An Unlikely Amish Match Read online

  “Maybe. She’s suggested it, but he won’t even consider seeing a doctor. The last time she suggested it, he glowered at her and said, ‘Does it look like I’m bleeding, Abigail?’”

  “I could ask my dat to go over and—”

  “I don’t think that’s a gut idea. At least not yet. But danki.” He pulled her to her feet and into his arms, lowered his head to hers and inhaled deeply. “I sure am glad you offered to be my buddy when I came to town.”

  “Is that what I am to you?” Her voice was teasing, but Susannah knew that he heard the seriousness behind her question. They had kissed on several occasions since her visit with Dr. Kelly, and she was trying to let things unfold naturally and at their own pace. Some days that was easier than others.

  “Yes...” His lips found hers, and for a moment, she forgot what she’d asked.

  Then she pulled away. “I’m not sure it’s appropriate for buddies to be kissing.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I guess we need to change your title, then.”

  “And what would we change it to?”

  Micah rubbed at his chin as if he couldn’t think of the word. Then he snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it. Girlfriend. You’ll be the girlfriend, and I’ll be the boyfriend.”

  Susannah rolled her eyes and turned back to her cutting table.

  “My boyfriend should get going then, or you’re going to be late for your first taxi client.”

  He walked up behind her, slipped his hands around her waist and lowered his voice. “I have a plan.”

  “You do?”

  “Yup. And if it works, and I think it will, then I will have plenty of financial resources. I won’t be at the mercy of my parents or my grandparents. And then you and I will sit down and decide what happens next.”

  She pivoted in his arms, looked in his eyes and marveled that she’d managed to fall in love with someone she was hoping wouldn’t stay in Goshen more than a few weeks.

  For the next three hours she focused on the quilt on her design table. She was working on a patchwork-star quilt the librarian had hired her to make for her soon-to-arrive grandbaby. Unfortunately she was having trouble focusing. Her thoughts insisted on wandering back over Micah’s words.

  What plan? What did he mean when he said if it works? And what was he thinking when he said they’d have to decide what happens next?

  Was he hinting about marriage?

  Was she foolish to jump to that conclusion?

  And why hadn’t she just asked him?

  The questions tumbled through her head, but she soon pushed them away and immersed herself in the process of choosing fabrics, cutting squares and meticulously sewing them together. As for Micah, whatever his plan was, time would tell. He’d share the details with her when he was ready to. Until then she’d pray for patience, and that whatever he was cooking up was firmly in line with their Ordnung. The last thing they needed was another run-in with his grandfather.

  * * *

  Susannah woke to pounding on the front door and then the murmur of voices downstairs. She grabbed her robe and hurried to the living room, arriving in time to see Micah’s grandmother leaving. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Her father had already returned to his bedroom, presumably to dress, since all of the lanterns seemed to be on.

  “Mamm, what’s wrong?”

  “It’s Micah.” Her mother pulled her over to the couch. “He’s been arrested.”

  “Arrested?”

  “He’s at the Goshen Police Department now. Abigail came and asked your dat to go down to the police station and see if he could work out the misunderstanding.”

  “What misunderstanding? Why did they arrest him?”

  “It seems there’s been a robbery.”

  “What?”

  “And Micah was in the vicinity. The police pulled him in for questioning and decided to book him.”

  “Can they do that?”

  “Apparently.”

  Her dat walked into the room, kissed her mamm on the head, then did the same to Susannah. “Try to sleep, and if you can’t sleep, then pray.”

  And then he was gone, leaving Susannah wondering what had happened and what, if anything, she could do about it.

  * * *

  Micah looked up when he heard Thomas’s voice. He couldn’t hear what was being said. When no one appeared in the hall that led to the cells, he finally moved back over to his cot and sat down.

  He stared down at his ink-stained fingertips. The photographing and fingerprinting seemed to have happened days ago. He became convinced this nightmare of an evening would never end. Once his initial fear had subsided, a sort of numbness had settled over him. It was almost as if he was standing a few feet apart from himself—watching the arrest, booking and jailing happen to someone else.

  He’d never been in an Englisch jail. It was both better and worse than he’d imagined.

  Better because he wasn’t forced to share it with any petty criminals—the Goshen municipal jail allowed each person their own four-by-six concrete space. The stories of motorcycle gangs and hardened criminals roughing up the innocent Amish boy melted away into the night. No doubt, these stories were told to youngies to keep them on the straight and narrow.

  And that was the worst of it. He’d finally committed his life to the straight and narrow, and look where it had landed him.

  He heard footsteps and glanced up to see Susannah’s dat.

  “How are you, son?”

  “I’ve been better. Did you come to get me out?”

  “I came to try, but the officers are claiming they have video evidence.”

  “That I robbed the general store? That’s not possible, because I didn’t do it.”

