Plain Murder (3 page)

“No school today?” Rachel asked.

Mary Aaron shook her head. “Teacher had her wisdom teeth out.”

The children—all Amish and ranging between six and fourteen years of age—swarmed around them, tugging at their hands and skirts and talking excitedly in Pennsylvania Deitsch. Rachel knew every one of them by name; they were nieces or nephews, cousins, second cousins, or neighbors.

“Rachel! Rachel!” her niece Susan cried. Susan was Rachel's oldest brother Paul's daughter; Paul and his family lived in a small house on the same property where he and Rachel had grown up. “The police have come! And an ambulance car!” Susan's blue eyes were as wide as a startled doe's; her dirt-smudged
kapp
was barely hanging onto the back of her head.

“. . . Willy O'Day! Somebody cut off his head!” That was one of her Hostetler cousins, either Toby or Joel. It didn't matter. Both were given to exaggeration.

“They did not!” Sally, Rachel's youngest sibling, protested. At nine years old, she was as thin as a beanpole and always eager to take control of any situation. “You're such a liar, Toby!”

“They broke his head,” another boy supplied eagerly.

“And buried him ten feet deep in
Dat
's cow pasture.” That bit of information came from Mary Aaron's little brother Jesse.

“Hush, all of you,” Mary Aaron chided. “You need to go home. You don't belong here.”

“Listen to Mary Aaron,” Rachel agreed. “This is no place for any of you. You should all go home.” She eyed her nephew Naaman, who was Susan's brother. He was sweaty, and his red hair stood up in clumps. Somewhere in his mad dash, he had lost his straw hat. “And be sure you find his hat.” Rachel motioned to his bare head. “Or all of you will be in hot water.”

“Rachel, please,” Mary Aaron urged. “We have to hurry.”

Rachel released Susan's hand and strode after Mary Aaron. “They may not want us to get close to your father,” she told her, catching up. “You might have to cause a distraction.”

“What kind of distraction?”

“You'll think of something.”

Rachel took a deep breath and began to jog up the hill beneath the electric power lines strung between highline towers. The highline didn't bring electricity to the Amish farms, but carried it over the mountains to the English towns and country beyond. It had been a bone of contention with the Plain people since the towers had been erected, decades ago, cutting through the cropland and forest. Mostly, the Amish tried to ignore the ugly structures, but today, that was impossible.

At the crest of the hill, Rachel stopped to catch her breath. Below, she spotted two ambulances, three police cars, and a fire truck—why the emergency responders would need a fire truck for a dead man in a pasture, she couldn't imagine. When she glanced back over her shoulder, Rachel saw that the Zook twins, the boy on the pony, and one of the older girls were still running after them, but she doubted if a few more onlookers would make any difference.

Half the inhabitants of the valley already seemed to be there ahead of them. Ahead, besides the emergency vehicles, Rachel saw two buggies, a wagon stacked with bales of straw, a half-dozen horses and a mule, and a collection of pickup trucks and cars. One, an older model Buick, bore the words
The George—Fiction & Nonfiction Bookseller
on one of the doors.

Rachel pressed her hand to her side to ease the stitch.
Poor George.
A wave of compassion for one of Stone Mill's all-time finest educators made her blink back tears. Sixty-seven-year-old George O'Day had been devastated by his twin brother's disappearance, but he'd never given up expecting Willy to walk through the doors of The George. Finally learning that Willy wasn't coming home, that he was dead, would be terrible for him.

After a moment's rest, Rachel and Mary Aaron walked down into the valley to mingle with the crowd of Amish and English gathered outside the ominous
CRIME SCENE
tape that ringed what was obviously the spot where Willy's body had been discovered. They were only ten feet or so from the fence line that divided the Hostetler property from a piece owned by the O'Day brothers.

Rachel caught sight of her father and her brother Paul talking to Aunt Hannah. Hannah's eyes were red and puffy, her nose red, and her mouth quivering.

“Aunt Hannah.” Rachel hurried over to them.

Mary Aaron moved to her mother's side and hugged her.

Rachel's father and brother both nodded to her. Rachel met her
dat
's gaze, then looked away, afraid she might tear up. No words were necessary.
Your family needs you,
he was saying.

“Where's Uncle Aaron?” Rachel began, and then she saw him standing on the far side of the yellow tape barrier, surrounded by police.

“Bad, bad,” her aunt muttered, and then, “Englishers. My poor, poor Aaron.” She gripped Rachel's arm. “You must help him. You can talk to them Englishers, tell them that Aaron is a good man, not a killer.”

“I'll do what I can,” Rachel promised, giving her aunt's hand a squeeze.

Aunt Hannah slipped off her shawl and wrapped it around Rachel's shoulders. “So you look proper when you talk to them Englishers,” she said.

