“Did Judge Snyder know about this?”
He hesitated. He knew Mitch Snyder had been a beloved mentor of hers, and things could go very badly on this topic. Finally he said, “Yes, except my dad and my grandfather briefed him. Judge Snyder was appointed during the period they were both active. I don’t know exactly what they told him. Or how they told him.”
The green eyes burned into him. “What aren’t you telling me? Better out than in, bud.”
He sat for a long minute, and considered further stalls — maybe going to the bathroom or getting himself something to drink. She probably wouldn’t tolerate it. He said, “My father, and especially my grandfather, had a different style from me. Less… honest. It might be better to let the details be lost in history.”
“Are you implying Judge Snyder was corrupt?” Her words bit.
“No.” He shook his head. “I’m implying — saying — my grandfather was corrupt.” He closed his eyes and held up a hand. “Here’s what I know. When I turned eighteen my father briefed me on the steward’s job —”’s
“I thought you didn’t start this until your father passed away? After we were out of college, when you were — what, twenty two?”
“Twenty three, and yes, that’s true. But the normal process, the historic one, is that stewards overlap from the time the new one turns eighteen until the old one dies. We started down that road, but I… refused the job. After I learned some of the details about the job. The situation. It caused a lot of confusion.”
She nodded. “Sorry I interrupted. Your father briefed you?”
“Yeah. And he told me — he laughed about it…” Again he closed his eyes. “Quote, ‘If you ever have to deal with Mitch Snyder, just work the word Rossiter into the conversation.’” 
“Rossiter? Like the little town?”
“Yes.”
“The judge had a camp there. He liked to…” She waved a hand. “I don’t know. Chop wood, mow grass. Get away from people, I think.”
“I don’t know what the significance of the word was,” he said. “My father just told me what I told you, and by that point I was feeling very sketchy about the whole thing, so I didn’t ask for details.”
“Did you ever use it?” she asked.
“Once, and I regretted it. A couple weeks after my dad died, when I was just accepting that I had to take this job, there was a crisis. A hunter trespassed on Folk land — walked past about a million signs — and…” Again he hesitated. “Somebody shot at him. Shot him, actually. The bullet clipped his arm.”
“You think they shot him?” she asked. “Did that ever happen before?”
“I’d rather not talk about historic things, bad things, that I don’t have first-hand knowledge of. But I’ll say one of my first changes as steward was to have some serious fences put up, and they’re not there to keep the Folk in.”
“They protect us English?” She used the description some Amish used to describe non-Amish.
He nodded. “Anyway, this guy complained to a sheriff’s deputy, who happened to be new to the area. That deputy wanted access to Folk land — which of course on paper looks like my land — and I refused. He went to Judge Snyder for a warrant.”
“And you said, ‘Rossiter.’”
Again he nodded. “It was the first time I’d ever met with him, and that word was kinda the first thing out of my mouth. Stupid. In retrospect, I think that was supposed to be some kind of nuclear option, break glass in case of emergency, but I was new on the job and kinda panicked.”
“What did he do?” she asked.
“Got very angry. Threw me out, and cited me for contempt. Fined me two hundred and fifty dollars. The citation said I’d been disrespectful, implied I’d cursed at him.”
“Textbook contempt of court,” she said.
He continued, “But then he did what I wanted. Denied the warrant. Said the hunter was trespassing and there was no crime committed. That it was within a landowner’s rights to defend their property against an armed intruder who’d been reasonably warned he was trespassing, and there was no reason to investigate further, no justification to poke around my property.”
She considered. “That’s probably the right ruling. What he would have done anyway, if you’d reasoned with him rather than threatening him.”
“Yes. Which is what I did after that, the couple times things ended up in front of him. And after we put up the fences, Judge Snyder became gracious to me. I think he appreciated the fact that I was actively protecting his constituents.”
“So your theory is that your father, or your grandfather, blackmailed him? Maybe about something that happened at his camp? Or is your theory that they bribed him, paid for the camp?”
“I don’t have a theory. I’ve told you everything I actually know, and I don’t want to speculate. Judge Snyder had a good reputation.”
“Pristine,” she said. “And he deserved it.” She glanced at her left wrist, which was bare, and then up at the kitchen clock. “Four am. I should get home before the girls wake up and catch me sneaking in in my pajamas.”
“Your husband doesn’t mind?”
She shrugged. “We’re still trying to figure out this judge thing. He’ll raise an eyebrow” — she demonstrated — “when I’m grumpy tomorrow, but he understands.” Then she looked at him, her eyes widening. “Or did you mean he’d be jealous I’d spent the night with you?” She shook her head. “He understood from Day One that you were a factor in my life. Well, not Day One, because he was around first, but” — she waved a breezy hand — “whatever.” 
She stood, put the cookies away, and put her glass into the dishwasher. At the door she turned. “Thanks. I need to think about this, how to handle your little people —”
“Not people,” he said.
She frowned. “Not cattle, though. There’s a lot of established law regarding person hood —”
“Kathy, they don’t want laws, not from Pennsylvania or the United States. They just want to be left alone.”
Her chest inflated, a tirade building. But then she slowly released the breath. “Let me think, and then we’ll talk.”
With a twiddle of her fingers she was out the door.