Whiskers of the Lion (4 page)

Wednesday, August 17

2:05
P.M.

IT WAS cool in the Helmuths' kitchen, and once Robertson had closed the door to the back porch, it was also quiet enough to talk over the noise of the generator outside. Still in his golfing outfit, Captain Newell stood near the sink reviewing photographs on the back of a Nikon camera. He had been filling out the voucher slips for each new memory card of photos. Next to his elbow, on the green Formica countertop, there were three bags with memory cards already organized. To fill so many cards with data, Robertson realized, Newell's team must have photographed every minute aspect of the farm's circumstance and condition. Every corner, in every room, in all of the buildings.

Robertson stood beside Newell to watch a few photo images on the Nikon's LCD display, and when Newell clicked out of the review, the sheriff asked, “Is there any sign of Fannie? Anything to indicate that she came here with Dent?”

Bobby Newell shook his head. “Nothing, Sheriff. And we've been through everything out here.”

Robertson leaned back against the counter. To no one in particular, he said, “Where is she?” Then he said to the captain, “If she came here with him, Bobby, she's probably already dead. Or if he told them where to find her, she's probably already dead.”

Newell set the Nikon carefully on the counter and turned to face the sheriff. “There's no trace of her here, Bruce. And Missy says there's very little to go on, down in the basement. We don't have any reason to think she came here with Dent, and you shouldn't assume the worst.”

“You've been down to the basement?”

“Yes, with Pat Lance. Taking photos.”

“Mike says he looks like he died hard.”

Newell nodded. “You wouldn't believe.”

Frustrated, Robertson stepped to the top of the basement steps and called down to his wife. “Missy, I need to come down there.”

“Five minutes,” she called back, and the sheriff turned away from the steps. To Newell, he said, “Where's Pat Lance?”

“I set her up with a team to search again through the little Daadihaus.”

“You've been through all of the main house?”

“Of course.”

Robertson acknowledged that with an arch of his brow and stood in place to think.

Newell returned his attention to the camera equipment and finished his record keeping concerning the memory cards. When he turned around, Robertson was staring out the window over the kitchen sink. Newell asked, “Are we doing anything about food?” and Robertson said, “Baker's on it.”

From the basement, Missy called up. “OK, Bruce. You can come down.”

Robertson eyed Newell and asked, “You done with photos now, Bobby?”

“Yes, but Pat will have more from the Daadihaus.”

“OK,” Robertson said, “Mike's got a theory. I need to see if it lines up with what Missy has found down there. But while I do that, maybe you could check on Mike. He's reading clippings from the Sugarcreek
Budget
.”

“Why?” Newell asked.

As he took the steps to the basement, Robertson called back, “Susan Dent thinks there are messages for her in the letters.”

 • • • 

At the bottom of the basement steps, Robertson turned left toward floodlights that shined from atop tripods to illuminate the back corner behind the steps. Missy was standing in the middle of the light, waiting alone. At her feet, the body of Howie Dent was laid out straight on a black rubber body bag. His clothes were in tatters, and his exposed skin was a battleground of swollen puncture wounds. Robertson stopped at the edge of the light and stared. After a long and difficult hesitation, he said, “I've never seen anything like that.”

Missy said, “First, I want to show you what I found down here.” She pulled her husband into the corner where she had positioned a folding aluminum table on which she had laid out her evidence—bagged, sorted, and cataloged. She let the sheriff study the items. She waited for him to speak.

“Missy,” the sheriff said eventually, “you've got to be kidding.”

“I wish I were,” Taggert said, “but this is how he died.”

On the table, Taggert had arranged evidence bags in groups. One set of bags on the left held soft yellow latex gloves of the type that an emergency room doctor would use. Next to that were five bags, each containing either a 3 ml or a 5 ml plastic syringe with bloody, inch-long needles attached to the tips. Robertson sorted through the bags and noticed that one of the needles had been snapped off at the base. He held up the bag with a silent question in his eyes, and Missy answered, “I found the broken needle buried deep in his cheek, just under his right eye.”

Robertson returned the evidence bag to the table and moved on to the next items. In separate bags, there were bottles of Amish folk remedies. One was labeled
CHILD CALMER
and another was labeled
TINCTURE OF IODINE
. In a bag larger than the others, there was a flattened tube that had held
BLEIB-RUHIG, FOR CALM HORSES
. Robertson inspected the label and read the ingredients—dextrose, ethyl alcohol, ground limestone, potassium sorbate, sodium bentonite, sodium benzoate, sodium saccharin, thiamine hydrochloride, and finally, water and xanthan gum. When Robertson put the bag with the tube down, he stepped back from the table and said, “These are mostly empty.”

