Clouds without Rain (10 page)

“Shall I call the nurse?” Branden asked.

“Just get me that nosepiece for oxygen.”

Branden took down the clear plastic tubing that hung on the bed rail and slipped the elastic band over the sheriff’s head. The two small ports he fit into Robertson’s nostrils, and the sheriff lay still for several minutes, drawing deep breaths through his nose, while holding the damp cloth to his forehead.

When his breathing was relaxed again, Robertson dropped his arm to his side, and Branden took the cloth and hung it on the side railing where Robertson could reach it again.

“Couldn’t be a worse time,” Robertson whispered.

“Let Newell handle matters,” Branden said.

“Newell doesn’t give me as much detail in his reports as Kessler does.”

“Ellie tells me Kessler’s out on vacation.”

Robertson nodded, closing his eyes momentarily.

“Niell and Wilsher will do just fine,” Branden said, taking a seat in an overstuffed green chair, upholstered in smooth plastic.

“Niell should have made sergeant by now, but doesn’t seem to care,” Robertson said, gaze focused on the ceiling. “You gotta wonder about that. And Armbruster is just a rookie. So I want you working the Weaver case, too.”

Branden said, “I’ve already got that worked out with Bobby, and Niell’s better than you make him out to be, Bruce.”

Robertson closed his eyes again, grunted softly, and brought his knees up with considerable exertion.

Branden asked, “What’d you get from Wilsher?”

“Says Britta Sommers didn’t show at the bank. Hasn’t been seen since yesterday.”

“Has he got anything new from the Weaver place?”

“Been through most of the documents there, and some of the computer records,” Robertson said weakly, eyes fluttering shut.

Branden eased the big sheriff’s knees down to the bed and said, “Weaver’s most recent land deals were with an outfit up in Cleveland. He and Britta Sommers had a corporation for land and other real estate matters.”

Robertson nodded with his eyes closed.

“There weren’t any papers, Bruce,” Branden said, “but the last entries Weaver had made in his computer seemed to involve Holmes Estates up in Cleveland. Corroborates what Britta told me yesterday, and a buck will get you ten that Cal Troyer’s problem with his Amish friends’ land swindles is connected to Sommers’s disappearance.”

“What kind of land swindle?” Robertson asked, eyes open again.

“I’m not sure. We’re going out there tomorrow.”

“I thought you were never going to get over her,” Robertson’s voice trailed off.

“Ancient history, Sheriff,” Branden said, but Robertson’s eyes had closed.

12

Friday, August 11
7:06 A.M.

 

 

BISHOP Andy R. Weaver was rocking on Melvin Yoder’s old front porch, smoking a pipe and waiting for Cal Troyer and Mike Branden. He had assembled the men an hour earlier and had cautioned them what could be said, and what could not. It was one thing to talk with English about their land troubles, quite another to mention the rest.

When he saw Branden’s truck raising dust on the lane, he got up from his rocker and stood at the top of the steps of the porch. In spite of the heat, he was dressed in conservative Amish attire, high-lacing work boots, shiny blue jeans with baggy side pockets, brown cloth suspenders, and a dark blue shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His vest was off, hanging on the rocker behind him. Beside the house, there was a line of buggies, the horses hitched to a fence that ran along a field of withered corn.

Branden and Troyer came up the steps, and Cal introduced the professor. Weaver offered his hand, and Branden shook it lightly, as he knew the custom to be so often among the Low Ones.

Weaver explained that the rest of the men were waiting inside, and he escorted the visitors into a front sitting room, where a dozen or so men sat on wooden benches lining the four walls of the room. They were each dressed to match the bishop, the only differences being the colors of a few blouses, one white, another light green, some pink. The rest were dark blue like the bishop’s. All were handmade and buttonless, with a slit at the neck, running down about six inches, and tied with a string. As they sized up Troyer and Branden, there were soft murmurings in low German dialect.

The bishop clapped his hands to get their attention and instructed that they would all now use only English, for the benefit of their guests. Shaker chairs were provided for both Troyer and Branden, and the bishop offered a teapot and two porcelain cups, saying, “We are all having tea this morning.”

