“Before supper.” She glances absently at the antique mantel clock on a shelf by the door. “Two o’clock, I think.”
“Was she on foot?”
“Yes. She enjoys the walking.”
“When did you become worried?”
She looks at her husband, as if the answer is too much for her to bear, and he answers for her. “We began to worry when she didn’t make it home in time for the before-meal prayer,” he says.
“That Annie likes to eat.” Edna’s laugh comes out sounding more like a sob.
“What did you do?” Tomasetti asks.
“I went looking for her, of course,” Levi responds.
“Alone?”
“My son and I took the buggy.” Levi sighs and shakes his head. “We took the route she would have taken, but there was no sign of her. We talked to Amos Yoder at the vegetable stand, and he said she had been there earlier and she seemed fine.”
I look at Goddard. “Is the place where we found the satchel between here and the vegetable stand?”
Goddard shakes his head. “No.”
No one says it, but that means Annie either took a different route home or got into a vehicle with someone. “What did you do next?” I ask Levi.
“I took the buggy to the bishop’s house. He has a phone. We put together a search party.” A sigh slides between his lips, as if he’s staving off an emotion he can’t afford to feel. “All of the able-bodied men and boys came out to help—some on horse back, some in buggies. Our English neighbors helped in their cars.”
“Why did you wait so long before calling the police?” Goddard asks gently.
“The Ordnung forbids our associating . . .” His words trail off. It’s as if he realizes a missing child is the one time when there’s no place for sectarian beliefs. “I thought we would find her before now.” The words come out in a harsh whisper. “If I had done over . . .”
Goddard nods understandingly.
“She didn’t have anything to eat last night.” Edna’s voice is barely discernible. “She didn’t have a bed to sleep in.”
I choose my next words carefully. “Mrs. King, you mentioned Annie gets restless. Is there a possibility she didn’t come home on purpose? Maybe there was an argument? Or she was upset about something?”
Levi shakes his head adamantly. “No. She is a good girl. She would not worry us over something like that.”
Edna remains silent, not responding. Not even with a shake of her head. There are times when silence has a voice all its own. I mentally file the information away for later, wondering if she’s privy to something her husband is not. Sometimes daughters confide in their mothers. . . .
“Have you had any problems with Annie?” I ask gently. “Has she broken the rules? Has she seemed unhappy about anything recently?”
The look that passes between them is so subtle, I almost miss it. But I know there’s something there, some scrap of information they don’t want to reveal. “We’re not here to judge you,” I tell them. “Or her.”
“We just want to find your daughter,” Tomasetti adds.
When neither of them speaks, I continue. “Look, I know that sometimes teenagers make mistakes. Even Amish teenagers.” I feel Tomasetti and Goddard watching me, but I don’t look away from Edna. “Even good girls,” I finish in Pennsylvania Dutch, purposefully excluding the two men.
After a moment, Levi nods. “Annie is very strong-willed.”
“She’s a good girl,” Edna says quickly.
An alarm sounds in the back of my brain. Maybe it’s because I know that when parents feel the need to emphasize the goodness of their children, there’s usually a reason. Like maybe the kid isn’t quite as well-behaved as they’d like everyone to believe, and as they desperately want to believe themselves.
After a moment, Edna lowers her face into shaking hands. “She is a good girl.”
The last thing I want to do is alienate them; at the moment, they are our best source of information. But I know if I don’t push, I won’t get what I need, and that is the truth—all of it.
I let the silence ride, giving them some time; then I return my attention to Edna. “Have you spoken to Annie’s friends?”
Edna raises her head. “She keeps to herself mostly.”
“Does she have a best friend?” I press her, knowing that whether you’re Amish or English, if you’re a teenage girl, you have a confidante.
Edna perks up. “She’s been friendly with the Stutz girl. They went to a singing last week after worship. Amy is her name.”
I write down the name and turn my attention to the sheriff. “Do you know where the Stutz family lives?”
He nods. “Just down the road.”
I go back to Edna. “Is there anything else you can think of that might help us find her?”
When the woman looks away, I turn my attention to Levi. The Amish man stares down at the tabletop. He knows something, too; I see it in the slump of his shoulders, the cord of tension in his neck. I’m sure Tomasetti and Goddard sense it as well, and the only thing we can do at this point is wait them out and hope they open up.
For a full minute, the only sounds come from the hiss of the lantern’s wick and the ticking of the mantel clock on the shelf. Then Levi raises his gaze to mine. “She has been associating with some Englischers.”
Edna jerks her head his way. “Levi . . .”
“What are their names?” I ask quickly.
“We do not know.”
“Does she have a boyfriend?”
The Amish couple exchange a look I recognize. A look I’ve seen before. One I understand all too well. One I saw in the eyes of my own parents. Shame. The need to secrete away the sins of their child. I know this because I was once that sinful child. This is the question they’ve been avoiding. The answer is one they don’t want to divulge. A reality they don’t want to acknowledge. Not even between them. Certainly not to us outsiders. But I also know it’s the reason we’ve been invited into this Amish home.
Levi tightens his lips as if against words he doesn’t want to utter. “We think the English boy was courting her.”
“Did Annie tell you that?”
The Amish man shakes his head. “Dan Beiler saw them together in town.”
“Do you know the boy’s name?”
“No.” He looks everywhere except into my eyes. “He has a car. She disappears sometimes and will not tell us where she’s been.”
“Do you know what kind of car?”
“We don’t know,” Levi spits out.
“She will not speak of him to us,” Edna says, choking out the words.
“We forbade her to speak to the Englischers,” Levi says. “She would not listen.”
“Our Annie thinks she knows her mind.” Edna’s voice cracks on the last word. “When she wants something, there is no stopping her.”
“But her faith is strong,” Levi adds. “She loves her family. She is kind and submits to God.”
I know that sometimes even the faithful find themselves face-to-face with the devil.
“Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. King. You’ve been very helpful.” I shake hands with both of them. “We’re going to do our best to find your daughter.”
Tomasetti, Goddard, and I stand as a single unit. As we start toward the door, I mentally add Amy Stutz to my list of possible sources of information. But the person I most want to speak with is the boyfriend. Any cop worth his weight knows that when a female goes missing, the first suspect is always the man who claims to love her.
Ten minutes later, Goddard, Tomasetti, and I are standing on the front porch of the Stutz house. Goddard has knocked twice, but no one has answered the door. “We’re batting zero,” he says with a sigh.
Tomasetti peers through the window as if expecting to discover someone lurking behind the shades. “I thought the Amish spent their evenings at home,” he growls. “Early to bed and all that bullshit.”