EXCERPT


CHAPTER 1


My mamm had a saying about life’s small discomforts.

Vann es shmatza, hayva da shmatz un bayda es dutt naett letsht zu lang. If it hurts, embrace the pain and pray it doesn’t last too long. This morning, the memory of my mamm dances in the forefront of my mind, and for the first time in a long time, I miss her.

I’m in my sister’s upstairs bedroom, standing on an old wooden alteration platform. My police uniform is draped across the foot of the bed, my boots on the floor next to it. My utility belt and service revolver look obscenely out of place against the gray-and-white wedding-ring quilt.

“Katie, my goodness, you’re fidgeting again,” Sarah tells me. “Hold still so I can finish pinning without sticking you.”

“Sorry,” I mutter.

I can’t recall the last time I wore a dress. This particular dress has a history. My sister wore it eleven years ago for her wedding. Our mamm wore it, too. Our grandmother made it. And so when my sister asked me to come over to look at it with my own wedding in mind, I had no qualms about trying it on. Now that I’m here, I realize it wasn’t a very good idea.

I haven’t been Amish for eighteen years. To wear a plain dress with the traditional halsduch, its closures fastened with straight pins instead of buttons or snaps, feels hypocritical. As if I’m trying to be something I’m not in order to please a community that will not be pleased.

Of course, my sister doesn’t see it that way. She’s a traditionalist, a peacekeeper, and an optimist rolled into one. Worse, she knows her way around a needle and thread and has no doubt she can make this dress work despite my reluctance and somehow please everyone in the process.

“This dress is a piece of our family history, Katie,” she tells me. “Mamm would have loved for you to wear it, even if you’re not Amish.”

“At this point in my life, I think she would have been happy just to get me married off.”

Her mouth twitches. “That, too.”

I look down at the front of the dress, smooth my hands over the slightly wrinkled fabric, and I try not to sigh. It’s sky blue in color with a skirt that’s a tad too full and falls to midcalf. “Do you think it’s a little too long?” I ask.

“I can shorten the hem,” she says. “That’s an easy fix.”

“Bodice isn’t quite right.”

Always the diplomat, Sarah slides a straight pin between her lips, lifts the hem, and pins. “I’ll take in the waist a bit, too. Bring the shoulders out.”

The real issue, of course, has nothing to do with the hem or bodice. For twenty minutes, we’ve been skirting the elephant in the room. Sarah is too kind to broach the subject.

“It’s okay if you don’t like the dress,” she murmurs. “I can make another one if you like. Or you can just buy one.”

“It’s not the dress … exactly,” I tell her.

Cocking her head, she meets my gaze. “What then?”

Drawing a breath, I take the plunge. “The problem is the dress is Amish. I’m not. There’s no getting around that.”

My sister lowers her hands, looks at me over the top of her reading glasses, and sighs. She’s looked at me that way a hundred times in the years since I returned to Painters Mill. Times when I’ve exasperated or disappointed her, both of which happen too often.

“You’re Anabaptist. That matters.” She gives a decisive nod, turns her attention back to the dress. “We can do away with the halsduch.”

She’s referring to the triangularly shaped “cape” or “breast cloth” that goes over the head, the point side at the back, the front gathered and secured with pins. My wearing one of the most symbolic of female Amish garments would be perceived as insincere.

“That’ll help.” Trying to be diplomatic, I look down at the front of the dress. “Maybe add a sash or belt?”

“Hmmm.” She makes a noncommittal sound, then plucks a pin from her mouth and puts it to use. “I’ve seen rosettes on belts, for the English wedding dresses. Mennonite, too.”

For the first time since I arrived, I feel a quiver of enthusiasm in my chest. Like the dress might just work after all. “I like the idea of a rosette belt.”

She nods, not quite smiling, but I can tell she’s warming to the idea. “Have you decided about a head covering?” she asks.

“I thought I might go with a simple veil,” I tell her.

She makes eye contact with me and raises her brows. Amish women do not wear a veil. Just a head covering or kapp.

“Like the Mennonites,” I clarify, which means the veil will be small and round, just ten or twelve inches wide, made of lace, and worn at the back of my head.

“I think that’s a good compromise,” she says after a moment. “Not Amish, but…”

“Anabaptist,” I finish.

We grin at each other, a rare moment of sisterly solidarity, and something warm shifts just behind my ribs. Progress, I think.

Sarah and I were close as kids. We worked and played together; we weathered the storms of growing up. She was there for me when I was fourteen and an act of violence altered the course of my life. The summer when a neighbor boy caught me alone in the house and turned everyone’s lives upside down. Our relationship wasn’t the same after that. Not because of her, but because of me. Because of what happened—and what I did about it. We grew apart, and the chasm between us only widened when I left the fold four years later. I ran as far away from my family and my Amish roots as I could—to Columbus and an unlikely career in law enforcement. Despite my best efforts to sabotage everything I’d once held dear, I couldn’t eradicate those ties—or continue to deny my love for my family. Some twelve years later, when my mamm passed away, I returned to Painters Mill, not as the rebellious and awkward Amish girl I’d been, but as a grown woman who was offered the position of police chief. I reached out to both of my siblings, and after an uncertain start—and a few bumps along the way—we set to work rekindling our relationships.

We’re still a work in progress, but we’ve come a long way. We’ve gotten reacquainted, shared a few laughs, a lot of disagreements, and a few tears. This morning’s fitting is a big step in a different direction and a new closeness that’s not quite comfortable, but hopeful and good.

