Shunning Sarah (9 page)

Yoder was a common Amish name, so she wasn’t sure exactly where the dead woman lived but gave me general directions to a couple of farms owned by Yoder families. The bishop was easier. Apparently everyone knew his place. She drew a quick map with a star, pointing out the window which direction to turn.

“Everything’s fairly close with a car.” She suspected the word was out among the Amish about the murder because some plain customers often stopped at the restaurant for lunch. But today none occupied any of the booths, nor were any buggies parked on the side streets.

I thanked her with a nice tip and business card in case she
heard anything else. Malik was waiting in the van and disappointed I had not brought him any pie.

“This was a line-of-duty pie,” I said. “I ate it too fast to enjoy.”

I assured him there’d be plenty of chances to sample local cuisine when we bought food from the Amish as a means of gaining access and making friends. “Cashew crunch, here we come.”

We drove through some lingering fog on gravel roads to reach the first Yoder farm and found a sturdy two-story white house of modest design. I told Malik to leave the camera inside the vehicle until we got an all clear from the inhabitants. A young man wearing suspenders walked toward us from the barn.

“I grew up on a farm the next county over and I’m looking for the family of Sarah Yoder,” I said. “Did she live here?”

He seemed friendly enough until I identified my employer, then he headed for the house without looking back. We turned the van around, drove out onto the road, and Malik shot some general cover of the farm in case it ended up being Sarah’s home.

“Maybe we can get the bishop on our side.” I figured if the group’s religious leader approved of me, others might cooperate.

At our next stop, I explained to an elderly bearded man standing by a woodpile that I was looking for Abram Stoltzfus.

“I am he,” he said.

I handed him my card and said that I understood Sarah Yoder was a member of his church. “I’m hoping to learn a little about Sarah so she’s not just a murder statistic. Publicizing this case might even help find her killer.”

“What is this work you do?” He seemed puzzled that I sought word of Sarah.

“My name is Riley Spartz. I’m a television reporter from up in the Twin Cities.”

“I cannot help you.”

I tried to get him to reconsider, but he refused to look at me or speak further and went inside his house. We got the same
cool reception at the next Yoder residence. A thin woman in a bonnet answered the door, but she too brushed me off hastily when I mentioned Sarah’s name—like they were reverting to a prepared script.

We stopped at another homestead that posted a sign advertising baskets for sale. An older woman, carrying some baskets loaded with quilted pot holders and candy, displayed them on a table in the yard. While I counted out money for some cashew crunch, I mentioned being a TV reporter and wanting to tell Sarah Yoder’s story. That was enough for her to close shop without further word.

Malik was discouraged. “Whatever you’re doing isn’t working.”

I couldn’t disagree. The buttery toffee candy improved his mood, though I knew that was only temporarily. Our Amish encounters puzzled me because I usually had better luck getting my foot in the door and getting people to open up, even those from other cultures. I suddenly felt cursed. I’d walked into this story knowing the Amish didn’t particularly welcome outsiders, but for some reason, I thought playing up my farm girl past would insulate me from that attitude.

I also had a romantic, probably unrealistic, idea of their life that I envied. While theirs was simple, mine was complicated. Later I would learn that simple did not mean safe.

The next Amish residence a couple miles up posted a sign advertising “New Potatoes. Not on Sundays.”

It was Wednesday, so we drove in and parked near the porch where a young woman and child rocked together. For two bucks, I got a brown bag of baby reds.

I admired her little boy—a smile under a straw hat—and deliberately made no mention of my line of work. As a covert customer, I chatted her up while purchasing a second bag of potatoes for Malik even though he seemed unenthusiastic about the produce.

“We were on our way to the Yoder farm to offer condolences for Sarah. But we got confused.” I held out the makeshift map. “Was it this place or this one?”

She shook her head. “Neither. Their homestead is here.”

She pointed toward the other side of town. I handed her a pen and she drew in a couple of roads. “This one.”

