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I’m sure she doesn’t like living with us.”
    “How long has it been since her family was killed?”
    “Almost two years.”
    “Is she still sad?”
    “Not really,” Alvin said. “It’s more like she’s angry. She acts like she never got past the anger.”
    “Doesn’t she talk with anyone, Alvin?”
    “With me, I guess. A little bit. Sometimes. Mostly she talked with Ruth.”
    “She doesn’t speak otherwise?”
    “Oh, she talks about regular things. Everyday conversations. Doing chores. School and such. But she doesn’t really let anybody get close to her thoughts. She’s private, and sometimes I fear what she’s thinking.”
    “Like what, Alvin?”
    Zook hesitated, cleared his throat, and said, “I’m afraid she’s going to hurt herself.”
    “Then what makes you think she’ll talk to me?”
    Zook shook his head sadly, and puddles of tears appeared in his eyes. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pants pocket, wiped his eyes, and blew his nose. “She has a secret name I use. When no one else is around. I call her my stratus flower. It makes her smile.”
    “Stratus flower? Like in the atmosphere?”
    “Right. She’s a flower. And she holds herself far apart from the rest of us. She’s withdrawn, like she’s as far away as she can get, and still be here. You know, like she’s up in the stratosphere. So I call her my stratus flower, and when I’ve said that, I think I’ve seen her smiling inside. I think those are the only times I’ve ever seen her smile.”

6
    Monday, April 4
    12:25 P.M .
    WHEN SHERIFF Robertson pushed through the front door of the jail, Rachel Ramsayer—a dwarf lady, the daughter of Cal Troyer—was standing to Robertson’s right, on her stepped platform behind the dispatcher’s long wooden counter. To the sheriff’s left, a black iron door served as the sole entrance to the first-floor gang cell, for prisoners who were not a danger either to themselves or to others.
    The dispatcher’s radio and recording equipment, a tall and wide battery of lights, dials, wires, and switches, was stacked on the tables behind Rachel. The dispatcher’s computers, keyboards, and monitors sat on the tabletop below the radios. Underneath were the new servers that Rachel had installed for the department. Today, between calls, Rachel had been finishing her efforts to modernize the department’s data and evidence logs and to install new desktops and routers, a task on which she had been working since coming on board full-time for the sheriff last spring.
    Robertson turned right inside the front door and pushed through the wooden swinging door at the left end of the counter. He handed Rachel the plastic evidence bag, with the SDHCmemory card from Ricky Niell’s camera, said, “Thanks for coming in,” and lumbered out of his suit jacket.
    Rachel signed and dated the voucher slip on the bag. “It’s been quiet, Sheriff. Except for Mervin Byler’s 911.”
    Robertson laid his suit jacket over an arm. “Niell, Lance, Armbruster, and Taggert are all still out at the murder scene. There’s preliminary photos of it on that card.”
    “The usual with the photos, Sheriff?”
    “Yes, then please voucher the card over to Captain Newell. We’ll both look at the photos, once you have them uploaded and backed up.”
    *   *   *
    When Robertson had left for Millersburg, Ricky Niell headed back to the kill spot by circling up through the heights at Farmerstown and dropping down again on a sharp angle onto TR 164. Then as he descended lower into the cuts east of town, he swung hard right into the draw where TR 165 led south. Soon he had reached Melissa Taggert’s medical examiner’s panel truck, parked beside the clearing, nose to nose with Pat Lance’s cruiser. Farther down the lane, Pat Lance attended Ruth Zook’s horse and buggy while talking on her department cell phone.
    Missy had a team of two medical assistants working to lay the body of the Zook girl on a body bag that had been