haus where Sarah stayed at night with her grandmother and where poor Martha had been stuck during all the excitement.
“Wait a sec,” Nate said so loudly she jumped. “Your barn doesn’t have lightning rods. The Esh barn didn’t, either?”
“Lightning rods show dependence on man, not God. If the Lord wants to protect a barn, He will.”
“Then, ultimately, if the fire was arson, God’s to blame?” Nate challenged, frowning.
“Not to blame,” she insisted, but she’d never thought of it that way. She supposed there were other sides to some of the things she’d been taught since birth. “We live in an evil world,” she went on, her voice more strident. “The Lord might allow it for a lesson, for our better good, to teach humility or bring our people closer—all positive things, gifts from above. We will work together to rebuild, to raise money for that if we must.”
“So I heard. On the other hand, at least you don’t have electrical wires coming in that could have caused a spark. I didn’t mean to criticize your beliefs, Sarah. I’m just used to lightning rods on barns. Those or smoke alarms or fire extinguishers can save lives and buildings. And maybe God gave the inventors the ideas for those things through inspiration, like positive, useful gifts from above.”
She had to admit that, in his own way, he was right. She must remember, she told herself, that this man was here to help them but that he was not one of them. She had to keep her fences up, however much she wanted to work with him to help the Eshes.
So, with Nate MacKenzie at her side, she plunged into the field following the trail of her frenzied footsteps, back toward the burned barn.
3
SARAH HEARD THE PURR OF A BIG MOTOR EVEN before she peeked outside the barn where she was cleaning up the danze debris. As if her thoughts had summoned him, Nate MacKenzie had returned in the masculine-looking vehicle that had a woman’s name. After Sarah had walked him across the field and back, he’d driven VERA over to the Eshes’ again to do some preliminary work, but now, midafternoon, here he was.
“Hi, again,” he called to her as he headed for their back porch but then did a U-turn toward her.
He came over, carrying something in a sealed plastic bag, wearing his sunglasses this time. They wrapped around his eyes like dark brown twin mirrors in which she could see herself getting larger as he came closer. At least she’d washed up and changed clothes but, not planning to go out in company, she still didn’t wear a proper bonnet over her clean prayer kapp.
“I did an initial walk around the ruins,” Nate said, stopping at the bottom of the banked entrance to the barn. “Every thing’s still too hot to sift through and may be for a couple of days.”
“Sift through? All the ruins?” she asked. That meant he’d be staying for a while.
“I may not have to, actually, to get proof of arson, though I’ll need details for my report that point to how and who. The why may be harder to come by, but I found something key to my investigation. A rubber band around a bunch of about twenty matches,” he said, lifting the plastic bag so she could see what was in it. “I found them on the ground about thirty feet from the back of the barn—not in this bag, of course. Bishop Esh says no one smokes in his family, nor does he keep matches around like this to light their kerosene lanterns.”
“Oh, no!” she blurted. “But why would kids who might be smoking on the sly put a bunch of matches together with a rubber band?”
“So some of the kids in the neighborhood last night were smoking, kids who were here at your barn dance?”
“During rumspringa, it’s fairly common. When the fire happened, I thought of it and worried a bit. But those matches are unburned, so you mean they might have dropped that bunch, but threw another pack like that into the barn?”
“Sarah, I’m not jumping to the conclusions you seem to be. It’s just that this is part of an old arson trick amateurs use. They get some kind of long trailer—a wick—light the end of it, maybe far away from the object to be burned, and have it ignite some kind of combustibles.”
“But you found no wick?”
“No. If one led into the barn, it would have been consumed in the inferno. Besides, you said the fire seemed fiercer high up, so that means someone had a very long wick if they were on the first floor. Of course, kids could have gone up into the loft.”
“We can ask them.”
“I will.”
“Or a long wick means the person could even stay outside the barn to light the fire.”
“That’s another possibility,” he told her with a nod. “A trailer, if it’s long enough—sometimes soaked with an accelerant—can give the perpetrator up to fifteen minutes to vacate the property before the fire ignites. So it could have been kids, but before I look around your barn to get an idea of what I’ll be searching for in the remnants, let’s have that little chat about why Jacob Yoder was hanging around if he’d been shunned.”
Deciding not to take notes or record Sarah as she talked, Nate listened carefully as they sat together just inside the barn door on bales of straw. His cell phone even rang once, but he glanced at it—a coworker in Columbus—then put it away without answering.
Sarah explained how she had broken her betrothal to Jacob even before he was shunned for helping hide stolen cars. She said that Sheriff Freeman could have brought aiding and abetting charges that would have sent Jacob to prison for a while, but he didn’t because he thought the Amish could make him shape up better by shock treatment—that is, ostracizing him from the church, his family and friends.
“He could have blamed the bishop and wanted revenge against him,” Nate said after she stopped talking. He hadn’t interrupted. He found her fascinating, the way she managed to keep control while emotions obviously rampaged through her. Her full, lower lip had quivered, but her voice never wavered. Her naive beauty was riveting, and he tried not to let that distract him from what she said. “Or, he could have picked that barn because of your wall painting there,” he added, “or because it would hurt the Eshes and you. Can you give me more details about shunning?” he asked.
“If he hadn’t been a member of the church, he wouldn’t have been shunned. But, once you’re a member and you break the set of rules—the ordnung—that’s that. But I don’t see how he can be vindictive. Not only did he bring it on himself, but he was not sent to prison when he could have been. Besides, the church will take him back with open arms if he atones and returns to our ways.”
“Since he was hanging around at your barn dance, does he think you’d take him back with open arms? Sorry, that’s too intrusive.”
“It’s okay. To tell the truth, though I once cared for Jacob, it was a relief for me when we got unmatched—before he helped those car thieves. I knew he was keeping something from me and he was flying too high and too fast in worldly ways and questionable company. Now, if you want to look around our barn or ask more questions, go right ahead while I finish cleaning up.”
He supposed he’d overstepped, pushing her about Jacob, but whatever cages he had to rattle, he would. As polite as she remained, her demeanor had shifted a bit from helpful to huffy. She started toward the long table, but he walked with her. “Can you tell me a little more about
