October 8
I’m so ashamed of what I’ve become. What kind of mamm will I be to my baby? I beg for God to forgive me. I’m going to end it. I’m going to tell Mamm and Datt everything. He met me at the end of the lane and took me to a house in town. I tried to tell him I didn’t want to see him anymore, but he wouldn’t listen. I pretended to drink the wine, but dumped it in the plant when he wasn’t looking. When he went to the bedroom, I ran from the house. I was so scared, I didn’t stop until I was out of town. I kept looking over my shoulder. Every time a car went by, I ran to the ditch and hid.
October 11
I can’t stop crying. I told Mamm and Datt. I was so ashamed I wanted to die. Mamm cried. Datt couldn’t look at me. We prayed and decided I would speak with Bishop Troyer. How can I confess my sins when they’re so terrible?
October 12
Who am I? What have I become? I hate myself. I hate him. I’m so ashamed I want to die.
October 13
I told Datt the rest of it. All of it. And I think that broke his heart. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him cry. I feel so guilty and stupid. He’s going to the English police. I begged him not to. If he does, everyone will know what I’ve done. I can’t believe this is happening. Sometimes I wish I could just die.
I finish reading Mary Plank’s journal at four A.M. It’s like watching a movie where you know some cataclysmic event is about to happen to some hapless character you’ve come to care about. A huge meteor spinning through space, drawing closer and closer to destination Earth.
It’s indescribably sad for me to bear witness to a young Amish girl’s descent into a world she is unequipped to handle. Maybe because I discern echoes of my own past in her words. My situation was different, but the parallels are glaringly there. We broke the rules and paid the price for it. The difference was that I didn’t have a choice in what happened to me. Young Mary made the wrong choices over and over again.
In all those pages of teenaged angst, not once did she mention her lover’s name. Not once did she reveal the kind of car he drives, the name of the club they frequented, the location of the houses they visited, or what he does for a living. At this point, I’m not even sure he had anything do with the murders. But I’m suspicious as hell. If Mary Plank forewarned her lover of her father’s plan to go to the police, he had a big motive to do away with not only her, but her entire family.
I’m a firm believer that people are responsible for their actions. They are masters of their universe. There’s no doubt Mary used poor judgment. Her only saving grace is that she was a kid. Raised Amish, she lacked the skills to deal with the world into which she let herself get dragged.
I’m betting the man she fell for was quite a bit older, much more experienced, and knew exactly what he was doing: taking advantage of her innocence, her lack of sophistication, her na?veté. Not to mention her love for him. That alone makes him a bastard in my book. It makes me want to find him and tear him apart with my bare hands.
CHAPTER 12
The clip-clop of a hundred or more shod hooves fills the cold, late-morning air. Clouds of vapor spew from the flared nostrils of dozens of horses, frisky from the first cold front of the season.
I’ve spent the last two days in wait mode. Waiting is a big part of police work—the most difficult aspect as far as I’m concerned—and I’ll never be good at it. I’ve walked the crime scene a dozen times now, talked to the same neighbors and asked the same questions a hundred different ways. But I always get the same answers: No one saw anything. Frustration has been my constant companion. I haven’t slept much. Forget to eat half the time. And so I wait. For preliminary autopsy results. For various lab results. For fingerprints. For footwear imprint matching. Cartridge casings and bullet striation results. Hurry up and goddamn wait.
T.J. and I sit in my Explorer, the windows midway down, watching the somber procession. Black buggies, the sides of which are marked with chalk designating their order in the convoy, stretch as far as the eye can see. Some of the mourners come from as far away as Zanesville and Western Pennsylvania, and probably began their journey as early as two or three A.M.