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with dispatching, when your wife went home.”
    “Why’d Ellie go home?” Ricky asked.
    “Upset stomach. She said she’d be fine in a little while.”
    Ricky nodded and held his peace.
    Curious to know why Niell hadn’t asked more about Ellie, Robertson asked, “Is there something I should know, Detective?”
    “It’s probably just the stomach flu,” Ricky said. “I’ll lead you over to the murder scene. If we go through Farmerstown, it’s not too far.”
    “No,” Robertson said. “You handle things over there, with Missy and Lance. But send Armbruster back to Millersburg. In the meantime, I want to have Bobby Newell look at these pictures with me. Are they all on this one card?”
    “Everything I have so far,” Ricky said. “I’ll get more.”
    “Anything unusual that I should know about, before we go through these photos?”
    “Well,” Ricky said, “she’s a mess. Trampled by her buggy horse. I think she was shot. With a Black Talon. And there are Humvee tracks that overlie her buggy wheel tracks. She’s got an entrance wound on her forehead, and she’s got an exit wound at the back of her head. We found the bullet embedded in the backseat of her buggy. And she’s missing the ring finger on her left hand.”
    Robertson frowned. “It’s too far out of the way for her to have stumbled onto something. You know, she wasn’t just
in the wrong place at the wrong time
.”
    “I think she must have gone there to meet someone,” Ricky said. “So the question is, who would want to meet her there?”
    “Meet her there,” Robertson nodded, “with a Humvee and a Black Talon.”
    *   *   *
    While Ricky and the sheriff were talking on the Zooks’ driveway, Cal Troyer climbed the steps to the front porch and knocked on the door. Alvin Zook answered the knock, held the screened door open for Cal, and let the pastor into the front hallway.
    To Cal’s right, the parlor was filled with Amish folk, sitting wordlessly on several church benches. Two older ladies flanked Mrs. Irma Zook, who was Alvin’s daughter-in-law and the mother of Ruth. When Cal entered, the men looked up with unanswerable sorrow, then turned their heads down to resume their meditations. Of the women there, none looked up as Cal came through.
    At the back of the hallway, the large kitchen was filled with a half-dozen Amish women cooking food in the oven and on the stovetop. All of the available counter space was being used for other preparations. From the back porch, two more Amish ladies carried cloth bags filled with groceries into the kitchen, then turned around and went back down the steps to get more bags out of a buggy parked at the back of the house. Alvin led Cal down the back steps and pulled him aside, so that the women could pass up the steps again with more groceries.
    Whispering, Alvin said, “We know death, Cal. We know it well. But murder? Who knows anything about that?”
    Mindful of all the people inside, Cal whispered, too. “Alvin, why would Ruth head over that way? Did she know anyone there? Because it’s not on the way to anywhere.”
    “I don’t think so. Not in particular. But you know how it is. Amish people know everyone. In one way or another. We know all the Amish families, and they all know us.”
    “Do you need any help?” Cal asked.
    “We know what to do for the family,” Alvin answered. After a moment’s hesitation, he said, “Maybe you could try to talk with Emma.”
    “Of course,” Cal said, turning back toward the steps.
    Alvin turned him around with a light touch on his elbow. “She’s not in there, Cal.”
    “Where, then?”
    “She’ll be in the barn. She’s got a secret place where she goes to be alone. I’m sure she’s there now, and I’m sure she’s alone. Someone needs to talk with her.”
    “Shouldn’t someone in the family come with me?” Cal asked.
    “Normally, yes,” Alvin said. “But Emma doesn’t talk to us very much. I really don’t think she likes us.