Plain Killing (4 page)

He stroked his beard. “
Ach.
Come outside. We’ll sit under the maple tree in the shade. There’s always a breeze coming up the valley.”

Behind the barn, beneath the tree were several benches and a rocking chair. Bishop Abner waved them to a seat just as Naamah appeared with a jug of cider and three mugs full of ice. “Thought you might be parched,” she said. “Not staying. I never interfere with my Abner’s church business, but I don’t like anyone to go away from our home thirsty.” She poured the cider, handed the mugs around, patted Mary Aaron’s shoulder, and left them alone.

The bishop took a sip and then nodded to Rachel. “What is it? What sad news have you come to share?”

“We went up to the quarry, a group of us,” Rachel began. Mary Aaron supplied the names of each of the young women. All but Rachel were members of his church. He had known most all of their lives.

“We went for a picnic,” Rachel explained. “And then . . .” She went on to tell him the rest of the grisly story.

Bishop Abner listened intently, his faded blue eyes filled with concern. He didn’t speak until Rachel finished. He waited a moment, letting them all settle on what had been said. “And you believe that Beth’s mother and father will be told this awful thing by the police? Tonight?”

Rachel nodded. “Soon, I imagine. The authorities will want one of the family to make a positive identification of the body.”

His brow furrowed, and he tugged absently at his beard. “But why would they do such a thing when you all told the policeman who she was?”

“Regulations,” Mary Aaron said, leaning forward. She’d set her mug on the ground without tasting the cider. Her face was pale, and she still looked as if she might burst into tears. “The English have lots of regulations. We thought that we should ask you what to do. Rachel will drive me to the Glicks’ if you think—”

“
Ne, ne,
no need for that,” he answered gently. “You girls were right to come to me. I will go to their bishop. This is for him to do, or maybe the two of us together. Such news should not come from strangers.”

“Will that be okay?” Mary Aaron asked. “You know she left us. She’d been shunned.” She hesitated. “Will they still give her a burial?”

Bishop Abner pulled a spotless handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his nose. He didn’t reply for long seconds. “I can’t say what the elders of their district will decide. Know this, my daughters. If the bishop of the Glicks’ church will not give this child Christian burial, I will.” He shook his head. “We don’t know the state of her mind, do we? There may have been circumstances we don’t understand that led her to drift away from the true path.”

Rachel tugged at a loose thread on her denim skirt. “But people say that Beth’s family considered her already dead to them.”

He removed his hat and rubbed at his bald head thoughtfully. Lines creased around his eyes. “I have heard the same rumors that you have, but I cannot believe that they will not feel differently now. Ours is a stern God, but a forgiving one. And who among us is not guilty of sin? I do not presume to know what He will do with such a wayward one. But I will do what I can to save her, even now.” He smiled sadly at them. “Go home. You both have kind hearts, but you have done all you can.”

“Can I drive you there in the van?” Rachel offered.

He shook his head. “
Ne.
I’ll hitch up my roan mule. That way I won’t be at Bishop Johan’s home before I have time to ask God to give me the right words to say. That is one of the good things about depending on a four-legged creature for transportation. Your world is too fast, Rachel. Not enough time for silence. Not only do driving horses and mules give us years of faithful service, as well as good fertilizer for our gardens and fields, but they give us time to think.”

He got to his feet, which Rachel took as the signal that the discussion was over. They thanked him and went back to the van.

Naamah stood waiting beside the vehicle with two jars of pickled green tomatoes. “Take these to your mothers,” she said, handing one jar to each of them. “My pickled tomatoes turned out especially good this summer. Give them my best and tell them that they remain in my prayers. And remind your mothers of the quilting bee here on Saturday afternoon. We’re sewing a layette for Verna Herschberger. The midwife says she’s expecting twins.”

 

As they pulled away from the bishop’s home, Rachel’s cell rang. The ringtone told her it was Evan.

When she didn’t reach to answer it, Mary Aaron glanced at her. “You’re not going to see what he wants?”

“Battery’s almost dead. I better not.”

Mary Aaron picked up the phone and checked it as the ringtone ended. “You really should replace the battery. You said it’s using its charge too fast.”

“Just have to find time to go to the cell phone store in State College.” Rachel concentrated on safely passing a wagon full of milk cans. Both she and Mary Aaron waved at the young man driving.

The ringtone on the phone started again.

