Amish Country

The sky was a beautiful clear blue the day Jedadiah was pulled unwillingly out of retirement. A light wind was stirring as he started plowing. The way the wind blew made the trees look as if they were dancing. He watched his mules as they pulled the plow slowly down the field. He was about done for the day when Zach, his youngest son came running out to him, a worried look on his face.
“Whoa,” Jed called out, making his mules stop. “What is it son?”
“There’s a man at the house who urgently needs to see you Father!”
“Who is it son?”
“A police officer, I think he said his name was Officer McFeely. He said there was trouble up at some school.” Jed scratched his beard.
“I’ll be there in a jiffy. Go tell him to have a seat and I’ll be there.”
Zach ran back to the house at full speed. He was in before Jed could even unhitch his mules from the plow. Jed led them to the hitching post and tied them up. He slowly walked back in toward his house thinking, 'now I’m never going to get this field plowed before the spring rains start.'
As he got closer to his house he noticed the police cruiser sitting outside and the laundry hanging from the line. One pair of trousers had gotten dirty; he had to remember to tell Emma, his oldest daughter, about them. Jed pushed open the white gate that led to his house, walked up the steps and went inside.
The screen door slammed shut as Jed walked in the house. He threw his coat on the coat rack and walked into his living room. He threw himself onto a chair. It was a long, hard day, plowing wasn’t for the weak. Jed sighed and looked around. No one was in the room except for himself. He wondered where Officer McFeely was. 'What a last name... Officer McFeely… I bet he got teased a lot throughout school. Poor man…' As Jed was thinking this Officer McFeely walked into the room.
“Good evening officer,” Jed said getting up and shaking his hand. “What brings you up to my house.”
“Official business Jed, a child died at a local high school. No one can figure out what happened and seeing how you were once the best…”
“Those days are over Officer McFeely. I’m a changed man. I’ve settled down with my life. No more running around for me.”
“Well I figured you wouldn’t come Jed. I tried to tell the guys but they insisted. ‘Once the best, always the best,’ they said. Well thank you for your time Jed. Sorry to take you away from your work,” Officer McFeely said making his way toward the door.
“Can you tell me what the crime scene was about?”
“A kid, just in 9th grade, his freshman year. We’re not sure who he is yet, or how he died but it looks as if he was murdered. Everything is too precise around the body. Everything’s laid out to make it look like suicide. We’re not ruling that out yet, but I have this gut feeling that he was killed. Well if we’re done here I have to go.”
As Officer McFeely was talking, Jed became more aware that he needed to go to the scene. He didn’t know why but he felt he needed to go.
“Officer,” Jed said stopping McFeely as he walked to the door. “I’ll come. What school? Give me a minute to get my buggy ready and I’ll be there.”
“I’d rather take you in my patrol car Jed.”
“No. No thanks. I’ll just go in my buggy.”
“Ok, if you say so. Well it was Bellefonte Area High School. I’ll meet you outside the main doors. See you in a few.”
“Bye Mark.”
“Bye Jed,” Officer McFeely said as he walked out the door and to his patrol car. He took off in a spray of dirt, leaving a cloud of dust behind him.
He watched the patrol car drive away. He turned away from the window and walked upstairs to his bedroom. He reached under some loose floorboards in his closet and found a gun. 'You never know when you might need this…' he thought. He stuck his gun in his shoe, walked back downstairs and then outside. Michelle, his wife, was taking down clothes.
“Michelle I have to run in town for awhile. I’ll be back soon. Start supper without me.”
Jed kissed her on the head and walked out to the barn. He unhitched Belle, his mare, from the hitching post and led her over to his buggy. He hitched her up, climbed in his covered buggy and went down the road. Jed smiled a sickeningly sweet smile. He knew what he was going to find at the high school. He knew exactly what he was going to find…
The cool air cut through his flannel shirt as he made his way in town to the school. In his rush to leave the house he forgot to put on his coat. Jed was a man of average height and build. He wore his hair semi-long and down. Gray streaked through what was once his jet black hair. His beard was somewhat long and bushy. He wore plain black clothes, a sky blue shirt with black pants that were held up with suspenders.
