Plain Killing (3 page)

“But—” she began.

“Please, Rachel.” Evan strode past the man, back straight as a soldier’s on parade, muscles tensed. The paramedic quickened his step to keep up. He was still talking, but Rachel couldn’t make out what he was saying to Evan.

She motioned to Mary Aaron, who’d been stowing a cooler in the back of the van. Rachel’s cousin came around the vehicle and slid into the front seat. Rachel got in by the driver’s door. She wondered if she looked as bad as Mary Aaron. Mary Aaron’s normally rosy complexion was blotchy, the muscles around her mouth drawn. Dark shadows smudged the hollows beneath the wide, intelligent eyes that now glistened with moisture.

“You heard?” Rachel asked, her voice barely a whisper.

Mary Aaron nodded. “Who would want to kill Beth? She never did an unkind thing to anyone in her life.”

Rachel gripped her cousin’s hand, acutely aware of having made the same gesture earlier. Mary Aaron’s grip was strong, her flesh warm in contrast to poor Beth’s stiff, chill flesh. “We can’t jump to conclusions. The paramedic could be wrong. We don’t know that someone murdered her. It could have been an accident.”

“
Ya
, an accident,” Mary Aaron said. “That would be better, I think. Better than if she’d done something terrible to herself. Or that someone deliberately harmed her.”

“He said she had marks on her neck, but she must have been in the water for several days.” Rachel squeezed Mary Aaron’s fingers harder. “She could have hit her neck on a rock when she fell, or maybe from lying on the quarry floor.”

“Under the water,” her cousin finished.
“Ach.”
She shivered. “All that cold, dark water. So deep to sink and then come . . . rise up again.”

“But a blessing that we found her,” Rachel said. “At least she’s not alone anymore.”

Mary Aaron’s throat flexed as she swallowed. “Your friend will come for the girls, won’t she? She won’t leave them there, waiting at the mill?”

“No,” Rachel answered firmly. “Coyote won’t let us down. She’s a good friend.”

Coyote, her husband, and their children had moved to Stone Mill only a year and a half earlier, but they had knit seamlessly into the tight community. She was definitely a free spirit—a runaway California hippie, she had told Rachel. Coyote Finch was a talented artist, an excellent mother, and a positive force in the town. She wouldn’t ask questions. She’d drop what she was doing and pick up Elsie, Lettie, and the others. And because she was a woman, the Amish girls wouldn’t feel uncomfortable riding with her, not something they would have felt right doing with an Englisher male.

“I don’t want to go . . . to leave Beth,” Mary Aaron said. “But
Dat
won’t like it if I’m late getting home for evening chores.”

Rachel nodded. “I know, but . . .” She shrugged. “He’ll understand when we tell him what happened. It’s not as though we can just drive away without waiting for the police investigators.”

“Here comes Evan.” Mary Aaron pointed.

He approached the van, cell phone in hand. “There’s been a change of plans,” he said, coming to Rachel’s open window. “The detective has been delayed. Another case. Sergeant Haley says that you can go home. He’ll contact you this evening or first thing in the morning.”

“So we should go?” Rachel asked hesitantly. A part of her wanted to get as far from the quarry as possible, but a part of her didn’t want to abandon Beth while she was still lying there in the grass.

He nodded. “But you’re not to discuss what happened with anyone. Go home, write down everything you can remember, and wait for the detective to call.”

Rachel glanced at Mary Aaron and back at Evan. “They can’t call Mary Aaron.” Everyone knew the Amish didn’t have phones.

“I told him that,” Evan said. “You can give him directions to the Hostetler farm.”

“Or I can go with him,” Rachel said. “You know how my aunt and uncle can be with Englishers.”

Evan grimaced. “That’s probably best. I’m sorry you had to be involved in this, any of you, but we have to follow procedures. I don’t know how long I’ll be. Hours, I suspect. There’s only one medical examiner available today, and she’s on the scene of another accident.”

“What will they do with . . . with Beth?”

“Once they take photos of the scene—” He glanced at Mary Aaron. “I’m sorry. I know how you feel about photos, but it’s a part of the investigation. No one will see them who doesn’t need to.” He paused. “Once we’re done here, she’ll be transported to the hospital for a cause of death . . . exam.”

Mary Aaron nodded and folded her hands in her lap.

He returned his attention to Rachel. “Go home and try to get some rest. And don’t dwell on the worst-case scenario. This could very well have been an accident; the paramedic was speculating. She could have been swimming alone and simply drowned.”

Rachel frowned. “In her dress and stockings and bonnet?”

