PROLOGUE
He’d always known this moment would come. Judgment day. The great reckoning. The adjudication that had been lying in wait the entirety of his adult life. For years, he’d denied his guilt. He spent every waking hour proving he hadn’t done what they said and making reparations because he had. He’d nearly convinced himself none of it had happened. That was his truth and he clung to that tenuous connection with the desperation of a man who knew his life depended on it.
But while he had duped the fools, and perhaps his own conscience, fate would not be hoodwinked. The wicked beast of his heart, the one he’d been running from for so long, had finally caught up with him.
He wasn’t sure why he’d agreed to the meeting. Some dark compulsion. Curiosity at play. Or maybe it was some crazy notion that telling the truth would set him free. What did a master liar know about truth? Maybe his need to see this through, to finish it once and for all, was as simple as admitting he deserved what was to come.
Meet me at the windmill. Midnight. Come alone.
It was the third such note in two weeks. The kind an ordinary person would ignore or toss in the trash. The kind an innocent man might take to the police. As desperately as he wanted to believe otherwise, he was not an ordinary person. He sure as hell wasn’t innocent. No, he thought darkly. He had no choice but to meet this problem head-on. Deal with it. Finish it. Make it right if he could. And then bury it once and for all.
But how could anyone know? How could anyone uncover a past he’d buried with such meticulous care? The most frightening question of all, the one that had kept him up every night since he received that first mysterious dispatch: How could anyone remember something that he himself had all but forgotten?
I know who you are. I know what you did. I know your secrets. All of them.
The words had tormented him for days now. He hadn’t eaten or slept or had a moment’s peace. He desperately wanted to believe he’d misinterpreted their meaning, their intent. That the cryptic words were the result of some petty incident or mundane proclamation he made that had provoked someone in the community. Is it possible he was reading something into it that had never been intended?
I know who you are.
No, he thought as he walked along the southern edge of the woods. There was no way he’d misinterpreted any of it. Right or wrong or somewhere in between, he needed to get to the bottom of this—put a stop to it before the situation spiraled out of control—and there was only one way to do it.
The wind rattled the leaves of the trees, the cold bite of it slicing through his coat and the layers beneath. It was a long walk to the old farm; he was glad he’d brought the walking stick. He’d brought the lantern, too, but he didn’t need it. The three-quarter moon provided more than enough light for him to follow the old two-track.
At the turn in the road, he traversed the ditch and crossed to the barbed-wire fence. Hanging his cane on the top strand, he tested its strength, stepped onto the lowest wire, and swung his leg over the top. His knees protested when he came down on the other side. His feet followed suit. Such was the lot of a man who’d lived beyond his time.
He walked another two minutes before the silhouette of the ramshackle barn and windmill loomed in the distance. The steel blades spun, whining like a banshee, the vane shifting with a gust. Normally, he loved the sound. Tonight, the screech of steel against steel sent a shiver to his bones in a way that had nothing to do with the cold.
“Hello?” he called out. “Is anyone there?”
The only reply came from the squeak of the turbine. The rattle of wood siding come loose. The clang of the vane shifting in the wind.
Feet reminding him that he’d just traversed two miles, he waded through the grass to the base of the tower. Grunting, he propped the walking stick against the wood-rail fence and sat down on the crumbling concrete base of the windmill tower. Cold, his joints aching, he pulled his coat more tightly about his shoulders, shoved his hands into his pockets, and settled in for a wait. He’d give his midnight caller ten minutes to make his appearance. Another two to state his case and declare his intent. If no one showed, he’d walk home and throw away the notes. He’d forget about the silly messages, the way he’d forgotten so many other things over the years.
He was wishing for the gloves he’d left on the kitchen table back at the house, the tobacco pipe he kept tucked into his pocket, when the voice came at him from the dark.
“I didn’t think you’d come.”
He jolted, hefted himself to his feet, squinted into the dark recesses of the barn. He didn’t need to see a face to know who it was. The thunderbolt of recognition slayed him as thoroughly as any sickle, and cut him to his soul—what was left of it.
“My bones are too old for a walk this far,” he said, his voice calm despite the riot of emotions coursing through him. “Especially at a time when an old man should be home in his bed, sleeping.”
“And how is it that you sleep?”
“‘He grants sleep to those He loves,’” he replied, quoting a psalm from the Bible he knew so well. “God loves all of His children, after all.”
A figure emerged from the shadows. The sense of betrayal punched him, hard enough to take his breath, with enough force to make his legs go weak. Never in a hundred years would he have imagined this. Not this.
“You know nothing of God,” the figure said. “Only lies.”
For the first time he noticed the rifle. His midnight caller held it muzzle down. Unthreatening. The way a hunter might carry his weapon when he’s tired and on his way home after a long day of hunting. Even so, his heart rolled and began to pound.
“What is it you want?” he asked.
Bitterness suffused the laugh that followed. “I want you to be gone.”
