Page 35 of The Hidden One

I walk to the fence and climb over. There’s a dirt road about ten feet wide and then a virtual wall of trees. I traverse a drainage ditch. Shadows descend as I enter the forest. Leaves from last fall crunch beneath my feet. Within just a few yards, I’m completely hidden from view. Is this what the field looked like eighteen years ago? If so, it would have been an ideal place to bury a body with a reasonable belief it would never be found.

As I scale the fence and walk back to the hayfield, I think about Jonas Bowman, locked in a cell, accused of murder. He’d been twenty-one years old when Ananias disappeared. He’d just lost his father. He’d been grieving. According to everyone I’ve spoken with, he blamed Ananias for his father’s death. Was he angry enough to lure the bishop to this remote location and shoot him? Why would an elderly bishop agree to meet him? The questions circle my brain in an endless loop. I try to get my head around the notion of Jonas marching an old man—a bishop—into a wooded area and committing premeditated murder, and I simply can’t do it. Not the boy I’d once known.

I reach the stake flag, kneel, and set my hand against the ground. “What did you do?” I whisper.

The only reply comes with the caw of a crow as it takes flight, and the sinking sensation that none of the answers I need are going to come easily.

The Kish Valley Motel and RV Park is located just west of Belleville proper. It’s a midcentury modern motel with a neon sign above the office and two wings of rooms, each with a clattering window-unit air conditioner and turquoise door. A smattering of cottages and RVs are nestled in the trees at the back. Two cars are parked in the lot. Half a dozen kids play in a courtyard pool that’s more green than blue, but no one seems to mind.

It’s fully dark by the time I check in. Hoping for quiet away from the pool kids, I choose one of the “honeymoon” cottages at the rear and lug my overnight bag into a room that smells of air freshener and old carpet. But the place is clean and cool, the bed covered with fresh linens, and according to the online reviews, the Wi-Fi fast.

I call Tomasetti while I unpack.

“How’s the trip so far?” he asks.

“Interesting. Strange. Seems like I’ve been here longer than a day.”

“If I’m not mistaken, that’s a Grateful Dead song.”

I laugh, missing him, and take a few minutes to update him on everything I learned today.

“Weapon found at the scene is damning,” he says.

“Most of the evidence is circumstantial.”

“Pretty strong set of circumstances, though.”

I sigh. “I was hoping the sheriff’s department would be more open to sharing information.”

“I’ve no doubt they’ll warm up to you,” he says. “Any hostility from the victim’s family?”

I tell him about my visit with Mary Elizabeth Hershberger. “She wasn’t hostile, but shut me down pretty quickly. The Amish are generally pretty well behaved. I’m hoping to speak with the son tomorrow.”

A buzz of silence and then he asks. “So what’s your take on Bowman?”

“I met his wife and kids,” I tell him. “Nice family.”

He pauses. “And Bowman?”

A quiver of tension creeps up the back of my neck, but I swish it away. “I only saw him for a few minutes at the jail. He’s … the same. Seems like a typical Amish guy. Husband. Father. Cabinetmaker. His wife is working on bail.”

“Do you think he did it?”

I let the question sink in, force my mind into all those corners I initially didn’t want to explore because I was afraid of what I’d see. “I don’t think so. I mean, I knew him a year or so before the murder happened. Before his family left Painters Mill. I can’t see him murdering his own bishop.”

“Sounds like you have your work cut out for you.”

“I think that pretty much sums it up.”

“Will you do me a favor?”

“You know I will.”

“Keep in mind that this is a homicide investigation, Kate. The stakes are high. We’re talking life in prison without parole—or the death penalty. People get squirrelly when their life is on the line. The case may be cold and the players Amish, but it’s still murder no matter how you cut it. That old man didn’t get shot twice and buried all by himself.”

“Is that your way of telling me not to trust Jonas simply because I grew up with him?” Despite the teasing note I add to my voice, I hear the underlying seriousness buried in the question.

“I’m telling you a person can change a lot in twenty years,” he says. “Don’t forget that.”