Plain Confession

by Emma Miller

  Mary Rose, her brothers, and mother made no response. Sharpe might have just announced the weather report.

  “They understand what you’re saying,” Rachel said. “They’d just prefer hearing the information in Deitsch. You’re going to get more information out of them, if they have any information, if you let me ask the questions.”

  Sharpe turned his attention to her, looking her up and down. “I thought you were here as a translator.”

  “More of a cultural translator,” she supplied.

  Sharpe grunted and Rachel thought to herself that while he might be an excellent detective, he had all the personality of a rusty hammer. He seemed to be regarding her and Daniel’s family as if they were aliens from Mars. Her first inclination was toward resentment, but then she reconsidered. She had a tendency to make quick judgments of people sometimes, too. It was human nature. Maybe if she gave Detective Sharpe a little time, he’d prove himself competent.

  “You must have questions,” Sharpe said.

  Rachel looked at him. “What makes you think Daniel was shot by someone else? I assume it was something in the autopsy report.”

  Sharpe looked at Rachel, then Evan.

  “Rachel,” Evan said quietly.

  “What? How can they have any questions if they haven’t been given any information?”

  “Right now, I think we’re just fact finding. I think what Detective Sharpe is saying is that if they have any information that might help him find who did this, now would be the time to speak up.” Evan then pointed, indicating she should repeat the information to the family.

  Rachel exhaled loudly, then spoke in Deitsch, repeating what Evan had just said.

  Mary Rose tightened her grip on the baby and shook her head rapidly.

  “No,” Rachel said in English. “She doesn’t.”

  “What about her brothers?” Sharpe asked. “Either of them have anything to tell me? Anything I should know? Any questions?”

  Lemuel shook his head. Moses said, “Ne,” in a barely audible voice.

  “What did he say?” the detective asked.

  “No,” Rachel translated. “He says, ‘No.’ ”

  Sharpe looked from one impassive face to the other. “Mrs. Studer? Does anyone have anything to add? Any thoughts as to who might have a grudge against Daniel? Any physical confrontations? Heated arguments with a neighbor?”

  Again, Rachel translated, even though she knew very well the family understood every word the detective had spoken.

  Mary Rose shook her head. “Ne. Daniel . . . He . . .” She choked up and buried her face in the handkerchief again.

  “Everyone liked him,” Alma said in Deitsch.

  Rachel translated again, and the room went silent.

  After a minute or two, Sharpe announced, “This meeting doesn’t seem very productive. I may need to speak with all or some of you later.” He stood. “My condolences. I’m sorry for your loss.” His delivery seemed rote and as unemotional as Moses’s face.

  “Can we go?” Alma asked Rachel in Deitsch, her expression unreadable.

  “She wants to know if they’re free to go,” Rachel repeated in English.

  Detective Sharpe made his way out of the room and the house without commenting.

  “That’s all for now,” Rachel said softly in Deitsch. Then Evan, Lucy, and Rachel followed Sharpe to his unmarked car, which he’d left locked and running.

  “What do you make of that response, Trooper Mars?” Sharpe asked as he opened the driver’s door with a key. “Nobody seemed surprised. Did they know he’d been murdered?”

  “I don’t think so, sir,” Lucy answered. “No matter how shocked they were, they wouldn’t have shared their surprise with us. I’ve seen similar reactions when dealing with the Amish. Some of these people are more isolated from our world than we realize. I imagine they were frightened.” She went around the car and got into the passenger’s side and fastened her seat belt.

  “Or in shock,” Rachel suggested, although she had been troubled by the family’s response as well. She looked at the detective. “Trooper Mars is right. The Amish are a private people. They don’t demonstrate emotion in public, especially to outsiders. And they’re all grieving. Mary Rose just buried her husband this morning. And the suggestion that Daniel died from unnatural causes would be extremely upsetting to all of them. To all of us.”

  “To the state of Pennsylvania,” Sharpe said, turning the heater on full blast. “Thank you, Ms. Mast.”

  “Rachel. Please call me Rachel,” she replied, forcing a tight smile. “Especially in front of the Amish. They don’t approve of titles. I’d suggest that if you interview them, they’ll feel more at ease if you use first names rather than Mrs. or Mr.”

