Page 58 of Rage

“Can you be a little more specific?”

He frowns at me. “Wer lauert an der Wand, Heert sie eegni Schand.” If you listen through the wall, you’ll hear others recite your faults. It’s an old Amish saying that basically means people will gossip about you when you’re not there. He’s talking about Samuel, of course.

“Telling the truth doesn’t mean you’re disrespecting his memory,” I say.

“Fair enough.” He picks up another bale of hay. “I got baptized,” he says, placing it on the stack. “Sammy didn’t. We took different paths. Went our separate ways.” He shrugs again. “I’ll not stand in judgment of him now, when he’s not here to speak for himself.”

Over the next minutes, I take him through the same line of questioning as I did with both sets of parents. I try several different approaches, but he doesn’t reveal anything I don’t already know.

“Joseph, what did you mean when you said Samuel was on the road to hell?” I ask.

He sets another bale on the stack. “Samuel was a good man. But the kind of life he was living wasn’t for me, especially after I got baptized.” He looks away, appears to study the hay behind him. “I’m getting married in the fall.”

“How was Samuel living his life?” I ask.

For the first time he looks uncomfortable, and I realize I’m asking him to breach that Amish wall of silence. “Last few times I saw him, Sammy was partying a lot. Drinking, you know. Smoking dope. Picking up women.” He tightens his mouth. “Taking them home. I ain’t one to judge, but that wasn’t for me.”

“Any woman in particular?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Was he into drugs?” I ask. “Dealing?”

He shakes his head. “He was too smart to do that. Sammy was in it for the fun. The women, you know. He liked to have a good time.”

“What else?”

Joseph stares at me for a too-long moment, as if wondering if I’m trying to trap him. I see irritation in his eyes; he doesn’t want to talk to me. To my relief, he’s young enough—inexperienced enough—that he doesn’t see a way out of responding.

“I didn’t like the company he was keeping,” Joseph tells me.

“What company was that?”

He cocks his hip and looks out the door at the house beyond, as if wishing he were there instead of here, talking to me.

“Joseph.” I say his name firmly. “This isn’t about you or me or anyone disapproving of the way Samuel spent his time. The only thing I care about is finding the person who murdered him. Do you understand?”

He sighs, but he still isn’t happy about the intrusion. “That’s the thing, Chief Burkholder. Samuel was doing fine.” He shakes his head. “Then he started hanging around with them Englischers. Running with all them loose women.”

“What Englischers?” I ask. “I need names.”

“I don’t know that. A couple of guys. The kind that wear suits and got money, you know?”

“Are these men from Painters Mill?”

“I don’t know where they’re from.”

“What about the women?”

He looks away and I’m surprised by the color climbing up his neck to his face. All that hard-line talk and yet he embarrasses easily.

“All I know is Sammy liked women,” he says.

“Amish or English?”

“Both, I reckon.”

I pull out the photo of Cassidy. “Do you recognize her?”