The Names of Our Tears (19 page)

“I don’t know. The sheriff thinks they were mad because she dumped out their drugs.”

“They tell us at school that drugs are bad.”

“They are.”

“Then why did Ruth have their drugs?”

“I don’t know, Emma. But a detective has gone to Florida to try to find out.”

“Does it mean Ruth was bad? That she was shot because she was bad?”

Unable at last to mask the sorrow that caught in his throat, Cal whispered, “No, Emma.”

He was unnerved by Emma’s capacity to juggle honesty as if it weren’t a burden, and he struggled to know what next to say. “Ruth was not bad,” he said at last. “The sheriff thinks she was trying to help a friend.”

“But she carried drugs,” Emma said.

Cal reached out for her hand, but Emma pulled it back into her lap and said, “I can’t pray anymore.”

Cal held his eyes on hers and prayed for guidance. He prayed for effectiveness with his words. “Emma,” he said, “please don’t be bitter. At least not with God.”

As if he hadn’t spoken, she continued, “And I don’t cry.”

“It’s not a weakness, Emma.”

“But it hurts too much. So I can’t pray, and I can’t cry.”

“I saw your tears when I came in,” Cal said, reaching again for her hand.

This time she let him take her hand, but her fingers were stiff and unyielding to his touch.

“You have tears for Ruth, Emma,” Cal whispered. “And God knows your tears better than anyone.”

Sternly, Emma said, “I think it’s God who makes me cry.”

“He doesn’t, Emma, but he knows your tears. He knows all your tears, and he counts them as prayers.”

Fiercely, Emma said, “My tears are angry.”

“Those are still prayers.”

“How would he know? He let Ruth die.”

Cal took her hand in both of his and leaned forward. “God honors all our tears, Emma. He even knows the names of our tears. Every one of them. God names them all to honor our pain.”

With a voice as frail and tragic as a plea for mercy, Emma asked, “How do you know?”

“Because I pray, Emma. And I have learned that, in our prayers, God tells us the names of our tears.”

AFTER THE waitress had cleared his dishes, Robertson sat for a troubled half hour in the side-room sandwich café at Charm Amish Lumber and Hardware. He had worked his way nervously through a carafe of strong coffee, and then he had asked the waitress to switch him to decaf. She was an English girl from Millersburg, and she knew the mercurial sheriff well enough to let him sit unmolested as long as he wanted. The café wasn’t busy this late after the lunch rush, and if the sheriff wanted to sit alone with his thoughts, she had plenty to do back in the kitchen.

Robertson stared blankly out at the showroom mix of storm doors, house siding, and hand tools, amused and also annoyed by the tourists who wandered in with their curiosity, obviously finding themselves inside an Amish hardware store for the first time in their lives, expecting to discover some exotic cultural nuance or perhaps a strange kitchen gadget to discuss back home, when they proudly told their neighbors and friends that they knew just where in Charm one could find the best local cheeses and hand chisels. Robertson shook his head at the irony of Amish culture, so doggedly withdrawn from greater America, but now so thoroughly overrun by tourists with cameras, who
acted more like they were on safari than in a decent person’s place of business.

But the sheriff’s usual tendencies toward general disgruntlement about tourism weren’t especially active this day. Instead, he brooded over a rising mountain of specific and immediate law enforcement worries, at the top of which sat Fannie Helmuth. A close second was her extended family, now rolling wagons and buggies over backcountry roads, carrying away everything that wasn’t nailed down at the farm they had abandoned last night.

Then there were the bus drivers, Robertson thought. Need to get Ricky to interview them as soon as he gets to Sarasota. Maybe he’ll get there in time to meet the bus. Robertson checked his watch. Should be there by now—at the airport in Tampa, anyway. Maybe driving south already. So, call Ricky.

And Howie Dent had to turn on his cell phone sometime. Call that number. Call it repeatedly.

Robertson stood and counted out bills for a tip. Then there was Rachel’s search of the databases. A BOLO on the Helmuth caravan was needed. And figure an end run on the EPA. Something to help the Zooks out of the federal noose.

After a last sip of coffee, the sheriff crossed the showroom floor and pushed out through the glass doors into another cold and steady spring rain. Maybe the problem with the EPA would resolve itself, he thought, smiling, and ran through the rain to his Crown Vic parked in the second row of the lot.