Branden and Troyer each took a cup and waited for the bishop to begin.

The bishop said, “So that you will understand, Professor, I’ll start by saying that my brother was a scoundrel and a cheat. He was a shepherd who fed only himself. He was right out of the Book of Jude. A ‘cloud without rain, blown along by the winds’; an ‘autumn tree, without fruit and uprooted—twice dead.’

“Money and land were his undoing. He loved both, to the exclusion of everything else. He also loved the modern and profane things that money can buy. He was dead to us long before the accident took his life, and all the troubles that are now about to befall us are the direct result of his greed.

“And Bischoff Melvin P. permitted him to remain in the district, because Yoder was too liberal. More liberal than any I have known, here or in Pennsylvania. I judge that he, too, was a vain and proud man, unwilling to exert his authority to cast my brother out of the fold. As a result, people like my brother were tolerated, loosely, in the congregation.

“Well, John Weaver should have been removed from the people long ago. They should have been allowed no dealings with him for land, or anything else, so far as I see it. But land was tight, and the district was growing, so Yoder allowed some of the younger fellas to acquire land a while back from my brother, on a lease-to-own basis, with no down payments.”

Weaver gave both Branden and Troyer a copy of the lease-to-purchase contracts that John Weaver had used to set up the land transactions. Branden leafed through his copy and then decided he could do a more thorough job of reading it later. Cal started reading Clause A, and was interrupted by Andy Weaver.

Weaver said, “There was no trouble until two weeks ago. But the way I read that contract, there was bound to be trouble, sooner or later, and Bischoff Yoder should have seen it coming. Now, some of our families stand to lose their farmlands.” He said something further in dialect, and eight men sheepishly raised their hands.

Branden said, “I’d want to look at this in some detail, later, and perhaps have a lawyer take a look at it, too.”

Weaver nodded and said, “That’s what I had hoped.”

Then Weaver produced two copies of a letter. “Eight of our men received these letters almost two weeks ago.”

Branden and Troyer read their copies of the letter, and when finished, Troyer whistled softly and shook his head. Branden opened his copy of the lease-to-purchase agreement and began to read Clause F.

“Can he do that, Professor?” one of the men asked from a bench.

Branden read the clause, and then the letter, again. When he had finished, he said, “I don’t know. It appears so. Still, I can’t be sure. This whole thing might hinge on how Weaver’s trust is executed. Whether or not the buyback that Weaver intended is honored, and that may depend on who Weaver’s inheritors turn out to be.”

Branden turned pensive. He wondered, nervously, what it was that Britta Sommers actually had done. As if to assuage his concerns, he thought of her unquenchable spirit in high school. He thought of the college years when they had lost track of each other. He saddened, remembering the abusive years before her divorce had set her free. Now, it seemed, was the season of her triumph, cashing out to retire comfortably at forty-nine. But the fire changed everything, he realized, as did this matter concerning the land she had helped to sell. Eventually he spoke to Andy. “At the worst, if your brother had already cut the checks to buy you all out, and if he had actually also sold the land to someone else, maybe a developer . . . ” He let the sentence trail off.

“How would we know that?” Andy asked.

“We’ve got to start with the bank,” Cal said. “Unless Britta Sommers turns up, someone will be put in charge of John’s trust.”

Branden said, “Britta told me she had already transferred all her accounts to other officers. We need to know who took over J. R. Weaver’s trust.”

Andy said, “Are you saying that we may be able to keep the land, already?”

“I don’t know just yet,” Branden said.

“The boys have settled their families here,” Andy said. “They’ve taken responsibility for a piece of God’s land. They’ve paid both principal and interest, faithfully. Now, from what you are telling me, the land may already have been sold.”

Branden rose from his chair and said, “We’re going to try to stop that.” He offered his hand to Weaver.

Cal rose and shook the bishop’s hand, too. Now all of the men were on their feet, talking in dialect again, looking almost optimistic.

Bishop Weaver spoke a Dutch phrase to the men and followed Cal and Branden out onto the front porch. Branden went down the steps, but Cal turned to face Weaver.

