A Prayer for the Night (16 page)

Gray Suit pushed through the office door, took hold of Yoder’s shirt collar, and threw a heavy punch into Yoder’s ribs. Yoder folded to his knees and was hauled, gasping, to his feet. Then the bartender marched both Miller and Yoder out the door to the parking lot.

When the bartender came back through the door, Branden handed him a five and said, “Keep the change.”

His back was to the bar, and he didn’t see Gray Suit advancing on him as he handed over the bill. Gray Suit crooked his left arm around the professor’s neck in a chokehold from the back and threw a vicious right-hand punch into Branden’s side. Branden’s knees gave way and he sagged into the chokehold. Another quick punch took Branden to his knees. He passed out briefly. When he came to, the man had him pinned face down on the floor, his arm cranked painfully up against his back, a kidney taking the full weight of his attacker’s knee.

Gray Suit fumbled with Branden’s ankle holster, pulled out the AMT Backup, and cracked it onto the back of Branden’s skull, growling, “Nobody brings a gun into my bar!”

Gray Suit pitched the little silver pistol to the bartender, pulled Branden to his feet, and slammed him out through the metal door into the parking lot. The bartender came out, and Gray Suit barked, “Back inside, Jimmy!” and smashed the edge of his hand against the back of Branden’s neck.

When the bartender was gone, Gray Suit said, “I saw you talking into your shirt, dummy. You the law?”

Branden said, “Figure it out for yourself.”

Gray Suit spun Branden around and took him with both fists by the front of his shirt. A quarter inch off his nose, he whispered, “That was for Jimmy’s benefit. Tell Arnetto I still don’t know where the X lab is. Tell him to find that lab before he does anything that’ll blow my cover.”

BY THE TIME Branden made it to the back of the parking lot, Jeremiah was helping Abe Yoder into his Chevy. He looked up, saw Branden, recognized him, and froze. Branden started forward, cradling the back of his neck, and Jeremiah ran around the front of his car, jumped behind the wheel, and sped off toward Gahanna.

Standing on the gravel parking lot, Branden reported, “Yoder is hurt—punched in the ribs. Miller is driving your way in a white Chevy Nova.”

Branden hobbled to Cal’s truck and eased himself into the driver’s seat to follow the Nova. A mile down the road, he saw that Ricky Niell’s cruiser had forced Jeremiah’s Chevy over onto the school parking lot. When Branden pulled up, Yoder was slumped down in the passenger seat of the Chevy. The sheriff’s deputy was already leaning in through the open door, pressing a large gauze bandage to Abe Yoder’s side. Branden limped up to Miller’s car, saw the blood on the compress, and turned back to the cruiser.

Jeremiah Miller sat sideways in the backseat of Niell’s cruiser, holding his head in his hands, feet out on the pavement. Ricky Niell, in the front passenger seat, was making a radio call for an ambulance.

Robertson stood beside his blue sedan with a radio microphone in his hand, making another call. When Branden came up to him, Gray Suit from the bar was rolling a red Lexus by the scene, eyeing the Holmes County cruiser with obvious agitation and talking on a cell phone.

Branden lifted his chin at the passing car to draw Robertson’s attention to it without staring at Gray Suit, and said, “That guy’s from the bar. Works in the office. He’s DEA, from what I can tell. Gave me a message for Arnetto. If he’s smart about being undercover, he’s calling Samuel White. We’re going to have to take Abe Yoder someplace where he can’t be found. They still think he has their briefcase full of drugs.”

Robertson read the license plate on the passing car and took out a small spiral notebook to write down the number.

“They sell more drugs in that bar than booze,” Branden said, rubbing at the pressure in his temples. “It was a stupid play for Yoder to let himself be seen down here if he couldn’t return the briefcase.”

“This is Tony Arnetto’s territory,” Robertson said. “If we take Yoder to Mount Carmel East, I can get a face-to-face with Arnetto this afternoon.”

Branden opened the back door of Robertson’s car and flopped onto the seat on his back, feet sticking out.

