Plain Confession

Book 5: Stone Mill Amish Mystery

by Emma Miller

Genres: Amish & Mennonite; Christian Suspense; Female Sleuths

Synopsis

When Rachel Mast returned to Stone Mill, Pennsylvania, she unwittingly became a bridge between the closed Amish community and the Englisher police. Now, as she prepares for her wedding, she’s drawn into an investigation that could end in a different ceremony—her funeral . . . Rachel didn’t know Daniel Fisher well, but it still comes as a shock when her fiancé, a state trooper, tells her that the young Amish man’s death may not have been a hunting accident. The police believe he was murdered and they need Rachel’s help telling the family. But when she does, they don’t seem upset or even surprised. Even more unsettling, Daniel’s brother-in-law confesses—while his mother begs Rachel to prove his innocence. But why would he give a false confession? Who is he trying to protect? As Rachel’s search for answers overshadows her wedding plans, rumors swirl that she might not show up at the altar—and that Daniel wasn’t as upstanding as he seemed. While the list of people who wanted him dead grows, Rachel is caught in the killer’s crosshairs, and if she’s not careful, it may be more than her feet that turn cold . . . Praise for the Amish Mystery series “An excellent addition to the Amish mystery subgenre.”— Library Journal “An exciting tale of mystery, love, and danger.”— Booklist “A well-informed look into the tranquil world of the Amish with a fairly edgy puzzler.” — Kirkus Reviews

Release date: March 27, 2018

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 290

Sample

Rachel Mast stepped out on the back porch of her parents’ farmhouse. She wore a calf-length dark-blue dress, a black apron, thick black stockings, and black leather shoes. Her hair was twisted up into a knot at the back of her head, and over it, she’d tied a dark-blue scarf. From head to toe she appeared Amish, wearing a borrowed dress of her mother’s and her sister’s shoes and stockings. In the clothes she felt Amish, but she wasn’t. At least, technically, she wasn’t Amish anymore. Although, today, her old life called to her with poignant whispers that tugged at her heart.

The house was crowded with people, all Old Order Amish except for one out-of-place Methodist minister who’d come to pay his respects. He’d then stayed for the chicken and dumplings, the Dutch apple pie, and the sweet-and-sour coleslaw, for which her mother refused to give out the recipe. This was a funeral gathering, and as always, the Amish turned out to lend their support to their own. The newly deceased was Daniel Fisher, a member of their church community, the victim of a tragic hunting accident.

That morning, Daniel had been laid to rest in the Amish cemetery, and due to the small size of the family house and the circumstances of the sudden death, Rachel’s parents had offered their home for the gathering. Rachel wasn’t certain how many mourners had come back from the cemetery, but vans and buggies had been arriving for the last hour. One preacher or another was offering prayer and consoling words in the parlor; children played quietly on the stairs or, frightened by the weeping, crept under tables to press close to their mothers’ legs. Babies were passed from hand to hand, rocked, nursed, and jiggled, and plates of food and soft chairs were produced for the elderly and infirm.

Amish women and teenage girls prepared and served food nonstop. The hall and sitting room tables were stacked with pies, cakes, cookies, and sweet muffins. Kitchen counters barely contained the baked hams, sausages, fried chicken, and roasted turkeys. Casseroles, bowls of canned peaches, and kettles of soup and gravy covered two stove tops and spilled over onto a desk.

It was because of the turkey that Rachel had ended up wearing Amish clothing instead of the simple black pantsuit that she’d arrived in early this morning. Ida Mae Hostetler had been coming in the back door with a tureen of turkey gravy and giblets, just as Rachel had been on her way out to the springhouse for another pitcher of buttermilk. A cat had been attempting to sneak into the house, lured, no doubt, by the kaleidoscope of enticing scents drifting from the kitchen. Ida Mae, a small woman, had the mischance to tread on the tabby’s tail, and the resounding screech had been so startling that she had lost control of the container of gravy and thrown it into the air. Rachel, being at the wrong place at the wrong time, caught the bulk of the contents down her pants, blouse, and jacket, not to mention in her hair. Thus, she was forced to don the only clothing available, Old Order Amish garb.

