Operation Bonnet Read online

  All those dollars, even on-sale ones, for naught. No matter, I consoled myself. There would be the chance to record a debriefing on my solitary walk home.

  “Absolutely,” I said, throwing in a sunny-natured shoulder pat for good measure. “Whatever makes you feel comfortable.”

  “OK. Good,” he said. He dug his PUMAs into the pebbles under our feet and pushed off to swing. “I will tell you now why I, a man, need to pay you, a girl, to work privately for me.”

  There were better ways to word that proposition, but we could cover that later.

  “I grew up on a farm forty miles in distance from here. Oh—” He stopped. “I was Amish.”

  “Right,” I said. Perhaps he thought the tangerine shirt was a really effective decoy.

  “On this farm, I was happy as a child. We raised potatoes and squash and corn and tomatoes and many other things to feed our family, having eight people. My father taught me how to drive our buggy, fix a horseshoe, build the barns.”

  I thought I saw Amos flex his pectoral muscles at the memory. The action made me blush, which, in turn, made me irritated. I was working here, and no sort of Mrs. H. prudery could become a distraction.

  “When I had twelve years old, I began to change.”

  I so hoped he didn’t know the word for puberty.

  “I was tall and strong for my age, so my parents sent me alone to town to sell our food. The farmers’ market, grocery stores, even schools in the town—everyone liked to pay us money for our produce. No one grew any better.” He stopped and swung in a small pendulum’s arc, back and forth, back and forth. “I can taste the tomatoes when I think of them.”

  I watched his face, his mouth lopsided in a sad smile.

  “So,” I said, “you were twelve.” I didn’t mean to be insensitive, but it was inching toward midnight, and we had a good ten years to cover in Amos’s story. After all those adrenaline rushes, I was starting to feel drowsy.

  “I was twelve,” he agreed. “This was the age when I knew I was going to be different. It is difficult to say the words.” He bit his lower lip. “I love my family, but I am not like my family.”

  “Say no more.” I nodded. “I know exactly what you’re talking about, brother.”

  His brow furrowed. “I do not know you had a brother. Does he like that you are talking with a strange man in the darkness?”

  I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “No brother. I just meant my family doesn’t understand me either.”

  “Ah,” he said, nodding. “Did they shun you?”

  Luminaries know the meaning of the verb to shun and don’t like the sound of it. “Do they avoid me deliberately and habitually?” I actually had to think of my answer. “Technically, yes, but it’s mostly because I won’t go golfing with them.”

  Amos looked utterly lost.

  “But this isn’t about me. You knew you weren’t like your family.”

  “That is right,” he said. “I knew for many years before I left that I could not be Amish for my life. It is not in me.” He pushed on his heart with his fist, so hard I worried he’d hurt those pecs. “I tried leaving three times before I stayed out. My returning was much suffering for my family, perhaps more than my leaving. I had to return, though. Because of her.” He stared at me in the darkness. I could see his eyes shining. “Katie.”

  A secret love interest, I thought. This is the best day of my life. “You love her,” I said, watching his face in the lamplight.

  He nodded, every bit as miserable as any Shakespearean hero. I got goose bumps just thinking about it.

  “I do love her, but this was impossible.” He got up off the swing and began to pace in front of me. Pacing, I knew from my online body language course, indicated discontent, restlessness, possibly rage. I wasn’t too worried about the anger because I’d twice seen my ability to manhandle Amos when provoked.

  “I love her,” he continued, “but I knew we were too different to be a man and wife.” He blushed, noticeable even in the dim light. “But I had not yet thought of her with another man.”

  “Ah,” I said, nodding, “so Katie’s been leaving her boots under another cowboy’s bed.”

  Amos stopped midstride and flashed a glare my way. “She is pure,” he said. There were elements of a snarl in his tone. “Do not ever insult her with such comments about her boots.”

  I shrugged. “Sorry. If she hasn’t been unfaithful, what’s the issue with another man?”