Robertson said, “You gonna be all right, Mike?”

“In a minute.”

“Why’s your ankle holster hanging out loose?”

“That’s thanks to Tony Arnetto’s undercover man. He helped me dispose of the AMT in an unsafe manner.”

Saturday, July 24
3:00 P.M.

 

 

“THE man in the gray suit is my guy!” Arnetto barked. “He’s my agent. What did you think you were doing?”

Robertson and Branden were seated in a small conference room on the second floor, above the emergency suites, at Mount Carmel East Hospital, in the eastern suburbs of Columbus. Arnetto stood with his back to the glass window of the conference room door, blocking entrance to anyone who might try to interrupt them. Branden met Arnetto’s hostile gaze squarely. Robertson fought for control of his emotions.

With forced calm, Robertson said, “You’re overreacting.”

Branden glanced sideways at the smoldering sheriff, enjoying the full irony, despite the unpleasant circumstances, of Robertson’s accusing anyone of that particular mistake. He laid his palms flat on the conference table, and said, “Sara Yoder deserves more than this. We were trying to help her.”

“What if Samuel White had been there?” Arnetto complained, and sat down across from them at the table.

“He wasn’t,” Branden said. “And because I was there, we now have Yoder and Miller in custody.”

“The man you saw in the gray suit is Robert French, from St. Louis. We brought him here as a fresh face to infiltrate White’s operation. He had some believable credentials from St. Louis after a successful undercover stint there in the mob. They still think he’s a right guy with them. So he won’t blow both covers, he’s telling Samuel White that those two Amish kids came into the bar this afternoon. He’s telling White that Yoder was taken by ambulance to the hospital, and that a sheriff’s cruiser was involved. Before we leave this room, White will have someone in the emergency room to check Yoder out. It won’t matter that I’ve got agents down there with him. Someone will tell White where Yoder is. You can bet on that. Then, they’re going to take him out.”

“French doesn’t have to tell White anything,” Robertson said, knots of muscle jumping in the corner of his jaw.

“Yes he does!” Arnetto said. “If he doesn’t, the bartender will. And I’m not ready to move on those arrests yet. I told you, it’s got to be organized meticulously. French needs time to try to locate White’s Ecstasy lab. We’re sending in someone else from St. Louis with a bigger Ecstasy order than White normally handles. We think that’ll flush out his labs for us.”

Robertson argued, “You don’t have to get the lab. Just take out White, the bar, the Gahanna house, everything you’ve got. If that doesn’t turn up Sara Yoder, then we can interrogate White.”

“You think White would turn her over to us? Admit to kidnapping on top of everything else?”

“He would if you made him a good enough deal.”

“If you think I’m going to make any deals with White at this stage of the game, you’re an idiot.”

Ricky Niell pushed in through the glass conference room door, and escorted Jeremiah Miller behind Arnetto to a seat at the head of the table. He caught Robertson’s eye, tipped his head at Jeremiah, and sat down between Arnetto and Miller.

Across the table, Robertson considered Niell’s gesture and appeared to capitulate. To Arnetto, he said, “OK, Tony. I don’t like it, but we’ll do it your way.”

Arnetto got out of his chair, puzzled by what had transpired. He looked long at Jeremiah, as if he were considering holding him on charges. To Robertson, he said, “Stay clear of this, Bruce. Give us until Monday.”

Robertson signaled acquiescence with a wave of his hand. “Monday,” he said, eyes focused on the flat of the table.

Arnetto left.

Robertson turned to Niell and said, “This had better be good.”

Niell said, “We need to let Jeremiah talk with the professor.”

Robertson shot, “He can talk to me!”

Not fazed by the sheriff’s hostility, Ricky said, “Jeremiah has assured me that if he can talk to Mike for a while, he’ll tell us everything he knows about Abe Yoder, John Schlabaugh, and Samuel White’s briefcase full of drugs. What he didn’t know before, he’s learned from Abe Yoder today. You’re going to want to hear what he has to say. But first, he wants to talk with the professor.”

