The eastern horizon is awash with Easter-egg pastels as he parks adjacent a ramshackle barn, next to an old horse-drawn manure spreader. We exit the Tahoe without speaking. I notice the yellow glow of lantern light in the window, telling me the Hertzlers are awake. We’re midway to the porch when the door swings open.

An old Amish woman with a braided rug draped over her arm looks at us through bottle cap–lensed glasses. She’s wearing a plain black dress with a white apron. Her silver hair is pulled severely away from her face and covered with the requisite prayer kapp. “Who goes there?” she asks in a gravelly voice.

“Mrs. Hertzler?” I call out.

“I can’t see you. Who are you?”

“I’m Chief of Police Kate Burkholder and this is Agent Tomasetti with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation.” We reach the porch and show her our identification. “We’re assisting the police department in their search for Annie King.”

The woman squints at our IDs. Her eyes are rheumy and huge behind the lenses of her glasses. But I see within their depths a sharp mind and a foreboding that wasn’t there before. The police don’t show up at your back door at 6:00 A.M. for idle chitchat.

“Is the bishop home, Mrs. Hertzler?”

“Was der schinner is letz?” What in the world is wrong? She asks the question as she opens the door wider and ushers us inside.

Tomasetti and I step into a small kitchen. I see a homemade wooden table for two, rustic shelves mounted on the wall, an old-fashioned potbellied stove. The smell of coffee and scrapple laces the air. A bent old man, as thin as his wife is plump, sits hunched over a cup of steaming coffee. He’s clad wholly in black, the shock of white beard and hair contrasting severely against his jacket. Their dress tells me they are conservative Amish, and I wonder if they’ll agree to ride in the Tahoe, or if we’ll have to follow their buggy to the King farm, which will add hours to the identification process.

“Guder mariye,” I say, bowing my head in respect as I bid them good morning.

Both people look at me as if I just beamed down from another planet. The last thing they expected was for an Englischer to walk into their kitchen and greet them in Pennsylvania Dutch.

“Kannscht du Pennsilfaanisch Deitsch schwetzer?” the bishop asks after a moment, surprised I speak Pennsylvania Dutch.

I explain to them that I’m from Holmes County—leaving out the part about my excommunication—and am assisting with the Annie King case. “The body of a young woman was found this morning.”

Mrs. Hertzler gasps, but I don’t stop speaking. “We need Mr. and Mrs. King to tell us if it’s Annie.” I look at the bishop. “I thought you might be a comfort to them.”