  “His name is John Yoder, and I despise him.” The pacing resumed. “We have never liked each other, and as we became older, we were good at not being in the same place. But now …”

  “Why can’t you stand him?” I asked.

  “Because!” Amos threw his arms up in one wild, frustrated gesture. “John Yoder is prideful, and he likes too much the women who are pretty. When we were in school together, he would spend all his time getting others to laugh but would blame me for the loud noises from students.” He paused, and I, for one, hoped there’d be more dirt than liking pretty girls and getting one’s name on the board. “John Yoder is the Slim Shady.”

  I winced. There are perils to picking up slang without any outside monitoring. “And John and Katie are dating?”

  Amos rolled his eyes. “The Amish do not do dating. They get married.”

  “They get married without dating first?” From where I stood, dateless for a good five years, I could see the perks.

  “Let me explain to you.…” He massaged his face, and I could hear the quiet percussion of a day’s beard. “Girls and boys spend time together but with other girls and boys. Then a boy drives a girl to her house in his buggy. And if he likes her, and she likes him, they lie in bed together all night talking.”

  I snickered. It was very seventh-grade of me to do so, but really? All night in bed, talking? Did he think I was completely stupid? I asked him as much.

  “Yes, of course they talk. What else would they do in the middle of the night?” He wrinkled his brow in honest confusion. Then the light dawned. “Oh, I know what you think.” He shook his head. Disappointment attached itself to his frown. “The English do not know how to talk all night in bed. The English like to—what was that word—it rhymes with nag? Snag?”

  “All right, all right.” I stopped him. “That will do. I will have you know,” I said, posture as indignant as I could manage on a playground swing, “not all Englishers are unable to control themselves. In bed or otherwise.”

  “Well, that might be the truth,” he said. “But Amish girls and boys wait until they are married. First, we lie in bed and talk. Plus,” he added, jabbing the air for emphasis, “at least my community let us use the beds. Some Amish make the boy sit up in a rocking chair all night with the girl on his lap.” He shuddered. “Very awkward.”

  I stared at him. He looked like a regular guy, other than the shirt, but he sounded like an alien.

  “So this is your employment.” He clapped his hands together. “You must go back to my home and take secret information to show me if Katie lies in bed with John.”

  This from the man who didn’t like my boots metaphor. “You want actual photos of the two in bed? I mean, I can do that. Done it plenty of times, in fact—”

  “No, no, please.” Amos looked sick. “I want you to listen secretly and tell me what you hear. It will be easy.” He shrugged. “You need only to watch them together one time to see if they are to be married. Katie will show it on her face. She always did with me.”

  The boy scuffed the toe of his shoe into the dirt and slumped the slump of the dumped. If I were a romantic, which I’m not, it probably would have made me burst into tears and order up some ice cream for purposes of emotional eating.

  “Will you work as my Magnum PI?” he said. His big blue eyes were all mopey, and even though I didn’t know a thing ab
out rocking-chair dating or buggy cruises, I said I would.

  “Let me do some research,” I said. “When I have a good handle on your people, the geography of the area, my surveillance MO, I’ll contact you for our next meeting.”

  He nodded. “Geography.”

  “See you at the golf course,” I said. I rose from the swing, hating for that small second that I didn’t have a real office with thick blinds and a lazy ceiling fan. I put out my hand. “Get some sleep. You’ll need to have all your faculties for the road ahead.” I didn’t mean to make my voice all gravelly, but when it did, I kind of liked it.

  “I will sleep,” Amos said, making his voice scratchy too, which completely ruined it for me.

  “Later.” I waved and trotted to the edge of the playground. I didn’t look back but pictured Amos staring after me, watching my impressive athleticism-in-training, readying myself for the opposition. I imagined his view of me becoming blurry with distance, the fog cutting jagged fingers through the night. “The truth cannot hide,” I huffed in my gravelly voice, my eyes practicing their slits while my feet carried me home.

