A Perfect Square

Chapter 34




DEBORAH HAD THE SENSE OF STEPPING into a quilting pattern.

She was certain she’d seen a quilt top that was pieced together exactly like the scene in front of her. That was the first and most disconcerting thing, rather like stepping into an Englisch photograph.

The second thing that made her naerfich was the number of grain silos in front of her. She didn’t know why it would make her stomach flip and flop, but it seemed so unusual she could only gape through the car window and press her hand to her apron to calm her nerves.

“Did I not mention Mr. Lapp has quite a large place here?” Faith asked, once again leaning forward between them.

“Can’t remember that you did,” Callie murmured.

“It looks like several farms.” Deborah reached down to put her knitting in her bag, never taking her eyes off the sight outside the car window. “It looks like a picture rather than a real thing.”

“Timothy’s parents died, leaving quite a bit of land, then his bruder died, and finally his onkel. He kept consolidating, kept thinking he’d have sons. And each time he’d build another grain silo and work longer hours on the extra fields. Each year he’d have another dochder.”

“He must have a lot of fields.” Deborah opened her door.

“He must have a lot of daughters,” Callie added.

Five silos. Deborah counted five. Three to the east side of the barn, two to the southwest. The sheer number was surprising enough, but as they followed Shane to the front porch of the house, she caught sight of a type of catwalk between the silos in each group.

It wasn’t unusual for silos to have a ladder on the exterior that led to an opening at the top, but she’d never seen a catwalk between two. Perhaps Mr. Lapp had so much work, he had to devise ways to save time. Still, Deborah shivered at the thought of walking so high off the ground, between the silos, on the grated metal walk.

To be sure, it must be safe, but she’d rather never attempt it herself.

By the time they reached the porch, Mr. Lapp had opened the door, but he hadn’t stepped outside. Deborah couldn’t make out his expression through the screen, but she could see he was a big man. And she could tell he wasn’t happy to have visitors.

“Timothy Lapp?”

“Ya.”

“My name is Shane Black, and I’m here to speak to you about your daughter Katie.”

Deborah had noticed in the past that Shane didn’t usually give his official rank when he introduced himself to Amish folk. She’d asked him why when he was investigating the death of Esther’s husband, and he’d explained to her that Amish people were wary enough about Englischers in general. It wasn’t so much that he was worried about intimidating the people he was questioning. It was that he wanted to get as much information as possible — and sometimes if he started out casually, he achieved better results.

She could have told him that in Shipshewana the entire point was moot. Everyone knew who Shane Black was. Everyone certainly recognized his vintage Buick. And she imagined the same was true for most of LaGrange County.

But Deborah didn’t bother correcting him. She guessed Englisch men preferred to do things their own way as Amish men did. So he proceeded in his customary manner — doling out information a little at a time, so as not to frighten people off immediately.

Mr. Lapp did not look like a man who startled easily. Then Deborah’s mind flashed back to the pictures of the girl, of Katie. Was she his daughter? She shivered in spite of herself, and Callie stepped closer.

They were standing on the steps under the roof of the Lapps’ porch, but the rain had increased. It continued to splash on them. In the distance, thunder crashed and rolled.

“Timothy, perhaps you should invite them inside. The storm is worsening.”

An Amish woman in her late forties hovered in the background. Deborah couldn’t make out much more than her white kapp and her gentle voice.

Timothy ignored the woman, most certainly his wife, to say, “My dochder is in the city. We haven’t heard from her in days. I have nothing to say to you on the matter.”

“Mr. Lapp, I’m an officer with the LaGrange County—”

Before Shane could finish his sentence, Timothy Lapp had pushed his way through the door. Deborah was right in assessing his size. He was a giant of a man, standing well over six-and-a-half feet tall. He had the body of a man who’d worked more than twenty years on a farm, hard and muscular. He had the expression of the Old Order Amish — closed to those who weren’t a known part of their community.

“I told you. My Katie is in the city. Now I’d thank you to leave my land.”

Shane had backed up to allow Mr. Lapp to open the door. When he’d backed up, Deborah, Callie, and Faith had been forced to take one step back as well, placing them squarely in the rain.

