Trusting The Sheriff

Chapter Two

Phone to his ear, Caleb Tanner leaned back in his large desk chair and stacked his booted feet on his desk. He thought it unlikely Mike Donahue had called in the middle of a working day for no reason but to catch up, but so far, all they’d done was chitchat—his mother’s description for meaningless talk. Fortunately, he was a patient man. He didn’t have anywhere he needed to be.

He and Donahue had known each other as Kansas City PD officers, partnering together in the drug-enforcement unit for a couple of years. Undercover work was hell on marriage or having a family—or even meeting a girlfriend or buddies at a bar to watch football games. Caleb, for one, had decided he wasn’t made for a high-adrenaline lifestyle. He didn’t know what motivated Donahue, but both had ultimately made the move to Homicide, where they’d stayed friends of a sort despite the twenty-year difference between them. They hadn’t been close enough to really stay in touch after Caleb left KCPD and took the job as sheriff of this rural northeast-Missouri county.

Which made today’s phone call a puzzle.

“You’re not bored out of your skull yet?” Donahue asked him.

Thinking of his last few wildly busy days, Caleb laughed. “Don’t have time to get bored. Do you have any idea how shorthanded a department like mine is? When I’m not juggling too few officers to cover shifts, I’m riding patrol to fill a gap, or giving talks to community organizations. I respond to accidents. My two detectives need guidance. When we have anything halfway serious happen, I usually take lead. I give press conferences, deal with the county commissioners, unhappy citizens. Come to think of it, it’s not all that different from heading a homicide squad, except you can keep out of the public eye.”

“Good thing, considering my general lack of tact.”

With a grin, Caleb said, “Won’t disagree.” When Donahue didn’t make an immediate comeback, Caleb remarked, “Saw on the news that you had a couple of detectives shot a week or so ago. They yours?”

The sergeant gusted a sigh. “Yeah, and that’s really why I called. I’m hoping you’ll do something for me.”

Caleb’s eyebrows climbed. Now, this was unexpected. “And what would that be?” he asked, trying to hide his caution.

“Has to do with the shooting.” Donahue gave him more detail about the ugly scene in the alley than news outlets had reported. Two young detectives—partners—who’d to all appearances shot each other. One dead, one badly injured but surviving.

“The survivor is a woman,” Donahue said grimly. “She came up from patrol not quite a year ago. Seemed to be catching on fine. Detective Walker said he was happy with the pairing. Still, I had a lot of faith in him, and she’s new. I think she’s corrupt, and murdered him when he found out she was involved in something bad.”

“You’re thinking drugs?”

“We both know that’s the likely answer. They were in the Prospect corridor, behind a bar where we’ve made more than a few arrests for drugs and prostitution. So far as I can determine, there was no reason they should have been there. I can’t find a connection between the bar or nearby businesses and any of the investigations they were conducting.”

Caleb frowned. The neighborhood surrounding the intersection of Prospect and Independence ranked as one of the most dangerous areas in Kansas City.

He asked questions; Donahue answered them with seeming frankness. No, he had no concrete evidence that Detective Baker had gone bad.

“I’m going with my gut here,” he admitted.

“What’s she say?”

“She claims amnesia. Can’t remember a damn thing. I don’t buy it.”

“I’ve seen people with post-traumatic amnesia,” Caleb said neutrally.

“This is just too convenient for me.”

Inclined to agree with that assessment, Caleb still reserved judgment. It happened, in particular after a head injury, which he understood the woman detective had suffered. He had no trouble understanding Mike Donahue’s frustration, though.

He took his feet off the desk so that he could rock forward and reach for his coffee cup. After a swallow, he asked, “So what’s this favor?”

“Baker left the hospital yesterday to stay with family to recuperate. Aunt and uncle have a farm in your county. Sam Kirk drove her up there. You remember him, don’t you?”

“Mostly by reputation,” he said. The guy was a little older than Caleb, solid at his job so far as he knew.

“It’s a strange setup, way I hear it. This family is Amish.”

Stunned, he said, “What?”

“You heard me. I don’t know how Baker is connected to these people. They don’t usually want anything to do with law enforcement, from what I understood.”

