Plain Confession

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Plain Confession Page 10

by Emma Miller


  Joe nodded. “I understand that the Bible tells us not to spare the child. Bend a tree and all that. But Daniel was young and new to being a father and that to a baby girl. He didn’t know much about dealing with growing boys. He took on a lot when he married Mary Rose and accepted responsibility for the family and the farm. Lemuel and Moses were Daniel’s brothers-in-law, not his children. I have a habit of speaking my mind, and Daniel didn’t care for the advice. Things were getting a little heated when Moses broke up the fight. Not physical, you understand. I didn’t raise a hand to Daniel, nor him to me. But we both probably said more than we should have. And not all of it what a godly man should utter.”

  “So,” she said, “Moses actually was a peacemaker. He ended the argument?”

  “In a manner of speaking. We all went our separate ways, and that was that.”

  “Did you hunt with Moses and Lemuel? Did the three of you stay together all day?”

  Joe removed his hat and placed it on his knee. She saw that he had a growing bald spot on the crown of his head with thick brown hair springing all around it. “I’ve thought about that a lot since I heard that Daniel had been killed. I went over and over it in my head, and I’ve prayed about it. I expected those Englisher policemen to come ask me about it, but they haven’t so far.”

  She waited.

  “I want to say ya, we were together all day, but I can’t. You’re not a hunter, but the men in your family are. They can tell you, hunters often separate. Not a big deal. I can’t tell you that Moses and I stayed close all day. What I can tell you is that Moses didn’t kill Daniel.”

  Chapter 8

  “You’re not the first person to say that,” Rachel said. “But there’s no getting around the fact that Moses confessed to shooting Daniel.”

  “I don’t know what to say to that. I’m just giving you my honest thoughts.” Joe rose to his feet.

  “Can you tell me who else was hunting that day? Anyone else you saw?”

  “Lot of people hunting. First day of the season.” He glanced away, then back at her. “But nobody hunting on Blue Mountain. Folks tend to stay away from there.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “That narrish Englisher. The Studers’ neighbor. He’s always running people off.” He rose from the bench. “I need to go. Got a buyer down at the sawmill I need to talk to. You’re welcome to come back another time, but I really don’t have anything else to tell you.”

  He walked her back to her car. An Australian shepherd appeared and fell in beside her. When Joe stopped, the dog sat at his side. He leaned down and patted the dog’s head, and the animal wagged its tail.

  Rachel opened the driver’s door and stood there for a few seconds. “I appreciate your help,” she said. “Just one more question, if you don’t mind.”

  Joe’s weathered face creased in a smile. “You’re as bad as my wife. There’s always one more thing.”

  She smiled, then narrowed her gaze, looking up at him. “You know Moses pretty well. Why do you think he would say he killed Daniel if he was innocent?”

  The Amish man shook his head. “Can’t say. But I’ll repeat my belief that he isn’t a killer. I’ve gotten to know him pretty well. Seen the boy around animals and seen him around children. Moses might not always know what to say, or how to act with people, but he’s got a kind heart. I hope you can help him.” He paused, then went on. “And if you get a chance to talk to him, you tell him that he’s got a job here on my place whenever he wants it.”

  “I will.” Rachel nodded. “If you don’t think that Moses shot Daniel, who do you think did?”

  Joe shrugged. “I wouldn’t want to say. Not right to say, me not knowing for sure.”

  “Please? Just between us? I can see you’re a canny man. You must have some suspicion.”

  Joe stroked his beard. Gray strands were beginning to pepper the deep russet, and both of his thick eyebrows were sprinkled with white. “I was you, I’d talk to that neighbor of Daniel’s with the high fences and the cameras. He and Daniel have been eyeball-to-eyeball ever since Daniel married Mary Rose and took over the farm.”

  * * *

  Rachel picked up Mary Aaron at her parents’ farm and the two of them spent several hours catching up on the chores at Stone Mill House. Once the maids finished the general housekeeping and Rachel had consulted with Ada about the number of guests who would be in residence over the weekend, Rachel and Mary Aaron set off in the Jeep to talk with Daniel’s widow again and let her and Alma know that it looked like they might have an attorney for Moses.

