In the Land of Milk and Honey (13 page)

“What's in it?” Glen asked politely as he appeared in the doorway behind me.

Rachel looked at her father for guidance.

“Chamomile, lavender, rose hips for the immune system, feverfew,” he said. “She knows the plants on sight but not the names so good.” He took the bag from Rachel and opened it, smelled the contents. “Mint too. You put mint in the tea?” he asked Rachel.

“Mint.” Rachel nodded, smiling happily. “Good for your tummy.” She circled her palm over her soft-looking belly.

“Where do you sell your herbal remedies?” I asked. I had my iPhone in my hand and was still recording.

“We set up at Root's Market on Tuesdays,” Henry said. “I take that day off work and go along with Rachel. But most customers come here. Rachel knows what she's doin'. She's never hurt anyone. What is it exactly you're lookin' for? And what's this got to do with Knepp and Hershberger? They ain't never been customers of ours.”

I glanced at Glen. He was peering closely at a shelf that had dozens of labeled glass bottles.

I decided I might as well be blunt. “The Knepps and Hershbergers were both quite ill with this sickness that's being transmitted in raw milk. Have you read about it or seen it on the news?”

Henry's eyes darted between me and Glen, who was still reading labels. “So? That's got nothing to do with Rachel and me. We don't even have a cow.”

I debated internally what to say next. I spoke carefully. “You would know how to give a cow milk sickness though, wouldn't you, Mr. Stoltzfus?”

He blinked at me, his face shocked. “I—why would anyone want to do that?”

“Harris.” Glen's voice was excited. He waved me over and pointed to a bottle on the shelf. The bottle was half full of a clear substance, and the label read: “Tall Boneset Extract.”

“It's another name for white snakeroot,” he muttered low in my ear.

I rubbed my lips, surprised and uneasy. It was certainly a breakthrough, but not one that was very gratifying. I only felt sad. Of course, this wasn't proof that Henry Stoltzfus had poisoned those cows. But he had the motive and the knowhow, and now we'd found the means—or at least
a
means. That many checkmarks rarely added up to coincidence.

Glen was watching me, his eyes asking how we should proceed. I straightened my shoulders and turned to Henry and Rachel.

“Mr. Stoltzfus, I'm going to have to ask you and Rachel to accompany us to the police station for questioning. You can refuse to go with me, but if you do, I
will
formally arrest you.” I could arrest him now, but I preferred to wait until we had more to go on, something that directly linked Henry and the poisonings. Once I made an arrest, it would be on his record for life.

Henry went pale. As if his legs were weak, he grabbed the edge of the worktable for support. “My grandchildren . . .”

“We'll take them along. There's a playroom where they can wait at the station. I'll call a police car to come get you.”

“Da? Wass wrong?” Rachel asked, studying her father's face. She looked confused and upset.

“It's fine, darlin'. We're just gonna take a little ride. Okay?” Henry rubbed her shoulder soothingly, his voice soft. “Come on, Billy.” He held out his other hand to the boy, who now had his game machine tucked close to his chest and was watching the proceedings with a solemn face. The boy hopped off the table without a word.

I was touched by how gentle Henry was with his daughter and grandson. But I knew better than to let it cloud my duty. I opened the shed door and motioned for them to step out ahead of me.

“Need to grab Rachel's coat and purse from the house,” Henry said quietly.

“I'm sorry, but I can't allow you to touch anything. While we're waiting, I'll go into the house and get your granddaughter and Rachel's things.”

Henry closed his eyes and shook his head, as if he couldn't believe this was happening. But he didn't protest. Head down, holding Rachel's hand on one side and the boy's on the other, Henry Stoltzfus walked resolutely
forward.

I had a black-and-white pick up the Stoltzfus family, and I rode back to the station with Glen. We drove into the city from the south, and as we approached the center of downtown, the traffic grew congested.