I thanked her and we headed in that direction until we reached another mailbox reading Yoder. A handmade sign read Eggs, Crafts, Jelly.

A young Amish girl stood in the farmyard, holding a basket of various shades of brown eggs when we arrived. To avoid spooking her, Malik had decided to wait in the van with the cashew crunch.

I bent over and complimented her on her full basket, relating tales of hunting for eggs myself as a child, under sheds and behind woodpiles. Anywhere hens could hide. Back then when I was growing up, they were simply farm eggs, viewed as less desirable than the white dozen sold in stores; now they’re billed as upscale free-range eggs and sell for a premium.

I asked the child her age and she replied nine. “What’s your name, sweetie?”

“Hannah.”

She glanced down at the ground as she answered, but I didn’t take it personally because I’d found that habit common when mingling with children who’d been taught not to talk to outsiders. A white bonnet with side pleats framed her cheeks and shielded her eyes. Yet I could see they were red and suspected she’d been crying.

“I’m here to talk to someone about Sarah.” I held out the forensic sketch. “Did you know her?”

“That’s my sister.” The girl reached for the illustration. Now we were getting somewhere. “She was in the bann.”

“Excuse me, where did you say Sarah was? What barn?”

Just then the door to the house opened and an Amish woman
rushed over in a panic, calling Hannah’s name. She grabbed the girl’s arm and yanked her away, letting the drawing flutter to the ground. “Leave us.”

“Are you Sarah’s mother?” I followed behind them through the yard until we reached the porch. “I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Yoder.” She pushed the girl inside and left me alone outside. “I’m here to tell Sarah’s story.” I hoped they were listening on the other side of the door. “I don’t want this to just be about her death. I want to hear about her life. What made her special.”

Families of victims often responded to that pitch. But here my words sounded flat and empty because they went unheard. At one of the upper floor windows, a curtain seemed to move, but no one looked down to weigh granting an interview. My goal of taking viewers inside the world of the Amish looked more distant than ever.

I picked up the drawing of Sarah and left.

U
pstairs, Miriam Yoder watched the news van drive away. If she weren’t so devout, she’d have cursed. When the vehicle was far out of sight, she stared her youngest daughter in the eye and told her never to mention her older sister again.

“Sarah is gone. We may see her in the afterlife or we may not. You must not speak of her. Especially not to the English. More may come to ask questions, but you must walk away from them.”

Sheriff Eide had been out earlier in the day with news of her death. Homicide was virtually unheard of in the Amish community. Sarah’s murder was unprecedented.

The sheriff wondered why no one had reported her missing.

But in Miriam’s mind, Sarah was never missing. She was simply gone. She had left her faith and home. And when she turned away from their church, they had turned their backs on her, placing her in the bann.

“What happened to my sister?” Hannah had been in school earlier in the day when the sheriff arrived with the sketch and questions. Now the girl had questions of her own for her mother. “How did Sarah die? Why won’t anyone talk about her? And where did that woman get a picture of her?”

Miriam resisted the impulse to admonish her youngest. How
Sarah died was exactly why no one wanted to talk about her, especially to a child. “Pray Sarah is safe in the arms of Jesus. God called her to him. We must not fault anyone for His will. We must forgive.”

“But who should I forgive?” Hannah asked.

“You might never have that answer.” Miriam squeezed Hannah’s hand and closed her eyes tight. “But for now, forgive Sarah.”

The funeral would be held two days after tomorrow and many people would come. Miriam wasn’t sure what kind of atmosphere to expect—their family tree was vast but spread wide across the Midwest.

A line of buggies had come for her husband’s funeral several years ago in Ohio. Amish traveled far to offer their support following his accident on the farm.

Mark Yoder had been dragged by a team of horses after becoming entangled in the reins when a wagon tongue broke loose. She was never sure whether to blame the equipment or the animals. Even though she knew she wasn’t supposed to place any blame at all, she sold the horses and burned the wagon.

Since then, they’d moved from Ohio back to Iowa, then to Minnesota. Even though they had kin everywhere, nowhere felt like home. Now they would probably move again to escape the scrutiny that was sure to follow.

