climbed back over to join them.
âWould you open it, please?â Grady asked Isaac. He sat the bag on a cement ledge.
Isaac undid the twist tie and pulled it open. Grady carefully lifted each item out and placed it on the ledge in turn so that we could all see.
There were neatly stacked clothesâgauzy tank tops, a light sweater, and two short skirts in bright pink and turquoise. There was a chunky silver-colored necklace and clip-on earrings, and a pair of tan high-heeled pumps, cheap and slightly scuffed. Next came a small bag of makeup. Grady unzipped it. Inside was lipstick, mascara, blush, eye shadow, and two foil packets of condoms. At the bottom of the plastic bag was a leather zip wallet. The wallet contained what looked like a few thousand dollars in twenties and fifties and a folded-up piece of newsprint. Grady unfolded the newspaper and we looked at both sides. One side held the small print of staff credits and copyrights and the other side an ad for diet pills. I hadnât gotten the impression that Katie had been overweight, but teenage girls were never happy with their bodies. There was no cell phone in the bag.
Grady met my eyes. The foreboding look on his face matched my own sickening response. Maybe Katie wouldnât have taken her ceramic cats or her Amish clothes, but all this money . . . She never would have left without this.
Grady nodded and I took out my cell phone and started photographing Katieâs abandoned belongings.
âMr. and Mrs. Yoder, is it all right with you if we remove these items to the station to examine them more carefully?â Grady asked. âYouâll get everything back. We can count the money together before we take it.â
Hannah apparently reached the same conclusion we had, because she let out a sob and turned her back to us, turning into her husband for support though not quite touching him. His eyes too were red and he trembled ever so slightly. He placed a hand on her shoulder. âTake it,â he said in a gruff voice. âAnd may Godâs will be done.â
CHAPTER 7
The Girl in the River
I was driving down Route 30 the next morning toward the police station when I passed Henryâs Fruit Market. The name was misleading. It actually carried a full range of groceries as well as locally grown fruit. It was an old-fashioned place of the type Lancaster County excelled in, with a huge â50s retro vintage sign out front complete with painted fruit and lettering.
And Jessicaâs car had been abandoned here the day she died.
Iâd seen the fruit market before, but Iâd never shopped there. I did my grocery shopping at odd hours, and frequented the twenty-four-hour, one-stop-shopping gigantic chain stores. Hernandez had done the legwork on the market. He said it had a history running back over a hundred years. Itâd been a wooden Amish fruit stand back then. It still employed a lot of Amish workers.
Forensics was examining the car, but our first look confirmed what LeeAnn Travis had saidâthere was no blood and no signsof a struggle. It was just a teenage girlâs fairly filthy car. It was a 1986 Toyota Corolla that had over two hundred thousand miles and looked like a fender bender would cause the whole thing to fall apart, like in some slapstick cartoon. Whatever had happened to Jessica, it hadnât happened in her car. But
where
it had been leftâthat was extremely interesting. Henryâs Fruit Market was in the heart of the town of Paradise, which meant it wasnât far from Grimlace Lane or any number of other Amish homes. Manheim, where Jessica had lived and gone to school, was twenty miles away, and she hadnât been working at the farmersâ market over the winter. So what was she doing in Paradise that day?
Hernandez had interviewed the fruit marketâs manager. It was their policy to tow any car that had been left overnight, but they tried to contact the owner first as a
âWould you open it, please?â Grady asked Isaac. He sat the bag on a cement ledge.
Isaac undid the twist tie and pulled it open. Grady carefully lifted each item out and placed it on the ledge in turn so that we could all see.
There were neatly stacked clothesâgauzy tank tops, a light sweater, and two short skirts in bright pink and turquoise. There was a chunky silver-colored necklace and clip-on earrings, and a pair of tan high-heeled pumps, cheap and slightly scuffed. Next came a small bag of makeup. Grady unzipped it. Inside was lipstick, mascara, blush, eye shadow, and two foil packets of condoms. At the bottom of the plastic bag was a leather zip wallet. The wallet contained what looked like a few thousand dollars in twenties and fifties and a folded-up piece of newsprint. Grady unfolded the newspaper and we looked at both sides. One side held the small print of staff credits and copyrights and the other side an ad for diet pills. I hadnât gotten the impression that Katie had been overweight, but teenage girls were never happy with their bodies. There was no cell phone in the bag.
Grady met my eyes. The foreboding look on his face matched my own sickening response. Maybe Katie wouldnât have taken her ceramic cats or her Amish clothes, but all this money . . . She never would have left without this.
Grady nodded and I took out my cell phone and started photographing Katieâs abandoned belongings.
âMr. and Mrs. Yoder, is it all right with you if we remove these items to the station to examine them more carefully?â Grady asked. âYouâll get everything back. We can count the money together before we take it.â
Hannah apparently reached the same conclusion we had, because she let out a sob and turned her back to us, turning into her husband for support though not quite touching him. His eyes too were red and he trembled ever so slightly. He placed a hand on her shoulder. âTake it,â he said in a gruff voice. âAnd may Godâs will be done.â
CHAPTER 7
The Girl in the River
I was driving down Route 30 the next morning toward the police station when I passed Henryâs Fruit Market. The name was misleading. It actually carried a full range of groceries as well as locally grown fruit. It was an old-fashioned place of the type Lancaster County excelled in, with a huge â50s retro vintage sign out front complete with painted fruit and lettering.
And Jessicaâs car had been abandoned here the day she died.
Iâd seen the fruit market before, but Iâd never shopped there. I did my grocery shopping at odd hours, and frequented the twenty-four-hour, one-stop-shopping gigantic chain stores. Hernandez had done the legwork on the market. He said it had a history running back over a hundred years. Itâd been a wooden Amish fruit stand back then. It still employed a lot of Amish workers.
Forensics was examining the car, but our first look confirmed what LeeAnn Travis had saidâthere was no blood and no signsof a struggle. It was just a teenage girlâs fairly filthy car. It was a 1986 Toyota Corolla that had over two hundred thousand miles and looked like a fender bender would cause the whole thing to fall apart, like in some slapstick cartoon. Whatever had happened to Jessica, it hadnât happened in her car. But
where
it had been leftâthat was extremely interesting. Henryâs Fruit Market was in the heart of the town of Paradise, which meant it wasnât far from Grimlace Lane or any number of other Amish homes. Manheim, where Jessica had lived and gone to school, was twenty miles away, and she hadnât been working at the farmersâ market over the winter. So what was she doing in Paradise that day?
Hernandez had interviewed the fruit marketâs manager. It was their policy to tow any car that had been left overnight, but they tried to contact the owner first as a
Similar Books
