Plain Confession

by Emma Miller

  “It’s possible,” Rachel admitted, “but we can’t guess. We have to find solid facts if we want to convince the police and the judge that Moses was telling a lie when he confessed.”

  “Do we know if there’s any evidence that proves Moses did it?” Mary Aaron asked. “Anything other than him telling the police he did it?”

  Rachel shook her head. “I don’t know anything yet. As I said, Moses was sticking to his story yesterday when I saw him. But, guilty or innocent, he still deserves an attorney. So that will be my first task, to see that he gets one.”

  “What can I help you with?”

  “Maybe you could ask around, talk to anyone you can locate who was hunting on Blue Mountain that day.”

  “I can ask my brothers. They were hunting with Dat. Not in that area, I don’t think, but they’ll know who was,” Mary Aaron said.

  Rachel rubbed her cheek thoughtfully. “I’m not saying that the hunters are necessarily suspects, although they would all have had guns. And he was killed by a gunshot; that’s why the police originally thought he accidentally shot and killed himself. They thought maybe he dropped his gun and it went off or he fell from the tree stand and the gun went off on the way down.”

  “Do they know what kind of gun killed him?”

  Rachel shook her head slowly. “If they do know what it was, they aren’t saying. Evan said ballistics can be slow to come back. Especially now that there’s been a confession.”

  “Then how did they know he was murdered and it wasn’t an accident?”

  “I don’t know yet. I’m going to see what Evan can find out. If he’ll try to find out. In the meantime, we should talk to as many Amish hunters as we can.”

  “And the family,” Mary Aaron said.

  Rachel walked back to the board and tapped the heading that read FAMILY. “Absolutely. We’re going to start right here.”

  * * *

  Fourteen-year-old Lemuel met Rachel and Mary Aaron in the barnyard outside the Studer farmhouse. He was carrying a large box of empty quart canning jars. “My mother and sister are in the kitchen,” he said. “I guess it’s one of them you came to see.”

  They followed him into the house. Alma was standing at the stove stirring what smelled like a large kettle of applesauce while Mary Rose washed jars at the sink. “Come in,” Alma called. “Mary Rose, pour Rachel and Mary Aaron some coffee.” She glanced at her youngest son. “Are there more out there?”

  “Another two cases. And I know there are more empties in the attic,” he said. Lemuel set the box of jars on the table. “Want me to bring ’em in?”

  Alma nodded. “We’ll need at least another dozen, maybe more.” She was wearing a white apron that had seen better days, and a navy scarf that covered most of her hair. “You’ll have to excuse me,” she said, still stirring. “This batch is nearly ready, and if I don’t watch it close, it will burn.”

  Mary Rose poured two cups of coffee and carried them to the table. “Milk and sugar?” she asked shyly. She looked tired, but unlike the last time Rachel had seen her, she didn’t appear to have been crying.

  Rachel smiled. “Please.”

  As Mary Rose placed the creamer-and-sugar set on the table, Rachel noticed a bruise on the young woman’s wrist.

  “You okay?” Rachel asked, indicating the mark.

  “Clumsy,” Mary Rose said, pushing down her rolled sleeve.

  “Those jars ready yet?” Alma called to her daughter. “Nearly ready for them.”

  “Coming,” Mary Rose told her, returning to the sink.

  Rachel glanced around the kitchen as she added milk and sugar to her cup. The space was smaller than her mother’s and badly in need of painting. A single multipaned window over the sink let light into the room. It was one of the old-fashioned, swing-open, wooden-framed windows that you rarely saw anymore. There was a wide wooden windowsill, but no pots of live herbs as her mam’s kitchen had. It was a stark room, speaking of poverty and hard use.

  Rachel shrugged off the impression. Maybe she was reading more into the austere room than she should. The bubbling applesauce, the fresh coffee, and Alma’s smile of welcome belied the sense of heavy sorrow. The kitchen was certainly clean enough. She didn’t spy a single spiderweb or smudge of dirt on the walls or ceiling, and the round wooden table with its soft patina and worn surface was spotless enough to meet her mother’s standards. Housecleaning was never one of her own strengths, but Rachel could appreciate the hours of work it would take to maintain a kitchen without electricity or modern aids for canning, ironing, cooking, and washing clothes.

