Trusting The Sheriff. Janice Kay Johnson
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was a common name among the Amish, he reflected, but not as much these days among the Englisch, as the Amish labeled most Americans outside their faith.
Caleb sat thinking for a minute. Then he went online again and searched for news coverage of the shooting.
Nothing was materially different from what he’d seen covered on news channels at the time it happened, or what was contained in the information Donahue had sent him. There was a photo of the deceased, Detective Neal Walker. Good-looking fellow listed as thirty-five years old, newly married, a decorated cop.
Could he have been involved with his female partner, then dumped her to maintain his marriage? Say she stewed for a while, then they had it out?
It took him a little longer to find a decent picture of Detective Abigail Baker. Eventually, several popped up. The first was a posed image taken by a professional photographer, Baker dressed in her uniform, looking solemn. And, damn, she was a beautiful woman.
No, he decided after a minute, not exactly that; pretty might be a better word, or cute. She had a heart-shaped face with a high, wide forehead, a dainty, straight nose and a pretty mouth. Her hair, swept into a sleek arrangement of some kind on the back of her head, was the color of corn silk. Her eyes were sky blue.
Yeah, and he was descending to clichés to describe a lovely woman he didn’t want to believe could be accepting payoffs from drug traffickers or the like.
He clicked on a couple of other photos, one taken at the scene of a four-car accident with fatalities, the other of her coming out of the courthouse after testifying in a trial. Both let him see that she had spectacular curves and was tall for a woman, likely five foot ten or so.
Caleb realized he could easily picture her in Amish dress and prayer kapp. Eli Kemp was blond and blue-eyed, in fact. Abigail’s height would be unusual for an Amishwoman, however.
He went back to the first picture that only displayed her from the shoulders up, mesmerized by eyes he found...haunting. Her lips were shaped into a pleasant smile, but her eyes said something else altogether. She looked sad.
Caleb frowned at the photo for another minute and then closed his laptop. For Pete’s sake, he knew better than to read so much into appearances, especially when that person had been caught at a particular moment by a camera. She might have felt queasy, or been worrying about a bill she hadn’t paid...or a lover who’d dumped her.
Lucky that maintaining his cop’s skepticism came naturally to him. Given his profession, it was a useful skill.
* * *
ABBY CLUTCHED THE handrail as she descended the stairs the following morning. She’d slept better than she had in the hospital, in part because of the blessed silence and the true darkness of countryside not brightened by electric lights, and with the moon at a quarter. The moment she’d sat up, dizziness had almost persuaded her to sink back onto her bed. But her aunt and uncle were early risers, and she didn’t want to lounge in bed when she ought to be offering to help with daily chores. Still, donning a dress worn without a bra and fastened by straight pins rather than zippers and buttons felt like a huge effort. She managed, but gasped a few times when her healing wounds protested as she stretched too much. And her head... Would it ever stop pounding?
Dismayed by how weak she felt, she sat again on the edge of her bed to brush her hair, careful to avoid the still-painful lump, and bundle the mass into a bun she covered with the kapp. Of course, she couldn’t check her appearance in a mirror; vanity was not encouraged by the Amish, probably why she’d never wasted much time worrying about her looks. In college she’d tried wearing makeup, but felt uncomfortable, not like herself at all, and had thrown it all away.
When she reached the first floor, Aenti Nancy popped out of the kitchen, exclaiming, “You should have stayed in bed! You have no color in your face.” She shook her head. “Ah, well, you’re this far. Komm, komm. You must have something to eat, feel better then, ain’t so?”
Abby trailed her into the kitchen.
“Sit,” her aunt ordered. “Tea?”
Abby actually had switched to coffee on an everyday basis, since it was nearly impossible to get a decent cup of tea at the station or a convenience store when she was patrolling, but she always reverted when home.
“Ja,” she said in Deitsch, better known as Pennsylvania Dutch even though it was actually a Germanic dialect. “Denke. But I can get it...”
Aenti Nancy flapped her apron at her. “It’s too soon. You must sit, let us take care of you. So good it is to have you home.”
Abby felt her smile wobble. “It is good to be here. I can’t thank you enough for taking me in. I didn’t know where else to go.”
“Always,” her aunt said simply, good enough not to ask about Abby’s father. “Did Rose tell you she plans to name her girl baby for you?”
“No. Oh, my.” An unexpected emotional response sweeping over her, Abby imagined holding a baby girl, her namesake, blinking up at her, her cheeks rosy.
Aenti Nancy set a plate heaped with pancakes in front of her. Within moments, she added butter and syrup as well as a bowl of applesauce and a giant sweet roll, as if Abby could possibly eat so much.
Made-from-scratch pancakes were so much better than anything she got at chain restaurants, and the butter was real, the syrup made from blueberries grown here on the farm. The sweet roll, still warm from the oven, Abby could only call heavenly. Even so, the best she could do was a few bites, earning her a chiding from her aunt.
Sipping tea, she watched her aunt work, dashing between the pantry and the stove, occasionally trotting down to the cellar for jars of fruit or vegetables she’d preserved herself. Since her youngest daughter, Sarah, had married and moved out, Aenti Nancy was alone to cook and manage the house. Of the two sons still at home, one was only sixteen, the other, Isaac, in his early twenties, as yet unmarried.
She did allow Abby to string and snap green beans for the midday meal, and rinse marionberries before they went into a pie. Then she conceded that Abby could step out on the back porch and ring the bell to summon the men.
Onkel Eli, Isaac and lanky, shy Joshua came in the back door, hung their broad-brimmed hats on hooks just inside and went to the sink to wash their hands before sitting down at the long table. Aenti Nancy had what always seemed to Abby to be an enormous midday meal all ready. But Amish men and women alike did hard physical labor almost from the moment they rose in the morning, and needed the calories.
They all bowed their heads in silent prayer before beginning to dish up. Like a swarm of locusts, the men emptied serving dishes piled with mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans and applesauce, while the fried chicken and sourdough biscuits disappeared as fast. Still full from her abundant breakfast, Abby only nibbled. The marionberry pie met the same fate as the rest of the meal.
With a few words of thanks, the men went back to work. Her aunt rejected her offer to help clear the table or wash dishes, suggesting she ought to nap.
“I’ve been in bed for a week,” she protested. “I might go sit out on the porch swing, or lie on the grass in the shade beneath the tree.”
Aenti Nancy smiled. “Ja, that is a good idea. I remember as a girl seeing many things in the clouds as they floated in the sky. Castles and galloping horses and ships with full sails. All foolishness, but fun.”
“Me, too. I haven’t done that in a long time.” Since she was a child, here at the farm.
Her aunt gave her a speaking look. “Then go.”
This early September day had to be in the nineties, but a faint breeze stirred the leaves of the red maple tree rising close enough to the house to shade the front porch for a few hours of the day. Abby lowered herself slowly to the lawn right at the edge of the shade. The grass felt stiff beneath her hands. She brushed it back and forth, enjoying the texture. An apartment dweller now, when had she last sat on the grass? After a