The Pact: A Detective Locklear Mystery Page 11

  “Did you hear all that?” he asked.

  “Yes. Now what?”

  “Under normal circumstances I’d issue a warrant for Jacob Shank but ... right now, with Luke and Esther out there alone, it’s too risky. It’s better for now that Shank thinks he’s in the clear.”

  Abigail Fehr followed Locklear to the hallway.

  “Did I make everyone happy?” she asked as he exited the front door.

  “Yes, Abigail. You made everyone happy, including me.”

  Chapter 12

  Locklear had dozed off lying on his bed and woke to see the lights of a car driving into the motel lot. The noisy exhaust told him it was Mendoza who had obviously decided not to remain in Richmond overnight after all. He glanced at the digital clock on the television set and was surprised to see it was only a little after eleven. He swung his legs out of the bed and got up.

  After he’d left the Wyss farm he’d returned to Harrisonburg to be served again by Marilyn Monroe and then had sat quietly by Carter’s bedside. Twice the trooper opened his eyes and tried to mouth something but, dazed from painkillers, fell back asleep almost as soon as he’d opened his eyes. When the night shift arrived to guard Carter’s room, Locklear checked that the cop knew his brief and then walked downstairs to the foyer.

  On his way out he saw Lombardi again and sat with him for a moment. Neither man spoke. Thirty years ago Locklear would have thought such a scene impossible but here they were, two flawed men nearer to death than life, sitting together.

  By the time Mendoza arrived with two cold Cokes in her hands, Locklear was standing in the open doorway.

  “Thought you wanted to see your kid?”

  “I did but he had a sleepover so it was either come back here or listen to my mom all evening talking about suitable Latino men I could marry.”

  Locklear laughed.

  “I checked in on Andrew Fehr – he’s still playing dumb,” she said.

  “Good for him,” Locklear responded. “He’s safer that way. Some men killed the old man, Aaron Fehr. And Abigail Fehr witnessed it – she was in hiding – she thinks Jacob Shank was one of them. I think it happened on the same day.”

  “How did they do it?”

  “Strangled him, left him for dead – but he didn’t die before he passed on a warning to Abigail for Luke Fehr. So much for Carter’s theory that Luke didn’t go near the old man. He was a lookout for them. I suspect it’s been him, or him and Luke who’s been watching us.”

  “So, the Fehrs are smarter than we’ve given them credit for?”

  Locklear visualised the day Luke Fehr came roaring into the station lot, blocking off Bethany Stoll and rescuing his sister. The man was not afraid though Locklear felt that he should be. It suddenly came to him why Luke did not live on the farm – why no one really knew where he slept. It would make him a sitting duck.

  “Luke Fehr’s been fighting a lone crusade for a long time. From time to time he wins a battle but he can’t win the war while the Shanks have power over a community that won’t resist what he is doing to them. Shank is manipulating the gentleness of these people.”

  Mendoza sat herself down beside Locklear at the end of his bed. He stood quickly and sat on a chair, facing her.

  “Don’t worry – I wasn’t trying to seduce you. You’re not my type!” she laughed.

  Locklear grinned shyly. “OK, what have you found out?”

  “You’re going to be disappointed.”

  “I can’t be any more disappointed at how this investigation’s going than I am now, so just spill it.”

  “First Anabel Schumer – she wouldn’t talk to me. She kept me at the door of her apartment until I talked my way in – woman’s a nervous wreck. Just kept crying about what she’s going to do now the library’s burned down. But I reckon there’s more to her nervousness than that. Before I left I spotted a business card on Schumer’s coffee table. It was Beth Stoll’s. Reckon she paid a visit to Anabel and frightened her off. I asked around at the station about Schumer – and guess what? Her father and two brothers work for Shank Creamery. They were originally German emigrants. They’re not Mennonites but looks like her family have plenty of financial reasons to keep quiet.”

  Locklear stood and walked around the room.

