“Thanks.” I start toward the truck, aware that he’s right behind me, stick in hand. Not for the first time, I wish I had eyes in the back of my head.
“It run okay?” I glance over my shoulder. He’s less than three feet away. So close I can smell the smoke and sweat coming off his clothes.
“Good enough to get me under the bann,” he grumbles.
The truck is an old blue F-150. Not the model I’m looking for. I’m no expert, but it also looks older. “What year?”
“Nineteen ninety-two.”
I look at him over the hood as I round the front of the truck. There’s no damage. No recent body work. It’s not the right color, either, though I’m well aware how easily paint can be changed. But it doesn’t look freshly painted. The driver’s side door is covered with patches of primer. There’s no brush guard. No evidence the front end has been altered in any way. Both headlights are intact and covered with dried-on insects. Aside from a small crease and a few areas of rust, the bumper is undamaged. This truck was not involved in any recent accident, certainly not the kind that took out that buggy.
“Do you own any other vehicles?” I ask.
He gives me an are-you-kidding look and shakes his head.
I make two complete circles around the vehicle and then turn to him, extend my hand. “Thanks for your time, Mr. Wengerd.”
He looks surprised by the gesture, but quickly reciprocates the handshake. It makes me wonder if it’s the only gesture of kindness he’s received since his Amish brethren excommunicated him.
*
The people I’m closest to have told me I have an obsessive personality, particularly when it comes to my job. I argue the point, but my defense is usually halfhearted, because they’re right. When I’m in the midst of an investigation—especially a horrific and baffling one like the Borntrager case—I think of little else. I have difficulty focusing on other things that are going on in my life. I’ve been known to brood.
I’ve always chalked up my obsessive behavior to my work ethic, my black-and-white stance on right and wrong, or maybe my intolerance of people who hurt others. It wasn’t until I worked the Plank case last October—the murders of an entire family—that I was forced to take a hard look at myself and examine my shortcomings. I stepped over a line in the course of that investigation. I did some things I shouldn’t have. But I hate injustice. Even more, I hate the thought of someone getting away with murder.
I’m on my way back to the station when I drive by the Hope Clinic for the Amish. It’s the medical facility where Paul had taken his children the afternoon of the accident. On impulse, I pull into the lot and park opposite a shedrow designed to shelter the buggy horses. A single black buggy is parked inside, the sorrel horse standing with its rear leg cocked, swatting flies with its tail. Six parking spaces are marked not only with the buggy symbol, but a handicapped sign as well, and I’m reminded the clinic deals mainly with children afflicted with some of the genetic disorders plaguing the Amish. It opened a few years ago to study several rare genetic diseases that apparently aren’t so rare among the Amish.
The facility is housed in a small farmhouse that’s been completely refashioned to look like an Amish home, with hanging planters, a porch swing, and even an old-fashioned clothesline in the side yard. The owner of the original property, Ronald Hope, passed away four years ago. His son, Ronald Jr., rather than sell the entire farm, donated the house and outbuildings to the clinic while maintaining ownership of the land for farming. People still talk about the appropriateness of the donor’s last name.
I park adjacent the shedrow, cross the parking lot to the house, and ascend the steps to the porch. The facility is wheelchair friendly with a ramp stenciled with horseshoe prints. A sign in Pennsylvania Dutch written in an Olde English font proclaims Welcome to All.
A bell jingles merrily when I enter the homey reception area. The receptionist is a fifty-something woman with curly brown hair and blue eyes. She’s wearing pink scrubs with a tag telling me her name is NATALIE. Beneath her name are the words THERE’S ALWAYS HOPE.
“Hi! May I help you?”
I show her my badge and introduce myself. “I’m working on a case and was wondering if someone can talk to me about Paul Borntrager.”
“Oh my goodness.” She presses her hand against her matronly bosom. “That was awful about Paul and those sweet little children. Just horrible. I cried my eyes out when I heard what happened. All of us here at the clinic were just crushed.”