A car sped past him leaving him far behind. 'People went way to fast these days. Not a day goes by when he doesn’t see a car wreck. People are so vain, they are always competing about everything, whose cars are bigger, clothes are better, everyone should go back to the horse and buggy. It’s more environmentally friendly, it is slower but then again there won’t be as many wrecks.'
All these thoughts raced through his head as he got closer to the school. Just a few more miles he said shivering. It was really cold out but the school was right up the road so he didn’t have much farther to go. He reined his horse in and turned her right. He pulled up to the main doors at the high school. Officer McFeely was there waiting for him. Mark McFeely was getting up there in his age; he was one of the oldest men on the police squad. He had a shock of white hair on his head and a white mustache. He was of stocky build, big around the middle. He was the stereotypical police officer, you always saw him getting a doughnut at the local doughnut shop and he was a fairly sharp man. He always cracked the cases. This must be a pretty bad case for him to have to call me in, Jed thought.
Jed stepped out of his buggy and walked toward the building to where Officer McFeely was standing. Jed reached out his right hand and shook Marks’.
“Hello again Jed. Thanks for coming; we can really use the help.”
“No problem. Just lead me to the crime scene.”
“Sure,” said Mark smiling oddly at him. “It’s in the…”
“Library, I know…” Jed said breaking off.
“How did you know where the body was Jed?”
“You must have mentioned it back at my house,” Jed said off-handily.
“Yeah I must have…” Mark said slowly as he started walking back the hallway that led to the library. 'How in the world did Jed know that? Mark thought. I’m almost positive I didn’t tell him where the body was actually located.' McFeely nodded to and officer who was keeping guard in the hallway. 'Somehow this case keeps getting stranger and stranger. This wasn’t a random, spur-of-the-moment killing. This took a lot of thought. Something someone really thought about and planned this thoroughly. But the question was who and why. Who had a grudge with this young man before he died?'
They walked up the stairs and through some double doors. Turning right they finally got to the crime scene. McFeely used a cloth and opened the door. Jed looked around and walked over behind the main circulation desk. The first thing he noticed was curly, short, blond hair that was attached to what once was a skinny young man. Jed looked back at Mark who had a baffled look on his face.
“How did you know where the body was Jed? I know for a fact I didn’t tell you where the body was actually located.”
“That’s a good question Mark. But it’s one I can answer. When I walked in the door I immediately looked around, some overturned tables, books all over and the trail led directly over to this desk. Then I looked over and saw some hair from around the side of the desk. I was standing at just the right angle to see the body laying there. So I just walked right over,” Jed smiled and turned around, starting to study the body.
McFeely turned back to the door and started looking around. This happened after hours so they had to be in the library for some reason. It didn’t look like there was a forced entry to the library. So he turned around and looked at Jed who was still studying the body. Mark started moving to different spots in the room to see if he could see the body from where they were standing when they came in. He wasn’t surprised when he found that from no matter what spot he stood at the body wasn’t able to be seen. So now the question would be, how did Jed know where the body was?
“Hey Mark,” Jed called over. “Where is everyone? Was anyone else here when the, let’s call it a murder, occurred? How was this kid in here?”
“So far there have been no witnesses to the murder. There were people in the building at the time but no one knows how or why this boy was in here. As for everyone else, they’re all around here somewhere doing something.”
“Another question Mark, does this body have a name? So that way we can call him something rather than a body.”
“That’s one of our men’s duites. Our newest officer was put in charge of finding the identity of this boy. We know he was a student here in the 9th grade. I told you that earlier but so far that’s all we know.”
Jed walked away from the body and went over to look at the overturned tables and at some books on the bookshelf and floor.
“Mark we need to get some guys up here dusting for fingerprints.”
“I know Jed. This has been a really bad night. Some needed to be taken off the case because they couldn’t handle it. A kid being killed is one of the worst things possible. It doesn’t look like he had anything to defend himself with. This is a hard case to deal with.”
As he was talking Jed was looking around the library.
“Mark this isn’t a regular crime scene. Look at these tables. They look like they were turned over purposefully. Like they were precisely laid there to distract us form some real clues or something.”