  He glanced up at her, one hand on the steering wheel. “I’ve been with the Pennsylvania State Police seventeen years. I have my own code of conduct. Our procedures are done according to rules, not cult preferences.”

  Rachel knew that her reaction to the word cult must have shown in her eyes because Evan gave her a quick look that contained a silent plea for forbearance.

  “Trooper Parks,” Sharpe said, “I believe you have duties.” The detective closed the car door and drove out of the yard.

  “Charming fellow,” Rachel quipped. She looked up at Evan, one hand on her hip. “Are you having second thoughts about surrendering your detective’s badge?”

  “Not on your life,” Evan said. “This is the kind of case that I hate.”

  “But you had a knack for getting to the truth.”

  “Maybe you do,” he answered quietly. He met her gaze. “Now, you get in the house before you catch pneumonia. The detective is right, I need to get back on the road.”

  Rachel pressed her lips together, hugging herself for warmth. “Do you really think Daniel was murdered?”

  Evan considered. “There’s obviously evidence or Sharpe wouldn’t have come.”

  “What evidence?”

  He shook his head slowly. “I don’t know. The detective didn’t say when he asked me to come out.”

  “And you didn’t ask?”

  “Rachel—”

  “I know. I understand,” she said, feeling bad for having pushed him. She knew the police followed procedures and there was, undoubtedly, a procedure as to how information on a case this new was disclosed. Because of the Amish belief that a body needed to go into the ground as soon as possible, preferably without embalming it, the case had already been rushed. Now that they suspected foul play, it made sense that they would take their time.

  “Look, Rachel,” Evan said, not seeming to be annoyed with her. “The real investigation is just starting now. Even if the victim died at the hands of another person, it could have been accidental. It’s too early to make the determination that he was murdered.”

  “But Sharpe said Daniel was murdered.”

  Evan motioned with one hand. “Just give us a few days. Okay? We’ll find out what happened.”

  She hesitated. “Okay.” He looked as though he needed a hug, but this wasn’t the time or the place. “Will I see you after you get off work?”

  “I’ll call you,” he promised. “It all depends on what happens on the road.” He flashed her a genuine smile. “Love you, babe.”

  “Me, too,” she answered. “Be safe out there among the Englishers.” She blew him a kiss and dashed back toward the warmth of the house, her head full of unanswered questions.

  * * *

  “You’re sure you don’t mind staying long enough to handle the check-ins this afternoon?” Rachel asked her neighbor, Hulda Schenfeld. “I don’t want to put you out.”

  Hulda glanced up from the computer screen. She was settled into a leather office chair, her sheepskin-lined boots resting on a footstool. Her white leather jacket with the silver trim and her designer jeans would have been perfect for a skiing weekend at some resort, but Hulda, in her nineties, was long past such strenuous sports. “Sorry, dear,” the elderly woman said.
“I was checking out Coach purses. Christmas isn’t too far off, you know.” She tapped one hearing aid. “Say again.”

  Rachel repeated her question. Hulda filled in for her or Mary Aaron in the office several half-days a week. Hulda was a whiz on the computer, and she was perfectly capable of handling any routine guest reservation, check-in, or checkout. And if anything went wrong, she had no trouble solving the issue.

  “It’s just that I don’t know how long the fitting will take,” Rachel explained. “It’s in State College, that little bridal shop off Main. I think the street is Redwood, Red something.”

  “Redwick,” Hulda corrected. She removed her round wire computer glasses, put on her regular glasses, and regarded her with bright, intelligent eyes. “What time is your fitting? You don’t want to be late. You’ve already missed how many? Three fittings.”

  “Two,” Rachel argued. “Only two. That time you fell—”

  “Could have taken myself for the X-ray.”

  “You could not have,” Rachel countered. “And the other time I missed it when that pipe broke.”

  “Your final fitting,” Hulda mused. “I know the gown will be lovely. You’ve kept that nice boy waiting far too long. If you’d married him the first time you agreed to, you might have a baby in the stroller by now. You’re not getting any younger, Rachel.”