The heart of the city of Lancaster is Penn Square, where the Soldiers and Sailors Monument—impressive, gothic, and ornate—stands in a small circle in the middle of the square. A roundabout directs the flow of traffic around the statue to the four intersecting streets. Penn Square is ringed by quaint shops in old colonial buildings of brick, stone, and wood, and I always enjoyed passing through it.

But today, the traffic was jammed up blocks before Penn Square. I texted with Grady to fill him in and get the interview
room lined up, so I wasn't paying a lot of attention until Glen spoke up.

“Great. The governor will love this.”

I looked up and took in the crowds on either side of the street. A few signs clued me in on what I was looking at. Among the Saturday tourists and shoppers were protesters. There had to be a hundred pro-raw-milk protesters with their signs and slogans. On one corner of Penn Square, a smaller group in opposition shouted at passing cars. They carried signs that read: “Pasteurization—Good for Farmers, Good for You” and “Raw Milk HURTS Dairy Farmers!”

“Oh no,” I muttered. I was surprised by the number of people and surprised too by the passion I saw on the faces of those on both sides of the issue. “This is not good.”

“No,” Glen said tersely as the car crawled forward.

I already felt enormous pressure about this case. There was the meeting we'd had at the state capitol and the knowledge that the media and the state government were watching the case closely. But there was a greater stress that came from inside me, as if the walk-through I'd done at the Kinderman house was always lurking behind a thin veil in my mind. I'd do anything to prevent more children from dying, more Amish families from being poisoned on their own farms. I felt protective and fierce about the case, and I wanted to find whoever was responsible and make him pay.

However, the pressure the growing protests put on the police department was not at all helpful.

We rolled by a lovely brick building that I'd always admired. It was a real-estate office right on Penn Square, and it was across from a deli the police frequented. A man in white coveralls was in front of the brick wall with a bucket and scrub brush. Someone had defaced the building with graffiti in neon yellow. “Besnard,” it said. Had the graffiti artist been trying to spell “bastard”? I hated to see the defacement of such a prominent property.

If you have to be an asshole, at least learn how to spell.

Then Glen braked hard as a group of young teens passed in front of his sedan. They wore T-shirts that showed the back end of a cartoon cow with a huge udder and, under that, the words “Do It Raw.”

“Classy!” I muttered under my breath, and Glen burst out in a laugh.

—

The formal interview with Henry Stoltzfus and then Rachel was performed in one of the station's interrogation rooms and filmed through one-way glass. I ran the interviews, and Glen sat in. Though I couldn't see him, I knew Grady was watching from behind the mirror. I could feel his strong, calming presence as if he were in the room.

“Can you describe how you know the family of Aaron Knepp?” I asked Henry.

“Told you that already, at my house.”

“I'd like you to tell me again.”

No one ever enjoys being questioned by the police. Reactions
run the gamut from fear to tears to anger and defiance. Habitual criminals often show no emotion at all, unless it's boredom or disdain. Henry was not an emotional man, and he wavered between bewilderment that this was happening at all, and irritation.

“We used to go to the same church. That was seven years ago. Ain't seen the man but a couple of times since.”

He repeated the whole story, with prompting for more details from me this time. His wife had died giving birth to Rachel, and she was Henry's only child. When Rachel got pregnant at sixteen, and the church issued their ultimatum, he'd stuck by his daughter. He'd left the Amish church and the only life he'd ever known.

I couldn't help but admire Henry. I'd seen the way Katie Yoder's parents had written her off when they thought she'd left home and the Amish way. And then there was Ezra. Being shunned by his family hurt him in a soul-deep way that I was still trying to fully comprehend. With a low throb of anxiety, I remembered how upset he'd been two nights ago after he'd gone to see his father. It would have meant the world to Ezra to have his parents stand by him. Of course, they couldn't have done so without leaving the church, as Henry had.

But brave though Henry's actions might have been, it was clear that it hadn't been easy and that he still wasn't over it.