Mary Aaron said something in Deitsch too low for them to hear.

“I’ve got to get back to the scene.” He tapped the windowsill. “Go straight home. I mean it. And talk to no one about this until you speak with the detective.”

“Be careful,” Rachel said, touching his sleeve lightly. “Call me when you get off.”

“It might be late.”

“Call me anyway.”

She started the van, backed into the area where they’d spread their picnic earlier, and turned the vehicle around. Neither she nor Mary Aaron spoke until they reached the gravel road.

“What do you think?” Rachel asked. “Should we go to Beth’s parents and tell them that’s she’s dead?”

“Evan said not to talk to anyone.”

Rachel thought for a moment. It wasn’t as if she were a rebel or anything. She’d been Amish once upon a time, for heaven’s sake. But she tried to follow her instincts and her heart, and her heart told her she couldn’t just go home and wait for the police.

Among the Amish, death was accepted as a natural part of life. Dying young was a tragedy, but this life was not as important as the next one. For Beth Glick’s family, their daughter’s fate was one much worse than death.

The penalty for dying outside the mercy of the faith hovered in the humid air between Rachel and Mary Aaron. Beth’s family and religious community would believe her a lost soul, lost not to this life but to the eternal one, which was what mattered.

“Beth’s family shouldn’t hear this from the police,” Rachel said.

“Ne,”
Mary Aaron agreed. “Better from one of their own. But she wasn’t from our church district. I don’t know her mother and father so well.” She looked at Rachel. “Maybe we should take this to our bishop first. See what he thinks is best.”

“
Ya,
that’s a good idea.” She kept both hands on the wheel as the van bumped over the rough road. “He’ll know what to do. It’ll be a shock to the Glicks, and they’ll need the support of their church leaders.”

“And if the Englisher policemen are angry that we do this?”

“We have to do what’s right for our people,” Rachel said. “That comes first.”

A few minutes later, Rachel turned off the gravel road into a small clearing in the forest where there was a natural spring. “I better change now,” she told Mary Aaron. If she was going to see the bishop, shorts and a T-shirt wouldn’t do.

Campers, hikers, and hunters often stopped at the spring to drink and to fill their jugs with clean water. Years previously, someone had inserted a copper pipe into a crevice in the rocky outcrop, and an unending stream of sweet, clean water gushed out into the natural rock hollow before trickling away downhill.

According to Native American lore, the spring held healing properties and the spot was sacred. The thought that Beth Glick probably passed this way surfaced in Rachel’s mind as she parked the van.

The sheer horror of the young woman’s death, either by mischance or violence, was hard to grasp. It seemed too absurd to be real. If someone had killed her, why? Who would do such a thing?

It was hard for Rachel to wrap her mind around the fact that they’d all been having such a good time swimming in the quarry while poor Beth’s body had been floating nearby. She shuddered, wondering if she was in shock. She exhaled slowly, willing herself to calm down, as she stared out the van window, hands on the steering wheel. What mattered right now was doing what she could for Beth’s family, and she’d be useless to the Glicks if she were a basket case.

“A pretty place,” Mary Aaron murmured.

“It is,” Rachel agreed. The clearing was a showcase of wildflowers, all thrusting up through the peaty mat of leaves toward the light: purple violets, Virginia bluebells, forget-me-nots, lady slippers, and stark white Indian pipes.

Rachel climbed out of the van. From the back, she removed a midcalf-length denim skirt and a shapeless blouse with a modest neckline and three-quarter sleeves. She walked around to the passenger’s side. Without being asked, Mary Aaron held a half dozen bobby pins and a blue head scarf out the window. Rachel quickly braided and pinned up her hair, then tied the scarf over it. Her cousin made no comment, but nodded her approval.

The Amish communities around Stone Mill were extremely conservative. Unlike Beth, Rachel had left the faith before being baptized, so she wasn’t in danger of being shunned. She hadn’t broken a covenant with the church. Rachel was free to come and go, to visit friends and relatives, and to take part in Amish family life when invited. She had learned since returning to Stone Mill that being both Amish and English enabled her to move between the two communities as an outsider couldn’t. She had a knack for facilitating solutions to difficulties that arose from cultural differences. Since she had returned, she’d been assisting her Amish family and friends with modern advances: running computer websites, dealing with government regulations, and getting the best medical care.

