“Once, I was with a girl—you know . . . doing things. Bad things.” The Amish man’s eyes drop and he searches the sheets covering him, as if he’s too ashamed to meet our gazes. “You know . . .” His left leg begins to jiggle. “I kissed her. Touched her. We . . . you know.”

Tomasetti nods. “You had intercourse with her?”

“Ja.”

“What’s the girl’s name?”

“Hannah Schwartz.”

I take out my notebook and jot down the name. In the back of my mind, I wonder if she’s missing, or dead.

“Did your parents find out?” Tomasetti asks.

He looks down, nods. “Datt came into the barn and found us.”

“What did he do?”

“We prayed and then he made Hannah leave. Then he took the buggy whip to me.”

A sigh hisses from Tomasetti’s lips. “He hit you with the whip?”

“He made some marks is all. On my legs, my rear end. You know.”

“How old were you at the time?”

“I dunno.” He shrugs. “Fourteen or fifteen. It was a long time ago.”

Tomasetti nods. “What else did your father do to you when you were bad?”

“Sometimes he took me to the tunnel. Put me on the wall.”

“What do you mean by ‘put me on the wall’?”

“With the chain, you know.”

“He chained you to the wall?”

“Ja.”

“How long did he make you stay there?”

“Well, it depended on how bad I was. Sometimes an hour.” He shrugs bony shoulders. “A week.”

“How often were you bad?”

Noah looks down at his hands, picks at a scab. “All the time. I tried to be good. I tried to abide by the Ordnung and God’s laws. But sometimes I could not.”

“Why did your datt move you into the tunnel permanently?”

The Amish man raises his hand and bites at one of his nails. His leg jiggles faster beneath the sheets. “He blamed me for what happened to Becca.”

“Is Becca your sister?”

“Ja.”

I write down the name, then the word sister beside it.

“What happened to her?” Tomasetti asks.

“She killed herself.”

“Why did your parents blame you?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t do anything.”

“Did Becca ever misbehave?”

“No. Never. Becca was perfect.” He lowers his face into his hands and begins to cry. “She was like an angel.”

Tomasetti gives him a moment. “So, after Becca died, they moved you into the tunnel and you lived there permanently?”

“Ja.”

“Did they ever let you out?” he asks.

He raises his head, rubs at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “They brought everything I needed down to me. Meat and bread. Water. Milk. Mamm read the Bible to me.”

Tomasetti stares at the calluses on the man’s wrists. “Did they keep you chained?”

“Most of the time. But only because I tried to leave.”

“Were there others down there with you?”