Page 60 of The Hidden One

He raises his gaze to mine. “He was our bishop, Katie. As much as I disagreed with him … as angry as I was with him for silencing my datt … I never heard of any improper behavior.”

Dorothy pats her husband’s shoulder and rises. “All of this talk of death and bones and cut-off hands.” She shudders. “It’s too troubling. I’m going to bed.” She offers me a kind look. “I’ll pray extra hard for you, Katie.”

And she leaves the room.

It’s after nine P.M. now and the house is quiet. Jonas and I sip coffee, lost in our troubled thoughts.

“You have a nice family,” I tell him.

“I’m blessed.” He offers a self-deprecating smile. “Don’t know what I did to deserve them.”

He holds my gaze. In the depths of his eyes, I see remembrance, a stir of the past we share. Tattered and faded, but not forgotten.

“Why didn’t you tell me about the threatening letter you sent Ananias Stoltzfus?” I ask.

“It was a long time ago.”

“How long?”

“Years.” He shrugs. “I didn’t know it was important.”

“You mean while you were sitting in jail, charged with his murder?” I shake my head in exasperation. “You threatened him days before he went missing. You’ve been formally charged. What am I supposed to think?”

“Someone has the letter?” he asks. “After all these years?”

I tell him about my meeting with Henry Stoltzfus. “I haven’t seen it, but he assured me his sister kept a copy.” I consider the repercussions of such a letter and wonder if Mary Elizabeth gave it to the police. “Do you remember what it said?”

“I don’t recall my exact words,” he says. “I sent the letter to remind him that God would judge him harshly when his time came. Something like that.”

“If the police have the letter, the prosecutor will probably use it against you.”

“I don’t know anything about the police or what they might do. But I do know the Bible and I can tell you the English police will not be the ones to judge or mete out punishment. Only God.”

“The police won’t be taking the Bible into consideration,” I say dryly.

Scowling, he rises and goes to the cupboard, removes a corked bottle from an upper shelf.

“Is there anything else you haven’t told me?” I ask.

“Probably.” He returns to the table. Seeing my frown, he softens. “I’ve told you everything.”

He sets the bottle on the table between us.

“What is that?” I ask.

“I think you Englischers refer to it as salvation.”

“Booze?”

He pulls two mismatched glasses from the cabinet and returns to the table, sets one of them in front of me. “Dandelion wine.”

“You’re not breaking any rules on my account, are you?” I ask.

“The Diener have no problem with drinking homemade wine,” he tells me. “It’s from the land. Made by our own hand. As long as there’s no drunkenness.”

“In that case.” I do the honors of uncorking and pouring. “If you get caught, you can always blame it on me.”

Nodding, he raises his glass. “To old friendships.”