“Maybe he knows something,” Mary Aaron suggested as she carefully set the phone on the console between them. “Maybe he’s calling to say that the paramedic was mistaken. That she just drowned.”

Rachel hoped so, but she doubted it. There was no way the medical examiner could have determined the cause of death yet.

She glanced at the phone. If she answered it, Evan would want to know where she was. And then, she’d have to admit that she and Mary Aaron had not gone home but had instead taken the news to Bishop Abner. Evan would not be happy. “I don’t want to use up any more of the battery. I don’t like to let it go dead; you never know when there might be an emergency. I’ll call him after I get back to Stone Mill House.”

“You should hurry. You can drop me off at the crossroad.”

“And leave you to face your parents alone? I don’t think so.” Rachel wasn’t looking forward to telling her aunt and uncle that she’d involved Mary Aaron in
another
death. The family was still reeling from when Mary’s father, Rachel’s Uncle Aaron, was accused of Willy O’Day’s murder. Aunt Hannah was a resourceful and self-reliant mother of twelve children, but the world outside of her Amish community frightened her. She was especially vulnerable where her daughters were concerned. Rachel knew that her aunt was worried that Mary Aaron might follow her out of the faith. It was important to reassure her that Mary Aaron was in no danger. Otherwise, her aunt and uncle might severely limit Mary Aaron’s contact with her, with the B&B, and with those outside the church.

Mary Aaron, younger than Rachel, was her best friend, more like a sister than a cousin. Since Rachel’s return to Stone Mill three years ago, they’d become closer than ever. Rachel didn’t know what she’d do if Aunt Hannah and Uncle Aaron decided that she was a bad influence on their daughter. Uncle Aaron, especially, disapproved of Rachel leaving the valley and her family for an education and the English world. They were on better terms since she’d helped him navigate the legal system, but it wouldn’t take much to have him return to his former opinion of her. The path she walked between Amish daughter and owner-manager of a nearly successful B&B that welcomed Englisher guests was a narrow and precarious tightrope, one she sometimes thought impossible.

“Do you think Beth was murdered?” Mary Aaron whispered.

The van crossed a narrow stone-and-concrete bridge. It wasn’t far now to her uncle’s farm, and she thought back to what Bishop Abner had said. A horse-drawn vehicle gave you time to think. She wasn’t sure what would be the best way to break the news to her aunt and uncle and to her own parents. Maybe she should get rid of her Jeep and get her own driving mule.

But as they drove up the long Hostetler lane and pulled into the farmyard, she quickly realized that she needn’t have wasted time trying to figure out how to tell her aunt and uncle what had happened. Although it was the supper hour and all should have been quiet on the farm, children spilled off the porch and from around the house. Rachel’s niece, Susan—her brother Paul’s daughter—came running toward the van. Rachel’s nine-year-old sister, Sally, was right behind her.

“They must know,” Mary Aaron said.

“I think you’re right.”

Aunt Hannah and Uncle Aaron came out of the house. They weren’t alone. Her own parents were with them. Uncle Aaron, arms folded and features grim, stopped on the porch. Her father, mother, and Aunt Hannah hurried toward them.

Mary Aaron got out of the van and went to hug her mother.

“Vas is?”
Rachel’s mother asked. She directed her question to Mary Aaron.

Rachel’s father came to stand in front of her. “You are not hurt?”

“We’re fine,” Rachel assured him. “We went straight to Bishop Abner. We thought it best if he carried the news to Beth’s church leaders.”

Her father nodded. “That was wise. Elsie and Lettie, they told us what happened. That you had the English potter woman drive them home so they would not have to talk to the police. Was
goot
.” Unlike most of the Amish in the valley, her father usually spoke English to his children. “Your mother was worried, so we came here.”

Uncle Aaron and her mother were brother and sister. Sometimes Rachel wondered if her father felt that her mother valued Uncle Aaron’s advice more than his. But she’d been born a Hostetler, a family not known for change. And if she was often rigid in her ways, Rachel’s father made up for it with his easy temperament and jovial nature.

“I knew that quarry was no place for you girls,” her mother fussed to Mary Aaron. Rachel knew the message was for her.

“Poor girl, poor, poor girl,” Aunt Hannah murmured, clinging to Mary Aaron. Then she noticed the children around her, released Mary Aaron, and clapped her hands. “Away, all of you. I’ll call you when supper is on the table.” And then she said, “Rachel, come in. Tell us how you found the . . .”