Everyone was used to seeing her now. But when she interacted with members of the church, Rachel always took care to dress in a manner that wouldn’t offend them. Otherwise, she would find herself politely, but firmly, dismissed, as most Englishers were. She might buy eggs or a loaf of bread at a roadside stand, as any tourist could, but few Amish would speak to her on a personal level if she wasn’t decently clad, with her head covered. It was a compromise that Rachel understood. Most English, including Evan, didn’t.

“It makes no sense,” he’d said a dozen times. “They know you aren’t Amish anymore.”

Usually, she’d shrug and try to find the humor in the situation. “Of course they do. But if I dress modestly, then I’m not as threatening. I’m not throwing it in their faces that I walked away from the life they believe in.”

It was a small price to pay, especially this afternoon when she and Mary Aaron had such grim news to carry to an unsuspecting family. Evan would be annoyed that she hadn’t followed his instructions, but how could she just go home and wait? The Glick family needed to be told of their daughter’s death, and not by Englishers. But not by near strangers, either. This was too delicate a situation for her to barge in with; she hardly knew the Glicks. Bishop Abner Chupp—the religious leader of the church group that Rachel’s and Mary Aaron’s families belonged to—would know the best way to proceed.

Rachel pulled the skirt on over her shorts, then stepped out of her shorts. She buttoned the blouse over her T-shirt. She got back into the van and drove out onto the main road that led around the mountain, toward home. The bishop’s farm wasn’t far from her Uncle Aaron’s, and the sooner they got to his home, the better. Neither she nor Mary Aaron spoke as they wound down the steep and twisting route. She’d made the last sharp grade when her cousin reached for the cell phone. “We’d best see if your friend got the girls.”

Rachel nodded.

Mary Aaron found the number and made the call. Coyote picked up on the third ring, and Mary Aaron put it on speaker so Rachel could hear. “Hey,” Rachel said. “Did you find them?” She slowed down and steered around a pothole, a result of the previous winter. The road was in bad shape, and she didn’t want to risk blowing a tire.

“Are you okay? I just dropped your sister off,” Coyote said, concern in her voice. “She was the last one.” Coyote didn’t ask why she’d been asked to play taxi driver, and Rachel was certain that none of the girls would have told her about Beth’s death.

“I’m fine. I’ll fill you in later. Thank you for picking up the girls.” Rachel tapped the brakes as a doe and her fawn darted across the road ahead of them. Mary Aaron tensed and grabbed the dashboard. Rachel shook her head. “Not even close.”

“What?” Coyote asked.

“A jaywalking deer.”

“They’re bad this year. Blade nearly clipped one Sunday night.” Blade was Coyote’s pierced, tattooed, and scary-looking husband. A nicer man you would rarely meet, but he was somewhat of a shock on first acquaintance.

A truck passed them, going uphill. The driver waved, and Rachel waved back. “Just wanted to say thanks,” she said to Coyote.

“No problem. It gave me an excuse to get out of the house, and your mother gave me a pear pie. The kids will be ecstatic.”

Rachel said good-bye, and Mary Aaron set the phone on the console.

“It doesn’t sound like the girls told Coyote about Beth. You think they told anyone else?” Mary Aaron said.

“I’m sure my
mam
knows by now. Lettie would tell her.”

Mary Aaron gazed out. “And you think Elsie won’t tell our mother?”

Rachel grimaced. “We’ll have to hurry if we’re going to get the word to Beth’s family before the Amish telegraph does.”

It was an undisputed certainty of life in Stone Mill. None of the Plain people had house phones, and few owned cells, which were used strictly for making business calls and were kept in the barns. But news of any kind that affected them spread fast. By nightfall, Amish living as far away as the west end of the valley would know that Beth’s body had been discovered.

The Chupp home was a white, nineteenth-century frame farmhouse dwarfed by the huge stone barn across the single-lane gravel road and framed by a garden and an orchard on either side of the dwelling. A stone supporting wall ran along the front yard, which was higher than the roadway by at least six feet. Pots of black-eyed Susans and daylilies spilled a riot of color over the wall from the lawn, and neat flower beds and grapevines added to the charm of the small house. Stone steps led up from the mailbox, and at the base of the steps stood a deep concrete water trough. Spring water ran from a pipe in the wall, and a ledge above the trough gave locals a place to set and fill their jugs. The water ran into the trough, which overflowed into a narrow stream below.

As Rachel pulled the van into the parking area, a pickup truck with West Virginia plates was just pulling out. The woman sitting beside the driver waved, and Rachel waved back. “Tourists,” Rachel said. “Let’s hope they stop in Stone Mill and buy something.”

Rachel and Mary Aaron got out, climbed the steps and approached the front door. Rachel was about to knock when Naamah Chupp came around the corner of the house with a basket of fresh-cut flowers.

