A Dark Path #4
Erma goes to the cupboard, removes a beat-up thermos, and fills it with coffee from the percolator. When it’s full, she hands it to the girl at the table.
“Take this to your datt,” she says in Deitsch. “He’ll need a hot drink about now.”
Aware that there’s something afoot, but too well-mannered to pry, the girl takes the thermos and gets to her feet. Having overheard the exchange, the woman in the mudroom steps into the doorway and smiles at the girl. “Grab your coat. I’ll go with you. Kumma.” Come.
When the two have left, Erma puts her hands on her hips. “You’re scaring us half to death, Kate Burkholder,” she scolds.
“Sit down.” I motion Bonnie into a chair and pull out the toy horse and sneaker. “Do these items belong to Little Joe?”
Bonnie gasps, puts both hands against her mouth, but she can’t stanch the surge of terror, or the sob that follows. “Yes.”
“Where did you find them?” Erma asks.
I tell them about the tire ruts. “Someone parked out by the bridge, likely at about the time Little Joe went missing.”
A quiver runs through Bonnie, starting at her head, moving down her shoulders and through her body. She lowers her face into her hands and sobs her son’s name.
“You think someone took the boy?” Erma whispers the words as if they’re too obscene to be spoken aloud.
“Where’s Little Joe’s datt?” I ask.
The older Amish woman’s expression goes taut. Her mouth opens, but she closes it without answering. Shoddily concealed surprise, I think. But there’s knowledge there, too. There’s shame. And a fear she’d been doing her utmost to deny.
“He’s not part of our family,” she tells me.
I shift my gaze to Bonnie. She stares back at me, her mouth trembling, as if she’s been rendered incapable of speech. The too-long beat of silence ends with a rumble of thunder powerful enough to rattle the windowpanes.
I look from woman to woman. “I need a name.”
Erma folds her hands on the table, looks down at them. “He’s English,” she tells me. “Bonnie was … young. Too young. Just seventeen. She … made a mistake. She didn’t marry.”
It’s rare for an Amish woman to bear a child out of wedlock, but it happens.
Most of the time, news of an unexpected pregnancy is met with a hasty wedding, a strategic adjusting of dates, word that the baby “came early,” or, depending on the situation, even some quick matchmaking.
Regardless of the circumstances, all Amish children are considered a gift from God and welcomed into the world with unabashed joy.
The young woman looks at her mother, misery boiling in her expression. “His name is Thomas McKee,” she whispers.
The name goes through me like a blade. The source of their evasiveness comes into sharp focus.
I’ve dealt with Thomas McKee half a dozen times over the last few years.
He’s twenty years old with the good looks of a GQ cover model and a cocky attitude that puts my teeth on edge.
I’ve taken calls for everything from underage drinking to disturbing the peace, to fighting and drag racing.
Each time—perhaps erroneously in hindsight—I cut him as much slack as I could.
Mainly because I believed he was a good kid—and I know firsthand how profoundly tragedy can affect a young person’s life.
At seventeen, McKee was a high school football star with a 4.
0 grade average, an athletic scholarship to Kent State University, and dreams of making it to the NFL.
He’d just finished his first semester of college when his father died unexpectedly, leaving young Thomas with a grieving mother, no income, four younger sisters to take care of, and an auto-body repair shop with no one to run it.
At the age of eighteen, he dropped out of college and took the reins of his father’s company, leaving his dreams in the dust.
Evidently, the disappointment was too much.
McKee quickly earned a reputation for his female conquests—including the mayor’s sixteen-year-old daughter—raucous parties rife with loud music and underage drinking, and for coordinating some of the local drag races.
Last I heard, his father’s 1969 Mustang was unbeaten.
“That boy’s as dense as a turnip,” Erma mutters. “Just as bitter, too.” She clucks her mouth. “Those young Englischers, always drinking and intoxicated and God only knows what else.”
Next to her, Bonnie seems to sink more deeply into her chair and stares down at her hands, silent and ashamed.
“Do you still have a relationship with him?” I ask Bonnie.
The young woman shakes her head and mumbles a barely perceptible “No.”
“We don’t allow him to come here,” Erma puts in. “We’ve no use for a leshtah-diah.” Beast that blasphemes.
I ignore her, maintain my focus on Bonnie. “When’s the last time you saw him?”
“Months ago,” she says.
“Does McKee see Little Joe?” I ask.
“He’s not in the picture at all,” Erma interjects.
I keep my eyes on Bonnie. “Has McKee ever expressed interest in having a relationship with the boy?”
