Whiskers of the Lion (12 page)

Thursday, August 18

5:05
P.M.

AT THE jail's radio consoles, Del Markely handed her headset off to Ed Hollings, the night-shift dispatcher. She gathered up personal items from the desks and counter, tossed them into her heavy canvas purse, and stalked down the hallway to the sheriff's door. There she knocked and entered without waiting for an invitation.

The sheriff was standing beside his desk, staring thoughtfully at his display of law enforcement arm patches. Del marched in dramatically, clanked her heavy purse onto the old cherry desktop, and took a seat in one of the straight chairs in front of the desk.

Robertson turned around slowly and drawled, “Are you just visiting, Adele, or do you need a place to stay?”

“Sheriff, my mother used to call me Adele. I haven't tolerated that name for twenty-five years.”

Robertson moved to his chair and sat behind his desk. “What can I do for you, Del?”

“Some of the deputies are talking.”

“About me?”

“About the situation.”

“And what is that?”

“You're flummoxed, and they're worried.”

“Flummoxed?”

“Hesitant, Sheriff, like you don't know what to do next. They think you're being too tentative. So they're talking. Some of them, anyway.”

“Well, that didn't take long, did it.”

“It's been building since April,” Del said. “Double shifts, extra pressure, the hunt for Fannie Helmuth. At any rate, they're talking now, some of them, saying that you're considering whether or not you can still handle the job.”

“Is anyone actually saying that I cannot handle the job?”

“No. They're saying that
you
don't think you can handle the job. Or they wonder if you're hesitating because you don't
want
to do it anymore. So, that's a problem you've gotta fix. I just thought you should know.”

“Anything more, Del, that I should fix?”

“Well, it's maybe going around town that this Fannie Helmuth case has you more rattled than it should. Like maybe you've been pushin' your people too hard, for too long, but you haven't explained to anyone why it's got you so rattled. Why you're takin' it so hard that Fannie ran off with Howie Dent.”

Robertson leaned his chair back on its springs. He held a brief and unconvincing smile and said, “That's just it, Del. She walked away from my protection.”

“Then are you maybe takin' this too personally?”

“No,” Robertson huffed. He rocked his chair forward and stood behind his desk. With a frown that seemed to crease every worry line in his face, he said, “It's not personal, Del. It's professional. I take it as a professional indictment. An Amish girl chose not to trust us to keep her safe. She thought she'd be safer out there on her own than she would be here with us. And I consider that to be a professional vote of no confidence. It's a negative judgment about our abilities to do our jobs. She might as well have stuck posters up around town. ‘Robertson can't handle the job.' Or ‘You can't trust Robertson with your life.' That's much more than just personal to me, Del. It cuts to the core of who I have always demanded myself to be. It cuts at what I've always expected myself to do. And if Fannie gets killed because she figured that she couldn't trust me, then that's on my shoulders, isn't it?”

 • • • 

After Markely left, the sheriff pulled a folded page from his shirt pocket and read Bobby Newell's list of items found with the yellow VW. Simple items from the glove compartment. The normal contents of a trunk. An empty red backpack.

Robertson pocketed the list, took out his cell phone, and tapped in Armbruster's number. When Armbruster answered, Robertson said, “You should be almost there.”

“We're just pulling into the drive, Sheriff.”

“OK, look, Stan.” Robertson hesitated. “I need you to remember that I do have a plan.”

“I remember.”

“And I need you to see this through, Stan, just like I laid it out in our meeting.”

“I know, Sheriff.”

“Then there's one other thing I need from you, Stan. There's one last thing to check.”

“Sheriff?”

“Examine all of our original assumptions, Stan.”

“OK.”

“Start with the day Howie and Fannie got off that bus in Charlotte. The day they caught a Greyhound bus to Memphis.”

“Are you asking why they did that?”

“Yes. And I'm asking
how
they did that.”

“You want me to question Fannie about this?”

