Plain Truth Read online

  I closed my eyes. Allegedly killed, I reminded myself.

  "Is it that you can't remember?" I asked, deliberately softening my voice.

  Katie's eyes met mine, wide and sea blue. "I went to sleep on Thursday night. I woke up Friday morning and came down to make breakfast. That's all there is to it."

  "You don't remember going into labor. You don't remember walking out to the barn."

  "No."

  "Is there anyone who saw you sleeping all night?" I pressed.

  "I don't know. I wasn't awake to see."

  Sighing, I rapped my hands on the mattress I was sitting on. "What about the person who sleeps here?"

  Katie's face drained of color; she seemed far more upset by that question than by anything else I'd asked her. "No one sleeps there."

  "You don't remember feeling that baby come out of you," I said, my voice growing thick with frustration. "You don't remember holding it close, and wrapping it in that shirt." We both glanced down, where I was cradling an imaginary infant in my arms.

  For a long minute, Katie stared at me. "Have you ever had a baby?"

  "This isn't about me," I said. But one look at her face told me she knew I wasn't telling the truth, either.

  There were pegs on the walls, but no closets. Katie's dresses took up three of them, another three were empty on the opposite wall. My suitcase lay open on the bed, stuffed to the gills with jeans and blouses and sundresses. After a moment's consideration, I pulled out a single dress, hung it on the peg, and then zipped the suitcase shut again.

  A knock came on the door as I was hauling my luggage to the corner of the room, behind a rocking chair. "Come on in."

  Sarah Fisher entered, carrying a stack of towels that nearly obliterated her face. She set them down on a dresser. "You have found everything you need?"

  "Yes, thank you. Katie showed me around."

  Sarah nodded stiffly. "Dinner's at six," she said, and she turned her back on me.

  "Mrs. Fisher," I called out before I could stop myself, "I know this isn't easy for you."

  The woman stopped in the doorway, her hand braced on the frame. "My name is Sarah."

  "Sarah, then." I smiled, a forced smile, but at least one of us was trying. "If there's anything you'd like to ask me about your daughter's case, please feel free."

  "I do have a question." She crossed her arms and stared at me. "Are you secure in your faith?"

  "Am I what?"

  "Are you Episcopalian? Catholic?"

  Speechless, I shook my head. "How does my religion have anything to do with the fact that I'm representing Katie?"

  "We get a lot of people coming through here who think they want to be Plain. As if that's the answer to all the problems in their lives," Sarah scoffed.

  Amazed at her audacity, I said, "I'm not here to become Amish. In fact, I wouldn't be here at all, except for the fact that I'm keeping your daughter out of jail."

  We stared at each other, a standoff. Finally, Sarah turned away, picking up a quilt on the end of one twin bed and refolding it. "If you aren't Episcopalian or Catholic, what do you believe in?"

  I shrugged. "Nothing."

  Sarah hugged the quilt to her chest, surprised by my answer. She didn't say a word, but she didn't have to: she was wondering how on earth I could possibly think that it was Katie who needed help.

  After my confrontation with Sarah, I changed into shorts and a T-shirt, and then Katie came upstairs for a rest--something, I could tell, that was unprecedented in the household. To give Katie her privacy, I decided to explore the grounds. I stopped in the kitchen, where Sarah was already beginning to cook dinner, to tell her my plans.

  The woman couldn't have heard a word I said. She was staring at my arms and legs as if I were walking around naked. Which to her, I guess, I was. Blushing, she whipped back to face the counter. "Yes," she said. "You go on."

  I walked along the raspberry patch, behind the silo, out toward the fields. I ventured into the barn, meeting the lazy eyes of the cows chained at their milking stalls. I gingerly touched the bright crime-scene tape, scouting for clues. And then I wandered until finding the creek, where I'd been ever since.

  When I used to stay at Leda and Frank's as a young girl, I'd spend hours lying belly-flat on the shores of their creek, watching the stick bugs skitter over the surface of the water, while pairs of dragonflies gossiped to each other. I'd dip my finger in and watch the water carve a path around it, meeting up on the other side. Time would spin out like sugar, so that I'd be thinking about how I'd just arrived, and in the blink of an eye, it was already sunset.

