Blood of the Prodigal Read online

  Table of Contents

  A PLUME BOOK BLOOD OF THE PRODIGAL

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  PREFACE AND

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Teaser chapter

  A PLUME BOOK BLOOD OF THE PRODIGAL

  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.

  PLUME

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. •

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  M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand,

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  (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road,

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  India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand

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

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

  First Plume Printing, October

  Copyright © P. L. Gaus, 1999

  Excerpt from Broken English copyright © P. L. Gaus, 2000

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

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

  Blood of the prodigal / P.L. Gaus. p. cm.

  “An Ohio Amish mystery.”

  eISBN : 978-1-101-46097-9

  I. Title.

  PS3557.A9517B-45883 813’.54—dc21

  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.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To my wife, Madonna

  a cognizant original release october 01 2010

  PREFACE AND

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  All of the characters in this novel are purely fictional, and any apparent resemblance to people living or dead is coincidental.

  Many of the places in this novel are real, and the author has strived in those cases to make them as true to life as possible. For Holmes County, in particular, most of the descriptions and locations are authentic. The same is true of the Bass Islands area of Lake Erie, near the towns of Port Clinton, Lakeside, and Marblehead. 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. Leeper School is still in use, but it is not located in the Doughty Valley.

  I am grateful for the kind and valuable assistance of Seaman Anthony Muccino, U.S. Coast Guard, of Holmes County Sheriff Tim Zimmerly, and of Wooster, Ohio, Police Chief Steve Thorn-ton. Thanks also to Pastor Dean Troyer, Eli Troyer, and Kathy Chapman, as well as to Tony Hillerman for encouragement and advice. The author also most gratefully acknowledges the kind and expert assistance of the late Professor William I. Schreiber, whose excellent book Our Amish Neighbors, © 1992 by William I. Schreiber, can still be obtained through the Florence O. Wilson Bookstore, The College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio 44691.

  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.

  1

  Friday, May 22

  4:30 A.M.

  LIKE all Amish children of ten, Jeremiah Miller had known his share of sunrises. Morning chores had long since taken care of that. Every day brought the same duties. His grandfather had made it clear. Children were for working. Life was supposed to be hard. Generally, for Jeremiah, it was.

  But lately, Jeremiah had discovered something new and wonderful in his dawn chores. Something exhilarating. Also a bit frightening, because he suspected it was forbidden. It was so simple, he thought, who could object? If he arose before the others and slipped out quietly, he could be alone, drawn awake early by the allure of a solitary Ohio dawn.

  It had begun last winter. None of the other children had understood. After all, who would choose to be alone? So he kept it to himself, now. Even Grossdaddy didn’t know. It was Jeremiah Miller’s little secret. At so young an age, he had already discovered that the dawn could give him a sense of identity separate from the others. And this was his first act of nonconformity. Among the Gemie, that was considered evidence of pridefulness. And pride was surely the worst of sins. He worried that it could eventually brand him a rebel. Like his father.

  He’d dress quietly in the clothes his grandmo
ther had made —clothes that were identical to those of other Amish children. Long underwear and denim trousers with a broadfall flap. A light-blue, long-sleeved shirt with no collar. A heavy denim jacket. Suspenders. And a dark blue knit skull cap. If he escaped the house before the others awakened, Jeremiah Miller was free.

  In the barns before sunrise, only the Coleman lantern kept him company, hissing softly as he drifted among the animals, in and out of the stalls. In winter, there was the enchanting, billowing steam his breath made in the crisp air. The delightful crunching of his boots in the snow. There was, especially, the peace and the solitude, and at only ten, Jeremiah Miller had come to reckon that dawn would always be his favorite part of the day.

  Today, late in May, it was nearing the end of a season still often raw and bleak, the usual for a northern Ohio spring. Some days were almost entirely awash in gray. Yesterday, there had been only the barest hint of a sunrise, delicate shades of pink as he had worked alone at morning chores. Then an afternoon drizzle had developed into a steady, all-night rain as a storm front moved in off the great lake, a hundred miles to the north.