Dressing this way didn’t feel as uncomfortable as it should have, Rachel decided as she wandered out onto the porch and rested a hand against a turned wooden post. Outwardly, she’d left her Amish home and way of life as soon as she’d turned of age. She’d desperately wanted to see more of the English world, and she’d wanted an education, something frowned upon by the ordnung, the code that Plain communities chose to live by. She’d turned her back on the family heritage and friends she loved, leaving the peaceful valley and the small town of Stone Mill to become part of the mainstream American society.

Alone, possessing only a rudimentary eighth-grade education, she’d worked, acquired her high school diploma, her bachelor’s degree, and finally an MBA from Wharton. She found that she had ambition, a knack for numbers, and the imagination to use them to make people’s lives better. But success in the world of finance didn’t bring the personal happiness she had been seeking. So she’d resigned from a high-paying position and returned to her home to open a B&B in a wonderful old brick house that had been teetering on the brink of collapse. She’d reunited with her family and come to the conclusion that she would forever be caught somewhere between the Amish and the English worlds.

“I’ve come full circle,” she murmured to no one in particular. All those years of being away, and she could now put on an Amish dress, pin up her hair, and almost become the girl who’d run barefoot through these fields and struggled to learn to churn a pound of butter.

Rachel stared out into the farmyard, her gaze unfocused, not really seeing the lines of gray and black buggies or the groups of black-coated men in wide-brimmed wool hats standing out of the wind. The ground was wet, the gravel and dirt churned up by the horses’ hooves and the running feet of children. Little was left of the two inches of snow that had fallen the previous day. Most had melted when the temperature rose, making the area around the barn particularly messy.

A middle-aged Amish couple approached the back porch, the red-cheeked woman dressed in black, balancing a four-layer coconut cake. “We’ve come to pay our respects, Rachel,” the man said solemnly in Deitsch.

The wife nodded.

Rachel returned the greeting in the same tongue. Among her people, Deitsch, mistakenly called “Pennsylvania Dutch” by outsiders, was the language of choice, although all but the youngest children also spoke English fluently.

“How is Mary Rose holding up?” the woman asked as she came up the steps.

“Doing poorly,” Rachel replied. “It was a shock, losing Daniel that way. Especially with the new baby.”

“God’s ways are not always easy for us to understand,” the husband remarked. “He was a fine young man, devout and hardworking.”

“Always mindful of his elders,” the woman added. “Bringing groceries to the shut-ins. A credit to his parents.”

Rachel motioned toward the door. “I think Mary Rose is with the bishop in the parlor. Kind of you to bring the cake.”

“A small token,” the woman intoned. “We’ll remember the widow in our prayers.”

Her husband opened the door and held it for her. He was a stocky man of medium height with graying hair, a broad German face, and light-blue eyes. “We pray for the whole family,” he added.

For a moment, the sounds of the gathering drifted out onto the porch, and then were muffled again as the door to the house closed behind the couple. Rachel pulled her mother’s shawl tighter around her shoulders. It was a raw day, above freezing, but still cold with a damp chill. She wasn’t ready to go back inside yet, though. There were too many people there, too much talk, and too few open windows. Unlike her immediate family, some in the conservative community hadn’t adopted the English habit of using deodorant, and the multilayers of winter wool clothing didn’t mask the body odor.

Rachel knew her mother needed her, and standing there with idle hands wasn’t encouraged. But she’d been on her feet since dawn and she needed to catch her second wind. Hard work didn’t bother her; she’d been raised to appreciate it. But it lifted her spirits to step away from the communal grief and listen to the wind whipping down off the mountain and the shriek of a red-tailed hawk high overhead. Just another few minutes, she promised herself, and she’d be ready to plunge back into the controlled chaos again.

On the side of the barn, in the shade of the overhang where snow still lay, Rachel caught sight of something red. She studied it. What was it? A mitten a child had dropped? If so, small fingers might grow cold on the way home. Rachel went down the steps off the porch and, taking care to avoid the puddles, she walked across the yard toward the object.

As she grew closer, she realized her mistake. It wasn’t a mitten but a bird, a cardinal lying sprawled in an unnatural position on the white snow. Odd that she hadn’t noticed the brilliant red feathers against the white when she first stepped onto the porch. She wondered if the bird had died of illness or flown into the barn wall and broken its neck.