  A baby’s wail came from the interior of the house. Mary Rose glanced at her mother, as if for permission to go to her child.

  Alma nodded impatiently. “Ya, go on. Our guests won’t mind. She’s probably thrown her lamb out of the crib again.”

  With a relieved expression, Mary Rose hurried from the room.

  “She’s a good mother,” Alma said hastily. “Needs to trust her own instincts more. Worries over that babe like a cat with one kitten.” The older woman used hot mitts to push the kettle to the back of the stove and turned off the flame. Wiping her hands on her apron, she picked up another cup off the counter and joined them at the table. “How’s my Moses? Is he all right?” She pulled out a chair and settled her weight into it. “We’ve been praying for him.”

  Alma’s eyes were heavy-lidded behind her glasses. Dark circles under her eyes made her look seventy, although by the ages of her children she must be a decade younger, Rachel thought.

  “He’s not come to harm in that English jail, has he?” Alma asked.

  “No,” Rachel answered. “I haven’t spoken with Moses today. There are rules about phone calls. But my . . . Evan, the man I’m going to marry, he called a friend and checked on him. He’s well, your Moses, at least as well as he can be under the circumstances.”

  Alma set her cup heavily on the table. “He didn’t do it. I know he didn’t. I don’t know why he’d say he did, but I know my son.” Her voice cracked with emotion. “He can’t even cut the heads off our chickens. I do it, or sometimes Lemuel. Neither Moses nor Mary Rose have the belly for it.” She rubbed at her jaw absently, making Rachel wonder if she had a toothache.

  Mary Aaron sipped her coffee in silence. Alma’s daughter came back into the room and stood by the doorway, hands behind her back like a child. She appeared younger than her years and at a loss for words or maybe just lost, Rachel thought. And who could blame her? Widowed in such a brutal way and left with a baby girl to care for alone.

  “I’ve called several attorneys,” Rachel said, patting Alma’s arthritis-twisted hand reassuringly. “I should have someone to represent Moses by tomorrow. Your son didn’t say he would refuse counsel, so I believe he will accept. I tried to impress on him just how important it is to have a lawyer.”

  “Moses is a strange boy, but his heart is good,” Alma answered. “I don’t care how much it costs. I will pay this English man of the law. I’ll find the money somehow. I don’t know why they had to lock him up. He’s innocent, and he wouldn’t run away. He’d never do that. Moses likes to be close to home.”

  “But he left home to go out and work,” Mary Aaron said. “Didn’t you have enough for him to do here on your place?”

  Alma looked down at her cup. “Daniel thought it would be best if Moses brought in money regular.”

  “So, he helped out with the family,” Rachel said, even though she’d already gotten this information from Moses. It was always good to let people talk when they wanted to; she’d learned that a long time ago. “Even though he didn’t live here?”

  “That’s right.” Alma nodded. “Money’s been a problem for us since my husband passed. Moses knew that and he always did his share. Now, he’s the one who needs help.”

  “I don’t want you to worry about paying the lawyer,” Rachel insisted. “I think I know someone who may be willing to help. There’s a special fund to—”

  “I do
n’t want charity,” Alma interrupted. “We pay our way. We may not have much, but we pay what we owe.”

  “It wouldn’t be charity,” Mary Aaron put in. “It would be no more than you helping a neighbor who’d lost everything in a fire. A good person left money in a will to help Amish families in our valley.”

  “It’s just for situations like this,” Rachel explained.

  “And we do need help,” Mary Rose said quietly. Her voice was sweet and high-pitched like a child’s, but not jarring. “We won’t make it through the winter if we don’t get more wood chopped. We heat with wood up here, and our woodshed’s not half full.”

  Alma folded her arms. “Daniel was a good woodchopper. Anybody who knew him would say that about him. I’ve never seen a man enjoy cutting firewood like he did.”

  “Almost like it was a prayer,” Mary Rose said. “He’d split logs by the hour, sometimes until it got too dark to see.” She went back to the sink and finished washing the two quart jars still in the dishpan. “Lemuel is really stepping up with the chores, but he can’t fill Daniel’s shoes. We need Moses home. We need him bad.”