“I know what you mean Jed. I thought the same thing.”
“Why would there be books all over? How would they have gotten there? Why would they be there? The killer wouldn’t just have killed him and then decided to go root through some books, unless he was looking for something. “
“Well we have reason to believe he was looking for something. I don’t know how you overlooked this Jed, but over here. Look at the body; notice anything strange, out of the ordinary? No…” Mark said seeing Jed’s puzzled face. “Look,” Mark said pointing. “At his clothes, at his pockets they are all crumpled and his pockets are all inside out. This kids been searched.”
“But what would the killer have been looking for?”
“I’m guessing he was up here hiding something. There was a play going on downstairs in the auditorium and he must have came up here to hide something and it just so happens that he got whatever it was hid before the killer found him. So the killer tries to get the information out of him but the victim won’t talk so the guy kills him. Then he goes searching for whatever it is he’s looking for. That would explain the mess up here.”
“But why kill the kid? What’s the purpose of killing him? How the person could lose the chance of ever finding what this kid had.”
“I know it doesn’t make sense Jed, I just don’t know.”
“Well who found the body?”
“It was an actor in the play. This kid was a part of the stage crew. When he didn’t show up to help clean up she went looking for him.”
“Does this person have a name?”
“Carol Leathers. She’s the actor who found hem. She was really torn up about it. Apparently she was a friend.”
“So why doesn’t she know who he is? Why doesn’t this body have a name yet?”
“Because she’s to upset to talk, we can’t get anything out of her and we can’t let anyone else up here to identify him.”
“I see.”
“I’m not so sure you do Jed. I’m not so sure you do.”
Before Jed could ask Mark what he was talking about, they were interrupted. It was a crew of police officers. The crew got immediately to work. They were everywhere, dusting for prints, searching for marks, looking for the smallest possible thing out of sorts. Pictures were soon taken of the body and surrounding area and the yellow police tape was put up around the southern half of the school. The library went from calm to chaotic in a matter of seconds.
“Mark, I can’t think here with all this noise. Do you think I could go talk to Miss Leathers? I have a few questions I’d like to ask her.”
“I don’t see why you can’t talk to her. That’s fine. She’s in the guidance office. Do you need me to take you there?”
“No, I think I can find it alright.”
“It’s downstairs in the one hallway we passed coming up here. I need to stay and keep an eye on things here.”
“See you in awhile Mark,” Jed said walking out the door. He walked downstairs but instead of walking to the guidance office he continued down the rest of the stairs and went to the auditorium. He immediately went to the 3rd seat in the last row. He reached underneath it and felt something cold and hard.
“Right where I thought it would be…” he said smiling.
“HALT!!” A voice called out. “What are you doing here? This is a crime scene.”
“I’m a detective,” Jed said shakily. He stood up straight. “I’m Detective Jedediah; Officer McFeely brought me here to investigate.”
“Well what are you doing here?”
“I was looking for the guidance office and apparently took a wrong turn.”
“Apparently,” said the young officer, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “I saw you bent over this chair. What did you find that the rest of out team missed?”
“I didn’t find anything. I just dropped a lighter and bent down to pick it up,” Jed said giving the officer a smile.
“Somehow I don’t believe you. I’m going to have to radio up to Officer McFeely about this.”
“Well you do that and in the meantime I’m going to find my way to the guidance office,” Jed said shuffling toward the door.
“I’m watching you sir,” the young officer said slowly and evenly.
“I’m sure you are but it’s not me you’re supposed to be watching. So you get back to your job and I’ll get on with mine,” Jed said and slipped out the door. He sprinted back upstairs and walked down the hallway toward the guidance office. As he was walking he pulled out what he found in the auditorium. It was a small, silver vial. He hurriedly shoved the vial in his pants pocket and turned right into the guidance room. Another officer was sitting at a desk, apparently keeping watch over Miss Leathers.
“Sir I’m Detective Jedediah, I’ve been given permission to interview Miss Leathers about the murder.”
“She’s right through the door to your right, be careful what you say, she’s still pretty torn up about it,” the officer said.
