The Names of Our Tears (18 page)

Robertson made a fast inspection of the several stalls inside the barn. No livestock was there. He met Lance at the back, and she said, “There ought to be tack in here—you know, harnesses, bridles, like that.”

“What about the wheel tracks?” Robertson asked.

“They all overlie each other. There were several buggies and maybe two large wagons. They cross a field and head up over a rise behind the barn. It looks like they all just drove out of here last night.”

Robertson frowned. “Keep the umbrella, Pat, and check all the outbuildings. I’m going to take a look inside.”

*   *   *

The kitchen was dark, and the gray drizzle of the morning provided scant light for the sheriff’s search of the house. He felt carefully above the stove plates, then felt the plates, too. They were cold. Underneath, the fire in the stove had long since burned out, leaving white and gray ash mounded in the bottom quarter of the firebox.

Next, the sheriff pulled kitchen drawers open. All empty. The cupboards he found empty, too. In a small pantry beside the basement stairs, the plain wood shelves were mostly bare. An odd half bag of flour and a few open boxes of pasta were all that remained.

In the hallway leading to the front, Shaker pegs hung empty, all the coats and shawls taken away. The cast-iron woodstove in the living room was as cold as the cooking stove in the kitchen.

Robertson climbed a plain wooden staircase to the second floor and found in all the bedrooms that the beds had been stripped of linens, blankets, and quilts. From the upstairs bathroom, toiletries, towels, and washcloths had all been taken away. He checked the bedrooms again, and the dressers were likewise empty, as if the family had packed everything into wagons and buggies and had driven away for good.

As Robertson came down the staircase, Lance came in through the kitchen door. “There’s nobody here, Sheriff. About all that’s left are the larger farm implements.”

“Same in the house,” Robertson said. “Fannie and her whole family are gone.”

“You know something about Fannie?”

“I didn’t tell you about Armbruster’s call just now. He traced Fannie and Howie Dent. They took the bus to Sarasota last night, but got off and disappeared in Charlotte.”

Lance considered that, looked around the cold kitchen, listened to the rain sounding on the roof overhead, and groaned, “We’re never going to find them.”

“Fannie?”

“Yes, but the woman in the gray Buick, too.”

“Could be,” Robertson said, “but neither is that woman going to find any of the Helmuths. They’ve all run off.”

“You’re assuming they left on their own,” Lance said.

“What else?” Robertson said. “They were forced to leave?”

Lance replied only with an uncertain shrug of her shoulders.

PAT LANCE was shivering as if she’d been caught out in a high mountain snowstorm in summer attire, so she drove home to Millersburg to change into warmer clothes and sturdier shoes.

Robertson tossed his folded umbrella into the Crown Vic and pulled himself in behind the wheel. Before he followed Lance down the long drive, he called Ellie on the radio and said, “Can you have Rachel call me, Ellie? I need to know if there’s any hope we can connect Teresa Molina to an owner of a Humvee in or near Barberton.”

Angling south, Robertson drove into Charm and turned east on 557, sandwiched between an Amish roofing crew in a van and a garbage truck whose driver seemed intent on passing everything in front of it. Angered by the speed of traffic on the country lane, Robertson pulsed several strobes on his taillights and rear window bar, and the garbage truck slowed immediately to widen the gap on Robertson’s rear bumper. Irritated even more, the sheriff slowed to five miles an hour under the speed limit, and held that speed happily all the way to the Zook drive. When he turned into the drive, the truck found itself trapped behind a slow buggy on a curved section of road, and Robertson celebrated the frustration he saw in the truck driver’s expression.

On the Zook drive, Robertson parked behind Cal Troyer’s gray carpenter’s truck. Farther up the drive, a black sedan with the EPA logo was parked beside the house, where two EPA officers stood under one umbrella, talking with a somber Andy Zook. The rain had lessened but hadn’t entirely stopped, and Zook stood out in the weather, with his broad felt hat brim spilling a thin trail of water off its rear edge. The shoulders of his denim waistcoat were dark with the soaking they had already taken that morning.

In a rocker on the front porch, Cal Troyer sat with his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. He had on a winter parka over a work shirt and jeans. He got out of his rocker as Robertson climbed the steps, and he said, “Anything on Fannie Helmuth?”

