Grabbing my citation book, I shove open the door. T.J. calls out, but I barely hear him over the drum of my heart. My temper writhes beneath my skin as I start toward the tourist. I know full well anger has no place in police work. But the part of me that is Amish is outraged that some unthinking moron would try to capture such a private, heartbreaking moment for the sake of entertainment.
A second person gets out of the Toyota. A young woman with red hair and several facial piercings. Wearing cutoff shorts and a University of Michigan sweatshirt, she’s sitting on the hood, watching the scene as if it were unfolding on the big screen.
I’m fifteen feet away when the man spots me. He lowers the camcorder and gives me an unctuous smile. “Hello, Off—”
I snatch the camcorder from his hand. It takes a good bit of control not to slam it onto the ground and stomp it, but I manage.
“What are you doing?” he demands.
“Hey!” The female slides off the car, her eyes flaring. “You can’t do that.”
I swing around, stick my finger in her face. “You take one step closer to me and you’re going to jail.”
She steps quickly back, as if realizing she’s ventured too close to an animal that bites. “Fine. Whatever.”
I turn back to the man. He glares at me. In a small corner of my mind, I find myself wishing he’d take his best shot so I could deck him.
“Give me back my camcorder,” he says.
“You can pick it up when you pay your citation.” I pull out the pad and start writing.
“Citation?” He gawks at me. “For what? Taking a photo? Ever heard of freedom of expression?”
“This is a no parking, no standing zone.” I motion toward the sign. “Ever heard of that?”
This isn’t the first time some photo-seeking tourist has stopped on this stretch of road to capture an Amish funeral on film. In light of several Amish-English skirmishes in the last few years, the town council petitioned the county to declare the shoulder within one hundred yards of the cemetery driveway a no parking or standing zone. With tourism being a large chunk of the local economy, the county obliged by putting up four signs.
“I didn’t know,” the man says. “I didn’t see the sign!”
“Now you know.” I slap the citation against his chest. “Have a nice day.”
He throws his hands up in the air. “For chrissake!”
“This is a funeral. Show some respect.” Stuffing the pad into an inside pocket, I start toward the Explorer, think better of it and turn to him. “And for your information, most Amish don’t like having their picture taken. Next time, ask their permission before you snap.”
By the time I reach the Explorer, the final buggy has pulled into the gravel driveway.
“I thought you were going to punch him,” T.J. says.
“Too many witnesses.”
He blinks.
I point at him and smile. “Gotcha.”
T.J. smiles back. “So are we just going to surveil?”
I look through the windshield at the ocean of black-clad mourners. “I thought we’d make an appearance, see who’s here.”
We disembark simultaneously and head toward the graveyard, our boots crunching on the gravel. Beyond, a hundred or more plain headstones form neat rows in a meadow that had once been a soybean field. Dozens of black buggies are parked neatly along a lesser used dirt path. Nearer the graves, I see families. Young couples. The elderly. Children. Mothers with babies. All of them standing in the cold drizzle. The community came out in force for the Plank family. But then that is the Amish way.
Bishop Troyer reads a hymn in Pennsylvania Dutch as the pallbearers lower the coffins into the graves. When he finishes, heads are bowed, and I know the mourners are silently reciting the Lord’s Prayer. I find the words coming back to me with surprising ease.
T.J. and I stand on the perimeter, two outsiders looking in. Like the Amish themselves, the scene is solemn and hushed. I’d like to discreetly record this for later review. Knowing how most Amish feel about graven images, I won’t. Instead, I take in as many faces and details as I can. I’m not sure what I’m looking for; it’s one of those things a cop feels. An instinct that tells me when something isn’t right. A lone mourner. Someone making a scene. An argument. Unduly vigorous crying. Physical collapse. None of those things happen, but then I’ve learned not to expect the obvious.
The pallbearers are nearly finished filling the graves with dirt when I spot a slightly built young man striding toward me. I hadn’t noticed him before, which is odd because he’s the only other non-Amish person here besides T.J. and me.
“Chief Burkholder?” His gaze holds mine as he closes the distance between us, and I wonder how he knows my name. He’s a scholarly looking man in his early twenties with slicked back hair and dark, square-rimmed glasses. He’s well dressed in a charcoal custom suit with a matching tie I’m pretty sure didn’t come from JC Penney. He looks out of place here among the black-clad Amish.
“What can I do for you?” I ask.
He sticks out his hand. “I’m Aaron Plank, Bonnie and Amos’s oldest son.”
CHAPTER 13