A dozen thoughts battered his brain at once. The realization that he was in danger. A rush of incredulity. Like ice water splashed on an exposed nerve. A tine against a broken bone.
The rifle came up and was leveled at him. Finger inside the guard, the quiver of the muzzle nearly imperceptible.
“I fear for your soul,” he whispered.
“And I for yours. What’s left of it. We both know you’ll not make it to heaven.”
The lantern slipped from his hand and clattered to the ground. The globe shattered, but he barely noticed. Breathing heavily, he raised his hands, stepped back. “Don’t sacrifice your life for mine. I’m not worth it.”
A whispered prayer floated on the breeze, as chilling as a scream in the night, and suddenly everything became crystal clear. Spinning, he launched himself into a lumbering run. Arms outstretched. Mouth open and gasping. The pain he’d felt earlier hijacked by terror. He looked around wildly as he ran, but there was no cover. No structure or tree. He shambled toward the fence a few yards away. The woods were his only hope. If he could scale the barbed wire, he might make it. He’d deal with the rest later.
He ran as fast as his joints allowed, his gait as teetering and clumsy as an old dog’s. Twice he stumbled, arms thrashing, regained his footing just in time to avoid a fall. Behind him, the feet of his pursuer pounded the ground. He heard the racking of the rifle. The utterance of words he couldn’t discern.
A tremendous blow slammed into him from behind. Like a baseball traveling at a hundred miles an hour striking between his shoulder blades. He pitched forward. A clap of thunder in his ears. A ping of confusion. And then he was falling.…
His face hit the ground. Nose breaking on impact. A spread of pain he couldn’t quite feel. Grit in his mouth. The earth cold against his skin, winter-dead grass scratching his belly. He spit out a tooth, felt the gap with his tongue. He acknowledged the seriousness of his injury. A panic he couldn’t react to. He lay still, his mind floating above him. Why couldn’t he get up? Why couldn’t he run?
Only then did it occur to him he’d been shot. That he was badly injured, bleeding, and unable to move. He watched his attacker approach and stop a few feet away. He wanted to look up. To know what those eyes would reveal …
“You cannot fool God,” came the voice he knew so well. “He sees in your heart the things that others cannot.”
He tried to reply, but his mouth was suddenly full. He opened it, tasted the salt of blood, felt the warmth of it as it flowed onto the ground. He saw the black steel of the rifle as it was lowered. He tried to focus, but his eyes rolled back. The muzzle nudged his temple. So cold against his skin. The smell of gun oil in his nostrils.
Closing his eyes, he listened to the screech of the windmill. The shifting of the vane. The whisper of wind through the grass.
An explosion of white light.
Another clap of thunder.
And the windmill ground to a halt.
CHAPTER 1
Eighteen years later
Doyle Schlabach was glad he’d purchased the mules. Datt had gone with him to the horse auction down to Belleville last winter and argued against the purchase. Get the Belgians, he’d said. They pull better; they’re stronger. Doyle would never argue with his datt about anything, much less livestock, but while the two jennies weren’t quite as strong as their equine cousins, they suited his needs just fine. They were smart and willing and easier to keep, too. According to the breeder, their donkey dam had been bred to a Dutch draft sire. As far as Doyle was concerned, there wasn’t another team in the entire valley that could outpull these two. And they didn’t eat him out of house and home.
He was cutting hay in the south field this morning. It was a new field he’d added to his farm when the old Duffy farm went up for auction. He’d gotten a good deal on the thirty-five acres. With Datt’s help, he’d demolished the old barn, cleared the land, plowed it, and seeded for alfalfa. God had blessed the valley with an abundance of spring rain, and the hay was bountiful. It was going to be the best year he’d ever had.
The June sun beat down on the back of Doyle’s neck as he steered the mules across the field. The smell of fresh-cut alfalfa filled his nostrils, and not for the first time today he thanked God for the bounty that had been bestowed upon him. He thought about the mock turtle soup he would be eating for lunch, and his mouth watered. He jiggled the lines to hurry the mules along.
“Kumma druff!” he called out. Come on there!
The clinking of the harnesses mingled with the rapid patter-patter of the sickle and lulled him into the state of peace he always felt when he worked the fields.
He’d just reached the far end and was in the process of side-passing the mules to turn around and cut the final swatch when the sickle bar clanked against a rock.
“Whoa.” Doyle stopped the mules. “Was der schinner is letz?” he growled. What in the world is wrong?
This wasn’t a particularly rocky area, but he’d run across a few in the course of plowing and seeding. Rocks in a hayfield spelled trouble, and the last thing he needed before lunch was a broken blade.
Leaning, he looked down at the spot where the sickle hovered above the ground and spotted the culprit. A big rock. Limestone, judging from the color. Muttering beneath his breath, he tied off the lines, set the brake, and climbed down. He went to the sickle bar and knelt. He reached for the rock, intent on chucking it over the fence and into the woods, but his hand froze mid-reach. The hairs at his nape prickled when his fingers made contact.