“I lost another family, Cal,” Weaver said.

Cal nodded sympathetically.

“And those two boys?” Weaver added. “It looks like the worst kind of trouble you could imagine.”

“What do you plan to do about ’em?”

“I’ve got to confront them, Cal. Get them away from their parents and confront them face to face.”

“That serious?”

“It’s deeply spiritual, Cal, as you know. It may be worse than either of us could have guessed.”

Cal said, “Whatever you need, Andy,” and shook Weaver’s hand.

“Don’t tell Branden, Cal,” Weaver whispered and turned back into the house.

On the ride home, Branden asked, “You said there was a boy from this congregation who’s been acting strange?”

“He’s not exactly a boy,” Cal said. “He’s twenty-four.”

“Were any of his family at our meeting just now?”

“His oldest brother,” Cal said. “He’s one of the eight who stand to lose their farms.”

“We need to talk to that family, Cal. Also the young man. If I can make arrangements to talk to him, can you set something up tonight with the family?”

“Who do you want to talk to?”

“His parents, first. Others if necessary.”

Branden parked his truck in front of Troyer’s white frame church house, and the two sat and read the lease-to-purchase agreement that eight young men had signed nearly thirteen years ago. There was a standard payment schedule, $80,000 over twenty years, at 8 percent interest, with no down payment. There was a clause that allowed the Amish to pay off the land after fifteen years. And there was Clause F, stating that if the value of the land should triple during the lease period, John R. Weaver could exercise the option to pay back the principal, plus a straight 8 percent interest, and then sell the land outright, to whomever he pleased.

13

Friday, August 11
9:30 A.M.

 

 

BRANDEN found the offices and workrooms of the Weston Surveying Company in one of the old, spacious homes that line the Wooster Road in the north end of Millersburg. He parked in the rear lot, off an alley, and climbed the weathered steps to a wraparound porch. A hand-lettered sign beside the back screen door read “Weston Surveying—Please Step In” and gave the business hours. Branden rapped on the wooden door, pulled it open on noisy hinges, and stepped into a large room with faded wallpaper and high ceilings, trimmed in dark wood, with an aged metal desk and a battery of gray filing cabinets lining the walls.

He called out, “Hello,” and heard a vague response from a room at the front of the house. He walked down a hallway and turned a corner into what had once been the foyer of the grand Victorian house. The floors were wooden, worn in places and covered in rugs elsewhere. The ceilings and corners were trimmed lavishly in wood. The hallways and smaller rooms of the house were cluttered with bins and boxes, map tables and charts, padded cases for surveyor’s instruments—old Theodolites and the newer Total Stations with infrared beams and on-board computers. Tripods and prism poles were stacked in corners. Filing cabinets and computer stations of several varieties were positioned throughout the first-floor rooms.

In a small parlor at the front of the house, Branden found a diminutive, middle-aged man with curly blond hair, sitting on a rolling desk chair, pulled up close to a computer screen.

Branden stood in the doorway and waited with his badge holder looped over his belt in front.

The man’s gaze remained fixed on the computer screen. He waved an arm to acknowledge the professor, said, “Be right with you,” finished a few lines with a flourish at the keyboard, and spun his chair around to look up at Branden. He saw the reserve deputy sheriff’s badge, stood up, offered his hand, and said, “I’m Jim Becker. Foreman.”

Branden introduced himself and said, “I was hoping to find Jim Weston.”

“Jimmy Weston is down to New Philly.” Becker lifted a stack of magazines and charts from an old swivel chair and rolled it out for his visitor. Easing back into his own chair, he said, “Jimmy left a message on our machine last night. He’s off on business. Said he’d be gone all day, maybe tomorrow, too.”

Branden hesitated, wondering briefly if he should stay, and then took a seat. “So he might not be back for a couple of days?”

“Could be,” Becker said. “You here about the wreck, or Britta Sommers?”

“The wreck,” Branden said. “Weston evidently saw it all. Did he talk much about it?”

“Couldn’t talk about anything else all day Tuesday,” Becker said.

“I wanted to get his account of it,” Branden explained.