Not surprised that the pastor would know about Fannie’s disappearance, the sheriff smiled and said, “She’s down in Charlotte, Cal, last we know. She’s with Howie Dent, and they’re running. Probably safer than staying here.”

Cal nodded and smiled satisfaction. “You know about the rest of the Helmuths?”

“Gone, Cal. Bugged out.”

Cal nodded again and smiled more broadly. “You going to try to find them?”

“And what?” Robertson asked. “Charge them with abandoning a residence?”

“They’ll be back when this is all over. Neighbors have already taken the livestock in.”

Robertson shook his head but smiled. “Cal, there aren’t two families in a thousand who could pull up stakes overnight.”

“Suppose not.”

“Any idea where they’ll go?”

“Probably New York. They have relatives up near Batavia. Moved there a year ago from Mount Hope. So maybe they’ll head up there for a while.”

“That’s gotta be five hundred miles, Cal.”

“They took food? Clothes and such?”

“Everything,” Robertson said.

“And the house is closed up?”

“Closed, but not locked.”

“Then they’ll stay away as long as they need to, or they’ll sell out to locals and start over in New York.”

Robertson gave a bewildered shake of his head. “Seems extreme, Cal.”

“Maybe.”

“Any chance they were forced out? Or taken away?”

“Like what, by a drug gang?”

“Something like that. Or maybe they were warned?”

“I don’t know,” Cal said. “But they had their neighbor take the livestock. Milking cows, mostly. They just opened one fence up last night and put them over on the neighbor’s pasture.”

“How do you know that?” Robertson asked.

“Word gets around.”

“Really, Cal, do you know for sure where they’re headed?”

“North, I suspect,” Cal said. “Back roads only.”

“I could chase them down,” the sheriff said.

“Why? Could you protect them?”

Robertson shook his head. “Not all of them. The best thing I can do is arrest this drug crew. But I need the Helmuths to provide a description. I need to find them, so that’s a BOLO for all the sheriffs and the highway patrol.”

“BOLO?”

“Be On the Lookout for. We used to call it an APB.”

Cal didn’t comment.

Robertson turned his gaze into the cold and gray drizzle washing over the valley and asked, “EPA’s still down in the bottoms?”

“Yes,” Cal said.

“Are we going to show them the topographical maps?” Robertson asked.

“I’m not. You?”

“Not today.”

Cal sat back down in his rocker. “I’m waiting to talk with Emma Wengerd.”

“She’s not up yet?”

“Up, but not coming out of her room.”

A curtain of sleet blew onto the porch, and Robertson moved in closer to the house. Cal scooted his rocker back away from the front edge and asked, “Missy can’t release the body?”

“Not yet.”

“That’s a problem, Bruce.”

“I know, but this is still an open murder investigation.”

“But if Fannie and all the Helmuths are gone, you don’t have any leads.”

“I’m still connecting Humvee registrations to owners of old gray Buicks. And if I can find the Helmuths, they can still give us a description of the woman who’s chasing after Fannie.”

“They’re not gonna do that, Bruce. They’ve left because they don’t trust us.”

“Law enforcement?”

“English, Bruce. They don’t really trust any of us English.”

“Then I’ve got no way to solve the Zook murder. Not if they won’t cooperate.”

“Isn’t Ricky going down to Florida?”

“Left Akron/Canton at ten o’clock.”

“Then maybe you don’t need to chase after the Helmuths up here.”

“I don’t really have the assets to do that, Cal. Besides, the highway patrol will locate them soon enough. But if they don’t want to give us sketches or a description, we’re operating blind on the Zook murder.”

“No leads on the Buick?”

“One, but it’s weak.”

“Still, maybe it’ll pan out.”

Robertson gruffed out a dissatisfied “Hmpff,” then said, “Meantime, I’m going to have a talk with the EP-almighty-A.”

“I’m still working with Emma,” Cal said, and got out of his rocker. “I’ll talk with her when she’ll let me, but really, Bruce, she needs to get beyond Ruth’s funeral. She needs Missy to release Ruth’s body.”

“I imagine that everybody out here needs that, Cal.”

“Emma more than anyone,” Cal said. “She’s not a blood relative, but Emma seems to have lost more here. I’ll stay here all day if I have to.”