“Rachel! Mary Aaron!” White teeth flashed as Naamah’s round face creased into a merry smile. “So good to see you!” she cried, her double chin bobbing.

The bishop’s wife was a good fifteen years younger than he was, but topped him in both height and weight. She wore a russet-brown dress with elbow-length sleeves, a full black apron, and a slightly askew white
kapp
. Naamah’s hair was walnut brown with a sprinkling of gray. She spoke to them in the Deitsch dialect. “You must come in. I made a fresh pot of coffee not an hour ago, and
streuselkuchen
.” She beamed. “So good of you to stop by.”

Mary Aaron took a deep breath and dropped her gaze to the ground. “We need to see Bishop Abner,” she said. “Something. . .”

“Bad,” Rachel supplied. “Bad news.”

“Not your mother, Mary Aaron? That sugar of hers. I told her. Listen to the Englisher doctor. Vitamins are good, but you must watch your diet and take the pills.”

“Ne,”
Mary Aaron said, shaking her head. “
Mam
is fine. It’s someone else. A sudden death in the community.”

“In another church district,” Rachel said. “But we need to consult Bishop Abner.”

Naamah clapped a hand over her mouth. “God have mercy. Not a child, I hope.”

Rachel shook her head. “A young woman. Beth Glick.”

“Beth, you say? The Beth who ran away? The girl they put the ban on?
Ach.
” Naamah’s dark-brown eyes widened and then grew moist. “So dangerous, the English world. Not for us. Poor girl. And her poor mother. To lose a child is terrible.”

Rachel nodded. It was no secret that the bishop and his wife longed for a baby. This was his second marriage; his first wife had passed away, but they’d not been blessed either. Now, after ten years of marriage, Naamah would soon be past the age of giving birth. For Amish women, whose lives centered on family, being childless was a great heartbreak. Naamah, however, always cheerful, seemed to have filled her life with flowers and other people’s children.

“Abner is in his workshop,” she said, pointing to the barn. “Sharpening saws, I think he said. You must go to him.” She made shooing motions with her hands. “And then come back to the house for coffee and something in your stomach. Even in a time of trouble, you must eat to keep up your strength.”

“Thank you, but not today,” Rachel said. “I have to get Mary Aaron home, unless we go on to tell Beth’s parents.”

“Such a pity,” Naamah said. “I’ll make my
grossmutter
’s pound cake to take to the Glicks. And a pot of soup, bean or German vegetable. What do you think? Either make
goot
for feeding a crowd.” She shook her head, looking at the flowers in her hand. “
Ach,
poor woman, the mother, first to lose her daughter to the Englishers and then to death. Breaks my heart to think of it.” She glanced at Rachel and Mary. “Best you go. He will know what is best to do.” Again, she pointed to the barn.

Rachel followed the sound of metal screeching against a sharpening stone, toward the barn across the road; Mary Aaron walked at her side. They found Bishop Abner where his wife had said he would be, wearing safety glasses and grinding the edge of a scythe. He was seated on what appeared to be a bicycle frame and pushing foot pedals to rotate the stone by means of a series of straps and pulleys. The rasping noise was so loud that Rachel clapped her hands over her ears.

“Bishop Abner?” Mary Aaron moved forward to tap his shoulder.

Surprised, he started, then stopped what he was doing, pushed back the glasses, and smiled at them. He rose from the bicycle contraption. He was a small man with very little hair on top of his head and a long, scraggly reddish-gray beard that he’d tucked into the top of his overalls. He carefully laid down the scythe and scooped up a brimless straw hat. He put it on. “Forgive me. It’s warm in here,” he said by way of excuse for being hatless.

Rachel glanced around the workshop. The work area was clean enough to be her kitchen after her cook had finished tidying up at the end of the day. The cement floor had been swept; the tools were hung on wall pegs or stacked on shelves, and nothing was out of place. She smiled back at the bishop. As the religious leader of their church community, he was a devout, hardworking, and selfless shepherd to his flock. She liked him, despite the fact that he never missed an opportunity to try and lure her back into the fold.

“Rachel, you’ve come to talk with me?” he asked as he picked up the scythe and carried it to a wall of farm tools. He hung it beside a sickle and the wrought-iron head of a pitchfork. “Your mother was just saying to me last Sabbath that she thought you might be ready to—”

“
Ne,
Bishop Abner,” Mary Aaron interrupted. “This isn’t about Rachel. We’ve come on a sad matter. We hope you know the right way to do what must be done.”