  “What about Plett?”

  “Like you thought – Plett had no records – he said when he arrived to take over from Shank the archives had disappeared.”

  “That was convenient for Shank.”

  “Quite – so I drove to Richmond and Bishop Rahn was very helpful. I spent hours there and sorry to tell you but ... all of the deaths of young Fehr men … they were all suicide. And all by hanging, on the farm, just like Andrew.”

  “Except someone else put the noose around Andrew’s neck ... and he lived.”

  Locklear leaned forward and rubbed his hands back and forward through his thick mane. “There were no forensics back then so who’s to say what happened?”

  “True. But there’s something else. Every one of them had a note pinned to their shirts, which said –”

  “It’s a good year to put things right.”

  “Yes.”

  “Was it in their handwriting?”

  Mendoza shrugged. “So, sarge, what now?

  “Fancy a late-night stroll?”

  “I hope you’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting.”

  Mendoza shivered in the cool night air at the edge of the Fehr farm. With only the moonlight to guide them, she followed Locklear on foot towards the cabin where old man Fehr was found. As she looked behind she could see only total darkness. There were no lights in any of the farmhouses below – the nearest lights were those of Harrisonburg in the distance. The only sounds she could hear were a barn owl hooting in the distance and an occasional cow bellowing from nearby farms. Twice she almost fell into newly dug holes along the northern face of the incline. She pointed them out to Locklear – whoever dug them had not bothered to fill them in.

  Locklear noted the change in habit of their hole-digger. Someone was running out of time to find whatever it was they were looking for.

  When they reached the spot, Locklear sat panting on the rock outside Aaron Fehr’s cabin and caught his breath.

  “So what exactly are we doing here?” she asked.

  “Waiting.”

  “For?”

  “Something. Anything. I don’t know.”

  Mendoza looked into the darkness. “This place gives me the creeps,” she said, blessing herself.

  Locklear turned and stared at the silent cabin in the darkness.

  “You believe in ghosts, sarge?” Mendoza whispered.

  “I don’t know,” he replied. Not for the first time he wondered what his people believed about the spirit world. His mother had taught him nothing and he’d had no religious or spiritual education. He did not tell Mendoza of his visions of his mother which would appear when he was in danger. No one would believe him. He hardly believed it himself. The only real hauntings he’d experienced were conjured up by his own mind – his conscience exhuming the accusing faces of the dead whose killers he had never brought to justice.

  “I do,” Mendoza said.

  “I thought you people weren’t supposed to believe in ghosts?”

  “You people?”

  “Catholics.”

  “Well, we believe in angels and devils and exorcisms – and the holy souls in purgatory – so why not ghosts?”

  Mendoza stood and looked into the blackness. Only once in her life did she experience such complete darkness. She was about ten when her family returned to the small rural village in Mexico where her mother had been born. Mendoza had never seen her mother look so at ease but she, a city girl, had known only street lights and busy streets and had hated every moment of the month-long vacation. Now, as an adult, she wondered how her mother had coped with the city she found herself in and how odd the electric street lights and activity of Richmond must have seemed to the sevent
een-year-old hotel maid. Mendoza found the darkness suffocating where her mother found comfort and peace in her familiar surroundings. Her thoughts moved to one’s sense of belonging. Mendoza spoke Spanish, looked Spanish, ate mostly Spanish food but in her heart she was an American who loved her country and dreamt of serving it someday as her father had done before her. She understood why the Fehrs did not leave this place after the family had been shunned. It was all they knew and this tiny village was so different from the outside world that there was little chance of them surviving outside of it.

  In the distance, Mendoza noticed a small light dancing across the field at the back of Wyss farm.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  Locklear raised himself slowly off the stone and watched the tiny light move forward into a small wooded area.

  “It looks like a torch. Come on.”

  Together, Locklear and Mendoza crept quietly down the southern edge of the hill until they could get a better look at the torch-holder. When they reached a good vantage point, Mendoza took Locklear’s lead and lay flat on the ground, looking at the night walker.

