Page 63 of Fallen

Even then, I was aware that people were occasionally hostile toward the Amish. It didn’t happen often, but I’d seen it once or twice. I wasn’t exactly a quintessential example of Amish values, but I knew right from wrong. I couldn’t abide a bully. Loretta Weaver was a quiet, shy, and hardworking girl who’d been raised to be submissive and nonviolent. She hadn’t been exposed to prejudice or cruelty. She was light-years out of her depth and probably didn’t even realize it.

“Oh, for God’s sake, are you fucking deaf!” Hat Girl strode to the Amish girl’s booth. There, she paused, perused the items set on the table, and snatched up a jar of apple butter.

Loretta trailed her, fingering the hem of her apron, trying to stay calm, not quite succeeding.

Mean glinted in the girl’s eyes. Holding up the jar, she unscrewed the lid, stuck her finger into the goo, and brought it to her mouth. “Oh my God. This is some good shit.”

Loretta stiffened her spine, met the girl’s gaze. “You have to pay for it now.”

The two English girls exchanged looks and burst out laughing.

A cruel expression overtook Hat Girl’s face. Her eyes slanted to the boys snickering from their place at her booth, then slid back to Loretta. “How much do I owe you?”

Loretta held out her hand. “Four dollars and ninety-nine cents.”

Upending the jar, Hat Girl poured the apple butter onto Loretta’s upturned palm.

“Oh my God, Britany!” The Backstreet Boys T-shirt girl gasped, then slapped her hand over her mouth to hide the bark of laughter that followed.

Loretta lowered her hand, the apple butter dripping unceremoniously to the ground at her feet. Saying nothing, not meeting the other girl’s gaze, she pulled a wadded-up tissue from her dress pocket and tried to clean away the sticky apple butter.

I don’t remember moving. Just the buzz of fury in my head. Tunnel vision on the girl with the hat. The mean in her eyes. In the back of my mind, I was visualizing myself punching that painted pink mouth.

I never got the chance.

I was still a few steps away when movement out of the corner of my eye snapped me from my fugue. I glanced over to see Rachael Schwartz charge Hat Girl. I barely recognized her. Her face was pulled into a mask of rage. She held a pitchfork in her hand.

I was closest to Loretta, so I grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the way. Rachael swung the pitchfork, slinging horse manure all over Hat Girl with such force that I heard each individual chunk slap against her face and clothes.

For the span of several seconds no one spoke. Hat Girl looked down at her clothes, at the green-brown smears and stains on her white blouse, her bare legs. “Ewww. Ewww!” A shudder moved through her. “Oh my God. Ewww! You bitch!”

Rachael had already darted back to where the horse stood for a second load of manure. Breathing hard, she held it at the ready. “Get lost or you’re going to get it again,” she said.

That was the day young Rachael Schwartz won my respect—and pilfered a little piece of my heart. Despite our age difference, I realized we were kindred spirits. She couldn’t abide by the rules, didn’t fit in. She was misunderstood. She broke molds. Worst of all, she was a fighter—a fatal flaw when you live among pacifists. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, when I looked at Rachael, I saw myself. Hopelessly awkward, fatally flawed, incapable of pretense. Up until the day I left, I secretly cheered her on.

I lost track of her as she entered her teens, but I heard the stories upon my return. She liked boys a little too much. At seventeen, she got a job and bought that old junker she could never quite live down. It wasn’t a first because she was Amish—it was a first because she was female. She drank more than her share of alcohol. Smoked cigarettes. Stayed out too late. Sometimes she didn’t come home at all.

As an adult looking back, her fall from Amish grace makes me incredibly sad, and I realize something important. While my parents weren’t perfect, they instilled in me a foundation that gave me the tools I needed to overcome the bad decisions I made early in my life. I didn’t know Rhoda and Dan well, but I don’t believe they did the same for their daughter. Because they viewed her as fallen, perhaps beyond redemption, they cut her off. That intolerance—that lack of guidance and support—set her on a path to self-destruction.

A truth that breaks my heart.

CHAPTER 28

One of the lessons life has taught me is that not everyone tells the truth. People lie for all sorts of reasons. To deflect blame. To protect themselves or others. To advance an agenda. To hurt someone or exact revenge. Or any combination of the above. Sometimes, those lies are told by omission. Sometimes with reluctance and guilt. Some people lie with unabashed glee. I’ve seen it all, but I’m not yet so hardened that I don’t feel the occasional punch of shock.

No cop ever wants to believe one of his own is morally corrupt. That he’s sullied the oath he took to protect and serve. I’ve known Dane Fletcher since shortly after I became chief. I always considered him a solid cop and a good person. He’s a father of four with a longtime marriage to a Painters Mill elementary school teacher. We’ve worked several assignments together. Volunteered together. Once, he helped me nab a wayward herd of goats and we ended up laughing our asses off. I liked Fletch. I enjoyed working with him. Respected him. I’ve trusted him with my life. As I head north toward Millersburg, I’m having one hell of a time getting my head around the possibility that he used his position as a law enforcement officer to rape a seventeen-year-old girl. I can barely entertain the notion that he beat a young woman to death with a baseball bat.

The possibilities turn my stomach. The cop inside me wants to disprove it. But outrage and disappointments aside, I know from experience that sometimes outwardly decent people harbor a shadow side. They keep the darkness of their nature—weaknesses, perversions, addictions, immoralities—hidden from the rest of the world.

Is Dane Fletcher one of them?

Because of the sensitive nature of the accusations and the fact that he’s an LEO with another agency, I can’t move forward until I involve the Holmes County sheriff. I call Mike Rasmussen as I head north toward Millersburg and tell him I’m on my way to meet him. He agrees—reluctantly. He’s got a golf outing with the mayor later in the day and he doesn’t want to miss it. I assure him I won’t take up too much of his time; I don’t let on that I’m about to blow his day to smithereens.

I call Tomasetti as I reach the outskirts of Millersburg. “Where are you?” I ask.

“Where would you like me to be?” he returns evenly.

“How about the Holmes County Sheriff’s Office?” I give him the highlights of my meeting with the Bontragers.