeted around her, damp and oily at her brow. Her eyes were closed. One of her hands twitched weakly, as if it wanted to reach for her mother. The smell of vomit and bile hit Leah in the face, sharp as the January wind on the open fields. The lid of the toilet was open, small amounts of bile the only evidence of Mary's heaving. Her stomach was empty, poor thing. But the back of her nightdress was stained brown.

“Oh, Mary!” Leah fought her own nausea, exacerbated by the smell, and bent to help her daughter. She managed to get Mary sitting up and stripped off her soiled nightgown and undergarments. She cleaned Mary with a wet rag and bundled all the stained cloth up together. Leah enumerated the tasks in her head. She had to take the bundle down to the laundry room, open up the little window in the bathroom to air it out, then see to it that Mary was put into a clean nightgown and settled back into bed, and, oh yes, given a glass of water to drink while Leah watched. The doctor said water was important, especially with
all the vomiting and diarrhea, but it was hard to get the children to drink it. When they did, it often came right back up.

Mary was trembling like a leaf in the breeze, her eyes bleary. But at least she was able to sit up by herself. Leah draped her in a few towels to keep her warm and went to fetch a clean nightgown.

As she passed the boys' room she heard the muffled sound of crying—miserable, lonely gasps. She hesitated, wondering if she should first get Leah's nightgown, but the sound was too worrying. She pushed open the door to the boys' room.

“Aaron!” She hurried to the child's side. Six-year-old Aaron, who looked so much like his papa, especially with their identical sandy-colored Amish haircuts, was sitting up on the lower bunk. He was crying, quietly but full-out, his mouth gaping wide.

She pulled him into a hug and checked his forehead. His fever seemed to have broken for the moment. His skin was clammy and covered with sweat.

“
Was is das
?” she tsked quietly. Across the room in the other set of bunk beds, Mark, her twelve-year-old, had his back turned, asleep on the upper bunk. The bottom bunk the boys used for playing—at least until little Henry outgrew his crib.

“
Ich hatte einen Albtraum
,” Aaron sobbed. A nightmare.

Leah felt a touch of relief. At least Aaron was not as sick as Mary, or as he himself had been earlier that evening. Maybe he was on the mend. Maybe they all would be soon, and her own nightmare would end. “
Es war nur ein Traum. Schlafen tu
.”
It was only a dream
.
Go back to sleep.

She tucked Aaron in, his eyes already drooping, and
straightened up from the lower bunk. Her back ached, deep and low, and she put a hand to it, rubbing. Chills ran through her, shaking her so hard the wooden boards beneath her feet creaked. Dear God, let this terrible flu pass soon. She should fetch her shawl. But first—Mary's nightgown.

She turned to go, but decided to check on Will first. He was in the bunk above Aaron's. Her fourteen-year-old had been very ill all day, refusing food and going to bed at six o'clock after dragging himself through the daily chores. The cows had to be milked, no matter that the entire family was sick as dogs.

She stepped closer to the top bunk and went up on her tiptoes, reaching a hand out to touch William's forehead. He was a barely distinguishable shape in the dark. Her fingers touched wetness, partially dried and sticky. It was around his mouth, which was slack, open, and felt oddly firm. The smell of something foul came from where her fingers had been. Alarmed, she drew back her hand and paused for only a moment before reaching for the Coleman lamp on the bedside table. She turned it on. Keeping the other boys asleep was no longer the foremost concern on her mind.

“Will?” She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the light. She stepped on the lower bunk and pulled herself up to look at her son.

A moment later her scream echoed through the silent house like a gunshot.