“If you do, Cal, I’d advise you to move inside near a stove.”

“Oh?”

“Weather report calls for more rain and sleet. Snow by late afternoon.”

*   *   *

The sheriff went back to his car and waited while Andy Zook listened to the EPA officials. In his rearview mirror, Robertson watched cars and trucks tearing by on 557, and his ire grew as he gauged their speed. With a quick call to Ellie, he asked that a cruiser be posted east of Charm to pull over offenders. Mentally, Robertson made a note to apply for lower speed limits from the state traffic commission.

Abruptly, Andy Zook broke off his conversation with the EPA officers. From a distance, it had seemed to Robertson more like an interrogation than anything else. Chastened but not subdued, Zook turned and walked around the back corner of his house.

Robertson got out of his sedan and marched toward the agents. Not stopping, he said as he passed, “Let’s have a look, boys,” and waved the agents forward to the barn, then around the side of it and up onto the high wall of the broken dam. Robertson stopped on top of the dam and waited for the two agents to catch up to him. Inwardly he celebrated his small victory, that they had followed him so readily.

“What?” Wellings called out as the agents scaled the muddy wall of the dam under a shared umbrella.

Robertson waited for them to mount the crest. “You still intent on assessing fines here? And penalties?”

“We’ve got plenty of evidence, Sheriff,” Wellings said. “But we’re still not done taking samples. The impacted area is vast.”

“How long are you going to keep at this, Wellings?”

“There’s poison spread all through that valley,” the second
agent said. “Zooks are going to have to clean it all up. And fines? Yes. Penalties, I don’t know. It depends on who did what.”

“Ruth Zook did this,” Robertson said, biting down on an urge to berate.

“But Alvin Zook admits to breaching the dam,” Wellings argued.

Hiding his animosity, Robertson asked, “You got enough gasoline for that generator down there?”

Wellings took off his spectacles and dried them on the end of his tie. “Oh, we’ll get some more gas down there, Sheriff. As soon as it’s not so muddy.”

CAL WAS invited to have lunch with the Zooks in their kitchen, and he was happy to accept, as much for the meal as for the warmth of the kitchen stove. Hot food and bread was passed on platters and in deep bowls, and the family ate without much talking. Alvin finished first, cleared his plate, and said something in Dietsch that Cal understood to mean, “Going after my chores.”

Andy got up, too, and then Irma rose to clear food and plates from the table. When nearly everyone had left, Irma handed Cal a plate of food and said, “Maybe Emma will eat something.”

Cal popped a last piece of bread into his mouth, wiped his lips with a linen napkin, stood, and took the plate from Irma.

“Last bedroom on the left,” she said. “She’ll have the door closed.”

Cal carried the plate up the steps, knocked on the last door, and opened it to look inside. Emma was lying back on her bed in her stocking feet, and when he appeared at the door, she sat up, put her legs over the side of the bed, and wiped her eyes with the flats of her fingers.

Cal carried the plate of food into her room, set it on a dresser, and pulled a straight chair up to her bedside.

“I’m not crying,” Emma said sternly. “And I’m not hungry.”

“I’ll leave the plate in case you change your mind.”

Emma shrugged indifference, and Cal sat silently beside her. Emma seemed determined to hold silence, and Cal was content at first to sit quietly with her, wondering how he’d start his conversation. Clearly she was intent on a show of bravery. Clearly, too, he thought, she had been crying.

Eventually he said, “I’m glad you got to keep your letters, Emma,” hoping something positive from the day before would prove encouraging for her.

But instead of following his lead, Emma asked, “Why wouldn’t she let me see Ruth?”

“Probably because she thought you wouldn’t like to see her hurt that way.”

Emma nodded as if grateful for the honesty. “Do bullets hurt?”

“I don’t know,” Cal said after a pause. “Really, I don’t know.”

“Is Ruth in heaven?”

“I believe so.”

“Does it still hurt?”

“No, Emma. Heaven is not a place of hurting.”

“Then I need to be there, with her.”

“It’s not time for you, yet,” Cal said, emotion pushing a burn of tears under his eyelids. “You’ll get there soon enough, like we all do.”

“Will someone shoot me?”

“Really, Emma, I don’t think so.”

“Why did they shoot Ruth?”