“Some things can’t be straightened out,” she whispers. “You don’t understand what’s happened. You don’t know what’s been done. You don’t know what I’ve done.”

“I know you poisoned Jeramy,” I tell her. “I know you tried to poison your parents. What I don’t know, Abigail, is why.”

She raises her gaze to mine. It’s not guilt or sadness I see in the depths of her eyes, but righteousness. The expression of a woman who’s righted a wrong and in doing so made the world a better place. “He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death.”

I recognize the quote. It’s from the German Martin Luther Bible and has been interpreted a dozen ways over the centuries. But it’s not the origin or meaning of the quote that interests me. It’s the intent behind her utterance of it.

“Exodus,” I say.

“I’m impressed, but then you used to be Amish, didn’t you? Of course you know the Bible.”

This barn is far from the ideal location to question a suspect, particularly with regard to a serious crime. I’d much prefer to have her in an interview room with a camera rolling and at least one other cop present. But my instincts tell me that if Abigail is going to talk—if she’s going to tell me anything even remotely useful—it’s going to be here and now and on her turf.

“Abigail, why don’t you explain that quote to me?” When she doesn’t respond, I push. “Does it have something to do with Leroy Nolt?”

“Leroy.” A sound that’s part sob, part sigh escapes her, and she presses a hand to her mouth as if to prevent another. “They betrayed me. All of them.”

“Jeramy?”

“Yes.”

“And your parents?”

Her hand trembles. She looks at me over the top of it, her eyes filling with tears. “How could they?”

“What did they do?”

She shakes her head, her hand clamped tightly over her mouth. “I can’t.”

“Were you involved with Leroy?” I ask.

An odd laugh bubbles out of her. “I married Jeramy when I was seventeen years old, Chief Burkholder. I’ve always been with Jeramy. Always. Since I was a girl.”

“But it was Leroy Nolt you loved, wasn’t it?”

“Sell is nix as baeffzes.” That is nothing but trifling talk.

“I know you gave him that quilt, Abigail. It’s got your initials on it. I know you initial your work.”

“It doesn’t matter now,” she says. “It’s gone. Everything. He’s gone. All of his dreams. They’re … dust.”

I look through the hay door. I can’t see the hogs below, but I can hear them moving around, grunting, rubbing against the steel pens, cloven hooves tapping against concrete.