Evan was an accomplished bird-watcher, outfitted with expensive binoculars, telescopes, and membership in multiple birding organizations. He could recognize hundreds of species of birds, often just by their song. But cardinals were common enough that she’d recognized them since she was a small child. She had rarely seen a dead one in all her years on the farm. She decided she would move the poor thing and get one of her brothers to bury it. No sense in leaving it for children to see.

But, to Rachel’s surprise, as she neared the dead bird, it suddenly revived. It shuddered, shook out its wings, hopped, and flew up, fluttering over the top of the barn in a flash of crimson, vanishing from sight. Not dead, then, Rachel decided, but only stunned. Alive and strong enough to fly.

A pity poor Daniel Fisher couldn’t have done the same, she thought. What would his widow have thought if Daniel had abruptly sat up from his bier and walked? Not dead as everyone supposed, but only stunned and suffering some sort of coma? That was the sort of wondering best kept to herself or shared with Evan. Her parents wouldn’t understand and take her musing as disrespectful to the deceased.

Rachel turned back to the house and then remembered the buttermilk she’d come out to retrieve. As she turned toward the springhouse, she met two of her distant cousins on the path. One carried a pitcher of milk, the other a wheel of cheese.

“Such a pity it had to happen to Daniel,” the oldest was saying in only slightly accented English. “And him so full of life and vigor.”

“And so cute,” her sister replied. “He had a way with him, you know?”

“You can say that again. Even sweet to—Rachel?” The girl’s eyes widened and she nearly lost her grip on the container of milk. “You’re wearing Amish dress. Have you . . .”

“Turned Amish again?” Rachel chuckled. “Ne. Just an unwanted encounter with a pan of turkey gravy.”

“It suits you,” the older girl said. “Better you come back to the faith now, my mother says. And not marry that Englisher policeman.”

In her late teens, the girl was tall and thin as a rake handle with small eyes and not much of a chin. Poor thing, Rachel thought. It was what came of a closed society intermarrying over so many years. She hoped that Uncle Juab would give her a piece of land and a few cows to attract a suitor. She was a clever girl and deserved a husband as much as her prettier sisters did.

“Best we’d all get inside and help,” Rachel suggested. There would be a lot of dishes to wash. Maybe she’d volunteer. She didn’t mind washing dishes. She was free to think because her hands knew the tasks. It wasn’t like having to make conversation about the natural appearance of the deceased or conjectures about how such a terrible accident could have happened. A hunting accident. Daniel had inadvertently shot himself.

Rachel took a deep breath of the cold air, retrieved the buttermilk, and returned to the kitchen. As when she’d left, the kitchen was packed with busy, chattering women and one who was loudly weeping. Rachel’s mother, a fussy granddaughter balanced on one hip, saw Rachel and gestured for her to take a serving tray from the edge of the sink.

“I wondered where you were,” her mother said, making her way through the crowded knot of women to her side. “Apple cider and lemonade. And that box of tissues. Could you take it into the parlor? And see if anyone wants coffee or water.”

The baby girl, Rachel’s brother Paul’s youngest, was dressed in traditional Amish garb in a long gown, old-fashioned cream-colored baby cap, and black high-topped shoes. In her tiny mouth was a pink pacifier shaped like a flower secured by a pink ribbon and pinned to the front of her baby gown. Pins on clothing were supposed to be straight pins, but since it was attached from the inside and both Rachel’s mother and her sister-in-law were sensible, Rachel suspected a safety pin inside the child’s clothing.

“Shouldn’t you sit down for a while?” Rachel suggested as she picked up the tray of drinks. “The doctors said you shouldn’t overdo.” Her mother’s color was good today, and her eyes were bright, but Rachel knew that she didn’t have her full strength back yet after being treated for breast cancer. Her hair was growing back from the chemo, and it seemed thick and healthy in appearance, but it was still very short for an Amish woman. Today, her mam wore her traditional kapp instead of the scarf she’d been wearing for the last six months. And the pins on her dress and apron were definitely straight pins.

“Don’t worry so much.” Her mother smiled. “I am goot. Save your compassion for Mary Rose. How she will manage without Daniel, I don’t know. When I think what he’s done for that family since he married her. Not that I fault poor Ernst. So long Mary Rose’s father was in that wheelchair before the Lord took him home. And her brother, Moses, being the way he is.” Her last word held a certain tone.

