Shamed (Kate Burkholder #11)(60)
The Amish woman stares straight forward, frozen, except for the occasional tremor that runs through her. For the first time I see tears on her cheeks. But she doesn’t make a sound.
I push harder. “What if he kills little Elsie Helmuth?” I shout. “What if he goes after Miriam and Ivan or their children? Is all that holier-than-thou-art silence of yours worth it if someone else is killed?”
“Don’t you dare speak to me in that manner, Kate Burkholder. You of all people. Backslider. Maulgrischt,” she hisses. Pretend Christian. “Your mother didn’t know what to do with you and you broke her heart.”
She’s getting herself worked up. Maybe because it’s easier to be angry with me than it is to be terrified for the life of her husband.
I keep my voice level. “This isn’t about me.”
She’s not finished. “Mer sott em sei eegne net verlosse; Gott verlosst die seine nicht.” One should not abandon one’s own; God does not abandon his own. “You did just that, Katie. And now look at you, talking to me as if I’m somehow to blame.”
I’ve heard the words a hundred times since I came back to Painters Mill. I want to believe they no longer affect me. That I’m immune. Above it. But even after all this time, the small part of me that is Amish—that will always be Amish—recoils from the sting.
“That’s enough,” I snap. “I know you’re hurting and afraid, but I need your help and I need it right now. I’m trying to do the right thing. Do my job. Do you understand?”
Turning her head, she looks out the window, shutting me out.
I hit her with the coup de grace. “If Elsie Helmuth is killed, it’s on your shoulders, Freda. You got that?”
Silence reigns for the span of several minutes. I make the turn onto US 62 and head north. Neither of us speaks until I’m stopped at the traffic light at Jackson Street in Millersburg. The courthouse is to my right, the old Hotel Millersburg to my left.
“You have to understand,” she says in a strangled voice. “Being the bishop’s wife … I see things. I hear things. That doesn’t mean I’m told what’s going on.”
“Tell me what you know.”
“I was there the night they brought her,” she whispers. “David told me I was to never speak of it. I took those words to heart.”
“Who brought her?”
“Bishop Schwartz and a midwife. They brought her here to the house. A tiny little girl. Hours old. She was desperately hungry. I fed her, held her in my arms…”
“Do you know who the parents are?” I ask. “I need names.”
“No.” She shakes her head adamantly. “They did not say, and I did not ask. It was a night filled with worry and tears and many things left unsaid.”
“Why did they do it?”
“There is a saying among the Amish.” She looks at me. “Die besht vayk zu flucht eevil is zu verfolgen goot,” she whispers. The best way to escape evil is to pursue good.
“The bishop, my husband, and that midwife were pursuing good, Katie. All they wanted was to place that innocent baby in a loving home, where she would be safe, and so she would be raised Amish.”
“The baby came from an Amish family?”
She shrugs. “I assumed so. Why else would they do such a thing?”
“Freda, why did they take her?”
“I don’t know, Katie. They were … secretive about all that.” The woman shrugs. “I suspected there was something wrong in the home. Some … problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
“Something bad, or they never would have done what they did. I know my husband. He is a good man, a godly man, and a good bishop. He does not overstep. If there is something I need to know, he will tell me.” She shakes her head. “Katie, it would have been unseemly for me to ask questions at such a time. Some of the things the bishop does are … delicate. You know, private.”
“Was the baby brought here with the blessing of the family?”
“I do not know.”
Everything she’s told me grinds in my head like shards of glass in a kaleidoscope. I already knew or suspected most of it. What I need more than anything is a name. That’s when it occurs to me that Crooked Creek is four hours away by car. There’s no way they would have transported a baby in a buggy.
“Freda, did they use a driver?”
She nods. “They came in a van.”
“Did you see the driver?”
“No. He stayed outside.”
As I make the turn into the hospital parking lot, the Amish woman tosses me a knowing look. “You believe the parents or some relative of the baby are responsible for the bad things that have been done?”
“I do.”
She thinks about that a moment. “I’m glad I told you, Katie. It was the right thing to do. God willing, David will give you the name you need when we talk to him.”
* * *
According to the emergency room physician, Bishop Troyer was rushed to surgery upon arrival. He sustained a single gunshot wound to his abdomen; it’s a life-threatening injury, the seriousness exacerbated by his age. All the doctor can tell us at this point is that the bishop is in extremely critical condition and not yet stable.