Free Kansas Troubles by Earlene Fowler Page B

froze when he saw the quilt-covered body lying on the ground with Tyler’s tiny black boots sticking out from under it.
    He looked at Gabe, confused. “What’s going on?”
    Gabe took his arm and started to lead him away. “Rob, I’m sorry. It’s Tyler.”
    “Tyler?” he repeated, his voice catching. He shook off Gabe’s restraining hand and tore the quilt off her body.
    “No!” His wail seemed smothered in the heavy damp air. He reached down to touch her.
    “Rob, don’t,” Dewey said, catching his hand.
    “Call an ambulance!” Rob yelled frantically at us.
    “Rob,” Gabe said quietly. “We’ve called the police.”
    “But we need the paramedics. We need an ambulance. Did someone call an ambulance?” No one answered. Our silence was explanation enough. He turned to Gabe, the skin around his eyes white with anger. “Are you saying she’s dead? Is that what you’re saying?”
    Gabe put a hand on Rob’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Rob.”
    “Who would do this? Why?”
    Gabe answered him in a careful voice. “We don’t know, Rob. But we’ll find out.”
    “Yes,” Dewey said, scrutinizing Rob’s ravaged face. “We will.”
    In the next hour, the dirt road in front of the tree farm was jammed with a variety of official vehicles—the white and blue squad cars of the Derby and Wichita police, a couple of Sedgwick County Sheriff cars, a navy blue crime-scene investigation van, a paramedic’s truck, and a couple of obviously official cars of the unmarked variety. From what I could pick up, they were having trouble deciding just whose jurisdiction this was. That became an especially sticky problem when the reporters from the local television stations and newspapers arrived and demanded information.
    The Sheriff’s Department took control until jurisdiction could be established. Becky and Stan’s house would be used as a place to question everyone. A tall, distinguished man smoking a cigar, apparently Derby’s chief of police, sternly informed us to please refrain from talking among ourselves and to ignore the reporters shouting questions at us. Gabe and Dewey were still talking to the investigating officers when two Derby patrol officers escorted us like schoolchildren across the road. The flashing lights of the police cars glowed red, blue, and amber across our faces, making everyone appear as if they were wearing some grotesque Halloween makeup. At the house, they divided us into two groups—men and women. The men were relegated to the basement with a young Sheriff’s Department detective; the women were taken to the living room accompanied by a Wichita detective with a reddish nose and an incessant smoker’s cough. He pulled out a package of cigarettes, then hastily slipped them back in the pocket of his blue suit when Becky frowned at him.
    “Could I make some coffee?” Becky asked the detective after we’d sat quietly for twenty minutes with nothing happening.
    “We’ll question you first, and then you can,” he answered tiredly. Five minutes later he took Becky outside to the front porch and questioned her. He chose me next, and without hesitation I told him about overhearing the argument between Tyler and the Amish man on the porch, as well as the argument I heard on the tree farm. “Would you be able to identify this Amish man?” the detective asked, drawing deeply on his cigarette.
    “No,” I said firmly. “All I saw was an outline.”
    “What about his voice?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe. I only heard a few words, and some of them were German, I think.”
    The detective perked up. “Do you remember any of them?”
    I thought for a moment. “ Gott .” It was the only German word I knew, and I wasn’t even sure where I’d learned it.
    “Got?” He dropped his cigarette and ground it out on Becky’s clean porch. “What’s that mean?”
    “God.”
    “Oh.” He looked disappointed. “Tell me again what you heard on the tree farm,” he said, lighting another cigarette.