“Interestingly, there’s a young woman living with Schrock. She just had a baby, so I don’t know how available she is. If I can get her alone, I’ll talk to her, too.”

“I guess the bishop isn’t too concerned about appearances.”

“He should be,” I tell him. “People are talking.”

“What else?”

I pause, wanting to get the words right because I’m afraid they may be met with resistance. “I want to talk to Schrock again.”

“Kate … maybe you ought to steer clear for a while.”

“When you’re Amish and there’s a problem, you go to the bishop. I’ve got good reason. I was accosted by two Amish men in the middle of the night. If I don’t take that to him, he’ll have reason to be suspicious.”

“Chief…” A heavy sigh hisses over the line. “Look, I gotta be honest here. I don’t like the idea.”

“All I have to do is tell him what happened. Quick in and out.” When he says nothing, I add, “You know what they say about keeping your enemies close.”

He doesn’t laugh. “You need to coordinate the visit with me. That means call me before you go in. And you call me the minute you leave. You got that?”

“I got it.”

“In the interim, I’ll run Yoder and Smucker through some of the databases and see if anything pops.”

“Thanks, Dan. I’ll keep pushing forward on my end.”

“Don’t push too hard, Chief. Sounds to me like these sons of bitches are starting to push back.”

Chapter 18

CHAPTER 18

That place is beginning to sound more like a damn cult than an Amish settlement …

Suggs’s words ring hard in my ears as I disconnect. For a moment, I stand there trying to get my head around the notion—and the ramifications. My experience with cults is nil. In fact, I’ve not worked a single case that involved cult activity. My only knowledge stems from a workshop I attended during a statewide chiefs-of-police conference in Columbus a few years ago. One of the things that stuck with me in the course of that conference are the red flags law enforcement uses to identify a cult and differentiate it from a legitimate religious sect. At the moment, I can only recall two: Untoward secrecy. And coercion.

It’s a chilling and disturbing possibility that changes everything. It’s the reason I haven’t been able to get my head around the case in terms of motive, means and operandi. A cult is the one scenario that makes all of the jagged pieces of the puzzle fall together.

*   *   *