Guarding The Amish Midwife

TWO

Isaac’s eyes scanned the oncoming traffic for any visible threats. He didn’t see any, but that didn’t mean anything. Right now, he was an open target for anyone who was after the young woman in front of him. Isaac didn’t question whether or not she was making up the story. He doubted she could fake terror that deep. Even if she were making up the story, though, he still had a duty to check it out.

“You can’t sit out here in the open. And I need to get the details. Can you come back to my car? I want to call in some backup, too.”

She hesitated. For a moment, he was sure she would refuse. She surprised him when she nodded and stepped from the car. Isaac moved to her side and cupped her elbow in his palm as they walked back to his police cruiser. He wanted to make sure she didn’t slip and fall, but he also wanted to hurry her along so that she was in plain view for as short a time as possible. As long as she was out in the open, she was vulnerable. He kept her along the shoulder, keeping himself between her and anyone passing by.

If someone was going to play target practice with them, hopefully they would hit him first and give her time to flee. Isaac didn’t even think of not protecting her. It was just the way things had to be. The area between his shoulder blades itched. He could almost imagine the crosshairs of a scope lining up.

He increased his pace. She kept up with him. For a little thing, she was quick. Her head barely came to his shoulders, and he was only five foot ten.

A minute later, Isaac squired her into his vehicle.

The young woman shifted in her seat. It wasn’t difficult to tell that being in a police car was not something she was comfortable with. He wished he could make it easier for her, but it was just something she would have to deal with. Isaac was not unsympathetic. He remembered very well the first time he had dealt with the police. Uncomfortable was a mild way of putting it.

Another quick glance out the window assured him that no one with a gun was bearing down on them. He blew out a breath, relieved. He had never been shot in the line of duty, not in the two years he had been a police officer. He would prefer to keep it that way.

Turning his attention back to his passenger, he squelched the pity that he instinctively felt as he viewed the red-rimmed blue eyes. His whole focus needed to be on keeping her safe and catching the perp. That called for objectivity.

“Before you begin to tell me what happened,” he said to her, “let me call in to my station. If there is some guy out there with a gun, I want more than just myself out looking for him.”

She frowned, as if he had offended her a bit by what he had said. What had he said? Oh, maybe it had sounded like he didn’t quite believe her. He didn’t mean it that way.

Isaac quickly radioed in to the station.

“I have a possible shooting,” he told the dispatcher. “Requesting backup.”

“Affirmative, Isaac. What’s the location of the shooting?”

He turned to the young woman sitting beside him. “Can you tell me where you were when this happened?”

She nodded her head. “I am not from here. But I do remember it was about five minutes back. There was an old abandoned place. It was a large blue building. The windows were all broken out.” She bit her lip. “I am sorry. That is all I can remember.”

Isaac flashed her a brief smile. “It’s fine. Believe it or not, that helps a lot.” He pushed the button for the radio again. “Maureen, I have reason to believe that the shooting was at the Carstairs place.”

“Gotcha, Isaac,” Maureen said on the other end of the line. “I have Ryder heading out your way. He should be there in under ten. You hold on.”

“Will do. Could you also send out a tow truck? We need the car towed into evidence.” He waited for her to answer in the affirmative and then he disconnected the call. The young woman beside him was staring out the window, her eyes scanning the road. “All right. Another officer will be here soon. I am Officer Isaac Yoder with the Waylan Grove Police Department. Why don’t you start from the beginning? Who are you and what you were doing when all of this happened?”

She gave the surrounding area one more sweep before focusing her large blue eyes on his face. Her black bonnet was sagging on her head. Only a hint of pale blond hair peeped out from under it. She cleared her throat. Her voice, when she spoke, was soft. He was surprised that she kept it steady. It was obvious to him that her anxiety had not lessened.

“My name is Elizabeth Miller. Lizzy. I live outside LaMar Pond, a small town in northwestern Pennsylvania. I am training to be a midwife.”

She flushed. A smile nearly slipped out of him. He remembered that women did not talk about things such as having babies and pregnancy in front of strangers, and especially not in front of men. He’d been living in the Englisch world so long he’d almost forgotten that.

“I know where LaMar Pond is. Go on.”

“My cousin Addie asked me to visit her here in Ohio.” She paused, as if trying to decide how much to tell him. “My normal driver was sick, so her brother, Bill, showed up to drive me.”

Bill. William Allister. He sat up straighter in his seat.

“Had you met Bill before?”

She shook her head, her nose wrinkling. “I do not hire men to drive me around. I would not have gone with him, but I knew that I needed to get to my cousin’s house. I had promised her, and it was too late to change plans. Besides, I didn’t want my regular driver, Sue, to feel bad.”