  7

  Bring in the Experts

  Nothing like finding one’s purpose in life to make all the other stuff bearable. In the days following my first debriefing for Operation Bonnet, I approached all the lackluster elements of my life with new gusto. When the cleaning service ditched out on us and left the on-course restrooms filthy, I agreed to do it without making Tank suffer.

  “Tank,” I said, putting a hand on his shoulder, “I’m happy to lend a hand, though I’ll be sure to cover it with a rubber glove, heh heh!”

  He watched me leave the clubhouse, and I must admit, Pollyanna toting a toilet brush was a new character even to me. If I swiveled my head about forty-five degrees to the south, I’d see the root of my transformation: Amos the Amish boy working on the miniature-golf course, representing all of my newfound freedom, my first tough case, and the doorway to the career I was born to dominate. I pulled on the yellow gloves and whistled on my way to the twelfth hole.

  Friday afternoon, I cut out of work early with the excuse of a doctor’s appointment. I raised my eyebrows when I told Tank, knowing that the mere suggestion of a female going to her doctor would conjure up enough scariness that I’d need say no more.

  “Yes, of course, yes, the doctor. An APPOINTMENT. Hope everything works out ALL RIGHT.” He reached out to slap me on the head, but I stopped him with an outstretched hand.

  “Tank.” I shook my head. “Please. It’s a fragile time.”

  “Right, absolutely.” Poor guy looked pained.

  “Well,” I said, sobriety filling my voice, “I’ll let you know how everything turns out.”

  “Oh, that’s not really necessary,” he said, backing into a display and rushing to stop a freefall of T-shirts. “I’ll just see you tomorrow. Call in SICK if you need to.”

  I thought I heard him say the call-in-sick part, but his face was very close to the T-shirts at that moment and I didn’t have the heart to ask him to repeat himself. If I’d ever considered having children, which I hadn’t, I would feel very pleased that women were the ones appointed for that task. The men in my circle couldn’t spit out the word obstetrician without brandishing the nearest cotton crew neck XL in self-defense.

  I grabbed my bag and new spiral-bound notebook and let myself out the employees-only exit. My BMW SUV, black with camel interior, sat just a ways off from the other beaters in the employee lot. I started ’er up and felt a small surge of happiness as the leather quickly cooled under my rear.

  Living as the sole heir to a substantial fortune had perks, more than I deemed to accept most days. Room and board at the Monroe estate were free, of course, though I put in my time taking care of Nona, cooking most of our meals, and keeping tabs on the house. Mother and Pop were paying for my college tuition, but I insisted on using my paychecks from Tank for any other living expenses. My phone, my clothes, my entertainment, my new Elite—these were Nellie purchases, every one. This was a somewhat unpopular decision in our house, but I held my ground. I figured in forty years or so, when I’d solved the nation’s most complicated criminal cases and had made a mint from brilliance, toil, and speaking engagements, I could spoil myself and employ the occasional cabana boy. But from the start, I wanted to be in charge of my income, beholden to no one in my gene pool.

  Except for the car. Oh, the car. I turned up my nose when Pop first mentioned it as a beginning-college gift. I was perfectly content, I’d reminded him, driving my humble but reliable 1999 Honda Civic. But what the Germans can do to a car … well. I was simply no match for it once Pop brought it home for a test run. I wouldn’t have pegged myself as one to nurse a vehicular weakness, but there it was, tooling along nicely on Maywood Boulevard, delivering me to the front doors of Claremont College like I was Jackie O. stepping out of Bergdorf’s. Only the hair separated us.

  When I passed through the double doors, the two-story lobby greeted me with all the coldness it had the first day of classes four semesters before. The dominant color scheme in the whole of Claremont relied heavily on gray. Many incarnations—a surprising variety, really—but all gray. I followed the linoleum around the corner, took a quick left, and walked to the end of the hall. When I reached the final door on the right, I rapped a knuckle right by the name placard: Dr. Sonya Moss, Professor of Religious Studies.

