“We find comfort knowing Noah is with the Lord,” her husband says. But the Amish man looks anything but comforted.
I hold up the evidence bag containing the rattle. “Do either of you recognize this?”
Willis’s eyes flick to the rattle. His mouth opens slightly. A quiver runs the length of his body.
“Oh, my.” Miriam looks from the rattle to me. “May I?”
I hand her the bag. Removing a pair of spectacles from her apron pocket, she slides them onto her nose. “Noah made this.” She runs her fingers over the smooth wood. “I’m sure of it. He was a fine carver. He could make anything he set his mind to. Where did this come from?”
I don’t want to answer that yet, so I hold up the bag containing the quilt. “What about this?”
“That’s…” She takes the bag from me, handles it with reverence. “I made this quilt. Right before Noah was born. My goodness, I thought I’d misplaced it.” She raises her gaze to mine. “Where on earth did you find it?”
I go to my next question. “Mr. and Mrs. Fisher, do you know if your son was seeing anyone? Did he have a girlfriend? Or someone he was courting?”
“A girlfriend?” Willis spits the words at me. “Why do you want to know something like that?”
Making a sound of discomfort, his wife sets her hand on his arm. “Now, Willis…”
“I understand it’s a personal question,” I tell him, “but it may be related to a case—”
“I’m going to unhitch the horse,” the Amish man says abruptly. “I don’t wish to speak of my son or disrespect his memory with questions about girls.” Shaking his head, he grasps the reins and leads the horse toward the barn.
Miriam and I watch him walk away. When he’s out of earshot, she lowers her voice and says, “Would you like a cup of coffee, Chief Burkholder?”
I can tell by the way she’s looking at me that she’s offering more than coffee. Something she’d prefer her husband not hear. “I’d like that very much,” I reply.
A few minutes later, I’m seated at the big rustic table in her kitchen. Miriam fusses with an old-fashioned percolator, then sets a platter mounded with oatmeal cookies on the table while the coffee perks. Within minutes the aroma of freshly-brewed coffee fills the air. She places a steaming mug in front of me. I sip, find it strong and good.
“I know it must be difficult talking about your son so soon after his death,” I begin.
“Some days I still can’t believe he’s gone. He was such a force and so full of life.” She bows her head slightly. “To tell you the truth, I could talk about Noah all day. And I do, sometimes, to anyone who will listen.” Her lips twist into a sad replica of a smile. “Willis took his death hard. Won’t speak of it. Spends all his time in the barn, working.” She chuckles. “I think we have the cleanest horse stalls in all of Holmes County.”
We reach for cookies at the same time and smile at each other. I like this woman, I realize. She’s kind and maternal and it’s hard to look into her eyes and see so much pain.
“Noah was our only child,” she tells me. “I had some problems with his birth and I was never able to carry to term again. Lost four little souls in the years that followed.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was God’s will.”
I nudge her back to my question. “Mrs. Fisher, do you know if Noah was seeing someone?”
“I’m pretty sure he was courting a girl. There were a few times when he didn’t come home. He was on rumspringa, you know, so we tried not to pry. Willis thought he was out drinking and raising cane with his friends.” She looks at me from beneath her lashes. “But I knew. I knew because Willis acted the same way while he was courting me. Like he had a hundred dollars in his pocket and the world at his feet.”
“Do you know her name?”
“I asked Noah about it once or twice.” Another sad smile. “But he wouldn’t speak of her.”
“Any idea why he didn’t want to say?”
She lifts her shoulders, lets them drop. “I don’t know. For whatever reason, he wasn’t ready, I suppose.”
I struggle to find the right words to ask her about the possibility of a pregnancy. “I thought it was interesting that he carved a baby rattle. Do you have any idea why he would make something for a baby?”
“At first I thought it was for the money. I thought maybe he was selling things to the shops in town.” Her expression turns sage, and she sets down her mug. “Let me show you something.”
We leave the kitchen. I follow her through the living room and up the stairs to the second level. Down a darkened hall toward a bedroom at the end. She pushes open the door and we walk inside. Like many Amish homes, there’s no closet. Clothing and hats are hung on hooks or dowels set into the wall. Boots are left in the mudroom downstairs.