“No.” The girl studies her hands, picks at a ragged nail. “Never.”
Erma sits up straighter, stiffens her spine.
“We’ll not have him here, Kate Burkholder.
Thomas McKee is about as far from Amish as a man can get.
Never worked a day in the field or spent an hour listening to the preacher preach.
He’s a proud and wicked boy and we’re just fine without the likes of him. ”
I look from mother to daughter, sensing there’s more to the story. “How did you meet him?” I ask Bonnie.
The young woman drops her gaze to the tabletop.
Her embarrassment and shame are palpable.
Seeing her distress, Erma reaches out, sets her hand over her daughter’s.
“My husband hired him to build that pipe fence out behind the barn. Thomas did all the cutting and welding.” The older woman sighs.
“Our Bonnie took him coffee a few times, and that boy, full of evil thoughts and lust, preyed on her innocence. That’s all we’ve got to say about it. ”
Judging from Bonnie’s body language, there’s more to the story. A lot more. But I let it go. For now. “Do you keep the doors locked at night?” I ask, knowing many citizens in Painters Mill—Amish and English alike—don’t.
“Mamm!”
The three of us swivel in our chairs to see one of the young girls dart into the doorway that leads to the living room. She’s out of breath, her expression frightened.
“Was der schinner is letz? ” Erma asks. What in the world is wrong?
The girl swallows hard. “There’s … blood. On the floor. Next to Little Joe’s bed.”
“What? ” Bonnie rises, her expression aghast. “Show me.”
I get to my feet and follow them from the room.
The Kline home is a typical farmhouse with three bedrooms upstairs, and the living room, kitchen, and mudroom on the first level.
The girl pounds up the stairs, Bonnie hot on her heels.
Both turn right at the landing. The hall is a dimly lit space, so I pull the mini Maglite from my equipment belt and flick it on.
I follow them to a bedroom at the end of the hall.
The young girl points. “There.”
The lighting is poor, so I slant the beam toward the bassinet as I start toward it. A quake of unease moves through me at the sight of the blood. A single drop the size of a pearl mars the wood plank floor. I shift the light to the interior of the crib and notice a smear on the pillow.
From behind me, I hear Bonnie’s quick inhale. “Mein Gott. Mamm! Es is bloot! ” It is blood!
“Was it there when you put him to bed?” I ask, hoping Little Joe had a scraped knee or cut finger.
“No!” the young mother cries. “He was fine!”
Erma sets her hand on her daughter’s arm and squeezes gently. “You know Little Joe gets nosebleeds sometimes.”
The news takes my concern down half a notch. Still, neither woman seems relieved by the pronouncement, and once again I get the feeling there’s something I’m not being told.
“Mamm, look there.”
I follow Bonnie’s point and kneel. A single muddy footprint stands out on the braided rug, looking sinister and out of place next to the bassinet. It’s a large print and likely belongs to an adult male with a size eleven or twelve shoe. The outline is so perfect I can make out the waffle-type sole.
I look at Bonnie. “Do you have any idea who was in this room? Who might’ve made this print?”
“Not Datt. He didn’t come in here this morning,” she whispers. “When I told him Little Joe was missing, he went outside and began to look for him.”
Erma nods, her expression grim. “My husband always leaves his boots in the mudroom.”
A renewed sense of urgency presses into me as I get to my feet. The presence of blood in addition to the print adds a truckload of menace to an already menacing situation. I think of the tire ruts. The dropped toy. The sneaker.
“Who else has been in the house?” I ask.
Erma shakes her head. “Just us,” she tells me. “The family.”
Someone else has been in this room, a little voice whispers in my ear.
I turn my attention to Bonnie. The young Amish woman looks as if she’s about to come apart at the seams—or throw up. “What about Thomas McKee?” I ask. “Has he been angry with you? Has he been angry with the family? Anything like that?”
Bonnie raises her gaze to mine. Through the shimmer of tears, I see a raw and primal fear and realize she’s holding on to the last of her control with a tenuous grip.
“No.” She lowers her face into shaking hands and begins to sob. “I just want my baby. Please, Chief Burkholder, find him. Bring him back to me before something terrible happens.”
I call Dispatch as I pull out of the lane. “Run Thomas McKee through LEADS,” I say, referring to the Law Enforcement Automated Data System, which is a database that interfaces with several other law enforcement platforms.
“You got it,” says my first-shift dispatcher, Lois.
Realizing it’s too early for me to find McKee at the body shop, I head toward his residence. “Check for warrants. See if you can come up with a phone number.”
“Roger that.”