  “I spoke at length with Alma and Lemuel yesterday, but Mary Rose didn’t have much to say,” Rachel explained to Mary Aaron as they bumped along the country road. She’d already filled her cousin in on her visit to Joe Troyer’s place and the phone call with the attorney, Irene Glidden. Rachel was waiting to hear from her once she spoke with Moses, hopefully with good news.

  “Cover your hair.” Mary Aaron handed Rachel a green wool scarf. Since they were going back to the Studer farm, both wore Amish clothing. The scarf matched the Lincoln green dress Mary Aaron’s mother had sent over for Rachel. “Mam says that your blue dress was too plain for Stone Mill. She didn’t want you to shame the family.”

  “Has she seen what you wear when you stay at the B&B?” Rachel teased, thinking of the jeans and thin red sweater she’d seen her cousin wearing the other day.

  “Ne, and she’s not going to.” Mary Aaron stared out the window at the wind-blown fields and straggly pine trees. “Winter’s coming soon. Weatherman said there might be snow flurries tonight.”

  Rachel slid the scarf onto the dashboard; she’d put it on when she reached the Studer farm. “Did you say anything to your father about Alma and Mary Rose needing more firewood?”

  “Ya, I did. He promised to send a load from our woodshed. You know Dat, he’s always got enough wood stored up for two winters. Whenever one of the boys does something he doesn’t like, he sends them to split logs.”

  “Be sure and tell Alma. She shouldn’t have to worry about heating the house in the next few months. She has enough to worry about.”

  “Dat and your father are going to get some of the young men together to take turns helping the family out through the winter. Taking wood, splitting it, caring for livestock, mending fences, whatever’s needed. It’s enough that Mary Rose has lost her husband,” Mary Aaron said. “She shouldn’t fear that she won’t be able to care for her baby girl.”

  “I agree,” Rachel answered. Ahead of them, a pheasant crossed the road. It was a male with beautiful plumage. She smiled. She hadn’t seen one for a while. “I want to get Mary Rose alone to talk to her. I might need you to distract Alma. Tell her that an attorney went to the prison to speak with Moses and we’re just waiting to hear if she’ll take the case. If Moses has agreed to allow her to represent him.”

  “You don’t think it would be better to just wait until we know it’s going to work out with the attorney?” Mary Aaron asked. “We don’t want them to get their hopes up.”

  “I don’t know. I think Alma will want to know what’s going on.”

  “Mary Rose didn’t seem too interested in the case against Moses,” Mary Aaron pointed out.

  Rachel shrugged. “I think she’s still in shock. A timid woman like her, she’s probably overwhelmed.”

  “Okay, that’s fine. I’ll speak to Alma. It will give me a good excuse to get her away and let you talk with Mary Rose for a minute. Alma can decide what and when she wants to tell Mary Rose.”

  As it happened, there was no need for Mary Aaron to pull Alma aside. Daniel’s widow opened the door and timidly welcomed the two of them in. “Mam’s not here,” she said, cradling her swaddled infant against her chest. “She and Lemuel went to the Hertzlers’. Joanne fell and hurt her arm.”

  “Joanne is Rosh’s mother,” Mary Aaron explained to Rachel. “Neighbors.”

  “Ya.” Mary Rose nodded. “Joanne and Mam are good friends, and she wan
ted Mam’s advice on whether she thought it was broken or just sprained. Before they made the trip to the emergency room. She’ll be sorry she missed you. Is there news about Moses?”

  “Ne,” Mary Aaron replied. “Rachel sent an English lawyer to speak with him this morning, but we don’t know how that went yet.”

  Mary Rose waved them to seats at the kitchen table and offered coffee. When Mary Aaron said she’d love some, Mary Rose placed the baby in a bassinet near the radiating warmth of the cookstove. “She’s such a good baby,” the proud mother declared. She hurried to pour coffee and cut slices of gingerbread. “Eat, please. Friends have brought so much that we’ll never eat it all before it goes to waste.”

  Rachel waited until Mary Rose joined them at the table. “I’m sorry to bother you again. I just have a few more questions,” she said. “I’m trying to get information that could possibly help Moses,” she added.

  Mary Rose passed around cream and sugar. She didn’t take any herself, nor did she pour herself coffee. Instead, she sat with her hands in her lap, waiting. “I don’t know what else I can tell you,” she murmured. “But I want to help my brother. Of course.”