Doyle picked up the object and knew immediately it wasn’t a rock. It was too light, hollow-feeling, and the surface was too smooth. He brushed away the dirt, turned it over in his hands. A creeping sensation skittered across his shoulders when he saw the jut of teeth. The eye sockets. The black hole of a nose. Doyle was an avid hunter; he butchered his own stock. He knew perfectly well what an animal skull looked like. This did not belong to an animal.
Lurching to his feet, Doyle dropped the skull and stepped back, nearly tripped over the sickle bar. He was suddenly aware of his proximity to the woods, the shadows within, the stories he’d heard as a kid about this place. Gooseflesh rose on his arms, despite the heat of the day. The sensation of eyes on his back was so strong he turned and looked to the place where the old barn had once stood. But there was no one there.
Schnell geiste, he thought. Ghosts.
His legs shook as he backed away. He couldn’t take his eyes off the skull. He climbed onto the mower, settled onto the steel seat. His hands shook as he pulled the lever to lift the cutting blade.
He picked up the lines. “Kumma druff!” he called out to the jennies. “Ya!”
Hay forgotten, he urged the mules into a lope.
CHAPTER 2
There is a vibrancy in downtown Painters Mill on Saturday mornings. A pulse that beats a little faster. An energy that beckons motorists to roll down their windows as they idle down Main Street and drink in the sights of small-town USA. Or if they have time, plunk twenty-five cents into one of the vintage parking meters and spend the afternoon shopping.
My name is Kate Burkholder and I’m the chief of police of this charming little hamlet. I was born here and raised Amish, but left the fold when I was eighteen. I spent several years in nearby Columbus, Ohio, where I emerged from the mess I’d made of my life to earn my GED and a degree in criminal justice, and I eventually found my way into law enforcement. I spent years learning how to not be Amish. And though it was a time of profound personal and professional growth, it didn’t take long for me to realize I missed home.
When the position of chief became available, I came back. Though I’ve remained Anabaptist, I’ve never returned to my Amish roots. For a lot of reasons, some of which I still haven’t reconciled. I’m working on mending fences with my family. Some members of the Amish community still won’t speak to me, but I don’t let it get to me. Painters Mill is home, and like most relationships, it’s a work in progress.
As chief of police, I’m off duty the majority of weekends, unless there’s an emergency or I’m filling in for one of my officers. The only reason I’m in town this morning is to pick up a birdhouse for my significant other, John Tomasetti. He’s an agent with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the best friend I’ve ever had, and the love of my life. His birthday is next week. I ordered the birdhouse from an Amish cabinetmaker who runs a workshop just off the main drag. He promised to have it ready this morning and I can’t wait to get it home.
I’m in the Explorer, inching down Main Street, when a call on my police radio snags my attention.
“Ten-six-A,” comes my weekend dispatcher’s voice, using the ten code for “parking obstruction.”
I reach for my mike. “What’s the twenty on that, Margaret?”
“Main Street, Chief. I just took a call from Joe Neely. Some kind of disturbance outside his shop.”
Joe Neely owns one of the newest businesses in town, a nice little upscale coffeehouse called Mocha Joe’s, a place I’ve ventured too many times to count.
“A fight?” I ask.
“Not yet, but he says there are a bunch of people in the street, arguing. Parking slots are blocked and someone is refusing to move.”
Painters Mill is a tourist town; gridlock on a Saturday morning is a serious offense. “I’m just down the street,” I tell her. “I’ll take it.”
“Roger that.”
Even as I rack the mike, I spot the disturbance ahead. Flipping on my overhead lights, I pass the vehicle directly in front of me, but traffic is at a standstill. I park where I am and start toward the crowd. The first vehicle I see is the Amish buggy. The harnessed Standardbred gelding looks uneasy being in the center of the throng. In the buggy, a woman wearing a gray dress and organdy kapp sits in the passenger seat, clutching a squirming toddler. I’m familiar with most of the buggies in the area and I recognize this one as belonging to Abner Nisley and his wife, Mary Jo. They’re Swartzentruber and the parents of nine children. For years, Abner eschewed the use of a slow-moving-vehicle sign, which is illegal according to Ohio Revised Code. I’ve pulled him over half a dozen times. When my warnings didn’t work, I issued a couple of tickets, the cost of which finally convinced him to add the signage to the back of his buggy, too ornate or not.
Parked at a cockeyed angle in front of the buggy is a silver Toyota RAV4. Ohio plates. A woman in blue jeans and a white blouse with rolled-up sleeves has her cell phone pressed to her ear. She’s shouting into her cell, gesturing angrily, glaring at the Amish man standing next to her. Several passersby are taking videos with their phones, probably hoping to post the next viral hit on social media.
I tilt my head to speak into my shoulder mike, but of course it’s not there. I’m out of uniform because it’s my day off. Sighing, I pull out my badge and make my way toward the kerfuffle.
Copyright © 2022 by Linda Castillo
