Vern asks me to sit, so I take the brocade chair adjacent to the coffee table. Looking nervous, he eases himself onto an overstuffed sofa that’s crowded with crocheted pillows, and I wonder how many nights his wife stayed up late, making those pillow covers, wondering where her son was, if he was alive, if she’d ever see him again.

“You have a nice home,” I tell him. “How long have you lived here?”

“We bought it back in 1975.” He smiles, and I notice that his teeth are still straight and white. “Leroy was ten. The first thing we did was build the tree house in the backyard. I can’t tell you how many nights he spent out there with his friends, telling ghost stories and looking at the naked ladies in my National Geographic with the flashlight.”

The thought makes me smile. “Do you have any other children?”

“A daughter, Rachel,” he tells me. “Her name is Zimmerman now. Married a nice Mennonite man. They run the bed-and-breakfast out there by the winery. A Place in Thyme Cottage.”

I pull out my pad and pen and write down the name. “You and your wife are Mennonite?”

He nods. “We left the Swartzentruber Amish shortly after we were married.” He waves his hand as if that part of his life is nothing more than a bad memory. “The bishop wasn’t happy about it, and our church district basically excommunicated us. But their Ordnung was too strict for us.” He grins. “I always liked cars a lot more than buggies.”

Sue returns with a wicker tray containing three glasses and a paper plate heaped with oatmeal cookies. She sets the tray on the coffee table between us and looks at me. “We just heard about those Boy Scouts finding that skeleton,” she says with a shake of her head. “And I knew.”

“We’re not certain it’s your son,” I tell her.

“It’s him,” she says. “A mother knows these things.”

No one pays any attention to the tea or the cookies. They’re a formality. Good manners. A minute or two for both of them to mentally brace for the discussion we’re about to have. Or the news they’re about to receive.

“Several agencies are involved in the identification process,” I tell them. “The Bureau of Criminal Investigation may call you to make an appointment to take DNA samples. It’ll entail a quick swab of the mouth. They need a close relative to match it to.”

“Tell them to come any time,” Vern says. “We want to know if it’s him.”

I reach for the tea and sip. It’s cold and tastes of mint, exactly the way my mother used to make it when I was a girl. “So your son had a broken arm a few years before he went missing?”