  Jeremiah slipped out from under the quilts and sat, wrapped in his down comforter, on the edge of the bed. He listened there a while for sounds of his family stirring. Hearing nothing, he drew the ornate quilt around his waist, eased lightly across the plain wooden floor to the window, pulled back the long purple curtains, and peered out. Yesterday’s rain had slackened to a cold drizzle. He saw no hint of sunlight at his window, but as he was about to release the curtains, the headlights of a rare car flashed on the foggy lane in front of his house. He briefly thought it strange, and then, hitching up the comforter, he let the curtains go slack.

  He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on his shirt and denim trousers. He glided down the hall, the wooden floor cool beneath his stocking feet. He passed the other bedrooms carefully and crept down the stairs. He eased through the kitchen unerringly in the dark, lifted his jacket from its peg, pulled the heavy oak door open, and slipped through the storm door onto the back porch.

  There would be no supervisions on the rounds of his morning chores. No instructions if he worked alone. No corrections. No reminders to conform. The hours before dawn were his alone. The one time of each day when he owned himself entirely. Jeremiah had discovered that solitude was personal. More personal than anything else he had known.

  On the back porch, he stuffed his feet into his cold boots and laced them, hooked his suspenders to the buttons on his plain denim trousers, and closed the hooks on his short, denim waist jacket. Reaching down for the green Coleman lantern, he gave the pump several adept strokes and lit the silk mantle with a wooden match. Then he rolled his thin collar up and stepped off the porch into the rain.

  School would close soon for summer, he thought. He set the lantern on the muddy ground outside the massive sliding doors to the red bank barn. School wasn’t so bad. And summers could be long. So why did Grossdaddy speak so bitterly of school?

  He set his weight against the sliding door and forced it heavily sideways on its rollers. Grandfather would like the teachers, if only he’d come to visit the school. It was just down the gravel lane, less than a mile. Teacher stayed late every day, and they could talk. If only Grandfather would. The other men thought well of teachers, so why didn’t Grandfather? Jeremiah only knew that something had happened long ago. Something that would never be discussed. He suspected it had something to do with his father.

  A nervous black kitten launched itself through the crack between the sliding doors at his feet, and he sidestepped it superstitiously.

  “Kommen Sie,” he called gently after the cat, momentarily curious. He whistled for it softly, shrugged, picked up the lantern, and squeezed through the narrow opening between the doors.

  The three-story bank barn was set into the side of a hill behind the big house. At the bottom of the hill, the sliding doors opened to the lowest level of the barn. The top of the hill gave access, on the other side of the barn, to the second level. There were nine stalls down the right side of the lower level, and eight down the left. The avenue down the middle was strewn with fresh straw. Five massive oak uprights stood in a line down the middle of the avenue, taking the weight of the roof. The crossbeams were made of walnut twelve-by-twelve’s. The haylofts ran high above, on either side of the third level, planked out in rough-hewn maple and elm. Long runs of rope and chain looped through a large wooden block and tackle, which was hung from an iron wheel that ran high in the rafters on a rail the full length of the peak. Leather harnesses and collars hung in front of each of the stalls. At the far end, the rakes, mowers, and threshers stood silently in the wide avenue. Their iron wheels were easily a head taller than Jeremiah.

  Inside, Jeremiah climbed onto a stepstool to hang the lantern against one of the upright beams, and hopped down in front of the first stall. He scaled the slats of the gate and made a clicking sound with the inside of his cheek against his teeth. He balanced on his toes near the top of the gate and reached up to stroke the nose of the Belgian draft horse, light chestnut brown with a creamy white mane. As it thumped ponderously in the straw, Jeremiah rubbed at its wet nose and bristling hairs, then jumped down with a laugh and took the tasseled whip from its hook beside the stall.

  He snapped the black whip playfully overhead and grinned, mindful that his Grandfather’s were the very finest of all the Belgians in Holmes County. That was good, not prideful, he thought. Not prideful to admire a good horse. After all, God had made them Himself. And hadn’t Grandfather promised that his time would soon come to work a whip behind them? To learn to plow. To run a harrow. To handle a team of Belgians! A boy should not go to school forever, Grossdaddy had said. Why should a boy be smarter than a father?