Sarah slides a straight pin into the fabric gathered at my waist. “If it’s any consolation, Katie, I like your man. William likes him, too,” she says, referring to her husband. “That’s no small thing.”

“His name’s Tomasetti, by the way.” I smile at her. “And I like him, too.”

A giggle escapes her and she shakes her head.

The chirp of my cell phone interrupts. Sarah raises a finger. “Wait. One more.” She stabs the final pin into the fabric at the hem. “Got it. Go.”

I smooth the dress, then step down off the platform and reach for the phone, answering with “Burkholder.”

“Chief.” It’s Lois, my first-shift dispatcher. “I just took a call from a motorist out on Hansbarger Road. Says there’s a DB in the middle of the road.” DB is copspeak for “dead body”; we use it in case someone is listening to their police scanner.

“Who’s the RP?” I ask, using the term for “reporting party.”

“Julie Falknor. Local. I got her on the other line. Chief, she’s still at the scene and screaming her head off. Says there’s a lot of blood and she has her kids with her.”

Lois has been with the department since before I became chief. She’s experienced and cool under fire. This morning, she’s speaking a little too fast, her words running together.

“Get an ambulance out there.” I ease the dress off my shoulders, let it drop to the floor, yank my uniform shirt off the bed. “Who’s on duty?”

“Glock’s en route,” she tells me, referring to Rupert “Glock” Maddox. He’s one of my most experienced officers. If anyone can keep the situation in hand, it’s him.

“Get County out there, too.” Hansbarger Road is a quiet stretch a couple of miles outside of Painters Mill proper; it’s my patrol beat. Even so, depending on the situation and manpower, my jurisdiction sometimes overlaps the sheriff’s department’s.

“Tell the RP to stay put,” I tell her. “I’m on my way.”

I grab my trousers off the bed, step into them, reach for my equipment belt, buckle it. I face my sister as I snatch up my boots. “I’m going to have to take a rain check on coffee.”

“Of course.” She cocks her head. “Something’s wrong?”

“Traffic accident, probably.” I don’t know if that’s the case, but since I have no idea what I’ll be walking into, I keep it vague. “Thanks for putting up with all my squirming.”

“You’re entitled.” She grins. “I bet your man is sweating, too.”

“Literally and figuratively.” Smiling, I lean into her for a quick hug, grab my service weapon off the bed, and head for the door.

* * *

Hansbarger Road is a lesser-used back road that runs between a pasture and a cornfield before meandering north toward Millersburg. I make the turn, the Explorer’s tires bumping over rippled asphalt and potholes, loose gravel pinging against the undercarriage. Ahead, I see the flashing lights of Glock’s cruiser. A silver SUV is parked at a haphazard angle, nose down in the shallow roadside ditch with the driver’s-side door standing open. The ambulance isn’t yet on scene. There’s no sign of the sheriff’s department.

Flipping on my overheads, I park behind Glock’s vehicle and hit my shoulder mike as I get out. “Ten-twenty-three,” I say, letting Dispatch know I’ve arrived on scene.

I notice several things at once as I approach. Glock is standing between the SUV and his cruiser, making a notation in his notebook. There’s a person lying on the ground a few feet away from him—likely the victim. A bicycle with the handlebars twisted lies on its side a couple of yards away. A woman I don’t recognize is standing in the grass off the shoulder, her hands on her knees. Through the window of the SUV, I see the silhouettes of children in the back seat.

“What happened?” I ask Glock as I stride toward him.

He motions toward the victim. “He’s DOA.” He jabs a thumb at the woman. “She says she found him like that. Maybe a hit-skip. Not sure.”

Something in his voice gives me pause. Glock may be a small-town cop, but he possesses the sagacity of a veteran homicide detective.

“You check the victim?” I ask.

“Just enough to know he’s gone.”

I make eye contact with him and nod, keep moving, my eyes on the victim. It’s an adult male, lying supine, his head twisted to one side. The victim’s mouth is open. A copious amount of blood is puddled on the asphalt beneath it. Internal injuries, I think. He’s wearing dark trousers with suspenders. More blood on the front of a blue work shirt. The brim of a summer straw hat sticks out from beneath him. Amish, I realize.

“She see anything?” I ask, referring to the woman.

“No.”

I reach the victim. Something unpleasant unfurls in my gut when I get my first up-close look. The face is suffused with the telltale white-blue hue of death. One eye open and unseeing. Not yet cloudy. The other eye is half closed. Tongue is blood-covered and protruding.

For the span of several seconds, I stand there, taking in details, trying to figure out what might’ve happened. An old-fashioned metal lunch box lies on the ground twenty feet away, open, a sandwich wrapped in wax paper next to it. From all appearances, it looks as if he was struck by a vehicle. Evidently, the driver fled the scene without rendering aid or calling police.

I force my gaze back to the victim. The platter-size pool of blood near the mouth. The bloodstain on the front of his shirt isn’t quite high enough to be from a bloody nose or mouth. Something not quite right.

I look at Glock. “Is there some kind of injury on the abdomen?”

He moves closer, his brows furrowing. “Hole in the fabric there,” he says in a low voice.

The hairs at my nape prickle, and I find my eyes scanning the woods a hundred yards away. Glock is a former marine with two tours in Afghanistan under his belt. Both of us are EMTs. Judging from the look on his face, he has the same prickly feeling as me.


Copyright © 2023 by Linda Castillo