Chapter 3
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.”
He stroked his beard. “Ach. Come outside. We’ll sit under the maple tree in the shade. There’s always a breeze coming up the valley.”
Behind the barn, beneath the tree were several benches and a rocking chair. Bishop Abner waved them to a seat just as Naamah appeared with a jug of cider and three mugs full of ice. “Thought you might be parched,” she said. “Not staying. I never interfere with my Abner’s church business, but I don’t like anyone to go away from our home thirsty.” She poured the cider, handed the mugs around, patted Mary Aaron’s shoulder, and left them alone.
The bishop took a sip and then nodded to Rachel. “What is it? What sad news have you come to share?”
“We went up to the quarry, a group of us,” Rachel began. Mary Aaron supplied the names of each of the young women. All but Rachel were members of his church. He had known most all of their lives.
“We went for a picnic,” Rachel explained. “And then . . .” She went on to tell him the rest of the grisly story.
Bishop Abner listened intently, his faded blue eyes filled with concern. He didn’t speak until Rachel finished. He waited a moment, letting them all settle on what had been said. “And you believe that Beth’s mother and father will be told this awful thing by the police? Tonight?”
Rachel nodded. “Soon, I imagine. The authorities will want one of the family to make a positive identification of the body.”
His brow furrowed, and he tugged absently at his beard. “But why would they do such a thing when you all told the policeman who she was?”
“Regulations,” Mary Aaron said, leaning forward. She’d set her mug on the ground without tasting the cider. Her face was pale, and she still looked as if she might burst into tears. “The English have lots of regulations. We thought that we should ask you what to do. Rachel will drive me to the Glicks’ if you think—”
“Ne, ne, no need for that,” he answered gently. “You girls were right to come to me. I will go to their bishop. This is for him to do, or maybe the two of us together. Such news should not come from strangers.”
“Will that be okay?” Mary Aaron asked. “You know she left us. She’d been shunned.” She hesitated. “Will they still give her a burial?”
Bishop Abner pulled a spotless handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his nose. He didn’t reply for long seconds. “I can’t say what the elders of their district will decide. Know this, my daughters. If the bishop of the Glicks’ church will not give this child Christian burial, I will.” He shook his head. “We don’t know the state of her mind, do we? There may have been circumstances we don’t understand that led her to drift away from the true path.”
Rachel tugged at a loose thread on her denim skirt. “But people say that Beth’s family considered her already dead to them.”
He removed his hat and rubbed at his bald head thoughtfully. Lines creased around his eyes. “I have heard the same rumors that you have, but I cannot believe that they will not feel differently now. Ours is a stern God, but a forgiving one. And who among us is not guilty of sin? I do not presume to know what He will do with such a wayward one. But I will do what I can to save her, even now.” He smiled sadly at them. “Go home. You both have kind hearts, but you have done all you can.”
“Can I drive you there in the van?” Rachel offered.
He shook his head. “Ne. I’ll hitch up my roan mule. That way I won’t be at Bishop Johan’s home before I have time to ask God to give me the right words to say. That is one of the good things about depending on a four-legged creature for transportation. Your world is too fast, Rachel. Not enough time for silence. Not only do driving horses and mules give us years of faithful service, as well as good fertilizer for our gardens and fields, but they give us time to think.”
He got to his feet, which Rachel took as the signal that the discussion was over. They thanked him and went back to the van.
Naamah stood waiting beside the vehicle with two jars of pickled green tomatoes. “Take these to your mothers,” she said, handing one jar to each of them. “My pickled tomatoes turned out especially good this summer. Give them my best and tell them that they remain in my prayers. And remind your mothers of the quilting bee here on Saturday afternoon. We’re sewing a layette for Verna Herschberger. The midwife says she’s expecting twins.”
As they pulled away from the bishop’s home, Rachel’s cell rang. The ringtone told her it was Evan.
When she didn’t reach to answer it, Mary Aaron glanced at her. “You’re not going to see what he wants?”
“Battery’s almost dead. I better not.”
Mary Aaron picked up the phone and checked it as the ringtone ended. “You really should replace the battery. You said it’s using its charge too fast.”
“Just have to find time to go to the cell phone store in State College.” Rachel concentrated on safely passing a wagon full of milk cans. Both she and Mary Aaron waved at the young man driving.
The ringtone on the phone started again.
“Maybe he knows something,” Mary Aaron suggested as she carefully set the phone on the console between them. “Maybe he’s calling to say that the paramedic was mistaken. That she just drowned.”
Rachel hoped so, but she doubted it. There was no way the medical examiner could have determined the cause of death yet.