“Yes. Ask her how that bus pulled into the restaurant parking lot for their breakfast stop. Ask her if they actually got any breakfast that day.”

“Do you want to know about that whole day, Sheriff, or just what happened at the breakfast stop?”

“The whole day, Stan, but especially everything at the breakfast stop. I want her to tell you everything she can recall. From the moment their bus pulled out of Sugarcreek, until she and Howie were in downtown Charlotte, seated on a Greyhound bus for Memphis. Then I want you to examine the assumptions you made when you first discovered the yellow VW and Dent's body.”

“That was just yesterday morning, Sheriff.”

“I know. But we all made assumptions when we processed the scene. And we all missed something.”

“What am I looking for, Sheriff?”

“That's just it, Stan. I don't want you to be looking for anything at all. Nothing in particular. Because when you first saw the VW, you had already started making assumptions. And when I questioned the Dents about Howie's VW, I had already started making my own assumptions. Assumptions that must have been false.”

“OK, Sheriff,” Armbruster said. “I'll ask Fannie about the bus stop in Charlotte.”

“Without making any assumptions,” Robertson answered.

 • • • 

Fannie took Sheriff Robertson's letter back from Reuben and asked, “Does that mean what I think it means?”

They were in the front room of the Daadihaus, behind the Masts' main residence. Fannie was at the window, watching Pat Lance park her patrol car on the wet gravel pad in front of the barn. It was raining steadily, drearily, like the cold drizzles of April. Skies as gray as cemetery granite.

“I think so,” Reuben replied cautiously. “I think it means just what it says. And I've seen that hotel. It's big.”

Looking out at the arriving car, Fannie said, “That's Deputy Lance.”

Reuben joined her at the window. “Do you trust her?” he asked.

“I think so. As much as any English, I suppose. Really, it's the sheriff who I trust the most.”

“Because of his letter?”

“Yes.” Fannie nodded. She watched Pat Lance and Stan Armbruster as they climbed out of the patrol car and hurried in the rain to the back steps. “I never expected that kind of honesty from a lawman.”

As Lance and Armbruster huddled under an umbrella and knocked on the back porch door of the main house, Reuben asked, “Do you know both of these English?”

“Just Deputy Lance. But she's
Detective
Lance. I spent most of a day with her.”

“And the other? The man?”

“I saw him at the jail that day. I think he's a detective, too.”

Turning Fannie gently to face him, Reuben asked, “Will I be able to see you at the hotel?”

“I don't know, Reuben.”

Reuben handed the pages of the letter back to Fannie. “Are you certain that you understand the sheriff's message?”

Using the gray light at the window, Fannie read the letter a last time.

Confidential, for Fannie Helmuth

Sheriff Bruce Robertson

August 18th

Millersburg

Dear Fannie,

By now you know of Howie Dent's murder. I am very sorry for your loss.

By now you also know that I cannot protect you in Holmes County. I know that, too, Fannie, so I won't ask you to come back here.

Most people will think, however, that you have come home, and that I am endeavoring to protect you. That is precisely what I want them all to think.

The FBI has insisted on protective custody for you, and I cannot oppose them on this point. I have, however, set the terms of your protective custody, and I have arranged the details so that they will be advantageous to you.

Once Teresa Molina has been captured, she will be prosecuted for the murder last April of Ruth Zook. I want you to know, however, that nobody can force you to testify in that trial. You can decide for yourself whether or not you want to do that.

But if you don't agree to testify, the FBI will not be willing to keep you in protective custody any longer. I expect that soon after your surrender to them, they will ask that you sign an agreement to testify. I advise you not to sign any such agreement until you are certain that you want to do it. Hold them off until you have decided.

But even if you do testify for them, or conversely if Teresa Molina is never captured, please understand that the FBI cannot really keep you safe. Not for certain, and not forever.

