Page 7 of Disappeared

Erma goes to the cupboard, removes a beat-up thermos, and fills it with coffee from the percolator. When it’s full, she hands it to the girl at the table.

“Take this to your datt,” she says in Deitsch. “He’ll need a hot drink about now.”

Aware that there’s something afoot, but too well-mannered to pry, the girl takes the thermos and gets to her feet. Having overheard the exchange, the woman in the mudroom steps into the doorway and smiles at the girl. “Grab your coat. I’ll go with you. Kumma.” Come.

When the two have left, Erma puts her hands on her hips. “You’re scaring us half to death, Kate Burkholder,” she scolds.

“Sit down.” I motion Bonnie into a chair and pull out the toy horse and sneaker. “Do these items belong to Little Joe?”

Bonnie gasps, puts both hands against her mouth, but she can’t stanch the surge of terror, or the sob that follows. “Yes.”

“Where did you find them?” Erma asks.

I tell them about the tire ruts. “Someone parked out by the bridge, likely at about the time Little Joe went missing.”

A quiver runs through Bonnie, starting at her head, moving down her shoulders and through her body. She lowers her face into her hands and sobs her son’s name.

“You think someone took the boy?” Erma whispers the words as if they’re too obscene to be spoken aloud.

“Where’s Little Joe’s datt?” I ask.

The older Amish woman’s expression goes taut. Her mouth opens, but she closes it without answering. Shoddily concealed surprise, I think. But there’s knowledge there, too. There’s shame. And a fear she’d been doing her utmost to deny.

“He’s not part of our family,” she tells me.

I shift my gaze to Bonnie. She stares back at me, her mouth trembling, as if she’s been rendered incapable of speech. The too-long beat of silence ends with a rumble of thunder powerful enough to rattle the windowpanes.

I look from woman to woman. “I need a name.”

Erma folds her hands on the table, looks down at them. “He’s English,” she tells me. “Bonnie was … young. Too young. Just seventeen. She … made a mistake. She didn’t marry.”

It’s rare for an Amish woman to bear a child out of wedlock, but it happens. Most of the time, news of an unexpected pregnancy is met with a hasty wedding, a strategic adjusting of dates, word that the baby “came early,” or, depending on the situation, even some quick matchmaking. Regardless of the circumstances, all Amish children are considered a gift from God and welcomed into the world with unabashed joy.

The young woman looks at her mother, misery boiling in her expression. “His name is Thomas McKee,” she whispers.

The name goes through me like a blade. The source of their evasiveness comes into sharp focus. I’ve dealt with Thomas McKee half a dozen times over the last few years. He’s twenty years old with the good looks of a GQ cover model and a cocky attitude that puts my teeth on edge. I’ve taken calls for everything from underage drinking to disturbing the peace, to fighting and drag racing. Each time—perhaps erroneously in hindsight—I cut him as much slack as I could. Mainly because I believed he was a good kid—and I know firsthand how profoundly tragedy can affect a young person’s life.

At seventeen, McKee was a high school football star with a 4.0 grade average, an athletic scholarship to Kent State University, and dreams of making it to the NFL. He’d just finished his first semester of college when his father died unexpectedly, leaving young Thomas with a grieving mother, no income, four younger sisters to take care of, and an auto-body repair shop with no one to run it. At the age of eighteen, he dropped out of college and took the reins of his father’s company, leaving his dreams in the dust.

Evidently, the disappointment was too much. McKee quickly earned a reputation for his female conquests—including the mayor’s sixteen-year-old daughter—raucous parties rife with loud music and underage drinking, and for coordinating some of the local drag races. Last I heard, his father’s 1969 Mustang was unbeaten.

“That boy’s as dense as a turnip,” Erma mutters. “Just as bitter, too.” She clucks her mouth. “Those young Englishers, always drinking and intoxicated and God only knows what else.”

Next to her, Bonnie seems to sink more deeply into her chair and stares down at her hands, silent and ashamed.

“Do you still have a relationship with him?” I ask Bonnie.

The young woman shakes her head and mumbles a barely perceptible “No.”

“We don’t allow him to come here,” Erma puts in. “We’ve no use for a leshtah-diah.” Beast that blasphemes.

I ignore her, maintain my focus on Bonnie. “When’s the last time you saw him?”

“Months ago,” she says.

“Does McKee see Little Joe?” I ask.

“He’s not in the picture at all,” Erma interjects.