“You understand right. For the most part, they’re law-abiding people. They keep to themselves and avoid mixing with government or police authority as much as possible. I’ve never heard of an Amishman—” and a woman was even more unlikely “—becoming a cop.” Caleb shook his head in bemusement. There had to be a story here.

“Not sure she ever was Amish, just somehow related.” Donahue cleared his throat. “I’m hoping you’d be willing to stop by, express concern and sympathy. Be good if you could get to know her, sound her out.”

“Earn her trust.”

“You got it.”

The role sounded distasteful to Caleb, but if this woman had really shot her partner in cold blood because she’d taken payoffs to protect drug traffickers, he had no sympathy for her. He couldn’t quite see her spilling to him, but people made mistakes. She might forget some detail of whatever story she’d given Donahue, tell Caleb something different. Anything was possible.

“I’ll give it a shot,” he said, then winced at his choice of words. “Email me everything you’ve got on the incident. Name and address of this aunt and uncle, too.”

His day stayed busy. It wasn’t until after dinner at home that he was able to open his laptop and read the police reports and autopsy report Donahue had sent, as promised. Crime scene photos were included. Caleb studied those carefully, but nothing jumped out at him.

Then he saw where Abigail Baker had taken refuge.

Caleb knew Eli and Nancy Kemp. They were good people, Eli a farmer who also worked in leather, making and repairing horse tack, essential to a people whose principal mode of transportation was horse and buggy. Frowning, Caleb tried to find an explanation of why this female cop would have been taken in by an Amishman who also happened to be a minister in his church district.

Nothing.

Abigail was a common name among the Amish, he reflected, but not as much these days among the Englisch, as the Amish labeled most Americans outside their faith.

Caleb sat thinking for a minute. Then he went online again and searched for news coverage of the shooting.

Nothing was materially different from what he’d seen covered on news channels at the time it happened, or what was contained in the information Donahue had sent him. There was a photo of the deceased, Detective Neal Walker. Good-looking fellow listed as thirty-five years old, newly married, a decorated cop.

Could he have been involved with his female partner, then dumped her to maintain his marriage? Say she stewed for a while, then they had it out?

It took him a little longer to find a decent picture of Detective Abigail Baker. Eventually, several popped up. The first was a posed image taken by a professional photographer, Baker dressed in her uniform, looking solemn. And, damn, she was a beautiful woman.

No, he decided after a minute, not exactly that; pretty might be a better word, or cute. She had a heart-shaped face with a high, wide forehead, a dainty, straight nose and a pretty mouth. Her hair, swept into a sleek arrangement of some kind on the back of her head, was the color of corn silk. Her eyes were sky blue.

Yeah, and he was descending to clichés to describe a lovely woman he didn’t want to believe could be accepting payoffs from drug traffickers or the like.

He clicked on a couple of other photos, one taken at the scene of a four-car accident with fatalities, the other of her coming out of the courthouse after testifying in a trial. Both let him see that she had spectacular curves and was tall for a woman, likely five foot ten or so.

Caleb realized he could easily picture her in Amish dress and prayer kapp. Eli Kemp was blond and blue-eyed, in fact. Abigail’s height would be unusual for an Amishwoman, however.

He went back to the first picture that only displayed her from the shoulders up, mesmerized by eyes he found...haunting. Her lips were shaped into a pleasant smile, but her eyes said something else altogether. She looked sad.

Caleb frowned at the photo for another minute and then closed his laptop. For Pete’s sake, he knew better than to read so much into appearances, especially when that person had been caught at a particular moment by a camera. She might have felt queasy, or been worrying about a bill she hadn’t paid...or a lover who’d dumped her.

Lucky that maintaining his cop’s skepticism came naturally to him. Given his profession, it was a useful skill.

* * *

ABBY CLUTCHED THE handrail as she descended the stairs the following morning. She’d slept better than she had in the hospital, in part because of the blessed silence and the true darkness of countryside not brightened by electric lights, and with the moon at a quarter. The moment she’d sat up, dizziness had almost persuaded her to sink back onto her bed. But her aunt and uncle were early risers, and she didn’t want to lounge in bed when she ought to be offering to help with daily chores. Still, donning a dress worn without a bra and fastened by straight pins rather than zippers and buttons felt like a huge effort. She managed, but gasped a few times when her healing wounds protested as she stretched too much. And her head... Would it ever stop pounding?

