Page 111 of A Gathering of Secrets

Ina’s smile falters. Something unsettling flickers in her eyes. Alarm and the initial, cold fingers of panic. “We have no idea what you’re talking about.”

I don’t relent. “I know what you did. I know what all of you did. I have the fingerprints to prove it.”

My gaze settles on Neva. Her face is colorless now. She stares back, unmoving, her eyes wide, darting, searching.

“Your fingerprints were on the mason jar you planted at Chris Martino’s house,” I tell her.

“But … that’s not possible,” she says. “I didn’t go there. It’s not mine. It can’t be.”

Looking sick to her stomach, Viola sets her hand on a crossbeam and leans. “We didn’t do anything wrong.” But her voice has gone hoarse.

“Where does it end?” I ask.

A sob bursts from Neva’s throat. “My mamm put those jars there!” she cries. “I must have … touched them or something when they were in the cellar. That’s all.”

“I only mentioned one jar. How did you know there were two?”

Her eyes dart to her friends, begging for help, for backup. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Jar. Jars. What does it matter?”

“Your fingerprints are also on the key we found in the Gingerich barn.” I divide my attention among the three of them, so they don’t know which of them I’m addressing. “You were there and you lied to me.”

“We have no reason to lie about anything.” This, from Ina. But her eyes flit left and right, seeking some logical explanation that isn’t there.

“The Amish community is a small one, Chief Burkholder,” Viola tells me. “Maybe we made the key for him. Maybe—”

“Stop lying to me,” I snap. “Just … stop.”

The girls fall silent.

I look at the three of them. Young women with their entire lives ahead and I’m filled with an impotent mix of regret and anger and what I can only describe as grief. “Hate and shame are powerful emotions. The kind that can make good people do bad things.”

“We didn’t do anything wrong,” Viola whispers.

“You should have gone to the police after what he did to Emma,” I say. “Instead, you took things into your own hands. You made a bad decision, and look where you are now.”

“We did nothing,” Ina says.

“Which of you did he rape?” When no one answers, I focus my attention on Neva. “Was it you?”

She raises her hands, sets them against her face. Bending, she lets out a wail so filled with agony that I feel it echo all the way to my bones. “Stop saying that! You’ve no right to say it!”

Ina rushes forward, grasps her friend’s shoulders, sets her hand against her back; then she raises her gaze to mine. “You’re wrong, Chief Burkholder. She didn’t do anything. None of us did.”

I push harder. “He raped Emma. He got her pregnant. And she committed suicide. Then it was Neva. The three of you knew what he was, and you knew he wouldn’t stop. So you put your heads together and came up with a plan.” I look at Viola. “You wrote the note. Purple ink. Little hearts and swirls.” I look at the other two. “Then you lured him to the barn, locked him in the tack room, and you set the place on fire.”

Viola launches herself off the wall where she’d been leaning. Her face is contorted and red. “He was a monster! He was … da Deivel!” The Devil. “I hated him. Hated him!”

I face her, step back, keeping a safe distance between us. “That doesn’t give you the right to murder him.”

Viola opens her mouth as if to say something, but no words come. Holding her hand up as if to stop me, she takes a step back, stumbles over some debris, nearly falls, keeps backing away. “I thought you cared about us. How could you do this? How could you betray us like this?”

“Because I don’t have a choice,” I tell her. “Because life isn’t fair. Because you didn’t do the right thing, and I have a job to do.”

Neva straightens, raises her face from her hands. “I thought you were our friend.”

“Right now I am the best friend you have,” I tell her. “I will help you, but you have to tell the truth. All of it. Do you understand?”

“Don’t do this,” Ina cries. “Please don’t make us—”