“Body,” Rachel’s
mam
supplied. “Whatever was Beth Glick doing up there alone?”

“Maybe she wasn’t alone,” Uncle Aaron called from the porch. “She has been gone for years. Strange that she should come home only to drown in that quarry. Not natural.”

For once, Rachel agreed with him. It wasn’t natural, not natural at all. And if she’d been murdered, then nothing would ever be the same in the valley. Women felt safe to walk or drive here at any time of the day or night. English or Amish, people rarely locked their doors. The thought that all of that could change was chilling.

Her cell rang faintly from inside the van—Evan’s ringtone. Everyone turned to stare at the vehicle.

Rachel hurried back to the van, grabbed the phone, and silenced it. She would call Evan the minute she got back to the B&B. Hopefully, he would have good news for her. Hopefully.

Rachel pulled the van into her driveway as dusk was falling. She had intended to return the vehicle to her next-door neighbor that day, but decided that the following morning would be soon enough. Hulda Schenfeld was a lovely woman and a good friend, but Rachel simply didn’t have the energy to deal with the nonagenarian that night.

To Rachel’s relief, the public parking area for the B&B was empty except for a single car: a lime-green VW with
Coexist
and
Save the Redwoods
stickers displayed on the rear bumper. That meant she wouldn’t have to go inside and chat with guests.

The vehicle belonged to a college professor from California who was writing a screenplay featuring a talking cat. She was here for an extended stay. The screenwriter, Professor Li, was an ideal guest. She had reserved a room for six weeks and paid in advance. She just wanted to be left alone to write. Her only requests had been that the housekeeping staff leave clean sheets and towels outside the door rather than disturb her, and that she have use of the kitchen twice a day to make her own juice. Apparently, Professor Li lived entirely on raw vegetables and fresh fruits, which she processed in her own juicer. She was smartly dressed and pleasant enough if Rachel passed her on the stairs or in the hall, but for all the interaction she had with her hostess or the staff, she might as well have been a ghost. That was a blessing now because Rachel was in no condition to be a good hostess, or any hostess at all, for that matter.

She was exhausted. Had it only been hours since they’d discovered Beth Glick’s body in the quarry? It seemed as though it had happened days ago.

She eyed her cell phone, still lying on the console, as the van crawled down the driveway. She’d been avoiding Evan, but she knew that she had to call him back eventually.

Rachel didn’t regret going to the bishop. It had been the right thing to do. As close as she and Evan were, there were things he didn’t understand about her position in the Amish community. He didn’t want her to do anything to impede the authorities’ investigation of Beth’s death, but news of a child’s death couldn’t come to an Amish household from an outsider. Especially under these circumstances. It just couldn’t.

As Rachel drove around the fieldstone farmhouse, she considered the idea of just jumping into the shower and going straight to bed. She could deal with Evan after a night’s sleep. In the end, they’d work it out. No matter what they quarreled about, and it was rare that they ever did, he never held a grudge. Evan was the nicest guy she’d ever met.

She swung the van around the house and jammed on her brakes. Evan’s police cruiser was parked in her spot.

“Oh, good,” she muttered under her breath. She put the van in reverse and considered making a run for it, but good sense prevailed. How foolish would that look? Evan would probably follow her; he might even turn on his lights and siren. He’d been known to do it before when she tried to avoid him.

Slowly, she got out of the vehicle, taking her cell phone with her. Her goats bleated from the stone barn. It was past their evening feeding. “Coming,” she promised.

“Rachel,” Evan called. He was sitting in the backyard on the glider in the grapevine arbor. It was one of her favorite spots at Stone Mill House and one her guests loved. She had built the arbor with her own hands, using lumber from a collapsed barn that she’d had torn down. It was now covered with grapevines and surrounded with bee balm and butterfly bushes.

Her feet felt as if they were weighed down. “Hey,” she said as she approached him. Butterflies, absent this evening from the arbor, fluttered in her stomach. “Still need to get a new battery for my phone.” She held up the phone, then slid it into her skirt pocket.

“Sit.” Evan’s expression was serious, but he didn’t seem angry with her. More resigned, she guessed. His eyes were gray, almost pewter in color, interesting eyes with thick lashes that she would have given a pinky finger to own. “You didn’t come straight home.” He didn’t wait for her to reply. “Where did you go? Please tell me you haven’t been to the Glicks’ farm.”

