“What rule? Why Tom’s conscience?”
Grace winced as she shrugged, embarrassed or hurt not to know the answer. “He was so upset. It’s hard for Englischers to understand the feeling-”
“What feeling?”
“An Amish community watches over each other. We have the elders, yes, but we also have each other. We are each responsible and we are all responsible.”
I nodded to encourage her. Did she know she used the inclusive “we”?
“After all,” she reached out and patted Ainsley’s knee with a gnarled hand, “what would heaven be without all your loved ones around you? When someone is no longer at peace with himself, he must seek public confession. I think, maybe the fighting, even the things that happened later, maybe it was Thomas’ mixed up way to make the problem public.”
“Uh-oh,” Ainsley summarized.
“Yes. Public confession is not sod, not the worldly way. The last night I saw him, Thomas said he didn’t know if he could belong anymore.”
“At the fire station?”
“I thought he meant there, with the Englischers. I always wondered if perhaps, Thomas might wish to return to Amish ways someday. He’d hinted as much to me. Perhaps he meant something else.”
“Then what happened?”
“He left after dinner as usual.” She pressed her lips together, frustrated. “The world looked different to Thomas than it does to most. It was all a bit darker, more unpredictable. He expected bad things. They never surprised him. Rules helped keep him-” She stopped and searched for the right word.
I thought about saying “sane” but changed it to, “-on track?”
“Yes. That’s just it. When this fellow he trusted broke the rules, poor Thomas was at a loss. He seemed to feel anything could happen and all of it would be bad.”
“Did he tell you about how he was getting along with the men at the firehouse after that? Or about an incident he might have had with the police?”
“Thomas? No. Of course not.” The denial came first because that was fundamentally how Grace thought of Tom, not because she was out to fluff me. I didn’t enjoy watching her perception change. “Did something happen with police?”
“An officer found him with a girl in a parked car,” I said. “They were taken to the station because the girl appeared to be breaking curfew. And she was Amish.”
“Rachel.”
I took a breath. I liked Grace. I didn’t want her to agree to be part of this story without knowing the whole story. Being civilized was a professional liability, but there it is.
“They also found magazines in his trunk.”
“Magazines?”
“Can I have a piece of that fruit bread now?” I asked.
Grace served. It gave me a good excuse to keep my eyes on my plate.
“They were adult magazines,” I told her. “Someone at the police station found out and there was some gossip. It seemed to affect how his colleagues were treating him.”
“Mercy.” She said it softly to herself. Loud and firm, she said, “If you are here to gather information to slander that boy further, I’ll ask you to leave right now.”
“No, Mrs. Ott. I don’t want to slander anyone. I wouldn’t be here if I thought that part of the story was the whole truth.”
I looked over at Ainsley, mostly because I was wishing he wasn’t there. Right at that moment, I didn’t like doing this interview in front of him. It felt uncomfortable. I took a breath and spoke the truth, despite the audience.
“Help me understand what happened. Lots of people know what it feels like to be stuck between old ways and new ways.”
Grace stared at me, eyes large behind glasses. Her face wore a mask of age, but I sensed the empathy of recognition behind it.
“I know what it feels like,” I confessed. “Help me understand why he gave up trying.”
3:30:58 p.m.
We finished way past lunch. Since we were expected back at the office already, Ainsley was driving like a high-school boy after dark. The tires screamed at every stop light.
Bits and pieces were flying around in my head, I needed quiet to sort through the whirl.
“I can’t believe you talked her into that interview. I never thought she’d go for it.” Ainsley rattled along, doing the ten o’clock football recap. Let’s see that play again. Wasn’t that great?
“Yeah.”
“I thought we’d never get it. But you talked her into it. Man. That was great. Great stuff. The farm and teaching. Maybe I should call the high school tomorrow? I bet I can get yearbook photos of Mrs. Ott from way back. What do you think? Maddy?”
“Yeah, great.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Timing’s not right.”
“What timing? On the track?”
“No,” I snapped. “Think about this. Grace said Tom came to her to complain about feeling betrayed before school started, but he was arrested after that. Rachel said the same thing. He was upset before they got caught in the car.”
“So?”
“So something must have happened at the fire station first. Tom gets all worked up about it. He goes out with his girl-he’s frantic, he’s pushing her to marry him, give him some reason to return to the Amish-not only does she turn him down, he also gets busted with jack-off material in the trunk. Doesn’t that sound funky to you?”
“You mean like funky luck?”
“I mean like a funky-fucking-set-up. Somebody set him up with those magazines. That’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“Why?”
“To ruin his reputation?” As soon as I said it, I knew it felt right. “To make him look like a sneaky, untrustworthy bastard? To distract him? Revenge maybe? It has to be something to do with that fight at the fire station.”
The chief had said Tom and Pat were fighting right before he died. Was that what put Tom “in a twist” before he saw Rachel? Or did the boys fight later, over the magazines in the trunk? Talking to Pat just moved to the top of my list.
I jumped to Tom’s death and started playing with another idea. “How much do you think a firefighter makes a year?”
“I don’t know. Maybe 40K?”
“How much would that cheesy apartment he lived in cost a year?”
“Maybe five hundred. At most.”
“Used car. Cheap-o housing. No drugs, no expenses. He’s been working four or five years in the fire service. He could have forty, fifty grand saved. Maybe more. That might rate a personal visit from a banker.”
“Whoa.” Ainsley shook his head. “Never thought of that.”
“Oh, it’s diabolical,” I cackled as I pieced possibilities together. “Tom makes it up to his girl and sticks it to his old man all in one blow. Fucking ingenious.”
“What?” Ainsley flashed quick looks between the road and my grin. “Why is that good?”
“He’s left all that cash in Rachel’s hands. She can do whatever she wants now. If we’re right about the money, she could choose to leave her father’s farm. Buy her own place. Or go to college. Now, she has a choice.”
I sat up straight, leaning against the strap of the seatbelt. If the money went to split Rachel from her father, the binoculars went to split him from what? Peace of mind? His community? I crammed that thought under cover. Would my story make it worse for him? No room for that guilt. I had to produce a piece for television and Rachel Jost would be appearing in it. If Old Man Jost had to take the hot seat with his Amish neighbors over six minutes of pre-prime, well, maybe he deserved it.
“Tom Jost wasn’t shunned. Rachel told us that,” I calculated aloud. “He left the community and didn’t take vows.”