Rachael got to her feet, looking at her friend admiringly. “One more thing.” Quickly, she removed the leather belt from the waistband of her jeans and leaned close to wrap it around her friend’s waist. “There. Oh, that’s nice. See?”
“I feel ridiculous.”
“You have great legs. For a skinny Amish girl.” Grinning, Rachael kicked off her English shoes. “Let’s switch. These sandals will go great with that dress. Sneakers are fine with my jeans.”
Loretta toed off her plain sneakers, then slid her feet into the sandals. This time when she looked down at her clothes, she smiled. “Almost pretty.”
“Told you.” Rachael gave her a big, smacking kiss on the cheek.
“My knees are knobby.”
“Your knees are sexy, silly girl.” Rachael snapped open her beer. “Bottoms up.”
Loretta drank as fast as she could, ended up choking twice. Before she was completely finished, Rachael took her can and slung both of them into the open window of a parked car.
“Come on.” Laughing, Rachael took her hand. “We’ve got a lot of partying to do and not much time to do it.”
Hand in hand, they passed a big tent where two Amish girls had set up a table draped with a red and white cloth. The handwritten sign announced HOME-CURED HAM SANDWICH WITH CHOW-CHOW $3. A few yards down, an English man had set up beer kegs on a picnic table laden with napkins and plastic cups, and a sign that read: BEER FOR A BUCK. Just past him, an Amish boy was selling cigarettes for four dollars a pack.
Rachael rushed to the beer table. “Two beers!” she said, breathless with excitement.
The man looked from Rachael to Loretta and frowned. “How old are you?”
Loretta started to speak up, but Rachael cut her off. “We’re twenty-one.”
He frowned, but grabbed two plastic cups and filled them with beer. “Two bucks.”
There were so many stimuli coming at her from so many directions, Loretta almost couldn’t take all of it in. Generators rumbled somewhere on the periphery. Bright lights shone from a dozen or so tents and food trucks. There was the din of voices and the tinkle of laughter. The bass thump of the band in the throes of some old Lynyrd Skynyrd song.
Rachael handed Loretta a plastic glass filled with beer and then raised hers. “Let’s do a toast this time,” she said. “To our first rager.”
Feeling grown-up and sophisticated, Loretta bumped her cup against her friend’s. “And good friends.”
Eyes locked, they drank. Loretta only managed half her cup. Rachael finished all of hers, licked the foam from her lips, and tossed the cup over her shoulder. “I love that song! Let’s go see the band.”
The closer they got to the music, the more crowded it became. Along the way, they passed a pickup truck with the tailgate down. A bearded Englischer, wearing denim overalls and sunglasses even though it was dark, sat on a lawn chair. The sign on the truck touted SHOTS FOR $2.
Rachael’s eyes widened at the sight of it. Squealing in delight, she pulled Loretta over to it and ordered. “Two shots.”
“But I’m not finished with my beer,” Loretta told her.
“It’s called a chaser, silly girl.” She laid four dollar bills on the tailgate.
“For a bunch of Bible thumpers, you Amishers sure can put away the booze.” He poured from an unlabeled bottle into two clear plastic cups. “All’s I got left is moonshine.”
“That’ll do.” Rachael watched him pour.
He thrust two cups at her. “Enjoy.”
Turning her back to him, Rachael handed one of the cups to Loretta and raised her own. “Cheers!”
The two girls locked elbows and drank. There wasn’t much in either cup and Loretta managed it in a single gulp. The alcohol burned all the way to her stomach.
“Fasucha vi feiyeh!” she said, coughing. Tastes like fire!
Rachael threw her head back and laughed. “One more.”
Before Loretta could refuse, Rachael darted back to the truck. The surly man poured again.
“Better be careful with that,” he said.
Ignoring him, Rachael handed one of the cups to Loretta.
“Are you sure about this?” Loretta asked.
“Last one,” Rachael assured her.
The burn engulfed Loretta’s throat with such heat that her eyes watered. This time, it migrated down to her belly, and her head began to swim.
