Plain Truth (7 page)

“Smothering? This isn't some Jersey girl giving birth in the toilet at the Paramus Mall and then going off to finish shopping, Lizzie. The Amish don't even kill flies, I'll bet.”

“We made national headlines last year when two Amish kids were peddling cocaine,” Lizzie countered. “What's
60 Minutes
going to say to a murder?” She watched a spark come to George's eyes as he weighed his personal feelings about charging an Amish girl against the promise of a high-profile murder case. “There's a dead baby in an Amish barn, and an Amish kid who gave birth,” she said softly. “You do the math, George. I wasn't the one who asked for this to happen, but even I can see that we've got to charge her, and we've got to do it soon. She's being released today.”

He meticulously cut his sunny-side-up eggs into bite-size squares, then placed his knife and fork down on the edge of his plate without eating a single one. “If we can prove smothering, we might be able to charge Murder One. It's willful, premeditated, and deliberate. She hid the pregnancy, had the baby, and did away with it.” George glanced up. “Did you question her?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

Lizzie grimaced. “She still doesn't think she had a baby.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“She's sticking to her story.”

George frowned. “Did she look crazy to you?”

There was a big difference between legally crazy and colloquially crazy, but in this case, Lizzie didn't think George was making the distinction. “She looks like the girl next door. One who happens to read the Bible instead of V. C. Andrews.”

“Oh, yeah,” George sighed. “This one's gonna go to trial.”

Sarah Fisher pinned her daughter's
kapp
into place. “There. Now you're ready.”

Katie sank down on the bed, waiting for the candy-striper to appear with a wheelchair and take her down to the lobby. The doctor had discharged her minutes before, giving her mother some pills in case Katie had any more pain. She shifted, folding her arms across her stomach.

Aunt Leda put an arm around her. “You can stay with me if you're not ready to be at home yet.”

Katie shook her head.
“Denke
. But I ought to get back. I want to get back.” She smiled softly. “I know that doesn't make any sense.”

Leda squeezed her shoulders. “It makes more sense to me, probably, than to anyone else.”

As the door swung open, Katie jumped to her feet, eager to be on her way. But instead of the young volunteer she'd been expecting, two uniformed policemen entered. Sarah stepped back, falling into place beside Leda and Katie; a united, frightened front. “Katie Fisher?”

She could feel her knees shaking beneath her skirts. “That's me.”

One policeman took her gently by the arm. “We have a warrant for your arrest. You've been charged with the murder of the baby found in your father's barn.”

The second policeman came up beside her. Katie looked frantically over his shoulder, trying to reach her mother's eyes. “You have the right to remain silent,” he said. “Everything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to be represented by an attorney—”

“No!” Sarah screamed, reaching for her daughter as the policemen began to lead Katie through the doorway. She ran after them, ignoring the curious glances of the medical personnel and the cries of her own sister.

Leda finally caught up with Sarah at the entrance of the hospital. Katie was crying, arms stretched toward her mother as the policeman set a hand on her
kapp
and ducked her inside the squad car. “You can meet us at the district court, ma'am,” he said politely to Sarah, then got into the front seat.

As the car drove away, Leda put her arms around her sister. “They took my baby,” Sarah sobbed. “They took my baby.”

Leda knew how uncomfortable Sarah was riding in her car, but pressing circumstances called for compromises. Driving with someone under the
bann
was considerably less threatening than standing in court while one's daughter was arraigned for murder, which Sarah was going to have to face next.

“You wait right here,” she said, pulling into her driveway. “Let me get Frank.” She left Sarah sitting in the passenger seat and ran into the house.

Frank was in the living room, watching a sitcom rerun. One look at his wife's face had him out of his chair, running his hands over her arms. “You all right?”

“It's Katie. She's being taken to the district court. They've charged her with murder.” Leda could just manage the last before breaking down, letting go in her husband's embrace as she hadn't let herself go in front of Sarah. “Ephram Stoltzfus raised twenty thousand dollars from Amish businessmen for Katie's legal defense, but Aaron won't take a penny.”