Distress shadowed her face. It didn’t take much imagination to know that she was thinking about how the poor woman would feel when she found out what had happened to her brother. He blocked an image of his own brother’s face from surfacing. That was twice in one day he’d thought of Joshua’s death.

“I am sorry about the delay, Lizzy. I will try to get you to your cousin’s house as soon as I can. I promise.”

She shrugged it off. “I got in the car. We drove for a while. I noticed that Bill was going a back route. One that I wasn’t as familiar with. I was annoyed with him.”

She seemed ashamed of that now.

“He said he had an errand to run. When he stopped, he told me to wait in the car. And I did. I waited for a long time. Over thirty minutes. When he didn’t come back, I got impatient and went to find what was taking him so long.”

In the quiet car, Isaac heard her swallow in a loud gulp.

“I went behind the building. I could hear voices arguing, but I was so irritated that I did not pay attention to what they were saying. I saw Bill. He was facing another man. The other man had a gun. He shot him. He shot him!”

Her voice rang with horror. Isaac could only imagine how shocking that must have been, for her to witness such an awful thing.

“You saw him shoot Bill?” He wanted to be certain he had the facts correct.

She nodded. “I saw Bill fall. I was so scared I ran back to the car. Bill had left it running. The man shot out the back window.”

She pointed to the rear passenger seat with an unsteady finger. He recalled the shattered window. He would need to get this car into the station so that it could be searched for the bullet. Or other evidence. It would not be safe to try to process the car on the side of the road with a possible killer searching for her.

“Then what happened? After he shot out the window.”

“I drove away as fast as I could. I have only driven a couple of times, for fun. I haven’t driven at all since I was baptized two years ago. I know that the man will come after me. He was running to his car when I reached the street.”

He was sure that he would come after her, too. Right now, he had a possible dead body, a single witness and the murdered man’s car. Oh, yeah. There was a very good chance that someone would come after this young woman to shut her up.

It was his job to make sure they failed.

He spoke quietly, calmly. “I know it was horrible, Lizzy. But I need a description of the man who shot Bill.”

Lizzy squeezed her eyes shut, as if she could force herself to forget the events of the day. He knew the feeling. “He had dark curly hair. Dark brown eyes. I’m certain that I would know him if I saw him again.”

He frowned as he considered what he knew. “The man, do you think he got a good look at your face? Could he recognize you?”

He had to assume that he had, but he knew that to many Englischers, all they would notice was the kapp and the dress. With her black bonnet on, it was possible that the man wouldn’t have gotten a good look at her.

Her nod was emphatic, tearing that hope to shreds. “For a moment, before he shot out the window, he looked directly into my eyes. He chased me, too, in his car. When you pulled me over, he continued past us.”

The only car to pass them had been the one that he’d thought he’d been sure had been speeding. Unfortunately, he had not been able to get a plate number or even much information in regard to the make and model of the vehicle. Determined to pay attention and get all the details he could from the witness, he turned back to her. Her wide blue eyes were pinned to his face. She let out a sound that was half sigh, half strangled sob.

“I think if you had not pulled me over, he would have caught up with me and killed me, too.”

* * *

Within minutes, Lizzy saw lights flashing in the side mirrors of Isaac’s police car. The backup he had called for had arrived. She was glad, but she also squirmed internally, uncomfortable at once again having to deal with the Englisch police. The other officer drew over to the shoulder, pulling behind Isaac’s car. The lights remained on, splashing blue and red in a steady pattern against the interior of the car.

“I’ll be right back.” Isaac got out of the car and sauntered over to the other officer. She twisted her neck around and watched the two men talking. Both of them scanned the road. A time or two, they glanced in her direction.

This is the second time today I have been left waiting in a car. She shook her head at the ridiculous thought. This time, Lizzy did not mind being in the car alone. It gave her the opportunity to gather her thoughts and compose herself.

Lord, help me be calm. Still my heart.

Lizzy was drained by the morning’s events. Would she ever be able to forget the sight of Bill’s body falling, crumpling to the ground in a heap? Or the cold face of the man who shot him? She shuddered as his face filled her mind. Poor Sue. Her friend would be devastated. Although Lizzy had not had the best impression of Bill in the few hours she’d known him, she knew that Sue had adored her younger brother. She had talked about him every time they’d traveled together.

And now he was gone.

Hugging her arms around herself, she shivered, a mixture of cold and the reaction to the morning’s events setting in. Her eyes sought out Isaac, the one thing that had steadied her through the dreadful past hour.

Then she rebuked herself. She was being silly. Gott had brought her through it. Isaac had just been the means that Gott had used.

Isaac had been Plain once. He didn’t have to tell her that. With a name like Yoder, there was a possibility, of course. But when he had spoken to her in the language of the Plain folk, she had been astonished. What had driven him from his community to become something so foreign to their culture as a police officer? She would never ask, of course. Such things were personal, and frequently painful.