Dismayed by how weak she felt, she sat again on the edge of her bed to brush her hair, careful to avoid the still-painful lump, and bundle the mass into a bun she covered with the kapp. Of course, she couldn’t check her appearance in a mirror; vanity was not encouraged by the Amish, probably why she’d never wasted much time worrying about her looks. In college she’d tried wearing makeup, but felt uncomfortable, not like herself at all, and had thrown it all away.

When she reached the first floor, Aenti Nancy popped out of the kitchen, exclaiming, “You should have stayed in bed! You have no color in your face.” She shook her head. “Ah, well, you’re this far. Komm, komm. You must have something to eat, feel better then, ain’t so?”

Abby trailed her into the kitchen.

“Sit,” her aunt ordered. “Tea?”

Abby actually had switched to coffee on an everyday basis, since it was nearly impossible to get a decent cup of tea at the station or a convenience store when she was patrolling, but she always reverted when home.

“Ja,” she said in Deitsch, better known as Pennsylvania Dutch even though it was actually a Germanic dialect. “Denke. But I can get it...”

Aenti Nancy flapped her apron at her. “It’s too soon. You must sit, let us take care of you. So good it is to have you home.”

Abby felt her smile wobble. “It is good to be here. I can’t thank you enough for taking me in. I didn’t know where else to go.”

“Always,” her aunt said simply, good enough not to ask about Abby’s father. “Did Rose tell you she plans to name her girl baby for you?”

“No. Oh, my.” An unexpected emotional response sweeping over her, Abby imagined holding a baby girl, her namesake, blinking up at her, her cheeks rosy.

Aenti Nancy set a plate heaped with pancakes in front of her. Within moments, she added butter and syrup as well as a bowl of applesauce and a giant sweet roll, as if Abby could possibly eat so much.

Made-from-scratch pancakes were so much better than anything she got at chain restaurants, and the butter was real, the syrup made from blueberries grown here on the farm. The sweet roll, still warm from the oven, Abby could only call heavenly. Even so, the best she could do was a few bites, earning her a chiding from her aunt.

Sipping tea, she watched her aunt work, dashing between the pantry and the stove, occasionally trotting down to the cellar for jars of fruit or vegetables she’d preserved herself. Since her youngest daughter, Sarah, had married and moved out, Aenti Nancy was alone to cook and manage the house. Of the two sons still at home, one was only sixteen, the other, Isaac, in his early twenties, as yet unmarried.

She did allow Abby to string and snap green beans for the midday meal, and rinse marionberries before they went into a pie. Then she conceded that Abby could step out on the back porch and ring the bell to summon the men.

Onkel Eli, Isaac and lanky, shy Joshua came in the back door, hung their broad-brimmed hats on hooks just inside and went to the sink to wash their hands before sitting down at the long table. Aenti Nancy had what always seemed to Abby to be an enormous midday meal all ready. But Amish men and women alike did hard physical labor almost from the moment they rose in the morning, and needed the calories.

They all bowed their heads in silent prayer before beginning to dish up. Like a swarm of locusts, the men emptied serving dishes piled with mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans and applesauce, while the fried chicken and sourdough biscuits disappeared as fast. Still full from her abundant breakfast, Abby only nibbled. The marionberry pie met the same fate as the rest of the meal.

With a few words of thanks, the men went back to work. Her aunt rejected her offer to help clear the table or wash dishes, suggesting she ought to nap.

“I’ve been in bed for a week,” she protested. “I might go sit out on the porch swing, or lie on the grass in the shade beneath the tree.”

Aenti Nancy smiled. “Ja, that is a good idea. I remember as a girl seeing many things in the clouds as they floated in the sky. Castles and galloping horses and ships with full sails. All foolishness, but fun.”

“Me, too. I haven’t done that in a long time.” Since she was a child, here at the farm.

Her aunt gave her a speaking look. “Then go.”

This early September day had to be in the nineties, but a faint breeze stirred the leaves of the red maple tree rising close enough to the house to shade the front porch for a few hours of the day. Abby lowered herself slowly to the lawn right at the edge of the shade. The grass felt stiff beneath her hands. She brushed it back and forth, enjoying the texture. An apartment dweller now, when had she last sat on the grass? After a minute, she did lie back and gaze up at the canopy of leaves just starting to be tinged with autumn colors.