  The Fishers' creek was narrower than the one I'd grown up with. At one end was a tiny waterfall, bogged at the bottom with so many spores and sprigs of hay that I knew it had served as a source of fascination for their children. The other end of the creek widened into a small natural pond, shaded by willow and oak trees.

  I dangled a forked twig over the water as if I could dowse for defense strategies. There was always sleepwalking--Katie admitted to not knowing what had happened between the time she went to bed and the time she awakened. It was a designer defense, certainly, but those had had success in recent years--and in a case as sensational as this one was sure to be, it might be my best shot.

  Other than that, there were two options. Either Katie did it, or she didn't. Although I hadn't seen discovery from the prosecutor yet, I knew they wouldn't have charged her without evidence to the former. Which meant that I needed to determine whether she was in her right mind at the moment she killed the baby. If she wasn't, I'd have to go with an insanity defense--only a handful of which had ever been acquitted in the state of Pennsylvania.

  I sighed. I'd have a better chance proving that the baby had died by itself.

  Dropping my twig, I considered that. For any ME the state could put on the stand to say that the baby had been murdered, I could probably find a dueling expert who'd say it had died of exposure, or prematurity, or whatever medical excuses there were for these sorts of things. It was a tragedy that could be pinned on Katie's inexperience and neglect, rather than her intent. A passive involvement in the newborn's death--well, that was something even I could forgive.

  I patted my shorts, silently cursing my lack of foresight to bring along a scrap of paper and a pen. I'd have to contact a pathologist, first, and see how reliable the ME's report was likely to be. Maybe I could even put a good OB up on the stand-- there was one fellow who'd done wonders for a client of mine during a previous trial. Finally, I'd have to get Katie on the stand, looking suitably distressed about what had accidentally happened.

  Which, of course, would require her to admit that it had happened at all.

  Groaning, I rolled onto my back and closed my eyes against the sun. Then again, maybe I'd just wait for the discovery, and see what I had to go with.

  There was a faint rustling in the distance, and a snippet of song carried on the wind. Frowning, I got to my feet and started walking along the creek. It was coming from the pond, or somewhere near the pond. "Hey," I called out, rounding the bend. "Who's there?"

  There was a flash of black, which disappeared into the cornfield behind the pond before I could see who had vanished. I ran to the edge of the stalks, parting them with my hands, hoping to find the culprit. But all I managed to stir up were field mice, which ran past my sneakers and into the cattails that edged the pond.

  I shrugged. I wasn't looking for company anyway. I started back toward the house, but stopped at the sight of a handful of wildflowers, left at the northernmost edge of the pond. Resting just out of reach of the graceful arms of a willow tree, they were neatly tied into a bouquet. Kneeling, I touched the Queen Anne's lace, the lady's slippers, the black-eyed Susans. Then I glanced at the field of corn, wondering for whom they had been left.

  "While you're here," Sarah said, handing me a bowl of peas, "you'll help out."

  I looked up from the kitchen table and bit back the retort that I was already helping, just b
y being here. Thanks to my sacrifice, Katie was here with her own bowl of peas, which she was shelling with remarkable industry. I watched her for a moment, then slid my thumbnail into the pod, watching it crack open as neat as a nut, just as it had for her.

  "Neh ... Englische Lett ... Lus mich gay!"

  Aaron's voice, quiet but firm, snaked through the open kitchen window. Wiping her hands on her apron, Sarah glanced out. Drawing in her breath, she hurried toward the door.

  Then I heard English being spoken.

  Immediately, I turned to Katie. "You stay here," I ordered, and walked out. Aaron and Sarah were holding their hands over their faces, cringing away from the small crowd of cameramen and reporters who'd descended on the farm. One news van had the audacity to park right beside the Fisher buggy. There were dozens of questions being shouted out, ranging from queries about Katie's pregnancy to the sex of the dead baby.

  Lulled by the quiet and peace of a bucolic farm, I'd forgotten how quickly the media would pick up on the court record of an Amish girl being charged with murder in the first degree.