“She'll get a public defender, honey.”

“No—Aaron expects her to turn the other cheek. And after what he did to Jacob, Katie's not going to disagree with him.” She buried her face in her husband's shirt. “She can't win this. She didn't do it, and she's going to be put in jail anyway.”

“Think of David and Goliath,” Frank said. With his thumb, he wiped away Leda's tears. “Where's Sarah?”

“In the car. Waiting.”

He slid an arm around her waist. “Let's go, then.”

A moment after they left, Ellie walked into the living room, wearing her jogging shorts and tank top. She'd been in the adjoining mud room, lacing up her sneakers for a run, when Leda had come home—and she'd heard every word. Her face impassive, Ellie stepped up to the picture window and watched Leda's car until it disappeared from view.

Katie had to hide her hands beneath the table so that no one would see how much they were trembling. Somehow she had lost the pin to her
kapp
in the police car, and it perched uneasily on her head, slipping whenever she shifted. But she would not take it off—not now, especially—since she was supposed to have her head covered whenever she prayed, and she'd been doing that constantly since the moment the car pulled away from the hospital's entrance.

A man sat at a table just like hers, a little distance away. He looked at her, frowning, although Katie had no idea what she might have done to make him so upset. Another man sat in front of her behind a high desk. He wore a black cape and held a wooden hammer in his hand, which he banged at the moment Katie saw her mother and aunt and uncle slip into the courtroom.

The man with the hammer narrowed his eyes at her. “Do you speak English?”

“Ja,”
Katie said, then blushed. “Yes.”

“You have been charged in the state of Pennsylvania with murder in the first degree, whereby you, Katie Fisher, on the eleventh of July 1998, against the arms and force of the State of Pennsylvania, did willfully, deliberately, and premeditatedly cause the death of Baby Fisher on the Fisher farm in the East Paradise Township of Lancaster County. You are also charged with the lesser included offense of murder in the third degree, whereby you …”

The words ran over her like a rain shower, too much English at once, all the syllables blending. Katie closed her eyes and swayed slightly.

“Do you understand these charges?”

She hadn't understood the first sentence. But the man seemed to be waiting for an answer, and she had learned as a child that
Englischers
liked you to agree with them. “Yes.”

“Do you have an attorney?”

Katie knew that her parents, like all Amish, did not believe in instigating lawsuits. In rare cases, an Amishman would be subpoenaed and would testify … but never by his own choice. She glanced over her shoulder at her mother, sending her
kapp
askew. “I do not wish to have one,” she said softly.

“Do you know what that means, Miss Fisher? Is this on the advice of your parents?” Katie looked down at her lap. “This is a very serious charge, young lady, and I believe you should have counsel. If you qualify for a public defender—”

“That won't be necessary.”

Like everyone else in the courtroom, Katie turned toward the confident voice coming from the doorway. A woman with hair as short as a man's, wearing a neatly tailored blue suit and high heels, was briskly walking to her table. Without glancing at Katie, the woman set her briefcase down and nodded at the judge. “I'm Eleanor Hathaway, counsel for the defendant. Ms. Fisher has no need of a public defender. I apologize for being late, Judge Gorman. May I have five minutes with my client?”

The judge waved his assent, and before Katie could follow what was happening, this stranger Eleanor Hathaway dragged her to her feet. Clutching at her
kapp
, Katie hurried beside the attorney down the central aisle of the court. She saw Aunt Leda crying and waving to her, and she raised a hand in response before she realized that this big greeting was meant for Eleanor Hathaway, not for Katie herself.

The attorney steered Katie to a small room filled with office supplies. She closed the door behind her, leaned against it, and folded her arms. “Sorry for the impromptu introduction, but I'm Ellie Hathaway, and I sure as hell hope that you're Katie. We're going to have a lot of time to talk later, but right now I need to know why you turned down an attorney.”

Katie's mouth opened and closed a few times before she could summon her voice. “My Dat wouldn't want me to have one.”

