We stared at each other, a standoff. Finally, Sarah turned away, picking up a quilt on the end of one twin bed and refolding it. “If you aren’t Episcopalian or Catholic, what do you believe in?”

I shrugged. “Nothing.”

Sarah hugged the quilt to her chest, surprised by my answer. She didn’t say a word, but she didn’t have to: she was wondering how on earth I could possibly think that it was Katie who needed help.

After my confrontation with Sarah, I changed into shorts and a T-shirt, and then Katie came upstairs for a rest-something, I could tell, that was unprecedented in the household. To give Katie her privacy, I decided to explore the grounds. I stopped in the kitchen, where Sarah was already beginning to cook dinner, to tell her my plans.

The woman couldn’t have heard a word I said. She was staring at my arms and legs as if I were walking around naked. Which to her, I guess, I was. Blushing, she whipped back to face the counter. “Yes,” she said. “You go on.”

I walked along the raspberry patch, behind the silo, out toward the fields. I ventured into the barn, meeting the lazy eyes of the cows chained at their milking stalls. I gingerly touched the bright crime-scene tape, scouting for clues. And then I wandered until finding the creek, where I’d been ever since.

When I used to stay at Leda and Frank’s as a young girl, I’d spend hours lying belly-flat on the shores of their creek, watching the stick bugs skitter over the surface of the water, while pairs of dragonflies gossiped to each other. I’d dip my finger in and watch the water carve a path around it, meeting up on the other side. Time would spin out like sugar, so that I’d be thinking about how I’d just arrived, and in the blink of an eye, it was already sunset.

The Fishers’ creek was narrower than the one I’d grown up with. At one end was a tiny waterfall, bogged at the bottom with so many spores and sprigs of hay that I knew it had served as a source of fascination for their children. The other end of the creek widened into a small natural pond, shaded by willow and oak trees.

I dangled a forked twig over the water as if I could dowse for defense strategies. There was always sleepwalking-Katie admitted to not knowing what had happened between the time she went to bed and the time she awakened. It was a designer defense, certainly, but those had had success in recent years-and in a case as sensational as this one was sure to be, it might be my best shot.

Other than that, there were two options. Either Katie did it, or she didn’t. Although I hadn’t seen discovery from the prosecutor yet, I knew they wouldn’t have charged her without evidence to the former. Which meant that I needed to determine whether she was in her right mind at the moment she killed the baby. If she wasn’t, I’d have to go with an insanity defense-only a handful of which had ever been acquitted in the state of Pennsylvania.

I sighed. I’d have a better chance proving that the baby had died by itself.

Dropping my twig, I considered that. For any ME the state could put on the stand to say that the baby had been murdered, I could probably find a dueling expert who’d say it had died of exposure, or prematurity, or whatever medical excuses there were for these sorts of things. It was a tragedy that could be pinned on Katie’s inexperience and neglect, rather than her intent. A passive involvement in the newborn’s death-well, that was something even I could forgive.

I patted my shorts, silently cursing my lack of foresight to bring along a scrap of paper and a pen. I’d have to contact a pathologist, first, and see how reliable the ME’s report was likely to be. Maybe I could even put a good OB up on the stand-there was one fellow who’d done wonders for a client of mine during a previous trial. Finally, I’d have to get Katie on the stand, looking suitably distressed about what had accidentally happened.

Which, of course, would require her to admit that it had happened at all.

Groaning, I rolled onto my back and closed my eyes against the sun. Then again, maybe I’d just wait for the discovery, and see what I had to go with.

There was a faint rustling in the distance, and a snippet of song carried on the wind. Frowning, I got to my feet and starting walking along the creek. It was coming from the pond, or somewhere near the pond. “Hey,” I called out, rounding the bend. “Who’s there?”

There was a flash of black, which disappeared into the cornfield behind the pond before I could see who had vanished. I ran to the edge of the stalks, parting them with my hands, hoping to find the culprit. But all I managed to stir up were field mice, which ran past my sneakers and into the cattails that edged the pond.

I shrugged. I wasn’t looking for company anyway. I started back toward the house, but stopped at the sight of a handful of wildflowers, left at the northernmost edge of the pond. Resting just out of reach of the graceful arms of a willow tree, they were neatly tied into a bouquet. Kneeling, I touched the Queen Anne’s lace, the lady’s slippers, the black-eyed Susans. Then I glanced at the field of corn, wondering for whom they had been left.

“While you’re here,” Sarah said, handing me a bowl of peas, “you’ll help out.”

I looked up from the kitchen table and bit back the retort that I was already helping, just by being here. Thanks to my sacrifice, Katie was here with her own bowl of peas, which she was shelling with remarkable industry. I watched her for a moment, then slid my thumbnail into the pod, watching it crack open as neat as a nut, just as it had for her.

“Neh . . . Englische Leit . . . Lus mich gay!”

Aaron’s voice, quiet but firm, snaked through the open kitchen window. Wiping her hands on her apron, Sarah glanced out. Drawing in her breath, she hurried toward the door.

Then I heard English being spoken.

Immediately, I turned to Katie. “You stay here,” I ordered, and walked out. Aaron and Sarah were holding their hands over their faces, cringing away from the small crowd of cameramen and reporters who’d descended on the farm. One news van had the audacity to park right beside the Fisher buggy. There were dozens of questions being shouted out, ranging from queries about Katie’s pregnancy to the sex of the dead baby.

Lulled by the quiet and peace of a bucolic farm, I’d forgotten how quickly the media would pick up on the court record of an Amish girl being charged with murder in the first degree.

Suddenly I remembered the summer I fancied myself a photographer, and how I’d pointed my Kodak at an unsuspecting Amishman in a buggy. Leda had covered the camera lens, explaining that the Amish believed the Bible prohibited a graven image, and didn’t like to have their pictures taken. “I could do it anyway,” I had said, stung, and to my surprise Leda nodded-so sadly that I’d put my camera back in its case.

Aaron had given up trying to ask the reporters to go away. It wasn’t in his nature to cause a scene, and he’d wisely assumed that if he offered himself as a target, it would keep Katie safe from their prying eyes. Clearing my throat, I marched to the front of the fray. “Excuse me, you’re on private property.”

One of the reporters took in my shorts and top, in direct contrast to Aaron and Sarah’s clothes. “Who are you?”

“Their press secretary,” I said dryly. “I believe you all are in direct violation of criminal trespassing, which, as a misdemeanor of the third degree, could result in up to a year in jail and a twenty-five-hundred-dollar fine.”

A woman in a tailored pink suit frowned, trying to place me. “You’re the lawyer! The one from Philly!” I glanced at the call letters on her microphone; sure enough, she was from a city-based network affiliate.

“At this time, neither my client nor my client’s parents have any comment,” I said. “As for the incendiary nature of the charge, well”-I smirked, gesturing to the barn, the farmhouse, the quiet lay of the land-“all I’m going to say is that an Amish farm is no Philadelphia crack house, and that an Amish girl is no hard-core criminal. The rest, I’m afraid, you’ll have to hear on the steps of the courthouse at some later date.” I cast a measured look out over the crowd. “Now-a little free legal advice. I’m strongly recommending that you all leave.”