J. Wachowski - In Plain View

“No. I’m Maddy O’Hara. We’re from WWST, the television station. Do you watch television?”

She shook her head vigorously.

“Is Mr. Jost around?”

“I’m here,” a man called from the doorway of the barn. He was dressed in the Amish uniform with suspenders to hold up his pants and a straw hat. Together with the wiry, gray beard covering the lower half of his face, he also resembled someone lifted from the pages of a Grimm’s fairy tale. Another much younger man, his whiskers still black, appeared in the doorway behind Jost. On the porch, two women stepped through the front door. A small girl-child peeped curiously from between the folds of their long skirts. Another face appeared in the upstairs window. People seemed to appear from thin air, all eyes on Ainsley and me.

“Good afternoon, sir. I’m Maddy O’Hara with WWST. I know this must be a difficult time for your family. I’d like to ask you about your son Tom.”

“I have no son. You don’t belong here. Please, you will leave.”

“We were told Tom Jost was your adopted son. Mr. Lowe spoke very kindly of the way you took the boy in.”

Jost’s face shifted from blank to grim. “Lowe is a good man. He’d be a better one with his mouth shut.”

“So Tom wasn’t your son?”

“Go away.”

“Father?” the girl called out from the shadowy doorway, her voice high and thin with concern. Inside the shed, a commotion of clucks and caws erupted. She was standing in a chicken coop; I’d never seen one before.

“No, Rachel. Not now.” Jost turned his back and shuffled out of sight, back into the barn.

I thought about following him but the crowd of onlookers was not encouraging. I nodded at them, and signaled a retreat to Ainsley. The men went back into the barn, the women into the house.

We had almost made it back to the truck, when I heard the fast crunching sound of feet behind me.

Rachel ran toward us, bucket swinging in her hand to the rhythm of her stride. When I turned, she stopped short, as if afraid to approach too closely.

“You said…‘this must be a difficult time.’” In the sunlight, her eyes seemed endlessly dark against her pale face. “You said… ‘was.’”

I’ve known since I was a kid, I was born to play messenger. It’s the kind of calling that makes you tough, fast. Everybody knows it can get you killed. Not everybody knows it kills you pieces at a time. Still, I have to look them in the eye.

“Tom Jost is dead,” I told her.

The pail in her hand dropped. Seed spilled everywhere.

Rachel backed away from me before she turned and ran.

“We should go,” Ainsley called softly.

I watched her run toward the barn, toward her father. It was hard to make myself move.

Ainsley started back to the truck. I walked the other way. Righting the girl’s pail, I tried to scoop the fallen seed back inside. I took out one of my freelance cards and scribbled my new home phone number on the back with the words I’m sorry. Call me if you want to know more and stuck it straight up in the chicken feed.

2:21:56 p.m.

“What a bust,” I groaned. “Let’s try the phone-listed Tom Josts again. Even if they aren’t home we could do a drive by.”

“I thought we did pretty well,” Ainsley said.

“You need to set your standards a little higher than thirty seconds of establishing shot, College.”

“No, really. Amish don’t allow photography. I’m surprised we got all the way up the driveway with the cameras at all.”

“What do you mean they don’t allow photography? I’ve seen coffee-table books on Amish, College. They must allow some pictures.”

“No, really. It’s against their religion. Those rules they follow, you know. Ordnung? They told us this in school. People can take pictures from far away and stuff, but never of their faces.”

“Are you kidding me?”

Ainsley shrugged. Inconsistency didn’t bother him much.

“Amish living isn’t on the curriculum where I grew up,” I told him. “Give me the Cliff Notes version.”

“ Ordnung is their law. Each community has their own. Some are really strict, some not so bad. The one near here is known for being pretty progressive-they’ve got those phone booths Mr. Lowe mentioned, and kerosene fridges. Some even have electricity for the dairy barns, I think. Not in the houses though.”

“I thought they couldn’t use electricity at all.”

“There was some accident, years ago. Somebody died in a fire. Things changed after that, to make the barns safer. There was a big story about it in the newspaper when I was in high school.”

“Nothing like death to effect a little change,” I mumbled. “I’d like to read that article. Let’s pull everything we can on the local Amish. Which of those characters back at the station works the library?”

“Mick.”

“‘Quit-Slamming-the Fucking-Doors’ Mick?”

“That’s him.”

The charming ones always end up alone in the stacks. Coincidence?

“Right, I’ll talk to Mick. You google the periodicals. I want copies of anything on the local Amish community. Check local weeklies, magazines and the Clarion as well. Which reminds me…” I checked my watch to confirm. “Time to call Melton.”

“We’re here.” Ainsley pointed out the window. “This is the only address that’s an apartment building. I thought we should try it first.”

“Good idea.” I checked my list again. “How did you know? There’s no apartment number noted.”

“I’ve lived in this county my whole life, remember?”

The address took us to an ugly prefab apartment building at the end of a cul-de-sac. It was two-stories high, not a single open window and surrounded by a scruffy vacant lot. At the back of the building, you could just make out a set of railroad tracks that cut toward the city. We parked in the front lot alongside a convention of rusty muscle cars.

The bumper stickers on the car we’d parked behind said, “You’ll Get My Gun When You Pry It Out of My Cold, Dead Hand” and “I Can Be One of Those Bad Things That Happen to Bad People.”

Definitely the kind of place that could accommodate a suicidal depressive.

“Let’s check it out,” I said. I didn’t sound thrilled.

“Camera?” he asked. He didn’t either.

“Find out if it’s the right address first.”

“Good idea.”

There was a sidelight window beside the steel security door entrance with the sign Attack Dog on Premises prominently posted. We stood out front for a while buzzing the bell; nobody came.

A young guy in a cloth coat and a Grateful Dead T-shirt came flying out and Ainsley grabbed the door. The kid never looked back. I walked in. Ainsley followed.

The buzzer label and a pile of junk mail helped me figure out which apartment was Tom’s. Ground floor. Right in the middle. Worst spot in the place. Rent must have been nothing. I rang the bell. Twice.

“If the guy’s dead, he’s not going to be answering the door anytime soon,” whispers Ainsley Wiseguy Prescott.

“Yeah, well, I don’t want any nasty shocks when I peep in the windows.”

“There are no windows,” Ainsley said, inspecting the dim, grungy hallway.

“Not in here anyway.” I waggled my eyebrows at him.

Ainsley stared back, computing that thought.

“See if anyone else is home.” I pointed to the other doors on my way out. “Ask if they knew Tom. Tell them we’ll put ’em on TV if they talk to us.”

Knowing which apartment was the mysterious Mr. Jost’s, I was able to tromp around the outside of the building and find his window. There was nothing to see through the small frosted-glass rectangle that I was guessing looked into the bathroom, but there was a sliding patio door. Luckily, the curtains weren’t quite closed. I cupped my hands around my eyes and pressed them to the glass to cut the glare. It was strangely quiet out there and the act of peeping in on someone else fired up the prickle of my guilt-o-meter.