Not that she had anything against the police. Her sister, Rebecca, was married to a very fine young police officer, Sergeant Miles Olsen. In fact, Miles had saved Rebecca and Lizzy’s life several years ago. Four years ago, to be exact, when Lizzy had been almost seventeen. A man who had held a grudge against her older sister and some of Rebecca’s friends had started attacking them one by one. He had killed one of them. Then he had kidnapped Rebecca and Lizzy together. She would never forget being held hostage in that cold, damp basement by the brutal man, not knowing if they would survive. Miles Olsen was an officer with the LaMar Pond Police Department. He had been on the case and had been assigned to work with Rebecca. It had made sense. Rebecca was profoundly deaf, and Miles was raised by his deaf grandparents and uncle, which meant he was fluent in American Sign Language, or ASL, and could communicate with Rebecca, while the other officers needed an interpreter to talk with her.

When she and Lizzy had been taken, Miles had rescued them. He had also been promoted to sergeant for his outstanding work and heroic efforts. He and Rebecca were now married and had a small son. Miles was perfect for Rebecca. Gott had provided her with a man who could protect her and communicate with her. Lizzy was very happy for her sister. She had met several of his police officer friends, too. They were all a nice group of men and women.

But that did not mean she was comfortable asking the police for assistance. She did not have a choice, though. A man had killed Bill, her driver’s brother. The Amish might not turn to the police for help normally, but the Englischers did.

For Sue, she had to do what she could to cooperate and help them find the killer.

Another thought crossed her mind. What if this man that shot Bill found her? Memories of being chained up in a basement with her sister and another woman flooded her mind, causing a visceral reaction. Cringing away from the memories, she realized that she was pushing herself back against the seat of the car.

She could not allow herself to dwell on those memories. It would only unsettle her. Pressing a hand against her stomach, Lizzy tried to will away the queasiness and the sick feeling that arose whenever she remembered those past events. The man who had kidnapped her was in jail. He was never going to get out. She knew that. He had been charged with several counts of murder and assault. She needed to stop letting these memories and fears have so much control over her.

Lizzy did the only thing she could do and pushed the thoughts out of her mind, distracting herself with watching Isaac and his friend. It helped. For now. As she watched, a tow truck pulled in front of Bill’s car and the driver hopped out. He began to hook up the car. Soon he had the car secured and was off. The moment seemed surreal. Just a few hours before, she’d been a reluctant passenger in the car because the driver was a man, and now he’d been shot before her eyes.

Within ten minutes, Isaac returned. He buckled his seat belt and tossed her an absentminded smile. Again, the question rose to mind: Why had he become a cop?

It wasn’t hard to imagine him wearing a straw hat and dressed Plain. Even with the gun at his side and the fancy uniform, there was something about him that radiated Plain.

Isaac pulled away from the curb. “We are going to go a mile down the road and turn around. Then we will head back to the Carstairs place. Check out the scene. I am hoping that you will be able to identify the body, and maybe even give us a better description of the shooter. I hope you will be willing to identify him.”

She could hear the question he was not asking. Would she be willing to come in and work with the police?

“Jah, I hope so, too.”

His shoulders relaxed. He had expected her to refuse.

“I am happy to hear that you will help us out.”

She hesitated. How much should she tell him? “I am going to help you because of Bill’s sister. Sue is a kind woman, and she dotes on her brother. It will devastate her when she learns what has happened.”

He pursed his lips. Lizzy sensed that he wanted to ask more questions. For whatever reason, he did not ask. Maybe he didn’t want to scare her off. Or maybe he wanted to see what they found before he got more information from her. Whatever his reasoning, she was glad that he restrained himself. She didn’t have any more information, and right now, she was feeling close to screaming.

When he reached out to turn the heat up, his hand accidentally brushed against hers. She jumped and jerked her hand away. Heat crawled up her cheeks as he frowned, his brows furrowed. No doubt he was wondering at her extreme reaction.

This was why she would never get married. Even the most innocent interactions with men set her on edge. To have a normal conversation with a man who came to court her...nee, it would not happen. Lizzy had long ago resigned herself to the fact that what Chad Weller had done to her had left her with too many emotional scars to ever consider courting and later marrying any man. She just did not have the ability to get past her fears.

It was likely she never would.

The car turned. Lizzy became aware that they were entering the parking lot that she had fled less than two hours earlier. The building came into view as they drove into the lot. The broken windows. The whole forlorn look of the place. When she had first seen the building, she had thought it looked pitiful and broken. Now, seeing it through the eyes of the horrible situation, she thought she could detect a menacing feel to the structure and the empty lot.

She shuddered.

“Are you all right?” Isaac’s concerned voice broke through the thoughts. She had almost forgotten that she wasn’t alone.

“Jah. I am well,” she whispered, even though she felt far from well. A man had died before her eyes. How was she supposed to feel?

