Shamed (Kate Burkholder #11)(69)

I hear Tomasetti moving around in the kitchen, opening and closing cabinets and drawers. “There’s a little pantry to your right,” I call out to him.

“Kinda hate to disturb the mouse chowing down in the box of cereal.”

I roll my eyes. “We’re looking for clues, Tomasetti, not mice. I’ll take the bedrooms.”

I smile when he doesn’t respond, and I glance left toward the hall where I found Sadie’s body. It’s a narrow, dark space. A rust-colored stain the size of a dinner plate mars the beaten-down carpet. Blood, I realize. A hole the size of a coaster has been cut out of the carpet, probably by the crime scene technician to send a sample to the lab for testing.

“I set out the garbage.”

I startle at the sound of Tomasetti’s voice, turn to find him standing in the kitchen doorway, looking at me. “Thank you,” I say.

He looks past me at the stain and the cutout in the carpet, doesn’t say what he’s thinking. “Any idea what we’re looking for?”

I can tell by his expression he doesn’t believe we’re going to find anything of value. He’s going through the motions for my benefit. If I wanted to be honest about it, I don’t think we’re going to find anything either. Nothing’s ever that easy. The house has already been searched by Scioto County deputies as well as BCI. Even so, they probably weren’t looking for the same sort of thing that I’m interested in today.

“No,” I confess, but I’m thinking. “Most Amish correspond with letters. Any kind of writing. A diary. If we’re lucky, she kept some kind of record of the babies she’d delivered over the years.”

“I’ll take the kitchen.” He retreats in that direction. “With the mouse. Let’s make it quick.”

I go to the first bedroom, push open the door. The room is about ten feet square, darkened, the curtains drawn. There’s a twin-size bed covered with a ratty blanket. A closet. A pair of sneakers tossed into a corner. A desk with a single lantern, its globe black with soot. I look around, check under the bed, beneath the mattress, but there’s nothing there.

I’m more interested in Sadie’s bedroom, where she likely kept personal items, so I move on to the next room. I know immediately this is where she slept. Where she hoped and dreamed and lived out her last days.

I cross to the window, spread the drapes, try not to inhale dust. There’s a full-size bed with an iron headboard. A night table contains a lantern set atop a doily, a small book titled Prayers for Difficult Times, and a votive candle that’s burned down to nothing. A faceless Amish doll sits in a rocking chair in the corner along with a black winter bonnet. Across the room a narrow chest is piled high with newspapers. The drawers are open. A sock hangs out of the top drawer. I wonder if the mess was left behind by Sadie or law enforcement—or someone else.

I kneel next to the nightstand. The candle smells of sandalwood. I open the top drawer, find a Beverly Lewis paperback novel, a tube of lip balm, a package of saltine crackers, a half-eaten chocolate bar. Evidently Sadie Stutzman was a reader and a snacker.

The next drawer is filled with books and newspapers in seemingly no order. I see an ancient-looking German Martin Luther Bible, a tattered copy of Ausbund, which is a songbook used during worship, and dozens of newspapers and clippings from The Budget, The Connection, and The Diary out of Lancaster County. All are Amish publications. Some of the newspapers are folded and intact; some have had pages torn out, stories or advertisements that have been cut out.

I page through the newspapers first, checking the dates—which go as far back as last summer. I find nothing of interest.

“Come on, Sadie,” I whisper.

The final drawer contains a stack of handwritten recipes that have been paper-clipped together. Lydia’s Date Pudding. Pickled Asparagus. Rachel’s Chow Chow. Mommie’s No Bake Cookies. I page through all of it and find a frayed manila folder at the bottom of the drawer. I flip it open, glance inside. Dozens of newspaper clippings stare back at me. Most are missing the date; there’s no indication of which publications they came from. I leaf through them. Obituaries. Births. Accidents. Church happenings.

I’m about to close the drawer and move on when I spot the brown envelope in the back. I reach for it. My heart stutters when I see the familiar crinkled white notebook papers inside.

“Good girl,” I whisper.

Pinching the corner of the papers, I pull out two notes and carefully unfold them.

It is mine to avenge; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them.



I go to the second note.

If a thief is caught breaking in at night and is struck a fatal blow, the defender is not guilty of bloodshed …



Though I still don’t have a name or suspect, for the first time, I can definitively tie the murder and abduction in Painters Mill to at least one murder in Crooked Creek.





CHAPTER 22


Ninety-one hours missing

After leaving the Stutzman place—the manila folder and a boatload of newspapers, tear sheets, and cutouts in hand—we head north toward Wheelersburg. As we make the turn onto Hansgen Morgan Road, I tell Tomasetti about my conversation with Freda Troyer. “The night they brought the baby to Painters Mill, they used a driver. Freda remembers seeing a van parked in her driveway.”