In custody, you will have a few familiar types of people around you—Amish and Mennonite maids, for instance. And you will be in a part of the state that most Amish people know well, at a large tourist hotel on 87, west of Middlefield. I hope this makes a difference for you.

My guess is that your FBI handlers will not be able to distinguish one Amish sect from another. They probably won't even know the differences between Amish people and Mennonites.

I suspect that you are alarmed that we found you. Really, it was a lucky guess on our part, aside from the fact that I have very capable detectives and deputies working for me. My point is that I very much doubt that anyone like Teresa Molina could ever do something similar. You would have been safe among your people, if only there hadn't been regular news of you in the
Budget
.

So now, Fannie, you have to be very cautious about who you trust. You have to be cautious about who you trust with your life. I advise you to assume that everyone and anyone is suspect. I need you to
realize
that Teresa Molina will search for you relentlessly, and that she will employ any and all resources necessary while hunting for you.

Have I told you enough? I pray that I have. Do you understand what I am telling you? I pray that you do.

Sincerely,

Bruce Robertson
Holmes County Sheriff

When she had finished reading, Fannie took the letter to the wood stove in the corner of the room. She laid the folded pages inside, on top of the old ash left over from winter. As she touched a lighted match to the corners of the pages, Fannie answered, “I understand the letter, Reuben. I'm just not sure I have the courage to do it.”

Thursday, August 18

5:30
P.M.

WITH THE stony gaze and austere judgment of cold granite, the soldier atop Millersburg's Civil War monument kept watch as Sheriff Robertson and Captain Newell crossed Jackson at Clay and then crossed Clay with the light, heading purposefully west under a misting of rain. Once across Clay, Robertson stopped under an awning on the corner, and he turned back to survey Holmes County's Courthouse Square, dominated by the three stories of ornate brown and tan sandstone that constituted the court building, and on the adjacent corner of the square, the imposing red-brick jail, with its elaborately painted yellow cornices and lintels, the black iron bars over windows on the back half of the structure marking the wing where the sheriff's cells held their charges. It was all solid, Robertson mused. The rock heart of Holmes County's law enforcement soul. Stone, granite, brick and mortar. Built to last centuries, and as certain and sure as justice itself. From this central Millersburg edifice of stubborn stone and immovable brick, Robertson had always drawn strength. From this imposing Courthouse Square he had always drawn resolve.

So as the rain fell harder, Sheriff Robertson stood under the awning at the diagonal corner and surveyed the institutions of justice that these old buildings represented. OK, he thought—resolve, determination, and strength. Unfaltering dedication to duty. Steadfast dedication to the ploy that would avenge the murder of Howie Dent.

Newell tapped the sheriff on his shoulder. “Bruce, the hotel?”

Robertson shook himself loose from his ponderings. “Right, Bobby. Hotel St. James.”

Robertson turned around, started down the sidewalk, and led Newell past several of the businesses in old Millersburg—a music store, a drugstore, antique shops, and a used-clothing store—and then in the middle of the next block, Robertson turned with Newell into the front entrance of the new boutique Hotel St. James, slotted between an attorney's office to the right and a take-out pizza shop to the left.

Inside the lobby, the reception counter along the right wall was made of polished black marble. On the left wall, there was a white marble fireplace, with modern seating in front of it—chairs and loungers of brushed steel and royal-blue leather. High overhead, the restored wooden ceiling boards were made of red oak two-by-fours laid on edge. The boards had been given a light oak stain to reveal the rich grain in the wood, a sturdy badge of honor from a bygone era.

The contrast couldn't have been greater, Robertson thought. An interior decorator's nod at the past, with its main design anchored firmly in the present. Oak planks from the old world, mixed with modern steel, polished marble, and soft leather. A curious metaphor for his Fannie Helmuth gambit.

Past the reception counter, there was a white door on the right marked
OFFICE
in red block letters. Next along the narrow lobby, there was a new elevator with pastel lights and an insistent bell. Beyond the brass elevator doors, there were vending machines with fruit drinks in boxes and snacks in bags. A stairwell door led to rooms on the upper two floors. At the very back, the rear entrance to the lobby opened through a heavy metal door onto the alley behind the hotel.