  “Did your husband have any enemies that you knew of?” Rachel asked, adding a spoon of sugar to her coffee.

  “Enemies? Such a hard word. I would hope no Amish man or woman would have enemies,” the young widow said.

  “You’re right, not a good word,” Rachel agreed, trying to make eye contact with the young woman. “What I mean is, did anyone have anything against Daniel? Did he have any ongoing arguments with anyone?”

  “Ne, of course not. Everybody liked him.”

  Rachel stirred her coffee. “You can’t think of any disagreements that he had recently? With anyone? Amish or Englisher.”

  Mary Rose looked down at her hands. “Ne.”

  Rachel thought for a moment, then went on. “I know that it couldn’t have been easy for the two of you. You’ve not been married that long,” Rachel ventured. “Daniel must have been under a lot of stress, what with the farm and the new baby. Did you see that?”

  Mary Rose looked down and a hint of a blush tinted her cheeks. “He was a strong man, a good provider.”

  “And he never spoke to you about any specific problems with anyone?” Rachel pressed. She wanted to ask if the marriage had been a happy one, but that would have been stepping too far over the line into the young widow’s personal life.

  “He wouldn’t do that.” Mary Rose bit at a cuticle on her thumb. “Daniel put his faith in God. If he had worries, he took them only to his Lord.”

  Mary Aaron leaned forward. “Do you know if Daniel was hunting alone that day?”

  “Lemuel went with him. He told me yesterday.”

  “He told me, too, but I mean did he . . . they go with anyone else? Friends? Neighbors?”

  Mary Rose shook her head. “You asked me that before. I don’t know. They went out together, Daniel and Lemuel. I assume they hunted together. Of course—” The widow took a deep breath. “They didn’t come home together.”

  Rachel met Mary Aaron’s gaze, then returned her attention to the widow. “I’ve been told that Daniel was going to be part of a drive that morning, with Moses, Lemuel, and Joe Troyer. But Daniel and Joe had words. Did you know anything about that?”

  “Ne,” Mary Rose said softly. She looked down at her hands.

  “I understand that Daniel was unhappy with your brother Lemuel, that Daniel smacked or hit Lemuel that day.”

  Mary Rose raised her head sharply and her face paled. “Ne, I don’t. I mean . . . I didn’t know that.”

  “That’s what I was told,” Rachel said.

  “By Lemuel?” Mary Rose asked. “Lemuel said that Daniel struck him?”

  Rachel shook her head. “Not Lemuel. It was someone else. Maybe he was mistaken. The person who told me.”

  “Ya, maybe mistaken,” Mary Rose repeated.

  “Can I ask you who came to the house to tell you about Daniel?”

  “It was Rosh.” She pressed her lips together in a tight smile. “He’s always so kind to me.” She stood up and went to look down at the sleeping baby. “So young to lose her father,” she said. “Such a shame.”

  “It is a tragedy,” Rachel agreed. She took a sip of the coffee. It had cooled, but it was too weak for her taste. Gamely, she took another drink. “So, you don’t know of anyone who would wish your husband harm . . . no one he might have argued with recently?”

  Again, Mary Rose shook her head. “Everyone liked Daniel,” she repeated. “Everyone. Just ask the church group. He had no enemies.”

  “None at all?” Mary Aaron pressed.

  Mary Rose started to shake her head again, but hesitated. “Not unless . . .” She picked up the sleeping baby and cradled her gently. “Maybe, maybe you should talk to our neighbor.” She glanced across at Rachel. “He frightens me, that Englisher. Maybe him you should question.”

  “Not much new from the widow,” Mary Aaron said a short time later as she and Rachel drove away from the Studer farm.

  “No,” Rachel mused. “Although I didn’t know that Rosh was the one who told her about Daniel.” She glanced at Mary Aaron. “You know, the day Moses was arrested, when Rosh called you to tell you about the police, he said he saw them from the road. The police in the yard. Only he couldn’t possibly have seen them from the road where he said he was.”

  Mary Aaron shrugged. “Maybe I misunderstood.” She thought for a moment. “I think it’s interesting that Mary Rose referred to Charles Baker.”

  “That makes two people to bring up his name.” Rachel gripped the wheel. “His property borders the road here, doesn’t it?”

