Page 79 of The Hidden One

I think about Mia.… always got the sense she’d been through something she didn’t want to talk about.

What had disturbed Mia so profoundly that she couldn’t live with it? That she couldn’t live with herself? Bad marriage? Secrets? Infidelity? All of the above?

I think about the woman he’d taken as a lover.… Grams was a little ahead of her time. From what I hear, she liked her men.

Remembering the pics I took of the memorabilia display case at the bar in Lewistown, I glance around for my cell, find it on the bed. I pull up the photos and swipe. Useless memorabilia. Meaningless junk.

Shit.

I come to the photo of the badge Bob the bartender pulled from the case. The one with the eagle, the map, and “LAPPLAND” inscribed in all caps. I look around, find my reading glasses on the bed, slip them on, go back to my cell. I enlarge the image. I still don’t recognize the geography of the map.

I spin back to the table, type “LAPPLAND” and “badge” into my search engine.

The Lapplandschild was a World War II German military decoration awarded to military personnel of the 20th Mountain Army which fought Finnish and Soviet Red Army forces in Lapland from 1944 to 1945.

A chill I can’t identify sweeps up my spine. A glass of ice water splashed between my shoulder blades and pouring down. I stare at the photo and the dirty claw that had been scraping at my brain gains access. A boil being lanced. A release of pus. The stench of something vile.

For a moment, I can’t quite catch my breath. My mouth fills with saliva. The acid burn of coffee roils in my gut. And in that instant, another unanswered question coalesces. I know what Ananias Stoltzfus was hiding. I know why his wife couldn’t live with herself. I understand why he beat Levi Schmucker to within an inch of his life.

Messed up his preaching service a time or two …

… funny accent when he spoke Deitsch.

Wasn’t much good at sewing for a woman her age …

Everything that hadn’t made sense suddenly does.

I close my eyes, sick with exhaustion and too much coffee. I don’t like the information zinging in my head. I push away from the table, get to my feet, sit back down. I feel like hell. A little wild on the inside. I don’t know why; this is what I wanted, isn’t it? Isn’t this what you wanted, Kate? A solid theory? Part of one, anyway. But I feel like crying. I feel sullied. Unclean.

The alarm clock tells me it’s 4:18 A.M. Too early to call Tomasetti. But I need him. I need to know if I’m right. I hate it, but I don’t trust my instincts. I hate it even more that I’m so desperate to find the truth and grasping at straws. I’m afraid the answer that’s come to me is so far out there it couldn’t possibly be true.

I make the call. One ring. Two rings. I close my eyes, suddenly desperate to hear his voice. I’m about to hang up when his voice rasps over the line. “Everything okay, Chief?”

Tears burn the backs of my eyes. I want to blame it on dry eye or sleep deprivation or the fact that I’ve been staring at my damn notes and laptop screen for six hours, but it’s not the truth.

“I miss you,” I tell him.

I hear a rustle on the other end, picture him sitting up in bed, concerned, giving me his undivided attention. “You want to talk about something?”

“I think I need to.”

“I’m all ears.”

For an instant, I can’t find my voice. I don’t know where to start. I blink and I’m surprised to feel tears on my cheeks. “I slept with Jonas Bowman. I was fifteen. He was nineteen. I think I might’ve loved him, but I was so screwed up at the time, I never figured it out.”

Several beats of silence and then, “All right.”

“He didn’t seduce me. I seduced him.”

“Okay.”

“I was a minor child. He … wasn’t. That’s why his family had to leave town. My datt found out and somehow the sheriff’s department got involved.”

“Even with a Romeo and Juliet law,” he says slowly, “Jonas could have been charged with statutory rape or some variation thereof.”

“That was the year…” I clear my throat. “That was the year after everything happened with Daniel Lapp. I was … messed up. Stupid. Confused.”

“You were a teenaged kid who’d been through a severe trauma.”