In the Land of Milk and Honey (3 page)

Kirsch frowned. “You understand that we're conservative on our use of tests since these patients are not insured. It's not in their best interest to rack up avoidable expenses.”

I gave Dr. Kirsch a brittle smile. “Run the test on Samuel Hershberger, please, doctor. Text me with the results today.”

Ezra was working in the garden when I got home from the hospital. As I parked the car, my text alert went off.

Rapid flu test negative in both Hershbergers. No influenza A or B virus present.

I read the message twice.

I typed:

Meaning it's not the flu?

The reply took seconds.

Inconclusive. Likely the virus has left the system and now it's complications. Treatment same.

Well. That wasn't very helpful. I'd been hoping for something concrete to report to Hannah. I sighed, got out of the car, and stretched my back. I also took the opportunity to check out my partner like a shameful hussy.

Since leaving the Amish a little over a year ago, Ezra had changed in many ways. He never had taken to T-shirts, but he loved jeans. In the warm April afternoon, he wore a denim button-down work shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a pair of jeans that clung to his narrow hips and long legs. I preferred his blond hair
long, and he indulged me by keeping it shoulder-length. He had it tucked behind one ear, revealing his handsome face as he hoed between the rows.

The first time I'd seen Ezra, he'd been standing in his barn, his back to me, lost in a private moment of sorrow. Now, as then, he could make me forget to breathe. I gave in to the urge to go over and give him a hug.

“I'm covered in dirt,” he warned, though his arms were welcoming.

“Mm-hum. You're so sexy when you're working in the garden.”

Ezra's lips quirked. “'Tis so? Guess that explains why the Amish have so many children.”

I laughed, feeling my mood lift like someone had pumped helium into it. “I suppose that could be a factor, though the lack of birth control might have something to do with it.” I breathed him in for a moment and stole a kiss. Our golden retriever, Rabbit, panted happily and wove around our legs.

“Any news?” he asked.

“The doctor says Samuel and Aaron Hershberger will recover, so that's good. Unfortunately, the diagnosis is vague. Can I help you out here?”

“No. I was about to stop for the day. Need to do some chores in the barn already.”

“Shall I make stir-fry?” On weeknights, Ezra usually cooked for both of us, since I worked late. So on the weekends, I liked to take care of him. I went to pull away, but Ezra tightened his arms in one last squeeze.

“Sounds good,” he murmured into my ear. The nuzzle of his lips on my cheek held a lovely promise for later. I smiled.

—

“What's a
brauche
man?” I asked Ezra as we relaxed on the couch after dinner.

“Where'd ya hear that word?” Ezra sounded amused.

“Hannah Yoder. She said people thought the Hershbergers had been cursed by a hex-something. And she mentioned a
brauche
man.”

Ezra settled down deeper into the couch and pulled me closer. “Ah. Well, a
brauche
man does a kind of magic. Sometimes it's called powwow.”

“Magic?”

“They use prayers and plants and whatnot, but some say it's magic all the same. You go to them when you're sick or there's a problem with an animal or bad weather. They say special prayers and give you medicine that you take or . . . like bundles or tokens that you put under your bed or in the horse's stall. Things like that.”

“Sounds like voodoo or maybe a witch doctor. I didn't know the Amish had a folk magic like that.”

“Oh, ja. Have you not seen our hex signs? These are old beliefs, coming from Germany. But not many think anything of them anymore. My grandmother used to go to an old powwow woman.”

“Yeah? Your grandma did?” I sat up so I could see Ezra's face.

“Yes.” His face was serious, but his eyes twinkled.

“Okay. What did this powwow woman do for your grandmother?”

“Treated aches and pains. Though maybe there were other things she used powwow for too. My father didn't approve. He'd grumble about ‘the work of Satan' and ‘being in league with the devil.' Some don't like powwow, even when it's a gut church member that does it. But my grandmother just complained louder about her pain and didn't stop goin'.”

“She sounds like a character.”

“She was a woman who knew how to get her way. You didn't cross her. Reminds me of someone else I know.” Ezra was smiling as he told this story, but suddenly his smile faltered and pain darkened his eyes.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry you lost all of your family in one blow.

I didn't say it out loud, but I laid against his chest and squeezed him tight. Just when I thought the anguish of being shunned had passed, it could crop up again. It probably always would. I still missed my own parents at times, and they were dead. They didn't live fifteen miles away and refuse to acknowledge I'd ever been born.

“So . . . a powwow man could hypothetically curse someone and make their crops fail or make them sick?”

Ezra shrugged. “Hex signs are to protect from curses. So yes, I guess the Amish believe in such things. Do you?” He sounded genuinely interested in what an English person—that is, someone who wasn't Amish—might make of it.