Deborah felt the water falling on her, soaking through her overcoat, but she couldn’t take her eyes off what was happening in front of her. She wanted to run past these two men, run to the woman who still waited beyond the screen door and comfort her in some way.

Lowering his voice, Shane said, “I have information that is possibly related to Katie Lapp, and I have photos I need you to look at. We can do that at the police station in Goshen, or we can do that here. But we are going to do it.”

Mr. Lapp seemed to deflate, like a tire on a bicycle that kinner rode in the summer. He peered out into the rain, over at his silos, and then a tremor passed through him.

He finally met Shane’s gaze.

“My Katie’s in the city.” His voice was softer now.

“Then look at the pictures. Tell me it’s not her, and we’ll be out of your way.”

“Not here. In my office. In the barn.”

“Do you want the ladies to stay with your wife?” Shane asked.

Timothy’s voice fell to a whisper. “No. It would frighten her more.”

He turned and spoke to his wife through the screen door. Deborah could just make out the words, even as she saw the brief shadow of another man passing behind the woman.

“We’re going to the barn,” Mr. Lapp said. “I’ll be back in a little while.”

“Is everything all right?”

“Yes, of course. You stay inside with the younger ones.” Then he pushed his way through their little group, and he trudged off through the rain, oblivious to the fact that it was now falling in sheets.

They walked four abreast — Deborah, Shane, Callie, and Faith.

They walked behind Mr. Lapp, carrying their pictures and their news of death.

Deborah prayed as she sloshed through the stream of water that was already running across this fertile land, carrying away sticks and leaves and tiny pieces of the crops that had been harvested and stored in the silos towering over them — carrying away the last evidence of fall.

She prayed that Shane would use the correct words, that the man in front of her and the woman in the house would find the strength to bear whatever awaited them in the moments ahead, and she prayed for the boy — she could now see it was a boy and not quite a man, though no doubt he was at the end of his rumspringa — who circumvented their little group and hurried toward the back of the barn.

Callie blinked twice, hoping her eyes would adjust to the dimness of the barn. She didn’t consider herself a city girl, not any longer, and even when she’d lived in Houston, she’d sometimes visited the outlying farms in Normangee. But southern farms were different from Amish farms, and Timothy Lapp’s farm was proving a bit different from the four or five Amish farms she regularly visited in Shipshewana.

There were the silos: both odd and numerous.

Then there was the barn. In a word: gigantic.

Callie stepped through the door and stared straight up. Would that be three stories? She’d lived in Shipshewana less than six months, but already she was used to smaller buildings. This reminded her of the Galleria Mall in Houston. Ladders on each side led to a loft that circled the building on three sides. Windows at the top would have let light in on most days, but today she could only see the darkness of the sky and rain pelting against the panes.

Callie might have stood staring, earning a crick in her neck, but Faith nudged her forward, nudged her closer to Deborah and Shane, closer to the event she was no longer sure she had the courage to witness.

They followed Mr. Lapp into his office area, located at the northeast corner of the building. Unlike the rest of the barn, it was the size of most Amish offices, meaning it was small and utilitarian. By the time they all crowded inside, it was obvious there wouldn’t be room enough for everyone to sit.

Mr. Lapp stepped to the far side of the work table and nodded at Shane. “Like I told you, my girl’s in the city.”

Shane held the man’s gaze for ten heartbeats, then pulled the folder of photos out of his bag and set it on the table. “Have you heard from Katie since she left, Mr. Lapp?”

The older man flinched at his daughter’s name, but didn’t reach for the folder. “No. I haven’t, but then we don’t have a phone here. Don’t even have one in the workshop, though our bishop would allow it if I wanted one. I don’t.”

Shane nodded as if that made sense.

When Lapp didn’t add anything else, Shane cleared his throat once and reached for the folder. Reaching out her hand to stop him from opening it, Faith spoke up.

“I don’t know that you remember me, Mr. Lapp.”

“ ‘Course I do, Faith.” He looked up at her, met her gaze. “There’s no need to be formal, just because you arrived with Englischers.”

“Danki, Timothy.” Faith ran her hand down the front of her dress, wiping at the wet material.