The sun blazed, and the sky was an arch of blue without a cloud for her to turn into a fantasy castle. Somehow, she didn’t mind. Just lying here felt good. Except...her mind kept wanting to nudge at the dark wall separating her from important memories, like a tongue irresistibly drawn to poke at a loose tooth.

She pushed gently at the wall. It didn’t so much as quiver. Ran at it and bounced painfully off, leaving her brain feeling bruised.

Wincing, she told herself to quit. The doctor had said her memories would come in their own time.

Aenti would have any number of biblical quotes to chide her for her impatience. In fact, one popped into her head.

This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. Psalms 118. That couldn’t be more fitting, she decided, relaxing.

The sun began to creep over her. She ought to move. As fair-skinned as she was, she’d burn. But the heat had made her sleepy. She drifted, aware of distant voices, where her uncle and cousins worked, the bang of the screen on the back door closing once, the darting movement of a squirrel scuttling up the maple. Birds calling, and was that the buzz of a cicada? Her eyelids sank closed.

The sound of an approaching car, its throaty engine and the crunch of gravel beneath its tires, disrupted the utter peace of the afternoon. Abby pried open her eyes and rolled her head on the grass to see the long driveway. It wasn’t as if cars didn’t sometimes come down this road. Amish had Englisch friends, or at least acquaintances. Customers for their businesses. During their rumspringa, or running-around time, teenagers could take advantage of the freedom to ride in cars, and even use cell phones. This might be a friend of Joshua’s.

It was actually a big, black SUV that turned into the Kemp driveway. Too large and expensive for any teenager to be driving, surely. Abby sat up, then wished she hadn’t. She’d rather be unnoticed by this visitor. Left to her peace.

But instead of proceeding toward the huge, German-style barn, as the driver would have if he’d had business with her uncle, the SUV stopped closest to the house. A man got out on the far side of it and walked around to the front bumper.

A police officer, she saw with a jolt, tall, well built, his hair brown. He wore dark glasses, but she’d swear he was looking straight at her.

He turned, then, though, and she saw that Onkel Eli was coming from the barn to meet this man. The screen door rattled, and she suspected that her aunt was sneaking a peek out, too, to see who was here. Having a law-enforcement officer show up, that couldn’t be a common occurrence. Well, besides her.

Her uncle and the stranger spoke briefly as she watched. Surely Onkel Eli would answer his questions and he’d go away.

But, no. They both turned to look at her now, then walked toward her. Inexplicably disturbed, Abby saw that the cop was a head taller than her uncle, broad shouldered, and moved with a confident, purposeful stride. The short sleeves of the moss green uniform shirt exposed strong brown forearms dusted with hair bleached almost blond. As he approached, she realized he had to be six foot four or taller. And she was a little bit embarrassed to notice what large hands he had, too.

She ought to get up, she realized, but knew the process would be awkward. She hated the idea of being on her hands and knees in front of this man. So she stayed put, squinting against the sun as she gazed up at them.

“Onkel?”

“Ja, niece, this is Sheriff Caleb Tanner. He has come to see you.”

“To see me?” How strange.

“That’s right.” The sheriff crouched to be closer to her level, the fabric of his black uniform trousers pulling tight over powerful muscles. Resting an elbow on his thigh, he held out the other hand to her.

Feeling reluctant, she let him engulf and gently squeeze her hand.

“I’m sure Sheriff Tanner would like a cup of coffee and a slice of your aenti’s schnitz pie, ja?”

It almost sounded good, despite the nausea that returned unpredictably. Abby knew her aunt and uncle were dismayed by her scant appetite.

The sheriff smiled, momentarily brightening hazel eyes. He extended his hand again. “Let me help you up?”

She hesitated, but finally mumbled, “Thank you,” and once again felt his grip close around her fingers. As he rose, he easily pulled her to her feet. She ended up disturbingly close to his big body and took a hasty step back. Her cheeks burned, and she tried to convince herself she’d gotten too much sun.

The three of them walked in together, using the front door because it was closest. Or perhaps because the sheriff was, if not a stranger to her aunt and uncle, an auslander, an outsider, for sure. Family and friends used the back door.