 

WHEN Branden brought Robertson and Niell back into the conference room, Jeremiah had Branden’s wadded handkerchief in his fist, dabbing tears from his red and swollen eyes. He straightened when the men came in, and he glanced to the professor for reassurance. Branden nodded compassionately and said to Robertson, “Jeremiah helped Abe Yoder leave the hospital. He’s got some things to say. I’ve heard most of it, and I’ve reassured him that he’s not in trouble with the law. That’s what he really wanted to talk with me about, Bruce, before he talked with you.”

When Niell and the sheriff were seated, Jeremiah began.

“I’ve been crazy in the head about Sara. I know the kind of people who took her. The younger Yoder boys who saw her taken say it was a big redheaded man. That’s Samuel White, who Abe says shot Johnny Schlabaugh. He saw it, he said. I believe him.

“We thought, why not take the briefcase back to the bar? A lot of the drugs were still there. And the money, too. So I took a buggy to the hospital, and me and Abe went back to the cabin to get the briefcase. That’s how we thought we’d get Sara back. Turn over the briefcase.

“But someone took it. So Abe and me, we tried to buy another gun from that shop over by Wilmot, but the guy wouldn’t sell us one. So that’s when I thought I’d trade them, her for me. Something like that. That’s why we went to the bar. White still thinks we have his drugs. But the bartender there threw us out, and the professor saw us.

“Abe was hurt and bleeding again, so we just ran. I thought I’d get him to a hospital. That’s when you stopped us by the school.

“I’m losing my mind, thinking about Sara. I can’t think hardly straight anymore. But one thing I did remember, talking with Officer Niell, here. He asked me all those questions. Made me remember.

“One day, about two months ago, I followed Johnny Schlabaugh in my car. He met that big redhead at Becks Mills, and they drove back toward Charm and turned onto a weedy lane, into some trees. It was just an old barn there, so I didn’t think anything of it. But now it’s different. They’ve put in electric. It’s way back in, nowhere from anywhere, and there’s a big electric line going right in there.”

Robertson asked, “Can you show us where that is?”

Jeremiah said, “I can take you there, or you can go yourself. I wrote down the GPS coordinates. You’re gonna want them, because White called me on Johnny’s secret phone.”

“Wait a minute,” Robertson said. “Why do you have Schlabaugh’s cell phone?”

“Abe took it when he buried Johnny. Thought it’d be safer to use. There’s no way of tracing that kind of prepaid phone, he said.”

Branden asked, “Then how did you get it?”

“I’ve been helping Abe, out at the cabin where you found him. He gave it to me three days ago. It was me who ran off when you showed up at the cabin.”

Saturday, July 24
9:40 P.M.

 

 

CAL TROYER took the professor’s call as the last glimmer of twilight was fading from the valley at Salem Cemetery. The professor was with the sheriff ’s men. There would be a rescue attempt that night.

Cal listened intently and spoke briefly, then switched off as the purple martins darted overhead, making their last sorties for mosquitoes in front of the Albert P. Yoder residence. The cricket song in the pastures was strident, the low, murmuring notes of cattle mixed in. The yellow flicker of lantern light shined from several windows in the big house. Cal stood on the lawn between the house and barn and sought out the stars overhead. Spoke a prayer for the night.

Some of the news was good, he mused. The young Miller boy was safe, although his role in the troubles was unclear. Abe Yoder, though wounded, was at least in good hands at Mt. Carmel East. But Sara Yoder had not been found. Most troubling was the story of Samuel Red Dog White, who now held Sara’s fate in his hands. No, Cal corrected himself, White held only her life in his hands. Her fate was in the hands of God.

Eyes lifted to the heavens, Cal listed for himself the tidings he would bear. The prayers he would organize with Bishop Raber, and the vigils they would keep, as Branden and Robertson searched desperately for Sara. As the hours passed by. Before Tony Arnetto could organize his people in Columbus.

First, to Miriam and Albert P. Yoder: Abe is safe for now. His stitches have torn open. Infection has taken hold once again. His fever is a danger to him as much as the wound. Pray for healing.