The bishop stared at the tiny, wriggling infant and, despite the worry weighing him down, he smiled. “Don’t fret, Little One,” he said. “It’s all part of God’s plan.”
He caught his wife’s gaze. “The English police will want to know about this,” he said.
“Es waarken maulvoll gat,” she replied. There’s nothing good about that. “Ich bag nix dagege.” But I don’t object.
He nodded. “So be it.”
Cradling the child against her, his wife turned and started toward the kitchen.
*
A middle-of-the-night phone call is never a good thing when you’re the chief of police, even in a small town like Painters Mill, Ohio. The chirp of my cell phone yanks me from a deep sleep. One eye open, I grapple for it on the table next to my bed. “Burkholder,” my voice rasps.
“Chief, sorry to wake you.”
It’s my graveyard shift dispatcher, Mona. She sounds worried.
“No problem.” I push myself to a sitting position and shove the hair from my eyes. The clock on the nightstand tells me it’s not yet five A.M. “What’s up?”
“I just took a call from the Amish bishop,” she tells me. “He says he found a baby on his doorstep about twenty minutes ago.”
“A baby?” I’m out of bed and reaching for my bra draped over the chair, yanking a fresh uniform shirt from the closet.
“Yup. A newborn.”
“Any sign of the mother?”
“Just the baby.”
“Is it hurt? Or injured?”
“He didn’t think so.”
I consider that for a moment. “Call Holmes County Children’s Services, will you? They’ve got an emergency number for after hours. Tell them to meet me out there ASAP. And let the ER folks at Pomerene Hospital know we’re on our way.”
“Got it.”
“And call Bishop Troyer back. Tell him I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“Sure thing, Chief.”
I end the call, my dispatcher’s words tumbling uneasily in my brain. A newborn.
“Kate?”
I look toward the bed to see John Tomasetti flip on the light. For an instant we squint at each other. “I caught the tail end of the conversation.” He throws back the covers and steps into trousers. “What’s up?”
I tell him about Mona’s call.
“Abandoned?” he asks.
“Apparently.” I feel the grimace overtake my face. “I’ve got to get out to the bishop’s farm. If it’s a newborn, it may need medical attention.”
“You want some company?”
“You mean officially?”
“Or unofficially. Whatever works.”
Usually, when dealing with the Amish, I prefer to do it alone. They’re more likely to speak freely to me than to my counterparts, mainly because of my Amish roots and the simple fact that I’m fluent in Pennsylvania Dutch. But there’s nothing usual about this call and I think it might be best to bring a partner along. Especially since John Tomasetti is an agent with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
I smile at him. “You think you’ll manage to behave yourself?”
He snags a shirt from his closet and shrugs into it. “I’ll do my best.”
“That’s a likely story.” But I grab my equipment belt off the chair and buckle it at my hip. “Let’s go.”
*
Bishop David Troyer and his wife live on a farm just south of Painters Mill. I’ve known the bishop for as long as I can remember. When I was twelve, my datt caught me smoking a cigarette with a neighbor boy by the name of Brodie Mathis. It was a serious offense for an Amish girl, made worse by the fact that Brodie was five years my senior and an Englischer, to boot. It wasn’t my first show of disobedience, and my datt delivered a robust “smacking” when he got me back to the house. The following Sunday after worship, he made it a point to put me before Bishop Troyer, who proceeded to lecture me on the importance of obedience and the benefits of being a “good child.” The bishop possesses a powerful presence and, in my twelve-year-old heart, he was the closest thing to God I’d ever encountered. It was a formative experience. After that day, my opinion of him hovered somewhere between terror and awe. It wasn’t until I’d graduated into adulthood that I realized while he can be judgmental, his words sometimes harsh, he is also kind and generous and fair.
I take the long gravel lane of the Troyer farm with a little too much speed. Ahead, the windows of the old farmhouse glow yellow with lantern light.
“Any idea who might’ve left their baby here?” Tomasetti asks as I pull up beside a ramshackle shed.
“Since it was left with the bishop, I suspect she’s Amish.” I consider that as I put the Explorer into Park and kill the engine. “Then again, if an Amish woman or girl had an unplanned pregnancy and felt she couldn’t handle a newborn, it seems like the most likely place to leave a baby would be with her parents.”
“Unless there are problems at home.”