  Rachel chuckled. “Thanks for reminding me.”

  Hulda patted Rachel’s hand. “Don’t take it as an insult, dear. You know I want the best for you. But I call it as I see it.” Hulda’s snowy hair was close-cropped in a stylish pixie cut, a change from her normal finger waves. Tasteful diamond studs twinkled in her earlobes. “You aren’t to worry about a thing here at Stone Mill House. Two couples expected: the DeSalvos and the Martins. The Martins are repeat guests and they always get the second-floor corner suite.”

  “Thanks. You’re a lifesaver. You know I like to greet incoming guests, but I want to be certain they fixed the neckline on my dress. If I showed myself in that, my mother would stop speaking to me again.”

  “You’ll make a beautiful bride, no matter what you wear. But, yes, I do see you in a traditional white gown, none of this peekaboo, see-through nonsense. Why any young woman would like to show her bosoms and her belly to the world in a house of worship is beyond me. You cannot believe the dress my grandniece Rebecca wore last spring. Fifteen thousand dollars for an ugly gown that didn’t cover half of what it should have.” Hulda shrugged. “She called it blush, but it was purple, if you ask me. But what would you expect from a bride who dyed her hair blue and wore high-topped sneakers under her dress?”

  Rachel nodded sympathetically. She wasn’t about to dive into the rough seas of Hulda’s relative’s sense of fashion. Smiling, Rachel changed the subject. “Ada just left, and the girls have finished cleaning. Mary Aaron’s not back yet, but I expect her soon, and she can take over when she gets here.”

  Her cousin had been living on and off at the B&B for the last year. Mary Aaron had a natural head for business and was wonderful with the guests, but lately, her heart hadn’t been in her job. The time for deciding whether she’d leave the Amish faith or be baptized into the religion was growing short. Rachel didn’t know what Mary Aaron was going to choose, and she didn’t think Mary Aaron knew, either.

  It was a serious bone of contention between her and the Amish community, not to mention her relatives. Uncle Aaron and a lot of others believed that she’d put ideas into Mary Aaron’s head. She’d tried to explain to her cousin how difficult the decision was, and even now, after so long among the English, she sometimes longed for the Plain life she’d known as a child. Maybe some could walk away and not look back, but Rachel wasn’t one of them. And she didn’t believe Mary Aaron was, either. Once an Amish girl, always an Amish girl, Rachel thought. You could put on the jeans and the leather jackets; you could cut your hair and wear makeup, but there would always be a yearning deep inside for the things you relinquish when you move away from your family and community.

  “I worry about that child,” Hulda said. “Mary Aaron. I don’t know if she’ll ever be happy out here, among us Englishers.” The older woman smiled wryly at her own quip. “She’s such a special girl.”

  “I know,” Rachel agreed. She loved Mary Aaron like a sister. She was so full of life, overflowing with joy. And her faith was bedrock deep and sky high. If Mary Aaron asked her, which she hadn’t, she would have told her that she believed she was well suited to the Amish way of life and that abandoning it would be a grave mistake. For her own part, she’d come too far to go back, but Mary Aaron was different. Most Amish young people experimented during their rumspringa, their running around time. Most got their rebellion out and adhered to tradition and remained solidly in the faith.

  It was Rachel’s hope that her cousin would be the same, even if it took her a while to figure things out. But Mary Aaron could be stubborn. Rachel had decided months ago that the harder she pushed her toward baptism, the harder Mary Aaron fought against it. Until then, Rachel was glad to offer her cousin a place to stay and space to make her own life choices.

  “Will you go, already,” Hulda urged. “Look at the time. You’ll be late for your fitting, or worse, driving too fast on that twisty road over the mountain.”

  “You’re sure I’m not imposing,” Rachel said. “Asking you to cover things here and borrowing your car.” Mary Aaron had borrowed her Jeep, but Rachel had expected her back an hour ago.

  “Pfff.” Hulda grimaced. “I offered. And what would I do at home? Watch one of the shopping channels on TV? My sons have forbidden me to set foot in Russell’s this week. They say it’s inventory, and I make the new manager nervous.” She peered over her jeweled glasses again. “And just because I want things done properly. Barred from my own store.”