“Hmmm.” I thought about it. “I think there are people who
believe
they can lay curses and send a lot of bad intent your way. But I don't think it could actually hurt you unless you knew about the curse and believed in it too. Then you might have a psychosomatic response.”

“What does that mean?”

“If you expect to become sick—really, truly believe it—it can make you sick.”

Ezra's body, so lanky and relaxed beneath mine a moment ago, grew tense. His hand had been stroking my arm. It stopped.

“Did I say something wrong?”

Ezra bit his lip, then shook his head. “Sometimes I wonder at how easy it is for you to dismiss anything outside of us humans, anything outside the mind. Not sure if I should admire you for it or just feel brokenhearted.”

Leave it to Ezra not to pull punches. He didn't say things he didn't mean, and he rarely held back on the stuff that was hard to hear. Religion, faith in God . . . it was something Ezra struggled with. He couldn't be Amish any longer, but he wasn't an atheist at heart either. In his upbringing there was no such thing as a middle ground. Unfortunately, I had no faith of my own to give him as an alternative. I'd seen too much out there as a cop, experienced too much of my own heartbreak when my husband had been brutally murdered, to believe in an omnipotent being who cared and directed man's fate.

I cupped Ezra's face. “I don't dismiss everything outside of us. God . . . I don't know. But faith and love . . . absolutely.
Curses
,
though?” I put a funny twist on the final words, hoping to get him to smile.

It worked. He huffed. “Ja, okay. Maybe curses don't work. Or I'd have killed off a few of my mules a hundred times over.”

“Not to mention our furnace.”

Ezra nodded solemnly. “It's a right bugger.”

“And the shower.”

“The hot water runs the other way when I get in there. Don't do a lick of good to yell at it.” He was all laconic irony now.

Playing the game, I bit back a smile. “And I've heard you say some not very nice things to our stove once or twice.”

“The flame on that right front burner has it out for me.”

I relaxed back into him with a laugh. I breathed in the warm scent of his shirt, relished the shift of hard muscles under cotton, and felt heat stir inside me. “I missed you today.” I raised my head to kiss his neck.

“Yeah?” His hand stroked my arm once more, but this time there was an electric intensity to it. He pressed up into me ever so slightly, causing my body to immediately heat, preparing for him.

Someday, our mutual attraction, the love we have for each other, and, yes, the quite lovely sex, might not be enough, I thought. It might not be a glue strong enough to hold us together. We came from such different worlds. I feared that day. But for now, I'd take all of Ezra I could get.

I
'd just arrived at the station on Friday morning and sat down at my desk with a cup of coffee, when Grady came bursting out of his private office. His expression was grim and his large face was an angry, mottled red. That was not a look you wanted to see on a man his size—six foot two and at least two hundred fifty pounds. It was also not a look you wanted to see on the face of your boss, which Grady was. He shot a glance around at the desks of the seven investigators who constituted the Lancaster Police Violent Crimes Department. Then he marched straight up to me. I'm ashamed to admit, but I hoped it was something more interesting than the cases I'd had lately.

“What happened?” I asked.

“A neighbor found an entire Amish family dead this morning,
south near Willow Street. It's our jurisdiction. We're meeting the coroner there. My car. Now.”

My stomach sank. An entire Amish family could be a lot of people. “Homicide?”

“That's what we need to find out.”

Grady used his siren and drove fast. On the way, he told me what he knew.

“The man who reported it is Amish. Says the family's been ill for a few days. His wife sent their son over there with a basket of food this morning, and he found the previous day's basket untouched. So the father went inside the house and found them. He phoned it in.”

“How many are dead?”

“I don't know.”

“My God.”

Grady sighed in agreement. “He said it didn't look like there'd been any violence. Most of them were in bed. Maybe it's carbon monoxide poisoning, something like that. I alerted the hazmat people already, and they're on their way. But I wanted you along in case there's any sign of foul play.”

“Of course.” I was already considering another possibility. The memory of visiting Samuel and Aaron Hershberger in the hospital came to mind. “What if it's a pathogen? Like a virus? Should we be sending people in there?”

A semi pulled over for our siren, and Grady shot me a troubled glance as he drove past it. “Any reason to think so?”

I hesitated. “I see Hannah Yoder once in a while, Katie's mother? She said there's been a lot of sickness in their
community. A teenage boy died from it recently. You said the neighbor reported that this family had been sick.”

Grady tapped the steering wheel thoughtfully. “Yeah. But all of them dying of it at once? Doesn't seem likely.”

I knew what he was saying. As a cop, you played the odds. Food poisoning, a gas leak, or even homicide were much more likely. Still.

“Call dispatch,” Grady continued with a sigh. “Ask them to make sure the hazmat team has extra suits. You and I'll suit up and go in first, make sure it's safe for the team.” He shook his head as the possibilities sank in. “Jesus Christ.”

