Broken English Read online

  Table of Contents

  A PLUME BOOK BROKEN ENGLISH

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Copyright Page

  PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1 - The middle of May

  Chapter 2 - Tuesday Night Several days later

  Chapter 3 - Saturday, May 31 5:30 P.M.

  Chapter 4 - Sunday, June 8 3:00 P.M.

  Chapter 5 - Sunday, June 8 3:30 P.M.

  Chapter 6 - Monday, June 9 10:00 A.M.

  Chapter 7 - Monday, June 9 1:45 P.M.

  Chapter 8 - Monday, June 9 6:30 P.M.

  Chapter 9 - Tuesday, June 10 4:30 A.M.

  Chapter 10 - Tuesday, June 10 8:15 A.M.

  Chapter 11 - Tuesday, June 10 10:30 A.M.

  Chapter 12 - Tuesday, June 10 11:30 A.M.

  Chapter 13 - Tuesday, June 10 11:50 A.M.

  Chapter 14 - Tuesday, June 10 2:15 P.M.

  Chapter 15 - Tuesday, June 10 6:00 P.M.

  Chapter 16 - Tuesday, June 10 9:00 P.M.

  Chapter 17 - Wednesday, June 11 9:15 A.M.

  Chapter 18 - Wednesday, June 11 10:00 A.M.

  Chapter 19 - Wednesday, June 11 12:30 P.M.

  Chapter 20 - Wednesday, June 11 9:00 P.M.

  Chapter 21 - Friday, June 13 7:00 A.M.

  Chapter 22 - Friday, June 13 11:00 A.M.

  Chapter 23 - Monday, June 16

  Chapter 24 - Monday, June 16 6:00 A.M.

  Chapter 25 - Monday, June 16 4:20 P.M.

  Chapter 26 - Monday, June 16 4:45 P.M.

  Chapter 27 - Monday, June 16 5:10 P.M.

  Chapter 28 - Monday, June 16 11:30 P.M.

  Chapter 29 - Tuesday, June 17 10:00 A.M., and later that night

  Chapter 30 - Tuesday, June 17 11:15 P.M.

  Chapter 31 - Wednesday, June 18 5:30 A.M.

  Chapter 32 - Thursday, June 19 5:45 P.M.

  Chapter 33 - Wednesday, July 2

  Teaser chapter

  A PLUME BOOK BROKEN ENGLISH

  PAUL LOUIS GAUS lives with his wife, Madonna, in Wooster, Ohio, just a few miles north of Holmes County, where the world’s largest and most varied settlement of Amish and Mennonite people is found. His knowledge of the culture of the “Plain People” stems from more than thirty years of extensive exploration of the narrow blacktop roads and lesser gravel lanes of this pastoral community, which includes several dozen sects of Anabaptists living closely among the so-called English or Yankee non-Amish people of the county. Paul lectures widely about the Amish people he has met and about the lifestyles, culture, and religion of this remarkable community of Christian pacifists. He can be found online at: www.plgaus.com. He also maintains a Web presence with Mystery Writers of America: www.mysterywriters.org.

  For my wife, Madonna

  PLUME

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. ● Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) ● Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England ● Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) ● Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) ● Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India ● Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) ● Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Published by Plume, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Plume Printing, November 2010

  Copyright © P. L. Gaus, 2000

  Excerpt from Clouds Without Rain copyright © P. L. Gaus, 2001

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  The Library of Congress has catalogued the Ohio University Press edition as follows: Gaus, Paul L.

  Broken English : an Ohio Amish mystery / P.L. Gaus. p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-46601-8

  1. Amish—Ohio—Fiction. 2. Amish Country (Ohio)—Fiction. I. Title .

  PS3557.A95 17 B76 2000

  813’.54—dc21

  99-086623

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE AT QUANTITY DISCOUNTS WHEN USED TO PROMOTE PRODUCTS OR SERVICES. FOR INFORMATION PLEASE WRITE TO PREMIUM MARKETING DIVISION, PENGUIN GROUP (USA) INC., 375 HUDSON STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10014.

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  PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  All of the characters and events in this novel are purely fictional, and any apparent resemblance to people living or dead is coincidental. The rifle range in this story is loosely patterned after the famous Kelbly benchrest rifle range on farmland in Wayne County, Ohio, beside the Dalton-Fox Lake road.

  The author has strived to make descriptions of Amish life and thought as authentic as possible. The descriptions of places in Holmes County, Ohio, are true to life, although not all of the places are real. For those interested, the best Holmes County map can be obtained at the office of the County Engineer, across the street from the Holmes County Court House and the old red brick jail. Millersburg College is entirely fictional.

  All scripture cited in this novel is taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by the International Bible Society, and used by permission of the Zondervan Publishing House.

  Music verse courtesy of Ian Tyson, Slick Fork Music.

