Her Last Breath: A Kate Burkholder Novel

then back at me. “It’s Daniel Lapp?”
    I resist the urge to snap at him, ask him who else it could be. “The police haven’t identified the remains. I don’t know if they’ll be able to. If they do, you can bet they’ll come here to talk to you.”
    The muscles in his jaws begin to work.
    “Benjamin Lapp knows Daniel baled hay here the day he disappeared,” I add.
    He looks down at the ground, but not before I see the extent of his concern. He may not have killed Lapp, but he was complicit. It was he, after all, who helped our father transport the body and dump it into the boot pit of that abandoned grain elevator.
    “This is terrible news,” he says.
    The statement doesn’t require a response, so I say nothing. For the span of several minutes we stand there and watch the chickens scratch and peck the ground in the coop.
    “Jacob, if the police come here, I want you to tell them Daniel left at the end of the day and you never saw him again. Just like you did seventeen years ago. Tell them he was fine when he left and you have no idea what happened to him.”
    “Maybe they won’t come here.”
    “They will. We have to get our stories straight.” I hear myself say the words, hating the way it sounds, then push on. “You have to be prepared.”
    “I don’t like this, Katie. The lying. The secrets.”
    “Neither do I, but we have to deal with it. We can’t change what happened.”
    He looks away, studying something on the horizon. Or maybe he simply can’t bring himself to look at me.
    “There’s a chance the police may not be able to identify the remains,” I tell him. “There may not be DNA or dental records. If that’s the case, you have nothing to worry about.”
    “What happened that day … what we did … it has haunted me all these years.”
    “It’s haunted all of us, Jacob. But I’m the one who pulled the trigger. The sin was mine, not yours. Not Sarah’s.”
    His eyes find mine. “It is our sin, Katie.”
    I want to say something to remind him that Lapp was no innocent bystander. He’d still be alive today if he hadn’t been a violent man to begin with. Even if I could find the words, I don’t know if they would matter.
    “I’m going to talk to Sarah,” I tell him.
    He looks at me in a way I don’t understand, then turns away and starts toward the house without saying good-bye.
    *   *   *
    I don’t believe either of my siblings will divulge the truth about what happened the day Daniel Lapp was killed. Our datt swore us to silence, and for years none of us questioned his decision. We never discussed it after that day, and any emotional trauma we suffered was rebuffed or downplayed or both. But you never forget an ordeal like that, and I know, perhaps more than most, that injuries to the psyche run deep. Sometimes those scars break open and bleed.
    The farm where my sister lives with her husband, William, sits at the end of a dead-end road. A razor-straight row of blue spruce trees whiz by my window as I zip up the lane. The barn and house loom into view. Like the Amish, both buildings are plain, without the ornamentation of shutters or even landscaping. In the side yard, trousers and dresses pinned to a clothesline flap in the breeze, reminding me of all the times Sarah and I helped our own mother with laundry.
    The barn’s sliding door stands open, telling me William is probably mucking stalls or feeding the livestock. I’m relieved. Like many of the Amish in my former church district, my brother-in-law believes I’ll be spending all of eternity burning in hell. He thinks I’m a bad influence on my sister, as if some decayed part of me will rub off.
    Most of the time, I’m able to overlook that kind of narrow-minded thinking because I understand the Amish mindset and I have great respect for the culture. Still, I was once close to my sister; I used to be part of this tight-knit community. While the pain of being unofficially excommunicated is no longer the agony it once was, I still feel the losses.
    I park on a patch of threadbare grass where the driveway meets the backyard and kill the engine. I get my thoughts in order as I slide out and start toward the house. A glance behind me tells me William is still in the barn. He knows nothing of what happened all those years ago and I prefer to keep it that way.
    I ascend the concrete steps to the porch. Before I can knock, the door swings open and I find myself face-to-face with Sarah. She’s wearing a