Shamed (Kate Burkholder #11) - Linda Castillo Page 0,29
sincere, which only serves to annoy me.
I don’t cut him any slack. “Back up your vehicle. Now. Or I will cite you. Do you understand?”
The woman leans forward and catches my gaze. “Any comment on the murder? Or the missing girl?”
“There will be a press release tomorrow.” I point toward the mouth of the lane. “You’re in the way so back it up now.”
“Fine!” The man throws up his hands. “Jeez.”
Before he can get the window up, I hear the woman hiss, “Bitch.”
I’m smiling when I get back in the Explorer.
* * *
It’s midnight when I pull into the gravel lane of the Troyer farm. Despite the hour, I’m not surprised to find the windows aglow with lantern light. The bishop may be getting up in years—last time I saw him he was using a walker—but neither age nor his purported arthritis has slowed him down. I pull up to the house, park next to the bishop’s buggy, and start toward the door.
Gas hisses in the lamppost as I take the steps to the small porch. The door stands open, but the screen is closed, which is odd. I knock, wait a full minute, and tap the wood jamb with my key fob.
“Bishop Troyer?” I call out. “It’s Kate Burkholder!”
Another minute passes and I finally hear the floor creak. In the semidarkness, I see a woman’s form approach. Freda Troyer shoves a lantern my way and glares at me through the screen. “En hand foll funn geduld is veaht may vi en bushel funn der grips,” she mutters in a crushed-gravel voice. A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains.
The bishop’s wife may be barely five feet tall and a scant hundred pounds, but the force of her persona adds both height and weight. She’s wearing a dark gray dress, a black apron, and a white kapp, all of it draped with an oversized cardigan she’s thrown over thin shoulders. Both she and the bishop are well into their eighties, but no one—Amish or English—treads on Freda Troyer without the risk of being dressed down—or swatted with the horse crop she’s rumored to keep on her kitchen counter.
She’s looking at me as if I’m some vermin that’s wandered onto her porch from the barn. She’s got a crease on her cheek and I suspect I woke her.
“This won’t wait,” I tell her. “You heard what happened to Mary Yoder?”
“Of course I heard.” A shadow of anguish darkens her expression. “Gottlos.” Ungodly. “You’re here for the bishop?”
“Actually, I’m here to speak with you.”
Her eyes narrow behind wire-rimmed glasses with thick lenses. “I reckon you ought to come in then.”
The Troyer home is a hundred-year-old farmhouse that’s typically Amish. Wood plank floors. A big kitchen with Formica countertops, a gas stove, and a propane refrigerator. The aromas of meat roasted earlier in the day, cardamom, and cinnamon lace the air. I take one of six chairs at a rectangular table covered with a red-checkered cloth. A lantern flickers in the center. Salt and pepper shakers in the shape of cats.
“Have you found the girl?” Freda Troyer asks as she shuffles to the stove, where a lone mug sits next to an ancient-looking teapot.
“No.”
“Poor, sweet child.” Making a sound of distress, she pulls out a second mug. “Would you like tea?”
“I can’t stay.” I watch her pour, anxious to get what I need and get back out there. “I understand you and Mary Yoder were friends.”
“I’ve known Mary for years. She was a good friend. A good woman. Mother. Grandmother.”
She carries her mug to the table and pulls out a chair. She lowers herself into it like a woman who feels every one of the eight decades she’s been on this earth. “I can’t believe she’s gone.”
“Can you think of anyone who might’ve wanted to harm her?” I ask. “Did she have any enemies? Any trouble in her life?”
She shakes her head. “Lord, no. Mary Yoder lived her life the way an Amish woman ought to, full of kindness and faith. She was humble and submitted to God.”
“Did she ever mention having any problems with anyone?” I ask. “Any money disputes? Family issues? Disagreements with neighbors?”
“No.”
“What about her husband?”
“Benjamin?” She looks at me as if she’s surprised I’m aware of his existence. “He’s been gone for years.”
“What about Ivan and Miriam?”
“They’re a good Amish family, Chief Burkholder. Not the kind of people who invite trouble into their lives.”