Inside behind the wheel, the shoulders of his suit coat splattered with rain, he admired the weather for what it could accomplish for the Zooks. He switched on the engine, ran the fan up to max defrost, and called Ellie on his radio. She answered his call with a simple “Go ahead,” as he turned on his wipers to see how much condensation his heater would have to conquer inside the car.

“Ellie,” Robertson said. “Is the chief there? And Newell. Where’s he at?” The inside of his windshield was heavily fogged, and he’d have to make his calls while he waited in the parking lot for it to clear.

“Chief Wilsher is in, but he’s having a meeting with his patrol captains,” Ellie said. “And you’ll have to get Bobby on his cell.”

“Thanks, out,” Robertson said, and punched Newell’s number on his speed dial.

“Newell,” the captain answered, with a cash register sounding in the background.

“You at lunch?”

“Heading back now.”

“Did you put out that BOLO on the Helmuth family?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Anything?”

“Nothing yet.”

“We need them to answer some questions, Bobby. Need to know why they left.”

“Could have been threatened.”

“I know, and Fannie, too. Why’d she leave on the bus?”

“Maybe just scared. You know, running instead of staying put.”

“There has to be a way to track her down.”

“Stan Armbruster has some ideas,” Newell said. “He’s making some calls. Also helping Rachel.”

“Does she have anything for us?”

“Haven’t checked in, Sheriff. Lunch.”

“OK, I’m headed in,” Robertson said. “Stan and Rachel in the duty room?”

“My office. The system’s better there for database searches.”

“OK, good. I’m gonna call Ricky before I get back. We need him to meet that bus in Sarasota this afternoon. He needs to interview the drivers about Fannie and Dent. Find out why they got off the bus in Charlotte.”

Switching off, Robertson called Howie Dent’s phone and got a recording, “Mailbox full.” He punched out and muttered, “Has to turn it on sometime. Unless he can’t.”

*   *   *

Robertson put his head into Bobby Newell’s office and saw that Rachel was working intently at the captain’s desktop computer.
Armbruster was talking on his cell phone, standing with his shoulder planted in the corner of the room, his back turned to Rachel. The sheriff turned around and went down the hall toward Dan Wilsher’s office.

On his phone, Armbruster said, “No, it’d have been just this morning. When the bus from Sugarcreek stopped for breakfast.”

On the other end of the call, the restaurant manager in Charlotte complained, “You have any idea how many Amish people get off those buses? Everyday?”

“They’d have been noticeable,” Armbruster said. “She was dressed Amish, but he’s English. Might have been in jeans and a work shirt.”

“Can’t help you, Corporal. It’s just not something I’d notice.”

“How about your waitresses, then,” Armbruster pressed. “Maybe one of them saw them.”

“I’ve asked!” the man said sharply. “Nobody saw them in here!”

“Are there other places nearby? Other stores?”

“No, Corporal. Really, that’s enough.”

“No, listen. They had to go somewhere. They’d have been nervous, maybe. You know—careful.”

A hesitation on the call.

“What?” Armbruster asked.

“There’s a taxi stand,” the manager said. “Cab company keeps a car there for when the buses come in.”

“You think they caught a cab?”

“Don’t know,” the man said.

“Give me the number?” Armbruster asked, and he heard an irritated sigh as a drawer rattled open.

Curtly, the manager read out the number. Armbruster started to say thanks, but the call switched off before he had finished.

Turning around to Rachel, Armbruster said, “Maybe a lead here,” and he stepped out into the hallway.

When he had the cab company on the line, he asked to talk
with the dispatcher. When he had the dispatcher on the line, he asked about a fare that was picked up at the restaurant that morning.

“I’ll check,” the woman said, and the call went to hold, Armbruster thinking it an improvement to have someone cooperative to talk with. He put his head back into the office, knocked on the jamb, and said to Rachel when she looked up from her search, “Really, I might have something here.”

Rachel pushed away from the desk, climbed off her chair, and came out into the hall with Armbruster, the pair mismatched in height. Back on the phone, Armbruster asked, “When, exactly?”

Then Rachel heard him say, “OK, where?”

“Thanks,” Armbruster said, and switched off. To Rachel he said, “Fannie and Howie took a cab as soon as their bus arrived at the restaurant in Charlotte for its breakfast stop. And the cabbie drove them downtown, to the Greyhound bus station.”