The other officer pulled in and parked next to Isaac.

Lizzy got out when the men did. Her plain boots made a crunching sound. She flicked a glance down. She was stepping on glass.

“I think this is the glass from Bill’s car window. It shattered when the other man shot at me as I was leaving.”

Immediately, Isaac took a picture of the glass with his phone, then carefully picked up a shard and put it in a plastic bag with a zip seal top.

“Hopefully, we can match this to the car you were in. Although glass is pretty similar.”

She shrugged, not familiar with any of the technology.

Dread started to build inside her as they moved toward the back of the building. She didn’t want to see Bill’s body. The thought of how he would look dead was enough to make her ill.

She turned the corner and blinked.

“Where did Bill fall?” Isaac asked, glancing around with a frown.

She pointed her finger at the spot ahead of her.

The body was gone.

THREE

Isaac walked forward to where the body should have been. It was hard to tell if a body had been there. The black pavement was slick, and the rain had probably washed most of the traces of blood away. His gut instinct told him that there had been a body here, that Lizzy really had witnessed someone getting shot.

“Maybe Bill wasn’t killed?” There was a lilt in Lizzy’s voice that spoke of hope. “Maybe he is hiding from the man who shot him.”

He hated to dampen her hope, but he refused to downplay the danger she could be in. “Lizzy, I doubt he survived. How close were they standing when Bill was shot?”

The hope drained from her face. She sighed, a sound that seemed to be dragged up from the depth of her soul. “They were only a couple of feet apart. Maybe from me to where the other officer is standing.”

About three feet, then.

“This other officer is Officer Ryder Howard.” Isaac indicated his friend and colleague. “At that close range, I don’t think he would miss.”

“Bill is dead.” The lilt was gone and her voice was a flat statement.

“Most likely.”

“Are you sure that this is the place?” Ryder asked, his face skeptical.

Lizzy flushed. Isaac would have thought she was embarrassed except he had seen the way her eyes had flashed. She did not like being questioned like that. No wonder. Ryder hadn’t meant anything by it, but his voice did have a sarcastic edge to it. Lizzy had no way of knowing, but Ryder’s voice always sounded that way. He doubted if the man even realized how harsh his tone was. It was just the way he talked.

“Jah!” Lizzy replied, lifting her chin, her own voice cold. “This is the place. I did not make up a story about my driver getting shot.”

Ryder’s eyes widened. Too late the man seemed to realize that his question had been taken the wrong way. “Oh! Hey! I didn’t mean that to sound like I thought you were lying. I just wanted to make sure there wasn’t a mistake.”

He threw Isaac a “Help me, buddy” glance.

“It’s okay, Lizzy. We’ll keep looking. Maybe we will find some other signs of what happened here.”

Ryder grunted, his head bobbing once. Isaac held back a smirk. His friend had gotten himself into trouble on more than one occasion for attitude. The man had a good heart. He just had a bit of a chip on his shoulder. Isaac knew that he had had a very rough time growing up with alcoholic parents. Although he had never asked, wanting to respect his friend’s privacy, he had always figured there was some sort of abuse or neglect that went along with it. Ryder had developed a veneer to keep people at bay.

Isaac could not fault the man for it. Not when he had his own past to overcome.

“Lizzy, we are going to have a look around to see if we can find any evidence of what happened. I need you to either stay there or wait in the car.” He zeroed his gaze in on her oval face. “I mean it. If you walk around, you might trample on something. Ryder and I have done this enough to know what we are doing.”

“I will wait right here.” She pointed down at her feet.

He smiled. Something about her earnestness touched him, despite the terrifying situation she was in.

“Okay, then.” Turning to his friend, he gestured to the right. “Why don’t you search from here toward the property line, and I will go toward the building.”

“Sounds like a plan.” All amusement faded as he and Ryder both focused on the job before them.

The men set off in their separate directions, alert for any clue that a murder took place in the parking lot. Every once in a while, Isaac cast a concerned glance at Lizzy. Her arms were tight across her middle, and he could clearly see that she was shivering. April in Ohio was capricious. On this particular day, the temperature hadn’t risen much higher than sixty and the rain was cold. He was wet clear through after a quarter of an hour. She’d been out in the weather several times that morning. And though he knew that one did not catch a cold from being wet, it was still a miserable feeling.

At one point, he had gone over to her to suggest that she wait in the car. “I can turn the heat up. There’s a blanket in the trunk. It would not be much, but it might warm you up a bit.”

Lizzy had looked at him for a moment. Her lips had curled at the corners in a small smile. Her eyes, though, those deep blue eyes, had remained haunted. “Denke, Isaac. I appreciate it. But I would not feel as safe so far away. I might be cold here, but I have two police officers close by. No one would try to harm me here.”