  As he played with the whip, the unexpected aroma of tobacco drifted Jeremiah’s way. Startled, he remembered the skittish cat and the weird headlights earlier on the lane. He stood tip-toe on the stepstool, took down the glowing lantern, held it high overhead, hesitated a fateful moment, and moved apprehensively toward the far end of the barn.

  IN THE milky light of dawn, a small girl in a black bonnet stood on the elevated lawn in front of the Millers’ white frame house. Her bonnet was tied close against her cheeks, with thin cloth strands under her chin. Her narrow shoulders were draped properly with a black shawl that was knotted loosely in front and covered her hands. In the delicate morning light, her long pleated skirt showed the barest hint of rich peacock blue. She was motionless except for her large, tranquil brown eyes as they followed the headlights of a car approaching on the lane.

  The hollow sound of slow tires crushing loose gravel ground to a halt as the car rolled up to a mailbox mounted on the white picket fence. The driver’s window rolled down, revealing police insignias on the sleeve of a blue jacket. The driver reached out and flipped an envelope into the mailbox. As the girl watched silently, the car sped off, throwing gravel, its taillights disappearing into the lingering fog.

  2

  Thursday, June 18

  9:00 A.M.

  ON A clear summer morning, Bishop Eli Miller drove his top buggy into town along little-used township roads. The buggy was a one-seater, a boxy, covered affair of the typical Ohio Amish style. The large wooden wheels carried iron rims, not rubber, as was proper among the bishop’s sect of the Old Order. The roll curtains on the side windows were tied up, as was the curtained windshield over the wide dash. The hooves of the horse swung left and right in front of the rig, and struck a steady gait of hollow clicks in the gravel. The horse was well-lathered and had started to tire, but the bishop, in a somber mood, kept after him with an unrelenting whip.

  Bishop Miller was dressed in dark blue denim trousers with cloth suspenders, a long-sleeved white shirt, and a collarless black vest with hooks and eyes instead of buttons. He wore precisely the one type of white straw summer hat that was currently approved in his district. To the English who saw him that day, he seemed plain, Amish, nothing
more. Certainly no different in dress and demeanor than any Amish man, on any particular day. In Bishop Miller’s district, as for all Old Order Amish, that was the whole point. Look the same, live the same, stay the same. To live every day in tranquillity.

  Today, only a few would be any the wiser. Those who, studying his face closely, could have discerned the weeks of anguish in his reddened eyes. Little else betrayed him. Neither his dress nor the buggy. Perhaps only the horse’s unusually brisk pace and heavy lather.

  The buggy was entirely flat black. It sported no frills. Nothing in the way of vain decorations, horns, mirrors, paint, shiny metal, or any other of the various ostentations of the more liberal Wayne County Amish congregations to the north. These, he thought, had compromised with the world. Surely in the north, the bishop mused, the Gemei had lost its way.

  The narrow wheels of the buggy cut wispy lines into the berm. Miller worked the horse with the reins, staying carefully to the right. A car roared by, shaking the rig in its backdraft. The horse skittered, and he whistled softly and worked the reins to steady him. Another auto blared its horn and sped around. The impatience surprised Miller. Rather, it puzzled him. “English,” he whispered disapprovingly, as a pickup blared behind and passed abruptly. A day spent among them was a trial. “Remember,” his wife had said, “you have not chosen this.” Wise, he thought. And righteous. “Thank you, Lord, for the counsel of a Godly woman,” he prayed.

  The deacons, too, had urged him. Use the pastor to approach the professor. If the professor wouldn’t help, maybe the pastor would. Pastor Caleb “Cal” Troyer was known among the plain people. They would trust him, and Professor Branden, too, but no one else. Certainly not the law.

  His grip on the reins went limp as he shook his head, lost in thought and prayer. Little Jeremiah had been taken nearly four weeks ago. The burden of his chores had fallen to the other children. And lately the bishop had begun to doubt. The deacons had sensed these doubts in his prayers. He hadn’t spoken of it outright, but still they knew. Doubts about his outcast son bedeviled him endlessly, now, almost as much as the loss of his grandson.