According to a poll I read in a magazine a while back, something like 71 percent of people hate their jobs. I’m lucky because I’m one of the minority. In fact, most days I love my job. I love being a police officer. I enjoy my duties as chief and the people I work with on a daily basis. I take pride in what I do, and I take seriously my oath to serve and protect the citizens of Painters Mill. But no job is perfect, including mine. Tonight, I hate my job with a passion.
T.J. is the first to arrive. We spend a few minutes walking the scene, and then I help him mark the perimeter with yellow caution tape. All the while the knowledge that Hannah Yoder is back at the house, frightened and wondering why a second police unit has arrived, beats at the back of my brain. I know that in a few minutes I’m going to bring her world crashing down around her.
I wait until I see the flashing lights of the ambulance coming through the gate before I trudge through the mud toward the house. Usually, when I have to notify an Amish person that their next of kin has died, I’ll pick up Bishop Troyer for counsel. This morning, I don’t have that option; I can’t keep Hannah waiting that long. And I realize with some surprise that the bishop is probably as much help to me as he is to the grieving loved ones.
I hit my lapel mike as I leave the orchard and pass through the gate. “Mona?”
“I’m here, Chief.”
“Will you have someone from the sheriff’s office pick up Bishop Troyer and bring him to the Yoder farm?”
“Will do.”
I find Hannah standing on the sidewalk a few yards from her back porch, watching the ambulance make its way toward the mill house. I take a shortcut through the side yard and traverse the distance between us. “Hannah?”
“Did you find Hoch?” she asks. “Is he all right? Why is that ambulance here?” She pelts me with rapid-fire questions as she rushes toward me, her eyes never leaving the orchard behind me, where the flashing lights of the ambulance are still visible through the trees. “Is he hurt?”
“Hannah, I’m sorry but Hoch is dead.”
“What?” She coughs out a strangled sound. “That’s not possible. He just went for a walk…”
Around us a steady rain pours down from the predawn sky, but neither of us notices the cold or wet. She keeps craning her neck to look around me, trying to see past me, past the trees, as if expecting Hoch to emerge from the orchard and tell us all of this is some big misunderstanding.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her.
“No.” Her eyes find mine, but I can see there’s a part of her that isn’t there. There’s a blankness on her face, as if she’s gone inside herself, where the pain of this can’t reach her. Shock, I think, and I find myself hoping the sheriff’s office gets Bishop Troyer here quickly, because I’m not sure I can handle this alone.
“But how?” Her eyes search mine. “Did that woman do something to him? Hurt him?”
From where I’m standing, I can see her entire body shaking. Her shawl is soaked and sagging against her. I reach out and touch her arm. “Let’s get out of the rain so we can talk.”
“I don’t want to talk.” She shakes off my hand. “I want to see Hoch.”
“Hannah, that’s not a good idea.”
“Please. I want to see him.”
“Bishop Troyer’s on his way,” I tell her. “We need to be here to meet him.” I motion toward the door. “Let’s go inside and wait for him, okay?”
She blinks rain from her eyes, looking at me as if I’m speaking some language she doesn’t understand.
“It’s going to be all right,” I tell her.
“That’s what Hoch always says,” she whispers. “Only it’s not, is it?”
“No,” I tell her. “It’s not.”
Looping my arm around hers, I guide her to the house.
*