  Suddenly I remembered the summer I fancied myself a photographer, and how I'd pointed my Kodak at an unsuspecting Amishman in a buggy. Leda had covered the camera lens, explaining that the Amish believed the Bible prohibited a graven image, and didn't like to have their pictures taken. "I could do it anyway," I had said, stung, and to my surprise Leda nodded--so sadly that I'd put my camera back in its case.

  Aaron had given up trying to ask the reporters to go away. It wasn't in his nature to cause a scene, and he'd wisely assumed that if he offered himself as a target, it would keep Katie safe from their prying eyes. Clearing my throat, I marched to the front of the fray. "Excuse me, you're on private property."

  One of the reporters took in my shorts and top, in direct contrast to Aaron and Sarah's clothes. "Who are you?"

  "Their press secretary," I said dryly. "I believe you all are in direct violation of criminal trespassing, which, as a misdemeanor of the third degree, could result in up to a year in jail and a twenty-five-hundred-dollar fine."

  A woman in a tailored pink suit frowned, trying to place me. "You're the lawyer! The one from Philly!" I glanced at the call letters on her microphone; sure enough, she was from a city-based network affiliate.

  "At this time, neither my client nor my client's parents have any comment," I said. "As for the incendiary nature of the charge, well"--I smirked, gesturing to the barn, the farmhouse, the quiet lay of the land--"all I'm going to say is that an Amish farm is no Philadelphia crack house, and that an Amish girl is no hard-core criminal. The rest, I'm afraid, you'll have to hear on the steps of the courthouse at some later date." I cast a measured look out over the crowd. "Now--a little free legal advice. I'm strongly recommending that you all leave."

  Reluctantly, they shuffled off in a pack, like the wolves I always pictured them to be. I walked to the end of the driveway, keeping watch until the last of their cars pulled away. Then I started back up the gravel incline, to find Aaron and Sarah standing side by side, waiting for me.

  Aaron looked down at the ground as he spoke gruffly. "Perhaps you would like to see the milking sometime."

  It was the closest he would come to an admission of gratitude. "Yes," I said. "I would."

  Sarah made enough food to feed the whole Amish community, much less her own small household plus one live-in guest. She brought bowl after bowl to the table, chicken with dumplings and vegetables swimming in sauces, and meat that had been cooked to the point where it broke apart at the touch of a fork. There were relishes and breads and spiced, stewed pears. In the center of the table was a blue pitcher of fresh milk. Looking at all the rich choices, I wondered how these people could eat this way, three times a day, and not grow obese.

  In addition to the three Fishers I'd met, there was an older man, who did not bother to introduce himself but seemed to know who I was all the same. From his features, I assumed he was Aaron's father, and that he most likely lived in the small apartment attached to the rear of the farmhouse. He bent his head, which caused all the others to bend their heads, a strange kinetic reaction, and began to pray silently over the food. Unsettled--when was the last time I'd said grace?--I waited until they looked up and began to ladle food onto their plates. Katie raised the pitcher of milk and poured some into her glass; then passed it to her right, to me.

  I had never been a big fan of milk, but I figured that wasn't the smartest thing to admit on a dairy farm. I poured myself some and handed the pitcher to Aaron Fisher.

  The Fishers laughed and talked in their dialect, helping themselves to food when their plates were empty. Finally, Aaron leaned back in his chair and let out a phenomenal belch. My eyes widened at the breach of etiquette, but his wife beamed at him as if that was the grandest compliment he could ever give.

  I suddenly saw a string of meals like this one, stretching out for months, with me prominently cast as the outsider. It took me a moment to realize that Aaron was asking me something. In Pennsylvania Dutch.

  "The chowchow," I said in slow, careful English, following his gaze to the particular bowl. "Is that what you want?"

  His chin went up a notch. "Ja," he answered.

  I flattened my hands on the table. "In the future, I'd prefer it if you asked me questions in my own language, Mr. Fisher."

  "We don't speak English at the supper table," Katie answered.

  My gaze never left Aaron Fisher's face. "You do now," I said.