“Hypocrites is what they are,” he said bitterly. “You're supposed to have compassion for the sick and disabled, but that's only if they're smart enough, or weak enough, to follow your rules. If they ain't, then to hell with 'em.”

“You hold quite a grudge, Mr. Stoltzfus,” I said.

“I'll hold a damn grudge as long as I want. I think I'm entitled. But I didn't do anything to Knepp or Hershberger nor to anyone else. I've got my own life to live. I don't have time to worry about theirs.”

I changed tack. “Do you know Levi Fisher of Willow Run Farm in Bird-in-Hand?”

Henry shook his head. “Don't know him.”

“Are you positive? We'll also ask Mr. Fisher. It won't look good if you withhold information now.”

“I don't know him! Just because I was Amish don't mean I know every Amish there is. I know hardly any these days. We don't associate.”

Henry wouldn't budge on the Kindermans either. He swore he didn't know them and had no reason to wish them harm. I'd follow up on that, of course. But for now, it was time to gain the upper hand.

I leaned forward, elbows on the desk, and gazed at Henry intently. “What is
hexerei
?”

“That's what this is? Those idiots told you I hexed them?”

“Just answer the question please. What is
hexerei
?”

He pinched his mouth closed, his eyes thunderous. He started to speak, stopped, and started again. “Powwow can be used for ill. But I have never used it as such. Yes, there are curses in the old books,
hexerei
. But never in my life have I laid one.” He looked at me challengingly. “I have only ever done good with the word of God.”

“How does a curse like that work? How is it done?” I asked, trying to sound curious.

Henry swallowed. He thought about it and shook his head. “I only read about it years ago. I have not studied it.”

“But you have a general idea. Better than I would have anyway. Can you describe how it would work?”

Henry crossed his arms, his eyes fixed on the table in front of him, his face closed off. “To make a blessin', you draw certain figures and give special prayers to God, maybe use oil or plants, ashes, milk, and suchlike. To curse would be the same, only the words and intent change, the prayers call on God for justice and retribution maybe. I told you, I haven't ever done suchlike. My mother taught me powwow, and she warned against the curses. Evil comes back tenfold. It's God's place to punish the wicked, not ours.”

“Would a curse ever involve putting something in someone's food? Or an animal's feed?”

“No.”
His blue eyes flashed angrily.

My gut believed him, but my mind remained suspicious. “So if someone came to you, a customer, and offered to pay you to curse someone, you wouldn't be interested? Even if he had a story you sympathized with? Or he offered you a great deal of money?”

“No one ever asked me to lay a hex, and I never would do,” Henry said firmly.

“What if someone was hurting your family? Hurting Rachel?”

Henry merely shook his head. “I told you, it's playin' with fire to do such things. I'm not a foolish man.”

I glanced at Glen, silently asking him what he thought.

“What about the tall boneset oil we found in your cabinet?” Glen asked. “Why do you have that?”

Henry's jaw clenched. “It's for faintin'. You burn the oil in a little pot. Put it under the person's nose. The smoke wakes 'em. Sometimes just a dab of oil under the nose will do it.”

“So it's like smelling salts?” I asked.

Henry's eyes flickered to me. “Boneset has a very ugly scent. It'd wake the dead.”

“It's also poisonous,” Glen said, “to animals and humans.”

“Don't use it like that,” Henry said firmly. “Never have. And the children know not to touch anythin' in the shed.”

What about Rachel?
I thought. As my internal radar liked Henry for the crime less and less, my thoughts turned to his daughter. Rachel felt no moral conflict about sex. Would she feel guilt about hurting others? Was she capable of lashing out in anger? Henry said she knew plants instinctively. And he must have trained her, just as his mother had trained him. She would know what the boneset oil could do.

“Where did you get the oil? Do you grow the boneset plant, also called white snakeroot?” Glen asked.

“Never have grown it. Had that bottle for years. Not much call for it.”