  “Yup.” Mary Aaron pointed ahead toward a narrow, rutted dirt road that ran toward the mountain. “There’s his driveway.”

  Rachel took her foot off the gas and the Jeep slowed. Both of them stared at the driveway. Three strands of wicked-looking barbed wire on top of a rickety fence blocked the way. A boldly lettered sign reading NO TRESPASSING! KEEP OUT! was nailed to one of the fence posts.

  “Maybe we should go and see if anyone is home,” Mary Aaron suggested, not sounding entirely sure of herself.

  “Right . . .” Rachel pressed down on the brake, rolling to a stop. She stared at the barbed wire. “But I think I’d better talk to Evan first. Make sure it’s safe. From what I’ve heard around town, this Charles Baker is a scary guy. Some kind of doomsday prepper.”

  “A what?” Mary Aaron asked. “A preppy?”

  Rachel smiled. “A prepper. Sort of a recluse who hides away and thinks the world’s coming to an end. He’s preparing for the end of the world as we know it, preparing to survive.”

  “Oh,” her cousin replied with a shrug. “And I just thought he was another crazy Englisher.”

  * * *

  Back at the inn, Rachel found Ada just leaving for the day. “The cleaning is done as well as the laundry,” the housekeeper assured her. “The air has a nip in it so I made you a nice chicken vegetable soup. There’s plenty to go with it.”

  “Danke,” Rachel said, slipping into Deitsch.

  Ada pursed her lips in disapproval.

  In Rachel’s experience, most big-boned and rotund Amish women that she knew were jolly. Not Ada. She had a good heart and could be depended on, and she had an army of female relatives that she summoned regularly to clean and do laundry for Stone Mill House—helpers that she insisted be paid well and that she ruled with an iron hand. But Ada considered herself a judge of her fellow humankind, and most had been judged and found wanting. She was a treasure with a perpetual scowl and a sharp tongue. And like many older Amish, she considered thank you and please to be fancy English adaptations. The words that came so easily to outsiders were supposed to be expected behavior among the Plain people and not necessary to say aloud.

  Rachel had gone over this many times with Ada and didn’t care. “I appreciate everything you do for me,” she continued. “I couldn’t run
the B&B without you.”

  “Ne, you couldn’t,” Ada agreed as she hung up her work apron. “Not an ounce of sense between your ears. You must be a great disappointment to your mother.”

  Evan couldn’t understand how Rachel put up with such an employee. But for a woman who managed the housekeeping and most of the staff without a wrinkle, not to mention one who could cook an endless supply of delicious food, Rachel knew she could bear up under a great deal of criticism. Ada came and went according to her own time clock, she demanded top wages, and she wouldn’t touch a telephone or check out a guest, but Rachel thanked God for her every day.

  “I’ll be in the gift shop,” Mary Aaron said after greeting Ada and one of her granddaughters, who was sweeping the kitchen floor. “There’s a box of pottery to unpack and price and the shelves to be dusted.”

  Mary Aaron had taken over much of the day-to-day chores with the crafts and artwork that the B&B offered for sale. Quilts, wooden toys, baby cradles, and jams and jellies: Everything was Amish-made other than Rachel’s watercolors of local scenes.

  Her latest painting was of a one-room schoolhouse in autumn. As in all of her artwork, the teacher and children were seen from the back so that no faces were ever represented. The watercolors sold well from her shop and at galleries in State College, but Rachel was reluctant to sign her work. Instead, the only identification on the paintings was the initials A.D. for Amish daughter. The only ones who knew the identity of the artist were Evan and Mary Aaron, and both could be trusted never to breathe a word.

  Rachel went first to her office and checked her email for any inquiries or cancellations. There was a reminder for a charity event at church and a notice about the upcoming school board election, but nothing from any potential guest or returning one. She turned from the keyboard to her guest registry and looked over the names of her current visitors. Mrs. Eloise Morris stood out.

  She’d invited Mrs. Morris to go to the church concert the previous evening, but the woman had said she was tired. Why she came to Stone Mill, Rachel wasn’t certain. She spent most of her time in her room and had more than her share of silly complaints. Rachel hadn’t seen her in the dining room this morning, though, which was unusual. Even though Mrs. Morris rarely left the house, she always came down in the morning for coffee. Rachel wondered if she’d left her room at all today.

 

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