“Thank you,” Rachel murmured, looking for a way to get to her uncle without being stopped by the big officer standing directly in front of them.

From the corner of her eye, Rachel saw Bill Billingsly, editor of their hometown newspaper, holding up his iPhone. She knew very well what he was doing. She could just imagine the front page of Monday's paper.
LOCAL OLD ORDER AMISH FARMER ARRESTED ON MURDER ONE!
Bill was fond of theatrics, and more than once she'd caught him taking pictures of her Amish neighbors even though he knew very well it was against their beliefs.

“All the news that's fit to print,” Bill liked to say to anyone who would listen. “And Amish faces sell papers.” On any other day, she'd confront him and try to shame him into deleting the photos, but today, it was more important for her to get to Uncle Aaron before he said anything too incriminating.

“Rachel! What am I going to do?”

She looked up to see George O'Day stumble toward her. He was a man of average height and average weight, but he had the brightest, twinkling blue eyes. As always, he was wearing a ball cap over his full head of white hair that read
THE GEORGE
.

“George. I'm so sorry.” Rachel took a step toward him and hugged him.

“Who would do such a thing?” he rasped, resting his head on her shoulder for a moment. “Surely not Aaron Hostetler. I know he wouldn't . . . couldn't.” He staggered back and covered his face with his hands. “I can't believe this has happened. I can't believe it.”

It wasn't quite as unbelievable as George suggested, but Rachel would never say such a thing. As sweet as George O'Day was, and as many parents, kids, and fellow teachers and administrators had reason to love George, there were an equal number of people who had good reason to despise Willy.

George's twin brother had none of his common decency and little of his charity toward his fellow man. Rachel had often wondered how George and Willy's parents had hatched one son with a heart of gold and another with a heart of stone. While George had lived his life trying to help others, Willy's life's ambition had been to take advantage of them.

“They won't let me see him.” George's lower lip quivered. He was in good health for his age, but today, he looked ten years older and fragile. “Maybe there's been some mistake. Maybe it isn't Willy. It could be an old Indian grave . . . couldn't it?”

A woman screamed, and Rachel looked up to see Hannah collapse into Mary Aaron's arms. Immediately, people surged forward, and the policeman holding the crowd back ducked under the tape to reach the fallen woman.

Realizing Mary Aaron had just presented the necessary diversion, Rachel dashed under the yellow crime scene tape. “Don't say another word!” she called to her Uncle Aaron, waving to him.

Her uncle looked up, startled.

“I'm coming!” Rachel bounded forward, and her foot sank into soft soil. She lost her balance, and before she had a chance to catch herself, she pitched forward onto her knees. Looming just in front of her was a ditch—not a ditch, she realized, with horror. A grave.

Lying in the bottom of the hole was a man . . . or what had been a man. And it was Willy O'Day. There was no mistaking him. He was still wearing his
THE GEORGE
ball cap, and his signature three-carat diamond ring glittered obscenely on his skeleton finger.

Light-headed, Rachel closed her eyes and fought to keep her stomach from going into full rebellion. When she opened her eyes a second later, Willy was still there at the bottom of the grave, and still just as unpleasantly dead.

“Hannah? Was ist los?”
Uncle Aaron's voice boomed from a few yards away.

“Mr. Hostetler,” a state trooper called. “Sir, come back.”

“Mr. Hostetler!” came another male voice, this one more threatening.

Rachel snapped her head up in time to see her uncle dashing away from his interrogators. He ran past her, breaking through the yellow crime scene tape, and vanished into the crowd of Amish in aprons and black suspenders who were gathering around her fallen aunt.

Rachel was in the process of picking herself up out of the dirt when an authoritative voice boomed above her. “You can't be here! This is a crime scene. Have you lost your mind?” A strong hand closed around her upper arm and pulled her to her feet. “Didn't you see the yellow tape?”

Rachel looked up into a pair of steely-gray eyes framed in a chiseled and all-too-handsome male face. She took a step back.

Evan? Where had he come from?
Despite her past—her possible future—with Evan, she became defensive. “That's my Uncle Aaron you guys are strong-arming,” she said under her breath so the other police wouldn't hear. “You don't have a right to interrogate him like that. He has the same legal rights that everyone else in this country does.”

“No one's trying to
take away his rights,
Rachel.” Evan put an arm around her shoulder and guided her away from the edge of the pit. His wide shoulders looked even bulkier in the state trooper's uniform: light-gray shirt with black epaulets, black tie, dark-gray trousers, and the trademark campaign-style hat with the strap secured beneath his chin. He blocked her view of what was going on, but—from the shouted English commands and the explosion of Pennsylvania Deitsch—she could guess.

