Plain Truth Read Free

profile and gild her honey hair, her movements quick and efficient as she fixed breakfast.
    â€œKatie,” Samuel said, stepping inside.
    She turned quickly, the spoon flying up in the batter bowl as she started. “Oh, Samuel. I wasn't expecting you yet.” She peered around his shoulder, as if she might see an army behind him. “Mam said I ought to make enough for everyone.”
    Samuel walked forward and took the bowl, setting it on the counter. He reached for her hands. “You don't look so good.”
    She grimaced. “Thanks for the compliment.”
    He drew her closer. “Are you okay?”
    Her eyes, when they met his, were the jewel blue of an ocean he had once seen on the cover of a travel magazine, and— he imagined—just as endlessly deep. They were what had first attracted him to Katie, across a crowded church service. They were what made him believe that, even years from now, he would do anything for this one woman.
    She ducked away from him and began to flip the pancakes. “You know me,” she said breathlessly. “I get nervous around these Englischers .”
    â€œNot so many. Only a handful of policemen.” Samuel frowned at her back in concern. “They may want to talk to you, though. They seem to want to talk to everyone.”
    She set the spatula down and turned slowly. “What did they find out there?”
    â€œYour mother didn't tell you?”
    Katie slowly shook her head, and Samuel hesitated, torn between her trust in him to tell her the truth and the desire to keep her blissfully unaware for as long as possible. He ran his hands through his straw-colored hair, making it stand on end. “Well, they found a baby. Dead.”
    He saw her eyes widen, those incredible eyes, and then she sank down onto one of the kitchen chairs. “Oh,” she whispered, stunned.
    In a moment he was at her side, holding her close and whispering that he would take her away from here, and to heck with the police. He felt her soften against him, and for a moment Samuel was triumphant—after so many days of being rebuffed, to finally come back to this. But Katie stiffened and drew away. “I don't think this is the time,” she chided. She stood and turned off the stove's gas burners, then folded her arms across her middle. “Samuel, I think I would like you to take me somewhere.”
    â€œAnywhere,” he promised.
    â€œI want you to take me to see this baby.”
    â€¢ • •
    â€œIt's blood,” the medical examiner confirmed, kneeling in the calving pen in front of a small, dark stain. “And placenta. Not a cow's, from the size of it. Someone had a baby recently.”
    â€œStillborn?”
    He hesitated. “I can't say without doing the autopsy—but my hunch says no.”
    â€œSo it just … died?”
    â€œI didn't say that, either.”
    Lizzie sat back on her heels. “You're telling me someone intentionally killed this baby?”
    The man shrugged. “I guess that's up to you to find out.”
    Lizzie calculated quickly in her mind. Given such a small window between the baby's birth and death, chances were that the perpetrator of the crime was the infant's mother. “What are we talking? Strangulation?”
    â€œSmothering, more likely. I should have a preliminary autopsy report by tomorrow.”
    Lizzie thanked him and wandered away from the scene the patrolmen were now securing. All of a sudden this was no longer an abandonment case, but a potential homicide. There was enough probable cause to get a warrant from a district judge for blood samples, evidence that might point a finger at the woman who had done this.
    She stopped walking as the barn door opened. A tall blond man—one of the farm help—stepped into the dim light with a young woman. He nodded at Lizzie. “This is Katie Fisher.”
    She was lovely, in that sturdy Germanic style that always made Lizzie