  “I’ll mention it to Dat,” Mary Aaron said. “We’ll get some men and boys from the church to come and help.”

  “No need to trouble your father. He has his own wood to cut,” Alma replied. She raised the cup to her lips but didn’t drink. “Cold,” she said. “I can’t abide cold coffee.”

  “It’s the least we can do for you,” Mary Aaron insisted. “It might be a while before Moses can come home. And you have enough to worry about.”

  “Thank you,” Mary Rose said softly. “We would appreciate it.”

  Rachel looked at Mary Aaron and tugged inconspicuously at her earlobe. Mary Aaron nodded. “We were wondering,” she said, “was Daniel hunting alone? That day that . . .”

  “That he was shot?” Alma’s mouth grew firm. “I wouldn’t know. Mary Rose?”

  Mary Rose turned from the sink, her hands dripping water on her apron. “I don’t know. It was the first day of rifle season. A lot of hunters out there. I do know he was going to our old orchard on the edge of our property. Why does it matter who he went with?”

  “If somebody was with him, they might have seen something or someone,” Mary Aaron said.

  Rachel sipped her coffee. “Did Lemuel go with him?”

  “I don’t know,” Mary Rose said.

  “I don’t see why it matters.” Alma got up from the table.

  Rachel met Mary Aaron’s gaze, then looked at the door. She wanted to talk to Lemuel, but she wondered if maybe it made more sense to speak with him alone. He might be more forthcoming without his mother present. Most teen boys were.

  Mary Aaron took a big gulp of coffee. “Could I top off my coffee? It’s delicious.”

  “Don’t see why not,” Alma answered, walking to the sink to retrieve several clean jars. “Mary Rose?”

  “I’m just going to go outside for a second,” Rachel said, getting out of her chair. “Something in my car,” she muttered. “Be right back.”

  Mary Aaron engaged the women in a discussion about the length of the apple season as Rachel slipped out the door. She went out to her vehicle and pretended to look for something on the seat. When she looked up, Lemuel was coming across the barnyard with another box of jars. “Could I speak with you a moment?” she asked.

  “Guess so.” He stopped and waited for her to approach. “Moses didn’t do it, you know,” he said. “He wouldn’t. He shouldn’t be in jail.”

  “Which is why I’m trying to help him.” Rachel glanced in the direction of the house, then back at the boy. She didn’t like being sneaky. “It would help me if you could tell me, were you hunting with your brother-in-law the day he was killed?”

  “Ne.”

  “Do you know who was?”

  Lemuel shook his head. His nose and bare hands were red with the cold, and his jacket looked thin. Rachel decided to ask her mother if she had any outgrown boys’ coats that would fit him.

  “You think Daniel was hunting alone?” she pressed.

  “Probably.” Lemuel shrugged noncommittally. “But I don’t know for sure.” He looked down at the ground. “Sorry.”

  “That’s all right.” Rachel smiled at him. He didn’t smile back. She pressed her lips together. “Did you hear the shots?”

  “Ne.”

  “Did you . . . do you know who found Daniel?”

  He shook his head and looked away and she felt bad for having asked a child such a thing. It was just that she was trying to piece together what had happened in the woods that day. The chain of events from the time Daniel left until the paramedics carried his body away.

  She studied the teen. “Lemuel, did you like Daniel?”

  It took him a long time to respond before he looked up. “Does it matter?”

  Chapter 7

  “He was your sister’s husband,” Rachel said, thinking his response was a little odd. But what teenager didn’t have difficulty speaking to adults. “You lived in the same house. I was just wondering if you got along well with him.”

  Lemuel stood there with the canning jars in his arms looking as if he’d never considered the subject. He shrugged. “I’m sorry that he’s dead. It’ll be hard for Mam and Mary Rose without him to do the heavy work . . . unless Moses comes home to help.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Winter’s coming. I’m worried about them . . . if they can . . . if we can pay the bills and make it through until spring. With the stock. You have to buy feed and we don’t have much money, I don’t think.”

