He fumbles for his reading glasses, shoves them onto his nose, and takes a good look at the photo. When he raises his eyes to mine, his face is white all the way down to his lips. “Where did you get this?” he asks.
“Who is she?”
“That’s Wanetta Hochstetler.”
“It can’t be.” I tap the photo with my thumb. “The photo is eight years old. The woman is too young to be Wanetta Hochstetler.”
“I reckon I ought to know, Chief Burkholder. It’s her.”
I lower the photo, not sure if he’s telling the truth or trying to muddy the water. “You had better not be yanking my chain.”
“With God as my witness, that’s Wanetta Hochstetler.”
I leave without thanking him. As I go through the door, he calls out my name, but I don’t look back.
On the way back to my office, I peek my head into the reception area. “Mona, call Pickles and tell him I want him in my office ASAP.”
*
It takes Pickles fifteen minutes to appear at my office door.
“How is it out there?” I ask, referring to the weather.
“Bad.” He shuffles to the visitor chair adjacent my desk and settles into it. “Never seen it rain like this.”
“I need an ID on this woman.” I slide the printed photograph toward him. “Do you know who she is?”
He pulls his reading glasses from his uniform pocket and tilts his head back to look at the photo through the bifocals. “Damn, Chief, she kind of looks like Wanetta Hochstetler.”
“The photo was taken eight years ago. It can’t be Wanetta. Pickles, I think it’s her daughter.”
“Daughter? I didn’t realize she had a—”
“She does.” Sighing because I didn’t intend to snap, I tell him about my trip to Pennsylvania.”
“Well, damn.” He squints at the photo again. “Photo is kind of grainy. But the features are similar. Looks like she might have blond hair beneath that bonnet.”
I turn to my computer and pull up the image. “The resolution is a little better here.”
He rises to come around my desk and look at the monitor. We stare at it, not speaking.
“Huh.” Pickles rubs his chin.
“What?”
He points at the woman’s face, his finger hovering an inch from the screen. “You put dark hair on her, and she kind of looks like Hoch Yoder’s wife.”
“I don’t see it.” I study the photo, trying to imagine Hoch’s wife with brown hair. All the while, something niggles at the back of my mind.
“So we may have an ID on the killer,” he says. “You want me to add that to the BOLO?”
I can’t stop staring at the photo. You put dark hair on her, and she kind of looks like Hoch Yoder’s wife. Tunnel vision narrows my sight until all I can see is her face. Everything around me fades away. I can feel my heart thudding against my breast, my pulse roaring in my ears. From somewhere in the backwaters of my mind, I recall my conversation with the CSU technician about a hair found at the scene of the Michaels murder. This was a long hair. Blond that was dyed brown. I remember that because it’s unusual for a woman with naturally blond hair to dye it brown.
Unless she’s trying to hide something …
A cold realization augments inside me. I almost can’t believe what I’m thinking, because the possibility makes me sick to my stomach. “Oh my God.” I stand so quickly, my chair rolls back.
“Chief?”
I jab my finger against the photo. “That’s Weaver. I thought she and her mother were living off the grid because they were Swartzentruber. But the real reason is so much more insidious. Pickles, I think Wanetta Hochstetler devoted her life to instilling her hatred into her daughter so that Ruth would come back to Painters Mill and kill the men who’d murdered her family—her children—and destroyed her life.”
His rheumy eyes sharpen on mine. “Jesus, Chief, what kind of parent does that?”
“An insane one.” I look at him, my mind reeling, still trying to put all the jagged pieces together. The picture that emerges is almost too ugly to consider. “I think Wanetta became pregnant from multiple rapes that night. I think that sent her over the edge. She had the baby, but … there was a part of her that hated her daughter. Hated her because of what she represented.”
“Son of a bitch. How do you hate a little girl?”
“Pickles, this is so twisted, I can barely get my mind around it. But you mentioned the woman in that photo looks like Hoch Yoder’s wife.” I swallow something bitter at the back of my throat. “Do you think it could be Hannah Yoder?
He stares at me, shocked by my words and the story they paint. “But that would mean … You think she married her half brother?”
“I don’t know if I’m right, but it fits.” I recall my last conversation with Hoch, and another piece of the puzzle snaps into place. “Hoch told me that a few days before the home invasion, he’d bragged about his datt keeping a lot of money at the house. That’s why he’s always blamed himself for what happened.”