Missy turned her husband around to face the body of Howie Dent. “They shot it all under his skin, Bruce. They injected it while he was strapped to that post, and then I think they rubbed it in, so that it would hurt even more.”

Robertson shook his head and knelt beside the body. He looked first at the welt under Dent's right eye, and then he studied the arms, torso, legs, and scalp.

Dent's clothes had been shredded to expose his skin, and in the centers of ugly swollen patches, there were puncture wounds that had bled trails of red into the tatters of his clothes. Some of the swollen patches were fairly round in shape, and some were oblong, as if the needles had been sunk laterally under the skin and then withdrawn slowly, while the plunger was depressed, to deliver a line of chemical, for the most brutal effect. Once he had seen enough, Robertson pushed up and stepped back. He didn't speak. Missy let him absorb the impact of the brutality, and then she said, “While he was still alive, Bruce, his skin would have felt like it was on fire. Not flames, but like a deep chemical burn. They might as well have cut him a thousand times and swabbed all the wounds with acid.”

Wearily, Robertson rubbed his sockets with the flats of his fingers. He shook his head and said, “He'd have told them anything they wanted to know, Missy.”

Missy smiled. “I'm not so sure.”

“Why in the world not?”

“Because I think he died of a heart attack.”

“During the torture?”

“Yes,” Taggert said. “I think one of these injections might have hit a vein. The poison could have gone right to his heart.”

“Then Fannie still has a chance,” Robertson said with a measure of satisfaction. “There's a chance he didn't talk.”

“I think so,” Missy said. “Everything down here tells me that they worked on him right up until that last injection. When he died, I think they dropped everything and walked out of here. He died suddenly, and they couldn't do anything about it.”

“Is that why he smells like urine?”

Missy nodded. “His bladder released when he died.”

“Does Bobby Newell know this?” Robertson asked.

“I've told only you,” Missy said. “I just now finished with my preliminary exam. And I'll have to wait for his autopsy. But I think I'm right.”

Robertson thought, frowned, and rubbed at his temples. “Maybe they got what they wanted from him, Missy, and they injected that vein on purpose. To finish him.”

“I'll know more once I conduct his autopsy,” Taggert said.

The sheriff turned back to the evidence table. He made a brief study of the bagged items again and said, “This was all bought locally. Maybe in a harness shop. Or a health food store.”

“I think so,” Missy said. “Harness shop, tack shop, or something like that. Really, Bruce, anywhere in Amish country.”

“Then it fits,” Robertson said with cautious satisfaction.

Missy waited for an explanation, and Robertson said, “Mike has a theory. That it wasn't the Molina outfit that did this.”

“But that's who would have been looking for him,” Taggert argued.

“I know. But it's improbable that they'd find Dent here so easily. So quickly.”

“I'd hate to think we had someone living locally who could do this sort of thing,” Missy said.

“It has to have been someone local, Missy. The Molinas can't have put this all together that fast. Anyway, that's Mike's theory.”

“That's the angle that I couldn't figure,” Missy said. “I mean, how could they find him so quickly?”

“You have something that fits?”

Missy nodded. “There's nothing wet down here, Bruce. Everything is dry, even his clothes. They didn't bring him down here during the rains last night or yesterday afternoon.”

“It started raining yesterday around noon,” Robertson said. “And it rained most of the night.”

“I know,” Missy said. “So they had to have brought Dent down here before that.”

“I don't know,” the sheriff said. “He might have been staying inside the house. Maybe he wouldn't have been out in the rain, anyway.”

“Bobby says there's no evidence of that, Bruce. He doesn't think anyone was staying here. All he found was where Stan Armbruster tracked through the house this morning.”

Shaking his head, Robertson started for the stairs. At the base of the steps, he stopped, turned back, and asked, “You about done here?”

“Yes. The next step is to get him up the steps and into town.”

“I'll send some people down to help carry him up,” the sheriff said. “But I want to talk to Branden and Armbruster. Also, to my captain. Because between taking his car sometime Monday night and the start of the rain around noon yesterday, Howie Dent went somewhere local—the wrong somewhere local—and that's what got him killed.”

Wednesday, August 17

3:15
P.M.

WHEN SHERIFF Robertson rounded the corner outside the Helmuth house, he found Professor Branden leaning back against the hood of his white truck reading newsprint, and at the end of the drive Robertson saw Stan Armbruster's red Corolla turn right onto Township 371. Robertson approached Branden and asked, “Armbruster made it back?”

“Just now.”

“Then where's he going?”

Branden held up the clipping he had been reading and said, “To get more of these. In Sugarcreek.”