I did what he asked. As I spoke to dispatch, I felt that familiar surge of excitement and dread that always kicks in before I arrive at a new crime scene. And this one promised to be more upsetting and bewildering than most. What would I find this time? And would I be able to figure out what had happened?

—

A
t the Kinderman farm, we waited twenty minutes for hazmat to arrive. The Amish neighbor who'd called it in, Jacob Henner, was there. I interviewed him while we waited.

Jacob looked like he was barely hanging on, his mind bent under the weight of the horror like a sapling in the wind. “They'd been sick 'bout two days. My wife visited with Mary Kinderman a few days back. She said the whole family had the flu.”

“Did Mary Kinderman give any details about their symptoms?” I asked.

“Ja. Said the children couldn't keep nothin' down. Bad chills
'n' shaking. Aches. Real weak like. I seen Thomas and his son Isaac out ta the barn, or I woulda offered to milk for 'em. We pretty much jus' stayed clear, not wantin' our young'uns to get it. But my wife sent off a basket with food once a day, jus' to help out. 'N' the last one weren't even touched.”

“Did it appear they'd been sick when you went into the house today, Mr. Henner? Any sign of vomiting, piles of tissues, things like that?”

“I dunno. I jus' dunno. I was jus' tryin' to see if any of 'em was alive.” His voice shook. “Poor lil' children.”

With difficulty, I got Jacob to list the residents of the Kinderman household by name and give his best guess at their ages. I wrote it all down in my notebook. There were six children living at home, plus the parents and a grandfather.

He remembered seeing the bodies of Mary and Thomas Kinderman, the parents. But he couldn't remember where he'd seen them—maybe their bedroom, but he wasn't sure—or exactly who else he'd seen for sure or even how many. Only that they were “all dead.” He said he'd forced himself to check in case they needed help. I could picture this rather awkward-looking Amish man stumbling around the house checking bodies for signs of life. His disturbing the scene wasn't really helpful for our investigation or for Jacob either.

By the time hazmat arrived, three Amish buggies were parked in Jacob's driveway across the road. They watched the Kinderman house intently, probably hoping for news. As Ezra said, never underestimate the Amish grapevine.

Hazmat pulled in with a large, converted RV. Grady went over to speak to them and waved at me to come along. The first man out of the truck appeared to be in charge. He was in his thirties and looked inherently open, wholesome, and nice the way so many Pennsylvanians did. It was not a facade I'd seen often in my years with the NYPD.

“Steve Springfield, hazmat team leader.” Steve shook Grady's hand with a confident smile.

“I'm Detective Grady and this is Detective Harris.”

Steve's eyes lingered a little too long, and his hand gripped mine too lightly, as if he was nervous. I didn't take it personally. Men had a tendency to react to any attractive female. I looked away to break eye contact.

“We don't know what we're facing,” Grady said, “so I'd like to borrow some suits for Detective Harris and I. I also want to take in our police photographer, Danielle, and one of the medics. He wants to check for survivors.” He pointed them out. The medics with the ambulance crew had been particularly upset about not being able to go inside right away, even though Jacob Henner swore that no one was left alive. But they didn't carry protective gear, and neither did the police.

“You're welcome to suits, but you should let us go in first. We can run a quick check for gas or chemical contaminants.”

“I don't want a lot of people tromping around the crime scene,” Grady said.

“It'd just be me and one other technician. It'll take five minutes. Then you'll know you're not going into danger.”

Grady reluctantly agreed. It was another delay, which I found annoying. I hated these time-sucking protocols even though I understood the need for them. The detective in me was itching to get into the house, see things with my own eyes, witness the victims where they lay, try to get a sense of their final moments. There was always a fear that if I wasn't quick enough, some vital clue would slip away and I'd be unable to solve the puzzle, unable to avenge the dead. I knew it was largely irrational, but that didn't make me any less anxious to get inside.

But by the time Grady, Danielle, the medic, and I had put on the clownlike yellow-hooded hazmat overalls, orange boots, and aqua plastic gloves, Steve and his fellow technician were out of the house again. Steve took off his gas mask and strode toward us.

He was breathing hard. It wasn't the rapid breathing of exertion but that of distress. He face had a hint of green, and it wasn't a reflection off his hazmat suit. “No gas, radiation, or chemical leaks in there that our gear could detect. It's clear for you to go in. But—”

Grady impatiently pulled his arm away from the hazmat girl checking the tape seal on his glove. He was clearly as eager to get to work as I was. “But what?”

Steve swallowed. “It's pretty bad.”

Grady nodded once and pulled up the paper respirator mask that was hanging around his neck. “Ready, Harris?” His voice was muffled.

I nodded and we headed for the house. I prayed it was all a ridiculous precaution.