She shook her head. “No, Mary Aaron and I went to Bishop Abner. After we talked to him, he went to meet with the Glicks’ bishop. I imagine Bishop Schroder went right to Beth’s family with the bad news.”

“Rachel. It’s not your place or the bishops’ to—”

“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t let strangers tell them, Evan.” She stood at the edge of the arbor. “I just couldn’t,” she repeated.

“We have a protocol. Troopers should have been the first to tell them.”

She didn’t say anything.

She could see that he was trying hard to contain his annoyance with her. “Rachel, you understand that you can’t get involved with this case. Right?”

She settled onto the glider, conscious of the goats still pitifully bleating. It wasn’t as if they were truly starving; she’d fed them that morning.

The glider was oversized, painted blue, with a high back, and wide enough for three people to sit side by side. She’d left a gap between them. “I’m already involved, Evan. I found her.”

“This is a matter for the authorities. It’s police business. You’re a civilian. Anything you do could interfere with the investigation.” He was still wearing his uniform, which meant he’d come straight from work. Now, he removed his campaign-style trooper hat and placed it on a wooden table. He ran a hand through his short, dark hair. “Sergeant Haley asked me to assist on the investigation, because I grew up here.”

“You may live in Stone Mill,” she agreed, “but the Amish still consider you an outsider.” She kicked off her flip-flops and tucked one leg up under her skirt.

He studied her bare foot for a moment. “Amish wearing sandals, now?”

“When I left the house at noon, I was just going swimming. We didn’t expect to get caught up in . . . in this.”

He didn’t comment on her skirt or hideous, oversized shirt, for which she was grateful. She rubbed her temples. “Is the detective still coming to talk with me tonight, or are you supposed to question me?”

“He’ll be here in the morning.”

“Good. That’s better than tonight.” She glanced toward the barn, now in full shadow, then back at him. “I’m sorry if I caused you a problem, going to the bishop, but Beth is a touchy subject in the Amish community. This had to be handled carefully.”

He brushed dried dirt off the hem of his trousers without speaking. The crease was sharp.

She thought back to when she and Mary Aaron were in the van, getting ready to leave the quarry. “Was he right?” she asked. “The paramedic at the scene. Did someone murder her?”

“I’m not qualified to say. The medical examiner . . .” He sighed and lowered his head, staring at his polished boots. “I wanted you to know I didn’t leave her alone, Rachel. I waited, and I followed the ambulance to the hospital.”

She raised her chin and gazed into his eyes. “That was a kind thing to do.”

He flushed. It was one of the qualities she found endearing about Evan. Tough cop or not, he could never hide his humanity. “She wasn’t a member of your family’s church? Is that why you had to have one bishop talk to the other?”

“Yes. Beth’s family belongs to another church district,” she explained. “They’re the ones who drive the black buggies with the gray tops. They’re very conservative.”

“Two-tone buggies make them
more
conservative?”

She shook her head, raising a hand to him. “Don’t even get me started on the color of buggies, what wheels can be made of, or what shade of blue is the most appropriate.”

He gave her a half-smile. They’d talked about the intricacies of various Amish sects many times, and he knew the subject made her crazy. “So Beth’s church is more conservative than your family’s?”

“Yes. Small differences to you and me, maybe, but not to them. Straight pins on the women’s dresses, even the little girls’. No buttons. And the men’s hat brims are wider. And they have more fasting days than we do.” She corrected herself. “Than my
parents’
church does. Most of their young people accept baptism right out of school, when they’re sixteen.”

“That’s young, isn’t it?” he asked.

The hunger cries grew more incessant. Goats could be drama queens.

Rachel glanced in the direction of the stone barn, distracted. “Not for—” She looked back at Evan. “I’m sorry. I’ve got to feed up. Otherwise they’ll never shut up.” She rose and walked out from under the arbor. The backyard was illuminated by two security lights mounted on poles that came on automatically at sunset.

Evan followed her.

She opened the side door to the barn, which held a spacious pen for three long-eared goats. A door on the far side of the indoor enclosure led to the pasture, but it was closed. Ada, Rachel’s cook, must have closed it when she left; it wasn’t safe for goats to be out at night. Too many predators. “It’s coming,” she soothed.

The goats danced and leaped in the air, tails up, ears twitching in anticipation. Rachel circumnavigated two stacks of bushel baskets she’d borrowed from her father, slid the lid off a feed barrel, and scooped out a generous amount of goat chow. Ada said she was overfeeding them. That they were going to get fat.

