The big man rolls and gets to his feet. His hair is mussed. His face pushed slightly aside. His typically crisp white shirt is wilted. Somehow he looks older than last time I saw him. He looks at me with eyes shot with red as he pulls his black jacket over his shoulders.

“I need you to look at a photo,” I tell him.

“All right.” He approaches me.

When he’s close enough, I produce the eight-and-a-half-by-eleven-inch photo. “Do you recognize this woman?”

He fumbles for his reading glasses, shoves them onto his nose, and takes a good look at the photo. When he raises his eyes to mine, his face is white all the way down to his lips. “Where did you get this?” he asks.

“Who is she?”

“That’s Wanetta Hochstetler.”

“It can’t be.” I tap the photo with my thumb. “The photo is eight years old. The woman is too young to be Wanetta Hochstetler.”

“I reckon I ought to know, Chief Burkholder. It’s her.”

I lower the photo, not sure if he’s telling the truth or trying to muddy the water. “You had better not be yanking my chain.”

“With God as my witness, that’s Wanetta Hochstetler.”

I leave without thanking him. As I go through the door, he calls out my name, but I don’t look back.

On the way back to my office, I peek my head into the reception area. “Mona, call Pickles and tell him I want him in my office ASAP.”

*   *   *

It takes Pickles fifteen minutes to appear at my office door.

“How is it out there?” I ask, referring to the weather.

“Bad.” He shuffles to the visitor chair adjacent my desk and settles into it. “Never seen it rain like this.”

“I need an ID on this woman.” I slide the printed photograph toward him. “Do you know who she is?”

He pulls his reading glasses from his uniform pocket and tilts his head back to look at the photo through the bifocals. “Damn, Chief, she kind of looks like Wanetta Hochstetler.”

“The photo was taken eight years ago. It can’t be Wanetta. Pickles, I think it’s her daughter.”

“Daughter? I didn’t realize she had a—”

“She does.” Sighing because I didn’t intend to snap, I tell him about my trip to Pennsylvania.”

“Well, damn.” He squints at the photo again. “Photo is kind of grainy. But the features are similar. Looks like she might have blond hair beneath that bonnet.”

I turn to my computer and pull up the image. “The resolution is a little better here.”

He rises to come around my desk and look at the monitor. We stare at it, not speaking.

“Huh.” Pickles rubs his chin.

“What?”

He points at the woman’s face, his finger hovering an inch from the screen. “You put dark hair on her, and she kind of looks like Hoch Yoder’s wife.”