Stars for Lydia by P.L. Gaus

Author:P.L. Gaus
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Amish, Amish Mystery, Amish-Country Mystery, Professor Michael Branden
Publisher: Paul L. Gaus
Published: 2019-02-03T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

Thursday, August 31

7:25 PM

The professor parked his truck that evening on TR 606, at the head of John Yost’s farm lane. He was beside the culvert where Ricky Niell had left his cruiser Monday afternoon, with its lights flashing.

Here, Bishop Yost was working a team of draft horses near the road, cutting the outermost stalks of corn around the perimeter, to open the field for harvesting. Once opened like that, the feed corn would stand under the autumn sky until the harvest, when the families of the church would join to bring in one family’s crop and then another’s, until the corn of the entire congregation had been loaded into the wood and wire corn cribs that stood on every Schwartzentruber farm.

Branden climbed out of his truck and called out to the bishop. They spoke together there at the edge of the field, and Branden secured permission to walk the farm. As he explained it to Bishop Yost, he wanted to see again where Lydia had died on the bridle path, and he wanted to see the farmhouse where the family lived. The bishop pronounced it a strange request, but Branden said in pleading his case that, “I want to help find Mary and Esther. I want to know why Mary left, and I want to talk with her about bringing Esther home.”

The bishop nodded his appreciation and said, “We have nothing to hide, Professor. Just do not bother the people who are working here. There’s been a lot of neglect here, and we’re trying to get the place straightened up. Everyone is helping, but they have their own farms to tend, and I want them finished here, in time to do that.”

“I’ll stay out of the way,” Branden promised. “I just want to walk the farm. It’ll help clear my head. I hope we can still find Mary and Esther.”

Pointedly the bishop asked, “Are you also hoping that John can come home from the hospital, to his children?”

“Of course. Why not?”

“That Social Services lady – your Miss Shewmon – has been a bother to us. She is not sympathetic.”

“I have no desire to break apart the family, Bishop Yost.”

Yost frowned with obvious skepticism. “Are you not the one who gave Lydia that scholarship?”

“I think you know that I am.”

Yost considered that for a moment and shook his head. Then sternly he said, “Just see that you keep yourself out of the way. We have work to finish this evening. If all you want to do is look around, then I can’t see any harm in it. But don’t interfere with the people who are working here.”

Branden asked, “Why didn’t you want Lydia to go to college, Bishop Yost?”

The bishop’s reply was quick and stern. “She left her church, her family, and her brothers and sisters of the congregation. She’ll never have a chance to join the Amish church. You pretty much saw to that with your scholarship. But the failure is mine. She’s a lost soul, and it is my fault.

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