  Rachel patted the desk. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Oh, Bishop’s shut upstairs in my apartment. Don’t let anyone let him out. One of the guests is afraid of cats, and she says Bishop is stalking her.”

  Hulda chuckled. “That Siamese is too fat to chase a mouse, let alone a guest, but he does stare at people, I’ll give you that. And he’s just a little cross-eyed. That probably makes them nervous.”

  “He’s just watching over the house,” Rachel defended as she tugged on her good coat and gloves. “And Ada left you a dinner plate. Roast beef.”

  “Go, already,” Hulda ordered.

  Rachel made it as far as her back porch. She was just about to step out into the yard when Mary Aaron pulled in and jumped out of the Jeep.

  “Rae-Rae!” Mary Aaron called. “I was afraid I wouldn’t catch you before you left. You’ve got to come!”

  Rachel noticed that her cousin was wearing Amish clothing, down to the kapp. She’d been sure Mary Aaron had been wearing jeans and a sweater when she’d left the B&B after breakfast. “I can’t go anywhere,” Rachel protested. “I have a dress fitting. Remember?”

  “You have to come,” Mary Aaron insisted. “That police detective is at the Studer farm. He’s trying to question Moses. And it’s not going well.”

  Chapter 3

  Mary Aaron slowed the Jeep when they turned onto the gravel road that snaked up the mountain to the Studer farm. Because her cousin was driving, Rachel had been able to change her clothing. Matters always went more easily with the Old Order Amish if Rachel dressed modestly, and she kept a long denim skirt and one of Mary Aaron’s tops in the vehicle, along with a navy wool head scarf and a traditional women’s coat. Rachel wasn’t attempting to disguise herself as Amish. Everyone knew who and what she was, but if she wore her English clothing, some of the Plain people would refuse to talk with her. And in a delicate situation like this one, Rachel thought she needed all the help she could get.

  She’d tried to reach Evan on his cell phone, but he didn’t answer. She knew he was on duty again today, but his not picking up meant that he couldn’t talk. He might be in the middle of a highway stop, or he could be in the presence of superiors. Unle
ss he was already here at the Studer farm . . . She hoped he was here, but she wasn’t counting on it. And if he wasn’t here, since he hadn’t asked her to come, she might be in trouble with him for interfering in official police business again. They hadn’t argued about that hot potato in a while, and she’d like to keep it that way. Of course, Evan had asked for her help two days ago, so maybe this would be all right with him. She doubted that Evan would ever grasp why she felt so compelled to help the Amish in dealings with mainstream authority, a world they didn’t understand.

  The Jeep hit a buggy wheel rut and both Rachel and Mary Aaron were thrown against the seat belts. “It might be better if you slow down a little,” Rachel suggested.

  “The person who called me said that there was one police car already at the house and a second coming up the road with lights flashing and sirens blaring.” Mary Aaron shifted into first gear to take a particularly steep incline and gripped the steering wheel as if it were trying to escape. Mary Aaron wasn’t a bad driver, considering this road and the short time she’d had a license, but from her expression, Rachel suspected that her cousin still thought of a motor vehicle as an adversary rather than transportation.

  The Studer farm sprawled on a relatively flat section of land on the side of Blue Mountain. The gravel road the property was located on was practically impassible in bad weather. Rain tended to cause washouts, and it was low on the county’s priorities for snowplowing. There had once been a half dozen homes here, some going back to the earliest days of English settlement. Now, there were only roofless stone hulks, fallen outbuildings, and one working farmstead, making the Studer family an isolated one.

  “Who called you?” Rachel asked, gripping the armrest for support.

  “Rosh Hertzler.”

  “The old one or the teenager?” Hertzler was a common name in the valley, and Rachel knew of at least two Rosh Hertzlers.

  “The younger.”

  “Young Rosh has access to a phone?” Rachel guessed him at twenty years old, old enough to be kicking up dust, but young enough to still be under his father’s roof. Rosh’s father was conservative, not someone who would condone his son possessing a cell.