An Evil Heart (Kate Burkholder, #15)(42)

“Christina and I have met.” I nod at the two women. “Guder nammidaag.” Good afternoon. “Let’s go into my office and talk.”

I lead them down the hall and into my office and motion them into chairs. They decline my offer of coffee, and as I settle into the chair at my desk, I sense the tension coming off them.

I look from mother to daughter. “What can I do for you?” I begin.

Christina stares back at me as if she’s an inch away from bolting. She fidgets, unable to sit still. Her hands tangle in her lap, her fingers shaking, nails bitten to the quick.

“My husband and I saw you drop her off the other night.” Naomi tightens her mouth. “If you hadn’t done that, I’d have never known what she did.”

“Christina told you what happened?” I ask.

“She told me a few things and I still don’t know if I got the whole story.” She frowns at her daughter. “Chief Burkholder, Christina didn’t want to come here today. Honestly, I can’t blame her. But I thought we should. I thought it was the right thing to do. Duty, you know.”

“Is this about Aden Karn?” I ask.

“Among other things.”

Beside her, the girl sinks more deeply into the chair, brings up her knees and wraps her arms around her shins as if trying to make herself smaller.

Naomi notices and reaches over to make her sit up straighter. “She’s just sixteen. Still a baby in a lot of ways. Innocent for her age, you know.” The Amish woman shakes her head and for the first time, she looks upset. “We haven’t told a soul what happened, and we sure don’t want any of this getting out. None of it. Not to anyone. Can you promise me that?”

“Are we talking about a crime that was committed?” I ask. “One that Christina was involved in?”

“She didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Christina is a minor child,” I tell her. “If there was … a crime that occurred and a minor child was involved, the name of the child isn’t made public.” It’s the best I can give her. As I rise to close the door, I hope it’s enough to keep her talking.

I go back to my desk and sit, divide my attention between them. “If you have something to tell me about Aden Karn, I think you need to start talking.”

“You have to understand, Chief Burkholder, Christina is a good girl. A good girl.”

“I understand.”

“These days … sometimes even good girls … get caught up in things they shouldn’t. They get talked into doing things they shouldn’t do.”

Across from me, the girl lowers her forehead to her knees.

I wait a beat, but no one speaks. After a moment, the Amish woman nudges her daughter. “You go on now. You tell her what you told me. They gotta know what he did.”

What he did …

The girl raises her head and looks at me. Misery swims in her eyes. At some point, she’s begun to cry, though she doesn’t make a sound. Tears stream down her cheeks, but she makes no effort to wipe them away. Beneath the collar of her dress, I see stark red blotches. Hives, I realize.

It’s been a long time since I was a sixteen-year-old Amish girl. God knows I’m no expert on kids. I’ve no clue how to get inside her head or get her to open up. I opt to wait her out.

For the span of a full minute, no one speaks, the only sound coming from the purr of my printer and the tick of the wall clock.

“He was so nice.” The Amish girl’s voice is so faint I have to lean forward to hear.

“Aden Karn?” I ask.

The girl nods. “He was funny, too, and made me laugh.”

Her mother catches my eye. “Christina sells fishing bait on Saturdays. Down there at the bridge over Painters Creek. Worms and minnows and crawpappies, if she can catch them. She hauls everything in that old Berlin Flyer of hers. Well, she was on her way home and a wheel came off the thing.” She looks at her daughter, nudges her. “Go on and tell her now. It’ll be okay.”

“I was on my way home and the wagon broke,” the girl blurts. “The wheel fell off. I had bait left and didn’t want to just leave it. The next thing I know Aden pulls up. I’d seen him around lots of times. I mean, he wasn’t a stranger. He’d bought night crawlers from me the weekend before.” She brings shaking hands to her face and swipes at the tears. “I told him I didn’t need a ride. I was just going to walk home and get Datt. Only had a mile or two to go. But I didn’t want all my worms to die in the heat, so I went with him.”

“How long ago was this?” I ask.

“Last summer.”

“Was he driving a car or buggy?”

“Car.”

I recall being told Aden didn’t have a car. “Do you know what kind of car?”

“It was green, I think.”

I make a note. “What happened when you went with him?”

“He took me to the ice cream place and we got cones. Kept me laughing the whole time. Sweet like, you know? Then we were on our way to his house to get some tools. He said he’d fix the wheel for me.

“Only he didn’t take me to his house. He drove out to Layland Road and stopped the car.” She falls silent and stares at me, her mouth open, her lips quivering.

Layland Road is a desolate dirt road that parallels Painters Creek and a cornfield. It’s a favorite location for lovers to park or for underage drinkers to congregate. Pickles claims half the population of Painters Mill was conceived on Layland Road.