A Perfect Square

Chapter 4




REUBEN WATCHED DEBORAH WALK AWAY. Watched her walk toward Jonas, Esther, and her Englisch friends Trent and Callie.

Jonas wrapped his arms around her; then Esther and the children joined in the circle. Almost immediately, Callie Harper was pulled into their midst, and though Trent McCallister stood on the outside, soon he, too, was shaking hands with Jonas, tousling the bopplin’s hair, and lightly touching Deborah’s and Esther’s arms.

Good people, every one of them. Rueben hadn’t been much help when Deborah was trying to clear the Englisch woman’s name in the murder investigation last summer. Seemed ironic now. One thing he could bet the crops in his east field on — if Deborah Yoder said a person was honest and true, it was a fact.

Pulling in a deep breath, he forced his attention to the officer who stood waiting.

Didn’t allow himself to stare into the water.

Wouldn’t let himself look at Katie.

Though part of him needed to.

“Are there any corrections you’d like to make to Deborah’s statement?”

“No.”

“Do you know who the girl in the water is, Mr. Fisher?”

He didn’t answer that one. Reuben knew who Captain Stan Taylor was. In a town as small as Shipshewana, you came to know everyone’s name fairly quickly, and they’d both lived there as long as either could remember. After a long silence, Officer Taylor hitched up his pants and sighed before moving on to the next question. Reuben had seen Taylor around town plenty of times. Never had cause to speak to him before. Never had cause to like or dislike him.

“Any idea how she came to be in your pond?” Taylor asked.

Reuben shook his head.

Another police vehicle pulled in behind the truck that had brought Trent and Callie.

Reuben’s jaw began to ache from clenching it.

Taylor snapped his notepad shut. “We’re not making any progress with my questions. How about you tell me what you do know.”

Until that moment, Reuben had avoided looking directly at the Englischer, but now he sensed the challenge in the man’s words. He forced himself not to move, not to react physically in any way. That was easy enough after years of practicing gelassenheit. But of course this wasn’t a normal situation, and he didn’t feel anything close to calm or composed.

Was the girl’s death Gotte’s wille?

Hard to imagine.

Didn’t mean he’d be willing to work with the Englischer though.

“Well?” Officer Taylor asked. “Do you have anything to add?”

Reuben met his gaze, not attempting to hide his contempt. “No.”

Taylor stepped closer, close enough that Reuben could smell the man’s sweat. He remembered then this officer had once worked in the Englisch prisons, had been a supervisor of sorts there. Tobias had told him all about it. Taylor had herded people in concrete jails at the county facility on the outskirts of town. He’d heard it was only for women, and only minor offenses at that, but the thought still turned his stomach. In other words, he was as foreign to Reuben as the scene unfolding before him right this minute.

“A dead girl shows up in your pond, less than a mile from your front door, and you don’t see or hear a thing? I might believe that of a woman working in the home or garden, or a man who is a bit slovenly or absentminded.” Taylor stepped back as the other officer approached, though he didn’t stop speaking. “But from the looks of your farm, Mr. Fisher, you’re aware of everything that happens in every field. I don’t quite believe that someone killed and dumped this girl and you didn’t see a thing.”

Taylor turned and walked away, toward the other officer, leaving Reuben by the pond with Katie.

For the first time in many years, Reuben no longer felt distanced from other people — separate, as though he were watching from the outside.

No, standing beside the water, unable to turn and look at the girl who still hadn’t been fetched, who couldn’t yet be properly buried, he felt completely involved in life — involved in a way that stirred an ache all the way to the marrow in his bones. An ache that spoke to the regret for the things he’d done in the last forty-eight hours, the decisions he’d made.

Decisions that couldn’t be changed.

Not now.

Though he was large, though he felt the strength he’d always known running through his muscles, Reuben was sure that his heart had been shattered in two.