  I am grateful for the assistance of Mr. Robert Eggles of the New Jersey Department of Corrections, George Kelbly, and Holmes County Sheriff Tim Zimmerly. Thanks also to Dean Troyer, Eli Troyer, and Madonna Gaus. Special thanks to Skip McKee, Bravo Battery, 3BN, 18 ARTY, Chu Lai.

  Romans 12:17-19

  17Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. 18If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.

  1

  The middle of May

  JESSE Sands, twenty-five years in the New Jersey State Prison for rape and felonious assault, had served a full term, without credit for either good or industrious behavior. From the ages of twenty-two to forty-seven, his home had been a cold prison fortress of brown stone and razor wire, built one hundred and fifty years ago in a resolute age when prisons had been intended to punish criminals. For twenty-five steadfast years, the Trenton prison had done its duty regarding Jesse Sands. Then, abruptly, onc
e he had maxed out on his original sentence, he was turned loose without parole. The red iron doors swung open for him at 10:30 A.M., and by nightfall he had bought a gun on the streets and exacted his first harsh measure of revenge.

  In the three weeks following his release, Sands had headed west, across Pennsylvania and West Virginia, to the Ohio River at Steubenville, where he thumbed a ride at night over the river and continued along Route 22 as far as the eastern Ohio burg of Cadiz. There he caught a ride with a truck driver, and, after sleeping in the cab as they traveled at night, Sands pistol-whipped the trucker at 4:00 A.M. in the bathroom of a deserted rest stop along US 250, dragged him into the woods beside the road, shot him in the back of the head, and stole the rig.

  Sands drove west on 250 until dawn and abandoned the truck in a lot behind a Burger King at New Philadelphia. After walking several miles in the morning, he flagged down an unwary farmer north of Dover, and they traveled together peacefully until Sands got out at Wilmot. He lunched there at an Amish restaurant and then started walking through the countryside along Route 62, heading southwest toward Winesburg, Berlin, and Millersburg. As he stalked the Amish colonies of Holmes County, he caught rides with two unsuspecting tourists and, toward sunset, with a kindly Amish youngster coming home late from sparking his sweetheart in a buggy. By the time Sands reached the sleepy hills of Millersburg, it was nightfall on a rainy Saturday in May, and a report had gone out to the sheriffs in several eastern Ohio counties about a murdered truck driver at a rest stop and his abandoned eighteen-wheeler, found in New Philadelphia with most of the gears ground out.

  That night, in a steady downpour, near a west-end neighborhood bar in Millersburg, Jesse Sands stood rock-still in an alley, eyeing the houses along one of the narrow streets that marked the western limit of town, overlooking the Killbuck Creek and its broad and marshy floodplain beyond.

  From his position pressed flat against the weathered boards of an old garage in the graveled alley, Sands worked his eyes methodically, first in one direction and then in the other. He waited there motionless, watching the comings and goings at a neighborhood bar at the end of the street. His collar was turned up tightly against the back of his neck, and the night rain dripped off the front brim of his rumpled, black rain hat. He was dressed for the night in black jeans, dark brown workboots, a lightweight black windbreaker over a dark blue pullover shirt and black sweater.

  There was the constant pelting of the rain against the galvanized tin roof, the clatter of running water in the downspouts, and the occasional splash of tires on the street as a car eased along in front of him. In time, the splatter of rain on his hat put a thin line of cold water under his collar. It trickled down his back between his shoulder blades. He took his hat off, slapped it against the rough boards of the garage, and pulled it back over his damp hair, then stood rigidly against the boards, ignoring the rain as he watched the bar at the end of the street.

  The front of the bar was lit by a floodlight at the top of a wooden pole. The building was an old house, sided with wood shingles stained dark green. The shingles covered all of the windows on the front of the structure. Facing the street, there was otherwise only a steel door with a small diamond-shaped window at about head level. Where there once might have been a lawn, there was now a gravel parking lot that surrounded the bar on three sides. Two cars and a pickup were parked in front, taking a neon glow in the rain from a Budweiser sign that hung out near the street.

  After deciding to enter, he moved quickly across the gravel lot underneath the floodlight, stepped up onto the old porch, turned his collar down, pushed through the heavy door past two cigarette machines, and stood just inside the door, waiting for his eyes to adjust.

  As he scanned the smoky room from the doorway, Sands slowly removed his hat, ran his fingers through his curly hair, and forced a slight smile. He managed a steady and confident expression, standing with his feet close together, holding his dripping black hat loosely in his fingers at his side.

  Along the right wall in a single first-floor room was a series of four booths with puffy black Naugahyde upholstery. Sands counted: Three men at the first booth. A man and a woman in western dress at the second booth. A young couple at the third booth, getting ready to leave. The fourth booth was empty.

  The bar itself ran along the opposite wall of the room. No one was seated on the five padded stools there. The bartender stood quietly eyeing Sands, while polishing a glass with a white towel.