“Could you turn on the water at the wall?” she asked Evan. When he’d done it, she lifted the handle of the faucet and water poured into the stainless steel trough. She pulled off a chunk of timothy and dropped it into the hayrack. Tails twitched as the goats dove into their supper.

Evan leaned against the stall, a lean hand gripping the top rail. “So, you were saying that Beth Glick had been baptized?”

“Probably at sixteen.” Rachel dusted the loose hayseeds off her hands.

“I understand she’s been gone almost two years.” He straightened. “Did she go to another Amish community?”

“No one knows, but that’s doubtful. Her parents woke up one morning to find her
kapp
on her bed and her suitcase and purse missing.” Rachel pulled a bobby pin from her hair that was poking her and stuck it back in somewhere else. “When you leave your
kapp
behind, you leave that life,” she said softly.

The natural progression of thoughts normally would have taken her back to the day she left
her
parents’ home. And her
kapp
. But she refused to go there tonight. She just didn’t have the emotional energy.

Evan was probably thinking something along the same lines. But if he was, he didn’t say anything about it. Instead, he asked, “How old was she when she left? She barely looked more than sixteen.”

Rachel exhaled, trying to think. “She left when she was about eighteen, so she would be—would
have been
—twenty.”

They were both quiet for a moment, lost in their own thoughts. Then she looked up at him. He’d had an awful day, too, and she doubted that he’d eaten anything. “Come inside,” she said. “We’ll see what Ada left in the refrigerator.”

“I didn’t come to eat.” It was a weak protest.

“Well, I’m hungry.” Which wasn’t really true, but she knew that if she didn’t eat, he wouldn’t. She shut off the barn light and the water, and they went outside.

“You think she ran away?” Evan walked toward the house with her.

“I assume. She left with seventy-five dollars of her mother’s chicken-and-egg money. It was taken from a sugar bowl in a cupboard, according to my Aunt Hannah. She makes it a point to keep up on local gossip.”

“So Beth stole from her parents and took off. And no one has heard from her all this time? There must have been some contact. Letters, a phone call to a friend.” He grimaced and shrugged. “Okay, no phone calls. But someone must know something about where she was all that time.”

Rachel opened the screen door, and Sophie launched herself through the air, barking excitedly. She jumped up and down at Rachel’s feet as though she’d been left alone for days rather than just a few hours. “Outside, girl. Do your business.”

Sophie stopped spinning and yipping long enough to race out into the grass and disappear into the darkness. A minute later, she shot back through the door that Rachel was still holding open.

The kitchen was dark. Rachel hit the switch. The counters and floor were spotless, thanks to Ada and her cleaning crew. Turning back to Evan, who’d followed her in, she said, “As far as I know, no one heard from Beth after she left. Not a word.”

“Strange,” he commented.

“Not really.” Rachel washed her hands at the big soapstone sink, dried them on a tea towel, and scooped out dog food from a cookie jar for Sophie. She poured it into a small blue crockery dish on the floor, and the dog stopped hopping long enough to stare suspiciously at the dry nuggets. Rachel groaned. “She’s spoiled rotten. She wants people food, but the vet says that this is what she should be eating.”

Evan regarded Sophie without comment. He liked her, and he was always slipping her bits of food under the table. Rachel guessed that if it were up to him, the dog would have whatever they were eating.

She opened the refrigerator door and peered in. Ada had left potato salad, a plate of sliced tomatoes and onions, fresh from the garden, and a roasted chicken covered with plastic wrap. “I think we hit the jackpot.” She began to pull out the dishes and hand them to him.

“So no one, to your knowledge, heard from Beth? No word in two years?” He carried the chicken and potato salad to the table for two, by the window.

Rachel set out plates, silverware, and cloth napkins. “Iced tea?” He nodded, and she went on. “Beth’s bishop doesn’t approve of phones, not even for businesses in the community. In an emergency, members of his congregation reach out to Amish from another district who might keep a cell phone for emergencies. Or even Englishers. They’ll flag down a passing car, but they won’t use a phone. Beth couldn’t have called them if she wanted to.”

Bishop, her big, seal point Siamese, appeared in the doorway and meowed. She glanced at his dish on the windowsill, high out of Sophie’s reach. “You still have food,” she said to the cat. “No begging.” She poured two glasses of tea.