She glanced at the phone. If she answered it, Evan would want to know where she was. And then, she’d have to admit that she and Mary Aaron had not gone home but had instead taken the news to Bishop Abner. Evan would not be happy. “I don’t want to use up any more of the battery. I don’t like to let it go dead; you never know when there might be an emergency. I’ll call him after I get back to Stone Mill House.”
“You should hurry. You can drop me off at the crossroad.”
“And leave you to face your parents alone? I don’t think so.” Rachel wasn’t looking forward to telling her aunt and uncle that she’d involved Mary Aaron in another death. The family was still reeling from when Mary’s father, Rachel’s Uncle Aaron, was accused of Willy O’Day’s murder. Aunt Hannah was a resourceful and self-reliant mother of twelve children, but the world outside of her Amish community frightened her. She was especially vulnerable where her daughters were concerned. Rachel knew that her aunt was worried that Mary Aaron might follow her out of the faith. It was important to reassure her that Mary Aaron was in no danger. Otherwise, her aunt and uncle might severely limit Mary Aaron’s contact with her, with the B&B, and with those outside the church.
Mary Aaron, younger than Rachel, was her best friend, more like a sister than a cousin. Since Rachel’s return to Stone Mill three years ago, they’d become closer than ever. Rachel didn’t know what she’d do if Aunt Hannah and Uncle Aaron decided that she was a bad influence on their daughter. Uncle Aaron, especially, disapproved of Rachel leaving the valley and her family for an education and the English world. They were on better terms since she’d helped him navigate the legal system, but it wouldn’t take much to have him return to his former opinion of her. The path she walked between Amish daughter and owner-manager of a nearly successful B&B that welcomed Englisher guests was a narrow and precarious tightrope, one she sometimes thought impossible.
“Do you think Beth was murdered?” Mary Aaron whispered.
The van crossed a narrow stone-and-concrete bridge. It wasn’t far now to her uncle’s farm, and she thought back to what Bishop Abner had said. A horse-drawn vehicle gave you time to think. She wasn’t sure what would be the best way to break the news to her aunt and uncle and to her own parents. Maybe she should get rid of her Jeep and get her own driving mule.
But as they drove up the long Hostetler lane and pulled into the farmyard, she quickly realized that she needn’t have wasted time trying to figure out how to tell her aunt and uncle what had happened. Although it was the supper hour and all should have been quiet on the farm, children spilled off the porch and from around the house. Rachel’s niece, Susan—her brother Paul’s daughter—came running toward the van. Rachel’s nine-year-old sister, Sally, was right behind her.
“They must know,” Mary Aaron said.
“I think you’re right.”
Aunt Hannah and Uncle Aaron came out of the house. They weren’t alone. Her own parents were with them. Uncle Aaron, arms folded and features grim, stopped on the porch. Her father, mother, and Aunt Hannah hurried toward them.
Mary Aaron got out of the van and went to hug her mother.
“Vas is?” Rachel’s mother asked. She directed her question to Mary Aaron.
Rachel’s father came to stand in front of her. “You are not hurt?”
“We’re fine,” Rachel assured him. “We went straight to Bishop Abner. We thought it best if he carried the news to Beth’s church leaders.”
Her father nodded. “That was wise. Elsie and Lettie, they told us what happened. That you had the English potter woman drive them home so they would not have to talk to the police. Was goot.” Unlike most of the Amish in the valley, her father usually spoke English to his children. “Your mother was worried, so we came here.”
Uncle Aaron and her mother were brother and sister. Sometimes Rachel wondered if her father felt that her mother valued Uncle Aaron’s advice more than his. But she’d been born a Hostetler, a family not known for change. And if she was often rigid in her ways, Rachel’s father made up for it with his easy temperament and jovial nature.
“I knew that quarry was no place for you girls,” her mother fussed to Mary Aaron. Rachel knew the message was for her.
“Poor girl, poor, poor girl,” Aunt Hannah murmured, clinging to Mary Aaron. Then she noticed the children around her, released Mary Aaron, and clapped her hands. “Away, all of you. I’ll call you when supper is on the table.” And then she said, “Rachel, come in. Tell us how you found the . . .”
“Body,” Rachel’s mam supplied. “Whatever was Beth Glick doing up there alone?”
“Maybe she wasn’t alone,” Uncle Aaron called from the porch. “She has been gone for years. Strange that she should come home only to drown in that quarry. Not natural.”
For once, Rachel agreed with him. It wasn’t natural, not natural at all. And if she’d been murdered, then nothing would ever be the same in the valley. Women felt safe to walk or drive here at any time of the day or night. English or Amish, people rarely locked their doors. The thought that all of that could change was chilling.
Her cell rang faintly from inside the van—Evan’s ringtone. Everyone turned to stare at the vehicle.
Rachel hurried back to the van, grabbed the phone, and silenced it. She would call Evan the minute she got back to the B&B. Hopefully, he would have good news for her. Hopefully.