“You’ve lived here your entire life?”

He nods.

“Do you know anything about this Amish woman who would have arrived in the area about thirty-five years ago? Her name is Wanetta Hochstetler, but I don’t know if she used that name.”

My heart sinks when he shakes his head. “I was just a boy back then. I don’t recall.”

He starts to close the door, but I set my hand against it. “Mr. Zook, are there any other Amish families in the area I could talk to? The woman I’m looking for may have been taken in by one of the families. It’s important that I find her.”

“Grossmuder!” He calls out over his shoulder, then tosses me a look. “She’s nearly deaf, so you will have to speak up.”

I look past him to see the old woman look our way. “You’re lucky to have your grandmother,” I tell him.

“She is my wife’s grossmuder, but we are happy to have her.” He calls out to the woman again. “Mir hen Englischer bsuch ghadde,” he tells her. We have non-Amish visitors.

With excruciating slowness, the woman sets her mending on the tabletop and scoots away from the table. “Es waarken maulvoll gat.” There’s nothing good about that.

Her voice is like sandpaper against stone, coarse and wet and abrasive, but it makes me smile. I like old people with attitude.

One side of Zook’s mouth hikes, and he lowers his voice. “Sie hot die hose aa.” She wears the pants in the family.

The old woman shuffles across the wood plank floor. When her eyes meet mine, I see instantly that despite her advanced years, they are clear, as is her mind. “Sell is nix as baeffzes.” That’s nothing but trifling talk.

Zook nods. “The Englischer doctor calls it selective hearing loss.”

Waving off his words, the woman reaches us and gives me a slow once-over. “What’s this about a missing Amisch?”

Leaving out the details of the crime, I explain to her what might have happened to Wanetta Hochstetler. “She may have been injured or had some memory problems. Do you remember anything like that happening about thirty-five years ago?”

“I remember plenty.” Nodding, she looks from her grandson to me, and in that instant she doesn’t look quite so cocky. “There were lots of stories. About her. Terrible stories.”

“What kinds of stories?”

“Joe Weaver and his family found her. He owned some land near Ebensburg. Didn’t live there, but kept hay on it. He was out there with his family one day and heard something in the well. Kids thought it was a cat some fool had thrown down there. But it wasn’t. It was an Amish woman, and she was in a bad way.”

“Injured?”

“Ja. Bad, too. Joe took her to the midwife.”

“Not the hospital?”