Ordinary Grace

Nathan gives his first sermon following Ariel’s death; Jake and Ruth stay at home, while Gus and Frank attend. In his sermon, Nathan cites Corinthians, saying that Paul tells of “three profound blessings…faith, hope and love” (194). Jake and Frank make amends, with Frank telling Jake that Jake is his best friend, and Jake admitting he’s scared that Frank will die as well. Frank says that he’ll never leave Jake alone.

Frank and Jake do yardwork at their grandfather’s house and are paid ten dollars instead of their normal two. The brothers walk home and Jake gets emotional, saying how much he wants Ariel back. Frank tells Jake that things will get better. At the end of the chapter, we learn that Engdahl and his girlfriend have been found in Sioux Falls. The girlfriend is only seventeen, and the sheriff is therefore holding Engdahl, a legal adult, on violation of the Mann Act, for having sexual relations with an underage girl. Frank is hopeful that Engdahl is responsible, then says, “[b]ut the next day the medical examiner from Mankato came to New Bremen and conducted a thorough autopsy and what he found changed the thinking of us all” (199). 

Ruth fails to take Jake to his speech therapy session in Mankato and instead announces she’s leaving and going to Emil Brandt’s. Nathan takes Jake to Mankato; while everyone except Frank is gone, a sheriff arrives, looking for Nathan. The sheriff goes on to ask Frank about Karl Brandt; Frank tells the sheriff that Karl treated Ariel well and the two didn’t argue, “[w]hich didn’t seem like the answer [the sheriff] wanted” (203). Frank goes on to reveal that Ariel sometimes snuck out after curfew.

Later that day, Nathan talks to the sheriff in his church office. Frank and Jake sneak into the church basement and listen through the air ducts. The sheriff tells Nathan of the coroner’s findings: that Ariel “sustained a head trauma from an elongated instrument, maybe something like a tire iron, but the actual cause of death was drowning” (207). The sheriff further reveals that Ariel was five to six weeks pregnant when she died.

This revelation leads the sheriff to ask Nathan what he knows of Karl Brandt. Nathan says that he believes Karl to be of good character. The two men leave as Frank and Jake stand in shocked silence in the church basement, with Jake then stammering out Karl’s name. 

Nathan leaves for Emil Brandt’s house; after he’s gone, Frank and Jake head for the river. Frank and Jake reach the trail that leads from the river up to the home of Emil and Lise Brandt, stopping at the fence gate that leads to Lise’s garden. As the two are about to run for the edge of the house, in order to eavesdrop on the conversation between Emil and Ruth, Lise storms from the house and walks angrily to the garden shed. Frank and Jake make a run for it “when a banshee scream came at [their] backs”; this is Lise Brandt, who “gripped a gardening tool, something with crooked tines, and she threatened us in such a way that it appeared she had claws” (212-13).

Jake is able to defuse the situation; Lise’s anger is replaced by sadness, and for the first and only time, Frank sees Lise cry. Jake explains that Lise is upset because she’s been ignored by Emil since Ariel died. The boys help Lise work in the garden; a short time later, Ruth and Nathan exit the Brandt residence. The four leave together, with Frank noting that Ruth and Nathan have told all of the details they’ve learned about Ariel (how she was killed and that she was pregnant) to Emil.

At home, the Drums discuss Karl Brandt, with Ruth saying, “‘The Brandts have always taken what they wanted. And thrown away what they didn’t. Why should Karl be any different?’” (215). The Drums assume—and have no reason not to assume—that Karl is the father of Ariel’s child, and speculate that Karl killed Ariel in order to not jeopardize his future. Nathan asks Frank and Jake to make no judgments until after Nathan and Ruth have talked to the Brandts. 

Frank begins Chapter 27 by saying that “[i]n a small town, nothing is private” (217). In no time, the townspeople of New Bremen hear that Ariel was pregnant, and that the sheriff suspects Karl Brandt of foul play. The sheriffs interview Karl’s friends, who suggest that Karl intimated that he had slept with Ariel in the days and weeks leading up to her murder. They also interview Ariel’s friends, who say that Ariel had been out of sorts but would not say what the problem was.

Axel and Julia Brandt, Karl’s parents, are keeping Karl “out of public sight in their mansion in the Heights” (217). Nathan tries to arrange a meeting with the Brandts but is rebuffed by a man who works for the family. The Brandts have also retained the services of a lawyer, who has instructed Karl, in interviews with the sheriffs, to “neither confirm or deny his part in Ariel’s pregnancy” (218). Karl does confirm that both he and Ariel never had any intention of getting married.

Frank goes on to say that:

Emil Brandt seemed to have dropped from [the Drums’] lives. {Emil had] been my mother’s constant companion from the moment Ariel vanished, but once my sister’s pregnancy had been revealed, and the Brandt name had been dragged into the thick of things and the family had sequestered themselves, my mother’s affections had shifted away from anything Brandt (218).

The blunt object used to crack Ariel’s skull is considered to at least possibly be still in the possession of Karl Brandt, but the county attorney, who Ruth calls a “toad,” refuses to petition a judge to grant a search warrant to the sheriff for the Brandt property (219). Ruth remains sure that Karl Brandt is Ariel’s killer; at the end of the chapter, she asks Frank if he knows his Old Testament, quoting a line from it: “‘Let the battle cry be heard in the land, a shout of great destruction’” (220).