In some ways, Sarah’s death was easier to bear than her husband’s. Because the child had been in the bann, she had already died in her mother’s heart.

But her death was also harder because of all the prying from within and outside. She found herself anxious for the burial. She imagined, shovel by shovel, dirt filling Sarah’s grave and ending speculation about her life and death. But nothing is so simple. Miriam even had unanswered questions
of her own. Had her husband not died, might her daughter still be alive?

She heard someone downstairs and saw Gideon, done with chores. She welcomed her son and told him about the English woman. He was angry about the picture. Everybody in the Amish community was talking about the sketch of his sister.

Even in her passing, Sarah brought shame upon their family.

T
he station decided we should remain in southern Minnesota for the 6:00
PM
news and broadcast live with the latest development, whatever that ended up being. Then we’d transmit back a packaged version of the story from the satellite truck for the 10:00 before heading north.

Because the sky would be dark, we decided on using the Amish buggy traffic sign as a backdrop rather than the anonymous rural countryside by the dead woman’s house.

About ten minutes before the newscast, just after I’d finished my audio check, someone started yelling at me in my ear to immediately feed a photograph of Sarah Yoder back to the station. “Not the sketch, a real-life photo, Riley. I want to run them side by side so viewers can see how closely they resemble each other.”

I didn’t recognize the voice. It didn’t sound like any of the producers, directors, or assignment editors. “Who is this?”

“This is your boss speaking. Bryce Griffin.” He sounded annoyed that I didn’t know him without seeing him. “We still don’t have a photo. And you’re the lead.”

“We aren’t going to get one either.” I reminded him the victim was Amish. “They don’t allow their members to be photographed. It’s against their faith because they believe the Bible bans graven images. By that they mean likenesses.”

“Don’t quote the Bible at me.” His voice changed from annoyed to angry. “Channel 3 made a big commitment covering this homicide and you’re telling me we don’t even get an actual photograph of the murder victim? What kind of a reporter are you?”

I explained that I hadn’t failed to find a real picture, but that none existed. “This woman has likely never had her picture taken in her life. Her family doesn’t keep photo albums. They don’t allow their faces to be shown.”

“How about a school yearbook?”

“She’s probably only had an eighth-grade education, Bryce. The Amish use one-room schoolhouses.”

“How about a driver’s license photo? Did you check with the state?”

“The Amish don’t drive cars.”

I realized that my news director had most likely never been exposed to any aspect of Amish culture. That, the fact that he could fire me, plus the reality that I was less than three minutes from air time, made me refrain from getting into a long-distance shouting match.

I promised to explain more about the Amish when I got back to the station.

“I know plenty about the Amish,” he said. “I saw a movie about them once.”

Him and millions of other people. “That would be
Witness
with Harrison Ford.”

He paused like he was replaying the film, which had become a worldwide hit. “They showed faces in that movie. What do you mean we can’t show faces?”

“Those were actors. They weren’t real Amish.”

“Well, if our competition leads with a real-life victim photo, you’ll have plenty to answer for when you get back tonight.”

I’d seen no other news crews all day, so that scenario of being scooped didn’t scare me. But it should have.

B
ecause Malik and I weren’t rushing back to the station for a late news deadline, we stopped off the freeway for dinner at a popular family restaurant.

Malik ordered a cheeseburger and fries. “That’s what men like after a long day of work.” Lugging all that camera gear seemed to keep the pounds off his waist. Maybe one-man banding would keep me slim.

I ordered a chicken salad from their list of Lite Entrees. “As women my age count years, we also count calories.” I preferred places that posted those numbers along with fat grams on the menu.

While waiting for our plates, a text came up on my cell phone.

“You be careful out among them English.”

Garnett must have checked the station website to see what my day was like. I could have texted back: Jan Rubes.
Witness
. 1985. But I didn’t want to just then, with Malik across the table from me. So I left his message unanswered.