Robertson punched the lighted button to call the elevator. Standing beside him, Newell asked, “Only the two entrances, then?”

“Right,” Robertson confirmed. “Only two doors into the lobby. But there are fire escapes at each floor, on the front and back of the building. Plus the roofs of these three buildings are all contiguous. You can climb to this roof from the adjacent ones.”

On the second floor, Robertson stepped out into the hallway, turned around, and showed Newell the stairwell to the left of the elevator and a maid's closet to the right. Past the maid's closet, along the length of the narrow hallway, there were three doors to guest rooms.

“These three rooms are the larger ones,” Robertson said. “They're all booked through the weekend.” Newell pulled a spiral notebook out of his jacket pocket, and he sketched the second floor layout, with rooms 1, 2, and 3.

On the third floor, Robertson led Newell down the hall past the maid's closet to four smaller rooms marked 4, 5, 6, and 7. At the door to 6, Robertson used an electronic key card to open the lock. Inside the room, there was a standard hotel arrangement of dressers, tables, chairs, and a desk, with a closet and the bathroom just inside the door. There was no window in the room. Instead, there was a large LED television mounted on the far wall over a low dresser.

At the back of the room, Robertson used a traditional metal key to open a door that gave access to the adjoining room number 7. This room was laid out as a mirror image to 6, except that a front window in room 7 gave a view down onto West Jackson Street. “You can make a suite of the two rooms,” Robertson said as he relocked the door. “We have them booked for the next five days.”

“Pat will be in 6?” Newell asked.

“Yes, and we'll set up in 7.”

In the hallway, Newell sketched the configuration of the third floor. Back on the first floor, Robertson opened the rear entrance and showed Newell the alley. Crossing back through the lobby to the front entrance, Newell said, “We'll use Baker, Johnson, and two more deputies here in the lobby, one at a time, rotating in shifts. They'll all have photos of Teresa Molina and Jodie Tapp.”

Robertson agreed and said, “I want to use Armbruster as much as we can on the third floor, in the hallway outside the elevator and staircase.”

“You don't want Armbruster to stay with Pat?”

“No. He needs to get some sleep at night. But when she's out in the daytime, it'll be you or me who goes with her, Bobby. Plus the professor as her escort. That'll give Armbruster a chance to trail behind us.”

They exited the main entrance onto the Jackson Street sidewalk, and Robertson turned right. At the adjacent door to a take-out pizza shop, Robertson pushed inside, and Newell followed. A teenage girl in a white chef's apron came forward from the back ovens with an order pad in her hand.

Robertson introduced himself as sheriff, and he introduced Captain Newell. Then he said, “We'll have an Amish guest for a number of days, next door at the St. James. Room number six, on the third floor. She likes pizza, and I want to pay her bills. Whatever she orders, would you please send the bills to me at the jail?”

The girl wrote on her pad and said, “I can do that.”

“OK now, who are your delivery people?” Robertson asked. “I want to screen them for security ahead of time.”

“Weeknights, it's usually a couple of high school seniors. Ones who have their own cars.” She wrote several names on the back of an order page and handed that to the sheriff.

Robertson handed the page to Newell. “And on the weekends?”

“Then it's almost always old Ernie.”

“Short fellow?” Robertson asked. “About a hundred years old, with a wrinkled face?”

The girl in the apron laughed. “Old Ernie.”

“He works for the bus company, in Sugarcreek,” Robertson said.

“The buses don't run so often in summer,” the girl explained. “He fills in for us on weekends, to make extra money.”

“Is it just him?” Newell asked. “Just one guy?”

“No, he has a crew. From the bus company.”

Robertson laughed. “They must not pay very much at the bus company.”