I
nside the modest home, the stench of death was thick, even through the face mask. I started breathing through my mouth and motioned Danielle to stay close and photograph each body as it was found. I pulled out my iPhone to record a video of my walk-through, talking as I went. The little details I found myself describing would be useful later.

The first body was in the living room, just inside the door. It was a girl, and she was lying on the couch. The medic checked her and shook his head, then he and Grady headed farther into the house while Danielle took pictures of the body. I leaned in for a better look.

“Adolescent female, approximately twelve to fourteen years old. Brown hair bound in a disheveled ponytail. She's wearing a long flannel nightgown. . . .”

The only sounds in the house were the ticking of a loud grandfather clock, the click of the photographer's Nikon, and my recitation. “She's lying on the sofa under an afghan as if she'd been sleeping. There's a bed pillow under her head, white pillowcase. No trace of blood or fluid on it. There's a large stainless steel mixing bowl by the side of the couch, possibly to be used if she had to vomit. There's also a book on the floor.
A Girl's Story Collection
. Maybe she was reading before she fell asleep.”

The thick aqua plastic gloves made my hands feel awkward, but I carefully raised the afghan so I could look underneath. “Postmortem, hands are curled protectively around her stomach.
Possibly she was in pain. There's a sharp odor of excrement.” I forced myself to pull the afghan up a little higher to confirm. “Looks like the deceased vacated her bowels before or after death. Material is liquid in nature.”

I was glad for the face mask. Not just because it lessened smells, but because I didn't like the looks of this at all. The girl, likely named Sarah by Jacob's account, had been very ill. Which meant whatever killed her might be contagious. God, she was so young. The death of a child like this felt wrong, even obscene, as if life itself had a freak-show deformity.

I pushed aside my emotions and finished my observations. There were no signs of foul play, and it didn't appear that the body had been disturbed in any way. I motioned to Danielle, and we moved on to the kitchen. There was no one in it, but there were dirty dishes in the sink, glasses with dregs of milk, cups, and bowls of what might have been Jell-O and ice cream. I knew enough about Amish families to know it was unusual for them to leave dirty dishes in the sink like this. Whatever had happened had been bad enough to disrupt the normal cleanup routine for at least a day. On the counter I found a bottle of cod liver oil, a near-empty bottle of Pepto-Bismol, and a box of saltine crackers. I noted my observations on the iPhone video and Danielle photographed the items.

I headed back through the living room to the old farmhouse stairs. I met the medic on the way down. I couldn't see a lot of his face behind his paper mask, but his eyes were vacant. He shook his head.
None alive.
He practically ran from the house.

I looked over my shoulder at Danielle. I didn't know her well, but from everything I'd seen, the plump and acne-scarred young police officer was professional and unflappable. Danielle nodded.
I'm okay.
I continued up the stairs.

I spoke into the iPhone. “First bedroom on the left at the top of the stairs. Looks like a queen bed containing three bodies. Two girls around four and six and an older woman, possibly the mother, Mary Kinderman.”

I paused as Danielle's camera snapped away. I felt the need to take in the scene without interference from technology for a moment. The two girls were side by side in bed, both ashen with hollowed cheeks and purple bruises under their eyes. Their eyes were closed, as if they'd passed in their sleep. The woman was in a nightgown and a thick flannel robe that closed with a fabric belt. She was above the covers and on her side, one hand protectively stretched over her children. Her fingers just brushed the top of one brown-haired head. Her eyes were closed too. On the bedside table were a box of Kleenex, another bottle of Pepto-Bismol, and a partially drunk glass of milk.

I took a deep breath and resumed the video. “From the position of the bodies, it looks like the mother came in to check on the girls and lay down for a moment. She died here. It's unlikely the girls were already dead when this happened, or the mother would have gone for help. She looks like she just closed her eyes for a brief nap.”

Had
the girls been alive? Or was it possible they'd already been dead and the mother, in her grief, had simply lain down and
given up. But her face looked too relaxed, her body's position too casual. I thought my first instinct was correct. At least Mary Kinderman had been spared the horror of her children's deaths.

In the next bedroom there were two single beds and two deceased boys in them. There was vomit in a bucket by one of the beds, lumpy and vile. A third boy, a young teen, was sitting up on the floor and leaning his back against one of the beds. His arms were around his knees and his face was buried in them. There was defeat and despair in his posture.
This boy knew
, I thought. He knew at least some of his family was dead. He probably knew he was dying too. That especially hurt.

The last bedroom on the left was the parents' bedroom. There was a man in the bed. He was on his back and I could see his full, long beard and bloodless face, his eyes closed. He had to be the family's father, Thomas Kinderman. Grady was standing next to the bed, arms folded in his yellow hazmat suit. He walked over when he saw me. Danielle began to photograph the body.

Grady's eyes above his paper mask were troubled. “No signs of foul play. Nothing environmental . . . You ever seen anything like this, Harris?”