Page 39 of Shamed

I’m thinking about Miriam Helmuth and potential motives for lying when I enter the station. Mona Kurtz, who still spends most of her time working dispatch, stands at her station, speaking into the headset, waving a stack of pink message slips at me. She’s still wearing her uniform. Like me, she stayed up all night. Unlike me, she looks fresh and ready to tackle her day. Tugging the slips from her hand, I make tracks toward my office and unlock the door.

I’ve just booted up my laptop when Mona taps on the jamb. “Chief?”

“Morning,” I say as I log in. “Any luck with the stats on the Helmuth children?”

She takes the visitor chair adjacent to my desk. “I talked to the clerk at the Holmes County General Health District. She’s going to courier birth certificates and related info for the Helmuth children by day’s end.” She glances down at the sheet of paper in her hand. “Seven of the Helmuth children were delivered by a local midwife, Martha Hershberger. The midwife followed protocol and filed for birth certificates shortly after birth.”

My hand freezes on the keyboard and I give her my full attention. “Is the remaining child Elsie Helmuth?”

Her eyes flash interest. “Get this: There’s no birth certificate on file for Elsie. No social security number. No paperwork or documentation was ever filed.”

“Well that’s interesting as hell.”

The majority of Amish women use midwives to deliver their babies at home. In the state of Ohio, most midwives are certified and, as a matter of course, file the appropriate paperwork with the local registrar for birth certificates and social security numbers. Some of the Old Order and Swartzentruber Amish don’t bother with registering their newborns for a birth certificate, and sometimes not even a social security number. Those are the babies that sometimes fall through the cracks when it comes time for a first job or even a driver’s license during Rumspringa—the period in a teen’s life before they’re baptized, when they have the freedom to break all those Amish rules without too much in terms of repercussions. Those are the ones who have to go through the process of obtaining proper identification as young adults.

The Helmuths are neither Swartzentruber nor Old Order. So why doesn’t Elsie Helmuth have a birth certificate?

“Anything on Marlene, the sister?”

“Still looking.”

“Chief?”

I glance up to see my first-shift dispatcher, Lois Monroe, standing in the doorway. “Everyone’s in the war room,” she tells me.

“Be right there.”

Lois rushes back to reception, and I turn my attention to Mona. “Have you had any sleep?”

“With everything that’s going on…”

I’ve been seeking a third-shift dispatcher for several weeks now. Unfortunately, none of the candidates have been right. “If it’s any consolation, you’re proving to be a hard woman to replace.”

Rising, she grins and heads out the door.

A few minutes later, I’m in the “war room,” which is basically a storage room turned meeting room. I’m standing at the half podium Lois has set up on a folding table. She’s taped a map of Holmes County to the dry-erase board behind me, with Painters Mill circled in red. A red X demarks the Helmuth farm. A second X marks the Schattenbaum place.

I look out at my team and I feel the part of me that’s stressed out and exhausted settle. A missing endangered juvenile is a worst-case scenario for any police department. But I know my officers, and I’ve no doubt they’ll put in the hours and do whatever it takes to find her.

“I appreciate everyone working double shifts.” I glance down at my notes, but I don’t need them. I outline the basic facts of both cases and where we are in terms of the investigation.

I look at Lois, who’s standing in the doorway so she can attend the meeting and still hear the phones. “You get the stats and description of Elsie Helmuth typed up?”

“Right here, Chief.”

Mona jumps up from her chair, takes the short stack from her, and passes a single sheet to everyone in the room.

“Since the girl is Amish, we do not have a photo.” I glance at my notebook. “We believe the suspect is a white male. Likely Amish. Typical Amish garb. Thirty-five to fifty years old. Brown hair. Size-thirteen shoe, which would likely put him at six two or six three, give or take. Footwear impression indicates he likely wore a work boot with a waffle-type sole. We suspect he may be using a vehicle for transportation.”

“Covers a lot of ground,” Glock says beneath his breath.

I nod. “None of that is set in stone.” I point at the nearest officer sitting to my right. “Reports. Pickles.”

Roland “Pickles” Shumaker is seventy-five years old, but you’d never know his age by looking at him—or talking to him. His hair—right down to his neat little goatee—is colored a rich hue of mahogany with no gray in sight. His uniform is creased, his trademark Lucchese boots buffed to a burnished patina. He went part-time a few years ago and spends most mornings and afternoons working the crosswalk at the elementary school.

Pickles is a cop through and through; he’s paid his dues and has earned the respect of every person in the room. During the late 1980s he worked undercover narcotics and was instrumental in procuring one of the biggest drug busts in the history of Holmes County.

This morning, he’s looking at me with the attitude of a man half his age and the cockiness of a twenty-year-old rookie. “T.J. and I hit every house, every farm, within a five-mile radius of the Schattenbaum place, Chief. That’s nine homes. Four Amish. Five non-Amish. We talked to multiple individuals inside each home. Aside from Dick Howard, no one saw shit.”