Taking her hand, Rachael led Loretta closer to the band and into the crowd. Around her, the music pulsed like a living, breathing thing. She could feel the beat of the drums all the way to her bones. The voices seemed louder, but not quite clear. The colors around her brighter. And she wondered why the drinking of alcohol was against the rules. How could something that made you feel so good, the world around you so beautiful, be such a bad thing?
Around them, everyone was dancing and laughing. Loretta looked left and saw an English girl wearing blue jeans with only a bra, holding a bottle of beer above her head, rubbing her pelvis against an Amish boy Loretta had gone to school with. The sight embarrassed her, and yet she couldn’t look away. The boy was so enthralled he didn’t notice her. Probably a good thing, since she wasn’t supposed to be here. The last thing she needed was someone telling her parents.
A few feet away, Rachael raised her hands over her head. Hair flying, she danced to the raucous music. Loretta thought she’d never seen her friend look so beautiful. Even one of the band members had noticed and grinned down at her from the stage as his fingers ripped across the strings of his guitar. Loretta didn’t know how to dance, but the rhythm made her feel in synch with the music. She raised her hands and threw back her head and, somehow, she knew the words to the song and she belted them out. She saw the guitarist looking down at her from the stage and she smiled back at him, and in that moment, she was beautiful and desired. There were no rules holding her back, and this dusty field with its brash vendors and rowdy occupiers was the only place she ever wanted to be.
“I never want to leave!” she cried to her friend.
Rachael Schwartz threw her head back and howled.
CHAPTER 16
I’m no stranger to the intricacies of a homicide investigation. Knowing the relationships of the victim, past and present, is one of the most important factors to establish. There’s no doubt in my mind that Rachael Schwartz likely knew her killer. Yet when I spoke with her parents, they claimed no knowledge of discord in her life. Not because none existed, I’m sure, but because they weren’t close to her. Both Loretta Bontrager and Andy Matson indicated Rachael did, indeed, contend with a fair amount of conflict. She shared a tumultuous relationship with her lover, Jared Moskowski. According to Loretta, she may have had other lovers we’ve not yet identified. She’d been shunned by the Amish. While I’ve heard rumors, I don’t know exactly why. Was it due to something specific she’d done? Or the end result of years of breaking the rules? Then, of course, there is the issue of the tell-all book. No one appreciates having their dirty laundry aired for everyone to see. How much friction was there between Rachael and the Killbuck clan?
It’s late morning when I pull into the gravel two-track of Bishop David Troyer’s lane. As I drive around to the back of the house, I notice the bishop’s horse is hitched to the buggy, telling me he or his wife is probably getting ready to leave. I park adjacent to a beat-up shed and take the sidewalk to the back door.
Through the window, I see the bishop in the mudroom, looking at me through the glass. He’s using a walker these days. And while he seems a tad smaller in stature, his belly not quite so round, he is not diminished. His presence and those all-seeing eyes invariably make me feel like I’m fourteen years old again, and put before him for breaking some rule. I was terrified of him during my formative years. Strange as it sounds—though I’m a grown woman and a cop—a smidgen of that old fear still exists.
I push open the door and lean in. “Guder mariye,” I tell him. Good morning.
I’ve known David Troyer the entiret
y of my life, and he looks much the same as he did when I was a kid. A head of thick gray hair generously streaked with black, blunt cut above heavy brows. A salt-and-pepper beard that reaches nearly to his waist. As usual, he’s dressed in black, but for the white shirt beneath the jacket and suspenders.
“Katie Burkholder,” he says in a wet-gravel voice. No smile. Just those astute eyes digging into mine. “You are here about Rachael Schwartz?”
I nod. “Do you have a few minutes, Bishop?”
“Kumma inseid.” Come inside. He turns and starts toward the interior of the house.
I follow him through the mudroom and into the kitchen. I wait while he maneuvers the walker to one of four chairs and settles into it. His wife, Freda, stands at the sink, washing dishes. She looks at me over her shoulder and nods a greeting that isn’t quite friendly. I do the same.
“I was on my way to see Dan and Rhoda,” he tells me. “This is a dark time for them.”