“And no one's being strong-armed.” Evan released her. “We're only questioning—”

“Questioning?” She cut him off, meeting his gaze. “Or
questioning
questioning?”

Evan hesitated, looked away, then back at her. “This is serious, Rache.”

She softened her tone. “You really think my Uncle Aaron murdered Willy and buried him on his
own
property?
Really?
”

The look on Evan's face told her there was no sense trying to reason with him right now. For one thing, seeing her in a long skirt and head covering always set him off. He just didn't understand where she was coming from. More importantly, he took his job as a law enforcement officer very seriously. It had taken him many years and many failed exams to reach the state police academy in Hershey. To Rachel, it meant Evan was better than most, but to him, it meant he would always have to prove himself.

“Evan, I'm here because Uncle Aaron needs an advocate. You know that. Everyone needs an advocate at times like this.”

Evan hesitated, then gestured toward the commotion where she supposed her uncle must be. “You need to be on the other side of the tape. Not contaminating a crime scene.” He lowered his voice again. “Rache, you nearly fell in on top of our unidentified victim. You could be arrested for interfering with police procedure.”

“Unidentified?” Rachel exhaled and continued in a hushed whisper. “I just saw him. The dead man is Willy O'Day. You know it. I know it. Everyone here knows it.” She frowned. “And who's going to arrest me, Evan? You?”

He had the decency to blush, and for just an instant, a hint of uncertainty clouded his gorgeous gray eyes. A muscle twitched along the left side of his jaw, and she caught a faint scent of the Cartier Pasha cologne she'd given him for his birthday—the cologne he'd complained was too expensive but which she knew he secretly really liked.

“I don't suppose it will make any difference if I tell you to stay out of this, will it?” Evan asked.

She shook her head. “No. Uncle Aaron is a hothead, but he's not a murderer. And he doesn't understand your world. He needs my help.”

The two were silent for a moment, just standing there, him looking down at her with a stern look in his eyes. Then, Evan stepped aside, and she hurried to find Uncle Aaron. As she'd suspected, her peaceful relatives and neighbors were deliberately causing confusion for the investigators. The Amish were nonviolent, but that didn't mean they were always cooperative or easy for outsiders to deal with. Somehow, without offering a harsh word or raising a hand in protest, the group had managed to fend off five policemen long enough for Uncle Aaron to reach his wife's side. How long this delaying tactic would last before the officers' patience ran out and she was swallowed up in a mass arrest, Rachel wasn't sure.

“Excuse me,” she said, inserting herself in front of a red-faced sergeant. “May I ask, who's in charge here?”

“Who are you?” the trooper demanded.

“Rachel Mast. I represent Aaron Hostetler, my uncle.”

The policeman scowled as he took in her tattered attire, even more disreputable after her jaunt through the briar patch and near tumble into the grave. “Are you his attorney?” he demanded brusquely.

“No,” she answered. “I'm not, but he has a right to an attorney. English is Uncle Aaron's second language. He doesn't understand the implications of what you're asking him. And he's not going to answer any more of your questions until he has legal representation.”

“We asked Mr. Hostetler if he understood—”

Rachel shook her head, interrupting. “He doesn't. And—” She broke off as Uncle Aaron abruptly appeared at her shoulder.

“My wife is sick,” he said, tugging at his straw hat. “No more questions. I'm taking her home.” He switched to Pennsylvania Deitsch. “Your aunt's dizzy-headed. She should be in bed. All this”—he waved toward the place where they'd discovered Willy's body—“is too hard on her nerves.”

The trooper cleared his throat, obviously feeling awkward that they were not conversing in English. “Mr. Hostetler, you can't leave. We have more questions for you.”

Uncle Aaron turned hard eyes on him. “I want to take my wife home,” he said.

“You can't leave,” a second trooper insisted. “We're waiting on a detective.” He looked to Rachel. “Can you make him understand that he can't leave a crime scene without police permission?”

Eli Rust, an Amish man in his late forties, pushed through the group. “I will take your Hannah home,” he said to Aaron in English, ignoring the two state troopers standing beside his neighbor. “I have my wagon. Your Mary Aaron says she will ride with her mother.”

Rachel looked at the two state troopers. “Are you arresting my uncle?”

One shifted his weight uncomfortably. “We . . . have more questions.”

“He doesn't have to answer your questions without a lawyer present. If you have cause to arrest him, do it. Otherwise, we're going. Uncle?” Eli took her cue and led the way through the crowd toward his wagon.

Someone had already helped Aunt Hannah into the back, and Rachel could see she was lying on bales of straw. Mary Aaron was kneeling beside her mother.

Eli climbed up onto the seat and untied the reins. Without either man speaking, Aaron joined him on the other side of the wagon bench. Rachel grasped the side of the wagon and put her foot into one of the spokes. As she started to hoist herself up, Evan appeared behind her and caught her around the waist and lifted her up.