  “Gut. Gut.” Thomas reached into his pocket, pulled out an old pipe and stared at it a moment. Stuffing it back into his pocket, he glanced up at Micah and smiled. “My dat used to say the truth will out.”

  “The truth will out?”

  “Ya.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “That given enough time, the truth will work its way out. If you didn’t do this thing—”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Then you have nothing to worry about.”

  Micah looked around his cell—the small bed, the toilet and sink. It was all so humiliating. He turned his attention back to Thomas.

  “Ya, I know. Just think, though. You’re in good Biblical company.”

  “I am?”

  “Paul and Silas spent time in jail.”

  “Oh, I suppose I remember that now that you mention it.”

  “Joseph, Samson, Jeremiah, Daniel, John the Baptist...”

  “I didn’t remember those, though I doubt they were in jail because someone thought they’d knocked over a general store.”

  “I would like to pray with you. Would that be all right?”

  “Ya.” Micah sighed and walked toward the bars separating them. “I could use some prayers right now.”

  * * *

  He never expected to fall asleep, but he woke to someone in an adjacent cell complaining about instant eggs, and the guard telling him that this wasn’t the Ritz. Whatever that was. He washed up at the sink, pulled the single cover up on his thin mattress and sat on the bed. Within a few minutes, a tray of runny eggs, cold toast and what had to be imitation bacon was delivered to his cell.

  “Probably not what you’re used to at home,” the officer said. He almost sounded like he cared. The tag on his uniform said Officer Wright. The expression on his face said that he’d seen it all, and he probably had.

  “Nein. It’s not.”

  “Hopefully you won’t be here long enough to get used to the food.”

  Micah cleaned his plate because he was starving.
His restlessness grew as he realized that he was missing his taxi appointments. No doubt everyone had heard by now, though. He’d be lucky if anyone trusted him enough to ride in his buggy.

  His heart felt as if it dropped somewhere close to the floor when he realized Susannah would have heard, as well. He wished he could get a message to her. She wouldn’t believe him capable of doing such a thing. Susannah was a fair person. She wouldn’t turn her back on him. Thinking of her made him feel better, and knowing he would see her again helped him to resist falling into a state of despair.

  An hour later he was sitting in an interview room, Thomas next to him on one side of the table and two officers sitting across from them. One was in uniform and the other was in regular Englisch clothes.

  “For the record, this interview is being recorded.” The man in Englisch clothes straightened the sheets of paper in his folder. “Please state your name.”

  “Micah Fisher.”

  The man nodded toward Thomas, who tapped a finger against the table, smiled and said, “Thomas Beiler.”

  “And are you related to Mr. Fisher?”

  “Nein, I’m his bishop.”

  “I’m Detective Cummings and this is Officer Decker. This interview is occurring at 9:35 on the morning of June 10.” Cummings was tall and thin with red hair that had been recently buzzed. Decker was a woman in her forties and had yet to smile. “Mr. Fisher, please confirm that you’ve been read your rights.”

  “As officers were slapping the handcuffs on my wrists.”

  “A simple yes or no will do.”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “You are being held on suspicion of breaking and entering of the general store.”

  “Which I didn’t do.”

  “We’d like to go over your statement, and then we’ll talk about what happens next.”

  “What happens next is you let me go. I did not rob the general store.”

  Thomas’s hand on his shoulder caused Micah to shut his mouth, which he supposed was the good bishop’s purpose for being there. He took a deep breath and scrubbed his hand over his face. If ever there was a time he needed patience, it was now. And he needed it fast!

  “Understandably Micah is upset.” Thomas’s voice was quiet and his tone neutral. It worked to calm Micah down. “I’m happy to vouch for him. He’s a gut worker, and he has never been in trouble before.”

  “We’ll get to that. Again, just to confirm, Mr. Fisher, you waive your right to an attorney?”

  “Yes.”

  Thomas nodded in agreement. “As I’m sure you know, we prefer not to become entangled in legal matters. Our goal is to remain separate and yet be gut members of the community.”

  “Yet you are entangled.” Decker sat back, crossed her arms and waited until she was sure she had everyone’s attention. “I’ve been on this police force for twenty-two years, and I appreciate and respect your culture. But you know as well as I do, Bishop, that we’ve had our share of Amish teenagers step over the line.”

  “And we’ve always cooperated and done everything in our power to compensate anyone for damages and see that the youth received counseling as needed.”

  “We’re not talking about underage kids drinking beer behind the Dairy Queen. We have video evidence of this young man robbing the general store last night.”

  “That’s not possible, because I wasn’t at the general store.”

  “All right.” Cummings tapped a pen against his pad of paper. “Give us your alibi, then. We’ll verify it and we can have you out of here in time for lunch.”

  “My alibi?”

  “Tell us where you were and who you were with.”

  Micah opened his mouth and then shut it. “I can’t do that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I can’t.”

  Susannah’s father tilted his head toward Micah and lowered his voice, though, of course, the detective and office could still hear what he said. “It would be in your best interest if you would—”

  “I can’t, Thomas. I just...can’t.”