Glen narrowed his eyes. “You granted us permission to search your garden and shed, Mr. Stoltzfus. If you have the plant, we'll find it. So you may as well tell us now.”

“If you find it, it'll be the first I knew of it,” Henry insisted. He didn't appear worried.

The muscles in Glen's jaw twitched with annoyance. “You admitted you know how to give a cow milk sickness, and we found boneset oil in your possession. What do you expect us to make of that, Mr. Stoltzfus?”

Henry stared Glen down. “To do such a thing—this would never occur to me! You are a doctor. I'm just like you. Like you, I know how to kill a man if I wanted to. I could do it ten times over, in painful ways or in easy ways, quick or slow. But I never have and I never would. And to go the long way around? To kill a man through his cow? What madness is that? What purpose does it serve?”

It was an interesting question, I thought. And at least one answer was obvious. “It would serve very well if you wanted to kill not only the man, but his whole family,” I pointed out.

“Ocht!” Henry made a dismissive gesture. “A man who would kill babies . . . he is the devil. I am not a perfect man, but I pray to God and I live the best I can. I am not such a man.”

I wished I found Henry Stoltzfus less believable.

—

R
achel's interview was even less productive. She was upset when she came in and asked for her father in a panicky voice, refusing to calm down. We finally gave her hot chocolate and cookies, which got her to sit and eat, but she retained a stubborn silence. When questioned, she claimed, with shakes of her head, that she didn't recognize any of the victims' names. She wouldn't talk about the church she and her father used to attend, only
shrugging and looking confused or talking about the “baby sheep at church,” which I assumed had been something she'd seen at an Amish farm where they'd held a service. Talking to Rachel about powwow led to a recipe for making tea that she repeated like a broken record.

Giving up, we released Rachel to return to her children and father in a waiting room until we decided what to do with them. Glen and I stepped into Grady's office to hash it out.

“We could bring in a psychiatrist to talk to Rachel. Someone used to dealing with the mentally handicapped,” Glen suggested.

“We could,” I agreed. “But I'm not sure we'd learn much. If Henry did this, I doubt he'd tell Rachel. He's very protective of her. As for Rachel doing it, I . . . God, I just don't see it. Even if she was capable of the malice needed to poison a family, and knew how to do it using plants or boneset oil, I can't imagine her pulling off the kind of planning and cunning this would require. There's also quite a bit of traveling involved. Henry said she couldn't drive. And he's gone during the day, leaving the children with her at the house.”

“What about Henry? What do you make of him?” Grady asked me. He was half-seated on the edge of his desk, his big arms folded across his chest.

I sighed. “He knows how to do it and had reason to hate at least two of the victims. That's means and motive. He drives, and he's away from home during the day, so he had the opportunity. He used to be Amish, so he'd know his way around those farms.”

“But?” Grady prompted at the doubtful tone in my voice.

“It doesn't feel right to me. It's possible he has a grudge against the Amish because of what happened to him. Maybe he wants to hurt the community as a whole, but I don't really sense that in him.” I shrugged minutely. “I'm far from crossing him off as a suspect though. We should see if Mark Hershberger can identify his car or Stoltzfus himself. And we need to check his alibis for the likely times the cows were poisoned.”

“Right. So what's your call? Arrest him now, hold him as long as we can, or let him go?” Grady pressed.

“Hold him. He said we could search his property, so I'd like to go back out there today. Maybe we can find something that links Stoltzfus to the victims, and we need to check for white snakeroot plant. We know he has the boneset oil, but the cows were actually fed a plant. His property is pretty wild. It will take time to search.”

“I can call DCNR and see if they'll meet you over there,” Glen said.

“Great.” I gave him a tired smile. “We can ask Henry if Rachel and her kids could go visit a friend until we're done. They'll be bored to death in the waiting room, and I don't see any reason to hold them.”

“I'll get someone on it,” Grady said briskly. He opened the door of his office and strode out. Meeting adjourned.