Callie realized anew what a tenuous thread had brought them all together — Mr. Bontrager, Faith, the Lapps. The search for family, and Deborah’s ability to notice the smallest details in any pattern, even the pattern of Faith’s dress.

“I saw Katie occasionally in town, though it had been a while, what with everyone so busy during the harvest months and her being grown now.” Faith waited for Timothy to add something, but he only stared back down at the folder, which remained unopened, sitting on the table. “Did Katie write to you at all, since she’s been away?”

He didn’t answer, but when he finally raised his eyes, Callie saw the fear there, saw the hope behind the fear, and she found herself praying that they were wrong. She had the irrational urge to grab the folder and the pictures and run out of the barn, run back to her car, and take them away from this place.

Perhaps it would be better if they didn’t know.

Before she could act on that urge, Shane reached forward and opened the file. He set the pictures on the table, in front of Mr. Lapp for viewing, placed there like tablets of stone.

Timothy didn’t have to answer.

He shut his eyes, and his face lost all color.

He began speaking in German, softly at first, a painful anguished sound.

Deborah rushed around the table. “Sit down, Mr. Lapp. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Would you like me to go and get your wife?”

“No. Not yet. Please, no. Give me a minute.” His hand trembling, he reached forward, picked up the picture of Katie on the stretcher.

Callie didn’t realize he was crying until tears splashed onto the photo.

She didn’t realize she was crying until she tasted salt on her lips.

“What happened to her? Can you tell me what happened to her?”

“No, sir. We don’t know exactly. Her body was found two weeks ago. There’s a trial going on in—”

“That’s not possible.” Timothy Lapp placed both hands flat on the table, as if to push up, as if to stand. He shook his head and repeated, “That can’t have happened.”

“What do you mean, sir? This is your daughter, Katie Lapp?”

“Ya, that’s her.” Timothy reached forward, touched one of the photos gingerly, pulled it toward him as if he were pulling a piece of his heart across the table, shredding it as he dragged it across the oak surface. “It’s her or it’s her twin.”

Callie wanted to look away from the agony on his face, but she hung on to his words, was mesmerized by the look of confusion that now played across his features.

“But you say her body was found two weeks ago, and all this time a trial has been going on in the Englisch courts?”

“Yes, sir. There’s a man, an Amish man, who’s been accused of your daughter’s murder.”

Timothy flinched at the word, but shook his head, and this time he did stand. “Well, it can’t be her then. I don’t understand how they can look the same, but it can’t be her.”

“Your daughter is missing?”

“Ya, and she left just over two weeks ago. Seventeen days to be exact. I’ve counted each and every one. Prayed each morning and night that God would see fit to guide her steps back to this home.”

“Mr. Lapp, I’m sorry, but if your daughter is missing, and this looks like your daughter, then chances are it is her. We could do a DNA test to confirm.”

Timothy pushed the offending picture away, continued shaking his head. “You don’t understand. It can’t be her. Samuel went down to the phone shack and spoke with her two nights ago.”

“You’re sure?”

“Ya, I am. He came back and told us that she’s still in the city. That she’s fine.”

“Sir, is it possible — “

Shane never had a chance to finish his sentence.

It was cut off by Mrs. Lapp, who rushed into the room, pushed past Callie and Faith, and threw herself at the photos on the table. When she saw the photos of the girl, saw the evidence of what she must have feared every night since her daughter had left, a high-pitched scream escaped from her lips.

Faith had described Rachel Lapp as being in her late forties, energetic, and motherly. But the woman who now clutched the photos to her breast and wailed was no more than a shadow. Tendrils of brown and gray hair had escaped her kapp and hung in rivulets down her face. Her dress was soaked and clung to her thin frame, as if she’d been standing in the rain since they’d arrived.

But what struck Callie, what she knew would follow her into her dreams that night and for many nights to come, were the woman’s eyes. Dark semicircles rimmed the bottoms, reminding her of the football players she once watched on television. And when Rachel Lapp looked up, when she finally sought her husband’s eyes, Callie saw such agony and distress, such complete and naked grief, that she feared the woman’s heart was literally breaking in two.