  Locklear waited until the figure got closer but he already had a good idea of its identity. Helen Wyss’s slight frame and curly hair were easily identifiable even in the moonlight. In her arms she carried a large bag. Locklear knew it was heavy as she stopped from time to time to readjust the dead weight in her thin arms.

  “What’s she doing?” Mendoza asked.

  “She’s visiting.”

  “In the dark in the middle of a field? Who?”

  “Come on – I’m going to drop you back to the motel,” he replied.

  “Aren’t we going to confront her? Or even follow her? What’s she’s hiding?”

  Locklear shook his head. He knew who Helena Wyss was hiding and smiled at the fool she had made of him. “No, we’ll only place her in danger. There’s no telling who Shank has watching our movements. As far as the incident room goes – what we saw tonight doesn’t go on the board, right?”

  Mendoza nodded. “Saw what, sarge?”

  “Kowalski was right. You’re a good cop, Mendoza.”

  “So you’ve got over my not being a man?”

  Locklear did not answer.

  When they reached the car, Locklear eased the car slowly down to the main road without headlights.

  “So, what now?” she asked when they were safely on the main road back to Harrisonburg.

  “Bishop Rahn said several families left the area due to Shank,” Locklear said. “First thing in the morning I want you to find out where they went and talk to some of them – see what their gripe was. I’m going to check in on Sara Fehr before Maria Whieler finishes her shift in the morning. She said her mother didn’t like living here. I want to know why.”

  Locklear did not access Dayton Kindred Hospital by normal means. The front door to the facility was closed and a security guard sat at a small desk inside the front door, staring out into the darkness. He parked on the main road and made his way on foot to the back of the hospital. He reached the door that led into Sara Fehr’s room and stood for a couple of minutes looking in at Maria Whieler, asleep on the hard chair, leaning on the side of Sara’s bed. He slowly opened the fly screen and stepped inside.

  She stirred. “Luke?” she whispered, but returned to her dreams as Locklear moved farther into the room.

  Sara Fehr’s still body lay in the same position as he had last seen it and a heart monitor beeped rhythmically at the side of her bed. Three clipboards hung from the end of the bed, recording the sleeping woman’s vitals. There was something so serene about her that he found himself not speaking to Maria Whieler as he intended but standing at the foot of the bed, staring at Sara Fehr. Even in her vegetative state he could see that she was a beautiful woman but her face also looked kind. He reasoned that Sara had been a gentle and giving person, caring for her siblings after their mother’s death. How vulnerable she was in this state and how utterly dependent on others to care for her. Dr Miller was right – this was no way to live.

  He moved slowly to Maria and gently touched her arm. Startled, she jumped to her feet.

  “What? I wasn’t sleeping ...”

  Locklear raised his hands up surrender-style to quieten the woman.

  “I just want to ask you a few questions.”

  “I wasn’t sleeping. I’m not allowed to.”

  Locklear looked behind him and retrieved a chair from the other side of the room. He brought it to where Maria stood and sat down.

  “I’m tired, that’s all – with day school and all,” she said.

  “I’d like to hear about Sara – about what kind of girl she was before the accident.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m just interested, that’s all. I think if I understand more about the Fehr kids, it might help Andrew, all of them, including Luke.” He hoped the specific mention of the aloof man’s name would put the anxious woman at ease.

  Maria returned to her seat. “She was lovely … she was a good friend.”

  Locklear waited for more.

  “She was always happy, always smiling. People said if she didn’t have the same sparkly eyes as Luke no one would ever take them for twins. Luke was always quieter and more serious. Sara was good fun.”

  Locklear looked with pity at Maria. The lonely woman’s face lit up talking about her only friend. He sensed she lived for the possibility that Luke Fehr would become more to her than a night-time visitor she had no actual contact with.

  “You know she left a note. Do you think she intended to kill herself that day?”