  “All right. We seem to be at an impasse here. Micah, for whatever reason, can’t tell us where he was, but if I understand Englisch law correctly, he doesn’t have to prove his innocence. You have to prove his guilt.”

  Detective Cummings nodded at Decker, who pointed to a television on the wall and then hit some buttons on her cell phone. At first, the video was dark, showing little except for the front of the general store.

  “This was taken from the store across the street twelve minutes before the alarm went off in the general store.”

  As they watched, a horse pulling an Amish buggy stopped in front of the general store. A young man stepped out, though the camera was too far away and the scene was too dark to tell who it was. The man was approximately Micah’s height and build.

  Decker paused the video. “Now, is there something you want to tell us?”

  “Nein, because that’s not me.”

  As they watched, the young man pulled out a crowbar, busted the lock on the front door and hurried inside. They couldn’t see in the store or what was happening, but suddenly the wail of a siren could be heard on the video.

  “That was activated by the alarm attached to the cash register,” Cummings explained. “The owner disabled the security alarm to the front door because it kept going off at random moments, but he left the one on the cash register drawer.”

  The time meter at the bottom of the video continued to roll forward. Not long after the alarm went off, the Amish person ran out of the store, jumped into the buggy and drove off. Decker stopped the video and looked at Cummings, who focused on Micah.

  “Son, it goes better for everyone if you just confess to what you did. Plead guilty, and I will personally speak with the judge and request the minimum sentence.”

  “I am not your son, and I wasn’t the person in the video.”

  Cummings sat back with a sigh, as if it pained him greatly to hear Micah’s words. Not even looking at Decker, he motioned for her to keep going. She pushed more buttons on her phone and another video came up, this time showing the opposite side of the buggy. The buggy had paused at a road crossing, directly underneath a streetlamp.

  “A business on the next block has CCTV.”

  “What is that?”

  “Closed-circuit television—it’s a security measure so they can record any activity in or around the store when it’s closed. We were able to pull this video and establish that it occurred in the same time frame as the first video, but it gives us a different point of view.”

  “So?”

  Officer Decker looked at him for just a moment, as if he might be the dumbest person she’d ever encountered. Thomas had gone completely still, his eyes focused on the video. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Micah turned his attention to it. He watched as the buggy came into view and then proceeded past the camera’s field. Decker pushed more buttons on the phone; the horse and buggy moved backward. She then paused the video and zoomed in.

  The first thing Micah saw was the scraped paint on the front fender. He’d asked Widow Miller about fixing it when he’d first started using her buggy. Her answer had been “Why? It travels the same whether the paint is perfect or scraped.”

  The second thing he saw was the passenger-side window, and taped to it was the sign that he had placed there, which read Amish Taxi.

  He didn’t know what Thomas said to the detective or what the detective said to him after that. His mind was spinning, and it was as if he couldn’t process anything else.

  It wasn’t until he was back in his cell, until he heard the bars clank shut and the lock turn, that he managed to bring his attention back to the present.

  Officer Wright had apparently escorted him back. Now Wright was studying him with a resigned look. “Guess you’ll have time to get us
ed to the food after all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you have the money to post bail?”

  “Nein.”

  “Neither does your bishop, apparently.”

  “So?”

  “So that means you’re staying until the judge is in court again, which will be two more days. Might as well make yourself comfortable.” Officer Wright stepped closer to the bars, and something about his demeanor or the look in his eyes reminded Micah of the old men in Maine who sat around and told stories of the early days there. Something in his eyes spoke of experience and wisdom. Whatever it was, it caused Micah to listen—to really listen.

  “I don’t know what you did or why you did it. The why doesn’t matter so much at this point, and I can guarantee you that Judge Johnson isn’t interested in whether you were mistreated as a child or are suffering depression. Johnson’s an old-fashioned kind of judge. You do the deed, you pay for it.”

  “And what if I didn’t do it?”

  “Then you need an alibi, because from what I heard, they’ve got you on this one from three different directions.”

  Micah didn’t answer. He was thinking about the buggy and the Amish man and the sign on the window.

  “All I’m saying is that this place is not so bad. Food’s terrible and you don’t have TV or a library, but it’s not that bad. But where you’re going? It’s not where a young man like you should spend a year or two. Do yourself a favor and wise up before the judge gets here.”

  And with those words of comfort, Micah found himself once again alone.

  * * *

  Susannah couldn’t believe it. She tried to process what her dat told her. She could tell he wasn’t holding anything back, but she couldn’t believe what he was saying. There was no way that Micah was guilty of breaking into the general store.

  She tried to speak to his grandparents. John Fisher took one look at her and headed to the barn. Abigail stepped out on the porch, but the conversation went nowhere.

  “I know you love your grandson.”

  “Of course I do, but Micah has never seen the world as the rest of us see it.”