  By nine o'clock, I was ready to climb the walls. I couldn't run out to Blockbuster for a video, and even if I could have, there was no TV or VCR for me to watch it on. An entire shelf of books turned out to be written in German--a children's primer, something called the Martyr's Mirror, and a whole host of other titles I could not have pronounced without butchering. Finally I discovered a newspaper written in English--Die Botschaft --and settled down to read about horse auctions and grain threshing.

  The Fishers filed into the room one by one, as if drawn by a silent bell. They sat and bowed their heads. Aaron looked at me, a question in his eyes. When I didn't respond, he began to read out loud from a German Bible.

  I'd never been very religious; and completely unawares, I'd been tossed into a household that literally structured itself on Christianity. Drawing in my breath, I stared at the newspaper and let the letters swim, trying not to feel like a heathen.

  Less than two minutes later, Katie got up and walked over to me. "I'll be going to bed now," she announced. I set aside the paper. "Then I will too."

  After coming out of the bathroom in my silk pajamas, I watched Katie sit on her bed in her long white nightgown and comb out her hair. Unpinned, it fell nearly to her waist and rippled with every stroke of the brush. I sat cross-legged on my own twin bed, my hand propped on my cheek. "My mother used to do that for me."

  "Truly?" Katie said, looking up.

  "Yeah. Every single night, untangling all my knots. I hated it. I thought it was a form of torture." I touched my short cap of hair. "As you can see, I got my revenge."

  Katie smiled. "We don't have a choice. We don't cut our hair."

  "Ever?"

  "Ever."

  Granted, hers was lovely--but what if, like me, she'd had to suffer snarls every day of her life? "What if you wanted to?"

  "Why would I? Then I'd be different from all the others." Katie set down her brush, effectively ending the conversation, and crawled into bed. Leaning over, she extinguished the gas lamp, pitching the room into total darkness.

  "Ellie?"

  "Hmm?"

  "What is it like where you live?"

  I considered for a moment. "Noisy. There are more cars, and they seem to be right outside the window all night long, honking and screeching to a stop. There are more people, too-- and I'd be hard pressed to find a cow or chicken, much less sweet corn, unless you count the kind in the freezer section. But I don't really live in Philadelphia anymore. I'm sort of in between residences, just now."
>
  Katie was quiet for so long I thought she had fallen asleep. "No, you're not," she said. "Now you're with us."

  When I woke up with a start, I thought I'd had the nightmare again, the one with the little girls from my last trial, but my sheets were still tucked neatly, and my heartbeat was slow and steady. I glanced at Katie's bed, at the quilt tossed back to reveal her missing, and immediately got up. Padding downstairs barefoot, I checked in the kitchen and the living room before I heard the quiet click of a door and footsteps on the porch.

  She went all the way to the pond where I'd been earlier that day. I stayed behind, hidden, just close enough to be able to see and hear her. She sat down on a small wrought-iron bench set before the big oak tree, and closed her eyes.

  Was she sleepwalking again? Or was she meeting someone here?

  Was this where Katie and Samuel had their trysts? Was this where a baby had been conceived?

  "Where are you?" Katie's whisper reached me, and I realized two things at once: that she was too lucid still to be asleep; and that I understood her words. "How come you're hiding?"

  Clearly, she knew I had followed her. Who else would she be talking to in English?

  I stepped out from behind the willow and stood in front of her. "I'll tell you why I'm hiding, if you tell me why you came out here in the first place."

  Katie scrambled to her feet, her cheeks flushed with color. She looked so startled that I took a step back--right into the edge of the pond, wetting the edge of my pajama bottoms. "Surprise," I said flatly.

  "Ellie! What are you doing up?"

  "I think that's my question, actually. In addition to the following: Who were you expecting to meet here? Samuel, maybe? You two planning to get your story straight, before I corner him for a little interview?"

  "There is no story--"

  "For God's sake, Katie, give it up! You had a baby. You've been charged with murder. I've been appointed as your legal defense, and you're still sneaking around behind my back, in the middle of the night. You know, I've done this a lot longer than you have, and people don't sneak around unless they have something to hide. Coincidentally, they also don't lie unless they have something to hide. Guess which one of us fails on both counts?" Tears were rolling down Katie's cheeks. Steeling myself, I crossed my arms. "You'd better start talking."