  Rachel nodded. “I can see that you’re concerned. But I don’t want you to worry. I’m doing all I can for Moses. As for your family, you know the community will chip in. Your mother and sister and the baby won’t do without.”

  “Cows . . . pigs and horses need to have grain and it’s expensive. And I guess a lawyer for Moses will cost a pretty penny, too.”

  For a boy who’d appeared so reserved, Lemuel spoke well and seemed intelligent. She offered him a faint smile. “None of you will go hungry,” she promised. “And I’m doing all I can to get Moses home to help you. But you could help me by telling me everything you know about the day Daniel died. Did he leave the house alone?”

  Lemuel hesitated, then shook his head.

  “Who went with him?”

  He glanced away. “Me.”

  “I thought you said he hunted alone. That you weren’t with him.”

  “Hunters don’t always hunt together,” Lemuel responded, looking at her again.

  “Okay. So you left the house together that morning?”

  He nodded.

  “Was he upset? Did you notice anything unusual about him?”

  Lemuel shook his head and his gray eyes shuttered. “Ne.”

  The wary teenager was back, and the fragile connection Rachel had felt between them a few seconds ago seemed to dissolve. “Did you two go out alone or was someone with you?”

  “Left alone, but . . . there was going to be a drive.”

  Rachel nodded. In a drive, hunters organize. Some walk through the woods and fields making noise to frighten the deer and drive them toward other hunters in the group. A drive often resulted in multiple kills, and the meat was shared among all the hunters.

  “And who met you for the drive?”

  Lemuel seemed to ponder the question. He shifted one foot, digging his heel into the dirt. “Moses and Joe.”

  “Joe who?” she asked softly. It was important to know which Joe, when the valley contained as many as it did red roosters.

  “Troyer. The man Moses works for. Joe and Moses were going to do the driving. And me and Daniel were going to do the shooting. Daniel was the best shot of any of us.”

  She was a little confused because he’d first told her they didn’t hunt together. But maybe he’d misunderstood the question. She was sure now. “How about you? Are you a good shot?” He must be, she thought, if the men had chosen him to bring
down the deer.

  “I s’pose. Better than Moses. Mam thinks he needs glasses.” He glanced toward the house and shrugged. “I already told the Englisher police all this. When he died.”

  “Please,” Rachel pressed. “It’s important that I hear it all firsthand.” She pulled her coat a little closer against the wind. It came down sharp off the mountain here, cold and crisp and smelling of fall leaves. “And did it happen like that?” she asked. Daniel had fallen from a temporary deer stand in the woods. That was where he was found. “Did Joe and Moses do the drive?”

  Lemuel shook his head. “Ne. Moses and Daniel got into it about whether to hunt the slopes or the old apple orchard. When Joe put his two cents in, backing Moses, Daniel told Joe that he’d best hunt his own farm.”

  “Was there an argument?”

  He didn’t answer. The faintest shadow of a mustache was beginning to sprout above Lemuel’s upper lip, but he was still so much of a child. Rachel felt a rush of pity for this boy who had no father to guide him.

  “So, then what happened? After Daniel told them they should hunt on their own?”

  “We split up.”

  “You split up, meaning Moses wasn’t with Daniel?”

  “Lemuel!” Alma hollered from the back doorway. “I need those jars today.”

  “Coming, Mam.”

  Rachel watched the boy stride away toward the house, feeling as if she knew less now than she’d known before she came.

  * * *

  At her request, Rachel dropped Mary Aaron at her parents’ home. She and Mary Aaron had both worn Amish clothing to speak to Daniel’s family, so in the long dress, even without a prayer kapp, Mary Aaron blended in with her sisters as they drove the milk cows up the lane to the barn for evening milking. Rachel returned home alone, mulling over the conversation she’d had with Lemuel.

  At this point, Moses’s case seemed a hopeless one. Moses said he killed Daniel and nothing his brother or his mother had told her would prove otherwise in a court of law. Even if Lemuel testified that Moses hadn’t hunted with Daniel, that wouldn’t be enough to convince the police that Moses’s confession was false. The sensible thing for her to do would be to find him an attorney and then step back from the whole investigation.