Moses Studer was considered odd by the Amish. It was Rachel’s guess that if he had lived among the English, he would have been diagnosed years ago with Asperger’s. Instead, his friends and neighbors simply remarked on his occasionally strange behavior and his way of talking and interacting with others. The good thing was that he was completely accepted by the Amish and cherished as another soul, blessed by God.

“But how many bridegrooms would take responsibility for a failing farm, a mother-in-law, and a twelve-year-old boy when he married?” Rachel’s mother continued. “Without Daniel, the family would have been—”

“Esther.” Rachel’s Aunt Hannah bustled through the throng, interrupting. “Your Samuel wants to know where his old Bible is, the one with the worn cover given to him by his great-uncle. Preacher Harvey has a cousin in Bird-in-Hand who repairs old books. He says that if those loose pages aren’t fixed, the whole volume is in danger.”

“In the cabinet under the stairs,” her mother answered. “Wait. Can you take this one? If she needs her diaper changed, there’s a stash in the big bathroom closet. I’ll get the Bible. Samuel couldn’t find a fly on the end of his nose.”

Rachel waited for an opening to carry in the tray of drinks, but instead of thinning out, the crush seemed to get worse as more food was being passed into the living room, where more tables had been erected. Mary Byler, who was sitting near the woodstove, fanned herself with a copy of the magazine Family Life and motioned to her. “Rachel! Are you going to have the wedding at that English church in town?” she called.

For such a small woman, her voice carried easily above the murmurs, and Rachel involuntarily winced. This didn’t seem the time or place to be talking about her impending wedding. “We are,” she answered quietly.

“What? I can’t hear you! Shh, I’m trying to hear Rachel,” Mary said to the two nearest matrons, who were talking about the new widow’s eldest brother.

Rachel knew who they were discussing because she’d heard Arlene Troyer say, “. . . It was Daniel that got him that good job at the mill.”

“Come over here, Rachel.” Mary motioned with her makeshift fan. “I want to talk to you. Hear all the details.”

Rachel offered a quick smile. “Sorry, fetching for my mother,” she called back, and then to her aunt, she said, “Excuse me. Mam wants me to take these drinks into the parlor.”

“Rachel?” the old woman called after her. “Where are you going?”

Rachel plunged into a divide in the black bonnets and wiggled her way through to the narrow hallway without losing her glasses of cider and lemonade. She’d have to go back for the tissues.

Aunt Hannah followed close on her heels with the baby on her hip. “Why don’t you want to talk about your wedding? Are you having second thoughts? Because if you are, there’s no shame in it.”

Rachel shook her head. “I’m not having second thoughts. I just didn’t want to talk about it today. I feel so bad for Mary Rose. Talking about my wedding seems almost . . . well, almost like boasting about my blessings.”

Rachel’s niece stared at her with large round eyes. She was a pretty child; Rachel didn’t know if she’d look like her mother or her father. Babies, at least young ones, always looked alike to her. She liked babies well enough, but she was wary of them, especially when they cried. This one was vigorously sucking on her pink pacifier and didn’t show any signs of bursting into tears.

Aunt Hannah shook her head. “Honestly, girl, you do get the strangest notions. Is it a pity about Daniel? Of course it is. A sweet boy, always good to the older people. Never missed worship. But people die. That’s life. People, even good people, die. Women become brides and they become widows. And some, like Mary Aaron . . . well, we don’t know how that will end, do we?”

Rachel’s throat tightened. Mary Aaron had been at the grave site, not in Amish dress as her mother wanted, but wearing one of Rachel’s outfits, gray pants and jacket with a white blouse. And a pair of her heels. Rachel didn’t want to get into that hive of bees with her aunt, so she ignored the comment about her cousin.

“Life goes on,” Aunt Hannah continued. “And you shouldn’t feel bad because a new part of yours is opening. There’s enough sadness and grief in this world without feeling guilty about being happy. And you are a good person. You deserve to be happy. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Rachel nodded. Aunt Hannah was a dear, but always full of advice. And Rachel wasn’t sure that she wanted to get into a discussion of life here in the midst of the funeral gathering. Instead, she said, “I love you, Aunt Hannah. You’re the one with the good heart.” And, balancing the tray, she leaned over and kissed her plump cheek.

“I hope I do have a good heart,” Aunt Hannah answered. “Now, I’m going to see about finding a fresh diaper for this little one and you see that our bishop gets his lemonade. He always takes lemonade.”