“I won’t keep you.” I take the chair across from him. “I’m trying to figure out what happened to her, Bishop. I’m wondering if you have any insights into her life. Her relationships. If she was dealing with any problems. If she had any ongoing disputes or conflicts.”
His eyes settle on mine, large and rheumy behind the thick lenses of his glasses. While the years may have taken a swipe at his physical body, his intellect remains sharp, his spirituality intense.
“You know I’ve not seen her in years,” he says.
“You knew her as a child,” I say. “Growing up.” I pause, hold his gaze. “You know her parents. The Amish community as a whole.”
“You knew her, too, no?”
“When she was a kid.”
“Then even you know her life was filled with conflict.”
He makes the statement as if it’s somehow a miracle I’ve figured out anything about anyone, a reference no doubt to my Englishness. I absorb the jab without reacting, keep moving. “I’m looking for details,” I tell him. “Names. Circumstances.”
“She disobeyed her parents at a very young age. Not once, but many times. They brought her to me dozens of times. This girl child. So full of life and with eyes for all the wrong things.” The old man shrugs. “Usually a good talking-to does the trick, you know.” A smile plays at the corners of his mouth. “Not so for this girl. I spoke with the Diener,” he says, referring to the other elected officials, the deacon and two preachers. “We did what we could. We stressed the importance of the Ordnung.” The unwritten rules of the church district. “We reinforced the importance of demut, the Christian faith, the worth of separation, and the old ways.” Demut is Deitsch for “humility,” a cornerstone of the Amish mindset. “Katie, young Rachael harricht gut, awwer er foligt schlecht.” Heard well, but obeyed poorly. “Dan and Rhoda did their best to teach her Gelassenheit.”
The word holds myriad meanings for the Amish. Suffering. Tranquility. Surrender. He shrugs. “Even so, there was trouble. Drinking. Gallivanting around. Lying about it. Dan came to me, asked that she be baptized early. He thought it might help. She was only seventeen. I went to the Diener. They agreed.”
I’d heard Rachael had been baptized early, without much of an opportunity to sow a few wild oats. I’d wondered why her rumspringa had been cut short. Now I know.
“They thought it would fix her. We thought it was worth a try. And so the summer before she was to be baptized, the ministers took her through die gemee nooch geh.”
Once a young Amish person has made the decision to join the church, die gemee nooch geh is the period of instruction in which the ministers teach the young person wertrational, the values and what it means to be Amish.
“Rachael went through all the instruction. The Diener gave her time to turn back.” He sighs. “Rachael became a member of the Gemein.” The community. “But she didn’t make the vow with the solemnity it deserves. Six months later, she was shunned and excommunicated.”
In the church district here in Painters Mill, being shunned or placed under the bann is usually remedied by the correction of some “bad behavior.” For example, if a baptized Amish person is caught driving a car or using technology that isn’t allowed—and he gets rid of the car. Excommunication, on the other hand, is usually permanent—and rare.
“Why was she excommunicated?” I ask.
The old man looks down at his hands, laces his fingers. Watching him, I realize that even after the passage of so many years he’s bothered by this particular subject. Because his efforts weren’t enough to save her? Or something else?
“Bishop, I’m just trying to understand what happened to her,” I say quietly. “To do that, I need some insight into her history, her past.”
“Are you certain you want to know, Katie?”
I look at him, taken aback by the cryptic question. “If you know something about Rachael Schwartz that might help me figure out who did that to her, I need to know about it.”
Sighing, he turns his attention to his wife. “Ich braucha zo shvetza Chief Burkholder,” he tells her. I need to speak with Chief Burkholder. “Laynich.” Alone.
“Voll.” Of course. Giving me a final look, the Amish woman sets the dish towel on the counter and leaves the room.
For a moment, the only sound is the birdsong coming in through the window above the sink. The bawling of a calf in the field.
The bishop raises his gaze to mine. “Rachael Schwartz was deviant. The type of woman to do things best saved for marriage.”
“I need names.”
“Some were English. The Amish…” He shrugs.
The hairs on the back of my neck prickle. “Was she a minor?” I ask. “Under sixteen?”