Ellie rolled her eyes, clearly unimpressed. “You'll plead not guilty today, and then we'll chat. Now, looking at these charges, you're not getting bail unless we can get around the ‘proof and presumption' clause in the statute.”

“I … I don't understand.”

Without glancing up from the sheaf of papers she was skimming, Ellie answered, “It means that if you're charged with murder, and the proof is evident or the presumption great, you don't get bail. You sit in jail for a year until your trial comes up. Get it?” Katie swallowed, nodded. “So we have to find a loophole here.”

Katie stared at this woman, who had come with her words sharpened like the point of a sword, planning to save her. “I didn't have a baby.”

“I see. Even though two doctors and a whole hospital, not to mention the local cops, all say otherwise?”

“I didn't have a baby.”

Ellie slowly looked up. “Well,” she said. “I see I'm going to be finding that loophole myself.”

Judge Gorman was clipping his fingernails when Ellie and Katie reentered the courtroom. He swept the shavings onto the floor. “I believe we were just getting to ‘How do you plead? '“

Ellie stood. “My client pleads not guilty, Your Honor.”

The judge turned. “Mr. Callahan, is there a bail recommendation from the state?”

George rose smoothly. “I believe, Your Honor, that the statute in Pennsylvania requires that bail be denied to defendants charged with first degree murder. In this case, the state would recommend this as well.”

“Your Honor,” Ellie argued, “with all due respect, if you read the wording of the statute it requires bail to be withheld only in the cases where ‘the proof is evident, or the presumption great. ' That isn't a blanket statement. Particularly, in this case, the proof is not evident, and the presumption is not great, that this was an act of murder in the first degree. There's some circumstantial evidence that the county attorney has gathered— specifically, medical testimony that Ms. Fisher's given birth, and the fact of a dead infant found on the premises of her farm—but there are no eyewitnesses to what happened between the birth and the death of the infant. Until my client gets her fair trial, we aren't going to know how or why this death occurred.”

She smiled tightly at the judge. “In fact, Your Honor, there are four main reasons bail should be allowed in this case. First, the girl is Amish and being charged with a violent crime, although violence in the Amish community historically does not exist. Second, because she's Amish, she has a much stronger tie to this community than most other defendants. Her religion and her upbringing rule out any risk of flight. Third, she's barely eighteen, and has no financial resources of her own to attempt an escape. And finally, she has no record—this is not only her first arraignment but the first time she's encountered the legal system in any way, shape, or form. I'm proposing, Your Honor, that she be released on stringent bail conditions.”

Judge Gorman nodded thoughtfully. “Would you like to share those conditions with us?”

Ellie took a deep breath. She'd love to; she just hadn't thought of them yet. She looked swiftly toward Leda and Frank and the Amish woman sitting between them, and suddenly it all came clear. “We respectfully request bail, Judge, with the following stipulations: that Katie Fisher not be allowed to leave East Paradise Township, but that she be allowed to live at home on her parents' farm. In return, she must be under the supervision of a family member at all times. As for bail—I would think that twenty thousand dollars is a fair amount to ask.”

The prosecutor laughed. “Your Honor, that's ludicrous. A bail statute is a bail statute; and Murder One is Murder One. It's like that in fancy felony cases in Philadelphia, too, so Ms. Hathaway can't plead ignorance. If the proof wasn't evident we wouldn't be charging it this way. Clearly Katie Fisher should not be released on any bail.”

The judge let his gaze touch upon the prosecutor, the defense attorney, and then Katie. “You know, coming in here this morning, I had no intention of doing what I'm about to do. But if I'm even going to consider your conditions, Ms. Hathaway, I need to know that someone agrees to be responsible for Katie Fisher. I want her father's word that she'll be supervised twenty-four/seven.” He turned to the gallery. “Mr. Fisher, would you make yourself known?”

Leda stood up and cleared her throat. “He's not here, Your Honor.” She pulled hard at her sister's arm, dragging her to a standing position as well. “This is Katie's mother.”

“All right, Mrs. Fisher. Are you willing to accept total legal responsibility for your daughter?”