Rachel moved on, gave her father a glass of cider, asked Beck Beiler if she could take her dirty plate, and made an appropriate comment to Mary Rose’s mother, Alma Studer. She found the widow with the bishop and one of the deacons in the parlor and passed out all her glasses. A squeal of childish voices and a pounding of feet came from the stairs to the second floor, and Rachel excused herself and started to go up the steps to see if anyone was watching over the kids. Everyone expected children to be children, but running inside and making too much noise at an after-funeral dinner was outside the bounds of proper behavior.

The front door opened behind her, and a gust of cold wind whipped against Rachel’s legs and arms and down the back of her neck. She turned to see her fiancé, Evan Parks, just inside the doorway. He was wearing his trooper’s uniform and looked as out of place among the Plain folk as a penguin in a flock of robins. “Evan,” she called to him.

He looked up, saw her, and did a double take.

Rachel glanced down at her dress and realized what had startled him. “I’ll explain later. Are you off work already?” she asked, unable to look away or fail to see how handsome he was. He always looked taller and broader in the shoulders in his uniform with his hat and knee-high boots and the huge handgun in its holster.

He shook his head. “Can I speak to you?” He was wearing his official expression, and Rachel wasn’t certain if it was because of the occasion or that something was wrong. “Outside,” he said, tilting his head in the direction of the door.

“All right.” She’d seen Evan at the cemetery, but he’d been on traffic duty and they hadn’t had a chance to speak. She’d thought he wouldn’t be off for a few hours, but they were planning on seeing each other later. If he was here, there must be a serious reason.

“There’s a problem,” he said, when they were alone on the porch.

She hugged herself for warmth; the temperature was quickly dropping. She wouldn’t be surprised if it snowed again tonight. “Okay.”

“It’s Daniel Fisher.” A wrinkle appeared on his forehead and he folded his arms over his chest in that way he stood when he had something unpleasant to deliver.

Rachel shivered in the raw wind. “What’s the problem?”

“We just got the preliminary report from the medical examiner. His death wasn’t an accident. It looks as if he was murdered.”

“Murdered?” Rachel glanced around to see if anyone was near enough to overhear them. But that was foolish. What would anyone be doing on the front porch? Everyone else was coming and going through the kitchen. The front door was only used to carry out the dead or to welcome a bride. Well, she reconsidered, it was used by teenagers wanting to slip in or out of the house unnoticed. And for state troopers bringing bad news.

She stared at Evan. “Are you serious?”

“I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.” Evan’s normally pleasant face with its square chin and dimple was grim.

He took his job seriously, so seriously that he’d given up his position as a detective with the Pennsylvania State Police to be a trooper again. Evan liked helping people and he felt that he was of more use on the road, performing the mundane work of a policeman, than sitting at a desk.

Some, including his friend and fellow officer Lucy Mars, considered what he’d done to be career suicide, but Rachel hadn’t. She realized that it was important to Evan that he serve where he felt most needed and the most comfortable. He’d been a good detective, but his heart wasn’t in it, and she’d seen more of the old Evan since he’d returned to the work he loved. She knew a little something about making choices that didn’t seem completely rational, and she’d decided long ago that peace of mind meant more than a higher income or more prestige.

“I need you to help me speak to the family,” Evan said, pulling her out of her thoughts. “Actually, Detective Sharpe will be providing the information. He’s the one who took over my old position, but he’s from Philadelphia. He hasn’t had any experience with the Amish community—knows nothing about them. Sharpe asked for me to be there when he speaks with the immediate family, and I want you as well. Will you help me?”

Rachel grimaced. Since she’d returned to Stone Mill, she’d often found herself acting as a go-between when the Englisher police needed to communicate with the Amish. The Plain community was a closed one to the modern society. Keep apart from the world was the motto they lived by. They didn’t like or trust Englishers. And they didn’t like Englisher police in particular. Amish who didn’t want to cooperate with law enforcement or with state or national officials could suddenly lose their ability to speak or comprehend English. A violent confrontation with authority in the old country two hundred years before had taught them caution and suspicion. They didn’t always trust her because she’d left the order, but at least she understood their ways.

“Please, Rachel. This will go easier if you’ll help us out,” he urged.

“What can I do?” She looked at him and shrugged. “I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Just be there in the room. These people trust you. The family w. . .