“Really, Mike? The
Budget
?”

“Stan's going to check, but read this,” the professor said as he handed the clipping to the sheriff.

Robertson read from the top:

Centreville, MI
North District

July 18—We had hot weather the past two weeks and it was hard on the field corn. Then we got an all-day soaker on Saturday and we are all grateful for the cooler weather.

Gardens here are doing very well. The sweet corn will be ready soon and we'll start digging up potatoes tomorrow. Some of us are picking purple hull peas and the produce markets have plenty of fruit. Especially peaches are coming in strong here and we are busy with canning them.

Sunday Gemie was at Wayne Hostetlers' by Henry Schrock. Next to be at Vernon Kropfs' and service to be by Leland Yoder. Visitors at Hostetlers' were the Toby Eichers, Sam B. Grabers, and Min. Melvin Troyers. Absent at Hostetlers' were the Linus Gingeriches who were visiting in Bronson. The flu is going around and several other absences were noted as well.

Some special baby news from this neighborhood is a son born to Chester and Leona Kauffman and a niece born in Boonville MO. for John and Emma Mast. That brings their total to 52, nephews included.

Returned from the West Country bus tour were the Levi Millers and Joe Shetlers. A group is looking into hiring a bus to make the trip to the Jake Schwartz and Anna Bontrager wedding in Mt. Hope, OH. come September. John Coblentzes were to Vista, Colo. to visit her brother Roy after he was kicked by one of his horses and life-lined to Denver, Colo. Going to Wisconsin to see the Andy Wengerds were the Josiah Shetlers with newest daughter Amy and two other children Ben and Mary while the older sons keep duties up around the farm.

Neighbors Albert and Lizzie Kuhns are getting ready for the wedding of their eldest girl Annie, on September 22nd. Her boyfriend is John, son of Andy and Verna Miller of Shipshewana. They were published on July 17th.

Our guests from OH. wish their families to know that they are fine though weary of moving around so much. Maybe they can stay. A Daadihaus was made available to them at the Daniel Gingeriches, woman to sleep in the bedroom, man to take a cot on the screened back porch at nights until winter sets.

—I
VAN
M
ILLER

Robertson looked up doubtfully, and Branden said, “That could be Fannie Helmuth and Howie Dent. The ‘Our guests from Ohio.' In Centreville, Michigan.”

Robertson shrugged out a measure of skepticism and asked, “The other clippings?”

“Stan took them to Sugarcreek. He has an idea how to search them.”

“Maybe the
Budget
already has a database,” Robertson said. “You know, maybe they keep a database of all the letters that are sent in.”

Branden shook his head. “We called, and they don't. But Stan says he has it covered.”

“If that's Fannie and Howie mentioned so openly in this letter, then they've pretty much told everyone where they were.”

Branden smiled. “Right. Everyone who reads the
Budget
. But do you think Teresa Molina is smart enough to do that?”

Robertson pulled his tie loose under his chin. He turned anxiously in place to survey the scene outside at the farmhouse. He waved an arm over the whole of it and grumbled, “We're wrapping up, Mike. We've got nothing solid here, and I should have anticipated that they'd put messages in the
Budget
.”

“We're going to read all the
Budget
letters since April,” Branden said. “And we know Dent's killer is probably someone local. So that's not nothing, Sheriff.”

Hands planted stubbornly on his hips, Robertson frowned and shook his head. “He was tortured, Mike, and it's my fault. I should have figured the
Budget
angle sooner, and OK—maybe it is someone local. But otherwise, we've got nothing.”

“You're wrong, but OK.”

Robertson responded with a disaffected growl and Branden added, “So what are you going to do?”

“Can you talk to the Dents again?”

“Sure, in the morning. They need some time right now.”

“Then I'm going back to wait on Missy's autopsy report. There's nothing more I can do out here.”

“Stan's work with the letters might give us something,” Branden said. “Maybe later tonight.”

Robertson huffed, “Long shot, Mike. Besides, if Teresa Molina has half a brain, she's already found Fannie Helmuth anyway.”

“Well, she's not that smart, Bruce. And she's not going to read an Amish newspaper. People like her don't read the
Budget
. I doubt she even knows it exists.”

Robertson glowered into empty space. Eventually he said, “Tortured and murdered, Mike. If he gave them Fannie's location, she's already dead. And if she's dead because I couldn't find her, I'm gonna have to resign.”

“Stop talking nonsense,” Branden said softly. “You're not thinking straight.”

Robertson leveled his eyes at his friend. “I am thinking straight, Mike. If they've killed Fannie, I'll resign.”