“This is a mistake, Rache, him leaving the scene,” Evan said quietly. “It makes him look guilty.”

As she landed in the wagon, she turned to him, keeping her voice down, too. “It's not right that they should be questioning him without the presence of an attorney. He could accidentally incriminate himself.”

“It's the way it's done around here and you know it.” Evan shook his head. “There's no way your uncle will hire a lawyer.”

“You don't think so?” she shot back as Eli slapped the leathers over his team's backs and the wagon lurched forward. “We'll just see about that.”

 

There wasn't a chance on God's green earth that Uncle Aaron was going to hire an attorney.
Rachel closed her eyes for a moment, trying to figure out what she should do next.

“Drink this.”

Rachel opened her eyes as Mary Aaron pushed a glass of cool water into her hand.

Aunt Hannah's kitchen was as spotless as ever. No one who wasn't Amish would believe that her aunt, aided by her oldest daughters, prepared three meals a day here for a family of fourteen—and often more, if there were visiting guests. The counters were bare, the two stoves shiny, and the worn linoleum floor clean enough to eat off. In the center of a long, scarred trestle table stood an oversized, old-fashioned oil lamp. Another, smaller one rested on a mantel above the potbellied stove, and a third lamp was tucked onto a corner shelf on the far side of the propane-powered refrigerator.

Even by Old Order Amish standards, Aunt Hannah's kitchen was devoid of style and color. Her cooking utensils—tucked out of sight—were serviceable, old, and dented. Her chipped dishware was uncompromisingly white, and the bleached wisps of thin cloth that passed for curtains were so threadbare you could almost see through them. Compared to her own mother's domain, Rachel had once overheard her father remark that Hannah's kitchen was almost prideful in its Plainness.

Still, the shadowy kitchen was a cool retreat from the warm sun and the ordeal that Rachel had experienced that morning. Rachel took a long swallow of water and sighed. “Thanks.”

Her cousin nodded, finished her own glass, and poured them each another from a tin pitcher. “Come on,” Mary Aaron urged and led the way onto a side screened porch, where they both dropped into wicker chairs. “What did you think?
Mam
did a good job of pretending to take sick, didn't she?” she asked.

Rachel nodded. She'd guessed Aunt Hannah hadn't really fainted, but it was still a relief to see her bounce up and climb down out of Eli's wagon under her own steam when they reached the farmhouse. Aunt Hannah and Uncle Aaron were still out in the yard talking to Eli Rust.

“I know you told me to cause a commotion so you could get to
Dat,
but
Mam
's more convincing. If I passed out, they'd all just step over me.” Mary Aaron's mischievous grin faded. “You got him away from the police, but it's not over, is it?”

“I'm afraid it's not.” Rachel shivered as she remembered seeing Willy's body at the bottom of the grave. “Someone killed a man and buried him on your
dat
's farm. Given Uncle Aaron's history with Willy, suspicion would naturally fall on him until the police have the opportunity to fully investigate.”

Mary Aaron placed her empty glass on the floor beside her chair. “
Dat
didn't do it.”

“I know that,” Rachel assured her, “but we have to convince the authorities of that.”

“You told Evan that he wouldn't speak with them without a lawyer, but you know very well he'll never agree to hire one. It's not our way.”

Rachel grimaced. “I know. I just said that to get them to stop asking him questions. He should hire one, but I know he won't.”

“Was Evan mad that you were there?” Mary Aaron wiped her sweaty face with the corner of her apron.

“He wasn't happy, but he—”

Raised voices from the yard cut through their conversation, and Rachel stopped in midsentence. Aunt Hannah was obviously upset with something one of the men had said or done. Rachel looked at Mary Aaron, and they both got up and went to the edge of the porch. Because of the lilac bushes that grew up around the house, they could see into the yard from where they stood without being immediately seen from outside.

“Mind your tongue,” Eli said. “Do you want everyone to—”

Rachel couldn't hear the rest of what Eli said, but she could clearly see that he and Aunt Hannah were having words. Uncle Aaron was nowhere in sight.

Aunt Hannah had lowered her voice, but she shook her finger and stepped closer to Eli. Rachel couldn't imagine what they were arguing about; it wasn't like her aunt to disagree openly with a neighbor, especially a man. What had Eli said to make Aunt Hannah so angry? And where was Uncle Aaron?

“You don't suppose he thinks
Dat
's guilty, do you?” Mary Aaron whispered, staring at the two of them, her eyes wide.

“If he did, he certainly didn't act like it on the ride back—not from the way he and Uncle Aaron were talking. The two of them were sitting in the front of the wagon, friendlier than I've ever seen them.”