Jed nodded, did an about face, and walked into the room Miss Leathers was in. She was lying down, her face still tearstained. He knocked on the side of the door and then slowly eased his way into the room, shutting the door behind him.
“Hello, Miss Leathers, may I talk to you please.”
“I guess so. I mean I’m going to have to talk to somebody sometime. It might as well be you,” she said sniffling.
“Can you tell me the name of the person upstairs in the library?”
“Yes… his name was Carl Samples. He was one of the smartest people in our grade, yes he was a little weird, but I don’t know anyone who hates him enough to kill him…”
“So you can’t think of anyone who would want to hurt Carl?”
“No, no one at all.”
“Do you have any idea why he was up in the library?”
“No I was onstage when he disappeared.”
“We think he was there trying to hid something. Can you think of anything that someone would want, that he has?”
“No. None of this makes any sense. Who would kill Carl and why? He was such a nice person…” Carol started crying. He waited for her to stop and then continued to ask a few more questions. He asked some unusual questions, like who was at the play that she recoginized. She just happened to say that Officer McFeely was there. He then got into a hushed conversation with her, asking her where he was sitting and if he was in his seat the whole time, Jed got interesting answers to those questions.
“That’s all the questions I have for now Miss Leathers. Thank you for your cooperation and your time,” Jed walked out of the guidance office and back upstairs to the library, gaining more and more confidence with each step.
“Jed, we have some good news. We got a clear print. We are running the print through the data base now. In a matter of seconds we’ll know who our killer is.”
“Well I found out that out victim’s name is Carl Samples. Carol didn’t murder him. She’s clear, she was too upset and she had an alibi. She was onstage at the time when Carl disappeared.”
“Well there goes our only suspect so far.”
“No Mark, not our only suspect. I have another one. This is a person I would have never expected to kill someone until earlier today.”
“Who’s that Jed?”
“You Mark.”
“Me? Why in the world would you think it was me?” Officer McFeely said getting nervous; sweat was starting to show up around his face.
“Why Mark? I don’t know why you did it but I know it was you.”
“Prove it Jed. That’s one thing you lack, proof.”
“No Mark you may think that, but I have plenty of proof. As I’m sure you know, I was down in the auditorium looking around and if your officer down there told you everything; you also should know that I found something. But you don’t know what. Well what I found was a small, silver vial. One that looks quite similar to the one that you own, the one that holds a small amount of liquor that you drink when the jobs gets too rough. Now I’m sure if I asked you right now if I can see yours, you wouldn’t have it. Why? Because it’s in my pocket carefully wrapped up. We’ll get your officers to run a print scan on that. You’re probably wondering where I found it,” Jed was starting to get louder and was becoming more assured with what he had to say. “Under the 3rd seat in the last row in the auditorium, the same seat that you happened to sit in during the play. Coincidence, I think not.”
Jed walked over to a table and pulled the vial out of his pocket and placed it on that table.
“That right there is your proof Mark. You’re the killer of this young man. Now the only question Mark is why?”
“Ok Jed. I confess. I never wanted you on this case. By god I knew you’d figure it out. You were at one time the best cop I’ve known.”
“I still am the best. But why Mark? Why?”
“He had seen something he shouldn’t have seen. He saw me let a guilty victim off. He saw me let him go and he’s been blackmailing me ever since. It was awful, having a kid in 9th grade, blackmail you for a stupid mistake. The kid showed no sign of letting up.”
“So you poisoned him with what was in the vial and dragged him up here. Then you wrecked the library so it looked like there was a struggle.”
“Yes I did and I’d do it again if I had the chance!”
“Officers you heard him,” Jed said walking toward the door. “He’s your man, cuff him.”
The officers swarmed in and immediately had Officer McFeely on the floor and in cuffs. Jed sat down on a chair. 'This has been a long night. I never would have thought Officer McFeely would kill some kid. I guess you never know with some people. As a whole this case wasn’t too bad. McFeely was trying to hard to blame it on me. He gave it away.' Jed put his head down on the table and continued to think. 'I can’t wait to get home, away from this school and this case. I can’t wait to get back to my simple life, where I don’t have to worry about murders, liars, and deceitful people. Hell just take me home so I can finish plowing my field.'