“Close to that age. I’m not sure.” Another shrug. “These are things I heard.”
“From whom?”
He raises his head, his eyes searching mine. “These questions … may be the kind that are best not answered.”
“I don’t have that luxury,” I snap.
He’s unfazed by my tone. My impatience. After a moment, he nods. “Perhaps you should ask your brother.”
“Jacob?” I stare at him, aware that my face is hot, my heart beating fast and hard in my chest. “Ask him what exactly?”
“You want to know about Rachael Schwartz? Ask him.”
“What does she have to do with my brother?” Defensiveness rings hard in my voice, despite my efforts to curb it.
“Jacob came to me. Years ago. For counsel.”
“Counsel for wh—”
He raises his hand, slices the air, and cuts me off. “I’ll not speak of it. Not now. Not ever. If you want to know, go to Jacob.”
“Bishop, you can’t drop something like that in my lap and then walk away without an explanation.”
Grasping the rails of his walker, he pulls himself to a standing position. “I’ve nothing more to say to you, Kate Burkholder.”
* * *
Perhaps you should ask your brother.
The bishop’s words taunt me as I drive down the lane. Jacob’s name is the last name I expected to hear in the same sentence as Rachael Schwartz. I simply can’t get my head around the implications. Jacob and I were close as kids. I admired him. Looked up to him. Relied on him for guidance. I loved him with all my young heart. Until I was fourteen years old and a neighbor boy by the name of Daniel Lapp entered our safe and protected world and introduced me to the dark side of human nature. It wasn’t my parents, but Jacob who judged me that day. It was he who blamed me. For what happened to me. For what I did about it. For the death of a man I’ll never come to terms with. Our family was never the same. But it was my relationship with Jacob that was shattered. I still see him on occasion. I visit my sister-in-law and my niece and nephews. But Jacob and I rarely speak. We’re strangers.
Jacob came to me. Years ago. For counsel.
I search my memory for some link between Rachael and Jacob, but there’s nothing there. My brother is eleven years older than Rachael, give or take. Too much of an ag
e gap for their paths to have crossed in terms of courting. In addition, Jacob has been married for years. Why in the name of God would he go to the bishop about Rachael Schwartz?
I’m heading in the direction of his farm when my cell phone dings. Glock’s name pops up on my dash screen. I hit the ANSWER button. “Please tell me you’re calling with some good news,” I say without preamble.
“Try this on for size,” he replies. “Lady walking her dogs found a baseball bat in the ditch off Holtzmuller Road. She thought it was odd, took a closer look, and found blood.”
My interest surges. “Holtzmuller isn’t too far from the Willowdell Motel. Where are you?”
“Holtzmuller and TR 13,” he tells me.
“Keep the dog lady on scene. I’ll be there in two minutes.”
I rack the mike and cut the wheel, make a U-turn in the middle of the road. The engine groans as I crank it up to just over the speed limit. Hopefully, the bat is the break we need. At the very least, it gives me some time to figure out how to approach Jacob with questions he’s probably not going to want to answer.
Holtzmuller Road crosses Township Road 13 four miles south of Painters Mill. It’s a little-used stretch that’s more two-track than asphalt and runs through a rural area of rolling hills and feeder creeks, pastures and fields. This afternoon, the grass and surrounding trees erupt with the color of an Irish countryside. I round a curve and spot Glock’s cruiser parked on the shoulder, the overhead lights flashing. Fifty yards beyond his car, he stands in the middle of the road, talking to a woman dressed in tie-dyed yoga pants and a pink athletic bra. He had the foresight to protect the scene and set out half a dozen safety cones to block traffic. Two golden retrievers sniff around at their feet.
I roll up behind his cruiser, flip on my overheads, and start toward them.
Glock and the woman turn and watch me approach. The dogs bound over to me, tongues lolling, tails waving. I bend, run my hands over their soft coats.
“Hey, Chief.” Glock and I exchange a handshake. He motions toward a single cone in the ditch twenty yards away. “Bat is over there. Hasn’t been moved or touched.”
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