  Maria’s mouth drooped as though she was about to cry. “I never heard about any note. I don’t believe that. Mama and me left town several years before that but Sara and me always kept in touch. I wrote her almost every week. She was just the same in her letters as she was face to face and it cheered me up because I was really lonely in the town we moved to. It was so different. I didn’t fit in.”

  “So she wasn’t depressed?”

  “Not until the last letter and I wouldn’t even say she was depressed then. She was just different, is all. I got it about a week before her birthday and I sent back a card although I don’t know if she ever got to read it. She said she wasn’t looking forward to their birthday. She said that she was worried about Luke and that she couldn’t think how she’d manage without him. I assumed he was in trouble again and that maybe this time Pastor Shank involved the police. Luke only poached because they had no money and the family needed to eat. He brought home everything they needed and Sara looked after the younger kids.”

  “So … she said she didn’t know how she’d do without him, not how he’d do without her?”

  “Yes, she did. I’ve still got all the letters. Sometimes I sit and read them to her here and I know she hears me. Looks like she’s smiling a little bit. If you want them, if it’d help her or Luke?”

  Locklear repeated the line in his head. She couldn’t think how she’d manage without him. It didn’t sound like something a suicidal person would write.

  “Sir?”

  “Yes?”

  “There’s no way Sara would leave those kids. No matter what was going on, she’d never have left them.”

  Locklear looked at the vulnerable woman. Maria Whieler was a lost soul who was spending the best years of her life sitting in the dark bedside her dying friend.

  “Why did you and your mother leave town? You obviously feel like you belong here.”

  Maria stood and fixed the sheet over her friend. She checked the monitors and wrote two or three words on one of the clipboards. Locklear knew she was stalling for time.

  “You can tell me – in confidence.”

  Maria heard her mother’s words of warning echo in the silent room. She had spent her youth caught between her parents’ worlds – her simple farmer father’s innocent and unquestioning commitment to the faith and his complete rejection of her mother’s warning about Pastor Shank – and
her mother who was intelligent, suspicious and increasingly paranoid about Shank for whom she worked in accounts. When it was clear that her father would not survive his illness, her mentally ill mother took her out to the barn one night and showed her something. It was a thick notebook filled with dates, prices and notes she had written – evidence that Samuel Shank was paying more for milk to English farmers than to the trusting Mennonite community. He was also paying less for prime pasture – the farms of Mennonites whose lives he made so difficult that they left and joined other congregations or sometimes none at all. Her mother also kept notes on people who were quietly standing up to Shank, people who would help Maria if anything happened to her: Mr & Mrs Wyss, the Fehrs – there were around four or five family names in all. The day after her father was buried, Samuel Shank and his son came to their home and asked to speak to her mother alone. He sent Maria out to the barn from where she could hear her mother arguing. She could still remember how torn she was during those moments. A part of her, the part that was her father, told her to do as Pastor Shank directed while the small suspicion that had slowly seeped into her blood told her to come to the aid of her vulnerable mother. Instead, she walked fifty steps towards the house and stood rooted at the halfway mark between the barn and the back of their farmhouse where she waited in the pouring rain. It was not lost on her that this was to become her position in life, that she would be neither Mennonite nor share her mother’s dislike of the faith, that she would neither belong nor be the outsider her mother had been. She would spend her life on the fringes of two worlds, always looking in through other people’s windows and other people’s lives.

  When Shank finally left the house, her mother appeared at the door, with a sheaf of papers gripped tightly in her hand – paperwork Shank had left on the kitchen table, Maria found out later.

  She called out his name and Shank turned around. Maria could still remember the look on his face.

  “I’ve kept records – records of every dishonest deed you’ve done to your own people!” her mother called out. “It is not here. Unlike my husband, I am not stupid. It is with someone who knows what to do with it if anything happens to me or to Maria. If you ever come near me or my daughter again, the book will be given to the police.”