A tone chimed on the captain’s desktop computer, and Rachel and Armbruster went back in to study the search results. Rachel sat at the desk and put the data on the wall display beside her so that Armbruster could see from a seat in front of the desk. As she was scrolling through lines, Robertson came back to the office and stood beside Armbruster to watch.

Rachel read through the display quickly and then scrolled back to the top. She opened the second item and displayed the record of a traffic arrest in Barberton. A man in a red Humvee had been stopped for speeding nearly a year ago, and a gun had been found in the vehicle. The woman who had posted the cash bond for his bail was the registered owner of the gray Buick that Rachel had earlier uncovered with her first search. Teresa Molina, black hair and brown eyes, five feet six, 145 pounds, had used a driver’s license from Florida. Her cousin, Dewey Molina, never showed for his court date. When a search of their Barberton residence turned up cocaine residue on a cutting table, with plastic bags, spatulas, and digital scales, the house had been boarded up, and an arrest warrant for both Molinas had been issued by Barberton PD. The warrant was still outstanding.

Robertson stared at the wall display with a snarl forming on his lips and the light of celebration in his eyes. “Got ’em,” he said. “Teresa and Dewey Molina. What took so long?”

Rachel leaned back in her chair and smiled. “Just had to widen the search.”

Robertson gave a bemused frown, and Rachel responded with a tone that reflected confident satisfaction. “Stan and I figured this drug crew must be mobile, Sheriff. I mean mobile like interstate and then some, mobile. So we had to expand our search to nationwide. Then we figured the connection between Teresa Molina and some Humvee owner might have been tenuous, so we had to search more than just vehicle registrations. Accidents, arrests, traffic tickets, convictions, incarcerations, DUIs, voter registrations, DHS records, everything. We’ve been running the searches—several simultaneously—since nine last night. And at the very least, we figured these vehicles might be registered in any state. Ohio and Florida for sure, but anywhere, really. Our first break was that Dewey Molina had two priors in Florida, driving a Humvee.”

“How long have you known that?” Robertson asked, taking a seat next to Armbruster.

Rachel came around the corner of the desk and stood eye to eye with the seated sheriff. “We’ve had it since we first came in this morning.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Robertson asked, showing some irritation.

“We’re telling you now,” Rachel said confidently, and stepped back behind the captain’s desk. “Wasn’t any point in telling you sooner, because we needed the Barberton connection in order to be certain.”

Robertson made no reply. Rachel held his gaze until he softened. Then she smiled and said, “Really, the search did the work for us after that. Teresa Molina posted Dewey’s bail in Barberton. We have their plates.”

“They could switch plates,” Robertson argued.

“They could also paint their cars,” Rachel said. “Point
is, they’re on the run, but we know who they are, and maybe they don’t know that yet. Maybe they haven’t switched anything yet.”

Robertson stood slowly to full height and seemed to stretch into mild relaxation. With a broad smile, he said, “That’s really good work.”

Rachel climbed onto the chair behind the desk, and said, “Stan has more.”

Robertson returned to his seat, and Armbruster said, “Fannie and Howie took a cab at the breakfast stop. From the restaurant in Charlotte to the Greyhound station downtown.”

“They’re running,” Robertson said.

“Right,” Armbruster said. “And on a Greyhound bus, they could be going just about anywhere.”

Robertson came forward on the edge of his chair. “I don’t like it.”

Rachel said, “If they’re out there on a bus route somewhere, isn’t that safer?”

“But out where?” Robertson said. “And if Stan could trace their movements that easily, why couldn’t the Molinas do that, too?”

“But how would anyone know what bus they took?” Rachel argued. “And to what city? Plus, they could get off again almost anywhere, even if they bought tickets all the way to LA.”

“You said it yourself,” Robertson said, standing again. “This drug crew is interstate and mobile. For all we know, they followed Fannie’s bus to Charlotte. Or had someone waiting there for the bus to arrive. Because I promise you, as soon as Teresa Molina shot Ruth Zook—or whoever shot her—she called her people in Florida. Called her people here in Ohio, too. And if she was looking for Fannie Helmuth that quickly, going to her house out in the open, like she didn’t think anyone would suspect her, then that was Teresa Molina’s trying to tie up a loose end before she knew we had talked to Fannie. Well, she knows now that Fannie came to see us. She’s gonna tie up loose ends everywhere she can. And those buses run to Indiana and Pennsylvania, too.
How many loose ends do they need to worry about over in those states?”