REUBEN HELPED Fannie to a seat in the Masts’ parlor. He spoke briefly to her in dialect and turned to the professor to offer his hand. “I am Reuben Gingerich,” he said. “I am Fannie’s fiancé. We were posted with the church in Michigan. Just a few weeks after we met.” Brand...
WHILE BRUCE and Missy were finishing their work in the barn, Cal knocked at Darba’s back door. Katie Shetler opened the kitchen door and stepped out onto the screened porch to let Cal in. Darba was still seated at the kitchen table, nursing her first cup of coffee. She did not make an effort to g...
RICKY NIELL left the beach house early the next morning to meet Ray Lee Orton at the federal building in Bradenton, and the Brandens drove south past the tall, Spanish-tiled resort condominiums on Longboat Key. At New Pass, they joined the line of vehicles waiting for the drawbridge, and once the...
PROFESSOR Branden stopped at home on the college heights at the east edge of town and spoke briefly with his wife and Evelyn Carson, confirming that Martha was sleeping and, for the present, safe. At the courthouse, he found the long Favor limousine parked along the east s...
MIKE BRANDEN and Cal Troyer drove northeast on State Route 241 to Mt. Hope and then took Mt. Hope Road north to Holmes County 229. At the intersection, there was a single Amish house and the large, open fields of adjoining Amish farms. To the north, the skies were clear, blue, untroubled. To the ...
“I DON’T like it, Michael,” Caroline said. “Not one bit.” She was seated at her bureau, dressed for bed, brushing out her long, auburn hair. The professor was in bed, propped up on pillows, in his blue pajamas. “Nobody knows me down there,” he said. “It’ll just be a quick ‘in and out.’” She got...
AT AKRON Children’s Hospital, Branden parked in the outdoor lot on Bowery Street. He climbed one flight of stairs to the skyway over Bowery, and entered the hospital near the main reception counter. On the right-hand wall in the corridor outside the burn unit, he saw a display of fifty or so fi...