“We don't pay them very much either, Sheriff. I think he just likes making deliveries. It keeps him out and meeting people. You know, moving around. He doesn't seem to mind the pay.”

“OK, it's Ernie and his bus crew on the weekends,” Robertson confirmed. He took several bills from his wallet and handed them to the girl. “I'll pay ahead some, if you don't mind. She should be arriving this evening.”

“She?”

“Our guest.”

“Have a name?”

“No. She's just our department's guest.”

Out on the sidewalk, Newell said, “That wasn't very subtle, Sheriff.”

Robertson stopped in front of the Hotel St. James. The rain had abated for the moment. “I'm not trying for anything subtle, Bobby. This is just the start of our showing her around. Pizza is just the first thing.”

“You know this Ernie?”

“I interviewed him once, when Fannie first disappeared. Armbruster talked with him, too. He handles the northern terminus for the bus company in Sugarcreek. Mostly I think he just cleans the buses when they come back from Florida.”

“OK, where else are you going to send her?” Newell asked as they walked back toward the square.

“I've made a list for tomorrow,” Robertson said. “It's in your e-mail. Tonight, all I want her to do is have dinner in Hotel Millersburg. They don't have a restaurant at the St. James. And she can walk the block for some air after dinner. The professor and I will go with her.”

“You want her to be seen, Bruce?”

“By as many people as possible.”

 • • • 

Jodie Tapp was crying when Fannie answered her call. “Oh Fannie! They've got my new phone number!”

Fannie was alone in the Masts' Daadihaus. “Who, Jodie?”

“Teresa Molina. She's gotten my new phone number from my mother. And unless I give them five thousand dollars by Saturday at noon, they're going to tell Sheriff Robertson that I was part of their drug gang.”

“Jodie, they've killed Howie.”

“What?”

“He was murdered yesterday. At my brother's farmhouse near Charm.”

“How do you know, Fannie? How can you possibly know that?”

“The sheriff's people are here, now, Jodie. They told me.”

“It's not possible! I just drove through Millersburg. I had lunch there. The way people talk, I would have heard something.”

Fannie began to weep. “It's true, Jodie. I have a letter from the sheriff.”

Jodie gasped. “Does he know where you are?”

“His detectives are here. I'm sure they have told him.”

“Fannie, what about your brother? If Teresa Molina found my mother, she could find him, too. You've got to warn him.”

Fannie was still crying. “I've already called him. To tell him about Howie.”

“Fannie, I need five thousand dollars by noon on Saturday. I have to give it to them at a rest stop north of Akron.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don't have that kind of money, Fannie. I've been living out of my car. I need to see you. I need a loan.”

“You shouldn't come here, Jodie. These detectives are here. But don't you remember? We always said that we could never see each other.”

“There has to be a way.”

“I could mail the money to you. They can't stop me from mailing a letter.”

“They'll inspect your mail, Fannie. And I need the money by Saturday morning.”

“Can't you get the money some other way?”

“You're the only person I know with that kind of cash money, Fannie. You said that Reuben has money.”

“They'll never let me see you, Jodie.”

“There has to be a way. You must be close by. You said Michigan, right? And you said that it's been raining there. That has to be northern Ohio.”

“What?”

“That's the only place the weather radar shows any rain around here, Fannie. I checked with an app on my phone. So I must be close to you. You have to be somewhere close to Akron, and I need to see you.”

“We can't risk it, Jodie. Howie always said that we can't risk seeing each other.”

“Then I'm lost, Fannie. I have nowhere to turn.”

“You should go to Sheriff Robertson. You should go to him and tell him your side of the story, before Teresa Molina does.”

“He'll never believe me.”

“I trust him, Jodie.”

“Well, you shouldn't!”

“Reuben thinks I should trust him.”

“And the FBI? Does Reuben think you should trust them?”

“Well, not as much.”

“Fannie, you have to help me. You have to think of some way to help me. If you can't, I'll have to be a thousand miles away from here by Saturday noon.”