  She threw open the door, one hand smoothing a barrette halfheartedly positioned in her hair above her right ear.

  “Nellie! Why, it’s you!” She smiled, and I could see she’d had either spinach or basil since the last time she’d brushed.

  I crooked my index finger and poked it into my own teeth.

  “Oop, oh,” she said, scurrying back to her desk and letting the heavy door fall onto my shoulder. “I had a, um”—she riffled through the top drawer of her desk and emerged with a toothpick—“pad Thai for lunch? Sweet little place down on Cedar?” She took a moment to extract the green things before continuing. “Thanks for letting me know. Fresh basil, fragrant but also tenacious.” She laughed and revealed that her work in her mouth was not done. I had no more stomach for it, though, so I launched into the reason for my visit.

  “Professor Moss, I’m looking for information, and I know you’re the one to help me.”

  She gestured for me to sit. I hefted a pile of books off the chair and set it down amid the stacks that lined each wall. Metal bookshelves loomed around and above me, burgeoning with titles like Buddha and Jesus: A Definitive Comparison through a Postmodern Lens and Hinduism under the Gupta Empire. It was not difficult to imagine sleeping in that room.

  “I’m happy to help, Nellie. You were an exceptional student in Intro to Religious Studies.… You know,” she said, lowering her voice, “you would be an excellent major.” Her eyebrows reached up her pale forehead to her hairline.

  “No, I really wouldn’t,” I said. “To tell you the truth, I’d be bored out of my gourd.”

  Professor Moss looked slightly unnerved, and I realized that she might take offense that not everyone loved reading sermons by very, very dead men. Perhaps there was more to it than that, but I was there to talk about Amos.

  “I need to know about the Amish.”

  “Ooohh,” she said, leaning forward in her chair as if energized by the thought. “The Amish. You know that’s why I live here, right? To be closer to them?”

  I did know that, as she’d mentioned it in pretty much every lecture during REL 101. Professor Moss had the uncanny ability to work the Amish into every religious group we’d studied. Buddhism, for example, reminded her of the Amish with its emphasis on simplicity and prayer. Jewish men wore yarmulkes, just like the Amish with their hats and bonnets. Even that wily Martin Luther reminded her of the Amish with his love for a good hymn-sing. I mean, honestly. I knew I was in the righ
t place.

  “In fact, I had offers from Wellesley and William and Mary, but I had to accept Claremont’s position because then I could be only forty miles from the nearest Amish settlement. Forty miles! That’s a hop and a skip!” Her cheeks flushed to a touch of pink. I wanted her to eat more red meat. “How can I help you, Nellie? Are you researching a paper? Taking an American history course this summer?”

  “Right. Something like that.” I let my eyes wander a bit around the room. “You could call it an independent study.”

  “Ah,” she said, nodding. “The best learning occurs out of one’s own interests. I remember—” she said, pausing to giggle, “—I remember when my mom and dad sat me down in junior high and asked me to stop reading all those Amish romances. And they wanted me to stop practicing my German. They were worried that I was becoming too singularly focused at such a young age.” She shook her head. “I had to wear a bonnet only in my room, they said. The neighbors were talking, they said. But look at me now!”

  I joined her in looking around the room she’d indicated with a flourish of her hand. A near-dead fern sat in the corner. Two paintings of Amish-looking women sat propped on top of one bookshelf. Draped over a Kleenex box was a knitted brown-and-orange crocheted number. In summary, I was depressed.

  “Well, congratulations on a dream fulfilled,” I said. “Can you get me in?”

  “I’m sorry, ‘in’ to what?” She stopped. “The Amish?”

  “Yes. I need access to the group outside Springville.”

  “Oh, heavenly days, no.”

  Have you ever heard sea lions at the zoo? She laughed a bit like they bark. It was a startling moment.

  “No,” she said after the barking subsided. “They don’t look favorably on English visitors. I myself have only recently started to earn the trust of one family, and that’s after three years of cautious persistence.”