  The bartender was short and muscular, and he wore a white apron strapped tightly around his waist. The sleeves on his plain white T-shirt were rolled up to his shoulders, showing tattoos on each arm, anchors with serpents. Good, Sands thought. Serpent-arms won’t be the talkative type.

  Sands took a seat at the far end of the bar, laid his wet hat on the barstool to his left, and looked directly ahead at the whiskey bottles on the shelves, his back straight. The bartender lingered more than a polite moment while he lit a cigarette, pulled on it unhurriedly, and laid it deliberately in an ashtray next to the cash register. Then he moved slowly toward Sands, dragging a towel to polish the surface of the dark wood as he approached. Five feet from where Sands had taken his seat, the bartender stopped and waited, looking directly at Sands without speaking. Sands ordered without glancing at the bartender, “Two drafts now and two more later.”

  Two draft beers, in heavy frosted mugs, were silently delivered, and the bartender resumed his place at the other end of the bar. Sands drank one of the drafts down straight away and tuned his ears to the conversations in the booths behind him. Normal, he thought. Steady, quiet voices. They had taken note of him, but they now seemed willing to ignore him. He could drink alone. He’d be able to think. Think about the few needs and rare pleasures that still mattered to him.

  For Sands, there were no imposing moral dilemmas. No work appointments, no family obligations, no friends and no troubles. Neither were there any long-term plans to be made. There was only the money, running low now despite his string of robberies. He needed more, soon, and that was all he knew. That was all he cared about. Perhaps this would be the town, he mused, where he’d finally stage a daylight bank job.

  Sands took a cigarette out of his windbreaker’s inside breast pocket, snapped a silver Zippo open, and lit up. He watched the room in the mirror behind the bar, exhaled heavy smoke from a Camel straight, absently spit a few grains of loose tobacco off the tip of his tongue, and returned to his beer. As he drank down the second one slowly, Sands began to relax, and his mind wandered from present needs to former pleasures. Someday they’d find that trucker, but he didn’t care. The girl in the pickup truck had been easy. They might find her truck, but they’d never find her. A satisfied smile crossed his face. He had a boyish look sitting there, but his jaw was set hard, and his eyes were narrowed to slits as he drank alone and thought.

  How many houses had he broken into? A dozen, maybe? Child’s play, picking out the easy ones. Then there was the rush, the surge of power as he prowled through a darkened house, sometimes finding the owners at home, sometimes waiting in the dark until they returned.

  For several quiet minutes at the bar, Sands held his memories closely, and then a burst of laughter from one of the booths behind him snapped him back into the room, and his mind returned to the question of banks.

  Banks. Even in the daylight, they were surely better than houses. He sipped on his beer, lit another cigarette, and gazed thoughtfully ahead.

  For sure, robbing houses was a nuisance. And finding a fence for what he stole was a bother. Risky. Always troublesome in strange towns. Stores and banks would suit him better. He glanced briefly along the bar to the cash register and wondered if bars would be good for him, too.

  In time, Sands lit another smoke and finished his second beer. He pushed the two empties forward on the bar and turned his head to see if the short bartender had been watching. Two more frosted mugs were delivered, promptly, along with the tab. The bartender’s gaze remained fix
ed on Sands slightly longer than could be considered warm and friendly. He slid the tab forward, flipped his towel over one shoulder, and returned to his end of the bar near the cash register.

  Not so subtle, Mr. Bartender, Sands thought. Four beers and out, is that it? No problem. He’d find a place to stay, and then tomorrow he’d study the town at his pleasure.

  He finished the two beers quickly, threw the money, with no tip, on top of the green and white paper tab, and spoke from his end of the bar.

  “Where’s the john?”

  The bartender moved slowly along the edge of the bar toward him, swept off the money, and answered without turning away, “In the back.”

  When he was finished, Sands slipped out through the back delivery door into an alley. He took several deep breaths of the night spring air. The rain had stopped, and he stuffed his rain hat into an outside waist pocket of his windbreaker. The dampness held the chill in his legs. Maybe he’d just forgotten. Cold spring weather. A permanent chill that creeps into your bones. He drew another deep breath of the damp air and set off in the dark to walk the stiffness out of his legs.

  He moved rapidly away from the bar, into a narrow alley that led through a neighborhood of old houses. His legs and arms soon responded to the pace, and the cold air invigorated him in a way that had never been possible in the confines of prison. This was the part of freedom that surprised him the most, walking wherever he chose, always quickly, as far as he liked, sometimes spending hours moving through the alleys and back streets of an unfamiliar town. By the time he had reached Ohio, he had realized that he could cross the country in this manner. When he made it to the mountains out west, he intended to climb up somewhere high, alone, and spend a day looking down on a city, or out across some prairie, enjoying the long vistas he had forfeited in prison. He’d be able to see forever. To enjoy being alone, high up and in command. Choosing for himself the moment to drop down onto a town.